Jackson looked down in amusement at the war rig and its hastily applied concealment formation. It was of an alien structure, unlike any he had previously studied, but you didn’t need the knowledge of the greatest psychic experts of the Jackalope Empire to figure out the glaringly obvious.
“Hey! Put me down!” The boy in his right arm squirmed, evidently just now recovering from the sudden transportation. Unlike the girl lifted in his left hand, he seemed scrappier. Like a small animal unaware of just how much larger the creatures around it were compared to itself, and ready to pick a fight no matter how impossible the odds.
“And here I thought you would appreciate a free ride.” They joked. “Don’t be so hasty, I am just making sure I have everyone I have foreseen in one place. I am not in the habit of leaving anything to chance, especially if I am to trust someone as evidently chronically uncooperative as you.”
They had no right to speak, of course, being the same fool who had tried to burgle the Imperial Palace storehouses of all things so long ago. But they felt like they had the right to a little hypocrisy if the fate of the entire Empire would potentially fall in the hands of someone so impulsive. They only wished the other two would be better.
Sending out a basic psychic message, ironically relatively speaking one of the more difficult feats for him given his mutations were hardly specialised for the task, he informed all those in the war-rig below. “Clever clever, and here I thought you weren’t going to move. I can sense something very interesting inside.”
Sensing the waves of trepidation below, they rolled their eyes, he couldn’t exactly blame them but it was still annoying to deal with. “Calm down now. Whatever threat you thought I was, I assure you I am not. After all, why would your enemies waste their time sending someone as powerful as me?”
This of course reminded him of a certain someone else who would probably be giving off much the same psychic waves if it wasn’t for their particular innate formation. They looked down to their left to see the girl, now shrunken down to a size only a bit above the average, blending in uncannily well with the background even to their eyes. Their latest mutation was incomplete, but it was enough to obscure most of their surface thoughts completely from their view. With some more time and practice, he could imagine they would be a formidable opponent against any psychic, though how exactly that would fit in with the Machine War they were yet to understand. Perhaps it would not fit in at all, after all, not all Mutations need to be useful in everything. They knew that better than anyone. Still, they were probably not going to get any use out of them, given they hardly seemed ready to speak yet.
He couldn’t blame her, he still remembered when they were found in a barrel of fruit by the palace guards right in front of the Shadow Man, the first companion of the Hero of the Wasteland, the fucking Emperor and of course their soon-to-be adopted father Liam Kalu. They felt in that instant that at any moment their very breath could have been crushed out of their lungs, that any wrong twitch of a muscle could lead to their instant annihilation. And that was of course entirely correct, even if it turned out Liam was far from the type of man to waste his power crushing a starving street rat like that.
Thankfully they had more than one option. Despite the fact that the right side of his body was well shielded and there was some token, if amateurish effort at maintaining a defensive psychic palace, truthfully with all the psychic noise rolling off the boy it was harder to maintain an active effort in not picking up his stray thoughts. All they had to do was to let the barrier drop a little, and they should just idly gain all the information they needed from the surface thoughts alone.
Ah, John and Cobalt, those were their names. Which would mean that the ones missing were…
“Faith… Gorekin… I request your presence at soonest convenience. We would all want this behind us sooner rather than later, after all.”
A sudden weariness washed over them, a troubling fact considering the fact they had expended what should have been a negligible amount of energy. He supposed that was to be expected, they were warned, after all, about the consequences of not taking adequate rest with their teleport. Luckily they only needed to invest power into the array once, once the timer ran out, the psychic threads still binding them would snap them back home. But if they were feeling tired from such trivial things, there was almost no doubt the strain of holding their consciousness together on the jump back would cause a deviation in their Cultivation. Potentially days to recover from radiation sickness they had not felt anything close to in over a decade.
Well, there was nothing to do about it now but pray to the Spirits his gamble pays off.
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Overwhelming was the first word that came to mind as Faith left the questionable safety of the Toro Rojo’s walls to the outside. She felt the power even before she saw it, part of her didn’t want to leave. But called out by name like this, there really was no option for escape if that monster outside wanted her. She had heard the Abberants had a mastery of control over Si, but she had never truly been near one of that caliber in person. She had also heard tales of how light itself was a form of Si, how those skilled enough in their understanding of it could bend even the light itself. She could not have been prepared for this.
Around the figure the light from the sky warped, refracting through crystalline wings to leave strange rainbow patterns around on the ground. Like with all Cultivators a steady stream of Si leaked from their body, yet it didn’t travel far before being sucked back in like it was drawn in by some titanic waterfall, some of the light around them also dimming in the process. He, and she was sure now that it was a he, held John and Cobalt in their hands almost comically, dredging up memories of the time she saw a mother cat glowing in the night carrying its kittens in its jaws. Setting them down as they descended to the ground, it dawned on her how tall he was to carry a woman as large as Cobalt so effortlessly.
If it wasn’t for the fact Gorekin was right there with her, an equally dumbfounded expression on his heavy-set features, she would have believed it was a strange dream. Where had this stranger come from? It was as though they descended from the sky itself.
“I apologise for the theatrics, but I am working on a tight schedule.” The stranger apologised.
“Who… who are you?” She stammered, feeling a lump form in her throat. Her every muscle was screaming at her to fight, flee, do anything, but her conscious mind knew trying anything against someone so much stronger was suicide in every way that mattered.
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“Ah, foreigners yes? You too bear-man. I was not expecting a member of the Sasquatch here, but I supposed it was inevitable one of your kin would choose to leave the North.” They mused.
“You know of kin?” Gorekin asked with surprise.
“Not personally, but I have heard tales from da- my adoptive father.” They corrected themselves, as Faith understood it, descendents of Cultivators, besides extremely rare exceptions, were sterile adoptions. It was the expectation, especially in the Empire where personal lines were of great importance. But the fact their connection was apparently so close they nearly forgot their formalities, was almost reassuring, a reminder that the person in front of them for all their monstrous power was a human.
“Anyway, to answer your question.” They continued, a faint glow suffusing the air around them as they spoke. “My name is Jackson Kalu, Tamer of the God Birds, Anointed by Cunningham and Seeker of Truths. Third Generation Jackalope Rider, Honoured Associate of the Jackalope Sect and Heir to the Empire.”
And all at once the anxiety was back. The mounting pressure in the air made it difficult to breathe, and she stumbled backwards into a furry wall of muscle. Gorekin too seemed similarly tense, but slightly less worried than her. Then again, he didn’t grow up with the stories.
Sarah Cunningham, hero and founder of the Jackalopes, but to the Western States as much a warlord as any. She had grown far faster than anyone since the Red Star, stealing secrets from devils to achieve growth unparalleled under God. While denounced as a cowardly figure hiding away from the world, her strength was undeniable, and though all who spoke of the Pope’s disappearance were branded blasphemers when war broke out in the lands of the Golden Promise even while the blighted clouds above the Empire were split by a beam of divine light, it was nakedly evident to all, the only true ancient monster who still may yet meddle again in the affairs of mortals was locked away in one of the secret vaults of the Jackalopes. And this was someone who had taken her teachings directly.
“You fear me Faith.” Jackson observed, turning their obsidian carved features towards them like a statue of an angel casting judgement. “But know that I am not your enemy.”
“W-what do you want?” She stammered.
“I want to stop the hordes of metal demons coming from the East. I want to find the secrets the Dragon Khan has been searching for in the West. My priorities are and have always been the well-being of the Empire, and though you may not consider yourself one of us I know our interests are aligned. Somehow you four are at the centre of the future I see, and I have gifts that may aid you greatly.” Jackson explained. They rummaged through their robes and extracted a few items, burning with Si. An ingot of purified and refined Spirit Metal wrapped in some dull grey cloth, some sort of arcane relic from the Golden Age so faithfully maintained the metal still gleamed and a formation of some sort carved onto metal and set with the same organic glassy substance that made up the Prince’s wings. They set these items onto a large transparent crystal that grew its way out of their arm, slicing through flesh and expanding into the rough shape of a crystal.
“To facilitate your role in preserving the fate of the known world, I give you this. Refined Plutonium with a lead-lined protective cloth to accelerate your growth as you see fit. A scanner device from Old America, able to catalogue and provide information on nearly anything you might find. An identification formation that you may infuse with your Si to avoid any further conflicts with the Empire, and of course…” They turned towards John and Cobalt with a slightly bemused look. “Making sure your journeys did not end here.”
“Why don’t you tell us what you saw in that prophecy of yours?” John asked.
“You of two bodies in one mind, at the centre of a maelstrom. You will be faced with choices that may very well destroy you, but you continue to burn brighter until your fury matches that of the storm. Though be wary, for two flames burn twice as fast.” They answered shockingly quickly before turning to Cobalt.
“Daughter of the Lizard, you are strong now but you will be stronger yet. In time you may find the answers you are looking for, but even in your worst self, you will represent what was lost.”
Addressing Gorekin now, he said. “Son of the Forest, I saw you as a curious soul, and you will learn much indeed. The secrets you uncover may be as great as they may be terrible, but in all worlds, you are a light. In all worlds, the unknowable will recoil from you, and yet you will pursue.”
Now finally landing on her, and causing her heart to seize in her chest once more and tighter than ever, he spoke her prophecy. “You are on a crossroads, you who knows not what you are, you who fights for a cause you do not yet know. I cannot promise you will always find what you are looking for, but I can promise you will find yourself.”
The words stung, it was a naked declaration of what she knew yet didn’t want to hear. Yet shockingly, shamefully… it was comforting. She wouldn’t, couldn’t, speak but somehow she almost wanted to ask for them to continue as they finished.
So wrapped up were they in that thought, they nearly missed the sound of a certain cantankerous woman screaming obscenities in her native tongue to the men evidently attempting to hold her back, as the Captainina emerged from the Toro Rojo.
“Who do you think you are?! To so brazenly come and simply decl-” The words died on her tongue of course. As a Wretch, even one on the verge of the Fission Ignition of her Diantian, she would hardly be as sensitive towards the flow of Si as any of them. To her, it must have seen like any other strong Cultivator, and though a suicide match, there was an honour in defiance against those who would so readily trample on one’s ability to maintain sacred hospitality.
The look on her bandaged face said enough about the magnitude of the miscalculation. At this range, even she would be unable to deny the truth of what was in front of her.
“Hm, I take it this one is the leader of the refugees you sought to protect? I understand why, I can feel a noble soul. Brazen and righteous even under odds she believes impossible.” Jackson mused towards Cobalt, before refocusing on the matriarch of the Toro Rojo crew. “Though you have a significant deviation in your Cultivation. Signs of blockages, most of which are resolved, but one in particular is in a troubling position. As a token of apologies for my intrusion and disturbance, I would like to clear it for you.”
The Capitainina scowled and said something in her native tongue, only to be taken back in surprise when the Prince replied back in that very tongue. Regardless of what they were actually saying, it seemed to calm whatever concerns the Curse-afflicted woman had. With almost comical ease the Prince set his hands on her much like she had done, and a faint blue light glowed from the point where the hand had touched. There was a pulse in power as the woman collapsed again, flesh seeming to bubble and nearly boil, before just as abruptly as it had begun it stopped and she rose to her feet once again. The bandages already loosening revealing rapidly regenerating skin beneath, skin now with a metallic sheen and glistening like bronze. Highlighting the sculpted, muscled curves that were once hidden in a dying frame wrapped in gauze.
She felt a strange heat rise to her face then and averted her eyes for some reason. It might have been a bit indecent now that the bandages covering her were falling off, but it truly wasn’t her fault now that she was thinking of it. Really she didn’t know why she did that, not as though she hadn’t seen worse as a medic-priestess in training.
Gorekin certainly didn’t help, making his strange gurgling sounds that she now knew were laughs.
“My time is up, I will go now.” the Prince informed them all. “I have high hopes for you, do not disappoint.”
And with that, they were gone in a blinding flash of blue light and power so potent she could practically taste the sugars pumping through her singed skin that couldn’t meaningfully differentiate it from the sun itself.