Evex_Warriors Of Ition

by Maia Starr

  “You have to come! This is all our fault, and if you don’t come with us…” Reina’s eyes flooded with tears: a familiar guilt. She looked to me for some sort of backup, but I shook my head. I knew the woman was right. They were old, she and her husband. They wouldn’t make the journey. “I just don’t know how I could live with myself…” Reina finished.

  “Remember, I told you—” the old woman began, interrupted by the loud crack of the door slamming.

  I peered out at Jareth and Lele, and the robot gave me a look that said it was time to go. Now. I looked back at Reina with a ‘hurry up’ expression, and we both turned out attention back to Laura.

  “Do you remember I told you that the Vithohn came one more after they first attacked us?” Laura said, looking right in my eyes.

  “I remember,” I said.

  “A Vithohn named Atriel came in and took our daughter. It was the trade for us keeping our land,” she said slowly.

  Reina looked stunned and then disgusted. “You gave up your daughter to keep your fa—”

  Laura put up a hand in protest and interrupted, “She loved him. I don’t know how. I don’t know if she planned it. But he came here, and the two of them knew one another. She wanted to leave.”

  “Okay…” Reina breathed.

  “They went to a base called Rowan.”

  Reina nodded again. “Okay.”

  “There are hundreds of mixed couples there,” Laura continued, looking back and forth from myself and Reina. “Breeding. Living. They hide it as a Vithohn base to fool other creatures, but they’re planning a takeover. They are starting over, together.”

  “Where is it?” I asked desperately.

  “I don’t know,” she said sadly. “But… something tells me you’ll need to find out. This could be it, Reina. This could be your future together. No more hiding. Just peace, for all of us.”

  I swallowed hard and turned my profile back to the doorway: Lele standing tall with a laser musket leaning against her shoulder. She jerked her head to the right as if to say ‘come on,’ and I grabbed Reina’s hand.

  “Time to go,” I said.

  “Thank you,” Reina said, hugging Laura in a tight embrace before returning her hand to me.

  I nodded to her as well but couldn’t find the words to express our thanks. We headed toward Reina’s mountain with the help of two Ixu’s that the farmers gave us.

  Another town ruined in the wake of us.

  The guilt rushed through me, familiar and haunting. More humans who would be destroyed because of something that I’d done. Something I failed to do. Protect them.

  It was the last thing I wanted for Reina—for her to be fearful or to get hurt because I was too cowardly to protect her.

  The heat of the flames the Vithohn lit in the forests caused the whole mountainous valley to stink of smoke. Reina coughed excessively while we rode the Ixu and I wanted to turn around and hold her.

  “When they come looking for me, they won’t stop,” I said to her when we finally abandoned our Ixu’s at the base of her mountain some days later.

  “They won’t find us,” she offered with a shrug. “So it doesn’t matter. I just… feel bad that those poor people got involved.”

  “Maybe they’ll bypass the farmland,” Lele offered, walking up beside us.

  Jareth opened up his mouth to give another piece of sage advice, likely about to spout off how it was scientifically impossible that the Vithohn would leave them alone again, but I put my finger up to my lip to shush him, and to my great surprise—it worked.

  “Maybe,” I said in agreement.

  Reina didn’t look convinced, but we soon had a new problem to worry about as we approached what used to be the barren, rocky land at the base of her mountain. Now it was a firing zone.

  Turrets and mech surrounded the mountain, already taking aim at us. There were spotlights and warning gunfire in the distance. The whole area had become military.

  I cocked a brow to Reina, and she looked just as surprised.

  “This… this isn’t how I left it,” she said, her honey-like voice dripping with worry.

  “How’s that?” Lele asked, her eyes flicking wildly around the base of the camp, her robotics kicking in and likely assessing the potential damage they could do.

  “The turrets,” Reina said, pointing to them in the distance.

  “You weren’t protected before?” I asked but already knew the answer.

  She shrugged. “No! I mean, I used to build them with my dad but we never actually used them. We didn’t have a reason to.”

  “Looks like you do now,” I said flatly.

  “Look at all this artillery,” she gasped, a hand now covering her mouth. “Something must have happened.”

  Jareth looked up at Reina and tilted his head to the side. “You happened,” he pointed to her.

  “What do you mean?” the girl asked.

  “You went missing. Your father is the village leader, right? They want protection from the ravenous Vithohn.”

  “Hey!” I protested.

  Jareth shrugged, unapologetic.

  “I brought her back, didn’t I?” I mocked.

  “What do we do now?” Lele said, crossing her arms and clearly unimpressed with our unhelpful conversation.

  “I’ll… go first,” Reina offered, and nobody stepped in to take her place.

  There were cameras around the base of the camp: whether they were hooked up to anything, I didn’t know, but Reina volunteered to go try and communicate with her people.

  “Humans… are not so trusting,” Jareth said to me, turning completely away from Reina, as though she weren’t going to risk her life for all of us.

  “Why’s that?” I said, crouching down to meet his height.

  “The murder…” Jareth said, practically toneless. “Yes. They are very opposed to murder.”

  “Are you trying to say the humans won’t let us in? Or that Reina doesn’t trust me?” I asked, pre-annoyed.

  To this, Jareth merely blinked his overly large red eyes and said, “Yes.”

  “To which?”

  The blue Yaclion offered a disinterested shrug but kept eye-contact with me as he said, “It doesn’t truly matter.”

  “Gee, thanks,” I scoffed.

  “I think what Jareth is trying to say is that once we hit the barrier, Reina’s as good as gone.”

  “It’s not like they can stop me,” I argued, glancing over at Reina, who was now deeply invested in a conversation with an older man on the video screen. “Reina said her people never even left the mountain!” I finished.

  “Do you want a life of ‘but they can’t stop me’ as a basis for where your home is?” Lele asked firmly.

  “Reina loves me,” I said.

  “Reina wants to go home,” she argued.

  “Acceptance by her people is going to be important and you, my friend, do not make a good impression,” Jareth threw in, kicking me while I was down.

  “Hey!” I said, unsure whether to laugh or cry.

  “My apologies,” Jareth said in a tone that read just the opposite.

  “Let’s tally your resume thus far, shall we?” Lele said, beginning to count on her tan fingertips.

  “I’m good,” I said, raising a hand.

  She ignored me. “You kidnapped her, tried to pair her off with the Voth against her will, got some farmers killed, and demanded we be taken back to her village. Oh yes. And you slaughtered the human race to steal their land.”

  I grit my teeth, “I said I don’t need the list.”

  “We need to come up with a plan,” Lele said, mostly to herself.

  “So, you’re just ignoring me now?” I threaded through my clenched jaw.

  “We?” Jareth said. “Lele. They will accept you. You can pass as human. There should be no problem getting you to safety with Reina.”

  “No,” she shook her head, kneeling down. “My home is with you, Jareth.”

  “I am touched,” th
e blue creature said, wiping his eye. “Your friendship has meant more to me than my many guns.”

  I stared at the two of them, utterly confused. I was sure Jareth meant that as a genuine compliment, but I wasn’t sure how comforting I would feel if someone said that to me.

  “Well, that’s great for you guys,” I quipped. “But what about me?”

  “I believe you were included in our plans?” Jareth offered and began to prattle on about a mixed stronghold they could access. A base made up of Vithohn and humans, just as the old woman had told us of.

  “And we’ll bring Reina,” I said, interjecting between the two as they went back and forth talking about how Jareth knew someone in the stronghold and how Lele had been trying to get there all along. “Right?”

  “Let it go,” Lele said quietly. “She wants to go home, Oron.”

  “Then I’ll go with her,” I protested.

  “You aren’t the first stubborn Vithohn to be proven wrong,” Lele said.

  “Hey,” I said, taking a step toward the beautiful, robotic woman. “I helped save you, don’t forget.”

  Lele stared at me: her blue eyeshadow shimmering under the sunlight. Then she laughed, loudly. “Do what you will, then.”

  “I just… don’t believe you,” I said with a shrug. “I love her, and she feels the same for me. I left for her and if we are not accepted into her camp then… she’ll leave with me. Simple.”

  Lele looked and me for a long while and then smiled a perfect, toothy grin. “Right,” she said. “Right.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Reina

  I spoke with Calrin over the intercom. He told me that while members of our mountain town were searching the nearby lands—searching for me—they had run into a traveling group of traveling militia. The band had offered their forces and had become part of the mountain town—bringing their guns and their war machines with them.

  It was good to hear the relief in his voice, but the relief was short-lived for both of us. After ascending the massive rock, the men at the top who came to greet us all aimed their guns at Oron, causing a massive stir in our little town.

  Lele and Jareth stood beside us, standing firm against the vicious verbal attacks of those who I once thought were my people.

  “How could you do this?” my father yelled, throwing his hands up into the air as though I were a teenager again. “How could you bring that… that thing up here?”

  “He saved me!” I argued over the campfire, stomping my foot like a petulant child, demanding to be heard. “He’s the one who brought me back!”

  Oron stood next to me, silent but watchful as he stared my father down: quiet and curious.

  “He’s the one who took you,” Calrin argued, sitting back in his chair, legs up, rolled cigarette in his mouth. “Don’t be fooled by them, Reina,” he said with some pain in his voice. “They’re the problem. How do you know you can trust him?”

  “Why would he bring me back?” I argued.

  “Look around you!” Calrin yelled, surprisingly out of character for our relationship. “Look at this tech! Our food!”

  “You’ve compromised everything we’ve worked so hard to build,” Kennedy said, still a fixture in our camp I see.

  “Wow. Welcome home, Reina!” I said with venom in my tone. “We’re so glad you’re alive!”

  My father looked at me, pained but furious. “Of course we are… but it’s a bit of a… shock, Reina. You brought the enemy right into our safety net.”

  “He’s not like the rest of them,” I spat.

  “They’re all the same!” Calrin shouted.

  My father stared at me. “Maybe not,” he said and quickly shot his hand up to block Calrin’s protests. “Let’s say he’s different: that his mind has been swayed by you.”

  Kennedy stared at me, and we exchanged an understanding. The only way a Vithohn would be calmed, he knew, was if I had slept with him.

  “I knew you were a runner,” Kennedy said, narrowing his eyes at me. I had liked him before: a schoolgirl crush. But now, the way he looked at me, I couldn’t imagine why.

  Kennedy was always irritated with me: a gentle flirtation that always bordered somewhere between tense and tired.

  “I didn’t run,” I spat back. “I was taken.”

  Kennedy’s eyes flicked over to Oron, the unwelcomed stranger.

  “And then you brought him right on home,” Calrin snapped, lifting his chin toward us.

  “What do you care anyway?” I scoffed at Kennedy, grabbing Oron’s hand.

  “You’re right,” Kennedy seethed: his words coming out slow and venomous. “Why should I be offended? They only attacked my base. Killed my friends. They only ruined my life. What’s it to me, Reina?”

  “Oron didn’t,” I said.

  “I don’t want to hear his name,” Kennedy said, looking up at Oron. “What are you… together?”

  “I love him,” I said, noting how wide my father’s eyes became when he caught sight of my hand in Oron’s: at my admission.

  I squeezed Oron’s hand and continued, “There’s something coming. The day we left Willow, I saw a—”

  “—A Vithohn?” Kennedy said callously, like I was wasting his time. “Willow told us.”

  “No. It wasn't a Vithohn. It was something else. Some other species that can shapeshift. They're coming for the Vithohn. They want to wipe them out and probably us too,” I explained desperately.

  And then we heard it: the flames exploding in the distance along with a terrifying storm of footsteps. They were coming: the Vithohn.

  “Hey, if they want to attack these sons of bitches, then by all means, let them come!” Kennedy yelled.

  “And you, too, idiot,” Oron snipped.

  “Then we fight!” Kennedy said. His eyes flicked up then, seeming just then to notice the immense sound of an impending army.

  “Not with him here,” Calrin said, suddenly moved by our conversation. He pointed an arm straight at Oron.

  As if on cue, my father stepped out from the crowd. He stared at Oron, a strange look overwhelming his face as he winced back, drawing his brows together as if trying to figure out some puzzle.

  Then he reached his hand toward my love and shook it, eliciting gasps from the camp behind us.

  “We meet again,” my father said.

  Calrin looked up, just as shocked as the rest of us.

  Oron inhaled a deep breath and shook my father’s hand, nodding. He turned his profile to me and grimaces. “When the Vithohn came… and overtook Bolmore, I refused to fight,” he said slowly.

  My eyes went wide and still: refusing to blink.

  “When Sylas forced my hand, I was sent into the battlefield, and your father there,” he continued.

  “He saved me,” my father said, and suddenly those around us who knew my father well looked as if his stories were all coming together. He was spared on the field, he’d always said: told us that someone died so that he didn’t have to. But we never thought it was a Vithohn who’d saved him.

  The crowds behind us suddenly looked full of hope: forgiveness readily apparent on their faces. My father was a beloved, respected man. If he deemed Oron worthy, then they would loyally follow his lead.

  “I thought you were dead,” my father offered, finally releasing Oron’s hand.

  “I… was cut,” he said, taking back his lie about who cute his spire as he grabbed hold of it and displayed it to my father. “Cut me off from my powers.” Oron looked at me. “That’s why they banished me.”

  “Oh, Oron…” I breathed.

  I felt goosebumps tingle down my spine as he finally made his admission to me. He’d saved… my father? My lips went dry and then suddenly it felt like my whole body was being filled with warm water. I was overcome with love.

  It was a guilt that had stayed with him all this time. He was so worried about protecting his people, protecting me, living up to some standard that he was made to feel like he’d betrayed back during the wa
r.

  The secret he’d been hiding from me, his shame, was that he couldn’t protect his people—but he never realized that he was saving mine.

  “They’re coming,” Oron said suddenly to my father, nodding at him. “Get your mech ready.”

  “Will you fight with us?” my father asked and then corrected, “With me?”

  Oron swallowed his emotion and gave a solemn nod. “It would be my honor.”

  My love looked at me and grabbed my hand before signaling to Lele and Jareth. It was time to fight. We turned to grab our weapons, walking away from the once hostile crowd suddenly being cheered on like heroes.

  “Oron,” my father called out, and we both turned to him. “Welcome home.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Oron

  The plan was set. The mechs were hovering: flying around the mountain with the last of their fuel. We would cut the Vithohn off at the pass, firing down on them as they ascended the mountain. The mechs would fire at them and kill them or at least send them running.

  But at the last minute, something extraordinary happened. The Kilari emerged: tails raging and mouth’s spewing their poisonous sludge everywhere. If the Vithohn came up, we could be shot. But… the Kilari?

  “We can’t keep them back!” one of the humans yelled, firing his weapon in a blind panic.

  I looked over at Reina in a slow-motion turn. She was screaming: the whole battle a breeze of color and movement that made me feel absolutely terrified.

  I couldn’t lose her.

  The only way I had any hope of saving this town, of redeeming myself, was to use my power. My natural birth-given talent. I would stretch it as far as I could, even if it meant my death.

  I would do anything I could to protect her. I would never fail her again.

  Pressing my eyes shut, I felt the energy leaving my body: coursing through my veins and lighting up my spire as the force field exploded outside of me, an immense pink shield that sent a fiery, burning any who tried to get inside of it.

  I watched, eyes wide, as the Vithohn tried to run into the terrifying beam. They would run in and burn as soon as they touched the outer layer: evaporating at a touch.