It was a long journey, at least long according to those who didn't have enough patience to last at least a day on the road. But after traveling in the trucks far enough away from Tera Con Alpha, Ash thought the hollow section of a broken overpass that rested on four towering support columns in the middle of nowhere was a good place to stop and settle down.
All 3 trucks stopped at the base of the massive columns, with Ash herself, Devlin, and Melvin getting out first and looking up at this proposed settlement site.
"Well, I think this looks homely enough," Ash remarked without taking her eye off the structure. "What about you guys?"
Melvin looked at the open spaces between the structural frames. "Wide open spaces, lots of dividers for calling your own corner home, high vertical borders…what's not to like?"
Devlin scanned other parts of the same area. "The supporting columns are totally solid and not hollow – perfect for holding up extra weight for a long time, definitely enough space for everyone…yeah, I could call this our new nest too."
Ash nodded as she heard both her friends approve the location as she thought it was perfect too. Signaling to the other Mad Tenebri members still watching the others in the trucks, everyone got out of the trucks one-by-one to stretch their legs and have a look at what was soon to be their new home.
Ash walked over to the other Tenebri who were spreading out a bit around the four-column foundation. She stood by two of them who were contemplating her choice of settlement. When they noticed her present, she lent them her ear to get their second opinions.
"Wow, that's pretty high up," the one named Shannon gasped at the complex of concrete above.
"Well, considering that we're also in the middle of nowhere with no resources in sight, that isolated elevation is overdoing it," the one called Clarence also added his fifty-cents.
"Ever the optimist, aren't you, Clarence?" Ash snarked, her eye drooping and her arms crossed over her chest. "This place is high enough that we shouldn't have to worry about intruders and we've already planned to get us gear we can use to get us resources we need." She looked back up. "But right now, the first question is how we're going to get everyone up there…"
"I got an idea!" Shannon interjected as soon as she heard what Ash said.
Closing her eyes to concentrate, Shannon generated around herself the familiar nebulous aura of dark energy that defined who she was and her kind. Without warning, she swept a little wave of that energy under Clarence's feet, pushing him off the ground, making him yelp, while trying to lift him up in the air on a little platform of solidified energy that she controlled with her hands. She tried to push him up as high as she could despite the strain, but was only able to get him 5 feet off the ground before she had to release her hold.
Ash ran to catch Clarence in her arms before he hit the ground. Right when he landed in her grasp, Shannon fell on one knee, letting out a plosive breath of exhaustion. Ash set Clarence back down, who then dusted himself off before stomping right to Shannon and getting right in her face.
"What do you think you're doing!?" Clarence yelled. "You could have maimed me, or worse!"
"Clarence, leave her alone!" Ash scolded him. "She didn't even lift you that high." She moved to Shannon after getting around Clarence. "Shannon, how many people you think you need to do a higher lift?
Shannon looked to the groups of other Tenebri standing a few meters from her, taking directions from Melvin, Devlin, and other Mad Tenebri members. "I'd say maybe…10 of us?"
Ash went over to the Mad Tenebri keeping the group assured and called for their attention, making sure to tell the message she wanted to relay to Devlin and Melvin first. "Dev, Mel, I got a plan someone came up with I want to try out with you…"
It took about half a day, but Ash and the rest of Mad Tenebri managed to get all of their kind up into the overpass space. It took the cooperation of several people combining their powers to lift each one up to the top, even going to further as to try lifting several at a time. It was somewhat tiring for some, due to either recovering from injuries sustained by the foundation's experiments or not as refined in their abilities. Ash, Devlin, Melvin, and much of the Mad Tenebri were able to lift more due to having years of experience in using their powers along with staying in good physical condition by means of being on the run from the foundation.
"Okay then," Ash assessed the current situation, "now that we've got everyone up here, we'll just need to get everyone settled in." The surrounding Mad Tenebri were already going back down to the trucks and back up again on their own, able to use their own energy since they no longer had to carry each other up again. When they came back up, they were carrying folded linens that could be used for bedding along with packs of rations for the people to eat.
Both of these resources were spread out evenly among the civilian Tenebri, though Melvin had to take extra initiative in wresting extra rations away from Clarence's clutches. Devlin mostly stuck to distributing the linens among the individuals, but also took time to set up some of them as bedding for the less physically able which included elderly or those still too injured to do much.
Ash, on the other hand, was busy accompanying her fellow Mad Tenebri up and down the overpass, grabbing the supplies from the trucks to bring to the others up above. Flying up and down was no challenge for her, though the number of times she had to do so had left her a little tired. By the time she got back up to the top with another pack of rations, she had to stop to take a little breather. Resting with her back against a supporting frame, she looked left and right to survey all the people who were making themselves busy setting up their spaces in the area.
She could see it all happening: people helping each other out with walking and putting stuff away, others exchanging the things they needed to survive and be comfortable, even some providing each other some personal care, Mad Tenebri playing tug-of-war with Clarence over the same supplies…actually no, scratch that. But all in all, she actually felt safe, free to live life just like any other kind of person – doing the things she loved, being surrounded by people who care about what's happening with her. It reminded her of the good old days, when it was just her, her parents, her sister, her brother…
Ash sighed with a growl. "That was a long time ago…"
Her thoughts were interrupted when she suddenly noticed a little child standing right in front of her. She briefly looked into the child's earnest stare, already thinking of asking what was the matter. But she didn't really get to once she saw the child lift out a hand to her, holding a little packaged ration. Ash lifted a hand while faintly shaking her head, telling the kid that they could keep it, but the kid insisted that she take it. Feeling almost taken aback by this act of kindness coming from someone so much younger than her, Ash did what she could – she took the ration from the kid, removed it from the wrapping…and split it in two unevenly sized halves, giving the bigger half back to the kid. They both sat together for a little while, eating a ration together.
Later when the sun was going down, things have calmed a bit. All the people were already retreating into their chosen spaces in the abandoned overpass, but Ash was still outside. She was back down on ground level, standing many meters away from the site. Her eye wandered all over the barren sand and rocky ground that surrounded everyone's new home. Ash found her attention caught by the sight of a few stray pebbles.
She could hear the voices again, feeling a strong tug at her chest and even in her arms, urging her to go right at those pebbles. She lifted a hand warily towards the tiny rocks, the shadows within her feeling like they were snaking their way through her arm and getting ready to leave via her raised hand. A void-like aura manifested in her hand, the intensity in its energy slowly climbing and becoming stronger. Ash continued to concentrate on the pebbles she was aiming at, getting poised to shoot and disintegrate it into oblivion.
"Can't you just stop destroying things?"
She paused.
The world was vast and filled with a seemingly endless supply of wonders, but despite that, it was still finite. Things that break down are usually returned to whence they came, but if something were to be destroyed by the powers of a Tenebrus, it just vanished, erased from this dimension forever. Ash didn't know where things went after she destroyed them, no other Tenebrus like her did, and perhaps it will never be known. She already felt long ago that removing one more thing from an ever-changing world was pointless, that she didn't understand, but what could she do? All there was to it was the drive to just erase it, with nothing to go by except that the compulsion was comparable to being told to "unmake it" or "return it to whence it came" or even "take it back to the beginning", whatever it was supposed to mean.
She never really considered her powers to be a blessing. She convinced herself that because she could do nothing about the gift that had been forced upon her since she was young, she may as well be proud of it, take pride in it, learn how to use it well.
Ash narrowed her eye as she directed her flare of energy at the pebbles and shot, blasting the little rocks to powdered nothingness. "It's not our choice."
Ash returned to the overpass site, activating her powers once again to start levitating back up to the settlement. She looked up to spot two children talking to each other at the edge. She wasn't sure what they were talking about, but she deeply hoped that they weren't playing, or worse, out on a dare.
She went higher, seeing them turn to look down at having spotted her, watching her fly like they wish they could do too. She even saw them get on their knees and wave to her too, to whom she then waved back…and then one of them slipped from leaning forward.
First came a gasp, then shortly after, a scream. Ash halted in the air, throwing herself in one direction to try and move fast enough to catch the kid before they fell any further to the ground below. It would have been easy if the other kid had not slipped and fell as well trying to grab on to their falling friend. Ash grit her teeth, readying herself to use her powers to catch both, but her eye caught a third person diving down to catch one of the kids – the sight of the pale-skinned black-haired human woman told Ash that it was Shannon. Shannon was surrounded with a void-like aura of her own, streaking down with her powers to try and catch the kid Ash was currently not yet aiming for since she was focused on the one who fell first.
Without any further hesitation, Ash left that kid to Shannon while diving straight for the kid whom she set out to save in the beginning. Ash grabbed the first kid in her arms just as Shannon caught the second one, but now both had to slow down as they were still coming towards the ground at a high speed. At the rate they were falling, Ash anticipated that both she and Shannon were going to have to brace themselves for a crash landing. She tightened her hold on the kid in her arms, putting more energy into generating a stronger field around her body in preparation for impact. But both she and Shannon suddenly ended up landing in a cushion of dark energy that slowed their fall just enough that they touched the ground with a tap.
Ash and Shannon looked to see that Devlin, Melvin, and several of the Mad Tenebri standing at the top, their limbs pointed down at the ground far below with small wisps of a purple aura billowing from them. Ash could assume that they were the ones who shot out that cushioning bubble together in the nick of time. She even caught a glimpse of the other civilian Tenebri standing behind her fellow members, watching the scene. Making her way off the bubble and setting foot on the ground, Ash looked to Shannon doing the same.
"You okay?" Ash asked Shannon.
"Yeah," Shannon replied, "that was a close one."
Ash saw Shannon bend down to check her kid over for any possible injuries, prompting Ash to do the same, though not before telling her, "Great save there." That made Shannon give a little modest laugh in return.
The sky had completely darkened at that point, with pretty much almost everyone having gone to sleep. But Ash, as expected of the Tenebri's leader, waited for everyone to turn in. Until that happened, she bided her time sitting at the top of the overpass, sitting on the exposed roadway part that acted as the roof of her people's home. She killed time by playing around with a chunk of concrete, holding it in a floating cloud of dark energy as she waved it around in the air above her hand.
"You're still up, boss?"
Ash turned around to see that Devlin and Melvin were on the same level as she was. She turned back to face the horizon. "Yeah. Can't sleep until everyone else is, so why don't you guys turn in too?"
"Can't sleep either," Melvin remarked. "Knowing you're not resting after all that work is making us restless."
Ash smirked. "Well, you're gonna have to do something about that, 'cause we're gonna have to go back to the city for more supplies soon."
"Yeah, we know," Devlin said. "Still, we just thought we'd check on you. It's still been a really hard few days since we escaped from the prison, considering you did a lot of the work…"
"Yeah," Ash sighed. She paused as she looked into the distance, but then looked back to Devlin and Melvin again. "Hey guys, do you think we were meant to get our powers?"
"Huh?" Melvin raised one of his eyes. "What brought that on?" He felt Devlin hold him by the hand, seeing her shake her head at him which told him not to go that route.
Devlin stepped forward, opting to answer Ash's question. "I don't think we can ever know, Ash." Ash felt a little surprised that Devlin was forward enough to use her name, but she continued, "We got our powers without knowing how or why at all, along with our powers emerging at times we never imagined would happen. We never asked to have it, but we can't get rid of it either. It's just how we use it."
"Yeah, it's just like in that ancient human movie!" Melvin added. "It said something like, 'power' and 'duty' or something…"
Ash fidgeted for a bit, but then took one last look at the landscapes before getting back on her feet. "Thanks, guys." She turned to go to the niche path that Devlin and Melvin took to get to the top.
"Guess we'll be seeing you tomorrow then, boss?" Devlin asked.
"Not yet," Ash said. "There's just one more thing I need to do."
Shannon sat on her makeshift linen mattress, thinking over all the things that had happened in the past few days. She didn't have much time to contemplate them though, as she spotted Ash in front of the entrance to her space. Shannon rose to her feet and approached Ash. "Hey there, leader," she quietly greeted, "Something you need?"
"Well, just one thing," Ash replied. "How quick are you on your feet?"
Shannon paused at the suddenness of Ash's question. "Well, I know I'm not that hurt by the foundation's experiments," she began, "I'm well enough to do this." She activated her powers, bent her knees, and jumped, zipping a few meters up into the air and landing onto the top of the wall dividing her space from the other Tenebri. She then leapt to another concrete support frame further up and bounced to the next several ledges before returning to where Ash was, landing gracefully using her powers to slow her descent. "How's that?"
"I like it," was Ash's answer. "Really impressive for someone who only had a few days to recover from her injuries." She stepped forward, approaching Shannon until she was face-to-face with her. Shannon leaned back a tiny bit, unsure what her leader was trying to do. "Some of us are going back to Tera Con Alpha to get more stuff for everyone. It's pretty much a supply run, if you look at it."
"Yeah?" Shannon could only say in response.
That was when Ash then asked her: "How would you like to join the Mad Tenebri?"