The Quest Saga Collection: Books 1 - 5

by Dhayaa Anbajagane

  Carlos’ face changed to that of pure delight. He had found ten cadets, unconscious, but they were all alive and safe. He realized that the blast he had heard was just a clap of thunder that had been caused by the Zeus’ storm. It was ironic that the device that caused all this destruction had actually helped him find what he was looking for.

  Now that he had found a few of his cadets, he focused on his next task. He needed to find shelter from this storm. That was when he realized the biggest problem with his rescue mission. How was he going to get to shelter while lugging around ten of his cadets? One kid might’ve been difficult, but ten was going to be utter madness.

  There was only one solution left. He really didn’t want to do it but dire situations called for dire measures. He tried to summon every last bit of life energy he had. He focused on the wind blowing past him and imaged bits and pieces coming together. He imagined his life force flow out of fingertips and wrap around sections of the wind and air. The wind swirled into vaguely humanoid forms that looked like several tornadoes put together.

  In front of Carlos stood ten golems of wind. “Pick those kids up and follow me,” he ordered and the golems did as they were told. They made the cadets hover over their tornado-shoulders and looked at him, anticipating his next orders.

  Carlos led them into the storm, hoping to find someplace to find solitude from all the disasters. He was deep in thought, wondering where to head, when he suddenly felt himself be lifted into the air. He turned his head around to see one of the golems holding him up. Carlos looked at it quizzically. What was it trying to do?

  He noticed the other golems look at a spot beneath him, and turned his attention to below him. A huge crevice lay in the surface and he had half-stepped into it in his ignorant state of mind. The golem had just prevented him from falling to his death.

  The crevice got Carlos extremely excited, “There it is!” he flailed about as the golem desperately tried to keep him in the air. “We need to go inside the crevice,” he commanded, still suspended in midair.

  The golems all jumped in one after the other. They grasped onto the inner walls and drove their wind-made fingers in like they were blades of steel. The tornado-beings slid smoothly all the way down to the bottom of the crevice. The last golem grabbed onto Carlos and jumped into the crevice along with the others. The drop was quite deep, around three hundred yards underground, but luckily, the floor was piled up with a thick layer of soft snow.

  Carlos hardly felt the fall thanks to the golem shielding him from most of the impact. He pulled himself up and looked around.

  Found it, he smiled. This was an underground tunnel-network that had been built as a safety system in case of an emergency. To be honest, he had never thought someone would actually use it.

  The tunnel was a complex set of routes, some intended for a wild goose chase and a few others with deadly traps set along the route. Since this was a safety bunker the builders had made sure that one would have to know the intricate routes to stay alive. Thankfully, Carlos had been involved in the actual building of the bunker so he knew his way around the deadly cavern.

  “This way,” he said.

  The golems carried the kids and followed him closely. Though Carlos was taking them on the safest route possible, the effect of the Zeus was messing with the whole network. The tunnels collapsed periodically, unstable from the tremendous force the weather was rendering on the surface. The golems spent most of their time clearing the pathways and protecting everyone from any sudden collapses.

  All the unpredictability made Carlos tense. The underground network didn’t seem like a safe place after all. With these many collapses, there was no doubt that one would eventually catch them off guard.

  “Just a little further,” he said and walked on.

  He remembered a small cave that had been linked to the network. That was one of the only natural sources of water down here. He still didn't know what they would do for food, but that wasn't his biggest worry. The Zeus took that spot.

  Carlos could see some light coming from the end of the tunnel. His mind worked overtime, and he considered all the possibilities. The tunnels weren't supposed to be illuminated. The light he was seeing meant there had to be someone else in there with them. Carlos hoped Jake hadn't sent his henchmen down the network to search for any Aliea Academy cadets.

  Then another terrifying thought occurred in Carlos’ mind. Jake, being Aliea Academy’s student president, probably knew all about the underground network, which meant he could maneuver just as well as Carlos, and the last thing Carlos wanted was to face off against Jake’s henchmen.

  The light came closer and closer. Carlos gestured to all the golems to stay still, and he slid up to the tunnel walls, ready to attack. A figure came into view. Carlos jumped in front and got ready to trade blows. Then he saw the face of his attacker.

  “Juliana?” Carlos exclaimed.

  “Commander Carlos,” the red-haired lady was just as surprised.

  “Are there any others with you?” he asked.

  She nodded her head, “We’ve managed to save most of them,” she said. “What about you? Were you able to find any cadets?”

  Carlos moved to the side to show her the ten golems and the cadets each one of them was carrying.

  She ran to them, “Are they alright?” she asked.

  “They’re all freezing and unconscious but don’t seem to be harmed otherwise.”

  “Let’s take them somewhere safe.”

  “I know this cave,” both of them said simultaneously.

  They stared at each other, “That’s interesting,” Juliana said, “I thought I was the only one who knew about the cave.”

  “I found the place when the underground network was being built,” Carlos said. “But when you become a Commander you can’t exactly go around exploring underground tunnels anymore.”

  “So we’ll take everyone to the cave?”

  “The faster the better,” he agreed.

  Juliana and Carlos led the cadets. All that went through Carlos’ mind the whole time was how Juliana knew about the cave. He was sure she hadn't been involved with the bunker’s development, and the ones who built it were the only other ones who knew the routes. Juliana knowing about the cave as well as the safe routes of the underground network made Carlos feel like he was missing something important.

  He figured he would worry about that later. All he had to focus on right now was getting the cadets to safety. For the next two hours he and Juliana didn't rest for a second until every cadet was inside the cave. The golems lay the cadets on the ground and then lined up around Carlos.

  “You may leave,” Carlos said. The golems slouched, their long windy hands swaying lifelessly at the floor, and their winds dissolved into the air, lost forever.

  “The cave looks beautiful no matter how many times you visit it,” Juliana walked up to him.

  Carlos nodded in agreement. He looked up at the cave wall, a dark shade of obsidian with patches of glittering gems, like a perfect replica of the night sky. To one side of the cave surface was a pond of crystal clear water, with a solitary pillar of black stone rising out from it.

  “I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve come here when I was angry,” Carlos chuckled.

  “Well, I don’t see anything better to do,” Juliana smiled.

  They heard loud noises coming from the tunnel that connected to mouth of the cave. A tall dark figure stood there, radiating a powerful aura that made tremors pass through everyone. Carlos could feel its presence twist his life force from inside.

  Something powerful had entered the cave.

  And their only way out was right through it.

  ***

  Elizabeth saw the clear dark skies and beautiful stars above her, their mesmerizing twinkle holding her sight, her eyes distracted only by a graceful shooting star sliding across the sky. And then it changed to a violent black. Beauty and calm were replaced by the intense rage of the wind and the deafe
ning sound of thunder.

  She felt the air rush past her as she fell to the ground. She had given up on thawing her wings out of the ice that had now enveloped them completely. She looked down to the surface but she couldn’t see anything. The storm blocked her vision. She tried flapping her wings but they swung sluggishly, as if she were moving in syrup. She hoped the wind would lift her up again but the speed she was dropping ruined the chance of that happening. She went straight down, hurtling to the surface like a meteor.

  A searing heat encompassed her body. Air friction, she thought,

  She felt the cold shrivel from her body. One second her wings were ice cold, the next they were soaked in water. The ice had melted from the heat generated through friction. She opened up her damp wings and caught the wing, gliding onto the surface and tumbling into the snow.

  She picked herself up and dusted the snow off. Back on the surface the weather was just as harsh. The snow and wind pierced her skin as she desperately searched for a place to stay safe.

  She tried piling some snow up to create a snow fort of sorts but the high speed winds put everything into a toss. The thought of a barrier had given her new ideas though. She opened up her wings to act as a temporary barrier and chanted a spell behind the safety of her outstretched feathers.

  Elizabeth was a special sort of Cadet. She was a cadet in her NOVA stage. NOVA stage cadets had much larger life energy reservoirs than regular cadets, and so they could completely master a certain Elementa and manipulate it to whatever extent they wished. Elizabeth practiced the Elementa of Earth, one of the more advanced Elementa out there.

  She transferred her life energy into her fist, every drop and trickle flowing into her fingers. She punched hard into the ground. On solid ground, a punch like that would bring up a stone wall of sorts and help protect her from the barrage of ice, which was what she was hoping for.

  But as it always happens, instead of a stone wall appearing, the ground beneath her collapsed. A fissure opened up where Elizabeth was standing and she fell through even before she could extend her wings.

  The drop wasn’t too harsh and she landed unscathed. She picked herself up and saw that she was in an underground tunnel. She walked carefully through the darkness, her fingers brushing along the stone walls, her mind wary to any sudden attacks.

  A patch of mud fell on her hair and she felt the tunnel vibrate in an unstable state. The tremors increased in intensity, causing more piles of sand to fall from the ceiling. She knew what was causing this. The Zeus Bomb. It seemed to have become much stronger as time went by. She wondered if it was close to becoming strong enough to wipe out Aliea. Right now, she had a bigger problem though.

  She had to get to safety else she was going to be right in the middle of a collapsing tunnel, and that wouldn't be a pretty sight. She closed her mind and focused on the ground. A green aura emerged from her and sank into the mud. She kept going at it for a few seconds until the aura re-emerged and flowed back into her.

  “I got it,” she said excitedly.

  She had sent parts of her life force to explore the tunnel and use that information to construct a map of this place. It was a handy trick that she’d learned from observing Q’s Q-maps. It followed the same technique. It was just that Elizabeth’s version was much weaker, so she couldn’t scan too large an area.

  She used her map and found a more stable network of tunnels towards the east. She headed towards it at top speed, making sure she put in as much distance as possible between her and the weaker tunnel system. A few minutes into her run she heard voices coming from afar. She charged in that direction without thinking twice about whether it was friend or foe. She was so excited about the prospect of meeting another person that she didn't notice the ditch of wet sand in front of her and fell straight into it.

  A layer of black mud caked her but she still pushed on, the presence of other voices pushing all her worries out of her. She ended up at a cave, which was probably where the voices had come from. She walked into it, hoping to see a bunch of familiar faces. Friend or foe she didn't know.

  “It’s a monster!” screeched a voice.

  “Where?” Elizabeth exclaimed, spreading out her wings and going into a low battle-stance.

  “Elizabeth?” said a voice. Elizabeth looked to her right to see Juliana and Carlos run towards her, their faces bright and shining.

  “Thank god,” Carlos said.

  “What are you people doing here?” Elizabeth said, utterly confused.

  “We needed shelter from the storm,” Juliana said.

  Carlos squinted, “I have to say though, the cadets seem like they’ve all been beat up. I wonder if the storm wore them down.”

  “Ha, ha, ha,” Elizabeth laughed nervously, “Maybe the situation just got to them.”

  She recognized those cadets’ faces. Those were the people she had dueled against for the sake of training. They were all beat up because she had actually beat them up, not because of the storm.

  “That must be it,” Carlos said in a monotone, his mind clearly focused on other things.

  “Do you know where Q is?” Elizabeth asked.

  “We’ve got a lot to catch up on,” he said. He told her about Q’s departure to find the Lambda Driver in the Anti-verse and Elizabeth told him of Taylor’s escapade to go and get help from the Dark knights.

  “We cannot depend on the Dark Knights for now,” Carlos said. “We’ve got to find our own way out if we have any hope of taking back Aliea.”

  “So what’s our plan of action for now?” Elizabeth asked him.

  Carlos shook his head, “We’ve got nothing,” he said. “Let me just rest for a while.”

  Elizabeth noticed how terrible he looked. His eyes were red from the lack of sleep. His skin was bruised from the rough weather. His arms and legs hung limp from his body, He had definitely had a pretty rough time. She and Juliana weren’t exactly beauty queens either. They all had their share of scars the storm had inflicted on them.

  The entire cave started to vibrate. A minor tremor hit them, and then slowly increased in intensity. Huge blasts sounded from above, causing even larger vibrations. The noises were coming from the surface. The tremors made the pond’s water jump high into the air. The half-asleep cadets bunched around close to each other, scared and timid.

  “This way,” Juliana led them out of the cave. There was no question that the cave would start imploding. Elizabeth’s biggest worry here was finding out what had caused the tremors.

  “What’s going on?” she asked Carlos.

  The Commander looked grim, “The Zeus has shifted into stage two,” his voice became deathly silent. “Poseidon. The Bringer of Earthquakes. The Destroyer of Continents.”

  ***

  2-3

  Taylor looked outside the window of the castle that held her captive. The scenery had unsurprisingly not changed. Black rocks and gray ash spread for as far as the eye could see, simple and bland. She chuckled to herself. She had been given all the privileges fit for a queen, except one.

  Freedom.

  Just why does Andrea have to keep me here? she wondered. A shadow fell across the floor. She looked around, but there was no one other than her. She rushed to the window and looked out, there wasn’t anything in sight.

  “Looking for me?” a voice asked. A voice that Taylor found very familiar. She turned around. It was Ruby! She hugged Ruby, barely getting her arms around the griffin’s thick neck.

  “Am I glad to see you,” Taylor smiled.

  “Have things been that bad?” Ruby asked teasingly.

  “How on Earth did you get here?”

  “I was on the Orion the whole time. Got here all the way from Aliea.”

  “Is that a griffin?” A few Knights rushed through the corridor, and assumed battle position.

  “What are you doing?” Taylor asked.

  “Stay away from it, Taylor, it’ll hurt you,” one of them said.

  Taylor glared at them. She was really a
ngry with this whole Dark Knights set up. First they capture her, then they imprison her, then they tell her to stay away from Ruby.

  “What’s wrong with griffins?” she asked.

  “What do you mean what’s wrong with them? Griffins are the enemy, they’re the White Knight’s steed!”

  “Yeah so? Just because a few griffins are on the enemy’s side doesn't mean the Griffin race is our enemy.”

  The Knights backed down a bit. She gave them a nasty glare and they all walked away.

  “Tough crowd,” Ruby said.

  “They’re all Dark Knights too but sometimes they can act so….so…”

  “Cruel,” Ruby helped.

  “No.”

  “Irritating.”

  “No.”

  “Insensitive.”

  “Yeah,” Taylor’s face was red with frustration and anger.

  “My, my,” Razy walked up to her. “What have we here?”

  She sighed. Just what I needed, she thought. She hated Razy to the core. His red, spiky hair was blaring and chaotic, just like he was. He was a merciless killer who didn't care about how ethical he was. He was called the ‘Red Devil’ for his habit of hacking down the enemy without any emotion.

  And true to his name the Red Devil threw her a sword, a wicked grin on his face. “If you’re protecting the griffin, then do it properly,” he said.

  “Fine,” she grasped the sword by its hilt.

  Razy looked at her as though he had already won the battle. She positioned herself and charged, her sword pointed right at him. It was probably a hilarious sight to the spectators, a girl in a silk dress charging a guy in battle-armor.

  Razy’s face froze with that condescending look of his, the one Taylor wanted to beat out of him. She picked up speed, trying to gain as much force as she could. At the very last moment Razy tried dodging to the left, but Taylor noticed it immediately. She switched her sword to her left hand and slashed at him.