When the Gem awakens to call a Hero, the world is ill prepared...and its fate is placed in the hands of a 17 year old boy, named Wendell.
Some will say this is nothing but a tale of fiction.
Let them think as they may.
After all...I can't fix stupid.
Previously: Wendell, Dax and Alhannah win the Trench Wars championship in a near impossible feat. As they climb to the victory stand to address the 2 million screaming fans, the magical disguises created by Chuck fail…on live TV.
Chapter 72
There are dark times that we all must pass through.
Experiences that we strive with our might to avoid, to sidestep…even run from.
It’s virtually inevitable.
Our very nature shouts at us to avoid the pain, avoid the anguish, the very discomfort that can (and will) shape our hearts for the better.
Don’t feel bad. Few of us ever run towards the things we fear—embracing the unknown or the difficult.
The human in us hides, blocks, ignores, retreats.
It may be a relationship, a painful conversation or confrontation…or even a situation fraught with danger. It doesn’t even have to be real…so long as our minds perceive it to be.
The truth is, every experience you have is an opportunity to grow.
Even the darkest moments of your life provide a chance to let those untapped talents, skills, and potential peek out and rise to the challenge.
So when difficult times envelop you and it feels as if you’re drowning, take comfort in the knowledge that everything has its season.
The pain and confusion…will…not…last…forever.
Focus on the little things.
If you do that, you’ll find the strength to endure until the sun can shine once more.
Oh, and just as a side note…being the center of attention isn’t always a good thing.
The loudest sound was the pounding in my ears.
Okay, it wasn’t actually a sound,…it was pressure.
But that pressure sounded like war drums beating inside my skull, warning of something terrible just over the horizon.
It took a moment to realize it was my heartbeat.
Rain drizzled down my face as I blinked, trying hard to focus.
The Trench Wars stadium wrapped around me…a massive gnome-built bowl of stone and steel. The place was gargantuan, even in my human form…bigger than any football stadium I’d seen on TV back home. Fans stood frozen in front of their seats, staring.
Two million of them.
All of them were deathly silent.
It was a whole new level of creepy.
Dax, Alhannah, and I stood atop the champion platform. We’d just won the greatest extreme sport in the country, which most sources said couldn’t be done. Yet here we were.
A heartbeat later, the charms Chuck had made to hide our identities…failed.
All the cameras were on us.
Live.
Sending our images out to the gnome population of 1.5 billion Clockwork City citizens.
I didn’t need to look up to know what the screens showed. I could feel it to the soles of my feet.
All eyes were on a human, an evolu who looked way too much like a vallen that had grown wide instead of up, and Alhannah, the people’s champion…bloodied and unconscious.
Now, everyone saw faces no one was supposed to see.
“Psst!” Dax grunted.
I barely registered it.
With his arm in a sling, he was struggling to hold Alhannah upright. She sagged onto his hip, her hands scraping the stone.
“Wendell!” he hissed again, louder.
He finally had to let her slip. Dropping to one knee, he caught her before her head struck the platform. “Hang in there, kiddo,” he murmured.
For some reason, I couldn’t stop watching Dusty Beckworth and Pip Flocker.
The Trench Wars announcers were sprinting across the arena floor, heading for the nearest exit like their lives depended on it.
That’s when it hit me.
I swallowed hard. My throat made an embarrassing noise that echoed farther than it should have. My eyes dropped to the microphone lying near my feet.
This was the moment we had fought for.
Shouldn’t I say…something?
Reassure them.
Explain what they’re seeing before someone makes an assumption?
I mean, they weren’t moving…at all. Which was the weird thing. They weren’t screaming. No one was running.
They were just…staring.
THA-THUMP-THUMP.
My stomach cramped hard, and the desire to wretch jumped into my throat.
Something was very wrong.
Why are they all so quiet?
THA-THUMP-THUMP.
“Port us out of here, Dax,” I said.
He looked up at me, confused. “What?”
To the west of the platform, a pilot pit door opened. The sound of the screeching metal echoed so loudly it reverberated throughout the stadium.
Centurions marched out in formation. Black leather riot armor. Mirrored helmets. Long blue rods crackled at the tips.
Awwww crap.
THA-THUMP-THUMP.
“I said port us out of here!” I snapped. “Now!”
Heavy boots hit the ground in perfect unison. The sound rolled through the stadium like distant thunder.
Dax’s ears twitched. “Right,” he said, uncertain. “Get close, kid. I don’t know how much strength I’ve got left.”
I dropped to my knees, curling in tight beside Alhannah. I squeezed my eyes shut and braced for the crack of teleportation magic.
Nothing happened.
“Ungh—”
Dax slumped forward and slid off my back, hitting the platform with a wet thud. Blood seeped from beneath his bandage, trailing between his oversized brows and down his cheek.
“Dax!” I rolled him over to get a better look.
“I’m fine,” he winced. “Just…can’t port. I’m sorry, kid. Too much.”
“It’s okay,” I said, “I’ve got you.” But it didn’t feel okay. The stories I’d heard from Alhannah and Chuck about the Government Faction weren’t pretty. Gnomes did not want visitors.
Period.
We had to get the heck out of here…and fast.
I hauled Dax up and slung him over one shoulder. With the other arm, I scooped Alhannah against my chest, cradling her like she weighed nothing.
Then I ran.
Help me, I begged silently. I didn’t know how to pray to the Ithari, or even if I should…but I did it, anyway. Please…help us get out of here. Our friends are already hurt. We need to keep them safe!
Not sure if it was what I said, or the fear swelling up in my chest, but power instantly surged through my veins. It was warm and electric, lending my legs strength.
You don’t have to tell me twice.
I took off, away from the Centurions.
They instantly broke into a sprint behind me.
No time. No plan. Just run.
The west wall loomed ahead.
I needed a door. Any door.
Someone screamed from the stands.
A sharp, piercing sound.
Pure terror.
…and that’s all it took.
The stadium exploded in panic.
“He’s coming to get us!”
“They’ll eat us!”
“It’s another invasion!”
Gnomes surged toward the exits, climbing over seats, over each other, clawing and shoving and trampling anything in their way.
“Well,” Dax muttered between labored grunts, bouncing on my shoulder, “that’s more like it. Thought for a second they’d grown spines.”
“What’s wrong with them?” I gasped, my legs now burning.
“They’re scared of big folk,” he said. “Never quite made sense to me. Doesn’t matter how many biggies there are. If you’re twice their size, they assume you’re hungry for gnome.”
“They think I want to eat…”
Door.
I saw it.
A pit entrance was left open.
A microphone lay just outside it…the one Pip was still holding as he fled.
Almost there.
My legs screamed.
Blood trickled down my neck, cold and sticky. Dax’s soaked clothes rubbed against my skin, sending shivers through me.
Almost free.
Then—
The pit door slammed shut.
Then locked.
“No!” I shouted.
“Was that…?” Dax gulped.
“Yeah.”
His head sagged against my back. “Fairy farts.”
Boots pounded closer.
Centurions fanned out, forming a semicircle, trapping us against the wall.
I lowered Alhannah gently to the stone. Then I set Dax beside her. Stepping forward, I placed myself between my friends and the soldiers. All I could see was my own reflection in the mirrored visors closing in.
Oh, this was so not good.
Dax looked up at me, eyes unfocused. “They ain’t gonna be nice to us.”
I forced a smile I didn’t feel.
“Yeah,” I said, raising my hands in submission. “I know.”
The hallways throbbed under the crushing weight of bodies.
Fear had a smell.
It was sharp. Metallic.
It tangled with sweat and panic as fans shoved their way toward the nearest exits, scraping shoulders and skulls along cement walls.
Skin tore.
Blood smeared.
No one stopped.
Höbin watched gnomes trample one another, deaf to pleas and screams. This wasn’t a crowd anymore. It was a force. A single, mindless surge that demanded release.
The strong stayed upright, shoving their way through, noses barely above the tide, while the small disappeared beneath it.
Some gnomes drowned.
The Trench stadium’s white halls soon bled red.
…and there was nothing the historian could do about it.
Höbin clenched his jaw, ignoring the warm trickle down his own cheek. He reached up and adjusted the slider near where his left ear used to be, fingers slipping on blood. The connection to his cybernetic eye flickered, stuttered, then failed completely.
“Idiot,” he muttered.
There was no time to repair it.
He snapped the battery pack off and kept moving.
The mob thinned as panic funneled people outward. That helped. Höbin needed to travel in the opposite direction. He pushed against the flow, boots slipping, prosthetic foot clicking sharply against stone with every uneven step.
Click. Clack.
Click. Clack.
Click. Clack.
Too loud. Didn’t matter.
His heart hammered. Lungs burned. Time was gone. Whatever plan he’d had was already obsolete.
He spotted the stairwell too late.
By the time he reached it, he was wheezing, shoulders slamming into the railing as he caught himself from pitching forward. He leaned there, gasping, keeping a solid grip on the metal bars. His eyes watered as he looked down.
Three flights.
Below, the Trench yawned open. The arena floor churned with movement. Centurions dragged limp bodies toward pit doors, armor glinting under harsh lights.
Höbin swore softly.
Without his mechanical eye, he couldn’t tell who they’d caught.
“No, no, no,” he rasped, fingers digging into the rail. His legs trembled, threatening mutiny.
The authorities wouldn’t parade prisoners through the open. Not after this. Exposure caused the panic. Containment would be next.
Hidden. Quiet.
His lips twitched.
“Garage,” he grunted.
He turned and ran.
Each step jarred his leg, vibration rattling up his spine. His heart struggled to keep pace, old and stubborn and furious at him for asking so much.
“I’m too old for this nonsense,” he growled between breaths.
Plans came slowly now. That was the truth he hated most.
Gnomes were curious by nature. Brilliant at spotting patterns. That was why the situation had already spiraled out of control. They wouldn’t be fooled. They wouldn’t be reasoned with.
And he couldn’t negotiate.
He was an exile. Being seen in Clockworks City at all was grounds for execution.
“So,” Höbin muttered, skidding to a stop at the elevator bank, “shock and awe it is.”
He slapped the call button and dug into his vest. His fingers closed around a familiar ring.
“Well, Chuck,” he panted, slipping it on, “I sincerely hope you planned ahead.”
The elevator chimed.
Höbin smiled thinly.
“Please,” I begged again.
The word came out wet and wrong, blood spraying from the split corners of my mouth.
Forced to carry my friends to the seclusion of the underground parking garage, the Centurions closed off the exits. Transport trucks were sent for, and then the majority of the squad was sent to deal with crowd control. When the transport arrived, they put me and Dax in chains, and tossed Alhannah’s limp body aside.
We were left with the ‘fun’ ones to watch over us.
I’m guessing true bullies from the banter between them.
Class acts.
They beat Dax unconscious with batons first. Not because he was a threat, but because he wasn’t a gnome. Dax’s head bandage was solid red now; blood caked his face.
They also kicked Alhannah.
Repeatedly.
She never woke up.
When I tried to defend her, they all turned on me.
There wasn’t anything to do but protect my head as best I could and curl into a ball. Batons and boots to my back, ribs, stomach, legs and arms.
“I don’t… mean harm,” I pleaded. “…to anyone,” I choked out. “If you’d just listen, I…”
“Shut up,” a Centurion barked.
The rifle butt struck my chin.
The sound cracked through my skull, and the world snapped sideways. Pain flared white-hot for a heartbeat…then everything went dark.
My body sagged forward, chains catching me before I could fall. My head lolled, chin slick with blood, breath shallow but steady.
“Can you believe this guy?” one of the Centurions snorted. He nudged Dax’s battered face with the toe of his boot. “Didn’t know vallen came this small.”
“Naw.”
“How in TGII do you think it got this far into the island? Look at it. Ugliest thing I’ve ever seen.”
The other guard scoffed. “How did they get on the island? You serious? They just won Trench Wars. That’s like some guttersnipe breaking into your house and out-baking yer mom’s secret bread recipe and serving it to you! They mocked all that’s good in us. These two, and that one.” He jabbed a finger toward Alhannah’s unmoving body. “A freakin traitor, she is. Who knows how long they’ve been here?”
Silence settled between them.
“You think there’s more?” one asked quietly. “Walking around. Pretending to be… you know. Like us?”
“Us as in gnomes, or us as Centurions?”
That made the other pause. He scratched the smooth curve of his mirrored helmet. “You ever wonder why all our helmets are mirrored?”
“So I can do my job and still have a normal life, idiot. Can’t exactly arrest my mother-in-law and have my own wife recognize me.”
“Huh.” He nodded. “Fair point.”
“The Captain’s always been a little off, though.”
“From your mouth to my ears.”
Boots echoed.
The commanding officer strode up in black and red, clipboard in hand. “Bentley. Cadson.”
Both guards snapped to attention. “SIR!”
“We’ve been ordered to control the panic outside. Minimize casualties after the prisoners are secured.” He didn’t look up. “Gassing the crowd is authorized, but if you hurry, I’ll allow a few taser applications for morale.”
The Centurions elbowed each other excitedly.
“The aliens are chained and ready for transport, sir.”
DING.
All three spun toward the elevator, hands dropping to sidearms.
The doors slid open.
Empty.
They relaxed.
The officer kicked Alhannah once, hard enough to draw a grunt from her throat. “Secure the trash and lock the transport. We need all hands on deck. Any trouble, call for backup.”
“SIR-YES SIR!”
The officer vanished down the corridor.
“Put him on the list too,” Bentley muttered, jerking his chin toward Wendell. “What a turd.”
“Quit whining and help me load the traitor.”
A tin can clattered across the cement.
It bounced once.
Twice.
Stopped between them.
“Oh cra—”
The darts fired.
Fifty thousand volts snapped through their armor, pop-wires crackling as both Centurions collapsed, limbs jerking violently. Helmets rattled loose and skidded across the floor.
“Sorry, boys,” Höbin whispered.
He removed the Shade ring from his finger, kissed it once, and tucked it away.
He went to Alhannah first.
Blood crusted her face, bruises blooming dark along her cheeks and throat. Höbin checked her breathing, then pressed a gentle kiss to her forehead. “I’ll be right back.”
Inside the transport, the smell of blood and metal made his stomach twist.
Dax was chained to the wall, jaw shattered, face swollen beyond recognition. Höbin’s fingers trembled as he traced the unnatural ridges beneath the skin.
“Those bastards,” he breathed.
Then he turned to me.
The smiley face on my shirt stared back at him. Frozen.
Höbin lifted my head carefully.
His breath hitched.
The Centurions had been gentle with Dax.
Höbin worked the lock anyway, retracting the tip of his artificial pinky to reveal the pick. It was useless. Gnome shackles were not meant to be opened by hands like his.
He leaned forward until his forehead rested against the chains. “I’m sorry, Wendell.”
“Höbin…”
The voice was barely there.
The gnome turned.
Dax’s lips moved. Eyes hidden beneath swollen flesh, searching for sound.
“I can’t get the shackles off,” Höbin said, voice breaking. “I have to move you to use the port key, but I can’t—”
Broken fingers brushed his knee.
“Go.”
Höbin hesitated, port key clenched in his hand.
“Take her,” Dax whispered. “And go.”
Höbin placed his flesh hand in Dax’s grasp and leaned in, touching foreheads. “I’m so sorry.”
Dax squeezed once.
Then let go.
Höbin stepped back, defeated.
He carried Alhannah away as the Centurions began to stir, anger and fear burning behind his eyes. The port key flared in his palm.
“Forgive me,” he whispered.
Then he vanished.
Author’s Note
Welcome to the start of SEASON 6!! I’m excited to get back into Wendell’s adventures and work toward the publication of the second volume in the Chronicles of a Hero series.
2026 is going to be a fantastic year, with many surprises and fun events, treats and if all goes well, some immersive merch for everyone =)
If you’ve enjoyed this series thus far, please let me know by telling someone about this story. I rely on word of mouth for all this to grow, so don’t be shy.
Here’s to a new year and a new season!!
Jaime
