Shadow

The next day was pretty sunny and warm. The first one to come out of the tents was Luffa.

She stretched herself and when she looked around, she saw Darc still in front of the campfire. That surprised her a little.

"Good morning. Did you stay here all night, Darc?", she asked after coming over to him.

Darc slowly stopped his meditation and opened his eyes. He looked at her and smiled.

"Good morning to you too, Luffa. Hope you slept well. Don't worry about me. When I meditate I get enough rest and the night wasn't that cold. The campfire still burned a long time.", he answered to her and tried to reassure her.

Luffa just nodded and smiled. "Alright then. I will make something to eat for us.", she said and started to prepare something.

Not long after that, the others also slowly came out one by one. Everyone still looked a little bit sleepy and only Zarid looked like he got the sleep of the dead.

After eating their meal and putting everything back on the truck, they continued on with their journey.

About one hour later they came pretty close to the first Dragonball.

"Alright, its pretty close by now. About 100 meters around us. Let's search but don't go too far. The ball is as big as an adults palm and orange in color. Just yell if you find something.", noted Darc to his group.

Everyone nodded and started spreading out to search for it. Only Zarid and Darc himself stayed at the car and listened if anyone shouted for help.

"We are being followed", said Darc nonchalantly while leaning with his back on the car.

Zarid furrowed his brows. "Are you sure?", he asked an looked at him.

"Pretty sure. At first, I thought it was some animal judging by the feeble energy but it would be weird to still think an animal followed us such a long way and all the while stayed a certain distance from us.", said Darc with a confirming nod.

"What are you going to do about that shadow of ours? Eliminate the person?", Zarid said without a care.

Darc arched his eyebrows upwards. "Whoa, teacher. That's pretty dark. I am still a kid, you know?", he said while laughing lightly. "Talking about things like that is not necessary...I will leave that person alone for now. It's not like the person can do much against us anyway...", he added with a carefree attitude.

"...." Zarid stayed silent. Even though Darc denied this move of action, Zarid felt like a cold shudder traveled his back for a moment when Darc started talking.

Not long after that, they heard someone's voice interrupt them.

Otamo shouted that he found something beneath a tree. Darc came over and smiled. He found the first Dragonball and Darc inspected it.

"This here is the 2-Star Dragonball. You can see the red stars inside.", he said after looking at it and threw it over to Otamo.

Otamo caught it and also looked at it. Then the others also took a look after gathering up.

"It's beautiful. It's like a gem", commented Luffa on it.

"And out of that, a dragon is gonna pop out? You also said he is as big as the sky. I am kinda doubting that now.", said Glew with furrowed brows all the while thinking how a dragon can fit in these things.

"We will see about that when we found all seven of them, won't we?", said Otamo to her and supported Darc.

"Yeah, we only need six more now.", smiled Lite.

Darc looked at the radar again and compared it with the map. "Alright, let's continue. We still got a lot of lands to cover. The next one is somewhere to the north. Looks like in a mountain region."

Everyone looked at where Darc was pointing at on the map and then went back to the truck to take their places.

"I am gonna find the next one for sure.", Lite said while smirking. He made this into a competition of some sorts.

After they drove off and left, someone was talking on a phone again. "I saw it, boss. It seems those beads really exist...Understood. I will call back" The person hung up and started to follow the group again.

----

While driving Darc looked at the wing mirror of the truck but didn't see anything.

´At least that person is pretty good at hiding from optical means. But bad for him that he can't hide his life force.´, he thought.

"Hey, look. We can already see the mountains.", chirped Lite in again.

Darc furrowed his brows and looked upwards. Then he softly punched upwards and a reaction came close after from Lite. "Whoa, stop! Don't punch from beneath.", he screamed in surprise.

"Then get down from the roof of the truck, you idiot.", said Darc angrily.

"But its so much more fun up here.", rebuked Lite.

Otamo saw that and mixed in "We get cards with us. So if you are bored we could play a few rounds.", he said.

Lite looked back and smirked. "Alright, let's do that. Darc, you wanna join us?"

Darc nodded "Sure, why not. Then Darc opened the side window and crawled out and sat down on the back of the truck where the others were.

They started to play a few rounds of a card game until they reached the mountains.

"From here onwards we need to walk. I will put the truck back into its capsule form for now.", said Zarid after stopping the truck and looking ahead.

The others jumped down from the truck and started to walk on foot up the mountains. For a time there was a road but soon after there was none and they had to choose which way they went.

At some point, they came close to a cliff where a rope bridge was the only option to cross it.

"Alright, listen. We go one after the other. I go first, then Glew, Otamo, Luffa, Lite and last is Zarid. Don't look down when you cross it and don't panic. Can you do that?", he said and asked the group.

They nodded silently and Darc started to easily cross the bridge.

When he came to the other side he looked back and gave his ok that the next can cross.

Glew and Otamo were crossing pretty easy as well but Luffa had her hard time. She was afraid and her legs shacked when she accidentally looked down and she started to get frozen by fear.

Darc tried to get her but at that point, a strong gust actually let her slip and fall down from the bridge down the cliff.

Everyone was shocked at that moment and their eyes bulged. Darc had no other choice and jumped down as well. "Flying Nimbus!!", he shouted. After the dark cloud got there and put itself underneath his feet he accelerated after Luffa and caught her as well.

"Phew, that was close", Darc said holding Luffa in his arms. Then he flew back up with her and placed her softly on the ground on the other side.

She was still shaking from fear and Otamo rushed towards her. "Are you alright?", he asked her.

Realising what happened Luffa started to tear up a little and sniffed. Then she started crying. Otamo hugged her and comforted her that everything was alright. Then he looked at Darc and smiled. "Thanks, Darc."

Darc just scratched his head. "Don't mention it."

Glew looked at the cloud beneath him "What is this?", she said and tried to touch it but couldn't grab it.

Darc only looked at her in silence first. "This is Dark Flying Nimbus.", he answered.

"So that is the cloud one gets after climbing the tower?", asked Zarid after he grabbed Lite and crossed the bridge with him as fast as possible. Then after seeing Darc using the cloud, he put out his question.

"Exactly. And only those that have solved the test can use it. You just tried to touch it and couldn't grab it, right?", Darc explained and lied a little.

"Whoa, amazing!", said Lite with glittering eyes.

"You still could have brought us all over with that, right?", Glew interrupted with narrowed eyes. She also glanced at poor Luffa that still sobbed.

"....I guess? Well, everything still came out fine, right?", he chuckled a little sheepishly.

"...." The others were silent at his words and Luffa stared with some resentment towards him. It was actually well known that she was afraid of heights and he still let her go through that.

Later on they found the 5-Star ball. It was in some nest but with the help of Darc´s Nimbus, it was pretty easily taken care off. Then they descended again and started to go to the next location.

----

Two days later somewhere in the desert. The heat was scorching hot and the group's water supply went down pretty quickly.

"Damn, that one of the balls got to be here in the desert. We also will have to stop by a village to supply ourselves with water.", said Darc and wiped his sweaty forehead with a piece of cloth.

The others also were pretty quiet at the back.

"Hey, how far is it now? This heat is really killing me.", said Otamo through the window. "Let's make a pit stop somewhere in the shades."

"I am also in favor of that idea...", dittoed Zarid.

Darc looked at both of them. "Alright, let's rest up then. It's not far anymore."

They stopped at a place with more shade and camped there for about a few hours.

....

"God damn these brats...Why the hell the desert of all places.", said the stalker complained about the heat.