Chapter 4.26 - Blax - A Dust of Hope
My thoughts seems to be coming back to its normal state. I'm not really sure what happened but I felt much more better than before. I noticed that my body was being carried. It looks like I got into something recently. Not much to think about. It also seemed that my vocal chords were coming back as well. I tried it out.
"What happened..."
My voice was tireless. I waited for a reply and indeed it came. It was from a voice that I know so well.
"Blax? You're awake now? Put him down."
I was placed to the floor right after he said that. I tried to familiarise myself with what was going on until my vision started to get from blurry to clear. It was White and a few other people. There was Rika and Fitz. There was also...Kirin?
"Kirin? What are you doing here?"
"It's a long story. I'll tell you later."
"What happened to me?"
White answered my question, "You were under control by a spell. In order to break it, we broke your sword."
"The Black Berserker...I can feel him inside me...but he's no longer trying to get out...he's much more tamer now."
"A lot has happened and we're running out of time."
"What do you mean, White?"
"Look at our school. There's a huge smoke. Something is going on, there. Can you move?"
"I'll try to."
"Let's go, everyone."
We made our way to the school compound only to find ourselves with a lot of monsters roaming about the school yard. If I'm not wrong, this was Escher's men, Imps, Chaos Spies, Cyclops, and even Gargoyles. Their everywhere...
"This looks bad..." Fitz worriedly said that.
Rika then asked her, "Fitz, go check on your cousins. I'll be with the boys for a while."
"Got it."
Fitz nodded and left the party as she went to look up on the whereabouts of Team Supernova. With nothing much to lose, we headed our way to Team Stardust room.
What we found there was nothing but a mess. It looked like everyone was captured by Escher's men. But to where? We searched around for some clues and found a message at the floor with some puddle on it. The puddle was shaped like a word, forming a sentence. It says, 'Captured @ Escher Tower'. I think this was Hosuke's message for us. We understand what he meant and we headed toward the destination.
"Monsters..."
Exclaimed Kirin as he notices a bunch of monsters were behind us.
"Let's just clear a path and ignore the others."
I raised my new sword and swung it toward a monster in front of me. Rika helped as well as she randomly reign down a thunder strike at random enemies near us. Kirin captured a photo of a school building and ripped it apart. The whole building collapse, burying all of the monster under it. He then fixed the photo as well as the building in the process. Surprising to me, White now could use Wind magic. He's no longer useless in a big fight like this.
We made it to the inverted tower and made our way to the top? Or is it the bottom in this case? Whatever, we made our way to the final room while clearing a path against these monster that couldn't seem to give us a break at all.
Rika completely dashes herself forward and went right through 10 different monsters. Electrifying them in the process. I charged up my sword and spin around with it. I'm almost like a human tornado with that sword of mine. White stopped the time around us and distanced ourselves from any other nearby monsters with his Space Manipulation ability. While the time was stopped, Kirin took this opportunity to capture and rip off any photo he could take inside the tower.
In just a matter of 15 minutes, we made it to the top. We opened the final door and there they were...
"Guys!"
Hosuke called for us as he noticed us entering the room. A bunch of weapon started to be raised next to us as we were encircled by Escher's men.
"I won't move if I were you." Escher grimly laughs.
"Escher..." I said in a voice filled with distaste toward him.
Kirin then said to him. "What a cheap move. To be using The Stardust to get to wherever you want."
"Were you expecting us, principal?" Rika sounded her opinion toward our 'beloved' principal.
"My. My. Why of course, I have been expecting you. All of you. We were just about to reach the end of the show as I summon the Chaos Beast."
Escher showed to us all of the Runix Cube pieces was in place in a pedestal.
"Wait. How?"
White and all of us were surprised. White looked around and saw Mei. But Mei seems to be only looking at the floor.
"Mei! What happened? Hey, Mei! Answer me! What happened just now?!"
White then tried to ask the other but the same thing happened. There wasn't a single respond from all of our captured friends.
"Damn you, Escher! What have you done to her?! What have you done to my friends?!"
White stopped the time and ran toward Escher. He clenched his fist and was about to punch Escher's face but his time ran out and Escher caught his arm.
"What are you trying to do boy? You know its wrong to hit your superiors especially if its your own principal..."
"Escher!"
White unsheathes his dagger and managed to tear off a small part of Escher's robe. He took a step backward and teleported himself behind Escher and tried to stab him from behind. But Escher successfully prevented that as he tries to shoot out something from his staff toward White which White dodges it in time. The blast however turned out to be very hazardous as the wall that was hit by it turned upside down.
"This is the Staff of Illusion. It can change anything that I aimed at. It can change your very own reality. It can even make you fall under my control."
"Why do you want to summon The Chaos Beast?"
"Why, you ask? It's nothing really. It's more of a favor that I need to do in return for the safety of my students."
"Safety? What are you talking about? You're enslaving us with your monsters down there."
"What are you talking about? I've made sure all of my students were happy and safe. Non of my monster would dare attack them. I even continued The Magic Duel as it supposed to happen. I've done all of this just to make sure my students are okay."
"Your words are twisted. Especially when some of these people is under your control with that thing on your hand."
"So you've figured that out, huh? Wonderful but it's too late. Tell me...what's your name, boy."
"I'm White. Cyclone White."
"Cyclone...White..."
Escher laughed.
"What's so funny?"
"So you are the person that she always been helping out on."
"Who are you talking about?"
White jumped with the help of his wind magic and tried to break through Escher's defense but was blocked by a protective spell he made. White was then blown off as the protective spell exploded right into his face. He was sent to the floor as monsters started to hold him in restrain.
"Damn it!"
"You were wondering who I was talking about? Why of course, I was talking about your female companion, Mei. The one that you called out first when you arrived."
"..." Mei's mouth were shut tight.
"I didn't do much to her other than telling her an interesting story to her and everyone else in this room. Do you know? That I love experimenting new stuff with magic? My Staff is one of the creation I made."
White tried to get away from his bind but it was only delaying the inevitable,
Escher however, continued, "There's also another experiment that I seemed to let loose several years ago. It happened during The Seven Month War!"
As soon as we heard that, White stopped moving and cautiously looked at Escher.
"Back then, I wasn't a Champion of Chaos yet but I did become one at the end of it. I was still experimenting something. I tried to combine my own Infinitum as well as an Infinitum crystal to create a powerful magic. I happen to experiment it at my test subjects. But as the chaos happened...do you know where I hid my experiment?"
"No...don't tell me..." White seemed to figured it out already.
"Yes. I hid my experiment inside a locker and locked it."
"No..."
"And most importantly...I've used the experiment not on a mouse...but a life subject...a human being...I have no one who I can trust but only one...and that was my OWN DAUGHTER!"
"What?" White was in disbelief.
"YES! MEI. IS. MY. DAUGHTER!"
END OF VOLUME 4