The Orb

"Raynor here," the man said as he answerd his phone. He listened to the report being given to him by the person on the other end of the line, and began to frown as he realized the gravity of the news being given to him. "Already," he said to the person on the other end of the line, and closed the notebook he was writing in and put it away in his jacket. After some more words from the person on the other line, he sighed, and replied, "understood, get in position but do not act until I get there." He ended the call and stood up, excusing himself from the conversation he was having. He looked at the woman, giving her one more chance. "Are you sure you do not wish to help?" The woman shook her head to confirm she did not want to be involved, and he shrugged and walked away from them.

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The four of them took a place, one on each side of the Pedestal, staring at the orb. "So, uhhh," Air said, voice trailing off for a second. "What are we supposed to do, exactly?" Earth and Fire gave her a puzzled look, and she held up her hands in defense. "You have to understand," she said, "when he and I were involved those fifteen years ago, we were removed from play before we ever got a chance to see the Pedestal and the Orb themselves. And our information said the real Pedestal had been destroyed, and you had a cheap replica of it to control the Cube. Our plans on destorying it were based on that, with the real thing here our plans are shot to the moon."

"Thing's haven't gone according to plan all day," Water said with a smile. "We just have to take things as they go, and do it live." He reached forward, and wrapped his hand around the Orb. A burst of energy came out from it, rippling up his arm, and as it engulfed him his eyes went wide and pupils dialated, and he suddenly fell to the floor. Panicked, the other three got down to help him, and, finding him unconscious, tried unsuccessfully to revive him.

"The lighter," Fire said to Air, and she hurriedly pulled it out of her pocket and handed it to him. He opened it up and lit it, and just as with the Bearer, the flame turned to a bright purple, showing the Orb was now telepathically influencing water. Fire flicked the lighter closed and reopened it, but the flame once again turned purple upon relighting it. Air took it back from him, repeating the action over and over again, but Water would not wake up.

"I don't understand," Air said angrily, tears building up in her eyes. "Why won't it work? It's supposed to abort telepathic connections when closing it and turn it off." Fed up with the object, she threw it in anger against the wall, and then stood up. "Maybe he had the right idea after all, forget the plan and just do it live," she said, wiping the tears from her eyes, and then she grabbed at the Orb as well. The other two stood quickly to catch her, as a wave of energy engulfed her as well and knocked her unconscious. They laid her gently to the ground, and stood up and looked at each other.

They stood there for a couple minutes, not doing anything. The energy field above the Pedestal hadn't changed, nothing about the setup had changed in any way since Water first grabbed at the orb. Fire went to grab at it himself, but Earth grabbed at his hand. "Stop," she said, a somber look in her eyes as she looked at him. "One of us needs to still be awake in case something else happens." Fire nodded in agreemend, and withdrew his hand for a moment. She reached into her pocket, and pulled out a coin, holding it up. He nodded in agreement, and she flipped it up into the air.

"Hea-" he started to say, but as soon as she flipped up, she herself grabbed at the Orb. He quickly stepped around to catch her, shaking his head. "You idiot," he said, as he lowered her to the ground. He stood up and looked back at the pedestal, just as the coin landed on it. It was heads-side up, and the energy field above it broke and rippled out like a wave on a pond, before reforming a few moments later. He was alone now, the odd one out, as he realized he had been from the beginning.

For an hour or so he stood there, waiting, hoping that something would happen. A few times he went to grab at the Orb himself, but he remembered that Earth was right, one of them had to be out here, just in case. But nothing was happening. Their bodies lay unconscious, the storms the Bearer had started had ceased without his influence, and the news stations were back to reporting regular dulldrums. Nothing was happening, until suddenly, something did.

A group of people suddenly burst into the room, from a door in the ceiling he hadn't noticed before. Seven people jumped down into the room in total, six of them wearing riot gear, the last one wearing a business suit. "Agent David Raynor," the man in the suit said to Fire, pulling out an ID card and showing him, "CIA. We're here to help." He looked down at the three on the floor and the exposed Orb, and then looking around the room noticed the lighter, which he went over to pick up.

"It's not working," Fire said, as the man picked up the lighter and flicked it open, lit it, closed it, and then lit it again. "They touched the Orb and went unconscious, and the Lighter isn't working to interrupt it like they said it should."

"Of course not," Raynor said, pocketing the object. "The Lighter interrupts telepathic connections. But their minds are inside the Orb right now." The man walked back over to the Pedestal, and motioned to Fire. "All four of you will need to be inside to break free. Go ahead, grab the Orb." Hesitant, Fire slowly grabbed at the Orb. Several of the other people grabbed at him and lowered him to the floor, where they were strapping all of them to stretchers. Raynor nodded, then grabbed at the Orb himself.

Sun, 01 Jan 2012 08:00:00 -0600