by Samuel Small
Jake got to the bottom of the stairs where there was a large glass window. It ran all along the hall and gave a good view of the backyard gently lit by the waxing moon. It was there, among the twisted branches of the frozen trees, that several training stumps seemed to beckon Jake toward them. He opened the door, and a ferocious breeze attacked his senses. It felt like a million tiny papercuts tore into every inch of exposed flesh and he turned his head away from the stinging wind. As fast as it came, it was gone, and Jake looked out toward the world that had just assaulted him, now oddly quiet.
He took hesitant steps down the stone path, fearing another assault. As he made his way the trees swayed restlessly, and it sounded as if a monster groaned deep within. He gripped the hilt of his sword, half-expecting some new, putrid Malice to come charging out of the brush, but it never did and soon he was staring at the training posts.
They were old and warped from what seemed like years of rain and weather exposure. There were gashes along them, large ones made by a sword, but oddly they too seemed faded and warped, as if they’d been made before the wood came to terms with its age. Jake ran his hand along the edges, feeling each rising bump and crack within the cuts, and was sure of it.
He looked back at the mansion. The whole building came up to the triangular point at the roof’s gable, upon which two half-moon shaped windows sat that looked like eyes. He glanced down at the large glass corridor he had just left, and thought that they looked like teeth ready to open up and swallow him. Jake shook his head and unsheathed his sword, coming to face the warped practicing stump. He had to work on light combos, not big finishing blows.
The wood gave in easy, and Jake thought that if he went in with a full-fledged blow that he was trying to avoid it would crack in two. This was good, as it forced him to keep his combinations light. He focused on taking the sword away just as he made contact with the stump so that he only took a splinter of wood with each strike. It left the post with a crunch, and little chips of wood rained down. Jake kept at it, finding it hard to move the heavy sword effectively without some kind of large wind-up. But that was also good, as he was overcoming bad habits.
Jake continued hacking at the stump, his breath shortening and the frantic intake of cold air uncomfortable yet satisfying. He coughed and let out one last frantic combo, aiming to throw as many hits onto the stump as he could before he collapsed. He let out a roar, and finished with a large attack that as expected cleaved the stump in two. He fell onto his back gasping for breath, his sword clanking to his side.
“Not bad, not bad at all,” someone behind him said. Jake rolled to his feet, somehow terrified that someone had snuck up on him, only to be faced with Bolt just outside of the mansion, grinning widely. “I didn’t know you were this dedicated,” Bolt said, his eyes focusing on the top half of the post that now lay on the ground.
“It’s nothing, I just couldn’t sleep.”
Bolt descended the stony steps until he was on the same level as Jake, then looked about the training ground like it was something foreign to him. Jake raised an eyebrow. Hadn’t Bolt lived here for a long time? He looked toward the stump and the many sword slashes that scarred its warped surface.
“Didn’t you say you recruited me because you needed a sword wielder?”
Bolt jumped as if shaken from some deep reverie. “What? Oh yeah, yeah.” His eyes narrowed and he seemed to drift off to whatever place he had just been.
“But this stump has sword strikes in it, and I don’t see any bullet holes.”
“That stump’s old,” Bolt said with a toss of his hand, “it’s been here longer than we have.”
“How long have you been here?”
“Five years, maybe.”
Jake wanted to ask how they had come to acquire such a large manor, but then thought better of it. The way Bolt looked at him now – deep, jaded, and cold – it scared him. It was as if he wasn’t even trying to keep up the facade of being a nice guy. That, or what Jake asked really got to him.
Jake bent down, picked up his sword, and sheathed it. It made a steady shiiiiiiiiing noise as it slid in, then snapped into the scabbard with a satisfying click. Jake nodded at Bolt, then ascended the steps to the manor. Just before he reached the glass door, he spared a glance back to see Bolt studying the stumps with an abnormal intensity.
***
Elizabeth sat across from Leal Miles, mouth agape. She knew something was up, but she never thought two entire countries were turned into Voids, nor did she suspect that the demons were capable of interacting with the human realm. The one she encountered in that abandoned town went right through the hooligan’s punches. She thought about it more, then a solution came to mind.
“Possession,” she mumbled. It came out as more of a question than a statement, but it made sense to her. She thought she recalled a myth that demons were capable of possessing humans and using their bodies to interfere with the realm of the living. So that thing probably possessed King Aquinas and used him to launch the war, likely to get them all in one place for the transformation. Elizabeth thought about it more, and wondered if the Voids were created through some form of lesser possession, perhaps by inserting part of a demon’s soul inside a human.
She shook her head, allowing her neatly combed hair to fall into disarray with the sudden motion. At that point it was merely speculation, but she was fairly sure about the possession part. She looked up at Leal and Smithers, who both stared back with intent. It seemed they agreed with her assessment, which added to its credibility. Still, speculating about demons and monsters didn’t change her current situation and they needed a battle strategy, especially regarding the fire fool who Smithers wanted to recruit. She sighed, but understood that sacrifices needed to be made for the greater good.
“I suppose it can’t be helped, I’ll accept his assistance but if he doesn’t behave I’ll strike him down myself.”
Smithers must have taken this as good enough, and nodded his approval. “If we’re in agreement, I’ll be the one to release him.”
Elizabeth sank into her seat, feeling like she might melt. She then shot up, retreating from the gesture that didn’t suit the royal image that she was supposed to exhibit throughout her entire demeanor. Smithers had watched her closely and again gave a nod of approval. She had to act as a royal would act.
Even though that was all a facade.
***
tep-tep-tep
A soft knocking awakened Jake from his slumber. He sat up, his hair messier than usual no doubt, and instinctively reached his hand over to the dresser. It grasped at empty air: there was no dresser, and Major Miles had the object he was trying to locate. Of course, I’m in that mansion. He ran a hand through his hair, starting at his face thanks to his drowsy disorientation, then sat up and meandered over to the gentle knocking.
He opened the door, his expression flat and his eyes heavy, to see Carol, her body receding slightly. Her hands removed themselves from the doorway and fell lightly onto her chest.
“Um, hello,” she said, as if knocking on the door wasn’t supposed to summon Jake. He figured it must have been his lackluster attitude, as it had to be very early morning, so he shook his head and tried to adopt a happier demeanor.
“What can I do for you?” he said. Carol giggled a bit and her defensive posture lightened. Her hands moved behind her back, and she began rocking up and down on her toes. For some reason the gesture frightened Jake, and he felt an inherent suspicion of her. A few seconds had passed and she still hadn’t responded, so Jake raised an eyebrow and leaned in closer. She seemed to catch that this was her cue to speak and let out small gasp.
“I-I had a question.”
A question that can only be asked in the ungodly hours of the morning? Always a good sign, he thought. “Shoot.”
Again, her evasive posture returned. She averted her eyes from Jake as if she were a child and twisted her toe on the ground. “I just… wanted to know what you did on your mission.”
>
Initially, the statement caught Jake off guard. Had she found out his secret and wanted to know about the Void incident? Then his awake brain kicked in, and he realized what she was really on about. No, of course she was asking about what he did with the Lightning Gang. But shouldn’t she already know?
“What do you mean? We kill Malice and protect villages.”
“Really? Is that all?” She looked away, her pupils illuminated in the moonlight. Jake thought she was on the verge of tears, and he didn’t want to see that happen.
“What is this all about, really?”
She jumped a bit at this, then nodded. She wasn’t like Bolt, Thun, or Dante who tried to hide their feelings. She was an open book and it made interacting with her a lot easier. Jake smiled, then left the doorway.
“Okay, but not here,” she said, looking suspiciously from left to right. Jake nodded back, not needing an explanation for her suspicion right away, and followed her down the stairs, through the main foyer, and out into a hallway in the far corner of the house. It was eerily dark, the corridor only lit by the dim moon that shone through the glass walkway. This area was far from any central heating, and Jake regretted not grabbing a jacket. Despite her not bringing one as well Carol did not flinch at the chill in the air, nor did she seem fazed by the mist that came with her breath. It seemed almost as if the cold was necessary for this conversation.
“What exactly do you do?” she asked again.
“I already told you, we fight Malice.”
“Yeah but do you ever fight…” she trailed off and looked about her, not struggling to find the word but simply afraid to say it. Jake waited patiently. He knew that whatever this was about was important to her, and that was enough to make it important to him too.
“People,” she spat out as if it was a mouthful of bile. Jake winced at the word. He’d never killed people, although he had on several occasions intended to. No, as far as he knew the Lightning Gang only fought Malice. Then, something nipping at the back of Jake’s mind called out. Malice haven’t been around for very long. What about before? Jake shook his head, hoping to banish the thought. It didn’t work, and the question persisted. What of the boy with the dead eyes? The ones concealing a sharp pain? They caused that pain. No, Dante was weird and crazy. It was possible he misinterpreted it or allocated undue blame on them.
“Carol, I’ve only been with them for a day, but we haven’t fought any people and I don’t think we ever will. Bolt and Thun just aren’t like that.”
Carol nodded, but didn’t seem to believe him.
***
Jake sprung to life as a sudden coldness splashed throughout his entire body. He sat up on his bed, eyes wild, and looked frantically from side to side. Towering above him were Bolt and Thun, smirking mischievously, each grasping a blue bucket that had been filled with water but now only contained little droplets that dribbled from its rim. Jake, now soaked with the bucket’s former contents, jumped to his feet, wobbled on the bed’s uneasy and now wet surface, then fell onto his bottom with a loud splash.
Bolt and Thun roared at this, and grasped each other to try to hold themselves up. They slapped each other on the back as Jake lowered himself from the bed, this time being careful not to fall. He was no longer afraid of getting wet by the water on the bed as he was completely soaked.
Unnaturally awake, Jake stood before the boys. Thun wiped one last tear from his eye as Jake glared at them. They stared back, struggling and failing to keep straight faces. Each of the boy’s lips quivered into a smirk, then promptly fell flat.
“Just an initiation, newbie,” Thun said, now able to actually speak. Jake nodded, feeling stupid for not expecting something like this. Bolt patted him firmly on the back, spraying more water around the room.
“Don’t worry man, today’s the boy’s day for a bath. We just figured we’d give you a little taster!” Jake smiled. He didn’t appreciate being woken up by ice-cold water and much preferred to emerge from his bed as a bear does out of hibernation. Still, he couldn’t help but feel his small smile was genuine, as the actions of these boys were done out of a sense of camaraderie and not bullying. Still soaked, he followed them through the mansion until they came to a door with steam leaking from under it.
Jake had never seen a bath like this before. Rather than holding a single white tub, which was what Jake had imagined, there was a giant open pool. Inside, the water was warm and all the boys of the orphanage bathed in it together. Thun and Bolt sat opposite Jake, their arms spread out in relaxation. Their bodies were marked with scars – cuts, gashes, and large purple indentations that Jake deduced were the result of bullet wounds. Notably, their size did not match their proportions – Bolt had one on his shoulder that seemed stretched out. To Jake, it indicated that he received the wound at a very young age, possibly as a child.
That made another theory of his make sense. Bolt said they came into possession of this manor about five years ago, and Jake figured Bolt was about his age, meaning that he would have been around ten years old at that time. He was likely fighting at that age, and took this mansion by force. It explained the posts with slash marks, despite the fact that nobody in this group seemed to use swords. It was likely that the previous owner had a personal guard, but where were they now?
“You’ve got a pretty sizable one too, yeah?” Bolt said. Jake jumped and covered himself then followed the boy’s extended finger. He pointed at Jake’s side, just under his ribs. There, the flesh was purple and rough, a souvenir given to him by the demon he had fought in Niflheim.
“That?” Jake said, “yeah,” he paused, thinking of an explanation for the injury. He couldn’t exactly say ‘demon spawned from hell.’ Still, he had to think of something so he improvised. “Pure Sol user.” It wasn’t untrue anyway. Technically, the ability the demonic boy used was Pure Sol.
“Pure Sol user?” Thun interrupted. “Where did you get it, in a sparring match?”
Jake raised an eyebrow. A sparring match? The demon hardly sparred with Dante, he left the boy in a pool of his own blood in a crater in the ground. Thun, probably seeing the confusion written all over Jake’s face, elaborated.
“A Pure Sol user, even a weak one, who fired a serious blast would tear right through you. That’s just a minor burn, a flesh wound really. Seems like they were suppressing themselves. Well, unless they only grazed you, but I don’t see that happening with your ribs. Were they on their deathbed or something? In that case, serves you right for letting your guard down!”
He was most certainly not suppressing himself, and as for being on his deathbed Jake didn’t know if astral beings like that counted as dead since, according to myth, they were never really alive in the first place. Jake supposed that amassing all of that energy could have left the demon’s powers diminished, in which case he didn’t want to know what it could do when it wasn’t holding back. He shivered, and Thun and Bolt exchanged glances.
“Looks like whoever it was is still out there, yeah?” Bolt said, his tone sober. Jake touched the wound gently and allowed his hand to linger there for a moment. He slid it off the scar, his hand falling limply into the steaming water in which he sat. He looked to Thun and Bolt, who stared at him knowingly. It seemed they had enemies who were still alive too, but Jake didn’t know who. Was it the Republic? What had the Republic done to them?
As if Jake allowing them to see his pain was some kind of strange ritual, they began to speak. “Actually,” Bolt said, “we have something big coming up in a few days. We’ve been going about things as normal because we want to do as much charity work as possible beforehand, plus we didn’t want to worry the kids.”
Jake tried to play dumb, leaning in and widening his eyes. “Something big? Like what?”
“It’s that damn Republic,” Thun said. “You understand the gist of what happened in Niflheim, right?”
Jake shook his head. This was perfect, playing dumb meant he’d be able to find out exactly what they knew. “Just that it
got wiped out, but as for the circumstances I don’t…”
“Well, it got wiped out because the Republic abandoned them. They had an alliance with Niflheim, but in spite of that they refused to help.”
“How do you know that exactly?”
Bolt joined in the conversation. “The specifics of what happened aren’t a matter of public record, but the casualties are. Among them, there was not a single Republic guard.”
Jake nodded. “But still, couldn’t it have been a natural disaster or something? Something that neither nation could prepare for? There’s no proof the Republic refused to help… is there?”
Bolt and Thun exchanged wary glances then nodded at one another. “Actually,” Thun said, “we do have a general idea of what happened.” He paused, as if reconsidering telling Jake this, but must have figured it was okay. “Demons are the likely answer.”
Jake’s mouth flapped open, this time not a ruse or a disingenuous trick. The only people he could think of that knew about the demons were himself, Major Miles, General Iroh, Dante, Führer Bellator, and Sara. Maybe some of the council members, but Jake didn’t really think that to be the case. Among the great nation leaders, Jake doubted the thug in the leather jacket bothered to read the briefing, so he was out. So who leaked the information? Was it Major Miles?
“Yeah, I know it’s hard to grasp but it’s coming straight from the rightful princess of the Republic herself.”
Jake jumped up, again surprised that he forgot all about Elizabeth as a possibility. But if they’re talking to her, that means they’re in contact with the rebellion.
“Yeah, she’s still alive. And she tells us she saw demons. Fuck, we’re gonna have to get him up to speed with everything, huh?”
Bolt nodded, then raised a finger and offered to inform Jake of the stuff that, unbeknownst to him, he already knew about. “The whole bugs eliminating all those villages is bull. The fact of the matter is it was actually some kind of demon/human hybrid, which Lady Elizabeth referred to as ‘Voids.’ She claimed she came into contact with a real-life demon too, one that her comrade’s attacks passed right through.”