The Infinite Chronicles

Act 8: Resurgence

Chapter 23

We gave Ace some time to grieve while we all took a rest. "What did Ace just do?" I asked Gran. "That was a Fourth Art, a true sign of total trust between both the driver and blade," she explained. I walked over to Ace who was preparing a shroud for his fallen sibling. "You okay?" I put my hand on his shoulder. "Am I? I knew that when we both joined the military, he would die to someone eventually, but I didn't think it would have been by my hand..." his voice cracked in grief.

"It's okay, you had to do what had to be done, even though it was your own brother, at least he can have peace now," I said. Jess and Elanis were writing symbols over the cloth draping Brandon. They nodded and Grace set fire to the bottom of the shroud and moments later, all that remained were golden sparks that floated off into the massive spaces of the compound. I saw Ace mouthed "Goodbye,"

"Alright, let's move forward," Jess ordered. Ace composed himself and we all headed deeper into the large labyrinth of the compound. A few robots tried to attack us but we took them down fairly easily. After a few hours of walking and occasionally kicking robots out of our path, we heard, "Well well well, we meet again!" cried a high female voice. Three figueres stepped out of the shadows and we recognized them immediately. "You three again, just move at this point I'm getting bored." Jess sighed.

Once again, standing in our way, was Occisor, Caroline and Alexander. As usual, we drew our weapons and clashed. They seemed…. stronger. I slammed the back end of Osiris' cannon against Caroline, which sent her flying. I tried to hit her in the air, but she straightened herself and sliced the bullets in half.

She dashed at me, Osiris tried shielding me but she cut through the shield and sliced my right arm. Although it was a small cut, I was bleeding profusely and felt very weak and cold. I dropped to one knee and carried on parrying her attacks. Just when I couldn't block one more of Caroline's attacks, Zero jumped in and yanked Caroline away, despite his relatively short height. Jess jumped in and applied a bandage and used the water ether to regenerate my cells.

"You feeling good?" she asked as she helped me get up. "Yeah," I responded, "now let's go kick some ass,". Jess grinned "Always with you,". Jess jumped in front of Caroline and dodged her insanely fast attacks, while I covered her from behind.

Ace, Elanis and Steve were both taking on Alexander and Occisor. Elanis pulled a black, double edged claymore with red energy around the edges from… I don't know. She seemed extremely skilled in using it, swinging it around with ease and even managing to break through Alexander's defenses. "Who are you!?" Alexander grunted as she slammed her sword against his fists and threw him back. "Doesn't matter now, keep fighting!" Occisor snarled as he slashed furiously at Elanis who got sliced a few times, but her armor was capable of taking a lot more damage.

Jess let loose a torrent of water that blinded Caroline long enough for me to rush in and slam the back of my cannon in her gut before throwing the cannon to Osiris who used a Life bomb, draining her of her strength and knocking her out.

"Time to end this," Elanis stated calmly as she started to spin her sword very quickly, forming a dark green and red tornado around her. Occisor slammed his sword against it, only to be thrown back into a wall. "What is this!?" he snarled. From the swirling winds, we could see Elanis' figure, except it was all dark and her eyes were glowing a bright red.

She rushed at him, slicing furiously while Occisor barely managed to parry all of her attacks. She lifted her blade high before bringing it down on his long Katana, which promptly shattered. He staggered backwards before collapsing. "All right listen up, you guys move out of the way, and we continue, and if you're smart, you head back to your ship and get ready to leave as soon as possible," Jess sassed. They lowered their weapons, confused. "We don't have a problem with you, our fight is against Silverius, so you don't have to get involved," I explained.

"A truce you mean, but why?" Caroline rubbed her head as she got up from the floor. "Like I said, we have no reason to fight you," I replied. "Very well," Alexander grimaced "but know this, Silverius and Corvin didn't just become the 'villain' no one just gets born as the bad guy, something happened in their lives that caused them great pain, and they want to do something about it.".

Caroline and Occisor also nodded in agreement, before leaving silently, making me wonder what they had to go through. "Let's take a breather before we continue onward again," Gran advised. I had some suspicions about Elanis, but it was a question best for later.

"Huh, would you look at that, it's actually already 10 at night, how bout we make camp here?" Ace looked up from his watch. As the compound really only had one light setting, we didn't notice if it already was night. We set up a makeshift camp and slept, which wasn't exactly comfortable, as the floor was some hard metal.

We all woke up next morning, or whatever time it was groaning and rubbing our backs. We may have been used to sleeping rough these past few months, but sleeping on metal was definitely not nice. After a few stretches here and there, we broke camp and headed onwards.

I felt a tingling feeling in my chest. "He's close," I announced. Sure enough, after another fifteen minutes of walking, we found Silverius and Corvin, with Infinite's unconscious body at his feet. "Huh, didn't know you'd still have the balls to fight me again kid," he said. He looked past me and to Elanis. "Well wouldn't you know it, this time, you're fighting on their side, even after I saved your ass," he snarled. "You two know each other?" Jess asked, confused. "Back during the war, and I mean the Second Aegis War, he saved my life by putting a core crystal in me, but when Infinite and Jackson showed up, I began to question our motives, and I left," she explained.

"So that mean, friend is already more than 500 year old?" Steve exclaimed. She nodded silently. "Well, enough chit-chat, I think it's time to fight." Silverius interrupted. They both drew their weapons and readied themselves while we did the same. They ran at Silverius and Corvin, while Ace and I remained behind, firing arrows and bullets to support our friends.

Jess and Steve were both taking on Silverius, while I helped them, while Ace was supporting Elanis who was fighting Corvin. Astonishingly, she could keep up with him and even was staggering him. "Enough," Silverius stated, annoyed. "Bout time I showed you my true power," he threw us all back, before he exploded in a bright red and blue light.

From his right shoulder to his left hip, he was surrounded in flames, while the other half of his body was glowing blue, flickering with arcs of lighting. He punched Steve's axe, which exploded in flames. "Master!" Grace gasped, as she pulled him away and extinguished the smouldering parts of his coat. Silverius then held out his hand and a bolt of blue lightning shot towards Jess, which Zero blocked, but it was enough to knock them both down.

"A blade that has two powers? Impossible!" Ace cried in horror. "Unfortunately, Silverius is made from two people, which does mean that he does," Elanis grimaced. "Alright square up, let's kick their asses," I helped Jess and Zero get up. "Right!" she nodded and charged at him.

This time, Corvin disappeared in a dark shadow, before reappearing in a different outfit. This time, his armour was a black that seemed to absorb the light out of the air. His face was emotionless and a little sad as usual. He stretched out an arm and suddenly, in the ground in front of him, skeletons started to pop out of the ground.

"What the hell!" I kicked a skeletons face as he grabbed my ankle. "Yes, the true power of Corvin!" Silverius laughed in glee "The power to raise the dead!.". The skeletons started to grab us but we cut them down. As soon as we did, they just reformed. "Alright this is just annoying," Ace slammed his axe down on the skull of a skeleton.

"I say we end this now," I pulled out Atlas' sword, a long orange and grey claymore, and went head to head with Silverius with Elanis and Jess while Ace and Steve were fighting Corvin. Their heavy weapons slammed through the skeletons with ease.

Even though Corvin had a speed only rivalved by Silverius and Infinite, they both could keep up and go on the offense. I parried a blast of fire on the flat of my sword while Jess vaulted over an arc of electricity. "Infinite, where are you?" I asked in my mind. "He's not here, I can't find him," Jackson replied in my mind. I sliced at Silverius but he just dodged. "Where were you all this time?" I grumbled as I backed up to let Elanis go in.

"You need to go to him, that's the only way we can reach him," he ignored my question. "You guys back me up ok?" I ran off next to Infinite's body. "Got it," Elanis stabbed Silverius, nicking his side. "C'mon Infinite, where are you?" I shook his body.

Immediately, I was transported to a different building. For some reason, I knew that this was not anywhere in our world. A giant green version of Infinite's core crystal was floating in front of it, was Infinite and Avalon sitting and facing me. "There you are, it's rude to keep a woman waiting y'know?" I put my hands on my hips.

"Heh, do you really think I should come back? Even though how much pain I caused this world?" Avalon smiled, but in a way you laugh or smile to avoid crying. I sat next to him "Yes, but you're going to have quite a lot of people to apologize to.". Infinite shook my hand off "I don't deserve a second chance, I leveled an entire civilization, destroyed an entire palace, did unspeakable experiments and made people's lives hell, one being your sister.".

"Look, no one is perfect, not even gods or an Aegis, we make mistakes, but it's our job to learn from them and fix them, and I'll help you, all the way, you and me against the world, wouldn't have it any other way," I said. "Very well, then I suppose I do have to help." he got up and lent me a hand. I accepted it and the world around us started to fade. He took one last look at the giant cross. "The Conduit," Avalon mused, "It's close,".

Suddenly, he panicked and tried to push me but instead, I now felt a burning painful sensation in my gut and I passed out in pain.

"How is she doing Atlas?" I asked, dodging a blow from Silverius and slicing him with my knives. "Negative, Mistress Hazel will be out for another 10 minutes," he shook his head. "How do you know?" Elanis said beside me, whirling her sword in a circle, striking Silverius in the shoulder. Annoyingly, he just kept healing like a normal blade.

"This is starting to get boring," Silverius knocked both of us backwards. He moved at the speed that wasn't possible by normal mortals, he grabbed Hazel's fallen sword and rammed it through her and threw the blade so hard at a wall it crumpled around her unconscious body. I screamed and ran to her to possibly revive her. Ace's face was pale and he stopped fighting, only to be slammed across the face by Corvin. Luckily, Wildcard caught him, but we were clearly losing.

I checked her pulse, which was dead and the amount of blood pouring out of her gut was too much.

She was dead.