(Temporary)

I just gave this blog a background until a permanent one could be put on.

The Grand Finale

.......But so many other things had happened, and now she was really in for it. Here she was, hundreds of other "hers" out there somewhere, and she was stuck with an elf girl whose mind had been taken over and a duplicate of herself. She had been in plenty of bad situations before, but with Shara wearing the bracelet and ready to kill her, not a glimmer of hope seemed to be left. Pulling herself up hurt incredibly, and her arm was about ready to fall off, or so it seemed. A hazy green light filtered through the trees in the strange jungle, making Shara look a rainbow of colors with silver in her skin, the white of her dress reflecting green light, and blue-Burgundy eye...wait!Latika watched in fascination as Shara dropped her sword, and her eyes flashed and melted from blue into burgundy, then from burgundy back into cold blue, showing two different personality's . Curiosity overcameLatika, and she forced her way into Sharas mind. What she found there just about knocked her out. The good Shara, the Shara she first met, was fighting her hardest against theAlamiri ghost that had taken over her mind. The Alamiri ghosted screamed in Sharas head, and Sharas eyes turned blue. Then with a sobbing yell/cry, Shara fought back with all her might, Latika could feel it. Sharas eyes turned Burgundy again, and the presence that filled her mind softened. This battle raged so hard, so beyond Latikas power of comprehending she could not stand it anymore. She pulled herself out of Sharas mind and sat herself on a rusty piece of machinery to try to take a better assessment of the situation. She could no longer float, but had to walk like an ordinary person. Her arm had been clumsily bandaged, probably by the clone that stood quietly in one place. This clone had hair likeLatikas, a red dress, and her full battle garb still on her. She decided to name this clone Marrilisa, Latikas name in the language of the pixie people. That's what the abused pixies had called her. Oh, how she missed her home, and her old adventures that were not quite so dangerous.
Shara was still struggling, Tears now coming from her strange eyes, her hand pulling at her long hair in distress. Latika looked away.
The hover bug was what had crashed to the ground, and it lay there still smoking. Just from one glance you could tell it was beyond repair.Marrilisa looked at her curiously," Are you all right?" Marrilisa kindly thought to her"I am duplicate number 246, what is your number?" Latika realized that Marrilisa had no idea who she was.
" I'm...uh...number one," Latika thought back, hoping Marrilisa would understand. She did. A look of surprise and awe crossed over her face, and she put her hands to her mouth. "You are...who I come from?, " Marrilisa thought. Latika decided to speak out loud.
"Yes"
"I don't exactly know what to say...I thought you were just another clone."
"How many clones of me are there in total?" Latika was curious.
"About 2 thousand were completed"Marrilisa answered.
Now Latika did not know what to say.
"W..we...were are we?" She finally stuttered out.
" We are in the lost island of the Caribbean islands, we were trying to make our way back to the third world, but, thanks to my driving and the hover bug breaking down, we crash landed here. We are not that far away now, but with out thehover bug, I have no idea what we will do."
"Do you know this island very well?" asked Latika, eying Shara, who was still fighting.
"A little, I was given knowledge of it in the hover bug map system, but that broke along with the rest of it," Marrilisa shrugged.
" What did you find out about it?"
"Not much, it is about 2 miles wide and 3 miles long, there is no one else here at all, and it is used as a dumping ground for the creatures of the third world. We are right in the middle of the island is my guess," Marrilisa looked around, "I'm also guessing that since this jungle is so dense, it will be hard to get out of here on foot." Latika only nodded in response. Great. Things just kept getting better and better. How could they get Shara out of this jungle?Latika finally went to the elf and got back into Sharas battling mind. She had no idea of what to do, but she at least wanted to see how the battle was going. Poor Shara. If only Latika could help her. But it was all in vain. The ghost was strong, and neither were getting the upper hand in this battle of wills. Latika quick drew herself out and looked once more at her dismal surroundings. As if to wave farewell, the hover bug groaned and rolled on its side, sickening crashing sounds coming from its interior.
"lets try to find the shore, and then we'll work from there on," Latika sighed. She took hold of Sharas hand and tearfully led her away. The direction did not matter, as they were simply trying to get out of the forest. They stumbled through heavy undergrowth, climbing over logs and strange hunks of old metal. It was slow going. A half mile and twenty minutes later, they could hear the boom of the waves on the shore.Latika, wiping her dirty nose and going that direction, asked Marrilisa if she had any ideas of what to do once they got to shore. She shook her head. She was leading Shara now, as if the poor elven girl was blind. And indeed she well might be to the things of the out side world. Her eyes still flashed, from an almost fearful burgundy to the unnatural blue. She gasped pitifully as if being choked.Latika look away. She could not stand it. No one should have to go through that.

An hour later, they burst from the dense jungle onto hot sand as if from night into day. Shara was on her knees, holding her head and screaming out loud. The burgundy was winning! But the battle still raged. Tired, footsore, bug bitten, and hopeless, bothLatika and her clone plopped on the beach. Latikas arm hurt. Oh, how it hurt like crazy. She fell back in the sand, nearly hitting a seashell with her head. It was a pretty thing, large, about the size of her hand. All pink and white and brown, she held it up in front of her.


And that's when the best idea she had ever had in her life struck her.



Well, that's all for now folks, I will write the rest in a second part coming soon!

Confusion

There was a mix up, with people skipping there turns and stuff, so now everyone is confused about who is next and whether they will end the story or not. I would gladly go next except I really want to start the next story. So lets get some feed back(a.k.a comment, please!) from our writers so we can straighten things out. Thanks,

Jillian

They Will Attack

........It was no use to resist the cloning of her, Latika, for it was too late. The vast army before her was multiplying in speed, endurance, skill, and willfulness unthinkably quickly. The clashing sounds grew louder and came more frequently as the army trained. It was then Shara spoke aloud, so that the entire army could hear- "Please stop! I have someone for you all to meet." Turning around, she gestured at Latika, calling out in her clear and musical voice, "Latika!"

The army turned with remarkable precision and bowed low to the ground. Latika was more than confused. "Why are they bowing to me?"

That is our only other problem, Shara said, again without moving her lips. "They only obey the one from whom they were created."

"So...I'm to be the commander of this army then?"

Shara chuckled gaily. "No, no of course not! That would be chaotic!"

Latika felt a little hurt, and Shara stopped laughing.

"Oh, but of course I didn't mean it that way, young Latika. Don't be offended, please. Forgive me for what I was thinking."

"So...."

"We still need to figure out how to command this army without putting you in severe danger. Without a commander to take charge soon, the army of gnomes will...actually we don't know what will happen. We've never actually HAD a gnome army before, and that's yet another danger. There's still many things we have to figure out about gnomes...."

Latika's head was spinning from all the "talking".

"Sorry. It's just harder to talk aloud, and some things the gnomes shouldn't hear. I also was..."

Padding feet sounded, filling the room, and Brixie came running to Latika.

"The army of Salmar is approaching, and it's coming fast!" she said. Latika could sense Shara's sudden alarm, and the feeling was overpowering; it was too much for Latika to handle at once. She slumped to the ground, unconscious.

Latika slowly opened her eyes and looked around. Moving was not so painful now. She was in the same room she was first in. No one was there, but sound of battle was just outside the closed doors. She hurriedly got up from the table/chair and ran as fast as she could, without touching the floor, to the door and pushed them open. The weirdest sight she ever saw was before her-

All the duplicates if herself were fighting the rest of the cyborgs! The clone army outnumbered the others by only a few, but they were definitely better. Latika spotted Shara, and and Shara soon noticed Latika. She ran to Latika and the warmth of her presence filled her mind.

"As you remember, Dwank released an army of invincible fighters. However, they have not yet arrived as we had previously thought. They've sent the Alamiri- ghosts that take control of their enemy's minds, particularly Cyborg's, permanently. What a clever plan...they are making us destroy the very army we planned to use to destroy them. This is only their first wave. More powerful beings will arrive soon enough to destroy all Cyborgs as we know it."

Oh dear. That was terrible news.

"So we will fall without even a fight?"

"Yes," Shara whispered into her head. Secretly, Latika had hoped there would be some way, any way, to stop what was sure to happen to her and all of her kind. A roar sounded far away.

"What's that roar from? It sounds like a lion."

Shara looked puzzled. "That sounds like Jeyan, an old enemy of ours. He is what kept us from finding a gnome before."

"But maybe he can help us!"

A misty cloud fell over Shara. She shook her head violently. At first Latika thought that meant no, but soon she saw an icy cold glare of blue come to Shara's eyes. Then she took a knife from its sheath and lunged at Latika, severely wounding her in the arm. For a long time Latika lay where she fell, unable to move from the pain. She felt a banging coming from somewhere, and soon the sound of many feet clanking swarmed all around her, and something cold and hard picked her up and carry her away, running quickly. Then a bright light surrounded her. She was outside now. Jeyan's roar sounded again, a lot louder and closer this time. Then a motor sound grew into existence, and she was soon in a vehicle that sounded strangely like a hoverbug. Then all was black.

She awoke with the sound of Bagrasazoo (a type of bird) chirping and a strange creaking of metal. Suddenly the creaking grew to a loud crash. A voice, loud but peaceful and strangely familiar yelled, "Why did you let that fall, you lazy creature! Next time try to keep it working, alright?"

That was Shara's voice. It sounded different; she sounded evil. Latika stood up. This was the second time in one day she had been knocked out and had woken up in a totally different place. Her arm still hurt really, really badly. So her evil captors hadn't healed the wound. Suddenly Shara stood at her feet, sword in hand, with a look of disgust on her face. And she was wearing the bracelet on her wrist!

"You, prisoner, get up!" The sword pointed directly at her throat.

"Um...I can't really get up with a sword pointed at me." She automatically talked with her head, but the presence that filled her mind wasn't pleasant at all. Instead it gripped her mind and wouldn't let go.

"Very funny, young one." But she did pull her sword back, and Latika sat up and looked around. It was a jungle of some sort, only it was filled with different lumps of metal; machinery, she guessed. One piece was smoking on the ground, and one of the Latika clones was staring at her.

Oh, she wished Brixie and Jeyan were here, and she wished Shara was still on her side, and she wished so many other things hadn't happened.............

Shara

Jeyan stopped. "I am sorry I did not think of the hidden caves earlier, Brixie, or we might have found Latika a long time ago." Brixie, to tired to say anything, just shrugged. They headed towards the caves, with barely enough energy to walk. They had been searching the hills of Japan so long, Brixie had forgotten where the hoverbug was. It did'nt matter now. All that mattered was Latika and the bracelet. She had told Jeyan everything, and he had already known about the forces of Duraman locked in the chasms of the dead.
They were now approaching what looked like a large, slightly rusty steel door. Jeyan, in his deep, rumbling voice, called out "It is the leader of the lion people, we seek rest and food", He paused, "and we also seek Latika!" At the word Latika, the door swung open. Nothing but a large black tunnel, seemingly leading to no where, greeted them on the other side."Come", said Jeyan"we have been welcomed. let us enter." Shaking, Brixie half walked, half flew, (her wings were healing as well as can be expected) into the tunnel. The door closed behind them with a loud bang, and complete darkness engulfed them. Jeyan seemed so calm in this drafty place. After walking for about 3 hours form nothingness into more nothingness. then, a single silver glow, like a ball hanging from the cave roof, came out of nowhere. Jayen stopped walking. Brixie gazed ant the silver object that was now getting steadily brighter. It was entrancing her. It grew, until it hurt to look anymore. They were in a rocky walled cave room. There was nothing but cave and the silver object hanging there and growing still brighter. Then, it illuminated what was directly below it. Brixie gasped and caught her breath at this fearful and beautiful sight.

In the meantime, poor Latika was arguing in her mind with the cyborg. Not an army of Latika's! I only want one me! please, please don't do it! if crying inside ones head is possible, Latika was on the edge of desperate tears. She had been arguing for over 3 hours now, and in this time she was able to stiffly stand up. But she was not standing on the floor of the cave, she was floating as well! " You do not understand fully yet why we need this army so badly. I am not the one tell you though", "said" the cyborg."Come with me. Latika had no choice but to do so. It was very strange to be walking on air, and it hurt badly, very badly, every time she moved. They went through a thick, slightly rusty metal door, into a black "Hallway". There was a silver light not far off, entrancing, yet it hurt to look at it. They walked into a cave room, bare except for... could it really be? "Brixie!" she yelled in her head. Brixie looked not upon her, but was gazing at something in the center of the room. Latika painfully turned her head to see what it was that held her friends attention. It was a girl. But this girl had long, curly midnight black hair mysteriously transparent like the cyborgs hair, and a youthful face. She was sitting upon something, and looked down into her lap, as if quietly contemplating something peacefully. Her dress was of soft silver, tied about the waist with a white rope. It was lovely to behold:


Her feet were bare, and her skin looked the soft, creamy tone that all females wish for. There was one thing wrong. It was as if her skin was interlaced gently with tones of hard, cold silver.
It was terribly gorgeous. "She is fifteen" the cyborg told Latika," and her name is Shara. She is the one who will clone you."
Shara lifted her head, to show deep burgundy eyes, and without moving her lips, she "said" to Latika ," move away, Kirna, I will occupy her mind." Kirna, the lady with the blue hair, closed her eyes as if concentrating, and the painful presence was gone. A new presence filled with warmth and twisted thickly with simple, peaceful love filled it's place. Not an ounce of pain was left. "This is wonderful! Shara, who are you exactly? Where did you come from? Why are you here? Are you really going to clone me? Why do you need an army? What are your powers?
Shara gave a pleasant, girlish laugh, not in Latika's mind, but out loud. It was then that Brixie noticed her."Latika! Is that you? You look so..."Latika moved closer, and Brixie screamed when she saw fully what had happened to her friend, guide, and rescuer. "Oh Latika!" She said in heart wrenching tones."I know, I know, it's a long story" Then Latika remembered that Brixie couldn't hear her thoughts. Once again, she tried to move her lips. They felt stiff and cold, but she managed to get out the words,"sorry, Brixie, its a long story." Her voice rang roughly in her own ears, and she thought to Shara"Please explain to my friend what is going on here."
Out loud, so that Brixie could hear, Shara began to speak,"Hello Brixie, your friend is alright, she has been a great help to us, and we have not yet been so kind to her."
"Who are you?" Brixie repeated Latika question.
"I am Shara, and I am on your side." Her voice was calm and mature like a grown woman's.She stood up, and walked to where Brixie and Latika were standing across from each other. Her hair fell in waves, trailing gently on the floor. Latika watched, envious of the way this girl could move so gracefully. An ear peeked out, and...Oh! "Could it be? Could it really be?"
"Yes, Latika, I am of elvish lineage."
"An elf! Like those of middle earth! How did you get here?!" cried Brixie. The curved, pointed ears had given it all away.
"My ancestors, after all were nearly gone, decided to leave me here and help the fate of the third world of mysticism turn for the better. I was put here, in the realm of man, with an untrained an crude race of beings, the cyborgs. They had the information on how to clone gnomes, but only elves had the power to do it." Turning to Latika, she said" I am sorry Kirna was so painful to share your brain with, but she was the most gentle cyborg that was available."
Latika nodded her forgiveness, eager for Shara to continue, and that she did" We raided the surrounding enemy's of these mountains, in hope of finding either the bracelet or a gnome, where my elders said they hid it. Fortunately, they found you both at the same time at there latest raid. We know that Dwank cast the spell so that he has unleashed the duraman army, but if we take the bracelet to the land beyond the sea before duramans army makes it to the third world of myscticim and destroys it, we can have my father, who is surviving there in the alnd beyond the sea, redo the spell so that the duraman army will fade into nothingness. Alas, we found the bracelet to late, and duraman's army will soon be in the third world." She turned her Burgundy gaze on Latika." Which is why we need you for an army. We have already taken a sample of your DNA and dreabalum from your bloodstream.I'm sorry we did it without your permission, I truly am, but it was an emergency situation. There will not be an army of Latika's, we have the power to change them into all different kinds of female gnomes, nearly invincible and ready to fight, trained in battle. But these gnomes have a gentleness and compassion in them, like any female would. We do not have the power to change their gender, if we had captured a male gnome we would have cloned army of male gnomes from him. You were the best we had. would you like to come see the army you have helped us build?" Latika nodded hesitantly, and Shara led them into another dark hallway. A ginormous iron door at the end swung open, and a huge cave room, about two square miles in size, dazzled their eyes.
A flurry of activity filled it with sounds of clanging metal, grinding steel, and thousands of female voices. They followed Shara down a flight of stairs into the midst of the hubbub. 200 hundred cyborgs were busily crafting war dresses, and men cyborgs floated around, training gnome girls how to sword fight. lines and regiments lined in neat formations were waiting patiently, dressed in feminine red dresses, outfitted with swords and bows and arrows, daggers and knives. Something strange was happening to the gnome girls. They grew at an alarmingly fast rate, from girls into gnome women within 15 minutes of time. It was very odd to see. They all had different faces, different eyes, different hair, different height, but they all had a similarity to Latika in some way or another. Latika lost her breath."I'm not sure if I like this or not" she mumbled through her lips.Shara filled her mind once again: "We will be ready to leave within a week. But we need your help, Latika, before we can move on in our process"...

Hopeless

.......Latika closed her eyes, but that only made the dreadful picture all the more clear. What in the world, or wherever she was, could she do now? She tried to think (thank goodness her brain seemed to be alright) of all that she had learned in those few minutes...Somehow she had been turned into a Cyborg, or something similar, she was surrounded by darkness except for the lamp, she couldn't move a muscle, or spring or something metal or...Lets not freak out quite yet, she told herself, taking a shaky breath. She felt something start to vibrate in her neck and all down her right side. Suddenly she sat up. She could move again! But for a second her brain moved way too fast, and she laid back down again.
"Ah, you are healing fast, Latika." That horrible voice again. Her neck twitched as she tried to speak again. The vibrating got stronger, and some sort of sound, maybe a metallic sounding moan, came out.
"Now now, no time for questions. In fact, I've come to give answers to what is whirling about in your head." A dream. Yes, it had to be a dream. That thought was a little comforting. A Weird dream...and creepy...and scary...
"No, this isn't a dream, too bad for you. But when you think about it, it's actually rather exciting." How did she know that? "I just do, dear." That was the creepiest thing Latika had ever imagined. No, worse. "Hardly worse." Now it was annoying. If you know what I'm thinking, keep it to yourself! she "said" miserably. "I suppose that was sort of...as you put it, "creepy", the Cyborg replied. "But, now for the explaining." "I'm prepared," Latika tried to say, but it came out more like, "Igmmarrebl mmblem."
"Good. Now, I know you're wondering what happened, and I'm going to explain everything. But first I need the bracelet." Bracelet. Oh! Now Latika remembered everything. "Good, I had hoped you would remember. Hmmm....snow troll....Brixie (Latika gulped). How can you do that? Latika wondered. "Well, It's sort of hard to explain but...well...you and I share the same brain." Latika widened her eyes and a creepy feeling washed over her. But the weird Cyborg continued only too joyfully. "You see, three gazillibillimillian years ago, our race first begun. We were weak at first, but we slowly gained power over all others except...well, the most powerful races. We have tried turning every race into Cyborgs, but we need more power. The power comes from gnomes. Surprising, but in all of you there is a tiny substance called dreabalum. For you, it helps keep you from dying by sicknesses, for us it is a drug that makes all of us invincible. My ancestors discovered it when they made the first gnome Cyborg. Unfortunately, gnomes are very hard to find, and we haven't found anymore...until now. We are hoping to clone an entire army from you."
An entire clone army? Oh, where was Brixie?

Brixie followed wearily behind Jeyan when he suddenly stopped. Was that a hidden cave ahead?.......

Cyborg

Boom! What was that noise? Boom! Their it was again. What could it be? Where was she? Who was she.. Latika, she thought. She felt cold. It was really dark. Her head was spinning. It felt like it had been pounded into a brick wall. Had it? She couldn't remember. Boom! She really should find out what that sound was, but maybe.... "I’ll take a nap first" she thought.

Brixie brushed her hair out of her face and moaned. She had been alone for days. Searching for Latika had been harder then she thought. She had no clue were the robot had taken Latika. She didn't even know if she was still in this realm.

Boom! It woke Latika up again. This time it was a little lighter. Her head still throbbed. She tired to rub her eyes but couldn’t get her arms to move. Fuzziness cleared like only a good adrenalin rush can do. She again tried to move her arms but they still wouldn’t budge. She tried to turn her head but she couldn’t. She was panicking, her mind was working fine but she couldn’t move! Latika tried to look around with her stationary vision. All she could see was a metal lamp. She could feel that she was laying at a 120 degree angle in a awkwardly comfortable chair.
"Finally you are awake!" said a raspy female voice.
"Who are you?" Latika tried to ask but couldn’t get the sound through her lips to sound anything more then a slight gasp.
"Ah, So you wish to speak, oh well, their will be time for that later" the voice said " But for now you will have to the listening while I do the talking". We found you in a robotics lab in the du’nkoff region, during one of our raids", You were well lets just say missing a few" here she paused, "Limbs"
"Limbs? What was she talking about? Is that why she couldn’t move anything?" Latika thought.
"Oh, but don’t worry, we fixed you!" said the voice now sounding quite pleased. Suddenly the woman bent over so she could see her face.
Latika gasped, or she tried to, but still couldn’t move her mouth to make a sound. The woman, or whatever she was looked down at Latika with a wolf like smile. She was average looking except for her hair which was flouting above her head like it was under water and was iridescent blue. And her eyes, which were completely deep burgundy. She clicked a button on the side of the chair and Latika’s chair sped into an upright position. She could now see the rest of the woman. She was wearing a long green dress, with a silver belt. She was very tall, and she was floating! The woman had something silvery in her hand. She held it up so Latika could see, it was a mirror. Latika would have screamed if she could, she.... her face!.... Her eyes!.......
"I hope you like it, well, you will have to I guess. Take a good look at the new you!" The woman let out an evil giggle. Set the mirror down and "floated away".

Latika couldn’t get the picture out of her head. At first glance one might not notice a difference, except for the burgundy eyes, and the silvery glint of metallic skin over one cheek and all down her neck. They had turned her into a cyborg! She had heard that in some realms the cyborgs and robots had been at war, but she had never actually seen an antigravitational cyborg.