Chapter 4
As Emily and I landed near the City's Tae Kwon Do, Elizabeth was just about to begin her training in front of the entrance of the building. It was clear she knew we were there; she had just made sure to concentrate on her training instead of on us, so Emily and I just watched as she did her training. As Emily and I watched her train more, we started talking, quiet enough to not distract Elizabeth but loud enough to be able to hear each other.
"I've always wondered why Elizabeth keeps practicing even though she already has a black belt; she must think she has to have perfect self-defense skills or something." I started.
"Well, practice does make perfect doesn't it?" Emily stated.
"It does… sometimes."
"What do mean by 'sometimes?'"
"What I mean is sometimes practice doesn't always make perfect, no matter how hard you try. Like for me, no matter how hard I try to study History, I still only get Cs and sometimes Bs."
"Well, you maybe don't practice often enough or hard enough."
"Maybe, but God gives different people different passions for certain things, like God gave me a passion for Chemistry and Science."
"I believe God gave me a passion for music since I like to play the keyboard, piano, and the guitar."
"I also think God gave me a passion for music because I'm pretty good with the keyboard and a synthesizer."
"I still remember you wanting to start your own band with you being the lead male singer and the Synth machine player and/or keyboarder. I was going to be the lead keyboarder and lead female singer. John was going to be the lead electric guitar player and Elizabeth was going to be the back-up electric guitar player. And Mark was going to be the drummer. Those were the good days. I even remember us practicing in the garage at my house and we would end up playing so loud the whole neighborhood could hear us!"
"Yeah, those were the good days. Now look at us. We're supernatural shadow things with masks, glowing eyes, and excellent fighting skills."
"We'll just have to make the best of what we have now. Use it for good instead for whatever our selfish sides want."
Just as we finished our little conversation, Elizabeth had stopped training and just stopped almost perfectly still. It was like she had just been turned into a statue or something. Emily and I walk up to her, and she flinches and steps aside, staring at us, her eyes glowing the same blue-violet color mine were when I first became whatever I am. Believe it or not, even though our eyes weren't the same color as Elizabeth's, we were just as fearful as she was at the moment. Elizabeth had an electric katana just like mine I was still holding, blazing on her back like a campfire ablaze upon a stack of logs. I miss the old days when my friends and I would just decide to go camping up in Deadrock Mountain, which is now my home of course. My friends and I have made many memories camping in Deadrock Mountain like John attempting to catch a fish with his bare hands and it ended up dragging him upstream several hundred feet before he finally got it onto land just by simply throwing it to my friends and me. There was this other time when I was trying to set up one of those tree traps in case someone tried to trespass onto our camping ground, instead I ended up walking into the trap. It snatched me up like a bullfrog swallowing fat flies.
Elizabeth had her left hand, since she isn't right handed, her right arm was her shadow arm, on the handle of her katana as if Emily and I were going to assault her or have some others ambush her, but she was always pretty cautious when she wasn't the shadow thing she is now. I wonder if she actually recognized us at all or if she thought we were some of the shadow soldiers working for the Shadow. Either way, Emily and I approached her carefully, hoping not to make a wrong move. "Lizzy, it's us, Emily and Jack, your friends from high school. Listen to me, I know how you feel right now, trust me. The Shadow, as you can see, got Emily and me as well. John and probably Mark got attacked by the Shadow and turned into whatever we are. But sadly, that guy Michael also got caught but he works for the Shadow. He has a purple mask just in case you run into someone who may seem like Michael."
Elizabeth just stared at me as if she were trying to find what words to say without sounding ridiculous. "Why would the Shadow-thing turn us into this?"
"That's exactly what we're going to find out as soon as we find where John ran off to and after we find Mark. I'm guessing Mark's at the Ring?" I commented.
"He might be at this time of day, but we won't know for sure unless we go see for ourselves." Elizabeth replied. And that's exactly what we did.
As we Elizabeth, Emily, and I flew towards the Ring, which was downtown, I could hear a familiar voice in my head. Must… search… allies… destroy… Those were the only words I could make out but then I heard another voice; it sounded like the Shadow's. Both voices suddenly became clear enough for me to make out the words. What I was heard was, "How could you have lost them?! They were right there in your hands! What the heck went wrong?!" This was definitely the Shadow's voice.
"Listen to me, sir. I had John held hostage until Jack and his friend Emily showed up. How the heck am I supposed to fight off two people at once without any weapons?" I believe this is Michael since it sounds just like him.
"You use that darned brain of yours and figure it out yourself! Where the heck are Jack and Emily heading now?"
"They are going to the Ring to find their friend, Mark. That guy's going to be a real pain in the butt to fight."
"What you state is true. I'm going to send CY the Cybosapien to go after them so that you can get stronger for when I'll need you again."
"All right, sir."
"CY the Cybosapien, I demand to see you!"
"Yes, Shadow sir?" CY the Cybosapien said, apparently my teacher Cyrus has been turned into a robot. That's just what I need. Not only that but he also works for the Shadow which is even worse news for me.
"I need you to go to the Ring and destroy Jack and his friends immediately!"
"Yes sir."
The voices stopped just as my friends and I landed in front of the Ring. The Ring was surrounded by several buildings, one being a coffee shop, another being a gaming store, and most of the others being clothing or thrift stores. My friends and I peeked inside the building and found an invisible-masked person, who was very muscular, just like Mark, and his mask was grass green color, but his eyes were glowing red as he violently punched the punching bag hanging from the weary ceiling in front of him. He continued to punch even when we tried to call out to him; it's almost as if he was hypnotized or was in a zone of some sort. I decided to be brave and walk up to him cautiously to see what was up. I placed my hand on his shoulder and he instantly looked at me like I've awaken him up from his little daze. "Mark, are you all right, brother?" I asked calmly. Mark shook his head and replied, "Jack? The Shadow got you, too?"
"Yes, Mark, and the Shadow got Emily, Elizabeth, and John as well. But unfortunately, the Shadow even got Michael and Cyrus and they work for it."
"Well, you said they got John as well, right? Then, where is he?"
"He was with us when we tried to get him and we ended up running into Michael and then, John ran off."
"He was being a little scaredy cat is what it sounds like."
"Exactly, and we absolutely need to find him before the Shadow, Michael, or Cyrus do. So, we would like you to join us in our search for John and the Shadow's lair so we can take him down. Care to accept our invitation?"
"Definitely if it means taking down the Shadow and saving lives while doing it!" Mark answered with an answer that seemed a bit rehearsed.
Whir. The sound of a robot silenced everyone momentarily. We kept quiet to see if we could hear the noise again. Whir, whir, whir, it sounded like a robot walking and it was only getting louder and clearer by the second. My friends and I looked towards the entrance and saw a robot. Well, to be precise, a Cy-Borg, which is a half-man, half-robot type of being. The left half of its body was human and the right half was robot. Its robot body had glowing red, robotic eyes, a variety of guns located in its arm, and what appear to be rocket boosters built into its leg and foot. This must be the same thing that the Shadow was talking to, telling it to destroy us!
"I think I should have told all of you this before, but I could hear the Shadow talking somewhere distant and it told a certain robot named CY the Cybosapien to come after us and destroy us." All of my friends look at me with their eyes all glowing red; I figured they were probably mad at me for not telling them such information prior to the Cy-Borg showing up. The Cy-Borg silenced us by speaking. "I am CY the Cybosapien. I have been sent here by the Shadow to annihilate Jack and his friends." CY scans us and beings beeping like a fire alarm. "Target located. Proceed to annihilation of target." CY's robot arm started forming a gun of some kind, a Revolver hopefully, if anything, I'm just hoping it doesn't form a machine gun or Gatling gun or even worse, a missile launcher. My friends and I readied our weapons, my electric katana and pistol, Elizabeth's electric katana, Mark's fists, and Emily's electric metal bar she decided to keep from that fight with Michael at the thrift store.
"Now look here, CY, or should I say, Mr. Cyrus Johnson, we can either do this the easy way, the medium way, the hard way, the impossible way, the evil way, the holy way, the ridiculous way, the logical way, the scientifically inaccurate way, or the rational way." I think some of those words might have meant the same as some of the others, but I couldn't help myself but see if I had made CY malfunction or not. By the looks of it, I possibly might have done just that.
"Well, Jack Bruce. I would like to choose… the deadly way!" CY exclaimed, but I decided to interrupt him for a fantastic reason.
"Hold on a second. That wasn't one of the choices! You can't choose the deadly way because I didn't list that as one of your options to choose from! Why couldn't you at least have chosen the impossible way or the scientifically inaccurate way? Or better yet, why couldn't you have chosen the holy way?" I argued. CY the Cybosapien literally just froze staring at me trying to think of a logical reply to my rather wild comment about him choosing a non-existent option. After waiting for CY to do something, the robot forms a machine gun in its robot arm, loads it and aims it at my chest.
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