Author's note: OK, this is where we learn exactly what Apollyon's big plan was all about. I've tried to make the explanation as clear as possible, but if it doesn't come across clearly, I would like to hear about it so that I can elaborate next chapter. There's still very little humor, which was why I packed previous chapters with so much of it. Don't worry, though, there are a few comedic breaks coming in subsequent chapters. The story will not be so dark all the way through to its end.
Thanks to: all who are reading. UNION has received more than fifteen hundred hits since the counters were instituted (which is what, three, four days ago?). It's a bit overwhelming. And yes, I realize a lot of those are readers who have clicked on the story more than two or three times but still…
Extra Special Thanks to those who are taking the time to review. Your kind words are appreciated as always: Widow Shark, BabyMama9672, Dreammergurl2007, Sestren NK, Kemiztri, recon228, Jezrianna2.0, JPMod, Sand Lord, Potential Boy, Encroaching Darkness, Cold-Chaos, MrDrP, Jokerisdaking, SpriteKin, aimtbj, LKillingsworth, Mobius97, willk1989, Porphyria-Kris, and Tusconcoyote.
OK class, pay attention to Dr. Flanner, because if you don't understand what she's talking about…well, that would be my fault, wouldn't it?
X.
Rufus rather enjoyed being a human.
Oh, sure, at first he had to resist the urge to scamper up on Ron's shoulder the first time he saw him. That might have made for one seriously awkward moment; this hulking brute of a man trying to climb up on the shoulders of the Roman Patrician. Awkward, and of course, dangerous for them all.
But he did enjoy being able to talk in complete sentences, and in Latin no less! Speaking was something a mole rat voice box was not designed to do. But now he was able to carry on whole conversations and not just gibber and chatter. Talking in the ethereal world of the internet was even easier. When Wade had contacted him, he could respond almost as a matter of thought, and he sensed, rather than heard what Wade typed back to him in reply.
But perhaps what he enjoyed most was the fact that, thus far, Apollyon had no clue he was in here. When he'd first arrived in the character of Runewyyd, he was somewhat disoriented and had a hard time just walking upright.
He got over it quickly.
Soon, he was able to uncover which character Kim had taken over. Actually, it was a little too obvious. As Vulpes, she'd snuck into Ron's room and watched him sleep for an hour or so. It almost broke his heart, the thought of her, in the guise of a Roman soldier, sitting there watching her husband sleep and being unable to even touch him. The image filled him with a cold resolve.
Even if he had to lose his life, he'd see that Ron got out of this, and that Apollyon would be force-fed a little justice, courtesy of one enraged mole rat.
When Apollos sought out Kim and took her into his quarters, he made his way to the door and pressed his ear to it. If it sounded like Kim was in trouble, he would go in there and hand Apollos his own heart while it was still beating. But fortunately for Kim, Apollyon had his own games to play.
Rufus knew he could almost count on Apollyon leaving her alive just to satisfy some twisted desire to watch her suffer. Every villain had the same weakness; an inflated sense of indestructibility.
He chuckled to himself. Apollyon had just been given a lesson in the fallacy of such personality traits. And, like every good villain, Apollos would not learn it until too late. Rufus simply waited outside the door, knowing Apollos would give him some excuse, no matter how flimsy, to give him a good thrashing.
But Ron had interfered before he was finished, and so Rufus had to content himself with at least having hurt Apollos, and by extension Apollyon, a little. Then Rufus, virtually speaking, sat back and held his breath as Apollyon came nosing around the character files that comprised Runewyyd. After a time, however, he went away, never having detected Rufus' presence.
Score one for the good guys, virtually speaking.
Most of his time under Apollyon's control was while Rufus' artificial mind was asleep. But during the brief time when Rufus was strapping Ron to the Immersion chair, he was privy to some of Apollyon's thoughts. Apollyon was aware of this, of course and kept most of his thoughts closely guarded. During certain times, though, when an important process needed to be completed, such as inserting the feeding tubes into Ron's arm, Apollyon's guard would drop briefly. At the time, Rufus was too preoccupied with enduring the horror of helping Apollyon torture his friend. But later, pieces of Apollyon's thoughts would come to him, such as the Tempus Simia, for instance, and he would remember a few of the things Apollyon had been thinking about when his guard began to fall.
Rufus realized that Apollyon could not divide his attention too much, and things would begin to go unnoticed. To test that theory, Rufus had picked the fight with Apollos. It seemed he was right. Apollyon was puzzled by Runewyyd's behavior, but not suspicious. He had his mind on other things.
The next logical step was to find out what happened to Apollyon if his character was killed. Rufus didn't consider it murder any more than he did when he played video games with Ron. These weren't real people. Yes, there was the risk of Apollyon taking out some kind of retribution on Ron. But Rufus figured the only way he could do that was by having another character attack him. And Since Ron was the high ranking soldier aboard the boat. It would be extremely out of character for anyone to hurt him in some way.
There was the possibility that they would make landfall, and Apollyon could program the locals to attack, but Rufus was willing to fight them off. Apollyon's only other option was some sort of freakish coincidence, like lightning striking Ron, or a giant squid attacking the boat.
But that wasn't very likely.
Rufus knew, from his brief conscious time as Apollyon's unwilling slave, that Apollyon was a meticulous planner. He planned everything down to the last foreseeable detail. On the other hand, he was horrible at improvisational thinking. Rufus confirmed this when he put the beat down on Apollos. Apollyon was momentarily caught off guard.
Good to know.
A combination of factors, including the fact that Apollyon couldn't think on his virtual feet, and that Rufus was undetectable meant he could wreak much havoc within the simulation, provided said havoc didn't result in any overt consequences that forced the other characters to take action against him.
Originally, he thought the Princess was going to be another problem. He couldn't stand by and watch her seduce Ron while his wife was forced to watch helplessly. He thought briefly about eliminating her, too. But as he was escorting her below decks she asked him to relay a message to Ronaldus.
Please ask him to come to her chambers. She was frightened by the mist and his company would very much ease her fears.
Rufus smiled at the Princess and promised to deliver the message. And he would, too. He didn't have a problem relaying such a message because he knew there was no way Ron would come to her now. She was throwing herself at him, and that was a huge turn-off for Ron. The fact that she wanted Ron to know she was easily frightened would further drive him away.
Spend a few years perched on a guy's shoulder and you learn one or two things. Though Ron was only with Kim through their college years, he did recall Ron's high school romances; he chased after Zita, liked Yori though he was clueless as to her feelings toward him, and loved Kim. And there was Violet that one summer. She, too had been a superhero with an inner strength. But Ron found no attraction to those girls who seemed needy or helpless.
Rufus found it amusing that Ron probably wasn't even consciously aware the Princess' actions would turn his favor away from her. He didn't go for the clingy types who threw themselves at him. If she had been programmed with a real strength of character, maybe as some sort of warrior Princess, who made it known that she might be interested, Ron would probably have been caught in her web. But Apollyon made the huge mistake of assuming all guys were attracted to the needy, helpless damsel types. Sure, if she were in some sort of danger, Ron would charge in and rescue her. But there was no way he'd be at all interested in her in a romantic sense, even if he did believe he was fifteen hundred years away from his wife.
She'd still throw herself at Ron, though, and it would be painful for Kim to watch. But in this particular instance, Apollyon had overplayed his hand.
And now, Apollos was dead, and Vulpes, as the next highest ranking Roman on board, would become Ronaldus' second-in command. They'd be spending a lot more time together.
In fact, here they were, coming to interrogate him about Apollos' death. Did he have any idea who might have killed Apollos?
"Of course." Runewyyd replied, "I did."
The breeze wafted in from the ocean, bringing with it the tangy smell of salt and dead fish. It was cooler here than it was inland, but that did little to ease the tension in the air. At least, tension was what everyone sensed was coming from the shore line.
Buzen was not the largest province on the southern Japanese island of Kyushu, and thus it could not field much of an army. But Buzen's lord was a loyalist to the Emperor and the sovereignty of Japan, and he'd had enough dealings with Ishigawa to know that he would not be a preferable choice for Shogun.
Ishigawa only ever felt contempt for Buzen's lord; a pathetic man named Benkei who believed in such idiotic notions as personal freedom for the peasants living in his province, and a fair market economy as a way of fostering prosperity in his land. His military might was anything but. However, he was a renowned swordsman, and his army, though small, was well trained.
But clearly, as Ishigawa thought, Benkei was no tactician.
The combined armies of the lords Ishigawa and Monkey Fist had blitzkrieged across the island of Kyushu in a matter of weeks. They conquered almost as fast as they could march. The first of Satsuma's neighboring provinces fell almost immediately, their lords caught unprepared to do battle with both a standard army and one comprised of stone monkey warriors, ape-ogres, and flying monkey dragons. Ishigawa had developed a rather clever battle tactic of engaging the provincial armies initially with only his own. Once the battle was fully engaged, then Monkey Fist would attack with his army, striking fear into the enemy soldiers.
The tactic proved very effective.
The lords of Kyushu fell one by one and every day, Ishigawa's army grew. Provincial lords and generals who had fought against him were, of course, summarily executed. As were any soldiers or Samurai who refused to join Ishigawa; and there were a surprising number of these. Many warriors were convinced that fighting along side Monkey Fist and his unholy army would bring evil and misfortune upon themselves. Many others were loyalists who did not want a part of Ishigawa's regime, and still many others refused on general principle; either out of a sense of honor, or loyalty to their lords and generals.
But despite the fact that he had to eliminate so many, Ishigawa's army had grown to number just over a hundred thousand warriors and Samurai.
Monkey Fist had sustained a few losses of his own. One of his monkey ninjas had already been killed, as well as a handful of Kijo (the ape-ogres). The stone Silverback Gorillas weren't invulnerable either. Stone could be broken, just not necessarily by swords. Two of them had been broken up by enemy warriors using the blunt end of wood-chopping axes after having been ensnared in elaborate traps.
Monkey Fist soon realized he would need this Ohana Wraith – this indestructible gorilla-being with great powers – if he were to return to his own time and conquer the world. He had no interest in ruling ancient Japan; not a large enough prize. And he'd been learning a few tricks from Ishigawa. Monkey Fist decided he would begin his conquest of modern-day earth by taking a few smaller countries, and building up his conventional military. Between the fear the Ohana Wraith would bring, and the execution of all who opposed him, Fist began to see the conquering of the world as a real possibility.
Up until now, Fist hadn't had much of a stomach for executions. Most villains wanted to take over the world with a minimal loss of life. What good would it be if you ruled but there were few left to recognize it? But he saw the fear it struck into the warriors of the provinces they conquered. Many joined and fought because they were intimidated into doing so.
If a few people had to die to achieve that end, what of it?
Monkey Fist had waited far too long for a real shot at becoming Supreme Monkey Ruler. It had been his obsession for well over a decade. He'd tried achieving his goals without ending too many lives, but such scruples had to be sacrificed when one came this close to getting everything he wanted. The older he grew, the more obsessed he had become, and the less he cared about who he killed to get what he wanted.
As it turned out, conquering Japan was an excellent dry run at conquering the earth. Fist would be schooled in battlefield tactics and strategy while they were here, and he would return to his own time much more prepared to subdue the armies of the modern world. And in time, he would subdue the modern world itself with his combination of modern weapons and his mystical monkey army.
But one step at a time. They needed to get their massive forces off the island of Kyushu, and the way to do that was across the narrow straights between the Buzen province on Kyushu, and the Nagato province on mainland Japan.
Initially, Ishigawa had no intention of conquering the Buzen Province. It was insignificant, and posed no real threat to the lands he had already taken. He installed ruthless men as regional governors of the provinces. Ishigawa surmised the regional governors could muster a force and conquer Buzen at their leisure.
Ishigawa was too eager to get to the mainland and begin the campaign there. He'd brought his army to the northern shores of Kyushu, near a tiny fishing village that occupied the only stretch of coastline that wasn't too rocky to traverse. To get to this village, the army had to march down a very narrow valley, one that actually dwindled to a vary wide ravine near the ocean before widening up into a harbor with large sandy beaches. The ravine was flanked by high, tree-covered bluffs on either side.
The two conquering armies had made it halfway up the valley when scouts returned with a report that Benkei and his army were positioned just this side of the village at the far entrance to the wide ravine.
The opposing army was barely twenty thousand strong.
Monkey Fist and Ishigawa conferred, with Fukushima serving as translator.
"I propose we simply attack," Monkey Fist suggested, "We greatly outnumber them."
"Upon a wide plain we outnumber them," Ishigawa agreed, "But there are only so many soldiers that will fit through such a confined space. That swings the balance a little less in our favor, though I agree we still have the greater advantage."
"I told you we should have conquered this province outright," Monkey Fist sounded irritated. "But you were too eager to begin conquering the mainland. See where your rashness has brought us."
Ishigawa glared at his counterpart. Whoever this churl was, he did not come from a world that taught courtesy and respect.
"I said we still have the greater advantage," Ishigawa repeated through clenched teeth, "But I was more interested in minimizing the loss of soldiers at this stage. We will need them when we cross over to the Nagato province."
"What do you propose," Monkey Fist practically demanded.
"I think it is time we put to use a few of your troops that have thus far not seen much battle," Ishigawa replied, and began explaining his plan to Monkey Fist.
The two armies marched back up the valley, away from Benkei's forces and camped for the night. Camping meant two different things to each of the armies. For Ishigawa's men, it meant setting up small sleeping mats in patterns around campfires to keep warm at night.
But for Monkey Fist's army, camping meant something else entirely. All the stone warriors would simply sit upon the ground unmoving until morning. Wherever they spent the night, the area looked like it had suddenly become littered with thousands of statues of monkeys and gorillas. The Kijo huddled in one large mass with several of their number picked to stand guard. The Monkey-Dragons also huddled together for warmth, but kept their distance from the Kijo, and the Kappa, the apes with large tortoise shells for armor, would bide their time in a nearby body of water.
Monkey Fist, Fukushima, and the monkey ninjas shared a large tent Ishigawa had plundered from one of the provincial lords. Fukushima and Fist would talk on occasion, but only at night in the tent. During the day, Fukushima was virtually ignored. He became increasingly resentful in his role as interpreter, and spent most of his days sulking. Neither Monkey Fist nor Ishigawa liked him very much.
At dawn, Ishigawa's army began making its way down the valley toward the sea once more. They were met with light resistance early on; two cohorts of archers who would fire a volley of arrows and then retreat back down the valley. This hampered their progress somewhat as Ishigawa had placed a battalion of Yari (spear-type weapons, different from Naginata) soldiers without shields in the forward position of the advance. He did this in anticipation of Benkei's mostly sword-bearing forces being unable to reach their opponents given that they carried shorter weapons.
Despite taking a substantial loss to the Yari, Ishigawa's army pushed down the valley toward the shore. Just half a mile short of their target, arrows began raining down upon them from the bluffs.
They'd been drawn into an ambush.
The archers, concealed on the bluffs, aimed mostly at the forward lines of soldiers. The more soldiers that were felled by arrows in the forward lines, the more the soldiers behind them suddenly had to deal with unexpected obstacles. None of Ishigawa's forces had been prepared for this, having been told they would be conducting a straightforward assault on Benkei's army near the shore.
Monkey Fist's army had not yet begun marching and were too far away to provide any real support. When word reached Ishigawa of the slaughter taking place at the front, he requested Monkey Fist to at least send in his dragons to comb the bluffs.
He sent six Monkey Dragons, three per side. They immediately set about plucking those archers they could spot from their hiding places, lifting them high into the air and simply letting them fall back to the earth..
But lord Benkei had received word of the nature of these dragons, and knew that they were covered in fur, and not scales. He'd given instructions to his archers that, upon their appearance, they were to concentrate solely on bringing the dragons down.
But since arrows no longer hampered the progress of Ishigawa's army, Benkei was compelled to send his forces to engage the enemy. Benkei led the charge himself, despite his daimyo's protests. With a fierce war cry, Benkei's hopelessly outnumbered battalions plunged up into the ravine and engaged Ishigawa's already panicked and confused ranks of Yari warriors.
Two dragons were brought down, Monkey Fist recalled the others. He was now down to eight, and he didn't want to lose any more.
One of Benkei's archers sounded a horn and the lord of the Buzen Province ordered a withdrawal. When the archers felt their comrades were safely away, they resumed the rain of arrows down upon Ishigawa's forces. The Yari soldiers had enough and blindly retreated. The panic spread through Ishigawa's army like fire before a gust of wind. Those soldiers in the rear who had not been part of the battle convinced themselves that a superior force must have arrived in Benkei's aid, and joined the others in the retreat.
Benkei's archers continued firing until the last of Ishigawa's soldiers was well out of range. A shout went up from the Buzen warriors who had been outnumbered more than five to one.
Ishigawa and Monkey Fist had just been dealt their first defeat.
Ishigawa was furious at Monkey Fist for recalling his dragons so early, and Fist, all too accustomed to being handed defeats, went into his tent and raged, screaming and yelling in his monkey way for almost an hour. He'd developed a kind of kinship with his army – a dark affection for those he considered to be his monkey brothers - and the loss of two dragons drove him nearly mad.
Fukushima became afraid of his master. He had never seen Monkey Fist like this, and he wasn't so sure the man who would be Monkey King had a completely firm grip on his own sanity.
Whatever hesitations Monkey Fist had about taking lives, in battle or otherwise, were now completely gone. Fukushima began to fear for his own life.
"Second floor, northwest corridor, two targets."
"Acknowledged. Fire at your convenience."
A flashed erupted from the end of the silencer as the sniper pulled his trigger. There was a slight tinkling of glass as a hole appeared in the second story window. Then sparks erupted from the target.
"Direct hit," The gunmen said to the man sitting next to him.
The second man listened to information coming from his earpiece for a second and then spoke.
"Confirmed, target is no longer broadcasting. Readjust for second target."
"Copy that."
Global Justice didn't use snipers very often. In fact, since GJ was dedicated to fighting crime with non-lethal measures, they hardly used snipers at all. But there were one or two on the payroll. You never knew when a villain needed to be tranquilized from a distance.
However, they weren't using tranquilizers in this instance. The bullets were real.
Director Wil Du had relayed the information that Apollyon was unable to deal with more than one problem at a time, and currently he was involved in the simulation.
A senior field agent had an idea. Satellite scans of the office building revealed signals of the surveillance equipment Apollyon had warned them about. There were cameras on every floor, monitoring every conceivable way in. Shutting the electricity down was too risky. Likely Apollyon had an independent power source that would immediately engage once the building's power went down. But a close analysis of the layout, via every possible scan GJ could envelop the building in, showed all the signals from the cameras were being routed into a single receiver which was connected to a hard drive.
It took Wade less than a minute to hack into the drive. He discovered it hadn't been accessed in some time. The next time Apollyon accessed it, he would see a simple loop of about a minute's worth of empty corridors.
But the cameras had each been equipped with motion sensors so that even if the image went down, the motion sensors would alert Apollyon to anything amiss. The sensors were set to detect human movements. And though it could detect other types of movements, people generally set the parameters at human, so a passing cat, or falling ceiling tile, or a waving tree branch just outside wouldn't set them off.
GJ was betting they couldn't detect incoming bullets either.
Once the surveillance equipment was disabled, they'd move in and attempt to quietly remove Ron from the chair.
"Second target down," the sniper announced to his companion.
"Confirmed, second target is no longer broadcasting. Second floor is clear. Let's reposition for the third."
"You got it."
"You killed Apollos?" Ronaldus asked the warrior from Eyre, incredulous.
The large man merely nodded, gazing from Ronaldus to Vulpes, who had just been given a field promotion to the rank of Centurion.
Ron looked around, all eyes on deck were on them. He'd spoken a little louder than he'd intended.
"Come with me," He ordered, and gestured for Vulpes to follow. They went below decks and into Ronaldus' quarters, shutting the door behind them. As Ron gestured for the Chief of the Princess' guard to sit on his bed, he was overcome with an odd feeling of familiarity. Once the door had been shut, the other two men in the room actually seemed to relax, as though they were tense up until now but found themselves in a setting they rather preferred.
The look in Runewyyd's eyes, when the Gaelic warrior wasn't glancing enigmatically at Ron shoulder, seemed to be as one who knew him, and might have for some time.
Meanwhile, Vulpes was standing within what Ron considered his personal space; closer than even friends usually stand to each other. Ron stepped away a couple of paces and noted Vulpes almost reflexively followed him before catching himself and remaining where he was.
"Explain yourself," Ronaldus demanded.
"Ronaldus," a surprised look splashed across Ron's face at the lack of formality on Runewyyd's part, "There is something you should know."
"Uh", Vulpes interjected nervously, "Perhaps I should interrogate this man alone, my liege. After all, we are still lost within this mist. I believe I can deal with this situation."
"I will deal with this," Ron insisted, then turned back to Runewyyd, "What is it I should know?"
Runewyyd looked to Vulpes, who was standing behind Ron. Vulpes' eyes went wide, and he was shaking his head as vigorously as he dared without attracting Ron's attention. Ron turned to look at Vulpes, who'd suddenly found something of great interest on the ceiling.
Runwyyd got the message.
"It was my right by tribal law. Anyone who challenges the authority of the Chief of the Royal Guard forfeits his life. You put a halt to that earlier. I merely completed the task at a more opportune moment." He explained calmly.
"Your tribal laws don't apply here, you are aboard a vessel under the control of the Roman Empire. And our laws state that you cannot kill anyone unjustifiably." Ron explained.
Runewyyd stood up and drew himself to full height.
"Perhaps this vessel would be better suited under the control of the warriors of Eyre," He growled.
Ron took two steps back involuntarily and bumped into Vulpes. For a second, Ron could have sworn Vulpes put his hand on his superior officer's shoulder in a gentle, almost loving manner. But perhaps he was imagining things.
"OK," Ron said reassuringly, "There's no need for threats here. Clearly we've gotten off to a bad beginning. What do you suggest I do about the death of my Centurion?"
"Toss his body over the side," Runweyyd said casually, "I am certainly finished with it."
Ron wasn't sure how to reply to that, "I meant in regards to you."
"What about me?" Runewyyd said in a menacing tone.
Ron looked at Vulpes, who returned his gaze for a moment, then seemed to catch himself and shrugged.
"OK", Ron finally said after thinking for a moment, "In the future, you will come to me regarding any problems you have with my men. Kill one more Roman and you will be put ashore. You have twelve guards, I have twenty warriors. Let's not bring it to that, shall we?"
Runewyyd gazed at Ron for a few seconds, then nodded.
"All right," Ron acknowledged, "You may go."
Runewyyd hesitated for a second. He almost seemed reluctant to leave their company. But at last he left Ronaldus and Vulpes alone to confer.
"Keep an eye on him," Ron told his new Centurion, "We can't afford to have a potential diplomatic relationship turn sour before it even begins."
"Yes my liege," Vulpes acknowledged, "It may be the Gaels are testing our resolve in this matter. To them, the loss of a Centurion might not be worth losing the purpose of your mission."
"I suppose you're right."
"Perhaps you and I can discuss a plan of action," Vulpes suggested.
"A good idea," Ron acknowledged, "But that will have to wait until later. For the time being, I wish to check on how we are progressing through this mist."
"As you wish," Vulpes said reluctantly.
Ron opened the door and stepped out into the corridor.
There he was met with a strange sight. It looked as though someone had hung a large picture in the air on an invisible nail.
"Ron," Came the voice of Tim from the future, "I need you to step through the portal."
His heart suddenly racing, Ron took a step toward the image.
"My liege!", Came Vulpes' voice from behind him, "Stay away from there! I believe whatever that is had something to do with this strange mist!"
Ron turned to look at the Centurion, "It's all right. I know what this is."
"NO!" came Runewyyd's voice from further down the corridor, "Do not go in there! It is a thing of evil!"
Wade, pull Kim out of the simulation, now! Don't ask why, just disconnect her. She may be in danger!
"No," Ron repeated, "I know what this is."
"Come on, Ron," came Tim's voice, "Step through please."
Ron took another step toward the portal.
"Do not go in there!" Runewyyd shouted, "Stay on the boat!"
Ron turned to try and reassure them, but gave them a dismissive wave instead. Runewyyd had run up next to Vulpes and whispered something to the Centurion. Vulpes swallowed nervously and then whispered something back.
Ron turned and stepped through the portal.
"Did you really think you could defeat me?" Ishigawa had Benkei on his knees, his hands bound behind his back.
They were standing on a dock in the tiny fishing village of the newly conquered Buzen province. Ships were being made ready to begin ferrying troops across the channel to the shhores of the Nagato province.
The day after his defeat, Ishigawa had attacked down the valley again. But this time the Stone Silverbacks bounded through the woods of the bluffs, striking down the archers who pelted them uselessly with arrows. In addition, the Kappa came swarming up out of the sea and attacked Benkei's army from behind.
The battle did not last long.
"I never thought I could defeat you," Benkei replied calmly.
"Then why resist?" Ishigawa demanded.
"Because word has been sent of your intended conquest." Benkei informed him, "Even now the Emperor is amassing the armies of the central provinces and is on his way to engage you."
"A delay tactic?" Fukushima asked, amazed, "That's all this was? Just a delay tactic?"
"Silence," Ishigawa snapped, "If I did not need you to speak Fist of Monkey's language I should have you killed instantly."
"It was my duty to hinder your northward progress," Benkei gazed unwaveringly at Ishigawa, "I believe you will find only two boats suitable for carrying your troops across the channel. The others are resting at the bottom of the sea."
Ishigawa had been pacing while interrogating his prisoner. Now he pulled up short, "I was merely going to take your life for resisting me. But for this insolence, I will slaughter every person in the village."
"The village was evacuated days ago," Benkei said casually, "You must think my intelligence mirrors your lack of it."
Ishigawa glared at Benkei, then drew his sword.
"I find it extraordinary," Benkei continued, speaking in a tone as though they were sitting down to tea together, "That you should take up with this demon…
(and here – with a toss of his head - he indicated Monkey Fist)
… and an unholy army of evil spawn, and somehow think the people of Japan will just accept you as their legitimate ruler. I thought even you were capable of more rational thought than that."
Ishigawa turned to Fukushima, "Did you relate all of that to Fist of Monkey?"
"Yes," Fukushima acknowledged.
"Then inform your master that this is the man who slew two of his dragons."
Fukushima did so, and Ishigawa smiled at the look of rage the played across Monkey Fist's face.
Ishigawa held out his sword.
The last thing Benkei saw was the face of insanity as it held Ishigawa's sword in its monkey paws, high above his head, and brought the blade down upon him with terrible, swift fury.
It took close to a month to transport both armies across the channel.
The Emperor's army was waiting in Nagato Province when Ishigawa and Monkey Fist were finally ready to take the field of battle. Though hastily assembled, the army of the Emperor numbered just under one hundred thousand. They succumbed to defeat after an almost non-stop clash that lasted just over a week.
This time, Ishigawa spared no one.
Their greatest victory behind them, Ishigawa set out to conquer the provinces of the north, and to attain the Ohana Blades.
Benkei was secretly given a hero's funeral by the peasants of the fishing village.
Kim blinked several times. She saw Wade and Wil Du standing above her, looks of concern on their faces.
"What happened?" She asked weakly.
"Rufus had me pull you out", Wade informed her, "Apparently Apollyon changed the simulation."
"Where is Rufus? Is he all right?"
"Last thing he said to me was that he was going to monitor the simulation and insert himself into a character the first chance he got." Wade said.
"Is she all right?" Came a female voice from elsewhere in the room.
Kim sat up weakly and looked to the source of the voice. It was Justine.
"Justine, what-?"
"I asked her to come take a look at a few things," Wade answered.
"I thought you didn't like to get involved in GJ business?" Kim said directly to her.
"I don't." Justine muttered and returned to studying figures on a computer screen.
"How are you feeling?" Wil Du asked.
"A little disoriented," Kim said with a frustrated sigh, "But all right. I think we were this close to getting Ron to realize his situation."
"I thought Apollyon wasn't good at improvisation?" Wil said to Wade, "What happened.?
"He isn't," Wade confirmed, "But that doesn't mean he didn't have a backup plan. Obviously he instituted it when the simulation started to get away from him. Kim, Apollyon is Ray Beam's electronic brain."
Kim went pale, "Are you sure?"
"Almost positive," Wade answered, "It's why he was able to take control of Rufus Prime. We believe the artificial Ray transferred itself to a hidden brain after you guys defeated him the year before last.."
Kim clenched her fists in frustrated anger. Once again, the technology she had invented had come back to haunt her. She began to wish she'd never even conceived of artificial brain technology.
"I'm going back in as soon as Rufus says it's clear to do so." Kim said forcefully.
"Out of the question," Du practically barked.
Kim looked up at him, her eyes narrowed, "I do not take orders from you, Mr. Du."
"This operation is under my jurisdiction," Wil shot back.
"Your operation is about the recovery of an agent." Kim fumed, "That's my husband in there. If you don't let me go, I'll go ask Apollyon himself to let me in. And I'm willing to bet he'll be accommodating. I was once engaged to him, you know."
Du looked at Wade.
"Told you, man." Wade said, "And if you forbid me to help her, I'll resign my position at GJ effectively immediately."
Du clenched his jaw, "I could have you both-"
Justine uttered a startled yelp and flew out of her chair. She threw a horrified look in their direction and then, putting her hand to her mouth as if to stifle a scream, she ran upstairs.
Wil took off after her.
"What's that all about?" Kim asked, puzzled.
"I've got her looking at some stuff I found attached to the simulation; they're complex calculations that don't seem to make any sense. But Justine may have found something…" Wade trailed off, walking over to look at the monitor Justine was working at. He shrugged his shoulders, "I still don't see anything that makes any sense to me. Just a bunch of quantum calculations."
"Quantum?"
"Next level mathematics. Chaos Theory. Stuff like that."
"Not Chaos Theory," came Justine's voice from the bottom of the stairs, "But Chaos will be the end result if this Apollyon succeeds. What is an 'Apollyon', anyway?"
"The Greek name for the creature who guards the abyss at the end of time. It's in the Bible, in Revelations. And get this: the passage in Revelations is chapter nine, verse eleven." Wade said forebodingly.
"Revelations 9:11… that is creepy." Wil Du said softly.
"And this is what startled you?" Kim asked Justine.
"No," Justine said, he voice shaking. She pointed at the monitor, "This is."
She was met with blank stares.
"We're going to need you to talk us through this, sweetheart." Wil said soothingly to his wife.
Justine gulped and nodded, clearly trying to calm herself. She sat down at one of Wade's work station with a pen and piece of paper, motioning them all to gather around her.
"I'm going to try and explain this as I would explain a theorem to Wil. That way you guys will understand also. Wade will probably get this before you do." She said, acknowledging Wade's advanced intelligence.
Justine leaned over the piece of paper and drew a series of rectangles in a line across the middle of the page. Beneath the rectangles, she drew two tiny circles at each end of each rectangle, then attached all the rectangles with a line drawn from one to the next.
"OK," Justine said, still trying to calm herself, "Many scientists think time is an intangible, something that cannot be touched or manipulated. And technically they are right. Time is simply an invention of humankind to differentiate the night from the day, and divide the day up into hours and minutes. There are many who believe that because of this, time travel is a theoretical impossibility, because you can't simply travel through time by spinning the dials on a clock. You guys with me?"
All heads nodded.
"OK," Justine continued, "Then there are those within the scientific community who believe that the progression of history ends with us; meaning, even though there is a future, nothing exists beyond today. Tomorrow does not exist until we get there, and once yesterday passes, it is gone, remembered only in recorded histories. In essence, these people believe that the only moment in time that ever exists is right now, and there is nothing beyond that. Still with me?"
Slightly more perplexed nods from Kim and Wil, but they seemed to be tracking.
Justine went on, "The problem with these two schools of thought is that they're based on a strict linear mode of thinking. This is understandable since we are corporeal beings who live linear existences. We're born, we live, we die. That's all we know. We and everything around us has a beginning, a life span, and an end. So we base our perceptions of the universe on this experience. But remember, there was a time when man's experience was that the world was flat, and a spherical world was a theoretical impossibility."
"But you don't believe that?" Kim asked, "About 'time', I mean?"
Justine shook her head, "You remember when you used my Quantum Disruptor to get rid of that huge dinosaur thing that was rampaging through Middleton?"
Kim nodded.
"Well, that Quantum Disruptor allowed me to see beyond our dimension, outside the time stream. I wasn't fully aware of what I was doing at first, because I was a teenager giddy with knowledge and the idea that I could do something. I never once stopped to think whether or not I should build a Quantum Disruptor. History is full of inventions that were brought about simply because their inventors were caught up in the excitement of discovery."
"They might take away my Nobel Prize when they find out what's been done with my discoveries," Kim mused bitterly.
"Which is why I destroyed the Quantum Disruptor, and all my work associated with it," Justine said, nodding, "When I quit my research, I was working on a complex set of calculations that might bring about a working theory of time travel. But the path I started down led me to some very dark discoveries, and I tried to eliminate any traces of my work so that minds with a nefarious purpose could not exploit it."
"And this has something to do with your discoveries?" Wil asked, pointing at the paper with the figures drawn on it.
"Yes," Justine acknowledged, "There is a group within the scientific community, including myself, that believes all history exists simultaneously in what we sometimes call the Time Stream."
Justine turned their attention to the paper.
"This will be a somewhat crude analogy, but I think it's the one that fits best. Imagine time as a train sitting on tracks. But instead of moving, it's sitting still. And instead of adding cars on to the train as we move into the future, those cars are already there. In essence, time is like a seemingly unending train of railway cars sitting on a set of tracks. Now imagine that being born is like hopping on to one of these railway cars, walking down the center aisle, and getting off at the other end when you die."
"Oh man," Wade said, sitting down, his head in his hands, "That's…. oh, man…"
"What?" Kim asked.
"You'll see," Wade said cryptically.
"I think our genius friend is beginning to understand." Justine said with a nod in Wade's direction.
"OK", Wil said, "Make us non-geniuses understand."
"Alright," Justine said quickly recapping, "So, the timeline is like an endless train of railway cars, but they don't move. When you're born, it's like getting on at one end of a car, and when you die, it's like hopping off at the other end. When you get off – when you die – you step outside the timeline."
"And go where?" Kim asked.
Justine shrugged, "I'm sure there are plenty of philosophers or theologians who might have an answer. Science does not just yet."
She continued with her explanation.
"Now remember, we're here in this particular railway car," she drew and 'X' over one of rectangles in the center of the page, "and our ancestors are on cars behind us, while our descendents are on cars in front of us. Notice I did not say 'were' or 'will be', but 'are'. They, too are making their way through their own railway cars and will hop off when they reach the end. But like railway cars, they are attached to ours. You guys still with me?"
"I think so," Kim said slowly. Wil merely nodded.
"Now, in order to time travel, you would need to find a way to leave this railway car (she pointed to the 'X') and get on another one; a railway car that contains a different time period."
"And you think Apollyon's found a way to do that?" Wil asked
"Oh, he's found much more than that," Wade said quietly, shaking his head, "I can't believe this."
"When I built the Quantum Disruptor, I was trying to develop a method for doing just what I described; getting off one railway car in the Time Stream and getting on another; visiting different time periods." Justine explained.
"But you were afraid of corrupting the timeline by effecting events" Kim guessed.
Justine shook her head, "That didn't have me worried. I knew I could effectively stay out of history's way and not bring about any dire consequences. But I discovered something else. Something much worse."
She paused for a second to catch her breath. Then continued,
"Each of us has things about us that are unique; our personalities, our fingerprints, our DNA. We also each have a unique energy signature that basically makes us who we are; it's that intangible state of being that makes us 'us'. Some people believe it's a soul, and frankly, that's as good a name for it as any."
She paused to let the information sink in.
"As I said, before, the train analogy is a crude one. But in whatever dimension the timeline exists, we are all unique energy signatures traveling along it. Now, along the entire train, no one's ever left one car and gotten on to another, so no one was sure what would happen if the same energy signature was at two different points on the train."
"But you're sure," Wil prodded.
Justine nodded and indicated the monitor she had been working at, "Especially after what I've seen here. Basically what will happen is if the same energy signature is at two different points on the timeline, the timeline itself will attempt to reconcile the two points, bringing them together so the same energy signature is at the same point. In terms of our railway cars here, the two cars that have the same energy signature are going to be brought together, except these two cars are still attached to their neighboring cars which means…"
"Train wreck" Wade said grimly, picking up where Justine had trailed off, "A bad one."
"One that will destroy the entire train." Justine finished in a very shaky voice, "Apollyon may have found a way to bring about the destruction of the entire history of this planet, and everyone on it."
"But I don't understand," Kim said, a little puzzled, "There are currently six billion unique energy signatures on our particular railway car. Why should just one make such a difference? Is it stronger than all the others combined?"
"No," Justine answered, "Not stronger, just out of balance. You know when you pour oil and water into the same glass, eventually all those molecules will separate, and you'll have a layer of oil and a layer of water?"
"Yes," Kim acknowledged.
"It's like that only in reverse." Justine explained, "It's basically a complex chemical reaction. Two points in the timeline with the same energy signature will attract each other, and they will collide. Violently. The timeline will begin to catastrophically collapse soon after that."
"That's why Ron's been in a simulation involving time travel." Kim said nodding.
"Yes," Justine confirmed, "Apollyon's done the research, and made the calculations. That's what all those seemingly 'extra' files are about. He's running a simulation that involves Ron's energy signature at two different points on the timeline."
"OK," Kim went on, "So he's testing his theories. We simply find a way to shut down the simulation and keep Apollyon from sending Ron into the past, assuming that's what the simulation indicates he's going to do."
"Yes." Justine confirmed.
"No," Wade countered glumly.
"What do you mean, 'no'?" Kim asked, an edge creeping into her voice.
"Ron's 'simulation' is just a diversion…he's….it…" Wade was suddenly overcome with fear. When he spoke again, he was trembling, despair was in his voice, "We all played right into Apollyon's hands!"
"What? What are you talking about?" Kim began to grow afraid. She'd never seen Wade like this and it frightened her.
Wil clenched his teeth, as if trying to keep his own fear from welling up within him.
"Monkey Fist."