FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

I'm sorry for that nice gap in posting a new chapter... I really didn't mean to let myself forget this! I posted a longer chapter, with a little more confusion, just to make up for that ^_^ And no worries. I won't stop posting, as long as I know that people read this. And now on forward with the story

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

I woke up to the sound of engines humming around me. I forced myself up, doing my best to ignore my now all-too-familiar headache, which I was slowly getting used to, but its existence was tiring, as it followed after each time I had exhausted myself.

"Easy there," I felt the tiger pushing me back down on my bed gently. "You're okay but you should rest" He sounded tired because he slurred in his speech and his eyes were drooping.

I nodded to show Shin that I understood, before I got up, and he sighed in resisted approval. He just seemed too tired to resist, so he let go. I looked around and found myself in a sterile, white room. I had been lying on a bed - which was very cold - and equally white, as the rest of the room. There were three beds to the side of the one I had spent the night in and another five on the other. Besides that, the room was still very bare. It was obviously a stripped-down medical wing, taken that everything was sterile and there were three lockers that had a red cross on the handles. The lockers were next to a door, which was the only one in the room, and again, white.

I stretched my sore muscles for a moment and looked over to the bed next to mine, now taking in a minor detail. Raven was lying there, unconscious. Shin had already sat beside him and I walked up to them, worried of my friends.

"Is he okay?" I asked. My throat was dry, so speaking hurt a bit. Must've been out for a while. I remembered the night before. Now that I think of it, the whole day was a blur. We had decided to take in Jack's old project. A air-ground-water vehicle. We must've been in it now. That would explain the engines... (Note to self: Duh)

"Yes" Shin answered quickly, avoiding my eyes.

I sighed and tried to look at his eyes. "Are you okay?"

He thought for a moment, then snapped back to his happy old self - an obviously fake state - and responded cheerily. "Sure! The others are up in the 'cockpit'" Then he stopped talking and started humming a tune, while attending to the sleeping raptor. I decided to leave them alone, so I proceeded out of the med-bay.

The halls were roomy but quite blank. The ship hadn't been painted yet - since the painting is done as the last job - so everything was a cold, metallic grey.

It took me a moment to figure out where I was. I wandered around for a while - until I noticed the arrows, indicating directions to different ship-parts - and headed up to the deck, one floor up.

I found a familiar door and opened it. I was back on the command deck, where Jack had apparently spent his night. His eyes were blinking away tiredly and he was seemingly struggling to hold back his yawns - besides that, there were five cups of coffee next to him.

Lulu was sitting close to the lion, with her arms crossed, and she gave me a strange look, as I stepped into the room.

Iris wasn't far off. She was sleeping, huddled up between Shay and Draco.

I felt a tap on my shoulder and I spun around, only to lock eyes with the shark. He had an almost sickly grin on his face but I had become accustomed to it, so I smiled back to him.

"Didn't think that you had that in you" He chuckled in a creepy fashion, flashing his teeth at me. I swallowed, hoping that he wouldn't pin me-

He pinned me against a wall behind me, by my collar, and hissed in my ear. "I'd rather not have you let 'that' out onboard. Got it?"

I nodded quickly and as he let go, I backed away, scared of the shark once again. I was unsure of the damage I had done, as he stared daggers at me. Lulu walked up to me and spoke softly, calming me down a bit.

"We need to talk"

I nodded, for the God-knows-how-many-times, as I quickly hopped behind her, avoiding the shark's wrathful glare.

She led me down the hall and through a door. We were in an elevator. Eight decks, all together. Plus two maintenance floors.

She hit the second from the top, six. It took a few awkward moments, until the small box finally dropped a few decks down.

I wanted to ask what was going on but her expression was cold, so I didn't dare.

We walked along the hall again for a moment, then she stopped at a door and pushed it open.

The room was huge! Not an arena per say, but fairly close to one. I'd guess about fifteen by fifteen meters big. More than enough room to practice in! Again, the room was bare - like everything else on the ship - and I could see only a single plate on the far side of the 'arena', warning people that there was nothing to grab on, if a collision would happen and that anyone in the room shouldn't spend time here after 9pm.

"Do you remember what happened?" Lulu asked, drawing my attention back to her. She spoke calmly, so I assumed that she wasn't angry.

"Yes" I answered, worried that my simple reply would anger her.

"What happened to Raven? That condition isn't normal, and even with his strength, there is no possible way that he would've managed to exert that much, in such a short time"

"I don't-"

"Moreover" She interrupted calmly. "You have somehow managed to attain a third element" She locked her eyes with mine, a curious gaze in hers.

"I really don't know how that happened..." I muttered. I was sick of being questioned but there was nothing I could do about that. They didn't like Shadowcasters, so I just had to accept their wrath, until I would get their trust.

"Well, I do. But Raven is still very much alive and his element wasn't damaged, so I don't understand it" She spoke, crossing her arms as she did so.

"What do you mean, 'still alive'?" I asked, turning the tables and making her answer my questions. She didn't seem bothered by it though.

She began with a loud sigh, then seemed to arrange her thoughts. After that, she continued.

"My old teacher. He's generally, at the moment, known as 'Graverobber'. You know him, yes?"

"Somewhat... We've met once or twice. Why?" I was shocked but tried to appear calm. She knew him? Why hadn't she said anything?!

"He is a Shadowcaster, such as yourself. But he isn't controlled by his own element at all. In fact, I think that he has managed to obliterate the element's consciousness... But there is a bottom-line here" She grinned a little, reminding me of the scarred jackal. "He's just plain insane"

"Are you defending him?" I asked, not really too disturbed by the thought. It was only natural to protect one's own teacher, after all.

"No. That's the last thing that I would do. But I am warning you" She huffed. "He found a way to steal a person's element and knowledge of his or hers magic. Giving him full control of it, after he 'stole' the magic, in a matter of seconds"

"What? How?!"

"His current name. He loves riddles, so it's incorporated in it" She gave me a small nod, obviously because the hint must've been right there. She gave me a moment to think.

"He literally robs their graves?"

"Not really, no. But close. He can extract the magic from a very recently deceased person. I believe that his window of opportunity is maybe an hour, at most"

I was completely and utterly shocked. That'd explain his killing rampage. That'd explain why he had lost his mind, as well. He must've fought it, at first, but succumbed to it later on. I felt sorry for the jackal but couldn't hold that emotion for too long. He had done too much, to too many people. I couldn't feel sorry for a terrorist like Graverobber.

"Moreover" She continued, repeating the annoying phrase. "He wants to gain every single magic, and collect every single bit of knowledge from them. He fancies himself as 'a man of science'"

"So he has to kill, in order to 'steal' their magic?"

"Yes" She replied, nice and simple.

I sighed and did my best to shun away the thoughts of the scarred jackal, until a scary idea crossed my mind.

"Are you saying that I'm the same?"

"Yes and no" She started. "You could but I wouldn't let you get far enough to effectively kill anyone. You leeched off from Raven. He'll survive but it'll take some time. That proves, however, that even if you weren't in complete control of the element, itself, you are still capable of restricting Prothero's actions. And that is a definite perk because you can prevent him from killing, yet still allow him to 'leech' the element"

"But... Is it permanent?" I asked, trying to wrap my head around this.

"You mean stealing the element?" She replied.

"Yes. Will Raven get his magic back and how long will I have his?"

She thought for a moment. I had obviously thrown a new kind of question at her. But she managed to answer. "Yes. Raven's magic is intact. He just needs time to 'recharge' his body. But. I cannot tell for sure exactly, how long you will have the lightning element. From as far as I can tell, it seems to be a part of you, as if you had always had it. By that token, I don't believe that you will lose the element, at all"

"Okay. And what about this: I pulled you into the shadow, before I brought you onboard. Why weren't you affected in the same way, as Raven? I did it exactly the same!"

"Quite possible, but there must've been some difference, no matter how small"

"I don't know. I don't think that I did anything differently"

"We can dismiss this for the moment" She waved her hand, signaling me to follow. "There's a change in plans"

She continued as we started walking towards the command deck again. "It appears that River left out a 'minor detail' - as he so gently put it" She frowned, obviously angry, so I stepped back a little, worried of her wrath. "The temple - in which The Seven Virtues reside - is made of a special crystal. We knew this already, since this is the same crystal that was used on the Nine Circles. However, it can only be manipulated by a strong crystalline-elementalist, since the crystal itself has a quality that prevents magic from being used"

"So... We're going to go get a mage. And that mage is going to cast magic on a crystal, which disallows magic? Where does the logic, there, come in?" I asked. My brain was starting to hurt, and these plot-holes were annoying me.

"We'll have time to explain it to you. Just don't worry about it" She smiled.

"Okay. So what's the plan?"

We stepped on to the command deck. Iris had woken up and she was heading down to the galley, with Shay and Draco.

Lulu continued. "We head down south to a crystal temple. We're hoping to get at least a few Crystalline Guardians with us, so that we could warn The Seven"

"And how long will that take?"

Jack laughed out from behind a tower of coffee cups. "With this speed, we should be there by mid-day tomorrow" He was obviously tired but very ecstatic about getting to gleam about his ship"

"How high are we?" I asked. I completely forgot Lulu with the sudden burst of curiousness.

"Just above the clouds" He laughed again. He was enjoying himself. And why shouldn't he! He created the first proper, air-faring battleship! He was the first technician General, to actually command an aerial battle cruiser!

I arched my neck to look out of a window behind the lion. There were lots of clouds, so we probably didn't have to worry about being seen.

"Ryu" Lulu coughed and yanked my left shoulder a little. "We still need to teach you some things. Since you can leech off from others, that'll cut the training-time down at least a half, if not more. But you'll still have to be careful with it. Do you understand?"

I nodded and smiled thinly. I looked over to the resting shark, who only grinned at me.

Geez... Is he really that pissed off at me?

"Nah. Just annoyed" He replied, reading my thoughts with relative ease. "But just because she'll be teaching you, doesn't mean that I will stop"

I groaned a little, remembering how my last 'training session' had played out."Yes sir"

"But for now" Lulu smiled warmly at me. "You should eat something. We're not going to practice before we get to the temple, in case we need our strength" She placed her hand on my shoulder and started escorting me down to the food court.

It took a while to get down but eventually, I saw the familiar faces of Shay, Draco and of course, Iris. I smiled at her, picked up a can - apparently, since the ship hadn't been stocked up with food, we were stuck with the canned kind, until we could buy some - and sat down next to her.

"How're you holding up?" She asked as I sat down.

"I'm good. And you guys?" I looked around the table and over to Lulu. The blond mouse had started to walk back to the deck but she waved quickly, stating that she was a-ok.

"I'm fine" Iris replied.

I looked over the table again, since I didn't hear the rest of them answer. Shay gave me a look. I couldn't tell what kind, exactly, but it was scary. Draco was just munching down on his second can, so he probably didn't even hear me.

Soon after, Shay replied. "You hurt my brother. But you also saved him, and us, for that matter, so I guess that I'm not allowed to be angry at you" She sighed, then leaned over the table and whispered quickly. "You heard about the plan? Crystals and such?"

I nodded, unsure why she was being so secretive.

She continued. "Well. I'm from the Zephyr clan, like Raven. And we're known for our abilities with the animals, hence Draco there. But I've heard that the technicians have launched attacks to all major magic strongholds, including the Crystal Temples"

I dropped my head. (Note to self: Everything is left alone, until you need it. Then, all Hell breaks loose) "Does Jack know?"

"He does. I told him first. But we shouldn't let River know. This is our last life-line and if this fails, we fail. That Graverobber wins, if we can't get to The Seven"

"But the plan hasn't changed?"

"Nope"

"Good. Because I'm hungry and I want to eat now" I know I sounded harsh, but I really didn't feel like worrying at every corner. I chomped down on my can of stuff - I couldn't tell what it was. It had a meaty flavor, so I imagined that it was just mushed up chicken. I sighed, trying to push my thoughts away and looked over to a clock. It was a bit after six. Evening. Oh well. I need the rest anyways... We'll be able to head to bet, after food, so I grabbed another can and devoured it. Almost like Prothero had consumed Raven's element.