Chapter 16: I Met Santa Claus

As the human fleet traveled deeper into the unknown galaxy, it became apparent that we were outmatched technologically by our alien neighbors. Not only was their machinery more advanced, but some of the alien races seemed to possess strange powers that our scientists could not explain. I even heard of creatures that could breathe fire like the Dragons from our ancient legends.

Ryan felt something warm and wet on his brow. He sensed Éclair’s presence and got the idea that she had been nursing him back to health. Still in a daze, Ryan unthinkingly wrapped his arms around her.

“Oh, Éclair, my sweet. I knew you cared.”

“Well, aren’t you fresh,” crooned a voice back at him.

Something was very wrong. The voice sounded way too old and scratchy to belong to Éclair. Also, Éclair smelled like flowers ... not prunes. Ryan opened his eyes to find himself hugging an old lady in a maid’s outfit. She had dull, gray eyes, white scraggly hair, and a wart on her nose the size of a grape. She smiled through yellow teeth in a way that made Ryan extremely uncomfortable, and she seemed to be missing quite a few dentures as well.

“I’ve had many men in my lifetime, but never a half-breed before, and certainly not one that was an Elemental as well. Could be fun.”

Ryan resisted the urge to vomit, but that still didn’t stop the gagging reflex, or the coughing. Amidst the throes of mental anguish, Ryan realized that he lay in a bed back inside his quarters. Ryan rose out of the bed, but a spindly man with long blond hair and light blue eyes pressed him back down. He seemed to be middle-aged, wore a long-sleeved shirt with his chest exposed, and had a stern face. Ryan pushed back against the man, forcing himself to his feet. The man said nothing as he did something funny with his fingers and jammed them into Ryan’s legs. Ryan immediately collapsed back into the bed as if his legs had stopped working.

“Help! I’m being kidnapped by an old lady and her very quiet henchmen with extremely deadly fingers!”

“Relax, Ryan. They’re your housekeepers,” spoke Éclair’s voice at last.

She stood by the doorway in casual attire, a trendy long-sleeved greenish-blue shirt that revealed her shoulders loosely hung from her. She wore trendy skinny white jeans that accentuated her athletic figure. Comfortable high-heel white leather boots covered her feet, appearing to be both fashionable and functional. Since meeting her again, it was the first time she wore something unfit for combat. She always looked both beautiful and intimidating but seeing her in civilian clothes made the moment seem all the more special, like Éclair showed a secret side of herself.

“My housekeepers,” repeated Ryan, still a bit frazzled about nearly making out with the wicked witch of the warts. “I didn’t have any housekeepers when I was in here before, and since when do housekeepers paralyze their ... uh ... housekeepees?”

Ryan fixed blondie with all his inner rage. The blond fellow just stared at Ryan quizzically, as if he never paralyzed him with his deft fingers.

Éclair rolled her eyes in annoyance. “Do you really have to be so overdramatic all the time? Honestly, it’s exhausting just being around you.”

The old lady bobbed up and down in a slight bow of reverence to Éclair. “Don’t worry, my lady. I’ll explain things to our young and handsome friend.”

Ryan felt less and less comfortable about the old lady as she turned to him with a near-toothless grin.

The old lady explained, “You see, you arrived late to the orientation ceremony, so you didn’t have time for proper registration. So Cedric and I hadn’t heard of your arrival until your unfortunate brush with the big, stupid lizard man. Oh, you poor thing.” The old lady brushed a hair from Ryan’s face.

Ryan suddenly had a strong urge to bolt from the room and burn his clothes, or at least the ones she touched.

“As for your other question, Cedric was simply doing what was in his power to ensure that you stay in bed. You are still weak, and you shouldn’t get up so quickly. Although I am a little surprised that you’re already awake. I would have given it at least a week, and yet here you are, up and ready to go just a day after your little tussle. One of the many marvelous things that I’ll come to find out about you, I’m sure.”

Ryan tried to smile politely, but his insides were coming dangerously close to becoming his outsides. “I’m not so sure.” Ryan decided to change tactics. “Hey, Blondie! How come you haven’t said anything? Don’t you feel bad for knocking me on my butt?”

The man didn’t say a word, but instead made some very strange movements with his hands. He flapped his fingers like butterfly wings, then twisted his hands with two fingers sticking up and hopped them like a bunny. He then clapped in a funny way, slid his fingers together, and then beat his chest like an ape. And then he did something that looked like an extremely rude gesture, but judging by the serenity on his face, he didn’t mean it to be so. Ryan had heard of sign language before, but never any so colorful. It took all of his willpower not to burst out laughing.

Luckily, Éclair saved him just before he lost control of his giggles. “Cedric is part of a tribe of mutes that live outside of Tarrus. He understands our language fairly well, and if you take the time to get to know him, you should pick up on his ... um ... unique forms of sign language ... at least a little.”

I’m going to get a lot of laughs out of this guy.

Ryan then turned to Éclair with a mischievous grin. “So, what are YOU doing in my ROOM.” He raised his eyebrows ever so slightly as a means of suggesting innuendo. “Were you that worried about me?”

Éclair scoffed. “Wipe that smirk off your face, Grunt, before I slap you. And to answer your question, why do you think I’m here, you dolt?! I was checking on your condition. I didn’t expect to see you up so soon, but now that you are, I’m glad that you’re back to your usual, annoying self.”

Ah, isn’t that sweet! She missed me! I can read between the lines. If dad taught me anything, it’s that nothing screams ‘I love you’ louder than a girl saying, ‘I hate you!’

“I heard you, you know?” said Ryan, refusing to let her wiggle out of this one.

Éclair appeared dumbfounded as her eyebrows narrowed in confusion.

Ryan felt ecstatic. Denial is the first sign of a heart full of longing.

“Earlier. I heard you saying ‘Ryan, get up!’ That little boost gave me the motivation to get up despite being beaten, bruised, and battered.”

“Oh, alliteration,” cried the old lady excitedly as she fidgeted with the cork on a bottle. “You have a poet’s grace.”

“I never said those words,” said Éclair in shock.

Ryan could tell that she told the truth. “Oh, never mind then. I guess I was just a bit punch-drunk. Getting the stuffing beaten out of you by ‘Godzilla the Barbarian’ tends to do that to a guy.”

“No, I mean,” started Éclair in confusion. Then she seemed to dismiss the matter with a shake of her head. “Oh, never mind. Probably just a random occurrence. That happens from time to time ... especially this close to the orientation ceremony. All the psions in the area are charged to their limits.”

Ryan opened his mouth to ask, “What do you mean?” but before he could, the old lady put something black and foul-smelling in his mouth. This time, he really did throw up.

“Don’t do that! Now I have to shove it back down there again,” said the old lady in dismay, waving the bottle she’d been fidgeting with. As soon as Ryan stopped barfing, the hag took hold of his jaw and forced more of the evil liquid down his throat. “I’m Nanny Eliza by the way. But you can call me Eliza, dearie.”

Nanny Eliza winked at him and Ryan swallowed back more vomit. After the hag seemed satisfied that Ryan had swallowed all of the poison, she and Cedric walked through the energy doors that disappeared and reappeared with a flash of fire every time someone walked through them.

Ryan turned to Éclair with relief. “What is it with that lady?”

Éclair smiled sympathetically. “Don’t fret. She does that to all the new boys that she meets. It’s some kind of sick joke for her. But she’s harmless, and actually a lot of fun once you get to know her.”

Éclair went to Ryan’s wardrobe and started going through his clothes that he never remembered owning. “Come on, then. Put a shirt and some pants on and let’s get going.”

To Ryan’s horror, he discovered that he wasn’t wearing any pants under the covers. Panic welled up inside him as he realized that he sat naked in the presence of the prettiest girl he’d ever met. He instinctively drew the blankets around himself as his shyness took over.

In an attempt to keep himself distracted so that he didn’t turn purple, Ryan blurted out rather stupidly, “Uh ... where ... uh ... where are we going?”

Éclair threw the clothes she just plucked from the wardrobe into Ryan’s face. “Where do you think, Dragon Boy? We’re going to get your equipment and start your training. Don’t you want to learn how to be a proper Elemental?”

Ryan still felt a little wobbly after his brush with Cedric, the mute finger assassin, but it didn’t seem like the man had caused any permanent damage. Soon, all feelings of numbness vanished as Ryan’s body recovered its balance nicely.

I think I’ve heard about something like that! What’s it called? Pressure points? Nerve attack? Gentle Fist? Or maybe ‘How to kill a man by making rude gestures at him with your fingers?’

Despite the immense area they had to cover to leave the Ministry, they soon trotted down the outlying streets of Tarrus in no time thanks to the taxi service of Felix, the bird man with a bad attitude. Felix gave Ryan one last angry screech before flying off in his limousine-like vehicle.

“You know, I get the faint impression that he doesn’t like me for some reason.”

Éclair nodded. “Hmm ... I know how he feels.”

Ryan followed Éclair through the bustling streets of Pandar’s Market Place. Even though Ryan had lived on Tarrus for five years, it had only been in the dumps of the Fernady Sector, where everything seemed to be dying. Here, things felt vibrant and alive, like everyone had something important to do.

And besides that, it smelled far better without toxic sludge being dumped everywhere. It felt like walking into a whole different world. A few days ago, the universe seemed like a dark place where anger and poverty ruled all, but that hardly seemed to be the case here. Maybe Ryan had been wrong ... maybe the universe wasn’t such a bad place after all.

Ryan started to realize why everyone considered Tarrus the jewel of the universe. The sheer size and majesty of it all was astounding. The sun shined brightly, much more so than in Fernady, where it always seemed to be raining. Also, some of the buildings stood even taller than the Ministry of Fire, which was a much more rounded and wider structure than the towers.

There were anti-gravity lifts everywhere; devices made out of blue energy highways that spiraled and twisted through the air in unending mazes of wonder. When people stepped on the lifts, they floated along the green-glowing road to be carried away to their destinations. Literally thousands of people floated above Ryan’s head, giving the place an almost dreamlike quality.

All the buildings shimmered with a faint red energy, which Ryan suspected came from the Ministry of Fire itself. Everywhere Ryan turned, something new and spectacular dazzled him. Elementals told stories with fire that made shapes of men, Griffins, and other creatures as well. Aliens of every shape and size happily went about their business, not a care in the world.

Massive rides from amusement parks roared in the background where humans and aliens alike laughed and screamed while going on the most absurd rides imaginable. One ride had the children get in these spherical vehicles and shoot out into a giant glass orb where they had non-lethal dog fights since the vehicles were made of rubber and encased in protective gravity shields; plus, they shot simple paintballs that glowed in different colors. Ryan felt very tempted to ask if they could stop by the ride, but he reasoned that Éclair had something important in mind.

Perhaps a good place for a future date, but only after I’ve given her enough time to fall in love with me.

Ryan and Éclair soon came to a particular part of town especially meant for Elementals from the Ministry of Fire. Elementals in red and golden armor crowded all over the place with their symbols of fire, lions, and dragons shining brightly.

All the Elementals possessed the same color schemes, but the shape and design of the armor was different for each set of armor. Éclair herself had depictions of lions and Dragons when she wore her armor, but the color scheme didn’t fit with the rest of the Fire Ministry.

The Fire Ministry shops sported some of the most fascinating objects Ryan had ever known. The weapons and tools were of a make and design that could only be Elemental in origin. Swords with small holes at the tips that looked like gun barrels. Strange fork-like staffs that had electric currents running through them. Outfits that seemed similar to Elemental armor, only glowing with a faint white light. Ryan only wished he had enough money to buy a few suits of armor and try them on. Heck, he just wished he had money ... period.

Éclair finally stopped at one shop, a dingy little place that looked like a round hut made out of mud. When they stepped through the threshold, Ryan came face-to-face with the fat alien blacksmith holding a freshly made sword. A brown Ogre with tusks coming out of its mouth, beady yellow eyes, a forked tongue, and big meaty sausages for fingers.

He wore nothing but a long, black leather apron, green khaki shorts, and flip-flops. His sides bulged out on either side, making for a very unflattering physique. He had spikey ears with strange, bone-like protrusions coming out of them. Contrasting this brutish exterior was his magnificent curly red hair that flowed down his back with obvious grace like he’d spent all his free time combing it.

Ryan thought it might be a bad idea for a blacksmith to let his hair grow out, especially considering the tufts of fire that burned at the ends of his hair ... that is, until he remembered that Ogres were fireproof. Some even said that they bathed in lava. That probably made it a good thing that Ogres considered themselves friends of the Ministry of Fire. The fat, Ogre blacksmith with gorgeous red hair faced Éclair with a friendly smile, or he simply showed his delight at the thought of eating the both of them.

“Éclair, me bonnie lass! So good to see a wee lady like yerself gracing me home,” said the Ogre merrily with a slight bow.

Okay, maybe that means we’re off the menu.

“Now what brings ye to me humble abode? Is it business or pleasure?”

His voice had a warmness Ryan hadn’t expected. Deep, but not intimidating. Ryan had to remind himself to never judge a book by its cover. Although, as the Ogre wiped his brow with greasy hands, Ryan almost swore he heard the guy fart and then try to cover it up by talking.

Éclair smiled sweetly, genuinely pleased to see him. “A little of both, Thisimius. We got a new recruit. He needs a psionic weapon, and I was hoping you could deduce his specialty. That is your area of expertise, after all.”

The big Ogre took a very big, very intimidating step towards them. Ryan suddenly had a flashback of Grafael looming over him with the intent to KO. “And does our young master have a name?”

Ryan felt his throat going dry under the scrutiny of a giant, tusked monster. “U-Uruks. Ryan Uruks.” Ryan hoped he didn’t sound as scared as he felt.

Thisimius gave Ryan a friendly shove in his middle that almost knocked him down. “Then welcome. A friend of Éclair is a friend of mine. Now let’s see about getting ya some weapons, lad.”

Thisimius then handed Ryan an orange glowing metal crossbow that had three fiery arrows coming out of it. The Ogre flipped a switch and three targets in the shapes of horned monsters appeared on the other side of the shop.

“Now, this is not a normal crossbow.”

Oh really! I couldn’t tell, thought Ryan sarcastically, only not willing to voice his sarcasm out of fear of being eaten.