Ancient Forces (2018 Reboot)

Chapter 50 - A Call to Action Part 1

The trio together dragged the hulking figure behind them through the forest to the secret bunker entrance to the base. The woods around them on this private property were dark, scary to someone without the guiding light of the Dragon's and Dino's Hearts. Not to mention, after everything they'd been through, nothing could scare them in this forest. No matter what it might be, even if they had to stare down that single red eye, they would stand tall and firm in their resolve. They were in pain and anguish, sure, the fight with Dragon Hunter wasn't easy. But nevertheless they would stand. They would fight, and so they marched on, carrying the battered body of Tiberius behind them. He wasn't dead, but he was far from conscious right now. In fact the Trio had hit him so hard his nose broke, and the impact had even shattered several neck and shoulder bones. They were regenerating quicker than anything or anyone Zayne had seen before, Tiberius' healing mechanism obviously stronger than most.
    As they reached the old, rusty looking bunker door Zayne wondered if everyone else was back yet. Carrying Tiberius home had taken much longer than he'd originally planned, and the time that passed might have made everyone worry. Then again, could Death Blade be overpowered so easily? It made Zayne think again about the plan as it was made. Rather than destroy Death Blade, Mag had changed directions to trying to capture him and dismantle him from a safer place. It was risky, but it was much less difficult than trying to just flat out destroy him. With so many Mystic and Dragon Force members after him, could he really escape? Even with his indestructible armor, he wouldn't have any bonuses in escaping capture right?
    The door creaked open, revealing the illustrious walkway down into the hallway below. Zayne walked in first, looking down every direction for any sign of life. There was nothing. In fact it was totally silent. Zayne was given a moment of chills as the silence seemed to slice him across the face, a contrast to the world outside. Damien and Eli stepped in next, carrying the bulky individual who was now shuffling around and, slowly, not quick enough, but slowly, regaining consciousness. Zayne was sure that even if Tiberius woke up he would be in too much pain to do anything. Even with such an advanced healing system he couldn't just totally reverse the effects of three different Meteor category attacks. They began walking down the halls towards the containment rooms.
    Walking down these brightly lit halls of silence gave Zayne even more worries than walking down a totally dark hall with no sounds. At least with the darkness one might expect something to attack. In the light, it just felt... eerie.
"Where in the world is everyone?" Eli whispered from behind, grunting as he struggled to lift Tiberius with his still injured knee.
"Probably either still fighting or bringing Death Blade back," Zayne replied.
"Wait, hold up, bringing him back?" Damien quizzically responded.
"Yes. Mag wanted to bring Death Blade back here and contain him so we could dismantle him safely. Fighting him in the field isn't going to work since he's kind of indestructible," Zayne explained.
"Maybe not as indestructible as you think," Damien quickly stated, "I think I know how to destroy him. Destroy the Mythanium at least."
"What!? How!?" Zayne exclaimed, turning and stopping just in front of the duo and their catch.
"Let's get him put away first. I'd rather explain my theory to everyone, not one person at a time," Damien answered as he continued carrying Tiberius along with Eli in tow.
    The trio turned a corner while discussing options and scenarios that might prevent everyone from being back by now. The long hall ahead split off towards the command center. Turning from that hall came two guards, sprinting at full speed, towards the group. Startled they raised their defenses until they saw the approaching SWAT members, sweating and exhausted from something. Running couldn't have been the cause. They were trained to be able to run in all that armor.
"You three are needed in the command center now!" one of the guards barked out.
"We're putting Tiberius into a containment cell. We were planning on going there after," Eli replied.
"We'll take Dragon Hunter. You're needed there now."
    The statement was made with such a sense of urgency that Zayne didn't delay any longer. He took off past the two guards and started running towards the command center. Behind him Zayne could hear the wind whipping up and a short electrical hum as Damien and Eli followed close behind. They were at the doors within seconds, and they exploded through them into a very dead silent room full of dozens of horrified control personnel. Mag and Miller stood in the center of the room, staring up at the monitors with everyone else in the center, shock written across their faces. Nobody moved. Nobody made a sound. They were too focused on the horror above them on the screen. Zayne and the other two looked up as well, fear writing itself across their faces in unison. On the screen was fire. Turned up rubble and dirt, boulders and mounds of concrete kicked up everywhere. Ice and lightning covered a sprawling farm field, fire scorching the outer edges of the scene. Hundreds of Mystic lied on the ground scrambling for safety, crawling away from the camera that captured it all. This was a live feed.
"So you see MRaCD, just how pathetic you really are. Watch all of this over and over again, but you are helpless. There is nothing you can find that will harm me in this footage. Fire? Nothing but a slight temperature increase. Ice? Nothing but a slight temperature decrease. Lightning? It tickles. Earth? Ha! Tag you're it! It's nothing but a game to me. Non-elemental Mystic? Weak. Foolish. These two for example," the camera panned over to Aries and Austin, their suits and masks shredded to nothing, "These two were supposed to know me like the back of their hands because of 'previous experience' am I right? Yet look at them now. Look at all of them now. Everything is burning, everyone here is dying. It's symbolic really. Their all scraping the dust for any hope, but I've already stolen it from them."
    The camera flipped around to Death Blade's face, the single red eye surrounded by stains of red and dirt, the metal on his body rusty looking and worn. He had indeed been in a difficult fight, but just as was expected, he won. Without anything so much as even scratching the Mythanium that formed his armor.
"Now I'm not sure if Zayne is watching this live, but he'll be watching this replay later, so I'll just spew the warning now. The next time we see each other will be a week from now, and when I come back, I'm going to be bringing an army of Mythic who have hated you and the MRaCD since the beginning. But, now," the camera did a full view of the battlefield and then returned to his face, "Who will save you from me this time? All of them are gone or unable to fight anymore. Who? No one. You'll be drowned out by your own villainous creations. Then, when the Dragon's Heart floats above your battered corpse, I will take it and crush it into oblivion to finish my mission. That, my friend, is a promise. Ah ha, ha, haha! HAHAHAHAHAHA!"
    The feed cut out, with a tracking signal on the camera replacing the video. The camera moved several feet before stopping, and according to multiple reports from Mystic on the field Death Blade had left. There was no telling the casualty numbers from the injured Mystic who were reporting in, and rescue was going to be delayed by several hours due to a sudden call of property damage at the high school. There was a continued and drawn out silence as everyone turned to Mag in the middle of the room. He seemed at a loss. He looked around at everyone with a blank expression. Never before had they faced such a villain with this much power, resolve, and presence. No one knew what to do anymore. With a threat of an army on the horizon, and no MRaCD forces on this side of the world left to fight back with, all hope was lost. Just like Death Blade wanted, panic began to set in to the people as they scrambled for anything. Any answer or any hope to find. People began shouting to one another, fear and anger getting the better of them as theories threw around, arguments abounded. People were chaotic and confused. Never before had no one ever known what to do. It was so hopeless.
"EVERYONE SHUT UP!"
    There was another silence that befell the room as everyone looked up to the balcony, setting their sights on the trio standing above them all. Mag sharply turned around as did Miller to face the teens up ahead. They all three had a sort of resolve on their faces that Mag couldn't explain. As if this threat hadn't even phased them at all.
"Tiberius has been captured. But even better news than that, I think I know how we can destroy Death Blade," Damien shouted to the room.
"If our entire MRaCD force couldn't defeat him then what could?" Someone shouted from the crowd.
"Mag, gather the science teams together. I'm gonna explain my idea to them and get confirmation," Damien commanded as he left the room nodding to Eli.
"I'm going to go ahead of the rescue teams and take charge of the operation. We'll get everyone back here and healing up. We'll have as many as possible help us in a week's time," Eli turned and left the room nodding to Zayne.
"You all here need to get your act together. We're all scared. Even if we don't look it, all of us are scared out of our minds. This is a foe we haven't even dreamed of facing in our lifetimes. But that's just the problem. We didn't expect the unexpected. Being a hero, and by extension being helpers to the heroes like yourselves, means setting aside your own fears and doing what you know is right. Hold out hope for any possible option we might have currently, and stick to it. I'm going to go get some advice on what to do next from several people, and when I'm done I'll have a plan of action in mind. Until then, assist Eli with rescue and start locating all of the possible targets Death Blade might go after to recruit to this army of his. We'll try and get to them before he does. Let's go!" Zayne clapped his hands and instantly sent the room into a frenzy of work.
People went left right and center shouting to one another orders and commands to do this and that. But in that chaos Zayne smiled. It was a focused chaos. People moved around with purpose and resolve now. Whether it was temporary or not it was a resolve that kept them moving. That was all that they needed now. With that underway Zayne moved down the stairs towards Mag, who had just dismissed Miller to go and work on a project. Mag spotted the approaching teen and sighed disappointedly.
"I'm sorry," Mag said over the noise.
Zayne waved Mag to follow him, and they left the command room to get away from the noise, "Sorry for what?"
"I should've taken charge like you three did and I didn't. I was petrified by what I saw, which I shouldn't have been," Mag mumbled.
"Mag," Zayne rested both hands on the older gentleman's shoulders, "Don't be upset with yourself. The only reason why none of us were stopped by that is because we've seen it first hand. But even so did you not hear the fear in our own voices? Even right now I'm shaking. My bones won't sit still. Don't dwell on it. Move on and get to work. That's what Eli did. Right now we have a villain to defeat. So what do you recommend we do now?"
Mag thought about it for several moments, gathering his thoughts as he channeled every bit of energy he had in him to think, "Did you read those files I sent you on all of the secrets of the MRaCD?"
"Yeah. Why?" Zayne asked, not sure where Mag was going with this.
"Even if Eli rescues most of the MRaCD forces out there they won't be fit for battle in a week's time. We'll need reinforcements. I know three places we can get them, and they're all in those files," Mag explained.
"Dino Island, Dragon Mountain, and the Mysticarium. If we could get the support of those three factions we might have enough to at least give Death Blade a run for his money while me, Damien, and Eli fight Death Blade directly," Zayne replied joyfully as he started walking back into the command center, "Mag you're a genius!"
    Mag stood alone in the silent hallway smiling at the doors as Zayne ran over to Miller, arranging for flights and trips to each spot. The Three Force Factions. The MRaCD gave them protection and resources in return for members every year, although the Dino Force had a special deal where they received resources but no protection in return for no members each year. Hidden away in multiple different places across the world, they were the birth points of almost every single one of their members, the exceptions of course being those born in modern communities. The Dino Island was a tropical government owned property off the coast of California that had a volcano, and a huge barrier of mountains all around the border of the island. The bulk of most Dino force members lived there in a single tribe. But they lived there for two reasons. Seclusion, and the comfort of their own environment. The island was odd, it was one of the only places on Earth that wasn't changed or effected by outside sources. Meaning that on Dino Island, as it was called, there were real, living dinosaurs that hadn't gone extinct.
    Dragon Mountain was another secluded spot up in the Japanese Alps. A hidden conclave in the snowy lands there that hid a large faction of Dragon Force members who wanted nothing to do with the outside world. Occasionally however one of their members would get curious, and they would be sent to the MRaCD to be trained for agency. They were a tribalistic people as well, however they were much more like a modern city than a tribe. They had modern technology, but paired it along with tribal rituals and requirements. Legend was that in an old forge at the Dragon Mountain they forged the cast for the Dragon's Heart and there poured the energy of a thousand volunteers into it to power the legendary artifact, each generation becoming more powerful than the last as the Dragon's Heart took power from a previous user and added it in to the next one. The legend was very sacred to the people there, and if Zayne went he would most likely be treated like a god. Just like his mother was when she went there for a vacation once.
    The Mysticarium was a secret underground organization that worked side by side with the MRaCD, but who didn't fully agree with the rules set out by them. The Mysticarium was disguised as a powerful multinational business that grossed in billions of dollars a year. In fact that was indeed true, all of its members worked hard to bring in a good living. But in their free time, which was quite frequent, the members worked in groups to stop horrible events and Mythic from striking. The MRaCD had worked as a partnership with the Mysticarium for some time, however they usually did their own things quite often. In the days before being open about the Forces the Mysticarium used the business cover as their go to. Now they used it to keep Mythic off of their backs. If Mythic discovered the true cause of surprise Mystic attacks they might focus their rage as they were on Zayne now, and the Mysticarium didn't want that. Especially since it provided for so many people's needs as well as allowed them to work without fear of being caught by Mythic.
    If all three of these Forces could unite behind Zayne, the Chosen One of the Dragon's Heart, and if Damien's theory was correct on how to destroy Death Blade, Mag chuckled, then this situation might be over already. Not in a bad way either. Victory was just on the horizon. Mag smiled as he imagined the sun rising on a new dawn. One without Death Blade. He imagined that scene in his mind, the grass and flowers blooming, the trees growing without fear of being cut down. He sighed satisfactory. It was beautiful. Mag stole himself away and returned to the command center. Now all he had to do was get to that sun rise.