Cradles of Life

By now, Choza and Agura had helped Metaturra to her feet, which were slightly shaky after being drained. The Black Sentient glanced outside the nearest window, then addressed the blue-clad brothers. She might not have known any of these Humans personally, but both her work and her instinct told her they were beings she could trust with her safety.

"Can you reroute the power core of this computer into myself?"

Spinner was already on it. "I can't get all of the juice this thing has – most of it is keeping this place on lockdown. Draining it will make it easier to for the killer Zurk to get in."

"Take what you can. Even a small amount of hadron energy will be enough for me to Keymorph."

Before Stanford could ask the obvious question ("What the heck is Keymorphing?"), a hadron crystal that was pure white in color appeared in midair. The lights shut off after its appearance – a side-effect of the crystal's creation – but when Metaturra took it into her hands, it vanished again, the power used to create the crystal being funneled into her body.

The Black Sentient smiled slightly as her shell stopped flickering like a dying lightbulb; while she was still weaker than she preferred, the hadron energy managed to fuel her enough that she no longer needed someone to lean on. Straightening up, she lifted her right hand, and from it, a pulsing orb appeared, only to reform into a larger-than-average Battlekey. Unlike the River Delta Key the BF5 had procured – or, indeed, any kind of Key they had recovered – the color was not fixed, but a nebulous strobe of many. A pair of interlocking circles lying on their sides – the Human symbol for infinity – was pressed into it as a device.

"Vert," she asked, turning to the blonde-haired warrior, "where did you leave your vehicles when you came in here?"

"A city block to the southwest. But how can we get out of here?"

"Get out?" she asked, looking puzzled. "We are not getting out."

To punctuate her sentence – and to silence the obvious, confusion-filled questions that would come, mostly concerning her judgment – the Keymaster flung the Master Key at the southeast corner. The moment it connected with metal, the walls crumbled away like it had not been in perfectly-good shape. Her Human companions jumped away from the breach, but Choza stayed by her Mistress' side, as stoic and unmoved as a statue as she watched as the rubble freeze in midair. Under the control of the Master Key, guided by Metaturra's will, the metal floated back up, fusing into four larger, rectangular plates that would be large enough to accommodate two standing Humans.

"Technically, we are getting out," she continued, turning to face them. "But to be more specific, we are flying out."

"What's the difference?" Stanford muttered. No one paid attention.

"Uh, you sure this is a good idea?" Spinner asked, suddenly worried more than ever about Metaturra's judgment.

"No, but it is preferable to staying here and waiting for the Zurk and possibly Krytus to open the door. Would you not agree?"

XxX

Two minutes and no small amount of screaming later (mostly from the Humans – Zoom looked exhilarated while Spinner sounded like a little girl), Metaturra's "flying carpet" solution landed the crew down next to the hidden vehicles. The Shifter 2.0 had returned to its normal colors; if Metaturra noticed any difference from the original she didn't mention them.

Revving her engines, Choza slammed the motorcycle into high gear, her Mistress' arms wrapped around her waist. While the hadron energy had enabled Metaturra to get them out unscathed, she was still exhausted, and her shape was fading in and out again. The sooner they could bring her to the River Delta Zone – where Vivi, the Black Mobi, and her Power Orb were waiting – the happier she would be.

The Diad was at the back of the group, just behind Agura and the Cortezs – the better to have the heavyweights nearby if she needed them – but to make sure she didn't lose her passenger, the Shifter 2.0 was driving at a slower speed than the rest of Battle Force 5. Thusly, when the sensors of Reverb picked up the many squadrons of Red Zurk just three miles away and closing in fast, Stanford immediately spun around, dropping his flanking position beside Vert to slide in beside Choza. Pulling off his classic "drive-and-shoot-backwards" maneuver, the British prince unloaded several sonic blasts at the high-rise highway they were leaving behind.

Crumbling rubble greeted the sensors of the Reverb, making its driver believe he had succeeded. Unfortunately, these Zurk seemed to be smarter than the automatons Zemerik had commanded – when Zoom took a quick flight detour backwards, he reported that a lot of them were driving into the gap on purpose, filling it up into a makeshift bridge.

"Any sign of Krytus?" Choza asked.

"Not that I could see, but that's a lot of Zurk he's got chasing after us."

The last thing Zoom was feeling was encouraged by the news that they had a small army in hot pursuit, so when radiant smiles appeared on the faces of the two extraterrestrials, he had to wonder what was up. The next thing he knew, Metaturra had twisted around in her seat, eyes gleaming as she gathered her slim strength, and fired beams of violet energy.

The first lines of Zentners had come onto the horizon by now, and when the two beams reached them, they glowed white. When the glare had faded, a dozen or so Zurk had turned from deep scarlet to onyx black, whirling around to engage their former allies.

Choza looked over her shoulder at her mistress in admiration. "Not bad for someone who looks half-dead. How much energy do you have left?"

"Thank you for the glowing compliment," she replied sardonically. "But I only have ten percent left. I could only provide two similar system overrides before I would need to re-enter hibernation mode."

The BF5 captured what she said on their comms, but before Vert could devise a new strategy, new alarms began blaring out of their scanners. One glance was enough to confirm their worst fears – Krytus was on-planet and heading their way at a speed that would've sent Sheriff Johnston into a spasm, had he been around to see it.

"He wants us all," Metaturra murmured, "but he must not, especially not the Five. Vert Wheeler," she said into the comm., "Separate the lock from the key. You must have found Vivi, to know I had been taken – return to her and give her a last order from me: bring my Mobi to Earth. Sage must be protected if the Multiverse is to survive Krytus again."

"You'll make it there, right?"

"We have the coordinates to Sage's Hub," Choza interjected. "We'll come through another Battlezone once we get rid of these Zurk. Fare thee well, Battle Force 5."

With a final glance, the Shifter's driver veered off the highway and onto the plains below. A good deal of the Sark followed, as she had expected, but Stanford still had some work to do before Vert used the Battlekey and they flew through the River Delta portal.

XxX

The portal flung the BF5 onto the plateau overlooking the waterfall. It sealed behind them, even as the Black Mobi faded out of cloak mode and into view just in front of them. As the garage doors swung open, they drove in, finding the other Black Diad waiting for them on the lift that led to the cockpit.

"Did you find Mistress Metaturra?" she asked, her synthesized falsetto echoing around the metal walls.

"Yeah, but she's currently running from a group of Zurk, along with Krytus," Zoom said, knocking his kickstand into place and dismounting. Tucking his helmet under his arm, he added, "Metaturra gave one final order before we split up: for you to bring the Mobi to Earth, where Sage is. She and Choza will meet up with us once they shake the Zurk."

"If they escape again," Vivi replied, finishing the thought none of the Humans wanted to think. Turning, she indicated to them. "Come on – the Mistress' word is law to me, and I need the coordinates."

The BF5 followed the Diad upward. At her command, the doors sealed up, and they trundled off (flattening more than a few trees as they rolled). A flash erupted from where Vert had attached the Battlekey, and a portal opened near the stone ruins. The convoy vehicle rolled through to the salt flats beyond, and then vanished from sight.

XxX

Back on the Red Sentient planet, Choza was looking for a good place to open her portal. Her work under Metaturra had taught her a thing or two about Multiverse physics, and where a portal was opened had an impact on where in a Battlezone you ended up.

Finally deciding just to take a risk (and hoping that she wouldn't come out over a gorge or something equally unpleasant), she generated her mini-Key, sparing a quick look over her shoulder at the dozen or so Zurk that had doggedly followed the Shifter so far. Metaturra still wasn't in fantastic shape, but that would all change once she made it through.

In her hand, the Key turned a pale blue-white, and the Diad threw it forward. Her acceleration brought her through to the deadly-shining world of the Crystal Battlezone – and almost immediately flung the Shifter into a hard left, swerving around a deadly outcrop of crystal.

Three Zurk weren't as lucky, becoming impaled on the spikes and shattering them into a thousand pieces, but as she gripped the slippery slope grimly, Choza could see a little extra color bloom into Metaturra's appearance. The data streams that fueled the Zone were granting her Mistress extra energy – energy enough to use her most deadly function.

Already the return to the Battlezones had done her a world of good – years had fallen from her appearance – and as she swung her legs around the side, she leapt down. Assured of her strength, she bounded forward, taking larger and larger leaps, soon jumping up the slopes of the crystal mountains that lay in the center, where no vehicle could hope to follow.

Her target was the peak of the highest mountain, where the greatest secret of the Keymasters lay hidden. Krytus, in his apprenticeship, had seen and heard of them, but he had never accessed them – only a wielder of the Master Keys could crack them open. Smiling, she drew her personal key – the one she had not taken from another Keymaster after they died – and flicked it forward.

The snowy crystal turned clear, than vanished altogether. In its place was a black version of a Power Orb, housing the machines the Black Diads called the Cradles of Life.

The Cradles were supercomputers, designed to regulate a Battlezone's conditions in the absence of a Keymaster. When accessed by a Black Sentient wielding a Master Key, they could restore their strength, lock down a Zone utterly … and control it to their whims.

With Key in hand, she glided through, the energies dancing around her like they were welcoming her back to where she belonged. Smiling, she called the Cradle to activate under her will, and the machines hummed in reply.

XxX

Down below, Choza saw the mountaintop disappear, heard the earth-rumbling hum, and knew then that Metaturra was safe. Only another High Keymaster could gain access to an active Cradle after it was brought under another's control, and as soon as her Mistress gathered it around herself, the Zone would be sealed off and all hostile entities would be terminated.

Assured of that, her focus changed. Her Mistress was in safe hands – now it was time to see how many of the nine remaining Zurk she could take out before Metaturra did the work for her.

Gotta stay in practice somehow.

With that in mind, Choza revved her engines and raced down a shiny slope, the Red Sark in hot pursuit. An outcropping was coming up, becoming an effective roadblock on the narrow thoroughfare and leaving only two narrow ways around it. The Diad swore that she could faintly see the outline of another Sark and their Zetner underneath the gemstone, but she took no time to scan it. After luring the first two to stay behind her, she kicked her thruster into gear, simultaneously hopping onto another dimensional plane. When she returned to normal, she noted with some satisfaction that more than just two had smashed against it – only three had evaded her trap; the rest had gotten into a serious fender-bender.

Smirking, Choza checked her environmental readouts, but they weren't needed to realize what was going on. In the Cradle, a giant blast of black energy had been released into the sky, slowly spreading into a net that encompassed the Zone. That net would prevent any portals from being opened where it touched; once it was complete, it would be the ultimate bastion.

It also had the added bonus of feeding directly into her systems. Her power core, which had been around 73% when they had rescued Metaturra, had been boosted right back to 100%, and kept feeding into her – leaving her with plenty of energy to activate her new program.

[[Combat processing online]]

[[Environmental scan positive; raw materials present]]

[[Weapon generation beginning]]

[[Generation complete]]

Ahead, her optic sensors caught sight of a shining blade of diamond, detached from the walls and hovering in the air by the energy that was crackling in the atmosphere. The magnetic grappler on the Shifter snatched it and delivered it into Choza's left hand; holding it in a reverse grip, she dropped back to plunge it into the windshield of one of the flanking Zetners, then switched hands in a half-second for the other to be dispatched the same way.

Both spun out, she phasing out of existence to protect herself from the dark matter spines (and the resulting explosions). One Zurk remained, as did fifteen seconds for Metaturra to finish sealing the Battlezone up and zap the robot into atoms. A sharp turn through a mini-cave made up of reflective crystal would do for her "shutterfly" function.

Quickly calibrating the "shutterfly" to work on machines (and replacing her visual sensors with her sonar), the Diad accelerated, charging up her photon blaster. Just before she went into a hard left turn, she fired – and just as she expected, it rebounded off the curved crystal wall, missed her, and slammed directly into the circuitry of the pursuing Red Sark. While she couldn't see the collision with her optics offline, the gratifying smash reached her ears loudly.

Smirking in satisfaction, Choza switched her eyes back on as the Shifter roared down the road onto a large, roughly circular plateau. The whole area was ringed by giant pillars of gemstone, the colors pale blue and shocking white. By her time, ten seconds remained until the Zone was shut up tight, and there were no Sark left. They would just need to hang tight after the gateways were closed, and then they could slip to Earth, with Krytus unable to follow.

The thought had barely finished formatting in her mind when a red blur came before her. In shock, she leaned hard, using the Shifter as a shield to protect herself when she slid directly into a sharp-faceted pillar, leaping away with the crystal sword before it crashed. Her scanners went over it; when the results came back with only superficial damage to report, she relaxed.

Turning around, she faced Krytus, who had caused his Synfurious to dissipate and had formed his right hand into a blade. He glared at her with sulfurous hate, but the Diad's emotions were that of pity for what Metaturra's prize student had become – and grim determination. No matter the past, she could not allow him to take her or Metaturra – it was destroy or be destroyed.

XxX

Originally this was going to be a much longer chapter (with the fight actually happening), but I wanted something to get posted before Christmas, so I cut Chapter 9 in half. Hopefully, the next chapter will come fairly soon.

So yeah, read and review. And if you saw the allusion to the episode Mobi 3.0, bonus points for you. =D

-Inferna Firesword