In the distance, amongst the bodies and rubble, a member of the vanguard awoke in the midst of the aftermath. Rather than die a peaceful death, the soldier reached for a crossbow dropped by his comrade in the heat of battle. With his sights set on Omari, the fallen warrior took aim as he covertly lined the shot that would leave one less threat to King Arius’s rule.
The steel-tipped bolt cut through the air with unmatched velocity, zipping past Skye’s field of vision and towards her distracted brother.
Sensing a change in his atmosphere, Omari dropped his shoulder but the arrow traveled faster than his body could respond. The head of the arrow penetrated through Omari’s armor and pierced through the top of his shoulder blade. The slab of stone he desperately clung to dropped as he rushed to cradle his wounded shoulder. The arrow adhered itself to the stone exterior of the wall in front of him, coated with the fabric of his armor and his own blood. Omari turned and instantly locked-in on the armored assailant, separating him from the countless other bodies that littered the land.
The soldier fired another shot from his bow, but Omari was gone before the arrow could find its mark.
A wisp of dust and debris kicked into the wounded soldier’s face as he found himself mere inches away from the man he’d tried to kill. “S-stay back!” the soldier yelled as his shaking hand struggled to load another bolt into his bow. Omari studied the face of the man who wished to kill him; taking note of the expression the man held in his eyes. His ferocity was bathed in fear, drenched in paranoia. The look in his eyes was that of a man desperate to survive. A wounded soul forced to fight for both himself and the ones he loved. Omari dropped his right hand from his shoulder, allowing the blood that poured from his shoulder to flow unrestricted. “Oh, you think you’re tough, you demon scum!” the soldier roared as he shifted his eyes between Omari and his bow. “I’m going to send you back to wherever the hell you came from!”
“Do you have family, too?” The marksman flinched as Omari raised his hand to remove the garment that covered his face. Beneath the shroud, his blond hair was dyed crimson, contrasting against his hazel eyes that pierced through the man’s soul. The marksman’s finger rested on the trigger, ready to fire at the slightest hint of aggression, but there was none to be found. “As you can see, I bleed just as you do. Death is something we must both come to terms with eventually. Let it be on another day.”
The foot soldier was left lost for words as he laid before the bleeding hero. In awe, he watched the blood that streamed down from Omari’s shoulder bend along the contours of his armor and down to his fingertips, where it fed into a slow drip that pooled onto the land plagued with death.
Skye watched in the distance as her brother stood in front of the armed man, unaware of the full nature of the situation. Most of her attention had been devoted to Emil and restoring him from his critical condition.
As if he himself had reached an epiphany, the soldier slowly lowered his weapon from Omari’s chest. He remembered now. The actions he committed against the very people he had sworn to protect, both before and after the rogue Abnormal’s influence. “We are people, too. And as there are good people, there are also bad people. No king is needed to discern that.” Omari turned away from the soldier and began to walk towards Skye and Emil. “When the reinforcements arrive, tell them to be sure to check the remains of the clock tower for bodies. I couldn’t get to them in time.”
“I...” The mouth of the soldier widened as he struggled to speak, but in the time that passed, Omari was no longer within earshot.
The wounded soldier watched as Omari reunited with Skye and Emil before warping them to the old church at the edge of the city, leaving what was lost, behind.
ON THE SECOND FLOOR of the church, there was a loud thud. Hearing no doors or footsteps, Marona knew that Emil and the others had returned. “Wait here,” she said. “It’ll only be a minute.”
“Sure,” the blacksmith agreed, eyes glazed and still in awe at what had recently transpired. One moment, he was bound by a rope, seconds away from death. The next, he was spirited away to an unknown location, presumably to protect him from an evil he wasn’t even sure existed. In his brief time spent with Marona, he found out that the questions he asked only led to more questions. With the limited information Marona gave and his brooding sense of curiosity, the unanswered questions only stirred in his mind.
Before Marona could reach for the door, it swung open from the other side. It was Omari who emerged from the center of the doorframe, alone. At the sight of his wounds and exhaustion, Marona’s heart sank as she tried to imagine what had happened after she left, unsure of the fate of her friends.
“Where are the others?” Marona’s heart dropped deeper into the pit of her stomach, causing a flare of nausea to stir up within her. The words left a bitter taste in her mouth.
“Skye and Emil are behind me. I just had to be sure that everything here was okay.” Omari stepped through the doorframe and collapsed in one of the spare chairs in the room as he clutched his bleeding shoulder. Behind the hollow space that Omari no longer blocked, Marona’s eyes widened as she saw Skye on her knees nursing Emil.
“Emil!” Marona fell to her knees beside Skye and looked to her with questioning eyes. “Is he...dead?”
“No,” Skye weakly replied. “But this is all I can do.” Skye removed her mask and deeply exhaled. “He’s stable now...and should be able to heal the rest on his own if he doesn’t aggravate his injuries. Can you help me up? I’m exhausted.”
“Yeah, sure, Skye. No problem.” Marona hoisted Skye’s arm over her shoulder before they rose in unison. “Are you going to be okay?” Marona asked as they slowly began to walk back into the room.
“Yeah, I’ll be fine unless one of them gets hurt like that again.”
“What should we do about Emil?”
“It’ll be best not to move him till he wakes up. It shouldn’t be long from now.” Marona scrunched her brow as an image of the wounded Emil flashed in her mind’s eye. In denial of her newly found reality, Marona looked over her shoulder and saw Emil lying virtually lifeless on the wooden floor. “He’ll be okay, trust me.” Heeding Skye’s words, Marona turned forward and walked Skye back to the room where the blacksmith and Omari were sitting. “Bring me over to my brother, if you can.” Marona complied with Skye’s wishes and walked over to where Omari was resting. “Move your hand, Omari.”
“I’m fine.”
“Don’t do this to me...there’s a chance you’ll bleed out if I don’t tend to it soon. You don’t have to protect me anymore. I’ll be okay.” Omari glanced at his wounded shoulder and then to his sister, who hung loosely from Marona’s side.
“You’re right. I’m sorry.” Marona carried Skye over to Omari where she then placed her hand over his wound. Skye winced as the wound on Omari’s arm began to shrink, pushing through the pain that stemmed from her body.
“That should be enough,” Skye exhaled as she removed her hand from her brother’s shoulder. “Your clavicle was split in two, but it’s better now.”
“Thank you.” Omari rotated his shoulder cuff, ignoring the soreness that reduced his range of motion.
“Ha...no problem,” Skye responded faintly. “Hey, Marona... Could you put me down over there?” Skye’s finger pointed to a chair not too far from her brother’s.
“Yeah, sure thing, Skye.” Marona ushered Skye to the chair, all the while confused as to what left them in such a state. As Marona walked Skye, she studied Skye’s face, but the expression she saw gave no clues to the secret that was locked away. “Okay, here we are.” Marona gently discarded Skye’s body to the worn seat cushion, unsure of just how fragile she was in her current state.
“Thank you.”
“Skye...Omari, what happened?”
“There was a riot and we couldn’t contain it. All caused by one man...another Abnormal we never got the name of,” Omari explained.
“How is that even possible? Just one?” Marona asked
, baffled by Omari’s story.
“The others didn’t see it, but I could,” Skye interjected. “His powers seem to manifest on a psychic plane. The polar opposite of Emil’s and Omari’s. This man seems to be able to manipulate the emotions of those around him by the using his aura to enhance his psychic field. In addition to that, at the core of his field, he seems to be able to manipulate his energy into psychic projections, increasing the blanket effect that he chooses to enhance. These projections also have the capacity to undertake physical characteristics at will, for either offense or defensive maneuvers. His projection of choice seemed to be something that resembled a snake, but I assume that he can shape his energy into whatever he sees fit. That’s how he was able to defeat both Omari and Emil.”
“That’s insane,” Marona voiced.
“Before our operation began, he was already spreading his influence, and by the time we realized that something was wrong, nearly everyone in the square was already affected. Another thing I noticed is that the more people his snakes tethered with, the stronger he seemed to become. Before I was able to sense him, he was certainly in the area...but it wasn’t till after he ‘fed’ that I was able to pinpoint his location.”
“So you’re saying that Legion has an energy vampire on their team?” Marona asked.
“No.” In the middle of the doorway, Emil stood clutching the borders of the wall to maintain his balance. “There’s no way he’s with Legion...not unless in that moment he chose to go rogue.”
“Emil!” Marona gasped at the sight of the wounded hero, but Emil’s focus was placed elsewhere.
“I agree,” Skye added. “If he were with Legion, he wouldn’t have orchestrated an attack of that magnitude. In his area of effect, he included both members of the vanguard and everyone else in the square. Aside from that, he told me personally that we weren’t his objective. He told me that he came only to deliver a message.”
“A message?” Emil softly spoke as he tried to piece the disfigured puzzle together in his mind. “To who?”
“King Arius,” Omari said with a calm certainty. “The propaganda spoon-fed to the people indicated that this man here,” he gestured toward Eric, “was another Abnormal. We knew that wasn’t the case. The less informed had baseless information to go by as their truth.”
Emil shifted his eyes as he rummaged over all of the facts in his head before returning his gaze to Omari. “So going by that theory, he came to rescue Eric, just like us. If that’s the case, why get the people involved?”
Omari’s eyes softened as he broke eye contact with Emil and gazed at the floor. “Because in his eyes, they are just as bad as the person they follow. In his eyes, he only saw them as savages waiting for blood to be spilled. To them, it seemed to be nothing but blood sport. A public execution that the people reveled for...” Omari turned to the blacksmith. “There was no proof of your alleged deeds, were there?”
“No. None.” The blacksmith spoke sparingly, as if he, too, had lost faith in his people.
“When the people stand by evil, they become an extension of that very same thing. This rogue Abnormal saw them all as one for the sake of their principles. The people of Everrmore turned Eric in and were ready to watch him die, solely because of fear and hate. How can you see good in the midst of such an action or from anyone who supports it? That is the path the Abnormal has chosen to walk.”
“And that’s why he attacked us, isn’t it?” Emil asked.
“Correct. If what we think is true, because we stand by the same people who oppress us, we are in that sense, his enemy. But on the same front, he spared us because we are still his brothers and sisters by origin. If his cause is to rise against the oppression, then killing us would do nothing but make our numbers fewer.”
“But he would do it if he had to, wouldn’t he? I mean, he almost killed us without any sense of remorse. If Skye wasn’t there to heal us...the people would have killed us.” Emil stopped at the realization of what he’d just said, not afraid but bracing the truth. He looked to Marona with an unmarked sadness covering his face as he remembered the reality that was his own personal Hell roughly three months ago. Acceptance was a long ways off it seemed, and tolerance was only fine until the moment came to tip the scales without serious repercussions. Perhaps that was a secondary line in the rogue’s message. Loss and strife was a common element that plagued the lives of the three Abnormals in the room of the church. Omari, Skye, and Emil each had their own story riddled with turmoil and injustice that a normal human couldn’t even begin to comprehend. ‘They’ weren’t equal. And ‘they’ were punished and down trotted upon for simply wanting the life they were born to live. How had the Earth grown to be so cold, and since when did it become the norm to persecute those who wanted better for everyone around them?
“But Skye said that the rogue Abnormal manipulated their emotions. That’s how the whole skirmish began in the first place, right? There were others who wanted Eric to go free,” Marona said.
“That’s right. I did say that and it’s true, but it seems that he can only manipulate emotions that are already present. He can’t manipulate what’s not already there. He used their own hate for our people against them. Nothing more. He merely brought what was hidden to the surface and amplified it. Some weren’t affected at all, like you. Others became crazed.”
“But not all of them were bad,” Marona voiced.
“I agree. It’s wrong to group people together, no matter what the circumstance. We’re all human and with that comes a myriad of emotions. You are good, and so were a lot of the others at the square. Beneath the hatred and the rage, I felt them for what they truly are, even if at the time they were lost. The riot was deliberately caused by the rogue Abnormal, and given his abilities, I find it hard to place the blame on anybody but him.” Skye intently looked to Emil, making sure he saw her as she spoke.
“Yeah...you’re right, Skye. Thank you.”
Emil knew why Skye locked eyes with him, but her sympathy would do little in consolidation.
What happened, happened. Their deaths were on his hands, no matter what. Emil knew that and it was something he had to accept—something he had to push deep down and struggle with in order to move forward.
Witnessing the same catastrophe verbatim and only adding to the carnage. Even before that, Emil felt himself slipping into the anger and rage born from his misfortunes. The last time he felt the familiar flame that charged his soul, was the day he saw his second family die. When he thought about it, he could still feel the hot lump in the center of his chest aching for vengeance. The rogue Abnormal had touched Emil’s soul, resurrecting something that he would rather remain buried. “I’m going to look outside. There’s a space of time I’d like to account for.” Emil moved past his comrades and the blacksmith they’d recently rescued. “Marona...” Emil paused as he spoke to Marona, looking straight ahead. “If you wanted to see what happened, now would be your chance.” Marona’s mouth slowly widened as she watched Emil move towards the giant shutters on the other side of the room. Ignoring the fire he felt in his abdomen, Emil swung open both sides of the door and walked out onto the balcony.
“Emil...” Marona arrived shortly after, and stood beside him as he rested on the railing. Even though the church stood on the outskirts of the town, the enclosed Hell that was now the city square was clearly visible. Marona flinched at the sudden uprising of smoke and flame that erupted from the core of the city while Emil remained unmoved. The screams of those from the square could be heard with the howling wind, only dying with the accompanying breeze—a testament to the events that occurred earlier that day.
Marona shifted her eyes to Emil, but he failed to look her way, focusing only on the rubble that lay in the distance. There was no need for words, for in that moment, she knew exactly how he felt. It was another Nerai.
Emil’s sudden silence was only because twice now, in his eyes, he had failed the people he’d chosen to protect. More so, the very ones he s
ought to defend, he ushered in death on his own behalf.
You know how quickly they can turn, yourself. That is why you hide your face, is it not? Why protect those who would gladly throw you out to die? Only a fool protects the one who beats him.
DAMN YOU!
Don’t! The very people you aim to protect are in this crowd. With that much energy, you would have killed them with ease.
Why do you protect these people? They don’t even care if you live or die. Why does a God like yourself mingle with mere beasts? They cause baseless wars, they are fickle, they are ruthless, and...they make you weak, Emil.
As the voices of his past circled in Emil’s mind, he clenched the railing of the balcony and stared off into the space where the clock tower of Everrmore once stood. The fire that sprouted from the fallen tower was like a beacon, serving as a red flag as to the events that were sure to follow. The Abnormal they fought was different, but his mission was more or less the same. He swore against Legion and sought to bring down Arius. He wore no mask and was unafraid to demonstrate the limits of his powers. The rogue Abnormal was forming a rebellion of his own, a grand masquerade against the king and his followers, in spirit and in action.
Is this all there is now? Death and destruction? Emil raised his left hand from the railing and watched as a spark danced along the surface of his hand. The blue light that his palm emitted warmed his face as he studied the texture of his energy. “Marona...” Emil closed his palm and watched as the energy he held onto dissipated into the sky. “Are you afraid of us?”
The Last Light Series Omnibus One: - The Dreamer and the Deceiver - All Things Eternal - Ode to the King: A Superhero Epic Fantasy Collection (The Last Light Collection Book 1) Page 17
