Dododex

ARK: Survival Evolved & Ascended Companion

The Omega Timeline

Chapter 53: Outbreak

–By Moon

This world was crazy. Jethezzar was surprised that no one he’d met had yet to admit that. Beyond the city as they flew, dozens of different Obelisks floated faraway, high in the sky, above their territories with the likes that Zeer and Jethezzar had never seen before.

In Jethezzars mind, however, nothing was more crazy than the obnoxious mottled Ice Wyvern soaring beside him.

Zeer couldn't hold still, even in flight. Her tail kept flicking and her spikes clattered against each other as she tossed her head, and she wouldn't stay quiet for more than five minutes before she'd have something else to say, something about him to observe or a comment about his personality to make. He could feel her brain stirring and her gaze burning into him. He tried to ignore her.

As expected, she glided as close as dragonly possible to his side and thwipped her tail towards the rune he held in the claws of his beating wing. “So what's that supposed to be?” She asked curiously.

“Stop asking me questions,” Jethezzar said.

“I’m not a hatchling, you know,” Zeer said to him. “I’m just interested, Mister Panic Attack.”

“Well you don’t act like an adult,” Jethezzar observed to her.

“Haha, you're one to talk!” Zeer yelled happily.

“Shut up!”

“Wow, you're a lot like Gull,” Zeer said with an exasperated and amused tone to her voice. (Jethezzar wasn't sure what to answer with, he didn't even know who this ‘Gull’ was.) “A lot weirder, though. You get angrier and he’s much more mature. He’s not scary at all. Not traumatized.”

Jethezzar didn't know if Zeer would ever be quiet at this point. She seemed to take joy in every little detail of Jethezzar. She doesn't know the half of me, he hissed inwardly.

He thought back to after they had met not long ago, and the question he had asked her, only to get it answered with yet another question.

“You know Pandora?”

“Um, no,” he had replied. Zeer had lifted into the air after that, and when he followed she was laughing loudly. “You're lucky then.”

The light of humor in her eyes had then slowly shifted to fury, though her smile didn’t fade. He hadn't been able to get anything else out of her, only the fact that she was from an epic place (That wasn’t destroyed) called Vardiland and had a best friend named Nor who she enjoyed very much. Once again, an almost scared and rageful expression. She seemed to have as many mysteries as Jethezzar did.

They continued flying, going towards a dull green colored Obelisk that glowed brightly in the middle of a wondrous forest landscape. Zeer glided beside it, gazing at her reflection with a look of surprise and puzzlement that Jethezzar didn’t understand.

“We don't have an Obelisk this color, do we?” Zeer asked. He shook his head and she swooped down towards the ground. He didn't have time to ask after her and in seconds she was on the ground platform and looking around curiously at the terminal.

Jethezzar followed her. The Obelisk was huge and beautiful. It gave him memories of flying around the red Obelisk of his home. He couldn't smile in front of Zeer, but he did huff quietly.

“I think these things might be able to bring us back,” Zeer said, circling around the terminal. “Right? I'm not sure.”

“I don't know either. They have a lot of abilities on Fjordur. But this isn't Fjordur. They even look different.”

“Well, we're trying anyway!” Zeer exclaimed happily. “What could go wrong?” (I had to guys)

“Have you thought that maybe I don't quite want to go back?” Jethezzar asked her. She glanced at him and he continued, “This place has a lot of new things we’ve never seen before. We could find somewhere else to go. I don't have… Problems, here.”

“Well, I do.” Zeer said. “I've got things to deal with and a brother to help. Not that I care about him, but whatever.” She went deep in thought, clicking her tail spikes against the ground and tapping her claws. “I came from a black Obelisk. Hopefully this one won't be any different.”

“Wait, a black one?”

“Yep, I found myself there with a bunch of scary things staring at me. I flew off before they could flay me alive and searched for the first Wyvern I could find. Haha.”

And that was me, Jethezzar thought. So the team chose her. That means she must not be so much of a good Wyvern.

He decided not to tell her that he also came from that Obelisk.

Zeer was fiddling with the thing in the middle of the terminal, hitting it with her wing once and then deciding to give up. “Take me home!” She demanded.

Jethezzar was watching her, wanting to help but not sure how to. He began to walk over when he heard a voice from a ways behind him.

“You strangers here?”

Both he and Zeer turned around in puzzlement, and he spotted a feathered creature walking on two legs towards them. It was light blue and lavender with speckled markings across its body and had oddly small half-feathered, half-scaled wings.

“What in the world is that?” Zeer was muttering.

Jethezzar stood in place, his yellow eyes blinking. “Hello,” he greeted, glancing at Zeer and then back at the creature. “Who– what are you?”

“A Yi Ling,” The creature replied in a light feminine voice. She had light blue eyes and a narrow head that ended in a sharp beak with several little fangs. “My name's Omi. You’re Wyverns?”

“Yup,” Zeer said before Jethezzar could answer himself. “I’m Zeer. And to answer your first question, yeah. We aren’t supposed to be here. We’re finding a way home.”

“Your home?” The Yi Ling asked, almost intriguingly. “You’re like the new others everyone’s been talking about? You came from a different world?”

“Yes… and you live here?” Jethezzar asked her. “You’re from here?”

“Not this territory, no,” Omi replied. “A bit of a way away. I’m traveling.”

“You must know about these Obelisk’s,” Zeer said. “Right?”

“Uh, a bit!” Omi said. “You need help?”

“Is it obvious?” Zeer asked almost sarcastically as the Yi Ling padded past Jethezzar and towards the terminal. Jethezzar walked over in suit with her. A small gust of air whistled by and buffeted against Omi’s fluffy body, though she (And Zeer) didn’t seem to mind. Jethezzar shivered outwardly in the cold.

“Hm, we need to find some type of transportation mode to activate,” Omi said, standing over the terminal.

“I don’t understand a word you just said.” Zeer said flatly.

“Can I try?” Jethezzar asked from beside the Yi Ling.

Together they tried getting it to work, Jethezzar doing exactly what he had learned at the Black Obelisk and hoping to find a way to get this one to redo what it had done to bring him in, but to no avail. His tail twitched and then thumped with frustration.

Omi wasn’t finished, however. She squinted her eyes and tapped at the terminal’s screen with the edge of her wing, and several codes came up that she worked at before the screen paused, glitched, and glowed white. A strange noise came from the Obelisk above them. Zeer and Jethezzar looked up, and Omi grinned. “Woo! I think I did it!”

“Yes!” Zeer said with a smile, still staring up as the Obelisk began to brighten.

A glowing, pretty white light pulsed through the green of the Obelisk in a downward falling motion. It shifted through, down the bottom of the Obelisk and into the terminal. A white energy bloomed throughout the metallic floor they stood on and then vanished, the three creatures watching it with wide eyes.

“What’s going on?” Zeer asked.

They stood there, waiting to see if Zeer and Jethezzar would disappear.

“It–” Jethezzar said.

“It’s not working,” Zeer said. “Why’s it not working?”

“Maybe I didn’t do it right,” Omi said. “Alright, we can always try again! Let me see.”

Something small and thin broke slowly from the soft ground below the platform.

A glowing white shape slid out from the earth and climbed up to the edge of the metal surface. Zeer and Jethezzar had their backs turned, watching Omi as she faced the terminal.

“Don’t worry, I’ve got it,” Omi assured them.

The tendril slipped across the platform towards the three creatures. It moved like a blind snake, dragging slowly but smoothly forward in innocent silence.

Jethezzar was the first to look down. He took a step back in surprise, bumping into Zeer. “What is that?” He asked.

Omi and Zeer looked down as well, and the three watched the small thing slither between them. It hit the terminal softly and then wrapped up and around it. They watched it in curiosity and confusion.

The head of the vine lifted up and seemed to be looking blindly around the terminal. Jethezzar felt the want to touch it.

The vine turned and stared without seeing at the three creatures. The glow of the Obelisk seemed to darken, and the tendrils glowing, pulsing white color was rather beautiful in the dim light of the forest.

Then there was a dropping feeling in his stomach as the vine burst forward at a sudden speed, stretching out towards them like an arrow. Jethezzar flinched back in fear, his eyes slamming closed.

Stab!

The jungle went oddly silent. Jethezzar opened his eyes and looked down. The thing had not touched him. Zeer gasped quietly and her eyes widened, and as he looked at her she was markless as well.

“Oh…”

The word came from Omi.

He whirled his head to the other side of him and saw the white vine rigid and stiff from where it had lunged from the terminal. And the colorful Yi Ling stood there, with the end of it shot straight into her heart.

“...That’s not good,” Omi murmured.

“Oh my gosh,” Zeer whispered.

The vine’s radiation went dark. Omi stepped back and the vine broke in half from its place at the terminal, the last of its light spreading through and going into Omi’s chest. Her pupils were shrunken with fear and she watched as the tendril then shriveled and died, turning into hardened ash that crumbled and fell onto the ground.

The end of the tendril was absorbed into Omi’s chest. Then Omi’s eyes widened, fading from blue to a bleached glowing white. Her feathers dulled, the colors being sucked away.

Jethezzar and Zeer both watched, frozen.

Omi’s head then turned their way. Her eyes locked onto them without a sound or sign of emotion, and her body straightened slowly, her wings unfolding and her claws scraping on the ground.

She then opened her mouth and lunged towards them.

Zeer shrieked and grabbed onto Jethezzar and he spread his wings in fear as the Yi Ling attacked. Zeer knocked him over and what appeared to no longer be Omi missed them by a scale, and the two Wyvern’s scrambled back and got to their wings and talons before taking off towards the trees of the jungle. The Yi Ling jumped high and snapped at the air where Jethezzars tail had just been.

“Shoot, shoot, shoot shoot shoot–” Jethezzar roared as they flew up.

Below them, the corrupted Omi screeched loudly at the sky. Her white eyes flashed and she looked over at the terminal before walking away, off the platform and into the dark forest.

The terminal pulsed lowly, almost happily. The first infected had been made.