Chapter 9 – Arkantos

It opened his eyes, but regretted doing so immediately. The light of the conscious world burned like fire. Its eyes, even gummed over as they were, saw in a special kind of clarity. Even through its eyelids, it could see the heartbeats of creatures moving about. It had the distinct feeling that they meant him ill will, but it found a lack of energy to defend himself.

So, it watched. They stood in place most of the time, occasionally being replaced by more beating hearts that mimicked their predecessors' activity. Every time he flexed his sore arms or legs, the heartbeats began quickening and only when he did this did the creatures begin moving. Panicking. They feared him?

There was one particular creature that interested him. The creature would come into view and pace back and forth, occasionally standing by other heartbeats, and sometimes it stood on its own.

The second time it tried opening his eyes, the pain was not quite as bad. It took him only a moment to figure out why. Only one eye was open. When it tried opening his other eye, the fire-like pain returned. It closed the eye, content to explore this new world with only his left eye.

For the first time, it could see that the heartbeats were those of scientists. The unique heartbeat had an equally unique creature. The thing was in all-white. Its hands, arms and face were all covered in white material. A gas mask with red lenses seemed to give the creature a sinister, yet proper look. A rapier, strapped to the creature's belt, caught the lights of the lab.

That was where he was, after all. A lab. Something in the back of his mind had already determined that. The all-white creature walked up to the containment tube and placed a single hand against the glass. The animal within placed a hand over the white creature's. The white creature jerked its head and began shouting orders almost audible through the glass.

Suddenly, the world around it shifted. The transparent gel that it had been suspended in began to drain out, leaving him cold and exposed. Once the gel had vanished through the drains, the glass cylinder began lifting away from the ground, where it lay.

The white creature walked up to it, who was curled in a ball on the ground. "Can you understand me?" the white creature asked.

He tried to talk, but found he wasn't able to. Instead, it gave a few facial twitched to respond. These were hidden by a mask that covered its muzzle. Why hadn't it seen that before?

The white creature reached down, and helped it up into a sitting position. "My name is Corin White and you are lucky to be alive. Do you know who you are?"

It knew the word it wanted to use. He took his time, and formulated the movement of muscles. "No."

White settled to one knee, and placed a blanket around the creatures narrow shoulders. "Your name is Arkantos. You were my best soldier once, but you were caught in an explosion. You almost died. We've been helping you recover for weeks now."

Arkantos had the distinct feeling that he was being lied to for some reason, but ignored this feeling. Corin seemed nice. Arkantos flexed his leg muscles and rose from his sitting position. Standing, he was far taller than he had realized, standing taller than White by almost half a foot.

Blood began oozing from one of a hundred wounds that covered Arkantos's body. Arkantos studied his body with interest. Scabs and open wounds covered his muscular body in a pattern similar to a chain link fence. Where ever he didn't have scar tissue and blood, Arkantos was covered in long, thick fur colored a solid bone color.

White stood, and stepped back to examine Arkantos. He nodded with approval before reaching over to a table covered in gauze. White approached Arkantos and began wrapping the open wounds. He never removed the creature's mask, however.

Arkantos reached for the strap to work the mask himself, but White gripped his wrist. "I am sorry, my friend, but you can no longer live without that mask. In order to save your life, we had to feed you a healthy supply of Ribsonis. Ribsonis is a chemical that acts as a supplement for blood, as it works the same way blood cells do. However, it is very reactive with the nitrogen in our atmosphere. If you remove that mask, your lungs will begin rapidly breaking down as the Ribsonis reacts with the nitrogen in the air opening all of the veins that run through your lungs, throat and mouth essentially drowning you in your own blood.

"Then why give it to me?" Arkantos asked, pleased with how well formed his first full sentence sounded. His voice was rough, but deep.

"Because you lost the entirety of your blood in the explosion. You had bled out completely, to say it another way." White finished wrapping up the wounds on Arkantos's arm, and moved on to the neck and torso.

"Why save me?" Arkantos asked.

"Because you were a soldier once, who never questioned my knowledge. Not many soldiers are like that anymore." White explained as he moved on to the second arm. "And because you are unique. You are not canosapien, but you are not canomutant. You are in-between, capable of the greatest feats either creature has to offer, and with none of their faults.

They sat in silence as White finished covering the wounds. When he was done, Arkantos resembled a burn victim, or a mummy in some ways, except that fur still shown through the bandaging.

Arcantos rested by leaning against a wall. The gas mask and bandages were as much a part of him now as the fur on his back. White was always around, but not nearly as kind as he had been that first day. Rather than acting as some life-saving friend, White forced Arkantos to train for hours upon hours almost every day.

Arkantos didn't even know how long he'd been training. He had lost track of time. It was almost a welcome change when two armed guards entered Arkantos's holding cell. "White wants to see you, dog."

Arkantos knew the way, but the men insisted on escorting him none the less. White was standing in the laboratory's command center looking over some recent statistics. "Ah, Arkantos. It is good to see you. I hear your instructors all agree that you are ready for the field after so much training. You've been at it for almost two months now. That is very impressive." White set aside his data pad to face Arkantos. "I hate to be sending you out into the field so soon, but some competition has moved into town. I'm sending you on the small errand of removing them."

"How do you propose I do that, Master White?" Arkantos asked in his low tone.

"You have powers, military genius, and a weapon locker all at your disposal. Be creative by bandaged friend." White replied as he picked the data panel back up.

It was true that Arkantos had powers. "Telepulsing" was similar to telekenisis, except that instead of teleporting yourself, you teleported a massive surge of air. To think of it in a simple manner, you were using high-pressure, high-velocity waves of air to crush bones, barriers, and everything else.

Arkantos was lead to the weapon locker right below the command center. A variety of machine pistols, blasters and combat armors lined the walls. Arkantos didn't care for the looks of any of them. He preferred to use his own abilities. "How do I get to the target?" Arkantos asked his guard.

"Follow me." The guard replied.

.

(Three hours later at Rover HQ)

Chance watched as the Rovers checked one another's armoring. The standard field armor had been modified by Chance to include blast resistant shielding and a more effective weather resistance. The expense was extra weight, but not much more.

"Chance, these weigh a ton!" Bliss complained as she pulled at one of the adjustment straps on the shoulder.

"But they'll stop bullets. I hear that bullets don't weigh much if you'd rather have those cover you." He commented, not exactly sure how much since the statement made.

"At least it looks cool." Hunter said. The curves of the armor had been replaced by more angular fold-sections in an effort to displace some of the impact of enemy rounds and explosives.

"I feel like I'm in the dark ages." Tialer groaned.

"Hey, let's see you do any better!" Chance snapped back, insulted.

Brek seemed to be the only one who was genuinely pleased with the new suit. He ran a finger over one of the shoulder guards. "Clean. Shiny. Effective. How awesome do you get?"

"It's only good for you because you can stand the weight." Tialer said, giving the shin guard an experimental tap with her heel.

"Fine then, if you don't like the adjustments just remove them." Chance crossed his arms. Everyone went to squabbling with the armor, helping one another remove the angular add-ons. From the corner of his eye, Chance noted Sophie sitting in a corner, looking out of a side window. She made no move to remove her armor, but chances were that she hadn't heard a word of what had been said.

Chance wheeled over to her, and looked out the window as well. Here, the heat of the desert had no hold. Plants grew along a small brook that ran under the Rover base and eventually ran the length of the canyon that housed Rover HQ. In recent years, the Master had expanded to the desert floor itself, but the underground portion remained the main segment of the base.

The window viewed the majority of the older section of the base. It was actually a lovely view. "You can remove the armor if you don't like it. I promise I won't bark?" Chance said half-jokingly.

"I can't forget him, Chance." Sophie muttered.

Chance nodded to himself. He had expected as much. "Who ever said we have to forget him?"

"I'm not saying anyone has to. I'm just trying to. I can't let him be a source of distraction. Everyone is counting on me being at the top of my game." Sophie shivered as though she were cold. Chance would have moved to comfort her were he able to do so. Besides that, physical contact with her at this point in time would be unpleasantly chilly. "I can't forget him, Chance. I loved him."

"We all know you did." Chance said, not sure how that was supposed to be a comfort. He sighed, feeling helpless. "If you aren't feeling up to this mission, tell me now. I can call in support and we can still get the work done while you recover."

Sophie shook her head. "No. I'm up for it."

"Hey Chance, Sophie. Come check this out!" Brek called over to them.

Sophie sighed and hopped down from the window sill. She got behind Chance's wheel chair and pushed him over to the group.

"What are we watching?" Chance asked, seeing that they had turned on the room's TV to a local news station.

"Blimey. Look a' that!" Colleen muttered in awe.

Chance looked at the TV screen, where the images of a flaming naval base were being broadcasted live. A news reporter spoke.

"Thom, were live at the scene of the calls. This naval base had been abandoned for years, so local authority hadn't thought it necessary to keep an eye on the place. Wreckage made the harbor inaccessible and rust has taken over. Apparently, United States most-wanted Zachary Storm saw it a suiting place to mount a military coup.

"The police are currently searching the entire base, finding victims of what appeared to be a massive attack, most likely that of a local aggressor organization. We don't have any numbers of deceased yet, though the police have reserved an entire local morgue for the dead.

Most of the base appears to have been destroyed by missile and explosive attacks, though investigators insist that they have found no evidence of typical reactants."

"She's not very intelligible." Chance commented. "Missiles don't use reactants. Not like that, any way."

"Look. Is canosapien on TVski!" Exile exclaimed.

The image they saw was of a Canosapien wrapped like a mummy in gauze and wore a breathing mask. His eyes were hidden in goggles that may well have been meant for swimming. The canosapien had emerged from a burning pile of debris. It dusted itself off and adjusted one of the bandages. Only then did it notice the news helicopters and armed police swarming the base. The police moved to arrest the canosapien, who suddenly took off toward the destroyed base's water front. Police opened fire, and the canosapien returned fire with attacks that looked suspiciously similar to Bliss's smoke attacks. The canosapien made it to the water, and vanished beneath the surface. It never reemerged.

"Who was that?" Hunter asked.

"I don't recognize him." Bliss said. "Then again, I haven't seen many Rovers outside of HQ."

Chance pulled out a data screen from the side of his wheelchair's pocket, and hooked it up to the TV. The screen took a dimensional shot of the image on the TV and ran it through the Rover Database. The computer had trouble working past the gasmask and goggles, though it still managed to pull up a result. Chance looked at the computer screen before dismissing the result.

"I can't pull up anything realistic." He reported aloud. "We may have just seen one of Havoc's clones."

"One of me?" Bliss asked.

"Something like it, I'm sure." Chance looked down at his computer pad.

.

(3 hours earlier, onboard assault submarine.)

Arkantos's instinct made him hold his breath as the sinking chamber filled with water. "Okay, Ark. Pressure is equalized. You're free to launch. Good luck." The water-proof radio popped. The voice sounded muddied by the water.

Arkantos flipped open the door to the sub's flood chamber, and floated up into the waves above.

"Today, the legacy of Zachery Storm is brought to an abrupt end." Arkantos replied with a churning laugh. His heart sank to his stomach. This was wrong.