Dimitri

  A flare of light went up from inside the city, travelling several hundred feet in the air before exploding. They were still many furlongs away from the city — a thousand furlongs, if he were to estimate. Even though the pegasi were made to fly as fast as Vorthe’s skysails, the heathens had an advantage. And they could be sneaky, even in the air. But the Church’s pegasi were loud. There was no way they could sneak up on Vorthe any time soon, not with the present models.

  He had hoped they would be able to be stealthy during this attack… take the city by surprise with their pegasi. Aerial attack was new to the Church but the heathens had had millenia to practice.

  It didn’t seem fair.

  “They are ready for us,” he said.

  “Of course,” his commander, Viktor, said as his golden hair fluttered in the wind behind him. “The heathens can sense us from this far away; their accursed powers are an abomination that no man should wield. They need neither spy glasses nor scrying crystals to observe us. Do you see why we must rid the world of them, of their demonic powers!?”

  “Yes commander!” he and the other Elite Dimitriis responded. It was a weird feeling listening to a bunch of copies of himself speak. They had always worked in teams with other clones. This was new. And it was not refreshing.

  “I long to feel the warmth of their spilled blood on my hands,” another Dimitri said in a dark tone, taking his hands off his pegasus for a moment.

  The contraption tilted dangerously, almost throwing him off. He yelped like a helpless pup dangling in the hands of a bald eagle. The other Dimitriis laughed at his expense.

  “Maybe learn to steady your flying horse before spewing threats of violence and wrath,” Viktor said.

  Flying horse? The artificers’ guild would not be pleased with the sound of that. But he wasn’t going to be the one to correct an Elite Judge. None of his copies spoke a word about it even though he knew they were thinking it from the awkward silence that engulfed their platoon.

  But some clones weren’t grown right — faulty seeds, maybe.

  “Err, no commander, it’s…” a maintenance clone said, but suddenly became afraid to complete his statement.

  Viktor looked behind him with a raised eyebrow. The maintenance clones were riding on pegasi of theirs — three of them — and the one who spoke began squirming in his seat.

  “It’s what?” Viktor asked in a threatening tone and the maintenance clone gulped.

  Everyone would have heard the sound of it if it wasn’t for the sound of the wind in their ears. After all, they were over a hundred feet in the air.

  “Eyes ahead,” Viktor said, drawing them all out of the moment. “The heathens are coming out to play.”

  “I see none of them,” Dimitrii said. “We’re still too far away.”

  “Well, they won’t wait for us to bring the fight to them,” another Dimitrii clone said.

  Dimitrii wondered how Viktor sensed the heathens. It wasn’t as if he had any superior senses to other Judges. Or was it because he was an Elite Judge?

  “If I may ask, commander. How did you sense them from this far away?”

  Viktor’s gaze turned on him, staring at him with a bit of curiosity and… something else he couldn’t name. It was like the whole world stilled at that moment and the Judge’s presence was the only thing in existence, his stare the only force he could sense. And it brought with it, judgement… and reckoning.

  “You are different from the rest,” he said.

  All of a sudden, Dimitrii became conscious of twenty-three other pairs of eyes watching him. He cleared his throat, feeling uncomfortable.

  “I don’t feel any different, commander,” he said, looking straight ahead.

  “We’ll see,” Viktor said, turning away from him. “Just so you all know, this battle is being watched closely by the Pontiff. Do not fail him… or me. Else your miserable lives will continue in the deepest parts of the abyss I can find. Trust me when I say, I will make sure of it.”

  “We’ve got incoming, commander,” one of the Dimitriis said, holding a spyglass to his eye. “He’s fast. 500 furlongs… 300… 100 — how is this possible!”

  There was a spark of light in the distance, illuminating the incoming enemy for a split moment and one of the Dimitriis burst into a display of blood and gore. A loud thunderous sound reached them a split moment later.

  “Scatter!” the commander shouted and they all swerved away from the path of the enemy. “There are more behind her!”

  “It’s a woman?!”

  “More like a girl!”

  They cursed all at once. This just got a whole lot embarrassing.

  ~~~

  “I’ve analyzed the flight patterns of these pegasi. They are not very flexible,” Achilleia said through his ring as she was also communicating with every other member of his team. “I’m more worried about the Elite Judge.”

  “He’s more powerful than the two we fought before, Jerome,” Nyx said. “I can feel it. If we take him on…” She didn’t need to say the rest. Jerome looked over the battle happening in the sky.

  “That Elite Judge, Jerome, is called Viktor.” Rihal’s voice filtered into their comms channel. “Our spies say never to get too close to him during battle.”

  “Senior Rihal?” Layla’s voice cut through the connection. “How are you—”

  “Jerome sent me this… flying falcon… thing?”

  Jerome felt bad for Layla. She had been silent since the battle began, even though she could hear all they were saying, and could join in on the conversation with her computation gem, she chose to be silent. But he’d been keeping tabs on her. He sighed and put thoughts of her out of his mind for the moment.

  “Is that all they say…? Nothing else…?” he asked.

  “Think it’s easy to spy on Judges?”

  “Very well.” He couldn’t fault the spies for not having enough information. Thankfully, his team had a good start. Their flying boots gave them a lot more mobility than the skysails ever did. They had already taken down four Messengers in total. The Messenger’s beams of divine essence cut through the air harmlessly and his girls weaved in and out of them, looking for a chance to take down another.

  “Can I join the fight now?” Ash said to him through her ring.

  “No, Ash. Remain in Alvion and help Rihal as best you can. We’ve got this.” Jerome looked back over the long distance they’d traveled to see her aiming the rifle he gifted her at the battle scene. He snorted. “I should never have given you that rifle.”

  “I call it Death’s Apprentice, Jerome. Sheela has been teaching me to wield it. She said I’m a natural!”

  “How quaint,” he said dryly. “The Silent Death took on an apprentice.”

  “That’s a good name, Ash,” Ms. Tara said. “Hopefully, Jerome can come up with a name as good as that for these flying boots.”

  “Don’t call them that,” Jerome muttered. “And don’t encourage her.”

  The ladies laughed at his sulking tone. But the Elite Judge raised his hand all of a sudden and they all concentrated on the battle again. The ladies fighting the Messengers gave him a wide berth, heading Rihal’s warning. But Jerome felt something really bad was about to happen.

  “I don’t like this,” he said. “The Messengers are just barely holding it together but they look calmer than I feel.”

  Pandora, the mind-calming stone, stirred inside him. She had been incognito for a while, unbothered with all that had transpired since the Battle of Black Gate. Did this Judge warrant her attention?

  The Elite Judge brought his hand down and essence was immediately sucked out of the air. His teammates fell out of the sky. The vocal connections they had established with their rings also winked out.

  “What the fuck?” Jerome dove for them. “Achilleia, what did he just do?”

  “He did exactly what you experienced, Xerae. He sucked up the essence within a four mile radius… and that distance is growing.”

  What… the fuck?! “Nyx, can you fly?” he asked as he caught Csala, diving for Ms. Tara next.

  “I can, but I had to catch myself with my wings when I felt the effects of essence leaving me. This is so fucking weird,” she said. “I’ve got Sheela. Leave the Royal to me. The Elite is coming for you.”

  Jerome sighed. “Layla is not a Royal, Nyx.”

  “She sure acts like one,” Nyx snorted.

  The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  “You know I can fly on my own, right?” Csala said in his arms, glaring at him with a raised eyebrow. “Without the boots… with my psychic powers… and what was that all about? What happened? Did he make our boots stop working?”

  Jerome remembered that although Csala could sense essence, she couldn’t naturally wield it. “No , Csala. He sucked the essence out of the air. And probably everything that uses essence. Is your ring working properly?”

  Jerome caught Ms. Tara, and pushed himself as he sensed the Elite draw closer. He readied a blade made out of the pod of hezvar. Its space-like quality had helped him fight the previous Elite and until he knew what he was dealing with, this was the best tool in his arsenal.

  “I wouldn’t be able to tell you that, Jerome, not with a hundred percent certainty, but it still works.”

  It was weird hearing her use ‘percent’ in her words but Achilleia was a miracle worker.

  “Mine’s still working too,” Ms. Tara said, slightly out of it. “Not at full capacity though. But I can sense my connection to it swelling to what it was moments ago.”

  “That’s good enough,” he said, letting go of them as their boots lit up again. The vocal connection through their rings was also re-established. They flew off on their own. “These Elite Judges come with extremely powerful abilities, one needs to be extra protected from them. Losing the protection of our rings is not an option.”

  Someone appeared between him and the Judge and Jerome turned around to see Rihal’s dad. A blade appeared in his hand and he swiped it through the air toward the Judge. Silence engulfed them for a moment and Jerome sensed a shift in the world. No, that wasn’t him sensing it. That was Pandora. But he was receiving a sort of feedback from her.

  Pandora, what just happened? He asked. But she just purred like a cat and went back to sleep.

  He couldn’t even be mad at her. The Judge must have sensed it too because his pegasus dove downward to avoid whatever it was that was coming for him. Bullets sprayed him the next moment but did little than annoy him.

  “Sheela, aim for his pegasus,” Jerome said. “See the glowing blue tube inside it? Aim for that.”

  “Got it,” her response came to him. Thankfully, she and every member of his team were already in the air.

  Rihal’s dad swiped a second time and the Judge dodged again. Jerome had to take a good look at the blade in his hand. It was a normal looking blade but he knew it was anything but. A Messenger broke away from their cluster above him and dove for him. Jerome absently threw the space blade in his hand, severing his head instantly. He threw the body off the pegasus and chucked the contraption into his void space.

  “That blade…” Achilleia said. “Ivar’s blade seems to have been crafted using ‘Authority’.”

  The Judge’s pegasus exploded unexpectedly and he was thrown off. Ivar Vorthe shot forward with a speed that rivaled Muna’s. But the Judge clapped his hands together, creating a shockwave that sent everything and everyone around him hurtling backwards.

  “Good job, Sheela,” Jerome said. “But you’ve got a few more pegasi to go. Also leave one or two for me to study…”

  “Err, that wasn’t me,” Sheela said. “That was Ash.”

  “All the way from the city?!” He looked back to judge the distance but the sight of the city surprised him. All the lights had gone out, most likely from the Elite Judge sucking up the essence in the air.

  “Yes!” Ash sounded offended. “Now tell me I did a good job!”

  Jerome cleared his throat. “Good job, Ash.”

  Sheela tittered at his discomfort.

  Someone else cleared their throat and a new voice entered the conversation. “Uhm, if you don’t mind, Jerome, I want to take Ash somewhere she can get a better shot—”

  “Absolutely not, Crystal!” Jerome said. “She’s Blank and can’t protect herself—”

  “Stop fathering me, Jerome! I can take care of myself!” Ash grumbled.

  “Ash, you don’t know what these Messengers are capable of!” he said but she cut off the connection.

  Jerome shot upward in frustration, toward the Elite Judge who was riding another pegasus. The Judge turned to him and smiled. He rode forward wanting to cover the distance between them. Just before they clashed, he teleported away but left the piece of the space blade in his place. The blade ripped through him and for the first time, Jerome saw an Elite Judge bleed… but only for a second.

  The blood and guts were sucked back into him and his skin closed up right before his eyes. His dark blue coat was destroyed though and the Judge looked utterly pissed.

  “I will rip your fucking head off your shoulders, you vile cankerworm!” he roared in anger.

  “You pissed him off, Jerome,” Sheela said.

  “You think?”

  Csala appeared behind the Judge while he was raging and distracted, and whispered into his ear. His shoulders slumped all of a sudden, his eyelids closed half way, and he relaxed on his pegasus. Csala had just created another chance for him. He teleported toward the Judge as she shot away and ripped into his neck. Another fountain of blood erupted as his head left his body.

  “It appears spatial attacks are the only things that can hurt him.” Even as he said so, the Judge’s body was already repairing itself. Jerome teleported away from him.

  The Judge regained his senses and gripped the handles of the falling pegasus. He looked around and his eyes settled on him. A few emotions went through those eyes in the space of a few seconds — anger, frustration, and then as weird as it was, elation.

  “I’ve never met any sacred artist who could keep up with me before,” he said. “You have been much fun. But it is time to end this game.”

  He extended his arm with his palm facing Jerome. The next moment, Jerome felt gravity shift. He began to fall toward the Judge. He tried flying away but it was no use, tried teleporting away but that was a bust as well. Right before the Judge caught him, a bullet hit the side of his head. The Judge faltered, losing concentration and Jerome teleported successfully away.

  “Thanks, Ash,” he said.

  “Wasn’t me,” she said.

  “You’re welcome,” Sheela said.

  “Thanks, Sheela. But that barely even scratched him which further concretizes my point. I wanna try something else.”

  “What do you want to do, Jerome?” Rihal’s voice reached him.

  “Watch and see, Rihal,” he said and shot upward. The Elite followed.

  They began climbing higher and higher, reaching two thousand feet in less than a minute. But the pegasus couldn’t catch up to him. He sensed the Judge’s frustration right before he shot a golden beam of light upward at him.

  “He launched that faster than I’ve seen any of them do it,” Nyx said.

  A strangled voice on her end shouted, “That’s Viktor! The Golden boy of Svol. He would roast the Spawn of Madru and send him to the depths of the abyss where he truly—” There was a popping sound and then quiet.

  “So Golden Boy of Svol, huh?” Jerome said as he dodged the many beams being shot at him.

  “So Spawn of Madru, huh?” Rihal said. “You’ve made a name for yourself, Jerome — two epithets, in fact. And many enemies too. Let’s see, Daemon of Vorthe, Mystic Healer, and now Spawn of Madru…”

  “What can I say? I’m famous.” Thunder roared in the skies and lightning travelled from cloud to cloud above him. “The guy feels like a… an endless pit — or a black hole. You think his powers are similar to the other female’s?”

  “What other female?” Rihal asked. But Jerome didn’t pose the question to him.

  “Huh? I was talking to Nyx. Sorry,” he said.

  “Most likely,” Nyx said. “And yes. He feels to me like an abyss so deep there’ll be no coming out of it.”

  They continued to climb until they reached five thousand feet. The pegasus began to whine and could go no further. But Jerome continued on.

  “The mental link is ninety-five percent complete, everyone,” Achilleia said as he reached eight thousand feet.

  “To think that you’d be able to integrate whatever it was that was in my transmission bracelet into our computation rings,” Sheela said. “And in just a few tendays?... that’s wild!”

  He could hear the wind rushing past her as she shot toward the earth. She sliced through the neck of an unsuspecting Messenger — the one wearing the coveralls — and left half a dozen knives in two more. The knives, which were connected to strings attached to her fingers, sliced through their necks, severing their heads completely.

  Jerome shook his head smiling. “It was tough but I succeeded. But more than that, my creation is unique; different from the norm…”

  “Ninety-nine percent… a hundred percent,” Achilleia said. “Establishing mental pathways to the noosphere. You may feel unsteady for a moment but remain calm, it will pass…”

  ~~~

  Rihal

  “Do you notice anything different, Crystal?” he asked, narrowing his eyes.

  She took a moment to study the Sprouts in the air as they weaved around like acrobats, dodging beams of divine light. They were so in tune with each other that it seemed rehearsed, surreal. Something was different about them… more. One would attack the air unexpectedly where there were no enemies — which boggled his mind — but another would, in the same moment, push or punch a Messenger into that space, making a perfect hit.

  The Messengers began falling faster. Jerome’s team became more efficient with managing airspace and their movements. All it took was one shot and half a breath to take down a Messenger.

  “It’s like they’re perfectly reading each other’s moves,” they said together. Rihal turned to look at her as she did him.

  “And there’s no wasted movement,” his father said behind them. Rihal looked behind him to see his father looking up in awe. “They lead the targets around, predicting each other’s aim. And then they take them down with precision. It’s an execution up there.”

  Rihal marveled at his father’s words. This was beyond what a normal team of Sprouts should be capable of.

  “What’s he doing?” his father asked.

  He looked up at the sky again. At Jerome. There was a huge storm forming ominously above him but he just stood midair like this was normal for him.

  “Is he forming the storm himself?” Crystal asked. “That’s… that storm is too dense for a Sprout to control. He might lose control of it!”

  “He won’t,” his father said. “He’s completely in control of it. And it’s not a normal storm.”

  The storm grew and then shrunk — a weird thing to see. Rihal had seen a lot of strange things in his time in the Nediti but not shrinking storms. Lightning illuminated the insides of it and thunderous booms resounded from it as if from far away. It grew again and shrunk again. And this time, it turned completely white, shining like a star in the night sky, with dark clouds twisting inside and around it.

  “The Judge has noticed, father,” Rihal said, even as the Judge raised his hand to suck up the energy from the storm. “You should go help.”

  His father raised his hand to stop him. “I need to see this.”

  But then the strangest thing happened. Jerome spoke… faerie.

  His words came as if from the mouth of one that was very fluent in the language. And it carried a power with it Rihal had never felt before. It felt as ancient as it sounded, even through the beak of the metal bird. In an instant, a giant golden formation appeared above the storm which was above Jerome. It flashed once and a bolt of lightning from the storm, as thick as a tree, struck the Judge three thousand feet below.

  The Judge roared in defiance. Rihal could see his skin visibly char. He fired a beam of divine light at Jerome but the giant formation in the sky absorbed it. The storm immediately turned golden. And a golden bolt of lightning, as thick as a redwood tree, struck the Judge, destroying his second pegasus. He fell, but this time around there was no pegasus to catch him. All his Messengers were dead, and their pegasi taken by Jerome’s team.

  The Judge was hit by another golden bolt of lightning as he fell, and then another and another before he stopped moving. He died in the air but before his body was smashed to pieces on the ground, a portal opened beneath him and closed immediately after he passed through.

  “Why do I feel like that was too easy?” Rihal asked.

  “Because it was. That Judge was most likely a clone,” his father said.

  He didn’t want to believe that but the whole fight and the extent of the powers displayed supported his father’s claims.

  “Get back to the city, Jerome,” he spoke to the metal falcon. “We have much to discuss.”

  “I don’t like the sound of that,” came his disciple’s response.

  “Yeah. It’s mostly bad news,” he said. “But Wen is awake, that’s good news, no?”