13 Lan-Tsu

Draxis city in an unoccupied building.

Flash.....

Somewhere in an empty room, 4 humans and 1 beast appeared out of nowhere.

There were 3 boys, 1 girl, and a monstrous, black armored, green serpent. One boy with blonde hair named Johnny seemed to be around 16-17 yrs old, He was covered in some sort of mercury like metal from the neck down. While the other two boys were wearing armor similar to each other.

One boy had flame colored hair, he was named Oren, he looked to be significantly younger than the other 2 boys maybe 10 or 11 plus he was nearly 2 ft shorter. He was wearing black armor with matching arm gauntlets, the gauntlets had a silver blade sticking out of each elbow, while the boots and knuckles of the armor were also silver.

The other boy had jet black hair, he looked about the same age as the blonde haired Johnny, he was about the same height as Johnny too, his name was Harvey and his armor was bone white in color. The material wasn't the same as the black armor Oren was wearing, but the design was same, however he had a sword of lightning in his right hand, instead of gauntlets.

The girl whose name was Esholyn was wearing a blue mage cloak adorned in jewels. The cloaks hood was up, covering her forehead, her pearl white hair was in a single braid draped down her front. In her left hand she had a silver scepter which held a glowing white orb, in her right she held two large jewels

"Whoa! That was weird." Oren said startlingly.

The others just laughed. There was a red jewel embedded in the middle of the floor that looked just like the two in Esholyns hand.

Suddenly Emera voiced, "Oren, Esholyn has a pixie! It was cloaked from me, but the teleportation energy must of broken its concentration. I'm certain that just now I sensed it's aura as it tried to reconceal itself."

Oren himself knew a little about this, now that he was attending classes in the castle. Pixies were very rare, very powerful magical beings very similar to humans in likeness. They were small enough to put in your palm, also they normally do not fight instead they use there abilities to take care of nature.

Oren raised his eyebrow. "Where," He said to Emera.

The others couldn't understand what they were saying, firstly because Emera could only speak telepathically with Oren, and Oren spoke a different language when talking to Emera.

Left shoulder ....Swiiish... Oren moved, and in the blink of an eye he was next to Esholyn, snatching at her shoulder, and sure enough just as Emera had said he felt something, when his hand made contact, the creature tried to dodge, but Orens speed, and strength was to much for it.

Oren easily held the creature in his hand, causing whatever cloaking ability it was using to fail.

"Oren! What are you doing!" Esholyn screamed.

Oren had moved too fast for her to react. She was just now realizing what happened, but Oren wasn't trying to harm the creature.

"Who are you," Oren said ignoring Esholyn, talking to the Pixie or whatever it was.

"Please release me," the pixie spoke in clear human tongue.

Oren released his fist and the creature stood in his palm, it was a small man maybe about 6 inches tall, he had on green flower robe, his hair was blue like the ocean or sea, and his skin was brown as the earth on it's back were two sets of large wings sort of like a dragonfly but much larger.

"Hello Oren, I am Lan-Tsu from the Earth pixie tribe."

The pixie bowed slightly then flew up into the air, increasing in size to about a foot, before landing on Esholyns shoulder.

He spoke again, "I am Esholyns guardian.. Although, how we met is a story for another day."

"I mean you no harm I am only here to help Esholyn control the earthstone."

He bowed a deep bow saying, "I am your friend."

"Okay, okay look we can get into that later, right now we have a job to do." Harvey had spoken out he didn't care about meeting this pixie he cared only about the battle to come.

"Right," Oren and Johnny said in unison.

The group stayed in the building for a few more hours planning out their strategies and battle plans,

Harvey and Johnny where actually soldiers who have trained for war type situations, so they did the planning. They also realized they were in the basement of a massive underground bunker. The Exit was hidden behind a sequence of stones just like the safe room of the castle.

When the group left from the building it was still light out, but Oren knew the city stayed in a perpetual state of daytime. He didn't know the full secret behind it but he knew it had something to do with the city being enchanted.

When they left from the bunker they entered a small wooded area inside the city.

If anyone was watching this they would have seen the group emerge from a large boulder.

They walked slowly through the woods, Esholyn cast a spell to keep them concealed, as they moved in a cluster. Through the trees they could see large battalions of soldiers moving toward the city gates. There were very few guards left in the city as most of them went to do battle.

"Okay so here is the plan," Harvey spoke out He was the oldest and the only one besides Oren with real battle experience, although Oren had fought many more beasts. Harvey is the only person with actual wartime battle experience, being that he had been on quite a few missions with his father.

Harvey had made a battle plan as the group moved towards, the edge of the the woods, no one had any objections.

They were only here to make sure the city was safe, or so they thought. The group really had know reason to be outside the saferoom, but they were young.

So of course they were not thinking with a reasonable adult mind state.

They left the wooded area remaining cloaked, carefully avoiding the guards as they moved towards the gate that led outside of the city. Their plan was to remain cloaked until the city was invaded then they would help as needed.

As they moved through the city, Oren suddenly noticed a certain place. He could remember from his childhood! It was his fathers old jewel shop! Plus the lights were on! It was still open for business.

"Emera! I found it! I found it!" Oren said completely overjoyed. He had never went looking for the shop like he originally planned, he had almost forgotten about looking, assuming it would be shut down, or something.

"Found what Oren?" Emera asked she could hear his excitement but didn't really know why.

"My dads shop is right over there look," as Oren spoke he pointed to a building with a large blue sign on the door which read: Dawsons' Stonecutters, and Ore miners. Of course Emera couldn't read human language, but Esholyn and the others knew Orens dad had a jewel shop somewhere in the city. So seeing him point to the sign while talking to Emera they realized what was going on.

"Oren we need to focus on this mission, we can definitely come back, but we are at war right now," Harvey stated to Oren.

Oren just nodded in agreement His eyes glued to that sign, obviously mesmerized, probably tying memories together. He couldn't really remember much being that he was so young when he left the city but he remembered the shop. He was there most of the time he spent in the city as a toddler.

The group moved onward towards the gates they were moving through a wooded area as to not be noticed. Although they were being concealed by Esholyn if they got to close to another magic user they might be found out if the other party was strong enough to sense them.

"Okay so here is what were gonna do," Harvey started speaking he was leading this operation no one objected to his commands.

"When we get to the edge of forest we will wait, if the enemies manage to make it past the soldiers and manage to near the city that's when we'll move. Our only objective is to protect the towns people not join the battle we will only hinder them if we get into dire straits."

"Okay" Everyone agreed to Harveys plan they truly couldn't really get involved in a full scale battle. Oren could probably keep himself safe, but what about them he wouldn't be able to guarantee their safety. Especially if more beastmen came to fight, but beastmen were not that numerous out of 100 men maybe 3 would be beastmen.

Suddenly a voice spoke up "This is a bad idea Esholyn I have a bad premonition we pixies can sort of see our fates and Im telling you if we don't get out of this city not only will the entire city be destroyed you will all be killed except Oren even the serpent wont escape this catastrophe."

The pixie Lan-Tsu was talking to Esholyn it took a second for everyone to realize who was speaking being that he was invisible. Everyone froze at his words.

"What about if we go back to the saferoom will we be safe then." Johnny asked his voice was calm but they could tell he was scared. They all were.

"I am not sure since we are not there now the premonition only shows me what will happen on the path I am on, plus I cannot control it. It comes and goes when my life is in danger." Lan Tsu told them.

"How accurate is it," Esholyn replied.

"Well" he said, his voice growing solemn "Its like this if I am in danger it shows me a vision of how I will die but only a few seconds before. So its very accurate but not definite, you see the future I see is only a few seconds before we were killed. I saw these two lying dead in front of us," He said as he looked from Johnny to Harvey.

"We were wounded by an attack. Then Emera was killed protecting us while Oren was tied up in battle. You were killed as Oren was trying to get to you, lastly I was discovered and killed thus ending the vision. The entire city was blazing, black flames were everywhere darkness minions were destroying the city hundreds of them."

When Lan-Tsu stopped talking, they were frozen with fear hearing the words 'dead', 'killed' echoing in their minds. They came out the safe room to help, not die they instantly changed their minds.

"Okay lets go back to the castle the battle shouldn't be starting for another day or so, We have time to get back to the safe room. Basically all we need to do is not be in the place where we died in the vision." Harvey took command he had more experience so he snapped out the stupor first, Oren was stuck still envisioning the deaths of his comrades he was still out of it.

"Oren come on," Esholyn yelled and the group madly dashed for the castle. On the way back they saw the shop that supposedly used to belonged to Orens dad. They no longer kept the concealment up, they were moving too fast like blurs. Esholyn was in her water form accelerating at a wild speed flowing across the ground. Johnny was merged with Merc which had turned itself into a large centaur his galloping speed was no less than Esholyns. Harvey using his lightning form was slightly ahead of them. Emera was behind with Oren sitting on her back.

It wasn't that Emera couldn't outspeed them but Oren thought it would be better if he could see them during the retreat.

"Hey Im going over here Ill meet you guys back at the castle." Oren yelled to them. He wanted to watch the retreat but he had to go to that shop he had to see if someone knew something about his dad. Before anyone could voice there opinion Oren and Emera broke off from the group and headed to the shop.