“Thank you for not doubting me Regal,” I said. “Unlike some people,” I glanced towards Violet, who rolled her eyes.
“I’ll see you on the other side,” she went ahead first. While the others went in, I had a last long glance at the terrain and the tree, and went in as well.
It truly wasn’t that difficult after all. I stuck to my rules of stabilizing first, then imagining piece by piece, and the portal just appeared in front of me. An incredible thing, the mind was. But imagine if I had paranoia of spiders for example – I would accidently think of them and maybe pull an arachnophobia inducing portal towards myself, panic, and get pulled in. That was a possibility, one that crossed my mind really late in my journey here.
“You made it,” said Nero. Violet was here too.
“Oh,” I looked up at the tree. “That’s a much bigger tree than I thought.” It was wide enough to cover all of us from view. “Where’s Doug?”
“Here,” he said in a low tone. He was up on the tree, examining our target through a scope on his gun.
“How many people?” I asked.
“Five on each side, that means twenty inside.”
“Plan?” I looked at Nero. “We’re not drilling again, are we?”
“No,” said Nero. “We’re going to draw them out.”
Doug jumped down from the tree. “Courtesy of Regal,” he said. He presented me with a crystal prismatic box. “A powerful hologram creator.”
“So…”
“We make holograms of a large attack,” said Nero. Douglas and Violet are staying back to fire projectiles at them. As soon as enough come out, you and I are charging in and taking the crystal.”
“Some will stay inside though,” I said.
“Don’t lose your cool, and you’ll be fine,” he pat my shoulder. “Let’s go.”
“You missed your chance to have your coffee while we were talking,” Violet smirked at me.
“Oh brother.”
Nero and I flew up. I simply followed him, he flew way up. The air got thin, and the tree below us looked tiny. It was like reaching the fiftieth floor of a skyscraper and looking down at everyone.
I saw little people spawn in a war-like formation starting from the tree and spreading left and right.
Nero and I waited right above the temple, waiting for their reaction.
It looked like about two thousand people – I couldn’t tell of what caliber they were, they were too far, but it seemed like they wore bulky armor with rifles to me. I could even hear their yelling, and hear the shots echo all the way up towards us. Those shots were randomly coming from Doug and Violet. They had machine guns, artillery and more. They snuck tightly into the holograms and fired straight at the temple, damaging it and destroying it from the outside. The reaction was immediate – all three sides that weren’t facing the attack immediately moved towards it, and more of these guardians poured out from inside the temple to repel the attack. They were amazing – they deflected Doug’s rockets with their spears like baseball bats, making them explode elsewhere.
“Can you see how many are out?” I asked.
“Doesn’t matter,” said Nero. After a brief pause, he said, “no more are coming out. This is as good as we get. We’re going in.”
“After you,” I said.
Nero dove down real fast. I could barely keep up without panicking from the rapid descent. He crashed straight through the temple with a giant concave metal plate in front of him. I flew in a second later and landed with him. There were supposed to be twenty, and we were surrounded by exactly eight, two on each side, pointing their spears at us. They charged!
I jolted and moved back instinctively, but Nero took care of it. He spawned four glass walls around us – their spears couldn’t penetrate them.
“Don’t panic!” he yelled at me at the top of his lungs. His personality completely changed during missions. “Try to get the halo!” The loud sounds of rockets, bombs and lasers hitting the building were right above our heads. It was loud enough to want to cover your ears.
The guardians were firing arrows at us, jabbing us with spears, and did anything they could to break through the bulletproof glass. It was getting shattered and cracked the more time went on. Nero had a large plasma shooting rifle ready. He aimed and fired straight through the glass, killing them instantly when they got too close to breaking it.
The arrows actually began penetrating through the glass. We were losing time. More guardians ran in from outside.
I tried pushing the crystal off, but it was completely stuck. I made a large steel hammer and took swings at it, to no avail.
“Nero!” I yelled to him. “Shoot the stone under it!”
He didn’t waste a millisecond and put four shots into the stone that supported the crystal, making the crystal fall with excess rock attached to it.
By the time we made that progression, some guardians appeared from the top hole that we created earlier. They jumped right in with us, and at that point I thought it was over.
Nero kept fighting, kept shooting, kept dodging incoming attacks and more. I had the wits to spawn two pistols and fired rapidly at the incoming guardian, but the bullets were doing nothing to its armor. Nero finished him off for me as soon as he was done on his end.
I threw my pistols to the ground in frustration. I was useless!
More were about to drop down on us, but Nero blocked it off with the same glass on top, then reinforced the rest of the glass around us.
“We’re stuck,” I said.
“We just need to get this to the portal,” said Nero, spinning his palm around to open one. We heard muted attacks this time, since we were completely covered, and pounding on the glass continued relentlessly. If I didn’t know any better, all the guardians that weren’t killed yet were now surrounding us.
“Alright, how do we not lose it on the way there?”
“How do you not lose your clothes? Just hold it tightly. Come on, help me pick it up.” He grabbed one end of it, and I grabbed the other. With all our might, we pulled on it, and didn’t move it a single centimeter.
“Jesus, this is heavy!” I remarked.
“That’s a problem,” said Nero, rubbing the back of his head. “If we can’t hold it, chances are we’ll lose it trying to get there.”
“Damn.”
I sat down on a block of stone that fell from the ceiling.
Nero closed his eyes frustratingly.
“How about a fork lift?” I said.
“And then what?”
“How about you attach a string to it and to yourself and go through the portal?”
“The string would get cut off when the portal closes.”
“How about we create some ice around it and slide it in?”
“I said we can’t get it to base if we can’t hold it!” he yelled.
“At least I’m trying to think of something! God!” I yelled back.
“We’re losing time,” he stared at the crystal intently. We looked up at the sky. It went from a beautiful champagne gold color, to a darker hot pink.
“Well, according to Regal if he comes, we’re finished, right?” I raised my eyebrows.
“We don’t know that,” said Nero.
We heard more rocket and artillery shots fired at the building again. The sounds were muffled and quiet for us, but it was easy to guess that Doug and Violet were still firing. The holograms must have been figured out by now. The guardians were obviously more concerned with us and our open portal. They just wouldn’t stop attacking – and it was working. Nero would have to reinforce it again soon just to prevent them from breaking through.
“Do you think this is easier than the Egyptian God?” I asked.
“Ask me when this whole thing is done,” he replied. He went over to the halo again.
“Are we sure the crystal cube is indestructible?”
“That’s what it says,” said Nero.
“Not even with your plasma gun?”
“I
f something is said to be indestructible, no matter what, it is indestructible,” Nero felt out the crystal and tried to find at least some clues as to what to do.
A huge, earthshaking thud echoed outside. The earth underneath us cracked and we both fell over. I looked up – the sky was bright red.
“It’s him,” I said.
“You enjoy making it dramatic, don’t you?”
Some of the guardians ran outside to face him, and the next thing we heard was their screams.
“No Raymond,” said Nero. “We have to retreat, try again later. This isn’t happening.”
“Are you sure?” the earth shook beneath us again, almost tipping us over.
“Yes!” he said.
“Okay…” I looked at the floating golden ring inside the crystal again. Its clarity was muffled, but it was definitely in there. I sighed deeply, stepping closer to the portal he opened a few minutes ago. My hand went for it, but another hand came out from the portal and grabbed my wrist strongly, startling me.
“My my,” Wilmort stepped out. “You boys have yourself in quite a precarious situation, don’t you?”
“Wilmort!” said Nero. “What are you doing here?”
“Dr. Regal told me your portal was open for a little too long, and I thought I’d have a look,” he replied. “Is this it, then?” He looked down at the large crystal block.
“Yes,” I said. “We can’t pick it up to take it through the portal.”
The earth shook again.
“Hm,” Wilmort looked towards the exit. “Looks like he is here, isn’t he?”
“Hah!” I briefly laughed.
“Can you get this thing?” said Nero impatiently.
“Well you’ve come this far, how could I not assist you?” from beneath his fancy Victorian Age sleeve, black chains shot out towards the cube, enveloping it tightly. He retracted those black aura-infested chains, and the cube moved towards him heavily, crushing any rock and stone beneath it. Then he lifted it up with those chains alone, not his body.
“Wow,” I remarked.
“Signal the others, and you’re free to return.” Wilmort confidently stepped through the portal.
We looked above us. No one was there. Nero created a gap in the glass, got a flare pistol, and shot a green flare up into the red sky.
“Let’s go.”
“Let’s go,” I repeated.
Chapter 16
“You had us worried there,” said Violet. “All of a sudden all the guardians just went back in.”
“Yeah,” I said. “But thanks to Nero nothing bad happened. And thanks to Wilmort we got the crystal back to the base. And I did nothing. And I guess that world will now collapse due to imbalance, right?”
“That’s right,” said Regal behind me, passing me a cup of tea. “But as far as I know the amount of people on that planet is miniscule – the times were ancient. We did not kill too many.”
“Morbid,” I said, my gaze fixed on the table in front of me.
“Bury your demons, Raymond,” said Wilmort. “You did well.”
“What’s the next item?” I asked nonchalantly.
Regal paused before answering. He exchanged glances with Wilmort. “It’s a pendant worn by a princess in a faraway kingdom.”
“What does this pendant do?” I asked.
“Pray to it,” said Wilmort, “and it shall grant you any wish you so desire, usually at the cost of something equal in return.”
“It is a very powerful item,” said Dr. Regal. “Its legend dictates that your prayer is directly linked back to the gods, who then grant your wish. In the story, that necklace gets stolen repeatedly, but the young princess is the rightful heir and guardian to it. That kingdom protects the princess, thus protecting the pendant. We have kept the easiest task for last, to give ourselves a breather.”
“I want to go alone,” I said.
“Alone?” Dr. Regal looked surprised.
“Why?” said Violet.
“I was useless this last mission, I feel the need to prove my worth… let you guys rest while I bring it back myself. It’s easy, right? It’s just a girl and a kingdom?”
“Yes,” said Dr. Regal. “But…”
Wilmort’s eerie laugh broke through, almost startling everyone. All eyes were on him. “Marvelous, truly marvelous. How poetic – a mission that did not go as planned, drove a man to perform a reckless task to redeem himself amidst his comrades. This terribly reminds me of a song.”
“What song?” I asked.
“Mountains do not bow to the howling winds,” he spoke in his usual tone of voice. “The trees will always stick together. Dragon fire consumes all things, love is but a gentle feather.”
“Beautiful,” I said.
“You do not have to continue,” said Dr. Regal.
“Hate is strong like the iron walls, anger makes strong men fall, yet happiness brings everyone together, for love is like a gentle feather.”
I was quite enjoying the sound of it, but was cautious of it turning dark, somehow.
Wilmort looked at me, and I looked right back.
“How does the rest of it go?” I said.
“They may build empires that never fall, but darkness rots away at it all. They may be strong, they may be kings, but dragon fire consumes all things. The winds may howl and the wolves may stalk, the journey, treacherous with burning rock. The cold darkness lingers as it begins its purge, but yet, amidst the shadows you emerge,” he motioned his hand towards me. “The violins play to your brave heart, your conquests paint a picture of true art. The chorus roars to the rising fire, the world, your name will eternally admire… Raymond Smith.”
“That last part doesn’t belong in the song,” I said.
“It will after you bring us the pendant,” he smiled.
Violet looked terribly displeased with the idea, but in a worried way. I didn’t comment on her expression in front of the other two.
“Can I go now?”
“Are you up for it now?” Regal raised an eyebrow.
“Yes,” I got up. “I am.”
“Alright, well, finish your tea,” he said, “I’ll go pull up the details, join me a second.”
Wilmort and Regal both walked off.
Violet avoided eye-contact. It was slightly awkward, just me and her sitting in the lounge area alone. I wanted to break the silence somehow, but wasn’t sure what to say.
“So um,” I started. “I guess it’ll all be over soon. Will I still see you?”
“This base shouldn’t go anywhere,” she said quietly.
“I see,” I nodded. There was another long pause. But this time, I decided not to bother. I got up without a word and headed towards Regal.
“Finished your tea then, have you?” said Regal.
I briefly looked back at the lounge area and saw Violet get up go somewhere.
“Uh, yes. I did, good tea. Thank you.”
“Your mind doesn’t seem to be in the right place,” said the Doctor.
“It’s in my brain, where it’s supposed to be.”
“They say the mind is intangibly within our souls, and that’s why we cannot see the mind, yet it always follows us around. Those who murder innocent people are said to have no soul, because they have no mind to be reasonable.”
“I guess we all have no soul then,” I pressed my lips together.
“Oh no, Raymond, on the contrary, all of us here have the biggest soul. We’re not doing it for nothing, after all… we’re not mindless,” he looked at the large black cubic structure.
That slightly uplifted my spirits. I had to be frank with him, I wanted to have a conversation before I set out.
“Dr. Regal,” I said.
“Yes, Raymond?”
“Would you mind if we have another cup of tea?”
“I absolutely would not mind,” he smiled to me. This was the first time I saw him create something himself – he made two comfortable leather single seat couches for us, with a small table
right in between. Tea was served a moment after.
“So, what is it that you would like to talk about?” he placed his wrists on the table with his hands locked together and leaned back intelligently.
“A lot of things,” I said. “A lot of things on my mind, and somehow I feel like I need an elder man with more experience to give me the answers I seek.”
“I will answer to the best of my capabilities,” said Regal.
“At first I thought I was doing it because I had to. The timer… I thought I was stuck with something I didn’t want to do. Honestly, if you ask me, I wouldn’t have gone back, I would have thrown away the TV and got another one. After that shocking first trip, no way. And then… I thought I was doing it for the reward. We were on a plane, Wilmort and I, and he said that at the end of this journey I will be given what I truly desired all my life.”
Dr. Regal nodded attentively.
“And so I thought I was doing it for the reward – I mean, who doesn’t like rewards? And now… even if you remove the reward from the equation, I would still do this all over again if I had to. I can’t say I grew attached to anything, but it just feels right, you know?”
“Absolutely,” he replied.
“And now that it’s almost over… The engine will be fixed, and then what?”
“You are melancholy, aren’t you?”
“I feel like I barely even got to know you guys, and now it’s all coming to an end.”
“This journey may come to an end, but what about the other journeys?”
“Other journeys?”
“No one is depriving you of the portal. It is yours, and this is your family. There is a different type of bond that grows when you rely on each other with your lives on the line. Personally for me, I would still be sending Nero around to bring me more items to study, that much won’t change. Violet is tied to Wilmort’s treks, whatever they may be. Douglas may retire to his beloved, but he would love to do some target practice with you when you visit his farm. And you… Raymond. Your journey might be most interesting of all.”
“How do you know my journey?” I asked.
“I don’t! That’s why it’s interesting, suspense, right?” he laughed.
The Portal Page 19