(Previously on Immortal Wars.)

(Again, we shall revel in my teenage originality.  Everyone groan in unison.)

Disclaimer: Immortal Wars was the book I came up with and wrote in high school.  I hadn’t even hit college by the time I wrote the first two books.  That means I hadn’t developed my style yet, wasn’t good at self-editing, and the story was fairly basic. So, you’ve been warned that this is the ultimate author throwback segment for my blog and will show my author origins.  FYI-  I put the first book (The Summoning) through a Print-on-Demand publisher and the second one (Light, Blood, & Tears) never saw the light of day.  Enjoy!

After silently landing the space skimmer, both teams go their separate ways.  Solix and the girls have a much shorter distance to travel than Fate and Infinity, so they take their time getting a feel for the terrain and looking for ambushes.  It takes them ten minutes to cross the desolate three miles and arrive at the edge of the busy construction site.

“What is that ugly thing over there?” whispers Hydrana.  The three guardians decided to hide behind a large pile of cold boulders.  They could see almost everything that is going on in the villains’ camp and still stay out of sight.  None of them notice the cold winds and desolate landscape that surrounds them.

“The large, black reptiles are a primitive race called Maviks.  They’re known for their extreme strength and hurricane breath.  I thought that I would never have to see one of them again.  You see, they originally lived on the Earth’s moon until they were all taken and somewhat tamed by Adriana and the others,” answers Solix.

“I wasn’t talking about those things.  I was pointing at the golden guy standing next to the giant lizard.  Who is that?”

“I’m not really sure.  It definitely looks like it could be Hellax.  I can’t be positive from this far away,” says Miracle.  They watch as a worker that is carrying some heavy equipment, which is the size of a large truck, accidentally trips the gold garbed figure.  When Hellax gets up, he grabs the bulky alien and uses his birthright powers on it.  The big creature slowly melts from the inside out and gets turned into a puddle of disgusting mush.  Unfortunately, the heavy equipment has nothing holding it up anymore and falls on top of Hellax.  It takes twenty of the strongest members of the Clan of Fire to get the machinery off of him.

“It’s definitely Hellax.  I don’t know anyone else that could possibly be stupid enough to kill someone that is holding a heavy object over their head,” whispers Solix.

“I think I may have dated a few who were that stupid.  Doesn’t say much for me.  So, any ideas on how to distract them?” asks Hydrana.

“I have a good one.  Watch and laugh,” responds Miracle with a mischievous grin.  She effortlessly creates a flock of giant eagles over the construction site.  The large birds silently swoop down and start tearing into all of the alien troops.  One of the large birds knocks a piece of the Black Tower onto a retreating crowd aliens before it is shot down by the warship.  In a few minutes, the eagles are destroyed.  But not before they cause a lot of chaos and confusion among the Clan of Fire.

“Good one.  But check this move out,” laughs Hydrana as she puts her hand to the frigid ground.  A low and growing rumble begins to come from deep underground.  The entire surface of Pluto rapidly begins to heat up after a couple of seconds.

“Be careful, Hydrana.  You’ve never tried this power stunt before,” cautions Solix.  He watches steam begin to rise from the ground and everyone nervously listens to the increasing sound of rumbling, which is beneath his feet.

“Relax.  I know what I’m doing.  I think.”  Suddenly, steaming geysers begin erupting from underneath the construction site.  Screams of burning pain and intense surprise fill the air as the alien members of the Clan of Fire scurry around in order to avoid getting scorched by the boiling water.  Hellax gets knocked into the side of the warship by a large geyser that erupts directly under his feet.  He quickly stands up, but the idiot hits his head on one of the ship’s gun turrets and collapses.

“Let’s see someone beat that,” challenges Hydrana.  In response, an orange hammer soundlessly flies through the air and hits Hydrana in the back of her head.  The Neptune guardian flops to the ground and without her, the geysers stop.  Her friends can see that she is still breathing, but the redhead is out cold.

“Looks like your vision was off by a couple of hours!” shouts Mindtrigger from a few feet above the guardians.  His black gloves each have a glowing circle of gold on the backs that disappear once he puts his hands together and carefully lands next to Solix.

“Does it really matter?” asks Startrix, who has a crackling arrow aimed at the unconscious guardian.  Solix and Miracle both realize that she is holding Uranus’ mystical bow of scorcher arrows.  Once the black string of the pure silver bow is pulled back, a magical arrow, composed entirely of solidified heat, will appear.  This arrow is capable of going through almost anything that gets in its way.

“I don’t think it matters.  What do you think, microwave?” says Tegam, as he becomes visible on top of the boulder stack.  He flips to the ground and slowly walks around Miracle with a crafty smile.  Faster than she can react, Tegam grabs her elbow.  The sly jester pulls the guardian as close as possible and kisses her on the lips.

“Get off of me you little twerp!” yells Miracle.  She open-hand slaps Tegam a couple of times in the face and stomps down on his foot with her boot heel before aiming her freeze ray at him.  She is about to shoot the jester in the chest when he hits the gun with his glowing whip and turns the freeze ray into a harmless grasshopper.  A laser arcs over everyone and hits the insect as it hops into the air.

“Well, aren’t you are a feisty one?” laughs Cybro as he grabs the Venus guardian’s arms with his metal, stomach claw.  Miracle struggles to get away, but she can’t seem to escape his robotically enhanced grip.

“Who in the galaxy are you?  I don’t remember ever meeting, much less exiling, a robotic immortal,” states Solix.  The remaining villains grab him and the unconscious Hydrana in order to take all of them to Adriana.

“You do not recognize me, ancient one?  Consider me the new and improved Cybro.  This is what your Solstar medallion’s power did to me and I blame you for my transformation.  Now, I can cause much more death than ever before,” growls Cybro in his electronic voice.

“Hello, old man!  Just forget about Cybro!  He is the least of your worries, my old teacher!” shouts Adriana as she approaches the three captives.  She seductively strides up to Solix and kisses him right before spitting in his face.

“Adriana.  Still as charming and egotistical as ever.”

“And you’re still as serious as ever.  I see you’re also still interested in spending time with teenage girls.  You know, I really thought our time together during our private sessions enabled some of my personality to rub off on you.  Along with some other things.  But I guess I was wrong.”

“Too bad none of my wisdom rubbed off on you or you would know that you can’t win this fight.”

“Solix, Solix, Solix.  You poor deluded old relic.  You and your novice guardians are seriously outnumbered, outgunned, and outsmarted.  I’ve already won this battle and, in a few hours, the Immortal Wars.  I like the sound of that, which will be talked about all over the planets as the final days of their guardians.  I’ve won this part of history and it isn’t even the afternoon yet.  This galaxy is finally going to be all mine.”

“Excuse me, voluptuous one?  Don’t you mean it will all be ours, Adriana?” interrupts Mindtrigger.

“What?  Oh, sorry about that little slip of the tongue.  I meant our galaxy.  Really.”

“You forgot something, Adriana.  There are still two more guardians out there.  They can beat you no matter what you do to the three of us.  You haven’t won this fight,” says Miracle while she continues trying to wriggle out of Cybro’s grip.

“This black-haired one seems to have most of her heroic cliches memorized.  You’re the one called Miracle.  Am I right, loud mouth?” asks Adriana when she turns to the struggling Venus guardian.

“Yeah.  What does that have to do with the others?”

“Well let me just say this.  You, my dear enemy, are living in a dream world if you truly believe that the last of the second-generation guardians can defeat all of us.  Your friends will encounter one of the most vicious immortals in this galaxy and will be destroyed long before I’m done talking with you three.  Do you understand?  They’re probably taking their last breath right about now.  So stop being ignorant and just accept the fact that it’s over before it began.”

“What makes you so sure that they won’t win?”

“Good doesn’t always triumph over evil in the real world.  The death of the original guardians proves that fact a thousand times over.  Fate and Infinity are just two harmless, young boys pretending to be superheroes.  Actually, I’m going to enjoy seeing their barely recognizable corpses dropped into an incinerator a lot more than killing you losers,” whispers Adriana into Miracle’s ear.

“I’m going to enjoy ripping your throat out once your neutered, metal pitbull of a cyborg lets me go,” growls Miracle.  She bites Adriana on the cheek only to receive an equally savage punch in the face.  Adriana puts her hand to her wounded face and feels her warm, red blood trickle down her flawless skin.

“Cybro wasn’t kidding about you.  You can be extremely vicious when you’re angry.  Of course, I’m not the one that you’re going to end up murdering like a piece of livestock.  I have a much better idea, which will ensure either your gruesome death or your complete obedience to me.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You’ll find out soon enough, Miracle.  Now I want one of you brainless idiots to go get my healing staff, so I can restore the unconscious redhead.  We do want to be fair after all.  I want someone else to find out where Psylon is hiding on this waste of a planet.  She should be done by now,” orders Adriana at the top of her lungs.  Miracle and Hydrana are carelessly tossed into a huge pit while everyone stands around to watch them.

“You know exactly what I’m going to do to them.  Don’t you, Solix?” asks Adriana with a soft, cooing voice.

“Of course.  I also know that I cannot get involved or you will kill all of us,” replies Solix as he gets pushed into a cage.  The rectangular cage has a rotating, spherical device installed in the top, which hums to itself.

“Wrong as usual.  Whether you get involved in this little demonstration or not, the three of you will still die.  Eventually, all heroes die.  It’s just that I enjoy this type of execution more than a sloppy slaughter.  In fact, this kind of thing reminds me a lot of my childhood.  The games were one of my favorite things to watch.”

“You’re one very disturbed immortal, Adriana.”

“Really?  That’s one of the nicest things you have ever said to me, Solix.  Keep the compliments up and I’ll have your immortal head mounted on a very nice plague on my bedroom wall.  Anyway, that little device in the top of the cage will prevent you from using your powers as long as you or any other immortal is inside the cage.  Have fun.”  Adriana grabs her healing staff from a blue, seven-eyed fish-man.  She aims it at the groaning Hydrana and fires the blue shaft of light into the limp body.

“Ouch.  Where am I?” asks Hydrana when her eyes flutter open.  She sees all of the grinning aliens above her and she looks over to Miracle for a good explanation.  When absolutely nothing is explained, Hydrana scrambles over to where her friend is standing and she gets helped to her quivering feet.  In a nearly audible whisper, Hydrana asks her question again.

“Where are we and what’s going on?”

“You don’t want to know, Delila.  You really don’t want to know,” replies the Venus guardian as she looks up at their excited captors.