The Sky is Endless

by Alexander W Meurant

  "What are they doing Mark. Just attacking each other like a normal person would. Don't mages usually, you know, fling magic around. Not punch each other" he asked with confusion blanketed on his face. He turned his gaze to look at Mark who actually had a mischievous grin on his face. The brawny man just chuckled and turned his gaze back to his charges.

  "Sir Belford. We are bodyguards. Not soldiers. We have very different talents. When you are protecting someone, the last thing you want to do is start throwing magical energy around. If a stray bolt of energy doesn't hit your charge, it is almost certain flying bits of debris will" Mark stated, enlightening Niall, a slight frown on his features. The older man turned his gaze back to those currently fighting before continuing to speak.

  "In the modern era, most magi only train their minds, so when they run out of magical energy which often happens especially in protracted battles, they are as vulnerable as any other human being. The Laegor School trains magi to be specialized in hand to hand combat whilst using magic to strengthen their bodies. By doing that, magi can become incredibly dangerous in close quarter combat. The Lageor School has a long history of providing bodyguards too many private organizations, as well as the noble families of the homeland. And due to their evident skill in martial arts, these bodyguards are the best the Laegor School has to offer. And only the best for Her Majesty" the man let out, his voice even and level, as if he was teaching a student in class. It reminded Niall of his classes at the academy.

  Niall watched the fight as Mark finished speaking, thinking that the man’s words actually made a sort of sense to him. He remembered Sain trying to explain the basics of magic to him many years ago and smiled at the fond memory.

  "That does make sense I suppose. Truthfully, it really never occurred to me that magic could be used in such a way. I will admit that my knowledge of magic is rather lacking however" Niall admitted, his eyes following the movements of the two fighting. He could actually see shimmers of energy around them and the occasional flash as a magic cloaked limb collided with the other fighters own magic barrier.

  "The majority of people actually know very little about what magic can be used for" Mark stated, seemingly dismissing Niall's concession, his own eyes locked on the fighters as well as he judged them.

  "As it is, magical knowledge is sadly lacking compared to the tales of the past. There are many stories about mages that could wipe mountains off of the map and create oceans out of desert" Mark murmured softly before turning to look at Niall, a hard look briefly flashing over his features.

  "And of course you know little about magic. You are not a mage, so would not know it's workings or inner circle teachings" Mark stated and pushed off the wall as he watched the female fighter knock the male one on his ass. Mark smiled grimly and turned to Niall, his hand being proffered for a handshake once more.

  "Well Sir Belford, I am sure you are a busy man with many things to do, especially considering the battle looming in the distance. I will let you move on as I have work to do also" Mark stated, his expression betraying no feelings.

  Niall smiled grimly and pushed off of the wall also, taking Marks hand in his own once more for that crushing handshake.

  "Yes, you are right on that Mark. I have much to prepare. It was good to finally meet you, and I suspect we will have much to do with one another in the future" Niall said, his voice flat as he flicked his gaze back to the fighters. He smiled grimly as he saw the young woman attempting to choke the young man as they now wrestled on the ground.

  "I will be off then" he stated releasing Marks hand and turning on his heel to walk away. The entire time it took him to cross the basketball court, he could feel the eyes of those mages boring into his back, and it made him damned uncomfortable. The moment he pushed through the double doors to leave the court behind, he felt a weight lift from his shoulders and realized he had been tense the whole time. He scowled and just kept walking, feeling that he may have left a bad first impression.

  Chapter 16

  * * *

  The laboratory was of a decent size, and was filled by dozens of tanks that were occupied by creatures and people. Whatever the malformed beings were, they all looked to be either dead or unconscious, all twisted or curled into a variety of positions that could not be normal for a standard skeletal structure. Many also seemed to have tubes protruding from their bodies as they floated in the tanks fluid, all glowing an eerie blue from whatever liquid moved through the tubes.

  As soon as the elevator came to a halt, Kasui gathered herself, recovering from the initial shock she had suffered. With only a slight amount of hesitation, Kasui darted out of the group of scientists near her and moved further into the lab, making no effort to conceal herself, seeing as she was already invisible.

  She stopped and turned around to look at the group of researchers, watching what happened next with a grim expression. Another group of scientists appeared from further inside the lab and approached those waiting on the elevator. There was a quick conversation, a few handshakes and then the apparent leader handed over a clipboard. The two groups swapped places, seemingly changing shifts.

  Kasui just stood silently and watched as the elevator shuddered again and started to move back up into the ceiling, taking the tired researchers with it.

  When the elevator finally disappeared into the shaft in the ceiling, Kasui turned away and began to move through the laboratory, investigating it more thoroughly in search of her objectives, trying to keep her attention away from those bodies in the tanks. She completely ignored the researchers as well, figuring she could deal with them later, simply letting them do their own thing for the time being.

  Her gaze was eventually pulled back to the tanks despite her best efforts to keep away from them, and her eyes wandered over the tanks as she walked silently past, each one just making her expression grimmer. Most of the figures were so twisted they could not even be called human any longer. Many of them had tumors or lumps of impossible sizes extruding from their bodies, seemingly all glowing faintly with a myriad of different colors. Kasui lifted a hand over her mouth and had to stop the urge to throw up. She had seen atrocities, and remains of experiments left by the Talmaran countries in her homeland, and yet they didn’t hold a candle to the flame that was what she saw before her now.

  She shook her head and turned her gaze to a wall, noticing a number of screens and computer stations along it. Kasui approached the work stations, her expression grim and dark. Upon reaching the machines, she stooped to work at a random computer. She grabbed the mouse and started looking through the computers files, searching for anything that may lead her to anything of import. Not finding anything she opened up the file explorer and looked for the drives. Her attention moved to a shared network drive and she smiled softly. Opening it she found just what she wanted. Logs and research data. She opened a few of the files and from her experience surmised this was just what she needed.

  Kasui slipped a hand around to her back pouch and pulled out a portable drive which she summarily inserted into the computer. She guessed these scientists had never really expected someone to be able to breach this facility so easily, and as such did not take their security seriously. She started transferring the files onto the portable device and scowled. There was a lot, it would take forever. She straightened up just as she heard a shuffling behind her. She turned fast and saw the obese researcher only meters away, his nose buried in a clipboard. She froze even as he seemed to sense something and looked up. He stared straight at her and her heart leapt into her throat as his eyes widened and his mouth dropped open in evident surprise. Surely he could not see her.

  "What the hell. Who is downloading this....?” He muttered to himself and actually started forward. With a jolt she realized he must have looked straight through her and seen the computer she was using to transfer the information and data.

  She stepped away from him and to the side letting him walk past. Without a moment’s hesitation she stepped behind him, her r
ight hand going to her right thigh and the long ten inch knife that was strapped to it. The blade came straight out even as her left hand shot straight up to his head. Kasui grabbed his mouth, her forefinger pushing at his nose to force his head up exposing his neck as her right hand came around, that knife in her hand slicing straight across his throat with little resistance. The man let out a stifled sound of surprise, yet it had happened so quickly that he would not have even had time to register the act. Kasui let go of him and stepped back as the man dropped his clipboard, both hands going to his throat. He turned around, horror on his face as he tried to see his killer. Nothing but a gurgle escaped him as he saw no one, not even the blade that had slit his throat. Spurts of blood ran down his hands and pure white coat marking him in the color of death. He just slumped forward, the life leaving his body and would have crashed to the floor had Kasui not grabbed his large frame and guided him to the ground. He just lay there twitching slightly as a pool of blood started to form under his rotund frame.

  Kasui remained expressionless and cold, indifferent to this man's death, just as he most likely was to all the malformed creatures around him. She looked up, watching the transfer on the computer and scowled. It was nowhere near done and she was now working on a clock. She turned and made her way through the lab towards the other researchers, a cold determination in her gaze. Her long knife just swayed beside her in her grip, her magic moving down the blades length, coating it in the same invisibility she wore.

  As she approached the remaining two researchers she curled her lip in disgust as they pointed at a tank that seemed to be their focus. They murmured quietly whilst comparing notes on another clipboard. As soon as she was in range, Kasui lifted her blade and simply lunged forward, the point of the knife slamming forward right into the elderly man's left eye socket. She felt it grate along bone and pierce the soft tissue of his eye and brain. He was dead before he knew what happened. She ripped the blade back, feeling it saw along the man’s socket.

  She swung her knife backwards, a line of blood flying from its tip and splattering on the ground. Then she turned to the final researcher who stood stuck to the ground as her companion collapsed to the floor. His skull slapped against the ground, eliciting a brutal crack even as Kasui advanced on the woman called Chelle.

  Chelle seemed to recover and staggered backwards, her mouth flapping, but no sound coming, like she genuinely could not believe what she had just seen. To her, all she would have seen was one moment the elderly man talking to her, and the next moment, a spurt of blood from his eye socket right before he collapsed to the ground.

  Kasui positioned her blade on an angle pointing up and she stepped in, her left hand reaching out to grab the woman by the throat even as the knife was slammed upwards in a practiced and pin point accurate motion. She felt the knife slide between Chelle's ribs and stab into the woman’s heart, a soft cry coming from the woman at the pain she would have felt. Kasui ripped the blade backwards and then let go of Chelle, letting her collapse to the ground, dying or already dead. She did not care.

  As the woman lay there twitching in her own blood, Kasui leant down and wiped her knife on the woman's coat, in a careless and callous attitude. She looked up then, gazing into the tank that had held the researchers attention. The first thing she saw was the human that floated inside the tank.

  The tank was occupied by an unconscious naked young man, and unlike the rest of the forms in the other tanks, not a single tube was attached to his body. The youth was just floating in the fluid without the aid of any devices. A breathing device was attached to his face and she scowled, thinking this youth was something special to the researchers. She looked down at the tanks information plaque and let out a hiss as she read it. Item thirty two. Leaving this place suddenly got so much harder.

  Kasui just stood there, her mind racing as she thought about how the hell she was going to get out of here with an unconscious young man slung over her shoulder. She just rolled her shoulders and slid her knife back into its sheath even as she turned around. She headed back to the computers, her expression even grimmer. Reaching it she squelched through the fat man's blood, her boots sticking to the floor somewhat. Seeing her transfer of the files was done she removed the portable device and stashed it in her rear pouch. She left the area behind and immediately went back to the tank with the youth in it. She just stood there, thinking.

  Hearing a click, Kasui turned quickly and looked towards the source, her eyes going wide as she saw the elevator descending. She swore out loud. There must have been cameras hidden somewhere, and they would have picked up on the three dead scientists. Scowling she turned back to the tank with the youth in it and with an exhalation of breath, she summoned a surge of magic. Loosing the gathered energy she blew a hole in the tank, instantly creating alarms and flashing lights on the vessels display instruments.

  The fluid of the tank cascaded from the hole, spilling out and over the floor, washing away the blood of Kasui's victims. The youth just now lay in the empty tank completely motionless. Scowling, Kasui turned to the dead elderly scientist and peeled his lab coat off of him, sodden with the tanks fluid. She reached into the tank and grabbed the youth by his arm, awkwardly yanking him along its floor towards the edge. Placing the coat down on the ground, she then pulled the youth out of the tank, letting him flop down onto the floor of the lab into the coat, his body smacking into the cold wet ground. She gritted her teeth knowing she didn’t have the time to make sure he wasn’t busted up by the impact or broken glass.

  Picking up the motionless youth, she hoisted him on a shoulder, eyes widening at how light he was, he couldn't have weighed thirty kilo's. Settling him into a comfortable position, she jogged over to a desk not far from the elevator, the man flopping around like a fish out of water. Crouching beside the desk, Kasui bent light around the young man, making him partially invisible as even she had a limit to her magic. She could feel her strength depleting and knew she only had limited time left.

  The elevator finally reached a level where it passed beneath the ceiling, revealing the legs, and then torso's and heads of a dozen armed guards, all pointing outwards around a man in the middle who had both hands raised and seemed to be murmuring. Kasui scowled as she saw a shimmer of energy around the group, surmising that the man in the middle must have been a mage of some high level.

  As soon as the elevator reached the floor, the armed guards stepped off of the platform yet remained motionless, their rifles pointed at nothing in particular. Kasui scowled, wondering just what they were doing. Were they waiting for something? It was then that the man in the middle shouted out something.

  "Show yourself, you have no way out. Surrender now and mercy will be shown to you" he shouted, his voice causing a shiver to run down Kasui's spine. She knew that tone. It was one of a liar. She rolled her jaw, not liking her chances of getting out of here in one piece. She had faced worse situations though, so she sucked in a breath and slowly stood up. She poured more magic into her invisibility, burning through her reserves yet completely erasing both her and the youth from sight. Then she simply started walking forward, not a sound escaping her.

  It was a bold move, but she felt fighting would not get her anywhere. As she approached the group, she noted a decided nervousness among the guards. Many had eyes that flitted around the lit up laboratory. The place was pure white everywhere, with clear visibility. And they could not see an enemy anywhere. She stepped past the guards, walking straight through their formation without a care in the world. The mage in the center had dropped his arms and was no longer speaking or maintaining a shield, and Kasui could sense uncertainty from him also.

  "Sir, the hell is this. There is no one here" one of the guards spoke out, his voice strained.

  "Yeah, well, there was no one here when the scientists died either. Stay alert. We are not alone" stated the mage as he pulled a radio from his belt and lifted it to his face. He pressed down on the button and called in.

  "Strike One
to base. The lab is empty as suspected. No-one in sight. Over" called in the mage, his eyes still darting around the lab. Kasui was standing just off to his side just waiting for an opportunity, and grinning in sick satisfaction.

  "Base to Strike one. Cobra has given the order to fire at will. Light the place up. Over" came the reply from base and Kasui grinned further. Perfect.

  "Alright boys. You heard them. Fire at will" the mage stated and put his radio back on his belt even as the guards began firing. The loud fizzes of their energy rifles sounded as they opened fire, blasting away randomly. The entire lab erupted into explosions and shattered objects as the energy beams ripped through the tanks and instruments of the place. The guards did not let up and Kasui grimaced. She would have been made into mincemeat had she stayed hiding. Sometimes her boldness really did save her. She crouched down then, any noise she made being hidden by the cacophony of the rifles. Touching her belt, she slid a finger over one of the many crystals that studded her belt until she found an air crystal. Drawing on its energy, she guided the air energy down to her feet and with a grunt, jumped up right as she loosed the energy below her, creating a rush of air beneath her feet.