Graven looks with sad eyes and walks over to Tia and places his arm around her. “It’s ok.”
She gives him a dismissive wave but doesn’t say anything.
Kat is sad too but not to the same degree as they are. It could be because she isn’t as invested as they are or that she’s just a half blood, but one thing is certain, there’s some kind of connection she doesn’t know what it is.
The door re-opens to a tall luminescent blond who’s hair frames her face as if it was sculpted. Her bright yellow eyes scan the room and lock onto Kat. Kat pops the strap off her holster and pulls out Fury.
“Katrice Wylde.” The woman says with a sinister looking smile crawling across her face.
Kat’s eyes lock with the woman's, “Gwen Stacy.”
26
Graven One
Graven stares at Gwen Stacy with disbelief. She should be dead, he watched her die. Kat had told him that she saw her body in Ragnarok but didn’t believe it. In some kind of rejuvenation chamber. Which means Ryker could be out there somewhere too.
Kat looks at him and mouths go. Which means she must be worried about the others. If she’s here then the alarms won’t be too far off and that will put everyone else in danger. He needs to go and get a message to the others, help them, or clear a path and Kat trusts him to do that.
He nods back to her. He thrusts power though his body shifting straight into his yellow power. It was the first time he’s used his power since Jinx used it on Etchten. He knows his body is Eydulan now and worries less about over exerting himself but still didn’t want to be careless. He focuses on the door making a break for it.
Gwen says, “Oh no you don’t.”
Graven doesn’t look back and feels a blast of cold air across his back as he makes his way down the hallway back to the hyper lift. His first stop should be the ship because if they don’t have that secure then it won’t matter if they’re all together.
Red rotating lights pop out of the ceiling along with two guards in full white body armor coming out of a room. They look just like the ones from before and they each point their blasters at him. Graven moves into to punch the first, connecting on its chin. He hears something snap as the body spins in midair and falls to the ground like a thrown rag doll.
Without losing momentum Graven has already raised his left leg behind him spinning in place and connects it with the side of the neck of the second guard. Their head flops onto Graven’s foot before twirling like they were doing cartwheels in the air.
Graven looks around and doesn’t see any other immediate guards in the room or the hallway. He repeatedly hits the button to call the hyper lift. Which should have be there since they just got off it.
He can already feel the strain of being in yellow and its only been a couple of minutes at most even if he had been pushing it. There is always the option to go down to orange or red and conserve some energy. But if he needs yellow again there could be an opening an enemy could exploit.
The hyper lift’s doors open slowly and Graven jumps inside the second he can. He starts pressing the go button almost as fast as he can. The doors work just as fast as they had when they opened. Giving him the same feeling as watching paint dry.
Graven opts not to strap himself in and just braces himself for the acceleration. As the lift moves he’s able to keep himself up right until it reaches full speed and doesn’t need to hold himself up any longer. He crosses his arms and taps his foot. Trying to will the hyper lift to go faster. Even if it took about five minutes to get to the dock from where they were, it is five minutes too long.
Glancing over to wall display a message scrolls across the screen, alerting everyone to stay in place and all non-essential personnel to enter lockdown measures.
Graven thins, Well crap.
He wonders if Kat is ok and remembers the Solar Queen was a tough opponent the last time they fought. Kat didn’t have magic last time and she’s with Tia, so they should be fine. He corrects himself, Will be fine.
He shakes his head and focuses on what’s at hand. Make sure everyone at the ship, and the ship itself is ok. Then find Mark and Terra to get them back to the ship. And somewhere along there Whisper or Kat will contact him telling him where to go. If he’s lucky.
Reaching back near the small of his back where he normally keeps his short blade he finds it isn’t there. Which of course it wouldn’t be. Mark had been bugging him for months about a metal free retractable blade made from ceramic. He could use some of his Foremid finger magic to make one. Graven didn’t really want anything from Mark, even if it was a nice gesture. Mark has been way too involved with Katrice recently and Graven is about at his wits end with it all. Every time he finds them she’s giggling and the more time they spend together seems to be pulling Kat away from him.
Searching through his memories Jinx had similar problems before she and Tink committed themselves to each other. Tink had a very friendly personality mixed with a beauty and charm only matched by Kat. To him anyway.
The lift starts to slow and Graven shifts his weight to keep from falling over. As it comes to a stop he readies himself to attack whatever might be on the other end.
The doors open to a whole dock devoid of people.
27
Kat turn toward Graven and mouths ‘go’. She trusts he will secure the ship and gather everyone up because thats what he would do. He nods and she is almost knocked back by his outburst of power in changing forms. His eyes and hair both glow bright yellow.
Gwen raises her hand up with a bright yellow ball of energy herself pointing it at Graven, saying, “Oh no you don’t.”
Graven charges out of the room almost faster than Kat can get out a powerful and icy cold blast of wind. Gwen is knocked to the side, releasing her spell into the wall behind Kat.
Her eyes turn to Kat sharp as razors. “You’re a mage?”
Kat is already in the middle of pulling out Fury and one of the two Gravity shells she has on her belt waist.
“You should be dead.”
“It wasn’t your lack of trying, I assure you. I did die, but I am a top level enforcer.” Gwen straightens herself up and repositions her hair. “You and the Devourer got lucky last time. If I would have known you had access to magi-tech—“
Kat interrupts, “Shoulda, woulda, coulda.” Locking Fury’s chamber in place and points at him at Gwen. “This time stay dead.”
Gwen holds out her hand and before Kat could pull her trigger a flash of light blinds her. Kat instinctively puts up an ice barrier right in front of herself and backs up until she hits the wall behind her a step away.
Gwen breaks the barrier down with a punch as Kat is still trying to blink her sight back. Whisper changes Kat’s cybernetic eye over to thermal as Gwen is coming in for another attack with a bright glowing white ball of heat.
In a split second Kat shoves her left hand across her chest creating an ice column and pushes herself out of the way as the ball of white heat grazes the hairs on her face. She can feel the heat of the spell as it connects with the wall melting it.
Pointing Fury at Gwen she pulls the trigger. Fury’s chamber spins rapidly with purple and black sparks as the black ball with a purple glow forms at his barrel and releases. Gwen holds up her right hand as another ball of white heat forms and collides with the gravity bullet.
The two connect and vibrate in midair before cancel each other out in a poof. Kat stares in disbelief. She didn’t know that magi-tech could be canceled out like that.
“Now that we have your tricks out of the way. Let’s see how good your magic is cel-mic.”
Gwen takes her two hands placing them a few feet apart and Kat watches as a giant ball of yellow and red heat form. She can feel the pulsing of the sphere as sweat rolls down her neck and fires off a couple of normal rounds from Fury.
Each bullet doesn’t even get close as it melts mid-air turning into vapor. Kat reaches her hand out pulling her magic from the bottled torrent of a storm inside he
r and makes a jagged spear of ice form behind Gwen. Which vaporizes before it reaches her.
Gwen laughs, “Is that all you have catel? You should know your limits before challenging an Ales.”
Kat reaches for a Meteor shell and loads it into Fury as the same time that she imagines herself mental shattering the glass bottle holding in her power. King told her it was necessary to focus but now is not the time for focus, it's time for power. The walls, floor and ceiling freeze around her.
Icy power flows through her veins as the storm inside goes from a breeze into a full blown category four hurricane. Gwen’s sphere doesn’t change in size but Kat can no longer feel the heat radiating off it. Kat steadies Fury with both hands while aiming down the sights.
She pulls the trigger. Thousands of tiny little rocks appear in front of Kat. Gwen steps into her sphere, letting it wrap around her like a suit. As it wraps around her head two flames appear where her eyes would be and meet Kat’s.
“A meteor shell now too. My my, aren’t we special. I never knew you were so into toys.”
Meteors start flying into Gwen, each vaporizing before reaching her. She throws her head back and laughs.
Kat releases Whisper from around her wrist and places her on Fury. The two know what Kat wants. Whisper attaches herself around the chamber of Fury and elongates his barrel fusing the two into Wrath.
“Wrath online.”
Kat says, “Get a blank shell ready, I’m about to feed magic into it.”
“Acknowledged.”
Gwen takes a step forward, the ice on the floor melting as her foot touches the floor. Reforming as it leaves.
Gwen shakes her head, “Do you really think another toy is what you need to fight me. Let me show you how a mage fights.”
Gwen throws fireballs from both her hands. Each evaporating before they reach Kat. Gwen grunts in frustration. A bright red dot appears at the tip of her now extended index and middle finger.
Kat ignores Gwen as she feeds all of her anger and frustration she’s had over the last few days into her spell. The torrent inside of her is out of her control but she doesn’t care. Light blue symbols start lighting up along Wrath’s grip flowing up to and down the barrel.
Tiny blue spots of light manifest in front of Wrath’s barrel and flow into it. As Kat pours more power into Wrath, more blue lights flow into the barrel and at faster speeds.
Gwen says, “Time to die catel.”
“You first.”
Kat pulls the trigger as Gwen’s spell releases from her fingertips. The red dot becomes a beam of energy flowing from Gwen’s fingers. A bluish white beam shoots out of the tip of Wrath as the runic symbols shine brightly.
The two beams collide. Neither budging. Kat steadies herself before pushing everything she has into Wrath.
Kat’s blue beam inches forward. Gwen’s suit of plasma flows up to her arms leaving her body exposed as the red beam becomes more intense.
“You are not going to beat me in a contest of magic.” Gwen yells, “I AM THE SOLAR QUEEN!”
Gwen’s hair erupts in flames as her beam triples in size pushing back on Kat’s. Kat tries to put more into Wrath but she is already pushing herself to the limit. Gwen’s beam rushes over Kat and slams her up against the wall.
Kat can feel heat across every inch of her body as it slumps to the floor. She blinks a few times to see Gwen standing over her. Both her arms are still covered in yellow and red plasma, her hair still aflame.
“You show promise. To bad, you might have been able to make a name for yourself as a real mage. I'll make sure that is on your tombstone.”
28
Mark Three
A short man with brown hair and nice clothes walks up to the lab and into the glass foyer. Mark thinks for a human he would be considered handsome but at a distance almost all humans look that way. The man walks up to the smooth surface door and watches as four panels light up well out of his reach. They all activate and the man walks in.
Mark points, “Did you see that?”
Terra confirms, “Yeah, I did. But what was out of place there. A human just walked into the Foremid like building.”
“No Terra, that isn’t what I meant. Did you see the panels light up out of his reach that got activated?”
“Not really no. I wasn’t pay that close of attention.”
“I’m going over there.” Mark gets out of his seat.
Terra grabs him by the arm, “Wait are you crazy. You have to be to even think about doing what you are about to right now. Kat and the others need us to wait here for the captain to get into that lab.”
“I don’t need the captain. That,” he says pointing the golden building, “Is a Foremid building. Without question. All the tech the humans are using around here is modified Foremid tech. I need to figure this out now.”
Mark tries to step away from the table but is being held back by some force he can’t see. He looks up to Terra who has her hand palm down with a blackish purple glow around it.
“Sorry Mark, I’m holding you down for a minute. Gravity is one of my things. I know your people are like cats, so tell me that you aren’t going in there to satisfy your curiosity.”
“No I am most certainly not. If you don’t remember, Kat has my coin and I would never do anything to jeopardize her. Something is off and I need to confirm it before she gets here and is in more danger than what we already are.”
The glow around Terra’s hand vanishes, “So what are you planning on doing?”
“If I can, open it. If I can’t, then we can proceed like planned.”
“Thats it. You’re not going to try and rescue Foremid that may or may not be in there?”
“No. It would put Kat in danger. I am registered to her ship from that NDA and they are most certainly tracking all of us, even if it is passively. The moment we do something out of normal range the security will be alerted and tracking will go to active putting us all in danger. I will not be the one to do that. If I can open the door, it will be because I have access and not because I broke any rules.”
“Why would you have access?”
“All Master doors are build with four access panels each out of physical arms reach. Only a Master with all four spectral hands can open them.”
“And if it opens?”
“We run. Get a message to Kat to abort and just hand over the cores and leave. To make a plan to come back another time with the new knowledge.”
Mark can feel himself be able to move again and stretches.
Terra stands, “Just to be clear, I think this is a bad idea. If you’re right… Lets just say I hope you’re wrong.”
Mark nods. “So do I.”
They walk out of Starbucks and across the street. The glass foyer doesn’t have a door to enter it. Mark looks back to Terra who nods. They both walk in side by side. No alarms or guards which is always a good start. Mark steps up to the door and the four panels light up just like they had before. He sighs and extends out his spectral arms and even before placing their hands on the panels he knows its going to open. A blue light cuts the door in half and it slides open.
A few feet into the large space behind the door is the man Mark saw. Brown carefully groomed hair, nice expensive looking suit and shoes that look as though they have no wear on them. The man turns around and looks directly at Mark with piercing brown eyes as he gives a slight tilt to his head. Recognition hits his face followed by a snake like smile that slithers across his face.
“Brother. Had I known you were coming onboard I would have given you a royal escort.”
Mark doesn't recognize the man but only one being would call him brother, “Archer?”
“Ah, yes. This is my new vessel. I found it on a recent mission. I quite liked the idea of trying out a human body. It is a bit limiting at first though.”
“What are you doing here?”
“Father was so cross about what you did, having to put you on that planet as the overseer nearly killed him. The
other Masters tried to take his power but you know father.”
“What has he done?”
“Exactly what you wanted him to dear brother.”
“But all the attacks are not what I wanted.”
“We are going to meld with humanity and then crush it from the inside and out. Now if you don’t mind, I have other matters to attend to.”
“Brother!”
Terra shoves Mark out of the way with her shoulder as she cradles a large oscillating purple sphere of magical energy. She swings it out in front of her and jamming the butts of her palms together and firing off the spell.
Mark watches in horror as his brother doesn’t even try to dodge or move. A spell like that will rip him apart even if he was wearing battle armor.
The spell connects, flattening out like deflated ball as a shield of blue lightning surrounds Archer. Terra already had the next spell ready to go as green lightning arcs off of her shoulders down to her hands. The arcs then fly off her hands in the blink of an eye into the purple sphere.
As the two connect they explode. Mark can still see his brother in the middle of the flames and smoke behind the barrier. His eyes wide with glee.
29
Gwen points her fingers at Kat as another red dot forms. Kat stares up at the light unable to move. Her head fills with mush, unable to keep a thought. Warm liquid splatters across Kat’s face as eight large clawed and scaled fingers stab through Gwen’s center.
Gwen turns her head to look behind her as blood dribbles out of her mouth.
“You should really remember the number of combatants on the field before you try and finish one off.” Tia says as she pulls Gwen in two.
Kat just blinks as warm liquid rolls down her cheek. Reaching up her hand, she wipes it and sees it's blood.
Starship Magic 4: Extraction Page 12