Another Awakening

Dackorec Seraph snarls at the shrill sound of his sparc radio and snatches it off his belt, thumbing the “answer” symbol with more than the neccesary force. The glassy touchscreen cracks, but remains intact. “I am attempting my afternoon prayers. This had best be important.”

“Father, there is a small Pteros ship approaching us from the direction of the island. Weapons armed, according to long-range scan.” The voice ceases, and Dackorec barely stops himself from crushing the damnable device in his bare fist.

“Why are you bothering me with this?”

“Ah... we felt it would be best to notify you and await orders, Father.”

“What is your name, soldier?”

The briefest of hesitations. “Chaplain Noreus Cestorn, Father.”

“Very well, Altarchild, here are your orders. Instruct your crew to destroy the ship at range, then inform them of your demotion and report to the docking wing. And get off of my ship. Your new rank does not permit you a place among trained, competant warriors.”

“At once, Father. Thank you for your mercy.” Cestorn's voice shakes slightly, betraying his fear. Dackorec is notorious for having soldiers who displease him executed on the spot. The complete erasure of Cestorn's military training and humiliation before his subordinates is, in fact, a most merciful punishment in comparison.

“And tell your crew not to bother me again, unless the ship is exploding. Do you understand?”

“Completely, Father. Cestorn out.” The radio clicks off, and Dackorec sighs deeply. His jaw, he realizes, is sore, as are his teeth and neck.

This tension is going to kill him, he decides. Settling back into a meditative position, he taps each of seveal censers and breathes deeply of the soothing smoke. His thoughts dwell on how best to destroy the three heretics in his prison hold.

Naturally they'll be missed, if he executes them. They are known citizens of the human settlement of Halfmoon Grove, and the representative there, a young man named Syrhe, is notably liberal and human-friendly. Dackorec can't rely on him to make the appropriate records adjustments. Any overt action will be seen by the rest of Fallen as a somewhat contemptable act of vigilante justice.

There's just no faith left in the world, he supposes. In better times, on Ventraedi perhaps, such creatures as these humans and their half-breed friend wouldn't be treated with such pity and mercy. On Ventraedi, in fact, they wouldn't even exist. What a splendid place it was.

Ceasing his dangerous thoughts, Dackorec resumes his prayers, adding a supplication to forgive him for his lack of thankfulness. Fallen, the gift of the gods to an ailing Seraphic people, is no less than a shining gem in the void of godless space. One must accept whatever the new world gives them, take the curses with the blessings.

There is no better place, besides heaven, in all of vast Creation.

* * *

Evan North, for the first time, wishes he'd never heard of Fallen at all.

“Coming into weapons range! Brace for impact!” A Pteros pilot shouts over the combined roar of rushing air, screaming engines, and blazing energy cannons, and Evan ducks his head reflexively with each explosive crack as supersonic projectiles narrowly miss the tiny Silverleaf.

He can barely stand to hold onto his sword, the vibrations in the ship are so violent. The textured hilt is beginning to numb his palms, but he doesn't trust himself to try and sheathe it without stabbing his own waist.

Aelia, in contrast, seems strangely calm, sitting in her harness with eyes closed, breathing steadily. Other than swaying with the bucking motion of the desperately dodging Silverleaf, she barely moves.

“Thirty seconds to contact! Ah, BRACE-” The pilot is nearly knocked from his seat as one of the Seraph weapons lands a glancing hit, and the ship screams like a wounded animal as a section of the roof, several inches wide, is ripped away like paper.

Evan realizes he's screaming a moment later, when the ringing in his ears subsides enough to let him hear it. “Aelia! We've got to get out of here!”

She opens her eyes to reveal twin flares of blue-white light where her irises ought to be. Glowing mist curls away from her eyes like fire smoke, and when she speaks her voice seems to echo off itself. “Relax, Evan. We're going to be okay.”

A Pteros turns away from his display screen, which is flickering with power loss. “I think my sensors are gone, guys, nothing is making any-” Another blast rocks the ship, “- sense at all. Our altitude is okay, but the sea level is rising-”

Through the rounded front window, Evan sees something he never forgets. A tremendous wave of the crystal-clear sea, three hundred feet tall, is cresting just ahead of the Silverleaf, barreling toward the Seraph warship, which appears shaky and warped through the seawater. Several enormous beasts writhe and tumble in the grip of the collossal tide, exploding with black bursts as Seraph weapons try in vain to penetrate the water.

He almost has time to understand what he's seeing.

“Five seconds to contact! Aelia, drop it! Everyone go, go!”

Evan grips his sword more tightly and stands, barely keeping his balance, holding the muscular shoulder of a Pteros fighter in front of him. “Aelia, let's go! We're here!”

Aelia blinks her radiant eyes a few times, and the glow fades in an instant. The Silverleaf bucks brutally as it comes to a hovering stop above the Seraphic warship. “Stay close to me, Evan.” And she leaps, twisting in the air, down towards the deck, where Seraph soldiers have just started emerging with weapons drawn.

Evan is heaved from his feet by a Pteros man, and finds himself falling through the air in the clutches of a hideous, draconic creature wearing the Pteros man's clothes. “Holy s**t!”

The monster growls at him as they land, and points to a pair of armored doors, then ducks behind a gun emplacement on the deck. Evan, recovering from the shock of seeing a Pteros transform, rolls towards a similar turret structure and peeks around, looking for Aelia.

She's impossible to miss. Evan remembers comparing her to the sea, so many weeks ago, watching her dance so beautifully... but now, he sees, the sea can also storm. And no one caught in that storm can escape.

Seraph soldiers pour out of the double doors in groups of four and five, and while Pteros monsters engage some of them, it is Aelia they focus on, and Aelia who drives them back.

She kills or wounds with every motion. A negligent flick of a finger sends a needle-sharp tendril of glowing water through a Seraphic chest, a twisting motion cartwheels someone to the ground heavily. And while streams of malevolent, living water course around her in a cloud of liquid death, she dispatches errant soldiers with bursts of white light from her rifle-weapon.

Feathers and blood fill the air, whipped in every direction by storming rivers. Evan is dumbstruck for a space of several seconds, incapable of moving until a Seraph breaks away and charges him, heedless of the hurricane slaughtering his brethren.

Only one thought crosses Evan's mind: I need to be faster. The moment the Seraph soldier thrusts his wide-bladed spear forward, Evan Channels and the world slows down. Every detail becomes vivid and sharp, especially the razor-edged, pristinely polished blade tearing the air in half to reach his heart.

He easily brings up his own blade, meeting the thrust with the flat side of his sword, absorbing the impact with wide-planted feet and bent knees. Somehow, he isn't surprised at such a perfect motion, instead continuing with a lateral sweep of the sword before the soldier has even drawn his spear back.

The feeling when his blade snags flesh is deeply, disturbingly familiar. He's just not used to it being someone else's.

Pale blue blood splatters against his face, and the Seraph collapses, clawing at his ruined throat. Evan recoils from the desperate grabbing hands of the dying warrior, taking an involuntary few steps back, and trips over what turns out to be a dead Pteros soldier, halfway between man and beast forms in death. A rivulet of greenish, thick blood courses away from the corpse, meeting the pool spreading underneath Evan's Seraph victim. There is a loud hiss, and the two life-bearing fluids begin to smoke and bubble on contact.

“You see?” A booming voice calls out, and every head still attached to it's owner turns to see the immense form of Dackorec Seraph, emerging from a higher set of armored doors to stand on a balcony several yards above the fray. He wears a suit of gleaming armor, black and gold, bearing the sigil of the Seraphic Priesthood across his massive chest. “There can be no peace between men and beasts. Our very blood cries out at your violation. Leave my ship or die, you filth.”

Aelia finishes slashing the back of a Seraph soldier and turns to Dackorec, eyes burning with light. “You have three of our people! Free them or you die, old man!”

Evan Channels again, holding onto the power intentionally now, muscles burning with agony but alight with strength, and shouts in an unnaturally loud voice, “I can feel them! They're below us, in a big room! And they're alive!”

The remaining six Pteros fighters cheer, and three of them start gouging at the thick deck with their huge claws, tearing great chunks of wood and metal away from the floor, while the other three resume fighting.

“Stop!” Dackorec screams, and vaults over the balcony, clutching the biggest, most ornamental spear in his armored fist that Evan has ever seen. And he leaps directly for Aelia.

“No!” Evan shouts, expecting the worst, but Aelia slides backwards on a thin layer of conjured ice, controlling the slippery movement to swoop back around like a skateboarder, raising her long knives and snarling a threat. She thrashes at the armored Dackorec with blinding speed, all the while sending a sheet of swirling water under her enemy's feet to trip him up.

The huge, muscular warrior reacts with surprising speed, long gray hair whipping around his square jaw, stomping his steel-booted feet to avoid slipping, spinning the heavy spear to knock away every one of the tiny girl's strikes. Still, from Evan's perspective, it's an even fight, and he risks turning his attention to the growing hole in the deck.

Spotting a peculiar sledgehammer lying next to a defeated Seraph, Evan sheaths his sword and picks it up. The hammer is surprisingly light, so he hefts it above his head and swings at the deck, near the edge of the ragged pit. One of the Pteros actually shifts back to man-form and attempts to shout “WAIT-”

And the force-hammer explodes the wooden deck with the kinetic release of a bomb. Bodies fly in every direction, Evan's among them, until he lands atop splinters several feet away. Groaning, he looks around to survey the damage.

Aelia and Dackorec are charging each other again, having been separated by the blast, but everyone else is still reeling. Evan clambers to his feet, drawing his sword with shaking hands, looking down into the twelve-foot wide gap in the deck that his strike created.

A semicircular room is below, lights flickering, with screens ringing the walls, and a large glowing sphere standing in the exact center, ringed by computers and machines. On either side of it are Kari, chained to the floor by every joint, and Oden, neck deep in what looks like a fishtank. No guards seem to be anywhere in the room, and Evan drops down to land heavily next to Kari.

“Evan! We were wondering what was going on up there!”

“Recreational baseball game. Got completely out of hand, hold still.” Evan raises his blood-slicked sword and Channels, trying to add all the strength to his swing that he can. The blade sings as it falls, shearing through the chains like wet clay.

“Thanks! I'll get Oden out, you help Sebastean.”

“Where is he?”

“Oh, right. He's in here,” she says, indicating the luminous sphere. “I think they gassed him, he hasn't been talking.” She turns to the fishtank, smiling at Oden, and shatters the front panel with a well-placed kick from her bare foot. He tumbles out with the rush of smelly water, falling into Kari's arms with a sigh of relief.

And Evan swings his sword, over and over, as hard as he can, digging inch-deep grooves into the light sphere, but making no real progress. Frustrated, he Channels strength into his attacks, but still can't seem to do much more than scratch it.

“I can't break this thing!” He shouts to the others, and gets the last response he could possibly want.

“Of course you can't, idiot child.” Dackorec stands at the edge of the hole above, holding a seemingly-unconscious Aelia by the collar of her poncho coat. “It's unbreakable. Do you think we'd put so much effort into containing that creature, just to let him out again? It's not meant to open. Ever. Now surrender and you may be spared.”

The three tired fighters below glare up at Dackorec, saying nothing, though Oden stands up a little straighter, and his eyes light up with living fire. Finally Evan answers for them all. “Not a chance. Put her down.”

“I'm going to put you all down,” Dackorec snarls, and draws a dagger, moving to slash Aelia's limp neck with blinding speed.

Even faster, Evan casts out his empty left hand towards Dackorec, releasing a blast of the blue-white fire from his palm, roaring with fury. The sound of his Channeling is a deep, reverberating note and a crashing boom, symphonic thunder to accompany lightning.

Dackorec is hurled backwards, caught in the fury of Evan's attack, and drops Aelia's still form into the pit. Kari leaps up to catch her, floating gently back down and landing lightly. Evan has already turned to regard the sphere again, confident in Aelia's safety.

“I think I've figured it out,” he growls, starlight blazing from his eyes, panting with the exertion of Channeling so much raw energy. “I think I get what I need.”

He raises his bare hands and brings them crashing down on the sphere, leaving a thick spiderweb of cracks in the unbreakable surface. His voice grows louder, and the others back away a few steps. “I want in, damn you!”

He strikes the cage again, blue-white light shimmering on his skin, eyes growing in intensity with every heartbeat. Every vein under his skin is visible as a glowing trail. This time, a small hole appears in the sphere, seeping stagnant gas.

“I'm done f*****g around! Open!” There is uncontrolled rage in his echoing call.

One last time, his gentle hands come down on the invincible cage, and it shatters like a glass bowl. Cradled in the flickering, fading remains of the sphere is the unclothed form of Sebastean, motionless but alive.

Evan kneels down and places a hand on Sebastean's bare, pale chest. When he speaks, the air grows thick, like the Universe is leaning in to listen to his words.

“I need you awake.”

And Sebastean's black steel eyes come open, narrowing at the sight of shadows. “Evan?”

“Yeah. We came to get you. Ready to go home?”

Sebastean blinks several times, tears pouring from his abused, light-sensitive eyes. Then he stands, wrapping himself in thick curtains of darkness which solidify into actual clothes. He raises his hands and draws a twin pair of black swords out of thin air, then grins at his friends, showing wickedly sharp fangs.

“So ready. I have some people I need to end,” he growls, and leaps stright up through the hole, landing on the deck above with a laugh, then bounding out of sight, swinging his blades.

Evan turns to Oden and Kari, gesturing at Aelia. “Is she okay?”

“She's fine, just knocked out. Looks like he cuffed her across the temple. Evan, that was amazing.”

“We'll talk about it later. Can you carry her?” Evan asks, and Oden nods. “Good. You need to find some kind of boat, ours got wrecked on the way in. We're with a few Pteros guys, they're still up top. I'm going to go help them, I need you to get us out of there as soon as possible. All right?”

Kari smiles grimly. “Can you hold them off for five minutes? These kind of boats have a docking room at the stern, it'll take us a moment to get there.”

“Just hurry. Listen, I'm glad you're okay, but we still have work to do. Let's go.” And Evan leaps through the hole, fifteen feet straight up, with no effort at all, raising his sword and landing behind a Seraph warrior who's in the middle of a standoff with a transformed Pteros. He reaches around the warrior's chest, locks his fingers, and crushes the warrior's armor in a bear hug. The Seraph goes down coughing up blood, and Evan glances at the Pteros.

“Round up whoever's left. We're out of here in five.”

The Pteros' transformed voice is barely understandable. “We've only been here four and a half. Can't wait any longer.”

Evan turns to see Sebastean slashing a pair of Seraphs across their bellies, then kicking one in the teeth to knock him on his back. “It is getting a little crazy here. But the Silverleaf won't carry us all. It might not even fly. I've sent the others to find a boat.”

The Pteros, turning back into man-form and looking exhausted, nods. “Was that you, with the white light?”

“Yeah. Call it a fluke. What happened to Dackorec?”

“No idea, but I don't think he's dead. It didn't seem to be hurting him, very much, just blasting him back. I could be wrong, though. It was pretty bright. So are you, in fact. Take it easy or you'll exhaust yourself.”

“What do you mean,” Evan asks, but then looks at his hands. Blue shimmering light shines from his skin, and little arcs of white energy course between his fingertips like dancing lightning. “Oh, wow. I hadn't even noticed.”

“Heads up!” The Pteros shouts, raising a rifle and ducking down, and Evan throws himself to one side in time to dodge a thrown spear. The heavy weapon thunks into the deck. Evan looks at his companion.

“Let's hope they hurry up with that boat,” he mutters. “There's no way we're holding out this way for long.”

* * *

Oden keeps up as well as he can, but between carrying Aelia and looking over his shoulder every five seconds, there's no way of following Kari anywhere. She flits ahead like a butterfly, looping unpredictably around doorways and corners, ostensibly to avoid enemy surprises. And he can't Channel, or risk hurting Aelia. All in all, it's a stressful situation.

“Be ironic for someone like you to get burned,” he says to her pale, motionless face, and laughs to himself darkly. “Kari! Are we anywhere near the dock? It's starting to sound pretty bad up top.”

“I think so! I don't read Seraphic script that well, but something called 'Ventra nes Khas' is up ahead. Means 'origin of flight', sounds like a skydock to me.”

“Or an engine room,” Oden responds, and immediately regrets it when Kari opens a door into a large, round room, occupied by a huge glowing Sparc drive and several other machines, all concerned with operating the massive battleship.

“Hey, I didn't know you knew Seraphim. Okay, let's keep moving.”

Oden pauses, looking at a particular strut. “Wait a sec. Take Aelia, I've got an idea.” He hands Aelia's body to Kari, and the moment Kari touches her skin, Aelia becomes nearly weightless, long white hair suddenly flowing around her like a halo. Kari holds her easily over a shoulder, fireman-style.

“What's this about?”

“I'm gonna take this ship down. All I have to do is wreck that support, right there.” He points, and a single flare of red firelight streaks and splatters against the indicated support beam. With a sizzling sound, the burning spark begins to bury itself in the thick steel. “I'll melt it easily.”

“We're still on the ship, sweetie. That's a terrible idea.”

“Not neccesarily, if I make it melt slowly, we can leave before the real damage starts happening, right-”

“YOU!” A furious voice echoes down the hallway, originating at a familiar Seraphic warrior of medium height, holding a pack and wearing no armor. “How did you escape? What nightmare have you caused?”

Oden and Kari look at each other, recognizing the speaker as their captor. In only a moment, a vindictive but effective plan forms.

Oden casts out his hands and fires twin flows of living fire, blocking the Seraph's exit to either side. The inferno spreads intelligently, creating a perfectly round cage of flame around Cestorn's unprotected body.

He panics, understandably. “Wait! Don't kill me! I didn't kill you!”

“Yeah but see,” Oden responds coldly, “Now you realize what a mistake that was. 'Cause now I'm going to roast you. Just imagine if you'd finished me off.”

The Seraph only stares at him, fear in his metallic eyes.

Oden continues. “We need a ship, like the one you carried us here in. And we need it now. Take us to the skydock, unharmed, and put us on a boat, and you live. Sound like fair to you?”

“Fine!” Cestorn gasps, watching Oden's flames crawl closer across the steel floor. “Fine! Follow me!”

As he leads them away, hurried by a loop of living flame, a spot on a support strut begins to bend, searing white and melting. The huge round Sparc machine in the center of the engine room shrieks, just quietly enough that nobody notices.

* * *

Sebastean hates to admit it, but he's enjoying himself. Only moments ago comatose, he finds himself bounding around the deck of his captor's warship, swinging whatever weapons he can imagine at dozens of soldiers, laughing and growling and cursing at everything in sight. Watching bluish blood speckle his shifting, ethereal clothes, he feels a rush of vindication.

“You're all just SO DAMNED TOUGH with your traps and your tasers, aren't you?!” he howls, cutting down another soldier with his left sword and flinging the other at a fleeing warrior's head. Before the flying blade thunks into it's target's skull, Sebastean has already pulled a dagger out of nowhere to take it's place.

“You don't get to run, boys! I'm bringing this b***h down! Might as well get it over with, if you don't like swimming!”

A reckless Seraph swings a wide-bladed spear and is rewarded with a knife to the face and a laugh. Sebastean narrows his eyes and lashes out with his empty hand, ripping a dozen holes through a distant enemy with a flurry of shadows. The Seraph collapses, limp as a sack of fish, dropping his rifle with a thud.

“Sebastean!” He turns to see Evan waving at him from behind a gun emplacement, sword in hand, eyes still blazing with blue-white starlight. “There's a boat on the way! Regroup!”

“Round up the others, I'm in the middle of something!”

“We started this craziness so we could rescue you, don't screw it up! Come on!” Evan shouts, ducking behind the turret again to avoid a shower of weaponfire.

Sebastean growls deep in his sore throat. “Fine!” He leaps towards the turret, aiming a blast of shadow magic at the Seraph with the gun, only to be yanked out of the air by one leg. He drops heavily to the deck, rolling through splinters and shards of metal.

“What the-” he yelps, then looks up just in time to dodge Dackorec's steel-booted stomp. Rolling to his feet, Sebastean conjures a long, needle-sharp javelin and stands off against his grandfather, seething with rage.

The old, massively built Seraph is no calmer. His armor has been largely discarded, and what remains bears evidence of a huge impact, bent so badly it can't be removed without the help of a blacksmith. Religious tattoos adorn the Priest's barrel chest. “You're not leaving my ship, creature. I worked too hard to get you here.”

“It's just like you to assign yourself credit. You weren't there when your cronies kidnapped me, grandfather. Just as you weren't there when your cronies slaughtered my mother. Do you gloat over that, too?” Sebastean dodges as Dackorec roars and swings his spear, purple-faced with hate. “Couldn't come and take me yourself! Couldn't murder your daughter yourself!” Again he moves to avoid a vicious stab, and returns a blindingly fast cut across Dackorec's forearm before the huge man can pull it back. “You're a great leader! You have a way with delegation!”

“Shut up, creature!” Dackorec screams, surprising Sebastean with a knee to the chest, sending the comparatively small fighter stumbling backwards. “You don't know what you are talking about! And I don't need to explain myself to-”

He almost says “you”, but is jarred by a terrible shockwave, reeling from a burst of hot, invisible force. The entire ship leans to port, sending bodies and discarded weapons tumbling towards one side of the wreckage-strewn deck.

“What just happened,” he roars at a nearby soldier, but the answer becomes obvious from the billowing smoke that begins to pour from the hole in the deck. Blinking the red mist from his eyes, struggling to hear over his own crashing pulse, Dackorec issues the standard emergency orders. “The engines have been sabotaged! Everyone to your escape boats, get any survivors out! Hurry!”

Turning back to face Sebastean, he finds only empty deck. “Where did you go, cowardly beast? We're not finished!”

“You are,” Sebastean growls from behind him, and Dackorec's mind shifts from blistering hate to red-hot agony in one awful second. The snap of his wing bones splintering, being wrenched in all the wrong directions with cruel effort, echoes in his ears. He falls to his knees, completely unable to stand through the immense pain.

“B*****d!” he screams, all the more enraged by his total impotence, tears streaming down his contorted face. “Oh, you b*****d! I'll kill you! I'll KILL YOU!” The great weight of his armored wings pulls on the twin breaks, dragging the helpless Dackorec to the deck, eliciting screams of torment.

Sebastean only watches, a grimace on his unreadable face, as his grandfather writhes on the bloody deck. A few seconds pass before he begins to feel uncomfortable. He kneels down to speak quietly to Dackorec's twisted, tear-streaked face.

“This,” he almost whispers, “is how decent people treat their families. They forgive each other. They put the past behind and go on living.” He places a hand on his grandfather's shoulder, looking into eyes that are a hate-filled mirror image of his own, and frowns. “And for all you've done to me and mine, you are my blood. If you hadn't been, I wouldn't be. Consider this my thank-you for that. Next time, you die. Leave me alone.”

And Sebeastean walks away, calmly ignoring the panicking Seraphs who scramble to collect their crippled leader, still holding the knife, and wondering why it was suddenly so difficult to make himself drive it into Dackorec's heart.

* * *

Evan smiles with relief as the small Seraphic boat hovers towards his cluster of survivors, Oden visible in the cockpit. “All right, everybody load up! We're getting out of here!”

As he waits for the few Pteros remaining to climb into the unfamiliar boat, he looks around desperately for Sebastean, only to spot him calmly walking towards the boat, head down, hands empty. “You okay, man?”

Sebastean looks at him with sad eyes. “Let's just go. It's been a bad day.”

“... all right. Everyone on?”

Kari's voice comes from the open door. “Everyone who lived. Come on, it's time to go.”

Evan hauls himself into the boat, sparing one last look at the havoc he and his friends have caused. The mighty Seraph warship strikes the water at last, sending a massive splash into the air, buffeting the many small escape craft streaking away from the wreck. The black smoke curling from every opening thins out, doused by the freshwater ocean of Fallen.

He tears his gaze away at last when the monsters begin to feed on those left behind, and looks instead toward the setting sun and the relative safety of Nostlack island.

Someone's hands grip his shoulders, and he realizes the light is fading from his skin, his vision is dulling. His body, so full of energy and strength a moment before, feels incredibly heavy, impossible to keep standing.

Someone calls his name as he falls...