“WHAT?!” Q asked. “What do you mean I killed Albion? It was your damn clone that did it. Take responsibility for it!” He brought down his arms and a bolt of lightning hit the floor, causing a shockwave and making Levi’s knight squad collapse.
“What in the hell are you talking about?” Levi yelled. “What clone?”
“That one!” Q pointed to the giant White Knight approaching him slowly.
“Stop toying with me!” Levi shaped his water into spears and shot them at Q, each one cracking his shield bit by bit.
What’s going on? Q wondered, completely shocked. Why is Levi denying what he did?
“Boys, boys, boys,” a voice echoed through the corridor. A dark haze formed between Levi and Q, and the Masked Magician stepped out, dressed in his white suit and gloves.
Q clenched his teeth, realizing he was hopelessly outmatched at the moment.
“My dear sorcerer,” he looked at Q. “You’re right. The clone did kill Albion, but Levi wasn’t the one who made him do it.” A wicked smile flashed onto his face. “I did.”
***
I expected as much, Q cursed. A conflict within their ranks.
“What?” Levi stared at the Masked Magician, at a loss for words. “What clones are you talking about?”
Zelph, how far into the mainframe are you? Q asked.
“This is going to take a while longer,” he said. “Plus, I said it would take ten minutes at least and it’s only been two minutes so far.”
“Answer me!” Levi yelled, shifting Q’s concentration away from the AI.
The Masked Magician flicked his wrist and Levi collapsed to the floor, struggling under some invisible force. Q himself could feel a subdued version of the force over him, threatening to crush him if he made the wrong move.
Q looked at Loreas, who was glancing around the corridor, probably looking for some way to escape. He looked at the clone, who had stopped still in his tracks the moment the Masked Magician had appeared.
There’s no use, he cursed. The Masked Magician was never going to let them get away.
“Now Levi,” the Masked Magician put his foot on Levi’s head. “Know your place,” he growled, his voice turning powerful for just an instant. He thrust his hand out and the clone disappeared from behind Q, only to reappear next to the Magician.
“This, is Bob,” the Magician pointed to the clone.
What the hell? Q squinted.
“This guy has good taste in names,” Zelph laughed.
“Bob is one person in the vast clone army I created,” he said. “But Bob here is special. He killed Albion all by himself.”
Levi looked disgusted. “And to think I trusted you,”
“Now, now,” the Masked Magician said. “You don’t have the right to get all sentimental on me.”
“Oh yeah?” he asked, his eyes glaring at him.
The Masked Magician sighed. “What ever will I do with you?” he asked and threw his hand into the air. The floor turned deep black and a dark haze rose from it, surrounding and suffocating everyone within.
“I was just kidding,” the Magician laughed wildly. “I know exactly what I’m going to do.”
***
Q opened his eyes, and saw a welcome whiteness in front of him. He turned around and saw Levi, dressed in white robes.
“It seems we’ve been put together,” he said, an awkward smile on his face.
Q immediately backed away, receding to the furthest corner of the room. He looked around, and felt a force field beyond the walls.
A force field prison, he realized. One of the most secure prisons ever.
Zelph? Q called out, but nothing happened.
“Zelph?” he mumbled quietly, hoping words would work better than thoughts.
Still nothing.
Q panicked. What’s going on? Where did Zelph go?
“You don’t have to be wary around me,” Levi chuckled. “Don’t worry, I won’t do anything.”
“Yeah, sure,” Q smirked. “Like I’d ever believe that.”
“If the Masked Magician goes rogue don’t you think I’d need everyone’s help to stop him?”
Q remained silent.
“I can’t believe he created all those clones,” Levi sighed and sat down, his back to the wall of what Q realized, was their cell.
Q sat down as well, still not comfortable being in the same place as Levi.
Levi turned to him. “You were on my ship for a while weren’t you?” he asked. “Did you know about these clones?”
All that did was remind Q of Taylor, and all that did was remind him of how Levi had manipulated every single one of his friends.
“I’m not telling you a damn thing,” he spat.
“Now, now, don’t be like that, Q,” Levi chuckled.
“I don’t want to talk to a man who annihilated a hundred planets for no reason.”
“Ah,” he paused. “That was Albion’s order, not mine. And all those planets were barren, by the way. I was the one who made sure of that.”
“Sure, like I’m going to believe that.”
“Are our differences far too vast for us to sit and calmly talk together?”
“You’re crazy,” he mumbled.
Levi laughed. “The Masked Magician is far crazier than I am.”
“Yeah? You’re an idiot for resurrecting him.”
“I did not resurrect him,” he said. “He resurrected himself.”
“What?” Q asked. “You’re crazy.”
“Maybe,” he smiled. “Maybe I am.”
“You know, for an old man you sure do have a really brattish attitude.”
Levi shot him a look of surprise and shock.
I shouldn’t have let that slip out, Q clasped his mouth shut.
“So you know,” Levi’s expression turned more relaxed. “I’m not too surprised. Who told you? Loreas?”
“Loreas?” Q asked, trying to feign ignorance. He didn’t know what Levi would do if he gave away his personal connections.
“Don’t do that,” Levi sighed. “I have known Loreas for a long time.”
“Oh sure you have,” Q said sarcastically, trying to see how hard he could push Levi. If it ever came to a battle he knew he could always win.
Levi grinned at him. “You have much to know about me, sorcerer,” he said. “I see Loreas did not tell you everything.”
“What?”
“I was Periel’s teacher.”
Q stared at Levi, his face frozen still. “Don’t go kidding around like that,” he muttered.
“Ask your grandfather if you want.”
He knows too much about me, Q tensed.
“Your mother was the best student I ever had,” Levi said. “She could have learned your Elementa of Light if she had been more ambitious. But she always preferred to have lesser power than she could.”
Q felt a bit soothed to hear something about his mother, even though it was from Levi.
“It is sad how her legacy ended,” he sighed. “I always thought the nobles were the vicious, scheming kind.”
Q scoffed. “And yet you support Albion, the very man who killed my mother?” he asked skeptically.
“Sometimes you do what you have to, just so you can get by.”
A sudden thought sprang into Q’s head. “How’s the Quantum Array doing?” he asked.
Levi jerked, as though he were shocked at the question. “I...no longer work with them.”
“This a recent change?” Q asked.
“Maybe,” he said. “Maybe not.”
“Sure,” Q smiled, realizing that he was having a humane, civilized conversation with the man who was his worst enemy.
What are you doing you idiot? A voice in his mind told him. This is the man who turned Taylor against you!
Q lay back and looked up at the white ceiling. I need to save Taylor from her prison, not kill the man who put here there, he calmed himself down, locking his emotions down like before.
The floor below t
hem suddenly folded out and they tumbled down onto a hard metal surface underneath. Q picked himself up and looked around. Loreas stood right next to him, a fire torch in his hand, a smile on his face.
“Hello, young one,” he said.
“Just how many pathways do you have?!” Q ran into his arms.
“You are lucky,” he said. “That cell you were in was the only one I had a pathway to. It would have been endgame if you weren’t in this cell.”
“Ah, Loreas,” Levi walked towards him.
“Master Levi,” Loreas bowed. “It has been a while.”
“Master?” Q asked.
“Ah, I may have forgotten to mention,” Loreas said. “Master Levi was my teacher.”
Q stared at the brown-haired young boy in front of him. “Just how old are you?!” he asked.
“The truth with shock you,” he smiled and turned to Loreas. “How does it go up there?”
“Everything is calm, master,” he said. “No attacks or announcements from the Masked Magician.”
“That’s odd,” Levi raised an eyebrow.
“Odder things have happened,” the old man smiled.
“True,” he sighed.
Loreas led them around the tunnel, but instead of leading them to another safety house like he had done before, this time it was some sort of an underground chamber.
It was a square room about ten times as wide as the tunnel, and just as long. A few other tunnels headed in and out of the chamber. It was almost as though the room was the hub of this underground network.
“Ah, this brings back memories,” Levi said, a smile on his face.
Stop acting so damn human, Q clenched his fists. He was finding it more and more difficult to place this Levi next to the crazy-mad person he always dealt with.
“It is amazing how this still lasts today,” Loreas said.
“Yes,” Levi smiled.
“Okay, can we, like, get to business?” Q asked, trying to act annoyed.
“I apologize,” Levi said. “At the moment, I am unsure of what the Masked Magician plans to do. He has not left around any clues as to what his plans are.”
“So basically you have no idea what he’s planning,” Q said.
“Yes.”
“So we have no idea what he’s doing. None of us can actually beat him.”
“Well, that’s not entirely true,” he said. “None of us alone can beat him.”
Q heard steps come from one of the tunnels. Loreas stood up, a bit surprised.
Three people emerged from the darkness.
Taylor, Chris and Kai.
***
What should I do? Q wondered, ready to burst into tears.
Before him were the three people he loved the most, the three people who had been completely broken and turned into weapons. Next to him was the man who had done it all, who had done everything without a hint of sympathy.
And yet, Q couldn’t do anything. He couldn’t think of summoning his powers and killing Levi, he couldn’t think of vengeance, or revenge. He couldn’t think of any of those things.
Levi was the last ticket they had to defeating the Masked Magician, and Q knew that if they let him go, they might never overpower the Masked Magician. As much as he wanted to hurl Levi onto the walls, he knew he wasn’t in a situation where he could do that.
You can do that later, Q told himself, desperately trying to calm himself down, desperately trying to lock his emotions even deeper inside.
“Ah, my back up is here,” Levi said casually, his humane side slowly waning in Q eyes.
Chris, Kai and Taylor assembled in front of him, all three of them dressed in white armor. Their eyes were dull as usual, and their faces were blank, void of emotion.
Levi turned to them. “This is the only way we can beat the Masked Magician,” he said. “I know you hate this, and that you want to punch the lights out of me. But that will have to wait until later, when the Masked Magician is gone.”
Q crunched his knuckles. “Thank you for being so understanding,” he spat.
“Now,” Levi said. “Our best weapon at the moment is the element of surprise. And for that we need to get into the palace using these passages. The Masked Magician will not think either of us could escape the force field prison, and I know for a fact that the systems don’t monitor the prisoners visually or with bio sensors. At the moment he’ll still think we’re inside his prison.”
The wall above them crunched, and flew up into the air. Streams of debris and dust fell down as the ceiling disappeared.
The Masked Magician looked down at them, a smile on his face. “Did someone call for me?” he laughed.
***
Q’s vision changed the moment the ceiling broke off.
“BOSS!” Zelph yelled.
Thank god, Q thought. No time for reunions. Get me a full analysis on that guy.
The Masked Magician looked at them. “Well, it’s no fun if you’re down there,” he said.
A haze immediately washed over them, covering them in a second, and taking even less time to wash away. When it disappeared they were back in the palace, in a large white room that was completely empty.
“This is the practice chamber,” Levi muttered.
The Masked Magician appeared before them. “It is so nice to meet you all again,” he said. “Hello there Levi,” he smiled. “Thank you for all your help. That serum you made worked wonders on all my clones.”
“You used my serum?” Levi asked, his eyes wide.
“Of course, your serum was the reason this batch of clones finally came out as a success. Thank you for that.”
“What do you want from us?” Q clenched his fists. A heavy force immediately pushed him straight to the ground.
“You don’t get to ask me any questions,” the Magician said and walked closer to Levi. The green-eyed devil held his ground, staring right at the Masked Magician’s mask.
“Oh?” the Magician said. “That look in your eyes,” he thrust his hand out, and Levi flew right into the walls. “It makes me want to crush you to dust.”
Taylor, Chris and Kai attacked the Masked Magician.
“No! Don’t do it!” Q yelled, but they weren’t in a state where they would listen to him.
Taylor glowed in a dark flame and burst through the air like a missile, ramming into the Masked Magician and sending him flying forty feet into the air. Kai made a massive hammer from the metal on the floor and rammed the Masked Magician into the ground. Chris summoned a violent twister around him, suffocating him.
Q could see the Masked Magician began to flail a little. “They’re actually beating him,” he whispered, surprised.
“Just kidding,” he heard a voice echo. The Masked Magician swiped his arm to the side and all three of them flew, ramming into the corners of the room, creating craters where they landed.
“No,” Q gasped, struggling hard against the pressure above him.
“Boss, I’ve got it,” Zelph said. A target appeared on the Masked Magician, right on his mask.
“His mask?” Q muttered, finding it hard to breathe.
“High energy concentration over there,” he said. “It seems like he needs that to channel his powers.”
“Good,” Q smiled. “Finally, a weakness.”
Suddenly, Q felt a soft sensation against his waist. Valkyrie vibrated in its sheath, its gentle humming coursing through his presence. He reached out and pulled the sword out from under his cloak, tightly gripping it by its hilt.
Q summoned every last bit of energy that he could and shot it straight into his body. He fought against the pressure above him and stood up, his body invigorated with a renewed energy.
“Oh?” the Masked Magician turned to him.
Q shot forward, sending a tailwind behind him. The Masked Magician stood still, unable to react that fast. Q grabbed Valkyrie and swung hard at the mask.
He slid across the floor, turning around as he came to a stop. The Masked Magician lay kneeling in
front of him, his hands covering his face, his body shivering violently. Suddenly, a dark glow covered him, and exploded into the room.
Laughter filled Q’s ears. Pure, evil laughter. Laughter that slithered into his mind and unraveled his worst nightmares.
What’s going on? he panicked, trying to fight against the fear he felt.
An immense power summoned itself next to him, a presence that felt like it could drive him crazy, a presence that made him want to hide forever.
“You fool. That mask was not my source of power,” a voice boomed all around the darkness. “It was my seal.”
The darkness disappeared, revealing the white room once more. The Masked Magician appeared before him, no longer in a mask and suit. He was now a dark humanoid made from nothing but a glowing black haze, as though black light had condensed into solid form. He looked at Q with his blood-red eyes, eyes that looked like they could frighten death itself.
“Just what are you?” Q asked, his voice frightened to a whisper, his entire existence wanting to run away from this thing.
The Magician smiled. “Did you know there were six energy beings?”
***
5-1
The sixth energy being, Q’s eyes widened.
He froze in shock, his mind unprepared to handle this situation, the chains around his emotions breaking one by one. The Masked Magician, now in his energy being form, drifted closer to him.
“Shocked, I see?” he said, his voice raspy and booming at the same time.
Q put up his shields, trying to keep his eyes and mind focused on the man in front of him. He knew that even a small slip up could cost him everything.
“Oh, don’t be so tense,” the Magician said and disappeared from the spot. His shadowy figure darted around the room, appearing as nothing but an afterimage. Q struggled to keep up, trying to concentrate on where he was. Zelph tried to help him, but even an AI couldn’t fathom this being’s blazing fast movements.
Suddenly, the shadow lunged into Q. Q automatically activated an energy suit around him just as the Magician charged into him but he couldn’t stop the sheer power in the attack. He flew through the air and crashed into the walls, breaking through them and falling into the corridor on the other side.
The Quest Saga Collection: Books 1 - 5 Page 97
