Akkadian Forever, Part 2 of 5

Is this the final chapter for the Akkadian Knights?

2.         Akkadian Keep, Early Morning

 

Caledonia didn’t sleep much these days.  Something was vexing her.  She wasn’t quite able to put her finger on it, but it was familiar.  As she looked out over the keep grounds from the second story window overlooking her garden, a soft white mist rolled down from the closest hill.  Normal at this time of the day, she paid it little mind.  It was nothing more than the evaporation of the dew of the moor and before long the entire keep would be shrouded.  The moon’s soft glow on the top of the mist gave it an unearthly light.  In an hour the sun would begin to rise and the mist would be gone. 

 

She stood in an ornate hallway outside her chambers.  The hallway was lined with ancient, dark hardwood and had few adornments other than some massive brass candelabra hanging from the ceiling and iron wall sconces every so often.  They were ancient as well and made to hold candles.  Although they did, the keep’s staff had dutifully ensured that they were put out timely last night.  The only light came now from the full moon on the Western horizon which streamed in through the twelve foot tall windows.  The floor was polished white marble and felt cold to her bare feet.

 

She turned around and looked down the hallway.  Two years ago, she recalled waking up in the middle of the night to the sounds of a terrified teammate.  Destiny had experienced a vision.  It was vivid and foretold her ultimate demise.  Caledonia remembered covering Destiny with a blanket and guiding her back to her chamber.  She remembered watching her die crushing the demi-god Barthandalus in a dimensional portal as another Akkadian, Zildoran, pinned him inside the collapsing energy field.  She closed her eyes and a single tear rolled down her face as she recalled the collapsing portal crushing all three.  Both heroes were her friends.  So many memories.  She now looked at the door of that room, a room that had not been opened in years.

 

Cal awoke earlier to a similar, vivid dream.  She’d been having this same dream, more like a vision, more frequently as of late and it was always the same.  A nameless evil was returning to the world and looking to claim what was his.  He sought nothing more than her death.  He was a foe without a face and the dreams were terrifying.  She saw someone die, but every time the dream was about to reveal who it was, the dream ended and she had woken drenched in sweat and tears.

 

She knew the source of the dreams.  She knew what caused them and she could not wonder if there was a connection, but shook it off.  Ages of mankind had come and gone since she was young and it was impossible to think…

 

She shook the thought.  It was, of course, impossible.  She pulled her shawl tightly across her shoulders and walked down the hallway towards the dining hall.  Maybe three was some food lying about to take her mind off the dreams.

 

Outside, the mist continued to roll in.  Had Cal been looking, she would have seen the demonic visage of Curse standing on a hill nearly a mile away.  She would have seen the silent army of skeletal warriors he ushered out of the moor, out of an ancient yet familiar battleground onto the keep grounds.  She would have seen her vision begin to take shape.  This assumes she had been looking.

 

 

Cal stepped into the command center of the keep.  Banks of computers lined the walls and strange technological gadgets of all kinds were arrayed around the room.  Batman had spared no expense to replicate his cave.  Although he was not always around, he was here tonight.  She sipped the warm tea in her hands as she moved up behind him, seated in a high back chair.  He was studying a rather detailed 3D model of the Akkadian Moon Base, or at least what was left of it. 

 

“Still can’t sleep.”  With him, it was always more of a statement than a question.  He did not turn to face her.

 

Cal sighed and merely nodded.  “Same dream.  I think something is about to happen and I don’t have a good feeling about it.”

 

“Let’s hope you’re wrong.  The last time this team had visions the Earth was nearly overrun.”  Pressing a couple of buttons on a rather oversized keyboard, the image of the moon base shifted and closed in one a single tower of the structure.  “I think we can reconstruct the base, although I think we’ll have to rebuild two of the habitation domes and the central spire from scratch.”

 

Batman put on some oversized gloves and waved his hand over the rendering.  Manipulating his fingers, he stripped away electronic layers of the structures, exposing internal damage.  As he did, he used his other hand to begin constructing new layers, replacing damaged sections with new paneling and systems.  Cal was amazed at the fluidity of his motions.  It reminded her of some exotic dance. 

 

Looking at the display, she saw Drax and a few of the other Akkadians diligently searching through the empty base.  Apparently the hologram was in real time.  She then realized that the display was being recorded through the computers on the Defender, neatly parked at the center of what used to be the base.  Only Bats, Doc, Wyldcard, Vexator, Quantum Elemental and she remained Earth-side.

 

She took another sip of her tea.  The chef really knew what she was doing. 

 

As he did, the hair on her neck stood on end.  She stood up straight and dropped her nearly full tea cup to the floor.  He eyes went wide.  As she did, the room lit up with a bright light. 

 

Both heroes turned around to see Quantum Elemental descend through the ceiling above.  He looked straight into Cal’s eyes, his own burning with a radiant energy.  “You sense it too, don’t you?”

 

Cal nodded.  She shared a connection to others with Quan that few other heroes had.  They could both sense the life force of others.  For Quan, it appeared as a visible field around all living things.  Oftentimes, he could even sense its absence, a trait that had come in handy several times.  Cal, on the other hand, sensed it more through emotions.  She had a strong sense of empathy, allowing her to sense the emotional states of all living things.  Something was approaching and the hatred it emanated was palatable. 

 

Batman, who had turned to face them, looked at her and then Quan.  He was as ever swift on the uptake.  Turning to his monitors, he replied in his normal monotone voice, “the perimeter alarms have not detected anything.  No living thing could have approached the keep without setting them off.”

 

“What is approaching is no living thing.”  Cal rushed upstairs.  She was not going into battle underdressed.

 

 

Quantum Elemental wasted no time.  He shot straight through the walls as a ghost, and appeared outside the keep within moments.  He had not made it very far before an axe went straight through his body and embedded itself in a tree nearby.  The skeletal warrior that had thrown it stood nearby.  Three more were behind it.  The axe had done little more than gleam in Quan’s ethereal form as it went through him.

 

Holding up his hand, Quan flexed his fingers and the four undead simply fell apart, the energy that bound them having dissipated.  Looking around through the mist, he saw dozens more descending upon the keep.  Behind them were larger undead, some of which he could not identify.  Some of which reminded him of monstrosities he had seen in Hell itself.  Something powerful was at work here. 

 

Moving towards the nearest throng of them, he felt a searing pain.  A blast of dark energy hit him from behind and flowed straight through his body.  The pain was intense. Turning to face his foe, he narrowly avoided another blast.  Looking around, he could not see his enemy.  Whomever it was had found a way to conceal his life force… or didn’t have one.

 

Another blast came from the shadows of a nearby shed hit him in the chest hard.  He saw his foe.  Summoning his own energies, he tapped into the Quantum Field, leaned forward and fired back, vaporizing the tool shed on the edge of the garden and temporarily clearing the pea soup thick fog.

 

He backed up a step, surveying his deadly assault.  Surely nothing could have survived.  Out of the flames and smoke that now occupied the spot where the shed once stood, a solitary figure stepped forth.  He was wrapped in bandages from head to toe, bandages which were now in flames.  He had large, folded skeletal wings and an unearthly violet glow emanated from his hollow skull.  Raising his flaming arms, he summoned scores of shadow creatures to rise from the earth. 

 

As they rushed Quan, he wondered what kind of demon had such raw power…

 

 

Vexator and Wyldcard woke to the blaring of the keep’s alarms.  Both ran into the hallway outside their chambers and looked at each other.  Wyld was just in his underwear, while Vex ran out in pajamas.  Despite the loud alarm, Wyld gave him a smirk, seeing the Scooby Doo pajamas he was wearing. 

 

“What?”  Vex threw his hands out as if to say, ‘you wanna make something of it?’  Wyld let out a chuckle and shook his head.

 

As one, they started towards the command center down the mahogany lined corridor.  They wouldn’t get far.

 

As they approached the end of the corridor, the doorway leading to the central hallway of the keep burst open and undead began to pour into the wing.  They were followed closely by a massive monstrosity, an undead creature twice the size of any man.  Its appearance gave it more of a reptilian appearance and a cruel stone axe was gripped in one of its claws.  

Vex and Wyld took no time ripping into the throng, but for every one that they defeated, two more would take its place.  Vex felt a familiar rumbling in the floor and yelled at Wyld, “Batman is sealing the command center.  They must be all over the keep!”  A muffled explosion from downstairs

 

Wyld ripped the skull off of the nearest undead and threw it hard at the next one, shattering its ribcage and spine.  “Why do we seem to attract this kind of attention?  I’ll bet the rest of the GODS Knights don’t have undead invade their home on a lark…”

 

Vex was too busy to laugh.  What a way to wake up.

 

 

Cal reached her room and could hear that the fighting had already begun.  With half the team away on assignment, there were only five Akkadians in the building and they needed her.  She reached her door and a sharp pain assaulted her chest.  She reached out and grabbed the doorframe with her left arm to steady herself, her right clutching her chest. 

 

Quan was down.  She could feel it.

 

She looked up at her door, sensing a malignant presence in the room beyond.  Reaching out with trembling fingers, she gripped the handle and opened the doorway.  The room beyond was dark.  The window was open and a cool breeze blew the long drapes to the side, allowing intermittent moonlight to enter her room.

Standing in the center of the room was a sight she had hoped never to see again.  Her vision was materializing.

 

“Caledonia.”

 

The word was said through fleshless lips, from a being that should not exist. She had bound this evil for all eternity, neither living nor dying, using one of the Eldritch spells known only to the gods of old.  Even she had forgotten the incantations over the millennia.  She stepped back into the hallway, not comprehending what she saw before her.  “… you… I…”

 

The creature stepped forth, “yes… you did.  You cursed me.”  Behind him, lying on the floor unconscious was Doc.  Apparently she had heard the noises and came from the adjoining room to confront this creature.

 

Cal drew her power around her and stepped into the room.  The fear was leaving her.  “Whatever foul magic brought you back from your sleep ends tonight.”

 

“Maybe…” 

 

At the other end of the hallway, Wyld burst into the wing, two undead close behind him.  Dispatching them both with a burst from his plasma cannon, he looked towards Caledonia’s room.  “CAL!”  Cal turned to face him.

 

Curse looked at Wyld, “Oh no you don’t!”  He flexed his wings and a foul wind pushed at the open door, slamming it hard behind Caledonia. 

 

Wyld sensed the massive energy building in Cal’s room and rushed towards the closed door.  He fully intended on tearing the door from its hinges.  About halfway down the hallway, the room exploded in a brilliant blast of energy, splintering the door into a thousand pieces.  The concussion wave hit him hard and unexpectedly, blasting him backwards into the central hallway of the keep. 

 

A second later the East wing of the mansion exploded in flames and dark energy.

 

 

The Red Pharaoh looked down upon the keep from the hillside.  He saw a bright flash of light as Quantum Elemental and Curse clashed.  He watched as the army of undead flooded into the lower floor of the keep. 

 

Moments later, he witnessed a bright flash of dark energy erupt from the Eastern wing of the keep as the walls collapsed. 

 

He pulled a cell phone from his pocket and hit speed dial.  A deep voice on the other end answered “What news do you have?”

 

“The fool is doing exactly as expected.  I’m going in.”

 

“Make it quick and don’t let them see you.”  The man on the other end hung up. 

 

Red Pharaoh looked towards the Akkadian Knights’ hanger bay on the other side of the keep a mile and a half away.  The warning was unneeded.  He knew the penalty for failure as his ally Lord Altius had painfully learned some weeks before on his deathbed. 

 

Concentrating hard, a black shadow rose from the ground to encompass his body.  It covered his form fully and turned him as black as night.  His mass seemed to melt into the ground, into the shadows.  Moments later he reformed next to the hanger bay, extending upwards from the shadows around the structure.

 

As the shadow faded away from him, he stepped forth into the hanger bay.