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Chapter Two: Rifts Outside of Us, Part Two

"Well then Ingram; like the name not like you had chosen that before; been a while since the four of us have fought; how's Bill by the way?" Basil said smiling as he saw the Dragon Komodo stepping out of his space pod. The Dragon Komodo smiled as he stepped out into the hot snow; spreading his green wings. Basil smiled and did the same.

"Oh, you know he's the same; how's the shark? Eh, nevermind; we shouldn't waste time fighting; but really why did you defect, I was at the capital with you and it wasn't that bad." Ingram said, as he turned his head and turned to Matthew. "Actually, change of subject again; hello fallen king. Now I have been called to retrieve you like the lost dog you are and return you to your place in the prison; so calmly place yourself in the pod and I'll do my best not to hurt Basil."

"Don't listen to him; he might have more Will; through I consider being a Riftwalker cheating; I have better technique and common sense; then again he can destroy an entire village; so let's spar." Basil said as he jumped up and in one motion his wings were spread. He glided over the sand; Ingram seemingly not expecting this was surprised as he was grabbed. Basil stood still for a second and flapped his wings upwards.

Ingram struggled in Basil's grip as he tried to escape; the Dragon Komodo flapping down and trying to cancel out Basil's motion. The shark smiled as he flew up in the air, getting him a good view of the wall and the burned down town. He would get revenge for those, he burned and those Ingram hurt today. Raising his hand, he pulled the dragon out from his grip.

"Flap down!" Basil yelled as he threw Ingram a bit up. In that spilt second he put his hands together into a ball and as Ingram passed him going down he slammed his hands down into Ingram. Basil flinched feeling the dragon's back bend under his force. Screaming the way down, Ingram saw the ground approach him.

Matthew watched as Ingram slammed into the ground, surely a normal seemingly mortal man couldn't survive that fall but it seemed that Basil wasn't fighting a normal enemy. Basil started to flap down towards the ground, seemingly going to check on Ingram. Matthew stepped out from behind the post and looked into the sand trying to see where Ingram was. As Basil landed he looked at Matthew, and shrugged his shoulders not sure if he damaged Ingram or not.

"Ingram are you ok, I know you're still a bit rusty on the fighting but I didn't mean to hurt you; if you leave now we can easily say to the next group the three of us ran away." Basil said as he knelled over next to Ingram's landing spot; cringing and seemingly feeling bad that he had hurt the poor dragon. Suddenly in a green blast of energy, Basil screened as he knocked back.

Ingram stood up, looking only to be only bruised but it seemed that he was healing nearly instantaneously. Basil meanwhile knocked into the air by the blast of magic and as he recovered. Spread out his wings and arms and regained his balance again. Hovering over the town, he looked at Matthew.

"Stay back, we're going to have a little fun today." Basil said as he put his hands forward and formed a large ball of energy. Once again, he blasted out a series of tiny blasts all heading towards Ingram. Ingram smirked and instead of jumping out of the way; jumping and dancing away from the beams; he simply put his hand forward.

With little hesitation; he simply deflected the beams with his hand. However, as he touched it the beams were seemingly infected; turning green as they all started to flow back at Basil. In one hand he deflected the beams and in the other he sent the beams back, controlling them all so simply and managing to do so with a flew flicks of his finger.

Matthew quickly hid himself behind the board, hoping that Ingram wouldn't take notice of him and he'd be able to survive. He breathed in and out, as he stuck to the board. What kind of king was he; he was doing nothing and was only letting the guards do the work. Maybe this was why he failed.

Basil realized what Ingram was doing and realized what his power was. Putting his hands forward, he remembered the technique for inverted energy waves. Putting his hands forward and vibrating his hands; he fired a canceling beam and the green energy waves disappeared from in front of them. Basil smiled knowing that the first half of the battle was over.

"So then infection man, I forgot your physics bending power; give yourself control of Will. I guess that is why they call Riftwalkers, master of the subatomic universe; speaking of which how is the battle against the Kagens, oh wait you lost your power to travel through Rifts." Basil said in what Matthew could only assume was a taunt to Ingram. And looking over to the Dragon Komodo, he looked a bit more than pissed.

Basil raised his hand and formed a large ball of energy. And Ingram responded pulling his right hand over left solider and green energy formed. Both of them striked at once Basil, threw forward the ball and it was finally released from his hand. Ingram meanwhile threw forward, his wave energy. The wave clashed with the ball in the middle of the town, both of them collapsing. Basil released there was an energy struggled and reacted.

Matthew quickly reacted, realizing that where he was standing was not a good place to be. Quickly he ran into the saloon, no one was in the town; everyone was dead from the first wave or the rest had fled. He ran forward, pushing tables and chairs out of his way as he realized he wouldn't have much time. The King found the back entrance and jumped through.

Basil watched as he put his hand forward and reconnected with his blue energy blast. Ingram did the same; Basil put his left hand forward and his right hand back near his elbow. Screaming out as he fired a beam from his hand towards his ball, he pushed back against Ingram.

Ingram ran forward and placed his hands against the energy ball. His hands glowing as he placed them against the large energy ball. The winds of change blew back against Ingram as he dug his feet into the mixture of broken brick and sand below him. Ingram stood still and applied his force to the ball. Ingram in one motion pushed forward and the ball instead of going towards Basil, collapsed on itself.

Basil panicked as he realized that the ball would collapse the town, looking over he saw Matthew wasn't around. At least he wasn't dealing with three airheads. As the ball violently tumbled and rotated around itself, he pulled his hands in and formed a barrier of blue energy over his chest. In one motion the ball collapsed on itself and a yellow wave of energy blasted out.

Basil breathed in and calmed himself as the wave struck his chest. He felt all the air knocked out of him and he was thrown under the wave and knocked against the ground. The rest of the town couldn't be as lucky, slicing through the middle of the buildings and collapsing the rest. The entire town that wasn't burned to chars was knocked down.

"Can I ask when you're going to be over with this?" Matthew asked as he stuck his head up from the edge of the collapsed building and looked at the recovering Basil and Ingram. Both of them groaned as they stood up and looked at each other with a massive amount of hate and sexual tension in their eyes. Matthew didn't want to interrupt them.

Neither of them noticed, they only continued to throw their balls of energy at each other. At this point it was starting to get boring, there was only so many ways you could see someone throw a ball or use a certain attack before he wanted to look away. Instead he decided to do something, something his father would be proud of.

Maybe that's why he failed, maybe that was the reason he failed in the war. He threw those bad thoughts away; he didn't want to think about that. Matthew stood up and quickly snuck past Ingram and Basil both of them too engrossed in each other to notice him.

Walking forward through the sand he rushed into the pod and quickly ducked into. Seeing the pod was an experience all its own; the walls were lined with all sorts of weapons. Pulling one of the wall; he could only imagine how it could have worked. Brief periods of contact with Terraona Prime had shown them some technology that they might have been able to reverse engineer, but before they could they snapped away.

Placing the weapon back, he walked forward. Unlike their drop pod, which was probably far away and would be picked up by scavengers in a year or so this drop pod had a screen instead of the switches. Ingram surely had the manifold or it was on one of the soldiers. He placed his hands on the screen and suddenly the HUD appeared.

Backing up surprised, behind him he couldn't walk out of the pod as the ramp behind him closed and sealed. Matthew quickly realized that they must have had some way to figure out who he was and they again now had him in the palm of their hands. Banging on the door, he realized that Basil wasn't going to notice him again.

Walking up to the front Matthew realized that he might have enjoyed the sight of the stars. The drop pod started to life up, something with applying enough thrust in order to beat falling; something he heard one of Asher's advisors speak of before. The pod rose of the ground, a subtle vibration underneath him.

Sitting down in the seat, Matthew decided to properly use the buckle on the seat this time. He didn't want to crash into the dashboard before, especially one that seemed to be so similar to glass. The pod started to accelerate forward and a trail of sand surrounded it as he and the pod flew forward. He realized he might as well defend himself and grabbed what looked like the biggest weapon of a shelf.

The ship rumbled as it pointed upwards and they accelerated into the high atmosphere, a layer of fire seemingly engulfed the ship. Matthew's eyes burned in wonder as he put his hand forward and nearly touched the windscreen. However, he decided against it figuring that like with the sand the heat it was absorbing might transfer to him.

Keeping silent as the atmosphere changed from light blue and instead to the darkness of space, he saw a blinking dot approaching in front of him. Stars appeared in the background as they exited the atmosphere, he saw the constellations in the sky and looked at them. Matthew remembered as he stood up on the sand dunes near the capital and traced them out in the sky.

The dot approached him and the pod and he quickly put together that it was the same large scale destroyer he was once trapped in. However, this time he had the element of surprise backing him up. Unbuckling and grabbing he gun he pumped it and as he somewhat expected the ship turned around as it approached, and prepared to dock. He pumped the gun and stood at the ramp waiting for it to descend; he was going to make his father proud.

...

"Grand Asher Drake, Ingram's pod is returning; we are preparing to dock with it; shall we let them in?" One of the technical attendants said from the readout. Grand Asher Drake smiled in his seat, turning towards the attendant he read the read out and gathered the information he needed.

"I didn't think he'd return that quickly; I might have to give him a promotion if he successfully brought back that royal brat." Grand Asher Drake, said as his entire technical staff around him laughed. This continued for a few seconds until his smile turned into a frown. "Ok, all of you return back to work; dock Ingram into the personal dock."

...

Matthew pumped the gun and walked forward as the ship made a sudden movement, he was nearly forced against the wall as the ship made what a pre-programed set of moves. Holding himself still, he kept against the seat and waited as he was suddenly raised towards the main system. Looking out the window, he looked at the massive destroyer class ship.

He never really seen one up close, it was like a ring; put together by series of large circular structures. He was amazed by their engineering; it looked crazy and he didn't know what to do or how to feel about the advanced technology. The people of Terraona Prime were nothing to be messed with they beat them in all aspects.

The ship docked with the bigger destroyer and the ramp started to descend. The wolf smiled and walked forward with the gun in his hand. Drake turned towards him, in his large ship and looked confused he wasn't excepting Matthew with as large gun pointed towards him. Soldiers in the room quickly reacted and pointed their weapons up as well, they however knew Drake didn't want a dead Matthew on his hand.

"Well then, soldiers don't strike; the hostage king to a loyal empire is a useful tool and I hope you will respect that." Drake said standing up; he smiled. Matthew realized that both he and the dragon knew he wouldn't strike. "Now then, your nation is burning and you have managed to escape from the best trap we have and you decide to come up here."

"No, that's just your ships faulty piloting; sorry I would have been half way to Albion by now if it was my choice." Matthew said still trying to keep the idea that he would shoot up, and kept the gun up. Drake turned towards one of the interns and snapped; pressing a button, the entire ship rotated. He moved with the ship and the only idea that he was moving was suggested by the planet's movement below him.

"Now take a look at this, this is what I would call art." Drake said as he looked behind Matthew and saw something he considered art. Matthew turned around and nearly dropped to his knees. His entire capital was on fire, a massive smoke plump rising from the city and the red flames engulfing the city.

"Oh god, you monster you won't get away with this; I will raise a resistance; I will make sure that in every waking moment that will scar into your mind and that you and Terraona Prime will not forget the day you went too far!" Matthew said; he tried to walk backwards and found that the docking port was closed; his spaceship was floating away. Turning back he looked at the spaceship it looked to be at least a few meters away.

Matthew smiled, trying to keep the idea that he had a plan alive in Grand Asher Drake's mind. He looked a little to the left and then a little to the right; he didn't have many options on what to do. He needed an army; his father guided people; and Matthew was trained in that even more. He probably had no idea how to use that weapon.

And then he saw the staircase, near him if he could quickly make a move than he might be able to make an escape attempt relatively easily. And thus in his head, even as he tried to discourage himself; he decided to be the hero his father would have wanted him to be. Matthew was going to be someone who did something, not idly sit around.

"So then Drake, tell Asher that he'll see me later!" Matthew said, and then he stuck pumping the gun and pulling the trigger, a green energy blast was released from the barrel. It had a strange sound to it and as it exploded against the wall; the soldiers near the stairwell were all knocked away. Matthew quickly moved; ducking under the other soldiers' fire.

"Now then Drake; good luck catching me if you can!" Matthew taunted as he ran into the stairwell turning around and pointing his gun upwards. Firing it, the metal around the stairwell collapsed into rubble, blocking the stairwell. If anything he bought himself more time. Taking a three second breather, he quickly moved on from then and continued down the stairs.

"Ok, need to get to drop pod get back to Basil, back to protection." Matthew said talking himself through his plan. Landing at the bottom of the stairs, he looked out both ways; quickly protruding his head from the wall and taking a look through the perpendicular hallway. He stood nearly petrified, not with fear; but with his lack of planning.

"This was a horribly thought out plan." Matthew said to himself, as he walked forward and into the next hallway. "Ok, I need to get to the docking bay; find another ship and escape from this Destroyer Class ship."

Looking to a window; he saw the planet move again. He quickly realized that they were doing something; maybe certain pathways were blocked in certain configurations or maybe they could send out a secret message or maybe it was designed to trap him somewhere. Looking around he saw what looked like the transition into another section of ship.

Walking out, he saw nothing. No guards blocking his way, nor an execution squad waiting to shoot at him. Not wanting to take up too much of his enemies' time he walked forward, seemingly without consequence and waited for something to happen. And yet nothing happened, why would Grand Asher Drake let him roam around the ship without restraints even as he pointed a high caliber weapon at him only a few seconds before.

Matthew decided not to question what was happening and looked forward; his pod was still floating outside of the space station simply floating with its backdoor closed. While flying through space wasn't an option, if he could find some way to summon the pod before getting comforted than he might stand some chance of escaping.

The wolf passed into the next section and looked around; the station seemed empty. Maybe they had only just built it, perhaps he was the first prisoner in the station. IT would explain the lack of guards; in a normal setting Primetroopers would pass every few seconds and check everyone. Still he was waiting for Grand Asher Drake and his platoon to come down and strike him.

Maybe they evacuated everyone when he arrived; and really as he thought about it holding the massive plasma weapon wasn't doing much for his appearance to normal citizens of Terraona Prime; surely a picture of him shooting the soldiers and the doorway could be manipulated in some way to portray him in a villainous sense.

Still he didn't have much choice to drop the weapon and he kept it close to his body as he walked forward. Turning the corner, he saw a docking port. There was probably a personal one built into every section; he was told this was a civilian station; so even if it did have some militant functions, people would have to be shuttled in and out. Looking out, Matthew saw his orbital pod floating outside. He had no idea on how he could possibly get it to him.

"Maybe they do have a way." Matthew said as he snuck over to the corner and looked behind it; there was a computer and it seemed to show objects orbiting around the station or the planet. He didn't try to think about it that hard. Selecting the pod; suddenly something beeped on the corner. Looking up, he saw a sign.

"Valet Parking, what the hell is that?" Matthew asked himself as he grabbed the strange key like device. He pointed it outside the window and the pod beeped; he seemed to unlock the pod. Pressing a ramp like button, the ramp on the pod opened and it stayed open. He looked at the docking controls, they might have been a way to open it. Tracking his hands, with some force on the outside of the station he might have been able to push himself to the shuttle.

Matthew heard the sound of soldiers marching in place and he backed up against the dock door; his hand able to reach the control panel. He smiled and watched as a platoon of soldiers gathered in front of him. But leading them all was Grand Asher Drake; the large dragon stood in front of his soldiers and he held his own weapon, large enough to be comfortable in his hands.

"Took you long enough, I didn't think that you'd be able to pull yourself out of the chair in time." Matthew said raising his weapon in one hand and keeping the other stable at his side. He waited for the dragon to speak; of course he was going to at least attempt to escape in style. Matthew smiled back at Grand Asher Drake.

"Oh you young child; how you have yet to realize who the victors of the battle are. Give yourself up now and we might still be able to find a way to spare you, if you were to endorse President Asher you might find a new use on Terraona Prime where intellectuals like you belong." Grand Asher Drake said smiling back at him, he pointed his finger forward as if grabbing a trigger and held it on Matthew. He seemed so confident that he wasn't going to use his own gun, at least that's what Matthew told himself. "Fire!"

Matthew quickly slammed his hand against the panel and behind him; perhaps of some fault of the door or of its program; but behind it the door's six overlaying slabs of metal quickly pulled back into the frame and as the soldiers fired on him; he was quickly and violently decompressed into space. And with that, the door released how it messed up and shut itself.

Flinching Matthew quickly felt at least three bullets pass through his arms and back out; they were pulled out with him as well. He quickly regained focus and knew that time wasn't on his side. He remembered President Asher's time in their capital; he was ashamed that he found a like mind in Asher; and learned much from him during that time but he knew that space had no oxygen, no heat, nothing; well at least until he learned deeper into the subject.

Looking back he held his breath and saw his pod; his lungs started to burn and he felt tight, he felt like he was going to explode. Pointing the gun opposite way from the pod, he pulled the trigger and the concussion bullet went off as soon as it touched the vacuum of space. An energy difference was created and quickly all the energy was transferred around it into a wave.

Matthew nearly screamed, trying to hold his breath in as he was knocked through space. He didn't take a breath of relief as he saw himself approaching his orbital pod; and with the keys in his hand he grabbed onto the ramp and pulled himself in. Maybe it was lack of knowledge or sheer amazement, but Matthew internally screamed as he still felt the airless environment in the pod. He clicked the ramp button.

Matthew tried to hold on to his breath but let it go as the ramp pulled up and it sealed. In the second afterwards, the pod quickly generated artificial gravity and a container full of oxygen to breathe. Matthew quickly felt the change and wasted no time replacing the nothing in his lungs. Falling onto the ground as gravity activated; he started to bleed out from his left arm.

...

"You missed, how could you miss he was three feet in front of you!" Grand Asher Drake said as he looked out and saw the orbital pod activate and quickly drive away, presumably back to the planet. One of his soldiers turned at him and shrugged his shoulders. Grand Asher Drake groaned and turned around wanting to get back into his comfy chair. "I think we're all going to get demoted; well I hope I'll at least be a Grand Marshall."

...

Matthew had no idea how to fly or control the craft, in fact it seemed to be most of the driving. Staying still in his seat and trying to keep his lunch in his stomach; he twisted and turned around as the craft re-entered. The flames on the windscreen appeared and disappeared and he took a pretty good guess and figured that was pretty bad; presumably one point on the craft was meant to take the bulk of re-entry; too bad it was being spread out over the craft now.

"I should have stayed in the cell!" Matthew yelled as he covered his mouth; he wondered if they had the little bags. Reaching down he found one and did not regret to use it. With one emergency over; he instead focused on the ground, currently he was flying towards it at god knows what speed.

Putting his hand on the panel; he looked up and saw the charred remains on the town he and Basil had made it too. Like before, the craft seemed to recognize who he was and wanted to return him to the station; this time however it had to deal with all the re-entry speed they had. The craft fired some boosters; turning them around and flipping them back over.

Looking down on the approaching ground; he grabbed the keys and opened the pod door. Standing up as they started to slow down; he walked over the door and held on as he clinched on for dear life. The pod shook and rumbled as it preformed its suicide burn. Passing over the dune they once stood on the craft, slowed down massively.

"Oh god, this is bad please save me mother star." Matthew said as he stepped out onto the ramp and just as the Pod stood still; seemingly paused in the air Matthew quickly stepped out and onto the ground. Wasting no time to return a passenger that wasn't on board, the pod flew forward again. This time however, straight into the dune.

Matthew ducked as the pod exploded behind him, a massive fire ball rising into the sky. Basil and Ingram stopped their fighting and quickly turned to seeing Matthew standing in front of the burning pod. Smiling with a look on his face; Matthew walked forward and away from the burning chars of the pod. The keys in his pocket vibrated as if to tell him, his car had exploded.

"You guys didn't even notice I was gone did you; shows what shit job you do protecting me and what shit job you do at capturing me and taking me back to the station! Hell I do both of your jobs better!" Matthew boasted as he raised the gun and pointed it at Ingram; the dragoon stood back knowing who the king was dealing with. "Now then we're going to do things the democratic way; parlay here over a dinner picnic."

...

Basil and Ingram groaned as Matthew forced them to sit down on the red and white patterned cloth and saw him place a few of the food items he could salvage in front of them. Ingram wasted no time and grabbed one of the strange dishes and chowed down. Basil realized he would have to wait until later to finish his fight with Ingram and did the same.

"The people shouldn't mind that we took their food, they're either dead, burned, chopped in half or five miles out of here by now." Matthew said as he sat down his plasma weapon hung over his shoulder but able to be quickly grabbed if Ingram decided to quickly defect.

"Now Ingram, I'm glad you could join us today; we know you have a lot on your schedule with catching me and all and Basil you filled to brim with protecting me and having no social life and all that." Matthew said, with Ingram snickering but not being a major pain was something that was dealable. Ingram finished chowing down and turned his head.

"Well then I suppose you want me to tell you a story; the story of my people, the Riftwalkers. We dedicated ourselves to finding all combinations of events in the universe; inserting ourselves into each universe. We are trained in magic and have above average Will; anyone can be a Riftwalker and we can all be immortal but most of us are mortal men like you." Ingram said as he looked sour; the idea of his mortality not coming up.

"And why are you here?" Matthew said wondering why Ingram would insert himself onto the bad guy's side and who this was.

"I've been through this universe so many times; so many possibilities; the odds right now are evenly in your favor; in forty-six percent of the universes I've been in you've on; the odds are forty-six to one hundred; of course that leaves fifty four to hundred on the other side; however this one feels different; I can bail now; I'm trapped to this universe; I originated her and so did Basil. You'll figure out how later." Ingram said looking sorrow as he did so.

"And why should we care about who wins are loses; this is our universe now and we're going to win no matter the odds." Basil said standing up as he smiled and knew that he had just presented the argument that won the war. Matthew smiled and stood up with him turning against Ingram and snickering a bit.

"Yeah trust me if it was a simple as having enthusiasm you would have won all the universes trust me; I've counted every single variable but never did check myself; we're in the frontier on this universe and no matter what happens I'll be surprised no matter who wins in the end." Ingram said as he started laugh back at them; in one motion he spread out his wings and started to flap them.

"Toddles, I'll have to be going I have no idea how far away the nearest Outpost is; but I'll need to impede your progress a bit; sorry!" Ingram's left arm suddenly glowed with his green energy and he wasted no time slamming it into Basil's chest. The shark nearly spurted out; as he was knocked back into the last portion of standing building and landed.

"Basil!" Matthew yelled as he ran over to the shark; Ingram was flying away by the time he arrived at the shark's side. Matthew knelled down and looked at the extent of Basil's injuries; he had a few broken ribs and his chest was bleeding out; feeling his back, his spin definitely had snapped being slammed against the ground. There was nothing that he could do in order to save this shark.

"I'm sorry Basil, you weren't meant to die; you shouldn't have done this and I'm sorry I dragged you into this." Matthew said as he parted Basil's hair and felt a gash or a crack; and pulled back wiping the blood off into the sand and looking back at Basil. His hands started to glow again; it was just as when his father died, maybe it was him, he was the grim reaper.

Yet this time, as Matthew's hands glowed and he applied it to Basil. The shark groaned but this time a healing wave extended over his body. A wave of pink spreading out from his hands; somehow managing to heal Basil. The shark managed to stand up despite everything he knew about medicine telling him that'd be impossible. Basil groaned and his gashes were filled, everything that happened seemed impossible in his mind.

"Well you seem to have some good powers there King, healing people will be very useful in the future." Basil said as he checked himself out, making sure nothing remained and looking out of the town. Matthew turned his head and looked at the large massive series of concrete blocks separating him from his country. "Only one way forward, to the wall."