"So, what do I have to do? Guide me through the steps, geezer."
"This is pretty dangerous kid."
"Challenges always are in one way or another—"
"This isn't a game, Alex. You need to think about whether or not—"
"There's nothing to think about."
"I'm just asking you to take a moment. Think about whether or not returning is really worth it. I don't think you understand the risks."
Alex took a step towards Wilson. "I get it; you want me to value my life. To chuck all hope, throw away my inheritance and adapt? Just drop everything and start over, new life, new people, and all with a new identity or something? Fuck you."
The man's dark blue eyes clouded. "I just don't want to drag another body from this place. Alex, you're young. With your whole life ahead of you, there's no need for you to waste it chasing after some pitiful inheritance—"
“It’s not pitiful, I’ll get millions!” Alex said balling up a fist, his green eyes alight and smoldering. "But you know Wilson, having someone like you expecting me to die is just so damn comforting. It makes me wanna—"
"Don't be stupid, Alex. All you have to do is walk away; no one will blame you—"
Alex swung, rage hooking the fist into a solid jab. Wilson's head snapped back from the blow, vessels popping blood flowed freely from his nose. His hands instinctively covered his nose. An uncanny smile lightened the man's expression as in unison guns snapping from holsters found a target in Alex.
"Put your hands up!" a bodyguard ordered.
Heart pounding, Alex was suddenly short of breath. Dry mouthed, he swallowed with difficulty, eyes wide, pupils dilated, as he raised shaking hands.
The old fucker had it coming, Alex thought triumphantly. He deserved it and if I could, I'd hit him again.
Coming up behind him, one of the bodyguards grabbed a fistful of blond hair and slammed the youth down, forcing his head underwater. Alex thrashed against his assaulter, kicking, gurgling, in the fight for air. His arms flailed and hands clawed at the silt below as his lungs screamed. A stream of bubbles from both his mouth and nose trickled by and true fear settled around his heart.
"Who said you could drown him? Let the kid up now!" The order lashed out like whip and the strong hands holding him vanished.
"Try it again, I dare you,” threatened the guard who'd nearly drowned Alex. The man's words were emphasized by a wave of his gun. “Piece of shit.”
Wilson narrowed his eyes and putting his hands together closed one into a fist. In response, the gun's metal twisted in on itself. The startled guard flung the useless firearm into the water as Alex's coughs echoed off the tiny island's overarching stone walls.
"Sorry about that." Wilson held out a scarlet hand, bloody from his nose. "I'm sort of important. My safety is their only priority so...it's best not to hit me." He smiled and Alex gritted his teeth, tempted to give the man another heartfelt swing.
Eyes cast upon the hand in revulsion, Alex returned the offer with a glare. "Thanks, but no—" He stopped mid-sentence, the words clotting in his throat as he caught the eyes of the bodyguard who'd nearly drowned him. If looks could kill, Alex would've been the next body. Without a word, Alex took the offered hand, allowing the older man to help him up.
"How do I make a cube?" he asked softly.
Wilson's looked at him incredulously. "Did your voice just crack?"
"Just answer the question."
"How should I know?"
"How should you—you're teaching me about titus, you flaky bastard."
"I've never made one."
"Then what are you good for? Why are you even here?!"
"But I'll give you some pointers. It’s the least I can do since one of my guards nearly filled your lungs full of water...oh wait, I forgot, you brought it on yourself. Hmm...well anyway, the average manipulation requires originality, which in turn stems from imagination."
"And we're back at square one."
"However, your own internal supply demands a huge portion of the individual's intellectual capacity or in other words, requires their undivided attention while simultaneously supplying their imagination."
"I—I don't get it."
Wilson sighed. "Basically, to make a Rubik's cube with your titus, you have to multitask in sync with your conscious and subconscious mind."
"That doesn't make any sense."
"That's because it’s virtually impossible."
"Obviously not." Alex caught the lie. "If it was, you wouldn't have been able to tell me anything in the first place because of a lack of information."
"Most of that information was collected data, more from people in their final moments than the few that survive. Which is precisely why—"
"Uh-huh, yeah."
Wilson put a hand on Alex's shoulder. "There's over a ninety percent chance for your death, brain damage, and, or serious injury involving the shut down or uselessness of a limb, organ or vital bodily function. You're young Alex, so look on this realistically, weigh the odds and choose the safe route or do you want open your eyes as a soul looking down on their dead body?"
"Yeah...whatever, how do I start?"
"This is serious Alex, you could die."
"I heard you the first time,” Alex said and running a hand through his hair he brushed past the man.
"Don't say I didn't warn you."
"I never will. So how do I start?"
"I don’t know..." Wilson admitted with a shrug. "I've never been stupid enough to try."
"You suck as a teacher."
"I'm a mentor."
Sinking down into a sitting position, legs crossed before the cube like opening, Alex took a deep breath and then, closing his eyes, let it out slowly. The image of a Rubik's cube in its simplest form settled into his mind naturally. It was the same one he had solved many times over back at home. Surprisingly it wasn't difficult to conjure and it appeared in his mind's eye as it always had, multicolored and scrambled, waiting, calling to be solved.
He began to first solve the green side, his favorite color. Shifting the last of them into place, he moved next to blue, falling into his usual routine and pattern, his color code. Intuition urged him to give the puzzle a once over before continuing. Something wasn't right, something had changed. The green side had disappeared. No, Alex realized upon closer inspection, it had re-scrambled itself.
Solving it back, he turned his attention to the white squares but paused, noticing a blue piece in another area. The blue, like the green before it, had also unsolved itself.
What's going on? he wondered, pausing his conquest, puzzled.
Every time he took his eyes off one side in favor of another it shifted, unsolved. Alex felt himself delving deeper into his mind like a diver into the ocean.
He gave the cube his undivided attention. Viewing the green side, he took a mental picture of it, only to push it to the side, to the back of his mind, present yet out of the way. Solving the blue in a matter of seconds, he felt himself slowing, becoming sluggish, almost...tired, as he set its image aside. Nevertheless, he pushed on. Only four more sides to go. Struggling to slide the last row of white into its completed side, he felt as if his head was splitting, as if someone were physically forcing an axe through the bone his skull and into the soft pink pudginess that was his brain. Jarred back with a scream, his eyes rolled back as he hit the water.
~*~*~*~
Slowly, blinking in the glare of the florescent lights above, Alex dumbfounded stared at the ceiling before turning his head on the pillow. He peered at the all too familiar bubbly blue wallpaper. Wilson, sitting at the foot of the bed, arms crossed, came into focus, his eyes closed in sleep, a magazine on his head. Three bodyguards stood at attention in the room with the silhouettes of the other two visible outside.
I'm back in the hospital, Alex realized sluggishly. Attempting to lift his head, a groan slipped into a gurgled gasp as a sharp pain spiked through neck to head. Hitting the pillow, his head lolled to o
ne side in a daze as the brief agony died down instead into a steady throb accompanied by a slow underlying wave of nausea. His eyes fluttered for a moment before closing; then darkness descended as he slipped into sleep.
Opening his eyes hours later, Alex, sat up on an elbow, and wincing ripped out an IV. Heaving suddenly, he threw up over the side of the bed...coating Wilson's dress shoes in yellow bile. Wilson jumped to his feet spiting obscenities. As if sensing Alex's lapsing concentration, the man rolling up the magazine, swung. Assessing the situation in record time, one of the bodyguards intercepted his swinging arm.
The youth's vision blurred and time lapsed as a splitting headache overcame him. Crashing into him like a tidal wave, it swept him into the fast moving rapids of anguish that had no end in sight. Hands digging into his scalp, paling he doubled over. His howls however did little but scratch the surface of his torment. It was as if there was a continuous stream of water sliding over his skull, painstakingly drilling over time through flesh and bone.
"Alex, Alex! Alex!" Wilson had the youth by the shoulders. Shaking him, he tried to catch his distant pain-laden eyes. The man looked up, fear crawling over him in a slow chill, a memory locked deepest of all the corridors of his mind. A young face flashed, a teenage boy whose light brown eyes danced with life one moment before shifting to unseeing ones, cloudy in death and bloody with tears.
"Harrison..." Wilson recoiled from Alex like a spring, hands shaking as he pressed the button for the nurse, and rounding the bed, left the room without a second glance. He hoped that unlike his childhood friend, when he returned a body wouldn't be waiting for him.
Chapter 10
Toxic Skies
I don’t have the stamina for another round of close combat, Akane thought coming down a hill. A tracer attack, perhaps…? Yes, that should be enough.
“Thermal Phoenix,” she said, clapping her hands together as she landed.
The ground shook as lava shot up into a small geyser before her, giving way to the large metallic skeleton of a bird of prey. Its fiery wings sprouted from its sides as it sailed up into the air. Turning, as Akane held out an arm, the bird swooped in, settled its talons around her black sleeve, the white fire of its eyes sputtering as they stared at her.
Lifting her other hand and conjuring a large ball of white flame within it, she poured the fire into the bird’s head, imprinting with it the image of Melissa. Letting out a screech as it absorbed her titus, a white ball of flame swirled ominously within its ribcage as it stepped away.
“Seek and destroy,” Akane ordered throwing her arm into the air. The bird flapping its fire-strewn wings took flight once more, flames trailing out behind as it soared. Taking to the air herself with crossed arms, she watched the avian coast across the desert.
Skating along the sand on her black metals, Melissa stared ahead. She left her shadow to keep tabs on their surroundings.
Mr. Leptin said reinforcements were coming… she thought, her anxiety rising. He said that they were coming, but there’s no one out here. No one… Do—do you think we’re on our own out here, Shadow?
The tracker’s in your blood, her shadow tersely reassured her. They'll find you eventually.
Yeah…they’ll find me—
Without her consent her black metals spreading out, caught her as she pitched forward from the momentum and enwrapping her in a cocoon, rolled into the ground. The white metals encasing the ball extended several wires which sprouted into a multitude of claws. Digging down, the white metals pulled the ball down with it and retreated deep into the earth.
What the hell?! Melissa thought, pressing her hands on the inside of the shell. Shadow what are you doing?!
Saving our life.
Dropping from the sky like a missile, the metal bird dived into the desert. A massive explosion erupted from the earth, its intense heat and brilliant fire spreading across nearly a mile, appeared to flash like a mini-sun within the desert. It left in its wake the bright amber of molten glass, mournful grey of ashen weeds, black bodies of creatures, and on its outskirts, burning brush whose fires seemed to wave in the wind like banners. A cataclysmic shockwave echoed the detonation and rolled through the desert carrying with it heat, dust and high speed winds. Above the devastation plumed a mushroom cloud which rose up as if to join the clear blue sky.
Watching her handiwork from the skies at a distance of several miles, Akane, hovered with a hand on her black-robed companion’s arm.
“You did well to teleport me away,” Akane said to the bald man.
“It’s been awhile since I’ve seen it,” Vargus said, appraising the blast’s aftermath curiously with dark eyes. “It’s rare to see you go so far.”
“It was necessary.”
“So I assume she's dead?”
“Naturally. Not even Jamieh could survive such a blast.”
“Neither did the wildlife,” Vargus said dryly, giving her a sideways look.
“I’ll atone for my actions at the temple.”
“I hope you know this is an act of war.”
“We've been at war for a long time,” Akane said with a small smile. “This just forces Kaiga to accept it.”
“What a pity,” Vargus said, as he glanced back upon the devastation. Putting a hand to Akane’s head he closed his eyes as they both faded and disappeared.
~*~*~*~
“Let me out!” Melissa yelled, pounding a fist from the inside of the black ball.
You’re messing with my concentration, shut up, her shadow said.
“If you’re planning to take over the rest of my body, then you’re dreaming!” she shouted, pounding harder. “You hear me? Dreaming! ‘Cause I won’t go down without a fight, you can be sure of that!”
Oh silence your incessant whining, you ignorant bitch. We are two halves of the same coin. Can heads fight tails?
“Well no, but—“
Can tails fight heads?
“Whose tails?”
Of all the vessels, why did I get stuck with such a stupid—ugh! We’re under attack, you fool!
“Attack? That fiery lady found us?” Melissa said, shocked. “Is that why we’re going underground?”
I don’t know if she sent it but the bird that came carried with it an enormous amount of titus. The pressure was intense.
“I—” Melissa’s words were cut off as she smacked her head against the curved walls while a shudder rocked through the earth with the passing of the shock wave.
“What the hell?” Melissa screamed, putting a hand on the walls on either side of her. “What’s going—what’s going on? Shadow? Shadow? Shadow what’s going on?!”
Do you see what you overlooked now? it questioned testily.
“I—”
Never mind, now it is irrelevant. We’ll stay down here until the earth calms. Now get a hold of yourself, you’re not dying.
“O-okay,” Melissa said, letting out a deep breath. “Oh…I think I’m going to be sick.”
You need me as much as I need you. Actually…I need you less, and you need me more.
“So, uh, Shadow?” the blonde asked after a few moments. “What do we do now?”
We can't go back to the surface, not as it is now. I'm sure radiation is littering the area. I’ll move us deeper underground and then come up after clearing five or so miles before popping up.
“Radiation? Wasn’t that type of titus banned after the treaty was signed?”
Yes…and it’s among the deadliest; if I’d dived a moment later I doubt we would’ve survived. That woman’s clearly elite to hold such a potent form. Very few magus could conjure such a powerful attack and even less could do it and survive the strain.
~*~*~*~
Like a tarantula crawling out of the sand, Melissa's metals pulled themselves out. As the white metals receded and set the large black sphere on solid ground, it slowly unraveled from around Melissa who stepped out into the sand.
Looking back, her eyes saw nothing short of devastation. A deep b
lack scar marred the earth as she stared down into a valley created by the blast.
We should go, that woman might still be after us, her shadow said.
Turning around Melissa left the destruction behind and began to slide down the hill she stood upon. She wandered further into the desert. Wind whipped about her as she stumbled onto the hill’s base. Glancing up, she saw three large helicopters fly by overhead. Shielding her face as the swirling sand began to pelt her, she waved a hand.
“I'm right here!” she yelled, jumping into the air. “Right here, damn you!” Stopping, she smiled, relieved and waited as one of them began to circle back. As the helicopter neared the ground, a black ladder unfurled from its cockpit and two men standing on either side of it roped down.
“Are you alright, ma’am?” one of them asked, touching her shoulder as he guided her towards the ladder his companion held steady.
“I'm fine,” Melissa said and grabbing a rung, she began to climb. At the top of the ladder, she was pulled into the helicopter by another soldier.
“Young lady, do you know what happened here?” a soldier asked looking out the window as she took a seat.
“A bomb happened.”
“Sir, stay away from that zone. Go around it,” one of the men ordered to the pilot, staring down at a device. “It’s showing high levels of radiation.”
“Rodger that,” the pilot answered and as the soldiers who’d roped down boarded, he steered away from it.
“It looks like a full scale war just happened here,” another soldier commented, crossing his arms.
“That's because one did,” Melissa said grimly, her thoughts wondering to where Leptin was.
“Was anyone with you, ma’am?”
“There—there were others but at the end, it was just me and my guardian, Principal Leptin.”
“Do you know his whereabouts?”
“No. He was fighting the woman who attacked us. He told me to run, so I ran.”
“Guys, look to your right,” the copilot said.
Glancing out the window Melissa saw the broken remains of a massive concrete ball sunk into the desert.
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