Armadron: The Otherworld Series: Book 1

by Corey Tate

  Nick was thrashing in place, attempting to free himself. Scott, walking toward Nick, kept piling it on.

  Scott heard a sound behind him. It was most likely Kane, which gave Scott an idea.

  The huge lump of earth vibrated, cracked, and fell apart. Nick stepped out of the rubble and mechanically walked toward Scott. Scott was exhausted and fought to keep his eyes open as Nick created a spear of glistening metal out of the earth.

  “Nick . . . ,” Scott began. He felt like he was about to pass out. Forever.

  “Good-bye, Scott Faranger,” Nick replied in a hollow voice.

  He thrust the spear toward the space between Scott’s eyes, just as Scott lost consciousness.

  * * *

  Seth couldn’t believe what he was seeing. Flying toward Terminus’s castle, he was above the almost-empty Coliseum when he looked again and spotted his friends.

  Seth flew toward Scott as fast as he could. However, he was still about eight hundred yards away when Nick broke out of a lump of earth.

  What is going on?! Seth thought.

  He saw Scott fall to his knees; Seth figured the overuse of his powers had exhausted him.

  Seth was now less than a hundred yards away.

  Nick, covered in metal, walked toward Scott and created a spear. He said something, then thrust it toward Scott.

  Seth didn’t make it there fast enough.

  His fire did.

  He rocketed toward Nick, firing a bullet of solidified flame from each of the fingers on his right hand. They connected with the spear of metal and wrenched it from Nick’s grasp. Scott fell to the ground, completely passed out at this point.

  Without moving his body, Nick turned his head around at a grotesque angle and glared at Seth.

  Seth landed between Scott and Nick and glared back at Nick. Before he could grasp what was going on, metal rose from the ground and coiled around his entire body.

  “Nick, stop,” Seth pleaded, the air swiftly rushing out of his pores.

  The coils ceased constricting for a moment’s reprieve, then resumed crushing the life out of Seth.

  Seth let his Otherfire burn through the metal. The metal slowly fell around him in molten pools. He stepped closer to Nick, noticing that something was horribly wrong.

  With his new vision, Seth could see that Scott’s inner fire was a solid color: dark green. However, when he looked at Nick, his inner fire was a light blue on the inside, but his skin had a dark-red layer that enveloped his entire body. His inner fire was flickering, almost as if it were dying out.

  “Die,” Nick stated calmly in a robotic voice, and then he attacked.

  He came at Seth like lightning. In a nanosecond, long, sharp metallic swords replaced Nick’s hands. He jumped and spun like a tilted helicopter blade, slicing the air repeatedly toward Seth’s face.

  Seth dodged and rolled to the left, attempting to stand while Nick thrust at him with an arm. He instantly reacted by heating up a tiny pocket of air in between them.

  The second Nick’s “arm” passed into that pocket of air, it fizzed, and instead of the metal melting, it broke off.

  Heat expands metal, moron, Seth thought smugly.

  His thought was cut short by a sharp blade slicing its way toward his face. Seth ducked at the last second.

  Talk about a close shave! Nick’s blade would have sliced through his hair except it was made of pure fire now.

  He noticed that Nick had two blades again.

  “Hey!” Seth cried. “Watch the hairdo! It took me a while to grow all that!”

  Nick laughed, moaned, then immediately regained his machine-like composure. During that time, Seth noticed that the light-blue fire on the inside of Nick’s essence had flared, diminishing the red glow on the perimeter.

  That meant someone was controlling him by redirecting the electricity in his brain. Probably Kane. He wasn’t as powerful as Terminus, and mind controlling wasn’t one of his abilities, as far as Seth knew.

  “Hey, Nick,” Seth said, grinning.

  Nick resumed his fighting stance and began circling Seth.

  “What do train operators and metal have in common?”

  Nick stumbled for a moment, then went back to circling. In the meantime, the real Nick on the inside was trying to figure out the answer.

  Just as Seth opened his mouth, Nick danced forward and jabbed both of his pointed metal spears at him. Seth jumped back, just out of reach, and made two lightning bolts appear in his hands.

  “They conduct!” Seth finished the joke and rammed both arcs of electricity against Nick’s metallic arms.

  “Aaaaaarrrgghhh!!!”

  Nick fell to the ground, and the metal fell off his body in lumps, turning into rust as it did so. Seth instantly saw that Nick’s inner fire was burning bright again, and that the red fire that had been controlling him was no longer there.

  Nick was now passed out next to Scott, and they both looked like they had survived an actual train wreck.

  Suddenly Seth heard a sharp noise behind him. Diving, he threw his left shoulder into the dirt and fired an electromagnetic pulse at the spot where the noise seemed to be coming from. The noise sounded like nails on a chalkboard reverberating through the air.

  He rolled to his feet and stood protectively in front of Scott and Nick. He looked for his attacker.

  Before him was a floating speck of green light.

  “Meet everyone at the Gateway. Now. The battle is nearly at hand.” The floating speck spoke with Artam’s voice of authority. “You have three hours. Our Gateway area is the correct one.”

  Once the message was given, the green speck dissipated into the atmosphere, leaving the scent of a freshly mowed lawn in its wake.

  Seth wasted no time. He lightly touched both Scott and Nick on the shoulders and focused his energy.

  He tried to control the electricity in both of their brains to wake them up. Seth wasn’t having much luck, though.

  Nick suddenly shot up, took Seth by the wrist, and threw him over his body and to the side.

  Seth stood up and willed a fiery bomb of lava to form into his hand. He hesitated for a second.

  “What the hell is your problem?!” Nick stood up and glared at Seth.

  Seth was dumbstruck.

  “I—I . . . um . . . ,” Seth stuttered.

  “You what?” Nick continued to stare at Seth accusingly, only breaking eye contact for a second to dust himself off.

  “I—I thought your mind was still under control,” Seth answered.

  “Well, it’s not,” Nick said.

  “Oh.” Seth lowered his ball of lava, then raised it again with a sudden thought. “Why did you throw me then?”

  “I was testing your reflexes.” Nick grinned.

  “Funny.”

  “I thought so.”

  Seth dropped the ball of lava.

  “What did I miss?” Nick asked nervously, looking around.

  “Well,” Seth said, “a lot.”

  “Tell me.”

  “Not right now,” Seth said, shaking his head. “Right now we have to get to the Gateway.”

  “Our location is the right one?”

  “Yep.”

  “I can help with that, then.” Nick nodded.

  He forced a huge lump of metal to rise out of the ground, then molded it into the shape of a small car. It had curved seats on the inside, with no seat belts or steering wheel.

  “Aaaah, this again?” Seth whined.

  “Just like last time,” Nick said with a mischievous grin.

  Nick picked up Scott from the ground and laid him in the backseat. Nick sat in the front driver seat, and Seth sat in the front passenger seat.

  As soon as everyone was comfortable, Seth formed a constant flow of combustion behind the car with a thought. Nick, however, was doing the steering. Together, they drove the car out of the Coliseum, onto the barren landscape, and sped toward the Gateway with twin trails of fire propelling them.

  Seth hesi
tated, terrified to ask the next question. “Where is Claire? Is she okay?”

  “I dunno. I know he didn’t kill her, though, because the bastard would have been laughing about it,” Nick answered. “You seen Sam?”

  Seth’s heart dropped into his stomach. “She’s dead.”

  The car pulled to the left, and then Nick got it back under control.

  “What did you just say?” Nick’s voice was suddenly hoarse. “That can’t be true. Are you sure?”

  “I’m sure.”

  “How? What happened?”

  Seth shook his head, eyes closed. “I don’t know how. But I stopped some dude from turning her into his dinner.”

  They drove in silence for a couple minutes.

  “Did you light him up?” Nick finally asked.

  “Hell yeah.”

  Scott groaned in the backseat. They both turned to look at him, but he was still asleep.

  “I hope for our sake that he wakes up very soon,” Seth stated glumly.

  “Yeah, me too. Did you try electrocuting him a little like you did to me?”

  “I tried,” Seth said, shaking his head, “but it’s almost like a part of his brain didn’t want me to wake him up yet.”

  A Nightmare in a Nightmare

  The first feeling that came to Scott was that he was surrounded. He felt like he was in a small glass box at the bottom of the ocean. He could feel pressure coming at him from all sides, compressing his body.

  He slowly opened his eyelids and looked around him, trying to find who had just yelled.

  He was utterly alone, at least as far as he could see, which wasn’t far. He was in a dark place with a strange gray light filtering through the air—except that it wasn’t light. Whatever it was, it pulsated through the air, coating everything in a kind of haze.

  —Hello? Scott called into the gloomy haze.

  —Hello, Scott, a familiar voice answered.

  He turned around and around in circles, looking for the ominous voice. No one was there.

  —Who are you? Scott asked.

  —Who are you?

  Scott continued to peer into the darkness, but it seemed that the more he looked, the darker the atmosphere became.

  —You just said my name. You know who I am! Scott said.

  —Yes.

  He was confused. He kept trying to look into the darkness to see who was talking to him, but he couldn’t find anyone.

  —I am not on the outside, the voice said.

  Scott felt a low humming sensation. It took him a second to realize where it was coming from. It’s coming from me, he thought.

  Scott could feel another presence occupying the same space that he was, which he figured was pretty much—

  —Impossible? The voice completed his thought mockingly.

  The voice was so clear and powerful that it nearly made Scott jump out of his skin. This felt different from when Plegaborne first shared his mind. Stronger. More integrated. He felt a cold shiver run down his spine. Just then he had a fleeting mental image fly behind his retinas. He knew who it was now.

  —Plegaborne?

  —Yes.

  —Where am I? Am I dead? Scott asked.

  —No. You are in the Chaos Dimension.

  —The what?

  —You and I are one now, so now when your human brain sleeps, your unconscious mind can travel to the Chaos Dimension, as mine does, Plegaborne explained.

  —Why do you call this place the Chaos Dimension? It’s quiet.

  —It is quiet because I am making our presence unseen, Plegaborne explained slowly. There are Higher Beings in this place to whom it would not be wise to reveal our whereabouts.

  —So why are we here? Scott asked.

  —We are here because when you locked me in your primitive human brain, you placed me in the area that also deals with your unconscious mind. Now, whenever you sleep, I will gain control, as I stated previously.

  —Well, that’s shi—

  —I am speaking to you now for the sole reason of helping you. Well, for the sole reason of helping us.

  —Really? Scott asked suspiciously.

  —Yes. I am here to tell you that you need to copy Terminus’s curses.

  —I’ve never seen Terminus. I don’t even know what he looks like.

  —I know that. But when you see him, that is what you must do.

  —Fine, Scott agreed. But it won’t change anything. It’ll just mean that he and I will have the same abilities, and he’s had hundreds of years to hone his skills.

  —No, Scott, Plegaborne explained. You will be able to use numerous abilities at a time, while I believe that he will have to switch between them.

  —I wish I could just absorb his curses now, instead of copying them, so that I could just take them from him, Scott said.

  —No. That would kill us both.

  —Why?

  —Terminus has too many curses now. If you were to take his abilities, your body would tear itself apart.

  —But I’ll be taking them anyway if I copy them! Scott argued.

  —No. What you do and what absorbers do are different. Absorbers take the energy to use the ability, which means that the power to use that ability is stored in their own body’s energy supply, or life force. When you, however, touch someone, you reconstruct your genetic code to vibrate in order to fit a new ability. That means that you should be able to have an infinite number of abilities, and still hopefully retain control.

  —That’s very awesome. And extremely useful.

  —It is very useful, Plegaborne agreed. Now you must wake up and cripple him, and then release me.

  —Release you?

  —Yes. You must wound him and then release me into his body. I will kill him from the inside out . . . and, in doing so, finally have my revenge. It is settled then. Now that we are done with our discussion, you must wake up!

  * * *

  “Finally!”

  Scott opened his eyes slowly to find Nick staring at him from the front seat of a . . . car?

  He immediately sat up and prepared to shoot Nick in the face with one of his curses.

  “Whoa, whoa!” Seth yelled from the other front seat. “Calm the hell down! He’s alright now!”

  “What?” Scott asked.

  “Seth brought me back,” Nick explained.

  “Oh.” Scott sat back and slumped in the seat.

  “Wait!” Scott leaned forward again. “Seth!”

  “You look tired,” Seth replied as a form of greeting.

  “I’m very tired.”

  Scott looked at the car. It was made entirely of metal, and there were no gears, brakes, steering wheel, or windshield. Scott guessed there probably wasn’t even an engine.

  The metal in the front of the car was so thin that they could see through it, so that was kind of cool too.

  “Are you done admiring her yet?” Nick asked.

  “No.” Scott grinned through his exhaustion. “What the hell is this?”

  “A car. I made it,” Nick answered shortly.

  “Alright, I’m done now,” Scott replied, rolling his eyes.

  “Good,” Seth said, “’cause we all have some catching up to do.”

  “Yeah we do,” Scott agreed in amazement, staring at Seth’s new form for the first time.

  Seth turned around in his seat.

  “You like?” Seth joked.

  “You look like Ghost Rider,” Scott said admiringly.

  “That’s what I was thinking!” Seth agreed.

  They both erupted into laughter, but Nick didn’t.

  “What’s a Ghost Rider?” Nick asked.

  Scott shot him a puzzled look.

  “It’s an Earth movie thing.” Seth waved him off.

  “What’s a movie?” Nick asked, still confused.

  “It’s an Earth thing,” Scott said.

  Seth and Scott laughed again, and Nick began to get frustrated.

  “We’re only an hour away,” Nick cut in. “
We need to catch up.”

  “Sure,” Seth responded.

  After Nick and Scott shared what had happened to them since the Telemine, it was Seth’s turn. When Seth shared his discovery of Sam’s death, Scott closed his eyes. A repressed memory of Sam’s death mentioned in Artam’s note reared its ugly head.

  The three young men in the car fell silent.

  Eventually, Seth cleared his throat and broke the silence. “Do you have a ton of curses now?” he asked Scott.

  “I guess so.”

  “So why didn’t you neutralize Kane with Sam’s ability and kill him?” Nick wanted to know.

  “I tried. He didn’t even blink.”

  “Didn’t even blink?!” Seth and Nick said at the same time.

  “Yeah.”

  “What about when Nick was trying to kill you?” Seth asked.

  “I forgot,” Scott admitted. “I was too busy trying not to hurt him. Plus, it’s hard to . . . you know . . . use her abilities. It just doesn’t feel right.”

  Seth nodded, looking confused.

  The sorrow and remorse were almost palpable.

  They were nearly there. They were just fifteen minutes away from . . . well, no one really knew.

  “This doesn’t feel real. Everything is happening too fast,” Scott said.

  “I know,” Nick agreed. “And now, in about an hour, Terminus is going to try to get to Earth through the reversed Gateway and take an army of Upgrades with him.”

  A moment later he added, “We’re here.”

  The car stopped as Seth withdrew his arm from the window opening, stopping the flow of combustion. Without a moment’s hesitation, Nick and Seth climbed out.

  Scott didn’t move. Do I really want to do this? he asked himself. What happens if I can’t beat him?

  —Then you will never see your family again, and you will lose, Plegaborne whispered from a corner of his mind. And you will always have me in the wings of your mind, waiting for you to fall asleep so that I may take control. So get on with it.

  Scott thought of Jared, his mom, Molly, and his friends. They would all be dead or enslaved if he failed.

  He felt his pockets. The Bastum was gone, but Jared’s inhaler and Scott’s cell phone were still there.

  He stepped out of the car.