Raijinken: The Past - 3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Lei Gong’s Palace, Forest, 8 years later

A boy’s high pitched voice broke out into the forest. “Come on Zhenzi! If you wanted to race, you should’ve at least given yourself a head start!” His laughter rang out as he sped along through the trees.
“Rai! Wait up!” Even though Lei-Zhenzi was older than Raijinken by four years, he could still not beat the boy in a race. “Slow down at least.”
A voice appeared next to him. “Awww… come on Zhenzi. You’re no fun.”
Zhenzi screamed partially before he realized who it was beside him. “GAH! Don’t do that!” He looked up to see Rai hanging from a tree branch, smiling at him.
Rai giggled before dropping down to the forest floor. Long, straight, black hair framing his dark skinned face. Still laughing, ha said, “Did I scare you?”
Flushed, Zhenzi looked down at the younger boy. “No. You just surprised me, is all.” He looked around.
A puzzled look came across his face. “Where are we any way?”
Rai crossed his arms. A habit that he probably picked up from Fei-Lian. “I truly don’t know. Master Fei-Lian showed me around this area before, but then again, I wasn’t really paying attention.”
(He was probably daydreaming, as usual.) Zhenzi thought. The godling looked around again. “Well, a lot of help that will do. I guess were lost until we find some way out of here, I guess.”
“Well....I did see a clearing up ahead. We should go there and see if we can see the castle from there.”
“Fine. Let’s go.”
They walked in silence, looking around while watching for anything that they could trip over on the ground. A half an hour later, they were in the clearing, which was filled with many different types of flowers.
“Oh!” Zhenzi exclaimed. “It’s beautiful Rai! We should bring mother here one day for a picnic.”
Rai beamed with pride and smiled. “Well, I didn’t exactly try and find it, I was just waiting for you to catch up with me and I stopped here. I like it though, the flowers smell good.”
Zhenzi ran into the middle of the field. “Well, at least the sun is still up. We’ll have some time to get back then.”
Rai nodded and looked up, trying to find the giant shadow of the castle. He blinked when he saw something black in the sky. It was too small to be the castle, but…
What was it?
“Zhenzi?” They boy turned towards the other, a questioning look on his face. “What is that?”
“What is what?”
“That thing in the sky. It is coming toward us.”
Zhenzi looked up, and blinked when he saw it. “I don’t know, but it’s coming towards us very fast.” He looked back at Rai and smiled. “Well, what ever it is, I hope it can help us get home!”
Rai nodded, but looked troubled. “How come it looks like it is falling?”
“What?” Lei-Zhenzi looked up again. “You are right, it is! Maybe it got hurt.”
“Let’s go see what happened to it then.”
They ran over to where the thing was falling, not far from where they were standing. It landed with a enormous crashing sound practically right in front of them, creating a medium sized crater. They inched closer to the hole, apprehensive of whatever had fallen from the sky.
Rai looked up at Zhenzi. “So…are you going to look?”
“Why should I? You were the one who saw it first, you should have the privilege of seeing it.”
He humphed. “Fine.”
As he moved closer to the edge of the crater, the sound of labored breathing got louder. Now sure that who or whatever was in the hole was hurt, he moved quicker to it.
He looked over the edge, and exclaimed “Oh my goodness! A chimera?!”
“What? I couldn’t hear you.”
“I said a chi-!” Rai never got the chance to finish his sentence as the ground under him collapsed and slid towards the center of the crater. Stunned, he slid closer to the demon.
“Rai? Rai?!”
“Y-Yes?” He sounded shaken up.
Zhenzi let out a breath that he didn’t know that he was holding. “Are you injured?”
Rai moved from his back to a kneeling position. “I’m fine.” He then noticed a slight stirring behind him, and he remembered that there was something else in the crater. He turned around, and a frightened look came across his face.
“Rai?”
“Lei, we need to leave.”
“What? Why? What’s happening?”
“The chimera’s waking up.”
He was silent for a moment. “W-We have to get a god to see us, or we’re in deep trouble.”
“But how, my powers aren’t strong enough yet to alert someone, and you’re just coming into your strength. How are we going to get out of here?”
“We need to get you out of that hole. If that thing ends up hurting you, father will have my head on a platter for lunch.” He wasn’t far from the truth either, that man could have a bad temper when he wanted to…which was almost constantly.
The chimera shifted again behind me, slowly making it’s crawl back into consciousness. Rai could see it’s eyes fluttering.
“LEI!”
It’s eyes opened.
Not good.

Mt. Olympus, Hera’s Chamber

“Now what am I going to do?” Hera spoke softly to herself while she paced around the room. “Zeus is still out there going behind my back, and doing whatever in the Underworld that he wants to, and apparently he has another child, who’s whereabouts I have no clue about. Hmmm…” She stopped.
A small smile came across her face. “I believe that it is time to pay the old ladies a visit.”
She disappeared in a shower of blue sparks.
Around the corner of her door, Hermes stepped into the light. "Hmmm..." He said softly. "I won der what she could be up to?"