image [https://draviaaris.neocities.org/images/lestaria1scenery/cellsroom.png]

After a long elevator ride down to Basement Level 5, I stepped off and took in the rows of empty cells. The area appeared small, barren due to lack of use, yet the sight brought to mind the rotting cells in my home town’s jail thousands of years back. They were filled to the brim, crowded with murderers and soldiers whose only crimes were fighting to defend their home—one different from the nation they ended up jailed in.

I wondered, did Kaleo end up in a society that didn’t want him as well?

To find the real villain behind these deaths, I needed to answer this question. And so, I proceeded to the very last cell on the left.

Dark gray met dark gray, as the concrete floors and walls gave off little comfort. The bed laid in a better state, with simple white sheets and blankets on old, creaky frames. Kaleo curled under the covers, with the cuffs still clasped around both his wrists which had the gloves removed. The cuffs allowed for freedom of movement, but not of magic, ensuring he could not break past the tight chain-link wall which divided him from I. To the side of the wall rested a control panel for this cell only that had the option to raise the wall, open a slot for food, and to let out a shrill beeping noise in case a prisoner needed to be woken up.

Instead of relying on some doohickey, though, I used my voice. “Kaleo Bonnet. I must speak with you immediately!”

His ears twitched. He shot out of bed and turned to me, all but scrambling out like I pointed a gun at him as I spoke. His hands went to the chain-link immediately, and he curled his claws in as he shook it, the metal creaking and squeaking without giving an inch of quarter. After a few moments, he brought his hands to his chest as if he expected something to happen, though a deep anger flashed onto his face when he remembered what the cuffs took from him.

I did not step back. Even if he managed to do something to me, I knew I could defend myself. If I wanted to accomplish what I set out to do, I couldn’t show weakness over every minuscule threat.

"Tell me about the Society of Xaviais,” I said.

He glared at me. “So now you care? You sure were fucking willing to throw me in here, no-questions-asked the last time we talked.”

I grimaced and tried to ignore the slight surge of annoyance pulsating through me. “It became chaotic, and my allies were injured. I could try and justify it by saying it wasn’t entirely my choice, but as a leader, I must take responsibility for my subordinate’s actions. Especially the ones I believe are right.”

I crossed my arms. I would not crumble under his hatred, not when so much was at stake. One little connection, one of scrap metal floating under salty seawater, one of light and of a society that refused to let the dead lie. It teased me, a broken thread which only needed a closer look to find its source. To find the torn ends kicked under carpets and shoved behind curtains.

Kaleo remained silent, jaw shut tight it almost looked as though his teeth would crack under the pressure.

He needed an offering of peace, perhaps. I held a hand out inches away from the wall, forcing a smile to sweeten my words. “You were the one who started this,” I said. “Would it make you more willing to cooperate if I explained my reasons? A man staring down a death sentence hardly has room to complain.”

A low hiss sneaked out of his throat, and he balled his hands into fists. Still, he leaned against the chain-link. No complaints, I assumed.

I hardly ever jumped to barter with criminals who wished nothing but harm upon others, but I had too much at stake—too much of…Maia that needed protection. Maia specifically. I had nothing but pure and heroic motives for wanting to get to the bottom of this, as the most talented and hard-working hero this empire had.

“A few days ago, I received a complaint from a colony of mermaids that an underwater facility was not only operational again, but emitting disturbing amounts of light pollution,” I began. “A tale corroborated over the next few weeks by analysis reports.”

His ears wriggled, and I couldn’t help the jolt of satisfaction in my heart at his subtle signs of craving to hear more. “I verified their claims. Out of concern for criminal activity, Sunny sent Bella and I to investigate. Not only were the criminals in heavy numbers and armed, but they managed to escape so fast it went beyond any petty crime groups I would have expected. Do you know what weapons they armed themselves with? What batons of violence they wielded against us?”

I paused. He grimaced, but after I didn’t say anything for a minute straight, he groaned and smacked his head against the barrier.

“I can’t fucking tell if you’re being rhetorical,” he began with his head down before he looked up again at me (oh now that left me with satisfaction I hardly got from anyone else), “but assuming it wasn’t, magical weapons using light?”

“Precisely,” I said, and he stood straight, his tail hitting the floor much as a wrecking ball against a worn down home.

“Motherfuckers,” he cursed under his breath.

“I noted the Society of Xaviais’ victim we encountered possessed a weapon as well,” I said. “One, though, is more than enough to peak my concern, especially when another armed victim studied starkly similar subjects. I thought this to be a murder of bias against light scholars, but on account of what I’ve seen from those weapons, I have one question I’d like answered before we address the obvious.”

Before I let him speak, I leaned in, and he moved away from the wall.

“What are you?”

The state of his body. The way he reacted to being injured in comparison to when Dori shot him in one specific place.

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

All too obvious to my trained gaze. A rare and unfortunate phenomenon, indeed, one I barely saw in the modern day…but not impossible.

“You should know,” he said as his eyelids drooped. “I’m nothing more than a living weapon now. It’s been that way for almost fifteen godsdamn years.”

He put a hand to his chest, a faint light glowing from that spot as he squeezed his eyes tight and pinched his face. Nothing emerged, due to the magic suppressing cuffs, but it was exactly in the spot where he ended up shot. “This is where I keep my soul sealed inside my shambling corpse to keep it alive, no shit I look like this. I tried to live normally, when I was just a little kid, all to pretend nothing changed, but those stupid Society members made sure I got marked for life.”

He wrenched his hand away and kicked the wall. Over and over, and over again. When stopped being satisfactory, he smashed his cuffs against it. “I’m rotting! I can’t live like a human being and I have a good two decades of my life left, so if my existence’s a crime?”

One more slam pushed him off kilter, and he fell backwards. Sprawled on the floor, he paused and stared into space for a few seconds. “…I figured I might as well go out fighting the assholes who did this to me.”

Huh…

Now that.

That was something I could reason through.

“I see,” I said. An unfortunate fate, though not one out of the ordinary in terms of the world’s usual tragic twists. If experience told me anything, cruelty and pain were a given in life. I had all kinds of advice as to alternate routes to express his pain through, but focusing on that would lead me away from my true goal.

I curled my fingers around the chain-link. “Do you recall how many SoX members are aware of this illegal weapons trade?”

“Fuck no,” he said and pushed himself to his feet. He tucked his hands behind his back and sat down on the bed, keeping his distance for now. “But you found some already. What happened to them?”

They likely lived like he did, but without a body. After weighing my words with caution, I shook my head. “They attacked us when I attempted to investigate them—us being my team and I. We were forced to neutralize them.” Ah, but— “Did you not notice they were at the crime scene?”

He shrugged. “I didn’t bother shuffling around. Those assholes were all guilty anyways, I wanted to make sure they fucking suffered before the neighbors screamed and called the MPF. Still, forget that, does this mean…”

His face remained hard and neutral, but his cat tail perked up. “You believe me?”

“It depends,” I said. I pulled out my phone and began typing some notes down regarding what he said so far. “Though you are a killer, so am I. I hardly have any reasons to doubt you based on those metrics when the connections are there and you likely aren’t lying to me. I’m a magical expert, and you couldn’t possibly fool me on the nature of your existence even if you wanted to. Nor are there any benefits to doing this to yourself. If it wasn’t for your stellar combat abilities, you would’ve likely perished ages ago.”

What went unsaid, though, were lingering doubts. Kaleo could be part of a bigger conspiracy sent to mislead me. That, or he benefited from subterfuge for inexplicable, but deeply personal reasons.

…

Ha, he was so small. I’d never met anyone shorter than I who wasn’t a child. Certainty—I’d best him in a duel to the death if I needed to. For now, he’ll be a good informant on a lead I never thought I’d get a chance to follow up on.

Though, the fact I never received a report of an undead soul weapon wandering about Maia befuddled me so. Surely he arrived only recently to this planet. It rung true no matter any protest made against it: the Delta Six outlawed the continued suffering of the ‘undead’, and if he were to be discovered, he’d likely be treated as illegal contraband with only rare exceptions. Harsh, but many people saw it as a pleasant mercy compared to the slow fate of rotting away. Once your soul became weaponized, your best way to stay alive was to be used by another. One’s original body kept aging with the weapon in their own hands, but would never heal again until it fell to sunders. Torn apart, bit by bit, unable to feel anything. Only realizing once the wounds accumulated, and the body could take it no longer

Death was the merciful option, so the Delta Six believed. I, in no position to argue, stood by their decision.

“Uh,” he said, and just as he did, he jumped off the bed, slipped on the floor and smacked his face against the ground.

“…Hm, watch where you’re going,” I said. He pulled his head up and glared at me.

“Take your stupid notes,” he snapped and rolled onto his back, “I don’t give a shit. No, I wanna know what’s going on in your fucked up head. Are you just—I told you what you wanted to know, are you gonna get rid of me now? Are you?”

His teeth were bared, and as I looked at him…

The look in his eye, no—that determination. That single minded obsession toward justice, toward destroying evil and enforcing all that was right and good. A wild, untempered obsession, yes, but say…

Say it could be refined. Tempered. Fixed. My fingers froze where they once typed with wild abandon.

“I…” I began, then stopped as I realized I didn’t know. Or did I? But the law stated…hm.

A true hero followed her heart. I listened to it and only it for the past few days. I felt certain I had the right to continue if it was for the good of the empire, and for Maia’s future.

“Absolutely not,” I said. Now the time arrived for a gesture of peace, and so I strode over and slammed the button down to recede the wall. Kaleo’s mouth fell open.

“What the fuck are you—hey!”

I grabbed both his shoulders to make sure he looked me in the eye. “Young man, I too have been in a position like yours. Risking the comforts of your life to chase truth and justice—if those people consider the lives of others so little that they wield them as weapons, then it is within my right as a hero to bring justice to their atrocities. Though I may not agree with your wild methods and lack of investigation, I see your heart. Your want for justice. And so I will answer its call!”

I went to undo his handcuffs, then grabbed one of his fists and raised it in the air. “For I am Erna Dee Belmonte! I shall enlist your efforts and your knowledge to solve this mystery, of a society and a weapons trade both of light, and to make sure no child is put into the same situation you are in. Though the law may lean one way, I know with my protection, you will live a long and happy life. Perhaps not a free one, but a good one.”

For as many years as he had left. Not that I dared to utter a disappointing thought.

“…”

Kaleo looked at me. His body stayed mostly lifeless, yet his eyes glossed over. Parts of him were barely alive, just as his eyes struggled to produce tears. Just as his chest felt pain, joy, anger, sadness. Just as his organs struggled to function. Just as anyone else—with obvious differences here and there.

In a sense, we held some similarities. He simply failed to realize his potential—but I could fix that.

In his wrist I could feel a weak pulse thrum against my hand, a gentle, quiet rhythm like a rock struggling to hold firm in the sand against a sandstorm for the history books.

Finally, he spoke, words barely above a whisper—

“Why are you such a freak?” he said.

WHAT!?!?

“I offer you a path to a new life and you call me a freak!?”

“I’m calling it how it is! Okay, fine, I don’t have a better choice so yes, but don’t you dare get sentimental about this! I’m nothing like you!”

“I never said you were anything like me!”

“Shove that obtuse bullshit up your ASS, this is a professional godsdamn partnership and nothing more!”

“YOU F—“