Bayacrux Chapter 5

The moment after, everyone grew quiet. Suddenly, the earth started quaking, heralding the arrival of the first of the monsters.
The springy white ground split apart, a creature rising from it. A robot-like dinosaur, with four large legs connected indirectly to it's body, like a crab's or spider's. It's armor was forest green, with a miniature jungle growing on it's back. It walked over to Shed, making a mechanical whirring noise as it took each step.
The sky opened up and a ray of sun shot through as a sky blue ferret with lime green stripes on it's body flew down form the heavens on a puffy, white cloud. The cloud slowed down as it neared Julie, hovering a few feet off the ground. The ferret squeaked and scratched behind it's wing-like yellow ear. It's big brown eyes narrowed as it stared at the monster.
A small spot of the ground seemed to melt into water as a small pool formed near Frecyo's feet. A fox-like creature began to step out of the pool, with flowing, long brown hair, light peach-colored skin, and nine scaled tails. She gracefully shook the water off of herself as the pool began to shrink.
In a flash of light, a strange creature appeared by Phizzle. It had the body shape of a cat, but it's skin was made by many large rocks stuck together by some form of magic. It had nine red eyes in an 'H' pattern on it's head, which was mysteriously smooth.
Behind Ladi, a polar bear with fur a light shade of green appeared to be running on thin air. When it approached Ladi, it fell down and landed with a thud, rolling over and coming the closest a polar bear could to a grin. It opened it's mouth, letting out a stream of noises similar to a human tryin to speak while gargling.
A small circling burst of light ripped open a swirling portal near Drake. A small, black dragon hopped out of the portal. It had the beginning of wings on it's back, a bump where the skin was somewhat more leathery and yellow. It had a multitude of yellow markings all over it's body, glowing eerily. It's ears were too large for it's body, as it appeared to not be fully grown.
MM looked to her side as a large dog-like creature charged toward her, skidding like a car with it's large paws as it neared her. It wore a mask made of smooth, tan rock, tightly covering it's face. the mask had a large spike that looked like the blade of a sword on top. It's neck, the exposed part of it's head, and it's ankles were covered with similar tan-colored fur, but it's body was smooth and dark brown, almost like a fish's. It has blotches of tan on it's skin, fins, and fish-like tail. It had a small dot of dark red on it's left side.
Not to be left out, Pyre looked over his shoulder as a red and black creature ran toward him. It stood on two feet, and steam gushed out of the pipelike appendages on it's head. Shed recognized it as a plain monster, common around the fire area. Just like I thought, a weak monster, he thought, smiling.
"Okay! At my command, everyone get ready to attack?", Shed said.
"Since when did you become leader?" Fre asked.
Ignoring him, Shed said "Go!". The air was filled with shouted commands as Tereya, possessed by the bean-shaped sky blue being, began to summon her own monster through means of an electric guitar, a popular instrument amoung Mayao.
MM's brown creature and Pyre's red one rushed forward, MM's taking a somewhat more strategic path, running around to the back of the creature and charging at it. Pyre's breathed red-hot flames toward it's target. The blue creature sent out another tentacle, this one tipped with a swirling, shell-like design, and squirted water along it with it's funnel-like mouth. The water-covered appendage was able to deflect the flame, surrounding everyone with steam. MM's creature was used to not being able to see, and he continued charging, blinking it's one seeing eye.
It's attack was deflected by a squat creature who's form was made visible as the steam cleared. It had furry, black wings, and a light grey body. It's dragonlike head was covered with black fur, and it waved it's black tail impaitently. It let out a blast of dark energy that sent MM's creature running.
"Relic!" she called. Shed's mechanical dinosaur began stomping the ground with it's clawed feet, creating a miniature earthquake. the blue creature, who was already slightly off balance, fell to the ground. Shed raised his staff in the air and chanted, adding his own minor earthquake to the mix. Fre and Drake's monsters sent blasts of water and darkness at the two creatures, but they did little damage, being the same element. Ladi put her hand on the polar bear's shoulder.
"Roger, it's time to do... whatever you do. Attack it!"
Roger opened his mouth, the bright red of his tounge and cheeks contrasting with the lime green of his fur. He made the same gargling noise as before, and a beam of white light shot out of hs mouth. When the beam hit the grey dragon creature, it transformed into a shower of smaller lime green polar bears, each about an inch and a half long. they began pummeling the grey dragon, small cuts opening up in his fur.
Phizzle's creature somehow broke his body up into rocks, which flew all arund the blue creature, scraping it's skin like sandpaper. the creature got back up and swatted at the rocks with it's tentacles. The rocks changed back into a creature's shape and retreated.
"Fre, your creature is a Sirena, right?" PP's voice broke the sound of the fighting.
"Yeah, what are you getting at?"
"Create some sort of illusion to distract them"
"Okay". Fre conveyed the message onto his Sirena, Fade, who waved her nine tales in response. Suddenly, a small group of Kidrell appeared behind Tereya and her captor. she and her creature turned around, and-
"Limey, let's go!". The lime green ferret blew a gust of air from it's mouth, which cut into their enemies like razorblades. Julie then took what looked like a lime from her belt, and pulled a small peg out of it with her teeth. She threw it towards the creatures and Tereya.
A burst of light greenish-yellow juice enveloped their enemies, but when it cleared, the gorup could see Fre leaning over the captive ninja girl. The creatures were writhing in pain, lime juice getting into their open wounds, unable to attack or respond. The Kidrell stopped moving, knocking itself unconcious to escape such intense pain. the tentacle it had embedded in Tereya's neck shriveled and fell out, leaving a red sore under her brown hair.
"You can't let innocent people get hurt", Fre said, turning Tereya over to see the sore on her neck.
"I thought you were sardonic, or so you said yourself", Shed said. "You might want to look that one up", he remarked, turning to Pyre. Pyre scowled.
"Still...", Fre said.
"Let's get her to some fresh water and try to revive her", Drake suggested.
There was a pool of water on the flat ground near the hill, a few yards away. MM treated the girl's wounds with water and an improvised bandage made out of a soft, furry leaf.
"She should be okay after some rest, as she wasn't posessed for too long"
"Wow, you know a lot about this kind of thing", Phizz said.
"Yeah, I was studying to be a surgeon before I discovered my Mayao powers". Education in the Octogon was a rather short process. Kids learned the basics of mathematics, science, reading, writing, and other basic skills, and at age 13, were expected to choose their job and study for it.
"You know... it'd be interesting to chat about how we all discovered our powers"
"We should send our monsters back first", Shed said.
After nods of agreement, each person walked up to their monster and told them to go home. To wherever tame monsters lived when they were not being summoned. It was a mystery, even to Mayao.
As the monsters walked, flied, and floated away in all different directions, Julie noticed the setting sun.
"Do you think we should send out some people to gather firewood? It's going to be dark soon"
Phizzle, MM, and Fre volunteered to look.
"I need to bring the girl along with us, in case anything happens"
"I'll carry her", Fre offered.
The search was rather unsucessful, with only a few meager twigs to burn for flame. There were a few of the same furry leaves used to bandage Tereya, but MM didn't think they would burn well.
"Hey!" MM shouted to the other two. "This spot of ground seems kind of weird", she said, touching a bit of earth indistinguishable form the other parts. "It's almost like..." Before she had time to finish her sentance, the ground swallowed her up.
"MM", Fre said, and ran over to the hole. He tripped, and both he and Tereya fell into the earth. Phizzle jumped in, out of curiosity.
The floor of the mysterous cavern was spongy, just like the ground above. All over, creatures of the Earth element carried trays of plants around the caves, which had may twisting and turning passages. The creatures all had one thing in common - five green leaves attached to their head.
Suddenly, a muscled creature picked up the intruders on a large tray. It carried them into one of the many caverns, indistinguishable from the first.
"Where is it taking us?", Phizz asked, looking over the edge of the tray.
"I don't know, but I've heard tales about this kind of thing. That there are 8 Creature Masters - one for each element - living in the Octogon. They're different from Mayao, as their monsters are not tame, but they control many at once through strange methods that have been attributed to the mind. There are even a few that are Mayao", Fre responded.
The tray was set down in a large room that smelled strongly of the forest. The room was lit by green paper lanterns stretched across the high ceiling of the room, and trees made out of stone adorned the walls. Sitting in the center of the room on a stone chair, in blue jeans and a green sweater with the five-leaf emblem on it, was the Creature Master of Earth.