A Fantasy Story Chapter Eight

Chapter Eight

Under Water Disco with Monster Battles and Airship Troubles

                We made our way down the stairs to the second level, which was enchanted gear and medical supplies.

“Hey Kat; we should take a quick look in here. There could be some treasures to be had”

“Nah, we should just keep going and not waist time”

“Oh come on it would just take a second” I said grabbing Kat’s hand and jaunting through the door.

“You see? They took everything with them. There’s nothing here” Kat said as we looked over the mess of scattered papers and empty open drawers.

“Oh, your right” and with head hung low, we went back to the stairs.

“If they had enough time to take all the gear here; then why did they leave a battle airship behind” I thought to myself.

                Our progress was soon hindered when we arrived at the third level. Water that came up to my knees has flooded the whole level, which meant that the last two levels are completely submerged.  

“Awe come on! This is going to be harder than it needs to be” I said whining to Kat.

“It might be easier to swim down anyway instead of walking anyway”

She walked over to the top of the stairs and leaned on the railing, looking down into the submerged levels. When suddenly a rumble from below caused a section of the staircase to break off and fall on top of Kat.

“Watch out!” I yelled as I grabbed and yanked her out of the way of the falling debris.

                I held Kat close as the staircase fell and blocked our way down to the lower levels.

“Damn it! Now where do we go?” Kat said frustrated and shaken.

“Here, listen to me. Buildings like this should have more than one stair case. If we go through this room then we should see another set of stairs” I said trying to calm her down and keep hopes up.

“Right! That’s right, let’s do that”

                We entered level three of the laboratory and the label on the door said “Rec Room” however there was far more to this room than meet the eye. At first glance one could see that there wasn’t a whole lot inside the rec room, aside for a couple of tables stood about the plain tile floor.

“Whoa! What is this?” I exclaimed pointing at a huge control panel built into the wall beside the door.

“What is that?”

“I think it turns on the lights, maybe. Here give me a second to try some of these”

                There were so many buttons on the panel that it boggled my mind. However there was one green button aside from the panel that caught my attention right away. With a click the room lit up with simple florescence lights.

“There we go, now we can see what we’re dealing with” I said looking back at the control panel, looking for something more useful than plain florescence light.

                Upon closer inspection I saw that the buttons where actually labeled with tiny symbols like a hamburger, a lightning bolt, a phone, and so on, however the most interesting button was the chrome button with no label at all.

“I must press this button” I thought before pressing the button.

                With a click of the unknown button, gears began to clink and clank about the walls and soon the entire room began to transform. Walls began to rotate and expand, the floor grew and lit up in an assortment of colors, one of the walls opened up and let loose a bunch of multi colored balloons, the ceiling opened a trap door and lowered a sphere with many tiny mirrors covering it, reflecting any lights that were to shine off it.

“What did you do?!” Kat yelled at me.

“Things are getting funky in here”

 “I’m serious here, what’s going on”

                Just then; two giant speakers popped up from the floor and started to play a familiar song.

“What!? How in the hell did these guys get Michael Jackson here?” I said surprised to hear “Billy Jean” blasting from the sound system.

                Just when I thought things couldn’t get any more far out, I accidently pressed another button on the control panel. This time the music changed and a door opened up from one end of the room letting a conga line of robots into the room. They didn’t seem to be attacking or security robots; instead they just cut one hell of a rug as they snaked through the party rec room.

“What is going on?” Kat asked befuddled beyond comprehension.

“Well you could try to figure out why this is happening and why you now have a wicked awesome afro now, or you could just go with it. I mean come on! There’s a conga line right there. What else could you possibly want?”

“Argh, I can’t take any more of this crazy. Let’s get out of here”

“Oh fine”

                We barely escaped that groove with our lives as the robots busted out the limbo poll. Unfortunately the flooded lower levels made it difficult to escape as quickly as we wanted to, but it didn’t stop us from going to level four.

Level four is where they contained the biological creatures that they did studies and experiments on. As we dived down further and further down my funky freshness withered away and fear replaced what space I had vacant for courage. My hands started to shake as we ventured passed the entrance that lead into the horrible creature room and they didn’t stop shaking, not when I saw the massive claw marks engraved on the walls that seemed to shrink smaller and smaller as we swam down the long corridor to the next set of stairs. Paranoia started to grab hold of my conscious making me see and hear things that weren’t actually there. I grabbed Kats arm to tell her about the claw marks but it came off in my hands. Red blood filled the water as her body was devoured by a shark’s head with tentacles swaying about around him. Suddenly I am caught and I am helpless to do anything but stare into the blood soaked fangs as I entered inside the mouth watching the flashlight flicker off and on next to Kat’s torn of foot.

“AHHHHHH!” Van screamed as he imagined the pain of his body being torn apart by this monstrous beast.

                The next thing I know I’m being shaken by Kat trying to get me back to my senses. Slapping my face like it was her day job.

“What is wrong with you!?”

“Wha-wha-Who-whats, you’re alive!?” I asked confused, concerned and mentally unwell.

“Yeah” she said obviously “What happened to you? You just stopped and screamed like a maniac”

“But I saw you being eaten by some sort of monster shark with tentacles” I said grabbing her arm and pointing at where it happened.

“It was so horrifying, so real”

“HEY!” Kat shouted startling me.

“Now look, you can see nothing’s there. If there were something there, then not only would we see it but the radar on my pack would have let me known about it, see” She held up a gadget that had a blue ping ring and two dots on the map.

“There are two dots on it and that’s us. Everything within thirty feet of this thing will be reviled and we’ll be the first to know about it, got it?” Still too scared to talk properly, I shook my head yes.

“GOT IT!?” She asked making me have to answer.

“Yes, got it”

“Good, now we don’t have far to go before we get to the hanger. Can you stay with me until we get there or am I going to have to take you back up?”

                Another decision has found me and I know my answer will definitely affect the outcome of, not only, the mission; but also my adventures I can have with Kat and the rest of her team. The path scared the hell out of me and I know that going back would keep me at least safe than heading down into the unknown. However I’ve always been kept away from getting into trouble all my life, making sure that I didn’t see anything bad and that only made me board and depressed.

“Ah, I’m going to stick with you and continue this mission” I said slapping my face and chest, trying to psyching me up.

“Well now, it’s about time. Let’s get going”

“Alright!” I said thankfully and with a smile on my face.

                We have finally made our way to the rusty door that leads to the hanger. Security looked tight and gave Kat a hard time, who worked on the digital lock with her gizmos and hackery. It was me who had to open the rusty door though in the end.

“Whoa” we both said as we gazed upon the gigantic airship just sitting there, ripe for the picking.

                Kat fiddled with one of the cluster of wires from the lock system and got power to some emergency lights, giving us a better look at what we were working with.

                The airship was spectacular to look at and I can’t really bring myself to describe the awesomeness of what I’m seeing right now.

                So you’ve come to me, the narrator, to give you, the reader, a little bit more insight to what our hero Van is looking at. The airships body shines with a silvery gloss and the shape looked like a futuristic nuclear submarine with the sail located towards the back, allowing there to be a window for the command center. There are four rudders on the back while only two near the front and a few small thrusters underneath that seemed too small to lift the entire ship into the air. Van thought that the front of the ship resembled a blue whale because of the ridges that ran along the belly, which was separated by a black ring that went around the whole ship. Upon closer inspection you could see spaces where lights were, as if it was a spaceship. Ok, that’s enough of me now, let us get back to the story and see what Kat is doing at the back of the hanger where she has found a generator that can power up the entire hanger and the runway outside of the lab.

“Van, can you give me a hand over here?” Kat asked me from the back of the hanger.

“OK, what do ya need?”

“I found this generator power hub for the hanger, but it needs a small jump. If you pull the cord over there then I can use this sparker to get this up and running” She shown me the flashlight that we have been using and it had a pull cord attached to it which reminded me of a weed whacker.

“Wait a second. Isn’t it bad for sparks like that to be underwater? I don’t want to be electrocuted”

“Idiot, look at your hand. Remember? You’re wearing the ring still”

“To breathe underwater” I said sarcastically.

“These also have been enchanted to be electoproof. That means electricity bounces off of you” Kat explained as if talking to a child.

“Oh, well that’s convenient”

                It didn’t take me long to get the mini sparker it’s charge and the generator soon began to hum as life flowed through the lines.

“Purrs like a kitten. Can we get the airship out now?” I asked.

“Sure can, just got to get those two stainless, three hundred foot, five ton doors open”

                I look at her thinking that she can’t be serious. There’s no way I could push those doors open by hand.

“Luckily for you this generator can open them up. No muscles needed”

                A flick of a switch and the engine roared, sending volts of power throughout the hanger to the doors. They swung out rather quickly as the lights outside lit up a runway and the things outside.

                My hands shook violently and fear began to well in my soul as the very monster that I saw before stared me down like an eagle looking at the mouse lunch it’s about to receive. Then Kat grabbed my shoulder making my reflexes move my body in an amazing way. Within one second I had drawn my sword, spun around behind her and held the business end to her throat.

“What are you doing?” she said scared for her life.

“I don’t know, I just moved. I’m sorry” I said removing the sword and lowering to my side.

“You really are scared, aren’t you?”

“Yeah, just a little bit”

“What changed? You killed that spider in the castle with ease, what’s different now?”

                Her words rang through my mind with a calm, allowing me to focus a little more.

“Your still strong, animals are still animals and I still need your help. Are you going to be the coward; or are you going to be the hero?”

                I couldn’t help but to have an earth shattering epiphany that changed everything I thought about myself. Power started to pulsate through my body and I even felt lighter, as if I could levitate.

“Kat. Stay behind me. I won’t let anything harm you. Not while I live”

                What happened to Van was astonishing. He approached the monstrous experiment slowly as his aura emanated a green and gold hue. Kat was helpless to do anything but look upon him as she saw the outline of a winged beast surround Van’s body. However his intimidation didn’t work against the shark-squid as they became mere feet away from each other. Seconds seem to drag out to hours as the underwater standoff sent waves of extreme spiritual energy throughout the area.

Without warning the shark-squid sent Van torpedoing up through the floors of the lab, causing rubble to sink down to the hanger floor.

“Balls” Kat said as she was left to face the monster by herself. The shark-squid spotted Kat and began to stalk his pray slowly. It got closer and closer and just when it got into the ping range of Kat’s radar, music began to get louder and louder.

                Van burst through the floor and slammed into the shark-squid with a boom box and afro wielding robots. Kat was flabbergasted as Van kicked the monster aside and walked over to her to give her the boom box.

“Hold this for a sec will ya” he said nonchalantly.

                With hands free and newly found enlightenment, Van was now ready to make shark-squid sushi and just in time for it was inches away from chowing down on his body. One handed, Van stopped the barrelling shark-squid in its tracks; making the monster tapped within his death zone. However before Van could, it disappeared as it swam above to avoid its impending doom. Unfortunately for the shark-squid Van was too fast to evade and the hunter became the hunted.  Slowly he got closer and closer to the shark-squid as they danced about the hanger with great speed and grace. Just then the monster turned its attention to the boogie bots and began to eat them one by one; they were helpless to stay alive. The reason the monster started to eat them was because it fuses with anything it ate and therefor began to form a metallic shell around its skin making it more difficult to pierce its skin; for a normal human that is. It wasn’t until the monster turned its attention to Kat that it sealed its fate. She stood there as the fangs of the shark-squid opened up and charged her, desperate to eat something human.

Kat didn’t worry for she had a little surprise for just such an occasion. In her hands she had turned the flashlight into an electopulse emitter, which basically was a gun that shot a pulse of electricity, stunning its victims. Only a few feet away, Kat shot off a pulse and stopped the monster just enough for Van to deliver the final blow. In a blink of an eye the sword had cut through the shark-squid twice and was sheathed before the monster could fall apart. Van straightened out slowly as the aura dimmed down and disappeared.

“Victory!” I yelled out with excitement as I punched the air and twirled around.

                Kat palmed her face in embarrassment realizing that her saviour still acts like a kid. However at the same time she couldn’t help but to smile and join me in my victory dance. We ended our victory in a high five and arm wrestle hand shake before agreeing to board the airship.

“If this thing has a transmitter then we can call the ship instead of sending up the floatation beacon” Kat informed me as she opened the hatch up.

                Soon after we walked into the control center and found the radio that Kat was talking about before.

“Huh? What is this? There’s no power at all”

“So we can’t use the radio then?”

“Not just the radio, there’s no way to get the airship running!”

“And that’s bad I’m guessing?”

“It means we got to tow this dame thing all the way up. Ahh! This blows”

“There’s no way to get a power source to it? Like gas or something?”

“Well, a machine like this is going to take Dragonitthyum and I don’t know about you but I don’t have any Dragonitthyum on me. Do you have any? Perhaps just sitting in your pocket maybe?” Kat said sarcastically and slightly ticked off.

“Well no, I’m just wondering if there’s something I could do to help. Don’t need to get all angry at me”

“Sorry, it’s just going to be a lot of work to get this out now after we’ve come so far”

“Come on now, don’t get frustrated. We’ve got it! You have this airship in your hands and you know where it is. No matter what you got to do to move this thing, it doesn’t matter cause you have got it” I said trying to cheer up Kat and get her focused on the victory we have achieved.

                She had to take a moment to admire my optimism but then she realized I was right and regained her train of thought.

“Alright, the ship is in one piece but no power. To tow something this heavy we’ll need chains, however chains can damage the hull and rudders if hooked up like a tree. If we could get the cargo nets under it then it would preserve it and not crush the hull. But if the airship doesn’t exit through those doors straight then it could collapse the whole lab on top of it and then we’d have nothing but scraps and one hell of a head ach”

“Sounds like the perfect job for me. I’ll get it through, no problem”

“This thing could weigh more than the doors! You think your just gonna push it?!”

“I think I’m gonna push it out and all the up; cause I got dez big mah-souls!” I said doing my best Arnold Schwarzenagger impression and flexing what muscles I had.