Thirteenth of The Blue

IV

"THERE HAVE BEEN NO recorded ancient blades in the Philippines." Doctor Nitzky is somewhere in his topic when Geiki entered the room. He paused momentarily to watch the young man who just entered took paces towards a seat situated before his very front.

"Good morning, Mr. Blads," Doctor Nitzky cut the discussion just to let himself embarrass the newcomer. It is like every day they do this, throwing rhetoric words that attacks the other.

Geiki has all the intentions to fight back. This young man will always find ways to counter-attack. He will never walk out of any challenge that presents itself, either trash talks or fist fights. He was also known for shooting well-calibrated words formulated and filtered by the brain a thousand times. "Yes it is good... for me. Not for you because the little devil of your life is here again."

"Mean words, Blads." The professor strode towards him, moved his face closed to his and eyed him in a way that may have cut through armor. "Just so you know, I marked you absent today."

Never showing any sign of backing down, he met the doctor eye for an eye. To the observers around, the stares seem to penetrate to the each others’ soul as they look like measuring their opponent, ready to go rampant on a fistfight in the making. Geiki's eyes seemed to cast electrified sparks meeting the ones that erupts from the doctor's. The younger, bearing all the courage, has no intentions of bringing his eyes down. He may stare at sickening eyes for years if the young lady sitting on his right did not nudge him at the bicep.

Geiki's eyes went to the floor on an instant then towards the shoes of the doctor and way up to his face again, a tempting smile, more like a grin, printed across his face. The older man's appearance always have the same effect to Geiki, it makes him feel sick and wicked. But there is nothing wrong about this man, just a typical oldie on a well-pressed, fitting black slacks and apple green long sleeves, the faculty and staff uniform for the day, with creases that may through butter. He wears a pointed black leather shoes of an unknown brand that reminds Geiki those of the elves' in the motion pictures. His face, calm as a caring grandfather with few lines visible around the eyes and on the forehead. The hair is charcoal black with few white strands growing at the temples and he gazes through a pair of aquamarine blue eyes. His arms, the only exposed part except the head shows signs that he may have been pressing weights some time in his younger years, and it was intensified by the tan skin.

"Then absent it is," Geiki uttered softly but closely to the doctor's face that he can smell the breath out of him.

"You may much well as leave my classroom," the doctor snarled tempted to pick Geiki by the collar and throw him out the door.

"Then it is good for me," Geiki once again peered at the blue eyes. "But bad for you for this is my classroom too. My mother paid for me to have a seat here. I will be sitting my butt here for the rest of the period. You may throw me down the ground with those pair of strong arms but if I need to crawl my way back here, I assure you I will."

"You will have your time, Blads," a whisper delivered slowly and calmly that only the two of them have heard. Then never minding he lost that bout, he turned around to pick up the interrupted discussion.

"Again class, this digging was conducted after some ancient armors were recovered just a meter below the surface," Doctor Nitzky getting back to where he have left the class hanging. "Homer's Troy may even have occurred on ancient Philippines after all."

The students seem to be electrified as murmurs and laughs were exchanged amongst the crowd. But not Geiki, he is too peculiar to be carried along the nonsense speculations. Simple jokes may send most laughing until their abdomens go cramping, and a simple speculation founded with no proof does not appeal to him, a different doze should be needed. Or he may not be smiling after all when he does not feel to, for his laughs come not from the diaphragm but deep within his heart. He prefers to be always different than the rest. A cracked egg amidst the tray, and this way, he seem to be the brightest star from the countless scattered in the pitch black skies.

He panned his face to his right, where a gorgeous lady sits in silence as if she does not exist at all. He beamed like a lighthouse and parted the lips to a sweet mischievous smile, then as if the unpredicted seas turning from calm flat surface into what seem to be boiling waters, the grin faded and thick brows almost met to a frown when the lady stared at him and found himself peering to a pair of scolding eyes. "Why?"

"You're late," a whisper yet it came like thunderclap in his ears that made him almost jump from the seat. Leigh Browns, a childhood friend and neighbor, is wearing a long brown hair passing way below her shoulders and stares through a pair of icy blue irises. She has a glowing white skin tone that nearly boarders to the color of snow which behind her activities under the sun seem not to darken a little bit like it secretes a natural sun block from within her body. She stands two inches shorter than Geiki. And today, wearing a white formal dress that was tailor-cut an inch above the knees, she may have been mistaken as an elven princess but her clothes gave it away. The garment highlighted her seductive curves and adorably shaped legs then it came too fit in the chess which endorse a pair of healthy breasts under.

"Not the first time since Geiki met Leigh," stating it matter-of-factly. He then turned to the white board which was used to be overcrowded with writings but is now void of anything like a well polished smooth marble slab. "And what is he talking about?" Nodding towards the doctor like he is some kind of lifeless decoration.

"An archeological digging found a blade stuck on a rock."

"It might turn that Excalibur is in the Philippines after all." He looked at her with craze painted on his b****y red lips. He smiled in a silly kind of way that some may find teasing.

"Maybe," her eyes pasted on the board acting as if listening to the doctor. "Maybe not. But I guess we will find out."

"Are we going to see it?" His eyes now trained on the Nitzky, but he is lost in his thoughts. On his eyes were the world before him no more. There is part of him that seems do not want to see the said archeological piece. The ground felt like trembling beneath his sole. It somehow felt like he is about to meet God in one final judgment.

"Yes, sir, we will." Leigh's cheery whisper cleared the fogs that are creeping in his mind like a boogeyman under the bed.

"When do we go?"

"The day after tomorrow."

"Where is this place?" A thought is now circling in his devious mind. The smile never left his lips.

"No, Geiki, not that day. You could never be late that day."

"Okey, but on one condition."

Leigh clasped her hands together, feeling what Geiki has to reveal is like a bomb plummeting from the sky. "I know..." She let it trail and looked at him to the eyes and for the first time in the morning, she wore a smile that revealed pearl teeth.

"Oh, you do?"

"Every year, no miss. How can I not know? And where do you plan to take your princess this time?"

"Just a simple scenery. You wait and see."

                                                                                         *****

11 O'CLOCK CAME AND Geiki slipped through the cars and vehicles in the parking lot keeping a wary eye around for Tanya. He does not want to deal with this lady, not today. And his devious mind has drafted every possible way to ditch her. He seems to have memorized every faces of his fellow students wandering by and those afar, and Tanya was not among them, he is sure. And as he homes unto his car, he almost jumped like a child seeing Santa Claus on their doorstep for he is too sure he will not be dealing with "Fantasy of Archeology" this time, maybe later if she gets wiser.

He almost tiptoed on his way, as if the crunch of his sole against the thin sand scattered about the concrete ground will attract the attention of those who almost paid him no mind. Key at hand, he poked it into the keyhole on the door, turning it ever silent and slow the way a car thief would. Then in a blink of an eye, he swung the door open and almost at the same instant he was sitting on the driver's seat and was shutting the door closed. If Tanya had seen her, he is way too late now for within two seconds, he will be dashing through the gates. No shouts and screams would ever stop him. He will run over the body of the security guards posted at the gates if he had to.

He was about to turn the ignition on when a disembodied voice erupted from the back. He almost jumped out in surprise when he heard it say, "You have a potential in enrolling to ninja academy. Perhaps you missed your calling."

The surprise came like tremor inside his skin and shook every joint of him that may have damaged any Richter scale nearby. Then as quick as it came he managed to discard it and was gone. He calmly stared on the rear view mirror expecting the voice was indeed disembodied and he was just hallucinating, perhaps because of the lack of sleep this dawn. But there in the back seat, a lady, Tanya in fact, was sitting waiting to ambush Geiki in surprise.

"Oh," Geiki managing a forced smile and acting as if he has no plans of ditching her after all. "You miss your calling too, baby. You have great potential in grand theft auto."

"I found one door unlocked," she said looking through one of the windows as if suggesting Geiki to take a look outside. "It is getting fiery as hell outside, and I decided I need to be under a shade."

Geiki was forced to look out the nearest window, unable to resist the suggestion almost printed on Tanya's eyes. "Yeah, it is hot outside." Then he turned to the lady. "You're hungry, aren't you? 'Cause I am. How about lunch?"

"Don't play games on me, Geiki. Give me a status, what's up on us?"

"Yeah, we talk about it over a romantic lunch," the smile never left his lips but it seemed to have change flavor this time, adding a seducing effect over his lips that even the last Miss Universe could not resist.

They are looking at each other's eyes and were locked up on what seem to be an intimate way and never noticed the passenger door opening. Leigh slipped through and sat there not closing yet the door in time to hear the phrase "romantic lunch."

"Lunch sounds fun," Leigh made her presence felt cutting the static that seemed to connect Geiki and Tanya's eyes. Then she turned towards the backseat, throwing the other lady a stare that may have melt ice cubes.

Tanya was unable to move a second or two, sitting there dumbstruck like she was hit by a stunning thunderbolt. She found herself staring at a pair of blue eyes complementing the sky that seem to reach within her soul. As if hypnotized, barely not in control over herself anymore, she opened the nearest door and went out without a word.

Leigh's eyes followed her as she left walking towards the building not even bothering to close the door. She was sure the lady could be a centerfold model of any men's magazine and was admiring her proportion, half envying it. She wondered if she will ever be attracted to her if it ever she have been born a man.

"That was nicely done," Geiki said his eyes glued on Tanya's legs. "I have been trying my hardest to send her out."

"Yeah," she said meeting the eyes of the turning Geiki. "Since when gentlemen used the word romantic lunch to send ladies away." Now smiling in a way that Geiki found often breaking his heart in a million pieces.

"About the time someone tries," he patted her on a shoulder. "But how did you do that? You just sent lioness away, defeated without a word."

"Well, I guess your lioness is not the queen of the jungle after all."

Geiki turned the ignition on and the machine under the hood roared to life like an awakening monster. "I guess I will still have that romantic lunch."

                                                                                        *****

THE SILENCE AND STILLNESS inside the dark tunnel were broken by a series of crunchy steps like brittle cookies being chewed in slow process. The darkness was defeated as a white light flooded from a Coleman lantern brightening every corner within the range of the lamp. A moment it was dark, the next it was thrown into complete brightness not even the ants would expect they will go unnoticeable.

The lamp was held, more practically hanging from a hand extended like a straight stick from a body wrapped by long leather jacket extending way below the knees. The eyes may have been mistaken to those of the snakes but the face of a man gave it away. There is a different sharpness in those eyes like a rare arrow that may have pierced through armor. The white light gave the long strands of hair reaching on shoulder level an effect that it all seems silver threads and the face had the look that it was somewhat carved from a slab of marble.

The soles of the expensive leather shoes paired on black slacks continued their trek on the ground that has enough gravel to build a modern house. Then it came to a sudden stopped when the tunnel ended in a dome-shaped chamber that could hide an entire division of tanks.

The man looked up, studying the circular hole were daylight is flooding in the spacious hallow. The tunnel where he just came in is hundred-meter long having at least near fifteen degrees of depression from the ground level which went into the belly of a hill. After digging the first tunnel and hitting the archaeological find, the team decided for a second hole bored through the apex of the hill. The man-made crater lets light flood into the vastness of the chamber.

Finally, the man thought as he approached an imperfect spherical black rock the size of a truck's wheel. The rock may have been used for the Olympics in the shot put events if only it did not have its monstrous size. But the rock is merely a vessel and not the focus of the very find. It is what was stuck into it.

A hilt of a sword is evident protruding like a tail on some frozen round beast. It was aimed up the sky and seems to be teasing the heavens. The handle was fashioned in a way that it has a regal air around it. There is this spherical golden ball at the bottom of it and the very material was a dark wood with these rare slots. The hand guard was a forged black metal resembling a pair of dragon wings.

"The evil spell that protected you for 21 years is going to an end," the man whispered as he approached the weapon of war tempted to touch it with an aimed open palm.

The sword may have talked back. But instead of answering in a chilly whisper, it responded in a series of erupting statics that threw the unworthy hand away from it.

It is still protected, he concluded as he looks through the crater up in the sky searching for things that was not there. Tomorrow, the war resumes, his mind spoke loud to heavens as if challenging it. But he is really challenging the heaven, a challenge for war heard out loud rumbling over the clouds.