Carius walked off the large white marble steps of the Eternal Pavilion. The pink hue in them ever as splendid, it was delicate, unlike the wound he had inflicted on Atlas. Yet his eyes were elsewhere. He heard clamors, anxious shouts, heavy, turbulent breaths. He saw no sign of the foremen, clambering to disturb him with their overbearing attitudes and weird rules they had no real way to enforce.

Instead all he saw was the limping figure of Old man George. It was a surprise for both of them to say the least.

“Carius… You’re alive? Thank God.” Old man George said with a happy grunt, an old smile barely lining his lips.

“My heart is still beating. Else you’d prefer me dead? Old Man George? To warm your bed in heaven?” Carius mocked as he hugged the old pharmacist. The withered old man spoke of the years he has lived in the wrinkles on his face and body, the folds of skin hanging from his bearded neck. He had aged in the weeks since they first met, a great deal.

“Come with me, Carius. A storm has come and it doesn’t plan on leaving any time soon. It all started with your clan facing its greatest peril. At least that is the catalyst that has been given.” The old man walked with Carius, slowly.

“I’ve heard. A clan member of mine is appearing before a world congress.”

“It’s more of a Congress with the NUN, and their army. I bet you can tell its importance without needing me to elaborate, but I think this will surprise you.” The two men walked up to a building, unassuming, the same as any other. On the ground floor, large rods of steels tied together with copper wires coiled around them, traveled up the building, shooting past the roof and reaching high in the sky. A whole town of people was packed atop itself in the former bar all grippingly watching through the blurred static of a small flat screen TV, listening to the words of a presenter as his pitch raised.

“It’s being televised world wide.” The Old man said, only to be hissed at by the packed crowd.

Carius stood still. He heard it clear as day. “The Scavenged Opposition, a Faction led by army veteran David O’Donnell presents to the Congress the two brave, mysterious little girls promising a world of wonders right at the fingertips of humanity, Free of charge! In the first televised program since the end of the world I present you all, people of the world, Ru Shi, and Laertis Argea!”

A gust of sharp wind blew Carius hair back, a burning hope flooded him. His whole being became glued to the screen.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Argea clenched her fists, fingers interlocked, on her chest. Ru Shi’s hands clutching her shoulders, , much needed reassurance flowed between the two girls. To their left stood David, the grizzled veteran put out another cigarette, an irritated growl coming from his throat. He crumbled the empty packet and passed it back to one of their caretakers, one of the thousand staff members and plants that lived and breathed in the marvel of future engineering, the NUN Congress building. In the middle of the dessert, standing on a massive rock of red, a white dome stretched to the skies, the Eternal Pavilion at the foot of the Rock Plateau was overshadowed by the glory of this pristine creation. The hall was dark, except for the lights lining the top corners of the ceiling.

They trio walked accompanied by the staffers to the wooden double doors, that stood with simple geometric shapes all pointing towards the handles, the wood was dark and polished to a black finish. Standing right before the door David took a breath. “Ready?”

The girls nodded. David stared at Argea, her eyes clear as the skies. It was time.

David pushed the doors open and made way. Light attacked Argea and through squinted eyes slowly the 300 seats of council, the seats of honor, and the podium on which she would present her cause appeared one after another. Men older than Xanthip, less capable than the Patriarch, sat with eyes of cold, stern, steely piercing into her. Through those faces of stone they scrutinized her from the brand of her shoes, the lines of her silks, the tremble in her eyes, the sweat on her forehead, even the hair-bun was not left alone.

The group reached the enlarged podium in moments. The two girls went up and David stood in front of them. In his hands he held a microphone. “Ladies & Gentlemen, of the NUN Council.” David’s voice was calm, yet it echoed out with an intensity that demanded for silence and attention. It was an aura the man had, a light in his eyes that gathered all eyes on earth like moths to a flame.

”We, of the Scavenged Opposition faction thank you for the time you have given to hearing out our requests. Today, we have come with the only solutions I David O’Donnell have found so as to help Humanity, defend against, and even thrive in these Changing times. Against the growing number of beasts that are continuously assaulting humanity reaping lives and tearing through cities, a fact of life that will continue for an eternity if we don’t grow faster than them.”

“But monsters packed full of Qi and plants that come to life and natural phenomena that appear as untenable disasters are not the only threats we face. Modern humanity has gone through a lot to reach the point it has, and it has all been tarnished by the advent of Qi. It is proper to flounder, and not all lives can be saved. But many can, we know the way. I’m sure you know, you have read the reports and our previous statements. We are here to stop the needless deaths of fledgling soldiers to a cause that is nothing but a trap. Enough blood has been shed for the otherworlders and their schemes. It’s time we take matters into our own hands and get through this disaster on our own two feet.”

He stepped aside, arm spread open at the two girls. They gulped down their anxiety in unison.

“These two young women, have managed to harness the energy of the world that is making nature evolve in such a way. The fuel source that never ends, and the energy in which the Otherworlders have been born in, given this they consider it as natural as air and water, they can never have enough.”

“This talented pair are going to present to you, what they can do, and the basics as to what they are doing. Make sure to watch well, because if you blink, you’re gonna think this is all a dream. I’ve fought in a hundred wars, and yet this surprised me more than anything I have ever encountered.”

And the baton was thus passed onto the girls. Ru Shi spoke first, and to Argea it all came and went in a blur. To Ru Shi herself it was robotic, part of a process, piece of a performance. A puzzle she had shorted in her head, one that would have to convince way more than the council members on the legitimacy of the path she walked.

It was the horrors, the nightmarish face of her little sister skulking right behind her ear, eyes gouged out, tongue bit clean off, blood washing down her neck, shoulder and back. The haunting that had been following, for years now was screaming at Ru Shi. “Where do you think you’re going? Sister! Running away again!?” The screeching mess worming through Ru Shi’s innards spread, pulsed, hungered for her.

Even as she spoke, even as her Qi whisked about, concoctions of impressive mastery were created, tested, and advertised perfectly by her, she felt dead, silent, alone. The puppeteer to her own body.

Yet the warm reassuring feel of the small little hand grasping onto her own brought her crashing back into her reality. She lurched herself into a deep bow much to the gratification of her adversaries, bloated cheers reached Ru Shi’s ears, and she was somehow done. It had gone by in a storm and she would have gained nothing from it if not for Argea. It was a weird gut feeling, the knowledge that right after this, she would speak to her father. She would come clean. She derived no happiness, she did not love them, if was all fake. For she was forever stuck in that moment. A coward, a traitor, how could she give herself the luxury of love? Yet now, Atlas and Argea, and Xanthip, and Carius, and David, this experience. It steeled her, balanced her out, gave her a means to resists the gluttonous energies within herself. It was always meant to be dealt by her alone.

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She nodded to Argea, where truly the most challenging, heavy hitting part of the presentation would take place.

If not, then the opposition had failed.

Argea, the young girl of age 13 brought her wheelchair to the very center of the little stage behind the podium, which had been dismantled to make way for all to see her act. She had practiced till she went unconscious numerous times, blood had flowed down her nose, eyes bloodshot red, yet she pushed on.

The little girl closed her eyes, the world’s breath stopped with her own. From the ground below her, motes of dark Qi gathered, they swirled like dust in the wind before they clumped up together, into a thick slime that turned rigid not much later. They climbed, twisting on their own weight for support, like vines up the stage and slithered, hissing towards Argea from all around her, hundreds of individual strands of perfectly controlled Qi acting as if it was a real, living, being.

There was not a single person in the room that did not marvel at this incredulous feat. As the little girls slowly raised her hands, fists closed tight, not a single soul doubted the authenticity of this show.

Yet it was only a show. Even as the snakes lunged to the skies and broke off into a thousand butterflies it was nothing but effects. Nothing with value. Whispers broke out in the crowd of wizened money grubbers and bootlickers, real old shoe polishers, this was not what had been advertised, and it was not a product they could sell.

Under this mounting noise, pressure layered thick on Argea. The Little Genius opened her eyes and smiled. The myriad butterflies were all pushed into one mass. A thick saber formed and spun around, cutting through the air, until it dug into the wood right in front of Argea. She grabbed it with her two hands. “HA!” She shouted with nerves of steel as she pushed herself straight. Standing on her own to feet she walked forward.

“YES!” Screamed Carius in the TV, his holler making those next to him flinch. And the rest grumble in annoyance.

Argea’s muscles all bulged, the Qi inside her body whirled to life pushing her crumbling bones into place and keeping her standing.

“THIS!” Argea hefted the curved saber of Qi on her shoulder and cut through the silent pressure with her voice. “IS WHAT A WORLD WITH QI CAN BRING!” Argea demonstrated even further. For the first time in her life she took steps forward, trotting to a gallop before sprinting across the stage. Her malnourished muscles screaming with pain yet a smile that could outshine stars bloomed on her youthful features. She hopped, limbs splayed open in exuberance. A blast of Qi shot her into the sky, she spun around and stepped on the curved glass lining the roof. Qi tendrils spread thin from her feet and latched on. She walked up the vertical glass pain with a blue tint until she reached the center of the dome. Putting force on her calves she fell straight as an arrow to the podium. And with one swing the whole stage was cut apart, clean, in two halves. Argea landed not too far away from her wheelchair, which was still intact in the middle of the open ground, debris spread all around.

With relief gushing from her heart she sat back down, feeling even somewhat nostalgic, she was changing, moving forward to heights she would have never imagined. She rubbed at her aching bones and joints as the dust settled and bowed down to all the council members to thunderous applause. She closed her eyes and took it in. Bathed in her freedom. The applause went on and on and it droned till the building shook and the mood turned dreadful and sick, and slime crawled up Argea’s legs and she could feel it and hear it, and she was steeped in it, and she shivered in disgust as the applause continued, her moment ruined, the echoes of clapping hands seemed to spin and turn and toss and consume her from above and below and from any which direction-!

She snapped up in shock, the found herself careening off to the side, Ru Shi having lunged at her. An attack chock full of Qi cut the ground apart where she had been, and the applause continued, lessened, quiet, yet undisturbed in its cadence. David took a pistol out of his waist, jumped behind cover and shot at the assailant. The bullet was stopped short of its target, as a hand of Qi glowing, red and fierce, reached out from right next to the attacking cultivator, the hand of a dirty old man with a servile glow in his eyes, and a polite smile on his crooked lips.

From all around the domed room men stood up, eyes burning with bloodlust. The world stilled in shock, as other than ten or so members, a pittance, the rest did not stop smiling, and clapping, and making merry. “No.” Carius heard someone say, as realization dawned upon him, and the collective human consciousness. The NUN had been bought off long ago. The plan had failed, there would be no negotiation. There never would have. Earth was lost, that is how it seemed.

Ru Shi, understanding this quickly formulated an escape plan. She pushed a pill inside her and Argea’s mouths, and smoke billowed out from their breaths. The two moved apart as attacks landed wildly on their vague position, fresh air pushing their blood and replenishing their Qi.

Ru Shi rushed out of the smoke, dove and rolled next to David before slapping a pill in his mouth. It dissolved on his tongue upon contact and a wild hot gust blew upon the old veteran’s back. “UOH!” He shouted in rally, his senses grew sharp and the world around him slowed just enough for him to dodge all the projectiles coming his way.

Arrows, knives, axes, poisoned needles and darts, Qi strikes, Qi Swords, constructs of mighty beasts or great weapons were all swiftly perceived and dealt with as if it was nothing. Drugs could never dream of having such profound effects.

Yet even so he could not retaliate. His gun useless against the defenses of these cultivating men. The mutiny against humanity had been made public, these men and women which had benefited from their treachery would never see their homes again if these two young girls could see the light of day again. The Scavenged Opposition had to end right here, right now, with the death of these two girls.

Sadly for them, Argea and Ru Shi were not the average teenagers. It was like the bite of a viper in their midst, Argea’s blade had silently found its way right to the top of the enemy force. The man to take the first shot found the black saber growing in size, as the grim look of the young girl paralyzed him to immobility. He was never a warrior.

{SHIIN} The next moment, the sound of tearing flesh and the thudding roll of a head flying and stumbling and bumbling does rows of seats resounded through the congress hall. This finally silenced the cacophony of applause.

“You Wench!” Screamed with venom the old man protecting his master. He lunged at Argea, both hands bursting with fiery Qi ready to grasp and tear her apart. But the old man found Argea gone from her position. He looked up, craning his neck, at the last moment only to see her spinning past him. With a fresh crackled, like that of a soda can opening, his head flew off his body, his fire extinguished.

“KILL HER!” Men rose at the cry from all around, rushing with eyes bulging, fear gripping at their hearts, straight for the illusory figure of Argea. She would not let them. Using the last of the Qi gifted to her by Ru Shi’s incredible pill she sent it all crashing to the stands. Like a row of TNT had gone off her attack blasted her footing, collapsing wood and concrete and anything else, creating a hole right next to the exit from which the trio had entered. Ru Shi was already on her way with David on toe, a green fire burning around her weakening all attacks that came her way.

Bleeding through wounds at her back and legs she reached Argea and the three of them pushed the doors closed at their passing. There footsteps came from the other end of the hall, the three readied themselves for battle, they turned the corner at the end of the straight only to find Joseph Carter and his men on the other end.

“I knew something was going on. We have cleared an escape path!” Joseph said as he picked up Argea, she had been faltering, eyes rolling back. He turned around and run forward with David and Ru Shi right on his heels. Rugged breathing filled the hallway as they burst through a fire exit and rushed down steel emergency stairs before arriving at the underground parking lot, a part of it. They had no time. They rushed to the jeeps waiting for them, hopped in. The tires screeched to a start as from behind them, following the blood trail left by Ru Shi and David guns flared in the dark underground.

“Stop them!” Orders were shouted, but the leadership was already crumbling. No one wanted to be the one to follow the orders, having lost their strongest fighters and leaders the position was open for the taking, being servile to your competition was never how you climbed up the ranks. Disorder rose in the cultivators from the different factions and their followers.

It was this break in the enemy camp that came about from Argea’s reckless use of her Qi, and Will, that allowed the men and women of the Scavenged Opposition faction to escape the desert and run into the pavilion. And it was also because of how dire the situation was that the girls had spent all their Qi, letting them thus pass through the Eternal Pavilion and its Seal.

And it was also at this point that news spread. The treachery of the top against humanity was not to be taken lightly. The shattering of the thin order that had been gained in the seven months since the Change came to the world resounded even outside the earth’s limits. Even the citizens of the Eternal City were talking about the situation unfolding in the other world. Getting missives from all their foremen and other spies and links and sources about the trouble, mass migration and distrust spreading like wildfire in all Eternal Pavilion cities and further.

And above all, it was the troops stationed inside this City, outside the tower of trials that faced the brunt of this mental attack. Some collapsed, others stoked the fire, while many closed their eyes and covered their ears, running away from the truth behind their mission and their sacrifice. The final struggle over the Seals was fast approaching.