This extract is a small part of a wider story about the warring inside of a teenager's mind. This section is the end of the story. The protagonist is Caleb, who is a soldier from the Roman Empire (the capital of the teenager's mind) and had been sent to infiltrate and colonise the Ahiga tribe. However, instead, Caleb had a change of heart and decided to fight against the dictatorship of the Roman empire. This scene starts with Caleb and his friend going to Memory Lane to gain the knowledge they need to defeat the Romans.
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As Gabriel and Caleb shuffled through the dusty passage, they started to see the glimmering glow of the savant syringes on the other side. While Caleb and Gabriel were admiring the vast collection of knowledge, a guardian, with gold armour that was engulfed in a crimson fire and a sword that shone as white as light, enquired what knowledge they required from his library.
 
"Talented and desirable skills are what we seek," proclaimed Gabriel, "skills that could help us defeat our foes."
 
The guardian lifted his sword and struck Caleb and Gabriel; nothing happened - yet Gabriel and Caleb felt the blade pass through their flesh. Both Caleb and Gabriel looked down but still saw no cut or wounds, not even their clothing was damaged. Then, the guardian said, "I needed to know if your intentions were pure... if they weren’t you'd be dead." Caleb’s face went as pale as chalk on a cliff face, while Gabriel leaned over and began to vomit. The Guardian stared in rage at the amount of disrespect this unconscious being was showing to the sacred grounds. In response to Gabriel's sickness, the Guardian vapourised the vomit with his immensely horrifying blade - it had taken the shape of a red dragon in ruby armour, stretching out from his hand. "Do not befoul this sacred land".
 
Caleb cast an irritated stare at the Guardian, while Gabriel choked and spluttered to gasp in air. Once they could stand up straight without collapsing, they nodded their heads in agreement and asked, "do we at least get the syringes now?"
 
Gesturing his hand to the walls of syringes, the guardian pulled out a sapphire sphere, that glowed and rose high in the air, navigating the maze of shelves to find the knowledge of combat. Caleb and Gabriel were awestruck at witnessing something that was alien, but they kept silent. While they lived inside the same brain, the conscious and unconscious mind rarely mixed.
 
Speeding after the floating sphere, as if they were carried by an invisible tidal wave, Caleb and Gabriel finally arrived in front of the knowledge stores they needed. The Guardian steadily reached out to grab a gleaming silver syringe and passed it to Caleb, "inject it into your neck's artery for the fastest results".
 
Instantly, Caleb quickly stabbed it into the side of his neck, wincing at the pain, before passing it back to the Guardian. He refilled the syringe and gave it to Gabriel, who did the same.
 
Piercing their skin as sharply as the cold pierces flesh in winter, the needles injected them with knowledge. Instantaneously, their veins began to bulge; the knowledge could be seen passing through their veins, heading towards their brain as they screamed in agony. Although it felt like any thoughts would be blitzed from their brain, their mind was suddenly filled with thoughts, ideas, and concepts. Like a slide show, the brains saw one image after another and another, forming blueprints of weapons, armour and machines. Caleb, who was normally so serious and sombre, fell to the ground as he was overwhelmed by the flood of information. Curiously, Caleb asked the Guardian how they would spread this knowledge. Looking baffled at the query, the Guardian responded, "you don't need to do anything; it's a virus...you injected yourself with the virus of knowledge, so everyone you meet will catch it off you". Speculative and fascinated, Caleb asked how to stop the spread to make sure his enemies didn’t become enlightened of their plans. Then, the guardian pulled out a syringe that looked like the night sky, filled with stars and surrounded by immense darkness. "Vaccinations."
 
Caleb and Gabriel bolted through the sacred lands, to return to the Ahiga tribe to spread the virus of knowledge.
 
The civilians, who were usually full of life and enthusiasm, stood in silence as they waited to hear the news from Caleb and Gabriel. As soon as Gabriel opened his mouth, the group of civilians closest to them began to show the same side-effects: bulging, glowing veins. Then, it became a domino effect until everyone had it. Although it looked horrific, the quick moment of pain was over as swiftly as the wind vanishing after a tornado.
 
Quickly, the Ahiga got up and began prepping for war: building bigger housing and stronger walls for defence. Some began building machines, which looked like ravaging beasts. One built a dragon with three heads and wings as long as two houses. Their weapons changed as well as armour, which looked like an exoskeleton; it enhanced a soldier’s speed and strength drastically. There were also blades that altered the appearance of the host to make them look more like ghouls and demons.
 
As the Ahiga trained, they also waited; they waited for the right moment to attack and to wage war, which arose after only a few days.
 
While on watch for enemy aircraft, Gabriel spotted the Emperor of the Roman Empire's private leisure blimp. Seconds. However, Caleb had actually seen the massive, golden oblong first. From his jet and without hesitation or even a thought, Caleb employed his weaponry and blasted it ahead. It was just a blur as it shot down the Emperor’s blimp, with Caleb speeding away as fast as light. As Caleb sped away in his jet, which was carved with the words of nightmares and made from sharp edges and darkness, he knew he had started the war.
 
Three days later, Caleb and Gabriel were voted to be war generals, and they split up the troops into the ground, sky and sea. As 6-legged tanks stretched their robotic arms across the neural pathways, spiked warships, which floated 5 ft above ground and were propelled by their mechanical gun-manned whale tail, hovered ahead.
 
Across the neural pathways, the Romans brought their sun catapults imbued with a divine essence. Glowing with an eerie light, the catapults were loaded up to destroy the Ahiga troops with the cosmic flames. "Attack". The Ahiga charged across the pathways, aiming to ruin the catapults; the Romans charged right back, unleashing their full force.
 
Attacking with all their military power, Caleb used his crimson blade to cut through his enemies. But then, out of the smoke, came the Emperor in a diamond-encrusted mech-suit, with blazing phoenix wings protruding out of his back. Eager and fearless, Caleb knew the only way to defeat the Emperor was by conjuring his own mech-suit, Caleb bit down on a pill that was strapped to his tooth. His armour manifested in liquid metal and consumed him; new rows of fangs protruded from his mouth and his eyes blazed red with rage. Cutting through the death-filled battle, Caleb focused on the Emperor and how to bring his reign to an end. Left and right, Caleb slashed at the Emperor, leaving a minuscule amount of damage, until he tore flesh from his shoulder. The Emperor screamed in agony as he plunged his sword through Caleb's chest.
 
Caleb's body slumped to the floor as the Emperor cried out in a victorious cheer. Then, Caleb stood up. Fuelled by his blood curling rage Calebs body fused with the soul of the mech-suit. He had now grown three times his original size. Black thorns protruded from his shoulders and black flames engulfed his back, as he plunged his fist through the Emperor's chest and pulled out his heart. The soldiers watched as Caleb devoured it.
 
Then, the Ahiga burst into cheers, for this was the way of their people - to gain knowledge of the enemy through the consumption of the heart.
 
Even though there were still soldiers, after what they had witnessed, they fled back to Rome. Caleb trailed behind with blood dripping down his chin. As the sun set over the battlefield, the Ahiga tribe drove the Romans into a purely fantastical area of the brain, so that they would rule the thoughts and emotions no more. Quickly, the Ahiga tribe took over the brain, becoming a nation of knowledge and progress. They cured Caleb of his wounds from the battle, and they terraformed the brain into an oasis where all concepts and ideas could progress and grow.
 
The end.