Star Chaser- The Traveler

by Reiter

  “Prepare our ship,” she commanded. “Baron Zoll, the First of Five, must be informed of this… and it will not be over a communicator.” Survaysi thought for a moment before shaking her head in disbelief. “A minor entity – that no one prays to – manipulating the power of the gods? Damn!”

  Aleesha tried to tell herself not to be surprised. Man’s level of scientific awareness had created the mechanical means to disrupt both ThoughtWill and MannA. Just how far behind those discoveries could the manipulation of KaA be?! Even if the deed were done by persons and or items that were not of an empowered nature. Yet another comfort of her life had been stripped away, and she struggled with trying to maintain her composure. The last thing she needed to do at the moment was look vulnerable.

  “You know, there is one thing I think we might be overlooking,” Kaila said, rubbing her chin. “Freund... the man – who I think we can all agree is not so minor an entity – is known for his mental capabilities. There’s a good chance that Greggy didn’t do half the things he thought he did and all of it is just in his mind.”

  “That would make for a more easily understood scenario,” Survaysi quickly remarked. “I’ve never heard of anything countering faith, except a more powerful faith.”

  “Goddess help us!” Aleesha whispered as she turned to make preparations for their departure.

  “Amen, Sister,” Survaysi added. “It would appear we are going to need it!”

  ** b *** t *** o *** r **

  Even with her hand held high over her head and shining brightly, the corridor was dark and foreboding. Walking down the middle of any corridor went against her instincts, but Lark kept reminding herself that she was no longer a common thief. The name and existence of Tolarra Nyss was not even on public record any longer. She had died over five hundred years ago and absolutely no one had attended her cremation… not even Tolarra herself! It had been a number of uncanny circumstances, one happening right after another, which had led her to the potential for writing herself off for dead. The heat on her had been marginal, kind of low for the deeds she had done, but one very noble constable’s last act had started the dominoes to falling. By the time the last one had toppled, she was walking away from the funeral home a free woman.

  “Why couldn’t I just have kept on walking?!” she thought. “Because I thought I knew everything there was to know, that’s why! It didn’t matter that I was dead wrong, no one could reach me; I was above everything. Just how many times have I flown into a wall?!”

  “Who are you and why are you here?” a powerful voice asked of Lark as the light in the corridor came up. The corridor seemed to shake under the echo of the booming sound. Lark stopped as she observed she had been surrounded by some fifteen cloaked figures, each one of them towered over her with shoulders at least twice as broad as he own. “Answer quickly or I shall have you removed!”

  “Look, I didn’t come here for any trouble,” Lark pleaded. “And I certainly don’t want to mess up the place with the bods of your boys here. They look like good, godchild-fearing, clean-cut youths. Fucking them up is not the way I want this to go!”

  “You dare–”

  “Oh, can we please just stow the stupid shit here?! I knocked, no one answered. There are no freakin’ doors to this place, so I came in. I’ve been saying hello until I’m blue in the face, and you wanna come off like something out of a comic book?! Please! The thing I’m looking for is supposedly worthy of respect. Let me know if I have the wrong address and I’ll be on my way. I don’t have time for this bow and scrape bullshit! And if you are what I think you are, you don’t have that kind of time either!” A burst of red-orange light enveloped Lark and blinded her from the corridor. When she could see again, she was standing atop a map of many constellations. When she first looked at it, she did not recognize any part of it. However, one of the sixty-four squares looked familiar and upon closer examination, she could see that small square was the Rims.

  “Whoa!” she whispered.

  “And why is that I can ill-afford the passing of mortal time, feisty messenger?” the voice asked. It was still powerful and low, but the echo had been removed and the source was somewhere in the chamber with Lark.

  “Because Xaythra is on the move!” Lark advised. “Gravity got together with Water and–”

  “You can, at the very least, call them by their names!” the voice demanded.

  “Fine,” Lark said, calming herself as she accessed the information given to her by Freund. “Gravithunn and Aquila are no longer separate entities. They merged! I don’t know why, but the two of them got together and sh-boom, became Xaythra! Now she’s got a following and a whole sector of space she’s building up. If she’s able to see those plans into reality, there won’t be a place in the Rims to hide from them.” The voice chuckled as thunderous footsteps sounded off in the room. Lark looked up to see one of the columns of the massive chamber slowly approaching. She lifted her hand again and lit up a forty meter radius like it was Noon.

  Standing nearly five meters tall, a slender man, dressed in red-black armour and a magma cape came forward. He looked Lark over and rubbed his chin before deciding to speak. “You have yet to give me a reason, little one. Are you trying my patience?”

  “Not intentionally, no. But you know how it is with the best laid plans,” Lark jested. “Some of them seem so right when you think them up. You go to put ‘em into play, sh-boom, it hits you and you’re like, ‘what the hell was I thinking of?!’ You know what I mean?”

  “I cannot say that I do… which is rare for me!”

  “What it comes down to is this: if you think that after Xaythra has all of humanity sewn up that she’s just going to retire to the countryside and suck down life-force mojitos while some soul-eater gives her a mani-pedi, you’ve been smoking the holy joint for way too long!”

  “Do you mean to say that after… Xaythra, is it?” the large creature inquired. Lark quickly nodded that his guess had been correct. “After Xaythra has mortals under her control, she will come after her siblings?”

  “That is exactly what I mean to say,” Lark replied. “And yes, I know that is a scenario you’ve heard before.”

  “Indeed it is.”

  “But that does not make it any less true… by the way, what do you like to be called?”

  “I am Fission,” he replied flatly. “Call me Fission.”

  “Please hear me, Fission, when I say–”

  “What you have surely said before,” Fission completed.

  “What?”

  “I doubt I am the first of the Children of Cosmos you have pleaded your case to,” he said softly as he lifted his hand toward the ceiling. A thin red beam of light stuck the stone and the blackened rock immediately melted, dropping to the floor and forming into a very large throne as Fission took a seat upon it. “Am I?”

  Lark looked down and closed her eyes. This was about the place in the conversation where she had lost the audience of a very flighty representation of Electromagnetism and the attention of Fusion. The former accused Lark of just wanting to match the wayward Gravity and then the entity dispersed in such a way that Lark could not see or track her; the latter started making himself larger to the point where there was no room for Lark left in the chamber. Lark was pressed not to have the same happen a third time. She had taken steps to change the name of the game and though she hesitated from initiating her plan, her frustration was beginning to embolden her resolve.

  “You are not,” she admitted. “I would like to think that I saved the best for last, but that’s just a foolish saying my people use to make themselves feel better about what are often shitty circumstances. It’d be simpler to admit we possess so very little control in this universe.”

  “But that is what you are trying to assert here and now,” Fission said. “Is this not a control: having me come to the aid of your people?”

  “It is an act of desperation,” Lark stated, admitting something to Fission and to herself. “And with
the power I have assumed, I still don’t have much in the way of control. While I have become more than I dared to imagine as a mortal, now that I serve them, the actions I take are things I must do. With greater power there seems to be even less control. And I have to ask your forgiveness.”

  “For what transgression?” Fission asked, leaning forward on his throne.

  “For this!” Lark replied, calling on her light, taking her form to its greatest luminescence. Fission looked away for a moment, allowing his eyes to adjust. For a child of Cosmos, her brightness was not dazzling so much as it was quaint. Still, the chamber had been dark for some time and his eyes had grown used to the shadows. Her bright flash forced Fission to close his eyes tightly.

  “NOOO!” he screamed as he felt Star Lark pass through his body, her coherent light form easily burned through his armour and his skin, tearing through his innards. Light shone from the hole her passage had created and Fission was reacquainted with pain. “You… you seek to k-k-kill me?!”

  “Among other things!”

  One would think in following the Stars, one should look up. No. The brightest star remains within. Chart that universe and the Light of the Void will be yours!

  The First Star Chaser

  Sensation preceded sound. Flesh was gnashed with tooth and slashed with claw. Each offending instrument was aided by iro-form, burning into the skin and muscle. Soon the entire body was heated and feeling as if it had been set aflame.

  Sound preceded sight. Growls echoed from all directions along with snarls signifying an engaged fervor. As each attack cut deeper and deeper… was there any end to the meat one body could provide?! Surely they had reached the bone!

  Sight preceded realization. Dungias was at the heart of a Grenbi nest! Spots and streaks of gray appeared in various places and times within the folds of the overwhelming tide of black as his body was thrashed, twisted, tossed and tortured. There was no rhyme or reason to the pain; it simply existed to visit and revisit his mind and body.

  “You thought yourself clever!” voices called to him in chorus. The pitches were varied and some of the voices actually echoed. Dungias looked around to see if he could find anything resembling a speaker of any sort. Claws raking through his back suspended the search. “You thought you could escape us!”

  “Who are you?” Dungias called out before teeth sank into his arm. He screamed in response to the pain and Grenbi thrust themselves into his mouth and down his throat. Now they were inside him and it felt as if they were burrowing and tearing through his organs, trying to get out again. The feeling was beyond his comprehension of pain… and then there was a coolness which took a hold of Dungias. It was the sort of cold that removed feeling, and it was therefore quite welcome to him.

  “We are you!” the chorus replied. “We are them! You are us!”

  “Dungias,” a voice called in his mind, bringing a clearing and cleansing light with it. Dungias was still surrounded by the Grenbi, but the light forced them out of his body. Dungias looked down as he regurgitated. On the aged stone floor at his feet were the letters M A N R O V I, or at least that is what he thought they were, as the letters seemed to be moving within his impaired vision and black bodies soon covered the marked stones. “Are you sure you want this? Not all relief is a good thing. Think!”

  “Thought, you have returned to me,” he thought. “But our conversations cannot help me here, can they?”

  “That is up to you!” Thought stressed.

  “Why do they torment me?” Dungias asked.

  “I cannot perceive your tormentor,” Thought advised. “I can only see what you are doing to yourself. Dungias, that darkness you find so comforting is death! You are dying!!!”

  “She cannot help you!” the chorus returned, lashing the tips of their tentacles against his back. They cut into his skin, but he did not scream. Their claws raked his neck and ribs… he did not scream. Fangs sank into his hips, shoulders and skull, but he would not scream.

  “Your aims have been made clear to me,” he thought, knowing the Grenbi could hear him. He did not want to endure any more of the pain, but the cooling darkness was more than attractive to him. “I know why you hate me.”

  “You know nothing!” the chorus disputed as they gathered themselves for another attack on his body. “Your understanding is not a requiem for our vengeance. You will burn! All of your kind will burn and die in the fires of our shadow!” The shadowy forms burst into black flames and a column of black fire hammered into Dungias’ chest. The anguish registered and had to be acknowledged. Dungias screamed and once again the Grenbi flew into his mouth. “We are again inside you!”

  “Yes you are,” Dungias thought as he focused his thoughts on the energy of his instruction with the Star-Stride. Normally, the focus needed either a fuel or a target; Dungias approached this exercise with both. Images of Danatra flashed in his mind when she had accused him of being less than Malgovi. If there were ever a time to allow his animal-like anger to flourish, this was it! That fuel added to his movements as the target for his effort was quite simple: living!

  “And now you must contend with my Light!” Without moving, Dungias could see himself running with his Master again, over the fields of the Vinthur university campus. But the power to move at such speed was not being focused to any movement; it was sent inward and sparked to life, holding a blinding glow. The Grenbi that had gathered inside of Dungias were dispersed by the white light that came to flare in Dungias’ eyes. The effort had taken more out of him that he thought it might, but he stood ready to do it again. “I live and you will not be the end of me!” The image faded, having served its purpose and Dungias was once again in the pits of the Grenbi.

  Clenching his hands into tight fists, Dungias pounded the inside of his fists together. There was a small splash of white flame when the contact was made. Sending power into his hands, Dungias slowly pulled them apart, stretching the white light and fire into a long, slender rod. He fanfared the flaming Osamu, going into a kata Guyn had taught him. According to the Exemplar, the movements aided the practitioner with their focus. It had been a shortened version of the kata Guyn had used to give him the power to shatter the wall of the pub. Now it was being applied to the effort of living.

  “Dungias,” a soft voice called to him and he felt warmth from the sound of it. The sound did not belong to Thought, but it was strong. Dungias simply added the sensation to his effort.

  The Osamu swung around his body, creating a ring of white fire. Dungias finished the spin and dropped to his knee, stabbing the Osamu down into the ground. The ring exploded, cutting into the Grenbi, setting many of them aflame.

  “Don’t!” a warning came from Thought. “Do not give in to the feelings of fatigue or despair. Talk to me instead. Keep fighting, but allow me to receive your focus.”

  “Whatever shall we discuss?” Dungias thought as he stood up, twirling his white fire Osamu.

  “What have you mastered since last we spoke?” it inquired. “And do not ask don’t you know in response. What I know is a matter of thought. What you know is a matter of your reality! So tell me in your words.”

  “Dungias!” the other voice called to him and its power fed directly into the white flames. Now his eyes and hair were ablaze. The Osamu was thicker as fire fell like fluid off each end, burning all the way to the ground and remaining alight once it reached the black floor.

  “I am not sure I have mastered anything,” Dungias replied, taking a fighting stance. “I have experienced a number of things, and I have learned more truth about my people than I thought would ever be available.”

  “What do you mean?” Thought inquired.

  “What most of my people believe to be their origins and their actual history has been varied to say the least.” Dungias lunged forward, thrusting his Osamu into the head of a charging Grenbi. The forward progress of his attacker had been negated and he tucked the Osamu under his arm as he dropped to one knee. Dungias brought his hands toward his ch
est. The Osamu jutted out behind him and stabbed another Grenbi in the jaw. Spinning on his knees, a powerful one-handed swing destroyed the stunned Grenbi and Dungias did more than stand up. He jumped up, back-flipping over a charging Grenbi and landing on another. “I have yet to find the reason behind the discrepancy, but I intend to. It is a quest of knowledge that I am now engaged to resolve. But mastery is not something I have approached as of yet.”

  “Then the reality I expected to see is the one I have found in you,” Thought concluded. “And that would be, for the both of us, a new reality!”

  “How so?” Dungias asked, swinging the Osamu like a sword. He caught one Grenbi in the head and another on the tail as he dodged another flying attack. Without a tail, the Grenbi did not have control of its flight and it tumbled into four of its brethren.

  “Your humility keeps your mind open… you are accessible to both education and change,” Thought remarked. “So if nothing else, you have mastered the fact that you do not know everything. Furthermore, despite all that has been heaped upon your shoulders, Dungias, you will not stop!”

  “Surely you know by now, my friend, that I cannot stop!” he thought, using his Osamu to direct a slashing attack into the side of a passing Grenbi. With the tip of the tentacle temporarily anchored, he had time to step back and swing through the offending limb. Another spinning attack was followed by a spinning kick and spinning fist coated in the white flames. All three attacks hit different targets, and Dungias was surrounded by burning heaps of dead or dying Grenbi. As he looked upon the carnage, his Osamu faded.

  “Do not fear, Dungias!” Thought quickly counseled. “You are not depleted of your power… you simply do not need to fight anymore… you are no longer dying. We shall engage in another conversation soon. Until then… rest.” Dungias watched as the flame around him faded and he fell back into darkness. It was not the sort he had most recently sampled, the kind Thought had labeled as death. No, it was passive, though ultimately possessive. Dungias lost sight of his own form and the definition of his place within the Star-Stride. The power it had given him was no longer active, but he did not feel as if he needed to use it.