CHAPTER 13- REVIVAL
"You again? I don't know how you got away last time, but it won't happen again!" Austin said drawing both pistols and dropping his heavy automatic weapons.
"Last time, all you had to do was fight me. But you see, my ally general Crozier gave me a few bodyguards and well, quite frankly it would be rude not to use them don't you think?" the Sorcerer smiled as a door opened behind him and ten 8 foot tall super-soldiers, wearing gas masks attacked the lot of them. They each had two to fight off, and that was proving to be a challenge indeed.
Bullets just bounced off them, so Austin threw a punch that would have sent the average human flying. But these men just stood there. One grabbed his robotic arm and simply threw him hard into the stone wall of the room.
"Ok…punching doesn't work…and they are too quick for my plasma gun…" he said to himself as he looked at his friends trying to hold their own against the monster men.
The bodyguards had tubes running from small pack on their backs to various places on their bodies. Austin unplugged one of them and the liquid inside sprayed on the other ones. Austin grabbed a torch off the wall and threw it at the two men who were soaked in the liquid, and they were instantly set ablaze, flailing wildly.
"Guys! Use your flame breath on them!" Austin shouted.
They did so and the Sorcerer's bodyguards were quickly disposed of.
"Crozier said the undead soldiers were invulnerable!" he said nervously.
"Whats the matter? Not getting worried are we?" Flame asked smiling
"Not as worried as you should be!" he said as he shot a purple ball of energy at Spyro, who was quick enough to deflect it, towards Ember unfortunately. She caught it on the side of her chest and it sent her crashing into a wall, leaving a huge crack in it.
"Ember!!" Spyro said as he ran to her with Flame and Snow in tow. Austin looked back then focused on the enemy.
"I could imagine about 100 terrible ways to kill you. The only question is which one? Decisions, decisions…"
"You will join her!" he said as he fired a huge blue energy ball at Austin. But to the Sorcerer's horror, he simply caught it, let the momentum of the shot spin him around completely, then he shot it back at him, sending him to the ground and his staff into the air. Austin caught his staff and broke it in half.
The Sorcerer was severely wounded and was on his back, when Austin stood over him and began to speak.
"You know, when I first met Spyro, I told him I wasn't sure there was a god, but since that energy ball missed me and hit Ember, I feel like someone up there must like me." He pulled out his pistol and aimed it at the Sorcerers head and began to talk more
"And a Shepard I shall be, for thee my Lord for thee. Power hath descended forth from thy hand, so my feet may carry out thy command, so I shall flow a river forth to thee, and teeming with souls shall it ever be. In Nomeni Patri, Et Fili, Spiritus Sancti."
Austin pulled the trigger and splattered the Sorcerer all over the floor.
He then ran over to ember and his medical systems analyzed her status.
SUBJECT – EMBER
CONDITION – CRITICAL
RECOMMENDED ACTION – NO PRACTICAL TREATMENT.
ORGAN FAILURE IMMENENT.
"Austin do something!!" Spyro said as he held up Embers head and looked into her half closed eyes.
"There's nothing I can do…I don't know how to treat magic…the professor didn't put that on me…" he said as her heart rate began to drop slowly, and then…came to a stop.
"I…Love you…Spyro…" she said as the life left her eyes.
"Oh god…Ember…please don't leave me…I love you…please…don't go…" he said as tears flowed down his face.
The love of his life…the mate he had always wanted…was stolen from him…and he felt like it was his fault.
"No…she can't…be dead…"
"I'm…sorry Spyro…but she's gone…" Austin put his hand on Spyro's shoulder.
Spyro couldn't bring himself to release his love…he held her close and whispered
"I will avenge you ember…I swear on my life."
At that moment, the door the soldiers came out of opened, beckoning them to enter.
"Save your tears. We need to go." Austin said
Then a thought occurred to him,
"Wait…Flame, didn't the Sorcerer say those were undead soldiers?"
"Yeah, so what?"
"Well, if they were zombie soldiers, then they figured out some way to bring the dead to life didn't they?"
"Oooooohhhhhhh. So we need to find it-"
"And use it on Ember!" Snow completed
"Exactly! Get Ember and come on! We need to find the medical research wing."
They came upon a computer panel sticking out of the wall and Austin stopped and began typing on the keyboard.
"What are you doing?" Spyro asked setting down Ember.
"Hacking into the buildings main server…we need to get a map… and I'm gonna try and turn off some of the security…bingo! I'm in."
"How long is this gonna take?" Flame asked
"shouldn't be too long…blast doors open…cameras turned off…auto guns off…initiate total system shutdown…reactor core cooling turbines…deactivated!"
Austin picked up his half of Ember and said
"Ok, with the reactor fans turned off, we've got about two hours before the core goes critical."
"What does that mean?" Snow asked
"That means that if we aren't further than 3 miles away from this building, it wont matter weather we revive ember or not, because we will be nothing but radioactive powder."
They walked down hallways and corridors until they finally came upon the medical wing.
They entered a room with a huge ceiling and rows of seats, then a large machine with a bed at its center, and electrodes pointed at the bed.
"Ok…let's get her hooked up." Austin said as he looked at the diagram on the wall and tried to match the human parts with the dragon ones.
"Attach one here…here…right here…and the last one goes…oh…Spyro I'll let you get this one."
With all the electrodes in the right places, Austin began to power up the reviver.
"All we need is for the power levels to reach 100 percent, then we press the button, and with some luck, we get our Ember back…"
Just then, a huge explosion rocked the palace, and the power went out, triggering the emergency lights.
"What the hell?" Spyro said
"The reactor is offline…Damnit…stay here I'll be right back." Austin said running back to the computer terminal.
"Thank god for night vision." He said as he navigated the darkened hallways with his pistol drawn.
He got to the terminal and the screen was black.
"Shit…no backup generators? Ugh…lazy black September mother f-"
He saw a cable hanging loose from the terminal and got an idea.
He deployed his plasma cannon and touched it to the exposed wire and tried the trick that saved Flame.
The computer screen flickered back to life.
"Ok…now we're getting somewhere…"
"PROPHET!" a loud unseen voice boomed in the hallway, startling Austin.
"What!? Who are you?" he asked yelling at the roof
"I know you and those creatures are looking for me…but don't think I will be so easily found."
"Crozier you bastard! I will find you and kill you!"
"Fear not prophet, you will get your chance to fight me, but first you must face yourself."
"What the hell are you talking about?" Austin said but he caught a glimpse of something at the end off the hall.
He turned the lights back on and revealed that it was himself, standing at the end of the hallway…well, an exact copy of him.
"You cloned me? Very clever crozier."
Austin began to fight his clone, but they were evenly matched, as he expected. He fired at him with his remaining ammo and didn't hit him once.
"Just as fast as me…" he said
"Faster…" it said
"Clearly just as arrogant as me…good job crozier…" he said gasping for breath
"You are a worthy opponent prophet…but there is one thing I have that you don't…camouflage." He said as he became transparent and nearly invisible.
The clone dashed toward Austin and hit him hard into the computer panel, sending an electrical shock throughout him before he fell to the floor.
"Any last words prophet?" the clone asked pointing his 9mm at his head.
"Yeah…you may have camo…but there is one thing I have…that you don't.
"Really? And that is?"
Flame had watched the whole thing, and was waiting for his moment to intervene. He snuck up behind the clone with a pointed piece of scrap metal.
"Friends!" Flame roared.
The clone turned just in time to see Flame run the shard through its chest, and then threw it hard against the opposing wall.
"Thanks buddy…I guess we're even now huh?"
"Uh huh. Now come on, we got an Ember to revive."
Flame helped him up and they went back into the room where Snow and Spyro were waiting.
"Austin, what happened to you?" Spyro asked
"Fighting with myself."
"What?"
"I'll explain later, just get ready to press that button."
Spyro looked at his fallen mate and said softly
"Please…let this work…"