Legends of Amacia Return of the Beowulf
Chapter 39: The Mind Trap

Meanwhile, inside the dark monolith, Hannibal and Selina clung to each other as they seemingly floated in a void of nothingness. All was blackness, so dark that they couldn’t even see each other, though they could feel each other physically. Hannibal had managed to keep the angelic spear with him when they were pulled through. Selina was scared witless. She clung to Hannibal like a tick. “What happened? Where are we?” she asked him with great fear.

“I don’t know,” Hannibal said with some hesitation. “I think we are inside the monolith where Muriel’s identity is locked away. But this is beyond my comprehension. If her identity is here, how do we find it? How do we even move here? This is as if we are in outer space or something. I can’t tell which ways is up or which way to go.”

Selina trembled, scared to death. Hannibal too was frightened, but tried to control it. Suddenly, they began to feel like they were falling. “Oh, boy; here we go!” Hannibal cried out in surprise as they began to feel like they were falling. He latched onto Selina tightly as they fell for what seemed an eternity. Faster and faster they fell until they felt like the life was draining out of them. Hannibal groaned and Selina buried her face in his chest. Slowly, the darkness became less pronounced as they saw some light in the direction they were moving. More and more detail became apparent as they moved; allowing them to know which way was up. Suddenly, they were able to see clearly with the bottom of the pit became visible in the distance. They also realized they were hurtling toward it with incredible speed. Hannibal thought this was the end, so he began to pray, and Selina immediately joined him. The bottom was a spot of sand nearly one hundred yards across surrounded by darkness. Hannibal saw it coming and covered Selina’s eyes, saying, “Don’t look, baby.”

They came down like a falling star. Yet, as they approached the bottom, their fall suddenly ceased, and they floated over the sand before landing gently on it. Hannibal kept his eyes closed for a moment, and then opened them, seeing where they were, which was nowhere sitting in a patch of sand. He let go of Selina and sat up. “We aren’t dead? What the hell is going on here?” he asked as Selina sat up, still clinging to him.

Selina looked around and said, “I have no idea. I’m scared to death. I haven’t ever been this afraid.”

Hannibal got to his feet and helped her stand up, keeping an arm around her. “So am I,” he admitted. “But one thing is for sure. We mustn’t be separated, not in here.” No more than he had spoken two glowing red eyes appeared in the darkness. Hannibal and Selina heard a deep guttural voice rumble in the darkness, but they couldn’t make out what it said. The sand they stood on began to churn violently, causing them to sink. “Shit!” Hannibal cursed as he held on to Selina tightly. “Here we go again!” In seconds, the sand swallowed them, and they fell into another inky void. They cried out after the sand let go of them in the void. For what seemed to be another eternity, they fell; this time, not as fast as before. Eventually, they again came to rest on something solid, though they couldn’t see what it was. In fact, they couldn’t see anything else, not even each other. The darkness was absolute and incredibly dense and stifling. After almost five minutes, Hannibal said to Selina, “I hate this. I need some light. I’m tired of being in the dark like this.” The angelic spear suddenly glowed like the sun, chasing away the darkness that was around them for nearly a hundred feet in every direction.

“That’s handy,” Selina commented as they rose together. “But where are we now and how do we get back?”

Hannibal shook his head, saying, “I have no idea. But this ground seems solid enough, unlike that sand we first landed in. Let’s try to find a way out of here.” He led Selina off to their left, using the spear as a light. The chamber they were in seemed to have no end. They moved slowly, ever alert for the thing that had grabbed them.

After some time of going to the left and not finding anything but more darkness, they turned right. They moved on for what they thought was ten minutes until they were suddenly stopped by the floor giving way before them. Hannibal slipped and stumbled with Selina, falling backwards as the floor gave way. They landed on a solid portion of the floor and looked down into the hole, which expanded to the left and right before them and into the distance ahead of them. Hannibal and Selina both were stunned as they saw before them an image of what appeared to be outer space with a great star cloud and a massive ringed planet in the foreground. “Geeze! What is going on here?” he growled with growing anger.

Selina stared at the image. It looked real. The distances, the colors, everything looked real. Suddenly, she cried out, “Oh, my God! I know what this is, Hannibal! That’s Kaitia! What’s it doing here?”

Hannibal looked closely at the image and swore again, saying afterwards, “You’re right! What’s it doing here? Come on, we have to get out of here. Lord willing, we’ll find Muriel as we find the way out.” Hannibal pulled Selina to her feet and they followed the break in the floor to the right. After what they thought was an hour of walking, they had left behind the gaping hole with Kaitia and were walking in the darkness again without anything seen beyond the light of the spear.

Suddenly, the floor gave way under their feet and this time, they were not able to arrest their fall. They slid into a chute that spiraled downwards for what seemed to be nearly a mile. The slide deposited them in a hellish place filled with terrible machines. It looked like a hospital of some kind. There were rows of tables with all manner of strange machines attached to them. The tables were bloody as were the machines that were attached to the tables. There were all manner of cutting tools from knives to saws to hooks and claws, all of which dripped blood. A number of what appeared to be crematoriums with fires going in them lined one wall. Odd refrigerators with clear doors lined the opposite wall. The odd refrigerators drew Hannibal with their gory contents. Selina stayed right with him and when they saw what was in the refrigerators, she was revolted and turned away. Hannibal’s eyes refused to close as he looked on the contents of the one refrigerator. It was filled to capacity with human organs: brains, hearts, lungs, livers, etc.... It reminded him of Hell’s Kitchen in the Black Fortress. He became nauseous and turned away, heading for the far end of the room, eager to leave the hellish place behind. Selina was more than ready to leave herself. As they were about to leave, an enormous brute wearing an apron covered with blood barred their way. It was terribly ugly and very malevolent in nature, standing nearly eight feet with four arms, two of which looked to be cybernetic. The side of its face was cybernetically enhanced with a red machine eye and a metal covering similar to that of Nemesis. Its pointed teeth were ground sharp with two six-inch tusks jutting up from the lower jaw. The cybernetic arms had claws and blades on the end of them, which dripped of gore. The monster’s mouth was bloody. It eyed them evilly, and then smiled wickedly. Without saying a word, the thing drew back to strike.

Hannibal promptly ran him through with the angelic spear before it could act, and pushed the beast toward one of the tables, throwing him down on the table. As he yanked the angelic spear from the creature, clamps and straps shot out of the table and secured the demon to the table. In seconds, the machines attached to the table came alive and began to harvest the thing, cutting it to pieces before it was dead, harvesting the organs with brutal efficiency. Blood sprayed everywhere and shrieks from the beast filled the air. Hannibal fled the scene, driving Selina away from the carnage. They rushed into the passageway and promptly got lost again in the darkness.

After stumbling around the darkness for another hour or so, they fell through another trap door into a place that resembled an ancient tomb. Scanning the chamber, Hannibal and Selina noted torches along the column-lined walls lit the area. A large sarcophagus sat in the center of the room; the centerpiece of the tomb. The sarcophagus drew Hannibal to it. Selina shadowed him as they looked on the strange sarcophagus. It was unlike anything they had ever seen before. “Now this is very strange,” Hannibal told Selina as they looked on the stone coffin. “There isn’t any writing on this sarcophagus. Sarcophagi always have some form of writing on them somewhere. This one doesn’t have the first scribble. And look at this odd strap and lock. I’ve never seen anything like it anywhere. The closest thing I can relate it to is the locks on the sarcophagi in the Archive at Tiamat and the Red Tower. But this isn’t like them either. What is this place?” Hannibal looked around, seeing the walls and columns bare of any writing. “What do you think, Selina?” he asked. “You don’t suppose we’ve stumbled on Muriel’s sealed identity, do you?”

Selina shook her head, saying, “I think nothing. I’m so scared I can’t think.”

Just then from the far end of the tomb, Hannibal heard a familiar hiss. He grabbed Selina and forced her down behind the sarcophagus, saying intensely, “Shhh! Keep quiet. That’s a basilisk. Whatever you do, don’t look it in the eye.” Selina cowered behind the sarcophagus as Hannibal peeked around it in the direction of the hiss. Sure enough, he saw a basilisk, though this one wasn’t nearly as big as the one in Acheron, though it was a solid three feet in diameter and at least fifty feet in length. As he watched it slither forward, he noticed something odd: the snake had two heads. He cursed softly, knowing that this was no ordinary basilisk, but a Hydra. He remembered the tales about the Hydra and readied the Sword of the Lord along with the angelic spear. “I need you to back me up, Selina,” Hannibal ordered. “Be ready to attack on my signal. This thing is a Hydra. Whatever you do, don’t cut off the head. It will regenerate two heads in place of the severed one. Do you understand?”

Selina nodded, shaking with dread, clenching her sword. “Be careful, my prince,” she begged. “I don’t want to be a widow just yet.”

“I’m not checking out just yet,” Hannibal replied, kissing Selina on the lips. “Just be ready to pounce if I can’t handle this creature alone.”

“Okay,” Selina whispered, slowly steeling herself to deal with the creature.

With the holy Sword of the Lord in one hand and the angelic spear in the other, Hannibal slipped away from Selina, edging carefully toward the Hydra. No sooner than he had cleared the sarcophagus, the Hydra saw him and rose up with a hiss. Hannibal watched it carefully as it approached him like a cobra. Its heads bobbed and hissed as it slithered into striking distance of Hannibal. Abruptly, it bolted forward, throwing its levantine coils around Hannibal. He, on the other hand, hurled the spear and it struck home in one of the heads, piercing the brain. This caused the serpent to constrict quickly, catching Hannibal in its coils, making him to drop the Sword of the Lord. The live head struck at him, pummeling Hannibal viciously in the head without biting him. Hannibal was unable to block the hit as his arms were pinned at his sides in the coils of the great snake. The snake hit him a couple more times as Hannibal begged Selina for help.

At first, Selina’s terror kept her frozen. But after the Hydra’s third hit, Hannibal’s pleas reached her and she jumped out with her sword in hand. “What do I do?” she cried out in stark terror.

“Do not cut off its head!” Hannibal wheezed as the snake constricted on him, making his ribs crack under the pressure. “Run it through the head. Pierce the brain....”

The snake was suffocating him when Selina rushed forward, leaping high into the air. She came down with her sword only to have the Hydra’s live head side swipe her, knocking her into the wall. It turned its attention away from Hannibal, striking at Selina with the intention of killing and eating her. She saw the strike coming and its mouth open, so she dove aside, ramming her blade into the beast’s mouth and up through its brain. It howled and shrieked as she let go of her sword after the strike. In seconds, it came crashing to the floor, dead as a post. The levantine coils wrapped around Hannibal relaxed and he gasped for breath. Selina lay on the floor next to the wall with a grievous wound in her arm where the Hydra’s tooth had gotten her. The tooth remained stuck into her arm through her armor. She groaned as she removed the tooth. Her head began to swim with the toxin in the tooth beginning to affect her.

Hannibal clenched his chest as he stumbled to her, falling down next to her. “Are you all right?” he wheezed heavily.

Selina slowly shook her head, saying, “I wasn’t fast enough. He got me good.” She showed him the tooth and the wound, which was already beginning to fester.

“Oh, god no,” Hannibal cried in horror.

Selina touched him on the cheek with her good hand, saying weakly, “I love you, my beloved husband. But I think my time is up. There is no way I’m leaving this place alive. We can’t even find the way out of this mind trap.”

Hannibal smacked the floor of the tomb with his fist crying, “Why do you do this to me, Lord. Why!”

Selina took him by the hand, saying deliriously, “Shhh. Don’t do that. I’m not going anywhere.”

Hannibal fell on her neck and kissed her, sobbing because he knew he was losing her and there wasn’t a thing he could do about it. From the moment he set foot inside Muriel’s mind, Hannibal sensed something dark had dampened his elemental power, making it almost impossible to use them, especially this deep in the Darkness. Suddenly, his face steeled as he realized they had indeed found Muriel’s resting place. The dead Hydra was the proof. “Don’t you move,” he ordered. “I’ll be right back.” Hannibal jumped up and raced to the sarcophagus, snatching up the Sword of the Lord in route. Reaching the sarcophagus, he flailed the sword, cutting the lock off the sarcophagus. The moment he did, a primal scream roared from all directions and the tomb began to shake.

At the same moment outside of the monolith tower, the primal scream erupted from the tower, disintegrating the skeletal warriors, devourers, weracks, Chimera, and Red Draken in a wave of utter destruction, shaking the whole of Muriel’s mind violently. The clouds rapidly coalesced around the tower monolith, growing in size covering the whole city. It swirled like an angry hurricane around the central tower. The drakens retreated as the cloud appeared, returning to their friends on the ground, knowing by instinct the cloud to be lethal.

Hannibal threw the Sword of the Lord down and began to shove on the lid of the sarcophagus. Slowly, the lid began to move. As the lid moved, the shaking increased to the point that no one on the outside could stand up. The monolith began rippling in multiple places as electrical surges began to race up and down its colossal structure. Hannibal shoved the sarcophagus lid with the hope that somehow by opening the coffin, he would be able to save Selina. He prayed, and with one final heave, pushed the lid completely off the sarcophagus. It came crashing to the floor, breaking into a dozen pieces.

Looking down into the sarcophagus with utter amazement, he saw Muriel lying there with no enhancements, genetic fusions, or any clothes at all. He gasped at her exceptional beauty that seemed enhanced by her nude status. Only then as the place started crumbling, Hannibal realized Muriel was a Lynxian/human hybrid like Andrew and Hunter were, with much more emphasis on her Lynxian side. Her fur and tapered ears were obvious. But he didn’t know who she was, despite his telepathic prowess. He just couldn’t sense the Lynxian Muriel lying in the sarcophagus. Suddenly turning to Selina, Hannibal saw she was fading fast. The moment he moved towards Selina, the Lynxian Muriel in the sarcophagus reached out and restrained him. He cried out in fright as he turned back to the Lynxian Muriel, who tugged on Hannibal’s arm to sit up.

“Thank you for setting me free,” the Lynxian Muriel said gratefully with a grunt as she sat up. She immediately noticed Hannibal was very upset and his attention was on Selina, who lay dying of the venom from the Hydra. Looking over at Selina, the Lynxian Muriel saw Selina’s desperate condition. “Please, help me up,” the Lynxian Muriel begged. Hannibal helped her out of the sarcophagus. She immediately rushed over to Selina, noticing that she was mere minutes from dying. Hannibal followed her to Selina and watched with grief-stricken awe as this strange nude Lynxian Muriel gathered Selina into her arms, immediately grabbed Selina’s injured arm, and began sucking on the wound. After sucking on it and spitting out the blood and toxin several times, she clenched Selina to her chest with one hand directly on Selina’s heart after quickly removing her armor. She cradled Selina’s head with her other hand, both hands having direct skin-to-skin contact with Selina, and started purring. Selina was nearly dead when the Lynxian Muriel started purring. As she did this, Selina’s color began to return as her breathing stabilized. In moments, Selina came to.

“Wha...what happened? Who are you?” Selina asked weakly, puzzled by the identity of the nude Lynxian woman holding on to her.

The Lynxian Muriel smiled warmly, and put her finger to Selina’s lips. “Shhh,” she cooed. “Later.” Hannibal was flabbergasted that she had brought Selina back from the brink.

The whole place shook violently with pieces of stone and dust starting to fall from the ceiling and walls. Cracks formed in the floor. Hannibal’s eyes were wide as saucers as the Lynxian Muriel lifted Selina to her feet. “Get your weapons,” the Lynxian Muriel ordered. Hannibal immediate obeyed, retrieving the Sword of the Lord and the angelic spear from the carcass of the Hydra as well as Selina’s sword. He slung the Sword of the Lord over his back and turned to Muriel, who helped Selina stand. “This way, quickly!” the Lynxian Muriel ordered urgently as the tomb literally began coming to pieces around them. Hannibal threw Selina’s sword aside and put one arm around her while the Lynxian Muriel supported her from the other. She led them out the way the Hydra came in.

In seconds, they were moving through utter darkness with the angelic spear lighting their way. “Who are you?” Hannibal asked as they fled through the darkness.

“Now is not the time,” the Lynxian Muriel replied, “You must escape this place quickly!” With a flash of light, the darkness fled away from them showing that they were racing along a great catwalk over a bottomless pit. Fire was rising from the pit as electrical discharges raced up its walls. The pit itself looked to be a couple of miles across and they were half way across it. Shrieks and cries rose from the pit. Terrible faces appeared in the fiery explosions from below: hideous monsters and demons as the fire rose from the pit. Above them was a void where the top couldn’t be seen. The catwalk trembled and swayed as they raced toward the opposite wall of the abyss. In less than two minutes, they approached the opposite side of the abyss.

Hannibal saw a passage in wall of the abyss where the catwalk ended. The walls of the abyss trembled and shimmered like liquid mercury and appeared to be melting. They could feel the heat rising from the approaching fire. As they came within fifty yards of the passage, a violent jolt shook the catwalk. In seconds, it began to give way behind them. “Hurry!” the Lynxian Muriel urged as they raced toward the passage with Selina between them. The catwalk lurched, pitching violently toward the pit as it gave way. Hannibal and the Lynxian Muriel made a flying leap with Selina as the catwalk dropped away into the fire. Selina and Muriel landed just inside the passageway. Hannibal dangled by his fingers on the brink of the abyss, losing the angelic spear down the fiery abyss. The Lynxian Muriel rushed to his aid and latched on, effortlessly pulling him to safety as debris began to fall from above them.

“Thank you!” Hannibal cried gratefully as he looked into the abyss that nearly claimed him.

The Lynxian Muriel pulled him to his feet, urging, “Hurry, we haven’t much time!” They picked up Selina, and raced into the passage. The passage was melting as the walls and ceiling began to drip. The floor got soft and mushy. Suddenly, they came to a dead end. The Lynxian Muriel looked at Hannibal and pointed to the wall, saying, “There’s your way out.” The wall was shimmering and seemingly melting, becoming translucent, allowing them to see out of the monolith. Muriel put Selina into Hannibal’s arms and ordered, “Get out of here!”

Hannibal looked at the Lynxian Muriel and said urgently, “Come with us! You’re why we’re in here. We can’t leave without you.”

Muriel looked at Hannibal and Selina, saying, “I can’t. I’m still a prisoner. I cannot leave until the monolith is breached from the outside.” She abruptly pushed them toward the wall, saying, “Be swift. Breech the barrier and free me before it’s too late!” Hannibal and Selina fell into the wall, which swallowed them.

While this was going on inside the monolith, Muriel’s avatar outside the monolith convulsed, shaking as violently as her mind was. Andrew happened to be looking toward the monolith with Seras when his keen eyes saw movement at the wall. “Uh, people, something’s going on here! I think I see something moving inside that thing,” Andrew stated urgently upon seeing the movement in the wall.

Andrew, Seras, Morpheus, Kida and Amelia rushed toward the wall as it rippled and shimmered. Suddenly, they all saw something moving inside the wall. They abruptly stopped a few feet away and looked on with fear as something writhed inside the liquefying wall. A hand abruptly reached out of the wall, and then disappeared back into it. Kida watched this as the hand came out of the wall again, grasping urgently at the air. She suddenly rushed forward, latched on to the hand and pulled with all her might, crying, “It’s them! Help me! For God’s sake, help me!”

Andrew latched on to Kida and Amelia latched on to the hand as well. They pulled as hard as they could and the hand became an arm. Morpheus and Seras latched on to the arm and pulled too as Caverias rushed up. In seconds, they had pulled Hannibal and Selina out of the sticky liquid of the wall from the chest up. Caverias pushed in and latched on to them, shoving Seras and Morpheus aside. “Pull!” Hannibal cried out urgently. With a final desperate heave, they came out of the monolith like a shot. Everyone fell back and landed in a pile. Hannibal and Selina were covered from head to toe in a disgusting slime. Everyone backed away and gathered around as Hannibal and Selina lay there for a moment, regaining their sense of direction. Selina didn’t looking well at all, and Hannibal was panting as both of them looked back at the monolith.

“What happened in there?” Kida asked as she gathered Selina into her arms, knowing that there was a problem, especially when she saw her wound.

Hannibal groaned and grasped his ribs, saying painfully, “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

Before Hannibal could say anything else, the Lynxian Muriel’s form appeared in the rippling side of the monolith and spoke. “Hurry! Time is short! Breech the barrier before it’s too late!” she pleaded. Everyone gasped in amazement and backed away as the figure seeming rose out of the side of the monolith. “Hurry!” the Lynxian Muriel urged as her figure melted away into the monolith.

“Did you see that?” Seras cried out fearfully. “That’s the face I saw in my vision!”

Hannibal looked up and saw the cloud swirling around above the monolith. It was very angry-looking as it slowly started descending with lightning now crackling through the cloud. “How long were we in there?” he wheezed as he tried to get up.

Hunter helped Hannibal to his feet and he groaned painfully. “Fifteen minutes,” Morpheus stated as the place shook and the cloud descended. Hannibal looked at Selina and noticed that she was beginning to degrade again because of the venom of the Hydra. “Amelia! Selina needs you now! Be careful, she was seriously wounded and poisoned by a Hydra.”

“What!” Morpheus cried out in astonishment, rushing to her as Amelia rubbed her hands together.

“We need to move back,” Hannibal ordered and everyone moved back to where Muriel lay in the depths of a terrible seizure. He took one look at Muriel and turned to the drakens saying, “Go to town on the monolith, my fire-breathing friends. Hit it with everything you have. Alternate fire and ice; hit it in the same spot. Remember the last time, Argus. Just like the last time! We have to breech the barrier there to get her out before that cloud reaches ground level! It’s the self-destruct mechanism the Cadre left to assure Muriel never recovers her identity or memory. If it reaches us, we’re all dead. We must break a hole in that tower before it erases everything, so don’t hold back.” Tethys, Calliope, and Thantos took to the air and began an aerial bombardment while Argus and Aeolus attacked from the ground. As they attacked, electricity began to arc from the monolith to the cloud as it shrieked like a demon, trembling and shaking like a giant Jell-O mold. They pummeled the monolith mercilessly for nearly ten minutes while Amelia and Emma cared for Selina.

Hannibal noticed the bombardment wasn’t getting anywhere so he called out, “We need more firepower! Everyone attack the monolith!” In seconds, Nemesis was firing on the same spot with his pulse cannon as the drakens were. Nathanael, Kida, Morpheus, Electra, Hunter, Andrew, and Seras were also firing on it with their heavy blasters. The angelic guardians were standing in reserve as Hannibal watched his team unleash everything they had on the monolith. With every hit, there was a great ripple. He knew time was running out because Muriel was trembling violently as the ground shook like an earthquake. The monolith swayed like a tree in a storm while this occurred. He clenched his ribs as he watched.

“This is going nowhere,” Caverias told him. “We don’t have the power to break the through the Darkness on that infernal structure. It’s too strong. We must change our method of attack.”

“I know. Cease fire!” Hannibal shouted and everyone stopped attacking. The bombardment blackened the wall where they attacked it, yet it still rippled as if it were liquid. Hannibal walked between Argus, Aeolus, and Tethys, gritting his teeth in pain. “I want you guys to hit it with ice simultaneously in the same spot,” he ordered.

Aeolus, Argus, and Tethys roared, breathing out the ice. The wall froze up instantly, causing the seemingly liquid wall to solidify over a span of two hundred feet. Hannibal then called Nemesis, Tsang, and Caverias, saying, “All right guys, we have to break through now, or we never will. Tsang, strengthen Nemesis. Caverias, you strengthen me.” They did so. The moment Caverias touched Hannibal, both of them felt the field inhibiting Hannibal’s elemental power lift dramatically. A wry smile crossed Hannibal’s lips when he realized he could now use those elemental powers in the battle. Laying his hand on Nemesis, Hannibal declared, “The dampening field has lifted. My elemental power and strength is yours, Nemesis. Burn a hole in that thing!”

Nemesis pointed the pulse cannon built into his cyborg arm at the monolith. The moment Hannibal touched Nemesis he could feel Hannibal’s incredible elemental power rushing through him. “Do it!” Hannibal ordered. “Do it now!”

“Now, I earn my namesake,” Nemesis growled, opening fire with an elemental-enhanced pulse of plasma energy unlike anything he’d unleashed before. The pulse of focused plasma energy hit dead center in the middle of the iced-over portion of the wall. The tower shrieked and the ground shook so hard that everyone fell down. The cloud was now falling like a stone on them. The energy pulse hit with such force that it shattered the wall like a large stone smashing a windshield. Cracks radiated out in every direction from the point of impact, spreading like a shockwave out of the icy area into the rest of the monolith. Light poured out of the cracks as they quickly spread upwards.

“Argus, Aeolus, Tethys! Hit it again with your fire!” Hannibal cried out urgently and they did so. Tethys, Thantos, and Calliope blew fireballs at the same time as Aeolus and Argus. The fireballs struck the same place Nemesis hit at the same time. A shriek that sounded like a demon tormented in the fires of hell echoed across the plane of Muriel’s mind. The towering monolith rumbled and the cracks tripled in number and size. Pieces of the monolith began top rain down from the cloud as it dropped to within a thousand feet of them.

Hannibal surveyed the situation and shouted, “Everyone fall back! Fall back! Get out of the city!” They chose to obey as colossal pieces of the tower rained down around them.

Aeolus looked at the monolith, seeing that it wasn’t ready to come down. “Argus, get them out of here,” Aeolus ordered as Hannibal stood beside him with Nemesis, Tsang, and Caverias while everyone else fled for their lives.

Suddenly, the Lynxian Muriel’s face appeared in the side of the monolith calling out, “Help me! Help me! It won’t let me go! Hit it again! You must hit it again!” Her words faded away like an echo as her face melted into the monolith as it shook.

Hannibal unslung the Sword of the Lord and said, “History repeats itself. Once again, it comes to me and this sword.” He pulled it from the sheath and turned to Tsang, Caverias, and Nemesis. “We must strike at the same moment,” he instructed, “We strike the monolith where Nemesis hit it.” He started toward the wall, moving as fast as he could. Tsang, Caverias, Nemesis and Aeolus followed until they were in throwing distance of the spot. “Now!” Hannibal ordered as a white aura swirled around Hannibal, causing the Sword of the Lord to shine with a blinding brilliance. In a blink, Hannibal, Tsang, and Caverias threw their angelic blades as Nemesis opened fire with his blaster and Aeolus breathed the hottest fireball of his long life at the spot. The three swords converged in the middle of Nemesis’ mark on the wall, penetrating up to the hilts into the monolith. The fireball of Aeolus and Nemesis’ fire hit just a fraction of a second after the swords, pushing them completely into the monolith. A deep rumble rose from the monolith that sent Hannibal’s berserker rage nuclear. “You can’t have her,” he roared as a white aura again swirled around Hannibal, turning his eyes white this time. “Let her go!” At the same time, the Draken Gauntlets of Ryu-Fudo appeared on Hannibal’s arms cocked, ready to fire. Before anyone could stop him, Hannibal darted forward so fast he was a blur, viciously punching the wall with an astounding war cry where the swords had hit, firing the right Gauntlet directly into the wall. Upon contact, Hannibal released all his power and berserker rage through the Gauntlet in one spot to free Muriel, literally blasting a six-foot crater two feet deep hole in the side of the monolith. It compressed the wall inwards with the energy strike for a few seconds before rebounding, releasing the energy to the rest of the monolith.

The Lynxian Muriel’s face appeared in the crumbling wall half a second after Hannibal hit the wall, crying, “Thank you!” Two seconds later, the rebound of the wall released a massive rippling shockwave spread out from the point of impact, encompassing the entire monolith, shattering it. A flash of light and a massive explosion followed, generating a potent concussion wave that threw everyone two hundred feet, including Aeolus. He managed to find his wings before coming crashing to the ground. He caught Hannibal in mid-air, who was out cold. Tsang and Caverias managed to catch Nemesis, who was heavily stunned.

“Flee the city!” Aeolus ordered urgently. “It’s our only chance!”

The explosion partially blew away the cloud, shaking Muriel’s mind violently. The concussion wave from the explosion shattered the smaller monoliths, leaving them in ruins. In a matter of minutes, Aeolus, Hannibal, Nemesis, Caverias, and Tsang caught up with the rest of the team about a half mile outside the city. They had hunkered down, using the drakens as shelter from the blast. Aeolus looked toward the monolith, seeing it with a myriad of cracks all over the facade of it and light shining out of the cracks. The light was driving away the cloud. Without warning, another colossal explosion occurred centered at the tower monolith. Muriel’s mind lit up as if it was in the middle of the sun. A shockwave spread out in every direction, raining chunks of debris everywhere. Aeolus hunkered down, protecting Hannibal, Nemesis, Caverias, and Tsang as the shockwave passed over them like a hurricane gust. After it passed by, Argus called out, “Is everyone all right?”

By the numbers, the member of the team responded positively except for Hannibal, Selina, and Muriel. Hannibal and Selina lay unconscious, and Muriel had suddenly ceased to tremble. In fact, her whole mind had ceased to tremble after the shockwave passed by. Aeolus looked back toward the city and saw it was gone. All that was left were heaps of rubble with the largest being where the towering monolith once stood. He turned back to the group and cried, “We did it! The monolith is gone, Muriel is free!” He turned to them to see the three casualties lying next to each other. Kida held Selina, who was delirious, moaning softly. Morpheus held Muriel, trying to rouse her while Emma and Amelia attended to Hannibal, using their gifts to stabilize his wounded condition. Everyone remained quiet, looking on in helplessness at the problem at hand. All of the guardians had vanished except for Tsang and Caverias, who were standing over Hannibal.

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