Crimson Judgment

by Robert Lyons

  2.

  A memory of Zayde’s stepsister Kendra from years in the past was relived. They were both in her room, sitting on her bed. She had just finished an hour worth of crying.

  “So, I guess our family is going to break apart until there is no one left?” Kendra sighed heavily, wiping the tears out of her eyes “Because at the rate that we’re going…”

  “Stop.” Zayde grabbed a hold of her small hands in his, giving them a reassuring squeeze. “Kendra, no matter what happens, I swear that I will always be there for you.”

  “I’ll keep you to that.” Kendra smiled weakly while speaking with a broken voice. She then proceeded to rest her head on his shoulder. “Thanks, bro.”

  “For what?”

  “For being here.” Kendra’s voice became progressively softer the more she talked.

  “I guess…?” He chuckled awkwardly.

  No response came after that. Instead, Zayde picked up on softer her breathing.

  I guess you cry for an hour straight and that’ll tire you out, huh? Zayde thought as he carefully put her to bed. Before leaving the room, Zayde remembered balancing against the doorframe. Seeing Kendra sleep so soundly brought a state of tranquility over him, but that quickly changed to irritation, as he thought about the person responsible for upsetting her in the first place.

  You abandoned Mom and Kendra … and for what?

  Zayde somehow felt a pain in his chest, despite being trapped in his own mind as he transitioned out of the memory. What was this sudden tearing at his soul?

  I swear that I will always be there for you. Zayde’s own voice echoed in the distance. That was the moment it clicked.

  Oh. I broke my promise. I abandoned her. I did the very same thing he did to her.

  Zayde moved away from his home six months ago. Learning about his adoption was the perfect “out” to the pre-existing, prolonged problem. That really was all there was to it. He ran away, just like he did from everything else in his life. The root problem began when Kendra’s father cheated on his stepmother. Something inside of her head snapped. She developed a psychological condition of letting her toxic emotions accumulate and then releasing them on her closest targets—her children.

  The only stable thing in Zayde’s turbulent existence was Kendra. She became a sort of lifeline that kept his head above the current. However, he had forsaken her, pushing her under the water and clawing at the surface to get air for his greedy self. With Zayde’s exodus out of his adopted family’s life, he broke a promise and left the one person who did not deserve the abusive woman’s terror.

  I’m sorry, Kendra. I’m such a coward! I should’ve just manned up and brought you with me! Why did I knowingly leave you with that bitch?!

  “About time you thought of someone else, besides yourself,” a female voice thundered in in the depths of Zayde’s mind.

  The human whipped his head back, looking through the darkness, trying to find the source of the familiar sound. He quickly realized that he was not controlling his actual body. He had gained access to some sort of mental world locked away inside of his brain. It was very similar to the feeling Zayde experienced when he practically relived the memory of the Chroma eating the woman in that room.

  “I thought you’d never pull you head out of your ass!” the female voice continued to speak.

  Zayde came to the realization. He’d heard this voice a long time ago. It was like a puzzle he struggled to solve for years was suddenly fitted with the last, intersecting piece. The big picture was finally materializing.

  “You—I know you!” Zayde’s anticipation was building.

  It was a voice so vexingly feisty and yet so encouraging. The emotion building from his discovery reminded him of the competitive edge of rivalry between two lifelong friends who sought to improve themselves by clashing to best each other’s strengths.

  “I don’t remember who you are.” Zayde laughed. “But something about the way you talk reminds me of someone I used to know!”

  “Now’s not the time for reminiscing, Zayde! We’ve got our work cut out for us!” the female voice snapped back, her tone a bit more serious now.

  The familiarity Zayde had for the female voice wasn’t because there was a previous experience he could recall where he knew her. It was much deeper than that. The sensation was from a bond that ran deeper than blood.

  A soft, single tone reverberated in the distance, replacing the previous barrage of noise and screeching high frequencies from when Zayde was slaying the Chroma.

  Engaging his mind, Zayde evoked a precious memory that he had forgotten long ago.

  Rori! The name suddenly leapt off of his mental tongue.

  The female voice called back, blanketing him with her nurturing tone. “You remembered me, Zayde!”

  The sound, similar to a slung sledgehammer being deflected by a rock that had stood up to the test of time, echoed loudly in the space of his mind. He slowly opened one eye.

  Lines comprised of tiny symbols began to arc along the distant walls that were hidden in the darkness. The strange hieroglyphics held no meaning to Zayde, but their appearance did give him a feeling of nostalgia.

  As the symbols snaked their way around, they established the true parameters of the space that was the darkness. Zayde was able to get a grip on his mental surroundings.

  What he thought was an endless plane of obscurity was actually a sphere. He was suspended in the center of the globe. The lines of symbols established the outer edges of the shape. Patterns of intersecting lines drew themselves besides the ancient writing, creating a slowly revolving cage.

  “Zayde, as excited as I am to finally talk to you, you’ve done some things that need to be corrected.” Rori’s voice was hurt, like a mother who had to punish her child for wrongdoing.

  “Correcting?” Zayde called out, a mild panic settling in the bottom of his stomach, firing off one question after another. “What do you mean? What did I do? What’s going to happen to me?”

  Slightly translucent, cyan chains shot out from all different directions, originating from concentrated spots of symbols on the sphere’s perimeter. The restraints latched onto Zayde’s limbs and torso. The fetters moved like serpents, coiling and crimping down all over his body.

  Zayde threw his head back and forth as he screamed at the top of his lungs. His pain-filled cries carried on. The pressure exerted from the restraints from a mental projection felt all too real.

  “Zayde, you’ve taken power from me. As a Krotoni, I cannot allow this to continue. In addition, the stolen power has corrupted you. You will have to forfeit what you’ve appropriated. Only then can we move forward.”

  Stolen power?

  “Everything I’ve been able to do … the speed, the strength, was because of you?”

  “Yes. Now, please remain still, this will only be a moment.”

  He strained, cheeks puffing out as a giant coiled braid of cyan chains moved like a snake, stopping before his chest. It plugged forward, melting through the flesh and grabbing a hold of his heart. Electrical shocks ran throughout his body for some time before the appendage withdrew, leaving the young man suspended in the chains.

  “No matter who holds power, it will always flow toward obliteration,” Rori spoke, her voice piercing Zayde’s soul. “You stole power from me. I understood the plight you were trapped in, but this could not go on any longer. You must have noticed that your mental constitution was degrading at a dangerous rate.”

  Rori had a point; there was no way to deny that heightened emotions were becoming Zayde’s decision steering mechanisms. There was no more room for rational thoughts as his feelings, vested with Rori’s pilfered power, consumed his mind.

  The bluish-green glowing silhouette of a female body materialized. It was impossible to determine any of her defining features. Reaching out, she placed her soft hands below Zayde’s jawline, gently caressing his face.

  “Poor thing. You thought you were all alone. I apologize for no
t being able to talk or guide you after all this time, but I was buried very deep within your essence. With all of that fighting, being so close to death, and the high Rutem exposure, I was finally able to wake up.”

  The chains burst into a million pieces, shards exploding in all directions. The pieces flew past the sphere that was established by the lines of hieroglyphics until the fragments washed out into the darkness beyond. Zayde dropped down a couple inches before hitting what he considered was the “ground.”

  “What are you, Rori?” Zayde inquired, his mind finally returning to a reasonable level of sanity since the procured power was no longer affecting him.

  “Hmm, you should know that since you’re a Wielder. Unless … Do you even know what a Wielder is?” Rori was mocking her human host, but there was no malice in her voice. “You not knowing anything doesn’t surprise me. From what I remember seeing through your eyes, you always had a hard time connecting the dots.”

  Zayde opened his mouth to reply, but opted out of replying.

  “Don’t worry, this is sort of expected. You will eventually remember what I am. All in good time, Zayde.” Rori chuckled. “Now, it’s time to awaken.”

  “Whoa! Awaken? You said something about being a Krotoni! What is that? One of those Chroma parasites that infected Sydney?” Zayde couldn’t recall taking any of the black pills, but he wasn’t sure of anything anymore. He had seen a lot in a short span of time.

  His body was lifted from the dark ground, a gentle force guiding him to lie down on his back.

  The sphere that comprised the small world unraveled as the lines of strange symbols rushed to concentrate into a point in the darkness above him. After the explosion, millions of shards of light were sent hurling in all directions. The darkness he was scared of became an endless expanse of the night sky stretching from one horizon to the next.

  They were not the only heavenly bodies he saw.

  Intermixed into the tens of millions of clusters of stars were great fields of red, orange, and purple clouds of distant nebulas. All of these wonders stretched out before Zayde, filling his eyes with their magnificent, unmatched beauty. He breathed in through his mouth, absolutely captivated by the firmament above him.

  “Whoa,” Zayde’s admiration slipped out.

  “Zayde, I’m with you on this plane—this place that defies time and space,” Rori informed Zayde.

  “I left my body, didn’t I?” Zayde gasped, wondering if this was “the other side.”

  “No. You’re still in your body, but your mind is no longer trapped within the confines of itself. I have brought you down into to my mind, which is in the deepest part of your subconscious. That is where I reside.” Rori paused for a moment. “You don’t remember anything thing, do you?”

  “No—can’t say that I do.” Zayde was too enthralled with the stars above him to think at any sort of depth.

  “Very well, we’ll have to catch up at a better time. Right now, I’m the one that’s keeping your body from completely dying. I’m over-extending to keep you in one piece—”

  “So I’m going to die?!” Zayde interjected.

  There was a slight pause as Rori considered her answer. “I can make that happen. Don’t interrupt me again.”

  No matter how strange it was to Zayde, the peace he felt from her presence was genuine. That and his recent run-in with near-death experiences pushed Zayde past trying to find logic. He was finding that leaping into the dark with the hope of eventually hitting solid ground concealed somewhere in the abyss was becoming the new normal. This entity named Rori was the ground he was looking for.

  “Rori. When I awaken, I’m going to need your power again.” Zayde figured with the absence of the power he cultivated so far, he wasn’t going to be able to get very far when he was dropped back into the real world.

  “Well, of course. That’s natural. I’m your Krotoni, after all. You will be using my power, just like before. The only difference is that you won’t be stealing it from me,” Rori said in a bittersweet tone. “As for your request, we will only use what is needed to kill the beasts. I’m afraid your body might not be ready to channel a lot of power without risking long-term damage. Remember that there is a price for everything.”

  Zayde’s right arm was suddenly struck limp, falling from his side and hanging down below while the rest of his body remained suspended in the stars. As soon as Zayde’s hand broke the surface of the liquid below him, he immediately withdrew. Agony shot up his arm, as if the water was conducting electricity and the contact provided the path for said current to flow.

  “Be wary. You’re above a vast body of water. The water is your mental manifestation of my power,” she coached Zayde. “Submerging your hand carelessly to draw that much power would do more than damage you. You must open your heart so that we can become one. The only way to do that is to undergo Harmonic Convergence. Simply put, it’s when an inhabiting Krotoni merges with the human host. This bond is what forms a Wielder, allowing for the power to safely pass from the source without corrupting the host.”

  When Zayde took the power for himself, it was dark and uncontrollable. The shared power from Rori he was sensing now was warm. The heat was bleeding away from the surface of the water, caressing his naked back.

  “Rori,” Zayde repeated in a soft voice. Just saying her name gave him an unjustifiable feeling of harmony. “A Krotoni … Harmonic Convergence … shit, this is a lot.”

  “I know. Take it one step at a time. Now, stretch out and slowly make contact with the water. When you do, open your ears.”

  Slowly lowering his hand, Zayde let only the tips of his fingers pierce the surface. Another jolt ran through his body, but he was determined to see this through. Zayde began to hear whispers from strange voices, rambling on in a language that his ear couldn’t discern the meaning of. Images of war, taking place in realms he was sure only existed in fairy tales, began to flood his vision. Where were these places located? Certainly, the locations could not be found on earth.

  That’s when Zayde Maddox saw her.

  A female humanoid, a little taller than him, stood at the edge of a cliff. She was gazing down below at all of the annihilation. She was attired in form-fitting armor comprised of tiny, dark-gray scales that covered her from the bottom of her jaw line down to her toes. Based on her outer silhouette, Zayde could see the body of a muscular warrior. Her short, cyan hair rested just above her defined shoulders. She kept her back to him, her face remaining hidden.

  “Remember, Zayde…” Rori’s voice was soft but frighteningly icy. “…Absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

  “Lord Acton? From the Nineteenth century? How do you know about human philosophy?” Zayde was beyond flabbergasted.

  “As a Krotoni, your eyes are my eyes. Once upon a time, you read that inscription and its words left a deep impression on me.”

  “I’m not sure if I should be frightened knowing that.” Zayde thought back on all the things he had done and seen. Rori was right there watching it in first person.

  “Remember, never steal from me like that again. We’re finally together now, so lean on me instead of shouldering everything on your own. When you awaken, you will truly not be human. Are you ready for that?”

  As soon as she asked that question, Zayde heard the same music from his dreams. The eardrums in his real body would have certainly torn to shreds with the volume’s intensity, but in this dominion, he could handle it. No, Zayde was wholeheartedly embracing it.

  A thought rushed through his head. For the first time in his life, Zayde realized that he felt alive. It was an epiphany, a breath of the crispest air he had ever taken in. This music was just complementary to that feeling. The beats were slowly losing their integrity, giving way to a different kind of sound. Some of the instruments in the music were suddenly transforming into words, forming lyrics finally comprehensible to Zayde.

  I’ve lingered aimlessly,

  Time has slipped away.

  My hands g
rown numb,

  I’m filled with dismay.

  Reach out! I’m so close!

  I’m your missing piece!

  Come back to me, child!

  You—my masterpiece!

  Broken apart, we’re weak.

  Together, our powers interlace!

  Soar the skies, search the stars!

  Awaken, awaken in my embrace!

  Zayde laughed, mentally placing the wings of the female figure from his visions and overlaying them on Rori’s back. So she was reaching out to me after all of this time!

  “If you can finally understand the song, then Harmonic Convergence was successful.” Rori’s voice was beyond elated. “Now you will recognize the immense power reserved for Wielders.”

  “Let’s not keep the Chroma waiting!” Zayde shoved his hand wrist deep into the water.

  Within the vision that Rori projected for her human host, the female figure underwent a subtle transformation. The bottom tips of her hair began to bleed to a neon green.

  PHASE 10

  Frenzied Emergence

  1.

  Half a block away from 117th Avenue and Bradshaw…

  Officer Beeghly was on patrol when the dispatch called for half the department to contain a Chroma threat until the HAWK from the nearest Outpost arrived on scene. Officer Beeghly was used to dealing with many different situations, but this was one he never thought he would have to take part in. The Moody Concert Hall was left a bloodbath as the threat had relocated to the streets.

  “Three hostiles moving out. Prepare to intercept,” the dispatcher’s voice came over the radio. Whatever the Chroma were up to, they were finished.

  “Remember your role!” the police chief announced over the radio. “Our job is to contain them! The HAWKs are doing the fighting!”

  Easier said than done, of course.

  “What a day to be on night shift.” Officer Beeghly sighed.

  He could see the unusual arrangement of car headlights in the distance as he drew nearer to the scene.

  The primary objective was to establish a perimeter; if the containment failed, they were to track the Chroma for the HAWK to engage.