“Yeah, perhaps, but we both know it’s in his blood to be an ass as well.”
Ares smiled. “Now is that a way to talk about our Father and . . . commander?”
Apollo laughed out loud. “Yeah, right! Say that again, but this time try to be a little more convincing.”
Argos was surprised at how skilled a fighter Menoitios was, even in smaller form. He was a well-rounded warrior.
Menoitios launched a deadly combo of punches and kicks and finished it by landing a knee on Argos’ face, sending him to the ground.
When Argos rose to his feet and wiped blood from his mouth, he had to restrain himself from firing a flurry of fireballs in answer. But doing so and failing would most certainly result in Menoitios resuming his giant form and crushing him along the way.
Argos instead responded in kind with a combo of furious kicks that Menoitios blocked and dodged, but Argos kept coming at him until one of his roundhouse kicks hit his opponent in the face.
I don’t have time for this.
“You’re an excellent fighter,” said Argos.
“So are you. It would seem we’re pretty evenly matched.”
“It would.”
“Shall we continue?”
“Nothing else to do down here anyway.”
And with that Argos was once again on the offensive. They traded attacks for hours, each taking turns in delivering and receiving powerful blows. They were getting tired and their faces and bodies were covered with blood and too many cuts and bruises to count.
Argos had had enough. He needed to find a way to end this fight. Fighting old school without powers was taking too much time. So he had an idea.
When he came about for his next attack he deliberately didn’t put all his strength and speed into it and let Menoitios hit him multiple times as a result.
While he was getting pounded to a pulp with a series of powerful blows, he used his healing powers in small increments so as to not be seen doing it. Mostly he repaired the internal damage to his body, making sure he left all his external wounds apparent, so as to not tip Menoitios off to his tactic.
In turn, Menoitios, feeling the victory within his grasp, pushed on even more by amping up the intensity of his blows, each time thinking he was about to deliver the final one. But even if on the surface Argos looked as though he was getting hurt more and more, he was, in fact, getting stronger, using much less energy by healing himself in real time than he would by expending it towards directly fighting Menoitios.
Eventually the punches and kicks Argos received were less powerful. Menoitios was running out of juice and Argos could feel it. So in the middle of Menoitios’ current combo, Argos decided that now was the time to end this fight. He blocked two of Menoitios’ round kicks and a weak attempt at an uppercut, and locked his arm in the process. With a swift, full-body motion, Argos twisted the arm with as much strength as he could muster and heard the satisfying crack of bones breaking.
Menoitios shouted out his pain, but Argos didn’t wait. He kept attacking him with everything he had, each blow more powerful than the previous one. Menoitios fought with incredible courage and even managed to dodge a few blows. But blocking was becoming too difficult with one shattered arm and Argos always attacked on that side. After landing two flying roundhouse kicks directly on Menoitios’ face that forced him to take a few steps back, Argos launched himself forward and planted his knee into his opponent’s guts.
It knocked the wind out of Menoitios and Argos went for the finishing combo. For that he only used his arms, one punch after another, landing most of them, rarely having to dodge and block Menoitios’ now weak and desperate counters. After one such counterattack from the Titan in human form, Argos landed three powerful left hooks. Teeth and cheekbones broke and blood flew from Menoitios’ mouth like rapids jumping off a rocky cliff to form a split waterfall.
Menoitios shook his head. The last blows had seriously compromised him.
“This has been fun, but it’s time to end it,” said Argos.
There was no time for Menoitios to answer as Argos pushed his advantage and kept going at his opponent’s face, now alternating uppercuts and elbows strikes, and finishing the deadly combo by grabbing Menoitios’ head with both hands and thrusting his knee through it with incredible force.
Menoitios stumbled but by some small miracle he managed to stay upright.
Argos took a step forward and pointed his open palm at Menoitios’ thorax. Argos saw the Titan’s gaze looking puzzlingly downward at Argos’ hand.
“You didn’t really think I’d keep my word now, did you?” said Argos with an evil smile.
Before Menoitios could answer, an enormous column of crimson energy shot from Argos’ hand and impaled Menoitios’ ribcage. Most of his organs were burned instantly and part of his heart, lungs and shattered ribs were expelled out of the soccer-ball-sized hole Argos’ attack had burned through his body.
Menoitios’ eyes stared forward with a look of sheer terror. But soon his gaze softened and tears filled his eyes. Argos thought he saw a faint smile on Menoitios’ face as his body fell to the ground. He hit the floor with whatever was left of his back like a plank of wood. The Titan was no more.
Argos looked at his defeated enemy, smoke still rising from the large hole he had carved in him.
“You were a worthy adversary, Menoitios. You just never should have trusted me.”
The Titan’s body illuminated for a brief instant and Argos instinctively took a defensive stance.
Menoitios’ skin cracked all over his body and orange light bled through it. But soon the flame-colored cracks multiplied and his entire body was burning from the inside out. Soon he was consumed by fire and only a pile of ash remained.
Argos healed himself fully in a flash, all physical traces of the long and arduous battle erased.
A blinding blue light flashed not far from Argos and he had to cover his eyes for a moment. When his vision returned, a man with very long silver hair stood in front of him. It was an Olympian, without a doubt.
“Asclepios, I presume?” said Argos.
“And you are?”
“Is that a way to greet your savior?”
“You don’t look like an Olympian. In fact, you look like a race that is no more.”
“If you mean the Furies, then you’re going to have to get used to the fact that your history needs— how should I put it? —some slight revision.”
“If you’re a Fury, then you’re no savior of mine. What do you want from me?”
“It’s not what I want, old fart, but rather what your buddies Ares and Apollo want.”
“That treacher—” Asclepios raised his brows. “Did you just call me an old fart?”
“Get over it. And believe me, you’ll understand the next time you pass your sorry ass in front of a mirror.”
Asclepios’ face became red. “How dare you?”
Argos sighed. He was not in the mood, so he grabbed Asclepios by his long, dirty, once-white robe.
“Let me go!” protested the old Olympian.
But Asclepios was frail, with not much juice left in him.
Argos took the device Apollo gave him and talked into it.
“Get us out of here, now!”
Another blinding light engulfed them and teleported them out of Menoitios’ once-eternal prison hall.
“Looks like you’ve got it figured out now,” said Hades.
“Yeah, I never thought I could enter fury mode just with a push of my brain. I always thought it was a tremendous anger reflex and that it would stay that way.”
“Live and learn.”
“Speaking of living?”
“You still haven’t defeated me. And I have a couple more things I’d like you to try.”
“Seriously?”
“You asked me before if I knew what was happening in the universe outside of my plane of existence.”
“Yes, so?”
“Well, let’s just say that even if yo
u left now, you wouldn’t wake up right away. You’re still in a cryostasis tube.”
“Wait . . . What?”
“You’re still dying, but your friends are working hard to bring you back, so no need to worry.”
“How you can say things like ‘still dying’ and ‘don’t worry’ in the same sentence is beyond me.”
“If you’re meant to leave this place, you will. There’s no point obsessing about it now since it’s out of your direct control. Let’s use that time to further your training.”
Chase didn’t like the sound of that one bit, but he knew he was in a near-death state, otherwise he wouldn’t have landed in the Underworld in the first place. But fighting for days with Hades had taken his focus away from his physical body’s condition. Hades was right: it wasn’t as if he could do anything about it.
“So what now?”
“Now I have a very simple exercise for you. Try to catch me.”
Chase raised an eyebrow. “You’re kidding, right?”
“I’m not. Only when you manage to catch me can you pass your final test.”
“Alright, I guess you’re the boss.”
Hades smiled but soon disappeared. Chase ran after him but Hades was too fast. Chase activated his fury mode in a split second. Both his aura and eyes turned flame-colored.
In doing so he increased his own speed and closed the gap between them with ease. Or so he thought. Every time he was inches away from catching Hades, the Olympian increased his speed once more, forcing Chase to run and fly faster and faster after him.
Ryonna and Keera were out of the ship; they’d quickly secured the landing bay, making sure no one waited to ambush them.
“Doesn’t look like there’s a welcoming party,” said Ryonna.
“Perhaps this place isn’t inhabited.”
“I wouldn’t count on it, so let’s stay on our guard.”
“But if it was under any kind of surveillance, wouldn’t there be an alarm?”
“It could be a silent alarm that only informs the right person about our presence. Wouldn’t be the first time I stepped into such a place.”
“I see. Where do we go next?”
Ryonna walked to the only door on the opposite side of the landing bay. It opened upwards with a loud pneumatic sound. It revealed a corridor leading both left and right. Ryonna brought online the holo-interface on her wrist device and keyed in a command. When she was done, a small trap door opened on her gadget and hundreds of small spheres, a fraction of an inch each, shot out and levitated in the air.
“What are those?” inquired Keera.
“They’re nano-tracers. They’ll help us map this facility.”
“How?”
“Watch.”
She inputted a couple more commands on her wrist device as she entered the corridor and the nano-tracers followed. They flew in every direction. They bounced against the walls, leaving small red laser traces in their path. A map started to appear on the device’s holo-interface as they progressed.
“While we make our way in, these nano-tracers, which are essentially self-driving sensors, will map every corner of this facility. That way we’ll get advance warning on the layout of this place. If they meet anything or anyone biological, we’ll also know about it.”
“Sweet! That’s quite handy. Can they be used as a weapon as well?”
“With limited effectiveness, but they tend to self-destruct when they run out of juice, usually in a non-exploding manner; but they can be set to self-destruct on demand if needed.”
“So you have used them that way before, right?”
“Once. That’s also why I know they aren’t very efficient; but they did provide me with the distraction I needed to get out of a sticky situation.”
Keera followed Ryonna into the corridor and looked the other way. The nano-tracers had already traveled quite a long distance but she saw the last few bounce off the next intersection and split into two groups, scanning either side of the corridors.
“I pride myself in knowing a lot about technology, but I’ve never seen anything like it. What’s the advantage over smaller drones flying around and gathering the same data?”
“Well, for one they’re infinitely lighter and cheaper to produce. Also they can’t easily be shot down due to their miniature size and the fact that they keep bouncing all over the place in random patterns. They’re inherently hard to target by design. They’re also not bothered by the nature of the terrain. Of course, they only work inside. They’re all but useless in outside situations. They also tend to get the job done much faster than a single drone.”
“Interesting. So from the map they’ve already drawn, where do we go?”
“We either wait a couple more minutes to get a better picture . . .” Ryonna looked at the map being drawn on her holo-display in real time and continued, “or we choose either left or right and backtrack if we have to.”
“Any preference?”
“I say we go left and we’ll know soon enough if it’s a dead end.”
“After you, then.”
They walked the corridors for a few minutes until a hologram appeared in front of them. It was a male Brin humanoid.
“You’re not welcome here. Leave this place if you value your lives.”
“Not the warm welcome I expected,” said Keera.
“Nonetheless, these are the coordinates Jonas provided me, so there must be something in this place. Maybe he’s here, or maybe he left a clue as to where to find him. Either way, we need to see this through.”
Keera nodded and they continued walking on their current path until they heard metallic steps.
“I think we have company and, from the sound of it, not the kind we’ll like,” said Ryonna.
“What do you mean?”
Ryonna didn’t need to answer. Instead she drew her blaster. Keera did the same. Soon a droid appeared at the end of the corridor.
“Battle droid. We’ll need to dispatch it quickly, and hope it’s the only one around.”
They fired their blasters but it was shielded and their shots bounced all around the droid, which started running towards their position.
“Don’t let this thing grab you! They can crush bones like they’re made of dust.”
“Charming, but have you noticed our blasters don’t seem to affect it?”
“Keep firing. That will drain its shields, once they’re down we can use the lasso mode.”
They fired a multitude of shots as the droid kept coming.
“Are you sure this tactic will work, Ryonna? It’s getting awfully close.”
“It has to. It’s way too cramped in here to fight it hand to hand.”
When the droid was only a few yards away it stopped running but kept walking towards them. It turned on a light-blade.
“Last chance,” said the same voice as the hologram a minute before. “Go now or be killed.”
“Stand your ground,” said Ryonna as she turned on her own light-blade.
“I thought you said it was too cramped to fight.”
“It is, but I’ll have to fight it either way. You stand fast and keep firing at it any time you have a clear shot.”
“Ryonna, I’m a good shot, but this is insane. I could hit you.”
“Then turn your weapon to stun, just in case.”
Keera set her blaster to stun and resumed firing on the droid, which didn’t look affected at all.
Soon it was upon Ryonna and the light-blade fight began. The droid was very well programmed and Ryonna had to use all her focus to keep up with it. From time to time, Keera had a clear shot at the droid but, as before, the lasers blasts were deflected by its shields, which briefly flashed green.
Ryonna dodged an incoming light-blade slash and rolled behind the droid, managing to slash her blade across the back of its feet. It illuminated the shield once more but they flashed longer this time.
“Keep shooting at it!” Ryonna shouted.
12
; Argos and Asclepios appeared in front of Ares and Apollo.
“There,” said Argos, throwing the old and frail Olympian at Apollo as if he was luggage.
Asclepios looked at Apollo with rage in his eyes. “You, you’re the one who trapped me here.”
“Technically that would be Zeus. I just provided the prison.”
“And you think that exempts you from your sins? Following wrong orders is as evil as giving them in the first place.”
“If you say so, old man. You’re free now, but if you want to stay that way, we need your elixir of life.”
Asclepios looked at Ares. “So you finally got yourself killed? Why am I not surprised?”
“A lot has changed since you were free, Asclepios. Right now we need your help. My friend Chase doesn’t stand a chance of surviving if you don’t provide us with the elixir.”
“Is he an Olympian?”
“No, he’s a Fury. But before you start complaining, he is trying to help us defeat the other Furies.”
“What the hell are you talking about, Ares? The Furies were defeated a long time ago.”
“Right, you wouldn’t know.”
Ares proceeded to explain the current situation and the power struggles in the universe.
“This is heavy. Will Zeus participate in this conflict?”
“That’s our hope, but for now he’s being less than receptive to our plight.”
“Why am I not surprised? He’s always been selfish outside of his precious Olympians, and even then we are only valued if we blindly obey his every wish.”
As much as Ares wanted to argue with the man he had a point. In the last few thousand years, Zeus had grown more and more reclusive, even among his own people. He seemed perfectly okay with the universe being burned as long as his own race survived. But that was just a temporary measure of survival, and the longer the Olympians waited to join the conflict, the worse it would be when they were forced to. Ares wondered why Zeus didn’t see that.
“In any case, right now the priority is to revive Chase.”
Universe in Flames – Ultimate 10 Book Box Set: An Epic Space Opera Adventure Page 155