EB hopped in with Chase beside him. EB said, “heroes are picking up their neutral weapons from the BADGE locations.”
“Good. Let’s hope it’ll work.”
Chase asked, “do you really think these are the six people Gar was talking about?”
Nova said, “they have to be. It makes perfect sense. The neutral core was crafted by knowledge gained from the cores stolen out of these creatures. If we can revive them, they may stop him.”
“How do we revive them?” asked EB.
Just then, General Nova, Dr. Henderson, and a disgruntled Dr. Osteen walked into the lab.
The General said, “I wager these people would have an idea about that.”
Osteen complained, “I did what I said I’d do, designed those neutral weapons. I was busy playing Warcrafter. This jerk just yanked my headset right out of the computer.”
Nova gave Osteen an icy stare and then turned to Dr. Henderson. “Are we sure these Avatars are still alive? They have been away from their cores for a long time.”
Dr. Henderson checked the monitoring system. “As far as I can tell, there are still signs of life in them. They aren’t alive like a human, they are more like Gar, a constructed thing with a living energy in them to make them alive. We are still reading traces of that energy in them. I could be wrong, but I would say they are still alive enough to bring around…if there is a way.”
Dr. Osteen asked, “so, why worry about these things? They can’t do much like this.”
Nova slowly turned and looked at Osteen. “These six avatars are mankind’s last, best hope for survival. Without their help, time will utterly annihilate this solar system. You, Doctor, were the one who figured out how to extract the core of these avatars. You know where they are currently stored. And, hopefully, you know how to restore them.”
Osteen looked at the sleeping avatars. “I don’t need to restore them. Just freeing their cores will cause them to join with their bodies. We had a hell of a time figuring out how to keep their cores from trying to reabsorb into them. If I tell you how to find them, will this reduce my prison sentence? I’ll only keep working for you if you can promise...”
Nova grabbed him by his collar and yanked him up to his face. “THIS ISN’T ABOUT SAVING YOUR SORRY ASS FROM PRISON! THIS IS ABOUT STOPPING A MADMAN FROM WIPING THIS SOLAR SYSTEM FROM EXISTENCE AND THEN RETURNING LEGION TO POWER!”
“Alright, alright, I’ll do it. Don’t get so angry! Sheesh!”
Nova dropped the fat doctor. “We need to know where the cores are?”
“The base you guys are currently attacking. They’re inside there, inside my lab where I created the augments.”
Nova left the room with the others. No more words to be said to this criminal. EB hopped over and handed Osteen a colorfully wrapped egg. “Here, no hard feelings.”
“Oh, uh, thanks.”
EB hopped away, snickering.
Chase walked by and grabbed the egg. “Don’t eat that. He filled it with deathpepper puree.”
***
Krystal Fae hovered in the sky above the waters in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. All around, other heroes waited for orders. Many were readying their newly acquired neutral gear.
“I see nothing?” Hotwings flew by.
Krystal said, “we know he has to be here. The energy spike here is too big to be natural.”
A hero blasted up out of the waters, his body mostly a slithering blue eel's tail. He held himself aloft in the air, swimming as much as he would in the water. “No sign of any structure under the water. The fish down there have seen nothing.”
A giant Midgard came stomping through the ocean. “WHERE IS MY PREY!?”
Hotwings laughed, “you look like Godzilla.”
“DON’T COMPARE ME TO AMATEURS!”
Strange Quark appeared next to Krystal. “I can see it. The base is right in front of us. There’s a forcefield surrounding it that is phased a millisecond outside of normal time, which keeps it out of our reach.”
“What can we do about that?”
Quark laughed, “this.” He lifted his arms, and a bubble of energy appeared in the air, buzzing and crackling. A large platform with a building on it appeared inside. “There, destroy the barrier!”
Midgard cracked his considerable knuckles. “WITH PLEASURE!” He reached back and smashed it over and over.
Heroes blasted it and punched it. In moments, the field broke, and the base appeared right in front of them. Above it, a mist of gray energy streamed into it like smoke reversing down a chimney.
Krystal clicked her comm. “Alright, people, you have one job, find and take down Delta. Quark and I must get to the cores. MOVE!”
Heroes entered the compound at every entry point they could find, or simply smashed a hole in a wall. Midgard shrunk down and joined them at a human level. He had wanted to simply destroy the entire base in one shot, but even he knew they needed to see Delta’s body floating dead in the water before they could assume this was over.
The base was deep, going down into the ocean at a great depth. They found countless dead bodies of augments who had been extinguished like all the others. In deeper hallways, they found dead mercs murdered in cold blood. It was a stinking morgue, not a secret base.
Krystal and Quark ran deeper than the others, both following the scent of the morphon cores.
“This way, I can smell the pure morphons.” Quark said.
Krystal had an energy coming from her hands providing some light. “Osteen said they would be in his lab, which would likely be in a highly protected location, deep in this place.”
“There! I see them behind locked doors. That must be his lab!” Quark pointed down to the end of a hall.
Blasting open the sealed doors, both entered the horrible lab where the augments were birthed. The many bio-tubes that once held these poor victims were empty. The vast computer systems to process this were all dark. A clear tank held the six cores, each floating freely.
However, none of this caught their attention first. Delta stood in the middle of the room, smiling at them. In his hands, he held a gray glowing orb that was absorbing the misty energy.
“Welcome to hell.” was his greeting and the next second was a blinding blast of light, hot wind, and debris. Krystal and Quark were caught in an explosion that destroyed the entire base.
Krystal gagged and coughed as she woke, floating on the surface of the ocean. Heroes around her were just as disoriented and scattered. Wreckage from the base was strewn as far as the eye could see. Hovering above them, holding that orb aloft in his hands, was Delta. His face and body had changed. The normal suit he wore was gone, just a pair of pants like the augments wore and nothing else. His body was greenish yellow with scales. His face was even more alien, with a ridge of thicker scales on his bald head. His ears had tree spikes growing along them, and his eyes were a bright green.
Krystal whispered, “who are you?”
“LIKE HELL!” Midgard grew to an enormous size and took a swing at the small Drochah. Other heroes came up out of the waters and went in for the kill.
Drochah held out the orb and a wave of energies in six different colors spread out. The heroes were thrust back into the waters and even Midgard stumbled back.
“Pathetic.” Drochah declared, and then sped away.
Krystal yelled, “stop him! He’s not finished. You must stop him before he completes that thing!”
A great cacophony of splashing and sonic booms came as the heroes raced after the enemy.
Quark came floating by as a blue duck. “So, Delta turned into an ugly green alien…who’ve guessed?”
Krystal lifted out of the water and looked around. “The cores?”
Quark tilted his duck head toward the water. “See for yourself.”
Both watched as six colored lights rose from the depths and breached the surface. They sped faster and faster upward, heading for the distant atmosphere.
Quark said, “they’re going home.”
Krystal tightened her fists. “Let’s hope it isn’t too late. Come on.” She zipped away, heading for the battle.
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