ZERO ASCENSION

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Chapter 14 FOURTEEN

"Hanakem." Lady said with so much peace that it felt cold.

Ken rose slowly. He had been enchanted. He bowed down to her. Then straightened again and looked at himself, then back at Lady and took a fighting stance.

"I see you are tough," she said.

"Ruach Menachem Bakavod!"

The ground started to rumble beneath Ken.

He looked around, wondering what was happening.

The transfiguration began. His eyes shone brightly like day. He jerked and shook violently before collapsing.

When he stood, it was not Ken but a completely different entity.

Leo was overwhelmed with fear. He turned to run before remembering the Raven oath. It resounded within his head. "I swear to fight for anyone, anywhere and anytime."

He shook his head. "I'll be exonerated this one time. Moreover, all my fellow L-band cadets are resting."

He turned to run again.

A flashback filled his memory.

A few hours ago, Ken had fought alongside them when they could not do anything. He destroyed the Bergon singlehandedly when he was seen as a nobody. No band. Yet he stood up for them.

Why abandon him now? His conscience questioned.

He rotated again. A friend in need was a friend indeed.

He walked slowly toward them. "Ken, are you okay?"

Lady twirled and hissed. "Destroy him."

Ken marched forward, his eyes locked onto Leo.

Leo took a deep breath. Opened his eyes. And made a run for it. He lunged toward Ken, tackled him and held his arms firmly behind him.

Ken pushed him off the ground so strongly that Leo wondered where he got the strength from. He unwrapped his hands and in the next second Leo was the one with his arms held tightly behind his back.

He kicked him hard and Leo landed face first. Ken raised his foot to pulverize his head. As luck would have it, he shifted into a rubber tyre. Ken jumped on it and bounced back onto the floor.

Leo shifted back to his normal configuration.

"Ken please. I don't want to fight. I know you can break out from any enchantment she has done to you."

The Lady of Chaos laughed loudly.

"How can you be so foolish?" She slithered over to Leo and wrapped around him slowly. "No one escapes my venom. You are useless so there will be no need wrenching you."

"Carry on minion." She compelled Ken.

He blasted his lasers on Leo who configured his right limb into a shield to ward it off.

But Ken was naturally smart. Even without mind control.

He super jumped and landed behind him in under a second and blasted the lasers one more time. They landed hot on Leo's back before he could react. He cried from the searing pain before converting to an armored truck. But Ken continued to fire and increased the intensity.

Then Dave arrived at the back of the line with the A-band cadets.

He had felt trouble the moment he saw the red dot on the north of the camp sitting static on his radar.

The A-band joined the fight. Some conjured animal skills. Speed of the cheetah. Strength of the bear. Some invoked animals that appeared and already knew why they were called.

The first held Ken from behind. He did not flinch no matter how hard they pulled. Some ran across him to confuse and deflect the attack but Ken was locked onto Leo, firing at full intensity.

Then the A-band commander took one step forward.

Dave conjured his animal spirit and struck Ken sideways with the force of the mammoth. It disappeared and left Ken on the floor.

He sprang up with aggression and faced Dave directly. Dave stood his ground, unsure of Ken's next move but ready for all of them.

Ken sped toward him.

Stopped.

One inch from Dave's face.

He stood there shaking. His fists clenched. His eyes were burning. Then he fell, jerking violently.

His eyes cleared and returned to their normal colour.

"Where am I?" He asked no one in particular.

Dave caught him before he hit the ground a second time and held him steady. Ken looked up at him and then past him to Leo who was between two cadets, burns visible across his back, trying to stand straight and mostly failing.

Ken stared at what he had done to the only friend he had made since any of this began.

He had no words for it.

"How are you feeling?" Dave asked.

Ken straightened himself and bowed. "Greetings sir."

"I saw you fighting one of our own. What happened?"

"My apologies sir. I was engaging the Lady of Chaos when she said something that made me lose control of my mind. And that is how we ended here."

Dave studied him. "You. Fighting the Lady of Chaos."

"Yes sir."

"And the lasers you were firing. Was that her spell too?"

Some cadets at the back laughed. Others murmured in low tones. A zero level cadet with no band standing in front of the A-band commander trying to explain laser vision that none of them had ever seen outside the R-band.

Ken kept his head down. "No sir. It came unexpectedly. I cannot explain it. Please forgive me."

While the others saw a confused zero level cadet with too much to answer for, Dave smiled with the corner of his lips. Barely visible. Gone before anyone around him could catch it.

"See me in my office," he said.

Ken saluted.

From the shadows the Lady of Chaos reappeared.

Some cadets gasped. Others went straight into fight mode.

She only slithered back slowly. Her eyes moved from Ken to Dave and stayed there for a moment that lasted longer than it should have.

"Interesting," she said.

Then she was gone.

A few cadets exhaled. Others lowered their weapons slowly.

"Everyone head back to the base." Dave barked.

They lifted Leo between two cadets and marched. Dave and Ken walked behind the group. The gap between them and the others grew without either of them choosing it.

Ken stared at the ground as he walked. His steps were uneven. He was thinking about every punishment he had ever heard handed down to soldiers who fought their own. Commanders stripped of rank. Cadets discharged. And those were people with bands, with records, with names worth defending.

He had none of those things.

Dave noticed the uneven steps without looking directly at him.

"Are you hungry?" he asked.

Ken looked up. Of everything he had prepared himself to hear walking into whatever came next, that was not it.

"Sir?"

"Food." Dave said simply. "There is a place on the east side that stays open between battles. The cook makes something with rice and lamb that I have not found anywhere else in this base."

Ken opened his mouth. Closed it.

"I am buying," Dave added.

They walked in silence for another few seconds. The base sounds filled the space between them. Somewhere ahead Leo was arguing with the cadets helping him that he could walk on his own, which was obviously untrue.

Ken almost smiled.

"Yes sir," he said quietly. "I am hungry."

Dave nodded once and kept walking.

He did not ask about the lasers again. He did not mention the office. He did not bring up what had just happened at the north gate or that a bandless zero level cadet had fought the Lady of Chaos alone and was still standing.

He just walked.

And Ken, for the first time since the loops began, did not feel like the space he was standing in belonged to someone else.

They reached the east side entrance. Dave pushed the door open and held it.

Ken walked through.

His comm unit buzzed once. A system notification he had not requested.

He looked down at it.

AIDEN: "The Lady of Chaos did not say

interesting because of you."

Ken stopped walking.

AIDEN: "She said it because of him.”

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