Chapter Twelve: Race

Part One

The golden train slipped through the air, speeding over the green fields of Shambhala following track lines invisible to my sight. One would think that the train was simply flying, but it definitely moved with purpose, guided along its path.

“I am experiencing difficulties in my systems,” the Metatron announced as we passed over what looked to be an impossibly tall tiered pagoda. Red tiles accented each level, reflecting the light of the golden ball of plasma that dominated the area. There were no people, no residents. It was a kingdom entirely devoid of inhabitants. It was as if the place was simply waiting to be occupied. As if there were spirits waiting to be awakened within the golden halls of the place.

“What do you mean you are having difficulties? Could they have been degraded with time?”

“The entropy factor of my systems occurs by one calculation every thirty-thousand years.”

“Impressive. But if that’s not the problem, then what is?”

The Metatron paused, the glimmering pinprick of light dimmed. After a few seconds, it returned to full luminosity. “I am being hacked.”

“It didn’t realize it was being hacked? I mean, if a system as sophisticated as that…”

The Mage nodded slowly, “When you do realize you are sick?”

The Writer shrugged. “When I start coughing, I suppose. When I start feeling under the weather.”

“But surely a system as sophisticated as your realizes it is becoming sick before then.” The Mage nodded slowly to the Writer’s confusion. “You aren’t aware that you’re being, or in that case, that you’ve been hacked. You’ve already been compromised. The Metatron is one of the most powerful crafted intelligences on this planet, but its consciousness is limited by what its creaters were capable of imagining.”

“What do you mean?”

“You understand what omniscience is, conceptually, but even knowing this, you can’t maintain two sets of numbers at once. Try it. In your head, count by two and count by five simultaneously.” The Mage reached forward and picked up his cup. He sipped at it lightly as he watched the Writer.

The Writer frowned as he set to the task.

[counting in tandem]

The Mage watched as the Writer’s brow furrowed in concentration, then began, slowly, “Three, six, nine, twelve-“

“You’re not helping.”

“No, but in that same vein you cannot conceive of multiple avenues of thought simultaneously, neither can anything you create emulate something you cannot experience yourself. Like the human body, the Metatron’s subconciousness handles all of its antivirus and maintenance systems, sending the equivalent of white blood cells and platelets to an open wound. But, once you are made aware of a threat, you can take conscious steps to protect yourself.

“So, once the Metatron was aware of the threat, it took some cough syrup?”

“Not quite.”

“I was not made aware that there would be attempts on my systems, Mage,” the Metatron said. I heard the beginnings of a frown in its voice. The light dimmed to a gentle blue.

“Yes, well, I didn’t know she would try that. She knows as well as I do-“

“They are aware of your arrival and are disabling transport systems.”

“Can’t you just… beam me there?”

“That system is disabled.”

“And why didn’t you transport me to the palace in the first place?”

“Warning, transport systems compromised. This vehicle will experience a sudden cessation of motion at high velocity.”

“What? You mean…”

“Occupant. Brace for sudden inertial transference.”

“We’re crashing.”

“Yes.”

I looked about for a hand-hold or brace as I felt the fluttering sensation of weightlessness. One of the large pagodas loomed huge in the front view of the train. A split second later, there was noise. Metal and stone and tile ground around me, violently scraping and scratching. The three-car flying train jack-knifed vertically, flipping the last and center cars upwards and over the first car, sending the entire thing slamming, full-length, into the pagoda.

Then, the still-smooth exterior of the train slid down the exterior of the pagoda, rushing faster as it fell nearly a hundred stories. The crash lasted a full minute until the train collapsed around me and the advanced engines that made up the vehicle began to go critical.

I fought my way from the wreckage. There are many things I don’t concern myself as it pertains to physical damage. Falling from great heights, sharp blades, even nuclear explosions. But there are things that can harm me and one such thing is quantum manipulation. This you’ve seen with the creature in New York. Additionally, a quantum explosion, like that which was about to occur with the great golden train, would be as deadly to me as a standard fire is to a human.  I pushed myself free of the metals and stumbled away from the crushed vehicle. Above the pagoda began to buckle and tumble as a whole over the golden train. My first few steps were slow, but I poured my effort into moving and moving quickly. In moments, the train erupted in a flash of white light, nearly drowning out the artificial sun installed in the cavern ceiling above.

I can best describe it as… opening a hot oven. Quantum turbulence washed over my skin a split second before the concussive force of the blast lifted me from the ground and hurtled me several hundred meters away.

I landed in, and destroyed, an immaculate rock garden and as I lay there, recovering, I felt my skin steaming. I looked down and saw the darker burn marks along my dark skin fade as my body repaired itself. My nerves jumped and shorted as I tried to pull myself to my feet. I closed a fist and felt a weakness there, as if I could not fully form the fist. My whole body felt… floaty.

I looked back where I had come and what had remained of the pagoda and the ground had been obliterated. All that remained was a smoking hole.

I turned my eyes forward as the pinprick of light that was the Metatron floated to my side. The palace loomed imposing over the landscape. A bright tower jutted upwards from the center of the palace and atop it a bright, shining light beaconed outward for thousands of meters. Gold and rare gems made up the walls of the palace and, at this distance, the entirety of the structure seemed made of the precious metal.

“What is that?” I said, pointing to a darkness washing up one of the dozens of paths I could make out from this distance.

“That is the intruder,” the Metatron replied simply.

“That’s… massive,” I said, aware of how weak I felt.

“Yes,” it answered, unhelpfully. “Shall I wake the King?”

“No. I’ll take care of it.”

Part Two

Time. There is always so little time when I do these things. When I try to save the world from outside dangers or from itself. I always find myself running. Running. Running against time. Racing it to get to fate first so that I might change it how I saw it needed to be rather than how the universe wanted. And in this, in this race, there was little difference.

I raced against an invasion. I raced against a woman whose resources and plans I could not fathom because she’d had the one thing I did not: Time. And now, I raced against the great mass of shadow that made its way slowly up the great steps that separated what appeared to be the outer palace from the inner.  I raced to deny the dark fate that threatened this world and all others.

I raced and felt that the great sped that I had been gifted with did not come to me when I called it forth. My muscles did not respond with the strength I expected and so I tripped over my own feet as I leaned forward to counter the forces of speed I expected and I stumbled for several yards. Just as I caught my feet under me, I slammed into an invisible barrier some hundred meters away from the great golden wall that surrounded the palace.

“Apologies, Mage,” the Metatron said as the bead of light hovered nearby. “The barrier is disabled.” I gave the Metatron a look, but it said nothing in reply.

“Maybe you should check your systems,” I said as I brought myself to speed once more – or at least as much speed as I could manage. “You seem to be having an error in your common sense logic.”

“I will perform a full system assessment when this situation is dealt with,” the Metatron replied evenly.

I disregarded the comment as I made my way through the open gate, which I imagined to be mostly ornamental given the level of technology here within Shambhala. I passed along great roads along which rich soil lay ready for growing things. Cobblestone dominated much of the roads and, thankfully, none of these were made of gold.

Here within the palace proper, I could see that not everything was, in fact, covered with the precious metal. Instead, many of the roofs that faced outwards to the rest of Shambhala – beyond the palace walls, gold had been carefully laid, giving the illusion of a great mountain of gold. I didn’t give this peculiar architectural achievement much thought as I ran through the roads to the palace proper, but I mention it to make this one point:

Why was this palace, this place, so green and gold and pristine when there was no one else here? No one else lived here. Indeed, there would have been no light, presumably, had I not arrived.

Still, these questions behind me I rushed to where I thought the shadow mass had been heading and skidded around a corner. I stopped abruptly, my muscles protesting violently against the sudden shift in momentum. There before me was a mass of unnatural black, as if the very presence of the… whatever it was, was sucking in all light from around it. I felt the temperature drop considerably as I looked at the creature.

“Well,” I said, slowly, “This is rather awkward. You are impressively ugly.”

There were no features to make out, but I understood it to be a similar creature as that which was seen in Truth and Consequences and, subsequently, in Tokyo shortly before it disappeared. And, like those places, this creature was dangerous.

A scythe of the shadow creature reached out and swiped at me. I moved backward and the scythe arced across the narrow road passage and neatly cut one of the smaller buildings in half with little seeming effort from the mass. Then, it rushed forward, yawning upwards and filling the road itself with its mass. It crested like a great wave, then curled to deluge me with whatever material it was made of. I wanted nothing of it.

It’s bulk came crashing down on the cobblestone as I leapt backward, away from the mass, but part of it flowed like water and swirled. Large, roughly finger shaped protrusions reached out, hooked on the buildings on either side and pushed itself forward to try to cascade over me once again.

I leapt and misjudged my diminished strength. Where I had initially attempted to alight onto a nearby building lining the street, I instead slammed into the glimmering exterior façade of an adjoining building. I fell in a heap at the base of the wall, but my leap at least pushed me away from the creature’s attack. There was little that I could do to fight against the creature in my current state. It’s blades, of which it had summoned forth several more and whirled like a tempest of brutal, cutting death, were not something I wanted to contend with.

If this particular creature was like any of the others I’d fought in the cave, the strange vaguely humanoid dark monsters with blades for limbs, I did not want to mess with anything larger than what they had been and I definitely didn’t want to deal with them while I was diminished.

Now, instead of racing, I decided that the most prudent thing would be for me to run. I turned and sprinted down the cobblestone road and I heard the wooshing vaguely liquid sound of the massive black… ooze for lack of a better word – pursuing me in great loping sloshes. The sound of crumbling buildings followed immediately in its wake and, suddenly, the artificial sun was gone.

No…

I turned to see the black mass airborne,spreading itself out in all directions to blanket over my immediate area. I turned and sprinted faster, but still, my muscles wouldn’t respond as I wished and I only moved barely a fraction of what I was capable of. The mass stretched, wider and wider above me, the air resistance slowing its descent. Then, I’m sure I imagined it, with a ripping sound, the creature split apart into a dozen different pieces.

I didn’t stop to wonder at it – and I’m glad I didn’t. Each of the fluttering masses of darkness landed on the buildings and roads surrounding me and each shifted, morphed into one of the original creatures that I had encountered in that cave not a few days ago. But there was something very very different about the situation now when compared to that before. Then I had the gift of speed and strength on my side. Here, I had noththing other than my mind.

And still, they were woefully outclassed.

There are things that people are taught in martial arts. How to react, how to act, how to move, how to be strong, how to be soft, but rarely in today’s martial arts are there those who are taught to be smart. To be clever. To take what is around one’s self and use it to his advantage. Too preoccupied is your time with form and strength and art when the true truth of martial arts is wisdom. The wisdom to know when to push, when to pull, when to react, when to fall back, when to fall indeed and when. When indeed. To strike.

I turned my sprint from a dash to a full on charge. My fist struck out and slammed into the center mass of the first creature ahead of me, and yet I still moved. There was speed and cleverness on my side, but only for a few moments. In that time I would have to be perfect. And I was good – still am, at being perfect.

Part Three

I dove past the next set of blades that shot out from the alleyway on either side. I tucked, and I felt the distant pain of my shoulder blades slamming into the rough and uneven cobblestone. I rose to my feet, using my momentum to spring me forward where I jumped forward and spun, slamming an axe kick into what was roughly the head of another creature. All of them identical. All of them deadly.

As I caught my footing to rush forward once again, pain blossomed out of my shoulder and a looked down in time to see the one  that I’d just kicked fall with a piece of my clothing caught in its blade. I looked down at my shoulder and saw the bright, vibrant red of my blood spill down my arm. Even as I watched and ran, the wound began to close. But this gave me pause and I understood the situation was far more grave than I’d initially imagined.

I turned and began my full-tilt pelt down the road to get to the grand tower in the center of the palace. It loomed large and imposing over the entire palace and from this angle I could barely see the light that beaconed out from its tip to the underground world around it. I stumbled up several steps, trying to make it into the large building that comprised the base of the tower when several of the shadow creatures swarmed to both sides of me, flanking me with their superior speed and cutting off my progress.

Several skittered ahead, disappearing into the building while the rest held me at bay. I stood, holding my shoulder, feeling what was once a deep gash close into a simple cut and, finally, disappear into nothingness. I felt my breath come in gasps and I winced at the sensation of not being able to get as much air in my lungs as I’d liked. My muscles burned and ached, yet even these sensations were fading. Still, if any of those blades that comprised the arms and legs of the creatures pierced me in someplace vital, at the rate I was recovering, I would not be able to get up from such a wound.

I held a hand out. “I am Elijah Valentine,” I gasped, still trying to catch my breath. “Mage of this realm and arbiter of justice. You are within the kingdom of Shambhala without leave and-“

“I do not believe they are particularly interested in the laws of-“ the Metatron cut in.

“Well they aren’t now, now are they?” I hissed as the creatures stepped closer. I watched as the two that had split off from the main group slipped into the base of the tower and a cursed quietly. The two dozen of the remaining creatures took another, hesitant step closer, raising their blade-arms.

“Ah, yes. Defensive systems back on line,” the Metatron announced.

“Defens-“

The artificial sun above flashed and shifted from golden yellow to a deep, menacing red. A line of light shot out from the star and pierced one of the creatures. It exploded into a cloud of black cloth-like tatters. The others froze and a second lance of light shot out from the red star. “Quickly! My systems are still under siege.”

I glanced at the pinprick of light, then looked up at the star. I hadn’t noticed before but through the swirling mass of plasma and light, I could see hint of shadow, writhing along the interior of it. I grimaced and made a dash for the base of the tower even as the shadow creatures rushed for cover in the shadow of nearby buildings. Once they saw me running, several stepped out of the shadows to pursue me, but each was cut down by its very own lance of red light.

I skidded to a halt in the interior of the building. It was completely bare save for the golden marbled floor and the intricate details along the walls. In the center of the room was a massive spiral staircase which climbed up… and up… and up. From just inside the entrance I could see that the stair reached the very top of the tower to where the beacon was.

“Mage! I have lost control of the star!”

As the Metatron’s voice echoed through the tower I could see the dark shapes rushing toward the door. I turned and sprinted for the stairs to begin what I imagined would be a very long climb. The stairs shuddered as I stepped upon the bottom step and began to spin slowly bearing me upwards automatically in a gentle spinning motion. I caught my feet under me and began running, taking two steps at a time.

My gait devoured the steps below me as I rushed to the summit of the tower, but as I glanced down, I noticed that the remaining creatures which had initially pursued me were making their way up the stairs as well. I spun in time to see one of the creatures leap into the air behind me, blades pointed forward. Suddenly, the stairs shifted quickly and in a stomach-fluttering rush of motion, I descended several meters. The creature sailed over my head and buried its blades into the stairs, nearly to the shoulders.

The sudden shift in direction sent me sprawling to the ground, but again, I picked myself up and rushed upwards, giving the creature a swift punch in the neck as I passed. It fell limp.

I continued up the stairs as they spun ever upwards and the pinprick of light that was the Metatron hovered close to me. “They have reached the Tower chamber.”

“Can’t you stop them? With your… death star or something?” I huffed as I tried to both put distance between me and the creatures behind and get to the top of the stair as quickly as possible. “And whose idea was it not to install an elevator in this damn tower!?”

Part Four

I reached the top of the stair in time to see one of the shadow creatures pulling a crystal from the base of the pawn-like pedestal that was the Tower that resided at the top of this proper tower. Above, a burning ball of plasma and white light swirled and raged, a smaller twin to the great artificial star that hovered over the rest of Shambhala.

Opposite of the stair, past the Tower, was a set of doors some twenty meters tall. The door shimmered and glowed, but the material itself seemed to be glass in that it seemed to show the other side of the doors. Golden script was etched where the two doors pressed together and one large, what appeared to be paper, seal had been stuck against the door, written in Sumerian. There was a soft, gentle glow emanating from beyond the great glass doors as the two shadow creatures pulled the crystal free.

But they didn’t have time to make their escape. Light glinted off of the crystal in the first creature’s bladed arms as through the floor-to-ceiling windows that comprised all of the tower’s walls allowed golden light to stream into the summit. There was a stitch in my side that ached with each labored breath as I pushed myself to rush forward to intercept the creatures.

The one with its arms free crossed the distance between us in an eye blink, but I’d already taken stock of how these creatures fought. When it arrived, I’d already moved and I heaved, pushing the creature back to sprawl on the ground with a great fist-shaped indentation in its midsection. Behind me, I heard the wooshing slosh of the other creatures reaching the top of the stair and I raised a hand quickly.

“You know what this chamber is,” I said softly. I slowly pointed to the glass doors. “You know what will happen if the King wakens. This world would become useless to Rhianna.” The shadow-creatures froze. “If he wakes, you all die in vain and Rhianna’s invasion will become useless. Return the crystal to me and I will not wake him.”

“I thought you didn’t want me to wake him, regardless of the situation,” the Metatron asked, his pinprick of light presence appearing at my side.

“Yes,” I said, grimacing, “But they didn’t know that.”

“Oh, yes. I can see how that statement would be inconvenient.”

The shadow creatures shot forward.

I turned, swinging my leg around and caught the creature that had the control program in hand in the upper leg. It sprawled to the ground and the crystal skittered across the golden marbled floor. The others closed the distance quickly and I turned to face them as well. I could feel the vibrations of their attacks as they moved forward and threw limbs forward in attempts to cut or pierce me through. I twisted away from two such attacks and leaned backward, bringing my feet upwards to slam into the attacking creature’s… jaw? Whatever it was, it sent the thing sprawling alongside the first.

The others, apparently seeing that a one-on-one attack scheme wouldn’t work, descended upon me with speed. This, fortunately was best for me as they had to mind the other creatures to either side of them as well as they attacked. I side-stepped one attack and saw the creature spear through one of the others behind me. I ducked a swipe and another head rolled sloppily to the ground with a wet thunk.

In all, the creatures fell mostly to their own hands as I moved among them. I hazarded a glance toward where the crystal had fallen and felt my blood run cold. It was gone. I searched the room, trying desperately to both dodge and cast my gaze away from the fray. And it was there, another one of the shadow figures had scooped up the control crystal and was making its way toward the grand spiral stair.

“NO!” I bellowed. My voice echoed within the glass chamber, the sound waves bouncing off of the interior of the perfectly circular room. I’d made a terrible, terrible mistake.

A great gong rang through the Tower chamber. The glass that made up the walls of the room splintered, sending great, spidering lines along the smooth surface. The great glass doors rumbled then, slowly, far more slowly because this was something I desperately didn’t want, opened inward.

The architecture of the room made it evident that the glass doors should have opened onto clear air, that nothing should have been behind them except for the glimmering ball of plasma and light. But, instead, It opened into a room. Beyond the doorway what appeared to be a contemporary nursery was dominated by a large fireplace.

There, between the doors as they opened, stood a young boy. His hair was black, pulled upward into a topknot. He wore what appeared to be a Batman-patterned set of pajamas and clutched at what appeared to be a pale blue teddybear. He rubbed his eyes and looked out at the chamber at all of us standing there.

I felt his eyes pass over me and I shivered. The shadow creatures froze mid-attack as all faces – for I could not tell if the creatures had eyes or not – turned toward him.

The boy stared, then his face contorted into absolute rage.

He opened his mouth and his canines lengthened into long, menacing canines. The corners of his mouth spread wider, impossibly wide, revealing row after row of lengthening, sharpening teeth. His eyes, which had been somewhat kind when he first appeared shifted from dark brown into a cold, cold blue.

“I am wake!” he bellowed, the voice which issued forth was nothing like that of a child, but the nature of it was, and still is indescribable. It was… like being dipped into acid. Yes, yes, I’ll go with that analogy. “I am wake,” he repeated, the teddy bear under his arm trembling from his rage. “And all those dark and sin and cruel and cold will suffer. All those that wrong and lie and steal and harm will suffer. I am judgments. I am wake!”

To be fair, he was a little melodramatic. But regardless of how much of a drama-queen he was, his threat, his declaration, spelled doom for the human race – and Rhianna didn’t even have to lift a finger. I did it all for her.