Chapter 32: The Lagara Mineshaft

(Lars dreaming)

A black Shifter in a long trench coat walked into a crowded bar. With the visor he had on his left eye, he scowered the room looking for his target.

After a few moments his eyes landed on a tall thin Shifter with Red hair.

"Got you" He muttered to himself.

As he made his way through the bar of drunk men and half naked women he made it to the Red haired man and tapped him on the shoulder.

"Shine..." The red haired man said. "What are you doing here?"

"Shine?" A man whispered

"THe Shine..." another said

"The deadliest shot in Atlantica? What the hell is he doing here?"

The corwd of drunk Shifters slowly parted away from the man as he sat down next to the red haired man.

"Vincent" The man said. "I've got some word from the streets you may be interested in." Shine said.

"Whose been killed this time?" Vincent said.

"No one... yet" Shine said. "A freind of mine was in Lagara yesterday visiting their Comic book store, and he told me somethign quite interesting."

"Whats that?"

"Guille lost his cool and attacked a young boy, apprently he's in the hospital now" Shine said. He grabbed the man next to him's drink and gulped it down without even fliniching.

"I'll just... get another one" The man said walking away.

"Shine, you didn't come all the way from D4 at 2 in the morning to tell me that did you?" Vincent laughed.

"No, I didn't" Shine said. "Because of what you did for Shahir, I came personally just as you did to me." Shine said.

"Personally? What are you getting at?"

"The boy who Guille hit had blue hair, and from what I heard from my man, the kids name was Axel"

Jumping out of his seat, Vincent through on his jacket and prepared to set out.

"Your sure about this" He said to Shine.

"When has my visor ever missed?" Shine said.

Running out of the Bar, Vincent jumped on his hovercycle and fired up its engine. As the beast started flames poured out of the sides.

"Axel..." He said. "What the hell are you doing in the badlands?"

Waking up in a bed, LArs stretched his arms and yawned heavily. "What a crazy dream... and the weirdest part is... its like I've dreamt all of this before"

Getting out of bed and walking to the bathroom he walked to the end of the hall to use the toilet.

"AXEL!" Seymour screamed catching him in the hallway.

"Hey Simone.." Lars grunted. "What's going on?"

"You tell me! This is... Impossible! Somehow you have completely recovered in less than 24 hours! You had multiple concussions and broken RIbs! It should be impossible for you to walking around?"

"Hmmmm?" Lars said looking around at his body

Seymour was right, as far as he looked their wasn't a single scratch on him, he wasn'tin any pain and he felt fine.

"Wait... so yo didn't use some futuristic remedy to heal me?" Lars asked

"No! No such thing exists! There are ethereal healers but they are extremely difficult to find on demand we don't have any out here in this location!" Seymour remarked.

Lars flipped his arms over, and found the black marks from Guilles acid were till on him.

"But these... these are still here" Lars said.

"Those are called blast burns" Seymour sighed. "They are ethereal scars... they cannot be removed once you have them, I'm sorry but you are lucky that is all that happend to you!"

"Hmmm" Lars said looking at his arms. "How did I recover so fast?"

GRUMBLE!

Lars's stomach grumbled. "HEy Seymour can I get some food, I'm literally starving!" Lars said.

"We'll have to get food on the road, someone went through the pantry and ate all the food last night! They ate all the reserves even my left of Nautica Pork nuggets!"

"On the road?" Lars said.

"Where are we going?"

"Did you forget we are on a mission! We need to get you to Lagara!"

Taking Lars back to Lagara on his hocercar, Seymour drove to a giant crater that was sticking out from the ground.

"What the heck is that!" Lars remarked.

"That's what a Mineshaft looks like! Metoers fell from the sky during the great shift, and when they impacted the earth created mines of minerals!" Seymour explained.

"So that crater was once a Meteor!" Lars remarked.

"Yes!" Seymour said. "There are even beliefs that we Shifters came from those meteors and that we were not originalyl from this planet! Crazy right?

"This whole universe is crazy" Lars said making his way inside.

"Who goes there!" A man with a giant cane said looking down at Lars. His thick goatee and long hair made him look like some kind pharoah. Even the way he dressed was nontraditional, with golden gems on his ears, and a his long nose that made him a doglike appearance.

"It is me from yesterday, I have brought another child for Guille" Seymour said

"Very well" The man said. "The boy goes, you stay outside."

As the man led Lars inside, Seymour parted ways.

"Now" Seymour thought. "Lets do some research, why is the human government paying milloins of dollars for old artefacts? And how is Sahara Sherief and Darius conected?"

As Lars walked into the Minecraft, his eyes quivered as he came to what he had first expected to see when he came to the badlands

"What is this..." He said to himself

There were women, men and children being forced to do work from different parts of the mine by giant stone creatures that looked over them.

As he saw a man sit down to take a break, the huge stone creature cracked a whip of pebbles at him forcing him to get back up.

"Get back to Work!" A nasily voice yelled from the creatures mouth.

As the man in front of Lars came to a halt, a new creatrure assembled itself out of the pebble, looked down at Lars.

"Musa" The man said. "Another child from the group we took at Nagara, Make sure the children are isolated"

"Yes Eiham" The creature said.

"You will follow this creature and go to a location" Eiham said to Lars.

"You can either use your powers or us these digging drills we have left along the side of the hall. If you find an ether shard, you will be sent back to sleep in Lagara Peak. If yo find a full crystal you will be sent home"

"What if I don't find anything? When do I get to rest?" Lars asked

"Hmhmh Hahahahah!" Eiham laughed evily "You don't rest until we get what we want!

"You see that old lady and her grandson?Look at them in the distance!" Eiham sid pointing.

A small boy who had claws like a wolverine was digging through the mine with his hands as an old woman sat beside him, picking through the dirt that the bot scraped aside.

"Just one ether shard!: The old woman cried. "One either shard and we get to go home for the day!"

"Don't worry grandma!" Her grandson said digging away. "Ill find it!"

"Hehahah fa chance! They have been here for four days! They sleep on the rocks of the mine and it the salts! The only thing we provide is a cantine of water!" He yelled throwing a cantine at Lars. "And you will too until you find something! Take him away Musa!"

As the creature wrapped his arms around Lars, it took every ounce of self control not to break free and kill them man who was in front of him.

"Ok Lars, relax... fighting isn't going to get you anywhere... We need to find the others... and then find out about this Pandora!"

"Eiham!" One of the stone creatures said.

"What is it Musa?"

"There is a man on a hovercycle at the minecraft entrance, and he looks very angry!"

"What does he look like?" Eiham asked.

"Ref hair, and a and a motorcycle that breathes fire!" Musa answered.

"This is not good" Eiham said. "Once he's set theres no cooling you off is there... Vincent!" He thouhgt.

Outside the mine Vincent gritted his teeth

"Somebody better get tout here..." He said calmly "BEFORE I EXPLODE!"

As Vince screamed a pool of fire erupted from his body flowing into the air. As he stared into the depths of the mine, his eyes glowed with red heat.