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Chapter 13: Eternal Flame
Gash awoke with a start.
“What the…where am I?”
He got up. He looked around, trying to get a grasp of where he was.
The last thing Gash remembered was flying through the air above the forest of Zoah. More accurately, he was falling through the air. Now, he was in a very, very dull room. The cheap smoke of dry ice was everywhere, making the place look almost…tacky.
Gash put his hand to his belt, and tried to draw one of the knives he had stored on him. His hand searched about by itself, acting independently of the brain, which was STILL trying to determine Gash’s whereabouts.
No knives.
“Aahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh…………..CRAP!!!” Gash cursed. He was amazed that somehow, another word was supposed to come out after the ‘aaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh’ bit, but the word “crap” came out instead. “The knives must have fallen out of my belt when I was falling. Talk about bad luck…Can anybody hear me!?”
I………can………..
“Whoa. That was weird. I could’ve sworn that someone just talked to me telepathically.”
I…did…. behind…you….
Gash turned around.
“Whoa.”
Edge looked at Tyrune with a face usually reserved for the period before saying “How the ** did he do THAT?!” And no wonder.
That assassin shot that Edge had fired a few seconds before had found its mark. It had hit Tyrune. The problem is, it hit Tyrune’s palm, and he had caught it. Tyrune was holding an assassin shot IN HIS HAND.
“How the…”
“If I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a THOUSAND times, Edge-e.” Tyrune pronounced the last e with all the tone of the word “scum”. “No-one but a Draconis may harm a Draconis. It’s a fact of life.”
“Yeah? Well, I’ve got a hunch you’re wrong there.”
“Heh heh. And that would be?” asked Tyrune, throwing away the shot.
“You might have the thickest armour around, and you might be as strong as three, maybe four dragons, but one thing is for certain. You can still be hurt! Like this!” Edge screamed a war cry, before swinging his arm around in a perfect semi-circle.
You might expect Tyrune to catch the hand just like he did the shot. But Tyrune’s arrogant nature, combined with the faith in his armour, made sure he never thought to actually do anything about the attack. The punch hit Tyrune’s face full on, causing Edge’s hand to recoil in the pain of hitting rock hard armour, and Tyrune’s head to be twisted to one side, every nerve in his normally fantastic brain screaming “You IDIOT! Why didn’t you block that!?!”
Edge threw another punch, this time with his other hand. This time the punch was so hard that when it hit, Edge thought the punch had broken something. His own hand. After a few puffs of air on the right fist, he swung it again.
This hit was the hardest yet; an uppercut, and Edge swore he could see a small stream of blood, green in colour, fly out of Tyrune’s mouth. Then, Tyrune’s flying-without-wings trick stopped working, and he fell like a lead weight into the forest below.
Tyrune’s mutter as he lay on his back was heard throughout the forest.
“Beaten…by…a…human…urgh….”
“Who are you?” asked Gash, to nothing but a dim light.
“Urgh……….”
“You can talk? But I thought you could use telepathy?”
“It drains so much of my power…power is something I can’t spare just now…”
“What are you, anyway?”
“You know me, Skiad-Ops-Gash…You just haven’t realised it yet…”
“Who are you!?”
“I…………..am……….the Dragon Phoenix…”
Spirit flew low and fast over the forest of Zoah, flying directly at the Terrablossom. Spirit and Edge share the same aura, the same soul, after being so close for so long. So it was no wonder that, as Edge’s aggressive side emerged, so did Spirit’s. His face was one of something that just experienced the rush of energy coursing through it’s body for the first time, and now it wanted more of those sweet endorphins that caused that energy.
Spirit roared as it glided over the trees. That was the first time since his birth that Spirit had roared like that. Normally he chirped, but this roar was enough to almost say: I’m back.
“Come now. You’re the Dragon Phoenix? But the Phoenix is supposed to be the most powerful being in the land, according to legends.”
“I wish I had more time to explain it to you, Gash, but time is something…”
“You don’t have, just tell me what I can do.”
The Phoenix chuckled.
“This will sound silly to you….”
“Phoenix, I’ve been through a lot of things that originally sounded silly, or strange, or surreal. They all had to be done, and I’ve got a feeling that there is something I have to do here.”
“If you want Mankind to survive…Yes. Yes, there is.”
“What is it?”
“I need to share a physical body with someone…MY body is becoming weaker every second of every day………I need yours, Gash. I need your body.”
“Whoa! Do you expect MY soul to just move out? This body is taken already, it doesn’t need mythological beings in it and everything else!”
“Please…I can give you a reward…”
Now, Gash, as many will confirm, was a honourable man. But even the most honourable man will stop thinking of himself and all others at the mention of a reward, regardless of size.
“What reward?”
“Your scar. The one they all mocked you for…. remember?”
Gash cringed. He remembered all right.
It was during his teenage years. Gash wasn’t a seeker back then. Nor was he Skiad-Ops-Gash. He was just plain old… Kazil. But he stopped being called Kazil after he defended one of his friends from a Golia cub. Just to give you an idea of the size, a Golia cub is about the size of an average greenhouse. Gash knew he had got lucky that day. The shot he fired, with his eyes closed, must have hit the tiny weak spot in the Golia’s armour plating. He had saved his friend, but the Golia’s claw had taken out a very significant part of his face: all of the right side of it, from his point of view. Reconstructive surgery was not an option, with his income. All he could do, since that day, was wear a mask. Oh well, at least he got a new name out of the experience. He hated the name “Gash” at first. People called him it mockingly, because they had heard rumours of how he tried to run from the cub at first. Rumours they were, because Kazil/Gash had never run from anything in his life. But the old saying still remains true: A lie can run around the world before the truth has its shoes on. People prefer hearsay to fact. That’s why Gash was mocked, and that’s why Gash left his hometown all those years ago. A few days later, the monsters got it. All the people who mocked him were dead. Revenge? Or just plain emptiness?
“What about my scar!?” Gash asked of the Phoenix, angry at having to relive the pain of his childhood.
“I can heal it.”
…
“Say what?” asked Gash.
“I can heal your scar. What’s more, I can give you additional knowledge, the ability to hold your breath for a long, long time, fast healing…. and maybe even immortality….”
“The scar and knowledge will do for just now, thank you. I don’t want to live forever. Especially if it’s just going to be monsters, monsters and more monsters…”
“Gash, I need an answer. Can I share your body?”
Gash’s face lit up, like a welcoming fire.
“Yes.”
Thank you…the telepathic voice spoke in Gash’s mind once more. The voice now had a different vibe to it. It sounded like the sweet song of the mermaids, like the song of the angels. It was a voice of thanks, that’s what it was, thought Gash.
A thank you chorus.
Oh, wow.
“Are you all right in there?”
Yes, thank you. It’s quite cosy actually…
“There is one thing.”
Yes?
“What did you do to my clothes?!” yelled Gash. Having looked down two seconds ago, Gash noticed that his normally red garments were now a dark, midnight blue colour. It wasn’t that he didn’t like the colour, he did like it, but it HAD come as a bit of a shock to him. Besides, the red colour of his waistcoat had matched his scar.
I feel you like the colour. Keep them. They are part of your reward.
“Well… thanks, I suppose.”
Take off your mask.
Gash did as the Phoenix asked. There was a pause.
“Now what?”
Ah, I forgot. There are no mirrors here…You will just have to take my word for it, for now.
“Look, thanks for fixing the scar, and thanks for the new clothes, and for whatever knowledge you’re going to give me, but I need to get back to the Forest of Zoah! Edge is fighting that brute, Tyrune, and I’m stuck in this place! I need to get back!”
Of course. There is…one problem though.
“What?”
You’re dead.
There was a long, LONG pause.
“I’m dead?”
Yep.
“SO HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO GET BACK THEN!?”
Quite simple really. Close your eyes. Think of the Forest of Zoah. Then open them again, and you’ll be there. It’s a simple, but effective trick.
“Ok, I’ll try it.”
If Tyrune was still doing his countdown, Edge worked out, I’d have 15 seconds left. I need to work out some way of stopping the Terrablossom from firing on Tadcaster, but can I do it in time?
The answer to Edge’s question was given a few seconds later. Tyrune’s countdown must have been a bit off, because the Terrablossom had just fired its blossom!
Edge swore.
“Spirit, if you can fly any faster than this, do it!”
Spirit’s wings flapped like never before as the dragon sped up. 40 mph. 50 mph. 60 mph. “Faster, Spirit! FASTER!”
Seventy. Eighty. They were racing against the blossom, and the wind was carrying it at some speed. Edge looked at the blossom, and using what little knowledge he had of science, guessed that it was going about 100 mph. It also had a rather large head start, and was still quite a way away.
“Spirit. No pressure, but if you don’t go any faster, then all the people in Tadcaster will be burnt to death! Hurry!”
The dragon’s wings flapped harder than ever, but the speed gain was minimal. Spirit had reached his maximum speed now, there was no more left to give. When Edge realised this, he bowed his head.
“What was I thinking? I don’t deserve to be a dragon rider any more. Zoah got totally destroyed, AGAIN, and I couldn’t stop it, and now Tadcaster is going to be melted away, just like Zoah…. And as for Gash…he was right beside me and I couldn’t do anything to stop him from being thrown into the sunset…”
Edge opened his eyes again to look at the blossom. It was a nice colour, Edge couldn’t deny that, but colour doesn’t matter. That stuff can dissolve ANYTHING, thought Edge.
No. Wait. Can it?
That panel back in Zoah…the see-through tactile.
It didn’t dissolve, even though it was COVERED in terrorblossom.
Why?
Perhaps it was because it wasn’t living tissue. It wasn’t alive, and all the people were. But that didn’t explain the thatch roofs melting away. Or the wooden walls of all the houses…
What was the answer?
“Looks like it worked.”
Yep. We’re back in the forest, just like you wanted.
Gash stood up, having landed in a particularly large, fruit baring plant. There was blue juice all over him that had erupted from the fruit when he had landed in it.
“Could you tell me why I ended up in that fruit?”
Simple. There had to be some reason for your clothes changing colour, didn’t there? Your friends will all want to know.
“Couldn’t I just say ‘The Dragon Phoenix did it?’”
No.
“Why not?”
Because I don’t want any of your friends to know I’m here. I don’t want ANYONE to know I’m here.
“Why?”
Because if word reaches the wrong ears, then the Brotherhood will be after me.
“Is that a bad thing?”
Do you know the legend of the Phoenix, Gash?
“Yeah. A bird lays it’s eggs, then every 500 years, it builds a great big fire and burns itself to death. Then it revives itself, and repeats the cycle. Quite a common legend.”
Correct, except you got one thing not quite correct.
“What?”
The Phoenix does not revive itself. The hope of the world is what revives it. The Phoenix, the bird of fire, is a symbol of the hope in every man, woman and child’s heart, the fire inside, the light that never dies. If there is no hope, there is no Phoenix. That is why I was so weak before I entered your mind, Gash. No one has hope any more. All of the hope has gone. Everyone thinks that if monsters don’t get them, the Zwei-Imperials will, or the rebels. Or something. Even the hybrids belonging to the Brotherhood have no hope.
“That’s scary.”
I wouldn’t have survived any longer if I hadn’t snatched you from your journey to the afterlife, Gash. I gave you life, like the Divine Visitor did to Edge all those years ago.
“Like the Divine Visitor…?”
It is a long story, and we have no time to tell it. Gash, find that book you lost to the wind, shortly before you came across the Mantara. It will have some information in it that can help us.
“We already looked up the section on the Terrablossom.”
I am not looking for information on the Terrablossom.
I am looking for information on the Heresy Dragon. Spirit.
It needs more power. More speed.
And we are going to make sure it gets it.