The Rising Sun: Episode 5 by J Hawk
The air seemed to tighten in the room. The seven men’s postures suddenly grew stiff. They took a step forward towards him. Some of them crunched their knuckles in menacing gestures.
Vrrad watched him closely, no longer sneering. He had the Stinger lowered for a moment, wondering if this was going to work after all. Then, without warning, he shot.
The yellow orb erupted from the Stinger’s tip, smashing into Ion’s chest. Unbearable agony exploded all through him. The scream of pain he released drowned the entire room, bouncing inside its tiny walls.
“You still think you’re tough, huh?” laughed the officer, the sneer rising to his face again. “You still think you’re tough?”
Ion fixed the officer with his burning gaze and spat, “Go on and you’ll find out!”
Vrrad’s mouth hung loose for a moment, startled at his captive’s unfazed rebel attitude, even in the face of the gravest of tortures. Now with the sneer completely wiped from his face, he fixed the Stinger in aim again. “Enjoy this, then, tough guy.”
The second bolt of yellow seemed to crash into Ion with ten times the impact of the first, knocking his chair back slightly. Ion felt his every pore scream in agony, ablaze with a furied pain like no other.
God, make it stop!
He panted heavily for a few seconds. The Naxim officers stood around, watching without mercy. The pain of the second shot faded far slower than the first, seeming to sear its impact right into his bones…
But the memory of Vestra flashed past him, and Ion’s fists clenched. His teeth gritted.
“Kill me, then.” he whispered, finishing his rasping pants. “I ain’t telling you nothing.”
The officer hid his surprise at Ion’s continued resistance quickly, and rose the Sparkler again. But a second later, as Ion braced himself for another seizure of agony, the man lowered his Sparkler and turned to the two men standing by him.
He leaned by and whispered to them, “I don’t this one’s giving us anything.” A short pause. “There’s nothing more to it. We’ll just have to dispose of him.”
The other two exchanged looks, and then nodded.
Dispose of me, then. Now with the moment finally upon him, Ion felt a sudden, almost unnerving calm.
“Well, you have your wish, mystic.” said Vrrad. He looked from one man to the other, among the two uniformed masked men standing by him. “Would you like to do the honours?”
The two of them gave another crisp nod together.
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.
8
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.
9
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.
“Well, let’s head in for it, then.” Mantra looked around at them all as he said it. “I’m pretty sure Zevinog doesn’t enjoy waiting.”
Dantox nodded, his frown dissolving behind a look of fierce fervour.
His arms folded, Nano nodded and took a step forward beside Mantra.
“So what is the plan, if I may ask, masters?” he asked the two Nyon masters.
His eyes steadily fixed over the tower, Mantra smiled. “The one he never sees coming.”
__________
The man known as Zevinog sat slumped on his chair, with his legs over the desk before him. This large, lavish room which he used as his o
A batch of Rash-cons lay lining the all by his right, rigid and ice like in stillness. They would spring into action with the meanest command from Zevinog. An emergency door lay shut with a digitpad right beside where he sat.
The room’s main door lay across the large room, and Zevinog’s bodyguard stood ahead of. Large, well built and intimidating, Swoon was the perfect assistant/ bodyguard for a man like Zevinog – a man who needed a rigid level of security around him all the time. Controlling and running a crime empire wasn’t as neat and clean a business as people usually thought it was.
He drew his thoughts back to focus on his job.
Brushing the smooth material that made his suit, Zevinog withdrew his legs from the desk and sat straight. He tapped a spot on the desk, and a holographic screen formed above it, hanging still on the air. He scanned the screen, reading file after file that came along it slowly and closely before attending to it, and passing to the next.