The Sworn Protector: From Tragedy To Glory

The Secret Discovered

   Katie slowly opened her eyes and glanced around at the really messed up room. She sat up slowly, her hand on her aching head. Her vision was very blurred and askew.
  "Where am I?"she wondered out loud,"What....Wha...happened?"
"I'll let you know if you can help us get out from under here!" Johnathan's muffled voice came from under a huge pile of clothes with a bookshelf on top of it. Katie picked up the now light wooden bookshelf and pushed it against the wall, allowing Johnathan and the doctor to scramble out of the messed up pile of books and clothes. But as Katie grabbed Johnathan's outstretched hand and pulled him up, their eyes met. Memories came flooding back to Katie like a flood, starting a fire of anger which she had never felt
before.
  As the scenes of her sister's cry of pain, followed by her interference, and then the merciless beating the captain gave her with the belt flashed in her brain, she looked at Johnathan with a vengeful distrust clearly written on her face. Johnathan and the doctor looked at each other confused, oblivious to what was going on in Katie's mind. Her purple lightning flashed in her light brown eyes, and a wind began to blow around the room, very slight at first, then harder and harder. Outside, dark angry clouds started to crowd the sky, purple lightning flashing in the sky followed by an earth shaking boom.
   Katie stretched her hands to the sky, her hair whipping around with the wind. Purple lightning flashed down from the sky and through the roof and into Katie's fingertips. For a while, the lightning bolt stayed connected to her, as if she was a battery being charged. Johnathan struggled against the strong wind, trying to draw his sword. Suddenly, the lightning bolt vanished and before Johnathan had finished pulling his sword out, Katie pointed her fingertips at him and the doctor. Purple lightning mixed with a powerful wind struck them both, stunning them and pinning them up against the wall.
"I'm only going to ask you once." Seethed Katie,"Where is my sister?" She finished, her hand controlling the wind which blew furiously, pushing them even more tighter against the wall.
  Far off on the other side of the island, Alice, with me riding behind her, galloped hastily towards her brother's castle. The sky was black with boiling clouds, and occasionally, lightning would flash then thunder would follow, shaking the ground. Rain fell hard on us, and the wind wasn't much of a help to our journey either. The wind whipped the ocean into a frenzy, creating huge waves, bigger then the ones that smashed the Lestaway. We got pushed off the horse a couple times by the strong wind, but we got up and kept going.
   As we neared the place where the dead crew of the Lestaway lay unburied and stinking, we stopped to rest in a small cave that the captain had used as his room. It felt good being protected from the hurricane like wind and rain. As we gazed out at the trashing sea, a bright blue flash blinded us for a couple seconds, which seemed like a hour. Almost immediately, the waves were calm and still, the clouds vanished and the early evening sun shone happily in the blue sky.
"This place is giving me the creeps." I told Alice. She nodded and was about to say something when a bunch of horsemen, led by Oliver, galloped into the camp. There was about five of them. All of them had swords, which they quickly drew when they saw Alice's horse standing in front of the cave. The men unmounted and approached cautiously.
"How well can you fight?" Alice whispered to me.
" Not that well." I replied, shaking my head."I've never had any self-defense train...." I stopped,breathless. I couldn't breath. My stomach was hurting terribly. Alice let go of the horse and it galloped into the woods. She knelt by me as I collapsed onto the ground. The last thing I saw before I closed my eyes was two men grabbing her. She struggled against them, trying to get back to me. But then, my eyelids shut,and blackness was all I could see.
   But only for a little while. A bright, dreamy scene appeared before me like a vision. I was watching myself fight a bunch of ..... Ninjas! Really? In the vision I was giving them a good butt-kicking. I high kicked one right in the face,knocking him out. Another one tried stabbing me with a knife,but I skillfully slide out of the way, grabbed his arm and threw him over my shoulder. I was punching, clawing, and basically.....butt-kicking!
  Suddenly, I was back in the cave,laying on the floor. A man was kneeling down beside me, trying to read the pulse on my neck. I grabbed his wrist and twisted him over me and kicked him out of the cave. I jumped up and got into a fighting stance. Two men were holding Alice and Oliver and the other two men( one of whom I just kicked) faced me, swords drawn.
"No weapons!" Oliver commanded," She's just a little girl. We can take her."
A man walked slowly towards me, but I didn't back up. When he got close enough, I roundhouse kicked him in the neck, just under the jaw. He was knocked out immediately. Another man charged me, his sword drawn and swinging. As he swung his sword, I jumped over his sword,and struck him in mid-air with the inner sides of my feet, right on his head. As I landed on the ground feet first,Oliver swung his sword at me. I fell to the ground,the sword almost touching me.  Then from the ground I did a back roll and rolled skillfully back onto my feet. Before he could swing at me again, I spun around, sliding the back of my left foot on the ground, striking his feet. This caused him to fall on the ground. As he fell, he drop his sword. As his sword fell, another man, letting go of Alice, charged at me, raising his sword above his head. I caught Oliver's sword in mid-air, then blocked the very strong downward slash the man did. We held on, each pushing against the others strength. Finally, I couldn't take it any longer. I slid my sword across his, and as he tried to lunge at me, I easily dodged his lunge, spun around, and slammed the flat end of the sword against his face. KO!
    As I turned to face Oliver again, he was right there behind me. He quickly grabbed my arm that held the sword and twisted my arm behind my back, causing great pain that I had to let it go. But not for long. With my arm still twisted behind my back, I untwisted it by doing a front flip, slamming both of my legs into his unprotected side. He fell, with me on top of him. Then, I jabbed him in the throat, hitting the special positions that put him quickly to sleep. As I stood up, the man still holding Alice let go of her, and tried to run to his horse. But as he let go of Alice, she grabbed hold of him and threw him over her shoulder and onto the ground like a heavy bag of potatoes. Then, as the guy tried to stand, I did a running side kick, jumping high into the air. As my foot connected with his face, you can say,"KO!"
"Oh, right, you wanted me to believe that you had no idea how to fight, even though you're pretty good at it. Okay, that doesn't make any sense."Alice said, mounting one of the sleeping men's horses.
"Well, let's just say interesting stuff happens randomly to me at some random times." I said, mounting on Oliver's horse."Let's ride!"
    And with that we were off, galloping at full speed. We noticed dark clouds and lightning were flashing in the distance. When we arrived at the castle gates, which were closed, the guards wouldn't open the gates.
"You'd better open these gates or I'll have my brother behead you all! Right n...." Alice threatened, but before she could finish a strong wind began to blow. It blasted us off our horses. It sounded like the scream of demons. The guards were blasted off the wall, and the wall collapsed. Purple lightning zapped different areas of the castle, turning stone into powder. The thunder growled and the sea was again boiling with rage. As the guards fearfully fled in the direction of safety, Alice and I braved the hellish storm. We finally got to a part of the castle wall that was still standing and took shelter behind it.
"Hey, you wouldn't think this storm was being caused by...." Alice screamed at me, even though I could barely hear her above the shrieking winds. Suddenly, to the left of us, the wall broke open and Johnathan went soaring past us. It looked like he was thrown through the wall. As he slowly got up, he caught sight of Alice and me. He was reaching for his sword which had landed in our direction when he crashed through the wall. As he looked at us, he froze, glancing from me to Alice as if he was seeing a ghost. Then behind us, the whole wall disintegrated into powder as Katie, her eyes flashing, hands stretched slightly apart, advanced toward Johnathan.
  "Trying to use that sword again, I see. We'll see about that!" She said. Her voice wasn't normal, it was like the shrieking wind was talking for her. I was horrified, I didn't know what to do. Johnathan reached for his sword,but a blast of wind blew him to the ground. We could all see that he was tired, and was obviously losing. Then, using her wind power, Katie put her hands together and slowly drew them apart. The sword rose in the air and purple lightning began to strike it. The sword had a power of its own, and it fought against Katie's force. But it didn't succeed. A bright flash of blue again blinded everyone's eyes, but when our vision came back, we were stunned by what we saw.
   A giant sphere-shaped ball floated on the place where the sword was. Flashes of lightning inside the sphere occasionally went off. It was spinning slowly, but was spinning faster and faster as the moments passed. It looked slight blue on the outside, but then you could see a galaxy, similar to the one in Alice's necklace, unmoving in the middle of the spinning sphere. As it spun, I noticed a heart shaped hole spin past. I looked at Alice's weird arrow, and quickly made the connections.
"Alice, give me your bow and arrow!" I shouted above the wind, even though she was right next to me. She handed me her bow, but hesitated as she took out her special arrow.
"Are you sure you can shoot this?" She asked.
"Of course! I'm Wisdom!"I yelled back. She gave me the bow, and I shut my eyes closed. Hmm, no pain. That's good. A vision of me skillfully using a bow and shooting bullseye's with arrows flashed before me. I opened my eyes. The ball was spinning way too fast for me to see anything. Suddenly, Katie was by the side of the ball, standing so that I could still get a shot. She spread her hands and the wind began blowing against the ball, slowing it down a lot.
"I can't hold this forever. Shoot!" She screamed, the wind speaking for her. Otherwise, I probably wouldn't have heard her. Then, I saw the heart shaped hole. Now was the time. I had the bow and arrow ready. I let the arrow fly. I never saw it go in, but what happened next was proof enough that I made it.
    Everything was absorbed in a bright yellow light. When the light died, everyone found themselves at the scene of Alice's parents death, Johnathan's father saving her life, and then Uncle Walker's attempt at killing both Johnathan's father and Alice. But he was stopped by Isachar, who at the time was in dragon form. Then, the scene flashed again, and we were in a strange room to Katie and me, but to Alice and Johnathan, it was not. A large chest was in the middle of the room, and the room was small and circular. Bookshelves lined the edges of the room. And standing in front of the chest with his back turned to us, was......Johnathan's father!
    "So, you have discovered the Secret of Truth." Their father's voiced spoke from the room instead of his mouth. Alice, with tears running down her cheeks ran to him.
"I'll never doubt you again. I just didn't know." Alice said as she sprung into his open arms. Johnathan just stood, mouth gaped open, stunned.
"How.....how are you still alive?" He asked." I killed you." His father, carrying Alice in his arms, walked up to him and put his index finger over Johnathan's heart.
"I'll always be alive in your heart." He said," And when you need to know something, look to your memories, your past, and you will find me. I'm alive as long as you want me to be."
Katie and I looked on with tears wanting to rush out. We embraced each other as they embraced. Then their father turned to us.
"You two remember that you are also a part of the family." He said to us," And as long as you have family that has your back, you can get through anything." He put Alice down and embraced us in his arms. Memories of our father came flooding back into my mind, and I did something I hadn't done in a while. Cry. Real crying. Alice and Johnathan joined in the embrace, and we just stood hugging. I wished to savour this moment, but our story doesn't end here. Even though I wished it did.