by Marc Mulero
Aslock didn’t have to say anything, of course. In fact, saying anything at all would be overkill in this moment, so instead he coolly stepped over to the paralyzed Sin and just observed.
Blague shook his head in a daze, and then lay there in defeat.
“Do you believe the earth, on which we were created, granted us these gifts only to attack?” Aslock finally said.
Blague sat up quickly once his senses returned to his body, huffing at the awful feeling of helplessness.
“Throughout history, our species has always found ways to destroy. From sharpened blades in the more honorable ages to roaring cannons in the ones less so, there was always a faster, more deadly means to end life.” Aslock knelt so he was inches from Blague. “Getting your hands on a weapon is easy,” he lifted Blague’s arm to showcase his mark. “Using them takes but little practice. A layman can become an efficient killer in no time. You would agree? Yes? Bombs could even shatter the planet with the click of a button. But tell me, Blague… what if we did not exercise our strength? What would we be then, in your eyes? Weak?”
Blague got to his feet. “Please, Elder. You’re preaching to a man who’s been ridden with war for nearly a century. From my days of Special Forces in olden times, I always sought what you speak – to end the ways of violence. I fight for those who can’t! Don’t you see?”
“How noble,” Aslock rose. “An intention behind the bullet. I am sure that rationalization has never been used before,” he quipped. “Now here you are in the new, showing a whole generation of followers that the way to peace is through the silencing of those who will not let you have it. How does the old saying go? Violence begets violence begets violence.”
“The outside world doesn’t work in high ideals, Elder. Had my pistol not found the heads of my enemies, I’d be in chains on Senation soil while women and children were slain to prove a point. Yet my methods landed me here, with you, with the blinders lifted from my eyes. My leadership would have meant nothing without a means to overthrow.”
“Gandhi from the whole earth, and Biribus from the broken, would both disagree. Their leadership echoes through the sands of time, and they wielded no weapons. Fear of being unarmed did not stop them. When you face the Aura, it will not be your heroic strength that defeats them.”
“Sitting here won’t defeat them, either,” Blague replied, letting his impatience show.
“Now how do you know that?” Aslock smiled. “Hear me, Blague. Do not run as fast and as far as your father did. I chose to mentor you because you have the potential to bridge two worlds: that of the Neraphis, and that of your own. You must not close yourself from our ways.”
Blague bowed his head, feeling a touch of shame, for he once prided himself on open-mindedness.
Aslock rested a cool hand on his student’s shoulder. “Soros taught me far more than the secrets of Ayelan and Cryos. He showed me that using them as weapons was not the way. There are greater, more fulfilling aspects to these elements, and to life. He was and still is brilliant. He knew from the very beginning that sound philosophy was the only way to keep sane through long life. How to live with oneself with presence of mind makes the ages less daunting. Allow me to pass on my teacher’s experience and aid in your quest to greatness. I believe in this world, while some of my counterparts do not. I believe in you, when you do not.”
Blague nodded, his deep-set eyes darting on his mind’s search.
“Think beyond battle. Think of what brings value to your life. Bring that with you into your connection with these chemicals.”
“I’ve lived long enough to know that I can’t utilize these elements as fluidly as you, Valor, Halewyn. Time is something I can’t speed up.”
Aslock’s index finger waved in disagreement. “Tesdians accumulate knowledge. We understand complex subjects and debate endlessly inward. We become masters of our craft. But Ardians… I have seen them transcend all other bonds with a speed all their own. I have questioned your father through many of his feats, as well as the few others that have been merged in this Citadel over the years. One common denominator was true - a bond between lovers can feel. You become creatures of instinct, driven by the spark that created your connection long before the merger.”
“He’s right, Blague,” she whispered. “Cryos appears to be an extension of our intentions, helping us fulfill whatever we seek. We’ve only had our sights on war, but Aslock is trying to show us more.”
“Soros created this exercise for me over a century ago. He taught me to forego my agenda, and instead focus on these new aspects of life. It is easy to lose sight of virtue with raw power at your fingertips, but this manifestation of energy is here to remind you.” Aslock gestured to the churning current floating in mid-air. “Rise. Hone what you seek.”
Blague walked closer to the stream, his entire body still tingling from the persistent sting. “What should my motive be, if not to end war?”
The Elder clapped his hands together, and in an instant the blue-lit room went dark, dissipating the Cryos slithering about the ceiling and taking all of the heat with it. All that remained was a faint glow from the thin stream that Aslock had summoned. “Not everything can be told.” He proceeded toward the exit fading out of Blague’s sight, leaving only the sound of his footsteps to be heard.
The room’s temperature rapidly dropped to a point where the Sin Leader could see each puff of air that escaped him. His vascular arms became ridden with goosebumps and the darkness beyond the Cryos beam turned the once tranquil room into a cold, unnerving dungeon. He shut his eyes as his thoughts raced, contemplating what his Elder was trying to accomplish.
“Come on, let’s summon this again. This time I won’t dispatch it,” Blague spoke internally.
Elaina’s caress slowly ran down his neck. “Alright. Remember, there’s nothing to fight here.”
The temperature dropped further, now to a point where his ears became numb and his nose, red.
“Is he trying to distract us and break our concentration?” Blague wondered.
“Stop reading into it and just focus on what you already know.”
“Hmph,” Blague reluctantly obliged. He drew in his elbows and twisted his palms at his waist, thinking of the most horrific thing he could - people he had to kill in his old life, as a Special Forces agent.
No… too far back. Closer.
How he started this rebellion, ripping down Hiezers on patrol with his bare hands, even potentially innocent ones, with only Elaina’s death in mind.
No… too self-loathing.
Then it came - the vision of Lito’s limp body in Sabin’s embrace – a horror that could never be unseen. The late commander’s lanky arm peeking from the cover laying over his corpse. Terror. Rage. His hands began to tremble from the memory, his tattoo suddenly glowing with life. The heat trail was expanding.
Elaina focused with him, and together, they willed Cryos to spread throughout his arms. The substance lingered like a blue flame, dancing in the cold and lighting his face in the darkness.
“I’m failing.” The rage that rose in his heart suddenly morphed into anguish. “The very people that trusted me to lead are now turning their heads. It’s all I can see. What have I done Elaina? What have I given but broken promises?”
Elaina’s beautiful face formed in his mind, dispelling half of the tension immediately. She reached out to lift his chin. He felt it… her smooth fingers. So soft. “You’ve come so far and done so much. Everyone knew the risks. You most of all. There can be no regrets here, I can’t allow it. Only fuel.”
The brisk air continued to bite like a pack of rats nibbling on his fingers. It distracted him, testing their internal connection and leaving him to tremble in his haunting thoughts.
“Briggs, Lito, Volaina… Eugene. They depended on me,” Blague said, his grief releasing into despair. “I abandoned Eu after he chose to stick with us. My choices always lead us forward, but seldom do they allow us to look back. To tend to our wounded. T
hey needed me, Elaina, and I wasn’t there. Hell, I’m not there now!”
The Cryos surged from his hands as he lost control. Eyes were squeezed tightly shut, tension, more of it, and that quivering beam that Aslock left behind was not so forgiving. It came to life like a bothered snake – crack. It whipped him angrily – not once, but ten times consecutively, each lash reducing him further and further down until his knees were scraping against the floor, until the Cryos on his body was stomped out.
He was once again left cold and beaten, and the hard lesson was still unclear.
The hours that followed were lethargic, hopeless, just full of recollections of the events that had led him here. The wars between factions and disputes amongst friends. Death, misery, the Quake. The Sins were split apart by all of this. Leadership disbursed. Cohesiveness that had once banded them together felt loose and elastic. And now, here, in the frigid gloom, all of these failures set in. Silence was dangerous for a mind like his. Imagine it – a long-connected chain harboring the tribulations of multiple lifetimes. Murder, death. Murder… death. Witnessing so much of it made it eternal. Watching Elaina die by the hand of his brother would never leave.
But yet here she was, linked to him in a way he never could have imagined before the Society. He was once the beacon of hope for so many, through the Quakes and through oppression. He couldn’t give up now, not after experiencing such a miracle of his own. Some way, somehow, he had to find peace in his new reality, no matter how bewildering. He had to forgive himself for his shortcomings and find the right path, with Elaina. With Cryos.
“If my father’s right and Jason has taken over Eugene, then wouldn’t abandoning him be to betray him? That’s not our way. I should find him, Elaina… and bring him back.
“And Sabin. What about him? I sent him to fulfill an impossible task… alone. I should be ashamed of myself for being so reckless. If I spent my time reuniting with him and the Rogues, we could end this war for good. I shouldn’t be sitting here in the dark, feeling like an adolescent when I’m nearly a century aged,” he said angrily, staring down at his shadowy hands with eyes adjusted to the dark. He could tell the tips of his fingers were turning blue, and not just by the poignant sting biting each tip.
“Get up, Blague,” Elaina said with no room for question. She pulled him with her phantom hands. “Instead of releasing this burst of energy at the peak of summoning, we’re going to hold it… and turn the chemical onto ourselves,” she proclaimed, confident in her idea.
Blague grunted and reluctantly got to his feet, his joints tight from the freezing air. Pressure intensified under his arms, hoisted by an invisible person. There was no caress in Elaina’s touch this time, just forte. She took it upon herself to take the lead, drawing Cryos from Blague’s tattoo with her own concentration. He glanced at his mark and huffed, grudgingly extending his reach and closing his eyes to follow her. Together, they spun their web of energy to wrap his arms once again. A hesitative glance showed them that the funnel was doing the same. The ethereal mist loitered in the cold, waving at the mercy of a breeze. Once she thought it steady, Elaina summoned her might so that Blague’s body appeared as an exoskeleton of cranking pistons. And just before it burst, she retracted the force inward, brightening Blague’s body further and relaxing the stream of energy into a calm flow, like armor of blue fire. They had found success in the punishing funnel’s silence. Heat and vitality were generating, not only around him, but around the lingering rod of energy as well. It had awakened, increasing its intensity in tandem with Blague, until finally it relit the effervescent ceiling and blanketed the space with light once more.
As Cryos reignited the vast room, it revealed Aslock standing just beyond reach of the beam’s light, unbeknownst to his adept just a moment before. He was fully cloaked and his face obscured, appearing as a Grim Reaper that would have frightened anyone else. He slowly clapped his gloved hands and then held them out wide, gliding toward his student. “You see, your secondary is not here only to comfort you. Elaina can also be a source of great strength. Not the rage that you like to exude, Blague, but a more… resilient power. The beauty is, for the rest of your days, you do not have to carry your burdens alone.”
Perplexed by his words, Elaina felt exposed, as if she were a floating ghost that Aslock could somehow see.
“How could he know that it was me who made the decision?” Elaina asked.
“I spoke out loud. He knew I was falling into despair. The jerk must have put two and two together,” Blague responded.
Aslock took a few more slow steps toward his apprentice. “True power is not dished out at every waking chance. It is harnessed from within. And as I have said before, there it grows in tranquility, not in haste.”
Blague looked at his burning hands, feeling an incredible force run through them. Everything had caught up. The lesson was a success, and another miracle was pulled from him by his mentor.
The Elder finally reached Blague and pressed his fingertips onto his chest. “The rest will be for another day,” he said, dissipating the remainder of the Sin’s Cryos with a simple touch.
“Come. Now is the time to focus on your father’s agenda.”
Eugene had sunken down into a realm of consciousness so deep, so forgiving, that it no longer required effort to exist. He was just floating on some bed of calming mist, arms and legs hung as if he were being hoisted by a harness.
“Hold me forever,” he mumbled to himself, then laughed as the hair on his skin was being brushed by unseen fur, reminding him of his favorite childhood blanket.
A long breath took in air as crisp as a spring day in the mountains. “Come on, Jen, let’s head back to the cabin before it gets too dark and we’re stranded out here. Hey! No,” he smirked, “not here. When we get back.” He slapped her roaming fingers away.
Even though he was being typical Eugene, for some reason the angst that normally accompanied his every move wasn’t with him here. He felt weightless, with no sense of time nor worry, leaving his strive where it belonged - out of reach.
And when he opened his eyes, it wasn’t like waking up from a dream where you lose the rapture of it. It was the dream that felt real, and reality that was fleeting. When his ethereal eyes blinked open, he saw a dimmed amber light swaying like a flame on a candle’s wick. “Nothing to worry about…” he closed them again, “back to heaven.”
“Ahh,” he relaxed, awoken once more into a world when he wandered with a body of his own.
There she was – Jen was laying on him, tracing her fingers up and down his skin, finding his hands clasped behind his head. Their noses were touching, he could feel her minty breath as she seductively laughed through a kiss, her bare flat belly pressing against his.
Bliss.
She moaned and interlaced their legs while caressing his palms, begging with her body. Yearning. And it was working – every bit of her touch drove him mad. The light brush of her lips over the soft of his neck made his toes curl. The wetness of her tongue made him yank her hair to tell her it was working. Whatever she was doing, he wished she wouldn’t stop.
He was squirming with lust at this point until they both deemed the teasing to be over – he untucked his hands and grabbed her waist… lower. And she did the same.
She pushed back, kissing more feverishly at his neck, exhaling after each one. Her teeth grazed his skin with longing. Passion took over. Wanting moans escaped as heat rose. He gripped her by the hair and forced his lips onto hers.
It felt all too real - the brown couch in their rented cabin, Jen’s unscarred face, even the dirt under her fingernails from a long day’s work. The time that they’d shared when the day was over, and being able to enjoy each other was everything that he lived for. Whether it was a time passed or not didn’t matter. He was lost in it.
She smiled through her kiss, enjoying the moment as much as he was while pulling up his shirt and caressing the dirty blond strip of hair on his stomach.
“It was worth th
e wait through the grueling day, wasn’t it?” she teased, laughing lightly through her moans.
Eugene got to his knees and pressed his lips harder onto hers, responding with hunger. His prior lax state seamlessly escalated into a euphoric one. But then the feeling suddenly died. He became startled when he remembered where he was. Something was terribly wrong.
“This isn’t us. You’re not really here.”
Jen pulled back, her body language shifting and eyes hardening. Her expression spoke rejection. No words followed. It was like the reel had snapped and a static image of his angry soulmate burned still.
The scene quickly changed over to the time when Jen had pushed the smoke of Auront unto him back in Senation. This was all a façade of his making, a hood pulled over his eyes to distract him from the truth. And in an instant, the scornful memory turned into acceptance. After what felt like months of submission and denial, he knew what Jen truly was, and what she had become.
He shook his head and looked at the strangeness above him that he’d almost surrendered to, watching a ball of light wash the broken image from his vision as if it were being wiped away with an iridescent rag.
“No, no, no.” He tried to cling to the blissfulness that was being erased, his voice bleeding with desperation. “Don’t wake me!”
The light faded and only blackness remained. Unadjusted eyes stung to see, but there was nothing, not even a shadow of his limbs. He was blind. A sense of vertigo took hold, spinning him in place. His dead man’s float now a flailing panic. A dream so quickly transformed into a nightmare where he could hear his heartbeat in his eardrums, feel the pulsing throb in his throat. This was hell, he was sure of it.
Minutes felt like days now. There was no way to tell which way was up, but he was moving… always at varying speeds, round and round like he was stuffed into a washer machine.
“Stop… stop!”
And he did – some gravitational force stopped him dead. But Eugene soon found it wasn’t necessarily a good thing. His limbs, they grew heavy like cinderblocks. They were bloated two-ton rocks.
