The Rising Sun: Episode 2

by J Hawk

  All right, here we go…

  He tapped into the flow of mystic energy in his mind, which came rushing out, ready to do what must be done…

  But the door opposite to him blasted open, alarming him and cutting the flow of his mystic energy. A rebel, cloaked in white, stood at the entrance, a Sparkler in hand.

  Before Qyro could do anything more, the rebel raised his Sparkler and shot.

  A crisp electric noise filled the room as a jet of blue streaked across and hit Qyro, tossing his body back. As he smashed onto the wall behind him, a brutal crippling sensation coursed through his whole body … paralysing him.

  It’s a freeze Sparkler! Qyro realised, panic stricken. I’ve been frozen!

  The freeze Sparkler was meant to paralyse the target with a crippling pain that seized his whole body … But the effect of this pain reached the target’s mind as well, leaving it paralysed. As a result, a mystic’s powers trickled past his grasp under the effect of this crippling pain.

  I’m too late. Lying helplessly against the wall, unable to move his body, Qyro watched with widened eyes and growing horror.

  The masked rebel walked into the room, along with a whole bunch of others. The white cloaked figures spread about the room, all of their masked faces holding Qyro steady in their glare.

  The man who had shot him stood a foot or two before him, his Sparkler tucked into his belt.

  He turned to another rebel who stood behind him. “Shall we?”

  The rebel nodded, and walked forward. He was holding two guns by either hand. One of them was a Sparkler, and the other wasn’t. Qyro’s eyes fell on the other gun, and as he recognised it, a surge of panic raced through him. That’s … the Stinger. The ultimate torture weapon.

  The rebel handed the Stinger to the man in front of Qyro. Turning towards Qyro, the man bent down over him again, and pulled his gag off.

  “I’m going to ask this just once,” he breathed into Qyro’s face. “Co operate with us and tell us everything we need to know. Because otherwise…”

  He brought the Stinger to a dead aim onto Qyro’s chest. Qyro felt something pound inside of where the Stinger pointed, as though trying to escape this body, which now seconds from being wrecked and wasted.

  He mustered every ounce of resolve lying within him, and kept himself steady. Fighting the effect of the freeze shot, he formed words with a bare movement of his paralysed lips: “Go on … I ain’t scared.”

  The man stayed as he was, bent before Qyro, staring into him for a long second. His Stinger stayed aimed over Qyro, who kept his fear contained.

  Then, the man lowered the Stinger, drew back up and laughed coldly. “It’s not you that you should be scared for.”

  A shuffling noise drew from outside, and a third rebel entered the room, dragging something over the floor. A body.

  It was Vestra.

  She was bound the same way Qyro was, but her eyes were closed. She stirred faintly, as the rebel tossed her body to the side of the man who stood before Qyro.

  She’s alive. thought Qyro, but his relief extinguished almost immediately. The rebel turned his head to his side, where she lay, half conscious. His hand clenched the Stinger tight, one finger resting over the gun’s trigger. His gaze lingered for a second over her before moving back to Qyro.

  “So what do you say to sparing your dear friend here some pain?” he asked, holding the Stinger aimed at the body next to him.

  Qyro ground his teeth, fury piercing his mind like a cold dagger.

  “Let her go,” he breathed, struggling through the paralysed effect to speak.

  “Only you have the power to do that,” said the man. “Or you can watch as he screams … and we’ll make both of you die slowly.”

  Qyro bore into him with his eyes, letting the seconds ebb by. Silence doused the entire room for many lengthy seconds. The two of them glared into each other, both of them in completely opposite positions. One in a state of utter dominance, the other completely helpless, subject to the other’s will. One armed and deadly, the other defenseless, paralysed. One ready to die, the other ready to kill…

  The rebel finally shook his head and gave a cold chuckle.

  “So be it, then.” he said, his soft words clear over the silence of the room. He held the Stinger steady over Vestra’s body, his finger ready to squeeze the trigger. “Enjoy hearing her scream.”

  The voice that spoke wasn’t Qyro’s.

  “Enjoy hearing your own.” Vestra bolted upright as she said it, throwing off the unconscious pretence. As alarm seized the room, she ran her elbow into the man’s shin, making him fall forward, groaning in pain. The Sparkler and the Stinger slipped off his grasp.

  The other rebels stood on the spot at the back of the room, temporarily stumped by the sudden turn of events. Then one of them opened fire, sending a jet of blue at Vestra, who threw her bound arms in front of her. The iron bindings around her arms took the impact of the shot and shattered. She reached for the iron shackles on her feet and sheared them off.

  As the other rebels broke to their senses and raised their guns, they were a little slow to the realisation that it was too late. Vestra had jumped right amidst the five of them in one swift, elegant leap. As they slowly turned around to face her and refix their guns’ aims, she sent one of them flying with a sharp blow of her knuckles. By the time the rebels had found her in their aim, another one was sent flying with the force of her kick. The last three rebels fired, and Vestra threw herself off the way of the three shots.

  Her lightning speed was no match for the three rebels, though they were armed. She dodged their shots fierily, and then sent her wrist pounding one of them in the chest, sending him airborne. Spinning around, she slashed her leg across the air. It hit one of the rebels by his head, taking him off his feat. The last rebel had finally awoken to the realisation that he was fighting something beyond normal boundaries of combat … that he was fighting a mystic. He stood on the spot, his outline rippling in terror for a second. Then, he turned in a wild attempt to bolt. But Vestra caught him by the neck of his robes, swung him about and sent his body smashing against the wall. He toppled off and slid to the floor, unconscious just like the rest of them.

  Turning around, Vestra picked up a fallen Sparkler, aimed and fired at Qyro. The jet of blue hit Qyro’s iron shackles, blasting them apart. He tried to heave himself up, only to slide over and fall to the ground. The freeze shot’s effect was wearing, but Qyro still couldn’t move fully. He could only barely speak:

  “I’ve been frozen.” he told Vestra, who tucked the Sparkler into her robe pocket and ran over. She helped him up, and slid one of his hands over her shoulder, allowing him to limp along by her side.

  “What do we do with the object we came here for?” asked Qyro, as they reached the door.

  “Forget the object!” Vestra squealed. “Getting out of here alive itself would take nothing short of a miracle.”

  Qyro nodded in agreement, and the two of them emerged out the door into a long corridor. As they limped down the corridor, a sudden flash of blue came from behind, and then a jet of light streaked past them … The two of them turned back, wild with shock.

  A batch of Rash-cons came storming towards them from the other end of the corridor. They sent another jet of light at the two of them. Vestra dropped Qyro, and threw herself aside, saving both of them from the shot at a split second’s notice.

  “Go!” ordered Qyro, choked with panic. “You can’t save both of us. Go!”

  “I don’t think so.” Vestra held out her sparkle and shot wildly, sending streaks of blue across the corridor. Of the six robots, three of them fell to the shots, blasted backwards. But the other three jumped out of the way of the shots, pressing themselves by the both sides of the corridor’s walls.

  Vestra threw the Sparkler and sprinted towards them. Before they had even raised their Sparklers, she had sent one of them soaring back with a heavy pound of her fist. As the other
two opened fire, she dodged back, missing one of the jets of blue by a mere, deadly whisker. She then threw both hands forward in a swift, waving motion. A heat wave like disturbance filled the air ahead of her hands, and glided forward towards the two robots. The smash collided with the robots with a loud bang, shattering them, and sending their splintered remains flying backwards. Vestra turned and ran back to Qyro.

  “Save yourself,” Qyro pleaded with her, as she helped him up. “You’ll get both of us killed!”

  As if on cue, a faint pattering of footsteps came from somewhere nearby in the building. And it was coming towards them … they stopped and turned back. The corridor sprouted into two adjacent ones at the end, and a large party was storming down the adjacent hallways…

  Vestra’s grip on Qyro’s hand, slung around her neck, slackened. She turned to look at him … and for a second, Qyro thought he saw helplessness in the depths of her black eyes.

  “Save yourself.” Qyro whispered, as the footsteps drew closer. “Go…”

  Without a word, she dropped his hand by her side, turned and pelted off down the corridor. Qyro stared after her for a second as she vanished at the end of the corridor. Then, his head spun about to face the other end, where the footsteps grew louder. The effect of the freeze shot still strong, his legs wobbled, unwilling to take his weight. His knees buckled and he hit the ground again. He turned to where Vestra had disappeared, at the other end of the corridor. She did the right thing…

  He only hoped that his sacrifice was worth it, and that she made it out of the village alive. He sighed, feeling his doom close upon him in the sound of the loudening footsteps. Then, his eyes went wide: Vestra had returned at the corridor’s end, holding some things in both hands. Qyro realised she hadn’t abandoned him after all.

  “What’re you doing?” asked Qyro. “I told you to leave me and -”

  “Oh, shut up! We both know that’s not happening.” she panted, arriving by Qyro’s side, and dropping the two stick like objects held in her hand … their swords!

  “Where’d you find them?”

  “They had taken and kept them in the room where they held me.” said Vestra. “Wonder why, though. Not like they could use them the way we could.”

  There was a third, gun like device she had acquired. Qyro recognised it. “That’s an electrifier. What’re you gonna do with-”

  To his surprise, Vestra held the gun aimed at him, and squeezed the trigger. A crisp white bolt, like that of frozen lightning, sprang from the gun’s tip and hit Qyro. For that one moment, Qyro felt every pore in his body screech in agony, as a thousand volts of electricity seized him … And the next moment, as relief swept across his body, he realised the effect of the freeze shot was gone. He was now free.

  “Always remember,” said Vestra, responding to his puzzled look. “high voltage gets rid of the freeze shot’s effect.”

  Impressed, Qyro made a note of it.

  He drew up again, enjoying the feeling of being able to move again.

  The thundering footsteps swiftly neared the end of the corridor. Without even glancing back, the two of them slung their sheathed swords over their backs and dashed off. Evading more unwanted company.

  They exited the building and tore down the street without a second glance at anything. The street ended with a large green field which the two of them raced through, bounding across five steps in the time a normal man would have taken for one.

  Their training had given them a glimpse of what it felt like when facing life or death situations. But as reality cast them into one, Qyro realised that this was nothing like anything they had trained for. They had glared death in the eye and had escaped its brutal grasp by a whisker.

  The green field seemed to go on for a mile or two, ending in the unlevelled terrain that they had crossed, which surrounded the village. Just when the two of them thought they were safe, Qyro felt his ears twitch slightly, as they heard it:

  The sound of an electric engine. Buzzing straight their way.

  Vestra seemed to have noticed it as well, and the two of them glanced back to have their worst fear confirmed: two hover cars and a rebel on a hover bike came soaring their way across the green clearing, from the village. They came zooming towards them dangerously fast, and even before they reached, Qyro knew there was no hope of outrunning them. The vehicles were too fast. Even for their mystic superspeed.

  “We’re gonna have to take them,” panted Vestra, as she bounded forward by Qyro’s side.

  Qyro nodded, his hand jumping onto his sword handle. As they drew their sabers, the vroom of the engine drowned the air: one of the hover cars came gliding by Qyro’s right, and a masked rebel leaned out of the window, aiming his Sparkler. Qyro held up his hand at the car. Using his powers, he made the steering wheel spin off control. The car lost altitude, jumped to a side, and then crashed to the ground in a mighty shattering sound.

  A jet of blue sailed past Qyro, hitting the ground ahead of him. He twisted his head around to see the hover bike rider closing in on him. The second hover car came gliding over Vestra’s side. A rebel hung out of the window, his Sparkler aimed at them, and the hover bike’s rider braced the canon stretching at the front of the sleek black machine…

  Even as Vestra ignited her sword, Qyro leapt towards the rider, knocking him off the bike. He took control of it, steering it over and behind the hover car. The rebel clinging out of the window shot jets of blue at Vestra, who ran along by the vehicle’s right. Her ignited sword spun wildly to block the shots. Qyro aimed the canon, and shot … A beam of red erupted from the tip of the bike’s canon, and sailed over to the hover car. A dazzling, orange explosion swallowed the car, shattering its remains on all sides. Vestra leapt out of the way of the wreckage sent spewed at her, and Qyro spun the bike to the left just in time to avoid the flaming remains of the car which continued to sail forward in the air, before slipping off and toppling to the ground loudly.

  Qyro landed the bike and Vestra came to a stop by his side.

  “This would come in handy.” he called to Vestra, tapping the hover bike. “Hop on,”

  She slid over behind him on the bike. Qyro gave a half glance back, and saw that the coast was clear: the rebels had given up. Or he hoped so. He spun the throttle, and the bike lurched forward, soaring over the ground and away from the village behind them…

  __________

  In a tower rising high up, close to where the two Nyon were, the rebel warlord Razvol sat with his back reclined against his seat. A set of pounding footsteps broke the silence, and before he could begin to wonder what was happening, the door to his room had blasted open. One of his rebels, cloaked in white, stood there, his chest heaving rapidly.

  “My lord,” said Pavio, as he finished catching up on his breath. “It’s the two prisoners that we caught earlier … They’ve escaped.”

  Razvol allowed not the meanest shred of emotion to show on his face as he held his gaze over Pavio, who seemed to shrink inwardly. Rising to his feet, he strode across the room, facing Pavio with his nose inches from the other’s.

  “Do you have any idea what you’ve just done?” he breathed.

  Pavio blanched. “My lord … I swear, we -”

  “Those are no ordinary prisoners, you blasted fool!” erupted Razvol. “Those two are anything but ordinary prisoners: they’re sworn enemies of our masters, the ones we answer to. The sworn enemies of the Xeni.”

  The final word seemed to leave a thunderblow over Pavio, whose jaw dropped. His eyes went round.

  “The Xeni…” Pavio whispered, the blood draining from his face. “They’re the ones in control of this entire rebel operation. Our superiors.”

  “Yes, fool! And I answer directly to them. Displeasing them is certainly not a wise thing to do.”

  He twisted around, letting his gaze fall over the window outside. He scanned the village expanding below him, suppressing the rising panic mingled with rage. “We can’t let those two get away.
It would bring great displeasure from my masters when they find out.”

  “It’s not a problem, my lord.” said Pavio, his tone now gathering a new confidence. “They haven’t gotten far at all. I’ll take my men, and put a stop to them!”

  His insides heralding another blast of fury, Razvol spun towards Pavio. “We need them alive! Don’t you put a stop to them, when they’re so much needed alive.”

  Pavio’s expression grew fazed with confusion. “Alive? For what?”

  “I wouldn’t expect you to know why.” said Razvol. “My masters have long wanted the chance to capture a member of the brotherhood of Nyon. You see, the Xeni have long fought with the Nyon… and have long wanted to vanquish them forever. But the Nyon had been sealed in hiding, so well hidden that none even knew of their existence this long. All along The Xeni have yearned to find them, and slaughter the entire lot of them. But the location of their hideout, the Nyon temple, has always remained a hard fetched secret. The Xeni will be delighted in having two members of the brotherhood delivered to them, so that they can squeeze out the location of their hated enemy’s hidden lair from the two of them.”