Chương 83: Episode 28: Admiral Shardic

Three knocks rattled the door, but no answer came. Principal Crakk had locked himself in his office for so long that Gerald had not spoken to him once. As the school's only assistant principal, Gerald was supposed to keep students in line and ensure nothing insane happened, a task far easier said than done. Insane Middle School lived up to its name. Kids came not just to become Heroes, but to cause chaos.

Archie alone had blown up the school 250 times in a single month, earning forty-five days of suspension only because he still could not control his powers. Gerald adjusted his gray suit and red tie. Overhead lights glinted off his glasses as he brushed a hand over his slicked-back ponytail, his face tense with news that would not make today any better. He checked his watch and knocked again.

"Crakk?" A groan echoed from inside, followed by a sharp command.

"Just come in, Gerald!" Gerald stepped inside where Crakk sat behind his desk, hands clasped beneath the harsh light. Gerald hesitated, checked his watch once more, and walked forward.

"Sir, I'm afraid I have to inform you that all of our Heroes are…"

"Dead." Crakk looked up.

"You think I don't know that, Gerald? They're gone." He shot to his feet, sending his chair rolling backward as his fist slammed into the wall.

"They've fucking lost it!"

"I know, sir," Gerald said carefully.

"The cause is still unknown, but our detectives are investigating." Crakk turned toward him.

"Unknown, right?" Gerald nodded.

"Yes, sir. The murderer is…"

"Exactly what I expected." Crakk dropped back into his chair, crossed one leg, and tapped his fingers against the armrest.

"Hit-and-run type. Fast. Right?"

"Based on the reports, yes." Crakk slammed both hands onto the desk.

"DAMN IT! We're losing Heroes, and now we've got a speed freak killing them?! What are we supposed to do?!" He threw his arms out and began pacing. Gerald stepped forward.

"We're Insane Middle School. We train future Heroes, so this shouldn't stop us. These kids keep getting stronger. They're brave, skilled fighters." He shrugged.

"Academically, they're about average." Crakk stopped.

"So we hire someone stronger. Someone who can beat the shit out of this flashy bastard."

"That's the plan."

"We hire Heroes," Crakk insisted.

"We wipe him off the FUCKING map, then it's over. Capisce?"

"Capiche." Crakk's phone vibrated against the wood, the screen flashing the caller ID: Celestianite Officials. The room fell silent as Gerald leaned in, exchanging a look with him. Crakk smirked.

"Why's a government group calling me? You want me to answer it, or should I let Don handle it since apparently they don't know who they're calling?"

"It could be important," Gerald warned.

"If they're calling, this might be a catastrophe."

"I love catastrophes." Crakk picked up the phone.

"Yeah, I'm good, sir. You? Nice. So why the hell are you calling the most useless people for a war that's been going on for thousands of years?" He listened in silence. His smirk disappeared and his eyes widened, but he did not utter another word before the call ended. He slowly lowered the phone into the heavy silence of the room.

"What did they say?" Gerald asked. Crakk did not answer. He opened the AVANGARDIAN NEWS app, headline after headline reflecting in his glasses. ZERIATH ATTACKED BY ROGUE GROUP ADMIRALS STRIKE ZERIATH NOMANITES TARGETED BY VIOLENT 'HEROES' NEZERATH DESTROYED BY CORRUPT SUPERHERO DESERT CITY COLLAPSING UNDER TWO 'HEROES' Images of fire, ruin, and burning cities filled the screen as Crakk's eyes raced across the text. He slammed the phone onto the desk. Class 101 was on a field trip to Zeriath.

His head snapped toward Gerald.

"WE HAVE TO WARN THEM! GET THE HELICOPTER READY!"

"On it, sir!"

The blue room buzzed with conversation as I sat slumped across one of the couches, my arm draped over the backrest. My eyes rested on the holographic Planet AZ hovering above the cybernetic table until the conversations around me faded into the background. I sighed and shifted deeper into the couch, emerald eyes drifting toward the ceiling. My axe rested beside me. I glanced at it with a faint smile before looking back up at the polished blue ceiling.

Sophia strummed an electric guitar while Emely yapped with a group of the girls. Lonnie trained her focus with her vines as Drake sat hugging his knees, trying to make sense of all the Zeniths around us. Eli leaned silently against the wall with his arms crossed. William flew circles near the ceiling while Keyler hung upside down from a spider thread. Anhia studied herself in a mirror while Jocabed launched snowflake shurikens at a dartboard map. She backflipped, hurled her sword— It struck the center.

"YES," she whispered. If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it. I leaned forward and rested my hands on my knees, staring at the floor. The Lost Gem. Then the weight of not knowing whether my friend was dead or alive. Is this what Don feels every day? Carrying a part of a prophecy? Because I'm feeling it now. After surviving all of it. I still hadn't told them about the visions. And if I stayed quiet, we were all screwed.

Diornyx was already searching for the Lost Gem. King Dominator was already searching for me. I couldn't just sit here and wait. I stood, fists clenching at my sides as sweat rolled down my face. My eyes opened, my tails swayed behind me, and I looked around the room.

"I had a vision." The room fell silent. Sophia missed a note, Jocabed missed her throw, and William dropped straight out of the air. Keyler froze upside down, Mason snapped toward me, and Lonnie's vines stopped moving. Everyone stared as Angel lowered his glasses.

"Say, what?"

"A vision," I repeated, my voice firmer. Every Zenith focused on me as Regeneration opened his eyes. Strength walked over with his arms crossed, his body glowing red.

"A vision? You mean those random flashes you get all the time?"

"Yeah. I've seen Dironyx. Zeriath. The Lost Gem… everything." I walked to the glowing Earth at the center of the room before turning back.

"I think I know where the Lost Gem is. The visions all pointed to one place. It's my turn to finish my trial, and I'm already halfway through."

"Olsen," Power said, though his usual booming confidence wavered. His shoulders hitched, a sudden, heavy exhaustion washing over his face as his voice dropped.

"Are we seriously saying you're having visions of…" He could barely bring himself to say the name, his posture shrinking slightly as if the mere mention of Dironyx drained the air from his lungs.

"I just said I am!" Sophia raised an eyebrow.

"Okay then… who's Dironyx?" The Zeniths reacted immediately. Passion and Liberation gagged, Speed rolled his eyes, while Intelligence and Regeneration let out heavy sighs. Strength clenched his fists, but Power just stood there, his eyes fixed on the floor, staring blankly as if reliving a nightmare he thought was over.

"Dironyx is a Xenith, the opposite of a Zenith," Strength explained, stepping in while Power remained uncharacteristically quiet and unsettled.

"He wants to destroy the world and rebuild the empire he lost during the War of Ages." Energy burst around me as I spun toward them.

"He's looking for the Lost Gem. It doesn't just create life, it rewrites reality. If he gets it, he'll bring his people here, invade this world, and bring back his empire on Planet AZ." Power swallowed hard, rubbing the back of his neck with a trembling, weary hand, his eyes wide with a quiet, lingering dread. He looked completely done with this monster, terrified of what Dironyx's return actually meant for them all.

"Dang," Angel said as he circled the table.

"What else did you see?"

"You guys live on another planet?" William asked, blinking.

"Finally got an answer for why you all glow like a rainbow." I threw my arms into the air.

"I saw the Lost Gem, then Zeriath burning. But the location was blurry. All I saw was grass. Bright green and wet. The cleanest grass I've ever seen."

"Clean grass?" Jocabed muttered, drawing her Winter Blades.

"We should know this. What's the cleanest place on the Lost World?" Everyone fell quiet, thinking. Fedjina snapped her fingers.

"Vast Valleys?"

"That's it!" Jocabed exclaimed, pointing both swords at her and making Fedjina flinch. She turned to me.

"We go there, grab the Lost Gem, then what?"

"That's where the vision ended," I said.

"The second Chosen One who reaches the Gem before Dironyx receives a miracle." I paused.

"…But it won't be long before King Dominator finds me. And kills me."

"I'm starting to notice you've mentioned Dominator a lot," Javier said as he stood, his Electrical Katana in hand.

"But you've never actually told us who he is."

"He's a king, and dangerous enough that his name alone tells me we're in trouble." Angel leaned against the table, shaking his head.

"Right now… this sounds like a lot of bullshit." He shrugged.

"But part of me believes you."

"BECAUSE IT'S TRUE!" My axe flew into my hand and I caught it clean.

"This world and ours are gonna sink even deeper into the death zone if we don't do something. Avangard almost died before!"

"You mean Celestia almost lost one out of thousands of lives or more," Sophia corrected. I pointed at her.

"That too!"

"It sounds like you won't even have enough time to do what you were meant to do, kid." A voice cut through the room, drawing everyone toward the gaping hole in the wall. Principal Crakk stood in the opening with two Celestianite guards behind him. For a second, nobody moved, then the room erupted.

"PRINCIPAL CRAKK?!"

"Already with the Celestianites?"

"Oh, you're right to say that, Jocabed," Crakk muttered. He rolled up his sleeve as metal spread across his arm, forming a cybernetic prosthetic. A hologram flickered to life above his wrist. The screen lit up with images of caped Heroes flying and destroying Zeriath. Nezerath was reduced to rubble while a lone figure hovered overhead as parts of the city sank beneath the sea. An Admiral floated above a burning metropolis, his cybernetic body glowing beneath a cyan cape.

A teenager hovered over a shattered skyline with bloodstained fists, and two figures in black and white stood back to back above a burning desert city. Crakk lowered his arm and faced the room.

"We're dealing with high-level threats. They're attacking Zeriath right now."

"IT IS LIVE!"

"WHO ARE THEY?!" I shouted.

"ARE THEY HERE?! DO THEY KNOW WE'RE HERE?!"

"We don't know!" Crakk snapped.

"That's the problem! We already sent Celestianites, the Officials too, but…"

"What about the Heroes?!" Daysni shouted. Crakk fell silent before letting out a slow breath.

"…They're dead." Several students covered their mouths in horror.

"And it gets worse," Crakk continued.

"Lunaranites are flooding Zeriath." My stomach dropped as the words slipped out before I could stop them.

"That's me." I pointed the axe at myself, shouting louder.

"THAT'S ME!" Drake grabbed his head and started pacing.

"We are SO royally fried!"

"Why are they here?!" Keyler shouted as he dropped from the ceiling.

"That's the neat part, we DON'T KNOW!" Crakk yelled.

"We don't know who their leader is. We don't know anything. All we know is that we have to stop them." Crakk was suddenly slammed into the wall, crashing onto the floor.

"CRAKK!" I slid over and dropped to my knees beside him as he groaned, barely conscious.

"They're here…" he muttered. A flicker appeared above the holographic table, revealing a man in a pink cape and white suit with a jagged, crystallized S across his chest. He raised his hands casually.

"Don't mind me, everybody. I'm only here for one thing." Bite shifted her arm into a cannon, gathering blue energy at its barrel.

"Who… are you?" Shardic lowered her cannon with a flick of his hand.

"No need to be dramatic over an introduction, is there?"

"You were never invited," Sophia said, stepping forward as sound waves rippled around her. Shardic sighed, placing a hand on his chest.

"My name is Shardic. An Admiral. A superhero." My axe shot toward him, but he twisted and caught it. The impact drove him into the floor before launching him across the room, smashing him into the wall. He slid to a stop, adjusted his gloves, and smirked at me.

"You've got one hell of a weapon," he said.

"I'm just asking for the location of the Lost Gem. Give it to me, and everyone will be sa…"

"NOBODY'S SAFE!" My axe snapped back into my hand. I caught it, charged, and shifted it into hammer form, smashing it into his jaw and driving an uppercut into him that cracked the walls and sent a shockwave across the room. Power flipped through the air and charged, but Shardic vanished. He reappeared behind me, caught my fist, and grabbed my wrist. Power charged again, but Shardic swatted him straight through the hole in the wall. His grip tightened around my wrist until my arm trembled, but I planted my feet.

"STAY AWAY FROM THE CHOSEN ONE!" Angel launched himself forward, hitting Shardic with an uppercut that shot him through the roof and into the orange dawn. Angel landed, his boots scraping across the floor.

"OLSEN, BITE, GET OUT OF HERE! EVERYONE ELSE, GET TO THE VAST VALLEYS NOW! I'LL HOLD HIM OFF!" He blasted into the sky after Shardic. Lonnie rushed to Crakk, her vines wrapping around his neck to heal him, while Power sprinted back toward the hole.

"Angel might need help!"

"Let him fight!" I shouted.

"We need the Lost Gem before THEY get it!" Kwa'asja flipped off the couch, landing on the table as barriers formed around her arms.

"What did I miss?"

"NO TIME!" Intelligence shouted, rushing to the console and typing furiously. I turned to Bite.

"If Angel says move, we move." She blasted into the air, stopping above me.

"COME ON, OLSEN!" She shot through the hole. Everyone nodded at me, and I nodded back, feeling earth energy surge through me as cracks spread beneath my feet. I launched into the sky, spiraling upward with energy roaring around me.