Chapter Twenty-Five
The Legend Awakens
“No!” Maria and Sara cried out as one, reaching for Ebenezer.
But they were too late. The mad scientist had successfully engaged the lever, and it moved into place with a solid thwunk.
Delighted with his triumph, Ebenezer cackled until he shook. Giving the lever a quick, counterclockwise twist with a flip of the wrist, he removed it entirely from the control panel. Without a moment’s hesitation, he hurled it away with as much strength as he could muster.
Maria and Sara watched in dismay and disbelief as the lever soared through the air, descending into the pit at the center of the chamber. It landed with a series of pings and pongs, coming to a rest far, far beyond anybody’s reach.
“You doorknob!” Maria cried. “What if you need to turn this thing off?”
Ebenezer snorted with indignation at the very suggestion of such a thing. “Why on earth would I want to turn it off? This machine has been finely tuned to run at optimal calibration. Why, there’s no chance of anything going wrong. No chance, whatsoever. Haven’t I ever told you about all the different universities that I’ve received graduate degrees from? You’re dealing with a certified genius here, young lady!”
Sara placed a palm against her face in despair. Ebenezer’s arrogance was astounding, and his current statements had the ring of famous last words to them.
“Ah, it’s beginning!” Ebenezer observed with satisfaction, his voice filled with pride. “Just as it should. Stand back and watch, you small-minded fools… you’re about to witness history!”
Behind the control panel and collection of monitors, a giant, pointy thingamajig was rising upon a mechanical lift. The shiny metal of its surface glittered beneath the chamber’s lights, and it had a decidedly nefarious aura about it.
Ebenezer spread his arms wide and belted out, “Behold… the Spectro-Solar Blaster 1000!”
Maria and Sara looked up at the giant machine, which had been producing a loud humming noise ever since the lever had been thrown. The sound continued to increase in pitch as the seconds ticked by, and the gigantic, pointy gizmo gathered more energy with every passing moment.
The control panel was littered with gauges of all sizes, and the needles of these meters jumped about as the power climbed. Bulbs lit up with different colors, and the monitors displayed wildly spiking graphs, indicating some manner of scientific shenanigans, as the process rapidly continued.
Evelyn and Jasper halted in their strange fencing battle with broom and mop, drawn by the sight and sound of the noisy, flashing machination. Still resting on their knees in the pool of soapy water, they ignored one another and turned their attention toward the humming contraption. Jasper’s expression was filled with rapture, while Evelyn’s was one of dismay.
As the noisy hum reached the apex of its pitch, the machine began to shake about, as if the power within it was too much to be contained. Though this created a great deal of alarm for Maria, Sara, and Evelyn, the villainous scoundrels appeared to be not concerned in the slightest – as if things were proceeding just as they had planned.
With a loud pop that could be heard even over the infernal humming, a cluster of sparks shot out from a panel of the machine. This was instantaneously followed by a blue-white streak of electricity, arcing through the air. This event was duplicated several times in rapid succession, until the chamber looked like it was filled with a display of fireworks.
“Oh, yes, that’s it! Do my bidding, SunTech!” Ebenezer madly ordered the inanimate object, shielding his eyes from the sparks with a raised hand. “And then, this great beast will likewise be compelled to do my bidding, grateful as it must be for my freeing it from its long slumber.”
“What a hare-brained maniac! Does he think this is going to actually work?” Sara hissed to Maria.
The humming persisted at its high-pitched frequency, making the teeth of those present vibrate. As the electric currents continued to arc through the air, and the bursts of sparks exploded this way and that, something new began to happen.
The pointed thingamajig that rested high upon the machine began to radiate with a brilliant glow. Blue-white electricity encircled it, illuminating it as the arcs danced about wildly.
“It’s glorious!” Ebenezer cackled, rising from his chair. He strode toward the edge of the pit to better observe the process, while his fanciful cape fluttered about behind him, stimulated by the excessive electricity that was in the air. “Glorious, I tell you!”
“I have a bad feeling about this,” Maria told her sister. “I just don’t see any way this could possibly end well.”
Sara nodded her head in agreement, but with the disposal of the lever that might be used to shut down the machine, the sisters had been rendered powerless. They grasped one another’s hand for support, and together, they walked toward the pit, until they were standing at its edge, beside Ebenezer. They were almost hypnotized by the spectacle of it all.
The pointed thingamajig atop the contraption began swiveling, and the sisters watched in horror as its direction was realigned. When it stopped moving, it was angled so that it was pointed into the pit at the center of the chamber… directly at the sleeping Pan Gu.
“Please, Mr. Widget-Bocker, reconsider! You’ve got to stop this, before it’s too late,” Maria pleaded.
Ebenezer heard Maria’s words, but he did not bother turning to look at her as he addressed her request. “Stop this?” He laughed at the notion, and in that moment, he looked truly mad. The arcs of electricity were reflected in the thick lenses of his glasses, and his hair danced about wildly in the charged air. “Why, I couldn’t stop it now, even if I wanted to. Now, behold… the awakening of a legend!”
The thingamajig belted out a raucous discord of noise, so impressive that the sisters were forced to cover their ears with their hands. As the sound erupted, a beam of bright, yellow-white light was discharged.
It was a shaft of energy so wide in diameter, it could not be described as anything so miniscule as a laser. It was more like a piece of a star, concentrated into a blast of raw, undiluted power. To look upon it was like looking directly into the sun itself.
Ebenezer’s goggle-like glasses had transitioned to dark colored lenses that were almost black, permitting him to look at this strange spectacle. “Ah, yes,” he said, rubbing his hands together with vivid anticipation. “Finally… my long years of planning are being realized. And nothing short of the concentrated power of the sun itself would suffice for this Herculean task!”
Maria and Sara had been forced to turn their heads away as the bright, yellow-white beam of energy had erupted from the contraption. Now, they cautiously turned back toward the pit. Their eyes had to remain squinted, and they could not look directly at the blast of concentrated power. Nonetheless, they looked into the pit as best they could, peering through their half-closed eyelids.
What they saw was nothing short of mind-boggling. The path of the energy beam was terminating directly in the center of Pan Gu. But rather than splashing away from the solid surface, it seemed as if the petrified beast was actually absorbing the energy.
Indeed, the color of the stone was actually transforming… changing from its granite-like appearance into a warm orange, which was slowly spreading across its surface. This color change radiated from the point at which the energy beam struck the statue, inching its way across the shell of stone that encased the dragon’s body.
Before long, the entire creature had attained this orange glow, and its brightness only continued to increase, as if the thing was being heated up from the inside out.
“That’s it!” Ebenezer cried. “Rise, Pan Gu, rise! Awaken from your long slumber… and meet your new master!”