by Marc Mulero
“We owe you another one,” she said sincerely, looking ahead to the sturdy makeshift gates that obstructed their path.
“An exchange of services. I clear the obstacles, you ship me west,” the Mentis replied, his heart rate notably slowing.
“You must see it. There’s no more justice or protection. No civilized brotherhood, just disobedience. If we do as we please, we die. In a crisis like this, the police of the world are supposed to protect us,” Onessa vented.
Dendrid lifted his narrowed eyes to the gates, thinking to all of his experience in confinement, never even considering what a civilian would ponder. “Sounds to me that you are now free from such a utopian folly. Now that you can’t rely on what’s stronger than you to protect you, you can learn to protect yourself.”
“The Vacals see things differently, my aggressive ally. We seek to aid and cure. To help and grow, not merely survive. We were never meant to be savages,” the driver rebutted, then beckoned the civilians to exit the vehicle.
“Perhaps it’s best we speak no further. You live behind you, and I live now. We are both just speaking to ourselves.” Dendrid excused himself and raised the volume of music playing in his head, while the Vacals all worked to open the gates.
Chapter 2
Blague held one hand to his head as he dismissed himself from the commotion on the main floor. “Mmmf,” he grunted - the dizziness was still there, but finally beginning to subside. Phantom tremors in his vision felt like PTSD. Thankfully though, this had been his second Quake. He knew what to do. Leaving Cherris and her large heart in charge to console civilians was the right choice, for time was now required for him to disconnect. He needed peace, solace, and detachment from the physical world. Somewhere that would help deepen the connections that the Neraphis helped him forge.
Elaina… His long-lost love now lived within him. He had to find her again.
We need to make up for lost time and embrace this new way of living.
Her voice had broken through the silence; it had an innocent energy to it, a kindness, as if nothing could trample her spirit, just like he’d remembered. But a lifetime had passed since then. Two very different beings now faced each other like the caduceus – two snakes twirled around a staff – with his spine as its base. Time created a void and distance that had to be made up. A tentativeness existed between them, somewhat like a first date.
He wondered if this was how his father and mother felt a stage before, when they were first reawakened to each other.
In war, in battle, everything moved so fast that it was impossible to consider awkwardness, for the task at hand meant life or death. And with those stakes, they were a tag-team to be reckoned with, but what was to happen during a time of quiet? In the New World, there were no more outings, or events to partake in, not for the rebellion anyway.
There were memories, though. So many of them. That was as good a place to start as any.
“Remember when Leslie threw you a surprise party when you returned from duty, so that you would like her? So silly, after all of your bickering.” Elaina was trying to hold in laughter. “My sister was always an odd duck.”
“That jackass mooched off of everyone she came in contact with. Buy me this, buy me that… dinners, gifts, whatever. Hell, she probably didn’t contribute a dime to that party. Your parents were slaves to her. And she was older than you for god’s sake!” Blague spoke back in his mind.
“Still bitter, I see.” She finally broke into a giggle.
It was easy to settle back into comfort as things become more reminiscent, flavoring the longed reunion that it was.
He strode about the outskirts of the mansion unaccompanied. It took everything he had not to smile to himself when she joked, and frown when she yanked up old memories for them to watch together like a drive-in movie. If there was anything magical throughout the span of his life, this was it. And in order to explore it, time and space were needed, alone.
Living in his mind, the Sin Leader approached his destination – a familiar combat training hall. He glanced at his timekeeper. “Empty. Should be off-schedule from Drino’s disciplinarian… let’s call them drills.”
“Torture sessions, I would say,” Elaina scoffed. “Poor cadets.”
“Hm… guess you’ve seen that too.”
“Yyyep.”
Two sets of eyes suddenly tugged him out of his “date,” or haze, as the Sin soldiers saw it. They stood at attention, waiting hesitantly for a greeting that was normally bestowed, but for some reason, never came. It wasn’t out of rudeness. No, that wasn’t like Blague, so this was something else… as though he was losing touch with the outside. Much like Orin and the Neraphis.
After turning slightly and exchanging uneasy looks, the Sins worked to unlatch the fortified doors before standing aside for their leader to enter.
The watchers were nervous where they would usually be inspired. What was happening to this man in front of them? The leader who’d secured so much, turned them into what they had become, so what could possibly have changed? He used to walk tall, acknowledge every fighter, civilian, anyone, everyone he encountered. But that all changed recently. Blague returned to them as if he’d traveled the cosmos, like he was stuck in a constant struggle to make sense of the universe.
One good explanation would be his days spent with Society N – being tossed from leadership into apprenticeship could certainly take such a toll. Starting back at square one, having to unlearn a lifetime of experience, to discover the ways of the Neraphis.
Something so profound didn’t allow the wherewithal for pleasantries or morale boosting. Not yet, at least, because he himself was lost between two worlds – the inside and the out.
“Gentlemen,” Blague’s voice sounded on his walk past them. “No one enters this room.”
The Sin fighters’ boots clicked and the two became stiff at attention, shaken by their leader’s austere manner. “Sir,” they acknowledged, each pounding their chest.
He heard the doors latch shut behind him.
An audible sigh escaped. Finally, some privacy.
Just like that, the burden of tending to the world’s refugees lifted away. His posture straightened; shoulders felt lighter. He could breathe again. The double vision converged to one. Peace.
Eyes closed to start a blind walk, ears absorbing the echo of his footsteps as he found the room’s center. One hand slid off his fitted black jacket before the other tossed it aside.
Pay attention to the details, he thought. The first step to breaking away from a runaway mind. Find the now.
There he lingered, sturdy and broken all at once – his muscular form representing strength, and scarred skin weakness. Serenity had to find him if he were to ever master the way of the Neraphis. The teachings of his Elder was the key to it all.
The bad thoughts continued to badger him. A long breath in, another out. His boots scraped as he moved them shoulder width apart. Another focused inhale – arms held in front of him, thumbs interlocked and index fingers touched to mirror the stance that Aslock once held.
Remember your training. He imagined the shirtless, silver haired Tesdian perfecting his posture, and concentrating on the flow of Cryos energy emitting from his veins.
“More often than not, all of this doesn’t feel real,” Blague spoke in his mind.
“Yet, at all times, it is,” Elaina assured, now settled into her new home of reawakened consciousness.
“What was it like before you came back, in between your death and reemergence?”
A warm heat trickled around the surface of Blague’s back after he asked the question, leaving him to reminisce of Elaina’s embrace.
“I traveled through a reel of events I’d long forgotten,” Elaina’s voice shined through. “Memories of my family, friends, the joys of it all. My PhD studies, my practices as a doctor, my devotion to helping others. Thoughts of the Quake, well the first one. Your brother, your father. Memories of us. It was a non-linear jumble of ti
me imprinted somewhere within me, whatever I am now.”
“Before I could hear you, could you hear me? Did you experience the Society as I did?”
“Yes, I knew who and where I was throughout the timeless travel. I saw through your eyes when Valor struck you, and heard through your ears when Aslock taught you.”
“Then you know what we are. We are one now. A primary and a secondary. Consorts of time commingled in a singular vessel. We are a true Ardian.”
Blague felt Elaina’s touch trace his shoulders. He exhaled deeply, thinking back to a better time. The tips of her fingers pressed down into an embrace, relaxing him into a state of serenity he hadn’t felt for a lifetime. Whatever peace he’d discovered in Aslock’s graces was amplified by his partner’s presence.
But this was all just a shadow of what he once had, wasn’t it? Just a cruel reminder of a past stolen too early. Shit. There it was again – her death on a boundless loop.
Stop.
But there was no stopping it once it began playing in his head. Thump, thump, thump. He could feel the vibrations of a stampede trampling all over his insides. It was a daily occurrence starting in his hardened belly – nausea, then to his chest, lungs. No air. Whatever it was constricted his breath like two tightening fists around his larynx, cutting his oxygen. End it, he would beg on some days. The vision of Elaina with eyes tightly shut, mouth open in pain, mid-cry. It was vivid. So vivid. End it! He would cry for no one to hear. Then came the rage. Familiar, fiery rage. Anger of molten adrenaline pumped hot through a body of hardened ash.
I can’t get lost… not again.
Blague straightened again, accepting the turmoil within him. His wrath became harnessed like it was being laced into a straight-jacket. Breathing started to slow and muscles grew less tense. Balance - that was the key in his duel against Valor. It kept him present in his teachings with Aslock. And it had to keep him here with Elaina.
The unknown fate of his love had haunted him for decades, a lifetime even. It nearly broke him. But the truth was, Elaina wasn’t dead. Aslock awoke him to that. He wasn’t crazy. These visions weren’t a lie. All this time it was the truth trying to peek through, not some Ayelan infused psychosis, not a decaying mind. It was her! And at the brink of despair, she reached out - a smooth hand emboldened by a golden aura, a power to dissipate the storms in his mind with just her presence. She had saved him.
Blague wasn’t lost. Quite the opposite actually, for his angel was reborn when he needed her most. She was the Ying to his Yang, the fortification of stability within him. And she had returned.
Elaina’s voice fell silent, for some things words simply could not mend. It was her essence that was needed now. Here it came as an extra pulse vibrating through his body, becoming amplified in the form of azure strands - flame-like energy that began to scratch beyond his mark, slowly crawling, burning brighter and brighter. This was different from his duels. It was controlled. Gradual. Threads swam around his arm like a twisting roller coaster, rounding his fist and circling back. Yes, he thought, eyes shut to let the warmth bathe him, cocoon him, invigorate him.
Together, as Ardian – merger of two lovers – they thought back to when Valor’s spear was en route to puncture Blague’s heart, to end their existence. It was only in that instant where a surge of power burst from his veins. It was some cellular, quantum reaction swirling beyond a realm of natural science, that swelled to become this tangible force strong enough to fling the lance backward.
And he felt that same energy rise within him again. This time, however, it wasn’t a call of desperation, nor a cry for help, but rather a harmony between him and the chemical bound to his body. Some form of adapted congruence. An understanding that defied all that he once accepted as truth.
He knew what to do. That rage that burned, that memory of Elaina’s last moments searing his brain…
Use it!
The dying cry echoed endlessly. Use it!
His eyes suddenly bolted open as if he were struck with an epinephrine needle. Woosh. His body torqued, arm swinging in a crescent strike, a whip, and with it, the proliferation of Cryos detached from him, streaked across the wide room, and wailed, giving life to Blague’s shout.
There he and Elaina stood, dumbfounded, watching in awe as the force of ethereal energy flew through the vast space and eventually dissipated on the far wall in all directions.
“We did it!” she cheered.
“We did. But if for a moment I put aside my surprise for what just left my body, and think about how this could help us, my thoughts fall flat. What can Cryos do that weapons I already wield cannot?” Blague asked.
An image of Elaina’s smile formed in his mind. “Your gray heart is always thinking of how to topple and destroy, but what did Cryos do for you when that spear nearly ended us?”
Blague tilted his head to the floor, watching the streams of light retreat back up into his disheveled tattoo. “It protected us,” he said aloud.
“And it can protect others. You can sway bullets from their path, you can defend precious life in war.”
Blague opened the palm of his hand and stared. “You’re right, Elaina. You were always right.” His fingers curled into a fist, pressing until his knuckles turned white. “For more reasons than my selfishness, I’m glad to have you back at my side.”
A smirk crept up his face from recalling the time they’d spent together an age ago, chasing the ghosts that they had now found.
“Imagine if this chemical can do more?”
“Like what?”
“Like defend against the Aura’s smoke. We’re lowly students here, Elaina… we can learn again. The world of Cryos is vast. We can discover! That’s what I want, to explore what we’ve found: our duality, these chemicals, this impossible new life. It’s all ours for the taking.”
Elaina’s essence danced around his body like a cold rag on a hot day. “Come back to me, my love. We can’t go down this route. It’ll only lead to what your father has become. In all of his wisdom and all of his greatness, he only exists in the world when he is needed, and otherwise stays within himself. We cannot become that. The planet is too broken for us to flee.”
Blague lifted his head. “And what if one day it no longer is?”
Her voice fell silent and Blague shook his head. “Whenever I come back to where I’m standing, I feel doubt, that maybe this is all a dream,” he said aloud.
“I’ll prove to you otherwise,” Elaina challenged playfully, attempting to lighten the mood. “There was a time when our families were preparing for a dinner together to celebrate our eighth anniversary. Orin came up to me while you were changing upstairs. He said, ‘Elaina, I do not often express my deepest thoughts, but I feel it appropriate today. You are everything that my son is not, and he is the same for you. If there were ever two people that better represented connection in this world, I would never find them.’ How could I ever forget such words, and spoken from a powerful leader, no less. That’s something I never told you. Go tell that to your father, and let that seed of doubt be washed away.”
With a grin on his face, Blague internalized the quote and resumed Aslock’s stance, drawing Cryos around his arms once more.
Lesh led her crew out onto the upheaved beach, with massive uneven mounds of sand everywhere. They trekked uphill, pounding grains that showered all around until they reached the top. With one foot teetering in front, she used the other to hop, sliding down a curved slope until boots slammed against a pile of broken boulder.
“What a mess,” she murmured, wiping herself while looking back to see her crew follow suit, and further to the newly obstructed view of Sin buildings. Ahead was even stranger, like the world was a shaken snow globe, only instead of snow, sand. Instead of nicely decorated homes, there were sea creatures that had no business being out of water, lying dead upon rocks like spiked heads daring them to go further. The mountainside thundered from crumbled gradients rolling down into the ocean as though it were shedding d
ead skin.
“The finale is here, the old man said. Better be true, or I’m marching these boys to their deaths.” More scoffs under her breath, and a grimace from the stench of rotting creatures. “Now let’s see if the physicists were right in submerging these vessels. D-day – let’s see if they held.”
The company gathered at the tip of a rocked plank that led into the briny depths, where the entire fleet rested.
Milos caught up to his teacher to stand beside her in anticipation. His face was windblown, expression hardened, for he could see nothing but the way forward at this point – to Oosnie – the girl he promised to protect.
“We sure ‘bout this, sweetheart?” Morn’s voice still quivered. He dusted his trench coat and looked away before glancing at the crew, pretending not to be terrified.
Sullen faces wrapped them all, because the Quake had barely let up and already, they were required to depart. Each of the summoned Sins, Terras, and Yuprains were still rattled from the nights behind them, leaving the last thought on any of their minds to provide aid to allies in Death Valley. Nerves began to spread among one another like wildfire. Fidgeting and nervous laughter filled the air, coming to a hard stop at the deadly woman who gave the order. She looked back to them and nodded her next command.
Four divers walked up to the ledge and dropped into the deep blue on cue.
Kentin, sole descendent of the late Briggs, kept a comforting hand on his best friend, knowing that Milos was tormented on every turn that life had spun him. They peered quietly into the anxious waters, waiting for the divers working beneath to unhook the anchors from the underwater vessel so they could finally embark.
Milos couldn’t sit still though. He felt no comfort. Not the reassuring words of his friend, not the vow to stick by his side, none of it. Guilt weighed too heavy. And so he shrugged off Kentin’s support and shied away from the crowd, finding solace only by unlatching the case in his pocket and taking a peek at the wilted ivory flower stowed within.