The 10 Gateways: Secrets

Confronting Mistakes

September 17th, 2010

I stared up at the castle looming over the dunes. Even though it was in ruin, it still was a massive structure. It had a grand entrance walkway leading to the front gate. Looking closer, I realized the entire castle sat right on the edge of the canyon. 

"I guess Rex took the King and Queen of Hell to another level?" Henry asked and Joe chuckled.

"I believe this castle was here before, hence why it's in ruin now. No idea what line of royalty was out here in this desert though," Dr. Roberto stated.

We ventured towards the front entryway of the castle which had beautifully detailed arches and columns. We hurried towards the front gate to escape the intense wind and sand. As we approached it, the familiar red energy fell to block the gate. 

"Christina! Come out!" I announced.

As I said that and was brought with no answer, the red energy swirled with black energy, dark magic. 

"That's not Christina," Eliza muttered.

As I stared at the red and black mixture and it started coming towards us, we backed up. The energy diffused like smoke and Lauryn was standing there in front of the gate. Her piercing red eyes stared into my soul. She slowly started walking forward, her head turning so fast to look at everyone that it looked like it was teleporting from position to position. She stopped a few feet away from me. I kept a straight face.

"Lauryn, I know you're in there and all your anger and sadness is embodying this, but Christina can't control you. You're stronger than that."

Lauryn's red eyes shined for a second and she just glared straight into my eyes. 

Lauryn's voice was deeper than before as she spoke out, "You left me to die at Christina's hideout when I fell in the vat. Then you continued out your journey through the gateways without me and forgot I existed. While you continued that mission, Christina and Rex took care of me. They healed me from falling in the vat and strengthened me. Christina actually cares about me."

"I care too! I apologize for forgetting you, we didn't know where you were kept and we had other pressing matters, like trying to survive ourselves through the gateways. Then we had to fight Christina and try to stop her evildoing."

"You're a terrible liar."

Before I could say anything more, Lauryn's hand flicked up in the flash of an eye, and red energy swirled around us. Dr. Roberto brought out these foldable metal shields and threw them out quickly to shield the ones who couldn't fight themselves. 

"You throw all your friends into danger to what? Get them killed or captured. Just to save your sister, who doesn't care about you anymore." Lauryn said.

She floated towards me, as I kept a stance.

"You're wrong. We all care about each other. It's not just for Christina, she's a threat to the world."

"That's what you think. Has she really done anything to the world thus far?"

I thought for a second. Christina created a tsunami at the beach, but it all went into the lighthouse to attack the RP's. Then I remembered.

"She destroyed the Future city we were in!"

Lauryn hesitated for a second, "Wrong, that was Jack Fairwell who went mad. Plus the future will just get changed over time, haven't you watched a basic time travel movie?"

Lauryn raised her hand once again, and these black spikes rose up from the ground, one went through Katherine's pant leg and raised her upside down.

"Lauryn. Christina may not have done anything, but you're about to hurt my friends. Our friends. So realize what you're doing and please stop."

Lauryn chuckled and looked at me with her dark red eyes. She flicked her hand and her dark magic was heading straight toward me. I focused and waved my own hand to summon hellfire, but the fire was dim, and only buffered the dark magic. I went wide-eyed as the dark aura surrounded me and I was brought to my knees.

"You're weak Epic. I can tell. You've gone through a lot of loss and you're a blank slate of a person.

"That's not true, I have friends, family, people I care about."

"They may be your supposed friends, but all you've guys done is go on missions, there's no enjoyable times or smiling times. There was Henry and Jenny's wedding, but even that got turned into a sad time. You have no emotional connections."

"You're wrong! I feel things!"

"That's what you think."

As Lauryn continued belittling me, the dark aura completely surrounded me and I couldn't see anything but darkness. It was so isolating. Lauryn appeared in the darkness in my face, her red eye shining in the dark aura. 

"Happy birthday," she said as her eyes disappeared from view and those words felt like a bullet, physically hurting my abdomen, and I stumbled slightly. 

I pushed through and stood back up, and held out my hands, focusing. Eventually, my hands dimly lit again and I glared at them. After focusing, a large blast of fire unleashed, breaking through the dark magic and surprising me. My blast of fire was so sudden and out of nowhere, barely anyone could react, Dr. Roberto, Nathan, and Jenny had blocked it and shielded some others. Joe was hit, but he quickly regenerated, and Lauryn was hit. She was on her knees. 

I rushed over to her and touched her shoulder, which she immediately shoved me away.

"Don't even try to redeem yourself, Epic. It's a lost cause. I'm a lost cause. I've always been an outcast and I was forgotten. I apologize for what Christina has done, but she took me in at my weakest."

"This is not your fault Lauryn. Everything has just been such a mess and I've been trying to fix it but I'm not succeeding."

Lauryn chuckled, then paused for a second as we all were under silence. Then Lauryn swung an arm towards me, and Dr. Roberto had lightning-fast reflexes, grabbing her arm and holding her into the ground. She grunted loudly. Dr. Roberto then hit her head into the ground, just to daze her.

"We need to stop Christina immediately. If we find something to get Christina back to normal and out of Rex's control, it'll work on Lauryn too." I said.

"Wait where's Katherine?" Jenny asked.

We all looked to the top of those black spikes, and she was nowhere to be found. 

"I bet I know who has her, let's go," Henry said.

We started heading deeper into the castle ground, realizing the gate that Lauryn had blocked was now down. But as we passed through the gate, we heard a familiar cackling behind us.

"You thought you'd get away that easily! You kill all the rest of my crew but not her? That's not fair, is it?" Christina rang out.

We all turned around immediately, Christina had Lauryn raised on an ice pedestal. 

"Christina, stop! There's no reason to do this!" Henry stood up.

"There's all of the reasons to do this! Your group is in my way, and this is the end of it all!"

Dr. Roberto, Henry, Jenny, and I started running towards the ice pedestal, Nathan and Victor shortly behind us. Before we got very far though, Christina threw up her hands and an ice spike rose straight through Lauryn. We stopped in our tracks, and I felt myself go numb and fall to my knees. 

I thought I'd made up for forgetting Lauryn and letting Christina take her, but all we were met with was a sad ending. She didn't deserve this, she should've been on our journey the entire way, but she was taken so early, and I was so selfish focusing on myself and my sister. Jenny held me up from faceplanting. Henry and Dr. Roberto kept running but Christina disappeared back into the castle for our confrontation. 

My mind went blank as I considered possible next steps. I needed to become stronger and protect the ones closest to me or we're going to lose more.