Data file 9387: Et-Shal-Kraesa.

  Inventor: Lord Flameye.

  Type: Weapon.

  [Et-Shal-Kraesa is a racazoid manufactured to carry dropships and racazoid “summoners” inside him like a walking hangar bay. He is the largest racazoid ever made, standing at roughly the size of Embershard Keep’s tallest steeple (1,000 feet). While this racazoid is lethal and legendary, he has not been seen for nearly thirty years and was last spotted in Igneous Desert. Given records of extensive artillery damage, the current theory suggests he died from engine failure near the supposed resting place of the Shadowbane Amulet.

  Added note: Et-Shal-Kraesa is a Runic script, and translates to mean, roughly, “The Shadow of Chaos.”]

  ***

  “I can’t believe you accidentally found it!” I said to Helios. We simply stood in the newly-opened doorway, gazing at the Amulet.

  “I just can’t believe it’s still here," Helios whispered. I wondered at his phrasing, but walked forward and reached a hand towards the pedestal. I touched something that felt like glass before I could reach it. “Energy barrier," Helios interjected, “Classic Terran Knight trick, especially with your grandfather.” Wait a minute...

  “What did you say?” I asked, turning to face him.

  “I said that your grandfather, Killian Blade, liked using energy barriers.”

  “You knew him? Personally?”

  “I’ve been here a long time, Rasil.”

  Wondering if I should’ve seen the next answer coming, I asked, “So you knew my grandfather, and you said earlier that you know my uncle. Did you know Icarus Blade, then?”

  “He built me, so yeah.”

  I stepped back a pace. “You’re Railstorm, aren’t you?”

  “My name is Helios! He just forgot to update the file, that's all," Helios corrected me, landing on the ground with a dejected look. I sat beside him and stared for a moment before patting his head. Silence reigned for what felt like several minutes while I realized that Helios had probably been watching me my whole life. Whether he had understood me to be his creator’s descendant was another thing, since I still wasn’t sure if he’d known before our talk in the cave or had just been preserving the mystique.

  I stood slowly, his gaze following me. “You should've told me sooner that I was in the presence of one of the original five Terran Knights," I chuckled. He shrugged and nodded. “Now, we’ll discuss this more later, but we need to grab the Shadowbane Amulet.”

  “Right.” Helios flew off the ground and landed on my head. “A charged concussive shot at the base should disable the barrier. Flimsy prototypes, they were...” I charged my pistol like he said and blasted into the base of the pedestal, watching the barrier hum, flicker, and then dissipate. But the moment I touched the Amulet, sirens blared.

  The room began to vibrate. The walls gave way, and from them protruded spinning gears and pistons. Helios grabbed me and pulled me into the room we had come from. It too was shifting and changing as if something had been asleep but was now awake.

  Helios grabbed me again and flew towards the ceiling. “Helios!” I yelled as he dragged me through a narrow passage and out into the sunlight. I looked down just in time to see the ground below shift and morph as Et-Shal-Kraesa emerged. I could honestly say I was shocked, but Helios seemed to know what was going on. We dropped down to a chasm in the desert while Et-Shal-Kraesa stood up and rebooted its systems.

  “Helios, explain?” I asked, not taking my eyes off the emerging racazoid.

  Helios blurted in a very worried tone, “When Icarus Blade defeated Flameye in the first racazoid war, he took the Shadowbane Amulet with him. The Terran Knights must have put it inside Et-Shal-Kraesa to keep anyone from getting it after Icarus was gone!”

  “They buried it inside a city-sized racazoid?”

  “Yep, in his head.”

  I shook my own head in disbelief at the fact that mere moments ago I had been standing inside of Et-Shal-Kraesa. There were certain enemies that I could beat with my pistol alone, but I wasn’t sure if this was one of them. Helios flew above to get a better view and left me on the chasm floor to face my opponent. “Here we go," I said.

  ***

  It took a while for Et-Shal-Kraesa to notice me, as it was standing in the chasm defensively and wouldn’t leave the area. But I’ll say this, it does not mess around once it sees you. Upon spotting me, it hissed, the sound crashing against the surrounding rocks and ground. With a lumbering step forward, scattering dust and debris, it brought one of its fists down towards me. Excellent opening, Rasil. Excellent.

  “Dang it," I muttered, running to one side. The wind rattled by as I spotted a gap where the fingers wouldn’t directly impact the ground. I broke into a run and slid along the ground just in time to be in the gap. I managed to stay oriented as the shockwave and rushing sand careened upwards, and I then found myself surrounded by rusted hinges and wires. I heard a mighty roar of anger, metallic and monotone, due to the punch missing, and I quickly grabbed onto one of the circuits. I felt the ground beneath my feet disappear, and the entire segment I was in was lifted into the air!

  “Unconventional,” Helios yelled from the sky, “But crazy enough to work, I guess!”

  I asked him, “Where am I?”

  “Still in the hand, duh!” Helios scoffed. I found footing on one of the hinges and looked outside to see the ground far below. The chasm was definitely too far down, a lethal drop even though Et-Shal-Kraesa was holding this hand to its side. My slight fear of heights urged me to shut my eyes, so I stopped looking and asked, “Helios, what’s it doing, and what should I do?”

  “It’s still looking for you. Doesn’t know how you dodged, just that you’ve still got a heat signature. I dunno, cut something.”

  I unholstered my pistol and swung for the nearest wire, firing a bolt. The wire snapped apart and let off a burst of sparks. The structure then rumbled and creaked, vibrations going into my bones as I heard another roar.

  The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

  “Looks like that hurt it!” Helios shouted. “Do it again!” I kept slashing and blasting wires and metal rods while the hand shifted, eventually rotating such that what was once the floor to my perspective was now a wall. Another rumble shook me off my perch. Oh, perfect...

  Et-Shal-Kraesa was trying to shake me out. “Rasil, grab something now!”

  “Got it!” I yelled back. I jumped and grabbed onto one of the rods near the middle of the wrist, feeling the wind blow harder.

  “Impact in five seconds!” Helios signaled.

  “Impact with what?!” I shouted back, but I didn’t have time to hear his response. A crash like thunder resounded through the area as I was flung from the rod I was gripping. I quickly realized I was now tumbling to the ground. “Helios!”

  “I gotcha!” Helios caught me by the arms, a wave of energy enveloping me to slow my fall, and he carried me out of range. This was the second time today he had saved me from falling to my death. Go figure.

  “What happened?” I asked, looking back at Et-Shal-Kraesa.

  “It smacked the canyon edge with its hand and critically damaged the wound you made. Ergo: you are awesome.” I watched with no small amount of pride as the entire forearm section of Et-Shal-Kraesa’s left hand then disconnected in a chain of explosions. Scrap metal careened through the air in every direction, and the surge of air almost made Helios lose his grip on me. I mentally stored the knowledge of that chain-reaction weak point to use on later racazoids. “Now, get that Amulet while it’s distracted!” Helios recommended, and tossed me toward the head.

  I landed with an echoing thud on one of the supports near the bottom jaw. The impact alerted Et-Shal-Kraesa, and it quickly swung his head up to dislodge me. I was sent hurtling upwards, but jabbed my pistol through the aged metal plating of his forehead, stopping myself with a jolt. I heard the wind shift, the intact claw aiming to swat me, so I needed to move fast.

  “Helios! Suppress it!” I yelled, gripping my gun firmly. Helios obliged and began swiping at Et-Shal-Kraesa’s eye to confuse it. I took a running jump along the armor and made considerable distance up the slope. The massive claw was getting closer. I swung onto one of the many spikes and climbed to the side of the head, where I could see a small maintenance hatch ahead. A single concussive bolt dented its plating.

  Et-Shal-Kraesa roared in anger and finished swinging its hand into its face. The attack missed me narrowly as I ducked into another groove in the armor plating. Et-Shal-Kraesa swung a second time, however, and the force pulled me too hard. My shoulder burned with friction as I was slid against the metal and yanked from my hiding place. The dust rushed past me with a sudden acceleration as the movement sent me flying entirely off the face and in the direction of the canyon wall.

  Helios flew behind me and shielded me again, gradually slowing my momentum before I hit the edge. The eventual contact was more of a sharp jolt than a deadly impact.

  I now owed Helios three times over. I sent him a slightly confident smile as I charged my gun again. I knew that as long as we could keep this up and avoid getting seriously injured, I could get to the Shadowbane Amulet and bring Et-Shal-Kraesa down.

  Helios seemed to have the same thought, but with less patience. He gently dropped me to a small rock ledge and flew toward Et-Shal-Kraesa, saying, “Listen up, you hunk of scrap metal; you mess with him, you mess with me!” Helios’s eyes transformed from a bright blue to a shining white as his shoulder cannon unfolded and began firing.

  His stream of bullets intensified as he overcharged his power crystal core. The massive eye he had slashed earlier cracked and exploded under the flurry of shots, and Et-Shal-Kraesa held up a hand to shield its face. After learning who Helios was, the protective display he was showing made sense. With this critical opportunity to strike, I spoke over my comlink, “It’s half blind. Get it to charge at me.”

  Helios gave a brief look of concern, but responded, “Your call, boss.” He fired again and pelted the remaining eye with charged blasts, angering the massive racazoid further. Sure enough, Et-Shal-Kraesa stepped back and prepared to charge. This was my chance. “Here it comes!” Helios shouted as Et-Shal-Kraesa ran at full speed for the ledge I was standing on.

  The whole canyon shook with every step. I ran forward, drawing my pistol, and jumped off the ledge towards the fast-approaching head of the beast. I aimed for the hatch I had damaged before and charged a shot. Against an enemy moving past you, mere momentum can be one’s greatest ally!

  I swung my gun and fired before straightening my body in midair to slip through the gap. Sparks flew as the shot landed, cracking the previously dented plating, and I made it through. The hatch opened directly into the engine core, the room in which I had found the Amulet.

  I saw it then, still on its pedestal. More rail cannons appeared from a nearby wall, forcing me to dodge away from the pedestal. I ran to the first cannon and slashed while firing into the barrel to jam it, before racing to the Amulet and reaching to grab it.

  Et-Shal-Kraesa shook his head a final time to get me out, but I swiped the Shadowbane Amulet first, this time actually managing to wrap my fingers around the rounded object. I then dashed back to the open hatch before jumping into Helios’s waiting grasp.

  I considered, for a moment, that the Amulet was said to revive destroyed machinery via the power of time, and turned to look at my foe. Sure enough, once deprived of the Amulet’s power, Et-Shal-Kraesa groaned and completely collapsed. The fiery energy sustaining it dissipated, and the limbs dropped lifelessly. A final shockwave heralded the second death of the enormous racazoid as its full body hit the ground. The time energy had been the only thing keeping it alive at all. I clutched the Amulet tighter so I wouldn't drop it and told Helios, “Great job, Helios. Let’s get back to Embershard with this thing before something else goes wrong.”

  Yet, as we landed on stable ground once more, I heard the thundering roar of a warship engine.

  “Oh no," I whispered to myself.

  “Not again," Helios echoed.

  No sooner had Et-Shal-Kraesa fallen apart than Flameye’s personal warship soared over the canyon. It covered the sky above with its intimidating size. The black wings stretched out on either side with antigravity generators to keep the fortress afloat. Like a swarm of bees, wave upon wave of racazoid troopers buzzed around it, waiting for battle. I grimaced as I started to wonder what this vessel had done to entire armies during the original war against the racazoids.

  “Impressive," Flameye remarked. I whipped around and pointed my gun on instinct, wondering how long he had been standing there. To my surprise, he didn’t attack and began to speak again. Monologues could be useful, so I passively charged a blast. Helios landed on my shoulder carefully, his minute size hiding his power momentarily.

  Meanwhile, Flameye said, “I would be lying if I said I could retrieve the Shadowbane Amulet myself, for even my strength was nothing compared to a revived Et-Shal-Kraesa.” My anger loosened a touch, there was a genuine emotion in his voice. Was it praise? Flameye continued, “The humans knew that the Amulet, even hidden, required defenses. They therefore reprogrammed my own warrior to defend it. Clever, I must say.” If he was referring to Et-Shal-Kraesa... I realized the truth. His face shifted to a look of frustration as I began to understand the trap I had walked into.

  “What did I just do?” I asked him, finding my anger replaced with morbid curiosity.

  “Ask yourself this," he snarled as he took a thundering stride towards me, “Do you really think one incompetent boy could sneak carelessly through one of my outposts, and then immediately my main warship, undetected and relatively unhindered? You’re stealthy, yes, but that’s just ridiculous.”

  “You let me retrieve the Amulet. Why?” I asked. Before he answered, I saw the fiery glow, and I had to dodge as Flameye blasted a fireball at me. Helios lunged behind a pile of rubble and disappeared. I recovered and jumped to my feet, but Flameye had disappeared too. His shadow crept towards me...

  He was in the air.

  I turned swiftly, only to have my chest meet his fist. I skidded backwards and fired my charged shot. “Don’t even try that again!” Flameye bellowed. He swung his claw and blocked the bullet, then unfurled his wings. Desperate, I tried to rise again, but failed as the wings flapped and the wind blew me back down. Flameye laughed triumphantly and picked up the Amulet, which I had dropped when he hit me.

  Now, he finally answered me, “I let you retrieve the Amulet because taking it from Et-Shal-Kraesa was impossible, but taking it from you is easy.” He spread his wings and flew upwards, the purple energy of the Amulet gleaming in his clutches as his warship rained missiles from above.