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Chapter 21

You stand in a world of nothing. The physical intangible. Your mind has become your one solace since you awoke on Sayar, the one thing you know that is yours amongst all of the foreign you've been forced to accept. You've lost nearly everything from your time, but your memories have been returning, chunk by chunk like a giant magnet sweeping a minefield.

Part of you doesn't want it all to come back, each piece that comes back only remains as a bitter reminder of what you had lost and a grim punishment for the choices you had made back on Earth. Little of that matters right now. You stand face to face with the man you've been living, the man you were since you woke up. Roland Duschand stares back at you from the white void, his blackened pupils staring holes into you.

“What's happening?” You ask, noticing your voice isn't that which you've been hearing as of late, it isn't Roland's voice. It's your voice. It's a little deeper than you imagined, but not as deep as Roland's. It feels right and you must be looking absolutely crazy.

“Inheritor,” Roland says, unmoving, unblinking.

“What?” You ask, trying to take a step closer towards him. His entire figure shorts out like some old television, and then he's kneeling down with his arms cradling his knees and staring towards your feet, motionless as if someone had pressed pause.

“Inheritor. Take it, take the key,” he says, his lips pursed open, but still unmoving. You feel a chill run down your spine as the words practically spill out of his being. You stand right before him and kneel down yourself, bending to his level.

“You're Roland Duschand, right? The owner of the body I woke up in?”

Roland looks up slowly and you see the black pupils draining to a bright bluish color. “You are the one I've been looking for. I give you...mine.” Roland begins sliding away. He remains kneeling, but he moves further and further away from you. You stand quickly and try to run after him. It doesn't seem to help, he is moving faster than you, and you cannot seem to catch up.

I give you...mine.

Your vision fills with a burning white triangle. Gold lines the outside which seems to pulse outward like it were breathing. You go numb. A flash sparks across everything and everywhere. A word burns into your mind:

P U L S E

Your eyes open and you're kneeling behind a boulder that's easily five times the size of you.

You're standing next to a crouched Roland Duschand. He's wearing a familiar black skinsuit that is emblazoned with gold down the arms and white down the torso. You remember it is the same kind of garb that Piscar wore. Beside Roland stand three other figures wearing similar skinsuits and carrying the wave guns that you saw Jesse use on your trip for the medical supplies, the ones that shoot the waves.

“Roll-Man, what are our options?” An Illith asks, standing beside a humanoid figure wearing a helmet. Roland peeks out from his side of the boulder, you follow his motion and find yourself looking higher and higher to see a landmass reach high into the sky. It's not quite a mountain, but it's not quite a hill either. It's almost like a plateau that was carved out. On the top of it you see bright lights flickering every few seconds. Then at your side an explosion rights out and sends dust and dirt flying everywhere. Roland backs up and you can see him exhale as the blast narrowly missed.

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“Our plan is to make forward progress. Tania, you and Barax flank the eastern side.” He then looks to the masked soldier next to him, “You're coming with me,” Roland says.

The Garexian beside them nods its large head and looks to Tania, “I'll cover you.” Tania nods and climbs up onto his back.

The masked man jumps to Roland's side and presses a hand up to the side of the helmet, lights around the rim glow as it speaks, “Roger sir, on your mark.” Roland regards him and tosses on his helmet he left lying by his side. The lights shine on again and he makes a sort of sign with his hand and the two groups branch off. Tania holds onto Barax's back as he leaps across the battlefield in front of them. The enemy, whomever that may be, lie at the top of the plateau. They're at the advantage with the height difference.

Roland dashes out behind a natural land formation that rises up and acts like a shield. He turns around it and sees Barax and Tania in the distance. They're dodging stray fire from the beings up on top, but it doesn't last for long as a green pulsing beam catches Barax's leg. He stumbles and falls, rolling, knocking Tania off his back. She falls further ahead. Two beings shoot off the top of the cliff, soaring down before slamming into the earth. They're Dromedan units. These monsters are almost twice the size of the Mark I units, a shined metal armor juts out at sharp angles and jet boosters retract into its body.

Roland and the masked soldier take action, running from the safeguard to reach the Dromedans. The masked soldier dashes, pressing a section of his suit as if it were a button. The helmet lights up blue and the gold sections of his skinsuit also glow blue. He begins to speed up and passes Roland.

“No! Don't go in straight!” He calls out, but the masked soldier doesn't hear. “Damn kid is going to get himself killed.” Roland flips a switch on his gun and aims toward the plateau. The gun begins to vibrate and a chunk of stone from the ceiling underneath the hollow begins to vibrate with it, snapping free and beginning to fall.

Time begins to slow. Everything is happening at once as the scene sets up. The first Dromedan unit raises its rifle towards the fallen Tania, Barax hopping upward, not caring that his entire left paw had been seared off and cauterized to a stub, the masked soldier dashing in closer towards the Dromedan, the stone above falling faster now, and Roland watching from his place.

The blast fires from the Dromedan's gun, Barax throws himself in front of the fire, it makes direct contact and burns through his suit like it were paper. The masked soldier slams into the first Dromedan, offsetting its balance, then aims his gun at the second and pulls the trigger. The Dromedan begins vibrating violently and shatters amongst the waves. Roland yells into his communicator and too late does the masked soldier realize the stone above him.

The boulders smash into the ground and pull up a cloud of dust. Roland presses his finger to his suit and also begins glowing a sort of bluish tint, dashing his way a figure skater might skate across the ice. He finds the Dromedan crushed by the boulder entirely. He kicks it aside and then finds the masked soldier underneath one of the boulders; it's pressed on the both of his legs. You also see that his helmet had been cracked from the impact and underneath you can make out the face of a younger Jesse Anderson. A trail of blood lingers from his lips, but his chest is still rising, he's still alive. Well, of course he's alive. It isn't him dying you're worried about. “My legs!” he screams in between breaths.

“It's okay. The Dromedans have been taken care of and we can get you medical attention A.S.A.P.”

“I can't feel my legs! I can't feel my legs!” Roland presses another section of his suit and it glows red where it had once glowed blue. He reaches down for the base of the boulder and begins slowly moving it upward, and then he begins to struggle as he rolls it off of Jesse, finally letting it go and catching his breath. “I...I can't feel my legs,” Jesse cries out once more.

The memory skips. You see a worried Roland, sweat-crossed face sitting with his hands on his head kneeled over. You hear screams from inside a small tent just behind him. “Hold still! You need to keep still while the Teriat is inside of you or else it could reform wrong!” A man calls out from inside the tent. Another scream. “Doctor, you'll have to subdue him. He's resisting too much.”

“On it.”

There is a final scream and then it fades out. The world fades to black and the memory ends.