Thomas woke up shakily. The fluid was draining out of the pods through opening to his left. He looked over at Ranter. His pod was also draining, and Ranter was confused as Thomas was."What happened? I'm confused!" Thomas whined. Ranter looked back at Thomas discouragingly, and stepped out of the pod and started for the lab. Thomas followed him out, not sure of what else to do.
Inside the lab, Zinc was missing. "Yo, Zinc! Where'd you go?" he shouted.
"I'M IN THE TURRET," answered Zinc over the PA system, "YOU GUYS SHOULD GO OUTSIDE, THERE'S A DISTURBANCE."
Thomas could tell that Ranter was slightly worried, which made him worry even more. "What could be the problem?" he asked, "It wouldn't happen to be one of those red giant rats would it?"
"Something like that, maybe," replied Ranter with a shaky voice, "I don't know if we're strong enough to face any disturbance that would cause Zinc to require help even when he was in the turret."
Thomas thought about his vision of Chrono. Chrono looked just like him too. 'Maybe there's a connection,' he thought, but he didn't know what to expect. He and Ranter went outside. There was nothing but desert plains in sight and a few holes in the ground that looked wide enough to drop a tool shed in, and they seemed pretty deep.
"Oh, shit," muttered Ranter, "Fucking sand worm."
Thomas looked over at Ranter and saw fear in his eyes. "What's a sand worm?" he asked.
"It's a huge worm. It's got lots of sharp teeth, and they wouldn't need 'em to swallow us whole."
Thomas was suddenly very afraid himself. "So, why do we have to help?" he asked. He looked around at the cylindrical lab and saw a huge cannon spouting from a dome at the top. It looked like it could house one of these sand worms, let alone kill one.
"Because this is what we did," Ranter said, "Yaknow, back when we were Chrono. Not that you should remember, since we didn't finish the memory sync."
Thomas thought about what Ranter said for a few seconds, and realized what that meant. His fear quickly melted away, and all that was left was curiosity in his own abilities. "Wait, so, we were Chrono? Does that mean we could kill this sand worm with a one-two-punch?"
Ranter shook his head. "It's not that simple," he paused to think about the situation. The sand worm hadn't burrowed back out from the ground, but they could both feel the ground shaking lightly beneath their feet. "I'm going to need your help. Just follow my lead, OK?"
Thomas nodded at him. He felt like he was ready for anything. Ranter, on the other hand, felt like it was too early to be taking on a fight like this. They both stood firmly as the shaking grew, and suddenly a massive, brown worm fired up from the ground, creating another hole in the dirt, and it came crashing down on the droughted sands. It's perfectly circular mouth caged many long, sharp teeth all pointing inwards. It had no eyes, but it seemed perfectly able to stare down Thomas and Ranter before they were ready to make their move. Ranter took a step back with one leg to take a more solid stance, and then he held his palms facing each other, but not touching, as if to be holding a ball. "Do this with me, OK?" he whispered to Thomas. Thomas followed suit and put his hands close to Ranter's like he was beckoning. "Now, we're going to do everything we can to take this thing down with one blow, got it?" Thomas nodded. "But don't get cocky, because we won't be able to," he finished. This made Thomas nervous. They concentrated energy out of their palms, and a small, blue light started shining between their hands. The sand worm hadn't moved yet, and didn't seem to know what Ranter was planning. Zinc was slowly positioning the giant cannon towards the sand worm, as if not to make it feel the vibrations of the spout aiming right towards its head. "Ready?" Ranter whispered.
"OK," Thomas whispered back. And on that mark, they both pushed the light forwards and a great stream of light went blasting at the huge worm's belly. The worm looked like it was getting electrocuted, and suddenly the cannon started firing shot after shot of the same energy that Thomas and Ranter were releasing. The worm didn't seem like it was going to survive it. However, when Thomas and Ranter got tired out, they stopped firing the powerful energy and Zinc stopped firing the turret, and the worm looked like it could still put up a fight.
Ranter thought for a few seconds about what to do next. Thomas backed off a bit, completely surprised from the events that occurred and the fact that the sand worm hadn't even fallen over. Then, Ranter took off his shirt. Underneath was a light, black T-shirt. "I think I can take him from here," he said confidently. This put the hope back in Thomas' heart, and he leaned against the wall of the lab and slid down to sit on the ground and watch.
Ranter ran at the giant worm, and the worm dove back at him. Ranter dodged quickly under the worm's belly almost at the speed of sound and out of the way of the sand worm's snapping teeth. He jumped up and crashed head first into the worm, but he kept going up, taking the worm with him. A few hundred feet in the air, he rolled the worm around, and punched it right in the belly with great force and sent it smashing into the ground below. Ranter landed on the sand again, and darted towards the worm and grabbed it's tail. He spun it around and around and bouncing it up and down on the hard desert plains. Then, he threw the huge monster straight up into the air, leaped up and caught it again by the tail. He began levitating in place and spinning vertically, swinging the great beast around and around at an incredible velocity. He started to rise very slowly, and then he came crashing back down on to the ground with the sand worm. He kept spinning, losing no speed, repeatedly smashing the worm into the sand and somehow not wheeling off. He brought the worm down on it's side with a final crash and landed safely on the ground. The sand worm lay still, and Ranter turned around and clapped his hands together to brush off the sand. He started to walk towards the lab again. He was a bit of a ways away from it because of how far he threw the sand worm. He could see the surprise in Thomas' eyes that this dream he had in the pod was actually coming true. Then Ranter heard a noise behind him. He turned around, and the sand worm was already diving towards him. Quickly, he sidestepped the attack and grabbed onto one of the worm's teeth. He struggled to grab another tooth while the huge worm flailed around to get free. Ranter grabbed another tooth, put his hands at the bases of the two adjacent teeth he was holding onto and pulled the worm around to tire it out a bit. This didn't seem to work, so with a deep breath, Ranter pulled apart on the two teeth and the monster's jaw snapped right in half and it nearly went limp right then and there. It looked like it might have tried to squirm up, but Ranter decided to stay in the safe side. He grabbed the lip of the other side of the worm's mouth and brought it closer to the ground for an easier grip, held on tight, and crouched down. Then, with a quick pull greater than any force he expected to be able to create in his state, he ripped the beast in half right down the middle and left a green, bloody mess in the sand in front of him. Ranter managed not to get any blood on himself at all. Then he turned around, picked up the two pieces of disgusting flesh that he has just destroyed, and walked back to the lab, dragging the heavy corpse behind him.
To be continued
No comments:
Post a Comment