Aboard Talon [Class V Light Cruiser]
Hyper-lane [traveling through the interconnected hyperspace highway]
5 December; 20:11:50 Hours
A sharp, high-pitched ringing shot through Drake’s ears. He frantically grabbed either side of his head and stumbled forward where his eyes pinched shut and teeth gritted. The ringing seemed to get louder and louder, and Drake continued to stumble where he slammed into the steel table to his left before nearly falling over. But, in an instant, it all stopped.
The heavy sound of Drake panting reverberated through the entirety of the common area of the cruiser, nearly gasping for air as he slowly reopened his eyes. Then, he just as slowly lowered his shaking hands from his head. He was experiencing double vision, still wobbling as he tried to remain upright but dropped to his knee nearly several times before quickly shooting back up straight.
“Hey… Hey, Drake… Hey… you oh—” Drake heard someone calling to him just before he violently gasped, his eyes rolled back into his head and it was as if he was thrust through a flood of colors; green, gold, crimson, and blue with what sounded like a million more voices calling from all around him.
“We have to move, Amaehun! We can’t stay here! Come - Abahaet won’t have died in vain!”
“Where is she? Answer me, dammit…Where… is… she?!”
“I don’t want to— I love you!” a familiar voice cried before another voice he knew but couldn’t place his finger on whose, said to the other.
“You prom-promised me - It’s okay. It, it’s okay. Don’t, erhmmmm, don’t cry. Puh-please… This, it’s something that, that’s, that has to be d-done… For the good of the U…”
Then he felt the intense pull that yanked him through the wash of colors, and a voice grew clearer and clearer as light broke through the colors while his vision cleared.
“How dare you! How dare you question his rule…” Dax barked from just beside a quad-piked marble throne.
“His rule? We, we vowed to fight against tyrants!” the single most familiar voice he heard yelled, and Drake laid eyes upon an older sight of himself while he loomed overhead of what was unfolding. “Not take their seat!”
There, sitting upon the throne beside his wife was Theo, and to his left, barely peering around the throne was a thirteen-year-old, raven-haired, olive-skinned girl. She wore a peacock blue robe that had ivory lace sleeves and adorned a glistening silver circlet upon her head. Dax, though, did not back down from Drake’s older self, as she quipped.
“He only took what was his… His BIRTHRIGHT!”
Drake then found himself standing beside this older version, watching him recoil at what she said, even looking away from the three before he grunted and took a step forward. The soldiers, King’s Guard, who adorned silver armor from head-to-toe with crimson capes that hung from their left shoulder had matched Drake's aggression as they stepped to him. Drake immediately stopped where he raised his golden robotic left hand, conveying he meant no harm. He quietly pleaded to Theo, “Hey… brother… will you look at me? Please. Please. Are you hearing what she’s espousing? It’s what WE promised to fight against… Come on—”
Theo’s head slowly rose, the sun shined on the blackened spires that orbited his head - a crown of darkness, and he looked into the older Drake’s eyes. Drake took several steps forward, through himself as he now stood between the two, where he watched this twisted vision. He shivered at the darkness that now sat dominion in the eyes of the man who he called a brother, only the iris in Theo’s left eye remained while pitch blackness consumed all else.
“The U needs order,” Theo spoke, “and I could not sit back in good conscience and allow an even worse evil to fill the void that WE created. So I decided—”
“To become that evil?”
“SILENCE, NAEXU!” Dax hissed at Drake.
“No, to become that order we both believe the U needs.”
“Don’t…” Drake softly warned.
A small grin spawned out the right side of Theo’s mouth. “Don’t what… brother?”
“Heeeeeh… Don’t make me have to stop you.”
“We all do what we must,” Theo sighed, raising his arms out to his sides as he now leisurely sat back on the throne.
Drake could see the older version of himself’s face contort with fury and disgust seconds before he reached behind his back, but before the unfolding events went on any further, Drake was yanked back through the rushing colors again. Though unlike before, Drake gasped for air and his eyes popped wide open as he felt his knees hit the ground. A woman placed her hand upon his back as a man crouched down in front of him, saying, “Hey! Hey! Are you okay, brother?”
He blinked several times fast, his vision was still a bit blurred but slowly cleared as he regained sight with Theo in front of him, smiling. Drake then frantically glanced over his shoulder, looking at his wife, Sarah, whose eyes were teary and a bit sunken from the fear of the state she just witnessed him in. His eyes continued to dart around, scanning the common area as he saw Cole who watched on from back behind Theo before he heard Theo again.
“What happened? You okay? You just… just blanked on us.”
“Yeah, what the hell?” Sarah said as she nuzzled her forehead into his shoulder.
Drake gulped and hesitantly nodded. “Y-yeah. I’m…We, we're okay… for now.”