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 deafening 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 angry 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.
Razy was ready with his sword and blocked Taylor’s strike. She twirled around and continued to strike him down one blow after another, each one fiercer than the last.
“That dress is very dazzling,” Razy said mid-strike.
Taylor blocked a strike and jabbed at his head, but his defenses were good.
“I don't need your compliments,” she muttered.
Razy slashed at her legs, throwing all his weight into it. Taylor back-flipped and landed on her feet. She charged at him fiercely. He didn't stay put this time and charged at her too, shuffling around to put off her concentration. They locked swords and the sound of metal on metal rang through the air. She unleashed a flurry of moves but Razy countered all of them.
“You seem to be weaker than I expected,” Razy smirked.
“That’s because I’m just getting started,” Taylor smiled.
She focused on her life force and imagined it seeping into her body, powering her from within. Her strikes became faster and stronger with every movement.
She could see Razy’s face strain with the effort of keeping up with her. She threw her sword high into the air, and in one swift movement, threw him to the floor. She snatched her sword from the air and stabbed it into the floor right next to Razy’s head.
“Too bad you are not a White Knight,” she said and turned around.
“You,” Razy got up, grabbing both swords and going into an offensive position.
Ruby got between him and Taylor, and screeched out, sending powerful waves through the air.
“I’ll get you back, Taylor,” he stepped back. “You won’t get away with this,” he ran away.
Ruby turned around, “So how about we get you out of here?”
“How are you going to do that?”
“We’ll fly out.”
“And after that? How am I supposed to survive in space?” Taylor asked. “I don’t have my suit with me.”
“Whatever shall I do with this,” Ruby held out a black bracelet in her paw.
Taylor gasped, “You!”
Taylor wore the bracelet around her wrist. “Ethosien,” she said, and the suit activated. The familiar aura of black appeared around her.
“We should leave soon,” Ruby said. “I can hear a lot of Dark Knights coming.”
“Razy must have alerted them,” she said and looked out the window. “Time to go.”
Ruby shot out the window, spreading her wings and gliding through the air. Taylor crouched low and burst forward. She dived out the window and latched onto Ruby mid-air. The griffin screeched one last time as they soared through the sky.
“Well, that trip was a waste of time.”
“It’s fine. Now I know that we’re the only ones who can save Aliea.”
“Yeah…”
“We can do this,” Taylor said.
They raced away from the dull planet of black and gray.
“We can do this,” she said again.
“For the last time, I know we can do this. You’re the one who’s having insecurity issues.”
“We can do this.”
“This is going to be a long flight.”
***
Q stared at the huge castle in front of him.
He and Burke stood on the cold, hard ice, their energy suits keeping them warm and toasty.
They had swum into a deep abyss, taken out a few oversized frogs and resurfaced at a beautiful castle in an underwater cavern. It was a pure white castle made from pearly-smooth bricks. Two pillars rose from the front corners. Their ends were sharp and pointy, making the castle look like it had come straight out of a fairytale.
Q headed to the huge wooden door at the front.
“A wooden door,” Burke said condescendingly, “You’d think they’d learn from the medieval ages. We’ll blast the thing down like it was paper.”
“Let me assist you then,” bellowed a voice.
Q froze. He had heard that voice before. If he was right about the owner, then they were in quite a lot of trouble. “Nigel,” he yelled out.
A burly, muscular man-giant landed onto the floor before Q, a circle of small ice shards flying away from him.
AcQuest: A Space Opera Military Technothriller (The Quest Saga Science Fiction Adventure Series Book 3) Page 10
