by Joel Stewart
They bolted out the door and turned to head down the stairs. A wave of heat almost knocked them over as a fireball was flung the full length of the room, bursting through the room door behind them. Cliff and Davis regained their balance and turned to see a flood of fire cascading down the stairs behind them. Before they could react two people in some sort of fire-retardant gear that Davis had never seen jumped to the landing. They had strange rubber-looking boots tucked into pants made of a similar material. Their vest, gloves, and helmet all had the same sheen and there was a glass faceplate in front of the helmet. They sprayed a foam over the flames from a canister on their backs that doused them and turned the liquid fire into a glass-like solid. Cliff squinted to see who was behind the helmet but all he could make out was tips of red hair that had been crammed near the glass on the bottom. It was Arelia.
“Go!” She yelled over the sound of cracking rocks. It seemed the entire top of the tower could come off at any minute. “We will try to stop the fire from getting down the stairs!”
Davis gave Arelia a salute of respect and continued running down the stairs with Cliff close behind. When they reached the bottom level of the tower, several stories below ground, they found Jesse and Alex sitting in what was once a dungeon. Perhaps a few hundred or even a few thousand years ago, this dungeon was actually in use. Now it had some basic lighting hung on the walls and was used primarily for collecting dust. There were still bars separating one half of the room from the other, but the door was off its hinges and leaning against the wall. Davis and Cliff sat down on a stone bench identical to the one Jesse and Alex were already using.
“So,” Jesse said after a minute of silence. “What happened up there? You shot at something, but we never saw what it was.”
“I don’t know what it was.” Davis responded truthfully. “I could try to describe it. There was a metal claw several feet long that had hit the wall with enough power to penetrate our stonework. There was a lot of fire and smoke. And there was a reptilian eye bigger than your head that was scanning the room looking for us.”
“I put a bullet in said eye.” Cliff jumped in. “An armor piercing bullet.”
“And while it was reeling from that, I blew its arm out of the wall with a rocket.” Davis finished. “After that we tried to get away, but another fireball flew perfectly down the length of the room to swamp the hallway behind us. Arelia, and another that I assumed was Riley, showed up in some next-gen fireproof gear and had some equipment that could neutralize the flames.”
Jesse perked up. “Arelia is alive?!” He said excitedly.
“I did not get a good look at her face, but they came from above us, which is where they were when we left them, and I saw red hair through her face shield. Pretty good guess that it is her.” Davis replied. Jesse looked incredibly relieved, like a huge weight had been dropped from his shoulders.
“We might have something.” Alex offered after another moment of silence. She picked up a letter that had been sitting on her lap and she handed it to Cliff. “It is apparently from Lena. Arelia gave it to Jesse before the fire started raining on our heads. Whenever it is close enough it makes you feel all tingly.”
Cliff grabbed the letter and then immediately dropped it on the ground and started shaking his hand. “Wow that feels weird!” he exclaimed. It looked like a plain white envelope with nothing adorning it but their names.
Davis looked down at the letter. His name looked brighter than the others. “If it makes you feel tingly then perhaps it is radiating something. Maybe that is how they knew where we were, even down to the room you were in . . . assuming of course that this was a targeted attack and not a blanket assault on our city.”
Cliff picked it back up and tried to open it. To his surprise he couldn’t. “What dirty Cheng put this together?” He muttered. After another few seconds of futility he handed it over to Davis. “You open it.”
Davis hesitantly took the letter from Cliff. When he did so, his name on the envelope dimmed to the same color as the other names. The tingling shot down his arm. He reached with his other hand to tear it open and it complied easily. Davis pulled out a letter and dropped the envelope to the floor. The tinging from the letter was stronger now. As he slowly opened it an unseen force burst out of the letter and knocked all four of them back against the wall. They fell over unconscious.
Part II
The Awakening
Chapter 1
The Jorgen Command Post
General Reminir looked puzzled as he stared at a table full of scattered reports. One reported the main Chengarian fleet docked in home port, another showed it to be grouping with Scera’s main fleet a week’s sailing to the south. A third report showed a small fleet grouping along the Farasi Island chain as he would have expected. No reports had ships near Jorgen, but Chengarian aircraft had been pelting the coastline with hit and run attacks for days, indicating that there was a least a carrier or two somewhere nearby.
“But where.” He muttered to himself. He looked at the weather reports from the last few days along with the coastal radar scans. There were strange weather patterns—storm clouds and fog, which were unnatural for this time of year. They made high altitude surveillance of their coastline impossible and decreased visibility from the coast to only a league or two at best. Patrols that had been sent into the fog always returned with nothing, and yet the air raids continued.
This whole situation did not sit right, but he could not put his finger on the cause. The air raids could be a diversion to shift attention to Jorgen while the real threat lay elsewhere. The light in the room flickered slightly causing Reminir to sit back in frustration. He hated working underground. The command post at Jorgen was a secure underground bunker on the outskirts of Jorgen that was a tightly held secret. The above ground component of the facility was disguised as a simple military supply base, lightly manned, and having few structures to attract notice.
A white-faced corporal burst into Reminir’s office causing the general to jump to his feet in surprise. “General Reminir . . .” The corporal faltered but soon regained his composure when he saw anger welling up in the General. “Sir, Dengrin is under attack!”
The blood drained from Reminir’s face until it was the same shade as the Corporal’s. “What!?” He roared. He bolted out the door and into the main control room, almost knocking the corporal to the ground. As he climbed a set of five steps a major held out a piece of paper. Reminir snatched it roughly and began to read.
2037:30—Enemy appeared on radar, no warning
2039:58—Napalm bombs released
2041:54—Creature seen attached to eighth tower
2042:48—Creature ejected from tower by internal resistance
“Why do I have five minutes of reports and was just notified of this now?” Reminir demanded of the personnel in the war room. Everyone looked around sheepishly.
“It’s my fault.” Muttered the corporal from behind him. “I stepped away from my station to get coffee and never tapped anyone to cover for me.”
Reminir looked over the shaken soldier. He couldn’t be older than twenty. His first impulse was to verbally tear this soldier to shreds, but he resisted. “It’s alright son, but don’t let this happen again.”
“Another message coming through sir.” The major reported. “2043:19—Strange light seen in Dengrin City; enemy assault turned back the moment it became visible. One creature injured and lagging behind main group. Air Navy in pursuit.”
“Send a message back, I want Admiral Rodan to contact me directly as soon as he can spare the time. Tell him I want to focus on taking down this injured . . . damaged . . . thing but not engage the main force, based off what we have seen that could be a bloodbath. We need information on this new threat and taking down this straggler is our best chance to figure out what we are up against.” Reminir commanded. He turned back toward his private office then stopped. “And send another message to have my daughter located as soon as manpower becomes ava
ilable.” Reminir continued on his path to his office, slamming the door behind him.
As soon as the door was closed he wiped a tear from his cheek. Why the eighth tower . . . why? he thought over and over in his head. He sat down in his chair and leaned back, tapping his fingers on the desk in frustration. “Ejected from tower by internal resistance. If that’s not Davis then I’m a Chengarian pack mule.” He muttered. “But if Davis is near Alex, and he fought with this creature, then this creature must have been near Alex. Oh God let her be safe.” He stood back up and began to pace. “Showed up on radar two minutes before attacking . . . scared off by a strange light? A creature . . . A creature! That’s it!” Reminir’s mumbling elevated to a loud exclamation.
“The creatures can fly and walk! All the hit and run air attack by Chengar on our coastline was a screen to hide their insertion, they moved by ground across the eastern dessert to avoid detection, then when they could not maintain stealth any longer they took to the air! Clever . . . clever . . . and sick. Why? Napalm attacks on a stone structure? Focus on the castle and not the populace? So much work for so little impact . . .” Reminir’s audible train of thought was interrupted by a loud ringing sound. He looked down to his desk phone to see the name “Rodan” on the display. He picked the phone up and put it to his year. “Fill me in.”
After hearing the report firsthand, from Admiral Rodan for several minutes General Reminir broke his silence. “Use cannons on this lagging creature, it may react too quickly for rockets. Wait eight more hours before engaging, they should be over the desert by then if they maintain their current speed. If the main pack is willing to leave it behind we want to make sure they won’t change their mind when we hit it.” An acknowledgement was made on the other end of the line. “Do not lose them.”
Reminir put down the phone, thought for a moment, and then picked it up again. He called General Stovak and waited for the phone to pick up on the other end. “Stovak, these creatures can travel via ground and air. I want anti-aircraft guns mounted on every surface in Dengrin that will support one and I want a ground surveillance web established for 150 leagues surrounding Dengrin. We won’t let this happen again!”
Chapter 2
Dengrin, Capital of Denoria
Alexis Reminir
Alex was cold, she shivered as confusion embedded itself firmly in her mind. There was a dark mist all around, a mist that felt . . . malicious. She started walking but could not see floor, walls, or ceiling. The smell was a putrid stench in her nostrils. A light began to shine in the distance, the closer she came to it the more the mist cleared, and details began to form.
As if stepping through a portal she found herself in a cave of some sort, staring out across a vast cavern. In the center of this cavern was a huge beast of unimaginable size. One talon of one claw was larger than she was. She approached it slowly, looking over the long expanse of its body. The massive jaws looked large enough to fit a building inside. A voice whispered in her head. “Command the dragon and it will answer, raise Ivinor to protect the world once again.”
“How?” Alex responded. “How can a girl like me command a beast such as this?”
“Call it by name, Alex Reminir. It is no beast, and you are so much more than a simple girl.” The voice responded.
“Ivinor, rise and protect the world once again!” Alex yelled. Her voice echoed through the chamber far longer than seemed natural, but after a few moments the dragon began to stir. Alex hastily ran back to the edge of the wall as it rose up on its hind legs and stretched its enormous wings to fill the entire cavern.
Ivinor looked down on the tiny insect of a girl shaking against the wall. It snorted, and smoke billowed from its nostrils. “Who are you?” It demanded in a deep, rumbling voice. The sound seemed to echo back and forth through the cavern until Alex put her hands over her ears to shut it out. “Who are you . . .Who are . . . Who . . . You . . . are you . . . Who . . . You . . . WHO ARE YOU?”
“I am Alex Reminir!” She screamed to silence the echoes. The words died away.
The dragon didn’t move, it just stared at her with a hard, cold gaze. After a few moments Ivinor spoke again. “No. You are not.” Again, the words seemed to echo and change. “No . . . Not . . . You are . . . No . . . Not . . . You ARE NOT.”
“I am Alex Reminir!” She screamed again while collapsing to the ground, a disheveled mess of sweat and tears. “I am Alex Reminir, I am!” The sound of the dragon’s words melted away. Slowly she opened her eyes and was startled to find herself in a different cavern. Directly in front of her was a strange table with a woman sprawled out on top of it.
The table glowed a transparent light blue and the woman on the table looked both alive and dead at the same time. Her flowing black hair was spread over the head of the table and draping off the end. Her skin looked so pale. She was . . . maybe in her early twenties and her clothes were as black as her hair. There was a palpable evil that exuded from the woman, it was so strong that Alex stepped backward until she found herself flush against a wall. The air smelled of rotting flesh. A dragon slid into the cave on its belly and promptly rose up on its hind legs. It was much smaller than the last one. An arm was missing off its left side and its right was missing a wing. A large scar crossed its face ending in an empty eye socket. Its remaining eye glowed red.
“We will kill you, Alex Reminir. We will kill you and you are powerless to stop us.” It growled. Its voice resonated off the walls but not to the same extent as Ivinor.
“Why . . . Why kill me?” Alex blubbered confused and still crying.
“Because you threaten the Great Lord’s plans, and he will not be thwarted!” The dragon replied before rearing back and unleashing a fire ball toward her. She screamed as the fire engulfed her.
Cliff Johnson
The scent of flowers tickled Cliff’s nose. He opened his eyes and found himself staring at a bright blue sky. White clouds wandered lazily by. I was just in a basement, he thought. How did I get here? He sat up and looked around. Flowers stretched as far as the eye could see in every direction. Rolling hills spread out from his position, each hill rising higher than the one before it until they became mountains in the distance.
“Hey there!” came a voice from somewhere behind Cliff. He looked around but did not see anyone there. “Up here!” The voice came a second time. Cliff looked up and spotted a man hovering in the air above him. The man had short brown hair, a suit of ancient looking armor, and a brown trench coat covering it that waived in the breeze. His facial features looked friendly and a smirk creased his lips.
“You . . . can fly?” Cliff asked clumsily, he did not really know what to say. “Who are you?” The second question came on the heels of the first, not allowing the man to answer.
“I am the Ariel.” The mysterious man responded. “And yes, I can fly.”
Cliff was incredulous. “This is bogus, I must be dreaming this crap.” Cliff looked around as if there might be a door somewhere to bring him back to reality. “Humans can’t fly, it’s scientifically impossible.”
“Haha . . . I will have to learn more about this science” Laughed Ariel. “I have not seen the world while I slept, but it seems from your statement that science does not account for the supernatural. That said, your point is valid. Humans can’t fly. It is also important to note however, that I am not human.”
Cliff scrunched his eyebrows down over his eyes in disbelief. “Right, and next you are going to tell me I’m not dreaming this.”
“Actually, you are dreaming this.” Ariel responded. “But that does not make it any less real. I have laid dormant inside your descendants for thousands of years. The fact that we are having this conversation means that the world has once again found itself facing the demon Serenis and my power is needed. I am an angel.”
Cliff’s eyes widened in alarm. “Wait, does that mean you are going to take me over . . . possess me or something?”
Ariel’s smirk widened into a big smile. “Nothing of
the sort! Angels are forbidden to possess humans. Unfortunately, my original angelic body was destroyed thousands of years ago, so you must now act in my stead. My power will be your power.”
Cliff looked somewhat relieved, but a steadily increasing sense of responsibility was beginning to weigh on his shoulders. “Power? What are you talking about?”
“Strength, speed, flight, possibly even the ability to summon the Sword of the Cherubim.” Ariel responded. Cliff looked ready to ask a second barrage of questions, but Ariel cut him off. “We have spent longer in contact than is safe already. I must go before damage is done to the barrier that keeps me from possessing your mind. Our commander will fill you in on the rest.”
“Your commander, who is that!?” Cliff screamed. There was no response. Ariel faded. The flowers, the hills, everything, faded to darkness.
Benjamin Davis
Why am I running? Davis asked himself as he looked around. He was in a large office building and, for some reason, he was bolting as fast as his legs would carry him through a maze of offices. He heard shouting in Chengarian coming from behind him and bullets hitting the walls on his right side, spraying his face with sheetrock dust. “Guess that’s why.” He muttered under his breath. “If I get caught in a straight corridor I’m done.”
He ducked into a room and pressed his back flat against the wall. A small bobble head politician shook on the desk from when he lightly brushed it entering the room. A paper slid onto the floor. The noise was as deafening as Davis’s heartbeat. A step by step checklist of what to do in case of a fire and bomb threat were taped ceremoniously to the wall. The sound of boots echoed into the room—they were almost in position. As they ran past the doorway Davis jumped out, knocked the first man’s semi-automatic weapon aside, and slammed his fist into the man’s gut. A strange sensation flooded through Davis. It felt like a river was coursing through him, bursting from his fist. As his punch followed through, the man lifted off the ground and careened through the air 15 feet before crashing through the wall at the end of the hallway. The second man, who Davis did not even hit, seemed to also get caught up in the shockwave that propelled the first man. He was thrown back away from the location of Davis’s initial punch and through the wall of the office to his left.
