Fire Child Part 19

The current of electricity ceased. “What do you say, feel like cooperating now?”
Zendrius only glared at the scientist he has come to know as Professor Vesalius.
The Professor sighed. “Subject Q remains uncooperative, although fascinating, subject’s high pain threshold and drug-resistance is proving problematic. In depth biological scanning is still rendered impossible by the anomalous magnetic field emanating from Subject Q. I fear this leaves us with only one option remaining, exploratory surgery. However due to subject’s resistance to chemical substances, sedation will be impossible. Perhaps Subject Q will reconsider his unforthcoming attitude mid-surgery. In any case, tomorrow will be an exciting day. Computer end of log.”
Zendrius watched Professor Vesalius and his colleagues leave the small room before testing the metal restraints that bound him to the table. “Ok, plan or no plan I’m getting out of here.”
“Wait,” ringed a deep masculine voice in his mind.
“Um . . . hello?” thought Zendrius.
“Do not do anything rash,” replied the voice.
“Who are you?”
“I was once known as Aeon the Mist Wraith, back when the Ooti still had six races.”
“The Mist Wraith? I remember you, you were feared even by those from the Fourth and Fifth Tiers, how did the humans manage to capture you?”
“They didn’t, I turned myself in.”
“What?! Why?”
“They had captured my mate, they told me I could trade my life for hers.”
“And they honoured this arrangement?” asked Zendrius surprised.
There was a long silence then Aeon replied with controlled rage, “No, they did not. They recaptured her after I was imprisoned, claiming that they never agreed not to pursue her after her release. I watched helplessly as they slaughtered her to satisfy their insatiable hunger.”
“Then why are you stopping me from turning these bastards into ash?”
“The energy you are emitting is similar to someone I knew a long time ago, such resemblance are usually due to kinship. Who is your father?”
“I’m told he was a Fallen called Mastema.”
“Was?”
“He died when he mated with my mother or something like that, I’m not really sure about the details.”
“That is sad news, your father was a dear friend of mine. Who was this female with whom he coupled?”
“She is called Persephone of a Thousand Forms.”
Aeon gave a melancholic chuckle. “I told that fool she would be his death one day. Now how have you managed to get yourself imprisoned here, son of my friend? If what you say is true, Juria should not have been able to imprison you even if they sent every last SAINT in Los-Reinar after you.”
Zendrius sighed. “It is a long story.”
“I think we can spare the time.”
“Point taken,” said Zendrius before relating everything he had learned since coming to Los-Reinar.
“Well that explains a few things. I agree with you that the patrol you mentioned seems odd. It is possible Central already knows of your return, but is keeping it classified in order to avoid panic or they are sceptical of your existence, but bolstered their patrols just to be safe. Either way you must get out of here before they realise who you are.”
“I’ve also heard the scientists speak of this Central, is it some kind of city or laboratory?”
“It is the capital of Juria, a metropolis with a population of billions and home to the highest human authority.”
“Billions? That’s just wonderful. I hope you have some kind of plan because although I was on the verge of breaking free from my restraints, I didn’t really have a plan as to the escaping part of my escape. Their teleportation device seems to be the only way out of here but it has some rigorous security protocols.”
“There is another way.”
“What? Really?”
“The humans may multiply at an exponential rate but their life spans are thankfully short. I have lain here for omegia Zendrius, peering into their minds, perceiving how they change with each generation. And do you know what I have learned?”
“That they are assholes of the highest calibre?”
Aeon laughed. “That conclusion needed no observation, no what I learned was that unless it was something shocking, they do not remember the struggles of their forefathers. For instance, their teleportation technology is no more than a few genia old, but I’ll warrant that there are only a handful of them today that know how we were originally brought here and imprisoned.”
“Now that you mention it, that teleportation platform would have been too small to even translocate a single durandal.”
“Precisely, they initially used a subterranean tunnel to bring us here, after the birth of their teleportation technology they sealed it and it now lies completely forgotten.”
“Then perhaps there is a way for me to not just free myself, but all of you as well.”
“That is my intention, son of my friend.”
“So what is the plan here exactly?”
“First we must wait for them to retire to their homes after their ‘day’ has ended.”
“And then?”
“That, friend of my son, is when it becomes interesting,” said Aeon before relating a plan that has been millennia in the making.

Fire Child Part 17 & 18 Special

“Aaorash.”
“Aorash.”
Persephone shook her head. “No, not aorash, Alyza. Aaorash.”
“Ah! This is so difficult! What is this strange language even called anyway and why do I have to learn it? You seem to understand me just fine,” asked the metamorphosed girl.
“It has no name, it is the tongue of Los-Reinar, all who live here speak it and so you too must learn if you wish to be with my son. I only tolerate speaking this crude human language in order to teach you how to properly communicate. No one beyond this room will suffer lowering themselves to understand you if you stay ignorant.”
Alyza could tell from her tone what Zed’s mother thought of her little outburst. “Ok, I’m sorry. It was pronounced aaorash, right?”

Zendrius watched patiently as the wall reopened, allowing the suited pilot to make his way to the stationary SAINT. The man entered the machine but instead of leaving through the hangar bay door he turned to the crates behind which Zendrius hid. The SAINT’s left hand reformed into what appeared to be a gun barrel before it aimed it directly at Zendrius.
“Unidentified intruder submit to capture immediate,” announced a voice over the hangar’s intercom.
Zendrius tried to dart to new cover when the SAINT fired a sphere of white energy into the ground a few feet in front of him. The explosion sounded like a thunderclap leaving a black scorch on the concrete.
“Do not bother resisting, you have nowhere to run,” said the voice plainly.
Zendrius sighed as he held up his hands in submission. “Nessha is never going to let me live this down.”
The strange wall reopened and dozens of guards rushed out. Zendrius noticed that unlike the pilots, whose suits appeared to be fashioned out of some kind of fabric, the guards wore suits of metal armour, their helmets being the only thing identical to their SAINT piloting brothers.
Two of the guards seized his arms as he was manacled and without so much as a word they dragged him to the eye-like sensor.
“Stand by for biological scan,” announced the electronic voice after one of the guards punched in a code in the keypad. A few seconds passed before the voice continued, “One unidentified life form detected. To activate edict 342 enter paladin override code.”
The guard in front of the keypad stepped aside, allowing one of his companions to approach it. Zendrius assumed the golden markings on the latter’s armour indicated the rank of paladin.
“Code accepted,” announced the electronic voice before the wall opened.
The group advanced into an unfurnished room when the same electronic voice announced, “Standby for atmospheric adjustment.”
The ducts in the room sucked out all of the air and just when Zendrius thought he was going to suffocate the door across them opened, breaking the vacuum. The guards hustled him through the door and by the time he regained his senses, he found himself in a cell.
The paladin removed his helm revealing the face of a woman rather than a man. “I want six pairs of eyes on him at all times. Ronald, Dennis, Geoffrey, Linda, Michelle and Bill have the first watch, the rest of you can return to headquarters and resume your previous duties.”
The guards bustled out of the room, most of them removing their helms and speaking among themselves. The red haired paladin shot Zendrius one cautionary look before leaving him with his six guards.
Zendrius looked at the faces of the six men and woman guarding him. “So . . . how’s work?”
None of the guards so much as twitched at the remark.
Zendrius sighed.

“Wake up!”
Zendrius rolled over and saw a short man with a puffy face in what seemed to him as extravagant clothing. “How may I help you?”
“What manner of demon are you?” asked the little man.
“And to whom might I be speaking?”
The man stiffened at the question. “I am Calvin Tolstoy the Eighth, Duke of Area 31. Now answer my question.”
“What makes you think I am a demon? Do I not appear human?”
“Do not try and trick me demon! Even if absent of our sensors, it is clear you are not human. No God-fearing man can survive the poisonous atmosphere of Los-Reinar without proper protection. You may have managed to take the form of a man through your unholy magic but it seems you could not quite imitate us correctly. More than anything your infernal silver eyes gives testament to your true nature.”
“If you really believe me to be a demon why then did you capture me? Why not just kill me?”
“Because we need to know if there are others that can change their appearance as you have and if so, from which race and from which Tier are they?”
Zendrius leaned against the wall. “Oh yes there are millions of us that can change form at will.”
“Do not mock me demon!” sneered the Duke through the cell’s bars.
“My dear duke, consider the situation from my perspective, what could I possibly hope to gain by helping you?”
“This is what I get for trying to be civil with a monster, very well then demon have it your way. Take him to the laboratory,” said the little man to the guards before marching from the room.
One of the guards moved to unlock the cell while his peers readied their weapons on their prisoner. “One false move demon and we’ll put you down.”
Zendrius only smiled and complied as they escorted him from his cell through a series of corridors. He assumed they were purposely leading him through an isolated part of the building since they never stumbled onto a casual pedestrian. At one time they passed a window and Zendrius managed a quick glance before he was hurried along. What he saw stunned him, an entire city encompassing a gigantic park flourished within the complex. After a half-hour of navigating through corridors they reached a strange platform guarded by ten paladins.
“We’ll take it from here,” said one of the paladins before the guards transferred custody of their prisoner.
The paladins dragged Zendrius onto the platform before one of them punched in a code, allowing the machine to both scan his hand and take a sample of his blood.
“Standby for teleportation,” announced an electronic voice before Zendrius felt a strange tingling sensation across his entire body.

Zendrius looked around stunned as the paladins dragged him across the walkway. Below them were the imprisoned durandals, enormous creatures of muscle hold captive in the cruellest way possible. Large metallic rods were thrust through each of their joints and planted into the concrete. The few who still had enough fire in them to fight against their restraints were rewarded with a high charge of electricity run through the very rods that incapacitated them.
“You should have spoken to the Duke, he would have granted you a quick death for your cooperation. Now you will linger here with your friends until the White Coats are convinced that you have nothing more to offer,” said one of the paladins as he noticed Zendrius’ shock.
“You will all pay for this,” said the young Dannar barely managing to keep his flames from erupting.
“The just pay no penance for battling the damned,” replied the paladin before they entered a room.
A group of people wearing white lab coats turned from their various scientific apparatus at their arrival.
“Wonderful! You’ve brought it!” exclaimed one man before rushing forward to examine Zendrius. “My, this is fascinating, it really does look human, well with the exception of the eyes of course.”
“Where do you want him?” asked one of the paladins.
“We have prepared a room specifically for him but first I have to know, have the Duke notified Central of its existence?”
“No, his eminence said he’d notify them when you have found something for him to report.”
“Splendid, now we don’t have to worry about Central interfering. Well I am sure I speak for everyone here, when I say that we want to start pealing away this creature’s secrets as soon as possible so let me guide you to the previously mentioned room.”
Zendrius watched as the scientist almost skipped out of the room with joy and silently reminded himself, “Don’t roast these lunatics until you actually have a plan to get out of here.”

Fire Child Part 16

Zendrius stared at the massive structure of stone and metal looming in the mist. “Ok, this may turn out to be a bit harder than I originally thought.”
“I count twenty SAINTs patrolling the area, my lord.”
“Wonderful, any idea what we can expect if we manage to get inside?”
“No my lord, very few beings in Los-Reinar know what lies within the structures built by Juria and most of them only possess that knowledge due to abilities such as astral projection.”
“Damn it, I’d rather not go in blind,” said the young Dannar as he peered at the building.
Zendrius’ vision slowly blackened then shifted, thousands of small red blotches appeared against the universally grey façade of the structure. The blotches were spaciously divided vertically within the structure and as he saw blotches move from one level to another, Zendrius understood. These “farms” were more than just food production plants, they were also home to large populations of humans.
“My lord? Is something wrong?” asked Nessha worried after several minutes of silence.
“It seems I still have a lot to discover of what exactly I unlocked when the first door of my seal was opened.”
“My lord?”
“I can see heat, or at least that’s what I think I see.”
Nessha was silent for a moment then asked, “What do you see when you look at me, my lord?”
Zendrius turned but instead of a dull red blotch he saw a collage of green, blue and cyan. “Well this is different.”
“What do you see?”
Nessha listen quietly as her lord tried to describe what he saw and after he finished she said amazed, “You can see energy.”
“What?”
“My lord, do you remember what I said when we first met?”
“A lot of shit was said that day Nessha, you can’t honestly expect me to remember all of it perfectly,” said Zendrius dryly.
The fallen angel suppressed a smile as she continued, “I told you that if I had not possessed the ability to sense your energy I would have thought you only a peculiar human. Every being emits energy, the ability to sense this energy is quite common in Los-Reinar, the ability to see it, is unheard-of.”
“Yes, yes I’m very special, I get it. More importantly, based on the amount of energy signatures I can see and the space between the stories of the building, I think it is safe to conclude that there aren’t any SAINTs hiding within, well excluding what seems to be the basement.”
“The structure extends underground?”
Zendrius looked down at the hundreds of perfectly arrayed enormous glaucous energies. “Yes, and from what I can tell I think that’s where they keep the durandals.”
“Then we now have our destination, my lord.”
“We do, but it is going to be a bit tricky. You see the basement is way down underground and I’ll bet you a backrub that you can only get there by elevator.”
“Perhaps we should come back another time when we are more prepared?”
“No, I don’t want to waste any time unlocking my seal. Besides, I’m worried about what happened earlier, you youself said that Juria’s patrols normally consists only out of three SAINTs. Why the sudden beefed up security? I don’t like.”
“But my lord, we don’t even have a method of entering that structure without triggering every alarm they have.”
“No matter how powerful those SAINTs are, they are still being controlled by humans and humans need to rest often. Sooner or later the pilots of those SAINTs will have to be replaced by others and from what you’ve told me, it seems that although powerful, these new SAINTs are expensive to produce, otherwise there’d be hundreds of them patrolling every inch of Liquiem. This makes the probability low that they have another twenty SAINTs in there to replace those already out in the field. So when they need to change shifts, they’ll most likely replace the pilots one or two at a time. That will give me the perfect opportunity to sneak in.”
“Don’t you mean that will give us the perfect opportunity to sneak in, my lord?”
“This is going to have to be done with stealth and you are . . . well you sort of stick out. I can still pass for a normal human but you . . .”
“My lord, humans are generally not covered in red flames,” stated Nessha half defiantly.
“Oh that, well I’ve also been doing some training on my own,” said Zendrius before the sanguine flames withdrew into his body.
“What about your silver eyes?” said the fallen angel unfazed.
“I’ll just see if I can’t find some sunglasses or something else to cover them with while I’m in there.”
“My lord I-”
“Nessha, you will at best be able to keep us invisible until we reach the hangar but then what? I’m not leaving you here because I want to, hell I’d much rather have you by my side, but we don’t have the luxury of being picky right now.”
The fallen angel just nodded in submission.

“Here we go,” said Zendrius before he began sprinting towards the structure.
Nessha desperately concentrated to keep her lord hidden as the native mist of Liquiem started to obscure his form.
Although he knew he was invisible, Zendrius kept a safe distance between himself and the patrolling SAINTs as he pursued the one returning to the hangar. The hangar bay door opened just large enough to allow the returning SAINT passage through and began closing the instant it was inside, barely allowing the young Dannar enough time to slip in. Zendrius ducked behind some nearby crates the instant he was inside for he knew that Nessha’s spell would soon be wearing off if it hadn’t already.
The chest of the stationary SAINT unfolded and the suited pilot climbed down. Zendrius found himself wondering what kind of metal allowed itself to be manipulated so freely but left his musing for another time as he inched himself closer.
The man punched in a code on a nearby keypad and a strange eye-like sensor appeared in the wall before an electronic voice announced, “Stand by for biological scan.” After a few second the voice continued, “Human status confirmed, enter.”
Zendrius watched as the wall opened, allowing the man to step through before immediately closing behind him. “Balls.”

Fire Child Part 15

“This is going to get us killed,” whispered Zendrius as his back hugged the cold stone.
Nessha nursed her wound. “We do not have any other choice my lord, we have to hide. Even if I still had the hundred thousand souls I paid the Agrarian, we would not have been able to best such a large group.”
Zendrius squinted as he scanned the misty plane for any sign of their pursuers. “Large group? There were only seven of them, you fought against triple that number back on Earth.”
“Those had been antiques, my lord.”
Zendrius knew he was being unreasonable but he had to vent his frustration somehow. He had known from the first moment he saw the soldiers of Juria that they had to run. In the 6.5 million years that passed after Father Warren and his men left Los-Reinar their nation had continued to grow and improve. The SAINTs of their pursuers were no longer bulky machines but smooth refined weapons of death. If anything, they now seemed more like metallic life forms than machines of war.
“Are you sure that they won’t see us?”
“Yes my lord, unless they physically enter the field by chance we should be safe. It is a spell that renders us invisible to any outside of its radius.”
“Good, how’s your wound?”
Nessha only replied with a pained smile.
Zendrius knew that if she had not acted as quickly as she did, she would now be holding his corpse instead of the gash on her shoulder. They had barely arrived in Liquiem when the seven SAINTs seemingly appeared out of thin air. It was as if they had been waiting for their arrival. However between his fire and Nessha’s magic they had barely managed an escape, but Zendrius now fully understood why she had been so worried about coming here.
“Where do you think we might find a durandal?”
“Juria has farms across Liquiem, however they will be heavily guarded, my lord.”
“Then we will just have to make sure we’re not seen. Can you manage that?”
“To manipulate a moving field is much more strenuous than a static one, my lord. I will at best only be able to conceal us for a few minutes.”
“It will have to do, we’ll start searching for one of these farms after you’ve healed.”

Alyza stirred.
“You have been asleep longer than expected, I was beginning to worry that I had birthed you too early,” said a feminine voice.
“Where am I?” asked Alyza groggily.
“Your new home.”
“What do yo-” started the girl before her eyes focused and she saw the being beside her bed.
In her eighteen years of life, she had never seen something so beautiful. Ruby-red locks caressed the picturesque creature’s golden skin, while cerise pink eyes regarded her in a way that made her feel both at ease and insecure.
“How do you feel?”
Alyza habitually looked at her hands and saw her own golden skin. “What is this?!”
The being beside her bed laughed and it was a strangely enticing. “You are no longer human, Alyza.”
“How do you know my name?”
“You told it to me yourself, perhaps this will help,” said the being before switching to telepathy. “Do you understand now?”
“You’re Zed’s mother?!” asked the girl shocked.
“The one and only, and his true name is Zendrius not Zed.”
“What do you mean?”
“Zed is the name humans gave him when they held him on Earth, he was born with and is known by the name Zendrius here in Los-Reinar.”
“What or where is Los-Reinar?”
Zendrius’ mother made a sweeping motion with both hands. “This is Los-Reinar, this plane of existence, humans know it by many different names, the most common being hell.”
“I’m in hell?! So I’m dead?”
“Not precisely, although your human life has ended.”
“I don’t understand, why am I in hell and why do I have golden skin?” Alyza lifted the silky sheet covering her and exclaimed, “And why do I have a tail?!”
Zed’s mother sighed. “I suppose I should have expected this.”
“What is going on?!” asked Alyza half-hysterical.
“I’m called Persephone and you are safe with me,” said the golden being as she placed a reassuring hand on the frantic girl’s shoulder.
Relief radiated from the woman’s touch and Alyza only nodded as she started to compose herself.
“I realise that this must all be very overwhelming and I apologise, but had I not brought you here and metamorphosed your body, you would never have achieved your dream.”
“What do you mean?” asked the girl now composed.
“Didn’t you tell me that all you ever wanted was to be with Zed?”
Alyza nodded.
“My son was bound to return to Los-Reinar, this is his home and had I not interfered you would have never been able to follow him here. Love between one of us and a human could have only ended in tragedy. I changed you so you could be with him or would you have rather I left you on Earth?”
“No, if it is to be with him I’d let you turn me into whatever you want, is he here? Can I see him?” answered the young girl earnestly.
“My son is busy doing what he has to in order to create a future for the two of you. I’m sure you will see him soon.”
“Oh ok,” said Alyza sadly.
“In the meantime, let me tell you of my son, Zendrius.”