(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!

In the pit, Miracle and Hydrana can barely hear a word that has been said.  They could only hear the constant, and increasing, humming of Psylon’s weapon.  It isn’t until Miracle drops to her knees and starts screaming in a high pitched cry that they know things are a lot worse than they originally suspected.

“Leave me alone!” Miracle screams as loud as she can.  Her body starts going into violent seizures for a few minutes, after which her body suddenly goes limp and very still.  Everyone on the pit’s edge looks down quietly as Hydrana goes to see what happened to her friend.  The Venus guardian is lying in a heap and her mouth starts twitching after a few seconds.

“Kelly?  Miracle?  Wake up,” whispers Hydrana, who is kneeling beside the fallen Venus guardian.  Slowly Miracle’s green eyes open and she carefully gets to her feet.

“Are you okay?”

“Never better.  Here.  Let me help you up,” answers Miracle as she quickly takes Hydrana’s hand.  Before the Neptune guardian knows what is happening, Miracle tosses her into one of the huge rocks.  A loud crack fills the air before the crowd starts to ecstatically yell and howl like a pack of wolves.  Hydrana gets to her feet, but has trouble standing on her left leg because it has been cleanly broken.  She soon realizes that her body will have trouble healing the injury because she will have to keep using the bad leg in order to stay away from the advancing Venus guardian.

“What was that for!” yells Hydrana.  She ducks a fast punch to her head and awkwardly tackles Miracle.  They start clawing and kicking each other until Miracle gets her feet against Hydrana’s stomach.  She sends the redhead flying a few yards away with a savage push with her legs.  Hydrana lands with a thud and the crowd’s cheers grow even louder than before.  The two guardians flip onto their feet and wait for the other to make another move.

“This is tiring.  Why don’t you just make my job easier and stop fighting back?  You don’t stand a chance against someone with my type of raw power.  I’m easily your superior in every possible way, Hydrana.  So just give up and die,” says Miracle while she creates a hammer that is similar to the one that Mindtrigger had thrown at Hydrana several hours before.  Miracle hurls the hammer at the Neptune guardian, but Hydrana nimbly leaps over it and lands in front a stunned Miracle.  The landing is awkward and everyone sees a little bit of bone poking through the skin and a dribble of blood going down Hydrana’s leg.

“Like that’s ever going to happen,” retorts Hydrana while she ignores the bursts of pain in her leg.  Hydrana knocks Miracle out of the pit by hitting her with a point-blank water blast to her bare stomach.  The Neptune guardian quickly gets out of the pit by making a strong waterspout that sends her arching into the air.

“This is so much better than doing the messy job myself.  I’m having so much more fun just watching the two of you try to kill each other.  You girls would have made a very dangerous team.  I wouldn’t have been surprised if both of your powers combined would have been able to stop all of us.  Too bad one of you has to die today,” claims Adriana once Hydrana gracefully lands next her.  Miracle jumps at the redhead, but the attacking guardian gets knocked into Adriana by Infinity, who is still in the cage.  His powers moved faster than the containment field could compensate for, but it soon realizes what has happened.  The energy field around the cage zaps him for using his powers and he falls to the metal floor groaning in pain.

“Okay, psycho slut.  How did you do this to her?” asks Hydrana.  She deep-freezes Miracle’s arms and legs to the ground with thick ice clamps and lifts Adriana up by the sultry blonde’s neck.  The villain effortlessly knocks the guardian’s hands away with a single swipe and hits Hydrana in the gut with the butt of her staff.  Adriana grabs Hydrana’s hair and pulls the guardian’s head back in order to reveal her slender neck.

“Obviously, you haven’t studied any of the guardians’ ancient weapons.  If you did, you would have immediately realized that Psylon used Earth’s morning star of mind control on your little friend.  Miracle is under our control now and the quickest way you can save her is with my magic staff.  Of course, that’s the joke because you aren’t getting your hands on this staff.  Unless they are removed from the rest of you that is.”

Adriana takes a curvy dagger out of her boot and is about to slit her enemy’s throat when a distant glitter of light catches her eye.  This speck of light starts to grow rapidly as everyone quiets down.  Adriana looks up in time to see a beam of white energy shatter the dagger and slam into the cage door.  The smoking door falls to the ground and Solix jumps out with Infinity slowly following him into battle.

“Sorry for cutting it so close, but I had trouble finding a way out of that oversized piece of junk,” explains Fate as he jumps down from a nearby cliff.  Adriana is about to say something insulting, but Solix grabs her staff and knocks her onto the frozen ground.  She hangs on for a little while until Infinity slams her against the ground with a telekinetic hand.  Adriana lets go after getting her head stuck in the ground.

“I think we need this more than you, Adriana,” says Solix before he fires the staff’s soft, blue energy into Miracle.  When Hydrana releases the Venus guardian’s arms and legs from the ice clamps, Miracle starts asking what happened.  Before anyone can tell her what she almost did, Tegam attacks the confused guardian from behind.

“I really wanted to avoid a bloodbath, but you five have left me no more options.  Kill the guardians!” shouts Adriana as she sweeps Solix’s legs out from under him and takes her staff back.  She stands over him while hitting him everywhere with the magic staff and she makes sure to give him a few hard kicks to his ribs.

Adriana is about to shatter the older immortal’s skull with an overhead smash, but Fate runs in to viciously punch her in the face.  She spin kicks the younger immortal in the head, only to get a knee jammed into her back.  When Adriana jump kicks the guardian he grabs her outstretched leg to flip her, and then punches her in the back again while she is still in midair.  At one point, both of them manage to ram heads and they collapse to the ground with severe headaches.

“That hurt.  And I remember Solix telling me once that pain was an illusion,” mutters Fate while shaking his head.

“It is.  It’s the blood that’s real.  Let’s not do that again.  My skull couldn’t take another one of those jolts,” groans Adriana as her head clears.

“Deal.  I honestly don’t know what I was thinking.  Hitting people with your head is not a good idea unless you’re a rhino or something made of stone.”

“You’re telling me.  Well, let’s continue.”  The two blond-haired immortals start going punch for punch and kick for kick until Fate tackles the seducer.  Adriana constantly bites and claws at Fate while he rapidly punches her in any place that she leaves open.

“For his sake, I hope he isn’t enjoying that,” mutters Miracle as she pokes Tegam in his eyes and uppercuts him in the nose.  The jester stumbles back before pouncing on Miracle in order to pin her arms down.

“Forget about him, babe.  You can do a whole lot better than that weak geek.  Why not spend a couple thousand years with me?  You have exactly what I look for in a woman.  Nice body, cute smile, good sense of humor, and a savage punch,” whispers Tegam with a sinister sneer.  Suddenly, a large kitchen sink crashes down on his head and vanishes.  Since Tegam still doesn’t get off of her, Miracle creates several bowling balls that keep falling on his body until she has to push the cursing jester off of her.  Miracle looks over at Hydrana fighting Psylon while she takes Tegam out with a swift kick below his ribs.

“I’m going to enjoy seeing you burn to a crisp, water sprite,” growls Psylon as she pushes against Hydrana’s water blast with her own fire blast.  The element controllers’ power fight doesn’t seem to be going anywhere until Startrix and Hellax start to quietly sneak up behind the Neptune guardian.  Startrix has a sizzling arrow ready while Hellax walks toward Hydrana with outstretched hands to grasp her with.

“Water sprite?  That’s supposed to be an insult?  Sprites are so small and cute,” replies Hydrana.

“I hate things that are small and cute.  Unless they’re being cooked for food.  Actually, I like my meat raw and screaming.”

“That is so gross.  How can you possibly come up with that type of idea?  It’s disgusting to even mention.”

“I guess it takes a special kind of genius to enjoy a good kill.  We’ll see what kind of kill you are after I burn you.”

“Hey!  I don’t mean to interrupt your stunning conversation, but Startrix and Hellax are trying to sneak up behind you, Hydrana.  You may want to do something about them,” warns Miracle just as Mindtrigger drops on her with an orange staff in his hands.  Miracle pushes him off and leaps away while the older immortal continues to fly after her.  Soon they are on the outskirts of the battlefield doing what would look like a beautiful dance.  Miracle keeps dodging and flipping around while Mindtrigger gracefully dives after her.

“Nice try,” thinks Hydrana as she backhands Startrix into Hellax and freezes both of them to the ground.  But the minor distraction allows Psylon to get the upper hand.  The pyrokinetic’s fire blast starts to get much closer to Hydrana and gets close enough to make the guardian begin to sweat.  With a sudden burst of extra strength, Hydrana pushes the blazing fire blast back and the two immortals are deadlocked again.  This time Hydrana’s right knee is a few inches off the ground as she continues to push against the fire.

“I can keep this fight up as long as you can, Psylon!  But I’m really getting bored with this stalemate!” Hydrana yells.  She lets herself fall to the ground and then she swiftly rolls out of the way.  The fire blast goes flying past her to roast a nearby Mavik.  Hydrana instinctually turns her head away from the burning corpse and looks up at Psylon.

“You clumsy idiot.  Look what you made me do to one of my pets,” cries Psylon.  She gets ready to toss an atomic fireball at Hydrana, when a bolt of orange lightning knocks the angry lunatic off her feet.  Psylon hits her head on a pointed rock with a lot of force and she lies practically motionless.

“Guess I’m not as uncaring as all of you thought,” states Solix.  He helps Hydrana to her feet and the scarlet-haired guardian gives him a friendly kiss on the cheek.  Solix turns a little red with embarrassment, which quickly disappears under his usual stoic façade.

“Thanks for the save.  Is she dead?”

“No.  I only stunned her so that she wouldn’t kill anyone or do some damage to you.  My power is still very weak and I don’t think I have the energy to kill another immortal.  But I suppose that Psylon will wake up by the time this battle is over.”

“That’s supposed to be a good thing?  When she wakes up, she’ll want to rip our throats out with her bare teeth.  But now is not the time for this argument because we’re in a lot of trouble.  Big trouble.  Very big trouble.  Flying metallic trouble to exact.”

“What are you babbling about?”

“You better turn around, Solix.  The walking trash can with the nasty looking guns is right behind you and he doesn’t look too happy.”

“Oh.  Why didn’t you say so in the first place?” whispers Solix as he whirls around and faces Cybro.  The robot has all of his high tech guns pointed directly at the two guardians and is methodically preparing to shoot.

“I always wanted to see your face before I destroyed you.  Took you long enough to turn around.  Good riddance, old fossil,” laughs Cybro before he starts shooting at the two guardians.  The deadly lasers and titanium tipped bullets decimate the ground Cybro’s targets are standing on, but most of the projectiles harmlessly bounce off the Solstar medallion’s air shield that surrounds the pair of guardians.  Unfortunately, some of the deflected lasers and bullets hit nearby members of the Clan of Fire.

“What the hell is going on here?” hollers Cybro when he finally runs out of ammo.  Instead of an answer, Solix knocks the metal immortal’s head off with a savage, yet obviously stiff, flying kick.  The cyborg starts running around looking for his lost cranium, which is busy yelling at the rest of the body.  When Cybro does find his lost head, he trips over it and is forced to slowly repair himself.

“What I wouldn’t give to see that happen to him every time we meet?” laughs Hydrana while she watches Infinity trap Kilanus in the broken cage.  The screaming blond doesn’t fight back as viciously as she could while she gets shoved into the cage.  Infinity uses his telekinetics to put the door back on its hinges and sprints over to Solix and Hydrana.

“Everyone okay?” Infinity asks.  Hydrana kisses him and looks around for any sign of Fate and Miracle.  Miracle is several yards away wrestling with Mindtrigger, but Fate and Adriana have somehow disappeared without a trace.

“Hurry up, Miracle!” yells Solix.

“Try to show some patience, Solix!  Dealing with this scrawny guy is a lot harder than it looks!” shouts Miracle.  She catches the end of Mindtrigger’s staff in her chest and violently yanks it out of his hands.  The guardian jumps up to quickly shatter the staff over the evil genius’ head.  The staff pieces turn into a strange orange mist as they go back into Mindtrigger’s brain through his nose and ears.

“You are such an annoying, little maggot.  Do you think a childish love tap like that will put me out of this fight?  It may hurt like hell, but it will not prevent me from murdering you with ease,” Mindtrigger announces.  He puts his black gloved hands together and the immortal begins to rise off the ground.  The golden rings on his gloves glow softly as he unclasps his hands and he begins to hover above Miracle.

“Nice trick, wuss.  Why don’t you come down here and fight like an immortal?” asks Miracle as she takes out her electric whip.  She manages to wrap it around Mindtrigger’s ankles and then tries to pull him down to the ground.  Yet, no matter how much of her immortal strength she uses, Miracle’s flying enemy stays up in the air.

“Good plan.  Too bad it won’t work while I wear the flight gloves of Saturn.  These gloves make it impossible for me to be pulled to the ground if I don’t want to.  Now, pray for all you’re worth and hold on very tight, my dear.”

Mindtrigger starts flying around in wide circles with Miracle being mercilessly dragged along the ground.  She gets smashed against rocks, huge machinery, and anything else that can injure her.  The torture finally ends when Miracle presses a button on the whip’s handle and sends a few thousand volts of electricity into the evil scientist.  Mindtrigger plummets to the ground with a thud and his breathing becomes short and wheezy.

“Take that, brainiac!” shouts Miracle, who is covered in her own blood and is missing her right foot that got caught on a drill bit.  Her bleeding head slowly lowers to the ground and she stops moving.

“Looks like all of us are getting enough sleep today,” mutters Infinity in order to sound calm and unworried.  He gently picks up Miracle with a telekinetic stretcher and brings her to Solix.

“Good god.  Get her back to the space skimmer immediately.  Her natural healing abilities have not become strong enough to save her from the extensive damage that was inflicted.  Use the skimmer’s medical equipment and stay with her until Fate returns.  Use any means necessary to keep Miracle awake,” orders Solix when he gets a closer look at the severely injured guardian.  Before anyone can say a word in argument, Solix teleports three of his four young charges to the space skimmer.  Only Solix remains on the battlefield as he prepares for his destiny to be fulfilled and his life to be ended.

“I truly hope you are safe, Fate.  I cannot wait any longer for you to finish your battle and return to the rest of the guardians.  May your time as leader be a lot easier and a lot happier than mine.  Keep very good care of all of your friends because they will need you to remain strong and honest,” whispers Solix.  He raises the Solstar medallion above his head as he focuses all his immortal energy on the center jewel.  The big sunstone starts to glow before all nine planet gems start to vibrate and draw power from Solix’s body.  The old immortal’s body begins to turn into pure energy as the Solstar medallion continues to absorb the sun guardian.  In a matter of minutes, his body is nothing more than a human-shaped outline of energy encased in his platemail armor.

“I call upon the ultimate power of the Solstar medallion!  I ask that you aid me in my time of need and desperation!  Destroy that which I want destroyed!  Preserve that which I want preserved!  I give you my power to join with the force of the universe!  May my sacrifice not be made in vain!” bellows Solix before his body is turned into a large sphere of glistening energy.  An ear-popping screech is heard as the most powerful guardian weapon releases its full destructive potential.  An immense explosion erupts from the area Solix once stood and the air is turned into a chaotic tempest filled with dust, rock, and jagged chunks of the evil immortals’ once extremely dangerous warship.

After three minutes, a thick layer of dust is left swirling through the air and everything is deathly quiet once more.  On top of a small hill, the glowing Solstar medallion is left lying on the ground where Solix used to stand.  All that is left of the last of the original guardians is his shiny red armor and his radiating yellow cape.  His armor is covered in dirt while his cape is still glowing like it was never touched by the tempest.  But Solix’s body, mind, and soul were sucked into the medallion and processed into raw power.  Solix was not strong enough to use the medallion at full power and paid for it with his eternal life.