Page 79 of Destinies of Diamond
In a frenzy, they attacked us. There was no room to dodge in the hallway, so I had no choice but to face my fate. Being trampled by a chimera would not be pleasant, but I’d live. Hopefully.
At the last moment, the ground opened up, and I fell straight through the floor. My first impulse was to try to stop it. I buried my claws into the earth and even managed to catch Brendan. But that was when I realized that there was no way to get out of the damn hole without getting torn apart by Selene or the Centaurs.
“Let go,” Brendan ordered. I did, and together, we all fell.
Logic stated that we should have ended up buried in the depths of the moon, underneath the base. But logic had very little to do with how my life had been going as of late.
There was a flash, and then, we were landing on a hard, hot surface. “Sorry about that,” a familiar voice said. “I’m still not very good at transporting people when we’re away from the sun.”
I looked up, only to find myself facing Jared. “What are you doing here? You were supposed to be coordinating the attacks on Earth.”
We were in some kind of cavern and he was sitting on the ground, still glowing slightly and looking exhausted. “I ran into some friends. I thought it was a good idea to bring them back, especially considering what’s been going on with Selene.”
At first, I thought he was referring to another squad of apsids. I had no desire to speak to more aliens, but reinforcements were reinforcements and I didn’t have the luxury to be picky.
As it turned out, the gods didn’t completely hate us. Familiar figures emerged from the shadows. My breath caught as I identified them—my dearest friends, my family.
Cerberus didn’t have a cockpit anymore. He was no longer a metallic beast. Instead, he was a giant three-headed dog, made out of flesh and bone, like he always should have been.
In every other way, he hadn’t changed, and when he picked me up and set me on his back, he let out a low, affectionate rumble. “Hello again, pup. Did you miss me?”
“How could I not? We’re pack.”
“Indeed, hatchling,” Typhon said. “And it’s time for us to finish the job your female broodmate started.”
A black hole opened up in front of us, courtesy of Charybdis. I buried my fingers in Cerberus’s fur and held on.
This would be the hardest battle in our lives, but we had to win it. We had no other choice.
To Destroy and Create
Wesley
After everything that had happened, it was strange to return to Chimera Academy. Even so, we couldn’t abandon the place. Our absence had already been conspicuous and we had no idea what the systems in Tartarus had actually registered from the battle with King Philip and with the Centaurs.
As it turned out, with the generators offline and the drones still not working properly, much of what had happened at the med bay and in the hangars had been lost. The footage was heavily corrupted and the staff of the academy wasn’t sure how to interpret it.
There were shots of the Grand Chimera Unit fighting the Centaurs, but they weren’t clear. Footage of the king was completely missing.
That left the others to act as they pleased, and me to make sure Tartarus Base was rebuilt, ready for the unavoidable moment when Brendan would need it.
The moment the communication lines opened, we were assaulted by the results of Jared’s mission. News arrived of terrorists attacking various Terran settlements. I pretended I didn’t know anything about it and focused on returning the base to normal.
With the chimeras—including the Harpies—gone, it was easier said than done. We still couldn’t fix the generators and we were running on a low amount of power. But the staff of the base ultimately pulled through, and we managed to get things in a modicum amount of order.
Of course, that was when everything went to shit. Another transmission came through, only this time, it was from Hades Base.
“We’re under attack!” a panicked member of the Crius Guard Corps frantically reported. “Send…”
The words died in an ominous scream. And then, there was nothing.
Instantly, my mind went to Brendan and everyone who was at the Hades Moon Base. What could have happened? The defenses around the headquarters of The Grand Judiciary were almost unbreakable. Who could have pierced them?
Prince Archibald provided us with a reply. His chimera-induced affliction had been growing worse, to the point that he could no longer walk around without covering his eyes. But that didn’t mean he wasn’t aware of his environment at all times. In fact, on occasion, it seemed like he knew far more than I ever could.
“I was wrong,” he said. “She’s back.”
He didn’t elaborate on the identity of the threat, because there were other people present. I understood his reasons. If there was something he was hiding, Selene was likely involved.
