Dreamstorm: The Awakening

“Who are you?” Hikaru asked suspiciously.

The warrior standing on the largest tree unmasked his face and spoke: “Who are we, who are you… oh wait, we already know who you are.” His two companions chuckled lightly once more, and a grin appeared on the unmasked stranger’s face. His eyes were a piercing blue that matched his long colorful flowing hair.

“How about you freaks quit playing games and tell me who you are,” Hikaru said more forcefully.

“Fine, I’ll tell you who we are, but we’re still going to keep playing, because I happen to like games.” All three men laughed once again. “We are a group called Elitist Cinco,” said the unmasked fighter. “Or Elitist for short.”

“Well you look more like three fools who can’t count.”

“Our leader’s so powerful, didn’t really feel any need in coming for a loser like you.”

“Including your leader still only makes an elitist of four." Hikaru sighed. “It’s like I said, three idiots who can’t count.”

“Actually, our fifth member was killed by a mystery man… Hikaru.”

“Well perhaps you guys aren’t as strong as you seem to think.”

“Truthfully, this mystery man only defeated our fifth ranked, and compared to either one of us, he was well— nothing."

“If your fifth member’s a weakling compared with the rest of you, why care?” Hikaru posed snidely.

“Because, it’s still shocking that either one of you bottom feeders could possibly defeat him.”

“So you guys are assuming that I’m the one who defeated him then, and that’s why you’re watching.”

“Honestly, we thought Yuki might have been this mystery man, perhaps hiding some unique ability. You see, we’ve observed him fight three opponents, and all of his battles ended in under a second. I thought maybe no opponent we’d seen Yuki face had enough power to make him exert his full potential, but after seeing you defeat him, we now know that there’s no way possible he could’ve beaten one of our members."

“Why do you want this anonymous person so badly, do you fear him?”

“Not at all, we want this mystery fighter because we don’t need his power increasing anymore than it has already. We must make sure that no man stands in the way of Elitist’s true goal to dominate the world.”

“World domination, yeah right, you weak blue haired geek—”

“I can assure you that we are the best dreamstorm warriors. If you don’t believe me, just ask any opponent you face about us. There’s no way any fighter can beat a real member of Elitist.”

“Why don’t you come challenge me and prove that theory,” said Hikaru.

“Oh please, we’re just using you to kill off as many weaklings as you can so we need not waste our time— but if you are one of those last ground feeders standing, I promise I’ll kill you myself.”

Hikaru noticed the blue haired warrior glance to his left, and he immediately peered in the same direction, spotting Amber standing beside a tree. The Elitist member slowly pulled a throwing knife from his pocket.

“Amber!” Hikaru shouted.

As she raced toward him, the member flung the knife. Amber fell down, tripping over her own feet, but Hikaru quickly reacted by using his hakq, deflecting the dagger into a tree. Stumbling as she got back up, Amber raced behind Hikaru.

“Ahhh,” the three colleagues scoffed together.

“We’ll catch you on the flip side fool,” the blue haired member shouted, and every Elitist associate chuckled, until each vanished into their own passage, all portals closing.

Hikaru turned; facing Amber, his disposition changed from relief that she escaped danger to instant anger, feeling that she’d been no help. His temper flared up to a higher degree while he stared at her as she continued, still struck by fear from the knife hurling incident that previously occurred.

“Hey,” Hikaru said heatedly. “Tell me why you’ve been hiding this entire time while I struggled at keeping us alive!”

A look of pure guilt washed over Amber’s face as she contemplated her answer, but nothing she had in mind could justify her actions. Hikaru jumped in the middle of danger to save her life, unlike herself, who’d hidden, not even summoning up enough courage to follow him into the forest until the very last moment.

“Guess helping me didn’t even cross your mind,” Hikaru snarled.

“No,” said Amber, her expression filling with more remorse. “You’re wrong, I just…what could I have done?” She wiped away tears that fell on her cheeks. “I’m sorry. I just couldn’t—”

“Forget about it,” Hikaru said unsympathetically. “I’m over it anyway.”

Amber grabbed his wrist, doing her best to stop crying, “I’m sorry,” she whimpered regretfully. “I’ll never leave you in a fight alone again.”

Hikaru sighed. “I’ll only accept your apology if you tell me you’ve created some kind of special ability.”

Amber lost a smile briefly between her sniveling, and with her speechless point made, Hikaru knew that she hadn’t thought of anything. He began wondering why he’d even asked, and most of all, why he felt so protective of her life: Was it because he deemed it the right thing to do, or did he feel pity for her— either way— Hikaru knew that for some reason he did care about his partner’s well being. As he thought to make a passage out of the forest, Hikaru felt his mysterious sixth sense tingling for a third time.

“Wait, do you fill that,” he whispered. “Someone’s here watching us.”

A masked fighter appeared from behind a large tree trunk. Hikaru gathered himself, and stood on guard, ready for the masked warrior to attack. He felt regretful in many ways for giving off his tough man front earlier.

“So you came for a fight after all,” he said, almost paralyzed with fear.

Hikaru’s feet felt numb, but he pushed through his anxiousness, materializing a Chinese Jain blade sword that appeared inside his right hand. The masked enemy ran toward him; instinctively, Hikaru pushed Amber away from danger. When the cloaked figure got close enough, he tried piercing him with the straight blade; the masked warrior reacted by performing a front flip over Hikaru’s head, and landing behind him. Hikaru turned around, swinging his sword, aiming for his opponent’s neck, but the anonymous combatant ducked, dodging the sword by staying low, while quickly getting in front of Hikaru as he stumbled back. Hikaru tried to pierce the fighter again, but his enemy dodged left, and tripped him to the ground with a sweeping kick. The mysterious individual materialized a katana in his left hand, then pointed it at Hikaru’s throat while standing on the opposite side of the straight blade that laid on discolored leaves where it’d been carelessly dropped. Feeling that this signified incoming death, Hikaru almost closed his eyes, but before he could, Amber came racing toward them.

“Stay back!” Hikaru screamed.

Amber grabbed his straight blade off the ground and charged. She swung Hikaru’s sword at the masked fighter, but their enemy created a katana in his right hand and effortlessly knocked the weapon away. Sticking out his foot, he tripped Amber, and as her momentum carried her forward, she tumbled downward headfirst against thinly piled leaves near Hikaru. Without an explanation, the masked fighter dematerialized both swords, and paced away until he vanished among many forest trees.

“Why does it always feel like I’m out of my league in every match?” Hikaru pouted, pushing Amber’s foot off his face.

“Well, at least you won your first two battles,” she replied dizzily.

“Definitely didn’t win that last one.”

“Yeah, but why didn’t he kill us?”

Hikaru pondered for a moment. “Probably because they’re using us.” he uttered angrily.

“So you did see how I had your back, right?” said Amber.

“Oh yeah, never do that again.”

“But you said—”

“Well forget what I said, we’re not a team— so don’t ever try and help me, got it!”

“You were afraid that I would get hurt, weren’t you?”

Hikaru stood up in silence and opened a portal back to New York City. “We’ll be finding another hiding place, seeing as our first one’s been discovered,” he said, completely dodging Amber’s question.

He stared at her for a moment as she made her way onto both feet. She paced inside of the passage first, and he followed in afterwards. Hikaru once again found another abandoned apartment building within New York’s slums. Although he felt it may have been a mistake returning to the same city, it registered mentally as much more comforting being where he’d lived his entire life. This old apartment room that they entered in on the first floor (because neither of them would dare attempt going up its eroding stairs) featured a mess: The entrance door had been removed and placed against a corner wall. On it, plated golden apartment numbers, one hundred three had scratches all over them, where a homeless wanderer had once before gotten board and began chipping away at the paint with a sharp object. The number three rested upside down, leading Hikaru’s onlooking eyes to one hole where the doorknob had been removed. Walls were filled with dents, and a single window left shattered, swiftly let in warm air of the late spring night, while fire flies fluttered into the room, flashing vibrantly.

“Looks like we’ve got bunches of fixing,” Hikaru stated.

Amber walked to the window without saying a word, so Hikaru started decorating the old building as she continued staring outside. He boarded up the only window by snapping his fingers, then materialized lit torches that hung from nicely decorated walls. Amber moped apathetically to a corner of the room, clumsily sitting down on finished clean tile flooring. Watching her, Hikaru felt like he should say something, but didn’t really know what needed to be said. He materialized a new metal door on the entrance, locking it, so no one could walk in. Then…Hikaru went to go comfort his new found friend, who he thought behaved far too emotionally at the moment.

“Amber, I’m sorry for being a jerk to you back there.”

Amber lifted her head, her face distraught. “I asked why you saved me because it feels like I have no one right now.” She wiped her cheeks with both hands. “I live with my mother, but now I can’t return home, and I need someone that cares.”

She leaned her head on Hikaru’s shoulder.

“I care, so stop crying, alright… Why would I try so hard keeping you alive if I didn’t,” Hikaru said, petting her head. “Believe me, I miss my mother as well, but to keep her safe, I don’t go see her. All these things, they just happened so fast that I’m not sure how I’ve kept going… Kamari… he was like a brother to me, and now he’s gone… forever.” Hikaru felt his body trembling as he confessed the loss of Kamari. “Honestly, neither one of us have time being heart broken, and what I’d hate more than anything right now is to see you hurt, or let Kamari’s death be in vein by getting killed myself. Eventually, you’ll have to find your reason for fighting like I have.”

Amber sniffled. “I know you’re right,” she fully agreed, trying her best to stop sulking.

“Great,” said Hikaru, continuously patting her head until Amber dodged a final tap. “I’m glad you’ve seen the light, now start thinking of some great ability.”

Amber had an idea on what kind of power she wanted. “How about creating shields,” she suggested.

“Barriers?” Hikaru asked unsurely. “But why?”

“If I could make barriers, it would protect you while you fight.”

“And how will you fight on defenses alone?”

“I’ve already made my decision Hikaru.”

“Alright, it’s your funeral.”

“Trust me, it’ll work.”

Hikaru didn’t particularly agree with what Amber planned manifesting her power into, but he also didn’t speak against it any further, feeling that perhaps dissuading her would be a mistake.

“Now that you’ve figured out what kind of ability you want, lets begin training you to use and perfect it,” said Hikaru. “Just focus your hakq and concentrate on your imagination.”

Amber stood upon her feet and focused her energy, which spawned a huge shield made of metal. “How do you like that?” she gloated.

“That’s great, but don’t limit yourself by just making solid objects.”

“What’s that suppose to mean,” Amber said with a look of confusion.

“You’re a smart girl, you’ll figure it out.” Hikaru walked to the opposite side of the apartment.

“Hey, don’t just leave me here alone,” Amber protested loudly.

“I have things that need my thought, so just get better practicing on your own.”

“Fine then, be that way!” Amber shouted.

Hikaru materialized a chair to sit in and pondered about how they could possibly survive these supernatural battles. Still a little in mild disbelief about most of the crazy happenings that he’d experienced, Hikaru truly started feeling like he resided inside a dream, and many times wanted to pinch himself hard so that he could wake up inside his room, lying on his bed with his entire life back to its normalcy. Hikaru never revealed these feelings to Amber, but in reality, he caught difficulties adapting with these strange occurrences as well. Between having actually killed a man, missing his mother, protecting Amber, and worst of all, witnessing Kamari’s tragic death, Hikaru felt like he carried the weight of the world atop his shoulders. Further adding to Hikaru’s confusion, strange knowledge always rooted itself firmly inside his mind while he stayed awake, or started dreaming.

For some reason, he suddenly knew things about the dreamstorm that he’d never once in his life studied; information such as: Every millennium the dreamstorm selects thirty warriors worldwide to try and choose one worthy of becoming dreamstorm master; that dreamstorm matches began on earth four thousand years ago; although the storm lay dormant three times without a pick, it actually dwelled on earth since mankind’s beginning, waiting, not feeling humanities intellect yet ready for its power; that every dreamstorm selection process lasted for forty years each awakening; that there were currently fourteen dreamstorm warriors left, how he resided as pick number twenty nine of the storm, and that the final thirtieth warrior selected marked the thirty fifth year. Hikaru couldn’t understand how he’d managed obtaining any of these facts. Normally, he loved knowing as much about his surroundings as possible, but with so many other combined pressures, he began feeling like the information were being implanted inside his brain forcefully, putting much of a strain on him all at once.

Hikaru noticed Amber staring after emerging from his thoughts, but chose not to say anything. Instead, he continued wondering about what all of this sporadic nonsense inside his head meant. He knew that himself, Amber, and Kamari were three of the last four fighters that the dreamstorm selected, and since he fell as the twenty ninth pick, Kamari more than likely had to be the twenty eighth. Hikaru remembered his best friend being swallowed by the storm just before he was while they were both atop the building. Then, Hikaru’s recollection recalled moments when he walked through vague dimness until finding Amber crying on the floor, and he realized that she’d landed in the dark room before himself, and Kamari, which made her the twenty seventh storm pick. But who’s its thirtieth, he wondered? Surely Elitist knew how many dreamstorm warriors were left like he did, and since they spied on everyone, the organized faction probably gathered info on each fighter, unless they were undiscovered novices.

Concluding his ongoing deduction, Hikaru figured that it could only be the thirtieth storm selectee who’d killed Elitist’s fifth strongest member, which meant the blue haired fighter previously lied. Three members of Elitist didn’t come to spy on Yuki, they actually came to check out Amber and himself, because only a newcomer could stay unrevealed, meaning that the sinister group already knew about every other veteran warrior of the storm. It all seemed to assemble like a puzzle in Hikaru’s head; since the thirtieth storm warrior had been chosen, the span of forty years were almost up, meaning the dreamstorm would soon be coming to a close— and without a master of the storm surfacing, it would lay dormant once again. Hikaru figured out that much, but still, he didn’t know what motivated members of Elitist to form a group; like the hunter said before he died, there could only be one dreamstorm master, so why would the strongest warriors form an alliance and believe it to be for world domination, when in actuality, there could only be one winner.

No matter how hard Hikaru tried, he couldn’t wrap his brain on what Elitist were up to, and he also worried about how he and Amber would survive against so many warriors who masterfully honed their techniques for years. Hikaru felt certain that they’d be killed by someone eventually. He also knew that any member of Elitist could effortlessly wipe him out; being further honest with himself, he admitted it best to presume that any of the final fourteen could as well. Hikaru now knew why Elitist only thought of them as a joke, because the group knew that it would only be a matter of time before he and Amber were both destroyed. His heart felt like a raging fire when thinking about the blue haired Elitist member hurling a dagger at Amber. Hikaru would have given his left ear to get his fingers around that member’s throat, still, one thing the man stated did leave a question in his mind. He wondered why this particular Elitist member promised to kill him if he survived. Hikaru couldn’t distinguish why the Elitist associate previously spoke those words to him with such enthusiasm; he couldn’t tell if the Elitist warrior expected them to survive after watching his previous fight with Yuki. Either way, he guessed it really didn’t matter, his primary goal momentarily fostered on helping Amber grow stronger so that she could be of use.

“Amber,” Hikaru called out. “Come over here for a second.” Halting at her training, she began walking sluggishly over. “Hurry up, I don’t have time playing around,” Hikaru said authoritatively.

“Alright dad,” Amber replied, slightly annoyed at being told what to do.

Hikaru ignored her comment as she sat down by his side on the floor. He began wondering if he should explain to Amber that the possibility of their survival bordered on slim to none.

“Hikaru,” Amber said impatiently. “I came over here because I thought you had something worth saying.”

Hikaru inhaled deeply. “Do you think we can win?”

“Of course.”

“And why do you believe we can be victorious amongst so many good fighters?”

“Because we’ll protect each other,” said Amber. “And in our next fight I’ll have your back. I’ve gotten a lot better… really, even in this small period of time. I can’t explain it, but I’m catching on so quickly.”

Hikaru thought it a miracle that Amber finally began progressing. He reasoned thinking she actually would be of much help, and in that case, maybe they weren’tbeing aggressive enough.

“You know, I think we’ve been overly passive.” Hikaru voiced.

“What do you mean?” Amber posed, giving him a blank stare.

“I mean that I have complete control over any setting.”

“Okay, try not being so vague when I ask you this question again—What do you mean?”

“I can make us completely undetectable in any area, right… so we have the power of stealth, which means that we should become the hunters!”

“You mean we’re actually gonna go looking for trouble,” gasped Amber, her expression appearing horrified.

“Exactly!” Hikaru shouted in excitement.

“No, no, no, no, no, no, no…” Amber disagreed. “Hikaru, listen to me, we can’t go…looking…trouble… … … …. …”

Hikaru frowned up, he couldn’t hear anything. He looked at Amber, who patted her throat hurriedly, attempting to figure out why she couldn’t hear her own voice. Hikaru tried relaying something, but it was to no avail, nothing he said made a single sound.

Dreamstorm: The Awakening: Chapter 6 Introduction Elitist: Uncut Book Pages Audiobook On Youtube: Dreamstorm Soundtrack, Elixir Of Light...)