Ten years is a long time, but it never really feels that way.
As the train smoothly carried him towards his destination, Zeo’s mind began to play around with daydreams and memories, to the point that they had entranced him in a nostalgic state of being; like he was once again in early elementary school, exploring the island with his friends and fellow members of Class G.
During recess the six students would go wherever their adventurous little hearts (and tiny strides gated by recess’s twenty minute timeframe) compelled them to, whether it be the beach, the hills, or even, when they were most daring, the jungle.
Reliving those memories put a smile on Zeo’s face, but that smile came with a smidgen of insecurity and guilt. He was ashamed to admit that those few years in his early childhood had easily been, up until this point, the best years of his life. They were the most vibrant, the most eventful, and the ones he constantly went back to mentally. At times, it seemed like they were just about the only years of his life he had even truly lived; everything afterwards was just a vague blur with a gradually-ascending point-of-view. It was forgetful. It was inconsequential. And, perhaps, wasted to some degree.
In truth, he had spent the past ten years or so wanting nothing more than to return to that time period in his life, or to at least capture the essence that time period possessed that the following decade did not. Zeo wasn’t even quite sure what exactly it was about his time in Class G that he was so attached to. Was it the lack of responsibilities? The bliss of ignorance of the adult world? The freedom to wander and explore?
Most likely it was simply the company. The children of Class G had become good friends during their little escapades, but had naturally grown apart as their lives diverged. Zeo would occasionally send and receive letters to some (well, one) of them, but outside of that, contact was minimal.
But in just a few dozen minutes, their paths would reconverge. The train was well on its way towards the city of Radecross — or, more specifically, the ultrapulse that had awakened just outside the city’s perimeter — where the six members of Class G would reunite for the first time in ten years.
Zeo almost couldn’t believe it was even happening in the first place. After all, what had prompted this sudden reunion was something most adults would find rather silly — it was a pact the children had made before graduation. A pact to, when they were all adults, go on more adventures together. “Real” adventures, as they had put it. Ones in which they were free to explore outside the confines of recess and the island. Ones in which they could slay deadly monsters, find rare treasures, make camp for the night in the wilderness, and, perhaps most importantly of all, eat as much junk food as they wanted to.
And it would only take a few more min-
Zeo momentarily departed from his daydreams, returning his attention to the real world. A nebulous sense of caution had crept up on him from out of nowhere, prompting his eyes to scan over the train car he was in.
Nothing appeared out of the ordinary — there were a handful of other passengers spread amongst the rows of seats. An old couple here, a child whose face was glued to the window there, a man in a coat barely showcasing the faint outline of a gun strapped to his lower back there….
Ah, yes. That was probably it.
* * * *
ULTRA PULSE
* * * *
“Enjoying the view, Lady Annabelle?”
“Hm?” Annabelle retrieved her gaze from the ocean to face whoever was approaching her. As she realized it was, of course, Kiria, she pouted. “We’re not at the manor anymore, Kiria! You can stop with the formality!”
Kiria smiled as she stepped up to Annabelle’s side. She draped her arms over the railing on the ship’s edge; now it was her turn to stare out into the ocean. Of course, given that there wasn’t much to see (other than, well, sea), Kiria wasn’t able to devote her attention to it for very long. “You’re not usually awake this early in the morning. I almost panicked when I found your cabin empty.”
“O-oh, is it early? I….I hadn’t noticed.”
The smile on Kiria’s face quickly turned into a knowing smirk at the horrendous job Annabelle was doing at hiding her little lie. She knew exactly what had prompted the noble girl’s uncharacteristic early rising, and it started with “A” and ended with “nnabelle’scrushonacertainsomeoneshewouldbeseeingsoon.”
But, rather than tease her friend over it, she simply asked, “Are you excited to see everyone again?”
Annabelle nodded happily, flashing a great big smile. “Of course! Aren’t you?”
With a casual shrug, Kiria replied, “Yeah, I suppose so.”
“Well, that didn’t sound very enthusiastic!”
That was because, in truth, Kiria wasn’t particularly excited. It wasn’t that she had any negative feelings towards the Class G reunion or anything like that, it was more that she just didn’t feel particularly strongly about it. It was akin to, say, eating a salad. When you’re eating a salad, it’s fine; perhaps even enjoyable to a degree. But you never really feel strongly about the prospect of eating a salad, you know? It’s not something you crave or actively look forward to. You don’t stay up all night in restlessness and then wake up much earlier than your usual hour because you really just can not wait to eat that salad for the first time in a decade.
In the ten years since Class G’s graduation, Kiria had, well, moved on with her life. She had a job now, and had made other friends in the span of that decade. She had plans for the future, and never really bothered rewinding the ol’ memory tapes to elementary school. She hadn’t cut off contact with her old classmates or anything — after all, she was currently working as a member of the Royal Guard for one such classmate and occasionally sent letters to another — but she also never really thought about them much either, truth be told.
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“I’m excited, really,” said Kiria. “I’m just….not as expressive as you. You know that.”
Annabelle seemed to buy it, giggling to herself. “True, true.” The ocean breeze then picked up in speed out of nowhere, forcefully taking hold of some of her bright-pink bed-headed locks and thwap!-ing her in the face with them. With a very-faint and personal “ow!”, she grabbed hold of this errant hair and tucked it away behind her long, pointed ears.
“But I really do hope you let loose a little, Kiria. Remember: we’re on vacation! Enjoy yourself!”
“We’ll see….”
* * * *
ULTRA PULSE
* * * *
Two men stepped through the front doors of the fifth train car, but rather than pass on through to the fourth car, they instead chose to hold a little meeting on the outside of the train, away from the ears of anyone who wasn’t involved in their scheme.
“Is everything set up?” one asked the other.
His partner held a finger up to the communication device in his ear for a moment before nodding. “Just about.”
“Let’s head up top, then.”
The two ascended to the top of the train, taking a look around in each direction to ensure the coast was clear for them to operate. They then reached for the packs on their backs, procuring devices that, even to the untrained eye, were clearly explosives of some kind.
As they began to set the devices onto the ends of the train cars, however, one of them was suddenly whacked in the face with a vagrant handgun. It skittered off to the side before coming to a stop, having been propelled by the force of the winds the train was creating.
“What the hell….?” He scampered on over and picked the gun up. As soon as he saw the familiar “Mistral” logo etched into it, he whipped his head around to alert his partner that something was up.
Although, there wasn’t much of a need to, as his partner had already taken notice. The two men jumped to their feet and turned their gazes two cars ahead. On the floor, clearly knocked unconscious by some sort of assailant, was another of their Mistral buddies.
The men both drew their own guns in unison and began to advance towards the next train car to investigate. However, it was from behind that they were approached.
“Little dangerous up here, don’t you think?” At the sound of Zeo’s voice, the two men spun around to face him. “Especially with all that gear you’ve got.”
“Who the fuck are you?” came the response from one of the gunmen, punctuated by a forward jabbing of the pistol in his hands.
Zeo shrugged. “No one special, really.” He then held his hands out to his sides, which allowed the two swords strapped to the back of his waist to come into view of the gunmen. “But I’m probably the only guy on this train who can stop whatever it is you guys are trying to do, so….I just thought I’d check in. Say hello. The name’s ‘Zeo’.”
A bullet came flying out without warning, but Zeo was able to draw one of his swords in time to deflect it into the empty landscape surrounding the train. Two more erupted from the second gunman’s pistol, as did two more deflections from Zeo’s second sword.
As the Mistral men found themselves momentarily flabbergasted at the display, Zeo let out an easygoing laugh. “Wow….ya know, I’ve never actually deflected bullets before. Guess there’s a first time for everything, huh?”
The gunmen were clearly done with listening to Zeo talk, and kicked their assault into second gear, opting to close the distance with their own hidden blades.
Having been trained in the art of quick footwork and circular swing patterns, Zeo was able to handle both of them at the same time, clashing his swords with their own, regardless of the angle of attack they attempted.
Zeo soon found his opening, twirling and slashing at the sword hand of one of the Mistral assailants, causing him to release his grip on his weapon. He then ducked low, simultaneously sweeping the leg, as well as dodging the swing from his other opponent.
With the fight now a one-on-one duel, the advantage heavily swung in Zeo’s favor, and he pushed forward at a rapid pace, forcing the remaining Mistral man to back away in sync with Zeo’s steps or risk complete and utter defeat.
Soon, there was no more room to back up into as the two reached the front of the train car, thus allowing Zeo to easily end the duel with one last push followed by a spinning kick to the chest. The Mistral man was flung across the gap between the train cars until his back collided with the edge of the car ahead. His body limply hit the walkway in a crumple.
Zeo took one final look around to admire his handiwork. Three terrorist thugs, all completely incapacitated. Not too shabby.
After returning his swords to their homes behind his back, he stepped on over to the knocked-out attacker closest to him, and knelt down. “Now that I think about it, you guys didn’t properly introduce yourselves, did you? Pretty rude, honestly.”
His eyes immediately found themselves honed-in on the gloves the man was wearing — they were black all around, with a dark green logo emblazoned on the palms.
“‘Mistral’, huh?” Zeo read aloud. “Hm….” He was able to make the logical connection that they must have been some sort of terrorist group, but that was all he was able to manage — not only because there wasn’t much else in the way of evidence, but also because a fourth member of their faction had suddenly appeared at the front-most car.
With Zeo’s back turned to his direction, the fourth terrorist was free to grab hold of his gun and take aim.
But once again that strange, cautious sense of alert crept up Zeo’s spine, spurring him into a sudden, last-minute roll to the side, narrowly avoiding the trajectory of the bullet.
“Sneaky,” he said, wrapping his hands around the handles of his blades. “Guess you want some too, huh?” He took off into a rapid sprint towards the frontmost car, ready to slice away at any follow-up shots fired in his direction.
However, the Mistral terrorist suddenly changed his strategy, abandoning the gun entirely and focusing his efforts on the explosive device he carried on his person. He primed it in record time before turning back to Zeo. “Let’s see you block this!”
He hurled the bomb with surprising precision given how awkwardly-shaped the thing was. Physical strength on his part wasn’t even required to close the several-cars-long gap between him and his target, either, as the force of the speeding winds created by the moving train helped guide the bomb on its path.
“Nice try!” Zeo called, undeterred. Knowing that slicing the bomb out of the air would likely be suicidal, Zeo’s hands released their grip on his swords, and instead moved to his chest; one arced palm hovering a few inches above the other, as though he were holding a ball between them.
A booming, bassy, and almost inhuman voice roared out from his chest:
LIGHTNING!
Green sparks of electricity came into being between his hands before jumping up and coiling themselves around his fingers. The emerald bolts then blazed trails up the lengths of his arms just as he began to cross them.
In one quick motion, Zeo broke apart the cross and flung his arms to either side. The lightning flickered off of his body and shot forward into the direct path of the incoming explosive.
The X-shaped projectile cut through the bomb in a single clean maneuver, and all of the explosive energy the bomb released in the ensuing collision was burned up completely inside the lightning wave, preventing it from harming Zeo or the train car.
The last remaining Mistral terrorist was caught off guard by the sudden attack, and was struck square-on in the chest immediately following the bomb’s nullification.
“Did that do it?” Zeo asked himself. He watched the lightning vanish from view as it coursed through the terrorist’s body before stunning him into unconsciousness. “Looks like it.”
The sudden honking of the train jolted Zeo momentarily, reminding him of where he was and what he had been doing prior to the battle. As he took in his surroundings, he could see the train station in the distance just up ahead.
“Well, that’s my stop,” he said, just before walking over to the edge of the car roof. He lightly tapped his foot against one of the unconscious Mistral terrorists as he passed by. “Take it easy, fellas.”