: The Legend of the Keys :

It seemed to Clair that they were living out an adventure from one of the fantasy books SSS read. After the first trap, it seemed like there was a new one waiting for them every few feet. Some were ice-based so Jan would disable them or, at the least, warn them. Most, however, were entirely unpredictable. More than once they had nearly been done in by the clever traps laid down so long ago. She was only glad that Jan had long ago sent her snow leopards away to keep them safe; they made her nervous.

“These things are ahead of their time,” Zergio muttered as he climbed to his feet. A large knife was embedded in the wall at about eye level. He pulled it out and inspected it. A large crack ran the length of the blade. He tapped it against the wall and the metal shattered. “I take that back. Don’t you guys have metal that won’t become brittle in the extreme cold, now?”

Jan nodded as she knelt on the ground some distance ahead of them. There was a rumbling noise that they had come to associate with the disabling of a trap. She stood up and put her hands on her hips. “Let’s keep moving, team!”

SSS smiled and followed the enthusiastic girl. She was amused by the strange mix of oblivion and seriousness with which Jan treated the mission. She was about to comment on this when an odd noise attracted her attention.

“What do you hear?” Clair asked when she noticed that SSS had stopped. They all listened quietly to identify the noise. It sounded like a large creature puffing angrily mingled with the sounds of shouting. The small group looked at each other in confusion and continued moving forward, this time at a slower pace.

“There is a huge heat source ahead of us,” Clair said suddenly. She pointed farther down the tunnel and to the left. “That also sounds like the source of that noise.” They ran, now, curious to find out what was going on. Several minutes later they stopped.

“Those traps had been triggered already,” SSS observed, noting a pile of broken knives on he ground.

“There’s something hot around the corner,” Jan said, frowning. “It’s melting the ice; I can feel it.”

The other three looked at each other, memories of what they had overheard in Dei’s office flooding their minds. They sneaked down the tunnel and found themselves in a large cavern.

The cavern itself did not seem to be spectacular, just a large ice-cave like any other. The thing that made it odd was the large machine in the middle of it. SSS estimated the main part of it to be at least three times as tall as she was and wide enough to pit four of Clair’s largest elephants inside it. On top of the box-like metal body was a large metal pipe. Hundreds of small tubes ran from the base of the pipe to the walls and ceiling of the cavern. The puffing sound came every time the machine would send steam out of the pipe. The smaller pipes would rattle each time this happened. The shouting came from the group of men standing beside the machine.

“Those blasted ex-Kages are trying to melt Glacier,” Jan seethed, an angry spark in her eye. Zergio and SSS looked at each other as Clair put a hand on her shoulder.

“Then let’s stop them. Just freeze them in place with your ice.”

Jan gave Clair a creepy smile and nodded. In an instant, the four former Kages beside the machine were encased in ice up to their waists. They shouted angrily as they tried to escape their frozen restraints. Jan marched over to the group, her expression strangely dark. Clair and SSS followed closely, unsure what the angry Glacier woman would do.

Jan reached Punkfilter first. She did not stop walking as she delivered a singing slap across the face which echoed off the icy walls. Amaterasu and Jose were next, followed by Silverlegionare.

“So, how do we get rid of this thing?” she asked, turning to face the others, a satisfied smile on her face.

“Well need to shut it down before destroying it,” SSS said, scratching her head. “If we let all that heat out at once, we’d do more damage than these guys did.”

“My poor Glacier,” Jan murmured.

Clair pat Jan on the back with a smile. “I’ll cool it off, then you can destroy it.”

“Yay!” Jan squealed, clapping her hands and bouncing away from the group. “Hurry, so I can get rid of this thing.”

“That was a little creepy,” Zergio whispered to SSS, who simply nodded her agreement.

Clair stood in front of the machine, trying to figure out how it worked. She decided, finally, that it was basically a large stove with water near the top that was heated and became steam. With a few quick hand motions she had cooled the fire almost nonexistence. Almost immediately, Jan acted. The ground rumbled as ice moved. It rose from the ground and dropped form the ceiling above, crushing the machine until it was the size of one of her snow leopards.

Jan sat heavily on the ground, breathing a sigh of relief. “I”m not used to using ice so much,” she admitted. The fact was evident on her pale face.

“You did well,” SSS assured her. “Rest a moment while we do a quick search for the Key.”

“It’s not here anymore,” Zergio called from the other side of the room. He stood in front of what looked like a small stone altar. It was covered in intricate designs, the most prominent of which was a key.

The altar stood empty.

Mikel reread the letter, thinking over every phrase, every word. He wanted a certain result and a single error would mean failure. He also knew that Dei would be the one to read this message. Normally, that would hardly matter; Dei was entertained by his thinly veiled attempts at power. The problem lay in the fact that he was sending this letter in Death’s name. Of all the Kages that would notice any lapse in character, Dei would.

Mikel smiled as he finished the letter. He had intercepted many of Death’s messages since coming to Shadow and was confident in his ability to forge manuscripts. This was certainly one of his best attempts. With a flourish, he signed the paper.

“Why do you want Glacier to attack Mist?”

Mikel sighed and shoved the Inferno warriors face out of his own. “Because I’m bored and a war sounds like the perfect cure.”

Dark Raptor folded his arms over his chest and frowned. “Is that why you sent one to Storm as well?”

“Yes, now go sit down before I make you sit down.”

Dark Raptor groaned and sat down in a chair beside Death. She stared blankly at the fireplace. Dark Raptor eyed her cautiously then looked at Mikel. “You’re sure she won’t leap up and kill me?”

“Only if I tell her to.”

Dark Raptor nodded and stared at the fire silently. He was proud of himself. He had managed to rescue Yoyo, allowed Bano to escape from Mikel alive, and given them transportation back to Mountain. He had even distracted Death in the meantime.

He looked at the woman beside him. He did not know much about her, but he was pretty sure that she was not acting correctly. Several things caused him to think this. He was certain that Mikel was supposed to take orders from Death, not the other way around. He was also sure that Death was planning on killing him; she had not so much as looked at him since he had stabbed her.

The penknife, he realized, had vanished again. It had disappeared when Death had demanded it of him earlier. He did not remember putting it in his pocket, but in the cell with Yoyo he had pulled it out. He had easily sliced through the shadows holding Yoyo and then stabbed Death wit hit. It disappeared again when he had gone to carry Yoyo out of the cell.

Dark Raptor frowned and looked at his bandaged forearm. Death’s cobra had latched onto his arm and forced him to change his course of action. He had simply thrown Yoyo at Bano and sent out a message to one of the Inferno elephants in his care.

Dark Raptor’s frown deepened and he cast a sideways glance at Death. he cared deeply for his elephants. Everyone he knew cared for their animal partners greatly. In the prison, Mikel had killed Hebi and Death had not even moved. She had been in pain, certainly, but that should not have kept her from at least saying something.

He wandered back over to Mikel, standing behind him for several long moments. “Glacier is melting huh?”

Mikel did not respond as he signed a letter addressed to Sabaku in Storm. “That’s right,” he finally said.

“Aren’t you from there?” Dark Raptor poked Mikel’s hair, receiving a nod in response. “Then why are you just telling them to attack Mist instead of offering to help?”

Mikel glared at Dark Raptor but the boy simply smiled back at him. He sighed. “Because there’s nothing I can do about it.”

Dark Raptor walked to the other side of the desk and say on the edge. “But why tell them it was Mist’s doing?”

“I already told you, I was bored.”

The Inferno warrior turned around, sitting fully on the desk now, to face Mikel. “But why send your friends and family to war?”

Mikel shoved Dark Raptor off the desk, pleased to hear the sound of his body hitting the floor. “They can take care of themselves. I trust them.”

“I could kill him for you if you want.”

Thicup smiled. “No, he’ll choke on his foot without help some day. Don’t worry about it.”

Sabaku looked across the desk at the Mountain warrior, a serious expression on her face. “It’s one thing to diss the lightning bugs; Xixë can take care of himself. It’s another thing entirely to accuse one of my friends of being worthless.”

“Isn’t that a bit of a contradiction?”

“No. What Darkflame said about Xixë was true. I can hardly kill him for being a rude kid.” Sabaku shook her head. “What he said about you was just wrong. I can kill him for being a rude jerk.”

Thicup laughed. “No, don’t worry about it, really. Your gift is enough.”

There was a knock at the door, then Azuki stuck her head in. “The jerk is here to see you.”

From out in the hall came a thump then shouting. “I can hear you, you know!’

Sabaku looked at Thicup who nodded ,then waved a hand at Azuki. “Fine, let the jerk in.” Azuki moved back outside and Darkflame entered the room.

“I am not a jerk,” he murmured, casting a glare at the door. He looked at Sabaku and realized he was receiving a similar look from her. he looked between he and Thicup a few times then gulped. “Okay, so I’m a bit of a jerk.”

Sabaku cleared her throat.

“Alright, alright, a lot of a jerk. I’m sorry.”

Sabaku nodded her approval and Thicup laughed then looked at him seriously. “It is true that I am a girl. It is also true that I’m blind. However,” she continued as she pointed at him. “Neither of those make me weak, useless, or otherwise a hindrance. Realize that and fix your prejudice.”

Darkflame stared at her wide-eyed during her small speech. Slowly, a smile crept onto his face and he saluted. “Yes, ma’am.”

“Is mushy make up time over yet?” Sabaku whined. She was sprawled across her desk, more than one stack of paper dangerously close to toppling over on top of her. Thicup and Darkflame were silent a long moment before Thicup spoke.

“No, we still have to do our secret handshake of forgiveness.”

Sabaku groaned loudly and slammed her head against the desk. This caused all of the unbalanced stacks to collapse, burying the Raikage in an instant. Thicup and Darkflame laughed as she leaped up and shouted about having a paper cut. She roared, then, and pointed at the two dramatically, one hand on her hip and the opposite foot on the seat of her chair.

“You two, get out. You have what you came for, now go home.”

“Woah, hold on,” Darkflame said, hands in the air. “We do not have Storm’s Key, so we can’t leave yet.”

“I don’t care,” Sabaku said, arms crossed and refusing to look at them. “I still say you need to leave.”

Darkflame stared at her in confusion, but Thicup simply shrugged. “We’ve clearly outstayed out welcome. Let’s go, Darkflame.” He turned his confused stare on the Inferno woman, but followed her out of the room regardless. As they made their way down the hall to their borrowed rooms, he questioned Thicup through his dragon companions.

“What did you tell her, exactly?”

Thicup shrugged. “Just what you said and a brief summary of what led to it.”

“So she knows about the—” Thicup glared hard at the man, a warning in her eyes. “So she doesn’t know. Wonderful, but that doesn’t get us any closer to finding the Key.”

“We’ll discuss this later when there are fewer prying eyes. I don’t like the amount of activity here.”

Darkflame blinked rapidly, surprised by the abrupt change in topic, then nodded. Storm warriors were running about busily, gathering supplies and causing a general commotion. The rest of their journey was made in silence. They gathered their few belongings and left the Village of Storm, all the while growing more concerned by the activities around them. Once outside the outer reaches of the Village, Darkflame broached the topic of the Keys once more.

“So we’ll just tell Q and the others that we got our first lead to the Key and were promptly kicked out of Storm.”

Thicup brushed aside a low hanging limb and sighed. “War is on the horizon.”

Darkflame frowned. “War with whom? Nobody has a reason to fight Storm.”

The two were silent a long moment, then said together, “Shadow.”

Darkflame kicked at a pile of soaked leaves on the ground. “We failed to get the Key and a war started under our noses. Man, this mission was a total failure.” Darkflame looked at Thicup when she did not respond and was baffled to see a smile on her face.

“It wasn’t a total failure.”

Darkflame stared at her then shifted his gaze to the ground. “Yeah, Darkflame got his prejudiced butt handed to him by a talking lightning bug.”

“There’s that, too, I suppose.” Darkflame once again stared at the Inferno girl, mystified by what she could mean. She reached into her bag and held out one of the small glass figurines that had been in Sabaku’s office. “Because I had such a wonderful sob story, she let me have this.”

Darkflame took the small object and examined it. He shook his head as he did so. “How on earth does this make our mission—” He stopped walking and stared at Thicup’s back as she continued moving forward before also stopping and half-turning to face him. “This is a dog.”

Thicup nodded and smiled. “That, my slow friend, is the Key of Storm.”

“Are you sure we should travel with Des instead of finding Bano and the others?” Toshii asked quietly, trying to keep the Mist warriors around them from hearing her.

Q looked at her, his face expressionless. “What good would that do? We don’t know where they are or how they are doing on their missions. We would eventually have to deal with Shadow to retrieve the stolen Keys, so we might as well travel with our new allies.”

“‘The enemy of my enemy is my friend,’ I suppose,” Toshii muttered. “Though in this case, the enemy of my enemy is also my enemy if you think about it.”

“Don’t worry so much. We’ll get the Keys somehow and we won’t have to worry about Shadow and Mist.”

Toshii nodded and fell silent. She glanced up at her dragons and was surprised to see them upset, almost angry. One noticed her concerned gaze and promptly gave a dragon smile.

“What’s wrong?” she asked, unwilling to believe they were simply pretending to be upset.

The dragons looked at each other. They had some time ago received a warning from the dragons traveling with Bano concerning Yoyo and Q. There had been no context, simply a warning. That concerned them, not because part of the message had clearly been left out, but because it contradicted what they felt.

“We don’t approve of this war.”

Toshii nodded her agreement. They were traveling west out of Mist toward Shadow. The mist was slowly thinning as they traveled. The trees regained their colors and the sky lost its clouds. Toshii shivered in the warmth that came over them. Never had she been so glad for her home of Mountain.

The crack of thunder drew her attention. Mist’s army was traveling in small groups in an attempt to maintain stealth. The group just out of sight traveling to their north erupted in shouting. Most sounded angry and confused, but some sounded hurt. Q and Toshii broke from their group and made their way to the site of the lightning strike. Upon their arrival, they found a group of confused warriors, two of which lay on the ground unconscious. Their blue clothing now had several burn marks on them. The wounds beneath smoked slightly.

“Gurin,” Toshii said and a green dragon flew to the injured men. He had barely reached them when they heard the crackled of lightning once more. Toshii and Q leaped to opposite sides of the strike and fell into defensive stances upon coming to rest.

“Storm,” Toshii muttered as a warrior stepped out of the trees and into sight. A long scar ran down the warrior’s face, starting just above her left eye and ending at her chin. Aside from that distinguishing feature, she looked the same as most Storm warriors, dressed in dark purple and black, her light brown hair pulled into a side-ponytail. She was surrounded by a cloud of lightning bugs.

“Aw, you are going to heal them? That ruins my fun,” she pouted, laying eyes on the green dragon.

“Aki, what are you doing here?” Toshii demanded, placing herself between the injured men and the Storm warrior.

“Fighting a war, of course,” she replied, smiling.

“War?” she repeated with a frown.

“Yeah, Shadow, Storm, and Glacier are all fighting against Mist! It looks like Mountain and Sand have thrown their lots in with Mist, though.”

“We just care about the lives of others,” Toshii growled. She held a short knife in front of her, ready to move if Aki did.

“So, Shadow already knows about the attack and got Glacier and Storm to aid them. Speedy bugger, Death is,” Q said to Toshii. She could hear no distinct emotion in his voice.

“Seems so. Unless Death’s spies can communicate directly through their minds, she made the first move some time ago."

Q nodded as he watched Aki saunter forward. He looked displeased by this turn of events. “I’ll take these guys to another group if you deal with her.”

Toshii nodded, though she knew he had alternative motives for separating from her. She was angry, now, however, and a quick fight seemed to be a good way to release that anger. Q rounded up the Mist warriors as Toshii drew a handful of knives.

“Well, Aki, looks like I’ll be your first opponent in this war.”

“First decent one, anyway,” Aki said as she pulled a large scythe off her back. The handle of the weapon was about five feet long; the blade was nearly as long and shined like silver.

“A medium range weapon while I use close and long range methods,” Toshii thought, calculating the best method to use. Her decision made, she flung her knives at the Storm warrior and dashed toward her.

Aki used the wooden handle of her weapon to block the projectiles then, with surprising speed, swung the scythe horizontally at her. Toshii ducked beneath the large blade and attacked Aki with a swing of her own.

Aki shouted in pain and fell back several steps, nearly losing her grip on her weapon. She looked down at the wound. She had not been cut very badly, barely more than a scratch. What concerned her was how much it hurt and how little it bled. There was barely a hint of blood, but it hurt as though she had been stabbed.

Toshii was equally confused by the girl’s reaction, but more so by what she had experienced during the attack. She had hardly noticed, but Aki’s response left her time to think about it. There had been a clear but soft hissing sound when she struck.

Aki glared at Toshii. With a roar of anger, she rushed the Mountain warrior. Without thinking, she reacted. She side-stepped Aki’s wide swing and stabbed with her knife.

The instant the metal touched her skin, the hissing noise began again. Aki jerked away from Toshii, the knife protruding from her arm. She grabbed at it desperately, her sight clouded with pain. She managed to pull it out, a stream of smoke trailing out of the wound. Angrily, she flung it at the ground. The lightning bugs floating around her began to spark, mirroring Aki’s emotions. Tendrils of electricity raced between each individual creature to form an intricate web. A large bolt of lightning generated by this web flew at Toshii. A wall of earth rose up from her feet and stopped it easily.

When Toshii lowered her earthen shield, she found that Aki had passed out, the knife on the ground beside her. Toshii gently picked up the knife and examined it, frowning. It was the knife that Q had given her. She had meant to leave it in her bag, but accidentally grabbed it in the heat of the moment.

“What kind of weapon is this?”