Chapter 133: Book 2: Skyfall

Chapter 133: Book 2: Skyfall

Vahrkos had never been tired before. Not to this extent. It was rare these days for anything to tire him out—ever since he'd experienced his Convalescence, it was like his Firmament was three times as efficient. Slipstreams were easy for him to navigate like they had never been before, and Firmament flowed along his joints with just a whisper of a thought.

It was saying something, then, that he was tired. The so-called raid seemed never-ending; no sooner did he fight off one meteor did the next arrive, fresh and full of disruptive, powerful Firmament.

The worst part was that it almost felt like they were learning. He didn't know how they were learning—it wasn't like they talked to one another, as far as he could tell—but the new ones seemed to know how he fought, would act to block blows that the first ones hadn't seen coming.

"Vahrkos!"

He-Who-Wanders seemed so worried about him all the time. Vahrkos didn't know why. He was the one that should be worrying about Wander! The silverwisp didn't know how to protect himself; if a meteor so much as hit him, the man would just evaporate. At least the worst that would happen to him was the loss of an arm or something.

"I am fine." Vahrkos was vaguely aware that his reply sounded too much like a lie—he was breathing too heavily, and he tripped up over the word 'fine' because he stumbled over a rock. He-Who-Wanders caught him, slinging an arm over his shoulders.

"You are not fine," Wander insisted. "You've been fighting non-stop for nearly an hour. I don't care how efficient your Firmament is, you're going to die if you keep going."

"I will not," Vahrkos replied shortly, though his difficulty standing seemed to disagree with that statement. "I have fought for longer and survived."

"Not against Firmament-absorbing meteors!" Wander said, exasperated. "We need to find some shelter—"

"We do not have time," Vahrkos grunted. He peeled himself away from Wander—an act that required significantly more effort than it should have, because Wander was warm and comfortable and everything a soldier in the middle of a battle did not need offered—and slammed a punch into a living meteor as it lumbered toward them; it shrugged off the blow, as it always did, and he ducked beneath its counterblow. It was a familiar dance, at this point.

Except the counterblow caught him in the side and sent him flying. Vahrkos slammed into a wall, feeling dust and dirt puff up around him, along with all too many shards of disintegrated glass. He coughed twice, pushing that dirt back out of his lungs, and forced himself to his feet.

It learned again. Changed its patterns. He couldn't just follow the formula he'd developed—he needed to react, keep an eye on the changes, figure out how his opponent was choosing to fight.

Wander was in front of him.

Wander was—why was Wander in front of him?!

"Wander, you will get out of the way," he ordered, though it felt like a useless order even as the words fell from his lips; Wander wouldn't listen, obviously. And he didn't. The stupid, stubborn silverwisp stood in front of the meteor like he could protect him. "Wander, move! If it hits you—"

A swing. Vahrkos yelled internally at himself to move, to get in front of the blow before it could strike at the man he had yet to admit was his Anchor.

He could not move. He realized, somewhat belatedly, that his legs were broken.

The meteor struck a silvered head. Vahrkos felt his heart hammer in his chest; there was too much dust for him to see what had happened. He could catch a glimpse of silver Firmament. He could see the guttering flames that spoke of injury.

...but it wasn't Wander that stood in the dust.

Vahrkos stared, confused. In front of him, She-Who-Whispers stood in front of the meteor. The strike had hit her in the head; He-Who-Wanders was collapsed beside her, terrified but no worse for wear.

"Hmm," She-Who-Whispers said. She stared at Vahrkos. "Maybe you would've made a better general than that brute."

"I would not fight for you," Vahrkos said, the words slipping out before he could control them.

She-Who-Whispers smirked at him. "I know, my dear," she said. "Perhaps Isthanok needs a little more of that sort of thing, hm?"

Vahrkos narrowed his eyes warily. "What game are you playing?"

"No game," She-Who-Whispers said. "I am simply... re-evaluating my loyalties, as it were."

A cough. The dust got into Vahrkos's lungs again, and he spent a moment to hack up the dirt. She-Who-Whispers waited patiently as he did, and the morphling couldn't help but think about how surreal, how impossible this conversation was. He'd always thought that if he ever got the chance to speak with her, it would be at the other end of a blade.

Metaphorically. He didn't fight with blades. The point stood.

"Helping us doesn't repair what you've done," Vahrkos said.

"Who says I'm trying to repair anything?" She-Who-Whispers asked casually. She hauled Wander to his feet, grabbing him by the collar and pulling him up roughly, and Vahrkos started forward, his instinct to protect suddenly moving into overdrive. Whisper laughed.

"Don't worry, I'm not going to hurt him," she said easily. "I was just... curious, that's all. Here, you can have him."

She tossed Wander at him, and Vahrkos held back the scream of pain as he caught the silverwisp. She'd tossed him at his broken leg.R/ê/Ad lateSt ch/a/pters at novelhall.com Only

"Bastard," he hissed.

"I do have a reputation to maintain," Whisper said, light amusement in her voice. "Consider this a favor owed, yes?"

"Absolutely not."

She-Who-Whispers didn't seem to care. She vanished, her Firmament flowing up and around her, carrying her into the sky. Vahrkos noticed, perhaps a little belatedly, that she wasn't moving one of her legs very much. And that the flames of her Firmament were... weaker than he remembered.

Even Trialgoers weren't gods, it seemed.

"Is she gone?" Wander whispered to him. Vahrkos sighed, unsure what to think of the strange encounter, but deciding to focus on it later. Ethan had told him, after all—any death here would be permanent. He had more important things to focus on.

"She's gone," he confirmed. "And... you're right. I'm not okay. Let's... find somewhere to hide until I recover."

"Finally." Wander—very slowly—helped him to his feet, and Vahrkos winced as fresh pain blossomed in his foot.

He wasn't okay. Not by a long shot. But as long as he had his friends, as long as he had Wander...

...

He paused.

"Hey, Vahrkos?" Wander's voice was light, but there was a nervous note in it. A terrified one. "Am I imagining things, or did the whole sky just change colors?"

"You are not imagining things," Vahrkos said. He clutched Wander a little closer, staring up into the sky.

"...Do you think we can get away in time?" Wander spoke quietly. He knew the answer, but he wanted Vahrkos to say it. Vahrkos didn't know if he could.

"I think," he said quietly, "that our only hope is the Trialgoer."

Priority: YELLOW

Event: Child (age undetermined, species undetermined; estimate 8-12, estimate etherea) trapped beneath unstable rubble. High likelihood of imminent collapse. High likelihood of death.

Guard moves. He exercises a control of Firmament that would have been impossible had Whisper still been in control—threads of his power slide into the rubble, pulling it apart and holding it steady. It's not long at all before he pulls out a crying child. A silverwisp. She's clutching a doll tightly, looking up at him with wide eyes.

"You're safe now," he says gently. That's something he wasn't able to do before, either. Speak. To tell people that he wanted to help.

The child looks at him. She's confused at first, unsure, almost afraid—the AI core logs and reads information to him that he doesn't want to know, although he knows it's trying to help.

And then... a pivot. Uncertainty becomes gratitude.

"Thank you," she tells him. She tries to give him her doll, and he gently refuses, putting it back into her arms. He tells her to take his hand and tells her he'll find her parents.

It's more than he's ever been able to do before.

—

// PROXY 041:

There's a meteor attacking a family, detected by a camera. A processor logs the event.

Priority: RED

Event: Group (ages undetermined, species avaria; estimate age range 3-62 across individuals) under attack by Integrator threat. High likelihood of immediate death across the board. Small percentile chance for the youngest to survive initial hit.

One of Guard is close by. A blade unlatches from his arm, and he cuts through the falling shard of Ishtanok that's blocking his way. There's a part of him that recognizes how absurd such an act would have been before he'd acquired this body: his Firmament may have been immense, but the precision required to shape it into a blade would never have come to him.

Now he cuts through reinforced crystal like it's nothing more than liquid.

He arrives a fraction of a second—0.0132 seconds, the AI core tells him—before the meteor's punch would have crushed the eldest crow. He crosses his arms and digs his feet into the ground. The impact rattles his armor but fails to do anything more.

His counterattack sends it flying.

"Are any of you injured?" he asks, turning to the crows. They stare at him, awed and confused all at once.

"You can talk?" one asks. A younger crow—a teenager, if he's reading their ages right. "Mom, he can talk! I told you he wasn't just some puppet!"

"Be careful," the mother says, gathering her child to him, looking at him warily. Guard bows his head.

"I was a puppet," he says. "But no longer."

Something in her relaxes. She nods to him, a fractional, wary acceptance. "What was done to you... it was wrong. I hope you know none of us supported it," she tells him. "Some of us, the older ones—we remember you. From... before."

Guard feels warmth, strangely. The words should remind him of how much things have changed, should bring up memories that sicken and hurt, but somehow, it's the reassurance that sticks. The idea that others remember, that he wasn't forgotten and overwritten into a part of Whisper's sick play.

"If we could have done something—" she begins.

"It is no matter," Guard says, kneeling. "It isn't safe. My proxies are holding them off in south Isthanok, near the Emarat streets. There's a cordon of safety there."

"...You are him." The mother sounds disbelieving, then relieved and fascinated, all at once. "I thought... I was sure it was a trick."

"As always, the arrival of a new Trialgoer changes the shape of things to come," Guard says. He smiles, his one optic glowing brighter. "This one might be a good one."

The mother's eyes darken, in contrast. "I will have to see it to believe it."

—

//ALL PROXIES

The color of the sky has changed.

Priority: REDREDRED

Event: ENDENDEND—

He-Who-Guards shut off the feed before the strength of the last alert could blind him; it rang in his head with what felt like the force of a collapsing star, giving him an instant migraine.

He looked up at the sky.

"That... is certainly an end," he muttered to himself. It took him a moment, but he commanded all the proxies he had with him—every single one—to join him in the effort to stop it.

There was a sole streak of white that was heading up to the meteor along with him. She-Who-Whispers. Part of him didn't want to talk to her, didn't want to work with her; there was a reason he'd avoided her as much as possible. Even his proxies stayed away from her, and she seemed to sense that his desire to be left alone, because she didn't try to interact or interfere with him.

This, though? This was bigger than the both of them. Quite literally.

Fortunately, he didn't need to speak to her for them to know what to do. A long, long time ago, working together like this would have been second nature for them—and there was a small part of each of them that remembered, perhaps, falling into lockstep.

Guard remembered what Whisper had once told him about raids. That they were tests. That they began with a number of smaller fights that pushed a Trialgoer to their limit, but at the end of it all, there was a boss.

And if the smaller fights here were meteors, then it was no surprise that the boss was an asteroid.

He stared up at the sky. This was large enough to crush all of Isthanok, and the impact would likely level all the Great Cities as well. He knew without even trying that all his proxies and Whisper together wouldn't be enough to stop the thing. Perhaps if it was just an ordinary rock, they would be able to.

But this thing was full of Firmament. Angry, hostile Firmament, like nothing he'd ever felt before.

They needed to try anyway.

If nothing else, maybe they could slow it down.