Ch.01: Evil Rising, Part 1
The wind over the vast, arid expanse of South Dakota blew cold and sharp, sweeping across a hidden trench where glowing, crystallized veins of raw elemental fuel pulsed beneath the dirt.
Emeric—known to his chums as Ricky—crouched near the edge of the crater, a smug, lop-sided grin playing on his face as he tapped the side of his ear piece.
“I’m telling you, Ventus, the locals out here don’t know what to make of it,” Emeric chuckled into the comms channel, his voice rich with effortless bravado as he balanced on the balls of his feet. “One minute they’re admiring the scenic view, the next, a phantom shockwave blows past them so fast their hats fly off. I’m a ghost out here.”
Back at the hidden command center, Ventus’s voice came back through the frequency, sharp, dry, and thoroughly unimpressed. “Keep dreaming, Ricky. Just do your sweep and don’t draw attention. We’re supposed to be low profile, remember?”
“Yeah, yeah. Low profile, high impact. Oh—wait a second.” Emeric’s playful demeanor instantly evaporated as his quantum-sensitive multiphase targeting vision locked onto a massive, iridescent cluster of pure, unrefined Energy Crystals protruding from the rock. “Jackpot. I’ve got a massive elemental fuel deposit right under my nose.”
“Emeric, hold your position—”
Before Ventus could finish her sentence, the sky above the crater turned an unnatural, bruised purple.
A shadow fell over the trench as a colossal dark warship—the Ultio—bored through the upper cloud layer. Down from its lower decks dropped a squad of Deviant soldiers, their obsidian and magma-infused bodies landing with heavy, bone-rattling thuds around the edge of the pit.
Emeric didn’t flinch. He slowly straightened up, black-and-red frame crackling with contained kinetic force as a low, bass-like hum began to vibrate the ground beneath his boots.
“Well, well,” Emeric muttered, his dual Sonic Blasters deploying onto his hands with a heavy metallic click. “Looks like the welcoming committee arrived.”
“Sovereign scum,” the lead Deviants growled, drawing an elemental magma blade. “Surrender the energy deposit or be reduced to cinders!”
“Do I look like the surrendering type?” Emeric grinned.
He lunged. Moving like a human cannonball, Emeric gathered all his internal kinetic energy into a sudden, explosive charge. He slammed directly into the lead Deviants, the concussive blast fracturing the soldier’s elemental armor and sending him flying across the canyon. Emeric whirled around, firing twin concussive sonic pulses from his blasters, shattering two more opponents instantly.
“Is that all you’ve got?!” Emeric roared, pummeling another soldier with his bare fist.
But as he swung, a stray Deviant’s shadow-blast veered wildly off course, striking the exposed volatile Energy Crystals.
The chain reaction was instantaneous. A blinding, apocalyptic wall of fire and concussive pressure erupted from the depths of the crater. The shockwave tore through the canyon walls, throwing Emeric backward through the air. Battered, burnt, and overwhelmed, his kinetic defenses shattered as the remaining Deviant squad swarmed his broken form, dragging him up into the belly of the hovering warship.
Inside the throne deck of the Ultio, Zephyrus paced the polished floorboards, his ethereal silver-and-blue frame wreathed in crackling storm energy. His feathered lightning wing-appendages twitched with volatile irritation.
“A total loss! An entire deposit of Energy Crystals, obliterated because of your sheer incompetence!” Zephyrus shrieked at the bruised Deviant soldiers kneeling before him.
The soldiers dropped the bloodied, barely conscious form of Emeric onto the cold metal deck. Emeric struggled to lift his head, his deep black-and-red armor cracked, leaking kinetic sparks.
Zephyrus stepped forward, swirling with roaring wind, his eyes narrowing as he glared down at the fallen Sovereign. “You... Emeric, isn’t it? Tell me where Gainus Convoy hides his base on this miserable rock, and I might grant you a swift, merciful end.”
Emeric coughed up a golden spark, looking up through cracked lenses. He spit blood onto Zephyrus’s polished boots, a defiant grin forcing its way onto his face.
“I’ve got... a quote for you, bird-brain,” Emeric rasped out, his voice hoarse.
Zephyrus tilted his head, his voice dripping with condescension. “Oh? And what might that be?”
“Do I... ever... need backup?” Emeric wheezed, throwing his own classic line back in the commander’s face.
Zephyrus’s face twisted in sudden, unbridled rage. “Insolent worm!”
With a blinding flash, Zephyrus summoned a concentrated blade of solid lightning from his palm and drove it straight through Emeric’s chest core. Emeric’s eyes dimmed, his body going completely still as his life force flickered out.
At the back of the bridge, hovering in total silence, Aristos recorded the entire exchange. The sleek, minimalist sound-manipulator pulsed gently with visible sound waves, his crow-like minion resting within his chest core as he saved the audio frequency for future deployment.
A tear in space cracked open inside the smoking crater. A swirling vortex of light stabilized, and out stepped the Sovereigns.
At the lead was Gainus Convoy, an imposing figure whose body radiated an intense, simmering heat, his red and blue flame-infused aura illuminating the scorched earth. Behind him came Chiron, his eyes scanning the area with medical precision; Ventus, sleek, agile, and hovering slightly off the ground on a localized gale; and young Barak, his yellow lightning-striped frame shimmering with anxious static.
“Scans show no survival signs in the immediate area,” Chiron said, his voice laced with dry, grim formality as he brought up a glowing plasma interface.
Ventus darted toward the center of the blast mark. She dropped to her knees, sweeping aside ash and debris until her fingers brushed against a piece of cracked, black-and-red armor plating—a piece of Emeric’s shoulder gauntlet.
Her breath hitched. The air currents around her body spun erratically, whipped up by a sudden surge of raw, choked emotion.
“Ricky...” she whispered, her voice cracking beneath the tough-as-nails façade she so carefully maintained.
Chiron stepped up beside her, his warm white-and-orange aura casting a soft light over the wreckage. He closed his eyes, sensing the ambient energy of the void.
“His life sign... it has been terminated, Gainus,” Chiron reported softly, looking toward their leader.
Ventus clutched the broken piece of armor tightly against her chest. “We were supposed to be a team. He shouldn’t have been out here alone!”
Gainus Convoy stepped forward, the blue and red flames around his broad shoulders softening into a low, somber embers. He laid a heavy hand gently on Ventus’s shoulder.
“Emeric knew the risks of this war, Ventus,” Gainus said, his voice deep, resonant, and carrying the heavy weight of centuries of loss. “We cannot allow his sacrifice to be in vain. We must stay vigilant, continue to survive, and protect this world, if only to honor the memory of our fallen brother.”
Ventus pulled away gently, standing up and masking her grief behind a sharp, icy glare. “I don’t want a eulogy, Gainus. I want the Deviants.”
Without another word, she generated a high-speed whirlwind beneath her feet, shooting up into the air and racing away into the setting sun before anyone could stop her.
Chiron watched her go, shaking his head. “She’s going to get herself killed out there.”
“She needs time, Chiron,” Gainus murmured softly, turning his gaze toward the distant human horizon. “We all do.”
In the small, sunbaked town of South Dakota, seventeen-year-old Daniel “Danny” Wilson wiped sweat from his forehead as he handed a paper bag through the drive-thru window of the local fast-food joint.
“Here you go, sir. Have a nice afternoon,” Danny said, maintaining his polite waiter voice despite his aching feet.
He checked his wrist watch. Shift was almost over. He was saving every penny he made to buy his first real ride—maybe a high-end motorcycle or a tuner car if he got lucky.
As he walked out to the parking lot to clear away stray trays, a sudden gust of wind blew through the alley. Danny paused, turning his head as a figure stepped into the shade of the building.
It was a woman—or at least, she looked human at a glance, clad in a sleek, iridescent, form-fitting suit that shimmered with an almost semi-transparent quality, her short hair whipping in an invisible breeze. She was leaning against the brick wall, arms crossed, looking thoroughly irritated.
Danny blinked, taking a step toward her. “Uh... hey? You okay, miss? Need help with something?”
Ventus snapped her eyes toward him, glaring with sharp pressure. “Mind your own business, kid.”
Before Danny could respond, a giggle sounded from across the street. Sarah, one of the popular girls from high school, was walking past with her friend, staring right at Danny.
“Who are you talking to, Danny? Your imaginary friend?” Sarah laughed, walking away.
Danny flushed red, stumbling over his words. “I—no! I was just—”
“Focus, human,” Ventus snapped suddenly, her posture shifting from annoyance to lethal combat alertness.
Two dark, menacing figures stepped out from the shadowy alleyway across the street. Their skin had a jagged, magma-like crust, their eyes glowing an ominous, fiery orange—Deviant scouts.
“Sovereign spotted,” one of the Deviants hissed, drawing a long blade. “And she’s accompanied by a fleshy native.”
“Kid, move!” Ventus grabbed Danny by the jacket collar, practically throwing him down a side alleyway out of the line of fire. “Stay down and don’t tell a soul about this if you want to keep breathing!”
She spun around, generating twin blades of pure, invisible pressure force on her forearms. She leaped into the air, engaging the two Deviants in a lightning-fast flurry of martial strikes. The air thundered with deafening sonic cracks as her attacks cut through their armor.
Danny watched from behind a dumpster, his heart pounding against his ribs. “What in the hell are these things?!”
Ventus parried a strike, kicking one Deviant into a brick wall, but the second one broke off from the fight, its glowing eyes locking onto Danny. It lunged down the alley toward the teenager.
“Hey! Clueless!” Ventus barked. She darted forward at blinding velocity, wrapping an arm around Danny’s waist and lifting him cleanly into the air, using a compressed wind stream to vault them up onto the nearby highway overpass.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” Danny yelled, holding onto her shoulder for dear life. “You’re flying?! Who are you?!”
“I’m the person saving your life, so zip it!” Ventus snapped, touching down on the asphalt and sprinting down the freeway at super-human speed.
Behind them, the two Deviants leapt onto the highway in hot pursuit. But before they could narrow the distance, a streak of yellow lightning flashed down the lane.
Young Barak materialized out of the static, hovering an inch off the road on twin electrical foot-vortexes. He didn’t speak a word, but his expression was fierce as he brought his hands together, signaling in rapid sign language: ‘I’ve got your back!’
Barak unleashed a high-frequency shockwave from his wrist stingers, knocking the pursuing Deviants off balance.
The chaotic skirmish spilled off the highway overpass, plunging down into a massive, concrete drainage canal on the edge of town.
Down in the canal, eleven-year-old Abdul Mahajan was kneeling beside a customized, remote-controlled toy truck, adjusting its exposed circuit board with a mini soldering iron.
“Just a little more adjustment to the battery output...” Abdul muttered, completely in ‘the zone’.
Suddenly, Ventus, Danny, Barak, and two towering, monstrous Deviants dropped literally out of the sky and hit the concrete basin twenty feet away.
Abdul blinked, slowly lowering his soldering iron. “Okay... that’s definitely not standard RC tech.”
“Danny?!” a voice shouted from nearby.
Fourteen-year-old Carly Zheng was sitting on the concrete slope wearing a studded leather jacket, her headphones blasting speed metal around her neck. She sprang to her feet, eyes wide with manic excitement. “Are those... alien monsters?!”
“Carly! Abdul! Get out of here!” Danny screamed, shoving them back toward a large drainage pipe.
One of the Deviants raised a palm cannon, charging a blast of superheated dark energy aimed straight at the kids.
“Hey, ugly!” Abdul shouted suddenly, waving a high-frequency EMP sensor he’d built out of spare parts. He flipped the switch, throwing off the Deviant’s targeting system for just a second. “Over here!”
“Great idea, genius!” Carly yelled, grabbing Abdul by the arm and dragging him toward the drain pipe. “Run!”
The Deviant snarled, turning to fire at the drain, but before the blast could launch, a massive wall of basalt rock erupted from the concrete floor, absorbing the hit completely.
Avani stepped into the canal. The gentle-souled giant’s skin was like rough, moss-covered Primordial stone, his massive Geode Gauntlet glowing with raw, molten energy.
“Leave the little ones alone,” Avani rumbled, his voice like grinding tectonic plates. He smashed his gauntlet into the ground, triggering a localized shockwave that shattered the Deviants’ balance.
Seeing themselves wildly outnumbered by Ventus, Barak, and Avani, the two Deviants scrambled back, retreating up the canyon walls and vanishing into the hills.
Silence fell over the drainage basin, broken only by the hum of ambient elemental energy.
Carly poked her head out of the drain pipe, her eyes practically sparkling. “That... was... AWESOME!”
Danny slumped against the wall, catching his breath. “Yeah... awesome is definitely one word for it.”
Inside the mountain command base, Special Agent Lucas Jackson stood on the catwalk, his arms crossed over his tactical vest, glaring down at Gainus Convoy.
“You brought children into an alien war zone, Convoy?” Jackson demanded, his voice echoing off the reinforced concrete walls. “My superiors are already breathing down my neck about property damage in the drainage sector!”
“It was not by design, Agent Jackson,” Gainus Convoy replied calmly, his fiery aura dimming to a gentle, respectful hum. “The Deviants have seen the children. Their safety is now compromised. As long as Zadok’s forces roam this planet, those human youth are targets.”
“I don’t like it,” Jackson grunted, though his tone softened slightly. “Keep ’em safe, Convoy. That’s your job.”
The next afternoon outside the local high school, Danny and Abdul walked out together, discussing the wild events of the previous day.
A sleek white-and-yellow lightning effect crackled near the tree line, and Barak appeared, making quick sign-language gestures toward Abdul.
Abdul smiled, picking up his backpack. “Barak says he wants us to come with them to their base!”
Danny sighed, turning to walk home. “To their base!? Wait a minute, I need to think.”
“Think about what?” a voice asked from behind a tree.
Danny jumped. Carly Zheng was sitting on a wall, sketching in a notebook, while Ventus stood behind her with her arms crossed, looking thoroughly miserable.
“Ventus, do we really have to drag the whole neighborhood along?” Ventus grumbled toward the sky.
“Gainus’s orders,” Ventus muttered back to herself, before looking at Danny. “Get over here, Wilson. You’re coming to headquarters. All of you.”
Deep inside the mountain base, the three human teenagers stood on a high steel gantry, looking up at the majestic, imposing figures of Team Convoy.
Chiron was at a medical terminal, scanning complex glowing light diagrams. Avani gave a gentle, friendly nod to Carly, who practically vibrated with excitement. Barak waved happily at Abdul.
Gainus Convoy stepped forward, his eyes shining with ancient wisdom and warmth.
“Welcome, young friends,” Gainus said, his voice echoing with profound authority. “I am Gainus Convoy. We are Elementals from the world of Primordia. For centuries, our people have been locked in a devastating civil war against the Deviants—a faction led by a tyrant named Zadok.”
Danny stepped up to the railing. “Why here? Why Earth?”
“Our homeworld was consumed by darkness and war,” Gainus explained somberly. “We fled to the stars, seeking refuge, only to find that Zadok’s dark ambition followed us. We have sworn to protect your world from falling to the same fate that destroyed ours.”
Gainus paused, his flames flickering with a sudden, dark foreboding. He raised his head, looking toward the ceiling as if sensing something deep in the cosmos.
“I feel a shift in the Aether,” Gainus whispered softly. “I fear... the imminent return of Zadok himself.”
Far out in the cold void of deep space, above Earth’s orbit, the warship Ultio hovered silently.
On the bridge, Aristos stood beside the communications array, his central energy core resonating with deep, powerful sound vibrations. He raised a sleek arm, deploying a focused wave of ultra-frequency sound waves out into the cosmos.
A ping echoed back through the array.
Zephyrus rushed to the main console, his storm energy flaring. “A transmission! From the deep space dark corridors!”
Aristos did not speak in his own voice. Instead, his core played back a chilling, pitch-perfect recording of Gainus Convoy’s voice from an ancient battle: “The Dark Emperor...”
“Activate the portal immediately!” Zephyrus commanded, trying to mask the sudden tremble of fear in his voice.
Outside the warship, a massive, ring-shaped construct ignited in a blinding flash of dark purple flame and shadow energy. The rip in reality widened, shaking the very fabric of space.
Out from the abyssal vortex stepped a massive, horrifying shadow.
His body was towering and jagged, clad in black armored plates over deep purple skin, pulsing with neon-purple veins of raw dark energy. Dark purple energy spikes sprouted from his shoulders, and massive wings of dark fire unfolded behind him. His left arm was morphed into a massive, imposing Cannon, and his glowing red sclera locked onto the blue planet below.
Dark Emperor Zadok had returned.
“Earth...” Zadok rumbled, his razor teeth bared in a cruel, terrifying smile as his purple aura flared. “At last, evil shall rise... for I have returned.”
TO BE CONTINUED…
