Things Veer Slightly Off Course
I lay back in my Mansion, counting my cookies. It was a lot like counting my money as a child after selling lemonade. The Leader truly was a hoarder. This entire situation was truly bizarre. I looked back and I realized how strange it was to think that at one point he was on the ground, helpless against anything that happened to him, but now his strength could determine the lives of those around him. Soldiers who'd had a nice and comforting dinner with their colleagues had ended up dead the next day due to his goal. But... sacrifices must be made for the greater good. The only way to win is to have a stronger desire than the person next to you.
As I was looking at the map, I realized there was one with a lot of cookies that I still hadn't gotten. That's strange, I was sure I got all of them. Hmmm. Ah! I've come up with the most reasonable answer. That place was a trap. Now, I could do the smart thing, which would be to go somewhere else and make fun of the Leader. Or... I could go all the way over there... and crush his hopes. Yeah... I think I'm going with the latter. That seems more fun anyways. I can't believe he thinks that I wouldn't notice!
The Builder stopped me.
"Are you sure you're gonna go?"
"I am. I know full well this is a trap. But just watch me. Watch me dismantle everything!"
The Builder, knowing how much had improved, didn't stop me. Once more, I went inside my ship. I took off and within hours, I made it. The area was near the Corvac territory. There were two towers. One was clearly abandoned, but it still functioned. It sent weather readings and was a crucial part of life still. Then there was the small tower.
As usual, there were 8 guards per entrance, and they all communicated with each other. This was standard practice. But I knew, just from intuition, that this was a trap. There was just a certain eeriness to this whole situation. I ate a cookie and zoomed toward the guards. They weren't caught off guard, though, and I expect this was because I posted the videos online. Their skills... They seemed to be more skilled than I thought. By this time, I was surrounded. I had taken too long. They brought out their guns.
I put the guy I was fighting in a choke hold, using him as bait. But they weren't trying to kill me. It seems they were trying to capture me. Nets flew, but I jumped back and threw the guy forward. A few nets locked onto him. I dodged and weaved through the shots. My senses were high. After fighting like this for so long, my cookie power lasted a lot longer than last time. It had gone from 5 minutes to 10 minutes.
With slight difficulty, I managed to take down all the soldiers. These guys ,though, they weren't mere soldiers. They had to be at least at the executive level. Yeesh! 32 executives swarmed me at once. Wait, there were only 24! There were still 8 more. I rushed to the back of the tower only to find that there was nobody there. I broke through the main doors and found a whole party of people to welcome me. There were at least 12 more executives and 2 Captains. Crap! I didn't have that much cookie power left. I struggled, I fought, I kicked, and even clawed... but it was not enough. As soon as my power ran out, I did not last that much longer. I didn't even have enough time to eat an oatmeal cookie!
I soon found myself behind bars. A little makeshift prison in the back of the outpost. They didn't need anything special. I was completely paralyzed. They didn't need a specialist to tell, either. One look at me and you tell that I didn't have any fight left in me. I don't know how much time I spent in my cell. Whether days passed or hours passed, I couldn't tell you. The only thing in my cell was a stick. Some guard had found it a sick joke to throw a cool stick he found outside at me, as I couldn't fight back. What the hell am I supposed to do with a stupid stick...then it hit me.
A lesson we'd had long ago. The first lesson, actually. Magic carvings. I remember one kid... was his name Jeremy? But he asked if it was possible to carve magic circuits on our bodies. The answer was yes, it was. Just that nobody really does it since it's too painful. But I didn't have that problem. I waited a few more minutes in my cell, forcing my body to move. Slowly but surely, the paralysis wore off. I grabbed the stick and quickly removed my armor and my bodysuit. I was nervous, but my body remembered how to carve the circuits even if my brain had turned off. strength and stun on my arms, jump and speed on my legs, resistance on my chest, and impervious eyes on my face. (That way I wouldn't get blinded by my own light.)
I had no idea what they were doing, but if I wanted to escape, it would be while they were transporting me next. To activate it, I'd need cookie crumbs. But... god damnit! They'd confiscated mine. Well, guess what! I wasn't going to take that. I had an idea. I contracted my throat and gagged, forcing the cookies I had eaten earlier to throw up. I was afraid that it wouldn't work, but it did. The circles lit up for a split second and then went dark. Good, they were primed and ready. I cleaned up and repositioned myself.
Around an hour later, someone came into my cell. It apparently was the Sergeant. It was strange but not surprising. He transported me on a dolly to this white room. It seemed to be a lab. He wheeled me over to this medic bed like thing, but I knew better. If I didn't escape at the right moment, bad things could happen. What those things were, though, I had no idea.
The sergeant ran some protocols. Not yet... He took off my armor, and I just let him, but I could get it back later. He motioned to take off my mask. Almost... as soon as they took it off, I saw the stunned expression on his face. Now! I flash banged everyone and ripped off the cuffs that kept me bound. While everyone was recovering, I grabbed my mask. I broke through the glass that was separating my armor from me and put it in. I decided to play it safe for now. Instead of eating a chocolate chip cookie, I ate 3 cookies. A sugar cookie, a biscuit, and finally an oatmeal cookie.
I punched one guard's gut, causing him to double over in pain. I used him as a club. A guard tried using my sword, but that sword was tailored to my tastes. He couldn't use it. As a result, he was burnt alive. I sent one fist up into the ceiling, and lo and behold, the outpost was right above us. One more punch, and I quickly got a cookie from the vault. The sergeant had recovered, but it was too late. This time, I tried a double chocolate cookie. I felt a different power coursing through my veins. I put my hand on the sergeant, and he slowly transformed into a chocolate statue.
Before he had transformed completely, he wailed, "Why?! Just why did you betray us?!"
"Simple. I was never on your side to begin with."
His eyes widened before he completely became a chocolate statue. I used the blunt of my sword and broke him. He broke into a million pieces and clattered to the floor. I smirked, thinking of all our earlier encounters, and went back to my ship. Lesson learned, cookies can solve all of my problems! I think I have achieved everything.
For now, my main business is done. Well, since I was done early, I might as well go help my friends. But... maybe I could get more cookies?
__________________________________________________________________
Michael and Elaine had a nice stroll back to the village. It was a nice change of pace instead of always having to fight. The air was fresh, and even though they were freezing their butts off, it was honestly refreshing to worry about something so small for once.
When they got to the village, things were eerily quiet. Elaine recalled her feeling of being watched. It disappeared when they got to the village, but everything seemed fine. The tension in the air was so thick you could cut it with a knife. When Elaine went to a hut to see if anyone was there, Asia started barking hysterically. The scent of blood. Inside the hut, everyone was dead. A deep red stained the floors. She raised her head to call Michael when, suddenly, Elaine felt a gun to the back of her head.
"Raise your hands up. Slowly!" said a voice.
Michael turned in the direction of the sound. What he saw shocked him. It was the old man holding Eliot at gunpoint. The voice, however, did not suit him. He sounded cruel, and it was strange to hear the vicious voice of someone who had been gentle much earlier. The old man quickly took off his mask, revealing a much younger person. It was the Leader's son, Montag Inzolia.
Elaine realized that this was the feeling she had had this entire time. But Montag wasn't playing around. He held the gun firmly to Elia's head. She was crying, and in her hands were the wreaths she planned to give to us. Elaine didn't know what to say. This was entirely her fault.
"Hand over that flower, or this child dies. It's a good thing you haven't changed... Elaine."
Michael slowly pulled out the flower, but Elaine stopped him.
"There's no use. Eliot's going to die either way."
Michael looked stunned and just kept looking at Montag. Asia tried to bite him, but Montag just kicked him away. Asia flew against a wall and went unconscious.
His grin became wider, "You're right. I am." Bang!
Eliot's eyes widened, then relaxed. Montag dropped him to the floor, where he collapsed. Blood flowed freely through his hair and pooled by the wreath. Elaine dropped to her knees, horrified. Her eyes widened as she covered her face with her hands. She began to hiccup uncontrollably. All of her held back tears. Tears from Mer, tears from her childhood, tears from this moment all began flooding in at once. She was going crazy.
"Man, if I had known this was all it was going to take to make this kind of a reaction come out of you, I would've done something like this much earlier," he said while laughing.
Michael tried to calm himself, but all of this was too much for him. Elia's warning. He should have known. While kids are often immature and naive. They are still more observant than adults are sometimes. This was all his fault. He couldn't just do nothing. He pulled out his gun, but Montag was faster. He wasn't a close-range guy! Damn it! He narrowly dodged Montag's bullet, and he pounced on Montag. They got into a fist fight.
He was clawing and biting at Montag, making him realize how much of an effect this had on him. They wrestled on the ground, using anything and everything at their disposal. They weren't evenly matched, but Michael had essentially gone berserk. Montag was deflecting his attacks with ease, but Michael didn't give up. He was going to kill Montag. They butted heads, and Michael stumbled back, stunned. Montag got on the offensive this time. He dove and grabbed Michael's stomach, and they both fell over, and they fought again. Michael was starting to lose.
"Elaine! Help!" Michael choked out. He spat his blood in Montag's eye and forced him to be on the bottom.
"Elaine, please. You don't want me to die as well, right?"
His words shocked Elaine out of her trance. She realized. If she didn't help him, he was going to die. She swept the hair out of her eyes and started to choke and fight Montag right as he was about to get freed. Michael did his best to hold his arms and legs down. He kicked and pulled at Elaine's hair, but she didn't budge. Finally, he kicked the weaker link, who was Michael, and broke free, but Elaine stole his gun and shot at his hand.
"AARRRGHHH!" screamed Montag, backing away. Bang! Bang! He ran outside for protection against them. Bang! Bang! He didn't look back. Elaine lay down, exhausted.
Michael borrowed Elaine's weapon with her permission and changed it to a hammer. He raised it high and brought it down with extreme force. This is an artifact we're talking about here. A deep rumbling sound could be heard. An avalanche came down pouring down from the top of the mountain. Before Montag could do anything, the avalanche consumed him.
Michael fell back to the hut and sat down next to Elaine. He turned to look at her. Her eyes were red and her hair was all frizzy. Michael used the wall to stand up and reached out to Elaine. She grabbed it, and he helped her up to her feet. Wait... they still had to go back down...
Just then, they heard a crash. Coming out from the rubble was a red figure... The Cookie Bandit!
"How did you get here?!" exclaimed Michael.
"How else? I flew here, and then I used cookies to run up the mountain. It still took me two days, but hey, I'm not complaining. Come on, I'll carry you guys down."
"Huhhhh?" groaned Elaine as she passed out.
"You've had a rough time; you can sleep now."
"I'm not even that-" he didn't even get a chance to finish his sentence as he passed out in the Cookie Bandit's arms. He packed their stuff and put it in his subspace. He loaded both of them on his shoulders and began to do the very treacherous run back down.
By the time Michael woke up, they were already flying. He breathed a sigh of relief. So it wasn't a dream. He really was alive.
__________________________________________________________________
I was glad that Michael was okay. He was bloodied all over, and his hair was disheveled. It was a sight that I never imagined seeing. Never in a million years. As of now, though, we were headed to Crimson City. Bucket's spy mission was over. He had instructed me to go get him as soon as my mission was over, since he had important information. We landed at the same place we were when we first dropped off Bucket.
I waited by the water, and moments later, he came crawling out of the water. He was sopping wet, but he was fine, which was all that mattered. I reached down and pulled him out of the water. We made it back to the ship and soon took off.
While we headed back, he put on a set of warm clothes. There was a silence between everyone. Clearly, all of us had disasters just happen to us.
Soon, we got back to the mansion and we lay down exhausted. I called over the Builder, and our meeting got in session. I pulled up his earlier info.
Bucket said, "I have some pretty good info. It seems that the Leader is mass exporting materials to a desert island. My guess is that it might have to do with rebuilding since we destroyed the cradle."
"What do you think, Elaine?" I asked.
"Hmmm. Let's be rational about this. Let's say he has a goal. Bigger than anything we can think of. Do we really think that he'll spend resources on something like this?"
"But wasn't the fortress really important?" Asked Michael.
"Sure, but if we think about it in the grand scheme of things... I guess a better way to visualize this is to think, if you owned a town and you were focused on something outside the town and you didn't care about it too much, but a school in your town was hit... what would you do? Don't forget, you're disregarding emotional choices."
"Well... rebuilding the school would just take up resources. I could probably use stuff from the school and have that contribute to whatever I'm doing outside." I said.
"Exactly. I don't think that he'll be rebuilding the Cradle. I feel like he has another goal in mind, but I'm not sure what. Especially since he's using weird things for his project."
"Why are you calling the shipments weird anyway?"
"Well, those ingredients are used in a manual generator. I called it weird because those things require a lot of power. Like a crazy amount. Sure, if you could power it, whatever it was connected to would be powered at an incredible efficiency. For example, if you connected it to a fan or something, it would have the potential to blow quickly and for an incredible amount of time."
"Could the Leader power it?"
"Potentially, I guess. But that's what makes it weirder. He'd be the only one who could power it."
"So you're saying that this doesn't seem like him at all. For a cold, calculating, and scarily efficient man, this seems incredibly inefficient?"
"Yeah! He'd be drained so quickly. He might even end up killing himself in the process."
"Hmmm... we also know that he's trying to use the painless flower on something. But what could that be?"
"That's still something we need to figure out."
Then... an idea dawned on me.
"I have... one idea," I said slowly. I recounted the details of my mission. Their looks were very worried, but they didn't say anything. They must've encountered something worse.
I continued, "To break out, I carved magic enchantments on my body."
"That's a good theory, but those are only temporary. The Leader is aiming for something long-term."
I couldn't respond to that one. I feel like I was missing something.
"Good news is, we probably don't even need to know, since the Leader's going down soon anyway," interjected Bucket. He pulled out a flash drive and plugged it into his computer. A set of numbers pulled up. Coordinates. There was also a video file. The Leader got into a plane and flew away."
"So... it seems like he's going to that island, hence the coordinates, but... how do we know that this is still valid? What if he's already there?" asked Elaine, skeptical.
"It's easy," said Michael, "The plane had a small clock which showed both the date and the time. It was dated for yesterday and the time was around night. I also recognize the port. He's almost as far from those coordinates as we are. We still have a chance!"
"But... we won't be able to make it there in time! That's literally across the world."
"That... is not a problem," smirked the Builder, "For I have an engine that will get us there in no time!"
He beckoned us to his workshop and pulled the cloth from a giant object. It was a rather weird-looking contraption as it was an amalgamation of boxes, vents, and wires.
"You're saying that thing could've gotten us to Jackfruit Mountains within a day?"
"No, I'm saying, you could've gotten there yesterday! That's just how fast this thing is! We should be able to get there and ambush him if we leave immediately!"
We stood there looking at him for a second, like he was joking, but he was serious
"Well, what are you waiting for?! Get moving!"
We started preparing. Michael pulled the flower out from the subspace, and the Builder gazed properly at it.
"It's beautiful," he murmured, "Normally, I'd want you guys to leave for this process, but this... watching this might help enlighten you. He brought us to another part of his workshop. This time, a lab.
"Enjoy the show," he said as he put on his goggles. He took a vial of a mysterious liquid and poured it into a small flask. He took out a pot, but it wasn't made of metal. It was made out of this rather bland-looking stone.
"This pot will keep the magic concentrated within. He boiled some water. He put a few chemicals in, and then he poured the liquid. Nothing happened. He used a tong to carefully lower the plant by its roots into it. The liquid started swirling. The plant was gone immediately, and it was replaced by this galaxy-looking liquid. He added some herbs and even dumped a whole bucket of ice on top of it. He took out a small lighter to set the surface of the liquid on fire, and a beautiful turquoise flame appeared. He closed the pot.
Then, he began to work on our weapons. He melted down each and every one of them in his hellfire burner. For my new sword, I requested him to change the type from a celtic to a scimitar. It just fit my use better since I had an agility-based build rather than an actual knight. He nodded and began hammering away. These were the most stressful 20 minutes in my entire life. We were silent during the entire process.
My sword glowed, and the heat went in every direction as the hammer hit the sword. Finally, he had finished hammering, but he wasn't done. He poured some of the liquid from the pot on the new sword. A bright light shone from the sword. It flew in the air, and when the light cleared, a new sword was waiting for me. I was reluctant to touch it, as if it might shatter when I did.
"It won't bite," he laughed, "Give it a try."
As soon as I picked it up, I knew it was the one. I swung it and it felt like an extension of my arm. I took cookie crumbs from my pocket, and I concentrated. I felt something else. At first, a bright hellfire shot out, with even more power than before, but this time, when I calmed down, instead of just stopping entirely, I felt this cold sensation. Frost began emanating, and ice crystals began forming around me on the floor and walls.
"I will name this sword... Freeze Dryer!"
"Very well, I can say for sure that it is a fitting name."
An hour later, everyone's weapons were complete. I had Freeze Dryer, Michael had Chip Shot, Elaine had Protein, and Bucket had Spoon. (We upgraded his shovel) All that was left was to install the engine and start. Quickly, the Builder and I got to work. The Builder started up the ship, and we all prayed for luck. It was time to finally end this ill-fated relationship once and for all!
__________________________________________________________________
A small ship was docked at the Jackfruit Mountains. The winds howled, louder than a wolf on a full moon. A person romped through the red snow, covered in branches and soil. He was injured, but alive.