Volume l Chapter 5: Journey to the West: Tales of the Spirited away

I let my emotions blaze, rage filling in the gaps of my better judgements, and anger clouding my vision. I sprinted up to Brutus and got ready to deliver a heavy kick to his chin.

"Eat shit ya animal." Brutus said, glaring while wiping his now bloody nose.

My instincts kicked in and I remembered Tristan's lifeless body. Almost seamlessly as though my body naturally knew what to do, I leapt backwards as I applied zero gravity to myself to accelerate the motion, narrowly avoiding the change in spatial gravity that had killed Tristan. The only indication left of it being distorted was the crunch of the ground in front of me and the now circular impression in the ground.

"Hey Bro it's fine we didn't damage his HDA" Bane spoke up so his brother could hear him.

He was picking out the HDA from the quick decompose flesh around the back of Tristan's neck. For a second I was relieved to know he was okay, but as the realization set in that he'd probably end up with a shit life in a random body I got even more angry.

I glanced to my left as I landed back on the ground, now putting me and the two brothers in a triangle. Bane was rubbing his forehead as if he had just popped a pimple. I took a deep breath as I started to feel danger emanating from Bane.

"Brother they did a nice job with that clone, they even edited how your body metabolizes iron now."

Bane took his hand down revealing where I had kicked him to be a gun metal grey color.

Well that explains why my kick felt like it hit something heavy. I put my hands up ready to rumble as I knew the real fight was a 2 on 1. As I kept my eyes glued to Bane I started to move my feet ever so slightly toward Brutus while keeping Bane in my sights.

Move!

I could hear my brain scream as I darted toward Brutus. The closer I got the more I felt myself accelerate toward him unaware that I releasing the gravitational control over my legs. As I took the last step toward him closing the distance I kicked off the ground with one foot planting my size 10 ½ shoe right in Brutus' chin. As I landed my vision started to go dark and my body acted without my consent. Look who's finally waking up. Pain struck my head as an unfamiliar voice rang throughout it. As it did I lept toward Brutus not giving him a chance to recover from the kick. As I got close I grabbed him by the head.

"Have a taste of your own medicine." I roared at him.

"W-wait!" Brutus yelled

In a much smaller scale than Brutus I created a high gravitational field around the hand holding him and his face, forcing him to the ground with all the strength I had in my arm. As his head impacted the crumbling ground below I could hear cracking from his skull and feel his jaw chatter before going slack. Immediately as I stood up, I knew Brutus wasn't going to join me.

"Brutus!" I heard Bane scream to my right.

Stunned and angry I saw his fist clench. The usual pale skin around his knuckles was turning into a metallic gun metal grey, and as I returned to a fighting stance that same cold gun metal grey hit me across the cheek so hard it felt as though I had hit a motorcycle head on.

"That's for killing my brother asshole." Bane said standing over me as I hit the ground.

"As if I'd stoop to being a murder like you two much less a repeat offender." I said as I grabbed the dirt below me throwing it into his eyes.

"Aaaah!" He yelled as my body once again moved on instinct kicking at his right knee in an attempt to break it.

Once again it felt as if I had hit a hard rock. Stunned, I retreated a few feet to regroup. The sensation still not getting through to my dumbfounded brain.

"Was it not already clear to you?" Bane swung at me as his eyes recovered from the dirt previously thrown in them.

As I tried to dodge my vision was once again blurred by heavy impact, however this time it wasn't a fist but rather a heavy foot that seemed replace the motorcycle with a full sized truck. The side of my skull felt as though it might crumble at any time. As I fell backward toward the hard ground I stepped on his foot and applied the same gravitational pressure I had previously used on his brother.

"cheeky bastard," Bane smirked "thought you'd get me with the same move huh?"

"Mmm not quite.' I responded as I spit blood from my newly busted cheek scrambling back about two yards as I got to my feet.

"Thought I'd just hold you in place while I try something." As I smirked at him I opened my right hand creating what I had planned to study in the gravity lab yesterday before the incident forced me to run for my life.

As i held my hand out the sound of hurricane like high winds could be heard as if a great storm was coming. Only it wasn't a storm and much worse than any tornado it could ever manifest. As the winds picked up a light began to form in my right hand so bright that it would make any high beam dull in comparison.

"This is called a singularity," I said cooly "but I'll only be using 1/1000th of the damage I believe this can cause. I could feel the limit imposed on us regular citizens setting in as I shrunk the now palm sized light to that of a small pen point.

Damn.I cursed under my breathe as my strength rapidly started to leave me.

WARNING!!! HDA overheating, please refrain from the use of gravitational fields.

The limiter on my HDA was beginning to tap out.

"Shame it doesn't look like you'll be able to pull it off." Bane scoffed at me.

"Seems it's a good thing that iron body of yours weighs twice as much considering you can't move that foot out of that small field I put down."

As I finally gained control of the singularity in my hand I began to dash forward hoping to put an end to this fight by severing Banes leg.

"Seems like I won this one!"

The crowd was stunned as I neared Bane as his eyes looked went solemn bracing himself for the feeling of instantaneous pain that was sure to come.

"Stop! NALPD!" I heard come from somewhere outside my field of vision, as weight seemed to be placed on my already lead like body.

"Seems as though the tables have turned, huh Alty? The PD are on the side of the cardinals, not you lame ass peasants. Nice try though."

That was the last insult I heard from Bane before my hard fall, face-planted me directly in the dirt below me with the pressure of a grown man on my back.

"Alt Airum, you are under arrest for the murder of a Cardinal and reckless endangerment of students."

"Booooooooooooooo!!!!" I could hear the regular students floors above me looking out the window disagreeing with my arrest.

"Nightly night Alty-boy." I could hear Bane's annoyingly haughty voice as I picked my head up to see where he was coming from just before seeing his foot in all its full iron hard glory come swinging directly at my face; and just like that it was over as my body limply laid there unconscious my mind completely separated from the whiles of what rigorous journey my body would be faced with in the next few hours.

Darkness enveloped me as if in a deep sleep.

As I opened my eyes to the darkness the sensation of weightlessness gradually began to feel as if I was in a large pool of water. Strange,I thought to myself. The experience of drowning and the dampness of water were far from my mind in this inky environment. Instead what replaced it was an unusual warmth so seductive in nature it felt as if I were being felt and embraced by a lover.

"Al~," a playful, very feminine voice whispered in my ear. "Did you miss me?"

My heart throbbed as the feeling around my lower body began to feel constricting and furry in nature.

"Hug me then dummy."

Unable to bear the whispering any long I turned to what I thought was directly behind me.

Nothing. Just more lonely, insufferable darkness. My heart sunk.

"C'mon slowpoke, up here-nya!" The same voice with a slightly different speech pattern seemed to call out to me from somewhere above me.

I looked up and was only vaguely able to see the outline of a figure as if looking through a pair of thermal goggles. As their aura like figure became more and more clear I could tell the color emanating from her was a beautiful vermillion color that seemed to make the darkness seem as though it was surrounding a warm flame. My heart throbbed again.

"I hope you're not going to keep a lady waiting-nya." The figure seemed to cross her legs as if she were impatiently sitting on a high ledge.

"I—." I started to speak but was cut off by the disappearance of the warm aura like image.

Again the lonely darkness ate into me.

"What are you look for," this time the voice was more mature "It wouldn't be me would it? fufufu"

Immediately i felt an immense softness weigh its mass on top of my head. Without having to think twice my face began to heat up and my mini me simultaneously stood at attention.

"I wouldn't think it'd be hard for you to find me seeing as how big I am now." The tall matronly figure looked down at me from above. I looked up in awe at what had to be a 10ft giantess.

"I see this hasn't changed "his" mind though. Fufufu" she laughed as I felt a large hand caress me between the legs in such a gentle, lustful manner I almost gave into my wishful desires.

"It's okay Al I'll take care of it for you." She whispered as her other arm wrapped me from my shoulder to my right hip.

As I continued to be embraced I kept staring at the face and body hoping to make out more than just the vermillion like aura.

Just as I was about to give in to my lustful whims the giantess disappeared.

This time the darkness felt even more void-like. I waited in agony for the girl to come back to fill my lonely void. After what felt like an eternity I gave up on any notion that she would return. I began to try and sit in the now lukewarm environment, finally comfortable with the fact I wouldn't be drowning anytime soon.

"Al!" Relief struck me harder than a blacksmith beating an anvil.

"Al, you're okay!" This time her voice was shrill and light, but definitely the same voice. She sounded as if she was in her teens this time.

"Why wouldn't I be okay?" I blankly, unconsciously asked aloud.

I could feel something wet run down my neck as she hugged me hard from behind.

"They're gone..." she sobbed

"My mom, your dad, our friends, Zix, th-they killed them all."

She sobbed uncontrollably. My heart felt troubled as if I knew everyone she was talking about.

"Kill me?" A male's voice rang loud and confident "Get real, look which one of us is kicking"

I turned around just in time to see a different aura, fiery red in color with flakes of white so bright it made me squint. As I squinted I unintentionally blinked. The moment I opened my eyes both figures were gone.

"Wake up Al," this time it was the male's voice in a whispering tone "you gotta get up."

As I struggled to understand, the girl's voice called to me again.

"Come find me Al." I turned to her and found the first detailed figure I'd seen since I'd been here. But instead of a girl it was a fox no bigger than a pup. Her voice sounded strained and distant.

As I reached toward her my vision washed back to black and my dream ended.

Before I even groggily opened my eyes with a throbbing in the back of my head I could smell the environment around me. Dry heat that my eyes had yet to process, the faint odor of sweat made me also realize I wasn't alone. As I started to look around and my vision began to clear I could see numerous others sitting on a stone plaza. As I squinted my eyes I could see the edge of the stone plaza surrounded by what looked like sand. Great! I thought we're in the middle of a desert. As I did one last sweep around I found that we were in a shallow crater, deep enough to keep the tallest human from escaping with ease.

As I started to shift from what must have been a slumped position I noticed someone else's back against mine.

It was at this moment I came to the realization that everyone I was looking at was stark naked.

"Hey," a voice from directly behind me started groggily "any idea what's going on?"

I shook my head before I realized that wasn't going to give him and answer.

"No, not at all. What about you?"

"Well that's just fantastic." As he said that he cleared his throat and spit loogie.

"So what's it look like on your side?" He asked

"Naked people, no chains, and a lot of desert, quite frankly this is looking like a bad survival manga."

"Ha. I'm surprised you're so level headed"

"I'm more impressed you're already considering escape." I laughed at him

"Well aren't you?"

"Mmm give me 10 more minutes and ask again."

He genuinely laughed this time.

"What's your name?"

"Alt, you?"

"Arthur, and yessss like that really old round table legend." He sounded exasperated as he said it.

"Would you prefer Art, or Arty?" I joked.

"Mmmm." He pondered for a minute before giving a response.

"If only to get my attention I'll accept Art."

"Deal!"

"Well, look at that. First day of prison and I already made my first friend." He laughed.

"Pris—" I was cut off as a speaker came on that seemed to reach all ends of the plaza.

"GOOOOOD MORNING, DANTES MUNDO! WE'RE GANNA HAVE A GREAT DAY TODAY, STARTING WITH, YEA YOU GUESSED IT. WHO YA GOTTA KILL TO GET SOME CLOTHES AROUND HERE. SO DON'T MOVE A MUSCLE WE'LL BE RIGHT BACK AFTER OUR LUNCH BREAK."

Great! I thought one more deathmatch to add to my life's story.

"I only just made a friend, I don't wanna have to kill him." The guy behind me sounded dishearten.

I really hope that's the case I silently prayed as I realized the severe situation I was waking up to. This wasn't going to be a prison, and unfortunately not a survival game, instead what I might have just entered may be the gates of hell itself.