Mystical Force: Vol. 5 Shadows and Darkness

By Craig Weidhuner

"I saw a teenage girl I took as my apprentice and trained as a Taman Knight. Actually, I saw two possible futures: one where I die and my apprentice becomes a Koldar Warrior and another where I live, and she becomes a Taman Knight," Shiria told her friends after arriving on Earth. Now she's finally going to meet her new apprentice, a teenage girl named Chiyoko.

Abandoned by her father, despised by her mother, Chiyoko is determined to join the Poison Starfish and earn the respect she feels she deserves. Now it's up to Shi-ria and Detective Shinjo to show Chiyoko she has the chance for a better life than that of a petty criminal. Unfortunately if the Poison Starfish find out about this, it may cost the three of them their lives.

As if that wasn't bad enough, a mysterious cult tied to the prophecy that brought Shi-ria to Earth wants to use Chiyoko as bait to find Shi-ria and kill her to ensure she doesn't interfere in their goal: resurrecting a powerful shadow demon, the Kage Dai Yokai, and bringing about the end of the world.

And what about Scarlet Knightwalker? She travelled back in time to prevent Shi-ria and Chiyoko from meeting, to prevent Chiyoko from giving in to her inner darkness and becoming a Koldar Warrior. But what if in doing so she ends up creating the very future she's been so desperate to prevent?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tellwell Talent
• Release date: Mar 31, 2023
• ISBN: 9780228886389

Book preview

Mystical Force

Craig Weidhuner

Mystical Force Shadows and Darkness

Copyright © 2023 by Craig Weidhuner

www.authorcraigweidhuner.com

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law.

Tellwell Talent

www.tellwell.ca

ISBN

978-0-2288-8637-2 (Hardcover)

978-0-2288-8636-5 (Paperback)

978-0-2288-8638-9 (eBook)

Volume 5:

Shadows and Darkness

14

Location: A small electronics store, Teikoku City, Oyashima

Detective Shinjo was driving home after another late night at the office. He had a hectic day. First, he investigated another report of a group of thugs being attacked by a mysterious individual. According to the report, a group of people had assaulted a man in a parking lot and had stolen his car. They took it to a nearby garage, where they planned to strip it for parts to sell on the black market. The police arrived to find these criminals all sprawled on the floor with bruises all over them. When Shinjo interrogated them, they said that shortly after they pulled the vehicle into the shop, all the lights went out, leaving them in the dark. Then it seemed as though the darkness came to life and attacked them. They all claimed that some sort of shadow demon had attacked them. Shinjo could hear the intense fear in their voices as they recalled the incident. When Shinjo reported this to his superior, he asked Shinjo if this was Shi-ria’s work. Shinjo had to reassure his superior that it wasn’t. While he had no proof whether she was involved, his gut told him it wasn’t her. She didn’t have the power to manipulate darkness, and trying to strike fear into the hearts of criminals wasn’t her style. Ever since that incident with Zolida, where he was sent with Shi-ria back to her planet of Thalia, he began to get to know and better understand her. While much about her was still a mystery, he knew she was a good, honest person who genuinely wanted to help others. Ever since that incident, he found himself relying more and more on her help in his police work. She began showing up at crime scenes where she would use her Taman instincts to help him solve cases. And while Shinjo’s superior still viewed her with suspicion, Shinjo knew better. He called it a hunch, while Shi-ria insisted that the Taman was speaking to him, telling him they both had a common goal of solving crimes and keeping the public safe. But whatever it was, Shinjo just knew that Shi-ria was a woman he trusted implicitly.

However, that wasn’t the only case he had to deal with. Lately, he’d begun receiving reports about various murders that had taken place. While the specific circumstances were all different, the result was always the same: a body found lying in a pool of blood with multiple stab wounds. While on the surface, none of the victims appeared to have anything in common, Shinjo’s gut, or the Taman, kept telling him there was a connection. Unfortunately, he still had no idea what it was. He figured the next time he encountered Shi-ria, he’d ask her. With her Taman retro-cognition, as she called it, surely she could find the connection and, more importantly, who was doing this and hopefully why.

It had indeed been a long day for the detective, and it had stretched late into the night. Right now, he was too tired to think about any of these cases; he just wanted to get home, crawl into bed, and sleep in until long after sunrise. Unfortunately for him, being a police officer meant he was still on duty even when he was off duty. When he noticed a group of people milling about in a small electronics store, despite the late hour, not to mention that all the store’s lights were off, he figured that these weren’t staff restocking merchandise. Pulling his car over, he took out his cell phone and called his superior to report this. He told his superior that it looked like a potential robbery and that he would investigate.

Inside the store were members of the Poison Starfish gang, one of the most powerful and dangerous organized crime syndicates in Teikoku City. Their leader, Kojiyama, was the head of a large shipping and logistics company, which served as a cover for the Poison Starfish’s criminal activities. Tonight, the Poison Starfish were busy helping themselves to the store’s merchandise. They planned to steal high-value goods and then, through Kojiyama’s shipping company, smuggle the goods out of the country. These goods were to be sent to the Democratic People’s Republic of Ruthenia, which despite its name, was a communist dictatorship located only a few miles off the coast of the island nation of Oyashima. Ruthenia considered Oyashima to be an imperialist nation, which it technically was, and while Oyashima was technically an empire with an emperor on the throne, his role was strictly ceremonial. Actual political power was in the hands of the Prime Minister and the democratically elected government. And since Ruthenia banned most consumer goods from imperialist nations like Oyashima, Kojiyama had to smuggle merchandise out of the country and into Ruthenia, where it would be sold on the black market for a considerable profit.

Suddenly, the lights in the shop switched on, and everyone stopped what they were doing and turned toward the back door they used to break in. A man in a navy blue business suit with a brown trench coat was standing there. He held a small handgun in one hand and a police badge in the other. HALT! he shouted, Police! Shinjo looked around at the various people in the store. They were between twenty to thirty years old and of several genders. He noticed they all had the same tattoo of a thick dark purple starfish with a black skull in the centre. This confirmed what Shinjo suspected; these were members of the Poison Starfish gang. Each member wore this marking as a badge of honour to let the world know who they were and why they weren’t to be messed with. However, there was one member who didn’t have the tattoo. She was a teenage girl, about seventeen years old. She wore a black t-shirt with a drawing of some red Minotaur with a white skull of another Minotaur sitting like a helmet atop his head. He was holding a giant axe with blood dripping off it. Her shirt was underneath a ripped blue denim vest that matched her ripped denim blue jeans while contrasting her expensive—and stolen—designer sneakers. Her face bore several small piercings over her right eye and ears, one under her lip, and a few studs on her tongue. She wore her black hair with dyed purple stripes parted slightly to the left, with two small pigtails. She stood there looking at Shinjo with both shock and irritation. Shinjo stared back at her with a look of both shock and fear. He recognized her right away. Chiyoko? he asked, hoping he was mistaken.

Shinjo? she replied.

You know this guy? the leader of the team of bandits asked.

As the other members of the Poison Starfish turned to look at her, she realized