(I think I'll just kind of bypass that last post, you don't mind do you? Very confusing it really was).
(I apologise for the length of this by the way, but it had to be this long. Much shorter next time I promise).
General Jay had just completed the third of the four trials...
"So, time for the test of my soul I suppose..." Jay thought to himself.
Once again another door was in front of him, as he walked up to the door, he once again heard the mysterious voice...
"Congratulations on making it this far challenger, your final test awaits you. This is the most difficult of the four trials, prepare yourself for The Path of the Soul!"
Jay entered through the door and once again there was a blinding flash of light as he felt himself being pulled far away, turning, forever turning, until he blacked out...
He began to stir when he heard a voice...
"Jay, Jay, are you ok?"
He opened his eyes and replied, "I think I am, where am I?"
"Don't you remember? Oh, you must have hit your head or something. The plane jerked when the co-pilot shot the pilot, you must have fallen and hit your head. You've luckily only been out for about a minute."
Jay recognised the voice, but it couldn't be. Why would she be in his challenge? Why put him in a situation like this with the person he cared most about? He didn't want to look at her. He didn't want to know for definite that it was her.
"Jay, why won't you look at me? Please look at me. Are you ok?"
He reluctantly turned his head to have his worst fear confirmed, it WAS her. When he realised what was going on, that they were on a small plane, the pilot was dead, apparently shot by the co-pilot, and there was nobody to fly the plane, he almost screamed.
He picked himself up and went to the cockpit. He looked at the controls, they'd been shot too, whether by accident or on purpose he did not know, but the plane was losing altitude fast!
He tried his hardest to level out the plane, finally he managed to level it out but he knew it wouldn't be long before it started to freefall again.
"There's hardly any fuel left, this plane is going down regardless. We've got to get out of here. Look for the parachutes while I try to get us a little higher, ok?"
Jay stayed in the cockpit trying to regain a little altitude while she went for the parachutes.
She quickly returned though, in a state of pure panic which stopped her from talking properly.
"Jay...Jay...Jay...l...l...l...look..."
Jay turned his head, "what it is?"
He then saw why she was so panicked. She was only holding one parachute.
"There's only one parachute, Jay."
"Where are the other parachutes? Surely there should be more than one."
"The co-pilot..."
"What about him?"
"He said something...something like "good luck. One of you will need it..." I didn't know what he meant at first, but he must've meant this. He only left us one parachute on purpose. I don't wanna die."
Jay was speechless. How could someone do that? How could a person leave only one parachute, then it hit him. This was the test. He had to be willing to sacrifice his own life for the person he cared for the most in this world.
He then thought this test was actually pretty easy.
He talked calmly to her, "It's ok, you take the parachute. No arguments, ok? I'll try to find somewhere to land the plane, I'll be fine, ok?"
"Are you sure?"
"Yes, I'm sure. I'll meet you on the ground."
After their goodbyes, he watched as she put on the parachute, exited the plane, and drifted downwards at high speed until he could just see the parachute open successfully. She was safe.
"OK, I did it. I sacrificed myself. I'm done now. You can pull me back so I don't die."
Nothing...
The plane suddenly began to lose altitude again. General Jay noticed that the fuel was completely used up.
"OK! You've had your laugh, you can save me now."
Again, nothing...
The plane then started to nosedive. Jay started to get literally scared. He actually was getting really freaked out at this point.
He shouted for help, "OK, THAT'S ENOUGH! YOU CAN GET ME OUT NOW. GET ME OUT OF HERE. I DID WHAT I WAS SUPPOSED TO DO, I SAVED HER. I SACRIFICED MYSELF FOR HER, NOW GET ME OUT OF HERE!"
Still nothing...
He finaly realised that nobody was going to save him. He must have got it wrong...
"At least she's safe. Even if I do die, at least she's safe," General Jay thought to himself.
The plane kept twisting and falling, falling and twisting.
He resigned himself to death.
"Well here goes. My time is apparently now," Jay said to himself.
The plane was just about to hit the ground when there was a super bright white light once again.
He was then pulled far, far away. All the way back to, he presumed, Atlantis.
He landed with a loud THUMP. Once again, it took him a while to get his bearings again.
"I tell you. If this carries on I'm going to end up throwing up, especially after that plane nose diving," he said out loud.
"Do not worry my hero, that was the final test. You passed with flying colours."
It was the female Atlantean again, but he could not see her.
"OK, very funny. Passed with flying colours. I get it. Flying, flying colours. Hilarious. Where are you anyway?"
"Come to the end of The Hall of Gods"
Jay followed the long hall all the way to the end. Either side of the walkway there seemed to be a constant flow of water, almsot like the walkway was in the middle of a river. The walls shone a brilliant gold, with giant columns, all with, what Jay recognised as, Ancient Greek. He tried to read some, but he just couldn't understand what it all said.
"This would take the guys back at APi an entire lifetime to translate, and even then there would still be some left," Jay thought to himself.
He continued walking. He looked toward the ceiling, there was gold eveywhere, even on the ceiling. Giant windows all the way along the ceiling of this great hall allowed the most brilliant amount of light he had ever seen to shine down towards where he walked. It almost looked like the very sun itself shone a path for him to follow.
On the floor there were the most brilliant paintings he had ever seen. Some of the pictures looked familiar. In one he saw what looked like The Minotaur, part bull - part man. Another showed Medusa, with her head of snakes, and a person opposite her, looking directly at her, half turned to stone. All the paintings, General Jay assumed, showed all of the Ancient Greek Myths.
Finally he arrived at the end of the hall where there were giant statues of many different people. Suddenly the name of the hall meant so much to him, he understood who the people were...
"The Hall of the Gods. These must be all of the Angient Greek Gods."
The Atlantean female spoke once again, "You are correct. Well you are correct in the sense that they are who you think they are, but Gods is perhaps stretching the truth a bit too far."
Jay looked around to see where the voice was coming from, he then looked upon one of the statues and noticed it had moved, he was sure he must have imagined it. Just as he was trying think logically, the statue began to move more obviously. It began to shrink. Smaller and smaller it got until it was the same height as an average sized human. The brilliant white marble began to glow, it began to gain colour, until it looked just like a human. Jay noticed it was the Atlantean.
"You're a God?" He was truly shocked.
"Not exactly. I ascended, I believe you called it, to another plain. These statues represent all of us who managed to successfully ascend. This statue in the middle was the Atlantean who managed to successfully ascend first. His name, you may recognise, is Zeus."
"Zeus? As in the King of the Gods?"
"No, as in the first Atlantean to successfully ascend." Jay noticed that the voice came from the statue. It was of a man sitting in a chair with a lightning bolt in his right hand, the classic pose that made Jay instantly realise that the statue was indeed that of Zeus.
Suddenly the statue began to move. Zeus stood up and, as the female Atlantean did beforehand, the statue began to shrink until he was standing at about six and a half feet tall. The white marble began to glow and gradually gain colour until what looked like another human stood before General Jay.
"Aphrodite, what have I told you about getting involved with people below our plain of existence? Do you forget what happened with the last human you tried to interact with?"
"Yes, Zeus, I am sorry for that, but doctor know-it-all fooled even the sensors. Somehow he blocked what he was truly up to."
Jay interrupted this converstation, "You're Aphrodite? You've got to be kidding me. Why didn't you tell me?"
"I am sorry, I did not think it was worth mentioning."
Zeus then interrupted, "What are you doing here? This is a sacred place."
Aphrodite answered for General Jay, "He has completed The Challenge of the Gods. He is here to help us deal with doctor know-it-all."
"And? What does he expect?"
"I'm here to gain the true powers of an Immortal. Why go through the four trials if I'm not even going to get what I was promised? Speaking of which, what happened in that last trial? I thought I was actually going to die."
Zeus spoke again, "Aphrodite, you may as well tell him everything. I know you want to. I shall leave it to you."
Aphrodite then spoke up, "First of all, I apologise about the last trial. You had to unselfishly and willingly give up your life for the one you care the most for. The connection between your souls is unbreakable. Your souls intertwine through all of time. You were not saved at first, though, because you were too arrogant in your understanding of the task. Even though you were willing to die in order to save your soulmate, you were too arrogant about it and so your soul was not pure. Once you were willing to die when you realised you were not going to be saved, you genuinely were happy that your soulmate was saved. This then made your soul pure once more, and so you were saved."
"I didn't realise. I agree though, I was arrogant. I was so happy when I realised what I had to do. I thought the task was far easier than it actually was. It was, in fact, the hardest of them all."
Zeus interrupted, "The soul is a precious thing. It can be swayed by both good and bad emotions, but in the end it always reverts to its true state, in your case it was good."
"OK, now that that is sorted, not to sound ungrateful or impatient, but could I please get these God powers? I need to help my people at APi and I need to take out Doctor Know-It-All."
Zeus replied, "He does not know does he?"
"What? What don't I know? Tell me!"
"I am sorry. Time has passed by quite fast since you entered the trials. A whole month has passed by. The doctor, with the help of his Godly powers, has managed to take control of what you call Australasia, Asia, and half of Europe. Your friends at APi have tried to find a way here. You're headquarters managed to find our main command post. We had five altogether. We managed to disable all but one of them when we acended. The computers were set up to do this automatically, but there was some kind of error. One outpost remained active. The outpost in what you call the South Pole. We also had one in what you call London. By some coincidence your head quarters were built directly above that, our main outpost. Your friends uncovered it about two weeks ago. Only by connecting our systems to your own were they able to survive an aerial attack from the doctor. Your friends are now running the outposts shield and have managed to cover the whole of London with that shield. Unfortunately, that is far outside the recommended radius for the shield. The power core of the outpost is draining too fast. It will only last for another two months, perhaps three months, unless they shrink the shield, but they refuse. Three of your friends, I believe they are called Shaddow, Mel, and Jane, have headed to the outpost in Antartica. It is the only one that is connected to Atlantis."
Turning to Zeus, "Please Zeus, you must endowe him with our powers. If it is left any longer, the doctor's forces will surely discover the outpost in Antartica and be able to get back here. He also needs more power cores for his forces. If he were to get to our stock of power cores, he would find our weapons and true technological advancements also. He would be near unstoppable with either, with both he will be able to take over this planet with ease."
Zeus responded, "We are not to interfere. You have already interfered too much. However, if you were to grant him your own powers, that I cannot fight. You know what that would entail however."
Jay interrupted again, "What would that entail? What would happen?"
Aphrodite smiled, but jay could see right through it, to the sadness behind it. She responded, "I would become human. I would no longer be able to live on this plain of existence. I would also be blocked from ascending ever again."
"You can't do it then. There must be another way."
Before Jay could carry on, Aphrodite began to glow once more. Brighter and brighter she glowed, until a beam of light shot down from the sky, like she was being attacked by the very sun itself. The beam then shot forward from her to Jay. Jay suddenly felt something happening to him. He lifted up off of the floor along with Aphrodite, until there was another blinding flash of light. The brightest he had ever seen. He passed out.
Time passed by...
Jay began to stir again, he opened his eyes and looked at his watch. Three hours had passed by since that encounter. He was no longer in The Hall of the Gods. He was in a smaller building, and it felt very cold. Suddenly he saw Shaddow, Mel and Jane appear near the rooms entrance.
He noticed a human female cowering in the corner of the room. It was Aphrodite, she was no longer an ascended Atlantean.
"I am human. You now have my powers. You are the only other God on this planet. You must destroy Doctor Know-It-All."
She passed out.
Jay ran over to her while General Shaddow and Lieutenants Mel and Jane appeared.
They joined General Jay where he was sitting with the woman who they did not know.
"This is Aphrodite. Yes as in the Greek Goddess of Love. She is an Atlantean. She gave up her powers to make me a God so that I could take down Doctor Know-It-All once and for all. She's now a human and can never become a god herself ever again.
We must return to Atlantis via this outpost. We need the power cores stored there and the weapons. Only they can truly help me defeat Doctor Know-It-All once and again"
The three new arrivals did not know what to say...