Gods of Rust and Ruin

by Azalea Ellis

  “Just curious. You can ignore me,” I said, as the saber-toothed monkey he’d just created attacked Blaine, while swatting Birch away with its two tails.

  “I don’t mind. I’m almost out of juice anyway, so this’ll be over soon. I know you have questions, it’s written all over your face.”

  “Well then. Why are you using so many different supplies? And I know you don’t even need to use a paintbrush or canvas. Or . . . a cafeteria food tray,” I said, noting what he was painting on.

  “Turns out, my Animus Skill cares about stuff like this. This is mostly a fun experiment, but I’ve been experimenting more seriously in the Skill Handling class, and it turns out that various factors affect the quality of the constructs I can produce.”

  “Really? Like what?” My own Skill Handling class had been an exercise in avoiding using my Chaos Skill as much as possible, while working on Spirit of the Huntress and Tumbling Feather freely. I’d definitely frustrated the instructor and the scientists who’d come to “help,” but they were under the impression that I just had a bad attitude, not that I was afraid of killing myself.

  “It doesn’t like plastic, most of the time. Either to paint with or on. Dry mediums don’t work, it has to be paint or ink. It has a thing for metals, the harder or more precious the better, it seems. The constructs increase in quality when I spend a little more time on them, but that seems obvious. And a couple other things, but it’s pretty inconclusive so far. There must be some sort of rule behind it, but I haven’t figured out what it is yet.”

  “That’s fascinating,” I murmured. Did my own Skills have similar functions that I’d never noticed? I didn’t have a chance to ask him any more questions, as a heavy thwump-thwump-thwump filled the air, signaling the approach of a heli-pod.

  The heli-pod hovered above one side of the courtyard, waiting as a section of the concrete ground opened up to the hangar down below. People began jumping out, which would have been dangerous for a civilian. Two of them carried a cot between them, which held a body covered by a white sheet.

  My eyes widened as a tall, thin man launched himself out, floating just a little too far in a way that reminded me of Jacky.

  The commotion was drawing attention, and other Players were filtering out of the various doors to the courtyard, or watching curiously from the rows of glass wall and windows.

  “Is that . . .” Adam asked, standing up slowly.

  “Yes.” The man who’d killed China. The man I’d dubbed the “snake,” and a mortal enemy. He smiled and stretched, and did not notice me among the others milling around the outside of the walls.

  Jacky and Sam came over to us, dragging Chanelle, Blaine, and the kiddos with them, while Bunny watched nervously, and then sidled over to put our group between himself and the new arrivals. “Maybe we should leave, guys,” he murmured, just loud enough for my augmented ears to hear him.

  “He’s back,” Jacky whispered.

  Zed moved closer to my side, Birch balanced precariously on his shoulder. “Is that the guy you told me about?”

  Adam nodded. “Stay away from him. He won’t hesitate to kill you if you give him an opportunity.”

  “Are you going to do something?” Sam asked, looking at me.

  I looked around, and noticed the soldiers stationed in the courtyard. There were other Players all around who already didn’t like us so much, along with what I assumed were the man’s teammates. They would attack with pleasure, if I tried to start something in such a public space. No, we couldn’t attack him now. We would never succeed, and with the amount of power in attendance, I might not even get close. The knowledge maddened me.

  I carried rage under my skin like a second being. It whispered of gleeful destruction in the intervals between my heartbeats. “Yes. I am going to. But not now.”

  Chapter 9

  Terrible things happen to good people every day.

  Consequentially, I am not one of the good people.

  I am one of the terrible things.

  — Marianna Paige

  “I’m looking for a new recruit!” China’s killer called out. “One of my soldiers was too weak to cut it, as you saw.” He gestured toward the door his other teammates had taken the body through.

  The clamor grew, as people chattered excitedly to themselves. A few overheard snippets of conversation revealed that the man was called Kilburn. In fact, at least some of the other Players present had connected our history, and were looking between him and my team with greedy little eyes.

  “I’ll sign up for that spot,” another familiar voice called out.

  I turned to see Vaughn pushing through the crowd. The heli-pod sank into the hangar below, and as the cement closed back up after it, it seemed as if the whole courtyard had grown quiet with anticipation.

  “My unit is elite. Are you sure you won’t just end up as the next body bag?” Kilburn asked, his smile stretching too wide across his face. Did normal mouths have that many teeth?

  “I have no intention of dying any time soon, if ever,” Vaughn said.

  “Your intentions don’t mean much to me. I need someone who can prove they won’t weigh me down.” They were both speaking loudly, no doubt for the benefit of the crowd.

  “You’d like to fight, then?” Vaughn smiled with enough charm to make me shudder.

  “No. That would be silly. And you’d die. I want to see you fight her.” He swung an arm around and pointed straight at me. Apparently, he hadn’t been oblivious to me at all. “A friendly little spar should do it? You can stop if you get her to vomit blood.”

  Vaughn followed the line of Kilburn’s finger to me. “Oh. Little Miss Spirit-type, the famous Redding. We met recently, didn’t we?”

  To my surprise, Blaine was the first to move forward, drawing something shiny from his pocket and pointing it at Vaughn. “Stop there. If you want to spar, you’ll do so under the established rules.”

  Adam fingered the ink and electricity cartridges at his waist, and Jacky popped the knuckles in each of her fingers individually, glaring at Vaughn in obvious threat.

  Vaughn looked around at the guards in the courtyard and atop the wall, who were far outnumbered by the Players. “I don’t see any of the guards trying to stop us. I’m pretty sure that means they’re okay with it.” I was pretty sure some of them were actually Moderators, or maybe even Thinkers, but he was right. “And that gun isn’t going to stop me,” he said. It’s meant to be nonlethal for normal Players. I don’t mind fighting all of you at once, but Eve, you could save your teammates if you’d just come out and fight me one-on-one. Wouldn’t you like a chance to redeem yourself after the last one?” He stared at me intently, and then his expression morphed into surprise for a half second, and maybe even a little concern.

  Then I felt the warm wetness on my upper lip. I slapped a hand to my face, covering my nose. “Oh, shit,” I muttered. “It’s no big—” my words cut off as a wave of pain cut through me. I felt dizzy and nauseous and like my blood had just begun to spontaneously boil, all at the same time. That side effect was new. I took an involuntary step back from him, half-stumbling.

  Unfortunately, Adam turned around at that moment. His eyes took in the blood flowing around my cupped fingers, the expression of fear and pain on my face, and then cut back to Vaughn. “He just attacked Eve,” he said urgently. A logical conclusion, I guess, if you didn’t know the truth.

  Jacky roared like an animal, lunging at Vaughn with a rage that I'd rarely seen in her before. She grabbed him by the arm before either of us could say anything, pushing and pivoting at the same time.

  Vaughn went flying, sliding back through the doors to the cafeteria, and Jacky stomped after him, her footfalls causing noticeable tremors in the ground beneath our feet.

  Players scattered to get out of the way, moving towards the outer walls of the courtyard.

  I stumbled forward to stop Jacky, but the pain was still sliding through my veins, radiating through my muscles.

 
“Jacky, please—” Blaine called, pointing his gun down and away from Vaughn, now that she was standing in between them.

  "He attacked Eve!" Jacky snarled, her face flushed and eyes wide. She kicked out at Vaughn, and he jumped back further into the cafeteria to avoid her.

  It seemed fortune was not on my side at the moment, because Sam laid a hand on me, and then shook his head in desperation. “Eve, I can’t do anything—”

  That was all the rest of them needed to hear, I guess.

  Adam's eyes flickered between my face and the blood and my hand braced on my knee to help support me, and within a second he'd snapped open one of the ink canisters remaining from the earlier fight and surrounded me in a shield bubble.

  "Wha—” I mumbled, sputtering blood away from my lips. "You guys, stop it." But they either didn’t hear me within the bubble, or they were ignoring me. I tilted my head back. My nose didn't stop bleeding, but at least the blood ran down my throat instead of spilling all over the place,

  I tried to relax past the pain, but couldn't, as it was different than the usual injury. I didn't feel hurt, I felt sick, and it disturbed me in such a way that I couldn't ignore it. Luckily, it faded away after a few more seconds, and I focused on the cause of it all, the microscopic organisms of the Seed of Chaos in my blood. I calmed them perfunctorily, as quickly as I could, but it wasn’t a quick process, at the best of times.

  I took a portion of my awareness and pushed it outward, ignoring the fear bubbling up hotter than ever in the back of my mind, and gasped. It hadn’t been more than a minute, but the team was being decimated by Vaughn. I'd known he was strong, but they were no match for him. Adam had stepped in to help Jacky, leaving the shield which was imprisoning me to fade away when it expired.

  Sam was a few yards away, popping Blaine’s shoulder back into place. The kiddos were on the edge of the crowd with Zed and Chanelle, being guarded by Birch, who was snarling at anyone who even got close to them.

  As soon as Sam was finished with Blaine, he ran back toward Vaughn, who dropped forward as if about to smash his own face into the ground, then flickered out of existence in the gap of a half second, his body alternating between flashing brightly with light and disappearing in the blotchy spot of darkness that marred the vision in the light's absence.

  Sam barely noticed a flicker of distortion popping into my awareness from above in time to throw himself out of the way.

  Vaughn popped back into sight, and seemingly, also back into plain old existence, just as he touched the spot where Sam had been.

  Jacky jumped back toward Vaughn, bringing her hand forward like it was a hammer, while a small flock of ink birds pierced through the air, emerging from behind her and darting around in a pincer movement toward him.

  Vaughn hummed under his breath, low enough I might not have noticed if I hadn’t felt the vibration with my outstretched senses.

  The vibration of his hum split from his throat, and a vibrating after-image pushed forward from his body. When Jacky touched it, barely sinking into it, her skin bloomed bright red. The feeling of it in the air was like when your teeth grind together, or the way you feel when you hear nails screech across one of those antique blackboards teachers used to use. I was pretty sure her skin had just been ripped apart beneath the surface.

  Jacky snatched her hand back like it’d been burned, and the ink birds disintegrated as they hit the after-image.

  The after-image split in two, and then those split in two again, each of them humming a slightly different note. Vaughn had surrounded himself with a shield of sorts. One of his copies lashed out at Sam, brushing its vibrating fist against the boy as he yanked Jacky backward.

  Adam flashed forward, two ink rods held in his hands, almost like swords. He managed to slip through the copies and clip Vaughn across the side, but Vaughn blinked out in a flash of brightness again, and Adam had to throw up a quick shield in order to escape. Adam was tired already, coming close to exhaustion, and it showed in the pale skin of his cheeks and lips, and the way he panted.

  On a positive note, Vaughn’s vibrating copies disappeared along with him, and didn't reappear when he flickered back into existence behind Sam. "You're good," he said. "But you're not good enough.” He slammed a fist into the side of Sam’s neck, dropping the boy like a sack of potatoes.

  Vaughn looked down at the red crystals growing out of the side of his fist, where he’d touched Sam. “Ouch,” he said, and flickered into existence behind and to the side of Jacky. He kicked her in the ribs hard enough to send her flying in my direction.

  She softened her own landing, but didn’t get up fast enough, and he began to hum again, bringing the copies out as he moved toward her.

  Adam was running towards us, but he would arrive too late.

  I let out my claws and raked them across the blackness in front of my face. I knew Adam imbued his Animations with the characteristics he desired when bringing them into the world. His shield was meant to keep things out, not trap something inside. It was already close to evaporating, and so when I attacked it from within, it ripped and disintegrated.

  I ran forward, the claws on my toes scratching on the hard concrete beneath my feet with every step. I threw myself toward Jacky, who was doing her best to regain her feet before Vaughn kicked her in the ribs. Again.

  I slipped around one of his after-images with a quick feint, and smashed my foot down on the front of his leg, trapping it on the ground without doing any real damage. "Stop!" I snarled, my voice ripping through the noise of the crowd and echoing off the walls. The sound died down as people quieted to catch every second of this new development. “This is over.”

  Vaughn laughed and stepped back, dragging his trapped leg away from me.

  I shook my head at Adam, telling him silently to stay away. Anger had become my frequent companion, since that first time NIX had taken control of my life. It had deepened and grown along with me, and now it strengthened me with its familiar hot-and-cold chill.

  "Can you end it?" He cocked his head to the side like a bird. "I saw what you did to little Petralka and the Shortcut. I've wondered about you since then, but I've never seen you go all-out again."

  "Eve, he's strong," Jacky groaned, and I heard her spit onto the floor.

  I jumped to the side, feinting, and when the copies nearest me lunged forward to block and attack, I spun back and slipped through the opening I'd created, slamming my claws toward his chest and closing my eyes. At least he wasn't clairvoyant, too.

  His eyes widened, and he flickered, so brightly it would have been blinding if I'd seen it without the protection of my closed eyelids, just as I made contact, disappearing. The vibrating copies disappeared along with him, but once again didn't reappear when he flickered back into existence a few feet farther away.

  I lifted the hand that had touched him, showing the blood on the very tips of my claws. There was surprised mumbling all around from our audience.

  He laughed, then, and started to hum this time before flickering. His copies took a split second to reappear every time he changed location, but this time they stopped me from properly getting out of his reach or counterattacking, and where they touched me my skin fell off.

  Just the first couple layers, but it seemed with every attack the damage grew. My bodysuit couldn't withstand the vibrations, but it did act as a temporary shield. My armored vest beneath it stopped his vibrations easily, simply spreading the energy along its whole surface. Unfortunately, it only covered so much, and the rest of me was vulnerable to his Skill.

  I let the pain sharpen my instincts. I twisted and turned around his copies like an eel swimming through the air, slashing at him when I could get close enough and using my ability to keep track of him and his copies at the same time, even if I couldn’t see them all with my physical eyes. I knew I couldn’t keep it up for more than a couple minutes at most. I was fighting against my instinct to unleash Chaos into the area around me. Despite the side effects I’d been dealing wi
th only a minute before, I’d half convinced myself that I could release it just for a split second and end the fight.

  It was to my enormous and hopefully secret relief when Commander Petralka stepped into the courtyard. “Freeze!” She roared, rage suffusing her voice. “What the hell do you homicidal imbeciles think you’re doing!”

  Zed lifted both hands and pointed to Kilburn and Vaughn. “They started it!”

  Commander Petralka screamed a bit more, and sent all the onlookers scrambling away, then berated Kilburn, Vaughn, and my team. She seemed quite suspicious that I was going to try and attack Kilburn, or vice-versa, and sent us back to the team barracks, while she kept Vaughn and Kilburn behind to berate.

  Once Sam woke up, he healed Jacky, Adam, Blaine, and I, and lost more and more of the tension in the muscles around his eyes as he did so.

  Kris and Gregor wanted to know why the whole incident had happened, and I left it to Adam and Jacky to explain it to them, while Zed slipped in sporadic comments meant to distract them from their fear and uncertainty. The way Kris held her little moose to her chest made something inside me squeeze with regret, and I turned away.

  Bunny was sitting with Chanelle in the corner of the room, trying to get her to play a card game with him, with a total lack of success. Eventually, he got up and clapped his hands together. “You guys are way too mopey. Lighten up!” he said, looking at the kiddos.

  They smiled, a little, and then he turned his power on the rest of us. “‘Now is the time to get stronger, so this doesn’t happen again!’ Eve, isn’t that your line?”