Milo Skart had a terrible decision to make.
"Help me."
The pregnant teen girl stumbled into the lobby of the Atraville Hospital. Barefoot and tattered, she appeared ready to give birth.
"Help my baby."
However, the girl and her unborn child carrie...
Hock note: If it was initially score two for Professor Aidan and his student army, it was now a gazillion terrascore for Axion. The students were vastly outgunned in both numbers and firepower.
This chapter features Captain Max, Jemma Colera, Kwin Vacker, Dr. Chocka, and Milo Skart.
Captain Max's goggles zeroed in on the top floor of Newton, peering in through the long, wide window. The attack had begun. Axion devised a battle strategy using mathematical chaos, geometric fractals, and overwhelming force. Chaos was the science of surprises, unexpected and unpredictable. Fractals were perfectly asymmetrical, impossible to anticipate. The overwhelming force would bring it all to bear.
It was a superb battle strategy. Professor Criminal and his snotty delinquents might have their dark energy, but that wouldn't help them now. They wouldn't know where to find Axion. They wouldn't know where the attack would come from next. They wouldn't know what hit them. And the force of so much firepower, whether from the mygs, the tanks, the battleships, or all of them at once, would be devastating. Max watched gleefully for Aidan Scelestus to get his due.
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
* * *
Jemma watched the demon closely. Although the sight through the window was terrifying, the demon didn't waver in his bearing. His hard demonic eyes focused on each student. His tall demonic posture remained erect. His demonic smile encouraged them.
"We'll get through this," he told them. "It's only energy. Everything is energy. You know what to do with energy."
When a skinny guy backed away appearing overwhelmed, holding his head, the demon rushed to help him. "One at a time," the demon said. "Don't try to do them all at once. Focus the energy one at a time. Be methodical. Move from one to the next."
The demon slapped another nearby student on the back. "You can do it."
He continued in that manner, moving from one person to the next, coaching each of them on how to fight Axion with the energy.
"I failed," the athletic girl with the yellow shoes said. "We're done for." The girl sulked on the floor, her shoulders slumping and her face drooping.
"Nonsense," the demon said. He lifted the girl up by her arms and pointed her toward the window. "We're not done yet. You're exactly what we need. Get back in there and fight."
Jemma moved fast. She caught the demon completely unprepared, engrossed with his coaching. She squeezed him hard.
He gasped. His gray evil eyes flicked her way, surprise all over his hard demon face. He never expected an attack from one of his students.
Jemma prepared to finish her mission from the monastery, her calling from the tachyons. She located the energy of the demon's heart in that other place. It was beating fast. She reached in to snuff it out.
* * *
Milo clawed at the forearm of Dr. Chocka. The doctor's hand still grasped the silver wand, still reaching for the infant, still seeking to end the baby's life. Milo fought the wand away from the baby. At the same time, he squeezed it in the Drommel dimension, putting out its fire so Dr. Chocka couldn't activate it.
Dr. Chocka fought back. His other arm pushed back against Milo while he also shoved him back through the Drommel. The doctor's skill with the energy amazed him.
"Yes, silly boy, I can work dark energy just like you. Now let go of me. The baby must die. It's the law."
Milo grew tired from the exertion and Chocka sensed it. The doctor mustered his strength and thrust Milo away. Milo lost his footing and stumbled to the floor.
"When I'm done with him, I'm going to execute you for treason."
Dr. Chocka stabbed the wand back into the baby's stomach.
"No, you don't."
Milo regained his footing and jumped for the doctor, the baby, and the nursemaid. Even though the nursemaid rolled on a solid base of four wheels, the weight of Milo, Chocka, and the baby caused it to tip. As Milo and Chocka fought with each other for the wand, the nursemaid keeled over backward. For a moment, the poor little infant fell into a freefall.
Out of one corner of his eye, Milo saw the infant open his arms and arch his back.
The robotic nursemaid lost power while trying to console the baby. "There, there," it said. "Don't cry like-"
The baby shrieked and cried as Milo felt the tremendous surge of the energy. The violence was beyond anything he had experienced before. It threw him and Dr. Chocka off the nursemaid. More than that, it launched them through spacetime.
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
* * *
The brilliance came upon Jemma quickly, as if the sun's energy had burst into the room. She had been about to destroy the demon when something flung her back, something massive, something violent. The fire exploded with ferocity, expanding rapidly, like an exploding balloon.
Jemma's energy fled her, pouring out of her body as if she sprung a leak somewhere inside. She couldn't stand, she couldn't move, and she struggled to breathe. It felt as if the wind had been knocked out of her soul.
Jemma understood her mistake. She had focused on the wrong target. The professor wasn't the demon at all. His power was insignificant compared to the infant. The demon of dark energy was the baby. The tiny monster held by the nursemaid was the one who would destroy the world with dark energy.
"I believe in the tachyons," she said. "I believe in the particles of negative mass which move through the hidden dimensions, never to touch this evil world. I ask the holy tachyons, which travel backward in time, to save me."
* * *
Everybody dropped, including Kwin—even Professor Aidan. There were horrific sounds of crashing, crunching, and smashing: metal colliding with metal, aluminum glass breaking, and building struts bending. Although she couldn't see them, Kwin imagined battleships and mygs falling out of the sky, crashing around the campus, hitting buildings, smashing tanks, destroying everything within reach. The sounds echoed over and over in succession. The pandemonium encompassed reality.
* * *
Milo realized Cale Vals was much more than he seemed. The tiny baby he rescued from Dr. Chocka, that he had paraded around the Atraville Campus, that Professor Aidan had pledged to raise, was immensely powerful—more powerful than he ever imagined.
