Chapter 2 - Deja Vu

Chapter #2 - Deja Vu

Walking through a long road headed Northwest in search of the home of the Centaurs, Rettan stops by a river to refresh himself. He begins to hear the sound of footsteps near, and sees a girl not far from him collecting strawberries. Rettan smiles and continues splashing the water onto his face. The girl notices Rettan there and runs up to him. She was observing him closely and her eyes began to fill with tears. Rettan was shocked and asked her what was wrong. The girl got alarmed and left running into the forest. Rettan noticed that she had an answer for something, so he started running after her into the forest.

While running after her, he began to notice the same trees, the same road, the same rocks; as if he was going in circles and always winding up in the same place. Rettan stopped, feeling tired, and layed in the floor completely exausted.



"Holy crack... wha... what's going on here?" Rettan said breathing hard.
Then he looks up and notices a signpost. He scratches the leaves blocking the text and reads, "Do not enter - Woods of Despair".

Rettan stared at the signpost, until he started hearing running footsteps. He quickly got up and started following the sound to hopefully meet up with the girl. Then he began to hear wing flaps, so he started running faster, he knew it was obviously a huge bird since the flaps were heard so clearly. Running by, following his ear, he ends up hearing the scream of a girl. Rettan gets shocked by the sound and runs even faster and finally arrives to see a huge Birdman, a bunch of strawberries spread all over the floor, and the girl in the Birdman´s arms. The Birdman was about twelve feet tall, had huge wings, brown feathers, and silver chest armor.



"Hey let her go, release her!" Rettan demanded.

"She was found near our territory, she is now to be punished with the penalty of death!" The Birdman claimed.

"What´s your problem?! Let her go!!" Rettan demanded once more.

"She already passed out, I´ll just take her to our base and decide how to kill her. It is necessary that she is killed; she is a threat, it's the only way my rank shall go up," The Birdman claimed once more.

"LET HER GO!" screamed Rettan, and jumped the Birdman with his dagger, striking him in the arm. The Birdman released the girl, tossing her to the floor, as he moved his arm violently to release it from Rettan who was hanging from it because of the dagger in the Birdmen´s arm. The Birdman screamed and became more violent every second until the dagger was released of his arm, sending Rettan flying against a tree...

"Must... remember the techniques of defying gravity... If I step on the tree and impulse back, that way I'll strike him with the dagger directly between his eyes and he shall go down... Yeah that´s what I'm gonna do," mumbled Rettan while flying directly to the tree... Rettan starts screaming and the log of the tree hits between his legs crushing every man´s weakspot.



"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!" screamed Rettan, holding his "talent" as he fell to the ground, and the Birdman laughed insanely against a tree. As Rettan crawled in the ground trying to recover from such pain, he realizes the Birdman is distracted from laughing so much.

"Time for Plan B then. I shall use the most ancient technique which can only be used in the most extreme cases..." mumbled Rettan, while standing up.

"The technique is to... RUN!!" Rettan screamed running from the Birdman and grabbing the girl from his clutches, hoisting her onto his back.

Rettan kept running from the Birdman, harder and as fast as he could. It took the large creature a little while, but the dim-witted thing eventually realized his prey and enemy were getting away, and began to furiously race after them. Running through the woods, Rettan didn't know what else to do. He kept running every direction but always ended in the same place, until the girl started mumbling to Rettan... "North... East... South... West...." Rettan began to run in all of those directions. He ran North, he ran East, he ran South and noticed that the Wast direction was blocked by a wall of ivys with a big rock behind them.

"Hey, I can't run in that direction, there is no path! There is no way!" whined Rettan while running.

"Be quiet, keep running, and trust me big bro," said the girl and fainted again.

"Quite bossy eh? Fine I´ll trust you! Wait what do you mean by br--" said Rettan until he crossed the ivys and started falling down a cliff, and ended up diving in a lake.

As soon as Rettan reaches the surface with the girl, a group of gnomes where laughing and clapping at them.

"Nice dive kid! Hey! Oh no! Miss Jellirox is wounded!" one of the gnomes said.

"Jelli... rox?... Why does that sound so familiar...?" Rettan asked himself.

"What did you do to her! You demon!" claimed another gnome.

The girl, Jellirox mumbled... "He saved me... don´t mistreat him please..."

The gnomes starred at Rettan, and decided to take them to their secret village in the Gnome forest. After walking deep within the forest, through waterfalls and rivers, Rettan admired the beauties of the world the mortals lived in and began to understand life with an end. As he dozed off observing everything, he finally moves a branch, and sees an amazing forest before his eyes, with the trees as houses, and houses in the trees, with bridges and small boardwalks between trees; it was the Gnome´s Forest. As he arrived, every gnome starred at him, as they walked to the house of the Gnome Elder, Visir. All of a sudden an old gnome, the oldest there walks out of his tree and looks at Rettan.



"So you are the human who saved Jellirox I see..." said Visir.

"Human?? I am an Angel! A Seraphim!" claimed Rettan.

"That is not important now, we must hurry to save Jellirox," said Visir, while taking his cane out to heal her.

Lights began to sparkle, surrounding her coming from the cane, as she begins to move again. After the shining, Rettan was shocked to see such power coming from a mortal, and he sees the girl slowly open her eyes. The girl manages to sit down and says hello to all the gnomes, and all the gnomes seemed to be happy that she was better again. Visir asked to make a party that night in the forest ritual square to celebrate the fact that she was saved.
That night, in the moment of the party, it was a dark night, lit by torches in the middle of the forest, decorated with a clear sky full of stars, costumes of gnomes dressing up as monsters, others as seraphims, and even of the gods, and music in the air. Rettan was sitting near the fire as he noticed the gnomes eating all sorts of things from a huge pot with soup, drinking, and dancing - some of them even drunk. So he walked up to Jellirox and sat next to her, who was enjoying the music played by the gnomes.

"HEY JELLIROX," screamed Rettan because of the loud music.

"YES RETTAN?!" screamed Jellirox back.

"HEY WHY DO I FEEL AS IF I KNOW YOU?!" he tried to ask.

"WHAT?! I CANT HEAR YOU!" screamed Jellirox.

"-.- ... CAN WE GO SOMEWHERE ELSE TO TALK PLEASE?!" screamed Rettan once more.

Jellirox and Rettan walked far from the village, back to the entrance where the village could be seen from above the cliff. Rettan noticed a huge cave north of the village and asked what it was.

"That is the forbidden cave of the Orcs, the one who enters, never comes out," said Jellirox.

"Why...? Because the exit is on the other side?" asked Rettan.

"You dummy. You are still the same, never changing," laughed Jellirox and suddenly got startled and turned her back.

"What do you mean by that Jellirox??" asked Rettan, perplexed.

"Nevermind..," Jelli tried to evade the conversation.

"Oh c'mon! You started something, now finish it!" said Rettan in an altered tone.

"Uhm... I dont know how to say this Rettan... but I do believe you are an angel, because you even were one when you were a human," said Jellirox while looking at the stars.

"Wha... What do you mean??" asked Rettan, obviously confused.

"Rettan, fifteen years ago... I had a big brother. He was an energetic seven year old boy, and always played with me in the strawberry fields when I was only three years old. One day our lives changed forever, when an evil man arrived to our perfect home saying he would spare me, mom´s and dad´s life if we just let him take your life in exchange... but mom and dad resisted and I was crying, that is when the man said he would kill all of us, so he attacked mom and dad and you got in the middle and it hit you. Then you fell into the floor with a strong wound in your back, spitting blood. Then he attacked again and he killed mom and dad, so I started crying more and more, as you were crying without being able to move, but then, you started screaming in pain, and wings came out from the wound you had in your back, and your eyes began to express pure power... but celestial... something to hard to describe. You attacked the man and wounded him, then he turned into a HUGE bone spider, and you had a very long fight.. but you ended the fight by throwing him down a cliff... then you looked at me, and flew up into the skies... never to be seen again... until today..." said Jellirox.

"I... don´t remember how I arrived to the heavens, or anything before... I didn't even know I was human... this is too strange! If it's true... How did you make it to go on all alone?" asked Rettan

"Well after that happened I ran away crying and scared until I arrived to Aeven, the biggest city in Vultia, and I was raised by the Witch. That is where I learned my healing arts from. One day picking up mushrooms I ended lost in these woods, and I found a wounded gnome who happened to be Visir, so I healed him. Since that day I grew a tight friendship with all the gnomes, and come to visit every once and so on, even teaching them my healing arts. I guess seeing that I'm safe even though I wasa hurt by that Birdman made them want to organize that party," told Jellirox.

"Wow, so this is why I feel that I already knew you..." said Rettan.

All of a sudden a huge flap of wings is heard and a terrifying cry stuns Jellirox and Rettan. As revealing from the trees, it was the Birdman that attacked them earlier. He charges to attack Rettan and Jellirox, and they decide to jump from the cliff to dive into the lake near the town again.

"I'M AFRAID OF HEIGHTS!" screamed Jellirox.

"DONT WORRY YOU WILL BE DOWN SOON ANYWAYS," screamed Rettan.

"THATS WHY I DONT LIKE THE IDEA OF FALLIIIIIIIIIIIIING!!!" screamed and whined Jellirox.

Ending with a huge splash, when they reached the surface, they could see the Birdman keeping his loud crying and flying in cirles, until he finally flies into the direction of the village. Rettan and Jellirox got out of the water and ran quickly to the village.

"Jellirox... do you know how to fight?" asked Rettan while running.

"Uhm... sort of, I'm better with magic you know..." answered Jellirox, running along beside him.

The village could finally be seen. Rettan quickly ran to a tree and started climbing up it as the Birdman was causing panic through the village. Jellirox understood Rettan´s idea so she began to distract the Birdman. The gnomes started throwing rocks and attacking the Birdman with their staffs, making the creature even more mad, and he began to destroy things even more with his rage. Suddenly, Rettan dives into the Birdman from a tree top, holding his dagger, stabbing his shoulder, leaving the dagger inside again, and Rettan hanging of the dagger again. The Birdman was crazy and started swinging Rettan again as he tried to resist. The Birdman went close to the square where the party was being held before the rampage and kept swinging Rettan. While resisting and struggling Rettan finally came up with a plan. As soon as he saw the middle campfire,the pot of soup, and the entrance to Orc´s cave, Rettan asked Jellirox to command everyone to distract the Birdman, leading him to the center of the square. When it reached the center, Rettan caused even more pressure with his dagger in the wound so the Birdman started to rampage even more, causing him to step on the campire and burn his feet. Rettan released the dagger and jumped off. With the pain of the burn, the Birdman stepped on the pot full of soup, getting his leg stuck in the pot. In that moment Rettan, Jellirox, and the gnomes got a rope around his foot and started pulling, causing the Birdman to trip and to start rolling, impacting himself inside the Orc´s cave. One last and long creepy cry is finally heard. A few moments of silence passed, and the Gnomes begin to celebrate, and Rettan and Jellirox smile at eachother.

"We did it big bro!! We saved the gnomes!!" Jellirox exclaimed.

"Big... Bro... I like the sound of it," Rettan says, smiling at his newly found sister.

"You acted like how the legends speak of the Grand Seraphim Rettan - you begin to make me believe its true what you say... anyhow... please tell us why are you here anyways," said Visir.

Rettan told the whole story to all the gnomes and to Jellirox.

"This village is in debt to you Rettan, if there is anything we can aid you with in your quest, just tell us! I have a feeling Laoni is alright, and with your spirit you will achieve to defeat Apozen someday... But Laoni is top priority right now. I suggest you rest tonight. The land of the Centaurs isn't that far from here, but be careful on the way when you reach the Azumorph forest!"

The next morning, at the Woods of Despair entrance, Rettan, Jellirox, and the gnomes were all there to say their goodbyes. Rettan said goodbye to each gnome and Visir walked up to him with a gnome doll.

"This doll is of good luck. With this doll, you take each and every one of us in your journey. Take care of it, because it will take care of us, Rettan. Thank you so much for everything," said Visir.

"I will keep it close with me. This will represent the faith of the gnomes, to save the world," Rettan smiled and held the gnome doll tightly in his hand.

Jellirox was looking at the sky, her face twisted into an odd expression.

"What is it, Jelli?" asked Rettan.

"It's just... that I keep thinking. I wonder what kind of girl my big bro is searching for.. and I wanna meet her, my sister in law, Laoni," Jelli said smiling.

Rettan looked confused and started stepping back. Quickly, Jellirox grabs Rettan´s arm and starts pulling him.

"C'mon big bro! You will let me come with you!! I can even be useful! Wasn't I great with the Birdman? I can heal you too!! We are a great duo!! C'mon c'mon c'mon!!" said Jellirox, while pulling Rettan´s arm.

"Even if I said no... I guess I have no choice," whined Rettan.

"YES!! FINALLY REUNITED WITH MY BROTHER!! AND NOW IM EVEN GOING TO SAVE THE WORLD! HOORAY!" screamed Jellirox.



Visir watched Jellirox playing with Rettan as he whined about him being bothered by Jellirox´s randomness. Visir said in a low voice to himself, "This group will get larger, and they will change the fate of this doomed world... may the gods bless you and light your path youngsters."
The gnomes screamed their goodbyes, as the duo walked a new day, to a new place, with optimism to find out about the lost Laoni in the land of the Centaurs...

To be continued...