Weapons 101

Chapter 8

Weapons 101

 

            Fred woke up in a cold sweat. He sat up, looking around at his glorious suite-like room in his grand house. He couldn’t believe what was going on. He had just arrived here in this world yesterday, and he was already this people’s King. He had declared war against an enemy he had never seen until they attacked (on the day of his crowning). His mind was racing at a hundred miles an hour. And he had no idea what he was going to do.

            He threw the covers on the ground in frustration and noticed something tucked into the mattress. It was a yellowed piece of paper. Fred reached for it and withdrew it from the mattress. He opened up the slip, and his mouth gaped open as he read.

 

            To the current King of Anera,

            Greetings. My name is Tidiltmin, last King of the Anerians. As you may or may not know, the Sneilians are on the rise. My secret spies have been gathering information on their whereabouts and what doings, and they have become much more of a threat than we anticipated. Their King seeks the Taqar, and will stop at nothing to take it.

            You may or may not know who I am. I was the third-greatest King of Anera, behind Jurorxedo, the first King, and Jurildmin, my father.

            A word of warning: don’t go to the third floor. I blocked it off as my final resting spot. I must not be disturbed, or else unspeakable horrors will haunt you for the rest of your days. Don’t go to w-

 

            The letter abruptly stopped. The last letter written was the w, and there was a dried up ink spot on the letter. Fred found this peculiar, but didn’t think about it too much. He shoved it into his pocket and walked out into the hallway.

            As Fred walked around his house, he was thinking about the letter he had found that told him not to go up to the third floor. He kept looking for a staircase that led up to another floor, but he found none. He came upon a door that looked out of place. It was a dark metal door with bolts roughly put in throughout. He pushed down the lever and it opened, revealing a small closet, completely dark. All of a sudden, a rope ladder dropped from the ceiling and dangled in front of Fred’s face.

            This was his key to the third floor.

            He grabbed the ropes holding the wood rungs together and climbed. There were only ten steps, but the ladder swayed, which made it more difficult to climb. He finally reached the top.

            It was pitch black.

            He felt along the wall with his hands until his hand touched a switch. He flicked it up and turned around.

            Fred fell to the floor, knocked out.

 

•••

 

            When Fred woke up, he was sitting in the chair he sat at the night before. The other Anerian Council members looked at him from their spots around the table in the small in-cloud chamber.

            “What happened?” asked Fred, rubbing his eyes.

            “You were knocked out by-

            “You must have taken a false step,” Nas said, interrupting another council member. “You fell pretty hard and hit your head. Do you remember anything that happened?”

            Fred looked at Nas, mouth open and staring. He slapped his pants pockets, remembering that he had the letter with him. “I do remember finding this.” Fred said, giving Nas the letter.

            Nas grabbed the letter and opened it. He read the letter, then folded it up and put it into his jacket pocket. He stood and said, “Fred, come with me. We have work to do.”

 

•••

 

            Nas led Fred to an open field, where two other Anerians dressed in armor were waiting by a large chest. As they approached, the two men straightened up in a salute. They stared at Fred, waiting for him to salute back, but Fred thought they were looking at Nas. Nas leaned over to Fred and whispered, “Fred, salute back or they’ll stay like that all day.”

            Fred turned to them and saluted back. They finished the salute and became at ease. Nas walked over to the chest, knelt down, and whispered something like, “Beeildglo beeorxxis orxfwe shuwikorxresdok.” Fred had no idea how he knew it, but he knew it meant, “Big box of swords.” Nas opened the chest and pulled out something that looked like a ninjato, and something else that looked like it was rummaged from Atlantis. He tossed Fred the Atlantis sword, saying “These are the old-style weapons that we used to use.” He tossed Fred the ninjato as well, and then went back to the box, his entire arm disappeared reaching down into the box. When he retracted it, he was holding the most advanced sword he’d ever seen.

            It had a 7-inch handle with hilts on both ends. It had the blade shape of a katana, but about 2 inches shorter. The whole thing was a dull silver color. It looked like an ordinary sword.

            On the outside.

            Nas handed it to Fred, who held it with two hands in front of him, looking for other features. He found a switch on the hilt and switched it on. The blade of the sword came to life, glowing a light blue color. And it was a flaming sword. He switched it off and Nas began briefing him on all the gadgets it was equipped with. It included a pop-out pocket knife, which was stored inside the handle.

            He looked at Nas, who had somehow managed to pull about 15 weapons from the chest in a matter of about 15 seconds. He saw everything from swords, guns and small knives, to arrows and quivers, large clubs, and glass spheres.

            “What are those,” Fred asked inquisitively.

            “Oh, the Spaires Trio,” Nas said confidently as he picked up the three glass spheres.

            “What?”

            “Trio Spheres. They are quite handy. Designed them myself. Wanna see how they work?”

            “Uh… sure,” said Fred, drawing out the r. “Why not.”

            Nas set two spheres down in the grass, and turned the one in his hand on. It turned to same color as the grass, and he threw it.

            And it flew.

            Nas must have thrown the thing the length of a football field. It just kept flying. When it finally hit the ground, Fred noticed that he no longer saw it.

            “Where’d it go?” Fred asked.

            “We call it the Chameleon Sphere. It blends it with any surface and acts as a mine when touched.”

            Fred reminded himself not to leave the way he came in.

            “This one,” Nas said as he picked up the second, “I call the Devour Sphere. Shutidupa, bring me that dummy.”

            Shutidupa (Stu for short) picked up the dummy (which Fred thought was another person, it looked so real) and brought it over to Nas. He set it about twenty paces away and stepped back to where he was. Nas tossed the ball in the air to himself, and then threw it directly at the dummy. On impact, the dummy disappeared before his very eyes in a flash of light into the ball. When it came to rest on the ground, it exploded into millions of pieces.

            “Whoa,” Fred said, taking a step back in fright.

            “No worries. They always explode the opposite way of the thrower. Trust me, I designed it.”

            Nas picked up the last sphere and held it in his hand. He held it with two hands instead of one, like it was a precious egg that was about to hatch.

            “This one is special,” Nas said. “It is the most powerful of the Trio Spheres. It has the ability to contain within it anything you command. But it requires great focus and a clear mental picture of the object of desire. Here Fred, try it out. Summon… I don’t know, a lion.”

            A lion? “Wait… it works with animals too, not just weapons?

            “Well sure. I said anything, right?”

            Yes…

            He took the sphere in both hands and closed his eyes. He cleared his thoughts and pictured a lion as clearly as he could.

“Now, command the lion to run into the ocean. Whisper it in your head.”

            He did as he was told. The lion in his head ran into the ocean, and the video kept playing over and over, like it was on repeat.

            “Good,” Nas said, as if he could see the video himself.” Now, throw the sphere in front of you about 10 feet.”

            Nas opened his eyes and threw the sphere 10 feet in front and to the ground. To his amazement, a lion flashed into life with a brilliant light. It roared once, and ran directly for the ocean. It disappeared under the water, and there was a flash of light.

            “Wait, did it just-

            “Yes, Fred. That means that it was killed. The same will occur on the battlefield, so we must become accustomed to seeing innocent creatures such as them die.”

            There was an awkward silence before Nas spoke again. “Well Fred, there is so much to do, but so little time. Shall we get to work?”

            “Indeed,” Fred said in reply.

            From 12 noon-8 in the night, Fred, Nas and Stu practiced their combat skills with the swords, their target practice with the arrows, and their sniper and long-shot handling of the guns. Nas found that he was particularly good with the sniper, and Nas figured that would be his safest bet, him being the King and all. When the training was over, Nas told Fred to go home before their meeting at 14:00 p.m. He did, and when he got there, a surprise was waiting for him.

 

•••

 

            Fweildlop (Fil) had left the training session while Fred was marveling at the Chameleon Sphere. Nas had told him earlier that he would have to go to the Command and Technology Center (CTC) to check on the spying status of the Sneilians on their home base of Esab. He left the first opportunity he got. He replaced himself with a dummy, and apparently, Nas would tell him later, that Fred had no idea.

            Fil arrived at the CTC in a moment of chaos. Apparently the Chief Operator of Technology (COT) hadn’t heard from the spy in over 3 hours. He was supposed to report in every half hour.

            Fil walked right over to the COT and asked him where he thought the spy might be.

            “We don’t know. Like we said, we haven’t heard from him in over 3 hours, and we lost signal on our tracking devices about 20 minutes ago.”

            Fil looked up at the fuzzy screens, and he knew what to do.

            He had to find the spy himself.

            He ran back out of the triangular building and got back into his car. There, he waited until 8 ‘o clock. Then he directed his car to go to King Fred’s home. He had to find the spy somehow, and with the King’s view of Anera, he could do exactly that. And maybe, just maybe, even talk with him.

            The car crawled into the driveway of the rag-tag building, and Fil thought he was in the wrong place. He’d never been to any King’s home before. He walked up to the house and entered. Fred wasn’t home by the looks of it. He looked around the house, wondering where Fred could be. He should be here by now.

            Plus, the house should have been soooo much nicer.

            “Where is he,” he said as he leaned against the grandfather clock. There was a noise that came from behind the clock and he pulled his hand off. He walked to the left side of the clock to inspect what had caused the noise, and he discovered that there was a lever back there. He reached behind and pulled it. The floor opened up beneath Fil, and he fell into an Anerian Transport vehicle. The ceiling latch closed, and the sphere took off down the track. There were dim lights that hung on the walls along the track, faintly lighting the way. He saw a light at the end, wondering what this meant.

            The sphere shot into the clearing.

            In front of Fil was the largest house he had ever seen. It was five stories high, and it also had the largest area of land surrounding it he had ever seen in Anera. The house was shaped in a “U,” and it was very impressive.

            He figured that this must be where Fred was.

            He got out of his transport and walked toward the house as the transport descended into the ground. He opened the front door and walked into the mansion. He figured it would be big, but this exceeded even those expectations.

            The door opened behind him, and he turned to face the intruder, his gun pulled.

            “Whoa, whoa, whoa,” said the person. Fil recognized him as Fred. He holstered his weapon.

            “Sorry, sir. Thought you were already here.”

            “Well, I am now,” Fred breathed out, still breathing a little hard after having a gun pointed at him.

            “Yeah, my bad. Look, we have a situation. It requires direct attention.”

            “Sure, sure. What’s wrong… who are you?”

            “Sorry. The names Fil. I was the other guard at the training session this morning. I left in order to check on the status of a spy was have located on Esab, the home planet of the Sneila. We’ve lost communication with him, and we need to know what happened to him and where he is.”

            “Oh… yes that is dire. What do you need from me, Fil?”

            “I need a computer.”

            Fred’s eyes lit up, remembering the large control room. “I have something that might be useful.”

            Fil smirked. “Perfect. Show me.”

 

•••

 

            Fil walked into the room as the lights came on. He marveled at the sheer size of the screen before him. Fred pressed the button, and the screen came to life. The map of Anera came up, showing the overhead view of everything. Fil knew what to do, even though he had never used the system before. He typed in the exact coordinates of Esab, and pressed Enter. The screen flew straight up and spun to the right. It started zooming forward at hyper speed, and Esab came into view. It kept zooming, and it went all the way to an overhead view of the King’s palace. Fil stopped the zoom and reached into his pocket. He produced a flash drive of sorts, and he plugged it into the hard drive, which was no bigger than a Rubik’s Cube. He pulled that up in a corner of the screen, and he drug the coordinates of the spy from the hard drive to the screen. Even though the coordinates were from 3 hours ago, he still might be able to track a weak signal from there and relocate the spy. The coordinates popped up, and a small beacon appeared at the coordinates. The screen flew back though: back to Anera. The coordinates had changed as soon as he drug them to the screen, both on the screen itself and the hard drive. Fil was taken aback. This shouldn’t have happened. He spun in the chair and ran to the door. Fred had no idea what was going on. He looked at the screen, and noticed that the beacon was moving towards his house. And it was practically on top of it.