Spires

Alin sent the gray into the building.

It held all of his senses, so when it touched a dead body he recoiled in a metaphysical sense. Touching the cold flesh smeared with blood and other things was bad enough without the added smell that made bile rise up his throat. It was the taste that almost pushed him over the edge.

It was the price he paid for more precise control and greater strength.

The dead were bad, but the dying were worse.

He shared in their suffering.

Their spirits cried out in anguish even if their minds had already broken.

A sudden thought struck him.

Their ethereal hands seemed to reach out. He was sure he could take them and end it.

In his mind’s eye he gazed down at his bare hand.

Gray swirled around it as he reached down.

Ethereal fingers reached up.

He reached down.

A slight touch caused him to recoil.

The man’s most recent memories flashed through Alin.

Violence and pain.

Suffered and inflicted.

The man was a slasher, clinging to life as the rhythm of his heart slowed and grew ever fainter.

Alin fled.

That had been too close.

He had almost forgotten himself in the moment.

I’m a man. I choose. I’m not that monster. Instinct doesn’t control me, he thought.

He wasn’t there to make himself stronger.

Time was an uncertain concept within the gray.

Minutes or hours?

He couldn’t tell.

The gray engulfed the child on the rack.

He felt her spirit flickering like a candle flame in a strong wind just barely holding on.

Tiny fingers reach out for his hand. Desperate, searching for something to make the hurt go away.

Why? She seemed to ask. I didn’t do anything? Why?

He grabbed her tiny hand and pushed her back into her body, trying to impart so many different things at once.

Not your fault! Hold on! We’re coming!

He searched and searched.

No more innocents.

No trapper.

So many dangerous traps.

Triggering them wasn’t going to be the problem. They lacked the strength to get through his and his mom’s armors. The rangers were less protected with Threnium only covering their torsos and heads.

He pulled back. Viewed the building’s layout from above like a map. Drew a straight line from his position to the child’s in the northwest section.

The walls and fences in the way would be easy to run or cut through.

The two dangers to the child were the explosive shrapnel trap facing the small alcove she was in and the spiked iron grate hanging above here.

Pressure plates hidden on floor would trigger it. Destruction of the chain-link fencing around her would trigger it. Removing the chains holding her in place would trigger it. Even the ceiling had been rigged.

He looked at everything several times.

Found that tripping enough of the traps would trip all of them as well.

He pulled back most of his focus into his physical body.

“I didn’t locate the trapper. And there’s only the little girl that’s an innocent in there.”

“No trapper means no airstrike,” Ranger Morningstar said. “What kind condition is she in? Can we leave her for later?”

“We can’t. She’s dying. He bled her.”

“I’m deferring to you, ma’am,” Ranger Morningstar said.

Alin explained to his mom what he had seen inside.

The traps.

The threat to the girl’s life if they went in as quickly as they could.

“Can you find us a route? Get us as close as possible?”

“Yeah. I think so.”

“Okay. You,” his mom pointed at one of the ranger mages. “Is your magic shield strong enough to keep the girl safe from the explosive?”

“Hard to say without knowing exactly how much power it’s packing. If Skills are in play. Plus a bunch of other variables I can’t account for right now.”

“Okay. You’re coming with me. Boy, er, Goldenspoon, guide us to the girl.”

His mom crept toward the closest door.

“Shotgun trap’s going to shoot you in the face after you open it.”

“Th—”

His mom’s head rocked to the side.

“Contact!”

The alley erupted with gun fire and spells.

Rangers traced the angle of the shot that had hit his mom and set to suppression.

“Get those shields up!”

An impact to his back floored him.

Didn’t hurt, but his armor’s automatic defenses should’ve handled it.

Threat detection on his HUD was likewise blank.

Nothing was in motion around him except for the other rangers.

Taking it all together suggested high levels were in play.

Most of his gray had gone into the building.

He started to pull it back to at least shroud the alley when the girl’s flickering flame caught his attention.

Time was running out for her.

He didn’t know what to do.

His mom appeared at his side, swinging her baseball-bat like clubbed in one hand.

The crack slammed a dark figure into the side of the other building.

He only caught a quick glimpse of the masked person before they vanished from his sight.

Dark figures in tactical armor appeared and disappeared in the alley.

They shot, stabbed and cut the rangers with impunity.

Enemy soldiers?

“Squad Sync,” Ranger Morningstar said.

Without looking, Ranger Triple Dip fired a burst into empty space behind Ranger Nat One a moment before the latter elbowed one of the masked soldiers in the face.

Bullets struck home, but the masked man vanished in a puff of white smoke.

Triple Dip had left himself open to a descending blade, but a magic shield saved him at the last moment.

The ranger mage responsible had been facing the other way with one hand spraying caustic liquid that melted an enemy soldier’s tactical armor.

Her spells suddenly cut off when a hidden blade suddenly appeared, drawing a red line across one hamstring through the cut-resistant cloth.

Triple Dip took a blade to the head, but the Threnium didn’t give. The impact, however, knocked him down.

Alin tried to parse the calls on the comms.

Injuries and death.

His fellow rangers where dying.

The girl or his brothers and sisters in arms?

His mom was there too swinging her bat at shadows.

Luckily, they weren’t having any success penetrating her armor.

He tried and failed to get a lock with his helmet’s targeting system.

A grenade rolled on the ground.

He threw himself on it with a curse, smothering the explosion.

“Boy!” his mom screamed in his ears.

“I’m fine!”

“Go! Save the girl!”

It was always easier to listen to one of his parents when he wasn’t sure what to do.

Thus, Alin ate double-barreled blast of metal pellets a split-second after he broke through the door.

He moved quickly, ignoring traps as he battered down the rough, makeshift wooden walls of the maze or cut through iron bars and chain-link fences with his multiweapon.

The gray swirled all around him like an angry storm. It mirrored his fear at the possible fates of his mom and fellow rangers, of the fate of the girl, whose little heartbeat continued to grow fainter with each passing second. He wanted to find the trapper, grab the man by the throat and punch his teeth into his throat.

If there was a point to putting a little girl in one of those twisted contraptions, Alin didn’t see it.

Why did she deserve to suffer the same fate as the slashers?

He stopped.

The sounds of battle in the alley way had grown quieter the farther he had gone into the building.

Darkness was only broken up by a few lights.

Candles mostly.

An occasional flickering bulb or glowing crystal.

Shadows danced on the walls.

He was as close he could get to the girl’s position without triggering one of the fatal traps.

“Now what?” he whispered.

One of the shadows detached from the unstable wooden wall to his right.

“I would ask you a question.”

He reacted late. Only getting his multiweapon: longsword into guard after she had announced her presence.

She spoke with an accent, but in the way that led him to believe she was using English. That it wasn’t the universal translations system at work.

It was revelatory.

He regarded her a moment.

Tactical gear without any identifying marks, like the enemy soldiers that had just ambushed them.

Dark cloth masked her face, aside from her yes and mouth.

No visible weapons.

No helmet.

She had to be high level.

A rogue-type class going by all the context clues.

Not to mention that his HUD wasn’t picking her up at all.

Nothing on life signs. Nothing on targeting. Nothing on visual, audio or motion.

Indeed, if he didn’t trust his own eyes then there was no person standing in front of him.

“Sure. But answer this one first. What are Phoenix Dynasty soldiers doing here? Attacking us? Violating the treaties?”

The masked woman’s eyes narrowed.

Deliberately, she brought her hand up and splayed her fingers, sweeping it through the gray, causing ripples and trails to spread out.

“Does this give you information? It is difficult to conceal myself here and I feel a sensation of grasping fingers on my clothing. As if passing through a crowded bar filled with disgusting men while wearing a nightie.”

“No! That’s n— so, you’re acknowledging that the Phoenix Empress sent you here in violation—”

“There is no violation. The spires’ law takes precedence over human law. I don’t acknowledge serving… what did you say? Some sort of empress? Yes… this so-called empress, if she exists, may she reign an eternity clothed in fire, burning and rising again in the endless cycle. This one,” she brought her hand to her chest and bowed, “is a mere humble assassin with a few levels in slasher of late. I with a question. Will you answer?”

“Sure, but after,” he didn’t take his eyes nor his yellow hardlight blade off her as he pointed to the chain link fence separating him from the little girl, “I get her to safety.”

“That chamber is a bag filled with scorpions. Your remarkable armor will protect you from the stings, but she is clad in mere cloth.”

“Yeah and you’re distracting me from thinking.”

“Why bother? Her life ebbs like the tide and unlike the tide it will not flow back to shore.”

“Is that your question?”

“No, of course not. I want to know what this is.” She traced a graceful pattern with her hands and arms, flowing in circular motions. Almost mesmerizing. “It came out of your armor. Are you the source? Or is it the armor?”

“Oh… I see where this is going.”

“Do you?”

“Yup. If it’s me, then you’re going to try to take me prisoner. If it’s the armor, then you’re going to try to take it off me.”

“Well… yes, but to be specific, if the latter I will take it off your corpse.”

“Can we do this after?”

“No.”

The masked woman flicked a hand.

Wind whistled past his head.

He turned.

Throwing spikes quivered on the wooden portions of the fence. Thin slips of cloth paper attached to the spikes’ ends fluttered in the non-existent breeze.

Chinese characters glowed.

“N—”

Time slowed.

The explosions destroyed the fence, triggering the traps.

It wasn’t fair.

The little girl didn’t deserve it. She never would’ve been forced to undergo such suffering in a just world. But, their world wasn’t just. It had never been.

What was the point of having his power if he couldn’t make it just for her?

That was it.

It that instant, he understood better than he had ever before why he did what he did.

The world wasn’t just.

People made it that way.

The spires made it that way.

There had to be more people like his dad and mom, his family.

Those that could push back against the wrongness.

He had to be one of them.

There was no other path that mattered more.

The gray swirled all around him like a storm.

The little girl was going to survive this.

She was going to live a long, happy life in spite of everything and everyone that had conspired against that.

The gray thickened around the girl on the rack.

Walls stood revealed as the gray continued to swirl. They surrounded the girl. Ethereal, barely visible through the fog as it flowed around them. Like the image of a negative space.

The explosive trap launched shrapnel, fire and force into the walls.

They cracked, gray wisps seeping in and flowing out like smoke.

But they held.

The spike trap hanging from the ceiling fell as the chains holding it were released.

Rusty points smeared with foul substances descended.

He waited for the impact, but it never came.

Hands in the gray held it up.

He thought he could see, sense a person standing next to the girl, holding the heavy iron as if it was a feather.

The iron hit the floor with a reverberating clang away from the girl.

The rest of the traps went off.

Smoke mingled with the gray.

His head swam, his legs would’ve wobbled if not for his power armor.

“Now you really have to come with me.”

The masked assassin had vanished from even his notice within the gray, he belatedly realized.

She popped back up right behind him.

Her strike never landed.

As he turned he heard curses and the sound of punching fists and the whistle of blades cutting through air.

She fought figures in the gray for one brief violent moment before she retreated like the wind.

It felt like he was in a dream.

Nothing seemed real.

Except for the little girl.

He staggered to her side, reaching for his waist.

Healing potions, healing gems and many other things.

She had options and he intended to use as much as he needed to give her a chance to shove the injustice of the world right back in its face.

As for the presences he felt lingering in the gray?

He couldn’t sense anything.

It was as tangible as a handful of fog.

Meanwhile, out in the alley.

The rangers sounded off.

4 KIA.

The rest wounded.

Nila was the only one undamaged.

As for their attackers?

The soldiers had suddenly vanished as quickly as they had attacked, taking their dead and wounded with them.

“I know I got at least one,” Triple Dip said. “So, that makes 3 killed, at least.”

“We did good for being out leveled,” Morningstar said. “We need to get them out of here before the necromancer can use them.”

An enchanted gem was tucked inside each dead ranger’s armor.

The spell activated with a word and they floated slowly into the sky.

Tracking beacons would guide the Raynanaut to them.

They always did their best to bring their fallen home.

“Boy? Are you there?” Nila said into their private channel.

“Yeah, Mom. The girl’s stabilizing. I’ll be able to move her soon.”

She sighed.

The entire building had shaken from the explosion.

“That’s good. What about the other traps?”

“They haven’t gone off yet.”

She could picture her son’s nonchalant shrug.

He emerged a few minutes later with the girl in his arms.

“Good job, Goldenspoon,” Morningstar said. “We’ll get her back to the Raynanaut with the wounded.”

Alin handed her over to Nat One.

“Everyone ready?” Morningstar said.

The sounds of fighting had gotten a lot closer to their location, likely drawn by their own battle with the masked soldiers.

Regardless, as much as the ranger wouldn’t like to admit it, his squad was no longer able to complete their mission without extra risk and a much lower chance of success.

The other squad would have to take over for them.

“I’m not going,” Alin said.

“Reason?” Morningstar said.

Nila forced herself to keep her mouth shut.

This was a ranger thing and she had never been the sort of mom to insert herself into her son’s business unless it was a last resort or really important.

“I had a breakthrough. I’ll find our primary target and mark it for airstrike.”

Morningstar chewed the inside of his mouth as he searched her son’s eyes.

“Alright. I approve. I’m guessing you’re staying with Goldenspoon, ma’am?” He looked to her.

“Of course.”

“Great. If the two of you could cover us while we slowly float into the sky, we’d be grateful.”

Nila leapt to the roof with her son.

The immediate area looked clear.

Just like it had been up until the moment they had been ambushed.

“Mom. I think those soldiers were from the Phoenix Dynasty.”

He explained through their private channel.

“Well… we’re just going to add that to your dad’s long list of problems.”

“Mom. I also—”

“What is it, Love?”

“I tell you later.”

The rangers floated away under a concealment spell.

It only obscured the physical visual, but all the fighting in the area kept them undetected.

She kept eyes on them all the way up to the Raynanaut close to a thousand meters away.

“Alright, Ranger Goldenspoon this is your Quest,” she grinned, “where to next? And what’s your plan?”

“Uh… closest buildings?” he pointed to the Persian grocery store opposite the burning business to their right and at another large building on the other side of the parking lot. It was a warehouse judging by the loading docks.

“Don’t ask me. It’s your power.”

“Let’s start here and move west.”

“Okay. Do your scouting thing. I’ll keep watch.”

Each building was like the first. Filled with traps and people, dying and dead.

The freezer in the grocery store was filled with the stuff of nightmares.

People hung up on racks, butchered like animals.

Two slashers.

The trapper and the butcher.

Confirmation that they were working together in some capacity.

Fortunately, there were no additional innocent victims.

“Do you think those assassins will try again?”

“If they’re from the Phoenix Dynasty? No. They couldn’t get through our armor. Either they weren’t strong enough to use bullcrap, like ghostly blade or shadowstab or sunder armor, or they didn’t want to because they recognized us,” his mom said.

“I’m not sure. I don’t think the woman recognized me. Even if she could see through my faceplate.”

“Our armor basically looks just like your dad’s minus the paint,” she rolled her eyes.

“Yeah, I wish I could color it, but gray’s better for urban camo.”

He was doing his best not to think about the ranger casualties.

More funerals.

More families that didn’t know their loved ones were gone. Wouldn’t know for a couple of weeks.

They leapt onto the roof of the large warehouse with an assist from their armor’s thrusters.

He shrouded them in the gray as he filled the building below.

Same as the rest.

Dead and dying slashers.

They felt like low levels in the class.

Opportunistic scavengers that had seized on a chance for power and wealth by trading in what little remained of their morals. He figured that they had been on the bad side of humanity to begin with. Good people wouldn’t take a class predicated on the murder of weaker people, usually.

From what his dad had said, Holly was a rare exception in her choice of preferred victims.

Probably, because of his dad in the first place.

“Can you go faster?”

His mom snapped him out of his musing.

“Some of the fighting is getting closer.” She pointed her Threnium bat to the northeast at the flashes of light in the darkness followed by the booms a split-second later.

The gray shroud around them muted the impact of what was happening on the outside.

He had to consciously focus on the surrounding battles to remind himself that they were happening in reality.

It was strange how his mind slipped deeper into an almost dream-like state the more he focused on using his powers.

Rather, the gray felt more like reality, while the outside world became the dream.

They reached the edge of the roof and went prone.

“North to south?” his mom said.

Right to left lay the aquarium fish store, a junkyard and a strip mall with several buildings.

“What about that building?” he highlighted another warehouse directly north of the flooring and furniture business in his HUD and sent it to her with a cybernetic thought.

“Fighting’s headed its way. We might get caught up in it.”

“Aquarium first, then we head south until we get to the sand quarry.”

“Sounds good. We can reassess at that point. And it’s more time for them to kill each other.”

They leapt down and crossed a narrow street.

Another thruster-assisted jump carried them over a building and into a large parking lot.

They were on the loading dock when an unpleasant surprise came running around the west corner of the store.

“Oy! Fancy armor, innit?”

The rest of the 20 man marauding band rounded the corner and quickly spread out in an attempt to encircle them against the wall.

The band lacked uniformity in their choice of weapons and armor.

Fighter-types wielded guns and melee weapons.

Mage-types held wands, staves or nothing.

All wore a mix of plate and chain and tactical gear.

Blood stained them.

“Youse a right proper slag from the looks o’ ya. How bout ya take that fancy armor off and let me and my boys give ya a fun slagging?”

“Da cunt’s gonna get me knob a polishin’ before da long and hard ride, aye.”

“Me first!”

“Nah, ya shite. Ya gone first da last time.”

“What about the lad?”

“Only got two holes, innit?”

“Two’s better than none.”

“So, how’s about it, cunt? Youse and lad give over youse fancy gear and we’ll give ya a good time and let youse on your way.”

“Mom, are these assholes from England?” Alin said over their private channel as he slowly enveloped the lot in the gray.

“It certainly sounds like they are.”

“I thought the Queen was supposed to be one of the good ones?”

“Sure, according to your uncle.”

Her tone revealed what she thought of that assessment.

“Okay. Get ready to get behind me. I’ll drain them then I’ll hit them with the missiles.”

“No. I’ve already locked on with my missiles.”

“Mom,” he sighed. “Is this the whole me killing another human thing?”

“Why, yes it is, Baby.”

“I’m not a baby.”

“Yes, you are and will always be one.”

“Fine, whatever. Not the time to discuss that, but I can’t avoid the reality of combat forever. I will have to kill people at some point and these ones are clearly evil. I’m sure they’ve raped and murdered a lot of people.”

“I know. It’s just that in the old days you’d have been in college. Probably, studying real hard in a library at this very moment. Now, here you are, surrounded by bad men—”

“Oi! Ya deaf or somethin’? Or is ya cunt drippin’ wet?”

“Gonna pound it hard. Fill da ass too!”

“Fuck the slag’s mouth! Make her airtight!”

They laughed and cheered at that.

“I don’t want to trivialize this, Mom and I’m not looking forward to it. I’m sure I’ll feel really bad later, but right now…”

“We have to give them a chance to walk away.”

“They’ll just hurt other people.”

“Yes, but they won’t take it, which will help our consciences. So, target the backline. I’ll take the front.”

“Okay.”

“Listen up, assholes!” his mom snapped. “Drop your weapons and walk back the way you came.”

They laughed like hyenas.

“Youse da one—”

Micromissiles streaked out of his mom’s shoulder launchers.

His arced higher, over the front line to crash down on the mages and other ranged fighters.

At the same time he drained their energy through the gray, pulling it from their bodies.

Some resisted, but all were affected.

“Levels 30 to 40. Three over 40. Not sure exact level.” He marked them with the targeting system and shared it with his mom.

She hit them with a gout of flame from the one shot flamethrower deployed from the underside of her armored arm. She drew his dad’s handcannon from her thigh holster and sent elephant-killing bullets into hastily-cast magic shields.

What they did to the marauders despite their armor wasn’t a pleasant sight.

“Going melee!” he activated his multiweapon in its longsword form and dashed into the marauders’ midst with an assist from his thrusters.

He might as well have ran them over with a car.

The hardlight blade flashed in the gloom.

Regret and questions for his conscience were saved for later.

Now was about removing evil from the world.

They shouldn’t have said those things to his mom.