CHAPTER 4
MOST PEOPLE CALL IT THE BEACON
The trip downtown started with getting Pike his new pair of glasses and turned into an entire afternoon of hanging out. Occasionally skipping half a day’s worth of classes was just part of being a university student, after all. It was even necessary sometimes, when it came to getting a cone of good ice cream.
Before the day was over, Mindie decided it was time for new workout clothes. It seemed like the right thing to do after talking to Ryan earlier. Apparently, he had declared his intention to be better than her in some sort of official manner—and naturally decided training with her was the best way to go about it.
She stretched in a bout of satisfaction as they walked out of the sporting goods store, each with a shopping bag in hand. “Mm, it feels good to have a proper rival on Tour!”
“Aren’t all of you guys on Tour technically rivals?”
“Details, partner. Details. It’s not every day you find a rival who shares your belief in rivalry.” She flashed him a wink. “Healthy competition is all about pushing your competitors just as much as you push yourself.”
“Can’t argue with that.”
No doubt Pike would have sought a friendly rival himself if he opted to aspire for his Star certification, but he already had other plans for his future. He supposed Crystal Morrigan was the closest person he could consider. She had recently received a windfall of praise in class for her sudden flourish of artistic talent. When asked how she suddenly got so good, she simply said she understood art now. Even Professor Belle was impressed.
In any case, Ryan would be a good one for Mindie. They were both vocal about being the brightest Star in the world, in any case.
With their afternoon of playing hooky winding down, he started to walk with his partner back towards campus. “It’s impressive that he’s in the Top Eight already, right? He’ll be a good benchmark for you.”
“Good timing too. With Ryan to push me along, I’ll be on fire by the time the North Star Tournament comes around.” Mindie stretched her arms to the sky, still relishing in the pleasant turn of events. “Have you talked to him at all lately? You guys are friends, right?”
They were dorm neighbors, even. The number of times Ryan had bailed on him suddenly flashed across his mind. A sudden wave of self-consciousness washed over him, and he gave a nervous smile. “Heh, well. It’s not like we hung out regularly to begin with… We just catch dinner sometimes.”
It wasn’t a lie, but fleshing out the other times he had been rejected for lunch, pick-up basketball, or study hangouts felt excessive. He cleared his throat. “Though ever since he got to know Erika Bast, he’s been spending most of his time with her.”
Then he blinked thoughtfully. “Or Crystal Morrigan.”
Gloomy amusement followed. “Or Mori Oobayashi… I think I’m noticing a pattern here.”
“What is he, an anime protagonist?!”
Mindie burst out laughing. It was a common anime trope for a male main character to have close friends who were exclusively female (and probably in love with him to varying degrees).
Pike quirked a curious eyebrow at her, holding up the shopping bag of his partner’s newly bought gear. “He asked you to be his workout partner, didn’t he?”
She did, in fact, intend to use these during training sessions with the campus golden boy. After a dramatic gasp of realization, she laughed even harder. “I’m part of the harem now?! Yabai! (Oh my gosh!)”
They had to stop for a moment because she was starting to double over in her giggle fit. As Mindie pressed a hand to her belly in an attempt to get herself under control, Pike looked skyward at the building whose shadow was cast over them. They were in front of town hall.
Situated on its roof, rising over the various low- and mid-rise buildings of Halo Ridge, was the town’s own landmark. It was a simple steeple, and it was nowhere near as tall and intimidating as High Tower’s spire. However, the star-shaped figure that sat at its peak was a sight that welcomed all whose gaze chanced upon it. Even during the day it glowed steadily, cycling through various colors of the spectrum. It was a reminder that this place was under the watchful gaze of its Stars.
As Pike gazed up at that warm glow, his mind wandered back through his memories of Tita Sheila. People knew it was a Shade that blew off the top of High Tower, but the Luminescence Department took precautions to censor her identity. To those who knew, she would now be remembered as a former Superstar who disgraced herself in a fit of chaos—if they chose to remember her at all.
To him, she was a brilliant aunt who wanted nothing more than to solve a riddle that no luminescent ever could. More than that, she had been a family member who didn’t ridicule his plans for the future, which were too outlandish for his pragmatic parents. Her absence in his life was tangible, especially since it had only been a short while since her demise.
“Pike?”
He blinked out of his thoughts and turned to Mindie, who had recovered from her tickling laughter. “Sorry. My mind kind of wandered for a sec.”
“A date during a school day?” someone chirped behind them. “Such rebels!”
The two of them flinched and whirled around. There was no cause for alarm, however. It was a familiar and friendly face—one whose voice Mindie even knew quite well.
“Mom?!”
Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.
“Hallo!”
Chiaki Tachibana-Callahan seemed to be enjoying her retirement, and apparently food was a big part of it. The two grocery bags she carried in one hand were overflowing with ingredients. She beamed like a high school girl and gave a cutesy little wave at her youngest before turning to her companion.
“Pikkun, you were looking up at the Beacon just now, hm?”
“Um… Yeah, I was.”
The former Superstar erected her chin and stuck her index finger up as if ready for a lecture. “Do you two know its significance?”
Mindie brightened as an enthusiastic response poured out. “Yeah! It’s the most important landmark in Halo Ridge. It was created as a symbol of luminescence—and it marked the start of professional Stars!”
With a more subdued tone, Pike added, “Its official name is the Guiding Light of Halo Ridge—but most people call it the Beacon.”
“Excellent! A+ to both of you!” Pleased by their replies, Chiaki clapped her hands together with a satisfied grin. She turned her attention up towards the glowing star figure perched atop its turret, giving it her own gaze of admiration.
These days, chaos-related incidents weren’t nearly as big of an issue. They were more easily isolated and contained, even with the menial ranks of Stars across the world. Shades were considered sources of petty crime. They rendered their victims unconscious anywhere between an hour or so and the amount of time it took to recover from influenza (the working folk could even cite it as a sick day). And just like the flu, what was likely a threat in an era long past was now just a commonly accepted nuisance—as long as these Shades were caught and dealt with quickly.
“It’s true,” Chiaki continued. “The Beacon is as old as the profession of Stars. You might even say part of the reason why the Department’s headquarters remains here in Halo Ridge is to be close to it. And yet…”
And yet, the building still looked as old as it was, which meant the tower that propped the Beacon up was sure to have been just as neglected when it came to maintenance. The world’s natural elements spared nothing when came heavy rains or winds, maybe some freak fire incidents. Still, the spire seemed sturdy enough to weather more strain.
“I suppose each year we think we can put off maintaining it, believing it to be strong enough to hold on a little longer.” She sighed in palpable disappointment. “At this point, maybe it’s for the best that it just wastes away…”
Chiaki shook her head despondently, then noticed the two younger gens giving her a pair of blank looks. She offered them a smile. “Ah, don’t mind me. Just the ramblings of a cranky old lady.”
She turned on her heel with a coy bit of grace and wiggled her fingers in farewell as she began to walk away. “I have a bit more shopping to do before going home, so I’ll leave you two to your date. Ja ne~ (See you later~)”
“Matta ne, Mama! (See you later, Mom!)” Mindie turned to Pike and held up her shopping bag in gesture. “I feel like I should at least attend my last class today, but I don’t think we have time to walk to my house to drop these off before it starts.”
Her house was on the opposite side of HRU from downtown. They’d have to walk the entire length of campus and work their way back to Central afterwards. Meanwhile, Pike’s dorm was on the southern side of campus, which was much nearer.
“Let’s leave these in my dorm for now,” he offered.
“You sure?”
“Yeah.”
“All right. I’ll come pick them up later.” She beamed and added, “Anime night when I’m out?”
“You know I’ll never say no to that.”
“Great! What do I have, anyway…” Mindie fondled her heart-shaped earring as she thought through the days of the week and did a mental match of it against her schedule. She deflated slightly when she remembered. “Ugh… History 202. That room is always so cold.”
She snapped around to her companion and clung to the sleeve of his hoodie. “Piiike, can I borrow your hoodie for a bit?”
“Don’t you have your HRU sports jacket?”
“You know that doesn’t belong to me! Nee-chan is using it today!” Melodramatic tears welled up in her eyes. “Douka onegaishimasu! (Pretty please, I’m begging you!)”
“Sino ba tong babae… (Who is this hopeless girl…)” The future’s brightest Star, ladies and gentlemen.
Mindie’s face went from dramatic to dully annoyed in an instant. “You know I can understand you when you speak southern now, right…?”
Pike cracked a cheeky grin. Right. Mindie was studying his family’s southern dialect for Language 101. Plus, she had heard him slip into this mother tongue plenty of times before.
Well, he got plenty of practice in when it came to the East’s northern dialect even without taking a language class himself. Who ever said watching anime was a waste of time?
=-=-=
In another part of town, the cleanup crew from the Luminescence Department was just finishing up in the aftermath of a chaotic instance. They spoke with the aspiring Stars—luminescent students participating in the Halo Tour—who had come to deal with the instigating Shade. Unfortunately, they had arrived too late. Three victims had been rendered unconscious, and the Shade was nowhere to be found.
Harper spied from a nearby alley, careful to keep herself out of sight. She couldn’t hear what they were saying, but it was clear from his proud posture and confident gesticulations that the blond Star was showing off his determination to his partner. Well, with hair as shockingly pink as cotton candy, the young woman with him did stand out. Her face was quite attractive too. Moreover, the way she abruptly turned her back to him while blushing said everything about her relationship with him.
Watching them reminded Harper of her own late lover—and that reminiscent feeling began to fester.
It seemed that her chaos grew more unruly the more energy she sapped from her victims. The reins on her sanity seemed more ethereal by the day, kept in her grip only by her ability to keep her emotions in check.
She slipped away.
She kept to narrower, less crowded streets as always as she made her way back towards the mall. The western district of Halo Ridge was a complex mess of old, narrow streets, and there were certain routes that led there which few pedestrians ever used nowadays—the ones that offered no scenery, or looked too suspicious to walk through.
These were the ones Harper had gotten to know. They didn’t scare her.
A small lot cordoned off by a high, chain-link fence sat in the shadow of the mall—a remnant of a time before. Harper gazed up at the enormous, blocky structure that overshadowed this part of town. She curled her fingers through the fence’s links.
Then a gruff sound caught her ear. She turned back around, dully, expectantly.
A large Shade in the shape of a werewolf stalked towards her unsteadily, its distracted stagger more befitting of a zombie. It must have done a lot today too. As it neared the young woman, the shadowy mantle that gave it form melted off. In the Shade’s stead was a man of similar age to her, and in a similar state of dishevelment. His piercing hazel eyes leered at her.
“Has your chaos grown?” he asked, half-growling.
“Yes… It’s getting harder for me to control, Ferus.”
“Endure it. You can’t waste any of it on a whim.” He prowled forward and stood beside her, clutching at the fence. His glare directed itself upwards at the eyesore that had been built to replace what was here before. “Losing chaotic energy weakens your resolve, and you’ll start to forget why you chose to do this in the first place.”
Harper followed his gaze. This mall was the source of so much sorrow that fell on deaf ears and blind eyes. The plight of those who once called his district home, the callousness of the ones responsible, broke the warm, bright light that was once her lover. It turned him dark, cruel, and vengeful. It led him to his end.
She would still do anything for him—even help him fake that end.
“How is Lizbette?”
“Sad, but young. She’ll recover from it.”
Something like recovery couldn’t be said for either of them. With each passing day, and each victim claimed, Harper felt herself becoming colder and bereft of feeling. As her chaos grew, her joys felt lackluster. Her idea of hope felt farfetched. Her sense of any positive reason felt dull and crudely, laughably wrong.
“We need to bide our time,” Ferus said gruffly.
Harper understood. Soon, their chaotic energy would be strong enough to reduce this accursed building to rubble, and defunct district of Halo Ridge that had been their home would have its justice. This was their mission.