Ch. 14: Cracking Thunder

Brenden figures out a secret about himself while searching for his Sun Relic fragment.

I, Brenden Duden, was falling at an incredible speed. I looked around the area, but to not much avail, because the dungeon was very dark. Just then, I my vision became blurry for a second, and then I started to become wet.
"That must've been a cloud." I thought. "And it seems like it's storming."
That's when I thought of it.
"Of course!" I said aloud, still falling. "I can try to use my element to my advantage!"
I focused my mind on my lightning energy so that I can live this fall. Suddenly, I started to fall a lot faster, and I began to glow a bright blue. My body turned upside down, with my head facing the ground, and I began to spin, until I transformed into a lightning bolt! I crash landed, and when I did, it made an electrical explosion around me, instantly killing the Akuma that were in the area, and turning me back to normal. Somehow, I took NO damage!
"That was so cool!" I thought to myself. "So the things I just killed were Akuma. I couldn't really get a good look at one, but they seem pretty easy."
I named the new ability "Lightning Drop". I took a quick look around, or at least tried to.
"Where am I?" I thought to myself. "It's so dark I can hardly see a thing."
Just then I heard a boom and saw a light in the corner of my eye. I turned around, but when I did, the light was gone.
"Musta just been lightning." I said. "It would make sense with John's element theory."
There was some more lightning. This time it lasted a while longer so I could take a look around. The area was a bunch of floating metallic rocks.
The place went dark again.
"Hmm..." I thought. "I could probably just..."
I charged up my bo staff. Doing so caused it to emit a blue light.
"Nice." I said aloud.
I walked to the edge of the floating rock I was on and looked down. I pointed my bo staff down to see further, but I couldn't see any ground or any more floating rocks directly below me.
"Hmm. That weird." I thought. "There's clouds above me, but also clouds below me. Also, not to mention these floating rocks are pretty weird too. Maybe this dungeon isn't set on Earth or something."
Just then, heard a screech behind me. I figured it was an Akuma, so I quickly turned around with my bo staff extended and hit the Akuma with it. Since my bo staff was charged up, it sent the Akuma flying off of the rock.
"Why was there an extra Akuma?" I said, recharging my bo staff. "Oh yeah! They spawn from cracks, don't they?"
I pointed my bo staff at the ground and looked for a crack. To no surprise, there was a dark crack in the ground. Before any more Akuma could spawn, I covered the crack with a nearby rock.
"Alright, that should stop them since it worked for Frank." I said aloud. "Now where is that Sun Relic fragment?"
The next floating rock was pretty close to the first one, so I jumped to it without much problem.
On the rock were a few Akuma, including one of the big ones, which I think John named Titans. I ran up to it with my bo staff charged up, pressed it against its body, and shot a blast of electricity. Unfortunately, because of its size, the Titan didn't fly as far as I wanted it to. It instead just got knocked off its feet. Doing this alerted all of the Akuma on the island, about 7.
"Uh oh." I gulped.
The Akuma charged at me. I was able to shoot off about 3 of them before they got to me. I was scratched by a Standard, but when it scratched me, it was electrocuted, causing it to stop moving and twitch out. The Standards that touched the shocked one also got electrocuted.
The shocked Standards were paralyzed, so I hit them with my bo staff without much resistance. The rest of the Standards were no problem and that left the Titan, which had just gotten up.
"What was it? The head?" I asked myself.
I charged up my staff and shot a blast of electricity at the Titan's head, decapitating it. However, when I did, it let go of its ball-and-chain, and it hit me, sending me flying off of the floating rock!
Somehow, like I've done it hundreds of times, my body became electricity, and I teleported back to the top of the floating rock mid-falling! Without hesitating, I pushed a nearby rock over the crack that was in the ground so no more Akuma would spawn. Once I did so, I flopped down, tiredly.
"What was that?" I thought to myself. "Whatever it was, it was pretty cool!"
I named the ability "Electro-Blink", and continued along my way. My stomach was hurting because of the impact, but I could just walk it off. The next floating rock was a lot bigger than the last one, and there seemed to be some type of room on it with a door and no windows. It was just a rectangular grey box. I opened the door, and it shut behind me. Inside was a familiar face...
"Kobun!" I shouted. "What are you doing here!?"
I charged at him, but he created a barrier, similar to the ones that separate us in the main room, that blocked me from him.
"Like I told John: I'm not here to fight, unless you are so unwise as to try and defeat me." Kobun said. "I'm just here to talk."
I doubt I'd be able to fight him, so I grunted and stepped back.
"What do you want to talk about?" I asked.
"I actually didn't plan anything." Kobun said. "This room was GOING to be where the explosive would've been if John chose you, but since he killed himself, this room is pretty pointless."
"Hm." I thought aloud. "Well, it would've been pointless anyway because it's not like John would've chosen his own BROTHER."
Kobun shook his head.
"Really?" Kobun said. "It seems to me like Tara means much more to him than you do, Brenden."
"What? I'm his brother! Tara doesn't even know he exists!"
"Seriously? Have you been hearing them? I doubt John even knows YOU exi-"
"Shut up!" I turned around and opened the door, or at least tried to, but it was locked. "John likes me more than Tara!"
"Seriously. He doesn't." Kobun laughed. The only reason why he cares about you is because you've been around him this long! You guys aren't even related!"
...What.
"What?" I asked. "Of course we're related. We're brothers!"
"Oh wow." Kobun laughed. "This is rich!"
Kobun put his hand on his head and started rudely laughing.
"Look at you two!" Kobun laughed and extended his arms. "You two look NOTHING alike! I didn't even know you guys were 'brothers' until John said something about it! Do you two even have the same last name?"
"... We don't."
For some reason, I hadn't ever thought of that. Where did my last name even come from? Did I just make it up? Duden... what a dumb last name. Brenden Judycki would be way cooler.
"Well, it sounds like you can work this out on your own." Kobun said, unlocking the door. "Looks like my job here is done."
Kobun teleported away. As soon as he did, I slid to the ground.
"Why did I never think of that?" I wondered. "I guess I was always told we were brothers but I never thought any different. In any case, there's NO way John cares about Tara more than me, even if we aren't 'actual' brothers."
I stood up, determined.
"And I'm going to PROVE it by getting out of here and rescuing John from the Underworld!"
I walked out of the room and looked around for any sign of the Sun Relic fragment. Unlike previously, there were multiple floating rock paths that I could go. I figured that killing all of the Akuma would be a good start, and then I could easily look for the correct way to go without any disruptions. I began to clear all the rocks of Akuma...

"Lucy!" JT shouted. "Where did you go?"
Back on the original dimension, JT and Lucy were searching for Brenden, John, Tara, Seth, Anna, Scarlett, Drew, and Frank, but Lucy had run off somewhere.
"She's never like this." JT pondered. "Maybe she found something."
Just then, there was a loud bark in the distance. JT turned around.
"I knew it!" JT cheered. He began to run to where the bark came from, until he came across a small house.
"Are they in here?" JT thought to himself.
Lucy ran out the door, whimpering.
"What's wrong, girl?" JT asked. "What's in there?"
JT stepped through the door and looked around.
"I don't see or hear anyone." JT scrunched his nose. "But what's that smell!"
Lucy ran into a room on the right and barked.
"What is it?" JT said, following his dog. "Is there something in-"
Then, he saw it. JT looked down and saw the corpse of an older man. The man had a giant hole in his stomach.
"Gross!" JT covered his mouth and nose. "What happened to this guy!"
Trying not to throw up, JT examined the body.
"I don't think any of their weapons could've done... this." JT gagged. "So then who? I have a feeling that Drew and Frank and everyone else must've been in here at one point. Did they fight someone here? Where are they n-"
JT was interrupted by another bark from Lucy. He didn't realize, but she had walked off to a different room.
"Hm?" JT looked up from the corpse. "What is it, Lucy?"
JT walked to where Lucy was to see what she was barking at.
In the room was some sort of circular portal.
"What the..." JT examined the portal. "They must've went through here!"
JT turned to Lucy.
"Lucy, you ready?" JT asked.
Lucy barked and wagged her tail.
JT and Lucy readied themselves, then walked into the portal...

After about 20 minutes, I had finished clearing out all the Akuma in the first few rocks. After I killed the last one, I went back to the big floating rock with the room on it. From the big rock, there were three paths I could go to, excluding the one I came from at first. Unfortunately, since it was so dark, I couldn't see which path was the correct one.
"I guess I could just go left to right." I thought to myself.
I charged up my bo staff, creating a light, and jumped onto the leftmost floating rock. On this path, there seemed to be a wall, kinda like one of those one's you'd see in a jungle gym, but replace all the colored steps/handles with actual rocks.
"Guess I'll have to climb up this." I sighed.
At first, it wasn't that hard. Actually, it was pretty easy. However, after a while, the footholds started becoming smaller and smaller, and some had spikes on them. Luckily, the ones with the spikes were easy to avoid.
All of the footholds closed in to a single foothold that was a bit bigger than the rest of them. I climbed my way up to it, avoiding spiked rocks as I went. The top foothold didn't seem to have any spikes on it at first, but when I grabbed onto it, spikes jutted out of it and dug into my left hand. This caused me to pull my hand back and fall of the rocks I was standing on. Luckily, I was able to Electro-Blink up to the top before I hit the ground. Once I was at the top, I flopped to the ground and squeezed my wrist with my right hand.
"Christ, that hurts!" I yelled. I took a look at the wound. A spike managed to make its way through my hand, leaving a hole in my palm that went through to the other side.
"E-ew, that looks really gross." I gagged. I grabbed the bottom of my shirt, ripped off a big strip of fabric, and wrapped it around my hand.
"T-that should help." I thought. "P-plus I won't have to l-look at it."
I looked up, and the Sun Relic fragment was right in front of me!
"I g-guess my first guess on which path was the right one was c-correct!" I said.
Quickly, I grabbed my bo staff with my right hand, lifted the glass that it was held in, and grabbed the fragment, teleporting me to the rest of the group.

Brenden teleported back to the main room. When he did so, he flopped to the ground.
"Brenden!" Anna smiled. "Thank God nothing drastic happened to you too!"
"Yeah." Brenden said. "My hand kinda hurts, though."
"What'd you do, get a paper cut?" Scarlett sarcastically asked.
"Trust me, you don't wanna see it." Brenden chuckled. "It's nasty."
"What was your area like?" Drew asked. "Normally, John would ask that, but..."
"Yeah..." Brenden sighed. "Anyway, my dungeon was a bunch of floating rocks and there was a lot of lightning and stuff."
"Floating rocks?" Seth thought aloud. "That's not really lightning related. But I guess you can't walk on lightning, so I guess the lightning makes it match with your element."
"How's it been here?" Brenden asked. "Lots of waiting, I'm guessing?"
"Yup." Anna responded. "Also a lot of-"
"I'M HUNGRY!" Frank flopped to the ground.
"A lot of that." Anna rolled her eyes.
"Frank, you're always hungry." Scarlett said.
Just then, Brenden scrunched down because of his hand.
"Brenden, are you okay?" Tara asked.
Brenden looked up, but then scoffed.
"Why would you care?" Brenden asked, rudely.
"I was just-"
Just then, Tara's door opened.
"Nevermind then, looks like I've got to go." Tara sighed, picking up her scythe.
"Good luck, girl!" Scarlett shouted.
"Don't end up like John!" Drew laughed.
"Bring me food!" Frank wheezed.
Tara laughed and walked through her door. This was the last one, so Tara expected the worst. The door shut behind her, and when she looked forward, she saw a massive volcano.