by J D Astra
“Can you do it?” I asked as I held the little square in my hand. It was smooth all over, seamless, with no obvious access ports. What was it?
“Trying to navigate what makes you, you, and her... pulling them apart. I’m afraid I am not skilled enough to perform this, either.”
“You’re not?” I asked, astonished. But Woong-ji could do everything.
Mae turned to look at me. “Everything except win a fight against Tuko...”
Woong-ji laughed loudly. “Ah yes, not everything. So, you have a choice. You can try to remove her, and if you damage her, she may never be the same. Or you can wait. You can grow your skill and your core—”
“And collect more pieces!” Mae blurted excitedly, then frowned. “If there are any.”
“Yes, that too. Everything will help.”
I looked down at the little projection of Mae. It had been a hard couple of months, but living with her in my head wasn’t so bad. I’d promised to get her into a new device she could live in, but if I destroyed her in the process, that wasn’t keeping my promise. We needed to work on those boundaries, but I had faith that we could survive a few more years trapped together.
“We’ll wait,” I said with a resigned sigh.
“Good.” Woong-ji rose from her seat. “Remember; silence around someone new.”
Mae nodded, then disappeared in a glitch of blue light. I finished Akihiro’s abandoned donut and reached for another.
“You can’t eat just donuts for breakfast,” Mae remarked in my head, and I looked at the half-full bag with longing.
‘I should share with my friends, too.’
Woong-ji took me to the door. “Just a few more weeks, then you’re my apprentice for the summer. Are you excited?”
“What will I be doing?” I asked as she held the door for me.
She seesawed her head. “This and that. We run a small side-business at the Rabbit, fixing fighter bots for those with too much money who don’t care to fix it themselves.”
A grin returned to my face, and she pushed me out the door. “Get some breakfast. You’ll be finishing your second band today, or you’ll be failing my class,” she warned with a stern glare, and the grin melted from my face.
“But the other students only have to finish one,” I said with a bit of indignance.
She waggled her finger. “And you aren’t the other students. You’re my apprentice.”
I grinned and bowed. She did the same.
Woong-ji had done so much for me even before I came to Bastion. She tested me, and while Sung-ki saw someone not worthy of moving forward, she did. What had she seen?
“Thank you for everything, Master. One last question, if I may?” I asked as I turned back at the door.
She nodded. “You’re going to be disappointed in the answer.”
I took a deep breath. “Why me?”
“Just a feeling.”
Chapter 42
SHIN-SOO CIRCLED, HIS hands raised in a defensive position. He’d learned quite a lot from our previous fights, learned restraint, though it was feigned instead of intrinsic. I could see in his eyes that he had savage intent. Perhaps I hadn’t gotten through to him after all.
“Come on, ganhan, just fight him! Or are you scared?” one of Shin-soo’s friends yelled at me, but I disregarded the taunt.
I wasn’t scared, but I wasn’t going to lose because I acted foolishly. Shin-soo had beat me at the ry challenge, and I had won twice as fast at ma, so it was once again down to zo to determine our ranking.
Shin-soo had climbed well within a passing grade before our fight, and I had made it up below Hana—who had also ranked up recently—at sixteenth. It wasn’t a matter of not getting a passing grade, but a matter of pride. He would have to earn this win. I wasn’t going to hand it to him; otherwise, what would he have learned?
“Oh, stop monologuing and go whoop him,” Mae whispered with annoyance.
‘As you wish,’ I thought with a grin.
Shin-soo’s lip curled back. “I wouldn’t be smiling if I was about to lose.”
“Neither would I.” I darted in with hands poised for a grab. Shin-soo batted my attempt away and kicked at the back of my knee. I lifted and blocked with my shin, then kicked the attack away as I grabbed at his dobok.
I swept his grounded leg out from under him and followed through all the way to the ground. Two swift strikes to the chest and diaphragm had Shin-soo sputtering as he swung madly. I rose from my kneeling position and backed away. He rolled to the side and scrambled to his feet with a hasty defensive position.
“Are you ready?” I asked, trying to keep arrogance from my tone. The group around us chuckled, which only served to infuriate Shin-soo further.
He charged with a shout of anger, his fists glowing with black zo. He jabbed and swung like a wild animal in a cage. I blocked, deflected, then took a hit to the sternum, just shy of Mae’s disc. I stumbled back and coughed as my chest muscles contracted around my lungs.
He took an offensive stance with a cocky grin. “Are you ready?”
I pulled down a deep, cleansing breath, and cycled my used munje. The heat of it radiated off me in waves as black zo wrapped my muscles with strength. I dropped into horse stance and smirked. “Ready.”
“IT IS WITH GREAT RESPECT we present the top ranked students with the option of returning for a second year without testing. Aci, Tae-min,” Min-hwan called the first honors graduate—the top ten percent of the first-years—and I watched with rapt interest. How should I receive my scroll? Should I try to shake his hand? What was appropriate?
“Are you nervous,” Hana whispered next to me, and I looked down at my bouncing leg.
“No,” I whispered back and put my hand down on my knee.
She leaned a little closer and put her hand on mine for a comforting second. “You saw your rank yesterday after you beat Shin-soo. You know you’re in, so stop worrying.”
Grandmaster Min-hwan called students, and I watched as the others approached him. He placed a shimmering pin on their dobok that glowed with the colors of the Bastion crest. One girl went in for a handshake, and he obliged. Great, so, that was in. But would he want to shake my hand?
“Your leg,” Hana whispered, and I looked down to see it bouncing once more.
“Jun, Hana,” Min-hwan called, and she rose gracefully to her feet. She brushed my shoulder as she stepped past me into the aisle toward the front of the dining hall. I watched her go with star-struck awe.
She bowed and received the pin, but didn’t shake his hand. Oh no. Which should I do?
“Law, Jiyong,” he called my name, and I held my breath as I stood. Hana smiled, her eyes sparkling with joy as I passed her in the aisle. She wiggled her Bastion pin and shimmied her shoulders smugly at Lyjin who gave her a rude gesture in return. The girl smiled after, though, their wounds mended.
I strode toward the podium, worried I was walking too fast or too slow. I stopped in front of Min-hwan and bowed deeply.
He chuckled. “Good work, son.” He placed the pin on my dobok directly over Mae’s device. The metal tinked as they touched, and there was a tink-tink-tink while I walked back to my seat.
I didn’t shake his hand!
“Calm down, there’s always next year,” Mae said with a giggle.
Next year. I’d really done it. I was a Bastion.
“IT’S JUST A FEW MONTHS, and plus, with your apprenticeship ID you can come into the kingdom whenever you want,” Yuri said as she hugged me tightly.
I nodded and looked to Hana. Her black hair fell in silky rivulets around her cheeks, and I had the urge to push them back so I could see her beautiful face. She wrapped her arms around my neck and pulled me into a hug.
“I’ll be staying with Yuri most of the season,” she said and pulled back. “She lives on the other side of the kingdom. It’s a little far, but I could come down to the Rabbit to hang out.”
“That would be great.” I nodded in an overexaggerated moti
on to hide my disappointment and instantly felt stupid. I had to distract from my stupidity somehow. “So, where are you staying when it’s not with Yuri?”
Hana grinned. “Just because my parents disowned me doesn’t mean I don’t have family. Some of the dancers are my cousins. My auntie runs her own branch of the Rising Phoenix.”
“Wouldn’t she be at risk of your mother disowning her, too?” I asked, trying to bring levity to the situation.
She laughed. “She’s half owner, inherited from my grandmother. It would be a mess. I don’t think my mother”—she paused, catching herself—“I don’t think Scilla would go that far.”
I bobbed my head. “Cool.”
Idiot! Cool? Is that all you have to say?
“Well, train’s leaving soon,” Cho remarked as he and Yuri stared at us. I pulled away with heat in my cheeks as I realized I was holding Hana’s hands somehow. When had that happened?
“Okay, well, I’ll let you know what my schedule is and we could get donuts.” I said as I scratched the scar behind my ear.
“I’d love that!” Yuri declared, and we all laughed.
Cho and I carried our packs up the stairs, and I stopped to look back from the platform. Yuri waved, but Hana only smiled wistfully. I didn’t want to leave her behind like this.
I dropped my bag and hopped the railing of the stairs to the bottom. I walked up to Hana with far more confidence than I felt. I slipped her hair behind her ear and kissed her cheek as I gently held the back of her neck with a trembling hand.
“See you soon,” I whispered as I watched her cheeks flush. She liked me, maybe as much as I liked her. I grinned and cycled zo into my legs as I jumped the stairs up to the train platform.
Cho shook his head. “Showoff.”
I grabbed my bag and looked back one last time.
THE TRAIN BUMPED AS it came to my stop. I slung my pack over my shoulder and stepped off with a few others, all of us shuffling our feet. I stopped and breathed in the air of outer-city. It was crisp, and the images it illuminated in my mind were of budding flowers, melting snow, and icy flowing streams. Winter had come here, unlike in the kingdom.
I took the steps down two at a time and jogged toward home. The red pines had weathered the cold well, but the other, more tropical plants that glowed with greens and silver had elected to hibernate through the snow. Gravel crunched underfoot as I made my way from the road to the trail.
It wasn’t hard to sustain a fast pace, even for several kilometers. I whooped with joy as the trees flew past and the cool wind ruffled my hair. I cycled energy and created a blast of en for the ice bridge. I stood at the edge of the rushing river and pulled back my hands, ready to unleash everything in a single powerful burst.
I exhaled hard and threw my hands forward, launching the en munje at the water. The river crystalized violently in each direction for several meters, and I grinned. I ran across the ice, melting it behind me as I went.
I jumped over the wall with one powerful leap and bolted toward home. The man who ran the junk shop gave me a jovial wave as I passed. “Welcome home, Jiyong! Congratulations!”
“Thank you!” I replied but didn’t slow.
“So, Jiyong,” Mae spoke for the first time in what felt like hours.
“What is it?” I asked aloud as I slowed to a steady trot, rounding the corner toward my house.
“What is your family going to think about me?” she asked with trepidation.
I came to a stop under the archway of tangled branches to our front door. What were they going to think of Mae and what had happened to me? How much had Hana told Eun-bi? Woong-ji had warned us to keep Mae a secret, that knowledge of her presence could cause “complications.”
“Why don’t we just not tell them?” Mae said, her tone upbeat, but hiding her fear and disappointment.
I sucked down a deep breath. “No. You’re part of the family. We tell them.”
“Well, not Daegon. He’s a bit of a blabbermouth.”
I chuckled. “Daegon will swear a vow of silence for us on this matter or suffer the consequences.”
Mae sighed. “Okay, I trust you.”
I smiled. “Good. Let’s go home.”
I walked down the path with no fear in my heart. Everything was going to work out.
Books, Mailing List, and Reviews
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Looking for more from J.D. Astra, and need them right this minute? Check out: Zero.Hero Book 1. Or keep reading to take a sneak peek.
THE GREATEST HEROES have already fallen... Now it’s up to Claire and her ragtag crew of Zeroes to save the city.
Low-ranked hero contractors Claire, Elise, Norah, and Piper dream of making it to the top twenty with the Stewards of Light, but their weird RPG powers have them trapped near the bottom instead. Balancing college, part-time jobs, and family matters leaves the girls without much time to fight crime and grind out the experience they need to climb the ranks.
When an unusual threat emerges, the gamer girls are left standing in a city turned upside down with no hero to save them. The underclassmen are outclassed, but they're also the only ones who can stop the spread of chaos. Claire and her friends will have to unravel the mess with clever teamwork and determination and find the top-rank heroes in themselves to save the city before it falls into darkness.
From J.D. Astra, author of the Viridian Gate Online: Firebrand series, comes a new universe of heroes and monsters. If you hunger for anime like One Punch Man and My Hero Academia, with a healthy serving of RPG elements, Zero.Hero Book 1 is for you!
Prologue
NOVEMBER 17th, 2012...
We raced across the dark grassy yard, my school bag slapping against my back and jostling the pieces of the game board inside: Terra’s Heroes.
I’d gotten it the weekend before. My mom always took me to The Dragon’s Horde after she’d done something she felt guilty for. This time, it was forgetting to get me from school. Not like I’d been upset; I’d just gone to Elise’s house and we played Halo. But the reward for Mom’s forgetfulness was a brand-new RPG. Elise, my best friend since age four when I saved her from being pushed off the slide, was more into the FPS, but she indulged me with my tabletop needs, especially when it was something new and shiny.
Elise and I were neck-and-neck as we approached the cellar door. We skidded to a stop, planting our hands against the wood. She grinned, her white teeth stark against her dark skin.
“I think you beat me,” she said, though I was pretty sure our hands touched at the same time.
Norah, our feisty strawberry-blonde friend, was still running. She seemed determined to beat Piper, the short, buck-toothed girl who was the newest addition to our friend group. She was taking it slow, munching on a cookie, completely unconcerned about being last to the hideout. Norah’s mom did make the best chocolate-chip cookies, though, so I didn’t blame her.
Norah panted as she put her hand against the cellar door. “You’re the rotten egg, Pipe!”
“Yeah, but I’
ve got the cookies!” she yelled back, holding up the container of freshly baked goods.
Norah grabbed the lock with one hand and inserted the old, rusted key with the other, then jiggled it around.
“So cool that your parents are letting us sleep over in the cellar,” Piper mused with a bit of chocolate on her lip.
“Yeah, it’s pretty much my room anyway. I set it up earlier today just for us!” Norah said as the lock came free. We hauled open the heavy doors and stared down into the darkness. With a flick of the switch, the stairs illuminated. I took the steps down two at a time to the bottom and surveyed the space as Norah and Elise closed the doors behind us.
There were four sleeping bags lined up on the right wall, canning shelves on the left, and an old box TV next to a round table with four chairs. An overhead chandelier lit the table well, and tie-on pads looped around the back of each seat. There was a plush, round rug under the table that looked like it was from a different planet, but whatever, it was still awesome.
“It’s perfect,” I whispered.
“I’m so glad Claire approves, but what does everyone else think?” Norah asked. A fake-innocent grin spread across her face as she batted her eyes.
My cheeks warmed and I opened my mouth to retort, but Elise jabbed my ribs and gave me a knowing glare. Norah and I didn’t get into it that often, mostly because of Elise’s moderating, but for some reason it always felt like a competition between us. Now there was one more thing that put Norah above me. My place was pretty meh, and there was definitely no private space for us to play games together.
“It’s great,” Piper said as she sat at the table, placing the cookies directly in front of her.
