“DAD! WHERE ARE YOU!” Screamed a voice in the distance. “Common dad, answer please!”

Sean, thought Kaidan, and like a jolt, he stood up, stumbling over a tumbled chair in the darkness. He looked around him, but he couldn’t see anything, immersed in pitch-black darkness with the occasional flashes of light coming from the window’s curtain followed by an electrical thunderclap. A light that painted what it touched with a purple veil, revealing the dining hall he was in before collapsing.

“Dad, you there?” Sean’s voice sounded urgent.

“Yes, I’m here baby boy, what happened?” Kaidan spoke to the Communicator.

“Daddy, just a second… Mr. Rutgers, dad is here.” Kaidan heard the footsteps of the man approaching Sean. His eyes were getting used to the darkness and he started to make out the kids fallen on the floor. Right next to him, Ayane was in a deep sleep. He refused the urge to turn the visor of his Communicator on, just so he could keep his eyes adjusted to the darkness a little longer.

“Kaidan are you all alright?” Rutgers said, his voice was urgent and direct.

“I’m not sure, the lights went out and we all… got a surge of electricity or something,” his head was still dizzy.

“Look, you know that snake that you told me earlier? The one that ate the flower? Guess what? It’s freaking here, inside Elysium,” Rutger told him.

“Inside? Aren’t you guys submerged?” Kaidan questioned, shaking Ayane to see if she would awake.

“It came through the flooded area. The way it came in, it was like it knew the place where the hull had been damaged before.”

Kaidan stopped to think for a moment, he remembered Unalu’s talk about Anton controlling the snake and the weird artifact he himself saw him using underwater.

“Kay? I…” said Ayane, waking up.

“If the snake gets into the city, you guys can make short work of it with the maglev weaponry,” Kaidan followed, ignoring Ayane. She seemed confused as she listened to the conversation out of context. As soon as she was about to open her mouth, Rutgers, unaware of her presence, interrupted.

“You told me, I know… the thing is, the creature is not leaving the flooded area, it’s just… bashing into the structure. If we weren’t so deep and at night, we could send subs through the outer permitters.”

“It wouldn’t work, the snake is very agile underwater, they would get destroyed in the blink of an eye,” Kaidan told him, recollecting the creature's attack on the boat.

Lina busted into the room. “You’re all ok?”

“Where is Anton?” Kaidan's voice was decisive and demanding.

“He ran after grabbing something on Ayane’s waist,” Lina's voice seemed distressed.

“Kay,” said Ayane terrorized, “the seeds are gone, I think he got it.”

Kaidan didn’t think much, he stood up and ran outside passing Lina without uttering a single sentence.

--

At the courtyard, Tom sat on the floor, his back against the Uroa’s jeep, bleeding on his left shoulder. Uroa was applying some first aid, trying to stop the bleeding. It seemed like it was working. The townsfolk were walking on the streets, noticing something was amiss, but maybe too afraid to ask. They mumbled between themselves, but their voices were deafened by the thunderous sky. Not that Kaidan could understand any of it anyway.

“Where is he?” Kaidan demanded from Uroa.

“I think he got back to the tower. He grabbed his car and- ”

“He fucking shot me… again,” Tom said in frustration, showing the arrow on his right hand, his shoulder bleeding. “What is going on?” He was on the floor, his back leaning against a tree.

“I don’t know what his game is, but he took the seeds and sent the snake into Elysium.” Kaidan quickly said,

“What?” Uroa uttered in confusion.

“You should’ve let me kill him back in the boat” Tom uttered.

“Not now Tom,” Kaidan uttered. “Uroa, can you give me a ride to the Tower?”

“In the dark? It will be hard to get there but sure.”

“If it’s hard for you to get there, then Anton will have an even harder time.”

Tom got up and began to move towards where the Maglev gun was kept, right next to the workshop. He picked it up, said something Kaidan couldn’t understand, and then fell, face into the ground. “Don’t excerpt yourself” quickly said Kaidan, running towards him.

“I can do it,” Tom groaned.

“No, you can’t! Not only because of your arm but you haven’t had food for the whole day, have you?” Tom didn’t bother to answer, he just gave Kaidan the gun with some hesitancy.

Dylan suddenly came out of the workshop, Kaidan could see shadows moving inside, passing in front of a small flickering light.

“Is it good?” Uroa asked him.

“I think it might turn on,” Dylan replied, “but it certainly can’t do much.” Kaidan understood right away what Dylan was talking about. His expertise was electronics and engineering, and he knew all about the Exocores of old.

“If he comes down here, protect the orphanage with it ok?” Kaidan said.

“I'm not a pilot you know? But at least I can assure you, that snake won’t throw me around this time, I promise,” said the boy, words filled with unnecessary guilt.

Is he still mad about it? I should’ve noticed he might be upset for not helping at all in the boat, Kaidan regretted.

Ayane came out of the orphanage, Lina right on her track with a couple of kids. The woman didn’t seem right, she was holding her belly. All of this was stressing her, and no one would like it to happen. “Ayan, stay here with Lina and the kids,”

“But –“

“No buts, she might need you more than we do. Same for the kids.”

“I don’t want to bother y’all” Lina said, breathless.

“It is not a bother, we are repaying you for all the care taken,” Kaidan told her gently. “And for all of… whatever is going on now.”

“Kaidan is right,” reinforced Uroa, “what if the baby decides to come now? We don’t have a doctor.”

She seemed lost, he spoke every word in English, and really fast. He noticed that, left a quick grim covering his face, and then proceeded to explain to her, in a calm manner on their language, what was happening. He then stared at Kaidan, his eyes gazing at his soul. A decision had been made. “Let’s go to Kaidan. I don’t want him next to the Tower,” each word that came out from Uroa’s mount had a precision Kaidan didn’t expect from him.

They both moved towards Uroa’s car. Kaidan stored the Maglev gun on the back seat, the thing almost couldn’t fit in and had to have parts of its box sticking out of the window. The Moon had vanished, and the sky was at the peak of that night’s storm, exuberating a purple splendor that engulfed the land. “A bomb he said” muttered Uroa to himself. “That Tower is a bomb, and somehow, I feel like he wants to set it off.”

----

The Earth felt still on the way to the Tower. Nature remained silent, the mosquitos fled, the birds were not tweeting, the wind seemed to have died and the trees had fallen into an awkward motionless state, not a crack to be heard from a wild animal moving through the foliage around. The sound of the engine roaring through the dark hills and the tires moving the dirt of the road beneath the car echoed through the island in unison with the thunderous sky. Uroa muttered not a single word.

Kaidan felt uncomfortable with that. That was not the boy’s nature. That was not this place’s nature. The approach to the Tower was incredibly different at nighttime, from the distance, a faint light could be seen emerging from where the lake is located. A cyan blue light, that made the air above reveal the minor particles of dust floating, now with its magenta glow was revealed. Pleor, Kaidan thought, remembering the words Shinzu eloquently put earlier. Somehow, less than a day later, his view of the everyday object seemed different, but in what way he couldn’t put it yet.

The car drove through the slope right before the crater, revealing an unexpected vista. Under the lake, vines spread across the Tower-underwater, claiming the pylons and other objects spawning out of the lake’s surface like fingers-shone in a bioluminescent effect. They emitted a cyan light, in conjunction with all the fauna and flora living in the lake.

The Tower stood there, a shadow leaning in the distance at the center of the cyan water disk, its jagged steel surface occasionally offering a reflection of the blue light or of the thousands of Pleor particles floating all around. So many, even with a Tower around. That is a minor Tower but…. he thought before noticing the shadowy figure of a man running across the wooden bridge towards the lake’s center.

With a single gesture of his hands, Kaidan signaled Uroa to stop the car atop the slope. Kaidan jumped out of the car and pulled the Maglev box out of its backseat by pulling the section hanging by the window out. He set it under a group of trees where the slope protected it from most of the cyan light covering the area.

“Uroa, you're gonna have to use it.” Kaidan’s voice was imposing as if the boy was Dylan or Tom, a soldier for him to command. Uroa didn't mutter a word, he just nodded. Since the revelation of the Tower’s destructive power, he hasn’t been the same.

Kaidan ran down the slope, the noise of the snake bashing against the metal echoed from the Communicator. “Dad, I’m scared,” Sean spoke, his voice trembling.

“Don’t be baby boy, this will be over in seconds.”

Kaidan stepped on the wooden bridge, running as fast as he could, the structure moving beneath his feet uncontrollably. The spinning Rings around the Tower were not moving, but in their silence, the structure seemed more unstable than ever, he could hear cables snapping and the hinge of metal trying to resist the force of gravity pulling it downwards to the lake.

And halfway through the bridge stood a man. It took Kaidan five minutes to reach him. At his back, instead of the crossbow, he had a weird pole and a cloth with the shape of a sphere. Somewhere he dropped the crossbow after shooting Tom. He had the advantage, why did he stop?

“Care to explain?” Kaidan asked. He didn’t sound pleased.

“I don’t think there is a point in me doing it,” Anton’s voice sounded calm and controlled, cold even.

Kaidan noticed the pouch containing the seeds strapped on his belt. “If you wanted to know how the seeds worked, you could’ve asked further. You– do you get what would happen if someone had a heart problem in the orphanage and your trick had triggered it?”

“They would just die earlier, hopefully, a less painful death than Pleor generally provides.”

“What? You can’t be serious.”

“You misunderstand me,” Anton said, sliding his hands into his pockets and removing them with a series of eight rings attached to it, three for each of the three middle fingers and one for each of his pinkies. “I don’t merely want to learn how they work. Those seeds are a plague against nature’s flow. I shall banish them…” The rings on his index and ring fingers on both hands began to vibrate, interacting with the Pleor in the air. They began to shine on a pattern of green and purple, “…and all those who try to play as God.”

Knowing what was coming, Kaidan tried to activate his shield but it failed. The electric shock earlier damaged it. With careful movement of his middle and pinky fingers, the dust surrounding them flew towards him, fusing together on what seemed to be a liquid sand arc, shining in green. He moved his pinky, and the arc was sent flying towards Kaidan like an arrow thrown from an invisible bow. He ducked, letting it pass over his hand, and then proceeded to run towards Anton, grabbing the knife on his waist in the process, seeing the sand touch the bridge and degrading the wood in an instant.

He was controlling the Pleor, just like the Tower does.

Anton moved his hands towards himself, and the combined dust returned, Kaidan rolled to evade it, the dust hitting the right rail of the bridge and cutting it in half. The water moved as he did it, making the bridge slide a little. Anton wasn’t moving, his hands made a gesture to his right, and the dust, coming from Kaidan’s right towards his left, returned with its arc shape. Kaitdan continued on his motion towards Anton, the bridge movements ever being an obstacle.

Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

As soon as the object was about to hit him, Kaidan came to a sudden full stop and jumped backwards, the left rail was cut by the sand and when Kaidan’s feet touched the ground, the bridge structure couldn’t resist and went downwards into the water while the section Anton stood rose upwards.

Anton began to fall down towards Kaidan. No, he began to run towards Kaidan, his hands still moving. Kaidan ready the knife, now with its blue edge fully operational, preparing for a stab, one eye looking at the sand to his far left, begging a curve to return towards him.

He trusted the knife towards Anton, but the man jumped, doing a bankroll in the air. His eyes never left Kaidan’s location, except for a single second, when he looked at the top of the slope.

Kaidan spun as fast as he could, knife at hand, slashing horizontally, but Anton quickly kicked what was left of the bridge’s right rail, the movement was so strong Kaidan lost his footing and the slash just barely reached him.

Looking towards Anton, he noticed a blue light glowing from the trees, probably the electricity from the Maglev gun channeling the Pleor surrounding it. Had Anton noticed it before, mid-jump?

“Dad” Sean spoke from the Communicator. His voice felt distant.

Anton for a split second seemed to lose his composure. His fingers were not in the strange patterns he was using before and the fused dust for a second feel towards the lake.

“I’m here baby boy.” A loud noise came from the Communicator, Like metal interlocking into one another, echoing from multiple halls and corridors after a vibration. Kaidan had finally noticed, but the bashing was gone, the fight took his attention out of it.

A second interlocking sound came through.

The Pleor Anton controlled lost its color and feel into the water. His hands now rested along his body.

“What are you- ” screamed Kaidan, but a third interlocking sound came through.

“I wonder if this is fate or coincidence” followed Anton, calm, but somehow, the coldness in his voice had vanished.

A shot came through, a blue zap of electricity bursting through the air from the trees atop the crater’s slope. And from the water, it rose, the creature with its wing attached to the head, the long spine of Pleor flowing through its eel-like body, if not for the weird snake connections. It screamed in pain as one of its wings was ripped apart as the shot passed through it and barely reached Anton.

How? That shot was so fast…

The creature's body moved in spams across the water, the waves were so strong the bridge began to break apart, separating the two of them on different sections.

A fourth sound interlocked.

“The readings here…” said Rutgers from the communicator. “This is a… diffusion effect?”

“What?” Asked Kaidan to Rutgers, his eyes on the giant beast and Anton’s hands.

“It’s what I’ve shown you earlier today, the explosion consoled by vibrating rings.”

I know! He thought in despair. I know that!

The fifth ring interlocked.

“What?” Kaidan asked once again, his heart began to race, his voice crackling. “What are you doing?” He couldn’t think of another word. Of another question.

“Holy shit!” Rutgers screamed. “Kaidan, the rings vibrating in the flooded area, something is shining from the structure… dust, an amount I’ve never seen before.”

“What…” said Kaidan again. He looked at Anton. “This isn’t from the Tower, is it?”

“I told you, I have to destroy those seeds, that includes where they come from and those who know how to produce them.”

“But you’re still holding on to those you stole from us” Kaidan’s voice seemed to be vanishing by the second.

“Just so I could understand your discovery. After that, they shall vanish from this world.”

“You’re not like this. A killer I mean. You broke Lina’s glass so she wouldn’t drink the poisoned drink, protecting the baby, you…”

Anton fell silent for a second “Coincidence. It was never my intention.” Was there truth ringing from those words? Kaidan couldn’t tell. He couldn’t think. Seven rings were all that it would take.

The sixth ring interlocked.

“I have a son there. There are a lot of kids there… and people that don’t know anything about the seeds.” Kaidan’s voice crackled, he was sweating cold. Anton didn’t reply or move. The snake seemed to be calm. Uroa was nowhere to be found.

The sound of footsteps came from the Communicator, alarms ringing all around. He could hear Rutgers running. He could hear Sean crying. “Dad, everyone is running… I’m scared dad, come back please.”

“It’s gonna be okay baby boy, I’ll settle this here and I’ll be back, I won’t be away from you, I swear.”

“Please dad, come back.” Sean was crying, the heavy breathing from Rutgers carrying the boy around, could be heard.

“Don’t worry Sean” said Rutgers, his voice breathless. “The pods are close by, just two more minutes-”

The seventh ring interlocked. The communication suddenly vanished.

A giant pillar of water rose from the ocean, shining on all spectrums of colors. Metal debris sprouted in all directions. A powerful wind hit the island. The trees were lifted from the ground… no, the ground was breaking as a massive wave swallowed the land. The electrical cables all snapped around the place and the Tower began to crumble. The lake started to dry, as the water continuously flowed from one of the openings on the land downwards to the ocean.

And there stood Anton, amidst the destruction, immovable.

Kaidan didn’t think, he just moved, jumping from his bridge towards Anton as the water’s flow pushed them both close to one another. He would kill him.

---

Ayane and Lina were back inside the orphanage dining hall. Lina had just requested the final kid to move out of the place. Ayane poured the water out of her water satchel and poured in some of the drink Anton poisoned from the jar. It has to be the juice, Lina ate some food, she thought, now, what is this made of -

What was it that came first, the full spectrum of light colors shining through the window, illuminating the dark dining hall of the orphanage, or was the sound of the water pillar towering over the island? Whatever it was, Ayane didn’t notice as no more than milliseconds later the windows shattered, shards of glass flying all over. She was pulled by the force of the air’s motion, stunned by the unexpected event.

What in the world? Her mind shouted, moving her arms to grab Lina, who had just been thrown against the dining table, which had been slightly moved by the wind, the tableware falling all over.

“Are you–“ she tried to ask, but there was no time, the wood screamed and cricked, the floor opening underneath them, on multiple sections. On a burst of courage, Ayane jumped towards Lina, the woman seemed stunned, gasping for air.

“I think the baby…” another interruption, this time the whole building was hit by a powerful wave, the walls came crashing down, and on the floor beneath, a river formed inside the place, carrying all that was, leaving the two women stranded as the tsunami created by the explosion ravaged the land.

The kids! Ayane desperately thought, not paying attention to Lina's words, until she screamed in pain. “What happened, did you…?” but then she trailed off. No! This is… not now…

“I think,” said Lina between gasps, sweat covering her face. “I think… the baby… it’s coming.”

Ayane held Lina’s hands as the whole building screamed, breaking apart, the walls tumbling over, allowing her to see the courtyard, and the workshop. Her eyes widened as she noticed the destruction, water engulfing all that she could see.

“AHHHHHhhhAAHh” Lina screamed.

“No, no, no, no, no!” Ayane said, desperate, “You can’t come now, you just can’t.”

And with the water from the pillar, metal of all sizes and shapes began to rain over the island.

---

Dylan, sitting in the Exocore’s cockpit, was surrounded by six kids inside the workshop, working as fast as he could to bring it into some kind of operational status. The building interior was illuminated by flashlights, torches, candles, anything that could provide some light.

“The copper string has to connect to the secondary board on the arm” he screamed at one of the kids. They looked at him stupefied, they couldn’t understand him of course.

He pulled a piece of the cable, plucking the copper from the isolated tube and making a gesture of connecting it to a section of a circuit board, with his hands demonstrating a soldering iron under use, his mouth making the sound of fire. The kid smiled at them and nodded, running to the right arm of the giant thing, the only piece not connected yet.

The two younger ones tried to grab the soldering iron but the other four teenagers prevented them from getting it, requesting them to stay down as they prepared to climb onto the machine’s arm.. Dylan wasn’t sure if he should feel proud of the kid’s determination to help the bad as he puts them to work.

The whole building shook off. A blast of wind sent the iron walls of the workshop against the Exocore and the kids. The two smaller ones got trapped underneath the tumbled wall that tumbled the table with equipment over them, they had cuts on their little legs and arms, and they would not be able to move. Two of the older ones were sent flying to the opposite wall, which leaned to the left, allowing the ceiling to collapse in a misshapen direction, falling over the top section of the head of the robot. The final two teenagers, who had already climbed onto the machine to fix the arm, ducked to avoid the collapsed section of the wall.

“I’m getting you out, I’m coming” he screamed to the kids as if they would understand, moving out from the Exocore’s cockpit.

Through a crack in the wall, for an instant, he saw the colors in the sky, the pillar of water, and the coming wave. He pulled back into the cockpit activating the Exocore. Now or never, he thought. As fast as he could he used the left arm to sweep the kids that flew against the far wall. It wasn’t gentle, but it would be better than being on the floor.

The ones trapped… how will I…? He was thinking as fast as he could, hearing the little ones crying. The four kids were safe on the left arm, so he just…

The waves smashed on the place, the walls moved out of the way as if they were nothing but paper being dragged down a river.

No! He screamed inside, the ceiling finally toppling above them, ripping apart as it hit the robot. In a matter of seconds, the workshop was no more. He was out in the courtyard, four kids hanging on the arm.

Not again… A memory of flooding gates flashed in his mind. He looked towards the orphanage. He saw Ayane, holding Lina’s hands on the second floor of the building, where the dining hall used to be.

The kids under the wall were not crying anymore, they would not cry again. But the ocean was crying, as the water from the pillar fell down as rain, a mix of metal and cold, bitter memories.

---

Tom had no energy left on himself, he couldn't even move his arm, not after all the blood loss and the electrical shock he felt after being hit by the arrow. He was holding tight to the weapon. The streets around the orphanage were dark, but he could see the silhouettes of the people moving around, aimless, trying to make sense of the commotion Uroa and Kaidan caused by leaving so suddenly with a weapon in the car. Stupid people, he thought bitterly, moving about without aim or goal. Stupid people.

A woman approached him, her face described how worried she was. He had seen her, he had made a note of every person he had seen in the town. She was the one working across the orphanage on what seemed to be a bakery, although that was not quite right, as that was also a fishing market of sorts, and those two things didn’t really mesh well together. She clearly wanted to ask him something, but of course, she couldn’t, she couldn’t speak English.

What is the point of being alive if you can’t communicate? Another bitter thought. “Unalu?” she finally said. Was it truly a question? Tom couldn’t tell. He turned around ignoring her. “Hmmm… sorry…” she said after, proceeding to move away from him, towards a group of five kids grouped together in the orphanage’s courtyard. Two of the kids were the ones poking fun at him for his smell earlier that night. Were kids always that stupid? He hated them. But more than anything, he hated himself. If I had eaten, I could be helping. I could kill that bastard. If I had not been shot…

The thought was interrupted by a blinding light shining with all spectrum of colors, a deafening noise louder than a thousand engines turning on at the same time. A pillar of water rose from the ocean. It was enormous, with debris all over it.

The air wave came so fast that he had no time to process what he was looking at. He, the woman, and the five kids were blasted away, beyond the courtyard and onto the streets where so many others were being flung around. His left shoulder smashed first against the wall of a building, right where Anton had shot him earlier. The pain was enormous, but he held down any scream he wanted to urge out. In the distance, he saw the workshop walls, tumbling sideways, but not all the way down, and the windows of the orphanage breaking apart.

And the incoming wave. Lifting the boats at the harbor, small inlets of land vanished in its wake. He stood up and tried to open the door inside the building, but it was locked. He took a deep breath and slammed his right arm and shoulder against it. The door didn’t budge. He tried again, and again. I’m stronger with my left side. And then he moved into action, using his left shoulder, he slammed against the door, breaking it open. He wanted to scream, but he wouldn’t, not in front of those outsiders surrounding him. As he climbed the stairs, he noticed the woman and kids following him. Pests, following me even here.

As they went up the stairs the massive wave crashed against the town, the noise of the objects being carried, crashing against one another in a confused manner echoed all around. The building he was in began to shake but kept sturdy. He found a balcony on the second floor and from there, he noticed a way to the rooftop by using the window sills. He looked at all the kids terrified, the woman, carrying another one in her arms. The little one didn’t look older than five. He quickly got some cloth from the bed in the room and used it to wrap the arrow he was carrying on his back. He couldn’t afford to use it.

“Come”, he said briskly, extending his hand to the woman. “I’m gonna get you up there”, he said, pointing upwards to the rooftop. It’d begun to rain, not from the clouds, but from the pillar. It washed over him, the cold water. There was nothing he hated more than the feeling of being cold and wet. The woman went up first, and then he managed to send three more kids. The only two left were the rascals who poked fun at him. They didn’t seem to care about his smells now. No, they were terrified.

“Ahhh”, someone screamed, being carried by the water.

“AHHHHHhhhhhhAhhhh”, Lina screamed in the distance for the third time if he’d counted right.

“Common,” he said to the kids, extending his hands so they could climb up onto the rooftop. But the floor opened underneath them and the two were swallowed in.

Tom didn’t think. He wouldn’t think. It wouldn’t happen again. In the flooding section of Elysium-3, the kids drown inside the machinery room. His sister drowned inside the elevator. Not again. He jumped into the open gap on the floor and let the water carry him, but he didn’t go far, as the water didn’t manage to crack any of the walls of the building, the only passage in or out, being the windows, but most were blocked by furniture now, and the room he was had four different passages.

“WHERE ARE YOU TWO?” he screamed from the bottom of his lungs as he had never before. He didn’t scream loud enough when Elysium-3 flooded. There was no reply, but it wasn’t necessary, he could hear the crying, coming from one room over. He let the water carry him to it, the flow wasn’t as strong now.

It was a kitchen, he quickly spotted the two kids holding against the top of a tall fridge. He approached the two boys and surrounded them in his arms. The two boys grabbed him tight and hugged him. From this section of the kitchen, through the doorframe leading to the entrance he came from, he could see a window barely open. Outside there was a terrifying image.

The pillar of water coming down, and with it, a second wave would follow.