Chapter 36

The world came to a complete standstill as the three Sentinels faced off against each other. Everyone, Rook and Terra, Blak Soldier or warrior, couldn’t help but stand in awe of the vast powers at work. It truly was an amazing sight and one that would be marked in history forever. It was a day that no one could forget.

The beautiful red dragon flew in first, firing a blast of intense fire at the snake-creature. The Basilisk recoiled on itself, trying to keep away from the flames. When the fire went out, its massive head dashed forward, amazingly fast. Its fangs lashed out and tore a ragged strip through one of the Dragon’s wings. The Roc saw this and let out a terrifying screech. It dive bombed the big snake and raked its razor-sharp talons across its scaly skin. The Basilisk let out an ear-splitting hiss of pain. It reared up and slammed its body into the ground. Pylons of pure rock erupted out of the desert sands. The Roc was caught off guard by one and was hit right beneath its beak. Its head jerked up and back and it tumbled from the sky.

The Dragon roared, more searing flame erupting from it, but the attack was useless. The Basilisk dove headfirst into the sand, the rest of its body following after it, and tunneled into the ground.

The Dragon looked at the ground, but it couldn’t see the earth Sentinel. Then it leaped into the air just as the Basilisk resurfaced.

The Basilisk's mouth opened up hugely and then its jaws latched onto one of the dragon’s legs. It yanked and jerked at its prize, but the Dragon proved stronger. It kicked out with its free leg and slashed the Basilisk across the snout. Blood flew out and it let go, diving back into the sand.

A piercing, brain-searing sound suddenly filled the air.

The Dragon, the Basilisk, and the Roc all looked toward the far side of the Blak Army. Clearly visible was a single man. Both hands were raised in the air only to be brought down and pointing forward.

The previously inert Blak Army suddenly surged forward, unnaturally fast. Their movements were almost graceful as they ran. The sounds of the Rook war-machines suddenly whirring to life came next.

The Blak Army was attacking.

The Roc tried to fly off to help the battered Terraqouis, but the Basilisk stopped him. Its long, scything tail whipped around and slammed into the ground. A massive wall of stone erupted into the air right in front of the Roc. It tried to dodge it but it was too slow. It rammed into the wall, breaking its wing and falling to the ground. It made pitiful sounds of pain and rolled over onto its back. A second later, its form shimmered and Rone stood there, gripping his arm with a face twisted in pain.

A small cloud of nanos broke off from his prosthetic and converged on where his bone was almost poking out of the skin. Then they started burrowing beneath his flesh. He screamed out in pain, but it was lost in the sounds of war.

He looked down at his injury. It bulged grossly as his nanos worked to fix the break in his arm. It only took a matter of minutes to correct the damage, but it felt like hours. The pain was excruciating but he gritted his teeth and bared it. There was no other choice.

Finally, the nanos crawled out, leaving no wounds behind, and merged with his leg again. When he was positive that his arm was a hundred percent, he shifted again.

The Roc took off, its laser-like vision focusing entirely on the Basilisk. Anger pulsed and throbbed inside of it. With a howling screech, it dive-bombed again and landed on the creature’s head, digging its talons into its rough scales.

The Basilisk writhed and bucked the Roc off of it.

The Roc took to the air.

[This isn’t working,] Rone called to Keiara.

The Dragon looked up, blinking her luminous yellow eyes at him.

[If we use our full strength against him, we could kill him,] she responded.

[If we don’t then he’ll definitely kill us,] he told her.

The Dragon didn’t respond but kept fighting. After a particularly nasty lunge from the Basilisk that she barely managed to avoid, she stopped and looked up at the Roc again.

[Maybe you’re right. We need to stop him.]

[Keiara, look out!]

The Basilisk had burrowed beneath the ground again and come up behind the Dragon. Before it could stop the attack, the Basilisk’s fangs bypassed its scaly neck and sunk themselves deep into its flesh. The Dragon roared in pain, fire erupting out of its mouth.

The Basilisk burrowed into the ground again to avoid the blast of superheated flames.

The Roc flew down to the Dragon, trying to assess the damage.

It didn’t look good. The skin around the bite was rapidly turning a mottled shade of grey and looked as rough as stone.

[What’s happening to me?] Keiara asked.

Rone’s panic surfaced to his mind as he heard the pain in her voice.

[I don’t know, I don’t know,] he responded, his voice ridden with fear. His heart thrummed inside his chest. [It’s some kind of poison, I think. I need to draw it out.]

The Dragon didn’t argue. It couldn’t. The poison was spreading so fast that she couldn't do much but fall to the ground, her neck stretched taut. Her wings were lying limply at her side. The grey, stony flesh was expanding alarmingly fast.

The Roc took a few steps back and then focused its magic. It pushed its consciousness out into the air and felt itself being transported on beautiful, swirling eddies of current. It drifted almost lazily across the space from itself to the Dragon. When it reached it, the Roc arrowed in on the bite and immediately knew that the situation was desperate. If it didn’t do something to stop it, then the Dragon would be nothing but a statue.

The Roc enveloped the spot where the Basilisk had punctured the Dragon’s neck. It could feel the poison, an acidic and destructive presence, against its own. He could feel it as the poison warped and twisted the Dragon’s tissue and cells. He could even feel it as her flesh turned to stone.

The Roc took control. He surrounded each molecule of venom in a bubble of air and carefully commanded the air bubbles to rise to the surface. He did it as slowly as he could, so that he didn’t inadvertently do more damage than good.

The poison seeped out of the wound. It was a sickly greenish brown color. The Roc was careful not to let any of it touch the Dragon, which was slowly starting to come around. Its head rose off the sand and looked at him gratefully.

When the Roc got all the poison out, it formed a solid bubble of super-condensed air around it and flung it up at the sky. It watched the vicious green liquid race off, not stopping until it breached Purga’s atmosphere and sailed off, into the deep, outer reaches of space where it couldn’t harm another creature.

The Dragon was rising to its feet.

[Are you okay?] Rone asked her.

[Just a little dizzy and my neck still feels strange,] she returned.

The Dragon was trying to crane its neck around to where it could see the wound, but it couldn’t quite reach it. Instead, its long, flickering tongue slithered out of its mouth and swiped across the rocky surface of her skin.

[Why isn’t it gone?] she asked, horrified.

[I couldn’t undo the damage the poison already inflicted. All I could do was draw out the rest and make sure it didn’t spread any further. I’m…,] he paused, feeling ashamed of himself for not being able to cure her completely. [I’m sorry,] he finished, lamely.

[It isn’t your fault,] Keiara replied. [Where's Niku now?]

Horror enveloped Rone’s mind. He hadn’t considered what the Basilisk was doing. It hadn’t attacked him at all when he was trying to save Keiara and it didn't occur to him that poisoning her was a diversionary tactic.

The Roc’s head turned, trying to find the thing. Off in the distance the Terras were massing to take on the Blak Soldiers. They were within a mile of each other.

[I don’t know,] he told her.

The Dragon rose to its clawed feet. The long, ragged tear in its wing dripped blood that smoked and burned whatever it touched.

[We have to find him,] she said, concerned. [He's not done yet.]

Terrified screams erupted from the Terraqouis army. Warriors and animals tried desperately to run. The ground started trembling. It felt like the earth was trying to rip itself apart.

Without warning, the Basilisk erupted out of the sand, directly in the center of the Terra army. It hissed and spat its venom everywhere. The Dragon and the Roc watched in horror as the drops of venom hit several warriors. Immediately, their skin turned to grey stone. It spread throughout their entire bodies, consuming and eating them from the outside in. When it was all over, nothing but statues remained that the Basilisk crushed to dust with a careless flip of its tail. It repeated the process, spraying its venom again and a disheartening number of warriors fell.

Then the Basilisk unleashed its magic.

Gaping holes appeared in the earth.

Cracks and fissures formed.

Steam erupted out of vents the Basilisk created, boiling men and women alive. Some of them, the Roc could see, simply melted into a pile of cooked flesh. The only thing left was their bleached white bones. Others managed to evade most of the steam, the flesh of an arm or leg melting off and leaving the rest of them whole. The latter crawled or dragged themselves out of harm’s way, throwing whatever weapons they could reach at the Basilisk even as they were escaping.

[Let’s go!] Keiara yelled.

The Dragon started running full speed at the Basilisk, trying to prevent it from killing more people. Its wings bobbed behind it. With the wound to the one, it made flying impossible for it.

The Roc followed its lead.

Taking to the air, it raced toward the Basilisk.

The Dragon might be stronger than it, but the Roc was ten times faster. It flew through the air like a rocket and crashed into the Basilisk. It lashed out with its beak and claws, opening up rents and tears in the big snake's flesh. Blood flew out and the Basilisk coiled in on itself in pain.

[Run! Get away now!] Rone yelled, projecting his voice to all the warriors still trying to bring the Basilisk down. Their efforts, however, were completely useless. Their weapons couldn’t even puncture its hide.

When they heard Rone’s voice inside their heads, however, they quickly decided to take his advice. They retreated to a safe point and attacked the encroaching Blak Army instead.

The Dragon finally made it to the fight. The Roc could still see the patch of stony skin on its neck. It was an ugly mark on such a beautiful creature. The fact that the Basilisk was the one to put it there enraged it.

The Roc lashed out at the Basilisk with wind, creating a screen that completely enveloped it. Bits of debris and sand flew into its eyes or raked across its body. Some of them were sharp and going fast enough to actually slice it open in several spots.

The Basilisk hissed again in pain. It glared at the Roc for a second before it burrowed into the earth again. When it came back out, it was on the other side of the wind screen the Roc had created.

Only to be met by a literal curtain of flames.

The Dragon kept pouring on the fire, scorching and burning the Basilisk. It was making a very unearthly screeching noise now.

The Roc was battering it with balls of condensed air. One of them bashed into the Basilisk's head and threw it to the side.

[It won’t go down!] Rone yelled, frustrated. He was throwing everything he had at the Basilisk, but it seemed almost twice as strong as either of them.

Guess you were wrong about that one, Heari, Rone thought to himself, remembering how the old crone had said Keiara was the strongest of the three.

[Something’s wrong,] Keiara said. [It’s too strong. It’s getting its strength from someone else. They’re feeding it to Niku.]

Rone didn’t like the sound of that.

[Wilhelm is making him stronger? That doesn’t really seem fair to me,] Rone told her.

The Roc looked around, trying to find the source of the Basilisk’s strength. At first it didn’t see anything. Then, it spotted a lone figure walking toward the battle. He wore a dark cloak but no hood to hide his twisted and burned face. Nanos swirled around and around him. Pretty soon he was wading into the fight. He didn’t so much as lift a finger. Whenever an enemy came near him, the nanos would simply fly out, crawl all over the person, and completely strip them apart. There was no blood. There were no bones. The nanos just completely devoured the poor souls.

[Damnation,] Rone cursed as he kept watching Wilhelm stride forward. There was a very intent look to his gaze. Both of his eyes, even the one that drooped, were twitching erratically. There was a strange, awkward smile on his face. He lacked his usual grace in moving. It was still there, but Rone could spot several inconsistencies. There were slight hitches in his step that Wilhelm had never shown before. It looked like he was trying to re-learn how to use his own body.

It was definitely strange.

[What’s the matter?] Keiara asked. The Basilisk tried to snap its jaws onto the Roc, but she moved to intercept it.

[Wilhelm is coming and something tells me him joining the fight is going to end very badly for us,] Rone answered.

His former mentor stood stock still.

The Roc watched with avid interest before taking to the air for a better view, battering the Basilisk with more condensed air and mini-cyclones whenever it got the chance.

They continued their struggle, the both of them coming no closer to taking the Basilisk out of the fight. Its preternatural power was more than enough to keep the two of them at bay.

The Roc was growing extremely desperate, but the blows he landed seemed more like insults than anything else.

The Basilisk would look at the Roc indignantly and try to spit its poison at the giant bird or it would burrow underneath the earth and try to surprise them again.

After a while, however, things started to change. The Dragon was making some progress now. There were several scorches along the Basilisk's body. Its head even looked as if it were drooping in exhaustion.

The Roc took that as a good sign. However strong Wilhelm might be, the fact that the Basilisk was weakening was a telltale sign that there were limits to the man’s power.

The Dragon and the Roc smashed the Basilisk back with a series of earth trembling blows, giving them a little breather as it tried to recover.

The Roc looked back at the battlefield, trying to see what Wilhelm was doing now.

The crazed Blak Army leader still stood in the center of the fight, doing almost nothing.

Instead of Wilhelm's lack of taking more direct action making him feel better, it just gave Rone an increasing sense of unease What if the Basilisk is losing steam because Wilhelm needs power for something else, he thought to himself.

No sooner had he finished the thought when he watched Wilhelm lift both hands to the sky, palms up. Spiders poured out of gaping, mouth-like apertures in his open palms. There were millions of them in a matter of seconds.

[Sometimes, I hate it when I’m right,] Rone said.