Dododex

ARK: Survival Evolved & Ascended Companion

The Arks: Over Heaven (by Ben)

Chapter 93: Scarlet Flare

Original Post Date: Aug 7, 2024

Note: Story starts in Wyvern, Aerial ABC backwards filter and has a Prologue. Last chapter in Procoptodon, next chapter in Pegomastax.

~

“So this is it,” Chris muttered as he looked at the obelisk terminal with his hands in his pockets. He looked back at Ben, Paul, Carlos, John, Ian, Patricia, and Landon. They had their weapons drawn and their beasts ready. A Spinosaurus, a few Carnotaurus, and a herd of herbivores that ranged from Parasaurs, Triceratops, and Stegosaurus. There was no way in hell that June would be able to take down all of them at once. The madness ended now.

“Are you all ready?” John asked, feeling more nervous than ever. The others nodded.

“Yeah. We are,” Landon replied. He had a sad look on his face. He clenched his fists, and clutched onto his sword tighter.

Upon reaching the red obelisk, they had found General Wyvern’s dead body on the ground. Although Landon had not been too close with him, he still felt anger and hatred toward June for what she’d done. Landon thought that perhaps he could get General Wyvern to change and become his own person, like he did.

“That’s why we need to kill June once and for all,” Landon thought.

Chris looked at the implant that was attached to the terminal again. The gem inside looked more like a button now that it was there. Chris placed his finger on the button. He took a deep breath in, and then a deep breath out.

“After all this is over, we can finally return to the Book Club Camp,” Chris thought happily, “I’ll get to see that little bird again and Skyler will be… proud of me. Everyone will. I’ll prove it to them all, finally.”

Chris pressed the button, and a voice beeped from the terminal.

BEEP!

“Boss fight procedure in progress. Do you wish to join? WARNING: ONE ARTIFACT DETECTED. COLLECT MORE ARTIFACTS TO STRENGTHEN YOUR CHANCES AGAINST THE BOSS.”

“Boss fight procedure in progress?” Carlos asked curiously.

“Do you think June is in there fighting something right now?” Patricia wondered aloud, rubbing her chin. Ian nodded.

“Very possible. If that’s the case, then it might be even easier to kill her because she’d have to focus on two sides to fight at the same time,” he commented. Ben shoved past the others and pressed the button again.

A red beam of light shot down on them, and they all let out gasps of shock. The world around them began to flicker, and then, they disappeared.

~

Everything flickered back into the view. There was fire everywhere. It scorched the lands, causing all of them to start sweating profusely. Rivers of lava ran through the lands, their scorching temperatures frying all life that may have tried to exist. There was a volcano in the distance which spewed smoke, and it blocked out the air, making it smoggy and hard to breathe in. They could see the stone ruins of a temple in the distance.

“Wow,” Paul said, taking the sights in. He took off his jacket and wrapped it around his waist. Ian also took his jacket off. John began to fan himself with his straw hat. Carlos reached into his satchel and took out a bunch of bowls of soups.

“Okay drink up, this should cool you down,” Carlos told them.

The others happily took the bowls of soup and began to chug them down. Afterwards, they felt refreshed and nice, although the air was still ashy and uncomfortable. It would be much more bearable.

Landon looked around the arena, a bit confused.

“It said there was a boss fight, right? So where is the boss? And more importantly where is June?”

A roar suddenly filled the air. All of their heads turned and they saw a ginormous dragon flying toward them, purple and orange in color. It let out a fierce roar as it dived down toward them and blasted fire toward them. What really set this dragon apart was that it had a rider atop it.

June.

“HAH HAH HAH HAH!” June laughed as they all dived out of the way. The Spinosaurus let out a shriek as the flames enveloped its body. The herbivores seemed to be doing just fine. They all began to attack the dragon’s legs. The dragon let out a fierce roar and swiped at the herbivores mindlessly. It didn’t seem to know what it was doing.

Upon closer observation, June was holding onto the dragon’s horns and pulling it like reins.

“Dude she’s got a dragon we’re cooked,” John groaned as they began to strategize what to do. June was clearing away most of the herbivores with the dragon. The herbivores would be a good staller, but once they were killed there wouldn’t be much they could do other than pray.

Ian couldn’t use his implant attribute because of attribute amplification, Chris’ wouldn’t be much use against the dragon, Carlos’ was a support ability, Patricia’s was also non-battle applicable, and Paul didn’t even know his yet. That left John, Ben, and Landon.

“Ben, can you just use your vines to trap the dragon and stop it from moving around?” Ian suggested. Ben’s implant glowed, and vines quickly shot out from the ground and wrapped around the dragon’s legs, but as soon as they did they immediately disintegrated to dust. The heat must have been too much.

“Okay then… John, why don’t you just go up and tame it?” Ian said. John looked at the dragon, and then back at Ian if he were crazy.

“Even if I survived taming that thing with my power… I don’t wanna get squished man. No way am I doing that!”

Ian turned to Landon, who had a determined look on his face.

“Landon you have a voodoo attribute right?” Ian asked him. Landon nodded. Ian took a deep breath in and exhaled.

“What I’m about to ask you might be a bit insane,” Ian explained, “But are you willing to chop your arm off? It’ll kill the dragon for good. We’ll give you a healing brew and it should heal right back up.”

“Yes,” Landon replied firmly. Ian was taken aback by his quick response.

“Are you sure dude? It’s gonna hurt A LOT-”

“It’s fine. General Wyvern didn’t care about pain, and neither will I,” Landon replied. Ian nodded at him.

“I respect you a lot. Carlos, the healing brew please.”

Carlos handed over a healing brew to Ian, and he gave it to Landon. Landon took the bottle and unplugged the cork. He took a deep breath in and out, and his implant began to glow.

“Here we go-”

Landon let out a howl of pain as the cut tore straight through his shoulder, severing his arm. The dragon let out a similar scream as its arm was also cut off. Blood began to pour from their wounds, and Landon’s eyes fluttered.

“Landon! Landon, stay with me,” John screamed. Landon let out a groan and fainted, dropping the bottle of healing brew. John quickly grabbed the healing brew, and Paul caught him in his arms. John held the brew to his lips and poured it down his lips.

Chug, chug, chug.

As Landon subconsciously swallowed the liquid, his arm began to grow back. The others let out a sigh of relief as Landon slowly recovered. They turned back to the dragon. It had collapsed to the ground after killing the last herbivore, its eyes no longer blazing with the flames it had brought upon the landscape and their tames. A pile of molten, hot blood began to form under the corpse. June began to cuss at the dragon as it didn’t move, and she kicked at the head of the dragon. June turned to face the warriors, her eyes blazing in fury. A trident made of flames manifested in her hands, and her whole body flickered with fire.

“I’M GOING TO KILL ALL OF YOU!” June yelled, super jumping off the dragon toward them and lifting her trident up into the air.

All of them let out screams and tried to run away, but fire quickly shot out from the ground around them, trapping them in a ring of fire. John let out a gulp as June got closer and closer.

But then the world flickered away to night.

SHOOM!

Everyone found themselves on the obelisk podium, and June let out a gasped shock to see she was no longer on the air, but standing on the obelisk podium. She snarled, lifting the trident made of fire up into the air.

“Whatever just happened doesn’t matter. You’ll all die now! Starting with this naive fool-”

Paul stared June in the eyes, shaking his head.

“No you won’t,” Paul grinned. Everyone came out from behind him, “Because we’re about to defeat you with the power of friendship.”

June didn’t see it coming. Ian came rushing in from nowhere, slamming his fist into her cheek.

KAPOW!

As June was launched toward Patricia, the volcano off in the distance rumbled simultaneously. Patricia punched June in the face, and June let out a howl of pain as blood shot out of her mouth. The others quickly came rushing in to deliver their own blows to June.

She was cornered.

Carlos slammed her frying pan into her hip, and she groaned as she fell onto one knee. She slammed her fist into the ground and fire burst out, shooting out at the others in a form of an attack, but it did nothing to prevent their assault. Landon came rushing in with his sword and sliced her cheek. John kicked at her head with his boot, causing her head to throb even more. Her flames slowly crackled away and she found herself overwhelmed, unable to fight back.

“Ha ha! Get thrashed!” Carlos laughed as he slammed his pan into her ribs again and again.

“AH!” June cried out. She looked around.

Ben was nowhere in sight.

“Please, Ben, help me! HELP ME!” she cried out.

The others were beginning to tire out from beating up this old lady. They let out sighs of relief, wiping sweat away from their brow. They let Patricia do the honors of the last blow. Patricia walked up to June and slammed her foot into her stomach. She let out a cry as she fell on her back. Patricia crouched down, pulled her fist back, then slammed it into June’s jaw.

POW!

June let out a gasp as her head jerked to the side. She was out of breath and had cuts and bruises everywhere. Patricia got off her, wiping the dust off her hands and walking back to stand next to Ian. She put her hands on her hips triumphantly, looking at Ian with a smile.

“We did it,” Patricia said, “We did it!”

Ian let out a laugh, and the two clasped hands and began to jump around like little kids.

“Hell yeah we did!”

The two began to chant cheers as they giddily began to run around. Chris looked at them with a smile. Although he had not participated in the violence against June (he wished he had) he couldn’t help but feel a sense of accomplishment. They had finally defeated this terrible queen. Landon nudged Chris on the shoulder.

“Hey, dude, you can cheer if you want too,” Landon told him. Chris smiled.

“Yeah… I know I can.”

The two high-fived each other while chuckling, and then embraced in a hug, becoming newfound friends. Who knew it was that easy to make friends? The others were cheery and jubilant, although Carlos, John, and Paul were still deciding what to do with June.

“So are we going to kill her?” Carlos asked the others, “I feel like it’d be a waste of our time and the lives June has taken away if we just let her live. But that’s just me.”

John shrugged and turned to Paul.

“Paul… How about you decide? She was the one who tried to kill you after all,” John shared his opinion. Paul nodded.

“Seems fair enough,” Paul decided. He turned to June, his eyes sparkling with compassion and empathy,

“June…” Paul said, “I have not known you for long. But I do know that you love Ben a lot. You care about him a lot! If you’re willing to do that much for a person… I think you can be a good person, if you just try. Maybe we can even be friends!”

Paul’s implant began to glow, and he held his hand out to June. June stared at his hand for a moment. She could feel her inner thoughts betraying her. Telling her she wanted to try her best.

But as June looked around at the others cheering, and then looked back at Paul’s bright smile, she felt her heart boil with rage. These meddling fools destroyed her legacy, defeated her, and had the gall to try to spare her?

June let her heart take over, and she let out a blood curdling scream. She leapt at Paul, and everyone turned their heads and gasped as June began to beat Paul’s head into the ground.

“YOU THINK I’M JUST GOING TO FORGET AND BE YOUR PAL JUST BECAUSE YOU BEAT ME TWICE?” June screamed as she slammed her fists over and over into his face. Paul’s head went limp as June let her emotions spill out into the world, “WELL I’LL TELL YOU ONE THING, THAT’S NOT HOW IT WORKS-”

June let out a gasp and someone yanked her by the hair. Hard.

She was pulled off of Paul. She looked up to see who had pulled her off.

“Ben!” she cried, tears dripping down her cheeks, “Y-You really came! Please, Ben, take care of these… thugs for me! They hurt me so badly.”

Ben had a weird look in his eyes. It was like he wasn’t even there. And his pupils seemed unusually black, almost like swirling voids. Carlos looked at Ben in awe.

“Ben! There you are! Where’d you go after we all teleported back-”

Carlos let out a shriek as vines shot out from the ground and ensnared everyone there. Ian let out a yell and began to thrash around. Ben waved his hand violently, and the vines shifted across the grass, taking everyone except him and June away from the two, just a dozen meters away. The vines let go of them, and they tumbled to the ground.

“What is your friend doing?!” Patricia asked Ian. Chris replied,

“I don’t know. But something’s not right. He’s not usually this quiet.”

They continued to watch on from a distance.

Ben crouched down, looking into June without a word. Vines began to twirl around Ben’s body. A light blue hibiscus began to grow out of Ben’s right eye, blooming its fragrance across the field. June could feel her memories unwind within her mind as the flower grew in his eye. June looked on in horror at her supposed ‘lover’ as Ben placed his two hands together, forming a heart. Ben’s implant began to glow, and a red mist began to pour out from the heart.

“ATTRIBUTE AMPLIFICATION,” Ben shouted. The black void in his left eye grew, covering it and swirling around like a black hole. A smile crept on Ben’s face as he uttered the final part,

“Memory Palace.”

June’s vision was shrouded in darkness.

And then she woke up in a forest unknown to her. June looked up, terrified. Golden fireflies were flying around. And it was night. June got up from the ground.

“Where am I?”