Lee began to panic, looking left and right. “No, no, no, no.”
Zane grabbed his shoulders and spun the older boy around, “What is it?”
“Your father! He isn’t here! He said I should go ahead, and he’d be waiting for us here. We don’t stand a chance against the Onyxian without him.”
Zane bit his lip, thinking. “We’ll be safe in the Aetherial City, right?” Lee nodded, and Zane added as an afterthought, “which begs the question why I’m not already there in the first place… but never mind, we can get to the Aetherial City alone, right? Like you can open the portal for us with your… what did you call it, oh yes, gift.”
Lee nodded more slowly. “Yes, with my metatechnic abilities, I could get us to the Aetherial City.” Then more bitterly. “If I were stronger, I could get us to the compass monument from here. But as it is, I’m not strong enough without the built-in nature of the monument. It doesn’t matter because we can’t get to the monument without your dad! The Onyxian will find and kill us; if we hide somewhere around here, he’ll come and find us. I can use the last of my power to create a shield that could hide us from its sight!”
Zane shook his head, “No… It wouldn’t last for long, right?”
“Maybe an hour or two.”
“We need to go while we’re ahead. We’ll take a taxi to the central city park. The longer we wait, the more dangerous it gets.”
Lee frowned. “I don’t like this plan.”
“Too bad,” Zane said confidently, moving out of the alleyway into the crowd. As he walked, he glanced up at the sky, glad to see the clouds forming and darkening. Although the draining of light, even from street lamps, worried him.
Lee rushed behind him. “I was raised in the Aetherial City like most Aetherion. I don’t know how to call a cab!”
Zane hailed a cab, turning to Lee, “The real question is, why wasn’t I?”
Lee shrugged. “I haven’t a clue. Earth was your dad’s home world, I think. Aetherion come from all over the place, like your mom, she is from Mylor, and my parents are both from Hembod. Hang on, I feel like I heard your dad say something about you being hidden here from the Hytoike, but someone blew your cover. A traitor.”
Zane didn’t know how to process this, so he asked more about what made sense. “So I’m half alien?” He whispered this to Lee just before giving the driver their destination.
Lee cocked his head in puzzlement. “There is only one intelligent species, humans, no matter where they come from. Aetherion are human, and Hytoike are Aetherion; if changed quite a bit. But I’m not yet allowed to learn much about Hytoike’s secret ways. The Onyxian chasing us was once human, but he’s distorted now, shattered. That is pretty much how the Hytoike roll, they find something good and great that our master created and twist it to make it evil and broken.”
Zane suddenly thought of the pentagon again, the strange shape almost equilateral but not quite. It made him shudder; he still didn’t know why.
A sprinkling of rain hit the windshield, the clouds blotting out what light the darkened sky had given. The cab driver grunted in surprise upon having to use his headlights at midday. Lee anxiously checked the window, glancing behind them. “The Onyxian is coming. We should have waited.”
“He would have found us; obviously, my dad isn’t coming.”
Lee frowned, still in anxiety, pulling out a small disk of polished wood with a gem in its center, which looked like the center of a medallion. Its surface sheen lifted mid-air as Zane watched, swirling like a miny galaxy of little yellow stars. Zane quickly looked over to the driver, but he didn’t notice the glow in the back seat.
Lee plucked at the nebulous lights, muttering under his breath. The disk in his hand thrummed slightly against his palm, and the small star-like lights formed into the shape of the Onyxian standing on a semi-trailer, blades upraised. Lee sucked in sharply through his teeth, pinching the image so it zoomed out and showed the truck the Onyxian stood on in its position in traffic.
“He’s three cars back, and the truck is speeding up!” Lee hissed.
Zane shrugged, “I took him once.”
“This is much different from what he was planning on capturing you; now he wants to kill you.”
Zane’s brow furrowed. “Oh.” He turned towards the driver, leaning forward. “Could you maybe go a little faster?”
The cab driver frowned. “I’m doing my best here, blame the traffic, not me, I mean the number of people who’ve cut in front of me…”
A truck, the truck the Onyxian stood on, swerved in front of the cab. The drive pointed. “…Like that!”
The driver in the truck, Zane, only got a brief glance of him, who was looking up at the Onyxian tearing through his roof and screaming. The semi continued to swerve as it approached a busy intersection. The cab driver hit the brakes as the terrified truck driver smashed into the corner and spun out into the intersection. More screeching breaks more swerving cars. People screamed seeing the Onyxian standing on the roof of his semi-trailer, but Zane didn’t get to witness much more because, with a violent explosion, the whole street filled with flames.
The cab whistled through the air, smashing into a small hardware store and landing upside down on the sidewalk. Zane ripped his buckle off with Aetherion strength and collapsed to the roof of the car below. “Lee?”
A cough in the darkness, something moved near him, dropping to the roof. “Yeah?”
Zane felt for the cab driver; he was alive, probably badly injured, but there was nothing Zane could do for him. “We need to move, right?”
Lee kicked the cab door, sending it flying out, skidding across the ground, sending up sparks as we went. Zane crawled out after Lee, coughing as smoke from the car’s engine filtered into the air. Zane really didn’t like cars. While he could usually get through without touching any metal, being surrounded by so much metal gave him the heebie jeebies. And the engine fumes made him sick.
The rain was pelting by now; it was not quite sheets, but enough to invigorate Zane’s body. The power coursed into him; he’d never realized what this feeling of being in the elements was until recently. Nothing could compare to the thrill of the wind whipping at the cloak he wore and the rain pelting his face as lightning lashed the clouds above. It was like a whole world of his own.
“Zane!” Lee tackled him to the ground as a dark mass of energy passed over their heads. It was coiled like a spring, oscillating like a sound wave as it went, bunching up and uncoiling repeatedly with incredible speed. It crashed into a shop front, crushing the edifice and sending rubble down on them.
“Keep focused! It’s after us!” Lee shouted in his ear over the roar of the storm and crumbling rock. He pulled himself up off of Zane, racing for the sidewalk.
Zane sprang to the side as another bolt of jagged darkness blasted the pavement to dust. The Onyxian stood only a furlong away, long blades jutting from its forearms, its stiff metallic posture victorious. The hideous pentagon was stamped onto its chest and blades. It suddenly clicked in Zane’s head what the symbol was: ugliness. It had no equal lines, no symmetry, and just when you expected one thing from it, it gave you another. Twisted, wrong, evil, that was the Hytoike and their servants.
Zane called to the wind, launching himself up and away from the Onyxian and towards Lee. It was harder to do when you were thinking about it, and Zane hadn’t had much practice. He came down heavily just behind Lee, smashing into the pavement. The Onyxian behind them bellowed a war cry, sending multiple missiles of darkness exploding at their targets, after them.
Zane could see the gates of the city park up ahead, and the sprinting Onyxian was still behind. It looked like they might just make it! The Onyxian erupted from the Earth ahead of Zane as he thought this happy thought. It swung its blade forward, and only Zane’s Aetherion-enhanced agility let him bend back in time to let it swing right past his neck.
Lee traced a new symbol in the air with his finger. Zane couldn’t actually see what Lee was drawing, but it appeared to be the same as earlier. The Onyxian paid no attention to Lee, instead jabbing at Zane and knocking him over. Zane quickly tried to think what to do, not wind, or rain… lightning, he needed lightning!
Before he could even consider how to act on this idea, the Onyxian fired a blast of dark energy straight into Zane. Zane tried to move and roll sideways, but he was too late. A fissure of light opened between Zane and his enemy, absorbing the energy and shocking the beast, one of Lee’s fissures.
The Onyxian stumbled away, gripping its red camera eye that shone out its glowing cone. Lee leaned heavily against a streetlight, motioning for Zane to run. Zane stumbled up and headed after Lee, who wasn’t in any condition to be running.
For some reason, Zane couldn’t ‘access the elements’ like Lee kept talking about; the most he had done since the hospital was move some stuff around with wind, and in both cases, it might not actually have been him doing anything.
The Onyxian turned to face them before they went ten steps, raising his hand to blast them to oblivion. The surge of dark strength smashed straight at them and exploded in a multi-colored flash. Zane looked up in bewilderment and then widened his eyes in surprise.
Zane’s father, Elijah, stood over him and Lee. Elijah held his hand extended, eyes hardened as he held up a street-wide shield in whose center glowed four equalateral triangles, one upside down, making a bigger equalateral triangle. The beginning of a fractal triangle, the beginning of infinity.
“Zane! Lee! Stand!” Elijah called out in a deep and powerful voice. His very being seemed to emanate power and vitality. He had a stern, powerful expression and posture. His robes whipped in the wind gusting as sheets of rain descended, and his bright blue eyes fairly glowed with power, like he was seeing the way Zane had, but only for an instant.
Lee got to his feet in surprise, “You came!”
“I was looking for you where we were supposed to meet. I didn’t realize you’d left.”
At this, all of the confidence that Zane’s father had given him drained away. “That was my fault, sir. I should have waited for you. I was afraid we were on our own.”
His dad smiled and nodded before turning serious again. “All is well, do not worry. We have bigger problems, though.”
The Onyxian raged against the shield, oddly staying clear of the infinite triangle. Elijah turned to his son, “I can’t hold this barrier forever. I want you and Lee to head to the compass monument and open the doorway to the Aetherial City.”
“Yes, sir,” Zane said, turning away; however, he stopped after a moment. His shame at not waiting for his father and endangering them all had triggered a thought in his mind. He remembered what Lee had said about surrender and faith. He should have trusted him, trusted that his father, who had never lied to him and always kept his word, would arrive. And that stirred a feeling inside him. Something deep, linked to the storms. “Dad?”
“Zane,” Elijah said, grunting slightly as the Onyxian threw itself into the barrier, “Go!”
Zane sprinted for the park despite his misgivings. He stopped at the gate and glanced back to the intersection where the Onyxian still raged.
“Lee? Are you able to open a gateway? Good, go!” Elijah shouted. Lee hurried past, where Zane watched, and into the park.
The shield dropped, leaving a brief glow of the infinite triangle before the Onyxian rushed through, ripping it to wisps of glowing mist. The Onyxian slashed out with his weapon, connecting with Elijah’s blade. Elijah leapt up and kicked the Onyxian, forcing it to the ground. It rolled over, slicing up to knock Elijah aside before bringing its second weapon around.
Zane could almost see when his father started using his gift as a weaponite. Elijah’s body relaxed right as the blade was about to pierce his neck. Elijah sprang to the side and rebounded off a street light. Hurtling back towards the Onyxian, whom he struck to the side, slicing off one hand.
The Onyxian bellowed in rage, summoning a dark nebula to surround him. Elijah gripped his swords of glowing crystal flames and waited for his enemy to make the next move. Three surges of dark black energy, each one caught by Elijah, who sent them flying back with the edge of his blade. Three more, which Elijah deflected, sweat trickling down his brow. Yet another blast shoved Elijah back through the street, leaving boot tracks of where Elijah had stood like the road was thick mud.
Something wasn’t right, Zane thought; the Onyxian was usually on the offensive. Being far more aggressive than it was now. Zane peered through the rain at something dark coming up from a side street next to the entrance to the park. He squinted more before remembering he could lighten the rain over an area. When he did get a good look at it, he barely had time to yell a warning.
“Dad, look out!”
Elijah turned while deflecting another surge to see one of those decrypted metal monkey pig things (Scraplings, Zane seemed to recall Lee saying they were) leaping at him. Elijah turned it away, cleaving it into pieces effortlessly, but was distracted enough for a final surge of darkness to smash into him, driving him back to the metal gate surrounding the park.
Zane wasn’t aware of what he cried out or what he said. He had the impression of sprinting through rain and wind, not caring, focusing on one thing. His father’s body was lying against the metal fence. He grabbed Elijah’s body and pulled on it, trying to lift it up. A shadow loomed over him. Zane couldn’t see it for the rain and tears in his eyes.
The Onyxian towered over the pair. It silently stared down, its red searchlight beam glowing across them. The rain pattered to a halt, a bare drizzle. The Onyxian cocked its head, raised its weapon, and most terrifyingly, it spoke.
Its voice had no substance. Just an impression, a dark power forcing its way into Zane’s mind and echoing in deep mechanical tones. “An elemental Aetherion, brought to the level of cowering in the rain over a corpse! An Onyxian like me was simple practice for you in your glory days. But those days are over; the Hytoike demand your head. There will be more Hytoike! More darkness creeping across the worlds. The Aetherion put their trust in an empty throne, and that throne has failed them! Aetherion YOU SHALL DIE!”
The Onyxian lifted its blade, a dark surging power forming around the blade and arm. It reared back to strike, but Zane didn’t notice. His mind whirred and circled, thinking, processing, and adding the new information. The empty throne, his own distrust, the Onyxian’s proud talk, and the words Lee had spoken by the window. “Have trust that you can do it, surrender.”
Zane looked up, and he saw. He saw with eyes that look beyond the skin of this world. Zane saw a poor and twisted creature harnessing energies from powers cowering in their metal coffins, hiding from the face of the maker. He saw a world perfectly designed in its every detail; he saw a plan, a desire. He saw someone who was always there with him.
Zane stood and extended his hand. Lightning arced across him and into the Onyxian, blowing it back to strike into the wall. Zane leapt up into the winds as the storm howled around him. He was the eye, the center as it spun around him in a myriad of wind, rain, cloud, lightning, and thunder. And he had peace. He surrendered himself to the one who had made him, finding perfect fulfillment in his presence.
The Onyxian stumbled up its metallic countenance showed no expression, but Zane saw beyond; he saw the frail and cripled soul beneath. The once man whose face contorted in fright, the Onyxian knew its paltry force of energy could do nothing against Zane. Zane felt the storm that surged in its cycle, its ring around him. He showered down the power of an elemental Aetherion, jagged bolts, blasts of wind and rain, hovering in the air above the Onyxian below.
“We put not our faith in the empty throne, we put our faith in the one who will return, we fight not because you threaten or frighten us, but because we desire to do the will of our master!”
The Onyixan fell back, screaming in agony and fear as Zane brought the full weight of everything he had down upon the monster. An explosion of sparks, sound, and dark energy, and then Zane was standing alone in a light rain of a late afternoon at a usually busy intersection. The Onyxian’s single eye glared darkly, without even a glimmer on its surface.
The rain slowly pattered to a halt around Zane, and the air around him seemed to lighten as the Onyxian’s remains crumbled away, leaving that one eye of glass. The emotions still thudded against Zane, his despair about his father, his exhilaration in the storm; it was too conflicting. His father! Zane quickly glanced around for Lee or Elijah and saw his father standing slowly and hesitantly, pain in his movements. Zane hurriedly ran to him, embracing and helping to support him. Lee came back out of the park, desperately sword drawn. “The portal is open, I’m back!”
Elijah nodded. “Good, let’s go.”
The three of them slowly made their way through the park to the compass monument, which shot a stream of glowing light into the air, which disintegrated into a mist at about twelve feet of height.
“That,” Elijah mused, “was pretty epic, Zane.”
Zane blinked rapidly, running his hand through his hair. “I’m not actually sure what I even did.”
Lee punched him on the shoulder. “Part of being an Aetherion, I have a friend who can turn invisible (he’s the only one who can do it, I think). He turned invisible when he was three and stayed that way for four years until he figured out how he’d done it and turned back.”
“You did what you were meant to do, what your destiny as an Aetherion calls you to,” Elijah added, seriously looking into his son’s eyes.
They walked slowly, but the compass monument wasn’t too far away. From its flat stone surface surrounded by trees, a shimmering, misty spray shot into the air. A portal to another world, the Aetherial City.
“Are you ready, Zane?” His father asked.
“Yes.” Zane stepped forward into a new world. Into where he was meant to be, where his family was. A new home, a new life, a new horizon.