Chapter 9: I'll stand by you

Sophie's house, Venice

Sophie

I followed LeBlanche to the loft. I hadn't been there for a very long time, but when I saw the dusty wooden floor, the golden sunlight that fell through the one round window, the dusty brown couch, and the cardboard boxes full of forgotten objects and lost memories, I remembered I used to play here when I was a kid.
When my parents were still alive the House in Venice was our vacation- manor, and when we were here, I loved to sneak to the loft, jump on the brown couch, open the boxes and discover hidden treasures.

"Miss Sophie?" LeBlanche said.

I smiled. "Do you remember I used to play here when I was a kid LeBlanche?"

He also smiled. "Of course I remember, the first time you did that me and your parents searched through the whole manor for you, but we couldn't find you. It was your mother who eventually came to the idea to check the loft, and here we found you. All dusty and with spider webs in your hair, but happy. Oh, the mess you left behind, and of course I was the one who had to clear that up."

LeBlanche walked towards a big closet. It was locked, but he took a little key out of his pocket and opened it.
I was really curious and walked towards him. "A book?"

LeBlanche took a book out of the closet.
"Not just a book." He said. "It's the book of light, a book that has been in your family for centuries. Dozens of generations of Casterwell have written spells and memories in this book. It was actually the intention that you would get the book at the age of eighteen, but you need it now. I'm sure you'll find a spell to find Dante in this book."

"Oh my god…" I whispered, when LeBlanche gave me the book. It was really thick, about 1000 pages. You could see it was very old, the Casterwell family coat of arms on the cover had faded, and the pages were yellow.
Carefully I flipped through the pages, discovering dozens of different handwritings. The last written pages were written by my father. A teardrop fell on the paper.

I didn't even notice LeBlanche had left the room.

Lok

"What are they doing upstairs? They have been gone for more than an hour now!" Michael said.

We were sitting in Sophie's living room, impatiently waiting for her return. Santiago had brought us tea and cookies (chocolate- chip my favorite) to keep us busy, but even cookies couldn't distract my thoughts.

"Lok, Michael!" Sophie had entered the living room. "I've got it! I've got the solution for our problem!"

We both jumped up. "You know how we can find Dante?" We said in unison.

With a bang Sophie laid a thick book down on the table. The book looked like it could fall apart any moment. She opened it somewhere in the middle and started to read aloud. "If you're seeking a person who's lost…. "

24 hours earlier, Zhalia's living room

Dante

The seven suits standing behind Klaus were really big, unnaturally big, and I had the disturbing feeling I had seen them before.
I remembered one of my missions I had some trouble with super strong suits. Not gym- like super strong but more alien- like super strong. They were one of Klaus' experiments and nearly killed me.
I didn't know much about Klaus, only that he was insane and had kidnapped several Foundation agents for unknown purposes. I could barely believe hé was Zhalia's boss, of all persons.
Suddenly I remembered what DeFoe had said to me on the day Zhalia 'saved' me. ''There someone who wants to meet you…'' Could that person have been Klaus?

Zhalia's voice broke through my wondering.
"Dante, go, I'll keep them busy."

"No! I'm not going to leave you."

She looked at me like she wanted to say something, but Klaus was faster.
"What's this for weird phenomenon?" He said with a frown.

"Oh shut up Klaus!" Zhalia said, and she turned herself towards me again. "Go Dante! Please!"

I shook my head and I remained standing where I stood demonstratively. I didn't have a plan, and I knew the consequences, but it didn't matter. All I knew on that moment was that I didn't want to leave, that I was going to stand by her, no matter what would happen.

Klaus smiled. "What you want…. This is going to be even more interesting than I'd thought..."

Zhalia took my titans out of her pocket and threw them to me.
"We're not going to come with you without a fight." She said.

"I already thought you'd say that…. But I hope you realize there's no way you're going to win this."

"We're still going to try." I said. "Caliban, Solwing, Freelancer!"

"Redcap." The seven suits said in unison.

"Gareon, Kilthane, Strix!" Zhalia summoned her titans to.

Klaus stepped aside, of course he was going to let his suits to the dirty work.

Caliban stabbed a Redcap down with his sword, and almost immediately another one tried to attack him from behind, but Kilthane stopped him.
It looked like our titans were on the winning hand, but there were still seven suits to defeat.

"Touchram!" I fired a spell towards the nearest suit. It hit him and he crushed into the wall, but then stood up as if nothing happened.

"Enderflame." Two other suits said, and two beams of purple fire came towards us.

"Armorbrand!" I summoned a shield, but was surprised by the power of the attack. This definitely weren't normal suits.

'Zhalia…' I turned around to see if she was all right but all I saw was a trace of black. She had used Shadowspeed and kicked down the two suits before they even realized what was happening.
But again they stood up. They didn't seem to be in any pain but you could see the jaw of the left one was broken. So these suits weren't immortal. That thought gave me a spark of hope.

Suddenly I felt a blow in my back, one of the suits had hit me from behind. I kicked against his knee and heard a satisfying breaking sound, but the suit didn't even blinked.

"Aaaah!" The suit yelled when Caliban's sword pierced him from behind. He fell on the ground and this time he didn't stood up any more.

"Dante!" Zhalia yelled.
2 suits were holding her. All titans except for Caliban had returned to their amulets, so it was me and Caliban against 4 suits.

Caliban ran towards one of them to stab him with his sword, but the suit evaded the attack (they were very fast for their size) and defeated Caliban using Dragonfist. I had never seen a Dragonfist powerfull enough to defeat a titan.

The four suits slowly walked towards me.
"It's over." One of them said and his hand glowed up purple.

I realized it really was over, I hadn't had enough power left to stop another Enderflame, and prepared myself for the painful blow that was going to come.

"No!"
Somehow Zhalia had managed to free herself from the grip of the two suits, and out of nowhere she stood in front of me, and was hit instead of me.

"Zhalia!"
She was lying unconscious on the floor, a few meters away from me. I wanted to go to her but was hit by some spell, and everything turned black.

Somewhere….

Lok

I looked to my reflection in the glass doors. I looked like some kind of construction worker with my stained brown overall, light blue wrinkled shirt, and big dark blue bag.
'Flinn's fish- experts' stood with big white letters on the bag.

I prayed that my disguise would work, took a deep breath, and entered the small reception.

"Welcome to Klaus' lab." The red- haired receptionist said. "You have an appointment?"

"Of course, of course." I said.

"Access code and Name?"

"1034- 5579, Rico Flinn, from Flinn's fish- experts, you know our commercial?"
I started singing: "We take care, of your flipper- friends…."

"Please stop singing sir, I see your name is on the list and the code is accepted… "
Yes! Michael's the best!
"… but you were expected to come tomorrow."

'Dammit I've cheered to soon…'
"That must be a mistake, Mr. Klaus himself has called me, his fishes, rare Malawi Cichliden, are ill and need help immediately."

"I'm sorry sir, I can't let you pass."

"Hmm I understand….Ah well if Klaus' fish die I can refer to you right? What was your name again?"

The girl's face tightened. She was hesitating.

"Think of the fish… those pore creatures are very very ill, they have fish- ebola." I said.

"Okay then, you can pass, follow the red shafts and take the elevator to the third floor, Klaus's relax- room, there's his aquarium."

I nodded and walked towards the elevator, but instead pushing the 3- button I pushed the -2, the lab- department. I quickly changed my clothes, I exchanged my brown overall for a white lab coat, and put on a pair of glasses.
"Ping." The elevator stopped, and I walked into a long white hallway. At the end was another red- haired girl wearing a white uniform. She was standing next to some kind of iris- scanner.

"Your name?" She asked.

"I'm Docter Smith, from the Organization Headquarter, I'm here to check a few things, commissioned by the Professor."

"Welcome Docter Smith, please look into this lens, I have to do an iris check before I can open the door for you."

"Of course, of course…" I walked towards the scanner.
"Has anyone ever told you that you have beautiful eyes?"

"Please look into the scanner Docter."

"And I also like your shoes… but do you know there's a stain on the right one?"

"A stain? Oh no!"
The girl looked down to her shoes.
"I don't see a-"

She fell forward, unconscious. I had pricked her in her neck with my James Bond- like spy- ballpoint, which contained a soporific.
I took a little card out of her pocket and pulled it through the scanner next to the door. The door opened and I continued my search for Dante.

Dante, Dante, Dante where are you?

There were so many doors, which one was the right one?
Suddenly saw Dante's name was on one of them. I opened it and entered a really big, white, empty room. Almost empty.
"Dante!"

"Lok!" He said. "I can't believe it, you've found me!"

"Dante, quick, let's get the hell out of here!"

"No Lok, I can't, I'm going to help Klaus conquer the world."

This has to be a joke….

Suddenly the back wall disappeared, and Klaus (a big man with a long blond beard and round glasses, wearing a white lab- coat) entered, followed by Zhalia (who was wearing a tight silver spy- suit).

"Yes, Dante is going to help me conquer the world…. First we kill the Professor and take over the organization, then the Foundation, then Europe, and then, the whole world! Mwuhahaha." Klaus said viciously.

I couldn't believe this was really happening. "But- but Dante would never do that."

"Of course he won't." Klaus said. "This is a Dante- droid, one the thousands I've build. The real Dante is dead…. Zhalia, show our visitor my army."

This can't be happening, Dante can't be dead!

Zhalia nodded, and took some kind of remote- control out of her pocket. She pushed on a big red button, and numerous Dante- droids appeared.

"Droids, kill him!" Klaus yelled.

All the Dante- droids walked towards me, and their hands turned into machine guns.
"Kill Lok, Kill Lok, Kill Lok." They said, and pointed their guns at me….

"Waaaaaah!"
I awaked with a start, bathing in sweat. It took me a few seconds before I realized I was in an airplane, still alive and not through sieved with bullets.
What a nightmare….

I smiled apologizing to the people who were staring at me with an angry glance.

"Lok? What's wrong with you?" Sophie, who was sitting next to me, asked.

"Nothing…. Just a dream…" I said, and I stared out the window to the grayish clouds, hoping that my dream wouldn't come true.

-
Haha sorry for that dream of Lok, my idea of a little practical joke ;-)

Review plz ^^