Globe Tracers 3: Heritage of Triad

Chapter 8: Monkey King

Return to 1977

Xao:

This would be the third time I had to stare down my former friend. He grinned at me and no trace of his old honest smile was left.

Darius's cane had the head of a raven. He wore a full suit with a red tie and a large black top hat. "Look at this," he said. "She looks pretty bad." He looked over at Jessica. "I mean, you can talk about "ending this" all you want, but Kyle, I think you're in a position to make a deal." He held out a hand to Kyle.

Suddenly Darius stepped to the side and turned, eyes wide with shock as we all heard a - BANG! Everyone quickly looked at Jaden. Holding out his gun and gritting his teeth, he spoke up, "You tried to kill so many of my friends last time we met- the mess you put us in... there will not be a deal freak. Leave or die."

"You're all here to make a deal," he pointed out. "I know where we are, in fact, you all intercepted me... so to speak, I saw your caravan and came to inspect- but still, there's only one reason you would all be out here, you want Xao's powers back."

Kyle drew his sword, as did I, blades sliding out of Judith's fingers. "A word of caution," Darius said. "You have all made enemies. I needn't fight or deal with any of you to hurt you. I can just deal with an enemy of-"

"LEAVE!" I shouted. Was it because I didn't want to hear it, or because I wanted to save him from the consequences of finishing that statement... I didn't know.

Darius chuckled looking at me. He held up his right hand, ring finger and thumb pressed together. "As you will Xao- goodbye..." he sung the word "goodbye" as he snapped his fingers.

Smoke surrounded Darius as- Kyle disappeared in a blur of colors, appearing in the air next to Darius and tackling him, forcing the much larger boy to fall on his back even as the teleport was charging. Without thinking I shot after and grabbed Darius's right hand just in time.

"Proxy server command 9!" I shouted.

(***)

Myself, Darius, and Kyle appeared in the desert- likely the same desert, smoke settling around us, our teammates not in sight. "The hell was that!?" Darius demanded.

"I'm a trickster too remember?" I asked.

"Yeah, I was there," he said, backing up- into the air as he started to float.

"Don't freak everyone out and you can learn things. Like how the teleporter link can be reset and jammed using spoken commands- a precaution in case someone tries to use their own tech against the tricksters." I explained, more for Kyle's benefit than Darius'.

Darius snapped his fingers several times, nothing happened. "How long do we have before his powers reactivate?" Kyle asked.

"Think I've done this before?" I asked back.

"Estimate?"

"It has to be troubleshot- minutes-especially since folks are watching Darius all the time, he's a bit of an outlier even for tricksters. He gets attention."

"So we haven't got much time- shouldn't need it." Kyle drew out both swords and pointed at Darius. Darius pointed his cane at Kyle, a long sharp tip extending from it. A loud "CRACK!" rang out from the cane and the point flew out, dragging a line behind it, a small net shooting out from the metal cylinder itself.

Kyle had dodged already (a trick with pharaohs, if a pharaoh points a weapon at you and you don't know what it does, just assume he can hit you and it won't be pleasant if he does). The cylinder and net hit the ground, on impact an electric shock tearing into the desert sand. Kyle recovered taking his short sword and bracing to shoot forward towards Darius.