Samron Zuchariah - (EARTH NINETY-SEVEN - LOCATION: HOUSTON, TEXAS):

As I left the conference room, I couldn’t help but wonder about what Aadil had said. There was no possible way Jaxon would betray us, yet how would we know that Frenzil was here before she even attacked? Maybe like Aadil and Alisha, he too was tracking her, but he only did something like that if he had a personal stake in it.

If Kleftis hadn’t left the URE, he would have gone straight for Frenzil, or maybe he would’ve spent the next seven years hunting her down like how he did with Adithi. I sighed and leaned against the wall, thinking about how the Black Lotus Massacre ruined our new family before we even had the chance to truly become one.

“Father, what would you have done?” I asked as I leaned against the wall, slightly hoping maybe his spirit would depart me with some wise knowledge, but unfortunately I, nor my brother Mattias, had the chance to say goodbye before Keres slammed our father against the floor again and again and again.

The footage of our father, along with Jaxon’s mother and father, being slaughtered still haunted me. The queen being split in half after being curb-stomped, the king missing all of his limbs and being cut open, and my father resembling nothing but a club of meat. Although in a sense, it was their fault Adithi had killed them, but Keres Alala didn’t have a reason. First my father and the king and queen, then Isamu, she had destroyed two families, one of which hadn’t even had a chance to truly come together before being split apart.

I had always wanted to be the one who killed her, as I wanted to make it excruciating, but unfortunately, Aadil, or rather Zohan, had stolen the chance before I even had an opportunity to enact my vengeance.

I looked back to the conference room, and even I knew that Alisha and Aadil were innocent. I also wanted to help those two boys, but that meant restricting them from helping us. They were naive, they thought they had nothing to live for, and at their age, I had felt the same. But eventually, they’d find their place, just as I had. But, if we did leave them here, there was no guarantee they’d survive Frenzil’s invasion. With these doubts in my mind, I decided what was best at that moment and walked back into the room.

“What did you say your names were?” I asked them as everyone was seemingly caught off-guard by my return.

“Uhh, I’m Christopher and that’s Max,” The brown one said, “We’re brothers and we’re both fifteen years old,”

I looked over at Aadil, who was fifteen, Michael, who was sixteen, and Alisha, who was only fourteen. The only difference between those three and Christopher and Max was that the trio was trained. If Frenzil was after them, then they’d have a better chance of survival with us, and maybe, just maybe, we could prevent another Lotus Knight incident.

“You two will be accompanying us on our hunt for the shard, in return, you will be given protection from Frenzil.” I explained, “BUT, you will stay with us and will NOT stray from the group. If you make any suspicious moves, we will detain you, do you understand?”

“Yes ma’am,” Max and Christopher answered in unison.

“Good, now everyone, we will be departing in exactly fifteen minutes,” I proclaimed as I left the room.

Within fifteen minutes, Aadil and Alisha both donned the outfits I’d seen them using on the news and on their wanted posters, whilst Christopher and Max were outfitted with the commonplace URE soldier nano-uniforms. The uniform had a simple style, a blue suit with the symbol of the URE printed over a sword wrapped with chains. The blue was segmented by a purple stripe at the waistline that could carry various utilities. The helmet was a basic blue open-face helmet with a red visor and a toggle-able gas mask, The helmet had purple stripes reaching from both ears and colliding at the back, where they ascended up and over the scalp to connect to the visor. They both had basic handguns in their holsters and sharpened combat batons in case they needed to engage in close-quarters combat. Hopefully, the suit would guide them well enough when fighting.

Aadil was wearing his magenta shirt, adorned by a shiny black and purple-striped overcoat. The purple stripes extended from his shoulders down his back and to his waist and wrists. His black and silver helmet had only been half-activated, covering only the lower portion of his head with his trademark half-mask respirator he added to every outfit he wore. The tactical boots he was wearing complimented his black metallic leggings.

Alisha was wearing a modified version of the Phoenix Assassins uniform, whereas the usual version was just Darkstone Metal armor, covered by a black cloak with a flame pattern crawling up from the bottom. However, Alisha’s was a black armor adorned by a white cloak, with tubes containing pure electricity coursing through them, riding their way through the armor and cloak, seemingly stitched in. She had a pair of orange-tinted goggles and a black balaclava half-mask. When her hood was up, and her goggles were activated in the dark, you’d mistake her for a demon, not just because of the outfit, but because of her speed and the little sparks that leaped off of her whenever she moved at max speed.

Michael wore his modified Shadow Agents uniform, which was modified to meet the requirements of his powers. A metallic black tuxedo, with stripes of blue lining his vest and collar. Michael opted to use a notch lapel tux style, but pretty much everything was just for show and used to look more formal. His suit was made of a special type of metal to prevent his body from overheating, but also most other materials either caught fire or melted due to the intensity of his flames, even Chrozium.

Provisonius wore the normal Shadow Agents uniform, which was a black tuxedo with a red tie. Unlike the other suits, the armor factor of the suit wasn’t made out of metal like standard-issue uniforms, but rather a synthetic fabric made of various materials. The fabric allowed him to move his limbs around as fast as he could when he was assembling firearms and other various devices and weapons out of sticks and stones.

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I preferred to wear a camouflage outfit you’d find in most militaries. My uniform was segmented into multiple different parts to accommodate my abilities, which allowed me to react at light speed. Even if I couldn’t see my threat, I was still able to dodge it, making it effectively impossible to beat in a fistfight, gunfight, or any other altercation.

Unfortunately, when two children are born to a pair of parents where only one is a Realm Knight, only one child gets powers whilst the other gets a much weaker version of the ability. My brother Mattias was always jealous of my powers, even though he tried to never show it.

“Is everyone ready to dep-” I was interrupted when a large explosion shook the building.

“GENERAL SAMRON, GENERAL PROVISONIUS, THEY’RE HERE!” A voice shouted over my intercom.

“Frenzil’s attacking now?!” Provisonius shouted as we ran to the elevator.

“I wish we’d have had more time to introduce you to your team, but I suppose you’ll have to be acquainted with them on the ride,” I told the others as I punched in a code.

Within seconds, we were transported around one hundred miles beneath the surface.

“What the hell?” Christopher said as we stepped out into the cold, open cavern, “Where are we?”

“About one hundred miles beneath sea level,” I answered.

“Wait, let me guess, the hollow earth theory is true?” He asked with obvious sarcasm.

“Yes,”

“Wait what?”

To understand how hollow earth worked, you’d need to understand the multiverse. It could be portrayed as a tree, with the seed being Eqcausear and the dimensions being branches or roots. When the founders created the first dimension to act as a diversion, they made sure not to let any Realm Knights ever enter it. The dimension started multiplying according to every single thing that had happened, whether it was a boulder tumbling or a simple change in the wind’s direction.

Eventually, once they split the Winds Of Destiny into three shards, they chose two worlds to hide the shards, whilst keeping the third shard. They hollowed out a dimension’s earth, and once that dimension duplicated, the Knights entered it to make sure what they built next wasn’t duplicated. Realm Knights are strange in the sense that it is physically impossible for them to have doppelgangers, and when they enter a dimension, it effectively stops that dimension from duplicating.

“Your mission will be to assist us as we acquire an extremely important item.” I began to explain the mission.

“What is it?” Max tried asking.

“That’s classified,”

“Then how will we know what we’re looking for,”

“Only the Knights, which includes me, Alisha, Michael, Aadil, and Provisonius, are allowed to know.”

“What if we spot the ‘item’, but don’t realize what it is and don’t point it out?”

“Trust me, you’ll know what the item looks like if you come across it,” I answered, remembering the stories about how the raw energy emanating from the gem could drive any non-Realm Knights not wearing the proper gear to insanity.

We began walking down the ramp where four drillercrafts waited for us, along with the other twelve members of this expedition. We’d been missing five members initially, which was an entire drillercraft since they’d been lost in Frenzil’s invasion, but luckily Christopher, Max, Alisha, and Aadil had filled in four of those positions, which was enough.

Aadil, Alisha, and Provisonius would go into one pod with two others, Michael and Max would go into a pod with three others, and I and Christopher would be in a pod with another three. The last pod would contain only four since we hadn’t found a fifth replacement. Explosions rumbled above us as I assumed our outer defenses had been breached, meaning our time was running thin. We filled up the first three pods first, however, right as I was about to begin boarding, the ceiling caved in, hitting pod four and sending it spiraling into the seemingly infinite abyss beneath us, along with two of its members. Their lives were ended almost instantly as the pod exploded into a fiery blaze, not having had time to activate their thrusters or shields.

The other pods were sent flying out, but luckily they’d had a chance to activate their thrusters and shields before harmlessly bumping against the walls of the cavern. As the ceiling began crumbling, a chunk of the surface began falling into the sinkhole that had been created as a consequence of the first cave-in.

“GO!” I yelled at the pods through my Intellicom, and the one I was supposed to board in particular, “YOUR SHIELDS WON’T BE ABLE TO HOLD UP AGAINST THE SURFACE OF AN ENTIRE PLANET!”

“WhAt AbOuT yOu?!” I heard Michael’s voice crackle through, but this was the only type of static that could be produced when Intellitech blockers were being used.

“I’LL BE FINE!” I answered with false confidence, and with my confirmation, the pods descended into the winding caverns.

I began running upstairs and made it to the teleporters just in time as the cave’s walls crumbled into fine dust.

* * *

On the surface, I made my way to the forty-third floor of the skyscraper and saw my soldiers engaging in senseless violence as droves of Darkblades poured in through the cracked walls. I still had several more floors to climb before I could board the Halocraft above, but my Intelliporter wasn’t working, which would’ve allowed me to simply think of where I wanted to be and I’d be there.

I finally reached the fiftieth floor, but as I looked down, I saw a ghost from my past. Blezeren stood upon the ruins of a nearby building, which was impossible since he had died when we were taking in the Harbingers. Behind him was the woman in the dragon mask, Frenzil herself.

I was prepared to engage in combat, but when I turned back to face Blezeren, I saw that he was staring right at me. He had a saddened look on his tired face as he nodded his head. Even though we were enemies, I knew he was telling me to run, since a confrontation with both of them at once would certainly spell my demise. I noticed Frenzil was also looking at me, but it was hard to tell when I couldn’t see her face through her mask. She turned to her partner in crime, then back to me, and put her right hand up in the air. She waved at me and pointed to the halocraft.

“Leave now,” Blezeren’s voice spoke in a clear tone, breaking through the Intellitech blockers.

I didn’t know what exactly was going on, but they clearly didn’t want to fight, and even if I tried, there was almost zero chance I’d be able to beat them. I boarded the Halocraft, and as we ascended, I braced myself to be hit, but nothing happened, and we left in one peace. However, as we began to leave, most of the other Halocrafts around us were struck down, but no projectiles that we could see came anywhere near our craft.

I didn’t know why they left me alive, but right now that didn’t matter I thought as we flew to the extraction point in “Flodira”. I could only hope Provisonius would be able to secure the shard before Frenzil and Blezeren could reach it.