The Beginning of the End (Universe in Flames Book 4) (27 page)

That was confirmed when a huge mound of soil started moving in the middle of the crater.

Miseo rose back up as the ground that covered him trickled down around him. His face had seen better days. Deep cuts under the left eye, on his right temple and right cheek, still gushed blood. He looked enraged, with most blood vessels in his eyes having popped, aggravating the already mad look he shot towards Chase.

Chase checked his enemy’s power levels and was pleased to see they had been cut in two, but he was still around forty percent, more than double what Chase still had left.

Miseo levitated into the sky and reached Chase’s altitude, although he was still a couple of miles away. He passed his hand over his face and looked at it. It was covered with his own blood. He healed himself and Chase felt a little dip in Miseo’s power level as he did so.

Perhaps it was something to be exploited.

A nearby engine hummed, but no ship was visible. But Chase felt his brother’s presence inside the craft and shot a warning fireball towards it. It briefly lit the shield and revealed its position a couple hundred yards east of him.

What do you want, Argos?
asked Chase telepathically.

I just want to be here for your demise, that’s all.

I am not going to fall today. Are you waiting your turn so once your competition in the Fury ranks is diminished you can cowardly finish me off and take all the credit?

Come on now, brother, I’m just curious, that’s all.

Stop calling me that. And stay out of this fight.

We shall see. Miseo promised me I could be the one to kill you.

Not if I have anything to say about that.

Chase flew down and landed inside the crater. Miseo did the same, landing only a few yards away. He crossed his arms over his chest.

His armor had been thoroughly damaged and half of his clothing had been torn to shreds.

“I must congratulate you on your last attack. I did not expect such a powerful display, but it did cost you a lot of energy. I can feel you’re running on fumes now.”

“It cost you a lot as well and you know it.”

“Perhaps, but not enough for me to lose this fight. You should have made sure to finish me off after sending me to the ground. Waiting for me to get back up was a terrible mistake.”

Had he made a strategic error? he wondered.

“I enjoyed fighting you today, Miseo, more than I thought I would.”

“You’re finally discovering what your Fury heritage is all about. We love to fight. It’s in our blood. We also love to kill. I’m sure you felt a surge of pleasure when you ripped out Arkoolis’ heart.”

Had he enjoyed killing Arkoolis? Chase didn’t really know at the moment. He felt it was necessary to avenge the billions that had died at his hands today, but did he feel personal pleasure in doing so? Chase decided that now was not the time to think about that.

“Perhaps. But I think using our powers on lesser beings is the trademark of cowards. Why don’t you fight between yourselves and leave the universe alone?”

Miseo laughed. “We have a score to settle as a race. You wouldn’t understand.”

“I understand better than you think.”

“Shall we continue?”

“Unless you’d like to leave this world now. Your fleet in orbit has been reduced to ashes. You and Argos are all that’s left, and perhaps it’s time to pack it up and call it a day?”

“Do you really believe I would let you live after killing Arkoolis? No, you must pay for this crime with your life, today.”

The next few minutes would see the end of this confrontation, one way or the other.

“Alright then, let’s finish this once and for all, Miseo.”

Chase smirked.

Argos landed the still-cloaked
Dark Star
atop the crated and exited the craft.

Miseo looked at him. “Do not intervene. That’s the one order you do
not
wish to disobey.”

His icy tone sent shivers down Argos’ spine.

“I won’t,” replied Argos. “But remember what we agreed upon.”

“We shall see,” said Miseo as he launched himself towards Chase with all his might.

*   *   *

Argos looked at the fight unfolding before his eyes. Both Laiyos and Miseo were incredible fighters. As much as it pained him to admit it, they were both vastly superior warriors to him now. That hurt his pride more than he was ready to accept.

He probed both fighters’ energy levels and saw the difference between them.

You’ve overextended yourself, Laiyos. You will run out of juice soon
.

But then Argos’ response to that thought was a mixed bag of positive and negative emotions.

He waited patiently for his chance to finally take his life, and take revenge for all the pain Laiyos had been responsible for. Both after and before Argos had removed all his memories, in fact. Some of these painful memories ran deep inside Argos’ psyche.

Laiyos had parried Miseo’s first combo and counterattacked with a combo of his own. They had very different fighting techniques. Miseo had a more raw and powerful approach to his blows, while Laiyos had more grace in his movements, even though some of them weren’t executed most efficiently.

Argos wondered if Laiyos was aware of that, or if he fought this way naturally. Perhaps it all came down to his training. Which brought back the memories of his own fight with Ares. Ares also used fully formed attacks and had that quality of delivering moves that were beautiful to look at, but not always efficient or fast enough.

Ares had trained Chase well. In fact, he had done with him in just a few days, more than Chase had learned in his entire life before Argos had been forced to wipe his memory.

Did I just call him Chase?

Argos was surprised by that, but he felt that it mattered not what he called his twin brother. As long as the fight was headed this way, he would lose for sure.

But then Chase broke one of Miseo’s combos and his counterattack was brutal. He pounded Miseo with more and more powerful blows and sent him to the ground.

Reminds you of some bad memories?
he heard Chase say in his mind.
I can sense your thoughts, Argos. Is that worry that I might lose this fight I sense at the moment?

Argos was stunned he could do that and fight at the same time.

I’m just enjoying the show, and you should concentrate on your fight instead of diverting your focus.

I’ll take that as a yes.

Chase kept grinding at Miseo and he sent him flying upwards in the sky, right before unleashing a series of icy-blue fireballs. Miseo was hit by a couple of them, but quickly recovered and deflected the next ones away.

Miseo then unleashed his own set of fireballs, but Chase deflected a few and blocked the last two and assimilated them. He received a small boost in energy doing so.

One of the deflected fireballs ran straight towards Argos and he blocked it with ease. He closed his fist around it and it was reduced to nothingness.

Argos saw what his brother was trying to do, but Miseo made sure to only send small-powered attacks towards him.

The end is near
. . .

*   *   *

Before returning to Droxia, Ares decided to make a little detour via Erevos.

The first thing he saw sent a shiver through his non-corporeal being. There orbited a ship that was as black as the night. It was spiky, and massive. Bigger even than the Zarlack behemoth destroyers, it looked like a shadow from hell, with long spikes arching forward, and soon the Alliance would have to face this new, formidable technological foe in their upcoming battles.

He was surprised not to find Aphroditis and the soul-sucking machine she was now a prisoner of. The destroyer that once was her newly forced home was still there, but she wasn’t onboard anymore. Ares expanded his consciousness to the entire planet and it didn’t take him long to detect the now faint remains of Aphroditis’ trapped consciousness and ever-drained life force.

Ares understood the strategic value of moving her to the surface of their world. It made sense. If someone was to find a way to remove her from the machine, it stood to reason that the Furies would be sent back to their dimensional prison, but then whoever had done so would be as well, and this time forever. Still, Ares wouldn’t put it past Chase to accept such a mission, even if it meant sacrificing his own life. But not enough was known about the device itself to make that assumption. Only the device’s inventor could say with exact precision what would happen in such a case. Ares made a mental note to try to learn more about the device.

The device was better guarded on a planet filled with extremely powerful Fury warriors, and Argos had surely told Supreme Commander Arakan what Chase had promised Aphroditis just before she willingly accepted her fate and fused with the machine. Perhaps Arakan even intended to use her to attract Chase to him if needed.

Ares teleported inside a very dark room with no windows. It was a cold and humid place, a hostile dungeon in which to spend every living moment of one’s life. But could Aphroditis still be considered alive at this point? Certainly her heart still beat, but was she anything but a shadow of her former self?

Ares could not sense that.

He appeared inside the windowless cell and illuminated it with his golden presence and warmth. He could have stayed invisible, of course. The room was probably being recorded and monitored, but no Fury could hurt him in his current form. Not that he knew of, anyway. And on some level he wanted them to know that he could not only visit her anytime he saw fit, but he also would know every time they move her around.

He scanned the room for a recording device and saw one on top of the closed and reinforced door. He waved at it, but then felt compelled to extend his golden middle finger at it. Such an impulse achieved nothing, and was very childish for a being that had lived for thousands upon thousands of years. But the damp and cold hole in which they had put his sister had that effect on him. It gave him the impulse to tell them to go fuck themselves.

Ares wished he could retake corporeal form and give Arakan a piece of his mind right this instant. But that would not be wise. If Argos had easily dispatched him, he could never dream of bringing the supreme commander down, at least not if he was the one on the other side of this fight.

Hopefully Chase one day
. . .

Ares realized he had got carried away, and that was not why he had come here. He approached his sister. The warm glow he was emanating casted a light golden hue on his half-sister’s face, but even so she looked more livid than the last time he had visited. He caressed her cheek affectionately and talked to her telepathically.

I don’t know if you can hear me. I haven’t been around much lately and I’m really sorry about that. Things have been kinda crazy. Chase has trained and he is now a formidable warrior. He killed general Arkoolis today, one of the Furies’ top generals. He is now fighting Miseo, and I guess I should go to see how he fares as soon as I leave here. He has come a long way. He is more focused, more aware of his own weaknesses, and I sense more hope and determination in his heart than ever before. Perhaps you were right. Perhaps all of this needed to happen. Still, I wish I could take your place. I wish I was in there while you were out here, still advising him.

Ares thought he saw one of her eyelid move just a tiny bit.

Aphroditis? Can you hear me?

But there was no answer.

Anyway, where was I? Oh yes. Unfortunately, today Droxia fell. Whether Chase manages to save the few million souls on it or not remains to be seen, but the main attack fleet has been destroyed and there is a good chance that his fight with Miseo will give him pause. I have no doubt Argos is behind it all once again. He knows how powerful a message it sent the rest of the universe when Droxia joined the Alliance, so I’m sure he decided that it should be the first to fall. Things are going awry all over the place. The Furies have colonized, destroyed or enslaved worlds rich in resources. All of that in order to destabilize the trust in the still growing Alliance, but mostly for Argos to secure the Furies the right amount of resources to build their new fleet of shadow vessels, like the one in orbit right now.

This time Ares was certain he saw a twitch on Aphroditis’ face.

Can you hear me? Try and twitch again if you can.

But nothing happened, and he sighed.

Ares shouldn’t raise his hopes about communicating with Aphroditis while she was inside the machine. In fact, she might never get out of it, which frustrated him more than he would care to admit to anyone.

But he understood why she did it. And why she put all her trust in Chase. One could debate all day long that if he hadn’t done this, the Alliance would have won the war against the Zarlacks, but who was to say if someone else, later on, wouldn’t have released them anyway?

No, deep inside his soul Ares knew that the one truly responsible for their current predicament was his father Zeus. He should have dealt with the Furies once and for all when he had the chance. Trapping them was always going to be a ticking bomb, and that bomb was already in the process of exploding and taking the universe with it.