13/13/13
Chapter 11

Alax sighed as he read through the reports he’d been given. After tracking them to an abandoned gym, they’d lost track of them; literally, all tracking spells and triangulation charms just stopped working when they tried to trace them any further.

He’d even volunteered his blood to help the search, but even that hadn’t worked. How was that even possible? The only comfort Alax had was that Tyrone’s life-line stone was still blue, but that was it.(Life stones: if a newborn’s finger is pricked and their blood dropped on one of these stones, it will form, that day forth, a color based on their life. Blue: alive and well. Red: about to die. Black: dead. Purple: Spoilers!)

Alax was dragged from his thoughts as Ptolomey came into the room.

Ptolomey gave him a hard, but resigned look. “Mr. Cristos... I’m going to be straight with you. I’ve exhausted just about every way to replace your son and his friend, but I’ve just been informed of a crisis- I can’t give you the exact details, but once the report is received by my superiors, their first course of action will be to mobilize all available Templars-

“Your stopping the search!?” Interrupted an angry Alax.

Ptolemy shook his head. “No, not yet. I’ve given them instructions to keep up the search until the last-

Suddenly Ptolomey’s wrist computer glowed as he received a holo-message. He looked at it and sighed.

- minute. Which apparently is right now.” He finished somberly. “Sorry, they learned about it quicker than I thought.” He admitted sincerely.

Alax glared. “And I suppose you’re still going to force me to help you?” He asked with tranquil fury. The only thing keeping Alax from attacking Ptolemy was the knowledge that getting killed wouldn’t help Tyrone.

Ptolemy shook his head. “Nope, a deal’s a deal, and since I can’t hold mine up, you, your wife and Mr. Carl are free to go.”

Alax looked at him in disbelief. “Just like that? We’re all free to leave?” You’d have to be deaf not to hear the skepticism oozing from him.

“Well, from your brother, we’ve proven that he has knowledge on his father’s whereabouts that he refuses to tell. If he complies, I can get the interrogation to stop, but that’s all I can give.”

Alax just nodded at that. He knew that he should be more horrified, knowing his little brother was about to be savaged, but he just couldn’t. Honestly, he just couldn’t think of him as ‘family’ anymore. He could only think of him as the ‘jerk who helped a bigger jerk’- I.E. his father -almost kill his son. It was harsh, but that was the truth of it.

He pushed that thought from his mind, he had bigger concerns at the moment. “Okay fine, what’s the deal here? What’s the catch?”

Ptolemy took a deep breath. “Mr. Cristos, I don’t blame you for being suspicious- Frack, I’d have been surprised if you weren’t. I may not be a ‘good person’, but I DO keep my word. And even if that weren’t the case, I would NEVER screw over a person just looking for his son.”

YOU’RE THE REASON ROMULENA IS DEAD! I HATE YOU!

Alax nearly fell over as his ‘gift’(Alax’s magical gift is how he got the nickname ‘Predator’. While telling his mundane co-workers he was just good with criminal psychology, in reality, he has the power to immediately know all of a person’s fears and phobias simply by looking at them. This, more than anything, had given him the advantage in every interrogation session.) sent Ptolemy’s fear to him loud and clear. This baffled Alax. His gift had been jammed since he got here. For it to be working, Ptolemy had to have willingly allowed it.

Ptolemy nodded to confirm this. Without another word, he left the room and the door wide open.

After a long silence, Alax walked out as well.

Red just curled up on the floor and sobbed, she looked over at the still body of her best friend. He looked so peaceful... So-

BWAM!

Went the air horn that a newly-appeared robot held up right into Red’s ear. She turned to the robot and clawed at it-

SMACK!

Only for the robot to smack her! “Will you cut that out!? I’m trying to explain how you can bring back Tyrone!” Shouted the monocoled man’s voice through the robot.

Red looked at the robot in disbelief. “Bring him back?”

The robot rolled its eyes. “YES! Sheesh! I’ve only been trying to tell that to you the past hour between your crying fits! My dear girl, you really need to learn to focus on the task at hand.”

Again Red wanted to scream, but she shook her head. Jerk he may be, but he was right. She needed to focus on getting her friend back.

“What do I have to do?” She asks.

“Oh, it’s quite simple: Stick your hands into that machine-

POOF!

A random machine materialized out of nowhere. It was a giant glass cube with two fist-sized holes in it.

Red looked reluctantly at it, but she forlornly walked over to it and put her hands into the holes.

CLANK!

Red cried out and squirmed as the holes shrank and clamped down on her wrists.

“Seriously? You trusted the orders of the monster that’s put you through hell AND murdered your friend? In what way did that seem like a smart idea?”

“WILL YOU SHUT UP!?!” Snapped Red. “I knew it wasn’t smart. I knew it would probably be yet another one of your insane tests, but what choice did I have? What else could I do? You say ‘I’m free to go,’ but how do I know that’s not just another lie?! Either way I’m just as dead! At least doing this, I MIGHT save Tyrone!” And just as quickly as the fire entered her eyes, it died again in a sea of resignation and despair.

The robot nodded, “Fair enough, I suppose, but dumb decision or not, all choices have consequences. Will you accept the pric-

“WILL YOU JUST GET IT OVER WITH!?!”

“Fine, fine. I’m doing it.” Said the monocled man as the robot he was speaking through tapped the glass of the cube.

SLASH!

SPLAT!

For the seemingly hundredth- And hopefully last, am I right? -time that night, Red screamed and blood was spilled.

Ptolemy geared up. He tapped his locker, and thousands of mystic nanites swarmed over him, giving him an armor stronger then diamonds, yet lighter than a feather.

“To those who say knight armor is obsolete, eat your heart out.” Ptolemy couldn’t help but think this to himself as he checked his telepathically-linked laser-edged sword.(No, not a laser sword. Those are swords made of lasers. This is a sword laser, which has a layer of laser coating it.)

He looks to the Joust units,(Their armor made them 10ft-tall, There were walking WMD’s, the lot of them. They had the power to cause all the molecules in any given area within their eyesight- or in the sight of one of 100 micro-cameras that were attached to their helmet at all angles and directly linked to the brain, anyway -spontaneously explode. Sadly, their armor is so heavy, they could barely move at all.) and they shout that they were raring to go.

The Steed units(Their armor was much weaker- well weaker by the standards of the other soldier types -but they made up for it in speed! Their armor was mystically modified to speed up time for them.(Contrary to popular belief, speeding up time is one of the easiest spells.(Any other practical uses for this spell- well, any spell really - have been blocked by the council fearing an over-reliance on magic...applying it to the Steeds at all –among other things- was only possible due to some creative legal loopholes and a ten year legal battle.) As really, your just helping time go in the direction it wants to go FASTER. Stopping time on the other hand is very difficult as it’s the equivalent of stopping a tsunami from going forward, only a handful of legendary mages have been able to achieve it...and reversing time is considered to be impossible...as your basically trying to force a tsunami to go BACKWARDS.) Also built into them are hundreds of micro-stabilizers, hundreds of micro-gyroscopes, jetpack a seven league boot,(Not boots, just boot, singular. It takes some serious modifications, but one boot is all you actually need to travel seven leagues...this conserves resources...more importantly it’s also good precaution to prevent inexperienced Templars from doing lethal version of the ‘Splits’.) and special telepathically linked adhesive nanites were waiting on their gloves and shoes to help them run/climb up walls.) were revving up. Pages were also giving all channels of telepathic communications one last practice run before getting suited up and waiting for orders.

The Cleric units (They specialize in handling reality bound-deities, demons, and the undead.) ...although rarely used since most of the old pantheons have gone into ‘retirement’. We’re here and finishing their pre-battle sermon.

The Paladin units(Do I really need to explain? It’s the magic-user unit. All their armor has been customized specifically to enhance and assist each mages unique skill-sets) were of course being led by the legendary ‘Iron maiden’(AKA; his wife.) and were ready to roll.

His Echelon armor(When first assigned; their armor starts off sort of a ‘Jack-of-all-trades’...but is the most easy to customize of all armor types. Echelons are encouraged to use their own money and resources to upgrade and customize their armor to their own specific needs and strengths...thus encouraging to be more independent. As an Echelon gets promoted they will be allowed access to more ‘special’ upgrades...or given permission to test new experimental upgrades on themselves...it’s also not unheard of for commanders to buy illegal upgrades from the black-market...not that one exists of course...) made one last round of self-calibrations as he pulled out his Excaliber(It’s not what you think, this sword is but one of many Excalibur 6.0’s. Powerful (but still bastardized compared to the original(Due to the part they played in the whole WWII debacle…the UK Templars were forced to(among other things) allow the other Templar districts to examine, research and replicate some of their national treasures. Sadly although great strides have been made in magitech research...no one can pull the original Excalibur from the original –explosion proof- stone or replicate a sword even close to its power! Not only can it slice through anything Mundane or magical(Yeah, you can either slice through anything mundane OR magical(Cthulhu level or lower) with the replications but not BOTH. Only the original can do that.), but it alone can kill Old Man Henderson.)) Cthulhu-killing level swords(Pre-order now to get Excaliber 7.5 for the holiday! Celebrate with your loved one’s by wielding a blade that can now kill a Yog-Sothoth level ‘Old One’.). Due to how hard they are to replicate, only the top brass are allowed to wield them…not to mention the whole forging process involves them having to be crystallized in a stone that ‘only the worthy’ can pull it from…thankfully they’ve bypassed that whole thing by just blowing up the rock…but it still takes a month- it’s a REALLY tough rock...)

All of them had parachuted into the UK borders under the cover of night. Using the latest cloaking technology-

“Hello, sir!”

-Which made them all the more Surprised to replace a well-dressed butler waiting for them at their ‘secret’ rendezvous point!

“If you’ll come this way, Mr. Gerald Rand Vizzer has been expecting you.” Says the butler politely, as he opens a limbo door for the dumbstruck Templars.

“Nope, not doing this.” Says Carlos the cleric as he throws up his hands in resignation and heads home.