UNTITLED: Book One

DAY 134.50

Home is where it’s the hardest

Home is where the heart is

So why don’t I feel something?

Head bowed as he sits in his meditative state. Floating screens above him showing scenes of war below. A sigh, then a release. It’s time.

He stands and walks across the empty space, towards the dark. Each step illuminates the shallow black water underneath his feet. He stops and reaches out. Two blades fly firmly into his hands and then he is swallowed by the shallow black water. Disappearing like a magic trick.

—

They have no idea where it comes from, but Solara and Aiye watch as something like a shooting star falls from the bright sky and through multiple enemy cruisers and battleships. They all explode, and the falling star continues falling until it stops suddenly, right above the waves of the ocean. Then, it sends out a large, laser-like beam, splitting in many different directions. Each beam piercing through only enemy ships with great precision.

This shooting star is the same color as the lightning Thema transported herself in, back on Isi-Iyi. While it has been half a day, it doesn’t seem like much time for her to recover from whatever it was she had going on with her. But as the energy dissipates, they see that it’s not Thema, but rather it’s The Warden.

Other than the enemy soldiers that have landed on the island, The Warden just destroyed more than half of their invading fleet in mere seconds. But he doesn’t stop there.

With Solara and Aiye still spectating, while he still hovers in the air, The Warden slams his two blades together directly above his head. This releases a blast of energy that beams straight up to the huge enemy mothership hanging just out of orbit.

The attack, as wide as a New Wave is tall, barrels through the sky while blowing away any ships, clouds or debris in its path. When it reaches the mothership, the blast hits its shield—much like the one around the city in the sky. Except, instead of the blast being deflected or dispersed, it’s being absorbed?

The energy from The Warden’s weapons completely absorbs through the enemy’s shields and into the ship itself. The Warden is briefly taken aback. This is new.

The question of what they plan to do with it is answered immediately as the energy is then fired back out, amplified, towards the city as a laser half the width of the Warden’s attack.

Solara and Aiye both stand up, curious now about the outcome. When the energy hits the city’s shields it doesn’t deflect. This time, instead of trying to blow through, or shatter the city’s shields, this strike takes a more surgical approach as the laser carves out a circular opening in the city’s shielding, leaving a gaping hole in the shield.

Rather than bombarding the city now, the mothership instead launches a single drop pod down. It makes a firm landing, leaving a small crater underneath it, also near the large Narra tree.

“Aiye… I think shit is finally about to get real.” Solara says, never taking her eyes off of the pod, and unable to hide her excitement.

Aiye simply responds, “Yeah… I think so too.”

The Warden is about to fly back to the city but then the Dark State reveals its hand. The mothership releases twice as many ships than what appeared in their initial strike, flowing out like a swarm of angry bees. Two of which immediately bombard Isi-Iyi, regardless of friend or foe. And a couple more to attack The Warden to distract him from as they descend. It works, because the hole starts to slowly close so he flies off to defend the island after some initial hesitation.

—

Solara starts stretching with some deep side lunges, followed by deep squats and burpees. Aiye smirks when he sees her from his peripherals, watching her without breaking his concentration on the pod that has yet to eject its doors. This feels like it's going to be an actual fight.

At least, Sol expects it if she’s stretching. And she has a good sense for these things, so Aiye follows her lead and stretches too. Still, he doesn’t break his concentration on the pod.

Suddenly, a mechanism extends from the top of the pod, looking like a mini satellite dish. It shoots a laser up to the city’s shield.

Are they trying to destroy the shields from the inside? Do they really think that’ll work? Aiye wonders as he watches, still stretching.

But, instead of expanding the hole in the city’s shield, it speeds up its closing? Oh. Aiye notices that while it’s patching up, the colors of the shield begin to turn to the same colors of the mothership’s shield. Oh shit, they’re locking us in here with whatever is in that pod, he realizes. They’re trying to keep The Warden, and reinforcements out. Just then Solara laughs to herself.

“Hahahaha. Yesss. I am going to enjoy this.” She says quietly to herself.

But Aiye knows that if she “enjoys” this, then that means they are going to get sidetracked from the main objective…whichhh issss what? Killing The Warden was the plan, but with him not here, what are we doing here anyways? Is there something else here?

Aiye ponders this for a moment and recalls Solara’s patience and overall disinterest with seeing The Warden so soon. At first, her excitement upon learning the sword could get them into The Eye, it was enough to convince him how eager she was to find The Warden. But, she knew where he was—eh, well we all could have guessed his location, I suppose… But, it wasn’t about that was it? Aiye racks his brain some more while staring at Solara who’s in front of him, waiting for the pod to open.

It finally dawns on him that the data they were suppose to look over, after the sixth factory raid, they never did—at least he didn’t. He tries to recall all that was flashing across the screen that day, or even what he saw on the first page of the datapad when sitting on the bed in Broker’s place. All he remembers are diagrams of the weapons, something about the process of making them stronger—they already know it—and some shit about a gate. But he didn’t look into any of it. Fuck. He curses himself.

He’s unaware of it, but he’s staring so hard now, as he thinks, that he could burn a hole in the back of her head with his eyes. He’s getting angry that he didn’t do his due diligence.

Solara, with all her instincts, spins around towards him with a confused grin. “What the fu—. Were you staring at me or something?” She asks half chuckling.

Aiye doesn’t respond for a moment. He simply stares into her eyes, his anger rising. But, he doesn’t know who he’s angry at, or even why he’s so angry—yet.

He doesn’t know the reason why they’re really here. He doesn’t know if there even is an alternative motive. He knows nothing. And there lies the problem. That he isn’t in control. Which, he felt he learned to accept whenever around Solara, but perhaps feeling not in control, in the middle of a war, after all they’ve been through, is a bit of a trigger for his bad habits.

“If you’ve got a problem just fucking say it!? What’s. WRONG? Why are you mad now—?” Solara finally snaps at him, feeling uneasy from his staring.

“Why are we here Sol?” His blunt monotone indicating he’s already passed his judgement.

No reply. So Aiye continues.

“I recall now, you saying you wanted everything—or were going to take everything. Something like that. I just remember hearing, everything. And yet, we let Thema go—I got in between you two. We’ve taken nothing from the city—maybe there’s nothing you want here. And now we’re still here even when The Warden is gone—that one I’m starting to feel unsure about. And I can understand not being able to get to him just yet, except, you’ve made no attempt to get to him. YOU. Of all people, felt NO NEED to go after him. I find that strange. Funny really. So once more—and only once more—I ask, why are we here?”

“Aiye. It’s not what you think.” Solara gently raises her hand to calm him, then begins to walk toward him. She gently puts her hands on his shoulders and looks him sincerely in his eyes.

“Mm hah nawww. What am I thinking Sol?” An annoyed Aiye brushes one of her hands off his shoulder and shrugs her other hand off. Then takes a step backward.

“Aiye, I have a plan! Jeez” She nervously laughs as she throws her hands in the air. Hoping this will excite him. But after he doesn’t budge, she continues, “You hate when I go into shit without a plan, remember?? So I made a plan haha, and I wanted it to be a surprise!”

“A plan is NOT supposed to be a surprise! Its a plan. It’s MEANT to be shared! I just- mmm,” he rubs the bridge of his nose and calms himself a bit before continuing.

“What’s the plan?”

“The GATE Aiye!” Solara exclaims gleaming with excitement. But this vagueness only annoys Aiye further.

“Whaaaat about the gaaaate, tell me!”

“Remember, The Aurora Gateway—or Gateway Aurora, or some shit? Yeah, I figured out how to get to it!”

“Aurora? I- I don’t know—OH! From the plans we got at the factory raid??”

“Yess theplanswegotatthefuckingfactoryraid. Where the fuck else!? Aghhh! Did you even read the information I gave you!?”

“Er- -shit…no.” Aiye calms down. His shame immediately hitting harder than a pulse staff to the gut.

Solara palms her face. “The Aurora Gateway, Aiye, is what we’re after. Surpriiise… *sigh*.” She says as she rolls her eyes.

“Damn, hm. Okay. I’m sorry. Really, that’s honestly my bad. I didn’t mean to ruin this moment. I wrongfully called you out like that too, I’m really sorry about that. Sooo… uhm, may you please explain all this stuff to me? Well, maybe like a quick summary, considering…”

Solara sighs again—a release, “Yeah. It’s whatever. But yeah, the Aurora Gateway. So to use to it, we need to get into The Eye. To get into the Eyeee…”

“We need either Thema’s weapon or The Warden’s. Hence, killing The Warden.”

“Exactly! Except, we actually need both I feel like… Knowing him.”

“So we weren’t doing this for revenge?” The realization is equal parts a relief as it is a confusing disappointment for Aiye. He doesn’t have time to sort through that right now though.

“Not ALL of it. But I mean, we’re definitely getting our revenge? That motherfucker’s gonna die. Like, for sure, and he’s gonna know it came from us. Count on that.”

All right. All right. Cool… but question, how’re you gonna convince Thema to help you? I don’t know if helping in this war is enough to like make shit cool between the two of you?”

Solara raises her hand up near her face in a motion that tells Aiye that she thinks this is a dumb question.

“You’re not gonna try and kill her for real, are you? I knew y’all didnt fuck with one another, but i never thought the two of you actually would kill each other?” Aiye replies in a 50/50 mindset. Half of him is defensive and the other half seems stuck in deep thought regarding this issue.

Solara notices, “Why? You got a problem with that?” She challenges.

“Yeah. Kinda I guess….Just feels off now, you know? She’s finally against The Warden so like why not figure this shit out together?”

Solara throws her hands up in frustration, “Ugh. You’re annoying sometines I swear. Pick a lane! You used to fight her more than me!”

Aiye raises a hand as his white flag, “Naw naw. You’re right. I get it. I’ve been all over the place lately, but thats because I feel like the circumstances have been too. Lets at least try to get her to help us out before we take shit by force, yeah? That’s all im saying.”

“Fine. But nothing is getting in the way of us getting to this gate…”

“Hmm, okay.” Aiye nods as he starts to better absorb all they’ve been discussing and his own thoughts, finding his balance again. “So what’s the gateway even do?”

A mischievous grin stretches across Solara’s face, “That’s the BEST. PART. Aiye it—”

Just then, the pod ejects its door with a loud boom. They both snap to attention and brace for whatever is about to come out.

Three people step out of the pod. Two females and one male. All three are dressed in strange, slightly glowing, lightly-pulsating armor. Each with their own color, and carrying their own weapon. Silver (halberd), Carbon (sword), and Gold (cudgel) in that order—left to right.

“Dark State He-roes?? A confused, but very excited Solara asks to no one particular.

Aiye answers nonetheless, “Remember what Broker said about the other three that come with the Hero? I think this is that.”

“So where is the Hero?” She asks with a brief look of disappointment.

“Yeah, I don’t think that’s our main concern right now. Let’s not underestimate these people and prolong this fight.”

Just then, the woman in the golden armor, Gold, walks forward. She’s she’s slightly shorter than the average New Wave, but also slightly bulkier too. Her hair is short and buzzed on the sides. Tactical.

Her weapon of choice is a cudgel. A club—a dense metal rod of sorts—that looks heavy as shit despite her casually having it slung over her shoulder, holding it with just one hand.

Gold, still holding it firmly, lets the tip of the rod fall from her shoulder to the ground, cracking the ground around her, putting emphasis on the heavy-as-shit part. She then cracks her neck, first to the left side, then the right.

Solara side-eyes off into the distance at no one in particular. She’s unimpressed and—

“SOL!” She hears Aiye suddenly shout while she’s briefly looking away.

She snaps to and looks up just in time to see that Gold had charged at her, covering that distance in the blink of an eye, already in front of her. Gold slams down her rod using one hand and Solara blocks it by forming an ‘X’ with her arms. Her feet indent into the ground and her arms hurt a lot, but she’s ultimately unbothered. She’s taken on way worse pain than this. This is nothing she says to herself, definitely focused now.

Solara smirks, almost laughing, “What? This can’t possibly be all you’ve got? You heroes were hyped like crazy and you’re weaker than a training sim, damn.”

Then Gold, expressionless, shifts her weight more into Solara as the rod glows brightly. She then places her second hand on the rod and Solara’s eyes open wide as she realizes that the force that Gold is currently exerting is rapidly increasing. It’s like the gravity on Solara is growing exponentially by the second. Solara looks for weaknesses on the woman warrior, Gold.

But, before she can counter, the force slams Solara through the ground—exploding the area around her and sending her to fall deep into the city, layer after layer. Out of sight.

Gold walks up to battle-ready Aiye, looks him up and down, then steps to the side of him to look over the same edge that he and Solara were sitting at. She just stands there and doesn’t move. An unflinching Aiye doesn’t move either, nor acknowledge her. His eyes still forward on the other two, never breaking concentration. He’s ready to fight all three at the same time until Solara gets back.

Carbon, seemingly their leader, crosses the distance towards Aiye, calmly strolling around the large hole that Gold made and directly up to Aiye’s face. He is nearly as tall as Aiye and bulkier as well—older too. Much older. They all are. Perhaps, younger than The Warden despite looking around the same age as him.

Aiye doesn’t really look back at Carbon either. Choosing not to give in to their intimidation tactics. Tensing his body, getting ready for them to gang up on them. He’s waiting to react to any signs of attack rather than focusing too much on just one of them.

Carbon speaks in his deep voice.

“I remember this Colony. The Outer Colony. This land is a wretched one. It’s taken so much from the rest of us. It really doesn’t deserve to carry on as it is. I knew this when its Warden took my Mother—a Hero, murdered in her heroic effort to reclaim this land for Core. Fighting alone to defeat the evil spreading here, as the previous Hero of Core. It was after this, I felt, that it was my destiny to take up her mantle and become the next Hero of the Core. To protect our people and my family—no longer alone. And as if to solidify that sentiment, as if losing her in the war was not painful enough, these barbarians came years later to attack us again. No ships. Just an army that appeared out of thin air with that same unimaginable power they used in the war. They devastated our homes and took countless lives and disappeared as fast they came. My brothers and sisters of Core, lost. My friends, lost. My family, lost… they even took my sister’s newborn.”

Carbon, with passionate anger in his watering eyes, follows Aiye’s eyes who refuses to look at him. He continues.

“…Or so I thought.” He grabs Aiye’s face—around his jaw and cheeks—to inspect him. Aiye just stares slightly off to the side with his fists clenched. A confused fury in his eyes.

“…yet here you are.” He says in awe as he continues to analyze Aiye’s face.

“You look so much like her. Our Mother—your grandmother, that is. I mean you look so much like your mom, after all, and she is a damn-near carbon-copy of your grandmother.” He snorts a quick laugh quietly to himself as he lets go of Aiye’s face.

Aiye’s alleged Uncle, the dark-armored warrior, “Carbon”, begins to circle Aiye as he continues talking. Hands behind his back while he strolls around Aiye.

“But, that said, you don’t seem all that surprised.” He says, nodding his head as though he’s already answered, in his own mind, the ‘why’.

“You don’t. Seem. Surprised. That worries me, nephew. Why aren’t you surprised, nephew?” He reiterates.

“I could ask you the same shit…” Aiye mumbles, still not looking at him. “Y’all walked up directly to me out that pod.”

Carbon’s head shoots in Aiye’s direction with a look of condescending excitement across his face. “So he speaks! And with my sister’s same spirit no-less! HAH. Fantastic.”

Carbon gives a hearty laugh, but Aiye can see through all his insincerity. This man had made up his mind about what he was going to do to Aiye, the moment he saw him.

Naw, he probably knew what he was gonna do long before he saw my face, Aiye thinks to himself as he recalls the Dark State cells. Is this who Broker was working with on that side?

He gets into defensive stance. Gold, who was looking out at the war, over the edge of the city, tilts her head in his direction as a warning.

Carbon motions ‘all good’ to her as he continues circling Aiye, finally stopping when he’s back in front.

He faces Aiye and stares at him. Continuing his condescending speech, this time with a look of pity. He shakes his head.

“Tsk tsk tsk. Aghh. This makes it tough now, nephew. You took part in the extermination of your own people. Our spies were honored members of Core. Tch.” He smacks his teeth. “BUT, Aiye, while traitors are typically executed immediately, we are blood. And I am willing to risk my life, and my honor, for that. In saying that, I offer you you a choice: (1) Remain here and fight alongside your captors—these barbarians, or (2) Fight for your home and your people.”

Wasn’t much of a choice for Aiye considering he didn’t want to fight for either side. So this isn’t going to go smoothly for him. Where’s Sol? Is she doing the come from behind thing? She really thinks imma hold down three Dark State… what- Heroes? All while she takes her time to do that shit??

Aiye remains silent for a while while thinking. Carbon allows it for some time before he follows up once more. This time revealing his true colors, his tone menacing.

“It’s easy, really.” He gets into Aiye’s personal space and leans in next to Aiye’s ear, “Choose. This outer colony filth—the 21st colony of The Core. Or, Aiye, you can come home to Earth.”

The thunderous drum strikes once…