Chapter Thirty-Three
Love Is a Battlefield
"Why?" Zephyron rasped, voice raw but steady.
Tydalos cocked his head in question.
"All this," Zephyron gestured around him, "is more than a simple battle."
For the first time, Tydalos didn't answer immediately. Instead, he whistled.
The force field flickered off, and Brody's old-style drone powered down, softly floating down to the floor.
"Hey!"
"No need for unnecessary risk," Tydalos said. "There will be plenty to work with, Scribe." He turned to his opponent, tapping a curved, bloodied blade against his chin. "Yes, I think I shall tell you. It will make your death so much more painful."
I shivered at how easily he said those words.
He rolled his shoulders as if preparing for another round. "I don't care about Earth, nor its primitive population. A feeble water planet with so much land, it's offensive, yet it is larger than my territory and not without value." His purple eyes gleamed. "A river to an ocean of stars."
Zephyron tensed.
Tydalos savored the moment, dragging it out.
"I will control the planet, even if not overtly.
Then, with genetic enhancements to ensure more Volardi traits, Earth will become the perfect breeding ground.
" His smirk widened. "A planet that produces nothing but Femeni, then taken off-planet to ensure our Empire will never be without child-bearers. "
My stomach twisted.
Tydalos spread his arms, his confidence absolute. "I will save our Empire. And then..." His voice lowered, dangerous and smug, "The Emperorship will be mine."
He stepped closer to Zephyron and, with ease, forced him down.
"Kneel before your future Emperor."
Zephyron fought, muscles coiling, but his body had limits. We'd been fighting nonstop since we crash-landed. My heart pounded as he knelt before a man hungry for power.
Gravel shifted to my right. My father had set our baby on the ground. His expression was calm and resigned as his fingers traced a line over my son's forehead. He turned to me with soft, steady eyes.
"Tommy..." His voice was softer than I'd ever heard. "I'm so proud of you. For everything." He smiled with a familiar 'Dad' grin. The kind that used to come with a bottle in hand, but now it was just him. Real and steady with no whiskey chaser.
"Always knew you'd be the one to do great things. I wanted Nashville, just to sing songs. But you! You and Zephyron are going to save two worlds, if not more."
A terrible knowing clenched in my gut.
He took a step back. I moved to stop him, but he quickly whistled the Shave and a Haircut melody.
His eyes went wide. His body folded. He collapsed with a groan and managed one whisper, "They let me pick the tune."
The silver scar traced over Zephyron's long stab in Hollywood flared. The flesh rippled as nanites awakened inside him.
He gasped.
Blood spilled fast, blooming from his stomach like the blade from Hollywood had struck him all over again. I lunged toward him, ready to imitate the song, but three new high-pitched whistles sliced through the air.
Brody's camera stayed depowered, but the force field snapped back on and caught me dead center. Pain shot through my cells, locking every muscle. I dropped to my knees, paralyzed while a suffocating charge coiled around me. Trapped in my body, I had to watch my father bleed out again.
His breath hitched. His fingers clawed weakly at his shirt, as if holding himself together. Blood soaked through his hands, spilling onto the dirt and rock.
I screamed his name.
His lips curled into a weak smile. "Hey, Tommy..." His voice was already weaker. "Oh, don't look at me like that. It's okay."
It was not okay.
"D-Don't talk," I begged, my throat raw.
He coughed, his whole body shuddering with the effort. His gaze flickered, distant, unfocused.
"I should've done better." His voice cracked, "Not just with you. All my boys." His breath hitched again, his voice breaking. "Joel, Chase, Wyatt..."
He squeezed his eyes shut like he could see them in his mind. Knowing him, Mom as well.
Three new whistles came before the field disappeared.
With a supreme effort, I pushed myself up. Three familiar notes came again, and the field flickered back on. My arms buckled from the agony. No longer did I face the same area. My father was gone, hidden behind me, dying.
Every fiber in me demanded I turn, but I couldn't with this electrical current locking my body. Dad was as hidden as my child. Like Zephyron, I had my limits. All I could do was watch him, still kneeling before Tydalos.
Zephyron stilled. Blood ran down his arms, over bruises and sliced flesh. None of it mattered. Something had shifted in him. He lifted his hand, and the blade I saw in a horrible moment back in Hollywood materialized.
Tydalos' smirk faltered, and his head snapped toward my father's body.
"You!"
Zephyron lunged forward, and Tydalos reacted instantly, with dual knives flashing, but he wasn't fast enough.
The first strike came like a storm. Zephyron twisted, using the momentum to slam his knee into Tydalos' ribs. Tydalos choked on the impact, stumbling. He whistled his activation code again, and his eyes widened.
My man pressed on, not stopping for an instant, with muscles coiled like a machine. Every kick, punch, and blade attack was calculated and brutal. Each carried grief, fury, and love.
Tydalos struck back with his weapons, but he couldn't keep up. With one blade, Zephyron deflected every dual thrust, lunge, and overhead sweep.
One man worked with honor and what was his.
The other depended on combat nanites that just weren't working as before, and on his blades.
He left himself open and met a satisfying palm strike to the nose.
He fell back against the rock wall, then staggered forward, only to be met with a jaw punch.
His dual blades disappeared as he staggered to his knees.
With a kick, Zephyron sent his 'future emperor' stumbling to the cliff's edge.
Then he slipped on a slope as I had earlier, before I nearly drowned.
Tydalos grabbed at dry roots from thin trees that barely lived in the relentless heat. They wouldn't last long, holding over two hundred pounds of weight.
"Yield," Zephyron commanded.
He looked behind and at Brody's camera, still depowered and without its operator. There would be nothing obvious to record this.
"Indeed, I shall."
Zephyron's voice was low, "In return for your life, you will face Volardi justice."
He nodded as Zephyron pulled him up. A blade materialized in Tydalos' hand, and he lunged, striking nothing but air.
Zephyron dodged it as if he knew it would come.
With one smooth move, he spun around so he was closest to the cliff.
He grabbed Tydalos' arms, leaned down, and with a swift motion, flipped him over the edge.
Zephyron rose, standing over the cliff's edge. The fight was over. Tydalos was gone.
I tried to push, but my limbs trembled. Before I could crawl to my baby or my father, Zephyron whistled, turning off the force field. Soon, he knelt at my side, his purple eyes scanning me. "Our child is safe, and you?"
"I'm fine," I lied. "My dad!"
He adjusted my body so I could see. Brody knelt beside him, his hands pressed hard against my father's stomach, with deep red blood seeping between his fingers. His jaw was clenched, and sweat beaded on his forehead.
Zephyron inhaled, straightening. Then, voice low and unshaken, he began The Oath. It rumbled in his chest like a storm about to break. The words were ancient, and the implant didn't translate every word, but I knew what it meant. He gave his blade up again. This time, his choice alone.
The nanites reset, going back to their default status, and shimmered along Dad's stab wound. The bleeding slowed as his skin stitched together shut. Dad coughed out a sharp, ragged breath before his eyes snapped open in shock.
After hugging my father tight, I turned to Brody. "Why?"
He let out a rough laugh. "I'm an asshole, not a monster." The force field had flickered on and off. Was it him? He smirked. "The name's Brody, not Scribe."
Gravel shifted. Solis climbed over the ledge, Parker's drone humming at her side. "Greetings! There is something you should see!"
We all made our way to the edge, and I whistled the notes. The off command for Brody's camera was the same for turning it back on. With the smallest of nods, he thanked me. It was the least I could do, not that I didn't have my own recording thanks to Parker's phone and his repowered drone.
Below, the basin seethed with Zerlites. Hundreds swarmed one figure, both fighting and defending attacks from all sides. Solis hovered beside me, optics zooming in. Parker's drone sent back real-time footage.
Brody let out a low whistle. "Looks like his little science project isn't helping him anymore." He turned to us, explaining. "He set up a dampening field. Made sure your camera wouldn't work, power off your Sims. All that."
Solis, and perhaps part of Axios spoke, "He is either out of range or the codes turned it off. He is back at his original strength and power."
"I don't think it matters," I said.
Combat-level nanites let him survive the fall. He fought, slashing wildly with dual blades, his wounds healed as fast as they formed. But for every Zerlite he cut down, two more took its place.
Tydalos stumbled, slipping on the blood-slicked ground.
Sparks flashed along his body like a computer about to overheat.
Clawed hands gripped his legs, and fangs tore at arms. Smaller ones poked him with needle appendages.
More and more Zerlites swarmed, gnashing and chittering, their hunger endless.
"How long do combat-level nanites last?" I asked.
"Several decades, if used for short durations. Far less if used continuously," answered Zephyron.
The shards of Axios' red memory crystal in Solis' hand glowed faintly. "At the rate of exertion and needed cellular regeneration, the power reserves will deplete in forty-two Human minutes."
I stared down at the writhing mass below. "And the Zerlites?"
"I see an excess of forty-two hundred Zerlites. Even at optimal combat efficiency, it would take several hours to kill them all. He will not survive..."
I nodded.
We directed the camera to watch and make sure he fell for real. One minute and a few seconds, after the forty-two minute mark, nanites smoked and sparked within Volardi flesh, and Zerlites fed on an 'emperor.'
***