Gosha threw another stone off into the surrounding trees before turning back to Megimi. She was still holding the Gem in her hand and shaking her head, seeming to have forgotten the plight that Gosha was now in. She mumbled as she looked at it.

"It just can’t be. It was checked numerous times. There’s no way it could have any power."

"Well, it does."

"Are you sure though?" She looked up to see Gosha starting to scowl, "Oh, I don’t mean, it’s not that, I know you have no reason to lie. I mean, I saw the sword you were holding for myself. Kind of plain, but a sword of blue crystal none the less. I just can’t seem to get it to do the same thing."

She moved closer to him, as he poised to throw another rock at the foreboding trees.

"You’re not hiding a Hilt are you?"

Gosha grabbed her hand as it flashed out to check his pockets. He shook his head, then reached into his pant pockets and withdrew what he had in there. He placed the light canister and the marker on the ground, with a cracked Gem for good measure. The other things in his pocket were even more mundane.

"That’s all. No matter how much I want a girl rummaging through my pants, this is neither the place nor the time."

Megimi blushed and crouched down to have a look at what he had placed on the ground. But none of it seemed like a Hilt.

"Sorry, Gosha. I didn’t mean anything," the change that had come over him since the incident with the liquid armour was starting to frighten her, "things just don’t make sense. All Gem-weapons I have seen need some kind of focus to bring out their potential. They pretty much just act as a power source. You put the Gem into the base of the Hilt and a sword blade grows out from the end of it. Or an axe, or whatever it is that it was designed for. But Gemz don’t just do things by themselves."

"Well, it did. Your own eyes won’t lie to you."

"Did you have to break the necklace though?"

"Hey," Gosha raised his hands in apology, "it wasn’t like I meant to. It just shattered when the sword grew. It feels double edged though. Like the old saying, 'A double edged sword'. I mean, aside from the fact it only had one edge. But what I mean is, it did save my life. If it hadn’t have done whatever it did at the right time, like it did, then I would have been run through by that bandit. Along with that is the fact it also brought the monster out of me. I'm no mage, but there’s something weird going on. It gives me a bad feeling. Like a buzzing at the back of my brain."

Megimi put a finger to his lips and stopped him talking. Gosha pulled away a bit.

"What did you do that for? If I bother you that much just tell me to shut up. I'm no better than a beast now, commands would suit me."

Megimi's eyes started roaming the skies and her finger came to her own lips to mime quiet.

"You’re no beast," she whispered, "but that buzzing you feel might not just be a bad feeling, because I can hear it too."

Gosha looked up and saw a reflection from the sun bounce off something up high. The reflection started descending.

"Not more crap. What now?" Gosha took hold of Megimi's hand and dragged her to the doorway of the tower as three men descended from the sky and hovered off the ground slightly before landing softly.

Gosha looked at them closely, trying to figure out what all the equipment they were carrying was, but he couldn’t make any of it out. Megimi hid behind his shoulder and whispered up into his ear.

"This isn’t good. Gemteks."

"But aren’t they from the Government?" Gosha whispered back.

"If you want to say that. But they are not the good guys by any measure. They don’t stop to think about what’s around them."

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"Have you ha d a run in with them before?"

"You really don’t know who I am do you? Let’s just say, yes, I've had run-ins with them before. Nothing serious though. I would rather they didn’t take me now."

Gosha looked over to the three men. They all touched the sides of the strange armour they were wearing, and with a whooshing sound the helmets opens sideways, revealing confused faces.

"Are you sure about what you heard over the comm?" one with black hair said.

"That was definitely it. But I'm not getting any readings at all here," said another wearing glasses.

The one in the middle took a step forward and swept his arm to the side.

"Enough," he said with authority, the tattoo on the side of his face giving him a menacing look, "no matter what they said as we came here, the fact of the matter is that we are on the scene of the crime."

The three of them looked around and started tapping the side of their helmets. Clicking sounds could be heard.

"Well, look what we have here," Tattoo said to the others, "the Tower, Crystal sitting in the claw, no clock line, and two likely suspects standing right in front of it."

"Reckon they took the Gem?" said Glasses as he leaned forward, looking directly at Gosha, and tapped his helmet. A light blinded Gosha momentarily.

"There’s no readings at all though, you said so yourself before. We should see a beacon on the scanners at the bare minimum. If not having them blow up on us with the sheer power of the Tower Gem."

"Cedar Box?"

"Where, in the cursed name of the Magi, would they have put the thing?"

"Maybe they hid it already."

"Maybe they had an accomplice?" cut in Black-Hair.

"I don’t even see how they could get into the Tower. As far as I understood, they were impregnable."

"Obviously not so."

Tattoo started peering at Gosha and Megimi closer.

"Well, boys, seems things just got more interesting," Tattoo called back to the others as he started adjusting something on his arm, "seems things have turned into a kidnapping. We might have to subdue the parties’ involved and free The Megimi child from this desperate villain’s grasp. You all saw, he rushed at me with a spoon."

Megimi grabbed onto Gosha's shoulders and whispered, "Duck!"

Gosha dropped to the ground as a green blast of energy rolled over the top of him.

"And now, that’s resisting arrest. This guy’s going..." Tattoo stopped in his tracks as a couple of leaves fluttered into his face.

The wind started to pick up around their feet and move the grass and leaves around. The trees around the clearing were still though. The wind picked up speed and Gosha could feel himself getting moved around by it. A beeping sound started.

"I think we found the power spike," Glasses screamed over the roaring wind. All three of them started looking at their wrists and then tapped their helmets to close them.

The wind picked up intensity and Gosha felt his feet being lifted from the ground. He started to spin and saw that he was heading for the Tower. Reaching out he grabbed onto to Megimi and dragged her close to his chest. His back struck the wall of the Tower, his body shielding Megimi from the blow, and the wind was knocked out of him. He grunted in pain, then slid down the side of the Tower, striking his head on a rock sitting on the ground. As the blackness started to engulf his eyes the last thing he saw was a bright white pin-point of light surrounding what appeared to be an angel descending from the heavens, wings outspread.