It was no lie.
Yaksha, the beast from another dimension, used Jeff as an intermediary to come to this world. The master received power from Boralura, but, at the same time Jeff received power from Yaksha. Both of them could make contact with life-forms in different dimensions, the problem was the latent psychic ability of the host that they chose. Boralura’s power seemed to match with the master well, and Yaksha lined up with Jeff.
The difference between Boralura and Yaksha was that Yaksha wasn’t as powerful, and was evil. That wasn’t true of Jeff’s real nature.
But Jeff wasn’t actually Yaksha.
Stupid. Why didn’t Boralura go to Jeff and Yaksha go to the master. It would have been so much simpler in that case. It all would have played out more peacefully. Wicked Yaksha didn’t reach Boralura’s level of power. It was a good way to pull the strings. If Boralura had come to Jeff it would have been the perfect encounter of mankind and a higher being from another dimension.
Because the opposite happened we had this disastrous situation.
Numbskull. Boralura was an idiot.
That’s right. I was cursing Boralura’s name.
I knew it wouldn’t do any good, but it was all I could do.
And then—
A violent battle between Mugi and Yaksha began to unfold in the open area. Most of the Angels of Chakra were smashed in the fighting. They were supposed to be made of that super strong metal, but they broke into tiny pieces pretty easily. These must have been replicas the master made for some kind of ritual or ceremony.
The walls and pillars of the large room suffered heavy damage as well. Yaksha chomped through anything he could get a hold of, and since Mugi couldn’t see him, Mugi was swinging blindly with his front claws. At the level these two beasts were rampaging, the walls, pillars, and everything else in this room would likely be unrecognizable by the time it was done.
The owner and the two mobile infantrymen didn’t know what to do.
It was because they couldn’t see what they wanted to shoot. Also if they missed and hit Mugi, who was wrapped battle, he would likely come back to tear apart the powered suits to defend himself.
However, this was a dangerous and volatile situation, so they couldn’t just give up.
Their chance arrived. The master was in full concentration controlling Yaksha.
Which meant…
He should be defenseless.
Seeing the opportunity, the owner commanded Jeremy.
Jeremy jumped. He has lost his hand blaster, so he prepared the beam cannon on his left shoulder. Swooping down from above, he fired the beam cannon aimed at the master as he drew closer to his target. The beam burned through the master.
Or that’s what I thought.
The master’s body radiated light. The beam then reflected back. The reflected beam came back more powerful than before, and the thicker ray returned to the barrel of the beam cannon.
The beam cannon exploded.
The shock blew Jeremy sideways.
He flew in a straight line toward the dark wall.
He hit the darkness.
There wasn’t actually a wall there. It had a clear beginning, but the wall was really just darkness. It was neither liquid nor solid. But, it did have a wet, soggy sense to it that looked very dense.
That was the darkness that Jeremy flew into.
The powered suit was squashed. The armor was destroyed and the generator took a brutal hit.
Explosion.
Jeremy’s body was in flames as he fell to the ground.
The master’s eyes flew open.
“Only those chosen may enter Boralura’s darkness,” the master mumbled.
He then gave a pointed look at the owner.
The owner’s legs shook.
Yaksha was coming.
Mugi switched directions and drew near the owner.
A high-pitched sound pierced the air.
It was an alarm to drive something away.
The something looked to be the owner’s body.
The jumpsuit torn to pieces. Pieces of skin and flesh.
Fluttering in the air.
The owner was being bitten and torn apart by Yaksha.
Instant death. That’s what Yuri and I assumed. Blood-smeared chunks of meat spattered the floor. There was no way we could help. No one could survive that attack. We were seeing the slaughter live and up close.
But.
What was left of the owner rolling on the floor, slowly began to rise up. The flesh had been peeled off of him. His face, chest, and abdomen were covered in cuts.
But there wasn’t a drop of blood flowing from them.
What was torn from the owner’s body wasn’t his flesh.
This person standing there threw off the remaining scraps of “skin” from his body.
His name had changed.
This was not Telestofarnus.
This was Bonassis.
The owner and the mayor were one and the same.
Wearing an artificial skin as a disguise, the skinny mayor played the role of the giant owner. That’s right. They were about the same height. The only real difference was the width and depth of their bodies. The difference in the voices was probably done electronically.
I suddenly remembered how Jeff said he escaped the trap in the VTOL thanks to the owner. So there wasn’t a mix-up there. We were both correct. After escaping from Mine #4 he’d switched back into the mayor inside the plane.
The truth of this case was finally starting to surface.
The mayor, one of the secret leaders of Lucifer, worked out a deal for the sake of a Buddhist organization, and came to Chakra not only as the mayor, but also as the owner.
For political needs he was the mayor, and for business needs he was the owner. He skillfully spread himself between these two roles to rule the planet of Chakra.
But an unexpected situation arose. One of the miners was contacted by an alien life-form from another dimension and was given an incredible power. The mayor’s secret would be exposed. So he had to handle that nuisance while unraveling the mystery of these beings from another dimension, but to ensure that the master wouldn’t discover your secret, you had to move with extreme discretion. Inevitably, something had to be done about the master. You were resigned to that fact. By taking out the master, the mayor had a chance to get a handle on the situation.
And then the Landis incident had occurred. Having tied the master to the incident, he then called in the help of the WWWA.
It was a bit of a gamble. If the case was accepted, then a WWWA Trouble Consultant would be dispatched. The aim was for the TC to get here and mix it up with the master. And by the remote chance that the case wasn’t solved, there was no evidence that the mayor was working against the master.
On the other hand, the master being the master, he’d caught wind that the mayor was the one who’d made a case to the WWWA. He then sent assassins to the WWWA Headquarters in an effort to block the investigation before it even started. Those armored “shadows” were local miners, but they didn’t succeed in their mission. It seemed that the master had at least three believers on the mayor’s security staff. Point by point, information about the mayor could have been leaked in such a manner that it was as deadly as an assassin.
Dammit!
Figuring all this out caused my blood to run the other direction.
My temperature rose to a boil and I could sense my anger fuming inside.
Thanks to your little conspiracy, all of our glory just crashed and burned (and don’t even try to convince me otherwise).
Unforgivable.
I’d like to line you all up and slap you one-by-one.