Calice Awakens

With most of Shien's friends joining Mivangeline's party in the Syanic Earth, the only three friends in real life were Dorian, Nashura, and Calice. Dorian escaped Zentroid with Saitori while Nashura and her family helped Isrina escape Hernamidos. Calice wasn't so lucky, for she was captured by Hernamidos while the Reaper Squad shot her parents down for being anti-Kneapexist journalists.

"Mom! Dad!" Calice shook in a spherical machine, remembering the incident.

Aggressive sparks of electricity roared through the device.

"Her ZNA levels have spiked! Her power is over the charts!"

"Damn it! She's going to break the sphere! Sedate her! Sedate her!"

"She's not being submissive. Notify the general!"

The scientists screamed as the sphere broke open. Turquoise lightning rampaged across the room, making the computers explode. The monstrous lightning killed the scientists as Calice rolled off the containment tube. She breathed heavily as alarms blared.

"A-aiya," Calice sat up, opening her brown eyes. "What's happening?"

She looked at the dead scientists and the room full of spherical containment tubes. The red alarm above the doors hurt her ears. Calice clenched her fist with irritation, unintentionally releasing a thunderbolt. The alarm exploded.

"Eh?" She gasped. "D-did I do that?"

Wearing a white crop hoodie and black leggings, Calice stared at her hands. Sparks of blue lightning flashed about her body. She could feel the static coursing through the veins of her arms and legs. The sparks skipped across her black hair.

"What's that? Did I come out of that?" Calice looked at the containment tube she awakened from. "How long was I in there?"

"Freeze! Freeze!" Voice scramblers sounded from the doors.

Calice saw Reaper Squad commandos facing their bayoneted rifles at her.

"Hands behind your head!" A commando spat.

Calice shivered.

"Do it now!"

She did as she was told.

"Turn around!"

Her legs trembled, turning around as a commando walked towards her with handcuffs. Calice then remembered the moment the Reaper Squad gunned her parents down. When Calice heard the snapping of the handcuffs from the approaching commando, her anger released a thunderbolt at the soldier, killing him.

"Fire!" The other commandos shouted in aggressive Chinese, blasting their rifles at Calice.

She hissed as her body burst with lightning that vaporized the plasma fireballs and lunged at the secret police by surprise. The soldiers lay dead around her.

"Aiya," Calice shuddered. "I-I don't understand. What do I do now?"

She then walked to the door, peeping out to find an enormous hallway. The walls and floors were metal gray except for the blaring red alarms. Calice walked about the hall, uncertain where to go.

"Over here!" She heard a commando shout.

Calice hid behind a wall, watching two commandos and crusader droids enter the experimental room. She ran across the labyrinth with many turns and rooms, escaping the alarmed patrols.

I wish Shien or one of my goons was here. Calice worried. I could use their company.

"What do we have here?" A voice said behind her.

Calice shuddered. She looked back to see a black-haired man with purple eyes wearing a dark suit.

"Who are you?" Calice panicked, unintentionally releasing a thunderbolt at the wall.

"Listen, I know you are scared," The man told her. "But I'm here to help you. Calice, right?"

She didn't reply.

"You can call me Dacos. You have ZNA powers like the Vulpi, right?"

Calice looked at her fingers that sparked with electricity.

"I have powers too," Dacos used his hands to create a ball of whirling air.

Calice shuddered from Dacos' demonstration.

"I have been through the same thing you have," Dacos adjusted his suit. "I also came out of a giant test tube as you did. That's how I got my telekinetic abilities."

"Y-you too?"

"Yes. Look, I can help you get out of here. You just have to trust me," Dacos lifted his hand to her. "I know how confusing it is to find out you have superpowers, but I assure you, you will be safe with me."

Calice blankly stared at the hand with her arms crossed. She looked behind her to see a few crusader droids running across the hallway's maze.

"It's okay," Dacos assured. "They won't find you. I promise."

Can I trust him? Calice thought. I don't know him. Wait a second.

She looked at a symbol on the agent's suit. It was a metallic minotaur's skull with five red stars on top. Calice knew what that symbol was, the emblem of the Chinese Kneapexist Party, Fanghui's insignia of Vulpi persecution. Calice gnashed her teeth, zapping Dacos with lightning. Dacos groaned, feeling his limbs twitch with static.

"Ow! Why?" Dacos' eyes fluttered. "What's wrong with you? I was trying to help!"

"Maybe if I didn't see your suit's insignia, I would have trusted you," Calice huffed.

"Wait, what?" Dacos looked at his suit's badge. "I'm such an idiot, and to think I was doing something well for once."

He looked at Calice who frowned at him.

"No! Wait!" Dacos shouted. "It's not what it looks like. I'm a UICA spy! Yeah!"

Calice blinked at Dacos' failure to trick her.

"I-I had to look like a Federation Agent. Yeah!" Dacos stuttered. "You know what I am saying? I work for, uh... crap, Cecili-something was his name."

Calice rolled her eyes and turned away.

"Fine," Dacos groaned. "I wished you didn't notice that."

Dacos faced his hand at Calice, forcing her on the ground with his psychic. She looked at Dacos with anger, releasing monstrous sparks at him. The psychic agent deflected the crackling electricity with his hands. Calice lunged at Dacos in anger, somehow running with lightning-fast speed. Calice punched Dacos in the face with electrical energy, sending him flying across the hall. He was knocked out cold.

"I can do that?" Calice looked at her hands. "So I can blast lightning and go fast."

A squad of Reaper Squad commandos ran to help Agent Dacos. They spotted Calice and fired at her.

Okay, I think I know how to use these powers. She shot lightning from her hands against the lasers.

However, the Reaper Squad used their mercuric cloaks to deflect her attack.

"Oh, crap," Calice blinked. "They can do that?"

The commandos fired back, forcing Calice to run. She used her lightning-fast speed to escape the jam. She jolted across a corner, hitting a wall and tumbling on the hard floor.

"Aiya! That hurt!" Calice scratched her head.

A crusader droid found Calice and fired. She panicked, speeding towards another corner. She hid, peeping her head out to see the crusader droid at the junction. The Shin-Kaminari droid frantically looked, pointing its rifle at each path. Finally, the droid walked away as Calice sighed with relief.

She walked down a pathway, looking through windows that revealed a hangar full of strange aircraft. Gunships shaped like hammerhead sharks landed from the open hangar doors as hovertanks lined up on the hangar's right side.

"That could be my way out," Calice sighed.

She then heard yelling from a different window. It sounded like Hernamidos. Calice snuck closer to the window, looking inside to see the leader of the secret police slamming the table. Two White Death droids stood beside him. A female commando along with two other soldiers faced the furious Hernamidos. One of them wore red spiraling goggles.

Calice watched Hernamidos slap the female commando in the face. Oh, my gosh! Calice observed. What did she do to deserve that?