Before she got any further, I stared at her in disbelief. Shocked at who Annabelle had become or perhaps who she always had been.
“Annabelle you know I can’t do that. My loyalty is to my friends, and it was to you. If you plan on taking over the world, then I can’t be with you. We were supposed to be heroes. Save the world does not take it over. We were supposed to get married and help them establish a new government, Not become the new government.”
Annabelle put her finger to my lips and gave me one last slow kiss. “Catalyst, we would be unstoppable I have powers. When I told you writing was my superpower, I wasn’t lying. What I write comes true. I can’t make things happen; I can greatly influence them. Didn’t you wonder why we landed on that exact part of the planet? Why we met Agatha, Gabriel, and Zadok, and they joined us almost no problem. Things happened because I needed them to happen. Now say the word and I will have them unlock you and you can stand by my side as we write the future and create a new Earth. Or you can stay here and perish with our friends I am sorry, this is the only way.
Tears poured down and I shook my head. “Annabelle you know I can’t do that, and I never will I choose them.”
Annabelle turned and ran her fingers through the scar in my face. “Then so be it.so we are in understanding I have made it so you will never get off this planet no matter what. Your fate is written and sealed. I might as well give you the last bit of truth and that is the government doesn’t have my mother. She was loyal to the president, so I killed her long ago. You can have him now Harsh “
She gave me one last kiss on the cheek and closed the door. Harsh pressed the heated blade into my back and I heard my skin hiss. After hours of meaningless torture, they grew bored and left me alone. I laid in a pool of my blood and vomit. So that was it. This is truly where I would spend the rest of my short days. I was finally out of time hope and reason to live. The light at the end of my tunnel had grown dark.
Chapter twenty
I sat in my cell for weeks not talking, not thinking not feeling anything. Until I started thinking about all the events that led me to this moment in my life. I thought about how James and Zadok has been right and how wrong I had been. If I would have stopped fighting in Ehud’s prison at least I would still have Annabelle to love and yearn for. Now I know the truth and I truly must push me forward. Nothing to gain by leaving nothing more I can lose by staying. I had lost everything until I sat alone beaten, scarred and deformed. It occurred to me that There was a way I could win, and it would solve all the problems. It would keep the president and the world and especially Annabelle from getting my power. I glanced up at David and Harsh who stared deep into my soul with their weapons drawn to insure I would not escape. Yet there was one last way to win one last way to ensure that the Cardinals could not weaponize my power. In their hands my poison could kill entire armies with a single blast and that was one thing I still knew I could control. If I poisoned myself, it brought a disease upon myself one strong enough or a toxin and then I wouldn’t even need to worry about my anti venom kicking in. I waited for the guards to glance away before working around a wad of saliva and toxin. I rubbed my arms against the metal gauntlet until my arm wound busted open and blood began to seep out. I swished the toxin around my mouth one last time and began to drip ooze into my open wound. Thunder cracked above our heads once again and I continued to drip toxic spit into my arm. A loud gust of wind rushed through the wind. Except it wasn’t the familiar type of razor wind. A sudden cool wisp of air.
I continued to push more and more of my toxins into my blood. Suddenly, the blood and toxin would not mix. The spit would hit my arm and slide off which was followed by an itching and irritation in my arm.
“Hey what the hell is going on I knew we should have put that muzzle back on.?” David said as he walked over to exam me. DOOM DOOM DOOM. David and harsh slumped to the floor unconscious. I glanced around the room to see little chunks of everything.
“It’s ok I know the way out and the way to the weapons let’s go Catalyst… “
I cut her off mid-sentence surprised and confused by the return of another teammate.
“Agatha is that really you? I thought you went insane and we locked you up and I assumed Annabelle and her goons would have done the same.”
Agatha began to blast sand powerful enough to cut through my metal bounds.
“Well what happened was while they were busy tracking you down after you escaped, they forgot about the old crazy lady. I had completely left because I hated all of you and was going to wash my hands of the whole thing. Figure out a way to return to my bone fort. I was stopped in my tracks only because I heard Annabelle betrayal and truth and I might hate you, you don’t deserve to go out like that at least my lover died a hero. Now let’s go I have a plan.”
I let out a big sigh and leaned against the pole. I ran my good fingers through my hair.
“Agatha I really appreciate you coming back for you and you having this redemption ark there is no point in escaping again. All that will happen is we fight bad guys our friends die and then we get captured by someone else. I might as well stay here and wallow in my self-pity. I rubbed my wounded wrist and huffed as I sat down once again.”
“Catalyst.”
“No Agatha I use to be so good at everything, I thought I knew everything about everything. Good and evil, black and white, hope and drive are not all cut and dry I use to be some dumb Gullible Wannabe hero. Now I know Zadok was right all this time, accept your current surroundings because sometimes they are the best you are going to get. Life sucks and then you die. Success is a prologue to further failure. Most of all if you do escape and fight you kill them before they can kill you. Goodbye Agatha maybe you still have time to get to safety if they don’t know you escaped.”
“Catalyst you can’t give up, not after all we’ve been through. I know how you feel I thought I lost everything because of you. If I gave up and if you give up now, then Gabriel and everyone else will have died for nothing. Zadok is not right, life is not worth living if you have nowhere to go nothing to look forward to. We made a promise long ago to get off the world and stop the UN and that president guy.” Said Agatha’’
I thought about all the things we discussed and everything that had happened to us. Once again, I decided I would not give up without a fight. I’ll get my revenge on Annabelle and fight until my last breath. I would have to change because everything I had done before let to me ultimately losing. From then on, I would do whatever it takes to win, and I would have to be willing to kill people before they could kill me. Do what needed to be done.
“Alright let’s do it, For Gabriel and the people of Earth, maybe I will come out of this a better man. so, Agatha what’s the plan.”
She tossed me two small syringes of dark purple liquid. “If they didn’t look for me because they didn’t know I had left what if they are busy hallucinating to notice we are gone?” Said Agatha.
I stabbed the syringes deep into the chest of both men until their eyes glowed yellow and they passed out into the floor in a hallucinogenic state. Agatha took their Thermal guns and I took their Dark red swords.
When slipped through the door and into the dimly lit hallway. A guard started walking toward us and he must have heard our loud ass footsteps because he drew his gun and began scanning the hallway. Agatha’s mouth dropped as slit his chest open and watched as his entrails were poisoned and pickled and he collapsed to the floor.
“Catalyst what the hell are you doing! You didn’t have to kill that guy!”
“Now there is no chance he can kill me or any of my friends. One last guy to fight later.”
She looked startled and almost afraid, she had no more to say. We came to a fork in the hallway Agatha started to walk towards the left and I to the right.
“Hey, the prison cells are this way, that’s where our friends will still be,” Said Annabelle.
“Exactly I’d they stay locked in their cells then they should be safe when we do what
I am about to do. We are incredibly outnumbered the only way to do this with minimal deaths of our friends. Is to open the Zoo and let the creatures kill the Cardinals.
“Hey Catalyst, that sounds like a great plan and all, don’t you think our escape was pretty easy what if they want you to release them to kill all of us to better harness our powers?”
“What if they want us to not release them and to do nothing. I say we start to kill every single one of them and then figure out however Annabelle can write fate and use it to free us and steal this ship and go home.”
I stole the outlaw’s uniform to blend in better and then maybe I could say I caught Agatha sneaking out. I heard the screams and howls of the Fermenters and other beast from beyond the door.
“Maybe you’re right and we should go rescue the others first,” I said.
When Agatha didn’t respond I turned around to check on her, she was gone.
“Aaaaaaaaah” I heard someone scream from up ahead, so I ran toward the sound. I drew my sword and lunged at a shadowy figure and slid the blade onto their thin neck.
“Hey Catalyst, relax man it me, it’s Toni. Agatha and Reuben helped us escape. Agatha sandblasted the guard and Reuben’s restraints. Then Reuben liquefied Our restraints and then we simply slipped out.
I slapped Toni right across his face loud enough for the sound to echo in the hall.
“Dude what the fuck was that for “
“I wanted to make sure you were real I have been deceived this whole time. Now I have a plan on how to…” I stopped talking when I heard footsteps approaching. I tossed Toni my spare sword from David and we leaned against the wall. A large group of guards rushed past us to recapture James and the others.
“Toni, I know what the plan has to be. We must do the classic divide and conquer. Well send a couple people to get our weapons, a group to fight and hold off the outlaws and another to figure out Annabelle’s Pierre and how to stop it from keeping us here.”
Toni looked at me as if he agreed also questioned the logistical disadvantage of splitting up our team.
“Toni throughout history, dividing and conquering works sometimes, most of the time it epically fails. We are not the Roman Empire while we are doing all of this; you are the odd man out what will you be doing?
I swung my sword underhand and slammed it into the Cardinal's knee cap.
“Aahahah” I drove the blade into the man’s neck, and his body crumbled to the floor. I reached for another man’s leg and attempted to poison him when a third man kicked me in the face, and I fell to the floor. Toni pulled him off me and slammed him to the floor Toni blocked a blade attack from David, who swung a sword at my neck. We because outnumbered until James, Willard, and the others arrived.
One last swing of my sword and stabbed my sword into another Cardinals shoulder and pinned him to the floor.
“Catalyst Go, now!” James Said. he dug a blood sickle deep into. Man’s back. DOOM. Willard took several metal slivers in the shoulder.
Agatha and Reuben were running to get to the vault where the outlaws were holding Toni’s sword and Zadok’s Amulet. The rest of my friends were attempting to hold back the Cardinals while I ran to the zoo. I grabbed a stray Thermal gun from the man I killed and used it to blast through metal door to the cells of the beast.
I heard heavy breathing and growling as I entered the familiar hallway.
This is either one of the best ideas I have ever had or by far the worst. In the distance I could still hear the clanking of swords and the blasting of guns, muffled only by screams.
I placed my hand upon the glass cell and peered at the pair of fermenters that lay inside the cell. I watched them for a moment and remembered that I killed almost their entire species or at least that pack we fought. What if I let them out and they try to kill me? Perhaps I should start with the dinosaur man and then he could talk to the Fermenter beast to beast. I knocked gently on the dinosaur man’s cell. For a moment he looked like Gabriel or Willard with the sharp pointed crest, dark skin and pointed claws. I had also had a significant role in killing almost all his people. Perhaps I am the villain I am the bad guy. I have killed hundreds upon hundreds of people and now I must come to the last remnants of their species to ask for their help.
TAP, TAP, TAP. I knocked on the class until the Dinosaur man came close to the glass. His eyes pierced my own as he stared into my soul. The man spoke with a deep almost un under-stable growl.
“I was told about you Catalyst, you’re the one responsible for killing all of my friends. All the men and women that arrived on this planet and helped me survivor for years and you killed them.
“No! They were not innocent! They were holding my friends and I captured and tortured us you are the villains!” I screamed.
“Mr. Catalyst a wise man once said good is a point of view and don’t forget that everyone is the hero of their own story. What could you possibly have to offer me or us to help you? Your friends are probably dying right now.”
“No sir, my friends are tough I do not regret killing the people that were torturing them. You can hate me you can love me I don’t care we don’t have to be friends, I need you and you need me. If you fight the Cardinals and hold back Annabelle while we can escape, I will break you guys out of here and I will give you enough blood to turn you human again like Ehud was able to.”
“It is a deal then.”
I placed the thermal gun against the glass and heated it up until it burst and shattered. Glass rained down onto the floor. The dinosaur man raised from the floor and towered over me. We turned to release the fermenters when the dinosaur man turned to me and said “My name is Nikola I was named after the great inventor Nikola Tesla.
While Nikola talked to the Fermenters, I drew the sword across my arm and as the door to the fermenters cage was opened Nikola absorbed some of my blood which allowed him to turn almost completely human. I stumbled and struggled to stand.
“Let’s go kill some bad guys, you guys fight the army we will me and my crew will go for Annabelle and figure out her powers and how to get off the ship. “
My Thermal gun had over heated from being overused so much and had begun to melt in my hands. So, we set off to regroup with my friends. Nikola took the lead followed by a slow walking me and the fermenters. Who were even bigger than the ones we face outside Agatha’s camp? This pair was bigger than the dog sized ones. These ones were almost as big as grizzly bears.
“Catalyst help we are being overrun we need you!” Screamed Zadok and Willard.
The first Cardinal was bitten in the neck by the fermenter the others watched in horror as his entire body was pickled and fermented as his skin turned black and purple and the Fermenters ripped him apart in seconds as if they had not eaten in weeks. They leaped from enemy to enemy seeping their claws deep into the flesh and Sucked the oxygen out and turned the sugars into carbon dioxide. Agatha and Reuben have returned with Zadok’s Gauntlet, I guess Annabelle had stolen Toni’s sword first because it was still missing.
“Guys let’s move! Nikola, the Fermenters and the others have it under control. I tossed one of the Exploding flowers at the Cardinals that were hidden behind cover.
We rush toward the bridge and Annabelle. We would stop anywhere along the way for any clues we could use for figuring our Annabelle’s power and how it was keeping us from leaving the planet.
“Catalyst let me get this straight your fiancé betrayed you and ultimately wants to use your powers and ours to take over the world in a government coup and you turn around and put all your faith it random strangers who you have never met before and that you killed all of their friends and that could easily kill you .” Said Zadok.
“Yes, pretty much, Agatha taught me even the worst things in the world can be forgive and if not forgiven then at least put aside until a point when our goal is reached like getting home. For the record I don’t trust them at all. After getting betrayed by Annabelle I don’t trust anyone except James. I think they are
going to betray us, you know what we needed them, and so I took that gamble. “
Chapter twenty-one
“Damn its Catalyst where is my sword? Every time we get free from these fucking prisons my sword is stolen.” Said Toni
We were headed toward the bridge and could still hear the screams of cardinals being shredded and rotted by fermenters.
“Toni, Zadok I got it! So, with your Amulet you can bring through weapons that people in your bloodline have touched. Does that include you? “
Zadok stopped in his tracks and turned toward Toni before activating his amulet. His eyes glowed golden and he pulled out a Falcata sword like what Toni’s sword was.
“There Toni I know it’s not exact that’s not how it works. It takes a lot more than me touching it for me to be able to pull it through the amulet. Maybe sometimes I will explain to you how it works. Until then I think it would be best to focus on the mission at hand.”
For a while we walked in silence and spoke only when we would come across a guard that we would have to fight. Every time we would argue whether it was necessary to kill them.
“Catalyst you do not have to kill them! If you can trust that random dinosaur man, then why can you not spare an outlaw. Is it because they work for the women who betrayed you,” Said Agatha?
“Yes, maybe, I don’t know look Agatha after Gabriel I don’t think we should waste our time fighting.”
“Guys shut the hell up, she’s going to hear us coming for twenty minutes.” Said James
“Well of this ship is as big as I think it is and judging by how many Mercenaries or Cardinals or outlaws whatever the hell they are called this ship must be a fortress like the size of several aircraft carriers not to mention it’s a high tech spaceship obviously they have cameras and sensors she’s probably playing with us mocking with us.” Said Willard.
I heard the click of an intercom turning on and then a muffled voice.
Journey to a darker world Page 16
