Rising from the Ashes

Disclaimer: I don't legally own Monster Rancher apart from the characters I create

Prologue

Water, muddy brown water, he was surrounded by it, slowly
drowning.
Then from far away as if from another world, he heard someone scream, the voice was familiar, was it part of the past that he
couldn't remember.
He panicked as the fast current carried him along, he had never
been a strong swimmer.
Suddenly there was nothing but darkness, he must have passed
out.
The young woman watched the Spot Saurian twitch in his sleep,
she'd volunteered to look after him, but where had he come from?
Some of the people in her village had found him tangled up in their fishing nets, half-drowned and many of them wondered where the dinosaur-like monster had come from.
She had her own theory on that query, further upstream, the river
ran past a canyon and there had been various reports of flooding
in the canyon just over a year ago, what if the Spot Saurian had
got caught up in it.
Watching the dappled dinosaur kicking frantically in his sleep, she decided to wake him up
"Hey, Patch" she gently shook his shoulder.
"Huh, Susan" he slowly opened his eyes.
"You were having another nightmare"
"Yeah, it's always the same one, about the water. What does it
mean?"
"Maybe it's a memory trying to surface" Susan offered.
Patch blinked, he couldn't remember anything before the villagers
and Susan.
But there were flashes like watching a black-bearded giant of a
man working among shadows and flames, hammering at a strip of
metal.
Fighting a giant black armor-plated centipede.
And then there was a young female pixie with unusual hair for her
kind, a male dragon with a scar over his left eye, a female Hare, a
Hare Hound and a Blue Hare carrying a lute
The other, more faint memories included two young humans, one
male and one female, a young pink monster, a Suezo with a green
bundle on the back of his neck, a male Golem, a scarred Tiger and
a Hare with a bandanna round his neck.
"What do these images mean?" he whispered.
End Prologue

* * * * *

Lucas sighed to himself as he steered his land-speeder through the countryside.
Reaching up, he pulled on a rope to change the direction of the Phoenix, a wheeled boat equipped with a simple triangular sail which
he had built himself.
Suddenly he saw something, steering the Phoenix to the right, he jumped out.
Five lost discs lay in front of him, arranged just like the five dots on
a dice, the youth walked over to the five discs.
Looking down, Lucas stared, instead of the normal mystery disc patterns, these had the image of a firebird imprinted on them.
Quickly pulling them all loose, he carried them one by one to the Phoenix and gently put them in.
When all the discs were in, he leapt in himself and steadily steered back to Lake City, perhaps his mother would know what to make of
this.
Lucas scowled to himself as he raced to Lake city, his mother was really cautious about him using his gift even since that day.
Lucas possessed a special and unique ability, he could unlock a lost disc just by one touch, he didn't know where it had come from and neither did his parents.
They were just glad to help when the occasional stranger who had heard about his gift would come to ask Lucas to unlock his/her lost disc.
Then two years ago, when he was only fifteen, Lucas had bragged about what he could do down to a stranger at the local tavern, the biggest mistake of his life.
And the next thing Lucas knew, Moo had sent his troops to capture
the human youth who could unlock lost discs with one touch.
Using the ancient weapons they'd kept in working order, the inhabitants of Lake City had finally beaten the monsters back.
But Lucas' father and sister, Rowana were among the dead on that fateful night, Lucas hadn't never really forgiven himself and for some reason or another, Moo had never bothered them again.
He blinked the memory with a tear as the walls of Lake City came
into view.
"Open the gates, Lucas' back" the sentry called down to the gatekeeper.
The huge metal gates swung open with a creak and Lucas steered
the Phoenix in, headed through the city streets to his house and to
the space reserved for it.
Gathering up the lost discs and jumping out, he ran all the way to
his house.
His mother was in the middle of making bread, her hair up in a bun,
her sleeves were rolled up and a smudge of flour on her cheek, she looked up as Lucas burst into the house.
"Look what I found" he held one disc up so his mother could see the pattern.
She gasped and Lucas heard her whisper "No, could it be?"
Then Zara Morgan looked round, quickly went to wash her hands, having done that, she carefully begun to close all the curtains and in the now darkened house, mother and son both looked at each other and Zara nodded.
Lucas spread the five discs in front of him, then slowly reached out
to touch one and his hand glowed white as he made contact with
the stone circle
"Unlock" the blonde youth whispered.
"Holly" Suezo slowly opened his single eye.
"Unlock"
"Wha, where, Genki" Tiger slowly blinked to clear his vision.
"Unlock"
"Nancy, huh, who are you?" Hare stared at the two strangers.
"Unlock"
"Where Genki-chi?"
"Unlock"
As Myst's form slowly emerged from the rainbow light, she quickly
fell to her hands and knees, gasping for air as Zara leant forward
to support the young Mint.
"What's wrong?" Lucas asked, staring at Myst.
"She poured more of her energy into the Phoenix than the rest of
us, I could feel it during.....the summoning" Hare said.
"So I was right, you five were the Phoenix, I knew as soon as I
saw your discs" Zara said.
"Discs-chi?"
"We were lost discs?" Tiger asked.
"What happened?" Hare said.
"Come, sit down and I'll explain everything" Zara said, helping Myst
over to the large table.
As they sat round the dining table, Lucas' mother looked from one monster to the other.
"Do you promise to keep what I am about to tell you a secret?" she asked.
The five monsters all looked at each other, then slowly nodded one
by one.
"My son has a special gift, one that cost us my husband and my daughter"
"What?"
"Moo learned of Lucas' ability and attacked the city, but because
this place is surrounded by a wall, we were able to beat his forces back.
But that night, we lost two members of our family and I've been cautious about my son's gift ever since, he's all I've got left"
The five monsters stared at each other, shocked.
"So Lucas has the ability to unlock lost discs with one touch" Tiger said, eyes narrowing.
Zara nodded grimly.
Moochi drew closer to Suezo and whispered "Where Genki-chi?"
again

* * * * *

Watching Holly as she lay asleep, hugging the stone circle, all
that remained of Coal to her chest, Genki frowned, he didn't
know why, but something inside was telling him to go back to
Lake City.
"Holly, wake up" he walked over and gently shook her shoulder.
"Huh, wha?" she slowly opened her eyes.
"I, I want to go back to Lake City"
"Ok" the young woman agreed.

* * * * *

Two days later.
"There it is" Genki pointed at Lake City.
The two young humans slowly headed into the walled metropolis
again and made their way back to the orphanage.
Entering the building, Holly gently called "Tobias?"
A familiar blue figure walked out of a side room, looking down at
some paperwork he was holding.
"He's taken the youngsters to the lake, Holly" Blue dropped the
papers in shock.
"Oh, so he's not here" she said.
"Has anything changed?" Genki asked.
"Well, Tobias gave us all separate bedrooms and he chose this one
for Holly in case you two returned" Blue led the way upstairs, then opened this door and Holly saw a wooden chest at the end of the
bed.
She sighed, hugging the cold stone circle to her chest, walked in
and opened the chest, gently placing Coal's disc inside.
Genki handed her the sword, then she placed it and the medallion
on top of the stone circle.
"Blue, done the paperwork yet?"
"Hello, Tobias" Holly came to the top of the stairs
"You're back? So soon" Tobias asked, a pleased look appearing in
his eyes.
"Miss Holly"
The young woman was quickly swamped by a happy mob of young monsters and she suddenly laughed.
"Come on, you lot" she led them away.
"Holly" Tobias said.
But she was gone.
"What's wrong?" Genki asked.
"I was going to ask her to fetch food supplies from the market"
"I'll go" the youth offered.
"Genki, wasn't it"
"Yeah"
"Thanks, here's the list"
Genki took it and left the building, heading to the marketplace.

* * * * *

"I don't want any trouble, Brutus"
"And I want some fish, boy"
Genki looked up from the fruit and vegetable stall, a green dino
was threatening a youth with long blonde hair and sky-blue eyes
with a string of fish in one hand and a fishing pole in the other.
"Is there a problem here?" Genki walked over.
The green dinosaur stared into the brown-haired youth's eyes,
blinked, then suddenly snarled and turned away, disappearing
among the crowd
"Hey, thanks" the blonde youth said.
"What was his problem?" Genki asked.
"Oh, Brutus, he just likes to throw his weight around, hey, you
wanna come back to my house for a while, grab a bite to eat?"
Genki frowned, then nodded as his tummy rumbled.
"The name's Genki"
"I'm Lucas"

* * * * *

"Hey, mom, you home" Lucas called as he gently pushed the door
open.
"Lucas-chi" the little pink monster who came bounding up, suddenly screeched to a halt at the sight of who was behind him.
"Moo.....Moochi" Genki stammered.
"You know each other?"
Genki stared round and his mouth fell open, there was a blue wolf
lying in front of the fireplace.
"Genki" a familiar round yellow figure cried as it slid down the ladder leading up to the next floor.
"You're alive, you're all alive" Genki felt tears spring to his eyes as
Hare and Myst came down the ladder after Suezo.

* * * * *

"How come you all know each other then?"
Genki, Moochi perched on his lap, took another cake from the ones Lucas had put out and bit into it before replying.
"We were travelling together before" Genki said, spraying crumbs in
the general direction of Suezo.
"Watch it" the eyeball muttered.
"But will you be leaving?" Lucas asked, looking at the monsters.
"You brought us back and provided a roof over our heads, we own
you and your mother a lot, if you wish us to stay"
Everyone turned to look at Myst, who had remained quiet during
the reunion, ice-blue eyes stared into sky-blue ones as Myst's and Lucas' gazes met, then the blonde youth blinked and turned back
to the others
"If these people are your friends, you should go with Genki"
The brown-haired youth and the five monsters turned to stare at
the blonde youth.
"Lucas, thank you for"
"Hey, it's no problem, just come by and visit sometimes" the blonde youth grinned as he cut Hare off, his blue eyes sparkling.
Leading the way back to the orphanage, Genki smiled as he saw
Holly walk past, her arms full of laundry, unaware of them.
"Holly, look who I found" Genki called.
The young woman looked up and dropped the laundry she was
carrying at the sight of the five monsters standing behind the
youth, then eyes filling with tears of joy, she ran over.
"Suezo" Holly whispered, kneeling down and gently pulling the
eyeball closer to her as both of them wept at being reunited.
"You're, you're alive" Nancy had appeared on the porch and was
staring at Hare.
Walking over, he put one hand under her chin and gently lifted her head so she was staring into his eyes
"Guess you'll be wanting this back" Nancy undid the red material
from around her neck and handed it over to him.
Watching him tie the bandanna back round his neck, she started to whisper "I, I thought I'd never see you again, I missed"
Suddenly Hare gently rested a finger on her mouth, smiling. "Nancy, just shut up and kiss me"
Holly stood apart from the others and watched the group talking happily as they surrounded Hare and Nancy.
"We're together again" she smiled.