CHAPTER 15: FRAGMENTATION
We all dove out of the way as the electricity rampaged across the forest. I took a particularly painful jolt to the gut, and I grunted in pain while rolling across the ground. I immediately looked around just in time to see the creature charge. It was much faster than before, and it slammed into Sarah and knocked her twenty feet away. I gasped in horror, and I drew an arrow to try and counterattack.
Gibbs and Fornell were still recovering, and they looked around in surprise as the creature jumped all around us. It left trails of electricity in its wake, quickly leaving us in a cage of electric tendrils that cut us off from each other.
I nocked my arrow, drawing my bowstring back and taking aim. My computer sight tracked the creature as it jumped around, and the instant the creature stopped to rest, I fired. The creature was looking at Gibbs when I fired, and it didn't see the arrow until it struck. A powerful blast of energy ripped the air apart, and I heard the creature yell in surprise and pain as it was obscured in smoke.
The creature collapsed to the ground with debris all around it, and after a few seconds, the electricity field it had created around us dissipated. The creature stirred, and it looked around, its eyes wide. It took a step away from us, and while we maintained our distance, we kept all of our weapons trained on it.
"You can talk, so let's talk," Fornell said. "We don't want to keep fighting."
"You're tricking me," the creature said. Its body had begun shaking. "You want to hunt me for your trophy wall."
"This sounds like something you deal with often," I commented.
The creature looked at me, and I could see in its eyes it was wondering rather it could trust me. "All the time. My family was hunted nearly to extinction. My mother and I are the only ones left."
"I'm sorry," Sarah said in a hoarse voice.
"Well, I apologize for being ignorant," Fornell said, "but I would like to ask, what exactly are you?"
The creature looked hesitant to answer this. It looked between all of us, eyeing our weapons. The creature's quivering intensified, and I motioned for us all to lower our weapons. The three of them did so without question, and the creature immediately started to calm itself.
"Okay…okay," it said, its voice tremoring as badly as it was. "My name is Fylvie. I'm a Scazemyn."
"A…a what?" I asked. We all looked at each other, silently confirming that we had never heard of such a thing.
Fylvie took what was likely equivalent to a deep breath, but came out as a high-pitched rasp. As I heard the Scazemyn talk, I became distinctly aware that Fylvie was female.
"Fylvie," Gibbs addressed, "why don't you tell us how you got here?"
Fylvie crutched low, as though wanting to find a hiding spot, and she said, "I really don't know! I was in my treehouse, foraging for acorns and then I started digging–I really like digging–and I wound up digging all the way through the bottom. There was this hole, and I thought it was my normal forest, right? But as I jumped down to look for some berries, I felt something weird. It was like diving through water, and when I dropped down, I was here. How does that happen?"
"Well, it's become quite a familiar phenomenon recently," Fornell said. "It's actually why we're here."
"We want to send you home," Sarah clarified.
Fylvie seemed to get a glimmer of hope in her small, black, beady eyes as she looked around. "How do you do that?"
"It seems to vary," Gibbs said.
"I think we're just supposed to take you back to where you came in at, and you'll be sent home," I informed her.
"Yeah, but we should hurry," Fornell said. "No time to waste."
IN THE EYES OF THE MULTIVERSE:
Back in the lab, Luca worked with his equipment, surrounded by Kyle, Sloane, and Admiral McGee. Rob stood immediately behind Luca, watching him work at the computer with a befuddled expression.
"So…what's happening?" he asked.
"This is Aolen," Luca explained, indicating a glowing purple orb on the computer screen. "It powers our equipment and provides ammunition for our weapons. We can work with it in different ways for different uses. I've been working on a shield that will keep us safe from enemy fire."
"That would be nice," Rob commented. "Will it help against that Algaltha guy?"
Luca shrugged, turning to look up at him. "I don't know," he answered. "We don't really have great testing methods to see if our stuff works against Hunters."
Rob gave a furtive expression, but an alert went out across the lab that caught everyone's attention. The five people in the room looked to the enormous television screen mounted on a wall of the lab, visible to the entire room. The screen showed a map with a blinking red dot. A HUD appeared, showing the location in Muncie, Indiana–around two hours away.
"What does that mean?" Rob asked while Luca stood up.
"It means that someone else has crossed over," Sloane answered while all the people in the room congregated in front of the enormous map.
"Somebody needs to go get them," Kyle said.
"ART is still out," Luca replied.
"Should we try and contact Theas?" Rob asked.
"No, we can handle it," Sloane stated.
"How are we supposed to get there?" McGee asked.
Sloane pulled out a car key from her pocket. "Sarah gave me her spare."
McGee nodded, impressed.
"Are you going by yourself?" Luca asked apprehensively.
"Well, are there any volunteers?" Sloane asked.
"Yeah," McGee said, straightening himself. "I'm up for a drive. Been stuck in here for the last week and a half. It'll be nice to see some sunlight."
Sloane gave him a wide smile, and meanwhile Luca, Kyle, and Rob all looked around awkwardly. After a second, Rob shrugged and said, "Yeah, sure, I'll go. Sounds like fun."
He stepped over to join Sloane and McGee, and Luca said, "We'll stay here and keep working."
Sloane nodded, and the three of them went up the stairs and into the garage where Sarah's car sat parked. Sloane drove them out of the neighborhood and onto the highway, and all three of them remained in silence for the first part of the drive.
"So, Rob, have you talked to your sister lately?" Sloane asked.
Rob shrugged. "Ellie's always so busy at work. She doesn't really have time for us back home."
"Yeah?" Sloane said, giving him an expression of concern through the rearview mirror. "I'd think that would be frustrating."
Rob shrugged. "It is what it is. We're used to it. She never talks about her work, but I know something happened recently that changed her. I just wish she'd tell us what it was."
"I know Ellie finds it very hard to talk to people about what she's experiencing," Sloane commented. "Even when I talked to her, she never found it easy to open up."
"Well, maybe she'd be a little happier if she did," Rob said. "Ever since her divorce, she's a different person."
"Divorce will do that," Admiral McGee interjected.
"Maybe, but does that mean she has to abandon her family?" Rob asked.
"It does while she rediscovers who she is," Admiral McGee answered. "Everything she knew was torn down and burned. She has to build the pieces."
Rob exhaled, and he nodded while looking out the window.
Following a two hour drive, the group arrived in Muncie. A sizable city, they passed the Delaware County Airport as well as expansive farmland to arrive near the northern edge of the city.
"Where's that Anomaly at?" Admiral McGee asked, consulting the map on his phone. After passing through a subdivision and turning onto a main road lined with businesses, they pulled into a shopping mall.
"They're in here?" Rob asked, looking puzzled.
"Makes sense," Sloane said, double checking the Anomaly beacon. "Public place, lots of people. If someone's out to hurt them, it's less likely to happen here."
The three of them climbed out of the vehicle and filed into the mall. There were only a few stragglers here and there, browsing the windows and going in and out of the various stores.
"The Macrobreach is near the center of the mall," Sloane reported, examining her phone.
"Food court," Admiral McGee clarified, looking at a directory.
The group walked through the mall, doing their best to look like a natural part of the crowd.
"I wonder if this is what this place looks like in our universe," Rob pondered as he observed the small crowd.
They entered the food court, which was the most populated part of the mall, and they looked all around for whoever might look out of place. It was difficult to do, analyzing each individual person without catching their attention. Sloane motioned for them to split up, but McGee countered this.
"Rob and I have no idea what to look for," the Admiral stated. "You've had the most involvement with Tim and his people. You'll have better odds of finding them. We'll walk right by them."
Sloane nodded, and they remained together while walking around the perimeter of the many tables and chairs. It was a long and slow process. Sloane checked her phone regularly to make sure the Anomaly was still in the area, but with this many people, it was nearly impossible to tell who the Anomaly was. After about fifteen minutes of searching, Sloane stopped cold. Rob nearly walked into her, and he and McGee looked in the direction she was facing.
Seeing who she had spotted, Admiral leaned in and said quietly, "Who is it?"
Sloane stared wide-eyed for a moment before breaking into a beaming smile. She let out a laugh that was somewhere between thrilled and relieved, and she wiped a tear from her eye. McGee and Rob both looked supremely baffled at this reaction, and Sloane marched forward.
JACK FOSSE:
We walked through the forest, having to bend down often to pass through low hanging tree branches. Fylvie seemed to find this of little inconvenience, as she effortlessly hopped across tree trunks and often had to wait up for us. Gibbs and Fornell were beginning to grow quite weary, and while Sarah and I were doing our best to keep up with Fylvie, we were beginning to become winded as well.
"So, Fylvie," Sarah said, "what's it like back home?"
Fylvie landed on a tree trunk and looked around. "Oh, it's fun. Mom and I spend all day chasing Uliflies and swimming in the Hintok River."
"You said the rest of your species was hunted," I recalled. "Hunted by who?"
"Humans," Fylvie answered. We all looked up at her in surprise. She looked a bit uncomfortable as she said, "It's why I didn't trust you when I saw you. I knew what humans are capable of in my universe. But it really seems like humans here are a lot better."
"Not really," Sarah said under her breath.
"No, not in our universe either," Fornell agreed.
Fylvie glanced down at us, but she didn't say anything. "Anyway, I came out right over here."
We eventually cleared the trees and came to a small river bed. The water was shallow, and there was a wide breach in the forest that allowed the river to wind through. Fylvie jumped down from her tree, landing on the rocks and sniffing around. The four of us looked around, unsure of what to do as Fylvie searched for some sign of what brought her here.
"So, I dropped down, and I landed right here in the water," she said, indicating one of the deepest spots in the tiny river.
"How'd you learn to speak English?" Fornell asked.
"Overhearing humans," Fylvie answered.
"Oh, well there you are, little Scazemyn."
We all looked around, and Fylvie shuddered in fear as three people came out of the nearby trees.
They all wielded advanced weaponry. The guy in the middle had a large, blue-gray rifle with a yellow stripe from stock to barrel tip. He wore a black ballcap, gray combat jacket, and dark, faded jeans. He had long, unkempt brown hair and a goatee. The man on his left had an intricate metal brace across his body that ended in two large metal gauntlets on his fists. He had short-trimmed blond hair and beard stubble, and he wore a white collared shirt, torn, light-blue jeans, and large boots. The woman on the hat-wearing guy's other side wielded twin swords that looked liable to cut through tempered steel. She wore a tight black sleeveless shirt with buttons going down the front along with a black skirt-like garment that was open at both sides. She had short, dark, curly hair.
Fornell looked between Fylvie and these three people while Sarah, Gibbs, and I all drew our weapons. "Do you know these fascinating individuals, Fylvie."
"They're the ones who killed my family," she said, her voice shaking horribly.
Sarah's expression hardened, and she tightened her grip around her Keeper rifle. I nocked an arrow but kept my bow down. "You guys need to leave."
The man in the middle held his arms out to his sides while walking pointedly towards Fylvie. "I don't see any game wardens here."
"Folks, we really don't want to fight you," Fornell said, aiming his assault rifle at them.
"Well, you got a funny way of showing it," the man in the middle said, aiming his own gun at Fornell.
The other man slammed his fists together, causing them to glow green, while the woman pressed a button on each sword, causing the blades to glow red-hot.
"Hold it," Gibbs said, aiming his sniper rifle. "You don't want to do this."
"Oh, we do and we will," the man said. "Or, you can back off now and we'll take the Scazemyn."
Fylvie trembled, crouching down in fear.
"Go ahead, try it," Sarah said savagely.
The man in charge analyzed Sarah for a second before scoffing derisively. "Honey, you do not want to get involved in this. I can see you ain't got any kind of combat experience. I suggest you stand your happy ass down, now."
I took a step in front of Sarah, aiming my bow and ready to fire. "Who the hell are you?" I asked.
"I'm so happy you asked, friend," the man said. "I'm Kauyu. This gentleman on my left is Leo, and the beauty over here, her name is Ausulee. We're the Hunters of the Vasto Garrison, and Scazemyn meat is quite valuable to us. Step aside, and nobody needs to get hurt."
"Yeah, except for Fylvie, right?" Sarah said pointedly.
Kauyu looked puzzled for a split second before he comprehended her. "Fylvie? Honey, you don't name game."
"She isn't just an animal," I stated. "She's an amazing living thing, and you have no right to her. Back off, or you will get hurt."
Kauyu sighed deeply while shaking his head, and Leo and Ausulee both prepared to fight. Our side did the same, and while Fylvie looked totally petrified, she seemed ready to assist in any way she could.
A gunshot went off, causing us all to look around in alarm, but it wasn't any of Kauyu's group that had fired. Sarah let out a wretched scream, and I looked around to see Fylvie laying limp in the river water, blood spilling out of the hole in her head.
"Holy Eye of the Allmother," Kauyu said, looking at Fylvie's corpse in shock.
Someone dropped out of the trees, and we all looked around to see the newcomer rise to her feet.
"Oh, Jesus," I said in frustration.
Fornell and Sarah kept their aim on Kauyu's people, but Gibbs and I redirected our focus to Chala as she stalked towards us. Her twin guns were gripped tightly in her hands, and she leered at us triumphantly as she left us with little way out between her and Kauyu's group.
"Kauyu," Chala addressed. "My name is Chala. I am a Spatial Hunter. You and I speak much of the same language. If you help me dispatch these treacherous vultures who are trying to impede on your hunt, I will be sure to provide you with the best game this universe has to offer.
Kauyu looked a bit uncomfortable with this at first, but as he analyzed Chala, he nodded. "Sure," he said. "We can do that."