The Rising Sun: Episode 4

by J Hawk



  The Rising Sun

  Clocks

  BOOK ONE

  J HAWK

  Copyright © 2014 J Hawk

  EPISODE 4

  1

  Everything was spinning … spiralling. Everything had dissolved behind a sickening, ghastly whirl.

  “No…” Ion staggered.

  Grando and the other men had failed to notice anything, their burning, glee filled faces fixed on the boy on the floor between them, as Grando slowly took aim with his Sparkler…

  “THAT’S MY BROTHER!!!”

  Before he knew what had hit them, Grando was sailing backwards at the mighty force of Ion’s smash, a hurtling wave of fury and rage like nothing else he had released his entire life. Grando seemed to stay airborne for an eternity. Ion watched as his body slowed and sank in its arc, before crashing painfully onto the wall opposite and falling to the ground in a dull thud.

  The rest of the men’s glee filled, sneering expressions slowly died out, and they all rounded to look at Ion. Their faces grew fazed as they realised what had just happened, and raised their Sparklers as one at a new enemy amidst them.

  As an ocean of rage came crashing through him, Ion raised his hands at the men who were a split second from firing. And as he kept his hands raised, he didn’t know how it happened, but it happened as though a sudden force gushed through his mind, acting through him. A tide of bright, crimson flames flowed out from both his hands, licking the air around and in front, enclosing it in a cage of burning inferno.

  The flames leapt over the group of men, leaving the body on the ground to be spared. Before the men even realised what had happened, before they could begin to scream, the splash of fire engulfed them and they were burnt to crisps. As they topped to the ground, steaming, sideways, Ion leapt forward, bending over Eol. He lay on the ground, white and shaking, his orange eyes dilated in terror. His crimson hair was tousled and messy.

  Ion felt a stab of horror unlike anything he had felt his entire life … his insides writhed in agony as he realised what had just been done. What he had just done.

  “Hatred turns us into the people we hate.” The voice echoed in his head, like the residue of a distant booming sound.

  And for the split of a moment, Ion saw his own self mirrored in his twin brother, tortured by Rox … He had become the person he had hated.

  Eol was breathing in heavy rasps, and every part of him seemed to be trembling. He was a reflection of Ion, looking exactly like himself. His crimson hair was tousled and messy, and his skin bore the same tint of orange as Ion’s own did.

  My brother … my twin brother. Ion felt as though an invisible hand was crushing his insides. This can’t be…

  Breathless, Ion pulled him up with both arms, and their eyes met. And a humorless smile awoke on his twin brother’s twitching lips.

  “Now you understand,” He croaked, fighting to form words. “why you should know who you’re talking to before you threaten him.”

  And with that and a dry chuckle, his eyeballs rolled over and he became limp in Ion’s arms.

  “No…” moaned Ion, carrying him in his arms as he lay as still as a corpse. “This can’t be.”

  He looked across the large room … And there, across the chamber, Grando was scurrying to his feet from where he had fallen. At the sight of that man, rage like nothing he had known his entire life flooded Ion, wiping out all else from existence…

  The Redling slowly rose, and locked eyes with Ion…

  “You.” Ion growled, every word ringing with fury. “You … you’re responsible for this…”

  Before Ion knew what he was doing, he cast the unconscious body of his brother aside and leapt forward, every inch of him possessed with a fury like no other. He dashed towards the terrorist leader, his cry of rage splitting the room.

  Grando stood rigidly frozen on the spot, his eyes widened in terror as he watched Ion hurtle towards him. Then, seeming to muster every ounce of courage within him, he turned to the walls of the room and roared, “Rash-cons, ATTACK!”

  Ion barely knew what was happening. But by the time the group of robotic soldiers bounded in towards him from all sides, he had his sword ignited and spinning furiously. He could feel the space around him dissolve in a mesmerising swirl of orange light as he slashed down the robots that came charging towards him. They sent jets of light at him from their guns, which he flicked aside with the laziest swipe of his sword. As he fought, he felt his being scoured of the meanest flicker of hesitation or doubt. Right now, only one deadly force pulsed through him, so that power like nothing before thundered across his being. Rage.

  Moving faster than the haziest blur, he chopped down the dozen or so Rash-cons, leaving a clutter of their body parts to fill the ground around him.

  Finishing with them, he raised his eyes to where Grando had been standing. But it was empty: the Redling was gone, having fled through the door at the corner of the opposite wall.

  Ion felt himself tremble with fury. Without wasting a second, he charged across the room towards the door Grando had vanished through.

  __________

  Grando’s lungs were torn of breath as he sprinted senselessly down the long corridor, which came beyond the door he had escaped from. He chanced a fleeting glance back every second or so, terrified of seeing the red haired boy darting in right after him. But as he ran on mindlessly, the corridor swerved so that the exit was blocked.

  As he turned back, cursing under his breath, he saw a pack of his terrorists striding down the corridor. The entire lot of them froze on seeing their leader pelting down the corridor as though having seen a ghost.

  Without stopping, Grando panted to them as he ran on:

  “If you see a red haired boy coming down the corridor, DON’T let him pass!”

  Looking puzzled, the group of five terrorists nodded as he swept past them, reaching for their Sparklers in their belts.

  And right then, Grando heard a grinding shriek of fury emit from the beginning of the hallway. And then came the furious thudding of a pair of feet…

  Grando glanced back to see the five men he had crossed step back hesitantly, wary of what they were about to face. Before Grando had completed the turn of his head to face in front of him again, his eyes caught it all happening in the flash of a moment…

  Zipping forth like a bullet, the red haired boy appeared across the bend of the hallway, sword in hand, blade shining in bright orange. The men held their Sparklers higher, but at the same time staggered back at the panic of what they were seeing. But before any of them could move another flinch, Ion had launched over them. The shining orange light from his sword sliced the air rapidly, like a brandished whip flying wild. And the men standing before him crumpled and fell to the ground, all of them sliced into two or more senseless pieces. Ion dashed right on, his burning orange eyes locked over Grando as he furiously ran on in front.

  The thudding of footsteps grew closer … Ion was closing in on him rapidly, and Grando knew he had never stood a chance…

  And then, as though by a miracle, he tore past another curve in the hallway and found himself dashing towards the door to the balcony. The door slid open as he approached, revealing a large balcony with a hover car and a few bikes parked upon it. Behind him, he could hear Ion’s panting grow louder, and he knew that the boy was less than a few feet behind him.

  Bolstered by the urge to live, he slashed aside all petty pains and weaknesses: as he ran into the balcony towards his hover car, he summoned every bit of steel in his bones and took a leap forward. Landing before the car, he wrenched the door open, and jumped in. But as he shut the door the next second, something hard collided by the side of the vehicle. And
a shower of glass pieces sprayed him. Before he could even scream, Ion, who had hurled his arm through the window, grasped him by the throat. Wild with panic, Grando jabbed the buttons, sending the car’s engine on. And floored it…

  The car took off from the ground with a sudden lurch, but Ion kept his hands clasped around Grando’s throat, his other arm holding the car by its side as it hovered off the ground. As the balcony below him dropped, Ion’s strength waned and Grando felt the boy’s fingers slide loose on his throat. As the boy’s burning orange eyes stayed firmly latched with Grando’s for a final mini second, Ion gave a low growl:

  “I’ll kill you … I swear it.”

  And with that, as the car flew upward, he lost hold: Grando felt a large weight give away by the side of the car as the boy let go, dropping back to the balcony through a serene five metre drop. He landed with a slam on one of the hover bikes before rolling over, picking himself up instantly, and bringing his gaze above. Watching Grando’s car as it soared away…

  Grando turned back, suppressing a cold shiver at the fury in the boy’s voice as he spoke those final words:

  “I’ll kill you … I swear it.”

  Without thinking, he gunned the engine harder, sending the hover car shooting faster into the skies…

  __________

  His insides burning, Ion carried his brother’s body over his shoulder and raced down the empty lands that came around Grando’s base.

  After chasing Grando, he had returned to take his brother’s unconscious body and scurry in search of a healer. But he knew that the nearest village would be miles away … and Eol had already been badly wounded, with five shots of the Stinger.

  His hopes were flickering, and a part of him was dying alongside Eol.

  This can’t be happening!

  He fuelled every ounce of energy into his legs as he dashed senselessly across the empty lands. Hoping wildly that he would reach the nearest village in time to save his brother…

  And then, he heard something stir from the mass he was now holding by his shoulder.

  “Eol!” Coming to a stop, he gently placed his brother’s body on the ground, holding his head raised. Eol was stirring feebly, coming back to consciousness. His eyes fluttered for a few seconds before opening fully. Ion saw his own burning orange eyes mirrored within his brother’s.

  “Eol … you’re all right.” he whimpered, holding his brother’s wounded, ravaged form over the ground. “Don’t worry … I’m getting you to a healer. You’re gonna be fine.”

  His brother held his gaze, unblinking. Watching him steadily. But within the depths of his orange eyes, Ion saw something churn, something immense and powerful. Hatred. Fury.

  “You…” Eol croaked. “You’re not my brother.”

  Ion thought something inside of his chest had turned fragile. “No … Eol, don’t say that.”

  “I was a mystic.” Eol’s voice as weak as possible, and yet contained with a rage like nothing before. “I was the one who set the alert off in our village … You weren’t the only mystic in our family.”

  Ion flashed back to that day, years back … The Naxim had taken Eol as well, for some unknown reason. But the others thought that they were doing it out of pure insecurity, for they thought Eol was not a mystic. He realised that they’d been wrong. Eol had been a mystic as well. The family just hadn’t known.

  “I escaped.” Eol went on, his voice now growing into a rasp. “From the Naxim station … and years I’d been trying to find you … and then, I found this.” His hand trembling, he thrust it into his pocket and withdrew the same parchment Ion had seen earlier. But as he unrolled it, Ion felt speechlessly stunned.

  The image of him in the poster was far from him. It was a gruesome, terrifying version of him.

  A scary version of him. With glowing red eyes, and pale skin.

  Ion realised the states of the inner spectrum had obviously had it painted, and that it was just a vague depiction of him, which was all they could come up with.

  “You killed them.” rasped Eol, his weak voice now hardening with contempt like no other. “You killed our parents … you killed what they stood for … what they taught us.”

  Ion’s hands slackened as he held his brother.

  Eol’s orange eyes drilled into Ion. “You destroyed everything they raised us with … and took the life of a fiend.”

  “No,” Ion croaked, his own throat bone dry. “Eol, I didn’t-”

  “You’re not my brother.” said Eol, shaking his head feebly. His eyes were drooping … He was losing the fight. “You’re not Ion … you’re a monster. And I needed to avenge my parents …”

  “No, no, no, Eol, no!”

  But with a final, scorching imprint left on Ion with his orange eyes, Eol let his body loosen … His head rolled sideways. His eyes lay shut halfway, leaving a small gap open at the bottom. His wild crimson hair lay still by the side of his head.

  A small, glistening bead of liquid landed on his chest, dropping from Ion’s left eye.

  No … no … no … What have I done?

  Ion shook his brother’s limp body feebly, but Eol lay as still as a pillow. And Ion knew he would move no more.

  “You killed them … you killed my parents …”

  Anguish and disgust like nothing before welled up within Ion, so that he could hardly breathe as he knelt there by the ground, holding his brother’s dead body in his hands.

  And then, shaking with grief and rage and pain, Ion threw his head back and let a writhing scream of anguish drown the air around him, carrying for miles across.

  2

  The present

  The Naxim was in chaos.

  Three of its high council members were dead, one of which was the leader himself. And another was kidnapped, also quite possibly dead. And the culprits for it all were the same ones responsible for the two earlier attacks. The same mystics.

  Haxor quelled his giddiness and kept himself steady. As the newly elected leader of the high council, he knew he was the only one the spectrum had to rely on for this crisis. He gazed past the table that the rest of the high council members were now seated around, trying to find a solution to this mess. Which was taking their world to the teetering edge of disaster.

  The entire table shared a silence filled with heavy foreboding, all faces masked with the same tense grimness.

  Haxor rose from his desk, walking over to the other side to scan the scene outside of the window. He could feel the others’ eyes on him as he stood there quietly, weighing their options. And they didn’t have a whole lot of options as of now.

  Turning around, he let his eyes travel over the table of suited men, meeting some of their gazes, while others were absorbed in their own thought filled trances.

  “The culprits are still out there somewhere.” He announced, placing his hands behind his back. “And they’re clearly far more dangerous than we could imagine.”

  One of the men forced a humorless chuckle. “You could say that. They killed Evander and two others of the high council. And they kidnapped another, Derigor.”

  Another one, a Brownling named Voreno, sat straighter on his seat, bringing his attention to Haxor. “But it doesn’t make sense.”

  “What?” asked Haxor.

  “What have they kidnapped one of us for, exactly?” asked Voreno, shaking his head. “It doesn’t add up at all. Killing would at least make sense. But the fact that Derigor’s been kidnapped by them leads to a lot of loose threads: What do they want him alive for? What do they want with him?”

  A tight silence came over the air. For this was a question that none of them could answer, but which tormented them just as much.

  “And why Derigor? What did he have to make himself their target?” asked another of the councillors. “And why did they kidnap him, when they could have as easily kidnapped Evander, the leader of the high council and the head of the entire Naxim?” He scowled as he looked about the rest of the men. “What th
ey’ve done doesn’t seem to make sense!”

  “And that’s exactly what makes them so dangerous.” said Haxor.

  Some of the high councillors nodded gravely. Others exchanged looks that boded the same mixture of confusion and suspense.

  “Whatever their reason was,” Haxor said. “One thing’s certain. They have a plan in mind. They’re after a certain something. And we can’t know what that is.”

  The rest of the suited men were watching him with the same intensity, their attention undeviated at this hour of crisis.

  Haxor took a deep breath and summoned a tone of supreme seriousness.

  “As of now,” he continued. “The situation has spiralled well off bounds. We’re now witnessing a threat unlike anything we thought the Naxim would face before. And as the leader of the high council, and as head of the Naxim, I am now going to take the appropriate measures to fight what we’re threatened with.”