The New Generation Part 10
Extinction (1)
By Dark Magus
Nomi stepped out of the timegate. She fell the ten feet to the ground and landed with a thump. She had forgotten about the fall. She stood up. In less than a second she was down on the ground again with Carr on top of her. Era then landed on the pile. If it wasn't for her armor, Nomi would have been in a lot of pain.
Era rolled off of Carr. Then Carr got up. Finally Nomi got up and brushed herself off. They looked at the surroundings. No sign of the robots.
"Nomi, where's the last human colony?" asked Carr.
"I think that it's in the Proto Dome," answered Nomi.
"Then let's go!" Era shouted.
"Wait," shouted Nomi with equal intensity. "It can't be in the Proto Dome because it is right there!" she pointed to a run down building. "I think that it is now in the Arris Dome."
"Then let's get going," remarked Carr. "They could already be there."
Nomi started off in the direction of the Arris Dome. The trio came upon a couple of buildings. On the door frame of the main one was a rusty, weathered, chipped up sign saying "Lab 32". Era stepped up and drew his sword. He threw the door open and looked inside. It was a dimly lit place, full of cobwebs. Beakers still stood where scientists must have once worked on them. Strange creatures rested by the dark walls, ranging from huge to tiny. Era crept cautiously along, careful not to wake any of the mutants. He came to another door. As he was about to open it a hand grabbed his mouth and pulled him away.
He spun around with his sword ready to attack. It was Nomi. She quietly pointed to a red beam running just by the door that Era had almost stepped on. She led the way from there.
Avoiding the beam, she cautiously opened the door and walked through. Carr stepped over the beam and followed. Era stepped cautiously over, but he slipped on a stray beaker. It seemed like slow motion as he flew through the air and landed on the red line. Alarms went off. Carr tried to get back in, but the door slammed shut. Eyes began to glow from the darkness. Era prepared for battle. More eyes glowed and even more appeared. There were hundreds of them.
Era knew that the sword would do almost nothing in a big crowd of beasts. He cast a water spell that filled the room. It got most of the small monsters, but only hurt the medium sized ones and did nothing to the huge ones. One of the monsters let out a roar and jumped at Era, slashing him. Blood gushed from the wound on his chest. But Era took no notice of it.
A large monster let out a roar and attacked the other that had slashed Era. Apparently there was no slashing to be done without permission. Era took the moment to use a spell to heal the wound. He then wielded his sword high in the air. He jumped at a larger monster and stuck the sword into its chest. It let out a scream and fell back in pain. This intimidated the littler ones and some ran with him.
There were now only about fifteen mutants to battle. A large mutant shot a tendril at Era. It wrapped around his neck. It didn't choke him, but he could feel the life being sucked from him. The monster seemed to get stronger. Another monster took its turn on feeding. Era felt another tendril slide around his neck. He cut the whip like thing off with his sword. The mutant let out a scream and turned a whitish color. It fell over backwards. Era then knew what to do. He screamed and raised the sword high in the air. With almost superhuman speed he ran around the room and slashed off all of the monsters' tendrils. Screams were heard and fourteen mutants turned white. Now there was only one standing. He was bigger than the rest and had no tendril. He let out a roar and clutched Era by the waist. He squeezed the Masamune out of Era's hands. Era was a goner. He could feel some of his bones about to break.
The rest happened in a flash. The wall blew up behind him. An arrow came flying through the air. The arrow stuck into the monster's skull. The monster dropped Era and soon fell over dead.
Era turned around and saw Nomi and Carr standing there. The laser cannon on Nomi's arm was smoking and Carr was just putting away his bow. The two saved him. Era tried to get up, but a sharp pain shot throughout his body. He had broken something, he just didn't know what it was. He tried to cast a healing spell on himself, but it didn't work. His magic didn't come to him. He was in a bad shape. He had a cracked bone, no magic to heal it with, and the human colony was about to be destroyed. Then he remembered something. He reached down into his sack and pulled out a blue vial. It had the word elixir printed on it. He popped off the cork with his teeth and drank the liquid. It tasted a step down from cough syrup. But the effects were evident. He began to glow blue and the pain stopped. He felt magic return to him.
Era stood up. He walked over to Nomi and Carr and gave them the go ahead gesture. Nomi led. Era looked around. He saw another room with no laboratory. There WAS a door on the left wall though. It looked like a garage door. In the middle of the room there was a strange contraption.
"A Jet Bike…" Nomi mumbled.
"What?" asked Carr.
"It's a jet bike," she explained, "They are a form of transportation that was used a little while back by the robots. The robots abandoned them though. They found a better form. Most of them were destroyed, but the humans gained control of some of them. This suit just happens to have a built in key, the prototype was built around the time of these things."
Nomi pressed a button on one of her gloves and a short, wiry, knobby key came out. It was at first not recognizable as a key, but when they saw the keyhole, it was evident that it fit. Nomi stuck the key into the hole. Buttons on the machine started to blink and glow. A humming noise flooded the room. Nomi went to the door to open it up. She walked over to a switch on the wall. She flipped the switch. Instead of the door opening, an alarm went off. From the hole that she blew in the wall, robots flooded in.
"Destroy Intruders!" they shouted in unison in a metallic voice. Era drew his sword again; Nomi powered up her laser cannon; Carr extended his bow.
"Now just WAAIIIITTTT a minute!" Shouted an unknown voice.
"It's the… the… the MAN!" the robots shouted. A panel in the wall slid open.
"Well thanks, but you can call me Johnny. I'm the fastest robo on this half of the world!" To demonstrate he morphed from robot to jet. "I'm always looking for a new challenge. These robots have all been beaten out at least ten times. How's about a race? You can race me across this highway here, or you can walk through this mutant infested building. Your choice."
"Let's race!" shouted Nomi enthusiastically.
"Good!" answered Johnny in reply. "Get ready to start!" The door opened up, revealing about a mile stretch of highway.
A robot bounded over. "On your marks, get set, GO!!" Nomi practically did a wheelie as she pulled out of the garage. Johnny lifted off and raced in front of them. Nomi revved the engines as she pulled ahead of Johnny. This went on for quite a while, until they were on the last hundred yards of track. Johnny pulled ahead of them, sure to win.
"What's this?" Carr asked. He pushed a red button. Fire burst out of the rockets in the back. They sped ahead of Johnny and beat him by a hair at the finish line. Nomi squealed the machine to a stop. Johnny did the same to his wheels.
"WHAT?!!" Johnny exclaimed as he stopped, "NOBODY HAS EVER BEATEN ME BEFORE!! Oh well, I guess I have to abide by the rules. You have free access to this highway whenever you need it, but leave the jet bike here."
"Agreed!" shouted back Nomi as she headed out of the dome. She ran down the path leading from the Lab to the road. She got to the road and looked around. Where was the Arris dome again? She looked, she saw some mountains in the distance to her front-left, and she saw a dome to her front-right. The dome, she hadn't been to it in years, but she was sure that it was the Arris dome. She had the feeling in her gut. She started down the path at top speed.
"WAIT!" someone shouted from behind her. It sounded like Carr. She waited five seconds and started off again. She just had a bad feeling in her stomach.
Carr noticed Nomi take off again. This time he started sprinting after her. Era looked up and saw both Carr and Nomi ahead of him. He took his mind off of the huge scar that the fight with the mutant had given him and sprinted off after the other two.
Carr was the fastest of all, being that he wore no armor. Era was the second fastest being his armor had almost nothing for bulk. Nomi was the slowest. It ended up that all of them got to the dome at the same time. They quickly ran around to the other side where there was a door.
Nomi lead them in. They looked at the rusted walls of the once functioning building. Cobwebs covered every corner of the walls and ceiling. It was a bleak and mysterious place. Nomi, being the one who saw this stuff all the time, rushed down the corridor to the other end. She threw open the door and hoped that Era and Carr were behind her. She stared at another dark room. It had even less light and more cobwebs than the first one. They followed a couple of pathways made of a mesh floor to the spot where the planks of mesh ended. There was another room, with a machine on the far end and a hole in the ground to the right. From the hole there was a ladder.
Nomi rushed over to the ladder and hoisted herself on. She scrambled down it like a spider on its web, despite her armor. She waited at the bottom for Carr and Era. She could tell that danger was near. She took extra precaution while waiting and pressed a button on her belt.
Nomi's armor expanded at once. Her breastplate folded down to cover her stomach area, latching on to her belt. Her boots folded up to cover her thighs. Her gloves expanded to go up her arms to the elbows, and the shoulders went down to the elbows. A plate on the back came over to cover her head, with shades for the eyes, leaving only her braid exposed. She was in battle mode. Carr and Era were now beside her. She ran quite sluggishly down the next hallway, and came to a pair of consoles.
On each side of her were walls. She walked over to the console on the right and looked at the controls. After studying them for a second, she pressed two buttons simultaneously and pulled a lever. The wall beside her crumbled away, leaving a door.
Nomi ran through the door. She found herself on a catwalk. She quickly ran across it, turning at certain areas. She was surprised she still knew how to navigate through here. She came to another door. She heard clanging from inside. She threw opened the doors and was astonished at the sight.
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TO BE CONTINUED
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