by Zac Atie
”I… I am…” Bastion begins, not knowing how to continue. “I…” What is he to say? Is he supposed to come up with some half assed superhero name, really fast? He knew his actual name would mean nothing to him. Is he to negotiate, allow him to leave if he lets her go? No, he needed to take his attention away from Veronica. But how? Bastion thinks hard, clenching his teeth, but then he remembers. Back in the Apartment. What was he looking for? “I… I'm the… I'm the paladin!” Bastion shouts, hoping it wouldn’t sound stupid. From how it sounded, it looked as if he actually WAS looking for a superhero name, but he realized that wasn’t the case when he saw the expression of the Killer change from a angry snarl, to a surprised glare. He takes his foot off Veronica’s throat. “Huh.” The killer grunts, in a mocking tone, smiling lowly. “The paladin… what are you doing away from your pup?” He asks. The Killer moves from Veronica’s body like he had lost all interest, circling Bastion slowly. Bastion had no clue what he was talking about, of course. “Just… What do you want with Veronica? Why have you been killing people?” Bastion asks, but the killer just hushes him, as if how you would hush a baby. “Forget that…” The killer smiles softly, then changes to an aggressive look. “Where’s the boy?” Bastion, once again, had no clue what he was asking. “Answer me… Where did dear old Abaddon hide the babe? I had thought a Magi settlement, but I doubted it. Had the British Magi knew what they had been blessed with, they would likely use him as some sort of pawn to get back to our world, or take from it. The boy is destined for great things, so why don’t you just hand him over? All this damned waiting is pure torture, I tell you.” The killer explains, confusing Bastion even more, taking a step forward, readying his sword. Bastion takes another step back. “You must have some sort of special inheritance… the fact that I hadn’t actually sensed you with hollow sight is amazing…” The killer hisses. “This bitch couldn’t hide her Aura, neither could the other Magi. Yet I cut them all down. But you…” The killer laughs. Bastion was confused, wondering what he meant by Aura’s and Magi, but the killer continued. “You, and your pup, ESPECIALLY your pup, have some advanced skills when it comes to hiding your Aura. Let’s hope they match your combat abilities…” Bastion feels some sort of instinct. It feels a lot like the feeling he had when he had that fire scenario in the park… Can he use it for combat? He used the park’s energy to convert the… Magic, into fire… so can he do it here? He sees the killer snarl again, this time with the frustration of impatience. “You think you can play with me?” The killer says, raising his hand. With instinct, Bastion shot his hand out in front of him. He feels energy from the medallion enter his body, up his arm, into his hand, and it shoots out! But no fire comes out… Nothing seems to change, the magic shoots out and through the man to an object behind him. Then Bastion tightens his grip, and he feels as if he has something in his hand, though it’s far away. He yanks his hand backward, and the chair from across the room comes flying across towards him. The killer recognizes the hand movements, and rolls out of the way, as does Bastion, and the chair flies past him, smashing through the doors he had barged through earlier, tearing them clean off their hinges. Bastion scrambles to his feet, and sees another chair fly at him!
Bastion yells and falls backwards, hands raised up, and magic flares in his body again. The chair looks as if it’s about to hit him, then stops a few inches away from him, smashing into some sort of invisible wall… but then, he sees the wall. It’s not invisible, but a pattern. Dozens of hexagon, grid-like shapes creating half a sphere, protecting the area in front of Bastion. As the chair hits the wall, the legs and plastic of the chair dent, and fly backwards onto the floor, screeching and scratching along it. The grid like sphere holds, although he sees a drain in it’s durability. The killer throws another chair, and another, and eventually the shield is dented, a crack reaching and connecting through the grids as if it were glass. The chairs stopped, and he saw the red-faced killer charge something up, and Bastion decided he’d dodge, breaking away from his shield and running off to his right, avoiding a large bolt of electricity flying at him, startling him nearly out of his wits. The adrenaline coursing through his body was enough to sustain his mentality, though, fortunately for him. As he left the shield, it fell apart and the remainder of the magic returned to his medallion, ready for reusing. After he hears another chair hit the wall behind him, he stops and decides he’ll make an attack on the man. He recalls what he did at the Haven. He drew magic from his medallion, and converted it, thinking of electricity this time. The man was mid stride in throwing another chair, which was fast becoming old, so Bastion flared the electricity in his hand, and shot it toward the man. The electricity hit, and caught the chair flying at Bastion, and brought it along for the ride, as it nearly hits the red faced man, though he dodged with a cartwheel to his right. This disheartened Bastion. He already felt that the electricity was far beyond his limits, and the man simply shrugged it off. It was obvious that this man had done this many times before, he could tell from him disciplined moves and his calm reactions, acting as if battle was no big deal. Was this man playing with him? He didn’t seem bothered in the least. The way he fired his spells, dodged and attacked were like an art of some kind, and he could relate the dignity and honor from his time pretending to be a samurai at his sword fighting classes. “What the hell are you?” Bastion asks. He red faced man squints.
”You do not know of us… A dull, foolish little Paladin aren’t you?” He asks. “I am Torrig, the paragon of Sheol, the leader of Sanctum, and he commands your death. My Arcana will rend you asunder!” Bastion still didn’t understand what the man was saying, but he did catch that his name was Torrig. “You don’t have to do this, Torrig. Nobody else needs to be hurt.” Bastion wheezes. Torrig laughs, “You’re odd. It’s peculiar that you seek to reason with me without asking WHY Sanctum is even here on earth, or why they are seeking your death.” Torrig laughs. A good point, though Bastion doesn’t actually think that he’ll be able to understand what Torrig is talking about. “It doesn’t matter!” Bastion shouts. Bastion throws a chair at Torrig, who sighs, and moves aside from it, but as he stopped and came into position, Bastion had advanced towards him.
Torrig tried to look for some sort of indication of what Bastion would do next, but Bastion just stood there, both hands behind his back, panting and trying to look tough, perhaps intimidate Torrig. This both puzzled, and amused Torrig, who changed his defensive stance to a passive, casual stance. He waits for a few seconds, then swipes his sword in the air in front of Bastion, trying to make him flinch. Bastion did nothing. Bastion hoped in his heart he wasn’t being stupid, but he knew he had to try this plan, to try and get him off guard. Torrig sensed no magic within Bastion, but dared not approach him and open himself up as he swiped at him. He decided instead that he’d take a page out of Bastion’s book. “I believe your human sorcerers, the Magi, name their spells, yes?” Torrig asks, “Well, here. I believe this is called Odin.” He smiles smugly, and draws Electricity to his hand to fire at Bastion. The electricity comes within inches of Bastion before Bastion bring up his left hand, which short outs most of the electricity with his own, and it soars towards Torrig. Torrig was startled, but decided he’d play it easy, and brought up a shield, which he knew was his weak point. The shield took most of the damage, but shattered around the same time as Bastion stopped channelling the Electricity. This repelled Torrig a little, and before he knew what was going on, Bastion had raced across to him, and he took out his right hand, which was charged with electricity. But, instead of shooting it, he tried to use the electricity to increase the force of his punch, trying to puncture the man’s body. Torrig was off balance, but brought up his sword in defence, trying to block the punch. He figured Bastion’s lightning would not be able to match his Arcana, and Bastion would end up cutting his hand in half by ramming it into the Plasma, but this was not the case. Torrig sensed a huge, unnatural surge in Bastion’s magic, which startled Torrig into thinking that he had ju
st made the biggest mistake of his life for a moment, but fortunately for him, Bastion did not break the Arcana, like he intended, but instead hit it hard, as if the Arcana was being hit by another Arcana. Torrig and Bastion both repelled from each other from the force, the Arcana flying out of Torrig’s hands, cutting his arm slightly. Bastion could not keep his balance and was knocked on his back. Bastion tried to get up, but before he could, the killer soared across the room, screaming vile curses, and kicked him in the face, hard. Bastion didn’t feel any pain from the blow, funnily enough, but before Bastion could retaliate, Torrig was on top of him. He pinned Bastion down by his neck and ripped away his medallion, throwing it across the room. His instincts were gone, it was like losing the desire for water while being extremely thirsty. He heard the medallion clang off the floor off in the distance, and the killer snarled, no longer laughing. “I'm sick of you, now.” Torrig snarled, reinforcing his grip on Bastions neck with his other hand “Tell me where he is, or I will prolong your suffering beyond extremities that you could never imagine!” Bastion tried to fight back, but the blows had no effect of Torrig, who slowly began to regain his smug smile. His right hand was busted, which he soon realised as pain began to flare tremendously, and his left hand blows were not as strong as his right, and it didn’t feel right putting all his power into his left hand. Bastion began to fade after a while of futile fighting… His blows slowly became more and more dull, becoming slower and less frequent… and eventually… All pressure was gone, and Bastion began gasping for air. His strength had gone, and the pain and fatigue from the fight surged into his body. Through all the desperate gasps of air, and groans from his pain, he looked at Torrig. His eyes were wide, and his hands were a couple of inches away Bastion’s throat. Torrig was trying to move, to struggle, but Bastion could feel that something held him in place. A figure walked slowly up to the pair, and as Bastion’s vision came back to him, he saw clearly who it was. Veronica, in her black Victorian dress, holding an Arcana. Her Index and middle finger were outstretched on her other hand, and Bastion could sense some sort of sinister feeling from then. Torrig was gasping, trying to say something, and he twisted his head to his right to look at the oncoming female. “Yo...You...” Torrig spurted, as Veronica ignited the Arcana. There was an evil, angry, frightening look in her eyes, and Bastion saw exactly why he had been having this frightening feelings from Veronica. “I didn’t know... You’re the child of om-“ But he never finished his sentence. The only thing that finished was his life, as the foreign blade Veronica was holding took his head with a swift, merciless, painless swipe.
It was like shooting star, flying across the room, leaving behind small trails of smoke as it made it’s way across the assembly hall. The wound on the head and the neck was making a sizzling sound. Torrig’s body slumped a second after his life ended, his shoulders sagging and his arms dropping to the floor. Bastion didn’t even have to move as Torrig’s body slumped to his left, making a small thud. That was the single most sickening sound Bastion had ever heard, the body of a dead man hitting the ground. He gasped with disgust, and scrambled to his hands and knees, backing away, crawling to the wall, in shock and fear at the second dead body that he had seen in the week. The body didn’t look right, didn’t look real. It was just like in the movies, a still body. The body without the head merely looked like a movie prop, which made him all the more sick. The smell was awful, too, which didn’t make sense. The blood squirted from the head, and a small pool of blood formed… this was odd, normally if you hack of a head there’s tons of blood, but the blood here was only small. Then the realization sets in. The small sizzling sounds dies out, taking the last squirts of blood from the head with it, and with closer inspection, Bastion realizes that the weapon that was used to hack the head from Torrig’s body was the tool that was used to kill the victims, and cauterize the wounds. Bastion looks up, and his face goes white at realization on who saved him, and what she had done. “Veronica?...” Bastion wheezes, smiling softly. Veronica looked a little pale faced, staring at the body, then she whispered “Sanctum… tried to kill me?” Veronica asked, puzzled. “They have reason to kill ME, but the others… what the hell’s going on?”
”Yeah… me too…” Bastion said, trying to make light of it as he climbed to his feet, but while his voice sounded strong and confident, his body was a lot less stable. “So, that was the assailant. Here I thought it was some vengeful Magi.” She whispers. “But, they’re not looking for the portal site… they’re looking for a paladin and a bastard child… Perhaps-“
”Errr, hello!?” Bastion snaps at her “Before you begin filling in a report and acting like we both weren’t just nearly killed, you mind explaining to me what’s happening? What site? Who the hell’s Sanctum?” Veronica snapped out of her trance, and turned on Bastion. She stared at him for a short while, then snapped, “You!” She raises the Arcana in her hand towards Bastion, which makes him jolt with fright at the bizarre weapon, as if it were a cobra.
”Wait, what are you doing!?” Bastion asked, trying to back off, even though he was sat up against a wall.
”What are you doing here? What did you hear?” Veronica snarled.
”Well, since everything I heard made no sense… nothing, really.” Bastion sighs cockily, but Veronica didn’t look amused. “Look, look, he had you controlled, like he did to the other victims. I… followed you two here, and freed you!”
”You… freed me? How did you find us?” She asked. Bastion points over towards the Medallion that Torrig threw across the room. “Impossible…” She whispers.
”What is? Never mind, I tried to save you… but I failed, I…” Bastion began, but Veronica cut him off.
”The fact that he didn’t crush you in two seconds in highly impressive. The being you thought was of the rank of ‘Paragon’…” Veronica said.
“What’s a paragon?” Bastion asked, but Veronica waves away his question.
”Enough, this is madness.” Veronica sighs, and picks up the man’s head. “Pull the body over to the stage over there, we’re going to burn the assembly hall.” Bastion’s eyes widened at the sheer insanity of the order.
”What?? That’s insane, you can’t-“ Bastion began.
”Stage an accident, and hide the evidence of a damned alien on the planet, or be found out. You want this to go global?” Veronica snaps, but when she sees Bastion’s shocked plebeian face, she says. “Silence. Don’t answer, just pull him over.” Bastion did as she asked, and grabbed Torrigs’ arms and slid him across the ground. Small trails of blood followed the body, gradually fading. Bastion felt sick, as he could see the stump where the head was hacked off. He couldn’t believe that he was actually going to cover up a killing, even If it was manslaughter, though he kept telling himself that the killing was just, since the only justifiable way to kill is to save an innocent life. “How did you find me?” Veronica asked, interrogating him. “Can we talk about this later, I sort of… feel sick…” Bastion groaned. Veronica huffed at the statement, watching Bastion carry the body up the flight of stairs onto the stage. “You don’t look like you’ve fought with magic before.” Veronica stated.
”Did you just... say magic?” Bastion asked, chuckling at the ludicrous statement. Veronica never answered, nor did she return his chuckle. “No, I haven’t…” Bastion says, setting the body down. “This where you want it?”
”He called you a Paladin, didn’t he?” Veronica pondered. “Why?”
”I don’t know, I have no clue what a Paladin is.” Bastion said, backing away from the corpse. He started to feel weaker. He wondered why, as he looked at the medallion and sensed there was still magic in it. All of a sudden, pain flared in his hand, and he dropped to his knees gasping in pain. Pain also flared in his face, both far worse than what it felt like moments ago. “What’s wrong?” Veronica asked.
”My wounds in battle. My hand and my face hurt, though it didn’t while I was in the middle of combat… why?” Bastion wheezed. ”You were
fighting with instinct, with what your magic was practically screaming at you to do. Even though you likely didn’t realize it, when the man hit you, and you damaged your hand, the magic numbed the pain by itself… now that you’re not in danger…” Veronica said. “You’re feeling fatigue from the amount of magic you were using. You used too much, and you were horrible with it. I’m surprised you’re still conscious.”
”I gotta go to a hospital.” Bastion said, clutching his hand “I think I fractured a bone, or something.”
”No need,” Veronica said, and knelt down in front of Bastion. She took his hand, and slowly, he felt warm magic seep into his hand. There was pain involved, but he felt his bones construct back into normality, and soon, all he could feel was warmth and relaxation in his wounds. Then, the magic went up to his face, where a bruise had appeared. The magic practically stitched the cut underneath the skin back together, and the bruise began to fade. “There” Veronica said.
”How did you do that? You didn’t even use any magic from the Medallion!” Bastion beamed. “Amazing!”
”It’s not, it’s base magic. Don’t worry about it, right now we need to burn this place.” Veronica said, and she began starting a fire.
Veronica and Bastion ran out of the building as the thick smell of smoke began to spread around the school, and outside. The fire shouldn’t spread far, though this building was where the exams were being held, so the school may shut down temporarily. Usually, this wouldn’t bother him, but thanks to the mess that had gone on for the past few days in his life, he hoped he’d have a break. They began walking down the road, side by side, slowly and awkwardly as people began to notice the fire. Veronica stood out in the street, wearing her Victorian blouse and long skirt, so it was rather embarrassing to actually be seen with her. But, then again, Bastion didn’t care too much about what people thought of him, so how would this be any different? “You know I have a ton of questions, right?” Bastion asks.