Chained: Excerpts 2

## Prologue: Monterey: The Attack

It was lunch time when the alarm sounded.

"Monty, what's going on?" My little sister, Swiss asked.

I turned to the large window that looked out to the outside. "Just get down." Looking out and into the sky, a cloud was coming straight for the school. It looked like a cloud, atleast. The hum of the engines and the glare of the sun's rays off the metal was enough to tell me that the cloud was made up of planes.

I held my sister's hand and pulled her to the back of the cafeteria. She looked up at me, "Where are we going?"

I hid us under a table and looked at the window again just as the first bomb hit the schoolship. The floor shook as the explosions spread through the ship. Outside, there was a girl in white hair running to a tank when a bomb dropped close by and she collapsed.

"I have to save her." I say under my breath.

"What?" Swiss's wide eyes look up to me.

"Stay here, I'll be back." I say louder and get out from under the table and break into a sprint.

"Monty! Wait!" My sister cried behind me. I ignored her begs and shoved through the door to the outside.

I ran straight to the girl with the white hair as she was trying to get up. Blood covered her face and a piece of metal was sticking out of her back.

What has gotten into me? I'm no hero. Why am I risking myself? These questions runs through my head again and again as I reach the girl.

When I finally reach her, I feel time slow down. This has always been my response to tense situations, time seems to slow to a halt when I sense danger. I pick the white-haired girl up and put her over my shoulder in what felt like an hour, but was actually a fraction of a second in real time. I feel stronger. I feel faster. That's just the adrenaline rush.

I search for the closest cover. My eyes settle on the tank that the girl was running to. I start to run again, this time with someone over my shoulders. In the slowed-down time that I'm experiencing, I see a dark shape in the corner of my eye. I see the front of the shape come towards the ground slowly. When the tip touches the ground, I hear a small click sound. The darkness becomes a bright light as the bomb explodes beside me. The heat becomes unbearable and I feel something bury itself into my thigh, followed by immense pain.

My leg! The pain! I grit my teeth and keep moving. I hoist myself and the girl into the tank and fall on a board of some kind. Time returns to normal speed and suddenly I feel weak. I start to hear a hum and the hatch closes above me.

"Oh no!" The girl screams, "We don't have a set time!" She tries to reach the panel when a bomb lands ontop of us. I hear the hum sound starts to wobble and becomes louder.

Suddenly, I'm weightless, time slows again and I see cracks form on the walls of the tank. Red light pours through and the cracks widen. The humming starts to go to a higher pitch as the light becomes blinding. Eventually, everything goes dark.

## Chapter 1: Mozzarella: Black

I couldn't stop the kid as he smashed into the controls. Now everything is black. I move around. It feels like I'm in space.

What the hell just happened? I look to my left and I see the kid completely limp. I shake his shoulder and he jerks awake. His mouth moves like he is trying to talk, but no noise comes out. He starts to panic. I open my mouth to speak and I can't make sound. I put both hands on his shoulders and shake him. He finally stops struggling. Behind him I see something flicker a bright white. I point to it and he turns to it. He reaches to it. Just as his fingertips touch it, it brightens and spreads to his hand, becoming orange. It goes through his whole body.

I tug his arm to pull him away, but it just spreads to me, when the orange reaches my skin, it changes to a bright blue. What the hell is this thing exactly? An artifact in space-time? When we are both fully lit up and I let go.

I start to feel gravity again and we start to fall in what I could only assume was down. Wind starts to rush past my face and I see more lights, these ones are shaped like shards and they start to rip past. One goes right by my face and I feel heat from it. I follow it with my eyes and see the kid behind me. When I look down again, a shard is heading straight for us. I can't move out of the way and it goes right through me and the boy behind me.

I don't feel any pain and watch as the guy falls forward a little more beside me. I can only watch as the light starts to reshape itself into a flexible line, like a rope or chain. The lights from both me and the guy spread to the middle and when the two colors meet, the light brightens and starts to tug us. We start to get tugged off to the side and I see a large wall of light. It takes me a second, but I see that it is actually a time stream. Are we in the time space? How the hell are we not getting turned into energy?

We continue to get pulled and the light becomes blinding as we get closer. I finally hit the time stream and start to feel normal gravity again. The light goes away and I see where we are. We are in the sky with the wind whipping across our faces. It is a bright sunny day where we are. I hear the kid yelling now and look down. A forest stretches below us and it is getting closer, fast. The colored light from earlier is gone. We keep falling until we are less than a second from being a stain on the ground. The line between us pulls and slows us down and we both land on our feet. I look up at the line and it disappears slowly.

I look at the kid, "what just happened?"

The kid looks up, "I think that we just died and that this is the afterlife."

I sigh, "we aren't dead. Say, what's your name anyway?"

He looks down. "It's Monterey, Monterey Causland." He sits down onto the grass.

I kneel down beside him. "Hey Monterey, my name is Sahi, but I go by Mozzarella."

Monterey chuckles, "we're both named after cheeses?"

I also chuckle, "we also got white hair." I stand up. "What do we do now?" The birds in the trees chirp like they are trying to answer.

## Chapter 2: Monterey: Green Trails

What have I gotten myself into? A man trying to take over the world I can understand, but this... I look up at the sky. The air fresher than I could have ever imagined. I look up at Mozzarella. It's crazy to think that we have the same color of hair and be called by the name of cheeses.

"It is peaceful here, wherever here is."

Mozzarella looks down at me. "That's all you have to say, after going through that?"

"Why not?"

She sighs. "You do have a point."

I stand up. "So, what happened? What was that flash that happened? You clearly are more experienced than me at this."

She leans against a tree. "Long story short, I'm from another timeline than you and I'm trying to stop the end of the world. I can talk more about it later, right now we need to get to shelter before night."

I think back to when we were falling, I got to see a lot from how high we were. "Hey, I remember seeing a trail around this way." I point in the direction.

"Actually, I think that was this way." She points to the opposite direction.

"It's not that far, we can just split up and call out when we see it."

"Sounds like a plan." We both go our seperate directions. I barely take five steps before I feel a tug backwards. I feel it right in my stomach where the shard went through me.

"Gah! What the heck?" I turn around and see Mozzarella holding her stomach where she got impaled. The light from earlier hovers between us. The light spreads out into a chain between us like earlier.

"I think I see what's going on." Mozzarella says. "We can't be anymore than about 20 feet away from eachother."

"You mean that, we are stuck together?!" Mozzarella walks closer to me and the light disappears. She just nods.

"Well, I guess that we should go your way." Mozzarella says with a sigh. "I'll just have to trust you."

We start to walk through the woods and eventually come across a dirt road in a clearing. We got lucky and there was a wooden sign at the edge of the clearing. "Woshiba, 1 mile" it was an old-school sign, but it was what we needed.

Mozzarella inspects the sign. "It is a bit old fashioned, isn't it?"

"Let's go there, they might have a phone or something."

"You're right. Let's head out then!"

## Chapter 3: Mozzarella: Strangers

It felt so weird, I lost the Progetto and I can only assume that it was destroyed. We were finally coming close to the town that was on the sign. Monterey slaps his forehead suddenly.

"I'm so stupid." He facepalms.

"Why would you say that?" I look down at him. The midday sun makes his hair shine.

He takes off his hand and looks down. "I just realized why the sign looked old fashioned. You said that you are from a different timeline, right?"

I cock my head. "Yes, what are you getting at-" It hits me. "Ooooooooh"

Monterey breathes through his teeth. "Yeah." He stretches it out. "We are in the past, so no phone."

"Just our luck."

The town comes into view as we get out of the forest. Farmland goes around the entire clearing. Wooden huts dot the land. In the center of the farmlands, there is a group of larger buildings, some of them even being two stories tall.

"It's beautiful" Monterey whispers beside me. He is right, the sunlight radiates off of the wheat fields.

"We better head in, we can get information." As we continue down the path, I can see farmers tending to their crops. When we get into the town, the townsfolk are wearing tunics that look roughly sewn together. They watch us and get away from our path.

It must be a weird sight for them, two teenagers. One wearing a dark suit over her whole body and the other wearing a school uniform with a eagle on the back. Wait, the polysuit! It must have became its original shape after we got ejected from the time stream.

One of the villagers calls out. "Get out of here, witch! And let go of that man!" It takes me a moment until I realize that he his talking about me.

Another one shouts. "We don't want your kind here."

Even a kid pitches in. "Leave! I don't want to be turned into a frog!"

Now all the villagers were shouting. But one calls out over them all. "DRAGON!"

This catches my attention finally. "Dragon?"

Monterey gasps. "It's a dragon!"

I turn to where he is looking. My breath stops for a second as I see a large, red shape in the sky.

## Chapter 4: Monterey: Dragon Fight

Why the hell is there a dragon? Isn't this the past? They don't exist! The dragon sours through the air. The red scales gleam in the sunlight.

"The witch summoned it!" One of the men yell.

Mozzarella is watching the dragon with her mouth hanging open. "Hey Mozzarella, I think that we need to run!"

"Yeah, let's go." We start to push our way through the towns people as they also start to run. Almost like it was a routine, the people disappear into buildings. We were the only ones left out on the street now. We try some doors and they are locked.

The dragon starts to let off fire, burning the fields and the little houses that we walked past earlier. It starts to come closer to the town and when it is only a few seconds from crashing into the buildings, it tucks in its wings and lands. Mozzarella and I both get knocked onto the ground as the wind from the wings hit us. It crawls towards us. When it is only a few feet from my face, what looks like a ball of ice hits its face.

"Over here you oversized lizard!" A gravelly voice shouts.

I look behind me to see who helped us. There are three people, the one in the middle is a tall man with a short beard. He is wearing a suit of armor that no one should be able to stand up while wearing it. He must have been the one who called out. I assume that he is the leader.

The one on the right wears a blue robe and a cliche wizard hat. He holds a staff in his hand.

The one on the left holds a bow and has a hood over her head. The person is wearing a black cloak.

The dragon roars and starts to attack the group. The archer raises their bow and the leader draws a long sword from a scabbard on his waist. The archer fires shots into the dragon's face and it recoils. When it comes back forward, the leader plunges their sword into the mouth. The dragon stops and becomes limp.

"Looks like we will be eating good tonight." The person in the cloak says, revealing that she is a woman.

"Let me see if those two are ok." The wizard says and starts walking towards us.

I get up from the ground and help Mozzarella. "Who are you people?" I ask.

"Hunters"

The man I assumed was the leader walks up behind the wizard. "Ok Ken, she isn't a witch." The wizard says. He sounds about my age.

"Of course I'm not a witch." Mozzarella says.

The leader, Ken, opens his mouth. "Good, Taz, I didn't want to fight one."

I finally speak up. "Ok ok, what is all this stuff about witches? We just got here."

The wizard, Taz, looks at me. "Do you not know anything? And how are you travelers without anything but your clothes? You don't even have weapons! But, you aren't entirely defenseless. You have powerful auras."

"Auras? Woah woah, like I said, we just got here, but we can use some help." Mozzarella says.

The woman glides behind us. "They can come with us, this one bears the eagle." She pokes my back where the logo for my sensha-do team is. "I'm Inej, by the way." She goes to the other two. "And just who might you be?"

"My name is Monterey, Monterey Causland."

"And I am Sahi Covaste, but just call me Mozzarella."

Ken crosses his arms over his chest. "Very well, you can come with us for a while."

## Chapter 5: Mozzarella: Ablilities

We have just made some friends in this new world, but I find it hard for it to be the past. How could there be dragons and magic? That stuff just doesn't exist! Is it possible that this is another timeline where that stuff does exist? At this point, I'm not really sure what to believe. Now we have set up camp.

Ken walks towards us. "If you two are going to be here, you can help with gathering firewood." Ken has now taken off his armor. Taz was conjuring some sort of spell to start the fire. Inej was preparing the dragon meat.

It was already starting to become dark when Monterey and I had collected sticks and small logs. We are on our way back when I feel eyes on my back. I stop and turn around. Nothing but the dark trees.

"What is it Mozz?"

"Nothing, let's keep going."

"Yeah, they must be getting worried by now." A dark shape moves behind Monterey.

"Behind you!" The shape detaches from the tree line. Monterey drops his sticks and reaches into the inner pocket of his uniform. I see a glint of light. The shadow is close to us and Monterey turns around and positions himself between the shadow and me. The shadow, which looks like a wolf, jumps up at him and Monterey becomes a blur. One moment, he was standing infront of me. The next, he is on the shadow, pushing a knife into it. It is a small, basic pocket knife.

But that isn't what catches my attention, it is the orange glow that surrounds him. The shadow that he stabbed starts to disappear and it looks like it gets sucked into the knife. Monterey stands up with a shocked look on his face. He looks at his glowing hands.

"What did you just do?"

"I don't know, it's like time just slowed down and..." He trails off as the glow fades.

"Whatever it was, that was amazing!"

He looks up at me, jaw open.

"You were just standing infront of me, then it's like you just.. whoosh! On the ground with it!"

"I- I did?" He looks at the knife in his hand. I look down too. There are black marks that look like vines on the blade. Also I swear that it looked a lot shorter five seconds ago.

"What are those marks?"

"I don't know, they weren't there before." He lifts it up. "Also it got heavier, longer even."

"Maybe it has something to do with that shadow. It went into the knife."

"Yeah..." He folds it, and as he does it shrinks. "Woah, it just shrunk!"

"We should get back and tell them what happened." Monterey bends down to pick up his sticks and I realize that I also dropped my sticks at some point.

We come back to the camp and there is a fire going. The hunters are gathered around it.

Inej looks up. "About time you got back."

I set down the sticks. "We ran into some trouble. Do you know anything about shadow-wolf things?"

Ken stands up, he has a concerned look on his face. "A darkling? Did you kill it?"

I put down the sticks. "Yeah, Monterey got it."

Monterey set his sticks by mine. "Luckily I had this knife." He reaches into his pocket. "But something weird happened to it." He flips it open. The blade grows and the black marks grow.

Taz stands up and runs over. "Amazing! How did the taint fuse with the blade so perfectly? It can only do that in the presence of powerful magic!" Then, skeptically he asks, "how did you get it to do that?"

"Well, the shad- darkling, I mean, lunged at us and I stabbed it."

Taz gets even more skeptical. "You just stabbed it?"

I butt in. "Actually, there's a little more to that. When he attacked, he did it so fast that I couldn't see his movements."

"It was like time just slowed down for me."

Before the the wizard could say anything, I pick up where Monterey left off. "That's not the weirdest part. After he stabbed it, he started to glow orange."

Taz's eyes widen. "Then, you truly have a high magic ability, it's just not useable in spells."

Inej speaks up from the fire. "Hey boys! Dinner's ready!"

Ken looks back at us. "We will finish speaking tomorrow. We don't have extra bed rolls, so just sleep on the ground."

A black background appears after the conversation. After a few moments of silence, a shadow is outlined in the center, and a familiar female voice from it echoes out, "So... it seems I'm not the only one who can use Aura Abilities. This will be very, very interesting...." The person's shadow fades and the background turns to white,

## Chapter 6: Monterey: The Prophecy

I wake up to arms around me and something soft pressing against my back. It is comfortable and I'm still tired so I don't mind. It's early and school doesn't start until later anyway. The dragon from last night was good.

Wait, dragon!? I jerk up. This isn't home! I'm in the past with... Arms wrap around me and pull me back down.

"Mo- Mozzarella!?" When we went to sleep, we were far enough on the ground that the chain was almost about to tug. At some point in the night, Mozzarella had moved closer and started hugging me. I look at the leaves around us. There is a clear path where the leaves were. I look down at Mozzarella and see a pile of leaves. It's like she was dragged over.

She starts to shift. "Come... back..." she reaches up, still asleep.

I shake her shoulder. She still has her eyes closed. An idea flashes through my head. I take a few steps back and the chain lights up and I feel the pull. I keep stepping backwards until Mozzarella finally gets up.

"Ah! Stop that hurts!"

"I know, but I couldn't get you up any otherway."

Luckily we chose to sleeo far from the others, because they were just now starting the wake up. With Mozzarella up, the chain disappears.

After the camp is put away and the hunters put on their back packs, Ken talks to us.

"Do you have any coin? If you are going to be with us, you need proper equipment. And we also need you to make yourselves useful while we search for that light that fell."

Mozzarella and I stop at the same time. "A light that fell from the sky?" We say in unison.

The hunters stop and look back at us. "Yeah, what do you know about it?" Inej says.

"We might know what it is exactly." Mozzarella says.

Taz looks at her. "You know the prophecy of the saints that will come save the world from the Eternal Emperor?"

Mozzarella and I look at eachother. We both think the same thing. No way he's talking about us.

Ken looks at us. "What's that look for? Do you know it or not?"

I take initiative. "Did the light look like this?" I take a few steps away from Mozzarella and the chain appears. The middle of it shines brightly like a point. Taz drops his staff and his eyes widen. Even Inej looks in awe.

Mozzarella steps towards me and the light disappears. "I suppose that's a yes."

Ken looks mildly impressed. "Three hundred years of waiting for the saints' arrival. And it turns out that they are two kids who need guidence."

Inej butts in. "They don't look like saints, but we can make them. We can be in history books along with them."

"Inej? You were the one to never believe the old duke's prophecies?" Taz says. "What changed?"

"I still don't believe them. But if there is a chance to usurp the emperor, I'll take it."

Ken looks back at us. "Either way, it is now our duty to help these two."

Later

We finally come into a new settlement. This one looks like a large town.

Taz walks beside me. "You two are so lucky. We have a weaver friend here."

"What's a weaver?" I over to him.

"Oh, I forgot that you aren't from here at all. Well, basically a weaver fuses magic into garments to make cloth stronger than steel. All of our clothes are made by her. We even have a magic smith that deals in weapons and armor."

We pass by a highway marker. Lothering

"I'm not even going to pretend to know what a magic smith is."

"It's simple, really. A magic smith is just a blacksmith that infuses metals with magic."

"So basically a metal weaver?"

"Close enough I suppose."

Ken stops in front of a door by the crowded street. Mozzarella is wearing a cloak that Inej gave to her so she wouldn't be spotted.

"Isabelle? It's Ken!" After a moment, the door opens and a short girl about the same height as my sister looked out. She is wearing dark robes and glasses. She had brown hair.

"All of them?" Isabelle looks at us. And Ken nods. We all pack inside.

The inside is suprisingly spacious. There are multiple rolls of cloth made out of different materials and colors hanging on one wall and opposite to it is a long table with scissors, yarn, needles, and other things for making clothes.

Ever since we walked in, Isabelle has stared us down. She looks all up and down while mouthing something.

Ken broke the silence. "This is Monterey and Mozzarella. We have become friends and we wanted to see if you cou-"

Isabelle cuts him off. "If I could make them clothing? Any specific requests?"

Inej does the speaking for us. "Well this one," she puts her hand on my shoulder, "is a knife wielder that would need slash resistant cloaks and a under suit."

Isabelle stops. "What makes them so special, anyway? What brings them here for me?"

Taz steps forward. "Well, their the saints!" He looks at me. "Go ahead, show her!"

Mozzarella starts to move away and the chain lights itself up. Isabelle speaks up.

"Hold right there! I need to plan the color pallet!"

The light starts to spread to us and the orange light from earlier wraps around me. And when I look at Mozzarella, she is surrounded in a light blue.

"Alright! Good, stop it before you blind us." I take a few steps towards Mozzarella and the light disappears. "Now let's get to work!"

## Chapter 7: Mozzarella: New Clothing

Monterey smiles as he wears his new clothes. His school uniform was taken into account while making the cloak. The clothing is split into three parts. An inner, middle, and outer.

The inner part of his clothes his a layer of soft armor that will protect him from swords and knives. It is even fire resistant. The padding covers his torso and forearms and his unnoticeable under everything else.

The middle part of his clothes looks like his school uniform. The gakuran was practically copied. The eagle on the back was changed into a knife with shadowy vines growing along it like Monterey's actual knife. The color was changed to a gray that Isabelle say would match Monterey's glow.

The outer part wraps the whole outfit up. A cloak that runs all the way down to the ankles. The outside is black and the inside is orange.

Isabelle beamed at her creation. "The cloak can block even the strongest slashes and even ballista shots." She takes the final part off of the table. "This is the belt you will wear. It also has space for another dagger." She runs her fingers along a part with small loops. "Look at all the places for throwers! This will be your greatest tool as a fighter."

"Uh, thanks. This means a lot." Monterey looks at his outfit. "It is so good." He takes the belt and wraps it around his waist. The knife slides in perfectly.

Isabelle turns to me. "What about you now?"

After a few moments of thinking, I decide what I will be. "Something for markswoman. Like crossbows." I think about home and how I made my own tanks. Making a rifle or pistol can't be that hard, right?

After an hour of work, during which I found a stack of unused paper and drew up some designs for a rifle I could make, Isabelle announces that she finished. I showed Isabelle my designs while I waited and now I was going to see what she made. Much like Monterey's, I had a three part outfit.

The part that went under everything was exactly like Monterey's. The flexible armor would protect me from knives and even fire. It was a lot more comfortable than it looks.

The middle part was equally comfortable. It is a light blue vest. It tucks into the dark pants.

Isabelle made me a cloak exactly like Monterey's, only blue on the inside. The final parts was a holster that would hold two pistols and ammunition. I also got a sling that will hold more bullets and a rifle when I get the blacksmith to make it.

With both me and Monterey in our clothes, Isabelle gives us back packs that I swear look bigger on the inside.

"Is it just me or is the inside bigger than the outside?" Monterey asks before I can.

Isabelle winks. "That's up to you to decide. And here." She walks to a wall of drawers and reaches into one. She pulls out two rolls. "These are for you to sleep on."

"Thank you for these." I say while putting the bedroll into my back pack and putting it on.

Ken puts his arms around both me and Monterey. "Well you two look great! Now we need to see the big man with the hammer now!"

Monterey and I look at eachother. Who the hell will Ken consider big?

## Chapter 8: Monterey: Smitty the Smithy

When Ken says 'Big Guy' I expected a massive mountain of muscle, but this guy is barely taller than me.

Ken fists bumps the guy. "Smitty! Long time no see!"

Smitty laughs. "I know! Where've you been, brother?" Wait, this is Ken's brother?!

"Here and there, but you need to meet these two!" Ken shoves both of us forward. "Believe it or not, these are the Saints!"

"Tsk, don't make me laugh!"

"No really, go on, do the thing!"

By 'the thing' I think he means the light. Mozzarella moves before I can and the dimly lit forge brightens.

Smitty puts his hand over his eyes. "Ok ok, I get it!" I step towards Mozzarella and the forge darkens. "I'm guessing that you want weapons and armor?"

I pull out my knife. "Yes, but first, tell me about this."

The blacksmith takes the knife from my hands. "There's nothing all that special about it." He opens it. It is just a regular knife. "Oh, it looks to be made from a lighter metal than steel."

"What? It isn't doing the thing!"

"What thing?"

"It does this thing where it grows!" Smitty raises his eyebrow. "Give it to me! I'll show you!" Smitty closes it and gives the knife to me skeptically. I open it and the knife lengthens slightly. The vines grow on the metal.

"I see now, a blessed weapon."

"So you know what it is?"

"Yes, basically, this blade is infused with magic that gives it some sort of property."

"Is it good?"

"It could be, in this case it is a simple growth spell." He looks at the vines. "But those are new to me. Along with the fact that it only responds to you... curious."

Ken butts in. "Hate to interrupt you, but we are here for business."

Smitty waves his hand. "I know, I know. I know exactly what they need. The kid with the knife needs armor, some throwers, and another blade. The chick looks like she could use some armor and a blade or two." Smitty pauses and looks at Mozzarella closer. "Actually, she will make a great pole user. Tell m if I am correct, but you use precision in combat, right?"

Mozzarella is taken a back. Taz explains the situation. "Smitty has a way of reading people when it comes to combat style."

Mozzarella pulls a notebook from her cloak pocket and rips a few pages out. "Actually, I have a special request." She gives the papers to Smitty.

Smitty studies them. "Interesting, difficult to make. I've never seen anything like it. I'll make it! This will be a fun challenge!"

Mozzarella beams. What could be on that paper?

Smitty tucks away the paper. "In the meantime, I have plenty of extra armor and weapons ready to be fitted." He points to me. "Let's start with you."

## Chapter 9: Monterey: Armor

Smitty pulls me to the side just to just before the light appears. "I already got a knife for you, we just need to fit some armor and you are good to go!"

After some measuring, Smitty pulls aside Mozzarella and measures her.

While waiting, Mozzarella looks anxious. I decide to ask. "You look nervous."

"It's just the fact that we might never get back home."

Smitty comes back with two metal plates. "Alright you two! Here is your magic armor!" He tosses the plates to us.

Just as the plates touch us, they form around us, going under the cloaks we wear. I am amazed. "They are so light."

Smitty winks. "Enjoy magic armor, this is just what it is. Now for weapons, I got this knife that would work perfectly." He reaches to the wall and pulls down a knife that has weird spikes on the back. "This is a sword breaker, you use these ridges to latch onto blades and pull them out of your opponent's hands or well, break the sword." It fits perfectly into the side scabbard that Isabelle made. He gives me a set of throwing knives and pats me on the back.

"Thank you, Smitty." To think someone would give me so much like this was unthinkable.

Smitty then gives Mozzarella a long stick with a lump of metal on top. Mozzarella looks almost disgusted. "Is this a joke?"

Smitty chuckles. "Just imagine the end becoming the tip of a spear, or a axe, or whatever."

Mozzarella sighs, then tightens her grip on the stick and closes her eyes. The metal at the tip starts to move like a liquid and forms a spear head. Mozzarella opens her eyes. "Woah"

Inej taps my shoulder. "It's time to go, there is much to be done."

So we leave the forge now fully prepared for a fight. Our spirits are high and it feels like we can take on the world. "Where do we go from here?" I ask Ken.

"Simply put, we have to start looking for the Emperor."

## Chapter 10: Monterey: Recollection

It's been six months since we fell from the sky. I barely think of home these days. I still wake up every day with Mozzarella's arms wrapped around me. We have been traveling north slowly to find The Emperor.

We've also been learning, apparently Ken is skilled in the pole weapons and has been teaching Mozzarella how to fight while I took lessons from Inej. I've also gotten stronger, hunting and killing darklings that come to me like moths. Taz explained that darklings are attracted to powerful auras.

"No matter what techniques we use to hide auras, the darklings can always sniff it out." He said.

The more darklings I destroy, the more powerful my knife becomes. When it is open it looks like one of those old Roman swords. Mozzarella says that it is a Greek Kopis. But I found that just by thinking about it, I can make the blade stretch out into what Mozzarella called a "Albion Cherusker" which apparently means "big knife". And it does get pretty long. But I also found out that I could make it smaller and for some reason, when it gets smaller it also gets sharper. It is sharp enough that when I dropped a coin from only an inch above the knife, the coin got cut in half while I felt no resistance on the knife.

We also learned about the art of hunting dragons and all the ways to use the different parts of it. From what part of the meat tasted the best to how the claws can be melted to create a strong glue.

We also learned the history of this place. Apparently, about five hundred years ago this land was free and everyone was happy and lived easily. Then, a man calling himself Emperor conjured an army of the first darklings and took the land by force.

All of the magical creatures that we come across were created by The Emperor's power. The creatures become weaker the farther they are from The Emperor, which makes it easy for us to become stronger so that we can get to the palace where The Emperor is.

Also... this may sound weird, especially from me, but I feel happy when I'm around Mozzarella. She is the only girl that I have been around for a long time other than my sister. I wonder how my sister, Swiss is doing back home.

## Chapter 11: Mozzarella: Palace

The palace looked like it was ripped straight from some sort of video game. The dark stone walls were almost purple.

"This is it" Ken said, "you can feel the power from it."

He was right, I never sensed something this evil, even Venator's lair scared me less than this place. I feel Monterey's hand rest on my shoulder. I turn to see his face. To think that half a year ago, I dragged him from his timeline and we got stuck together. Monterey has gotten strong in the time that we have been here. I can feel his strength flowing into me with that smile of his.

"Come on, we are the saints of the prophecy. are we not? So don't look so scared!"

"I guess that you're right. We have nothing to worry about."

Ken threw ropes with hooks on them to all of us. "It's go time"

From then on, we were silent as we scaled the wall and fought the deadly creatures that served as the Emperor's army. My spear easily took out single enemies while Monterey's knife stopped the one's that got too close. It almost felt like dancing.

Eventually, we started making our way into the castle halls, fighting stronger enemies until we burst into the main hall.

The ceiling stretched for what seemed like forever and at the back of the room sat a lone throne.

"There's... no one here..." I said, feeling disappointed. We move closer to the throne, ready for an attack from anywhere.

Something was off, I looked at the party's faces. Monterey had a slight look of uneasiness. Inej had her normal face. Taz's face was covered by his hat. And Ken looked excited, like he had a large piece of dragon in front of him. Something was wrong here, why is Ken excited?

Ken speaks, "looks like he isn't here, Monterey, why don't you take a look around?"

"Yes" Monterey goes around the throne, it wasn't grand by any means.

When Monterey was on the other side of the throne while I watched his back for any traps, I felt Ken move suddenly behind me. It all suddenly made sense when I felt the sharp pain in my back.

## Chapter 12: Monterey: Short Notice

The pain that Mozzarella spilled into me through the chain this isn't the first time one of us got injured and the other felt the same pain.

Once, Mozzarella was scratched in the back by a gardle and I felt all of the pain and even had red marks on my back.

This time was different, this was a fatal strike through the heart. What happens if one of us dies? Mozzarella's eyes started to dull as her heart stopped. I could feel the life leaving jer body.

Ken laughed, "sorry this took so long to get here."

Inej smirked, "I can't believe that you believed our story."

Taz just stood still with his hat covering his eyes.

Ken pulled his sword out of Mozzarella and let her fall to the ground. "Well, we just needed someone from the other side to lift my banishment, so we were suprised to see two fall through."

I couldn't speak through the pain, and my speed ability needs me to be focused. I was forced to listen.

"You see, some old sorceress banished me from being emperor." Ken continued monologing, "she used the power of every bloodline in the realm to take my power away. But with the blood of someone not from this realm, I can get enough power to reverse the curse. So I got some faithful followers and traveled until we gathered enough residual energy to pull another realm closer to ours."

Mozzarella's blood started to move toward the throne. As more blood gathered, a humming filled the room.

I grit my teeth. I'm going to do what Mozzarella told me to do in bad situations, go down kicking and screaming. The thought helped me focus and I had my speed back.

Time slowed down as I extended my knife, jumping over the throne to attack Ken. What happened next was a blur as my speed and training took over. When the fighting was over, I had knocked Ken and the others against the wall. The humming from the throne had started to shake my body. I was covered in scratches from Inej's knives, burns from Taz's flames, and bruises from Ken's pomel.

The pain came back when I realized that I won. "Mozz!" I picked up her body and watched the chair start to turn bright white.

Ken grumbled, "It is too late, there is enough blood for me to rise. The energy of the other realms are converging here." Through the light, I could see... tanks? Sure enough, I saw a row of tanks. "See that? That is the other realm, we are only seperated by a thin barrier now."

When Ken mentioned a barrier, I remembered this book I read long ago. There was this character that could travel between worlds bu cutting the barrier with a magic knife that could cut anything. Is it possible to cut the barrier? I ignore Ken and raise my knife, I shrink it down to size. Is this sharp enough? I copy the movements that the charecter in the book made, feeling around the air with the knife. There! I felt a snag in what must have been reality itself. I put the knife to the snag and cut. After putting up resistance, the barrier broke into a small hole that I could squeeze me and Mozzarella through. I take a look back at Ken as he tries to get up and grab me. I take in a deep breath and jump through the barrier.

On the other side, my knife goes back to normal size from before going into the other universe. The barrier starts to heal when I look back. I start to feel my consciousness slip from relief whenthe barrier seals and leaves us in the warehouse. There are lines of T-34 tanks, so I assume that we are at Pravda. I look down at Mozzarella as I black out. Home

## Epilogue: Erina: Who Are These Two?

I was wandering around the garage when I heard a thwump sound. I was supposed to be the only one in the garage, so I was curious as to just what I heard.

I peaked around a tank and saw two weirdly dressed students. Both had white hair and wore cloaks like they were some cosplayers. And they were covered in "BLOOD!"

The End?