The Fall of the Gemini

Luca—I mean
Sacul sat in an oak chair, worn smooth by hundreds of plastic bottoms
sitting on it every day. In front of him was an oak table worn by
hundreds of meals, drinks, and occasionally some plastic bottom which
didn’t read the “don’t sit on the tables” sign. Across the table sat
Thi—I mean Yuggniht on yet another oak chair worn smooth by the
aforementioned reason. A fire was burning in the corner (In a fireplace,
 of course. Don’t worry, the building wasn’t burning down) and it cast
mysterious shadows across the room.

“So,” Sacul prompted. “What of the big cheese?”

“Say what?” Yuggniht replied.”

“That’s code for Dimlat.”

“Dimple?” Yuggniht repeated.

“No, Dimlat,” Sacul clarified. Say it backwards and it will make sense.

“Dimlat backwards it Talm—oh, I get it now. No, unfortunately I am unaware of his fate.”

“What of the Gemini?”

“The Gemini? Oh, you mean Nosredliubogajninderonohdelliks and Avalfoajnin.”\*

Sacul took a
moment to process what that sounded like backwards before replying,
“yes, them. Do you know what happened to them after the disruption?”

A tidal wave of
sadness and regret slammed into Yuggniht and threatened to throw him off
 his feet, even though he was sitting in a chair.

            He
remembered, fifteen years ago, a battle where great walls of water rose
up into the sky, wooden boats tossed from wave to wave, and mechanical
Barneys that shot laser from their heads, shoulders, knees, and toes.

            Shard
and Blaze (Those are our new codenames since Avalfoajnin and
Nosredliubogajninderonohdelliks are WAY too long) were destroying any
enemy vessel that was unfortunate to come near them. Blaze shot streams
of fire right from his hands, setting the enemy vessels on fire. Shard
stayed hidden in the crow’s nest with a bow, systematically eliminating
enemy personal of importance. A ship could easily be thrown into chaos
once the commander or whatever the guy steering the ship is called was
smashed.

“When you torch
the enemy ships make sure they are well away from our ships so that the
fire doesn’t spread to ours,” Shard called out to his brother.

“I can handle my
own ninja powers, Shard. How about YOU start using that bow a little
more instead of hiding up in the crow’s nest up there?”

“It’s called the
element of surprise, dummy. I smash them right when they don’t expect
it. Like this.” He quickly raised his head drew back the string of his
bow, and released the arrow at a pompous captain marching about on the
deck of an enemy ship. However the arrow flew at least a yard above the
paradox rouge’s head.

“So much for the element of surprise,” Blaze commented, rolling his eyes.

“That should have hit him!” Shard complained. I don’t get why it would do that unless…”

“Unless…?”

“Well, if the
gravity of the moon is strong enough to cause the water to rise into the
 air, it’s probably messing up gravity for my arrows as well.” Shard
dropped the angle of his bow and fired another arrow, smashing the enemy
 ship’s captain.

“Am I awesome or am I awesome?”

“Is ‘none of the above’ an option?”

I’ll bet you
twenty coins that I can hit that BarneyBot from here,” Shard challenged.
 Suddenly a wall of mist rose between them and the enemy ship blocking
his view.

“You’d better have twenty coins ready.”

“No fair! Mega moons mists shouldn’t count!” Shard challenged.

Their ship was quickly consumed by the growing cloud of mist.

“This moon mist stings,” Blaze commented as little droplets of water slashed at his face like the blade of a liquid sword.

“That’s because
the skyfalls are growing stronger,” their navigator interjected. “At the
 peak of the event the moon will be the closest to the earth than it
ever will be again until the next skyfall eighteen years from now.
During this ten minute period the gravity of the earth and moon will
cancel each other out and there will be total weightlessness.

“Now THAT’S awesome,” Blaze said, “unlike your shooting, Shard.”

At that moment the mist to their starboard side parted and an iron bow rammed into their ship.

“It’s an enemy ramming vessel!” Blaze shouted. “Everyone, prepare to repel enemy boarding parties.”

“Did someone say party?!?!” a BarneyBot called out gleefully. “I love parties!”

Shard turned to the navigator. “Are there ally ships nearby?”

“Well, according to regulation 563 of the king, during battle if vision is decreased to less than thirty meters vessels are to…”

“Just tell me whether or not there’s a nearby ship!”

“Well, I, yes, of course there is, twenty meters off port side.”

“How long is a meter?”

“Approximately 3.2808 feet.”

Shard did some
quick calculations in his head before emitting out a rapid volley of
commands. “Attention! When I say jump, everyone on this ship is
commanded to jump as far as they can to our sister ship over there.” He
pointed toward the ally ship twenty yards away.

“But that’s twenty yards!” the navigator protested. “No one can jump twenty yards!”

“Jump!” Shard exclaimed.

“But that’s twenty yards!”

“You’re starting to repeat yourself.”

“Twenty yards!”

“Blaze, give me a hand here, will you?”

“My pleasure.”
Blaze walked up to the navigator, picked him up with one hand, and threw
 him into the air. A few seconds later he belly flopped onto the deck of
 the ally ship. The crew were stunned. Murmuring erupted across the
ship.

“Did you see that?!”

“I sure did. The commander just threw that guy twenty yards!”

“With one hand, too!”

“You guys don’t
know what you’re talking about. He didn’t throw him twenty yards, he
threw him twenty meters. Get your facts straight.”

“Is a meter more or less than a yard?”

“I don’t know. But I know they can’t be the same thing.”

“Attention!” Shard yelled. The murmuring stopped. “Blaze was able to throw the navigator twenty yards—“

“Meters!” someone shouted.”

“Whatever, twenty
METERS. This was because decreased gravity caused by the nearby moon.
You can easily jump twenty meters to our ally ship. Or you can stay here
 to get smashed by paradox rogues. The choice is yours.”

Everyone chose to
jump. One by one the crewmembers leapt from their sinking ship to their
allies ship twenty yar—I mean meters, away.

            Meanwhile, the on the other ship, its commander, Sir Seton was planning their attack strategy.

“So, if we encounter any hostiles we should go into maneuver alpha uber centuri,” Seton said.

“How does that maneuver work?” the first mate asked.

“I don’t know, but it sure does sound cool.”

At that moment a deckhand barged in shouting “Sir! Sir! It’s raining people!!!”

“Don’t talk nonsense, what do you mean it’s raining people?”

"I just happened to look up and I saw a navigator falling from nearly 20 meters in the air."

“Yeah right, let me see.”

Seton walked out of the cabin onto deck.

“See? No raining people.”

At that moment the navigator that had been tossed by Blaze face planted onto the deck.

Seton fainted.

Back on the sinking ship…

“The enemy is boarding! Has everyone evacuated?” Blaze shouted.

“There are still ten more crewmembers left.”

“You and I should hold off the enemy while the rest escape.”

Shard and Blaze silently made their way to the point that the enemies were boarding.

“You charge in the front and keep them distracted while I sneak around to the back,” Shard whispered.

“You always get to do the sneaking! One about you try being the distraction for once? It’s not as easy as it looks.”

“Yeah, but it’s
easier for you cause you can shoot fireballs from your hands. Plus, fire
 isn’t a very good sneaky weapon. My bow is.”

“What do you mean it isn’t a good ‘sneaky weapon?’ If you ask me it—”

At that moment
they felt something metal pressing against the back of their heads. It
was a pair of metallic, green and purple, laser shooting dinosaur arms.”

“Now what do we have here? Are you guys arguing? Arguing is bad, and bad things have to be taken care of. Heh heh heh.”

“Before I brutally
 cause your upper body to be completely and painfully blown apart, I
want you to know that this shouldn’t stop us from being friends,” Barney
 reassured. “We should all be friends,” he said in a monotone.

“You’re right,”
Blaze agreed. “In fact, we’re such good friends that I could give you a
nice warm hug.” At that moment he rolled backwards between the
BarneyBot’s legs, wrapped his arms around its neck, and then set
unleashed flames from his hands. At the same moment Shard pulled out his
 bow and started rummaged through his quiver for the right arrow.

“Normal arrow, fire, splinter, non-lethal, here we go, electric arrow,” he murmured to himself.

He fitted the
arrow into his bow, quickly took aim, and imbedded the shaft into a gap
in Barney’s armor where its arm connected to the torso. The BarneyBot
gave Shard this look of “What? You seriously think that an arrow’s gonna
 hurt me? I’m a robot you dummy” before the electric arrow started
emitting pulses of electricity, short circuiting the BarneyBot.

“Hey, watch it!!!”
 Blaze cried as the electric shocks zapping Barney also shocked him,
since he was holding the BarneyBot in a chokehold.

“Sorry,” Shard replied.

The BarneyBot’s
lasers had overheated due to Blaze’s fire hug, but it still madly swung
its heavy metal arms in all directions, causing the two ninjas to back
up.

“He’s blocking our
 escape! There’s no way to get past him so we can jump to the other
ship,” Shard stated. A splintering sound was heard from the belly of the
 ship, and the mast fell into the sea.

“This ship’s going
 down, we have to get off it somehow,” Blaze replied. He looked up at
the towering metal ramming ship. “I’m afraid that’s our only option.”

“Let’s do this then,” Shard said.

They leapt into the air and let the decreased gravity carry them to the top of the ramming ship.

With a mighty
groan, their old vessel slit in half and was consumed by the sea. The
BarneyBot, who hadn’t made it off the ship, screamed “BUT I CAN’T
SWIM!!!” before being engulfed by the hungry sea as well.

The two brothers dropped down into the shadows of the massive ramming ship and crept along.

“So what’s the plan?” Shard asked.

“I don’t know, why would I have a plan?” Blaze retorted.

“I’m not actually
asking you, none of your plans are ever good; this is just a rhetorical
question I’m asking so you can’t complain that you never get to make the
 plan.”

“I never complain that I don’t make the plan,” Blaze objected.

“You did last week.”

“That was because you didn’t even tell me the plan.”

“I DID tell you, but YOU weren’t paying attention.”

‘What do you mean I wasn’t—”

At that moment a squad of Paradox Rogues surrounded them.

At that moment a squad of Paradox Rogues surrounded them.

“Now look what you’ve done! All your yelling alerted the enemies to our presence!” Shard yelled.

“What do you mean MY yelling? You’re the one yelling!”

“Yeah, but you’re the one yelling the loudest.”

Blaze couldn’t
think of a reply to this, because he HAD been shouting the loudest, so
instead he vented his anger by smashing paradox rogues. He drew his
broadsword from a sheath on his back, and held it facing the paradox
rogues.

“This is why they
call me the Ninja of Lava!” he screamed, as two tendrils of fire snaked
their way up the sides of his sword and created a burst of flame as the
met at the tip. He then spun his flaming sword and stabbed it into the
floor of the ship. Flames traveled from behind him and quickly made a
ring of fire around the frightened paradox rogues.

“Seriously Blaze, that’s just fire, not lava. Any old fire ninja/wizard could do that.”

“Yes, but there’s no dirt around here (other than that which your brains are made of) so I have nothing to turn into lava!”

“So then next time don’t say anything.”

As the ninjas
continued arguing, the paradox rogues sat huddled in the middle of the
ring of fire with their eyes closed, begging their captors not to smash
them. However, they soon realized that their captors weren’t even
listening to their pleas, so instead they drew their weapons and
charged.

“Look out!” Shard exclaimed.

Blaze turned
around, pointed his sword at one of them, and smashed it with a bolt of
fire. Two more fell from well-placed arrows from Shard. There were to
left, one of which Blaze dispatched with a swing of his fiery sword.
Shard fired an arrow toward the last one just as Blaze moved in to smash
 it via sword. The result was that the arrow missed the paradox rogue
and was two inches away from piercing Blaze’s neck. Blaze turned away
from the rogue and looked at shard with fiery hate, before outstretching
 his hand and causing Shard’s bow to burst into flames.

“First you shock me, then you nearly impale me! What’s wrong with you?” Blaze exclaimed.

“You moved in the way of my shot! And now how am I going to defend myself? I’m probably going to die because of you!”

The Paradox Rogue thought to himself “Now would be a good time to make my escape,” and crawled away whilst the brothers argued.

‘You still have your shurikens,” Blaze said.

“Yeah, but the bow
 got much greater accuracy and range. I only keep the shurikens because
they can be easily hidden in your sleeve. But if I didn’t have those I’d
 be dead.”

Suddenly an alarm
started blaring on the ship. The rogue that had escape had alerted the
ship to their presence. In moments they were surrounded by hundreds of
enemies. Blaze drew his sword, but instantly a net enveloped him from
behind. A BarneyBot stood there with a net launcher in his hand. Shard
was alerted to the presence of the BarneyBot by Blaze’s fate, and he
quickly leapt to the side before the net could restrain him. However,
when he jumped he did not calculate the decreased gravity and he slammed
 right into a metal wall. Shard heard something crack, and then felt
agonizing pain rushing at his leg. He looked down and saw his knee was
bent—in the wrong direction. The pain and shock immediately caused Shard
 to black out.

\*\*\*

“Tell me exactly what happened!” Sir Seton shouted at the navigator from Shard and Blaze’s ship.

“Of course Commander Seton. Well first, Commander Shard said that we were supposed to jump
twenty yards, but it was really twenty meters, but obviously no one can
jump twenty meters so I said—”

“Just get to the point already!” Seton cried in exasperation.

“Well we all the crew escaped unharmed while the commanders covered our retreat.”

“Did the commanders escape?”

“Well, no, I guess not…?”

“Then not all of the crew escaped!!!”

“Well technically,
 according regulation 7.63 the term “crew” does not refer to the
commander. Hmm, regulation 7.93 says that only one commander is to be in
 charge of a ship at a time, I’ll and the duel commandership of
Commander Shard and Commander Blaze is a strict violation which would
mean—”

“I want all the
crew who are not currently working a necessary job to report on deck,”
Seton interrupted. Once they had lined up, he ordered “I want lookouts
posted to keep an eye out for them in case they escaped and are stranded
 in the water, and I want the rest of you to prepare boarding parties.
If what Mr. Regulations here says is correct and they were surrounded by
 four BarneyBots and one hundred Rogues, then chance that they excaped
is not likely.

Shard opened his
eyes. The first thing he noticed was that he had a headache so bad it
felt like someone had detonated a flash bang inside of it. The second
thing he noticed was that his leg was throbbing painfully as if the
blood running through his leg was on fire. The third thing he noticed
was that trying to move his leg was a very bad idea.

“aaaaaaah!” He
moaned softly as the excruciating pain flooded his body. He faintly
heard Blaze’s voice saying “Are you okay?” and he opened his eyes. And
the fourth thing he noticed was that he was lying on the cold, hard,
metal floor of prison cell 17 in teh dude’s ramming ship. Shard closed
his eyes and tried to concentrate on anything but the pain. Blaze
grimaced just at the thought of the pain Shard must have been feeling,
and wished for the millionth time that day that the paradox rogues
hadn’t taken his backpack with all his healing kits. Blaze slammed his
fist into the metal wall in rage and screamed at the guard

“You have to get Shard some healing supplies! You hear me!!! I’ll smash you if you don’t!!!”

“No, I don’t, and there’s no way you’re gonna smash me from in there,” the guard replied, yawning.

Blaze was going to shout something back, but then he had another idea.

“Oh yeah? You think I can’t smash you from here?” Blaze challenged

“Of course you
can’t, you in jail.” The guard leaned against the wall opposite their
cell. Blaze smiled, and started heating up the air in the room.

“Wha-what are you doing?” the guard asked, surprised. “I’m telling my officer.”

“You are not
telling anyone!!!” Blaze shouted. He focused more intently on the heat
and flames erupted around the guard. “For I am a mythran! Tremble before
 my might! I could easily break out of this cell, I just stay here
because I like it here! So go get my backpack before your existence is
ended!!!” The guard shrieked as the flames erupted higher around him.

“Oh yeah, and I
have x-ray vision so if you try to tell your commander, I’ll know. In
fact, I can also read your mind if you even THINK of telling him, I’ll
know.” The guard nodded his head and fled the room. The moment he left,
Blaze collapsed onto the floor.

“Wasn’t sure how long I could keep that up,” he panted.

Seconds later, the
 guard returned with Blaze’s backpack and Blaze gave a Shard a healing
potion. Minutes later, the pain in Shard’s leg had dulled, and he was
feeling good enough to pull out some shurikens he had stowed in his
cloak and break out of the cell, thanks to the guard who willingly
handed over the keys to the cell. The two brothers moved along as fast
as Shard’s leg would allow down a long metal hall studded with numerous
metal doors. Although the pain in Shard’s leg had decreased, it had by
no means disappeared. Suddenly, they heard footsteps.

“Quick, into one
of these rooms,” Shard said, pulling open a door and limping inside. 500
 faces turned to stare at him. He had unknowingly walked into the
cafeteria.

“Wrong door.” Shard slammed the door shut and everyone continued eating.

“Quickly, let’s
try this one,” Blaze said, pulling open another door. This revealed a
dark room with no one inside. “Perfect, in here.”

They tumbled into
the room. They heard footsteps growing louder. They waited tentatively,
both holding their breath in case whoever was outside should somehow
hear them. After a couple of seconds, all was silent, and they exhaled
loudly and reached for the door handle. At that moment, the door opened
form the outside. Teh dude and a BarneyBot walked in. Shard and Blaze
stood petrified, but the door opened toward them and sandwiched them
between it and the wall which meant the dude was unable to see them and
he walked past through the door. The door swung shut behind teh dude and
 the BarneyBot, leaving the brothers standing shocked, right behind teh
dude. Miraculously, neither teh dude nor the BarneyBot turned around.
The ninjas slowly inched the door open and started to sneak out, but
froze when they heard what the dude was saying.

“so den wi
acdivate dah cloakin divice so dat wi is competly inisble! an den wi
smash keeng matis ship wid us ship an we smash dem!!!”

“That’s right
boss, our ship can reach speeds of up to one hundred and sixty miles per
 hour using our Cyton Plasma power generator, and our armor is easily
strong enough to withstand the impact of our ship with King Mathias’
ship. Don’t you feel so happy inside?”

Shard and Blaze felt anything but happy.

“We have to stop them somehow!” Shard whispered

“Cyton Plasma
generators can reach tremendous speeds but are very volatile,” Blaze
whispered back. “If I could reach the generator I could—”

“Intrudah
ulurt!!!” teh dude screamed at the top of his lungs. Teh dude and Barney
 had just realized that there were two people standing behind them. The
BarneyBot immediately unfolded a pair of gatling guns out of his arms
and opened fire. The ninjas did a bunch of flips and stuff and jumped
out of the way.

“You get to the generator, I’ll draw their fire,” Shard panted.

“But you’ve got a broken leg! And there’s got to be hundreds of paradox rogues on this ship.”

“That’s why you
have to go, I’d never make it to the generator in time with this leg.
Don’t worry, with the decreased gravity I won’t have to put all that
much weight on in. And I’m Shard, I could easily take out a hundred
Rogues broken leg or no broken leg.”

“Yes, but—“

“Besides, you’re
the one with the fire powers, you will be able to detonate the
generator.” Shard paused, and said with a small smile “we’ll get to see
how much of a sneaky weapon fire is.”

Blaze smiled and
said “this is it then.” They looked at each other and with a single look
 conveyed much more than words ever could. Then they parted ways. As
Blaze ran ahead, Shard delayed long enough so that the following Paradox
 Rogues could catch sight of him, before he used the decreased gravity
to push off from the ground and floor across the hall. He continued this
 until he emerged on the deck of the ship. In seconds, he was surrounded
 by Paradox Rogues and BarneyBots. They rushed toward him, and he waited
 until they were so close they could have chopped of his head (which
they did try to do) before fling his arms open and hurling shurikens in
all directions. He then proceeded to do ½ of a flip, land on his hands
on top of a BarneyBot’s head, and shoot himself skyward just as they
fired their weapons at him and hit the BarneyBot instead. He slowly
descended while picking of paradox rogues with his “explodikens” —an
invention where he strapped a detonator on the side of a shuriken with
some weights on the other side to balance it for throwing. One of the
BarneyBots leaped into the air as well and grabbed him with its metal
fist. It lowly increased the pressure, intending to squeeze Shard to the
 point of smash. Shard felt a wave of panic because his arms were
trapped to his sides.

“No way am I going
 to die this way,” Shard said. “That’s got to be the most disgraceful
way to go, squeezed to the point of smash by a metal version of a cloth
purple and green dinosaur. I’ve always wanted my last words to be in
olde speech anyway.” He managed to wriggle an “electroken” out of his
sleeve and imbed it into the BarneyBot’s fist. Its arm short circuited,
and Shard dropped free of its grasp. This continued for some time, with
Shard jumping a flipping across the deck of the ship, taking down many
paradox rogues. But more kept just as fast as he took them out. Faster
than he took them out, actually. No more BarneyBots emerged, but he had
only taken out two of the three, and one of them had been defeated just
through luck. Shard looked down at his watch, but then realized that he
didn’t have a watch.
“Whatever, Blaze, has probably made it to the generator by now.”

Blaze had made to
the generator, in fact, and was using one hand to bath the generator in
flames to overheat it, while using the other to blast the paradox rogues
 advanced through door to the generator room. The door only allowed one
of two to enter at a time, preventing them from drowning Blaze from
sheer number, but still continued to advance through the doorway almost
as fast as Blaze shot them down. I say almost because Blaze was making
some headway and was smashing them faster than they could enter. At
least, until a BarneyBot blasted an opening in the wall, allowing many
more Rogues to enter at a time.

\*\*\*

By now, Shard had
run out of shurikens, and was leaping from one place to another, letting
 them shoot each other as they tried to shoot him.

\*\*\*

Rogue archers
lined up and began firing arrows at blaze. Even while using one hand to
heat of the generator, Blaze used his free hand to blast the arrows out
of the air before they could hit him.

\*\*\*

Shard leapt in
front of a Rogue, grabbed his bow, and proceed to fire arrows at the
others. They rushed at him and Shard flipped out of the way. However, as
 he jumped into the air the last BarneyBot swung its metal arm at him
and managed to slam the back of its hand into Shard’s leg. His broken
leg. A sickening snap was heard across the deck as Shard screamed in
unbearable pain and dropped to the ground.

\*\*\*

Blaze blasted
arrow out of arrow from the air. But one flew past his ninja flames and
buried itself in Blaze’s chest. He gasped and all flames ceased.

\*\*\*

Though it took
every bit of willpower he had, Shard lifted himself to his feet and
imbedded an arrow into the back of the BarneyBot. The BarneyBot’s eyes
flickered and it fell to the ground. At that moment shadowed figure
walked up, knocked the bow out of Shard’s hand and kicked Shard to the
ground.

\*\*\*

Blaze was in agony, but, gathering all his energy, he placed both his hands onto the generator and unleashed a stream of fire.

\*\*\*

Shard knelt on the
 deck of the ship with his head down as the figure marched over. It
pointed a sword at Shard’s head and said in horrific grammar capable
only by one person

“id’s oveh.”

Shard looked up and teh dude was startled to see that he was smiling.

“Yes,” Shard replied. “It is over—oh wait, I wanted my last words to be in olde speech.”

At that moment the generator reached overload.

\*\*\*

Seton stood at the
 head of his ship, scanning the surrounding mist for any activity. Ahead
 of him, he saw the mist parting and furrows in the water even though
there was nothing there.

“Everyone to the battle stations, something isn’t right here.”

As he continued
studying the anomaly, he heard a boom, and saw some flashes of light and
 explosions come from the seemingly empty air. Then for brief moment, as
 the cloaking devise was destroyed, a behemoth of a ship appeared in the
 water twenty yards (or meters, or whatever) in front of them.”

“whoa,” Seton said, too shocked to faint.

“That’s the ship that attacked us,” Shard and Blaze’s navigator commented. “The commanders are sure to be held prisoner there.”

But they didn’t
have time to consider any possibility of rescue, because there was a
brief moment where nothing seemed to happen before flames burst from
inside the ship, sending a shockwave of deafening sound and blinding
debris in all directions. Nothing was left.

\*\*\*

An orb of red
energy slowly lowered itself to the ground a few miles away from the
battle site. The sphere disappeared and teh dude was left standing
there.

“mi powehs ar wiek i musd have mi sord bak” teh dude said to himself. “But onse i’s haves it dah nites shal be doomed!!!!

\*\*\*\*\*\*

Fifteen years later Yuggnith stared across a worn oak table at an innkeeper named Sacul. He said four words

“They are no more.”

> >>Next Suggested Story>> *The Truth Behind the Bots,* *or Major's Most Unfortunate Venture*
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