Chapter 30- After the Death

Flynn broke the silence by pressing a few of the buttons on Matt's PDA. "Hmm…"

"What is it?" Drake asked, snapping out of his reverie. He had borderline disliked Matt for a little while, ever since the memory shadow game, but now that Matt was gone, Drake couldn't anymore. He had died trying to get them to safety, after all.

"Yeah, what did Matt leave us with?" Keith said, peering over Flynn's shoulder. "Wow. Quite extensive."

"Did you expect anything less?" Drake asked.

"No, but it amazes me just how much stuff he can write on one thing."

Drake looked at the PDA screen. It was clearly organized into sections and subsections, types of creatures, levels of the realm, and so on. He also had a small section detailing…

"My god, us?" Helen said. "Why would he have entire entries on us?"

"I don't know." Flynn said, scanning through his. "Hang on… he has one on every freaking person at the Academy! How did he get this much stuff on so many people?"

"Worked hard at it?" Keith suggested.

"Well, he does specialize in that kind of stuff." Flynn said. "He was a ninja, so I guess it wouldn't have been that hard… but why? Hang on, what's this?" Drake saw him select an option labeled, "When I die, select this." A short note appeared on the screen. Flynn read it, and passed the PDA to Keith, shaking his head. "Incredible… that he planned that far ahead."

Keith finished with it. His reaction was the same as Flynn's. He passed the PDA on to Helen. Helen read it with a similar look on her face. She passed it to Drake, and he read. The page had already been scrolled down quite a bit, about 60 of it must have been read already. Drake read.

"DRAKE. Don't read any other parts of this, and stop reading as soon as I tell you to. It's okay if you hate me for what I've put you through- especially that which concerns Julie. I know you have… feelings for her. Now that I'm gone, you'll need to support her more than ever. Do that for me, I've always had at least a little bit of a soft spot for her… as much as I can have for anyone, anyway. Your dream may yet come true… just survive this. You can do it, if anyone can. Support the others, do your best, don't fail them. Don't second-guess this, no matter what happens. Remember why you duel… just do that, and you'll be okay. Stop reading, and pass the PDA to Julie."

Drake felt as surprised as the others looked. There was a small white horizontal bar across the bottom of the screen. It read, "Date Edited." The following date was about two weeks earlier. Drake shook his head and moved over to Julie, who was still crying.

"Julie." He whispered in her ear. "Here." She didn't look up. Drake lay his hand on her shoulder in what he hoped to be a comforting manner. Julie still didn't look up. Drake was more than a little annoyed. Come on, he's dead, can't we move on now? Drake thought. Or is she going to spend the rest of her life mourning over him? It would end up being pretty short if she did… "Julie, come on. We need to move on."

"But… but…" She said, looking up at Drake with tear-filled eyes. "…He's dead…"

"Yeah…" Drake said. "But he can still speak to you." He pushed the PDA into her hands. She looked down at it and read through the tears. Whatever it said must have been pretty strong, because the tears came harder. Julie buried her face in the screen and cried out loud. "Hang on! We still need that!"

Julie stopped crying, sniffled, and looked back into Drake's eyes. "What?" She asked, her voice still quavering.

"There's stuff in there we might need! If you cry on it, we'll lose it!" Drake said.

"Oh, yeah, right… it's just that… oh…I don't think I'll ever be able to live without him…" She said, and gave Drake the PDA before she could cry on it again. Drake, in turn, handed it to Flynn, who slid it into his back pocket. Julie stood up, leaning a little on Drake for support. Flynn flipped open Matt's cell phone and began to scroll- well, look at all the contacts. There were three.

"We don't have many options, huh?" Flynn said. "We should call Brooklyn… but I don't see him."

"He's right there…" Keith said. "His real name is Chris, remember?"

"No, I don't. I always called him Brooklyn." Flynn said.

"Who is this Brooklyn that you speak of?" Helen said. "I want to know who he is, before we go calling him."

"Oh, he's Matt's much more honorable younger brother. Not nearly as cool or proficient at dueling and killing as Matt, but he's better than any of us." Flynn sent a call to Brooklyn. Flynn switched to speaker phone and set the phone on the ground. Everyone gathered around the phone. It rang three times before Brooklyn picked up.

"Yeah Matt?" He said. There was a faint clicking noise in the background, suggesting that he was using a keyboard. "I don't have that stuff yet-"

"Brooklyn." Flynn said. "Matt's not here."

"Flynn? How did you get Matt's cell phone? You certainly couldn't have stolen it from him." Brooklyn sounded semi-amused at the thought.

"We didn't take it from him. He died and gave it to us so we could call you." Keith said.

"What did you say?" Brooklyn said. He sounded like he was in total disbelief.

"Matt… is dead." Drake said. "He just got killed, and he gave us his PDA and cell phone."

"That's not good." Brooklyn said. "No, quite the contrary… it's very, very bad. Without Matt, we really have no idea what's going on-"

"Well, we have some." Keith said. "His PDA has all kinds of stuff on it. Details on the Shadow Realm, the creatures that live there, even a file on everyone at the Academy! Though we're not sure why…"

"I have an idea." Brooklyn said. "But I don't want to say more here. If we stay on this line too long, the fiends will be able to track the signal and find my position. Don't lose that PDA, it will probably tell you where I am. Look for a file on the Point of Solitude."

"Where is it?" Helen asked. "I've been around the world twice, and I've never heard of it."

"Of course you haven't. It's not easy to find… in fact, it's almost impossible to fin it unless you already know where it is. Don't ask why. It's possible to find on accident but that's not likely. I've got to go. Find a ride to Switzerland." The phone went dead.

"How are we going to get to Switzerland?" Julie asked. "That's pretty far away, and we're on an island."

"We'll have to find a plane." Keith said.

"Good thing we're in a major city." Drake said. "A plane won't be hard to find."

"The hard part is not finding one, but flying it." Flynn said. "Does anyone here have the faintest idea of how to fly a plane?" Everyone was silent.

"Well…" Drake said. "I know a little… but it's only about enough to get the plane off the ground. After that, we're basically screwed, cause I would have no clue what to do next."

"Well, that doesn't help much." Helen said.

"We'll just have to go to the airport and hope a pilot made it through the fiend attack. Then we have to hope he's willing to help." Keith said. Everyone nodded in agreement. Flynn slipped Matt's phone into one of his pockets and they all set off for the airport.

"By the way, Drake, how did you learn that much about planes?" Julie asked. "How to take off, I mean."

"My dad's a pilot." Drake said. "I wonder… did my parents make it out?"

"Yeah… until now we've been pretty worried about ourselves, but now that I think about it… I wonder if the fiends have control of the world or something like that by now?"

Drake thought about it until they reached the airport. Then his mind was forcefully pulled out of those musings by the sight of the destruction. The front had been torn clean off. The main terminal was belching fire at an alarming rate. As a matter of fact, the whole place was. Most of the planes were in pieces.

"Hmm…doesn't look like we'll find any pilots here…" Keith said.

"I doubt it." Flynn said. "Let's-"

He was interrupted by Drake's shout. Someone or something had put its hand on Drake's shoulder. Drake threw it off and spun around, whipping out his rifle. His eyes widened when he saw who it was. "My God, Dad! Don't do that!"

Drake's dad looked terrible. He wore a dress shirt and tie that was in tatters. The left leg of his dress pants had been torn off and wrapped tightly around his shin. Blood trickled out from under it. There were scratches all over his face and his hair was very unkempt. "Sorry about that. I…I don't know what I'm doing. I'm a little out of whack after those things came around."

"So are we all." Keith said.

"Yes, I would assume that." Drake's dad said. "How did you get here? I thought you were at that place farther south of here." Drake's dad didn't really like that he had ditched a regular education for Duel Academy, but he accepted it better than Drake's mom did.

"We're not exactly sure why. Those fiends came from the Shadow Realm, they were on our island too." Drake said. "We tracked them there, but we had to get out and somehow ended up here."

"Hmm… odd. But… what's going on, exactly? I've been wondering that since I had to crash land when the things obstructed my runway. One of them was big enough to flip my plane and kill everyone on it but me. I've been hiding in the terminal since then. I haven't been able to get in touch with anyone, and I've tried everything."

"We'll explain that all later." Flynn said. "We need to get off this island. Can you get us out of here?"

Drake's dad raised an eyebrow. "Who are you?"

"He's Flynn. He's my friend." Drake said.

"Really? What's your last name?"

"Tager."

"Really… interesting." Drake's dad scratched the fuzz that had grown on his chin. "Do you have any relation to a Captain Jack Tager?"

"Yeah, he's my uncle. Why?"

"I knew him. You have the same kind of commanding aura… he was a good guy."

"How did you know him?"

"I'm retired Air Force. I didn't do it for long, but of course I knew Jack. Now, Drake, why don't you introduce me to everyone else here?"

"Well, that's Keith-"

"Last names, too, please."

"Keith Natran, he's another student. This is Professor Helen, uh… I don't know. Professor, what's your last name?"

"Doesn't matter. I don't use it anymore." She said.

"Uh, okay… and this is Julie Daran, she's another student."

"Hmm…hmm… okay, I'll help. The irony of it is that I think I probably know some of their relatives, heck, I knew a lot of people, I get to know a lot of people flying all over the place. Let's see… Natran… do you have any relation to Joseph Natran, the Calculus professor at Caltech?"

"Yeah, he's my cousin's uncle."

"Thought so… I had him three flights ago, brilliant man… Daran, hmm… don't know anyone like that…"

"You probably wouldn't, it's my mother's maiden name, she's the last one who's got it, apart from me. My dad died…"

"Oh, that's too bad… then again, I think I did see it somewhere… hmm… never mind. You all look sad, is something wrong?"

"It's just that… well, one of our old friends died. He went to the Academy last year, he's the reason that we survived when the fiends attacked just the academy last year."

"Who was it?"

"Matt… something. I can't remember his last name."

"It started with a P." Keith said.

"Wait a minute… did he always wear a small gold cross at his hip?"

Drake thought about it. He remembered seeing it once, it was usually hidden by Matt's cloak. But yeah, he had seen it once. "Yeah, I think he did."

Drake's dad bowed his head. "Too bad."

"What?" Helen said. "Did you know him?"

Drake's dad gave a little laugh. "Everyone who was in that last war knew him. He was incredible… I don't think there was a single soldier who garnered as many honors as he did. He wouldn't take a single one, he always credited someone else. Then he left… I heard he had legal problems somewhere. But, to believe that he's dead… that's hard."

"Yeah… but never mind that." Drake said.

"Can you get us out of here or not?" Flynn said.

"Well, of course I can. But I really don't own any of these planes, so we'd have to steal one." Drake's dad said.

"That's fine, no one's going to use them for a while anyway!" Keith said.

"Where do you need to go?"

"Switzerland."

"Okay. That's rather far. Where in Switzerland?"

"Somewhere near the Alps."

"Which part?"

Flynn pulled out the PDA and set to tapping around for a minute. "We're trying to get to the western half, just west of… well, there's our city. Some place called Brig."

"It's right near the border. I'll bet wherever you're trying to get to is on the border." Drake's dad said. "Let's see if we can find something that's still flyable." He went through a gate that led directly to the planes. Everyone followed him. He was looking over a small plane that seemed to be built for only a few people. "This should do. It was built for a small party, about 10, and it has supersonic capabilities. Even though it's not generally a good thing to fly that fast, we don't care because we need to move quickly. Switzerland is a long way away." Drake's dad reached up and pulled the door open. A staircase fell down. Everyone climbed up and into the plane, the interior of which was very nice. Drake's dad yanked up the stairs, shut the door, and started up the plane.

"Can we trust him to know this kind of plane?" Julie asked.

"Of course we can! He flew a lot of different planes- bombers, fighters, commercial, even charter jets. He can fly anything." Drake said.

"Very confident, aren't you?" Helen said.

"Well, of course." Drake said.

"Hey, everyone! The intercom doesn't work, so I'll just have to shout! We're almost full on fuel, we're taking this one and going! Buckle down, I'm going in thirty seconds." Everyone sat down and snapped in. The plane's engines roared and Drake felt the plane begin to move down the runway. In less than a minute they were in the air and on their way.