The Force: Part 1

Officer Tanner bolted after the thief, weaving in and out of rubbish bins and discarded boxes. The thief turned a corner and disappeared from his sight.

“Calling all available Force members, we’ve got a thief running out onto Barker Street, please comply.” Officer Tanner said into his radio.

“Roger that, we’re sending out three available Force teams,” replied the officer.

Tanner nodded to himself and started to follow the thief. The alleyway Tanner was in was eerily silent and every step he took seemed to echo throughout the alley. He got to the corner the thief had disappeared around and Tanner poked his head around the corner. The street was empty. Tanner took out his gun and proceeded into Barker Street, holding his gun out in front of him. He looked around suspiciously, wondering where on earth that thief could have gotten to.

Tanner was a member of the Force, a select group of officers with unnatural abilities. All of them had some sort of power or ability that made them more powerful than the average officer. Tanner had the power of telekinesis and was so skilled in it he was able to move a car or even a truck. The Force usually dealt with supernatural beings and/or related incidents.

Tanner stood in the same spot for a minute, looking in every direction for any sort of sign that would indicate where the thief was. He lowered his gun a fraction of a centimetre when all of a sudden more than a hundred bullets shot out towards him. Without hesitation, Tanner dropped his gun, raised his hands and concentrated on the bullets rushing towards him. The bullets froze for just a fraction of a second then turned back into the opposite direction, heading towards the shooters. The unseen shooters screamed out in pain from all around Tanner. Even though they were out of sight, he knew that they were all close by and that it must have been a trap set by the thief’s employer.

Just then, three cars came bolting into view. Tanner looked at the cars and saw that the bonnet of the car was emblazoned with a large capital ‘F’ with a circle of fire all around it: the Force’s emblem. 6 Force members exited the cars holding the guns aloft. Overton, Tanner’s partner, walked over to him and picked up Tanner’s gun.

“Tanner, are you alright?”

Tanner merely nodded. Overton nodded as well, and started to look around.

“Where’s the thief, Tanner?” Overton asked.

“I don’t know. I was chasing him in the alley after he had stolen the artefact that I was assigned to. He then turned into this street and disappeared.”

Overton, Tanner and the other Force members looked around the street when all of a sudden the thief appeared out in the middle of the street.

“There!” called out one of the Force officers. Tanner looked around and when he saw him, he concentrated on the man and waved his hand at him. The thief flew backwards, hit the wall of a building and passed out.

Tanner lowered his arm and said to Overton, “That was easy.”

Overton shook his head and replied, “No something’s wrong. This was too easy.”

Tanner looked sideways at Overton.

Overton had the power of x-ray vision and he was able to psychically damage another person’s body when he was in his vision mode.

His eyes swept the street and the buildings. After finding nothing, Overton’s eyes became unfocused until his blue pupils turned bright red, which always happened when he used his x-ray powers. Looking around again, Overton focused on the building just to the left of us. Not knowing what would be there, a few members raised their guns, while the members that didn’t need guns raised their arms slightly.

Overton on the other hand, raised his hand and pointed to a solid brick wall. With a flick of his finger, a loud crack could be heard, followed by a loud scream. By the sound of the scream, Overton must have broken something vital. In quick succession, he moved his finger to the left and right, flicking his finger as he did so. Many screams could be heard, and it sounded as if he took out 5 guys. All of a sudden, Overton quickly looked around and whispered to Tanner,

“Get ready, a whole lot of guys are coming.”

And as if on cue, groups of guys were pouring out of the buildings in Barker Street. They surrounded the Force members but for some reason, they all seemed to look alike. Overton, Tanner and the rest of the Force members walked back towards their cars, while keeping an eye on the group. They formed a semi-circle facing out towards the enemies.

In one swift motion, they all started to run at the Force members, while the members defended themselves. Three of the guys ran at Tanner but he just causally threw his hand out forwards, and they flew backwards into the other guys that were attacking.

Overton, who was skilled in martial arts, planted a roundhouse kick right in the chest of the attacker with such force, that he fell over.

One of the new recruits, Collins, was able to both generate and manipulate ice. Cryokinesis, Collins called it.

He was going fairly well, considering that this was one of his first on site battles. Tanner quickly looked over at him to see if he was alright. Collins had just killed an enemy that was strangling him, by emitting sub-zero cold from his body. The man slowly froze up, until he just keeled over and died from the intense cold.

After an intense battle, the enemies were all dead. Tanner was breathing deeply and was nursing a gash on his arm left by one of the attackers. The others were also supporting small cuts and bruises, but were otherwise unharmed.

“That was tough,” said Collins.

“If you think that’s tough, wait until you face some of the battles we have to go through,” said Overton.

As we looked at the now deserted street, something shocking appeared before their very eyes. The men that they had killed were disappearing into thin air. Tanner looked, shocked as he saw his hard work vanish.

“Clones,” Overton muttered. Tanner looked at his partner and he saw him going into his vision mode. Overton remained still for a minute, but all of a sudden he gasped and pointed his finger ahead of him. He moved his finger slightly, but he was thrown back, over the car. Shocked, Tanner looked at his partner. He was alright, but apparently he was knocked out.

“I’ve always liked his power,” said a malicious voice.

Tanner’s head snapped towards the familiar voice coming from the alleyway.

Their stood a man in his early thirties. His long, golden brown hair seemed to reflect light back off onto the viewer. His grey eyes seemed to swirl with silver every time he was looking towards the light. Even though his looks might seem to be a splitting image of a young, rich bachelor, he was over 200 years old and his soul was as dark as the night sky.

His name was Karakas and he was a telepath. But his power allowed him to do something that no other telepath could do. If he concentrated hard enough when reading someone’s mind, he was able to suck out a person’s life force (thus killing them) and any abilities that person might have, thus allowing him to use it as his own. Ever since he gained the ability to slow down his aging process, he has gone throughout the centuries, stealing other people’s abilities and becoming extremely powerful.

“Karakas,” Tanner said through gritted teeth.

Karakas’ head turned towards Tanner’s, and smiled at him.

“Why, Officer Tanner. Long time no see. How is your dear grandmother doing? I must remember to pay a visit to her one day.”

The colour drained from Tanner’s face.

“You keep away from her,” Tanner choked out.

Almost every single member of Tanner’s, both past and present, had died at the hands of Karakas. His family was among one of the most powerful mind users on Earth, and Karakas had been picking them off one by one, taking their powers. Tanner’s father was both powerful and skilled in telekinesis, and had also become the target of Karakas. When Tanner was 15 and still practicing his powers, Karakas unsuspectedly attacked his family. Tanner managed to defend himself for a while, but became overwhelmed. His father came down to rescue him, and a fierce battle ensued. Tanner managed to get away from the battle and ran to get his mother, an Elementalist (a person who was skilled in the four elements: water, earth, fire and air). He was told to stay in the kitchen, but he followed his mother to the lounge room. As he watched, he saw his father telling his mother to get out of the house and to take Tanner with her, but in that slight moment of distraction, Karakas took the opportunity to focus on him and in a few seconds, he killed him and took his power. His mother, who had watched the scene unfold before her very eyes, attacked Karakas in an act of revenge, but Karakas waved his arm at her, and not knowing how to use it merely tripped her and knocked her out. Taking this opportunity, he killed her and took her powers as well. Karakas disappeared into thin air, and left Tanner alone with his dead parents. During the next few years, Tanner was left to live with his grandmother and grandfather, but he too was killed by Karakas, after he refused to tell him where his grandson was.

Karakas merely smiled at Tanner’s pathetic attempt to threaten him and continued to stare at the other Force members, obviously checking what their powers were. Tanner stood up, still next to Overton’s unconscious body, and spoke to Karakas.

“What are you doing here, Karakas?”

His head snapped back towards Tanner and replied,

“Wouldn’t you like to know?”

Tanner glared at him and said harshly, “Yes I would actually.”

Karakas smiled once again, and said, “Well, I’m here to collect a very valuable artefact. The same artefact you were supposed to be watching I believe Officer?”

“Where is it?” Tanner demanded.

“My dear friend Multiplicity has them…. Come on out…”

And the man that Tanner had been chaser earlier stepped out of the building’s shadow smiling mischievously, while holding something around his hand. Tanner immediately recognised it as the artefact which he had been guarding, an amulet.

“That is stolen property. Give it to me at once.” Tanner demanded.

Karakas merely laughed.

“You don’t think I’ll just give it to you, do you Tanner? My god, even your father wasn’t that stupid… but then again, he did try to save you, when he could’ve saved himself… talk about idiotic…”

Tanner had finally snapped. Concentrating on the amulet, he gestured it towards him and it flew out of Multiplicity’s hand and was halfway through the air when Karakas realised what had happened. He too concentrated on it, and the amulet froze in place and began to move towards him, but Tanner concentrated even harder on the amulet and it began to go back and forth between Tanner and Karakas, as if the amulet was on a rope and the two of them were pulling it towards themselves.

Tanner was concentrating a lot harder than usual. He had never been in a telekinetic battle with his father’s power, let alone his own dad. He also had never versed Karakas before, so he didn’t know how powerful he was with this power.

Karakas whispered something to Multiplicity and he nodded at once. All of a sudden, more than 20 of him appeared and ran straight towards the Force. They were ready however, and started to attack the clones. A few of them had decided to run at Tanner, but some Force members had realised how vulnerable Tanner was when he was locked into battle with Karakas, so they took them out for him. Meanwhile, Tanner was still locked in battle with Karakas. He had never used his power for so long before, and he was starting to feel weak and a bit dizzy. Karakas showed no signs of weakening, although it seemed as if he was straining himself. All of a sudden, Karakas threw his left hand back, concentrated on the energy around him and attacked Tanner with a powerful energy blast. Tanner saw this, and in the last second dived out of harm’s way. The attack hit the wall of a building, exploded when it came into contact with it and left behind a large crater.

Tanner looked at Karakas and saw that he was holding the amulet. He was smirking slightly and he called out to Multiplicity. He looked around and when he saw that Karakas had what he needed, he ran back to him and Karakas placed a hand on his shoulder and teleported out of the street, still holding onto the amulet.

Tanner still continued to stare at the spot where Karakas vanished, realising that he had let his parent’s murderer get away.

Collins walked over to him and asked,

“Officer? What do we do now?”

Tanner continued to stare at the same spot, not looking at anybody else. When he finally did say something, he wasn’t looking at any of them. He felt as if he had let them all down by letting Karakas get away.

“We go and tell Lieutenant Basdadi what has happened.” And with that, Tanner stood up, lifted Overton into the front seat of the car. The other Force members, taking Tanner’s hint, also got into their cars and left.

When they arrived at the Force Headquarters, they brought Overton to the infirmary and went to Lieutenant Basdadi’s office. Tanner knocked on the door and Basdadi’s gruff voice answered.

“Come in.”

Ali Basdadi was a rather tall man for someone so young. He was only 24 years old, but his prowess in his powers and his exceptional skills in dealing with danger quickly put him as one of the best. He had black hair and rather dark brown eyes. He had brown skin and was fairly muscular. Basdadi took his job rather seriously and was fairly strict sometimes. Even though he seemed to be a harsh person, he was really a happy-go-lucky guy and loved to talk to his friends and muck around. But when it came to his job, it was like he became a different person.

Basdadi was sitting at his desk, reading some papers. When Tanner and the other Force members entered, he looked up and put the papers away in his drawer. The force members lined up in front of his desk and stood up straight. Basdadi stood up and looked at Tanner.

“Officer Tanner. I heard that you requested backup when you were supposed to be guarding that artefact. What happened?”

“I’m sorry sir, but as I was guarding the artefact… I encountered a little problem.”

Basdadi glared at him and asked, “What sort of problem Tanner?”

Tanner stared back into those dark eyes, neither one of them blinking.

“The artefact was stolen sir.”

Basdadi narrowed his eyes at Tanner.

“What do you mean, it was stolen? Who stole it? Where is it now?” Basdadi demanded.

Tanner had finally blinked and Basdadi narrowed his eyes even further, making it look like he was squinting at them. Tanner looked down at his feet and began talking to them instead.

“Karakas,” Tanner said quietly.

Basdadi looked at him questioningly.

“Karakas?” he repeated, not knowing if Tanner was pulling his leg or not. If he was, he was doing a pretty good job of it. Tanner raised his head to meet Basdadi’s and looked at him directly. He nodded. Basdadi’s eyes faltered and he quickly looked away and started to mutter to himself.

“Not Karakas… he can’t be…. he’s not supposed to…”

“It is sir. We saw him. We all did,” said a Force member.

Basdadi looked at all of them and as he saw all of their concerned faces, some scared, he took that as a sign that all of them were telling the truth and that Karakas had, indeed, surfaced once again. Collins however, didn’t see why everyone was so alarmed. To him, it seemed they were fighting just another enemy. Collins decided to voice his thoughts.

“Why’s everyone so scared? Karakas just seems to be another guy that we can easily take down, right?”

Everyone looked at him and Basdadi walked over to him. Towering over Collins, he asked quietly, “Don’t you know about Karakas?”

Collins shook his head. Basdadi sighed and walked back to his desk. Placing both hands onto top of it, he leaned into it and started to talk to the desk, rather than Collins himself.

“Eons ago, Earth was ruled by Gods. Gods that had powers and abilities just like us. In fact, our powers came from them directly. Although there were too many to count, we can safely say that there were at least over a thousand Gods.”

Basdadi looked up at them all, and saw that all of them were looking at him. All of them, excluding Collins, had heard this story thousands of times, either from their relatives, or from Basdadi himself. But no matter how many times they had heard it, it was still interesting to hear from where they got their own individual powers from.

“The Gods were alive for quite a period of time” Basdadi continued, “but when they realised that they were slowly disappearing, they decided to pass their powers onto their loyal followers. One God, however, didn’t want to pass his powers onto just any old human. His name was Draken. No, he wanted someone as dark, as evil… someone just like himself. But he also had a plan. He decided to lock a part of himself up, so that when the descendant of his power came out, he would release Draken back out into the world, while both of them would work together and wreck havoc everywhere… or so it said on the tomb of Draken’s.”

“Draken has a tomb?!” Collins asked incredulously.

“Yeah, it’s somewhere in South America,” Tanner replied.

“Yes, in fact when we sent some of our Force members to check out his tomb, they told us they could feel immense power coming from it.”

“Wow… and that’s just a small part of Draken, right?” Collins asked.

“Yep. Imagine what it must’ve been like during his time.”

No one said anything. They could tell it probably would have been hell.

“Anyway, Draken had finally found someone whom he could safely pass his powers onto (Karakas’ distant relative). Draken was able to finally disappear, knowing that one day he’ll be back in the present time to rule once again. However, his brother, Leo, realised what Draken had done, and he decided to make sure that Draken could never be released. The only thing he could do was to place three locks on the tomb, while the keys were distributed among other people who had powerful abilities. Those keys had been passed down to different families, all guarding it as well as they can. One of them, the one you were supposed to be guarding Tanner,” Basdadi added, making him blush, “belonged to one of the families who are the descendants of those who were chosen to guard it. The last living member of that family had died, and it was placed under the care of the museum, although they don’t know its full use. But now that Karakas has it…”

“He’s going to get the other two,” Collins finished, looking horrified. “And when he does….. Draken will be finally unleashed.”

Basdadi merely nodded. Collins looked at the other members of the team, and saw that they were all sporting concerned looks.

“Well” Collins said, still looking at his fellow members, “We are doing something about it, aren’t we?”

Basdadi looked at him and replied, “Of course we are Collins. What, you think we’d just let Karakas and his follower’s run loose? This is why the Force was created; to deal with other forces regular police can’t handle. And this is definitely something the police won’t be able to handle.”

Karakas waved his hand over the moss covered walls of Draken’s tomb. A small line started to trace the outline of an invisible door, as if a laser was doing it. When it had finished, a solid, metal door appeared and Karakas and Multiplicity entered the underground chambers of Draken’s Tomb. Karakas concentrated on his hand, and a small flame lit up in the middle of it.

“Thank you Tanner’s mother,” Karakas said to himself.

Karakas led Multiplicity through narrow and sometimes steep passages to their underground chamber. This is where Karakas’ past relatives resided as they searched the world for the keys to unlock their master. As he walked into the chamber, three other people stood there, waiting for him.

Near the entrance to the chamber was Aeros. His dark, grey hair hid one side of his face, revealing only dark blue eyes and rather dark brown skin. He was able to create, manipulate and control the winds and he was also able to fly, if he directed the winds to carry him.

A little further into the chamber was Oceanus, and his ability allowed him to both create water and control it. He had light skin, with a tinge of blue added. His unusual dark green hair was tied back into a ponytail, while his baby blue eyes reflected the light given by Karakas’ flame.

Standing near the desk where all of Karakas’ work was rested upon, stood Cybele. Her tall, thin frame was matched by her elegant looks. Her long, blonde hair fell down past her shoulders, while her extremely bright green eyes also reflected off the flame Karakas held. Her unique ability allowed her to control nature at will and was also able to control any sort of animal she wanted.

As Karakas entered the chamber, they all looked at him.

“Well?” asked Aeros.

Karakas looked at him and raised the amulet in front of him so that everyone could see.

“You finally got it!” Cybele said breathlessly.

“Told you, you shouldn’t underestimate me,” Karakas said smugly.

“Yeah it took you, what, fifty, sixty years just to get your hands on it?” Oceanus said harshly.

“At least he got it,” Cybele said, her magnificent eyes narrowing towards Oceanus.

“Come now Cybele” Karakas said, moving towards her swiftly and placing a hand on her cheek, “He’s right… I should’ve tried harder.”

Oceanus gave him a smug smile.

“But now is not the time to argue over this. We must find the other two amulets. Cybele, what have your birds told you?”

She looked Karakas in the eye and said, “They’ve told me where we can find the second amulet…”

Karakas smiled at Cybele’s unique ability, thinking how lucky he was to have someone with Gaia’s power in his influence. He smiled at her and asked her, “Well then… what have your feathered friends told you, hmmm?”