New Chances: Chapter 3 Bones and Caves
DISCLAIMER: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended. ________Leon drifted between being awake and sleep. "If they're gonna make me get up early in the morning the least they could do-" he paused as a large yawn escaped him, "Is leave at when they said they were going to not two hours later.""It's not their fault you stayed up late doing studies," said his friend Benni jokingly. "And whose fault is it that I had that homework, hmm?" Leon said accusingly, "Training with you people takes up a lot of my time."Benni gave him a grin that was returned by Leon. They both knew that Leon valued his bending lessons far more than his school papers. That friendly exchange was cut short by the bus they were riding on hitting a pothole. "Who the heck let this person drive?" asked Leon. "The better question would be who built the road?" said Benni. Leon rolled his eyes and turned his head to watch the scrubland pass by. Over two months had passed and he had yet to fully understand Benni's humor. Leon smiled. Two months. Two months, no move, no accidents. He was filled with pride. After the training incident, which when Leon awoke from unconsciousness he tried to explain what had happened but just wound up more confused, each and every day of training went off perfectly. Leon quickly perfected the combat forms and proved himself having great control over his abilities. While defensive forms Leon was still shaky at, his offensive capabilities were great, and he often showed inventiveness with his moves, even creating some of his own style. School had gone by no problem either. While Leon had received no more trouble from Greg or his groupies, he suspected that Greg was simply biding his time waiting for the right time to strike. Classes were easy. Dealing with teachers were even better. They all seemed to like him, though Liam thought that they were only doing it because he was a good friend of the son of the schools biggest private benefactor. Score again for being a friend of a rich kid.Leon had even impressed himself with personal changes. Gone was the old sad, tense, hide out of everyone's sight Leon. Instead he was now outgoing, happy, relaxed and didn't even mind being singled out as being a little different. He secretly loved it, having this secret. It made him feel special. Best of all, in Leon's opinion, was that his mother had accepted the changes readily, almost eagerly. It was like she had been hoping for Leon to meet people like himself. She had even allowed him to go on this school trip, which would have never happened before. Life was good. Life
was great."So why do I have this sense of dread keep coming over me?" Leon wondered.It had started the day the trip was announced. Going to a coal mine that had been turned into a dinosaur dig sounded exciting. Even more so was the fact the students could dig out their own bones. But as the day of the trip approached the feeling of doom in his gut grew. He told his friends about his fear, but they suggested that he was confusing fear for the buzz of excitement. For a while he agreed but now-"Attention students," a loud voice boomed. Leon jumped slightly. He hadn't been expecting the bald man at the front to speak. "We'll be arriving at Drumheller in a few minutes. There we will stop for a lunch and then proceed to the dig. Alright does everyone understand?" A few sleepy heads nodding and a few weak yeses were all that answered the question. The bald man shook his head slightly and took his seat at the front of the bus. "He did try," said Benni. "Yeah, but he forgot that he was talking to what basically half these kids are, half-dead." said Leon as he put his head to the back of his chair.Soon enough the bus entered the town of Drumheller, and it pulled up at a restaurant. Walking off the bus, the two friends stretched. Another bus pulled up to the restaurant and another stream of kids poured out. Searching the faces of the crowd Leon saw who he was looking for. He called out, "Kara! Zack! Over here!" He waved.Kara saw Leon waving and dragged Zack over. "Hey guys," she said in her usual cheery voice. Leon had learned long ago that Kara never got tired, ever. "I am so disappointed that we didn't get to go on the same bus." "You should just be lucky that you didn't get stuck on that jerk Greg's bus." said Benni very seriously. Kara visibly shuddered at the name. "Don't mention that creep's name, you'll bring bad luck on us all. Let's go eat something while I try and scrub that guys name out of my head." ______A scrawny sour faced man, who apparently was their school group tour guide, stood up in front of the students. In a monotonous tone of voice he said, "Welcome all you students. Please pick up your hard hats, steel toes boots, and flashlights. The area will be covered in lights but in case of power failure you are to use your lights to see around. Please stay together." They all entered the mineshaft elevator, which was huge. Going down was frankly, quite scary. Leon hated being underground, the rock surrounding him. It felt unnatural. He preferred being outside under the sun. Seeing dinosaur bones though was enough for Leon to bull through. But now he was sweating, the dread in his stomach growing. "Damn calm down man," he told himself. "Hey," whispered Kara, "What do you say we ditch Mr. Dull and the rest of these guys and go of on our own?" Leon would normally protest such an idea, but listening to scrawny leader drone on about
this layer of rock and the qualities of this stone area, was enough for him to say, "Let's go please." Motioning for Zack and Benni to follow them, they hid around a corner in the wall until the rest of the group passed. They then began there own way down a darkened passageway of the cave system. They walked for a while using only one flashlight to save power. Finally they had to come to a stop to rest. "This is the second most craziest thing you've ever made me do Kara," said Leon. "Really. What's the first?" She asked. Smiling even though he couldn't be seen in the dark he said, "Making me introduce you to my mom." They all laughed. "Maybe me water bending your soup into your face wasn't the best way to tell your mom about your super powered friends." "You think! She was ready to wrap me up in our table cloth and jump out the window before Benni jumped in and managed to calm her." Benni was about to say how crazy it looked, when he thought he heard something. Motioning for the others to be quiet, he turned off his flashlight and they pressed themselves against the walls of the cave. "Dude you stressin too much about this Leon kid," said a voice. Benni knew that voice. It was Dudley another one of Greg's goons. Sure enough Greg's voice soon came up, "Shut up. That runt humiliated me in front of my girl and I plan to get even." Leon tensed. Kara was serious about Greg taking his vendettas seriously. He tried to back further away into the shadows but his hand fell onto open air. Looking back Leon could see some kind of opening in the rock. "Wait... how can I see that. It's pitch black in here." Hearing the approaching footsteps he decided to leave that problem until later and instead grabbed his friends and brought them to the opening. Leon entered first. The opening caused him to crouch down in order to walk through, and it was probably 4 meters deep before it opened up into a large cavern, or at least that was what he could judge with his crappy flashlight. Relaying this information to his friends he could hear the shuffling sounds as each one passed through. Soon all four of them were standing in the cavern. They held their breath as the heard Greg and his goons go by the spot that they were in before. The footsteps faded and they relaxed, but they now had a new problem. With Greg outside their hiding spot it was much too dangerous for them to go back out and rejoin the group where they would be safe. Slightly depressed at this turn of events they all sat down and discussed ideas for getting out but none of them could think up a reasonable plan. Leon was getting tired of being in the cavern, as he was sure they all were, and simply let his eyes wander around the dark cave. As his eyes roved around something odd caught his eye. Focusing on the odd object, he noticed that it was giving off a soft glow. He stood and walked over to where the glow was
coming from. "What do you see Leon?" asked Kara curious."It looks like... some sort of switch," answered Leon. He felt around the rock and found a small opening. Putting his hand into it he felt something like a lever. He pulled it, and a loud clanking sound could be heard. Withdrawing his hand, he looked over to see a part of the cavern wall open up like a door. The same glow from the switch filtered out through the door. "Creepy much?" said Zack, a look of disbelief on his face. All four of them proceeded to walk and stand in front of the doorway, the strange glow lighting the ground around them. "Well since we can't go back that way," said Leon gesturing behind him, "I vote for going through the spooky doorway." And then he went through the door. The others just shrugged and followed Leon through.No sooner had they walked through the door than it shut behind them. Kara called out, "That is so cliché. Now how do get out?" They all laughed at that, but soon fell silent as they walked down the passageway. Leon noticed that there was what appeared to be carvings on the walls, and as they walked further down the passage took on a more man-made look. "What is this place," Leon wondered. And then they soon walked out into a large open cavern, with several intricately carved pillars supporting the roof and the walls decorated with unknown symbols."Wherever we are it definitely isn't outside," said Kara grimly. "Yeah but this is amazing, like just wonder, who made this place," said Leon inspecting one of the pillars, "We could be looking at one of the greatest archeological finds of the century!" "Yeah, if we find a way out of this cave system," said Benni. "Oh, right... I guess that is the more pressing concern," said an embarrassed Leon. Where was his mind?They continued to make their way through the cavernous room examining it for another hidden lever or doorway, but they found nothing. Finally they made it to the other end and still no door. Leon examined the stone walls seeing if he could find another glowing block, but with the whole room awash in the soft blue glow it was impossible to tell if there was a difference. Sighing in defeat , he was about to turn away when one of the larger markings on the wall caught his attention. Taking a closer look he saw what looked to be a two horned lizard with wings breathing fire at persons unknown. "A dragon?!" he said in surprise. "What?" went a chorus of confused people.Pointing the dragon out to his friends, Leon let his eyes follow the trail of flames coming out of the carved muzzle down the wall, where they ended at a crack in the stone. "Wait... not a crack, that's a hole," he thought. Moving to give a better inspection, he couldn't really see anything about it that would make it special, but something told him that this was it. The switch to opening whatever door there was. Acting on this hunch
Leon firebended a small flame and forced it into the hole. Before his friends could ask what he was doing all four of them drew their attention as the floor a little ways away from them sank into the ground, revealing a set of smoothly carved steps. Cautiously stepping over to look at this new passage, they looked into each-others faces, the look of adventure starting to overcome their previous concerns. Benni suggested that the use their flashlights to light the way as the area at the end of the stairs didn't appear to have any of the glowing stuff the area that they were currently in did. They tried turning them on but they refused to work. "The batteries can't be dead already," said Kara, "We've hardly used them!""It's not just the flashlights, my watch isn't working either," noted Benni pointing at his wrist. Leon couldn't help but smile at this, despite the circumstances. "It's a good thing we have a walking torch right here then," he chuckled, and lit up to bright flames in his hands. Now having a light the four proceeded to go down the steps, where they found themselves in long stone hallway, the walls covered in many pictographs and symbols. As they walked down the took note of what the pictures looked like. They all looked like they were to be of animals of both land, sea and air, but they didn't look right as they were differently shaped. Stranger still was that some of them seemed to be standing upright, on two legs. But the ones that came up the most were legendary creatures, like gryphons, unicorns and dragons, as well as many other creatures from the realm of fantasy. "Whoever they were, they sure liked their animals," said Kara, the others nodding in agreement.The group was starting to get tired from all the walking when they exited the hallway and entered another large cavern. Leon gasped. This place was huge. Supported by four giant pillars with swirling carvings the cavern was beautiful. It was bathed in a sunny glow that seemed to emerge from several crystal chandeliers hanging elegantly from the ceiling and several little circles of light floated around in the air. In the rear of the room there appeared to be a large shallow pool full of water that reflected the light from the roof like a pane of glass, and in the middle of it there was a stone gazebo like structure with a pedestal inside it. Surrounding the pool there was a low stone wall and there were 13 other pedestals, though as they approached Leon noticed that only 4 of them had objects on them. That when Leon felt a sharp pain run through his hand and arm, and a slightly painful ringing filled his ears. Taking off his glove on his right hand he was shocked to see that it was glowing bright red and it was pulsating too. "Almost like it's reacting to something," Leon thought. Seeing his friends having similar actions, Leon discerned that it was one of the objects on the pedestals causing the reaction on his
hand. Moving from pedestal to pedestal he stopped when the glow on his hand became continuos. The object on this pillar was a small metal chain necklace that had a small crystal as the centerpiece.Leon grabbed the necklace with his symbol hand and brought it closer to his face to inspect it. The glow on his hand and the ringing in his ears stopped, and the crystal began to glow red and a small flame began to burn inside it. "Ok, just a little freaky," thought Leon, but then the metal deformed and latched itself around Leon's neck. He began tugging at it and fiddled with the metal looking for the clasp but he couldn't find one! Looking to his friends for help, he saw that they were having problems of their own. Kara had a earring with a blue gem in it stuck in her ear that she was trying to get off, Benni had this bracelet object on his right wrist with a ivory gem in it that he was trying to shake off and Zack had this belt around his waist with a green gem inlayed in the buckle. He wasn't even trying to get it off and was watching, with some amusement, Kara's and Benni's futile struggles. All this action stopped abruptly when a loud explosion rocked the cavern. Quickly hiding themselves behind the stone wall, they looked to see what had happened. There was surprisingly little dust and the four of them could easily see 4 heavily armed men and two individuals wearing suits, one male, one female, enter through a large hole in the wall. The woman spoke in an excited Russian accent. "It looks like the intel was right. This is the Sanctuary for sure." The man dismissed her with a wave from his hand and began to look around the cavern. Leon and the others ducked down behind the wall as the mans eyes moved over to their hiding place. Hoping they hadn't been seen, Leon heard the man say, "You two! Go retrieve the relics on the pedestals and bring them to me." also in a Russian accent.Leon tensed. He knew that when those men came up that they would see them. They way those men with the guns carried themselves, he knew that they would shoot him and his friends the moment they saw them. Glancing back towards the stone structure behind him, Leon thought that if they hid behind that, they might be able to remain unseen. Relaying this idea to his friends, they quickly and quietly made their way back behind the stone arches, as the two armed men came up."Sir," said one very officially, "The relics aren't here." Leon heard something click and then a loud bang rang out. The man who had spoken collapsed to the ground and Leon had no doubt that the Russian had shot him dead. "Ruthless bastard," he thought, anger starting to build in him, not just over the senseless death, but also over the realization that he and his friends were most likely not going to get out of this alive. That's when his hand started to glow again. Hoping that the glow wouldn't be seen, Leon moved it about to see what it was
reacting to, when the light began to flow from his hand and entered the stone that was on top of the pedestal in the center of the stone gazebo. Leon could see what looked like another doorway in the back. Throwing all notions of stealth out the window he lunged for the stone hitting it, causing the whole cavern to be drowned in bright white light. Yelling at his friends to go, Leon heard the Russian man cry out, "Stop them, they have the relics!" Seeing that his friends had made it, Leon took a quick look backwards to see one of the armed men charging at him. A short fire punch sent him backwards. Knowing that he had to destroy the key to the door to protect him and his friends, Leon grabbed the stone from the pedestal and took a running leap at the door of light. Just before he went through, he threw the stone down with all his might, and smiled with satisfaction as he saw the stone shatter into a million pieces, before bright white light filled his eyes.And then it was gone, replaced by a darkness. Leon blinked. It wasn't a dream, and Leon was still stuck in cave. Cave! For a moment Leon though that maybe he hadn't gotten out, but after a few moments and no one jumping from the shadows, he calmed. Then a new thought came in. Where is everyone? Calling out his friends names, Leon heart fell as he heard them echo with no response. At least he still had his backpack, though that was little consolation.He steadied himself. "This isn't the time for emotions. I have to find a way out of this place." Lighting a flame in his hand to light the way, Leon began walking. He walked for a long time and still more cave. He stopped and sat down with head in his arms and began to desperately wish for someway out of the darkness of the cave. He sat for a time, but nothing happened. He let himself fill with despair. He didn't want it to end like this, him dying in a cave alone. He began to cry, softly. Something brushed gently across his face. At first Leon thought he had imagined it, but then it touched him again. Thinking that it was wind, and that it meant that he could be close to the exit, he looked up to see a pair of star blue eyes full of compassion looking at him. It was the shadowy creature from before. Leon didn't respond. He knew that it wouldn't hurt him. Gently brushing the tears from Leon's eyes it said comfortingly, "Don't give up. Your so close." Motioning for Leon to follow, it proceeded to go down the passage. Leon followed it, and after many twists and turns of the cave, they came to a room of sorts. Two large dragonic statues dominated the room. Gesturing for Leon to go inside, the creature told him, "Do not be afraid. Hold out your hands and you will start a journey you could only have dreamed of." And with that the creature vanished.Leon did as he was told, holding out his hands and began to walk towards the statues. The eyes of the stone dragons seemed to follow him as he walked
forward. But Leon didn't feel intimidated in the slightest. When he drew close enough, the statues let two streams of fire come out that enveloped Leon. Leon could feel the heat, but felt no pain from the flames. He watched with amazement as the flames that swirled around him condensed in his hands into a large oval object. The flames stopped and a large gust of wind that seemed to come from nowhere filled the room. Leon held the object in his hands close to his chest, as the statues crumbled to dust and daylight filled the room. "Daylight?" Leon turned to see the wall had collapsed allowing the light of a setting sun in. Still holding the object in his hands Leon ran joyfully out with a happy cry. He thought he would never see daylight again. He found himself standing on a hillside with a large grassland plain and mountains in the distance. Seeing the orange sky slowly turning dark Leon looked at what he had in his hands, better able to see with this light. It was an object that glowed a warm red every few moments and it was reddish orange in color. Putting his ear to it, Leon heard what could have only have been a heartbeat. "It's an egg!" He said aloud in amazement. A real egg. Thinking about the statues he thought, "Could it be a dragon egg?" He shivered. "Man the air got cold fast," he thought. He realized that the egg couldn't get cold and, grabbing his backpack he rearranged the clothes inside, trying to make it as soft and protective as possible. He gently lowered the egg into the bag putting more clothes along the side to stabilize it. When he was satisfied, Leon slowly zipped up the bag leaving a space for the air to circulate and a space for him to keep an eye on the egg. The egg glowed, almost as if it was content. Leon couldn't help but smile.As the darkness fell, the stars and moon came out. Leon looked but couldn't find or recognize any of the constellations he was familiar with. He took a better look around seeing if he could find any signs of civilization. At the foot of mountains he could see lights shining brightly, not many, probably a town or large village. Fixing his bag on his back, and giving the egg one last check, Leon began the long walk across the grasslands under a bright sky of stars and the soft glow of moon light. "I promise guys, I will find you. That's a promise."