Chapter 20: The End Of Garion?
Garion couldn’t feel any part of his body. He seemed to be flying faster then the speed of light, blasting through the very fabrics of space and time itself. Not thinking of anything but how he planned to survive such a trip, Garion tried to remain calm as they blasted through all of space, pushing anything in its way past him.
Before he knew it, Garion and Max were panting on the staircase towards the Martian palace, Garion still struggling to breathe. Garion looked back towards space as he saw Earth completely shrouded in darkness, seeming like a big black ball that makes its inside invisible to the surrounding planet. The dark shadow surrounding Earth acted like tinted windows of the president’s limousine so spectators cannot glance through to see the limousine's true purpose; they hid Earth’s activities from other planets. Garion couldn’t believe what Quishow caused, what he could have stopped from unfolding before his eyes.
“Are you O.K.?” Max asked.
“How the hell did you survive?!” Garion exclaimed.
“We hid in the mansion once the agents barged down the door,” Max explained.
“We? As in...my parents?!”
“Yes, I put them in as safe a place as possible in a storm like this. Then, I had to save you.”
“How did you know where to find me? More importantly, how did you get your suit back?”
“To find you, I just followed the dark beam into the Bermuda Triangle. Also, I never really got my suit back. The power always resonated inside of me, the suit just amplified my powers. It was actually hard to even muster up the strength to rescue you, but I managed the task with a little help from the Stars.”
“The Gods?”
“No, the Stars.”
“So then how did Quishow....”
“Apparently, old dogs can learn new tricks.”
“How,” Garion roared, “how did Quishow gain all of this knowledge? How did he turn from an idiotic bully to a massive super-villain in just a couple months?!”
“He must have had help from the Stars as well,” Max sulked.
“What do you mean by the Stars? You treat them as if they are living beings, not large bodies of heat.”
“That’s because they are living beings. In fact, they are the most powerful living beings in the entire universe.”
“These bodies of heat?”
“No, the....”
Suddenly, an alien came bursting out of the palace wall beside them, tumbling to the deserted, rocky ground below him. Garion ran over to the Martian only to see most of his tentacles missing and his unconscious eyes gazing off into the sky above. Garion closed the man’s eyes in sadness as he looked back at Max.
“Go,” Max told him, “this is your fight, not mine.”
Garion managed to give Max a courageous face as he ran through the hole in the wall and into what was left of the waiting room of the palace (the crumbled pieces of the wall still there from the last attack), only to see Quishow darting through a small tube in the small hallway right in front of him.
Garion ran like no one had ever ran before, darting for the small entrance in the hallway directly in front of him on the wall to the left of him, right next to a locked door. Garion squeezed himself down what appeared to be a tube slide right before the small entrance, no bigger than a water-slide's entrance, shut behind him.
The next thing he knew, Garion was sliding at a fast pace through a completely dark slide, having no sense of direction besides the feeling of a turn every now and then. As he slid through the slide, Garion realized that Draktos would probably be waiting for him at the bottom, so he prepared.
As the light started to show and Garion started to make out Quishow’s dark figure in the bright room, and shot a giant light beam directly into his stomach.
Quishow flew against the back wall of the room as Garion slid inside and observed his surroundings. He seemed to be in an all golden room, bright and shiny. The room, being no bigger than an average sized kitchen, had a giant safe covering most of the wall towards Garion’s left, the safe being made entirely out of gold. Written in big letters above the safe’s massive spinning wheel to open it was the letters: V.V. Garion looked around at all the safe’s mechanisms, and it was hardcore material.
The safe seemed to be at least 4 feet thick made of some Martian version of reinforced steel, its bolts on the side of the safe probably tighter then the strings on the Golden Gate bridge. A giant, rotation wheel covered the majority of the safe, the wheel being at least two Garion’s tall and three Garion’s wide. Next to the giant, rotation wheel (and towards the ground) was a small control panel with not only a passcode lock but a handprint identification as well. The control panel also had some sort of biometric lock above it, and next to the scanner there seemed to be a camera tracking the movements of the room, observing for trespassers. Along with all of those scanners was a small compartment next to the passcode lock for DNA analysis scanning, the hint being a slot about the size of an average Martian’s tentacle.
“For security like this for a giant safe,” Garion thought, “there must be something worth stealing in there. Whatever it is, I can’t let Quishow have it.”
Garion then immediately dodged an incoming shadow ball heading for him as he somersaulted out of the way towards the direction of the vault. Mustering up the energy to shoot another ball of light directly at Quishow, he dodged it as well with a simple turn of the head as he shot a ball of shadows again at Garion. This one hitting Garion in the leg, he fell to the floor as Quishow slowly made his way towards him. Garion immediately got up and shot some of his tentacles at Quishow.
Quishow simply flicked them off like small bugs though, ignoring their presence as he walked towards Garion. Panicking, he slowly melted into the ground, disappearing from Quishow’s line of sight.
Quishow looked around frantically for Garion until he suddenly popped out of the ground, thrusting Quishow towards to ceiling with a simple punch in the wrong places.
He fell to the ground with a thud as he grabbed Garion by the leg and yanked his tentacles as hard as he could. Garion started to pull away, shooting his leech-like creatures at Quishow’s clinging arm until he was eventually forced to let go. Quishow quickly stood up and stared at Garion as he did the same.
“I see you’ve gotten stronger as well,” Quishow sneered.
“Strong enough to beat you,” Garion replied with confidence.
“Oh we will see about that,” Quishow laughed, “because once I open that vault and obtain the S.T.U., this universe is mine for the taking.”
“The S.T.U?”
“Star Transporting Unit.”
“What are these Stars? What do they do? What are their purpose?”
“You fool! You don’t even know the true purpose of a Star?! What kind of Gatekeeper are you, anyway?”
“What are the Stars?!”
“They are only the most powerful beings in the entire universe! They control light and dark, night and day; everything you see around you has been hand-crafted by the Stars!”
“So,” Garion realized, “if you teleported to the Stars home and....”
“That’s right,” Quishow smiled, “their power will soon be mine. All you can do is watch as I finished what I should have done a long time ago.”
“We’ll see about that,” Garion said as he shot another light beam directly at Quishow’s face, hitting him spot on as he flew towards the back wall again.
“Aaah!”
He got up slowly, his face badly singed from the blast. Garion looked at him in shock as his entire face was badly burned, his whole face burning like a Smore on a cool, summer’s night as his skin seemed as though it was about to peel off. Yet in that moment, the moment where Quishow’s face went from evil to disgusting, Garion felt that much more scared of him. Quishow was mad now, smoke still rising from his face and his skin acting like an old grape, the shell rusty and flabby. Though, through Q
uishow’s now deformed facial features, Garion managed to make out the anger in his eyes as he started to make a giant shadow ball.
Garion quickly jumped to the ground and shot another beam of light at his legs, collapsing him onto the floor in defeat. The shadow ball simply shot towards the wall behind Garion and exploded, barely leaving a mark on him. Garion walked towards Quishow in triumph as he prepared something cocky.
“I guess that....”
As quickly as Garion saw victory though, defeat fell upon him as Draktos came clashing down on him, grabbing his legs and swinging him to the ground. He then shape-shifted his hand into a makeshift knife and grabbed Garion by his tentacles, propping him up onto his face.
“How’s about we finish this how it started?” Draktos laughed a he plunged the knife deep into Garion’s tentacles.
Right then Garion felt the pain. Not the pain of getting his tentacles ripped out, not the pain of watching his friends die, but real pain. The blade, made entirely out of shadows, pierced Garion’s human form, going not only inside his skin but into his organs, seeming to punch a vital one as Garion shockingly coughed up blood. He felt the blood seep out of his human form and spread through his tentacles, not only leaving a literal but a metaphorical stain as Garion collapsed onto the floor in pain. All of his blood seemed to pour out his wound, spilling onto the floor like he did as Quishow made his way towards the vault.
Quishow, staring at the vault, started to whisper in some sort of foreign language. Garion, bleeding out on the floor, couldn’t manage to make out any of the language. What Garion did realize though, is that Quishow whispered this language in some sort of native tongue, seeming to perfectly pronounce the incomprehensible words. It felt as though he was chanting a prayer at some sort of funeral, wishing the dead well quietly as it parted on to its other life.
After about a minute of chanting, the door to the vault seemed to automatically unlock and slowly creak open, it’s treasure’s on the inside revealing itself. Quishow stared in awe at all the objects in the room (being about the size of a house), most of them made out of solid gold. From ancient statues to not so ancient metallic machines like Quishow’s, valuables of all shapes and sizes scoured the room in an unorganized fashion. The only thing that was organized though was the small, circular device propped up on a stand at the back of the room. The title on the inscription on the display stand read: STAR TRANSPORTING UNIT. USE ONLY IN CASE OF AN EXTREME EMERGENCY AND WITH THE APPROPRIATE CLEARANCE.
Quishow smiled as he started to make his way towards the back of the room, making sure not to step on any valuables. After what seemed like numerous hours of trudging through valuables like stepping on Lego’s, Quishow finally made it to the back stand and broke the glass casing surrounding it, an alarm setting off as he did so. Draktos grabbed the small device from it’s stick-shaped stand and stared at it.
After long last, he was now able to meet his fellow mentors, bow in their presence as he slowly slipped a knife behind their backs. He finally, after all this time, all of this planning, had the key to opening a door to another world. In his hands, he was finally grasping his dreams. Quishow now had the key to the Stars, the almighty beings of the universe. He could finally meet the Stars, and he could finally have their power.
“After long waiting,” Quishow whispered, “it’s finally mine.”
Suddenly, small pieces of tentacles hit his hand. Quishow, shocked, quickly attempted to get the vermin off of his hands, but it was too late. The tentacles sucked up the STU and then flew back to a now standing (yet limping) Garion, ready to fight one last time.
“GIVE IT BACK!” Draktos roared as he shot a giant shadow ball directly at Garion.
Garion quickly dodged the ball and ran inside the V.V. (Garion now realizing meant Valuables Vault), trying to find anything that could be of use to him. All the while, Draktos was close behind him, chasing him throughout the room and trying to shoot shadow balls at him every five-seconds.
Garion continued to run around the room in circles, fearing a dead end as to his search for anything useful. Garion then suddenly tripped over what appeared to be a blank tablet of stone, falling to the ground with a thud as Quishow closed in on him. Garion grabbed for the nearest object to defend himself, that object being the tablet that caused him to fall to the ground. Now that he looked at the tablet more closely, he noticed its uniqueness.
The tablet seemed to be made of stone with a type of material Garion had never seen before. The symbols on the object seemed like nothing even close to anything on Earth, as well. As Garion stared at this tablet in deep thought, the first two words of the message slowly started to translate in his mind. Once the words formed, they read: To end the reign of the shadows, to restore peace to the once peaceful, you must find the truth behind the message enclosed. You must unlock its secrets, its treasures, its belongings. You must find The Gatekeeper. You must find Garion.
“This is it,” Garion realized in his head, “this is the Prophecy. All of my memories, whatever my destiny was supposed to be, lies in this tablet.”
“I believe you have something of mine.”
Garion looked up from the tablet to see Quishow looking over him, a dark ball of energy starting to grow bigger and bigger at his fingertips.
“Give it back. Now.”
Garion slowly started to back away towards the wall as Quishow’s shadow ball got bigger and bigger. By the time the shadow ball was almost as big as Quishow himself, Garion was cornered against a wall of the giant room, fear pulsing through his already throbbing veins.
“It’s over,” Quishow smiled, “there’s nowhere left to run, nowhere left to escape. This ends here and now.”
Garion knew he had to do something, but he was fresh out of ideas. There was no Max to save him this time, and all of his friends were dead. This time, there would be no easy escape. This time, Garion couldn’t dart to the left or right in an attempt to dodge the shadow ball. This time, Garion was cornered and he wasn’t going to escape. This time, Garion would die, and there was nothing he could do to stop it.
“Well,” Garion thought, “if I’m about to die, I may as well finish that Prophecy. Maybe that could somehow save me.”
So Garion closed his eyes in his last moments and concentrated; his mind focused intensely on the Prophecy that lay in front of him. He started to try to decode the language, trying to make out the syllables and words. Suddenly, the words didn’t start to appear on the tablet, but instead in his head. He felt the all the Prophecy surging through him like a blast of energy, until it all finally formed in his head.
Saying it aloud, as if for the world to hear, the Prophecy read:
TO BE CONTINUED...
About The Author
Nikhil Dhingra is a ninth grader at Francis W. Parker school in Chicago, IL. He is currently a writer for Say What! Online magazine, weekly publishing articles onto the website. He is also part of Say What! Online Magazine’s Division Street 2013 project, in which he attempts to capture the story of Division St. through the eyes of its residents. Furthermore, Nikhil is an editor for Polyphony H.S., practicing editing submissions. During his free time, Nik likes to play basketball and video-games, and hang out with friends as well. Nik aspires to one day get his book published on a hardcover book by a publisher, and he continues to search for the publisher that would be interested in his book.
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