Review Responses:

Pixeltoaster - I'm glad you liked it, and I hope you enjoy the futuristic compound they find themselves in next.

Pt35 - I'll probably send you a message today or tomorrow sometime about the next chapter, mainly the part I've already written. It'd be nice to get a second opinion about how they manage to escape.


Chapter 50: The Citadel


Timeline 18-2096
Citadel 972

Hidden and Luna soared across the barren, lifeless wasteland toward the glimmering citadel, using the rough crags and ravines carved into the terrain to disguise their approach as best they could. The compound's immense outward slanting walls grew only more imposing as the duo approached, shiny, chrome colored plating covering the barrier from horn to claw. Hidden wondered if there was even a way inside besides flying over, though he was somewhat more concerned that they would be picked up by the citadel's security array long before they got the chance to enter.

He wasn't foolish enough to assume this compound's defenses were as laughable as JSI's.

They eventually managed to reach the base of the wall, a chill running down Hidden's spine as they approached. He nervously looked up at the metal barrier looming above him, attempting to spot anything that looked even remotely like a security camera.

"Relax. There aren't any cameras on these outer walls, if that's what you're worried about." Luna stated, despite looking even more nervous than Hidden was. "The outer defenses are designed to protect against large scale assaults. There's more than enough deadly stuff inside to take care of us."

Luna's explanation wasn't especially reassuring, though Hidden felt himself start to relax just a little nevertheless. He shook his head, walking up to the wall and lightly tapping it with the back of his talon, a soft clink echoing up its slanted surface.

The duo walked along the base of the wall, Luna eventually pointing at a small hexagonal opening a short distance above them. It barely looked large enough for him to squeeze through, though before he could ask if there was another way in, Luna had already flown up to it, squeezing her four wings together and slithering inside. Hidden sighed, and lifted himself up to the hole, eyeing it suspiciously before pulling himself in.

Metal walls squeezed in all around the SandWing, the tunnel consumed by a darkness so overwhelming, he couldn't see all the way down his snout. More than once, he felt himself start to get stuck within the cramped space, having to carefully back up before he became completely trapped. He tried to look back, but he couldn't turn his head more than thirty degrees to either side. His body blocked out almost all of the light from outside anyway, and sadly, he hadn't thought to pull out his PDA prior to entering.

Luna better know what she's doing… Hidden thought, grunting, as he struggled to pull himself through the narrow passageway. It didn't help that he had a laser cannon strapped to his side, even if it was the slimmer one Ricky had nabbed, rather than the unwieldy dubstep cannon.

Eventually, he found himself climbing out into an endlessly tall, and rather narrow space, barely wide enough for him to spread his wings and hover in place. Tiny white lights were embedded into the curved walls of the crevice, though Hidden was still unable to see the top and bottom of the place, a seemingly endless void extending beneath him.

Luna was hovering just above him. She nodded her head toward another opening on the other side of the crevice, slightly larger than the one they'd just come through. Hidden lifted himself higher into the air after her as she disappeared into it, the tips of his wings just barely scraping against the walls of the crevice.

He latched onto the edge of the opening with his claws, pulling himself in and crawling after Luna, the SilkWing a few paces ahead of him. Thankfully, this corridor was lit, albeit dimly, by the same white lights as the crevice. Dense clusters of cables draped across the walls of the corridor, often snagging on Hidden's wings and tail.

"Hey, Luna?" he asked, picking up his pace in order to catch up to the SilkWing, "How do you know so much about this place anyway?"

"All of Walnut's citadels are carbon copies of one another." she explained, trudging ahead as the wires began to grow increasingly dense. "I read a book a few years back by someone who'd managed to break into one, and get out alive. Plus I uh...I have some experience with these things myself…." Hidden saw Luna nervously fidget as she trailed off, pausing for a moment to collect herself.

The two continued to crawl through the mess of wires in silence, Luna eventually pausing to squeeze through an especially tight gap. Hidden wriggled his way after her, careful not to scratch off the wire's protective rubber coating with his claws.

They popped out into a wide, low roofed space, overlooking an eerily quiet hallway just to their left. Thick, slanted beams were placed regularly along the open edge of the space, casting long, dark shadows on the opposite wall.

"Hey. uh...I'm sorry about calling you melodramatic back there," Hidden began, as the two crawled alongside the hallway, "This all seems pretty personal to you, and…."

"Shhhh!" Luna hissed, pointing to a metal doorway sliding open on the other side of the hall. Two dragons, a SeaWing and a SandWing, stepped out of the chamber beyond, their legs marching in perfect, almost robotic movements. They were scarily gaunt, their bones clearly visible through their scales, though their bodies were still held up rigidly despite this. Their eyes were dull and lifeless, staring off into space as they stopped just outside of the doorway, abruptly turning to their right, and marching down the hallway in the opposite direction as Hidden and Luna.

"Wh...what are they?" Hidden asked, the dragons' boney forms and dead eyes reminding him of the zombies they'd fought not too long ago. He turned to Luna, the SilkWing staring at the strange dragons in a mix of terror, remorse, and rage.

"They were probably inhabitants of this timeline before Walnut arrived." Luna stated, her voice cold and hollow. She pointed to the backs of their heads, where small circular devices were implanted. "He uses those devices to take complete control of their bodies, using them like puppets for his own sick amusement. They're still completely aware, but unable to control their own actions, forced to be little more than helpless passengers in their own bodies."

Hidden gave Luna a suspicious look, remembering an odd, circle-shaped scar in roughly the same spot on the back of her head. He debated asking her about it there and then, but decided to hold it off until later. She'd probably avoid the subject regardless.

Once the mind-controled dragons were out of sight, the two continued forward, the anxiety Hidden had felt outside of the citadel now back in full force. He shivered, imagining what it would be like to be trapped in his own body, forever bound by the will of the one controlling him, unable to eat, drink, or sleep but by his master's command. He quickly shoved those thoughts aside, though. He did want to be able to sleep that night.

The duo crawled along the low spaces that overlooked the citadel's halls, occasionally ascending up another narrow shaft. Hidden tried to keep a careful mental map of every corridor they passed through-every turn they took-but it was all starting to blur together, every hall looking almost indistinguishable from the last.

"Hey, Luna?" Hidden asked, as they wriggled their way out of a sheer, vertical shaft, his legs aching from pressing against its walls. "Do you know where in this place we're going?"

"Not really," Luna replied bluntly, "But I have a feeling we'll know when we've found him." She gazed down at the hallway running beside them, just as lifeless and empty as all of the others they'd passed. They had only seen a few more of the mind controlled dragons on their way up, and Hidden was starting to feel a little disappointed at the lack of killer robots, even if he knew he should be grateful for that fact.

"I expected there to be more security out and about," Luna muttered, "Your 'friend' must be causing a real ruckus."

A faint bang suddenly echoed down the adjacent corridor, followed by a furious roar, and the dry crackling of electricity. Hidden and Luna quickly turned to each other, a faint smile appearing on the SandWing's snout, and quickly shuffled their way alongside the corridor, the noises growing ever louder as they approached.

After ascending yet another vertical shaft, they found themselves upon a slightly taller crevice within the wall, overlooking a wide, outdoor walkway spanning the top of the citadel. Massive skyscrapers towered above them, and the pointed spires of the exterior wall jutted out into the barren wasteland beyond. The millions of glowing lights adorning the structure were almost blinding up close, and it took a moment for Hidden's eyes to adjust.

When they did, they spotted a familiar looking NightWing, glowing cables draped across his body.

Darkstalker appeared to be locked into a fight with a monstrosity of a machine unlike anything Hidden had ever seen. It had a long, dark, narrow body that swerved and twisted like a snake. It stood hunched upon two lithe, clawed legs, similar arms dangling out in front, nearly touching the floor. It's long neck twisted into the air, abruptly ending where a head should have been. Four glowing white lines adorned the flat end of its neck, three horizontal ones crossing perpendicularly with a vertical. Needle-like spikes ran down the back of its neck, and gathered in a tight cluster at the end of its long tail, like those on an IceWing's.

Someone's certainly been busy…. Hidden thought to himself, noticing two similar-looking machines behind the NightWing, reduced to little more than torn-up scrap.

The still-functioning machine whipped its tail around, attempting to smash it's cluster of spikes into the NightWing, but he quickly rushed forward, grabbing its tail and attempting to rip it off. The machine let out a deafening screech, briefly stunning the NightWing, and leapt out of his grasp while he was regaining his footing.

"A fourth-tier," Luna grumbled spitefully under her breath.

"A what?" Hidden asked.

"A panther. It's a lower-tier drone from Dr. Walnut's army." she explained, as Darkstalker continued to spar with the monstrosity.

"Lower-tier?" Hidden asked, instinctively reaching for the laser canon at his side. He pulled it around and held it out toward the panther, only for Luna to push it's barrel down with a claw. Hidden grumbled, but obliged nevertheless. If Luna was right, then there were far worse things lying in wait beyond that nightmarish machine.

Darkstalker growled, his body already covered with bleeding scrapes from the panthers' claws and spikes, and unleashed a white-hot burst of electricity from his maw, striking the machine directly in the chest and stunning it long enough for him to move in close. He grabbed both of the machine's shoulders, and with a roar of fury, ripped it's arms right out of their sockets.

The panther screeched once again, but the NightWing bore through it, electricity coursing through the cables along his body as he plunged one of the machine's arms into its chest, a wave of energy flowing into it. With one final spasm, the machine fell forward, the glowing lines on it's non-face flickering out.

The NightWing tossed aside the other metal arm apathetically, turning to head further along the wide walkway. Hidden was just about ready to move himself, when a dozen more deafening screeches echoed across the citadel, so loud the SandWing was sent to the ground, ears held tight in his talons.

As the screeching began to die down, Hidden spotted dozens of smaller robots climbing over the sloped walls running beside the walkway, diving down to confront the NightWing, some leaping right past the two hiding dragons. They each had a much similar body shape to the panther, as well as features like its mane of spikes and long, headless neck. They were much smaller than the previous drone, though, and each crawled on six skittering legs rather than hobbling around on two. Only three lines glowed where their heads should have been, one of the panther's horizontal ones missing from these lesser machines.

"So, what are these delightful little murder-bots?" Hidden quietly asked, jolting back as another leapt down right past the two.

"Third-tiers, hounds," Luna replied, "They're not that strong individually, but in a pack like this…?" She turned to Hidden, frowning. "He's pretty much screwed now." Hidden readied the laser cannon once again, and just as before, Luna shut him down.

"Don't go blowing out cover just yet, these things aren't trying to kill him." she stated matter-of-factly.

Hidden grumbled irritably, watching as Darkstalker struggled to fend off the horde of drones bearing down upon him. For every one he fried with an electricity blast, or ripped in half, another two or three would leap down upon him. Hidden couldn't help but be reminded of the Tower of Doom's final challenge, where he'd saved Darkstalker from a very similar situation.

One of the hounds latched onto Darkstalker's back, it's claws digging into his greyish-black scales. The NightWing flailed about, desperately reaching for the drone, but it was far too fast, and had soon grabbed one of the cables on the side of his body, ripping it out of one of its attached nodes, a wild shower of semi-transparent liquid spraying out from the cable.

Darkstalker howled with pain, in his fury sending more energy through the network running along his body, only for it to fizzle out of the damaged cable. Hidden and Luna watched on as the horde of machines piled upon the NightWing, mercilessly beating him into submission until, after what seemed like an agonizingly long time, they stepped back to form a circular perimeter around a half unconscious Darkstalker lying on the floor.

The machines let out a victorious screech, as four metallic black orbs floated down from the skyscrapers above, each with a single vertical line glowing at the front. They maneuvered into a roughly rectangular formation, bright beams of light emitting from the glowing lines at their front, forming a massive holographic display.

The face of a human soon appeared upon the display, a long, slender head, with skin so pale it looked as if it had been bleached, and so tight Hidden wondered if he had clothespins snapped to the back of his head. His short, spiky yellow hair was completely unkempt, a pair of goggles with different sized lenses for each eye holding it out of his face.

Hidden noticed Luna freeze up at the sight of the human, a brief, frightened squeak escaping her maw before she clamped it shut with her talons, her tail and antennae quivering. Hidden felt his scales begin to grow cold and clammy, his foretalons gripping the edge of the ledge tightly.

They'd finally come face to face with Dr. Thaddeus Walnut himself.


50 Chapters!

Funny enough, this story was originally planned to be only 50 chapters, 5 per episode, but I eventually decided to stretch things out to better tell the story. I actually decided to split up this chapter too, as I feel like it's better to take things slowly instead of trying to push myself into writing overly long, rushed chapters in a week.

So I've retconned in Luna having a weird scar on the back of her head, which is a part of her backstory that I won't be getting into for a little while. It will be addressed much earlier in the rewrite.

I probably could have put in a bit where they have to sneak past a robot in the halls, and not have them be completely abandoned. This could have served as an introduction to the panther before showing what it can do in its fight against Darkstalker. I guess I wanted to go for a spooky, tense mood, where Hidden isn't sure what they're getting into or how powerful their foe really is, and my explanation for why there were no robots stalking the halls is: A. They were at the ready to deal with Darkstalker, and B. Dr. Walnut likely doesn't expect someone to try to sneak into one of his nightmare citadels, let alone do so successfully. It's not the perfect explanation, but that's what rough drafts are for.

Will Hidden and Luna be able to save Darkstalker from the clutches of Dr. Walnut? What could this maniacal force possibly want with the cyborg NightWing? Find out in the next chapter of Wings of Fire: Salvation! Stay tuned!