CHAPTER TWENTY
Justin ran blindly down the corridors. He didn’t have a clue where he was going, all that mattered was that he got away from the dragon. He stopped to catch his breath and leaned heavily against a wall. Now that he thought about it, what was he going to do? The Backstreet Boys were his only ticket out of here!
CHAPTER TWENTY ONE Kevin led the way along the corridors and Brian walked beside him. Twice they bumped into Zato’r guards but AJ had been much quicker on the draw than they had.
“Justin!”
The shout made him spin around quickly. It was Lance and the others. Justin had never been more relieved to see anyone in his whole life.
“Guys!” he said, running up to them and trying to hug them all at once. “You don’t know how glad I am to see you!”
“We were dead worried about you, man!” Lance said. “We got bored waiting in the docking bay on our own so we decided to come and look for you. You okay?”
“Yeah I’m fine.”
“What about the Backstreet Boys?” JC asked.
“Brian got sucked into the Daori dimension. They were talking about going after him! I told them that I’d come and look for you.” He wasn’t about to tell them that he’d ran away.
“What’ll we do now?” Chris said.
“I say we leave. We can take Zanell’s ship. if the Backstreet Boys have gone to the Daori dimension then their as good as dead. You all remember what Zator told us about it,” Lance replied. “Come on, guys. I think I know the way back to the docking bay.”
“You’re not going anywhere,” a deep voice announced from behind them.
“H – Hello, Zator,” Justin stammered, staring up at the evil emperor and his guards.
“You should never cross me,” Zator said, loading his laser up and pointing it at the boys.
“B – But you g – got what you w – wanted,” Justin said. “Brian is in t – the Daori dimension.”
Zator lowered the laser. “So my plan worked,” he said. “What about the other Backstreet Boys and my daughter Zanell?”
“Zanell left the docking bay to look for them. We haven’t seen her since,” Chris replied.
“And I left the boys fighting a huge dragon that came through the portal,” Justin said. “They were going to try and rescue Brian.”
Zator sneered. “I doubt they’ll succeed. Well, I think I should go and see them, and of course I’ll need to meet my new Daori friends who will help me to conquor your pathetic, little planet!” He laughed in a booming voice which made N*Sync instinctively back away.
“What about us?” Justin asked.
“Guards!” Zator snapped. “Take these idiots to the prison cells! I grow weary of their foolish ways and ugly faces.”
“No, please don’t!” Justin begged, as the guards grabbed them all and began to haul them down the corridor.
Zator ignored the futile pleading. He now had to find the Backstreet Boys and Zanell to prevent them from interfering with the invasion of earth.
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Nick and the others stared at the rippling portal. They all seemed to be frozen to the spot. Nick clenched the hilt of his sword tightly. What was coming now? The dragon had been hard enough…
There was a rumbling noise and then a bright flash of light from the portal blinded all four of them for a moment. There was a thump as something hit the floor.
When the light faded, Nick rubbed his eyes for a few seconds, trying to recover from the pain of the light. Then he opened them and seen what had come through.
For a second, he couldn’t say anything, no one could. Then pure terror began to billow up inside of Nick. This was much worse than the dragon, so much more worse…
“No,” Nick whispered. “Please no. Anything but this.”
Kevin was the one who flipped. “NO! I’ll kill Zator! I’ll kill him!” he screamed as he ran to the portal and knelt down beside the limp form which had emerged from it.
Nick, AJ and Howie ran to Kevin’s side.
“Kevin, is he …?” Howie asked, the dread in his voice clear.
“Brian, please wake up,” Kevin said, scooping his cousin up into his arms.
“Brian?” Nick said, trying to stop himself from sobbing. “Brian!”
“Is he breathing?” AJ asked desperately. “Check for a pulse!”
Kevin pressed a hand to Brian’s neck and the others watched anxiously for a sign that Brian was alright.
“Come on, Brian,” Kevin pleaded.
“I – I’m o – okay,” Brian suddenly stammered weakly, his eyes flickering open. “I’m still a- alive.”
Kevin looked as if he were about to cry. He pulled his cousin close and hugged him tightly, unable to express his relief in words.
“Geez Brian, don’t ever scare me like that again, okay?” AJ said.
Brian smiled slightly and nodded. When Kevin released him from the embrace, the others immediately seized him as well.
“Hey get off of me! You’re squashing me!” Brian croaked, trying to push them all off of him.
“Brian how did you escape?” Nick asked, grinning.
“We’ll talk about that later,” Kevin said. “Right now, we have to get out of here and get back to Zanell. Anything could come through that portal and we don’t want Zator to find us.”
“You’re right, Kev,” Nick said. “We’ve got the trip back home to hear about your escape Brian!”
Kevin pulled Brian to his feet and helped him to the door. AJ hesitated for a second.
“What’s up?” Nick asked.
“Did you just see that?” he whispered.
“What?”
“Look at Brian’s eyes.”
“Why, what’s wrong with them?”
“As he stood up, they glinted red.”
“What! Don’t be ridiculous, Bone!”
“I’m serious Nick! I don’t think we have the real Brian with us. You think that the Daorians would give him up so easily?”
“You’re being paranoid!”
“Hey! You two coming?” Kevin asked, from the door.
“Uh, yeah sure Kevin!” Nick called, then more quietly he said to AJ : “Look it’s probably nothing! Maybe the light made them look red or something!”
“Whatever you say, Nick, but I think that we should keep a very close eye on him. Something’s not right.”
Nick walked a little way behind, brooding on what AJ had said. He kept one eye on Brian permanently, looking for any sign that he was an intruder. Brian was unusually quiet but that didn’t necessarily mean that he was a monster, he’d been through a lot during the past few days.
“It’s not far now,” Kevin said. “I recognise this corridor.”
“You said that ages ago!” Howie replied.
“Yeah and all of these corridors look exactly the same!” AJ said.
“I mean it this time,” Kevin said. “We go right at this junction.”
“You sure?” AJ said. “I think that we should go left.”
“No, we go right. The door to the docking bay is down there, look.”
“There’s an identical door down here as well!”
Brian turned his head slightly to look down another corridor and Nick’s heart jumped as he saw his eyes flash red for a second. He looked at the others but none of them had noticed. AJ and Kevin were arguing and Howie was trying to sort it all out. No one was paying any attention to Brian.
He took a few steps closer and saw that Brian was watching Kevin. Then he saw something in Brian’s hand flicker slightly. It was a knife blade. Where had that come from? Brian would never carry a knife around with him no matter how many fans were after him!
Kevin and AJ continued to argue about each other’s sense of direction, completing ignoring Howie’s attempts to settle it. Brian held the knife’s black handle close by him and moved towards the unsuspecting Kevin.
‘What am I just standing here for?’ Nick suddenly asked himself. He grabbed his sword and leapt towards Brian. He pinned him to the wall and pressed his sword against his throat. Brian’s knife clattered to the floor.
“Who are you and where’s my friend?” Nick asked.
“Nick! What are you doing?” Kevin said, angrily turning round. “Get off of him!”
“It’s not him, Kevin! He was just about to stab you with that!” Nick kicked the knife towards Kevin, not moving his sword away from Brian.
Kevin carefully picked it up and turned it over in his hands. The blade had a dark blue tint to it and the heavy handle was ebony black and etched into it were images of beasts, including a dragon.
“Where’s Brian?” Kevin snapped at their prisoner.
Brian glared at Nick with undisguised malevolence in his eyes. Nick had never seen such a hate filled look in his entire life. When Brian spoke his voice had changed. Now it was twisted with hatred.
“Wouldn’t you like to know?” he replied with a sick little smile.
“I’ll kill you if you don’t tell us!” Nick said, pressing his sword closer to Brian’s neck.
“If you kill me then you’ll also kill your precious Brian. This is his body but I’m in control of it. Now release me!”
Nick was suddenly thrown backwards, knocking Howie over in the process, by an invisible force. His sword was wrenched from his grip and the blade slid into a wall as if it were nothing but butter. AJ raised his guns as Brian took a step forward.
“Oh I wouldn’t do that,” Brian hissed. “If they go off then poor, ickle Bri might end up with a nasty hole in his stupid head.”
“They’re on stun,” AJ said, not lowering them.
Brian’s eyes flashed red again and AJ’s guns were yanked out of his hands. Brian reached out his hands and the guns came to him. He adjusted the settings and aimed them at the boys.
“Now they’re set to kill,” he said.
“Who are you? What do you want?” Howie asked.
“Are you a Daorian?” AJ said.
“Not just any Daorian, I am the great emperor of the Daori dimension,” Brian replied.
“What do you want with Brian?” Kevin asked.
“I’ve had my eye on your dimension for a long time. Ever since that fool Zator first opened a portal I knew that I had to have this universe, it is so much better than my own. Unfortunately, my own body was destroyed in a short while ago. Since that day I have existed as a ghost. I needed a body to come through into this dimension.”
“But why Brian?” Kevin persisted.
“He was the only one who was compatible with me. Now I have a new body I can rule again and my people will respect me. I am going to take over this dimension and then we Daorians can have the home we deserve. I am sorry to inform you, though, that you will not witness my rise to greatness. I have the feeling that you would try to stop me. Therefore, I am going to kill you all.”
Brian smiled evilly and pressed his fingers on the trigger of both guns but before he could fire, he was interrupted.
“Hello, boys. Nice to see you again.” It was Zator.
Brian turned around irritably. “What do you want?” he snapped. “I don’t need you anymore.”
Zator raised an eyebrow. “I expected to see your little friends but I’d heard you were in the Daori dimension.”
“They are not my friends.”
Suddenly it hit Zator. “You’re from the Daori dimension?”
“Correct. I thank you Zator for giving me what I wanted, but now I have no further use for you.”
Zator was suddenly thrown at the wall and pinned back. Brian approached him. Kevin gestured to the others.
“Come on guys. We have to find Zanell,” he whispered. “She might know how to help Brian.”
“But we had a deal!” Zator said to Brian. “I give you the Backstreet Boy you wanted and then you helped me to invade earth!”
“I am going to invade earth, but not for you. I am doing it for my people.”
“But you said - ”
“I lied,” Brian said, simply. He transferred one of the guns to his belt and then raised his arm. A jagged bolt of lightning shot from his fingers and struck Zator. Zator bellowed with pain and then slumped down to the floor, unconscious.
Brian grinned and turned around to face the Backstreet Boys.
“Now where was I?” he said.
But they had gone.