by J D Astra
The fog in my head thickened and I gasped for air. When I could finally breathe, the smell of pumpkin filled my nose. Eun-bi would be so upset about her destroyed garden.
Another fist pulled my focus as it flew toward my gut. I barely deflected the blow, sending it to the ground beside me. The man limped to my side with a black machina clamp in his hand. He grabbed my wrist, and I twisted, kneeing him in the kidney.
Without a second thought, I followed up the blow with two more punches to the gut. He stumbled back, and I came up to my knees, then lunged forward to pin him back to the ground. We fell back with another crack that sent orange slime everywhere.
The device clattered out of his hand when his arms hit the ground. He punched wildly, landing blows against my head and neck. I hammered his sides with all my might. His ribs cracked with every blow, and his strikes grew weaker.
I came up to my knees and sat on his chest. He punched haphazardly, and I dodged the blows. I caught his arm and slammed my palm against the back of the elbow. The joint popped, and the man screamed.
A heavy strike landed under my arm and pushed me off the assassin. I needed to cycle. I needed to breath. Could I handle another potion, or would I die as Sung-ki claimed?
I crawled back to the man, and I sent what little zo I had to my fist. Punch after punch the man deflected though he was down an arm. Finally, one connected with his head, snapping it back. His body went limp, and I sat back on my haunches, gasping for air.
The last potion came away from my belt, and I looked at it with worry.
‘Can we survive this?’ I asked, woozy.
My eyes focused on the battlefield as red flared in tiny, sparking explosions.
My father danced in hand-to-hand combat with Bo. She was on the defensive, blocking and dodging without any counterstrikes. Every strike that he landed sparked red starbursts, and Bo growled in pain. Hana was locked in battle with a sword wielding assassin. Shin-soo held his bleeding side on his knees. Woong-ji was fending off two more assassins with Gui-ne’s help, and Se-nim was nowhere to be seen.
“We don’t have a choice,” Mae whispered.
I uncorked the vial and drank it back. Energy rushed through my limbs from my stomach, and air filled my lungs. I cycled healing zo and directed it to my critical injuries in the ribs and back. I ran toward the Golden Wing, finding the spear on the ground outside the door. I felt Hana’s worry through our connection, then heard someone land behind me on graceful feet before I was tackled to the ground.
The assailant pulled me back before I could get a hold on the spear. I turned and kicked at the woman’s face when she came up to a knee. She grabbed the blow and twisted my ankle with a sickening pop. I screamed and tried to pull the leg free to no avail.
The woman hit my back with two quick jabs, and my legs went numb. I tried to circulate zo to my back, to heal whatever damage she’d done, but the pathway was blocked. The first jab was for my nerves, the second my munje pathway. She wasn’t trying to kill me.
She was disabling me so I couldn’t resist.
The black masked woman moved her way up, ready to deliver another blow between my shoulder blades that would surely disable my arms. I sent a burst of electric en to my hand and clamped down on her wrist.
My hand seared with hot needles as the spell backfired.
“Didn’t think we’d be so stupid to fall for the same thing twice, did you?” The woman hissed the words in a snake-like voice. I couldn’t see her face behind the mask, but I knew she was smiling. My family flashed through my thoughts and the operative raised her arm to strike me into paralysis.
This was the end.
Chapter 40
I GRITTED MY TEETH and threw my elbow, trying to deflect her strike. The assassin turned her wrist and batted my attempt aside, then jabbed my back with a sharp zap. Feeling in my chest disappeared, but I could sense my arms. My effort had forced her to miss the mark.
She raised her hand again, but a silver blade pierced her gut before she could strike. Blood splattered my face, and the woman gave a gurgling gasp, pitching forward into me. Hana pushed the woman aside and pulled the long blade free before it pierced my chest. It was one of the enemy’s swords. The blade handle was wrapped with the different colors for munje.
But there wasn’t time for that.
“The spear,” I groaned and reached toward the weapon.
An assassin sailed through the air behind Hana, their sword upraised. I shoved her away, rolling a half turn in the opposite direction as the blade stopped a centimeter from the ground. Hana blocked the swordsman’s next blow, then dodged, dancing away from me.
She was buying me time.
I crawled on my elbows toward the spear, dragging my limp body behind me. I touched the staff and felt the same sucking abyss sensation from before. I didn’t have enough ma to refill it. I rolled to my back and pulled myself up against the cockpit, then cycled as I watched in horror.
Bo was lying on the ground. Hana was locked in swordplay, already sporting two bleeding cuts. Shin-soo was rising, but looked bad. Gui-ne and Woong-ji stood back-to-back, fighting the two assassins and Hiro Kumiho circled them.
The staff was only half charged, and the ma munje from the last blast had all but faded. It seemed there was a limited time my munje would remain in the target’s body before becoming ineffective, and I cursed myself for not storing more ma.
I willed my core to work faster as I breathed deeper. The energy blasted through my ma bands and into the crystal, then zipped down my arms into the staff. Almost there.
The sound of metal whining pulled my attention outward. Woong-ji yelled and stumbled back as the leg of her massive suit bent and compacted. My father’s silver glowing hands tightened, and the suit’s leg collapsed with a crunch.
Woong-ji screamed in agony, and my heart stopped. The assassins closed in, and she raised her metal arm. Fire blasted out, searing one black-cloaked man. The fire ripped through the air ten meters, setting ablaze the ripe kindling of a pine tree’s lower branches.
Woong-ji’s suit burst apart with a hiss, and she crawled out of it. My father advanced on her, but Gui-ne stepped between them, bloodied fists raised. My father landed two hits to his side that burst with red, and Gui-ne collapsed. What was that spell my father infused his punches with?
The bar in the corner of my vision filled, and I pulled the spear through the air for Jeeo, creating a shockwave of gold. I reached out for all the ma in my father’s body, seeking the only path to victory: the device of Mae in his pocket.
My vision blurred and the artificial highways of light appeared before me. I set my ma on a suicide mission to the power supply as I whispered, “Mae, overclock.”
Heat poured down my veins like lava into the spear, amplifying my spell. The vision of the device disappeared as my ma ripped it apart. Blue arcs zapped up to my father’s chest. He stopped in his tracks and fell to his knees, reaching for his pocket with jerky motions as he screamed.
He pulled the device free and threw it just when the immense power detonated. A blue-green shield shimmered around his body, protecting him from the explosion that sent everyone else to the ground. The energy hit my chest with the force of a dozen punches, everywhere at once. My head slammed against the glass of the Golden Wing with a crack, and my vision grew dark at the edges.
“Mae”—I gasped—“signal dead?”
Her presence was weak in my mind as she whispered, “Confirmed.”
“You think that matters?” Father growled and stormed toward me. “I didn’t come here to kill Bastions, I came for you. And look at what you’ve done!” I couldn’t move as Father pulled my limp body from the ground. He gripped my chin and lifted my head so I could see the battlefield, what I had done.
The trees crackled and glowed red hot while the fire blazed and dripped from the canopy, reaching toward my home. Every window of the house was shattered. My friends lay motionless on the ground, and my master gripped her mangled leg.<
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My gaze drifted back to his face. The fox mask was broken over his left eye, exposing the familiar green iris I saw in the mirror every day.
“You could’ve come with me willingly. We could’ve saved your mother together,” he said, disappointment in his tone and brow furrowed.
“We couldn’t let you wield this kind of power,” I gasped the words through my aching chest.
Pag-hwe.
The ancient spell flashed in my mind, and I realized I still had a grip on the spear. Awareness of Eun-bi’s garden bloomed inside me. I knew what to do.
I called on the munje in every living plant, our goat, the chickens, and ordered it to return to me with the energy of its host.
The garden glowed brilliant green as munje from the life around us flowed down into me in a rush. All at once, my ankle snapped back into place and my back popped. I regained sensation in my lower half and bared my teeth in agony. My chest cracked, and I could fill my lungs again. Power surged through my body and cooled my core, dimming the pain with it.
I pried my father’s grip from my face and twisted, putting my leg up between us. I kicked with all my might, landing my heel in his gut. His ribs snapped and he crumple, dropping me as he gasped for air.
Black flame rippled over my skin and engulfed me in strength. I surged forward, planting the spear in the ground as I kicked up at my father’s head. The mask shattered and he stumbled, trying to regain his footing.
My gut lurched with regret when I saw my aged father for the first time in so many years. Silver threaded his trimmed goatee, and streaks of it ran through his receding hair. Dark circles sat under my father’s eyes, and wrinkles surrounded his lips. How had he gotten so old?
I dismissed the feeling and moved forward with a swipe of the spear, but it was too late. The split second of hesitation allowed him to recover.
He blocked my blow, holding the weapon tightly in his iron grip. He pulled me in close, smirking darkly. “And you’re lecturing me on the abuse of power?”
He pushed away hard and spun a heavy kick into my chest that burst with red sparks. I fell back with a gasp, stars filling my vision.
My father approached, and I pointed the spear at his chest.
Uunmy.
He stopped, teeth bared in a painful grimace. Black tendrils reached up his neck, across his cheek, and into his eye. Blood leaked down his face from every opening, and he clawed at his throat.
Uunmy!
The nanites in his body battled his soft tissue like it was an infection to be destroyed. The skin on his cheek was eaten away, exposing the muscle below. My father cried out and dropped to one knee. This would kill him.
I dropped the spear, my heart breaking.
My father sucked down a gasp and stumbled back. His eyes were wild with fear that echoed my own horror.
Without another word, he leapt backwards in a gravity-defying move that sent him sailing through the blackened, life-stripped trees. They dissolved to ash when he moved through the branches and disappeared behind a wall of gray smoke and death.
I came up to a knee, holding my aching chest with a trembling hand.
I turned in a circle as all I’d known for all my life blew away in the wind, leaving only gray and red stained dirt behind. The chicken coup was quiet and empty, nothing but blackness and shriveled bones. The goat was silent, and I knew the only thing behind the walls of the shed was a pile of ash. My heart thudded with terror as I took in the power of the spear before me.
My mother limped from the back patio, her neck streaked with crimson.
“What have I done?” I choked.
“There’s no time,” Mae urged weakly. “Woong-ji is critical, and you still have enough energy to save her.”
“The others?” I asked as I ran to the tiny old woman bleeding out into the snow.
“Hana, Shin-soo, and Bo are alive,” Mae reported and though I hated myself, I was relieved. Hana survived.
I picked up the spear and ran to Woong-ji’s side. I knew I couldn’t heal her without its power. I placed one hand over her leg and the other held the spear tightly. I closed my eyes and cycled zo healing as I mobilized the ma in her to activate her core. Her leg was in ruins. Every part of it screamed to me for help, and I worked my flow of munje through her quickly.
“Her tibia is shattered. The best we can do is stop the bleeding,” Mae said.
Hot tears from Jigu spilled down my cheeks as I felt the very life of the little world I had helped build flow through me and into Woong-ji. The goat stopped her bleeding. The chickens staved off infection. The plants soothed her pain.
When my work was done, and the stolen life force given away, I sat back, exhausted.
I was hollow.
I was despicable.
I could never do this again.
“Jiyong,” my mother croaked.
I turned to see my trembling family walking barefoot through the snow. Their sleeping clothes were smeared with ash and blood, but their faces were dry of tears. My throat tightened and my eyes stung. I took the deep breath before a scream, and Minjee leaped toward me. I wrapped her in my grip as I sobbed, and the family rushed down to me.
We held each other in the cold night air and wailed, screamed, cursed, and bellowed out his name in agony.
When my mother had cried enough, she looked up to the sky and shouted, “Hiroto Law—we disown you!”
Chapter 41
WE WRAPPED OUR DEAD comrades—Gui-ne and Se-nim—in bedsheets, then laid them gently in the cabin of the Golden Wing. My mother and siblings packed what they could in a rush. We didn’t know if he would return with reinforcements.
“There’s still pieces that survived the blast,” Mae said only to me, highlighting my vision with little blue lights. I followed her direction, collecting the fragments from my father—from Hiro Kumiho’s Mae.
The jagged edges were sharp, even through the pocket of my dobok. Or maybe I was imagining it.
“Jiyong,” Mother’s voice pulled my attention back to the house.
She held Tuko—what was left of him, at least. I pulled the faithful battlebot into my arms. The belly had been ripped open, legs pulled from their sockets, and his long neck crushed.
I rolled him over and a panel dropped to the ashy ground. I picked the worn metal up and ran a finger over the engraved initials.
“He brought it with him,” she said as my fingers circled the scratched metal.
I gritted my teeth, hot anger building in my chest. Tuko had helped him discover who I was because of the engraved panel. Had I removed it when Mae told me...
“Don’t do that to yourself,” Mae whispered to me.
Mother put a hand on my back. “We should move. He might return.”
I nodded, throwing the panel into the barren field of black around us.
Shin-soo helped me carry the wounded to the cabin of the Golden Wing, and then we were in the air. I trembled as I steered us toward Bastion. My mother and sisters tended to Hana, Bo, and Woong-ji while the boys whispered prayers over the dead.
The sun breached the horizon, and I stared into it just to feel anything. My wide-open eyes burned, and I diverted my gaze back to the target: the kingdom.
Fragments of the other device stabbed into my chest, and the image of my father’s body covered in lightning played over in my mind. I wished he hadn’t gotten the device out in time. I wished he were dead.
Tears crept into to my eyes, but I looked up and blinked them away. I wouldn’t shed a single drop for him ever again. I sniffed and looked back to the horizon.
I wondered what he’d felt when he’d realized who I was...
About as surprised as I’d felt when I’d heard his voice. As surprised as I’d felt when I’d destroyed my home. My mind’s eye filled with the ash on the air, the smoke, the charred smell of our ruined lives.
Sung-ki’s voice filled my head and I remembered his warning: “If you don’t know what you’re doing, don’t do it.”
/> My heart turned bitter when I looked at the spear leaned against the wall. How could this power exist? Who had been so ruthless—so evil—that they conceived this horror?
Mae’s voice was small in my head. “It can be used for good, when you’re in control.”
I frowned, sickened by the notion. ‘Using it for good is how it falls into the hands of an enemy like my father. The good are weak.’
“The good defeated your father tonight,” she retorted.
‘No. I wasn’t good when I beat him. Jigu abhors me,’ I thought, the voice in my head dark with cynicism.
Mae was quiet, then whispered. “Jiyong, Jigu doesn’t exist.”
“She does!” I yelled, and my mother jumped with a start.
The cabin was devoid of chatter for a moment, and I looked over my shoulder apologetically. They each wore a look of sympathy. We had all been through a lot, and they understood what I was feeling.
‘You think you know everything. You don’t,’ I thought with a sense of finality.
“I’m sorry,” Mae whispered.
I piloted the Golden Wing in hot, resentful silence. We cleared the kingdom wall with tenuous fear as cannons and ballistae pointed up at us. None fired, and we continued to Bastion. Mae had documented all the actions Gui-ne had performed while piloting and fed them to me without comment.
We descended toward the empty spot on the lawn and set down with a hard jostle that buckled my knees. My body moved by instinct, and I turned to help my sisters with the injured.
Bo was up and moving, mostly on her own, so I pulled Woong-ji into my grip. Before I could step out of the Golden Wing, medical attendants jogged to the opening with gurneys.
We loaded Woong-ji—who was still in critical condition—then Hana, and finally the dead. I sent my mother and siblings along with Sung-ki. They needed their nerves calmed and their injuries treated.
And I wanted to wait for the Grandmaster, alone.
I held the spear, twisting it over in my hands, as I sat in the dry grass. Min-hwan approached in a flowing black robe, a grave look on his aged face. His brow was pinched in worry, and his lips—though obscured by his beard—were turned down.
