Wartime Reverie

Vendeval Merely stood there as a fierce wind tried so hard to pull him in. "I need not obey you." He said. As the vortex continued desperately to draw him within it's boundaries, nothing happened to him. He was rather surprised when Dante merely jumped in. "Does he know something I do not? Perhaps I should..." His thoughts were interrupted as multiple others were swept up in the current of the vortex. before he could do anything, The vortex vanished. "Well that lead is gone." As he reviewed his surroundings, he realized about half of them had been sucked in. He saw as people climbed from the rubble. There was a small gathering around Phisoxa; which he joined. From the way everyone spoke, she would have a quick recovery; all she need was some first aid and a little rest.
"There is nothing in this city for me to look for. If such destruction were rained down upon my master, he would have either returned it twenty fold or transported himself far away..." He looked at the destruction around him. "I suppose I will look elsewhere..."

Reese had been holding onto a leftover slab from the base of the palace. She had nearly let go, but the vortex had closed just in time. "I hope those people are okay." As she too had been gathered around phisoxa with the others, she had to ask. "Your Master?" Vendeval Turned to acknowledge her.

"Yes, He and I are beings from another world, one of the two that has recently been connected to this one. Like you."
"What? You know who I am?"
"No, But your energy gives off a distinct vapor not found in this world. It matches the sample My master gave me of the other, so I can deduct that you originate there."
"I see..." She thought about what he Said for a moment. A sample. "Is your master like a scientist?"
"He is knowledgeable on many subjects."
"Do you think he could help me find a way to go back home without turning to the Eclipscions?"
"It is a definite possibility."
Reese stayed silent for a moment. "Do you... mind if I help you find him?"
Vendeval Hesitated. "I suppose, if you don't cause too much trouble for him. But first we need to find him, and for that we need an Idea of where to look first; a lead..."

 

On the outer rims of the planet's atmosphere a single metal case, from a galaxy far off, lay floating above looking down. The pod, now having traveled a great way through space, was now being pulled onto the planet's surface by it's gravity. The pod began to pick up speed as it came closer. Atmosphere to atmosphere, the pod broke through the barriers with gravity's help. It's speed increased, only getting faster and faster. The pod began to heat up and suddenly flames exploded onto the craft. It swung and danced about through the air until it inevitably crashed into the ground, creating a massive crater in the earth.

For a few moments, there was silence. The pod's door opened and a man came out of it slowly.

Raxtion stood in the crater firmly, held onto his spirit sword, and then looked around to examine his new surroundings. He walked out of the crater his pod had created and saw a city off in the distance. He began walking towards it, seeing it as the only thing looking normal to him. As he got closer he noticed the city was in ruins, but that the damage was fairly recent. Raxtion walked into the city and looked around, trying to find someone who could help him find out what was going on. He saw Vendeval and Reese talking and decided to go talk to them. "Excuse me, what has happened here? And, where are we?"

 

The student punched Nny in the face and the whole room went silent as every student focused on Nny. One of the other students, a girl, shook her head as the student punched Nny again "That was dumb" she said out loud as the students around her agreed.

 

Nny smiled as the punch was weak and useless. Nny punched the student into the stomach, picked him up, and then threw him at another table. Nny looked at the student and began to observe everyone around him.

 

Allen still appeared to be relaxed, and still somewhat was, but he was watching Nny and the students closely. He didn't feel he needed to do anything at the moment, though he was ready to take action if the need arose. For now, he did just the same as he had done since entering the illusion, he waited.

 

Every time Nny hit the student the illusion strengthened around them. As Nny kept hitting the student who food he stole the others became more and more angry, like they might descended on him at any second.

Back in reality Nny and Allen stood at the entrance of the tower in front of Shero with blank expressions, Shero had not been included in the illusion.

 

Nny looked around at the illusions "What do you care?" he asked no one. He could see their anger. Nny felt a strange joy in making them mad. He couldn't wait to see what would happen next.

 

"Stop" a young cloaked woman said to Nny, as she spoke Nny's body froze long enough for the student to escape Nny and then he was released "Try not to cause a scene, if you do the Black Phantom will find you in here" she said to Nny as she approached him "Violence will only make this more difficult"

 

Nny couldn't move for a few moments, however when the students were away, he could move again. He moved towards the cloaked woman, slowly. "And just who are you? You seem to be different from the rest. What I mean is, that you know that this is an illusion where as these students are obviously apart of it."

 

Allen stood and walked over to the two. "She could just be another part of the illusion. The Black Phantom could've put her in here as a more believable way to mess with us. Or she could even be the Black Phantom herself." He looked at the cloaked woman.

 

"You are correct in Allen Tor, I am part of this illusion and I am the Black Phantom in a way. I cast the illusion so we could talk, I had to make it as real as possible so it couldn't find you as easily" the girl said "But please stop attacking the illusions, everything you do to them I feel"

 

"So, what you are telling us is that it was YOU who cast the illusion to try to protect us?" asked Nny. He didn't seem entirely convince of this girl's reasoning. "LIsten, if you want to help us, that's fine. But we have to get out of her and get back to our time. Clearly I was mistaken when I thought the consumers were the biggest threat, because this Phantom is an even bigger one. We need to get back to warn the others and think of a plan to prevent this."

 

"You are right and wrong Nny, the Phantom is a threat but it is no bigger a threat then the consumers and its already to late, the Phantom is already active in your time, you have seen its handy work first hand Nny at the academy" The girl said to Nny "Please I have one simple request that can stop all this, save my father" The girl said to them as the illusion started to blur.

 

"Who is your father, girl?" asked Nny, attempting to get a quick answer out of her. Maybe this man might be the key to stopping all this.

 

"Well," Vendeval responded as he was interrupted from his thoughts. "This -was- the beautiful kingdom of Janina. As for what has happened, Eclipscion soldiers descended upon it, and attacked." Reese interjected a question of her own towards the newcomer. "Who are you?" she asked with curiosity. If he had not seen the destruction, then he must have appeared quite suddenly.

 

Allen thought about where they might have seen the black phantom at the academy. He thought about MIxt and the murdered student. Suddenly his mind was assaulted by an image--a single, vivid image--of someone else there that night, fighting with Mixt and the the others. When the vision faded and he found himself back in the illusion he stopped to process what he had heard. "How can saving your father stop this from happening?"

 

"My father is-" before she could finish the illusion ended, they were standing back at the tower entrance.

"Calling this place a beautiful kingdom is a bit much, even before the attack" Claire said approaching Vendeval, Reese and Raxtion "Hello" She said to them politely "Do any of you go by the name Reese?" Claire asked the three.

 

Vendeval chuckled slightly at Claire's remark. "That depends on where you look for beauty." He said under his breath.

Meanwhile, Reese was slightly surprised someone was looking for her. Then she realized this was the girl who Robert had said he knew. "Umm... my name is Reese Amasuincula." She said somewhat hesitantly.

 

Raxtion moved towards the girl and thought deeply. "Uh... actually, you know what is funny? I can't remember my name. I'm sure it began with a 'C' though... or was it an 'R'?" Raxtion quietly pondered this to himself, seemingly forgetting about everything else around him.

"Classically dramatic." said Nny, somewhat unimpressed. He looked into the tower and thought about their next move. Clearly if they went in there, terrible things could happen to them. On the same point, they might make it out of there alive. "I don't know, Allen. What do you think about this? Should we go in?"

 

Allen put on his cocky smile and got ready to make a remark on how nothing in the tower would be able to hurt them. Then he thought for a minute, stopped smiling, and looked at the tower. "Honestly, no. I don't think we should go in. But I want to. I'm pretty sure the worst thing we could do right now would be to give The Black Phantom what she wants, but I'm also willing to bet that if we go the tower, and survive, we'll get something good out of it."

Back in the present...

"This is sooo boring." Piiro spun one of his daggers around on its chain casually as he spoke. "I thought we were gonna get to kill somebody." Freia looked at the ruins of Janina's capitol city, then responded to her brother. "It looks like the Eclipscions already did most of the killing here." Piiro mumbled, "spoilsports." Freia looked at him "Don't worry,I'm sure there's still somebody here that needs killed. We'll just have to look harder for them." Piiro stopped spinning his dagger and sheathed it. Looking upset. "But that's going to be so much work. Look at this place. We'll have to dig for hours just to find one person on that list, and then they'll probably already be dead anyway. You can't have any fun killing someone who's already dead." Freia put a hand on his shoulder sympathetically. "I know brother. I don't like it either, but The Shadow won't be satisfied until everyone on the list is confirmed dead."

In another part of the city...

Jen climbed out of the slum dogs' tunnel, grateful that Allen had taught her, her way around them when they were younger. She looked around at the destruction and wondered what she should do.