-Chapter V- A Whole New World
-The Fairy Glade, Polokus
-20 First Seed
-7:12 A.M.
-Nicholas
"Oh my god. Oh my god." I repeated to myself, pacing back and forth through the grass with my hands grasping on my head. "How? How is this possible?" I asked myself. I turned to look at the sunrise once more. Back in Skyrim, it was sunset. I assumed that I was somewhere on the other side of Earth...I just didn't know where.
"You're not on Earth at all." A female voice came from behind me. I raised the blue sword, ready to go on the offensive, but I found myself looking at the women that I had seen back at the temple and in my dreams.
I readied my sword to strike. "Who are you? Where am I?" She didn't respond, only smiled and shook her head. "Answer me!" I demanded.
"Welcome to Polokus, Nicholas Swiftsword." She said, opening her arms. She was still floating just a meter or so in the air, so that she was just barely looking down on me. She still had her legs crossed as though she was sitting on the air itself. She still didn't make any sense, and I still didn't know what was going on. I didn't lower my sword nor my guard. "I see you've gotten the sword, which tells me that Max has passed?"
I lowered my sword, shocked that she knew Max, as well as the fact that he is now deceased, which only depressed me at the mentioning of his fall. I opened my mouth to speak but not a word escaped my lips. I stood there in silence, not knowing what to think. "Who are you?" I asked again, this time softer.
"My name is Ly the fairy, and I need your help." She said.
I sheathed my sword. "Why my help? And why am I here?"
"I sent you here because I need your help. You..." She trailed off. "...You'll find out eventually." She said with a small grin.
After a few minutes of the only sounds heard being those from the animals and environment around us, I finally broke the silence, "What is it you need help with?" I asked, giving up on trying to resist. It wasn't like I had any other choice in the matter.
"I take it you've seen the pirates' fortress?"
"You mean that massive robotic prison camp?" I asked to be sure.
"Right, I need you to take it down."
At first I thought she was just kidding, it seemed impossible for me alone to go and secure a post that large and well guarded. "You are joking, right?" I asked with a slightly concerned chuckle. "You don't really expect me to go in there single-handed destroy all those guards, free the prisoners, and conquer the base, do you?"
"I do, but first, you'll need to take a trip to the heart of the world, where the primordial core is located."
I thought that I was lost in thought again. "What?" I asked.
"Just hold still..." She told me as she started to move her hands around almost creating a sphere in motion. I thought she was just crazy until I started to see something glow from within her palm. My eyes widened as she opened her arms wide, sending the orb of gray light straight towards me.
It started to disband the closer it came to me, then started to surround me when it came in contact to my torso. The lights circled my body, then closed around me. They all entered my body, and I could feel the power surge through my body, circulating through my veins, and I felt a thousand times more energetic.
"What was that?" I asked her, raising one eyebrow.
She looked at me and smiled. "You'll find out soon enough." Oh great. I thought. Now the crazy, floating, purple-lipped lady is putting things in me that I have absolutely no idea what they are. Yay.
"Alright then..." I said, eyebrows raised. "What next?"
"The core of the planet." She said simply.
"The- whoa, wait, the core of the what-now?"
Without a word, she pointed somewhere behind me. I followed the direction her finger was pointed with her eyes, which made me turn around. What I saw was a square stone about one third of a meter in both width and length with a spiral carved into it that focused in the very middle of the object. I walked toward it doubtfully. Stopping every other step and looking back at Ly. She still stayed suspended in the air, watching me with almond-shaped eyes. The closer I got to the stone, the more energy I felt surge around me. Once I got within a range of a foot, a light spewed from the stone and surrounded my body, appearing as though I was being sucked into it. Then when I touched the stone, I really was sucked into it.
For a short moment everything went black. When I opened my eyes again, I was being launched into the air, landing safely on a grassy bank in a completely new area. The small strip of land of which I stood on followed a river of stars, with multiple swirls similar to the one on the stone, but red with a yellow core. I took a few steps forward to get a better view of the scene. I walked to the edge of the grass, and peered into the stars.
The stream of portals seemed to go on forever. When I reached my hand down towards the nearest one, it started to move. I jolted backwards in surprise, taking a step or two further inland. I heard tiny wings flutter quickly getting louder from behind me. I turned around, unsheathing my newly accumulated sword and pointing it at the figure.
"Whoa, whoa." He said with his arms outstretched, trying to keep his distance. "Calm down there sparky. And put that thing away, you could poke an eye out with that thing.
I didn't say a word as I put away the weapon, and after a few seconds, I blurted out, "Who the hell are you?"
"Hey, don't use that kind of language with me. It's not nice." He said, flying in circles around me.
"...what?" I asked, confused.
He sighed, "Okay, look. I'm Murphy, and I have absolutely no idea who you are, but Ly seems to trust you, so, why not?. Let's see..." He trailed off, as though trying to remember what he was going to say. "Right!" He remembered. "Alright, we need you to save Rayman, yada, yada, yada, defeat Razorbeard and safe Polokus! These portal lead to places all over the planet, and a few that lead to a neighboring planet, Swizzle Firma, but that's information for later, so let's just put that into the back seat for now."
I didn't even know how to respond. I assumed my silence made him think I was nervous. "Hey, don't worry about it, it'll be all over in about...oh, I'd say a chapter or two. So let's get right to it! Whaddya' say?" He finished with a big grin. I still wasn't sure how to respond. "Look," he sighed. "We need your help, and you're not getting out of here unless you give it. And besides, you wouldn't wanna quit now, would ya? I mean, just think of the readers! It wouldn't be much of a story if you stop it right here, would it?"
"...What?" I asked, puzzled.
He sighed again, "Are you in, or not?"
"...sure?" I answered, not seeing any other option. How I looked at it, I had been abducted by aliens who need my help saving their hero who was taken by intergalactic space robot pirates.
"That's the spirit! ...Sort of. Now, I know you're not from around here, so let me tell you what you need to do is use the portal that leads to the core of the planet, where all the fairies and Teensies live, rescue them, and use the only portal that the robot-pirate army has NOT destroyed leading into their fortress, which they are using to transport the Teensies from their homes and into their wretched prison."
"And how exactly do I find that portal leading to the core of the planet?"
"That's the easy part." He said, backing up, then coming at me at top speed and knocking me off balance, causing me to stumble backwards off the grassy bank and into the endless sea of stars, where I fell into a portal. The next thing I knew, I was flying again, only instead of a grassy knoll to safely land on, I landed face first on a yellow stone floor.
I slowly got back up. I felt like my back had been repeatedly beaten until it was covered with bruises. I looked at where I had entered, which was a larger portal hovering above a smaller version of The Hall of Doors, this one best compared to a large puddle of the mystical stars. I turned around to find a throne made of the same stone as the yellow floor, as well as a group of five or six of the robot-pirates forcing quite an amount of small, blue, long-nosed creatures, each wearing robes and a small crown upon their little heads above miniscule black dots for eyes, which I assumed were the Teensies.
The pirates themselves looked somewhat menacing, then again I hadn't really been outside of Whiterun most of my life, so I hadn't really seen anything that threatening before. They're heads resembled metal skulls with red eyes glowing fiercely. Their heads were placed on box-shaped torsos, each adorned in torn red rags that improvised as jackets, connected only by a short, thin neck that wasn't anymore than a robotic spine, and on each side of their torsos was an equally thin arm before meeting their hands, which were metal boxes with a hook as one arm, and a gun taking the place of the other. The spine was visible again underneath the box chest, leading to another metal box, from which, sprouted two legs that were just steel rods just as the spine and arms were. Each leg was covered with the same material as their shoulders and chest were, and at the end of those were flat-bottom feet, with golden buckles that shone brightly in the light that came through the stained-glass lighting above the portal on top.
I watched as the Teensies, one by one, were kidnapped and forced inside their cages. If one tried to resist, they were immediately held at gunpoint by the only robot that was an exact duplicate to the others, but instead adorned in a cloak with green material contrasting to the red on the other uniforms. Anger built up inside of me as I watched the abuse, and the soldiers hadn't realized I was in their presence. I instinctively unsheathed my sword, bracing myself for a fight.
Just as the pirates bolted the last cage shut, the tip of my sword revealed itself in the chest of the green-suited robot, which attracted his lackeys' attention. The next thing I knew, three were making a mad dash at me, and the other two kept their distance to shoot at me. Not making a move until the nearest one was within a meter away from me, I simply sidestepped to the left, causing one of the pirates to shoot one of their own as I stuck out a leg, tripping the first pirate. As he fell, I grabbed his hook arm while he was still in midair, and using the momentum from his tumble, I swung him around me in a circular motion, throwing him back at the last to run at me, causing them to blow up. A piece of shrapnel from one of the two was the last one's fate, hitting him on the head and separating it from his body, which also exploded.
"That was almost too easy..." I said, suspicious. I used the tip of my sword as a screwdriver, placing it in the bolt and turning it counterclockwise, loosening it. The top popped off of the barred, metal, cube, releasing the Teensie within and exposing him to the colorful light.
He pulled his own tiny crown out from his robes. He nodded in thanks towards me, walking towards the other cages. "We thank you so much for rescuing us!"
"No trouble, no trouble at all." I said, unscrewing the next cage. "Are all of you alright?"
"I'm not exactly sure, we are but a small amount of the Teensies. The rest are already trapped in Razorbeard's prison camp."
"Then not for long." I said, undoing the last cage. I looked over my shoulder at the portal the robots were using for the transportation of their prisoners. "That will take me where I need to go?" I asked, pointing a thumb past my ear and towards the blue swirl.
"Yes, it will take you to their training camp, where they first retrieve us Teensies, followed by wherever they go to next." A second Teensie with a higher pitched voice told me, dusting off his crown.
"Alright, if it goes to the training camp, how am I supposed to get past all those soldiers?" I asked to myself, remembering all the robots I saw in my dream.
"I thought you said you had no trouble?" The first Teensie asked sincerely.
"With five. I'd be undoubtedly doomed if I tried going against even a dozen on my own, especially with their guns..." I said without realizing I was still talking aloud. "I've got no other choice..." Without thinking, I leaped headfirst into the portal.
As soon as the portal expanded so great that it was behind me, I found myself flying towards a different-looking pirate, one with a red doo rag with whited polka dots on top of an oddly shaped head with an underbite, connected to his body by a neck similar to the other robots', however, his head slouched forwards. His chest was yet another box, with arms a little thicker than my own, with hands that were about my size. His spine also connected to his lower body just as the other robots' bodies did, but this one's lower body was a teal with a brightly-colored yellow cloth with red polka dots tied around his waist, which led down to his clunky feet, which had a leather strip wrapped around each one. When I flew into him, he fell to the floor with his body completely dispersed.
This was the robot captain. I slowly stood up, wiping as much oil and grime off me as I could, looking at the pile of parts on the floor. "Whoops..." I said, grimacing at the assortment of a once-living being before me. An idea soon developed in my head-gruesome, but a plan. I reluctantly bent over and picked up a hand of the body, dripping with thick, slick, black oil.
It was somewhat disturbing, not the idea of the oil, or the parts, but the fact that they were just sentient not even a minute prior, thinking for itself. I took a deep breath before wiping the oil and other substances unknown to me off the metal hand, then prying open the molding, revealing the wiring within. I tore it out, leaving it hollow. Using my sword, I managed to cut out a hole that would allow my arm to pass through.
Opening the hand, I placed my own hand into it, acting like an outer shell. My wrist fit perfectly through the hole, and in no time, after repeating the process dozens of times, was wearing the skin of the robot captain. A few spots were cutting into my flesh, which I simply either cut the corner of the piercing metal or, in the few cases where such a process wouldn't work out well, I would tear off a strip of the cloth that made up either the doo rag or the material tied to the waist of my disguise.
The first complication in this mission was a pirate dressed in the red jacket walking in on me hacking at the wires of the pirate captain's head, leaving only a part of the skull that I assumed was the speech box thing, which I hoped would allow me to sound like a pirate when I spoke. Which I assume was both a scary and awkward situation for the pirate grunt. He started to back away towards the entrance of the room. I raised my sword and threw it at the intruder, sending it flying through him and blowing him up in the process. One thing I've already noticed about the pirates, they either blew up into a cloud of smoke once killed, each appendage flying in the direction it was pointing, or the only case being the one I was wearing the skin of, simply falling apart into a cluttered mess of pieces on the ground. Then again, I didn't really defeat him, rather plowing into him.
Once I was done with the task of finding a way through the pirates without causing the entire fortress going into alert, I heard cries of help. I turned around to where the portal was, finding a pile of cages that were also exact duplicates to the ones I freed the Teensies from on the other side of the portal. I scavenged the room for anymore cages, looking through the several machines and on the numerous tables and things alike and taking every cage I found and putting them in the middle of the room. I explored the remnants of the robot pirate I had killed just minutes ago for his weapon. Once I found it, I removed the captain's hand from my own, then emptied the plasma cannon from the robot grunt I vanquished except for anything connected to the actual weapon part, which was actually most of it, so my hand was left with minimal space. However, it still worked.
I raised the gun and gazed at it in the reflection of the light illuminating off of the portal. I lowered it to the pile of cages, taking aim at the top one. I saw the eyes from within the cage get wide-eyed as I shot the first red ball of energy at it. It worked perfectly, blowing the cage apart and releasing more Teensies from their tiny prison. Each cage released one more Teensie each, and when I was done, a crowd of Teensies surrounded me, all thanking me with the utmost sincerity.
I watched as one by one, they disappeared into the portal, along with each of their shiny crowns, which I still wondered why they all had. One stayed behind, however. "We all thank you, once again, great hero, but there are still more Teensies, as well as most of Polokus's population to be saved, as well as Rayman. If you rescue Rayman, I can almost guarantee that you'll have a much easier time saving everyone. Just a piece of advice, which I hope is as helpful as can be." He said before jumping into the portal and joining with the others of his kind.
I took a deep breath, "This is going to be harder than I thought..." I sighed. "Saving an entire planet..." I thought aloud. I left the room in my metal suit with my sword safely stashed in my chest cavity along with its sheath and sword belt, wrapped in the cloth that was originally tied around the captain's waist to keep it from causing any unwanted sounds of metal banging on metal.
I walked past the sentries as casually as I could, trying to act completely normal. Apparently, I must've looked like the captain would have, as well as carrying himself just as he would've, therefore, no one seemed to know the difference. I eventually found the entrance to the training academy, which led me to the courtyard. It was a large, open area with buildings that towered over the land menacingly. The grass beneath my feet were black and withered, covered with oil and trampled beyond ability to be revived for some time. I walked through the open land, passing multiple groups of hostages led by three or more pirates each, every pirate I came across saluting to me as I passed. I only ignored them, for my mind was somewhere else, concocting a plan to obliterate this scar upon the land. I was only biting my time. First, step 1: an underground uprising.
As I walked around aimlessly, a pair of green-cloaked pirates made their way towards me, where they stopped and saluted, awaiting me to give them the "at ease" order. Once I gave it, they immediately reported in their strange, electronic voices: "Sir, Prisoners 0004 and 0024 are refusing to continue with their duties. We await your orders."
At this point, I was glad to have left in that speech box thing, because it actually worked. "Take me to him, I will personally take the matter into my own hands."
"Yes sir!" They said in unison, both saluting. They immediately lowered their arms and escorted me through the busy, yet dead land until we stopped at an entrance to something that looked like a tunnel. We walked through the tunnel, which had a steep, flat surface going upwards to wherever they were taking me. We were walking on what resembled a sidewalk with the slope being the road.
After about two minutes or so of them leading me up the tunnel, we eventually came out into the open, where the sun shone brightly, reflecting off of the black ocean with lights that burned into my eyes. This was the same ocean I saw in my dream, with the same large pipe spewing a thick stream of waste into the ocean. Swimming in the ocean was a large whale, and a hulking creature with a large chin that I thought resembled a pelican's, standing next to the pipe, who looked like he was about to rip me apart. He was surrounded by robot pirate guards.
"I'm not doing anything, if you want me to do things, then you're gonna have to make me." He said, getting closer and closer to me, standing over me. He had wide shoulders with large arms with muscles bulging, I found him...intimidating. The pirate to my left took out a remote and pressed the only button on it, a large, red one, as if by instinct. As soon as he pushed it, the prisoner yelled out in pain while his massive body fidgeted. I raised an arm to call off the device, to which the robot pushed the button again, and the prisoner's body relaxed, and fell to the ground. Every other second, his whole body would tremble momentarily while his eyes grimaced in pain.
After a few minutes of watching this atrocity, one of the pirates that was with the prisoner before we came in pulled him up, hitting him hard with the back of his hook hand, creating a high-pitched ping noise upon contact. After repeatedly doing so, the victim's eyelids twitched, and slowly opened until his blue-tinted eyes were once more wide open. He looked up at me in fear and shock, now remembering his place to the other pirates.
"I'll take care of this one." I said with the robotic voice vibrating in my head. "You all leave here, except for you three." I said, pointing my cannon arm at the two that lead me here and the prisoner's torturer. Once the pirates left the metal layered beach with the black oil water and large barbed wire fences surrounding it, as well as the designated section of the beach itself, I looked at the prisoner.
"Sir, this is prisoner 0004," he said, pointing his hook at the hulking mass of fear sitting before me, "and that is prisoner 0024." He finished, pointing his arm gun at the behemoth whale in the waters.
I nodded, still looking at Prisoner 0004. His fear automatically changed to hatred and confusion. The look on his face was unforgettable when I shot off the heads of the three pirates I kept behind. He was wide-eyed and his jaw practically dropped to the ground. He took a couple steps back away from me, cornering himself with his back to the enormous pipe leading back to the rest of the prison camp. I grabbed the cannon off my left hand and removed it, freeing my cramping hand into the warm rays of the sun, still glowing brightly in the dawn behind the ocean.
I stretched my fingers individually by bending them, opening and closing my hand into a fist, hearing my knuckles crack. Once I was done with that, I took one of my fingers and slid it into the extra space I had made for my wrist on my right arm, opening its shell as well. Repeating the process of stretching my hand, without as much cramping this time, however, I reached my arms up to my head, removing my metallic helmet and revealing it to the fresh air, the sun warming my neck, the wind whistling past my ears, and the strong, heavy scent of oil in the air.
I looked at the dumbfounded prisoner once more. "Name?" I asked plainly.
He opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came out, like he was deciding whether he should give out the simple information.
"Look, I'm the good guy here. You can trust me, especially with something as small as a name." I persuaded.
"...Clark." He said slowly.
"And that one?" I asked, motioning my head backwards toward the ocean, where the whale swam in the filth of the oil.
He had more confidence in his voice this time when he spoke, "Carmen."
"Okay, so you wouldn't to know where I can find a prisoner by the name of 'Rayman', would you?" At the very mention of this name, Clark's face lit up like a Christmas Tree. I large smile grew on his face from ear to ear, white teeth showing and all. He ran to me and lifted me in the air using his hands like a platform.
"You're gonna save Rayman? You're gonna beat Razorbeard!" He yelled, spinning around in a circle along with me still on his hands. I almost fell off before he slowed down and stopped.
"So I take it you know where I can find him?" I asked dizzily. The whole world still continued to spin, all in a blur as it moved across my vision.
He lowered me back to the ground, lowering his head along with me. Without looking up, he said to me, "Sadly, no. I have no idea where Rayman is kept."
I sighed, not knowing what to do next. Then I realized: this could be the perfect way to start the uprising. I pointed to the pipe, "Do you know where this leads?"
He nodded excitedly. "I heard the robots talking about it. They called it the 'Robot Manufacturing Plant'."
A smile crept its way onto my face. Perfect. Then I realized something else. "What kind of idiot leaves you in charge of making sure the pipe leading from somewhere like that works properly?" If you asked me, it was poor planning on their part.
"If I didn't do it, that robot would shock me." He said, pointing a strict finger at the third dead pirate's head, sitting on the ground at my feet.
"So why'd you rebel just then?"
"I didn't know what else to do." He answered simply.
We sat there in silence for a moment or two, the only sounds coming from Carmen the whale in the ocean still at my back. "What's her purpose?" I asked, pointing a thumb over my shoulder back at the sound of lapping water.
"The robots use her blubber for fuel." He explained. I didn't really see how that worked, seeing as how if that were true, I was pretty sure she'd be dead. However, I didn't question it.
"Could I ask you of assisting me?" I asked him, to which, he nodded vigorously. "Wait for about 20 minutes, if you could, continue doing whatever you're supposed to be doing." As I talked, he only continued to nod, his attention completely on me. "If there are any pirates here at the time, kill them." I said, smashing the remote that the third pirate had. "Now that the remote's destroyed, you won't have to worry about that, alright? Destroy the pipe, then follow it, and destroy as much of the Pirate Reproduction Plant as you possibly can." When I mentioned destroying the plant, his face lit up again. "That should help keep the pirates' numbers from replenishing or increasing."
"Got it!" He said to me. I replaced the robotic helmet over my own head, as well as the hands over my own, concealing them in metal once again.
"Once you're done with that," I said, turning to leave, "find me, and while you're doing so, destroy as many robots as possible." His teeth showed again in another bright smile.
I entered the tunnel once more, taking a deep breath to clear my thoughts. The next place I'd need to visit would be the actual prison cells. I thought about my next move as I walked down the slope of the tunnel with the only sound being that of my heavy, clunky, metal body's footsteps echoing endlessly in the dark, lengthy passageway.
When I finally reached the other end of the tunnel, I found myself in a crowd of robot pirate grunts walking through the flatland of the courtyard. I decided to map out the area in my head for possible future reference. I left the group, and started to follow the walls of the fortress. The wall turned a small number of times, and when I pictured the overhead view of the layout, what came to mind was a pentagon, with tunnels or training camps aligning each wall, and at each point, was a larger building that towered over the rest, and for whatever reason, each were numbered.
The tunnel leading to the ocean was on the top-left wall moving upwards to the top of the pentagon, between buildings numbers 1 and 5, 1 being the uppermost point of the pentagon, and the opposite corner being five. The numbers increased for the buildings counterclockwise, and after walking through the courtyard the long way, there was another building similar to the building tucked away in the corners of the pentagon. The biggest similarity was that it, too, was numbered: 6. I assumed each building had a significant purpose, but I didn't linger in thought for very long on the subject, especially when I finally found the prison cells on the opposite side of the fortress as the ocean's entrance, in the building labeled "3".
Before I entered, there was something attached to the middle of the door, and when I moved my face closer to it for a better inspection, it released a beam of light that moved up and down, scanning my face. Once it was finished, the light retreated, and the door opened on its own. I walked inside carefully, making sure I was keeping watch from all directions that something could pop out and attack me from.
While I was taking the extra precautions, however, I ended up completely lost. The fact that all the halls and passageways looked exactly the same, like it was all looped did not help my sense of direction whatsoever. The only thing I could do was gaze at all the starving, thirsty, helpless prisoners and their depressed faces. The fear in their eyes that appeared when they caught sight of me made me feel ashamed for a reason unknown to me. It wasn't me that they were afraid of, but my exoskeleton.
After aimlessly walking for a few minutes, I estimated that I only had a small amount of time before Clark would break loose. How much time exactly I wasn't sure. There were still so many obstacles that I needed to surpass before I could really attempt anything: the force field that domed over the pentagon, the six buildings, the endless amount of pirates that we'd have to fight our way through. And even if I somehow managed to pull through all of that, I'd still need to find a way to defeat Razorbeard. It seemed helpless.
I looked up from the wooden floor that had been worn down by the constant abuse of the heavy, metal feet that were almost always stomping across them of the prison cells when I realized I had become deeply developed in thought again. When I did, I found what might have been the answer to my problems. In the large, circular room I was in there was a sort of cage that differed majorly from the rest, it was a force field similar to the one that covered the fortress, only in the shape of a pillar in the middle of the room, up on a raised platform, sat a prisoner whose body almost reminded me of a frog.
He was somewhat chubby, with arms that reminded me of my own; really thin, with green-tinted hands at the end of each one. His feet were webbed, he was a shade of blue-green, with a flat head without a chin, or nose. His eyes were tinted blue just as Clark's was, with black dots as pupils, also just as Clark's, and sat like two eggs on top of his head.
He sat in the middle of his chamber, depressed. The room I was in was full of green-cloaked robot pirates, and even a few that I did not recognize. Their heads were slim, also wearing a doo rag just as my suit was, a golden hook contrasting to the other pirates' iron, their chests more of a trapezoid shape, with a belt wrapped around them, more decorative boots, with a more normal foot shape. Unlike the others, also, they did not wear any jackets, instead exposed their sleek, black bodies and faces. However, just as the other pirates did, they were equipped with a cannon, too.
The closer I got to the prisoner, the more pirates seemed to get in my way. And when I reached the control panel in front of the prisoner's mini prison, a walking barrel with eyes glowing from a rectangular hole cut into them entered from another door, walking on two feet and, not having any arms, had a weapon attached to its head. He walked towards me, and I feared that I had been discovered, but he only walked right past me. I sighed deeply with relief, sending more hot air into the already steaming metal suit.
I looked over the high-tech panels aligning the bottom of the wall just beneath the cage that the prisoner was in. Is this Rayman? He seems to be a high-class threat to the pirates if he's locked up like this, away from the others. I felt something tap my shoulder. As quick as a flash and without control over myself as I did, I raised my left hand and pointed my gun at the special pirate that was made of the black steel. He didn't seem surprised that I had pointed a weapon at him, but he looked confusingly at the gun.
"Sir, what is it that you need?" He asked.
I lowered the gun. "I need the room cleared, I want to speak with the prisoner. Alone."
He seemed hesitant, but not long afterwords, he nodded. "The captain requests that the room is cleared!" He yelled with his electronic tone in his voice that bounced off of the wooden walls and ceiling in the enormous room. They immediately stopped what they were doing, whether it have been working at the panels, guarding the cage, or just loitering about the room for no specific reason. I turned around to see the mysterious figure lift his head and looked at me. His eyes had fear in them, but it was mostly shrouded in depression and loss, like he had given up on life. Like he had lost everything.
I watched in pity as I waited for the room to empty. I heard numerous doors closing all at once, then a stampede of feet making the sound of wood banging on metal. Once the sounds faded out of earshot, I looked around in the room. I was almost completely alone, the only ones in the room being me, the prisoner, and the black-skinned robot.
I glanced at the panels still on with screens glowing green with white letters. I looked at the other pirate in the room, who was saluting. I nodded, then shot him, creating a hole in his chest followed by him exploding. I turned to the prisoner one last time. I couldn't help but smile at the confusion in his eyes, which was greater by far than Clark's reaction.
I walked to the panels, not taking my eye off of the prisoner. I found one panel that displayed a large switch that was in the "off" position. I took a metal finger and touched the image, though nothing I touched was solid, so my finger passed through some. I flicked the finger in the opposite direction than what it was already set on, sliding it to the right, and turning the switch green and big, white letters appearing above it displaying the word "on".
I listened to the harmonious sounds of all the doors leading into the room locking all at once. Through small windows in the doors, I saw robots hear the noise as well, taking on a dumbfounded expression on their metal faces, which was really only shown by the enlarging of their eyes once they realized the doors were then sealed. I looked to the panel next to the door lock switch, seeing that it was another hologram of a switch. I repeated the process just as I did with the last panel.
I looked up at the prison cell to watch the force field evaporate, and a part of the top of the cell slowly lower to the ground to act as stairs. As I walked up the stairs and watching the fear and confusion in the prisoner's eyes increase until his eyes looked like they were about to pop out of his head, I shed my robust second layer, allowing my skin to breath in the cool temperature of the room, compared to the hot, humid disguise. I let the chest drop off of me, sending a loud clunk through the room, echoing itself until it slowly faded away into nonexistence. I bent over to retrieve my sword, still wrapped in the yellow cloth.
I removed the fabric to first reveal the belt, which I straitened out from its originally bent position that I forced it into to save room. The dark-brown leather was creased at the folds, but I ignored them at the time, still standing before the prisoner and showing him my true identity. Lastly, I ripped the remaining material from my sword, causing it to shine brightly once again in its unique hue of blue. I looked up at the frightened prisoner, the light reflecting off my sword and giving his skin a darker tone of blue.
"P-please don't kill me. I-I won't-I won't tell anyone I swear!" He pleaded.
"Ease your stress, I'm not here to kill you, but rather, the complete opposite." I said, brushing any scraps of the shredded strip of cloth off my sword and rust off my black leather tunic. "Are you Rayman?"
"Wh-...no no, I'm not Rayman, in fact, I was expecting him to find his way here and save me." After a moment of silence other than the quiet cursing under my breath, which I hoped he was unable to hear, he broke the stillness. "I'm Globox." He said, reaching out an arm.
I smiled at his gesture. Shaking his outstretched hand, I said, "Nicholas. But you can just call me Nick."
"So you're looking for Rayman in specific?" He asked worriedly.
"Well, no. I've just been..." I paused to find the right word, "...informed, that I should seek him out, and he would lift a heavy burden from my shoulders."
"...I did not understand a single word of that." He said simply.
I rubbed my temples trying to find a way to word out my thoughts in a way that would be easier for him to comprehend. "The Teensies and Clark told me that if I found him, he'd be a great help to me."
"Oh, okay. So you helped Clark out too, huh?"
I was surprised he knew Clark. "Yeah, in fact..." I trailed off, realizing that he should've attempted his part of the plan by now.
As if on cue, the entire area started to vibrate, first slightly, then quickly transforming into a vigorous earthquake. Large explosions could be heard from a far distance away. I assumed he did it. The quaking continued, and the pirates started to bang against the doors, trying to get back in to find the problem, but once they peered through the windows, they saw me and the freed Globox, and their red eyes grew twice their original size. I moved towards the nearest door from the containment cell to watch the confusion.
One pirate shot at the door, immediately tackled by his comrades, just barely knocked out of the way of the returning ball of energy. The doors were bulletproof. An intense rumbling rose above the earthquake, becoming more intense every second it continued, before Clark burst through the door on the opposite side of the room. Behind him, dozens of robot pirate corpses lay in his wake.
"GLOBOX!" He yelled with arms reached out from either side, running straight towards us. He closed his arms around us and held us up in the air with his literally breathtaking hug.
Globox was just barely able to let his voice out through his struggling for air. "Hey...Clark!"
I guessed my choking was what made Clark set us back down. "Where's your family?" He asked Globox.
He looked down at the ground. The depressed look on his face reappeared. That must've been why he asked if I was only looking for Rayman. "I don't know," he shrugged. "They could be anywhere in this place."
I wasn't exactly sure what I was getting myself into, but I took pity on Globox. "Well I guess we'll just have to find them, now don't we?" His face automatically lit up with joy.
"Well let's go! There's no time to lose!" He eagerly yelled. He started to run for the door Clark had busted forth from, where I pulled him aside just in time to watch a glowing red plasma ball fly through the door. He looked at me and gave a nervous laugh.
"I've got an idea." I said, frantically alternating my gaze from the doors, the panels, and back at Globox and Clark. "Clark, I need you to rip these doors out of the walls, you and Globox will use them as shields. Got it?" He gave a quick nod of his head, and turned around quickly, and ran to a door. "Globox, I need a name of each person from your family." I said over my shoulder as I ran to the control panels.
I prayed that they had what I hoped they had on them. I quickly ran my fingers over the panels, and as if by magic, images appeared on them. Globox began listing members of his family. "Uglette, and all of my uglings." He said quickly. I looked at him dumbly, at first thinking that he was joking. I was going to scold him for playing around at such an inopportune time if it weren't for the name "Uglette" and multiple results for his children, all under one category of "uglings". I stared blankly at the screen in disbelief.
"Alright." I said dumbly.
"Hey...what's your name?" I heard Clark ask.
Without looking away from the panels, informing me of the locations of Globox's family's locations, I answered without paying attention, "Nick." I said, looking down at the multiple buttons with letters and numbers on them and then back at the screen. They certainly didn't have this sort of technology back in Skyrim.
"Oh, okay. Hey Nick?"
"Yeah?" I looked up from the screens. Clark was standing at the other side of the room in front of me with a tower of doors held high over his head.
"What now?" He asked. Again, I stared in disbelief.
I shook off the confusion momentarily, answering his question. "Give one to Globox, that is, if he's able to hold it."
"I'm able to hold it." He boasted as he was handed a door. He had to hold it with both hands, one at the handle and one at the window, but he was surely holding it. He raised it like a shield, proving its efficiency.
"Perfect." I said, returning my gaze to the panel. I had discovered other information, including who the pirates' models that I had encountered so far. The pirates in general were "henchmen", with purple jacketed, which I have yet to come across at that point (according to the computer, they were mainly produced for outside operations, such as retrieving smaller, weaker creatures from Polokus and returning with as many captured as possible), red jacketed, the second-class of their model, and the top-grade, the green jackets. Then there were others such as the "ninja pirate", which was the higher grade of the henchmen that I had ordered to clear the room, and the "barrel pirate", which was, of course, the oversized, walking barrel with eyes and a gun strapped to his head that I had seen crossing my path not to long ago.
While I was browsing the vast amount of information, I came across one name that seemed to stick out to me: Matthew Rains. He had funded Razorbeard's fortress, allowing them to afford the high quality technology that they had in their possession. Apparently, Admiral Razorbeard had recently made an alliance with an organization named "The Blood Knights", and in agreement to capturing Polokus, Rains would continue the flow of Credits, which were the intergalactic form of currency, unlike on Earth, where we use multiple forms: septims; rupees; dollars; euros; gil; copper, silver, and gold pieces; and in some areas, people even excepted rings. All belonging to their respective countries. Back at the matter in hand, I needed to find out more about The Blood Knights, but there was no more information of use on the subject on those panels.
I had also came across Rayman's location, or locations, rather. I was sickened to discover that he was split up into sixths, and each part was now locked up at each of the numbered buildings I had noticed prior to entering the prison cells. I took a deep breath as I took a few steps back away from the panels. Then I noticed the battle that was already in effect.
Directly in front of me, the henchmen were entering the room and shooting at us. I quickly rolled backwards and slipped around one of the two doors that Clark was holding up. Despite the attack, and the dozens of pirates spilling into the room, I was somewhat satisfied with how well the doors were working as shields.
A storm of energy balls shot from the pirates' cannons flew at us, but not a single one doing any damage whatsoever, because the plasma only bounced harmlessly off of the doors, and were each sent directly back at the pirates. As each one was struck by their own attacks, they all blew up, one by one, like watching fireworks. Before too long, the room was empty except for one or two pirates who were smart enough not to dare shoot again in fear that it might also come back and betray them.
I quickly dashed through the length of room at the robots, who, in response, shot at me. As a natural instinct similar to flinching, as one flew towards my face -everything in slow motion- I rose my sword up into the air to block it, and to my surprise, it deflected the blast and sailed through the air straight back at its shooter, who blew up upon impact. I looked endearingly at my sword, the very same instrument that had seized me when I had first came into contact with. It was now my greatest ally. I turned my head at the other robot, who I watched run for his life down the hallway, before turning around the corner and out of sight.
I sighed in relief, looking back at the other two, who had lowered their shields. The shields were both efficient, and effective, I knew were Rayman was, Clark destroyed the pirate production facility, which was what I assumed was that loud explosion Globox and I heard. Next step: free the other prisoners. I ran out the door I thought I came in and gazed at all the different passageways. I turned to a random one, finding myself in front of piles of cages strewn about. I raised my sword and opened each cage, one after another, and released all the prisoners trapped within. Clark also assisted in this matter, crushing the cages and breaking the imprisoned inside free.
We made our way to where Globox's family was being held, leaving nothing but metal debris behind us, freeing dozens of slaves, all of which almost never looking like another, and annihilating any robots we encountered. We made our way to another room a lot like the one Globox was being held, only there was only empty space in the middle of the room replacing a cage like Globox's. The only cages in the room were small, barred rooms along the walls. Inside one, was a figure that strikingly resembled Globox, only this one was obviously feminine, and was a shade of magenta.
"Uglette! uglings!" Globox yelled, running to the cage with the female him and the one next to it, filled with mini-Globoxes.
"They're Uglette and your uglings?" I asked.
"Yep!" Clark's voice bellowed.
"Alright, so all that remains is Rayman." I said.
"And the slaves." Globox added, sliding the cage doors open.
"Right. Globox, do you think you and your family can destroy the rest of the cages?"
"I think we could. Yeah." He nodded in affirmation.
"Good. Clark, you're with me." I said, turning around to where Clark stood.
"You're just gonna leave Globox and his family alone?" He asked.
I thought about it for a moment. "Alright, you go with Globox, and I'll see if I can save Rayman."
"Got it!" He said, stomping his way towards Globox and the others. Without looking back, I made a mad dash for the entrance to the room we came through. Next step: free Rayman.
I ran through the plethora of halls containing the imprisoned, obliterating any cages that I could, as well as opening any cells similar to the one Uglette and the uglings were in, and eventually found myself running in circles. All the halls looked exactly the same, so it was difficult to distinguish the differences between them. They only differed by the prisoners that roamed around, still disoriented on what to do next.
After many mistakes and tiny bursts of rage that burned within me once I realized that I had copied my route yet again, I managed to discover a set of stairs in a side hallway leading away from the others going upwards. Though I had no idea where I was going, I decided to take the risk and venture up the stairs.
The stairs led me to a small entryway, allowing me either to continue or turn back downstairs. I continued forward, finding myself in an enormous room...filled with Henchmen. They were all guarding something in the middle of the room, closed behind a large containment unit, and what looked something like a shoe.
All the Henchmen spotted me at once before I had a chance to even attempt to conceal myself. They raised up their weapons and simultaneously fired, sending a wall of plasma towards me. I raised my sword in defense, reflecting a section of the red substance that was just over my size back at the robots, causing a portion of them to explode. The remaining sentries ran towards me, stopping not to far from me. One shot at me, which I deflected back at a pirate trying to flank me, I swung my sword at the pirate that had fired, causing him to split in half. A second pirate tried hitting me with his hook, which I caught in my sword. I twisted my sword, causing him to do a back flip and fly off my sword at a crowd of his own.
With the hook still on my sword, I turned around to hit another pirate, making the hook fly off at another. One tried to grab me from behind, as a response, I stepped on his foot and bashed his face in with my elbow, making him fall to his knees. I held him up in front of me as a human-shield, protecting me from a barrage of red balls. I swung around to throw the pirate at his own comrades.
Soon enough, the room was cleared. Looking around for a final inspection, I was pleased to see a completely empty room. I turned to the object being locked up. I paced the circumference of the case, looking for a way to open it. Before long, I found another device similar to the one outside the building that opened the door, only this one had an indent shaped like a hook and was attached on a pole facing the case. I looked at the floor to my side, where the broken and beaten henchmen I used as a shield lied. I bent over and ripped his hook off of his arm, shooting sparks everywhere, harmlessly bouncing off of the metallic floor.
I placed the hook in the indent with a perfect fit. The beam scanned the hook, and a green light glowed above the console when it was finished. I removed the hook and hung it loosely on my sword belt. The room filled with smoke as the case rose, allowing me access to the object it contained, which was, in fact, a yellow and white sneaker. I shook my head in confusion and gripped it tightly. Apparently, I gripped it too tightly.
It flung itself out of my hand, bouncing around everywhere aimlessly. "What the hell?" I whispered to myself. It jumped towards the stairs, where it tumbled down, hitting each step. "Wait up!" I yelled at it. I went back down the stairs to the ground floor, where the shoe sat motionless. I picked it back up, half expecting it to move on its own again. After a minute of stillness, I assumed it was either my imagination or it was dead.
I held the shoe low to the ground, sheathing my sword back in its scabbard. I cautiously made my way out of the building, making sure not to backtrack again. I backed out of the facility with the shoe raised up in front of my face to guard myself. I turned around to see the courtyard in chaos. The prisoners had rebelled, and had overrun the pirates, destroying them in every way imaginable: tackling them, kicking their heads off, or in Clark's case, disassembling them with one punch. The pirates were on the run.
Without any resistance, I ran north to the next point in the pentagram, Building 4- Training Camp. I entered the building, somewhat remembering the layout. I ran through the large, open rooms and long, thin halls until I discovered yet another staircase leading up. It was practically a duplicate setup as the last one, only the room with the case was free of pirates. I removed the hook from my belt and placed it in its indent just as I had done with the last one. I replaced it back in its place once the case rose, this time releasing a white hand, which was very disturbing.
I took the hand and felt its smooth surface in my palm. It was warm, which did not help my situation at all in thinking that it was terrifying. Although I very reluctant, and with some struggle, I eventually pinned the hand down by stuffing it in the satchel of my sword belt. Afterwords, I had no troubles at all. I left Building 4 to continue the quest for the rest of Rayman, but when I went to the courtyard, I was expecting it to be full of either prisoners, or henchmen, but it was completely empty.
"Where..." I trailed off, looking around. I looked to the sky, where the force field still glowed brightly. The hand and foot shuffled in my satchel, then jumped out. Faster than what I expected to be possible, the hand threw the ground beneath it behind it, sending it into the air and flying forwards, repeating the process once it landed back to the ground, and the foot bounced forward in a similar manner as I followed them, first at a light jog that quickly turned into a sprint. They made their way to the center building.
The appendages stopped at one of the doors leading to Building 6. At first the hand felt the door for a way to surpass it, I assumed. However it abruptly got angry when its efforts came out fruitless, showing this emotion by grabbing the shoe and flinging itself into the air, hurling it into the steel door, creating a loud thud as the sound reverberated through the empty plot of land. After observing the enraged pieces of Rayman, I walked to the door and decided to examine it myself.
There were two scanners similar to the one that scanned my face not long ago and the two that opened the prisons of the two body parts, so I simply placed the hook back in its perfectly-shaped indent. After watching in awe once more as the blue light followed the length of the curved metal, the door flew apart down the middle, each half of the door retreating in opposite directions, revealing the darkness of the inside. I cautiously walked in, unsheathing my sword and holding it up to deflect or reflect any possible traps.
After about a minute of holding my paranoia, I slowly lowered my sword when I discovered a large, red lever in the up position. With both hands, I pushed down with all my strength, flipping the switch and lighting up the red-yellow light bulb beneath. I turned around when the lights illuminated the entire building, finding the hand and foot wobbling to the center of the one-room building.
The walls and floor were completely white, so much so that it burned my eyes to look around, and the light from the blue containment unit similar to the one Globox had been kept in was reflecting off the floors, only assisting in blinding me. To protect my eyesight, I had to squint, and I could barely see. I immediately walked to the containment unit, searching for the scanner device that would open the futuristic cage. I managed to discover another one, but instead of it being a hook shape, it was fitted for a tiny hand that had all five fingers melded together.
Realizing that there was no way for me to open it normally, I looked up at what I was freeing. It was actually two items, one being what I assumed was the torso of Rayman, being a purple oval with a flat bottom and a scarf lying on top of it, in the middle of the purple was a perfectly round white circle, and an orb of light similar to the one Ly gave me earlier levitating above it. Only this one was a bright gold.
I lowered my head back to the console in front of the barrier, and I had an idea. I pulled my sword out of its sheathe and stuck it into the console and turned it, sending sparks of various sizes in every direction upwards, then fading out as they reached the floor. A bolt of electricity consumed the entire console as I pulled the blade back out of it and backed away, replacing it in my sword belt. It made a tiny explosion, busting half of the panel on the surface and destroying the scanner.
A second later the barrier had a bolt of greater size consume the bottom of it, and it burst in multiple places before the light faded into oblivion, revealing the part of Rayman and the sphere of light. The other pieces and I slowly came closer to the smoking machine, and when the foot and hand got close enough, the torso sensed it and hopped up off of the pedestal it was placed on and landed about a quarter of a meter in the air above the shoe. A second later, the hand flung itself in the air to the torso, sticking the same distance to the side of it. Once the hand balled itself into a fist a few times, it hung loosely with the fingers reaching down just beneath the purple torso. Then it fell to the side it did not have a foot on.
After observing this act I continued to the sphere. It glowed brightly and shot at me before I was two meters away from it, encircling me just as the first did. Once I absorbed the light, I felt energy surge through me, which concentrated in my hands, which were having muscle spasms. After it was finished, I felt something inside of me awake. I felt like I was going to explode with energy before my hand shot a golden ball at the wall, which bounce off harmlessly and came flying back at me. I ducked just in time for it to graze past my hair and continue going.
I felt my hair for the area it touched, but it was completely unharmed. I turned in surprise when I heard a pirate explode. Apparently, the ball continue and went through the door as soon as it was opened by a group of Henchmen. It hit one of them and caused it to explode. The rest aimed at me with their weapons. I flung my left hand to my sword still in its place, but when I did, another golden ball was sent out of my palm. I examined my hand in shock, but was snapped back to reality as I was shot in the face by one of the red balls. It felt like someone had punched me with all their might.
I rubbed my cheek where it made contact, then threw myself over the console and ducked behind it. I glanced at the struggling half of Rayman, which still wobbled helplessly. I readied my sword and my hand, ready to attack once again. I flung my free right hand to the sides as I strafed constantly to avoid the balls of pain. Whenever one got close, I simply impaled it or cut it in two causing it to explode and keep any others at bay, and when there was a shot fired that I couldn't dodge, I deflected it with my sword. The odds were in my favor, but there was still something that bothered me, what happened to the others?
Eventually the crowd of attackers began to thin out, and I had less troubles clearing them out as I slowly covered ground towards the door leading outside. They started taking cover, which wasn't too much trouble seeing as how the balls I shot bounced off the walls behind them and got them in the back. At one point, I found myself in the open in the middle of the courtyard, shooting down any pirates that revealed themselves, however, this was short-lived and was stopped when I was shot with a bolt of electricity from behind. I fell to my knees, paralyzed in both surprise and pain. With some struggle and rebellion from my limbs unwilling to do what they were told, I managed to stand up on both feet.
My vision was darkened and was tinted in red and my body felt uneven, so I was constantly leaning one direction or another. I reached my arms out for something to catch them and enable me to stabilize myself. I looked behind me at my attacker, finding a barrel pirate standing before me with a small trail of smoke leading from me to the laser attached to his head. He sent another bolt at me, making another direct hit, and I was once more sent to the ground. Once I was down, the other pirates started sending massive barrages of balls of plasma towards me, forcing my body to lie flat on the ground helplessly.
I was being pummeled, being flung in every direction, only to flop down to the ground again. I looked up, and I saw Clark, bashing in multiple robots at a time, then jumping high in the air, balling both hands to form one giant fist. He sent his weight down to the ground as he fell, landing his wrecking ball-like hands down on the head of the barrel pirate, forcing it to cave in on itself. As he was doing this, a figure appeared in the distance...
As is came closer, becoming more distinct with every step it made towards me. Max. He stopped at my side and reached out a hand to pull me up. "I...thought..." I whispered.
I will always be with you. I heard his voice in my mind, I though he was thinking through me. I grabbed his hand and lifted my weight up so that I was standing on my feet again. Now go. Here's your chance. He said before vanishing into thin air. I blinked in confusion once or twice, then understood what he meant. The Henchmen were distracted, I need to free the rest of Rayman.
Unsteadily, I walked back into Building 6, and grabbed Rayman's body by the hand, dragging him behind me. I ran as fast as I could without falling over myself, and watched as the next building grew in size and revealed more detail as I drew closer. Eventually I was able to make out a large number 2 on the facade of the structure, just as the other buildings had for their numbers. The next thing I knew, I was inside the building, limping through the large rooms, climbing the stairs, and in front of the console. It felt like I was nodding off, conscientiousness coming and going.
I leaned on the console for a minute or two, catching my breath and getting my thoughts together. I took a deep breath, puffed out my cheeks, and slowly let out the air through puckered lips. I was having a migraine, and the harsh, bright florescent lights weren't helping. I rubbed my temples slowly until the pain went away, and as soon as it subsided enough, I unsheathed my sword, and forced it into the console. Sparks flew, and explosions pierced my eardrums, strengthening the pain.
As the case was destroyed, I sunk to the ground, leaning against the console. I felt like I was being consumed, the pain reached down my neck and crawled down my back, traveling through my spine to my thighs and extending to my arms and legs. My muscles locked up, and I was left unable to move, and whenever I tried, the limbs not only didn't respond, but they ached. My sword violently vibrated, causing it to slowly come loose from the switch. It landed at my feet and the gem glowed brightly, burning into my retinas. My vision was consumed by the blue light the sword emanated, increasing the pain. I grunted through clenched teeth as it continued...then nothing.
I relaxed my wincing face, and looked around. The other hand was reunited with what pieces of Rayman I had accumulated, the pain was gone, and I felt normal again. I blinked in confusion, and delicately picked up my sword. I cautiously stood up expecting the migraine to make a reappearance, but it never did. I sighed in relief after about a minute.
I made my way out of the building while dragging Rayman behind me with one of his hands while the other one reached down to the ground to maintain balance. I walked through the courtyard now covered with robot parts. I searched for any sign of Clark as I walked to where the next piece of Rayman should have been held, and I found him out of breath on top of a pile of Henchman torsos. He saw me and waved with a big grin that showed large, white teeth, then pointed out in the distance where the black body of water was, but when I looked in the direction, I saw clear blue water, which seemed illogical, but I wasn't complaining. Then Carmen the whale leaped out of the ocean and spurted a large stream of water from her spout before landing back in her waters with a mighty splash that I could hear from the hundreds of kilometers away I was.
After enjoying the sight, I immediately turned my attention back to the task on hand. I walked across the black-stained grassland surrounded by the nearly conquered fortress, and as I walked, I noticed that the oil on the grass reflected brightly in the moonlight, gleaming through the large barrier still hovering over the facility. I hadn't realized it was nighttime until then. I finally reached the door of Building 4, where I opened the door to find Globox.
"Hi! Just thought you might need some help." He said, handing me Rayman's other shoe.
"Wow...I certainly wasn't expecting to see you here." I said. "What happened to the other prisoners?"
"They all left."
"Left? And you didn't?"
"Well, Uglette and my Uglings left, but I stayed because I thought I might be able to help by 'lifting a heavy burden off your shoulders'." He said with a smile.
I laughed. "Oh, and here you go." I said turning to Rayman and tossing his shoe at him. At first he was thrown off balance at the impact of the sneaker hitting his chest, but he immediately got back to his foot and placed the second shoe on the ground.
"Where'd you all go to when I left?" I asked as we ran back out to the courtyard.
As I ran, Rayman's body ran with me, but every now and then I would have to steer him in the correct direction, or else he would run into something or stray off, so it was only a distraction before I was able to reach our final destination: Building 1.
"Well, Clark said he was gonna go and kill some pirates, and I went to where he was being held to let the other prisoners go once the ocean was clean again. Carmen carried them across the water on her back. Then I came back here to help, and I saw you running to that building over there," he pointed to the building I was just at, "so I went to the one we were just at." I have to admit, I respect his bravery. "And just in case you needed some extra help beating the rest of these robots. And of course Rayman is my friend, so I'd like to be there when he is put back together."
I nodded in understanding. Although I didn't really know what it was like to have a friend, other than one person who I also saw as a teacher, I could see just why he would want to be there for his companion. I sighed. I didn't want Globox to be in any sort of trouble, especially any that I may have been able to prevent, I weighed the consequences, seeing that Globox may, despite my rejection and any orders to stay put, try to come along anyway to assist in any manner he could. If he was going to, I might as well would've known about it. After a moment of an internal argument regarding the choices displayed before me, I decided to grant him permission to join me to avoid any unwanted atrocities. At least this way I knew where he was and I could keep track of him.
Wanting to be rid of the fortress that surround me for good, I grabbed Rayman's hand to lead him and ordered Globox to follow me as we made our way to our final destination and the place of which Rayman's final missing body part was. I sped through the gradually yet still noticeably reviving terrain to where the final building was, but when I began to near the looming building, something stopped me. Globox and Rayman continued running until Globox noticed I had stopped in my tracks. He reached out to catch Rayman before he got too far ahead, then walked to where I stood in confusion.
"What's wrong? We're almost there!"
"Wasn't there supposed to be an admiral? Someone in charge of the whole operation?"
"You mean Razorbeard?"
"Yeah. How come I haven't come across him yet?"
"He probably already left. When he saw you putting Rayman back together, he might have ran!"
"Maybe...I just have a...peculiar feeling about this..." I shook the feeling off and began to speed up my pace again to Building 1. "Never mind. Let's just go." I said behind me.
The doors opened when we neared them, allowing us access into the structure, and I quickly searched for the stairs that would bring me to the containment chamber just as the other buildings had, or another way to signify that the room was behind the door. As we wandered about the building, I heard Globox say something, but I couldn't make out what it was. "What?" I asked him as I turned around.
"Could this be it?" He asked, pointing a finger to an enormous set of doors resembling all the others, only 5 times their sizes.
I quickly scanned them. "Seemingly important large doors in the middle of the final building that would normally be full of highly secured areas, guarded my numerous sentries all about? I think you may be on to something here." I told him as I cautiously walked to the grand doorway. However, there was one problem: there was a keypad that I assumed locked the entrance.
"How will we get the passcode?"
There was a loud banging coming from the opposite side of the doors. "You won't!" Said a heavily metallic voice that echoed through the room, bouncing off the walls and resounding through the air. My eyes widened as I understood what was happening.
"Run!" I yelled back at Globox. I turned to escape too before a blast that obliterated the doors threw me to the other side of the room. The world around me flashed red as I made contact with the wall with my head, leaving me disoriented and confused. My head pounded heavily as I stood to examine the attacker. He was short, with baggy striped pants and a steel beard grafted to his square metal head just below his sharp yellow eyes, half concealed under a large pirate hat with a robot's skull in front of two scimitars on it. Although he had a short stature, he was somewhat intimidating as he slowly walked to me.
With a snap of his fingers, a hovering chair flew into the room from where the explosion came, and floated above him. After a second as if to gather its next objective, it sped forward and stopped again above me. A red beam shot down from beneath it, enveloping me within it, shocking me with such a high intensity that I think I may have lost consciences for a short time of about a second or two. When the torture was over, the robotic figure stood over me triumphantly, as though he had just won a war or done something no one of his kind had ever done before. I weakly raised a hand to strike him, but was unable to keep it in the air for very long, and it dropped to the ground with a loud thud.
Everything around me began to blur as if I had been surrounded by a think haze, and began to darken. However, just before everything had vanished, something jumped into my vision from the corner of my eye and toppled Razorbeard. The attacker, was Rayman, with his head back on. He leaped into the air and skillfully landed on the chair still floating above me. He swiftly punched his hand into the seat, impaling it with his fist, which wouldn't normally be awe striking, but when he pulled his hand back out, he almost had a glow outline him. He quitted his position just as the gravity-defying furniture sparked, then quickly exploded.
He landed on his feet before Razorbeard, who, although he only showed it through his beady yellow eyes, had the expression of intense fear. Rayman walked to him, and was about to strike him when Razorbeard knocked Rayman off his feet. Anger developed within me, urging me to stand and fight. Though wobbling, I was on my feet, and withdrew my sword, light glinting off of it from the intense florescent lights above us on the ceiling.
I threw myself at Razorbeard, swinging my sword in the air as to slice him just as I did with so many of his comrades, when he simply sidestepped out of its path. He pulled out a metal box with a big red button on it, and pushed it. A massive, bulking henchmen walked to where Rayman and I were, holding up an unconscious Globox.
"Globox!" Rayman yelled. Still Globox showed no sign of movement, but hung there loosely upside-down. I steadied myself, preparing to fight.
"How about you play fairly and call off your friend?" I taunted.
"What? And leave the field uneven with two against one? And you accuse me of playing unfairly." He responded
All I could do was glare at him. Rayman ran to where Razorbeard was a jumped in the air, and as he fell unleashed a ball of energy from his fists. After seeing this, I realized I didn't have the same feeling of power centered in my wrists any longer. Razorbeard's guard leaped in front of his master, and the projectile harmlessly bounced off of his silver body. I ran to where the hulking machine now was, sticking my sword into its upper leg, which it easily tore through. Using this as a foothold, I jumped off of it and, in the highest point of my ascendance, kicked him in the face. As is fell back down, I grabbed my sword again, bringing it back down with me and slicing the leg in half.
I examined my work with delight, seeing how well my weapon could withstand even my unique fighting style. The hulking mass of metal confusingly looked at its disfigured leg, and stared helplessly as it fell to the side of which the weakened support was. With a heavy crash it landed, still very much alive but helpless. I laughed at how easy the thing was to be defeated, and walked up to it to impale its head as to finish it off, but was caught off guard as it grabbed me with a blink of an eye, and with a firm grip, threw me about the room, smashing me still in its fist with a heavy impact at every wall possible.
My savior was once again Rayman, who jumped onto the arm the fist that held me and rendered me useless and jammed his fist into the metal, similar to the way as he did with the chair, and I assumed unleashed a stream of energy balls inside of its inner workings. Then, removing his fist, he split the arm and I fell to the ground. I again stumbled as I recovered, but, albeit not as skillful as what Rayman had done, sprung into the air, and plunged my blade between the eyes of the henchmen. A quick spark quickly crawled around the machine's head, then up the blade of my sword. I was surprised to see the peculiar metal of the weapon to be enveloped in a large blue lightning, and was even more surprised to find myself unaffected completely without even the slightest shock. I turned to Razorbeard, wielding the electrified sword. A grim smile graced my lips as a gruesome idea formed in my head.
Rayman had been taking Razorbeard head-on, using his fists at every moment the opportunity came while the admiral was equipped with a pirate-style handgun shooting the same energy blasts that I had been using and avoiding the whole day. I began to sprint towards Razorbeard as he had shot Rayman in the hand, knocking him back a distance away. When he heard my footsteps, he quickly turned to where I was and raised his firearm to fire, but I knocked out of his hand with the butt of my sword, spun around and split his chest open, electrocuting him in the process. After a moment where I thought I was victorious, he slowly stood up. I was about to attack again before getting shot in the back, sending me to the floor. Razorbeard now stood over me with his wires spilling out from his damaged torso. He kicked me back to the robot that had shot me, and he was joined by a group of other robots of the same kind.
I began to stand again, despite the world around me spinning, but was quickly foiled when a henchman struck me hard with his metal hook, laughing. I was breathing hard, and although I had no visible wounds, I felt as though I were covered in bruises and had been mercilessly beaten. I got up once more, and the pirates continued to laugh. The same one began to raise its hook to hit me again, and as it flew down, I caught it. Only for a moment there was silence as the henchman and I stared at each other, then I twisted his arm around, and, meaning to take hold of him, was surprised to see it become amputated. I stared at it dumbly while the robot looked at me in horror. I looked back at him then struck him with his own arm. Another ran toward me and I knocked him off balance by smacking him with the same arm, which I threw at a third. At once, they all stormed after me.
I spun around, sticking my foot out and tripping one then an uppercut sent his body flying to a group of two others and the head, which had came off with the blow, ricocheted off the wall and hit Razorbeard. I raised my sword and cut an arm cannon off one and it randomly shot, which I used to annihilate three more, then threw it as it blew up. I leaped to the air and landed on a metal head, then bounced randomly across the room, dismantling each robot I fell on as I pushed my feet away to jump to the next. I threw my sword down at an angle, impaling two at the same time, then I sent myself into a sideways spin and, with the force of the fall and the speed of the spin, smashed my fist into Razorbeard's head. I landed on my feet, and watched in humor as the admiral stumbled, and hardly was able to get up. I walked to my sword and retrieved it, then stared at my fallen enemy. He looked at me, and laughed.
I heard a heavy stomp, and, before I even realized what I was doing, sent my blade horizontally through a barrel henchman. I blinked when my instincts faded, and watched the top half of the robot fall of the bottom half. My exhaustion suddenly overtook me, and I fell to my knees, breathing heavily.
"No!" I heard a cry, then sparks flying. I looked behind me, seeing Razorbeard standing over me with his gun pointed at me and a stunned expression across his face. He had a clean, circular hole straight through his chest. He fell down to reveal Rayman standing behind him, breathing just as heavily as I was. I laughed, then collapsed to the floor. Not that I was forced to the ground, I could've sat down, but I instead succumbed to the exhaustion that still held me. I lied there, still trying to catch my breath. I lifted my head to see Rayman wake Globox up before walking to me. He stretched out an arm for me to lift myself with.
"I'm good...just going to...rest here..." I said between gasps of air.
He smiled. "Thank you. For saving me, helping my friends, defeating Razorbeard...everything."
"Heh, don't thank me. I didn't do all of it, and God knows I wouldn't have been able to without them."
"Yeah, but we still wouldn't have been able to do it without you." After a small coughing fit, I smiled. He looked up from me on the ground. "Ly!" This got my attention. I looked up so that the world around me was upside-down to see Ly as such, still floating above the ground.
"Hello Rayman, Globox, Nick." She greeted, nodding her head to each of us as she listed our names. She stopped hovering so that she begun to fall, but swiftly landed on her feet with a light brushing sound as she touched the ground. She smiled as she walked to me. I got to my feet as quickly as I could, though I still ended up looking up at her.
"So...Nick? That's your name?" Rayman asked behind me. I turned to him and gave him a short nod.
"Nick," Ly said as I turned back to her, "thank you dearly, for what you have accomplished here tonight, saving not only these lands, but possibly the entire world. Your cleverness to disguise yourself as the enemy, your strength defeating every one of Razorbeard's forces that you did, the bonds that you have formed with those around you. These tributes are what assisted you, and you used them very wisely. If it weren't for your bravery, we all still would be under Razorbeard's tyranny, with no hope left." She turned her attention to Rayman, "the friendship that you have acquired tonight with Rayman, I believe, should not go unused, but rather, embraced."
"What do you mean?" I asked. Through Rayman's expression, I could tell he shared in my confusion.
"Maybe, he should join you."
Rayman lit up, "but what about here? What if something else happens?"
"I can now communicate with Nicholas if need be, so if something were to happen, I can easily alert you of our need. Your destinies are now intertwined, and you shall work together, for your journey has barely even begun and you will need all the assistance that you can get."
Now it was Rayman's turn to speak. "Would it be fine if I were to join you?" He asked me.
I answered without hesitation, there was no doubt in my mind. I nodded. "Yes, I would be honored if you would join me, Rayman."
With those words, a light enveloped me, surrounded me. It was stronger than the one Ly had given me, this was pure white and so intense that it nearly blinded me. The last thing I saw was Rayman staring at me in awe.