by Marc Mulero
Herim’s gaze lingered to judge, and then broke away. “Alright class, your final lesson. We will navigate a complex arena of the Colliding Spheres. Is there a greater honor?”
A streak of black lightning dared them to challenge.
“None!” Eres straightened like a military cadet, evoking exchanged looks from behind him.
“Good. Attention! Left hand over right, like so.” She demonstrated as a single sheet of thick rain crashed over them like a toppling ship just kicked up water. “Now pull it open chest width apart.”
See-through live maps materialized out of thin air, each the color of its owner’s Glite.
“This is how you know where to jump next. It must become intuitive. One false move in a duel of this magnitude and you’re done. Memorize it, only activate it in absolute necessity, for every second in this space has enough variables to leave you crushed, drowned, or humiliated,” Vasa explained, reversing her hand motion to de-materialize her map, and assist the others.
Windel did the same, earning a look from her peers. “What? I’m a Carrier, we do this daily.” She shrugged.
Proctor Vasa rounded on Ohndee, who pointed to a section of the map and then traced it with her finger to the actual arena in front of her, making sense of it, both of them nodding along. Windel crept up to Crow to make sure he got it too. He glanced at Eres for an instant just to be sure he was watching.
Just need to get through this… make your demands of Ilfrid and be done with this nightmare. To Verglas, as the Judicator wills it, alone.
“Alright everyone, time to follow my lead. Single formation!” Vasa shouted over winds, standing at the tip of the first rounded stone platform like a captain of her ship. She reached behind her back, near the center, and as she commanded it, peeled a blade vertically from her Glite. It was the length of her spine, superb, flashy to match her style – and she swung it to guide them forward.
“Fourteen gar hop, east, southeast, toward Verglas. Go!” She was gone before her voice was, flipping high, unfurling to touch the tip of a wave with her foot and landing on the next platform that her presence had summoned.
Windel followed first, then Ohndee.
“Don’t choke, barren.” Crow smirked over his shoulder.
“I won’t. I had a fata to teach me.”
Did I just say that?
Crow turned slowly, appearing taller than he did just a moment ago, with that same fierceness that Eres had always seen from him. Or perhaps he was appalled. His silent stare was more intimidating than his words, scarier than when he barged into Eres’ personal space uninvited, far worse than anything else.
Then a curled fist flew. A right hook that brought not only the strength of his momentum, but also a wave summoned from the ocean, five times their size. This was Reach of an unknown degree, leaving Eres to squeeze his eyes shut, hand thrown up to block, and body tensed to brace. But nothing came. No impact. So his eye hesitantly peeked open to see the punch pulled inches from his face, the water paused in time, waiting like a perfectly trained animal. It was a taunt, a message, giving Eres a moment to register it all, so he could realize they were no longer a match. Then Crow dropped his arm, leaving the wave to fall straight down and splash up all around them.
“You have no idea where I’ve traveled. What I’ve done. So, I think it would be wise not to poke the beast,” Crow finally spoke before jolting to the next stone.
Eres’ anger wouldn’t go away… it was getting worse, becoming uncontrollable, erratic. A sensation of cool water suddenly blanketed his insides, then it burned hot like fire. Adrenaline. He couldn’t contain it, so he burst forward again, landing at the same time Crow did.
He looked to his feet to see blades of grass-like material intertwined into links, even flowers dying and regrowing before his eyes, like back in Ombes and Elesion.
“This is a Living Stone meant for Reach-sensitive duelers,” Vasa taught. “The oceans are said to be endless noise to most who possess the ability – Keeper Decalus told me – so a Living Stone is set to be an islet of hope, something useful that the dueler can pull from.”
Decalus… something doesn’t add up. Why wasn’t Proctor Vasa part of the group assembled to save me. Did he not trust her? Did Proctor Ren not trust her? Impossible. I saw her slice through Kovella’s Quittance with my own eyes.
Mist suddenly started to claw down from the sky, spiraling, igniting with different colors as if multiple storms lived inside it - a javelin tossed down from the heavens.
Herim pointed to it. “Deep reds and violent blues – a heavy gravitas spear. You can trace its trajectory – I used to use them as weapons to fling my opponents into. They’ll scramble your brain just the same as traveling in a shider at max speed.
“Can you grasp one of those, Crow?” Windel asked.
He snorted like the question was comical. “No. Reach is culminated from the elements beneath us. It’s not atmospheric. Otherwise, I would be able to highjack the air that you breathe.”
Eres balled his fists at the thought. “Like everything else…”
“Have you ever been inside one?” Ohndee inquired.
“Oh yes.” Vasa smiled. “Even when the spears break apart near the surface, the molecules can pass through you. It feels like every limb suddenly falls asleep, that pins and needles sensation. Then a rush of blood to the head. Quite draining in the midst of battle.”
“Can the stones flip?” Crow wondered.
“Excellent question.” Vasa re-materialized her map and poked at two spots. “There are Rolling Stones, too. They can knock you out when they turn and bury you under the sea. Not ideal. They’re timed, so only an amateur would be caught there. It’s variables like those that deter the weak from even attempting these events.”
“Oh, like Eres.” Crow smirked.
Both girls appeared nervous.
“Proctor Vasa, I have a request!”
“What’s that, Eres?”
“Lend Crow and I a Crule blade each. Right here. Right now. Supervise our duel.”
“Absolutely not. This was supposed to be a harmless tour.” The elements swarmed around her as if laughing at the irony.
Crow folded his arms, saying nothing.
“You would deny two of your pupils a chance to prove their prowess? Two potential warriors that want to know their worth?” His anger was trying to convince her, nothing else.
Herim hesitated, the very essence of her principles was being challenged. “I would,” she finally replied.
Eres felt ill. The anger rising up within him needed to be let out somewhere, to be disbursed. Who better than on Crow? He’d prove to the girls what they were discarding. How could he be denied?
“Proctor, we’re going to wind up killing one another without someone to stop it if you don’t let me challenge him now.”
Vasa looked to Crow, who only shrugged back at her.
Windel grabbed Vasa’s arm as black lightning struck again on a nearby stone, sending it spinning wildly in place. “No proctor. It’s way too dangerous. Take us back, please.”
“I think you should let them have at it,” Ohndee instigated. “They’ve been at each other’s throats since they got here.”
Eres stepped up to Vasa. “What if someone had denied you, back when? Would you have ascended to Champion of the Colliding Spheres? Would you have fulfilled your destiny?”
Another sheet of jagged hail crashed into their Glite.
“Let us settle this!”
Herim Vasa was speechless, about to tip. She glanced over at Crow. “Is this what you want?”
“It’s what he needs. Look at the fool - steaming from his ears. Give him a sword so we can settle this and move on.”
“Eres, don’t do it. Please,” Windel begged.
“No faith.” He shook his head at her, and then turned back to Vasa, holding out his hand for her blade.
She sighed, pulled another blade that peeled from her Glite armor on her back and flipped them in e
ach hand so the hilts were facing the two at odds. “Exonika Crule, dual blades, loaded with Yuzin. You have ten kill shots before you have to regenerate. If I have to carry a body out of this arena…”
Eres swiped the blade from her grasp and twirled it to test its weight, then adjusted his impeller so that it would push him the proper distance when in use.
Crow on the other hand, leisurely accepted the sword and placed it on his own spine so it would melt into his matte black Glite. Arms folded in anticipation, he waited for Eres to say whatever else he had to say before it all started.
“We settle this once and for all, Crow.” The tip was pointed at him.
“If you fall here, your legacy dies with you. The barren defeated in the night, in anger, in pride, with no one to see, for nothing.”
“I would be remembered as a hero of Kor Vinsánce!” he yelled.
“Or as the fool who let it all happen.”
“En garde!”
Proctor Vasa sighed and placed both of her hands on the girls’ backs. “Ladies, with me. Twenty gars north, a risen podium will form. Duelers,” she turned, “you wait for my signal.”
“But proctor?” Windel was full of nerves at this point.
“Eres is right. Better in my company than not.”
“But here? Arguably the most dangerous place in Ingora.”
“My playground. Yes. I cannot see a more fitting place where a lesson can be learned among warriors. That’s enough now.”
She spun, her angelic Glite shimmering in the moonlight as her boots sparked once more. Up she went, landing elegantly, as the podium continuing to rise.
“You know this is a battle for her.” Eres seethed, his chest expanding and contracting with angst.
“Perhaps you’re right. You’ve always been the thorn in our side, getting in the way of what our relationship could be. Perhaps if I kill you in combat, all becomes right in the world for us. No more chasing a wounded animal. Everything would be justified. Consider this my farewell to you, Eres Dawn… the hopeless barren.”
Crow hopped to the Living Stone and stood with his arms still folded, wind blowing his black hair all around.
Eres gripped Vasa’s blade in one hand and impeller in the other, head tilted, gaze intent on his proctor’s raised hand, waiting for it to fall. He was at his breaking point – the edge of his emotional cliff. Ohndee relieved herself of him, and why shouldn’t she? The Swul was right… Windel showing up threw a wrench into everything, and his old Kor crush didn’t even feel the same way. Because of Crow…
The fire burning in his chest had to be released, it had to come out.
Vasa’s hand dropped. Crow didn’t so much as flinch, but Eres was already airborne.
He was at such a heightened sense that he could track each blanket of rain mid-air, see the individual droplets just before they smacked his cheek, crashing past him in the sky like he was flying through clouds of loosed arrows. The thrill of having no ground at his feet just made his heart thump that much harder, because if he fell, it would be at the collision point of each spheres’ ocean. He’d be torn to Osa or Verglas – whichever wanted his corpse more. The vastness of nothingness ahead of him, as far as the eye could see, suddenly made his heart skip. One misstep and he would be swallowed by it. His inkling of fear quickly turned into adrenaline, though.
Crow.
His arms flexed with a swollenness of churning pistons as he charged into the great abyss. The path was lit only by warring chemicals around them – like a storm of Ombes – making him remember the time he’d fought the devil back in Dolseir. How much different would it be this time? Their skills had tripled since.
Well, one thing was certain - death was on the table.
Senses were heightened - he could smell the salt water, the sulfur aroma that accompanied glinting atoms. He could feel the wind twirling into his face, burning his skin like it once did his father’s. Was he echoing his kin’s path? Had Agden lived this exact moment once before?
It was a moment of clarity that could only occur within chaos, doubt, rejection. He had to right this injustice. He had to beat Crow.
A click of his impeller allowed him to descend for the Living Stone, with a war cry to help himself forget his ulmanity. He aimed to kill. A flash of Windel kissing his enemy made him shout again, desperately. He hadn’t registered it truly, not until now.
Crow was coming closer into vision. Eyes half-closed and unimpressed. He taunted by doing nothing, all while Eres soared closer, heartbeat in his throat, veins streaking his temple to match the sky.
This was it, one way or the other. Trajectory aligned, sword reeled back, wind working against him, and within all of this, there was an instant where their eyes locked. Eres could see that shadow of a grin he detested so much. And then out of nowhere, water surged around the orphan like a blown geyser to repel Eres, the insect that crow thought he was. The chaotic water began to funnel into a waterspout to shelter Crow, to shield him, and to make a mockery of his opponent.
Eres’ mouth hung open, he had a split-second choice to make – blast his impeller in the other direction, retreat and wait it out… and what, dispel his own momentum? Never. Option B would have to do.
He ramped up his impeller to max setting and blasted forward, his brain calculating amid Mach speed, knowing that the crash would feel like hitting a brick wall, knowing that he needed something to break the plane first, before his body did.
Of course… his boots.
He flipped to move feet first, activated the fire, and let the soles of his feet create a door that he could pass through.
One of his spectators clapped hands over her mouth, another was blank-faced, and the tallest watched carefully with narrowed eyes.
It felt like he was being sucked into a black hole – it sounded like an audible inhale, intensified and endless. Then he was gone. Submerged. All of his senses blocked by compression. His sight immediately went black, ears suctioned, surges of water flew up his nose to drown him, but somehow, some way, he held onto his weapons with the last of his strength… for he would need something to kill with if he ever broke free. He hadn’t been knocked out; he could still think.
It’s only temporary. I just have to hold on, will my boots to power up again, otherwise I’m going to spin forever.
He could feel his brain rattling, being shoved in one direction or another inside his head as he twisted with every rotation.
Then it happened: Fire at his feet to propel him forward. Yes. Air flowed once more. A pressure that no person should ever feel was released. He made it onto the platform that Crow meant to be alone on. The Living Stone. Another world, where the ocean was the sky, and a vile orphan ruled it. Crow had made a dome of consistently rushing water that was revolving so fast that it made his head spin. But Eres had bigger problems at the moment. A long cough reversed drowning. He spat water like a gag was just removed. His head was hunched, eyes bloodshot. But after long redeeming breaths, the rage returned.
Crow.
Everyone was stunned. Even he, Crow, couldn’t believe it. Arms slowly unfolded, one hand reaching for that sword he didn’t think he needed. What was happening?
Eres again roared to make sure he would be heard this time, voice scratchy from nearly dying. Glite soaked. He had survived Seren Night, surely he could best a boy.
His stomps forward made him sound thrice his weight, expression contorted like he was leading an army behind him. The upward spiral of water suddenly changed direction. What did it mean though? Was Crow scared? Was he messing with him? No. Arrogant posture had resumed. He seemed ready.
Three gars away. Stomp, stomp, stomp. Two. Blade sparked against the floor like a lit match. One.
With the lift of curled fingers, roots morphed into hardened bark – like Professor Wudon had once done – but Eres didn’t waste any Crule to dismantle it, just raw hatred in his swing. He cut it in half diagonally, hopped onto it, and used it as a diving board to close the gap to a backped
aling Crow. Water then slammed down making Eres stop short, missed only by an inch. But he quickly unfroze, dodged two more crashes, and dashed into close range combat.
“It hurts to lose, doesn’t it?” Crow spoke calmly, like he was in control of it all. “Perhaps you see now why I attacked you all of those years ago. You see why I couldn’t just let someone barge in uninvited. Isn’t that precisely what you’re doing here? Now?”
Blades clashed, ringing like crystalized glass, but Eres didn’t bother to hold it… he had too much energy, too much power, and needed to keep moving. No Crule had ignited, no kill shots, just a flurry of stabs that were evaded and cross-slashes that were met.
“Who does she want!?” Eres screamed through gritted teeth, eyes bloodshot. “Who!?”
Crow grinned and lifted his chin. “Ask her.”
Eres suddenly couldn’t move. He jerked forward and nearly tripped. An old trick - vines around the ankles. His father had joked with it all the time back in his adolescent years. The flash memory was almost calming, but really it was more like giving his rage a moment to back up and ready for a charge. Crule ignited, and so he traced the blade in a circle at his feet faster than Crow could’ve reacted, tip scraping against stone, slicing himself free of the vines while spinning in a three-sixty. A demon unleashed. He didn’t let go of the Crule trigger as he should’ve. The sword still aflame, eyes in search of blood.
Crow’s expression turned serious, igniting his own weapon only to prevent from being cut in two.
Eres twirled the blade so fluidly it was as if he were holding a two-handed lance, alternating hands like a showman at some carnival. He was possessed, not a care in the world that he was expending everything, then the slices came in like a high-powered fan. One met. Two met. The third however, scorched Crow’s finger. Eres laughed. Then he stopped the fiery rotation up high, gripped the hilt with his second hand, and swung down with no remorse. Matte black Glite seared orange.
“I’d rather remove the choice.” Eres couldn’t believe the words as he spoke them. He knew the feeling when Seren had struck him - anger, fear. And then the oceanic ceiling began to plummet like gravity was turned back on.
