The Infinite Chronicles

Act 7: Despair and Understanding

Last chapter for sometime

Now introducing music!

Chapter 21

"Atlas, can you run a scan to see if Silverius and co. have entered here?" I asked. "Results show that no one has entered here recently, not in four hundred and eighty years," he replied. I looked around, a cave with an interesting blue hue to the rocks. The further we got, I could notice it was hard to breath and vision was becoming blurry. "How bout we take a rest for a while, yeah?" I suggested. We sat down and collected our breath, I noticed that our core crystals weren't growing as brightly.

"Atlas, run a scan of the area," I ordered. His eyes turned blue and multiple waves of light ran over the walls. "It appears that we are in a subterranean area that has little ether, and an unidentifiable substance," he announced. "Enough talk, let's get moving again," Ace steadied himself. After a few more seconds, the narrow tunnel enlarged into a proper cave. Bioluminescent lights lit up most of the cavern, and we could see a sort of path leading to one place.

The cave was populated with some creatures that paid no attention to us, and the water was a curious black. A female voice in my mask said "Warning, water is contaminated with a toxic component, stay away from any liquid found from this cave.". The air seemed to suck the oxygen out of us, instead of giving us more.

Eventually, we wound up in a massive hole that led down. A black haze covered most of it, so we couldn't see how deep it was. "If the hole's this big, it sure as hell is gonna be deep," Jess peered into the foggy darkness. "Only one way to find out," I pulled out Osiris's cannon and shot a large amount of purple light into the mist. It just kept travelling downwards and fell out of our sight.

I looked around for any possible clues, and I found a writing in a language I didn't recognize. The mask translated it for me and it read "Only by conquering fear will the path open,". I wondered what it meant and I realized what I had to do. I backed up a few steps and took a deep breath. "Hazel don't you fucking dare-" Jess began but I had already jumped.

I passed through the black mist and I went splat on the floor, the end, bye bye. Just kidding, instead, after a good minute and a lot of screaming, my descent slowed down and I touched the floor. There was no light down here, and I couldn't see my own hand in front of my face. Then I remembered my mask could emit light and I looked around. "Jess! Steve! Ace! You can jump down its safe!" I called. I heard screaming and Jess landed next to me, and then Ace, Wildcard, Osiris, Zero and Grace. "Where's Steve?" I asked. Before they could respond, he landed on my face, knocking me down.

"Steve confused, where Hazel at?" he asked, oblivious. I shoved him off "That sucked,". I got up and dusted myself. "Meh meh, Steve very sorry!" He apologized profusely for the next minute while we tried to hold our laughter.

I ruffled his hair, he was too hilarious to be mad at for long. "I suggest that we should have a source of light," Atlas's eyes became headlights and guided our way.

A sort of tunnel emitted light in front of us and we walked into a large open area. A narrow bridge made of stone stretched from one end to another and a void possibly deeper than the hole we just fell down from. A sort of building was integrated in the opposite wall.

We walked past that and we entered a sort of throne room. The room was mainly constructed of stone bricks, although they were a curious blue grey that was reflective. Several pillars lined the walls and on the throne, was a skeleton that wore some really old royal clothes that had holes. On his head was a crown and a few strands of white hair. "Betcha a sack of gold that the skeleton is going to come alive," Jess whispered to me. Blue fire burned in the braziers around us. Suddenly, the flames flickered and they flew towards the skeleton.

They swirled around him before they went inside his rib cage. Two balls of fire and became his eyes and he gave us a hard glare. "Who dares come to seek wisdom," his voice boomed. "I believe you called me?" I decided to risk his wrath. He gave me a cold hard glare "Yeah, but it wouldn't be the same as 'It seems you finally came' now does it?".

"You make a valid point," Ace agreed. "Anyways, you come here to seek wisdom do you not?" he asked me. "Yes, I want to learn how to be a driver of the Aegis, but first tell me your name," I replied. He gave a chuckle "I am Luke, first driver of the Aegis," We all gasped in surprise. "But you had your body sealed in a tomb back in Ischyros!" Jess argued. "Let's say I faked my death, I asked Zh- Infinite to extend my life, and so I remain a skeleton, to guide the next driver of the Aegis.".

"A curious thing wisdom is, the closer you get to death the more of it you understand," he continued "The reason it's so hard to breath down here is my magic, I call it Death Mist, the closer you get to death, the more Mist you generate,". He pointed at me "So are you ready for your training?".

"I am"

He waved his hands and my friends disappeared. The pillars, braziers and steps to his throne sank through the floor, somehow the level of light didn't decrease. At the end, I was in a sort of arena, with Luke sitting on his throne above me. A shadow formed and it resembled me holding Avalon's sword. "How am I supposed to fight that? I don't even have a weapon?" I asked Luke. He just raised a ghostly eyebrow and I felt something in my hand. It was also Avalon's sword but I didn't have time to ask any questions.

The shadow me slammed her sword against mine. I countered it by attempting to kick out its legs, but she jumped and slammed me into the wall. I rolled just in time as the sword plowed through the stone next to me. I made a swift chop to her neck before grabbing her sword which pulled out easily and brought it down on her neck. She somehow caught it with her fingers and threw me away.

I realized that I was fighting myself, so I couldn't win with the normal tactics I use. I ran at her but I threw my sword at her which she dodged and it sank to half of its hilt in the wall. "Throwing away your own weapon? How determined are you to lose?" She even sounded like me. She tried to pull the sword out of the wall but it was firmly embedded in the wall. As she turned around, I gave a hard punch that sent her reeling.

Before she had time to recover, I went into hand to hand combat with her. After a series of punches and kicks, I gave her an uppercut that launched her and I grabbed her sword and impaled her in the neck. The sword and the shadow me faded. Was that it I wondered? I heard clapping behind me and I pulled my sword out of the hall and pointed it at someone's neck. I gasped in surprise.

That 'someone' was actually Jackson. This time he was physically there, instead of being in my mind as usual. "I didn't think you would find out how to beat yourself, congratulations! You've moved onto the second round, me.". He gave me a wicked look and pulled out Infinite's sword and his eyes turned purple, the way mine does when I fought with Infinite.

He moved at blinding speed, slamming me hard into the wall. I got up groaning, I heard something crack inside me and I had blood in my mouth, that wasn't good. He picked me up and held me by the collar "The wall is hard huh? It isn't a seventh of the difficulty of the choice Infinite made, you call yourself a driver of the Aegis, but what are you?". I kicked him and flipped to distance myself. "I-I am.." I couldn't think of a reason to who I really was. He ran at me, I weakly countered and my sword flew out of my hands. "Pitiful, I've seen you fight better, what's wrong with you?".

I couldn't find a reason why I was still fighting anyway, Silverius was going to end the world with some sort of weapon anyway, why fight now to delay the inevitable? Hang on a second, that made me sound like Silverius. He saw it was going to end anyway, no, I had to fight for a better world. I had to BE better. A sudden fire erupted in my chest, I wasn't going to die, not yet, I kicked out Jackson's legs before running and grabbing my own sword. Jackson got up quickly and ran at me.

Infinite's blade looked like it was made of plastic, almost like a toy, but it's beam of purple energy protruding from the top was enough to cut through almost anything. I swung my sword upwards, sending Jackson flying and before he could recover, I jumped and slammed him into the ground. He got up and unleashed a flurry of attacks and I managed to block all of them. "Something's changed, what is it?" He looked me dead in the eye before I pushed him back with the flat end of my sword. He ran at me with lightning speed, but I anticipated this, and dodged at the last second but I left my foot where I was standing. He tripped and I brought down my sword on him. He attempted to counter it by raising his sword, but failed as my blade shattered his. I put my blade on his neck "I am Hazel, Third Driver of the Aegis,". He just grinned and winked at me, before fading as well.

This time Luke appeared before me. "So just you and me now huh?" I readied my blade for his assault. "No," he brought down his hand and my blade became inexplicably heavy. "I am just here to pass on some wisdom to you," he rubbed his hands "So you now know what you must do?" I nodded. "Very good, and who are you?"

"I am Hazel, Third Driver of the Aegis and Last Hope for this world."

He smiled, satisfied with my answer "I will return you to your friends now, travel to the End Zone, you will find a structure there, Omega Dock, as you were too late to stop Silverius taking the third cube. Oh and if you see Infinite again, punch him for me will ya?" he winked.

"Hazel wake up dammit!" Jess yelled at me. "What happened?" I asked. "Your eyes turned blue and you just ignored our calls, the skeleton dude also disappeared and you randomly started bleeding," Ace explained. I looked at the throne, no one was sitting there. All of a sudden a Luke's voice called out "Go now valiant heroes, I will send you back to where you need to go," and the black mist thickened around us and I felt my ears pop and my stomach felt the giddy feeling of falling.

Eventually, it dissipated and we stood in front of Cole's house. It was obviously midnight, the rays of the moon painted everything black and white and it was eerily silent. I knocked on the door, no response. I knocked a little harder and the door swung open. "Hello? Cole? You there buddy?" Jess asked. Still no response. I turned on the light and we saw a letter with a red stain on the top right corner. It had my name on it.

I opened it and read its contents "To Hazel, hey kid, try not to interfere with us yeah? We sent you a little warning, so if you decide to come after us, more will come, ok thanks!". My blood turned cold "Oh no no no," I grabbed my head. Ace understood what happened and ran upstairs. "You guys better see this quick," his voice was shaky. We came upstairs slowly and saw our problem. Cole was murdered, his face was down on a pillow, with a knife in his side, and at least three other parts of his body were bloody.

Jess checked his pulse "He's been dead for at least three hours" she confirmed. She wiped the blood on her fingers on the sheets next to him. "We uh, should give a burial," Ace said. We cleaned up the best we could and put his body on a stretcher and covered his body with a clean sheet we found. Osiris, Wildcard and Grace were busy digging the grave. Zero helped us prepare the body, wrapping his body with colorful lines with symbols that he pulled out of his…. actually, none of us had seen where he kept those ribbons. "You sure this is necessary?" I asked Zero.

"Sure is! There are plenty of little things we need to do for sending a person into the afterlife," Zero wrapped another ribbon around his body. After we had prepared it, we set the body next to the hole our blades dug out. We mourned in silence, as we unfortunately had nothing to say as the body was lowered into the hole. We covered the hole and decided to leave a plaque in the ground saying "Here lies Cole, gatekeeper, friend and companion.".

Dawn was breaking and we went inside to think. "Where do we go from here?" Jess asked, her eyes red from crying. "You could have just given me the body..." Osiris said, ruining the mood. We all stared at him furiously, we must have given him such a glare that he flinched. "We should go into the End Zone, he says that Silverius and co. will be there." I answered Jess's question. "But ship broken, how do we fix without parts?" Steve asked. "I may be able to help with that," a smooth voice said behind us. It was the same person who saved us from the robot and kidnapped me, so naturally I had mixed feelings about her.

"We don't even know you, why should we trust you?" Ace tried to look down on her but failed as she was as tall as him, at 6 feet. Her suit powered down and it split in half to reveal a woman who was actually shorter without her suit, as tall as I and Jess was, 5,9. She had raven black hair, black eyes, contrasting pale skin and red lips. "The name's Elanis, and yours?" she asked. "Hazel, Jess, Ace, Steve, Osiris, Zero, Wildcard and Grace," I introduced all of us.

"So how friend going to help repair ship?" Steve asked shyly, hiding behind my legs. She stared at him, amused "Well my furry friend since I've learned how those machines out there work, killing a few would get you more or less enough parts to fix your ship.".

"So you're saying that we kill those robots outside the walls?" I asked. "Mhm," she said distractedly. "But we couldn't even damage those things!" I argued. "Hand me your weapon," she demanded. I reluctantly passed her Osiris's cannon, and she pulled out a sort of flat square and placed it on the side of my cannon. It changed shape and it became covered in a sort of mechanical plating and had spikes protruding out of it.

"That should do it," she handed my weapon back to me and did the same to the rest of our blade's weapons.

We set off immediately. And the guards reluctantly opened them for us. "You've gotta be insane to go outside, but might as well try your luck mate," one of them grumbled. We informed them of Cole's murder and went out, ignoring their shocked faces.

Thirty minutes later, we encountered our first robot. Elanis was right, our weapons were now doing significant damage to them. After seven or eight of them, we picked up their parts and headed back to the ship. Steve and Ace went to work on the ship immediately. "Robot technology and metal much better than our ship! Now able to go deeper and take more damage!" Steve exclaimed.

"I believe my job is done," Elanis said. "Woah where are you going?" Ace asked. She looked confused "To the capital again of course.". "Come with us! It'll be more fun!" Ace persuaded. She considered this "I don't know...". "The more the merrier, afterall you seem like the good sort," I said.

"Fine, I'll come with you," she relented. "So how do we move the ship back into the sea?" I asked as we all boarded the ship. "Friend Atlas say he has plan," Steve said. We stared outside into the grey fields of Erimos before Atlas grew to his full size, an easy 20 meter tall robot, and picked us up and we flew through the hole that we created when we entered.

After a couple minutes of screaming, we finally made it outside of the range of the defense system and Atlas joined us on the deck. "Coordinates locked in, Omega Dock, End Zone, approximate time is three hours." Atlas announced as he turned the ship and descended. I anxiously watched the depth calculator as we passed the one kilometer depth mark.

"So Elanis, tell us more about yourself," Ace asked her. "I used to live back at the royal palace, before the now idiot king and his men came in and assasinated my parents," she said casually. "Hang on… so you're a member of the royal family?" Jess asked in awe. "So the king we saw before really wasn't related to Leo at all?" Ace frowned. "No, I am the last living line of Leo, and one day, I will restore the throne," she said adamantly. I put my hand on her shoulder "We'll help you in your quest, as you have done with ours, I promise,".

She smiled faintly "Thank you, but since we have three hours, I think I'm going to take a rest, where might my quarters be?". I led her down into a spare room that we had onboard. "It isn't much, but you can leave your belongings here and customize your room in any way you like," I said. After that, I joined my other friends in the main hall. "You sure we can trust her?" Ace asked, worried. I sat down next to Jess "She seems like the right sort, she'll get along fine,"

"Good," he nodded sleepily, "I think I'm off to bed.". I checked my watch "You know it's like 2 in the afternoon right?". He got up and started walking to his room, waving his middle finger "Don't care,". Now it was just me and Jess. "I think we should all take a rest, it's been a long day," Jess advised. I was feeling like it too, my eyes were heavy and I was swaying side to side. "Yeah, you should too," I got up sleepily and crashed on my bed.

I walked past Hazel's room, her door was wide open and I quietly stepped inside. She was so tired she forgot to put her armor off. I undid the straps of her armor and pulled her blanket up to her shoulders. I sat next to her, looking at her peaceful face with my purple eyes. "I wonder how you have the motivation to keep going, even when the whole world is against you," I sighed. "Sweet dreams Hazel," I walked out and fell asleep in my room.