Chapter III: The Great Texas Yonder

Chapter 2

Sean

It has been five months since the explosion. I woke up with Anna back at camp with one hellova headache, but we were missing Mark. The two of us took a more active role in looking for our missing friends. We started in Nevada and worked our way east.

Now, we stepped off of the bus in Two Tone, Texas. Supposedly an important place to my dad, Mercury, but I had never heard of it before. As we exited the station we found someone waiting for us.

He was tall, with black hair and red eyes, eyes from his father that cause anger to people who look into them. He carried a big hammer over his back.

“Took you two long enough to get here.” He said in a gruff voice, holding out his hand for a shake. Brian DeFaux was a son of Mars who had undertaken a great many quests in the name of his father. He should have made Praetor of the fifth legion, instead he wasn’t even a Legionnaire.

“Brian,” Anna asked. “What are you doing here?”

“My father originally wanted me to find those red cows of your father Anna, but then I got a message a couple of days ago to meet you two here in Hillbilly, USA. Supposedly something big is going down, maybe finding the Praetor big.” That was exciting news to me. Much as I loved to spend time with Anna, and believe me I really do love to spend time with her, finding the Praetor was pretty damn important.

“Any news on Mark?” I asked, that was also pretty important to me.

“That looser? He’s missing? Who cares.” Brian responded.

“We care.” Anna and I pretty much yelled back at him. He linked at us.

“I didn’t know he is missing, and I don’t rightly care that its the case. He shouldn’t be alive, taking four years to finally figure out how to use a weapon, and making faulty armor - “

“That wasn’t his fault and you know it.” Anna said, bringing her bow out and almost reaching for an arrow. I put my hand gently on her shoulder and she stopped.

“This is not the time for infighting you two. The Praetor and Mark are both missing, and it is important that we find both.” Brian made a face. “Yes Brian, both. I will not return to camp until we find both of them.”

Anna nodded at my words and put the bow away.

“Any ideas?” I asked as we moved towards the local fast food joint, an A&W restaurant.

“I think we should continue with my fathers first suggestion, finding the Cows of Apollo.” Brian said.

“Why?” Anna asked.

“They are located at a Ranch that should be nearby. The rancher, if I remember correctly, is also known for information gathering and may have something that may give us a lead.” This sounded promising, all I knew was that my father had sent a message, in a pair of shoes no less, that we needed to take this train.

“What are we waiting for then?” I asked. “Where is the car rental place?”

“Car rental?” Brian responded. “This town technically doesn’t exist, I don’t know how it got here, or how your train got here, but we all are here. I heard some horses in the stable over there.” He pointed at a building by the edge of the town.

Now I was worried. A town that doesn’t exist, I started fingering my wallet chain, it was my weapon in disguise Whiplink. and looking around. We approached the building, and I started to hear the horses too, I also heard something else.

The door burst open and a herd of fire breathing horses started to charge at us. I brought my sword out and drew a second Gladius out of my backpack, Anna brought out her bow and Brian his hammer. I kicked off the ground, my shoes taking me to the air. Anna was firing off arrows into the herd, some tripping a horse up so that it was trampled to death by its herd mates, others had the arrows just sticking out in random directions.

After spinning around a few times trying to get control of my flight, I dived into the back of the herd. I beheaded one of the horses, and stuck my sword into another. Unfortunately, the horse did not die, and it picked me up and dragged me along. Thankfully my winged shoes were still on, otherwise my shoulder would have been wrenched out, still it hurt. Brian was sweeping his hammer back and forth, which was doing pretty much nothing. The herd parted around him, and he nearly hit me with his hammer, but I was able to angle myself out of the way.

Anna dodged out of the way and climbed up to the top of the train station. The train had left at some point. From the top of the building she fired off more shots. A few more horses were taken out, but they were heading out of the town. Not good.

I stabbed Whiplink into my ride, causing it to burst into dust. Once it died I pushed to catch up to the next horse.

“Sean!” Anna yelled. “Pull up!” I looked ahead and saw something very strange. Bands of very thin bronze was stretched across the town exit. I pulled up.

The herd barrelled into the cables getting sliced to bits. Two did not die, but as they spun around arrows hit them in the skull, destroying them. I fluttered down on my winged shoes and landed by Anna. She still had her bow out, ready in case another surprise came out at us. I hadn’t put my blades away. Brian was frowning at us for some reason.

Then an explosion sounded in the sky above us and slammed into the ground just on our side of the cable fence.

Chapter IV