Syanic Earth: Worldwide Cataclysm

Chapter 18: Vivification of the Thunder

“Damn it, Hernamidos!” Hujian yelled in Mandarin as a Reaper Squad commando smacked him to the ground with the spiked butt-end of his rifle. “You and Fanghui won’t get away with this!”

“Please stop!” Ningyue caught her husband. “Just stop it! Why are you doing this?”

“Mom! Dad!” Calice shouted, struggling to break free from two commandos. “Don’t you dare hurt them!”

The female commando tugged her close, facing her rifle at Calice. Reaper Squad commandos burst through the town buildings, dragging Vulpi out by their ears and tails. The commandos beat them with their whips as they set buildings on fire. 

“What do you think you’re doing?” Hujian asked. “Stop that! The Vulpi are people too!”

The chimaeras floated about the skies, making grinding noises that irritated the civilians’ ears. Human people were pushed behind a line of siganus crusader droids. They were separated from the Vulpi civilians, who were thrown into a large group alongside Calice’s parents.

“Well, well. Once again, you Mings get a little town to hide some fox devils and fail. You don’t learn, do you?” Hernamidos lit up a cigar. “There’s no escape from the Reaper Squad. Maybe you all should’ve chosen the right side!”

After taking a puff, he threw a cigar at the group. They exploded. The Vulpi covered their ears, crying. 

“Death to fox freaks!” Hernamidos roared.

“Death to fox freaks!” The Reaper Squad commandos chanted through their voice scramblers.

The kneeling Vulpi continued to sob.

“Tell me, Hujian,” Hernamidos laughed. “Can your pen save you this time?”

Hujian charged at him. A commando with red spiraling goggles ordered his owl drone to swoop past, cutting Hujian’s face. He fell, wailing in pain.

“Hujian!” Ningyue caught him. 

“No! Dad!” Calice shouted.

Ningyue wept along with the other Vulpi. 

“Alright you people,” Hernamidos walked around, looking at the scared witnesses. “I am gonna make this simple. Real simple. You see these people?”

He kicked the weeping Ningyue in the face. 

“Mom!” Calice shouted.

“Don’t touch her!” Hujian lunged for Hernamidos. 

At the blink of an eye, Hernamidos drew an arsenic needle, pointing it at Hujian’s weary face. 

“Sit back down!” The sinister general punched his stomach. “Don’t forget, I can just kill your lovely daughter if you misbehave!”

He growled. Calice shouted for her parents, unable to shake off the grip of the Reaper Squad.

“These beastly people are vermin!” Hernamidos told the crowd, pointing at the Vulpi. “Fox freaks cannot live alongside humans! Their demonic powers bring chaos and fear into human society. They are too dangerous to be left alive. A good furry devil is a dead furry devil!”

A Vulpi boy ran. Hernamidos drew a protonet crossbow, launching a green net made of electricity. The net wrapped around the boy, who screamed in agony. Hernamidos reeled in his victim, blasting him on the head with his pistol. The human crowd could do nothing but watch.

“The Global Federation takes things very seriously around here!” Hernamidos yelled. “That’s how no crime happens within our rule compared to your so happy overcompassionate democracy. If anyone dares to hide a Vulpi, or be stupid like these Mings are to oppose world order, want to know what happens?”

The general snapped his finger. The Reaper Squad fired into the Vulpi and Calice’s parents.

“No… no…” Calice didn’t know how to respond.

“You see? We topple the ferrous wheel!” Hernamidos stood on Hujian and Ningyue’s bodies. “Hail Fanghui!”

“Hail Fanghui!” The commandos saluted among the weeping crowd.

“My parents did nothing to you!” Calice shook wildly from the grip of the Reaper Squad. “What’s wrong with you?”

“Stand down!” The female commando hit her rifle at Calice’s head.

Hernamidos walked to her as the commandos struggled to keep her still. He stood in front of her, face to face. Calice sweated, gazing up to see the King of the Reaper Squad being about four inches taller than her.

“I will deal with you later,” Hernamidos said before punching her on the head.

***

“No! Mom! Dad!” Calice shook around in the spherical machine, remembering that dreadful day. Aggressive sparks of electricity roared through the device.

“Her ZNA levels have spiked!” A voice said. “Her power is over the charts!”

“Damn it! She’s going to break the sphere!” Somebody else said. “Sedate her! Sedate her!”

“No way! Her lightning has disabled the chemicals. What now?”

“She’s not being submissive. Notify the general!”

“She’s uncontrollable!”

The scientists screamed as the sphere broke open. Turquoise lightning rampaged across the room, making the computers explode. The monstrous lightning killed the scientists. Calice rolled down with the escaping blue air. She breathed heavily as alarms blared.

“What?” Calice sat up, opening her eyes. “What’s... happening?”

She looked about to see dead scientists lying about. The room was filled with different machines destroyed by the lightning. The walls were cracked. The red alarm above the doors hurt her ears. Calice clenched her fist with irritation, unintentionally releasing a thunderbolt. The alarm exploded.

“Eh?” She gasped.

Calice stared at her hands. Sparks of blue lightning flashed about her body. She could feel the static coursing through the veins of her arms and legs. The sparks skipped across her black hair.

“What is this?” Calice mumbled in mixed English and Mandarin. “What’s…. What’s going on?”

She stood up, looking back at the spherical machine she destroyed. Calice felt the sparks zap the sweat on her skin.

“What’s that? Did… did I come out of that?” Calice scratched her head. “How long was I in there?”

“Freeze! Freeze!” Voice scramblers sounded from the doors.

Calice saw men wearing black uniforms and spiky helmets with red visors. Four Reaper Squad commandos faced their bayonet rifles at her. Their shadowy capes flowed with the jumping electricity in the air.

“Hands behind your head!” A commando spat out.

Calice felt her hands shake, uncertain of what was going on.

“Do it now!” The commando repeated aggressively.

She did as she was told.

“Turn around!” Said the commando.

Her legs trembled as she turned around. The commando walked towards her with glowing handcuffs. Calice then remembered. The Reaper Squad was there when her parents died. They killed them in front of her. She heard the snapping of the handcuffs from the approaching commando. Feeling tears, hot tears, trickling down her face with sadness and anger she released a surge of thunderbolts at the commando the moment he grabbed her arm. The commando lay dead.

“Fire!” The other commandos angrily warbled through their voice scramblers, firing at Calice. 

She looked at the three with uncontrollable rage, emitting aggressive lightning that vaporized the plasma fireballs. Calice growled with fury. The blue lightning jumped at the commandos like beasts. Calice looked to see the commandos dead on the ground.

“Aiya,” Calice trembled. “How, I don’t understand. What do I do now?”

She then walked to the door, hoping to find a way out. Calice peeped out the doors to find an enormous hallway. The walls and floors were metal gray except for the blaring red alarms. Calice walked about the hall, uncertain where to go. 

“Over here!” She heard a voice scramble.

Calice hid behind a wall, watching two commandos and rabbit-eared crusader droids enter the experimental room. She ran. The hallway was a labyrinth with many turns and rooms. She scurried about, trying not to get spotted by the droids. Calice still felt sparks shocking her sweat.

What am I supposed to do now? Calice worried. Where am I? How did I get here? I wish Shien or one of my goons was here.

“What do we have here?” A voice said behind her.

Calice shuddered. She looked back to see a black-haired man with purple eyes wearing a dark suit. Calice flinched. 

“Who, who are you?” Calice panicked, unintentionally releasing a thunderbolt at the wall.

“Listen, I know you are scared,” The man told her. “But I am here to help you.”

“Huh?”

“Calice, right?”

She didn’t reply.

“You can call me Erron. Erron Dacos,” He said. “You have powers I see?”

“Powers?” Calice stared at her hands.

She felt her fingers being tickled by the electricity jumping across her hand.

“I have powers too,” Dacos used his hands to create a ball of whirling air.

Calice shuddered, observing Dacos’ demonstration.

“I have been through the same thing you have,” Dacos adjusted his suit. “I also came out

of a giant test tube as you did. That’s how I got my telekinetic abilities.”

“You, you too?”

“Yes. Look, I can help you get out of here. You just have to trust me,” Dacos lifted his hand to her. “I know how confusing it is to find out you have superpowers, but I assure you, you will be safe with me.”

Calice blankly stared at the hand with her arms crossed. She looked behind her to see a few crusader droids running across the hallway’s maze.

“It’s okay,” Dacos assured. “They won’t find you. I promise.”

Can I trust him? Calice thought. I don’t know him. How do I know if he wants to help me or not? Wait a second.

She looked at a symbol on the agent’s suit. It was a metallic minotaur’s skull with five red stars on top. Calice knew what that symbol was, the emblem of the Chinese Kneapexist Party. Her parents told her horrifying stories about Fanghui and his revolution, the very reason her family fled from Hong Kong as Jin Feilong hunted them down. The reason she lost her parents, the only family members she had left. Calice gnashed her teeth tickling with electricity, sending Dacos flying with a thunderbolt. Dacos groaned on the ground, feeling his limbs twitch with static.

“Ow! Why?” Dacos eyes fluttered. “What’s wrong with you? I was trying to help!”

“Maybe if I didn’t see your suit’s insignia, I would have trusted you,” Calice walked away.

“Wait, what?” Dacos looked at his suit’s symbol. 

Oh, crap! Dacos thought. I am such an i***t!

“No, no! Wait!” Dacos shouted. “It’s uh, not what it looks like. I am a UICA spy! Yeah!”

Calice frowned.

“I just, well. I had to look like us, I mean them,” Dacos stuttered. “You know what I am saying? I work for, um… ah… crap, I know his name started with a C.”

Calice rolled her eyes and turned away.

“Fine,” Dacos groaned. “I wished you didn’t notice that.”

Dacos faced his hand at Calice, forcing her on the ground with his psychic. She felt her entire body slammed onto the ground with heavy force. She looked at Dacos with anger, releasing monstrous sparks at him. The psychic agent deflected the crackling electricity with his hands. Calice jumped up, lunging at Dacos. She somehow ran with lightning-fast speed. Calice punched Dacos in the face with electrical energy, sending him flying across the hall. He was knocked out cold. 

“I can do that?” Calice looked at her hands bursting with blue lightning. “So I can blast lightning and go fast.”

A squad of Reaper Squad commandos ran to help Agent Dacos. They spotted Calice, muttering through their voice scramblers. The commandos fired at her. She felt her body rumble with the spark to fight. Calice flexed her hands forward to vaporize the purple fireballs, commanding the blue lightning to crush the commandos. They hid their bodies behind their cloaks, deflecting her attack.

“Okay,” Calice said. “Didn’t expect that.”

The commandos charged at her, firing with their bayoneted rifles. Calice ran, using her powers to speed away from the commandos. She jolted across a corner, hitting a wall and tumbling on the hard floor.

“Aiyo! That hurt!” Calice scratched her head. 

A siganus crusader droid fired at her. She panicked, bursting away from the purple balls of plasma fire. 

Calice sped towards another corner. She hid, peeping her head out to see the crusader droid at the junction. The rabbit-eared droid frantically looked around, swinging its rifle at each path. Finally, the droid ran the wrong way. Calice sighed with relief.

What kind of place is this? Calice thought, walking about. Federation forces are everywhere! How do I get out?

She walked down the straight path. Some windows revealed a hangar full of strange aircraft. Gunships shaped like hammerhead sharks landed from the open hangar doors. Calice could see strange tanks lined up on the hangar’s right side.

“That could be my way out,” Calice said. 

Calice heard chatting from behind. She dashed away, hiding behind another wall. Two men dressed in gray camouflage uniforms with red helmets held their rifles. They walked down the straight path, chatting in Mandarin. 

Slate Warriors, Calice thought. Kids brainwashed into killers. That’s what my parents told me.

She then heard yelling from a window. It sounded like Hernamidos. Calice snuck closer to the window, looking inside to see the sinister King of the Reaper Squad slamming the table. Two White Death droids stood beside him. A female commando along with two other commandos faced the furious Hernamidos. 

It’s that dude with the owl, Calice thought. Is he feeding it meat? That’s weird.

Calice then recognized the female commando. She had orange hair and brown eyes covered by her red glasses. Hernamidos slapped her in the face.

Oh my gosh! Calice observed. What did she do to deserve that?