The Infinite Chronicles
Act 7: Despair and Understanding
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Chapter 20
I appeared back at the void where I usually talk to Jackson, but he wasn't there this time. "What the hell is wrong with you?" Jackson appeared behind me "You let him go without a fight?" I ignored his question "Are you here just to diss me?" I balled my hands in anger. "No, I'm here to make you question yourself," I turned around to face him.
"I can't even move at the speed of light! You expect me to be able to fight Corvin and Silverius?" I asked angrily "Yes!" he spread his arms outwards "You are a driver of an Aegis are you not?". Something clicked in my mind "'An Aegis'? So you mean there's more than one Aegis?". He waved his hand "That's not the problem now, are you an Aegis driver or not?".
"I...I.." I started. "You say you tried your hardest, yet you are still holding back," he pointed out "What's holding you back, huh? If you fear failure, then you would try harder wouldn't you? So what is it?" I couldn't find an answer "I don't know" "What?" "I said I don't know!" I yelled at void grew deadly quiet.
"I've suddenly been put in the possession of the world's most powerful weapon without training! I've already died and had to come back to fight a foe who can move at the speed of light. I'm travelling with one of his former companions, a childhood friend who turned out to be a stalker and a scientist who is better than me at fighting! But hey if you think you're smarter than me, why don't you explain Mr Genius!"
A new fire burned in his eyes, I had done it "Alright look here chicken shit! My accomplishments are already better than yours! I, unlike you, had already beaten Silverius and Omega!" "Who's Omega?" I asked. "That's not important," he simply replied. "Look, if you're still withholding information from me, I'm not gonna care what you have to say," I said.
Infinite's sword appeared in his hand and I took a step back in fear. He raised the blade but suddenly, he stopped and appeared to be listening to something I couldn't hear. The sword disappeared and he sighed "You're very lucky someone else wants to see you, go to Erimos and seek out the last tomb.".
"Why should I listen to you? You're still not telling me anything,"I asked. "Good, so I don't care about what you do" and he knocked me out with a punch, raising some questions about what can happen in the void. I woke up in a shelter made of wood and a bed made of leaves. I groaned, getting up and scanning my surroundings.
Hearing talking outside, I decided to join my friends. It was getting late and the sun's final rays of light were disappearing. "So where do we go from here?" Ace asked as I sat next to him. "We're going to Erimos, location of the final tomb," I said, my voice was small. "Hey," Jess put an arm on my shoulder "You're not a fuck up, if anything, Ace is." "Hey!" he complained. "So remember, we're all in this together yeah?" Jess said.
"Alright, Atlas, can you call the ship here?" I asked him. He shook his head "negative, I cannot bring the ship here, however I can bring you there." he walked into an empty patch of grass and expanded. He grew to the size of the Nimitz, when we first met him. "Climb on," he picked up Steve, Jess, Ace, Wildcard, Zero and Grace and placed them on his shoulders. However, he placed me inside a golden cross shaped cockpit. Inside was a plethora of holograms, data and numbers swirling around. "Greetings Mistress Hazel, this is the cockpit of Artifice Atlas, I assume you can drive me?" Atlas's voice said. "Show me the controls," I demanded.
A series of glowing rings formed in front of me, I stuck my hands in them and more surrounded my legs. "Running neural scan, pilot is compatible with artifice, preparing launch." his voice announced. I felt excited, this was the first time driving an artifice in a month. Atlas was relatively easy to control.
"Uh Hazel, I hope you know what you're doing," Jess said nervously. "Relax, she's an expert pilot, we'll be fine," Ace said "WHAT TH-" as I took a step forward. Atlas immediately tripped, fortunately, my friends hung on tight. "Expert pilot, yeah sure" Jess snickered. "Apologies, recalibrating settings" Atlas said.
Now we were really moving, Atlas could move at high speeds. I took a jump and we launched meters in the air. I laughed as I felt the joy and freedom of driving an artifice again."HAZEEEEEL!" my friends were yelling as we bounced up and down. We did finally make it and Atlas shrunk again. I laughed "I'm for sure doing that again!" My friends on the other hand, climbed down from him, shaking. "Never again," Ace wobbled on his feet "Do you have ANY idea how hard it is to stay on a mech that can jump 5 into the air?".
"No, but that was hilarious!" I giggled before I got slapped by Jess "Ok ok, I deserved that.". We got back on board the ship and set sail towards Erimos. "Erimos, an isolationist nation, nothing goes in or out of it, approximate travel time, 2 hours." Atlas announced. "If it's an isolationist nation, how do we get in?" I asked. "Simple! We break in!" Ace said with a big smile. He wasn't kidding, two hours later, we arrived. I stared out into the ocean to see a figure of a titan. "Incoming, brace yourselves!" Atlas said as he pulled a maneuver and tilted the ship.
A yellow beam of light passed over our heads. "What the hell is that!" Jess exclaimed as another grazed us. "That's the defence system!" Ace yelled over the booms "They don't want anyone to get in or out!". Steve went flying and he got caught by Grace who secured him in a hug. "Please hold on," Atlas said in a monotonous voice and he accelerated the vessel and punched through a sort of skin and crashed into the ground.
"Ow," I rubbed my head and looked around. The ship wasn't heavily damaged, but definitely needed repair. "Next time when you make a landing, make it a bit softer will ya?" Ace's hand came out of a hole and he pulled himself up. "Apologies all, that was the easiest way to get in the titan." Atlas bowed. The 'hole' we went through was actually a metallic wall. "They sealed it a long time ago, this is one of the entrances to Erimos," Ace explained.
"Ship going to take at least 4 days to fix!" Steve exclaimed. Erimos was rather…. depressing. The grass was a light grey and it was cloudy. "Well this is nice..." Jess said. In the distance was a giant wall, at least 30 meters tall. "Watch out!" Jess said. Atlas tackled me and rolled me out of the way, a giant robotic foot slammed into where I was previously standing . I looked up to see a 5 meter tall robot above me. It had a circular head, no hands or body and legs. On the sides of its head were two unrecognizable weapons. I called Osiris and fired a few shots at it, but it seemed to do no damage. "What on Echaos is this?" I rolled again to dodge a kick from it.
"Analysis shows that this is what is called a Eradicator class mech," Atlas said while blasting it with a beam of light. Jess used Zero as a springboard and was climbing the robot with her knives. Ace stood next to me and we continuously blasted the robot with blasts of darkness and arrows of electricity. Jess made it to the top and plunged her knives directly in its eye. It's head, or body I suppose, tilted back which threw Jess off while shooting a large amount of lasers everywhere.
"How are we supposed to kill this thing?" I fired a couple more shots at it, still doing no damage. Suddenly a flash of red came from its legs and moved to its head and it was split in half. Standing in its place, was a figure with armor that I've never seen. Pure black and mechanical with red lines, one of the lines formed the eyes. In its hands was a menacing sword that was black and it's edges were red energy. It looked at us before just turning into a grey and green smoke and vanished into the wind.
"What.. was that?" Jess stared at the place where the figure was standing. "We'll find out soon, we really need to practice, that was terrible," I looked at the cannon, trying to understand why we were doing no damage "Atlas, run a scan on what material the robot is made of.". His eyes changed to blue and a beam scanned the wreck "Material seems to be a combination of a metal from a different world, similar to what I am made of, however, it is infused with energy absorption material as well.".
"Another world? That raises more questions than answers," Ace crossed his arms "Boy I wish we had more time to investigate this scrap heap," he gave it a kick and its cannon fire, hitting our ship. "Ace really should be more careful," Steve muttered. I sighed "No point in wishing for more time, just focus on what you have to do now,". "Yeah I'm gonna write that down as your quote," Jess pulled out a notepad and jotted it down.
"You were taking notes?" I was amused "Anyway, I think that's the city up ahead, it should be easy.". "Friend not see problem?" Steve tugged on my shirt. "What problem?" I looked into his eyes. He pointed ahead and I immediately saw it. The entire field was a silvery grey, which made it hard for me to see, but the 'problem' was that the entire field was swarming with large robots, some corpses, some still funcional. Some were even bigger than the one we fought. I groaned "There always has to be a problem whenever I think there isn't one there.".
We sneaked past most of them, but Ace accidentally touched one. Its eye locked on him before it let out a mechanical wail. All the other robots faced in our direction and started running at us. "Dammit Ace, you just had to, did ya?" I grabbed him and started running. "20 meters to the entrance," Atlas said, he launched several rockets at them. The entrance was a huge gate, and we banged on it desperately. A few beams nearly hit us, and the door finally opened and we rolled inside before slamming shut almost immediately, nearly hitting my foot.
"Outsiders? You don't see em often," a voice with an accent said to us. We got up and looked at our savior, he was a man in his late 30's, wearing rather ragged clothes. "Ah thank you for saving us, kind person!" I bowed at him. "Likewise, Cole at your service," he bowed as well "Now it is a custom for outsiders to be taken to our leader, often times people's ships end up being swallowed by the Erimos titan, that is if they're not blasted by the defence system first or the robots.".
He guided us through the town, which seemed almost medieval. The main street was paved with stones, and led to one place, a massive palace made from stone. On the streets, where children were playing, some stared at us as if we were candy though judging by what they were wearing, they probably had no idea what candy was. "Not to be rude, but why is everyone…. poor?" I whispered to Cole. "Well you see, since nothing goes in or out of Erimos, people can't really export or import materials here, and Erimos isn't the best for making crops," he explained.
We arrived at the palace, where a set of stairs led to the audience hall. "Who may you be?" an important looking official asked. "Ah, these are outsiders who recently came here, sire," Cole gestured to us. "Please wait here for a few moments," he addressed us. The waiting room was high above the city and we could see an expanse of old houses neatly organised. Outside the walls, robots still roamed around, searching for humans. "Legend has it that the outside world was so dangerous that our founder, Lane, relative of the hero Luke, built these robots to keep out enemies, unfortunately, they also target any human who comes in their path." Cole said.
Someone cleared their throat behind us "The king will see you now.". We walked into the hall, and at the end a throne with the king sat. There was nothing impressive about the hall, made mostly of stone bricks and green ether lines, comparable to the dungeon that we were locked in Regeum. The king was an old man with a hard, sour face and a once magnificent brown hair that was now mostly bald and had grey streaks. He wore heavy furs that must have been hot.
"Speak," he had a frail croaking voice. "Your majesty, these are survivors that made it through the defence system," Cole bowed. "Hmmm," he stroked his chin. "You may reside here as long as you wish, you may leave but that is inadvisable.". We bowed "Thank you for your kindness, your majesty," I said. He looked at me, and for a second, I could see fear in his eyes before it glossed over.
We came to Cole's house, a modest looking building with a field in the back. "Unfortunately, I don't have much space, so you might need to build a shelter in the back," he laughed nervously. We got to work chopping down trees and built a shelter in the back. "So sorry for this, I wish I could do more," Cole apologized. "No need to, you've already done enough," Ace consoled. When night came, we all climbed into our hastily made beds and fell asleep. I couldn't sleep, I was wondering who wanted to talk to me.
Suddenly, there was tapping. I turned around to see a red horizontal line of light, wait it wasn't a floating light, it grabbed me and before I could say anything, covered my mouth and put a needle in me. I felt drowsy and passed out. I awoke in a small room or cellar, it had no light, save for a candle on my left. The person who had kidnapped me was sitting with his or her back on me.
"You called?" I asked. "It seems that you came here for a reason, not washed up, why?" it, no she asked. Her voice was definitely one of a female's, with a little more reverb as she was talking through her suit. "I came here since I heard someone wanted to talk to me," I answered. "Another group of three people came here yesterday, do you know who they are?". I wondered who they might be "Those are my enemies, one being a friend they captured.". She turned to face me, her visor stared at me "Seek for a passage under the palace, you will find your caller there.".
She waved her hand at me and I fell asleep again. I woke up back at the shelter "Sheesh Hazel, when will you get up huh?" Jess asked. I rubbed my head "What time is it?" "10, we couldn't wake you up," Ace leaned against the door. "We need to find a passage under the palace, let's go," I stood up and started to put on my armor, which I assume my kidnapper kindly removed for me. "You forgetting something?" Jess asked. I paused, "What did I forget?"
She sighed "Breakfast! You really need someone to take care of you huh?". "She always forgets everything," Gran's voice quipped. "Where were you this whole time huh?" I stared at her. "I was just sleeping here most of the time, everything you do was so boring." she said. "You do know we've been running around the world doing dumb things yeah?" I asked. "You didn't even bother to check on me," she sassed.
"Touche," I nodded. I quickly ate breakfast and we told Cole that we would be just discovering the town. "Stay safe you kids," he laughed. We walked around to find a guard "You shall not pass this area!" He leveled his spear. "Well we won't be going that way," as we walked away from the guard to reconsider our plan. "Simple, we sneak in!" Jess said excitedly. I activated my mask and scanned the area "For a pretty poor nation, they seem to have a lot of guards.".
We climbed a nearby convenient ladder that led to a roof. It was risky doing this in full daylight, but he already had a distraction. "Excuse me sir, but do you know what time it is?" Wildcard asked a group of guards. They kept talking. "Let's move," Ace gestured his fingers and jumped over all of them and into the gate that was bordering the palace. "How about Wildcard?" I asked and he materialized next to me, scaring the crap out of me. "Your expression was priceless," he smiled smugly.
"Now we're gonna have to search for a passage under the palace," I looked around to see if I could find an entrance. "Friend mean this one?" Steve pointed to a boulder. "Steve, that's a rock," Jess said. He grabbed his axe and slammed it against the rock, but it only phased through the rock. "That's no rock..." Jess gasped. I stepped through the 'boulder' to find a cave that led down and had blue symbols I didn't understand. "Down the creepy hole! Who's with me!" I grinned.
