“I’m gonna kick the shit out of those two”

Sofia was fuming as she disembarked from the skimmer. She couldn’t catch a break, first all that shit with Calam happened, then suddenly there are terror attacks on several sectors and settlements across the eastern edge of the Okocea. She’d just gotten home from ripping apart a swarm of Greater Depth Centipedes. She was still scrubbing bug gunk out of her hair when she got the message from Buff.

Now here she was, in some Podunk town in the middle of goddamn nowhere, slapping pollen and dust off her jacket. The evergreen flowers between here and the Highland city of Volvane she called home had kicked enough of the stuff onto her skimmer that her long curls of brown hair were streaked in yellow.

She took long thudding strides, letting her combat boots smack against the thin metal of the dock as she walked. She looked back for her companion on this trip. He wasn’t technically a soldier anymore but she’d told him about the circumstances and he’d agreed to come out of retirement to check it out.

What used to be a bright mane of fiery red hair had dulled to a warm orange, freckles splattered across the bridge of his nose. He had the thin wire frames of a professor, and the clothes to match. He pushed up the sleeves of his tweet jacket. It was a little long for him, the worn patches at the elbows and fraying edge of his collar just adding to the look.

She rolled her eyes when he stepped off of the skimmer, letting a dock worker give him a hand as he stepped out, sporting a long black cane that could accommodate his lanky frame. He winced as he hopped over the divide, taking long laborious steps as he went.

As he reached her, he extended his elbow to her. She sucked her teeth and shook her head before accepting it, walking slowly along with his wobbly gait. They reached a set of steps and she let go, walking up the four steps and looked back down at him.

He cursed, and shimmied left to a handrail that stuck out, before grabbing onto it with a white knuckled grip and slowly pushing himself up the steps sideways, one at a time as careful as can be.

“Marshall Terrance West walk up these steps faster or so help me I’ll throw you off these frames.”

He scowled up at her and straightened his back out, giving up on the ruse and trudging up the steps like a petulant child. He jabbed an accusatory finger out at her.

“You’re mean now, I don’t like you in this new job of yours” He said as they continued walking at a faster pace. She replied in a calm voice.

“I understand what you’re trying to do and I get it, but honestly, they’ve had this ass kicking coming for a while, and you making me walk slow isn’t gonna make the beating better, I promise.”

“They saved a guy’s life, a guy who took a hit from Pilgrim and lived to tell the tale, I might add”

“I really wish people would stop coming up with nicknames for bad guys, I just feel like it gives them more credence than they deserve”

“Next time I’m at the naming meeting I’ll lodge your complaint formally.”

Marshall could feel her eyes boring into the back of his skull, and pointedly ignored it, instead looking at the newest marvels of technology on the Shoreline. The new frames they sold out here had the ability to slide together, extending latches on the underside so they could click together to form larger platforms.

Dozens of the frames had slid together in a set of parallel lines along the shoreline. Shops, restaurants, entertainment, stalls selling trinkets and rip-off memorabilia. It was like a festival. The sets of elevating frames on the edges pumped up and down slowly, serving as elevators for the large crowds that cycled on and off the floating portion of the city.

Marshall peeked over the edge and saw that the little town was actually thriving on the ground as well, dozens of buildings either attached to frames that were dug in down there or still being constructed for permanence. He decided he liked this little town. It reminded him of the good old days.

Sofia kept her eyes locked on the building at the far end of town, it dominated the bulk of the frame it sat on. They were blocky square buildings that seemed to stack on one another, all with an anchor logo built onto the side of the buildings.

They were passing the shopping streets and she felt a tug on her arm as she tried to walk forward and looked back. Marshall was pulling her toward a stall that had a line starting to form, long skewers of roasted meat were being assembled, then slathered in a thick shiny sauce that dripped off as people were eating it.

It did smell good but they had work to do, and she wouldn’t be delayed easily. She tried taking another step and found herself unable to move. Marshalls green eyes looked at her over the lenses of his glasses.

“He got punched by a former 5 coil captain of a containment unit. Even if they managed to juice him with some squirrel or something im sure he’ll be down for a few more days still. It’s only been what, a week? A little longer?” He waved the protests off as she opened her mouth to speak and pulled again toward the stall.

He looked like someone’s worn out accountant, but his grip was like steel, and when she resisted she looked him in his eyes and saw a hint of the cold grey that hid behind those green eyes. She relented, allowing herself to be pulled over to the stall.

The pair sat on a bench that faced out over the shoreline, watching the sun turn a hot orange against the horizon line, the multicolored tops of the surf flowing and rustling in the wind.

Sofia stewed in the confusing mix of emotions as she pulled a steaming cube of meat from the skewer. She popped it in her mouth and chewed slowly, mulling over the initial sweetness of the sauce that builds heat until a warm tingle sits over her tongue.

“What do we do? This is just…” She flopped her arms helplessly, unable to even form the words necessary to express what she felt.

“Well, we’d probably start by talking with him, then depending on how he’s reacting, either you take over…” he looked at her and the green of his eyes were gone, replaced by a cool steel color. He smiled sadly “Or I do.”

Even having known the man for well over twenty years, she still felt goosebumps ripple across her skin when she heard him talk about his role in the world. There were many kinds of people out there, but few of them were capable of fulfilling their purpose in life as well as Marshall was. He was born to do his work, and he did it without hesitation.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

“Promise me you’ll go easy on them.” He said it quietly, shocking her out of her thought. “They both lost everything when Calam left, being sent on this mission had to be hard. Failing it had to be harder”

“So that justifies what they did to this Kad guy? He didn’t choose to do this”

“No, it could explain why they did it. Justification and explanation are two very different concepts”

“I can’t believe you’re defending those idiots for this, I-“

“Cut the shit, Fia.” Marshall looked at her, his face scrunched nearly into a snarl “Every single one of us has been forced to do things for which there is no justification. No redemption. Let’s not start picking moral high grounds now because the ones doing it are our responsibility. If you feel like a failure, just say so.”

His hand was grabbing the handle of his cane in a white knuckled grip. His eyes locked with her, daring her to argue.

“Fine, I’ll take it easy on them”

Marshall relaxed a bit, letting the green flood back into his eyes. He was one of the oldest of them, and even now he felt a push to just let the instinct loose. He looked over to the buildings where the new one, Kad was waiting. He felt the tattoo on his arm itch, the ink chain that ran up his arm aching even now.

From the sparse report he read, the kid had one of the roughest entrances into their world. Beaten nearly to death, found and changed irrevocably into something other. Given something he can’t comprehend with no way back to normalcy.

It reminded him of his youth. He said a silent prayer for Kad that the path he walked from here on out was nothing like the one he’d walked upon.

----------------------------------------

Joe sat with his forehead pressed against the desk he was sitting at, soft snores escaping him every few minutes. Buff stood at the board on the other side of the room, pinning information they knew to it in an attempt to understand the pattern of events that had been going on. He didn’t think he could puzzle the entire thing out by himself, but he didn’t wake Joe.

The poor man had been in Kad’s room trying to get him to talk to him, give him any kind of sign he was ok for a full two days, forgoing sleep as much as he could, terrified he’d miss a moment of lucidity.

Kad had been asleep for four full days after they’d used the elixir on him. He’d thrashed on the forest floor, screaming violently as his body started shoving itself back into place. They’d had to hold him down while also packing wounds and trying to stop him from bleeding out long enough for it to save him.

Buff still saw the afterimages of their faces when they pulled Kad out of the Reef. Half of them had been standing there at the edge of the Reef, one of them holding a pair of boots that had been sat on the side of the path. They brandished axes and machetes. Spikes and shears.

The giant foreman who had greeted him before he went in was there, his eyes wide in horror at the state of Kad’s body. He was wrapped over most of his body, soaked in his own blood, and pale. It took him and Joe both working over most of the night to stabilize Kad and get him in the clear.

When he woke up, he simply stared at the wall. No attempt at interaction seemed to get through. It didn’t make sense though. His body responded shockingly well to the changes it was going through. His hair had grown at least an inch and a half, a short beard covered his face. From the daily weight they got on him, his muscle mass was still increasing as the days went by. He’d honestly never heard of someone responding this well to an awakening. Was the mental trauma of what happened really great enough to cause catatonia of this level?

Buff was still mulling things over when he heard the door to the office bang open. Sofia walked in, flanked by a tall man with red hair. Buff jolted to attention, snagging a file off of the desk and holding it out for Sofia.

“Sofia, Dr. West, how was your trip?” He smiled sheepishly, trying to ignore the fact that Joe was snoring behind him. She ignored him, frowning at the file then at Joe leaking drool on the desk.

Marshall stepped up and took the file, while Sofia walked over and stood behind Joe for a moment. She crossed her arms and frowned down at the sleeping man. Buff made a mental note to remember Joe as he was, not as he would be when Sofia finished braining him with a book.

Sofia bent down, grabbing the back leg of the metal chair that Joe was in, and yanked it out from under him. The chair flew across the room into the thick stone wall, crumpling like paper and sending a small puff of stone dust into the air.

Joe hit the floor, his eyes flashing in shock as he looked up at Sofia.

“Glad you’re sleeping so well considering how the mission went, dipshit”

Marshall threw his hands up in the air.

“What happened to going easy on them?” he sounded more tired than anything. Her eyes flashed at him, and Buff trained his eyes on the floor, pretty sure he could hear her teeth grinding.

“That is easy on them, he’s sitting there sleeping away after doing one of the dumbest things I’ve ever even heard of someone doing on the job”

Joe jumped to his feet, saluting Marshall before standing next to Buff. Marshall was fairly impressed with how well they handled Sofia’s outburst. They stood there at attention and didn’t say a word for most of the tirade she went on.

He was also fairly impressed with the language Sofia was using in her rant. He must have been gone too long, because she’d definitely picked up a few new words that he’d never even heard before. He leaned against the wall and opened the file Buff had handed him and started to skim, only pausing when he heard something interesting.

“Wait, Fia.” Marshall interrupted after Joe had responded to her asking about why he made the choice to awaken Kad. “What did you say?”

“I said he was laughing, Sir. I only managed to find him because after Calam threw him, he was laughing in the brambles as he was bleeding out.”

“Fascinating. That’s definitely a new one”

“Well um. I think he was doing it because he hurt Calam.”

Marshall blanked, unable to process what he’d just said.

“What do you mean he hurt Calam?”

“Well, we found a complete shed of the vines they use to enable the Pilgrim transformation, along with a claw on the ground. Kad’s fingers were cut to the bone in a straight line. It’s my belief that he waited for an opportunity then stabbed Calam directly in their Genesis Seed.”

Marshall’s eyebrows scrunched up as he thought, then his head snapped up and he took a step closer to Joe.

“What kind of claw did he have that was able to cut through the vines that easily?”

Buff and Joe shared a glance, and Buff stepped forward.

“That’s the other piece of information we had to leave out of the report. On the path directly where we found Kad, there was the corpse of a Matal wildcat. Marshall’s eyes widened, and he moved so fast that Buff wasn’t able to process it. The green eyes that had been there before were completely gone, replaced by a stormy grey color.

“You awakened him with material from a Matal? Are you insane?”

Sofia cursed and put her hands over her face.

“We didn’t have time for anything else. Calam had rampaged through the area for too long, anything else we could have used was hiding well away from us.”

Joe spoke up. He flinched when Marshall flicked his eyes over to him.

“You don’t use Matal, or anything else of that nature to awaken someone. They’re volatile and violent creatures, they hunt for sport. Worst of all, they’re smart. Smarter than you know.” He flipped open the file he had and read the report. Kad responded incredibly well to the awakening process.

He cursed under his breath, moving towards the door.

“What room is Kad in, we need to move him to a more secure facility just in case.”

“He’s in the room on the end, but you can relax, he’s been catatonic since he woke up a couple days ago. He doesn’t even move”

Marshall had a sinking feeling in his gut. Things could go very south very fast if the kid had been absorbed by the instinct inside him. He threw open the door at the end of the hall.

A room full of neat rows of beds, bookshelves full of medical texts and crates full of tinctures and poultices that had been cracked open to keep the man alive. The bed at the far end was disheveled, sheets thrown off onto the floor. The window above the bed was open.

Marshall stood there, feeling his instinct thrash against the inside of his mind. The thud of boots behind him signaled the others getting to the room. She looked in, cursing when she saw the empty bed. She put her head in her hands and breathed out a sigh of frustration.

She looked up at Marshall, who was waiting, tensed like a sprinter on the blocks. His eyes weren’t just grey anymore. His irises wobbled when he looked around, like liquid mercury was pooling in his eyes.

“Spirits forgive me. Go, do what you have to do”

Marshall turned and walked out before she even finished speaking, flipping furiously through Kad’s file. Buff and Joe watched him pass then looked back at Sofia. The vein in her forehead was pushing out, and her neck and face were already turning red.

“They’re gonna write songs about the ass beating I’m about to deliver the two of you”