by L. C. Mawson
Love sniffed before nodding.
It was a lie, but she didn’t want Vengeance to think her a child.
He made his way over to the boulder next to her, perching down with a serene look. Love always appreciated that about Vengeance. While he could rage better than most of them, he knew when to be calm.
“You have to stop expecting yourself to be able to do this all on your own,” Vengeance told her. “This was just a test. You can’t put so much on it. It can’t be helping your abilities if you’re getting so stressed about it working. As Em said, there were eggs in the building. You might have had an easier time of swaying the creature if they hadn’t been there.”
Love shook her head.
Vengeance realised that she couldn’t talk and pulled a tablet from his bag, passing it over.
Love pulled up the text-to-speech app and began typing.
“It doesn’t matter,” the robotic voice said for her. “Em could have died.”
“Love, we all know how dangerous this job is. We accept that danger when we put on our bands. Em has taken the risk along with the rest of us.”
“She was a child when she was chosen,” Love reminded him.
“And while she was a child, we didn’t expect her to leave the Tower.”
“She’s still just thirteen.”
Vengeance nodded with a sigh. “I know. And I could send her back, but I don’t think she would agree to go. And while you might worry about her, I think she proved today that she can take care of herself.”
Love’s gaze had been stuck across the road, not meeting Vengeance’s, but it sunk lower.
“That’s not all that’s bothering you, is it?”
Love shook her head after a while. “I couldn’t save her,” Love typed. “I know that she can save herself, but... If I can’t get my powers to work to save my sister, what hope do I have of getting them to work at all?”
Vengeance remained silent, and Love realised that he didn’t have an answer for her.
“Maybe you should take a break,” was all he said after a while. “Take Sleepy and head back to the Tower for a few days to regroup.”
Love couldn’t deny how appealing that sounded. She really didn’t want to face the others with her failure...
But then, she also didn’t want to stew in it alone.
She didn’t answer Vengeance. She just stood up, brushing off the dust from the road before wiping away what remained of her previous tears.
“Ready to head back?” Vengeance asked, standing up as well.
Love nodded.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Love kept away from the others that night, and she suspected that Vengeance had told them to leave her alone since none of them attempted to speak with her.
But then, what could they say, apart from repeat things they had already told her?
The next morning, as soon as Love awoke, she went over to Vengeance, her jaw set with determination.
“I want to go out again today,” she told him. “Just you and me. We can go out on Sleepy that way and chart the city faster. I want to find some smaller creatures on their own and rebuild my confidence. If I can build strong bonds with them on a one-on-one basis, I might be able to sway a nest that way.”
Vengeance looked her over for a moment before nodding. “We can go out, but I want to take the kids. Em needs to get the hang of her new powers and Jealousy will help with mapping the city.”
Love shook her head. “If I can’t handle this, I don’t want them getting hurt.”
“They can handle themselves.”
“No,” Love said firmly, her words clumsily falling over each other in her frustration. Why wasn’t he understanding? “They’ll mess it up.”
Vengeance frowned. “What? They didn’t cause any problems yesterday. Not to be harsh, Love, but that was all you.”
Love shook her head. He still wasn’t getting it. “They mess me up.”
“They’re not doing anything wrong.”
“They don’t have to!”
Vengeance blinked, taking a moment to run through her words before understanding. “It’s conflicting emotions, right? You worry about them in battle because you love them, but then you focus on the worry and fear too much.”
Love nodded vigorously.
She wasn’t entirely sure that was the issue, but it was the best guess she had.
“I still want to take Em. We can still move quickly with her, but if she can absorb Sleepy’s powers, she could deal with the monsters without a fight. And I want her to get used to these powers as quickly as possible. Yesterday freaked her out a little, and I don’t want her to dwell on that too much.”
Love sighed, folding her arms. “I’m still not feeling great. I don’t want to subject her to that.”
“I won’t force her to go if she doesn’t think she can handle it, but I want to ask her, at least.”
Love nodded, having to admit that Vengeance was probably right about Em having to get the hang of her new powers. “All right. I’ll go and get Sleepy ready to go, and you can see if Em wants to come along.”
Vengeance went off to find Empathy while Love made her way over to Sleepy.
The giant creature lowered her onyx head, allowing Love to pet the scales.
At least their bond hadn’t weakened, reassuring Love that her powers hadn’t forsaken her completely.
After a while, Vengeance returned with Em holding his arm, making sure that she stayed tuned into him and not Love.
Love couldn’t blame her for that, but she couldn’t help the twinge of hurt she felt at the sight.
“Are we ready to go?” she asked, doing her best to keep her sadness from her voice.
Em nodded.
“We’re ready,” Vengeance confirmed as they climbed up onto Sleepy’s back, behind Love.
“So, where are we heading?” Love asked.
“There’s a little area to the east with a watering hole. We should be able to catch some lone creatures there,” someone responded from behind her. With Em mirroring Vengeance so strongly, Love couldn’t differentiate them without seeing Em’s silver-lilac eyes.
They were right, as it turned out. As they approached the watering hole, they saw a lone creature crawling through the street. It had pale blue and white scales that she recognised as those of an Icer.
It turned to look at them, its yellow eyes quizzical in their inspection. Love supposed they must be a strange sight for the creature who had likely never seen a person in their life.
It probably only knew all of the creatures that weren’t genetically engineered as food, so to see three strange-looking ones on another creature’s back...
The creature didn’t seem to know whether it was going to consider the Aspects as threats or not, and Love decided to take that opportunity to form a bond.
She slipped off Sleepy, landing just in front of the creature.
It regarded her carefully, baring its teeth just a little in warning, though it wasn’t going any further with its aggression.
That was enough for her.
“It’s okay,” she said softly to the creature, putting a hand up in front of her. “Really, it’s okay. I’m not here to hurt you.”
She kept her thoughts focused on her sister behind her, and how she was hurting and how Love wanted nothing more than to help stop that hurt.
The creature gently sniffed her palm before bowing its head to her.
It had worked, she thought to herself, having to suppress a laugh of relief.
As much as she was sure that they already knew, she didn’t want any outward sign of just how worried she was that she wasn’t going to be able to pull this off.
Love’s relief was quickly interrupted, however, as she heard a chirp of curiosity from around the corner.
A few moments later, another creature arrived, almost identical to the first.
They were probably related, Love thought to herself.
That boded well for her. Usuall
y, when she'd already formed a bond with one creature, it became much easier for her to form bonds with the other creatures in their pack, especially the ones they were close to. As much as the creatures didn’t have an understandable language, it was almost as if they vouched for her.
“It’s okay, I’m a friend,” she said to the new arrival, offering up her palm once more.
Just as the previous creature had, this one gently sniffed at her before bowing.
Love couldn’t help but grin. Two creatures down; that was more than she'd anticipated.
Sure, she wasn’t in the heat of battle, and there weren’t many of them, but the fact that her powers were working at all was a relief.
Of course, she quickly heard another chirp.
And another.
And another.
She looked up and around her, seeing dozens of yellow eyes watching her carefully.
She hesitated before offering her hand out again. It seemed as if the entire pack had been on their way to the watering hole, and now she had to win them all over, or risk things going badly for her and the other two behind her...
She steeled herself before offering her hand out once more. She'd already won over a few members of the pack, the rest couldn’t be too hard, right?
Even if she didn’t have Hate to focus on...
One of the new arrivals hissed at her offering, and it quickly sparked a wave of growls from the nearby creatures.
“No, it’s okay,” she said, more than a little frantic. “It’s okay, I’m a friend! I’m not going to hurt you!”
The creatures didn’t seem to buy it, and even the two she'd won over in front of her were now glaring at her with suspicion, as if they expected her to turn on them at any moment.
Love began to panic. She'd never had any creature break the bond between them before. Once it was formed, it lasted at least as long as she was still in the vicinity, or even longer in the case of some creatures, like Sleepy.
Was she losing even that ability?
Even if she could form a bond, if she couldn’t rely on it to stay stable...
One of the creatures stepped towards her, their growl intensifying.
A moment later, a plume of ice came forward and created a wall between her and the other creatures.
Love spun around to see Empathy, with blue and white scales so intricately patterned across her face that made her skin looked like pearls.
Love heard growling and scratching behind the ice and figured that even the few creatures that she'd managed to keep from outright attacking her were probably now agitated beyond calming.
Love ran back towards Sleepy, ready to jump on her back and have her take them back to the base.
But before she could get there, one of the creatures rushed through the ice, knocking Love down to the ground as it loomed over her, teeth bared.
Love raised her hands to protect her face, anticipating a strike that never came.
A moment later, she peered around her fingers to see all of the creatures bowing their heads.
She just stared, lost for words.
They were acting as if she'd used her powers, but she was sure that she hadn’t.
And yet, they were still bowing.
“Great work, Love!” Vengeance yelled, and Love spun her head around to see him fist pump the air.
Except it wasn’t Vengeance who drew her eye.
Instead, her gaze went to the roof of the two-storey building behind them, where a woman stood, white-blonde hair billowing out from behind a full face mask that looked almost identical to those worn by the Aspects.
Who was she? Was she the one who had tamed the creatures?
Love was sure that it couldn’t have been her, which left only the mysterious woman behind them.
She ran towards the building, making her way through crumbling walls to find anything that would lead her up to the next floor.
“Hey, wait!” Vengeance called after her. “Where are you going?”
He had jumped from Sleepy and was now following her.
“You can’t go in there,” he told her, hovering by the doorway. “It can’t be structurally sound.”
“I have to get upstairs,” she told him. “Did you not see? There was a woman on the roof.”
Vengeance frowned. “A woman? Did Justice or Serenity follow us?”
Love shook her head. “She had white-blonde hair, but her skin wasn’t as dark as you and Justice’s.”
“So, Hate, then?”
“No, not Hate,” Love said as she continued to search for a set of stairs. “Did you not hear me say white-blonde hair? Plus, her hair was longer, and Hate wouldn’t come out here anyway.”
Vengeance rolled his eyes, clearly not as convinced that Hate intended to keep her distance.
“Okay, so if it’s not them, who could it be? There’s no way that anyone could survive out here, and the only transport that could reach the city belongs to the Aspects.”
Love didn’t answer, having found her set of stairs.
She rushed up to the roof, only to find no one there.
“I swear, someone was here,” she said as she spun back around to face Vengeance once more. “I wasn’t the one who stopped monsters. You saw me, I couldn’t.”
Vengeance shook his head. “You have too little faith in yourself, Love. Even if you struggled before, it would make sense that you would be able to reactivate your abilities when in such immediate danger.”
“Really? Because I didn’t manage it yesterday.”
Vengeance sighed, folding his arms. “Okay, tell me again what this woman looked like.”
“Like I said, she had long white-blonde hair, and I think it was curly? I couldn’t really see... But she was wearing a brown Aspect mask and brown clothing.”
Vengeance frowned. “Well, I suppose another Aspect could technically get out here. And I wouldn’t put it past Bennett to send someone else out here to keep an eye on us. But even if she did, even if another Aspect is out here watching us, there’s no way that monsters would react to her like that. They would only react like that for an Aspect of Love, and only one of them can exist at the same time.” He nodded to her Aspect Band. “As long as you’re wearing that – as long as you’re alive – you’re the only one who could have drawn such a response from the monsters. You have to have more faith in yourself.”
Love folded her arms, looking away. She knew that he was right. There was no way someone else could use her powers. And yet... She was sure it hadn’t been her...
“Come on,” Vengeance said, interrupting her thoughts. “We should get back to the others.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
When they arrived back at the others, Vengeance was quick to recount the story of what had happened.
Or at least, from how he saw it.
“You should have seen the two of them,” he told the others. “Empathy managed to get a wall of ice between Love and the other creatures, and that gave Love the time she needed. By the time the creatures managed to crash through the wall, Love had them all bowing to her and backing off, as if they had never attacked.”
Love shook her head. She couldn’t take credit for this. “It wasn’t me,” she said.
Justice frowned. “What do you mean it wasn’t you? Who else could it have been?”
Vengeance stepped in. “It was definitely her,” he said firmly. “This was definitely her power, and no one else can wield her power but her. She’s just having trouble regaining her confidence.”
Love shook her head. “No, I’m really sure it wasn’t me. It was the masked woman.”
“What masked woman?” Serenity asked.
Love described what she'd seen once more.
“I’m sure it was her,” she continued. “I know what my power feels like, and I definitely didn’t use it.”
“But no one else can,” Vengeance repeated. “There is only one Aspect Band for each of us. Even if we might tap into our powers a little bit before we get the
Bands, it’s never to this extent.”
To Love’s surprise, Hate stepped forward. “The fact that the Rena came here with only one Aspect Band for each Aspect doesn’t mean that more don’t exist. It doesn’t mean that others couldn’t build more.”
“Like who?” Vengeance asked. “We barely understand the technology the Rena left here. There’s no way that someone on Earth could create more Bands.”
“What if it wasn’t someone on Earth?” Hate asked. “We’ve already had one Rena arrive, trying to kill Love. What’s to say another hasn’t come, this time to fight fire with fire.”
“You think there are duplicate Aspects among the Rena?” Justice asked.
Hate shrugged. “I think it’s a possibility. And a strong one. Even if the Aspects who came here were the only ones when they arrived, I sure as hell wouldn’t have just let that technology go if I were them. And what was it Geral said about how being an Aspect negated Love’s Human blood? He spoke as if the Aspects were still highly regarded and held sacred by the Rena. I doubt that would still be the case if they disappeared two hundred years ago and hadn’t been seen since.”
Justice looked away. “You have a point, but I think jumping to more Rena arriving is a bit of a longshot. There is no need to panic until we have more proof. And even then, I think it’s unlikely that they replicated the Aspect technology. If it was held sacred as you say, I don’t believe that they would be so quick to churn out more.”
“Geral could control monsters without Love’s power,” Serenity remembered. “He used technology to do it instead.”
Vengeance shook his head. “This didn’t look like his control. This truly did look like Love’s power.”
Love nodded. “He’s right, this was my power,” she agreed. “But I’m sure that it didn’t come from me. I want to try and track down this woman. Whoever she is, I don’t want any more trouble from the Rena. And if she isn’t here to cause trouble, maybe she can help me figure out what’s going on with my powers. If we have the same powers, I mean, she would be the one who knew...” She turned to Jealousy. “Could you help me track her?”