The Masters- RE- Revolver

by Matthew Weldon

  “Now that we are closer, it definitely looks like the facility was built not too long ago. It’s not in

  terrible condition like everything else. It does have some damage though. The antenna is broken too,” I pointed out.

  Nite nodded, “I noticed. Maybe we can get some answers when we get inside.”

  “Right,” I responded in agreement.

  Nite and I made our way closer to the facility and saw that there were stairs leading up to it. It took a few minutes, but we got the top of the stairs and entered the facility. The first room was an air locked room. The door was closed over and there was blood on the side of it. We looked at each other then I pulled it opened, the hinges making a creaking noise as it opened. We entered the next room which looked like a large office of some kind. There was a foul odor in the air.

  “Gross, that smell,” I pointed out, making a disgusting face.

  “I know, right?” Nite agreed with a similar face.

  The room was a mess with office supplies and papers scattered all over the place, as well as more blood on the floor and desks, that were also damaged. We looked around and investigated. The lights were off, and the only lighting in the room was coming from outside through the windows, which a few were broken. We pull out our comphones and turned on the flashlight feature. I started to read the papers that were scattered about.

  Nite spoke, “I’m going to investigate this hallway,”

  While keeping my attention on the papers, I acknowledged, “Alright. I’m going to read these documents and see if I can figure out what happened here.”

  I kept reading and found out that the facility was built six years ago by a group of scientists and researchers formed a team and were trying to figure out why it is constantly snowing. Other papers describe finding a body. While researching the body, they found elements that were also found in the Zombie Infection that spread across the all the nations years ago. That was dated two years ago, and I couldn’t find any other documents after that.

  Nite returned from the hallway, looking spooked, and said, “Yeah, you don’t want to go down there. It’s like a horror movie; so much blood.”

  “What happened?” I asked him.

  Nite didn’t respond. I looked up and saw him looking at something. I turned and looked in the same direction. What I saw was something blinking red in the corner. We walked over to it and saw that it was a computer console with a screen that was blinking in red text “COMMUNICATION ERROR”. There was a red light above it that was blinking red as well.

  “Let me see that,” Nite said as he moved in front of the computer.

  He began to type away at the computer as I watched in nervous anticipation. A video then appeared on the screen. It was a female scientist in distress, there was an alarm in the background and the lights were flickering. She looked like she was bleeding badly. You could tell right away that she was extremely afraid, tears rolling down her face.

  “If anyone gets this, please send help! S.O.S.! We are being attacked by our own crew! PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE HELP!” she cried.

  Suddenly, the video feed kept skipping and a grotesque humanoid figured appeared from off camera as she screamed in terror. The feed then cut out. Nite and I looked at each other. We both had a looked of confusion and fear.

  “This S.O.S. couldn’t be sent. Probably because the antenna broke,” Nite tried to explain.

  “This is really freaking me out,” I said in a scared tone.

  I took a step back and the floor beneath us gave way. We both fell into darkness.

  Chapter 4 – Zombie

  I fell to the ground, hitting it hard, and closed my eyes in pain. I later opened them and saw Vlaykre standing over me with a worried look.

  "Are you alright, Spex?" he asked.

  I looked around to see where I was. I recognized it as the courtyard in front of Castle Abeyance. The sky was covered in black clouds, as it usually is. The side of my face started to hurt, and I put my hand on it. I remember Vlaykre had hit me there. He had been training me in sword combat for the past week. I saw that I was holding a practice sword in my hand. I looked up and saw Vlaykre's practice sword floating behind him.

  "Yeah, I'm fine. My face just really hurts now," I said, rubbing my face.

  Vlaykre chuckled, "Sorry about that. You better get used to pain though. Fighting leads to pain. Mostly physical, but it can also lead to emotional pain afterward."

  "Emotional pain?" I asked.

  Vlaykre answered, "You'll see one day."

  I then started to wonder about the training and asked, "How much time do you think we have?"

  Vlaykre thought for a moment, "I don't know. I haven't heard anything from anyone, so I'm sure we still have time before The Resurrect makes their next move."

  "Well, we should continue then," I said, standing up.

  Vlaykre smirked and stood up straight, "That's the spirit. You have been making good progress. Keep it up, and you'll be taking down The Resurrect in no time."

  I smiled as I readied myself to spar again.

  "Actually, why don't we take a break and rest in the castle for a while," He suggested with his hand up to stop me.

  I was a little surprised and lowered my sword.

  "Are you sure?" I asked in confusion.

  Vlaykre nodded, "Yeah, we've been at this for about two hours straight now. Let's take a break and we'll be back out here in a few hours. I'll come to get you."

  "Uh, okay then," I said, confused, as I walked past him.

  I wanted to continue but I guess he was right.

  ‘I shouldn't overdo it,’ I thought.

  I realized how sweaty I was and wanted to shower. I entered the castle and walked through the halls, on the way to my room. I stopped at the door to the library after something inside caught my attention. The door was cracked opened and I saw a book laying on the table in the middle of the library.

  I entered the room and walked over to the hard-covered book. I examined the grey colored front cover that read The Story of Life and Death. It looked extremely old and was beat up. I opened it and tried to read it, but I couldn't make sense of what it was saying. Sentences seemed jumbled together. I shook my head and felt tired. I put the book down and continued to my room. I took a quick shower and got half dressed, only having underwear and pants on. Afterward, I fell into my bed and began to fall asleep. My shoulder was then shaken by a hand, which jolted me awake. I turned my head and saw someone in the darkness.

  "Eclipse wake up!" the person said.

  I recognized the voice as Revolver's. I looked around and saw that everything was extremely dark and cold. I was back in my assassin gear. It was like being in a freezer with the door shut. I started to remember traveling to the Ice Village with Revolver and falling into a hole. I started to question what I just witnessed before and how I knew someone named Vlaykre. It was just as weird as seeing the people by the building with blocked off doorway fighting off the zombies earlier, as if it was a memory. The smell from earlier was stronger and I quickly covered my nose. I then couldn’t remember exactly what I was potentially dreaming of.

  “That’s weird,” I said, confused.

  “What is?” NIte asked.

  I didn’t want to talk about what just happened, so I changed the subject.

  "Oh, that smell. It’s worse now than before,” I said in disgust, "Where are we, Nite?"

  Nite answered, "I don't know. I can't see anything."

  "Welcome to my lair," a raspy voice said with an echo.

  Dim lights came on and we saw a grotesque man sitting on the throne-like chair giving a twisted smile. Examining the man, it looked like there were tubes attached to the back of his head and his back that connected to a machine.

  "Who are you?" I asked.

  The man answered, "Call me Sabotage."

  I saw Nite give a surprised look with his mouth open. I started to get worried.

  "Sabre destroyed you. How could you still be around?" Nite
said in an angry tone.

  Sabotage continued to smile and explained, "I was destroyed by Sabre, but a piece of me remained after that final battle, and I attached myself to a nearby dead body. The problem was that I needed more bodies to feed on to continue to grow. Years had gone by and I was stuck in dead body. Luckily for me the body was recovered by the research team that came here to study the village a few years ago. After I was brought to this station, I then I consumed one of the researcher’s bodies when they weren’t expecting it. One the researcher knew who I was and said he would help me if I helped him. He disappeared telling me to consume the team. I did just that, as well turned half of them into zombie minions of my own. The team member that helped me appeared again. It seemed he was in disguise as he wasn’t in his research get up. He said that in exchange for bringing me back, I was to find and provide any info on some sort of artifact. I agreed, and he even provided a few zombies for my small army. I used the hole that the research team was digging under the facility and turned it into my lair. I then stitched the bodies I consumed to recreate a similar body to one I had before."

  That started to irritate me, and I tightened my fist. Nite was doing the same.

  "What was this artifact? Who was this person that helped you?" I questioned him.

  Sabotage continued, "I don't know his name, nor do I care to know it. All he told me was that the artifact had something to do with souls. Unfortunately, I don't have the strength to go out, fight others, spread my infection, and gather info myself. So, I've been having my zombies do my bidding. I have to remain here attached to these machines that feed me the dead bodies they bring me to make myself strong again."

  "Which is why you're now on our radar since you also attacked some of our assassins recently. They were investigating your other attacks on random people," Nite explained.

  "Indeed. My personal goal is to aim even higher than before. I will spread my infection and turn everyone on the entire planet into zombies, and I will be king of the whole world! I will do as my creator had planned to do when he created me," Sabotage said with a big grin.

  "Yeah, because that worked so well the first time," Nite pointed out.

  Sabotage responded, "Oh, you'll see."

  Sabotage then pointed at us. Suddenly, zombies appeared. I quickly thought of killing Sabotage to stop the zombies. I sprinted towards him. I reached back, unlocked and unsheathed my sword, ready to strike. I launched myself into the air and swung at him only to suddenly clash with one of the zombies that jumped into the way. He blocked the attack with an oversized sword with the handle towards the bottom corner of the blade. It looked like a meat cleaver. I pushed myself back to study what I was about to fight.

  "How do you like my copy? His name is Treachery. He's not as strong, or talkative, but he gets the job done well in my place," Sabotage said.

  Treachery did look like Sabotage. He sprinted towards me, readying an attack at the same time. I took up my sword in a defensive position and we clashed swords. Sabotage seemed right about Treachery being the quiet type, as he was only making grunting noises. I was having a hard time and was forced to stay in the defensive position. The zombie then hit my sword so hard the force pushed me back off the ground. I flew back through the air and slammed into a table back first. Some books and other objects fell to the floor next to me. I tried to get up but couldn't. My body hurt all over. I saw Nite fight off the other zombies with his sword.

  "Eclipse!" he yelled.

  Nite yelled, "Water Blast!"

  The blast of water that shot out of his hands, hitting the zombies, and pushing them back. Then Nite launched himself into the air and fought off Treachery. He was knocked to the ground, and Treachery grabbed him by the head and threw him across the room, getting slammed into the wall.

  'Damn. This guy is really strong,' I thought.

  Treachery started making his way over to me and a memory flashed in my head. It was the guy from earlier with the beanie and Sabotage was standing over him about to stab him. I saw Treachery standing over me in the same stance with his sword over his head. I acted on instinct by throwing my hand up. Purple aura then surrounded my hand and treachery was halted like he was frozen.

  I was confused and didn't know what had happened. Revolver stopped to see the zombie not moving. We looked at each other in confusion. Revolver quickly slashed at Treachery to break his defense then followed up with cutting his head off. My hand stopped glowing purple, and I put my hand down. The body and the head separated and fell to the floor. I was getting up when I saw a black hard covered book laying on the ground. Something about it seemed familiar. I picked it up and read the title, The Tragedy of Death. The book itself was old-looking and dirty.

  "Stop him now!" Sabotage commanded to the zombies.

  I looked up and saw Nite sprinting to Sabotage. He jumped into the air doing a front flip and cut the tubes that were attached to Sabotage. I stood back up, put the book under my belt and got into a defensive stance to make sure the fighting didn't continue. The remaining zombies stopped and turned to Sabotage who was agonizing in pain. Nite then ran over to me.

  Sabotage yelled with anger, "Damn you two! You'll pay for this!"

  "Eclipse, you still have the explosives, right?" Nite asked.

  Knowing that I did, I pulled out two small grenades out of my back pouch and showed them to Nite.

  Nite then responded, "Good. We are getting out of here. We'll both throw them down and escape out of here."

  I handed him one of the grenades. He then reached into his back pouch and pulled out a small grappling hook launcher which prompted me to do the same. We aimed up the hole and shot out the hooks. As we were pulled up, we activated the grenades and threw them down below us. It gave off a loud explosion and the fire chased after us. We quickly unhooked the hooks after we reached the top back into the room we were in earlier before we fell. Without saying anything, we both knew we had to jump out the front windows. Nite and I sprinted to the windows and leaped out the broken windows. We turned back as we were falling and shot our grappling hooks again to stop us from hitting the ground. I saw the fire and smoke explode out of the windows. We were eased to the ground and we unhooked the hooks again.

  I spoke in relief, "That was close."

  We gave each other a fist bump.

  "It's a good thing we stopped him. Otherwise, he would have been a problem for everyone. No wonder Lord Sharik wanted him taken out," Revolver said.

  "Do you think he knew it was Sabotage the whole time?" I questioned.

  Nite answered, "Probably. Let's get going. The explosion might trigger someone to investigate."

  "Yeah, you're right," I responded.

  We turned and ran through the village and back into the woods. We stuck to the side of the road again and back to our packs. We found the tree with the marking on it and changed back into normal clothes. I took the book I found and put it away in my pack. Right as we finished, we saw a car come driving out to the chained off the fence. We hid behind the tree and peeked out to watch. A person stepped out wearing a uniform. We saw another person in the driver seat as well.

  "Aquis Republic soldiers. They must be stationed nearby in case they are needed in this part of the nation," Nite explained.

  "Yeah, good call on high tailing it out of there. They must have seen the smoke rising," I pointed out, looking back in the direction of the village and saw smoke rising into the sky.

  Nite turned and saw the smoke too, but didn't say anything, as he turned his attention back to the soldiers. They got back into their car and drove to the village. We looked at each to each other and nodded. We then continued back the way we came to Waterfall City.

  Chapter 5 – Taking It Easy

  Revolver and I snuck into the city with our hoods up. We agreed that we didn’t want to be seen coming from the direction of the village. We snuck to another entrance to the city then casually made our way back to our hotel room. It was late at night by the time we got back. I
started to relax myself by laying on my bed.

  “It’s always nerve-racking when we try to escape back to a safe area,” I pointed out.

  Revolver said, “We need to report in.”

  Revolver closed the curtain and locked the door. The room was dark. He then pulled out his Comphone, and I stood up next to him. He started a video call and it started ring. Someone answered, and it was Lord Sharik.

  “My Lord, we successfully took out Sabotage,” Revolver said to him.

  Sharik responded, “So it was Sabotage. Good work. Though you got the attention of the Aquis Military.”

  “I’m sorry, my Lord. We had to use our explosives to blow up the base and make sure Sabotage was taken out for good,” Revolver replied.