George Atmell

We barely got out of a problem, only to step into another.

After Arcturus and his father's spectacular and risky way to escape their predicament, we found ourselves in another unknown area. Now that the facility's power had been restored and the Trikelian-controlled corpses were behind sealed blast doors, we decided to find our way out and regroup with the others. I hoped the rest of them managed to get out safely.

As we recovered from our latest ordeal, Andrates said, "Haven't got a workout like that in a very long time. Using a burst can tire you as if you've finished a triathlon."

I wondered what a Vyrnian's version of a triathlon was, given that for us Earthlings (surface dwellers and subterranean races alike) it included running, swimming, and paddling. It's a Ternorian thing. By time, the people of Main also devised a version of this rather demanding activity, except now magic made a very prominent role. Ternorian who learned to utilize their mana could also participate, as the people of Main also participated the Ternorian version of the triathlon. There's also one the Order did which involved dragons and their riders, but I had not ever seen this version before my abduction.

Nevertheless, when I asked about a Vyrnian's triathlon, it used their wyvern-like physique. The first part was, of course, running. A Vyrnian's appearance was less feral than a wyvern and close to a bipedal humanoid with wings, so their running looked less like how a Vyrnian would. The second part was, of course, flying, due to the flight membrane on their arms. The last involved obstacle courses and it used the skills necessary for finishing the first two in order to be the victor.

"And a burst is the combination of all those," he said. "Vyrnian bodies have limits on how they can expend their stored energy without causing fatigue. Soldiers are trained to withstand energy burst, but it's only for a final resort situation. Basically, now we're both out of energy and I need time to recover so my energy efficiency's back up. Right now, I'm like a leaking battery."

"Then, I hope we're safe," I said. "I don't want surprises when you're both incapacitated."

Then I heard a thud behind us. We turned to see Arcturus on the floor. At first I thought that this was the side effect Andrates was talking about, until I realized that he wasn't unconscious, and he was twitching. Realizing that he had a seizure, I rushed to him as Andrates realized what's wrong and ran to his son.

"Did the burst cause this?" I asked.

"I sure hope not," he said as he moved Arcturus to a recovery position. "Bursts do not affect brains."

"Psychic attack, then?"

"If it is, we're both in danger. We can't stay out here."

He quickly looked around, scanning the area as I could only stay beside Arcturus as his body twitched uncontrollably. His eyes were clearly unfocused and he lost control of his mouth as it opened and closed like someone being shocked, which was ironic given Arcturus's ability to control electricity. I wanted to help, but I had no knowledge of a Vyrnian seizure, or even a human seizure, for that matter. My first aid training was for something more physical like burns, cut wounds, and bones breaking, and all of those were for humans, dragons, and wyverns.

Andrates quickly opened a nearby door and asked me to help him carry Arcturus. Arcturus had a thin body and quite light, but his size, which was twice my height, made it hard for me to move him. (I was around 5'4'' in height, while Arcturus was 8'2'', an average Vyrnian height). It even felt weirder for me to help carry an unconscious space wyvern (my term for Vyrnians) around.

The room Andrates took Arcturus was a Vyrnian apartment unit. It had all the basic amenities for a living, including a bed besides a mini kitchen, a food replicator, and a door leading to the all-in-one bathroom. Andrates put Arcturus on the nearby bed as I closed the door.

Andrates looked at Arcturus with an expression of sadness. "This is my fault," he said with a tone of regret in his voice. "I shouldn't have brought all of you in danger."

"No one expects the whole place to be swarmed by those creatures," I said, trying to justify our current problem."

"I made such a bad strategist, huh?"

"Kinda."

"I...don't want to say this in front of Arcturus, but the reason I do this is...well, because of him. It makes me sound like an overprotective father, but...you saw that phantom, right?"

He was referring to the earlier vision where I saw Zardes, Malkar, and their allies fighting an unknown threat and in distress. I was not that oblivious. I know they had their own battles to face and I also know I would only be a burden, given how they seemed to be fighting something a surface dweller like me could not face. Even so, now I felt useless out here in the unknown. I did not understand anything, I could only support Arcturus and the others, and some things were still unexplained, such as the Nuoevans' suffering-based psychic power and the Felinians' nine lives.

Even then, I tried to be useful. When Andrates talked about the phantom, I know he specifically referred to the heavily injured black-scaled Vyrnian that looked a lot like Arcturus and Andrates. They seemed to call him Atropos, but I did not know the significance of that name until I asked.

"He was my eldest son," said Andrates. "He died 12 years before the Exodus. He worked as a crew for a luxury space cruise when they were attacked by a pirate. The ship itself suffered damage and crash-landed near a colony. Many survived, but unfortunately, Atropos did not. His death has always been the reason why I'm doing this. I managed to let him go to protect him from the thing that came, but in the end, he returned anyway. Now, he got himself in danger. He almost died by blood loss, and now..."

"Don't lose hope," I said. "Arcturus is a strong Vyrnian. He won't be killed that easily, no matter what danger might come to us. He's not alone. He got you, me, Zarya, and everyone else."

Andrates stared at me for a moment before he smiled. "Yeah," he said. "You're right."

"So, now let's make sure Arcturus recovers and escape this planet," I said. "But first, we need to contact the others. Can't let them think we've died, right?"

"We can call Zarya's Pathfinder using mine," he said as he held up his device. "I'll do it now. Take care of Arc for me."

I nodded as Andrates operated the device. Arcturus seemed to have calmed down and that's a good thing. I knew that a longer duration of seizure would kill anyone. Normally, a medical team would be called to treat it, but right now, the only one with medical expertise in this group was currently separated from us. We only hoped that Arcturus recovered and we could escape.

I could hear Andrates talking through his Pathfinder along with Zarya's voice. They seemed to be talking about Arcturus's condition and how to treat it. I stayed at Arcturus's side for around half and hour before I could hear a low growling noise coming from him. I turned to see him opening his eyes. A moment later, he opened his eyes in surprise and jerked up as he said, "No!"

"What's wrong?" I said.

"I...." He looked at me, at his father, and his surrounding, before he touched his head and rubbed it.

"That...entity. It told me to make a choice."

"What kind of choice?"

"I don't know, but it says that I'll make more of them," he said. "It's...gone now. What happened to me?"

"You had a seizure and we took you into this room," I said. "That's pretty much it."

"Seizure? That makes sense. I feel like I recovered a lost memory or something, even though I don't remember...anything."

He stared at the door for a moment, apparently seeing something there. I turned and did not see anything. However, he quickly snapped out of it and said, "What's the escape plan?"

"Still working on it," I said, just before Andrates returned from his call.

"We can get through this unit," he said. "The stairs will lead us to another residential floor. From there, there will be another floor before we get to the ground floor and get out. I checked the map I downloaded earlier with the file."

"We also need weapons," he said. "Something like the Draconis on display."

He pointed towards the glaive on display nearby. The glaive looked like the one you would find on Earth, except when looked at in detail you could see gaps as if it was a sectioned staff joined together tipped with a blade to look like a glaive.

Andrates approached the Draconis and took it from the display. He checked the weapon, apparently to check on flaws. He then saw something on the other side of the blade and said, "1557 championship. Whoever had this knew the weapon well. It's well-preserved, but I doubt I'll work. Discounting the 500 years this facility had been sealed, this Draconis is still 60 years old."

"It's better than nothing, right?" said Arcturus. "Even without the energy conversion unit, it's a decent weapon."

Andrates did not say anything, only stare at the weapon he took. A second later, the glaive's sections became engulfed in flame and burst out like an explosion. Even the tip burst to flame as it changed form. In fact, the fire energy coming out of the glaive changed its form into something more malleable. It almost looked like a trick weapon, except made out of condensed energy.

"It works," he said with a smile. "And masterfully constructed. A little modification here and there and it'll be good as new."

"Sure it's enough?" said Arcturus.

"Only one way to find out."

I could only stare at the weapon's design when Arcturus turned at me and said, "If you want to know, that's a Draconis. It basically is a weapon tailored for offensive energy conversion capabilities. I used to train myself on how to use the weapon since the sectioning can be hard to control if you don't know the weapon well."

"Wow," I said. "You're really full of surprises, huh, Arcturus?"

"You and me both," he said as he stood up. Again, I noticed him staring at something else in that room where there was nothing remarkable there. I thought that maybe he was still recovering from the seizure, but I later found out it wasn't the case.

Only then, our job was to get the hell out of this forsaken place and hoped for the best.

We found the stairwell to the second basement level. Knowing that we needed to hurry, Arcturus told me to ride on his back we climbed the stairs. It felt weird riding him without a saddle, but it wasn't the least of my problem. I sometimes needed ducked down to stop me from hitting the ceiling. Then, the true challenge started as we reached the next basement level and out of the unit's door. This place was swarming with the reanimated Vyrnians, which made me wonder how many were trapped in this place before it was sealed. I could see at least 30 of them moving about and more of those numbers lay on the floor dead. It was like a macabre show.

I was slightly shaken, and I knew Arcturus and Andrates were, too. The dead should stay dead. Let them rest. The sight of the death being used like this brought out many emotions, one of which was anger.

However, one of us needed to stay calm and not get affected, in case the other was already emotionally compromised. Andrates seemed to be seething in anger, but he did so internally. The only indication that he was angry was the Draconis he carried started to lit up brightly. Arc, however, showed his anger more as he charged his own body with electricity.

"Arc, calm down," I said. "I know you're angry but being reckless will kill us."

"You're telling me to calm down after witnessing this?" said Arcturus.

"George is right, Arc," said Andrates. "They're not undead Vyrnians. They're Trikelians controlling the corpses. One false move and we'll be routed."

Arcturus seemed ready to argue, but he nodded in understanding. Andrates nodded back and made a stance with the Draconis, which changed form as fire engulfed it. However, that was only the opening. The Draconis was a trick weapon and was designed to be unpredictable.

The Draconis could be separated into smaller sections that could extend the Draconis's range, which was what he did when he attacked the first Vyrnian who attacked him. He swung the glaive weapon and the release of its joints made it long and flexible, almost like a whip. It was also lethal, because as soon as the weapon spiraled around the Vyrnian's neck, it suddenly decapitated it. I could see the energy in the joints momentarily changed shape before returning back to its original state.

I was more surprised at Andrates's brutality than the weapon's lethality. Clearly, he knew how to use the weapon, and clearly, he knew the weapon's capability. But there was no need for such gratuitous violence. I was going to confront him about this, but then I saw his eyes. His unnatural yellow eyes showed a great rage within him that he needed to let out. At this point, I knew that even a good Vyrnian like Andrates would be out for blood, and it was what he was doing.

I would not interfere, knowing that a Vyrnian out of blood was as dangerous as a wild beast. He clearly knew what he was doing when I tried to help him and was almost overwhelmed by several Vyrnians, during which Arcturus stopped them from advancing towards me by a quick zap to the face. Afterwards, he said, "Stay with me!"

While it looked like we were going for the offensive, in truth we were in the defensive. The Trikelian-controlled Vyrnian corpses were around us and we had no idea which one was truly dead, and which one was trying to jump us, as evidenced by one of them grabbing Arcturus's leg as we walked past them. We managed to proceed slowly by staying close and attack when necessary. Andrates was our main offensive force while Arcturus held others back and I supported him with several shots from my gun-sword.

We could see the stairs to the next floor. The next floor would be the ground level in which we would be able to escape. I hoped the others had already reached the place first and was waiting for us. I'd really hate it if they end up leaving us after concluding that we were dead, especially after we contacted them. Of course, I knew that's survival, but that's betraying our trust, too. And besides, we would surely die if they got away, especially since we found out that the relentless attacks from the reanimated corpses damaged our suit.

We were fortunate that we managed to reach the stairs as we went along, but we were out of luck. It took us more than 15 minutes to reach the stairs and we used a lot of our energies. The charge in my plasma blade was out and both Arcturus and Andrates used up most of their energy reserves.

"I forgot how energy-demanding the Draconis is," said Andrates while we ran up the stairs. "This is going to be a problem."

"You can always recharge, right?"

"We don't have that kind of chance," said Arcturus. He then pointed up the stairs and said, "Look."

He was right. Right at the end of the stairwell were a bunch of Vyrnians reanimated by the Trikelians. Seriously, how many of them were trapped in this facility? It could be hundreds of them! While I was curious of why they never considered using Earth as a base, I was fortunate that they never considered that planet. There were too many people I cared about on that planet, other than the fact that it was my home.

We started to do what we did previously: fight our way through while keeping ourselves safe. However, we used up the powers in our weapons and we really got ourselves in a pickle when we could not open the door to the next room. We were quickly surrounded.

Fortunately, before we even had time to give up, the door opened, and a voice came through.

"All of you, get down!" said the voice.

We did so, and a barrage of energy shots went through above us and rained hell on the Vyrnian corpses. The door kept opening and I turned around to see Kilkaja, Zarya, and Sel shooting through the door while Astha did his best to cover their backs using his own wrist guns.

"We don't have infinite charges! Come on, let's go!" said Sel as she changed the rifle' energy pack. Both me and Arcturus quickly get through the door. Zarya, who was near the control pad, then close the door. One of the Vyrnians almost got through and grabbed Arcturus's wing, but before the Vyrnian could pull him back, the door closed and crushed the wing-arm, severing it completely.

We had no time to rest, however. Once we got through, we quickly run towards the entrance. We relied on the shield generator protecting us from Ijuri's thin atmosphere, along with the helmet, as we ran towards the ship. We had a problem, however. As the suit's damaged, we could not recycle air and the helmet ended up making me rather claustrophobic in this situation. Soon, the effects of oxygen deprivation started to make my head ached and my consciousness falter.

I was on the verge of blacking out when we reached the ship's airlock and closed the door, during which the place was quickly filled with air. Due to the deprivation, I had a difficulty opening my helmet, but Kilkaja helped me. I took a big, long breath. It wasn't fresh, but with my condition, it was.

Zarya and Arcturus quickly got to the cockpit and initiate takeoff sequence. We were not entirely free from the undead, however, as the Vyrnians cling on the ship and started banging on the glass. The ship's takeoff weight increased as these Vyrnians kept the ship down. The glass held on and we managed to break free with full thrusters, incinerating the Trikelian-controlled Vyrnians and got out of the planet.

No one was affected more than Arcturus. He seemed so out of it. Again, I saw him staring at something, but now he was staring at me. Now, I realized something wrong when he did not hide it and said something.

"Do you harm him, fell beast," he said with a growl. "And get out of my head!"

"Arcturus?" said Zarya, confused. "What's wrong?"

"I tried denying its presence, but I can't anymore, not after it taunted me every time we tried to get away!"

I knew he was seeing things, but I could not understand the severity of the situation until Kilkaja pointed it out.

"Arcturus, calm down!" he said. "Your emotions are pretty erratic. It's...wait a second. It's like two distinct emotions. One's a Vyrnian and the other..."

Kilkaja never got to finish his sentence, as when he sensed the other emotions, it somehow sent something towards him that caused him to scream and looked away in fear and shock. It was hard to determine with his black eyes, but his actions told me he sensed something horrifying. Sel and I tried to calm him down.

"What did you sense?" I asked. "Kilkaja, what was it?"

"It's...it's a monster," he said as tears starting flowing down his eyes. "If I didn't pull out, I'll lose my mind. It showed me...the fear. It's bottomless fear."

"What?" I turned towards Arcturus, who was distraught when he was helpless. In his anger, he seemed to wrestle the phantom and said, "What the hell did you do to Kilkaja?!"

"Arc, tell us what you're fighting against!" said Andrates.

"It's the entity that gave us the visions," he said. "It's here with us. I can see it everywhere, taunting me as we get on."

I knew our escape was not going to be easy, but now we had to face something only Arcturus could see and hear (and apparently touch). Just then, our tense and bizarre moment was interrupted by an urgent message coming through. Zarya looked at it and said, "It's from Arkari."

She opened the message on the screen. There was a general chaos apparent in the background as Vyrnians ran around in panic. The Vyrnian in focus, a brown-scaled one Zarya knew, was also agitated.

"Welfer? What happened back there?" said Zarya.

"It's the pirates! They come here unannounced and started shooting at us! Old Kenny was killed trying to protect his grandson and the healers were also attacked! Where are you?!"

"Wait," said Zarya. "Why are the pirates there? I thought they do not attack a heavily-guarded place like Arkari!"

"Some Vyrnians disabled the security system!" said Welfer. "We lost contact with the Lekan station, too. Where the hell are you?"

"Somewhere in the frontiers," said Zarya.

"Shit, that's far!" he said. "Listen to me, Zarya. Find some help. We have notified the Kolinge colony and they're minutes from reaching us, but they cannot hold these pirates and marauders long. You have to contact a colony. Any colony. Send help to Arkari. Our communication depot is compromised!"

"I understand. Get to safety, Welfer!"

"I am in relative safety, but...shit! I gotta go. Get back with an army! I know you can."

Welfer cut his communication, leaving us to wonder if all this had been planned in advance and not just a coincidence. That Vyrnian was clearly controlled by the Trikelians. Did they realize what we were doing?

"You heard him," said Andrates as he took command. "We need to get reinforcement. Zarya, open communication with Lekan. Try again if you can't contact them the first time around. We're going to Orlonel and hope they want to help us."

"I'll contact Orlonel and Lekan now," said Zarya. "Also, setting course to Amurlun."

I guess this was partly our fault for not thinking that the Trikelians would not try something like this. We did wonder how they could convince so many pirates and marauders to try and attack a heavily defended colony like Arkari, but ever since Ijuri, we got more and more mysteries to solve and with no concrete answer to any of them, including the purpose of the entity only showing itself to Arcturus.

But we knew those could wait. Arkari needed our help, and we would help them the best we could.