Toni smiled and said, “Dude, what a great choice the Kohpesh a favorite sword of the ancient Egyptians. They would execute their prisoners in large groups with the weapons also were able to disarm their opponents with ease. Agatha leaned forward.
“Guys shut up; we are approaching the citadel I suggest we take it in three teams of three. Gabriel and his guys can take it from the roof and work their way down. Catalyst you, James and Annabelle, take the ground floor and work your way up. Toni, Raymond, and I will take on the guards outside the castle. Everyone must work toward the middle. The Duchess of death sits on her threw at the center of the building,” said Agatha.
The carriage came to a complete stop. For a moment, everyone was still, and it was quiet. We got out of the cosmic carriage. I was taking short quick steps to minimize noise and then. Crack! I looked over, and James had stepped onto a branch.
We all dove for the ground; it was too late she had seen us.
“Run now, stick to the plan,” Agatha screamed.
The citadel was carved into the mountain side — hundreds of feet in the air and dozens of feet across. Several openings ran up the side, some natural and some human-made the craziest part of it all was that the moat that ran around the foot of it was the black acid. A great door of stone opened at the foot of the castle, and a man rode Out on the back of a small Dinosaur like a beast. He began to speak, and then I realized it was the man from the video, the captain of the Orion.
“Surrender now trespassers, and you will suffer only slightly. My queen has a proposition for you. She will let one of you live if you do what she says. It can either be chosen by her, or you can kill each other, and the last one standing shall live to tell the tale.”
He stepped away and sat on his animal smug and satisfied ... I leaped at him and grabbed his throat, and injected box jellyfish toxin into his skin. I looked deep into his eyes.
“I have a counter-proposal, tell your master that Catalyst killed you and that I am coming for her, and I will kill everyone inside unless she releases whatever prisoners she has. We will take any supplies she may have. You better hurry I gave you enough poison to kill you in five excruciating minutes”
The man screams pierced my ears as he retreated into the castle.
“Dude, what the hell? Why did you kill that man? That’s dark, even for you!” Toni said.
I walked toward the castle when I grabbed my swords and slid the blade between my hands and coated it in stonefish poison. I looked at Annabelle and then at Toni.
“You don’t stay alive by letting others do the same. If I didn’t kill him, he would have surely killed me. We cannot take it easy on them. We are playing to live, and we are playing for keeps. I swung my sword through the air and raised my blade to the sky. “New plan,” I shouted.
“We walk in the door, and we kill anyone who even looks like they’re going to attack us, and when we get to the Duchess, I kill her myself now, Charge!”
We marched into the building with weapons drawn and ready. The lights were dim, and I felt warmth in the air. Suddenly, I heard the stomping of claws on concrete. A dinosaur-like beast burst forth through the wall. He jumped and landed on Smith and knocked him to the floor and sunk his teeth into Smiths' wing. Toni swung his hand. Underhand and his sword into the beast side. Purple blood seeped onto the floor. The acid moat bubbled and burst, raining drops of acid and mud over everyone and everything.
The alien Dinosaurs burst from the building. At least a dozen or so. James slid his sickle sword through the stomach of one. Another bit him on his thigh. He grabbed the mouth and ripped the beast clean in half. Gabriel and Willard shot into the sky. Annabelle and Raymond drew their swords.
Ray would take away their kinetic energy as he ran. They stopped in their tracks, and Annabelle sliced them up. The dinosaurs charged at our teeth and claws flaring.
Gabriel, Willard, and Smith. Flew into the air and all at once they breathed acid from their mouths. They formed a solid ring around the aliens and trapped them inside the wall of bubbling acid.
“James, throw me!” I screamed.
He lifted me and tossed me into the ring of monsters. I slashed several of the dinosaurs and filled them with the poison of the stonefish. Some of their hearts stopped, and they dropped dead, and others seized and then died. Another beast leaped onto my back and knocked me to the floor.
He tried to sink his teeth into my neck. The beast blood began to drip on my face; he let out a scream and fell on me dead. A loud ssssssshuck and a sword pulled out of his body. An arm pulled me to my feet and saw it was Annabelle. I smiled at her.
“Thanks for saving my life! I guess that means we are even.” Annabelle opened her lips to respond when the Duchess interrupted her.
“You have faced the pets you are no match for the master, I am power, true power I can kill you any way I wish I can control the causes of death at will and I will kill you so slowly. You know people are interested at first, they will say anything to try to live. To try to convince you to save them. In the end, everyone begs for a quick death. You Catalyst shall be no exception as I promised I would kill you last.”
It was then I felt the heat from the acid rise, and then the Duchess of death stepped out of the acid without a blemish. As If it were only water. She had only taken one step when she grabbed Smiths' ankle from the sky. She filled his legs with worms, and they ate him alive. His screams could be heard for miles. “NOOOOOOOOOO!” Willard, and Gabriel shouted.
The Duchess went from man to woman and killed every single one of Agatha’s crew differently.
The Duchess reached for Agatha and grabbed her arm. Ray looked over and screamed.
“No, I won’t let you kill her. He tried to take away her kinetic energy; he couldn’t. The Duchess turned to Ray and blasted him. At first, we thought she hadn’t tried to kill him, she had. She was killing him by making him lose his sanity.
Ray raised his hand into the air and began siphoning Off all our kinetic energy.
“Watch this, my deceived and distraught friends.”
He grabbed a sword and used our combined kinetic energy to achieve super speed. He raced next to me and slid the sword into my side, and I fell to my knees weak. He kicked James in the chest and ran up His body, jumping into the air and cut Willard's wings off. Raymond walked toward Annabelle and drew his sword. “NOOOOOOO, I jumped to my feet and grabbed Ray by his hair, pushing poison into the roots of his scalp, and he fell to the floor in cardiac arrest. The Duchess of death was not done; she grabbed Willard by his arms; she ate a few of his fingers. I saw James, Toni, and Gabriel try to attack it was if she could slow them down without even touching them. She dismembered the last of Agatha’s crew members while also irradiated him.
“Demon no more, we shall do whatever you ask. Spare the rest of my friends these gruesome deaths. The Duchess stopped and turned to me. She turned a solid shade of black with crimson-colored eyes.
“I will melt the skin from your bones and boil the blood from your veins before I let any of you go. You are my feast. Your so-called friend Agatha brought you to me as a sacrifice so that she could live.”
Toni drew his bone sword and swung it at the demon woman. She grabbed his leg and began to fill it with radiation. His leg bubbled and burst. Toni spun his sword and chopped off his leg. His blood oozed over the floor. Before the Duchess could kill Toni, James leaped over and Hardened the blood on Toni’s leg stump. Annabelle and Agatha grabbed their swords and stepped next to me.
Agatha said, “Catalyst, I told you I wouldn’t betray you, and I haven’t. I brought you here because she can be killed; she’s not immortal.”
I looked at her and Annabelle. I nodded and smiled. Annabelle said.
“Catalyst, you can do this; kill her. We will find a fuel source and escape the planet.”
She kissed my cheek and squeezed my hand.
“Agatha, I know I can, not alone,” I said.
The Duchess moved over to where James was sta
nding.
“Be silent, here’s a new deal I let you live if you kill Your best friend or your girlfriend.”
She reached into the acid lake and pulled out monsters made of the acid, and the grabbed James and Annabelle. I heard their skins burn and sizzle. I looked at the faces of my best friend and the girl I had grown to become so close to. I looked at Agatha and Toni.
“Gabriel now!” I shouted
Agatha tossed me James’s sickle sword from the ground, and Toni tossed me his bone sword. I laced both with cobra venom spit. Gabriel flew down and picked me up with his claws and flew me through the air. He stopped and tossed me right above the Duchess of death. I stabbed the sickle sword into her throat, and the other I slid across her arm. She flayed and grabbed at James and me. I Pulled the swords until they met, leaving an open wound as she fell to her knees. Her body was fighting the poison hard, trying to heal itself.
Gabriel flew down and spat acid onto the acid monsters and then retracted the ooze back into his body, monsters, and all.
James raced over to me and grabbed my hand. Together we plunged our hands into the Duchess’s open wounds, and I pumped her body full of Taipan snake poison. James stuck his hand into her blood and hardened her blood. She fell to the ground like a busted statue. James and I collapsed from exhaustion from extreme use of our powers, which caused me to blackout.
Chapter seven
The razor wind cut deep into my flesh; blood ran down my forehead like beads of sweat. My eyes had trouble opening and adjusting to the light. I stood to my feet, and my spine popped.
“Catalyst, are you ok!” Annabelle asked when she ran over to me. Her and Toni tended to the wounds of everyone else. She helped me walk and kissed my cheek. I smiled and gave her a tight hug. I looked over at James, whose arm was still bleeding. Toni wrapped the wound. Annabelle helped me walk over, and I sat next to them.
“Toni, thank you for giving aide to the rest of us; you should tend to your leg,” Said James.
James and I helped him into the carriage; The rest of us climbed inside. We took a moment of silence for the people we lost. Toni and Annabelle drove toward the Citadel. The low hum of the thrusters was the only sound to break the silence.
Gabriel, the man who a few days, before I wish, would shut his mouth, sat their head down, and his jaw tightly clenched. Ever since he lost his friends at the hand of the Duchess, he hadn’t said a word.
“Gabriel, are you going to be ok? I know they meant a lot to you. More than any of us will ever know. From what we could tell they were good men, and they saved our lives, and for that, we are grateful, “I said.
Gabriel raised his head, and through his Ink, colored tears screamed.
“When we were eleven, Willard, Smith, and I was kidnapped and beaten every day. Until we would do whatever he told us to do. The man who kidnapped us wanted us to rob him. One day we went to steal documents from a business and got caught. I got caught. When our boss got hold of us. I started to tell him that it was my fault and mine alone. Smith and Willard interrupted me and told him that it was all our fault. He beat us to death, or at least that’s what the doctors and medical examiners thought. We were only in a coma and awoke to our bodies rotting and the strontium-90 eating away at our bone marrow. After all their doings they tried to kill us for years and when they couldn’t they sent us to this planet to cover up their mistakes. For years we lived on this planet fighting and surviving. Until, of course, we met your bunch of merry men, and we know you for a few days, and now they’re dead!
I promise when this is all over Catalyst, I will kill everyone that you love.”
I looked over at him and grabbed him by the shoulder, and I looked through his eyes and into his soul.
“I am sorry killing them will not bring back the ones you lost. They would want you to finish the mission and get the better life that you all wanted, and after all this, if you still want to kill my family, then I promise I will kill you with the slowest and most painful poison I possibly can .”
Gabriel peered up at me.
“Not if I kill you first by drowning you with acid until it eats away at your bones.”
I extend my hand.
“It’s a deal then whenever we get back to Earth. It’s Every man for himself, and the winner gets the ultimate prize. He gets to keep his life.”
The Cosmic carriage rattled as it passed over the bridge that spanned the moat. James looked around before he spoke; his loud voice echoed off the walls.
“This place would be one hell of a fortress or like a base. Let’s check this place out! Dibs on the big room!”
I turned around, and Annabelle slid her hand into mine.
“Come on Catalyst, we better keep up with him — Agatha, who had also been quiet spoke.
“let’s not forget why we are here. Save any prisoners she may have had and search for a fuel source for the ship.”
We walked into the dark citadel, Items from people who died before us lay strewn throughout. None of them seemed like they could have helped us get off the planet. A crazy bright light blinded me.
With the light came to immense heat, and then I felt the smoke fill my nostrils.
I fell to the floor, and the other bodies did the same. I clawed at the ground to get up; I couldn’t force myself too. I heard a sudden low swishing sound like the sound air brakes make. I awoke to cell door slamming shut, surrounded solid walls — no seams or bolts or anything anywhere.
As if I were inside a perfect cube. I raised my hands to my face; my hands were fastened together in a solid metal sphere. I sat down to think about how I could escape when a voice began to emit from the ceiling. A screen blinked on and a man who appeared to be a grey and scaly raptor-like alien. His grey head was covered only with a red double crest. He was Similar to the dinosaurs that Duchess of death controlled before. He began to laugh and speak.
“Humans are so foolish. They think everything is as simple as Earthly entertainment. That if you kill the leader, all the others who follow her will go away. No, we are still here and will use you and your knowledge and some of you we will eat. Get comfortable and acquainted with your roommates because you’re never leaving.”
The screen clicked off. From the shadows of my cell stepped a man. His skin was wrinkled his hair short and grey; His eyes were dark, his skin bronze.
“Allow me to introduce myself; my name is Museum Master. You may call me Zadok. I, too, am from Earth. Many years ago, at least several decades ago, my crew and I were the first ships ever sent to this planet by the United Nations. We were told it was to see if the planet was Habitable in case of Nuclear destruction of the Earth. That was only partially true. They wanted a place that they could dump all their experiments and mistakes away from the public eye. Before they cut communication with us, they told us that our lives being spent on this planet and never coming home was justifiable.
“Since that day, they have sent dozens of ships here, most of which have long been dead. As I am sure you have come to realize that a great many people are not. Including the beast which resembled dinosaurs that were created when the United Nations attempted to use the traits of Dinosaurs to give humans super abilities. It worked too well; it gave them dinosaur abilities alright along with dinosaur-like bodies. That demon only left me alive to do her bidding. You see my ancestors were guardians of temples in Egypt. The guardians of relics and tombs, artifacts, and museums. Throughout time in every civilization, my bloodline had craved these things. My father spent his life creating a device, a medallion that only members of my bloodline can use. It can pull in artifacts or relics; especially weapons from Time for a limited time. What about you, sir? What’s your story, “Zadok said.
I spoke with hesitation because I did not trust this new man.
“My name is Catalyst, I can control, and poison and toxins, I will only tell you what you want to hear if you promise to help break out.”
He nodded in agreement, and I told him the origin of my powers
“ A long time ago when I was only about five my birth father was killed in a bank robbery, my mother was offered a high paying job out of state, he didn’t want to take me, so she sent me to live with my aunt, uncles, and cousins. One night my cousins were playing outside; they were killed by a king cobra.
The first thing my uncle said to me was, why couldn’t. I have been the one to die. For five years, he took me to this laboratory to inject me with every venom, poison, and toxin known to man after it would almost kill me; he would give me the anti-venom. He would beat me and let other professors test their experiments on me. One fateful day all the poisons and toxins from my body mixed with a mystery drug. Next thing I know, I accidentally poison my dog, and I realized I had the power to poison So I did what anyone would do. I used it to get revenge on my uncle, and I killed him with the cruelest poison. Then I did the same with the people who killed my father. I hunted them down one by one until they were all dead.”
Zadok stared at me with his mouth agape. Fear flooded his eyes.
“Well my friend, that’s rather dark on that note, what is your master plan. I’ve been here for almost a hundred years, yet I am still here.”
I stood up and stared into the corner of the room before speaking.
“You never had Toni or me. Toni’s superpower is that he has an impeccable recall of every battle in history, Every strategy. I assume I would include prison breaks of sorts.”
Zadok laughed and grabbed his stomach as he bent over.
“My family were keepers of time. We guard the history of the world. It’s what ties me to all of these relics, yet you say this man can do better than I, please try.”
Hmm, I stroked my chin and pondered the infinite possibilities and pitfalls. How can I get these dim-witted dinosaurs to open the door and let me talk to Toni? I banged on the walls until my knuckles bled. The door raised, and through it, one of the head dinosaurs entered. He spoke with a dramatic lisp, which made understanding him all the harder.
Journey to a darker world Page 6