Scorpio spun round, but only a stone wall faced her. She turned back round and stuttered further into the cave. “Just like I sensed him,” the voice hissed. Then a shuddering laugh.
Scorpio felt the booming laugh rip through her, making her actually shiver and hesitated before continuing at a slower pace into the cave. She rounded stalactite after stalactite, gazing from one size of the huge cave to the other. Her heart and back were thundering. She willed her heart to be quiet. But still it was deafening in her ears.
“I sense you!” Roared the voice once more. I sense you, mouthed Scorpio. Her mouth was suddenly dry. She gripped the spear a little tighter, raised it a little higher, pulled it a little back.
“I sense you,” Scorpio whispered, “I sense you.” There was a sniggering that rumbled around the cave walls.
“I smell you!” A pause, and then, “I know you, I remember you!” The growl grew in volume, “Panthalassa's Island.”
Scorpio stopped dead in her tracks, she didn't know what she had been expecting. A giant thing like the others, maybe. But not the Sze-bahk. Not the Manticore.
“You smell... different from the others,” the rumbling continued, bouncing off every wall coming from all directions, disorientating Scorpio as she made her way through the cave still, she noticed a soft glow in the distance. “I know your kind, your evil kind. You are not any different!”
Then there was silence, and as Scorpio rounded the final stalactite she came to a patch of ground without any. And, directly in the middle of the stalactite-free ground blurred the portal, spinning and twisting the dull colours of the cave. Scorpio didn't dare go any closer as she stood at the edge of the clear grounds.
“I see you!” The Manticore bellowed, shaking Scorpio's whole body with its roar, but it was nowhere to be seen.
Suddenly there was a familiar voice, “Sze-bahk! Stand down!”
Someone stepped through the portal, a woman. The Commander. “I'm sorry it had to be this way Scorpio, I really am. Time has to be corrected as best it can. We can't change it for the better, I know that now. The timeline killed the General to make me understand that Scorpio.”
Scorpio just stood and frothed with anger, “how do you see this world, Commander? You see it through a computer screen. A line, a wavy line. Hacker... Hacker explained that to me before he was murdered! You do not know what you have put us through! What you've put me through!” Scorpio broke down in sobs of tears, falling to her knees. “End this, end this right now.”
The Commander gulped, “I'm sorry Scorpio, I can't. This has to be completed, the timeline has to be fixed. Your death... it will do that to an extent. You were always the best bodyguard that I have ever had. So much so that you became something of a friend.” The Commander shook her head, “I should never have let that happen.” And with that she stepped back into the portal. Scorpio bolted after her, roaring curses as she did so. She made it to the portal, felt something hit her hard in the chest and flew backwards, crashing onto her back. A face appeared through the portal, a giant terrifying face.
“I see you,” growled the Manticore, its lips curling to a snarl, “I. See. You!”
Scorpio got to her feet. She took a step towards the face, then another and another.
“I see you!” Scorpio yelled, breaking into a run. The Manticore's face changed to a frown, then Scorpio was on the face. It flashed back into the portal and Scorpio stabbed with the spear through the portal. She felt it hit something and pulling it back through she saw the end tipped with red. Again she stabbed, but she felt it catch on something and the spear was ripped from her hands. She took a step back and a second later two pieces of the spear came flying back through the portal, over Scorpio's head and clattered to the floor twenty or so metres behind Scorpio.
