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Chapter 11: Battle for the Academy

Ryder and Jerry were running down one flight of stairs after another just wishing the bottom would arrive faster.

"How far does this go down?!" Ryder was starting to get out of breath. 'For going down stairs, this is hard work,' he thought.

"I think we're almost there. It shouldn't be much farther if I remember correctly," replied Jerry as he turned down another flight.

Outside, an epic battle was happening all around the academy. All the students were locking their swords or other weapons with other ninjas, soldiers with demon weapons, other Shinigami, and fighters with different powers.

On top of the academy stood Murdoch Sletvig. "Let's see how they deal with this…" He opened a book that was inside his jacket pocket and began to read a stanza.

"Ye lord! Mask of flesh and bone, flutter of wings, ye who bears the name of Man! Truth and temperance, upon this sinless wall of dreams unleash but slightly the wrath of your claws. Hido 33: Pale Fire Crash!" Blue fire and energy discharged from Murdoch's palm and was sent towards a few of the enemy ships. The power of this attack was frightening for others to see. It looked like six currents of the concentrated flames flew towards the ships with incredible speed. One of the currents collided with the body of a ship causing a decent explosion, but the ship kept moving.

Nero looked up at Murdoch and said in a mumble, "That damn bastard always going over the top." He dodged an incoming punch and said, "Don't you know its rude to interrupt someone talking!" He slipped down and kicked the legs out from beneath his surprise attacker. With great speed, Nero kicked his enemy, while he was still suspended in the air, into a group of attackers heading his way.

"Pentachromatic Strings!" yelled Nero as he swiped his right hand across his body. The group on enemy soldiers that were running towards him all flew backwards as Nero's strings sliced across their chests inflicting deep wounds.

On the largest ship, a man stood in the bridge looking out onto the battle field. "Hmmm. There are some formidable opponents here. Why don't we have some fun?" He turned around and began walking to the exit of his ship. Behind him followed five other soldiers draped in dark robes.

Zakee was locked in combat against a swordsman. He jumped backwards while performing hand seals and yelled out, "Water Style: Water Shark Blast!" A shark made of water that was in the air formed in front of Zakee then launched itself towards the swordsman making a large explosion. Zakee saw that his opponent was dead, so he turned and looked at the ships where he could feel a stronger power.

On the top of the ships stood six people. On was in front of all the others, and Zakee immediately knew that he was the leader.

A large amount of pressure was suddenly felt by everyone on the battlefield. Some of the students even fell to the ground. Everyone turned their gaze to the man on the ship who was standing there with his arms crossed and eyes closed. He had a white complexion and long black hair. He opened his eyes and stretched his arms out to his side.

"I am Khilor! The right hand of his Majesty, Lord Delshad Wakeman, the Emperor of ISIS! Many of you have promising power! However, I promise you that no one comes close to my own! If you surrender now and come to my ship, I will spare your life, and you will achieve great power under my leadership! Now, come!"

The pressure was lifted off everyone. No one moved a muscle. They were either terrified or their muscles wouldn't respond to their own commands from exhaustion or fear.

"Don't do it! He will kill anyone that goes over, or he will just use you!" yelled General Hall trying to persuade his turning students.

One of the figures behind Khilor leaned forward and whispered in Khilor's ear saying, "If you show a fraction of your power, they will come." The figure took a step back to leave Khilor to his own thoughts.

"You're right, Valak," said Khilor. His eyes turned red as a weird design appeared.

'The Mangekyo Sharingan,' thought Valak. 'I wasn't expecting him to use this.'

Zakee stared at Khilor as he felt him building up his power at an incredible rate. "Everyone! Brace yourself! He's about to attack," he yelled!

Forming the ram hand sign, a blue aura swirled around Khilor and went at least twenty yards in the air. The aura quickly took the form of skeleton cloaked in this blue aura.

"This is my Susanoo!" yelled Khilor. The arms of the skeletons drew out two swords and held them outwards. "All that do not come over will die!"

He sliced through the air with one sword. The strength was so incredible that the shock wave cut off the top floor of the academy. The top part that was cut off immediately vanished as it was turned into rubble and dust.

After the sight of the Susanoo and how powerful it is, students began laying down their weapons and walked towards the invading ships. One by one they entered and a loud snicker could be heard by all the enemy soldiers on the battlefield.

Zakee performed a series of hand seals and said, "I Won't let you do this! Wind Style: Rasenshuriken!" He threw the Rasengan that had been morphed into a shuriken at Khilor.

Khilor noticed it and scoffed at the attack. One of the Susanoo's swords vanished into thin air, and it raised up its hand to receive the Rasenshuriken. When the two connected, an explosion of blue aura blocked anyone from being able to see the Susanoo.

"See," yelled out Zakee! "He isn't invincible!"

"What a weak attack compared to my Susanoo," yelled out Khilor. The smoke from the explosion faded, and the Susanoo seemed unharmed.

"All new soldiers, stay on the ship until we exterminate the weak that fight back!" With many students walking towards the ship with shattered hope, ISIS soldiers resumed their fighting against the remaining academy students.

Down below the academy, Ryder and Jerry finally made it to the bottom of the stairs. The end of the stairs connected to a hallway about the size of the same hallways that lead the students to their rooms on the upper floors of the academy. Steel plates lined the walls with weird designs in the middle of each panel that were the same steel blue color. They looked a lot like the common Vera Bradley design that covered luggage bags, noticed Ryder.

Down at the end of the hall stood a metal door with an American flag painted in the middle. On the wall, next to the door was a mounted keypad with a small display screen used for opening it.

Jerry looked at Ryder, who was still taking in everything, and said, "Well, we should hurry up and start packing up everything in the archive."

Ryder just nodded and followed Jerry to the keypad while he was feeling the designs on the wall. Jerry entered a long phrase, and a green light began to flash, signaling that he got the code correct.

The metal door slid up into the ceiling and another metal door appears right behind the first. However, this door had a hand scanner mounted to one side of the door. Jerry walked up to it and placed his hand within the suggested hand placement area. A bar of light ran from the top of the scanner to the bottom, making sure the fingerprints match the record Jerry has with the government.

A robotic voice from the panel said, "Welcome, Jerry."

The door slid up and revealed a few book shelves filled scrolls and books that looked like they were either new or come from the stone age. The sizes of the books varied from the size of a pinky finger to the size of a head. Ryder walked over to a bookshelf and started sliding his finger across the binder of the books and the top of the scrolls.

Up against the wall, three stands stood supporting three holocrons on top of them. The first one was a red pyramid that exerted a pressure that was strong enough to make someone weak fall to their knees. The middle stand held a square, blue holocron that radiated a calm aura. The last holocron could very well be the same as the first because of the color and the pressure it exuded.

Ryder walked over to Jerry, who was grabbing baskets from the corner of the room, and said, "This place is incredible. I wonder why they didn't let the students access it? Well, I guess the fact that a traitor disclosed our location to the enemy answers that question."

Jerry handed Ryder a basket and said, "This archive is only accessible to the higher ups. It contains knowledge that is incredibly valuable."

Ryder walked over to the book shelf and began unloading all the books and scrolls into the bin. As he was packing up the material, Ryder came across simple books that described physics, math, and other common text books. The books that really stood out to Ryder were: The Book of Whills, The Murder of a Whole Clan, and The Physics of Spirit Energy.

"You can read those later, Ryder. We really do have to hurry with this," said Jerry in a frantic rush.

"I know. I know," responded Ryder. He continued putting the books into his bin.

It took the two of them about ten minutes to get all the books on the shelves into the bins that now lined the floor. Ryder was putting the last book into the bin when he heard a soft whisper.

He couldn't make out what the voice was saying, but it was calm and gentle. He could feel a warmth fill his body that eventually gave him a chill that ran up and down his spine. He reached out with the Force to find the whisper, and he noticed that it was coming from the first red holocron. He glanced over at Jerry to make sure that he wasn't watching his every step. Jerry was focusing on putting the last few books into their bins and getting them ready for teleportation.

'This is what's been trying to talk to me,' questioned Ryder to himself. He walked over to the three columns that supported the holocrons and now stood in front of the red holocron that sat to the left of the blue holocron. Ryder closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

He opened his eyes with conviction and grabbed the red holocron. He could hear a loud humming coming from it when suddenly, it spoke.

The voice was confidently calm, yet terrifyingly strong at the same time. "Learn from me… Obtain my knowledge…" The temptation was too strong for Ryder as he closed his eyes once more, but this time he focused on the holocron and opened it with the Force.

Jerry heard clicks coming from the direction where Ryder stood, so he turned and saw what he was doing. Jerry yelled out, "Don't do it! They'll know we're here!"

It was too late. The corners of the holocron were rotating and coming off the square as bright flashes of red light illuminated the room. The corners, now suspended in mid-air, stopped spinning and hovered next to the holocron. A male with a weird, golden mask, chest plate armor, and black and purple robes appeared as a hologram above the opened holocron.

"I see my holocron has finally been discovered," said the figure. "You are the only one that has listened close enough to find it. I do not have long, but I am the Sith Lord that began the rule of two, the destroyer of The Brotherhood of Darkness, and the creator of the Order of the Sith Lords. Many decades have passed since I was 'killed' by my apprentice. I do not possess the same strength as I did back then as well. Now, I am in search of ancient knowledge that dwells in the outer rims of this galaxy hoping to achieve eternal life. However, before I left, I hid my lightsaber on the barren, desert planet of Korriban. Go there and find it. That lightsaber has great power due to it being my weapon of choice for the destruction of anything that came in my way. The crystals inside know destruction. They crave it. Listen for its calling. If you do not, then you will never find it. There is another holocron on that planet that I have only heard, not seen. Sith holocrons are red and contain a dark, heavy presence, and Jedi holocrons are blue with a light, peaceful presence to them; however, this one was different. It was purple, but had the shape of the typical pyramid holocron. The presence of the holocron is what threw me off the most. When I was searching a cave, it called out to me in an ancient language, one that I had never heard of. The presence was incredible, and I could tell that it held ancient knowledge and wisdom. I could not find it inside of that cave. Every route I took led me back to the entrance, and that was when I knew that it was not for me. I have never come across a holocron like this. The source of that holocron is what I have been looking for ever since I recovered from my fatal wound. If it wasn't for the orbalisks, I'd be de—"

He was cut off as the sounds of voices and blaster fire echoed in the background. The man in the holocron looked behind him for a moment then turned back towards the holocron and said, "That is all that I can say for now. Peace is a lie, there is only passion. Through passion, I gain strength. Through strength, I gain power. Through power, I gain victory. Through victory, my chains are broken. The Force shall free me."

The image of the Sith Lord fizzled out of sight. The holocron dropped to the floor, and its corners began to turn into dust. The bright lights that had filled the room earlier had vanished and the old lights now light the room.

Ryder looked at Jerry and began explaining, "Before you say anything, I had no idea that that holocron had a one-time access limit to open it. At least that's some pretty good information about other artifacts and his lightsaber." Jerry gave Ryder a look that made Ryder's stomach sink to the ground.

He grabbed the other holocrons and began packing them into a bag. "Not only was that classified information that the President should've seen, but I felt a huge rumble from the building. We need to get going too," reemphasized Jerry.

Up above, the battle was still being fought with more and more casualties happening for the Americans. Organized barrages of fire balls were landing hits after hits and not many students had the proper training to counter the other attacks.

Zakee was leading one faction of the army with his Hidden Mist Jutsu. Zakee was not use to long, drawn out fights where he had used up all his chakra with in the first ten minutes. He had now been fighting for thirty minutes, non-stop. He couldn't stand the fact that a large amount of his fellow students and even friends betrayed their comrades and chose to side with the ISIS Empire. This feeling of anger and betrayal was the only thing left fueling his body to let him continue fighting.

From a distance, he heard someone yell out, "Lightning Style: Thunderclap Arrow!" An enemy ninja was in the air with lightning collected in his palm. He threw it down towards Zakee, but he had enough time to prepare for his own counter.

Zakee finished his hand signs and said, "Wind Style: Demon Gale!" Three wind gales surged towards the other ninja's lightning jutsu. The first wind gale canceled out the Thunderclap Arrow due it being lightning's weakness, but the second and third wind gale connected with the target sending him back into the rocky ground, unconscious.

Standing on top of his ship, Khilor and his close subordinates stood proudly as they watched the battle. He could see that the majority of the Americans were on the defensive, and the battle would be over shortly. He focused about three fourths of his concentration on where General Hall was and how he fought. The other quarter of his concentration was focused on his surroundings, making sure that he would be able to sense reinforcements; that is if they would come to their rescue. He was studying the patterns to General Hall's technique as he was fighting with his cursed sword. Khilor quickly deduced that he had very linear attacks.

Suddenly, from the bottom of the academy, he felt a great power pulse. He had felt this power once before. It was when the Americans had ambushed their mountain base. This was the same energy of the person that collapsed the entire mountain. But, there was another presence as well. He felt the calm nature of it, and the powerful pressure it emitted.

'That damned mercenary opened a Sith holocron,' he thought.

Khilor turned towards one of his subordinates that stood behind him. "I need you to blow up this academy, so I can have access to the tunnels beneath it."

A smile appeared the face of one of Khilor's subordinates as he said, "You know nothing would make me more happy." He walked in front of Khilor and outstretched his palm. Purple energy began to build around his hand.

The fighting stopped as everyone noticed that one of Khilor's right hand man was about to attack. After a few seconds of building energy, the subordinate unleashed the accumulated energy with a powerful blast of purple energy. It met the academy with a large explosion a cloud of smoke that blocked the sun.

When the dust settled, the entire academy had been reduced to rubble and dust. Whoever that man was, he leveled the entire building. Khilor jumped in a direct line towards the now exposed stairwell and landed right next to it.

Zakee stood in awe of the attack when an enemy Shinigami attacked him with his Zanpakto. Zakee pulled out his katana and infused it with his wind chakra making his sword sharper and longer.

Shinigami were always hard for him to beat because of their large and powerful swords. He fended off attack after attack while he looked for an opening, but one never came. Instead, he was being pushed back and could barely keep up with this Shinigami. The enemy swordsman kicked Zakee's legs out from beneath him and immediately swung his sword down towards Zakee's stomach.

Right before the Shinigami made contact with Zakee, another blade stopped the foe Zanpakto. Zakee could tell that it was a katana like his own, but much stronger. He rolled out of the way and stood up to help whomever saved his life. General Hall was the one fighting this tough Shinigami. The Shinigami leaped backwards and held up his hand in the direction of General Hall.

He began reciting, "Ye lord! Mask of blood and flesh, all creation, flutter of wings, ye who bears the name of Man! Inferno and —" Before he could finish his recitation, General Hall was behind him in a flash and stabbed the Shinigami through the abdomen.

General Hall slid his sword out of his foe and told him, "You talk too much."

He walked over to Zakee and gave him a pat on his shoulder. "You're doing great out here, but I think it's time to sound the retreat. Mr. President just contacted me saying that he will be here within a few minutes. Can you make some sort of wall that can withstand most of these attacks, so we can get away?"

Zakee nodded quickly. His face showed a sign of relief. He was happy that he would finally be able to catch his breath, but he knew the battle was not over yet. "I'll need Luca and Clayton for this wall," said Zakee.

"Do whatever you can and grab whoever you need. Also, try and do this when Khilor is distracted. It looks like he's about to jump down into the tunnel that leads to the archive, so do it when he's down there. Hopefully, Jerry and Ryder have already teleported." General Hall saw Zakee nod in agreement, so he left to go rally the remaining soldiers and prepare for an escape.

Khilor could feel the power coming from the room down the stair well. He took and deep breath and said to himself, "It's time for my revenge." He jumped off the ledge and began falling towards the ground of the hallway beneath him.

Right after Khilor jumped, Zakee, Luca, and Clayton prepared their selected jutsu to form this wall.

Suddenly, a loud noise came from their left. On the horizon and closing in at remarkable speeds were two large commercial ships equipped with turrets and other weaponry that was opening fire on the ISIS soldiers and ships.

The three of them looked at each other and performed their jutsu in this order. First, Zakee yelled, "Water Style: Water Wall Jutsu!" A stream of water started to come out of his mouth with tremendous force. The wall grew to about fifty feet in height and stretched for a good distance.

Immediately after the water wall formed, Luca said, "Ice Style: Protective Ice Dome!" Suddenly, the water wall began to freeze in place and the water in the air began to freeze as well creating a wall of ice between them and ISIS.

Finally, Clayton yelled, "Earth Style: Great Mud Wall!" He began projecting mud from his mouth with insane pressure, and once the mud hardened, a giant wall of rock and earth lined the inside of the ice wall.

"Everyone! Retreat to the incoming ships! Let the walls protect you right now," yelled General Hall as he was directing all the students to where the two ships were descending. The ships finally landed and opened the cargo hatch for everyone to get in. General Hall got in the opposite ship as the President so that a strong leader was on each ship. Zakee, Clayton, Luca, Jackson, Taylor, and a few others were helping every last student to get on board the cruisers.

Right when they were getting ready to jump on the ship, blasts of fire, lightning, and other attacks that could break through the wall began getting by the broken ice or earth.

"Let's go! We have to go now!" yelled Jackson to all the others, who agreed. They split up into two groups and jumped onto the ships. Right when the last person on each ship entered, they pressed the button to close the hatch. This also let the pilot of the ship know that they were ready to go. The ships started to gain altitude and slowly began moving forward.

Zakee was looking out of the window at the wall that was now falling down due to the amount of attacks that had been thrown at it. He turned to the communications unit on the wall and called up to the cockpit. He told them, "We have to get out of here now. If we don't, they'll be able to shoot us down." He kept staring at the wall until he heard a response.

"Roger that. We are picking up speed now," said the voice over the communications unit. The distance between them and ISIS was increasing dramatically. Their thrusters were working on max thrust to get them into outer space as quickly as possible.

He picked the microphone back up and asked the cockpit, "Why isn't the other ship following us to space? Isn't it still dangerous down there?"

The response came quickly, "They are meeting at the rendezvous spot to pick us the archive collection along with Jerry and Ryder." Zakee knew it in his heart that of course Ryder was doing something this risky when he doesn't even have a proper weapon.

Khilor landed at the bottom of the stairwell with ease and barely made a sound when he hit the bottom. He slowly turned to where the hallway would take him, and he saw two males squatting next to one last bin of books and scrolls. Down the hall he heard someone say, "You've got this, Jerry. This is the last bin, and then it's just us."

Khilor recognized one of their energies from up above the ground. He knew one of them had to have been the mercenary that had destroyed his base that held many secrets and artifacts. He straightened up and began to walk slowly towards the archive room. He was focused one-hundred percent on the two males that were sending their archive off. Khilor did not care too much about the scrolls and books, but he was very interested in the one male that had the same energy signature as the mercenary.

After just a few steps towards them, Jerry used his teleporting ability to send the last bin away. By doing this, Khilor was able see that the energy Jerry used was different from the other. Therefore, he deduced that the mercenary was the male consoling the teleporter.

"Good job, Jerry. Now let's get out of here," said Ryder hoping to encourage the exhausted Jerry to get them out of there. Jerry was taking deep breaths trying to build up the amount of energy need to teleport two human beings. Ryder, who had already mastered Battle Meditation and Force Enlightenment to the point where he used them constantly, sensed that they were in trouble. A cold shiver ran down his back. He turned and looked towards the stairs and saw exactly what he did not want to see. Khilor was crouching and getting ready to rush them.

When Ryder turned towards the stairs, it caught Khilor off guard because he was a master stealth assassin that had mastered the art of silent killing. When the two made eye contact, Khilor just said, "You…" with an angry expression and dashed towards Ryder. He brought back his katana and sliced it at Ryder's neck delivering the kill shot.

He stood up and turned around to look at his victim, but they were not there. They had teleported away. Anger, rage, and hate filled Khilor. He unleashed his Susanoo and the whole academy building along with the earth beneath it collapsed on top of him, but his Susanoo protected him as he jumped all the way to the top. Seeing that their leader was furious. The five subordinates met him down at the bottom of the ship.

When Khilor made it to them, he said, "I know the identity of the man that made our base collapse and destroyed our schematics." Khilor kept walking towards his chambers with the others following behind him.

"Sir," spoke one, "were you able to retrieve any holocrons or texts they had."

With his Sharingan glaring, Khilor gave him a glance that made him drop to the ground while entrapped in a Tsukuyomi.

Opening his eyes, Ryder lifted his arm and felt his throat, arms, legs, and the rest of his body to see if he had made it in one piece. He could not believe it. He would be dead if it wasn't for Jerry. Ryder turned over and saw Jerry lying on his back next to a group of 13 boxes filled to the brim with books.

He stood up and went to check to make sure Jerry was okay, but before he could put his hand on Jerry's wrist to check his pulse, a hand grabbed Ryder's. It made Ryder jump, but he looked and saw that it was Jerry's hand. "I'll be okay. I'm just really fucking exhausted," said Jerry in a soft voice.

Ryder began to laugh as he reached for his bag to pull out his phone. Inside the bag, he felt the two other holocrons, and they made him think about the other holocron that he had opened earlier.

'Korriban doesn't sound too bad. At least it has something interesting there,' thought Ryder. However, he needed to get in contact with the President.

Ryder opened the untraceable phone and dialed the President.

"What bear is best?" answered a voice on the other end of the phone.

Ryder responded with, "Bears, eat beets. Beets, Battle Star Galactica."

A few seconds past before the other person gave a response. "Please give an update to your situation."

Ryder let out a large sigh of relief. "Jerry is wiped out, and we have the packages. I'm sending the coordinates now." He pressed a side button on his watch that transmitted his current location to a certain number.

"That's good to hear Mr. Jedi," replied the voice on the other side of the phone. Ryder hung up the phone and laid down on the ground.

'Where are we,' he thought. Nothing but desert surrounded them. On the horizon, a larger cruiser ship began to close in on Ryder and Jerry.

"Hey, Jerry! Our rides here," said Ryder shoving his exhausted comrade.

"You can load all of this. I've already done my fair share," said Jerry.

"I'm sure they have people that will do that for us," snickered Ryder.

The ship landed about a forty yards away from the, and a group of workers and medics ran over to them. A group of people got off the ship, grabbed the bins, and took them to the cargo hold. The medics on the other hand tended to only Jerry because of the shape he was in.

One medic looked up and said, "Ryder, Mr. President would like to speak to you as soon as you can get aboard the ship." Ryder was not ready to go tell him everything that happened.

'I just want to sleep right now,' he thought.

"I'll be there in any minute," responded Ryder to the medic.

He began to start walking back to the ship stretching arms above his head and letting out a great, big yawn.

Hope you enjoyed the chapter! As always, comment to let me know what you think of the chapter!

~Aldon