Sage kept glancing at Image’s direction while walking down the streets of Toyama. It was a dull day. The sky was overcast and rain was threatening. The streets were quiet because of the time of day. After all, it was around four o’clock. Sage checked Image out again. Of all the girls he had ever met, and that was a lot, she was one of the few that he was actually attracted to. By now, every detail of her face was etched in his mind, everything from how her hair fell to the speck of brown in her left eye, but he still tried to memorize every curve. The only problem he had was that Image had a guard dog sister. He took yet another glance in Image’s direction and Mirror caught it. Mirror tapped Image on the shoulder and said something to her in a low voice. Image turned around to glare at Sage. Sage gulped. He had a good idea of what was coming. The argument was going to start again.
"Rowan," Image said. "Would you please tell the Cyclops to stop gawking at me."
"Hey, leave me out of this!" Rowan cried. Sage and Image soon started a flash fire of the argument that they had so many days before. It was still unsettled and the rest of the Ronins were getting tired of it. However, Mirror seemed to be amused by it.
She turned to Ryo and whispered, "An unspoken attraction."
Ryo, however, wasn’t listening to Mirror or the argument. "Guys," he said. "What’s wrong with this picture?"
Everyone stopped, including Image and Sage, and looked around. The streets were completely deserted and power was starting to go out in every building. Simply put, this was not good. Soon everyone was in sub-armor and ready for a fight.
Rowan thought of something quickly. "Hey," he said. "Do you two have weapons?"
"Um.... weapons?.....What weapons?" Image stated.
"Okay," said Ryo. "If you need your weapons, reach behind you and they will appear."
"Do you know what your sure-kills are?" asked Cye.
"There’s only one way to find out!" cried out a voice. Out of nowhere came a large horde of Dynasty creeps. A familiar figure in pink armor appeared in front of the horde. He had two sickles shaped like lightning bolts. "It’s time for the training session to begin." He raised one of his hands high above his head. He then pointed to the Ronins and the army attacked.
Rose watched from a roof top in her full armor. Sunni had told her to be back up but it looked like Rayn might not need it. Everyone had changed into armor as soon as the fight began. Most of the Ronins took on the goons as Rayn started her training session. Strata appeared to stay close to the twins, knowing that they still weren’t fully trained. From so high up the battle looked almost like a ballet. The grace of battle could be seen easily from the heights. Sure, when you were in the middle of it, it’s deadly and dangerous, but from such a distance, everything looked like it was rehearsed to perfection instead of the improvising needed to survive. The grace was awesome to behold. Then Rose saw something that looked nothing like the ballet she was watching. She saw Rayn cornered by The Second Sight and Strata. This could not be allowed. She pulled some throwing stars to her hands and crossed her arms. Time for me to enter the fray, she thought.
Rowan, Mirror and Image seemed to have the pink armored figure cornered. Through some miracle, there was nowhere to go and nothing for the pink warrior to do. But Rowan, a man of science, didn’t believe in miracles. And sure enough, this didn’t last long.
"TIMBER!!!!!!!!" Something shot into the ground, faster than Rowan could make out. From the holes in the ground, came large towers of energy. The energy branched out and took shape. The shape was that of trees that stood a few moments and then fell on top of Rowan and the twins.
"Oh great," was all Rowan could say as he dodged at the last minute. As the energy fell, he was vaguely aware of Ryo yelling out for Mirror to watch out. He also thought he heard Sage try to warn Image. As the dust dispersed, he saw Mirror and Image get up from across the street.
"Okay," Mirror shouted. "Now, I’m mad!" She reached behind her and pulled out a pair of foot long daggers. As her purple aura grew around the contour of her body, she crossed her daggers and started to concentrate. Her aura collected around her daggers as she started her sure-kill. "MIRROR’S..." she twirled the daggers in her hands and shoved them into the ground. "GAZE!!!!" The ground beneath the two Dynasty soldiers started to shake. Mirrors of all shapes and sizes started to appear everywhere around the Dynasty soldiers completely surrounding them. From inside the Mirror’s Prison, Rowan could hear shouts. He guessed that they were looking at themselves in the form of what they truly were. Heartless, cruel, mindless tools of the Dynasty. When the Mirror’s Gaze finally wore off, both were breathing heavily.
"Now’s our chance!" Rowan yelled.
Neither Rayn nor Rose were expecting them to pull their sure-kills so soon. Nor had they expected their sure-kills to be so effective without physical pain. Neither of them liked what they saw in the mirrors, but they liked even less what they saw in front of them. Image had somehow pulled out a cat-of-nine-tales attached to the end of a whip. With it she was instinctively kicking Dynasty butt. Image glanced over in their direction and saw that the Mirror’s Gaze had worn off.
"Everyone clear out!" she called as she twirled her whip around her. Energy literally started to drip from the whip and her shawl acted like a sponge. Both Rayn and Rose’s sight started to blacken so that all they could see was themselves and Image. Image slowly stopped twirling her whip and it collected into the handle. She jumped up into the air and shouted "VISUAL THRILL!!!" as she threw her shawl off her shoulder. From the shawl little balls of light came pouring out. The balls of light came toward Rose and Rayn and started to take shape. In Rose’s eyes, she saw several roses in various areas. As she watched, the roses withered and died. She shrieked out in pain as she saw this happen. Flowers and plants were her life and she did all she could to keep them alive, yet here, right in front of her very eyes, they were being destroyed. Rayn’s eyes were seeing something very different. In her mind’s eye, she was several miles above the ground. She was surrounded by all sorts of clouds and as she watched helplessly, the clouds turned an ugly black.
Image took a deep breath after finishing off her Visual Thrill. Mirror walked up beside her and said, "Good job." By now most of the goon squad was gone. As her sure-kill wore off, she heard the last of the screams coming from the two warriors. When they were aware of where they were again, the one in green and brown faded out of existence, probably limping back to Talpa, Image decided. The other one stayed, staring at Image with a weird look on his face.
"Okay," he shouted. "Now we play hard ball. If you do your sure-kills, then I can do mine. Don’t worry." he said sarcastically. "I won’t kill you. I won’t even hurt you... much." The pink clad soldier raised his sickles high into the sky, and it in turn darkened. Image’s muscles started to tense, but she swallowed her fear. Don’t think about it, she thought. It’s not gonna happen. This creep wouldn’t do it. There was a crack of thunder. Image’s eyes doubled in size.
"Oh, great. Not this," she whispered. Mirror, who was still next to her, quickly turned and tried to calm her down.
Meanwhile, the one in pink was fully charged. "STORM’S RAGE!!!!!!!!" Above the Second Sights’ heads grew a little black cloud. Thunder started to crack loudly and they were surrounded by lighting. There was no rain, but it wasn’t needed.
Image started to scream.
Sage had just taken out the last of the goon soldiers. He looked to see where Image was and saw her and her sister trapped in a Storm’s Rage. "IMAGE!!!!!" He ran full tilt to the figure in pink. Not even thinking of the consequences, he dived into the soldier, breaking his concentration, ending the Storm’s Rage. When the thunder dissipated, Image was still screaming hysterically. She dropped to her knees and put her hands to her ears. Mirror looked okay, just shaken up. Sage forgot about everything else and ran to Image, worried sick. He turned to the figure in pink, who was just standing there, his face hidden from view by the low dropping visor.
"Who are you???!!!" Sage asked, almost rhetorically.
"Oh, shame on me," said a female voice. She looked up so everyone could see her face. A pair of purple eyes stared at them coldly. "I’m Rayn of the Cirrus. Sorry to terrorize and run, but this training session is over." With that, she winked and faded out of view. The only sound heard was Image, who had moved from screaming to sobbing. Sage delicately lifted the helmet off of Image’s head and placed it on the ground. Image was curled up in a fetal position and swaying violently. Tears were streaming down her face and she had no control over them. Sage banished his armor for fear of scaring her even more, then ever so gently, Sage brought his hand slowly under her chin and lifted her eyes to his. She stared at them for a few moments, and them buried her head in his shoulder, grasping him tightly. He hugged back, trying to force the pain out of her. He held her like that for days, maybe minutes, until Sage realized everyone else was around him in a loose circle.
"What happened?" someone asked.
"When we were kids, neither of us were big on thunderstorms," Mirror said. "Once, when we were about eight or something, there was a huge thunder-bumper during the night. Lightning hit this wire or cable or whatever we had right outside our window. Image’s bed was under that window. The power surge scared the wits out of her, literally. She always tensed up during thunderstorms after that. But I’ve never seen her this bad." There was a moment of silence as Sage comforted Image.
"It’s plausible that Image was always inside a house or car during the storms," said Rowan out loud. "When she was confronted with the lightning up close and personal, it could have been heightened to the point of hysteria that she’s showing now."
Sage picked up Image, who was still crying, and turned to the Ronins. "I don’t care. Let’s just go home."
