by J Hawk
The Rising Sun
Clocks
BOOK ONE
J HAWK
Copyright © 2014 J Hawk
EPISODE 2
1
“Force one congratulates you.” said Vonayz. “You’ve really earned yourself a reputation if the Naxim’s high council decided to send us to bring you down. We, force one, were meant for fighting fire with fire.”
The semi circle stirred with laughter, all of their eyes focused on Ion.
“A force of mystics to bring down mystics.” continued Vonayz. “You can imagine the impact it had on the Naxim’s high council. They were against it, but you’ve really done something here, to get them to change their minds and send us in. Force one. Mystic hunters.” He spread his hands, gesturing to the others standing around. “We’re just a very, very minor portion of the entire team. Altogether, force one encompasses almost a thousand or so mystics that the Naxim’s high council secretly uses to hunt down other, more deadly mystics. And all of them come under my command. I lead them. I handpick them, and take them to bring down fiends like you. And today, force one would have made its finest catch.”
Ion glared at the long hated face of his foe. The two of them stood feet apart, both their faces mirrors of the the same contempt and scorn. Ion tried maintaining his calm, keeping focus now when he most needed it. But before he knew it, his mind was steaming with rage and hatred. A rage and hatred which had been harnessed over too long…
The others standing about the circle listened quietly while their leader confronted his arch nemesis.
Vonayz held a piece of paper, with a blurry image on it, and waved it in front of Ion. “Imagine my delight, when this situation found me.” He looked into the picture, a smile splitting his face. “The leader of the high council of the Naxim approaches me, telling me that this was a mystic who needed to be brought in immediately.” He uttered a soft laugh. “I saw who the picture showed, and realised that this was an opportunity of a lifetime.”
Ion saw that this was the picture that the Naxim officer had earlier taken of him, in the middle of the mid air chase. His hair had been coated with the oil from his bike, but Vonayz had clearly made out who it actually was in the picture.
Vonayz rolled the picture and slid it back into his pocket, his hungry eyes fixed on Ion all through. His voice fell soft, but there was a fury in every word. “And imagine my response to him … when I got the chance to play my hand in my most hated enemy’s demise.” He spread his hands in a joyful gesture. “So what say you, Ion? Shall we finish what we failed to three years ago?” His voice lowered to an even more deadly whisper. “By the time we do … you’ll wish the two of us had never crossed paths.”
At once, the seven mystics drew their blades from behind them. They were all long and thin, sleek with menace. The very same way all mystic swords were built.
Ion drew his own blade, and he felt time slow down … his mind race forth.
Seven against one.
It wasn’t going to be easy.
Flashes of orange lit the air as the eight mystics ignited their swords as one.
Ion sidestepped Vonayz’s jab, twisted around and sent a slash with his own sword. Vonayz jumped a few feet back to miss his blade.
As the rest of them leapt towards him, Ion raised both hands. He channeled his energy and mind through his fingers. And a fluidic, wave like splash released itself from the air in front of him, sailing over towards the circle of seven. The smash collided with three of the six mystics, lifting them off their feet and sending them airborne. One of them hit the compound wall on the side of the street with a splitting crash, before going limp. Two others of the seven were knocked off their feet at the sudden force of his smash. They stumbled and fell over, tripping on their blue capes. The remaining one joined Vonayz, slashing and jabbing with a heavy fury alongside his leader. Ion jumped back, his sword flying faster than it had ever his whole life.
The five fallen ones slowly gathered themselves and lunged at him again. Ion experienced a split second flare of panic that made him half want to throw his sword and run off. But, gathering his spirits, he fought on. One of the six of them raised his hands, and crimson flames licked the air in front of him.
A blaze…
Raw panic shot through Ion. As the man unleashed a torrent of fire through both his hands, Ion had already flung himself off, and soared over the air just by to miss the flames. The fire singed the bottom of his cloak. He landed on the ground with a thud, rolled over, and burst back to his feet. As he turned, he saw that the man’s blaze, intended for him, had instead found two of his own. Their robes flaming from the back, the two members of the team hit the ground and rolled over it furiously, trying to douse the flames. The confusion gave Ion the mini second edge he needed. In a lightspeed flash, he turned and rammed his elbow to the side of one of them standing beside him. Then, he sent the hilt of his sword smashing into the face of another who stood before him. The two of them took to the air at the force of the respective blows, and landed in two limp, unconscious heaps.
Vonayz’s gaze flickered to the two of them and then back to Ion, fury now brimming upon his face. The two others remaining joined him in assailing Ion, pushing him further and further back. Ion had to keep the flow of his body steeled, as he fended off the assault of three ignited swords. But with every jab, every slash, he felt his hopes falter, his spirits sink … he knew he couldn’t hold off the odds for long. The three of them would finish him soon enough … Finally, Vonayz jumped forth, his sword gleaming wildly…
And red hot pain scorched Ion’s shoulder as Vonayz’s sword brushed it from the side. It failed to go any deeper because Ion had jumped back quick enough. Ion staggered and hit the ground with a roar of pain, his sword slipping from his hand. Vonayz and the two others stood over him, basking in the helpless state of their target.
Vonayz bent down over him, a fiendish glow upon his face.
“It’s too bad we were told to bring you back alive.” he whispered. “But wait a second … You don’t need all your bones to be in one piece for interrogation, do you?”
The two others laughed nastily.
Ion was keeping himself steady. While he was lying on the cold ground, his eyes casually roamed around. His sword lay feet from him, by the base of the compound wall on his right. Think … think.
“Now,” said Vonayz, straightening. “Where shall we sta -”
A loud crash drowned the end of his sentence, and he jumped to the right, missing a strip from compound wall that had cracked and fallen down beside. But the wall, which Ion had used his mystical powers to break and cause to fall, had collapsed over one of the three, who now lay unconscious below it. Before the suddenness of it could pass, Ion’s leg had swiped across the air. With a quiet sound of bone colliding with bone, he tripped the last of Vonayz’s men, who sailed over and landed by him. Before he could right himself, Ion’s fist had shot into his face, and he rolled over, unconscious.
With a wild roar, Vonayz jumped down upon Ion. The two of them rolled over the ground, grunting and snarling. Ion threw his weight off and reached for the sword lying by the wall. The two of them jumped to their feet, swords ignited again.
“Just the way I’d like it,” sneered Vonayz, his eyes blazing with fury. “One on one. The way it was meant to be.”
“You sure about that?” Ion jumped forth, summoning all the anger and pain. And he struck with a relentless, merciless rage, slashing, jabbing and stabbing. The two of their blades danced about in maniacal swirl of orange, and sparks exploded all over with every clash that they met in. Vonayz moved with the same vital prowess Ion had always known.
As their swords locked i
n a sharp, steely cling that left a shower of crimson sparks, Ion snarled from over their locked blades, “A lot’s changed … old pal.”
Vonayz’s teeth exposed as he chuckled. “Has it?”
“I’m not the guy you knew two years back. I’m now strong enough to take you down head on … not through luck as I did two years back.”
“Through snivelling cowardice, you mean?” said Vonayz. “But I’m not complaining, Ion. What happened between us gave me a lot to improve upon. And I’ve changed, too. Let me show you why.”
Without warning, he sent Ion stumbling back with a mighty push. Before Ion could steady himself, Vonayz had thrown himself forward with a battle cry. His glowing orange sword sailed towards Ion, a second away from gutting him. Gathering his mind, Ion threw himself into motion as well … His sword clipped Vonayz’s in a swift upper cut, sending him off balance for the meekest second. The meekest second that Ion needed. As Vonayz tried to steady himself, Ion had lunged forward, both feet leaving ground. A dull groan sounded over the air, and Vonayz was sent flying back at the force of Ion’s doubled legged kick. He sailed five metres across the air, and crashed into the wall of the building behind…
Ion landed firmly on both feet, his blood still racing with thrill and fear. He looked back down the alleyway, and at the two unconscious bodies by the side of the street. They were stirring feebly. Soon to come around. Ion turned and peered through the veil of mist in front of him. He knew that the four other mystics of the team Vonayz had brought had probably awoken and would come rushing to him anytime now.
Without a flicker of hesitation, he doused his sword and bolted off down the lane before they arrived here. He knew that they would be calling for re-inforcements when they saw what had become of Vonayz and the two other members of their team. And re-inforcements were the last thing he needed. He sprinted down the lane, aiming to take a de tour across the abandoned town and get back to the hover bike he had parked at the edge of the city.
2
Scratching his chin idly, Carcasar gazed down at the hilly terrain spreading below him. He had one eye, with the other one slit across and punctured. But even with his remaining eye, he happened to be just as deadly. Just as primally feared as he always had been. Beneath him on the mountain slope he was now on, five more cloaked figures lay stretched over the ground, asleep. Their grunting snores combined to fill the air with an unpleasant rasping noise. Which would have made the skin of any person who heard it prickle … any normal person who heard it. They, the cloaked creatures below and Carcasar himself, were anything but normal. They were not men. They hated men. Man beings were their finest, most loved cuisine. And it was common knowledge that men knew this, and feared them above all else.
Zelgron…
The very word boded a ring of terror in the heart of any man who heard it. And Carcasar was proud to belong to this brutal, savage segment of creation. A segment that knew no bounds. No boundaries in their vicious, bloody ways.
Carcasar drew back his hood and slowly raised his fingers, examining the old skin stretching over his bone like hands. Gray and lifeless, their skin seemed to rot harder every year, with thick patches of black smeared over them. Any stray person would have identified him as one of the deadliest creatures to tread this spectrum.
And yet, his race were left next to powerless … Despite the terror the Zelgron commanded, they were stripped of control in this world. A mere blotch in a world controlled by man beings.
But Carcasar intended to change that…
In recent years, he had set foot on a new path along with other powerful friends he had…
As a prominent warlord and a leader among the Zelgron, Carcasar was now slowly steering his race back to the top…
He drew his hood back again, his one remaining eye staring out from underneath it. Slowly trotting downwards on the slope, he lay on the ground, staring at the stars above. His one remaining eye twitched as he remembered the incident from a night so similar to this one…
The incident that had taken his other eye, and left a gash across his face in place of it.
And he remembered the one responsible for it. For tearing his eye out.
You won’t get away with what you did, boy. A growl of fury rumbled within his throat. Ion will pay for what he did … I’ll make sure of it. Eye for an eye.
His insides mashed with rage as he remembered that red haired, orange eyed boy. Someone who had made himself a most deadly enemy…
Two years ago
As Carcasar lunged again, the boy’s sword flashed wildly before him … He had slashed it across the air.
And the skin on Carcasar’s face blazed with pain as the tip of the sword scraped across it. The sword had slashed across one of his eyes. Carcasar stumbled, erupting with a scream of agony.
My eye!!
Pain and rage stormed him as he stood there with a hand over his punctured eye, his other hand flailing madly. Without wasting another second, he threw himself forth at the boy, aiming to tear his face out.
The present
Carcasar’s remaining eye twitched once more…
The person responsible for this … Carcasar knew he would not, in any means, get away with it. Nobody messed with him, the great Zelgron warlord, and got away with it.
He knew that before the end of this life, the boy would pay. He intended to make sure he did. He had a list of enemies who dreaded him and the rest of his kind under his command … And he knew that this boy was one of them.
That day, two years back, would have left its mark on him. A mark which Carcasar knew he was carrying upto this day … and he was right in doing so.
Because when the chance came for it, Carcasar would find the boy again and finish their meeting two years back…
And the chance was coming very soon…
3
Meanwhile, a billion miles away, cruiser 802 had just left the planet Dragor. It ripped across space at a mindless speed, its gigantic size seeming to hold no bounds to its motion.
Spaceway transport was mostly public, with the government of any planet owning the cruisers moving in and out of it. But there were also private companies willing to offer a far more luxurious, high priced mode of travel for passengers, and cruiser 802 came under the ownership of one of these private companies.
Lexion was a spaceway agency that owned a fleet of almost a thousand or so cruisers. Its voyages were mainly centred around the planetary system of Dragor and other nearby ones. Cruiser 802 was the last one leaving Dragor in this day, to a planet further off by the edge of this cluster, called Artos.
The space crew - the air hostesses and pilots - had just boarded the cruiser from Lexion’s space tower. This prominent space tower was where all of the company’s cruisers had their security checks, and were then boarded by the space crew. The cruisers would then move to the nearby ship station to collect the awaiting passengers.
Inside of the massive cruiser, in of its lavish halls laid sprawling over a vast area, four lines of spacious seats were laid in the interior. The passengers belonged to a simmering business class, most of them adorned in shiny suits and elegant cloaks.
Air hostesses strode down the hallways carrying trays of assortments, serving drinks and snacks to the passengers. With expensive black suits and golden badges gleaming on their chests, they struck an air of confidence and command.
Raf felt silently awed by the air of dignified elegance they were entitled to in this high priced mode of space travel. Lexion left no factor of comfort left unchecked for them. The owner of a multi cuisine chain of restaurants, Raf had always considered himself worthy of only the best. Uncompromising in what he received. As he stretched back on the cushiony first class seat, he had to admit: this time, he had received the best.
__________
In the space tower from which cruiser 802 had just left, a space monitoring crew sat busy behind holographic screens, helping the giant
vessel make its way through the dangerous chasm that was space.
The tower formed the central hub of Lexion, where all of the cruisers underwent final security scans, before the crew of pilots and air hostesses boarded them. The cruiser was then guided through its journey by a team of space monitors. This was to ensure that the giant vessel, prone to meeting unseen objects in space, waded through in a safe and unhindered path. The hexagon shaped room was lined with four desks, with people sitting behind each desk, busy at work.
Gronto stifled a yawn as he leaned by the side of the wall, watching another routine day of work roll by passively. He had spent almost thirty years as the chief security supervisor of Lexion. He had watched them grind through this same system everyday, before deploying their cruisers for space travel.
Cruiser 802 was the last vessel for this day.
