Chapter Seven
Jarik squirmed away from the guard's grasp and turned, recognising his captor despite the heavy armour and dim light.
"Dacker!" he whispered gleefully. "What are you doing here? Shouldn't you be heading out with everyone else?"
Dacker quickly put his finger to his lips with a stern look and hurried to the hangar door, dragging Jarik with him.
"In here," he whispered, opening the door quietly. "If anyone sees you, we're both for the cells."
The pair hurried inside and Dacker closed the door behind them, sealing them in total darkness.
"I got put on security detail after the incident at the tower," he whispered, fiddling with the strap on his helmet as he removed it. "Low level security at that. The Masters got to the tower just after daybreak and I was flown straight back to the barracks and told to take a day off. So now pretty much every guard we can spare are heading after this thing that killed Ray, and I'm sent to patrol the empty mechanics area. Well, supposedly empty. It's ridiculous." Remembering Jarik's fate, he gave a quiet sigh. "Still, it could be worse. I suppose I should be thankful."
"Dacker, I need your help. I've got to get out there. I need armour and weapons."
"Are you mad?" he hissed. "No!"
"I have to do this." Jarik urged, fighting to keep his voice low. "For Ray."
"Why? It won't bring him back. Just leave it." Dacker said gruffly. "I'm surprised you want to help us, anyway. It's no secret that Randor has thrown you on the scrap heap, just like most of the vehicles in here."
Jarik reached for Dacker in the darkness and clamped on to his arm. "I'm not doing it for them." He said quickly. "Dacker, listen, just help me, ok? We can do this together."
"And both end up in the cells? Jarik, you're lucky I'm not handing you over as it is," he said, wrenching his arm away. "If they find us in here, we're done. I've got my whole career ahead of me. I have a wife and child."
"So did Ray." Jarik said sullenly.
In the darkness of the hangar, Dacker rolled his eyes and sighed. "I'm trying to help you here, Jarik. That… thing… you can't take it down by yourself. The Masters have been summoned and they are ready to leave," Dacker whispered urgently. "So I don't know how you got in here, but you have to forget this nonsense and get back out the same way, right now. Because if you don't, I'll have no choice but to—"
Jarik had heard enough, and his swift powerful punch took Dacker completely off guard, dropping him to the floor like a stone.
"I'm sorry, brother," he whispered, setting to work on removing the armour from Dacker's unconscious body. "But if you aren't going to help, then you're just getting in my way."
Removing a full set of armour, including the green body-suit that all guards were required to wear, had been harder than Jarik had expected. As had dragging his friend to the back of the hangar and finding something to gag and tie him with in the complete darkness. He'd felt a pang of guilt at first, and putting the armour on had stirred up the anger and resentment towards the royal guard that tore at his emotions. The guard was all he'd known. It had been his life, and now he hated himself for feeling secure and safe in their armour.
He shook himself mentally and focused on the task at hand.
He had armour. He had a weapon. Now all he needed was a vehicle, and he highly doubted he would find one that worked in the hangar. He only had the sense of touch to go by, but so far all the vehicles that he had come across had felt like they were in various stages of repair, and none of them felt like they were anywhere near ready to fly.
He was inspecting a Sky-Sled at the back of the hangar that he thought may just be salvageable when suddenly the door opened slowly.
With a tingle of nerves and adrenaline, he ducked down behind a mass of tangled machine parts and held his breath. It couldn't have been a guard. He'd have heard the scraping and crashing of the thick armour plates as they approached. So, he wondered, if it's not a guard, who would—
"Hello?" a voice called out nervously.
Jarik recognised it instantly, and froze. The soft, gentle voice could only be that of Adam, the sixteen year old son of King Randor and crown prince of Eternia.
"Well, this place should do the trick," Adam said in a casual tone that suggested he was talking to himself.
Jarik moved smoothly and silently, peering out from behind his cover. The prince was known to be a dreamer and a coward, but good natured and loyal to his family. If he saw him in here, especially with Decker bound and gagged, he wouldn't hesitate to raise the alarm.
On the other hand, if he didn't see him, Jarik could only guess how long Adam would hide in the darkness of the hangar, well away from the commotion in the barracks.
Your family send good men out to defend them, and you hide in here like a coward! Jarik thought, glaring venomously at the prince, whose thin silhouette he could just make out in the open doorway. Perhaps I should knock you out, too…
Adam pulled the door closed and darkness filled the room again. The metallic scrape of a sword being drawn from a sheath almost made Jarik chuckle as he wondered what the young, faint-hearted prince planned to do with it.
But when the Adam spoke again, the nervous softness to his voice had gone.
"By the power of Grayskull!"
Light filled the hangar, and Jarik ducked away, shielding his eyes as arcs of pure energy fired across the expansive room in all directions, making the air tingle and his hair stand on end. A sharp scratching sound like a waterfall of nails mixed with cracks of muted thunder rang out, echoing in the confines of the hangar as the trails of light whipped around, wildly out of control.
Jarik forced himself to look again, despite the blinding light and was amazed to see the energy that filled the room was focused on the huge sword that the prince held in the air, although whether the energy came from, or was going to the sword, he couldn't tell.
Suddenly the noise and light dimmed, as if Jarik were in the eye of a storm. The prince was still standing with his sword in the air, but even as Jarik watched, his young, frail looking body was changing.
Adam had already grown at least eighteen inches in height, and now his arms and legs were beginning to shimmer. Weak muscles seemed to split and grow, filling them with the type of muscles that even Dacker would have been proud of.
It was only when Jarik looked to the prince's torso that he realised his usual pink and white attire had transmogrified into a broad harness, the same blue-grey colour as the royal guard's helmets, whilst his body ripped and swelled impossibly as muscles stretched and grew beneath it.
The person that brought the sword down across his solar plexus was no longer the young, cowardly prince. Even though he was seeing it with his own eyes, Jarik couldn't believe it, but in place of the prince stood…
"I have the power!"
…He-Man. The most powerful man in the universe.
