Spirit Shadows: Resurgence

Resurgence is the fifth major story in Spirit Shadows, and precedes Spirit Shadows Act 2.

Part 1 (Premonition)
He was slipping into another memory.

The blackness in his eyes gave way to a blurry vision. Yet his eyes never seemed to fully focus. His sight was marred by flashes of orange and purple, as if his eyes were on fire. He reached out with his other senses. He felt the pulsing of electrical energy in his hands, with an uncomfortable heat. He heard the crackle of this power, and distant crashes and falls.

He strained with his eyes, but the blur and the spots of color did not go away. He could see a mass of grey, seemingly cleanly fashioned, making him think he was in some stone or metal building. But it did not seem like any building he had found on Erkelon, or Talis, or Seerox, although he couldn’t put his finger on what made it different. A blackish-brown mass struck out against the scene, and it moved more rapidly than the scene around it. It must be a living being.

The stasis was broken by a voice. It belonged to a female; he could make out, but seemed to be broken by despair and pain. “Why have you done this?”

The next voice came from close to him - as if it was coming out of his own mouth. But it spoke with a harshness that he had never used, and was almost a whisper. “You… have stood in my way. And I had to get through.”

The female voice, which he identified belonged to the black mass on the floor before him, cried out again. “I meant no wrong to you! We were allies… and then you turned and backstabbed me?”

The harsh voice — his voice? — replied succinctly. “If I were just another person like you, I would have left you alone… but I serve a purpose above my own. And you are the enemy of that purpose, witch."

The blurry scene in front of him turned, in an instant, to visible, while the flames in his eyes did not cease. The black mass he had beheld became visible, lying on the floor and backing away from him, her dark robe tattered in many places. She was surrounded by dark tendrils, thinly visible, but highlighted by his strange vision. A dark hand — his hand — stretched out in front of him, and glowed with an orange light. He felt it grow hotter, and with a sudden spike in strength, felt it shoot out of his hand into the figure before him. He heard her scream — an inhuman, monstrous scream, which could not have belonged to any living being. She was being controlled by an evil power - one which had to be destroyed.

Blurriness began again to take over again, fading his sight to black. As it did so, he heard his victim’s dying words:

“Curse you… Stormhawk.. Jet… rrrr…”

Part 2
“Jetera? Jetera?”

He was pulled out of his memory by a word that resembled his name. He didn’t know what his name was, but had taken one that sounded close to it.

He looked around him. He was prostrate on the ground, in a damp, dimly lit forest. He got up and tried to brush himself off, but the dirt and undergrowth had settled on him.

“Jetera? Where are you?” The voice replied.

“Over here,” he called out.

The trees nearby suddenly swayed and tore apart from each other. In the makeshift gateway, a muscular red-clad figure stepped through, with a small axe in his hand. He was instantly recognizable as Zerkah, the leader of the Toa Vihagu, and Jetera himself was under his service. He was followed by one in blue and gold armor, with a foreign air about her — Therina, the Master of Spirit. The last one was difficult to recognize as she blended in almost perfectly with the forest around her, but he knew it was Ayen, Master of Jungle.

“What has happened to you?” Therina said to him. Jetera only mumbled in response. Zerkah reached out his hand to pull him up, but pulled it away in pain when Jetera touched it. Bits of static electricity sparked up in the air between them. For a couple seconds the two Toa stared at each other, unsure what to do. Aye, with a frustrated sigh, called up a vine from her hand, and lashed Jetera’s wrist with it. He gave a surprised yelp as she pulled him up, and as soon as she let go of the vine, it loosened and fell to the ground. She reached out her hand again, and some of the plants that had tied on to the Master of Storms while he was unconscious fell off of his body.

“Thank you,” he said succinctly, to no one in particular. “Now then.. where am I?”

“Still in Verius,” Zerkah informed him. “And still in the Shadowed Glade, where we lost you yesterday. Mokatu has also missing from us.”

“But knowing him,” Ayen added, “He’ll return to us in his own time.”

Zerkah gave a glance at Ayen, perhaps a bit protectively of the Master of Wind, but she had a reasonable understanding of Mokatu’s self-absorbed nature.

“If that’s the case,” Zerkah continued, “Perhaps we should continue to our objective?”

“Wait”, Therina said. They stayed still for a moment, then heard a freakish howl echo through the glade. “The Malevolent presence is still strong here.”

“Then I suppose we’d better finish it off,” Jetera responded. Reaching behind his back, he unfastened his sword, and drew it before him, as it crackled with electricity. It was Faera, the Stormhawk’s blade, which he had been given by a stranger in Talis. Legends said that few could wield Faera without it killing them, so he had felt assured that the instance was not a coincidence - especially after other incidents that connected Jetera to the mythical being known as the Stormhawk. Moreover, Faera greatly improved Jetera’s elemental power, which he still had not mastered, and this elemental power was the key to battling the eldritch monsters of the Malevolent.

A second howl pierced the sounds of the forest, louder. Therina drew her great spear, and Ayen unfastened one of the two Chronicles at her side, which glowed with a pale yellow light. The third howl indicated that the enemy was almost upon them, and they could see black bodies and pale eyes darkening the glade.

The four Toa rushed upon their enemies. Zerkah, the fleetest of foot among them, struck an armored foe with his axe, knocking him into the sky. The Sapin could only be slain by elemental power, so this foe was only paralyzed — until he was subsumed by a great carnivorous plant, that Ayen had moved into the path of the monster. Jetera, on Zerkah’s right side, sent his sword through the naked body of another Sapin, which quickly disintegrated after contacting the blade. He could see Therina charging in on Zerkah’s left, and striking another foe with her power-absorbing spear. The three of them advanced quickly through the Malevolent contingent; Ayen weakened the figures before them by stirring the trees and bushes to release chemicals from within them on their foes.

Within minutes, the assault was diminished, and two or three Sapin had turned to run. Zerkah prepared to pursue, buith a hand motion Jetera stopped him. He then ran after the Sapin, but while doing so, flipped the sword in an underhand grip, letting it build up with power. Then, in a fraction of a second, he was on the other end of the Sapin, and had sliced him through the waist with his sword along the way. The dark foe split into two, and dissipated.

Jetera slid to a halt, turned around to see that his plan had worked, then turned around, and came back to the others.

“Well, you aren’t the same helpless wanderer when you arrived anymore,” Zerkah said aptly.

“I suppose not,” Jetera returned. “Where to next?”

Cast

 * Jetera
 * Zerkah
 * Therina
 * Ayen
 * Various Sapin

Trivia

 * An alternate version of this part of the story replaces the written premonition with a visual version displayed in comic format. This version has not been published.
 * The Battle of Verius, which Part 2 of the story occurs during, was the point at which Spirit Shadows was originally going to end in 2015, with Jetera transforming into the Stormhawk.