by Dreagen
“I don’t know. I have no memory of when it happened. Come to think of it…I can’t even remember anything that happened to me leading up to my awaking here in KaNar.”
“Hmm, how odd,” LyCora said while twisting one of her long braids. “Still, something must have triggered it. Your flame lay dormant for years. Without proper treatment, the only way to reawaken it would be to suffer a traumatic shock.”
“Traumatic shock? Like what?”
“You tell me, Rex. Can you think of nothing? Nothing at all?”
“I…don’t know…” Rex could feel his mind reaching for something, but what it was he could not see. Still, to feel it so close was maddening. The harder he pushed the further it seemed to get, until all that was left was the sound of someone calling his name. He opened his eyes and saw that this time it was not coming from anyone he could see. Both LyCora and EeNox were standing in silence, staring at him with looks of worry and even fear. Why are they looking at me like that? The voice was now accompanied by another sound, this one evoking a sense of malice. So powerful was it that he felt himself being overtaken, consumed by a feeling so black that he could no longer see anything else—except two glowing lavender eyes that spoke to him. Doom Bringer.
EeNox suddenly looked nervous at the sight of Rex, who began to emit a steady red glow. “Uhh…Rex? Are you all right?” Rex did not answer, his gaze fixed forward with eyes set ablaze. “What’s wrong with him?”
“This feeling,” LyCora said. “I’ve felt it before. Wait…no…”
“What?” EeNox asked. “What is it?”
They both felt an eerie chill that expanded outward from the pit of their stomachs. Then a sound unlike anything that walked, swam, or flew in EeNara echoed through the air, a low, guttural sound that made them both look up. It was coming from Rex, but not as he was, instead like a feral beast, driven mad with rage as he stood before them seething with savage-looking teeth and thick, pulsating veins in his neck and arms.
“What’s wrong with him?” EeNox shouted.
“No,” LyCora whimpered. “Not again…”
Without warning, Rex cleared the distance between himself and the two of them, burning a trench in the ground beneath him. EeNox scarcely had time to react before he was sent flying through the air, backhanded by Rex, skidding to a painful halt some ten meters away. Looking back, he was surprised to see Rex relentlessly chasing LyCora, who was doing her best to stay out of his reach. “Rex, what’s gotten into you?”
Rex did not respond or even look back. He just continued to charge after LyCora, whose blue flame danced wildly around her. Igniting in crimson fury, Rex roared angrily and reached out to grab her, but he missed as she leapt out of the way in time to spin around and see a blast of red fire shoot out of his outstretched hand and blow the rocks she had been laid out on to pieces.
With a look of terror, she fired a blast off blue flame at Rex, scoring a direct hit to his chest and knocking him on his back. She breathed a heavy sigh of relief before gasping in horror as he rose back to his feet, seemingly unfazed.
Igniting once again, Rex charged forward, forcing LyCora to leap over his head and land behind him, where she unleashed a torrent of fire into him.
Rex was pushed down into the ground where he skidded for several meters. Not giving him a chance to bounce back as quickly as he did before, she fired blasts of flame in rapid succession before moving her hands in a series of complex gestures.
Rex felt something grab hold of his wrists and ankles, binding him to the ground. He looked to either side of him and saw that the knee-high plants that covered the entire area were tightly woven around his limbs, acting as restraints.
EeNox stepped up next to LyCora and watched as her flame surged through the soil in the surrounding plants that were now being used to hold Rex down. “That was some quick thinking,” he said. “I see you’ve learned a few new tricks since you were last here.”
“Call the power of my flame a trick again and I’ll line you up right next to him!”
“Whoa, easy! I just meant your abilities are starting to mirror that of your mother’s more and more.”
LyCora gave a sarcastic laugh. “That’s the first nice thing you’ve said to me since I arrived.”
“Stop hiding yourself away every time you come through and I might have the opportunity to do it more often.”
Rex was now fully immersed in his instinct to fight, driven by the abstract fragment of a memory, one that brought with it a sense of anger that called him to battle. No longer was he standing in the field amongst those he had come to know, but rather in the ruins of his damaged mind, fighting an opponent shrouded in ambiguity. He began struggling harder against his restraints. Despite being just plants, the flame that was now coursing through them made it feel like he was being shackled to the ground by heavy chains. Still, he could sense the amount of power that was pumping into the long leafy stems, felt the limits of its strength. Albeit impressive, he had felt his own flame surpass it in power. For the first time since the day in the forest, he tried to slow the fury raging inside him and concentrate on controlling his flame. It was like taming a wild fire burning out of control that consumed all it touched. It was, however, his—meaning if anyone could master it, it was he.
Slowly he pulled it back from all sides as he focused it within himself. He could feel it wanting to burst forth in all directions, but he managed to keep it restricted to just him. He then concentrated on matching it with the flame that was currently ensnaring him. Once he sensed the limits of its strength, he slowly turned up the heat on his own, increasing the output of pressure.
LyCora had been monitoring his flame and immediately sensed what he was up to. Not willing to be outmatched, she clenched her fists and drove another surge of flame into her makeshift restraints. “Bastard. Try getting out of those now.”
“LyCora, I really don’t think this is a good idea,” EeNox said.
“And what would you have had me do exactly?” she replied, motioning to the scattered rocks that had once been the stone outcropping. “Allow myself to be scattered all over this field?”
EeNox knew she was right. Rex was no longer himself, or perhaps he was. What he did not know about him eclipsed anything he did. For all any of them knew, the person that had been walking amongst them was a form of camouflage, or rather a predator mimicking its prey in order to get close enough to strike. It would certainly explain what was happening now, but something still did not seem right about that. Rex had had plenty of opportunities to hurt them since he had arrived. Furthermore, his sister hardly ever left his side, and if anyone would be a target it would be her, for without her flame, she would be completely defenseless. No, this was not some grand reveal, but rather a reaction, he realized. But to what? It seemed that as soon as LyCora began talking about him having suffered some sort of accident, he snapped. In fact, it was as if he became something else altogether, a single-minded killing machine that fixed itself on whatever set it off and did not lament until it got what it was after or was somehow interrupted.
He quickly recalled the day he had seen Rex fight TyRoas in front of their home, remembered how DiNiya’s intervention had somehow managed to break him of his murderous trance. Still, his sister was nowhere in sight, and LyCora was having more and more difficulty keeping him restrained. “Rex,” he called out. “Please, just come to your senses. No one wants to hurt you, but you need to calm down before she can release you!”
Rex did not respond; he grew very still to the point that the two of them wondered if he was dead from his circulation being cut off.
“Wow,” EeNox gasped. “You killed him! Wait until everyone finds out about this!”
“Don’t be an idiot,” she fired back. “He can’t be dead!”
“Well, he’s not moving, and believe me, he’s not the type to just give up a fight!”
“He probably just passed out.” They stared at him for another moment before looking back at one anothe
r. “He’s faking it,” she finally declared.
“No way.”
“Oh, come on! I didn’t use that much power! It has to be a trick.”
“I don’t think Rex is the kind of person to use tricks to get one over in a fight.”
“Oh, because you know him so well,” she replied sarcastically.
“Better than you!”
“How? By passing judgment on him every time he stepped foot into the same room as you? I overheard your father talking to my mother about the warm welcome you gave him.”
“You’re one to talk! You’ve been afraid of him from the moment you got a good look at his eyes!”
“You’re damn right I’m afraid, and you know exactly why, EeNox! I thought you were crazy to keep living in that house with that time bomb even if it was deactivated, but now I see you’re doing so with one that’s fully armed and dangerous!”
“That wasn’t her fault and you know it!”
“I was there, EeNox! I saw what happened, and if you had you would be as scared too!”
“I don’t care what happened; it’s still no excuse to treat the two of them like a plague!”
“Forget crazy. You’re suicidal!”
There was a sudden brilliant flash of red light coinciding with a loud explosion that knocked them off their feet. LyCora had landed on her backside, and as she was cursing under her breath from the shooting pain that was going up her back, she looked ahead and saw a sight that made her turn white. Beside her, EeNox gasped.
Rex was now on his feet, standing amidst a ten-meter spread of scorched ground. His eyes glowed red as fire rose from his mouth like some hellish figure. Everything around him seemed to wither and die as he walked ominously towards them.
The two of them scrambled to their feet and looked on in horror at what felt like impending doom. Rex suddenly bolted forward, causing LyCora to ignite her flame once again, preparing to defend herself. EeNox popped in between the two of them.
“Wait!” he exclaimed, causing Rex to stop in his tracks. “Does anybody else realize what just happened here?”
“Every fear I’ve ever had about red flame just got validated?” LyCora replied anxiously.
“No, he did what you thought couldn’t be done! He managed to control his flame!”
“You call that being in control?” she said, pointing to Rex, who was still snarling like a feral beast.
EeNox reared back slightly. “Well, somewhat anyway. Still, he did it!”
The rage-induced aura that was burning around Rex began to subside as he understood the words being spoken around him. At first his anger-filled mind rendered him unable to cognitively make sense of what was happening; it was like being in a fog that made him feel disoriented to everything else around him other than whatever he had targeted. Now words became sentences that took on meanings that triggered his curiosity. “I…I controlled it?”
“That’s right,” EeNox said, placing his hands on his shoulders. “Back there, when she had you pinned down, you somehow were able to get free. How did you do it?”
“What do you mean? I just concentrated on making my flame stronger than the one holding me.”
“What do you mean ‘made it stronger’?” LyCora asked, placing her hands on her hips. “I was putting everything I had into those restraints; you shouldn’t have been able to match my flame let alone overpower it.”
“And yet he did,” EeNox said with a smile.
“It really wasn’t all that difficult,” Rex said, sounding more like his normal self. “I mean, your flame wasn’t that strong. I remember mine being stronger the last time I fought TyRoas, so all I did was turn up the heat a little and I was able to break free.”
“Is that right?” LyCora said, dropping her arms and glaring. “Well, then maybe I should put a little more effort into it and do away with that smug attitude of yours.”
“Go for it,” Rex replied menacingly, igniting again.
“Would you two cool off already?” EeNox interjected, gently pushing them apart. “Why are you both wound so tight?”
“Because he tried to kill us,” LyCora replied angrily.
“I did not,” Rex countered.
With a furious scowl, she pointed to the pile of stone rubble scattered all around them. “Those would be pieces of me if you didn’t telegraph your every move prior to making it!”
“What does that mean?”
“Let me put it more simply for you, then: you have an immeasurable anger-management problem!”
Finally, EeNox placed a hand on his back and turned him around to face the destruction that had come about by his own doing. Rex took it in as if he was seeing it all for the first time.
“What…happened?” he stammered in shock as he looked at the charred circle off to his left and the obliterated boulder scattered in every direction. “I don’t remember any of this.”
“You don’t?” EeNox asked, sounding surprised. Rex just shook his head. “What is the last thing you do remember?”
“I remember us coming out here and finding her,” he said, motioning towards LyCora, who snorted derisively. “Then…I remember her saying something about…I don’t really…but I remember feeling upset by what she said, then…nothing. It all goes blank, until just a minute ago.”
“It’s just like it was with TyRoas,” EeNox declared. “Rex, these blackouts aren’t the result of you snapping. Whenever you get really angry, you seem to lose any sense of self and go on a rampage.”
“That kind of runs contrary to what you were saying earlier.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, weren’t you the one who said that I was different because I could control my flame through will alone instead of reactionary triggers like the rest of you?”
“Well, yeah, but—”
“So what the hell do you call me just blacking out and attacking people?”
EeNox found himself at a loss for words. He wanted to say something, offer anything that would shed some light on things and hopefully put everyone’s mind at ease, but the truth was he could think of nothing.
“Poor little EeNox,” LyCora chided. “Always trying to sound smarter than you actually are.”
“Back off,” he replied under his breath.
“What? Did you really think you could just figure him out?”
“LyCora, just stop, please.”
“After you so marvelously helped your sister?”
EeNox turned his back, refusing to even look at her. Rex watched him curiously, noticing that he seemed to carry a certain weight upon his shoulders that she was only adding to by continuing her barrage of words. Rex was intrigued by the notion that for once he was not the one being singled out, but he also understood what EeNox was feeling at that precise moment.
His thoughts were interrupted when he noticed that she called his name. Looking up, he scowled.
“Don’t let him give you false hope,” she said sternly. “The truth is, no one really knows all that much about the destructive force burning inside of you. No one alive, anyway.”
“All right, you’ve had your fun,” EeNox spoke up as he spun on his heel to face her. “You’ve managed to get him angry and hurt me! That is what you wanted, isn’t it? To prove that I’m ineffectual and him a monster? Well, congratulations! Your mother must be so proud to know she raised such a wicked child!”
LyCora raised her hand to smack him, but she suddenly felt her wrist in a strong grip. Looking up, she saw Rex holding her arm with a disapproving look. Wow, she thought, I didn’t even see him move. They held their gazes for a moment before LyCora forcefully pulled free, rubbing her now sore wrist. “Whatever,” she said, pulling her hood back over her head. “Just remember I warned you, warned all of you! He’s dangerous, and it’s only a matter of time before someone pays for their ignorance with their life.”
“Would it really kill you to trust someone else for once, LyCora?” EeNox asked.
“If we’re talking about
him, then probably yes.”
“Please…help us, help him.”
LyCora turned her head and looked at Rex, who just stared back, his eyes betraying no sense of what thoughts were lurking behind them. Furrowing her brow, she turned back to EeNox and said, “Just don’t expect me to feel sorry for you when you end up saying the wrong thing and he tears your head off!” With that, she turned around, her cape fanning up behind her, and proceeded back to town.
The two boys watched her disappear before EeNox let out a heavy sigh. “Well…that could have gone better. At least you didn’t kill us.”
“This time,” Rex replied in a low, almost emotionless voice as he continued to stare off in the direction LyCora had disappeared.
“I suppose that’s one way of looking at it.”
“You know of another?”
“Well…yes, actually. It’s like I said, you did manage to control it back there, even if it was only for a little bit.”
“So what? It only happened after I almost turned this whole field red with the two of you.”
“But now we have something to build off of, at least.” Rex gave him a look that said he was hardly convinced. “Hey, it’s a start. Besides, the sooner you learn how to control yourself, the sooner we can all sleep easy at night.”
“All right, we’ll try it your way…for now.”
“Good, then let’s—”
“Answer me this, though. Why did you let her just walk all over you like that?”
EeNox just sighed. “Because it’s easier that way.”
“If you don’t put people in their place the moment they start digging their heels into you, then they’ll never stop.”
“It’s not that easy.”
“Yes, it is.”
“I’m not like you, Rex. I can’t just detach myself from everyone and act out based on how I’m feeling. Come to think of it, neither should you,” he said, surveying the destruction around them.
“But you’d like to,” Rex pressed. “Wouldn’t you? I saw your face, could feel what you’re feeling. You hated her in that moment. You wanted to reach out and wring her neck for the things she was saying. You could have and just blamed it on me. After all, no one would believe me over you. So my question is, why didn’t you?”
