Vrrad smiled, his eyes bearing not an inkling
of pity as they found Ion.
“Execute him.” he said to the two.
The two officers by either side of him drew
their Sparklers, holding aim together at Ion…
Ion drew in a deep breath. A final
breath…
The two officers by Vrrad’s either side kept
their aims locked to him firmly. And then, without warning, they
spun about and opened fire on the other officers … Jets of blue
streaked across the small room, flying from both their Sparklers.
Vrrad and the other four of the suited officers slid to the floor,
hit by their Sparkler shots.
Shock and confusion crashed over Ion.
The two Naxim officers, who had struck down
their own comrades, turned and removed their space masks.
Vestra and Qyro let their beaming smiles fall
over Ion.
“You scratch our back…” said Qyro.
“We scratch yours.” finished Vestra.
They cut him free from the iron bindings with
their power swords, which they had hidden at the back of their
suits.
Rubbing his arms where the chains had been
clasped, Ion gaped at the two of them. He was stumped for an
overwhelming moment. But through the disbelief and shock flooding
him, he felt delight like nothing else his whole life.
“But - how?” he gasped, when finally managed
to wrench out his voice.
“We escaped.” said Vestra simply, her eyes
scanning the entire room they were in, looking if any of the cops
were still conscious.
“There was one hover bike left in the temple’
vehicle shed.” explained Qyro. “Just when the temple was
collapsing, we managed to get it, and had the meanest stroke of
luck to zoom off just in time.”
Ion waited for a moment, before softly
asking, “And … the other masters?”
The grins slid off both of their faces, and
they looked at each other in heaviness.
Ion’s fists curled as a re awakened blaze of
anger filled him.
Oh, we’ll have them avenged … no matter
what.
“We were lying low for a while,” went on
Qyro. “And then,” His voice trailed off, and he exchanged a dark
look with Vestra.
“Did you … see it?” he asked, turning back to
Ion.
“See what?” asked Ion.
The two of them watched him silently, as
though afraid of going on.
“Oh, yeah,” Ion’s jaws clenched
involuntarily. “Of course I did. The whole spectrum did.”
His mind flew back to the horrid video they’d
watched in the restaurant. The Xeni pronouncing their return … and
that there would be ten planets blown off to celebrate it.
Qyro shook his head heavily, a look of
despair in his eyes.
“Ten planets!” he gasped. “And one has
already been blown off!”
Ion realised that there was a lot that they
needed to catch up on, since that video had transpired. “Mantra,
Dantox and the watchmen - by the way, the conch my master gave me
was the Grael conch - are going to go and try to find the bombs and
stop them.”
Instead of looking surprised, the two of them
simply nodded.
“We know.” said Vestra.
“After we saw the video,” explained Qyro. “We
realised how dangerous a predicament were now in. we thought we
were the only two survivors, and if that was so…” His voice faded
with a bleak note.
“If that was so,” took over Vestra. “we knew
there was no hope at all for stopping the Xeni, and we knew it. So
we tried contacting the other masters one by one. Mantra happened
to be alive. He told us everything. He told us to join you in this
journey, and protect the crystal along with you. We’re here because
he told us to be.”
“When we reached near flamebird, we saw a
naxim ship nearby.” Shazine said. “but before we could get close,
they had slipped into the ship and gotten to you. We knew that the
only hope of saving you was to secretly enter the naxim ship and
disguise ourselves among the naxim crew.”
“You were lucky we were near you when the
Naxim ships attacked you.” said Qyro.
“If we hadn’t, you’d probably be dead by
now.”
“Yeah, I probably would.” admitted Ion.
“Thanks. Now, let’s get outta here.” He paused as something
occurred to him, and his breath grew racy with panic. “The plague
crystal was in the ship! Did you see what they did to my ship?”
“Don’t worry, it’s here.” said Vestra.
“They’ve brought it here, to keep it stored
with them.” said Qyro. “We saw them take it to in a large dome
shaped building in another side of this space station.”
Relief washed through Ion. “Thank the
heavens. Let’s go get it.”
The plague crystal better be safe
where I left it inside of the ship.
As the three of them crossed the room, Ion’s
gaze skimmed over the five bodies on the floor. “Are they
dead?”
“Nope, stunned.” Qyro wagged his gun.
“They’re stun Sparklers.”
They exited the door warily, and found
themselves in a massive space station. Ion’s spine tingled as he
gazed about, intaking the momentousness of its build. The entire
station would have probably been ten times the size of a regular
cruiser … It was almost as large as a small city.
They were now striding though a large
metallic expanse. Metallic buildings erected on the expanse could
be seen lining the sides, further off. It was almost like a city
floating in mid space. Looming above them, vast and pitch black,
was space. As Ion gazed upwards, he felt a moment of reckless,
panicky awe at the scene they wee now in.
The entire space station had evidently been
enclosed in a Plasmon shield, which was why they were able to
breathe and were able to feel an illusionary sense of gravity below
their feet.
It was as good as a city in mid space,
moulded completely out of metal.
They crept down the space station, skulking
in the shadows and making themselves unseen. But an eerie emptiness
filled the entire place, with no one seen about outside. Vestra and
Qyro led Ion to a large dome shaped building at the end of the
large metallic platform, where Flamebird was being held. They
entered it to find the majestic bird sitting right at the
centre.
There were five empty hover cars stationed
before the ship.
For an uncertain moment the three of them
stood at the entrance of the dome shaped hall, which was doused in
complete silence. They let their eyes roam over the entire place
carefully, trying to find any unwanted company. But they were
completely alone, with the ship ahead of them waiting for their
taking.
Qyro turned to the other two with a
smile.
“Cake.” he whistled, and the three of them
walked strode down the large hall. As they neared, it happened.
The five hover cars stationed between them
and the ship gave a sudden, sharp shudder. And then their metallic
bodies seemed to churn with a loud, grinding noise … Before the
three Nyon knew what had happened, the five cars had transformed.
And in their place now stood five giant robots with broad, lanky
shoulders and hefty builds. They towered to around twice the height
of an average man, their large thick arms leaving a gorilla like
touch to their appearance.
Ion couldn’t say he was surprised: they had
to expect
something
guarding the ship. But as the five
robots raised their arms as one, the grinding noise of gears and
levers shifting came again, and their arms had transformed - one
into a giant canon like gun, and the other into a missile
roller.
The five canons exploded as one, sending five
orbs of red soaring at the three Nyon.
Holy smoke!
Ion grabbed Qyro, pulling
the two of them to the right while Vestra made a swift dive to her
left. Not a split second later, the spot the three of them had been
standing in erupted in smoke and fire, taking the pounding of five
canon orbs.
Through the swirl of dust and smoke, Ion saw
the robots’ slowly refocus themselves. And this time, the missile
launchers began to roll…
“Missiles!” roared Qyro, but Ion was already
in motion. His sword was out and blazing as the missile rollers
fired. He saw one of the deadly rockets wiz just over him as he
made a lightspeed duck to avoid it. Behind him, he felt the other
two hurling themselves off the way of the four others. The entire
structure, its walls and the earth below shuddered violently as the
missiles hit the earth and blasted. Filling the place in five wild
splashes of orange. The explosions cleaved the air, and Ion’s
eardrums along with it. He clenched his jaws hard, shrugging his
shoulders: the sound of the five blasts would have taken any
ordinary person’s hearing, and even for his sound mystic powers,
the sudden loud noise left panic splitting him like a dagger. He
kept himself together, unfaltering, and lunged…
His hair few back as he soared gracefully
across ten feet, rising to the chest level of the foremost of the
giant robots. Barely hearing his own crazy warscream, he sent his
sword slicing right through the wide torso of the robot, flying
between its right arm. As he landed behind and rolled over the
ground, he saw the robot he had cut stagger a step or two, before
coming to the ground in two giant, useless metallic pieces.
Two of the remaining four kept focus to Qyro
and Vestra, shooting at them while they dodged at thoughtspeed and
raced forth towards them. The other two slowly turned over to face
Ion, their canon and missile launcher arms rising. Ion held out a
hand, focussing every bit of his reserves … and a
smash
sprung out of his hand. It crashed into one of the giant robots,
which was crushed like tin foil and sent flying back …
Meanwhile, Qyro and Vestra launched
themselves towards the other two firing at them, their shining
swords swirling, ready for the kill…
As the last robot facing him rolled its
missile launcher, moments from deploying one, Ion did the only
thing left: his blade’s shining orange light seemed to draw
swirling shimmers over the metallic floors, the walls, ceiling, and
the robot’s body itself as it went flying towards the robot. It met
Ion’s aim with deadly precision, cleaving right through the torso.
It slashed through the robot’s torso with a shower of sparks. The
upper half of the robot wobbled and toppled to the ground, and the
lower half followed a second later, with two loud
thuds
, one
a second after the other.
Ion held out and caught his sword as it came
twirling over the air and back to him, in a full circle.
The three of them looked at each other from
three different ends of the room, standing over the remains of the
five giant robots. One of them had been crushed by Ion’s smash. The
other four had been chopped apart - two by him, and one by Qyro and
Vestra each.
“You guys all right?” Ion called to the other
two, who gave a swift nod in response. “Great.”
He turned and faced the giant ship, with its
familiar, gleaming eyes. As it had before, a ramp caved out from
the bottom of the ship, landing on the ground before them.
Feeling a smile play at his lips, Ion turned
to the other two, who were walking up towards him.
“We’re on.”
The three of them boarded the ship, and sent
it blasting out of the space station without a second’s hesitation.
Sitting over the pedestal, Ion checked Flamebird, using his mind to
search it for any sort of hidden tracking device that might have
been implanted by the Naxim. Sensing none, he set the ship in
autopilot and drew himself up from the pedestal, exiting the bubble
like encasing. His eyes stalled on the table upfront, and he felt a
great swell of relief to find the crystal perched before the four
screens, right where he had left it.
I’m never losing sight of that thing
again.
he thought, snatching the crystal from the table and
stuffing it back into his pocket.
Vaniox, Eldyym Kingdom, Cluster 26
Atop a giant tower in the city stood a most
peculiar group of people: one of them was a short, elderly man and
next to him stood a Brownling with golden hair, both of them
cloaked. Behind them, standing in a line, were what looked like a
bunch of men made of a glowing, orange substance that left their
entire forms lit like torches.
Mantra smiled as he gazed across the towers
rising before him, at a particular one not more than hundred metres
away from where they now were.
“That’s where our dear target is.” he told
Dantox, who was also surveying the tower with narrowed eyes. “The
one who holds the key to what we’re now after.”
He turned to Nano and the small group of
watchmen they had brought along here. “The man is a crime lord
going by the name Zevinog.”
“Let’s end it, then.” said Dantox, frowning.
“It’s taken us long enough to get here.”
This was true: it had been a journey from one
cluster to another. It would have been far faster if they had used
the space gates between the two clusters. But, afraid that the
space gates might also be armed with mystical energy hotspots that
may have given them away to the Naxim, they had decided on the
conventional long distance voyage between the two clusters. But
they were lucky enough not to have experienced any trouble along
the way even in that safer route.