How is everyone doing? Here is the newest chapter and the introduction to a character I enjoy. If you don't feel the same way, it's okay. Keep in mind he will be different from the 616 version and his backstory will come out in the next few chapters. Also before you ask, the gilded cage is made up by me for this mini arc.
Ezekiel and Tao explored the ship for over two hours. Unfortunately they had to portal through the entire place, all of the doors were locked. When they finished exploring, the tablet was done with translating the Dire Wraiths language. Ezekiel then used his tablet to hack into the computer system. After another twenty minutes, he was able to break through the alien encryption and had access to the entire ship.
Ezekiel typed on his tablet for a while before he said, "Good news, Wong and the other masters will be fine. The Dire Wraiths had a security measure that pumped a low level odorless sleeping agent into the air. The Dire Wraiths are immune to it, but most other races are not."
Ezekiel glanced at Tao as he asked, "I don't breathe, but why were you fine?"
Tao smiled as she said, "I’m a true master of the mystic arts. As soon as we entered the ship one of my guardian spells activated which filtered the air."
"Why didn't you warn the others?"
"The best lessons are always learned from our mistakes. When I realized it wouldn't kill them, I simply allowed them the opportunity to learn." Tao smiled like a predator when she finished talking.
Ezekiel shivered for a moment under that gaze and instantly realized his magic training wasn't going to be fun at all. Ezekiel then smiled to himself, he had no reason to worry, he was a clone after all. Theo would be the one who would have to deal with Tao's training. ‘Sucks to be him.’ Ezekiel thought.
Ezekiel shook his head and decided to focus on his current task. He wanted to copy over the computer's database and check the status of the ship itself. The diagnostic report for the ship stated that the ship was only running on ten percent power. It was enough to run the lights, life support, computer's and a few other things. But weapons, shields and engines wouldn't work at all, unless they found a new power source or repaired the old one.
After collecting the ship's data Ezekiel decided he wouldn't worry about the alien craft for now. It had been buried underneath the mountain for almost five hundred years. Another ten or twenty years wouldn't hurt the thing.
Ezekiel along with Tao headed back to the egg chamber room and collected DNA samples. Then Tao used a spell to disintegrate all of the organic material in the room. Once finished Ezekiel made sure the ship was sealed up again and they portaled out of the ship to the last recruit Ezekiel had on his list.
The location they portaled to was in the middle of the Siberian tundra in a heavily forested region. In front of them stood an old dilapidated log cabin with a very wide front door. Ezekiel walked up to the front door and knocked loudly a few times before stepping back. After a minute he stepped forward and knocked even harder.
After no response again, Ezekiel opened the front door as he said, "Hello, we were just in the neighborhood and wondered if you had time to talk about our lord and savior Stan Lee?"
"Isn't it supposed to be Jesus?"
Ezekiel just shook his head as he opened the door fully. He looked inside for a few moments before he said, "Looks like he’s out and hasn’t been here for a little while. Do you have a way to find him?"
The inside of the cabin was spacious but very sparse. It was a large single room with a stone fireplace. The only furniture inside was a table with a single chair, a few cabinets and a lone mattress on the floor next to the fireplace. The most noticeable thing in the room was the empty bottles of vodka that were piled up in one corner of the room which almost touched the ceiling.
Tao walked inside the cabin and after looking around she said, "Someone actually lives here?"
Ezekiel shrugged his shoulders, his eyes were on the bottles as he said, "I’am not gonna judge the man, no one is perfect."
Tao just shook her head as she started looking around the room for something to use as a tracker. After finding some tufts of hair, she examined it and said, "I can use a spell to find the location of whoever this hair belongs to. The only issue is this hair doesn't look like it's from a human."
"It should be from him, he’s a mutant."
She held the hair up as she formed a spell that circled around it for a few times. After a few moments the spell disappeared along with the hair.
Tao then pulled Ezekiel into the mirror dimension with her as she opened up a new portal she said, "I found our target, let's go."
Ezekiel stepped through the portal followed by Tao into what looked like a caged fighting arena. The cage itself was gold in color and was shaped like a dome with an open top area, while the floor was mostly made of compacted dirt and sand.
Ezekiel pulled up his tablet and started to type on it as he said, "This place is heavily shielded, I can't get a proper signal. Do you know where we teleported too?"
Tao shook her head as she said, "The spell I used just shows me where to open the portal, it doesn't tell me where it actually is."
"We can find out later when I hack their systems."
Directly in front of them stood a burly man with no shirt on and some kind of metallic collar around his neck. He was close to seven feet in height and had very broad shoulders. His upper body was almost completely covered in short fine brown hair, if you didn’t look closely you would think he was wearing a sweater. His brown hair was cut short and his brown eyes were narrowed as he studied the person across from him.
In the middle of the arena stood a man on a platform suspended in the air. He wore a fancy suit along with a mask. He spoke into a microphone on the platform as he pointed at the other man in the arena. The other person in the arena was a massive man also not wearing a shirt. His upper body was covered in tattoos and numerous scars.
Ezekiel then looked around the outside of the arena and found they were in some kind of building. Outside of the cage was what could only be described as a grandstand which was almost packed with people. Everyone was dressed up in fancy clothes and wore different masks that fully covered their faces.
Above the arena hung large monitors that showed a better view of both competitors, along with stats for each man and the current betting odds. Ezekiel smiled as he said, "Feel like having some fun?"
Tao looked around the arena along with the grandstands for a minute before she said, "Sure."
"Great, let's secretly come out of the mirror dimension and then act like we belong as we try to find a place to sit."
Tao nodded in agreement before they left the arena itself and found a secluded spot out of sight. Tao removed them from the mirror dimension before they walked into the grand stands to find some seats. They attracted attention from everyone else since they both stood out so much compared to everyone there.
While Tao was in her normal monk robes, Ezekiel was dressed in his Anbu outfit minus his mask. The hum of the arena started to die down before it became deathly silent as even the announcer and contestants in the arena stopped to watch them find a seat.
When they were finished Ezekiel looked around at everyone before he glanced at Tao as he said, "We should probably update your wardrobe, you attract too much attention. Plus I think the whole monk thing is out of style now."
Tao returned a flat look as she said, "I think not."
Ezekiel shrugged his shoulders as he said, "I just think you would look good in a sundress is all, Master."
Tao was surprised for a moment before she saw Ezekiel's smirk. While everyone around Tao and Ezekiel quickly moved away as they talked, some thug looking men with masks were walking towards them. Ezekiel looked towards the men approaching them as he said, "You guys look like you are working too hard, you should probably take a nap."
As Ezekiel spoke, the men slowed down before they slowly collapsed onto the floor, some of them could even be heard snoring lightly. Ezekiel glanced around the quiet arena again before he looked directly at the announcer as he said loudly, "We came to watch the fight, get on with it already."
The announcer held a hand up to his ear for a few moments as he listened to someone through his ear piece. Afterwards he looked around the arena again as he said in his boisterous voice, "Alright folks, you have till the bell rings to finish placing your bets."
Once finished, the announcer's platform was pulled up above the top of the arena in between where the monitors hung. The announcer himself watched Ezekiel and Tao until he disappeared from their view. Afterwards a loud gong was heard and the two fighters rushed each other before they started to exchange blows.
The fight took less than a minute or so and it was a pretty one sided beat down. While the tattooed man may have had fighting experience, the man with the collar was a trained fighter and a very experienced one at that. The collared man disabled the other fighter in the first thirty seconds or so of the fight and then took the rest of the time to choke the other man out with a sleeper hold.
Once the other fighter was unconscious, the collared man released his choke hold and the gong was heard again. The announcer’s platform was lowered down into the arena again as he said, “That was a spectacular fight from our newest rising star of the gilded cage. Everyone please give a round of applause to ”