by Katie Vack
Than man didn't let his guard down. "I could say the same about your intuition. I didn't think you'd predict my movements."
"Heard your footsteps, guessed the rest. I suppose you're the one in charge of this lot?"
"I am. Sergeant Carver."
That explained it. This kind of squad was normally overseen by a corporal. Interesting that they had sent someone like this on a mere observation mission. "Grayson Hunter."
"I don't suppose you'll give me the diplomats, tell me what exactly you were hoping to achieve, and hand yourself in for judgement?"
"Yeah, no. That won't be happening."
"A shame. You could have spared us both a lot of trouble. Well, I guess you'll go down as undignified as the rest of your little terrorist group."
"Terrorist?" Grayson laughed. "Don't compare me with those delusional amateurs. I'm a mercenary."
"Then you've chosen the wrong side." The man's eyes flashed and his rear foot slid around, almost imperceptibly, as he prepared himself for action. "Either way, I'm bringing you down."
"You can try."
The sergeant began sprinting towards him, coat flying out behind him like a billowing cape. Grayson rose to meet his rush, taking off with blinding speed. Carver leaped up into the air once more, kicking himself off from a glyph which appeared a few metres above the ground to launch him towards the caster. He twisted around, striking out with a side kick at head height that Grayson sidestepped and ducked beneath.
Grayson reached out and grabbed the man's ankle, dragging it down and towards him and raising his right elbow to snap it like a twig. Carver reacted by bringing himself in and striking out with a punch that Grayson blocked with his spare hand, then cast a glyph to lever himself away with his good leg. The man landed back on the ground, immediately alert, fists raised in a guard. He was good.
Grayson lashed out towards him with a turning kick which the man dodged. He continued round with a reversed turning kick, and then a side kick again with his rear leg. Carver swept it aside, thrusting his hand like a spear towards his throat. He was definitely skilled, but what he wasn't was inhumanly fast. Grayson smashed the incoming arm aside, lashing out with his shadows to strike the man across the chest. A glyph blinked into reality to absorb most of the impact, but the Peacekeeper was still flung down onto his back.
He landed in a roll, completely focussed, and crossed his arms before him to stop the incoming kick. Again, a couple of glyphs coalesced to armour him, but again he was flung down onto his back to rise slightly worse for wear. This time though his glyphs weren't quite enough to save him and Grayson struck him a stunning backfist across the side of his skull. Grayson stood there, looking down to his sprawled and dazed opponent as he waited patiently for the man to rise. A victory against a defenceless enemy was no victory at all.
Carver rose unsteadily back to his feet, eyes coming unfocussed for the first time so far, wiping blood off the corner of his mouth. Grayson stood watching him with his shadowed arms crossed before his chest. "You done yet, old man?"
"Hah. Not even close. Don't get cocky, boy." His eyes swam back into focus and he dropped down into a fighting stance. He swept his arms, shimmering with a faint scarlet light, down across his body to his sides. "Speed."
A row of red glyphs blazed into life, bridging the gap between him and his opponent. Grayson took a step backwards, eyes narrowing. He didn't know much about glyphs, the metaphysical manifestation of runic power, but this man was dangerous couldn't be treated any other way. Another glyph appeared where Grayson had just been standing.
Carver took a single step onto the pathway, and then there was a noise like a clap of thunder. He accelerated out of proportion, racing towards his foe, and even with his heightened senses Grayson could barely keep up. One second the man had been a safe distance, and the next he was already within striking range.
"Strength." A yellow glyph spread out across his clenched fist and he struck out towards the off-guard caster as Grayson's shadows wrapped themselves around his torso protectively in anticipation of the blow. The impact was like being hit by a dozen charging bulls, and he was flung through the wall of a house, crashing out the other side and rolling like a ragdoll to a stop in the middle of a street.
He hauled himself painstakingly back up to his feet, groaning. Maybe he had been a little unfair to class this man as a rank four- he was a lot stronger than he had originally appeared. Grayson looked at the trail of destruction and debris he had left in his wake. Without Mahi boosting his powers like she had, that punch would probably have blown a hole straight through his chest.
He took stock of the situation. Around him were a couple of dead peacekeepers, lacerated and run through, and Green leaning wounded against a wall across the street. He met the aetherial's shocked eyes then moved quickly onwards. He couldn't waste time with casual conversation. The sergeant was still here.
He focussed his mind upon his five senses. Sight: nothing but the ruined house, the dead Peacekeepers, and the wounded aetherial. Sound: faintly clattering debris, nothing more. Smell: gunsmoke, blood. Taste: more blood, a little fear, a little excitement. Feel: grit below his broken boots, sweat trickling down his shadowed hands. He repeated the search. Sight: ruined house, dead Peacekeepers, wounded aetherial, falling shadow-
From behind him came the impact of booted feet against mangled cobblestones, as his enemy dropped out of the sky. Grayson turned, panicked and too slow. "Strength." The fist caught him in the stomach, not fast enough to protect himself with his shadows, and he was flung away once more.
He thudded to the ground, coughing blood and curled up in a foetal position. A voice echoed out across the smoky road. "I told you, boy. Don't get cocky."
Grayson dragged himself with a force of will onto one knee. This time he was in trouble. His stomach was on fire, and he could barely think straight. That was a hit he shouldn't have taken. "Screw you."
"I offered you a chance; you turned me down. I'm offering you that chance once again. If you still refuse to surrender, I can't guarantee your survival."
"That's okay," Grayson forced the words out through gritted teeth, "it keeps things interesting. Surprise me?"
"You still insist on fighting?"
"Of course. Like I'd go to jail for someone else's cause."
"But you would die for it?"
His shadows began to roil around his fists and feet. "Whoever said anything about dying?"
"So be it. Speed." The red glyphs blinked into life, connecting them once again. Carver took a step onto the first. "For what it's worth, you put up a good fight." The glyphs lit up beneath him, accelerating him beyond measure, leaving a burning afterimage in his wake as he streaked towards the boy.
Grayson's heart seemed to slow, the world dropping down into a standstill. He only had one chance at this. Mess it up and he was dead. He closed his eyes, performing a mental scan of his body and all the power contained within it. He was brutally injured, and he wouldn't be able to fight, but then he didn't need to fight. He took possession of all the energy pent up within him, not just his shadows but his very life force too, and forced it outside of his body to leave nothing more than what was required to remain temporarily functioning.
The energy fled his body, his reinvigorated shadows reaching out with a life of their own. His heart stopped beating. His lungs stopped breathing. His blood stopped circulating, and his brain began to shut down.
The shadows around him began to boil, billowing and latching onto his body. They captured his corpse, locking it in place within an impenetrable suit of flawless midnight armour. The officer, speeding towards him, began to slow his charge, but it was too little too late.
A set of ebon wings spread out from Grayson's shoulder blades, a monstrous shadow-mimic of an angel's plumage, and his armour moved to lift him to his feet. "For what it's worth," his wings unfurled, blotting out the moon as he raised his fist to strike, "so did you."
His shadow-gauntleted fist fell like a cr
ushing sledgehammer, shattering the glyphs Carver conjured up to try to protect himself, driving down and cracking the man's skull, shattering his collarbone, his ribs, his backbone, breaking his pelvis in two and sending him flopping like a ragdoll, rolling and rolling until he came bonelessly to a stop against a wall.
Grayson's shadows fled into the surroundings and his life flooded back into him. He fell to his knees, gulping down breaths of air as his organs beat back into life. His head dropped, little choking sobs racking his body. He had died. He had killed himself. He had been dead.
He had been through some horrible things, had had to suffer more than most people did in a lifetime, but that had been completely different. Agony, terror, hatred, nothing could compare. It was the indescribable nothingness which did it- he had never really paid much mind to what might lie beyond this life, had never really thought it important. But now he had been forced to face it, and he couldn't even begin to come to terms with the experience.
It was as though there was nothing at all but an empty vacuum, ripping his soul from his extinct cadaver. There had been no pain in it, but he'd had his very essence forcibly extracted from him and retained full consciousness. The world had looked into the deepest, most personal parts of his nature, and torn them away from him. Was that what it meant to be a leech? The reason for their pure evil?
He had his soul back, but it had been terrifying nonetheless. His heart had skipped a beat- quite a few, actually; it might have been funny under different circumstances.
He was in one piece again, but was he whole? He couldn't tell. He had no idea how he was supposed to know. It didn't seem like the kind of thing you could just recover from. He'd never really considered the thought of his immortal soul- of course it existed, as was evident from the remnants which stalked the land, but at the same time he had never stopped to think about his own. About what might happen to it once he was dead.
He had killed himself. He'd known it was stupid, and crazy, and reckless, but he'd done it anyway. Always running headfirst into the danger zone without once considering the consequences. There must have been another way. Surely, surely, there had to have been another way. But then he hadn't realised just how bad it was going to be. In future? Compared to this, maybe death wasn't such a monstrous idea. Maybe next time he'd just take the hit.
Green was standing over his shoulder. The man had walked up behind him with an angel's grace, but then Grayson hadn't been in any state to register him had he been a bull in a china shop. He made no attempt to get back to his feet; whatever the aetherial intended on doing, there was nothing he could do to stop him. Why bother trying?
"I could kill you." The voice was quiet and husky, rasping with pain and tiredness and holding a half-questioning undertone. The aetherial didn't seem quite able to equate the trembling wreck before him with the monstrous figure that had struck down the sergeant.
"You could." Grayson didn't bother to deny it; he simply didn't have the energy or state of mind. "Are you going to?"
There was a pause. "No."
"Why not?"
"Because a victory over someone in your state is no victory at all. When you die, it will be because I have torn your life away in an even duel."
"You're making a mistake. This is your best chance to kill me. Finish me here, or you won't like the consequences."
"I'm not some cowardly thief like you. We aetherials fight with honour. I will kill you, in a fair fight, and in doing so redeem the honour of my master- of my family."
"Still talking about that? You were asking to be beaten. Anyone who throws their weight around near me gets the same treatment. And besides, your master's dead now. Just move on and deal with it."
A dead silence abounded. "Deal with it? Deal with it!?" A phantom boot hammered into Grayson's side, breaking a rib and tossing him onto his back. He lay there, looking up at the vengeful aetherial, shocked by the intensity of the emotion in the man's face. Tears washed down his cheeks, mingling with little cuts into rivers of red as he broke down.
"You caused this. You! Because of you, my cousin's name was spurned, dishonoured! He was cast out of the family because of you! Hated, scorned, isolated and ridiculed. Do you really have any idea what you did to him that day? All for the sake of some money, you crushed his pride and ground it under your boot.
"We were going to salvage that. He was going to reclaim his name, take back his place in the family. All we needed to do was find you and make you an example. Because of you, we were forced to eat in that hellhole of a so-called restaurant. Because of you, we were caught in that gunfight. Because of you, he died in a battle that had nothing to do with him. He died, in some no-name place in some slum of a city, after the worst week of his life, and with his name stolen and everyone around him looking down on him.
"Maybe we were pushing the boundaries. Maybe we went too far when we started threatening the old man about the discount. But is that an offence to die for? Because of you, my master's name has been stripped permanently from our history books. He didn't just die in ignominy; he was never born. It's as though he never existed. So," he leaned down, laying the blade of a longsword across the caster's throat, "do you really expect me to forget something like that?"
Grayson said nothing. He really didn't know what to say. He'd just thought that the aetherials were a couple of snobby thugs, spoiled by their families and taking their frustrations out on whoever caught their attention. The idea that by the act of robbing them he had brought about such suffering was alien. He hadn't known it would have anything like that effect. He certainly never intended for it to happen.
And now Blue was dead. Dead because he couldn't afford to go to a different restaurant, and had gotten caught in the rebel attack. Dead because of him. Did that make him a murderer? Had he finally, after all this time avoiding it, fulfilled the stereotype? Was he a complete monster now? He didn't know.
"That," Green lifted his two blades, "is what I thought." He drove them into the ground on either side of Grayson's throat, a hair's breadth away. He wiped the bloody tears from his face. "You'd better watch your back, caster, because I'm coming for you. And when you die, I'll make it slow."
He walked out of Grayson's line of sight, and the sound of the footsteps slowly receded. Grayson lay there, heart pumping in his ears, exhausted beyond belief. He couldn't have gotten up, even if he didn't have the swords pinning him in place. He decided just to lay there- sooner or later, the rebels were going to arrive.
After a short while they obviously decided it was safe to come out. He was freed and carried back inside, where Mahi healed him again. He didn't say anything to her; there didn't seem to be anything to say. They gave him some new boots and sent him on his way. By the looks of things they wanted to ask again whether he'd join their cause, but one threatening glance put paid to that idea. He left with no further incident, but a heavy heart. He never thought he'd say it, but he was getting tired of all the fighting. He needed a break- not necessarily a long one, but enough time for him to catch his breath. They could heal his body all they wanted, but his spirit would take significantly longer to regenerate.
* * *
It was the early hours of the morning by the time he got back to the hospital. He kept casting glances around him as he walked through the deep shadowed forest. It wasn't that he was scared- far from it- but he'd grown up in a place like this and knew all about its hidden secrets. Most people assumed that since it wasn't a death world like Helios or Infernus Luminacht was a safe place to explore; but it still had its share of things that went bump. And, as befitted the nature of the place, they were always most active during the night.
He could take them if he had to, but he really didn't want to do so. All he wanted was some peace and quiet, and a good night's sleep. Or, considering the circumstances, a good day's sleep. Strange how tired you could feel after being unconscious for half a day.
He was still surprised that he'd make it back in time, considering that he'd lost a w
hile unconscious and walking what must easily have been a thirty mile round trip. He wondered whether his group would be worried about him not coming back for the night. Somehow, he doubted it. They knew he could look after himself, and if nothing else they were still pretty mad at him for everything that had happened.
It was lucky he was paying attention, because when something glinted in the moonlight he was ready for it. He acted reflexively, spinning around behind a tree as something whistled past his face. A knife flickered towards him and he skipped backwards, tapping it aside, then hopped inwards and grabbed his assailant around the throat, controlling their weapon arm with his left. He really shouldn't have been surprised by this.
Sora grinned disconcertingly at him, rendered a terrifying visage by the moonlight. "What gave it away?"
"Your hair." He felt the warmth of her life pumping beneath his hand. "It's still white, you know."
"Damnit!" She flicked her head viciously, then he felt the cold edge of another blade against his jugular. "I still win, though."
