***
Taylor’s eyes widened the moment she saw the syringe. She turned to the White Knight King, her face filled with terror and anger at the same time. “You didn't,” she threatened him.
“On the contrary,” his voice turned deep, “I just did.”
“Give him the antidote,” she said. “I’ll take the serum instead. Just let him go!” The fear of having that horrible serum injected into her vanished at the thought of Q having to go through something so horrifying.
“Taylor what’re you-” Q stumbled and fell face first onto the floor.
Albion looked at him with empty, emotionless eyes, “The F.E.A.R has no antidote.”
Taylor stood still, her hands hanging by her side. It was over. There was no antidote. There was no saving Q. Their battle was over. The White Knight King had taken down the Wielder of Light.
She shook her head in denial. She refused to believe it was over, that there was no antidote, that Q was gone forever.
She ran up to him “Q! Get up,” she turned him onto his back. A gasp escaped from her lips.
Q’s eyes had turned dull white. His pupils had disappeared into nothing. His face lay expressionless and dead.
“The serum has taken over,” Albion said. “It has begun.”
***
Q tried to shout out to Taylor but his mouth didn't open up. He could see her and hear her but he couldn't do anything about it. He watched helplessly as tears formed in her eyes and trickled down her cheeks.
“Tobias. Take Master Q to the viewing gallery,” Albion ordered.
Q felt his body being hauled away. They headed into a corridor and stopped halfway through. Tobias pressed his hand against the blank wall, pushing a square block. A doorway slid open. Q tried to move his feet but it was no use. He didn't feel like he had been paralyzed though. It felt like he had no control of his body.
The men carried him through the doorway and into a room. He could see a huge table in the middle. A beacon hung over it and radiated an intense cone of light. The men placed him on the table and secured his limbs with energy bonds, which Q didn't understand at all. Why did an immobilized person have to be restrained? And with energy bonds?
His vision slowly turned into a deep black. What’s going on? he wondered. He felt tense. In seconds his vision had disappeared completely. The world around him turned dark. The blackness spread out and then receded all at once. He felt like a wave of darkness had washed over him and receded, pulling away every speck of black that it possibly could.
A canvas of vivid colors emerged from the darkness. He glanced around him. Trees swayed in the breeze, birds chirped in the air, and squirrels hunted the ground for nuts. He was back on Earth.
Then everything changed.
The bright brown trunks of the trees slowly wilted into a dark ghastly gray. The birds grew larger, their beaks becoming long and sharp, their colorful feathers turning black. The squirrels grew in size as well. Their bodies became a dark black and their teeth turned sharp and deadly.
The green grass turned to gray ash, and thorny brambles rose from the ground, flowing over the ground like creepers.
Q stepped back in horror. What was going on? It was like reality was…dying. The now-scary animals moved in towards him.
“Get away!” he yelled.
The birds flew towards him, their dark feathers scattering through the air. The squirrels, which were almost as large as he, charged on their nimble feet. The trees gained life of their own and swiped at him with their barren branches. His mind went crazy. Everything around him was changing. The sky became duller. The ground cracked up. The air filled with a murky stench. He ran away as fast as he could.
He glanced up at the sky. The Sun was no longer a bright warm yellow. It turned into an infuriating black, scorching his skin with its heat. His heart pumped from the strain. His mind rambled away and he felt weak and broken. He stopped running.
He turned around and focused. Maybe things would turn back to normal if he fought back. He held his hands out to the side and tried to summon his powers.
Nothing happened.
He tried again, concentrating even harder but he got the same result. Q became tense. Why wasn't he able to use his powers?
“This is what you fear, little hero,” boomed a deep voice. “You fear being helpless. You fear losing all your precious powers. You fear that you will become that worthless, normal human being again.”
The voice’s words wrapped around Q’s mind and in that moment of weakness, his mind had finally broken; fear had completely gripped his consciousness. He stood his ground and faced the wrath reality dealt upon him, his eyes empty and void.
“I give up.”
***
Kai sat still, unable to react. He was completely stunned.
Levi smiled at the stunned faces in front of him. “Surprised?” he smirked.
“You were the one who summoned the golems that day,” Elizabeth realized. The events from that day finally made sense.
“Ah yes,” he said. “I had to bring in a few compatriots of mine to create those behemoths. I do not possess the life energy required to summon Earth golems.”
“How could you betray us?” Juliana asked.
“I never betrayed you,” he said. “I was never on your side in the first place.”
Kai grit his teeth. A spy had slipped into the academy and they had all been completely oblivious to it.
Levi walked up to a side of the room and pressed a button. The wall retracted, revealing a multi-layered, glass wall behind it. Large icy waves rammed into the glass with tremendous force but the wall didn't budge.
Levi stared out into the wild waves in admiration. “Complete obliteration,” he whispered. “Such a beautiful thing.”
Kai trembled. This guy had lost his mind. He wasn't a living thing anymore. He was a mindless assassin.
“What do you plan to do with us?” Juliana asked, her voice quivering with anger.
“I will need to kill you,” Levi told them bluntly. “I would have preferred not to but I have strict orders.”
He’s got a higher up, Kai realized. There was someone else who was making all the shots.
“Don't worry,” Levi said “I’ll still make your deaths worthwhile. See, they asked me to execute you with a little serum I helped develop, but I didn't like that plan. So instead,” he looked at the waves, “I’m going to let you go.”
“What?” Chris and Kai said in unison. Kai couldn't believe it. Levi was letting them go.
“He’s going to put us back on the surface,” Carlos muttered. “The planet’s going to be destroyed anyway.”
“What can I say,” Levi smirked. “Tough luck.”
“You’re going to kill us anyway. At least us how long before Zygrade is destroyed?” Carlos asked.
“You have an hour until the Hades is unleashed,” he said.
Kai clenched his fists. He couldn't believe Aliea was going to be destroyed. He had always believed they would ultimately save everyone from annihilation. Yet, here they were, just an hour from total destruction, and they were being held captive by the very people who were destroying their planet. He looked around the room.
“Don't even think about it” Levi glared at him.
“Think about what?” Kai said innocently.
“The room may be made of metal but there’s a man behind you with a serum we call F.E.A.R. Tear even one shred of metal off the wall and everyone gets injected.”
A man ran into the room. “Commander, it’s time,” he said.
“The Knights are here?” Levi asked, a little hint of tension in his voice.
Kai lifted his head. Knights? he thought. It had to be Taylor. She must have gotten help from the Dark Knights. Kai’s spirits lifted immediately, his hope renewed. They just might be able to save Aliea.
“Well, we don't want to keep them waiting,” Levi walked to the door.
Kai wondered why Levi was acting so confident. He fig
ured he was just trying to act high and mighty in front of them.
Levi stopped at the doorway, “Let the prisoners spend their time in my cabin,” he told the guards and he turned around. “You have another half hour before we drop you off onto the planet. Have fun!” he smiled.
Kai stared at him blankly, his anger rising, and his helplessness calming him down.
“Oh, and before I leave,” Levi came back in and stood there, grinning like an idiot. “Activate!” he said. Two square sections of the wall opened up, and a pole came out of each square, with concentric circles of metal attached to them, their size decreasing the closer they were to its rounded edge.
“What are those things?” Kai asked.
“It’s just a little toy you guys can play with,” he said.
A loud hum filled the air, causing vibrations all over the room. Streams of electricity shot out of the poles and into the floor, forming a circle around everyone. The circle was odd though. It was a bright, solid circle with concentric ones within it. And between each pair of circles was a mix of blue and red runes.
Levi chuckled, “I should be more specific. It activates a little toy that would love to play with you,” he said and walked away.
Carlos tried to run after him but he fell flat on the ground like he was knocked back by some invisible barrier. “A force field,” he muttered.
Kai focused on the circle on the floor. He recognized those runes, and his brain worked hard, trying to put together the pieces of the puzzle. He heard a loud thud come from his right and he turned around to see Lisara and Trisha collapsed on the floor.
The beams of electricity stopped right after that, and the room turned dark. Kai looked around him, but he couldn't see anything but his friends. Even the cadets who had been guarding them disappeared.
“What is this place?” Juliana asked.
A bright light shone from the siblings’ chests. Trisha’s was blue and Lisara’s was red. The light floated out of their bodies, swirling around each other, as they rose higher into the air, until they finally merged together in a bright flash of light.
Kai shielded his eyes from the bright glow, and when he finally opened them up, he got the fright of his life. A huge machine stood in front of him, its body both black and white.
“The Ascalon,” Carlos whispered.
“There’s something wrong with it isn't there?” Kai asked.
Carlos hesitated.
“Carlos, if you don’t tell me, there’s nothing we can do about it,” he said.
The Nightmare creaked as its joints moved about, and then it stopped. Both of its cockpits opened up. A now unconscious Trisha and Lisara were lifted into the air by some invisible force, and floated into cockpits. The Ascalon secured both of its cockpits, and its body roared, as though its engines were being fired up.
Kai didn't recall the Ascalon having any mechanical engines. It had nuclear powered ones, and those never made a whisper. The machine’s huge arms pointed at everyone, and its fingers sunk into its arms, only to be replaced by a turning barrel attached with laser cannons.
“That can’t be good,” Kai said.
It scanned everyone in its vicinity, which at this point was just Kai, Juliana, and Carlos. That was when he realized that Elizabeth and Chris hadn't been sucked into wherever they were right now. He felt relieved knowing that Chris wasn't caught up in this.
The Ascalon roared and opened fire, blasting away at everyone. Carlos reacted instantly, throwing his arms into the air and creating a spherical shield of solid air around them. The blasts of energy hit the shield, making it ripple a bit, but the barrier of air still held strong. Kai’s mind kept playing back what the Brain had told him. It had been right. There was something seriously wrong with the Ascalon. But instead of running away like the Brain had suggested, Kai realized he needed to face the machine.
“Carlos,” Kai said. “We’re in a fatal situation. I need you to answer me: Just what is wrong with the Ascalon?”
Carlos sighed, “The Ascalon is an ancient piece of machinery used during an inter-dimensional war. In the beginning, our side was hopelessly lagging behind, so they had to resort to extreme measures. A few men designed a machine that would somehow use the wielder’s life force to power it up to even higher levels, and this other idiot came up with an idea to use two pilots instead of one and double the energy that was sucked out.”
Kai went wide-eyed, “People were used as fuel resources,” he said.
“That wasn't even the worst part. Soon people figured out that if you connect two different beings together using their life force, the combined energy was larger than the sum of the individual energies of the two beings. And this combined energy increased exponentially when the relationship between the two beings was filled with emotions, negative or positive.”
Kai caught on to what Carlos was saying, “So Trisha and Lisara have their life force connected right now.”
Carlos nodded.
“And you have no idea how we can cause them to revert back to their original form.”
“No definite idea,” he said. “I do have a theory though. The Ascalon needs the life force of two beings connected to run right? What if we cut off one of the beings from that chain of energy? That way the Ascalon wouldn’t get enough energy to run and it would shut down.”
“That seems like a good idea,” Kai said and charged at the machine.
Carlos opened up a small gap in the shield for him to get through.
The Ascalon stopped its barrage of attacks at once and faced Kai, its machinery humming, as though it were powering up.
“Bring it on,” he grinned and charged at it. Ancient machinery or not, he was going to take this thing down.
***
Carlos hoped Kai wouldn’t hurt himself during his attacks. He was pretty sure that kid wasn't as careful as he should be. Plus the Ascalon wasn't some piece of ancient junk that anyone could wreck apart just like that.
Speaking of the Ascalon, he wasn’t very comfortable with the fact that he was seeing one right in front of him. Something that he had made painfully obvious.
That sort of machinery wasn't supposed to exist anymore so he felt really weird to see it standing right in front of him, towering over his body like some pillar of power. He watched as Kai rushed up to the huge machine, confidence flowing out of his body. Carlos didn’t know whether that was good or bad, but he wished it were for the better.
“I hope he stays safe,” Juliana said.
“He’ll be fine,” he said, even though he himself wasn’t sure of it.
Kai held his hand out and metal shards rose from the ground, gathering around his arms and turning it into a human hammer. The Ascalon charged at him, its cannons pointed straight at his torso. Kai jumped left and right as he charged down to the Ascalon, trying to disrupt the machine’s shooting patterns.
He waited until he was close enough to the machine and jumped into air, bringing himself within striking range. The machine was ready for that too. It retracted its fist and swung at Kai, who was flailing about in mid-air.
Carlos turned away, expecting the worst. But he had a pleasant surprise when he heard the familiar clank of metal against metal resonate through the air. He turned around and the Ascalon kneeling on the ground, its side slashed and scarred. Kai stood behind the kneeling figure, his back facing its metal body.
Carlos took one look at Kai and realized how he’d won this round, for on Kai’s previously free hand now appeared a long, blue sword, its blade sharp and deadly. Kai had blocked the blow with the hammer and slashed at the Ascalon with his makeshift sword, causing the machine to drop to the floor. But that didn't mean it was down for good. A blue glow covered the Ascalon and Carlos could see the slash on its side slowly patch up.
Oh my god, he thought. The machine just healed itself from a deformation. He had forgotten all about that part of the Ascalon. The fact that it could use its pilots’ energy to heal itself had completely slipped his mind.<
br />
“What just happened?” Kai ran back, his face filled with confusion and alarm.
“The machine can keep healing itself until its pilot’s energy runs out,” Carlos said.
“So my best bet is?”
“Same plan as before, cut off its energy connection. Without that connection the Ascalon is just a fancy tin can.”
“You keep saying break the connection, but it would be better if you gave me some concrete method to use. I couldn't find any physical way to break the connection between the two pilots. The build on that thing is solid.”
Carlos pointed to the clear hemisphere on the Ascalon’s body, “You see the two cockpits on the Ascalon?”
“Yeah, what about it?”
“It’s built in such a way that when the cockpit cracks the pilot is ejected. And when the pilot is ejected the connection between the two pilots is cut off. That means the Ascalon’s energy supply is-”
“-Cut off,” Kai finished, a wide smile on his face. “So I have to destroy the hemisphere right?”
Carlos grinned, “That’s pretty much it.”
“Wait,” Juliana stopped Kai before he could leave. “Be careful when you break the cockpit. We don't know what world this is. We could have been teleported here, or it could be a simulation as well. But chances are, if you hurt Lisara or Trisha, they could be hurt for real.”
“Got it,” Kai said. “Destroy the hemisphere, don't destroy the pilots.”
Juliana smiled, “That’s right.” And with that Kai ran off towards the Ascalon. “I really hope they’ll all be okay,” she said.
“They’re Aliea’s Cadets,” Carlos smiled. “They were trained for this.”
Kai charged forward at amazing speed, but the Ascalon was ready for him. Its hands reached out to its back and pulled out a huge cannon. The weapon hummed, the pitch becoming higher, the sound becoming louder. A large sphere of black energy shot out of the cannon. Kai used the hammer on his arm to block the attack from reaching him, but the sphere exploded as soon as it touched his makeshift weapon, knocking him into the air.
AcQuest: A Space Opera Military Technothriller (The Quest Saga Science Fiction Adventure Series Book 3) Page 26
