"Oh come on, it’s not like we're getting paid anymore this time around."
"Yeah, the cheap Goethe bastard."
While the guards ranted, Aaron, crouched within the empty box, peaked out a small hole in the wood and viewed the scene, a bad taste in his mouth.
Are they seriously drunk? Aaron thought. How dare they? It’s a rod...they're getting paid. Useless...
The search for the rods had been ongoing since ancient times, but few countries had ever held all thirteen. The haze had long since been written off as no man's land. The land of the lost, a cursed dark realm, which became its name. Dubbed by the natives of Kaiga for its notoriety at preventing all who entered from finding their way out again.
Nevertheless, travelers of all backgrounds had, out of curiosity or desperation, entered and fled, packed up and prepared themselves for a new world they never found. A place of death and mystery, the Dark Realm had gradually become known as a main attraction for the suicidal.
The guards residing near the back of the basement sat before an ancient relic of civilizations long past which was created by individuals and entities of knowledge and power long forgotten. The rod, tucked away behind the steel vault embedded in the wall, was no simple shipment. It was highly prized by Kaiga’s government, and in less than twenty-four hours it would be transferred to a military base.
While the guards drank, Akane carved hole after hole through the various ceilings of the four story Corpus Commons, following the scroll's direction until finally, she blasted into the basement.
Chapter 30
A Scarred Childhood
"He's dead..." Melissa said standing. "And we need to get out of here."
As her tears dried, Sierra leaned back on the chair and tilted her head back. Her eyes stared uncomprehendingly up at the ceiling, more shocked than grieved. Her disproving grandfather, her adopted kin, was gone. Who did she have to live up to? To blame and impress?
Slack jawed and cloudy eyed, Mr. Goethe's expression in death was one of blank surprise. Daniel reached out a hand and closed the principal's eyes.
"So eyes do close just like in the movies," Daniel said looking up at his sister.
"There aren't corpses in Lollywood,” Katelyn replied.
"Yeah, just addicts,” Melissa said, pushing a strand of hair back behind an ear.
So engrossed in the shock and guilt involved with indirectly taking part in their superior's downfall, Daniel glanced over his shoulder as he stood. He was the sole one among the five to witness Mrs. Quill's demise. While the others looked up in response to her scream cut short by the incinerating flames, Daniel looked away and after a moment, as did Katelyn. Their expressions grim, they exchanged a look as they recalled that day, in unison.
~*~*~*~
"Embarrassing me in public!" Mr. Strata roared, taking the belt to his son's backside.
The short man had a double chin that was complemented by the pudge of a belly which hung over his waist line. Light brown hair, darkened with the profound production of bodily oils, displayed a streak of white running off its side—such was a sign of stress and yet only the beginnings of the thirty-year old's premature aging.
Mrs. Strata was decked out in a frilly yet too tight dress which exhibited the plump woman's unattractive rolls. Nonetheless she would’ve been relatively attractive even with the extra flesh of her chubby cheeks if not for her heavy makeup that left her skin pitted and shot her looks to hell.
Kicking off high heels as she eased onto the white leather of the couch, she pushed back a sprawling black ringlet, one of many thick locks threatening escape from their high hairstyle. Readjusting a manicured hand on the champagne bottle as she shifted her bulk for comfort, the mother tipped the alcohol back, enjoying the view of the beating.
"Stop it! Stop hitting him!" Katelyn screamed as she entered the room at a charge. Her little hands were hooked into claws as she rushed at her father. "Get off my brother!"
Scarcely eight, the little Strata, unlike her parents and despite the family diet of fat and French fries, kept a thin frame. Hair as black as a raven's feather—strong willed and with a mind of its own, broke out of its style of confinement and freely flowed behind her in long thick tresses.
Sinking her nails into the flesh of the large hand which held the silently crying Daniel by the back of his shirt collar—she went to work. But before she could add her teeth to the assault, Mr. Strata tucked the belt in his back pocket and clamped a large hand over his daughter's arm.
"Get out of the way, Katelyn dear,” Mrs. Strata slurred, as she brought the bottle down from her lips. "That little pansy brought it on him—" She burped and consciously putting a hand over her mouth burst out laughing.
Yanking her off, the father swinging Katelyn aside and into the air, let go. Practically thrown across the living room, Katelyn let out a shriek which was cut short as her young body skimmed over the laptop on a desk and went into the wall.
"Whoohoo! Strike!" Mrs. Strata exclaimed and putting her other hand on the bottle, swung it like a baseball bat. Alcohol sloshed from the container, spilling over her and she yelped, then laughed as she righted it.
Retrieving the belt, Mr. Strata resumed the beating. Traveling from the boy's rear to his back, he let the leather wrap around Daniel's stomach, the decorative metal studding of the accessory licking old bruises.
A week from his seventh birthday, the boy hung there limply, acting like dead weight; submissive in the face of his father's overwhelming aggression. Despite this, the child had never once cried out against his father's cruelty, nor cringed in the face of his mother's cheers. He was like a doll, silent and cute but his face was forever impassive.
Katelyn sat up in a daze. Steeling herself, she drifted from the family room and into the kitchen. Climbing onto the counter top, she seized a knife.
"Spilling a glass of water all over the table! You ruined my colleagues’ meals!" Mr. Strata roared. Whack, whack, whack... "I was lucky to get that promotion!"
Whack, whack, whack. The belt came down harder, swinging ever faster. "Forcing me to apologize for your mistake. I don't apologize!"
"You tell him honey!" Mrs. Strata cheered her husband on. "Water goddamn it! Expensive, expensive, expensive! Money down the—the...the wormhole!"
Not in her right mind, the woman's gentle demeanor was warped by alcohol. Unable to cope with her husband's erratic, overly aggressive, and sadistically abusive personality, this was a defense mechanism that was implemented by her submissive yet parasitic nature. By taking to the bottle, she kept the guilt of watching the suffering of her children at bay and blurred the unfavorable memories of herself rooting and cheering the beatings on.
Mr. Strata was the household's center, an absolute authority who ruled with iron unpredictability. As such, the Strata’s world was shrouded under constant threat of a dark storm cloud looming just off the horizon. It infected their thoughts, their behavior changed and warped their personalities to an ever-shifting nature of enablism. It was a world of uncertainty and fear, a place beyond repair of counseling, a hell masked, yet not within the immaculate halls of the Strata estate.
Reentering the room, both hands around the knife, Katelyn approached her mother. Stopping at the couch's side, she looked directly in her eyes. "Stop drinking."
Mrs. Strata looked down, smile still in place. "Oh?" the woman said drawing her head forward, eying the sharp weapon. "Ooh...shiny, what a nice toy."
Katelyn raised the knife and pointed it at her mother. "Help Daniel, now."
Mrs. Strata laughed. "What was that dear?"
"Stop drinking you...you..." said the girl. Then compelled, she glanced at Daniel.
His lip bled openly as he fought the pain with blood and tears, flinching before the landing of each blow with anticipation. He'd become so familiar with the beatings, his father's pattern was all but ingrained, rudimentary, and repetitive; fast, then slow, then fast again.
Seeing to her intentions, Daniel gave
her a fearful shake of the head. No, he mouthed, no.
Katelyn, who never cried, believing she'd never earned the right—took a shaky breath as a tear, the first and the last, dropped reluctantly from her eye. In that moment, something snapped within her. The tear streaked down the cheek and curving at her chin, sat on its end, preparing to drop.
More consciously aware than she'd ever been to the dysfunctionality of her family, Katelyn was enlightened. Gripping the blade ever tighter, she shifted her gaze back to her mother, icy with hatred. The same mother who allowed Daniel to be beaten, who avoided familial confrontation, tip toeing around arguments, and drank herself unconscious.
Katelyn could not begin to recall motherly love and did not quite comprehend, let alone recognize it. Forsaken by her own parent, the girl, disowning the woman before her, saw nothing but a bystander. A drunk. Shifting the knife from both hands to one, Katelyn took a step, swung.
"You don't deserve to live!"
It would end today, Katelyn thought as she split the skin on the back of her mother's hand which had held the champagne. Today, for better or worse.
In that thought and with that action, she took the first step, a risk and gamble for life, for Daniel. Blood seeped from her mother's wound and Katelyn smiled, relishing in the mark of her first rebellion.
"You heifer!" Mrs. Strata screamed and releasing the champagne glass, reflexively drew her hand back. "You cut me! Jeffery! Jeffery!"
The glass shattered on impact with the hardwood below and Mr. Strata, mid-swing, froze, wide eyed and gaping. So overwhelmed with his latest fit of rage, so engrossed in the air of superiority, the high he received from beating his feeble son, he was confused, utterly blind, lost in the turmoil that flew out from under his control and into his daughter's—his favorite, the family prodigy. He dropped the belt and the fabric of Daniel's shirt collar slipped through his fingers as the father looked on, dumbfounded. "What's—" Mr. Strata began.
"Die!" Katelyn shrieked and climbed onto the couch after her retreating mother who recoiled, waving her uninjured hand before her. Katelyn in her bloodlust was blind to such demeaning body language and swung the knife, devoid of hesitation. Grating through skin and bone, the slim butcher knife lopped off the tip of two fingers, the pointer and middle.
Mrs. Strata screamed and kicked out, catching Katelyn in the chest. She sent the girl tumbling backward, over the couch's arm.
The wind was knocked out of her, the knife was thrown from her hand and stuck itself in the white leather as Katelyn hit the hardwood. "What's going on here?! Marrissa!" Mr. Strata yelled, trying to get a hand on the action.
It would be the first and the last time his wife would ever ignore him. Mrs. Strata was swept away in the moment. Her body flipped the switch of self-preservation and crawled over the couch cushions at an incredible rate of speed. She pulled the knife out of the leather and placed a stockinged foot on the furniture's arm. Then she launched herself into the air, bloodshot eyes trained on her daughter.
Straddling Katelyn in the landing, Mrs. Strata, grating through flesh and bone, pushed the knife ever deeper into her daughter's chest, embedding the blade into her heart's middle. She refused to let up until the tip pierced the wood on the other side.
"Katelyn!" Daniel screamed and pushed himself to his hands. "Katelyn!"
Mrs. Strata sat back on her heels, one hand still holding the knife loosely.
"It didn't have to be this way,” the mother said, voice breaking, the tears freely flowing. "It didn't have to be this way." Katelyn stared up at her mother uncomprehendingly.
What was she talking about? Of course it had to be this way.
The girl propped herself up on her elbows. The knife, where was the...her eyes looked down at her chest, drawn to the black hilt of the blade. She gasped bewildered, but when the pain did not come and blood did not yet stain her dress and her heart did not stop, Katelyn looked up at her mother's anguished expression. Then her father who had fallen to his knees, wore a similar look of despair. It was odd, she felt nothing. It was as if the knife had never entered. She felt fine, as whole and as healthy as she had been a moment before.
Above, on her forehead, however, an interlocking glow traced the blue-gray of a chain which drew itself on her skin. When the titus drew its last link, Katelyn lurched, her back arching as twin chains sprouted from her chest, from the wound. Small in size and spiked at the ends, they were nearly transparent and twisted around the handle of the knife in a blur of speed. Breaking off as one began to wrap itself around her mother's arm, she watched as the other shot across the room for the father.
Snaking around Marissa’s arm, the chain went once about the woman's shoulders before launching itself into her chest.
Mr. Strata glancing at the chain in his wife. Then he scrambled to his feet and fled from his own at an uneven run. The chain caught him at the ankle and he dropped, falling flat on his face. The chain, making quick work of its target, slid around the rest of his body and stabbed into his chest.
Turning over from stomach to back, the father coughed up blood, his face agonized as he ran a hand over his chest, forward and back and forward again. His fingers slipped through the chain whose transparency transcended the physical realm.
Sitting up, Katelyn watched her mother with cased eyes.
"A seal...this is a seal...my baby was born with a seal,” the woman muttered, hands shaking before the incomprehensible chain running out of her body. "....seal, innate power, rare—seal..." She started to laugh, hysterically. "I'm going to die!"
Katelyn put a hand on the handle of knife in her chest, feeling a strong compulsion to pull it out.
"No dear...no..." The mother gasped eyes pleading as she waved her wounded hand before her. "Katelyn...please, I'm your mother..." Katelyn pulled the knife from her body.
The chains from both parents pulled free and whipping back, slammed back into the chest of the little girl. Panting for a moment, Katelyn stood and walked over to the window. Maneuvering the glass' integrated touch screen, she brought up the voice command.
"Who would you like to call?" the monotone voice asked.
"Aunt Shelly."
"Calling."
"Hello?" a shrill woman's voice answered.
Katelyn hesitated for a moment, then cast a look at the horrified Daniel. Turning back to the window, she replied. "Aunty?"
"Oh it's you Katie. How are you, sweetheart?"
"There's been a robbery."
Chapter 31
A Question of Loyalty
Whirling down from the roof, Akane regained her footing on the basement floor and drew her katanas.
"The hell is that?" one of the guards exclaimed, dropping their alcohol in favor of a gun. Nathan unhooked a long chain from his belt and infusing it with his lime green titus, grabbed one end of it from the air.
"Where is the rod?" Akane demanded as she made her way to the back of the basement.
"Who are you?" Nathan asked stepping forward; he was the first to approach the monk, to his detriment. Pulling back a sword, Akane slit his throat as she passed. Nathan's chain fell, slipping through his fingers as blood spurted from his neck. He went down in pooling crimson, his hands reaching for his neck as he choked on the fluid.
"Answer the question,” Akane said coolly. Pointing a sword at one of the other men, she flung the blood off the other blade in a deft movement. "I will not ask you again."
"Like hell you will!" one guard said and standing from a box, pulled the trigger of his gun. Akane slit her hostage's throat as she ducked the bullet, ignoring the discharge of raining blood from her victim’s severed veins. She pushed the dying man aside to stab the female guard in the heart.
Jerking the blade from the woman, Akane slashed the shooter with both blades, from abdomen to chest. Side-stepping a punch from behind, turning she came up and across into the guard's neck, lopping off their head in the process. Dropping as a man brought a foldable chair down on her head, she rolled out o
f the way just before the plastic furniture came down again. Akane came up from a crouch, both katanas in hand, and stabbed him in the side with one.
Pulling out the blade as he fell, Akane reached out and grabbed the back of his head with both hands. She delivered a knee to his throat, crushing it. Not missing a beat, the robed woman, flipping the blades over her wrists, transferred them back into the gut of the last of the guards. Retracting the blades, in one fluid movement she whirled on the opponent in a dual slash across the chest. Sheathing the flaming katanas, she watched as steam rose while the blood evaporated.
Sparing not even the slightest of glances at her handiwork, Akane pulled the scroll from a pocket in the robe and walked the splotchy dark gray paper over to a blood-free cardboard box. Unrolling it across its surface, she ran a finger down the page, her eyes skimming across the inscriptions of the thirteen names of the thirteen rods. The young woman stopped before the one labeled Eighth Rod of Radiance.
Breathing out, she highlighted the name in her red titus, leaving behind glowing lettering. Acting much like an Internet web page, the highlighted words traveled to the top of the scroll and grew in size as the rod's picture came up along with its description, abilities, location, and current holder. Flipping the faintly ruined paper over, Akane appraised a map which contained a layout of the basement. Zeroing in on her position versus the rod's and the estimated distance in between, she calculated a total of six feet.
Akane looked up, her gaze fixated on the vault.
"Oh...so it's in there,” she said rolling up the scroll.
Tucking it back in her robe, she closed the distance and touched the keypad of the vault. Glancing over her shoulder; she frowned at the bodies strewn across the floor.
"I knew I should've spared one."
"Deep breaths....in, out...in..."
Aaron covered his mouth with one hand and held his stomach with his other as he squeezed his eyes shut. Closed or open it didn't matter, he could still see the blood, the bodies, hear the choked gurgles, the shifting of clothing and thump on concrete as a body hit the floor...ah yes, he'd witnessed it all. The murders, the explosion of death brought on by the two blades of a figure cloaked in crimson. There was no helping it; his eyes flew open as he puked over the crate side. Heaving and coughing as he unloaded his dinner, the memory of death refused to be shaken.
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