Drizzle. 22mph winds blowing northeast. Seventy-five degrees fahrenheit. Rain expected to intensify.
Drops of moisture and rain accumulated in Azer's hair as he ran, yet again, down the streets of his town. They fell onto his bare face and dripped down into his collar, making his clothes uncomfortably wet from a mixture of rain and sweat. Grif ran alongside him, in a similar state of discomfort.
The only thing that could top the shock he felt from discovering the information on Haise was the sudden disappearance of his good friend Milo. And so, Azer ran as fast as his diminished stamina could take him to the last place he saw Milo, praying he could make it in time.
# # #
Before Milo could make it to Torbe, he was halted by Kovaki's looming, furious figure.
"You're not going anywhere."
She aimed a kick, but Milo was ready. He put up a forearm, and numerous vines and roots sprouted out in the shape of a shield. Her steel-like leg impacted the shield, cracking and breaking through his guard, throwing him far across the alleyway. Milo skidded across the wet asphalt, tiny specks of rain falling on his face. He stared up into the air.
"If you know what's good for you, you won't run!" she taunted. "Don't make it any worse for yourself! After what your friend did, I don't think we'll be as nice to you!"
As Milo pushed himself up, he felt a moment of strength. His paralyzing fear was evaporating by the moment.
"I'm not running! And I'm not going with you either! I'll fight you! I'm not afraid anymore!"
"Kid, don't you understand what's happening? With the money I'll earn from your ransom, I'll be one step closer to bombing the next round of evacuation ships from The Shades. You think you have willpower? You think you have a grudge against me? You don't have shit compared to what I have against nonbelievers like you. But when you're all left to die, to face The Shades alone, then you'll believe."
Torbe had been right. Milo cursed himself for not realizing it earlier. These kinds of people were exactly the ones Milo ought to be fighting. The hidden evils of his town who had to be vanquished. Cowardice and fear didn't matter—complacency was letting evil run free. And they would run free for no longer.
"Ether, get the kid. He's a Valin too. If he wants to play, he can play," Kovaki said, stepping back to let Ether pass.
"Roger," the wiry-haired woman said. Her wild demeanor became more focused, as if she was hunting Milo like prey.
"And don't forget to leave him alive, if only a little!"
The first thought Milo had as Ether dashed towards him was wondering what her Val was. As she wildly swung out her arm, Milo saw her shooting something small at him through the air, too fast for him to make out. Milo dodged and weaved, but he knew that his target wasn't really Ether—it was Kovaki, who was standing back, watching the fight carefully. She was their leader.
Ether forced Milo further down the alleyway with her still unseen attacks, farther and farther from Kovaki, preventing him from getting close enough to attack or counter. And although Milo wanted to focus on the attacks as much as possible, he couldn't help but think that there was more to her ability.
Milo saw an opening and kicked Ether hard in the face. She staggered back, but quickly recovered and grabbed his airborne leg. There was a sinister smile on her bruised face.
"You've fallen for it, boy…"
She forced him backwards violently, holding his leg tightly, and then finally let him go with a great shove and a yell. He fell backwards, unable to right himself, and saw a horrible sight where he was about to land.
Ether's weapons were paper-thin, fist-length, white needles—and all along, she had been collecting them in one place. The javelin-like needles were floating above the ground like a menacing bed of nails. Nearing the ground, panic shooting through his body, Milo reached a fingertip to a bare spot of asphalt between the floating needles and, just before the mass of needles pierced his body, his fingertip made contact.
A great tree erupted out of the ground, cracking through the moist asphalt and rising incredibly fast. It grew and grew at high speed, like watching a timelapse. It pushed Milo off the ground, throwing him into the air moments before he would have landed. He soared over Ether, who was enraged and surprised, her popped-out eyes even more bulging than usual, and began to fall towards Kovaki. Without hesitation, he reached out his arm, which wrapped itself in a thick mass of vines and wood.
Falling and yelling, droplets of rain dancing in tandem, Milo swung his encased arm towards her for a final attack.
The wood smashed to splinters as it hit Kovaki's unfazed face. The roots and wooden pieces fell to the ground with clunks and thuds. Milo stood in front of her, mortified, the fist he used to attack bleeding and crushed.
"You might have guessed by now," Kovaki said with a dangerous calm in her voice. "My Val is a powerful, hard exoskeleton over my entire body. My skin is made of 'pure carbon.' And I will also tell you that, since I realized my Val sixteen years ago, I haven't bled once."
She grabbed Milo by the neck and pulled him into the air, choking him.
"You've got a lot of cheek for a damn kid."
A sharp pain in his back told Milo that Ether's needles were piercing him. She was approaching Milo slowly as Kovaki continued to choke him.
"I'll give you credit; I didn't think I'd be losing a member of my faithful group today. You and your friend have caused me some real grief. But it's done now."
Milo gathered his strength for a kick towards Kovaki's torso, but it was held back by someone new. Gorr, pushing himself off the ground, was missing an arm—an arm that was gripping Milo's leg tightly. Gorr was bleeding freely from the head.
"Don't count me out yet!" he growled.
"A useful property of my pure carbon Val," Kovaki spoke again, removing an obsidian-like finger from his neck and placing it on his cheek, "is I can cover more than just myself in pure carbon. I can convert anything—living matter, for example—into a hard, immovable substance, bit by bit."
And, from the spot where her finger touched, Milo felt a painful sensation—as if his skin ripped and then healed itself, except impossibly hard. This spot now had no feeling—he could no longer feel the edged finger of Kovaki pressing against his cheek. And this feeling spread, a painful cracking and snapping that slowly crossed his face and neck, becoming hard and unfeeling. At last, he screamed.
"HELP ME!"
Milo could hardly see from the rain and tears clouding his eyes. Something… someone's foot? Something had impacted Kovaki's head and kicked it violently into the alley wall. Milo fell to the ground, the hardening sensation gone, and looked up to see Azer and the grim face of Grif looking at him. He was saved.
"What happened to Torbe?" Grif asked. Milo's tears fell faster.
"He…" Milo started, looking over at Kovaki, whose head was embedded into the cracked concrete wall. "She…"
But then, Kovaki's arms rose up, gripped the wall, and pulled her head out of the smashed concrete. She glared at the three boys with rage. Milo then realized that Gorr and Ether were looming, imminent.
"GET AWAY!" Milo screamed.
They leapt out of the way to dodge a mass of floating limbs, needles, and hardened punches. Gathering themselves, they saw Kovaki striding towards them, fury etched into the crinkled lines of her hardened face.
"I've told you!" she said. "Not one drop of my blood has been spilt! I've survived car crashes. I've fallen off of buildings. And not once has my pure carbon skin cracked! You cannot defeat me!"
Azer and Grif looked at each other with curiosity, rain dripping down their faces.
"Not once?" Grif whispered to Azer.
"Seems like it. That was a hard kick, too," Azer replied.
"Your call," Grif said, looking back at Kovaki and her fellow kidnappers as they approached.
"Let's do it."
"Milo," Grif said, looking at Milo seriously. "Stay back."
# # #
The moment Milo stepped back, Azer and Grif sprinted towards the three attackers, focusing on Kovaki. They dodged and weaved around Gorr and Ether's attacks with grace as if they'd fought the kidnappers dozens of times before. They ducked and slid under every kick, punch, and attack. Grif slid under the legs of Ether and Azer, throwing aside Gorr's floating limb.
And, finally, after knocking away Ether and Gorr, Grif positioned himself behind Kovaki. He let out a blast of electricity, knocking her towards Azer. And, at the same time, Azer was sprinting towards Kovaki, fist raised and poised to strike.
Through the rain, a black mist rose out from Azer's skin. It flared from his whole body, leaving a short, dark trail behind him as he ran, and something strange began to happen. Subconsciously, Azer was focusing his will onto the arm he was ready to punch with. This subconscious moved the black mist, that fiery energy in his body, into his shoulder and arm. Invisible floodgates opened within his body, letting the energy flow and surge into his biceps.
Whether he knew it or not, Azer's arm contained all of the S.R. in his body.
Kovaki, still flying towards Azer from Grif's blast, hit Azer's fist, which was traveling at sonic speed into Kovaki's chest. The punch released a boom and made a cracking noise as it landed. Kovaki and Azer both staggered back.
Kovaki was slumped over, eyes wide, clutching her chest. She let out gasps of pain and surprise.
Azer, shocked at his own power, stood in tired stillness for a moment as the S.R. wore off, the power trickling away like water. He looked at his fist. There was blood on his knuckles, and it wasn't his own. He collapsed from sheer exhaustion, causing a tiny splash in a rainwater puddle.
Kovaki's chest dripped blood, pooling on the ground beneath. A great crack in her ultrahard skin stretched all the way from her chest to her neck, up to a portion of her face. She let out an agonized scream that pierced the humid air.
Milo and Grif rushed over to Azer, helping him up and praising him. But Azer couldn't hear anything over Kovaki's drawn-out shrieks.
For a moment, it felt like the fight was over. But that hope vanished a second later when an enraged Gorr grabbed the heads of Azer and Grif and smashed them together. Pain shot through Azer's injured skull. Gorr, with Azer too tired to fight back, repeatedly hit his absent face into the alley wall, cursing.
"YOU!"
But before Gorr could utter another word, he shook violently as Grif unloaded amperes of electricity into his body.
"Azer, get up! Please! We have to finish this!" Grif pleaded.
The words hardly reached Azer's mind. He was in too much pain and far too shaken to react. The surge of S.R. he had produced had all but shut down his body.
But he mustered his willpower. His broken and drained body got up slowly, one fist on the ground at a time.
A flurry of needles shot through the air towards the two, but were blocked by a large vine that had sprouted out of the ground, shielding the blows before disintegrating.
"You're not hurting another one of my friends!" Milo roared towards Ether.
She let out a frustrated growl, threw her arm to the side, and a massive metallic needle materialized in the air and fell into her hand—a long, thin javelin. Milo, in turn, sprouted a wooden plant from the ground, also javelin-shaped, and plucked it from its roots. He faced her with determination.
"Kovaki, I'm not leaving him alive anymore!" she yelled. "This kid dies!"
But Kovaki could not make a noise in response. She was still slumped over in agonized shock. Her eyes were unfocused and red, staring aimlessly. Ether attacked Milo wildly with the giant needle.
"Azer, listen to me," Grif said, cautiously watching the cultists, talking fast. "I know you're hurt. I know you're tired. But I need you to get up one more time. I need you to do what you did to Kovaki, one more time. She's almost down. She's in shock. You've completely destroyed her pride. One more strike, I beg you. Please, Azer. Get up."
Azer groaned and pulled himself to standing. Everything hurt, everything was so heavy—his battered head, his stinging arm, his clothes, the rain falling on his body. It was all so… heavy.
He gathered his voice.
"I'll do it."
A heavy splash sounded behind them.
"What… are you doing…?"
It was Kovaki. Her eyes were darker and redder than ever. She towered over them, her stance lopsided, blood no longer flowing from the crack in her exoskeleton. There was no longer any hint of a calm or collected demeanor—she was hellbent on killing Azer and Grif, whatever the cost. Her bloodlust was palpable.
She raised a flat hand and swung it down at them with frightening force. The two ducked and dove, but Azer was nicked by her strike, his shoulder now cut and bleeding. Her hand hit the wall behind them, smashing it and creating an explosion of dust and rubble.
The wall, from the spot Kovaki hit, cracked and morphed as it turned into hyper-hard pure carbon. The change in density and hardness caused more cracks in the wall, until pieces began to fall out. Concrete dust spewed out into the air as the pieces cracked and crumbled.
"What kind of power is that?!" Grif exclaimed. "Is she turning that wall into pure carbon, too?!"
And then, without hesitation, she prepared another attack. She lifted a leg and stomped the ground near Azer and Grif, who barely rolled out of the way. The ground cracked and snapped as it morphed into dense pure carbon, spewing yet more dust into the rainy air.
"Azer, hurry! She's gonna kill us!"
"I'm trying!"
He was, but the energy wasn't coming. There was no longer any hint of his Val.
Kovaki went for another attack—a kick, this time—and it forced both Azer and Grif to roll away, sprawling on the ground. Azer got up again, but Grif wasn't as quick. Kovaki stomped on his fingers, causing Grif to yell out in pain.
When Kovaki lifted her foot, Grif's fingers were still on the ground, now made of Kovaki's pure carbon. The ground underneath was fusing the two together. Grif couldn't move his own hand.
"I- can't- get- up!" he yelled with panic.
Kovaki looked up toward the sky. In her state of cold fury and bloodlust, she smiled. She smiled as she let the rain hit her face.
"Isn't the rain beautiful?" she asked nobody in particular. Azer was still in shock, but he began to feel energy return to him. Kovaki was silent for a moment as Grif struggled to get up.
"Haise told me that The Shades is a storm. I wonder what kind of rain falls then? Rain falls fast, you know," she said, extending an arm over Grif. "And I can turn anything into pure carbon."
Her hand extended over Grif, as if blocking the rain from hitting him. Nothing seemed to be happening at first, but, suddenly, Grif let out a yelp of pain.
A small wound appeared on Grif as he tried to desperately remove his hand, fused to the ground. Then another wound appeared, then another. They kept appearing at random intervals, each one making him grunt with pain. Azer tried to help, but nothing worked; Grif was being attacked by something Azer couldn't see.
Azer looked at Kovaki's hand, dripping with rainwater. He noticed that the rain she touched was turning hard and dense, made of the same enigmatic pure carbon she manipulated. And it fell at the same speed, retaining its momentum. Incredibly hard and dense, it created powerful bullets of rain that struck Grif's body, puncturing his skin.
"STOP!" Azer cried, grabbing Kovaki and doing everything he could to move her arm. But his efforts were fruitless. She continued to rain havoc down on his best friend.
"STOP HURTING HIM!" Azer cried again. He tried shielding Grif, but the hard and dense raindrops were even enough to pierce Azer's abnormally tough skin. Grif spoke, his voice raspy and pained:
"Don't… focus on me. Get Kovaki. Finish her."
Azer left the carbon rain and turned towards Kovaki, who was still staring down at Grif. He felt the welcome sensation of S.R. fill his body, and then, with enough concentration, focused the hot energy onto his arm. His muscles were screaming with fatigue, but he continued. And, with one final swing, he threw his arm into Kovaki's torso.
Another crack, another boom, another sensation of infinite exhaustion. He heard Kovaki backing away. He willed his body to look up at her, to make sure she was dead, to make sure she was gone… but she was, in fact, still alive. Azer fell to his knees.
A gurgling and pained laugh emerged from Kovaki, filling the narrow alleyway.
"I… I knew… you would go for another attack…" She went into a coughing fit, and then spit out a mouthful of blood. "So I turned the concrete dust around me… into a shield of pure carbon…"
The floating concrete dust around Azer had a different quality to it—edged and hard, it had slowed Azer's punch enough to be survivable.
Kovaki's laugh grew into a cackle as Azer fell to the ground.
"You lose!" she boasted, approaching him slowly. "My faith is unbeatable! I-"
Whether it had been there the whole time or if it had magically appeared, Azer noticed a dark, black figure behind Kovaki. Tall and cloaked, the figure stood still, and Azer could just barely make out a pair of ghastly white eyes underneath the cloak.
The figure reached a hand out towards Kovaki, and in a blast of darkness, she was thrown across the alleyway. It must have been Azer's imagination, he thought.
Portals, perfect ovals in midair, as dark as nothingness, spontaneously appeared, from which rotted hands emerged, grabbing Ether, who was frozen with shock. She was pulled into the portal and disappeared with a surprised shriek. Gorr, getting up, stared at the figure with terror and awe, and ran away frantically.
It was principal Dr. D from the Battle Academy.
"LEAVE!" Dr. D boomed, his voice magnified. "OR YOU DIE!"
Before Azer could even consider whether the command was for him, Kovaki scrambled out of the alleyway and was gone in an instant. Dr. D kneeled down towards Azer and carefully removed the hood of his cloak, showing the full face of Itell D. Ortum. He looked down between Azer, Grif, and Milo sadly, his white eyes mournful.
"I'm sorry," he said quietly, yet Azer could understand him clearly. "I'm sorry it took me this long."
# # #
Azer and Grif stepped out of the hospital doors accompanied by Dr. D, greeting the wet and cool night. The hospital windows were the only source of light, save for a few street lamps illuminating the asphalt.
"I suspect you want answers sooner than later. Will you both grab my arms? I want to take you somewhere," Dr. D asked kindly.
They each grabbed one of Dr. D's arms, who closed his eyes. In a swift, loud whoosh and a puff of black smoke, they were gone, having disappeared from the outside of the hospital.
Azer felt like he had painlessly disintegrated into gas. He traveled in a dizzying whoosh of darkness and color, until he landed on hard ground again, fully back to normal, just outside the Battle Academy.
"Don't be alarmed, it's only my Val. I can transport myself into and out of any shadow within a certain radius."
Dr. D promptly brushed both of his hands together and then peered down at the two boys before gesturing for them to follow and enter the school.
"Now, I'm sure you are both brimming with questions, all of which I'm happy to answer. Let me first say, I regret that our first proper meeting had to happen the way it did."
"Is Torbe going to be okay?" Azer croaked.
Dr. D looked down.
"Torbe… did not make it. I'm sorry. Know that it's not your fault. What happened to Torbe was an act of evil in the world, evil that you bravely conquered."
They turned a corner in the hallway and traveled down a passage Azer had never seen before.
"It is unprofessional for me as a teacher to show any kind of favoritism to anyone. But I put that aside out of a mix of sympathy and self-reflection, seeing my own past in you two. Your curiosity towards the mysteries of this strange world we live in is inspiring."
"What past? What happened to you?" Azer asked.
"Like you, I found myself alone, stranded on a world I didn't understand. I explored and traveled my world to find my past, but found nothing. So I came here. I found my passion in teaching, and founded the Battle Academy."
"Wait, you founded the Battle Academy?!" Grif exclaimed. "But that was-"
"Eighty years ago, yes," Dr. D finished.
"But does that mean that you're-"
"Eighty years old? I am. Now we're getting closer to the mystery, aren't we?"
Azer and Grif stared at each other, bewildered.
"You two find your pasts a mystery. All three of us do not know precisely who we are or where we came from. I woke up eighty years ago at the same age I find myself today."
Dr. D opened an inconspicuous door and urged the two boys inside. It was a janitor's closet, with cleaning materials and a vacuum lying on one wall, the other wall bare and painted. Dr. D ran his long, pale fingers over a spot on the ceiling, and then watched as the bare wall became more and more transparent. A long, downwards-sloping corridor was visible behind it, and Dr. D walked through the now clear wall and down the corridor. Azer and Grif followed, taking second glances at the vanished wall.
"Dr. D, I have another question," Grif said. Dr. D's white eyes turned towards him. "Why did you show yourselves to us today? Aside from saving us and everything, I mean. Couldn't you have just blown up the kidnappers and ran away?"
"I showed myself to you because I felt that you are ready to join our cause. I wanted you to find me, and you did."
"What do you mean? We didn't."
"But you did. You found Haise's journal in the teachers room-"
Azer and Grif tensed up.
"No, you're not going to get in trouble for that. I practically led you there."
"You said our cause? Who are you talking about?" Azer asked.
"Ah, I'm glad you asked! When I told you I knew nothing of our pasts, that was not completely true. A group of very trusted individuals and I have formed a group dedicated to discovering that exact thing. Not just our pasts, see, but a theory that I believe may explain our pasts, along with many, many other mysteries of this world, and possibly worlds beyond. In fact, my fellow coworkers should be upon us now."
Dr. D pushed open another door to reveal an extensive laboratory, full of equipment and a massive store of maps, books, and files. Three other people were in the room, the closest one both Azer and Grif immediately recognized.
"Mrs. Korca?!" Grif exclaimed.
Mrs. Korca, Grif's wild-haired and big-eyed science teacher, turned away from a document she was sifting through at the sound of Grif's voice. Her face broke into a smile.
"Grif!"
"What are you doing here?! I didn't know you worked with Dr. D!"
Before answering his question, Mrs. Korca turned to Dr. D.
"I take it they're joining us, then?"
"Yes. They've been through a terrible ordeal, and I should get them back to the hospital soon." Seeing the shocked look on her face, he said, "I'll fill you in later."
The sound of their voices had grabbed the attention of the other two people, and they gathered closer around Dr. D. The first was Delvin, their combat class teacher, and another older man with blondish-white hair and a sullen face.
"Azer, Grif, I would like for you to meet Pascal," he gestured towards Mrs. Korca who waved excitedly, "who has a pressure control Val, hence her codename. You two already know her."
"Next I would like you to meet Zeph, with his wind Val." He gestured towards Delvin. "Who I believe you're familiar with as well. His real name is Delvin Rawins, an environmental science teacher at the Battle Academy."
"Finally, I would like you to meet Twice, a historian with the power of dual minds." Dr. D gestured towards the sullen-faced man, and Azer felt an odd sense of familiarity. "His real name is Okta Sastrugi, father of one of your classmates, Ecat Sastrugi."
And then it clicked—that face looked awfully similar to one Azer was all too familiar with, one that he despised greatly. It was the face of Copycat, who only that morning had attacked Azer and Grif. Okta must have known what had happened to Copycat earlier that day.
"And, finally, myself," Dr. D finished. "I am Shadow, otherwise known as Itell D. Ortum, or Dr. D. My Val involves the control and manipulation of Death. Together, we're called Team Virga."
"Team Virga is a cause dedicated to unraveling the many mysteries of Manim. For a long time, we've worked together on a grand theory. This theory, which also concerns my past and your pasts, is a long one, a theory that cannot be covered in a night. In truth, you two have already been uncovering pieces of it on your own. It is unfinished, but the significance I believe this theory has on our world is unheard of to the common citizen. But I will tell you this: this theory involves a few very interesting things: A virus, our planet, and the phenomenon that we all know as The Shades."