by Marc Mulero
Wait a second. If this package is that critical, there would already be a dom on it… maybe even two.
Eres lifted his gaze from the rainbow of pipes to the Carriers moving about, and then back down again, noticing some packages were already zooming by unaccompanied – perhaps they were already locked and guided, or maybe they were less important. So many details to consider – the stripe on what he guessed to be private sector Carriers versus Faction symbols on others. But he had to stay the course. The two slim Carriers that had passed him before, they seemed to be on the same package, one guiding it one way, and the second forking it another – were they competing? No, it didn’t seem like it. It felt like more of a routine. But why? Were terrorists tracking pathways? Maybe it was to throw them off.
Then, out of nowhere, all heads turned left, and a shout that transcended their silent communications made Eres nearly freeze.
“Dwellers!” one cried, triggering all Carriers to spread about like a disturbed cloud of gnats.
The ground was kicking up like there was a giant beast, or maybe several, under it trying to break through the surface.
Eres cursed to himself, for if he wasn’t over his head before, he was now.
Like clockwork, all Carriers, private and public, touched their belts and flung their Doms behind their backs as some magnetized contraption secured it, and then each drew their weapons. All the Carriers were still moving toward the Imperion Chamber, but their focus was to the left, to the oncoming threat.
“Uhh!” Eres fumbled, still skating straight ahead.
That’s when the ground suddenly burst open and shot out a blur of beige figures, all heavily armored with oversized translucent green goggles over their faces, large powerful jet packs that fired to propel them forward, and rock-solid overhangs that shielded them from harm in their underground travels that were now retracting into their packs. They were airborne. Ten at least, and more burley than any of the Carriers.
Eres considered abandoning the gear and taking to the sky, sure that he could help if he did that, but then thought of the cause. Before he could act one way or the other, two Carriers shot nets that connected mid-air, ropes still fastened to their wide-barreled guns like stringed harpoons. In a harmony that raised goosebumps on Eres’ skin, the two caught a Dweller in mid-flight, circled to entangle him, and disengaged before moving to the next. Another Carrier skated low, dagger in hand, bent almost to a knee while sparks cascaded over her, and stabbed the downed enemy with a flash of Crule.
“Yes!” Eres found himself rooting since he couldn’t compete.
A batch of governmental Carriers were being fired upon by heavy explosives from above. The skaters once again scattered about before reforming with the blast now behind them. The fire would do no harm, Eres knew, because Glite was designed to prevent all of that… so why even bother?
A distraction! Eres’ eyes bulged under his lenses, and then turned to the floor, where two Dwellers were tunneling underground toward the pipes like sharks trailing the scent of blood.
Eres couldn’t believe such a devious, selfish thought came to him in a moment of peril, but it did. “SetaSenSix!” he shouted loudly, then turned up the microphone in his helmet. “They’re on course for SetaSenSix! Stop them!”
Three Carriers reversed course on the spot, tracking downward like they were following some creature under a pond of ice. Eres crept forward to follow them, analyzing the pipe they were headed toward. Still, everything was just a jumble. His attention was jolted forward to a Crule-ignited spear wielded by a tall man. He was stalking, face low, fingers nearly scraping the ground as he pushed forward. When he locked onto his target, he spun the javelin ostentatiously to face forward, leapt ahead of his foe and slammed the point hard between a crack.
Eres’ breath caught in his chest upon seeing an impaled jetpack now stationary underground. He caught him. Wow. It was like watching an expert spear fisherman in action. But he had to shake free of awe when he noticed a slim figure who abruptly unhooked her Dom, slammed it down over a thin pipe and turned hard to the east.
Damn, she’s fast…
She sprinted, head down, free arm swinging from side to side, no concern for anything else around her but her end goal. She split from the attack and, for that reason, caught Eres’ eye.
He looked at the tiny pipe she was forking a package away from and there it was: SetaSenSix, in light grey.
The one word Eres would use to describe everything going on around him was “chaos.” Was this what Carriers endured on a daily basis? It felt like the battle at Kor Vinsánce, where the viciousness of their enemy felt desperate.
Skating far from the commotion, Eres hardly realized that it was only two Carriers now: him, the imposter, and a governmental enforcer who had turned a curious eye on him. She backpedaled, hips swaying effortlessly from side to side…. was she judging him? He didn’t have a private stripe nor any Faction badges. There was nothing to identify him at all, really, or at least that’s what he thought.
She eventually allowed him to catch up. His silky curtains flowing back and hers snaking forward – she was Medusa guarding her lair. But he needed to get closer, to identify whatever it was that was zooming under her Dom. It was at his fingertips. Just gars away. He considered making a break for it but a long dagger, the one that had silenced a Dweller before, snapped into her grip.
There was a long moment of silence besides the scraping at their feet.
Eres raised his hands innocently, volume still raised in his helmet’s microphone. “I mean no harm.”
“Where…” a deep, astonished voice echoed around him, “did you get that blade.” She pointed with her dagger to the crimson-coated scimitar bouncing at his hip.
Eres wasn’t interested in someone ogling his Kor treasure. It was invaluable to him and he didn’t owe anyone an explanation. He instead squinted his eyes at a curvature of the pipe that would spin them north if they were to follow it, so he cut ahead of her.
Seeing the play before Eres had even thought of it, the Carrier swung her dom in a semi-circle, which thrusted the package on its curved path faster than Eres could’ve intercepted before she then crossed in front of him with dagger in ready position.
“Answer me!” Her voice was frightening.
“You can’t have it!” Eres shouted back.
“It doesn’t belong to you!”
“Take it up with the former Champion of the Colliding Spheres, Herim Vasa,” he threatened.
Her grip immediately relaxed, dagger now to her side, speed reduced to a purr. Slowly, she reached a finger to the side of her faceless mask and touched it, retracting her temp lenses back.
Eres felt his heart stop in his chest, face flushed pale, his belly aflame from the inside. He couldn’t speak. How could he? His childhood love… the memories of seeing her for the first time under a stunted tree competing with the scene in front of him. “Windel,” he said lowly, touching the side of his helmet to reveal her suspicions as truth.
Her face remained tense, like she’d been turned to stone, disbelief frozen in her expression. He was supposed to be stuck in Elesion. It was impossible for him to leave…
Then, to dispel the storm of heartache between them came a flood of betrayal - five years’ worth - stampeding forward like a tidal wave of emotion in fast forward, giving Eres the strength to regain composure and act normal in the presence of someone who used to make his knees weak. How could he forget? He loathed her now; not just her, but all of his “friends” that’d promised to do something about the injustice that ruined him. A memory of being dragged away after saving Kor Vinsánce replayed in his mind.
Disbelief turned to anger, and anger turned to bafflement when a glimmer in the sky closed in fast from above them.
Was it a weapon aimed at her? Another Dweller? No… this projectile appeared like a dark blip in the sky. A dulwar perhaps? It got closer, closer, until it stopped thirty feet away by using a momentous gust of wind that knocked
Windel into a crouch and Eres nearly backward off his feet.
Eres spun into a tornado, recovered, and peered above him to a cloak that was billowing like an eagle with oversized wings, to eyes that were darker than a night’s sky, and a long face under a wide-brimmed hat. It wasn’t a copycat, nor an illusion. This was the man that had been played on that terrible broadcast all of those years ago… the one that resided in Eres’ esper as a fallen Skrol. It was Seren Night.
He floated menacingly, impeller keeping him a steady distance away, decorated free-hand blinking seven different colors to confirm the truth of it… so many espers, so many murders.
Confusion turned to fear for Eres… how could it not? The great Agden Way, his late father, feared this man. The Skrols, who are supposed to be lone wolves, were gathering just to combat this threat. The Silent War was his doing, and now two teenagers were face-to-face with him.
He descended slowly down to about twenty feet aboveground, sending another gust of wind in their direction. Fear turned into rage. Eres abandoned his Carrier’s shell and fake tools in two quick motions, eyes fixed high with determination in his heart, not because he had to complete this task so badly, nor because a serial murderer was descending before him, but because of Windel – all the hate that she stirred inside of him had to be taken out somewhere. Who better than him?
Eres was in the sky before Windel could react, sprung from his own gust of wind with Vasa’s marvelous blade drawn in hand, and black-shadowed Crule ignited as he closed in. The glare of three suns separated them for an instant in the scenic blur that was Eres’ bum-rush.
As the gap shortened, he noticed that Seren’s face wasn’t mocking or toying. He was deadly serious, stoic even, long dark hair whipping about his face as he internalized whoever it was that was crossing his path.
Eres wound up, arms preparing to deliver a swing of mighty strength. Face contorted in rage, T-marks on his face exposed – all while Seren narrowed his eyes, judging him harder than the Judicator ever could, detesting his effort with more distaste than Wudon would, and teaching him through action more effectively than Vasa ever could - he disappeared, leaving Eres to hit nothing but the air.
“Eres!” Windel shouted, now rounding her sprint to remain under them.
He turned, not to Windel, but to the overwhelming darkness behind him, to see that his enemy was twirling a double-sided blade in his grip that curved back at either end.
Eres clicked his impeller and struck again hard, like he was swinging a baseball bat, abandoning all of the finesse and grace he’d trained to wield. And when the bottom side of Seren’s blade thrusted high to meet his, it lit with the same obsidian Crule that Eres had obtained in the jungle. Their paths in history echoed in that moment… Dundo-Ba, Seren knew, likely asking himself ‘Why was he there?’ as the two scorching blades clashed.
Their conflicting Crule collided with the same force as lightning snapping through the sky, bolstering flailing tongues of smoke for a brief instant. The intensity lessened to the point where eyes locked in the midst of hazy air. The moment was surreal – the same distaste this man had for Agden Way was inflicted unto Eres. He saw it in his esper then and felt it again now - hate, curiosity, pity, all translated right before he found his strength used against him. Another clash made Eres’ blade ring so hard that his arms were stinging from vibration, his head immediately suffering a violent migraine, and the next time he blinked, he was upside down, falling.
He dipped from consciousness and reeled back, still miraculously intact, clicking his impeller twice to stop from crashing down.
“A Dawn who has reached the jungle.” Seren’s deep voice projected while disappearing from Eres’ sight once more. “How interesting...”
The voice sounded far away now like he was abandoning the fight.
Eres tried to free himself of disorientation, looking wildly over his head to track where the murderer had gone, until suddenly a dark shadow crossed his sight so briefly that he wasn’t sure he’d actually seen anything, like a spot in his vision. It tugged his gaze downward, though, showing him that it was true… he was back. Seren was soaring towards her location now.
“Windel, no!” he roared.
She screeched hard to a stop, pivoted, and dashed at the last second as Seren crashed into the barren earth. With her dom to the ground, she ramped up the magnetism to pull the payload under her, realizing that Seren wasn’t there for a couple of kids, but for whatever it was that drew Eres to the Scarred Lands as well - the package… whatever was gliding through SetaSenSix.
She tapped her helmet so that the temp lenses would reform over her eyes, windmilled her arm, and watched the package soar far ahead of all of them, all while Seren Night burst past her like a wraith in the night. She felt her arm tug nearly out of its socket as he whizzed by. The dom was no longer in her possession, but in his. Windel was right - he was going to stop that parcel from making it to the Imperion Chamber.
Her arms and legs alternated from side to side faster and faster to catch up with an impeller’s bursts, while Eres cranked his to a thousand to intercept.
“You set the Dwellers on us!” The helmet projected her voice. “Anything to claim more espers, isn’t that right?”
The Dawn soared down at that moment as if Windel had summoned a comet to crush Seren. It was a magnificent show of channeled rage. Unhinged. Because this was the man that drove his father out of existence, the man who threatened a secret older than time. Eres kept telling himself that like a mantra that culminated courage.
And now, using his own move against him, Eres stopped sharply, wind fanning his enemy as he misty-flipped mid-air over Seren’s swipe. Steel clashed – once, twice, and a third time before Crule ignited on Seren’s top blade to match Eres’. The Dawn was nearly blinded – what was this nefarious red Crule cycling with electrical sparks, like a storm lived within it? He’d never seen or read anything like it. But then Eres was swinging and missing, for Seren had clicked his impeller twice already. Eres knew the sounds and what was to follow. But Seren was fast, too fast, in a league all his own, blinking into a mad rush that left a triangle of wind trailing his path. All of this happened in less than a second, one which landed Seren at his opponent’s back.
Eres could feel the presence behind him, and so with a last-ditch effort, knowing he was terribly outmatched, threw his arm over his shoulder to catch a swipe that would’ve otherwise paralyzed him. He turned, withdrew, and dipped his blade to stop the other end that was soaring to finish the job. Courage fled in that moment, leaving fear to take its place. This wasn’t like any duels with Windel, Nuganzia, Ohndee… he didn’t know where to move next, no anticipation. It was like his mind was wiped clean while in his presence. And when Crule clashed once more, Vasa’s blade was sent spinning from his grip, and before it stopped short sticking out of a crack, Eres was sliced three times in the chest, left with torn Glite and burning wounds.
He dropped to his knees, just to have a shouting Windel leap over him ferociously – two daggers in hand this time. She dashed in fast while Seren used short bursts to send himself backward. She slashed many times at nothing, and soon found herself tangled with obscured vision within his wafting cloak, only to have both of her daggers knocked from her grip. They bounced and sizzled out behind her like two spent firecrackers.
“There are purposes greater than you, Carrier, and greater than me.” Seren’s eyes lingered before he spun away.
Each long impeller hop ended with him tracing the dom to the floor until he found what he was looking for. He cranked a digital lever on the device to hike up its magnetism, pressed the dom down, and then threw it straight up, causing the ground to break at his feet. The pipe – SetaSenSix – was now protruding, severed, and smoking aboveground with a small package that shot out like a clay pigeon in skeet shooting. Seren burst into the air to grab it and, with one last look behind him, departed into the sky.
She couldn’t believe it – encountering one of the mos
t profound murderers in Ingora’s history on the same day Eres had returned to her. What the hell was happening? What strings in Gushda were being pulled to have these paths cross in Rudo? Maybe her mother wasn’t so crazy…
She watched Seren uselessly, unable to follow while he lifted away into the abyss, where a jet black shider instantaneously slowed as if it came out of hyper speed. And before Windel could even blink a mental snapshot, both he and it were gone.
But that wasn’t important – Eres was. The Dawn that had stolen her heart years ago was back in her sights once more. She turned and skated back, audibly sighing when she noticed his chest heaving up and down. He was alive… wounded, but alive. So much time had gone by, so many things she wanted to tell him, and some that she didn’t, came to mind. Either way, she prayed that he wouldn’t just skate off in a rage when he woke up.
Dropping to her knees, she inspected the wounds that were still searing like hot iron – exposed skin under torn Glite. Luckily, they appeared shallow, still deep enough to cut skin, but surface wounds nonetheless. She breathed another sigh of relief and allowed herself a smile. Eres wasn’t dying or dead, he just wasn’t used to being touched by Crule, that’s all. He had no resistance to it.
“He could’ve killed you, Eres. He could’ve slit both of our throats and left us for some Dwellers to scrap, but he didn’t.” She pulled first-aid gel from her pocket, dabbed just enough on her finger, and caringly blended it over the exposed skin.
Once the three wounds were covered in clear gel that reduced the searing glow on his chest, she then analyzed his face, how it changed over the years, matured, more handsome than she remembered. Yet he still had a touch of feminine beauty to mark him as what he was – sexless. She wondered what he thought of her, too. Was she more beautiful in his eyes? Perhaps not. Maybe it was her youthful spirit that he was attracted to once… her willingness to befriend him on a whim.
Then the memories came – a fun few months with sprinkles of darkness. Friendship, deception, forgiveness. He was unique in that there always seemed to be a storm following him around. Not much had changed on that front.
