Rearranged Surroundings

Evan sprints through the woods, not the warm and shining woods of Fallen but the dead, moth-eaten swamplands of his home world, panting with exhaustion, feeling his heart straining in his chest, breathing in ragged sighs, bleeding from burning nicks and scrapes as he rushes past black, reaching branches...

...runs as hard as he can, away from home...

...tumbles through nothing space, swirling black invisible nowhere...

...sits up in a pool of his own blood, a jagged slash carved down his left forearm, redness spilling in thick gouts across his body, and locked in a small room in a cold cellar, hearing his own mother scream hatred of his name...

...wakes up, thrashing off the couch, throwing his arms up to protect himself from nothing, and with his last burst of energized panic, a blast of white-blue light explodes from his skin. Everything in the room not nailed down tumbles ahead of the shining wave, every light bulb explodes, and the glass in the windows rattles and cracks.

As suddenly as it came, the light fades away, the room settles back into silent inaction. There is a faint, fading sound, like a deep note on a string instrument from the other side of a football field. Soon, that is gone too.

Evan takes a few deep, calming breaths, unconsciously flexing his left hand, feeling the tendons in his unhurt arm stretching, letting himself relax. Just a dream. Nothing to be afraid of.

After a few long, quiet moments, he stands up, feeling dizzy. Looking around at the chaos he's made of the living room, he shakes his head in frustration. For the first time he's channeled enough power to actually do something, and what does it accomplish? A messy room.

The real question, he muses, is why and how he did it in the first place. Thinking back on his confused, exhausting nightmare, he suppresses a shudder. Maybe he can only do it when he's afraid?

That wouldn't be very pleasant. Everyone else, it seems, has these neat abilities with dozens of tricks and ways to improve their lives, and what does Evan get stuck with? Blowing up a room when he's having bad dreams?

There's got to be more to it than that.

Unable to sleep, he goes to the little kitchen to have a glass of water, only to find that all the glasses but one have shattered. Damn. Pouring water from a chilled jug, he laughs darkly when the remaining glass starts to leak from dozens of tiny cracks. Typical of his life, he's wrecked everything around himself. Maybe this isn't a new power after all.

He takes a small drink before the glass can drain completely, then decides to lie down and see if he can't get back to sleep after all.

He's just bent to sit down when the house jumps almost imperceptibly. Several seconds later, there is a low sound, like a muffled thump... from the direction of the sky dock, through the woods.

“What the hell...?” He snatches up his sword belt, pulling it on while he leaves the house, searching the early dawn sky. Something must have taken off, hard. Like too hard. Maybe there's been an accident.

He notices a bunch of Pteros workers running towards the woods, some carrying weapons. “Hey! Where are you going, what's up?”

One of them responds without stopping. “It's an attack! Seraph bombs in the sky dock! Come on!” He picks up speed and streaks into the tree line.

Evan notices Aelia leaving her house, already dressed and carrying a pack. “Where's Sebastean?” Both of them ask simultaneously.

And Evan realizes something is seriously wrong.

* * *

Noreus Cestorn, chaplain of the Seraphic Priesthood, waits patiently in a tree as the Pteros village empties. Eight of his soldiers, hand selected for this mission, are stationed similarly in other branches, watching the three houses where the Halfmoon renegades are staying.

It takes religiously sharpened self-control not to curse aloud when two humans emerge, fully armed, from their dwellings. There's no chance at all of taking them when there are still so many of the Pteros around, and now it's too late, as the young man and woman run along with the crowd. Only the center house seems undisturbed.

The tiny device in his right ear speaks in the whispering voice of his second-in-command. “Chaplain, do we take the center house? We know there are two human Users unaccounted for, and intelligence suggests they are sleeping together.”

Cestorn hesitates, an action which disgusts him, but he is forced to admit it's a dangerous situation. “If two of them in separate houses were prepared for battle so quickly, we cannot rule out the other two being up and ready as well.”

“With respect, Chaplain, there are only two of them. At most.” The soldier's voice is laced with arrogance and contempt, the corrupted extremes of confidence and piety. He will be needing a reprimand.

Cestorn shoots a metallic glare towards his subordinates tree. “You have never faced humans in combat, I take it? One of these isn't especially dangerous, simply acrobatic, but the other commands the very fires of the Hells. They are not to be trifled with, and not to be underestimated. Be silent and let me think.”

“Apologies,” the soldier mutters, clearly not impressed. Cestorn watches the motionless house for several long moments. One of two options, he decides. They are asleep and have no idea what is happening... or it's a trap. It would be like the renegades to leave one of their most fearsome warriors behind as insurance. It is typical infidel behavior. No faith at all.

To the smart-mouthed soldier, he says, “Take three warriors and breach the door. Everyone who's left, form a perimeter. I'll do the talking, if talking needs to be done. And watch for Pteros stragglers, an alarm could cause us trouble.” Words of acknowledgment fill his earplug.

With a sound of rushing wind, nine armored warriors take wing and land heavily before the silent building. Four, including the smart-mouth, take positions at either side of the front door, raising battle hammers, and the others level their broad-headed spears, forming a wall of wrathful death. Cestorn smiles grimly at his group's efficiency, even the smart-mouth. “Breach.”

Two warriors, those closest to the door, swing their battle hammers, the built-in inertial multipliers roaring and glowing. The wooden door is eradicated with a mighty crash, some of the splinters catching flame from the massive release of energy, but Cestorn's fighters are already rushing in through the ruined frame.

That's when everything becomes hectic. Seraphic shouts and grunts fill the air, along with higher-pitched yells, and Cestorn realizes the humans are awake after all. The left window explodes with flickering fire, part of the roof collapses from the impact of a battle hammer, and suddenly the two young renegades are in the open air, thrashing out at his soldiers.

The boy's eyes are blazing with a strange, living fire, and his every movement throws off flares and loops of burning energy. Four soldiers attempt to overtake him, screaming as he melts their armor to their skin or superheats their spears with bursts of thrown light. The grass below the battle browns and ignites, though the fire seems reluctant to spread, and doesn't harm the child himself.

Cestorn was prepared for this, but it is the girl who catches him off guard. While he watches the boy cast fire at his confused, furious men, the girl leaps impossibly at him and swings a peculiar weapon at his head. Cestorn sidesteps at the last second, buffeting the girl with a thrust of his wings, drawing his spear and growling.

He faces off with the girl, raising his blade to kill when she jumps at him, only to stab empty air when she changes direction dramatically in mid-leap. Her strange cylindrical weapon catches him across the shoulder, eliciting a bruise and a roar of fury. He lashes out again, swinging wildly with the spear, but she seems to slide around without pushing off of anything, drifting like a leaf in a storm.

Cestorn is distracted by a flash, and barely dodges the blast of fire thrown his way by the other human. “Infidels!” He screams in frustration, seeing several of his warriors sprawled and smoking, and others frantically pulling their own clothes off to escape the crawling flames.

The boy, eyes burning, growls at him menacingly. “You don't belong here. Get yourselves gone before I use you to heat my h-” he almost finishes before a terrible CRACK fills the air, and collapses in a sizzling heap, knocked out by a Seraphic soldier's electrical stunner.

“Oden!” The girl shouts, and leaps towards her unconscious companion, before she too is jolted by a stunner. She lands almost on top of the boy, gravity reclaiming her body the second she loses concentration.

Cestorn allows himself ten seconds to breathe, at this point feeling lucky to be alive, but quickly composes himself. “Take the prisoners back to the ship. You and you, bring our dead. Treat their bodies with reverence, they are martyrs and are to be respected.” He pauses, not even sure how to appraise the situation. This was supposed to be a surgical extraction, and it turned into a half-failed, poorly planned battle. “Given the circumstances, you did well. Let's go.”

* * *

Evan draws his sword the moment he sees the wreckage of the Gantrillian, looking in every direction for the signs of winged warriors. “It's an attack!”

“It's a distraction,” Aelia murmurs after a moment, holding a pair of long knives loosely in her fingers, “There must be something else they're after here... Evan, it's us! This must be a Seraphic Priesthood thing!”

“Damn it, you're right.” Evan turns to look back at the town, just as a succession of tremendous explosions rocks the island. “And we did exactly what they wanted...” His eyes widen in dawning horror. “And we left Oden and Kari. We've got to get back!”

The pair of them turn and run into the trees, again, flanked by angry Pteros, ready for a fight.

They don't get one. Minutes later, all that remains of the battle is a demolished house and burnt grass, only Oden's charred black footprints showing any sign of the fighters themselves. Splatters of blue-green Seraph blood litter the areas of grass not burnt to a crisp.

But theres nobody left.

Evan and Aelia look at each other, feeling foolish and angry. “First Sebastean, now Oden and Kari. They're taking us all, and we don't even know where.” Evan mutters. “How did they even know to look here?”

Aelia sits down on a rare patch of clean, unroasted lawn, tears in her eyes. “Does it matter? We just need to get them back.”

Nobody feels like adding, “If they're still alive.” But everyone present is thinking it.