The shards pitter-pattered onto the hardwood floor, yet not a single piece of glass hit her.
She looked up, seeing Caste holding out his hands, using magic to keep them away. After a few seconds, he let go and slouched against the wall, taking deep breaths.
“Something is terribly wrong.” He said once he caught his breath. “I could feel light and dark about to contact. It almost did. You’re lucky this whole building didn’t just collapse on itself.”
They could now hear the commotion out on the street. People were screaming, yet almost immediately it simmered down and the streets were silent.
As Caste was standing up to take a look again, Ryley muttered “When isn’t there something terribly wrong?”
Keoni heaved herself up off the floor, stepping over the broken glass and peering out the window. A huge group was gathered on the roads, all around two people. They were armed, practically decorated with technology very foreign to her. The only thing she could truly recognize was the symbol embroidered on their bulletproof vests. The symbol for the Quuarks.
The first one, a tiger, cleared his throat. His voice boomed through the streets. “Y’all should be able to hear me now.”
Everyone glanced around. Or at least the people who dared to look away. Just like Keoni and Caste, many people had their heads poking out of windows that had also been shattered.
“Citizens of Everton, we are here only to protect you. There are approximately 20 Mir-Cognates in your midst, and as you very well can figure out, we are here to remove them.” He said ‘remove’ like they were weeds in a flower field, not people. “Cognates, I know many of you can hear me right now, so I give you this message: You have two minutes to show your faces, or we will start open firing on everyone here to find you.”
Keoni glanced at Caste, looking for his response. He seemed a bit paralyzed, but he didn’t surrender. He was quiet as someone in the audience, a brunette human woman, spoke out.
“Why would you actually listen to him? He’s threatening us. All of us!” She shouted. “We don’t even know where the Mir-Cognates are! How do you-”
Her voice was cut off as the second man pulled his gun out of its holster and fired. It hit her right in the head, a red mist spraying from where the bullet exited. A shocked expression remained on her face as her body crumpled to the ground. Blood pooled from her head faster than Keoni or Ryley expected, running down into the gutters below. Keoni had to look away while Ryley almost lost his previous meal. Caste simply didn’t react, he just looked blankly out the window.
He holstered his gun and crossed his arms, looking incredibly bored. The group around her backed away from her body.
“Any confessors?” The question was asked again.
“What’s your plan?” Ryley whispered to Caste, still trying not to puke. Caste turned his eyes away from the corpse to look at him.
“I need to see how this plays out.” He responded, like someone didn’t just die in front of him. Ryley still couldn’t comprehend how he was still so calm.
“One minute!” The Quuark hollered. “Or we are taking each and every one of you hostage for testing!”
Someone stepped out from the crowd, holding his hands up. “Don’t harm them. They are innocent.” He looked like he was in his mid-thirties, decently wealthy. Now that Keoni looked at him, he was definitely Everton’s Assistant Mayor. What’s he doing?
“Are you a Cognate?” The man asked him. Slowly, so slowly, he nodded, earning himself quite a few gasps from the crowd, along with people muttering and whispering.
Nobody had known.
“Do you wish to reveal where the other Cognates are?” The Quuark un-holstered his gun as he asked the question.
“Either way, you are going to kill me.” The man responded.
“Oh, I’ll do more than that.” With that, he brought up his gun to fire at the Assistant Mayor.
Everyone tensed at the motion, expecting for another person to be injured or killed.
What they weren’t expecting, however, was for a beam of what looked to be blood to streak down from above and slice the Quuark soldier in two, from shoulder to hip.
Yet another gruesome display for innocent citizens as blood pooled from the severed halves, along with an arc of it from where it had sprayed.
Everyone stood confused as to what just happened, Ryley and Caste especially. The two of them both turned around at the same time to look at Keoni. The audience gasped and whispered, looking around to try and determine what happened.
Ryley and Caste spoke at the exact same time. Keoni didn’t pick out what either of them said. All she heard was “Wthat was yat,” Or something like that.
The two boys stood there for a moment, not saying anything. They had seen Keoni get mad, but this was on a whole new level.
Her face was tense, but still blank, her eyes open completely and pupils shrunk to almost nothing. Her hands gripped the edge of the windowsill, the grip so hard that the drywall started cracking. It was like an angry predator waiting to pounce on a much weaker animal, terrifying enough to deter an attacker with just a look.
Ryley didn’t know what to think, say, or do. He just stood there, his fight-or-flight instincts going crazy at the sight of his adopted sister.
Caste made a decision for him, grabbing his arm and looking into his eyes.
“Get out of here, grab whatever you can, and run.” He ordered, and Ryley blindly obeyed. He could feel his limbs shaking with adrenaline after seeing the displays of violence.
Keoni was still focused on the street, where the now one soldier was still looking for the origin of the attack. She could hear her friends exit the apartment, passing by her on the way, but didn’t think about them.
This must be the first time this soldier has felt actual fear. How fitting.
Without thinking, she created two orbs of concentrated dark magic, aimed, and fired them at the second soldier. She watched as the dark red energy bolts hit the soldier in the direct center of their body from head to waist, and the other on their neck.
The blood splatters matched the color of the magic that caused them.
A sound of metal hitting concrete rang through the streets, coming from a source where Keoni could not see. It was a repeated pattern, which sounded like someone laboredly walking.
She watched the people as they seemed to see something. When she saw it too, she got even more angry.
Someone piloting a mechanical suit guided the mech into the street where the Assistant Mayor was standing. Their voice was amped, so anyone who couldn’t hear what was going on certainly could now.
“I do not regret to inform you that this city is now under control of the Quuarks. If you wish to join us, you may. If not, you will die.”
His message was kind of stupid, but it got across quite well. Everyone started panicking, their confusion drowned by screams of terror.
“What in the name of Allé is going on?” Ryley yelped. Caste moved away from the window and into the kitchen.
“We have to get out. Now.” Caste growled. “Your lives are in serious danger.”
“What about the people?” Keoni demanded.
Caste didn’t quite answer. “Grab what’s important, and let’s get out of this building before it caves in.”
Keoni obeyed, against her will. She grabbed a small plant off one of her shelves, not thinking, not processing, not feeling. Not knowing what was going to happen next. She grabbed a family photo she had, along with a small blanket and some cans of food.
Another earthquake knocked all three of them to the ground. Keoni spotted Caste’s hands start to bleed up again, from the unexplained wound he had. He completely ignored it, ushering Keoni and Ryley out of her apartment.
Halfway to the stairs, a sudden thought forced Keoni to stop. Her eyes widened and she panted, holding her chest. “I just killed someone.”
“Quite frankly, he deserved it.” Caste responded. He too stopped with Keoni.
“No. I don’t know who he was. I… I… I killed him. He’s dead.” The sudden feeling of horror and petrification was flooding into her body.
“We have to move, Keoni. But trust me. I can explain why it was perfectly okay, but once we’ve left, ‘kay?”
Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.
The walls trembled again, and Keoni gave in to his persuasion, trying to clear it from her thoughts. I killed a man.
She ran down the stairs after Caste and Ryley. The sound of their footsteps echoed in the hollow hall until they reached the bottom, three flights of stairs later. Caste opened the emergency exit door, checking outside before holding the door open.
Keoni followed Ryley out. Keoni immediately saw what was happening outside, but this time, with sensory details.
The reek of blood. The smell of fear, the feeling of…
Caste didn’t check behind himself as Keoni used a Jmoox to get into the middle of the commotion. There were now more and more of the mechs swarming in, firing at the innocent citizens.
Keoni summoned her quarterstaff and got to work with a final snarl.
…
Caste kept moving. His ears were flooded with the sounds of war. The Quuarks were actually doing it. They were actually taking over Everton.
They’d been plotting it for years, and now, they were stepping in. Finally getting it done, committing mass murder while doing it.
His Nokgoj were triggering all over the place. A near light/dark contact here, a magical stabbing there. It was putting him in immense pain, but he had to ignore it. Ryley and Keoni weren’t safe.
Finx’s Defenders were running to the scene. Some of them had already arrived, but they were all in the Mirae, defending Jefu.
The thing was, Everton overlapped with Jefu. If the Quuarks took over Everton, that was instant access to Finx’s number one rehabilitation city. So many innocent Phys-Condiae and Mir-Cognates were going to die.
Ryley skidded to a stop next to Caste. Someone was in front of them. Caste had been taking the back way, in between buildings and hopping fences. There shouldn’t be anyone here, but there was.
She ran forward, straight for Ryley. Caste summoned one of his daggers, ready to defend the deer.
She’s not a threat.
Are you sure?
As sure as you.
Caste sighed and dissolved his weapon right as she reached Ryley, pulling him into a tight hug. Now that he looked at her, it was very very clear this Phys-Conidae was his mother.
She was speaking so fast and so indistinctly, Caste didn’t pick up a single word she said. Ryley did, as he was hugging her back and nodding.
He came out of the hug, holding her on the shoulders. “Mum. I’m okay. You need to get out of here.
“With a Mir-Cognate?” She shot a look of disgust at Caste. He ignored it.
“Yes, with a Mir-Cognate. They’re not dangerous.” Ryley responded. “They’re just people.”
“And what if you’re wrong, and it kills you?”
“I might if you call me ‘it’ again.” Caste mentioned, earning himself a glare from Ryley.
His mother had a look of shock on her face from Caste’s comment. It looked more like she was shocked by his fluency in Physcia. She opened her mouth to speak, but Ryley cut in.
“He’s kidding.” He glanced past her. “Either way, you should get out of here. It’s not safe.”
“You really think so?” She commented worriedly. “In that case, why are you here?” Her voice returned to panic.
“Keoni and Caste will protect me.”
“Oh, no pressure,” Caste commented again, looking back at Keoni. “Let’s keep…”
Keoni wasn’t there.
Ryley glanced back too. “Where is she?!” He yelped. “Where did we lose her?”
“I don’t know.” By what he was picking up, Caste had a distinct feeling he knew exactly what she was doing. “I’ll find her. You need to get your mother on route to safety, if you want to see her continue to live.”
“That sounds like a threat.” She muttered, which Caste very much heard.
He launched himself backward, a trick he hadn’t done in a long time in the Physical World. His form sped through the air, draining his stamina. He still had plenty left by the time he reached the streets.
The situation had gotten so much worse in the past two minutes. The Quuarks were now firing openly, and swarming in, grabbing anyone they could.
Someone grabbed a hold of Caste’s horns, trying to pin him down, but their attempt was frail as Caste threw them off by swinging his head. He ran into the open gunfire, bracing himself to stop the bullet rain.
The metal ricocheted off his forcefield, clinking onto the ground as he sped across the street. Once he was behind cover, he released it, recovering his strength.
“Keoni!” He called out, though he doubted she would respond. Caste looked around, searching for some sort of evidence…
He picked up a powerful force of dark magic being used, just down by one of the crossroads. Suddenly, one of the soldiers was propelled off the ground and slammed into a nearby brick-solid building. The impact shattered every bone in the soldier’s body instantly, and he could see the limp, pulverized body fall to the ground like a discarded toy. The rest of the soldiers fell just as quickly, all in a similarly gruesome matter, leaving the streets and buildings littered with broken bodies and spilled blood.
He struggled to see Keoni when she dashed around faster than he expected, but he could follow the after-image her excess magic left to find her. She had paused for a moment after she slaughtered, giving Caste an opening.
Sending himself over to exactly where she was, he immediately felt ill with how strong her anger and bloodlust was. He knew how to handle this. Let them know you're there, calmly though, and make light contact. That's how you show you're not a threat.
"Hey." It was barely a whisper, but it still incited a response. Keoni's hackles flared up even more at first, but her breathing calmed down slightly, the rest of her body following soon after. She still didn't look at him.
He moved around to the front of her slowly and cautiously, her eyes stayed on him the entire time. They were the same blue and brown as usual, so she wasn't necessarily corrupted yet. Keoni's anger was still just as present as before, it just was not as sickening to him.
It was only when he was a smaller species that he felt threatened by larger angry Mir-Cognates. He cursed his luck for having to be a fox of all things at the moment.
Caste raised his hands slowly from where he had been holding them outwards and went to place them on Keoni's shoulders.
Keoni spoke before he made contact. "If you try and put me to sleep I swear I will kill your Physical body in the most painful way I know." He stopped immediately and lowered his hands, deciding not to risk it, though she hadn’t seen what he was fully capable of yet. Instead, he put his hands behind his back and cast an illusion around the both of them so they couldn't see anybody and nobody could see them. He made sure Keoni didn't notice.
"You know what I'm going to say already." Caste looked Keoni dead in the eyes as he spoke, tilting his head up so it was easier.
"Yes," she responded, "I do. And you already know what I'm going to say, but you're going to make me actually say it out loud." Caste didn't respond, he just let Keoni keep going. "You were going to say 'oh, we need to get out of here to keep you safe.'" She said in a little voice that sounded insultingly exactly like him. "What about everyone else?! What about the people I know?!" Caste was glad he also made the illusion sound-proof, because Keoni's yelling hurt his ears.
She continued to yell and aggressively gesture. "You keep training me to be able to defend myself and advance my magic, but what good is it if I can't actually help anyone? Am I just supposed to sit back and watch as you lazy people run like cowards and do NOTHING?" The comment about being lazy stung, but he let it slide. For now.
"You don't need to help-" Caste started, but he was cut off.
"THAT'S THE ONLY THING I DO." Keoni jerked forward toward him. The sudden increase in volume really hurt his ears, and he actually had to flinch and cover them. They rung for a bit afterwards, but he still looked back up into Keoni's eyes. They were still wild, and he could feel himself getting more ill as her anger grew.
"Don't think that I didn't notice the little trick you did when you put up that privacy barrier, or whatever you call it. It’s probably something like Jewquee." Caste was legitimately surprised for once, as he had made sure she didn't notice. He forced himself not to correct her.
"I guarantee you soldiers, Quuarks, have walked past us and didn't see." She sneered as she leaned back, "I bet you thought of this so your boyfriend wouldn't embarrass you in public when he got mad." That was the final straw.
Caste couldn't help but swing a blade at her after the demeaning comment, but she had clearly expected it because she blocked it with her quarterstaff in one hand. He had to stop her. Something horrible was happening.
He hated it.
This wasn’t Keoni.
This time, when the dark magic had gotten to her, it hadn’t been on an unstable link. It had been entirely with Keoni’s free will.
She swung at him again. Caste deflected it, discarding all of his training precautions. He went for a blow, which she defended against, snarling at him.
Caste had had quite enough. He summoned up his strength and threw her into Limbo. He shot after her, summoning a quarterstaff of his own.
She tried fighting back, but her little episode was no match for Caste’s centuries of training. He landed a straight blow in her gut, then threw her down onto the ground, pointing the quarterstaff to her neck. Keoni was in a completely helpless state now, left at Caste’s mercy.
He leaned into her face. “Do not drag my personal life into your insults, Muhtoiy quekhup ykouhako.” He thrust his staff closer. “Do you know why? Do you know why I’ve been telling you to run?” Caste bore his teeth. “As soon as that army gets here, everyone you know and love is dead meat. If you really want to, you can try and save some people, but I promise you, you are going to die. There is no use. There is no use fighting what only grows stronger the more bullets it receives in its scales.”
He pressed harder. “You are not immortal. The moment a single blade contacts your delicate skin, you will die. Cease to exist.”
With a flash of dark magic, she dragged both of them back into the Physical World. Keoni tried gaining the upper hand, but Caste stayed one step ahead, keeping her pinned on the now bloodsoaked street.
The people who were running by all had looks of confusion, then terror. It took a moment, but Caste could see why.
These people knew Keoni. They knew Caste was a Mir-Cognate. They could see a Mir-Cognate attacking an innocent person. They had all heard the horrid propaganda and by Trin did they believe it.
Caste’s senses were all drowned out, focused on Keoni. He didn’t notice what was heading right for him.