Xero Chronicle

by Ross Buzzell

  The muddy water splashes up Xero’s legs with each rapid and powerful step; he was pushing himself just about as hard as he could. In the back of his mind he knew Ja and E were doing the same. The air on this strange world is rich in oxygen. Typically in an all-out sprint like this Xero would begin to feel a mild cramp in his side and Ja and E would certainly have fallen behind. Xero glances back to ensure that they are still behind him and they are. A trail of water and dirt is raised high in the air from the force that they are exerting in the sprint for several hundred feet behind them before it manages to make it back to the ground.

  Xero puts his attention forward again as the trees blur past them, almost as if they were not there at all. And the light that leads their path continues to just dance in the air before them as if it were taking its time as to not lose her pursuers. Each powerful footstep propels Xero and his team further and faster until it is almost like they are gliding across the top of the marshlands with ease. After hours of pushing themselves, Xero notices a strange purple/black light off in the distance. The light dances up a barrier that flairs white every once in a while like a flame searching to get out of its lamp. Xero gradually begins to slow down to the point where he no longer skims across the sludge addled water but now steps ankle deep in with each step. The light before them slowly comes to a stop a few hundred meters away from the purple/black light’s source. Xero, Ja and E all come to a stop as well. Xero notices E begin to scan the anomaly as the light slowly pulls itself back together to form the angelic woman once again.

  “This is where we have contained the infection to our world. It has been so long we do not remember what is inside but be careful, as sure as the sun will rise that darkness will corrupt.”

  With that she wisped away on the winds after taking her incorporeal form once again. Xero glances at E’mellor as the scan is complete. Slowly the prince pulls his blade from his back. He hears the soft whine of Ja’Sanfur’s rifle as it powers up and E pulls a flat piece of metal from her side and holds it in her hand like a disk.

  “What do we have?”

  The warrior asks his companion. A red ping begins to overtake the scanning screen before E’mellor shuts it off.

  “It looks like an adaptive form of necrotizing-fasciitis. It is even infecting and eating away at the barrier.”

  “What has prevented it from coming down then?”

  Ja asks as she makes her way to Xero’s side.

  “These beings have regenerative properties like nothing I have ever seen before. Those properties were passed on to the barrier and so it can heal almost faster than it takes damage. I would love to stay behind and study them.”

  Xero begins to walk toward the barrier, weapon drawn; Ja and E fall into line behind him.

  “After our mission is finished, I will make sure you come back, with the locals’ permission of course.”

  The three slowly approach the barrier. As they get closer it opens up just enough to allow the three through. As the white aura parts a puff of smog shoots out of the containment field and into Xero’s face. The foul odor burns his nose. Using the elbow of one arm he covers his mouth and squints his eyes as the contamination causes his eyes to burn. His gut tells him to turn back. His logic reminds him of the mission but neither one of those instincts affects his decision. A small voice in the back of his brain pushes him forward. It tells him to delve into the darkness to see what awaits. Xero hears Ja speak but hardly registers her words as he passes from the pure air of the planet into the infectious air of the wound.

  “Scans are showing similarities to this wound and the Dark World we were on the other day… it has compensated for the different climate so breathing this atmosphere will not kill us but it will burn.”

  she was not wrong. The air burned Xero’s lungs as if he had inhaled lava but he pushes on through the darkness. Slowly Xero activates a bubble of blue energy as a shield around the three. As they move further in the containment closes behind them and the air within their little bubble is purified.

  “Scans are showing biological matter. It is necrotic but moving… there is a lot of it too.”

  Xero glances back at Ja, who has her rifle charged to its maximum levels.

  “You want to see if you can’t get us a clean view of what’s ahead?”

  Ja nods, aiming her gun into the air at a forty-five degree angle. She holds the trigger down and the signature whine of the rifle charging up fills the silence, almost deathly silence around them. After a few moments the end of the gun begins to glow brightly. At that moment Xero opens a small hole in the bubble around his team, to which Ja releases the trigger. A massive ball of energy arches through the air before detonating above the ground creating an orb of near blinding light, almost like a small star.

  What Xero sees causes his stomach to drop. As the light pierces the darkness, there stands the largest beast Xero had ever seen. It had the form of a dragon but it was not like any dragon the warrior had ever witnessed. Its eyes glowed a sickly purple; spines covered every inch of it from head to tail aside from the flesh between the wings. Flesh is sloughing off of the beast and the corrupted purple light beams from within it, showing shadows of parts of its ribs and skeleton where the skin is either thinnest or most rotten. The monster’s front left arm is more bone than being at this point, with Xero being able to see between what would be its radius and ulna bones. Xero goes to take a step back but his foot slides on something hard. He glances down to see a hard white material on the ground. As his gaze raises once again he notices it is everywhere. The dragon begins to move which brings Xero’s attention back to it. As it does a skull is reviled from behind the beast, a massive skull nearly three times Xero’s own height. Quickly Xero scans the area as a sinking feeling grips his stomach… they were all standing on shattered bone.

  A flair of purple light begins to form in the beast’s chest and travel up its neck. No one needed to speak. They all knew what was about to happen. A massive ball of purple and black fire is launched at them from behind the ragged and sharp teeth of the necrotic beast. All three leap out of the shield and out of the way. It was a good thing they did too because the heat coming off of the fire is unlike anything Xero had ever felt before and his shield gets obliterated. Rolling through the scorched ground covered in charred bone fragments Xero catches himself in a crouched position, blade extended to his side with its edge burning. His senses heightened. His eyes scan the battle field as everything seems to slow down. The beast has its sights set on Ja’Sanfur since she has begun to unleash a barrage of solar level rounds into the beast. This causes it to stagger and scorches its flesh but does no real damage. She gets so many rounds off that Xero counts thirty in the air at one time.

  A slight glint catches Xero’s eye as he sees the metal disk soaring through the air. The disk unfolds itself into the massive mallet E used to fight the Titan. Soaring through the air, E flips over the forming mallet as the handle ejects itself into her hand. Flipping forward she slams the hammer into the dragon’s head. A pressure wave blasts out from all sides, knocking Xero back a few feet and Ja the same. The smog within the containment field disperses and is pushed to the top of the barrier far above the battle. A brilliant purple light explodes before them as the necrotic dragon’s blast is re-directed into the ground which sends the beast’s head whiplashing backward and E’mellor skipping across the battle field. Ja continues to fire at the beast while moving toward E who Xero notices is slowly trying to get up. Clearly she had been hurt. In the blink of an eye, Xero dashes across the battle field and begins to slash at the beast. His ignited blade slashing into the dead flesh of the corrupted monster.

  Battle never smelled nice but this was something worse. The smell of death is not a foreign concept to Xero, or his team, but this monster’s stench would burn the lungs of even the hardiest in the galaxy. Ignore the stench. No time to think about that right now. Focus on the battle at hand. Xero thinks to himself as he rolls to dodge swipes from the beast’
s massive claws, which were surprisingly swift. As Xero moves in for a stab he gets blindsided. A rattle shakes Xero to his very core as he feels himself being propelled forward into the barrier, bouncing off of it and slamming into the ground. Somehow it had gotten its tail behind Xero and he never noticed. Attempting to catch his breath, Xero tries to pull himself to his feet with every bone in his body aching. The infectious air burning his lungs did not help matters at all either. The ground begins to shake as the beast begins to move. Xero turns over fully expecting to see its massive claw come down on him. Instead he sees something far worse.

  The dragon has begun to charge Ja’Sanfur who stands between it and E’mellor as she slowly pulls herself to her feet. The dragon shrugs off the blasts from Ja’s rifle as it lowers its head and opens its gaping maw. The purple light burning within the beast grows brighter with each step in anticipation for the meal to come. It was now or never. Find a way to kill the beast or watch his team die. Xero digs deep into himself and taps into a part of himself he never truly knew was there. Getting himself to his knees was an agonizing task but that was all he needed. Using every ounce of strength he had, Xero launches himself towards the far side of the battle field. The pressure wave of him breaking the sound barrier is amplified in the contained space, enough to cause the beast to flinch. For Xero time seems to slow down as his mind processes the speed he is traveling at such a different rate.

  The warrior prince passes beneath the beast’s belly. Using his blade, he slashes through the back right ankle, switching sides he slashes through the left front ankle. At the speed he was moving, Xero knew he did not have to cut all the way through. He made just enough contact that each foot is sheered from its supporting leg in a poisonous puff of dust, tar-like ooze and rotting flesh. Xero slides in front of Ja, shoving her out of the way. He throws a shield up just as the roaring monster’s gaping jaws clamp down on the shield which instantly fractures like glass allowing its teeth to sink in partially. Xero looks down at Ja and E who are finally back on their feet.

  “RUN!”

  he screams as the beast clamps down once more, fracturing the shield further. Neither one listens and Ja picks up Xero’s blade, which he had dropped when he had shoved Ja out of the way. E’mellor slams her mallet on the ground and white flames explode from the head igniting it. The primal warrior roars that come from each woman would be enough to send entire armies into retreat. They vanish beneath the monster. While he cannot see what they are doing the shudders of the monster tell Xero that they are doing what comes naturally.

  For now it is just a waiting game, holding out until his team can take out the beast. Focusing as much as he can, Xero attempts to hold the shield when his eye catches something, something horrible. The puncture sites around the shield had begun to turn from the royal blue to a corrupted blackish purple. The jaws of the beast close tighter and with the sound of shattering glass the shield fails. Xero attempts to get out of the mouth before it closes but fails as the massive teeth slam into his breastplate digging into it slightly. True fear grips Xero, probably for the first time in his life. For a brief moment, he quickly checks beneath his breastplate. No blood it did not puncture. The monster throws Xero into the air, the prince’s vision smears in a blur of light before everything goes dark, with only a dim purple light giving Xero any idea of what was around him. A sinking feeling hits him in his stomach as he hears both E and Ja roaring in rage and fear. He had been eaten.

  This presents as a blessing in disguise. Clearly attacking it from the outside was not working. Xero clears his mind. He calms his heartrate and travels back in his mind to when the beast went to breathe for the first time. He remembers the bright core at the heart of the beast and begins to push himself further into the gullet of the creature. The stench begins to burn Xero’s lungs and his vision begins to blur. Thinking fast Xero forms a small shield around his nose and mouth cleansing the air for him to breath. He crawls through the putrid muck that fills the inside of the decomposing behemoth. A massive surge of heat fills the inside of the monster. Xero attempts to absorb the heat to channel it but there was something different about this heat source. He was not able to take it in.

  Xero extends the shield to around his body as his eyes catch the source of the brilliant black fire which was not much further ahead of him. As the monster breathes fire, Xero sees his shield begin to crack once again. As fast as he can Xero positions himself over the source of the heat. Rapidly Xero expands his shield until it shatters ripping a hole in the esophagus of the monster causing it to scream in pain. Xero catches himself on a rib as he looks at the source. His heart stops as the source of the corruption looked so terrifyingly familiar. It was the exact same figure that was on the Dark World. Xero feels the dark pull at the back of his mind begin to grow stronger and get louder. The only sound that cuts through is a painful scream from Ja’Sanfur. Xero snaps out of his trance. Reaching forward he grips the figure as tightly as he can. Squeezing it the small idol cracks then shatters under the force of his power. As the figurine is destroyed the inside of the beast begins to turn to ash, Xero falls through the failing structure of the corrupted dragon as the rest of the beast turns to ash and falls to the ground. As it does the ground becomes slightly damp.

  As soon as the prince’s vision is clear he looks around frantically searching for his team. A wave of relief washes over him as he sees Ja and E leaning against the ancient, massive skull catching their breath and clearly having battled something fierce. Slowly Xero begins to walk towards the two; his legs are wobbly as he is drained physically and mentally from the battle. A smile forms on his mouth as he begins to laugh from of the post battle stress. E slowly begins to chuckle a little, soon followed by Ja, until all three are laughing out of exhaustion. Ja takes a few steps toward Xero. Wiping his lips off she plants a relieved kiss on his lips to which Xero reciprocates. Forgetting for a moment that E is present the genuine concern of death had given way to elation resulting in the kiss being deeper and more passionate than Xero had anticipated. In the peaceful background Xero hears E’mellor clear her throat loudly. This causes the two to release each other, Xero laughs a little as he nods to his cousin.

  “Sorry E.”

  “Oh do not mind me… you know the only single person on this mission who absolutely does not mind PDA whatsoever!”

  her words drip with sarcasm. This causes Xero to chuckle and E follows suit before flinching a bit.

  “Haha ow… no way I did not at least crack a few ribs.”

  “Thank you.”

  A familiar soft voice echoes from behind the team. Xero slowly turns around to see the Wisp queen standing before them. She bows slightly to show respect. Xero does the same.

  “You have rid this world of a plight that has ever loomed over us since before we can remember. You have purified our world once more.”

  Slowly the woman seems to glide over the marshland. Her flowing silver dress matted but not burdened with the dirt of the planet as it flows care-free behind her. As she passes Xero she glances up at him and gives him a soft smile. Her exposed shoulder almost taunting him. It was strange. Never before had Xero had eyes for anyone but Ja. Ever since he had come in contact with what corrupted worlds he seemed unable to take his eyes off of this woman. She moves past him and to E, sliding a small square piece of metal into her hand before brushing E’mellor’s shoulder causing a bit of white light to flow into her.

  “As promised, this is all of the data you will need about our world and our people. I have healed your wounds and know that the Wisps will ever be an ally to the Boronian people.”

  she bows slightly. Xero keeps his eye on her as she moves over to Ja’Sanfur, gently giving her an embrace. She whispers something in her ear, something inaudible which only peeks Xero’s interest. As both of them glance his way, it was clear she had spoken of him. Slowly she releases Ja’Sanfur and makes her way over to Xero. She gently places a hand on his chest, over the massive puncture holes in his armor.
With a single glance down a look of mild worry fills her eyes.

  “The bite has corrupted your armor young prince. Your armor is part of you, it must purge or you will die.”

  Something in her words rings true for Xero. She genuinely seemed concerned, almost fearful that he would spread the corruption should he deny her help. Without a word the warrior prince nods to the Wisp queen whose hand instantly turns into a translucent field of white light and phases into his armor. She pulls what appears to be black smoke from his armor that dissipates as soon as it hits the air.

  Xero watches in awe as she works. His eye catches his armor begin to sink into his skin as she purifies it. A small flame of concern begins to flicker in the back of Xero’s mind as she continues to pull a black puff of smoke from each puncture hole. Each time she does his protective layer vanishes just a little bit more until finally he stands before her in a pair of skin tight pants designed to disperse heat when moving at supersonic speeds by foot. The queen gently places a hand on Xero’s bare chest. It is warm, something the prince did not expect. Her long nails lightly touch his skin sending a shiver down his spine.