| | | | It felt like I was falling down an endless tunnel that seemed to drag me down into the darkness. Just as the last fade of light was swallowed up, I landed, hard, on the cold floor that ringed my butt like it was made of metal. I groaned, and suddenly torches lit up all around the room to reveal Malistaire's dungeon. I knew it was his since I've been down there before. I looked around my surroundings. The blood red walls were starting to peel off from all the rust and dirt forming around here. I saw a couple of skeletons in chains with dry water bowls within reach of them, that is, if they were still alive. I snapped back to reality when I heard crying in the distance. I made my way across the walls to see a beautiful girl in chains, sobbing like the world was about to end. Instinct told me to free her so I started to cut off the soft chains with my pocket knife. Darkness my dragon lunged at a dark shadow that I hadn't realized before when it came near behind me. It was no other then Malistaire! He growled in anger and flung Darkness away but I managed to pry off the girl's shackles in time and together, we ran down an opening hallway. Malistaire summoned three banshees at us and one of them hurled itself at the girl. It clawed her face to make three long, hideous and bloody scars across her cheek. The other two jumped on me and stabbed me with a rusty dagger in the back. The hot metal stung me furiously and felt as if a hundred scorpions just stung me. I screamed and darkness covered me up into Malistaire's jagged laughs.....
I woke up with a start. I found myself in an old fashioned room with dog pictures all over the place. I was laying in a bed with some type of weird clear tube that went in my wrist! I was so surprised that I fell out of bed and the tube flicked off, water spilling everywhere. It was sort of gross with this liquid from my body spurting out all over me but I got up and cleaned the mess with some paper towels on a dresser. That done, I hopped back on to bed and realized that every thing around here was girly! Flowers decorated the bed and the pink floor really freaked me out. Then, an elderly woman stepped into my room and fed me mutton soup without a word. She spoke softly, "Your health is dangerly low young one. No amount of potions or pixies will help you. Earth herbs and some soup should get you going faster." I felt better and the woman allowed me to explore the house but she kept a close eye on me. I walked down the stairs slowly and bumped into a young girl. She was only about the age of nine with pink ponytails that hung at her shoulders with a darker pink shirt on and blue navy jeans. Not your average girl but we both apologized and introduced our selves. "I'm Kathy," she noted. "I'm Dustin." "How old are you?" she inquired. She had that girl look that she was um, interested in me. About five years older than her, I was a little uncomfortable but I told her my age anyway. She huffed her breath and lifted a snobby nose in the air, and stomped up the stairs in a hurry. Whats her problem? I thought in my head. "Hey! You finally woke up!" said a voice in my head. "Brian? That you?" I whispered to him. Brain ThunderCaster teleported to me in a flash of stars and magic. "Yep." He smiled deviously. "What happened and where are we?" I demanded. "Well, I heard some sort of BOOM when I was about to whisper to you after that balloon crash of yours so I ported to you. I happened to be riding on my dragon, Sparx, when I saw you falling so I caught you and took you to this nice old lady's house in Marleybone. The hospitals were full at that time so yeah, here you are." He gasped for breath and recovered when I asked,"Who was that snobby pink girl?" "Oh, you mean Kathy? I met her at the door and yes, she does get "interested" in all the guys that come to her home." "Yeah, well, lets get out of here. I'm getting bored." "OK." replied Brian. He took us to the Marleybone Commons.
"Hey, did a thief happen to steal your new staff we got yesterday too?" I asked Brian. "Yeah, this hooded-figure stole it while I was playing some carnival games." "Weird, that same guy stole mine at home. You don't think he stole Kevin's and the other Brian's too do you?" Brian thought for a minute. He then said,"I'm not sure but lets teleport to them anyway, just to make sure they're all right." In another flash of stars and light, we ported to Kevin FrostSword. "Hey!" cried Kevin angerly as we poofed right into a battle. "Whoops." said me and Brian together when we realized we attracted two more enemies into the arena. We arrived in Mooshu with now four ninja pigs on to us. As I finished the last one off with a vampire, all three of us went to the Mooshu Commons. After Kevin sold all of some useless stuff he got from battles at the hat store, Brian asked Kevin if his staff was stolen too. "Yep, gone from the deep blue. I was on a boat ride and a hand suddenly broke through the wooden boat, causing a hole. Before I could react, it snatched my ice staff from me and sunk me! I got out with my ice wyvern just in the nick of time though." "What the heck?" I yelled. We explained that OUR staffs were stolen too. "I'm not liking where this is going." I said cautiously. I stole a look at Brian but he saw it and nodded, telling me that we should check on the Life Brian too. We ported for the last time to see Brian GoldenHeart in the Wizard City Shopping District. He was gazing at Elik's Edge as if he was lost into some other enchanted world. "Yo, snap out of it Brian!" I said, giving him a little push. "Wha-?" said Brian GoldenHeart, dazed. "What were you thinking?" asked the other Brian to the level 22 Life student. "Nothing." mumbled Brian. He turned around and was surprised to see all three of us together. "Whatcha all doing here? Did I get in trouble by Merle?" "Nope." said Kevin and we explained it tiringly for the fourth time that all of our staffs were stolen by some hooded figure and asked the same question,"Did they steal yours too?" Brian sighed and replied,"Yes. It happened while I was peering at the hole where the Death School used to be in RavenWood. I was just, you know, wondering about stuff while I was there and my staff was suddenly thrown into the hole and the hooded guy got up with his dragon from it and flew away." "Something tells me that Mali-, I mean HE had to do with this." said Kevin. "Now that you mention it, that DOES make sense for him to hire a thief to steal our wands." All four of us looked at one another and knew we had to know why Malistaire stole them and what he planned to do.
"All I know is that first we have to get permission from Headmaster Ambrose to travel to Malistaire's world." noted Brian T. I thought about the old man who was so kind to me when I first arrived at Wizard City as his arch enemy's crusader. "Not the old man! He would never allow us to journey there with just the four of us! He's too crabby." complained Kevin. I shot a dark look at Kevin which caused him to shrink away a little. I was getting used to it. "Well, maybe we can ask Gamma's half-spirit, Ammag." said Brian G. "Isn't that spelled Gamma backwards?" I asked. He nodded. "We can find him on top of the Golem Court Tower, I saw him up there but more ghostly like with this fade of greenish light. People that asked him before say that he's some type of Oracle or fortune teller that talks about the future if they are worthy enough to know." "Cool, let's all go." said Kevin and immediatly ran to the tower. The rest of us followed him and climed up the hard steps, occasionally finding a wooden puppet or clockwork golem on every floor that we had to battle through. We arrived to the roof where a black owl surrounded by a green mystical light was perched up, reading this charred book. When Kevin took one step towards Ammag, Ammag cried,"Who disturbs my study?" He turned around to find us with his piercing silver eyes that locked on to our every move. I just realized that Ammag's voice was not like Gamma's regular owl sound that always lengthened out the "oo" sound. Ammag had a deeper voice that sounded almost like a grown man. "W-well," stuttered Brian G. "We want to know if we should journey to Malistaire to find our answers." remarked Brian T. thoughtfully. Suddenly, Ammag's eyes grew huge and turned red. His head kept on twirling around, clockwise at a full circle! Scared, I took a few steps back but the others stood their ground which made me feel like such a noob. When Ammag finally calmed down, he spoke in a soft-like voice,
"The tower of dark,
littered with bark,
shall be revealed soon,
by an amibitious raccoon,
the dragons will roar,
the birds will soar,
only four can go,
row by row,
one will betray,
another lost to decay,
the enemy will burn,
but only two shall return."
With that done said, Ammag rose his powerful wings that created a orange light around the four of us and carried us back towards earth where Mr. Lincoln ushered us to class. We all decided to play hooky from school and hung out near Elik's Edge again. "That was freaky, but remember what he said about how one of us will die and the other would betray us?" I said. We all nodded. "And how about that thing Ammag said about that a raccoon would find Malistaire?" asked Kevin. "I don't know, but we better keep a look out for them." Brian T. said. "I'm pretty sure that two of us would defeat Malistaire. Remember how Ammag said that the enemy will burn but only two shall return?" asked Brian G. "Yep." I said. All of a sudden, we all looked at one another with a wary eye. One of us would betray us but who? "Hey, hey, hey, if we want to continue this quest, we'll have to trust each other no matter what. At least we can get our staffs back." I said, breaking up the stare battle. "You know, he's right. Let's start looking for that raccoon." said Brian T. "Awwww, can't we eat something first? I'm starving!" moaned Kevin. I sighed. "Alright, you want some Cheerios cereal?" "Cheery- what?" said Kevin. I laughed out loud. The two Brians joined in. Kevin just stared at us, dumbfound. But he managed a chuckle and for the first time in my life, through the dark beginning of my trial, I actually enjoyed myself, and it felt good.
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