There was mist obscuring the ground. There were massive rocks in a circular formation. Junitha Findragon was in chair and there were chains keeping her down. Fat things with bulbous heads skittered in the dark beyond the rocks and spoke with voices that were either deep or high.
“This is most fascinating.”
“This female appears to be some sort of super being.”
“It has been so long since we had a chance to study a species capable of producing super beings”
“But there is something strange about her power.”
“We can not see her memory.”
“It is as if not all of the memory is hers.”
“Something is protecting her.”
“It is keeping us out.”
Janessa and Duron followed Tania through the mist to the rocks. They saw Junitha chained to the chair in the center. Then they saw the women on the rocks. There were many of them.
“It’s about time you got back Tania,” said a red head with glasses wearing a sweater and a sensible skirt with stockings and black buckle shoes.
“Good you brought help,” said a woman with a Russian accent wearing a white tank top and jeans. She was amusing herself by doing knife tricks.
“Ladies I would like you to meet Janessa and Duron,” said Tania.
“We know who they are,” said a black woman with close cropped hair died platinum blonde, “if Junitha knows them then we know them.”
The black woman came closer. She was wearing a big long red coat and smoking a cigar.
“Who are all of you?” asked Janessa.
“We are the memory of Antalla,” said a teenage Japanese girl with pink and blue highlights in her hair. She was wearing torn jeans and a black half shirt.
“Each of these women was once the Antalla,” said Tania.
There were a number of other women of various age and ethnicity, with varying hairstyles and clothing. Some looked fairly average; some looked like they were ready for a costume party.
“We need to get out of here,” said the black woman in the big red coat.
“We have been keeping them from getting to her,” said the Japanese girl with the colored hair, “but we can’t reach her. They are tampering with her perception.”
“You might be able to reach Juni,” said Tania, “we are all just memories. They can’t keep her from perceiving you.”
“Juni?” aksed Duron.
“Yeah I used to call her that,” said Tania, “why don’t you try it?”
Janessa went to Junitha chained in the chair and took her hand and said, “Juni can you hear me?”
Junitha immedietly perked up and said, “Don’t call me that. Tania called me that once when we first met and told her I hate little nicknames like that. Then she laughed and said that was it that was the last straw, I was perfect, that I was the one. What the hell is this place?”
Junitha looked at Tania and said, “Tania Zed? But you’re dead? Hey that rhymes. Whoa wait a minute. You’re here. All of you. I knew this was possible but I never really needed to call on the memory like this to call forth avatars of the past Antallas. Oh my god.”
Junitha gestured her head towards the black woman in the long red coat and said, “Janessa check it out. That’s Cassandra Dukane. So far she holds the record for number of years being the Antalla. She did all kinds of stuff. She slew all sorts of evil bastards. You know one of my favorites is there were these man eating creatures that lived under ground, there was a nest of them in almost every major city. And there was this secret group that had these butchers that would kidnap people in subways and stuff and feed them to the creatures, and the group was all like we have to feed them or they will rise up and destroy us. You know what Cassandra Dukane did? She took a flame thrower and toasted all of those man eating underground monsters. She burned up every single nest. And she killed all the butchers too.”
“That was one of my more successful endeavors,” said Cassandra Dukane taking a puff of her cigar, “Some of those butcher guys actually tried to use the old following orders excuse. I still put a bullet in each one of their heads.”
Junitha went on, “and over there that’s Kristen Hill. When the Deep Ones thought it would be a good idea to rise up from the depths she was there to drive them back. And that gal over there is Olya Smith, she killed and entire family of mutant cannibal mountain men with nothing but garden tools.”
Junitha stopped for a moment when she saw the Japanese girl and said, “holy crap, you’re Hikari Hanso. You were the first of us, the first mortal Antalla. But what about… Are they here? Is she here?”
“I don’t understand any of this,” said Duron, “but we need to get out of here.”
The women all looked up. Janessa and Duron looked to see what it was. They were all looking at the largest of the rocks. Standing atop the largest rock there was a woman. She was Caucasian. She was wearing a black leather halter top and black leather pants and black boots. She had black headband in her long golden blonde hair and she had jade green eyes. She leaped down from the rock. The ground shook when she landed. Standing up on the rock above them had made her look bigger than she was.
“Hey there,” she said, “I’m Nadia. Nice to meet you all.”
“You’re Nadia Pantangelus,” said Junitha, “you forged the blades of Antalla. You were his chosen.”
“You need to get yourself out of here Junitha,” said Nadia, “come on we don’t have all day.”
Junitha nodded. She took a deep breath and sang.
Somewhere over the rainbow
They could almost see the sound waves of her voice as they started to sweep past. The chains began to fall away. Even the chair fell apart and Junitha was able to stand again. All of the women applauded her.
“Okay let’s go,” said Junitha, “I need to keep moving. They’ll try to isolate my mind again and chain me down. We need to start getting everyone else out of the mind trap. Hold on. Wait a minute before I go I have to ask. Where is he?”
“He is not here,” said Hikari Hanso.
“He didn’t need to be,” said Cassandra Dukane.
“Although you may yet see him before this is over,” said Nadia.
