EPISODE XXIV
Stormbringer, Part 1
Outside, the rain was pouring. Although it was the middle of the day, the world was dark; oppressed by a sky of thick, rolling clouds. The deluge had been going on for about an hour at this point, making impromptu rivers in the road gutters across the city of Nuk.
Amaris pulled back the curtains and glanced outside. “I don’t think you should try to make it back through that.”
Vayvaresi nodded in agreement. “Even in a car, that might be problematic.”
The two of them turned back to the house’s current guest, none other than Faith of the Society of Pointed Hats. Except she wasn’t in her yellow robes or hat, but a rather gaudy pink dress with jarringly bright neon lines all over it and what appeared to be stickers at seemingly random locations. She had ribbons in her hair, tying it up into a pigtail design.
To put it mildly, she did not look at all like the calm and collected leader of an underground wizard society. No one could tell what she did look like. Her day job was that of a seamstress, so she made all the clothes she wore and ensured they were high quality, but her sense of fashion was a bit questionable.
Not that Amaris could tell.
Faith finished examining the weather outside. “It looks like it’s worsening as well… yes, it appears I will have to stay longer than anticipated.” She turned to Amaris’ parents. “I assume that is no issue?”
“Not at all,” Amaris’ mom said, shaking her head.
“Well…” Amaris’ dad began.
Amaris’ mom elbowed her husband, cutting him off.
“He’s fine,” Faith assured her. “The grudge is entirely understandable.”
“He doesn’t need to be feeding it.”
“Bottling it up isn’t great either.”
Amaris’ dad coughed. “I’m standing right here.”
Faith nodded. “Yes, I should be addressing you. Please do not fear voicing your displeasure with my presence, I wish to know.”
“Well…” he shuffled awkwardly. “I may not be a fan, but you don’t deserve to be out there in the rain. And… you are an ally. I would be a fool to run you out.”
“But you want to.”
He didn’t answer.
“I essentially orchestrated the kidnapping of your daughter, it’s fine to be hung up on that.”
“No… not fine.” He shook his head. “It’s understandable, but we all know why you did it, and we all know that everything’s resolved now.”
“I do not expect you to change your mind so quickly. You shouldn’t demand change of yourself so quickly, either.”
“Yeeeesh…” Amaris’ dad rubbed the back of his head. “You certainly know how to cut deep…”
Faith gave him a warm smile. “Getting to the heart of the matter is very important when lives are on the line.”
Amaris piped up. “Knowing when not to is good as well.”
“I do not think this is one of those times.”
“I get the impression you don’t think any times are those times.”
“Possibly…”
“Anyway…” Amaris closed the curtains. “Since you’re stuck here…” she quickly switched into the secret language. “Shall we do some more training?”
Faith nodded, responding in kind. “You are already competent at the simplest application of Yellow; the two-way willing connection to communicate. However, there are other techniques. Unlike languages, these cannot just be taught, as to use Yellow maximally you need to adapt to the mind you are engaging with. Everyone is different on a fundamental level…”
Amaris listened intently, a smile on her face. Vayvaresi decided it was time to take a nap, coiling up on a chair and closing her eyes. Amaris’ parents watched her and Faith talk for a while, but once they realized they were going to be talking in secret for a while, they dispersed to work on their various mathematical projects.
Amaris’ focus did not waver.
It would be nice to have a simple, rainy day for once.
And, luckily for her, she would get it.
Unfortunately for everyone else…
~~~
Emma and Rin sat on a bench under a glass bus stop shelter. Emma was staring straight up at the complex pattern of raindrops on the roof. Rin, meanwhile, was staring down the street, looking for any sign of the bus arriving. A few cars drove by, but the street lights revealed no large vehicles coming.
Rin glanced at her watch. “The bus is officially ten minutes late.”
Emma shrugged. “Oh well, guess we just get to sit here and enjoy nature!”
“Emma, we’re going to have plenty of time to do that on the big school camp.”
“Why not both?”
“Because it’s so wet!”
“We’re protected.”
Rin’s ears twitched. “My ears can feel the humidity.”
“Well… anything we try to do about it will involve going out in the rain, so…”
Rin groaned. “All we wanted to do was go get ice cream. That was it. Now we’re trapped under a rickety glass shell with no sign of a bus!”
Lightning struck nearby. Rin’s tail shot straight up and every hair on it stood on end. She hissed at the sky.
“It’s just thunder.”
“Do you forget how much better my ears are than yours?” Rin ran her hand over her ears, petting them to relieve the stress.
“Um… well, uh, yes, actually, sorry.” Emma looked down at the ground.
Rin sighed. “Well, at least it means you aren’t constantly thinking about me being a neko. That’s good.”
“Rin, are you trying to encourage me?”
“Um… maybe?”
Emma giggled. “It’s nice to see you softening up.”
“Softening up?” Rin gawked. “I’ve been getting combat experience in!”
“And all of it’s softening you up.” Emma looked at her hands. “And it’s making me harder… Amaris really is right, having things happen to you changes you.”
Rin gained a faraway look in her eyes. “Yeah… yeah it does.”
“Rin?”
“Not always for the better though…” Rin shook her head.
Emma frowned, opened her mouth, and then shut it, thinking. For a minute, there was only the sound of a rainy deluge.
Then she looked Rin right in the eyes. “You… don’t talk much about what happened before you came to our school. It… it was bad, wasn’t it?”
“My family wasn’t always rich beyond belief,” Rin said. “I don’t have very… clear memories of back then. But every time I think about it…” Rin pressed her hands together to stop them from shaking. “Monsters are different from people, Emma. People can be so much worse.”
Emma put a hand on her friend’s shoulder. “It’s okay. That’s behind you now.”
“Is it?” Rin looked into the sky. “I still have hat—”
Suddenly, several bolts of lightning struck around them all at once. The power went out across the city a moment later, including all the street lights.
Rin was standing rigidly straight and her tail was fully extended. “Okay. That’s it. The bus isn’t coming.”
Emma tilted her head. “What do we do then?”
“We walk out of here before the storm gets worse.” Rin shuddered just thinking about it.
“I don’t suppose we’ll be getting ice cream…” She sighed. “Wait, you shouldn’t walk back to the Dregs in this!”
“Well, where else am I going to go? Your house isn’t safe.”
“Um… Amaris’ house is close-ish. We could go there. Maybe she’ll even be there and we can hang out!”
Rin pulled a hood over her head, flattening her ears. “We should get moving. The storm really does look like it’s getting worse.”
Another bolt of lightning struck, illuminating for a split second the now-dark city. With no other sources of illumination, the two girls set out into the darkness, hoping their coats could handle all the rain they were facing.
~~~
That day’s gaming competition was Ludicrous Velocity Racer 4, and even though it was supposedly a “casual” meet-up just to play and have fun, the competitive spirit of most players led to moments of deep intensity.
The final match was between some thin, bony, toothpick of a man named Isaac and the eternally sunglasses-wearing Taylor. Both of their hands were frantically pressing buttons and flicking sticks in advanced techniques to get the absolute maximum amount of speed out of their cars. They drifted around corners so tightly that the game displayed the cars clipping through the inner wall, but no collisions were triggered.
They knew the game well and against such a strong opponent, they needed to give it their all.
As they came out of the final turn, they could see the finish line. Isaac was in front, but Taylor had come out of the turn at a higher speed, so it was anyone’s game. Their cars approached each other, getting neck-in-neck. The audience held their collective breath.
Then the power went out.
Everyone let out an intense groan. Isaac fell back into his chair, staring blankly at the ceiling. Taylor threw her controller to the ground. “Oh come on!”
Nina turned on a flashlight. “Well, that’s certainly bad timing…”
“You think?” Taylor said, crossing her arms and grumbling incoherently.
Isaac stood up and approached Taylor, extending his hand. “Even so… it was a good game, wasn’t it?”
Taylor glanced up at his hand, barely illuminated by the reflections from Nina’s flashlight. She grinned. “Yeah, that was pretty sweet. Rematch?”
“Anytime. Well, anytime the power’s on.”
They shook hands.
“Geez, Taylor, your hands are like ice.”
Taylor retracted her hand and laughed nervously. “They're just like that, y’know?”
Isaac didn’t think anything of it and there wasn’t enough illumination for him to notice Taylor quickly rubbing her hands together to generate warmth.
At this point, Nina let out a whistle. “It’s a downpour out there. Entire city seems to be out, we’re probably not getting power anytime soon. …Looks like it’s getting worse too.”
Lorenzo, the cat whose house they were using, let out a sign. “Everyone should start heading home then, wouldn’t want an accident to happen on my account.”
There was a chorus of disappointed sighs, but everyone started shuffling out.
Taylor poked her head out of the door, noting the absolute deluge. “Geez, we didn’t notice anything while playing, did we?”
Nina shook her head. “Let me get the hood up on my car, I’ll drive you home.”
“Thanks.”
Fortunately, Nina’s convertible was parked under an awning, so it wasn’t soaking wet, though the interior was a bit damp. The light blue hood took some finagling, but it was eventually set up, making the convertible into a far more traditional car.
“It’s so boring now,” Nina lamented.
“And not color-coordinated.” Taylor tilted her head. “Why is the hood blue?”
“Had to replace it, was the color they had.”
“Ah.”
The two climbed into the car and closed the doors. Nina took a moment to take stock of everything, while Taylor simply sat in the passenger seat.
Slowly, Taylor removed her glasses. She pulled a little mirror up from the convertible dashboard and looked herself right in the eyes. Right in her empty, colorless eyes. White.
Nina glanced at her. “You good?”
“I… think so?” Taylor frowned. “Isaac didn’t seem to think it was that weird, but…” She looked down at her hands. “I’m not warm, Nina. I’m not…” She pulled up her shirt and looked at her abdomen, finding the lower part of her massive wound. It was not a proper scar, and it would never be, since her body didn’t do that kind of healing anymore. It was just a slice across her flesh, a gap, a hole. No blood pouring out, no exposed organs, but it wasn’t right. “I don’t know.”
“You’re still you. No madness, no cravings for brains…”
Taylor chuckled. “I wonder if actual zombies do.”
“Probably not, if they’re real.”
“They probably are, somewhere.” Taylor sat back, staring at the dull hood above her. “Knowing Amaris, we’ll probably encounter them at some point.”
Nina put her hands on the steering wheel and gripped it hard.
“Are you okay?”
“You… are taking it all a lot better than I think I could.” Nina paused. “Or am.”
Taylor reached out to put a hand on Nina’s shoulder, but stopped herself. She slowly retracted her hand and shook her head. “There’s a sense in which I wanted excitement and adventure my entire life, but I could only find it in games. That’s not true of you… I don’t think you should expect everything to just go easily. Plus.” She smirked. “I’m young, we young people are better at having change thrown at us. Or so I hear.”
“Using my own words against me, are you?”
“Exactly!”
With a slight smile, Nina sat forward and turned the car’s key. The engine shot to life and they pulled out onto the street. Since they had spent some time talking, they were among the last to leave. The windshield wipers had to work overtime and even then they were only marginally effective. The only other constant lights were those of other cars, and those weren’t that common given the storm and the fact that Nina was avoiding the highway. However, lightning would strike somewhat regularly, illuminating Nuk in a purplish glow.
Taylor put her sunglasses back on, so it was almost impossible for her to see much of anything other than the lightning. So she paid careful attention to it, watching where it struck, how it was striking, and the patterns it had…
Something wasn’t quite right. She’d seen storms before, been in lots of them. This one was different. Lightning wasn’t striking across the sky from cloud to cloud, but always from the cloud to the ground. Furthermore, she noticed a concentration of lightning in a single spot.
“This isn’t a normal storm,” Taylor said abruptly.
Nina tensed considerably. “...There won’t be a way to call Amaris with the power out…”
“That area over there…” Taylor pointed. “Has a lot more lightning strikes than anywhere else.”
“We could drive down to ORHI and…” Nina paused. “Who am I kidding, that’s a long drive, and the storm’s getting worse, they might not be able to make it back here…” She grimaced.
“We don’t have to investigate it,” Taylor pointed out.
“You think we should, though.”
Taylor frowned. “Well… I’m not sure. We’re not employees, we aren’t cursed…” Taylor paused. “I don’t think this is a curse, anyway. But…” She turned back to see two lightning strikes hit the same spot. “We know there are strange things in the world. We could investigate and report. It would probably help Amaris.”
Nina took in a sharp breath. “Alright.” She turned the convertible to the right and carried them closer to the center of the lightning strikes.
~~~
Jenny and Scarlet jumped into Scarlet’s car, laughing and giggling to themselves so hard they couldn’t say anything. They were both soaking wet but that didn’t matter to them, they had just had a great time.
“Who knew this LARPing thing was so fun!?” Jenny said. “I got to swing a sword! At normal people! And they liked it!”
“Don’t forget the foam fireballs!” Scarlet chuckled. “Oh, that was not what I was thinking was going to happen when little Allie described it to me at all. I should do a story on their culture! Absolutely fascinating!”
“Fireball!” Jenny shouted, throwing a foam ball into Scarlet’s face.
“Oh no, I am burned!”
With this, their laughter increased in intensity, but it rather quickly died off as a distant look came over Jenny and she started staring into the darkness brought on by the storm.
“You good?”
“...No,” Jenny said, crossing her arms. “This… isn’t right.”
Scarlet shrugged. “I don’t see what’s wrong with having fun.”
“It’s you.”
“Even if I did all those things you say I did…”
Jenny rolled her eyes.
“...what exactly is wrong with enjoying yourself?”
“Doesn’t feel right.”
“Didn’t it feel just right out there, amidst an army of young people swinging fake swords around?”
A smirk crawled up Jenny’s face. “It was really fun. Just.” Jenny shook her head. “I don’t even know why I’m asking you, it’s not like I should trust your advice.”
“Now that’s something we can mostly agree on.” Scarlet chuckled. “Nobody should live like me but me.”
Jenny grunted something noncommittal.
Scarlet opted not to continue the conversation and just start driving through the storm. She squinted as she pulled onto one of the main roads. “Geez, can’t see anything in this…”
“Maybe we’ll get lucky and be hit by a car,” Jenny offered.
“Have you ever been in a car wreck?”
“Yes! They’re like rollercoasters. For me. Not for you. I’m thinking you break a rib… your neck… maybe the pelvis…”
“You can dream.”
“Oh, rest assured, I am.”
Scarlet opened her mouth to respond, but had to quickly swerve out of the way of another car barreling out of a side road. Arcs of electricity popped off the car as it ran into a nearby building, sending glass and bricks flying.
Scarlet immediately pulled over. Both her and Jenny ran to the newly wrecked car. Scarlet had to stop short as an arc of electricity emerged from the car and struck the ground in front of her. Jenny, however, pushed forward, caring not for burned flesh. She encased her gloves in rocks with a spell, using them to dent the car’s metal frame and force the door open.
Inside was the corpse of a man, sparking with electricity. It was a recent corpse too, but that was to be expected as the car had still been running. All the lights and dials inside the car were freaking out, flashing on and off, telling her nothing.
Jenny sighed, returning to Scarlet. “He’s dead. Car’s also freaking out.”
“Strange…” Scarlet frowned. “Even if he had just been struck by lightning, this isn’t normal.” She looked up at the sky. “Which means the storm isn’t normal.”
Jenny nodded. “I should tell everyone.”
“Phones aren’t going to work in a power outage.”
“Oh. Uh.” Jenny scratched her head. “Guess we drive there?”
They heard the sound of a crash followed by an explosion somewhere to their left, but they couldn’t pinpoint exactly where.
“Something tells me we don’t want to drive anymore.” Scarlet went to the trunk of her car and pulled out a large red umbrella, spreading it over herself and Jenny. It only provided minimal protection, so she pulled out a raincoat for herself. “Don’t have one for you, sorry.”
“Psh, it’s just rain. Or lightning. Annoying but not bad.” Jenny’s smirk turned into a frown. “Walking all the way to ORHI will take all day in this weather. So… guess I have to do something.”
“Do you have any idea how to do something about a mystic storm?”
“Not a clue!”
“Then it’s lucky you’re with me. Because I have an idea.” Scarlet smirked. “When you’re as prolific a reporter as I am, you learn things. Such as the location of secret government weather monitoring stations.”
“We have a secret government weather monitoring station!?”
“Well, the weather station is public, the government lab attached to it isn’t. But it’s close by and it might be able to tell us more. Up for breaking into a secure facility?”
Jenny grinned and let out an ominous cackle, lighting her left hand with purple electricity. “They won’t know what hit them.”
Her electricity arced through the wet air and struck her in the face.
“Ow.”
~~~
Coleus and Irene were both out, in the middle of the storm, staking out one of the crop circles from a distance. They had not expected there to be a storm when they started watching it last night, but the storm wasn’t causing them much of an issue because Coleus had grown a large umbrella-like tree over them. The trunk even helped support the rickety abandoned warehouse, so they didn’t have to worry about it collapsing under them.
Lightning struck the center of the crop circle. Irene visibly jumped, despite this being far from the first time it had happened. “I. Hate. Lightning.”
Coleus kept a pair of binoculars affixed to her face. She adjusted the focus. “I can’t tell if the lightning’s doing anything… but it’s certainly striking the crop circle more often than it should.” She frowned. “My eyes keep getting reset, it’s so bark over there.”
“I should have let you take one of the Kiris,” Irene groaned. “I should have stayed behind the desk…”
“You’ve been locked behind that desk too much, I had to get you out.” Coleus frowned. “Though, to be fair, I did expect it to be rather boring. Sit here, watch a crop circle, maybe it’ll disintegrate something while we’re watching it.”
“Yes, well, that’s not what’s happening! Freaky storm, lightning apparently likes it…”
“It could just mean there’s metal under the circle, or something con-duck-tive. Though it doesn’t appear to be heating things up as much as it should… no fire.”
“The sky is dropping an ocean on us.”
“That will put out the fire once it starts, but won’t stop it from corning.” Coleus clicked her tongue and chuckled. “All this tells me is that the crop circle is not normal but we already knew that, it’s the entire reason we’re here.”
Lightning struck the center of the crop circle again, blinding Coleus momentarily. She strained her eyes as much as she could, but saw… nothing. When her eyes fully readjusted it was just a normal crop circle again.
“The storm keeps getting worse…” Irene said, rubbing one of her arms. “You sure your tree can take it?”
“If it starts getting strained, I’ll make it stronger,” Coleus said. “I’ve also made sure it has a conductive coating so it can shunt any extra charge into the ground.” She smirked. “Becoming the great plant engineer of the Strider taught me quite a few things. I may not have as much power as before, but I can be quite clever with it now. One might even say ex-pear-ienced.” She generated a pear from the tree, dropping it into her outstretched hand.
Irene opened her mouth to say something but shut it quickly.
This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.
“What is it, Irene?”
“N-nothing…”
“Irene…”
“It’s rude and inconsiderate.”
“About the Strider, right?”
“Y-yeah…”
Coleus put her binoculars down and sighed. “I am doing much better, if that’s what this is about.”
“It’s n-not. I j-just…” Irene wrapped her arms around herself. “I just, since it happened… I can’t help but think about something like it happening again. ORHI being destroyed. All our work being for nothing.”
“But it wasn’t for nothing!” Coleus gestured at the tree. “I wouldn’t have been able to make this kind of tree without all my practice in the Strider. The Strider got Amaris home, and my efforts were instrumental in founding ORHI. And think of how much we’ve learned! And grown! You didn’t know me when Amaris first met me, but I was rather self-conscious. Deathly terrified that Amaris wouldn’t like me. Now look at me! A free leaf, on her own!” She paused, looking down at Irene. “It… is hard. But even if everything blows up, it won’t have been for nothing.”
Irene stared at her with wide eyes.
“Also, my puns are getting butter.”
Irene groaned. “They aren’t…”
Coleus chuckled. She put her binoculars back to her eyes and stared at the crop circle.
And then several dozen lightning bolts struck the crop circle all at once. A massive beam of light shot up into the sky.
When the light cleared, Coleus could suddenly see something. There were about a dozen figures, shaped like… cartoony five-pointed stars?
“...Uh-oh,” Coleus said.
~~~
The storm increased to such a level that Emma and Rin started to find it difficult to move. The wind speeds weren’t that high, but there was now a decently thick coating of water on the ground, splashing around their boots with every step. They were both soaking wet despite their coats, but at the very least they weren’t getting too cold.
There was lightning every few seconds now, but the two of them were far more concerned with just making it to Amaris’ house. They had stopped talking a while ago, holding their arms around their chests, trying to gain some semblance of comfort. Rin’s makeup had already been completely washed away, the only sign of its presence being a few stains on the collar of her shirt.
It was also dark. So dark that they generally had no idea where they were, but every now and then they would come to a street sign, and it would tell them they were on the right track.
Just two more blocks to go, Emma thought, squinting at the street sign that the lightning had illuminated just a moment ago. On a sunny day, I wouldn’t even consider that long… it’s about how long Amaris usually walks from school. She frowned. Or am I even using “block” right…? It’s every section of the city split up into a square of main roads, right? Normally she would fuel this kind of curiosity, maybe ask Amaris or Rin about it, but the overpowering nature of the storm caused her to leave it behind. Nature demanded attention, and attention she would give it.
They left the street sign behind, once again entering into a realm of unknowns. How far were they along? Was that a house Emma recognized? How much further to the next street corner?
All difficult to answer. The rain obscured so much with how heavily it was falling, and lightning illumination was never long enough to get a really good picture of what was around them. There were also no cars out and about near the suburbs, which was somewhat sensible given the weather. Although they hadn’t seen a single one for… Emma checked her watch. They’d been at this for almost an hour, and they’d only seen cars near the bus stop.
For the first time, Emma got a sense that something was wrong with this storm. Not that she said or tried to do anything about it—she was already barely able to deal with the storm as it was and had no way to contact anyone. If it was weird, Amaris was probably dealing with it somewhere. She needed to focus on making it to their destination. Which, curiously, was Amaris’ house, so maybe they would get roped into the mess there…
Rin’s ears alerted and she whirled to look behind herself. “I just heard a door open.”
Emma looked at her with disbelief. “How are you not deaf from the thunder?”
“That’s not the quest—” Before Rin could finish her thought, lightning struck a building nearby, illuminating the nearby area quite well. On a brick wall behind them, there was a door that definitely hadn’t been there when they passed it. The door was made of pale wood that was actively getting wet; it had not yet soaked through, which should have been impossible. The door itself almost seemed to be moving of its own accord, opening wider and wider without any regard for the storm’s desires.
They heard a sound like a kitten meowing and a goose honking at the same time.
Something was thrown out of the doorframe, but without any illumination neither of them could see it, but the sound of it hitting the ground was like a dog’s squeaky toy. However, the two girls could see the next thing that emerged from the doorway. It was made out of hundreds of narrow eyes that flowed around each other like a liquid, each pupil surrounded by a glowing magenta iris. Some of the eyes locked on the two girls, but made no move toward them—the creature went after whatever it had just thrown out of the door.
An intense beam of rainbow energy game from the other entity, complete with a cheesy sparkle effect. This beam seemed to blast a hole through the creature with eyes for a moment, but in truth, the creature had simply flowed like a liquid to make a hole for the beam to pass through. The beam instead struck the brick wall, reducing a significant chunk of it to dust and ash.
The beam also revealed, in full, the yellow star-shaped creature Emma and Rin recognized from Amaris’ notebooks.
A star alien.
The creature of eyes jumped at the star alien. While the star itself made cute and adorable noises as it was attacked, the sound of flesh being ripped apart was anything but. Fortunately, no lightning was able to fully illuminate the scene, saving the girls from the sheer brutality.
Even in a severely injured and dying state, the star still fought back. It directed its beam at the ground, shooting its body into the air, sailing over the two girls. Emma felt something land on her face—it felt tingly. Was it star alien blood? The rain was washing it away real quickly, whatever it was.
Rin suddenly grabbed Emma by the shoulder and pulled her down. This was a good instinct, because the eye creature jumped straight over them to pursue the star alien, skewering it through the center. The adorably cute noises from the star alien ended abruptly.
Rin dragged Emma away from the creature.
The creature, done with its original prey, turned to them. It jumped.
Rin let out a rather nasty swear and instead of running through the storm, ran into the open doorway. She slammed it shut behind her.
They heard the creature slam into the door, but it held.
The two girls started running deeper into the structure they had found themselves. It didn’t look like anything that belonged on the inside of a brick wall, that was for sure. The structure was made almost entirely of metal walkways, the kinds one would find in a factory that looked down on dangerous manufacturing machines below. Here, though, there were no machines, simply more walkways, both above and below.
As they ran, they looked around at all the walkways.
Around a dozen of them had star aliens on them. Dismembered. Dripping pink fluid onto the mist below that obscured the ground from view—if there even was ground here to begin with.
Emma realized it was bright in here, but she couldn’t see any lights.
“What is…?”
“Questions later, running now!” Rin said, dragging her along the walkway. They had no choices on where to go, so they had to come across half a star’s corpse, somehow embedded into the guard rail. The eyes were empty, and there was no visible mouth on the mangled piece of fuzz. Pink juices dripped from the edges, occasionally sparkling with some kind of unknown energy. There were bits dangling out, oozing other fluids…
Emma couldn’t take it. She had to stop and hurl over the edge of the guard rail.
“Emma, come on!”
“I… I just…”
Rin picked her up and tried to run with her, but only made it a few steps before stumbling. “Emma!”
Emma was finding it difficult to stand. “I…”
The beast of eyes finally tore the soft wooden door off its hinges. Lightning struck behind it, casting a shadow into the metallic space. It charged at them.
Emma’s adrenaline had already kicked in, but it kicked in again, pushing her to run forward even though she felt like her entire body was about to crumble. She and Rin made it to a crossroads in the walkways and sharply turned left. The creature sailed past them far too quickly, continuing along its original path.
The creature did not stop its pursuit. It simply turned around and ran at them again.
Rin and Emma saw a door in front of them, one made out of a strange combination of metal and marble. But it was too far for them to reach, and they knew it. The beast would be upon them before they arrived.
But then the door opened, revealing a squad of five star aliens. They let out a war cry akin to a squeaky frog and jumped into the air, shooting beams over the two girls and at the eye creature.
The eye beast immediately turned its attention from the girls and onto the stars. It snaked through the air, piercing one in the chest. In turn, the star aliens also ignored the girls, jumping from walkway to walkway in an attempt to fight the eye creature.
Emma and Rin wasted no time. They ran to the now-open marble-metal door. They slammed it shut behind them.
They were now in some kind of large hallway, made out of a material that was both metallic and rubbery, but had a slight fuzz to it. It was also the same yellow as the star aliens.
There was no sign of any star aliens currently present. The marble-metal door looked decidedly out of place in the long hallway.
“...This is one of their ships…” Rin said.
“Y-yeah…” Emma gasped.
“We need to keep moving, Emma. Can… can you do that?”
“I… can… try…” Emma said, the edges of her vision going blurry. “Getting… lightheaded…”
“Keep it together, Emma.” Rin, now that she had slightly more time, slung Emma’s arm over her shoulders. “We can make it through this.”
“R-right… Thank you, Rin…”
The two of them moved away from the metal-marble door at a quick pace, but nowhere near the breakneck speed they had just been going.
The sounds of suffering behind the door quickly went out of earshot.
Everything was now silent, save for the humming of the ship around them.
~~~
Nina and Taylor drove along an abandoned road. Not a single other car was in sight, not that they could see very far, even with the wipers and the headlights. The only thing they could really see was the epicenter of the lightning strikes, which appeared to be happening directly to their left, in a large cornfield they were driving past.
“...Crop circle,” Taylor said.
“Eh?”
“The crop circles Amaris has been investigating. They’re inside these cornfields.” Taylor folded her arms. “I’m willing to bet that’s where the lightning is striking.”
“...Well I can’t just up and drive into a cornfield.”
“You could, but yes, it’s probably a bad idea.” She adjusted her sunglasses. “Do you think coats would be enough out in… this?”
“We’d still get soaking wet, but…” Nina drummed her fingers.
“You seem… uncertain.”
“I’m not even sure what we’re doing.”
“We’re investigating because it’ll take forever to get to ORHI and we wouldn’t even have any information.” She opened the car door and stepped out into the rain. “Our goal is simple: get information. Figure out if anything nefarious is going on. If we can’t deal with it, get the heck out of here.”
“...Right, yes, of course.” Nina sighed. “I am too old for this.”
Taylor chuckled. “Oh no you aren’t, you play in competitive video game tournaments.”
“I’m too old for that too.” With that, Nina shut off the car and stepped out herself. Already she felt like her coat wasn’t enough, but what else were they going to do?
She went to the trunk and pulled out some flashlights and survival supplies she kept in there in case of emergency. The knife seemed rather appealing right now. She gripped it tightly.
“Remember, if you can let a monster hit me instead of you, do,” Taylor said. “I can’t bleed out.”
“...Do you have, like, any fancy abilities now we can use…?”
Taylor shook her head. “Besides not dying, no, not really. I think I might be slightly stronger than before, but that may just be because my muscles don’t cry out in agony when I strain them. I still feel pain. Dunno how Jenny can just roll with it.”
“Experience.”
“I guess.” Taylor turned on her flashlight. “Let’s go.”
They turned to enter the cornfield. But before they even entered, they heard noises. Noises like loud squeaky toys, meowing cats, and cartoon spring sound effects.
“Kill the lights,” Nina said, shutting her flashlight off. Taylor did the same. They slowly moved behind the car, placing it between them and the cornfield.
It did not take long for the sources of the sounds to emerge; several five-pointed star aliens, illuminated by the sheer number of nearby lightning strikes. They were talking to each other in that bizarre language of theirs, seemingly not caring in the slightest about the rain. One of them shot a rainbow laser into the ground, searing a new pothole into the street. The others all nodded at this.
Then they all started disintegrating seemingly random locations. Bits of corn. Sidewalk. Dirt. Rocks. A lamp post that wasn’t working.
Taylor and Nina had no idea what they were doing. The two of them were also absolutely terrified, rooted to their hiding spot behind the car, praying that the star aliens wouldn’t find them.
One of them jumped on top of the car’s roof with no warning. Nina’s grip on the knife tightened.
The star alien did not look down, but rather at the sky. It shot multiple beams into the air, seemingly at nothing. It let out a noise similar to a dog whimper crossed with a dolphin call. The others said something short in response.
The star alien jumped off the car and joined up with the others, and they started marching down the road into the storm. The rain quickly hid them from view, even with all the lightning strikes.
Taylor gasped, finally allowing herself to breathe. “Th-that was close…”
Nina was still gripping the knife, unmoving.
“Nina?” Taylor looked at her. “Nina!”
Nina wasn’t moving.
Taylor poked her in the shoulder.
Nina let out a scream and slashed at Taylor.
“AGUH!” Taylor screamed, falling back.
“T-taylor!?” Nina stammered.
“That hurt! Agh!” She touched her fingers to her collarbone, which Nina had just exposed. She found no blood, which was to be expected, but still unnerving. “This would be a serious problem if I wasn’t undead, Nina!”
“S-sorry I…” NIna looked down at the knife. “I…” She tossed it to the ground. “I’m no warrior…”
“No kidding,” Taylor grumbled, picking the knife up. “...Sorry, that was wrong of me to say. I’m not a warrior either.” She glanced at the blade. “I wouldn’t even know how to use this. You grew up in the previous generations, you probably used a knife for more things than I did.”
“Not fighting.” Nina shook her head. “Women… never fought, back then.” She looked down at her hands, struck by how old they looked. “...I don’t think I can learn.”
Taylor sighed. “Well, good news is we don’t have to. Let’s book it to ORHI, tell them there’s an alien invasion underway.”
“Is that really what’s happening?”
“It’s what it looks like, at least!”
“Then why isn’t anything exploding? Where’s the fighting? The attacks?”
Taylor looked up at the storm clouds. “...If I had to guess, I’d say the storm is their attack. It’s still getting stronger. It’ll be enough to start destroying buildings eventually.”
The two of them fell silent. Nina stood up and got into the car, turning on the engine and the headlights. Taylor entered just as Nina floored the gas and whipped the car around back the way they’d come. She flicked on the turbo and they blasted down the road.
“I may not be able to fight… but I know how to drive.” Nina grinned a grin that was a little too wide. “Hold on!”
“Little late for that warning!” Taylor said.
The car barreled down the abandoned street at ludicrous speeds, narrowly avoiding a stray lightning strike.
~~~
Only a dozen or so star aliens had appeared in the crop circle next to Coleus and Irene. They had spread out. Coleus lost sight of several of them in the cornfield and darkness of the storm.
“I can’t tell what they’re doing…” Coleus muttered, whipping her binoculars left and right, but only able to catch glimpses here and there of them. “Why are they here?”
“D-don’t know…” Irene muttered, fidgeting by weaving her fingers together. “Can we do anything?”
“Star aliens are extremely dangerous, they have advanced technology and a rainbow disintegration beam.” Coleus frowned. “I can probably take a few of them, but not a lot. And we don’t know their language…” She snapped her fingers. “Jenny, Jenny kind of half-remember knows.”
“How do you know this…?”
“You haven’t actually read Amaris’ notebooks, have you?” Coleus chuckled. “It’s an egg-cellent source of spectacu-star information! She’s encountered these things before.”
Irene blinked. “You know I probably should…”
“There’s a reason she wrote everything down, so everyone can learn from it.” Coleus nodded. “Looks like it’s finally paying off… the book also contained information about the interior of one of their larger ships. There might be one in the sky right now. I could probably disable it from the inside…”
“Oh, so we’re going to board an alien ship now!?”
Coleus shrugged. “That would require knowing how to get up there. I do not. So, in-stem, we need to get Jenny!”
Irene stared at her blankly.
“The bad pun was instead, Irene.”
“Oh, yes.” Irene smiled weakly. “Well, that means we have to leave, which I’m completely fine with!”
Coleus nodded. “To Headquarters!”
The two of them jumped down from the abandoned warehouse. Coleus quickly grew a ring of leaves around Irene’s neck, out of which sprung a giant leaf. “There you go, an umbrelleaf!”
“Is that a pun or just its name?”
“Yes!” Coleus winked.
The two of them set off. Their goal was the parked Retrograde, which was a fair distance away, as they had been trying to observe discretely.
This proved to be quite unfortunate for them.
Suddenly, five star aliens emerged from the woodwork around them. They were now completely surrounded.
Irene held out her hand, casting happiness upon them. “Um… c-can we talk about this?”
“I doubt it…” Coleus said, balling her hands into fists. “But they aren’t trying to vaporize us…”
One of the star aliens stepped forward and pointed at Coleus.
Coleus blinked. She pointed at herself and tilted her head in what she hoped was obvious confusion.
The star alien nodded. Then it pointed back at the cornfield where the crop circle was.
“It wants me to follow them,” Coleus said, turning to Irene. “Go to the Retrograde, tell everyone.”
“Coleus, I…”
“Now’s not the time to have an argu-mint.” Coleus grinned. “They don’t want me dead, I’ll be fine.”
“I’ll keep them happy for you.”
“Appreciated.” Coleus smiled at the lead star alien and approached him, indicating she would follow. The star alien nodded and started walking back to the crop circle.
Irene attempted to stay put while the stars moved, but one of them shoved her forward. “Um… looks like I don’t get to go, Coleus.”
Coleus sighed. “Well… guess we’re in this together then. Seen Orville lately?”
“Nope…” Irene shook her head.
“That’s unfortunate. Guess we’ll just have to deal with this on our own.”
“Y-yay…” Irene took in a sharp breath. “You can do this, Irene, just another death-defying situation, you’re used to these… Just keep them happy…” Irene gulped. “They only wanted Coleus, you’re expendable…”
Coleus grimaced. “I was hoping you wouldn’t think of that…”
“Coleus, m-my mind is a worst-case-scenario machine, of course I’d think of it.” She took a few large breaths to steady herself as they moved through the corn with the star aliens. “What do you think they w-want?”
Coleus shook her head. “I dunno. They want me for something specifically… maybe because I was in charge of the Strider? Or I’m a free leaf dryad? I’m sure we’ll find out soon enough.”
“They don’t even speak our language!”
“Of course not, they’re aliens.” Coleus paused. “Actually. Wait. Amaris says the sky is fake, the stars aren’t actually really there… it’s all darkness. Are they even really aliens?”
They emerged in the central ring of the cornfield. Lightning had struck here dozens of times, but the moment they entered the lightning ceased. The stars led them to the center.
Then the lightning started again.
Everything in the crop circle vanished without a trace.
~~~
Scarlet’s umbrella turned out to be completely useless as the winds picked up, blowing the rain almost vertically at times. Simply walking forward in the storm was proving to be difficult. Jenny and Scarlet had to hold onto each other and step forward carefully to make any ground.
Fortunately, they were almost at their destination. The weather station.
Which currently had a car crashed through one of the walls.
“...That makes this a little easier,” Scarlet noted.
The two of them crawled through the hole the car had made. Jenny briefly examined the car to find that the driver and the single passenger were both dead. There was no one inside the building, despite there being clear signs of recent occupation—open books, food set out at a couple of desks, and even a laptop that was complaining about low battery.
“They got up and left in a hurry,” Scarlet noted, examining the laptop. It just showed a simple weather forecast, with wind speeds continually increasing and lots of question mark icons.
“There were no cars in the parking lot,” Jenny observed.
“Which means they left in them.”
“After the car crashed through the wall?”
“Seems like it,” Scarlet said, taking a few pictures with her camera. “At least this way I have an excuse for snooping around here. Could write a story on this.”
“But this is just the public weather station, right? Where’s the entrance to the secret part?”
“That’s the fun part!” Scarlet grinned. “I don’t know! We need to do some searching!”
Jenny rolled her eyes. “At least it’s dry in here.”
The two of them turned on flashlights and started searching the weather station. The only things that had power had batteries, so the full suite of instruments weren’t functional. A few basic data points about the weather could still be gathered: things like humidity (maximum) wind speed (getting faster rapidly) and pressure (very low). None of those were particularly helpful or informative, and the few laptops that still had battery power didn’t have the long-term data stored on them.
Jenny helped herself to some of the snacks that had been left out. As she munched on a vanilla wafer, she started knocking on the walls, listening for the sound of secret rooms.
“Found it,” Scarlet said.
“Oh?”
Scarlet pushed a large shelf filled with records out of the way, revealing a wall with a suspiciously door-shaped indent. Scarlet ran her fingers around the edge, trying to find some kind of latch or knob or something to open it. She found nothing.
“I could punch it open,” Jenny offered.
“It’ll be best if no one can prove anyone was here…” Scarlet tapped her finger to her chin.
“Oh…” Jenny furrowed her brow. Then she lit up. “I have an idea.”
“What?”
“I punch though.”
“Jenny…”
“And then I tear the entire structure down after we’re done, make it look like the building just collapsed from the stress of a car wreck and storm.”
Scarlet lit up. “That’s an excellent idea! Clean up the evidence with more destruction!”
“Yep!” Jenny pulled her fist back and surrounded it in a vibrating white aura. “So down with the door!”
She punched forward, buckling the hidden door and tearing it off its hinges. It clattered down a staircase on the other side, coming to a rest at the bottom. Jenny and Scarlet descended into the darkness.
At the bottom, there was a single, small room a large number of variably sized screens dotting the walls. All of them were on, no doubt hooked up to some kind of generator. They all showed the phrase Please Log In.
“Well, we’re here,” Scarlet said. “The information is probably here…”
“I don’t suppose you know the password?”
“Nope. However, government workers are often stupid.” Scarlet ran her fingers along the edges and back of the various screens.
“What are you looking for…?”
“Aha! Found it!” Scarlet turned her flashlight onto the bottom edge of one of the lower monitors, showing that a piece of paper had been taped to it with a sequence of letters and numbers on it. “Since the government demands secure, complicated passwords, basically no one can remember what they are, and so they write them down somewhere they can access them. Thus…” Scarlet typed the password into the computer, and it was accepted. All the screens changed to display various programs all focused on the weather. The vast majority of them currently said “offline,” but not all of them were.
“Geez, someone’s getting fired.”
“Indeed,” Scarlet said.
“What would we have done if the workers here had been competent?”
“Ripped out the hard drive and broken into it by force. Which would have taken a lot longer, even if we could raid a good tech store.” Scarlet shrugged. “But I was hoping something like this would be here.”
“Ooooh, a gamble? You?”
“I have to be good at gambling in my line of work.”
“Which one?”
Scarlet just smiled knowingly, turning back to the computer. Her fingers flew across the keys, pulling up a weather forecast.
The computer seemed fairly certain that the storm would keep increasing in intensity until all measurement devices were maxed out.
“That’s not good, right?” Jenny asked.
“At that point, the storm starts tearing buildings apart,” Scarlet said, whistling. She pulled up previous forecasts, showing that none of them had even predicted a large storm until it had started forming earlier that day. “Yep, this is unnatural.”
“You think this would have concerned them.”
“I think it did,” Scarlet said, pointing at one of the other screens that currently said “HIGH ALERT.” “The government probably knows. But I know there were no reports on a doom storm before the power went out, despite us clearly knowing about it here.” She investigated a little further, clicking on the “HIGH ALERT” program to get details. “Hmm… yes, messages were dispatched to the President’s Office directly. It appears the ‘standby’ order was given in response. The group here asked about the StormFlyer… and then I think communications were cut.”
“Wait… cut?” Jenny frowned.
“Yes, the government would still have generator-driven communicators that don’t care about the power grid. The fact that no messages were sent after this…” Scarlet frowned. “I’m starting to suspect this storm is an attack of some kind.”
“Well, if it’s an attack, I might be able to punch it.”
“If we can find where you need to punch…” Scarlet moved back to a larger screen, one of the ones that said “offline.” She dismissed the message and went back into the radar telemetry history.
She wasn’t expecting to find much.
Instead, she found a truly massive five-pointed star shape in the telemetry history.
“...Huh,” Scarlet said.
Jenny furrowed her brow. “That shape…” Jenny clapped her hands together. “Aha! The star aliens!”
“The what?”
“Yellow creatures that can shoot death lasers, Amaris and I ended up in one of their wrecked ships.” Jenny grinned. “I could take it down from the inside!”
“How are you going to get up there, though?”
“I… um…” She frowned. “Well, we’d need to fly in the storm and… oooh! They mentioned a StormFlyer, right?”
“Yes. Probably some kind of secret government plane.”
“Then let’s go there!”
“I don’t know where it is.”
Jenny blinked. “And so your endless information network runs out.”
“I am just a reporter.” Scarlet turned to the screens. “Although… the information might be somewhere in here. Let’s see just how many government secrets we can get out of this thing.”
~~~
Coleus and Irene appeared in a large yellow corridor made out of a strange rubbery metal substance with a light fuzz clinging to the surface.
“Amaris’ notebooks described this…” Coleus said, running her hand along one of the walls. “This is it, all right.”
The star-aliens they were with shoved them forward.
Irene frowned. “Were we just… disintegrated?”
Coleus shook her head. “I don’t think it’s the same. There’s no ash around here, if they teleported when they burned things, their teleporters would have ash all over the place.”
“Oh…”
As they walked, the hallway got larger and larger and larger. Soon, they were surrounded by dozens of star aliens, most of whom stared at Coleus and Irene as they were led by.
“I’m not trying to make them happy,” Irene said. “Just the ones leading us along.”
“Pro-bean-ly a good idea.”
Irene let out an amused snort. “Th-thanks Coleus.”
“For what?”
“For keeping up that smile.”
“I do my best!”
In truth, Coleus was absolutely terrified on the inside. She was surrounded by dangerous creatures she couldn’t talk to that probably wanted her for some nefarious purpose of some kind or other. She still had her wits about her—if she lost those she knew she was probably a goner—but her stomach had twisted into so many knots she was beginning to feel like a spike was being driven through her. From what she understood, this was what Irene felt like on just about any adventure. She couldn’t even begin to imagine what must be going on inside Irene right now.
Irene, for her part, had reached what she considered “maximum stress” the moment they were surrounded by the star aliens, so she was actually significantly calmer now than a few minutes ago. Not that she was calm by any means now, but she was used to this. Keep the panic under control. Focus on Coleus, not on our captors.
As they moved through the ship, it became clear that these people had little taste for aesthetics. Everything was the same material, there were no decorative designs whatsoever. There were various unusual symbols floating in the air projected by unseen devices, displaying simple no-nonsense reports and visualizations. The fact that these visualizations were cute and all the sounds adorable was immensely offputting. Coleus’ mind went to a mental image of drowning in a sea of mewing kittens. The sound of their star speech was oppressive.
Coleus deduced that they were heading for the center of the ship, as the enclosures kept getting larger and larger, hosting more and more star aliens moving from place to place, on levels both above and below them. Eventually, they came to an utterly massive round door.
One of the star aliens pressed his entire body into it. The door flashed blue and slid open, revealing a large central chamber that was roughly spherical in shape. Images of the outside hovered in front of the walls. Many of the screens showed views inside the storm of great lightning bolts being formed and sent to the ground. Some showed the situation on the ground with many car wrecks and damaged buildings, with a few stars engaging in battle with residents that were quickly disintegrated. An unusual number of the screens were looking at various kinds of doors for some reason.
However, there were also views above the clouds. Other star-shaped ships flying in formation. One of them exploding for seemingly no reason. Weapons shooting at nothing. Cameras cutting out.
Coleus did not have much time to wonder at the scenes, because there was something else in the room, sitting on a throne made of silver, the only large thing not made of the strange rubber-metal Coleus had seen since arriving. The throne was easily the size of a small apartment complex, and the occupant fit perfectly within the confines of the seat. He was a humanoid entity of pure darkness, with little flames wisping off of his joints. His head shifted like a black flame around six piercing yellow eyes, and he had a mouth filled with sharp, fanged teeth.
“Welcome, visitors, to the Stormbringer.” He spoke with a deep, multi-layered voice that gave Coleus an instant headache and made her want to puke. Irene gave into the temptation and lost it on the ground, collapsing to her knees shortly thereafter. “You should consider yourselves lucky to get an audience with a High Lord of Eyda.”
Coleus tried to say something, but was unable to. The presence of this creature was simply too much for her to take in.
“You have been brought here because you were the cause of the defeat of one of our sister installations, the Strider. I had predicted that, with you captured, the destruction of this nation would be simple.” The High Lord narrowed all six of his eyes. “However, it seems as if this place has more defenses than encountered by the Strider. You have lived here, Coleus. You will tell me everything I want to know.”
Coleus opened her mouth. She wanted to say “I will never help you!” but all that came out was a squeak.
“Your defiance is meaningless, I can extract it from your mind by force.” The High Lord leaned forward, extending a clawed hand toward Coleus. A single finger was larger than she was.
Irene held her hand out at the High Lord.
The High Lord suddenly turned to stare right at Irene. “An ancestry! Fascinating. Who are you?”
“I-I am…” Irene stuttered. “I-Irene…” Her mouth was chattering so much she couldn’t form proper words. At least it was better than what Coleus was managing. “M-maybe don’t k-kill us?”
The High Lord laughed at this. “How unlike me, being so amused at a time such as this… That is what her ancestry does, is it not?” He turned his gaze back to Coleus. “I bet it gets you out of a lot of tight spots. Rest assured, it will not help you here. Regardless of the outcome of this battle, you are now mine. This ship is not secretly a Glen. You will not be able to grow your way through this. And I will take what I need from you.”
He extended a finger again.
There was a loud crash.
There was a hole in the ceiling. Through the hole flew a being of light and geometry that Coleus couldn’t fully keep in her mind, but her mind thought it was roughly spherical in the center. It shifted impossibly and reflected light that was not there.
“Target acquired,” it said in a clearly synthetic voice.
Coleus’ eyes widened. A memory angel.
To be continued…