Csala
“So, explain it to me again,” she asked, giving the glowing contraption a thorough observation — if she could even call it that.
“The Royals aren’t generating enough light, fast enough for the spear to condense. What you are looking at right now is something I call the particle-antiparticle generator—”
Achilleia snorted. “That sounds so you, Xerae.”
Csala didn’t like the fact that she could insert herself into their private line of communication but there was nothing she could do about it. She looked around the underground chamber, taking in the Sprouts that sat cross-legged in meditation. Light was pouring off them toward the contraption.
The contraption was like one giant piece of interconnected quartz crystal; only each crystal was shaped unlike the gems Jerome had used to make their computation rings. Long, slim dagger-like crystals protruded out of a base of a large golden glowing crystal with three concentric rings around it. It looked like the shell of a giant turtle with protruding blades covering its surface. Sometimes the protruding crystals shrunk in time with the otherworldly vibrations coming from the gigantic portal high in the sky but not at the same time. At other times, they extended outward.
And atop it all, sat Jerome’s spear, pointing upwards like a bad omen.
“Will think up a better name for it later but as I was saying,” Jerome continued. “The antiparticle generator needs a light-on-light — something I call a photon-photon interaction to pair-produce high-energy light particles which will in turn create particle-antiparticle pairs. These pairs will be beamed into the portal above and when they collide they annihilate each other, releasing energy.”
“Did you really need to explain all that to me, because I didn’t understand a thing,” Csala said.
Someone attracted her attention and she saw one of the twins walking up to her.
“You need to buy me some time until I get there,” Jerome said. “I explained all that because—”
“I can’t buy time, Jerome, but I realize that’s a figure of speech. What do you need me to do?”
She heard him sigh. “Achilleia will take control of your ring for a while. And with her help you can cross the threshold of the runic circles I drew on the floor of the chamber. Everything I explained will help you keep the generator from using up its stored energy to replace what the Royals should be providing, while at the same time, injecting the portal above with a little amount of particle-antiparticle pairs to disrupt its entanglement.”
“Shouldn’t you have built this thing to protect itself in some way?”
“I could have but that would mean failing our mission of shutting down the portal. It’s a disposable contraption, Csala. We are not. Oh, shit! She’s back!”
“What? Jerome?” He sounded panicky. “What’s going on out there?”
“There’s a crazy Elite who doesn’t just wanna die here. Don’t worry about it; I’ll just kill her again.”
“He’s wasting his time with that one,” Achilleia said. “But she won’t leave him be. Jerome needs to ask for help but he’s too damn proud to do that.”
“What do you mean?”
“Her soul is stuck here — in the material plane,” Achilleia said. “Her body is her own dungeon, shackling her to this world. I cannot imagine the amount of torture she must feel. Let’s begin.”
She felt the ring on her finger warm up and the world exploded with light.
~~~
“Xerae, you need to ask for help,” Achilleia said. “Forester and his gang are doing nothing and you are too damn arrogant to see that he can help… if you ask nicely.”
And you think he’d step off his high horses to help a ‘peasant’ like me? Jerome snorted. I’m being realistic, Achilleia. He’d rather see me fail so he could rub it in my face.
His fight with the blonde, female Elite from before was in full swing once again. And this time she wasn’t holding back.
“And how will that help our overall situation, Xerae.”
I’m not asking him for help, Achilleia!
“Then your pride will get every one of your friends killed. Your teammates, your lovers. They will resent you for this.”
Jerome groaned in frustration as he powered through a storm of shrapnels made out of the fabric of space.
Look, Achilleia, we should worry about how to kill this bitch. Truly kill her.
“You can’t, Xerae. Her soul is shackled to the material plane. Probably something she did to herself with her manipulation of the fabric of space. Once her current body dies, the ascended essence that powers her soul kicks in and a new vessel is created for her soul to fill.”
Is that why she’s naked?
“Yes, Xerae.”
Well, that doesn’t sound so mortal to me, Achilleia — like you said the brute is. Where’s Nyx anyway?
He scanned for her but the storm of space shards was messing with his senses. “Nyx?”
“Still busy with the brute,” Nyx replied. “He’s a lot tougher to kill than I earlier assumed.” Her connection cut off after that.
Jerome realized the storm was messing with the connection as it took her more time to respond than was needed.
“She’s still mortal, Xerae. She can never not be because every new vessel she creates has the constitution of a mortal. And she ages just as mortals do.”
But then she’d repeat the cycle of her life all over again. So by default she’s not mortal. Damn, she’d give Muna a run for her money. Muna had to find another body to occupy to live, but this one just creates a new one.
“Muna didn’t have access to essence, Xerae.”
The Elite blonde punched him in the gut unexpectedly. Jerome groaned in pain. Her punch was so heavy that he was hurled back into the storm. He must have reached the edge of the storm and didn’t realize it.
“Fucking void storm!”
Blondie’s laughter filled his ears, making him gnash his teeth in frustration. He couldn’t help but see the wisdom in Achilleia’s suggestion. He knew it was the right thing to do. But Forester’s face mocking him as he asked for help was something he couldn’t get out of his mind.
Jerome sighed as the shrapnels of space began to rip his suit apart. He materialized the pod above him and tried to manipulate it into a cloak to protect himself. But he failed. From within his body, he could Shape it outwardly into spikes and daggers — something small enough to be held in his hand. But any bigger and the whole thing would sublimate and be sucked back into him.
“Fuck!” he roared in frustration.
He tried again to Shape the pod into a covering and failed again. Shaping it into a rigid form was hard enough, giving it some flexibility like fabric was next to impossible. He left the cube floating above him to strengthen the connection of his call to Forester, lest the storm hampered their conversation.
“Forester?” he called out, connecting with the Royal Sprout’s comms device. “I need your help.”
“You need my—” Forester seemed to sputter to a stop as if he didn’t hear him right. “Oh. Ooh! And what would you need my help with, peasant?”
“Now is not the time, Forester. I need—”
“Then you don’t need my help at all!”
“Don’t be a smart ass, Xerae.”
Jerome sighed. Nothing about this situation felt right to him but it was the most optimal solution. Something hit him in the back and he felt a huge chunk of his suit fall off. He cursed. If he could teleport out of this damn spatial domain, he would have but nothing made sense in here right now.
“I need you to help me keep a Judge busy. She’s restricting my movement and preventing me from reaching your teammates in the underground chamber. I need to get to them as it seems they are having trouble with the contraption I left them with.”
“It is a good thing to come to your betters with your problems, peasant. But you have been disrespectful and insulting throughout my time with you—”
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“Do you really wanna do this, Forester… be petty? All our lives may depend on this.”
“Your life, you mean, you ingrate! Vorthe took you in and this is how you speak to its Scion?”
Jerome felt like choking the life out of the arrogant bastard. He clenched and unclenched his fist in an attempt to calm down but he only felt angrier. He could feel the beast beginning to rise with his rising rage. With all of his willpower he forced his mind to calm.
“Forester, I’m sorry I was disrespectful. Will you help me?”
“I need a formal and public apology from you.”
“Okay, but now’s not the time—”
“I don’t care what’s going on! I don’t care what your situation is! If you can’t come to me, on your knees, and begging, you get no help from me!”
“Don’t you understand the situation I just explained to you!?” Jerome was outraged.
“You spoiled good for nothing brat!” Achilleia said out loud through his ring. Jerome didn’t see that coming.
“Who’s that?” Forester asked.
“Someone you really don’t want to piss off. And I’m pissed off!”
Forester screamed but his voice was immediately cut off. Achilleia must have attacked him with the comms device attached behind his ear. Jerome dematerialized the cube and it was sucked into his body.
Achilleia? he called, but something hit him again. Harder this time around. He stumbled and coughed up blood. That must have been the blonde.
“Thanks, Xerae, for heeding my advice. But this Sprout is beyond redemption.”
So you see my point of view.
He struggled to get up but the world turned on its head. He hit the floor and the blonde sat on him. Still naked. But she very quickly rushed off him in fear. Then she looked down into his eyes, smiling.
“You’re crazy,” Jerome said, trying to stand up.
She laughed, picked him up, and slammed him into the ground. “You know, I’ve never had as much fun as I’ve had with you, with anyone else.” She laughed again like a maniac.
Jerome groaned. “I’m not your plaything.”
“Oh, but you will be… after I’m done with you, that is.” She stabbed him in the shoulder with her void blade.
Excruciating pain lanced through his muscles and he screamed.
~~~
Lang
What the fuck was going on? From all Jerome had said, he felt like he should be seeing some changes going on in the sky right now.
“What is it?” Trudhorn asked.
Lang looked away from the massive portal in the sky. The ground was littered with the bodies of Messengers and sacred artists alike, some of them whom he had known for a while now. They will be missed.
“I feel like something… some change should have happened by now.”
Trudhorn looked up at the portal and shrugged. He was covered in blood from head to boots. “Perhaps. But have you noticed their numbers decreasing? More aren’t pouring out of the portal.”
“I believe something’s wrong,” he said. “I just can’t get rid of the feeling.”
“We are sacred artists. And you’re Pillar now.” Trudhorn nodded. “If you feel so, it most likely is so.”
Lang tapped his comms device behind his left ear and the device beeped.
“Jerome,” he said and there was another beep to indicate that a connection to Jerome was established. “Jerome, do you hear me?”
Jerome’s roar of pain entered his ears a moment later and Lang flinched. He became alert. “Have you heard anything from Jerome or the twins?”
Trudhorn shook his head.
“Tell Lin I want to check on something.” He flew off toward the center of the now destroyed base.
“Lang, you can’t just leave!” Trudhorn called to him, his voice growing distant in a split moment.
Jerome’s destroyer, the one he had called the Dragon’s Wrath, was no were to be seen and everything was on fire. Bodies littered the whole place and some portions of the land had been leveled completely. The battle that happened here must have been truly epic!
The center of the base was still a ways away but he could feel an oppressive force coming from that direction. Lang went around it.
“Elaine,” he called out to connect to the Royal Sprout.
This comms device was truly a masterpiece. Even though it wasn’t advanced enough as Vorthe’s transmission bracelets. It could connect to any device like itself in a moment and all you needed to do was call the user’s name.
“Lang, what is it?” came the sweet voice of the Royal Sprout.
“What’s going on?” he asked. “The portal hasn’t gone down yet and Jerome seems to be in a heated battle.”
“Something’s not working right, Lang. He sent directions to Csala to help keep the generator thing working, and he said he was on his way.”
“What about Nyx?” he asked. Surely, the strange woman should have gone to help him.
“She’s in a fight too?” Elaine said. “Only Forester is free and I don’t think he’s ready to help.”
Lang cursed. He didn’t like where this all was going.
“I’ll talk to Forester. Let me know if anything changes.” The connection ended and he called out Forester’s name.
“What!?” the arrogant young lord bit out. “Come to beg for my assistance like the cunt did?”
“You need to choose whether you are with us, or against us!” Lang hissed. “Everything is falling apart and if you can’t let go of your ego and help, you will become less of the man you are to everyone around you!”
“Do you have any idea who you’re talking to, Lang!”
“Yes! A pompous fool who’s blind to the opportunity right in front of him. And trust me your window of opportunity is closing and it’s closing fast. If Jerome surmounts whatever challenge he’s facing right now — and trust me when I say that he will — you will regret it!”
“I owe no one but the Royal family my allegiance! He’s a peasant—”
“A peasant who went to Terra Praeta with the Scions of Vorthe! Do you think your family fools!? Do you think the Sovereign a fool for allowing it!? For all we know, he made sure of it himself!”
“That’s not possible!”
“See beyond yourself for once, Forester! There are other people and other things happening around you. And you’re not the center of things. The world doesn’t revolve around you.”
Forester cursed, “Fuck you! And no! I’m not going to stoop so low after all he has done. I’m not helping him!”
“Then we are all doomed. The suppression in the center of the base is too powerful for me to enter and I bet that’s where Jerome is. But you can. Your team can, Forester. Do something that’s not for you for once in your life!
“I know what it’s like to lose to him. I know because I have… in Terra Praeta. He strips you of something vital to you. Something from your core. That thing that pushes you and motivates you to be the best among the best.”
Forester’s silence was confirmation that he had hit the nail on the head.
“It’s okay to be bitter and resentful but do not stay that way. You need to push through it and grow up.”
“I’m not bitter… or resentful,” Forester said, but his voice lacked the heat it did moments ago.
“I’ve been watching you, Forester. You’ve been trying to talk him down ever since the night of your fight. But every single time he ignores you. You throw a tantrum when you think no one’s watching, you snap at others constantly, and wear your anger like a badge of honor.
“Trust me. If you continue down that path, the negative energies you build up will consume you. And you will become the shadow of the proud sacred artist you once were.
“Take the hand that is offered, Forester.”
~~~
Jerome shook himself awake as pain lanced through his skull. He was bleeding out and fast. The shrapnel-like blades of space had taken enough chunks out of his suit that it was hanging onto him by a thread.
“What do you want with me?” he asked. His throat hurt from too many injuries.
He tried to summon the mind-calming stone like he did in the First Heaven of Terra Praeta but it felt like she was far away — he liked to think he summoned her himself. But he was on his own on this one.
“Good, you’re awake.” The blonde Elite Judge lifted him high into the sky and slammed him into the ground again.
He felt his bones shake themselves loose off their joints and more pain lanced through him. Jerome groaned, refusing to give her the satisfaction of hearing him scream. All his limbs had been pierced with her void blades. He hadn’t put into consideration the fact that she would’ve been capable of making multiple blades and keeping them stuck inside his limbs for this long.
The storm should have given him the clue but he was too busy trying to get out of it. Jerome lifted his hand to pull out one of the blades — that was even if he could take a hold of it. Blondie smacked his hand away.
“Don’t be a bore,” She tapped and caressed his cheek. “Keep it in a while longer. I want to see how long it will take you to pass out and stay passed out. You have a very powerful mental prowess by the way. Every sacred artist I’ve tried this on has passed out in less than half the time you have been awake.”
“Sorry to disappoint you… got things to do.” He caught her hand in his and attempted to do something — anything. But he was just too weak in his limbs from bleeding out.
“Just a little bit more time now,” she whispered into his ear.
“Hang in there, Xerae.” Achilleia said.
He knew that if she could do anything, she would. Not that she hadn’t tried using living steel to fight the blonde. If only the mind-calming stone had turned his Suzie into space like she did the pod.
Jerome chuckled. That felt like he was asking too much. He could feel himself slipping away into sleep. It was tempting to give in; to let the weakness take him. But he held on. He was not the kind of person to give up, even in the face of adversity. As he drifted in and out of consciousness, he wondered why the mind-calming stone wasn’t responding to him. He only had Blade’s Edge Canyon and the First Heaven to use in determining why she always responded to him.
Danger, he thought. That was the one thing that ‘She’ responded to. She responded best when he was in danger— or Achilleia as the case may have been in the First Heaven. Did that mean he wasn’t in danger? Of course. The blonde didn’t want to kill him but trap him; to keep him as a play thing.
Is that what you want? He asked, sending his thoughts directly through the mental pathway connected to ‘Her’. Do you want her to make me into a slave? She wouldn’t kill me, she can’t. But she can imprison me.
The mind-calming stone stirred inside him as it became increasingly difficult to hold onto consciousness. He heard a crash above him and grunts of pain and struggles. The pain in his limbs had gone numb and he couldn’t feel his body any longer.
Jerome sensed his body go rigid and cold. He felt the mind-calming stone move through him like the currents of the ocean. He felt at peace; at one with her, with the world… right before exhaustion and sleep took over.