| USELESS CRAP: REBORN!!!! | home |
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| Chapter Twenty-Two: The Desert Pearl |
I just let it go, and we decided to start trying to get to Hamuds Katar. Unfortunately, the hot sun, the Giant Sand Worms, and the quicksand was becoming a problem. Whats worse, was Robbie was very adversely affected by the terrain. We kept walking, but a huge sandstorm picked up. There was no way we could survive this by ourselves. We took shelter in a strange cave we found. We drank some water we had gathered and relaxed for a while. We began to brainstorm about what kind of things we could do.
"Anyone have any ideas?" I asked.
"I'm tired..." Complained Kiki.
"Don't worry, it'll be ok." I said, trying to cheer her up.
"Don't mean to be a buzz kill, but its no time to be mushy, Orange Ninja." Commented Rob.
"..."
"Yo, Dame, what about the Flute?" Said Joey.
"Flute? Leviathan can't help us here!" I shouted.
"I meant the Demon Flute. Summon Cerberus. Maybe he can get us across this desert." Suggested Joey.
"Hey not a bad Idea!" I said, reaching for the flute.
"Cerberus! Lend me your power!" I Called out, holding the flute high.
I played the flute and summoned Cerberus. A huge black, evil looking gate appeared before us. We all got prepped for battle, not sure of what we would find. A dark mist began to flow from the gates. It slowly began to open. We were ready, ready for whatever creature was about to attack us. I only hoped that Cerberus would appear soon so that we would have a little bit of help. The gates fully opened. A huge portal stared us in the eyes. One giant, black, clawed paw stepped out. Then another. Followed by three giant Canine heads. It was Cerberus! So this was how he was summoned...
Within a few more minutes he had fully departed from the gate. The gate flashed a few times and then disappeared. He looked at us and then licked me in the face with one head. He also licked Joey and Kiki. Joey complained, because Joey isn't an animal person. I petted Cerberus and described the situation to him. I asked him if he could carry us across the desert and he nodded. The four of us got on his back and he began to dash through the desert.
Just like Leviathan in the water, Cerberus was a rocket on the land. He was dashing at speeds I didn't even think possible. Creatures that got in his way were easily knocked out of our path with one huge swing of his paw. We were definately glad to have a creature like this on our side. After a few minutes, we could see the city. But, a giant SandWorm, twice as big as all the others attacked us. Cerberus couldn't just get him out of the way like the others. This one was huge.
"Cerberus! Destroy him with your Delta Strike!!" I commanded.
Cerberus began to howl with all three heads. A circle of energy encased Cerberus and us. Al three heads began to flash with energy. A huge white aura covered Cerberus's heads. Three huge beams of plasmatic energy shot from his mouth and into the sky. A huge triangle appeared over the Sand worm. He looked up. The plasma blasts flew down from the sky and obliterated the Sandworm. We all cheered and We were given the experience points from the battle! It was enough to get us all to level 25! I learned the Aero II attack and Kiki learned the Guard attack. We gave out another cheer and we continued to the city.
We hopped off Cerberus and he disappeared. We started to walk towards the city. It was quite lively, as if some kind of festival was taking place. We found a quiet little inn and rested for a few hours. Then we went to a local tavern and got some water and food. We were still really tired. Kiki actually fell asleep in her sandwich. We decided not to wake her. We continued to eat when a young woman approachd us. She was dressed in a long red robe and wore alot of jewelry. She had long dark hair and dark eyes. She smiled and introduced herself.
"My name is Tati, a world famous Red Mage." She said.
"Hi. I'm..."
"Damian, I know." She said.
"How did you know that?" Asked Joey.
"Everyone knows you, you're almost as famous as I am. Leviathan loves to travel the seas and tell stories. Who would have thought you were actually real." She explained.
"Strange...I didn't think we were anything important..." I muttered.
"Are you kidding? Single handedly retrieving the legendary Scepters? Befriending Leviathan? Defeating the King of Darkness, and freeing prisoners from the Shadow Realm? You're amazing!" She said.
"All just a part of the job." I said arrogantly.
"Heh. Well maybe you guys can do something for me then." She said.
"Shoot."
"Well I'm a collector of rare artifacts, I love rare things. I came here because of a very valuable jewel found only in this desert." She explained.
"Alright."
"The heat here is horrible, and I hate the desert even more so. I want you to go out into the desert and retrieve the Desert Pearl for me." She said.
"Where is it?" I asked.
"In the middle of the desert." She said.
"And when we get it, what happens?" Joey asked.
"I'll reward you." She answered.
"Be leery, there are probably creatures guarding it." She warned us.
"Like what?" I asked.
"Some tell tales of a giant Mechanical Dragon hiding inside the desert." She said.
"Well I'm not worried. Kiki, wake up lets go." I said.
"zzzzz...."
"Kiki, wake up."
"zz..zzzzz...."
"Kiki...WAKE UP!"
"zzz...."
"KIKI GET UP!!!!!" I screamed.
"Zzzz....huh...?" She asked.
"C'mon we got some where to go." I said.
She got up and we left the small town. Tati watched us leave as we walked toward the desert. Before long we got tired of walking and summoned Cerberus. The huge demon gate opened and the massive dog stepped out. He once again licked us. Joey got upset again, but we didn't really pay much attention. We hopped on his back and instructed him to take us to the center of the desert. He obeyed and started to dash through the sand dunes like he did before. It took us nearly no time at all to reach the center of the desert, and there waiting for us was a nice sized pearl. I hopped off the massive canine and walked toward the white sphere.
"This is what Tati wanted so badly?" I asked no one.
Joey, Robbie and Kiki hopped off Cerberus and walked to me. They examined the pearl. I picked it up and pocketed it. Suddenly the ground began to shake. A huge metal claw burst from the ground. We all jumped back and unsheathed our weapons. Another enormous metal claw exploded from the ground. We could barely stand. Suddenly, the rest of the creature crawled out of the ground. He was huge. A giant metal Dragon. Its eyes glowed a dark red and it stared at us. It screeched loudly. I covered my ears.
We had no choice but to fight it. The battle begun. I started off by casting Thundara on it. It seemed very effective. But it wouldn't nearly enough to defeat him. Joey and Robbie began to attack him. I figured the smartest thing to do would be to enhance Joey, But before I could, Kiki begged me to enhance her. At first, I didn't see the problem with it, so I did. She transformed into Super Kiki (Wow how Original). Basically...all that changed about her was that she was wearing a bunny mask (wow even MORE Originiality). The monster laughed at this. He slashed Robbie with his claws. Robbie fell back Alittle. I turned away from Super Kiki and Cast Thundara on the creature again.
Super Kiki jumped infront and began to change. Her body shape shifted from her normal form and turned into a reptillian creature. Her skin was armored, and she had a long tail with spikes on it. She was a big, powerful Basilisk! Not a bad transformation at all. Although it did look pretty strong, but I didn't think it would be very effective against a giant metal dragon. The Basilisk's eyes began to glow and so did the Mech Dragon. The Mech Dragon suddenly stopped moving. Its body slowly began to petrify. We all blinked. Kiki turned back to human.
Suddenly, the head of the creature opened and Tati jumped out. We all gasped. She ran towards us as the robot began to crack. I walked up to the now Stone Dragon and slashed it. It quickly began to crack and crumble. It fell to the floor in a big pile of rocks. We all leveled up from this fight. I learned the Shadow Mirror attack and Kiki learned the Rush magic. Tati sighed and started to get upset.
"My beautiful Mecha Dragon! You broke it!" She shouted.
"Tati why did you attack us!?!" I demanded.
"To see how good you are. You passed my test. You can keep that Pearl. Keep and I will always be able to find you any where in the world, and if you are in trouble I might just come to your aide. But not always." She explained.
"Um... Thanks." Joey said.
"Thank you for trying to help me." She said.
"Goodbye for now you guys. Good luck, we will meet again." She said, disappearing.
We all scratched our heads. All we could do was shrug, summon Cerberus and return to the city. We took a nap at the inn and then gathered a bunch of supplies. We asked the locals for some information about where we could go next, and they told us that the next closest continent was Perseus. But they also told me that Kadmar and Perseus were at war...AGAIN, so they wouldn't let anyone into Perseus. We sighed.
"We might as well go to Kadmar and find out whats going on." I said.
"Yea, they'll talk to us." Joey said.
We summoned Leviathan and began to ride towards Kadmar. Why the hell were they fighting again? It was so stupid, no matter what they did, they always ended up fighting AGAIN. These two countries really needed to figure out what was going on with eachother. It took us quite a few hours to reach Kadmar, and about 10 minutes for Cerberus to get us to the Barracks. They told us that a trade ship was attacked and that the only obvious culprit was Perseus. It was then that I remembered that we had saw Schizo on a small boat, and he was throwing things at us...So I had Leviathan sink the boat...Once I told them that they got amazingly angry and threw us BACK in the Kadmar Prison...