The Revelation of the Vine: Graft

Chapter 33: Broken Transmissions

   "There's no one I'd rather be out here with than you, Cap." Solanicus' voice swam by, as an image of us standing back-to-back in the Un-Terr, surrounded by a swarm of soulless, flashed in front of my mind-cage. The vision from my body, of Solanicus' wide-eyed, silent scream, and my arms laying him onto the cold floor, played in the background. The memory faded, and I was once again staring at the visions of my body's eyes, like I was sitting in the back row of a theatre, watching the twisted performance before me with appall. Kivan's voice suddenly echoed through my mind in broken sentences, but it was his real voice. "The Knights . . . ascend, Captain . . . not what . . . we think . . . are." "Kivan!?" I shouted from within my mind-cage, "What do you mean?" His voice didn't come again. I suddenly felt sad, alone, and confused. What was he trying to tell me? A sudden flash across the screen brought my attention back to what was going on outside of my body; it was stepping through another portal. Jeizen was walking around a corner. His hand reached out for a panel in the wall of the next hallway. Sophia opened a door for him after congratulating him on becoming a Lemniscata, and recording his information in her databanks. It suddenly made me angry that she couldn't detect that something was wrong. Why wasn't she warning anyone? I remembered that her systems had been tampered with. Her awareness module had been removed. Whoever did this must have known what was going to happen; but how? My body crept along shadows between the light, through spaces invisible to the Knights. I wondered how it could be doing this, and then wondered if Kivan had been following us the entire time as well. My body must have gained a lot more power for the Corruption after the absorption of Feng and Sol's blood and energy. Jeizen looked around inside the room; it was a small square with a bookshelf on one wall, a beautiful Drasian rug in the center of the floor, a desk with a chair and a flat screen on another wall, and a bed in the corner. Out of some old, lingering habit he walked over to the bed and sat down. Then slid over and laid down, putting his hands behind his head. He looked like he was trying to remember the last time he laid down in an actual bed. My body just hovered in a corner of the room, watching; maybe trying to toy with me as I watched helplessly from inside. A sudden shadow stretched through the doorway as footsteps echoed from the hallway. My body slipped through another portal. It stepped out into a small attic above the vaulted floor in the main chamber. I watched Jurgen snooping through a desk drawer from a corner of the slanted wall. The room was really too small for him, it was shaped like a triangle with the top of the stairs poking up through the bottom. My body flashed forward, and I pushed myself as close to my mind as I could to try to stop it. My mouth opened and a short gurgle escaped, causing Jurgen's attention to snap toward it. His eyes went wide as my body lunged at him, but he raised his sword and parried. I watched as my body tumbled down the stairs in spiraling flashes of lights, and shadows, and steps. My body rolled out of the staircase and onto the floor below in the circular chamber. The blue-white energy sent a cross of light through the chamber, as Jurgen's lumbering frame came down the stairs. "What in the shadow are you doing, V?" His voice echoed toward me. I also heard footsteps running toward us in the corridors and coming up from the stairwells. I began to hope that maybe together they would be able to stop me. I didn't care about that body anymore. I wanted it to be destroyed. I wanted to be free from this horrible prison, but I couldn't think of any other way than death. Kivan's voice cracked through my mind once again, "Captain, I don't know . . . changed the plan. Once you . . . they're going to kill . . . If you can hear this . . . warn everyone somehow, Captain . . . there's another . . . above us." "Kivan," I shouted again, hoping that he could somehow hear me and respond. "Kivan, I hear you!" "Captain," His voice returned, filled with hurry. "I don't . . . time . . . can't . . . for long . . . Corruption is . . . stronger . . . closer . . . warn the knights . . . There are 3 . . . we're . . . weakest . . . They . . . ascend to . . . Light . . . It's the only way . . . so sorry . . . everything." His voice cut out. What was I supposed to do? I began to pay attention to what was going on outside, and Jurgen was locked in an epic battle with my body. "You're not Virgil," he yelled, as he struggled against the jabs and slashes of the void-shard. "Virgil if you're in there, I'm sorry brother." He pushed my body back, as the rookies arrived from the corridors and stairwells. "Stay back," He yelled at them. He's not right! The Corruption finally got him." A hideous laugh escaped from my mouth and reverberated around the chamber. "Captain, no," I heard Teion's sweet voice cut through the madness that swirled around me. "Virgil . . ." I saw Tenbu holding him back as his beautiful green eyes swelled up with tears, and his pale cheeks flushed red. Jeizen and Falkir stood in the middle of the stairwells. Atreios and Rahlix were standing in front of the walls that blocked the energy pillar. And Vhalrin was standing to the right, behind Jurgen, staring at me with dumbstruck eyes that glistened with tears. I locked onto them from the inside, realizing in that moment just how important he was, and exactly what I had to do. Even if it tore my own body apart, I had to make sure that these last few knights survived to accomplish whatever Kivan had told me. Ascend to Light, whatever that meant. It was the only way to save Dahn. Now I had the trouble of figuring out how. How was I going to stop my twisted body, and tell them what they needed to do? I heard a terrible scream, and my mind-cage closed in, I saw my body look down to my hand where the shard it held was stuck in the side of someone's stomach. It looked at the hand for a while, twisting the jagged thing spitefully; forcing me to witness the blood ooze from the body. I noticed the armor, and my mind exploded. The hand wrenched the shard out, and the body slumped to its knees. Jurgen's face was twisted in an agony I had never seen before. Every ounce of my body surged with devilish delight, as it lifted the hand to my mouth and licked it away, as the last of the Knights watched in horror. "You're last," My hideous body snarled, pointing at Vhalrin, and then focused its sights on Atreios and Rahlix. "No, I'm right now," Vhalrin said jumping back into my sight, "you're not touching anyone while I'm standing. I know you're not the Captain anymore. And this is what he would want me to do." He raised his sword high. "Foolish weakling," My body snapped, and swished the shard around in front of Vhalrin. He stared straight, sword poised. "We're not the one's . . . stealing other people's bodies . . . you formless scum!" I watched as Jurgen's arms wrapped around my body, gripping it tight. "Do it, Vhal. Do it NOW!"