Dododex
ARK: Survival Evolved & Ascended Companion
The Omega Timeline Chapter 43: Battles and Whispers
Erica sat next to Sylas as she watched over him as he lay there. His face smushed into the stone ground, still breathing. Erica had a sheathed Tek sword strapped to her left side and two new bracelets around her wrists. She looked at her right wear a full suit of Tek lay for Sylas whenever he got up. She was genuinely getting irritated with him not getting up yet, she didn’t know if was alright to forcefully wake him up because of the injuries he sustained. But if he didn’t wake up soon she’d make him get up. Erica began thinking about how she met him. She saved her, she saved them. She wasn’t going to lose him this way.
A large thud startled Erica and immediately got up and looked down toward where the noise came from. A young woman with long black curly hair with two daggers in hand stood on the other side of the cave away from the door which was behind Erica. It almost seemed like she appeared from nowhere.
Erica didn’t like this, this lady seemed to be different from the others that came from the obelisk. She slowly walked towards her, her left hand resting on the handle of the sword. She stopped about 10 feet away from her.
“Who are you?” Erica said sternly, her hand still resting on the sword. The woman looked around, she seemed surprised and in awe at the place.
“This place is beautiful.” the woman said, ignoring Erica’s question.
“It is… Now Who Are You?” Erica stated again. The woman looked at her with a stern face. Her eyes showed irritation and genuine hostility toward Erica.
“Move.”
“Excuse me?”
“Move out of my way.”
“What for?”
“So I can get to that.” The woman said, pointing to the White Obelisks terminal. Erica showed irritation, knowing now this was no ally.
“I’m not going to do that, and I’m not going to let you get to that.” Erica said, lifting her left hand off the sword handle.
“It’s either that or… die. Which I don’t have a problem arranging.” The woman said. Erica unsheathed her sword and activated it. Its blue glow shined bright and humming with power and energy.
“I’d like to see you try.” Erica said, her stare stone cold.
“You’ve obviously never messed with Phoenix before?” The woman said, but she never got an answer as Erica had charged up a lunge with her sword and launched towards her.
And so element clashed with element inside the terminal room of the white obelisk.
The clashing of Tek, and the yelling and grunts of the fight slowly aroused Sylas. His eyes opened slowly with his hearing slowly tuning into the world around him. Hearing the fight between the two women. His eyes focused as he tried to get up and see what was happening. His head throbbed as he adjusted himself on the ground to look at what was going on. He watched as Erica and this strange woman fought with their futuristic weapons. Looking like a cooler and better spin-off of Star Wars in his eyes.
The woman seemed to be better at fighting than Erica, Erica seemed to be struggling with keeping up with her. But the sword held her edge to keep up. Erica blocked an incoming attack and swiftly counterattacked her with a slash to the gut. Only for her blade to pass through her body like nothing was there. Erica looked up to see the woman smile as she swung a haymaker at her head. Erica dropped the sword and staggered back. The woman kicked the sword away and began swinging her blades at her. Erica quickly reacted and backed away as the blades.
“You should have never messed with a Phoenix.” The woman said judging her. Erica gritted her teeth with disgust.
“And you should’ve never come here.” Erica said as she bashed her forearms and wrists together strangely and went with an unusual uppercut that looked like it was going to come up short.
But Willow’s face showed surprise as a translucent blade appeared from her hand and was coming at her face. Willow didn’t react or think fast enough phase and tried to dodge the attack. The blade came close and slashed her in the cheek causing her to bleed. But the onslaught from Erica only just began as she kept swinging at Willow. Willow though didn’t dodge and instead, the blade began phasing through her until Erica’s fist hit her. The punch came and hit her in the gut and Erica kept on swinging. With each hit coming in faster and faster and hitting harder and harder. The blades just went through her like she was a ghost, but the fists hit her hard and she kept taking them.
Willow was getting hit so hard and fast now by each fist that it made her think she was superhuman.
‘How is this woman doing this?’ She wondered as she was now trying to block the hits coming in, but Erica was swinging too fast and too hard to do that now.
Erica swung and knocked her block down throwing a fist square in her face. Knocking her down to the ground. Dazed but with blades in hand, she looked up at Erica who stood menacingly ahead of her with those claws. Willow wiped her lip to see blood on her hand.
“Leave… Now.” Erica said, Willow smiled.
“You think that’s going to stop me? Some blood and bruises? I’ll drop you dead…” Willow said as she got up. Erica readied herself and began swinging again at normal speed. But Willow was ready for this fight. She started blocking better against Erica, not letting Erica get a hit on her. Then Erica left a side of her abdomen unprotected and Willow took her shot. She pierced her in the abdomen and twisted the blade. Erica screamed in pain and started throwing her fists at Willow’s head leaving more of herself open and again Willow took her chance and pierced her in the middle of the upper chest with her second blade, as soon as it happened Erica stopped and gasped with a slight gurgling sound coming with it. Willow smiled at this and began pulling the blade down. Erica grabbed the handle and her hands resisted Willow pushing down but Willow was overpowering her easily at this point. Erica could hear her breastplate bone cracking from the blade going further down her chest towards her abdomen again. She tried to scream in pain but instead began coughing and coughing up blood. She was beginning to choke on her own blood. And she fell to the ground unconscious from the pain. Willow smiled triumphantly and grabbed the one dagger she had first stabbed her with. And as she started heading towards the terminal, she heard a man yelling and running at her. She turned around and threw a dagger at Sylas who was running at her. Sylas didn’t react in time completely but was able to shield it from hitting his body with his hand. The dagger pieces straight through the palm of his hand and Sylas yelled but he didn’t stop and he tackled her to the ground. He tried to punch he but she quickly and easily overpowered him and got him to the ground. She pulled the dagger from his hand and started trying to force it into his head. But Sylas resisted, and Willow looked in frustration as she was slowly winning the fight.
“The last thing you're going to hear is my name. My name is-” She never told him his name. Someone else had cut her off and tackled her off of Sylas.
“Close your eyes, everyone!! Sunhigh do it!!” A young girl's voice said. Sylas didn’t question and rolled onto his belly and shut his eyes tight, everyone except Willow did the same thing. A large flash of light brightened so hard that Sylas was still getting blinded and a yell echoed through the room from Willow who was blinded by the full force of Sunhigh’s.
“Get back Jack!! I think it’s time for this one to go!!” Jay said and Jack quickly nodded and got out of the way as Jay opened a portal behind Willow.
“Wait!! Do I… do I know you from somewhere?” Willow asked but she couldn’t see where Jay was at the moment due to being temporarily blind. Jay looked at Willow for a good moment before shaking his head.
“I don’t think so. Now bye Felicia!!” Jay said as he and Jack kicked Willow into the portal and Jay closed it behind her. He wasn’t sure where he sent her and only hoped that it was far far away. Star squawked her approval for what Jay did, flapping her wings as she did.
“Erica!” Sylas yelled, Jay and the others turned around as they saw Sylas was holding her, she had a dagger in her chest and didn’t look awake. Jay looked at the dagger and tried to reach for it before Sylas slapped his hand.
“Hey!!” Jay yipped,
“Haven’t you seen any sort of action movie? If we take it out of her, she will die faster than if we leave it in.” Sylas said, Jay and Jack looked at him with confusion.
“What’s a movie?” Jack asked, Sylas looked at him dumbfounded. He quickly got up and ran to the terminal.
“Hey, what are you doing?” Jay asked as all of the kids followed him.
“I need to see if there’s anything in this terminal that will save my friend. She’s dying, and… I don’t know what to do. Maybe this has some healing brews like the drops on the Ark me and her were on. What did she call it? Oh, that doesn’t matter. I need to save her. I can’t let her die.” Sylas said. The kids stayed silent as Sylas walked up to the terminal and activated it. The terminal sparked on and a holographic screen shot up above showing a dozen different commands, items to abstract, and a list of people and animals alike. He immediately pressed on items and touched the terminal button again to press the item menu. But a message popped up immediately as he touched it with a soft robotic voice reading it off.
“Injury to right hand: Fracture to the third Metacarpal, Several lacerations, and blood loss. Do you wish to heal?” The voice said,
“What?”
“Do you wish to rapidly heal from your wounds?” The voice said again, but Sylas ran over to Erica and tried to lift her before yelling out in pain with his hand.
“I need help!!” Sylas yelled to the children and all of them ran over and helped Sylas lift her.
“Get her to the terminal quickly!!” Sylas said as he helped as much as he could carry her over to the terminal. He put her hand on the terminal along with his hand.
“Two lifeforms detected. Injuries to Lifeform One: Critical, broken breastplate bone, sliced trachea, 2 sliced bronchus, lungs collapsed, major lacerations-” “Heal, I wish to HEAL NOW.” Sylas said cutting off the robot.
“Healing command confirmed, activating now. Please remove all foreign objects from wounds.” The voice said, and Sylas did so. Removing the blade from Wrica’s chest. Instantly Sylas felt his one hand get very warm. He lifted it and saw it healing before his very eyes. A progress timer dinged and Sylas’s hand was completely healed.
“Lifeforms One and Two fully healed. Lifeform One status: Will be unconscious for 5 minutes then will be fully recovered. Lifeform Two status: Fully recovered… Cooldown until next healing: 59 hours.” The voice said before the terminal shut down. Sylas let out a huge sigh of relief as tears ran down his face.
“Thank You… Thank you!!” He whispered.
“What are we going to do now?” Sunhigh asked, Sylas nodded his head. He wasn’t sure, he looked at the terminal and pressed the button for items and saw they had 25 Tek items remaining to abstract in. An idea formed in Sylas's mind and he had a smile grow on his face.
“How would you all like to become Iron Man?” Sylas said, the kids looked at him in confusion.
“Who?” Jay asked.
~
Captain Shortstacks and Freya were clashing up on the stairway up to the hallway to the bedrooms. What had started with Shortstacks on the offensive and having the high-ground advantage made him think he was going to win, but it had quickly become apparent that he would lose this fight. He was now on the defensive and Freya was pushing him further and further up towards the hallway. He was doing his best but yet she was besting him with her hatchets. ‘Hatchets of all things, I should have easily won this match, but… she was better than me.’ Francis thought as sweat poured down all over him from fear and exhaustion as this fight went on into the hall. Then he noticed that she wasn’t sweating not even a bead of sweat on her face. And she was wearing fur. He had enough.
“Enough of this!!” He shouted as he tried to block an incoming duel chop, only for his sword to break cleanly into three pieces and fall on the floor.
He down at the pieces of sword on the ground and looked back up at Freya who was in front of him with her two Tek hatchets in hand.
“Do you yield?” Freya stated, Shortstacks was shocked that she cut his sword into three pieces. He looked at her hatchets which were made of ancient Tek. He had heard stories of the weapons and their magical-like properties.
‘That’s it!! If I have her drop the hatchets. I can surely beat her then!!’ He thought to himself, “Do you yield?” Freya stated again, snapping Shortstacks out of his thought and he looked up at her.
“No, but I would like to challenge you to a fair Captains fight in hand to hand.” Shortstacks stated, Freya seemed to quickly perk up hearing this.
“A captain’s fight? So you’re Captain Hugo?” Freya asked,
“You know who I am?”
“You… can say that. Challenge accepted.” Freya said as she dropped the hatchets on the ground. Captain Shortstacks began laughing as he unsheathed a dagger from his belt.
“You really aren’t that smart. You really thought I was going to play fair with you?” Shortstacks said in a mocking tone, but all Freya did was smile and chuckle. She didn’t even seem to acknowledge that he played her into a bad situation.
“Ah, this is going to be fun!” Freya said smiling. Shortstacks gritted his teeth as both readied for fighting, him raising his dagger and Freya raising her fists. Shortstacks swung the dagger at Freya and she dodged the blade, but not nearly as fast as that dirty rebel before. But something felt off with it, which made Shortstacks all the angrier. He continued slashing at her with the dagger only for her to barely dodge it. But the expression on her face made it look like she wasn’t trying or even worried.
He was slowly losing his cool. ‘why wasn’t she worried, why was she acting like this was all a game!!’ He thought,
His anger slowly got to him as he was slashing the blade at her and he thrusted the blade at her. Only for her to grab his hand and wrist a quickly move them up to her head height. Fear struck him as he looked up at her face, her eyes serious and her face no longer in a pleasant mood.
“Uh, enough fun for today. Don’t you agree?” She said as she made a quick move with her hand, and Shortstack heard the sound of his bones snapping in his wrist and hand and the dagger dropping onto the floor. Her grip tightened and again he heard more bones in his hand break to the pressure.
He started reacting to the pain in his hand and wrist when in a flash he was yanked forward towards her and he was kneed in the face at an incredible force and speed. He felt her grip again only this time around his arm as a powerful force hit him in the face which could only be described as a large steel ball hitting the side of his face but he knew it was her fist. Her grip disappeared only for the same hit from the other side. He could barely stand at this point and then he felt what he thought was a large metal pipe clash against the side of his head and him falling to the ground that he could only imagine being her arm. All those hits came in less than five total seconds. His vision was blurry and voices echoing but able to see a figure standing up above him. Her… she rolled him on his back and grabbed his arm and put her foot on his chest and she yanked hard on his arm to hear a loud pop as his shoulder popped out of its joint. At this point though all the pain was throbbing at the same time and couldn’t tell what hurt the worst. The woman grabbed him by the same arm and lifted him completely off the ground. This pain was excruciating but all he could let out was a groan. His eyes came up to the same height as hers.
His vision slowly came back only to see her face, her face stone cold and stern. Her eyes filled with anger as though she could kill him right there and now but also had restraint as though she didn’t want to do it. Which only made it more terrifying.
“Call this first time mercy. I could’ve crushed your skull in with my knee if I really wanted you dead.” She said, “If you ever mess up or hurt my friends again. I will tear your arms off and beat in your skull with your open hands. Do you understand?” She said. He did his best to nod, blood began dripping from his nose and lips.
“Good. Now, rest.” She said as she let go of him and kicked him across the hallway. He landed about ten feet away and went unconscious.
Freya walked over to him and checked his pulse, something she had learned from Paul a long time ago. He still had a good pulse, rapid but strong. She didn’t want to kill him, just punish him hard for what he did to Neddy and Sylas. Beating up a kid and an impossibly peaceful pillow man was not right by any means. She got up and looked down at him cracking her knuckles.
“Honestly thought you were gonna be a better fighter. Wish you were better so I could practice closer to my standards. But you were good enough for the moment.” She said to his unconscious body. A rumbling came from outside and she heard the sound of fighting. She went and grabbed her hatchets off the ground and then grabbed Shortstacks by the ankle. She dragged him into a dark, cold damp room that looked oddly like a cave. She walked out of it and locked the door from the outside.
“Now time to fight some real foes…”
~
Andrew, Tago, Darkhide, and Emerald stood over the King Titan as he lay on his back. Andrew aimed his bow at the King Titan’s head with a blue arrow bolt of pure energy.
“Surrender. I don’t want to hurt you more or worse.” Andrew stated, the King Titan smiled as he started getting himself off the ground.
“You think I, am going to surrender to you? After only you hitting me with a small amount of fire and tripping me over. If that is your best, it was lousy.” The King Titan said, “Lousy as you were in that building back at our home, no wonder your odd beast died under your watch to a few of my legionnaires. If you want me to surrender. You’re gonna have to kill me.” The King Titan continued smugly as he adjusted himself to get off the ground to his knelt position,
Andrew pulled back the bow slowly, with the arrow bolt disappearing. He lowered his head and clenched his fist hard. He heard the voices of Tago and the others calling his name. But all his thoughts, all his memories. The only thing he could remember was Reuben. He looked back up at the King Titan with anger and rage.
“I may prefer that you would surrender and that I won’t take a human life. But you aren’t human and you won’t surrender, so what other choice do I have.” He drew back the bow hard and let it go and did it a second time. Two Arrow Bolts flew at the King Titan's head and hit. Absorbing into his body, yet it did nothing. All the King Titan did was smile as he stood up. Andrew drew the bow back once more and let go and a bolt hit the Titan in the head only to do the same thing.
“Oh no, I feel something. It happening to me. No!!” The King Titan said before bellowing out in laughter, mocking laughter. “You thought you could kill ME with Element energy?! You utterly simple-minded, emotionally unstable person. I AM ELEMENT. And now you shall die like your beast” The King Titan continued as he raised his fist in the air and it glowed magenta. And he bellowed with a thunderous roar, making everyone near him put their hands, talons, and wings over their ears. Andrew felt like a fool and a failure, he took his hands off of his ears hearing the roar at full force as he switched the arrow types to explosive. He quickly ran to Tago to try to get her attention.
“TAGO!! I need you to hit him with your Fire!!!” Andrew yelled, but he could barely hear himself, he doubted she heard him. He turned around and drew his bow again and fired a shot at the head of the King Titan again. This time it hit and a good explosion happened in his face. Knocking the King Titan down to the ground and shutting him up from his roar.
“YOU COULDN’T HAVE DONE THAT BEFORE!!” Darkhide yelled,
“I wasn’t thinking earlier.” Andrew said,
“WHAT?” Emerald yelled.
“He said something about iced tea with a Girly!! What is that Supposed to Mean!!” Darkhide yelled.
Then another thunderous explosion came from the sky. The four looked up to the sky to see meteors falling from the sky and heading towards their part of the city. Andrew darted his eyes toward where the King Titan was, but he was no longer there. He disappeared and somehow summoned a meteor shower.
“Run!!” Andrew shouted, but none of them heard exactly what he said. But none needed a hint to what he said.
Immediately they all started running for cover in any direction. Andrew was running to a concrete building.
“Andrew…” a voice called out to him. Andrew stopped and looked around only to see nothing there.
“Andrew, the Dagger. Find the dagger. Become a Herald of Light. For the Herald of Darkness is coming!!” The voice said, Andrew stood there unsure of what it meant. Herald of Light? The voice wanted him to become a leader of light and fight a leader of darkness? He couldn’t control his own emotions and pain, how could he be a leader for good? He didn’t want to even be a leader for everyone here after this. He felt like a failure to this group and to the others here and was easily manipulated by his pain and emotions in every direction.
A crash of a meteor blast caused a sonic blast behind him and made Andrew fly into the air and land on his back. He felt dazed and his foot got stuck in rubble. He sat up and tried to get his foot unstuck but the rubble was too heavy for him to lift alone. He looked around and found himself alone.
He looked up to see the sky go red and the moon turn into a blood moon. He also saw up in the distant sky, a meteor coming down directly towards him. He didn’t think he had a chance, not by himself to get this rubble off. This would be the end for him. But he was okay with it. He accepted his death, he was surprised he lived 12 years alone with Reuben, and now that he has finally found people who lived and breathed. He was happy with his life, he was no longer the last and was happy with it.
“See you soon Reu-” Andrew gasped as he was grabbed from behind by something, his foot got free and he was lifted into the air.
“Don’t worry, I got you Andrew. You’re safe now.” Tago said as she flew as far away from the meteor strike. Andrew looked back to see the meteor crash directly where they were just a moment ago. His head began throbbing and his body began to ache as his adrenaline began to drop.
“Andrew… The Dagger, get the dagger. For the Herald of Darkness has arrived and Fate is no longer balanced.” The voice said, Andrew grabbed his hair in agony. He wished this nightmare would stop for him. And he passed out.