Chapter 7: MeMoRiEs
“What did you expect when you came here, ‘Eight?’ Did you think you’d go and stop us all by yourself?” Kami shouted, mocking her opponent as he laid amongst shattered glass on the ground right outside Over Tower’s front door.
As Eight tried to recover, flickers of thoughts began to enter his head involuntarily. Thoughts that he had never thought before. No wait, but that isn’t right, they feel...familiar.
Amy is there.
And...Sixty too.
Wait.
Amy is crying?
She’s walking away…!!
“Wait!”
“Umm...you okay?” Sixty asked, sort of sarcastically, standing over Eight’s half-conscious body, as he yelled that last part out loud. Andata, Via, and Amy stood close by, looking ahead to the faint figure of Kami.
Eight got up slowly, saying nothing, but a glimmer of relief shined in his golden eyes.
“You know, we never really caught your name.” Andata hinted with a smile.
“...Eight. That’s what I call myself.”
Andata nodded, “Nice. Okay, Eight, ready to even this fight?”
“Not like you’re gonna be much help.” Via commented teasingly.
“Hey! I was the one who actually saved Amy the last time!”
The five stepped confidently into the tower’s crumbling foyer. Kami smirked, and her entire form radiated with darkness.
• • •
“Your plan is ridiculous as ever!” Lockand Key swung with both blades at Jayl, but the teal-cloaked sword-wielder saw that coming from a mile away, and leaped away effectively.
“Face it, Lock. You know what’s really going on! We can never go back!!” Jayl came back at Lock with many rapid, precise strikes, making sure to keep the Book of Memories safely behind him. Lock blocked most, but not all, of the blows.
“Is that what you tell yourself to sleep at night?!” Lock recovered, and with one huge swing, completely missed Jayl and cracked a side of the bedroom’s wall. Lock’s blades glowed with a golden gleam. His power. False Light Voidness.
• • •
Via wasted no time, and shot at Kami with the speed of a machine gun, as she alternated blasts from her two pistols.
“Ugh, Turquoise Voidness, the pest-iest of all of you…” Kami barely took any damage, as the bursts of cyan light appeared as though they bounced right off of her body. With a few offensive attacks of her own, however, Kami had Via reeling from dreadful hits.
But that was only the distraction.
“Yaaaah!” Sixty leaped up to Kami’s platform, where the first staircases in the foyer converged, and sliced clean through her with the Emerald Sword.
“Got her! Nice job, Sixty!” Eight exclaimed. He fired a continuous bolt of crimson lightning and both halves as he ran up the stairs. Kami was completely incapacitated.
“Come on guys! Let’s go get Amy’s memories back!” Sixty called for Andata, Via, and Amy, and they started up the stairs.
Heh.
Suddenly, Eight was thrown right out the door, but this time, it shut tight behind him.
You underestimated me quite a bit.
The archway heading upstairs was sealed by dark energy.
Hey, are you wondering where all those shadow monsters went?
A monstrous form rose up from the ground. As it headed for Andata, she let out a terrified scream.
“Andata, no!” Via jumped in front of her roommate. Her friend.
Her best friend. The shadow monster grabbed Via instead. Sixty and Amy were inexplicably frozen. They could not see the expression on Via’s face, but, she remained silent. Suddenly, the monster started giggling. Kami’s giggling.
That’s right.
Kami removed Via’s head clean off of her body.
It’s just me.
Via’s body disintegrated into the air. With just her head remaining, the monster reformed into Kami’s human appearance, and she absorbed the soul from Via’s skull, the source of her power.
“...Yes...This is what all who cross me will suffer!!” Kami suddenly was holding two turquoise pistols.
Luckily for the Sixty, Andata, Eight, and Amy, the barrier to the archway released, and the four immediately ran away. Andata’s tears marked the stairs as they went up. Abject fear marked the other three’s faces.
• • •
Lock was met with the point of a katana blade pressed against his forehead.
“It seems it’s happened again,” Jayl concluded, “You’re not getting another chance this time.”
Lock only offered an “Mm.” of acceptance.
“You were never going to see things my way anyhow.” Jayl raised his second blade for the final strike.
“...Do you know?” Lock solemnly asked.
Jayl remained silent.
“About who I really am?”
“...I didn’t at first. Why do you think I’m not giving you a second chance this time?”
“SHE DIDN’T DESERVE TO DIE!!” Suddenly, Andata burst into the room. In her fit of rage, she immediately recognized Jayl’s cloak despite being largely unfocused. Jayl was caught completely off guard, dropped his swords, and Andata managed to run him and herself right out of the room and off the balcony.
“No!!” Eight ran after them, but when he got to the edge of the balcony, both Jayl and Andata were missing. They hadn’t hit the ground.
“What is this terrible world…?” Amy still was very shaken by the recent events. She fell to her knees after the room went silent.
“An interesting little place of sorrows…” Lock commented, answering Amy’s question which she did not realize that she spoke softly out loud.
Eight turned around, facing Lock now. “It’s you…that voice.” He could finally put a face to a--
“Lock.” Lock revealed, “Lockand Key is my name.”
“You were the one who wrote those notes…” Sixty commented. Lock simply nodded.
Eight procured the Book of Memories from off the floor. “So, here it is…” A gust blew in from the open balcony. Eight’s coat and hair flapped in the wind.
“Well, go on,” Sixty urged, gesturing towards Amy, “Hand it to her.”
“Something doesn’t feel right…” Eight commented, but did not elaborate. He handed off the book.
Amy gazed silently at the cover.
MeMoRiEs
of Amy Cerato
Concerning the Keys to The Void
She opened to the first page.
“...It’s blank.” Amy revealed. She was shocked, and quite devastated, but remarked quite emotionlessly and futily, “There’s nothing here.”
“What?” Lock looked over, as did Sixty and Eight. The girl was right. Nothing.
“Was this all a joke? Does she not have any memories to recover after all?! Have we done all this for nothing?!” Eight was growing furious.
“I don’t believe it...I’ve held that book in my hands before. Seen little bits of words poking out on the less-bound pages...where has it gone?” Lock wondered.
Sixty was the last to comment, because he was in thought over a different event.
“Wait a minute,” Sixty began, “When Andata ran into the room, I saw, for just a second, but I saw Jayl had a slight smile on his face. And when she basically tackled him, he held on instead of fighting. That familiar reverse glow of darkness flew right over the edge of the balcony.”
Lock’s expression changed. In a serious tone, he inquired, “Did you not defeat Kami?”
“No...but we figured that, once we got the memories, it wouldn’t matter…” Sixty answered.
“...Jayl Cel is not the master of dark energy,” Lock explained, “He borrows his power from Kami. When he must fight, she is never far away.”
“But, I fought him out in the wasteland,” Eight challenged Lock’s information, “I didn’t even know who she was then, let alone see her.”
“The shielding cloud of dust. That was no accident. Kami was there perpetuating that whilst simultaneously being concealed by it. She is the embodiment of The Void’s energy. She must have let Jayl know somehow that Andata was coming for him...that’s why she didn’t immediately chase you four...Jayl knew he was going over that balcony. He’s taken what was inside the Book of Memories with him!!”
“A ha ha ha ha!” Kami’s voice suddenly echoed, “Right again, old man! And now, if you don’t miiiind…”
A mass of purple-and-black energy shaped into a hand and grabbed Amy, hoisting her into the air. Suddenly, a white orb of pure energy split from the body of the teenage girl. Amy was dropped to the floor, and the hand procured the light power.
Lock quickly ran to the half-conscious Amy’s side. “Grab hold!” He instructed. Sixty held onto Lock, and Eight held to Amy’s other side.
Kami’s form could not contain Amy’s power. Such an energy required a sudden and dramatic form change. One that completely vaporized the tower. The people below watched Over Tower fall, as the morning light started to appear.
In the blast, Lock and Sixty were separated from Eight and Amy. The two groups were flung into the air and sent opposite ways into the expanse of the Wasteland.
• • •
It is a mid-summer’s dusk over the suburban town of Peace Key, a homely middle-class community just under the shadow of the expansive cityscape, Lock City. Most of the residents are indoors enjoying the cool artificial breeze of air conditioning, as is the case with a particular family living on an out-of-the-way dead-end street on the south side of town.
“Damn it, how are you so good at this?” A young teenage boy of about fourteen asked in defeat to his friend sitting to his left. The boy’s wavy brown hair hung into his face as he slumped disappointingly into the couch.
“You get in a lot of practice when you don’t have any friends, <•8//•\\8•>.” The friend replied with a laugh, a slightly smaller teen boy with messy blonde hair. “Plus, home turf advantage.” He added. <•8//•\\8•> continued to slump further, more to be funny than anything.
“Oh whatever, <•64^•^64•>, you would still play this game for hours no matter how many friends you had.” The third of the friends, a girl of similar age with long sienna hair, added in, ending it off with “And I’m still better than you anyway.”
“We’ll see.” <•64^•^64•> and <•girl&•&girl•> took up their controllers for the next round. <•8//•\\8•> scrambled back up to sit normally on the couch, feeling particularly unnoticed as the other two focused.
The three continued to play against each other well into the night. Kept up by snacks and soda, their hangout seemed to last forever.
The End, of Season 1.
To be continued... ;)

Chapters |
---|
Characters |
Sixty Four • Eight • Amy Cerato |