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"Chapter Six: Dragon Fire"
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"So...this is it? The Way of the Dragon?" Hilda glanced around at the piles of rubble and shattered rock. "Not too much to look at."
"Last time we were here there was quite the earthquake. Demolished most of the ruins. But look. There's still one standing, and it's the one that matters the most." Jim pointed to the large temple that stood a bit off to the left. "Come on."
Hilda shivered as they began walking towards the temple. It was freezing cold on the remote planet, and of course she wasn't dressed for it. She once again wore her khaki pants, boots, and tank top, an outfit that had become her trademark. Luckily though, she had the thick cloak that her mother had given her when she was younger. It had been her father's, and when she'd first recieved it she'd vanished into it. Now, though it was still oversized, it wasn't quite that bad.
"It's freezing out here!" snapped Aisha, rubbing her hands together in hopes of warming them. "It was warm last time we were here."
"Times change Aisha," announced Suzuka, wrapped in a thick jacket. She smiled. "It keeps us on our toes."
"I can't even feel my toes," retorted Aisha.
Hilda was the first to step inside the temple when they reached it. Strangely enough it was warmer inside, by about twenty degrees. She walked through the hall slowly, a strange feeling filling her. "I feel something," she said, vocalizing her intuition. Jim only nodded, as if he knew she would. Slowly, Hilda approached the wall, and laid it
there. Suddenly, the sign of a dragon flashed on the wall. Hilda cried out and pulled her hand back. The tattoo she had on her arm, the one of the same dragon, flared a bright red color, then faded with the sign on the wall, returning to the dull green it had been before.
"What was that?!?"
"It's gone..." commented Hilda. "Whatever it was, I don't feel it anymore."
"Well, we might as well set up camp. I think we can spend the night without worry of an earthquake."
Aisha groaned. "'Without worry of an earthquake', yeah... thats comforting..."
Z
Hilda stood and grabbed her coat, being careful not to wake the others as she shrugged the jacket on. She rubbed her tattooed arm gingerly. For some reason it had begun to throb after the incident with the sign on the wall. She shook her head, pushing the thought aside and stepped out of the temple.
The cold air hit her hard, and her eyes began to water instantly as they adjusted to the bright light of the binary moons. After a while they adjusted to the beautiful light, and Hilda could enjoy the scenery. It was snowing.
With a melancholy uncharacteristic to her, Hilda watched the soft snow playfully descend from the dark sky. The flakes danced before her weary eyes, floating down towards the frozen grown to join their snowy brethren.
"I don't know, what words I can say. The wind has a way, to talk to me."
She remembered the lullaby her mother used to sing her on those nights when she couldn't fall asleep. Those nights when she had missed her father so badly that she was afraid that she wouldn't be able to stop crying.
"Flowers sleep, a silent Lullaby. I pray for reply, I'm ready. Quite day, calms me. Oh serenity. Someone please tell me, what is it they say? Maybe I will know, one day..."
With a suppressed sob, she brushed the tears away from her face before the cold air froze them to her tender skin. She hated when she got emotional. It happened so rarely, yet when it did, it felt as if her emotions were twisting her very soul. The lullaby was a bit of a comfort, a shred of her past that she could hold onto.
"That was beautiful."
Hilda whirled around and drew her gun in the same instant, coming face to face with none other than Harry McDougall. Her eyes narrowed as she leveled her gun at his forehead, opting to keep the fact that she was now carrying her father's Caster gun a secret. She fought the fresh wave of tears that his face stirred within her. Betrayed. "What do you want?" she snapped, keeping her voice even and as cold as the falling snow.
"I want you to come with me," said Harry, extending a metallic hand towards her.
She pulled the trigger, firing a bullet at his outstretched hand. The bullet ricocheted off of the metal, but he drew back, his gaze turning from loving to dangerous. "How dare you! You don't want me, you want to get to the Leiline. How stupid do you think I am? You think I'll just help you, after everything that happened? Screw you!"
His lips split in an evil grin. "I believe you already accomplished that."
Hilda once again leveled the gun at his head. "I'll give you five seconds to get the hell out of here."
"How about this..." said another voice, from behind Hilda. Before she could turn around to see who the other person was, she felt the cold steel of a gun muzzle push against the nape of her neck. "How about you simply come with us?" suggested the voice.
Hilda thought about trying to make an escape, but quickly discarded the idea. With a small sigh, she let her own gun drop into the snow and held her hands up in a gesture of surrender.
"I was wondering when you were gonna help out Ron," sighed Harry, glaring at his brother. "Were you waiting for a written invitation?"
"Oh, shut up." With that, Ron brought the butt of the gun down hard on the back of Hilda's head, and she dropped.
Z
"Hilda? Hilda!" Jim had been calling her name for the past twenty minutes with no response but the echo of his own voice from within the temple. He's awoken only moments after she'd left, and he'd immediately started worrying, as was his habit. Dammit, where is that girl?
Suddenly, the alarm on his palm-top computer went off, and he flipped it open. It was the scanner. It had picked up a ship. Jim dug in his pocket for the headset, then put it on, sliding the connector into his palmtop and connecting to the Outlaw Star. "Gilliam, what's going on? I picked up movement on the scanners..."
"It would seem that the Shangri-La landed only a few hundred meters from your current position. I'm going to switch to outboard cameras and send you the image."
The scanner information on his palmtop changed to an image. The McDougall brothers climbing the ramp into their ship. They were carrying something..."Oh shit, it's Hilda!" cried Jim, his exclamation waking the sleeping Aisha. Suzuka had been awake the entire time.
"Gilliam, move to intercept them."
"I'm afraid that's impossible Jim. The XGP cannot function to even fifty percent capacity without a crew. I wouldn't be able to catch them in time. I will however move in closer and pick you three up. Hilda has a tracer on her at all times, we can follow them."
Jim was about to argue, but he realized that it was the only feasible plan they had. "All right. We'll be waiting."
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