The Aperios (Children of the Sun Book 4)

Despite knowing Kaleth wanted to keep him out of any possible danger, he hadn’t said anything when Mel came up to him on the surface in full armor, and Mel was very glad for that. He didn’t want to argue with Kaleth—there was enough arguing as it was—but he wasn’t going to sit back and hope everything would work out. He wanted to help, which meant standing up to Kaleth if necessary. Which was still kind of scary, but Mel was getting better at it, he thought.

But still, Kaleth said nothing and just gave him a sad smile. They were soon joined by Alor, who from what Mel had put together was going with them because he’d been to one of these facilities before. From what Mel could tell, Alor seemed to have mostly adjusted to his new existence, but he was still struggling with using his new powers.

Mel had been trying to show him how to use their powers as much as he could, but there had only been a few days for it, so of course Alor still wasn’t the best at it. This of course meant that he couldn’t turn into a dragon still, but Mel had no problem carrying both him and Kaleth on his back.

“Do you have the explosives?” Kaleth asked him as he put his goggles over his eyes. He always looked so much more stern with his eyes covered since Kaleth rarely put on big smiles, but Mel could still pick up on his emotions through their bond, so he barely noticed anymore.

“Yeah,” he replied, pointing at the backpack he had on his back with a thumb. “I hope it’s enough.”

“It should be, assuming these places have a power source like the Umbra hideouts,” Kaleth replied, brushing his hair back.

“Feels almost like something we’d do for Luxarx, huh?” Alor said, scratching his head. Mel couldn’t tell if Alor was nostalgic or sad about that, but Kaleth was definitely both. And there was also some anger there, which Mel couldn’t blame him for.

Kaleth didn’t add anything aside from a nod and turned to Mel. “If you could change, love….”

Mel nodded and did so, groaning as he took on the form of a dragon again. He hadn’t done it in a while and it would feel good to stretch his wings again. He had no idea why, but even when he physically didn’t have them, he could feel them, and if he didn’t use them in a while, they would get achy once he shifted again.

He waited for the two men to climb onto his back before stretching his wings out as far as they would go. He jumped up, quickly taking flight and beating his wings hard to gain some altitude. He stopped only when Kaleth put a hand on his forehead.

Where, um, exactly am I flying to? Mel asked, embarrassed by the fact that he already couldn’t remember. Thankfully Kaleth didn’t seem to mind. In fact, he seemed very amused by this, which just made Mel more embarrassed if anything.

Just keep going straight, I’ll tell you where to go. It’s not too far.

Mel beat his wings harder. There was a sinking feeling in his stomach, like this was going to go horribly wrong. But once again they had no choice but to head first into danger. What else could they do? There was nowhere to hide from this, and even if there were, Mel wasn’t going to. He’d done enough hiding over the last century.

All right, do you see that desert in the distance? Kaleth asked him after about half an hour of flying. Mel sent back the telepathic equivalent of a nod. The facility should be somewhere at the edge of it.

And so Mel kept up his fast pace, trying to get them there as fast as possible, which was now easier when the destination was in sight. He wasn’t sure why, but he felt like getting there even just a few minutes earlier would help them.

There, Kaleth said suddenly, pointing at a seemingly random place in the infinite-looking desert, but Mel didn’t argue and landed there, trying not to let the sand make him lose his balance as his claws slid across it.

Mel shook sand off himself as Kaleth and Alor climbed off his back.

“We should be standing right on top of it,” Kaleth said as Mel changed back. He already missed his wings. He watched Kaleth wave his hand, making a huge amount of sand move away, revealing metal.

“Yeah, this looks exactly like the one me and Kara went to,” Alor said, his voice a tiny bit shaky. Mel looked at him with worry, but before he could ask if he was okay, Alor had schooled his expression into a neutral one again and continued. “Um, the guy who let us in had this tablet thing to….”

He trailed off as they both watched Kaleth raise his hand, bringing with it an awfully loud sound of metal bending as the structure beneath them gave way and rose to the surface. Once the noise stopped and sand ceased falling from the metal box that had been forcefully dragged to the surface, Mel was surprised that the only feature it seemed to have was a door, but he supposed that made sense.

“Well, I guess there goes the element of surprise,” Alor commented. Kaleth turned around to say something but then he froze, staring at something above them. Mel could feel his shock as Kaleth raised up his hand again. Mel swirled around, staring in surprise at the aircraft that was now frozen in the air.

And there were more coming.

Kaleth grunted in effort as the other aircrafts also froze where they were and all of them began to be crushed by an invisible force. Mel gasped as they started exploding one by one. The fact that the soldiers inside would survive this was probably the worst part. Kaleth hadn’t had to have done this.

“Get inside! More are coming,” Kaleth yelled, as he turned around again, bringing another of their attackers to the ground. Even though Mel was hesitant, he followed behind Alor who opened the door and got in. Thankfully Kaleth joined them a moment later and proceeded to bend the door in a way that it would be impossible to open it.

“Did Enor know we were coming, or is this how he usually guards these places?” Alor wondered as he clearly tried to pretend being in the dark tunnel with many, many doors didn’t bother him.

“It doesn’t matter,” Kaleth replied, pulling his sword out of its holster. “Our mission hasn’t changed. I can teleport us out of here. We just need to hurry.”

“Right.” Alor sounded very skeptical. “There should be an elevator over there.” He pointed to the right, where there was a door the same as all the others but without a number.

Mel flinched when a loud banging was heard against the door.

“Why is there no one here?” he asked as he caught up with Alor and Kaleth and joined them in the elevator.

“The other place was practically empty too,” Alor said, keeping his voice down. Mel frowned. That was very odd. He wanted Kaleth to weigh in on this as well, but he didn’t ask again. They could think about this later.

As the elevator door opened again, Mel felt his heart skip a beat as he saw five Eternals waiting for them right at the door, but Kaleth immediately teleported behind them and cut them all down with barely any effort.

And barely any regret, too.

Mel scowled at Kaleth’s back, and he was also making it clear through their bond that he wasn’t approving of this, but Kaleth either didn’t care, or he was too preoccupied with his own thoughts to notice. Mel hoped it was the second thing.

“I already sent word to Enor,” a male voice told them from the back of the room where a huge computer screen was. “There will be retaliation for this.”

Mel frowned at the Eternal. Despite his words, he sounded incredibly intimidated—especially once Kaleth came up to him and pushed him against the screen.

“Where is the power generator?” Kaleth growled at him. “Tell me, or I’ll rip the information out of your mind.”

Once again Mel was taken aback by how ruthless Kaleth was being. Had he been this way before? Sure, he’d had moments where he hadn’t been the nicest, but this had to be new. Mel was sure of it.

The Eternal Kaleth was still holding pinned against the computer screen hung his head. “It’s right below us. Through...that door.”

He pointed to his left, at the large crates that were there. And in fact they were everywhere in the room. There must have been a door behind them.

“Good.” Kaleth turned around, dragging the Eternal with him and pushing him forward so he stumbled towards Alor. “Keep an eye on him. We’re taking him with us. Give me the explosives.”

Alor grabbed both of the Eternal’s wrists with one hand and then threw his backpack over to Kaleth without a word.

Mel watched Kaleth push the crates out of the way with a wave of his hand, indeed revealing a door. Then he walked through and was out of sight. Mel sighed, his shoulders slumping. This whole thing had left a bad taste in his mouth. And he was still doing his damndest not to look back at the bodies of those dead Eternals just a few steps away from them.

“What are you going to do with me?” the now captured Eternal asked, looking resigned to his fate. His medium-length hair hung in his face as well, adding to the picture of misery.

“We’re going to help you,” Mel said, doing his best to express that he was completely earnest with most of his face being covered up right now. But it seemed the other Eternal didn’t want to believe him.

“Help me? You’re about to kill hundreds of other Eternals. Why would you help me?”

A deathly silence filled the room for a moment.

“Wait, what?” Alor asked, voicing Mel’s thoughts and confusion perfectly. “What do you mean?”

“You don’t know?” the Eternal exclaimed in disbelief. “What do you think is in these crates?”

Mel gaped at him for a second before quickly turning around and grabbing the lid of the nearest crate. As he lifted it, incredibly intensive light hit his eyes, casting long shadows over the whole room. And when Mel managed to see through it, his stomach twisted.

The glass cylinders inside looked different from the ones he had seen before. The light within them was much more animated—alive—as it bounced off the glass walls, as if the energy within was throwing itself at its see-through prison.

These weren’t simply extracted energy—they were Eternals.

They couldn’t blow this place up.

Mel was about to say as much when he heard Alor yelp. Running over to him without finding out what happened first, Mel was shocked to see that the Eternal they’d captured had managed to get out of Alor’s hold and punch him in the face, if the blood running from the cut on Alor’s nose was any indication.

“You’re not taking me alive,” the enemy Eternal spat. And before Mel and Alor could try to restrain him again, behind them, the elevator opened. Mel turned around just in time to see at least five more Eternals join them, stepping over the bodies of their fallen comrades without a care.

Mel drew his weapon as their new adversaries were about to charge at them when Kaleth reappeared, opening a portal with an ear-piercing boom and pushed the Eternal they’d captured through it.

“Come on!” Kaleth yelled, grabbing Mel and Alor’s arms and dragging them into the portal as well. Mel wanted to tell him about what they’d just found out, that they had to stop what they’d planned on doing, but it was too late.

He was now on his knees in the middle of a field, with birds singing and insects chirping. Mel quickly sprung up, running up to Kaleth. He knew it was probably pointless by now, but he had to try.

“There were Eternals in those crates,” he said, watching as Kaleth cuffed their prisoner’s hands behind his back. Not letting go of him, Kaleth turned to look at Mel with confusion. “We need to stop the explosion, or something. We can’t just kill them.”

Kaleth’s face turned passive again, but Mel could tell there was a strong emotion right beneath the surface, Mel just had a hard time figuring out which one. “It already went off.”

Mel’s shoulders slumped as his heart was filled with despair. It was too late.

“How does an explosion kill Eternals, anyway?” Alor asked, aiming the question at their captive. “I thought they were unkillable aside from using othrin.”

“Normal Eternals, yes,” the man snapped back, glaring up at Kaleth, who just glared back. “These are weakened as much as they can be, ready for processing. They would break out of their containers easily otherwise.”

Mel scowled at that word choice. He had no idea what the extent of this all was, but he was pretty sure the Eternals he’d seen back there hadn’t been brainwashed just yet.

“Something like an explosion that big could easily rip them to pieces and make them fizzle out. And you just did that to hundreds of them!”

Mel stared at the grassy ground, feeling misery overtake him. They’d just murdered hundreds of innocent people just to destroy one of Enor’s facilities. He couldn’t remember a time when he was outside of a body, so he couldn’t know for sure, but he had heard that it was possible to separate the energy making up an Eternal into pieces, and potentially kill them like this if they didn’t have enough energy to sustain themselves anymore. If these Eternals had indeed been very weakened, then it probably wouldn’t take much to kill them.

“At least that’s hundreds of soldiers Enor won’t get.”

Mel felt a shiver run down his spine as he stared at Kaleth with his mouth hanging open. “What?”

Kaleth grimaced at Mel, trying to send him some of his feelings of regret at what had happened, but at the moment Mel was pushing that all away, no matter how genuine it was. He regretted it a little when he felt how much that simple action had hurt Kaleth, but Mel would stand his ground.

“I’m sorry, love, but think about it. Even if we had freed them, where would those Eternals go?”

A great deal of them would probably end up possessing more innocent people, but that didn’t mean Kaleth was right by saying that.

“What’s done is done either way,” Kaleth continued. Even with those goggles over his eyes, Mel could tell Kaleth was avoiding his gaze. “We need to get back before Enor’s forces track us down. Then we can discuss this further.”

When Kaleth turned around and made his wings appear, Mel scowled at the back of his head. He had a feeling Kaleth was just brushing him and the problem off with that and was hoping Mel wouldn’t press the issue further later. But Mel wasn’t going to give up that easily. Kaleth was right about something—they were definitely going to discuss this.