"Yes, but the boy believes that the young maiden is still alive trapped inside the belly of the beast hoping that one day she will be reunited with her beloved and free her from the creature."

"What about the gift?" She asked. "Can he use it to fight the monster?"

"Perhaps." Laban replied. "If he wishes hard enough, the gift could grant him the power to slay the monster and save his beloved maiden."

"I hope his wish comes true." The princess said softly.
Laban looked at her surprised.

"You do?"

"Yea." she nods. "Then they'll be together forever."

Laban looks at her and smiles, as he started to tear up at the princess' response.

"That's what I wish too." Laban said tucking the princess in for the night.

"Good night, angel." he softly spoke.

"Good night." Anya replied groggy as she was getting tired.

Laban left her room and walked back to his room. He locks the door behind him and walks towards the fireplace which he quickly lit using his reiki. He then pushes in a stone from the frame of the fireplace and a secret door from the wall next to the fire place opens. He walks inside revealing a room that looked like a small science lab filled with books and scattered paper all around. At the end of the room was a table that held opened books, beakers filled with different colored liquids, more lose paper and several clear purple tinged gemstones. In the center of the table was something slightly tall and dome shaped but draped over by a black silky cloth. Sensing Laban's presence, the item underneath began to glow a soft purple light softly peering through the silk cloth. Laban walked up to it moving aside several transparent purple gemstones and some loose papers and books.

"Hello my love, did you miss me?" he asked.

He removes the black cloth to reveal a severed female arm floating in an aqua green like solution that glistened from the purple aura surrounding the arm.

"I'm getting close my love." he replied as he gently grazed his hand against the glass dome. The arm glowed brighter responding to Laban as he touched the glass dome.

"Soon I'll be able to find a way to bring you back...Kahala."

***

"One day, when Father and the others returned, you did not." Anya replied. "I came looking for you in your quarters and it was empty. No one could tell me why; I thought you were dead. Later on, we were under attack. As they took me to shelter, I could hear the screams, the battle, the knights fighting something that made my skin crawl; I never felt such reiki like that before. My Father and the knights died that day and I was alone."

Anya stepped back from Laban looking at him with sorrow, then anger as she realized he’s been alive this whole time.

 “You were alive, this whole time and you did nothing?!” The Princess said sternly. “You could’ve helped save them! Why didn’t you?”

With tears in her eyes she started pounding at his chest.

"You abandoned us, you abandoned your duties as a knight!"

Laban held her arms, preventing her from hitting him again. Anya looked at him fearful of what he was going to do next.

"I did not abandon them." Laban said Sternly. Anya looks at Laban surprised at what he says.

"I was banished." He released her grip and walks away with his back facing her.

"Banished?"

He stopped next to his chair looking down, thinking about everything he has done in the past that brought him to where he is now.

"Tell me Princess, what if you had the power to do anything?"  "Right wrongs, erase mistakes, save lives…. Wouldn’t you take?"

Anya thought about it, she knew if she had power like that, Zonia would be at peace once again. She also knew from her lessons growing up, immense power like that can be corruptible. Laban looked back at Anya and saw how silent she was; it reminded him of his past which made his blood boil knowing where her allegiance lies.

"I thought as much; just like your father and the others, you’re afraid to seek such power… I have not."

Anya’s heart begins to beat fast anticipating what she feared. The fact that the knight she once thought of as a brother working with these creatures that have been kidnapping civilians was a sure sign that his intensions weren’t good. Her heart then sinks as she thinks back to when she was little, and the knights were fighting something powerful; then put two and two together.

“Laban?” The Princess tried to speak up, afraid to ask the question she feared. “What did you-

“Your Father was a fool,” Laban said coldly. “They all were. They prevented me from stealing the stones before, hence my banishment. They scattered the stones so I couldn’t have them... they needed to be dealt with."

The Princess’s eyes surprised at first quickly changed as her anger grew. She remembered when she was little the battle was over and she was crying over the beaten and bloodied body of her father. She thought back to how she had to watch the casket of her father lay next to her mother’s in a flowerbed in the very garden of the castle with a statue of her parents holding each other standing behind their coffins. She clenches her fists and grits her teeth as she charges up with red reiki.

“It was you. She furiously. You killed them; you killed my Father!”

Enraged, the Princess brings out her weapons and attempts to attack him. Laban stood as he watched her run towards him. Princess Anya raised her swords, ready to strike as she was at a range to attack; suddenly she was blown back several feet away from Laban by an unseen force. She gets up shaking the stunned moment at what just happened as she couldn’t sense any reiki that pushed her. Puzzled, she looks up at Laban who starts to charge up with reiki. His red and black reiki energy circled around him; as it grew, he exerted more energy towards Princess Anya. Overwhelmed by the pressure coming from Laban’s reiki powers, Princess Anya drops her weapons and falls to her knees. She could feel the oxygen around her was thinning out; even gravity itself became heavy to her as she couldn’t even stand up.

“What’s going on?” She thought to herself. “I can barely breathe; I can’t even move.”

“Is my reiki too strong for you?” Laban asked as he approached her with ease. “I’m disappointed, your highness; that was only five percent of my power.

Laban stopped exerting his energy in the room, giving the Princess a chance to breathe. The Alpha Lurker then approached Princess Anya grabbing her and forcing her to stand up, preventing her from trying to attack. Laban leaves his quarters, and the Alpha forces the Princess to follow. The three walked the halls of his dark and decrepit fortress. The Princess looked around and saw more creatures crawling on the pillars and ceilings of the fortress, looking back at them as they made their way to another area. They arrived at two giant doors where two creatures stood guarding them. When they spotted Laban approaching, they opened the door. Inside was a giant assembled factory with a giant machine that almost filled the room as its several sections each had different jobs. The first half of the machine was creating the exact masks the creatures were wearing and dumping them in a container that held them. The next section had several arm cranes that would pick up a mask and bring it over to a conveyor belt that had human-shaped pods. Inside those pods were the missing villagers, both from current village that was attacked to others from previous invasions, strapped in, yelling for help as they were brought over to the cranes. The Princess watched in horror as she saw the cranes place the masks on several villagers. The masks come to life as a black substance begins to pool out of the mask, eating away at the villager’s face as it fuses itself. The fusion was painful; the villagers convulsed as the substance covered their entire body even seeping into their bloodstream, burning them from the inside out. The sound of blood-curdling screams echoed throughout the factory. Their screams soon feel silent as the black substance completed its fusion. Their bodies had stopped convulsing once the fusion was complete. The villagers awakened, now as creatures; from head to toe as their hands and feet became razor-sharp metallic claws. Slimy tentacle-like hair slithered out from the mask. The straps opened, releasing the now transformed villagers as some slithered themselves out of the pods while others were walking on all fours like gorillas. Tears rolled down Anya’s face as she couldn’t believe this was what happened to the missing villagers and that she and her knights were killing them. They recognized their master and bowed low to the ground.

“These are my creations,” Laban announced. “I call them Lurkers.”

Laban walked towards the bin and picked up one of the masks. He returned to the Princess, showing her the inside as it looked normal at first, but then Anya noticed thousands of black spots, almost like fleas moving around in the mask.

“I used nanotechnology from which I programmed them to attach and consume life energy from their host.” He explained. “Once the mask is placed on the host, the nanites fuse with them becoming a symbiotic creature.”

One of the Lurkers approached Laban, who gave it the mask to put back into the bin. Before it left, the Lurker leaned toward his master. Laban stroked the Lurker’s head; it mechanically purred for a moment, then left to put the mask back in the bin.

“Sometimes, I have more evolved Lurkers, which I make them lead the others. My creations are loyal, cretins that will do what I command them to.”

Before Laban could continue, a nearby villager hollered in pain which caught both Laban and Anya’s attention. A villager had broken free from his straps. The mask was already on, and parts of his body had already been transformed, but the other half was still human. He looked over at Laban and the Princess and recognized who she was; he stretches his claw out towards the princess with hope but also fear in his eyes.

"Prin…cess, help…me." The villager garbled as his voice was metallic, inhuman since fused with the Lurker.

The Villager then noticed his hand was a claw and brought closer to him trying to figure out what was happening to him. The reflection from his claw showed a glimmer of his face as it was covered by the mask; one side he could see his human eye the other was the eye of a Lurker. His eye widened, he realized he stood next to a metal crane and looked over to see his reflection coming from the arm crane and couldn’t believe what he was becoming. The sight of his grotesque look scared him as he realized he was becoming a monster. He yelled but his yell was more a metallic shrill; more like a Lurker. The villager raised his Lurker claws over the side of his face that was more Lurker and began to dig into the mask. The Lurker side of him grabbed the Lurker claw with his human hand trying to prevent itself from being killed but it was too late as the Villager succeeded. As he dug deep into his mask, black substance pools out of the mask's slash marks as he succeeded in killing the Lurker side of him. Parts of the mask begins to crack as the bottom crumbled, revealing the villager’s skin-peeled mouth as the mask already ate away at his skin. The villager showed a sign of relief at first until he started to feel ill. He then coughed up a large pool of black ooze, his heart beating fast. The black substance then leaks from his human eye. The villager begins to panic as it was getting difficult to breathe, he felt light-headed as he was turning pale. The villager gasped at his last breath of air till he collapsed to the ground, with the black substance pooling out of him from all orifices. The lurkers in the room detected the villager had died; a couple of them picked up the dead body removing it from the room.

“Unfortunately, there are times when the host will try and reject the nanites,” Laban stated. “The results are fatal, as you can see.”

The Princess couldn’t watch any longer what was going on; Laban looked back at the princess. He saw how much this was hurting her; he then had an idea.

“I can stop this; release the remaining villagers if you want me to.” Laban declared.

Hearing that caught the Princess’ attention as she looked at him, surprised as to why he would do such a thing. Laban gently held Princess Anya’s chin. “But first, you must tell me where that immense power came from?”

Our heroes were flying to rescue the Princess following the tracking device that Vinne placed on the Lurker before it escaped. Rika was thinking about what the Captain told her at the hanger about how they didn’t know about the General and Soldier being Lurkers in disguise, and the pile of remains once analyzed by Vinnie belonged to one of the zonitians from the village. She thought how foolish they were to leave without double-checking to ensure they didn’t bring anything back from their mission.

She looked over at Kevin, who sat across from her with a couple of vacant seats between each other. He was staring out the aircraft’s window; she noticed how lost in thought he was, but most importantly, she saw how nervous and restless he was as she saw his restless legs jittering in place and he was rubbing his hands together. He reminded her of a new soldier about to go to war. This wasn’t new to her as she had seen this occur in the past. She waved at him to get his attention; Kevin noticed as the transparent reflection from the window displayed Rika waving at him. He looks back to see Rika unlatching herself from her seatbelt, as she walked over, and sat next to him.

"Nervous?" She softly asked.

"Is it that obvious?" Kevin replied.

The two then chuckled among themselves, which helped Kevin calm down a little. He looked over at Vinnie and noticed that he didn’t look like the other knights. His ears were pointy like an elf, which to him meant that he was from this world which doesn’t make sense to how he is a knight.

"So, what’s with the elf?" Kevin asked as he looked over at Vinnie co-piloting with Caleb. "How is he a knight when he has those… you know-"

Kevin imitates Vinnie’s pointed ears by pinching and pulling his ears upwards. Rika quietly chuckled at Kevin’s imitation of Vinnie as he was spot on.

"Vinnie is a halfling. Zonians are the ones that look like what you call an “elf.” Rika explained. "Only descendants of those that brought us here can be knights. It was because of his father’s bloodline that he was recruited."

Kevin’s eyes widened when he found out that Vinnie was a half breed like him. He even smiled a little cause he had someone he could probably talk to if he would let him. Rika noticed how relaxed Kevin was and decided there was no time like the present to find out more about him.

"Those things were planning to capture you and the princess, why?" She asked.

"Heck if I know, I just got here."

"Ok then, what about that reiki seal?" "Was it those Advant people that did this to you?" She asked.