The connection was beginning to hurt worse, but I saw other things too. I remembered triggering the spear years ago in a corn field while in an odd state of mind. Eneus had been able to sync with me then. Now how I’d done it, and what that massive attack had actually been was no longer a mystery.
I terminated the connection, and gazed in wonder at the spear in my hand. “Wow,” I breathed. My endurance and my mind had just taken a massive hit to get the revelations I’d just received, but I could scarcely believe what I’d learned. No wonder Dolos hadn’t wanted Eneus to be left on this world. After one last shake of my head, I picked up speed.
When I cleared the fog from my brain, the city Enheduanna mentioned was right up ahead. I was still deep in thought, though.
Eneus was much more than just an enchanted spear, it was an artifact or something—a weapon that could determine the fate of entire worlds. Knowing how much power I held in my hand hadn’t been an easy thing to truly understand or accept. The last time I’d unleashed a massive attack by Eneus, it had been after the spear had stored less than half a year of Vibration energy. Now I knew that Eneus could sip energy it was exposed to, storing it, multiplying it.
The attack I’d accidentally triggered with just a few months of stored energy had instantly killed a crowd of bounty hunters, decimated a field, and destroyed a swath of forest beyond. Now Eneus had years of Vibration energy stored, and was greedily absorbing power from this awful world even now.
Wow, I marveled.
I began flying a bit lower as I approached the city, preparing to descend after traveling past it and around the distant mountain. Since I was flying fast enough that demons couldn’t keep up, I hadn’t been expecting any real trouble. Luckily, I had still been paying attention, so when I saw a strange glow in the city below, I listened to my instincts and shot to one side.
The glow below grew brighter, and a lance of fire suddenly sped through the sky nearby. “Rotting hell!” I swore, diving sharply to gain speed, swerving. Some sort of projectiles, like little arrows or bolts sped through the darkened sky. Crimson lightning flashed overhead, bouncing off the mountain ahead. “Rotting luck!” I cursed.
I swerved a few more times, feeling cautiously optimistic before a projectile pinged off my armor. If the enchanted protection hadn’t been activated, I might have lost my leg. “Damn!”
Flying evasively was slowing me down, and I really didn’t have time for this. People on Ludus were dying the longer the portal somewhere ahead stayed open. I also didn’t have much more time before my enchanted armor reverted to a bronze-colored shirt.
Getting caught on this world, Brecken, without the added protection of my activated armor was not something I wanted to experience. As far as I could tell, all my other enchanted gear wasn’t working anymore, too. My armor, Eneus, Vistvis, and Pewpew were probably all I had.
I gritted my teeth, rolling in the air and stared at the city below. The buildings were all harsh, jagged angles, built as if they were mimicking the surrounding countryside. I couldn’t tell what type of material most of them were made of—maybe dark stone. Somewhere below, a spotlight flickered to life, cutting through the sky, searching for me. Then another appeared.
My eyes narrowed as I leveled Eneus. This would be a great test of the weapon’s power, but I hesitated. If I attacked from up here, I wouldn’t be fighting with a single person or a small group, or monsters. A city was full of all sorts of people. Then again, I wondered what kind of people lived in a dark city on this world. Maybe there were no innocents. Even if there were, this was war, wasn’t it?
Besides, what choice did I have? It wasn’t like I could fly down there and fight every single enemy in a one-on-one duel...while all their fellows tried to kill me.
I ached inside from indecision, but floating time helped suppress it and allowed me to get a handle on the matter, distilling everything into a single choice: Would I choose people in Berber, in Mensk...or whatever inhabited this dark city on a hell world?
Thought of that way, the decision was easier. “Besides,” I said out loud. “Murder is murder.”
My heart felt like ice and I felt like part of me was dying, but I didn’t hesitate any longer. With one last lungful of air, I activated Pewpew, dumping the energy from the deadly ring directly into Eneus as a catalyst and activated my spear’s ability, aiming at the city below. “Hazard!” I screamed.
The entire world seemed to skip a beat.
Everything turned violet, washing out the red from the lightning above and even the darkness of the ground below. A handful of flying demons that had been futilely trying to catch up to me all fell, plummeting like flies knocked down with a sock.
A wide beam of light had erupted from Eneus, sweeping the city below. The attack hadn’t lasted long, but the effect was instantaneous.
Thunder roared around me, and my hair was pulled back so hard it hurt. Wind rushed in every direction. Without thinking, I pulled on Flight, pushing my skill to its limit. I barely kept myself aloft and moving, preventing myself from being downed like the flying demons had.
The buildings below exploded, the stone superheated. Entire blocks had been turned to glass or reduced to slag. In the darkness, glowing, superheated stone and metal painted a clear picture of the destruction I’d created. New flashes of crimson lightning glinted hellishly, painting the scene in the color of blood.
I had probably just destroyed a quarter of the city, maybe more. There wasn’t much there anymore, just molten pieces of what I’d destroyed littering a long crater. From my vantage point, I could see dust and smoke blossoming out, moving outward and upward. I needed to avoid it if I could.
After swallowing, I got Flight under control and moved forward again at the fastest speed I could manage. Confused tears leaked from my eyes, but they were unimportant. Floating time helped me keep moving, analyzing the damage below as I flew.
No more attacks came from the city, and I kept gaining speed, leaving it behind. I knew that after this day was over, if I survived, I would spend a lot of time thinking about what I had just done. Even if every single thing I’d just killed had been an enemy, I was not sure I was ready for the knowledge that I could create that kind of devastation by myself.
Nora Hazard the fighter was an identity I’d been able to grow into and become comfortable with over the course of my entire life. Being orb-Bonded didn’t feel alien to me anymore, either. But Nora Hazard the flying, death-dealing act of nature, I wasn’t sure I would ever be at peace with this.
“What am I now?” I asked myself. I wondered what Enheduanna had thought since she’d probably been watching me. Was that attack something that could hurt her? She’d probably be proud. That thought disturbed me more than any of the others I’d had.
I rounded the mountain ahead and saw the glowing portal below, right where Enheduanna said it would be. Strangely, it was not on the ground—yet. Even as I watched, it slowly lowered. I wondered if it had been created that way on purpose or on accident.
A crowd of demons milled around below the gate, gathered together probably half a mile wide. Small ones were in the center, and bigger ones on the outside, just like the first helldoor I’d come out of. I assumed that after the gate was at ground level, it would begin growing wider.
The demons on the ground were waiting, but as I neared, I saw a flying demon zip through. “Oh rotting hells no,” I growled.
At this point, I was moving fast enough that none of the demons or any cultists had time to react to my approach. I slowed right before reaching the gate, which turned out to be smart. Even at a fraction of the speed I’d been moving, I still felt like I’d hit a brick wall.
This time I was prepared for the horror of actually crossing through the hellgate, and I handled it much better. By the time I crossed through back to Ludus, I was in one of the worst moods of my life. I was tired, wounded, traumatized, frustrated, angry, and could still feel Brecken, the hell world, on my skin. All of my aches and trauma
were being converted to rage.
Even the flash of movement I sensed more than felt, probably Enheduanna passing through after me, felt annoying.
I moved forward slowly, mostly hovering as I got my bearings. Behind me, the helldoor flickered and died. Mensk was burning. The entire city seemed to be fighting flying demons, but in the distance, a dome of glowing, magical energy covered the palace.
“What?” I whispered.
My eyes moved down, to the crowd of stunned cultists that had been fighting Mensk Guard around the gate, and I saw a familiar person at the same time she saw me. I bared my teeth in sudden hatred, barely hanging onto floating time.
“Lisa!” I hissed. I dove, murder on my mind, and this time I was not at all bothered by it.
Challenges
One side of Lisa’s lip lifted in a half-smile as she saw me coming, stirring my anger. This awful person, this bitch had taken so much from me, had personally been involved in so many low points of my life, and now she had the gall to smirk at me when we hadn’t seen each other for years and I was flying at her out of a portal to hell?
“Hazard!” I screamed. A dozen feelings exploded at once, but rather than being overcome by emotion, floating time pushed it all to the background, using the rage to fuel my adomopathy and focus. Years ago, I would not have been able to hold on to floating time, but like me, it had changed, evolved.
I landed in front of Lisa, stabbing with Eneus, but she danced back, moving like she was sliding on ice. Once she was still again, her expression faltered for a moment, as if she was disappointed in my lack of reaction at her unnatural movement.
She must really think I was dim. Even if I hadn’t been told that Lisa was orb-Bonded now, I would have guessed it. After all, she led the merry band of psychopaths here, and the ones back in Bittertown—and a number of them had been ‘Bonded.
I wished I wasn’t so tired. At least my armor was still activated, but would probably expire any second. I thought about instructing it to put my helm back on. But no, while protecting my head might be worth the loss of peripheral vision, I decided to leave my head bare. It was even harder to have good situational awareness while flying, or fighting in a city, and I wanted to keep my senses free.
As I stalked forward slowly, warily watching Lisa and her cultists, I tried to figure out where we were in the city. It was easier said than done, though—I was not super familiar with Mensk. We were in a large city square, behind the line of active fighting, within the formation of cultists all near the vanished gate.
At first, most of the fighters within sight of the gate had stared in astonishment when I’d come out, but they seemed to have regained their senses. A couple cultists nearby, probably former gang members, thought to protect their leader. I didn’t even pause my slow walk forward as I cut them down. These days, this caliber of enemy were not a real threat to me.
“Hello Nora, it’s been a while.” Lisa grinned, still standing in a nonchalant way. I studied her. She was not dressed like the other cultists, in concealing cloaks or capes. Instead, she appeared much like she always had, in baggy pants and a vest over a tunic. The cut of her clothing was much more expensive than it had been in the past, and her boots were made of some sort of monster leather now. A shawl across her shoulders was also new. Its inky-dark material was decorated with embroidered gold. Arcane and profane symbols covered the fabric, like the other higher-ranking cultists I’d seen, but this was definitely more fancy.
“I know everything now,” I growled. After everyone in the square, cultists and Guard, had recovered from the shock of seeing my sudden appearance, the line of battle had begun again, but without much energy. A lot of them seemed to be watching Lisa and I. Suddenly, another cultist ran toward me, a long dagger extended and green energy gathered in one hand. I didn’t give her another glance, just blew her head off with a well-placed air drill.
Lisa glanced at the dead cultist on the ground, then at me. “Oh do you now?”
“I know you broke up my family, took my house, and, oh yeah, you work for a dark god and like to feed kids to demons. Did I miss anything?”
“Actually quite a bit, but I don’t want to bore you. In fact, this is a bad time to catch up. Can you come back later? I am somewhat in the middle of something.” She waved at the line of combat. As if on cue, a demon dropped from the sky, grabbing one of the Guardswomen and lifting her into the night. She shrieked for a few seconds, then abruptly stopped.
Now that I was down on the ground, it really did feel like the entire city was burning. Light from the fires and the glow from the energy field around the palace reflected off of Lisa’s short, salt-and-pepper hair. Her dark eyes, high cheekbones, and long nose gave her a sinister air as the shadows played over her face. As a girl, I’d thought she looked regal. Now, as she smiled in the middle of this hell-on-Ludus, quirking her thin lips, I saw her for what she really was.
It was not my job to have conversations with monsters. My hand came up and I delivered a powerful air drill at Lisa’s head, but the attack never landed. She smoothly pivoted, inhumanly fast, and the roaring, whooshing magic buzzed past.
“It will take more than that to do me in, Little Leaf.” Her eyes glittered.
“Don’t call me that,” I snapped. Her old pet name for me made my mouth taste sour. “How dare you call me that.”
“What, the name I called you for years while caring for you, teaching you, and loving you?”
“Love? What do you know of love? I was an object, something you to show off, to bet on while I beat up other girls!”
She quirked an eyebrow. “Oh? And you weren’t fighting or struggling before I found you? In fact can you say your life was better in any way before I came along?”
“You didn’t find me! You knew I would eventually come into your world, and you were waiting when I did. I know about how you took my house. Rotting hells, I was just there!”
“What?” For the first time, Lisa’s pleasant mask dropped. She glanced up at where the portal had been.
“That’s right! Rot your rotting plans! Hesst and Gretch are both dead. I killed them!” The cultists around us who weren’t actively fighting the Guard had been closing in on me, but after they heard me, they hesitated. One of them raised a hand like they were about to use magic, so I threw Eneus right through his chest. A jerk of the weapon’s sash brought it back to my hand.
"It is really not polite to come here unannounced, ruin my portal, and start killing my friends, Nora."
“Yeah, well, you keep demons in cages and feed them people parts so I think we can all agree that your moral compass is completely rotting broken. You probably aren’t the right person to be preaching manners, Lisa.” I spat her name like a curse.
“I suppose that is a fair point,” she said, waving a hand, “from a certain point of view. But as usual, you are limited in how you think. This is for the greater good, Nora. What are the lives of a few nobodies compared to world peace?”
My lips pulled back from my teeth as I spoke. “The ‘nobodies’’ lives mattered to them. Mine sure did, it was why I had to kill Yvadne. I wouldn’t be surprised if you had something to do with that, too.”
Lisa shrugged. “Mistakes were made, on both sides. I’m sure you see that. Come, Nora, you should join us! We can let bygones be bygones, and you can start over again, working for the winning team for a change! Aren’t you tired of scraping by, living on the fringe of society? If you join us, you could be rich, like a princess!”
I snorted. “This is just like what the pretty boy in the flashy armor said years ago. Go fuck yourself, Lisa. My relax switch is official gone.”
“Oh, are you talking about White Darkness?” She noticed my eyes flicker. “Yes, I heard about that. That man was actually not working directly to bring about Asag’s vision, but back then, followers of all the Dread Rulers kept open lines of communication. I was impressed to hear that you managed to kill him. Before now I’d always assumed you’d had help, but you
are strong.”
“Rot your compliments, Lisa. I'm not going to join Asag’s group of reject murderers. You were decay in my life even before I found out you are a dark gods-worshipping lunatic. I’ve killed your demons under Bittertown, and shut down the portal there. The hellgate here is gone, and I’ve heard there are other groups fighting you people, shutting down any other hellgates out there. Without your rotting demons, all of you are just Asag minions, gangers wearing scary bathrobes. You have lost.”
Lisa stared at me, and around us, the fighting slowed down further, eventually stopping altogether. The cultists and the Guard pulled back to watch our confrontation. At first, while the moment stretched, I couldn’t understand why the cultists didn’t all attack me at once. Then I remembered if they did, they’d be turning their backs to the Guard. Lisa was also probably the most powerful among them. If she couldn’t deal with me, well, the majority of the cultists were probably not the bravest fighters Ludus had to offer.
Finally, the vile woman spoke again. “You have hurt me, Nora, I will admit it. In fact, this is not the first time either, is it? I raised you, I sheltered you, I cared for you, I even taught you to fight, and how did you repay me? I was betrayed, shunned.”
My mouth opened soundlessly and I stared. I wasn’t sure how to respond. In that moment, I was a little girl again, standing before this powerful, respected woman who had let me live in her home. She’d been elegant and educated, but still led a vicious ganger group in Bittertown. I’d found her fascinating, but she’d abused my trust, taken advantage of me.
“I betrayed you?” If I hadn’t been holding on to floating time with my fingernails, I would have screamed. I still wanted to cry, but managed to control myself. “Is that why you were relieved of command and disgraced within the Jackals?”
Lisa’s mouth twisted, her eyes shining in the dark. “Certain events were twisted, turning people against me. You may notice that it didn’t last forever, either, Little Leaf. But yes, you stabbed me in the back, the closest thing to family that you had. You lied, putting all the blame for misunderstandings on me. When we were questioned, did you tell the truth that you wanted my special attention? Did you admit how much you enjoyed living in my house, being with me? No, you didn’t. I loved you, and I gave you everything you ever wanted or needed. You are a liar, Nora, and a coward. I think it speaks well of me that I am willing to let all of our history, all the ways you hurt me be forgotten, even offering you a position in my new organization.”
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