The Arks: Over Heaven (by Ben)

Chapter 71: Septima

Original Post Date: Jun 19, 2024

Note: Story starts in Wyvern, Aerial ABC backwards filter and has a Prologue. Last chapter in Murder Turkey, next chapter in Triceratops.

~

Agent Terra walked down the empty hallways, looking left and right, her hands behind her back clasped gently. Her earthy brown hair softly trailed behind her in the form of a bun. Her grass green suit was fading of its color. She had many wrinkles across her face.

Agent Terra was tired.

“I just want to be home, with the others,” Agent Terra thought as she peered into Agent Jackpot’s office. He was noticeably absent. He had been for a while now, ever since the second week the scholars had been transported to the ARK. The President claimed that he was on an important mission, but Agent Terra didn’t believe it one bit.

“What other choice do we have?”

Agent Terra continued to browse through all of the absent offices. After the President announced the appearance of the ARK in the night sky and the disappearances of the scholars at Terran High, they had also gone out on “important missions”. Agent Terra didn’t know what the President did with them, but it couldn’t have been good.

Agent Terra finally stopped at Agent Ash’s office. Agent Terra had always been close with her. They used to go out to get ice cream all the time, until that day.

That ill-fated day.

~

They weren’t always agents working for Dan Walker.

They weren’t always working for an evil cause.

They were family.

Tessa walked through the park with Kiara, and the both of them held ice cream cones, licking away happily. Kiara was eating minty chocolate chip, while Tessa was eating rocky road. It was just a peaceful day out, it was a nice, bright summer’s day, and school was finally out. Kiara had decided to treat Tessa to ice cream, as a celebration for good times to come.

Life couldn’t get any better than this.

“Tessa, is something wrong?” Kiara finally asked, breaking the silence. Tessa sighed, taking another lick from her ice cream.

“No. No, nothing’s wrong.”

Kiara tossed the rest of her ice cream away into a trash can nearby, and wiped herself with a napkin. She brushed her short orange hair to the side and closed her eyes sadly.

“If it has to do with our parents…”

“I don’t want to talk about it. Kiara, why? Why did all of them have to go? Go to that cursed building? It doesn’t make sense. Who sent them there?”

Kiara put a hand on Tessa’s shoulder, rubbing it slightly. Her hand felt warm and comforting. Tessa melted to her touch.

“Tessa. I know you think Mr. Walker has something to do with this, but I’m sure he doesn’t. He’s still grieving from his own wife’s death, and he’d never do anything to them. They’re his siblings, after all. You never hurt your family. You protect them.”

Tessa looked down at the floor, tears building up in her eyes.

“I miss them so much.”

Tessa’s tears were cut off by the sound of someone calling out to them.

“Tessa! Kiara!”

Tessa looked up to see a boisterous boy with a black side part run up to them. It was Colton, another relative, with his sister, Eva. Eva smiled softly and saluted them. She was bald.

“Hey! Enjoying ice cream? Can I have a drop?”

Eva ran up to Tessa and tried to steal a drop. Tessa quickly pulled her arm away with a smirk.

“Come on. Manners!” Kiara scolded Eva. Eva frowned.

“Right. Can I PLEASE have some ice cream?”

Tessa sighed, and put the cone into Eva’s begging hand.

“Fine. You can have the rest. I’m not feeling it today anyway.”

As Eva gobbled up the ice cream, Colton placed his arm on Kiara’s shoulder, who was barely taller than him. Colton’s eyes darted around. There was nobody around except for them. The only sounds were of nature, and the rustling leaves from the wind.

“So, did you get the text from Danny too? He told us that we should all meet up here.”

“Shhh, keep it down! It’s supposed to be a surprise for Tessa,” Kiara whispered to him, “I hope this will cheer her up.”

“Ooh, okay okay, I guess we’ll wait for Fred, Jackson, and Danny to get here and we can decide what to do next.”

Tessa pretended like she didn’t hear what they were just whispering about, but she couldn’t help but smile at the effort. Tessa placed her hands in her pockets and leaned against a tree, waiting for the others to arrive.

A few minutes passed, and soon enough, two familiar boys were walking down the stone pathway toward them. One, Jackson, had his hands on a toy sword, spinning it round and round. He had spiky hair that had streaks of magenta and he was whistling a tune. The other, Fred, had a ponytail and a thick bang that was in front of his forehead. He was tossing a coin up and down in the air. It was his iconic ancient coin from the 1700s. He always brought it with him for good luck. His dad had gotten him for it a very long time ago. Every time the coin landed in Fred’s palm, it displayed heads.

“Colton! Tessa! Kiara! Eva!” Jackson called out.

“Fred, Jackson!” Colton shouted back, “You got it too, right?”

Fred snatched the coin as soon as it hit his palm, and he pocketed it.

“Yes we did. He should be arriving any moment now.”

Immediately as Fred said that, soft footsteps rang throughout the grass. All heads turned to see a teen with tired eyes but a soft smile approach them. He had a few gray hairs, and was wearing a black shirt and white sweatpants. As soon as he stepped forward to greet them, the wind seemingly intensified. Tessa got chills down her spine. The oldest of them all: Danny.

“My dear cousins, I’m glad you’ve called me out here!” Danny announced with a smile. Everyone cheered. Except for Tessa.

“Yeah! Let’s play some games and partayyy!” Jackson said, waving his toy sword around.

“What should we play first? You know what, let’s parkour! Look at the obstacles around here!” Colton suggested.

“Nah. We should play fight. That sounds way cooler,” Kiara argued.

“JUMP IN THE POND AND SCARE THE DUCKS!” Fred screamed.

As everyone began to yell out suggestions, Tessa began to get a queasy feeling in her stomach. It felt like the air was getting heavier, and strange colors began to flash across her eyes. Red, blue, and green.

“WAIT!” Tessa cried. Everyone looked at her. Kiara raised her eyebrow.

“Are you okay? You look really sick,” Kiara said. She rushed to hold Tessa up. Tessa began to sweat, and she turned to Danny quickly.

“Danny! Who sent you that message? To meet up at the park?”

Danny shrugged.

“It was Kiara! She sent one to everyone, right?”

“What?” Kiara realized, “I didn’t send you anything! YOU were the one who invited us here!”

Kiara suddenly began to turn white. Jackson dropped his coin to the floor. It rattled around, and then landed tails.

“Wait a moment.”

All seven of them felt a jolt of pain in their left wrist, and then the whole park washed with a green, blue, and red light. And in an instant, they all passed out.

After that day, they ended up in a strange forest filled with dinosaurs.

Tessa didn’t want to remember anything after that. But one moment stuck out to her in particular. That day, they were finally going to escape the forest, confront the one behind it all, and kill him. That way it could never happen again.

So it was unfortunate there was a mole in the group.

~

“Are we ready?” Danny asked gruffly. He was carrying a futuristic rifle, and was wearing futuristic armor. The others had similar weapons and armor. They all nodded in unison, waiting at the strange futuristic gate for Danny to put the keys in. Fred seemed anxious, but the others didn’t know why.

Danny walked up to the terminal and inserted all three keys into their designated keyholes. As he placed the final key in, the gate began to hum with power, and it slowly opened up. Mist poured out of the gate, and everyone shielded their eyes. Danny raised his rifle.

Five gunshots rang throughout the air.

BAM BAM BAM BAM BAM!

Tessa collapsed to the ground, and her vision faded to nothing as she felt blood pour from her chest.

~

Tessa groggily woke up in a prison cell, her hands shackled together with chains. She felt a great pain in her chest that still echoed. She looked around to see all of her cousins groggily waking up too. Laughter rang from the jail bars, and Tessa’s head jolted to see a man in a black suit and red tie standing there, clapping his hands. Tessa’s eyes widened, and she glared.

“Mr. Walker! It was YOU all along?”

The others were too shocked to speak. Well, except for Colton. Colton rushed up to the bars and slammed into them. Mr. Walker didn’t budge an inch and smirked at the action.

“YOU were the one who killed our parents, huh? You killed your own siblings, you sick monster!”

“Okay, you’re saying that as if it’s a big deal?” Mr. Walker laughed, although he had a hint of regret in his voice, “Now now, don’t worry. I’ve extracted all your stories already so I don’t have to worry about killing you. Anyway, you’ll notice that one of you is missing from the cell~”

Tessa quickly looked around the room, and her heart dropped.

“Where’s Fred?!”

Footsteps rang throughout the jail, and a familiar boy walked up to Mr. Walker, staring on at the others with pity. It was Fred. He had a solemn look on his face and he looked away as he met Tessa’s eyes.

“Hmm, you guys wanna guess what happened?” Mr. Walker said, walking back and forth, “Well. Basically I was watching in on you guys and was getting suspicious since you guys seemed to be really mad and seemed to know who was behind all this. So I radioed in on one of you and that person let me know that you were all going to try to kill me. Neat, huh?”

Jackson, who was sitting in the corner of the room, sobbing, turned to Fred with horror in his eyes.

“Fred? What did you do?”

Fred frowned.

“I’m sorry, you guys. He promised not to hurt us.”

“Fred, how could you?!” Colton cried, “We, we could’ve gotten him! I know we could have! With Danny’s help we could have-”

“Ehhh, I don’t think Danny’s helping out soon. He’s dead LMAO. Besides y’all are WEAK, you wouldn’t have stood a chance even with that TEK weaponry!!!”

Mr. Walker let out a maniacal laugh, and Fred looked at him worryingly. Eva was sobbing her eyes out too along with Jackson, and Kiara sat on the floor, hopeless.

Mr. Walker took five minutes to stop laughing. He wiped away his tears, and then gripped the bars so tight that veins appeared in his hands.

“Listen. Fred’s right, ya’ know. I’m not gonna hurt you as long as you listen. So if you all become my loyal agents willing to do whatever is necessary for my plans then I won’t kill you. But if you refuse, I’ll kill you, and if you try any funny business as an agent I’ll torture you. Sounds awesome! So, what’s it gonna be? Fred’s already agreed!”

Everyone was hesitant at first. Colton clenched his fists in rage. He opened his mouth to utter “NO” when Kiara finally spoke up.

“What other choice do we have?” Kiara muttered, “Danny’s gone. Our parents are gone. We’re here rotting in this cell. MIght as well just give up. Become agents.”

“I guess that’s a yes!” Mr. Walker said eagerly, “Now what about the rest of you?”

One by one, following Kiara, they gave their lives up to Mr. Walker, leaving Tessa the last to decide. No one turned to face her, except Mr. Walker.

“And how about you?”

Tessa wanted to try her best to yell out NO, that she’d never work for someone like him, but Kiara turned to her with pleading eyes.

“Please,” she whispered to Tessa. Tessa turned to her, and tears began to brew.

“I don’t want you gone,” Kiara whispered.

After thirteen minutes of hard thinking, Tessa gave her answer.

But in a way, they died anyway.

~

“Agent Terra, report to Mr. Dan Walker’s office immediately.”

“Agent Terra, report to Mr. Dan Walker’s office immediately.”

Agent Terra shook herself out of her reminiscence. She pried her eyes away from Agent Ash’s eyes and quickly made her way to his office. As she walked up to the door, she placed her hand on the handle and slowly opened it up. A blinding light filled her eyes, and as it cleared she saw the President standing upright, a big smile on his face. On the table were holograms of three strange creatures. One was a giant green spider, another was a vicious-looking ape, and the last was a dragon that breathed fire.

“Why hello! My final agent! Crazy how history repeats itself. Now I’m getting straight to the point. You’re being merged with a giant spider and you’re basically gonna be it until you either die or kill whoever summons you.”

Agent Terra reached for her pistol. The President’s implant glowed purple, and Agent Terra suddenly froze in place. She tried to move, and she resisted as hard as she could, but nothing changed. The President walked up to Agent Terra and grinned.

“You’re probably wondering where the other agents went. Well, I merged them too,” he monologues, “At first I didn’t think the process would work. That’s why I needed an experiment. Agent Jackpot’s spirit now lives within one of the survivors. Once that was successful, I took the rest of them and merged them with these guardians.”

The President waved his hand toward the three beasts.

“Now. It’s your turn. I haven’t merged anyone with the spider yet. The body types between both organisms are wayy different. At least the dragon has hands, and the ape is related to us humans. So I thought it’d be kinda cool to merge YOU with it. The last agent to decide her fate… Fitting, huh?”

Agent Terra glared.

“You are gonna pay. I promise you. One way or another, someone will put you back in your place. One way, you’ll-”

Agent Terra let out a shriek, as her body began to disintegrate and distort into that of the guardian. The President let out a chuckle, turning away to face the guardians’ holograms. The spider’s began to flash rapidly.

“Well. Goodbye, Tessa. It was a fun ride. See you never.”

And with that, Tessa was gone.

And so was Dan.