Sanctum Vault

Aleyah could not move. She was stunned to see herself in front of her, but she knew she had to be ready to fight this imposter. She shook her head and pointed her blades at the other Aleyah.

“What’s going on? Who are you?!” She demanded the imposter to tell her.

The red-headed Aleyah did not respond. Instead, she charged at her. Aleyah moved her blades in a defensive position and awaited the impact, however, it did not happen. After a couple of minutes, Aleyah moved her blades a little to peek what was in front of her. She saw nothing but the stairs that led to the gate on the giant rock she was on.

She lowered her arms and looked around for her copy but could not find her. Scratching her head, she noticed a body on the ground in front of the bottom of the steps. It was Loki out of his Eclipse form.

Aleyah ran to him, “Hey!” She grabbed his body and lifted him up against the steps. “Are you okay?”

His vision was blurry, but he responded.

“Huh? Oh uh…yes…who– Who are you?” He asked.

“My name is Aleyah. I’m the leader of Team Trinity from Stronghold Sentinel.”

“Aleyah huh? My name is Loki, leader of Team Grim. If you’re here, I am to guess that my team is–”

“They’re both well and fine. My teammates are helping them outside, but they won’t be able to keep the vault open for much longer.”

Aleyah looked around for an exit. She stared at the big gate behind him and wondered if that was the exit.

“Where are we?” She asked.

“Sanctum, the homeworld for spirits.” Loki tried to get up and Aleyah wrapped his arm around her shoulder.

“How do we get out of here?”

Loki turned her around and pointed to the gate, “That right there is our way out.”

“Alright good, let’s go,” she said.

They started walking up the stairs. When they reached the top, Aleyah placed Loki near a boulder so she could examine the gate.

“You must be-” Loki took a breather, “-new to this.” It was hard for him to breathe in this world without his form.

“Am I missing something here?” She asked.

“If you’re hoping for the exit, there isn’t one until we retrieve the key,” he answered.

She walked over to him, “Where is it then?”

He pointed to the gate again, “Beyond those doors. You need to feed it with your aura to open it, but the longer we’re here in this realm, the more our aura is consumed just from standing.”

“Alright, I’ll hurry!”

Aleyah ran to the gate and placed her hands on the doors. With all her strength, she began to push against them. Her body started to glow red; the aura surrounding her was being eaten by the gate. She cried out and focused all her energy into pushing the doors open. The more aura the gate was consuming, the brighter it glowed. Suddenly, she felt the door move. Her efforts were working, and the gate was opening.

“Ahhhhhhh!” She screamed as she did her final push.

The whole gate, lit up with the Nova aura, widened and a gust of wind shot out of it. Sand passed her face, so she covered her eyes; Loki did the same. When the dust cleared, they both saw what was beyond the gate.

There was a beach with a cloudy skyline and light coming from just over the horizon. This place looked familiar to her. She was just here, but Aleyah knew the key was never there when she was.

She cautiously took one step into the gate…nothing happened. This was her chance to grab the key and get out before the gate closed behind her. Aleyah ran towards the key and reached out to grab it but stopped. A strong electrical current flowed through her body and stunned her.

She yelled out in pain.

“Aleyah!” Loki cried out. He tried to walk, but his legs refused to move. He bit his tongue in anger for being so useless.

Aleyah fell to the ground. The pain was overwhelming and to make matters worse, the gate started to close behind her. Loki warned her to get out, but she did not want to. She knew humanity needed this key. It would bring them one step closer to ending this war.

“I’m…I’m fine…” Aleyah tried to get up but instead fell back on her knees. She looked up at the key and started to crawl her way to get it.

“I can…I can do this…”

She forced her body and leaped forward. Aleyah managed to grab the key, which was a prism wrapped with rings around it. With the last bit of her strength, she turned around.

“Ahhhhhhhh!” Aleyah tossed the key toward out of the gate before it had shut on her.

Loki caught it and all the aura he lost returned to him. He stared at the key and was amazed, but the feeling quickly faded. The doors were closed with Aleyah behind them. He ran to it, but the gate faded away.

“Aleyah!” He shouted.

After a while, he heard voices coming from behind him. Loki turned and saw a portal that took him back to the others. Before returning, he looked behind him and clenched his empty hand tightly. Loki ran down the steps and went through the portal.