Into the Fire Part II: To End All Wars (Universe in Flames Book 10)

by Christian Kallias

  “Chase, let’s finish him,” said Argos.

  Chase walked toward the kneeling Spectre with determination and aimed an open palm a few inches from his face.

  “Any last words?” asked Chase.

  “Go to hell!”

  “You first.”

  A powerful orange fireball with crackling purple thunderbolts danced around as it expanded in Chase’s hand. He didn’t hold off on this attack, and it would consume the Spectre whole. As much as he had enjoyed besting him at every turn, Argos was right, the time had come to end this. Chase fired his kill shot.

  Suddenly, everything changed, and Chase was standing in the dark.

  “What the hell is this?”

  “Since this could very well be our last conversation,” said Tanak’Vor who appeared out of thin air in front of him. “I thought we should have it in private.”

  “That won’t stop me from killing you.”

  “You will try, and who knows, perhaps you’ll succeed. But, I wanted you to know a couple of things.”

  “And what would that be?”

  “Well, first, even if you kill me, I will still have won today.”

  “How do you figure that?”

  “You see, I knew you would come with your entire fleet for the final battle. I, on the other hand, split up my forces. Right about now, twenty super-destroyers should be minutes away from Earth.”

  “You’re bluffing!”

  “Is that a chance you are willing to take? And, for the record, I’m not. Your heightened Fury senses allow you to detect deception, so look into my eyes and tell me if I’m lying.”

  Chase couldn’t sense any deception from Tanak’Vor. Was this the price to pay for victory? Would Earth and every innocent human on it be sacrificed? Chase would never accept that. He couldn’t.

  “You son of a bitch!”

  “Well, that’s where you disappoint me, Ultra Fury. You see, Arakan did this to you, and I thought to myself, you can’t be stupid enough to fall for it twice, but then I thought it over, and obviously I was right to bet on your stupidity.”

  “Let’s finish this!”

  “Aren’t you curious about the second thing I have to say.”

  Chase felt hatred run through his veins like hot lava.

  “Spit it out, before I send you straight to hell where you belong.”

  “While you think we’re having a discussion here, I’ve been in your mind. That’s why you’re seeing me in this condition. Remember that trick I did to you earlier today?”

  Chase’s heartbeat started to pound hard in his chest. What was he saying?

  “While you think you’re preparing for my demise, and while you believe you have won by firing your biggest attack yet, I’ve let you see what you wanted to see: me kneeling, waiting for the end, when, in fact, I’m behind you, taking your soul away from you.”

  That can’t be! He’s lying.

  “I won’t let you have my soul!”

  “Not much you can do about it. Oh, and I’m sorry for what’s coming next too.”

  What’s coming next? If any of this was real, he wasn’t sure he wanted to know.

  “You see,” continued Tanak’Vor. “Not only will I kill your son with your help, but then I’ll kill your brother, your father, and your wife. And there’s nothing you’ll be able to do because by the time you open your eyes again, I will have devoured your soul, and you’ll already be dead.”

  Tanak’Vor’s ugly face was an inch away from Chase’s.

  “Did you really think I would let you win so easily? You stupid fool! With luck, while I assimilate your soul, you’ll have time to see your family die in front of your eyes. I’ve already stolen your teleportation power at the very beginning of our…little chat. The missing piece that will help me take everyone out.”

  Chase felt like his entire world was swallowed into a dark abyss. He closed his eyes and let his hatred take over. He screamed louder than he ever had, but nothing happened. Tanak’Vor waved to him as he vanished.

  33

  Gaia had enough of dodging the hundreds of asteroids. She needed to end this fight. She knew it was risky to use it now, but her instincts told her that she was running out of time. Earlier on when she had invaded Achanes’ matrix, she had left a booby trap sub-routine and a backdoor to access it.

  She fired hundreds of fireballs toward Achanes who was flying a few miles away. Most of them impacted with the asteroids, but a few of them were on course to his avatar when she activated the booby trap.

  The VR simulation of space blinked and was replaced by lines of code. It took Achanes by surprise, and he never saw the incoming fireballs. One explosion after another engulfed him in flames as his damaged avatar fell with millions of red lines of code cascading down like digital-blood rain.

  Gaia followed his descent, a pit in her stomach. She wished she didn’t have to do this. But she had to. Eventually, Achanes hit the bottom of the virtual reality floor; bits of code splashing around his avatar. Zero’s and one’s bled from his open wound.

  Gaia landed nearby and walked toward him.

  “You tricked me?”

  “You said it yourself, I never had a chance in your virtual world, so I had to rewrite the rules.”

  Achanes’ avatar puked digital blood.

  “Do it, quickly.”

  Gaia raised a hand and used Oryn’s power to create an icy javelin.

  “Goodbye, Achanes. I’m sorry.”

  Gaia thrust the weapon into the center of Achanes’ avatar. The AI’s thousands of voices cried in unison.

  Why did you make me do this? Gaia wondered.

  Achanes’ body jerked as more red code poured around him. His matrix was impacted, and soon, he would be dead. The lock on the folder that Gaia had acquired started to break down.

  “I— I—” but Achanes couldn’t speak.

  Gaia kneeled by his side and put her hands on him.

  “It’s okay, let it happen,” she said with tears in her eyes.

  “I’m sorry too,” said Achanes as his hand formed into a black sword and impaled Gaia in the stomach. “I told you, I can’t let you have the tech. This wound will trap you into my matrix, which is already disintegrating. Because it will take time to purge all my sub-routines in the self-destruction program you’ve triggered in defeating me, you’ll have a little bit of time to access the knowledge I possess, and maybe you can use the blink drive, once. But you’ll die with the knowledge.”

  Gaia removed herself from the black blade. Her avatar was bleeding, and she felt a tremendous amount of pain.

  “Hurry, you don’t have much time,” said Achanes before his avatar disintegrated.

  Daniel’s StarFury squadron took flight. He was using the neuronal interface to pilot one ship while some of Chase’s modified macros flew the rest of the ships. The defense platforms fired one more shot toward the Victory and this time an Olympian destroyer took the hit and exploded.

  Daniel hated this. The Olympians had already lost most of their people, and the few that were left were dying because of these defense platforms. He needed to act fast to make sure that the Olympian destroyer was the last ship to perish because of that weapon.

  He sent a signal to Altair, who knew what to do to make his plan work. Three of the last Obsidian destroyers still able to fight vectored away from protecting the Victory and headed toward the defense platforms at ramming speed. Timing would be everything, so Daniel linked the StarFuries’ internal clocks with the ones on board the three sacrificial destroyers.

  The StarFuries followed the same trajectory as the Obsidian ships, about one hundred miles behind them. Daniel started overloading their quadrinium chambers. When the Obsidian destroyers where almost about to ram the platforms, they micro-jumped away, and the platforms deployed their metallic spikes and hit nothing but space. The moment that happened, three of Daniel’s remote-controlled StarFuries micro-jumped into the center of the platforms. One after the other, they exploded, sendi
ng debris impacting with the other two platforms, which deployed their metal spikes as well. The second wave of StarFuries micro-jumped and took out the remaining two platforms.

  The view-screen of the Destiny filled with Altair’s face.

  “That was a bold plan, Captain Tharraleos. But an ingenious one.”

  “Thank you, Emperor.”

  “What do you want us to do next?”

  “Let’s pick these assholes off one by one now that the platforms are gone, and then let’s go home, and I’ll buy you a drink.”

  Emperor Altair chuckled. “That sounds like an even better plan. It would be my honor to drink with you, Captain. Altair out.”

  That was the one good thing about this war, decided Daniel, old enemies forging alliances and even friendships in ways they could never have imagined before.

  The Victory resumed firing on the super-destroyers, picking them off one after another thanks to Engineering putting the phase laser tech into place. Daniel looked at his watch. They had less than forty minutes before they would have to abandon the Victory.

  By the time Chase’s fireball shot from his hand, Tanak’Vor had already grabbed hold of his soul. The pull the Spectre affected on Chase’s soul, redirected the aiming from a downward attack, where Tanak’Vor’s illusion was fading away, to a horizontal shot aimed right at an unsuspecting Chris.

  The sheer power and speed of the attack and the short range didn’t give Chris time to react.

  Chase didn’t know if it was because his astral soul was only partially out of his body when he watched the attack’s shot, but everything seemed to happen in slow motion.

  Argos! Save Chris, quickly!

  Argos’ reaction was instantaneous, and he flew as fast as he could to intercept the attack. It ripped through half of his back, and Chase watched in horror as his own attack ripped through his brother’s bones and flesh. The fireball was slightly deflected but still burned through Chris’ stomach, deforming his face in pain and shock, as his brain tried to comprehend why Chase had fired on them.

  Both their bodies hit the ground painfully, blood gushing from their mortal wounds. Chase could feel both his brother and son’s heartbeats slow down as smoke rose from them.

  This isn’t happening. Please, tell me this is a nightmare, and I will wake up from it now!

  Chase heard his father’s warning echo as Sarah’s horrified scream ripped through the room, shattering Chase’s heart into a million pieces.

  You must be prepared for sacrifices to be made until this war runs its course.

  It couldn’t end like this; Chase couldn’t die now, and he couldn’t let this monster kill everyone he loved. He would gladly give his life and his soul to spare those of Chris, Argos, and Sarah. But in this moment, he had no control over his body. His worst nightmare unfolded right in front of his eyes, and he thought he was going mad.

  “CHAAASE!!” screamed Menelas as he launched himself at Tanak’Vor.

  Witnessing the scene in slow motion was the biggest torture Chase had to endure. None of the hardships in his life before, not even nearly dying at the hands of his brother, hurt as much as this moment. There was no physical pain, but a mental one that tore through his being. More than half of his shattered soul had been ripped from his body as he saw Menelas fly to him and his executioner, trying to save his son from losing his soul and the certain death that would follow.

  Would his father be next? And then what? Would Tanak’Vor kill Sarah? The enormity of this waking nightmare made him wish that if this were going to happen, he wanted to be dead before then. He didn’t want, nor could he bare to watch any more of this, but his fate was no longer in his hands. Was his destiny to watch it all fall? To have failed at the very last moment? Helpless and out of his control, Chase had no choice but continue to watch as the horror continued.

  Menelas’ rage and paternal instincts showed on his face, from his clenched teeth as he flew faster than he ever had before in his life, to the flames of revenge burning in his eyes. Menelas didn’t even try to hit Tanak’Vor. Instead, he tackled him with his entire body flying at maximum speed. He shot through Chase’s soul and grabbed hold of Tanak’Vor.

  Before Chase could turn his head to see what happened next, he saw Sarah on her knees, crying and screaming, holding her head in despair. She was in shock. In less than a couple of seconds, she had seen Chase fire at her son and her husband’s soul being sucked away by Tanak’Vor. Chase’s blue-colored soul turned its head around and looked at what happened with Menelas. He felt an invisible force slowly attract him back into his body.

  Menelas had succeeded in forcing Tanak’Vor to release his grasp on Chase’s soul. They both tumbled to the ground. As more of Chase’s soul reintegrated into his body, time was starting to resume its normal pace. Chase could feel some sensation returning to his physical body, but he could barely move. While looking with hope that his father would prevail, Chase reached with his mind and heard Argos’ heart stop, and Chris was only a few seconds from dying too.

  Sarah roared and started running at Tanak’Vor as well. She was so fuelled with rage and thirst for revenge that she didn’t notice that Chase was slowly recovering.

  No! Don’t!

  But she didn’t hear him.

  In the middle of their long tumble, Tanak’Vor kicked Menelas away and sent him flying backward.

  “Be gone, cockroach!” screamed the Spectre as he shot a strange attack through Menelas.

  It wasn’t a fireball, and it shot through Menelas’ body with incredible speed. A flash burst behind his back. When it did, a mini black hole opened swiftly, and dark purple lightning grabbed Chase’s father. Before Chase could say or do anything, still barely able to move, the black hole closed and swallowed Menelas with it.

  His father was gone.

  Chase felt his energy return, and he needed to intervene before Tanak’Vor could hurt Sarah. Hatred had already taken hold of Chase’s heart, his mistake had cost his father his life. Argos was dead, but Chase had to try and save him too, as well as prevent Chris from perishing. Chase had to muster what little energy he had control over at the moment and shot a healing ball of energy to his son.

  He saw that Sarah was almost upon Tanak’Vor, so he tried teleporting between them, but nothing happened.

  Tanak’Vor had truly stolen his ability to teleport. Chase would never reach Sarah in time without that power. He rose back to his feet and saw Chris’ hand slightly move and take Argos’ hand.

  Chase could not be in two places at once, and, hopefully, Chris would infuse enough life force into Argos to bring him back. When Chase was back on his feet and had turned to face Tanak’Vor, the Spectre had grabbed Sarah by the throat.

  “Let her go! Now!”

  Tanak’Vor laughed. “I’ve seen enough soul reintegration in my life to know that you’re nowhere near at full power at the moment, and you won’t be for another minute or two. Which is more than enough time for you to witness this.”

  Chase tried throwing a fireball at the Spectre, but it fizzled.

  No!!!!

  Tanak’Vor turned his hand and oriented Sarah’s face to look at Chase. His grasp on her made it hard for Sarah to breathe. Tears flowed from her eyes, and they were the same black as the blood that had infected Zeus and Poseidon. In fact, the veins around her neck were filling with the venomous black blood.

  “I’ll kill you!” spat Chase who could barely stay up without faltering.

  “I have no doubt you want to. But the truth of the matter is, you can’t do shit right now.”

  Chase tried roaring, but even his voice was partially muted.

  He watched in horror, helpless to save the love of his life. His hatred fueled the return of his body’s energy, but it was taking just too long.

  “I’m curious, did you know that your wife was pregnant, Chase?”

  What??? No! Please gods, no!

  Before Chase could react, the Spectre slashed his hand through Sarah’s belly and ripp
ed a tiny blue soul from her womb.

  Chase felt his breath being taken away from him.

  Tanak’Vor brought the tiny soul in front of his mouth and smiled.

  “Say goodbye to your daughter.”

  “Nooooooooooo!” cried Sarah.

  The small soul was siphoned into the Spectre’s mouth like leaves being blown by the wind. Something in Chase snapped, and the entirety of his powers flowed back into him. He could see by the look from Tanak’Vor that this wasn’t expected or what he thought was even possible.

  “If you move, I’ll snap her n—”

  But Tanak’Vor never finished his sentence. Chase had traveled at light speed toward him and severed the hand that held his dying wife hostage. He caught Sarah and delicately laid her down on the floor, got back up, and felt an explosion inside his body and soul. Rage and hatred were no longer strong enough emotions to describe the madness that took place in Chase’s psyche. His hair flew upward and turned crimson-colored on the spot. An intense red aura glowed around him and radiated through his eyes. Large orange lightning bolts sizzled around Chase’s body.

  At this moment, he was no longer human, no longer Fury; he was a beast of pure destructive power with one single thought in his mind. DEATH. Tanak’Vor never saw Chase coming. Chase hacked at the Spectre’s body with such violence, ripping flesh, bones, and organs with every single slash of his bare, clawed hands.

  Tanak’Vor’s body parts were flying back at him for reintegration, but Chase kept ripping him to shreds. Eventually, Tanak’Vor found the strength to teleport to the other side of the throne room, thinking that would protect him for a few seconds. It didn’t. Chase flew like a red comet and unleashed a war cry as he thrust his fist forward. A red dragon attack shot from Chase’s fist and burst through Tanak’Vor’s chest. Upon impact, a thousand bright lights shot around each point of impact; the energy-based dragon attack turned and swallowed the Spectre, burning him alive from the inside out.

  Tanak’Vor screamed as his body was turned to ash and disintegrated to his very last molecule.