One of the orbs shot out a beam of bluish-white light which stabbed Jaysin in the shoulder. He cried out in pain and staggered backwards. “Buggal!” Smoke curled upwards from the wound.
“Are you all right?” Daryn asked him.
“Unh! Real bright question. Not doing too hot, but I’ll be fine. These things aren’t nearly as powerful as the blast old Heph was shooting us with earlier.”
“No, they’re not,” Hephaestus said. “But they’re not supposed to be. My orbs are meant to give you a slow, painful death. I’ve decided to be sporting and not kill you right away. That way, the girl will have time to find the power supply and shut down my shield.” He laughed at the very notion of this.
Daryn assessed the situation. “All right. First thing’s first. We need to swat these things out of the air.”
The orbs began darting about erratically. “That won’t be easy for you, mate. Your hammer’s too slow to hit them. My staff’s a better choice.”
“Yeah. But I doubt you’ll be able to take them out by yourself.”
“Fair enough. How about a compromise?” He conjured a second staff and handed it to him. “It can’t reverse gravity, but it should work against these things.”
Daryn smiled. “All right. Let’s smash these flying bastards.”
* * *
CiCi went down to the 99th floor, but didn’t get off the elevator. Instead, she stood there pondering a very big problem. She couldn’t possibly search every single floor by herself, so how was she supposed to find the power thing to shut down Hephaestus’ shield? It could be anywhere.
She soon decided she needed to use her chakrams. But she had only ever conjured a few at a time. To search a building of this size, she would need a lot of them, and they weren’t like the tools conjured by other gods. She had to spread her consciousness out among them to control them. She wasn’t at all certain she could do that with the number of chakrams she would need to create.
Also, so many of them would take a heavy toll on her stamina. If she was to find the power supply, she needed to do it quickly.
She conjured two of them and immediately ran into a third problem. Whenever she used them, her physical eyes transferred into them so they could perform reconnaissance. Simply put, if she wanted to create more than two, she needed more eyes. But she had never created eyes before. How was she to do it?
She decided the easiest way to do it was to turn her chakrams toward one another and look at her own eyes. She did so, and was thrown off by the weirdness of it.
OK, next step. She utilized the x-ray function of her chakrams. This afforded her an unobstructed view of her eyes. Then, thinking back to biology class, she tried to remember all the different parts of the human eye. Let’s see. That must be the fibrous tunic, that’s the cornea, the sclera, the uvea… Good, she remembered all the parts. Now all she needed to do was recreate it.
Keeping all the different parts in mind, she conjured a third chakram with an eye inside it. However, the eye wasn’t connected to her; she couldn’t see out of it.
All right, if I remember my teachings correctly, I need to form a connection to the eye. She closed her eyes (the ones in the chakrams), and began to concentrate on the third one she had just created. She visualized a thread linking her physical body to the third eye. But she also imagined a multi-eyed insect and how it saw the world. Split your vision a bunch of different ways like a kaleidoscope.
For several moments, there was no change, and her heart began to get heavy with frustration. She felt sweat dripping down her brow, knowing Jaysin and Daryn were up there probably getting killed while she sat down here failing. Memories of her parents pushing her to succeed flooded her mind. She would never forget the anxiety that had caused.
She shook her head. No, she absolutely couldn’t let these feelings get the better of her. For the sake of everyone, she had to do this. With renewed determination, she forced everything else out of her mind. There was only her and her chakrams. She placed a stronger emphasis on the thread needed to connect her body with the third eye.
She didn’t know how much time had passed, but eventually she succeeded, and her vision was now split three ways. She cried out in triumph, heedless of anyone who might hear.
OK, I just need to do this a bunch more times. No sweat.
* * *
A short time later, she had produced a dozen more chakrams. She felt she should probably make more, but time was a factor. So, without further ado, she ripped open the bottom of the elevator and let them pour through into the floors below. They would scan with x-rays, infrared, everything she could think of. No floor would be left unsearched.
She needed to hurry. She could feel the enormous drain on her stamina with each passing moment, and splitting her consciousness up into so many parts was taking a rapid toll. She felt a wave of nausea coming. The world’s worst migraine didn’t even compare. She wished she could just scan the entire building with one or two charkrams, but her x-rays weren’t strong enough for that.
One way or another, this would be over soon.
* * *
Jaysin and Daryn managed to fight off wave after wave of Hephaestus’ deadly orbs, but at increasing cost. Every few minutes one of them took a hit from their laser blasts. At first it was just grazing shots, but the spheres were getting better, adapting. Their accuracy improved with each passing moment, and it was clear that soon one of them would score a lethal hit.
It didn’t help that Hephaestus seemed able to summon an endless supply of them. No matter how many orbs the students smashed, they just kept coming.
The dreaded moment soon arrived. One of the orbs got Jaysin in the leg, causing him to cry out in pain and drop to his knees. The other orbs picked up on his vulnerability and began pummeling him. Daryn, having no time to fight them off, did the only thing he could think of: he dove in front of Jaysin and shielded him with his body.
“Daryn!” Jaysin yelled.
The orbs riddled Daryn with their deadly payload and he slumped to the ground. The deadly weapons then stopped, perhaps at a silent command from their master.
Hephaestus laughed. “That was fun, kids. You provided me with quality entertainment. I’m sad to see it end, really. But oh, well. Tell you what. I’ll spare the rest of you if you’ll give me the location of the Academy. What do you say?”
Jaysin hurled a string of Chrichton expletives at him. “You’ll pay for this.”
Hephaestus laughed some more. “Empty threats are boring.” He sighed. “Well, if you won’t tell me the location of the Academy, I guess I’ll just have to kill you.” He raised his arms in a gran gesture. “Orbs! Finish them!”
Jaysin closed his eyes, expecting this moment to be his last. He spared a final thought for CiCi who would be in dire straits without them.
However, without warning, there was a dull hum which quickly faded. Jaysin opened his eyes. The shield around Hephaestus dissipated, and all the orbs fell to the ground.
“No! What’s going on?”
Jaysin grinned as he realized what had just happened. “CiCi did it. Your power source is finished, mate.”
Hephaestus roared and then stepped forward. “You think I’m beaten? You think you’re going to kill me?”
“No.” Jaysin put his hands on Daryn’s chest and filled him with healing energy. “He is.” Daryn had taken the brunt of the orbs’ attack; Jaysin figured it was only fair he be the one to take Hephaestus down.
Daryn’s wounds quickly closed and he opened his eyes. “Bastard!” He looked around. “Wait. What happened.”
“CiCi came through for us. The shield’s down. You just have to finish off Hephaestus.”
Daryn, saw his wounds were closed and leapt to his feet. He then summoned his hammer. “My pleasure.”
“Don’t get cocky!” Hephaestus yelled. He pressed a button on his beefy arm and a panel opened along it. He pulled out a short rod and pressed a button on it as well. A spiked ball and chain, both made of g
reen energy, materialized and he began swinging it over his head, the deadly construct humming with murderous intent.
Both of them charged one another. Hephaestus got within range first and swung his ball and chain at Daryn. But the student ducked it and drove the head of his hammer into the cybernetic god’s face. Hephaestus groaned, but his weapon and teeth now scattered.
Daryn continued his assault, pummeling the elder god with a series of brutal strikes. Hephaestus soon fell to his knees, his armor cracked and sparking electricity. “You little punk!”
Daryn kicked him in the head and he went down. “You know what I think? It’s obvious you haven’t been in a real fight in a long time. You’ve had your technology to do your bidding, but now that you’ve lost it, you’re helpless.”
“You don’t know anything!”
Daryn tsk’d. “Like it matters what you think.”
He lifted his hammer above his head and brought it
Down on Hephaestus’ neck. There was a crack, and then
the elder god was silent.
“Great job,” Jaysin said.
“Thanks. But I couldn’t have done it if you hadn’t
transferred your energy to me. I really appreciate it.”
The elevator doors opened behind them, and CiCi
appeared. She staggered towards them, her eyes blinking
rapidly. “CiCi!” Jaysin said.
“Looks like… you did it,” she said. She was huffing
and panting.
They rushed over to meet her. “What happened to
you?”
She waved him off. “It doesn’t matter. Come on,
we’ve got to get to the core.”
They directed their attention to Hephaestus’ corpse.
Or, more specifically, his eye. “Yes,” Daryn said. “Yes, we
do.”
Chapter XIII
Maya and Priscilia exited the elevator and found themselves in an ugly corridor. The walls were a rusted shade of brown. “Is this the core?” Priscilia asked.
Maya shrugged. “It must be. We pressed the button labeled ‘Core’ and it took us here.”
“I was expecting something… grander.”
“Well, I’m guessing since few people ever see the core, they don’t need it to look nice.”
“Whatever,” Priscilia said. “Let’s find the others.
The hallway stretched on for what seemed like miles. Maya was starting to get worried it would never end when they finally came upon a room at the end. When they got inside, they found some familiar faces also entering the room. “Jaysin! CiCi! Daryn!”
Their three friends looked just as surprised to see them. “Great timing, mate!”
Both groups ran forward to embrace one another, meeting in the middle of the room. When they finished, Daryn asked, “What happened with you girls?”
Maya explained their entry into the crystal forest, their meeting with the Worthless and their androgynous caretaker, and their battle with Athena and Artemis.
“Sounds like you really had your hands full,” CiCi said.
“What about you? What did you have to do to get down here?” Priscilia said.
The three of them told them about landing in a bizarre amusement park inside a futuristic city and their subsequent battle with Hephaestus.
“That’s three of the Flawless Few taken down,” Maya said happily. “I just hope Ev didn’t run into any trouble.”
That cast a pallor on their reunion; they were still not whole. “Where is Ev?” Daryn asked.
Maya was about to answer when something grabbed her leg. Startled, she cried out and looked down. A writhing figure had emerged from behind a barrel and held her in a death grip. Her first thought was to kick his head off, but then she realized who it was. “Ev!”
Ev looked up at her, his pleading eyes showing her a shell of his former self. A sound escaped his throat, but it was a deathly croak.
All of them had been so engrossed in their reunion, they hadn’t even noticed he was there. “What happened to you?” Daryn said to him, concern punctuating his voice. They all crowded around him now.
Ev opened his mouth to answer, but the same pitiful sound came out as if it were his last breath. His voice was long gone.
Maya bent down and ripped his shirt open. Then she held her hands to his chest and a green light emanated from them. It illuminated Ev’s interior, making it transparent so they could all see his internal organs.
“What’s wrong with him?” CiCi asked Maya.
Maya studied Ev closely. With her medical training, she was best equipped to handle this. “His god-energy is eating away at his entire body. Every inch of him is being burned away.”
“What do we do?” Jaysin said.
Maya felt her heart being crushed. There was only one option—and it was the worst one imaginable. “I have to flush all the god-energy from his body. Every last ounce.”
“So do it,” Daryn said.
“You don’t understand,” she replied. “His body’s suffered catastrophic damage. If I get rid of his god-energy, he’ll have no way to heal himself. He’ll die.”
“But what if you don’t do it?” CiCi said. She stared at Ev, her face etched with worry.
There was only one horrific answer to that. “He’ll die.”
“So if you do it, he’ll die, and if you don’t, he’ll die,” Priscilia said. Her expression betrayed no emotion.
“So Ev will just need god-energy,” Jaysin said simply. “Any one of us should be able to give him some.”
But Maya shook her head. “It doesn’t work that way. Everyone’s god-energy has a unique signature that will only work within their own body. Ev’s body would reject any of ours as it would a transfusion of the wrong blood. It needs to be fresh, non-configured energy.”
Priscilia looked around and smiled. “Such as an Ultimus Point?”
It was then that Maya noticed the roiling energy outside the room’s many windows. She was suddenly dumbstruck by the very idea.
“Could it really work?” Daryn said.
“Wait a minute,” Maya said. “Are we seriously contemplating exposing Ev to the most powerful Ultimus Point known to man?”
“I don’t see you coming up with any better ideas,” Priscilia said.
She stared into Ev’s fading eyes. “But… we have no idea what it’ll do to him.”
“But if we don’t do it, he’ll die,” CiCi said.
“Priscilia’s right; we don’t have any better ideas,” Jaysin added.
Maya let the tears come; she could no longer hold them back. They streamed down her face. When she spoke again, her voice cracked. “I don’t know what to do.” She fought to hold back the sobs, but it was useless.
Suddenly, Ev sat up and mustered all the strength he could to say one thing: “Do it.”
“Ev?” Maya said as she held him in her arms. “Are you sure?”
He seemed unable to speak any more, so he nodded grimly.
“It’s the only way,” Daryn said.
Maya stared at Ev for several moments, contemplating this agonizing decision. Finally, she said, “All right.” She put both her palms on his chest as if she were about to do CPR, and a white light emanated from them. She pressed down on his chest and green energy exploded from his body. He then became motionless. “It’s done.”
“Now we just need to expose him to the Ultimus Point.”
Maya replied resolutely, “OK. But how do we do it?”
Jaysin pointed to something behind them. “There’s a computer terminal over there. Maybe we can use that to flood this room.”
“Yes,” Daryn said. “Look at the vents along the glass partitions. This room must be some sort of test chamber. They obviously built it so they could flood it with Big Bang energy.”
“Were they planning to expose Ev to it?” CiCi wondered.
But Priscilia said, “Doubtful. They would have done so already. They probably only brought him
in here because it was close to wherever they captured him.”
Maya wasted no more time and marched over to the computer. However, when she tried to access it, she was quickly stymied. “It’s asking for a password.”
“Figured it wouldn’t be that easy,” Jaysin said.
“Try ‘Olympus’,” Priscilia said.
Maya did so, and was greeted with a bzrr! “That’s not it.” Panic crept into her voice; Ev had maybe minutes to live, and this yurring computer was getting in their way.
Where Gods Dare (Divine Protector Book 4) Page 14