(Previously on Immortal Wars.)

(Again, we shall revel in my teenage originality.  Everyone groan in unison.)

Disclaimer: Immortal Wars was the book I came up with and wrote in high school.  I hadn’t even hit college by the time I wrote the first two books.  That means I hadn’t developed my style yet, wasn’t good at self-editing, and the story was fairly basic. So, you’ve been warned that this is the ultimate author throwback segment for my blog and will show my author origins.  FYI-  I put the first book (The Summoning) through a Print-on-Demand publisher and the second one (Light, Blood, & Tears) never saw the light of day.  Enjoy!

Kilanus has changed more than any of the other villains could possibly know.  The obvious changes are her confident attitude and her new outfit.  The old costume is still a pile of ashes on the floor of the warship’s battle arena.  Now, the curvaceous teen wears a form-fitting, black bodysuit with a loose silver skull belt used only for decoration.  Around her neck is a small, ebony chain with a crimson skull and crossbones hanging from it.  Everything about her new attire gives Kilanus a gorgeous, but very deadly appearance.

“Get the hell out of my head!” screams Kilanus.  Ever since her mind was fixed, images of people and places have been painfully trying to break through her newly made mental barriers.  She doesn’t know who any of the people are and she doesn’t really care.  All that currently matters to her is that they are causing her a lot of pain and mental suffering.

The door to Kilanus’ room hisses open and Adriana strolls in at the worst possible moment.  She dives under the ripped up bed for safety when a metal chair is thrown at her.  She watches the chair shatter against the wall and hears her daughter’s screams of agony get louder with every passing moment.  Kilanus swings her magic scythe at everything in the room and narrowly misses her mother’s head when she peeks out from under the bed.

“Help me!” yells Kilanus.  Her shouting stops abruptly and she topples onto what remains of her bed, which collapses onto Adriana’s leg.  She effortlessly lifts the bed off of her leg and wriggles out from under the bed.  Tears start streaming down the girl’s face as Adriana gets up to put her arms around her daughter.

“I’m here.  Calm down.  Are you okay?” asks Adriana in a soft voice.

“I’m fine.  It’s just that these stupid images keep popping into my head and causing me unexplainable pain.  Aside from that minor problem, I’ve never been better.”

“I see.  Don’t worry, Kilanus.  I have an idea that could help you get rid of these painful images.  Why don’t you tell me about your visions before I get rid of them?  I could help you figure them out.”

“That isn’t such a good idea.  And I can’t really remember the exact details.  But every time I try, I start going psycho and destroy everything around me.  This is the fourth time today I’ve destroyed my room.  I ripped it up about twenty times yesterday.  The computers are really beginning to get annoyed with me.”

“Don’t worry about hurting me.  I’ll be safe.  Now, tell me about these images.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m your mother and I always know best.  And I would never let anything separate us including death.  You know that.”  Her current voice makes her sound sincere and nice instead of her usual sultry tone.

“Okay.  The images start with me being chained up in a small, airless, and freezing cold cage with unfamiliar people looking in at me.  They’re laughing at me with ugly, distorted faces and voices that sound like long nails on a chalkboard.  They make me feel like some kind of a hideous freak of nature.  After awhile, the people outside the cage disappear into a cloud of moving darkness.  Then I turn around and see a young boy sitting in the cage with me.  The boy has blond hair and wears torn clothes like they wear on planet Earth.  He’s just staring at me without saying a single word.  All I know about the boy is that I hate him with all of my heart and soul,” explains Kilanus.  Suddenly, the images return to her mind at full force and Adriana gets thrown headfirst into the metal wall.

“What are you doing?” asks Adriana.  Before the green-eyed woman knows it, her daughter has her pinned to the ground and the curved blade of Kilanus’ scythe is lightly against the back of Adriana’s neck.  Adriana doesn’t move an inch because she knows that the scythe is capable of killing her with the slightest cut.

“Come on, Kilanus.  It’s me, Adriana.  Your loving mother.  This isn’t funny!”  Kilanus puts her scythe on the floor and jerks Adriana over her head by her hair and left ankle.  The scythe is kept blade up by Kilanus stepping on it and she prepares to drop Adriana on it.  Luckily, the images disappear from the young immortal’s mind before she can drop her startled and silent victim.

“Huh?  What am I doing?” asks the confused teenager.

“You’re trying to kill me!  Now put me down!  Oops.” mutters Adriana when she remembers what’s lying on the floor below her.  Not knowing where the scythe is, Kilanus simply shrugs and drops Adriana.  The voluptuous immortal quickly tries to twist her body out of the way, but fails.  The curved blade nicks the side of her thigh and some strange white mist starts going from the tiny cut into the scythe.  As the mist leaves the small cut, the mortally injured blonde starts screaming while her perfect skin slowly becomes pale and her bones begin to show through her skin like she hasn’t eaten in months.  The white mist is Adriana’s soul and it is being painfully drained from her mind and body.

“No!” yells Kilanus as Adriana’s screams die with the rest of her.  Just then, Tegam walks in and quickly notices that he should have moved faster.  First, he gets the death scythe away from the body and tries to heal the tiny wound with the power of the healing staff.  When nothing happens, he looks at Kilanus.

“The healing staff doesn’t work on her.  I’m no doctor, but I think she’s dead,” says Tegam.  Kilanus kicks him in the back and picks him up by his ears.

“No kidding, jackass.  She fell on my death scythe by accident!”  Kilanus starts crying a river again and sits on the floor next to Adriana’s lifeless body.

“Don’t cry, kid.  It’s only Adriana.”

“I just accidentally killed my mother and you’re telling me to stop crying.  I ought to break your scrawny, joking neck!  So, just shut up and do something to bring her back!”

“Do something?  Moi?  I can only turn invisible and play amusing practical jokes on people.  You’re the only immortal we know of with resurrection powers.  Or did you forget all about that little fact.”

“Oh yeah,” says Kilanus as she stops crying.  She kneels next to Adriana’s limp body and puts her trembling hands on her mother’s cold, clammy skin.  Tegam watches as Kilanus’ stiff body quickly covers itself with a thin layer of bright, green light.  The green light slowly ebbs off of Kilanus and into Adriana’s corpse.  Before her mother awakens, Kilanus collapses from the intense strain her powers cause on her body.

“Tegam?  What happened to me?  Why can’t I move my body?  Did you tie me down to the floor again?” asks Adriana in a low whisper.  Her entire body is weak and she can only speak or slowly move her head and arms.  Kilanus is still out cold on the floor and looks almost harmless and peaceful.

“You were cut by Kilanus’ death scythe.  It was probably an accident, but you would know about what happened better than I would.  Anyway, Kilanus brought you back with her birthright powers and decided to take a very long nap.  Now that everything looks like a grenade went off in a C-4 factory, my work here is done,” explains Tegam.  The immortal jester disappears with a flash of light and is heard whistling while he leaves the room.

“Amazing.  She has so much raw power that she can easily control, yet she can’t control such a simple thing like her mind.  I’ll never figure out why that is.  At least I got that sleep Startrix was annoying me about.  Sort of,” moans Adriana as she continues to stare at her sleeping daughter.  Adriana slowly grabs the nearby healing staff and uses it on herself.  In a couple of minutes, she is standing up and placing Kilanus on the broken bed.  Adriana hits a few buttons on the nearby wall and everything in the room begins to repair itself.

“This should get rid of those painful images.”  The staff’s blue glow abruptly changes to crimson as a thin line of energy slithers into Kilanus’ brain through her nose.  The energy line quickly hides all of the images that have been causing Kilanus pain.  When it is done with the girl’s second mind fix of the week, the energy line dissipates.

“That should do it.  When you wake up, your mind will be as bad as new.  Then you will truly be one of us.  No child of mine could ever be a hero.  I know too many people that would make sure of that,” whispers Adriana before she walks out of the room and leaves Kilanus to sleep.  When the young immortal wakes up a few, silent hours later, she is not aware of any of the things that Adriana has done to her.