CHAPTER VIII
BLOCKADE

SOUNDTRACK- Mensan Rose

SOUNDTRACK- The Mana Acropolis
        Back at the Mana Acropolis, everyone stood in a square room with that familiar gothic masonry.  Golden sunlight poured inside, illuminating the murky castle. The elevation of the castle floors dictated the time of day; at the base it was forever morning. The farther up, the more it became eternal night.
        Canen stared into a large marble vat full of liquefied mana with great suspicion. A control panel was in front of the vat. The surface of the mystical liquid could render a portal to the material world. The control panel was the instrument for finding the desired view on the world. This device was an age-old piece of equipment used by the first order of mages, a present from Vako. Right now, Canen made the image on the surface of the liquid view Truce Seaport.
        “What’s going on?” Canen asked the others as they too were standing around the vat.
        “Haven’t you heard?” asked Fox. “Mensa is enforcing a trade blockade because Antilia threatened to invade their lands.”
        “What?” Canen shouted, looking at the huge GALL-Warship and the hundreds of GALL-Battletanks. “Why would Antilia threaten that?”
        Janus replied, “Because I blew up their reactor.”
        “It’s true,” Audrey added, tightening the cloth belt of her robe. She had just taken a refreshing shower under a waterfall in the Acropolis’s garden. She walked into the room, drying her hair with a separate towel right when Janus told Canen of the reactor incident. “When he tested the DreamSeed machine at the Centennial Festival, the mana in his Skybolt Mage Armor seemed to overload the cable feeding off of the reactor, and it exploded.”
        Abant concluded, “Antilia must believe that it was just because Intarma poorly designed it.”
        “Wait a minute...You tested the DreamSeed machine?” Canen’s black brows lowered. He powered down the vat. The image disappeared, leaving the glowing-green liquid. “Why didn’t you tell me?” Janus made no reply, staring at the vat of sparkling liquid mana. “I just fear that we actually don’t have you with us, now.”
        “What?” Janus asked, his gaze broken from the vat. He whipped his head up and locked his eyes onto Canen’s.
        Canen rubbed his chin, pondering for a bit. Then he looked up at his hybrid friend. “Abant, can I speak with you privately.”
        “Certainly.” The two left the room, leaving Audrey, Janus, and Fox.
        Janus looked back down at the vat, thinking of what that meant. Fox shrugged with a chuckle. “Good thing I came with you guys. If I had went to Vista Seaport only to find out that the airship never showed up, I would have killed myself! Wonder where its at...”
        Audrey wrapped the towel around her head, preparing to leave for her room. “How is your training coming along, Janus?”
        After a pause, he realized he was being talked to. “Huh? Oh- I’m almost done. I have but a little more left before I my Squire days are up,” he said with a smile. “Canen says that Abant accelerated through the ancient mage training program very fast (within half a year), as a normal mage would make it in a few years!”
        “And you’re almost done?” Fox said, staring out a window. He was looking at the clouds, wishing he could fly through them.
        “Yep,” Janus said. “Canen told me that I’m going through the program faster than Abant.” Janus continued to gaze into the sparkling yellow liquid. “You?”
        “Oh, I’m learning Wind magic.” Audrey replied. “Abant gave me this pendant...” She pulled, from under her robe, a piece of solid silver jewelry. It was connected to a chain, of the same material, around her neck. The pendant held a mana pod in it. “This will give me yellow mana when I need it. Like you’re tanks,” Audrey said, patting the metal on Janus’s shoulders. “How about you, Fox?”
        Fox began waving his fingers at an unlit torch on the stone wall. It ignited with splendid ease. “I’m quite good at Fire.” Sage said in his usual boasting way. “Janus, you never told us what your magic is?”
        “The power of the storms,” Janus replied, rubbing his eyes. “...as Canen likes to call it.” Suddenly a bolt of lightning struck from somewhere outdoors in the perfect weather of the Mystic-Realm. “What did Canen and Abant give you for weapons? An Onyx-Blade?”
        “I’ve got a huge spiky ball made of the same material as your sword, Janus. Its connected, by a silver chain, to a steel rod with mana-pods on it. It’s called the Onyx-Flail,” Audrey replied.
        “I’ve got an Onyx-Boomerang!” Fox smiled as he pulled it out from under his jacket. “Can’t wait to try it out on all of the baddies out there!”
        Janus asked, “Did he give you guys any Skybolt Mage-Suit yet?”
        Audrey shrugged. “Since we’re squires, we only get things like this pendant.”
        “I got a Mage-Belt, like yours, Janus.” Fox looked at his. “The buckle is made of solid yellow mana!!” Fox added as he opened his leather jacket to show them. “Canen tried to get me to begin to wear some of the Skybolt Mage-Suit, because I’m going through the program faster than Audrey.”
        “Shut up.” Audrey frowned.
        “Why aren’t you wearing any armor?” Janus asked.
        “I got enough to power my magic, that’s all I need. I don’t need to dress this way or that.” Fox shook his head. Janus and Audrey gave a confused look. The hybrid buried his black nose into his jacket and took a big whiff. “Like I’d let them take my leather jacket away! You just can’t beat the smell of leather!”
        Janus and Audrey smiled.

SOUNDTRACK- No Music
        The everlasting morning sun created a pastel sky over the misty garden. A still pond of crystal clear water, surrounded by beautiful trees and singing birds perched upon them, boasted a lone jetting rock in the center of the water. On it stood Janus, his glove-covered hands pressed together, held up to his closed eyes. Slowly, he lowered his hands, tightening the muscles of his body to bring clenched fists to both sides of his waist. The birds fluttered off from their trees.
        -silence-
        The ground began to quake, ever so faintly at first. The water of the pond began to have ripples surfacing, few at first- then hundreds!  A massive roar belched from the earth just when Janus threw his arms forward from his waist, as if reaching for something imperceptible. At that very instant, a complete vertical column of gushing water came rushing up all around the squire.
        When the surging of the water ceased, the pond was drained. The young squire looked above him to see he had successfully began the lesson. Above him hovered a great orb of sparkling water that moved like gelatin in the fresh sun, suspended in Janus’s intangible hold. He smiled as he stared at it, the surrealistic image of an abstraction with the natural laws of physics.
        Then, the blob of pure water began to spread, and its altitude sluggishly lowered in a very maintained, but free manor. This was, of course, all upon the young squire’s mental command. The water eventually set gently back into the hole of mud around him, filling the soil with life once again. The birds returned.
        “Good,” Canen walked out from behind the trees, standing before the pond. Janus leapt off of the rock and hovered several yards over the pond water. His boots set down on the grass around the pond. Janus stood right beside Canen. “Let me have a look at you...”
        Canen quickly glanced all around the young squire only to find not a drop of water had touched him. “You have successfully completed the lesson, in record time.” Janus smiled. “We’re all very proud of you, my boy.”

SOUNDTRACK- Mensan Rose
        King Atreides sat in his gold throne of the council room, awaiting a transmission from Prime Minister Fluvius of the Mensa Empire. The shimmering gold image of the tall, elderly man came into the room, standing on a holographic projector. He was dressed in robes with golden insignias embedded into its material.
        “King Atreides? Perhaps now you will understand that you do not fight with us or Intarma,” Fluvius bitterly spit the words from his aged mouth.
        The King stared at the prime minister for a few seconds, gathering his thoughts. “Understand this...” the king began, “...no one will push us around. I will agree to peaceful terms, but if you are infringing on us and the rest of the world... I cannot allow it.”
        Fluvius instantly came back, “But you allowed an entire legion of your Delta-Fighters to send ion shells into our expensive and valuable robotic-facilities. You are a waste of effort to your monarchy and the World Confederacy, Atreides. I knew your father, and he would be most displeased.”
        “Spare me your attempts to continue this bickering, Prime Minister,” Atreides sneered. “You, Fluvius, are the worst mistake in the history of Mensa. They should have never have taken a native Intarman into their royal divisions. They’re all snakes, Fluvious! You hear me?!? SNAKES!”
        “You should hold your tongue if you want to keep that seaport, which we hold a blockade on.” Fluvius shouted back, his voice blaring over the speakers of the holographic projector.
        The king, weather he wanted to or not, decided to take Fluvius’s advice. He sat back in his throne and remained still. Fluvius resumed the conversation, “We shall negotiate in a few days at the World Confederacy Junction Hovercraft. That is all.”
        The image of Fluvius dissipated to a soft glow, then faded out of the room. The holographic projector’s cooling fans stopped. King Atreides rubbed his forehead.

SOUNDTRACK- The Mana Acropolis
        A total accumulation of three months had passed since Janus first began his mage training. Audrey and Fox had yet more vigorous challenges of the squire-life ahead of them. Abant was very proud and pleased of Canen’s ability to train a complete stranger again- just as Canen trained him...
        Abant also was proud of the stranger himself- Janus had matured greatly, not just in his magic ability, but in his behavior. Incredibly, Janus had became a mage within three months of rigorous work. This is astonishingly far from being proportional compared to the amount of time a normal mage requires in his training. More evidence that Vako was right; Janus was the prodigy of magic, the Chosen One.
        Janus acquired a handy trick called fire-time. It was a term to describe the timeframe it takes to watch a flame move like wheat rocking in gentle wind. Janus could slow down his conciseness of time to think and act as in normal-time, but miraculously accomplishing that within tenths of a second!
        With Gravity, Canen was able to educate Janus on the advantages the walls and ceilings could have during a mission. By generating an anti-gravity field in his cells, Janus was able to walk on those walls and ceilings just as easily as in regular-gravity. It was bizarre to watch him do it, like staring at a picture upside down...
        As for Janus maturing as a person, he began to realize that the world itself was corrupt with sins deeply woven into everyday life. The protocol and educate that the world first began with had deteriorated greatly. It was one of Revenant’s missions to revive this- to restore order to the chaotic planet.
        Janus also realized that it what it was not not about, was himself. His “lone-wolf” behavior could have been predicted, with the death of his mother and his father’s abrupt departure. Janus grew up on his own in the harsh world. He became a bounty hunter! The young man had a troubled past which made him cold.
        But with his maturing came the realization that it was all about empathy. If everyone would begin identifying with and understanding other's situations, feelings, and motives- the meaning to the world cruel would be forgotten. Janus had neglected spending time with Audrey, focusing nonstop on his mage training.
        And poor Audrey. She had been keeping watch over her mother and father by the imager. The young woman spent most of her free time gazing down at the pool of liquefied mana fixed on the three-dimensional space around her lonely parents.
        However, since Janus’s training was half-way complete, Audrey noticed her preference on him had changed. It took her by surprise, at first. She thought he became ill, but no- his spirit had matured. She had noticed it within herself, too, the ripening of her soul. Fox on the other hand was sluggishly tagging along on the “growing-up”.
        Sage proved to be a wonderful squire, learning just as faster than Audrey, but nowhere near as fast as Janus or Abant. His maturity remained constant with his personality, however, as Fox was quite the cocky rocket-mouthed pilot that he always was. Still, the entire group knew they all would sacrifice each other to save one another if in danger.
        Fox and Abant had actually grown to like each other quite well. The young pilot had a personality that Abant found fun to be around. Fox enjoyed the stories and wisdom Abant had to offer, like listening to one’s grandfather. Perhaps that was the attraction between Sage and Abant, for Fox was not expected by his hybrid parents. He was abandoned at one of Vista Seaport’s largest inns. The young hybrid was raised by an entire staff of innkeepers, but he never knew a true family.
        It was time for Revenant to act. With Janus fully trained and quite skilled with Lightning, Canen felt confident that the prodigy of magic was all they needed. Even so, Canen was not one to take chances. The group boarded the Thunder Serpent to travel to Zetah, the castle of the desert people.