by Jared Martin
"That's wonderful, let's do it," Mrs. Andersen was glad to have found a solution. Her head was beginning to spin after listening to DATA's explanation. She always get giddy when listening to technological explanations.
"Affirmative."
Antonio looked up at Mrs. Andersen and grinned widely displaying his adorable little pearl-white teeth.
Before the start of the robot competition, Mrs. Andersen and the kids went down to the second level immediately below the command deck. They came to a room with the label, 'Simulator Room', on the outside of the door. Once they got in, everyone sat down comfortably on a futuristic U-shape sofa, waiting expectantly, as if to catch a performance by a magician. This Simulator Room was a big, rectangular room with a kind of panel on the wall beside the main door. This wall panel had flickering lights on it and served as the control for the simulation system. On the ceiling was attached the simulator device, which was a thin, circular glass panel with six green leave-shaped patterns on it. These leaves were arranged in a regular pattern with their bases joined together. DATA stood next to the wall panel of lights and flashed her palm on a biometric sensor on the panel.
"Simulation system activated. Scene formation will begin in five minutes' time," DATA reported.
The simulator device on the ceiling began to spin slowly at first. It picked up speed rapidly and before long was spinning with a 'whirring' sound. After five minutes had elapsed, myriads of colourful lights streamed down from the spinning simulator device above. A three-dimensional scenery with mountains in the background and sparse vegetation slowly began to take shape. Fontasian landscape was rugged, rugged and still rugged. The flat plain behind the Temple of Azura where the robot competition was to be held was relatively free of vegetation except for the presence of a few tall trees that looked like coconut trees. On a remote mountain range visible from the Temple of Azura, an enclosed valley existed which was the roosting place for pterodactyls.
Pterodactyls are flying reptiles belonging to the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods during Earth's evolution. Their appearances are characterised by elongated heads and wings consisting of a flap of skin supported by the very long fourth digit on each front leg. As this happened to be the breeding season for the flying reptiles, many eggs were laid in nests perched high up on trees.
Behind the Temple of Azura, a total of four robots stood motionless in a wide open field, accompanied by their respective owners, except Beebo. Military supreme commander, Zorak, was a hairy muscular male, no different from humankind. He had dark eyebrows, deep forehead and a goatee. He spoke with a bass. His attire resembled that of an ancient Roman war-general. Zorak was nearly bald except for a thick row of hair running through the centre of his head to his neck behind. He stood in front of the robots and looked awe-inspiring.
The Best Robot Competition was divided into four rounds. The robot that made it to the final round would be the winner. If there were more than one qualifying robot at the final round, another elimination round would be conducted to determine the winner.
"Let the competition begin. Round one, computation. Find the numeric digits from the one-thousandth to one-thousandth and fifth decimal place of pie," Zorak announced. All the robots cleared round one successfully.
"DATA, what's the answer?" Melissa asked.
"£?/XP!"
"Oh gosh."
"Round two, levitation. Contesting robots are to fly above Fontasia's atmosphere. Satellites have been put in orbit to monitor how high you can go," Zorak announced. Robot Super99 failed this round while the others cleared successfully.
"Round three, sensor power. Contesting robots are to generate a sensor beam able to penetrate a ten-metre thick lead wall," Zorak announced. Robot Power888 failed this round. Beebo and SAR22 made it to the final round.
"Round four, weapon power. Contesting robots are to fire a laser beam able to penetrate a ten-metre thick diamond wall," Zorak announced. Beebo failed this round.
"I declare Robot SAR22 to be the winner of 'Best Robot of the Year' contest. The award will be presented during Praise Giving which will be held in this compound tomorrow night. All of you are invited to attend," Zorak announced finally.
"DATA, why did Beebo lost in the final round of competition?" Melissa asked.
"Robot SAR22 can make two additional clones of itself. Hence, its fire-power is tripled."
"Oh gosh."
On the following night, a full moon was shining brightly in the sky. Some glittering stars were visible in the distant sky. There was no wind and only some insect cries could be heard. The Temple of Azura looked like an inverted, elongated funnel and seemed to exude an air of mystery around it. A statue of a gigantic phoenix two hundred metres tall stood not too far behind the temple. This statue sat in the middle of a circular fire-pit about fifty metres in diameter. The Epsilon Phoenix had widespread wings and head lifted up towards the sky and a tail which fanned out behind adding beauty to its majestic frame. A small volume of flammable liquid filled the fire-pit up till knee-level, waiting to be lit at the right moment. About twenty metres further away from the fire-pit stood four brick columns fashioned like torches, each about one hundred metres tall. These torch columns were placed in such a way that they formed the four corners of a square.
A big stage was set for Praise Giving, about fifty metres away from the fire-pit. A row of chairs was placed onstage with a semi-circular backdrop beautifully decorated with Fontasian mythical figures. Multi-coloured lights on the circumference of the backdrop flashed from one end to the other in different patterns. A large crowd of Fontasians had already gathered. All the males had short hair while the females had their hair plaited and adorned nicely on their head.
A short while passed, when the Master of Ceremony walked up onto the stage. He was a handsome Fontasian dressed in a flowing green robe. He walked to the centre of the stage and stood facing the crowd. Slowly, he extended his right hand and a ball of fire formed above the fire-pit. This fire ball quickly divided into five smaller balls, four of which flew in different directions to light up the four torch columns and the last one dropped into the fire-pit below. A raging big fire was ignited. The whole compound was illuminated as bright as day by the torch fires.
At the scheduled time, a row of dignitaries walked up onto the stage. Each of them took up their designated seats, leaving one chair in the centre empty. A short interval passed before a longhorn sounded, signalling the arrival of the Overlord. The Overlord was the Ruler of Fontasia and controlled the land, air and sea. He arrived by levitation, descending gracefully from the sky and sitting on the empty seat reserved for him. He wore a beautifully carved emerald crown and held a sceptre in his right hand.
Silence reigned.
The Master of Ceremony addressed the crowd gathered there.
"Fellow Fontasians, we are gathered here today for praise giving. Our proficiency in magic is divided into four levels, basic, intermediate, advanced and perfection. We all strive to reach the highest level, when we can use magic to make all our wishes come true. Let us give praise to the Epsilon Phoenix, the source of all our magic!"
The Master of Ceremony declared the start of Praise Giving. The longhorn sounded again for a full five minutes. When all was quiet, he asked all the contestant robots to come onstage. Everyone cheered loudly. Robot SAR22 was presented with a magic bracelet which it wore on its robot arm. A long applause followed. When the last sound died, an interlude of chanting came from the ten-member choir at the foot of the stage. This carried on for about ten minutes before the first praise song was sung. The choir was accompanied by a small musical band. Fontasians had good vocals and musical inclinations. Before long, all Fontasians gathered were joined in singing, the quality of which was ethereal. The songs of praises were dedicated to the Epsilon Phoenix because Fontasians believed it to be their divine guardian and protector.
There were altogether five Magical Orders in Fontasia: Ancient, Black, Brachian, Minoric and Pyros. Each Magical Order was
guided by an individual commander, dressed in Roman war-general outfit. These commanders looked fierce and imposing. The overall commander of these Magical Orders was the Ancient Order. Many years ago, a conflict arose between the Ancient Order and the Black Order over a small issue. The Black Order wanted to take over command of all the Magical Orders. Kostara was the commander of the Black Order. He challenged the sea-nymph and a fierce battle arose which lasted for many days. Eventually, Kostara lost marginally!
When the last song subsided, the Master of Ceremony called on the Brachian Order of magic to demonstrate its fireworks. The first Fontasian seated on the right-side of the stage stepped forward and began chanting incantations. Suddenly, he stopped and pointed his finger at the sky, very much like one of the actor in the movie 'Grease'. A long horizontal white string of fireworks flashed across the sky, with more fireworks cascading from the original line. It looked marvellous, just like a waterfall of fireworks. "Oooo", "ah", "oh" and "wow" came from the crowd. Subsequently, many more strings of fireworks appeared shooting upwards at different angles, with following cascading fireworks.
The Master of Ceremony next called on the Minoric Order of magic to perform. Fireworks that burst into spherical myriads of green and yellow lights were seen repeatedly high up in the sky. The crowd cheered loudly.
The Pyros Order of magic was last to perform. Fireworks that fanned out when exploded kept appearing in different parts of the sky and at different intervals. Just when everyone thought that the show was coming to an end, the other two Magical Orders joined in the finale!
It was indeed a night to rejoice, when something unexpected happened!
Chapter 6
In a faraway Black Canyon, there was a Black Cave where an evil wizard lived. At this moment, he was busy practising an evil spell. Dressed in a dirty, torn and tattered wizard robe, he sat at his dirty work table. His wizard hat was bent at the top, the result of constant knocking against the top of the cave opening. On his table, there were knives, forceps, scissors and all kinds of funny cutting instruments. There were tiny pieces of animals which were unfortunate to be cut up and left lying all over the table. Tongues, tails, wings and teeth could be easily found. A big cauldron hung in the middle of the cave with a fire burning below it. This cave was dim. It was lit by several candles held by candle-stands jutting out from the cave wall.
Kostara was the notorious wizard from the Black Cave in the parallel universe. He fought a fierce battle with the sea nymph of Fontasia one thousand years ago. He lost that battle by just one spell and he disappeared ever since, never to be heard again. After the battle, the Ancient Order disappeared and to prevent further conflicts, the Overlord changed the system and had a supreme military commander took charge of all magical orders. Now, Kostara wanted to come back to our physical universe to exact his revenge on Fontasians.
“Fontasians, I will make you pay for this humiliating defeat! For making me lose face in front of all my junior wizards! Drat the 'Oonbeldi'! I am the leader of the Black Order of Magic, the most powerful Magical Order in the whole universe! I won’t have any other Magical Order more powerful than the Black Order. Never, never, never!” Kostara kept muttering to himself and poring over his big, dusty Book of Black Magic. A severed toad’s head was looking up at him on his right. He happened to look down and saw this pitiful head. With a mighty sweep of his hand, the head landed on the floor. A hungry black cat at one corner of the cave saw this delicious morsel and jumped on it, gulping down the head in an instant. After finishing its meal, this black cat began to lick its paws and rubbed its face in alternate fashion.
Kostara’s long, bony finger was slowly turning through the Book of Spells.
“I have to counter the 'Oonbeldi', mmm…let me see, ‘Blood Spell’, ‘Spell of Sorrow’, ’Hell Fire Spell’. There you are! Need the abdomen of black-widow, sting of Vespa wasp, head of tarantula, centipede jaws, tail of rattlesnake, fangs of King Cobra, and the most evil heart.”
“I have all but the most evil heart, how sickening! Which of you has the most evil heart, hah?! Come here!” Kostara shouted. Perhaps it was the loudness or tone of his voice that frightened all the living creatures around him, suddenly, all these living creatures fled for their lives. Not one living thing could be found near him, leaving a clear space all around him. The evil wizard sniggered. He hobbled out of his cave. He was going to get the heart he wanted, evil or no evil, with or without the owner’s consent!
He came towards the evil-looking tree where he kept a black crow in a wooden bird-cage. Lifting his head, he stared at the captive bird. The poor bird saw the evil gleam in his eyes and flew all over the cage, cawing in stark terror! It somehow knew the end was near. With an outstretched hand, Kostara shot a flame of fire at the wooden bird-cage.
“I killll…. you!” Kostara yelled. The bird-cage went up in total flames along with the crow. A night-owl with two big eyes, perched on the same tree on a higher level bore witness to this tragedy. Terrified by such a horrible crime, the night-owl shrieked “eeee…” and flew away. It flew in an erratic manner with a total loss of sense of direction. Sometimes it flew high and then suddenly changed altitude. Sometimes it headed east and then suddenly changed direction halfway through. It just didn’t know where to go!
When the bird-cage landed in Kostara’s hand, he mumbled to himself. “Well, I have a heart now, a burnt heart, heeheehee…Now, for the ‘Hell Fire’ spell!” This ‘Hell Fire’ spell was the most powerful black magic, feared by all practitioners of magic. It used the most poisonous substances to trap all the fire in a supernova explosion and gave the wizard an endless supply of high-temperature fire, to do whatever he pleased. At this moment, when he was about to return to the Black Cave, his sixth sense told him that he was been watched. Muttering under his breath, Kostara suddenly raised his left hand and shouted, “abracadabra, Thunder Bolt Lightning Spell!” With those words spoken, a streak of lightning shot upwards from his left hand to the sky. At the other end of Black Canyon, a group of junior wizards were looking into their crystal ball to see what their senior was doing. Suddenly, many electrical charges were seen within the crystal ball. A loud booming thunder was heard shortly after. Before these junior wizards knew what happened, “ka-boom”, their crystal ball cracked and broke into tiny pieces.
“That will teach you to spy on me, you fools!” Kostara scolded. The evil wizard hobbled back to his cave, with the last of the ingredient for the ‘Hell Fire’ spell in his hand. This magic spell required at least one week of intense practice before it could be mastered by ordinary calibre wizard. However, Kostara was an expert practitioner in magic and this rule of thumb did not apply to him. He mastered the ‘Hell Fire’ spell in one day! At this moment, he was thinking of improving on this evil 'Hell Fire' spell.
"Let me think. Maybe I should add some more ingredients to increase the evil power. Ha! cat's eyes!" Kostara mumbled. Looking at one corner of his dim cave, he saw the black cat crouched neatly and gazing up at him with shining green eyes.
"Hello, kitty, hello, hello, come here..." Kostara stretched out his hand and tempted the feline. He got up from his table and started to walk towards the cat. When this cat saw Kostara coming at it, it sprang to its feet and dashed out of the cave in split second.
"Drats! Now I have to think of something else," Kostara cursed.
On planet Fontasia, just when the last fireworks subsided, the bright moon began to take on a reddish hue gradually The general festive mood had changed to one of fear and apprehension. “Oh! look at that…”, “blood moon”, “bad omen” came from the crowd. When the moon turned completely red, a huge, blazing ball of reddish yellow fire formed next to it. Slowly, the image of Kostara was seen within this ball of fire in the sky. It was a colossus image equal to the size of ten Mount Everests put together. Kostara with his dark, bushy eyebrows and pointed nose and pointed chin, looked more evil now than it ever could besides the full red moon. Some Fontasians screamed while others trembled in
fear.
“Fontasians, I have come back for my revenge. Where is the sea nymph? Prepare to meet your doom, all of you!” Kostara threatened.
“What audacity! Military supreme commander, extinguish this Evil!” The Overlord commanded.
“Your wish is my command. All Magical Orders, prepare for battle!” Zorak issued new military order.
All at once, three war generals enveloped in shimmering globes of yellow, orange and green lights flew up into the sky and headed for the Epsilon Phoenix statue. When they approached the phoenix statue, they slowed down and descended slowly above the torch columns and took up positions above the burning fire! Zorak descended on the last torch column enveloped in a sphere of red light above the torch fire.
“I will burn you alive with hell-fire!” Kostara flaunted his power. Having said that, the wizard extended his right hand and suddenly hundreds, maybe thousands of fire-balls formed in the nightsky, each measuring on average two metres in diameter. With a mighty sweep of his hand, Kostara directed these fire-balls towards planet Fontasia. Burning fire-balls came raining down on this planet.
“Fire-balls!” the Grand Advisor shouted.
Floating above a burning torch fire in a red magic globe, Zorak stretched out both of his hands and worked his magic. Sparks began to radiate back and forth between his two hands. Before long, Zorak conjured up a transparent pyramid between his hands. This pyramid floated higher up into the sky and remained motionless above the epicentre of the torch columns. This pyramid grew until it was many times larger than its original size. Zorak and his war-generals all lifted up their hands and began transferring their magic powers to the pyramid. Electrical charges were seen radiating from the war generals’ hands to the pyramid, which began to glow and spin high in the sky.
“Water shield!” Zorak gave a mighty shout.
Suddenly, a deep rumbling sound was heard. All the ocean waters from the northern hemisphere of Fontasia was swept up continuously via the north pole into the sky to form a seamless water shield about one metre in thickness. This water shield covered the Fontasian hemisphere facing the oncoming fire-balls and remained in the stratosphere layer of the atmosphere. All the fire-balls were extinguished after passing through this water shield. The cores of these fire-balls dropped to the ground, while others landed on the pterodactyl nests in the mountain valley crushing the eggs! The parent reptiles were grief-stricken and all of them were seen flying above their nests making shrill cries. These flying reptiles flapped their wings powerfully and flew in circles above their nests.