Chapter CXXIV: Teacher ~Lich

Lich groaned as he awoke from being calibrated, and looked to find Shero looking worriedly into his eyes.
“Your brother ran off,” he said. “I tried giving chase, but I’m too old for that…”
“Where’d he go?” Lich said, groggily, as the anaesthetic began to wear off.
“He’s off the Island, which is the most I can tell you, sorry.”
“Then I have to find him! I have to return to my task as soon as possible, and he’s coming with me, considering he has one of the jewels.”
“That’s going to be a bit of a problem – you definitely had a dent in one of your legs, and it’s going to take a further three hours for your body to get used to the new part. Plus, your arm won’t be fully operational until tomorrow – that means, no throwing.”
Lich sighed and collapsed into the pillows of the bed Ark had sat on previously.
“What is he up to?” he wondered aloud.

“Well, aren’t you going to acknowledge my presence?” the Dark Lich asked in mock insult.
“You are no longer my master,” Ark muttered, without looking at him. “Leave me alone.”
There was silence for a moment while Ark felt the undead sorceror’s penetrative search of his mind. He was too tired and depressed to mind-thrash – to project images and think random thoughts in his head to keep mind-readers from seeing what he had.
“Ohhhh,” Dark said in put-on gasp. “It’s about your brother who betrayed you, isn’t it? I warned you not to try and re-unite with him in love, that he would only betray you again…and here it is.”
Ark remained silent. Dark tutted, and shook his head from side to side.
“Sad, isn’t it, that your brother should corrupt his pure form with robotic parts and become a cyborg,” he continued. “However, I did warn you.”
Dark hovered with his skeletal hands behind his back to the other side of the cavern, still behind Ark.
“I did warn you. And did you listen?”
He paused, half-satisfied with Ark’s silence.
“No. You did not listen. You are just like him. You don’t listen to superior experience.”
Dark sighed.
“I had him wrapped up in a present for you when I sent him to be captured by the Tullabanarigans. Of course, I did it on Havering’s orders, but I would have killed him myself had I the chance.”
Dark “paced” back and forth behind Ark’s back.
“There was another there on Zolott. That @#%$ puffball. He had a tremendous amount of Left Path power. And he shepherded the blasphemous one. While he was around, I could not touch him.”
He paused, and eyed Ark for a moment, still seeing his back turned. He then continued “pacing”.
“I saw his destruction when he drove his ship into the Genesis. Then I had my chance to kill him. No Havering. No puffball. I teleported to him – but he was gone. That @#%$ Rip Watcher teleported him back to Yamauchi and erased his memories.”
Silence radiated from Ark again, before he whispered, “Why didn’t you kill him?”
“Why didn’t you?” he turned, his red eyes pulsating with fury.
Ark stayed silent. Suddenly Ark was thrown against the wall and was pinned to it by Dark’s mind, staring fully into the evil being’s flashing red eyes.
“Look at me when I talk to you!” he screamed.
Ark tried to move his head, but found he couldn’t. His eyelids refused to blink. His mouth moved, his vocal cords expanded, and he found he was speaking the words, though weakly:
“Yes…master…”
“I could take your body any time you want, Ark!” he spat.
“I…know…master…” his voice said, as if his brain had not ordered it to.
“But I won’t. Do you know why?”
“No…master…”
Dark released his paralysing stare, and Ark sank to the ground.
“You protected him with your powers of darkness – I could not penetrate them as they were of my stock. But those powers of darkness began to unlock his memories. He remembered me, and I was able to haunt his dreams. I fed him nightmares from those memories.”
Ark’s eyes widened.
“Why are you surprised? I have been keeping a mental link with him for these past three years! I decided that it would be better to scare him, and to make him even more afraid of me before I kill him. Fear is the most addictive elixir in the entire Multiverse! Why would I deprive it from the one I hate most?”
Ark, afraid to speak, blinked.
“In fact, I am drawing it up from you now. Ahhhh, yes…the heart rate increases, the breaths quicken, cold sweat…the shivering, the uncertainty…”
Dark lifted a hand, his palm facing the Yoshi. Ark’s eyes clouded over. The sorceror’s voice entered his brain, his words turning into unconscious thought.
“Your brother has betrayed you twice. You did not kill him for the first time. But you will this time. You will approach him out of love, and kill him when he least expects it.”
Dark droned for about twenty minutes. Then, he clicked his fingers, and stared at Ark. He was lifted into the air by encircling grey balls, before he disappeared.
“Don’t fail me this time, lizard,” the Dark Lich spat.

“I found this outside,” Lumina told Lich.
A small device, no bigger than the palm of his hand, golden, and sporting a large red burron appeared in his lap, with a letter wrapped around it.

Hello, Lich. This is CR – I used to do this a lot with Tex, don’t be so surprised. The device was already there – the letter will have just arrived. When you are ready to return to the Spectrum, please press the red button on this. It will call us to you.

P.S. Your brother is already here – he teleported in a few minutes ago and ran to the back of the train. He’s huddled in a corner and doesn’t want to talk to anyone – we need you to get him back on his feet ASAP.

“How did Ark get there so quickly?” he asked in surprise, before he pressed the red button and began to wait for his body to recover and for the Spectrum to arrive.