Had this one brewing about for a few months now and decided to try belting out a few chapters to get back into the groove of things. This entire story was born from a headcanon of Kagami driving a black Ford F-150. Completely shameless, I know. Fear not, I have not forgotten Trust Without Cynicism is Hollow. I'll be pulling that one off the back burner very soon.
Notes relevant to this chapter:
Paragon: a model or pattern of excellence or of a particular excellence
Molniya [mul-knee-eh]: Russian for lightning
Kōri: Japanese for ice
Schatten [sha-t'n]: German for shadow
Terra: Italian for earth
Aéras [eh-rahs]: Greek for wind
Pyros-original pŷr [pee-r]: Greek for fire (pronounced as pie-ros in-story by English speakers)
PROLOGUE
Casimir, Russia
3000 B.C.
Molniya's mind churned as she stared blearily at the same iron-bolted door that had kept her contained far too long. How many years had passed? Twenty? Fifty? Hard to say.
By the look of the withered corpse slumped in a timber chair nearby, it had to have been at least a mortal lifetime. The skin had become ashen and emaciated, hair brittle and lackluster. It had been a fine body. A tall woman with stern features but mischievous eyes, she was youthful and spirited, endowed with a beauty that captivated both sexes. For a time Molniya had allowed lovers, indulged carnal pleasures. But that was before the incident that sealed her fate and imprisoned her in this metal chamber. Only necessities had been furnished within. Candles tossed limpid pools of light through the twelve-by-twelve foot chamber. A narrow bed, a bookshelf replete with material relevant to her interests, and a table for meals hugged the walls. Ones served through a slot in the door. Simple accommodations. Though Molniya, at first, had considered herself lucky. Law provided fellow murderers with far less.
Though, unlike felons, petty or deranged, her cage possessed no windows.
Absolutely no contact with the outside world.
And it was fashioned not to protect her keepers from harm.
It was a safety measure to effectively disable the power of Molniya, the Lightning paragon.
In the beginning, the supreme force of the world created from her own body tangible spirits in the form of elements, which became her children. Schatten, an agent of darkness, came into life first, a solemn spirit. From the ice came Kōri, passive but an impenetrable force. Aéras of the wind molded the earth to create Terra's body. From the skies, in a brilliant flash of light, was birthed Molniya and from her creation came the final child of Mother Nature, the untamable blaze of Pyros. Though all given life by a common mother, Kōri and Schatten distinguished themselves apart from the intimate connection bonding wind to earth and lightning to fire.
Early man were marveled by the spirits and offered their mortal bodies as physical vessels. The effect of the spirits in human form upon the civilizations accelerated man's appreciation for them. Paragon was the denomination awarded to them as the six were deified. Offers for possession were copious. Seeing the popularity of their continued existence another six volunteers were chosen and infused with the essence of Mother's powers.
The Apparitions expanded from a simple dozen and flourished into a thriving body in the course of a thousand years. Flesh evolved to compensate the spirits to a three hundred-year lifespan and when life expired, the paragon was reincarnated into a new body, the cycle unbroken. Kingdoms were established to each paragon and human villages blossomed around them, promoting cohabitation. To prevent an imbalance of power, the paragons elected an Apparition within their lands to rule, allowing the selected to determine a system of government and guide the economy. Though, at times, a paragon was born into the role of a sovereign.
Evidence of reverence for the paragons existed in every village in the way of relics, chronicles, paintings, sculptures, tapestries, and shrines. Worship services were offered. Homages paid and holidays dedicated. The Apparitions became entwined with humans.
And not everyone enjoyed the association.
Renegades within the villages responded to the devotion with vandalism, harassment, and in extreme cases murder. With respect to their independent constitutions, the Apparition kingdoms desisted involvement and the aggressors were persecuted separately, no matter the extent of their crime.
Few times did the sovereigns intervene.
But the defacing of several Pyros monuments by a single man became a threat to neutralize. Reports had provided that the offender was mentally unstable and had committed other felonies in the past. Would he assault the recently reborn Pyros? The Lord, head of the Fire Apparition hierarchy, felt so. Authorities within the village were authorized to act and the man was incarcerated.
Molniya, who'd played a part in sealing the lunatic's fate, had been half a century old—considered a teenager to her people—and was delighted to know her infant brother was safe. Pyros was born to a middle class couple within the kingdom that day, a family apart from her own but no less departed. Apparition doctrine, decided by the ancestral paragons, asserted that scions be awarded an identity separate from their legacies. And her brother had been given the name Tora.
Embittered by the punishments incurred over time, and hateful of the Lord who imprisoned him, the man decided that the Apparitions would pay for their transgressions in the only way he could fathom.
Hours after his sentence, the man escaped his cell, found the home of his target, and stole the newborn Tora from his crib.
He decided he would possess this infant's life and become an Apparition himself.
So he carved out and ate the paragon's heart.
Convinced of his inheritance, the man marched to the village square with the corpse, threw it to the ground, and declared his vengeance.
Local authorities arrested and isolated him in an underground cell.
The village was humiliated, pleading to the government to act.
Molniya did not wait for approval.
She stormed the village alone and, in her fury, killed not only the murderer, but destroyed the entire village in a conflagration of lightning.
The reception of her response was unexpected.
Villages of the Fire kingdom became a tumult of discord and revolt.
How dare Molniya eviscerate an entire community when only a single man was at fault.
Why did the Kaizer not contain her?
Make her answer for her mistake.
Supporters of Pyros and Molniya, both human and Apparition, protested against a wave of dissenters and civil unrest became rampant. The Lightning kingdom was blamed and disputes escalated from simple disturbances to invasions, the loss of life exploding beyond control.
Molniya's anger was further provoked and she subscribed her countrymen to retaliate.
Not much persuasion was needed.
The people of Pyros waged war against Molniya and the Lightning kingdom.
And the other paragons rushed to mitigate the situation.
But Molniya was inconsolable, driven by sorrow. Aéras and Terra failed to earn her attention and their intrusion aggravated Molniya. She threatened to harm them if they intervened. Schatten stepped up to talk her down—hopeful that her respect for his seniority remained—and expressed his own sadness at the loss of a fellow paragon. And that was something Molniya did not want to hear.
She slaughtered Schatten in her rage.
Kōri, Terra, and Aéras acted fast, combining their efforts to seal Molniya in an earthen casket that Kōri bundled in thick sheets of ice. The paragons crafted a specialized container with four walls of unbroken iron and locked her inside.
Where she resided ever since while the others organized peace.
Few times had she been visited by one of the paragons, all contact established through a glass-barricaded bullseye portal in the door. Schatten was never one of them.
Something that filled her with shame.
She stared ahead from between copper coils. Before her life exhausted, Molniya devised a contraption to sustain her energies, an endeavor completed by shedding slivers of the conductive metal from her meal trays. Two were manufactured and she planted them on the floor and ceiling in the center of the cell. She gyrated between the points in a thick ribbon of bluish white light but as time wore on and her anger ebbed, the stream thinned to a frail series of threads.
The loss of Pyros was more devastating than she could have imagined. And from within this dismal box, she felt nothing of his presence since her confinement. His absence drained her strength enough that she invited death. But would it come?
Her glum thoughts were broken when the portal to her container groaned. Someone was opening it.
The breadth of her light strengthened in anticipation, unsure of whom she was expecting but hopeful to see a familiar face.
Perhaps even her dear brother, resurrected in new flesh.
Aéras, Terra, and Kōri, all wearing a different skin than she last saw, entered.
Schatten's absence hurt but Molniya knew it was justified.
"It's been so long," Terra said. "The Bureau hadn't registered your life force and we were concerned you hadn't passed."
When Molniya was a child, the Apparitions conceived a new branch of government licensed to upholding the laws of the kingdoms both secularly and internationally, including the confirmation of resurrected paragons. Proctors routinely tested the power signatures of every newborn and compared the readings to a specified scale. Every hospital was subject to the investigations.
"Not concerned enough." She couldn't help sounding bitter. "As you can see, my body has long decayed. Were you simply hoping I would reincarnate so you could condemn me to this prison once again as a feeble infant?"
The paragons' faces collectively fell into a mask of despondency. Which surprised her.
So she asked, "What is it?"
Kōri spoke first. "Please, don't confuse our negligence as cruelty."
"An unprecedented phenomenon happened," Terra interjected. "All of our attention was diverted to solving it."
"And you require a felon's assistance?"
Kōri's face scrunched unappreciatively.
"We actually came to apprise you of our findings." Even in a new body, Aéras was sparse with words and the familiarity was strangely comforting.
"So speak them."
Terra stepped further inside and straightened, seemingly steeling himself for the report. "Pyros has not yet reincarnated."
Molniya's current hiccupped, the jagged angular line of her body bowing radically for a moment.
Did that bastard really erase her dear brother forever?
She needed to know, "How long have I been here?"
"Three hundred and twelve years." Aéras again.
She ingested the degree of her isolation. Surprisingly no fury came. Only a sudden affirmation. Pyros was never coming back, his spirit gone. A paragon was incapable of deferring rebirth. It had only ever been theorized that a paragon would truly cease to exist. Was this why she hadn't intercepted a hint of her brother's life for all these years? Perhaps it was the time to surrender it all.
Without Pyros, her existence was incomplete.
Lightning without heat was merely a bright flash.
And that light would now fade into nothing.
Her form reduced to a ribbon, melancholy stalling her motion to a wobble.
"But his power remains," Kōri said.
Molniya perked but it did not show. "Are you certain?"
They all nodded.
"Fire Apparitions continue to be born, their power unhindered," Terra said. "The Bureau conducted an investigation to explain the anomaly. Their theory is that Pyros' spirit inhabited his killer's body. You terminated that man within hours of the transfusion. Forcing Pyros to recycle just shortly after his birth."
Molniya said nothing. Neither did Aéras or Kōri.
"We believe your intervention sent Pyros into hibernation."
It wouldn't be the first occurrence. Two other cases were documented, affirmed by the Bureau upon thorough scrutiny. Fatalities sustained post-birth, pre-death, or during a near-death experience, when the vessel was stressed and vulnerable, proved to be cause.
But was her brother still out there, somewhere?
She chose to voice her uncertainty. "Are you positive you perceived the readings correctly?"
"They are unmistakable, Molniya," Terra said. "Pyros lives, waiting for an appropriate scion."
The current brightened a fraction as her worries were slaked. If even a little.
She trusted her fellow paragons. But she needed to ascertain the truth herself.
"May I go outside?"
There was not a moment of deliberation. All of her contact with them before now was epitomized by distrust, none of them willing to endanger themselves, to breach the defense of the metal portal and approach her. She regretted her selfishness, her ineptitude to compartmentalize her emotions. Redemption had been her goal all those years ago and she was the one who allowed herself to spiral out of control, incite an uprising that led to a war with an incalculable body count, and kill a fellow paragon. That Aéras, Kōri, and Terra came to her unguarded spoke volumes.
And if they allowed her the chance, she would repair the damage she caused in a weak moment of vice.
Terra and Aéras detached the copper coils while maintaining her connection to them. Kōri accepted them between her hands and followed the sibling paragons as they exited the cell.
Molniya was brought to a knoll beyond Casimir, the capital of the Lightning kingdom and took in the almost forgotten sensation of nature. Her pulse invigorated to a healthy thickness and shine, the sheet of gray overhead accelerating the good feeling. True to her compatriots' words, Pyros' signature remained. Like a faint tingle, hardly accessible but still existent.
"I'd like to stretch," she said, spurs splitting from her form.
Kōri nodded and raised the coils above her head, directing Molniya to the overcast.
She darted free and sunk into the clouds. Purplish white light strobed within a moment later and then a columnar bolt crashed down. More strikes occurred in the distance, reaching to barely discernible flashes on the horizon. The episode lasted for a solid minute, then the sky quieted and Molniya returned to the coils. The sickly mien of her light was gone, electricity pulsing between the two points erratically yet with control.
"My brother lives," she said. "And if I may be released, I will rejuvenate and join you all to search for him."
"Of course, Molniya," Terra said, and the smile creasing his mouth filled her with warmth.
She was not foolish enough to believe her sins would be forgiven, responsibility disregarded.
She would rekindle the confidence of her fellow paragons.
Cooperation with the Bureau and kingdoms was a given.
The only uncertainty in her mind rested with Schatten.
And she hoped that, someday, they would find peace again.
As light and darkness.