The Knights of Sâl Arwydd Go To The Black Stone Fortress.
"I'm so glad I don't have to clean up this glitter." Kat muttered, kicking at a purple drift, " Are you okay?" she asked Claire, who nodded.
" I just need 5 minutes and to phone Morven's parents." Claire changed back into her street clothes and pulled out her cell phone, it wasn't getting any signal. She looked around," I need to make an international call, is there a land line around here I can use? "
"Given what we've just done here, I'm sure there's a phone at Windsor you can use, " Major Beckham replied, "it'll also gets you away from here for a bit." He slung the SA 80, "Follow me I'll drive you there." The pair of them walked back towards the passage that they'd first come through, and back towards the Land Rover. The other guys in armour were checking the creatures had been dispatched, the leader with the horse hair plume came over and took his helmet off, revealing a square head, short brown hair that was greying at the sides.
"Colonel Michael Owen at your service," he was cleaning his sword as spoke," so you're the fabled Rainbow Sparkle Power Friends, it's a pleasure to meet you at last, Kat Green?" he held out his hand to shake Kat's, "Angel Perez?" again he offered Angel a hand to shake, "and Claire Diamond has gone off with Major Beckham. Tell me, just how different from the cartoon were your adventures?" Kat and Angel looked at each other,
"It was a lot sleazier, 4 teenager girls going around beating up a bunch of religious zealots in their 20's and 30's and those wierd plastiflesh people they had closer to the millennium."
"yeah, those ones really creeped me out, tough to take down too." Owen remarked. "What did you call them? We named them Jeanette's and Johnnies."
"Brads and Gwyneth's" Angel supplied.
Kat looked the armour over, "So what's the story with you guys? How did you get your gear?" she asked
"If I tell you, you'll tell me the true story of your gear?" Michael asked.
"It's actually fairly close to the cartoon, only things different are what we found out in the last few weeks." Angel answered
"Which are?"
"You owe us a story first."
"Okay."
"Before you start, could I have a look at your sword?" Kat asked.
"Here you go, take care its sharp. " he said pulling the sword out of it's scabbard and holding it out hilt first with a smile, Kat gave him a withering look, and took it, giving it a swing, Owen stepped back, "Well it starts in early 96. Each of us had a different reason for being in Glastonbury that bank holiday weekend,"
Kat held up a finger, "What's a bank holiday?" she asked
"It's a statutory holiday," Micheal answered, Kat nodded " well we all ended up on Glastonbury Tor, pissed or stoned or tripping. While sat on the Tor this wierd old guy with a long beard and wearing a rode said we should follow him, it seemed like a decent idea at the time we thought he was taking us to a party. So the 7 of us are leaning on each other as we stagger inside a cave that hadn't been there when we'd gone up. We walked down and down and into a chamber. There were 7 bodies on 7 stone tables, each one had the armour on. He told us to put the armour on that best suited us, we didn't really understand but we each felt a connection to one particular set, and so we put them on and felt... energised somehow. The hippy looking guy explained that the armour and weapons works by channeling the energy from lay lines and allows us to focus it into aggressive and defensive powers and abilities. He told us the the armour was made by the wizard Merlin to protect Arthur Gernow and his fellows as he helped the Welsh hero Culhwch who was cursed by his wicked step mother to only love Olwen, the daughter of a giant. Culhwch had to complete 40 impossible tasks to win her hand in marrage. Arthur and 6 of his best men joined in many of the tasks, including a monsterous boar hunt, killing a giant on the top of Snowdon, diverted the Thames from where it originally started from in Wales, the usual legendary stuff. "
Angel asked the question that had been bubbling away since she'd been able to think of something other than staying alive,"So why are you dressed like a Roman?" Micheal looked pained,
"The story we have is 3rd hand, so there could be some Chinese whispers here; okay so what was called The Dark Ages and is now referred to as Early Medieval was a time of great upheaval, the Britons and Welsh were being routed by the Angles and Saxons, some of the best armour available still came from the rements of the Roman Empire, and in 5th Century harkened back to a better time. Merlin is rumored to have reforged the armour with a more advanced form of metal working claimed to be Atlantian, carbon nano tubes that can pull energy from lay lines that allow us to do the fancy stuff." He paused," Do you have to call out the names of your attacks like that? "
"It helps to focus them, watch." Kat replied, holding the sword up above her head in the classic He Man pose," Cataclysm! "she shouted, lightning erupted from the sword into the dust cloud above their heads, from the cloud, bolts streaked down and hit the creatures around them, burning them up, she handed the sword back," was that better than what you can do? " Owen handed her the sword again,
"Try something else, please."
"Here?" she asked, looking around the quadrangle they were in.
"We can write everything off as battle damage," Owen replied, Kat shrugged and took the sword again, making sure no one was in front of her, she thrust the sword out point first, "tight beam!" a thin beam of white light streaked into the building, punching a hole in the brick wall opposite, she swung it in an upwards arc from ground to above shoulder height shouting "Arc Wave!" a chained wall of lightning slammed into the brick work, dropping the wall, Kat held the sword across her body,shouting "Shield!" and a white glowing wall appeared in front of them, stopping any rubble reaching them.
"How are you doing that?" Michael asked
"The weapon has some memories of previous users, you need to meditate and focus on the weapon to unlock them, and yes it was Merlin that forged these, he used a method that's related to our gear with crystal attunement, mostly quartz though. There is an imprint of his memory on the crystal."
"Would we have to shout the attack name out loud?" He asked
"Probably." Angel replied. "And really don't bring that up again, it works, accept it."
"okay," Owen replied, "so is there a chance you could lead us in the meditation technique to unlock these powers?"
"We can but try." Kat answered, handing the sword back again.
" A great master once said 'do or do not, there is no try.' "
" Are you seriously quoting Yoda here? "
Owen smiled, "Seems appropriate for the situation," he said with a shrug.
"Is there a phone number I can reach you on, to sort out this meditating session? I don't have my diary on me in this armour," Kat changed back to her normal clothes, "or these," she finished, pulling her phone out of her pocket. Michael gave her a landline number.
"you'll need to add 44 and drop the 0, if you're ringing internationally." Kat smiled sweetly at him. The others in armour had meandered over and had been listening to the end of the conversation.
"We should get back to Tintagel, Sir." one of them said.
"Yes Redknapp. Everything cleaned up here?"
"That lightning strike did most of the work for us, which I guess was one of you?" the 5 men looked over there armour and weapons.
"Kat of The Rainbow Sparkle Power Friends has offered to lead us in some guided meditation to open up some of those extra abilities. We're going to schedule a training session at her convenience." there was some groaning from the 5 other men. "It'll be less intensive than your usual training." Owen assured them.
"And we might be able to upgrade your gear as well. Well not us, The Warden might be able to. We'd have to take some to her place, let her look over it and see if she can do something with it." Angel shrugged, "I mean we are talking about science that's borderline magic here."
"When do you think that'll be doable?" One of the guys in armour asked. Angel looked at Kat, who shrugged her shoulders
"Before or after that training session, or I can take a suit while you're doing it." Kat suggested.
"I rather like the idea of looking around your base, so after would be better," Michael said.
"After it is" Kat said. Owen put his helmet back on and looked around. "One last thing, what's the time here? Need to remember time difference between San Demas and London."
"About 8 or 9 hours." one of the unknown guys in armour said.
"Okay so 6pm here is 10am at home... It'll be an evening session, unless my insomnia kicks in again. I suppose you'd better take me with you so I know where to head when I'm coming over for the training."
"Good point, we'd better get out in the open," Michael steered the group back out on to the playing field, seeing Captain Nahim he waved him over, " Could you call in Merlin please? This suit doesn't have a radio"
Nahim touched his throat mic and made the call, a couple of air ambulances had landed on the field, medics, running around the buildings suggested they hadn't been there long, a British army Merlin mk2 helicopter came over the castle on the hill in the distance, slowed and circled the sports field, looking for a place to land, it put down near the river, the party walked the length of the lawn to it, the crew chief handed out head sets and strapped everyone in, Angel and Kat looked around the spacious crew cabin.
"The call sign is Merlin for your chopper?" Angel asked
"No it is a Merlin helicopter, we're given carte blanch when it comes to transport."
"Is that Windsor Castle?" Kat asked pointing to the castle the chopper had come from behind.
"It is, and no the queen isn't home." Michael looked distracted for a second. "Okay flight plan is refuel at Portsmouth then fly down to Tintagel." The engine noise rose as the chopper took off.
"Is there any chance we could circle Windsor, I never thought I'd get to see it,"
"I should be able to do that," the pilot said over the radio, Kat grinned hugely, and got her phone back out and put the camera on.
"My kids are never going to believe this," she said as the chopper took off, " flying in a helicopter over the Queen of England's House."
"Around, not over. No fly zone over certain Royal residences."
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