“Can it be opened?” Dan frowned at the vast stone door, taller than any mountain. It dominated one side of this vast, pastoral chamber. “I have a feeling Merlyn is on the other side…”
The circular gate depicted a vast snake, or worm, as it travelled the stars. Behind it lay devastated worlds, while ahead the mosaic showed a sharp toothed void. The central portion was filled with a mighty eye, unblinking as it followed the beast's path of destruction.
“If this is the history of this creature, someone should stop it…” May sighed as she gazed at the hollowed worlds on the gate. “How many lives were lost on those planets?”
“It is the nature of life to consume life,” Ultron pressed a hand to the stone, the blue in his eyes more active than before. “I think this can be opened… but I will need more time.”
Dan’s shoulders slumped. He didn’t want to wait, or even poke around too much in this place. Quest or no, the Gree here held unknown technology. He shook his head and addressed the system.
‘Is there any way I can call Merlyn back to me from here?’
[Summons can be recalled once per day to your location.] The system chirped. [Would you like to recall the summoned servant: Merlyn ( The Once and Future King)?]
Dan rubbed his eyes. He should have asked this at the beginning. He nodded his head and a flash of light illuminated the grassy plains.
“What the hell…” Merlyn dropped to the ground, dazed confusion on his face. His robes were rumpled, hat bent out of shape. “Where is the library?”
“Hey,” Dan loomed behind the Wizard, a dark emotion in his heart as he tapped at Merlyn’s shoulder. “What do you think you’re doing? You left Anakin for dead and led us all on a goose chase… what have you been doing all this time?”
“Don’t sneak up on a man when he’s at study!” Merlyn grasped his heart as he spun to face Dan. “The boy was being monitored by the owners of this place, those snails promised me he’d be protected…”
“PROTECTED!” Anakin snarled firsts bared at his uncensored Master. “Those freaks chased me for days,” the sandy haired boy moaned. “I had to battle through hordes of monsters to keep away from them!”
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
“All good training for a young wizard,” Merlyn waved his hand and turned to face the gate. “Now let me return to the library, these people have a wealth of knowledge from the ancient past!”
“HOLD IT!” Dan seized the back of Merlyn’s robes and pulled him back. “You’re not going anywhere until you explain everything you’ve learned…”
----------------------------------------
“So… you’re saying that the Gree just watched as you walked into their library and let you run rampant?” Dan closed his eyes, a tingle that promised a headache under his temples. “You don’t even know why they’re on this worm?”
“I don’t think they know why they’re here,” Merlyn snorted in disdain. “The ones you described are the cast responsible for defence.” The Wizard pulled his pipe from the folds of his robe and lit it with a spark of magic. “They can use the devices you saw, and have tremendous natural psychic potential, but they don’t remember how they work.”
“That fits with most of what I know about their species,” Dan nodded, relieved. An intact colony of Gree could compete with Krypton for control of the galaxy, if they ever saw fit to leave home. “Have you learned anything about this worm… they must have a way to control it, if they built a home here.”
Merlyn nodded and waved a hand through the air. A portal opened behind him, smooth as glass and taller than a man. Beyond its calm surface, a red glow tinted the grass with bloody tones.
“This leads to the control station, but they have long forgotten its function,” Merlyn motioned for them to follow as he stepped through. “I believe I could figure it out, given enough time!”
The chamber beyond the portal resembled an amphitheatre, if the central area was replaced by a ridged mass of flesh. Gree machinery meshed seamlessly into the exposed section of brain, tubes and wires linked between the folds.
Ultron walked forward, dreamlike as he trailed his hands over the ancient mechanisms. The A.I. sighed deep, blue and red in his eyes locked in a kaleidoscopic spin. May frowned at the damage to the creature, before she turned to Dan.
“We should set this animal free, nothing deserves to be converted into a spaceship against its will…” May knelt to inspect the grey matter that remained open to the air. “It might be a world eater, but it’s just following its nature.”
Dan tilted his head. May was right, it would be better to die, than live enslaved like this. He couldn’t let this thing roam free, but he could give it a less intrusive form of guidance.
“Is Mayhem ready to produce clones yet?” Dan made up his mind and turned back to May. “If not we can use Venom, but I’d rather you gave it a try first…”
May frowned, in a silent communication with her symbiote. She nodded her head and smiled before she answered.
“We can make clones, but only a few dozen,” May raised an eyebrow. “Will that be enough?”
“There’s only one way to find out,” Dan gestured at the brain below. “Send them in and see if you can form a connection, if you can, the symbiotes can heal over this section and fuse with the technological components!”
If May could gain control of this creature, he was certain to fulfil the bonus requirement of a unique pet. Nothing fits the bill better than a space worm big enough to live inside. May extended her hand, and released a wave of cloned symbiotes. The stream of blue black slipped into the worm's brain, gone from sight as fast as they appeared.
“Well?” Dan raised an eyebrow as May closed her eyes, in communion with Mayhem’s copies. “What’s the verdict?”
“She’s connected to Mayhem… there is no real intelligence, more like a thing of instinct,” May scrunched her face as Mayhem rippled. “We should be able to control her no problem…” She bit her lip as a huff passed from her mouth. “I don’t think it even realised it was under somethings control this whole time.”
[Quest completed! Congratulations, you have received: Two doses of Superman serum (DC comics) and one All-Spark (Transformers live action) Bonus rewards: Two Kryptonian construction crystals, plant into the deep earth to create a personal retreat, complete with small scale laboratories and industrial production centres.]