Chapter 17: You’re Under Arrest
There was a sudden knock at the pieces of wood that Garion considered to be a door. He pulled away the blanket and pillow, got up from the floor, and stepped quietly past the other teammates in their deep sleep as he went to answer it. Rebolto, deciding to stay there for the night, was startled by the knocking.
“Who could that be?” Rebolto wondered out loud.
“Only one way to find out,” Garion told him as he pulled apart the big chunk of wood that served as the main door.
Suddenly, multiple agents dressed in hard helmets and S.W.A.T uniforms, along with bulletproof vests and machine guns stormed into the mansion, their footsteps slowly waking the entire team out of their sleep. As the team started to get up the S.W.A.T team seemed to pay no attention to any of them; they simply seemed to be storming the house for evidence, ignoring the extraterrestrials existence.
After the S.W.A.T. team entered the mansion, a tall dark man in a tall dark suit with an earpiece on his right ear seemed to follow them, writing things down a notepad consistently, seeming as though one word out of place could upset the whole balance of the world. As he continued to write these things down, several agents accompanied him inside, each one wearing the same dress code: a tall, dark suit with dark sunglasses and earpieces, seeming to extend to under their shirt. There seemed to be at least five on each side of him, each agent standing erect, a stern yet simple look on their faces. Garion watched through their sunglasses as their deadlocked eyes did not gaze or wander, as their erect posture did not bend or twirl, the proper edict they had. To Garion, it felt like that if these men did not perform at their highest duty, they would get shot on sight.
Garion, startled by the random appearance, asked the tall dark man in the tall dark suit (still taking notes), “What the hell do you think you’re doing in my house?”
The agent looked up in surprise at the man, as if they had just magically teleported into the room.
Not wasting a second on gazing, he looked towards one of the agents and said, with a monotonous voice, “Get him.”
Being a signal for the whole team of agents to act, they took out their pistols and immediately opened fire on Garion along with the rest of the team, the same stern and official look on their faces.
Attempting to dodge the shots, Rebolto screamed, “What the hell did you do this time Garion?!”
“I didn’t do anything!”
“What should we do?”
“Fight back!”
Garion closed his eyes and concentrated. With speed now, his tentacles quickly wrapped around the legs of three agents, the force of his tug causing them to trip and fall to the ground without warning. He then quickly shot multiple tentacles around the room at various agents, each tentacle hitting them and paralyzing them for a few moments while they attempted to pry the leech-like substance off of their faces.
Mason took quick advantage of this opportunity, pulling out both of his pistols and aiming them directly on the two agents heads His aim being dead-on accurate, a bead of sweat dropped down form Mason’s eyebrows as he contemplated the fact that these men could be on our side. Before anyone else could do anything else, Mason hesitantly spoke, silencing everyone.
“Now you men listen here. I don’t know who you are, or what you want, but I can assure you that we don’t want any trouble. Now, if we can all just put down our weapons and maybe talk this out....”
A pistol shot barely missed Mason’s head as he was talking, driving him to the breaking point.
“You put this on yourselves you sons of....”
With a bullet to the shoulder Mason fell to the ground in agony, as an agent closed in on his current state of turmoil.
“No!” Garion screamed.
He ran through the gunfire towards Mason, refusing to lose another teammate. As the agent was about to pull the trigger on Mason, Nirem tackled him to the ground as hard as he can, trying to replicate the small things he had learned in gym class. As the agent fell down onto the ground with a thud, Mason then preceded to finish the job as the bullet entered the agent’s skull, ending his life on the spot.
After quickly thanking Garion for saving his life, Mason knew he didn’t have time to contemplate what he just did. He knew he had just probably shot a federal agent. He knew the consequences for his actions. At the same time though, Mason knew he had acted in self-defense, and that if he didn’t continue to do what he does best, he would soon be killed. So Mason pulled the two triggers on both his pistols and watched two agents go down.
As Garion continued to fend off the agents using all of his tentacles in the most creative ways possible, he knew that this couldn’t last forever. The S.W.A.T. agents started to pour down the marble staircase, opening fire on anyone who looked threatening in the least amount of ways. Their waves of bullets immediately outnumbering Garion’s fancy noodle tricks, he knew he was in trouble. As Garion started to get closed in on by two agents, he knew that he was as good as dead.
“Goodbye,” an agent whispered as he pulled the trigger.
Garion, managing to duck down and hear the bullet pierce the wall behind him, took things the old fashion way. He grabbed onto both of the men’s legs and flipped the two to the ground by tipping their legs over. He then turned the two bodies around so that they faced stomach forward, and punched each one in the face with all of his might, knocking them both unconscious.
Tyrone, on the other hand, was plowing through the agents like barriers in his path. He charged through the crowd of S.W.A.T officers and agents, pushing them to the ground as he tried to clear a path. He even, for the people that provoked him, slammed some of the agents onto the floor multiple times, showing pure anger as he stomped through each one of them without a second thought as to their ranks, only thinking of them as pure enemy’s.
Rebolto attacked the alien’s with pure precision, using his tentacles quickly and precisely to whip out attacks at these agents that not only would they never expect, but would leave them helpless against him as he rushed in for the final blow. He seemed to use his abilities as an art; patiently yet with quick precision knocking down his opponents and stuffing them onto the ground in retaliation towards their aggressive actions.
Malix simply steamed hot lava at the approaching agents, creating a large barrier around himself so that agents wouldn’t attack him. He heard the agents burn and sizzle as the shadows once did as they ran towards his shields doubting its existence. The shield was definitely real, though; so real, that Malix was able to help out other teammates clear up certain agents since he was so well guarded.
Brendan was having a hard time keeping up, his old body not used to this kind of combat. He struggled to match the precise agents kicks and blows as they came to him, and had a hard time blocking their gunfire as it surged into his tentacles. These agents were too fast for him, and he knew if he didn’t act soon he was going to die. As he was backed into a corner by three agents that seemed to arrive by the front door (apparently the team hadn’t noticed new squads of agents start to come in), he knew he had to do something and fast.
Suddenly, all the agents put gas masks on at once. Before anybody could tell what was happening, there was a loud bang and there was then suddenly a thick gas throughout the room, stinging the team’s eyes and ears as they were backed into a corner by their unforeseen enemy. As the team members, mostly Mason, struggled not only to inhale this strong substance but to see in it as well, Garion suddenly heard the clicks of what seemed to be thousands of guns cocking back their hammer, ready to fire at will. As the smoke cleared, Garion saw at least 50 S.W.A.T. agents and 20 highly trained agents (the ones with the dark suits on) surrounding them throughout the mansion, guns pointed at them. Without question Garion placed his hand on his head, as the rest of the team did as well, Garion’s motion acting like a universal sign.
The tall dark man in the tall dark suit, seeming to be taking notes while this entire event
unfolded, put down his notepad and finally spoke.
“Well, what do we have were? A few extraterrestrials trying to hop on a free ride to Earth. Well, we’ll have to prevent that, won’t we?”
“Who are you people?” Garion asked in confusion.
“The United States Government,” the man responded in shock, seeming to be surprised by Garion’s English, “and you are trespassing. I guess we’re going to have to take you to a ‘special’ place. Now, if you’ll just come with us, we won’t shoot you in the face right now.”
Garion, attempting to play around with his alien heritage, cockily responded, “And what makes you think we can’t take a bullet to the head?”
“You all may not be able to,” the tall dark man realized, “but your human friend here can.”
The man raised his pistol on Mason and cocked it back, ready to fire. Mason thought about reaching for his pistols for protection, but knew that the agent seemed to have a dead-on shot as well.
“Wait!” Garion stopped him. “Fine. We’ll comply.”
The agent lowered his weapon but let the numerous S.W.A.T. agents keep their weapons pointed at each member of the team, them too probably having dead-on aim. Garion felt like he was in one of those cop movies that he used to watch, where the suspect was cornered with cop cars surrounding him and he had two choices: Comply or Die.
Garion, even though he was trying to avoid the second choice, had to explain himself, “You don’t understand. We’re the good-guys here. There’s someone else that’s trying to....”
“I don’t care what anyone else is trying to do. You all, on the other hand, thought that you all could hop onto a foreign planet and go unnoticed. That little stunt you pulled though, the one with the fake president rolling in to drive away suspicion, that was clever, I’ll give you that much. Thanks to an anonymous tip though, we finally found you.”
Anonymous tip? Garion couldn’t believe it! Draktos set him up from the start! He knew that Garion would figure out the plan, he knew that he would know how to train. And he managed to set up for that too! Draktos thought of everything in this plan, of his, and Garion couldn’t let him get away with his sinister plot. First things first though, he had to calm down all of these government agents. He had to explain to them what was actually going on here.
“Listen,” Garion tried to explain, “the fake president thing, that wasn’t us....”
“Sure it wasn’t. Don’t worry, we have a special place for people like you.”
All the conspiracy theories Garion had ever heard in his life were immediately confirmed. He knew what that man was talking about. He knew where they were going to be taken.
“Area 51,” Garion realized solemnly.
“That’s right.”
He then turned towards the hundreds of security guards, their guns still aimed directly at the team.
“Take them in.”
“Well, that’s no fun,” Draktos thought from a distance. “Nobody died. At least, nobody from his team did. We’re going to have to change that up a bit.”
Draktos then got up from his lookout position at the top of the hill behind Garion’s mansion, and he then abandoned his shadow’s body. He took off his cape, letting his average shadow of a human’s body grow as his legs grew into tangible legs, along with the rest of his body rapidly growing. Once the transformation from his cape was done, he simply let his body evaporate, turning his entire body into a gas, letting it float and disappear into thin air as he invisibly made his way towards Garion mansion.
“Listen,” Garion continued to try to explain, “there’s someone trying to take over this world, and his name is....”
“Feel what Harold felt.”
Garion suddenly felt a chill inside his entire body as he seemed to lose control. His arms, legs, every part of his body seemed to freeze up at once, he was completely immobile in every sense of the word. His eyes still worked though, but only to an extent: he was only able to see out of his eyeballs, but no more. He could not move them, just observe and watch his own body unwillingly act, pivoting on it’s own and speaking false words.
As the chill receded, Garion felt as though he had risen up out of his own body and was watching the events unfold from a birds-eye view; he was not able to do anything but watch. As he watched what seemed to be Draktos taking over his entire body, he could not bear to see what Draktos decided to do with his newly acquired host. He tried to close his eyes so he wouldn’t have to watch, but Draktos had control of them now.
“What was that?” the tall dark agent asked in suspicion. “Were you calling your other troops?”
“Did you say you were the United States government?” Garion/Draktos asked in a noticeably deeper voice.
“Yes.”
“I never liked those people.”
He then quickly shot his tentacles out at the tall dark agent, launching them onto the surprised agents face. As they hit the man’s face, he struggled and squeezed to immediately get them off, as the leech-like substance seemed to pry onto his skin.
“This new body is not that bad,” Draktos murmured through Garion.
“Garion?” Purstan screamed. “What have you....”
“Fire!” the agent managed to make out.
The entire S.W.A.T. team immediately opened fire on the innocent bunch, instantly killing Mason with a bullet to the head. As the gunfire rained down on the team, each one attempted to get back into their battle strategies and start to retake their base. But there were just too many agents.
One by one each teammate began to fall, steadily easing a little closer to death as each bullet pierced their bodies. Garion could see the teammates struggling, each one clinging to life hard, but then eventually losing the desperate battle as the S.W.A.T. agents closed in on them, putting thick bullets into their skulls with ease.
“No!” Garion thought to himself.
He tried to regain control of his body, trying anything and everything to save his teammates. He struggled and strained against the hard pulls of Draktos’ control, trying to somehow simply push Draktos out of his body. He couldn’t though, Draktos’ power was too much for him to handle. So Garion had to sit there and watch his teammates die right before his very eyes, being helpless to do anything about it.
Garion/Draktos moved with a swift and keen style, brushing past S.W.A.T teams left and right, using his new strings for all kinds of tricks as he melted into the ground, only to reappear in front of a group of S.W.A.T. agents. He then shot all of his tentacles out at each of their faces and, as the struggled to get the leech-like substances off of them as they ate away at their skin, Draktos took one of their pistols and shot them all in the back of the head, execution style.
He moved through the S.W.A.T. officers with ease, feeling no danger as he attacked each officer with brutal force.
Meanwhile, Garion, watching from above, saw Malix go down as a frag grenade was tossed inside his open mouth, only to have his insides explode seconds later. Right in front of Garion’s eyes he watched the left side of his mansion catch on fire, and he could do nothing to stop it.
Then he reached the breaking point.
Purstan fell to the ground with a thud, as the last few bullets were put into his skull. Garion watched Purstan as he grabbed for the ceiling one last time, his last effort to grasp onto the thresholds of life itself, then watched as he silently slipped away into the darkness.
Garion started fighting it as hard as he can. He didn’t know what he was doing; all he knew was that he had to get Draktos out, he had to save what was left of his team. He kept fighting Draktos’ spirit that conquered his whole body, trying to move anything at all: an arm, a leg, even a toe so that he could somehow use that toe to save his team. He had to gain back control. Garion pushed and pushed as hard as he could, fighting Draktos’ soul until Garion finally collapsed onto the ground, out of breath.
As he looked up towards the S.W.A.T. men, he noticed tha
t he was looking up towards the S.W.A.T. men, and no one else. He did it. He fought Draktos for his body, and won. He was finally in control. Now he had to save what was left of his team.
Garion frantically looked around, trying to find any team member that was still breathing. All that he found alive was Tyrone, blocking the bullets with his rock hard body as he plowed through the soldiers. Garion knew, though, that it was only a matter of time before they brought in the big guns.
“STOP!” Garion shouted at the top of his lungs, trying to cease the gunfire. “WE SURRENDER! TYRONE, PUT YOUR DAMN HANDS UP!”
The S.W.A.T men, not wanting to lose any more soldiers to the massive beast, lowered their weapons as Tyrone complied with Garion, placing his hands on his head. Garion then noticed the tall, dark man get up with multiple bruises and scars, looking anything but happy.
“Look what you’ve done!” the man screamed without any monotonous voice whatsoever. “You’ve killed hundreds of agents, and at what cost? Did you actually think you were going to make it out of here alive? Now, because of your actions, your friends are dead. I hope your happy.”
The tall, dark man, looking towards the S.W.A.T. men again, said worriedly, “Take them away.”
This time Garion and Tyrone complied, tears falling down Garion’s face as he stared at all of his friends dead bodies, each one motionless on the floor Garion, refusing to put himself under the illusion that they were sleeping. He couldn’t believe it; not only was most of his old life dead, but now his new one had just perished in the blink of an eye. Also, his parents were nowhere to be found along with Max, so all Garion had left in this world was Tyrone. All of his friends, even Purstan, were now sprawled out onto the floor on display for the world to see. He let Draktos kill all of them, and he just stood idly by. Suddenly, Garion noticed that Rebolto was barely breathing.
“Rebolto!” Garion screamed. “Please, you can keep your guns pointed at me! Just let me say goodbye to my friend!”
“You have thirty-seconds,” the agent replied, feeling a hint of remorse for this creature.
Garion ducked past all the agents and, avoiding the densely smoky areas from the fire, went towards Rebolto, telling him, “Don’t worry. You’re not going to die. You’re not going to die.”
“Yes, I am,” Rebolto whispered. “Yes I am. It’s better to accept it now then to deal with the guilt later.”
“You always do have the best quotes,” Garion attempted to smile as tears trickled down his face.
“Listen to me very closely, now.”
Garion tuned in, trying to hear Rebolto’s almost inaudible last words.
“You must leave immediately.”
“Twenty-seconds.”
“You must leave now. The only reason Draktos would call the police on us today means that he didn’t want us interfering with his plan. Which means...the plan is happening today. Right now.”
Garion, realizing the truth in this statement, gasped.
“Listen,” Garion tried to explain, “about when I attacked that Secret Service agent....”
“It was Draktos, wasn’t it?”
“How’d you know?”
“I figured out that you weren’t that stupid.”
Rebolto managed a smile and placed something into Garion’s hand, closing it tight in his palm so the other agents wouldn’t notice. He then slowly started to pass away. Right before he left this world though, he managed to whisper, “I told you so.”