The Ancients

by Adam-Clay Webb

  “Would you just get to the practical part?” Kyle asked beggingly.

  “Very well,” Lyoko conceded. “In order to be apparently instantaneous with the neutralization of force, Nature predicts and acts.”

  “I see,” Kyle said with a smirk, “so as the air anticipates the landing of my foot, I should rescind that force and act with my other foot, using the air’s force as a footstool that I must use in a jiffy before it disappears!”

  “Heh! You could put it that way. You might not be so dim after all, young Kyle.”

  “Heh!” Kyle made a leap to run over the river, but crashed in quickly; he had so much faith in his run that the fall was actually unexpected by him and his head hit a rock hard.

  Lyoko laughed as the boy struggled out of the river. “All that now remains is for you to practise.” Kyle immediately made another attempt. Lyoko gasped as he noticed that Kyle made a full step on the air before falling. The boy landed properly on one of the river stones. I see, he is running over the river because he knows that failure will have an immediate consequence, and that pushes him to success even faster. Lyoko laughed.

  “I did it! Did you see that, old man?!” Kyle went hysterical.

  “Just barely!” Lyoko said, though quite impressed with the boy.

  ***

  With speed and agility earned through harsh training with the Zagans, Lex evaded all of Hilda’s attacks with ease, but he was pulling his punches. “My last warning before you annoy me enough to kill you,” Lex said. “Go home. The black shield is impenetrable, and defeating me is not even closely a possibility.”

  “What’s going on here?” Hilda asked herself nervously, breathing hard and facing Lex. He hasn’t tapped into the spirits’ power except to maintain the shield around the girl, and he is barely using any ice. Why can’t I defeat him then?! “Anam--” Lex reached up to her with great speed before she could finish her spell, touching her with his palm; ice began to crawl unto her immediately.

  Lex spun quickly, seeing that Hilda had just appeared at Lash’s shield. Mana flooded her hands. “Edanerg Elit!” she commanded – it was Catherina who had taught her that spell. There was a great brightness and in a moment, the shield was gone from Lash.

  “A light spell,” Lex realized. “I won’t bother to draw this out if this is the case.” The boy’s eyes flashed black and a thick coat of darkness encloaked him. With great rapidity, long streaks of shadow, forming rugged hands, jetted out from his cloak toward Hilda. Hilda jumped back quickly, using her just-then materialized swords to slice and destroy the incoming hands, but they were coming without limit from Lex’s cloak. The boy coolly stood before Lash with his arms folded while the black attackers bent themselves around the frightened girl and pressured Hilda into a hasty retreat, pushing her back to the edge of the deck. The shadowy hands burst though the ship’s floor and crashed meters down into the ocean.

  Hilda made a desperate shift, reaching a few meters in the air. “Anam Resal Repus!” she commanded, sending a beam of high-level mana down at Lex and Lash. Lash screamed and shivered, but Lex just stood without moving a muscle. A massive black shield covered the two. As the mana hit it, there was a blinding explosion, ripping apart the entire ship and turning to nothing whoever might have been left on it.

  Lex looked up at Hilda, who was standing on a small dragonite. So she made that summoning to keep herself in the air amidst the blast, Lex read. A big part of his training with Maximo and his brothers was reading into the enemies’ strategies and anticipating their moves. With the knowledge that the Zagans had of magic, nothing that Hilda could come with could possibly frighten Lex. Lash ran up to Lex on the piece of loose board that was sinking with the rest of the ship’s rubble – the rubble of pieces of persons and wrecked materials from the ship. Lex grabbed her up in his arms, looking about at the open ocean around them. The boy snickered a little.

  “I could go into flight as well, but let me make this interesting.” As the board sunk and his feet touched the water, he released great portions of ice energy from his feet, making a thick floor of ice stretch far along the water.

  Lex flung Lash around on his back. She grabbed on tightly.

  “Araganian thread!” Hilda commanded, stretching a hand down at Lex. Lash could already feel the heat of the approaching beam of fire. Lex held out a hand toward the beam and an equally fast beam of ice shot up to meet it.

  A distraction, Lex heard Maximo say.

  “Niamer!” Hilda’s voice came from behind and Lex felt himself become enveloped in a burst of purple mana. “It’s over!” Hilda said, running up to them on the ice with two purple swords. Lex turned toward her quickly, fending off Hilda’s strikes with black swords he had just summoned. “What?! Shouldn’t you be paralyzed?!”

  “With that sad level of magic?” Lex asked. Even though he was using Zagan power, his eyes were not black, as he was using a negligible amount of their strength, and he was in full control of what he was doing. “Let me see how good your sword skills are,” Lex said, stepping to Hilda and making skilful swings at her with a swiftness that Hilda had never before seen. Lash grabbed on to him tightly. The witch was being pushed back by the swings, constantly on the defensive. As her magic swords clashed Lex’s dark blades, splinters of purple mana littered the place, and she had to be regenerating her swords each time they were struck.

  “Summoning!”

  “Too slow!” Lex spat, and ran with ice-cracking speed with toward Hilda, two thin black wings stretched out behind him. A pulse of air flashed from where Lex’s fist hit the woman’s chest, further cracking the ice along a few meters. Hilda’s body zoomed across the ice at about half the speed of sound. She had flown over the mile of ice below her and hit the water surface twice. She finally landed hard in the chilly water, adept healing techniques already trying to undo the swiftly taken damage. Lex watched as he saw the woman emerge from the water a mile and a half away on the back of a red dragonite. Lash couldn’t see what Hilda was doing from there but Lex’s vision showed him perfectly. In all this, the girl was too shaken up to speak.

  “Summoning! Dragonite Nest!” Hilda commanded, and a black portal appeared in front of her. Out of it flew dozens of fierce-looking baby dragons. As the portal disappeared, she flew off toward Lex with the flight of dragonites.

  “All yours, Maxie,” Lex said. The black cloak thickened around Lex and tens of shadowy hands flew forward from it, busting though the beasts before they could reach upon him. Lex grabbed on to one of the black streaks that was heading straight for Hilda. Ice sped along it almost at the speed of the shadowy streak itself. As Lex had expected, Hilda made a skilfully swift swing with the dragon, holding on to its neck and controlling it like some legendary dragon rider. The ice that was catching up to the full length of the shadowy hand detoured from the black streak and itself formed a grabbing hand that had reached up to the woman and her beast before any reaction could have been conceived. As the hand of ice grabbed Hilda, ice covered her and the young dragon in an instant, and in a heavy block, they splashed deep into the water. Lash watched in shivers as the bodies and pieces of the flying beasts rained down even onto the ice close by to them. Each was as big as a fully-grown horse.

  “Is… is it over?” Lash asked, still trying to process the reality of an entire ship of people being destroyed just a while ago.

  Lash gasped as Hilda appeared a few meters before them, panting and shivering with wild-looking eyes. She roused her mana again, but Lex would give her no chance to make another attack. A thick black streak sped out toward her, but an instant shift had it only cut though ice and water. Hilda appeared a few meters in the air behind Lex.

  Her eyes widened as she realized that she was already wrapped up in another of the streaks. When?! She wondered. Like the whip of a slave master, the shadowy streak flung the woman to crash heavily onto the ice floor, bashing through it. The hand of shadow gripped her throat and pushed her deep beneath the floor of ice.

  “Q
uite a troublesome witch you’ve proven to be,” Lex said to himself as he turned and walked toward the hole in the ice where Hilda was being held.

  “Lex! Stop!” Lash screamed, hitting him, his wings brushing against her arms. “She’s done already! What the hell are you?!” she cried. Lex sent a few more streaks down into the hole and the water reddened. Lex pulled her out through another section of the icy floor, making another hole.

  Strung up by the snake-like Zagan hands, Hilda was held a foot above the ground. Lex pulled her closer to him. Lash jumped off his back and stepped back, stumbling over a dragonite head.

  Lex sent another of the steaks toward Hilda, but it passed her narrowly instead, and twisted back. Her chest jerked forward and her eyes bulged as she felt a nasty pain. The hand bored through her back and gripped her heart, forcing it through her chest. Hilda looked down at her heart, which was beating steadily in the demonic hand, sharp black fingernails curling over it. Thin blood vessels were still connecting her heart to the rest of her. Blood flooded down from her. “Are you now satisfied?” Lex asked, the chill of his voice more frigid than his ice.

  There was an appearance of bright white mana that cleared quickly, leaving behind a man with the face of death. As Lex stared into the sinister eyes of a man older than history, he felt the demons inside him shiver with a fear they had learnt well. The shadowy streaks disappeared, and Lex was left with a pale feeling that felt deeper and darker than fear or hatred.

  “You are not the one who will kill this woman,” Oga said. He held his hand down toward the fallen heart of Hilda and it rose to him. Oga then turned and grabbed the woman, then shoved the heart back into her chest, and a white glow encased her. She made a terrible cry as undoable damage was undone. He then slowly removed his hand and the massive opening in the woman was mended.

  Oga then turned toward Lex and walked up to him. The aura that came from this man was stifling even to Lex. “You have changed, young Lex,” Oga said, raising his hand to touch the boy’s shoulder. Lex grabbed Oga’s wrist firmly. The man looked a little surprised, maybe a bit confused even.

  Lex’s hand fidgeted as he struggled to maintain the strength in his muscles. What’s happening to me? Why do I feel this weak and powerless?! Finally, he lost all the strength and his hand fell limply. Oga rested his hand on Lex’s shoulder.

  “You see, Lex, the human souls itself can recognize power.”

  “Are you saying… that my very soul is afraid of you?” Lex asked, still shaking.

  “Not to mention those mongrels inside you.” The tone of condescension was heavy in his voice. There was a sound familiar to Lex as Oga imposed a shift upon Lash, making her appear in Lex’s sight. Lex looked over at the fretting girl.

  “No… You monster… Leave her alone…” But Lex could not move.

  “As you have fought impressively today, I will not slaughter her before you as I had intended before. I will give her a graceful death.”

  “What the--” Lex and Hilda watched silently as a white body of mana appeared behind Lash and slowly forged itself to form what looked to be Oga. Both Lex and the expert witch were too frightened and confused to speak.

  “I trust at least you, my dear witch, are familiar with the mana clone technique,” Oga said, still holding on to Lex. The ice beneath Lex’s and Oga’s feet began to crack fiercely.

  What is this vile pressure I’m feeling?! Lex wondered in a panic. He looked into Lash’s frightful eyes as the Ogal clone behind her reached his hand down to her neck. As the hand touched the back of her neck, though gently, her life fled her body in panic, in fear of Oga. She fell dead on the ice and the clone dispersed into a flurry of white mana.

  “Now off to Iceland, child of Kizer,” Oga said, and Lex disappeared in a cloud of white mana.

  Chapter 11: Ghost

  “Lash…” It was like he was trying to cry, but it seemed he had forgotten how. He felt like a corpse. He found himself snailing along a white blanket of cold. The sky was black and the ground an almost glowing white, making the place feel surreal, like a strange dream he would struggle to remember when he woke. Still, the frigid cold felt somehow comforting to him. “Oga…” he fell to his knees and ripped his shirt off. He felt all alone, like not even the Zagans were with him. He keeled over plushly on the thick snow. A daunting tiredness swept over him, but not like it was his body that was tired – more of his soul, or even his will. He closed his eyes and quickly drifted into a dark, dreamless sleep.

  ***

  Zen saw from the outset that finding this Cyrus person wouldn’t be too much of a challenge. The streets were jammed with portraits, posters and notices about this “Cyrus the Great”, “Cyrus the Powerful”, “Cyrus the Messiah”, even. Without too much asking around, Zen had learnt that Cyrus was living in the courts of the Prime Minister, an aged man named Chron. It seemed that since the Black War, Cyrus had been acknowledged by all of Kundo, even by Chron, as a national hero. By his great deeds in the war was he invited to live in the Prime Minister’s house.

  A woman observed Zen spending some time in front of one of Cyrus’ posters.

  “I wonder what kind of man he is,” Zen said to herself. In the picture, he looked like a god-like hero. He seemed to be about 30 or so. The Prime Minister was in some of the portraits with him. The minster was much older, and seemed to take Cyrus as his own son proudly. Zen jolted as the approaching woman cleared her throat. “Oh, hello,” Zen greeted in her fragile voice. The woman inspected Zen a little more before answering.

  “Well, it is true he likes them green,” the woman said, confusing Zen at first, but the girl quickly understood. “I suppose you want to try out for being one of Cyrus’ women,” the woman said. She grabbed Zen and twirled her, making her frilly white dress spin majestically.

  “Wow, you’re certainly a pretty one – a little thin, though, but the food there will fatten you a bit if you catch his eye. Tell me, how much do you have, or am I wasting my time?”

  “Money?” Zen took out her bag and opened it before the woman. She gulped, not expecting to see so much.

  “Ah! Tell me, what can you do? Listen, I’ll get you fixed up and ready for Cyrus, then you will have no more need for that gold. Believe me, he takes good care of his girls. The last two girls I scouted for him aren’t complaining now!”

  Zen cringed at the whole idea of this, but she knew going along with it would give her a good chance at getting close to Cyrus, which was her mission. “Take me there.”

  ***

  “Oga, get here this moment!” Kizer said, and in a cloud of white mana, Oga appeared. The wizard studied the look of discovery on Kizer’s face. Also, he glanced down at the closest table, seeing what Kizer had been scribbling. Oga snickered.

  “So you’ve found that pure darkness, pure light, along with raw, eighth grade mana combine to create what we call ‘life energy’?” Kizer didn’t seem surprised that Oga already knew this.

  “Summon me a dead animal,” Kizer said. Oga rested his hand over the table, and in a jiffy, a fluffy white cat appeared. He grabbed the creature as it tried to leap off in confusion. The cat died silently as its life fled its body. Kizer went up to the cat eagerly, and opened up his palms. In his left hand appeared a black sphere that pulsed rapidly, growing bigger and smaller a few times per second.

  “So now you compress the darkness so that it can withstand being fused with pure light,” Oga said.

  “Right. If the ratio of light to darkness is not exactly 1 to 128, either the darkness will be consumed by the light or the darkness will change its form into air and flee the light.” In Kizer’s right hand, a tiny white ball appeared. It shone with brightness that seemed to be able to challenge the sun. Kizer clenched his teeth in focus as he got both spheres to be perfect.

  “Now Oga, apply eighth grade mana to the dead creature.” Oga grabbed the cat and an invisible aura graced it, an aura Kizer recognized quite well. “Good,” Kizer said, and slammed the spheres of darkness and l
ight together. Oga shielded his face as the two opposite elements collided. The place shook and the room pulsated with an indescribable energy. Looking left and right at the same time would be easier for the eyes that it was for them to make sense of this illusory energy, the bright darkness. Kizer grabbed on to the cat and poured the power into it. The man stepped back a bit and kept his eyes on the still cat. Kizer’s eyes jolted as the cat’s tailed moved slightly. Then, the cat lifted itself from its dead position and turned and gazed at Kizer.

  Oga snickered. “You realize it, don’t you?” he asked Kizer.

  “Yes. This breed of cat runs even from the wind, yet it seems to be comfortable here with us.”

  “With you, Kizer. The soul itself acknowledges its creator. Intelligence isn’t necessary for that.” Kizer watched as the cat sat on the table, still staring up at him.”

  “Did I then create life just now?”

  “No, only life energy. The cat’s body along with all its intricate systems are a part of its life, something that you cannot create. That aside, if this cat had been a human, it would know nothing, except that you had created it. Had it been a sorcerer, it would now be powerless and senseless.”

  “What does this mean?”

  “A soul and a body aren’t all there is to complete life. Memories, emotions, these things are also included.”

  “Then what would be the sense in resurrecting our children?” Kizer questioned.

  “Knowing all of this, my spell, which I casted on all of them, even on you, also retains a tiny amount of their original life energy, not enough to sustain life, but just enough to keep them in a state where they can be fully recovered.”

  “So my sons are not completely dead, then?”