We were all excited when we reached the control room, the mercs because they thought they were getting paid and me because I had finally changed the fate of a fictional world. It had taken ten years to do so but I was thrilled about it.
Unfortunately, John Philips was not.
As soon as we entered the room he whirled toward us with a red face and bulging eyes and pointed to one of the computer screens, his hands shaking. "A piece of the station fell off a few minutes ago."
"What?" Ace ran forward to investigate and immediately started searching the security cameras to see where the damage was done. "...I have to go take a look. Will you guys be fine on your own?" he asked as he ran toward the door, a gun in one hand and a tool box in the other.
"Wait." Derek grabbed his arm as he passed. "Take some of the mercs with you. There could still be aliens hiding in there."
Ace shrugged and barely paid attention to Maddox and Jala as they joined him. They were far from happy about completing yet another escort mission.
Once they were gone, John spoke up again. "And another thing! This entire ship is falling apart! I refuse to stay here any longer and demand I be taken back to Manica. The AI says there's already a ship waiting."
I could tell my husband was doing all he could not to roll his eyes. "Fine. Zora will escort you to the hangar since you obviously won't go alone." He glanced at Zora to verify, who nodded with a frown on her face.
"Good." Derek was about to head toward the computers when his boss spoke up once more.
"It seems unfair that Ace gets two people to escort him while I only get one."
Geez. Was this guy a two year old?
Rolling my eyes on purpose, since my husband couldn't, I stepped forward and pulled out my pistol. "Fine. I'll come too." I shot Derek an apologetic look, which he returned, before following the wimp out of the control room, my moment of victory forgotten.
◑○★☆●◐
The hangar looked the same. Nothing had shifted other than one, small ship which Di must have moved. It was sitting on the edge of the force field leading out into space.
As I walked toward it, keeping an eye out for any aliens, though I was sure the removal of the sphere had gotten rid of any remaining ones, I glanced back at Zora and John, who were standing side by side behind me.
I was just within touching distance of the tiny, silver ship built for two when I heard Zora whisper something to my husband's boss.
"Shoot the camera in the far left corner," she told him, her order so quiet that I had to strain to listen. It didn't fully register in my brain until John picked up the small gun she had handed him, looked at the black camera hanging off the ceiling, and shot at it. His first two shots missed but the third cracked the screen, causing it to power down.
"Hmm?" I threw my hands up in confusion as Zora approached me. "What are you doing?"
"This guy's nuts," she whispered, grabbing my arm and pulling me away from John, who was now looking at us with mounds of confusion on his face.
I was even more baffled. "You know I could hear you befo—" My ears twitched when a heard a quiet snap sound from my wrist. I looked down and gasped when I realized that Zora had attached a small, metal bracelet, similar to a thick hand cuff, to my right wrist. "What are you doing?"
The black haired woman smirked, her eyes betraying a darkness I had failed to notice before, and started to push me toward the force field. Her mouth opened in a sneer and she only stopped moving when my back was half an inch from the only thing keeping us inside the station.
"Zora," I whispered, trying to keep my voice level. I had hoped to distract her while I teleported away but, for some reason, neither of my powers were working. "Zora. What's going on?"
She smirked again, this one lifting her mouth up so high it looked like it might reach her ear. "What's it look like?" she asked me, her tone lower than normal. "I'm pushing you to your death just as you did to that alien."
"What? Why?"
I tried to kick her but she was gripping me too tightly. I managed to land one blow on her foot but she didn't even react. She was far superior to me in strength and resistance.
Zora looked me over, likely counting how much time she'd have before Di checked on us, then shrugged. "I suppose you have a right to know. A quick monologue shouldn't destroy my plan."
"And what's your plan?" Would she, a character who had never appeared in the show before, finally explain to me who she really was? Maybe this villain monologue would delay her long enough for Derek to check on me. He was still really paranoid, after all.
Zora took a deep breath, her eyes glazing over. "I was abused my entire life by my father and my step-father and my boyfriends, all three, and I've never been able to experience love of any kind from anyone. What did I do to deserve it? Absolutely nothing!" To emphasize it she leaned forward, her words reminding me of a snake's hiss.
"I used to tolerate it, to be kind, to figure that if I was sweet and good enough, eventually fate would give me someone nice. Someone sweet who would actually care about me instead of what I could do for him. But no. That. Never. Happened."
"Okay." Despite hanging on the brink of death I still felt pity for her. "Go on."
She sneered, insulted that I seemed to care. "Finally, I come here and meet the man of my dreams, the man I can already tell is my soul mate, the one I was born to love and marry and grow old with."
I furrow my brow. She's not talking about John Philips, is she?
"The only problem is, he's married."
Oh! She was talking about Derek? ...What?
"I've never asked for anything in my life. This is the first time I've ever, honestly wanted something all to myself." Her eyes started to well up with tears. "Is that so much to ask?"
"It is when he's married," I answered. I didn't mean to be snarky and annoy the woman trying to kill me but, as Derek's wife, I was very protective of him.
Predictably, it did annoy her and she shoved me a few millimeters closer to the force field. "You know," she hissed. "My mother was also a Valdis. She came from that other world too," she whispered, making my eyes go wide.
Was that the key to being a Valdis? Did you have to come from Earth to get the powers? Could there be even more worlds out there?...But, why did Polly get powers but Zora hadn't? Unless she was hiding them.
"There's apparently a fifty-fifty chance of Valdis offspring inheriting the gene. I was on the sad side of the fifty percent." It was as though she'd read my mind.
"My dad was a tad...over protective of my mother," Zora explained. "So he designed this. It kept her from using her powers and stopped those annoying nightmares she always had." She tapped the top of my bracelet with an angry glare. "After I killed him, I stole it. Always kind of figured I'd find a use for it."
"Zora, please. If you let me go I'll give you anything you want. I can find a way to make you happy. You just need love and care and I can provide that for you if you'll just—"
"I don't want you to help me. I don't care about you. I just care about Derek."
"He won't love you, Zora."
"He'll learn to. I can tell."
"You can't just force someone to love you."
"Why not?"
"Because..." Something about this felt odd. It seemed kind of strange that Zora would latch onto Derek so easily. She'd only known the guy for one day and while he was handsome, he wasn't the hottest guy in the world.
...That reminded me of something I'd always questioned when looking at Polly, my daughter. She had blonde hair like me. But, in the show, she had always had brown hair. I had figured it was because she took after Dark but that had been proved wrong. That meant Polly's mother needed to have dark hair.
Secondly, if what Zora said was true about Valdis, the original wife needed to either be a Valdis, which was unlikely, or the child of a Valdis. And Zora fit both those criteria...
My heart shattered. As I stared at her, this woman so broken apart by the world, my heart filled with fear and regret.
"You're the wife."
Her brow's furrowed. "What?"
"You were the wife." The one character the fans had never been able to meet. The one who had inspired Dark to destroy Manica. The one he had been madly in love with. "You're the wife!"
"Could you please shut up!?!" Zora yelled, on the brink of throwing me.
For the first time since this day had started I felt actual, honest to goodness fear. If I died here, the chances of Derek marrying her and loving her were high. He could move on without me! He might even forget everything we had promised to do!
"No!" I started to struggle, trying to kick her and bite her and yank my hands out of her grasp, all to no avail.
Zora smiled, likely happy that she'd inspired fear in me, even if she didn't know why. "Enjoy the afterlife, wife," she giggled before placing both palms on my chest and shoving me into space. I think she said something else afterwards but I couldn't hear her because the helmet I was wearing sealed to protect me from the oxygen-free air.
I didn't feel the force field pass through me. All I felt was panic. My heart was jumping up and down, my hands were shaking, my mouth was dry, my ears were ringing.
I was going to die!
[As promised, here are the extra three chapters as a thank you for sticking with my story this far. I felt like the suspense was dragging on for too long anyway so here you go. :D But don't expect too many schedule breaks in the future XD]
[This lovely chapter's music video was, again, provided by KinRin. Thanks to him. Also, any thoughts on this chapter?]