by Ross Buzzell
Disa’ani clambers through the dark back streets of the city, keeping clear of any prying eyes that could give away his position. After what feels like hours he feels his spear begin to vibrate rapidly. Taking his weapon from his back Disa’ani slams it into the ground and a blue hologram of Xero forms before him.
“Disa’ani, report!”
His voice is dark and harsh, similar to that of Dark Seclusion when he is displeased. Instantly Disa’ani bows to the image of Xero.
“I almost had the ring.”
“WHAT DO YOU MEAN ALMOST?!”
Xero roars with such ferocity and rage that Disa’ani recoils as a cold chill of fear runs down his spine. He fights through the angst of further displeasing Xero and continues to speak.
“I had the girl in my hands but then these people came out of nowhere.”
“You were stopped by humans?”
Xero nearly interrupts, his voice dripping with dark malice, this makes Disa’ani’s heart begin to pound so hard he can hear it in his ears, his fear of Xero completely negating any pain from the failed fight.
“Not exactly… There was a girl that could fly, a man who could turn himself into stone and sire Konner was with them as well… and sire, they have an Emissary I could feel her.”
Xero does not respond immediately, instead he crosses one hand over his chest and places the other on his chin, a smile forms on his face as he devises a plan.
“Good, we can use her, she can use the rings full power without the backlash I experienced. You will wait for me; turn the people against his team. Kill the flyer if you get the chance and even the stone man but wait to move against the Emissary until I arrive. After we have her then Konner will fall; should you fail me again and I will banish you to a place that makes this blue marble seem like heaven do I make myself clear?”
His voice is dripping with contempt for the whole situation and his tone is especially harsh towards Disa’ani who nods in agreement.
“Yes m’lord.”
Immediately the hologram disappears and the spear stops vibrating. Disa’ani pulls it from the ground and begins to think of a way he can make the job easier for himself. His eyes fall across the street to an electronic store that has a TV on which has a news channel running. An idea begins to form.
Chapter: 6
The teleportation would have taken time, distances that vast are subject to dilation and after obliterating the guards of the power plant Xero continues his mission. A boat would be needed but the ocean was the most direct route to the ring, it is nearly one hundred and fifteen kilometers away. Xero looks around at the carnage left behind as small notches of light put four more marks on his sword causing the blood that is caked on its side to boil off in a gloriously rotten stench. Xero looks at the orb, it is blinking, still holding a charge Xero gives the orb a gentle squeeze, if it can enter your mind and show him its story then there is no reason why it cannot do the same for his destination. Xero closes his eyes and holds the thought of a peer in his mind. He can feel the power transfer from the orb to his sword, power that if passing through a lesser being would turn them to ash. Xero presses the glyph on his sword and in an instant is ripped apart atom by atom and transported across the vast desert wasteland. As he is thrown back together the sun has risen on the next day and he uses the orb to contact Disa’ani, to his vast disappointment.
As the conversation flows Xero can feel his emotions rise and fall like the tide, even for him something feels off. To his core he knows he is dark, and he does not care, he embraces it, enjoys it even but there is something about the way they move that is unlike how he feels them normally. Typically his resting emotional level is perpetual anger and a deep seething desire for revenge and punishment that occasionally flair to rage like a furnace. Since touching the orb this has not been the case his emotions flow like a winding river with a strange yet familiar cadence, thats similar to the speech pattern of Dark Seclusion. He may not be able to touch the sphere but can using the sphere with his rune magic open Xero up to being used like a puppet? He places the spear on his belt and draws his sword as the embers that dwindle within him begin to spark to life once again into the unparalleled inferno that is Xero’s rage. Before him stand dozens of men, scattered on the deck of the shipping vessel and the docks around it, with dark skin, tattered clothing and guns that are far too big for them to have acquired legally. The lookout calls out in a dialect Xero does not recognize, but instantly everyone is on high alert and aims their weapons at him.
“Have you humans not learned by now?”
He asks rhetorically. A man on the deck of the ship fires an RPG at Xero. With lightning quick reflexes Xero catches it before it hits him by the bulbous explosive tip. As the flames sputter out of the rocket he looks around, counting the men, relishing the thought of all the notches that would soon be placed on his blade. He squeezes the RPG and it explodes, he does not feel the heat of the blast, his fist closes completely actually trapping part of the explosion in his fingers which dissipates into his hand, this he hardly notices. The shrapnel bounces off his skin like water on concrete, even a piece hits him in the eye and he does not so much as blink.
“Your puny weapons can’t hurt me.”
He continues in a low tone. Immediately everyone opens fire on Xero, their bullets bouncing off of his skin as he strolls towards them. He gets within twenty feet of one man then dashes at him, passing him before coming to a stop but moving so quickly that he turns and looks over his shoulder with enough time to watch as his first victim slides in half onto the ground with a wet ‘thud’ and his delicate organs, nearly liquefied by the force of the impact with Xero’s sword slurping from his body like a congealed soup.
The sight brings a smile to Xero’s face, but he is far from done. Bullets continue to fly past him and bounce off of him he turns to see the rest of the men on the dock spreading out while still shooting. Xero glances around and sees a massive metal shipping container just a few paces from him. He slams his sword in the ground and walks over to the container, crouching down he grasps under it and slowly lifts it up, not because of the weight but because he did not want it to break into pieces from strain, not yet any way. Xero lifts it over his head, digging his finger into the metal, which gives way with a reluctant groan. The shade from the container creates a brief reprieve from the hot sun, but not from the storm of bullets. With a single, powerful motion the container flies from Xero and hits eight of the armed men, they explode into a pink mist from the force. The crate hits the ground and breaks into three smaller pieces while it rolls to a stop, a handful meet a swift yet crushing fate, but there are two or three that Xero can hear screaming in agony as the crate had crushed them but not killed them quickly, their agony is music to his ears.
As the hot sun beats down on him once again Xero looks up, the bullets had stopped flying, and the remainder of the guards looks terrified at what they had just witnessed. Xero feels his body rock backwards slightly but not enough to even step to catch himself. A strange sensation fills his gut as if he had held his breath for too long, it did not hurt, but it was not comfortable either. Xero lets his gaze drop to see a man, holding the hilt of his sword, one that Xero can hold in one hand with ease, the man struggles to hold it with two, and he had run Xero through with it. A smile slowly spreads to his face, the man who had previously been shooting at him tries to back away but Xero grabs him by the throat and lifts him off the ground.
“Nice try, I almost felt that… but it will take a lot more than that to kill me.”
Like snapping his fingers he feels the man’s spine shatter in his grasp causing him to fall lifeless in Xero’s hand before the banished prince throws his corpse to the side like a piece of garbage. The hot concrete had already begun to cook the bodies strewn around filling the humid air with the stench of death as the cries of those who survived his initial onslaught slowly fade to silence. Xero reaches forward and grasps the handle of his weapon and pulls it from his gut, there is
no blood and the second the object is removed his body heals leaving no mark either. A tense silence fills the air, they were trying to figure out what to do and Xero wants to play with them a little more. After a few tense seconds a deafening ‘BANG’ fills the air, Xero turns his head to the far side of the ship and throws his hand up catching a massive bullet, one that can only be fired from the larges sniper rifles. It intrigues him how weapons had evolved so quickly as he has not been gone long, not for him anyway. Xero catches the movement of a man from behind a massive gun as he pushes off the boat to stand back up, without a moment’s hesitation he throws the projectile back at the sniper whose head snaps back as a red cloud explodes from behind him, he falls to his knees then off the side of the ship into the ocean below.
Xero turns his attention to the last of the guards on the boat, he pushes off the ground and feels himself go weightless, and initially his ascent is easy but the higher he climbs the more effort it takes to for him to continue to climb. He eventually comes to a near stop as he reaches the edge of the ships deck; the guards lift their weapons to open fire once again. Xero leans forward and flies through the air as bullets begin to zip past him once again. In the blink of an eye he is on the far side of the ship, his sword slick with blood once again with some having sprayed up his hand, arm and even on his face slightly. Xero lands on the ships deck about the same time the bodies fall hit the deck as well. Xero turns his gaze to the elevated control center of the ship, he sees movement and leaps towards the command center, he smashes through the glass and the steel like it is nothing, landing with a ‘THUD’ he catches himself on a consol. Inside is a man clearly of Asian origin. He holds his hands up and ducks his head, averting his gaze from Xero.
“Please don’t kill me.”
He begs with a thick accent. Xero sticks his sword in the ships floor and wipes his hand off on the top of a console, leaving a bloody handprint swiped on top. This man is clearly the captain; he will spare him, not out of the kindness of his heart but because he does not know how to sail this ship.
“I will spare you, if you will sail this ship.”
“Wh…where to?”
He asks, his voice shaking with fear. Xero slowly walks over to the man and grabs him by the back of the head forcing the man to look at him. The fear in his eyes is like a sweet little treat for Xero, truly delicious.
“Let me worry about that. Just go west and I will take the rest from there.”
The man nods as sweat beads up on his brow and the nape of his neck. Xero can feel the man’s heartrate skyrocket as terror continues to have a vice grip on him. Xero releases him and he walks to the helm of the ship.
“The mooring lines need to be untied before we can dis-embark.”
He calls out with a wobbly voice, his knees knocking together so violently that Xero can hear them. He nods and walks over to the hole he had made upon his entrance, grabbing his sword as he passes it.
“What are you?”
he man asks Xero who glances over his shoulder.
“The devil.”
He responds before hovering out of the hole, dropping down he levitates across the side of the ship swiping his blade at the mooring lines, slicing through the rope and chains as if they were nothing but a thread. The engines of the boat roar to life as three black cars drive up and stop on the peer, men exit yelling and drawing weapons. Xero floats back to the ship as they open fire. He reaches to his side and pulls out the orb, holding it towards the men whose ship he is stealing.
“Let’s see what you can do, find their fears and use it against them!”
The orb sparks to life and begins to hum and vibrate in his palm, there is a flash of yellow light and the orb stops glowing and humming. On the peer, out of thin air, erupts a massive snake made of hard yellow light. It coils itself as the men on the peer open fire on it but their weapons do nothing. In a single, violent strike the snake devours all of the men, and their cars whole before slithering into the ocean, dissipating as it does leaving a crimson stain in the water.
Xero lands back on the deck and returns to the bridge as the ship begins to pick up speed. A tattered world map hangs on the back wall behind the helm.
“Where are you taking me?”
The captain asks after a few moments of silence. Xero looks around the bridge, it is grimy and rusted out but still functional. His vision falls on the map and slowly walks over to it. His gaze scans the map as his boost from the pyramids still holds some affect. Xero sees dozens of pale pings on the map, indicating Boronian origins but in the center of a country with the name United States scrawled across it has an azure blue ping right in the center. Xero places his finger right on top of a city named St. Louis.
“This is where we are going!”
The captain scoffs at the sight.
“How do you expect to get there? This ship is sturdy but it is in no condition to cross the Atlantic and it will take weeks to get there!”
Xero turns to the captain, letting his fingers lightly caress the ridged of his weapons hilt.
“We will get there inside of a day.”
The man begins to laugh and shake his head.
“I’m sorry sir but that is not possible.”
Xero lets his finger press against the glyph, the sensation of being ripped apart overtakes Xero, the man begins to scream and moments later they are slammed back together. Immediately the captain falls to the ground and begins to vomit and groan from every cell of his body burning.
“What did you do?”
He asks between whimpers. Xero looks back at the map, he can see the ping of the orb, and they had teleported past the content of Africa with only the Atlantic Ocean before them.
“I teleported us into the Atlantic Ocean.”
The captain slowly pulls himself to his feet as he wipes the vomit from his lips.
“If you can do that why do you need a ship?”
Xero looks at the rune; it slowly begins to fill with purple light once again.
“Because in my current form teleporting extreme distances are not possible; this ship will keep me from having to swim while my spell recharged. Just keep us moving towards St. Louis and things will not have to be unpleasant.”
Xero turns and walks over to the door to the bridge.
“How many others are on this ship?”
He asks without turning around planning on clearing the ship, killing anyone else that may be on board.
“You have killed them all.”
The captain says softly, Xero nods in approval. Forcing the door open he takes a flight of stairs, getting to the roof of the bridge Xero looks around to see shipping containers all over the deck and the boat begins to rock over each rolling wave. The banished prince sits down, sticking his blade in the metal he closes his eyes and begins to meditate, opening his mind to Dark Seclusion who appears before him in a smoke-like vision.
“Have you retrieved the orb?”
Dark Seclusion asks, bobbing with the movements of the ship, Xero nods.
“I have, Disa’ani has already been sent ahead to prepare the way for my arrival. I have procured a ship and will be making periodical jumps until I reach a city known as St. Louis where the stone andKonner both are.”
Dark Seclusion nods at Xero’s report, the stench of sulfur begins to mix with the ocean air as the vision before him poisons the area just by projecting himself to it.
“Disa’ani failed you has he not. Should he do it again you are to kill him.”
The image waves its hand, the rune on Xero’s sword refills and he nods to Dark Seclusion.
“I will give you his skull for a new mask.”
The illusion vanishes in the wind and along with it the stench of rotten eggs. Xero presses the glyph and in a flash the ship is further across the ocean.
Chapter: 7
The sun had risen on the primitive city as Disa’ani picks pieces of glass out of the pockets of the suit he had stolen a few hours ago. To blend in better he has
broken down his remaining spear and hid it inside a tan briefcase, which matches his suit. Crossing the little park that stretches down the heart of the city he approaches a tall building with a large silver arch structure to its left. Disa’ani keeps in the shade of the buildings, hugging them as he stays on the sidewalk, the sun is not the issue, its heat fuels him, it’s the thickness of the air, it is choking for the soldier but is just barely tolerable in the shade.
Disa’ani slides past the shambling drones around him, their lives seem so meaningless to him, going from one place to another, not really contributing to the planet, or their people as a whole with only a few doing actual work for the species, no wonder Xero wants to destroy this world. Disa approaches the large building which shares the same insignia as the news channel on the TV. A small group of people are walking towards the buildings entrance, Disa’ani slides into the group and as they enter, swiping their badges he moves in-between them avoiding the guards in the process. As he enters the building he can feel the electromagnetic radiation being given off by the electrical wiring in the building with what feels to be a hub in the lower levels. Disa’ani follows the group he had entered with through the lobby made of marble, it is reminiscent of home, ancient in design but home none-the-less. He watches as the group enter a box with automatic doors, such a primitive way to travel, an arrow at the top of the doors ignites pointing upwards, this is not the direction he wants to go. A woman in a black blazer, similar to his own and a tight skirt that cuts off at the top of her knees appears out of a door to the left of the box, he sees a staircase.
