by Darren Sloan
"Isla Tenix. Another hunter. One of some integrity, or so I thought."
"We can't all live by the code you do, Panther. The reality outside of the academy is kill or be killed. I'd think you'd understand that better than anyone."
"I do. That is why I observe the principles of combat. There's honor only in a fair fight."
"Yes, but it's much harder to win those, don't you think?" Isla asked and with lighting speed she reached to her belt and pulled out a small gun. She fired and Panther pushed me away. Isla's blast hit the ground and the explosion kicked up a lot of dirt. I looked up and in a mere glance, Isla vanished into the air.
"Isla excelled in stealth and camouflage," Panther said as she pulled out her sword. "She could be anywhere." I then saw Isla reappear just as she swiped at Panther again, sending her back to the ground. I ran over to help her, but I felt something hard slam into my chest and I flew back and landed hard on the ground with all the wind gusting out of my lungs.
"Don't worry. Once I'm done with Panther, I'll get to you." I heard someone running and as Panther got up again, she started to flail around as if she were fighting an invisible force. I thought for a moment. I released the suit again, knowing I had another two minutes or so. I was hoping I wouldn't need that much. I concentrated hard and I felt something happening over my eyes. The suit was shifting and soon I was seeing everything as energy frequencies. The world had disappeared and all living things were just globs of light. I saw Panther as just a stooped over frame of blue energy, but around her was a wisp of red energy. I charged forward and lunged at the red energy. I felt a solid body against my grip and we both fell the ground. Isla fought against me, but the fact that I caught her off guard gave me a rare advantage. Before she could come to her senses, I swung my fist at her and I clipped her good against her chin. She hit her head against the ground and she became still. I concentrated again and my eyesight returned and I found an unconscious Isla laid out before me. I retracted the suit as I went over to Panther. She looked up at me with a rather bewildered expression.
"How did you do that?"
"I'll tell you later. Right now, you need looking after. Come on," I said as I led Panther over to one of the burnt out structures. It seemed to be the most stable one. We walked in and I saw what looked like some kind of bed or cot. I tested it first and it seemed to be rather strong, for its age. Panther got down onto it and I pulled out my bag and discovered a small medical kit inside. "Turn over. That cut on your back looked pretty bad." I said. Panther didn't protest and I could see the cut better. It wasn't long, but it seemed very deep.
I carefully treated her wounds and did what I could to get her back to rights. The medical kit had just about everything I needed, and I was really just going on instinct as I had never administered medical care before. She seemed to be better as I gave her one last check. The blood was washed away and her legs and arm were bandaged as needed.
"You okay?" I asked.
"I'm better. Thank you."
"Of course."
"Now, how did you stop Isla?"
"I just made the suit see energy signatures. I'm not sure how it did it, but it did it."
"Very good thinking."
"Thanks. It was weird hitting a girl, though."
"Don't worry. She can take it. Where is she?"
"Well," I started but when I got up to look out the window, I saw that Isla was missing. "She was there."
"Was?" Panther asked. Isla then appeared in the door jamb with her gun drawn at me. Panther reached for her sword and she effortlessly flicked it from the sheath and across the room into Isla's chest. Isla fell against the wall and slid down to the ground, dead. I looked over to Panther as she rolled onto her back. "I told you she could take it."
Chapter 19
Heaven is a Place on Xenos
I tried to convince Panther to camp in the old village. Her injuries weren't severe, but she needed to rest and mend, but she was determined to keep pushing on. After hours of fighting and threatening, she finally accepted that she needed rest so we set up camp right there.
I got together some bit of food and we ate and then I checked her wounds again. Once I had her set to right, I left her to sleep and I went out to find a place for me to sleep. The shacks that were available looked too rickety and unstable, so I opted to camp outside. It was a warm night and I was able to gather up some old blankets and I put together a rather comfy little nest for myself.
The sky turned dark and I saw the stars begin to peek out from the black cloak of night. I just stared up and watched the lights dance. My thoughts drifted to Earth and Tyler. If I had been on Earth, I could have just consoled myself that he and I were under the same sky, but I was millions of light years away. The star light I was seeing wouldn't even get to Earth in my lifetime. I heard footsteps behind me. I turned and it was Panther hobbling toward me.
"What are you doing up?" I asked as I got up in order to take her back.
"I couldn't sleep and I'm feeling better."
"Don't care. You need rest. You'll be able to sleep once you're lying down."
"I saw you looking up at the sky. What were you looking at?"
"The stars. I was looking at the stars."
"Oh. Why?" Her question threw me a bit. I don't think I had ever heard anyone question why anyone else would look up at the stars before.
"I was looking at them because I guess they remind me of Earth. They look just like the stars I see in our sky."
"Of course they do. They're stars. They look the same to everyone, everywhere."
"It was just making me homesick. I miss my planet. I miss Tyler."
"Tyler?"
"He's kind of like my boyfriend." Panther looked back at me with little to no understanding.
"A boyfriend?"
"Don't you have boyfriends and girlfriends here? People in love?"
"On Xenos, we have eliminated the concept of romantic attachment. In the past it was found distracting at best. Destructive at worst."
"So, no one on Xenos is in love with anyone else?"
"There is admiration and appreciation for individuals. We just don't allow ourselves to be mired in the meaningless rituals of so-called love relationships. It frees our minds and makes us all far more productive."
"Yeah. I bet that really beats being in love. How can you tell me no one here falls in love? I saw kids in the city. Where did they come from?"
"Just because we don't subscribe to your notion of love doesn't mean we ignore the need to enrich our population. Children are needed to propel our race through the ages. Couples are paired and their biological material is bonded and grown at the appropriate time."
"Do they actually have sex?"
"It's a method, but in order to ensure optimum results, most of the population relies upon other more clinical methods of reproduction."
"So there's no romance? No songs? No poetry? No one says 'I love you'?" If Panther could have stared back at me with an even more confused look, I would have been surprised.
"These are just words and meaningless gestures."
"Well, yeah, but not really. They tell someone how you feel about them."
"And why would you need to do that?"
"Okay. You're starting to make my head hurt." I said as I sat back down in my nest. Panther came up to me and sat down beside me.
"You miss this Tyler?"
"We just kind of found each other again after too long. I felt like I was finally getting my life together and then this happened."
"He misses you as well, I imagine."
"Who knows? Maybe. Maybe he's moved on to someone else. On Earth, it's not unusual for people to have many love relationships. Even if the one they had just been in seemed so solid." I looked over to Panther and she then looked up at the sky. She seemed focused on the stars above, as if she had never seen them before.
"These are the stars you see on Earth?"
"Well, not literally, but like you said; stars are stars
. I mean, you don't have the constellations we have on Earth, but it's close enough to me to make me feel better."
"Constellations?"
"Yes. On Earth, ancient scholars had found shapes in the stars and attached meaning to them. Some are used as tools to find direction while others just tell a story. Some do both."
"Interesting. Do you see any of those constellations here?"
"Not really. I mean, to be honest, this is the most stars I've ever seen in one sky." I looked back up and it was magnificent. The sky was almost bright as day by the light of all the stars above. I spent the rest of the night telling Panther about the constellations on Earth, to the best of my ability. I told her about Orion and the big and little dippers. I was surprised by how much information I had retained from my trip to the observatory in sixth grade. After a while, I just started making stuff up, but Panther seemed rather intent. I then felt something nudge against my shoulder and I looked over and it was Panther, dead to the world and drooling on my shoulder. I slid aside and lowered her down onto my nest and bundled her up as best I could. I leaned back down and I just kept looking at the stars and thinking of home; and Tyler, until I finally drifted off to sleep as well.
The next morning Panther's wounds had healed over nicely and she was feeling a hundred percent. We took one last sweep of the village, just in case there was anything there we could use later, but it was pretty much a lost cause.
We continued on the path that led us to the village in the first place. We wandered on further hoping we were on the right track. We passed through a large field and we came upon an steep incline. Once we got to the bottom of that, we were in yet another field. It was clear that there were a lot of wide open spaces on Xenos. There seemed to be no end to lush green meadows and overgrown forests. As we were passing through the glade, I looked over and I had to look twice before I realized what I was really seeing.
"Over there! Panther! Are those unicorns?" I saw a herd of the beasts running along the grass, just near an overlook. They looked real. A few were as I had always envisioned. Large with white hair and long flowing manes and of course a long shiny horn protruding from their foreheads, but there were others that challenged my perceptions. There were a few that were different colors. There were some black ones and some spotted ones. I even saw a few that had two horns and one that had three.
"Yes. We had tried breeding them on Earth centuries ago in an act of goodwill, but true to your people, they failed to see the beauty of the animals and instead hunted them down to extinction. Here we have raised and cared for them and they have shown signs of fantastic evolution. Did you know they have the ability to heal?" Just as Panther said that, the unicorn with the three horns, the Tri-corn, I guess, came galloping up and stood before her. She knelt down before it and it did the same. It touched its bottom horn to her head and a light washed over Panther and she stood up again. It looked like the remainder of her injuries had been healed instantly. She turned to the Tri-corn and placed her hand on its cheek. "Thank you." The beast snorted softly and then ran off to rejoin its herd.
"I always thought they were just a fantasy."
"On your planet, they are. I just don't understand you humans. Why do you try so hard to destroy any beauty in your own world?"
"Hey! Don't blame me. I wasn't around when they were and even if I were, I wouldn't have hunted them down. I love animals. You seem to judge the entire human race based on the actions of a very few of them."
"It's not so much how many of them do these things, but how often these actions are repeated. It's like your people are completely incapable of learning from their mistakes. I understand your people once persecuted people of different races and when that was quelled, they found other reasons to discriminate and each time acting as if it hadn't happened before. The logic is absolutely baffling to me."
"Look, on these issues we agree. I am the first to say the human race has a long way to go, but I have hope we'll get there. Someday."
We continued on and it seemed we were walking through the main hub of animal activity on Xenos. There were birds soaring above us singing songs I had never heard before. We passed by a large lake where there were some creatures that looked like long legged hippos wading through the water. There were all kinds of fantastic, amazing animals all around. Some looked similar to some creatures on Earth, while others were totally new to me.
There were bats that were at least six feet tall with large, translucent wings; wild looking tigers with blue fur and white spots, and great big behemoth beasts with long black hair that dragged along the ground as they walked. They would look up every once in a while and as the hair fell away from their faces, I could see short, thick horns protruding from their heads and then they would let out a howl which seemed to cause flocks of butterflies to rise up out of the trees and flutter around. It was beautiful beyond measure. I started to feel a bit cheated. Was this how Earth was supposed to be? Had man's greed destroyed what could have been? I was pulled from my thoughts as Panther grabbed me and dragged me to a small thicket of trees.
"What?" I asked. Panther pointed ahead and I really thought I had lost it when I saw what she was pointing at. It was a pyramid, but it was upside down, and floating just above the ground. "What is that?"
"That is Heaven."
"Heaven?"
"That's what we call it. It is where the Sirens of Xenos dwell."
"All right. So what?"
"You have to be very careful approaching. You see, the Sirens are held inside by two powerful elemental beings who prevent them from leaving, and it is widely known that they become bored. When that happens, they will abduct those who come close enough in order to entertain them and keep them company."
"That doesn't seem so bad."
"And once they are bored with their company, they kill them."
"I stand corrected." Panther pulled out a small pair of binoculars and took a peek.
"Of course. The path to the city goes right past Heaven."
"Could we go around?"
"It would take us a little more time to do that."
"How much more time?"
"Six months."
"So what do we do?"
"We continue on. Carefully. It looks quiet. Usually one of the Sirens can be seen looking through one of the windows in the pyramid." I grabbed the binoculars and looked for myself. It was true. There were small windows dotted along the many layers of the pyramid. The pyramid itself looked as though it was made of different kinds of stone. Each level was a different color and one layer even had large vines growing over it.
"This planet is crazy."
"The coast is clear now. Come on." Panther said. We ran toward Heaven but slowed down as we got closer.
"If it's so dangerous, we should just book it from here." I whispered.
"No. They could hear the footsteps. Go quiet." She warned. We started on our way when an explosion knocked us back. I looked up and I saw the guy in green armor rise from the smoke.
"Gunther!" Panther growled.
"I'll give you that much, Panther. You certainly show no mercy."
"Only when none is given. I suppose it was you who set the others on us."
"I had hoped they would have been more effective, but I guess it's like they say. You want something done right, you do it yourself." He then hoisted up his gun arm and fired at us. His shot was easy to avoid, but as I tumbled across the ground, I could see that was what he intended. Like the other hunters, he was focused on Panther. They were trading blows a few yards from me. Panther was trying to reach for her sword, but Gunther seemed to know that would be bad for him, so he wasn't giving her any time to grab it. He was pummeling her at an impressive rate, but Panther was doing her best blocking and countering every strike. He spun around and knocked her back, causing her to slide across the ground. He leapt up and landed on top of her with a heavy thud, his metal boots digging into the soil. I noticed something fly off of Panther's belt. I ran to it and saw that it
was Isla's gun. Panther must have sneaked it off of her when I wasn't looking. It looked pretty basic, so I aimed it and fired at Gunther. I caught him in the chest and he flew back. Panther was able to get up and pull out her sword at last. Gunther got up and smiled at the development. Several small compartment doors opened up in his armor and each one revealed a small gun turret. He started firing at us both and we were pinned down by a storm of bullets. We ran for cover, but Gunther didn't stop his barrage.
"We have to stop him," Panther said. I tried to think of something, but I had only one solution. I release the suit again. I was rather confident I had a good three minutes. "Jason! No!" Panther cried as I shot up and bolted back own toward Gunther. I felt the energy field around me and it was strong enough to divert his fire as I slammed into him. He got up, but before he could do anything I was on top of him. Raw power was surging through my fists and every punch I landed brought about a rain of sparks and bits of armor. I could hear him begging for mercy, but I didn't dare stop. I knocked him down with one last blow. His armor was torn up and broken.
"Doesn't matter," He said as he struggled up. "As long as I have this!" He then held up his gun arm again, but before he could fire, a woman fell down from above. She was tall with dark skin and she was dressed like some kind of goddess. She grabbed Gunther and he was paralyzed with fear. She just smiled as she grabbed him and she flew back up to the pyramid and disappeared.
"That was Requium," Panther said as she came up behind me. "One of the three sisters."
"She took him." I said as I was attempting to process what I had just seen.
"Couldn't have been more deserving. Now come on! While they're distracted." Panther said. I changed back and we ran toward Heaven and all I could see was the path beyond it. That was my goal, but my vision was blocked by a great light that appeared before me and when I could see again, I didn't know where I was. I tumbled forward over a hill of sand. When I stopped, I looked up and I was no longer with Panther. I as in the middle of a vast desert.