TGC - Chapter 5

Miles away from civilization, a beeping sound was coming from a screen, and a red light, blinking. Usually, someone would tend to it, immediately, with no delay. But now, no one was simply there. The almost-abandoned Magma Complex was running out on its last real dose of power.

Of course, it was only almost-abandoned. There was a single energy shell, created from sheer electricity, occupied by a Glatorian who wanted nothing more than to collide his fist with the wall, if not for the fear that he might get shocked to death.

He grinded his teeth. If he could only... get out of here. Scenarios of what he'd do flooded his mind, the rather illegitimate fantasies of him bleeding Varonis dry of lifeblood in as many ways as possible, and dealing away in some manner with the other ones, too. If not this electricity, if it would go out just for a single second... he clenched his fists and barely withheld himself from striking the walls of his cell. As far as 'walls' fits as the term.

... No. He had to focus, had to think. He had to stay calm, not let anger take control. He couldn't think rationally if it did. He had to think... But he couldn't anyway, because it was simply a no-win situation. He had to admit it. Unless some miracle happened---

That was when the Great Beings (naturally not the ones that put him here, definitely not Osavus and Invidior that is) must've heard him. Suddenly, darkness fell. Ackar spent a few seconds understanding what was going on. For a while afterwards, he just sat in his energy cell, as its walls were the only source of light around.

Then an electronic-sounding voice resounded from the loudspeakers, "Turning on emergency power. Connect an alternate power source to the system to restore standard behavior."

And with that, quite unceremoniously, the direct opposite of what had recently happened, happened. The lights went on again, but the energy cell went off, the electricity dissipating into thin air.

Ackar stood up, but didn't move otherwise for a few seconds. And then carefully took a step forward.

It really happened. Why was the complex designed so tragically as to restore power in emergencies to the less important stuff, such as lights, he had no idea. "I don't suppose any staff got killed in prisoner riots," he muttered to himself, "there definitely aren't any openings for that here."

Most people, impractical, unscrupulous people, wouldn't give a damn about anything and just jut in zigzags all over the place, randomly looking for an exit in a just as unscrupulous fashion, screaming loudly, "DAMMIT DAMMIT DAMMIT WHERE IS THE FREAKING DOOR" but never stopping once to take a detailed look around. Ackar wouldn't. He patiently left his cellblock...

... and grabbed everything, damned straight everything off a desk just by him. Piles of papers he barely looked over, just enough to make sure they weren't helpful, and picked them up anyway, shoving them in a backpack he found abandoned in a room just by. He went throught the hallways in this manner, rampaging over desks, shelves, various other furniture, wherever he could find anything he thought remotely possible to use while getting out of here.

Finally, half an hour later, he found what he wanted. A map, detailing the whole of the Magma Complex.

He would've smiled if not for the instinct of urgency nagging at his mind as he sped, down endless lifts and stairways, in the direction of what the map named as the sand stalker stables.

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"Robur!" Avarus growled, as the cloaked Glatorian pinned him to the wall by holding a sword at his throat. The brute charged in, flanking the agent, punching him so painfully he launched him into the air with the sheer might of his fist. But he didn't have quite enough. He slammed his knuckles into the Glatorian agent once more, although this time, he tried to block it, and was relatively successful - he didn't suffer another direct blow.

However, now Silex took the time to appear.

Only a single bling of metal in the damp interior air.

It should've been enough to take out the agent, as he couldn't have possibly expected a dagger to be shoved up his back in this situation. However, he turned, parrying the blow. Sparks flew as Silex's dagger collided, and utterly shattered, as the agent pressed an energy blade towards him.

It didn't help. Robur planted another blow in the agent, sending him crashing into the wall.

As the Glatorian gradually shifted into a darkness he could discern on whether was death or unconsciousness, his energy sword was lifted up by Avarus.

"Nice thing, this," he said, quietly, "I think I'll keep it."

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"Sorry, all of you," the female agent said to her unlikely allies, "But you're in a whole heap of trouble now. I do hope you like trouble. You see that building? I do hope you recognize it, because I need your help getting in."

How couldn't have they. It was their own Great Being-forsaken factory! Just, well, at least quadruple the number of guards, and none of them were familiar. Well, maybe triple. ... Nah, it was quadruple.

Everyone in the group had different observations about the situation. Pomerax watched the building carefully and quietly from where they were, namely, a vantage point on a building in front of the factory. Raanu trotted back and forth in the territorial radius of a square metre nervously, throwing more and more nervous glances at the building. Rohkea watched the building, though not with as much concentration as Pomerax. And Galintin glared at the agent.

"I've had enough!" he roared, suddenly. "Before we proceed, I demand some answers! What is the meaning of all of this? I only relatively, half-so, know why we are entangled in this mess to begin with. Moreover, why should we trust you? Explain to me, how it happens, that the Elder himself asks of you to seize the blueprints for the prototype robot? Explain to me, how it happens, that it so happens that so many Great Beings happen to occur to be in this building right now?"

The sleeper agent held his gaze almost aggressively.

"You want to know, Glatorian? Are you sure you're worthy enough of the information? You're just a fly on my windowshield, and I could wipe you away if I didn't have a use for you."

"But, unfortunately for you, you actually do. I'm not taking a single step forward until you explain!"

Her gaze strengthened on him, threateningly. And then suddenly became calmer, weaker, less imposing.

"Galintin..!" Rohkea half-sighed, half-shrieked.

"Rohkea," he glared at her, with a brutal and sharp tone to his voice.

"Oh, will you all shut up," the agent muttered. "Fine."

Galintin raised an eyebrow.

"What?"

"Fine. You know, that thing you say when you concede to something?"

He crossed his arms. "You're going to tell us? Just like that?"

The agent smiled. Grimly. "Great Beings, no. Not just like that. I'll tell you as much as I can, and as quickly as possible. This has something to do with the Elder. That something has been going on for years, in a very bad way too, and now, sorry to say, we're all in trouble."

Galintin glared, anger flaring in his eyes. "Just one question. What?"

The agent's smile disappeared, and then Galintin realized he wouldn't ever properly get a straight answer now, because she started muttering, quietly, under her nose. "The Elder, he and his hordes of sleeper agents... and that son of a... Varonis... all this conflict, all this clashing with each other, and for what... this robot project..."

"Hordes of sleeper agents?" Galintin's anger flared again, in his voice even more prevalent.

"Just what you heard, civilian," she raised her eyes at him, her glare clashing with his.

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Pomerax didn't care about hordes of sleeper agents. He had a task. Breaking in. So while the others bickered over this revelation, which he thought rather unimpressive and incomplete, he observed the guards. Carefully.

The guards seemed... bored.

Bored... there was a lot to discover in such things, Pomerax knew. He concentrated on a single guard, stationed by the door, observing him as he patrolled. Back and forth, back and forth, boringly and annoyedly proceeding back and forth from one edge of the door to another.

And suddenly, he was joined by a colleague, and the two started chatting, only to be joined by a third one minutes later. Pomerax turned his gaze patiently to the spot the third guard came from. There, he saw, was some doorway.

A-ha!

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"You are nothing but a power-hungry senile fool!" roared Invidior, his whole self, both physically and mentally, trembling with anger and rage. The Elder's expression changed only slightly, became fiercer, angrier.

"All I've done I've done for the good of this world! Can you not appreciate it?"

"Appreciate it?!" Invidior screamed. "You discard all your supporters after abusing them and whisking from them what use you can! Me, first of all!"

"You shouldn't have thrown him out, Elder," Osavus said, with anger felt in his voice too, albeit calmer than Invidior's. "He's done nothing wrong to you. Quite the opposite."

"He wasn't qualified for this, Osavus---" the Elder began. That's where Invidior felt the immense urge to do something he did not wait a single milisecond in doing. The Elder felt Invidior's fist grasp his throat and slam him into the wall with all of his might.

"You son of a sandstalker! You little, worthless piece of scum! I - not qualified, you pathetic excuse at an Elder!? Your - power - source - was worthless! Just - like - you! That's why you stole my plans. I should end your life right here and now, you..."

Invidior kept silent for a few seconds.

"You know what, Protasious?" he emphasized the name as if pointing out his rejection of the Elder, "I might just do that."


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Ackar, who couldn't have possibly known at this point in time what was happening with the Great Beings, and with the rest of the team, who had currently put aside their distrust of the sleeper agent and, with Pomerax's discovery of a loophole in the defenses, snuck inside the building, yes, that same Ackar was currently using his way of getting into the building, a map he retrieved earlier in the Magma Complex, detailing tunnel networks throughout the city. He was not sure why one of these tunnels led to their building. But, well, it was helpful, wasn't it?

At the end of the tunnel, he found himself in a storage room, quite humorously located just behind a guard. Naturally, Ackar went the practical instead of scrupulous way. He didn't bother knocking the guard out and hiding the unconscious body. He just slashed the guard's head off, very, very unceremoniously.

He wasn't too sure what was the strange inarticulate voice that told him, in a faraway corner of his mind, that he should go there, but he went straight for the main control room.

Miles away from civilization, a beeping sound was coming from a screen, and a red light, blinking. Usually, someone would tend to it, immediately, with no delay. But now, no one was simply there. The almost-abandoned Magma Complex was running out on its last real dose of power.

Of course, it was only almost-abandoned. There was a single energy shell, created from sheer electricity, occupied by a Glatorian who wanted nothing more than to collide his fist with the wall, if not for the fear that he might get shocked to death.

He grinded his teeth. If he could only... get out of here. Scenarios of what he'd do flooded his mind, the rather illegitimate fantasies of him bleeding Varonis dry of lifeblood in as many ways as possible, and dealing away in some manner with the other ones, too. If not this electricity, if it would go out just for a single second... he clenched his fists and barely withheld himself from striking the walls of his cell. As far as 'walls' fits as the term.

... No. He had to focus, had to think. He had to stay calm, not let anger take control. He couldn't think rationally if it did. He had to think... But he couldn't anyway, because it was simply a no-win situation. He had to admit it. Unless some miracle happened---

That was when the Great Beings (naturally not the ones that put him here, definitely not Osavus and Invidior that is) must've heard him. Suddenly, darkness fell. Ackar spent a few seconds understanding what was going on. For a while afterwards, he just sat in his energy cell, as its walls were the only source of light around.

Then an electronic-sounding voice resounded from the loudspeakers, "Turning on emergency power. Connect an alternate power source to the system to restore standard behavior."

And with that, quite unceremoniously, the direct opposite of what had recently happened, happened. The lights went on again, but the energy cell went off, the electricity dissipating into thin air.

Ackar stood up, but didn't move otherwise for a few seconds. And then carefully took a step forward.

It really happened. Why was the complex designed so tragically as to restore power in emergencies to the less important stuff, such as lights, he had no idea. "I don't suppose any staff got killed in prisoner riots," he muttered to himself, "there definitely aren't any openings for that here."

Most people, impractical, unscrupulous people, wouldn't give a darn about anything and just jut in zigzags all over the place, randomly looking for an exit in a just-as-unscrupulous fashion, screaming loudly, "DANGIT, DANGIT, DANGIT, WHERE IS THE FREAKING DOOR!?" but never stopping once to take a detailed look around. Ackar wouldn't. He patiently left his cellblock...

... and grabbed everything, darn straight everything off a desk just by him. Piles of papers he barely looked over, just enough to make sure they weren't helpful, and picked them up anyway, shoving them in a backpack he found abandoned in a room just by. He went throught the hallways in this manner, rampaging over desks, shelves, various other furniture, wherever he could find anything he thought remotely possible to use while getting out of here.

Finally, half an hour later, he found what he wanted. A map, detailing the whole of the Magma Complex.

He would've smiled if not for the instinct of urgency nagging at his mind as he sped, down endless lifts and stairways, in the direction of what the map named as the sand stalker stables.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Robur!" Avarus growled, as the cloaked Glatorian pinned him to the wall by holding a sword at his throat. The brute charged in, flanking the agent, punching him so painfully he launched him into the air with the sheer might of his fist. But he didn't have quite enough. He slammed his knuckles into the Glatorian agent once more, although this time, he tried to block it, and was relatively successful - he didn't suffer another direct blow.

However, now Silex took the time to appear.

Only a single bling of metal in the damp interior air.

It should've been enough to take out the agent, as he couldn't have possibly expected a dagger to be shoved up his back in this situation. However, he turned, parrying the blow. Sparks flew as Silex's dagger collided, and utterly shattered, as the agent pressed an energy blade towards him.

It didn't help. Robur planted another blow in the agent, sending him crashing into the wall.

As the Glatorian gradually shifted into a darkness he could discern on whether was death or unconsciousness, his energy sword was lifted up by Avarus.

"Nice thing, this," he said, quietly, "I think I'll keep it."

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Sorry, all of you," the female agent said to her unlikely allies, "but you're in a whole heap of trouble now. I do hope you like trouble. You see that building? I do hope you recognize it, because I need your help getting in."

How could they not have? It was their own Great Being-forsaken factory! Just, well, at least quadruple the number of guards, and none of them were familiar. Well, maybe triple... Nah, it was quadruple.

Everyone in the group had different observations about the situation. Pomerax watched the building carefully and quietly from where they were, namely, a vantage point on a building in front of the factory. Raanu trotted back and forth in the territorial radius of a square metre nervously, throwing more and more nervous glances at the building. Rohkea watched the building, though not with as much concentration as Pomerax. And Galintin glared at the agent.

"I've had enough!" he roared, suddenly. "Before we proceed, I demand some answers! What is the meaning of all of this? I only relatively, half-so, know why we are entangled in this mess to begin with. Moreover, why should we trust you? Explain to me, how it happens, that the Elder himself asks of you to seize the blueprints for the prototype robot? Explain to me, how it happens, that it so happens that so many Great Beings happen to occur to be in this building right now?"

The agent held his gaze almost aggressively.

"You want to know, Glatorian? Are you sure you're worthy enough of the information? You're just a scarabax on my Thornatus, and I could wipe you away if I didn't have a use for you."

"But, unfortunately for you, you actually do. I'm not taking a single step forward until you explain!"

Her gaze strengthened on him, threateningly. And then suddenly became calmer, weaker, less imposing.

"Galintin...!" Rohkea half-sighed, half-shrieked.

"Rohkea," he glared at her, with a brutal and sharp tone to his voice.

"Oh, will you all shut up," the agent muttered. "Fine."

Galintin raised an eyebrow.

"What?"

"Fine. You know, that thing you say when you concede to something?"

He crossed his arms. "You're going to tell us? Just like that?"

The agent smiled. Grimly. "Great Beings, no. Not just like that. I'll tell you as much as I can, and as quickly as possible. This has something to do with the Elder. That something has been going on for years, in a very bad way too, and now, sorry to say, we're all in trouble."

Galintin glared, anger flaring in his eyes. "Just one question. What?"

The agent's smile disappeared, and then Galintin realized he wouldn't ever properly get a straight answer now, because she started muttering, quietly, under her nose. "The Elder, he and his hordes of sleeper agents... and that son of a... Varonis... all this conflict, all this clashing with each other, and for what... this robot project..."

"Hordes of sleeper agents?" Galintin's anger flared again, in his voice even more prevalent.

"Just what you heard, civilian," she raised her eyes at him, her glare clashing with his.

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Pomerax didn't care about hordes of sleeper agents. He had a task. Breaking in. So while the others bickered over this revelation, which he thought rather unimpressive and incomplete, he observed the guards. Carefully.

The guards seemed... bored.

Bored... there was a lot to discover in such things, Pomerax knew. He concentrated on a single guard, stationed by the door, observing him as he patrolled. Back and forth, back and forth, boringly and annoyedly proceeding back and forth from one edge of the door to another.

And suddenly, he was joined by a colleague, and the two started chatting, only to be joined by a third one minutes later. Pomerax turned his gaze patiently to the spot the third guard came from. There, he saw, was some doorway.

A-ha!

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"You are nothing but a power-hungry senile fool!" roared Invidior, his whole self, both physically and mentally, trembling with anger and rage. The Elder's expression changed only slightly, became fiercer, angrier.

"All I've done I've done for the good of this world! Can you not appreciate it?"

"Appreciate it?!" Invidior screamed. "You discard all your supporters after abusing them and whisking from them what use you can! Me, first of all!"

"You shouldn't have thrown him out, Elder," Osavus said, with anger felt in his voice too, albeit calmer than Invidior's. "He's done nothing wrong to you. Quite the opposite."

"He wasn't qualified for this, Osavus---" the Elder began. That's where Invidior felt the immense urge to do something he did not wait a single milisecond in doing. The Elder felt Invidior's fist grasp his throat and slam him into the wall with all of his might.

"You son of a sandstalker! You little, worthless piece of scum! I - not qualified, you pathetic excuse at an Elder!? Your - power - source - was worthless! Just - like - you! That's why you stole my plans. I should end your life right here and now, you..."

Invidior kept silent for a few seconds.

"You know what, Protasious?" he emphasized the name as if pointing out his rejection of the Elder, "I might just do that."


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Ackar, who couldn't have possibly known at this point in time what was happening with the Great Beings, and with the rest of the team, who had currently put aside their distrust of the sleeper agent and, with Pomerax's discovery of a loophole in the defenses, snuck inside the building, yes, that same Ackar was currently using his way of getting into the building, a map he retrieved earlier in the Magma Complex, detailing tunnel networks throughout the city. He was not sure why one of these tunnels led to their building. But, well, it was helpful, wasn't it?

At the end of the tunnel, he found himself in a storage room, quite humorously located just behind a guard. Naturally, Ackar went the practical instead of scrupulous way. He didn't bother knocking the guard out and hiding the unconscious body. He just slashed the guard's head off, very, very unceremoniously.

He wasn't too sure what was the strange inarticulate voice that told him, in a faraway corner of his mind, that he should go there, but he went straight for the doorway labeled Main Control Room.

Time could have stopped and he wouldn't have known.

Miles away from civilization, a beeping sound was coming from a screen, and a red light, blinking. Usually, someone would tend to it, immediately, with no delay. But now, no one was simply there and hadn't been for the past thousands of years. The almost-abandoned Magma Complex was running out on its last real dose of power.

Of course, it was only almost-abandoned. There was a single energy shell, created from sheer electricity, occupied by a Glatorian who wanted nothing more than to collide his fist with the wall, if not for the fear that he might get shocked to death.

If only I had known that little piece of scarabax was a traitor!

He grinded his teeth. If he could only... get out of here. Scenarios of what he'd do flooded his mind, the rather illegitimate fantasies of him bleeding Varonis dry of lifeblood in as many ways as possible, and dealing away in some manner with the other ones, too. If not this electricity, if it would go out just for a single second... he clenched his fists and barely withheld himself from striking the walls of his cell. As far as 'walls' fits as the term.

Maybe I can survive the shock, it shouldn't be that bad.

... No. He had to focus, had to think. He had to stay calm, not let anger take control, no, that would turn him into the exact same idiot Varonis was. He just couldn't think rationally if it did. He had to think... But he couldn't anyway, because it was simply a no-win situation. He had to admit it. Unless some miracle happened---

That was when the Great Beings (naturally not the ones that put him here, definitely not Osavus and Invidior that is) must've heard him. Suddenly, darkness fell. Ackar spent a few seconds understanding what was going on. For a while afterwards, he just sat in his energy cell, as its walls were the only source of light around.

Then an electronic-sounding voice resounded from the loudspeakers, "Turning on emergency power. Connect an alternate power source to the system to restore standard behavior."

And with that, quite unceremoniously, the direct opposite of what had recently happened, happened. The lights went on again, but the energy cell went off, the electricity dissipating into thin air.

Ackar stood up, but didn't move otherwise for a few seconds. And then carefully took a step forward.

It really happened. Why was the complex designed so tragically as to restore power in emergencies to the less important stuff, such as lights, he had no idea. "I don't suppose any staff got killed in prisoner riots," he muttered to himself, "there definitely aren't any openings for that here."

If most people, impractical, unscrupulous people, where in his place, they would jut in zigzags all over the place, randomly looking for an exit in a just-as-unscrupulous fashion, screaming loudly, "DANGIT, DANGIT, DANGIT, WHERE IS THE FREAKING DOOR!?" and never stopping once to take a detailed look around. Ackar wouldn't. He patiently left his cellblock...

... and grabbed everything, literally everything off a desk just by him. Piles of papers he barely looked over, just enough to make sure they weren't helpful, and picked them up anyway, shoving them in a backpack he found abandoned in a room just by. Blueprints, maps, letters, plans, anything that could have been useful to them.

Ackar could swore that if it had not been for all the papers, Invidior would have left him to die here on purpose. He went through the hallways in this manner, rampaging over desks, shelves, various other furniture, whatever he could find anything he thought remotely possible to use while getting out of here.

"No. No. Useless. Come on! There's nothing useful over here either!"

His anger was boiling, because for all he knew, his friends could be dying by Varonis' hand at this moment, or being lead into a trap he only knew about. He had to find a way out of this place, and he had to find a way to stop them. But how? He knew nothing of his whereabouts, or Invidior's and Osavus', that is.

Finally, half an hour later, he found what he wanted. A strange room, full of graphical presentations and... maps. Maps that were detailing the whole of the Magma Complex - but not just that. He found a map detailing the entire city of Magnacus Renata. This must have been what Invidior and Osavus have been using to enter and exit the city unnoticed. Ackar had not idea that the catacombs lacked that much security; it was highly disturbing to him. Nothing was a coincidence to him anymore.

He would've smiled if not for the instinct of urgency nagging at his mind as he sped, down endless lifts and stairways, in the direction of what the map named as the sand stalker stables. Fortunately, a sand stalker was tight to the stables - a most generous gift from Invidior and Osavus.


"Robur!" Avarus growled, as the cloaked Glatorian pinned him to the wall by holding a psionic-charged sword at his throat. The brute charged in, flanking the agent, punching him so painfully he launched him into the air with the sheer might of his fist. But he didn't have quite enough. He slammed his knuckles into the Glatorian agent once more, although this time, he tried to block it, and was relatively successful - he didn't suffer another direct blow.

Seconds ago, the agent had ambushed them, delivering a blow at Invidior, who had fallen to the ground unconscious. Osavus had quickly rushed in, helping him recover.

Ferveon charged at the agent, who took his time to deflect all of her hits. She was too overwhelmed to realize that delivering blunt hits wasn't going to bring him down - in fact, it gave him time to prepare another psionic wave blast, that send Ferveon flying through the room. She was slammed against a giant screen monitor.

"Great Beings! Nothing's workin'..." she screamed at Avarus.

"Oh, you think? Because I was sure we had this UNDER CONTROL!" Avarus could only think of one option now - Silex. He was all about the assassination, the perfect kill. Unless he wasn't interested in joining the battle, he was probably preparing his attack from the shadows.

Turns out Silex took the time to appear. He came out of the darkness, rushed up to the thief and-

Only a single bling of metal in the damp interior air.

It should've been enough to take out the agent, as he couldn't have possibly expected a dagger to be shoved up his back in this situation. However, he turned, parrying the blow. Sparks flew as Silex's dagger collided, and utterly shattered, as the agent pressed his energy blade towards him.

"You're just a bug on my windshield, and I could wipe you away if I so desired," remarked Silex. The agent didn't reply. He didn't need to.

"Ferveon, Silex, with me! Attack him!" Avarus had devised a plan.

The three Glatorian charged at the thief, who used a poweful psionic shield to block their attacks.

"It's of no use!" shouted Ferveon.

Avarus ordered Robur to attack him from behind. He planted another blow in the agent, sending him crashing into the wall. As the Glatorian gradually shifted into a darkness he could discern on whether was death or unconsciousness, his psionic sword fell into the ground.

Avarus picked it up gently, "Nice thing, this," he said, quietly, "I think I'll keep it."

The hecnhmen's eyes fell on the two Great Beings - Osavus and Invidior - who had been watching during the battle. Osavus was treating to Invidior's wounds, which luckily weren't nearly as deep as they could have been. Invidior kept trying to stand up.

"Ugh."

"Stop trying to get up, brother. It isn't helping," said Osavus.

"I'll do whatever I want. I can't have be hindered because of a single stab!" Osavus always admired Invidior's persistence; however, he feared that it was going to hurt him one day.


"Sorry, all of you," said Casiria to her unlikely allies, "but you're in a whole heap of trouble now. I do hope you like trouble. You see that building? I do hope you recognize it, because I need your help getting in."

How could they not have? It was their own Great Being-forsaken facility! Just, well, at least quadruple the number of guards, and none of them were familiar. Well, maybe triple... Nah, it was quadruple. And it was probably a living fortress with the lockdown activated.

Everyone in the group had different observations about the situation. Pomerax watched the building carefully and quietly from where they were, namely, a vantage point on a building in front of the factory. Raanu trotted back and forth in the territorial radius of a square metre nervously, throwing more and more nervous glances at the building. Rohkea watched the building, though not with as much concentration as Pomerax. And Galintin glared at the agent.

Ever since the day that started all this, they have been trying to stop those responsible for wanting to destroy the robot. The Elder literally put them in charge of figuring things out. Problem was, all of them knew that no one could be trusted. All ths time, and they were still walking in darkness. Rohkea's sealed mail, the thief's letter... it just didn't add up. How was Invidior and the others evolved? How was the Elder evolved?

"Oh no, Casiria, that's it. I've had enough of this," he roared, suddenly, "Before we proceed, you ARE going to tell what is really happened here, and you are going to tell us how the Elder fits here. I only relatively, half-so, know why we are entangled in this mess to begin with. Explain to me, how it happens, that the Elder himself maybe evolved into all of this? Bring me the answers. Now."

The agent held his gaze almost aggressively, but looked back at Galintin calmly. He was right. All of them had been walking in the dark for more than they needed to.

"You want to know, Galintin? Are you sure you're worthy enough of the information? It's more than just this little fiasco. This... is just the aftermath of a battle that took place years ago. And that battle, quite ironically, is nothing compared to the truth," sighed Casiria.

Rohkea stepped in in the situation, and took out the letter Casiria had given her some time ago, "This letter..." said Rohkea, "this letter.... what is it about? I have not being able to deliver it to Angonce, neither open it. Doesn't it... truly reveal the truth?" anyone could have noticed Rohkea had given this some thought. She just was too absorbed in all of this.

Casiria didn't reply. She took the letter, and tore it apart.

"Unfortunately for you, we are not done here. I need the answers, Casiria, and not a bloody letter," Galintin was more than determined to have his questions answered. He wouldn't walk away without them.

Her gaze strengthened on him, threateningly. And then suddenly became calmer, weaker, less imposing.

"Galintin...!" Rohkea half-sighed, half-shrieked.

"Rohkea," he glared at her, with a brutal and sharp tone to his voice.

"Oh, will you all shut up," Casiria muttered. "Fine."

Galintin raised an eyebrow.

"Hmph. I didn't expect you to let it out that easily," Casiria remained silent.

He crossed his arms. "So, are you going to tell us?"

The agent smiled. Grimly. "Great Beings, no. Not just like that. I'll tell you, but not everything, there simply not much time, and the Elder could realize I am telling you, and kill me."

"But he isn't around," stated Raanu.

"Yes, Raanu, but the Elder isn't simple Great Being. The Psionic agents you've been fighting, with the blue and dark red cloaks, the glowing symbols... they are all under his command. He has the power to master psionics, and has granted them - us that power. We are the reminants of the Order of the Hidden," Casiria almost had to force herself into muttering out the name. She despised it with all her soul.

"Hmm. Isn't that a legend about an order that safe guarded the Great Beings' rule on Spherus Magna sixty years ago?" said Pomerax, as he was known for his expanded historical knowledge.

"It's not legend. The Order... collapsed around that time, and was shrunken into a bunch of drunken useless merchanaries, the so called the henchmen you fought earlier. The rest... well, here's where things get complicated. Those that remained at the Elder's command - around 200 Glatorian agents - became sleeper agents, working in the shadows. It, is undoubtedly, why the Order became a legend, working under people's noses. I am one of the few exceptions that managed to escape his control. However, I am still forced to follow this path, for the worse or better."

"I don't get it," snapped Rohkea, "Agents, the Elder, an order?"

"The sleeper agents are controlled by Elder, Rohkea. The Order was controlled by him as well. We don't serve the Great Beings. We serve a power mad great Being that has been trying to seize power for 500 years. What you need to know is that the Elder has eyes everywhere - we could be spied on right now," unlikely, she thought, since the Elder was preoccupied.

"I... see. And this.. you said... it's nothing?" Galintin had begun to realize's Casiria's fears.

"The Order of the Hidden's rise and fall is what a scarabax is against a Great Being; nothing. It was one of the plans the Elder devised to maintain his rule. Just as this one is." muttered Casiria.

"This changes things. This is too big. We need a way to enter the facility and find out what the Elder's up to, and we need to stop Ivndior and Osavus," said Pomerax.

"We already know that, voroxhead... we just can't bypass the facility's system that easily, because it's in lockdown," Raanu turned to Pomerax.

Galintin glared, anger flaring in his eyes, "I was getting there," Rohkea and Casiria remained silent, and so did everyone else.

In contrast, Pomerax didn't care about hordes of sleeper agents. He had a task. Breaking in. So while the others bickered over this revelation, which he thought rather unimpressive and incomplete, he observed the guards. Carefully.

The guards seemed... bored.

Bored... there was a lot to discover in such things, Pomerax knew. He concentrated on a single guard, stationed by the door, observing him as he patrolled. Back and forth, back and forth, boringly and annoyedly proceeding back and forth from one edge of the door to another.

And suddenly, he was joined by a colleague, and the two started chatting, only to be joined by a third one minutes later. Pomerax turned his gaze patiently to the spot the third guard came from. There, he saw, was some doorway.

A-ha!



"Oh, please! You are nothing but a power-hungry senile fool!" roared Invidior, his whole self, both physically and mentally, trembling with anger and rage. The Elder's expression changed only slightly, became fiercer, angrier.

"All I've done has been for the well being of others, yours and this world! Can you not appreciate it?"

"Appreciate it?!" Invidior screamed. "You have used my project for your own purposes! You discard all your supporters after abusing them and whisking from them what use you can! Me, first of all!"

"You shouldn't have thrown him out, Elder," Osavus said, with anger felt in his voice too, albeit calmer than Invidior's. "He's done nothing wrong to you. Quite the opposite."

"He wasn't qualified for this, Osavus-" the Elder began. That's where Invidior felt the immense urge to do something he did not wait a single milisecond in doing. The Elder felt Invidior's fist grasp his throat and slam him into the wall with all of his might.

"That's it, Protasious!" the Elder had not heard his named in quite a long time. It had been too long since he was accustomed to be called by his real name.

"You and I both know the truth here. We know you have been using my project to draw fear into the people, abuse the Great Beings only to keep control. MY. PROJECT! MINE! Just like the Order of the Hidden's failure, which I know now it's all true," Invidior's mind snapped, literally. He had not felt such anger before in his life.

"Quite the Investigator, I see! Haha!"

"You son of a sandstalker! You little, worthless piece of scum! DO you not realize that I know about your true crime?! Not the Order of the Hidden, not even your second greatest attempt at power, the robot, which is - to say the least - perfectly designed as it was! But, no, you say I am not qualified, you pathetic excuse at an Elder!? Your - power - source - was worthless! Just - like - you! You attempted to save yourself by stealing my plans, but that didn't go well, did it? Eh?! ANSWER - ME!"

"How can you possibly- Oh, I see now. I see. It all makes sense in the end."

"IT DOESN'T!" Invidior kept silent for a few seconds, after screaming. Osavus was too shocked to say anything.

"You know what, Protasious?" he emphasized the name as if pointing out his rejection of the Elder, "I might just kill you where you stand."


It was perfect.

Rohkea knew throwing the rock at the right spot was critical - their lives were depending on it. She just couldn't fail now. The complex was a large rectangular building attached to the Tower of the Great Beings. Parts of it were connected to the Tower, but only through gateways - the Tower's structure was imperturbable. Unlike the tower however, which was teleport proof to everyone except Great Beings, the facility was teleport proof to any living creature - it was impossible to enter it using teleportation powers.

The rock fell in the middle of a quiet street. The night sky's stars were lighting up atmosphere, as a bunch of guards were discussing away from the doorways. It was so quiet, the rock was like large slamming into the ground. Clueless, around six guards gather around the origin of the sound, leaving three gateways unguarded.

"Go! Go! Go!"

Casiria rushed in, her dark red robes blending with the envriroment. She passed by the guards, and signaled Pomerax and Raanu. They were hiding inside the bushes, just meters away from the three entrances to the complex.

"Just give me a minute," whispered Casiria and consitrated her psionic energy on the control panel attached to the large door.

Galintin was ready. Suddenly, out of the blue, five Sand Stalkers went on a rampage all over the streets. The metal doors of the facility's stables had somehow opened. The guards started running after them, trying to catch, completely ignoring the team trying to break in.

"Where did you learn to do that?" asked Rohkea, "I got to admit I wasn't expecting that."

"It's a trick an old friend of mine showed me. Hope you get to met him one day. Good man, he is," Galintin knew this wasn't time to worry about the past. Too much at stake to worry about old friends.

"I cannot... open it. It's of no use, I am not an expert on programming," said Casiria. Her psionic powers allowed her to mess with the main system, but it was simply impossible to do anything - she wasn't a genius.

"I've got an idea," muttered Pomerax. What if you let me do it? Can you act as a relay between me and the machine?

"I haven't tried before. I am not sure, Pomerax, but it sounds interesting."

"There's nothing to be lost from trying. Try to project your thoughts into me, and then mine into the main system," as much as impossible it sounds, it worked. Pomerax could see through the system, and poke things around, such as turning the alarm system off, and opening the door.

"Got it!" unwillingly, Pomerax shouted in excitement as the door opened. Rohkea and Galintin came close to the door, and entered in. Realizing they had been fooled, the guards chased them. Fortunately, Casiria was quick enough to pull the switch and shut the door.

Galintin, Casiria, Rohkea, Pomerax and Raanu had entered the complex.

"Follow me," said Pomerax, "I took a moment to study the pipes that run through the facility; we will be in the main control room in no time."



Ackar, who couldn't have possibly known at this point in time what was happening with the Great Beings, and with the rest of the team, who had currently put aside their distrust of Casira and, with Pomerax's discovery of a loophole in the defenses, snuck inside their own building. He on the other hand, used one of the maps he retrieved earlier in the Magma Complex, detailing tunnel networks throughout the city.

He didn't even have to think where to go - his instinct was leading him to the main construction facility, where the security team he was in charge of had settled their headquarters. At the end of the tunnel, he found himself in a storage room, quite humorously located just behind a guard. Naturally, Ackar went the practical instead of scrupulous way. He didn't bother knocking the guard out and hiding the unconscious body. He just slashed the guard's head off, very, very unceremoniously.

Anger couldn't satisfy the rage he was feeling inside him. Something had changed in him the last few days, and that something, that strange inarticulate voice, told him in a faraway corner of his mind, that he should go straight for the doorway labeled Main Control Room.

The Grand Creation
Chapter Five


Time could have stopped and he wouldn't have known.

Miles away from civilization, a beeping sound was coming from a panel. A red light on the screen blinked slowly, indicating that something was wrong. Ordinarily, somebody would've come immediately to take care of it, but now no one was there; in fact, nobody had been for the past thousands of years. The abandoned Magma Complex was running out of power at last.

Well, almost abandoned. There was a single energy shell, created from sheer electricity, occupied by a very angry Glatorian who wanted nothing more than to slam his fist into the wall, if not for the fear that he might get shocked to death.

If only I had known that little scarabax was a traitor!

He ground his teeth. If he could only... get out of here. Scenarios of what he'd do flooded his mind, the rather illegitimate fantasies of him bleeding Varonis dry of lifeblood in as many ways as possible, and dealing in some manner with the other ones, too. If not for this electricity, if it would go out just for a single second... He clenched his fists and barely withheld himself from striking the walls of his cell (that is, if they could be called walls).

Maybe I can survive the shock, it shouldn't be that bad.

... no. He had to focus, had to think. He had to stay calm, not let anger take control, no, that would turn him into the same idiot that Varonis was. He just couldn't think rationally if it did. He had to think... But he couldn't anyway, because it was simply a no-win situation. He had to admit it. Unless by some miracle---

That was when the Great Beings (naturally not the ones that put him here, definitely not Osavus and Invidior, that is) must've heard him. Suddenly, darkness fell. Ackar spent a few seconds understanding what was going on. For a while afterwards, he just sat in his energy cell, as its walls were the only source of light around.

Then an electronic voice resounded from the loudspeakers, "Activating emergency power. Connect an alternate power source to the system to restore standard behavior."

And with that, quite unceremoniously, the direct opposite of what had recently happened, happened. The lights went on again, but the energy cell went off, the electricity dissipating into thin air, leaving only a faint scent of ozone behind.

Ackar stood up, but didn't move otherwise for a few seconds. And then carefully took a step forward.

It really happened. Why was the complex designed so tragically as to restore power in emergencies to the less important stuff, such as lights, he had no idea. "I don't suppose any staff got killed in prisoner riots," he muttered to himself, "there definitely aren't any openings for that here."

If most people, impractical, unscrupulous people, were in his place, they would jut in zigzags all over the place, randomly looking for an exit in a just-as-unscrupulous fashion, screaming loudly, "DANGIT, DANGIT, DANGIT, WHERE IS THE FREAKING DOOR!?" and never stopping once to take a detailed look around. Ackar wouldn't. He patiently left his cellblock...

... and grabbed quite literally everything off a desk near him. Piles of papers he barely looked over, just enough to make sure they weren't helpful, and picked them up anyway, shoving them in a backpack he found abandoned in a room just by. Blueprints, maps, letters, plans, anything that could have been useful to him.

Ackar could swore that if it had not been for all the papers, Invidior would have left him to die here on purpose. He moved through the hallways in this manner, rampaging over desks, shelves, various other furniture, anything he thought remotely possible to use while getting out of here.

"No. No. Useless. Come on! There's nothing useful over here either!"

His temper was about to boil over, because for all he knew, his friends could be dying by Varonis' hand at this moment, or being lead into a trap that only he knew about. He had to find a way out of this place, and he had to find a way to stop them. But how? He knew nothing of his whereabouts, let alone Invidior's and Osavus'.

Finally, half an hour later, he found what he wanted. A strange room, full of graphical presentations and... maps. Maps that detailed the whole of the Magma Complex - but not just that. He found a map detailing the entire city of Magnacus Renata. This must have been what Invidior and Osavus have been using to enter and exit the city unnoticed. Ackar had no idea that the catacombs lacked that much security; it was highly disturbing to him. Nothing was a coincidence to him anymore.

He would've smiled if not for the instinct of urgency nagging at his mind as he sped down endless lifts and stairways, in the direction of what the map labled the sand stalker stables. Fortunately, a sand stalker was tied up at the stables - a most generous gift from Invidior and Osavus.

***


"Robur!" Avarus growled, as the cloaked Glatorian pinned him to the wall by holding a psionics-charged sword at his throat. The brute charged in, flanking the agent, punching him with such force that he launched him into the air with the sheer might of his fist. But he didn't have quite enough. He slammed his knuckles into the Glatorian agent once more, although this time, his enemy tried to block it, and was relatively successful - he didn't suffer another direct blow.

Mere seconds ago, the agent had ambushed them, delivering a blow at Invidior, who had fallen to the ground unconscious. Osavus had quickly rushed in, helping him recover.

Ferveon charged at the agent, who took his time to deflect each blow she threw. She was too overwhelmed to realize that delivering blunt hits wasn't going to bring him down - in fact, it gave him time to prepare another psionic blast that sent Ferveon flying through the room. She was slammed against a giant monitor, the delicate screen shattering from the impact.

"Nothing's workin'..." she screamed at Avarus.

"Oh, you think? Because I was sure we had this UNDER CONTROL!" Avarus could only think of one option now - Silex. He was all about assassination, the perfect kill. Unless he wasn't interested in joining the battle, he was probably preparing his attack from the shadows.

Turns out Silex chose that moment to appear. He slipped out of the darkness, rushed up to the thief and-

Only a single blade of metal flew in the damp interior air.

It should've been enough to take out the agent, as they couldn't have possibly expected a dagger to be shoved up his back in this situation. However, he turned, parrying the blow. Sparks flew as Silex's dagger collided, and then shattered, as the agent pressed his energy blade towards him.

Silex's attack didn't help at all.

"Ferveon, Silex, with me! Attack him!" Avarus had used Silex's attack as a distraction, giving him enough time to devise a plan.

The three Glatorian charged at the thief, who used a powerful psionic shield to block their attacks.

"It's of no use!" shouted Ferveon.

Avarus ordered Robur to attack him from behind. He planted another blow on the agent, sending him crashing into the wall. As the Glatorian gradually shifted into a state of darkness that he couldn't discern whether it was death or unconsciousness, his psionic sword fell into the ground.

Avarus picked it up gently, "Nice thing, this," he said quietly, "I think I'll keep it."

The hecnhmens' eyes fell on the two Great Beings - Osavus and Invidior - who had been watching during the battle. Osavus was tending to Invidior's wounds, which luckily weren't nearly as deep as they could have been. Invidior kept trying to stand up.

"Ugh."

"Stop trying to get up, brother. It isn't helping," said Osavus.

"I'll do whatever I want. I can't be hindered because of a single wound!" Osavus always admired Invidior's persistence; however, he feared that it would be his downfall some day.

***


"Sorry, all of you," said Casiria to her unlikely allies, "but you're in a whole heap of trouble now. I do hope you like trouble. You see that building? I hope that you recognize it, because I need your help getting in."

How could they not have? It was their own Great Being-forsaken facility! Just with at least quadruple the number of guards, and none of them were familiar. Well, maybe triple... Nah, it was quadruple. And it was probably a living fortress with the lockdown activated.

Everyone in the group had different observations about the situation. Pomerax watched the building carefully and quietly from where they were, a vantage point on a building in front of the factory. Raanu trotted back and forth in the territorial radius of a square metre nervously, throwing more and more nervous glances at the building. Rohkea watched the building, though not with as much concentration as Pomerax. And Galintin glared at the agent.

Ever since the day that started all this, they had been trying to stop those responsible for wanting to destroy the robot. The Elder literally put them in charge of figuring things out. Problem was, all of them knew that no one could be trusted. All this time, and they were still walking in darkness. Rohkea's sealed mail, the thief's letter... it just didn't add up. How were Invidior and the others involved? How was the Elder involved?

"Oh no, Casiria, that's it. I've had enough of this," he roared, suddenly, "Before we proceed, you ARE going to tell what is really happened here, and you are going to tell us how the Elder fits here. I only relatively, half-so, know why we are entangled in this mess to begin with. Explain to me how it happens that the Elder himself maybe evolved into all of this? Bring me the answers. Now."

The agent held his gaze almost aggressively, but looked back at Galintin calmly. He was right. All of them had been walking in the dark for far longer than they needed to.

"You want to know, Galintin? Are you sure you're worthy of the information? It's more than just this little fiasco. This... is just the aftermath of a battle that took place years ago. And that battle, quite ironically, is nothing compared to the truth," sighed Casiria.

Rohkea stepped forward, and took out the letter Casiria had given her some time ago, "This letter..." said Rohkea, "this letter.... what is it about? I haven't been able to deliver it to Angonce, nor open it. Doesn't it... reveal the truth?" Anyone could have noticed that Rohkea had given this some thought. She just was too absorbed in all of this.

Casiria didn't reply. Instead, she took the letter and tore it apart.

"Unfortunately for you, we're not done here. I need the answers, Casiria, and not a bloody letter," Galintin was more than determined to have his questions answered. He wouldn't walk away without them.

Her gaze strengthened on him, threateningly. And then suddenly became calmer, weaker, less imposing.

"Galintin...!" Rohkea half-sighed, half-shrieked.

"Rohkea," he glared at her, with a brutal and sharp tone in his voice.

"Oh, will you all shut up," Casiria muttered. "Fine."

Galintin raised an eyebrow.

"Hmph. I didn't expect you to let it out that easily," Casiria remained silent.

He crossed his arms. "So, are you going to tell us?"

The agent smiled. Grimly. "Great Beings, no. Not just like that. I'll tell you, but not everything, there's simply not much time, and besides, the Elder could realize that I'm telling you, and kill me."

"But he isn't around," stated Raanu.

"Yes, Raanu, but the Elder isn't simply a Great Being. The Psionic agents you've been fighting, with the blue and dark red cloaks, the glowing symbols... they are all under his command. He has the power to master psionics, and has granted them - us - that power. We are the remnants of the Order of the Hidden," Casiria almost had to force herself into muttering the name. She despised it with all her soul.

"Hmm. Isn't that a legend about an order that safeguarded the Great Beings' rule on Spherus Magna sixty years ago?" said Pomerax, as he was known for his expanded historical knowledge.

"It's not a legend. The Order... collapsed around that time, and was shrunken into a bunch of drunken useless merchanaries, the so-called the henchmen you fought earlier. The rest... well, here's where things get complicated. Those that remained at the Elder's command - around 200 Glatorian agents - became sleeper agents, working in the shadows. It's undoubtedly, why the Order became a legend, working under people's noses. I am one of the few exceptions that managed to escape his control. However, I am still forced to follow this path, for better or for worse."

"I don't get it," snapped Rohkea, "Agents, the Elder, an order?"

"The sleeper agents are controlled by Elder, Rohkea. The entire Order was controlled by him as well. We don't serve the Great Beings. We serve one power-mad great Being that has been trying to take control for 500 years. What you need to know is that the Elder has eyes everywhere - in fact, we're probably being watched right now," Unlikely, she thought, since the Elder's preoccupied.

"I... see. And this.. you said... it's nothing?" Galintin had begun to realize Casiria's fears.

"The Order of the Hidden's rise and fall is what a scarabax is against a Great Being: nothing. It was one of the plans the Elder devised to maintain his rule. Just as this one is." muttered Casiria.

"This changes things. This is too big. We need a way to enter the facility and find out what the Elder's up to, and we need to stop Ivndior and Osavus," said Pomerax.

"We already know that, Voroxhead... we just can't bypass the facility's system that easily because it's in lockdown," Raanu turned to Pomerax.

Galintin glared, anger flaring in his eyes, "I was getting there," Rohkea and Casiria remained silent, as did everyone else.

In contrast, Pomerax didn't care about hordes of sleeper agents. He had a task: breaking in. So while the others bickered over this revelation, which he thought rather unimpressive and incomplete, he observed the guards. Carefully.

They seemed... bored.

Bored... there was a lot to discover in such things, Pomerax knew. He concentrated on a single guard, stationed by the door, observing him as he patrolled. Back and forth, back and forth, boringly and annoyedly proceeding back and forth from one edge of the door to another.

And suddenly, he was joined by a colleague, and the two started chatting, only to be joined by a third one minutes later. Pomerax turned his gaze patiently to the spot the third guard came from. There, he saw, was a doorway.

A-ha!

***


"Oh, please! You are nothing but a power-hungry senile fool!" roared Invidior, his whole self, both physically and mentally, trembling with anger and rage. The Elder's expression changed only slightly, became fiercer, angrier.

"All I've done has been for the well-being of others, yours and this world! Can you not appreciate it?"

"Appreciate it?!" Invidior screamed. "You have used my project for your own purposes! You discard all your supporters after abusing them and taking from them what use you can! Me, first of all!"

"You shouldn't have thrown him out, Elder," Osavus said, with anger expressed in his voice too, albeit calmer than Invidior's. "He's done nothing wrong to you. Quite the opposite, in fact."

"He wasn't qualified for this, Osavus-" the Elder began. That's where Invidior felt the immense urge to do something he did not wait a single milisecond in doing. The Elder felt Invidior's fist grasp his throat and slam him into the wall with all of his might.

"That's it, Protasious!" the Elder had not heard his named in quite a long time. It had been too long since he had heard his real name.

"You and I both know the truth here. We know you have been using my project to draw fear into the people, abuse the Great Beings just to keep control. MY. PROJECT! MINE! Just like the Order of the Hidden's failure, which I know now is entirely true," Invidior's mind snapped, literally. He had not felt such anger before in his life.

"Quite the Investigator, I see! Haha!"

"You son of a sand stalker! You little, worthless piece of scum! Do you not realize that I know about your true crime?! Not the Order of the Hidden, not even your second greatest attempt at power, the robot, which is - to say the least - perfectly designed as it was! But no, you say I'm not qualified, you pathetic excuse for an Elder!? Your - power - source - was - worthless! Just - like - you! You attempted to save yourself by stealing my plans, but that didn't go well, did it? Eh?! ANSWER - ME!"

"How can you possibly- Oh, I see now. I see. It all makes sense in the end."

"IT DOESN'T!" Invidior kept silent for a few seconds, after screaming. Osavus was too shocked to say anything.

"You know what, Protasious?" he emphasized the name as if pointing out his rejection of the Elder, "I might just kill you where you stand."

***


It was perfect.

Rohkea knew throwing the rock at the right spot was critical - their lives depended on it. She just couldn't fail now. The complex was a large rectangular building attached to the Tower of the Great Beings. Parts of it were connected to the Tower, but only through gateways - the Tower's structure was imperturbable. Unlike the Tower, however, which was teleport-proof to everyone except Great Beings, the facility was teleport-proof to any living creature - it was impossible to enter it using any type of teleportation powers.

The rock fell in the middle of a quiet street. The night sky's stars were lighting up the atmosphere as a bunch of guards were taking their discussions away from the doorways. It was so quiet that the rock sounded like something much larger slamming into the ground. Clueless, six guards ran towards the origin of the sound, leaving three gateways unguarded.

"Go! Go! Go!"

Casiria rushed in, her dark red robes blending with the environment. She passed by the guards, and signaled Pomerax and Raanu. They were hiding inside the bushes, just meters away from the three entrances to the complex.

"Just give me a minute," whispered Casiria and concentrated her psionic energy on the control panel attached to the large door.

Galintin was ready. Suddenly, five sand stalkers went on a rampage all over the streets. The metal doors of the facility's stables had somehow opened. The guards started running after them, trying to catch, completely ignoring the team trying to break in.

"Where did you learn to do that?" asked Rohkea, "I got to admit I wasn't expecting that."

"It's a trick an old friend of mine showed me. Hope you get to met him one day. Good man, he is," Galintin knew this wasn't time to worry about the past. Too much at stake to worry about old friends.

"I can't... open it. It's of no use, I am not an expert on programming," said Casiria. Her psionic powers allowed her to alter the main system in certain ways, but it was simply impossible to do anything advanced without the proper knowledge.

"I've got an idea," muttered Pomerax. What if you let me do it? Can you act as a relay between me and the machine?"

"I haven't tried before. I am not sure, Pomerax, but it sounds interesting."

"There's nothing to be lost from trying. Try to project your thoughts into me, and then mine into the main system," And as impossible it sounded, it worked. Pomerax could see into the system and poke things around, such as turning the alarm system off as well as opening the door.

"Got it!" Pomerax shouted in excitement as the door opened. Rohkea and Galintin came close to the door, and entered the building. Realizing they had been fooled, the guards chased after them. Fortunately, Casiria was quick enough to pull the switch and shut the door.

Galintin, Casiria, Rohkea, Pomerax and Raanu had entered the complex.

"Follow me," said Pomerax, "I took a moment to study the pipes that run through the facility; we'll be in the main control room in no time."

***


Ackar, who couldn't have possibly known at this point in time what was happening with the Great Beings, and with the rest of the team, who had currently put aside their distrust of Casira and, with Pomerax's discovery of a loophole in the defenses, snuck inside their own building. He, on the other hand, used one of the maps he retrieved earlier in the Magma Complex, which detailed tunnel networks throughout the city.

He didn't even have to think about where to go - his instinct was leading him to the main construction facility, where the security team he was in charge of had placed their headquarters. At the end of the tunnel, he found himself in a storage room, quite ironically located just behind a guard. Naturally, Ackar went the practical instead of scrupulous way. He didn't bother knocking the guard out and hiding the unconscious body. He just slashed the guard's head off very, very unceremoniously.

Rage welled up within him like blood from a wound. Something had changed in him the last few days, and that something, that strange inarticulate voice, told him in a faraway corner of his mind, that he should go straight for the doorway labeled Main Control Room.

Time could have stopped and he wouldn't have known.

Miles away from civilization, a beeping sound was coming from a panel. A red light on the screen blinked slowly, indicating that something was wrong. Ordinarily, somebody would've come immediately to take care of it, but now no one was there; in fact, nobody had been for the past thousands of years. The abandoned Magma Complex was running on its last real dose of power.

Well, almost abandoned. There was a single energy shell, created from sheer electricity, occupied by a very angry Glatorian who wanted nothing more than to slam his fist into the wall, if not for the fear that he might get shocked to death.

He was the traitor! How couldn't I have known?"

He ground his teeth. If he could only... get out of here. Scenarios of what he'd do flooded his mind, the rather illegitimate fantasies of him bleeding Varonis dry of lifeblood in as many ways as possible, and dealing in some manner with the other ones, too. If not for this electricity, if it would go out just for a single second... He clenched his fists and barely withheld himself from striking the walls of his cell (that is, if they could be called walls).

Maybe I can survive the shock, it shouldn't be that bad.

... No. He had to focus, had to think. He had to stay calm, not let anger take control, no, that would turn him into the same idiot that Varonis was. He just couldn't think rationally if it did. He had to think... But he couldn't anyway, because it was simply a no-win situation. He had to admit it. Unless by some miracle---

That was when the Great Beings (naturally not the ones that put him here, definitely not Osavus and Invidior, that is), must've heard him. Suddenly, darkness fell. Ackar spent a few seconds understanding what was going on. For a while afterwards, he just sat in his energy cell, as its walls were the only source of light around.

Then an electronic voice resounded from the loudspeakers, "Activating emergency power. Connect an alternate power source to the system to restore standard behavior."

And with that, quite unceremoniously, the direct opposite of what had recently happened, happened. The lights went on again, but the energy cell went off, the electricity dissipating into thin air, leaving only a faint scent of ozone behind.

Ackar stood up, but didn't move otherwise for a few seconds. And then carefully took a step forward.

It really happened. Why was the complex designed so tragically as to restore power in emergencies to the less important stuff, such as lights, he had no idea. "I don't suppose any staff got killed in prisoner riots," he muttered to himself, "there definitely aren't any openings for that here."

If most people, impractical, unscrupulous people, were in his place, they would jut in zigzags all over the place, randomly looking for an exit in a just-as-unscrupulous fashion, screaming loudly, "DANGIT, DANGIT, DANGIT, WHERE IS THE FREAKING DOOR!?" and never stopping once to take a detailed look around. Ackar wouldn't. He patiently left his cellblock...

... and grabbed quite literally everything off a desk near him. Piles of papers he barely looked over, just enough to make sure they weren't helpful, and picked them up anyway, shoving them in a backpack he found abandoned in a room just by. Blueprints, maps, letters, plans, anything that could have been useful to him.

Ackar could swore that if it had not been for all the papers, Invidior would have left him to die here on purpose. He moved through the hallways in this manner, rampaging over desks, shelves, various other furniture, anything he thought remotely possible to use while getting out of here.

"No. No. Useless. Come on! There's nothing useful over here either!"

His temper was about to boil over, because for all he knew, his friends could be dying by Varonis' hand at this moment, or being lead into a trap that only he knew about. He had to find a way out of this place, and he had to find a way to stop them. But how? He knew nothing of his whereabouts, let alone Invidior's and Osavus'.

He wasn't quite sure either how Varonis became evolved on all of this. He recalls the Elder placing him as a member of the team. Actually, the explained a lot more than he thought.

"I only I had known!"

Finally, half an hour later, he found what he wanted. A strange room, full of graphical presentations and... maps. Maps that detailed the whole of the Magma Complex - but not just that. He found a map detailing the entire city of Magnacus Renata. This must have been what Invidior and Osavus have been using to enter and exit the city unnoticed. Ackar had no idea that the catacombs lacked that much security; it was highly disturbing to him. Nothing was a coincidence to him anymore.

He would've smiled if not for the instinct of urgency nagging at his mind as he sped down endless lifts and stairways, in the direction of what the map labled the sand stalker stables. Fortunately, a sand stalker was tied up at the stables - a most generous gift from Invidior and Osavus.


"Robur!" Avarus growled, as the cloaked Glatorian pinned him to the wall by holding a psionics-charged sword at his throat. The brute charged in, flanking the agent, punching him with such force that he launched him into the air with the sheer might of his fist. But he didn't have quite enough. He slammed his knuckles into the Glatorian agent once more, although this time, his enemy tried to block it, and was relatively successful - he didn't suffer another direct blow.

Mere seconds ago, the agent had ambushed them, delivering a blow at Invidior, who had fallen to the ground unconscious. Osavus had quickly rushed in, helping him recover.

Ferveon charged at the agent, who took his time to deflect each blow she threw. She was too overwhelmed to realize that delivering blunt hits wasn't going to bring him down - in fact, it gave him time to prepare another psionic blast that sent Ferveon flying through the room. She was slammed against a giant monitor, the delicate screen shattering from the impact.

"Great Beings! Nothing's workin'..." she screamed at Avarus.

"Oh, you think? Because I was sure we had this UNDER CONTROL!" Avarus could only think of one option now - Silex. He was all about assassination, the perfect kill. Unless he wasn't interested in joining the battle, he was probably preparing his attack from the shadows.

Turns out Silex chose that moment to appear. He slipped out of the darkness, rushed up to the thief and-

Only a single blade of metal flew in the damp interior air.

It should've been enough to take out the agent, as they couldn't have possibly expected a dagger to be shoved up his back in this situation. However, he turned, parrying the blow. Sparks flew as Silex's dagger collided, and then shattered, as the agent pressed his energy blade towards him.

"You're just a bug on my windshield, and I could wipe you away if I so desired," remarked Silex. The agent didn't reply. He didn't need to.

"Ferveon, Silex, with me! Attack him!" Avarus had used Silex's attack as a distraction, giving him enough time to devise a plan.

The three Glatorian charged at the thief, who used a poweful psionic shield to block their attacks.

"It's of no use!" shouted Ferveon.

Avarus ordered Robur to attack him from behind. He planted another blow on the agent, sending him crashing into the wall. As the Glatorian gradually shifted into a state of darkness that he couldn't discern whether it was death or unconsciousness, his psionic sword fell into the ground.

Avarus picked it up gently, "Nice thing, this," he said quietly, "I think I'll keep it." He walked closer at the agent, gazing at him.

"It's too bad that nice cloak was ruined," he said, and - quite brutally - slashed his head off.

The hecnhmens' eyes fell on the two Great Beings - Osavus and Invidior - who had been watching during the battle. Osavus was tending to Invidior's wounds, which luckily weren't nearly as deep as they could have been. Invidior kept trying to stand up.

"Ugh."

"Stop trying to get up, brother. It isn't helping," said Osavus.

"Sure, he gets to rest, and we do all the work. Gotcha," Robur sat down, denying to continue working. Sometimes that brute, was total idiot, thought Avarus.

"Oh, shut-"

"I'll do whatever I want. I can't be hindered because of a single wound!" Invidior could barely stand; his nerves had suffered from the blow. Osavus always admired Invidior's persistence; however, he feared that it would be his downfall some day.


"Sorry, all of you," said Casiria to her unlikely allies, "but you're in a whole heap of trouble now. I do hope you like trouble. You see that building? I hope that you recognize it, because I need your help getting in."

How could they not have? It was their own Great Being-forsaken facility! Just with at least quadruple the number of guards, and none of them were familiar. Well, maybe triple... Nah, it was quadruple. And it was probably a living fortress with the lockdown activated.

Everyone in the group had different observations about the situation. Pomerax watched the building carefully and quietly from where they were, a vantage point on a building in front of the factory. Raanu trotted back and forth in the territorial radius of a square metre nervously, throwing more and more nervous glances at the building. Rohkea watched the building, though not with as much concentration as Pomerax. And Galintin glared at the agent.

Ever since the day that started all this, they have been trying to stop those responsible for wanting to destroy the robot. The Elder literally put them in charge of figuring things out. Problem was, all of them knew that no one could be trusted. All ths time, and they were still walking in darkness. Rohkea's sealed mail, the thief's letter... it just didn't add up. How was Invidior and the others evolved? How was the Elder evolved?

"Oh no, Casiria, that's it. I've had enough of this," he roared, suddenly, "Before we proceed, you ARE going to tell me what is really happened here, and you are going to tell me how the Elder fits here. I only relatively, half-so, know why we are entangled in this mess to begin with. Explain to me how it happens that the Elder himself maybe evolved into all of this? Bring me the answers. Now."

The agent held his gaze almost aggressively, but looked back at Galintin calmly. He was right. All of them had been walking in the dark for far longer than they needed to.

"You want to know, Galintin? Are you sure you're worthy of the information? It's more than just this little fiasco. This... is just the aftermath of a battle that took place years ago. And that battle, quite ironically, is nothing compared to the truth," sighed Casiria.

Rohkea stepped forward, and took out the letter Casiria had given her some time ago, "This letter..." said Rohkea, "what is it about? I haven't been able to deliver it to Angonce, nor open it. Doesn't it... contain information regarding the Elder?" Anyone could have noticed that Rohkea had given this some thought. She just was too absorbed in all of this.

Casiria didn't reply. Instead, she took the letter and tore it apart.

"Unfortunately for you, we're not done here. I need the answers, Casiria, and not a bloody letter," Galintin was more than determined to have his questions answered. He wouldn't walk away without them.

Her gaze strengthened on him, threateningly. And then suddenly became calmer, weaker, less imposing.

"Galintin, let-" Rohkea half-sighed, half-shrieked.

"Rohkea," he glared at her, with a brutal and sharp tone in his voice.

"Oh, will you all shut up," Casiria muttered. "Fine."

Galintin raised an eyebrow.

"Hmph. I didn't expect you to let it out that easily," said Galintin; Casiria remained silent.

He crossed his arms. "So, are you going to tell us?"

The agent smiled. Grimly. "Great Beings, no. Not just like that. I'll tell you, but not everything, there's simply not much time. Besides, the Elder could realize that I'm telling you, and kill me."

"But he isn't around," stated Raanu.

"Yes, Raanu, but the Elder isn't simply a Great Being. The Psionic agents you've been fighting, with the blue and dark red cloaks, the glowing symbols... they are all under his command. He has the power to master psionics, and has granted them - us - that power. We are the remnants of the Order of the Hidden," Casiria almost had to force herself into muttering the name. She despised it with all her soul.

"Hmm. Isn't that a legend about an order that safeguarded the Great Beings' rule on Spherus Magna sixty years ago?" said Pomerax, as he was known for his expanded historical knowledge.

"It's not a legend. The Order... collapsed around that time, and was shrunken into a bunch of drunken useless merchanaries, the so-called the "henchmen" you fought earlier. The rest... well, here's where things get complicated. Those that remained at the Elder's command - around 200 Glatorian agents - became sleeper agents, working in the shadows. It's undoubtedly, why the Order became a legend, working under people's noses. I am one of the few exceptions that managed to escape his control. However, I am still forced to follow this path, for better or for worse."

"I don't get it," snapped Rohkea, "Agents, the Elder, an order?"

"The sleeper agents are controlled by Elder, Rohkea. The entire Order was controlled by him as well. We don't serve the Great Beings. We serve one power-mad "Great" Being that has been trying to seize control for 500 years. What you need to know is that the Elder has eyes everywhere - in fact, we're probably being watched right now," Unlikely, she thought, since the Elder's preoccupied.

"I see. And this.. you said...it's nothing?" Galintin had begun to realize Casiria's fears.

"The Order of the Hidden's rise and fall is what a scarabax is against a Great Being: nothing. It was one of the plans the Elder devised to maintain his rule. Just as this one is." muttered Casiria.

"This changes things. This is too big. We need a way to enter the facility and find out what the Elder's up to, and we need to stop Ivndior and Osavus," said Pomerax.

"We already know that, voroxhead... we just can't bypass the facility's system that easily because it's in lockdown," Raanu turned to Pomerax.

Galintin glared, anger flaring in his eyes, "I was getting there," Rohkea and Casiria remained silent, as did everyone else.

In contrast, Pomerax didn't care about hordes of sleeper agents. He had a task: breaking in. So while the others bickered over this revelation, which he thought rather unimpressive and incomplete, he observed the guards. Carefully.

They seemed... bored.

Bored... there was a lot to discover in such things, Pomerax knew. He concentrated on a single guard, stationed by the door, observing him as he patrolled. Back and forth, back and forth, boringly and annoyedly proceeding back and forth from one edge of the door to another.

And suddenly, he was joined by a colleague, and the two started chatting, only to be joined by a third one minutes later. Pomerax turned his gaze patiently to the spot the third guard came from. There, he saw, was a doorway.

A-ha!


"Oh, please! You are nothing but a power-hungry senile fool!" roared Invidior, his whole self, both physically and mentally, trembling with anger and rage. The Elder's expression changed only slightly, became fiercer, angrier.

"All I've done has been for the well-being of others, yours and this world! Can you not appreciate it?"

"Appreciate it?!" Invidior screamed. "You have used my project for your own purposes! You discard all your supporters after abusing them and taking from them what use you can! Me, first of all!"

"You shouldn't have thrown him out, Elder," Osavus said, with anger expressed in his voice too, albeit calmer than Invidior's. "He's done nothing wrong to you. Quite the opposite, in fact."

"He wasn't qualified for this, Osavus-" the Elder began. That's where Invidior felt the immense urge to do something he did not wait a single milisecond in doing. The Elder felt Invidior's fist grasp his throat and slam him into the wall with all of his might.

"That's it, Protasious!" the Elder had not heard his named in quite a long time.

"You and I both know the truth here. We know you have been using my project to draw fear into the people, abuse the Great Beings just to keep control. MY. PROJECT! MINE! Just like the Order of the Hidden's failure, which I know now is entirely true!" Invidior's mind snapped, literally. He had not felt such anger before in his life.

"Hmph. I see. Varonis could never keep his mouth shut, could he?"

"You son of a sand stalker! You little, worthless piece of scum! Do you not realize that I know about your true crime?! Not the Order of the Hidden, not even your second greatest attempt at power, the robot, which is - to say the least - perfectly designed as it was! But no, you say I'm not qualified, you pathetic excuse for an Elder!? Your - power - source - was - worthless! Just - like - you! You attempted to save yourself by stealing my plans, but that didn't go well, did it? Eh?! ANSWER - ME!"

"How can you possibly- Oh, I see now. I see. It all makes sense in the end."

"IT DOESN'T!" Invidior kept silent for a few seconds, after screaming. Osavus was too shocked to say anything.

"Honestly, "brother", do you really think you will prevent me from launching the robot? You pathetic fools-of-Great-Beings could not even realize I was playing around with you."

"You know what, Protasious?" he emphasized the name as if pointing out his rejection of the Elder, "I might just kill you where you stand."


It was perfect.

Rohkea knew throwing the rock at the right spot was critical - their lives depended on it. She just couldn't fail now. She had to give her perfect shot.

The complex was a large rectangular building attached to the Tower of the Great Beings. Parts of it were connected to the Tower, but only through gateways - the Tower's structure was imperturbable. Unlike the Tower, however, which was teleport-proof to everyone except Great Beings, the facility was teleport-proof to any living creature - it was impossible to enter it using any type of teleportation powers.

She threw it. The rock fell in the middle of a quiet street, with the night sky's stars lighting up the atmosphere. A bunch of guards were taking their discussions away from the doorways. It was so quiet that the rock sounded like a slamming into the ground. Clueless, six guards ran towards the origin of the sound, leaving three gateways unguarded. Stationed nearby, Casiria and Galintin watched, patiently.

"Go! Go! Go!"

Casiria rushed in, her dark red robes blending with the environment. She passed by the guards, and signaled Pomerax and Raanu. They were hiding inside the bushes, just meters away from the three entrances to the complex.

"Just give me a minute," whispered Casiria and concentrated her psionic energy on the control panel attached to the large door.

Galintin was ready. Suddenly, five sand stalkers went on a rampage all over the streets. The metal doors of the facility's stables had somehow opened. The guards started running after them, trying to catch, completely ignoring the team trying to break in.

"Where did you learn to do that?" asked Rohkea, "I got to admit I wasn't expecting that."

"It's a trick an old friend of mine showed me. Hope you get to met him one day. Good man, he is," Galintin knew this wasn't time to worry about the past. Too much at stake to worry about old friends.

"I can't... open it. It's of no use, I am not an expert on programming," said Casiria. Her psionic powers allowed her to alter the main system in certain ways, but it was simply impossible to do anything advanced without the proper knowledge.

"I've got an idea," muttered Pomerax. What if you let me do it? Can you act as a relay between me and the machine?"

"I haven't tried before. I am not sure, Pomerax, but it sounds interesting."

"There's nothing to be lost from trying. Try to project your thoughts into me, and then mine into the main system," And as impossible it sounded, it worked. Pomerax could see into the system and poke things around, such as turning the alarm system off as well as opening the door.

"Got it!" Pomerax shouted in excitement as the door opened. Rohkea and Galintin came close to the door, and entered the building. Realizing they had been fooled, the guards chased after them. Fortunately, Casiria was quick enough to pull the switch and shut the door.

Galintin, Casiria, Rohkea, Pomerax and Raanu had entered the complex.

"Follow me," said Pomerax, "I took a moment to study the pipes that run through the facility; we'll be in the main control room in no time."


Meanwhile, running through the sewers, a Glatorian wearing distinctive red armor was crawling inside the catacombs, miles bellow the city.

Ackar, who couldn't have possibly known at this point in time what was happening with the Great Beings, and with the rest of the team, who had currently put aside their distrust of Casira and, with Pomerax's discovery of a loophole in the defenses, snuck inside their own building. He, on the other hand, used one of the maps he retrieved earlier in the Magma Complex, which detailed tunnel networks throughout the city.

He didn't even have to think about where to go - his instinct was leading him to the main construction facility, where the security team he was in charge of had placed their headquarters. At the end of the tunnel, he found himself in a storage room, quite ironically located just behind a guard.

Naturally, Ackar went the practical instead of scrupulous way. He didn't bother knocking the guard out and hiding the unconscious body. He just slashed the guard's head off very, very unceremoniously.

Rage welled up within him like blood from a wound. Something had changed in him the last few days, and that something, that strange inarticulate voice, told him in a faraway corner of his mind, that he should go straight for the doorway labeled 'Main Control Room'.

Time could have stopped and he wouldn't have known.

Miles away from civilization, a beeping sound was coming from a panel. A red light on the screen blinked slowly, indicating that something was wrong. Ordinarily, somebody would've come immediately to take care of it, but now no one was there; in fact, nobody had been for the past thousands of years. The abandoned Magma Complex was running on its last real dose of power.

Well, almost abandoned. There was a single energy shell, created from sheer electricity, occupied by a very angry Glatorian who wanted nothing more than to slam his fist into the wall, if not for the fear that he might get shocked to death.

He was the traitor! How couldn't I have known?

He ground his teeth. If he could only... get out of here. Scenarios of what he'd do flooded his mind, the rather illegitimate fantasies of him bleeding Varonis dry of lifeblood in as many ways as possible, and dealing in some manner with the other ones, too. If not for this electricity, if it would go out just for a single second... He clenched his fists and barely withheld himself from striking the walls of his cell (that is, if they could be called walls).

Maybe I can survive the shock, it shouldn't be that bad.

... No. He had to focus, had to think. He had to stay calm, not let anger take control, no, that would turn him into the same idiot that Varonis was. He just couldn't think rationally if it did. He had to think... But he couldn't anyway, because it was simply a no-win situation. He had to admit it. Unless by some miracle---

That was when the Great Beings (naturally not the ones that put him here, definitely not Osavus and Invidior, that is), must've heard him. Suddenly, darkness fell. Ackar spent a few seconds understanding what was going on. For a while afterwards, he just sat in his energy cell, as its walls were the only source of light around.

Then an electronic voice resounded from the loudspeakers, "Activating emergency power. Connect an alternate power source to the system to restore standard behavior."

And with that, quite unceremoniously, the direct opposite of what had recently happened, happened. The lights went on again, but the energy cell went off, the electricity dissipating into thin air, leaving only a faint scent of ozone behind.

Ackar stood up, but didn't move otherwise for a few seconds. And then carefully took a step forward.

It really happened. Why the complex was designed so tragically as to restore power in emergencies to the less important stuff, such as lights, he had no idea. "I don't suppose any staff got killed in prisoner riots," he muttered to himself, "there definitely aren't any openings for that here."

If most people, impractical, unscrupulous people, were in his place, they would jut in zigzags all over the place, randomly looking for an exit in a just-as-unscrupulous fashion, screaming loudly, "DANGIT, DANGIT, DANGIT, WHERE IS THE FREAKING DOOR!?" and never stopping once to take a detailed look around. Ackar wouldn't. He patiently left his cellblock...

... and grabbed quite literally everything off a desk near him. Piles of papers he barely looked over, just enough to make sure they weren't helpful, and picked them up anyway, shoving them in a backpack he found abandoned in a room just by. Blueprints, maps, letters, plans, anything that could have been useful to him.

Ackar could have sworn that if it had not been for all the papers, Invidior would have left him to die here on purpose. He moved through the hallways in this manner, rampaging over desks, shelves, various other furniture, anything he thought remotely possible to use while getting out of here.

No. No. Useless. Come on! There's nothing useful over here either!

His temper was about to boil over, because for all he knew, his friends could be dying by Varonis' hand at this moment, or being lead into a trap that only he knew about. He had to find a way out of this place, and he had to find a way to stop them. But how? He knew nothing of his whereabouts, let alone Invidior's and Osavus'.

He wasn't quite sure either how Varonis became involved on all of this. He recalls the Elder placing him as a member of the team. Actually, that explained a lot more than he thought.

If only I had known!

Finally, half an hour later, he found what he wanted. A strange room, full of graphical presentations and... maps. Maps that detailed the whole of the Magma Complex - but not just that. He found a map detailing the entire city of Magnacus Renata. This must have been what Invidior and Osavus have been using to enter and exit the city unnoticed. Ackar had no idea that the catacombs lacked that much security; it was highly disturbing to him. Nothing was a coincidence to him anymore.

He would've smiled if not for the instinct of urgency nagging at his mind as he sped down endless lifts and stairways, in the direction of what the map labelled the sand stalker stables. Fortunately, a sand stalker was tied up at the stables - a most generous gift from Invidior and Osavus.


"Robur!" Avarus growled, as the cloaked Glatorian pinned him to the wall by holding a psionics-charged sword at his throat. The brute charged in, flanking the agent, punching him with such force that he launched him into the air with the sheer might of his fist. But he didn't have quite enough. He slammed his knuckles into the Glatorian agent once more, although this time, his enemy tried to block it, and was relatively successful - he didn't suffer another direct blow.

Mere seconds ago, the agent had ambushed them, delivering a blow at Invidior, who had fallen to the ground unconscious. Osavus had quickly rushed in, helping him recover.

Ferveon charged at the agent, who took his time to deflect each blow she threw. She was too overwhelmed to realize that delivering blunt hits wasn't going to bring him down - in fact, it gave him time to prepare another psionic blast that sent Ferveon flying through the room. She was slammed against a giant monitor, the delicate screen shattering from the impact.

"Great Beings! Nothing's workin'..." she screamed at Avarus.

"Oh, you think? Because I was sure we had this UNDER CONTROL!" Avarus could only think of one option now - Silex. He was all about assassination, the perfect kill. Unless he wasn't interested in joining the battle, he was probably preparing his attack from the shadows.

Turns out Silex chose that moment to appear. He slipped out of the darkness, rushed up to the thief and-

Only a single blade of metal flew in the damp interior air.

It should've been enough to take out the agent, as they couldn't have possibly expected a dagger to be shoved up his back in this situation. However, he turned, parrying the blow. Sparks flew as Silex's dagger collided, and then shattered, as the agent pressed his energy blade towards him.

"You're just a bug on my windshield, and I could wipe you away if I so desired," remarked Silex. The agent didn't reply. He didn't need to.

"Ferveon, Silex, with me! Attack him!" Avarus had used Silex's attack as a distraction, giving him enough time to devise a plan.

The three Glatorian charged at the thief, who used a poweful psionic shield to block their attacks.

"It's of no use!" shouted Ferveon.

Avarus ordered Robur to attack him from behind. He planted another blow on the agent, sending him crashing into the wall. As the Glatorian gradually shifted into a state of darkness that he couldn't discern whether it was death or unconsciousness, his psionic sword fell into the ground.

Avarus picked it up gently, "Nice thing, this," he said quietly, "I think I'll keep it." He walked closer to the agent, gazing at him.

"It's too bad that nice cloak was ruined," he said, and - quite brutally - slashed his head off.

The hecnhmens' eyes fell on the two Great Beings - Osavus and Invidior - who had been watching during the battle. Osavus was tending to Invidior's wounds, which luckily weren't nearly as deep as they could have been. Invidior kept trying to stand up.

"Ugh."

"Stop trying to get up, brother. It isn't helping," said Osavus.

"Sure, he gets to rest, and we do all the work." Robur sat down, refusing to get up. Sometimes that brute was a total idiot, thought Avarus.

"Oh, shut-"

"I'll do whatever I want. I can't be hindered because of a single wound!" Invidior could barely stand; his nerves had suffered from the blow. Osavus always admired Invidior's persistence; however, he feared that it would be his downfall some day.


"Sorry, all of you," said Casiria to her unlikely allies, "but you're in a whole heap of trouble now. I do hope you like trouble. You see that building? I hope that you recognize it, because I need your help getting in."

How could they not have? It was their own Great Being-forsaken facility! Just with at least quadruple the number of guards, and none of them were familiar. Well, maybe triple... Nah, it was quadruple. And it was probably a living fortress with the lockdown activated.

Everyone in the group had different observations about the situation. Pomerax watched the building carefully and quietly from where they were, a vantage point on a building in front of the factory. Raanu trotted back and forth in the territorial radius of a square metre nervously, throwing more and more nervous glances at the building. Rohkea watched the building, though not with as much concentration as Pomerax. And Galintin glared at the agent.

Ever since the day that started all this, they have been trying to stop those responsible for wanting to destroy the robot. The Elder literally put them in charge of figuring things out. Problem was, all of them knew that no one could be trusted. All this time, and they were still walking in darkness. Rohkea's sealed mail, the thief's letter... it just didn't add up. How was Invidior, the others, and — more importantly — the Elder involved?

"Oh no, Casiria, that's it. I've had enough of this," he roared, suddenly, "Before we proceed, you ARE going to tell me what is really happened here, and you are going to tell me how the Elder fits here. I only relatively, half-so, know why we are entangled in this mess to begin with. Explain to me how is that the Elder himself is potentially involved in all of this? Bring me the answers. Now."

The agent held his gaze almost aggressively, but looked back at Galintin calmly. He was right. All of them had been walking in the dark for far longer than they needed to.

"You want to know, Galintin? Are you sure you're worthy of the information? It's more than just this little fiasco. This... is just the aftermath of a battle that took place years ago. And that battle, quite ironically, is nothing compared to the truth," sighed Casiria.

Rohkea stepped forward, and took out the letter Casiria had given her some time ago, "This letter..." said Rohkea, "what is it about? I haven't been able to deliver it to Angonce, nor open it. Doesn't it... contain information regarding the Elder?" Anyone could have noticed that Rohkea had given this some thought. She just was too absorbed in all of this.

Casiria didn't reply. Instead, she took the letter and tore it apart.

"Unfortunately for you, we're not done here. I need the answers, Casiria, and not a bloody letter," Galintin was more than determined to have his questions answered. He wouldn't walk away without them.

Her gaze strengthened on him, threateningly. And then suddenly became calmer, weaker, less imposing.

"Galintin, let-" Rohkea half-sighed, half-shrieked.

"Rohkea," he glared at her, with a brutal and sharp tone in his voice.

"Oh, will you all shut up," Casiria muttered. "Fine."

Galintin raised an eyebrow.

"Hmph. I didn't expect you to let it out that easily," said Galintin; Casiria remained silent.

He crossed his arms. "So, are you going to tell us?"

The agent smiled. Grimly. "Great Beings, no. Not just like that. I'll tell you, but not everything, there's simply not enough time. Besides, the Elder could realize that I'm telling you, and kill me."

"But he isn't around," stated Raanu.

"Yes, Raanu, but the Elder isn't simply a Great Being. The Psionic agents you've been fighting, with the blue and dark red cloaks, the glowing symbols... they are all under his command. He has the power to master psionics, and has granted them - us - that power. We are the remnants of the Order of the Hidden," Casiria almost had to force herself into muttering the name. She despised it with all her soul.

"Hmm. Isn't that a legend about an order that safeguarded the Great Beings' rule on Spherus Magna sixty years ago?" said Pomerax, as he was known for his expanded historical knowledge.

"It's not a legend. The Order... collapsed around that time, and was shrunken into a bunch of drunken useless mercenaries, the so-called the "henchmen" you fought earlier. The rest... well, here's where things get complicated. Those that remained at the Elder's command - around 200 Glatorian agents - became sleeper agents, working in the shadows. It's undoubtedly why the Order became a legend, working under people's noses. I am one of the few exceptions that managed to escape his control. However, I am still forced to follow this path, for better or for worse."

"I don't get it," snapped Rohkea, "Agents, the Elder, an order?"

"The sleeper agents are controlled by the Elder, Rohkea. The entire Order was controlled by him as well. We don't serve the Great Beings. We serve one power-mad "Great" Being that has been trying to seize control for 500 years. What you need to know is that the Elder has eyes everywhere - in fact, we're probably being watched right now," Unlikely, she thought, since the Elder's preoccupied.

"I see. And this.. you said...it's nothing?" Galintin had begun to realize Casiria's fears.

"The Order of the Hidden's rise and fall is what a scarabax is against a Great Being: nothing. It was one of the plans the Elder devised to maintain his rule. Just as this one is." muttered Casiria.

"This changes things. This is too big. We need a way to enter the facility and find out what the Elder's up to, and we need to stop Ivndior and Osavus," said Pomerax.

"We already know that, voroxhead... we just can't bypass the facility's system that easily because it's in lockdown," Raanu turned to Pomerax.

Galintin glared, anger flaring in his eyes, "I was getting there," Rohkea and Casiria remained silent, as did everyone else.

In contrast, Pomerax didn't care about hordes of sleeper agents. He had a task: breaking in. So while the others bickered over this revelation, which he thought rather unimpressive and incomplete, he observed the guards. Carefully.

They seemed... bored.

Bored... there was a lot to discover in such things, Pomerax knew. He concentrated on a single guard, stationed by the door, observing him as he patrolled. Back and forth, back and forth, boringly and annoyedly proceeding back and forth from one edge of the door to another.

And suddenly, he was joined by a colleague, and the two started chatting, only to be joined by a third one minutes later. Pomerax turned his gaze patiently to the spot the third guard came from. There, he saw, was a doorway.

A-ha!


"Oh, please! You are nothing but a power-hungry senile fool!" roared Invidior, his whole self, both physically and mentally, trembling with anger and rage. The Elder's expression changed only slightly, became fiercer, angrier.

"All I've done has been for the well-being of others, yours and this world! Can you not appreciate it?"

"Appreciate it?!" Invidior screamed. "You have used my project for your own purposes! You discard all your supporters after abusing them and taking from them what use you can! Me, first of all!"

"You shouldn't have thrown him out, Elder," Osavus said, with anger expressed in his voice too, albeit calmer than Invidior's. "He's done nothing wrong to you. Quite the opposite, in fact."

"He wasn't qualified for this, Osavus-" the Elder began. That's where Invidior felt the immense urge to do something he did not wait a single milisecond in doing. The Elder felt Invidior's fist grasp his throat and slam him into the wall with all of his might.

"That's it, Protasious!" the Elder had not heard his name in quite a long time.

"You and I both know the truth here. We know you have been using my project to draw fear into the people, abuse the Great Beings just to keep control. MY. PROJECT! MINE! Just like the Order of the Hidden's failure, which I know now is entirely true!" Invidior's mind snapped, literally. He had not felt such anger before in his life.

"Hmph. I see. Varonis could never keep his mouth shut, could he?"

"You son of a sand stalker! You little, worthless piece of scum! Do you not realize that I know about your true crime?! Not the Order of the Hidden, not even your second greatest attempt at power, the robot, which is - to say the least - perfectly designed as it was! But no, you say I'm not qualified, you pathetic excuse for an Elder!? Your - power - source - was - worthless! Just - like - you! You attempted to save yourself by stealing my plans, but that didn't go well, did it? Eh?! ANSWER - ME!"

"How can you possibly- Oh, I see now. I see. It all makes sense in the end."

"IT DOESN'T!" Invidior kept silent for a few seconds, after screaming. Osavus was too shocked to say anything.

"Honestly, "brother", do you really think you will prevent me from launching the robot? You pathetic fools-of-Great-Beings could not even realize I was playing around with you."

"You know what, Protasious?" he emphasized the name as if pointing out his rejection of the Elder, "I might just kill you where you stand."


It was perfect.

Rohkea knew throwing the rock at the right spot was critical - their lives depended on it. She just couldn't fail now. She had to give her perfect shot.

The complex was a large rectangular building attached to the Tower of the Great Beings. Parts of it were connected to the Tower, but only through gateways - the Tower's structure was impenetrable. Unlike the Tower, however, which was teleport-proof to everyone except Great Beings, the facility was teleport-proof to any living creature - it was impossible to enter it using any type of teleportation powers.

She threw it. The rock fell in the middle of a quiet street, with the night sky's stars lighting up the atmosphere. A bunch of guards were taking their discussions away from the doorways. It was so quiet that the rock sounded like a slamming into the ground. Clueless, six guards ran towards the origin of the sound, leaving three gateways unguarded. Stationed nearby, Casiria and Galintin watched, patiently.

"Go! Go! Go!"

Casiria rushed in, her dark red robes blending with the environment. She passed by the guards, and signaled Pomerax and Raanu. They were hiding inside the bushes, just meters away from the three entrances to the complex.

"Just give me a minute," whispered Casiria and concentrated her psionic energy on the control panel attached to the large door.

Galintin was ready. Suddenly, five sand stalkers went on a rampage all over the streets. The metal doors of the facility's stables had somehow opened. The guards started running after them, trying to catch, completely ignoring the team trying to break in.

"Where did you learn to do that?" asked Rohkea, "I got to admit I wasn't expecting that."

"It's a trick an old friend of mine showed me. Hope you get to met him one day. Good man, he is," Galintin knew this wasn't time to worry about the past. Too much at stake to worry about old friends.

"I can't... open it. It's of no use, I am not an expert on programming," said Casiria. Her psionic powers allowed her to alter the main system in certain ways, but it was simply impossible to do anything advanced without the proper knowledge.

"I've got an idea," muttered Pomerax. "What if you let me do it? Can you act as a relay between me and the machine?"

"I haven't tried before. I am not sure, Pomerax, but it sounds interesting."

"There's nothing to be lost from trying. Try to project your thoughts into me, and then mine into the main system," And as impossible it sounded, it worked. Pomerax could see into the system and poke things around, such as turning the alarm system off as well as opening the door.

"Got it!" Pomerax shouted in excitement as the door opened. Rohkea and Galintin came close to the door, and entered the building. Realizing they had been fooled, the guards chased after them. Fortunately, Casiria was quick enough to pull the switch and shut the door.

Galintin, Casiria, Rohkea, Pomerax and Raanu had entered the complex.

"Follow me," said Pomerax, "I took a moment to study the pipes that run through the facility; we'll be in the main control room in no time."


Meanwhile, running through the sewers, a Glatorian wearing distinctive red armor was crawling inside the catacombs, miles below the city.

Ackar, who couldn't have possibly known at this point in time what was happening with the Great Beings, and with the rest of the team, who had currently put aside their distrust of Casira and, with Pomerax's discovery of a loophole in the defenses, snuck inside their own building. He, on the other hand, used one of the maps he retrieved earlier in the Magma Complex, which detailed tunnel networks throughout the city.

He didn't even have to think about where to go - his instinct was leading him to the main construction facility, where the security team he was in charge of had placed their headquarters. At the end of the tunnel, he found himself in a storage room, quite ironically located just behind a guard.

Naturally, Ackar went the practical instead of scrupulous way. He didn't bother knocking the guard out and hiding the unconscious body. He just slashed the guard's head off very, very unceremoniously.

Rage welled up within him like blood from a wound. Something had changed in him the last few days, and that something, that strange inarticulate voice, told him in a faraway corner of his mind, that he should go straight for the doorway labeled 'Main Control Room'.