🏰Chapter 7 : The Fall of the Academy

The Order was in the midst of a perilous battle against possessed droids and intergalactic darkness, which had somehow breached their orbital stealth shields. Master Ya'zz valiantly led the defense of the Academy, while Master Talia questioned how such a breach could have occurred.

"Did the alarm not go off when the shields were down? What of the disaster recovery systems?" she asked. The officer in charge of the shields' forensics replied that no anomalies had been found. Master Ya'zz, however, whispered to Master Talia that it all seemed like an inside job and that the Grand Master was likely behind it.

"Quickly, gather the PE team alpha," Master Ya'zz ordered the officer. "We must make our way to the High Tower and confront the Grand Master before it's too late." And with that, they left the safety of the Master's Keep to face their greatest foe.

Red and Kyle were in a sticky situation. They were being chased by medical droids, but they needed to get to the communications sector to reset the network and save the Academy. Red stopped in her tracks and spoke urgently to Kyle. “We need to get to the communications sector to reset the network using the kill switch. That’s the only way we can summon synthetic troops to defend the Academy.”

Kyle nodded, eager to fight back. “Good. It was about time to fight back, let’s get these droids first. Then I will cover you while you try to get access to the tower.”

Red and Kyle got into position and activated their PETs, preparing for the attack. Five droids appeared, two of them jumping onto the ceiling of the hallway. Red used her telekinesis to pull down a statue onto the droids while Kyle dismembered another. But they were outnumbered and needed to retreat.

“We need to fight smart, we are outnumbered. Let’s take them through the sky bridge to narrow down the fighting ground,” said Red.

They reached the sky bridge, but the doors were locked due to the lockdown. Kyle got to work trying to cut open the console while Red took care of the droids. Kyle managed to take down one of them with an EMP round, but the others dodged his bullets. He switched to melee mode and was about to attack when a cyborg zombie smashed through the window and dragged him away into the darkness.

Red was left alone, but she managed to use her lightning strike to fry the remaining droids. She had to continue on to the communications sector alone, hoping to reset the network and save the Academy.

As Red looked out the window, she saw a sight that would forever be seared into her memory: the Academy, her home, under attack by an army with a singular purpose: to obliterate the Order of Epoch. With no time to waste, she climbed out of the window and onto the sky bridge, narrowly avoiding a flying cyborg zombie.

As she ran towards the control tower, she came face to face with the Grandmaster, who was holding some sort of dark PETs. He was malformed and twisted into a monster. Red realized what happened.

Lilith finally captured the Grand Master during the mission. She used her dark magic and Shadow Matter to turn him into a cyborg of her will. The explosion was a deliberate act of the Grand Master to destroy the Academy.

A handful of high-ranking Masters, including Master Talia, arrived at the control tower from the opposite sky bridge.

With a sly grin, the Grandmaster used the PETs to unleash a sonic blast that killed several Masters and knocked others off the sky bridge.

Only Masters Talia and Ya'zz remained standing, thanks to a plasma shield created by Master Talia. They confronted the Grandmaster with their own PETs, but Red knew that they needed to activate the kill switch to have any hope of saving the Academy.

As she worked on the terminal, she heard Kyle's voice, and turned to see him standing next to her. "Seems like you need a hand," he said. Red was surprised, thinking she had lost him earlier. Kyle explained that it takes more than a stupid flying zombie to take him down, and the two worked together to rewire the controls and trigger the defense systems of the Academy.

As the synthetic troops were unleashed upon the cyborg zombies, Red and Kyle joined the fight on the sky bridge. Master Talia ordered Kyle to take Red away from the Academy, as she was the key to ending the war.

Though Red resisted, Kyle convinced her that they couldn't help Master Talia by fighting the Grandmaster and risking their lives.

Instead, they made their way towards the hangars using hidden passages. Kyle touched a statue, which turned into a dark hidden passage, and they stepped into the darkness together, ready to escape the hell that had befallen the Academy.