Drabble

"Drabble"
Part 10
by Osiris Brackhaus

January 2nd, 78oC (probably 2355 old reckoning)

Heavy sleet was falling down from the leaden sky, thick drops mixed with shards of ice forming an opaque shroud above the city.
Never before had I seen such miserable weather, but it definitely suited our moods.

Standing in front of the apartment building John and his sister Sienna were living in, both Heath and myself stood in the pouring rain, knowing that this was quite probably the last fight we would ever embark on.

Deciding to go against John directly hadn't been an easy decision, but in the end, the only option.

We couldn't convince anyone of our theories as long as he could dictate what the backmind of the Knowing Born took for the real thing.
To the world, we were outlaws, dangerous, deranged and to be brought down on sight. But as much as the world was bound to what John wanted them to believe, it was also bound to what he knew. Or, more importantly, what he didn't know.

Wondering why we hadn't been immediately tracked down by the council, my sword-brother and I had come to the conclusion that apparently, John had truly gained utter control of the council and basically all humanity by taking control of the backmind. But, in the same move, made the backmind only contain the information he wanted, and knew. Allowing any of the oracles use their true talents would probably give them too high a chance to realize that they all were running on faked information in the first place.

And that was what we had to make our advantage from.

John was immune to magic as far as we knew. But that didn't mean a mundane sword wouldn't kill him. We would just have to get him away from the populated area and force him to fight. If we managed to keep him running hard enough, the council would be hard pressed to catch up and send enforcements. The council would refrain from teleporting Wardens until it was the very last option, so the real forces would always arrive far behind both us and Johnny. Within that time span, we would have to kill John or at least disable or distract him sufficiently to allow the council to realize what truly had been going on.

At least, that much for theory. There were still huge parts of the whole thing we hadn't been able to put together, and that made my stomach churn. We had already once completely misjudged our adversary's powers, and with so many details not fitting into the picture we had made of him, what we did was, to put it politely, a calculated risk. A risk with the odds overwhelmingly against us.

"Have you ever been inside their actual apartment?", I asked Heath who was standing next to me in the rain.

My brother just shook his head.

"So we seriously ring the bell and hope he's mad enough to go directly against us?"

"That's the plan."

"That's not a plan. That's despair."

Heath shrugged and stepped forward to press the doorbell. "So what."

<You...!>

Apparently, there was no need for the bell any longer. By whatever little trick, Johnny must have noticed us standing there.

<We're here to stop you.> Heath's mental voice didn't leave even a sliver of doubt that he firmly believed we were able to do as he had announced. <I am the Warden, and I will prevail.>

Our opponent's answer was nothing but a mental howl, enraged and furious. But his intent to hurl himself at us was clear enough without words.

<We'll wait for you at the beach.>, I thought at him just as I grabbed my sword-brother's arm and teleported.

Though, to my greatest surprise and displeasure, it wasn't the beach we re-appeared on. Instead we materialized in the middle of the docks, with huge containers, cranes and tons of people everywhere. This was precisely the kind of place we had tried NOT to end up fighting in.

<Fuck> Heath was just as confused as myself. <Now how did that ->

<FOOLS!> John's voice thundered though our minds and made me wince with its sheer volume. <You really thought you could outsmart me? Your vanity is hilarious.>

"Where is he?", Heat asked, his sword appearing in his hands instantly. "He's gotta be here somewhere!"

Without thinking, I had my blades out as well, just in case. Heath was slowly circling around, searching for any sign of our opponent.
By now, the first people had noticed us, and their reactions varied from instinctive flight to stunned staring.

"Clear this place!", I yelled, enhancing my voice so it rolled down the whole docks. "This is not a drill. Clear the area!" Luckily, most people understood that whatever was happening, it was not their place to act heroic. We still had the weapons and the bearing of Wardens, and the rather flamboyant way of appearing distinctively underlined the urgency of our call.

<Still afraid for those pathetic puppets?> Johnny's mental voice rumbled in the back of our minds, coming from no discernible direction. <You're so weak.>

Right in front of us, a man who had been hiding behind a huge wall of containers apparently thought that now was the ideal moment to run and leave our immediate vicinity. I tried to yell at him to stop, but there was too little time for him to even react. He hadn't noticed the huge truck coming around the corner of his shelter, and got run over in a most messy reminder of how much liquid there actually was in a human body. Having tried to dodge the man, the truck's driver lost control of the massive vehicle and slammed into another pile of barrels.

I was still wondering about the odd precision the topmost barrels started falling right at the spot where we were standing as Heath basically hurled himself at me, teleporting us out of the immediate danger.

<What a fuck...>, my brother thought, but my mind was still occupied with the immense improbability these in itself all but odd events had added up to.

Almost reflexively, I checked if we had started rippling again, but there was only the artificial calm the orichalcum globes produced around us in mindscape. The artifacts wouldn't last the next minutes if we went on like this, but then again, neither would we.

"Life will be so much nicer once you stop messing up things," our opponent's voice came from around an abandoned car on the pier we were now standing on. "So much nicer."

Stepping around the car, there was John, smiling grimly, wearing sneakers and a training outfit as if we had just disturbed him out of a nice, cozy morning in front of his video game. Yet what was far more disturbing was that he hadn't come unarmed, for there was a distinct aura of unnatural power around him, and a gun in his hand that made our heart probably miss the same few beats.

<He was in the vault!>, Heath thought in alarm, fully aware that he was only stating the fact we already had feared to know. <He mustn't use the damned thing!>

<Mustn't I?>, Johnny asked mentally, and his amusement could be seen plain in his face. <And who would stop me?>

"We, if necessary", Heath stated firmly and stepped up to our former fellow student. "And don't you ever -"

Right then, I had sufficiently regained orientation after the teleport to realize that Heath and John were both acting out the classical high-noon facedown. With a whispered word and a gesture, I took control of the car Johnny was still standing next to, then with a yell hurled the whole ton of metal and plastic against his hopefully still mortal body.
With a hardly hidden feeling of glee I saw his body dent the car's metal for a split second, then the spinning vehicle took him out of sight. Screeching and creating sparks on the pier's rough concrete, the car slid on for a few dozen feet and then came to a grinding halt.

<Wow.> Heath thought appreciative. <That was a mean one.>

"Hopefully mean enough", I replied, for as far as I was concerned, this whole story was over only when I felt his weird powers leave. Not that I would have felt them either way, but the council hadn't called and congratulated yet.

Taking up a swift run, my brother jogged over to the wrecked car and checked for a body. <Brother?>, he asked after a few seconds, and by the sound of his mental voice I could already tell that his findings didn't bode too well.

<Nope. Not even blood. Though I can almost see his stupid face minted into the hood of the car. You must have hit him like a ->

Suddenly, there was a screeching sound, more in our heads than our ears, and the car my brother was still busy looking under... well, changed. Like cut out by giant, three-dimensional pair of scissors, the whole thing lost its structure, its meaning, producing the dreaded black-and-purpled veins and tears that always indicated a violent disturbance of the equilibrium.
Reflexively, Heath hurled himself away as far as he could from the thing, wisely not daring to use any kind of magic right next to a ripped causality like this.

Simultaneously, a howl full of rage and pain filled both the air and the mindscape, and this time, we were all able to pinpoint the source.

Only a few steps away from where the car had initially been standing, John was clutching his left shoulder, his arm hanging limply at his side. Around him, the same black-and-purple tears were darting, and for a moment, all three of us were busy piecing together what must have happened.

Staring in open-mouthed wonder, Heath now stood next to a huge beige pick-up truck, its metal hood still mangled by a heavy impact, but this time, it was smeared with blood.

<Out of our league, huh?>, Heath quoted our opponent, his comment dripping with caustic sarcasm. By now, the tell-tale dark signs of a broken causality were fading quickly, and once more, my brother took his sword in both hands, walking towards Johnny. <If there had been any proof needed that you were more brawn than brain, you just delivered it in perfect form. Boy, have you NEVER listened when they told you not to use offensive temporal powers?"

"Fuck you", John grunted, apparently most annoyed at the less-than-satisfactory effect of his little toy. Carelessly dropping the balefire gun on the ground, he clapped his hands, with a huge broadsword instantly appearing. "That guy could just as well have taken a bike to work."

"Yeah. Sure. Just as well as he could have taken a train." Snickering at the image of his own joke, Heath suddenly jumped up in his trademark somersault and brought down his sword on our opponent.

But with a fluid grace I had never dared to imagine in his huge body, Johnny brought up his own weapon and parried my brother's blow in perfect style. Too close to stop his attack, Heath continued to strike at him, but each blow was parried with a flawlessness that bordered on magic. Even worse, John became more and more confident with his new weapon, and even though his left arm wasn't of much use to him, he managed to push Heath back step by step.

Suddenly, he had my brother standing with his back against the side of the upturned truck, and for a few seconds, their fight halted.

"Impressed?", Johnny asked over their crossed blades.

"Massively", my brother admitted in genuine awe, breathing hard, yet far too caught up in the skillful exercise to be afraid.

"Yeah. Me too." John grinned widely, then added: "I love those weapons that come with a plug-and-play user's guide. They really knew how to build stuff in the old days."

"Really?" Heath grinned, apparently thinking of something outrageous once again. "Then let's see if they built your toy well enough to match the real thing!"

And without a discernible delay, he teleported out from under Johnny's ugly nose. Instantly reappearing behind his opponent, Heath would have easily sliced John in two if he only had come out in the right angle. Changing the direction you faced to during a jump wasn't too difficult, but it was a tricky thing. And apparently, Heath had just misjudged the corrections he had needed to come up facing Johnny's back. So instead of skewering his kidneys, my brother's sword only swished through empty air.

Unfortunately, our opponent didn't seem to suffer from such little mistakes. Fluent and far too graceful for his heavy build, John ducked away and brought up his sword in a steep arch, piercing the supernatural shields my brother had erected around himself and inflicting a deep cut on Heath's chest, a little above his heart.

I could feel the searing pain wash over him, as I would have felt my own body wounded, but I forced myself to concentrate. I would be of little help if I now started cringing from a pain that wasn't even mine, instead I would have to think.

In front of me, Heath and John were once again engaged in their deadly dance, both moving faster, more fluid and aware than a mortal should ever be able to. My brother clearly was better able to adjust his speed, his movements defying gravity and momentum to a degree that was almost painful to watch, but he still was hard-pressed to stand against Johnny's magically acquired master swordsmanship.
With the two of them locked in close combat, I was reluctant to throw in any distraction of my own making. They were both moving fast, and even though John wasn't any quicker than a well-trained human, my brother darted here and there in a most shameless display of magical skills, too fast even for me to guess ahead.

And besides, I was unnerved to no end as John's cursed talent seeped any finesse out of my sensory magics, making me rely almost exclusively on mundane perceptions. There truly was no way I could go against him in a direct attack, and there was nothing indirect that jumped into my mind right then.

Except, maybe... Concentrating hard, I tried to focus not on John, but on his sword. Mulled as my perceptions around him were, the blade's vainglorious enchantment still couldn't be completely muted. Pulsing with power, the enchantment felt pretty much like a lion's roar in a soundproof room - even though it was only a soft noise that reached your ears, there was little doubt about its origins. And if things could get out, there just had to be a way in as well.

Johnny definitely was too occupied keeping my brother from slicing him to think of shielding such secondary effects from someone as far from his current fight as I was.
Unweaving the spell felt weird, like repairing fuses in a dark room, not knowing which of the lines I touched were still under current and which not. But step-by-step, the sword's enchantment gave away the secrets of its structure, separating parts from the whole, loosening safeguards, until the few parts that actually kept the enchantment where it was were lying in front of my mind's eye.

I knew I had to hurry, for I could feel Heath's heartbeat straining against the constant stress, could feel Heath struggling to control the flow of blood from the wound on his chest, his heartbeat, his speed and motions and the fight itself all at once. Time was running out, and I had to keep myself from rushing, because that was the one way to surely waste precious time.

And time was a thing we definitely had far to little of.

So when finally I snapped apart the last of the enchantment's binding elements, it literally was the very last chance. I was quite sure Heath hadn't noticed yet, and I could have bet John was completely oblivious, but there suddenly was a distinct buzz of magic in the air that was none of our making. And that could only mean that the council's forces had arrived, Wardens to fight Wardens, and we sure as hell had no time to waste.

But bereft of his supernatural skills, it only took our opponent a heartbeat to let his guard slip, and with a single mighty blow, Heath knocked the sword out of Johnny's hand, making it fly in a spinning arch all across the pier and into the murky water of the port. Breathing hard, John was clenching his bleeding hand, his eyes staring at my brother, as he was about to deliver his final blow.

But as if all bad luck in the world had chosen to be with us today, right then a dark shadow fell from the sky, turning into the shape of a woman who blocked Heath's sword with her spear. I knew her, she was a Warden like us, but right then, her name just didn't came to my mind.

"Leave the civilian", she spat at my brother, full of disgust. "If you have to fight, take on those of your league."

There were other Wardens around, I could feel them in the mindscape like a fish would feel other things move in the water. And yet, there still was a tiny chance for us to get out of this at least alive. For they were Wardens, and though well capable of using powerful magics, they would also be very reluctant to do so as they were still under the full law of the equilibrium.
Unlike us.

So while my brother tried to get around the first Warden and strike a lethal blow at the currently unarmed and pretty breathless John, I turned my concentration outward.

"SUL'MAR NIV, EMN IN SARR", I whispered, though for all those with a little knowledge of magic things my words must have rolled through the mindscape like thunder. "EV'RI NARIM, SUL'MAR SUR!"

And with a clap, not so unlike a giant helmet closing, a dome of shimmering energy big enough to encompass the better length of the whole pier appeared, cutting us of from both the magic and the mundane outside.
Normally, a spell like this would have quite easily been able to eradicate a whole city block, but as I had hoped, what remained of my orichalcum globe had still been potent enough to swallow even this audacity.

Turning my attention back towards my brother and his fight, I had realized that despite the improbability of it, Johnny was nowhere to be seen. Instead, my brother was now fighting hard to keep the female Warden from skewering him, and this time, he faced an opponent with as little respect for the limits of a human body as himself.

But this time we were facing an opponent who was, though quite well protected, for a change pleasantly susceptible to magic attacks.

So abandoning subtlety for speed, I resorted to the kind of means that our teachers always had warned us never ever to use. Hurling my will at her shields with more force than I would ever had dared to under normal circumstances, I just froze her in time.

Caught unprepared, Heath slammed his sword against her side, but a body in stasis couldn't move nor could be moved, as my brother once more found out the hard way.

"Damn!", he shouted, rubbing his aching wrist with a deep frown. "Couldn't you have warned me beforehand?"

<No time>, I replied mentally, <And we should hurry on. The shield won't protect us forever.>

"Where's this asshole?"

"Hiding, I suspect, but probably not too far away." Walking up to my sword-brother, I put my hand against his bleeding chest, smiling painfully as he flinched. With a whispered word, I superficially closed the wound, hoping we would soon find the time to heal it properly. "We have to hurry."

"We must find him."

Heath nodded grimly. Without sending away his sword, he hugged me around my waist, teleporting us away from the pier, breaching my shield with as little subtlety as I had used in erecting it.

Only a few hundred meters away from the shield's perimeter, concealed from view by the walls of a huge warehouse, we returned into physical space.

"Are you still keeping up the shield?", my brother asked as he peeped around the corner and found the shimmering dome still intact.

"Yep. Keeps them guessing."

"Its still creeping me out the other Wardens can't just feel us standing here."

"Same with me. And we should be endlessly grateful for this little flaw of John's otherwise so all-encompassing plan."

"You almost sound impressed."

"Might be because I am. Have you noticed how many little things have gone wrong as soon as we engaged him?"

My sword-brother nodded grimly, still surveying the pier and its surroundings.

"I am just wondering how that fits into Johnny's set of skills."

"You think - " Heath turned around and stared at me, blinking. "Yeah. Taken altogether it's just too improbable for him not to be the cause."

"Maybe if we - ", I started, but was cut off as a broad figure in heavy police armor stepped into the narrow alleyway we were standing in.

"You, there!", a female voice ordered sharply, her voice sounding impersonal as it came through the outside speakers of her helmet. "Hurry, this is no place for civilians to stand - "

Right then, she must have noticed the Warden's sword in my brother's hand and froze. Taking a cautious step back, she raised her hands in a defensive gesture, her palms towards us. At least, she was smart enough to know that there was little sense in going against a Warden with nothing but a slug gun and self-confidence.

But she was still a danger none-the-less, and I could already feel Heath concentrate on knocking her out magically. As much as we Wardens relied on our supernatural talents, the police relied on technology, and there was little doubt that she was linked to her office by com, and probably even by a camera as well.
And yet, there was this distinctive itch in the back of my mind that told me this was important.

<Stop>, I thought towards my sword-brother, <Not yet.>

Heath frowned at me, physically as well as mentally, yet halted his spell that would have turned the woman unconscious.

"Officer Callahan, is that you?", I asked hesitantly. "Leeta?"

The armored figure in front of us didn't show any reaction, but I knew I was guessing right.

"Leeta, please, whatever they told you, we're no threat to you."

"But...", she said, and even the impersonal speakers weren't able to mask her insecurity. Then, as if she had decided that there was very little use in hesitating anyway, she opened her helmet, blinking at us in the still pouring rain. "They told us you fell to Madness."

She took a few steps towards us, still looking as if she didn't know yet if we were to be trusted or not. Up close, I could see her left eye was covered by an ugly black bruise, and I wondered where that had come from. This whole moment just felt too... preordained as if there could be anything of coincidence in this.

A few steps ahead of us, Leeta stopped and watched both of us carefully. Then, slowly, she raised her gloved hands to her forehead in greeting, saying: "Maybe I'm not the smartest girl around, Wardens, but your eyes still look into the same reality as mine. I don't really understand, but I can sure as hell tell you there's something massively fishy going on."

"How can she...", Heath asked in pleasant surprise, looking at me.

"We just hang out with too many mystics, dear", I replied with a grin. "Our opponent may control many things, but a free-thinking and completely mundane spirit like our friend here is very hard to reach with such subtle means."

"You mean because she doesn't rely on the backmind, she - "

"Hey!", Leeta snarled rather amused. "Would you two stop talking of me as if I weren't there?"

"Oh, I'm sorry." Heath grinned disarmingly. "We're just no longer used to people that don't just run and scream when we show up."

"I have switch off my com, but it won't be long until someone will notice", Leeta explained. "Any way I can help you?"

"Not really." Heath sounded dispirited. "But thanks."

"Tell me, Leeta, where'd that bruise come from?", I asked, still having this tugging feel to the back of my mind.

The blond officer grinned widely, somehow reminding me of a woman asked about the one-carat engagement ring on her finger.

"That's one I owe to you", she said, "and one I am endlessly grateful for. Remember what you told me when I asked you about my partner?"

"To go and confront him."

"You said I should thrash him if that was what he needed." Again, she grinned widely. "And so I did."

"Where's he now?", I asked, almost feeling Heath's silent urged to hurry in my back.

"I, umm, accidentally broke his collarbone, and he's doubling as my operator until he's fit for active duty again."

"And?"

If possible, her grin widened another notch. Unlatching her left glove, she took out her hand, this time seriously presenting a plain golden ring. "We were both sent to hospital after our... discussion, and that gave us time to speak."

"And straighten things out, apparently." Bouncing happily, I hugged her. "I'm so happy for you."

"Glad the two of you are happy", Heath noted surly, scanning the sky. "I can feel some vehicle flying around the area, a flitter probably, but I can't see a thing."

Turning my senses outwards, I had to agree with him. There was the distinct feeling of a solid body moving through the air, but there was neither a sound nor a sight that would usually accompany a flitter.

"What's wrong?", Leeta asked, alertness in her voice. "Can't you just, well, do some of your magic?"

"Not with so many other Wardens around." Heath rubbed his nose and scanned the sky again. "Chances are they will pinpoint us as soon as we do anything stronger than breathing, and we just can't afford another fight while our real problem is running from us once more."

"What you said your partner is doing now?", I asked Leeta.

"Doubling as my operator, I said." She frowned at me for a second, then all three of us basically simultaneously said:

"Air surveillance."

Leeta took a deep breath, then apparently reactivated her com and asked:

"Operator?" Silently, she waited for a reply we couldn't hear, then added. "Danny, I need your help. No time, just do, I'll explain later. Get me the current air surveillance screen on my wrist display."

Apparently, 'Danny' needed a few seconds to do as he had been told, but then a small, greenish holographic screen appeared in the air along Leeta's left forearm.

"What precisely are we looking for?", she asked, looking at us.

"A small glider, a flitter maybe", Heath replied. "Probably with a technical cloaking device."

Vaguely impressed, Leeta raised her eyebrows.

"Have him get us a close-up of the sea-side end of the pier.", I told her, feeling my sword-brother think in the same direction.

Officer Callahan forwarded our instructions, and it only took a few seconds for her screen to display the area we had asked for.

"If it's something to get Johnny out of the way, he'd be a fool to leave via the end of the pier where he have half a dozen Wardens trying to pierce the shield he would just walk through." I nodded silently at my brother's explanation, scanning the screen for anything that might give us a hint.

"Can he switch to infra-red?", Heath asked. He had always known better how to use tech.

"I'll ask him." Again, Leeta relayed the information to her operator, and only seconds later the screen changed again. This time, the distinct trace of a flitter's engines showed up neatly, with a huge splotch of hot air some meters beyond the sea-side end of my shield.

"Just don't ask", Leeta said apparently in reply to a question we hadn't heard. "Can you identify the craft?"

Both Heath and I watched rather impressed as the screen changed several times again, each change revealing new detail about the cloaked vehicle. And its passengers.
In sickeningly wrong colors, we watched a shape that vaguely hinted at a massive male human enter the flitter with insecure steps, while another, slender person seemed to steer the vehicle.

"It's suppressing its ID", Leeta told us, adding: "Two people, one male, one probably female."

I tried not to look at my sword-brother, for there was only one woman I could immediately think of who would help John. And that surely would be a painful truth for Heath.

"The flitter's type has been identified as a vintage Gorvin, with custom modifications. And it's leaving the pier - heading for the sea."

All three of us looked up in slight irritation. Where was he going?

The holo-screen above Leeta's arm adjusted to a larger scale as the vehicle left the immediate area of the pier and flew out towards the open sea. Then, suddenly, the flitter disappeared from the screen.

"Danny?", Leeta asked urgently. "What's happening?"

For a few seconds, nothing happened, then the screen change once again, shoving a fuzzy splotch that was rapidly growing dimmer.

"He went underwater...", Leeta said, making no attempt to mask the impression in her voice. "What a cool car..."

"An amphibious flitter?", I asked, fighting hard with disbelief. Technical items shouldn't be able to do things like that.

"Why not?", Heath asked with a soft grin, surely noticing my irritation. "No more unusual than flitters with highly effective and illegal cloaking devices."

"We're loosing the signal", Leeta said with frustration in her voice. "The flitter's descending rapidly, and the water's going to swallow the signal if it goes any deeper."

"Can we plot his approximate course if we assume they went down the shortest way?"

Again, Leeta forwarded the question to her operator, and the screen jumped into a larger scale once again. With a certain dismay, I watched the flitter's signal grow even dimmer and finally disappear.
But only a moment later, a broken line appeared along the vehicle's course, ending in a blinking circle a bit further on.

"That's where they would have hit the ground it they descended in a straight line", Leeta said flatly. "Does that help you?"

"More than you will ever know." Heath firmly grabbed his sword, whispering softly. For the first time understanding how my sword-brother had to feel each time he had to watch me use words of power far beyond caution, I watched a golden light blossom on his chest. Almost visibly, the damages tissue healed in basically no time, not even leaving a scar. But the effect didn't stop with an instant healing, but went on to encompass all of his clothing. When the light faded only a heartbeat later, nothing was left of Heath's original outfit. Instead, he was now wearing the heavy, dark-brown leathers we had borrowed when our clothes got destroyed in the raging fires at the Golden City's ancient vault.

"How... subtle."

"Seems your bad habits are rubbing off on me." Grinning ferociously, Heath added: "I'm not going to leave any little advantage behind. Whatever lair he has built for himself, I bet we'll have a hard time down there."

Silently, I nodded, knowing he was absolutely right. However little I was in the mood to go on fighting, there were no real options. Turning towards Officer Callahan, I said:

"Thank you Leeta. And wish us luck, we will need a lot of it."

"Just repaying my debts. And I wish I could do more than just this."

Smiling softly, I acknowledged her offer with a silent nod, then turned towards my sword-brother.

"Ready?", I asked, inwardly hoping I would be able to improvise an underwater re-materialization without killing us in the process.

"Thanks", Heath said in Leeta's direction, then reached with his free hand around my waist. "Let's go."

And with closed eyes and clenched teeth, I jumped.

If you enjoyed this story, please send feedback to: Osiris Brackhaus

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