The Quest Saga Collection: Books 1 - 5

by Dhayaa Anbajagane

  “What?”

  Griffin laughed, “Men, Let’s teleport!”

  He heard the soft hum of machinery come from far off. The same hot feeling from before encapsulated Q, and he hated it this time as well.

  In seconds his surroundings had changed.

  He was back in the Orion.

  “Guys!” Kai ran up to him, his face showing he was completely confused.

  Q turned around, the girls were right behind him.

  “Get Taylor treated,” he told Chris. “She’ll collapse if you don’t.”

  “C’mon Ruby,” Chris lifted Taylor onto Ruby and the two of them headed towards the infirmary.

  In a few seconds the view screen turned on, and Captain Griffin’s grinning face showed through.

  “Well, me lads. A mighty fight you put up. Hope you keep that pearl safe. Hate to have it go missing when ya ship gets wrecked apart.”

  “What?!” Kai asked.

  The view screen switched back to the spatial feed. But something seemed different. The space around them seemed to be shifting, folding, as though it were some origami design.

  And then Q saw it.

  A massive ship emerged out of nowhere, its size nearly ten times that of the Orion.

  “It’s them,” Kai gaped. “They’ve been behind us all along.”

  The feed turned back on.

  Captain Griffin smirked, “We were always beside you. You just didn’t see us. Stealth is a pain eh? But trust me. That’s the last thing you need to worry about.”

  A bright glint shone from the front of the pirates’ ship.

  “Oh my god,” Kai rushed to his seat and worked around with the controls. “Q, we have to get into hyperspace. Strap yourself in.”

  “What? Why?”

  “NOW.”

  “Ah,” Captain Griffin smirked, “It’s too late.”

  A sphere of purple energy headed towards the Orion.

  And Q finally realized what the weapon was.

  The Pandora Cannon.

  ***

  Q reached for his seat, and strapped himself in, getting ready for a hyperspace jump.

  And then he noticed everything around him seemed frozen.

  The purple sphere had stopped mid-space, Kai hadn’t moved an inch.

  Time seemed to have paused.

  “My, my, my. What a fix you seem to be in,” a familiar voice said.

  Q’s seat tore from the floor and he flew through the air. He hit the ground and his breath rushed out of him, his mind trying to comprehend what was going on.

  “Every time you think you’ve won you’ll find an opponent even more evil. Every. Single. Time.”

  Q picked himself up and turned around, “The Masked Magician,” he muttered.

  “I see you’ve had a chat with Griffin,” he said. “But knowing my name isn’t going to get you anywhere Q. You see that thing out there?” he pointed to the glowing sphere of purple. “That’s about to kill all of you. Unless…”

  Q clenched his teeth, “Unless what,” he said. Every word he said made his chest hurt like crazy. That fall had probably cracked a few of his ribs.

  “Unless we find a hero to save us all.”

  “This isn’t real,” he muttered. “This is just a dream. A hallucination. You’re not even on this ship.”

  The Masked Magician clenched his wrist, and the pain inside Q’s chest shot even higher. He gasped in pain, his entire body going numb and rigid at once.

  He relaxed his hand and Q gasped for air.

  “Still think this is a dream, my boy?” he asked, twirling his cane in the air.

  “What do you want?”

  “Simple. I’m here to give you an offer.”

  “Get off of this ship.”

  The Masked Magician brought his face close to Q’s, “You don’t understand. Without me, that canon will just kill you all.”

  “We’ll get into Hyperspace.”

  He gripped Q’s head and made him look out the ship, “You think you have enough time to even say a word before that thing hits you?”

  Q kept quiet.

  “I told you, boy. Let me help you. Or you all die.”

  Still kept quiet.

  “What will your brother feel when you die? What will you friends’ families think? The people they loved. The people that loved them. All that pain and suffering. Do you want to inflict that on them just because your egoistic mind doesn’t let you ask me for help?”

  All that went through Q’s mind were a bunch of random questions.

  Should he trust him?

  Was this a trick?

  Why couldn’t anyone else move?

  “Very well,” he said. “I’ll just let everyone die then. Must be nice. Knowing you let go of the only choice you had to save everyone else.”

  Q stiffened. Frustration was getting to him. He was helpless. Confused. Scared.

  “Help us,” he mumbled.

  “Speak louder, boy.”

  “Help us,” he yelled out.

  “Ah, that’s much better,” the Magician’s voice was ecstatic. “Good decision, if I say so myself.”

  He lifted his hand and Q rose into the air. Q knew nothing could stop the Pandora. There wasn’t enough time to run away. What was this man going to do? He let his thoughts drift. He was far too weak to fight back, and his will wasn’t going to help him either.

  A familiar hot feeling ran through his body.

  Teleportation, he thought.

  “Oh, I forgot to mention,” the Magician said. “I have one condition you need to fulfil if you want me to save you and your friends. “It’s a very simple one really-”

  Q teleported and found himself at the front of the Orion.

  “-Your death.”

  ***

  5-2

  Kai couldn’t believe what he was seeing.

  One second he’d seen Q in the Orion.

  The next he was out there, right between the Orion and the antimatter blast.

  He didn’t even have enough time to yell something out.

  All he could do was watch helplessly as the blast shredded through Q and obliterated him completely.

  Gone.

  Disappeared.

  Elizabeth was on her knees crying into her hands. If he was taking it this bad he didn’t want to think of what she was going through.

  Captain Griffin appeared on the view screen again, “Seems like your boy decided to take one for the team, eh?” he laughed. “I have to say. Killing him was mighty fun though.”

  Kai’s emotional reactions left him.

  No sadness.

  No regret.

  No anger.

  It wasn’t that he didn’t have these things going through his mind.

  He just couldn’t feel them.

  His heart felt like it was ready to explode. He’d just seen Q disintegrate before his very eyes.

  “Well,” the Captain said. “Who should I take down next? Maybe this time it’ll be even more fun.”

  Kai yelled out. He could feel his frustration leave him. He didn’t want to be helpless. He wanted to fight for everyone, fight for himself.

  A surge of power rushed through him and kept coming in, like a never ending supply.

  His skin started to glow a bright white, the glow making his skin feel chilled. His muddled mind focused, and he could feel his thinking power increase.

  His entire body tingled all over, as though something were waiting to explode.

  “Yelling won’t get you anywhere, laddie,” the Captain mocked.

  “Shut up,” a whisper escaped Kai’s lips.

  “Better watch your mouth, else we’ll just blow you away.”

  “I said SHUT UP,” Kai yelled.

  The lower part of the pirate ship exploded, the Pandora canon destroyed beyond help.

  Captain Griffin’s expression changed.

  Confusion.

  Fear.

  “You,” the Captain got up from his seat. “You think you can
just get away?”

  He look straight at the Captain.

  Noisy chatter came from behind him, his crew going into complete disarray.

  Kai smirked, “Die.”

  Another blast sounded, this time from the top of the ship.

  “Make haste men,” the Captain’s voice trembled. “Get the transporter ready.”

  “Oh no you don’t,” Kai said.

  He stretched his hands as though he were trying to pull something.

  The surface of the pirate ship crumpled like it was a simple tin can, parts of it tearing away from the rest. He saw a white glow emerge where the Captain stood, and when it died down he was gone. The feed turned silent. Kai realized the entire crew had teleported out.

  “You,” he muttered. A scream of pure rage came from his lips.

  The pirate ship exploded with a series of blasts, each one shattering the already small debris into even more miniscule bits. When everything finished the only remains were that of small burning pieces of metal and clouds of powdered dust.

  But Kai still didn’t feel content.

  He wanted to destroy.

  He needed to destroy.

  His mind worked his body involuntarily, and before he knew it he’d set course to Hidea. The pirate’s home base.

  “Bloody pirate will pay,” he muttered.

  Someone tugged his arm, “You have to stop this!” Chris yelled.

  “You don’t understand. Leave me alone.”

  “No. I’m not leaving you alone,” she said “I don’t know what happened, but you cannot do this. You emotions are overflowing. Your judgment isn’t clear.”

  Kai’s head hurt. He knew she was right but he didn’t want to admit it.

  She put her arms around him, “Calm down. Breathe slowly.”

  He felt his heart beat go down to normal, and his hatred started to dissipate. His body started to go numb and he collapsed into his chair. The magnitude of everything that happened finally hit him.

  “I took apart that ship like it was nothing,” he said, his hands covering his eyes.

  “You got your NOVA form,” Chris said.

  “Doesn’t matter,”

  “It’ll all be fine, Kai,”

  “It isn’t fine,” he said. “The enemy used a Pandora Canon.”

  “Well, we’re all safe aren’t we?”

  “We’re all safe because someone saved us,” he covered his eyes.

  “Q’s gone.”

  ***

  Silence prevailed.

  It reigned over all of them the moment they realized what had happened.

  Kai was still frozen in place, unable to even think of what to do next.

  Elizabeth had run off to the bunker. He didn’t blame her. None of them were strong enough to take this. Chris just stood by his side as silent as she’d even been.

  “I can’t believe this happened,” he mumbled.

  “How do you think we’ll tell Taylor?”

  “Oh god,” his eyes widened. He’d never considered that part at all. There was no way Taylor wouldn’t react badly to the news.

  “We’re going to have to tell her. The sooner the better.”

  “She’s still resting in the infirmary. Let’s wait and see what happens.”

  He nodded, “I’ll just set us on our course for now.”

  “Yeah, we finally have the map,” she looked over at a pearl sitting in the middle of an inactive HPS.

  Kai turned the system on.

  The light rays reflected straight into the pearl and spread out, showing him a completely different kind of image.

  “There,” he pointed to one section of the system. “I’ll set up the hyperspace jump.”

  The ship jerked and threw them to the floor.

  Enemy attacks, he thought.

  “Those bloody pirates,” he gritted his teeth and turned on the spatial feed.

  But he was in for a pleasant surprise.

  His monitors told him they’d shifted to hyperspace.

  “What in the-”

  “Did that happen automatically?” she asked.

  “I didn’t touch a single thing.”

  Now he was kind of scared about what was going on.

  “It’s because of your NOVA form,” she smiled.

  “My what?”

  “You never paid attention did you?” she sighed. “You transformed. You’re in your NOVA form now.”

  “I’m in my NOVA form,” he stopped, and then smiled faintly. He finally got what had happened.

  “So I just controlled the ship with my mind?”

  She nodded, “Your Elementa must be metal. And you seem to have a heightened control over it, which means you have control over all this tech.”

  “THAT IS SO AWESOME!”

  “Hey guys?” Elizabeth walked into the deck. “She wanted to come up.”

  She dragged Taylor along with her. Elizabeth’s face seemed pretty wrung out, and it was clear she was forcing herself to smile. The Dark Knight though seemed a little too weak to walk, but her face and smile showed she was fine.

  “Oh god,” Kai’s face dropped.

  Her being happy meant it would be even harder to break the news to her.

  “That was one hell of a pirate fight,” she laughed. “You should have seen Q. He was priceless. Kid had no clue how to fight that Eki.”

  Everyone kept quiet, fake smiles on all their faces.

  “Taylor you should sit down,” he gestured to one of the seats that hadn’t been ripped out.

  He still didn’t know how one of them had actually broken that way, but he was guessing it had something to do with Q.

  “So listen,” he started.

  He looked at her feet and kept going, his eyes not looking up at her face. He could see her legs start to tremble and drops of tears fell to the floor.

  He knew he couldn’t stop here. He closed his eyes and kept going, talking and talking till he reached the end.

  “You’re lying,” she said, her voice almost a hazy whisper.

  He looked up at her, at tears, at sadness, at a trembling face.

  “He’s really gone.”

  “No!” she yelled out, and tried to rush at him but all she could do was collapse to the floor. “He can’t die,” she mumbled, her face buried in her arms.

  Everyone kept quiet, frozen in place. What were they supposed to do in a situation like this? They all knew how much he’d meant to her.

  Kai knew consoling her was unfair. What would he even tell her? That everything was going to be okay? That there was a bright side to all this?

  There wasn’t.

  The view screen flared up with the words ‘Incoming Transmission.”

  Oh gods no, he said.

  “Hey guys,” Carlos showed up on the screen. “I guess you guys have probably found the map and that means we’re right on target,” he noticed Taylor on the floor. “What’s going on?”

  Kai groaned and headed towards his pilot seat. He was going to have to sit down if he wanted to have this conversation again.

  Watching it happen in front of him was bad enough. Repeating every scene to two different people was mental torture.

  “Carlos umm….you see. We faced up against the Pandora canon and…”

  “Q’s gone, isn’t he?”

  Kai gaped for a second and then he nodded silently. The high commander kept his calm. A small smile on his face, not forced, not out of happiness, but as a sign of strength.

  “We’ve set ourselves on course?”

  “Yes. I’ve apparently reached NOVA form. I’m able to control the ship telepathically.”

  “That’s great,” as enthusiastically as the situation let him. “You didn’t have an Elementa before right? The reason you didn’t was because the one you were good at needed more life force to actually develop. The ability to control metal. It should help you quite a bit.”

  “Yeah,” he nodded.

  “I have to go now. I’ll get back to you guys in a day
or so. You’ll be within the vicinity of the Palace of Being by then?”

  Kai nodded.

  “Over and out.”

  The feed closed out.

  Kai leaned back on his chair.

  Things were not going to calm down anytime soon.

  And he just hoped that wouldn’t create bigger troubles.

  ***

  Taylor sat on one of the seats in the upper deck. It had been two hours since she found out about Q. She had felt horrible at first, crying and thrashing about. And then she’d become numb to all this.

  She felt all the pain and longing but she chose not to acknowledge it. She didn’t want to believe she was turning into a mess. A small screen next to her flared up with an ‘Incoming transmission’ message. She let it through.

  “Hi Taylor,” Carlos said. “Figured you’d be here. Where’s everyone else?”

  “All resting. Kai has that telepathic hold on the Orion so he doesn’t need to be at the deck to pilot it.”

  “How are you holding up?”

  “I’m doing okay,” she said. “How about you? You’ve been through this before haven’t you?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Your parents.”

  His eyes widened and then he sighed, like he’d given in, “That coma brought up more memories than it should have.”

  “What happened that day?”

  “Do we really have to talk about this?”

  “The only other option is to talk about Q. Your choice.”

  “Fine,” he mumbled. “Ten years ago. My parents were working hard on Aliea academy. It was slowly starting up as a big deal. They used portals to travel from and to the academy. On that day, there was a large solar flare that increased radiation levels on Earth. Once they’d opened up their portals the increase in radiation destabilized them immediately. The portals collapsed, exploded, and killed them instantly. I managed to get Q out of the house that day. But that was as much as I could have done. Our parents were beyond help.”

  Taylor kept quiet.

  “I honestly don’t know how you thought this would be any better than what we were going to talk about anyway.”

  “I said that because I know how you feel right now,” she said.

  “I don't…” he paused and sighed deeply. He rested his head on his hands.