Chapter Fifty-Seven: Rulebreakers
Why is everything purple?
That was the first question Gino Caiazzo asked himself as his eyes flew open and he bolted upright in bed. It was actually a very good question to ask, because although his bedroom looked almost perfectly normal…everything was violet. The walls, floor, ceiling, as well as every single object within Gino's bedroom was now a shade of violet. The bed, his sheets, the computer desk and everything on it…his dresser and posters… All varying hues of purple and violet.
Even Gino's clothes were purple. They were pajamas, he realized—warm, soft, fresh-smelling purple pants and a shirt with some weird kind of shoulder pads that gave the pajamas a regal look to them. There was also a lavender crescent moon symbol emblazoned on the chest of his pajama top. Wait a second… Gino frowned as he looked down at himself, plucking tentatively at the fabric of his sleeve. Sure, these pajamas were super comfy, and all, but… He'd never owned a pair like them in his life. He didn't think he'd ever even worn a purple article of clothing in his life.
And now, Gino finally noticed the second difference between the room he was in and his actual bedroom—the four windows built into each wall. Gino's actual bedroom didn't have windows in all four walls, due to it being located inside a larger building like a normal bedroom…which, obviously, meant that he was not actually in his bedroom. Where the hell was he?
"Where the hell am I?" Gino murmured to himself, giving voice to his thoughts. "Fuckin' dream, or some shit?"
Gino stepped over to the nearest window, and—wait, no…what…? Gino gave a puzzled stare down towards the floor. Although the floor was several feet below him, Gino's feet were not touching the ground. Equal parts confusion and wonder filled the teenage boy as he realized that he was floating in midair, suddenly and miraculously able to fly. Now this was getting weird. Awesome as fuck...but weird.
Looking back up to the window, Gino willed himself to glide forward, grasping the windowsill with both hands when he got close enough. He let his feet settle back onto the ground, peered out the window to see what kind of view he'd be rewarded with—and it did not disappoint.
His mouth hanging open a fraction in awe, Gino gazed out upon the sprawling city of purple, black, and gray that extended as far as the eye could see in all directions. Gray chimneys, violet-stone clock towers, black high-risers; mansions and castles of purple, violet, and lavender stone—all interlocked and woven together to form the massive, shadowy city below. The streets seemed to be plunged into shadow, and there was a comforting quiescence to the city below; not dissimilar to that of the pale desert on LOSAS, after nightfall.
Though when Gino studied the buildings below more closely, he saw that many of them seemed to be abandoned, and some structures had even completely collapsed. While this might have normally been off-putting to Gino, it was one of the last things on the teenage boy's mind. He'd just found out that he could fly, after all—he was not thinking like he normally did.
The sky, for the most part, was an empty black void. No stars, no suns, no light of any kind. The only thing that broke the monotone blankness of the dark sky was… Gino squinted, trying to get a better look at it. At first, he thought it was a moon, but quickly discarded that idea; it was much too big to be a moon. It looked like the rounded edge of a distant, vast city-planet composed of the same violet and black architecture that made up this city. Only, just by observing the curvature of the other city-planet, Gino could tell that the city-planet he was currently on was much smaller in size.
If anything, the significantly larger city world that lay just beyond the bottom of the horizon was the planet, and this city-planet was its moon. That would actually make a lot more sense, considering-
Gino fell back from the window, his legs giving out and collapsing from under him. One moment he'd been fine, and then the next he felt like someone had just rammed a hot iron spike into his back. The pain was localized to underneath his right shoulder blade, and his purple pajama top began to turn a dark red as blood started to flow.
The teenager lay as still as possible on the floor of his dream room. He had fallen on his back, which kind of sucked for him because all the pain was in his back, but it would only hurt a thousand times more if he attempted to roll over onto his stomach. No, he just needed to bite the bullet on this one.
At first, confusion was the only thing Gino felt, but it only lasted for an instant. With the blinding pain in his back came the first memories of how his waking self had acquired that pain—he remembered fighting one of those Derse guys with a knife literally in his back, and...and then... Nothing, yet. Hopefully the circumstances surrounding his loss of consciousness on LOSAS would come to light in the next few minutes. That had to have been what happened, if what little Gino knew about dream selves was correct. You go to sleep, you wake up as your dream self. Super simple.
But the more Gino remembered, the less at ease he felt. The pain was only growing worse, the blood flow not stopping. Not for the first time, Gino began to suspect that he had not just 'fallen asleep'… He'd heard stories about these 'dream selves' from some of the others who'd woken theirs up—Cruz and Theo, to name two. Adam's dream self was also awake, but Gino hadn't heard any stories from him. He knew Adam would probably rather dip his balls in liquid nitrogen than talk to him—the guy was even worse than Tami when it came to holding grudges. But the point was that, in all Gino had heard about dream selves, nothing had ever been mentioned of waking up and coming down with a sudden, severe case of stab wound in the back…especially when Gino's dream self had never actually been stabbed!
The wounds that had caused him to wake up here were transferring to his dream self, and Gino had no way to stop it.
I'm dying, Gino slowly realized, his heart rate beginning to ramp up. He was dying, and he did not know why. After a minute or so of lying there on the ground, doing his best to try and ignore the pain that was piercing his right side, a second pain began to make its existence known. This one started at the back of Gino's neck, and seemed to extend all the way up into his brain—Gino only experienced the pain of this wound for the briefest of instants, but that split-second was nearly enough to make him black out.
Luckily, after that instant, all the pain Gino was feeling suddenly vanished. The teenage boy sat up tentatively, as if hesitant to soil his newfound luck with excessive movement. After slowly standing up without even any minor discomfort, Gino felt around the right side of his back…but the stab wound was no longer there. Even the blood had disappeared, leaving Gino's shirt and carpet as clean as ever. It was as if none of that ever happened at all!
Gino started to push the limits, allowing himself to float up and spin around the center of the room, and then leaping from one window to the next, making sure every trace of that pain was gone for good. As he indulged in his urge to fly around, Gino found that even the trauma of having those wounds suddenly appear on his body was no longer quite so burdening. He found it difficult to worry himself too much over a near-brush with death when there was flying to be had.
Gino started moving towards the nearest window, when his computer screen caught his eye. The PalHassle icon on the desktop was flashing, which meant that someone was trying to contact them. Deciding to check PalHassle out before embarking on some sort of crazy adventure in the city outside, Gino hovered over to the computer desk and settled down, opening the online chat system, scrolling down to see who was trying to message him. It was Tami.
Good, Gino thought, maybe she's got some answers for me.
He double-clicked on Tami's screen name.
-tchaikovskysAccompanist began hassling gentlemanConsigliere-
TA: Gino?
TA: U
TA: uh
TA: U there?
TA: Hello?
TA: Look, i just watched u die, so fucking reply to this!
TA: Gino!
TA: Gino, look at ur goddamn computer!
TA: GINO
GC: mary mother of octopus cum, wat the fuck just happened
GC: tam
GC: tam did i die
GC: im confused
GC: am
GC: am i dreaming
-tchaikovskysAccompanist is no longer hassling gentlemanConsigliere-
"Well, so much for that…" Gino muttered, glaring at the short log of messages, glowering even harder at the line of text announcing Tami's virtual departure. That was very unlike her, to simply quit a conversation without any explanation. She was clearly freaked out. And now he had no answers.
Within the next minute, Gino had finally recovered all the memories of what had happened prior to his awakening here. There had been a pain…an sharp, sudden pain in the back of his neck, traveling up into his head…and then the teenage boy was suddenly opening his eyes to his violet not-bedroom.
"Did I die…?" Gino murmured to himself. He had no way to find out, with Tami no longer on PalHassle…but he was beginning to fear that he had. That pain that he'd felt in the back of his neck...it could not have been anything good. If he'd been stabbed there, back on LOSAS...
Gino closed out of PalHassle and thought about getting up from the computer desk, staring blankly at the screen for a few moments. He then looked up at the window behind the computer desk, took in the view of the shadowy city below. He reached over and grabbed his iphone...his iphone, which was also purple. Still, it seemed to function just as well as its normal counterpart, if not better, so Gino was willing to overlook its strange coloration.
Regardless of what this place was or how he got here…it would seem that Gino was stuck here, for the time being. He might as well do a little exploring.
Gino moved for the window.
The runner's name was Burnless.
He had been 'born' in a laboratory within one of the asteroids of the Veil. Like all 'newborn' Dersites, he had gone straight from the gestation tube to the preparation chambers, organized into squads, platoons, given weapons he had been genetically 'programmed' with the knowledge to use, and then subsequently loaded into a transport bound for the Battlefield. The whole birthing process had taken about half an hour.
Burnless's name had been an identification number, back in those days. While many of his fellow newborn comrades met violent ends as they were unloaded from the transports and thrown against Prospitian defenses, Burnless had survived. While others were singled out for their courage, their brutality, their strength, their marksmanship, or their grasp of combat tactics, Burnless had been noted for his agility and speed. It was not long before he found himself working as a runner for the Black King himself.
Though Burnless had been created several millennia ago, he was still considered to be young by carapacian standards. A carapacian's accepted age in society was almost always based on their completion of their military service, their actual 'birthdays' being the day they came home to Derse, after they were discharged. Following this model, Burnless was actually considered to be only one-hundred-eighty-nine years old.
After being discharged and finally allowed to go home to Derse, Burnless was surprised at the chokehold the Black Queen held over the Dersite populace. The Agents kept a watchful eye on the Dersite commoners, and every time someone whispered of anything that sounded like dissent, or of bringing about some kind of change…they would vanish, likely into the Silent Dungeon. Strict curfew was enforced during the dark hours, and Enforcers usually shot first and asked questions later when they caught curfew-breakers.
It was not long before Burnless found himself on the Obsidian Moon, drawn by stories of the uprising that had taken place there over two thousand years ago, organized and led by one whom they called the 'Wrathful Veteran'. As Burnless would find out over the next few years, he would not be able to find the dissenters. The dissenters would find him. And they did so after one evening when he quite stupidly voiced his opinions in several of the local speakeasies, his normally-cautious tongue loosened by too much alcohol.
The Enforcers came for him later that night, likely under the orders of the Agents. They did not announce themselves—they simply broke down the door with an enforcement-issue battering ram and stormed the domicile Burnless had taken up residence in. They completely wrecked his home and subsequently torched it.
Luckily for Burnless, he had not been home when this happened. Minutes before his door was broken down, Burnless had been woken by a woman climbing into his bedroom through the window. The woman had bluntly told him to leave everything behind and follow her if he wanted to live. He wisely chose to accompany the female Dersite out his window and across the street through use of a zip line—which had been slightly challenging because he was still slightly drunk from before. He would then learn that she was an operative of the dissension, and the Agents were not the only ones who had heard his words.
After the woman brought Burnless back to the Onyx, the young Dersite met the Wrathful Veteran for the first time and was integrated into the dissenters. Burnless had also worked with the dissenters as a runner, his exceptional speed and agility quickly recognized by his new superiors. In some regards, it was much like a return to the military, back to old habits. But this time, the old habits Burnless returned to felt much more comfortable under this new leadership. He much preferred working under the Wrathful Veteran than he did the Black King—the Black King was a fascinating individual and a brilliant military leader, there was no questioning that…but the Veteran actually seemed to care for those whom he led.
The Wrathful Veteran was no King, and his followers were all the more loyal to him because of it. For the first time, Burnless knew how it felt to be truly willing to walk through fire if his leader ordered him to.
Burnless had been pulling runner duty in the Onyx's radio room, tonight, when the transmission arrived from one of the dissenters' POPs—which stood for 'Priority Observation Post'. The dissenter operative sending the transmission went by the name of Farsight—Burnless recognized the name; Farsight had been a commando sniper during his military days, and he was usually used in reconnaissance missions due to his uncanny eyesight, his intuition, and also due to the fact that his intel was always reliable.
Farsight had a very important message, requested to speak directly to the Wrathful Veteran. After his identity and the importance of his message had been verified through the use of pre-established passcodes, the Watch Officer on duty, who was in command of the radio room, had turned to Burnless, ordered the young Dersite to fetch the Wrathful Veteran.
Heart thumping with excitement, Burnless left his post and headed straight for the stairs. The radio room was located in the basement of a small domicile within the Onyx—that domicile functioned as the dissenters' makeshift command center, from which all movements and activities were coordinated. And located conveniently on the upper floor of the very same domicile were the living quarters of the Wrathful Veteran himself, making it possible for him to be summoned to the radio room on a moment's notice.
Burnless hurried upstairs to the ground floor, emerging into the front hall. Once upon a time, this house had belonged to some high-ranking Agents, and many traces of its past opulence still remained—the exotic rug laid out on the floor of the front hall, the remains of what had once been an ornate mirror frame still hanging on one of the walls, and about a thousand other subtle reminders of the past.
Burnless hurried through the front hall into what used to be the kitchen, and then into the den, climbing the staircase within to the second floor above. The domicile was not a large one. The upper floor in its entirety comprised of a single, curved hallway—three bedrooms, a bathroom, and a small, empty room that appeared to have been a closet at some point. One of these bedrooms was currently occupied by the Quartermaster, who was responsible for the logistical side of the Wrathful Veteran's shadow war—keeping the dissenters fed, supplied, and healthy was the Quartermaster's daunting task. The second bedroom was empty, usually used by radio operators who needed to grab quick naps in between stacked watch shifts. But it was the third bedroom, at the far end of the hall, that Burnless was heading for.
This was not the first time Burnless had been sent to retrieve the Wrathful Veteran, but the young Dersite always felt incredibly nervous every time he went. He had a million questions he wanted to ask the leader of the dissension, but he'd never quite managed to work up the courage.
Burnless no longer hesitated. He gave several sharp raps on the door with his knuckles, announcing his presence. A voice spoke from inside, instructing him to enter. Burnless took a deep breath and turned the doorknob, stepping into the room beyond.
The bed was empty, which meant the Wrathful Veteran had not been sleeping. That was good—the Veteran would have been in a irritable mood if he'd been woken in the middle of a dream. The bedroom's lamps were on, shining at a dim brightness, giving the room a relaxed feel. Jazz played from the record player on the nightstand, quietly filled the room with some soothing tenor saxophone and stress-relieving piano riffs.
Against the far wall, just below the open window, was a writing desk. There were a few books on the desk's shelves, as well as an inkpot and quill, and a stack of blank paper. A paper with some illegible writing on it was still lying on the desktop, and several discarded pieces of paper lay on the floor in crumpled balls.
The Wrathful Veteran was sitting in the desk's chair, facing away from the desk. He was not wearing a hat or jacket, which made the jagged scar tissue that marred his face more prominent, without the shadow of a hat's brim to soften it. Off to the side, tucked away in the furthest corner of the room, was something that puzzled Burnless every time he saw it. It comprised entirely of old, rusty tin cans—they had been stacked on top of each other in different arrangements, tin cans of all shapes and sizes, forming crude buildings…which in turn formed a strange, metallic town. Crude 'streets' had been drawn in with chalk, completing the spectacle. Burnless could not help but stare at all the tin cans for a few moments—every time he entered this room, he wondered why the Veteran had all these cans. But he'd never asked.
The Wrathful Veteran looked to be deep in thought, gazing ponderously at his strange assortment of cans, the shadows of the make-believe buildings constantly dancing and shifting in the light of the lamps. The leader of the dissension did not look away from his odd creation even as Burnless walked in and delivered his message.
"You're wanted in the radio room, sir," the young Dersite informed the Wrathful Veteran. "Transmission just came in from one of the POPs. It was Farsight, sir. Said it was urgent, highest priority."
"Thanks for the heads-up." The Wrathful Veteran did not waste a moment, rose from his chair, followed Burnless out into the hall.
This was Burnless's least favorite part of retrieving the Veteran; the walk back down to the radio room. It was a brief walk, but it was quite uncomfortable for him…being alone with the Wrathful Veteran himself, not knowing whether or not he should try and speak, or if he should simply remain silent… Burnless would probably have never gotten the chance to speak to the Veteran, had the leader of the dissension not spoken to him, first.
"Highest priority, you said? Seems you're always fated to be the one on duty when important things happen, Burnless," the Wrathful Veteran commented to the runner, deeply startling the young Dersite by using his name.
Burnless was at a loss for words. The Wrathful Veteran had become something of a legendary figure among the common folk of Derse. A great warrior from the War of the Nobles, they would whisper, now fighting against oppression from the shadows of the Obsidian Moon. Many of the things said about the Wrathful Veteran by the Dersite populace were quite exaggerated, obviously, but Burnless would still consider it to be a falsehood to categorize the Veteran as an ordinary man.
The young Dersite had been the one to deliver the most important messages of the past century to the Wrathful Veteran, but he had still not been sure if the Veteran even knew he existed. He was the runner who did his job and delivered messages—no more, no less. He was usually forgotten by most people after he left a room. And here the Wrathful Veteran was, calling Burnless by name…
You know my name? Burnless asked the Veteran in his thoughts, still startled.
"Of course I know your name, Burnless," the Wrathful Veteran chuckled, donning his fedora and straightening the front brim as he followed the young runner into the stairwell that led down to the den. "As I said, you always seem fated to be on duty when important things happen. What do you make of this?"
"I…" Burnless had been startled a second time when the Veteran answered his silent question…until the young Dersite realized that he'd actually spoken aloud. He chastised himself for his lack of control, quickly regaining full control of his faculties. "I don't rightly know, sir. Just luck, I suppose."
"Luck, you say?" the Wrathful Veteran mused, his eyes glinting with distant memories, recalling times when he'd viewed the world in an equally simplistic manner. "And what makes you so lucky?"
"Well, I…" Burnless hesitated for a moment, unsure of what to say. He glanced back at the Wrathful Veteran as they stepped out into the den, but only received a questioning blink in response. Burnless swallowed, continued walking, allowed his mind to dip back into some of his earlier memories. "I served as one of the Black King's personal runners, you know. It was only my second assignment… The fort I was sent to by the Black King ended up getting firebombed by the Prospitian air force, and I was one of six survivors. And of those six, I was the only one who didn't get burned half to death. I didn't get burned at all."
"And that's how you got your name, I take it." The Wrathful Veteran immediately made the connection. "Lucky, indeed… It sounds like a story I should like to hear sometime. And do not be so dismissive of your 'luck'—there are forces at work which are beyond our ability to understand. I know of a seafaring subculture of turtle consorts on the Land of Shores and Prisms that even manages to exert some limited control over luck…it is real, and it can be a very powerful force."
"If you say so, sir," Burnless's reply was. The young runner entered the front hall and opened the door leading down to the basement, standing aside to let the Wrathful Veteran pass. The Veteran gave him a nod as he stepped onto the top stair. That was when Burnless decided to speak, moving to close the door behind him as he followed the Wrathful Veteran downstairs. "I'm sorry, sir, but I've been wondering for a little while, and I have to ask… What's with all the tin cans in your personal quarters?"
"Ah… Can Town…" The Wrathful Veteran hummed with quiet laughter once more, reaching the bottom of the stairs and stepping out into the empty room. "That old thing…a relic from my earliest years after my homecoming, when I worked in one of the Queen's Royal Canneries. I had some silly habits when I was younger, when my views on the world were much more black and white… I would pretend to be the mayor of this town of cans, and I would imagine abolishing Kings and Queens, giving everyone a voice of their own… Silly old habits. I suppose I keep it as a reminder of those old values, so they don't get too distorted over the millennia."
Burnless was silent, striding forward past the Wrathful Veteran and opening the door to the radio room, which was still abuzz with radio traffic. The Wrathful Veteran gave him a quick nod before walking past, entering the room and immediately taking charge. Burnless, playing his part, stood off to the side of the door, ready to run back out again at a moment's notice.
"Is the transmission still open, Ironsides?" the Wrathful Veteran asked the watch officer, gesturing to the primary radio station with his head.
"Transmission's still open." The watch officer gave a nod in reply. "He's listening."
The Wrathful Veteran did not waste a single moment, sitting down at the primary radio station and directly addressing the dissenter on the other end of the cloaked channel. "Okay, Farsight, what do you have for me?"
"The Prince is awake, boss."
The Wrathful Veteran's heart skipped a beat. He did not ask Farsight to repeat himself—he'd understood the message quite clearly. While the Agents' surveillance of the four dream towers had grown lax over the millennia, the Wrathful Veteran had set up surveillance of his own. And the dissenters had never stopped watching and waiting. The Sylph had woken first, and the Veteran had been lucky enough to intercept her on the streets before the Enforcers could hunt her down. The Thane had been next, waking up just in time for the riot in Greenflame Plaza. Then the Witch had been woken, but she'd had the good sense not to leave her tower.
The Prince, however… The Wrathful Veteran knew that the Prince would be the first Hero the Black Queen went after. And with the other three Heroes on the moon already having woken up, the Wrathful Veteran was quite certain that the dissenters were not the only ones closely watching the Prince's tower. The Agents had to have resumed their surveillance of the dream towers, especially with the Authority Regulator running the show. During the War of the Nobles, the Veteran had fought alongside the Authority Regulator in the Umbral Commandos—one of the most lethal regiments in the Dersite commandos. The Regulator was nothing if not deadly efficient; he would have certainly reestablished surveillance on the dream towers in order to know when the remaining Heroes woke up. And what the Authority Regulator knew, the Black Queen would find out a second later.
The Veteran would have to move fast.
"I'm on my way," the Wrathful Veteran killed the channel, got up abruptly from the radio station, turned to his staff. "I need to be at the Prince's tower right this second. Where is our nearest pad?"
When there was silence in the room, all the radio operators trying to figure out which of the dissenters' transportalizer pads were located closest to the Prince's dream tower, Burnless was the one who quickly broke it, already knowing the answer. "Nearest pad is the one in the Eastvale ghetto," the runner answered for everyone else. He used the transportalizer pads on a regular basis, quickly memorizing the intricate layout of pirated transportalizer pads the dissenters had hidden throughout the Obsidian Moon, and even on Derse itself in some places.
"No good; Eastvale is at least five minutes away from the Prince's tower," the Wrathful Veteran replied, rejecting Burnless's suggestion.
The young dissenter runner wasn't sure what made him hold his ground. Being able to have a conversation with the Wrathful Veteran, however brief a conversation it was, had filled Burnless with a sort of resolve. He had the skills to prove the Wrathful Veteran wrong, and now he had the confidence to make the Veteran aware of that fact.
The words were spilling out of Burnless's mouth even before they were a blip on his mental filter's radar. "Five minutes? To hell with five minutes; I'll get you to the Prince in less than two." Burnless was filled with horror even as he spoke the words…but he did not let it show. He'd committed, now, and there was no unsaying it. Awkwardly, he cleared his throat and added a semi-resigned, "Sir."
The watch officer was speechless with fury, but the Wrathful Veteran silenced him with a raised hand when he started to shout at the runner. The Veteran turned, shifted his attention back onto Burnless, his large, pearl-white eyes glimmering with amusement. "Long time since I've been spoken to like that…" The Wrathful Veteran's voice hummed with laughter that was simmering just beneath the surface. "Very well, Burnless, get me to the Prince in less than two minutes."
Burnless met the Veteran's gaze with a defiant one of his own, enjoying his newfound resolve. "Less than two minutes," the runner repeated himself, quietly taking a deep breath to keep his adrenaline-spiked heart rate down.
"Less than two minutes." the Wrathful Veteran's grin returned as he stepped away from the primary radio station and made his way towards the door. As he walked, he also produced a pocket watch from his waistcoat pocket, glancing at it once as he led the way upstairs and into the front hall. "A warning; I will be timing you. While I respect those who speak their minds plainly, you still should not make boastful claims unless they are true. Take two minutes or longer, and I can promise you double watch shifts for the next month."
No turning back, now. Burnless gave an almost hapless shrug as he stepped outside through the domicile's front door, following the Wrathful Veteran out into the moderately-developed, grassy expanses that made up the core of the Onyx. "Hope you're light on your feet, sir," was all the young Dersite could really say in response.
The two Dersites made their way through the dissenter compound at a firm jog, leaving behind the residential sector and making a beeline straight for the auxiliary supply depot nestled against the northern wall of the Onyx. Located within the auxiliary supply depot was a transportalizer pad called the 'Hub' by the dissenters—it was from the Hub that the dissenters used their network of transportalizer pads to covertly travel to different parts of the Obsidian Moon.
The Hub was a master pad—that is to say, it was a transportalizer pad capable of connecting with any other transportalizer pad, provided the user had the frequency code of the pad they wanted to end up on. Master pads could also be accessed from any other pad, but again; one would need the frequency code to do so, and the dissenters were constantly changing the Hub's frequency to prevent anyone from hacking it.
The Hub would normally require a large power source to function, but the dissenters' Quartermaster had devised a method of powering the master pad by siphoning off excess energy from the Obsidian Moon's power grid. The dissenters had been doing this for over a thousand years, and no one had noticed yet.
There were four armed dissenters standing guard outside the room containing the Hub, though they immediately stepped aside for the Wrathful Veteran. The Hub did not look much different from any other normal transportalizer pad—a bit larger, perhaps, but that was it. Burnless strode ahead of the Veteran, stepped up onto the master pad, over to the control panel. He'd memorized the sequences for each of the dissenters' pirated transportalizer pads over the decades, swiftly keyed in the frequency code for the Eastvale pad.
Burnless's finger stabbed down onto the 'execute command' button.
There was a bright flash of light, accompanied by the strange sensation of being pulled through a vortex. The light vanished, leaving the Wrathful Veteran and Burnless standing on an older, slightly rusty transportalizer pad, tucked away inside a cramped closet that appeared to be under a flight of stairs. Burnless pushed open the closet door, emerging into the front hall of a dusty, abandoned mansion.
"You're on the clock, Burnless," the Wrathful Veteran reminded the runner, ducking out of the closet behind the younger Dersite. "Lead the way."
"This way, sir." Burnless set off at a sprint, bounding up the mansion's central staircase at several steps per stride. The Veteran was startled initially at the speed of the runner, his mouth setting in a hard line as he struggled to keep up with the younger Dersite.
Burnless flew up to the top floor of the abandoned mansion, four stories up, vaulted himself over the banister before he even reached the top of the stairs, plunged into a dark corridor leading deeper into the giant house. The Wrathful Veteran had adjusted his running speed and breathing rate to balance each other, settling into a comfortable rhythm that allowed him to keep up with Burnless.
Just before hitting the end of the dark hallway, Burnless broke off suddenly, flitted through the final door on the left. The remains of what had once been a mid-ranking Agent's vacation quarters lay beyond the door—all of the possessions and intact furniture had been looted a long time ago, when the violence of the dissension's initial uprising prompted the Agents and royalist sympathizers who had dwelled within Eastvale to abandon it, leading to the once-bustling neighborhood's decline into a lawless ghetto.
Burnless stepped over splintered remnants of something that resembled a wardrobe, throwing the curtains from the large window set into the far wall. The window offered a commanding view of the Eastvale ghetto—the mansion, after all, was one of the largest buildings in the area. Most of Eastvale was a labyrinthine sprawl of crumbling domiciles, masking an intricate network of winding, twisting streets, interlocking alleyways, and concealed shortcuts.
And above all of it, less than a mile away, an enormous tower of violet stone, capped with a spherical chamber at the very top. It was the dream tower of the Prince of Mind. The Wrathful Veteran wanted to gaze up at the tower, wanted to look closely, see if he could glimpse the Hero inside, but there was no time. Burnless had climbed up onto the windowsill, gesturing for the Veteran to follow.
"Stealth-purposed zip line," Burnless said to the Veteran, shrugging off his coat and slinging it over a strong line of nylon-like rope that the Veteran only seemed to be able to see when it moved…and even then, only when he looked for it. Burnless gripped both ends of his jacket tight, leaped off the windowsill, was whisked away by gravity, plunging off into the darkness towards the zip line's bottom anchor point in the near-ish distance.
Hot on Burnless's heels, the Wrathful Veteran took off his own suit jacket and threw it over the zip line. The Veteran noticed that the rope itself glimmered faintly, and he gave a quiet hum as he understood how it worked. Stealth filaments woven into the rope, derived from an underwater species of light-bending kelp—native to the vast, emerald oceans of the Land of Shores and Prisms. The only way someone would find this zip line was if they already knew where it was.
The Wrathful Veteran flew down the zip line, his stomach writhing with butterflies as he shot across the breadth of two city blocks. The zip line was anchored to the top of a burnt-out shell of a one-story building, where Burnless was waiting. Homeless Dersites and other less-than-friendly inhabitants of Eastvale would commonly occupy abandoned buildings like these, but this one seemed to be empty.
Burnless was already moving on by the time the Wrathful Veteran reached the rooftop, forcing the Veteran to land at a running start, following Burnless as the runner hopped down through a hole that had been burned through the roof, landing in the empty room below.
As dilapidated and forgotten as the Eastvale ghetto had become, it was by no means devoid of life. Quite a few Dersites who had lived there prior to the dissension's initial uprising had not left, stubbornly clinging to their homes and fighting off looters even as the Obsidian Moon burned around them. These individuals tended to keep to themselves, rarely venturing out into the open unless absolutely necessary…and even then, only in groups.
Most of the people Burnless usually came across in Eastvale were vagrants; some of them sat silently on the sides of the street, others wandered through the alleys in drug-induced dazes. While these individuals certainly had their fair share of issues, they were the harmless ones. Eastvale was also rife with thugs and criminals; the crime rate was so ridiculous that the Enforcers no longer bothered to even patrol the ghetto—and on the incredibly rare occasion they did enter Eastvale, it was only in great force, and usually under the direction of the Agents.
Like the harmless vagrants, these Dersites had been unable to make the transition from military service to a quasi-civilian life on Derse…only they turned to violence as a coping mechanism, rather than simply shutting down mentally or falling to drugs like many of the vagrants. They were all traumatized veterans, hollowed out by the horrors they had experienced in the Black King's never-ending crusade against Prospit. And unlike Prospit, Derse did not have any real psychiatric services available to its troubled veterans, which unfortunately meant that the vast majority of the vagrants and criminals were beyond helping.
The Wrathful Veteran could not help but feel a deep pang of great sorrow as he followed Burnless, sprinted past many of these forgotten souls, saw the emptiness in their eyes. He had suffered through much during the War of the Nobles, but the Veteran had luckily managed to cope and integrate with society by clinging to his desire for the people of Derse to be free of the harsh rule of the Black King and Queen. And even then, he'd only just barely managed to retain his sanity. He still had nightmares of his military service throughout the War of the Nobles—the chessboard-pattern earth of the Battlefield…vast, grassy expanses choked with corpses…entire rivers running red with blood.
The vagrants, the criminals who lived in Eastvale had fought for the King and Queen, had given everything for their kingdom…and now, having outlived their usefulness as soldiers and unable to continue being useful as Dersite citizens, they had been forgotten. Discarded, like broken components.
Sometimes when the Wrathful Veteran was feeling weary of his struggle against the Black Queen, when his dreams threatened to overwhelm him, when he began to question the rightfulness of his cause in any way…he would secretly leave the Onyx and wander the alleys of the Eastvale ghetto. If only for a little while, the Veteran would become a vagabond, would see the quality of life these forgotten former soldiers had…and then the Wrathful Veteran's resolve would reignite.
The Veteran would remember the zeal with which his beliefs had burned when he was younger, newly-discharged from the Black King's Umbral Commandos—he'd had to temper his fervor with prudence when the dissension was forced to retreat into the shadows, facing mass execution at the hands of the Black Queen and her pets. But still…even if the Wrathful Veteran could no longer afford to fight with that same zeal, challenging the Queen out in the open…it felt good to taste the idealism, every once in a while.
"Hard left, sir!"
The Wrathful Veteran shook his head once, bringing himself back to full awareness after being jerked out of his own thoughts by the younger Dersite's voice. The dark-shelled carapacian revolutionary hid his frown, silently scolding himself for the lapse in focus. Burnless slipped into a narrow side alleyway that the Wrathful Veteran would have happily sprinted right past, had the runner not given him warning.
The narrow alley was many things—it was filthy, it was smelly, it was partially-blocked by rubble in some places… But it most certainly was not a straight path. It wound its way through the depths of the slums like a drunken snake, taking the two dissenters deeper and deeper into the labyrinth of Eastvale. At the speed they were running, it took all the Wrathful Veteran's concentration to avoid tripping himself up, or running face-first into a wall. Were it not for the Prince's tower, looming far above the squat buildings of the ghetto, the Veteran would have found it quite impossible to orient himself.
When they got to a more or less straight section of the alley, the Veteran checked his pocket watch once more. It had been one minute and thirteen seconds since they'd arrived in Eastvale. He considered informing Burnless that the runner had little more than forty seconds left to make good on his boast, but ultimately decided against it—no need to add unnecessary pressure on the younger Dersite.
After sprinting down the narrow alley a fair distance, Burnless pointed to a flight of violet-stone stairs up ahead. They had once led up to the top floor of a taller building that had long since crumbled in on itself. The Wrathful Veteran took the stairs three at a time, his efforts to keep up with Burnless beginning to make him pant.
While the building to which the violet-stone stairway belonged had mostly collapsed, there was still a small portion of its roof left standing. Most of the support beams had failed, however, causing one side of the roof remnant to fall directly on top of the stairway. Burnless and the Veteran pounded their way up this makeshift ramp, ascending to the height of the rooftops.
The Obsidian Moon and Derse, when viewed from space, appeared to be a simple planet and moon that were both completely covered with a city of purple and black. What one could not perceive from space was the changes in elevation in the various districts. The Wrathful Veteran could now see that they were sprinting towards the edge of an escarpment, where the rooftops suddenly dropped away. The outskirts of the ghetto continued beyond this change in elevation, over fifty feet lower than the area the two dissenters were currently sprinting through.
Burnless led the Wrathful Veteran across the derelict rooftops of Eastvale. Most of the buildings in the ghetto were connected to each other, separated only by streets and alleys, so it was not hard to travel longer distances without having to drop to street level. Burnless avoided the streets, however, keeping to a path that would only require them to traverse alleyways. These alleyways were normally narrow enough for Burnless and the Wrathful Veteran to simply jump across without any trouble.
"See that clock tower?" Burnless hollered back to the Veteran, pointing ahead once more.
The Wrathful Veteran spared an upward glance. True to Burnless's word, the Eastvale clock tower was up ahead, built right into the edge of the escarpment, casting a long shadow over the low-lying buildings and domiciles of the Eastvale outskirts below. It was easily the tallest building in the entire ghetto, still standing strong even if its clocks no longer told the time. "I see it!" the Veteran hollered back.
"There's another zip line at the top!" Burnless explained, hurdling lithely over a stone divider that had been placed on the rooftops to establish the division between two adjacent buildings. "That line will take us to the base of the Prince's tower!"
The two dissenters increased their speed even more, the Wrathful Veteran simply doing his best to ignore the deep-set burning that had already consumed his legs and lungs, focusing only on making sure he did not lose his balance or run straight off a rooftop. Over another alleyway, around a row of iron chimneys, running…always, always running… The Veteran could see, now, why Burnless had made his boast. Traversing the rooftops straight towards the Prince's tower would take much less time than using the maze-like streets to navigate one's way there.
There was one last alleyway that separated the two dissenters from the clock tower, and this one was too wide to jump. Burnless had known about this, but he did not worry—he'd brought the Wrathful Veteran to a point in the alley where a beam of dark metal connected two opposing rooftops. Once upon a time, a banner had likely hung from the beam, or perhaps even dirty laundry. Now, its original purpose forgotten, the metal beam now served as a crossing point.
Burnless did not hesitate, jumping off the roof and landing nimbly on the dark metal beam. A new respect for the runner filled the Wrathful Veteran as he watched Burnless practically fly across the alleyway, his feet almost appearing to never touch the small iron bar. Keeping his balance was not even an afterthought to the dissenter runner—he simply would not fall.
The Wrathful Veteran had a good sense of balance, but agility did not come nearly as naturally to him. He was considerably slower than Burnless, spreading his arms out as wide as possible, always putting one foot in front of the other. Most importantly, the Veteran kept moving—it was easier for him to keep his balance if he didn't stop his forward motion. All his movement was focused forward…otherwise, it would fall off to a side, and that would be that.
Finally, the Veteran reached the other side of the metal bar, hopping up onto the opposite row of rooftops. Burnless was already back up to full speed, forcing the Veteran to push his body to the very limit. The Wrathful Veteran was tiring at this breakneck pace, however, and his increased efforts were enough only for him to match Burnless's pace. He could not quite catch up to the younger Dersite, any longer.
It took only ten, fifteen seconds to make it across the last stretch of rooftops and reach the clock tower. There used to be a roof-access door for entry into the clock tower, but now there was only an empty doorway. The Wrathful Veteran followed Burnless into the tower. The interior of the tower comprised of a simple spiral staircase that hugged the wall, as well as a system of pulleys, platforms, and ropes that filled the center of the space.
Burnless leaped off the staircase, landed on one of the hanging wooden platforms. The Wrathful Veteran had been about to start ascending the stairs, so he gave a little start of surprise when this turned out to be the wrong thing to do. As Burnless extended a helping hand, the Veteran jumped the gap between the platform and the stairs, steadying himself by grabbing Burnless's hand when he landed on the rickety wooden surface.
The younger Dersite stomped his foot down on the counterweight release catch on the side of the platform. The counterweight—a heavy iron ball attached to the end of its rope—plummeted downward, which sent the wooden platform shooting straight up towards the top of the tower. Burnless and the Veteran grabbed hold of the platform's ropes to keep themselves steady. The Veteran took the opportunity to discreetly catch his breath, trying his best not to let Burnless see how exhausted he was.
Burnless noticed, however. "I've run with a lot of people, sir. Most wouldn't have even made it to that first alleyway at my speed without collapsing from a cramp."
"Your reassurances are quite…quite unnecessary, Burnless…" the Veteran managed to reply, speaking between his ragged breaths. "…but thank you."
The platform bore the two dissenters straight up into the upper chamber of the clock tower. Burnless hit the counterweight release catch once more, bringing the platform jolting to a stop before the iron ball struck the floor, way down at the bottom of the tower. They disembarked, stepping out into the upper chamber. Three of the walls were the backsides of the tower clocks—the fourth clock, however, had been shattered a long time ago, allowing the Veteran and Burnless to climb through to the ledge beyond.
"You have just reached two minutes, Burnless," the Wrathful Veteran informed the runner as they stepped out onto the ledge, stowing his pocket watch.
Burnless gave a quiet sigh, feeling his heart sink an inch or two. "Will that be double watch shifts for a month, then, sir?"
A low, hearty chuckle rumbled up from the Veteran's throat. "Perhaps…perhaps that will also be unnecessary. We will speak on this later." Normally the Wrathful Veteran would have followed through on his resolution, but he also felt that Burnless had earned himself a reprieve.
The clock tower offered a good view of the entire Eastvale ghetto, as well as the ramshackle outskirts that surrounded it. And only several city blocks distant, the Prince's tower awaited. This time, the Wrathful Veteran spotted the camouflaged zip line before Burnless grasped it, already removing his suit jacket in preparation. The zip line was secured to the tower, just above the frame of the shattered clock, and it stretched away at a reasonably steep angle towards the base of the Prince's tower.
While Burnless threw his jacket over the zip line, the Wrathful Veteran turned his gaze up to the spherical chamber at the top of the Prince's tower, trying a second time to see if he could get a glimpse of the Hero.
The Wrathful Veteran was actually blinded for a few seconds by the explosion. He watched it happen almost in slow motion—first, the fire roared out of the four windows of the spherical dream room, shooting out first in the four cardinal directions. Then, the force of the explosion grew too great to be dispersed through those four windows.
The Prince's dream tower was silhouetted by the blast for a moment—this was the last thing the Veteran saw before his eyes reflexively squeezed shut, tears streaming down his face from the blinding light of the blast. When he was finally able to open them, he saw Burnless staring in a shocked silence, his eyes wide as dinner platters, his mouth agape, unable to form words.
The Wrathful Veteran looked back up to the ruins of the Prince's tower, the deafening blast still echoing all across the Obsidian Moon. The entire top third of the Prince's tower, including the spherical dream room at the apex, had been blown to pieces. Chunks of violet-stone masonry were still soaring through the air, slamming down into the surrounding area. Fires were still burning, and a mushroom-shaped cloud of smoke was slowly ballooning into the air.
As the echoes of the explosion faded, silence fell over the Obsidian Moon like a smothering blanket.
"Sir, the…the…" Burnless swallowed loudly, struggling to form the words with his barely-responsive mouth. "…the Prince…? Sir…?"
The Wrathful Veteran was stupefied, could not take his eyes off the mushroom cloud of smoke. "No…" he murmured to himself, shaking his head slowly, his mind still attempting to process what he had just witnessed. "No, no, this can't be…"
"Sir…? Sir, do you…do you see that?"
The Veteran was only marginally listening to the runner's voice, still frozen at the sight of the wreckage. Distant sirens could now be heard as Enforcers responded to sites where chunks of masonry from the destroyed tower had caused damage and harm from their impacts. "She… She broke the Rules…" the Veteran continued to speak to himself, smoldering anger flaring up within him as he saw columns of smoke begin to rise in over a dozen places. Fires had broken out from the falling debris.
His hands balling into fists, the Wrathful Veteran seethed at the destruction that had been caused, beginning to see the first motes of the flames that were producing those pillars of ash. How many innocents had died or been hurt because of this? Because the Black Queen had broken the Rules and killed a Hero's dream self?
"Sir!" Burnless yanked the Veteran out of his daze with a sharp yell, grasping the revolutionary leader's arm, pointing to the sky. "Sir, look! Is that…?"
The Wrathful Veteran looked skyward. He should have spotted it on his own, but the sudden destruction of the dream tower had shaken him to his core. Now that he had moved past the initial shock, the Veteran could easily see a humanoid figure hurtling through the air towards them. At least, it appeared to be humanoid… Curiously enough, it seemed to be falling a tad bit more slowly than a normal object—all the debris from the tower, after all, had already made landfall. All except for this strange figure…
The person-shaped figure fell straight past the Eastvale clock tower. As it passed by, the Wrathful Veteran, whose eyesight was still recovering from the blast, was able to glimpse clothing that was distinctly purple and resembled sleepwear, as well as strange-looking footwear that was a brilliant golden-yellow in color.
The plummeting figure fell past the clock tower, crash-landing somewhere deep within the Eastvale ghetto. There was no doubt about it—that had been the Prince's dream self. Perhaps the Hero of Mind had survived? It was a fool's hope, but even the hope of a fool was good enough for the Wrathful Veteran.
The Veteran could hear more sirens, now, sirens that were still growing louder and louder. He swore under his breath—if he had just seen where the Prince had fallen, other people had certainly seen it as well. And now the Enforcers were on their way, the Agents likely not far behind them. Even if the Prince was dead, the Wrathful Veteran knew the Queen would want the body. She would hang it from the gate of the Obsidian Keep, most likely.
No; alive or dead, the Prince could not be allowed to fall into the Black Queen's hands.
The Wrathful Veteran leaped back into action, looking away from the burning wreckage of the Prince's tower. "Back to the rooftops," the Veteran ordered his runner, stepping back through the shattered clock into the tower's upper chamber. "I want that Hero, Burnless. Get me to him."