by J.P. Yager
Trevor left the nave and entered the main chamber. It was a circular structure with a platform in the center. Metal circles were perched evenly near the room’s ceiling, resting in deep, recessed tracks. Looking at it, he wasn’t sure what it did. In the center was a stone platform covered in light dirt. Odd statues of aliens he had never seen before highlighted the walls. The place smelled of wet sand. The walls and floor ran with water from the lake it had rested under.
“The machine is dead,” Raxus noted.
“That’s what this drive core is for. A jump-start.” Trevor said.
Trevor ran to the middle and pulled up the access panel. He set the case next to it.
Raxus watched as Trev struggled with the wiring. He looked like he was trying to find the power relay.
“I don’t understand why I wasn’t shown how to do this,” Trevor said angrily.
Raxus finally understood his part. Scribes were also mechanical engineers. “Allow me.”
Trevor let the Eckelion get to work. Raxus scanned over the system and popped open the case. The little blue man hooked wires here and there. Then he disappeared below ground. Raxus panned through the system network and realized he had his work cut out for him.
Trevor took his surroundings in. The metal disc tracks spiraled to a point in the ceiling as though it opened up from inside.
That was when Trevor heard the faint clatter of metal on metal. There was a battle going outside the chamber. He wanted to go and help them, but the Void Star was whispering to him in his mind to wait. That it was almost over.
“There we go.” Raxus plugged the drive core into the main power relay.
The large room shuddered violently like in an earthquake, nearly knocking them both off their feet.
An electric bolt surged from the system, striking Raxus back. He took the overcharge to the chest but was otherwise unharmed. His robes were smoking at his breast. He shook it off and pulled himself together. He scaled the way back up.
The metal discs above them rumbled grudgingly and then started to move. Mud dropped at points throughout the room, caked on from centuries of disuse.
Trev opened his pack and brought the Void Star out. It was streaking alive with light.
The discs were moving along their tracks much faster and speeding up.
That was when Trevor realized the sounds from outside the chamber had ceased. He turned, and there was Nya.
She had removed her helmet. Something had damaged it. She was sweating with a streak of blood across the good side of her face. Behind her was the fallen body of Dosh, he was bleeding out, weak and watching. Rooting him on with his eyes. Boost’s figure was sparking and dismembered.
“What we started that night ends now.” Her voice was like rough sandpaper, as it truly was.
“You always had to win.”
Trevor handed the star to Raxus, who ran off to the other side of the room with it. He hid behind one of the scary stone figures.
Trev took a defensive fighting stance. “Ready?”
Nya could only laugh at the unarmed young man. He had never learned how to fight. His weakness was one of his most charming aspects. And he was a blind man wearing a blind. Nya didn’t even want to react to the insult that he remotely stood a chance here. She brought her diamond blade up and went after him.
She swung the blade at his neck with her fastest strike. As it went to connect, he seemed to vanish. As she sensed him to her lower left, she struck again. Then he was at her right, rolling back. She dove at him again. He flipped over the attack, and suddenly, she felt his boot hitting the back of her head, sending her into the platform at the center of the room.
She was vaguely aware of the discs spiraling around them now at insane speeds and the electric lights that were bursting to life all around them, sending sparks into the gathering ball of light in the middle. The temple was coming back to life.
Nya searched around and saw him waiting for her. She circled around, looking for the perfect moment to strike.
“I thought you were the best fighter in the universe, Render.”
“I am.”
“I doubt it. It’s probably just another one of your acts. Spy. Crappy fighter. You probably use autopilot to do all those fancy maneuvers.”
“I loathed every minute I had to spend with you,” she spat back.
“I was going to call the relationship off when I thought you blew up. You were a terrible lover even when you had your looks.” The statement was mostly true.
She felt the scar that took up her face and screamed as she rolled forward. She gave the direct point of her blade all the force she could muster behind it to kill the insolent cretin. In a flash of movement, Trevor kicked the blade from her hands and used his other leg to kick her off her feet back toward the center platform. The sword spun out of both their reaches.
“Render, what does that even mean?” He continued to move around her.
“It was an old call sign from my training. What does it matter?”
“I guess it doesn’t.”
Nya didn’t see the lights of the room and the spinning disc that were all feeding into an explosion of light. Nya was focused dead on him. She kept making fists and cracking her knuckles as she continued to size him up.
“It’s just that I can’t believe I wasted time mourning you. You are poison. I wish I had known who you really were.”
“We poisoned each other,” she rasped, running a hand across her scarred neck.
“That is how you would see it.”
Hand-to-hand, she came next. He ducked and weaved, avoiding every strike she tried. As she grew fatigued, he only seemed to become faster. He blocked, ducked, and dived into a spin to parry again. It was unbelievable with his eyes unseeing. Breaths were becoming harder to get as her oxygen feed had been broken by the weird robot.
Meanwhile, the temple was erupting with activity. The ceiling rumbled to life. It spun within hidden tracks and opened slowly. The sky appeared above them. The afternoon sky was black and getting ever darker. The darkness was dividing into thousands of arms and then diving down from all corners of the galaxy at them. The only light came from within the temple.
“It’s time!” the little alien yelled. Everything was up and running.
Nya almost went to punt the little thing, when her last strike caught air again. The diamond blade reappeared, skidding back between them. She saw the sword get kicked up and momentarily disappear. Then after a flash of movement she felt a pressure in her chest, sharp and deep.
She looked down at her own sword. The one she had used to kill countless enemies of Ruvera, including Scott Andrews.
“My father’s soul can rest,” Trevor said. He kicked her legs out, and she fell.
She reached up to draw the sword out and then fell back. Struggled to gasp, she didn’t get back up. She tried to find another breath, but death found her instead.
The Eckelion handed the star back to Trevor. Above them, tentacles of darkness were reaching out for them.
Trev threw the Void Star into the pulsing light. In the center of it all, there was an explosion. The container burst open. A shock wave of light burst from it, and then a streak of light exploded upward to meet the darkness. The two forces hit each other, and the shock reverberated out. It flickered into a myriad of colors.
“Did it work?” Raxus asked.
The Eckelion looked up and saw the darkness was still coming. It had slowed somewhat as though the light wasn’t strong enough to battle it anymore. It was giving them time to do something, but what?
The light in the center of the room turned a hot-blue hue. Raxus scrambled back from the heat. With his mouth agape, he watched an entity come from the blinding light. It was like something that resembled a blank spirit with indiscernible arms, legs, body, and head—the Avari from his vision. It was a creature born of light.
In a soft voice, it said, “Now…we become one.”
The light creature entered Trevor’s chest.
Ra
xus watched as the human began to glow. Trevor looked down at his hands and saw they were bright with balls of energy flying around them. His eyes were aglow with unimaginable power, showing through his blind. They turned on Raxus. “Thank you for your help. It’s time for me to go.”
“You’re leaving? What about everything we’ve all done? You have to stop the darkness.”
“And I will. This world is lost. I have to go back and make sure this dark future doesn’t come to pass. That is the true purpose of the Void Star. If I succeed, everything will have a chance to go back to the way it was before the Dark One found a way into our world.”
The young man reached a hand up, and a portal opened within the energy beam in the middle.
Raxus could see the black arms of death reaching down for them. He understood then that Trevor was right. There wasn’t anyone left to save. They were all that remained.
Just then, the ground stopped shaking. The lips of darkness were reaching from horizon to horizon and from the sky.
Raxus didn’t know what to say as the human jumped into the portal. It looked like he was ripped into a thousand pieces by the light, and then…he was gone.
Darkness came suddenly and swallowed the walls.
Moments before Raxus ceased to exist, he saw a black figure burst from the darkness. It was a beast made up of shadows. When it saw him, its mane of white hair appeared eerily human. The creature entered the light portal and disappeared inside as the portal closed.
Then he and everything else was gone.
Epilogue
