Ch.14: Life's Price
In my mind there was only the desire to run. I didn't want to be stuck with this job. But orders were orders, even when my repairer was too far away to reach me and I could bail out right now and live with Victims for the rest of my life.
Ah, let's review that little chapter, shall we? First, I was born on a cheap colony, then I came and was taught by a cheap Instructor who later I killed with a cheaply fired shot, and in between I lost a friend to a cheap trick that Victims pulled, then fell prey to a cheap trick again myself as they brought him back to life. My life was CHEAP. That was all there was to it. But it had some priceless moments as well. If I tried to remember, I could remember a school play where I threw a cream pie at my rival in school. If I tried to remember, I could remember the first time I ever saw Ernest smile. He was talking with Erts, and he had that soft smile on his face that could disappear like a phantom. If I could remember, I could recall Ernest angry, standing over me while I held my reddened jaw. That was priceless too; I had managed to do something that on one else in the world had ever done, and that was make Ernest so angry he fought.
Life made you pay prices. It put a bunch of cards in front of you and said, "Pick one". If you picked a good card that didn't have much on it, he would laugh and throw it away. "Pick another", he'd say, and then this would continue until you picked the card in the stack that was the most horrible. Then he'd give one final laugh, and you'd have the worst thing you could ever get. Sometimes it would take your pride. Sometimes it would eat your conscience and make you guilty for some crimes. Sometimes it would leave you broke. Sometimes it would kill you.
You could haggle for it sometimes. Some people put up a smiling façade and pretended nothing happened when it slowly ate them inside out. Sometimes people managed to escape it by several hairs. Sometimes Life let them take a lesser card. But no one escaped it in the end. It was the last card Life could play for you. It was Death, and then Death would take over and start playing cards for you. In hell, I guess. I had always doubted there being a Heaven. Why would there be a Heaven for us? We were saving mankind's butts, but we were killing off Victims. Who was to say they weren't the same as us? THEY had their wives and their children, their fields and their homes, just like we did. We didn't UNDERSTAND. We called ourselves compassionate, but we were the most selfish of all races. We have developed civilization, invented our instruments of trade, flew to other places and other galaxies, and still we haven't learned. We had become a great empire, spanning space from end to end, but little by little it was taken over by the Victims. We watched in disbelief as these creatures hoarded our planets, until we were left with one last star. And all the time we were thinking, "They are so evil, they are so cruel." We called them monsters when WE, OURSELVES, had done the same a long time ago to other alien races, other alien life forms.
Humans were born selfish. Always. I was being selfish right now, I decided, because I was sure as hell getting Ernest off of Hestia before Erts killed him. I was being selfish because I had to have Ernest by my side. If I didn't have him, I wouldn't be here now, would I? I would go there, save him, and leave Erts to his little mad dance. I was doing this not for Ernest's sake, but for mine – it was like a drug. I couldn't function without him.
On that thought, the boosters on my back seemed to erupt flames. I felt a stab of pain; there was no repairer to monitor the pain away from me this time. Still, I was traveling in space, at the same rate that I had been accelerating. I couldn't be going faster. I waited for a little while, then took shut my eyes and tried to imagine if Ernest were all right.
I tried to imagine what I would do if he wasn't all right.
He had stopped me, once. "You retreat too", he said, and he lied to me. He died that day. But before that Life had cheated me Death – I had gotten too close to the Victim and begun a physical fight. No guns here. And after that he had punched me so hard my senses rung with surprise and pain. I never knew before that that Ernest had even ever thought of hurting anyone except for Victims. If he were here, I think I would…exist, I guess. Go on living. I could survive without him, couldn't I?
And then came the REALLY ludicrous idea: that I would forget him.
HA! When would that happen? When humans turn into monsters and Victims turn into angels! I froze at that comment. Oh yes, of course. That's already happened. Ernest…I knew Ernest wouldn't want me to die. He tried to save my life, once, and died for it, of course. He wouldn't want me to dwell on it. Hell, even his coffin was sent out into space so we wouldn't have a tombstone to visit and lament over! It was all very ironic, though, but deaths never lasted long in human minds.
Think of it as Ernest's last wish. He goes into battle without regret, remember? He goes into battle knowing that he won't return. And when that happens, you're not supposed to cry over it. You're supposed to just let it go. He died, you survived. And that was Life's price.
I know there would never be an Elixir of Life, ever. No Fountain of Youth crap, no Sorcerer's Stone nonsense, no Holy Grail. The price to Life was easy: Death. No one could avoid it. People were just so selfishly stupid sometimes, wanting something that would make them live forever. I bet old time rulers did that, thinking that they would be doing a country GOOD if they lived forever and ruled forever. That would have been a horrible rule. I wondered how long that ruler could remain in power without driving himself insane after a few wars.
Life has a funny way of choosing who died, though. The people with the best karma, like Ernest, who tried to help everyone around him, died sooner. And the dastardly ones, the ones who never had a decent bone in their bodies, survived to kill and kill again. It wasn't fair. Life wasn't fair. But though I was never one for that karma stuff, I did NOT want Ernest to go beddy-bye again. He deserved to LIVE. He had so much to live FOR. He had G.O.A. (which seemed only to serve GOOD memories, not BAD ones), he had his brother Erts (maybe he could 'cure' Erts of whatever madness had seized him?), and he had me. Selfish, I know, but I was the most important aspect in his life. And I was proud of it.
Ah. There. Hello, Hestia, we meet again. I smiled wryly, and my eyes became tortured. The world was beginning to break. When a planet had revolved enough times, it would break apart, especially if its shape and size had been altered from a perfect sphere. It looked as if Erts had only hastened that process. And as I neared the planet, I could see the trail he left. He had gone through half a planet's population in half a minute. It was amazing to see so many he could behead at one time. It was horrible to see the destruction.
Some of the Victims had died in their angel forms. Some were sprawled out farther, fifty feet away, in half transformation. I could only guess that they had tried to start a formation to counterattack, but it hadn't worked. And further on, I heard several moans of random, insane mutterings. Evidently Erts had done more than destroy them physically, but mentally as well. I closed my eyes; Ernest wasn't like this. The older brother had mercy. Erts beat his enemy into the ground so hard he would never, ever stand up to fight him again.
And then, I remembered that I had to find Ernest. I wondered how I could find him, as I usually just reached out for him, and he was there. Ernest?, I tried to say, and found no reply. I tried to think of his face, his eyes, his hair. What components made up the personality of "Ernest": that damnable compassion, the kind look, the glances that tell you that your problems are constantly on his mind and that he would do anything to help you. And to my relief, I felt the crackle of static, and then that familiar settling in the back of my mind as Ernest made his presence known.
I tensed. He seemed strained.
Sa, don't worry about me, Garu.
I frowned both physically and mentally. That sounded suspiciously like a lie. Where are you?
From his reply I knew something was wrong. Nowhere, Garu. Now that didn't just sound like a lie; I could tell it WAS a lie. I stumbled a half-dozen steps in each direction. Answer my question, Ernest, I pressed.
I felt the connection strain, but I kept my fingers tight on it. After a moment he said, The next ridge over. In the distance.
Relief flooded me. At least that had not been the END of the connection, which would have meant that…I couldn't think of that now. Not when I was so close. Not when Ernest was still alive and I could save him. He had his mentality; all he needed was me to come and get him. All he needed was for me to come and get him. I would see him again. I could barely prepare myself for such an entrance. Though I was sure Ernest wouldn't mind if my hair wasn't in place or my lipstick wasn't on (ha, ha. That was OBVIOUSLY a girl's thing), I found myself running to the ridge instead of just calmly walking. Perhaps it was the spur of the moment, the thought that I would see him so, so soon. Seconds could tick like hours, minutes like days and all that. It sounded corny, but in a situation like this, I couldn't but feel a bit worried. We WERE talking about a psycho little brother here.
I stopped over the ridge. Could you say I was happy? Well, I was. I was relieved immensely by then. Ernest remained a presence in my mind, not saying anything, but a warmth filtered through me. I felt like I was a candidate again, running the halls with Ernest, complaining about how running had nothing to do with piloting a Goddess. I could hear Ernest laughing and telling me that it was because they wanted their pilots to be in shape when they took the position. I could feel his mind when I clasped his hand and told him he was my friend, my best friend. I could feel his happiness and knew when he was angry. I could see his smile, the way when he came around the corner his face would be a smile, glad to see me. I could see him now, on the ground, his eyes looking up towards me, giving one last shuddering halt of breath, and then going dead.
The presence faded from my mind, slipping away like a sudden downpour. In my mind's eye I could see his form, becoming jelly and slipping down a gutter. I could reach all I wanted, but I wouldn't touch anything but wishes that slipped from my grasp, all the "what-ifs" of Life. I knew there was nothing I could do to save him now. I was suddenly guilty, every finger pointed at me, telling me I was guilty. I didn't save him when he saved me. Could it be said it was a debt I left unpaid?
I felt incapable of anything. All I needed was a push back into life. But I didn't want to return to life when I had died.
All I needed was that one push. And it came in the form of a little boy, no more than fourteen, the brother of the one I loved the most, his murderer, his ultimate child. I knew now that Erts had done what all little brothers do: imitate their older siblings. Erts had become what Ernest had been, one of the top candidates. And because of this, he grew stronger, more independent. In time, the time I had spent away from G.O.A., he had begun to realize something, that his EX could be used to better himself and his own position. It was greed, it was the corruption of power, but no one could escape that. Not even Ernest, now. All I had to do was look at his form on the ground and wonder how it could backfire on him like that.
"Are you looking at me?", that sweet voice said softly in my comm. link. "Aren't you angry, Garu? I have killed the one you have loved the most, haven't I? Why don't you come and get me now, Garu, if you love him so much. I promise vengeance will be sweet for you."
I couldn't help but snap back, "And you want to die?"
I could almost picture his sweet, deceiving smile. "Of course not. There wouldn't be any purpose in me alive in the first place if I wanted to die now. All I have done would have gone down the drain. And that would such a shame, Garu."
"You killed them both. Rio and Ernest." My voice came out to be a hiss. I could see his voice now, the face of a serpent, the face of something I had not seen before: hate. All this time Ernest had been a peaceful soul, his brother Erts always beside him, knowing any moment that they could both die in battle. I knew that once upon a time, their love was genuine. It started after Ernest left. I could only guess how much Ernest had to do to keep his brother's EX in check, to make sure he didn't do something to alter a person's mind during battle and cause their death so he could assume the position. But Life played a funny card this time, a fickle card called Fate. And even though it wasn't intentional, Ernest died, came back to life, and died again. All for the same reason, too: for love. For the purest love that could ever be found.
Anger surged up at me. Oddly, it didn't overwhelm my senses like it usually did, but bubble slowly, stirring languidly. I was keeping my anger in check. Rein it, and force it out when you fight came Ernest's voice in my mind. There's no use fighting your own men when there is an enemy out there.
Who was my enemy? Victim. Who was dead? Ernest. Why? Erts. That made Erts my enemy, right? Victim or not did not matter, I realized. What mattered was mentality.
I screamed into battle. All at once the blood rushed to my head, clearing my thoughts except for that emotion pure like love. Anger cleared my head, guiding my hands like Ernest once had, and I felt my marks clear and precise. I wasn't stumbling, I wasn't getting injured. My actions and my thoughts were clearer, more transparent than ever. I found I could anticipate every move, keep my guard from all ways, channeling the anger to my hands, the Eeva Leena's hands. Clear, clear, I could see the distance in front of me. And it was this anger, this pure unaltered anger that gave way to the last of my battles, the last of my will to fight, and the last of my hate. Revenge was not sweet. It was torture.
/ \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \
Author's note:
So, well, that was a depressing chapter. I apologize if some of the comments were a little random...I wasn't really paying much attention to what I was writing, just kinda putting everything down. As for the anger clearing his head...hehe, it's happened to me before. So instead of making Garu all angry and doing a bunch of stupid things, I made him actually make sense. Like Rio being smart, that kinda thing. Two more chapters, and this story will be history...
Andrea Weiling
In my mind there was only the desire to run. I didn't want to be stuck with this job. But orders were orders, even when my repairer was too far away to reach me and I could bail out right now and live with Victims for the rest of my life.
Ah, let's review that little chapter, shall we? First, I was born on a cheap colony, then I came and was taught by a cheap Instructor who later I killed with a cheaply fired shot, and in between I lost a friend to a cheap trick that Victims pulled, then fell prey to a cheap trick again myself as they brought him back to life. My life was CHEAP. That was all there was to it. But it had some priceless moments as well. If I tried to remember, I could remember a school play where I threw a cream pie at my rival in school. If I tried to remember, I could remember the first time I ever saw Ernest smile. He was talking with Erts, and he had that soft smile on his face that could disappear like a phantom. If I could remember, I could recall Ernest angry, standing over me while I held my reddened jaw. That was priceless too; I had managed to do something that on one else in the world had ever done, and that was make Ernest so angry he fought.
Life made you pay prices. It put a bunch of cards in front of you and said, "Pick one". If you picked a good card that didn't have much on it, he would laugh and throw it away. "Pick another", he'd say, and then this would continue until you picked the card in the stack that was the most horrible. Then he'd give one final laugh, and you'd have the worst thing you could ever get. Sometimes it would take your pride. Sometimes it would eat your conscience and make you guilty for some crimes. Sometimes it would leave you broke. Sometimes it would kill you.
You could haggle for it sometimes. Some people put up a smiling façade and pretended nothing happened when it slowly ate them inside out. Sometimes people managed to escape it by several hairs. Sometimes Life let them take a lesser card. But no one escaped it in the end. It was the last card Life could play for you. It was Death, and then Death would take over and start playing cards for you. In hell, I guess. I had always doubted there being a Heaven. Why would there be a Heaven for us? We were saving mankind's butts, but we were killing off Victims. Who was to say they weren't the same as us? THEY had their wives and their children, their fields and their homes, just like we did. We didn't UNDERSTAND. We called ourselves compassionate, but we were the most selfish of all races. We have developed civilization, invented our instruments of trade, flew to other places and other galaxies, and still we haven't learned. We had become a great empire, spanning space from end to end, but little by little it was taken over by the Victims. We watched in disbelief as these creatures hoarded our planets, until we were left with one last star. And all the time we were thinking, "They are so evil, they are so cruel." We called them monsters when WE, OURSELVES, had done the same a long time ago to other alien races, other alien life forms.
Humans were born selfish. Always. I was being selfish right now, I decided, because I was sure as hell getting Ernest off of Hestia before Erts killed him. I was being selfish because I had to have Ernest by my side. If I didn't have him, I wouldn't be here now, would I? I would go there, save him, and leave Erts to his little mad dance. I was doing this not for Ernest's sake, but for mine – it was like a drug. I couldn't function without him.
On that thought, the boosters on my back seemed to erupt flames. I felt a stab of pain; there was no repairer to monitor the pain away from me this time. Still, I was traveling in space, at the same rate that I had been accelerating. I couldn't be going faster. I waited for a little while, then took shut my eyes and tried to imagine if Ernest were all right.
I tried to imagine what I would do if he wasn't all right.
He had stopped me, once. "You retreat too", he said, and he lied to me. He died that day. But before that Life had cheated me Death – I had gotten too close to the Victim and begun a physical fight. No guns here. And after that he had punched me so hard my senses rung with surprise and pain. I never knew before that that Ernest had even ever thought of hurting anyone except for Victims. If he were here, I think I would…exist, I guess. Go on living. I could survive without him, couldn't I?
And then came the REALLY ludicrous idea: that I would forget him.
HA! When would that happen? When humans turn into monsters and Victims turn into angels! I froze at that comment. Oh yes, of course. That's already happened. Ernest…I knew Ernest wouldn't want me to die. He tried to save my life, once, and died for it, of course. He wouldn't want me to dwell on it. Hell, even his coffin was sent out into space so we wouldn't have a tombstone to visit and lament over! It was all very ironic, though, but deaths never lasted long in human minds.
Think of it as Ernest's last wish. He goes into battle without regret, remember? He goes into battle knowing that he won't return. And when that happens, you're not supposed to cry over it. You're supposed to just let it go. He died, you survived. And that was Life's price.
I know there would never be an Elixir of Life, ever. No Fountain of Youth crap, no Sorcerer's Stone nonsense, no Holy Grail. The price to Life was easy: Death. No one could avoid it. People were just so selfishly stupid sometimes, wanting something that would make them live forever. I bet old time rulers did that, thinking that they would be doing a country GOOD if they lived forever and ruled forever. That would have been a horrible rule. I wondered how long that ruler could remain in power without driving himself insane after a few wars.
Life has a funny way of choosing who died, though. The people with the best karma, like Ernest, who tried to help everyone around him, died sooner. And the dastardly ones, the ones who never had a decent bone in their bodies, survived to kill and kill again. It wasn't fair. Life wasn't fair. But though I was never one for that karma stuff, I did NOT want Ernest to go beddy-bye again. He deserved to LIVE. He had so much to live FOR. He had G.O.A. (which seemed only to serve GOOD memories, not BAD ones), he had his brother Erts (maybe he could 'cure' Erts of whatever madness had seized him?), and he had me. Selfish, I know, but I was the most important aspect in his life. And I was proud of it.
Ah. There. Hello, Hestia, we meet again. I smiled wryly, and my eyes became tortured. The world was beginning to break. When a planet had revolved enough times, it would break apart, especially if its shape and size had been altered from a perfect sphere. It looked as if Erts had only hastened that process. And as I neared the planet, I could see the trail he left. He had gone through half a planet's population in half a minute. It was amazing to see so many he could behead at one time. It was horrible to see the destruction.
Some of the Victims had died in their angel forms. Some were sprawled out farther, fifty feet away, in half transformation. I could only guess that they had tried to start a formation to counterattack, but it hadn't worked. And further on, I heard several moans of random, insane mutterings. Evidently Erts had done more than destroy them physically, but mentally as well. I closed my eyes; Ernest wasn't like this. The older brother had mercy. Erts beat his enemy into the ground so hard he would never, ever stand up to fight him again.
And then, I remembered that I had to find Ernest. I wondered how I could find him, as I usually just reached out for him, and he was there. Ernest?, I tried to say, and found no reply. I tried to think of his face, his eyes, his hair. What components made up the personality of "Ernest": that damnable compassion, the kind look, the glances that tell you that your problems are constantly on his mind and that he would do anything to help you. And to my relief, I felt the crackle of static, and then that familiar settling in the back of my mind as Ernest made his presence known.
I tensed. He seemed strained.
Sa, don't worry about me, Garu.
I frowned both physically and mentally. That sounded suspiciously like a lie. Where are you?
From his reply I knew something was wrong. Nowhere, Garu. Now that didn't just sound like a lie; I could tell it WAS a lie. I stumbled a half-dozen steps in each direction. Answer my question, Ernest, I pressed.
I felt the connection strain, but I kept my fingers tight on it. After a moment he said, The next ridge over. In the distance.
Relief flooded me. At least that had not been the END of the connection, which would have meant that…I couldn't think of that now. Not when I was so close. Not when Ernest was still alive and I could save him. He had his mentality; all he needed was me to come and get him. All he needed was for me to come and get him. I would see him again. I could barely prepare myself for such an entrance. Though I was sure Ernest wouldn't mind if my hair wasn't in place or my lipstick wasn't on (ha, ha. That was OBVIOUSLY a girl's thing), I found myself running to the ridge instead of just calmly walking. Perhaps it was the spur of the moment, the thought that I would see him so, so soon. Seconds could tick like hours, minutes like days and all that. It sounded corny, but in a situation like this, I couldn't but feel a bit worried. We WERE talking about a psycho little brother here.
I stopped over the ridge. Could you say I was happy? Well, I was. I was relieved immensely by then. Ernest remained a presence in my mind, not saying anything, but a warmth filtered through me. I felt like I was a candidate again, running the halls with Ernest, complaining about how running had nothing to do with piloting a Goddess. I could hear Ernest laughing and telling me that it was because they wanted their pilots to be in shape when they took the position. I could feel his mind when I clasped his hand and told him he was my friend, my best friend. I could feel his happiness and knew when he was angry. I could see his smile, the way when he came around the corner his face would be a smile, glad to see me. I could see him now, on the ground, his eyes looking up towards me, giving one last shuddering halt of breath, and then going dead.
The presence faded from my mind, slipping away like a sudden downpour. In my mind's eye I could see his form, becoming jelly and slipping down a gutter. I could reach all I wanted, but I wouldn't touch anything but wishes that slipped from my grasp, all the "what-ifs" of Life. I knew there was nothing I could do to save him now. I was suddenly guilty, every finger pointed at me, telling me I was guilty. I didn't save him when he saved me. Could it be said it was a debt I left unpaid?
I felt incapable of anything. All I needed was a push back into life. But I didn't want to return to life when I had died.
All I needed was that one push. And it came in the form of a little boy, no more than fourteen, the brother of the one I loved the most, his murderer, his ultimate child. I knew now that Erts had done what all little brothers do: imitate their older siblings. Erts had become what Ernest had been, one of the top candidates. And because of this, he grew stronger, more independent. In time, the time I had spent away from G.O.A., he had begun to realize something, that his EX could be used to better himself and his own position. It was greed, it was the corruption of power, but no one could escape that. Not even Ernest, now. All I had to do was look at his form on the ground and wonder how it could backfire on him like that.
"Are you looking at me?", that sweet voice said softly in my comm. link. "Aren't you angry, Garu? I have killed the one you have loved the most, haven't I? Why don't you come and get me now, Garu, if you love him so much. I promise vengeance will be sweet for you."
I couldn't help but snap back, "And you want to die?"
I could almost picture his sweet, deceiving smile. "Of course not. There wouldn't be any purpose in me alive in the first place if I wanted to die now. All I have done would have gone down the drain. And that would such a shame, Garu."
"You killed them both. Rio and Ernest." My voice came out to be a hiss. I could see his voice now, the face of a serpent, the face of something I had not seen before: hate. All this time Ernest had been a peaceful soul, his brother Erts always beside him, knowing any moment that they could both die in battle. I knew that once upon a time, their love was genuine. It started after Ernest left. I could only guess how much Ernest had to do to keep his brother's EX in check, to make sure he didn't do something to alter a person's mind during battle and cause their death so he could assume the position. But Life played a funny card this time, a fickle card called Fate. And even though it wasn't intentional, Ernest died, came back to life, and died again. All for the same reason, too: for love. For the purest love that could ever be found.
Anger surged up at me. Oddly, it didn't overwhelm my senses like it usually did, but bubble slowly, stirring languidly. I was keeping my anger in check. Rein it, and force it out when you fight came Ernest's voice in my mind. There's no use fighting your own men when there is an enemy out there.
Who was my enemy? Victim. Who was dead? Ernest. Why? Erts. That made Erts my enemy, right? Victim or not did not matter, I realized. What mattered was mentality.
I screamed into battle. All at once the blood rushed to my head, clearing my thoughts except for that emotion pure like love. Anger cleared my head, guiding my hands like Ernest once had, and I felt my marks clear and precise. I wasn't stumbling, I wasn't getting injured. My actions and my thoughts were clearer, more transparent than ever. I found I could anticipate every move, keep my guard from all ways, channeling the anger to my hands, the Eeva Leena's hands. Clear, clear, I could see the distance in front of me. And it was this anger, this pure unaltered anger that gave way to the last of my battles, the last of my will to fight, and the last of my hate. Revenge was not sweet. It was torture.
/ \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \
Author's note:
So, well, that was a depressing chapter. I apologize if some of the comments were a little random...I wasn't really paying much attention to what I was writing, just kinda putting everything down. As for the anger clearing his head...hehe, it's happened to me before. So instead of making Garu all angry and doing a bunch of stupid things, I made him actually make sense. Like Rio being smart, that kinda thing. Two more chapters, and this story will be history...
Andrea Weiling