307 hours, Unknown Realm
“So, how are we getting out of here?” Aseri said, remaining calm.
“We’ll find another portal. It might be far, and we have no idea where another one is, but its our best shot.” I said.
“Plus, I know my way around this base. But let me tell you, its a lot different than what it looks like back at home.” The POW said.
“You know, we’ve never learned your name.” I said.
“Merri.”
Another vision overcame me.
“Incoming!”
A nearby explosion tore a tank apart.
“We’re under heavy fire, we won't hold out much longer!”
“Hey Chip, you home?” Isach asked.
“Sorry, uh, I was just zoning out, that’s all.” I said.
“No you weren't.” Merri said.
“It’s what I said. He’s having glimpses of the future. It can happen to us sometimes.” She said.
“Us? It’s never happened to me before.” Aseri said.
“Yeah, me neither.” Isach said.
She pulled up her sleeve, exposing the glowing mark of a light gaian on her shoulder. “I meant us light gaians.” She said.
A small smile appeared on my face. “I knew there was something about you ever since you spoke. You knew me somehow. But from where?”
A sly smile appeared on her face. “The legends. They told of you, that you were coming.”
“You mean the same ones that told me that i'm supposed to save the world?” I asked.
“Exactly. Throughout my travels to get food up above, I've found many parts of the legends. They were all broken and
separated, but I took them and put them together. That’s how I knew you were coming.”
“Huh. I thought those stories only went as far as telling me that I was supposed to save the light world. I had no idea that there were more of them.” I said.
“Apparently they go so far as to telling what happened, and what's going to happen in the whole war.”
“That’s impossible. How could have our ancestors predicted this whole thing?” Isach chimed in.
“No idea, but we can't stay here forever. We have to find a way out.” I said.
“Yeah, about that....” Merri’s voice trailed off.
“What?”
“I’ve looking for a portal for months, and haven't found any around here. The only way they open and close portals around here is from the outside.”
“Wait....that means that someone closed the portal we went in from the outside. It didn't just destabilize.” Aseri said.
“But we checked. There were no life forms in the castle.” Isach said.
“And all the places that you could get in were blocked and if they tried to get in from the roof, our forces up there would
tear them apart.” I said.
There was a long silence.
“Changelings....” I murmured
“Huh?” There were looks of confusion among the others.
“Changelings.” I started, “The fleet admiral put together our company. He made sure that he put a couple of
changelings in there with specific orders-”
“You know, that seems pretty far fetched.” Isach said.
“But wasn't he acting a little strange? He wasn't even a little worried when were outnumbered by all those Ing ships. I think Chip may be right.” Aseri said.
“Anyway, He gave the changelings specific orders: make sure that they close this portal. The fleet admiral and many other high ranking officers are dead, replaced by changelings in their form. They closed the portal and since they’re all working together...” My voice trailed off. I went pale under my fur.
“Get down!” I yelled as streams of dark plasma and hot lead flew down the jail hallway. There were three Ing who stood where the portal once was.
“Ion grenade is live!” Isach said as he threw one down the hall.
It exploded and the gunfire stopped.
“All clear!” Isach said, poking his upper body out of cover.
“Get back!” I yelled. I could tell that there was still one left. They don't die that easily. A shot rang out, piercing Isach’s shields and hitting him in the shoulder.
“AHH! I’m hit!” He screamed.
“Shit.” I said, looking over to see what had happened.
“Chip, where’d Merri go?” Aseri asked.
I looked back. She was gone. I heard a noise from where the last Ing was. I looked down the hall. Merri was busy slitting the Ing’s throat with his own knife.
“Good kill.” I said.
There was the sound of laughing over the radio, accompanied by a voice.
“I knew you weren't as stupid as they say you guys are.” The voice said. It was the fleet admiral.
“What have you done with the fleet admiral?” I questioned.
“I slit his throat and left him floating in space. Soon, you will all join him in the afterlife. And your little squadron thats
supposed to save the world will join you as well.” The changeling said in a mocking tone.
“Where are they? Where are the Equestrians?” I asked. If this Changeling thought we were as good as dead, he wouldn't mind telling us info that wasn't going to matter.
“We have taken them through another portal. Once we capture you four, you will all be executed by the Nox Squadron
themselves.” He said menacingly. He was trying to scare us and make us lose hope. It wasn't working.
“Who’s this Nox Squad?” I asked.
“You don't know about them? Dark Gaia and-” I cut him off.
“Oh I know them all right.Those bastards.” I muttered.
He chuckled “We’ll see about that. Well, it’s been fun, Chip. I can't wait to slaughter the Gaian civies as they cry out for their dead leader to save them.”
“We’ll send every last one of you to hell, mark my words” Merri said into the comm link.
He cut the comm link off.
“Damn them, damn them all.” Isach said, wincing.
“Okay, first things first, we need to find those Equestrians.” I said.
“They were probably put in the containment area, its to the northeast once we get out of here.” Merri said.
“What about me? Do you know where any medical kits are or anything?” Isach said, clutching onto his shoulder. He was
a pretty tough guy, and was hit pretty hard.
“If I knew, half this prison would still be alive.”
I walked over to him. “How bad is it? Can you tell?” I asked.
“Well, it hurts like hell, can't really tell much.” He said.
I looked at the wound. “Oh, you’re fine, it was a energy wound, with the weapon set on medium power. It wasn't meant to kill you. Just meant to disarm you.” I said.
I put my hand over it.
“What are you doing?” He asked.
“Helping you.” I said as a green light shone from my hand. The wound started closing.
“Whoa, how’d you do that?” He asked when I finished healing him.
“Advanced Magic. Took me awhile to learn it.” I replied.
I looked around. The dimly lit jail seemed odd for being an Ing jail. The red and blue light strips were obviously not Ing
tech, and it worried me.
“Merri, what is this place exactly?” I asked.
“What do you mean?” She looked back at me, and cocked her eyebrow.
“I mean, this place isn't an Ing jail. It can't be. Whose world is this?” I asked her.
“No idea,” she answered, “but it’s not the Ing’s. Plus, I think they’re making allies with whoever’s world this is.”
“Why didn't you tell me that earlier? C'mon!” I started to run for the stairs leading out. Something knocked me off my feet. I belly-flopped onto the ground.
“Don't go up there, there are Ing everywhere. You’ll need an invisibility spell for that!” She said.
I rolled over.
“Then how do we get out of here?” I asked.
“I’m guessing that there’s some kind of secret door.”
“Well, lets find it.”
I got up and started looking through the jail cells, doing my best to ignore the rotting corpses of Gaians. After five
grueling minutes of searching, someone finally said something.
“I think I found something.” Aseri said. She pressed against a wall near the back of the jail, the wall moved, but wasn't
going to open any time soon. I looked at it, and back at her.
"It's magically locked. Since when do the Ing use magic?" I said.
"This isn't good man. If they use magic, and are making allies...what do we do?!" Isach exclaimed.
"We fight until the end." Merri said, pressing her hands against the wall. There was a unlocking sound and the secret door opened. We all stood there, wide eyed, looking at her.
"How?!" I exclaimed.
"A cloaking spell and eavesdropping. That's how." She said.
I looked at her, dumbfounded.
“Well, we don't have all day.” She said impatiently.
“Let’s get moving.” I said to everyone.
We walked down a long and dark hallway, with no light sources around save the dimly lit lights on our suits.
“What the hell is this place?” Isach said to no one in particular. No one answered and an eerie silence remained.
I had my gun at the ready, expecting anything to pop up and attack me. We were in hostile territory now, and it made
me nervous.
We soon came to a set of large doors. I kicked them open and aimed my rifle inside. I was greeted by the surprised faces of a ton of pastel colored Equestrians.
“Nice to see you guys here.” I said once I noticed that it was the same ones that were fighting alongside me. No one replied. Some looked like they lost all hope.
“Thats more like it.” I said “Now lets move.” I proceeded through another door, with no idea where I was going.
After wandering through another hallway, I came to another door. I opened this one and looked inside.
There were four pods on the sides of the room. It was circular, and seemed strange. We all walked inside, with the door
closing behind us. I looked for a way out. There didn't seem to be one.
Suddenly the pods opened and four creatures walked out. They wore strange clothing, walked on two legs, and appeared similar to a gaian, minus the fur and wings. I also noticed their ears looked much different and were in different places. The creatures appeared to be female. They walked up to me first and started deconstructing my armor. I wanted to retaliate, but something told me not to.
They stripped me of most of my armor, but left on my chest plate, my boots, and my armored pants. They started to put different armor on me. I felt lighter with it on me. I looked and noticed that it had merged and fused with my old armor. They proceeded to do this to the rest of us until all of us had this new armor.
“Have fun at the games, program.” One of the creatures said.
“Games, what games?” I asked. She didn't reply.
“What do we have to do?” I asked.
“Survive.” She said.
I reached for my rifle but found that she had taken all of our firearms. I had no idea what she meant. What games? What was going to happen? Would we really die if we weren’t careful?
“Shit, we’re unarmed.” I said, looking at the usual spots for arms. The rest noticed this too. The platform we were on started rising.
“Oh God, what the hell is this?” Isach said.
We reached the top and were greeted by a crowd of people, cheering. I looked across the arena. There stood another team, their armor had strips of orange lights, as ours bore our own colors. They started running at us and threw sticks from their belts in the air. They grabbed the sticks in midair. Bikes formed around them and they zoomed between us, with the less fortunate having to jump out of the way and avoiding an early death.
I looked at Isach, and we found grins on our faces. When we were younger, we used to ride motorbikes all the time. This was one of our specialties. He taught me how to ride and I eventually became better than him.
“Lets do this guys!” I exclaimed, running forward. I did the same as our opponents and soon found myself on a bike, just like theirs. A helmet came over my head from the armor on my back.
One of the bad guys drove in front of me, an orange beam shooting out of the backside of his bike. I jumped over it. I quickly discovered that there was a radio in the helmets. I also noticed that most of my side was still standing there, almost getting killed by the bikes.
“Hey, don't just stand there, we gotta take them out.!” I said.
Another one cut in front of me. Instead of jumping it, I turned and drove beside him. I punched him in the head. He wasn't expecting this at all from me and fell off the bike, landing on the orange energy that was coming from the back of it. He shattered into little pieces.
“Don't touch the energy coming out of the bikes, It’ll kill you!” I said.
I looked on the information panel on my bike. I saw a button. I pushed it and felt a burst of speed. I looked behind me and there was my own red beam of light, coming from the back of my red striped light bike. I discovered the name through the HuD on my helmet.
“Lets do this.” I murmured under my breath. Isach pulled up beside me.
“How’d you do that?” He asked.
“Everybody, once you are on your bike, press the button on the right! It’ll make that light trail.” I said. He did as I said and soon had a green light trail behind him.
“Woo! Lets do this guys.” He said.
We sped around the large arena, looking for targets to seek and destroy. I found one of them, trying to take out some of our guys. It seemed like he was showing off, performing tricks on his bike.
"Let's take him out." I said to Isach. He nodded.
We both came up beside him, on either side of him. Isach sped way ahead of me and turned to the left, blocking his path. I turned to the right and jumped over Isach's energy beam. This completely blocked the enemy off and he helplessly crashed into the two beams.
"Yeah! Lets keep taking em out!" Isach laughed gleefully. It sounded like he was having the time of his life.
"What are these guys anyway? They definitely aren't Ing." I heard Aseri's voice over the radio.
"You're right, the body shape is off, and their ears are on their head, like ours." I replied.
"These can't be our own guys. They saw us and started attacking!" Isach said.
"Could they be Equestrian?" Aseri asked.
"Nah, definitely not us. I don't see any of them using magi-" She was cut off. I looked over at where she was. She was falling.
"Rainbow!" The purple one yelled.
"Shit." I said
I looked over where she was hit. For some reason she decided to fly instead of ride one of these bikes and something
shot her down.
"Anyone see what hit her?" I asked.
"I think it was a bolt of kinetic energy. Only unicorns can use kinetic bolts like that!" The purple Equestrian said. A bolt of orange energy flew past me, barely grazing my shoulder.
"Shit, they're using magic!" I yelled. I looked behind me. There was one of them right behind me, going in for the kill
“There’s one behind me!” I yelled, turning to the right. He turned after me, right on my six. Another bolt of energy went right over my head. “Oh fuck.”
I looked back again, this time turning to the left. In his hand was a very large bolt of energy. I needed to do something fast to survive.
"Someone, get him off my tail!" I yelled.
"I'm trying! These guys really don't want us alive!" Isach yelled.
I looked at the HUD in my helmet. It read [missile] at the top of it. It started beeping slowly.
I ignored it and turned left. I saw a ramp leading down to a lower level of the arena. I went for it.
"Chip, he's right behind you!" Merri said.
I turned around. She was right. He was about to fire the large bolt of energy at me. I jumped off my bike, started flying, turned on my back, and fired a quick bolt of my own. It hit him in the chest as he fired his and his went off target. It ended up hitting another one of his teammates.
“Good kill!” Aseri said.
I flew close to the ground and deployed my lightbike again. We were still in trouble with those mages around. I looked at one of them. A horn surrounded by armor appeared on his helmet.
“I think those are Equestrians. Look!” I said.
I saw two more riding beside each other. Wings suddenly appeared on their backs and they started flying.
“Yup, they’re definitely Equestrian!” Isach said.
The ones who were flying held out their sticks. Small jets appeared around them.
“That’s just not fair.” I said in a low voice. The jets started strafing the ground.
“Get to the lower levels!” I yelled.
“Has anyone recovered Rainbow?” An Equestrian asked.
“Ah got ‘er!” Another answered with an accent of some sort.
“Those jets are giving us some trouble!” Merri said.
I looked at one of them. He was closing in for the kill on Merri.
“Merri, look out!”
Suddenly, there was a large explosion, taking out several ground targets and a jet.
“What the hell?” Isach said. Now, I was starting to get annoyed by Isach, as it seemed all he was doing was sitting around and asking what the hell was going on.
My train of thought was broken when another explosion cracked the sky, this one hitting another jet and taking out a few more. The crowd started booing, thinking that this was some sort of cheap shot planned by us.
“Captain Chip, do you hear me?” A voice said over the radio.
“Who is this?” I asked.
"Three shot down! This is Second Lieutenant Henna.” The voice said. “We are coming to assist you!”
"Thanks for the help Lieutenant! This is Captain Chip!” I replied.
“Wait, did he say Chip? Like the light Gaian Chip, in the prophecies?” Another voice said.
“Thats my name.” I said.
“Ember, focus on the mission!” Henna said.
“Right, Sorry Lieutenant.” The one seemingly called Ember replied.
“Alright, Ember, Jackils, you guys are up in the air with me. Markar, Cyrus, you guys go on the ground. Eliminate all
targets!” Henna said. I already liked her leading capabilities.
I looked to my left and right. Everyone found out how to use the bikes and formed up on me. I looked up. Henna and her squad were in a formation too.
“Everyone, lets do this! Break formations!”
We sped off.
Gaian File Database 0516…..
Weapon systems and Ammunition…..
Standard Grade Ammunition: This type of ammunition is very well rounded and does not negatively affect the round or the firearm in anyway. It is a very poor round against Ing, but is one of the most frequently used ammo types across the Gaian front.
Electro Ammunition…..
This type of ammunition has been frequently updated again and again because of many negatives when the round misfires. The first electro rounds used would frequently jam the gun and could heat up while jammed, melting important components of the weapon.Now they have been updated to a point where there are rarely weapon jams and they work very well at taking down Ing.