Is Love Really Forever?
By: LadyNightSky
A/N: Another chapter. Thanks to everyone who reviewed, 47 reviews already! Beams at everyone. Here we go.
Disclaimer: It isn't bloody friggin mine, ok? Is this supposed to humble me?
Chapter Six: Pedes Apud Fragmen
January 28, 2006; 6:00 A.M; Southern End of Sparx, Official Disaster Zone
Bloom carefully stepped around the charred remains of wooden bars that covered the ground. Around her, the metal skeletons that had once been buildings were curled and blackened into grotesque shapes. They thrust themselves up toward the gray heavens like so many twisted limbs.
After Bloom and Bellus had broken their connection, Bloom had immediately portaled over to the disaster area with a few desperately needed things, like laptops and software, used for coordinating the rescue and clean-up effort.
By the time she'd finished helping the small tech crew with setting up the computers, it'd been nearly midnight. She'd split the help crews into different shifts, so the could work through the night and still get a fair amount of sleep. She herself had been on the one o' clock to five o' clock shift. Since magic couldn't be used on the chemical stained buildings, the work had been grueling and slow, shoveling out shovelful after shovelful of debris, wearing surgical masks and sometimes caps.
Exhausted, she'd fallen asleep in one of the bright yellow tents as soon as her shift had been over, and had slept for a fitful, too short hour until Bellus had shaken her awake at six and motioned for Bloom to put on a mask and follow her somewhere.
She was dressed in her typical bullet-proof vest and skin tight leather pants and boots with a deadly array of weapons in shrunken on her belt, but wore a disturbed look, very unusual for normally unruffled, calm, collected Bellus.
As soon as they reached the outskirts of the little tent community, Bellus stopped and turned around to talk to Bloom.
"Remember what I said yesterday, about how all this might not have been a natural occurrence?" she said in a low voice.
Bloom nodded.
"Well, I have to show you what I found. It's on the western end of the city. Near one of the factories that spilled during the earthquake. C'mon, it's this way."
The cloudy gray sky above them and the frozen wind that constantly chilled her bones even through her warm jacket was bizarre for this part of her hot and dry realm. Even in the winter, the weather was never this bad, especially on the Southern End, where it was generally sunny all year long.
As she and Bellus walked along the deserted city streets, she tried hard not to look at the distorted, ruined buildings all around them. It gave her a slightly nauseous feeling in her stomach to see everything in shambles. The road they were walking on was split down the middle, a huge gorge separating the two sides, a result of the quake. It didn't help that, since the crews hadn't gotten to the part of the city yet, things that looked horribly like human bodies littered the streets.
Bloom knew that it was highly improbable that they were actually corpses, as no one had been reported missing, but the haunting feeling still bothered her. It reminded her vaguely of her feeling of unrest in the corridors of her castle yesterday.
They walked for a while, dodging into narrow shortcut alleyways, and finally reached the more industrial part of town. Factories and warehouses lined each side of the cracked wide streets, looming ominously over them. Crumbled chimneys and smokestacks used for venting out fumes hung onto the rooftops for dear life.
Bellus motioned at the last building on 6th street to the left. Peeling letters painted along the side of the huge ruin of a warehouse spelled out "No. 17789 Nanopharo Co." in a dismal dirty blue color.
Nanopharo Co. was one of the few players in the business of manufacturing NBr3, a highly explosive nitrogen compound that wasn't to easy to come by. It was used by the electronics industry, which used the gas as a blanketing medium during production of components like transistors and diodes. Bloom had met with their CEO once, a chemist and scientist who spoke so rapidly all she did was nod and smile, not understanding a word.
The warehouse was in bad shape. The roof and all but one wall were missing, and the structure bore signs of heavy explosion. They stepped into what had once been the building's interior, and nearly choked in the heavy black dust that rose up from their footsteps. The severely cracked floor was covered in a thick layer of similar dust.
Nothing was there. That was the only way Bloom could put it. The complete, eerie silence and the hollowness that came only from human destruction. Nothing lay on the floor, not blackened crates or steel barrels of crystallized product. Just emptiness.
Bellus crossed over to what had once been the east wall, her graceful footfalls making no sound, her eyes darting around for anything unusual she might have missed the first time.
With practiced ease, she vaulted over a huge, collapsed metal pipe, landing on her feet without a sound. A moment later, she heard a thud. Bloom had landed on all fours, clumsily.
"Could you get any louder?" Bellus asked.
Bloom's face was red from the exertion of having taken a running start, and straining muscles to go over the nearly six foot high pipe cleanly.
"Why be quiet? There's no one to hear us! And not all of us are scarily ninja like." Bloom retorted.
"What are ninjas?" Bellus asked, having never heard of the Earth term.
Bloom just shook her head. Inside, she felt the way she knew Bellus must feel. Disturbing the suffocating, frightening silence was a crime.
The handprints and knee prints were easily seen, pure white against the black dust. Cracks surrounded the marks, thin but deep. The hairs along the back of her neck prickled. She knew that no matter how much you tried to dirty them, the handprints would be there till the end of time.
Someone had knelt in front of a barrel of the explosive substance, and had somehow set it off, probably by causing a huge quake. White wave marks glittered eerily on the floor, leading outward from the prints. Seismic waves were awesomely hard to produce, and only a very powerfully magical person could have done it, and escaped the building in time. The quake would've set off a chain reaction, until the whole entire district's chemicals would've blown up.
Now that she thought about it, the damage wasn't that extensive for a disaster like this one. Had the person held back somehow?
Bloom cleared her head. Right now, she needed to focus on the prints. She'd deal with that later.
Bellus let out a gasp, staring at the item in her hands.
Bloom came running over from where she'd been pacing, in thought. She stared too.
A heavy gold ring sat on Bellus's hand. Centered on it was a huge blood red stone, inscribed with the words Imperium ab Proditor, and next to it was carved a picture of an ornate sword, and bows and arrows. They all were dripping with what she was sure was blood.
January 29, 2006; Sparxian Palace
"Hey Miss Archos." Ares's voice, which usually warmed her all the way to her toes, sounded surreal to her.
But then, she was distracted, everything sounded weird. She couldn't even concentrate on her duties.
Bloom was in her study in the Sparxian Palace, having left the disaster zone to take care of the rest of Sparx. She'd just been signing her approval on a controversial minimum wage law when Ares had barged in, smiling brightly.
Bloom pushed away from her desk, spinning around to face Ares, whom she hadn't seen since she'd returned.
"What's up?" she asked.
He shrugged.
"Nothing. Just the usual business on Asphodel. You didn't say you were coming back today."
"Well, someone has to run this place."
Ares laughed. Somehow, to her ears, it lacked something. She remembered the scene in the corridor. His last name is Nequam, not Proditor. Don't get paranoid, she said to herself.
"Hey, would you happen to know a royal family named Proditor?" she asked casually.
Ares didn't bat an eye.
"That's my buddy Sky's mother's last name. Why?" he said.
Bloom inhaled sharply. Sky's mother's last name. It couldn't be. I mean, Sky's not that unusual of a name, right? she thought.
"Oh, no reason. I came across the name in my papers." She said with as much lightness as she could muster.
"Oh…I didn't know Eraklion made deals with Sparx. My cousin…."
Bloom nodded, not listening, as Ares went on about something with his cousin.
She argued with herself, not knowing what to do. If Sky had done it…well, it would get complicated. If he hadn't though, who had? Maybe there was some other young male in the Proditor family. Bellus had run some tests on the ring, and had gotten the barest shred of biological evidence, confirming that the person had been male, about twenty five to twenty six years of age, with type A- blood. There must be tons of Proditors.
At least she hoped there was. She definitely did not want to tango with Sky again.
A/N: You like? You hate? Either way, leave a review please.
Pedes Apud Fragmen- Walking Among Ruins
Imperium ab Proditor- Power to the Proditors
Nequam- worthless, good for nothing, bad
I know it's super short, and it's been a while since I've updated, but I've been busy. Sorry bout that.
Lovya, Bee