by Lucas Flint
“So that means I should get out of here, right?” I said.
“Wrong,” came a voice behind me.
Startled, I looked over my shoulder just in time to see blue glue flying through the air toward me. The blue glue slammed into me, knocking me to the floor and pinning me there as the glue rapidly solidified. I struggled to break it, but as usual, the blue glue didn’t even budge.
“What?” I said as I struggled against the solidified glue. “Who shot this?”
A dark chuckle came from the doorway, causing me to look in that direction. My spirits fell at what I saw.
Graleex stood in the doorway, aiming his arm cannon at me. He was all by himself, but he was still chuckling like he had just heard a good joke. He entered the room, his footsteps barely audible over the loud noises that the generator was making.
“Graleex?” I said. “What are you doing here?”
“This is the main mother ship of the fleet,” said Graleex. “I had come back up here to command the forces against humanity and to await your leaders’ response to our demands.”
“How did you know I was here?” I said. “We didn’t tell anyone.”
“I didn’t know you, in particular, were here,” said Graleex. “But I was informed by a communication from one of my soldiers that a human had broken into the ship and was heading to the worm hole generator room. So I went to intercept you, though I’m not surprised that it was you, given how annoyingly persistent you are.”
Graleex stopped above me and aimed his arm cannon at my face. “And now, I will do what I should have done earlier and finish you off. After that, I will command my forces to begin the destruction of Earth, because I am taking your presence here as their answer that your species will not be surrendering.”
Chapter Sixteen
With Graleex’s arm cannon aimed at me, I knew that if he fired, my face would get blasted with the blue glue. And given that blue glue solidified quickly, I knew I would suffocate, particularly if the blue glue managed to smash the helmet of my environ.
In fact, I could actually see the blue glue building up in Graleex’s arm. I struggled to break free and could actually feel the blue glue starting to move, but I knew that I would not be able to escape in time.
“Good bye, human,” said Graleex. “You would have made a good Pokacu soldier, perhaps, in another life.”
Right before Graleex could fire his blue glue, there was a sudden sound of jet engines nearby. But before either Graleex or I could figure out where those sounds were coming from, Graleex gasped and coughed. I didn’t know why, however, until I saw the tip of a familiar sword poke out of his stomach, making his stomach bleed blue blood.
Then the sword was pulled out and Graleex went staggering to the side. He stumbled onto the floor, gasping in pain as he covered his now-bleeding gut with his other hand, causing me to look at him in shock before a familiar monotone voice before me said, “Kevin, are you all right?”
I looked up to see Mecha Knight—his armor slightly blackened and burnt in a few spots—standing before me with his sword, now dripping Pokacu blood, at his side. A few bits of his armor were missing and other parts of his armor appeared bent or bashed in, but he otherwise looked entirely functional.
“Mecha Knight?” I said in surprise. “What are you doing up here? I thought you were destroyed by that explosion earlier!”
Mecha Knight shrugged. “I was caught underneath the rubble from the destroyed Justice Statue, but I hid underneath it so that the Pokacu would not find me, though I always intended to escape as soon as an opportunity presented itself. But when I saw your ship fly above the mother ship, I came to help, because I saw an opportunity to enter the mother ship, take the Pokacu down from the inside, and save my fellow neoheroes.”
“I’m so happy to see you,” I said. “Can you break me out of this blue glue, by the way? I don’t have any of that red stuff on me at the moment.”
“Luckily for us, I managed to steal some of that red liquid from the Pokacu soldiers you took down earlier,” said Mecha Knight, pulling a vial of red liquid from his chest armor. “I thought it might be useful if I ever got hit with the blue glue, but let me free you with it.”
Mecha Knight held the vial above me, but before he could drop it, Graleex shouted, “No, you don’t!” and more blue glue came flying at us. Mecha Knight jumped backwards, the vial still in his hands, as the blue glue flew by overhead and slammed into the wall on the opposite side of the room.
Looking over at Graleex, he looked worse than normal. He was standing again, but he was covering his wound with his hand while aiming his arm cannon at Mecha Knight, who was now holding his sword before him defensively.
“I will not let you free this human,” said Graleex with a snarl. “I know that you humans are trying to get to the Mother World, but I will not let you. All I need to do is distract you humans for four minutes now and the worm hole generator will eventually shut itself off.”
“You’re assuming that we won’t just kill you and leave,” said Mecha Knight. “Unlike some heroes, I have no qualms with taking the life of another being if necessary.”
Graleex chuckled. “Even if you do kill me, it won’t matter. I have already called for backup, which means that soon this entire room will be swarming with loyal Pokacu soldiers who will defend the Mother World from you dirty humans and will keep you from escaping this place.”
“Mecha Knight, don’t waste time talking with him,” I said. “We don’t have time to talk. If the worm hole closes, we might not be able to open it again.”
“That is the point, human,” said Graleex. “No one is allowed to set foot on the Mother World save for us Pokacu! That is the most important tenant of the Grand Code and the one law that must never be broken!”
Graleex shot blue glue at Mecha Knight. But Mecha Knight launched into the air, avoiding the blue glue as it flew past him, and landed behind Graleex. He attempted to slash the Pokacu’s head off, but Graleex blocked Mecha Knight’s sword with his arm cannon, causing the two to start pushing against each other in an attempt to dominate each other.
Meanwhile, I was still struggling to break free of the blue glue myself. I didn’t know for sure how much time we had left before the worm hole closed, but I knew I couldn’t waste even one more second here. The blue glue was starting to crack slightly, but it was still very slow-going and I feared it would take me more than five minutes to break free even with my super strength.
Then I heard Nicknacks’s voice in my earcom saying, “Bolt, where are you? The worm hole has opened, but we don’t have much time before we can enter it.”
“Ran into a slight problem,” I said through gritted teeth. “Got hit with some blue glue, so I can’t do much.”
“Blue glue?” Nicknacks repeated. “I was afraid this would happen. Will you be able to escape it?”
“Maybe,” I said, glancing over at Graleex and Mecha Knight, who were still pushing against each other in a struggle for dominance. “But I don’t know if I’ll be able to break it before the worm hole closes.”
“Please try,” said Nicknacks. “We’ll need all the help we can get when we go to the Mother World and I have a feeling that your powers would be very useful once we get there.”
“Hey, it’s not like I’m taking it easy here or anything,” I said. “Mecha Knight is fighting Graleex.”
“You mean Mecha Knight survived?” said Nicknacks in surprise. “Then again, I did see something fly up to the mother ship, which must have been him.”
“Yeah, it was,” I said. “Anyway, enough talking. I need to focus on breaking out of this solidified blue glue.”
“Sure,” said Nicknacks. “But please hurry. We will be forced to leave without you if we wait too long.”
“Understood,” I said.
I immediately put as much strength as I could into breaking the blue glue, but it was almost impossible. Whatever this stuff was made out of, it was strong enough to withstand even my own s
uper strength. I was reminded too much of the time when I met Graleex under the sea, only then I hadn’t had my powers at all.
In any case, I looked over at Mecha Knight and Graleex. The two seemed about even, despite Graleex’s wound, which seemed to have stopped bleeding for some reason, perhaps due to the quick healing powers of the Pokacu. Mecha Knight still held the vial of red liquid in his hand, but he was in no position to throw it to me. I wished there was some way I could help, but with my arms caught in the blue glue, I was incapable of even shooting Graleex with my lightning powers from a distance.
Then Graleex suddenly leaned backwards, causing Mecha Knight to force him down. But Graleex used the momentum to grab Mecha Knight and throw him over his shoulder. Mecha Knight hurtled through the air before slamming into the floor, where he lay still, as though he had been knocked offline or something.
“Mecha Knight!” I shouted. “No!”
“Silence, human,” said Graleex, aiming his arm cannon at me again. He had removed his normal hand, revealing that his wound had healed. “I must ensure that no one gets to the Mother World, most especially you.”
“Why?” I said, though I just barely got the word out due to how hard I was struggling against the blue glue. “Because you’re afraid I’ll stop your plans?”
“Because I don’t want you saving that woman you care so much about,” said Graleex, “the one you call ‘Mom,’ which I understand to be another form of the Earth word ‘mother.’”
I instantly stopped struggling and stared at Graleex in shock. “What? Did you just say that Mom is on the Mother World?”
“Indeed,” said Graleex. “We sent her there after we kidnapped her.”
“But why?” I said. “Why would you do that?”
“Because the Mother World demands it,” said Graleex. “It is part of her greater plan that I am too humble to fully understand. All I know is that this plan, if successful, will raise my people to a status hitherto unforesown. I mean unforeseen.” Graleex scowled. “I loathe your human language. It is too confusing.”
“Is she still alive?” I said. “What did you do to her?”
“I don’t know, but I am not going to let you save her,” said Graleex. He aimed his arm cannon at me again. “The Mother World commands it.”
“Is that all?” I said. Tears of rage were starting to leak out of my eyes, but I blinked them back. “You’re willing to sacrifice everything for your precious Mother World, even the lives of innocent people?”
“Of course,” said Graleex. “Would you not do the same for your own mother?”
That question hit me like a bag of rocks. I just stared at Graleex, unsure what to say. “I … um … my mom …”
“Face it, human, you are no different from me,” said Graleex. “But unlike me, you will soon be without a mother of your own. Of course, you needn’t worry, because you will soon join her in the great beyond to which all souls eventually go.”
All of a sudden, Mecha Knight appeared of nowhere and stabbed his sword into Graleex’s side. Graleex let out an inhuman shout of agony before Mecha Knight ripped his sword out of the alien’s side and kicked him to the ground. Graleex slammed into the floor and tried to get up before Mecha Knight stabbed him in the chest, causing Graleex to stop moving and just lie there in an ever-widening pool of his own blood, his inhuman eyes no longer glowing with life.
Removing his sword from Graleex’s chest, Mecha Knight walked over to me as if he killed aliens every day. He immediately smashed the vial against my blue glue, instantly dissolving it.
I jumped to my feet and, rubbing my arms, said, “Thanks, Mecha Knight. I thought I was a goner there.”
“No problem,” said Mecha Knight. He glanced at his sword. “It will take a long time to clean off all of this Pokacu blood, however.”
I nodded, but then started. “Damn it, how much time do I have left before the worm hole closes?”
“One minute, Kevin,” came Valerie’s helpful voice in my ear. “Well, now it is fifty-nine seconds … fifty-eight …”
“Then we need to get out of here right away,” I said. I looked at Mecha Knight. “You coming with?”
“Of course,” said Mecha Knight.
We both turned and ran toward the exit and burst out of the room into the hallway. But before we could run back the way I’d came, a sudden shout caused us to look in the other direction.
A dozen Pokacu soldiers were running down the hallway toward us. They were coming straight toward us, already taking aim with their arm cannons when they spotted us.
“The backup Graleex mentioned,” I said. I grabbed Mecha Knight’s arm. “Come on. We can outrun them.”
But Mecha Knight ripped his arm out of my hand and said, “No. You go on. I’ll hold them off.”
“What?” I said. “But—”
Mecha Knight pushed me down as some blue glue flew past, nearly hitting me in the process. “I would only slow you down. You must leave the mother ship yourself.”
“But—”
“I’ll be fine,” Mecha Knight said. “Now go!”
As much as I disliked the idea of abandoning Mecha Knight yet again, I realized I had no choice, especially once I heard Valerie counting down to the late thirties in my ear.
With a nod at Mecha Knight, I activated my super speed and ran back through the hallways of the mother ship. I didn’t even look back, but I thought I heard Mecha Knight already engaging the attacking soldiers in combat. I hoped he would survive and that I would see him again after all of this was over.
Chapter Seventeen
I burst out of the hole in the ceiling of the mother ship and shot straight toward the ship still floating above it. I zoomed around it until I landed on the top of the ship, right on the spot where I had exited it perhaps less than ten minutes ago. I didn’t even look up at the worm hole in the sky; I just shouted into my watch, “Nick, I’m out! Let me in!”
Immediately, I descended back into the ship and the hole closed above me once I was fully inside. But I didn’t even wait for the plat form to touch the floor before I jumped off of it and made my way back to the control room, where Nicknacks and Blizzard were waiting.
“Bolt!” said Blizzard as I ran in. She immediately hugged me. “Oh, I’m so glad you’re alive! I thought you might not make it.”
“Good to see you escaped, Bolt,” said Nicknacks. “Now we have to go up to the worm hole. We have less than twenty seconds to enter it before it closes, so get in your seats and put on your belts, because these worm holes can be rough rides.”
Blizzard and I immediately sat on our seats, buckling up as the ship started to ascend.
“What does the worm hole look like?” I asked as we flew up.
“Let me pull it up on the monitor,” said Nicknacks.
He pressed a button and suddenly one of the monitors displayed what looked like a giant, glowing hole in the sky above us. Actually, now that I looked at it, it looked less like a hole and more like the opening of a funnel, but it was too deep for me to see what was on its other side.
“That’s our target,” said Nicknacks. “Now hang on. I’m increasing the speed so we can enter it before it closes.”
Blizzard and I had only just enough time to hold hands before the ship suddenly shot upwards. It was like going up an elevator at super speed, but thankfully our seat belts kept us from flying into the ceiling. I kept my eyes on the monitor showing the worm hole at all times as it drew closer and closer … closer and closer …
Until we passed through the worm hole. Then everything went dark.
-
Everything suddenly went incredibly dark. I mean, the lights were still on in the ship and there weren’t any windows exposing us to the outside, but for some reason it became dark anyway. I could see Blizzard next to me and Nick’s head silhouetted by the light from the screens in front of him, as well as the screens themselves, but everything was really dark.
“Nick, what’s going on?” I said. My
voice sounded smaller than usual, even though I wasn’t whispering.
“We’re traveling through the worm hole,” said Nicknacks, without looking back at me or Blizzard. “We’ll be fine.”
“I didn’t say we weren’t—” I said, before I was suddenly interrupted by a sudden shaking of the ship.
The sudden shaking also cased Blizzard to yelp, but Nick said, “It’s nothing. These kinds of bumps are normal in worm hole travel. We should be emerging from the worm hole and onto the Mother World’s surface any second now.”
Just as Nick said that, the entire ship suddenly turned brighter again and the ship stopped shaking. Taking my breath, I looked at Blizzard. Even though we had only been in the worm hole for a few seconds, she looked incredibly shaken by the experience.
“Blizzard, you okay?” I said.
“I-I’m fine,” said Blizzard, her teeth chattering, even though it wasn’t cold. “Just … I don’t know.”
Nicknacks suddenly turned around in his chair in order to face us. “You are likely suffering from post-worm hole travel disorder. It is something that sometimes afflicts beings who are not used to traveling through worm holes. Because we were not in that worm hole very long, however, you should recover from it fairly quickly.”
“So we’re finally out of it?” I said. “Are we finally at the Mother World, then?”
“According to the ship’s systems, yes,” said Nicknacks. “Would you like to see it?”
I nodded. “Yes.”
Nicknacks turned around back to the controls, tapped a few buttons, and then one of the monitors—the same one from before—changed its display to show the outside. Blizzard and I leaned forward to get a better look at what the Mother World looked like.
I didn’t know what I had been expecting to see. I thought that maybe I would at least see cities and towns, maybe some mountains and wildlife. Or maybe it would look more like Mars; a mostly barren wasteland, though maybe with some bases for soldiers and landing stripes for their spaceships and also a red sky for good measure.