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Chapter 18: Reclamation Alexis and me took turns going out to shop. However, every time we went out, there would surely be eyes fixed on us. After a week or so, the others woke up. "What happened?" Lacus jerked awake and her eyes flitted around the room, eventually coming to rest on Alexis and me. "I'm seeing double......" she groaned and rubbed her eyes. "Nope, you're not. That's Alexis." I shook my head and pointed at Alexis. Mei Ling gasped. Roy and Lopez fell over in surprise. Roy stared at me, then at the Akasha Charm on my chest. "Must be working since my soul isn't flying into you now." he scratched his head. "I saw Afrodita in there." I told Alexis. "Knew it." she grunted. "I wonder if anyone's sent me any email?" I quickly flipped my laptop open and checked my email. There were a few ones, but there was one that intrigued me the most, Jubrenan University's E-Mag. The campus had a e-magazine corner. I checked it. The contents gave me a shock and I pulled Alexis to the screen. Ancient Artifacts Discovered Earlier today, members of the photography club stumbled upon a strange bow and a golden sword in the school grounds. The bow's hilt was black-coloured and had a red-eyed dragon's head carved on it. The limbs were white. The sword, on the other hand, had a golden blade and a silver hilt. These artifacts have been moved to the Archeology Club's safe for safekeeping until experts can come to examine them. Carbon-dating is expected to be used. Written by Jullian Right below the article was a picture of the Archaeion and Alexis's sword side by side! We gasped. "Going back now?" Lacus folded her arms. "We don't have a choice. Once that gets moved to government labs, we'll have no chance to get them back." I closed my eyes. The maple necklace around my neck shone briefly. "Everyone, stay here and wait for us to come back." Alexis nodded to the others as a black hole appeared in the air. I hopped in. Alexis followed swiftly. "You know we'll draw attention like this!" she hissed. "I don't want to draw attention either." I rolled my eyes. "But it's not like we have a choice." Lucky for us, we landed in a storeroom, unseen. Alexis was rubbing her buttocks gingerly. "I think I landed on something......" she looked down. The mangled remains of a broom lay on the ground. "Am I that heavy?" she thought aloud. I ignored her and took a quick peek out. We were in one of the main corridors, which was bad because we couldn't get out without being seen. Students were ambling up and down the corridor, some chatting. "I need to be invisible." I thought. "Invisibility is no problem." the Dark Dragon winked. My body fizzled for a second, but nothing happened. "No problem?" I raised an eyebrow. "Some skills won't work in your world." the Phoenix explained. "Like Dark Sight." I grunted. Suddenly, someone outside the door said, "I think I heard voices in here." and the door opened, revealing the two of us. "Ah well, so much for stealth." I waved at the three surprised girls, grabbed Alexis's hand and sprinted down the corridor. "Who was that?" someone asked. "Probably some people dressing up as weird...... fairies or something." another someone replied. I was tempted to punch him in the face. Eyes flicked onto us as we wove and ducked through the traffic, moving towards the Archeology Club. I opened the door, let Alexis in and slammed the door shut. The room was empty, save for a single snoring student sitting beside a large safe. "Burn through it? Piece of cake." the Dark Dragon snorted, having read my mind and I pointed my index finger at the safe. A small pillar of dark red fire shot out, slowly cutting through the safe. However, doing this managed to trip the fire alarm. Students began to scream and shout and run away from the room. "Hurry!" Alexis called to me. I glanced out the window. Some students had spotted me cutting through the safe and were trying to bash the door open. I wiped a bead of sweat from my forehead with my free hand. I burnt a circle of steel out of the safe and stared in. Glowing inside, were the Archaeion and Alexis's sword. Just as I reached in to pull both weapons out, the door burst open. 10 armed security guards stood in the door, gaping at me. One was keeping his nerve, or maybe not. He was aiming his gun at me, but his hands were shaking. "Freeze!" another one barged in. They all regained their senses and pulled their triggers. Darts flew out of their pistols. I tossed Alexis's sword to her and twanged the bowstring of the Archaeion ten times in rapid succession. Soul arrows flew out and sliced the darts perfectly in half and impaled the guards in their gun hands. Alexis's PoV...... Artemis tossed my sword to me and disarmed the security guards. One daredevil, who had hidden behind the group, suddenly appeared with a significantly larger gun. "Eat this!" he shouted and pulled the trigger. A big dart launched from the barrel and flew towards Artemis so fast she didn't have time to knock it out of the sky. It landed in Artemis's loading arm and her arm fell, limp, to her side. Even so, she wasn't about to give up. She launched herself towards the guards and whacked them on their heads. I grinned as the guards toppled one by one, until the Archaeion bounced off a helmeted head. That particular guard was the one who had shot Artemis earlier. Smart guy. He had a smug look on his face, but it wasn't quite so smug after Artemis recoiled her fist and punched him in the face. "I just put them to sleep for a while." she stood in front of a row of unconscious guards. "Ah, the Jikyeon Sword. I never thought I'd see it again." Jakito remarked. "What, this sword?" I looked at my sword. Artemis's head nodded. "Cut the chatter short, we need to get back!" the Siren barked as a wave of students swarmed into the office. They were holding anything they would use as a weapon, some wielding brooms, some dustpans, some hammers. "I don't want to hurt them." Artemis relaxed and closed her eyes. "But we do! CHARGE!" a student shouted. Artemis opened her right eye and looked at me. "Get back." the message was obvious. I stepped onto the broken safe. She slammed the Archaeion into the ground. A sonic shockwave shot out of the ground and flung the mob of students backwards. They were clutching their ears and spitting broken teeth from gums in a second. "Sorry." Artemis called and grabbed my hand, pulling me out of the room. The sonicboom had shattered the windows and knocked people off their feet. Some were still on their feet though, including a dangerous-looking Arno blocking the doorway. "No way you're getting away with those! The bow is mine!" Arno lunged for the Archaeion. Artemis bashed him on the head with it, but he still got up. I tried whacking his buttocks with the flat edge of my sword. He flew into the wall, leaving a small crater, yet he STILL got up. Whats up with this guy!? Is he on steroids or something? Arno spat blood and ran for Artemis's neck. She jumped to dodge the supposed blow, but Arno ended up wrapping a large arm around her waist. "Argh!" Artemis grunted as Arno squeezed menacingly. "This actually...... hurts......" something cracked. "NO!!!" I shouted and punched Arno in the face. He didn't flinch. "What the......" I gasped and grabbed his face. A mask came off. Saevio was smiling. "Took you a while to realize it was me." his smile widened as another crack came from Artemis. He was snapping her bones! "Argh...... Alexis......" Artemis reached a hand towards me weakly. "I thought you were Arno, so I went easy on you. Now I know you're not." I primed the Jikyeon Sword and sliced Saevio's arms off. Sickly blood flowed out and his severed hands relinquished their grip on Artemis. She fell to the ground, coughing blood. There were two bumps on her stomach, probably broken bones. "This body is too weak for me." Saevio mumbled as his arms began to...... regrow! "Get us out of here!" I yelled. Artemis wasn't doing too well though. She appeared to have fainted. "Crap..." I swore, put her on my shoulder and ran out the window, strapping the Jikyeon Sword to a niche on the back of my armour on the way after stowing Artemis's Archaeion in her Dark Lineros. Once out, I took to the air and landed on the rounded roof of the archery hall to put Artemis down safely. One of the broken bones had actually punched through her skin and the wound was bleeding deeply. I could even see part of her insides! "Eww." I winced. "That man...... his strength is incredible......" Jakito said weakly. "He's done so much damage I can't heal it all on my own with the energy I have now!" he panted. Great, now we'd have to stay in this world for a while. I placed my hand on the bone that was poking out, focusing energy into it. Her bones bent back into place and I heard a crack as they reconnected. There was a deep red welt in her skin where Arno had almost snapped her in half. That would take a while to fix. Artemis came to, groaning and clutching her waist. "Welcome back." I smiled at her. She quickly got up, but went down again with a stifled scream. "Don't get up, Arno almost snapped you in half." I pointed at her waist. "We need...... to go back..." she croaked. "I know. But you need to heal first." I insisted. "I put us down on the archery hall's roof for a while." I said. Artemis looked down and froze. "Archery hall?" she asked. "Yeah." I replied. "There's a staircase that goes up to the roof." Artemis was shocked. The effects of the dart that had hit her loading arm was gone now and she crawled over to the center of the roof. "We need to go." she grabbed my arm and tried to stand up. I looked down where Artemis had been looking and was horrified to see Arno, or rather Saevio leading a large group of guards up the staircase. He had put his Arno mask back on. When I saw the artillery cradled in the guards elbows I was even more shocked. They were equipped with sniper rifles! I quickly grabbed Artemis and flew down to the nearby forest. Even before I got there, there were darts whistling through the air. Most of them bounced off my armour, but some hit areas with cloth connections, like my legs. They were absorbed into me and I winced as the front of my armour creaked open a few centimetres. One of the darts managed to hit Artemis's shoulder. One of the buttons on her Dark Lineros flew off and I could see her chest. "The armour will only start transferring energy into the Akasha Charm when it's capacity reaches its limit, so expect a bit of chest-growing." Jakito grunted as another dart hit Artemis's leg. We finally landed under a tree to find two students smoking. Juvenile gangsters. I don't like gangsters. "Hey there, gorgeous." one of them advanced towards me, stubbing out a cigarette on the ground. I sent a kick flying into his stomach. He flew back and snapped a tree in half. His friend shared the same fate and we continued forward. The darts had stopped, but I was sure Saevio and his team of snipers weren't going to give up easily. They would have advanced into the forest to chase us. I made fake tracks leading into a cave and walked back in my footsteps, ducking into the forest. A classic decoy trick. I laid Artemis on the ground and watched silently. Saevio did not appear to be foolish enough to fall for it. Some of his men started to search the surrounding area while two went into the cave. "Shyt." Artemis swore. We ducked low in a bush as one of the men passed by us and crawled to another bush. Too late. Two darts flew out of nowhere and landed in Artemis's neck and also mine. They were both absorbed. We ran for it. I hoped that Saevio would think of the lake since I WAS the Siren, I could breathe underwater. Sure enough, he did. We went back into the cave from earlier and went in deep. Artemis was panting slightly as I laid her down on the ground. There was a stinky smell in the air. The sky was getting dark. "How long will it take to heal?" I asked. "I don't know." Artemis replied, but the Phoenix answered, "2 hours." "That fast?" I was surprised. "Jakito is a white demon, and white demons specialize in healing magic." the Phoenix explained. "One thing, I don't suggest you light up the ceiling." the Dark Dragon suddenly said, which of course, had me looking up at the ceiling. Bats were hanging upside-down on the ceiling of the cave. I stifled a scream and turned to the floor on which I was sitting. I had narrowly avoided sitting on bat droppings, but Artemis was lying on a whole pile of them. "No wonder I felt something soft under me." she groaned. |
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