The group of friends looked on in complete disbelief as the boulders and rocks laying all around them at the large mountain-flat near the top swirled in the high, breezy wind. They then formed into large, aggressive looking monsters, having no faces but looking as though they were ready to tear anything to pieces that tried to get passed them. Prya gasped in terror then rushed over to Ling's side and held onto her arm, her eyes wide. For a few moments, the rock monsters, about seven or so of them, looked down at the intruders, almost as if sizing them up.
One of them stepped up, and when its heavy foot slammed down on the ground, the tremor it caused nearly made them fall as they swayed, trying to keep their balance. Gulping, Angeni took a step back and cast a nervous glance over at her friends. "You guys, this doesn't look good! What do we do?"
Quickly Jeneta looked around, up the last few remaining feet at the top behind the monsters. She took a deep breath and narrowed her eyes determinedly. "There's nothing else to do but fight our way past them. The rest of you stay back, Heather and I will see if we can handle them," With that, Jeneta closed her eyes, and along with Heather, raised her right fist and concentrated hard on the sword she fought so hard to get. A warmth flowed through their veins like nothing they had ever felt before, and in a bright flash, the Eye of Ra appeared magically in Jeneta's hand, and Lumias shone bright and sharp in Heather's.
"Be careful," whispered Prya, still holding onto Ling, but the words barely got out of her mouth before the rock-like monsters rushed them. The group separated, and Heather and Jeneta jumped away from the rest of them, drawing the attention of their attackers from the rest of the group as they hid behind some large shrubs for safety. The spot where Jeneta and Heather just stood was smashed to a deep hole as one of the creatures jumped up high and landed with an earth shattering thud on it, its gigantic feet grinding deep down. No sooner than it landed than Heather ran up behind it and jabbed her sword deep into its back. With a grunt, the English girl cut across and neatly sliced it in half. The body of the monster immediately crumpled into rock piles and dust. But not even a second later, another one of the rock creatures suddenly jumped down behind her, and without her seeing, it raised its arm and smashed its fist into her back, sending her flying across and nearly off the mountain cliff as she screamed in pain. Luckily, she grabbed onto a few branches of the shrubs with her free hand before she could fall over.
"Heather!" screamed out Jeneta. After flipping backwards away from a swinging arm of the monster she was fighting, Jeneta jumped high, and with her sword raised high above her, she swung down and cleanly separated its head from its body. As soon as she landed, she rushed over to where Heather was hanging on, panting heavily.
"Heather, are you okay?" She reached out a hand and quickly tried to pull her up.
"I....think so," the blonde girl rasped in pain, "I just..LOOK OUT!" Heather's eyes widened in terror as one of the monsters rushed up behind the dark-skinned girl, and prepared to smash her to oblivion with its fists. Jeneta turned her head and screamed in terror as she drew her arm up with her sword across her face in protection, but the death blow never came.
A crack of a whip rang loudly in the wind, and when Jeneta opened her eyes a moment later, she saw that indeed, the monster's arm was stopped by a black, metal tipped whip holding it in mid-air. At the controlling end of the whip, wearing a smirk on her face, was Hun Li in a fighting stance. "Just thought you girls might need a little help," the woman said, holding onto her whip with surprising strength. With a loud battle yell, she pulled back on her whip, and the creature was flung back and smashed into pieces on the ground, dusting flying up. When it cleared, Hun Li stood back to back with her brother, Tao, arms crossed, and Djoser right by their side.
Jeneta blinked in amazement, then suddenly remembering why she was there, she quickly pulled Heather up and helped her to stand. "Are you hurt badly?" she asked with concern.
"No, not...really," But despite her words, Heather winced a little, and pain was clearly showing in her eyes as she tried to straighten up. "Or rather at least, I will be okay."
"Heads up!" yelled out Tao, pointing to their right. Another one of the rock monsters came rushing forward, each of its steps creating a small tremor. Heather and Jeneta raised their swords to defend themselves, but before they could strike, Tao suddenly came flipping over their heads and landed protectively in front of them. Neither girl could take her eyes off of him as he used lightning-quick moves to deliver numerous punches and kicks. It was like he wasn't even human! He jumped, smashed his foot into the side of the creature's head in a side kick, then on his way down from his jump, kicked his other foot out and delivered a hard blow to the chest, nearly knocking it off its feet. Then as he landed perfectly, he swung out his leg in a graceful sweep and knocked out the monsters rock legs from underneath it. It was so fast, the creature had no time to defend itself, and it smashed into dust as it crashed to the ground.
Meanwhile, Hun Li saw another one of them try and sneak up behind the spellbound Heather and Jeneta, and narrowing her eyes, rushed forward and sprang high into the air in a flip. While still in mid-flight, she cracked her whip again and it wrapped around the thick leg of the creature as it was just about to grab Jeneta. When she landed, she pulled back hard and it fell heavily to the ground. But it wasn't finished yet. No sooner had it hit the ground, than it got up quickly and advanced towards the woman. It swung its large, bulgy arms, but Hun Li back flipped away from it, and when she landed, she jumped up once again did a sideways double twist spin, and delivered a very hard kick to its chest that would have killed any man. The creature dropped to the ground, cracked, and kept rolling until it fell off the side of the mountain cliff Heather was hanging from just moments ago.
For a moment, Jeneta looked at where the creature fell from, then turned back to look at Hun Li and Tao with complete admiration. "Whoa! Where'd the both of you learn to kick butt like THAT?" she said, rushing up to Hun Li with Heather as she straightened her clothes.
Hun Li smiled shyly as she rolled her whip back up and tucked it away beneath her coat. "As children of the chieftain, Father insisted that we learned to defend ourselves. We've been training ever since we were children. But believe me, I'm nothing compare to how good my father wa..."
Her sentence never got finished as Djoser rushed towards them, his hands held out before him as he readied a spell. "It's not over yet! Everyone, duck down!" At that, everyone dropped to the ground as the last of the rock monsters jumped down from wherever it was hiding to confront them.
Just as it raised its massive arms to smash them all, Djoser shouted out "Expollius Flamtarium!" Immediately a burst of red, angry looking flames jumped out from his hands, and it engulfed the monster as it tried to turn around and see dared interrupt it. If it could have screamed, its cries would have ringed throughout the whole region. It flailed its arms high around it in agony, and finally, as it was backing up, it fell over the side of the mountain cliff to its doom, the fire creating a long stream after it.
Seconds later, Djoser looked around as everyone got up, but didn't see any more threat. "Everyone okay?"
"Yeah, I'm fine," said Jeneta, wiping the sweat from her dark forehead and brow. Everyone else nodded, and tiredly, they went back to the place where Prya, Ling and Angeni were hiding safely. Closing their eyes, Heather and Jeneta concentrated once more, and their swords disappeared in a soft white light and absorbed back into their bodies.
"Oh, thank goodness you're all okay!" said Prya as she rushed over and hugged Jeneta.
"Yeah, we were getting a bit worried," said Angeni, giving Heather a small smile. "But my instincts said you were going to be okay....and I always trust my instincts." She winked, and just then, the Sacred Medallions that Heather and Jeneta wore suddenly began to glow a bright green. Cautiously, the girls held it in their hands, and they seem to almost vibrate with energy.
"You guys, you see that?" said Jeneta, excitement filling her very being. "That means another one of the Sacred Medallions is nearby! We're almost there!"
The girls, even Hun Li, shouted and squealed with happiness and excitement as Tao looked on in amusement, but Djoser calmed them down by clearing his throat loudly. "Then if the next Sacred Medallion is near, then we shouldn't waste anymore time in getting to it. We must go before we meet anymore obstacles."
Jeneta looked at him for a moment curiously, then nodded. "You're right, we should get going."
Nervously, the other girls looked up at the remaining top of the mountain, then walked on. As the mountain was oddly shaped, there wasn't much climbing up against the mountain wall as before, and there was even a small pathway up the rest of the way, but it was old, and small shrubberies, boulders, and rocks often got in the way. The cold wind from that height blew raw against their skin, but still they walked on. Soon, just as late afternoon was setting in, the mountain smoothed out in a large flat plain again, and when they reached a clearing, they came upon the site of a old and crumbling mountain shrine chiseled deep into the last of the mountain walls. The top of it was shaped to look like the roof of a traditional home, but above it were strange pictures and words unrecognizable to the girls. Two large pillars were carved out to the sides of the immense doors, and in them were sculpted the forms of two maidens, each seeming to carry jars of water. The large double doors were a plain, dark brown color that had a skeleton's face on it, but half of the face was chipped away. Whatever more designs the entrance of the shrine had was eroded away with time and weather, for nothing more was shone to tell what the shrine was for.
"Hun Li, do you know what those words say?" asked Ling, pointing to the word carvings and pictures at the top.
"I don't know," replied Hun Li. "The language and sentence structure is so old, over two thousands years at least. It's barely recognizable." She sighed and shook her head sadly, feeling useless. She looked to her brother to see if he knew anything, but he shook his head too.
"Hmmm..." Heather adjusted the glasses on her face, and she frowned in concentration. "I've studied a bit of ancient writings and drawings in school, and even though the cultures are different, the writings and pictures are almost the same, telling about the deity they worship or some sort of warning. I think this shrine has something to do with that Mountain Demon that old man was talking about. See the picture of the figure over there?" Heather pointed to a drawing of a figure holding a long cane, and looking like a cross between a man and a monkey. "I think that's the deity they were calling the Mountain Demon."
"Maybe...but we're not going to figure out anything by just standing here. Come on!" Ling waved everyone on, and they walked forward to the entrance of the ancient temple.
Cautiously they pushed opened the heavy doors, which were surprisingly unlocked, and walked in, their eyes open for any sign of trouble. Darkness met them as they stepped inside, and Djoser closed his eyes and whispered a short incantation. Within a second, a spark erupted from Djoser's hand, and a bright ball of light sprang forward ahead of them. The girls gasped in surprise as they saw what was around them. All along the hall they were walking through, the walls were covered with old paintings of people in the middle of strange looking rituals and depictions of ancient wars and death. Inside, the air was dry and a bit dusty, but the conditions kept the painting semi-fresh. Just then, Prya gasped, and stopped to stare at something the others missed.
"What is it Prya?" said Ling, turning around and going up next to her.
The Indian girl raised her trembling hand slowly and pointed, and when the others looked they gasped too. In a particularly large painting, there were the images of five women, but their faces were almost chipped away by time for the last couple thousand years. They were standing in a circle, their hair long and flowing around them. They were clothed in beautiful white dresses with no sleeves and golden arm bracelets, and on their cheeks were golden streaks of paint, as if it was war paint and they were getting ready to fight. But what intrigued the girls the most was that each woman was a different shade of color in their skin...similar to their own. But the scene of what the painting depicted was unclear, as the rest of it had long chipped way.
Tao walked up to them and looked at the painting admiringly. "The legend of the Ones Who Are Blessed. It's been told as a story in many our cultures, in many ways." he said, nodding his head.
"Come on, we're almost there!" said Djoser from the front, eagerly awaiting them. Whatever questions the girls had simply had to wait, but there was definitely a sense of wariness the girls felt as the looked at it one last time, then walked on.
It's...it's almost as if the paintings of those women....looked like US...me, Ling, Prya, Angeni, and Heather. Jeneta thought curiously. Could that mean...could that mean that instead of looking for the Ones Who Are Blessed, that in could be...it could be..
She shook her head at the absurdness of what she almost thought, and caught up with the others. The hallway finally ended, and they soon found themselves in a large and intricately designed inner courtyard. Obviously a place of prayer and tradition, the courtyard had many seats and spots for private prayers, but all of it now was nearly in rubble, and bricks and broken pieces of walls lay everywhere. To the back, not too far from where they were standing, there was a deep cliff that seem to have been made from the many earthquakes that shook the mountain through out the years. Since it was so warm in the temple, everyone immediately took off their coats and laid it at the entrance they were standing in front of, then walked up further.
"I don't like this place, can we please go now? There's nothing but death here." said Angeni nervously. No one said anything, almost feeling how ancient these grounds were. Suddenly, there was a deep trembling and rumbling, and they all clumsily fell to the ground. But instead of stopping, the tremors grow more and more powerful. A crack appeared in the ground right in front of them, and suddenly, it burst open and a dark, very tall figure jumped out. In its hand was a large black walking stick, and the figure swirled it around in its hands after it did a double twist flip and landed in front of them. Only when it landed did the rumbling stop, and everyone's eyes widened as they got a good look at it.
Obviously male, he looked to be a crossed between a human and monkey. Black fur covered his whole body, and his feet, like in other monkeys, resembled hands. He wore an elaborate gold harem-style, puffed out pants that came down to his ankles, and on his torso, he wore the same colored vest with no sleeves that showed off his muscular, fur-covered arms. On his head was a small, golden hat that looked liked a cone with a green, fringed tassel. His face closely resembled a chimpanzee, but his eyes, green in color, showed an intelligence only humans possessed, but demented.
When the figure saw them all there, a big grin spread across his face as he twirled his long staff behind him. "OOOHHH! Hee hee! Lookie lookie, we have visitors!" he cackled. "Kon Kon wants to make his visitors welcome, yes he does! Oh hee hee!" He snapped his fingers, and immediately, dark-colored vines grew out of the cracks and fissures in the ground, and wrapped around them all at the feet and hands.
"Stop this! Let us go!" growled out Hun Li, glaring at the demented creature.
"Oh HEE HEE HEE! Kon Kon no had visitors in so long! Visitors stay here! Visitors DIE here! Oh HEE HEE!" The tall Kon Kon raised his staff high and twirled around in a happy dance as he laughed, ecstatic to finally have victims.
"Stupid Monkey-face! If you let me out of here, I'll GIVE something to laugh about!" shouted out Ling. She struggled hard against the crushing vines, but it was in vain.
Kon Kon suddenly stopped dancing and turned to look at Ling with an evil, scrunched up face. With a growl, he rushed forward and grabbed Ling by the throat. With a twitch of his lips, the vines around Ling grew limp and loose. Then with his hand still around her throat, the monkey-like man picked her up and carried her over to the side of the deep cliff, and held her over it. Ling gasped in fright and desperation as her feet dangled beneath her. Below her, the cliff ended in black nothingness. "HEE HEE! Kon Kon no like big mouth girl! Kon Kon sacrifice her first, then sacrifice others! OH HEE HEE!"
The others gasped in complete horror as they heard those words, then had to helplessly hear Ling gasp and struggle for breath as he squeezed his hand tighter around her throat.
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To Be Continued....
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