Chapter 9: Monsters of Legend (Narrated by Abel Lee)
Our conversation was stopped when the elevator that took us to our designated level let out a 'ding' voice. We stepped out from the elevator and walked into the EOPID office. When we just opened the door, Alexa's jarring voice had shaken my entire sensitive eardrums. It seemed that the petite girl was in the middle of bickering session with Miss B.
"Miss B, he is an animorpher, so do I! Abel and I are the most appropriate agents and the most adequate team to be sent there to help the twins!" Alexa screamed at the top of her lungs.
"I can't send the two of you before I received confirmation that Abel has fully recovered. I don't want him to get hurt again because he has not healed properly. Don't you know how much cost the company had to spend to treat such wound?"
My heart was broken to hear Miss B's exclamation. Why, oh why, such beauty had to be that stingy? Such flaw would eradicate all of her other qualities. Well, I could only sigh.
"Miss B, that's hurt...," my hand clutched to the chest tightly.
Alexa's face beamed when she saw us enter the room. She jumped straightaway to our direction, completely ignoring my pout.
"Abel, what did the good ol' doctor said? Have your ribs healed completely?"
I nodded. "What's actually happening?"
Alexa ignored me. She had moved her small body back to where Miss B was standing, was ready to re-attack with a new full-loaded gun.
"He's fully healed," Alexa said triumphantly.
Miss B observed me closely. Her grey eyes scrutinized me from top to toe, as if they were scanning for each cell existed in my body.
"Have you really healed?" She made sure.
"You could call the doctor if you don't believe me! What is going on, really?!" People!
I hated if people were ignoring me. Alexa was about to explain what was going on when I was gone, but her words were hung dead due to James' exclamation.
"Basil managed to retrieve the picture from the satellite!"
Miss B and Alexa, along with other field agents who knew the problem promptly gathered in front of a big transparent monitor near the mother computer. From the look of it, they had completely forgotten about us.
"Show it to us!" Said the Queen Bee.
In front of one of the mother computer's monitors, I saw Basil had closed his jade-green eyes and concentrated. The young, light-ash-brown haired boy tilted his oval face up, as if he was absorbing the power of universe.
"What is he doing?" Campbell poked Anthony.
"He is controlling the satellite movement. The Laws do not have a ground segment for their satellite because they have Basil for that. He is a walking, ground station Brain," Anthony explained.
"Never underestimate his young age. That kid gets the highest salary amongst all Law Inc. employees," I added. I could feel a spit of jealousy in my voice. Well, please don't judge me. That boy literally was just sitting all day, playing with the computer, controlling the satellite, and he cashed in an equal amount of a president's annual salary per month! Jealousy was definitely an understatement.
"So, if he went for a strike, Law Inc. would get broke in minutes," Campbell chuckled.
"Try seconds," I corrected him. He nodded in agreement.
The big screen only showed tens of thousands of silver ants crawling on it for the first seconds, before it finally spat out blurry pictures. Brenna moved to re-arrange her magnetic chair power and then moved to one of the computers to use her power to it. On the next seconds, the picture had finally shown in better resolution.
We had not yet been able to decipher what we were actually seeing when flame of fire was shot on the screen, followed by the scene of a flying Kirin. If you have not yet known what a Kirin was, that animal was one of a mythical sacred animal for the Chinese. It was depicted as four legged, face was similar to a dragon, with a pair of deer horns on its head. With other words, try to imagine a short neck giraffe with Lion's mane and fearsome fiery aura. In front of that animal, jumping around like Zeus with his lightning bolt was our raven-haired colleague, Lior. I could not get a glimpse of his brother, but I bet Erwann was hiding somewhere behind a nearby sand dune to direct his brother's power.
"Is that...a Kirin?" Campbell asked, more to himself. His expression was the combination of disbelieved and amused. "I thought you are busy with the Balin."
"That is the Balin," Shyu pointed the Kirin.
"According to Lior, when they were tracking down a Balin that was suspected as the culprit of four deaths caused by an unidentified wild animal, it transformed into that creature. What was its name? Kirin? That's why, I've been asking Miss B to send me and Abel to help the twins!" Alexa explained exasperatedly.
"Kirin was one of sacred animals in Chinese mythology. It looks like it is powerful and dangerous, but I think the twins will be able to take care of it," I said, awarded a murder in Alexa's eyes.
"Miss Law, that Balin can morph into mythical creatures?" McAllen asked.
"So far, it did shift into that creature."
"Err, Miss B, now it's transformed into a dragon," James interrupted with a grimace.
The creature indeed had transformed into a dragon, and, if Lior previously was still able to exhibit his agility, now he could only run around for his life like a headless chicken. Different with Kirin that couldn't fly, dragons had that ability and the one that Lior was battling with had bombarded him with airstrikes. Erwann apparently did not have a faintest idea on how to deal with such creature, thus he ran toward his brother and commanded him to make a lightning dome to shield them both from the airstrike.
"Miss B, I think you should send us away to help them." Now I agreed with Alexa. It would only matter of time before the twins lose their foothold.
"Miss B, we need help! There are two Balins! Repeat, there are two Balins!"
Lior's deep voice was blaring from the communicator on the mother computer, drawing our attention to it. Basil promptly dashed to another monitor connected to the satellite. The screen in front of us now divided into two frames and showed the picture of a Kirin and a dragon shooting fire to the twin's lightning dome. They were shooting the twins from two different directions, in the same time. The Sebastian twins could only crouch inside their dome and try to hold their fort as long as possible.
"Two Balins?!"
"Two Balins that could change into two mythical creatures?" McAllen hissed, his blue eyes were watching the battle intensely. "That must be Balins created by another Balin too."
"I think I know the culprit," Campbell said. That guy took out a small box, as big as a match box from his pocket, then opened it. He took seconds to find what he was looking for, before taking out one item as big as a button. Campbell put his box back and with a blink of his eyes, the button changed into a CD. He tossed it to James.
"Seventh file, James," he informed.
The diamond-shaped face and curly light-brown haired Brain uploaded the said data. Now the live streaming of the battle between Sebastian twins and mythical creatures were being replaced by picture of a fifteen-year old young boy. The boy had Eurasian face, round-shaped with delicate jaw line. His short hair and eyes were black, but speckles decorated his ivory-white face, and his nose was straight and narrow like a Caucasian trait.
"After we read the report about Aramanth, Cody and I spent these couple of days to collect latest data of deceased first-class sorcerer and master alchemist as far as two decades back, in case those sorcerers decided to resurrect any one of them. So, let me introduce to you, my own Order's ex-member, Sengkerinqin Yuspov, a Russian-Mongolian mix-blood sorcerer. He was one of eccentric first-class sorcerers who devoted his short life span and yet great talent to create impractical mythical creatures into their being. He died just shortly after his sixteenth birthday."
"Timofei, how certain are you that that Yuspov is the two Balins' master?" Aeronwen asserted.
"Another bonus information for the Espers. To create such mythical-creatures the way Yuspov did, we have to invest a lot amount of our time and energy. The outcome itself is simply not worth it. If we do need to create mythical creature, we could simply draw it on a piece of paper, chant a spell on it, and poof...we got our creature. BUT, that boy, Yuspov, he wanted to breed mythical creatures with flesh and blood, which able to reproduce, so he could keep them as pets. You know, feed them, pat them, sleep with them, et cetera. So, if now there are strayed Balins that could transform into mythical creature..., then yeah... I'm quite certain they were on his bidding. Well, apparently those Balin creators aided Yuspov to make his postponed dream come true."
"To be an egg-head does not guarantee he will act wise," I commented, before looking at Miss B. "So, Miss B, what's your decision? Better make them quickly, or Lior and Erwann will become barbeque for the dragon and Kirin's dinner."
Miss B screwed shut her smoky-eyes, taking a heavy intake breath. "Okay. Abel, Alexa, the two of you go there to help the twins. McAllen, if you want to help, I could only send either one of you. I will need the other one as backup in case these two teams also need help. Who'll be going first?"
"I'll go first, Code," Campbell said abruptly. He even already had his 'magical' purple coat on, ready to be dispatched. "I've heard about this Yuspov for some time. Just let me humour my curiosity, 'Kay?"
Apparently, all rumours about the notorious Vsevolod Order were true. In other order, what Campbell was planning to do would be considered unethical and act of treachery. However, as it seemed, in Vsevolod Order this kind of practice was not uncommon. McAllen also looked like he indifferent with Campbell's reaction, since he already nodded his head in agreement.
"I'll be here to help the Brains search for any useful information about Yuspov."
"Yes!" Campbell pumped his fist in the air, practically skipping toward the warp machine. "We will take a ride in these tubes, right, Tony?"
Anthony nodded. He wore his fingerless, black-leather gloves, complementing other leather materials that covered his slender body, and walked to follow Campbell. They stepped into one of the teleport machines, while Alexa dragged me to the other one. She was no less-spirited than Campbell.
"Come on, hurry up! That sorcerer is all ready to go~!" She squealed.
I could only roll my eyes, let her drag me around. I was boosting my whole brain cells to find an effective strategy to beat those two creatures as fast as possible.
**
I squinted my eyes in surprise when the desert heat suddenly attacked. After seconds, my eyes finally got used to the view of miles of Sands Ocean that spread in front of us, as if it had no end.
"Desert?"
Anthony checked his connector. "The cases occurred near Dunhuang, one of the cities that used to be part of the prominent Silk Road. Now the city has become one of the famous tourism spots and pilgrimage destinations for Buddhism in China. I guess Lior and Erwann followed that Balin's track to this desert."
"How did they get here? Rode a camel?" I asked myself. I stroked my bared arms that started to smart from the exposure from the sun. I regretted that today I went to work in sleeveless shirt and knees-long shorts. I also had no chance to put on sun block or any protection skin-cream before we came here. Well, it was mostly Alexa's fault for not giving me any chance to make adequate preparation for a tour in desert.
"What are you glaring me for?" Alexa retorted fiercely, glaring back at me. She was wearing a long sleeve, cropped tops and skinny jeans with a pair of sneakers. How she could understand my suffering at the moment, while she was in such outfit that covered her body nicely? I swore if I ever got major sunburn, I'd have no end with her.
"Well, we better find the twins quickly, before we fell prey for this Taklamakan Desert," Campbell pointed out.
I bugged my eyes. "This...is that notorious Taklamakan?"
"What's that talkamaktan...?"
"Tak-la-ma-kan...," I corrected Alexa. "The famous desert that used to serve as one of the Silk Road routes. The name itself more or less means: you go in and never go out. What the hell did you learn during your school year?"
Alexa did not retort my jeer. She was genuinely looking shocked after hearing the severity of this magnificent desert. She gazed around with worried eyes and clutched her tiny hands on the end of my shirt.
"I'll ask Basil for direction," Anthony was about to open his connector, but Campbell stopped him.
"No need, I'll track them down," he said.
Now, on that sorcerer's hand there was a small crystal ball made from yellow transparent glass. Campbell's thin lips moved faintly to read a spell. Once he finished, the crystal ball floated up and flew eastward.
"There," he pointed and led the way.
"What's that?"
"Sun Orb. We use it to track trails. As long as the target is exposed under the sun, the orb will find it. It's very useful for such place, right?"
I grinned back at Campbell.
We had been running for almost half an hour before I heard someone was clicking their tongue. Before I decipher who was it, Alexa had transformed herself into a vulture. She winged her body toward the Sun Orb's pointed direction, with speed twice of our human legs.
"What an impulsive girl," Anthony grunted.
"So that's what an Animorpher could do," Campbell laughed. "Well, that's quite handy..."
I stared jealously toward Alexa who'd flown farther from us. "I can't believe I'm asking you this, warlock, but don't you have any flying broom or anything that can bring us there faster?"
Campbell laughed harder. "Sorry to disappoint you Man, but we never use that thing. Well, I certainly could make something that can take us there faster, but I don't think it'll be a good idea. Yuspov was a strong sorcerer. We would need every ounce of our energy if we need to face him. I just don't want to waste my energy. Anyway, your machine had delivered us here, so I guess it won't be too far away from where the twins are. Don't you think so too?"
He was right. Embarrassed, I shot him tight smile, kept silent and running to follow the orb.
We were running about another fifteen minutes, stumbled here and there from the sands before we finally heard a loud explosion, followed by a screeching voice of a vulture.
"There they are!" Anthony pointed. In front of us was a battleground. Sand dunes blown by the creatures' fire, scattered and shot high to the sky like burst of pixie dust. In the eye of the whirled sands there was a protection dome circled by two flying creatures(a dragon and a vulture(and a Kirin running in circles.
The vulture was indeed Alexa. Unsatisfied with her first morph, Alexa decided to become a gryphon. She morphed her body to a lion's and used her claws to fight the Kirin. Aided by Alexa, the twins finally braced themselves to come out from their protection dome and Lior threw balls of lightning toward the dragon. The dragon countered attack with its fire. At one point, Alexa's gryphon was hit by the Kirin's fire.
"Alexa!!" I screamed and sped up.
Anthony was faster. He had shifted into a giant blade, before he shifted again into smaller cluster of daggers and dashed in lightning speed to pierce the Kirin.
"Anthony is..."
"Anthony is a shape-shifter. He could shift his body into blades or knives or daggers to attack his enemy," I explained, still keeping up my pace.
The Kirin breathed fire to Anthony's blades, forced him to make a giant shield out of hundreds of knives to defend himself. The knives, then, broke away and pierced through the Kirin once its fire expelled. The Kirin groaned in pain when the knives pierced its body, but it still managed to pin Alexa down with its paw and shot another fire to Anthony. Alexa failed to maintain her morph and returned to her original form, falling topsy-turvy on the sands. Anthony also had shifted back and anxiously attempted to extinguish the fire that caught his tan leather jacket.
The fire let out a hiss before it finally killed by Campbell's water spell. Anthony stretched his body and grinned to thank his partner. The sorcerer replied the gesture with a wink. On the other side of the battle, Lior was still fighting tooth and nail with the dragon.
"This place has strong yang energy, very suitable for creatures with fire element like them," I muttered, helping Alexa stand up. I frowned when I saw that her ankle was bleeding from the Kirin's claws.
Anthony had shifted again and his daggers dancing in the air to find any opening to pierce through the Kirin's body. Next to him, Campbell assisted him by shooting water balls to tame the Kirin's fire.
"So, you understand Taoism alchemy," he said to me, in the middle of his action. "Do you have any idea, then?"
I shrugged and started to scan around. I was quite surprise to notice that the two creatures displayed average level of magical energy. When I told the others about this, Alexa roared in glee and transformed into gryphon once more. This time, she targeted the dragon. Based on the combination attack deployed by Anthony-Campbell and the twins and Alexa, I was confident we would be able to beat the two Balins in a promising short amount of time. However, on the other hand, I couldn't shake this bad feeling from my chest, as if we still had other enemies lurking somewhere.
I scanned the vicinity once more, but more meticulous this time. It was on that later second that I caught two clusters of red silhouettes were approaching us in high speed from West, swam their ways beneath layers of sands. Upon reaching our place, the two red silhouettes brought themselves closer to the surface.
"Step aside!" I commanded, just in the nick of time, before the red creatures burst out from the sands and launched attack on us in rapid speed.
I lost control of my vision due to the rush of adrenalin. I could see now that right before us there were a pair of giant salamanders attacking in remarkable speed. Their bodies were covered with golden fins and they were almost as big as the dragon, but with more agility. They were not only spitting fireballs, but also swaying around their long and thorny tails. The dragon and the Kirin were getting fiercer in their attack as their backup came.
Anthony was not ready for such rampageous attack and lost control over his transformation. He fell hard to the ground and even caught on one of the salamanders' fire. He was about to get another first degree burns if Campbell was not fast enough to jump in front of him and cast water shield. Alexa's wings, too, got hit by the dragon's fire, while her foot was scratched by the salamander's tail. She failed to maintain her winging and fell miserably on top of Lior.
"The two salamanders have higher magical energies!" I reported, as I ran toward Alexa and Lior, tried my best to drag them away from the creatures.
Erwann had moved to help me dragging Lior away from the attacks, and he commanded Lior to erect lightning dome for our protection beforehand.
"We can't stay like this!" I yelled, tried to overcome the explosion sounds surrounding us when the fireballs crashed on each of our shields. "If we do, sooner or later we'll become barbeque!!"
"That's why I asked you before, do you have any plan?!!" Campbell was on the verge of snapping since his shield was an inch away from getting perforated by the combination attacks of the Kirin and one of the salamanders."
I boosted my brain cells and decided that the combination of my water element and Lior's lightning is the only way. "I could use my power to call forward every water source in this desert to flow to our direction and then gush out to the surface. When it did, Erwann, I want you to muster out all of Lior's power. We'll electrocute them!"
I didn't wait for their response and started to concentrate my water element power to reach every point of Oasis there was in this huge desert. I needed a few minutes before my power reach the intended target. I started to pull the water to come to our place. A few minutes later, the water gushed out around us, creating pillars of sands and water. I used my power to push the pillars to encircle the monsters.
"Now, Erwann!!" I yelled. "Alexa, take Erwann away! Tony, save yourself and Campbell!!"
Campbell understood my plan and the characteristic of each element. He erected earth shield to protect himself and Tony, before dragging the younger guy away. Alexa was a little bewildered with my instruction, but transformed herself to a vulture, nonetheless, and took Erwann fly away.
Erwann made lightning bolts storm out from his brother's hands, directing them toward the monsters. I added my energy and pulled the pillars to approach the creatures, racing with Lior's thunder bolts. The creatures screamed in agony when my power and Lior's electrocuted them. They maintained their monstrous appearance for seconds, before finally shrunk back to their human forms with skins as black as coal. The Balins returned dead, scorched by our power. Their bodies were covered with smoke, letting out stinking burnt odour.
Watching our opponents burnt to death, we let out relieved sighed and dropped our body on the sands, trying to catch our breath, or enjoying the moment of victory. After collecting himself back, Campbell stood up and moved toward the corpses. He raised his index and middle fingers. The tip of the two fingers suddenly reddened like the tip of fireplace poker after kissing the flame. Campbell made a swift movement and used his two fingers to cut open one of the Balins' chest. Then, he dug out the crystal stuffed inside it and observing it under the sun light.
"Low-grade catalyst," he commented and tossed the stone to Anthony. "It's a far-cry from the one stuffed inside Aramanth. It's just because it was infused with Yuspov's power that the Balin happened to be quite strong."
"Only the two salamanders that were remarkably strong," I interrupted. "The rest were average."
"So that was your 'heaven's eyes'? Interesting..."
"I don't like to be called 'interesting' by another man."
Campbell laughed at my comment, then turned his gaze back to the surrounding sand dunes.
"Yuspov was only experimenting with these Balins here. He isn't here."
"How'd you know?" I asked sarcastically.
Campbell showed his Sun Orb. "If he's here, then this orb should've been detecting his presence when we were fighting his pets."
"I get that. But, if he isn't here, then why the dragon and salamanders could come just in time to help their peers? Yuspov must've been watching from somewhere," I insisted.
I desperately held my victory smirk when I saw Campbell's face stupefied. He was so composed before, but now his face was grey, as grey as the winter sky in the snowy day. He cast his gaze wildly around the vicinity, searching for something. His violet eyes eventually fixed eastward.
"Son-of-a-bitch," he hissed.
We had not yet grasp what exactly was going on when that reckless sorcerer flew away in sonic speed. Anthony was the first one to react. He shifted himself into a flying dagger and chased after his partner. The rest of us stood still, befuddled. Two explosions and pillars of smoke emerged from the direction where Campbell and Anthony went to finally were what pushed us out of our reverie.
"Tony!!" Erwann yelled. He almost dragged his brother to run and find Anthony, but he stopped again as fast when he saw Campbell and Anthony fly back with the same sonic speed as before.
Maybe because he flew around in sonic speed, Campbell now was in a messy state. His copper-blonde hair was out of place like locks of seaweed, and his smug, handsome face had now been spoiled by the sand. He returned upset and panting like crazy. Next to him, Tony's condition was far better. Maybe because the dagger's surface was slim and smooth, so, even though he flew in almost the same speed as Campbell, my friend Tony was still able to maintain his natural-born, model quality.
"What happened? What explosion was that? Are you alright?" Sebastian twins asked them in turns.
Campbell extended his hand and showed us his findings. I saw in his palm, there was a piece of a very familiar yellow glass.
"That is..., Sun Orb?"
Campbell gnashed his teeth. "Son of bitch used Sun Orb to watch over his Balins."
"But what was that previous explosion?"
"A dish, which function similar with the Sun Orb."
"He installed a satellite dish in the middle of the desert?" What a vandalism of nature. I shook my head in disbelief.
"Two, actually," Tony added. "We each destroyed one."
That kind of patriotic act deserved to be praised. I stuck my thumb up to Campbell and Anthony. My partner glanced cynically to my erected thumb.
"Let's go back," she said to everyone, except to me, her beloved partner.
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone