ConQuest (The Quest Saga)

by Dhayaa Anbajagane

Kristin threw a sword at Q. It was about half the size of his and tens of times lamer.

  “I do not like unfair fights,” he said.

  Kristin pushed his sword into the ground and the ground around his feet split apart.

  “He can’t kill me, right?” Q asked nervously.

  Kristin laughed madly. He pulled his sword from the ground and charged at Q. He swung hard at Q.

  Q had to put all his concentration into just blocking the blows.

  “Impressive. You’re defense is impeccable, but I shall win no matter,” Kristin said.

  “Yeah. Yeah. Just stop talking, will you?” Q countered.

  Immediately Q jabbed his sword reflexively. He had no idea why.

  Kristin yelped and fell down; catching his sides.

  There was a deep cut a little above his hip. Q stared at Kristin. He had maimed Kristin. Q started feeling lightheaded. Looking at the blood was making his head spin.

  He felt someone catching him just as he slumped.

  “C'mon now, you’re all right.” It was Taylor.

  “That was amazing!” A few more students surrounded Q.

  Q was back on his feet now. He smiled a bit. Then he went over to Kristin and gave him his hand. Kristin stared at it for a while.

  “Very well, as the gentleman I am, I shall accept your help” he said and took his hand. Medics came over and helped Kristin.

  “We shall have another battle someday. And that time I shall win! Do not forget the words of Kristin!” he called out as he was being carried away.

  “He would’ve made a great actor,” Q laughed.

  “I still can’t believe that you actually won!” Taylor said.

  “Me neither. I still don’t know how I was able to do that to him.”

  “It’s just like your force fields. It comes to you naturally. I’m going to have to discuss this with Carlos.”

  “Discuss? It isn’t serious or anything is it?”

  “No no. On the contrary it is quite fascinating. A newbie like you will usually take years to perfect sword fighting. Force fields are impossible. There is something about you that is different. I just need to know what.”

  Q was getting a little freaked out now. Just when he was starting to fall in place at the academy, Taylor was banishing him to the ‘He’s not normal’ group, a group that he was a lifelong member of; so far.

  “You wanna go grab a bite to eat?” she asked him.

  “No. I already ate. You go on ahead. I’ll watch the other fights.”

  “Okay then,” she said and left.

  Q walked up to a seat and sat down. A guy came over to him.

  “What you did was totally amazing! Could you teach me sometime?” he asked Q.

  Q was stunned. “Umm.... sure,” he said, feeling extremely awkward.

  What is wrong with everybody? Win one match and they all start to follow you like you’re a god or something, Q thought.

  But knowing the importance that those kids gave to fighting, their actions were probably justified.

  The next few fights went by quickly. In an hour or so the whole class had finished duelling.

  “We shall now start the ‘Battle of Heroes’,” announced Juliana. “On Kristin’s request, Q has been made the hero of class Q in place of Kristin.”

  Everyone cheered. Q smiled. Kristin did have a good side to him after all.

  “We request all the representatives from each class to line up on the arena.”

  The doors of the stadium thundered open. Three heavily built teens walked slowly towards the centre. Another two flew in, landing on the arena.

  Q stared in awe. There was no mistake. These were the representatives of the other classes.

  They stood in line. Q joined them. All the guys next to him were significantly taller and much, much stronger. The two people who flew in had a helmet over their faces. They didn't seem to be very strong.

  A hovercraft stormed into the stadium. A man wearing a black military suit drove the hovercraft while a man in a green military uniform stood up on his seat, his hand on the windshield to give him support.

  He got down and stood in front of Q. He was a short burly man with a long brown moustache and a beard. He was Yosemite Sam only that his hair was brown instead of red.

  “Listen up! I want this tournament to go smoothly. Any dirty business happening you’re gonna have to take it up with me. The academy’s director will be here to view your fight; so don’t hold back.”

  “Yes, sir!” They all saluted and Q followed suit.

  “First match, Q vs Khan,” Juliana announced.

  “Why do I always have to be in the first match?” Q complained.

  “Wait a minute…” He remembered something that Taylor told him. Something about Khan being the best in the academy.

  Not good.

  Q got into the arena. He saw a huge guy getting in from the other side. He reminded Q of the guys on his football team.

  Khan cracked his knuckles and flexed his neck from side to side. “You ready?” he asked, his voice extremely deep.

  Q felt shivers all across his body. Kristin may have been tough, but to Q it seemed like he would’ve been the wimp of this lot.

  Another hovercraft entered the arena.

  “Who is it now?” Q wondered. These surprise entrances were really getting tiresome.

  “Please welcome Director Tomoya Kazashino to the stadium,” Juliana announced.

  All the kids cheered and applauded.

  After the director went to his seat and sat down, Juliana gave the signal to start the duel.

  Khan immediately jumped into the air. He would’ve been about thirty to forty feet in the air while Q was standing frozen wondering how Khan had jumped so high.

  When Q realized Khan was coming at him he jumped out of the way. The ground where Q had been standing exploded.

  At least Q thought it was an explosion. It turned out that it wasn’t an explosion but just the force of Khan hitting the ground. Q’s brain was telling him to run away immediately, something that was impossible during a duel.

  He couldn’t defeat Khan; he was too weak. He couldn't run away from him; he was too slow. But if he didn’t do either of the two, he’ll die.

  Khan got up again. He eyed Q like he was hunting a deer. Q could almost feel Khan’s eyes piercing him.

  Khan charged, a tail wind blowing behind him. Q could hear loud thuds. He assumed that they were Khan’s footsteps, which wasn’t good news for him.

  When the dust cleared, there stood a fifty-foot tall.... Q didn’t know how to describe it. It seemed to be a humanoid but it radiated a dark aura. It roared fiercely, which was weird since it didn’t have anything that could be called a mouth.

  Khan screamed in pain. The being was crushing him in its hand. Q was really scared. He’d thought that Khan was tough but this monster was a +10 on the ‘things Q couldn’t defeat’ scale.

  Q was getting irritated about duelling one dangerous foe after the next. Each multiplicatively stronger than the last.

  The humanoid glanced around the arena. Once again, Q wondered what it was using to see, since it didn’t have any distinguishable eyes.

  It did have some sense of vision since it was able to lock its sight onto Q and advance towards him.

  Q’s legs froze. Terror seized him up from inside. Questions racked his mind. What did this beast want?

  It moved its hand all the way back and threw something. Whatever it was, it crashed on the ground a few feet from Q. In the dirt that was kicked up, Q could see a human form approaching him. When the dust cleared, he saw what it was.

  It was Khan.

  No. It wasn’t exactly Khan. It was Khan’s body but there was a dark air about him. It was almost as if the beast was controlling him. Whether or not this was true was for Q to find out, though he’d prefer a painless method.

  Q threw his sword at Khan. It bounced off him as if it was made of rubber.

  “Move!” yelled a voice
. It had come from above. Q looked up. It was a girl. She was in a jetpack and was descending fast. Her descent caused the sand on the battlefield to swirl up for the umpteenth time.

  Q moved out of the way. She landed perfectly and pulled out a gun from her suit.

  Khan charged out of the dust and rammed into the girl. Her helmet cracked open and luscious brown hair flowed out of it.

  Q’s mind immediately placed the picture. The girl’s hair looked exactly like the intruder’s hair!

  But Q’s mind tried to reason with this. If she was the intruder who wanted to kill him or just harm him, wouldn’t not helping him right now be a better solution?

  Q decided to just leave it for now and let the girl help him. Meanwhile, the girl was shooting at Khan with her gun. The laser beams it emitted seemed to be doing some damage though Q had a hunch that Khan didn't feel them at all.

  “I didn’t want to do this but you forced me to,” she said and started chanting that Q figured to be a spell of some sort.

  Her armor retracted from her body and turned into a full-length cannon that attached to her arm.

  “Buh-bye,” she said.

  “Wait…,” Q shouted. They couldn’t kill Khan, there had to be another way. But it was of no use; the cannon had already been fired. A huge beam of blue light hit Khan. There was no way anyone could survive that.

  Roommate

  When the smoke cleared, Khan just stood there! The dark aura slowly retracted until there was none left.

  Q looked at the girl. She had shot the cannon all right, but not at Khan. She had pierced the dark being. The only remains of the monster was the smoke rising from the spot where it had stood.

  The girl turned to Q. “Seriously, what did you think you were doing?” she asked.

  “Haven’t I seen you before?” Q challenged her, his eyes showing his suspicious intent.

  “What are you talking about?” she said. “I’ve never met you before.”

  “Then why did you come to help?”

  “Hello?!” she pointed to her badge. ‘Front-line Aerial commander’ it said.

  “Oh” Q said, sheepishly. He had to admit it made sense, but he couldn’t shake the fact that the girl seemed just like the intruder he’d seen in the tech lab.

  “I’m Elizabeth, by the way. What’s your name?” Her brown eyes intimidated him.

  “Q!” Taylor ran into the field.

  “So you’re Q.” She turned to Taylor. “Who is that? Your girlfriend?”

  His sharp “No!” came out shrilly.

  “My! My! Aren’t we sensitive” Elizabeth tried not to laugh.

  Taylor grabbed Q by his shoulders. “Are you okay?”

  “Taylor, I’m fine,” Q said, adding a little bit of attitude in his voice to let her know he didn’t like being treated like a kid.

  “Thank God!” she said. “What was that thing?” she turned to Elizabeth.

  “I have no idea, but it was up to no good,” she said.

  “How did it even get inside the academy?” Q asked. He’d heard that the academy had a blockade against enemies.

  “That’s what I’d like to know,” boomed a voice. It was the director.

  He turned to Elizabeth. “You did well, kid. Good job.”

  “Thank you, sir,” Elizabeth saluted him.

  He turned to the other ‘Battle of Heroes’ contesters.

  “I’m disappointed that you did not even think of helping these kids out in the battle. Report to my office first thing tomorrow,” he said and got into a hovercraft that had barged into the arena.

  “Someone, take this boy to the infirmary!” Juliana barked instructions. She was on the battlefield trying hard to lift Khan.

  He was knocked out cold. Q hoped he’d be okay. Being possessed didn’t seem like a thing one could easily recover from; especially psychologically. At least that’s what he’d seen in books and movies.

  “I’m going back to the dorm,” Taylor announced.

  “Wait for me,” Q said as he ran to catch up with her.

  They were walking along when Taylor suddenly asked him to look behind them.

  Q did so. Elizabeth was following them.

  “What’s she doing?” Q asked her.

  “I don’t know but we’d better be on guard.”

  Elizabeth followed them all the way to the Atom block. They went to the elevator only to be followed by Elizabeth again.

  “You live in the same block?” Q asked and she nodded.

  They got into the elevator and Q entered ‘22’ and waited for Elizabeth to enter her floor number but she didn’t move an inch. He assumed that she was at a higher floor and would enter the number after they got off.

  The door opened and Elizabeth got out first. Q and Taylor followed her out. Q looked at Taylor quizzically.

  “What are you guys doing?” Elizabeth asked them.

  “You know, I should be asking you the same question,” Taylor said.

  “I’m just going to my room,” she said and opened the door. She went in and they followed her.

  Taylor stared at her. “This is our room!” She sounded emphatic.

  “Oh, so you live together!”

  “Yes! No! Yes! But that’s not the point!”

  “Well they told me I was being moved to room 22 in the Atom block,” Elizabeth continued.

  “When did they tell you this?” Taylor asked her.

  “Yesterday morning, but I was able to move only today.”

  “Wait. You’re the new girl aren’t you? The one who picked a fight with Khan earlier?” Taylor asked.

  “Word spreads around fast, huh?”

  “You kind of knocked me out you know,” Q said.

  “You stood there like an idiot,” Taylor reminded him.

  “Same thing,” Q mumbled.

  “This is our room and I’ll prove it to you.” Taylor changed the topic.

  “Come on up,” Taylor called Elizabeth and showed her everything. The clothes in the closet, the magazines she had read. It clearly showed that Q and Taylor stayed there.

  The Archie comics and chocolate did at least. Elizabeth made a mental note to ask Taylor later where she got the chocolates from.

  “I guess I’ll just have to stay with you then,” she told them.

  Q felt a shiver go up his spine. Something told him that Elizabeth moving in wasn’t going to be good.

  He couldn’t shake the feeling that she was the intruder he’d seen. It wasn’t exactly comforting to have an expert of knives living with you, unless you needed to cook something.

  “Fine,” he said. What else could he do?

  “You can’t just let her stay,” protested Taylor.

  He turned to Elizabeth. “Would you have left if I had said ‘no’?”

  “Of course not!” She was excited at the new outcome.

  “See?” Q told Taylor. They just had to put up with her.

  “Fine, you can stay,” Taylor grumbled.

  “It wasn’t your decision in the first place,” Elizabeth said.

  “I’d watch my mouth if I were you, Barbie. We’re under the same roof now.”

  Q got in between them and broke it off before they could start hurting each other.

  After another few arguments on general rules (you wouldn’t want to know) they went to sleep.

  Q was still wide awake when he heard someone knock on the door. He went down and opened it.

  It was Kai! He was in tattered clothes and looked like he’d had a rough time.

  Elizabeth and Taylor came down as well.

  “Where were you?” Q asked Kai.

  “Moon base. It’s a long story. I’ll tell you later.”

  “Who is it, Q?” Taylor asked.

  “Hi, Taylor,” Kai greeted. “And who do we have here?” He looked at Elizabeth.

  “That’s Elizabeth.” Q said. “Elizabeth-Kai, Kai-Elizabeth,” he said introducing them to each other.

  “So what did you want to say?” Q asked
him, reminding Kai why he was there.

  “Carlos wants to talk to you, he says it’s urgent.” He looked worried again.

  Q knew one thing for sure. If Carlos was calling someone up in the middle of the night then it had to be serious.

  “I’ll come too,” Taylor said.

  “Don’t forget me,” Elizabeth said.

  “Let’s go,” Kai said and took Q forward while the girls followed them.

  He led them to a large metal door.

  “We’re here,” Kai said.

  They walked into the room.

  “Hello, Q” Carlos said.

  “Carlos! Where have you been all this time,” Q queried.

  “Forget about that. Right now, what matters is that the universe needs your help, Q,” he said, his face dead serious.

  Q burst out laughing. “And why is it me?”

  Carlos looked like he had aged 10 years right there.

  “Because you’re the only hope we’ve got.”

  The Dark Knight

  Everyone stared at Carlos. The guy had never been this serious his entire life. If what he said was anywhere close to being true…….

  “Q, we need your help. You may not know what you’re capable of but I do,” Carlos stated.

  “Trust him, Q,” Taylor said.

  Though it seemed to be a big joke, Q decided to go along with it for the time being.

  “So just me? All alone? What am I even supposed to do?”

  Taylor put her hand on his shoulder. “Just what do you think friends are for?” she grinned.

  “There’s no way you’re going without me,” Elizabeth said.

  Q didn’t get what her motive was. He’d met her only a day ago; so she wasn’t exactly best friend material but he figured the more the merrier.

  “It’s decided then. Kai has got a ship to take you.”

  “Hold on!” Q said. Everyone turned to him.

  “You still haven’t told us why you went to moon base.”

  “That was just to get your new ship,” Carlos replied.

  “Better hurry. The Orion is waiting for you,” he added.

  “Orion?” Taylor asked.

  Kai just grinned broadly. “C’mon I’ll show you.”

  All of them left. Q was completely confused. He didn’t know what to do, where to go, nothing! Carlos called him just as he was about to leave the door.