Days of Darkness: Winter's Rage (Book 2)

Chapter 19: Revelations

Once inside the conference room, the team dusted off the seats and the table and sat down. Using his tablet, Christian hacked into the bunker's systems to turn on the lights and monitors.

Cyris, then, stood up and began to speak.

"First of all, I need to thank you all for taking this time now to hear me out," he started. "The truth is, I haven't been totally honest with you all."

"What do you mean?" Nadia asked.

"I haven't trusted anyone in years," Cyris said. "I needed to be sure that I could trust you all. Recent revelations tell me that I can. So, now it's time for me to be upfront with you all. After my family was killed and I came home, I needed answers. So, I started doing some digging. Eventually, I was led to this bunker - a top secret, underground military base focused on tracking and, if necessary, neutralizing threats with extraordinary abilities. I learned that they operated in the shadows. So much so that it made a black ops team seem more like a group of five-year-olds at a birthday party playing hide and seek.

"Long before people like Dante showed up, there were people on both my Earth and yours that had superhuman abilities. Some fought for good. Others for evil. Everywhere from here to Union City to Metro was full of them. Then, the age of heroes had passed. They had all died out.

"Out of the blue comes a man so terrifying, so hauntingly evil, that no one knew what to do with him or how to defeat him. He called himself Omega - The End. And for good reason. He was the end of life as we all knew it. He was the reason for my wife and daughter's death, as with many others.

"I figured I had to do some more digging on this guy, which wasn't easy. He's practically a phantom. But as it turned out, from what I gathered, he was instrumental in just about every major world event in your world and mine's dating back to Columbus journeying your Americas."

"Wait," Morgan interrupted. "So, you're trying to tell us that this guy is immortal?"

"Immortal?" Cyris said. "He's the first of your kind. The first of the Elementals. I traced his lineage all the way down to our time. It led right to Damien and Morgan."

Damien was noticeably upset and confused at the same time. Suddenly, everything was making sense while not making sense and it led to more aggravation.

"So, where did he come from?" Damien inquired.

"He was born on your world and survived all of this time by staying under the radar," Cyris said, "but at the same time, influencing events as he saw fit."

"If everyone has a double," Diamond said, "where's his? The one from your Earth?"

"In this world, he was called Lord Draven," Cyris answered. "From what I could gather, he died shortly after his son was born. Now, out of the information that was gathered here, it looks like Dante's parents may still be alive. No one's heard from them in years, though. If we can find them, I think we can locate Omega."

Damien immediately started to shed tears. The prospect that somewhere out in the world was someone that resembled their parents was almost unbearable. Christian immediately took to his tablet to begin his search.

"Chris, do a grid search on Sector Nine," Diamond requested.

As soon as Christian went to work, Cyris continued to reveal more to them.

"The truth of the matter is," he started, "Dante thought that he had it all figured out. He started out just as Damien did - good and pure, innocent. He hated everything that his parents stood for. So, when he found me, I tried to help him in his cause. He wanted freedom from the oppression that not only his parents brought upon the Earth, but to a greater extent, from Omega as well. I was consumed by my own vengeance. I just wanted whoever was responsible to pay. Eventually, not seeing it in reach, I let it go. Dante, on the other hand, became consumed by his desires of freedom until he became the oppressor. The very thing he fought to destroy is what made him the monster that you all know. Eventually, he came up with the idea of attempting to merge the multiverse into one, combining every version of a person into one being, and going back in time to destroy Omega for good and bring an end to all of this."

Morgan spoke up. "The problem with that is that he would've died, too, along with everyone else that would've been a decendant of Omega. It would've erased the whole bloodline."

"Dante sacrificed himself so that I could get back to our Earth and finish what I started with him," Damien said. "He may have lost his way but he gave up his life to save me for the greater good. I think that, somewhere along the way, even before he and I crossed paths, he realized that he wasn't gonna see it all through."

"So, what now?" Nadia asked. "The history lesson was nice but we need a plan. People are dying out here on both of our worlds."

"Nadia is right," Diamond said. "We need to figure out the next move fast."

Christian uploaded two holograms of Sector Nine to the center of the table. One highlighted in orange and the other in blue.

"Alright," Christian started, "the orange map of Sector Nine with the large crater in the southwest quadrant is our Earth. Cyris, the blue hologram is the Sector Nine of your Earth. If you merge both holograms, there's a one hundred twenty-two story office building standing where the crater is on our world."

Damien looked over at Morgan. "That's where mom and dad 2.0 will be," he said. "I can guarantee it."

Suddenly, Morgan started to hear a loud trilling sound in her head. The sound was so piercing, that it broke her down to her knees. In an instant, Nadia ran to her side.

"The sound in my head!" Morgan screamed out. "Make it stop!"

Morgan was in tears as her eyes became bloodshot red and her nose started to bleed. Everyone looked worried as Nadia scanned her head.

"Guys," Nadia said. "The device in her head has gone active."

"How?" Damien demanded. "I thought we fried that thing?"

Christian went to work on his tablet. "Apparently, it's just transmitting an interference signal of some kind. I can block it for now but, in all honesty, it's only a temporary solution. The closer we get to Sector Nine, the more likely that, whoever is transmitting the signal, can work around my fail-safes and possibly take control of Morgan again."

Diamond had a look of sheer concern on her face. "I have to be honest with you all. I don't like her being out in the field with you all and being compromised to that degree. It's a risk too great to take. Morgan may need to be locked down."

The room fell silent for minutes as they each contemplated a course of action.

After while, Damien spoke. "I have a plan for that. For now, I need all of you to work on a solution to get us through Sector Nine and into that building because I can guarantee that they'll be posted up at every intersection along the border and getting in the building is gonna be much worse." He turned and said to Morgan, "Sis, I need you to come with me."

As the two of them exited the room, the rest of the team began discussing plans on how to get inside the sector. Everyone stayed on edge as the time went past, each of them hoping for a simple solution, only to come up short.

Two and a half hours passed and Damien rushed in the room with Morgan barely clinging to life.

"What happened?" Nadia asked.

"Time's running out for her," Damien insisted. "Do you have a viable plan yet?"

Christian answered, "I think so, D. But, to be totally honest, it's a long shot."

"It's better than no shot," Damien answered. "We move out in fifteen minutes. Gear up and meet me in the hangar."

With that, Damien and Morgan left the room and everyone else gathered their belongings and headed to the armory. Once there, they all loaded up bags full of guns, explosives, and other weapons that they would need for the assault. The moment they were all suited up in new armor, they went down to the hangar to meet Damien and Morgan there.

Inside the hangar, Damien and Morgan were at the gate on two motorcycles ready to go. The rest of the crew arrived shortly and piled into one of the armored trucks. Damien, then, let up the gate and gave the signal for everyone to pull out behind him. They all drove off into the night with one goal - it was time for the war on all worlds to come to an end.