Chapter 2: Checking In
The screech of the subway train’s brakes shocked Saphire out of her memories. She blinked a few times and tried to shake herself out of her daze as the vehicle lurched to a stop. She wondered briefly as to where the flashback had come from.
It had been years since she had spared that time in her life even a passing thought, but this... this had her stumped. Out of all of the memories from her past years, why that one? She shook her head as she disembarked, causing her platinum blonde hair to sway with the motion. Her sky blue eyes watched the other passengers with little interest as she calculated the speed at which she could wash the dye from her hair when she was finished. She so preferred her natural silver to this. The contacts sucked, too.
What do you know; it was going to be another dull night in the NY. She sighed as she made her way up to ground level and began making rounds in the section of the city that she had ended up at, prowling the streets in disguise like some sort of spy in the dead of night. Few cars passed by, and compared to the usual crowded state of the city, this was almost peaceful.
Saphire tried to remember the reason as to why she was even here. It wasn’t as if they needed a Zoa positioned in this particular version of New York City
And, what the hell! She was the Sh’Kasha now. Shouldn’t she get a say in these things? One of the other Zoas could have easily taken her place. It wasn’t as if there was going to be a major Darkling attack in the next five minutes-
A movement caught her eye. A seemingly insignificant shadow in the trees of a nearby park. Probably central, though it really didn’t matter where it was. A battlefield was a battlefield, as far as she was concerned. The small shadow loped through a hedge, barely disturbing the leaves as it passed through. To any passersby, it could have been a dog; Saphire knew better.
The ungraceful bend to its running style... the shadowlike consistency... the fact that she had not noticed it until she had seen the beast from the corner of her eye. Not to mention the waves of malice pouring off of it.
Darkling.
Swearing to herself, she approached the large, wrought iron gate that separated the park from the public during the night. She checked her watch: Two-o’-five AM. Yep, it was closed. She allowed herself a small grin of satisfaction at her good fortune.
Checking the surrounding area for civilians, she bent her knees, gathered force beneath herself and leapt the fence, clearing it with three feet to spare. She landed in a crouch and immediately rolled behind a bench before peeking out to check once more for witnesses. Satisfied, she righted herself and headed for the bushes.
Saphire peered through a small hole between a knot of branches, scanning the area for the Darkling. She frowned at the lack of evil creatures and slowly began to reveal herself. Which, as it turned out, was a very bad move.
She tensed as a low growling began behind her. The presence was much more prominent, probably belonging to an altogether different creature, as opposed to the small one that she had followed in. She slowly turned to face her adversary.
“Ah, crap.” She groaned, just before the hulking form raised a heavy, clawed forearm to strike. She ducked out of the way, barely missing the poison-laced claws of the Primal- type Darkling. It opened its great maw and roared, the sound actually pushing her back a few feet. Its beak-like muzzle snapped shut as it whirled around and repeated the attack, this time lunging forward at the same time.
Saphire ducked and threw herself to the side, while simultaneously trying to draw a weapon. She reached for her handgun, palming an empty holster on her hip. Damn. She had left that one behind at the safe house hadn’t she?
She rolled to the side to avoid another swipe, landing on her back. Leaping up, she flicked her wrist in a downward motion, causing a large, blue-bladed sword to materialize in her palm. The blade was smooth on one side, jagged on the other, sharp enough to get the job done and then some.
She wielded the blade as an expert, swinging it as if it weighed nothing. Quite a feat, considering that it was as large as she was. She took a single step back as the Darkling made a final attempt on her life, its black carapace reflecting the far-off street lamps. She brought the smooth side down upon it, slicing clean through its chest and piercing the only spot in which it was truly weak: its heart. It collapsed in a heap as watery black blood leaked from the wound.
Saphire was still breathing heavily a moment later, when it began to disintegrate. It dissolved into shadow before the material evaporated, leaving a small, pulsing light. She crouched to examine it, and then tapped it gently. The light flared briefly before winking out of existence. She shook her head and stood. Glancing up, Saphire noticed a small star, almost insignificant when compared to the others. This one was special, however.
She felt an abrupt sadness, and realized that there had been a significant reason for her flashback. Gazing at the small star, she realized that she was... homesick. How many years had it been since she had last seen her mother? Or Taea? Tory and Reyna were her only links back to that place, now that Stet was gone. The small village of Japas, on the mist-shrouded continent of Maiara, on a little planet called Tipana.
Saphire didn’t know how long she had been standing there, staring at the star, but the sound of sirens brought her back from her dazed state. Someone had obviously heard the fight. She glared at the approaching blue and red lights; she didn’t like Earth law enforcement much. Most of the ones that she had met before had put the ass into ‘assume’.
She glanced at the sky once more before turning and running to the opposite end of the park and leaping over the fence, her body dissolving into multihued blue lights as she warped to another world at the apex of the jump.
“Do you have ADD?”
Jaylee seemed startled by the question and stared at Rozz for a moment before she shook her head. She glanced into her mirror once more before snapping it shut, satisfied that her dark hair was piled perfectly upon her head, and turned back to him. She watched the British man carefully, looking for signs of agitation; she wasn’t disappointed.
“You could have fooled me. Pay. Attention.” He picked up a worn book from the table beside him and flipped to a page that seemed to be near the center. He thrust the volume onto the table before her and pointed to a line of symbols. “What does this say?”
She sighed heavily and glared at the foreign glyphs, trying to decipher them. “Um... ‘Th-thine power dost co-... come-ith’... um... I... don’t... know.”
He scowled and pushed his light brown hair back from his face. His slit, forest green eyes showed slight frustration with the girl, who had only been a Zoa for one year now. “Jaylee. You’re a Zoa now. The Zoaan language is supposed to come naturally. Stop trying to read it, and let your mind have a chance to decipher it on its own. Just focus.”
She stared at the line again, and recognition slowly appeared in her expression. “’The power of the Zoa come from the spirits. It is a... trade. The Zoa completes the tasks of the spirits. The spirits lend power, longevity, and magyk.’” She blinked a few times before turning to her ‘tutor’. “Why is magic spelled so... weird?”
He rolled his eyes. “Saphire wrote it. It was probably a typo.”
“That was how it was spelled back then. I don’t make typos.”
Their eyes snapped up to the figure that stood in the doorway of the safe house. Saphire strode past them, mumbling something about ‘stupid freaking brothers always being freaking right about stuff.’
They looked at each other and shrugged, deciding to ignore this latest example of Saphire’s famous temper tantrums.
Saphire stalked through the hallway that led to her brother’s room. She actually had to work to keep herself from kicking the door in, instead knocking softly. A groggy ‘What’ prompted her to open the door and enter the room, oblivious to her brother’s annoyed mutterings at being woken from a dead sleep.
“You were right. There were two Darklings in that world. One of them was a primeval.”
Tory froze and glanced up at Saphire. “Was.” Saphire nodded; her expression held a whole lot of ‘whatever’. “Saph, please tell me that you didn’t go after them without backup? Because that would have been stupid. Really stupid. Who was with you?”
Saphire grinned grimly. “I had Aquia and Glacia.”
Tory scowled. “You’re... unbelievable. Do you have a death wish?”
“I have confidence in my own ability.”
“That’s no excuse for going into an unsecured area, alone, to take on not one but two Darklings. You were so outnumbered, it’s not even funny.”
“One of them was small. Not even a threat. Well, hardly a threat. I was in less danger there than I would have been if I had to worry about someone else.”
“This is about Stet, isn’t it?”
Saphire stared at her brother, her breath coming out in a rush. “Why would you even bring that up?” Her voice shook, the question coming out as a whisper.
“Sis,” Tory sighed. “You can’t keep beating yourself up over this. It’s been, what, ten thousand years?” He looked at her with a mixture of pity and that special authority that only belonged to older siblings. “There was nothing to be done. We weren’t expecting it to show up, and we sure as hell weren’t expecting Serecus to do what he did. Stet went out fighting, just as we all should. You know that he would have wanted you to be happy. And he definitely wouldn’t have wanted you to get yourself killed.”
“He’s not dead.” She whispered.
Tory’s eyebrows pulled together in confusion. “What?”
“He’s still alive. I know it. He’s out there somewhere.”
With that, she turned and left. Her brother sat on the edge of the futon in his room, clearly worried about where this could potentially lead. After a moment, he stood and followed her. He didn’t even bother to knock, seeing as how the door to her room was slightly ajar. He cautiously peeked around the door.
Saphire was sitting on the floor, flipping through a weathered photo album. She didn’t so much as look up as he came into the room and sat next to her.
“Y’know, when I found out about the extra stuff that came with being a Zoa, it made accepting it a lot easier.” Her voice was a weary whisper. “Huge amounts of magic and awesome reflexes? Living for up to 21,000 years? Being able to spend that much time with my loved ones? I was ecstatic. I didn’t even care that I had the fate of the entire universe resting on me. As long as I could be with you and Stet...”
She shook her head as she ran a thin finger over a faded photograph. It showed the old ranks, the Zoas as they had been when they had first joined over sixteen thousand years before. They had been happy then. Tory smiled slightly at the memory.
She flipped pages, and the good mood vanished. The next photo showed them just before the war that had changed them all, some for the worse. It had started as their attempt at helping to free some humans from the oppression of a vampiric empire, and had ended with the shadow elemental, Serecus, turning traitor and freeing the Deassen. Their ancient enemy, the creature that the Zoa’raan had originally sacrificed their physical forms to seal away. He had combined power with it, and had used this power to seal Stet into the only type of world that they had no access to: a zero world. He had been missing ever since.
They had all struggled with this, Saphire more than the others. While Tory had lost a best friend, Saphire had lost something more than that. She had been in a sort of a depression ever since, spending the centuries alone. It was very rare that she would stop in to visit. In fact, Tory was lucky to be able to keep any kind of contact with her; she had a tendency to pick the worlds with the least amount of development, meaning no cell phone service or GPS. She would disappear for days, weeks, even decades without any regard for the others.
Some worlds had different takes on time, of course. While thousands of years could have passed in one world, little more than a century could elapse in another. According to their time elemental, Viceera, this was the case in Tipana and some bordering worlds. Others, such as the more advanced future worlds, had fleeting time, with the opposite having happened.
Saphire had started to keep better contact in recent years, of course. Ever since Caivera had died two hundred years before, leaving Saphire to take on her role as the Sh’Kasha, Saphire had kept in-touch. She was still extremely detached, however.
Saphire let out a shuddering sigh as she gently closed the book and slid it beneath her collection of books and magazines that sat in a nearby corner. She sat with her back against the wall, raising her tearful gaze to her brother.
“I talked to Vici...” she began. “Tipana has only progressed through about three years. It’s been thousands for us, and yet mah-len and Taea are still there.”
Tory frowned. “I know what you’re about to ask, and I don’t think that it would be a good idea.”
“Why not?”
“What are we supposed to do, show up and say, ‘Hey, mom! I’m a Zoa now! Sorry for abandoning you for a year. I’m not dead though!’” He shook his head. “Trust me, sis. That wouldn’t work out too well.”
Saphire thought for a moment, her eyes narrowing as she contemplated her options. “I wouldn’t talk to them.”
Tory arched a silver eyebrow. “What would be the point of that? They’d still see you.”
Saphire had anticipated this rebuff. “Not if I wear a cloak or something to cover my face. I’ve got that one, with the protection runes sewed in? I’d be as good as invisible to them.” She placed a hand on his arm and locked gazes with him. “Tory, I need to go. I can’t stand it. What if something is happening there? I’d never be able to live with myself if I stood by and allowed it. I have to check.”
Tory shook his head, but she could tell that he was beginning to falter; the idea of their family being in danger tends to do that to people. Just one more little push would do it.
She tightened her grip slightly. “Please, Tory?”
He looked down for a moment before sighing. “Fine.” Saphire smiled, her first true smile in a long time; it took a lot to break through her depression nowadays. “Only if you stay out of sight. Only reveal yourself in an emergency.” He hesitated before adding, “And get some work done while you’re there. We could really use more of those Darkling detection nets, and since Tipana has so many ley lines…”
She nodded and stood, pulling Tory up as she did in order to give him a tight hug before grabbing her small, brown backpack up off of her bed and walking quickly out of the room. She would wash the blond temporary dye out of her hair, check a few more worlds, and then check on her home world for the first time in over sixteen thousand years.
Awesome. I love it. Keep the chapters coming! ^_^
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