𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝟏𝟏– 𝐉𝐀𝐂𝐐𝐔𝐄𝐑𝐈𝐄
.ೃ࿐ᵀʰᵉ ˢᵉʳᵖᵉⁿᵗ ʷⁱᵗʰ ᵒʳⁱᶠⁱᶜᵉˢ ᵒᶠ ᵐᵉˢᵐᵉʳⁱˢᵐ.
Sometimes it was harder pretending to be the things we were born to be. And in this fiction of his, she had a hard time pretending to be his.—A Palace Of Ulric labyrinths, Elvira Crest.
࿐SÉRAPH࿐
|Lleveen—February 3, 7425|
|Revolutionist command|
PEOPLE WHO FELL into her work were shortened rivers of red absorbed by her clouds—clouds roaming across the blues only to soil the moods of their seasons. And as years passed by her changeless palms of crimson, she had gotten used to the hollowness in which the succumbing rivers had left her in.
Séraph Alchemy's journey from Alec to Lleveen had been her worst from the last couple of months. The dense jungles of the fifth planet had printed her skin in scrapes that would have no trouble retiring the numberless pastoral vines that curled misgiving at the roots and barks of the gaunt trees. As the mystic forests of lush barriers rasped alive with the music of a thousand of wild creatures, the melancholic echo of Bozez found a way to her ears through obfuscated flares of phrases, muffled with dreary anemoia that cooled against the beastly thunder of the verdant peculiarity surrounding her miles to come.
The Bozez city was just like the many other cities that crammed the edges of the planet's borders; small, yet a loving amount of crammed; beautiful, but a miserable abundance of ruined; faces so distinct, nonetheless, a traced pattern of counterfeit. It was almost a surreal experience as Séraph fixed her stride amongst the waves of people—a shaded controller in a crowd of shackled labourers, children of starless stories, and long-aged hopers. Against all the refinement of probity, it wasn't easy for her to forget the sole purpose of her journey: execution. Her vices would not leave, even if it was for a few seconds of drifting fantasies.
Séraph quickly learned to hate the sound of their busy feet, the shuffling soles of profound workers—her sincerest wish as a murderer. But what the young woman decided she hated most, that had to be them. The circle of children giggling as if resonant flowers had spontaneously bloomed at their throats with every innocent laugher that skipped their lips. She hated seeing them, not because Séraph knew she could never feel such a strenuous emotion, but because she knew she had a chance to be like them once.
Obliviously comfortable and pinned with the burdens of aspirations.
Séraph examined the town devoured in green as she hummed a waterfall of a song that ran to the horizon her tongue. Beyond the strangeness of unfamiliar, that little mix of notes was her only canopy of acquaintance. The song of Seraphim she had heard over the radio many years ago was hers. It had become her.
"The place is a maze," her lonely mumble rang as she trekked her way through the peerless streets. Local passers spared a glance towards to odd young woman whose apparel made her seem from another world entirely.
At the next corner, she took a right, fading amongst the rich nature before using the ever reaching stemmed plants to climb up the tall colossal bungalows that were centred by impaling trees. The locals had chosen to adopt the beauty around them rather than shedding its roots away for selfish space, that piece of knowledge made the rolling stone of her heart simmer down from its foul pace. But one echo of Franklin Pyxis's orders would whisk that small incense of respite back to its initial heart-piercing gait.
The small town was swarming with armed Guerilla troops, each soldier draping almost every column of the dirt with their shedding weapons. Séraph scaled one roof to another, and then to another, until the concrete tiles below her feet became an imperceptible current, guiding the young woman's stealthy steps to the heart matted in black crosses. 'Crosses of death' was what Scarlet Pyxis had whispered when he told her about the poisonous marks they had conferred on each of their victims.
Death is dirty work left to the devils, Franklin had engraved into the children's ears. Not angels.
Scarlet murmured Franklin's warnings the following nightfall, muttering into the winter air as if saying the man's cruel reminder over and over again would be enough for it to distort. The angel of death is just a pretty name given to a devil that cannot live with its own reflection.
Séraph had only realised that she was a devil in Franklin's tale when she watched the neighbouring children cavort under a sunset she could not reach behind the courts of her dusting windows. She was not born to be normal and it had only registered to her once she took in their tormenting and childlike zeals from behind the walls in which she and Scarlet were tortured until contusions, rips, and crushed bones hid the unhappiness of their surfaces. On the lightless twilight where Scarlet's tears finally melted in with his exhaustion, Séraph's first question of confliction fell as she started down the bleeding girl on the other end of her mirror.
"Why do I have to be the devil?"
That unpleasant dubiety still had a means of finding her thoughts half a decade later.
Why did she have to be the devil?
An amethyst sky glowed down at the top of Séraph's head, radiating every cavity of the land with a bronze purple that promised the town's people a sticking wonderland that took the form of their annual reception. As much as she was curious as to see the many odd gadgets Bozez had to offer, a large diversion such as the Guerilla gathering was more than perfect in the eyes of Franklin— had there been no schedule for crackling sparkles for the sky, or mobs of uniform for disguise, Séraph would have had to wait for another year to complete one simple job.
"Are you stuck?" A mellow voice came from below. A young man stared up at Séraph's hologram manipulated face from the balcony of one of the bungalows, eyes flickering with an unnatural plight as he inspected the spurious guise mastered by the hunting spy. "Do you require assistance?"
"No, I'm fine," Séraph brushed away, counting the unstable zones of the roof she toured. Her eyes remained forward while her vigilance kept on the young man in peripheral.
"Will you teach me?" The man's soft voice slowed with sham despondency, prompting Séraph to turn down to him. "Will you teach me to hunt like..like a dove?"
An irked scoff escaped Séraph. "Nobody in their right mind hunts like a dove," she grumbled, jumping down from the weak roof. She had to find another way around. The conjoined bellows of cheers brought her focus to a growing crowd that huddled about an empty podium below. A dark-skinned man decked in purple and grey robes stepped out from behind one of the brown curtains that loomed over the stage, spreading his arms wide as the cordial crowd underneath him burst into hollers of rapture.
"That's Akil Theron," the young man beside her added, leaning over the vined balcony with eyes of treacherous adoration. "He's just extraordinary, isn't he?"
"Cut the bullshit," Séraph pushed, not paying any mind to the handsome gentlemen charming the crowd below. "Why the hell are you here? I already told you that this was my task. Not yours. Mine."
The man ignored her, only gazing at Akil with a pitiful frown. "Too bad someone will have to kill him." He turned back Séraph, the front hiding his identity finally thawing as his facial hologram inked in Scarlet's face. "That lucky someone being you, I mean." His dark hair sagged at his ears, shaking carefully by the nape of his neck as passing wind ran. His steadfast gaze was one Séraph had seen in so many of their assignments before, condescending and guarding— the truest qualities one could ever piece from someone raised in the coldest of blizzards.
"Scarlet," Séraph hissed in a lethal and deadly low manner, "Why are you here?"
"Ignatius troopers were spotted heading south according to one of our intel," Scarlet admitted, still eyeing the robust crowd. "That and the fact that I didn't want to miss out on any potential fun."
"Yeah, sure." Séraph muttered annoyed. Her eyes raced the group on the stage, a woman and two men—one being her target—all grinning in their unconventional programs. She dragged out a dagger, a scarlet crested weapon designed for the sole reason of governing last breaths. The crowd below her still thundered, unaware of the low rumbles of active soldiers that were storming their way and the murderous duo that stood elevated above them with mishap only in their visions. "But I don't need or want your help." She spared him a willful glance. "Just me, myself, and a handsomely dead Akil Theron. Understand?"
Séraph held her dagger at an arm's length, angling it so that the falling sun made it glimmer a ghostly speck. "Do you understand that Franklin wants you to splatter Theron's brains in the soil, not cut him a haircut?" shot back Scarlet's critical voice. The light bouncing off of her dagger reflected into his eyes, the browns of his irises a soft maroon rather than the deep black the thick winter of their home forced them to come across. "And oh," he mumbled, glancing back at her. "I'm not here to help you kill anyone, Séra, I'm your wheels." With that, Scarlet's familiar face dissolved away and into another new and foreign set of features. A rascally smirk and a satirical salute were all Séraph got before he vanished behind the pillars of rampant wildlife.
"This speech which I am destined to deliver is not to separate my men and women into factions of cowards or heroes," caromed an amplified voice. Akil Theron eyed his masses as he spoke, the image of his lustre countenance augmented through the great display of manipulated lights streaking behind him. "You could flee the very second bullets start to raze the suns or by the hour in which your body no longer knows how to hold its own; yet, you will still not be seen a coward under my care." He paused, taking in the symphony of tears, caught breaths, and wonderstruck rustles. "My father...my father did not benefit you all to be deemed anything but his champions—our opposers could evangelise the contrary all they please, but I will not allow any of you to think so lowly of my father's dying trusts." He turned his eyes up, speaking as if the endless universe was measuring the labyrinths that slid his eyes. "The badge which I rightfully sport on my chest is not a bearing of advantaged blood, only the reward of hard work and toll, like many of us here have undergone to clear a lucid fate for several others who do not yet know of our greatest sacrifices." His eyes ran across the necklace of bungalows that tracked over them, studying the numerous locals that leaned over their railings to heed his words. "You are not pulses pinching at triggers, not broken children fighting for wrong causes— we are with purpose!" Séraph knew it was the misconception of distance as Akil collided their eyes, exclaiming stridently, "Because we are one made up of a hundred!" The growing crowd reverberated his shouts. "Because we are one made up of a hundred! Because we are with purpose!" There was another wave of raving echoes before Akil faltered into silence again, expression a not so unnoticed ache as he whispered, "But what many of you don't seem to understand is that you are also my most cherished friends, not pieces of carved up armour. You are my idols, my lagging item hope with every waking morning. You, my friends, are all I aspire to see in myself...all your kin would be overjoyed to see in you."
The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
A pale girl approached him from the side, her long locks a snow dye that curled at her collarbone. She bowed her head for his attention and with one acknowledging nod of his head, leaned in to whisper something into his ear. Nobody spoke as her muffled whispers fed teases into the microphone, but one quelled word was all it took for Séraph to formulate herself.
Ignatius.
Scarlet was not lying, the merciless soldiers had really journeyed the lights in space just to pounce on a ripe meal. Akil cleared his throat and to Séraph's absolute surprise, began again completely unfazed. "As we release ourselves, friends, I want you all to remember: for every river you will bleed, I will you give you back a divine ocean. For every storm of scorching sand that blinds you, I will bestow to you the universe's equanimity of the tempest of gore." He did not get to finish before a rapid figure cut him off. All heads turned up and fell low at the swinging girl, both stunned and horrified at the abrupt shift of scene. Séraph caught one snickering face amongst the many shocked ones. Scarlet. She braced herself as the soles of her boots collided with Akil's chest, knocking him clean off his feet as his surrounding guards jumped into defence.
"IGNATIUS!" A battle cry erupted from somewhere within the swamped mob, catching almost everyone but the assassins off guard. The short-spaced strikes of marching feet were very much audible as the jet armoured soldiers finally came into sight. "IGNATIUS IS HERE!!"
That was when true hell broke out—any blind being would've assumed they were dumped in the apertures of hell just from the atrocity of those petrified screams. The mothers. The fathers. The children. There was not one soul who did not hear or make the keys of death. Not even the young woman who stood at the highest point of the stadium could ignore the anguish clenching at her lungs as she watched the tides of heads trample and engulf one other just to flee the very purgatory they had all struggled so strenuously to escape. They were trapped. Once again, Bozez was at Ignatius's mercy.
And this time, Séraphin Alchemy was in the eye of it all.
----------------------------------------
࿐INTARI ࿐
|Eastern Hezkeil—February 3, 7425|
|Premier Ignatius Base|
THE SILENCE OF THE martial depository unit was almost deafening as the unmoving figure of a spying Intari Bradamar finally shifted out of its paralysis. The high-end room was black-out dark, the only indication of life being the occasional flutters of light from the tight crack under the door as active guards passed. Their modulated voices of anonymity crawled anxiety under her skin, reminding the green insurgent that the people on the opposite side of the opening were equipped murderers that would not waver when it came to shooting her on sight.
"Bradamar," her last name was chapped in static as it came through in the familiar voice of her director.
"DelRory is a corner away, I want you to remember all we've discussed."
"I remember everything, Sir," Intari asserted confidently, but her confession lost itself to an uncertain shake as her stress fixed back on the task at hand. A portion of her was resilient when it came to wishing to prove herself to a cause, another fraction of her rot up any seeking fruition.
The presence within the Hezkeil base was dormant pertained to the swirling skies of her home, the Hail base; the ashen eastern base held a menacing wealth of discomfort, a rising heat that was born to threaten the unwelcome about the harrowing spectacle behind their seven embankments of totalitarianism. A besmirching risk of death.
"Good. I expected nothing less," the man's mild decree came through her earpiece again, the unbroken static of her transmitter purring compunction as it faded away with the electrical hum of the storage door opening. Intari was quick to take shelter behind one of the many crates brimmed to the top with supplies, gun gripped tightly in her hands as she peeked around the cold metal box for any hints of who the intruder was.
"Bradamar." March’s rich voice purred midway as he popped off the polished mask he had clearly stolen from one of the Ignatius soldiers. The charcoal coloured mask shielded his jaw to the tip of his nose, only half reaching the long lashes of his golden eyes. His hair was long, ears practically aglow in the pleasant white of the piercings embracing his ears. His soft and sharp features were a trophy oxymoron of aloofness and playfulness—the black tint of the mask seemed almost too bright in his hold. The hands of a thief knew no threshold when it came to the art of marauding. "Usually the ladies drop dead in the bedroom, but I'm definitely not complaining." His teasing remark of consolation was backed by the young man's brand smirk of mock.
"March." The faint call of their director reached her ears once again, his usual meticulous orders only gaining on the fluffy-haired thief before Intari. The mischievous grin on March’s face dropped for a fraction as he attended their director's demands.
"Copy that, Sir." Mars's face became steady, confident with no evidence of its previous transgression. "We need to get going and retrieve The Dyson before the fourth raid comes to an end." He re-activated the command on his mask, not even paying a single mind to Intari's desperate 'please tell me there's more' expression as he popped back on his stolen and underhanded commandant camouflage. "They'll be back by 12, we'll be long gone by 45." Her gun found security back in her holder, her nervous stare holding its position on her geared partner.
Finally feeling Intari's hesitant gaze, March turned back down to her, not even letting a solo and mechanical syllable of reassurance escape the infamous mask he knew she had seen ruin so many war-stricken corpses before. Instead, the young rebel extended one of his arms, gloved thump raised up as it guided itself to Intari. The immortal salute of their mutiny. The knots in her stomach untangled some cords, the tip of her thumb finding his own as their outstretched fingers formed an unfolded bridge of silent oaths and hopes. His uncommunicative promise: it will all be alright. Her mute remission: she was not alone.
The storage door hissed free once again as the two exited, the shorter one of the two cuffed with laborious bonds like the ones worn by the many other captives kept at the Hezkeil post of casualty. While March kept his gaze forward and strides potent, Intari's cautious watch roamed the place with surprise. Although she was correct about the headquarters being nothing like their base back home, the chilling prestige and excess luxury of the place made it seem more like a fortress rather than any command station. An expensive and undeserving home for mass-murderers.
A few passing guarding soldiers snarled one another in conversation as they arranged by the prisoner block.
"Quit gawking," came March’s now motorized voice as he glanced back at her. "Keep your eyes locked on the ground." The mask worked its job of distorting all emotions from his scold. Right now he was not March DelRory, only another Ignatius commander hauling away one of many prisoners their regime used to set as an example.
"Can I get that in writing?" Came in the closing in question of one of the patrolling guards, the eerieness of his voice cutting off any potential warmth of his joke.
"That's if he can even read," another piped jokingly, but his joke too curled to a pointed taunt because of the frigid mask cloaking his face.
"Easy for you to—"
—"Gentlemen," March cut them off, his acknowledgement unyielding as he stared them down through the shaded cast of his mask. The three fighters were quick to flinch into attention, grasps finding their weapons before dropping them at the purple tag knitted into March’s uniform. The tag of a grand commander; a brand worn by the seniors of their superiors. The tense silence made Intari feel almost bad for the startled three. Almost.
"Commander?" Answered the novice in the middle. All but he held their heads low, not even daring to sneak a glance at the mysterious figure of unrest March used to obscure his face.
"I have a profitable detainee scheduled for temporary settling," was March’s only response as he took a harsh tug at Intari's bonded wrists. Profitable—a polite term used for backscratchers seeking dictatorial refuge. March didn't take to concede the guard's absence of homage as he continued to glare cuts into each of them. "I'm not too keen on waiting, soldier."
"Sir."
The large gates clicked open with a groan before the shortened uproars of the many captives detonated about the naked entrance in a full and haunting blast. Intari took a harsh suck of breath as the high pitched shouts of children bounced about the pathway. Children. They had stolen children from their families to hold as a basis of authority.
She really was going to be sick now.
March’s gloved hand slid down to her wrist as he gave it a soft squeeze, exposing everything his mask did so well to hide—he too did not like what he was seeing.
March marched her down the gloomy pathway by her closed wrists, the upscale metals and strange characters no longer registering in her eyes as designs of leverage. It took them a total of seven minutes to reach the last cell on ground level, the 360-degree begs and cries not once faltering as they did. The cell entrance shrieked out a lighter affront of internment, uncovering a small four by four cage that twined the thousands of others.
"This will work," March mumbled through his mask, shoving Intari inside the small space. He stepped in after her, locking the cold gate to freedom behind them.
"Hey!" A harsh voice broke through the dreadful cries. "What the hell do you think you're doing!" A middle-aged man stood up at the cell opposing theirs, gripping the bars to his cells as if he was ready to claw his way out barehanded just to jump Mars.
He turned to Intari, his eyes thawing with alert."Aye, kid! Don't let that piece of shit near you!"
The rattle of March’s mask hitting the ground brought their attention back to him. He was grinning a disbelieving sheen of confidential, gawking as the bearded man's aggravated stance fell to one of confusion, identical to Intari's scrunched brows of difficulty. "Didn't expect to see you outside of Foreen today, gramps." March ruffled the ragged brown waves watering at the side of his face, smile still notoriously notable as he dragged closer to the cell bolts to scrutinize the bearded man. "What'd you do this time, Chadwick?"
"March fucking DelRory." The man coughed up an ameliorated laugh. He shuffled closer to his sealed door, peering at them through the prison grooves. "What did I do? Those bastards said that protecting my stuff during their bullshit raid was unlawful—that's what I fucking did," he grumbled out, lowering his sight with a shrug, but his words were still loud enough for the duo to take in. He raised his eyes again, analysing every single detail on the two as he fixed his next inquiry. "What about you, commander?" he directed his interrogation to March, "Since when do you dress up like a dog?" His gaze settled back on Intari, brows reared as he eyed her, "And why'd you got this poor, little lady all cuffed up?"
"Any woman cuffed by me, Lighty, is not a poor, little lady." March turned back to Intari, uncuffing her with a short jingle of keys. "But I'm keeping those stories for a different period of imprisonment." He moved on to the furniture crowding the room, pushing them away until only one blank wall remained untouched. "No hard feelings," he smirked over his shoulder, throwing out an arm. The centre of the metal wall started to swirl after a few seconds, silver and greys bending and shaking as if it were set at the core of a destructive volcano.
"DelRory," Chadwick called pressingly, not seeming too bothered by the peculiar sight of esoteric grace as he turned his head for any signs of the active patrols. "Care to help an old friend out?"
"I don't know," March spoke, dropping his arms as the expanse of a dreary office met them. A General's office, he realised. He glanced back to Intari with folded arms. "Can we, darling?"
"Have a little heart, little lady," Chadwick called from behind his cell, beaming at Intari's reckless expression. She bobbed her head timidly after a few tight seconds.
"You heard her, prince charming," Chadwick smirked at March, shoving his arm through one of the gaps between the bars as he motioned for their key.
The keycard hissed ravenously as March slid it across the narrow pathway and under Chadwick's door with great force.
"He would be our cue to leave," March urgently breathed into Intari's ear. He latched onto her forearm, pulling them through his stirring void as her eyes kept on Chadwick who was no longer appeased behind bars and was unlocking the doors of his fellow prisoners. The older man glanced back at their cell as disorderly sirens blared, winking the young woman a silent thanks before the unfamiliar setting of a bright and silver room exploded into her awareness.
A blinding office, if the Bradamar girl had ever seen one.
No.
Blinding lights weren't supposed to hurl people halfway across the room.
"Down!" March’s yell was smothered with the harsh carillon of her ears.
The impression of someone's grace wrestling with the atoms of her body brought her mind back to March and his curious trickery, but the sprawled and chaotic body beside her told the fearful woman that it was not him. It wasn't. This entity did not feel like anything connected to him. It felt corrupt; it was sedentary on chests, ripping apart anything it came in contact with. It couldn't—
"I hope you didn't think I was finally losing my touch, DelRory," a deep voice drawled nonchalantly, frightening Intari into attention—something the bruised-up woman wished she had never done. Stood before her, with his overcast and bored eyes piercing into them, was a face she had seen on every transmitting screen claiming the lives of millions. The devil himself in definition if he had subsisted as a human.
The Blood General of Ignatius.
"Shit," a hoarse and cracking voice groaned from beside her.
Shit indeed, March.