Project: Sols
Chapter Eight
Guardian of Hopes and Dreams
Tear materialized on the transporter pad and slowly looked at
her surroundings. She was obviously very confused, having seconds
prior been in the forest investigating a teleporter. She had wondered
if the teleporter was eatable, and when she stepped on it, she
suddenly found herself in her present surroundings. The walls
were metal, and had streams of light coursing in patterns all
over them. A massive metal door marked the only entrance or exit
from the room.
With a sudden flash of light Tear’s mag, Pitri, appeared on
the teleporter pad, looking just as confused as Tear. It began
to almost schizophrenically look around in all directions with
great fervor. The large door opened and Iris entered the room.
She looked happy to see Tear.
“Finally! Tear where have you been?”, Iris inquired.
“Um... sister?! What happen? Where this?” Tear asked. Tear walked
to the nearest wall and extended a hand out to touch it. “Cold,
not eatable...” Iris sighed deeply, she was relieved to have been
reunited with Tear, and she quietly congratulated herself on having
the forethought to modify Tear’s Datalink.
“We’re in the Mines”, Iris said quietly, “Almost at the ruins...”
Iris abruptly stopped speaking when she noticed Tear’s mag, Pitri,
still erratically looking about the room. It suddenly stopped,
and stared at the teleporter. A giant red question mark appeared
above the creatures head as it examined the teleporter. Iris noted
to herself that she would have to someday ask Tear how her mag
did that. Iris regained her composure and resumed explaining the
situation to Tear. “Ah, as I was saying, we’re almost to the entrance
to the ancient ruins...”
Tear interrupted, “What ‘ruins’? Ruins eatable? Like rappy?
Ruins eatable like rappy? Rappy delicious!” Iris lowered her head,
closed her eyes, and smacked herself in the forehead with her
palm.
“Look Tear, I really need your help right now. I need some help
fighting some machines in an area not far from here. You can get
some food when we’re done.” Tear stopped looking at the wall,
and turned to face Iris.
“Sister promise? Get eatables?”
“I promise Tear, when we’re done, you can have all the ‘eatables’
you want.” Tear’s eyes opened wide upon hearing Iris’ words.
“Okay! I help! Get eatables!!” Tear smiled, and turned to face
her mag. “Pitriiiii!! We help sister, get eatables!” The Mag hovered
for several seconds looking at Tear. “Of course!” Tear proclaimed,
“is sister, sister promise!” The Mag hovered for several more
seconds before smiling broadly. A giant red musical note appeared
over the creature’s head, quickly moved up and down several times
and disappeared.
“Ah, Tear...” Iris began, “Your mag, um, Pitri... how does it
do that?”
“Pitri very smart!” Tear proclaimed. She extended out her hands
and grabbed the pudgy creature. She drew it in and held it tightly
against her chest, giving it a playful hug. She then released
the Mag, and it returned to hovering near her left shoulder. “Okay!”,
Tear cheerfully shouted, “We ready sister!”
Iris and Tear walked to the room’s solitary door, and out into
the hallway beyond. For several minutes they walked through many
alike looking rooms of green metal walls with oddly glowing designs
on the floor, past untold piles scrap metal littered everywhere--the
remains of wave after wave of robotic enemies Iris and many other
hunters had defeated journeying through the mines. Eventually,
they arrived at in a room with a no piles of metal on the floor.
Iris instructed Tear to wait by the door.
“Okay Tear, we’re here. Now watch...” Iris looked at her mag,
which had been following obediently all the while as they trekked
through the mines. “Churel”, Iris spoke, “Trigger the motion detectors
please”, Iris pointed to the center of the room. The Mag obeyed
and quickly flew to the center of the room, four large green heavily
armored machines immediately teleported in surrounding the Mag.
“Tear”, Iris instructed, “I’m going to go fight those machines,
they’re called Granzes. When I get close enough, they’ll all begin
to fire missiles at me. I need you to destroy the missiles as
they’re fired so I can destroy those things.” Tear appeared perplexed.
“Missiles? What missile?”
“Listen, when I get close, alot of flying pointed things are
going to appear. Just destroy them okay?”
“Flying pointes? Okay, yah!” Iris breathed a sigh of relief,
and drew a large sickle weapon from her null space item storage.
Once it appeared in her hands, Iris began walking in the direction
of the Granzes. Iris’ Mag, Churel, flew back to Iris and hovered
near her left shoulder. As Iris approached them, the four large
Green Granzes turned to face her. They each launched a barrage
of 4 slow moving missiles from upper chassis side mounted launchers.
Iris picked up her pace and began to run towards the Granzes.
As the first wave of missiles was about to strike Iris, Tear extended
out a hand. From her hand, Tear shot a bright yellow bolt of electrical
current which struck the first missile and then in a looping arc
struck every missile, destroying them in the air, and causing
some collateral damage to the Granzes. As Iris violently tore
into the first Granz with her sickle weapon, it’s massive armor
began to disconnect from it’s frame to reveal more missile launchers.
Iris swing her weapon in broad movements striking all of the now
closely situated together Granz machines. With each successive
hit, more pieces of armor dropped to the floor to reveal more
launchers. As Iris continued her attack each Granz fired a second
volley of 8 missiles apiece, which Tear skillfully destroyed with
more electric arcs. The collateral damage from the multiple explosions
struck Iris, and were absorbed by her mag. The Granzes broke down
as Iris tore through their central support chassis with her weapon.
The room now contained four large green piles of scrap metal.
Iris turned to face Tear, who was still standing by the door.
“Whew... Thanks Tear, i wouldn’t have been able to do that without
your help.”
“Iris Welcome!”, Tear cheerfully remarked. Iris waked to the
far end of the room, and opened the only other door in the room
beside the one they had entered in. The door led to a room containing
large multi-person transporter. “Tear, come here please.” Tear
obeyed and walked across the room to stand next to Iris. Iris
walked to the transporter and stood in the middle of the transport
pad. “Okay Tear, let’s go.”
“Go where?”
“We need to take this transporter, there’s someone we have to
deal with before we can go to the ruins.”
“Oh... okay!” Tear walked to the transporter and stood on the
pad. Both Tear and Iris vanished in a flash of light. When they
rematerialized, they were standing in a large circular room, the
circumference of which was a continous line of computer screens
and data terminals. From the ceiling in the center of the room
a Photonic core hung, the source of power for the massive computer
system that controlled the mines.
“Volt!”, Iris shouted. “Volt! I know you’re here. I know you
can hear me! Show yourself!” The largest of the computer screens
in front of Iris and Tear began to glow, and a massive red face
appeared on it.
“Solsiris”, a hollow metallic sounding voice reverberated throughout
the room as if emitting from all directions. “You may not pass,
the master is busy at the moment.”
“You cannot stop me Volt, I will find your master, I will carry
out my mission. Others have passed you, and so shall we!”
“With each defeat I have been handed in combat”, the voice began,
“I have recorded the actions and styles of my opponents. With
each ensuing regeneration of my core, I have adapted my systems.
Neither you nor any creature of flesh can defeat me. Your life
and your mission, end here.” As the voice trailed off twelve two
meter tall cylindrical objects emerged from the floor along the
perimeter of the room. For several seconds they remained silent,
before emitting powerful bolts of energy at the photonic core
hanging from the ceiling. The core glowed brightly, and shot two
streaking beams of energy directly at Tear and Iris, striking
them both and knocking them to the ground. As Tear screamed from
the pain of the blast, her Mag’s eyes suddenly lost their pigment
and became pale white.
“Tear...”, Iris moaned, “Your mag... it’s Photon Blast is charged...
hurry...” Tear slowly stood back up. The cylindrical objects again
fired beams of energy at the photonic core, and as the second
blast began, Tear shouted at the mag “Pitri! Help!”
Hovering above Tear the mag suddenly emitted a faint red glow.
As the Mag glowed, all the light in the room disappeared, the
photonic core shot a second blast at the Mag, which was immediately
absorbed by an invisible energy barrier surrounding the mag. Above
the now stationary mag, a swirling mass of smoke and vapor appeared,
streaks of charged energy flashing within. As if suddenly filled
with fireflies, hundreds of glowing red balls of light appeared
in the room, and began to gravitate towards the vaporous mass.
With a striking speed the lights sped toward the vaporous mass,
and were absorbed by it. Seconds later a massive spherical energy
blast emanated from the vaporous cloud, when it hit the walls
it shattered all the screens. The photonic core hanging from the
ceiling imploded and fell to the ground. The room was violently
shocked by cascading explosions as a second energy sphere tore
through all the remaining computer systems. Then as quickly as
it had begun, the vapor disappeared. A few remaining red emergency
lights switched on.
Iris slowly rose to her feet. “Careful Tear, it’s not over yet...”
As Iris spoke, from the darkness of the ceiling a massive electrical
grinding noise slowly rose in volume. A massive red metal machine
slowly appeared from the blackness of the upper ceiling. “I’ve
heard about this... Your combat form Volt? Your armored core?
When I’m done with you, there’ll be nothing left for you to rebuild
from!” Iris swung her sickle weapon at the giant machine, only
to have it bounce off the polished armor plating.
“Your endeavors are in vein”, the metallic voice spoke. “I will
not fail my master.” A panel in the rear of the armor dropped
down to reveal several missile launchers. From what iris discerned
to be it’s sides, two panels rose slightly. It fired twenty missiles.
Tear, still in pain from the earlier energy blast, was slow to
respond. She shot an electrical bolt at the missiles, but the
technique was too underpowered, and several missiles exploded
very near Iris. Iris was thrown to the ground by the force of
the explosions. She stood up and began to attack with her sickle
weapon again, only to experience further failures. Tear began
to attack the armored core of Volt Opt with a variety of different
elemental techniques. None met with success. As Iris was trying
to figure out an attack strategy, the side armor panels suddenly
made a brief whirring noise. Seconds later a massive column of
metal scrap descended from the ceiling missing Iris my less than
a meter.
“Tear!”, Iris shouted, “Run!” Tear did as instructed, seconds
later another massive cylindrical column of metal scrap impacted
the area where Tear had been standing. Iris looked at the base
of the machine. “No legs”, she thought to herself, “No legs, and
no anti-grav cells...” Iris looked at the top of the machine and
noticed a massive column of wires and support cables leading from
the top of the machine into the darkness of the high ceiling.
“That’s it, it has to be”, Iris thought, “Not armored, that has
to be the support...” Iris steadied her weapon, and charged the
front of the hanging machine. As she was just upon it, Iris jumped
and landed on top of the machine. “No more!” Iris screamed as
she swung her sickle weapon, slicing through the cables and wires.
With it’s support cutoff, Volt Opt’s armored core fell to the
ground with a loud thud.
“You... may defeat me... but the master... already has a host...
you are... extraneous... expendable...” the voice grew quieter
and trailed off as the last of the energy reserves in the core
were expended. A section of wall behind Tear suddenly slid down
into the floor, revealing a passageway leading down. An Erie oscillating
light could be seen emanating from further down the passage.
Iris jumped down off from the top of the core, and landed near
Tear. Iris breathed a sigh of relief. ”Aright Tear”, Iris said,
“The entrance to the ruins should be at the end of that passageway.”
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