by Joel Stewart
Rogner hesitated a moment as he took the room in. It was small, but everything they needed was inside. There was a power generator, a TV with a video player, two recliner chairs, even a small fridge. He moved toward the TV and slid the video disk in the player. “This is quite the setup you have here,” he said impressed.
“I had this room installed over twenty years ago when we uncovered the existence of that Denorian spy ring. The Purge, as we called it, required a lot of secrecy and at the time I was head of counterintelligence for the Navy. Any records of the construction of this room have long since been destroyed, I saw to it.” Stenman replied proudly. He leaned forward as the video began to play.
“I was in charge of the dragon reconstruction project. We had to coordinate with Ardia to do it, something that still rankles me, but during the reconstruction I managed to install some cameras into the dragon’s mechanical parts. The regeneration capacity of those dragons was amazing, some pieces of equipment had flesh almost immediately heal around it after installation. Each procedure only required an hour of downtime before starting the next. At any rate, I digress. One of the dragons had a camera installed in a fake eye and it recorded this footage earlier today. When it landed on one of our carriers the footage was automatically downloaded and put into a secure folder on our intranet that only I can access, or so I hope. I have edited it down to the parts you need to see.”
After Rogner finished his explanation, the pair sat silently and watched the video. It was tough to watch as a dragon did not hold its head still for very long, but what unfolded could not be mistaken for anything else. At the start of the video the dragon was sliding on its belly surrounded by four other dragons, one being ridden by Serenis. They were on the outskirts of Dengrin. Serenis was doing something with her hand, Stenman wasn’t sure what it was, but by the periodic sparks and small explosions in the distance he guessed she was destroying electronic monitoring equipment with a small electro-magnetic field. How she was able to maintain such a field was a mystery to him, but when it came to Serenis he thought her capable of anything.
When she couldn’t stay to the woods any longer she took flight, staying close to the rooftops of the buildings on the outskirts of Dengrin. At this point it got really interesting. The video was shaky and poor quality, but there was a definite battle taking place on the hillside the dragon was approaching. As they got closer Stenman recognized Serenis’ four generals. He smiled as he watched three of them get blasted into the dirt. Stenman squinted to get a look at the source of the attacks—they seemed to come from a skyscraper. Moments later he saw a silver-haired woman fly up to the hill from that direction. To his frustration he lost sight of the battlefield as the dragon landed at the bottom of the hill and proceeded up it on foot.
“You are going to like this next part, I really wish I had audio on these things.” Rogner said with a smile. Stenman just watched. When the silver-haired woman reappeared next to a blond man who seemed to be working with her, all four of the generals became incapacitated. There was an obvious standoff taking place. The silver-haired woman looked fierce and was definitely acting defiant. After a brief conversation the silver-haired woman and the blond man stepped away from the generals, although they still looked like they might pounce at any moment. The camera got shaky as the dragon moved toward one of the generals and then sight of the silver-haired woman disappeared as the dragon took flight in a direction away from the hilltop. “This next part you are not going to like.” Rogner warned. “There were a few hours of flying in-between so I took the liberty of editing it out.”
Stenman watched as the footage reset. The dragons were flying over a forest in an erratic fashion, then, for some unknown reason, the dragon stopped and turned. The camera followed the rhythmic motion of the dragons flapping wings as it hovered in place. He could see Serenis clearly on the dragon in front of them. There were several dozen Denorian airships in pursuit. They launched over thirty rockets toward the dragons, but as they were closing in, Serenis held out her hands and the air around them rippled. The rockets exploded against an invisible wall, leaving dozens of ripples on the surface of what he could now see as a sphere. It was like putting on goggles and watching the surface of a pool from underneath the water during a rainstorm.
The sphere didn’t stop with the missiles, however. It continued to grow. The ground below the dragon gave way and airships were getting caught by the sphere that was increasing in size and speed at an exponential rate. A huge crater formed below them, stone giving way as easily as air. Airship debris was building up on the surface of the sphere, giving it definition in the air as the steadily increasing crater did likewise on the ground. When it finally dispersed it was unclear if any airships escaped, but the devastation was undeniable.
“That . . . that could wipe out an entire city.” Stenman stammered. “Such power . . .” He squinted at the image of Serenis on her dragon mount as the camera bobbed up and down. She was slumping over. Stenman smiled again. “She may be able to destroy a city but look, her power does have limits.” He looked up at Rogner. “This is unsettling, but I am glad you came to show me this. Now we know Serenis has limits on her power and there is at least one thing in this world that can stand up to her and make her back down. We need to find that silver-haired woman.”
“The attack on Jorgen commences in two days. If we are going to stop her we need to act soon, otherwise it will be too late.” Rogner replied.
“You may be right.” Stenman agreed. Rogner was more outraged by what Serenis was doing to Chengar than most and keeping his actions from getting discovered was more and more difficult every day. “But until we find this silver-haired woman any attempt to rebel will be futile. We must find her . . . everything depends on it.”
Chapter 3
Dengrin, Capital of Denoria
Davis rolled over groggily and was surprised to find himself in a freefall. After he hit the ground he looked around to find that he had just fallen off a couch. Lena jumped to her feet and walked over briskly to help him up. “We are alive?” he stammered.
“We are.” Lena replied with a gentle smile. “You did well.”
“H . . . How?” He asked as he looked around. Alex and Jesse were laying on the other couches, but Cliff was on a stretcher with wires attached to various locations on his head and body. “Cliff!” Davis exclaimed without waiting for Lena to answer his first question. “What’s wrong with him?” He asked with a desperate tone to his voice.
“I don’t know.” Lena replied. “Ariel possessed him and helped us end the battle with a draw, but he passed out afterward and I have not been able to get more than basic vital signs since. Very little brain activity, heart is barely beating. But he is alive.”
Davis dropped to his knees and grabbed Cliff’s hand in his. “Shouldn’t we take him to a hospital?”
“I have some ability at healing, it works well enough for most things that a modern hospital would be able to treat, but I am afraid to say it had no effect on him. Whatever is wrong with him has to do with the effects of Ariel’s possession, not a physical injury.” Lena said softly.
“I thought you said you couldn’t possess humans?” Davis muttered angrily. “You lied to us! We are all just tools for you to use and throw away.”
“That is not true Davis.” Lena snapped, her soft tone replaced with indignation. “That is what I don’t understand. Ariel should not have been capable of this possession. Something is wrong.”
“Could Ariel . . . could he be switching sides on us?” Davis asked. “Other angels decided to join the demons before the rebellion, could he be joining them now?”
“No.” Lena replied. “Serenis had the same thought and asked Ariel to join her but he refused. It must be something else.”
“Now that I think about it, Cliff was under for an abnormal amount of time after we opened your letter.” Davis thought for another moment before continuing. “I was told by Darin that he couldn’t communicate longer without
risking something, and I woke up at the same time as Jesse and Alex. But Cliff . . . Cliff was under for a long time after we woke up. I didn’t think anything of it at the time.”
“The barrier must be weak . . .” Lena muttered as her eyebrows furrowed in thought. “For some reason the barrier that keeps Ariel from possessing Cliff must be weak. I don’t know how it could have happened but that must be the case . . . and if that is the case then there is a chance that when Cliff wakes up—if he wakes up—he will be himself again. But there is also a chance that he will be Ariel or that he won’t wake up at all.” Lena turned and walked toward the door.
“Where are you going?” Davis demanded.
“To pray.” Lena replied. “And you should too. I will fill you in on the rest when the others wake up.” She continued out the door.
The slam of the door startled Alex awake. “What?” She said disoriented. She looked around until her eyes fell on Cliff. “Cliff!” she screamed as she jumped off the couch. The sudden change in orientation left her head spinning and she stumbled forward. Davis caught her before she fell and helped her stand upright. She took a few more steps and grabbed Cliff’s hand. “What is wrong with him? Will he be okay?”
Her pleading voice cut at Davis. “I . . . I don’t know. Lena says it has something to do with Ariel. I guess he possessed Cliff and helped Lena fend off the demons, but this was the price Cliff had to pay for saving us. Lena says that if he wakes up it could be Cliff or Ariel, she isn’t sure. This is apparently new for everyone.” Alex’s knees gave out and she collapsed to the ground crying, Cliff’s hand still in hers.
The hours that followed felt like days. The tears flowed, dried up, and then flowed again. Jesse woke up like the others and took the news just as hard. The three of them did not always see eye to eye, but Cliff was the one person in the group that was equally loved by everyone there.
“I feel like this is a cruel joke.” Jesse muttered somberly. “The angels were supposed to help us save our planet, not kill us.”
“He’s not dead yet!” Alex said defensively. “We just need to wait a little bit longer.”
“The enemy knows where we are, the longer we wait here the better the chance they will strike again. We need to move.” Davis said anxiously.
“We’re not leaving Cliff!” Alex objected.
“I didn’t say we should.” Davis responded coolly. “Lena says whatever is wrong with him has to do with Ariel, so he doesn’t need all this monitoring equipment. I can sling him over my back, and we can be on our way whenever we want.”
“But doesn’t Lena have a good defensive system here?” Jesse argued. “Without all those hidden gun turrets we never would have won that battle.”
“That’s true.” Davis agreed. “But our adversary is smart. They know about the gun turrets and I can assure you that if they strike again they will have a way to neutralize them.”
“You think so?” Cliff said from behind them.
“Yes, I . . .” Davis trailed off when the recognition of the voice that was speaking registered in his brain. He turned slowly to see Cliff propping himself up on his elbow with a goofy smile on his face. “Are you Cliff, or Ariel . . .” Davis asked hesitantly.
“Cliff, of course you big lummox!” Cliff chided. Alex almost knocked the breath out of him when her half tackle half hug hit him. When she pulled her head away from his chest she had the most beautiful smile Cliff had ever seen. “I think I need to get knocked out more often.” He joked.
Alex stepped back and punched him in the shoulder. “Don’t you dare do that again!” She said angrily.
Lena burst into the room—apparently it was being monitored from somewhere else in the compound. “Thank God.” She muttered as she started taking the various electrodes off of Cliff’s scalp. “I was beginning to think we had really lost you.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence.” Cliff muttered.
“I know you all want to catch up with Cliff, but I want to talk with you all about this battle before we leave. I don’t know how long we have until the next attack and we will be relocating momentarily.” Lena looked around, pleased everyone was paying attention. “You may have noticed some of the different ways we were attacked, so I want to go over the basic abilities our enemies possess.” Cliff got up off the stretcher and sat down on one of the couches. The others followed suit.
“The primary tool we will see used is energy projection. This can happen in a number of ways, but it is very basic in reality. The demons, as well as us, possess spiritual power. This power, when transferred into the physical world, can be projected from the wielder. The ways that it can be projected differs from angel to angel and demon to demon depending on the nature of their natural spiritual power as well as the relative strength of the user. It can be hurled as a weapon or held close as a shield. Used defensively it can protect the user from all manner of dangers ranging from projected energy attacks of others to bullets or debris. The second tool is imbuing. When a physical object is imbued with spiritual energy it gives the object an increased ability to cut through manifestations of pure projected energy. This has some limited applications when it comes to cutting through attacks, but it really helps with trying to penetrate a shield. Imbuing usually causes an object to glow, as you may have noticed with Ridone’s swords in the last fight.”
Lena stopped and looked around. Everyone was still paying attention but Alex, who was oblivious to everything but Cliff. She sat next to him clutching his arm. Lena sighed. “Actually, let’s finish this later.”
“Wait, these are things we need to know!” Davis objected.
“You all do need to know it.” Lena agreed. “But it has been a long day and I’m not sure it will sink in. We don’t have time for me to make demonstrations anyway. My agents have been packing up our things to leave as this location is no longer safe.”
“I’ve been saying that for hours.” Davis said indignantly. “This location is compromised.”
“I don’t believe we are in danger from the demons at present.” Lena countered. “We are in danger from the Denorian government.”
“That can’t be true!” Alex exclaimed. “Just let me talk to my father and we can clear up any misunderstandings.”
“The situation is . . . complicated. Talking to your father right now is not a good idea.” Lena replied.
“I don’t understand.” Alex responded. “Why can’t I talk to my father?”
“I will explain everything when we get out of the city.” Lena remained vague. She knew the true explanation would take longer than the few minutes they had. “We will be exiting out the back-cave entrance.”
The room shook from the impact of a concussive impact above and rocks began to fall from the ceiling. The sound was deafening. “Is that artillery?” Davis yelled over the noise. Dozens of explosions could be heard and felt now, each happening at regular intervals. “We are going to get buried alive!”
“We need to go! Now!” Lena yelled in reply. “Stay close to me!” Alex ran in a panic to the door instead of Lena. In an unconscious use of her strength she ripped the door open and it came right off its hinges. She looked startled for a moment but then dropped the door and darted into the hallway. Cliff chased her out the door while Jesse and Davis ran to Lena. She put a shield up around them to block falling rocks and ran toward the door as well. “Keep up!” She yelled to the two men. When she entered the next room she found Alex sprawled on the floor and Cliff gone. A huge pile of fallen rocks blocked off the path ahead.
“I’m sorry.” Alex whimpered. “I panicked . . . and now . . . and Cliff is gone!” She started crying uncontrollably. “I just got him back and now I think I’ve killed him!” She pointed to the rubble. “He knocked me out of the way of that debris and then it came down right on top of him!”
“Get up!” Lena ordered while moving close enough to get her inside the shield. “I can still sense Cliff, he’s not dead. Stay inside my shield and you will be safe.”
Alex staggered to her feet. She was a little beat up from the falling rocks, but Cliff had gotten her out of the way of the big ones. She tried to pull herself together. “He’s alive?” she said in disbelief. “But I saw him.”
“Cliff will have the greatest speed and best reaction time of any of us when he has been trained.” Lena responded. “You may have seen the stones fall but he must have reacted quick enough to get out of the way.” Lena replied. Using one hand up in the air to maintain the shield around them she lifted the other and an energy blast beamed from it, carving a hole through the debris. A melted perfect circle was left after her beam receded.
Davis recognized the circle as the same as the others in the complex. “You are quite the cave maker.” He commented.
“Stay focused, we have to get to Cliff before he gets consumed in this bombardment.” Lena responded. The tone of the bombardment changed suddenly, and increased chunks of debris began to fall around them.
“They have blasted the topsoil off the hill and have switched to ground penetrating shells.” Davis yelled as they ran. “This whole cave system is going to collapse in a matter of minutes!”
They burst into the main cave and it was a sickening sight. The dragons that had laid there for so long unharmed were getting crushed by the collapsing ceiling. Blood was everywhere. “My dragons!” Alex stammered. She stopped for a moment to gaze on the horror but Lena’s yank on her arm pulled her back into a run. “What is going to happen to them?” She yelled to Lena.
“I don’t know.” Lena yelled back. “We have to keep moving.” They glimpsed Cliff down at the bottom of the rolling cavern. He had just jumped out of the way of one boulder when a shell hit the ground above him, sending a massive avalanche of stone down on where he lay prone.