Empowered

Chapter 10:.....Erebos Part I

There she was again. A big, bright, burning, hot energy ball headed right toward the Earth while she floated in space above the planet right in the path of the fast-approaching threat. Before she knew it, the projectile overtook her in a blinding white light and then the Earth. And even though she should have been too dead to know what happened, she could somehow see how grim it looked for her home planet after she was blinked out of existence and how the fireball ripped through the small blue sphere, finally destroying it.

"Ahhhh!!!!" Ember woke up screaming, which she continued to do not only because of her tormenting recurring nightmare but because she realized she wasn't in her semi-comfy standard E-Corp. cot in the dungeons where she had fallen asleep after an exhausting training day. She was in her room in her tiny yellow house and quickly realized she wasn't alone.

"Surrender if you hope to live long enough to hear my threats and fear my power!" demanded the voice of Dr. Wells. However, the person who spoke was not Dr. Wells because she was first of all purple and furry with pointy ears, sharp teeth, yellow eyes, and a big dark floppy hat wearing torn garments that said, "I've tasted scurvy, and it's not good." She pointed a cutlass right at Ember's face.

"Oh, hello? Are you a figment of my warped imagination? Have I officially broken with reality?" Ember asked, finally stifling her screams and forming words.

"Dear girl, you are in the presence of a legend. The one and only Zhora Eb-Zar!" The strange alien shouted, still pointing her weapon at Ember.

"Wait a minute! Hold it. Hold everything. Let me guess 'Zhora' if that is your real name, which it isn't –" Ember yelled, literally jumping out of bed. "You're a space pirate and shapeshifter from planet Zon, and you're on a mission to find a special person from Earth and bring them back to your home planet so that they can be turned into food supply for your people and you're thinking you've found your target – namely me," Ember said in a very bored voice.

"Actually? Well – uhhh – " The space pirate stammered.

"No need to say anything. I can tell I've hit the frubar on the flomar, except I've left something out. You're not Zhora at all! You're Dr. Wells playing an admittedly elaborate practical joke on me!" She screamed as she knocked the cutlass from the alien's claws and tackled her. Ember tried to pull off the alien's purple furry face, only to realize it was not a mask.

"Ok? Maybe you're not Dr. Wells after all?" She said, stunned and frozen for a moment. Zhora took this opportunity to push the girl off her, dust herself off, and ensure her face was still attached.

"I'm no Doc-tor Wells! I'm Zhora Eb-Zar! And I have indeed come to this planet to find someone to take back to my home planet, Zon, so that my people may feast upon their entrails!" She laughed manically.

"I'm really not sure exactly how this is all happening, but at the same time, of course, it is." Ember frowned.

"Don't fret, dear girl; you won't be alive long enough to lament your pathetic life much longer!" With that, Zhora began to shake and then stretched, bubbled, and reformed into something else. She appeared to be a smaller version of ManBearPig. She charged or hopped at Ember (ManBearPig had grotesque frog legs). Ember, in turn, dodged the beak-like mouth of the beast and grabbed its dragon-like tail as it moved past her. She flung it against the opposing side of her bedroom wall. Although the thing was disoriented from this, it lunged at Ember once again, only for Ember to hit the thing with a massive swing from her sword, which she had taken out of the other dimension. The blade sliced through the animal's hide and propelled its pieces out through most of Ember's bedroom window with a purple glowing force, taking some of the wall with it as well.