Rising Heroes, Fallen Gods Chapter 015

Exposed 17 January 2017. 2102hrs.

Australia

The Factory was razed within five minutes.

Catherine’s head was throbbing, bursting with an unimaginable power, one that can be used by one person on Earth. Without even thoughts, blades form, shards appear, and pillars fall. Light engulfed the whole of the battlefield.

Her power was gradually seeping away, and after the last crash, annihilating the Factory and the last of the Voids, she collapsed on the ground, powerless.

Arche and Celine both rushed next to her, carrying her. Celine eyeing Arche suspiciously. Even if Catherine had said for him to be his boyfriend, but she was still distrustful of the boyish-looking young man. She thought that she had just complicated her life a lot more.

“C’mon people, let’s lead back to Leo.” Uthares lead the way to a large, fully armoured bus. Arche signalled for Celine to carry her into his car, and she complied, unwillingly following his instructions. In the car, a tense silence was held between Celine and Arche.

They arrived at the Leo Uthares was talking about, and it was immense. A large fortress floating in the air, with turrets, row after row of defence buildings, and a large palace-looking thing in the dead centre of the fort. It was an amazing formation of structures, a simply awe-inspiring sight. “Hold on tight.” Arche said, and without warning (or one Celine could react to), the whole car launched itself upwards, flying towards the floating fortress.

Three seconds was all it took to scale a distance of fifteen stories, and the car landed without a bump in front of the largest gate Celine has ever seen before. Arche lowered the tinted window of his car, and as though his voice amplified, he shouted towards the gate ,” Arche Vixen Skywalker, Lieutenant General. Open the gates, or I’ll tear it down for you!”

As usual, only you will give such an answer, the gates opened, with the sound of a young girl in both Arche’s and Catherine’s mind. Catherine stirred from her position at the back seat; the voice of an unknown female reverberated in her head. Waking up to find herself with a mother of all headaches, she was pretty shocked to find herself sleeping in a car, until she remembered the recent events.

Rubbing her eyes, she found herself peering into the face of a very worried Celine. Fear turned into relief as she saw that Catherine was mostly okay. Confused and uncertain, she just smiled back at her, mind still querying about the voice.

Hey, who are these people? The voice came again, this time clearer. Her mind went into overdrive; certainly, the voice was not Celine's. Meet Catherine and Celine, Arche thought. He was used to communicating without verbally expressing himself, which was no wonder he was proficient in doing the mind-talk thing. But… there was actually someone else who have this? Her thought was coincidentally heard by Arche.

''Oh shit, you can hear. Wait Cat, I can explain this. Just hold on until I bring you in for the celebration.''

Celebration? She almost spoke aloud. Faintly, she could make out the girl speaking at the background, but was pretty muffled. Still very befuddled with what was going on, she just laid back, sighing. She needed a clear mind to think through all that has happened, and the headache was not helping much.

As the car drove through the main gates, they were received by an unnaturally large army of people. Men, women, all looking no to be over twenty, most wearing army shirts, some in casual wear, all out in full force to welcome them.

“How come these people are so young?” she asked, forgetting the fact that they were already mind-linked with each other.

“Generally, the people who have fought used to be between the normal working age, of about thirty to forty, but now there are only two people alive that are older than forty." he motioned for Catherine and Celine to move out of the car, and they did, out to a cheering crowd.

"Well, everyone! The Demigods bring back the Lightbringer!" the crowd cheered, everyone roaring for joy for Catherine. She could do nothing but smile weakly back at them; she had no idea that being brought back like that had such consequenses. Her head was violently throbbing now; everything around her was blurred, spinning, out of control. Once again, she fell over onto the floor, unconscious once again.

She awoke to a more serene setting; a small white room, with the soft scent of flowers and the slam light shining in from the window. Arche was at her bedside, holding a literary classic (Hamlet by Shakesphere), and reading it. The first movement Catherine made was immediately noticed by him, and he placed down the book, leaning forward to check on her.

'How's the headache?' asked Arche verbally.

'Like the grandmother of all hangovers. I have two questions. One: would you care to explain what's the voice that I heard just now, and two: can i get a brief briefing on what is going on?'

'The first question's answer is right... here." In between 'right' and 'here', the two-second pause allowed for a very tall and well-endowed young lady of around