Written: Friday. July 10, 2020.
“I think I’m fine now.” Amanda said, as she motioned June’s hand away.
June had stopped herself from producing flames around herself, and insisted on trying to help Amanda and Lady Veergha up after waking up from their mind-breach. Jeez, what a snob. The other voice in her head said. Stop it. “You sure you don’t need help or anything? I mean, I almost burned you to death if it weren’t for your rapid healing abilities.”
“I said I’m fine.” Amanda repeated to her. She stood up by herself, and felt the bruises on her skin. They weren’t there anymore, the bruises. She felt herself being heavier than usual. Must be the alternative inheritance Lady was talking about. She raised her hand, and started thinking of something metallic in structure. Her hand suddenly turned into steel. It still felt like her hand, but when she punched a car window near her, she didn’t feel anything from it. “Nice.”
“Whoa!” June exclaimed.
“I see you’re handling the new skill pretty well.” Lady Veergha said from behind the two of them. She was still a little dazed herself, which made June worried.
“Don’t you think you should lie down a bit? You’ve already done like three mind-breaches today. And the other one was a group-breach.”
“How I feel is of no importance right now.” Lady Veergha answered.
“You keep telling us that,” Toby arrived with Tom and Drew following him. “and we just might believe you.”
“You three have been busy, I presume? What of the Professor? Have you located him, and the Omnius?”
“About that.” Tom moved forward, scratching his head, as if trying to find the right words to say. “Mr. Reyes is dead.”
“Dead?”
“What?”
“How can that be?” Lady Veergha asked Tom. “What killed him?”
“We don’t know, Lady.” Tom replied to her. “We just saw him lying on the ground like he was road kill. We’re no detectives, see. But I think he was murdered by something. Probably that monster that trashed his house. What did he call it again?”
“The Quadmius.” Ervagh seemed to have joined the group. He had a strange device on his hand that he was busy looking at. “It seems that I can no longer locate the being in this locator.”
“Great.” Toby said in reply. “Just what we needed. Now we’ll never know where they are.”
“Also,” Ervagh cut him off. “the indicator for our small friend seems to be missing as well.”
“What?” asked everyone in surprise.
“Hmm, yes.” Ervagh seemed to still be busy looking at his detector. “The odd thing about it is this larger legend right here.” He showed the device to the group. There was a large dot on the far left of the screen. “There seems to be a third entity at play here. Wonder what that could be.”
“Wait, what if…” Toby suddenly took a pause. His friends looked at him. “…if Omnius is gone, and the Quadmius as well — that doesn’t make sense.” He seemed to have been only talking to himself. Drew wanted to say something, but was not given the chance when Toby continued. “But if it were…Shit! Fuck! I knew it! I just knew it!”
“What?” Tom asked. “What’s happening right now?”
“I didn’t want to believe it at first.” Toby said to the group. “In my dreams — in the visions — it was always him. The thing that looks like Omnius, but wasn’t really that stupid and actually talked normally for an extraterrestrial entity. The dream always ended with the monster. There was always this quick jump between the metal ball…and then the appearance of the monster.”
“You can’t be serious?” Tom said to his friend. “You’ve been dreaming about this thing for what? Three years? And only now did it make sense to you?”
“Toby,” June said. “what are you saying?”
“I can’t believe I didn’t notice it, myself.” Lady Veergha said silently. A few heads turned from her to Toby, and back again. They didn’t understand what was happening. Or just didn’t want to accept it. Maybe both. “I should’ve paid more attention to that detail.”
“What is going on?” Tom yelled at the both of them.
Suddenly, the cars started to slowly shake. The vibrations gradually strengthened each time. It was as if something big was coming. Toby lost all color in his face. It had no expression. June noticed the light from his eyes fading, and immediately tried to shake him out of whatever spell he was in. Toby seemed not to notice anything around him. Tom and the others were still basically in the dark, but the tremors were now getting even stronger every time.
Just then, everything seemed to go dark. A large shadow slowly covered everything around them. When Tom and the others looked up, their eyes couldn’t believe what they were seeing.
“Toby!” June was the only one who remained focused on Toby. “Toby, what’s happening to you again? You have to snap out of this now. You have to — “ She noticed that the tremors suddenly stopped. Everything was quiet all of a sudden. She looked up, and what she saw was simply beyond her comprehension. She couldn’t scream, couldn’t speak, couldn’t even move. Her jaw simply dropped. And her heart pounded like a thousand beats per minute.
“It’s finally here.” someone said from behind June. Her eyes were transfixed on what she saw, but her mind seemed to take note of the voice. “The monster in his dreams.”
June didn’t blink. But when she heard what Lady Veergha said, she slowly got herself to look back down on Toby. She noticed he was now looking up as well, with tears forming in his eyes. His mouth quivered, but somehow he was able to speak. It started off weak. But with each new word uttered, a surge of rage went with it.
“Damn it…God DAMN IT! I’M GONNA KILL YOU!”
The portal opened at a narrow and secluded area just in the middle part of what was supposedly a town or a city. There should have been buildings everywhere. Shops filled with people, markets open for the early morning transactions, heavy traffic of vehicles, et cetera. But that was not what the Knight saw as it exited the portal with its three companions: A tinkerer, a wizard, and a ninja. Four characters in search of a moment in time. And the time is now.
“I’M GONNA KILL YOU!” The four strange wanderers heard from a distance. At first, their initial reactions were to unsheathe the weapons they brought with them on this journey. But the one that wields a sword, the knight, signaled its contemporaries to remain calm.
“What do you suppose that was?” The tinkerer asked the knight. The extreme warm climate of the place seemed to be a great nuisance to the tinkerer. It was perspiring a great deal of sweat. The tinkerer didn’t like hot places at all. This one was meant to stay in cold places. “Don’t you think it’s just about a good idea to conjure up another portal back by now?” the tinkerer asked the wizard.
A loud roar came from somewhere in the distance. The knight looked around. It took in information as it started walking. Its three companions followed slowly.
The wizard let out a long sigh. “Must we really be here, fellow? I know that we’ve all agreed to readjust things that will happen in this particular moment in this upside down realm, but must we not pick another point in time for better vantage? Say, a few days before now, and meet the humans then to alert them of their coming demise?”
“You’ve always been on the negative, sorcerer.” said the ninja. Its voice seemed to ride with the flow of the wind, and not of the heat of the conversation. “We’re here to find the balance that will fix the mess that which will occur in this place. Plus, after what we’ve been through, this is a cake walk.”
“Don’t be too optimistic.” the knight said to the ninja. “We were able to defeat the Dark Dragon because the Source was all around us. This place is different, you see. Not even the minutest of essence from the Source can be felt in the human realm. We are at a disadvantage here.”
“A world where the Source is not prominent all around?” the tinkerer said. “We truly are at a disadvantage. Wizard, quickly! try casting one of your spells in this place. Just an assessment of your abilities.”
“Oh, alright.” the wizard replied quite irritably. “I’ve already gotten us to enter this realm by the use of the Source with that portal I just made. How could I not cast another portal just as easily?” The wizard held its long staff up, and a faint light appeared at the point of it. The light soon became a ball of energy, and the wizard swung the staff upwards, releasing the ball of energy into the red sky. “Now how on high is the sky so bloodshot red in this realm?” asked the wizard to the knight. “Are you sure we’re in the right place? This realm might not even have seven suns and seven moons to begin with.”
“Did you not read up on the ancient tomes?” the ninja asked the wizard playfully. “There were some accounts saying that there are realms where their suns and their moons are greedily eaten by great serpents of extreme length and mass living underground. This must be one of those realms.”
“Great.” the tinkerer said. “First, we have to deal with another dark entity in this realm, much similar to the Dark Dragon. Now we have to deal with large serpents that could eat moons?”
“Hopefully it won’t come to that, friend.” the knight said to the tinkerer. “Those ancient scriptures were also the stuff of rumor in this realm. They are not for certain.” Another tremendous roar came from somewhere near the party. “Let us hope they are not for certain.”
Toby was made unconscious by Amanda’s backhanded slap from the front of his face. This backhanded slap was of course assisted by her ability to transform her skin into metal at will. The ability came to her naturally, as if she had just been waiting for something to punch around.
When she saw that Toby’s nose was bleeding, and also maybe crooked a little, June snapped out of the trance caused by the large monster’s mere presence, and came back down to earth. “What the hell, Amanda?”
“What?” Amanda shrugged. “He could’ve given that thing our location with all his whining!”
“I know that,” June said. “But why’d you have to hit him so hard like that? You could’ve just covered his mouth or something!” Amanda just gave another shrug of her shoulders. June let out a sigh. “Fine, we’ll deal with his nose later. Lady,” she turned towards Lady Veergha. “what do we do?”
“I’ll tell you what we’re gonna do.” Tom answered before Lady Veergha could speak. “We’re gonna run the other direction and don’t look back. Or try to fix their ship and get the hell out of this planet. It’s doomed anyway.”
“And what?” Drew asked his friend. “Live with the Volgans? You can’t be serious, Tom? We’d get murdered by them.”
“Or recruited.” Ervagh mentioned to the group. “That’s always an option.”
“Sure.” Drew said. “‘Recruited’.”
“There is no running from this fight.” Lady Veergha said, her voice demanded attention. “And even if we so choose to escape, that being will eventually catch up to us. To all of the other planets that it will devour.”
“Excuse me, did you say devour?” Tom asked.
“Yes.” Lady Veergha said, wasting no second.
“I thought you did.”
“Might we be of assistance?” said a squeaky voice from one side. The group looked to who had spoken, and what they saw only made them question their reality even more.
Before them were four distinct individuals. An squid-faced biped that seemed to be wearing a cloak and wielded a wooden staff, a penguin wearing all sorts of gadgets and gizmos, a bipedal turtle ninja that had tonfas on either hand, and an armored bipedal creak frog wielding a sword. The tinkerer was the one that had spoken earlier. Its body was dripping in sweat.
“Many apologies for my status. I seem to not get by very well in hot temperatures…what are you all staring at?” The penguin looked from side to side and to its back. “Is there something the matter?”
“Y-you’re — “ Amanda was able to say.
“I’m Spheniscidae from the Sphenisciformes. A tinkerer by profession.” The penguin raised its right hand — er, flipper — to the octopus and the turtle. “This is Octopoda of the Octopods; our sorcerer in the part. The half-shelled one over here is called Testudine of the Testudinae.” Once the penguin was done introducing the octopus wizard and the turtle ninja, it pointed towards the armored frog knight. “And this here is Macrodon of the Anura. We are here to guide you through this final battle that you are in.”
None of the children seemed to know what to say. Fortunately enough, Lady Veergha spoke up. “And I am Lady Korriavania of the Korvellians. Pleasure to be in the presence of such apparent beings such as yourself. Might I ask what may be the purpose of this sudden visitation to this realm?”
“This realm was once my home.” Macrodon the frog knight answered. “I was a mere creak infestation here. Could only croak, could only hop around. But somehow, this particular event caused me to be transported into another realm. A realm quite different from this one.”
“Lady,” Amanda said. “could it be the same realm as — “
“No, child.” Lady Veergha replied to her quickly, “And must you not speak of that, until you know for certain it is critical to be shared.” Amanda reluctantly nodded her head. The others looked at her way, so she tried not to meet their eyes. Lady Veergha continued on speaking to the four strange characters. “I presume this realm caused you to transform into this new structure, correct?”
“That is correct.” Macrodon answered.
“So that’s why you’ve been missing since the ship crashed.” Tom said.
“Yes.” the wizard named Octopoda said. “This is all well and good, now. But we must be quick on out feet.” The humans looked down to see if the four characters even had feet. Octopoda did not notice this. “We are at a time-table, you see. If we don’t destroy the Fjankhetto now, all will be lost. And another reset will have to be made — “
“Hnh, huh?” Toby suddenly woke up. “What just happened?”
“I was wondering if your friend needed revitalizing.” the turtle named Testudine said. “I have some herbs and potions here if he needs that nose of his fixed, if he wants.”
As Toby realized what he was looking at, he screamed in shock, and passed out again.
“How is it that this dude’s the main character of that story I read?” Amanda whispered to herself.
“I think I’m fine now.” Amanda said, as she motioned June’s hand away.
June had stopped herself from producing flames around herself, and insisted on trying to help Amanda and Lady Veergha up after waking up from their mind-breach. Jeez, what a snob. The other voice in her head said. Stop it. “You sure you don’t need help or anything? I mean, I almost burned you to death if it weren’t for your rapid healing abilities.”
“I said I’m fine.” Amanda repeated to her. She stood up by herself, and felt the bruises on her skin. They weren’t there anymore, the bruises. She felt herself being heavier than usual. Must be the alternative inheritance Lady was talking about. She raised her hand, and started thinking of something metallic in structure. Her hand suddenly turned into steel. It still felt like her hand, but when she punched a car window near her, she didn’t feel anything from it. “Nice.”
“Whoa!” June exclaimed.
“I see you’re handling the new skill pretty well.” Lady Veergha said from behind the two of them. She was still a little dazed herself, which made June worried.
“Don’t you think you should lie down a bit? You’ve already done like three mind-breaches today. And the other one was a group-breach.”
“How I feel is of no importance right now.” Lady Veergha answered.
“You keep telling us that,” Toby arrived with Tom and Drew following him. “and we just might believe you.”
“You three have been busy, I presume? What of the Professor? Have you located him, and the Omnius?”
“About that.” Tom moved forward, scratching his head, as if trying to find the right words to say. “Mr. Reyes is dead.”
“Dead?”
“What?”
“How can that be?” Lady Veergha asked Tom. “What killed him?”
“We don’t know, Lady.” Tom replied to her. “We just saw him lying on the ground like he was road kill. We’re no detectives, see. But I think he was murdered by something. Probably that monster that trashed his house. What did he call it again?”
“The Quadmius.” Ervagh seemed to have joined the group. He had a strange device on his hand that he was busy looking at. “It seems that I can no longer locate the being in this locator.”
“Great.” Toby said in reply. “Just what we needed. Now we’ll never know where they are.”
“Also,” Ervagh cut him off. “the indicator for our small friend seems to be missing as well.”
“What?” asked everyone in surprise.
“Hmm, yes.” Ervagh seemed to still be busy looking at his detector. “The odd thing about it is this larger legend right here.” He showed the device to the group. There was a large dot on the far left of the screen. “There seems to be a third entity at play here. Wonder what that could be.”
“Wait, what if…” Toby suddenly took a pause. His friends looked at him. “…if Omnius is gone, and the Quadmius as well — that doesn’t make sense.” He seemed to have been only talking to himself. Drew wanted to say something, but was not given the chance when Toby continued. “But if it were…Shit! Fuck! I knew it! I just knew it!”
“What?” Tom asked. “What’s happening right now?”
“I didn’t want to believe it at first.” Toby said to the group. “In my dreams — in the visions — it was always him. The thing that looks like Omnius, but wasn’t really that stupid and actually talked normally for an extraterrestrial entity. The dream always ended with the monster. There was always this quick jump between the metal ball…and then the appearance of the monster.”
“You can’t be serious?” Tom said to his friend. “You’ve been dreaming about this thing for what? Three years? And only now did it make sense to you?”
“Toby,” June said. “what are you saying?”
“I can’t believe I didn’t notice it, myself.” Lady Veergha said silently. A few heads turned from her to Toby, and back again. They didn’t understand what was happening. Or just didn’t want to accept it. Maybe both. “I should’ve paid more attention to that detail.”
“What is going on?” Tom yelled at the both of them.
Suddenly, the cars started to slowly shake. The vibrations gradually strengthened each time. It was as if something big was coming. Toby lost all color in his face. It had no expression. June noticed the light from his eyes fading, and immediately tried to shake him out of whatever spell he was in. Toby seemed not to notice anything around him. Tom and the others were still basically in the dark, but the tremors were now getting even stronger every time.
Just then, everything seemed to go dark. A large shadow slowly covered everything around them. When Tom and the others looked up, their eyes couldn’t believe what they were seeing.
“Toby!” June was the only one who remained focused on Toby. “Toby, what’s happening to you again? You have to snap out of this now. You have to — “ She noticed that the tremors suddenly stopped. Everything was quiet all of a sudden. She looked up, and what she saw was simply beyond her comprehension. She couldn’t scream, couldn’t speak, couldn’t even move. Her jaw simply dropped. And her heart pounded like a thousand beats per minute.
“It’s finally here.” someone said from behind June. Her eyes were transfixed on what she saw, but her mind seemed to take note of the voice. “The monster in his dreams.”
June didn’t blink. But when she heard what Lady Veergha said, she slowly got herself to look back down on Toby. She noticed he was now looking up as well, with tears forming in his eyes. His mouth quivered, but somehow he was able to speak. It started off weak. But with each new word uttered, a surge of rage went with it.
“Damn it…God DAMN IT! I’M GONNA KILL YOU!”
The portal opened at a narrow and secluded area just in the middle part of what was supposedly a town or a city. There should have been buildings everywhere. Shops filled with people, markets open for the early morning transactions, heavy traffic of vehicles, et cetera. But that was not what the Knight saw as it exited the portal with its three companions: A tinkerer, a wizard, and a ninja. Four characters in search of a moment in time. And the time is now.
“I’M GONNA KILL YOU!” The four strange wanderers heard from a distance. At first, their initial reactions were to unsheathe the weapons they brought with them on this journey. But the one that wields a sword, the knight, signaled its contemporaries to remain calm.
“What do you suppose that was?” The tinkerer asked the knight. The extreme warm climate of the place seemed to be a great nuisance to the tinkerer. It was perspiring a great deal of sweat. The tinkerer didn’t like hot places at all. This one was meant to stay in cold places. “Don’t you think it’s just about a good idea to conjure up another portal back by now?” the tinkerer asked the wizard.
A loud roar came from somewhere in the distance. The knight looked around. It took in information as it started walking. Its three companions followed slowly.
The wizard let out a long sigh. “Must we really be here, fellow? I know that we’ve all agreed to readjust things that will happen in this particular moment in this upside down realm, but must we not pick another point in time for better vantage? Say, a few days before now, and meet the humans then to alert them of their coming demise?”
“You’ve always been on the negative, sorcerer.” said the ninja. Its voice seemed to ride with the flow of the wind, and not of the heat of the conversation. “We’re here to find the balance that will fix the mess that which will occur in this place. Plus, after what we’ve been through, this is a cake walk.”
“Don’t be too optimistic.” the knight said to the ninja. “We were able to defeat the Dark Dragon because the Source was all around us. This place is different, you see. Not even the minutest of essence from the Source can be felt in the human realm. We are at a disadvantage here.”
“A world where the Source is not prominent all around?” the tinkerer said. “We truly are at a disadvantage. Wizard, quickly! try casting one of your spells in this place. Just an assessment of your abilities.”
“Oh, alright.” the wizard replied quite irritably. “I’ve already gotten us to enter this realm by the use of the Source with that portal I just made. How could I not cast another portal just as easily?” The wizard held its long staff up, and a faint light appeared at the point of it. The light soon became a ball of energy, and the wizard swung the staff upwards, releasing the ball of energy into the red sky. “Now how on high is the sky so bloodshot red in this realm?” asked the wizard to the knight. “Are you sure we’re in the right place? This realm might not even have seven suns and seven moons to begin with.”
“Did you not read up on the ancient tomes?” the ninja asked the wizard playfully. “There were some accounts saying that there are realms where their suns and their moons are greedily eaten by great serpents of extreme length and mass living underground. This must be one of those realms.”
“Great.” the tinkerer said. “First, we have to deal with another dark entity in this realm, much similar to the Dark Dragon. Now we have to deal with large serpents that could eat moons?”
“Hopefully it won’t come to that, friend.” the knight said to the tinkerer. “Those ancient scriptures were also the stuff of rumor in this realm. They are not for certain.” Another tremendous roar came from somewhere near the party. “Let us hope they are not for certain.”
* * *
Toby was made unconscious by Amanda’s backhanded slap from the front of his face. This backhanded slap was of course assisted by her ability to transform her skin into metal at will. The ability came to her naturally, as if she had just been waiting for something to punch around.
When she saw that Toby’s nose was bleeding, and also maybe crooked a little, June snapped out of the trance caused by the large monster’s mere presence, and came back down to earth. “What the hell, Amanda?”
“What?” Amanda shrugged. “He could’ve given that thing our location with all his whining!”
“I know that,” June said. “But why’d you have to hit him so hard like that? You could’ve just covered his mouth or something!” Amanda just gave another shrug of her shoulders. June let out a sigh. “Fine, we’ll deal with his nose later. Lady,” she turned towards Lady Veergha. “what do we do?”
“I’ll tell you what we’re gonna do.” Tom answered before Lady Veergha could speak. “We’re gonna run the other direction and don’t look back. Or try to fix their ship and get the hell out of this planet. It’s doomed anyway.”
“And what?” Drew asked his friend. “Live with the Volgans? You can’t be serious, Tom? We’d get murdered by them.”
“Or recruited.” Ervagh mentioned to the group. “That’s always an option.”
“Sure.” Drew said. “‘Recruited’.”
“There is no running from this fight.” Lady Veergha said, her voice demanded attention. “And even if we so choose to escape, that being will eventually catch up to us. To all of the other planets that it will devour.”
“Excuse me, did you say devour?” Tom asked.
“Yes.” Lady Veergha said, wasting no second.
“I thought you did.”
“Might we be of assistance?” said a squeaky voice from one side. The group looked to who had spoken, and what they saw only made them question their reality even more.
Before them were four distinct individuals. An squid-faced biped that seemed to be wearing a cloak and wielded a wooden staff, a penguin wearing all sorts of gadgets and gizmos, a bipedal turtle ninja that had tonfas on either hand, and an armored bipedal creak frog wielding a sword. The tinkerer was the one that had spoken earlier. Its body was dripping in sweat.
“Many apologies for my status. I seem to not get by very well in hot temperatures…what are you all staring at?” The penguin looked from side to side and to its back. “Is there something the matter?”
“Y-you’re — “ Amanda was able to say.
“I’m Spheniscidae from the Sphenisciformes. A tinkerer by profession.” The penguin raised its right hand — er, flipper — to the octopus and the turtle. “This is Octopoda of the Octopods; our sorcerer in the part. The half-shelled one over here is called Testudine of the Testudinae.” Once the penguin was done introducing the octopus wizard and the turtle ninja, it pointed towards the armored frog knight. “And this here is Macrodon of the Anura. We are here to guide you through this final battle that you are in.”
None of the children seemed to know what to say. Fortunately enough, Lady Veergha spoke up. “And I am Lady Korriavania of the Korvellians. Pleasure to be in the presence of such apparent beings such as yourself. Might I ask what may be the purpose of this sudden visitation to this realm?”
“This realm was once my home.” Macrodon the frog knight answered. “I was a mere creak infestation here. Could only croak, could only hop around. But somehow, this particular event caused me to be transported into another realm. A realm quite different from this one.”
“Lady,” Amanda said. “could it be the same realm as — “
“No, child.” Lady Veergha replied to her quickly, “And must you not speak of that, until you know for certain it is critical to be shared.” Amanda reluctantly nodded her head. The others looked at her way, so she tried not to meet their eyes. Lady Veergha continued on speaking to the four strange characters. “I presume this realm caused you to transform into this new structure, correct?”
“That is correct.” Macrodon answered.
“So that’s why you’ve been missing since the ship crashed.” Tom said.
“Yes.” the wizard named Octopoda said. “This is all well and good, now. But we must be quick on out feet.” The humans looked down to see if the four characters even had feet. Octopoda did not notice this. “We are at a time-table, you see. If we don’t destroy the Fjankhetto now, all will be lost. And another reset will have to be made — “
“Hnh, huh?” Toby suddenly woke up. “What just happened?”
“I was wondering if your friend needed revitalizing.” the turtle named Testudine said. “I have some herbs and potions here if he needs that nose of his fixed, if he wants.”
As Toby realized what he was looking at, he screamed in shock, and passed out again.
“How is it that this dude’s the main character of that story I read?” Amanda whispered to herself.
End of Chapter.
* * *
* * *
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