Arson had been selected for his third Mosh. The den of mortal displeasures his adopted parents frequented, enjoyed his resiliency to being knocked out, while his tormentors enjoyed how much they made in credits with each survived event.
His perception of who his tormentors were had shifted from the men and women who watched him fight to survive against his fellow unloved brothers and sisters, to his own adopted parents who also watched.
They are no different, they enjoy my pain as they enjoy any others pain.
Arson found himself in a familiar position. Back against a wall, arms up held in a defensive stance. Both eyes on a constant swivel.
Arson wasn’t a crowd favorite, as he never tried to fight back, only defend himself.
During his second set of practice matches he’d tried to throw a punch that resulted in him being grappled, and the experience of having an arm dislocated was one he hadn’t shaken from the front of his mind even seasons later.
The pit he was in now was worse in that there were many more opportunities to be harmed, but better in that there were also more targets for his opponents to choose from.
It had taken a while, but Arson had grown a reputation for being hard to take down, or keep down if it was managed. A reputation that now worked against him.
Where there had once been 50 children and teens in the pit there were now only 13 including Arson. Twelve of which had stopped fighting and began to look at one another, before many eyes fell collectively on Arson.
Remember to breathe Arson, no matter what happens, you cannot defend yourself if you are not awake.
The crowd went wild as many of the final 12 in front of Arson all charged in his direction.
He managed to avoid the first couple blows. Only the first few sent in his direction, but once the numbers grew to a shoulder to shoulder wall that even restricted the passage of a few of his opponents, no direction was any longer safe.
The group kicked wildly at him, and Arson took deep breaths. Each inhale and exhale audible enough to be heard through the strikes that landed across his frame.
He told himself mentally that those who attacked him were in the same position as himself. Forced into the situation through bad luck and the worst environments.
With each kick he pushed to the back of his mind, however, a new sensation could be felt. It made him want to lash out at everyone in front of him. Sent his thoughts into a near spiral of madness and violence that made him wish what he endured currently on all who allowed for him to end up where he was in that moment, and more.
Going through the short list of people to blame always brought Arson back to himself. So often in fact that he couldn’t ignore the pattern.
Am I the problem?
He asked himself this question on a loop with every deep breath he managed. The continued assault becoming background to the weight and noise of his own thoughts.
Remain reasonable with yourself, Arson. Almarine said you would lose yourself without reason, so think this out.
His eyes met each of his attackers one by one. A series of thoughts moved him from person to person in front of him.
She seems excited by all of this, thought Arson to himself while he took in the first girl.
He seems scared, thought Arson as he moved on.
Angry, but that seems to be everyone involved, thought Arson, eyes on the next target in line. Even while being kicked continually, he breathed deeply, and broke down his opponents.
After enough time passed and the crowd began to boo and wail in annoyance of the combat being stagnant, one of the young men in front of him managed to grab him by the arm and yank Arson away from the wall. He landed bodily on the unconscious members of the Mosh battle that had already been beaten. A new round of pummeling began and Arson focused once more on his breaths, knowing what to come would be worse if he was knocked out then and there.
Most of his opponents had started to beat Arson even after choking him out or putting him to sleep with strikes to make his recovery time longer. Though Mr. and Mrs. Vellum made enough money from his matches to not care about old injuries, and let him collect them like badges of honor.
His skin didn’t scar outwardly, which only made those he’d become familiar to facing in the underground club that much more eager to bring him down; the perception of Arson being unscathed by the damage dealt by his opponents now a common mindset.
The group of 12 rained down blows, every stomp given for various reasons.
Some hungry for a meal only given when they won. Others trying to learn cultivation through unguided practices of violence and brainwashing in regards to how to gain power properly.
Arson knew what he wanted. The knowledge of what he felt to be his dream of power had built itself through the hardship he’d overcome by being attacked daily.
I want the power to make change, without being in the spotlight… Arson had seen what happened when the few rare talents around himself stood out in his current setting, and saw the danger in the top positions held.
Any who held the positions held them briefly, and even though Arson was at the center of a beatdown, he knew they’d eventually give up and turn on one another.
He breathed and curled into a ball slowly. Eyes open, each of his opponents filled with the odd sensation of fear when their gazes met. Arson’s mental clarity slowly stripped from his mind with every blow taken, a unfathomable seed of fury being born in the child of dragons and phoenixes.
He looked away from the group around him, and up toward the lights above. The feeling of an urge to yell, and scream, swallowed Arson whole, and in the same moment he couldn’t hold back the pent up frustration any further, Arson yelled, and the ceiling above the entire club, exploded. Shattered and crumbled to bits like glass struck by rocks.
…
Winter had been yanked through the sky above Maelstrom many times. Yet this was the first time he was taken high enough to see how his home was truly formed.
Almarine carried him in a box made of her own mana small enough that he couldn’t even move his arms in his upright fetal position. Winter normally was unaffected by the movements of Continents, the giant flying platforms of land that held various parts of the CityNation were connected by portal systems his family built and managed, so being air sick was never a hurdle for him.
As he tried to focus on landmasses that drifted through the air, connected only by the energy of a mana cores synthetic gravitational pull, he nearly vomited on himself.
He was forced to look away from the light at the center of their once perfectly spherical planet, and on Almarine’s back as they flew instead.
He was informed on how their own planet could only be considered hospitable due to both his families work, and the mana core left behind by the Ikarus civilization, but seeing the reality of what was being done with the majority of the ambient mana within their realm was entirely different.
Eons ago their planet's core had erupted. The shattering of their planet would have resulted in almost a trillion lives lost, but one cultivator’s efforts instead changed the foundation of how their planet's design sustained both its shape and alignment in space.
Their society controlled its own path around their suns, because of the efforts of Carter Omni and the MirrorLight family. WIth the consistent movement of land in a drift around itself, one continent that held a certain resource could be located in the north of the planet one day, and repositioned in the south the next.
Large bodies of water were no longer found naturally outside landmasses, but instead had been reshaped by the planet's new core to be held inland.
Winter’s occasional glance downward showed him oceans surrounded by green. Portions of foreign CityNations now consumed by Maelstrom to create a society on the edge of being considered an Empire within itself with the once separated populations across the entire planet becoming unified.
Winter stopped as Almarine stopped. Her eyes took in the entire planet at once and Winter knew that with her current level of power she could have scattered the pieces of Maelstrom across space and even time if she wanted.
Instead Almarine scanned the moving parts of the planet sized city. She found the precinct amongst many of the largest centralized cluster of platforms, the building appearing to be the size of an ant for Almarine, while Winter couldn’t see his place of occupation.
“Last chance, tell me where he is, or your people pay,” attempted Almarine for the final time.
“Nothing good will come of this, Mari, the Oligarchs will hunt you for this. You may have once been able to battle at that level and survive, but that time has passed, love!” Almarine shook her head in the second atmosphere created by mana around the planet, and sighed.
“Remember that I tried to save you from this…”
Almarine’s mana started to condense around the box Winter was held in, still incapable of teleportation, or the creation of a portal.
She pointed him face toward the police facility, and a silver orb of transparent mana wrapped around the box Winter was held inside. A threat was being assembled in the air like a moon whose course had been derailed forcibly, set to collide with the planet it orbited.
“Mari, please!”
The orb grew in power and Winter knew what she planned. He’d seen her do this many times before, enemy leaders of kingdoms long dead the only others who knew and lived through what he was about to experience.
“What is built will succumb to time's massacre of even the gods and what they hold dear.” These words said before the end of empires would yet again start a change unlike any other seen in the realm.
“Almarine, no!” Winter was shot toward the precinct below at a speed that made him see a familiar twist of colors like those seen when he created portals. Light split until the moment Winter collided with the top of the central Graveyard building for the CityNation of Maelstrom.
Time slowed around Winter. He was able to take in the entirety of the Graveyard complex. Glass walls strong enough to hold up marble foundations for each floor above ground. Eccentric towers with offensive runic systems strong enough to turn a field of sand into molten glass.
The beautiful weave of buildings was all that could be seen for miles in every direction. It was one of the CityNations many wonders, a structure built by the intelligence and strength of generations of cultivators working together to accomplish one goal.
The roof he smashed into was incinerated, everything touched vanished, all before Winter could even manage to scream his horror. Load baring pillars, walls, ceilings and floors alike were wiped away in a single moment.
One would worry for the lives that would normally be lost in an instance of such disastrous magnitude, but Winter sighed knowing that not a single life would be lost.
Instead what would be lost was everything they’d ever worked for. Almarine’s mana would consume everything it touched with the exclusion of living matter. The attack made to hamper a society’s growth, not kill its members.
The warfare master was made powerful by how much life existed around her, so had long figured out ways to hamper enemy societies in ways that didn’t rob her of her own power.
Lights rippled out from the orb that surrounded Winter, and he watched as cultivators were snatched from the air and pulled into the silver energy’s perimeter. The structure still grew while it plummeted in seemingly slow motion to Winter.
“I can see how this demoralized those we put through this…” Thousands of season cycles of work was erased before his eyes. Offices, equipment, cells both empty and occupied, all removed like footprints made on a shoreline.
The dense orb of silver mana hit bedrock and rippled outward, only stopped at the edges of the graveyard compound by Almarine’s own will. A large silver wall of destructed energy held at bay in a threat while Almarine landed beside Winter. He dared not look around at the men and women thrown about the giant pit left by Almarine’s attack. He already knew what he would see.
Alarm, confusion, agony and despair were reactions he’d had enough of, and were also the direct reason why he’d retired from serving the realm’s military. Almarine strode over and stood above him, waiting.
“I cannot give you what you want, but you know that you have sealed your fate with this action,” said Winter. Men and women began to scream with the realization of what had occurred. Almarine once more bent to lift Winter, the man again dangled from her single handed grip.
She flew into the air and many there prepared for combat, as many other fled for their lives. Winter stared into the eyes of the only woman he’d ever loved beside his own mother. The only woman he would ever love, and knew in this moment that he would lose her forever. He looked around at the destruction, and the energy held in the ready to consume even more of the surrounding structures of the city abroad and shook his head.
“Are you sure?” Winter looked at Almarine and saw a plea in her eyes. The facial expression, the most her pride would allow her to express. For it was comparable to begging to the former Empress.
“Is the boy really worth all of this,” responded Winter with a question of his own. His ex wife teared up as she gave him a single nod in response.
“It's a club called the Mana Well, it's within the slums at the edges of the bronze sectors of Maelstrom, just a single portal from the silver sectors western edge,” responded Winter. Though the continents and land masses moved in random patterns, and never remained in one place, the portals that connected them did. So the man gave Almarine multiple avenues to find her target, knowing that it could be in a numerous amount of locations at any given time.
He didn’t want to do anything to make the woman before him feel as if he was trying to slow her down, or stop her in any way with the amount of loss already experienced just moments prior, counting himself lucky as she dropped him to the ground below and shot upward into the sky.
A mass of silver energy pulled through the air behind her like a large halo, burned the image of a full moon in the eyes of all who watched her departure.
“This is bad isn’t it, sir,” said a nearby officer far too panicked to even attempt to flee as many others had.
“More than you know,” responded Winter his eyes never leaving the image of the silver moon in the sky above him. “More than you know."