OMBRPG

In Miami, US, there has been a series of kidnappings.

Miniike walks by the newsstand. Intrigued, he wonders if anyone is looking for work regarding this, whether it be kidnapping people or rescuing them. He checks in to a cheap Inn and contemplates all the opportunities for a skilled assassin like him this could create.

He spreads the word through the lower levels of the city that if anyone needs work, he'll do whatever they need. 

A former simple farmer, Miniike's parents were killed on the same day as his coming-of-age ceremony. He relentlessly stalked their elf mage killer and slew him, but not before his good friend who helped him was captured and taken in for potential experimentation. He traveled the world, taking odd jobs as an assassin until he discovered his friend's body in an unmarked grave in the capital city. Despite this leading to an incredible cynical attitude and ruthless efficiency in killing, he has not lost touch with the world and occasional shows a very compassionate side, espically for orphans. He travels alot, and knows the land well. 

Kris hears about the report on the TV, and wonders if it is the scientist who experimented, looking for more subjects. Unfortunately, he does not have any method of transport, and does not have much money. He thinks for a while before contacting his friend Tyra. Tyra is as intrigued as he is, having been in the same experiment (A kangaroo and Tiger fusion) as Kris. She agrees to go to Miami with him. 

Kris was a test subject for the machine which created the Anthropomorphs. He was subjected to experiments at the age of 12 which left him mentally scarred. He is of a kind heart, but can get very angry when his friends are threatened. He is terrified of blood because it takes him back to a traumatic event in his past. He is generally of an optimistic outlook, but when he gets angry, he can be brutal in fights. His mission in life is to find out what happened to his sister, who was also tested on but never returned. He currently lives in Hawaii, deep in the mountains in a small hut. He thinks it is the perfect spot. 

Astonished by the flexibility of this mans career, Gale flips through various documents and parchment he had filled out in front of himself until his eyes stopped on a single document. "E-excuse me, sir!" The boy raised his eyes to the man who just passed him, "You mentioned that you are looking for odd jobs, although this may not be the most interesting it may have something to do with the local reports regarding the missing civilians -" Gale trailed off whilst scanning the paper he held in his hand "I have recently been researching this strange scientific facility that has been under the radar as of late. The reports of recent purchases seem a little more than unsettling. I, I am interested in gain all the information I may on this practice a-and that is if you want to, of course! that is where you come in!" The boy nervously fidgeted with the document in his hands. 

Gale is an optimistic researcher, venturing as far as his budget will allow whilst collecting any information that he finds interesting. Interesting Gale isn't a tall order as he finds most if not all sights of nature, civilization, contraptions and skills amazing in their own right. He commonly carries a small sketch book to raddled any of his findings into as quick and as convoluted as the ramblings of a mad man. Gale is neutral and will usually sit back and allow others to hold the spot light whilst he observes the situation. He is fairly calm and only losses his temper at the unnecessary destruction of things he has deemed astonishing or interesting. 

Miniike contemplates the offer. Usually he doesn't take jobs from people this young, but it sounds intriguing.

"If you give me enough information for me to start out on and half the pay in advance, I'll look into it. So, what do you know?" 

Kris and Tyra arrive at miami. They see some posters about someone called Miniike who wants work. They have a discussion weather or not to hire him to investigate. By the time they find him, someone is already asking him. "Who are you" Kris asks.

"I am Miniike. I've got a job right now if that's what you're here for, but go ahead and tell me what you want I'll see what I can do." 

"We're here to investigate the kidnappings" Kris says. "We need help finding out about them" 

"Doesn't everyone." Miniike smirks a bit. "Specifics would help, but I can do pretty much everything. I've been around the world at least three or four times." 

"Acutally," he says, turning back to Gale, "I think this strange laboratory the boy was talking about sounds pretty suspicious. It seems like there could be a connection." He turns back to them: "What specifically did you have in mind for me to do?" 

Gale scrounges a few more papers from his pile and observes them whilst speaking "This one is the public record on the building - it should give you an address, a few bits about the building regarding entrances and fire escapes." the boy explained whilst handing the paper off to Miniike "This next one is a new paper article, a local photographer happened to capture a person entering the building - which appears to be out only physical shot the scientist" Whilst reading out the articles headline a voice rang out "Huh?" the boy spoke whilst flipping around "Ah, I am sorry, sir! I am Gale, d-did uh - are we both attempting to speak to the same person? Go ahead if you need to talk to him!"

"I'll need half pay in advanced from both of you" Miniike states "and I'll check out this lab. If it turns out to be nothing, I'll continue with whatever I can find regarding the kidnappings." he says. "If that doesn't sound reasonable, you clearly don't know the current state of the world." 

"Mind if we tag along?" Kris asks "You mentioned a scientific facility, what was the name?" 

"Very reasonable, sir" Gale said whilst reaching into his carrying bag "I will need to know your. prices, sir - I was unaware if there is an accepted norm for this sort of thing" the boy turns to Kris "The specific name seems to be kind of iffy - the public record lists the building being built by Maranata Construction, again as for specifics it is sort of missing" 

Kris' eyes go cold. "By who?" he asks, with a tremor in his voice. 

"T-the papers said Maranata Construction - b-but that is just the construction team that built it - I don't know the current owners" Gale says to Kris.

"Maranata Construction is just a disguise. The real name is GenoTek. They have my sister." Kris growls.

"Well, I suppose I've been a burden for you long enough. Thank you for your business." Miniike walks off with a suppressed smile and buys a ticket to Tamiami. While on the transporter he falls asleep. 

Miniike wakes up on the transport. After a short walk down the hall to stretch his legs, he bumps into Kris. "What are you doing here?" he asks.

"I have some money from that boy for you." Kris says to Miniike. "Here you go" 

"Oh, why thank you." Miniike says. He proceeds to walk down the hallway some more, but quickly catches a glimpse of a strange man watching him. He's wearing a hood and a brown robe. He walks over and asks: "Where are you going?"

"Tamiami, I'm looking to investigate something for some clients."

"Are you...Miniike?"

"Yes. What's it to you?"

"Come with me."

The man leads him down a hall and into a small room. "So, what is this about?" Miniike asks. Saying nothing, the man smacks him on the head with a hammer and he blacks out.

Kris walks after the two and is locked outside the small room. He peers in, watching the event take place. He tries to duck down to avoid being seen, when *CLANK* "YEEOOWCH! Damn my big kangaroo feet." Kris exclaims. He says "Oops" as he realises that he has alerted the strange man. He runs to hide in the dining cart of the transporter. 

The man notices the noise and decides to go after it, but first he dumps Miniike's body in a box and hastily scratches a note which he uses to cover up the current address: TO THE SIR, WITH BEST REGARDS

Miniike wakes up in the box. He can barely see anything, but judging by the debris he knows it has been hastily transported. After a while, the box opens and he is blinded by bright white lights. An elf he can barely see smiles down at him and says "Welcome, Mr. Miniike. I see you are eager to talk, but you really aren't even supposed to be awake yet. Guess that's what happens when you send a grunt." He pulls out an electric whip and zaps Miniike into unconsciousness. In his last moments of consciousness, he hears something about "and chasing after that Kris? I seriously gotta fire that guy." 

Meanwhile,  Kris sits inconspicuously at a dining table, avoiding being noticed. He sees the man walk in and tries his best to leave, but ends up being cornered by the man. "TYRA" He shouts, and everything goes black.

Miniike wakes up in a glass case. He can still barely see, but sees a huge sign that says LAB 34 and a poster that says HAIL TO THE SIR. The elf is standing in the shadows and appears to have been waiting.

"Ahh, you are awake! Than we can begin." he says, pushing a button. A huge ray of energy hits Miniike, and he can see a caged animal coming closer and closer. He just barley throws a knife from his pocket, hitting the button and shutting the energy off. In a boost of adrenaline, he wriggles out of the restraints and smashes the glass. He runs out, not stopping to observe anything, and ducks into a room. He finds a box in a closet. He opens in to find books written in elvish that look to be political propaganda. He hears voices and ducks, hiding and waiting. 

Kris awakes and sees he is in a harness, strapped to a steel table. "So, we finally get to catch up on old times" A voice says over the PA system. "You! Let me go NOW! If you have hurt Tyra, I swear I will tear you to shreds" Kris says

"Tyra? Oh that's right! The Tiger who I fused you with. Well, I'll leave you to figure out her state of well being." The voice replies.

"You ba..." Kris Shouts, before a surge of electricity is pumped through his body.

"Ah ah ah! Don't be rude. Now, I still need you, but if you keep going off on one like that, I shall have to terminate you"

"Shut up. You have NOTHING to say that I want to hear. Murderer!" Kris tells the voice. "AAAARGH" he screams, as another surge passes through him.

"Sleep now, I'll wake you up soon" The voice says

Kris looses consciousness. 

After a while, Miniike decides to bolt for it, but hears a familiar voice and a charge of energy. He peaks into a room to see Kris strapped to a table. Partly due to his compassion, and partly for the other half of the money, he decides to rescue his client. He picks up some scrap metal which he twists and throws to silently take out the camera. He unstraps Kris and bolts to an elevator, which he takes to the basement, which, being seldom used storage, is safe. He plops Kris down and searches for medical supplies. Eventually he finds a machine he uses to bring Kris back. Kris jumps up from the surge but then loses energy and stares rather blankly at him. Eventually he gets the energy to talk. 

"T- Thanks" Kris pants "I don't know what I would have done without you". "We can't leave yet though, I need to find something, or hopefully someone" Kris tells Miniike. 

"And what...or who...would that be?" Miniike says. "By the way, I suppose you would think this would cost extra, but I've seen to much to really justify charging you more." 

"We need to find the experiment files, I need to know something" Kris says "And thanks, I'm a bit short for money" 

"I've been around my fair share of labs," Miniike says "and I suppose most of the experiment files would be in the middle-back area of the building: secure, but with ease of access. You look a little traumatized, will you be able to come or will yous stay here?" 

"I'll come. This is fairly important." Kris tells Miniike

Miniike and Kris stealthily make their way to the room, dodging security cameras and guards. Miniike is a little put off by Kris' lack of experience, but they manage to make it in. "So," Miniike says, "What are you looking for?" 

"A file containing information on project Lotus. They took my sister to be tested 3 years ago when I escaped" 

"Okay." says Miniike. He rummages through the files alongside Kris.

"I found it." he says after a while. He hands the file to Kris. It is sealed with a picture of a lotus. Kris opens the file. 

Kris scans the file. His eyes stop and he falls to his knees. The words on the page read "SUBJECT KILLED DURING TESTING" 

Usually unfazed, Miniike can't help but choke up a bit.

"I'm sorry. You better savor that, I don't usually..." he stops.

After a moment of silence, Miniike musters up the power to fight his usual instincts and says:

"If you want me to help you avenge her, I'll do it for free." 

Kris gets up. He has nothing to say, yet nothing needed to be said. He starts to walk towards the control room.

In another part of the world, Akkarin was practising his new transporter spell, with a large bang, searing heat, then a flash he finds himself standing next to Kris. Akkarin falls to the ground at his feet, utterly exhausted by the spell. Akkarin - "Ehhh... water... please..." *Faints*. 

Akkarin is the most powerful mage the world has ever seen. He has the power to create and destroy on will (however he never does). He has a great love for learning, and will not hesitate to learn anything he can about his gift. He is a "natural" mage, he did not need to be taught the ancient language, he just knew it. He can manipulate the world around him and bend people to his will... His weakness is his naivety as he is only aged 16. He is in need of companions to travel with as he cannot survive without an authoritative figure. He has only one worldly possession, his fathers diary, he wishes to learn about his past. He also does not know the potential of his power and seeks guidance from anyone who can offer it. 

Kris stares at the young wizard for a while, wondering where he came from. "H-Hello" He asks. 

Akkarin looks up at the strange being towering over him. Akkarin replies "Please... Water... My *pause* my spell has exhausted me... please sir... water...". 

"I don't know where there is any. I'll check my backpack, but I'm making no promises" Kris tells Akkarin

"Ah, here we are"

Kris hands Akkarin some water. 

Akkarin looks at the bottle and mutters a few words in the ancient language. The water turns black and Akkarin looks replenished, having taken the energy out of the water. "Thank you... friend. Might I ask your name?" Akkarin enquires. 

"Hi, I'm Kris, and this is Miniike. We're looking for someone in this building, we were just heading to the control room." 

"And who is this?" Miniike asks "Sorry to interrupt, but it seems as if he popped out of nowhere."

"Yeah, he did pop out of nowhere, I have no idea who he is."

"I'm sorry, my name is Akkarin, I was trying to transport some chicken from my fire and I suppose well... It went wrong. I am am a mage and I'm afraid I really have no idea how to get out of here. Can I tag along with you guys? I can be handy in a tight situation."

Miniike looks skeptically at Akkarin. Eventually he decides to inquire him about his skills. "Are you any good?" 

"Well, I'm still learning..." Akkarin looks around. With a flick of his wrist he removes the glass from the window... The pane moves to the center of the room then starts to glow. It shimmers for a moment, them implodes on iteslf creating a hot ball of molten glass. As it cools, the light from its center illuminates the room. Akkarin looks inquisitively at Miniike for approval. 

Seeing that Akkarin seems to be decent, Miniike goes against his instincts again and approves of the youngster.

"You could be useful, and if you do anything REALLY helpful, maybe I'll give you some of the pay I received."

He turns back to Kris. "Now, what are you looking for in the control room?" 

"Dr Gauntlet." Kris says "I may only be young, but I want him dead." 

Dr gauntlet was once a respectable man of science, he was driven mad by one of his experiments. He started trying to fuse animal and human DNA and in turn created the Anthropomorphs. He eventually tried fusing 2 anthropomorphs. The results were Kris and Tyra.

"Oh, you're on a blood quest too?" Miniike asks "You'll have a promising life. Actually, I sort of saw an elf I recognized, but I killed him a long time ago. But I'm not sure what to believe anymore. Regardless, let's move quickly." 

Akkarin looks around, puzzled. "Why do you want Dr. Gauntlet dead?".

Kris doesn't say anything, but gives Akkarin a cold stare. 

As Akkarin wonders ahead, he looks questioningly at Miniike for some explanation of what he might have done to upset Kris. 

Miniike eventually says "He's on a blood quest. Great things. They started my career." Just then he thinks he sees a familiar elf in the shadows, but he dissapears. He shrugs it off, but you can tell by his face he has a bad feeling. 

"We're not far now." Kris says "I remember this part of the facility. Try disabling some cameras please." 

Miniike nods. He pulls out his makeshift boomerang and takes out cameras for several hallways, with Kris leading the way. Eventually they get to the security grid before the control room. Miniike turns around. "We'll need a disguise, or an ID card, or maybe some serious firepower. Any ideas?" 

"Hmm. Akkarin, could you deal with this?" Kris asks

"I can disguise you both, I will have to stay behind. A spell like that would really take it out of me." Akkarin looks at the ball of floating glass, it separates in to two equal pieces. The who pieces move over to Kris and Miniike and engulf them in the light. As the light fades, they both appear to be scientists. Akkarin sits down heavily and wipes his nose, blood comes off on his hand. "There you go, that will last only an hour". 

"Thanks. We'll meet you back here in a few minutes."

Kris goes on to lead Miniike to the control room. 

Huh. You're much better then I thought you would be." Miniike says. He and Kris head into the security grid relatively unnoticed, but Miniike bumps into someone. "Oh, sorry si-" he looks up and sees an all-too-familiar elf, with a horrid stitched together face. "That's THE Sir to you." the elf says. "Umm...yes..of course." Miniike stammers. The horrifying elf walks away. Miniike shudders. "He came back..." he whispers. He turns to Kris. "Well, you know the way. Lead on." 

Kris and Miniike arrive at the control room. They step inside. "What do you want, need more uranium again" Dr Gauntlet tells the disguised pair. He turns to look at Kris and Miniike. "Hahahaha, really? You expected to fool me with that?!"

"How did you know it was us?" Kris asks

"Well, I never employ scientists with a tail" Dr Gauntlet says

"Crap, the spell didn't completely work. No matter, I still have you Dr Gauntlet" Kris said with a growl in his voice.

"Well, no" Dr Gauntlet says, as he pulls out an energy gun. He shoots Kris in the stomach, deactivating the pair's disguise. Kris falls over, bleeding heavily.

"Miniike" He stutters.

By the time Miniike could do anything to Dr Gauntlet, he had gone. 

Akkarin heard a bang from down the corridor. He felt something was wrong. He makes his way down the corridor and finds Kris lying on the floor bleeding. He crouches round the corner and begins the healing spell... He see's Miniike being lead away by Dr Gauntlet, his hands cuffed. Akkarin finishes the healing spell and looks over at Kris's unmoving body, praying for him to be alive. 

Kris' heart starts beating again, but he is still unconscious. 

Akkarin looks up, to be confronted by a dark silhouette at the other end of the room. Akkarin's eyes go cold and his skin pale as this mysterious being begins to growl in a low drone.

"You do not know what you are dealing with. You are not as powerful as you think you are. There are forces in this world which could crush you to a grain of dust within seconds." The shadow moved closer. "Why do you try? Your kind are so naive." 

The shadow was Timor.  Nobody knows much about Timor. There are many stories about him, how he came to be how he is, where he came from. One story mentions he was an ordinary man working in a mine for his isolated town of ‘Yakbor’. It notes that one day he went missing after entering the local mine, and from this point supernatural things began to occur to the village and it’s people. Buildings were destroyed, villigers became insane, talking to themselves and scribbling meaningless pictures on the walls. He now roams the world, sneaking up on those who least expect it.

Kris wakes up, realising that he is surrounded by blood. He curls up in a corner and closes his eyes, waiting for someone to find him. 

"He awakes." Timor tells Akkarin "But he does not realise we are here. Yet another piece of evidence towards your naivety. " 

Kris hears a voice from down the corridor. "HELP!" He shouts. He begins breathing more heavily and quickly. 

Timor begins to laugh loudly and hysterically.

"He wants help..." He looks Akkarin in the eyes. "I'll go give it to him. Stay, right, here..." His laughter stops abruptly, and his fists clench. "... or you will face the consequences." The dark shadow turned and began to run towards Kris, shouting loudly. 

Kris hears running footsteps. He realises that they are too heavy-footed to be Miniike or Akkarin.

"Right Kris, come on! It's only blood" he says to himself.

He gets up and slowly walks out of the room. He hides himself in a storage cabinet. 

Timor runs into the room so powerfully he smashes into the wall. Unscathed, he looks around the room to find Kris missing.

He kicks the wall so hard it cracks.

"How could this happen!? He was right here!" He calms down a little, and and grins. "Oh he's a sneaky little one isn't he. We'll see about that." Timor begins to smash anything in the room, smashing them, pushing them over. He laughs madly. 

Kris hears the noise, and he tries to breathe as quietly as possible. 

Timor suddenly stops. There is an eerie silence in the room. "This is useless..." he whispers to himself.

He began walking out of the room. "Just remember Kris, I'll be back. Don't think your friend... Akkarin can help you. You may get close to Dr. Gauntlet but you will never triumph. Me and Professor. Lucius will stop at nothing to protect him and his... " He chuckles. "...experiment."

As quick as a flash, he was gone. 

Kris steps out of the storage room, his heart still racing. He looks around for the voice he heard, but there was nothing. He runs to where Akkarin was and finds him unconscious on the floor. "Akkarin?" He asks, but gets no reply. He decides to sit down and wait for him to wake up. 

Kris searches his pockets and realizes he has his phone. He calls Howard.

"Howard. Help. How far away from the old facility on the top of 9th street?" 

Howard is an elf from medieval times. He was transported to the present by an unknown professor. He is a very laid back guy with an excellent aim; but when he gets angry he can go on a rampage, especially when his friend Kris is getting hurt. Sometimes he is mocked for following his traditions, but he gets by. Howard loves to get involved in whatever he can, especially if they are dangerous. 

Howard switches his phone to loudspeaker, while watching Top Gear on his TV.

"I'm on 12th Street so essentially it's round the corner. Why'd you ask?" 

"I need you quickly" Kris says "no time to explain. Just get over here." 

Miniike wakes up in a cell. The elf and Dr. Gauntlet are standing over him. "Ahh, yes, he's awake. We are going to have alot of fun with-"

"No, he's MINE, doctor. This is MINIIKE. He killed me." says Frivar (it is him without a doubt).

"Frivar...how are you alive?" says Miniike, still horrified by his face, stitched together from his dismembered corpse.

"Gauntlet was kind enough to let me have another chance. Anyway master, may I PLEASE have this one?" he replies.

"Gah, okay..." the doctor says as he slowly leaves the room.

"Fool..." mumbles Frivar.

"Wait, I thought...wait a second, you're trying to overthrow him an establish a tyranny! That's what the propaganda was for! And making sure the scientists respected you in advance by making them call you "The Sir"!

"How can you deduce so much and still be so dumb?" Frivar replies. A smirk crosses his lips. "Well, I'm going to enjoy this. And then I think I can overthrow that insane fool, Gauntlet!" He pulls out a whip and mercilessly beats Miniike, but accidentally hits the lock. Miniike grabs the electric whip and they struggle for control. Eventually, Miniike grabs it and without a thought beats the elf to death. He picks up the body. "Now....I've got to dispose of this so he won't be brought back to life...maybe I can find Kris and Akkarin." He pulls the body out of the room and wanders through the hallways, and ends up bumping into Kris, who is on the phone. 

"Where the hell have you been?!" Kris asks Miniike.

"Long story." Miniike says "Well, actually not that long. But it ended up with this elf here, Frivar, the guy who I killed for murdering my parents, getting killed by me. Again. Apparently Gauntlet brought him back to life as his Igor, but he was plotting against him. Anyway, I need to destroy his body permanently before he get's brought back to life. Did you see an incinerator anywhere?"

"What?!" Kris asks "No, wait, I got it. No, sorry. Akkarin is hurt though."

"Is it bad? I spent a few months with a doctor during my travels, I'll see what I can do."

"I don't know." Kris tells Miniike "I heard him talking to someone and I heard heavy footsteps running my way. I hid in some storage cupboard and waited for him to away. I came over and he was unconscious."

Miniike looks over his body for a minute. "Hmm...this is all very strange. Physically he's fine. Do you know anyone experienced we can get him to?"

"That's who I just called." Kris says "We kind of need Akkarin, he saved my life earlier."

"I understand. So who's this guy you called?" Miniike asks

"Someone I know called Howard. He was transported here by some wizard from the past."

"Interesting. Is he coming here? Or do we take Akkarin to him?" Miniike asks Kris

"He's on his way" Kris says

"Good." Miniike says "Until he gets here, I'll deal with this elf and you guard him until I get back."

Howard approaches the old, desolate factory's gates. It brings a chill to his bones. He pulls out his mobile and texts Kris.

'I am at the factory. It looks huge, where the hell are you?'

"This will probably be one hell of an adventure."

A text appears on his phone screen

"Go in through the back door. Follow the signs to Red Wing."

Miniike takes the body to the incinerator, dodging guards and cameras. He holds the body over the fire and whispers "This is for my parents, fricker." he tosses Frivar into the fire. He comes back to Kris and says "Well, that's one less elf I need to destroy."

Seeing the text message, Howard runs to the back of the factory. A rusty green door is essentially hanging off the wall. As he pulls it open, a deafening screech pierces his ears. He walks inside. Already he can smell stale oil and blood. Something serious was going on here.

Howard took a look at the worn away sign above him. 'Red wing, red wing, red wing' he mumbles to himself.

"Turn right. OK." He runs down the right corridor, and follows the signs. The smell gets stronger as he gets deeper into the depths of the factory. It makes him feel dizzy.

At long last he reaches the colossal door for the Red Wing. He can hear nothing but a soft resonance that sounds like it would come from some machine in a sci-fi movie. He pushes open the doors, and sees Kris and a very tall man, about 7 ft.

"Hey man, what's going on?" he asks Kris.

"He needs help." Kris tells Howard "We need to get him out of here."

Howard begins to look around the room quizzically. "Who? Who needs he-" He stops mid-sentence, seeing an young man lying on the floor, in a pool of his own blood. Howard turned pale as snow. "Holy shit man. What the hell happened to him?"

"I don't know." Kris tells Howard "Please, I can't look at the blood anymore. Just help."

"I can remember the route out of here." Howard says "I'll help him out. Come on, let's move." Howard slings Akkarin onto his shoulders and proceeds out into the long dark hallway.

Miniike shrugs, feeling respect for the strange guy, and follows him.

Kris follows the two out, breathing heavily. Once outside he says "I just need a minute here guys"

"Yeah... yeah sure..." Howard says

The smell gets even stronger. Howard's head is spinning. Everything is turning green and becoming distorted. He feels faint.

"Oh no... we're being gassed... ".

Everything went black.

Kris is the first to awake. He notices he is in a bloodsoaked room and begins to hyperventilate.

Howard is still passed out. His mind is being bombarded with images of two Professors working on a machine... and a dark, tall man who is constantly... looking him in the eyes. It stepped towards him, and grabbed him by the neck - and he awoke.

He feels his head, he is sweating. He realises he is in a metal chair, with broken chains either side of his wrists. For a second he thought he had broken them himself. Nonsense.

He takes a look around. Nobody around, apart from the tall dude he had met earlier. He walked up to him, and looked in his pockets.
"His wallet. Now I can find out his name. Ahh, Miniike. Interesting." Suddenly, he realises Kris is not in the room with them. "Oh no. No, no, no." He takes a look out of the one small window in the room. He breathes in hard as he sees Kris lying on the floor, screaming. The room is soaked with blood.

Miniike comes to.

He is relatively unfazed by the blood, but still has no idea where he is. "Great. I have now been imprisoned an upwards of three times in one day. Now I HAVE seen to much." He sees Howard. "Oh, there you are. I never caught your name. What are you looking at?"

Kris once again retreats to a corner of the room and curls up. he closes his eyes and repeats "no" over and over.

Miniike looks out the window. "Kris, what are you doing? Are the walls closing in or something?"

"GET ME OUT OF HERE" Kris shouts as a tear rolls down his face.

"I'll try and open the door.". He pulls as hard as he can.
"Damn, it won't open! Miniike, got any ideas?"

Miniike is a bit puzzled, but scans the room. It's soaked in blood, and several skeletons, both human and animal, hang in chains from the ceiling.

"I don't see any major..."

Suddenly he realizes the walls really are closing in.

"Crap! Always on a Monday..." he says. He grabs bones and he and Howard prop them up to jam the walls as they draw nearer. The bones hold surprisingly well.

"Well, I think we got that covered. Wait a second...where's Akkarin?" Miniike says as he notices his body is nowhere to be found.

"Darnnit!" he turns around. "Kris, I think you were the last one gassed. Do you remember anything?"

Kris just lies there with his eyes closed. "Just... Get me out... Please..."

Miniike sighs. "Well, let me see this door." he picks up a bone and starts to pick at the lock. "This may take awhile..."

He furiously picks at the lock. Eventually it opens and he runs out. Kris rushes out of the room after him.

"Well, I've seen alot, but that was at least in the top 15, mabye 12 most tense moments in my life." Miniike says, with a bit of a cruel smirk. "Regardless, where's Akkarian?"

"I don't know." Kris says "I just need a moment, that was pretty much the worst experience I have had in my life."

"Well, we could at least look into the security room and see if we can find him alive." Miniike says

"Your feeble attempts at escape have been fruitless" Dr Gauntlet announces over the PA
"You again?! That is it. I AM THROUGH WITH THIS" Kris says in an angry tone. He proceeds to the next door and kicks it down.

"Well, people seem to change fast. You think I would know that." Miniike follows.

"Are you coming?" Kris asks the group.

"If you're trying to kill Gauntlet, I guess I have a bone to pick with him too, bringing that guy back to life and all...so...sure." Miniike tells Kris.

Gauntlet left the speaker on. Faintly in the background, you could hear "Dr. Gauntlet! The capacitor is almost finished. Insert it into the machine!" A laugh is heard. A deep, controlling voice.
"I have already told them they are stupid for continuing yet they carry on anyway. Stupid people. Well, when they are put into the machine, ha! They will have fun."

Howard is surprised. "Oh man, who are these people?" he says as he follows Kris out the door.

"Same building. We already know where the control room is, but I can't go in."  Kris says.

"Let me take a run-up." Howard took 10 paces back, and ran as fast as he could into the door.
A cry of pain. "Shitt! That... was not a good idea. There has to be something that opens it... look, there's a slot for a key-card."

Kris begins to mutter to himself "I'm sure I found something like that in those lockers"
"Aha!"
Kris pulls out a key card. "They are pretty crap at checking pockets!"

As Kris inserted the keycard, a female voice came out of a speaker.
'Welcome, Professor Lucius. Have a good day'
"Who the hell is Professor Lucius?"  Howard asks the group.

"I have no idea." Miniike says "Kris, where did you get that card?"

"It was in a locker I hid in." Kris tells the group "I didn't look who's locker it was, I was too busy being chased!"

Timor noticed the door as it slid open.
"What? Who's there!?" He ran to the door, and his eyes turned to fire as he saw the group. "How did you get here! HOW DID YOU GET IN!"

"Pretty easily. You need higher standereds, you fricker."  Miniike says.

"By this guy." Kris says in a quirky tone.

"PROFESSOR LUCIUS! YOU ABSOLUTE IDIOT! YOU JUST LET THEM IN!" Timor shouts
Professor Lucius' gaze turned to the angry demon-like man. "I-I-I d-d-on't know..."
Timor turned and picked up Miniike by the neck. He begins to choke.

"Put. Him. Down." Kris growls.

"Once again, I've seen too much. I mean, what's he gonna do?" Miniike turns to Kris. "If we fight him, we're probably going to win, and if he captures us, we can easily escape. I don't mean to sound ****y, but we spent ALL DAY outsmarting them."

He is chocked again.

"You dare order me!?" Timor drops Miniike to the floor, and smashes Kris to the chest so hard he flies to the other side of the room.

"Gah...okay, you aren't as pathetic as you look...can I help if I'm quick to judge?" Miniike is a bit faint but still pretty confident.

Kris growls angrily and runs at Timor. He grabs him by the throat. "Never do that again. Never."

"Pathetic... you are the pathetic ones if you think you are going to win. I see that look on your face." He chokes Miniike again.

Miniike stands up and holds a sword to Timor's face. "So, are you going to take us to Gauntlet, or what?"

Timor grabs Kris' arm and twists it 360 degrees. "How'd you like me now, angry boy!?"

Kris gets really angry at this point. "I said. PUT. HIM. DOWN!"
He once again goes for Timor, this time punching him in the stomach, completely ignoring the pain.

Miniike brings the blade to Timor's neck. "Buddy, if you haven't been around the world as many times as me, you don't have a chance."

The punch pushes Timor back, with a graze from Miniike's sword.
"I think you underestimate me. You forget I have... abilities."
He 'grabs' Howard with his hand, and begins to torture him, gradually pulling his limbs away from his body.

"Timor!" An angry voice shouts over the PA.
"You'll take down the entire facility! And I need Kris alive"

"One of us is being stupid. Let's find out who." Miniike stabs Timor.

Timor's eyes literally turn red as he begins to growl. A pulsing energy begins to surround him.
He screams louder than the jet plane. A huge explosion engulfs the facility.

Miniike wakes up in a strange shadowy world.
"Him already?"
"Well, he was being an annoying jerk."
"Doesn't he do that a lot?"
"Yeah, but he was on a blood quest."
"Which he finished."
"Not completely."
"*sigh*...okay, throw him down."
In his later memoirs, Miniike label this as a drug trip.

He wakes up.

Kris looks around the site of the explosion. Timor is gone. Miniike and Howard lay unconscious. He tries to wake them, unknowing that he has a massive wound to his stomach.

Timor lay on the ground. The fire that was within him was lost. He was dead.

Professor Lucius saw this through the cameras. "Erm... sir... it appears Timor is dead."

"Ug...what happened?" Miniike says as he sees Timor's body. He smirks again. "Yep, that's how it works. And I'm sure YOU guys thought I was being arrogant."

Howard's eyes open slightly. Hearing Miniike, he chuckles.

"Well. I'm sure you could kick some ass." He sighs. "Man, I'm just an archer. You are the guys with skill."

Kris realises that he is hurt. He falls to the ground and begins shivering violently.

"Give yourself some credit, you've been doing quite well." Miniike tells Howard "Anyway, let's go get Gauntlet!""

"H-Help" Kris says softly.

"Kris! Darn, we've gotta help you before we go after Gauntlet." Miniike says "How much medical skill do you have, Howard? Kris mentioned you have some."

"Oh, man." Howard sees a First Aid kit on the wall.

"Hold on, I can fix this." He applies a bandage to Kris, and gives him strong painkillers.

"He'll be OK in a minute. Wait for the painkillers to kick in."

"See? That right there is why you need to give yourself more credit." Miniike says "I'm not as good as you with medicine. You can troll me now."

"T-Thanks. But... I can't...

there's blood." Kris shivers

"What is it with you and blood?" Miniike asks.

"Something that happened in my past." Kris goes on to explain "I don't really like talking about it but, you need to know. It was in this facility, one of my friends tried to escape. He got to the exit of our wing and was captured. They killed him on the spot" Tears began to stream down Kris' face

"There was so much blood. I was terrified. Every time I see blood, it takes me back. I just can't look at it without being traumatised."

"Sorry about that..." Miniike tells Kris "I guess you've been through a lot today. Are you feeling any better?"

"Guys. No time for talking." Howard says in a hurried voice "They've set the building' to self-destruct in 10 minutes. They're probably making a run for it!"

"What? Self destruct?" Kris tries to get to his feet.

Miniike lugs Kris to the exit. Scientists are dashing everywhere and equipment is malfunctioning.

Kris flies out of the exit, with Miniike and Howard to follow. He hits the floor with a thud.

"Could you not have been gentler?"

"Sorry," Miniike tells Kris "I'm just trying to save your life." They run out into a field and the lab explodes behind them.

Everyone is blown backwards, apart from Kris who is already on the ground.

"Well, I'm glad that's over."

Miniike dusts himself off.

"Well, I killed my nemesis again, destroyed a lab, and you finally found out what happened to..." he stops.

"Look, there they are!" Howard points out into the city street.

Kris stares at the ground. It finally hits him that his sister is dead. "To what?" he says softly.

"Sorry, I just don't really feel like being any more cruel today." Miniike tells Kris

Howard feels he should stay, but he can't.

"Screw this guys! I'm getting them myself!" Howard takes off as fast as he can toward the two scientists.

"I'll be right back, Kris." says Miniike and he runs after the scientists with Howard.

"Hey! Where the hell do you guys think you're going!" Howard shouts.

Professor Lucius grins. "I have a little treat in store just for you, Howard!" He pulls out a pistol like gun. He presses a button, and it begins to charge. He cries with laughter as he presses the trigger. Howard dives. But it hits him in the head. His eyes go cold.

Kris hears the gunshot. He looks to Howard and sees him on the floor. He rushes over. "Howard?" he asks.

Howard's body lays limp on the ground. He stuggles to look at Kris. "Kris... I... you were... always a good f-friend... I... I want you to... have... this..." But before he could continue, Howard 's eyes slid back in his head. The light in his eyes went dark.

"Have what? Howard? HOWARD?"

Kris punches the ground so hard that it cracks.

He sits there looking at Howard's body, not saying anything.

In the distance, Professor Lucius laughs.

"He's dead, Dr. Gauntlet! He's DEAD!"

Kris hears this and runs for Lucius

"YOU BASTARD"

He slams Lucius to the ground and pounds him in the face until he stops moving.

He turns to Gauntlet who was slowly backing away.

"You murder my sister... You Imprison my friends and now this. I have never wanted to kill you any more than I do now."

Gauntlet begins to loom around nervously.

"But, I'm not going to. I need to know things, and you have the answer, so now is your time to talk. Give me what I need, and I'll let you live."

"W-w-what do you want" Gauntlet asks.

"Where is Akkarin?" Kris asks.

"Akkarin?" Gauntlet replies

"The wizard that your minion half-killed" Kris says

"He's fine. He's in a medi-bay, I needed to study him." Gauntlet says nervously.

"And where is Tyra?" Kris asks

"We didn't find her. She was on the same transport as you right?" Gauntlet tells Kris.

"So she is safe. Good. Miniike, he is all yours." Kris says

"But you said you'd let me live!" Gauntlet says

"I did. Miniike didn't." Kris says, as he returns to Howard's body.

"Why, hello Gauntlet. Good job brining that elf back!" Miniike says

"Really? Thanks, it just takes-"

Miniike stabs him multiple times in the chest.

"And now, my blood quest is done."

Kris lays down and looks at the sky. He says nothing, yet waits for a reply.

"Well, your sister is avenged," Miniike tells Kris "as are my parents and Howard. But we still haven't figured out what those kidnappings were all about, or found Akkarin. Any ideas?"

Kris closes his eyes as tears begins to stream down his face.

"This solved nothing" He says.

"We should have never have come here. Because of this stupid expedition, my best friend is dead."

After a somber pause, Miniike slowly says "Do you believe in an afterlife?"

"I don't know what to believe." Kris says "I've been through too much pain to believe there is a god watching over us."

Kris gets up and wipes the tears from his eyes. "I'm going to find Tyra. She's the only thing I have left."

"She's probably at the Transport Station"

"You can come as well if you want. Well, it's probably a necessity since I'm paying you. Akkarin must have escaped the explosion, there is no body."

Kris quickly changes his mind.
"Actually, you wait here for Akkarin. He'll probably come back here if he wants to find us again. If he doesn't come back in 24 hours, come find me."
Kris goes to the station and asks around to see if anyone has seen Tyra. It is apparent that she isn't there. He finds someone who looks like they have authority.
"Excuse me but have you seen an Anthropomorph who is roughly 2 years older than me. She was heading this way on a Transporter."
Little did he know that this was the world appreciated Professor Harrison Peters. The archeologist notices Kris' wound.

Professor Harrison lived a perfectly normal life until high school. Both his parents died, and nobody took the time to care for him. He ended up living on his own, getting money from the streets and food from the bins. Geography was the only thing that kept him happy. In the time he was alone, he was mugged, robbed and beaten almost to the point of death. Eventually he got help, and got a degree in Archaeology and Geography. Today he owns his own Geographical centre.

"Dear boy, what on Earth happened to you?" The Professor says to Kris "My apologies, let me introduce myself. I am Professor Harrison Peters. You are looking for an Anthropomorph? I do recall seeing her being transported in a northerly direction. Very horrific sight, dear boy, she was screaming, crying out for someone called Kris." He coughs, and clears his throat. "Anyway, it is most likely she was transported to the Benumbed Caverns. I can help you find it, if you would so wish?"

"Damn it! I'm not losing another" Kris says.
"Sorry, yes that would help. And what happened, you don't want to know. Do you have anyone who can tend to a wound such as this?"

"There is an alchemist very near here." The Professor tells Kris "She uses some sort of magic to brew very good antidotes, healers. Excellent stuff, dear boy. I had the flu a few weeks back - took a trip to Kara's and she made me feel perfect. Perhaps you should take trip there, while I try to figure out the exact location of the cavern?"

"Where is this alchemist?" Kris asks.

"Number 83, 2nd Avenue, dear boy!" The Professor exclaims "It's a little far, but shouldn't take you too long. Just make sure you're back here in about an hour or two. I am a very busy man!" He smiles. "Oh, sorry, may I ask your name?"

"It's Kris. And I think I can get there pretty quickly." Kris says.

Meanwhile,  Akkarin awakes from a dreamless sleep. He finds himself in a medi bay. He looks around for his friends, Kris and Miniike... They are nowhere to be seen. He whispers a few short words in the ancient language and finds himself standing next to kris and someone he has never met before. "Hello friend, what happened? I woke to find myself in a medi bay."

"Things." Kris says solemnly. "My friend is missing and, well... I'm injured."  

"Here let me help you with that" Akkarin glances around and sees some water sitting on the table. He looks at it with a fiery intensity... Slowly it begins to rise and moves over to Kris. It settles on his wound and the skin begins to knit itself together. After a moment, Kris looks at himself and finds the wound healed, an expression of awe spreads across his face.
"Now, lets get on to finding your friend. Oh and please introduce me to your fellow companion, I do not believe we have met."

"Thanks again." Kris tells Akkarin "I could really have used you earlier. I've lost a good friend today."
"This is Professor Harrison. He's going to help me find my friend Tyra. He seems to know of you."

"Oh! Boy, you certainly gave me a fright!" The Professor says "You must be very skilled in the practise of magic. This must be Akkarin."

"You know of him?" Kris asks professor Harrison.

"Yes, I have heard of you" The Professor tells Akkarin. "Kara goes on about you all the time."

"And who might she be?" Akkarin asks.

"She is an alchemist on 2nd Avenue." The Professor tells Akkarin "But never mind her, we have you here. It looks like dear boy Kris need some help. Perhaps you will attend to him while I find the location of the cavern? Of course, you do not know of the cavern I talk about. Benumbed Cavern. This is where I believe Tyra was taken to, but it's location is currently a mystery. I shall use evidence and logic to find it's location - but it will take some time, I hope you understand."

"Let me see if I can help..." Akkarin slowly closes his eyes and mutters some words that were inaudible to the professor and Kris. A picture of Tyra appears in the air, she is in a room bound to a chair. All around her are caskets of alcohol. "You are right, that looks like a beer cellar to me."

"Very interesting."The Professor ponders. "No doubt the cellar will be well guarded, and not easy to find. All the more work for me. Please, at least try to enjoy yourself while I plan."

"I'll see if there are any hotels or lodges around. I need to sleep on some things." Kris says.

"A wise decision." Harrison turns to a map and begins writing frantically on a notepad.

"Okay, cool" Akkarin sits down and holds his hands out in front of him. His hands become fuzzy for a second, then when they come back into focus, he is holding a book. The book looks old and well used. He opens the pages and begins reading. The book has no title, only an image on the front cover.

Kris checks into the nearest hotel alone. He goes to his room and tries to get some sleep. 

After waiting awhile, Miniike decides to go find Kris. He checks into a hotel and gets some sleep. He has a dream.

"THE FIRE IS NOT WHAT IT APPEARS."

"THE FIRE IS NOT WHAT IT SEEMS."

"THE FIRE IS NOT WHAT IT SHOULD BE."

Miniike wakes up, wondering what it means. He heads down to breakfast and sees Kris.

"Kris, it's me!" Miniike says, walking over to him.

Kris sits in the cafeteria with a cup of coffee. He sees Miniike and says "Hey. I got you a coffee."

Miniike takes the coffee. "Thank you." he sits down. "Well, have you found anything out?"

Professor Harrison runs into the cafeteria. "There you are. It appears I have found the location of the cavern! Very well hidden, I must say."

Kris sips the last of his coffee and gets up. "Well, where is it?"

Harrison takes of the rucksack he was wearing, unzips it and takes out a map of the local area. "You can see the large amount of trees to the north-west of the city." He points to the area. "Evidence suggests that the entrance to the cavern is somewhere within this, forest, let's say. I'm sorry I couldn't be more specific, but they did a bloody good job of concealing it."

"Right. I'll set of immediately." Kris says "Wait here whilst I get my stuff please."

"So, who are you?" Miniike asks the Professor

"Professor Harrison Peters, young man. I am a specialist in archaeology and geography, and spend a great deal of time finding out unknown things about our planet. In fact, I have a TV show on right now, the 'Wonders and Mysteries of Our Planet'. Wonderful editing by the post-production team, I must-" He stops suddenly, realising he was becoming a little boastful. "Back on topic with the map, one thing that intrigued me was that there was a blazing fire near the cavern site just the other day. Did you hear about this?"

"No..." Kris says "We need to get there, and quickly."
Kris recieves a text
YOUR ORDER IS READY FOR PICKUP FROM THE MOTOR CENTRE
"And I have just the method of getting there" Kris smirks.
"Come with me to the Motor Centre please, you're gonna like this!"

"Oh, I do like a ride in a nice car. Ferrari? Lamborghini?" The Professor chuckles. "What am I thinking. Let's go."

They arrive at the motor centre. "Wait here" Kris says.
The two wait, and hear an angry engine buzzing. Eventually, Kris comes out with a motorbike helmet atop a Suzuki GSR600
"Not exactly a Ferrari, but it will do"

Harrison gets onto the motorbike. "I've never done this before. So forgive me if I-" He begins screaming as Kris speeds onto the road.

Kris speeds along the highway with the good professor screaming the whole way. They arrive at the town nearest to the cavern.
"I best text Miniike to see where he is" Kris says.

As Kris texts, the professor looks towards the forest guarding the cavern. He notices a small, but very bright light pointing in their direction. This could only mean one thing. "Kris. They know we're here."

"Crap. Looks like we're in for a fight." Kris says in a way that makes him sound like he was fed up with fighting.

"I've never been one for fighting, but I know a few tricks." Harrison again pulls out his rucksack, taking out a small SMG gun. "I do like a little firepower." He smirks as he loads the gun, and points it towards the group of soldiers approaching them.

Kris hit's the floor as he waits for the firing. 

Harrison smiles as he begins to squeeze the trigger on his gun. "Not so strong now, are you?" He runs out of bullets in his mag. "Kris, cover me while I reload!" 

Kris gets up and kicks 3 of them in the head, ignoring the blood. "You good Professor?" he asks.

Harrison begins to shoot again, this time with more accuracy. 6 guards wiped out in one mag. "Quick! Advance, before they send more!" He stuffs the SMG into his pocket and begins to run towards the cavern entrance. 

Kris runs up to the cave entrance and sees the GenoTek Logo. "It looks like the remnants of Gauntlet's minions are here." 

Harrison looks to his left, and sees a sign. 'Have you seen this man?' The name was Timor Johnson. "This must have been the hometown of the legendary Timor. This must have been the cave that... converted him. I have a very bad feeling about this."
"Timor..." Kris says.
"He was killed in an explosion."

"I had heard about explosions from the old factory the other day." The Professor says "Two whole explosions! One seemed to pulsate the air with some strange energy rays. Scientists have called them Delta Rays. Apparently some people have died because of the radiation alone. Nasty stuff, I must tell you."

As they entered the cave various cameras pointed at them. Red lights on the ceiling began to light and rotate, and a screeching alarm started. It was as if a nuclear bomb was in the area. "Bother! We didn't think to go undercover!" The Professor exclaims.

"I think it is empty. There's no-one here." Kris says, as he wanders down the long tunnel, looking around. "So, what do you do in the world of science?" He asks.

"I never told you, but I also have a degree in Physics and Chemistry." The Professor boasts "But I preferred the geographical end of studies, so I continued with that. In fact, I have developed an enhancement for my SMG gun here, plus something for you. I developed it to suit your brain cells perfectly." He took out a canister of bright green liquid, and connected it to the bottom of the gun.

"This thing is a LLED, or a Liquid Laser Expulsion Device. It heats light to such an extent it liquidises it! When shot, it will vapourise whoever it touches! Although, I must conserve. Only 1 shot is available in this canister, and I didn't bring any more." He then laughs as he took out an small chip. "Now this bad boy allows you to see enemies round corners and shows you your current position. Not much, but it is a work in progress. It would be much more use to you then me, so here you go. Just place it anywhere, it will still register visual cortex. Bet you didn't expect that." He laughs.

"Thanks!" Kris says, as he recieves a text from Miniike.

"Sorry I've been gone awhile. Contact me or meet me at the Inn if you need help.

Actually, I've met someone rather interesting. I'll tell you more if I get the chance. "

Kris texts back saying " There has been a few issues, but the professor has a machine gun >:D"
Miniike texts saying " Nice. That guy is pretty awesome so far. Well, I'll contact you later. I've been having strange dreams..."

"So how did you come into sciences?" Kris asks the Professor.

"It happened one day when this strange man, who I would know later as Professor Lucius, bastard that he is. He used to teach at my college." The Professor goes on to explain "He demonstrated such wonderful things... I am ashamed to say I was inspired. He was then turned to evil ways by another man, with glasses and a large mustache. I do not need to tell you who that is." He frowned. "I then studied Science, and developed the things I demonstrated today, like the liquid laser or the visual modifier I gave you."

"Interesting" Kris says as sees a door marked 'beer cellar'

"There it is!"

Kris rushes through the door to find Tyra strapped to a chair. He unties her bonds and helps her up.

"Are you ok?" Kris asks

"Yeah, just a little roughed up." Tyra replies

"Let's get out of here. I have a friend waiting at the inn"

The three make their way back to the town and arrive at the inn, where they find Miniike and some other strange gentleman.

Miniike is surprisingly shaking and almost tearful. He eventually says "Oh, hello guys, this is Mr.Svanson. I suppose I should explain."

A mysterious spirit that has been reincarnated through the ages. Mr. Svanson's motives and true abilities are unknown, but Miniike's distant ancestors apparently helped a previous incarnation. Never one to forget a favor, he has revealed himself and joined forces with Miniike to find out more about the kidnappings. He has the ability to interpret dreams sent by ghosts of his previous incarnations.

The team of Akkarin, Kris, Miniike and the professor all meet up at the front entrance of the Tokyo airport.
"I have booked hotel rooms for us all, tomorrow I will transport us all to Sapporo with magic, if you are all okay with that?" Akkarin asks with a hopeful look on his face.

"Sapporo... that place brings horrible memories to me. I went there once, horrible place. I was almost murdered... My family though... they..." Harrison begins to sob. "No. Not again. OK. I'll just go to the hotel, a-and I'll see you all tomorrow." He runs off.

Akkarin looks over at Kris - "Do you think he and his family had a run in with nexus aswell just like my family?"

Kris says "I don't know. Maybe."
Kris walks into his room. He sits in the bed and stares at the ceiling for a while before dropping to sleep.
When morning arrives, he stumbles to his feet and goes to see if the professor is in his room.

Harrison notices Kris enter his room. He says nothing. He just looks at Kris with tears in his eyes.

"what's the matter professor?" Kris asks.

Harrison sighs. "Everything just gets better. We're going to Sapporo, where both my parents died. I also heard my brother was killed in a car crash a few hours ago. I don't know what to do." He looks down to the ground.

"Well, I've been through a lot recently as well,"Kris tells the Professor "but I try and pull myself through."

"Yes. I must stop reflecting on the past, and focus on the present task." The professor chuckles. "This time though, I need a little more firepower.“ He walks over to a large bag, unzips it, and takes out a large shotgun. “That's right. This bad boy also has one of my power tuners attached - one shot is the equivalent of 5 normal shots. Not bad, eh?“

Kris just stands there looking amazed at the Professor's large array of weaponry.
"I think Miniike should handle the machine gun..." he says.

"I'm keeping the shotgun though." Harrison says with a smirk on his face "I've had a lot of training with this bad boy. Sure, Miniike can have the machine gun. I'm sure in his profession he is more than capable to use that beast."

"Have you got anything I could use? I prefer hand-to-hand combat."  Kris asks.

Harrison routes through his bag. He smiles as he finds a weapon for Kris. "Use this wisely. This is a Saw-Knife. See the jagged edges. These rotate on a conveyor belt inside of the knife. Hit this button - " He taps the button, and it makes the noise of a miniature chain-saw. "- and it begins roaring!" He turns it off and hands it to Kris. "Use it well."

"Thanks. I could definitely use this." Kris says.

Miniike walks in, still a little shaky. "Do you guys have a plan yet?"

"Oh Miniike! The Professor has a gift for you"  Kris tells Miniike.

Miniike turns to the Professor. Harrison picks up the large machine gun from the stash. He laughs, and hands it to Miniike. "You're gonna have some fun with this. Come on, we have some a*s whooping to do." He walks out the door.

"Thanks, professor!" Miniike says, feeling a little better.

"So, where are we going to now?" Kris asks.

"Akkarin tells us he will teleport us to Sapporo." Harrison says "This is where Nexus usually resides." He frowns. "No, I'm not gonna get upset again. I can't. We must visit Akkarin at once."

"I Don't know if he was staying in in this hotel,"Kris ponders "and I'm not properly awake yet. Why don't we have a look round the city?"

"Sounds good." says Miniike. He follows Kris out the door.

"Make sure you visit the Tower of Happiness." Harrison tells the group "It's a very nice place, with many helpful tour guides around."

The three walk towards the tower of happiness. "So this is the tower?" Kris asks.
The Professor opens his mouth to speak, but was interrupted
"JUSTICE IS SWIFT? HOW DO YOU PLEA?"
The grating voice is heard behind them.

"What was that?" says Miniike, turning around. Behind them stood The Desolator.  One of gauntlet's failed experiments, it now wanders the planet seeking revenge on anything he can find.

"HOW DO YOU PLEA?" The colossal machine asks.

"Plea to what?" says Miniike, putting his hand on his gun.

"THE HUMAN RACE IS DESIGNATED FOR NUMEROUS CRIMES AGAINST NATURE." The Desolator goes on to explain "THE RESULT OF THESE CRIMES IS STANDING BEFORE YOU. TWO OF THEM IN FACT. HOW DO YOU PLEA?"
Kris looks at the cyborg and says "We're innocent"
"YOU ARE EXEMPT. I AM INQUIRING TO THE HUMANS" The Desolator tells Kris

"Where did you come from? What involvement did we have?"  Miniike asks.

The professor puts a round into his shotgun. "We'll cover you if it gets nasty" he whispers.

The Desolator points its energy gun at Miniike
"THE ENTIRETY OF THE HUMAN RACE IS ON TRIAL. I AM THE JUDGE, THE JURY AND THE EXECUTIONER."
Kris looks around to see an array of dead bodies. He quickly turns back to Miniike and says "look around."

Miniike looks around. "Wow, you're pretty good. Okay, I see how this is going to work. What do you charge us with, 'your honor'?"

"THE DESTRUCTION OF THE NATURAL ORDER" The Desolator's synthetic voice says.
Kris gets his blade out and brings it to the Desolator's throat
"I'm like you, an experiment, but I am pressing no charges." Kris tells the Desolator
"YOU WERE INNOCENT UNTIL THIS ACT WAS COMMITTED. YOU ARE ALL FOUND GUILTY."
The Desolator swipes Kris away who lands in front of Miniike and the Professor. "Well go on then you two! Shoot it!" Kris says.

"You don't charge us of anything, you robotic piece of shit" Harrison fires an energy charged round at the head of the machine.

"SYSTEMS AT 80% ENERGY. OFFENSIVE ACTION REQUIRED"
The Desolator begins to fire at the group. Kris jumps out of the way of an energy shot and runs up to the Desolator, impaling one of its legs.
"MOBILE COMBAT WILL BE UNAVAILABLE. REPAIRING DAMAGE"

The professor takes a level 2 shot at the Desolator's arm that was repairing the rest of the machine. It flies 60ft into the air and crashes to the ground with a boom.

"TARGETING MOST DANGEROUS ENEMY"
The Desolator charges a shot at the Professor. He fires, but before it could hit the Professor, Kris jumps in the way. Kris hits the ground with a thud. He isn't dead, but he is bleeding heavily.

The Professor looks at Kris, but can see he is still breathing. He breathes a sigh of relief. "Miniike, try and patch him up, I need to finish this." He charges up his shotgun to level 5, and aims for the laser on his head. "Titanium-iridium plating, eh? We'll see what this shot can do about it." The gun begins to shake and scream, electrical surges begin to circulate the gun. Finally, the sound of a bomb pounded at the ears of those nearby as the gun released the build up of energy. The blast sends Harrison back 10 metres. The laser arm on the robot flies off.

"EVASIVE ACTION NEEDED. JUSTICE CAN WAIT."
And as quickly as it arrived, the Desolator had gone.
Kris was still conscious, but the light was fading.
"Professor. Miniiike. I-I'm sorry." Kris says, before his eyes close.

"No, Kris!"
Miniike tends to Kris, using the best of his knowledge. "I think we better get him to a doctor, professor!"

"I'll get him to a hospital now." Harrison says "I have a mobile, I'm calling an ambulance." He frantically dialed the emergency services. "Ambulance right now, my friend has been shot with a fatal laser intensity rank 3."
"May I please have your location, sir?" the operator says
"We are in front of the Tower of Happiness, Yakbor. I need you here right now, he is bleeding heavily and he is gaining Delta Radiation poisoning, he won't last much longer. Get. Here. Now." Harrison tells the Operator
"We have dispatched an ambulance to your position, sir. Estimated time of arrival is 10 minutes."
Harrison closed his eyes and crossed his fingers. "Please don't die, please don't die." He chanted. Miniike eventually stops most of the bleeding.

Harrison looks at Miniike and smiles weakly. "Good job. But he doesn't have much longer. Some of his fur and skin is already turning purple from radiation." He looks at his watch. "Just a few more minutes now. Just a few more minutes."

Kris' eyes open and he sees Miniike and the professor standing beside him. "Wha... What happened?"

Harrison gasps. "Sorry... you... were shot by it's laser when you dived in front of me." He pauses. "Thank you." The ambulances arrive and carry Kris on board.
"Be quick, this anthropomorph has severe delta radiation poisoning and a fatal wound to the chest, we need this vehicle at top speed to the hospital."

"Tell... Tell Tyra that I..."
Kris says before he loses consciousness again.

"He's getting closer to death, we need to drive faster. We cannot hold off the poisoning much longer." The ambulance accelerates. The tension is high.

They arrive at the hospital and Kris is rushed into the radiation unit.
"It's going to be close" The paramedic says.

The paramedics insert Kris into an anti-delta-radiation machine. Various needles are inserted to various locations around Kris' body.
"Begin extraction."
The machine begins to vacuum a gooey purple liquid from Kris. His fur and skin turn back to their normal colour.
"Extraction successful. We need to take him to a standard accident and emergency unit, now."

Kris is placed in the recovery ward. After a few hours of nothing, his eyes open. "W-where am I?" 

Harrison is sitting by Kris, reading a newspaper he had picked up earlier. "You're in a recovery ward. That was a nasty shot you go there, they extracted almost a litre of that stuff." He sighs, and turns the page on his newspaper. "You're gonna be fine." His mobile starts ringing, and he answers. After a few moments, he gives the phone to Kris. "It's Tyra."

Kris answers the phone "Oh my god are you OK?" Tyra hurriedly says
"I-I'm fine. It'll take more than that to take me down, you know that Tyra" Kris grimaces.
"Well, at least you're all right." Tyra says
"I'll be back home soon... I think" Kris says
"Bye" Tyra says as she puts down the phone.
Kris tries to get up, but finds the pain too great and winces.
"How long am I going to be here?"

"They told me another day or two."  The Professor tells Kris

At this moment, Akkarin warps into the room with Miniike.

"Holy s**t, what happened here? I just saw a massive robot running through the streets of Tokyo. He dropped a microchip, take a look professor. I think its working for Nexus. Kris, what happened to you?" Akkarin looks at his friend bleeding heavily, he wonders if he should use some magic to help his friend. Akkarin applies his hand to the wound for a few seconds, when he takes it away, the skin stops bleeding but is not completely healed. "Your body should fix itself. Its dangerous for magic to be used too much on a person."
He then moves over and gives the chip to the professor.

"Oh, thank goodness you're alright." Miniike tells Kris.

"Yes sorry, I slept in. I have been looking for all you guys, I had to srcy Kris to find you all." Akkarin gives an apologetic half smile to Miniike.

"Well, Kris is fine for now. Anything important?" Miniike asks.

"Not that I know of" Kris says.
"Hi Akkarin. I assume this is your handy-work" he says, as he looks at his healed wound.

Professor Harrison observes the chip. "Fascinating. When I plug this into my mobile super-computer it gives me a load of binary code, followed by a sound file." He taps his screen a few times. He waits for a few seconds, then it beeps. "It has decoded the file. Very strange, the binary code and the decrypted sound file both come together to form 3 messages." He proceeds to read them out.
"THE FIRE IS NOT WHAT IT APPEARS."

"THE FIRE IS NOT WHAT IT SEEMS."

"THE FIRE IS NOT WHAT IT SHOULD BE."
"Does anyone know what this could mean?"

"I'm sure I heard Nexus saying that when he was with Miniike."  Kris tells the Professor

Harrison looks angrily at the messages. "But what is the fire?"

"Nexus is a mage, maybe its something to do with that? And yes Kris, I hope you don't mind me healing you." Akkarin says.

"Not at all." Kris says.
"Well, since I'm stuck in here for at least another day, you lot may as well go out investigating."

"Oh, another transmission! Strange," Harrison says "this time it has given me an image." the computer beeps as it displays the image.

Harrison shows the picture to everyone in the room. "Does anyone know what this is?"

"Yes,"Akkarin says "that is the symbol of Merlin, only those with the gift identify themselves with that sign. This is Nexus alright, he sent the robot for us. He knows we are here. Everyone gather round. Kris I will come back for you tomorrow." As Akkarin gathers the group together, Kris tips his head slightly forwards in a knowing goodbye. Akkarin mutters a few words and they simply disappear, no trace, no flash, no bang. It was as if you had blinked.

Harrison screamed as they moved through a vortex. As quick as it had started however, they materialised in the main district of Sapporo. People were screaming, and there was fire everywhere. "He's here alright. But I can't help but think about 'the fire'. Is this the fire... it was talking about?"

"It must be, or is it something more sinister?.. I don't know, but right now we need to help these people find what is causing all this fire." Akkarin took in his surroundings.
"Miniike, find the thing responsible for this fire, Professor, try and heal these people and find out what they know. I will try and find a way to put out this fire". The team looked each other in the eye and departed to their individual tasks.

Harrison barely walked round the corner when he saw a man running towards him.
"You there! You there with the shotgun! We need your help, right now!" Intrigued, he replied to the man.
"What is it you need?" The man points towards a large bomb placed in the centre of the road. It glowed purple, and had a new sort of radiation sign on the front - the symbol for Delta-Radioactive."

"Oh dear. This is not good." Harrison calls Akkarin and Miniike. "Guys, I need you here right now. I have discovered a Delta-Nuclear Explosive here, I need you to help me remove it from the area." He starts breathing heavily. "If this thing explodes, it could create a blast so big it wipes out 40% of the Earth's surface. Anyone else would probably die from Delta radiation. I need you here now."

At this moment, The Desolator warped into the room.

"EXPLOSIVE IS ARMED. JUSTICE WILL NOT BE FAIR. I WILL DISARM THE EXPLOSIVE."

"Why should I trust you, filthy robot. For all I know you could detonate it right now. Step away from the bomb." Harrison tells the Desolator

"EXPLOSIVE DISARMED. RETREATING."
And as quickly as it appeared, it was gone.
The Professor recieves a text from Kris.
"Bored :C
Any news? "

Harrison was surprised the Desolator did not attempt to attack him or anyone nearby. The bomb's glow disappeared, and it collapsed into itself, without a single trace to be found. His phone beeped, and reads the message from Kris.
"The Desolator just returned to the area. There was a huge delta-nuclear explosive that could have wiped out 40% of the Earth. Surprisingly, the robot disarmed it and left. I'm unsure what his aims are." Harrison replies.

Akkarin looked worried "You do realise what we have just done?.." Akkarin looked around at the team. "We have just let a crazed robot loose with a nuclear explosive, that same robot with the primary objective of killing Kris, the Professor and I." He then sat down and looked at the ground, awaiting a response from the team.

"WHAT? I'm out of the recovery ward. Come and collect me when you are ready. " Kris texts the professor.

"It's fine Akkarin. It was defused. Unless... hold on, Kris has texted me again."
"We will collect you in a moment, we need to finish analysing the scene." The professor Texts Kris
"Why do I have a bad feeling about this. You are right Akkarin - why would a robot with the aim of seeking revenge on the human race defuse a bomb like this? Do you think... when it disappeared, he transported it somewhere else so that we couldn't defuse it? "

Akkarin stood up and looked at his team, the Professor had just told him that Kris needs a hand getting to Sapporo. Without a word, he disappeared and reappeared next to his friend. "Hi, needing a lift?" Akkarin held his friends arm and jumped back to Sapporo.

"I see, but it is possible to rearm such a bomb. We have to find desolater and Nexus. And I have a bad feeling that they will be up at there." Akkarin points to the boiling volcano on the horizon

"What a cliche." Harrison can't help but laugh as he looks towards the volcano.

"So, tell me what happened." Kris asks as he looks at the pile of dust which used to be the explosive.

Harrison turns towards Kris. "The Desolator return to the area. People were running wild because of a large Delta-Nuclear explosive that was planted in the middle of the road where you are now. He mentioned that 'Justice wouldn't be fair', and so he... well, he says he defused it, but I think otherwise."

"Hm. Well.. We're in Sopporo now. We can worry about the Desolator later, we have a wizard to find." Kris tells the group.

"The volcano is 10 miles north-west." The professor says "It's guarded by police at all times, so we need to be careful. They also have teleportation detectors. God knows how they made them, but they can tell when someone teleports into their barrier. We need to think of another way."

Akkarin thought for a moment, he looked around and picked up a stone, he heated it until it was molten and extracted the little metal contained inside. The small ball of molten metal was a silvery colour as it transformed and grew into three cars. "Sorry guys, a little unimaginative but I think these will do." Akkarin then spoke a few words and the cars engines started. He climbed into his Lamborghini and indicated with his head for the others to follow suit. "Lets go" he said to the others over the com.

"Um... I don't know how to drive one of these..." Kris says.

"It's auto, just put your foot on the pedal and drive." Harrison revved his engine and followed Akkarin towards the red volcano.

Kris, a little shaky at first, gets the hang of it and follows the group to the volcano.

After the ten mile drive, the group arrive at the glowing volcano. Harrison's super-computer is going mad. "Oh, please be quiet. It keeps sending me the same signals I recieved from the Desolator chip." He looks towards a beacon at the top of the volcano. "That's where it's coming from. It's likely Nexus or someone who knows him is there." He turns to Kris. "There are guards everywhere. Kris, use the visual manipulator I gave you to see if there are any around."

Kris puts on the goggle like apparatus.

"Three on the north west tower and nine in the bunker to the north-north east"

"Okay right, I will take out the tower with Kris." Akkarin says "Professor and Miniike, can you two take the bunker? Nexus is at the top, once Kris and I have taken out the control tower, we can begin the climb. Meet back here in one hour." Akkarin handed each of them a radio he had taken from the professors bag. "Use these, keep in close contact."

"Well, we best get to it." Kris says.

The professor took out his 'trademark' energy shotgun and without hesitation entered the bunker, taking out two guards with one shot. "I had best apply the CamoNeuron." He applied the substance to his skin and clothes, and he instantly blended in with whatever was around him. Working his way through, he took out another 10 guards. He looked around, it seemed he had cleared the place out

Just as he thought this..

"JUSTICE WILL BE SERVED"

"Not that thing again" Kris says.

Faintly, Harrison heard a low drone. It rumbled the cellar. "No, no that thing again."

The group could hear masses of energy shots and screams as The Desolator took care of the base.

Suddenly, there was silence.

"JUSTICE IS SERVED. SCANNING NEXT AREA... TARGET LOCATED."

Thud.... Thud.... Thud...

A red light could be seen in the entrance to the bunker.

Thud... Thud... Thud....

The Desolator exited the bunker.

"HELLO AGAIN PROFESSOR. WE APPEAR TO HAVE AN UNFINISHED TRIAL."

"Let me take him this time" Akkarin says. With one quick snap of the wrist the robot was held in the air. Akkarin closed his eyes and the robots chest began to rumble... As the rumble ceased, Akkarin looked the robot dead in the eye as every part in the robot detached itself from its neighbour and hovered in the air for a second before crumbeling to the ground. The team looked at Akkarin, at that moment, a pulse of energy hit Akkarin square in the chest. He looked up and saw its source, one of Nexus minions had fired a shot at point blank range. Akkarin stumbled and fell, "Kris, get him".

Kris nodded and ran up to Nexus' henchman and slit his throat. He turned away to avoid seeing the blood, but was instantly knocked down by a stray piece of metal.

"DISASSEMBLY HAS OCCURRED. NANOBOTS ACTIVATED. REPAIRS IMMEDIATE"

All the particles of The Desolator re-assembled.

"MORE REPAIRS REQUIRED. RETREATING." It said, as it disapperated into nothingness.

Kris rushes over to help Akkarin.

"I don't know what to do!" Kris says hurriedly.

Akkarin looked down as blood gushed from his chest. "Give me your hand, I need to take some energy, I am not strong enough to do this by myself." Kris give Akkarin his hand. Akkarin closed his eyes and sapped Kris's energy until the wound was healed. "Thank you. Prof, is anyone left in the bunker?" Akkarin looked over at the Professor who was holding a thermal imaging camera to his eyes.

"Two henchmen at the bottom of the corridor. Let me sort this." Harrison takes a run for the guards, and smashes their heads in with the shotgun.

"I see three more round the corner" Kris says, looking through the Professor's goggle-gadgets.

Kris' Chainknife starts whirring. 

"I've got this" He says. The henchmen walk round the corner. Kris takes two of them out in one slice. The third begins firing, but before he was hit, he was on the floor. "Professor, fire!"

Harrison takes one last shot at the man. He explodes into pieces. "Forgot I had it on power 5 still. Whoops." He reloads his gun and walks up the stairs, back out into the open. It had started snowing.

Akkarin whipped around, covering the Professor as he went in for the kill. Lightning arched from Akkarins hands in suppression.

The snow seemed to start concentrating on one area. It began forming a large white creature, with ice blue eyes.

"Nexus is not your utmost concern..."

"I can't see any more. It looks like we're in the clear for now." Kris says.

At this moment Kris turns round.

"WHOAH HOLY SSSSSSSHHHHHH.....HELL"

"Professor, What is that?"

Harrison does not reply. He is mesmerised by the creature. He continues to whisper, but so loudly towards them.

"You did not kill Dr. Gauntlet..."

Kris looks angrily at the creature. "He is dead and buried" He growls.

"And if you mention him once more, So will be you."

"You do not realise, dear Kris. You don't know who I am... have a guess." The ice creature begins to laugh.

Kris' pupils get wider.

"You... YOU!!"

He screams in anger and rushes towards the creature. He uses the ChainKnife on it, but it has no effect on the colossal creature.

As Kris falls straight through the creature, a familiar sound is hear.

Thud...

Thud...

Thud...

"GUILTY PARTY LOCATED. DR GAUNTLET SHALL BE PUT ON TRIAL"

The snow monster turns around, and without hesitation hits the robot hard on the side. It flies and smashes into a nearby wall.

"Poor Desolator. Miss your daddy?"

"*$%£^%^*ZZZZZZCHHHHHHH*"

"SCRAMBLE UNIT VOICED. ACTION TAKING EVASIVE. FIRING PROFESSOR GAUNTLET AT PHOTON"

The monstrous being laughs. "You think a particle of light can harm me!? You really are a useless piece of scrap metal aren't you." he picks it up 50ft into the air, and smashes it against the floor.

Kris just stands there, watching the two duel.

"Professor, Akkarin, we should get to Nexus whist these two fight. It looks like they'll be a while."

"A fair point." Harrison starts laughing. "Maybe I should grab my mini-gun. Aww yeah. I've been saving that beast for a while now, and she's getting a little rusty. No, it's too far. This shotgun will do." He signals to the stairs leading up the volcano. "Come on, let's go."

"I thought I'd be seeing the last of gauntlet" Kris mutters quietly to himself.

"Alright Professor. Let's get going."

The snow becomes thinner and thinner as they go up. The intense heat of the volcano begins to settle in. Everyone's vision is blurred from the heatwaves. But at last, they made it to the top.

Akkarin, Kris, the Professor and Miniike come to a stair well. They climb and find themselves standing on the lip of the volcano. Suspended in the center of the crater they see a shadow. As their eyes focus on the strange shape in the distance, Akkarin is the first to realize... "Oh god, thats Nexus." Everyone scrambled for cover as the shape grew in size 10 fold.

"What do we do?" Kris whispers to Akkarin.

"I don't know" Akkarin and Kris stood, frozen in awe of the power radiating from Nexus. All too soon, Nexus awoke from his apparent sleep, he knew they were there.

"Do you not see? You miserable excuse for a mage... You were always destined to come back here, to me. This was where you came into the world. I did not kill your parents, they never existed. Our creator made us both here... However I was created before you. I soon realised I was just a test, I killed that man. Now I will kill you and no one will have the power to stop me killing every last living thing on this planet."

Kris says "We might be in over our heads here..."

He turns his Chainknife to full speed.

"Professor, you good?"

Harrison wanted to concentrate on the bigger details, despite this revelation. "Who is your creator?" he shouted as he loaded his shotgun, and turned it to Power Level 6.

The shot from the Professor went straight through the cloud of dust, making no impact at all.

Nexus turned to Kris, he raised his skeletal hands and black lightning arched out of them.

Nexus screemed in excitement as he watched Kris's body spazam and smoke.

Kris screamed in anguish. he fell to the ground and lay on the floor motionless. His breathing became stuttery. "p-professor... Akkarin...I..Might have a....Problem..."

Akkarin rushed to his friends side, keeping a watch full eye on Nexus. "Professor! Hold him off! Please, I have to save Kris"

The Professor rushed off as Akkarin turned to his friend. "What can I do? Tell me what to do!" Akkarin stared at Kris with panic in his eyes.

"tell... Tell Tyra that I had to go... Tell her that I might not be back for a while."

Kris' eyes closed and his heartbeat grew faint.

Harrison talks to himself just out of Nexus' hearing range. "He wants it that way, huh. I'm sorry guys, but I'm going to have the bring out 'Ventus Dator'. Wind Bringer." He laughs, and looks at the cloud. "When I turn this bad boy on, it will create a wind force so strong it could blow buildings down." Harrison takes the device from his backpack, and places it on the ground. He presses the on switch, and it begins to make a loud noise; sort of a thunder sound mixed with a loud electrical current. The wind was so strong it began to blur the vision of those around it. It sped towards Nexus.

Nexus's seems to come in and out of focus at the intensity of the Professors weapon.

"You really think your puny hair dryer is going to effect me? You ignorant imbecile."

Nexus creates a typhoon within the volcano crated and sends it towards the Professor.

"NO!" Shouts Akkarin as he extends his arms out towards the typhoon firing pure energy

at it, breaking down the flow of air. Akkarin turns back towards his friend and feels for a

heart beat.

Akkarin searched, but there was no heartbeat to be found. Kris breathed out one last time, and didn't breathe back in.

Quickly and urgently, Professor Harrison turned to the young wizard. "Akkarin, you need to forget about Kris for moment! The entire world is at stake and you are the only one with the power to stop him!" The Professor turns around, and notices Dr. Gauntlet and the Desolator still fighting. Only this time the snow was more heavy, yet there was fire contradicting the atmosphere. He could hear the screams of people as they ran. He could hear buildings being destroyed.

The Ventus Dator falls over, and points towards the professor. Harrison turns around, only to be blown forcefully off of the volcano.

Akkarin looks over at the Professor as he see's him flying off the Volcano. Akkarin turns back to his friend, lying motionless on the ground. He places his hands on the ground, and feels the live surging through his fingertips, filling his body with energy. Akkarin let out a screem filled with the words of the ancient language. All at once, his friend sucked in a large breath of air and smoke. Akkarin felt under his nose fresh blood was flowing from the concerntration.

"Oh look, how nice, you saved your friend so he could fell the agonizing pain of death a second time." Nexus faces his hands towards Akkarin and Kris, poised, ready for his attack.

Kris stands up in a blank landscape, with white all the way you could see.

He sees a figure in the distance, and as he gets closer, he realises it is himself.

"Well, we're alive" The other Kris says

"yeah, but where is this?" Kris asks other Kris.

"It's your mind Kris. You created this... Well, actually Gauntlet did..." Other Kris says

"How do you know all of this and I don't?" Kris asks the other Kris

"I am your subconscious. We have all sorts of un-used information in here." Other Kris says.

"Such as?" Kris asks other Kris.

"Well... I know what happened before the experiment when you lost your memory. You didn't really lose it, it was just suppressed by.... Him... "Other Kris says

"Gauntlet?" Kris asks.

"No... Him... The first experiment you remember wasn't your creation. We were born an anthropomorph. It was to implant him into your psyche." Other Kris says.

"How can I avoid ever meeting... "Him"?" Kris asks other Kris

"Don't die again. It has already weakened the psychic barriers holding him back. If you get attacked in this way again, He will be released." Other Kris says

"Who is He?" Kris asks. Before other Kris could answer, the world around him turns darker.

"Looks like we're waking up. Bye bye." Other Kris says.

Kris opens his eyes in the real world.

"Ugh..." He grunts

"Where are we?" Kris asks.

"Kris.... Kris!! Wake up," Akkarin hurrieddly tells Kris "Nexus is gathering energy for some massive attack. We have to stop him!"

Kris tries to get up, but falls straight back to the floor. "I... I'm not fully recovered yet... I'm sure you can do this without me."

Professor Harrison was bracing for death. His life was flashing before him. But just as he was about to hit the ground, he was stopped mid-air. It was so sudden it winded him. "What on Earth... I should be dead!" He finds that his Ventus Dator was on the floor beneath him, keeping him up. "You wonderful machine." He turns it off, and looks up at the volcano before him. "I hope those guys are-" Suddenly, he was hit at a large force from the back-swing of 'Dr. Gauntlet'. He hits the ground, but is OK. "They've really destroyed this city, haven't they." he thinks. He begins to journey back up the volcano.

Kris hears the professor down the mountain and begins to shuffle towards the ledge of the volcano.

"I'm ok professor" he shouts with a thumbs up.

Akkarin fires a powerful shot of lightning at Nexus, his shield absorbs it. Nexus replies with a bolt of pure dark energy making the whole group stumble.

Harrison stares at Nexus. He is not afraid, he is just intrigued. What was this thing? It was just a bundle of smoke which could fire some lightning bolts. It didn't sound as bad if you put it that way.

He began to feel small vibrations beneath his feet. He looked down. The heat was beginning to rise, and he could see lava bubbling in the depths below.

"Professor! The lava!"

Kris says, as he shuffles further from the volcano crater.

"I can't walk yet. What am I going to do?" he asks hurriedly.

Nexus reaches at the lava below, willing it upwards. He watches it with content as it moves with speed towards his opposite being and his fellow ignorant companions.

"Get behind me!" Akkarin shouts frantically as he realises what Nexus was doing.

"Why?" Kris replies.

"Just do it! Please!"

Nexus looks on in awe as he watches the lava flow down the mountain, It covers Akkarin, Kris and the Professor. Burning them to a cinder...

Nexus begins laughing at how easy it was to destroy his most hated of all enemies.

Suddenly the lava begins to bubble over where Akkarin, Kris and the Professor were. It begins to rise up out of the stream of the molten rock that is now flowing down the side of the mountain. Suddenly, the object beneath breaks the surface. It was a large sphere of glowing light, the light fades and standing within are the three friends.

Akkarin's nose streaming with red blood from the concentration he needs to exert such power. He lowers them onto a patch of the volcano crater which the lava had not occupied.

Nexus moves info physical form, his eyes, red like the magma beneath their feet. "This is impossible, if not mildly annoying" Nexus arrogantly states.

Kris is amazed to be alive. He hides his his head in his arms due to the blood.

"Thanks. Now kill that son of a bitch!"

Nexus stared at Kris

"Kill me? Hahaha! You think its that easy? You irrelevant cancerous mutant. My energy comes from the heart of the Volcano, you want to kill me, you must destroy the volcano!" Nexus smiles and watches the little people below, pondering how he will inflict excruciating amounts of pain apon them.

"Okay, I will." Akkarin turns to his left slightly, "I really need you both right now, place your hands on my shoulder. I can't do this by myself, I need your energy. "

"Well if you say so" The Professor replies.

Kris follows the Professors lead.

Akkarin crouches, close to the intense heat, radiating of the ground. He extends one hand, its fingertips outstretched, just brushing the surface of the Earth.

Akkarin closes his intense blue eyes, he face relaxed, tranquil in the face of danger. Quietly his lips move, speaking the calm words of the ancient language.

His body begins to glow with the same intense blue of his wise young eyes. Violently, a sudden surge of energy pulses through his body and into his finger tips,

the very ground beneath them freezes instandly, creating patterns of frost on the surface of the fresh rock, formed from the previously molten lava.

His friends look at him with wide eyes, the Professors face creased with lines of thought.

"You half wit. Look what you have done?" Nexus begins falling to the frozen ground in the centre of the crater. He lands in a controlled stance, and begins firing a beam of energy at Akkarin, who replies with the same strength of power.

The Sky Was Lit with The Light Of A Thousand Candles As the Men Played With Fire.

A ball of intense energy formed at the point of contact of the two beams. It exploded out, with such ferocity, it incinerated everything around them. Akkarin's mind spin, the world seemed to move into slow motion as he flew through the air propelled by the heat radiating from the explosion. He saw his enemy turn to ash under the power the devastating explosion. He saw his friends, seconds away from succumbing to the same fate as Nexus. Akkarin used what remaining energy he had to create a field of protection around them. Then the world turned dark.

"I'm glad that's finally over" Kris says as he gets up.

They walk down the now dormant volcano. There they find the scattered remains of a robot. A flurry of snow suddenly appeared and there was a complete white-out.

Kris' eyes open. Before they did he knew something was wrong. He looks around, and realizes his hands and feet are locked to a large cliff of ice.

"Ladies and gentlemen. I assume you are aware of the current situation" A voice says. Kris instantly recognized the voice. It was Dr Gauntlet.

"Don't try any funny business, or the rat dies."

After going to a cafe, the group set off towards a forest. Still weak, Kris wandered through the dense trees, keeping an eye out at all times. He spotted someone in the distance.

Freya was a normal ,human school student who had many friends and a happy life. But one night, when she was out with her friends, she was abducted by a strange man in a lab coat. She was placed into a machine, and the strange man brought out a cat, and inserted it into a slot at the side of her. He switched it on, and the pain was more than unbearable. Her mind was being twisted into something else and she could literally feel herself changing form. By the end, she had fallen asleep, and she awoke in a field, near a forest. 

Freya looks towards the cafe. She begins to cry. She hadn't seen a normal environment for years. She can just make out an orange creature, with a man in a brown suit. She begins to walk towards the cafe. 

Kris sees the other anthropomorph. As they get closer, they could see each other properly.

"Professor, It's another Anthropomorph"

"Hi, what's your name" Kris asks 

Freya looks the tiger-human the eyes. They were a rich amber colour, so... nice. "Hey... I'm..." She blushed. "I'm Freya." She remembers the older, but still young man was sitting opposite. "Oh, hey. What are your names?" 

"I'm Kris, and this is Professor Harrison. You look a little shellshocked. Are you ok?" 

"I'm sorry, it's just... I... this man he... he changed me into..." Freya broke into tears, and collapsed onto the chair next to Kris. 

"Professor.... What do I do?" Kris says, as the girl continues to sob.

The professor looks towards Kris in a sort of 'I don't know anything when it comes to girls' way. "Do anything" he mumbles.

Kris wonders what to say for a few seconds. "Hey, I know what you've been through. The same man did horrible things to me as well. He murdered my sister and my best friend. I don't even remember anything before I was 12. But, It gets better. Don't worry."

She stops crying, and looks at Kris. "I had a life before this... I was a just a normal person. How can it get better?"

"So was I... I think... I've had to deal with it for 4 years. It is a big impact at first, but you'll get used to it." Kris says
"Want me to get you a Coffee? Maybe that will calm you down."

She laughs, and accepts the offer. "Sure... I don't suppose you could get me an espresso...". Meanwhile, the professor finishes his drink. He realises that an important annual science convention was being held tomorrow. "Oh, I'm terribly sorry, but I must leave." He sighs. "The World Science Convention is on tomorrow, and I must prepare for the visit. It is very far from here, you know." He waves goodbye to the two anthropomorphs and walks out of the door.

Kris waves as he goes to the counter and orders the Espresso.
He walks back to the table and sits next to Freya. He hands her the coffee "Here." He says.
"So, tell me a little about yourself."

"There isn't really much to tell. I can't remember anything before that unbearable pain..." Freya takes a sip of her coffee. "I awoke in a field... a beautiful field, with trees everywhere. I began to explore this new world. Days and nights I spent in that forest. Walking and walking through the never ending jungle. I remember bits and bobs of my old life... Friends, family..." She sobbed again. "I really need to stop doing that."

"So you've been through a lot. Same for me really." Kris says

"I thought I was the only one like me... I... I didn't know that there was someone who could really understand what I went through... what it's like... it's so relieving, nice." She took the last sip of her coffee. They both sit in silence for a while.

"There's more than us two as well. I know someone called Tyra. And there are at least a few hundred of us in the US."  Kris tells her.

"Tyra. What a wonderful name." She smiles. "I'm glad to hear there more of us. That we're not just the odd ones out."

Kris takes the last sip of his coffee. "I should get back to searching for these spiders." Kris says. "You can come too if you want. I like having someone to talk to."

She stands up. "Spiders?"

"Yeah. Spiders. I don't really know how they arrived, I was dead at the time." Kris says

Freya laughed. "You were dead? Am I speaking to a ghost or something?" She continues to smile.

"It's complicated. I've been through a few more experiments than you. You can tell by my tail" Kris says, chuckling.
"I wasn't transformed into a tiger first. First I was a Kangaroo, then me and Tyra got fused. But there are blank spots in my memory. From what I can piece together, I was part of a larger plan which recently came into fruition. I died, but didn't due to this experiment. I can't really say who..." He stops.
"I can't really say what killed me. I just remember waking up and seeing a massive smoke spider, which then disintegrated into smaller black widow spiders that sped off into a forest."

She smirks. "I guess we should go get them spiders then, huh? I don't mind an adventure, and I'm willing to go."

"Great. Thanks." Kris says.

The two walk into the forest once again and begin looking for the black widows. Kris sees something that make his pupils go pin-sized. He falls to the floor and backs up against a tree where he buries his head inside his arms. The clearing just ahead had a pool of blood in it. He began to hyperventilate.

Freya continued to walk, not noticing that Kris has fallen behind. She notices the pool of blood. "How the hell did that- Kris?" She turns around and screams at the horrific state Kris has suddenly turned to. "Kris!" She runs towards him, and grabs him by the arms. "You're gonna be OK, you're gonna be OK..." She had gathered it was the blood he was afraid of. "Forget about it, relax. Relax." She sits down in front of Kris as he begins to calm.

"Sorry." He says as tears drip from his eyes.

"I... I just can't look at it or it takes me back to..."

"I just need a minute."

Freya feels the water build in her eyes. "I can't stand seeing people in this state..." She looks around the forest. "Perhaps we should rest here for the night. We are deep in the forest and the sun is starting to set. We don't have much but... I'm sure we'll manage."

"Ok... Sure. It's warm enough." Kris says, and then sighs

"I've brought a floor mat and a blanket in case I had to camp out. I only have one though."

Freya chuckles. "That's OK, use it. I can sleep on the floor for the night, it doesn't matter." She lies on the hard ground. "So... night then." she says as she looks into the now present stars.

Kris looks at her for a moment, and then puts the blanket over her.

"here." he says to Freya

"It's warm anyway."

Freya smiles at Kris. "Thanks. Are you sure you don't-" She yawns. "I'm sorry. She looks at Kris for a few seconds, before closing her eyes.

Kris stares at the stars for a while. He drops asleep a few minutes later.

Freya awakes. The sunlight which just reached through the canopy is shining on her face. She turned towards Kris, who had somehow moved closer during the night.

Kris is still sleeping. He shuffles around slightly before opening his eyes. He grunts before getting up.

"Sleep well?"

"Yeah... it wasn't bad. I've had much worse than this..." Freya looks at Kris. "What about you?"

"I didn't sleep much. Bad dreams" He says.

"Well, we best get searching." He looks around to see if there is anything, but his search finds nothing.

"Nothing... This means that we're going to have to go through the clearing where the blood is." He says and then sighs.

"I might need a bag to breathe into."

She ruffles around in her pockets. "This is the closest thing I have to a bag you're talking about." They begin to walk towards the blood pool. "Close your eyes, and breathe slowly. I'll be right behind you." She holds Kris by his arms again.

Kris closes his eyes as he walked past the blood, but the smell hit him. "Please, I don't think I can do this" He says

He breathes heavily as he walks slowly. When halfway, he starts to panic "Please. No more" He says.

"Come on, Kris. You can do it, I know you can. Just think of something nice, something beautiful, just do not think of the blood." She tells him.

Kris continues to walk and only just makes it to the other side before falling to the floor and curling into a ball.

He breathes rapidly as tears stream down his face. His eyes wide open just staring at nothing. He remains this way for a minute or so before closing his eyes.

Freya places both her arms around Kris and places her head against his shoulder. "You did it Kris, you've done it." She sobs a little. "It's finished, no more blood."

Kris, still breathing quickly and heavily, says "Thanks... I... I couldn't have done that without you."

"Let's just... stay here... for a..." Freya falls asleep again.

Kris recovers from his traumatized state slightly, and finds Freya asleep on his shoulder. Too polite to move, he pulls the blanket from his rucksack and puts it over them.

A few hours later, Freya awakes suddenly, and realises that the blanket had been placed over her. "Kris... I'm sorry, it was just so tiring and, and..." She stops speaking. She lifts the blanket. "You were really brave last night, you know. Going through your biggest fear to such an extent like that." She smiles. "We don't have any time to waste though, we need to find them things of yours."

Kris gets to his feet and surveys the surroundings. "They're probably scattered throughout the forest by now. This will be almost impossible. We could still see what there is further in the forest."

Freya frowned, and agreed. "OK. I'm sure there are other things here that might be of interest." She begins to walk up the hill. As they continue to stroll, Freya gasps. "K-Kris, there it is. That's where I appeared after that man transformed me!"

Kris walks up to Freya and holds her hand.

"It's ok." He says

"Don't think about it. You're fine now, and that's what counts."

Freya continues to hold Kris' hand. "Yeah... I guess so. No point fretting about the past." She smiles, hugs Kris for a moment and continues to walk through the forest.

Kris walks forwards until he snags on a branch and trips. His face goes straight into the floor "Damn my big kangaroo feet."

He says as he looks up. It's a good thing he did though, as he saw a single black widow spider crawling away.

"Got one!" he shouts, as blood drips from his nose.

Freya notices the spider crawling away and crushes it. She then turns to Kris. "Are you OK?" Freya laughs. "Of course you are. That's one less spider at least."

"heh, one down, five million or so to go."

Kris wipes his nose and looks away from his hand.

"This is hopeless."

Freya couldn't help but feel the same way. "It's taken us hours to find one, and that was by accident... how many other to go?" She looks around the forest. "Is there much point us being here anymore?"

"I'd prefer to be here than in the city if I'm honest." Kris says "It's nice here. We'll take the path that goes right. There is a river signposted"

They begin to walk the path, following the signposts. After what seemed like hours, Freya smiled. "I can hear the river up ahead."

They step into the clearing and look at the river. Kris spots something in the water glistening.

"What's that?" he asks as he points towards the strange object.

Freya peeks over into the river. "I don't kn-ahhh!" She slips and falls into the fast flowing water. Something grabs her by the feet and begins pulling her down. "Kris! Help!" she screams.

Kris takes his backpack off and jumps in after her. He sees a dark shape in the water and knocks the creature off. He pulls her out of the water before going back in after the creature. As soon as he hits the water, it disperses into millions of spiders.

He grabs the glimmering object and goes to see how Freya is.

"You ok?"

Freya is breathing heavily, eyes closed. "What was that thing..."

"I don't know" Kris says as he tries to dry himself on the blanket.

"need a 'towel'" he chuckles.

She stands up and giggles. "Would be handy."

"To be honest with you Kris, we need to get out of here. What are the chances you are going to find all these spiders?" She thinks for a moment. "Maybe we should talk to that Professor of yours? He would probably think of something."

"Yeah. He's at a convention though. I could call him."

Kris gets his phone out and it is flooded with water.

"Dammit! This was really expensive! We'll have to use one at the city"

Meanwhile, at the Annual Science Convention, Professor Harrison Peters was sitting back watching Dr. Tenglaut perform a presentation on 'anthropomorphous species'. This man seemed to know everything about it, every type, which ones were most dangerous. Harrison was sure he could recognise the man, but he couldn't quite put his finger on it.

Kris and Freya reached the edge of the forest, and saw the old cafe along with a telephone box outside.

Kris goes into the telephone box and calls Professor Harrison. "Hello, it's me Kris. My phone is sort of... Well, a bit soggy. We need you down here as soon as possible."

"What have you gotten yourself into now, dear boy? Where are you?" Professor harrison says

"We're outside the Cafe that you left us at." Kris tells Harrison "Are you still in the country? Because there is a hotel nearby."

"I'm about 200 miles from you now, Kris. I should make it there by tomorrow afternoon." Harrison laughs. "You two go check into that hotel. I'll call you when I'm there. Bye for now, dear boy!" He hangs up the phone.

"Right, my friend will meet us tomorrow. I can book us into a hotel for the night." Kris tells Freya

"Are you sure you have the money for a hotel room? I mean rooms?" She blushes.

Kris chuckles slightly.

"yeah. I've brought enough for at least one night. But it looks like we really are sharing a room."

"I'll wait over here, tell me when you've booked it." She walks over to a nearby magazine stand a begins to read one.

Kris books the hotel and they make their way to their room. Kris notices there is a pool and says "I might go in there tomorrow" They arrive at their room.

Freya collapses onto the bed. "It's so nice to be able to relax now without worrying about stickmen or spiders." She giggles. "It's gonna be a little cramped."

"We'll manage" Kris says as he clambers into the bed. "We can top and tail."

Freya climbs to the back of the bed. "This is weird, I haven't done this before." She lies her head against the bed. "So, tell me. What were you doing before you met me?"

"I don't really want to talk about it." Kris says "I've been through a lot over the last few days."

Freya cuddles Kris. "I'm sure you have. You deserve a treat after that." She slides up to Kris' side of the bed.

The professor arrives at the hotel the next morning. He walks into the hotel. "Please could I visit the room of Kris and Freya?" he asks the concierge. 

"Yes, sir, second floor, room 45."

Harrison steps into the lift, and gets out at the second floor. He walks down the corridor until he reaches their room. He knocks on the door.  Kris lets the professor in. 

"Hi. No luck in the search. We found about.... One...." The professor shows no reaction. "Did you kill it? Or can I look at it?" Harrison notices a shiny object on the table. 

"May I ask what that is, dear boy?"  

"First, we killed it. It's mush. Second, I found it in a river." Kris turns to Freya. "This is the professor. You met him in the Cafe of course but you haven't been properly introduced."

Professor Harrison looks at the cat anthromopmorph.  

"Very nice to meet you, dear girl. As we said before, I am Professor Harrison Peters, world-appreciated geographer and archaeologist. I also make some science things." He chuckles. "You have missed a lot, Freya, you really have. So much has happened."

"Well, has the convention been good?" Kris asks.
"Tea?" he asks Freya.

Akkarin suddenly appears, coughing and splitering. Blood spatters all over the Professors crisp white overcoat as Akkarin tumbles to the floor an unconscious heap, heaving for air.

"Akkarin!" Kris says urgently. "What can we do?"

Freya screams. "He used magic!" She hides behind the bed.
The professor looks at Akkarin. He notices something strange. "That's very odd. He's showing signs of internal bleeding. He also appears to have signs of delta radiation poisoning." Harrison looks closer. "There is an injection mark."

Kris, worried, turns toward Freya.  "What's the matter Freya? Are you OK?"

"The magic... I can't stand the magic... it, it..." she looks at Akkarin's body. Kris goes over to her and says 

"Just look away. That's what you told me" He smiles, and goes to see the professor. "So, what do we do?"

"If he's been intoxicated with Delta radiation, we need to get him to a hospital immediately." He punches the desk. "Usually I would bring a poison suppressor, but of course, the one time I need it I don't bring it." Harrison stands, and calls for an ambulance. Usual procedure. A 10 minutes later, the ambulances arrived. They took Akkarin and took him to the anti-radiation cell, similar to the one Kris was put into when he was poisoned.

"I hope he's ok." Kris says as he looks at Akkarin.

"Professor, did you find out what that golden compartment was?"

"Sources and my own knowledge suggest this is called a 'Fragment of Haven'. Apparently, when all are combined, it can create new worlds. Even when only some are combined, it summons Spirits of Haven, which inherit people souls and bodies."

"So, it's pretty important then. You best keep it."

Kris wonders for a while. "What am I going to do about that... That entity that escaped from me..."

Freya speaks before the professor. "There isn't much you can do. Unless there is some point in time where all the creatures come together. Think of the river, I remember seeing a large dark creature there. Then it turned into thousands of spiders."

Kris takes a seat and puts his head in his hands.
"It took us ages to find one... We need to find a more efficient way of searching."

"Well, what do spiders like?" Freya asks. "Maybe we could use that to draw them out."

"How should I know what spiders like?" he chuckles. "They aren't one of my biggest interests if I am honest."

"Ah, but I beg to differ!" the professor says happily. "Studies show that spiders are attracted to heat. Perhaps we could use some sort of tool to heat up an area so it attracts some?"

"Perhaps. But I doubt these are regular spiders. Worth a shot though." Kris says.

The professor looks through his rucksack. He pulls out the device he used on Gauntlet a few days back. "I still have a QSFD here. I could plant one into the ground." Freya walks to the door. "Well then, what are we waiting for? Let's go try it out!"

They walk to the edge of the forest and they lay the device down.
"Right, let's try this..." The professor presses the start button on the device. 

"You might want to stand back a little. It might start melting the mud..."
"This better work..." says Freya sadly. The machine turns on and hopes are high. After a few hours of waiting, they realise the machine is doing nothing.

"I don't think it's working." Kris mumbles, annoyed.

"Nothing will work, it never does." the professor states. After brainstorming for a few minutes, he comes out with another 'breakthrough'. "This was Gauntlet's experiment right? Well, the only way we are going to get close to finding the answer to this is to go to the man... well; thing, himself." Harrison thinks through the steps. "But it's just the same thing as here, how are we going to find him?"
"I'm sure this guy is causing trouble everywhere. Why don't we take a look at the newsstand?" Freya suggests.  Kris turns to Freya. 

"This is the man who turned us into what we are today... Are you sure you want to face that?"

Freya turns to Kris boldly. "Yes, I am sure. I'm not gonna keep crying, I need to face my fears. I want see Gauntlet."

"Right. Let's go find Dr Gauntlet."

The group wander towards a news stand. The only newspaper in english that they could find reported of mass snowstorms in the US. Kris laughs. "Looks like we're off back to the states."

The professor books the tickets, and they arrived at the local airport. "Terminal 2, we're at. The plane is leaving in 45 minutes. We better get there fast." They go through the usual procedures; the security, luggage. They arrive at the terminal, and people are starting to board. "What I don't understand is what he's doing in the States," the professor wonders. "What purpose does he have there?" The group board the plane and after takeoff, Kris falls asleep on the plane.

They land in Hawaii airport and Kris wakes up.

They disembark and Kris finds a phone to call Tyra. Afterwards, he puts down the phone and informs the group. "Tyra is on her way with a car. She'll give us a lift to my place."

"Is your house big? What's it like?" Freya asks.

"It's near one of the volcanoes. Mauna Loa. It's a one floor building that looks like a log cabin on the outside. It feels more like a villa inside though. There's a small swimming pool at the back as well. It's really nice."  Freya grins. 

"That sounds like luxury to me..." She laughs, "I don't suppose I could use your pool when we get there." The professor laughs. "I hope you have sunloungers. I might set one up outside. We can't keep being stressed, we need to relax for once."

"Yeah, I'll set up some when we get there." Kris says.
At that moment, Tyra arrived.
"Hi Kris. Hi Professor." She said to the two. She looks at Freya "Oh! What's your name?"

"Hey, I'm Freya, nice too see you!" She smiles, and looks towards the car. "Not my choice of car, but it'll do."

Tyra chuckles "Yeah, but it's what I can afford to run."

The group get in the car and drive to Kris' house. He unlocks the door and says "Right, the door at the end of the corridor leads to the pool area, so just go straight on through. I'll get us some chairs." He walks into the kitchen and brings out some plastic deck chairs. "Here we are. Anyone want anything to eat or drink?"
"I'm fine" Tyra says.

"I know it's a little cliche for a professor, but what about tea and biscuits?" He laughs, and walks to the pool area. Freya dives straight into the pool. Once she comes up, she giggles. "At least I didn't inherit cats' hate for water."  Kris returns with some tea for the professor. 

Tyra's phone beeps. 

"I have to go. Sorry guys." She leaves as Kris shows her out. He comes back and decides to sit by the poolside, dipping his feet into the water. "So Professor, I've never actually watched your TV show. I've seen that you are a great technician, but what else do you do?"

Harrison smiles as he begins to explain. "The basis of the show is the wonderful and abnormal things around the world, and how you can involve science in those. For example, the 'Flame Jungle'." His tone of voice becomes more serious. "This jungle, at certain times during every month - the 3rd, 10th and the 22nd days to be precise - sets every tree and animal nearby on fire. This also spreads to nearby towns and cities. Not good, my boy. So I show them how to remedy it - I've saved countless lives and villages. It's wonderful!"

"I'll have to record it." He says. He slips forward into the water and submerges for a while, before poking his head out from the water.
"Water's warm today" He says as he floats on his back. "We'll search for Dr Gauntlet tomorrow. It's nice to be back home after all that..."
"I can set up some beds later. Professor, you up for barbecue?"

"Of course!" Harrison and Freya say simultaneously. Freya climbs out of the pool and sits in the sun lounger next to the professor.

Kris also gets out and goes into the shed before returning with some charcoal. He sparks up the barbecue and throws some burgers on it.
"They'll be done in about 10 minutes. I might as well get back in the pool." He says as he slides into the pool from the edge. "Tell me if anything catches fire." He smiles.

Freya grabs a nearby beach ball. "Wanna play?", she asks Kris.

Kris says "Ok!" as Freya hits the beach ball at him. 

The professor turns on a radio, and puts on a CD that was next to it. "Dubstep Rave", he states. "This will be interesting...", he mumbles as he hits play. The CD starts playing and it is Street Lights' new album. A heavy hitting track plays and Kris smiles. The two play volleyball for a while before Kris says "Food's probably done. I don't want to cremate it."

The professor's face is a picture as he listens to the music. "What is this... dubstep? My ears hurt! You need some proper classical music!" He turns to the barbeque and his eyes widen. "Oh dear, get those off the grill." Freya climbs out of the pool, goes to the kitchen and gets some plates. "Smells amazing!"

Kris gets out of the pool and dries himself a little with a towel.
"Right, who wants what? Sauces, salad?"

"Put 3 burgers in one bun drenched in BBQ sauce. It'll be like Elf V. Food." Freya chuckles. 

"I think I'll just have the one, thanks." says the professor.

"Will do!" Kris brings everyone their food.
"So, where should we start looking for gauntlet?" Kris asks as he munches his burger.

"Don't even talk about Gauntlet today. Do it tomorrow." Freya grimaces as she slurps her drink.

"Right. So, what are your hobbies or interests. I know the professors main one. Tinkering! What 'bout you Freya?"

"I remember competing in all the athletics competitions. I used to come first in all the running competitions, you know all that stuff. I do like technology as well, and I'm really interested in what the professor does. How about you?" Freya asks.

"Well, I'm pretty lucky since I've managed to make my hobby my job. I like motorbikes. I have 2 in the garage. I run a motorcycle repair shop, so I'm pretty well off for 16." He smiles. "My latest is the Suzuki we rode to the village, professor."

"A very nice vehicle, that was, dear boy. You know, once this is all over I might take my car over." Harrison chuckles. But his tone suddenly turns more solemn. "At 16 I was still on the streets, dear boy. You are very lucky." 

After a while of relaxing in the sun, Freya looks into the sky. She sighs. "Sunset, again. Another beautiful day coming to an end." 

Kris sighs, and then gets up from his sun lounger. "Right, I'll set up the beds in a moment. There's a guest room and the sofa which folds out. Since she's a lady, Freya can have the bed."

Freya giggles. "No, you don't have to give me that... I mean, you live here and..." She blushes, and stops.

"Yeah, I know, but you're guests and it's the polite thing to do."

"Alright then. We have a long day ahead of us, and we need to be up early, 7am. I will wake you all up then." Harrison then walks into his room, and shuts the door. Freya does the same. "Night, Kris." She smiles and closes her door also.

Kris falls asleep. He has a strange dream and wakes up at 6:40. He walks into the patio where he finds Freya.
"You're up early." He says

Freya is sitting on a chair outside crying. "I-it's n-nothing K-Kris.... I'm just being stupid. Don't..." she cries again, as she puts her face into her hands.

Kris goes to sit with her. "What's the matter? Is it Gauntlet?"

"P-partially." She says "But... last night, when I was asleep... I... I had a flashback... of my parents... and how they were so kind and..." she cuddles Kris and puts her head on his shoulder. "I... I know I'm being silly but... they..." She cries again. "I know you've been through the same but... this has taken a huge chunk out of me. I'm not the same... I don't feel the same..."

There is silence for a small while.
"I know how you feel." Kris says
"Last time we met, when he was human, he broke my heart. I learnt that he killed my sister in cold blood. Then..." Kris also begins to cry.
"He murdered my best friend right in front of my eyes. I didn't even get a chance to say goodbye."

She can barely speak. "I'm so sorry..." she manages to say. She can do nothing by hug Kris tighter.

Kris rubs his eyes. "I try my best to get over it, but some things, you just can't."
At this moment, Kris hears the professor groaning about the sofa.

Freya looks down at the ground. "Go and speak to the professor... I'll just..." she stops speaking before she cries again.
"Blasted thing almost broke my back!" Harrison screams.

Kris goes to see the professor. "Sorry, but it's the best I could do. Right, I'll make us some toast then we can set off. I have a pretty good idea where to start."
Kris goes into the Kitchen. "Jam or just butter?" he shouts to Harrison and Freya

"Jam, please, good man. I don't think she heard, I'll go ask her." He walks outside, and is surprised at the state of Freya. "What on Earth is wrong, dear girl?" She stands, wipes her tears and looks at the professor. "It's nothing, me and Kris have already sorted it." The professor is unconvinced but disregards the topic. "Anyway, do you want jam or butter on your toast?" She smiles. "Just butter, please" He goes inside and tells Kris.

Kris comes outside with the toast. He hands everyone a round.
"I think I might have an idea of somewhere to start looking. It's an old GenoTek experiment facility very near here. It might be a bit difficult because... Well, Freya knows. Professor, I'm traumatised by blood. I don't know if I'll be able to go in some rooms."

"That's quite alright." Harrison tells Kris "I'm sure me and Freya will be able to while you wait outside." She quickly looks towards the professor. "No magic though. Just no magic." The professor is interested into why Freya didn't like magic, but realised they didn't have time. "OK. We'd best be off then"

"Right. Professor, can you ride a motorbike? I'll take the Suzuki with Freya, you can take the Kawasaki"
Kris opens the garage and starts the motorbikes.
"Here" he says as he gives Freya a helmet.

She puts on the helmet, and gets onto the back of the bike. She gives Kris a thumbs up.

"Right, hold on."
Kris speeds off with the professor following closely behind. After a 15 minute journey, they arrive at the facility. The group parks up by the entrance.
"Locked." Kris says. "I can fix that." He takes a run up, and kicks the door down. "After you." He smiles.

Freya steps in, along with the professor. "This place is oddly familiar," she notes. "The smell, the look; I'm getting a huge hit of deja-vu." Harrison inspects nearby rooms. Nothing was of interest until he came across a small room with 20 screens, each monitoring a different section of the facility. In one was a white mist. Freya pushes in and looks at the screen. "There's the b*stard." She takes note of the room name and begins sprinting down the hallway at lightning speed.

"Freya wait!" Kris shouts. Suddenly, alarms blare and everyone stops moving
*INTRUDER ALERT! DEPLOYING MUNITIONS SYSTEM*
A small turret comes out of the wall. Kris runs to Freya and shouts "Get down!". The machine fires, and one bullet hits Kris in his upper right arm. He screams in pain and covers the wound with his hand.

Freya backflips as the turret aims for her. She dodges the bullets and smashes into a nearby room. She looks through the draws and cupboard as quick as she can, and finds a single first aid kit in a draw. More turrets began to extrude from the wall, but she made it out just it time. A bullet almost hits her, but she dives to the side, rolls and begins to treat Kris. "Now, I'm not expert but I'll do what I can do." She could see the bullet on the floor, the wound went straight through. "This won't last long, but we have to find Gauntlet and get out of here." The professor stepped out and shot the 5 turrets in the area in quick succession and with perfect aim. He ran towards Freya and Kris.
"You carry on treating Kris. I'll look for more turrets and alert you." He steps round the corner, and 3 more turrets protrude out. He steps behind a wall, and grabs a grenade from his backpack. He pulls the fuse and throws it down the corridor. Blam! The turrets fell to the floor. He continues to walk down the hallways. All of a sudden he feels cold. Like he had just taken a dive into the Arctic Sea. Gauntlet's room was close.

Kris is sat in a corner with Freya taking cover. "I... I can already tell that today's gonna be another typical monday."
He shuffles along the floor to the end of the corridor where the turret was. He rams his chainknife into the barrel and it stops firing. "I've found out how to stop them from firing" He repeats this with all the turrets in the room. He looks at his arm and he is bleeding excessively. He falls to the floor and starts shaking. "no. no. no. no."
He closes his eyes and curls up in a corner.

Some sort of anger comes over Freya. "For god's sake, Kris get up! All the time, please, just forget about the past! Do what you tell me to do!" She kicks the wall. Freya's anger subsides. "I'm sorry..." she whispers.

Kris calms down slightly. "No.. You're right. I need to get over it." he gets up. "Right. Let's find this bastard"

Freya smiles. "That's the Kris I know." The professor runs round the corner. "Gauntlet's room is just through there. He doesn't know we're here." He thinks for a moment, then continues. "Here's the plan - I'll break down the door. Kris will then enter and seize Gauntlet with me behind giving cover fire. Freya will then come in to question Gauntlet. If at any time Freya, you feel at risk, dive through the air vent on the left in which I saw. Are we all happy?"

"sounds good." Kris says.
The group make their way to gauntlet's room. The professor breaks down the door, but gauntlet isn't there. Kris scans the room to see a pair of red eyes, or what looked like them. They began to move, all the while a robotic drone was heard. "Well, if it isn't my failed experiments."
The machine stepped forward. It was the desolator, but the head was missing. Instead, there was a glass case with a brain in it.
"Yes, my form has changed since our last meeting. I kind of like it." Kris stares at him angrily.
"You... Why aren't you dead yet?" The Professor could see what Kris was about to do. He pulled out his chainknife.

The professor smashes the knife out of his hand. "Don't try and annoy it! That's what it wants you to do!" He takes a deep breath. "Be calm. Be cautious and considerate." He walks to the Desolator. "Alright. Tell me. Why are you really here? What do you have against humans?" He says it in a way which was stern, but so relaxed at the same time.

"It hasn't clicked yet has it professor?" The machine asks.
Kris whispers to Harrison
"It's not the desolator. It's Gauntlet. Look at it's head."

The professor laughs hysterically. "You may be a genius, Gauntlet, but you really didn't think this one through." He shoots the glass with his shotgun, and it smashes. The bullets embedded themselves into Gauntlet's brain. Freya takes a run up, jumps and backflip kicks the machine so hard it stumbles into the wall, falls through and smashes into the floor.

The machine deactivates.

"Right. Let's search the database for what he did to me."

Kris walks over to the nearest computer and searches. "I've found it!" Kris says.

Kris reads through the file. "It looks like anything before the experiment has been erased, but it says here Project Duplo was an attempt to create a weapon. It needs a host body for a while and it is released when that body dies. The experiment was marked as a failure due to it disregarding anything gauntlet said and..."

Kris stops as he begins to smile.

"It only obeyed the original host body. It needed some authoritative teachings though. Looks like I'm going to have to fight it."

"But how are you going to get it here? How will you summon it?" Harrison asks, intrigued. Freya was already at the computer, searching her own details. She breathes in heavily. "My info is still here!" She clicks 'Before Experiment Details'. " The computer beeps. "Data unavailable. Database host is dead." Her moment of tension and excitement drops. "Looks like the entire database depended on Gauntlet being alive. So much for that then." She walks back towards the entrance, followed by the professor.

Kris starts to feel feint.

"I might... Need a moment here." His pupils dilate and he falls to the ground. "heh... Probably wasn't the best idea getting shot.."

Freya and the professor turn around and realise Kris is on the floor. "Oh no, Krissy, you aren't gonna die" Freya says. They both pick him up and carry him outside. Freya sees an ambulance move past, and screams and bashes the side. "Stop! Stop! My boyf- my friend has been shot! Get him inside!" The paramedics move to Kris and take him inside.

The paramedics take Kris onto the ambulance. "He's going to be fine. He's lost quite a lot of blood though."

Kris stares at the light in the ambulance and loses consciousness.

The professor and Freya are sitting next to Kris. "The deja-vu is unbearable," Harrison says with a smirk. "Coffee?" She shakes her head. "No... I'm OK. Thanks, though." He smiles and walks out of Kris' room to the cafeteria. "You just keep on going, don't you Kris. I wish I was as strong as you." She kisses Kris on the cheek.

5 minutes later, Kris starts to wake up.

"Ugh... Remind me never to get shot again." He grabs his arm. "Where's the Professor?"

"He's gone to get himself a coffee." Thinking of what happened earlier, she blushes.

"Damn. I could have had one."
He lays back down and buries his face into the pillow before turning back round. He notices Freya blushing, but says nothing of it.
"Hey, where do you live exactly? It's just that we found you in some forest in Japan."

"I was living in the forest for all that time. I became adjusted to that way of life." She sighs. "I don't have a place to live. I have no money to get a place either. Looks like I have to get to work, huh."

"I've always got the guest room." Kris says to her. "You can stay at mine until you get a place of your own."

"Aww, no, you don't have to do that, I mean..." She can't resist. "OK, fine. Thanks." she laughs, as the professor walks back into the room.

"Bloody queues, they need more coffee machines." He downs it in one. "Ooh, that was nice. Needed that." He noticed the look on Kris' face, and grimaces. "I'll go get you one, Kris." He walks back to the cafe. Freya giggles. "That guy does everything for you."

Kris laughs with her. "Yeah..." Kris slides so he is sitting more upright.

"I'm glad I met you both though. We might not have met in... Conventional means, but I'm glad we did."

Freya beams. "Yeah... I'm not sure I would be able to carry on life without you Kris..."

Kris smiles at her. "I'm glad I made a difference." Having the energy to get up, Kris turns and gets out of the hospital bed and stretches. "Right, I'm going to find Professor Harrison. Come with me if you want."

"Sure." They walk down the corridors, following the signs. They see Harrison at the coffee stand fuming. "This thing fills up a cup slower than it takes my mother-in-law to- oh, hello there you two. Are you sure you're supposed to be out of bed, Kris?" He asks as he hands him his coffee.

"Thanks. They said if I feel ok, I can go." He looks around for a while. "Crap. We left the bikes at the facility. It's not that far though."

"It's about a mile walk. Let's go." Harrison walks to the exit, and walks towards the GenoTek facility. But before they get there, there is police tape surrounding the area, with police cars and fire trucks.

Kris runs up. "What happened?"

The officer says "There was a medium sized explosion."

"But... My motorbikes are up there." Kris says to the officer.

"Yeah, they're just over by the interceptor" He replies

"Oh, relief." Kris sighs.

Harrison boards his Kawasaki again, and before saying anything to the others he heads off at full speed, and even manages a wheelie.

Freya walks up to Kris' Susuki. "I'm ready to roll again. I hope you don't mind, but I'm going to bed as soon as I get back. I didn't sleep well last night, as you know." She boards the back of the motorbike.

The group speeds off to Kris house. They arrive and Kris lets them in. "Night everyone" He says, as he goes into his bedroom. Unable to sleep, he goes to sit outside. He looks at the stars for a while, before dropping asleep on a recliner deckchair.

Freya feels the same. She just cannot stop thinking about Kris. She gets up, and goes to his room. Noticing he's not there, she goes outside, and sure enough, he's there. "Kris... there's something that... that I..." she cannot bring herself to continue.

Kris wakes up and sees Freya. "Can't sleep?"

"No, I can't sleep. I've been thinking about you all night." She looks at Kris. "I came to say... that... that..." She still can't say it.

"What? What's the matter?" Kris asks.

"I... I..." She breaks into tears. "I can't say it... I just..." Freya says.

Kris stands up and walks over to her. "Hey, what are you crying for?"

I love you, OK? I..." She can't look at Kris, she just hugs him and stays there.

Kris stands there. "Well..."

He hugs her back.

"You know, I may seem pretty confident, but I've felt the same way about you. I just haven't been able to say it." The hug breaks up. "It's late. We should probably get some sleep." Kris walks back into his room.

Freya stands out in the air for a while, only now taking in what had happened. She then walked to the guest room, and got into bed. She smiles.

In the morning, Kris wakes up with his wound still aching. He wanders through the house to the patio area. He can hear the Professor groaning about the sofa faintly in the background.

"It gets worse every blasted night! Today it decides to launch a spring into my back. Thank you, very much!" He walks to Freya's room. Still asleep. Couldn't blame her. She even had a smile on her face. He walked to the patio, as spots Kris. "How did you sleep, dear boy?" he asks.

"A little rough, but I slept enough." Kris walks into the living room and sits down. "I'm guessing your night wasn't that good."

Harrison scowls. "How did you guess?" He looks at the rising sun. "Today, we make real progress. We travel back to Japan. We go to that forest." He turns to face Kris. "And you will summon him. I don't know how. You just will. I'm sick of waiting around for something to happen, we need to just get this over with, so we can continue with our lives how they should be. Besides, I've missed 20 episodes of 'Xavier's Guide to Sub-Quantum Astro-Physics.'"

"Right. I'll go get packed." Kris leaves the room and returns about 20 minutes later with a rucksack.
"Is Freya awake yet?"

The professor looks in her room. "No, she's still sleeping. I'll quickly finish up some things, you go and wake her up." He walks into his room.

Kris walks into Freya's room and sits beside her on the bed. He shakes her a little "Wake up, sleepyhead" He says softly.

Freya slowly opens her eyes, and looks at Kris. He was so close...

"Morning. Come on, we need to catch a plane back to Japan." He says.

Freya says nothing. She stares at Kris, and sits up.

Kris smiles at her. "Come on, we've kept the professor waiting long enough."

"I'm nervous, that's all. I mean... I'm sure this... monster of yours is a tough match and... I don't want you to get hurt." She was about to get out of bed, but then blushed. "I need to get changed" she says.

Kris walks in to the living room and says "Freya is going to get changed, then we can set off. She's a little worried though, so try to be nice to her."

"I would imagine." Harrison says "Dr. Gauntlet did not mess about. This experiment of his will have no morals, no boundaries to evil. It will want to say prolonged pain, torture. I would be worried too, dear boy." He walks to a taxi, and gets in.

Kris waits for Freya to finish. She steps out of the bathroom.
"The professor is going to meet us there. We're taking one of the bikes."
Kris gives Freya a helmet.
"Since we'll be seeing each other quite often, you can have this."

It was a pink helmet with a white stripe on it. "This is awesome! Thanks." She sits on the bike. "Where are we actually going?" she asks.

"Back to Japan to fight this thing. Hold on tight." Kris tells her.
They follow the taxi to the airport and meet the professor there.

"Right, have you booked us a flight?"

"Nope, and I have no money. Whoops." Harrison laughs. "Only joking. The plane is leaving in an hour, so we don't really have time to do anything else." He looks at the sign. "Terminal A, Gate 2".

"Right, we best take our seats. I'm still a little uneasy on flying though." Kris tells him
The group gets on board and finds their seats.
"Right, I need to relax"

The professor looks round. "I couldn't book tickets for all of us to sit next to each other, so I'll sit at the back." He winks. "You two enjoy yourself." Freya sits next to Kris.

"I'm still a little uneasy on this." Kris says to Freya.

"Aww, don't be. You do know it's safer to travel by plane than it is to travel in cars, right." Freya smiles.

"Yeah." Kris relaxes and falls asleep, resting his head on Freya's Shoulder.

The professor walks down the isle to their seats. He was about to ask if they had the pack of Polos, but decided otherwise. At this point, Freya is also asleep with Kris, holding his hand. Harrison grins, and walks back to his seat. "This is going to be a long flight." he says.

Kris feels some turbulence and wakes up to find Freya asleep next to him. He gets up to stretch his legs and to go see the Professor. "You good?" He asks him.

"I'm bloody well sure you are, dear boy Kris." Harrison nudges him with his elbow. "Huh, huh?" He chuckles.

Kris blushes slightly. "How long have you known?" He smiles.

"I was coming down to ask you for the polos just now. You we're all cuddled up. Aww." Harrison chuckles again. "Only kidding dear boy, good for you. But really, have you got the polos?"

Kris rummages through his pockets. "Here they are" he says as he hands the professor some polos. "Right, I'm off back to my seat. I'm still a little tired."

"Thank you." Harrison says as he begins to read the flight magazine. Freya notices Kris is gone, and wakes up. "Hey. What did the professor want?"

"Some polos." he laughs a little and sits back down. The seat belt sign comes up. A little worried at first, Kris relaxes again.

"Don't worry about it. Maybe this will help you relax." Freya leans over and kisses Kris.

Kris hugs Freya and tries to go back to sleep, but is woken by turbulence.

The plane begins to drop rapidly. Freya screams. A voice comes through the intercom. "We are experiencing technical difficulties connecting with the engines. Please stand by and remain calm." The professor shouts angrily. "No! That's reverse psychology! YOU'LL MAKE THEM PANIC!" He was right, everyone had started screaming.

Kris knows he shouldn't panic. He grabs Freya's hand and holds it. "Keep calm" He keeps repeating to himself.

Freya continues to hold his hand tighter. She closes her eyes tight and sobs. The professor just about manages to walk down the corridor. He has to shout over the scream of the engines. "Guys! The engines are on fire!" He points towards the windows. "This is the craziest idea but... I have parachutes. Three of them. We can easily open the doors." He comes closer. "I don't care if you guys don't want to do it. It's that or death."

Kris gets up and puts a parachute on. He gives one to Freya. "Come on! We've gotta jump!"

She fiddles with the parachute and manages to put it on. Freya makes a run for the door, kicks it open and jumps out. The intercom sounds again. "Do not jump from the vehicle." It begins to repeat it self, each time becoming more robotic. Eventually, the speech stopped. "GauntletBot v2. System Failure. Rebooting." Harrison gasps. "This was planned! This plane was meant to crash!" He turns to the open door. He breathes in heavily, and jumps.

"He doesn't stop, does he?"  Kris says quietly 
He jumps with Freya and the Professor. They land in the ocean. Luckily, they can all swim.

The planes smashes into a nearby island, creating a huge explosion. It created a shock-wave that knocked down trees and tore up land. The power of it pushed the team back 10 metres, followed by an intensive rush of heat. "I'm burnt everywhere..." Harrison manages to say.

Kris scans the area. "Look, over there. Land. It's not that far a swim."
He goes over to Freya and takes her hand. "You ok for swimming?"

"Of course." Harrison begins backstroke towards the wreckage that was the plane. Helicopters could be heard in the distance.

The group reaches the island. Tired and exhausted, Kris lays on the sand looking at the smoke still lingering in the sky. "Why does this keep happening to us? Why can't it be someone else for a change?" he sighs.

The helicopters fly straight past the island, not taking note of the huge crash. Freya stands and takes a look around. She sees a few people in the distance, but they hide away as soon as they notice her. "There's people over there. I suppose we can go talk to them, if you'd like."

Kris gets up. He instantly winces and grabs his wound. "I don't think all that salt water has done it any good."
He walks up to the professor and Freya. "Stay close to each other, we don't know if they are from the plane, or natives."

The group looks across the beach and sees a strangely dressed man with soulless eyes.

"Greetings. I am Mr.Svanson. We have met before, but not this other anthromorph...regardless, I can see the information I gave you before was not sufficient. Well, not to you, but it was to Mr.Miniike. But that's a long story. Come with me, and I will tell you..." He slowly walks to a dim light in the forest, motioning for them to come.

They remain standing, very surprised.

"There is nothing to be afraid of. But if you want a short answer...Miniike is dead. If you want to hear why, come to my hut."

He disappears.

Kris, a little shell-shocked at first, starts to follow Mr Svanson. He gestures for the others to follow him. The group ends up at a hut in the middle of the jungle.

Mr.Svanson begins.
"No doubt you noticed Miniike was missing. He was needed by Fate, and we called him to the world between worlds. We told him he must fulfill the prophecy. We sent him to the secret base in Australia Dr.Gauntlet was hiding in. He battle through, but it was hopeless. Dr.Gauntlet has perfected anthromorphism, and is turning loyal followers into soldiers instead of unwilling test subjects, like you and this women. They captured him. He was then tortured by Frivar. Yes, Frivar. He was not killed in the lab. The incinerator at the lab used an extremely slow, low-cost, engineered fire. However, by the time we woke up, his skin had burned off. He climbed out and escaped, just barely, before you blew up the lab. Miniike escaped, and realized his blood quest would never truly end. Even now, it continues into the afterlife. And yes, sir..."
He turns to Kris.
"There IS and afterlife. We wandering spirits know that all to well, as did Miniike and his family, who had supernatural connections."
He resumes.
"He found Gauntlet overseeing the building of a new incinerator, one using normal fire. Unlike the coward he is, he actually fought Miniike, and was badly wounded. He called Frivar, who beat Miniike badly. The anthromorph army charged at Miniike. Then he got up, smiled slightly, and said 'You can't run from fate, huh, Frivar? I wish more people knew that.' He jumped at Frivar, pulling himself and Frivar into the fire. The anthromorphs, too stunned to stop, also slid in. They are all dead."

"It was fortune for you, however." he says. "Gauntlet wanted to send those anthomorphs after you. You would have been dead long before you got on that plane had he succeeded, as you knew nothing of the Austalian base. Regardless, Gauntlet has a new weapon, beware it."

"However, there is another member of Miniike's family, the last one, who understood these things far more. You will find him soon."

"This is all I am permitted to say." He disappears.

Kris just sits there. He does not know what to say. There is silence for a short while before he turns to the Professor and Freya. "He was a good friend. Now he's gone. We should remember him well." Freya is puzzled.

"This Miniike. He sounded like a pretty badass person." She gets up and starts to gather firewood. "We're gonna be here for a while." she adds. Kris rumages through his rucksack and finds some wet matches.
"Looks like these will have to do. In the morning, I'll look for civilisation. It's obvious that this isn't an island. We could see that from above."

After many attempts, he gets a fire going and sets some blankets on the floor. He lays down and looks at the sky. "Things just keep getting better."
He falls asleep.

*

In the middle of the night, Freya sneaks back into the jungle village. She wanted to find out more. Being careful not to wake up Kris or Harrison, she walks towards the huts. There was an eerie silence.

All of a sudden, a hand is placed over her mouth. She is dragged into a nearby hut, the hand still there. She blacks out.

*

Kris wakes up after a nightmare. He notices Freya is missing and goes to look for her. Before he could get into the jungle, he is hit over the head with something and blacks completely out; joining the club...

*

The sunlight began to shine onto the professor's face. 

"Better than that blasted thing at Kris' anyway." He looks around. "Nobody here, huh?" He puts his hand to his head, and yawns. "Of course. Nothing ever goes to plan." At first, he doesn't even begin to look around for his friend. Harrison kept talking to himself. "What is the point of getting them?", "If I save them, they'll either get injured or something stupid like this will happen again." It seemed like hours he was just lying there, still, looking into the sky.

Eventually he decides to look for them. He stands, and turns towards the village. As soon as he sets foot into the area, about 10 natives of the area begin circling him. "Be gone, you do not belong here." they chant. Harrison runs forward, pushes one over and runs into the nearest cave. The door behind him shuts.

Harrison walks down the narrow corridor that was presented before him. There was no light, and he had left his backpack at the beach. "Useful" he whispers to himself. As he moves the passage becomes narrower and narrower, eventually so much so that his nose was touching a wall. Bloody good job I'm not claustrophobic. he thinks. Eventually, Harrison makes it through long and narrow passageway. There was a dark temple with dim candles in certain corners. It smelt like pennies. "Couldn't they at least get an air freshener?" he mumbles.

*

Kris wakes up in a dark room. The smell of blood makes him breathe heavily. He looks towards the floor and Freya is there. He rushes over to her. "Freya! Wake up! FREYA!"

Freya is bleeding heavily. She has cuts and bruises everywhere, and there is a large stab wound in her chest. She could hear Kris screaming to her, but he was so far away.

"Don't worry about me... go for them... I overheard them... they... they said... he was in the... atrium of the... GenoTek..." She passes out again.

Kris saw her in this state. He was terrified of the blood, but pushed past the fear. He manages to stop most of the bleeding. "I know you probably can't even hear me right now, but I care more about you than some stupid experiment." He lies down next to her and waits for her to wake up.

After what seemed like hours, Freya wakes again. Each time she regains consciousness the headache is worse, and she feels even more dizzy. 

"Kris... are you... are there..." She moves her hand in search for him. Kris holds her hand. 

"I'm here Freya." He moves closer. "We have to get out of here. If you can't walk, I can carry you." 

"Please... just get me out... I... can't... do... this..." She does not have the energy to say more.

"Here. put your arm round my shoulder." He picks her up. "Right, hold on."
 

The pair walk down the long cave. They can see a light in the distance. "There's a light. We can get out." Kris walks slightly quicker than usual. They escape the cave, and it is daytime, with natives nowhere to be seen. He puts Freya down by the beach and sits with her, holding her hand. "You're going to be ok. The Professor will find us soon, then we can get you some proper medical attention."

*

Harrison eventually decides to turn back around. He had been in there for hours and the smell was starting to make him nauseous. On his way out, he had seen that the natives had cleared off.

"Probably thought I died in here or something." he begins to walk toward the beach, and sees Kris and Freya both unconcious on the floor. He rushes to them. A helicopter is landing in the distance, and paramedics begin rushing toward them.

"Sir, are you okay?" one asks.

"Yes, I'm fine. Just get us off this island. These two have had huge head injuries."

They all board the plane and set off back to the UK.

The next morning, Kris wakes up in a hotel room. He sees the Professor there sipping a cup of tea. Kris has a bandage round his head.
"You found us then?"