The Awakening ch.03

    In another world, beyond the reality mankind is familiar with lies a dimension where the void of space is filled with breathable air and islands of varying sizes float through this void, islands as small as houses to islands that dwarf continents. Where the Earth stands in our universe in relative space to theirs lies a vast collection of numerous floating islands; each one mistaken by humans who have traveled there by various means as being their own small supernatural worlds.

 

    One Such floating continent is known to the locals as the Land of Five Mountains. The island is as a great circle larger than the state of Texas. Just with in the borders of the edges of this continent is a thin few miles deep ring of fog known as Limbo. Next in is a ring of mountain ranges, divided by the mystic fog as it moves up the sides in four straight lines, thus separating the four different elemental mountains and somehow preventing them from affecting the next mountain range over.

 

    To the south is the range known as the Red Mountain. It is named as such as it is constantly on fire and the rocks burn red. A mountain range filled with plants that bloom flames and creatures that dwell in infernos, even the demon like people here have flames for wings; a place that one could easily mistake for Hell.

 

 

     To the East is the range known as the Blue Mountain. The grass here is blue, and the grey barked trees have blue leaves. Even the people that live here have blue skin. This land is like some grand Japanese Garden with its far eastern architecture and people. Truly a paradise, save for the fact that these peaceful people are unlike the other four in that they hold a dark secret.

 

     To the West lies the range known as the Green Mountain. This strangely familiar normal looking mountain range with its ordinary looking plants and animals hides a race of green haired people with plant like fairy wings, as well as being the homeland of the Tia, the dragon race.

 

     To the North is the range known as the White Mountain; a place of glaciers and frozen steep slopes, not unlike the Himalayas. Strange white furred beasts dwell here, as do living ice and a ghost like vampiric race of people. Even though the directions we know of on Earth have no meaning in this place, these mountains relative to earth are arranged in these directions, giving this place an artificial feel to it.

 

    These four mountains as stated before are arranged in a massive ring, in the middle of this ring lies a sea of strange colors, browns, reds, blacks, pinks, purples, like a fog pretending to be a liquid. It is a strange place where the laws of reality seem to not apply, it is the Mystic Valley. In the center of this valley, at the center of the continent lies a single black mountain, not a range but a single giant spire jetting upwards from the base, a place known as the Black Mountain. The place is home to a vicious race of living vampires with pale skin and red glowing eyes. Litmet has many smaller bases and structures placed all along this mountain, and at the very top floats, chained to the mountain with monstrous chain links, is her Castle. A great evil looking thing made of black shining metal that seems to glow with shadows as the darkness tries to cling to its surface as though being blown by some forsaken wind.

 

    In the great dark halls of the empty castle a flash of blue light illuminates a large throne room, done in a style that would not be popular on Earth for at least another few thousand years, a style introduced to those later people by beings from this other world. Litmet in her new body has arrived with the unconscious form of Ananth in her arms. Litmet lays Ananth down in a large bed in a chamber off from the throne room and gently caresses the side of Ananth’s face with her pale hand, enjoying the contour between her pale hand, dark red fingernails and Ananth’s pink scaled face.  Her attention is grabbed sharply by a sudden surge of energy that she senses from the throne room.

 

     “My daughters must have sensed this body’s energy” she thinks to her self with a scowl.

 

    She summons the shadows to herself to wrap her naked body in nearly see through black silk done in a style of a noble yet erotic robe. Upon entering the throne room she see standing there the four flower maidens. Each a nearly identical replica of her current form, which is as well as Litmet had made each of them the same way she made her current form. The Only differences were minor color differences and accessories; the Green Rose had slightly less pale skin and had green hair, finger nails and eyes, and wore a green silk like dress embroidered with gold and green leaf like patterns along its hem. The Red Rose had tanned skin and had fiery red hair, fiery red eyes, fiery red fingernails, and wore a red dress made of a strange fire proof leather like material, seemingly heavy yet flowed like any other gown. The White Rose had milky white pale as death skin and had snow white hair and fingernails, with icy blue eyes. The last one in the line from her left to right was the Blue rose, the only one to house a different face from her own, something Litmet had always been puzzled about. She had the round face of a beautiful Japanese woman with long blue hair, blue fingernails, and wore a strange glowing blue royal kimono. Her clothing startled Litmet, but she refused to show it on the surface, this clothing was different from Blue Rose’s normal attire of a blue robe, and resembled something she refused to believe.

 

     She couldn’t be certain but while the other three had a confused look on their faces at the sight of what to them may have looked to be a new sister, Blue Rose seemed to have a knowing smile and look in her eyes. Litmet suppressed this and addressed her daughters, “Sisters welcome to our mother’s home. I am the Black Rose, our mother created me to look after her castle and mountain while she is imprisoned.”

 

    The Black Rose held her right hand up to her chest over her heart and continued, “She used all the power she could summon to create me. She did so just in time for me to save Ananth from being murdered by that retched Hinnen. But it seems Ahm’s barrier prevents even one of us from saving her.”

 

     The Black Rose looked on as the four sisters conversed with each other. The three, Green, White, and Red, simply greeted her as their new sister and looked forward to making deals with her and looked forward to the day their all powerful mother would save herself, under the impression that Litmet has to be letting herself stay imprisoned. Something Litmet had installed in their minds, the idea that she is an all powerful goddess of destruction ruling over their mystical world. They simply assumed that as a creation of Litmet, Black Rose was already instilled with the knowledge of her domain and the race on the Black Mountain, the Sethians, whose form Black Rose imitates in regards to coloration and power, as far as they could sense within her. With the mystery of the strange energy solved these three opened portals back to their respective domains. The Blue Rose on the other hand remained behind and chuckled as she eyed the Black Rose.

 

    “So, mother, it seems you truly couldn’t escape that prison.” Stated the Blue Rose as she walked around and eyed the Black Rose, “Looks like your only option was to create a body like that of my little sisters and implant your soul into it.” She looked up at the Black Rose who had a surprised and angry look in her eyes. The Blue Rose chuckled, “Seems we will need to keep an eye on your prison, after all a soul-less monster with your true body’s power getting out is something I think we would all like to avoid.”

 

   The Black Rose eyes her, “So, you knew. Since when exactly did you know?”

 

    “From the moment I detected you’re soul entering that pocket universe.”

 

   “What!? What did you just say!?” Litmet screamed as she stood back wide eyed at what her own creation had uttered. Something beyond her creations’ knowledge.

 

    “I see you are surprised mother.” Blue Rose stated as she waved her hand summoning a floating screen of energy showing Litmet creating her new body and merging with it. “You see mother, for some time now I have known the truth about the Five Mountains.”

 

     The Black Rose went over and sat in her throne eyeing her daughter with a gleam of anger and curiosity, wandering but knowing what was coming next.

 

   “This shouldn’t come as a surprise to you mother. After all I wasn’t just made in your image like my younger sisters; you actually made me by crossing your own genetic material with the real Suihrai.”

 

     The Black Rose went on to tell a long winded and outlandish lie about finding a mysterious database and creating all the races on the mountains by crossing her own genetic material with samples of DNA from a crystal that she found on the Blue Mountains. She went on to describe all sorts of weird and obvious lies about creating this and that race by crossing them with her and other races.

 

    The Blue Rose at this point was growing tired of this barrage of facts mixed with lies, her mother’s tendency to avoid telling secrets by retelling tons of information she knows her opponent is already aware of, and tell it in such a way that a weak minded person may think she was confessing some great secret. It was clear to her that her mother had stumbled upon the technology and made her and her sisters in her image, but had made her special like a daughter instead of a clone.

 

     “I’ve had enough of this mother.” She stated, “I don’t care that your human form, or this new body, or our bodies are based on some archetype Suihrai artificial body. I don’t care  what plans you have now, or what help you think you’re going to get from us. You are no longer the goddess of destruction, plane and simple. Now you are just Black Rose just as you have now named yourself.”  

 

     The Blue Rose opened a portal and before she went through turned and said, “I will keep your secret, but know this, you have many enemies who would take advantage of your weakened state, so for as long as your true body remains imprisoned you are stuck with your new name and persona.” With a chuckle she concluded, “and that may take millennia. Maybe we’ll meet the real Suihrai before then, maybe not. I really don’t care anymore.” The Blue Rose walked through and vanished back to her own palace exasperated that she couldn’t get her mother to confess the real truth, instead of telling yet another story that placed herself firmly at the center of their creation and this mysterious land whose mountains and environments seemed to be made just for them.

 

   “The red crystal,” The Blue Rose thought. She wandered as she eyed the palm sized red crystal now sitting on a pedestal in her own palace, who was it that really made this thing, and why was it that it has a database in it that displays the layout of the entire continent, and can even pinpoint and locate every life form and tell their biological status, even to the point of tracing their lineage. She wandered why the real Suihrai gave her this crystal, and why her mother would not want them to know about them, and why they made contact only after Litmet was imprisoned. They clearly had technology powerful enough to oppose Litmet easily, yet preferred not to be seen.

 

    She thought back to her sudden meeting with the woman who was wrapped in shadows and left her the crystal on the table in her bed chamber, telling her that this held the secrets of her world and origins. All it had on it was a message explaining her origin and that of her sisters, which was little more than what Litmet had explained before, only less mystical and more mechanical. The real truth it told her was that Litmet had not created the five races on the continent as she had told them, but rather had shown up one day, and activated something inside the castle that brought them all to life from inside of plant like pods. They had already existed, but who ever had made them hadn’t activated them for some reason. All this was giving her a headache, mysteries and more mysteries, what ever they may be it really didn’t matter as she was there now and with her mother’s predicament things would be very different from that day on.

 

    The Black Rose stood in her throne room perplexed by what had just occurred, clearly her daughter had learned something, but it seems to only be a little more than she already knew. “How pointless.” She thought, “Who would give her just enough information to challenge my ruler ship, but not tell her the truth?”

 

    As though in answer to her thoughts a figure appeared in the corner of the room. It was a female form that appeared to be made of solid shadow, she looked to be wearing a floor length yet tight to her form dress with long sleeves that fanned out at the wrists. She appeared to have long hair, which seemed to merge with her body as it touched her while it seemed to sway to some invisible breeze. This figure’s face was featureless yet showed the outline of a beautiful face, her eyes flashed red and quickly returned to shadow.

 

    “of course,” stated the Black Rose, “the real Suihrai.”

 

     The Black Rose stood a good distance from this imposing and silent figure, even in her true form she wouldn’t dream of challenging the Shadow Lady.

 

   “You were imprisoned.” came the beautifully seductive yet commanding voice of the Shadow Lady, which seemed to echo from every spot of darkness, “You’re children and those they guard over were spending all their time on pointless plans to rescue you, plans Ahm was all too aware of. They needed a distraction, so I gave your oldest a minor data crystal, in it was simply the truth that you activated them and the populace of this region, but nothing else.”

 

    The Black Rose chuckled, “All that trouble.” She thought, “And all that nonsense, just because of something as simple as that.”

 

     “Yes.” responded the Shadow Lady hearing her thoughts, “It only takes the smallest seed of truth to grow a great tree of knowledge. With this small seed of truth your daughter has grown more powerful in her own convictions, simply by challenging you she begins her path to become a greater ruler over her people than before. Perhaps these blue skinned vampires, the Suihrai, as you have named them shall indeed someday meet their namesakes. But that is far into the future, for now we have more pressing matters to attend to. Your actions have alarmed many individuals who would do anything to prevent someone or something like your self from wiping out the humans on Earth.”

 

     She matter of factly twirled her hand as she spoke and hovered over the floor as she moved about slowly circling the Black Rose, “In fact even our master wishes them to be left alone. That’s right it was not her that commanded you to destroy the humans. It was instead that Glyphen…excuse me, I mean that Hinnen, Ahm using the likeness of her voice to trick you into killing them.”

 

    “Obviously,” Stated the Black Rose while imitating the Shadow Lady’s gestures, “While I may not know how Ahm found out that our master speaks to our minds in woman’s voice, I know it was he and not her speaking to me. I was just using that as an excuse to wipe out those pesky creatures. I have my own plans for the Earth and those things were in my way.”

 

 

     “Hmm” smirked the Shadow Lady (forming shadowy lips on her face to form a smirk), “I am sure she would love to know you hadn’t mistaken her voice for some parrot’s. and instead of thinking you were obeying her orders used some over evolved Glyphen’s pretend orders to set you up as an excuse to further your own ambitions that happen to coincide with breaking a major law. That being wiping out a sentient species.”

 

   “Set me up?” questioned the Black Rose seemingly ignoring the Shadow Lady’s probing for information.

 

    “Yes, set you up.” Stated the Shadow Lady as she stopped hovering about and returned her face to its usual featureless self. “As we speak Ahm is furthering is attempt to make the humans worship him as a god, in fact by setting you up to attack them and then taking the credit for stopping you he has furthered this immensely.”

 

    The Shadow Lady put up her hand to stop the Black Rose from asking the obvious, “No Rhuen is not doing the same, seems he only went along with Ahm’s plan out of his own curiosity to see if you would actually fall for it. However you are aware the Rai do not aid those who have fallen for tricks, it would be considered an insult to you, and I believe the same goes for your kind as well. An interesting code of honor, where one doesn’t help others of their kind because that would be an insult to them to accept that help.”

 

    “What’s your point?” scowled the Black Rose growing irritated.

 

   “Now, now little flower. What’s this? Growing irritated by me are you? Hmm, a shame to see such an ugly expression on such a beautiful face. The point I am coming to is that regardless of your personal ambitions, regardless of Ahm’s, and regardless of anyone else’s it is our master that wishes the humans left alive, and as your punishment she has decreed that none shall aid you in freeing your true self, in fact only a select few even know that your mind has escaped, and that it shall remain. After all, your daughter was right. In your weakened state many enemies would take advantage of you…or destroy you if they knew your true identity.”

 

    “Well then your mission is complete and you can leave.”

 

   “WHAT DID YOU SAY TO ME?!” screamed the Shadow Lady in a voice that shook the darkness, the Shadow Lady’s body expanded and the entire room was enveloped in darkness like some forsaken cloak had come forth from the Shadow Lady’s body. Thorn covered tendrils of shadow came from all directions and gingerly wrapped themselves around the Black Rose supple body, they wrapped around but did touch her, coiling just above the flesh around her arms, legs, waist, crisscrossing between her breasts, and around her throat. The Shadow Lady’s torso stood above a liquid like dress of shadows that flowed into the darkness of the room. It flowed over to the Black Rose till they were face to face so to speak. The Black Rose dare not move, for a moment she had forgotten what she knew about the Shadow Lady and what she was capable of.

 

    The Shadow Lady reached out with her now claw like hand and caressed the Black Rose’s cheek, “Little flower, you forget yourself. I was going to give some cryptic clue as to how to find a way to free your true body easily, but I will not even do that now. My clue would not have broken our master’s decree as it would have been up to you to figure it out.”

 

    “I have my own plans.” stated the Black Rose defiantly even as she tried to keep her chin over the encircling tendrils, “I don’t need yours or any one else’s help. No matter how long that takes, even if I must live as the Black Rose till the Earth swallows that dome back into its fiery interior.”

 

    As quickly as they had appeared the tendrils and the darkness retreated back to the shadows from wince they came and the room returned to normal. The Shadow Lady looked up into the air as though she were communing with a higher power and then turned back the Black Rose, “Our Master is pleased that you still have your pride. This is good; she had feared you might become a whimpering embarrassment with such a dramatic drop in power. You shall be left as per the decree to your own devices, but know this, do not again attempt to wipe our humanity or else next time she herself will come to visit you, this was her words for me to give to you. The Shadow Lady quickly floated over to the Black Rose with her “mouth” next to the Black Rose’s ear and whispered something into her ear that caused the Black Rose to freeze and stare at her with wide surprised eyes.

 

    “Yes, that is the truth. The true potential of humanity and their origins” The Shadow Lady laughed with a quite and menacing chuckle as she vanished into thin air fading away like a shadow exposed to increasingly bright light.

 

    The Black Rose walked over and sat in her throne taking a deep breath and sighing, “So that’s the truth then? And I am trapped like this till I find my own way out of this predicament. Heh, no big deal, just another bit of information that might come to my advantage at some point, and besides how long can it take to find a way around Ahm and get my body back?”

 

    Centuries passed and the woman Ahm fought that day, the woman who came to be known as the Black Rose did not return. Instead she wandered around the world doing her own thing seemingly unconcerned for the imprisoned Litmet. Little did Ahm know that she was Litmet. While she never ceased to long for her true body and power she was nothing if not patient and made the best of her time. Building her power and influence as the Black Rose waiting for the day to come that Ahm would drop his guard and switch his focus away from the tomb. That day would come nearly 8000 years after her imprisonment when Ahm was distracted by the developing super weapons and nations of the 20th century.