Duplicitous: The Leordian Chronicles

by JC Dameron

  "Absolutely!" Her eagerness was a welcome distraction from the tragic events of the day.

  Vesta rejoined me in front of the target, holding her hands near each other, crossing her pointer fingers, and focusing on the place they crossed.

  "Digitorum Ignis," she chanted.

  A ball of flame appeared once again, this time red with what appeared to be waves of flame dancing across the surface of the orb.

  "Now, visualize the orb flying to the target and consuming it," I said, pointing to the target.

  Vesta closed her eyes, and moments later the orb of flame shot across the room, and made impact with the target. Flames spread across the surface of the target, and once the flame had vanished, so too did the target. I had never, from the time I was able to remember, been near a caster with an active invocation where I wasn't absorbing a portion of their Ether. It was exhilarating, even if temporary, to feel how the humans of this world must feel when they witnessed the power of a caster.

  "Well done, Vesta," I said, praising her.

  "Thanks, Aunt Vel!" She said, smiling proudly.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  Invasion

  Vesta and I stood inside of the training room, as she practiced the invocations that she had learned, and she eventually found a balance between creating a barrier and utilizing the fire affinity attack that I had taught her. I realized that I had been holding the Spell blade the entire time, and I was still not absorbing any Ether. I placed the Spellblade into its sheath, and I lavished praise upon Vesta. As we recounted her progress, an alarm began to sound within the building, and seconds later, the lights went out completely. Shortly after, the alarm began to ring aloud once again and the backup lights turned on. The view inside the building possessed an eerie resemblance to the appearance of the halls from my dream, and my heart immediately began to race. I grabbed Vesta, who had released her barrier, and I held her close. Moment's later, Leaha's voice rang across the intercom, but it didn't seem to be limited to the training room; rather, it seemed as though it was an open channel throughout the entire building.

  "This is not a drill!" She proclaimed across the intercom. "All non-militant personnel, evacuate immediately! All others, arm yourselves; our shields have been brought down by an external source. All agents are to report to the telepad room, immediately!" She declared.

  I looked to Vesta, and she appeared to be feeling as frightened as I was.

  "It's okay, Vesta. They'll have the situation under control any second now," I said, unsure if I spoke the truth.

  I walked with Vesta to the far corner of the room, where we tucked ourselves behind some of the equipment that was present. The intercom buzzed for a moment before coming online once again.

  "All agents to the Lab, right now!” Leaha yelled. "Seles and Grimaldi, I'll meet you there. Astiel's men are porting into the building while the shield is down!"

  I looked to Vesta, and she held me tight. There was no way that I could take her to a live battle, and my ability to absorb Ether had been blocked by The Binding when she invoked it. For now, all I could do was stay here with her and try to keep her safe. I heard the door to the training room open, and I drew the spell blade, prepared to attack.

  "Vel!" I heard Ethan's voice ring out from the darkness.

  "Ethan!" I replied, standing to my feet.

  I could barely make out his form with the amount of light present in the room. I could hear the sound of gears clanking together, and I knew from the size of his silhouette that he was wearing his prototype armor. Lights flashed on from the shoulders of his armored suit.

  "Vel, I arrived just before the shield went down. Leaha sent me here to find you, and to get the prototype to keep it out of Astiel's hands," he said, as Vesta and I walked out to meet him. "One of Lucas's emails was from his father, and it contained a Trojan virus, which allowed Astiel to access our systems. It was a trap, and our IT guys fell right into it."

  "What about the backup systems that you told me about?" I asked, remembering Ethan's explanation of the building's defenses during our first trip to Di Faro's Pizza.

  "It was knocked out from the inside." He said, clearly distraught by the implications.

  “We knew that Lucas wasn't the one who killed Felix, our surveillance equipment within the building captured a time-stamped image of him speaking to you in the halls at the time of the murder, and whoever killed Felix knew right where to lead him to be out of the camera's view. We were trying to flush out the real killer by placing the guards at Lucas's door, to make them feel secure, but it seems that they had more devious intentions than simply murdering Felix. Sorry for the deception, but I told Leaha that no one else could know the truth." As Ethan spoke, I died a little inside, as I saw countless casters appear in the halls outside of the training room.

  "Ethan, there are hundreds of them," I said, pointing to the halls.

  Ethan turned, as the casters opened the door to the training room, and filed in.

  "Prepare yourself, Vel!" Ethan shouted, raising the prototype armors shield.

  "I can't, Ethan," I exclaimed.

  "This is not the time to falter, Vel. Whether they are your people or not, we have to protect Vesta and the people who are counting on us!" He yelled as the first wave of attacks from the casters were absorbed by the shield.

  "It's not that Ethan, I have effectively been made human by an invocation that I was teaching Vesta," I declared, stepping behind Ethan with Vesta.

  The room was illuminated by the Ether manifesting as the elements, as though the lights weren't dimmed, and wave after wave of invocations were manifested to try and destroy us. I could hear the armor begin to make a loud noise, and the light in the room intensified as the Ether absorbed by the armor's shield was transferred to the gun. Some of the casters who feared for their lives attempted to flee the room, but they were too late.

  "Get back!" Ethan demanded.

  I rushed back to the corner with Vesta as Ethan initiated the armors gun. Unlike the previous test of the armors ability to redirect Ether, the armor's gun emitted a conglomeration of many elements which spread nearly as wide as the room, and shot clear through the building allowing light to flood in from the gaping hole it left in the side of the UTF headquarters, with nothing left but destruction and death in its path. I felt Ether begin to flow into me from all around, and I was thankful that The Binding's effects had finally worn off.

  "Ethan," I said, walking out from the corner, taking in the destruction that his prototype armor had left in its wake. "You can't use this here, Ethan. It's as much a danger as the caster's assaulting us. The condition preventing me from absorbing Ether seems to have passed, thankfully," I said, walking in front of the armor.

  Ethan's face was white, as though he had seen a ghost.

  "Ethan!" I yelled, trying to snap him out of his shock. "Listen to me. Ether redistribution is not something that should be duplicated; however, if controlled properly, it can be used to save those we love.”. Ethan snapped out of his shock, and he looked at me. "I need to go help in this fight, this is my fight," I declared, knowing that Astiel would eventually come, himself. "I need you to stay here and to use this power to protect Vesta. Can I count on you to do that?" I asked.

  Ethan nodded his head, unable to find the words to answer me. Though the armors attack had been effective, it was far less powerful than a caster in Astiel or a captains league. I knew that Ethan would give his life to protect Vesta, and I knew that he was aware that I would do the same for Leaha.

  “Vesta," I said, walking to my niece. “I need you to use all of your power to create a barrier that will protect you and Ethan, can you do that?" I asked as Vesta silently nodded her head confidently.

  As I walked through the gaping hole, which used to be the wall of the training room, my path was illuminated by the glow of the blue barrier that Vesta had wrapped around herself and Ethan. It pained me to leave Vesta, but I knew that no one other than Astiel himself could break her barr
ier, and I trusted that she would be safe with Ethan. Judging by the amount of Ether flowing into to me, I knew that Astiel's men had launched a full-scale invasion, and my friends would no doubt need my help to come out of the other side of this attack.

  CHAPTER FORTY

  A Final Battle

  As I turned a corner, I came face to face with another group of casters, who were making their way down the hall from the command center. I invoked a barrier and my speed enhancement, and I drew the Spellblade from its sheath. Ethan was right, this wasn't the time to try and convert my people, or to carefully choose who would live and who would die. This situation was simply black and white, no room for shades of gray or any self doubt. Astiel and his men had declared war on the UTF by invading these headquarters, and it was a war that they would get. I flashed through the mob of casters, cutting them open with the Spell blade as I passed, shaking their blood from the blade as their bodies dropped to the floor. I heard an explosion, and the ground shook, as I came to the clearing at the command center. Dozens of casters poured into the command center, having blown through the door with explosives that they had undoubtedly acquired from the weapons cache, and they invoked elements of every kind to kill the agents that were locked inside. I flashed to the door, slicing through the four casters who were still in the doorway. The casters who remained from the mob had already entered the command center, and they were destroying the equipment within. I stood at the railing above them, and I took in their numbers, even as they turned to rally against me.

  "Grando Sarculum," I chanted as their invocation's met my barrier, having no effect at all.

  Large clusters of ice formed near the ceiling, and as I visualized its effect, the ice rained down upon the casters, easily crashing through their barriers and crushing them. The steady flow of Ether made me the perfect weapon, matched only by a caster such as Vesta who was connected directly to the Leylines. The Ether that I could draw from to manifest an invocation was greater than that of any single caster, and the more casters present, the more powerful my abilities became. It was a chore as a child, while learning to manifest invocations, to manage the amount of Ether that I allowed to be poured into them. I wasn’t a child anymore however, and as an adult I was able to act lethally without any collateral damage. I rushed out of the command center, slaying half a dozen more casters with only my blade as I passed, and I began to make my way to the lab.

  As I passed by Lucas's room, I saw that the men who had been left to guard him were dead, lit on fire and left to die on their faces. I entered his room, but Lucas was nowhere to be found. A small group of casters filed in behind me, and before they had a chance to manifest a single invocation, I opted to utilize a spell I had mastered that didn't require me to chant in to manifest the effect. I balled up my fist, and I slammed it into my chest. I visualized the effect, and I poured Ether into the invocation. The group fell to their knees, and they all grabbed their chests as the Ether that I placed into the invocation became a gas and entered through their breathing. The Ether flowed through them and surrounded their hearts, constricting until they burst, and the men fell over lifeless.

  I walked over their corpses as I went back into the hallway, and I rushed to the lab. Once I came to the end of the hall, before the final turn to reach the lab, I looked around the corner and saw an enormous group of casters acting as a blockade to prevent anyone from gaining access. I didn't take the time to count them all, but I was sure that their number was more than one hundred deep. Although I knew I could easily flash through and avoid confronting them in the hall, I didn't know what the situation was like inside, and bringing this many casters into a room could prove overwhelming for my friends if they were already engaged in battle. I knew that I had to take them out, here. I remembered watching as the rubble in the hospital fell on the people there, crushing them, and I considered creating a similar effect to take them all out at once; however, I knew that there were agents on each floor of the building, and by destroying what was a ceiling to us, could also mean destroying the very floor upon which they stood their ground. The same was true for taking out the floor, not only would it likely leave many of the casters alive and able to cause harm to those below, but the falling rubble could land upon any agents, if they were unfortunate enough to be beneath us. I would be risking personal injury if I were to flash through a crowd of this size, though it would be possible if I moved as fast as my enhanced body would allow. As I considered my options, it seemed that the safest bet would be to manifest an invocation with great enough reach, that it could take out the hundred man army without causing any collateral damage to the building itself. I decided to use an invocation that my father had taught me before he died, one which he had reserved teaching me until I was chosen to take over as Leordia's ruler, The Blood Bound.

  I gathered Ether, and I prepared to manifest the invocation as I stepped around the corner to face the horde of men and women gathered before me. I reached out my hand, invisibly grabbing one of the casters, and I drew him to me with pure Ether, impaling him upon the spell blade. His blood, captured by my Ether, drained from his body rapidly and floated in the form of a blade before me. I reached out my hand and grabbed the blade that formed had from the man's blood, and I dropped the Spellblade and the man's corpse to the ground. I drew the sign that my father had taught me on my forehead in the man's blood, and I threw the blood blade forward. The blade scattered into millions of droplets and touched each and every one of the casters blocking my path. It left the same mark on each of their foreheads before returning to me reformed once again as a blade. The casters had been chanting while this occurred, and they simultaneously manifested their invocations toward me. I poured all of the Ether that I had absorbed into my barrier, and as their invocation's met with it, they were left wanting and failed to pierce it at all.

  As the dust cleared, I realized that the crowd had ceased chanting. They clearly believed that they had defeated me, and I planned to use their ignorance to finish them off. I placed the blade to the mark on my forehead as the smoked cleared, giving them the chance to see their attacks had been ineffective. Many of them looked on in fear, some even fell to their knees to beg for mercy, while others began to chant once again, but it was too late. I used the edge of the blood blade to shallowly cut my forehead where the mark was placed, and the Blood Bound's effect manifested, and it exponentially amplified my injury to those marked and sliced into the tops of their skulls, killing all of them, instantly. The Ether that I had poured into my barrier and the The Blood Bound invocation was rapidly refreshed as a great amount of Ether flooded into me all at once.

  I looked beyond the corpses of those whom had challenged me, and I saw Seles and Astiel embracing each other, kissing. As the shock of that sight penetrated my very soul, I took in the scene inside of the lab and I saw dozens of agents were laid out on the floor, dead. Their weapons were in hand, but there were no casings on the ground, as though they had never even fired a single round. Grimaldi was laying on the floor, his right arm had been cut and blood flowed down from the injury. Intense burns canvased his back from a fiery attack, which I presumed Astiel had invoked while I finished off the casters outside of the lab. Seles held Leaha by the hair as she kissed my brother, and Leaha was clearly unconscious.

  "Ah, sister," Astiel said, slyly, as he pried himself away from Seles.

  "Seles, what is going on?" I struggled to find some reason as to why she was not only kissing Astiel; but holding Leaha by the hair.

  "Haven't you figured it out yet?" She asked, dropping Leaha to the ground. "Astiel has always been my one true love my dear one. How did you think he was able to have casters present at each of the events where our people showed up in this world? Who did you think killed that foolish old man, and used his death as a distraction to bring the UTF secondary systems down? Better yet, who did you think had the access to poison your father so flawlessly that no one ever detected it?" She asked, as she and Astiel burst into maniacal laught
er.

  "But Grimaldi?" I thought out loud, as Seles vanished, flashing in beside me and masterfully piercing my weakened barrier, scratching my arm with her dagger.

  "It's over, Vel," she whispered into my ear, as I felt my limbs go numb, and I looked to her blade and noticed a strange green substance dripping from its point. "This world will belong to us now, and there's nothing that you or those fools in the Dark Council can do to stop us," she said, walking back to Astiel, kicking Leaha in her back in the process.

  I looked to Grimaldi from my knees, as I felt myself begin to lose the ability to speak. Seles had doomed us all it seemed, and her duplicitous nature shattered my heart to pieces.

  "Grim..." I was struggling in my effort to speak.

  I could tell that Grimaldi had fallen victim to the same poison as I, and as I fell to my knees, I felt the full weight of Seles's betrayal. Seles was someone I had grown to think of as my family, she had always been so. She had crept up from the mire, and she had become someone great, an ally that I trusted implicitly. I assumed that she had to be under Astiel's control, somehow. She had any number of opportunities to kill any of us over the years, but she hadn't. My mind was simply refusing to believe that she was an enemy this entire time.

  "I know what you're thinking, dear sister," Astiel chimed in. "Oh my, this can't be real, Astiel must have manipulated her somehow, blah, blah, blah. Don't fool yourself. Staging something as grand as the Queen's death isn't something to be done in the dark where no one can see its realization and glory in it. It's so nice that you fell to your knees before us, for you know, Seles and I are your King and Queen now," he taunted, as he kicked me in the face and knocked me to my back. "I know you have to be thinking, what...you're not going to kill me?" He said, walking beside me. "No, is the simple answer. I'm not going to kill you. I will take this world as my own, and once I have tapped into this world's Leylines like your young apprentice, I will use you as I wish to create portals between this world and our own, and rule both worlds, as is what I deserve as the TRUE heir of Leordia!"