Chapter 29: The Final Break IV: The Meltdown
I ran through the hallways, swinging my arms outward and only raising the one with the GPS panel in it to make sure I was heading in the right direction. Despite the urgency in Alpha's voice, there were no sirens going off in the base, signifying that whatever problem was happening in the world it was something for only me to worry about. "Almost there, just another right and…" With a sharp turn of the body I nearly slipped across the floor, but recovered and continued on my way towards the door I needed to reach. The blip that indicated the Command Sphere's location pulsated rapidly, a ringing noise coming that led into a drawn out, blaring noise. One had to wonder how sound could come from this simple holographic plate, but alas that was not something I would find an answer for today.
I reached the door at the end and watched it slide open on its own, and I entered the room it kept protected. I was immediately greeted hundreds of images spread across an equal amount of computer screens, a few of them blaring red with warning symbol and a couple klaxons ringing in through my ears. "Warning! Warning! Corrosive Elements Detected in Nova Cesspool! Side-Effects on a Planetary Scale Predicted to occur in Seven Hours. Warning! Warning!" "I get it already you damn machine, now can you just shut up and let me think?!" Alpha's angered voice responds to the alarm, and he Commander proceeds to pound the left arm of his chair in righteous fury at the top of the staircase in front of me.
"Alpha, I'm here! What's going on?!" I called out to grab his attention, carelessly discarding the GPS off to the side and causing it to shatter against the nearby wall. The alarms finally die down thanks to a successful button press from Alpha's right hand, and as he releases a heavy sigh the Commander flips his chair around and says to me "Thank god you finally arrived, I was getting sick of having to listen to that alarm." "Yeah…I heard it mention the Nova Cesspool though…What's going on there?" I inquired, to which Alpha responded to by waving his right hand to get me to climb the stairs and join him at his side as he began explaining what he knew.
"Its not looking good Mew…That damn reality bender really messed things up by trying to use that 'Midnight Channel' for his sick little game." "Huh? How so?" I asked. "I believe you briefly mentioned how Mr. Reality restored parts of the elemental temples back to their former glory, right? Well, the later temples such as the Terra Cave and Frozen Palace were not fully restored even though they really should have been. That's because the 'Midnight Channel' is overriding the changes Mr. Reality has performed on the world." "Wait, it can do that?" I asked. It didn't really sound like a plausible scenario, especially since reality benders should logically be above all other things in the universe.
"If left unchecked, yes it can. You see, the 'Midnight Channel' is not of this world. Hell, its not even of this dimension! It's a foreign realm, and by merging it with an existing planet that reality bender has allowed the corrosive elements present in the realm to invade into our world. The temples slowly became ruined again, and eventually the landscapes surrounding them have begun to degrade as well. That's really not good in the case of the Nova Cesspool. Underneath the layers of toxins and solidified magma exists a massive lava bed. The solidified magma helped stop the heat from the lava from creating a draft that would spread the toxins into the clouds above and create acid rain, but now that those layers are corroding I believed that the toxins would spread out and we'd have something big on our hands to deal with…"
Alpha points to one screen on the upper left corner of the array of computer monitors, which shows an overhead view of the Nova Cesspool. The damage to the landscape is pretty easily noticed, but the main thing he has me look at is the thin energy barrier spread around the perimeter of the land. "However, it appears that the reality bender sent up a barrier to stop the toxins from getting out. All of them have floated up against the ceiling of the barrier, so you shouldn't have to grab one of our breathing apparatus' or use your wind powers as you traverse the Cesspool. But, there is another crisis we need to worry about…"
Alpha refers to another screen, and he stretches his arms outward and types across the keyboard to quickly get some video feed of the current condition of the Nova Cesspool up. I am immediately greeted by a shot of a melting bridge collapsing straight into a bubbling lava pit, the bubbles that rise up bursting and spreading drops of molten liquid around in all directions. After a few seconds of close examination, I noticed that the lava lake appeared to be sinking. "You see, the corrosion of the planet is affecting the plates and crust, causing the lava to sink lower and lower into the planet with every passing hour. The effect is slow right now, but if you don't free the world from the last bit of the 'Midnight Channel's' influence within seven hours…"
Alpha rapidly types onto the keyboard, his fingers moving like a well-conducted orchestra until all the of screens above go blank. They are then replaced with a two-dimensional image of the planet's insides in relation to the current state of affairs. As the Commander clicks down on a few more keys time speeds up, the effects of corrosion increasing tenfold until it reaches the molten core. "Then the magma from the Nova Cesspool will reach the planet's core. Now that by itself isn't anything deadly, but I fear that considering the unknown nature of the realm that even physics themselves will corrode under the 'Midnight Channel's' influence. Gravity will become non-existent, and the planet's magma core will rise to the surface, spreading out and burning the entire planet until nothing exists."
"You sure about that? It seems to me like you may be looking at the worst case scenario here Alpha." I said, not very fazed by the Commander's deduction considering how ludicrous it all sounded. "Well it is highly possible that I'm wrong about how far the corrosion will go into the planet, but there is one thing I know for certain…You have to get through the Ignitor Cave in the next four hours, or the corrosion will cause lava to flood into the inner guardian chamber, rendering it impossible to release the last energy reserve." That right there was enough to garner a reaction of fear and shock from me, as I froze in place and followed-up on Alpha's grim sentence by saying "And then Mario would be burned alive as well…"
"Exactly." Alpha said in agreement as he rest his mechanical limbs against the arms of his chair and turned it around, giving it a light jiggle to alert me to move to avoid being knocked off the pedestal. "I think what really pisses me off here is that it wouldn't be too hard for that reality bender to fix the planet. I believe the only reason he isn't is so he can impose a time limit to get you back out there as soon as possible. In other words, he's impatient…And if I'm not mistaken, he might be getting bored of things and wants to get to the endgame as soon as possible, whatever that may be." "Wait, the endgame? But save for a rematch against him the game will be over after the Ignitor Cave, so why are you wondering what the endgame might be?"
Alpha's comment made little sense in light of what I just said, but after slinking into a pose of silent pondering the Commander turns around and after a few seconds he says to me "Do you really think it'll end with the return of the seven elements and the cleansing of the planet? Everything thus far has been orchestrated so the reality bender could see you go through the journey you did before, but in an entirely new way. If he is truly going for accuracy, then there will be one more location for you to traverse after the Ignitor Cave…"
"You don't think that he would rebuild the Origin Temple, do you?" It was an inquiry that got Alpha eerily silent once more, and after a quiet, rough grumble he admits to me "Who knows what that alien will do anymore…He is clearly off his rocker, especially with what might happen in the Nova Cesspool. I swear though, if he revives the Genesis Samurais to use as his puppets…" The mere mention of that group's name caused me to grimace in anger at the thought of Mr. Reality dishonoring the seven samurais' sacrifices by bringing them back to fight against me. I clenched my right fingers into a fist as hard as I could, gritting my teeth and promising to Alpha "If it comes down to that, then that bastard isn't going to live by the end of this"
"He shouldn't be kept alive anyways Mew…His powers are a threat not just to our planet, but to the rest of the universe and especially himself. Killing him would prevent a greater disaster later down the road…" Alpha was detailing his view on the whole matter, and while I do agree that Mr. Reality is a threat, there was something I had to point out to the Commander even though my choice of words would earn some ire from him "Alpha, until he is proven to be a completely irredeemable monster I'm not going to kill him, ok? After all, he DID show disgust towards Cackletta's actions and allowed you to kill her, so he can't be all that bad."
"…If that's the type of morality you wish to have Mew, that's fine." Alpha says, showing a surprising bit of acceptance towards my point of view. However, he turns around and glares at me with his eyebrow arched, saying sternly "However, if for whatever reason I'm given any, and I mean ANY opening to end that alien's life, I will take it. And I'm pretty certain you won't be able to hold most of the others back if they want to take a shot at him. So you better hope that your faith in that reality bender doesn't come back to bite you later on." After calmly giving me a piece of his mind, the Commander swerves his chair back around and looks back up at the computer screens as they revert back to normal.
"Though before you go, I think you should go find E. Gadd and give him that piece of the tablet so he can at least connect it to the rest while you are gone." The Commander suggested to me as I began to turn around and head down the stairway. I tilted my head over my left shoulder, looking at the back of his chair and asking "Oh, where is he?" "Right here my good lad." That elderly tone enriched with wisdom alerts me to the professor's presence, and I turn my head to the left to respond to the voice and am surprised to find him standing precariously on the ground beside the bottom ring of the pedestal. "Professor? What are you doing down there?" I ask as I leap down beside him.
"Ohohoho…" He starts off with his usual jolly laughter. "I've just been busy examining the structural integrity of Alpha's machinery, since he kindly requested I do so. So far everything seems to be sound!" The second sentence was directed towards the Commander himself, and the Professor turns his head towards the chair he sits in and waits for a response, which comes in the form of a gracious "Thank you for your assistance E. Gadd. I may have built most of this tech, but sometimes it doesn't hurt to get a second opinion on its condition." Afterwards the Professor turns back towards me, nudging his glasses back into alignment before continuing to speak.
"So, I'm guessing Alpha gave you the tablet piece already?" He inquired. I nodded my head and reached into my pant's pocket, pulling the fragment out with ease and flicking it through the air over to the Professor, who grabs it and quickly averts his eyes away from me to look at the text inscribed on the stone. "I should note that Alpha wasn't able to translate it no matter how many languages he went through." "I see…I see…" E. Gadd responds to my warning with little attentiveness, his mind fully engulfed in the mysterious words that he was incapable of reading.
"Anyways, thanks for giving this to me Mew." The Professor says in a jolly manner, pushing the fragment into the pocket protector of his shirt and giving me another one of his laughs before lifting his head up and saying to me "I'll make sure to piece it all together for you to look at, so drop by my lab after you finish up in the Ignitor Cave. Right now though, I don't want to stall you with the trepid words of an old man, so go ahead and go save the world and what-not." Thankful to the Professor for understanding the situation, I nodded my head and smiled, turning towards the door and preparing to head off when Alpha had one more thing to say to me.
"Good luck Mew. I'll get the hangar doors open for you to fly out of." With that remark, I ran through the hallways, remembering the directions I took to get there from the hangar before. I didn't run into anyone along the way, leaving me without any distractions until I reached the hangar itself once more. I heard the loud creaking of the pistons and metal sliding along the floor, the large doors retracting from the center point into the walls, a vast, barren wasteland visible beyond the base. I could feel wind blowing in from afar, the skies appearing clear and ready for flight. Halfway through the retraction I began rushing towards the door, kicking my feet off the ground as I pass them and launch myself through the sky. Though I had no idea where the M.S.I. base was in relation to the Nova Cesspool, I figured that with my speed I'd be able to cover the skies quickly enough to find it. This was going to be the last temple, and the stakes couldn't possibly have been higher…
Next Time: His True For
