Eternal Fate: All Guns Blazing

Chapter 2: Anika Strikes Again!

I invited Alice, Soo Min Young, Elizabeth, and Hershey to go with me to the park. Alice was very excited. "Yay! That park is so pretty! It was so fun looking at the paintings in the museum! It'll be fun strolling around and viewing the statues too!" Everyone was excited about visiting the park, as they all loved it. We got ourselves ready and went to the park. As we strolled around in the river embankment area, we saw an interesting statue. It was a giant statue of a ship. On the ship stood Queen Avilia, holding a rose. The statue was part of a fountain. Even though most statues creep me out, I liked this one. There was a sign that I could read from very far away, because I had really good vision. It said:

MONUMENT DEDICATED TO SAINT QUEEN AVILIA
FOUNDER OF THE EMPIRE OF AVILON
THE RULER AND TRAVERSER OF THE LAND OF LAKES AND SEAS
SCULPTOR: JOSEF BERNARD
MADE IN [YEAR]

Just so you know, Josef Bernard is a famous sculptor from Avilon. He made many beautiful sculptures of historical figures, both from Avilon and from other countries. They were always of amazing quality with beautiful details. If not for the gray stone that they were made of, you might've thought that they were alive. Even though I'm not very fond of sculptures, I really like Josef's works. While I was viewing the statue, I suddenly heard a strange noise. I looked at my friends, and saw that the flowerbeds behind us were on fire! I decided to handle the situation myself instead of calling the security guards and activated Saint Aegis. I created a giant icicle and threw it into the fire. It melted, turning into water and extinguishing the fire. I skated through the sky using my magic ice skates and extinguished everything that was on fire. It seemed that the fire was only around the embankment area, and nothing outside of that area was on fire. After putting out the fire, I returned to where my friends were. I asked them if they knew what caused the fire. This is what each one of them said:

Hershey: "I didn't see anything suspicious before the fire started, even though I was looking around. I did see one of the flowerbeds spontaneously combust. Someone probably hid a bomb inside it or something."
Alice: "I saw an explosion go off inside the flowerbed. The explosion ignited the flowers, and the fire spread to the other flowerbeds. I didn't see any people near the flowerbed, except you, Hershey, Lizzie, and Soo Min Young. Someone must've rigged the flowerbed before we came to this area of the park."
Elizabeth: "I didn't see anything, as I was distracted by a peculiar-looking ship sailing in the river. As I was looking at the candy-like magenta ship, I heard a bang. I paid it no mind and continued looking at the ship, so, I don't have any witness evidence."
Soo Min Young: "I was sitting on the railing and reading a book, when I heard a noise that certainly wasn't usual for a park. I thought that it was some weirdo blowing up firecrackers in broad daylight, so, I didn't pay attention and continued reading."

After listening to my friends' testimonies, I continued investigating the explosion. I decided to see if there were any remains of an explosive in the flowerbed, so, I dug in the ashes. I found nothing. All of a sudden, I saw someone approaching. I looked up at who it was. It was a passerby. "What happened here?" he asked. I told him that I don't know either, and I'm investigating the strange occurrence. "Can I join the investigation? By the way, my name's Winston." he said. I allowed Winston to join us in our investigation. He searched the other flowerbeds, but, he also found nothing. I, Winston, and my friends decided to leave the embankment area and see if there was any evidence in the other parts of the park. Suddenly, a security guard runs up to us. "There is a massive fire in the playground area! Everyone, get to safety!" he said. I told him that I am with the Church of Montreal, and I am qualified to deal with such situations. The panicked security guard said: "Oh, so you're a daughter! Thank the Holy Mother for this blessing! Go to the playground ASAP and extinguish the fire before it gets any worse!" I turned into a beam of ice energy and flew as fast as I could to the playground. Everything was on fire. The rubber on the ground emitted a disgusting smell when it burned. I used Fairy Snowfall to extinguish the fire. The snowflakes turned into rain from the heat of the fire. This wasn't enough. I used Frosty Seal and Saturn's Rings to put out the massive fire faster. After using a lot of ice skills, including Snowstorm Sonatina, I finally managed to get the fire under control. After extinguishing everything, I flew high up into the sky to see if there was any more fire in the park. There wasn't, for now. However, I soon heard a huge explosion at the neighboring park. I flew over there to see what was going on. I saw Anika setting everything on fire! I flew down to confront her head-on. Now, I had the power to defeat her! When Anika saw me, she started speaking:
YOU GOT AWAY ONCE, INSECT. BUT, NOT THIS TIME! EVEN THOUGH YOU THINK THAT YOU ARE STRONGER THAN ME, YOU ARE NOTHING COMPARED TO ME! BURN IN HELL!
Anika shot fire at me, but, I evaded. I decided to immediately unleash my most powerful skill: Permafrost Judgment. Anika was trapped in an ice trap. Her feet were literally frozen to the ground. I skated around her, turning everything to ice. After I created a gigantic ice spiral around her, I turned into an icy meteor and crashed into the ground. The frosty explosion destroyed the entire spiral, turning it into snowflakes. Anika was nowhere to be seen. It was obvious that she was dead. The only thing left in her place was a core of some kind. I picked it up. When I picked the core up, dozens of strange men appeared. They were all dressed in very odd clothes. One thing that was the same among them all was the fact that they all wore plague doctor masks. One of them said: "We are your death. We are the Horde. We are the Stalkers!" The Stalkers all ran towards me. The ones closest to me restrained me. I tried to break free, but, they were inhumanly strong. They began leading me away, when, suddenly, I saw Wira nearby. She was standing on the remains of a building. She jumped down, turning into a ball of light as she fell. The explosion of light that was produced by her when she hit the ground knocked the Stalkers away. "What do you think you are doing!?" she said. She helped me get up. While I was leaning on her, she began speaking to the Stalkers: "Disrespecting the Church of Montreal is something that every native of Avilon knows not to do, because they'll certainly not like the consequences. So, it's obvious that you all are foreigners and don't know the power of the Church. If you aren't foreigners, how did you even think of disrespecting an organization lead by someone rumored to be the Emperor's lover!? Shame on you!" I'm pretty sure that Cynthia isn't the Emperor's girlfriend, but, even though she isn't, every citizen of Avilon who knows of the Church's existence knows to be respectful towards her sons and daughters, because of how much money and power the Church of Montreal has. When I regained my strength, I continued fighting against the Stalkers. After I and Wira defeated all the enemies, we decided to continue investigating the park. In the middle of the park, where the skating rink once stood, was a huge hole. Inside the hole was a spiraling staircase. We went down the stairs. After reaching the bottom of the hole, we saw a locked door. "Where's the core that Anika dropped when you killed her?" Wira asked. I gave her the core, as I still had it with me. She inserted it into the circular hole in the middle of the double doors, and they opened. We saw a long, barely-lit hallway. We continued down the hallway. I asked Wira about what this place was. "You'll find out when we'll reach the end." Wira said. After a while of walking, we saw three sets of double doors. Each one had the same circular hole in the middle as the first one. Wira opened the door in the middle, and we continued onward. I was getting tired of walking, so, I turned into an ice beam and flew forward. I stopped when I saw a door of the same type as the ones before. After a while, Wira caught up to me and opened the door. Inside were robots on pedestals. Wira flipped one around, went over to a nearby desk, took a screwdriver, opened a slot on the robot's back with it, and inserted the core into a hole inside its back. She closed the slot and put the screwdriver back inside a desk drawer. She took a remote from a different drawer, as well as some clothes and a wig. She put the clothes and wig on the robot, pointed the remote at it, and pressed a button on the remote. The robot turned on. Wira removed the support clasps from the robot's feet and let it step off the pedestal. We then left the robot room. Next, we went inside the room on the right. The robot opened it using a special mechanism. Inside the room were weapons. She gave one of the weapons, a rifle, to the robot. We then went inside the room on the left. Wira took a conducting baton from a desk, and, after...conducting, a holographic screen appeared. Wira used the baton as a stylus and typed in a few details. A computer voice said: MODEL: ORPHEUS MK-II, CODENAME: LAWRENCE, REGISTERED INTO DATABASE. I understood that she registered the robot into some kind of database. Wira put the baton back inside the desk, closed the screen, and left the database registration room. We stood on an elevator platform that took us further down. Below was a computer room. Wira attached a cord that was plugged into the computer to the robot's head and began typing on the computer. Something was being transferred from the computer into the robot. After a while, Wira unplugged the cord from the robot. It said: "Greetings. My name is Lawrence. How may I be of assistance?" Wira said to Lawrence: "You may rest for now, Lawrence. I am not in need of assistance." Lawrence replied: "As you wish. Speaking module off." I, Wira, and Lawrence went back to the elevator platform. It took us back up. I saw that the three doors were locked. We then walked all the way back to the staircase. The first door that we encountered closed behind us when we passed through it. We walked up the stairs, back to ground level. We decided to leave the park. We went back to the St. Avilia National Nature Reserve and found our friends. We found them. They were together with some security guards. The security guards were giving them medals. When they saw me, Wira, and Lawrence, they gave each of us medals as well. They thanked us for helping keep the park safe. Wira said to them: "You're too kind. The only thing we did is put out some small fires. Basic park maintenance. House Ladenstroff has done many things that were much greater, and, we didn't even get thanked, while you're giving us medals for maintenance. But, still, thank you so much for the awards. We'll treasure them." Winston got an award as well, even though he didn't do much. After being given the medals, we left the park and went home. Today was wacky, wild, and wonderful!