Items of Power - chapter 20

[Hunchman801]

I'm afraid their posts won't fit in your fanfic -_-

[Holy Crap]

what do you mean?

[FAB]

It had no legs, but the ability to hover.

A bit like Axel, Foutch and Grolems' appearances.

[Holy Crap]

by the way, this'll be updated thursday, which i think is actually wednesday for some of you. i base this on the fact limely said rz would be back on tuesday, AND IT'S TUESDAY NOW!!!

[El Dango]

HAPPY TUESDAY EVERYONE!!

[Holy Crap]

new chapter time!

CHAPTER 18 – Poison
The Officer pulled what was left of its arm out of the water. The piranhas in the waters around him were obviously willing to take a bite of anything that fell into the marshes. Around the officer’s boast were a small fleet of others, each carrying a few hoodlums to their destination: the cave of bad dreams. Not that they knew what it was called.
They had been sent to find some sort of elixir, which would apparently be a good power source for Andre. For some reason, the pirates were afraid of the cave, but the Hoodlums had no idea why.
Finally, they found the cave. Careful not to push each other into the water, they all jumped out of the boasts and landed on the small area of land around the cave. The officer cautiously approached the cave entrance and peered inside.
“Ha! And what makes you think I’ll just give you the elixir?”
The officer jumped back in surprise; he couldn’t even see anything inside.
The Guardian to the cave of bad dreams then appeared, rising from beneath the ground. Below his hat was a large green body, with two large claws, one of which held a Skull on the end of a staff. He glared at the hoodlums with his single, imposing eye, and his speech revealed rows of sharp, rotting teeth, enhancing his fearsome image. “I can read your feeble minds! You don’t even know the name of this place!”
“huh?” the officer said, confused and afraid.
“I’m not going to let you in. Only those who know this place’s name may enter.”
Annoyed, the officer issued a command to his troops. Simultaneously, they all pointed their weapons at the guardian and prepared to shoot.
“Ha! Fools.” Before they could pull the trigger, the Guardian spat a large ball of flames at his opponents, lighting several hoodlums on fire. Then a long brawl broke out between the two sides, but despite his fireballs and huge claws, he was slowly overcome by the waves of fire. Unable to continue, he collapsed to the ground in exhaustion. “Fine then, enter.” He managed to say before becoming unconscious.
The officer began to run into the cave, telling his troops to follow before a he heard something.
Stop! The officer looked about in confusion until he realized the voice was in his head. He figured it must be the voice that was telling Andre what to do. The Skull! The elixir is in the Skull! Walking over to the guardian’s motionless body, he observed the skull on his staff. Sure enough, it was filled with a bubbling, purple liquid. Picking it up, he began laughing with an evil joy, and was soon joined by his comrades.

Rayman woke up slowly and peacefully, without even opening his eyes. He felt very relaxed; almost too relaxed, as though he could easily fall back to sleep and never wake up again.
“Rayman, wake up!”
Rayman opened his eyes fully, but still felt drowsy.
“Rayman! Thank god! We were worried you’d never wake up!”
Rayman laughed sleepily. “Yeah, thanks Murphy”.
“I wasn’t joking.”
“What?” Rayman sat up slowly, feeling a slight pain where he was struck by the shuriken. Looking towards the source of his pain, he noticed a bandage. Carefully unraveling it, his wound was revealed to be pussy and infected, with a green taint affecting the area around it. “What?! How did this happen?!”
“It’s robot zombie poison!” Otto the teensie doctor had just entered the room. “It has found its vay into your shuriken vound, vich is much more deadly zan ven it is inhaled. It vill make you fery tired, but don’t fall to sleep or you seriously might nefer vake up!”
“Vell zen”, Murphy said in a manner intended to insult Otto, “How do vee cure zis problem?”
Offended, Otto jumped up and hit Murphy in the head. After complaining of the pain, Murphy rose a little higher.
“Anyvay:, Otto began, “ze only cure is ze elixir of life!”
“Well, time to go back to the marshes.” Rayman said blandly.
“Are you crazy?” Murphy exclaimed “The Marshes are surrounded by Pirate strongholds, and I hear some hoodlums got in there too. Not to mention piranhas and the swamp monster. Eek!”
“Well it’s either die here or die there. Besides I need something to keep me awake!” With that, Rayman ran from the room in search of the nearest teensie warp.
“So,” Murphy said to Otto, flying a little higher just in case. “How long vill it be before he dies? Vill he make it?”
“I’m afraid it’s not likely. I estimate he only has a few hours left to liff.”
End of Chapter
Question 16: How did he get poisoned?

[El Dango]

You forgot chapter 17...

[Holy Crap]

really?

too slow peoples!
here it is!

CHAPTER 17 – The Magician’s Secret
“So.” Betilla began. “Why exactly is Rayman the perfect hero?”
“I already told you.” The Magician said as though it was very clear.
“Excuse me, but ’why’ is a question, not a reason!” Betilla argued.
The magician sighed. “There are several qualities a hero has to have. Strength, bravery, compassion. But what separates Rayman from anyone else with these qualities is his inquisitiveness; he asks why.” Betilla opened her mouth to say something, but the magician continued. “A child will only learn what it wants to. There are some things that I have to tell him now, so that he can save the world later. But I can only tell him if he wants to hear it. And he does. If he doesn’t wonder, he’ll never ask, and I’ll never be able to tell him anything. But he does. This, as well as everything else, is what will make him a truly great hero.”
“I see.”
Betilla got up, and began to leave the room. “Wait” the magician called. “There’s something I have to tell you.”
Betilla turned and saw great concern on the magician’s face. “What is it?” she said, sitting back down.
“When we went to get the orbs, we were told specifically just to confirm their existence, but to do nothing else with them. Niken disobeyed, and now the world will suffer for it.”
“I know this.” Betilla said, a little annoyed, and almost got up again before the magician continued.
“He wasn’t the only one.” Betilla’s face changed to one of deep concern at this. The magician went on. “I saw that orb; the orb of thunder. I saw it, and around the sanctuary walls, there were detailed carvings of the power it contained and how it could be used. I was overcome by the possibility of power.”
Betilla was pretty sure she knew where this was going, but let him continue.
“It was five months before I returned, but it had only taken me five days to find the orb. In that time, I had devoted myself to learning how to unlock its secrets, to draw from its power. Even now, I draw from its strength rather than the protoon. But when I held it…I felt like I was invincible. And then it completely overwhelmed me. I decided that I didn’t want anybody else to ever have it, so I used its power to create a mighty thunderstorm…”
“Oh my…” Betilla started. Then, her face turned red, and she slapped the magician in the face. “I thought you were dead!”
Rubbing his cheek where he was hit, the magician explained. “After that, I took the orb to the very depths of the echoing caves in the mountains, and – reluctantly – left it there. I thought that way, I could say it existed there but that it was lost in the storm.”
“That’s…despicable. How could you?”
“Why, you mean? For the exact same reason Dark did. The only difference is, the influence of the orb he found made him do things differently. If I had found the orb of death, then I would have been the one who killed all the other magicians.” He then buried his face in his hands and burst into tears.
Betilla almost felt sorry for him, as she knew that he was more disappointed in himself than she was.
The magician got up and wiped his face with the back of his hand. “And that’s not the worst part.” He said miserably. “Now that I’ve felt that power, I have an unimaginable longing for it. You couldn’t possibly understand what it’s like to need something so much, but to not be able to have it.”
Betilla sighed. The magician didn’t know it, but she actually did know what it was like.
“Please, Betilla.” He was practically begging. “Please don’t tell anyone. Especially not Rayman; the council and the teensies punishing me is one thing. But him…”
“I promise.” Betilla knew what he meant. Since they had found him as an orphaned baby, they had found that Rayman was almost like a son to the two of them. “But you need to promise me something too; make sure you never go back to get that orb.”
“But what if we need it?” he protested.
“Ok, fine, if one day it’s absolutely necessary, you can. But until then, you’ll have to put up with your cravings. You probably deserve it.”
The magician hesitated, wanting to protest.
“Jallus!”
The magician jumped in shock; he hadn’t heard anyone refer to him by his real name for so long that he’d almost forgotten it. Obviously, Betilla was very serious about what she’d promised.
“Uh…I promise.” He said reluctantly. He sighed unhappily, but Betilla knew he would keep his word.
“Thank you.” Betilla began to leave the room but stopped at the door. “Oh, by the way,” she said, “you were nothing like Niken.”
End of Chapter
Question 15: let’s see how well you’ve been paying attention to previous chapters. What did the “mighty thunderstorm” do?

[El Dango]

Oops... i was confused because you forgot to update the name of the topic. It looks like you went directly from chapter 16 to chapter 18.

[FAB]

I read most of these chapters while listening to the "presenting Space Mama" soundtrack.

[El Dango]

Never heard that. *Checks it out*
EDIT: LøL!

[FAB]

OMG! You have way more tings than me now. You managed to catch up. I never will.

[El Dango]

There's only one thing to do about that: Blame Xenon!

[Zay-el]

I believe I forgot to comment before I went on field trip, so I'll correct it now.

I like this chapter overall, even though not all that much happened in it. The suspense this poison adds though is bound to make the next part quite interesting read, though the earlier ones weren't boring either. Summarized: I still like this fic and I hope you'll continue it soon 83

[Holy Crap]

thanks. i'm often worrying about whether the story is declining in quality.

[Holy Crap]

more chapter!

CHAPTER 19 – Sleep in the Marshes of Awakening
“Ssssaaaaaaaaaaaam!” Rayman called. “Sssam? Hello?”
Sssams’s head popped out of the Murky water. “Hello Rayman. I sssee you’ve come to visit me. And – oh my, what happened to your ssstomach?”
“Long story. But I need the elixir of life to cure it.”
“Ah, so you need to get to acrossss the marshes?” Sssam asked, looking out behind him. “I sssaw some Hoodlums here before so we’ll have to be careful.” He continued looking into the distance, awaiting an answer. “Rayman?” he turned to see Rayman with his head bowed down and his eyes closed. “Rayman!?”
“Wha? Oh, sorry… we need to get there quickly.”
“okay, hold on!”
Rayman fired an energy ball at Sssam – not like the ones he used to destroy pirates, but similar to what he fired at the purple lums.
Not hesitating for a second, Sssam sped out into marshes, pulling Rayman behind him with the string of energy that now connected them. Rayman was thoroughly enjoying himself, and he never found it boring even though they did this almost every time he visited. After all, there wasn’t much else to do in the marshes.
Going faster than ever, they reached the cave in record time, where they were shocked to find the guardian on the ground, barely conscious.
“So… back for the elixir?” He said, his voice even more horrible, but quieter than before.
“Yes! And soon! Please, the world could be at stake!”
“I know… but I don’t have the elixir… it was taken by the hoodlums… and while I was injured, many creatures have escaped from the cave.”
“The Hoodlums!?” Rayman exclaimed. “Where did they go?”
As soon as the guardian pointed, Sssam took off again, with Rayman creating a new link. Before long they could see the small motorized boats the hoodlums were using.
“Sssam! Try and get ahead of them and I’ll jump on!”
“Ok Rayman!” Sssam further increased his pace, using all his energy to get Rayman there. Finally, he found his self slightly ahead of one of the boats. “Rayman! Are you ready?”
No answer.
“Rayman?” Sssam turned to see that there was no-one behind him.

Rayman floated peacefully down in a blissful state of semi-consciousness. He felt unimaginably tired, and closed his eyes happily. Relaxing, he sank further into darkness, welcoming the pure black below him with open arms. All he could hear was the seemingly distant, and very soothing noise of water moving around him He loved the stillness, the peace the purity. He was not breathing; his heart was not pumping; all was still, peaceful, relaxing, blissful, happy…
Something suddenly jerked him from his trance. His heart resumed beating, and much faster than ever before as he found himself in a state of sheer panic. He suddenly realized that his lungs were screaming for air, and that he couldn’t see his hand in front of his face. How far down was he? Which way was down? Which way was up? What had awoken him?
Hoping for some answers, he expelled some of his much needed energy to create a bright ball of light. Still, he could not see the surface or the bottom, but what he could see added to his fear; a swarm of piranhas circled him hungrily, one of them attempting to chew what looked like a part of Rayman’s shoe. Instinctively he began firing balls of energy at the toothy fish, attempting to deter them. One of them dived towards him, but he reacted fast and knocked its teeth from its mouth.
Suddenly, he realized that he had closed his eyes again. But he didn’t care. The state of bliss returned…
“No!” he said aloud, snapping himself from the trance. At once he made a snap decision to start swimming. For all he knew he was swimming down, but at least he had more of a chance trying than staying still.
Without thinking, he instinctively gasped for air but only managed to get a lungful of water and began violently coughing, each cough only adding to the pain in his chest and putting another mouthful of swamp water into his lungs. It was then that he lost all hope. This time, he closed his eyes willingly and welcomed the peace of death. The trance returned, and he was glad to die peacefully.
But it did not last long; something grabbed onto his foot, jerking him from sleep again. Damn Piranhas! He thought. why can’t they just let me die in peace! Frustrated and upset, he began to cry heavily. But then he suddenly found himself moving through the water rapidly. Slowly, a vague light became visible and he quickly realized he was being dragged up towards the surface by whatever was on his foot.
Sssam exploded out of the surface of the water dragging Rayman with him. Rayman then vomited all the water he had inhaled and very joyfully took a deep breath. But the joy was short lived; just as he was about to start laughing hysterically, he found himself being dragged back under. Dread struck and he almost started to cry again, but then he found himself back above the water.
“Sssorry about that” Sssam said. “It wasss a ssshortcut. Look!”
Rayman looked up; they had caught back up to the boats thanks to some underwater shortcut.
“Don’t go back to sssleep Rayman, Now go!”
Rayman fired two shots; one at Sssam’s scarf, so that he could ski properly, and one at the closest boat, which knocked it’s driver into the water. Then, he found a small above-water slope, which he used as a jump. Letting go of the bond between him and the serpent, he was propelled off the slop and onto the boat, and before the passengers could turn their heads, they were kicked overboard and sank to the bottom of the marshes.
Rayman took control of the boat and immediately added some speed to the vessel. The Hoodlums in the other boats opened fire, but they were lousy shots, whereas his shots always hit the mark, which he proudly demonstrated to the occupants of several other boats. It wasn’t long before there were only foru boats left; him and three others. The remaining hoodlums applied some extra force to their accelerators so that all the boats were now going at top speed.
Rayman was in trouble now; he would have to use some nice driving skills to catch up and get the elixir, and the deathly sleep was constantly threatening his consciousness. He sped around a corner tightly, so that the distance between him and the next boat was unnoticeable. He jumped across and commandeered the vessel, but the others were too far ahead, and one of them had the elixir.
Then out of the depths, a swamp monster suddenly popped up, swallowing the lead boat before the hoodlums even saw it. Luckily, the one behind it – the one with the elixir – was given enough time to react, and swerved out of the way. Rayman swerved too, and when he got around it, he noticed that the hoodlums were already on land, and were getting into a hot air balloon. He realized something bad; he wasn’t going to make it in time.
Putting his hands together, Rayman began charging a large ball of energy. Meanwhile, the balloon took off, and started drifting back the way the hoodlums had come. This was his chance. He threw the ball at his feet, and the resulting explosion propelled him into the air – and onto the balloon. Before long, only one hoodlums hadn’t been knocked into the bog below; the officer. Rayman turned around after pushing a soldier over the edge to see the officer’s gun pointed squarely at his face. Just as the gun went off, Rayman dropped to the ground and kicked the hoodlums in a single movement.
Rayman celebrated briefly before he realized that the officer was still holding the elixir. Panicking, he hurriedly ran to the edge and reached for the falling elixir, but it slipped through his hands. Then he threw his hand down as far away as it could go, and couldn’t reach. He again lost all hope. But it was then that Sssam saved him again. His little green tail pooped out of the water just in time to catch the elixir.
“Thanks Sssam!”
End of Chapter
Question 17: Specifically: what has escaped? (if it helps, the naswer needs to be more specific than the question )

[El Dango]

I have escaped.
Next chapter: The wrath of R4_121!!!

[Holy Crap]

sorry, i'm afraid you don't make an appearance.

[El Dango]

Oh... okay...

[FAB]

I have escaped.
Next chapter: The wrath of R4_121!!!

More like "The wrath of Tewono".