Chapter 12
The History
“Mera, where are you going? Hey! Meredith!”
She wasn’t listening to Vivian. In fact, her face was twisted into such an expression that the girl recoiled, accidentally knocking one of the books to the floor. Meredith had stood and, uncaring for decorum, she banged the door open, storming from the room. Vivian scrambled to catch up, leaving behind all their materials. It took her some time to get there, even though Meredith wasn’t running. She was moving at a clipping pace, in any case. People saw her coming and turned away, afraid of getting even remotely in her way.
“Mera, are you done with the-?”
“Not now, Conrad!” Meredith hissed. The boy jumped back, and she could see his head turning to Vivian. Whatever gesture they exchanged, Meredith couldn’t care. All she cared about was one thing, and thinking about it any further caused the scowl to widen, and created a path for her out of the library.
Stomping into the halls, she found them busy, but no object to her progress. Her heart was thumping away like a jackhammer, and her fist was clenching. She could feel the flow of blood to her fingers constricting, but she refused to relent, turning down a hall to a set of stairs that raced upwards. She jumped them three at a time, leaving Vivian to catch the door as it nearly slammed into her from behind.
“Meredith, will you slow down?! What the hell is wrong with you?!” Vivian’s demands went unheeded, and Meredith wouldn’t be held up by them. She kicked open the next door that led to the quieter halls. Music was echoing out from some of the dorm rooms that were open, and various Guardians were chatting about whatever was going on in their lives. Some were standing in the hallway and eyed Meredith as she stomped through it; others dove aside until the girl reached her own room and jerked her card through it to open the door.
As expected when Tempest Squad was on a mission, it was empty, but Meredith didn’t care. She only had eyes for the blade and bow against the bunk that she and Vivian shared.
“Terrill, it’s time you give me some damn answers and not the runaround!” Not caring that Vivian had come through the door, panting with the exhaustion of the chase, Meredith reached for both the Earth-Splitter and the Bow of Torrents. In seconds, the white world whirled around them and she found herself in the Soul Realm, opposite Terrill and a young man around Violet’s age. They appeared to look similar, too. Meredith ignored him, striding up to Terrill’s soul and grabbing him. “I knew you were a bigshot. You were something in the Corps, but the founder? How much more are you not telling me?!”
“She’s a feisty one. Like my owner.” Terrill side-eyed the man, tousling his ginger hair.
“Meredith, Kyle. Kyle, Meredith.” The soul that came from Vivian’s bow saluted her, and Meredith acknowledged him with a nod. She knew him, remembering his muddled voice from after her first usage of Soul Magic. He wasn’t the one she had beef with.
“Talk, Terrill Jacobs, founder of the Guardian Corps.” He reached up, gently removing her hands with a sigh.
“I’m surprised, with all your knowledge, that you didn’t know this before now,” he said, his eyes grown solemn. The young man named Kyle scratched his cheek and sat, folding his legs while he listened. “Yes, I founded the Corps.”
“The information about the founding of the Corps is beyond obscure. As someone who became a Legendary Weapon, you had to have known that. You had to have ensured it,” Meredith spat. Her face was contorted in anger, though Terrill didn’t change his approach in dealing with her. “How much else have you ensured you’re not telling me?”
“She’s got you there, uncle,” Kyle said. He was leaning back on his arms, and Terrill watched him, showcasing the first emotion since they’d come together: annoyance. “If you won’t tell her, I will.”
“You’ve always liked pushing things. Your father was the same.”
“I learned from the best. He was never one to sit around, inactive. Mom was the exact same, and you know Violet picked it up from her.” Kyle scratched at his chin, and when he looked back to Terrill, his stocky stature looked more muscular, and his intentions were fierce. It very much reminded Meredith of when she had interacted with him the first time, all those months ago. “Uncle Terrill, I didn’t guide her on the path to re-forge you so you could keep secrets from this generation. How many times have secrets led to our destruction? Has anyone even heard from the Chain Blade or the Abyssal Blade?”
“That was by design, and you know that. The less people know of the Legendary Weapons, the better. That had always been the Corps’ creed, though I see its other mottos have long fallen out of favor.” Terrill was exasperated now, having nowhere else to run to. He bowed in defeat. “Very well, Meredith, what do you want to know?”
“Everything.”
“Well, don’t ask that much,” Kyle corrected her. He brought himself to his feet, jumping about like he was ready to enter the ring. “Let’s start with what we can answer. I’m sure your biggest question has to do with Terrill founding the Corps. That’s one I can’t answer.”
Terrill was thoroughly irritated with his companion by this point. Still, he sought to answer Meredith’s request. In the background, outside of the Soul Realm, Vivian was buzzing around. “Nothing I’ve told you is a lie. Just fragments of the truth. To protect you…and I guess to protect myself. That was a mistake. After your battle with Rico, I should have known, but I have always been a reticent individual.
“That said, Meredith, I did not form the Corps to conceal the Weapons. That came later.” Meredith eyed him with doubt, but chose to hear out more of his explanation before she could yell at him some more. “I told you we fought a battle, a battle whose intention was to open the way to Crea’s realm.”
She couldn’t hold back her voice. “What? Crea? You mean…the goddess is real?”
“I wouldn’t know. Real or not, does it matter?” She thought it did, at least a little, but with her head spinning, she opted for folding her arms and glaring across to her mentor. “The point is the result of that battle. Though we stopped it all…it left a scar on the world. Things couldn’t be the same, so I founded the Corps on the principles by which I lived: help others, protect others, aim to work for a better world.”
“Became a lot more complicated when we noticed the falls at the edge of the world shrinking,” Kyle picked up. “That’s where our story begins.”
“You created the Weapons to seal Crea’s realm. That’s what caused the world to shrink.”
“Yes. Six elements. Six weapons. And then one last Weapon to lock it all in place,” Terrill explained, his fingers drawing a diagram that never manifested. Meredith still got the gist. “It was the only solution we could think of. This world was dying because of that path we’d been unable to seal; the soul, I figured, once you said it. From earth to sky, it was an endless cycle that caused the utmost fear in the people. We had no options but to put an end to it. I did tell you this.”
“So that’s what it is, then…you instructed the Corps to protect the secret, and they followed because it was your order.” Meredith’s clenched fist unfurled and reformed. The knowledge of what had happened to their world wasn’t all that important, not in the face of knowing what Terrill had done. “Why didn’t you just tell me? Did you think I’d use you to break the seal? Did you think I’d hand you over to the-”
“I didn’t tell you because it acknowledged my own failure.” If there was one thing Meredith didn’t expect to see on Terrill, it was shame, but his head was bowed low with that very expression upon it. “You loved Guardians. You were so driven to protect people. To overcome your own mistakes. How would you think if the person who created all that you admired admitted to screwing it all up?”
“I’d…” Meredith found herself tongue-tied, unable to think of what to say. She hadn’t thought about that. For so much of her life, Guardians had been these monolithic figures that she could only dream to reach. Never did she think she’d meet the founder of the Corps, himself. However, watching him and witnessing his shame over failure, lamenting his weakness, Meredith knew the answer. “I’d have admired you all the more. You’re only human, Terrill.”
“Human…” Kyle scoffed. He looked close to tears at hearing that. “Been a while since I’ve been able to think of myself that way…”
“Well, aren’t you? You were afraid, and made a noble sacrifice, but just because you don’t have a body doesn’t mean you don’t have emotions. You were people! Do…do you think so little of us now that I wouldn’t acknowledge that?” Meredith found both hands were clenched, and tears at the thought were pricking at her eyes. She recognized her emotions and sought to unfurl them. “I’m sorry, but I can understand. You did all you could to protect everyone. That doesn’t mean you can just ignore the truth, though. You should have just told me!”
“Yes, that’s an error on my part, I suppose,” Terrill agreed. “I was ashamed that you’d view my failure as you living in a lie with the Corps. That it didn’t live up to what you thought it was. But I also feared what that kind of information could do in the wrong hands. History has shown that people seek power, be it Crea or the Weapons. I couldn’t let such power end up in the wrong hands. Upon re-evaluation, I made some mistakes in regards to you with that, as well.”
“You’re damn right you did!” Meredith snapped. Kyle enjoyed that, snickering at the interaction. Like before, his face slipped right back into a grave expression, shoving his hands in his pockets.
“He’s not wrong, though. Some of us have been less fortunate over the course of the last thousand years, I would think,” the young man told her. “There are seven of us in total. I became an heirloom to a prominent family in the Corps. My sister went to the Academy our mother formed. Another went to the craftsmen that had a hand in creating the first skyships. Terrill was left in the hands of the Corps. The other three were hidden. No one alive had knowledge of where they were.”
“Well, we know where our spear is,” Terrill said. “Currently back in the hands of the Corps. Along with your sister.”
“So…we’re being gathered? After all our efforts…?”
“Whoa, hold on…by efforts, do you mean how Terrill snapped his blade in two?” Meredith asked. They both nodded. “How is that even possible?”
“A soul cannot be broken so easily, Meredith,” Terrill told her. He met her eyes, his insistence felt with every syllable he then spoke. “Only diminished. All souls return to the great soul in the very core of our planet. They’re what fuels this world. In hindsight, you’ve called it the world’s soul. But Crea’s seal made that cycle impossible, the energy directing somewhere else, manipulated by something until we put the kibosh on that by anchoring our souls.”
“Okay, now you’re just entering confusing mumbo jumbo territory.”
“He’s making it sound more confusing than it really is. Years of ambiguity has caught up with him,” Kyle said, laughing. He seemed good-natured, but the words he was speaking were laced with such weight, Meredith couldn’t help but hang off of them. “It’s arcane magic, I’ll admit, but the gist is this: wherever that flow of souls was going, our souls being used as anchors on the seal prevented the souls from flowing in that way. We halted the imminent destruction of our world. Remember, souls are eternal, even if they’ve no body. Like Uncle Terrill said, they just return to the world’s soul…or so we gathered. It’s not like any of us could use Soul Magic.”
The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
“So…if that’s the case, how did…?”
“How did the world start shrinking again?” Terrill finished her question for her. He now sat, tapping the pads of his fingers together. “My guess? In our intervening history, one of the Weapons felt threatened. So, they sacrificed their soul.”
“But you just said-”
“A soul is never really gone,” Kyle said. His voice held sorrow, heavy with guilt and bereavement. “Yet what if one casts their soul aside of their own free will. It is broken beyond repair. It will never be whole unless it returns or connects to the world’s soul. Very few have had their souls ripped apart, and none alive or while I lived. Whichever Weapon it was, however, found it necessary to take form at the expense of their soul. They could no longer control their will after that. They abandoned themselves to the tides of fate.”
“And the world once more began to shrink,” Terrill concluded. It wasn’t an answer, not in the sense that Meredith wanted, but the way that the two spoke of it informed Meredith it was a subject that was best not to tread. “I knew I couldn’t do that. Allow myself to be washed up by destiny and all that crap. So, when my own power was sought after, I broke my blade so as to save my soul. I allowed my soul to grow weak, but I did not break it, so instead my physical form broke.”
“Why, though? Why would people seek the Weapons? If all they’re doing is putting a lock on our world…” Meredith couldn’t figure it out, even if an inkling of the idea tapped at her. In her mind, the Reaper surfaced, that grim specter whose threads were like a spider’s, drawing the Weapons closer. “To control the world’s soul…”
“People seek power. Even the Corps, at some point, I’m sure. Like you said: we’re human,” Terrill told her. That was an unfortunate fact, yet one Meredith knew as true. If it meant keeping them out of others’ hands, even the Corps was willing to gather the powerful Weapons to themselves. “However, I know one thing. Nothing good can come of seeking us. Of seeking Crea. That goddess, whether she is real or not, is not a benevolent one. Our world struggled, but she did not answer. And anyone who would seek her power is no friend to this world.”
“Her power…?” It was yet more information to sift and sort, leaving Meredith unaware of where to begin. Terrill didn’t look to have the answers either. How could he? The Reaper’s intentions were fully hidden, though the general aim was obvious. Weapons and goddesses. The Order. A seal. So much of it was bamboozling, but in thinking about it, one image surfaced in her mind: that moment in the Metropolis when the Weapons clashed. “Just…one more question.”
The two souls looked to one another, and Meredith presumed that they already knew what she was going to ask.
“That time you clashed…did we break your souls? Were you…real? Or just an illusion?”
“We were us,” Terrill answered. It once again infuriated her at how evasive he was being. “Always remember that, Meredith. Souls are as real as you. They are not things to be used. They are living and most have will of their own. A will to fight. A will to exist. A will to make their own decisions. A will to be as real as the earth you stand upon. Never take them for granted.”
“Never. I would never-”
There was a sharp knock on the door of the dorm room, and despite Vivian’s insistent shaking, Meredith finally slipped out of the Soul Realm for the first time. Her hands lost contact with the blade and bow, the girl falling flat on her butt. Neither of the weapons showed any signs of having been conversing with her for the length of time they had. The only indication that she’d been wandering in the Soul Realm was Vivian, looking at her with curiosity and just a bit of alarm. Another knock came at the door.
“Mera, what the hell was that all about?” the blonde whispered harshly, evidently leaving the knocker be. Meredith pushed at the ground, bringing herself to stand, but Vivian barred her path. “You were just sitting there, completely lost. What exactly happened at the library? What did that mean to you?”
“Viv, not right now.”
“No, it’s going to be right now. You don’t just grab my family heirloom and space out for the better part of half an hour or more. There has to be a reason! Will you listen to me?!” She wanted to; she really wanted to. At the very least, Meredith knew she had to share with Vivian all that she had learned while conversing with Terrill and Kyle. The knocking, however, was growing louder and more consistent, which Meredith knew needed answering. She brushed Vivian aside and opened the door, revealing Conrad standing there, book in hand.
“You dropped something, Mera,” was the first thing he said. No flirting. No jokes. Just Conrad, holding the book up with a face that demanded he be let inside.
“You can return that to the library. Don’t need it,” Meredith answered, and she attempted to close the door.
He didn’t physically intervene, but his words did. “Not pertinent to your investigation, is it?”
“Go away, Conrad. We don’t need you here,” Vivian said. Meredith had paused in closing the door, staring at her Lacardian friend. He was persistently stubborn.
“Maybe not, but you two are up to something, and I want in on the conspiracy here.”
“You realize you’re by the girls’ dorms, right?”
“Shut up, both of you,” Meredith snapped. She tugged on Conrad’s shoulder, the boy stumbling inside the room, and then shut the door before anyone could ask otherwise. The confusion radiated from both of them, but Meredith was ready to address that in short order. “Conrad, do you really want in? Because this whole thing…it’s Corps stuff.”
“And more. Do you even know what kind of book you just pulled?” He fully showed her the title now, painted across the front as being a book on the past history of the Corps and Lacardia. “We’re in this kind of thing together. What affects you affects us.”
“That’s the loosest logic I’ve ever heard. You just want into Mera’s pants.”
“No, I don’t! I’m sitting in the library every day under this exchange system and I’m seeing people freak out over what happened back home, and that murder. You two are trying to find things out, and I want to help. I’m part of A-Class, so I know some stuff about magic. And you’re my friends.”
“Conrad, you’re a lecher at best,” Vivian drawled, every word drawing the two into a heated showdown. “This is our issue, so run along and hit on some mousy librarian.”
“Gah! Shut up!” Meredith shouted. She didn’t want to deal with bickering, not with everything sitting on her mind. “Conrad’s staying, and you two are listening. You want to know what I was just doing? Talking with the souls of our weapons.”
“Um…what?” Both were dumbfounded, mouths hanging open as a perplexed cloud invaded their eyes. Meredith breathed in.
When she’d finished exhaling, she launched into her explanation. She told them of her ability to see souls, and the human ones that were inside the Legendary Weapons. Every bit that Terrill and Kyle had revealed to her came pouring from her mouth in a torrent of information, recapping all that had gotten them to this point. It was lengthy, but the pair of them sat and listened through all of it until she finished, at which point their jaws might as well have been picked up off the floor.
“So…uh…let me get this straight…” Conrad said, the book almost slipping from his hands. Vivian was laying against their bunk, contemplating all of this in the darkness. “The Legendary Weapons, like the Violent Staff, were created as a seal to prevent the world from dying, but it’s not working…and the Order wants to use them for…what now?”
“Presumably to control the world’s soul, for whatever reason.”
“Wait, where does Crea factor into this?” Vivian asked, sitting up sharply and almost banging her head on the edge of the bed. She avoided it, bringing her elbows on her knees as she put forth the question. “And even then…how would you possibly reach the world’s soul…?”
“No idea, to be honest. Even they don’t know,” Meredith answered, indicating the weapons just to the side of the blonde. Conrad issued a rather loud “hmm” as he thought on all this.
“But we know the Order is after those Weapons…I wonder…” Without consulting the others, he opened the book and began to leaf through it out of interest. Vivian scooted forward, getting closer to Meredith for her next volley of questions.
“What does any of this have to do with Gaius’s murder?”
“No idea. It could be nothing. But it’s an insight into the Order’s mindset, and what their goal is.” There was something else Meredith couldn’t forget, which she didn’t utter to her companions. Terrill had been with the Corps, but somewhere along the way, he had been separated from that. Had he deemed them a threat? Or was it by other means? His offhand admittance that the Corps was different from how he thought it would be only fueled that.
“Well, it might be a start, but it doesn’t get us closer to who did this.”
“I might be able to get us closer to something else,” Conrad said, looking up from his book. His glasses had fallen down his nose, almost touching the pages of the tome. The girls peered closely while he reset his spectacles. “It’s not much, and it’s more anecdotal than proof of anything, but it seems before whatever rift was formed between the Corps and Lacardia, in those ancient times, they used to use the Weapons as safeguards themselves. The power one could exude with a simple swing was enough to sunder the earth, it says, and was a deterrent to any forces wishing to cause harm.”
“Sunder the earth? Is that literal or…?” Vivian tapped her foot, but after her seconds of deliberation, she snapped her fingers. “That’s it! It is literal. The Weapons hold a lot of power, but we knew that. So, what if they can literally sunder the earth…like, cut deep inside, maybe through another kind of seal.”
“The Gash…” Meredith recalled, her eyes widening at what Vivian was suggesting. Conrad looked lost, but gave up trying to understand it all. “You mean…maybe the Weapons can burrow themselves underneath the surface and find the world’s soul! That would explain what the Order was trying to find at the mining facility. It wasn’t the Weapons, well it might’ve been, but they’re researching what’s underneath.”
“And maybe Crea is underneath it all, or so they believe.”
“Nah, Crea’s realm is in the sky. She’s a goddess after all.”
“Girls?”
“Then why would they care about splitting the land and how would the Gash play into this?” Vivian rebutted, putting her face against Meredith’s. Their noses touched angrily.
“I wouldn’t know, but one thing’s obvious: the Reaper is after the world’s soul, and that means any tactics they can!”
“Ha! You don’t have an argument!”
“Hey, girls!” Conrad’s shout made them snap to him with an indignant “what?!” but he remained unruffled, clearing his throat. “All this info is great and all, but what are we gonna do about it?”
The answer was already available, bringing the two girls into action. Neither skipped a beat in grabbing their male friend, along with their weapons. The duo carried Conrad out of the room with them and wheeled him through the hallways of the girls’ dorm. He gave no sound of protest, and once outside, Meredith turned to him. “Conrad, dig up whatever info you can about the Weapons and their past history to the Corps or Lacardia. Rope Summer in if you have to.”
“And what do you want me to do with it?” He shouted after them, both Meredith and Vivian hurtling away from him.
“Find us! This is important! Maybe I’ll reward you!” She tacked on the wink just for his benefit and it sent him running off freely. Vivian wheezed with laughter as they pelted down the hallway. “I’m not actually going to reward him. Maybe a pat on the back.”
“He’s an idiot.”
The two turned a corner and bolted down some stairs to head for the cafeteria, where they hoped at least one of the commanders would be. The mingling discussion grew louder, the lunch crowd swarming inside and making it almost impossible to see inside the cafeteria from the outside.
Looking any further was fruitless, in any case, because the commanders, all four, were standing down the hall with another Guardian, their voices hushed and overlooked by all in the vicinity.
“And you’re certain?” Marcus could be heard. The Guardian nodded her head, her earrings swaying back and forth with a jingle.
“I definitely saw Lieutenant Jarvis heading towards the prison at that time, but then I passed by him again right after.”
“Well, this is an issue,” Amelia huffed. “Tempest Squad may very well have a dangerous deception in their midst. Should I call them back, sir?”
“No, we’ll wait to see how this plays out. I trust the others to handle him if he is a threat. And I trust Quake Squad, as well. They know how to handle such things. Raymond’s in the mess hall. I suggest you inform him. Officer, tell no one. Don’t cause a panic. Keep things as they are.”
“Yes, sir.” The woman turned away from the four commanders, and Amelia split for the room behind them moments later. The girls slowed themselves to a walk, passing by the Guardian from earlier. She regarded them with her own brand of curiosity and tilted head, though her lips slanted upwards in a strange smile, her earrings chiming. Meredith paused to watch her, planning to slip her Soul Vision on, when she was addressed.
“Miss Childs! Miss Lacroix! Have you come to see us by any chance?” Marcus’s booming vocals ripped her away from any attempt at watching the woman retreat. She looked up, towards the grey-eyed man, noticing that all of the commanders’ eyes were on them. She persisted. “What do you have to share?”
“Sir, we might have discovered what the Order is after,” Vivian stated, throwing her hands into a salute. Meredith found herself looking at Cynthia, wondering if the Winter could confirm or deny the speculation they were about to share. Marcus raised an eyebrow, and Masters turned his ear, as if to better catch the conversation. “Sir, we think they might-”
“Marcus!” Amelia’s shout echoed. The Guardians that hadn’t made it to lunch froze. All of them could hear it, the emotion foreign to the ever-battle-ready Amelia. She was rattled, and Raymond, at her side, was no less so. In her hands was a tablet, one she handed over to her leader. “They moved.”
On the screen, reflected in a live news report, was the Reaper. Meredith’s blood ran cold.