Chapter 18: Chapter Eighteen: Death Awakens

I stared at the viewscreen as streams of light shot past us. My hand twitched, one half in excitement, the other with anxiety. I glanced over to Davin. He was sitting in a chair, leaning forward and brooding. A darkness colored the skin under his eyes. I didn’t know him very well, just barely met him, and here we were, warping to my home world to fight an evil that has been on the dark side of the moon for the last hundred thousand years.

A timer ticked off in the corner of my vision, telling me we were going to arrive in about ten minutes. In a little while, I was about to be neck deep in battle with some metal alien race that harvested souls. As far as I knew it, it was just a Tuesday on Urth.

My thoughts shifted. A mental image of my parents filled my mind. Next came images of the people of Urth, staring up at a giant black pyramid as it landed and began sucking our world dry. The Harvester Legion marching into the streets, blasting people to dust and then capturing their souls to make more for the legion. It was a dark cycle, and simply couldn’t let it happen. The stakes were my entire world, but we were bringing a fleet to stop them.

A memory washed on the shores of my mind. Xull, Davin, and I, sitting around that table and going over the strategy again. There was no room for diplomacy. The legion didn’t care for anything other than harvesting mana and souls. They were a faction of death, and we had to stop them.

Xull explained, when the battleships hammered at Legion’s location, it would provide a big enough distraction for dropships to land and begin the ground assault. I glanced over to Davin, knowing he and I would be leading that assault. Between us, we had enough power to turn the tide, as it were. But Davin, who I learned was once very confident and theatrical, was quiet and sullen. It didn’t take a psychologist to understand that he had lost his nerve. The months of torture under Omega broke him, and now, he was questioning everything.

I turned my head and looked at Davin. “You don’t have to join me. I can lead the ground forces,” I said, trying to let him off the hook.

Davin lifted his head and looked at me with dark eyes. “My honor demands I join you. Quinn, you freed me from Omega’s control. You saved my life. If I didn’t join you, I could never live with that decision.”

“Davin, there is honor, and then there is a time to heal. You went through a traumatic situation. No one will fault you for hanging back, especially me. I understand what it means to push beyond your limits.”

Davin kept his dark gaze on me. “I need this, to work out what was done to me,” he said flatly.

There was no changing his mind. He made his decision, and I had to honor it, no matter how much it gnawed at me.

“If you die down there, I’m going to be pissed,” I said with a small smile.

Davin cracked a smile, his features lighting up a little. “Understood.”

An iteration of Xull stood behind us. She looked exactly like Xull, but functioned as a fleet commander and captain of this battleship, coordinating with the four other battleships in the hyper warp tunnel.

“Four minutes until arrival. The Queen, Rook, Bishop, and Knight, have notified me they are prepared and ready for the assault.

We were on the lead battleship, named the King. It was my idea to name them after chess pieces, one, because Xull wanted names familiar to me to make it easier coordinating during the battle, and two, because it was my favorite game.

For a short span of time, my thoughts drifted to Nora and Hope. In the time it took to prepare the assault fleet, I didn’t see them. They didn’t stick around to see us off. Just as well. I didn’t want them in harm’s way. I needed them to get to Nerth, but now, this mission was a little more harrowing and deadly. I looked forward to seeing them again when I went back to Xull Prime for a visit.

A nagging thought clawed at the back of my mind, wondering if I should have found them and said goodbye.

“When we have our position over the moon, all battleships will not engage until ground forces are in place. The Legion should not attack until we begin our assault,” Xull explained.

“Are we sure they won’t attack?” I asked.

Xull looked at me. “Every instance I witnessed where a people have stumbled upon a legion pyramid, the legion didn’t activate until some damage was inflicted. They are slow to stir from their slumber, but we will still proceed with caution.

“I suggest you both get to your dropship. I will coordinate with you both during the mission.”

I nodded. Davin stood up, a small earpiece in his ear. He didn’t have his implant, but the earpiece will help with communication. I understand my implant has a universal translator, and a small host of other things it can do, but I rather the earpiece. Call me old-fashion.

Davin and I exited out from the bridge and made our way through the corridor. We both floated up and moved quickly along the corridor and down the stairs. We floated into the drop bay, dropships lined up on either side of us. All of them were activated and ready. They looked like armored ships I’ve seen in many sci-fi movies. Bulky, armored bodies, but no pilot cockpit. When everything is run by artificial intelligence, you don’t need a transparent windshield to know what you’re doing. One of them had an open ramp and we floated to it.

Once aboard, the ramp closed and locked shut. Davin and I turned to see in perfect formation, several rows of fifteen feet tall war drones. Unlike the war drones I dealt with before, these bulky plasma rifles attached to the side of their armored thighs. Xull explained, the rifles were the main weapon, but if destroyed or lost during the heat of conflict, forearm cannons and shoulder cannons would be secondary weapons.

“Approaching Urth’s Moon,” came through my implant.

I called up my stats.

Quinn Barron

Category 2 Mana Storm

Strength Power: 75 Tons

Speed: Mach 5 (3,000 MPH)

 

Standard Abilities

Hyper Physical Durability

Flight

Regeneration

Hyper Senses

Hyper Dimensional Jump

Soul Splinter

 

Storm Powers

Element: Water

1. Aura 80%
2. Elemental Weapon or Armor 60%
3. Energy Bolts 60%
4. Elemental manipulation 20%
5. Elemental Flare (X)
6. Unique Ability (X)
7. Unique Ability (X)
8. Unique Ability (X)

 

Element: Stone

1. Aura (X)
2. Elemental Weapon or Armor (X)
3. Energy Bolts (X)
4. Elemental manipulation (X)
5. Elemental Flare (X)
6. Unique Ability (X)
7. Unique Ability (X)
8. Unique Ability (X)

        

 A part of my wished I had more time for further training. Despite what power I’ve gained, I still felt underprepared. I had to keep my focus and see if I could activate more of my power in the heat of battle. It was possible, but risky. I couldn’t rely on chance. I needed to work with what I had. I was still stronger and faster and a seventy-five-ton punch was nothing to sneeze at.

“Coming out of hyper warp.”

A small square appeared in the left side of my gaze, showing me the hyper warp tunnel.

“Is Xull relaying visual?” Davin asked.

I nodded as hyper warp tunnel shuddered and streams of light retreated back to the stars across the heavens.

My heart beat a little faster, seeing the moon, and Urth glowing just behind it. I didn’t realize how much I missed it until I saw it again. The green and blue marble floated in a sea of stars.

Alerts and arrows pointed to the dark side of the moon. Visual enhanced, showing me an immense, black pyramid. Green dots began appearing in oval formations on all sides of the pointed structure. I caught sight of thin, green lines, running along the pyramid, like it was slowly waking up.

“Moving into fleet into position. Bay doors opening. Quinn and Davin, ready yourselves for drop procedures…” Xull stopped when there was a flash of green light.

I stared as the top of the black pyramid glowed with a sinister light, before a thick beam shot out. The screen in my gaze trembled and blinked. Information began scrolling along the left-side of my gaze.

“Direct hit on the Bishop. Shield’s down and took heavy damage to engines,” Xull informed.

“Xull! Drop us now!” I shouted through communications.

Gravity shifted and Davin and I floated. We quickly took control of our center of gravity, as information painted the corner of my eye. Dropships were released, but Xull was indicating to me that we were too far out from drop initial drop positions.

“ETA to moon surface increased by two minutes and counting,” Xull said.

Dammit, we were sitting ducks. I turned to Davin with a certain look, and he read my mind by giving me a nod.

“Xull, open ramp door. We’ll draw their fire away as you land ground drones,” I ordered.  

“You don’t have enough speed to get there before the dropships, but I may be able to assist you.”

Two war drones broke from formation. They stomped over as the ramp opened up into space. Any atmosphere in the dropship was immediately sucked out, but Davin and I were fine with it. The drones moved to us as we walked to the edge of the extended ramp.

Time slowed to a crawl as I stared down at the lunar surface. I enhanced my gaze to see moon dirt shift around the black pyramid. Metallica bodies with black shrouds and cloaks began to rise up. Like the undead from zombie movies, they began standing up to their full height. Metallic cloaks covered their upper bodies and trailed down to the back of their boney knees. Thin, skull-like faces looked out as green light begun filling their sockets. From what I could see, their bodies were skeletal, but not like any skeleton I’ve seen on Urth. It was the shape of bones over a solid body. I couldn’t see through them as they tilted their thin, skeletal features upwards.

In their hands were short, double-barreled rifles. The sickening green glow from their eyes spread to other black, skeletal bodies. They looked like a legion of metallic death, ready to reap all souls in their path.

My gaze shifted to the black pyramid. Green lines along its black surface pulsed, each pulse slightly faster than the last. The damn thing was powering up, much faster than we thought. We had to get down there before they shredded the rest of the fleet.

Metal hands grabbed me by the waist from behind, and lifted me up. I looked over to a war drone doing the same with Davin.

“I am overloading the thruster packs to the drones. They will get you to the moon much faster, but will burn out and become inoperable upon landing.”

I nodded.

“Do it,” I said as I steeled my nerves.

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Thrusters ignited and we lifted off. We flew out of the drop ship, my gaze locked on the pyramid. I gritted my teeth as I saw ports open along the black structure, cannon barrels slowly stabbing out.

The war drone had a firm grip on my waist, when all of a sudden, we blasted forward like a bat out of hades. Despite the great distances in space, I could still feel the momentum.

The vastness of space pressed down on me as we silently shot forward. I turned to see a swarm of dropships charging alongside, and soon behind us. I looked at the five battleships, the Bishop was breaking from formation. Its hull was damage and plasma bursts could be seen along the side of it. Dropships continued to launch from it, some of them exploding from space debris of the damaged ship.

I turned my head and looked forward. We were approaching the moon a lot quicker.

“Davin, follow the plan as I try to draw away their fire,” I ordered.

“Will do,” he replied.

We barreled toward the moon, when cannons along the pyramid aimed. In the corner of my gaze, a gray aura covered Davin’s body. I didn’t want to take too many chances, and used all of my power to activate my aura.

Water Aura: 80%

We streaked across the starry sky like a pair of twin comets.

Green light bloomed along the Legion pyramid, before the black heavens were filled with bolts of dark emerald light.

I was holding my breath, not that I needed to. Space was filled with a storm of plasma bolts, and a moment later, it was filled with explosions.

The first wave of dropships was hit by plasma fire. Many of them took several strikes, absorbing as much damage before shields caved and the ships exploded. Others formed a protective line, leading the rest of the dropships.

Plasma cannons trained on the pyramid. The barrels glowed to life before streams of plasma rained down. We were streaking along when thick plasma streams shot past us. They nearly reached the pyramid, before exploding on a greenish energy shield.

“Dropship forces are down to sixty-two percent,” Xull informed.

The timer in the corner of my gaze was at just under a minute, but we could lose a lot more in that time.

We approached the moon ahead of everyone else. The drone was feeding me information, its power reaching 0%. Its final act was to let go of me.

I burst down toward the moon’s surface and streaked above it. I stared ahead as barreled toward the pyramid.

“Building defense structures,” Davin said to me.

I glanced to the side to see Davin lift his hand and his aura surged with power. Along the ground, rocky barriers stabbed up from the lunar surface. They were blocky, and thick, perfect cover to our ground forces.

I looked ahead to see the legion’s ground forces lifting up their rifles and aiming in my direction. Glowing green eyes stared, emotionless and indifferent, but their rifles were anything but. Boney black fingers pulled triggers and a wave of green bolts blasted at me.

I swerved from left tor right, up and down, trying my best to avoid them. Some of them shot past me, dangerously close. I had to conserve every drop of my power if we were going to stand a chance. The closer I approached, the closer their plasma rounds were to me. The legion moved with precision, each re-aim better than the last. It felt like they were trying to understand my speed, and accounting for it. I had to give it to them, they were not mindless drones.

I approached the line of legion troops. I hoped I was close enough to draw their cannons to me, but they never changed their aim. They continued to fire at the incoming dropships, explosions filling the starry sky.

Despite my speed, I hit the shield barrier, and passed through.

A green plasma bolt glanced off my aura, and a terrible pull drained away from my aura.

Water Aura: 76%

As I approached, I had to make this count. I channeled 10% of my power from my energy bolts and into my hands.

Water Energy Bolts: 50%

A ball of blue energy filled my out-stretched palms before it turned into a thick beam of blue energy.

Legion troopers continued to fire as a thick beam of light engulfed a dozen of them. Bodies shattered into flying, metal debris. The beam cut through the troops, and struck a corner edge of the pyramid.

Time stood still as I stared at the spot I hit. It was hard to tell if I even made a dent in it, but, several cannons along the pyramid turned and aimed right at me. I guess I did get their attention.

I streaked to the side as cannons went off. Green plasma bolts hit the ground and exploded as I moved like a blue comet, just a few feet off the surface. I poured on the speed, when a squad of legion troopers were in my way and firing their extractor rifles.

Three bolts hit me dead on as I crossed my arms. A blink later, I went through four troopers, shattering the bodies into destroyed metal chunks.

Water Aura: 64%

I continued to fly and swerve as Xull communicated with me.

“Dropships have landed. War Drones are active and charging to barrier positions.”

I glanced behind me to see a horde of armored war drones move to erected barriers. Plasma rifles and shoulder cannons aimed. A faint glow of yellow energy bloomed, before our forces returned fire.

The battlefield was a spectacle of light and explosions. Legion troops turned and returned fire at the war drones. The space between our forces and the legion troops was filled with deadly brilliance.

High above the battlefield, Xull battleships hovered in the sky as streams of plasma rained down. Each beam hit the active shield, but not penetrating it.

My brow furled. I was already under the shield and in close proximity of the pyramid. It was time to do some major damage.

My eyes locked on a cannon port on the side of the pyramid. A green bolt struck my shield and knocked me from the air.

  Water Aura: 60%

 I caught myself and ignored the ground troops. I burst upwards as the sky filled with exchanges of light. I poured another 10% into an energy bolt and aimed my hand.

Water Energy Bolts: 40%

Blue energy blasted out and struck the cannon dead on. The barrel bent and exploded off. Half a second later, I smashed my shoulder into what was left of the cannon and wretched it off its base. I grabbed at the destroyed equipment with both hands and pulled. The cannon was torn in half in a shower of green sparks.

I glanced around to see I was in a simple chamber. There were no doors, or anything else. Why would there be, considering this room was just a place to house the cannon.

I flew at the back wall with my fist pulled back. When I reached it, I punched the wall. It cracked, and then shattered on impact. I flew into a tall and wide corridor. The place felt like death, dragging down on my senses. It was filled with odd runes along black walls. A greenish light illuminated from overhead as I floated a foot off the floor.

“Ground forces fighting at a standstill. Battleship Bishop is destroyed. The rest of the fleet is taking having damage,” Xull informed me.

Green lines of light pulsed within the corridor, from bottom to top. They quickened after each pulse, moving faster and faster.

“Xull, pull your battleships back. I think its going to fire again,” I communicated.

The pulses quickened to a fevered pace, before lines along the walls dimmed.

I connected to a drone on the battlefield. It looked up to see a massive green beam blast through a battleship, cutting it in half. Both sides floated away from each other as plasma flares shot out into space.

“The Knight has been destroyed.”

I kept my connection, surveying the battlefield. Our forces hadn’t advanced, pinned down by legion cannons and soldiers. They didn’t hesitate, blasting anything that moved. I caught sight of Davin with the war drones, one hand raised and more barrier structures rising up. War drones broke from cover, advancing to the new ones and returning fire at the legion troops.

“Quinn, I don’t have enough power to keep making barriers, and the barriers I made are slowly being destroyed. We are going to have to charge or we will be cut to pieces,” Davin communicated.

The battle was not turning in our favor, but I was already inside. I had to do as much damage as I could.

“I’m already inside the pyramid. Hold your position! I’ll try to do as much damage as I can. If I don’t communicate in two minutes, begin your advance.”

“Quinn, try to find a major conduit. It may be enough to slow down their next attack on our battleships.”

Xull chimed in, “Davin is correct. Look for a large, half-tube, embedded in the walls. It will be deeper inside the pyramid.

“I estimate the pyramid will charge enough power to fire again in two minutes and eleven seconds.”

No time to waste. I burst forward as my eyes scanned my surroundings. The corridor splintered off in several directions, but Xull was feeding me information, showing me the direction to get deeper into the structure.

If I expended a lot of my remaining power to my energy bolts, I might be able to do some reach damage.

I stopped floated when something touched my senses. I spun around to see something big detach from the wall. A large, black oval pod landed on the floor. I turned, ready to fly off before whatever it was decided to activate, when I stopped short.

Before me, a black pod was folding out thin, black, segmented legs. The pod rose up as four, spider-like legs lifted it up. A skeletal face stabbed out of one end of the pod, glowing green eyes staring at me. The top of its back opened up and a thick, plasma cannon rose up and aimed at me.

I glanced behind me to see the other one fully standing up at twenty feet tall, and aiming its back cannon at me.

They were silent, like demonic monsters from the deepest parts of hades, their cannons trained on me.

Time slowed down as my fingers curled into tight fists. If it was a fight they were looking for, they came to the right mana storm.

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