Emerald
Legion, Chapter eight
“Blood is
7.3 times thicker than water” – wherein our young Champions face their greatest
challenge
********************************************************
The Kathooni delegation had not been formally accepted into the
UP yet, so they had no Embassy of their own.
Instead the reception was in the sprawling Talokkian
Embassy, the otherwise lightless interior of which was decorated in gleaming Kathooni sparkle-crystals, and the many glistening
decorations of the various Ambassadors and their retinues. The Talokkian staff
themselves wore only armor-like accoutrements of reflective metal, and, as
Ambassador Ravin proclaimed, ‘bathed only in the
radiant magnificence of their guests.’
Queen Sarya had dressed in robes of deep jade green, effectively
black in the dim surroundings, but orbiting her crown was a fist-sized star
emerald, which had been specially treated to glow with its’ own verdant inner
fire. Her face was bathed in a soft green
light, and shifting shadows played over her face as the stone completed its’
circuit around her head. Imra had treated her gossamer cloak to radiate the subtlest
pale green hue, not enough to cast any light of its’ own, but merely enough to
be visible in the dark as a glimmering emerald shadow. Her Titanian psi-metal adornments shone with their own pale amber glow,
and in the shifting light sources, seemed to move of their own volition, like
serpents of gold writhing over her legs and arms. Garth had allowed the white and gold segments
of his own Champion’s Garb be treated with a fluorescent dye, and cut a bold
figure, with his face underlit by the dramatic white
lightning bolt cutting down his torso. Rokk had skipped any cosmetic alterations for the occasion,
and in the unlit shadows, the pale violet glow of his eyes cut through the
darkness with a surprising intensity.
“Great,
we’re all gussied up, and I can’t see a sprocking
thing.” Garth complained.
“Just
watch out for that Talokkian Ambassador. I think he grabbed my ass when he was introducing
himself…”
“You
*think?* How
could you not be sure?” Garth muttered, wondering not for the first time was in
this glass he was holding, since he couldn’t actually make out what color it
was, only that it had a suspiciously thick texture and tasted like nothing he
could identify.
“Oh, I
don’t know, maybe ‘cause it was dark? Could have been anyone,
really. Well, anyone wearing a
lot of metal, I could tell that much…”
Garth got
an evil look on his face and cupped a hand to his mouth, but Rokk nudged him in the ribs before he could make any sort
of embarrassing announcement.
“What? I was just gonna
holler across the room to Imra and ask if it was
her…”
“Oh great,
get us both killed why don’t you,” Rokk laughed. “What’s she doing over there anyway?”
“She said
that she thought she ‘heard’ another Titanian in the
room, but she’s having trouble finding them, so she’s on the prowl.”
Any reply
died on his lips as the room suddenly exploded into brilliance, and the
assorted delegates were left reeling and blinded by the explosion, as a
thunderous display of *lightning* poured down in the center of the room.
The Talokkian and Kathooni in the
crowd were most stricken by the brilliant display, and Garth could just make
out a figure standing in the midst of the brilliant bolt of lightning that was
traveling upwards to splash across the ceiling in a display of sparks and
electricity.
~Surrender
immediately, and die. There is no ‘or.’~,
came a powerful telepathic command that neither Garth nor Rokk
recognized, although the source was recognizably female. The command seemed to surge around in their
minds like a crashing wave, repeating endlessly, and both found themselves
momentarily unable to react.
A red
flash, likely invisible to the light-sensitive members of the delegation was
followed by a gut-wrenching stench, and Garth sank to his knees retching.
“Sweet siblings, the stench! What is that?”
“
“Thanks,
Exposition Lad,” Garth muttered through his hand, futility trying to block the
nauseating stench. He suddenly pointed,
“There.”
Rokk
turned to see a man in a blue and red outfit, wearing an unusual helmet and his
eyes glowed red, much like the same energy flash that had preceded the sudden
change in atmosphere.
“Venusian, methane-breathers, allergic to
oxygen.” Rokk gasped, as he raised his hands and dozens of sharp-edged
metallic Talokkian items of tableware flew towards
the figure. Both Champions were
surprised to see the man’s eyes flash red again, and the metallic projectiles
dissolved into water and splashed harmlessly across the figure.
“We need
to,” Rokk began when suddenly the room went dark
again and he was suddenly lifted from his feet by a massive discharge of
electricity which left him gasping and on the razor’s edge of consciousness.
Garth
stepped into the current, blocking it with a stream of lightning from his own
hands, and saw a familiar face backlit by the flaring discharge.
“Mekt?”
“Hey, little brother. Fancy meeting you
here…”
Garth
advanced slowly, his own streams of electricity matching the single blast that
his brother seemed to be effortlessly sustaining, “Why are you doing this,
these people…”
Mekt
kept talking manically, ignoring Garth’s words, “You had the right idea,
Garth. Winath
was a dead end. Why stick around and
watch little Ayla finish her transformation? Crying all the time that you’d abandoned her
and thought she was a freak…”
“Shut up!”
Garth screamed, switching from just holding his brother’s discharge at bay and
pouring out all of his rage.
Mekt
stepped back, a look of amused surprise on his face, and raised his other hand
to focus fully on keeping his brother at bay.
“Come on, you know I’m right.
She’s a freak, and you couldn’t stand looking at her freak face. You were right to leave her behind. Who needs a twin, anyway? I sure didn’t…” his face twisted into a hateful
sneer, and Garth felt himself falling back under the blistering strain.
Rokk
had regained his breath, and noticed that a half-dozen
men in masks were walking among the fallen ambassadors and snatching up items
of jewelry and shoving them into sacks at their waists. The Venusian was
watching him with arms folded, apparently considering him no threat and waiting
for him to make the first move. Across
the room, he could see Imra standing directly in
front of another woman in what appeared to be some sort of uniform. It was obvious they were having some sort of
mental battle, as Imra’s arm was frozen in the
attempt to reach the woman, and both of them showed signs of strain.
Of the
Queen, there was no sign, and Rokk realized that they
had only minutes before the delegates began to die from oxygen deprivation, but
every time he seized control of a metal weapon to use, the red-eyed man just
shook his head and it turned into water in a crimson flash and fell harmlessly
to the ground. The man’s environment
suit was made of some material that didn’t respond to his magnetic powers, and
his hopes of cracking the man’s life-support systems open were dashed.
Sensing a
heavy source of metal across the room, Rokk activated
his Ring,
Garth!
Switch targets, I’ll take care of your brother, you shoot the Venusian!
No!
Garth,
do it!
Suddenly,
Garth dove to the side and Mekt’s lightning blasts
flew harmlessly into the drinks table, where several of the local beverages
proved to be flammable. Garth fired a
double-blast of lightning at the flat-footed Venusian,
and as Mekt turned and started tracking the lightning
to where his little brother had landed, a 200 kilo metal gong crashed into his
back and threw him to the ground.
Rokk
used every erg of his magnetic strength to press the metal gong down, pinning
the lightning wielder to the ground, while trusting Garth to handle the Venusian. His trust
was rewarded as the scent of sulphur abruptly
vanished to be replaced with sweet, sweet air, heavily tinged by the odor of
the electrical fires touched off during the brothers’ exchange.
He shifted
his position carefully, and he could now just make out Imra
and the Titanian woman now face to face, faces
glistening in the flicking firelight as sweat poured down their foreheads,
muscles straining as they gripped each others arms. Slowly, Imra leaned
forward and it almost looked like she was going to kiss the other woman when
she suddenly shouted in the other womans’ face,
“BITCH!”
The older
telepath looked shocked and flinched visibly before attempting to regain her
mental focus, but it was too late and she closed her eyes and slumped
backwards, stricken instantly unconscious by Imra’s
mental assault.
The
sack-toting henchmen attempted to flee, only to find that the room had been
sealed, presumably by the villains themselves and while Rokk
kept his concentration on making sure that the lightning wielder was pinned,
Garth and Imra made short work of the remaining
henchmen.
The main
doors wrenched open with a squeal, and Queen Sarya
and Kathooni Ambassador Marin strode into the
smoke-filled battlezone, accompanied by a half-dozen
statuesque armor-clad Kathooni security women, who
quickly moved to see to the fallen delegates, most of whom were sputtering and
choking, but seemed none the worse for the wear.
Within
minutes, SP troopers also entered the room, and the criminals were manacled and
led away.
Being
dragged out, Mekt was red-faced and screaming, “Your idiot friends won’t save you Garth! I will destroy you for this! You’ll abandon them like you abandoned us,
you don’t deserve friends, you don’t deserve family, you’re *nothing!*”
Garth was
trembling with rage, and his hands were crackling and sparking with
energy. The SPs
continued trying to wrestle the struggling Mekt out
of the room, but Garth had moved into the doorway and was blocking them from
getting Mekt out, “Go ahead, let him go.”
Rokk
stepped between the brothers, “Garth, no.” he placed his hand on the taller
man’s chest, carefully avoiding his hands, which were tossing off tiny bolts of
electricity that arced towards Rokk’s metal suit,
shocking him painfully.
“Get out
of my way, Rokk.
I’ll burn you down.”
“No you
won’t.”, Rokk maintained, only managing to hold
himself steady in the wake of the stronger man by using his magnetic powers to
hold himself in place.
“You think
you can stop me?” Garth said coldly, his eyes glowing with blinding golden
energy.
“Go
ahead!” Mekt ranted, “Incinerate the fool! Nothing can stop us!”
“Don’t
know. Don’t care. *You* are going to stop you.” Rokk pointed behind
him at Mekt, who, thankfully, had been gagged by one
of the suspiciously strong Kathooni amazon-women.
“I know
you won’t attack me, because that’s what *he* would do. And you’re nothing like him.”
Suddenly
the glow faded from Garth’s eyes and he turned away, shoulders shaking. “You’re right. He’s not worth it.”
By that
point, the armored Kathooni had given up on dragging Mekt out on his feet, and instead rolled him into a decorative
tapestry, heaved him into the air and carted him off like produce, struggling
feebly as Garth pointedly turned again so that his brother couldn’t even catch
his eye on the way by.
Imra
came up behind Rokk and put a hand on him as he
sagged in relief. ~Thank you. I could have stopped him, but it’s far more
important that he stopped himself.~
*************************************************************************
Hours had
passed, and the young Champions had returned to the Venegarian
Embassy. Imra
and Rokk sat in her room, while Garth had asked to
have some time and soared up into the night sky.
~Do you
think he’ll be able to get past this?~ Imra asked, the concern tinging
her thoughts.
“It’s got
to be hard for him. It seems like nobody
can hurt you like family.”
~Not just
family. It’s the people we love that
have the power to hurt us. We give them
that power.~
Rokk
looked around the room, as if the answer would be sitting in the corner,
waiting to be found. “I’m not a telepath, Imra, but I
know alone, and I don’t think Garth needs to be alone right now. I think that’s the *last* thing he
needs. You should go to him.”
~No. *We* should go to him.~
“You guys
have a thing…”
~That’s
not the ‘thing,’ he needs right now. He
needs friends. He needs family, and
we’re his family now. You and me both.~ Imra extended her hand. ~Let’s go find our family.~