UNTITLED: Book One

DAY 135.75

I didn’t think that,

With more hope, came new fears, and new tears

But I’m ready for this

“Brokerrrrrr!” Solara excitedly shouts over the communicator. She immediately had the pilot reach out to the flagship, of the group of ships, that just entered the fight. She managed to give The Broker a very quick rundown of what’s happening.

“Young Solara! Allow me to apologize for my earlier remarks by way of saving your life HAHAHAHA!” The Broker gives a booming, hearty laugh. Particularly excited to learn that she and Aiye are still alive.

They only spent a short time together, but with what they went through it felt like a lifetime. The Broker surprised himself when he realized how silent and lonely it was for him during the absence of his youthful companions. He missed these damn kids. Maybe after losing all those close to him, these two being the only familiar presence left was still healing for him, in a way.

“Apology accepted HAHAHA!” Solara returns with her own booming, hearty laugh. She’s now in a jovial mood now. “We’re about to crash-land on the island so let’s call it even for all the shit I gave you!”

“Accepted as well! While we unfortunately cannot catch you, I will soon follow behind you in a transport of my own. I know you are all sturdy enough so we shall simply bring first-aid! It is good to know you will be there, for I need my muscle yet again. I have plans!”

Solara rolls her eyes with a smirk. Of course he does.

He continues, “The keys are on that island. My people are still picking up the signal from our homemade master key. We can use them to get you back to Aiye—whose signal last transmitted from the city—then reek true havoc on both sides! It seems that the keys have use once again! Happy crash-landing, and wear a seatbelt Solara!” Broker finishes before they are cut off by the pilot’s announcement.

“Brace yourselves! Diverting remaining power to a reverse thrust in three, two, one!”

They land HARD. Junaid is snapped out of his seatbelt by the force of the crash combined with his own weight. He’s thrown around the ship as it tumbles. Tozi and Solara get an extreme case of whiplash as their bodies sling every which way—left, then right, then left again. Luckily, Solara is able to reach up and catch Junaid by the ankle before he receives any severe damage. She winces as the force pulls hard on her shoulder. The pilot takes the brunt of the crash up front and it is unclear as to what her fate is.

Tozi and Solara, both in pain, are slow to unbuckle themselves. They both fall off the seats and onto the floor next to Junaid, or the roof? Either way, all three of them take a moment to writhe and groan in pain and discomfort.

Big guy is simply bruised with some minor fractures, Tozi observes to herself, thankful. Then she rushes over to the pilot. She calls Solara over to help her, and while waiting for her, she tries to wake the pilot. There’s a pulse still! It’s strong so maybe it’s just a strong concussion and some broken bones.

She looks at the approaching Solara, “I can’t wake her but she’s got a strong pulse-”

SLAP! Solara hits the pilot with a hard uppercut slap to the back of her head. Tozi is about to protest, but stops herself as if to say, what’s the point.

The pilot groans awake, “Ahhhhh mmmghh… Ouch.”

Solara rushes her, “Stand up. We gotta get up outta here, like now. I’m not trying to be blown up after finally landing.”

“Then just leave me behind. I think I’m paralyzed, or stuck, or both. Probably both.” The pilot replies groggily.

“Okay.” Solara responds as she turns to leave. Junaid is slowly standing to his feet behind her.

Tozi rolls her eyes and grabs Solara’s arm, then responds to the pilot, “We’re not leaving you. Solara, let’s hurry up and get her out of this.”

“Thank goodness. Like *wince* I know it’s Solara, but I was honestly shocked for a second by how fast she walked away. *grimace* I was hoping for a little protest, or tough love even.” The pilot tries to joke, still fighting to remain conscious as if in a drunk stupor.

“Then don’t say shit you don’t mean. If you wanted a dramatic and honorable death you should’ve fired back at them and taken out the mothership, or some shit like that. That would’ve been cooler.” Solara replies bluntly as she yanks pieces of the ship off her.

“Cool-ER. HAH. I’ll take it. Agh!” She yelps as they pull more debris off of her. “Okay, so I’m not exactly paralyzed. My legs are just completely trashed!”

The pilot angrily destroys the console with one smash of her fists—still a New Wave. A light stream of tears fall down her cheeks as she closes her eyes and tilts her head up in frustration. They finish pulling her out of the mess and begin carrying her out of the ship.

“Heyyy, hey. None of that. After all this I’m sure we can get you patched like new anyways.” Tozi reassures her.

“Says the one still missing an arm.” Solara interjects as they take the pilot down the ramp.

“Once again, fuck you.” Tozi replies.

“Agh, but she’s righttt thoughhh.” The pilot whimpers in self pity.

“Okay.” Tozi holding the pilot at her head, drops her on the ground to go and check up Junaid.

“Owwww, my head! Again!” The pilot moans. “You’ve just been saved by the best pilot to ever exist, and this is how you repay me.”

Solara rolls her eyes and drops her too. “You’ve also grown quite talkative. I preferred it more when none of you talked in my presence. I like the big one the most now.”

She plops down on the ground for a moment, leaning back casually on her two arms resting behind her.

“Awww my legs, I felt that. You should’ve left me to die if you were just going to treat me like thisss.”

“Maybe.” Junaid, the big one, finally speaks up again as he finishes the job Tozi and Solara abandoned.

A long silence follows. Then they all burst out in a fit of laughter. As they finally take a moment to breathe and process everything. Their moment to breathe lasts a while until the pilot brings the seriousness back to the fold, unintentionally.

“So what ARE we gonna do after all this?” She asks through residual chuckles, staring out at the ongoing air battle.

“I don't know, that’s a good question. Solara?” Tozi replies as she surveys the ongoing land battle on this island.

“Why the fuck you asking me? Since when do I have those type of plans?” Solara defends. A little playfulness can still be heard in her tone.

Tozi’s tone grows serious now though. She speaks up again, this time seemingly annoyed, “What I meant was, it seems to me that you and Aiye were going to attack us anyways, Dark State or not. So what was your plan after, or were you just going to dip out again after you had your way and fucked everything up for rest of us? Like usual.”

Junaid and the pilot watch Solara for an answer. They don’t have the same harsh look of judgement in their eyes as Tozi. It’s closer to hopeful. Perhaps they hoped she and Aiye, the two strongest, would actually fight with them one day and not just for themselves. But they’re wrong to hope for that.

“Sorry to disappoint.” Solara replies as she stares off into the distance, fighting back guilt by trying to fake annoyance and drum up her superiority complex.

And disappoint it does. Tozi looks away angry and both Junaid and the pilot look down in disappointment. A different silence falls upon them, as they’re reminded of all the problems they had before this war made them drop down on their list of priorities.

The silence is deep and finally only be broken up by an explosion and shockwave that comes from across the island, near the War Cry statue, still standing tall and hardly damaged.

“Well. Let’s handle our business.” Solara says as she stands up again.

Just as she does The Broker’s transport arrives and settles down next to their own. It’s nearly as battered as theirs? The Broker exits and walks down the ramp towards Solara while soldiers run down the ramp and scatter in the different directions of the island.

“Apologies. To get here, we took the most direct path. It turned out to be a huge mistake. It was hell getting through and unfortunately we lost quite a few fighters. We are the only ones from the landing group to make it, and barely at that.” He gestures to the battered ship, a hint of sadness slipping into his tone.

Solara shares a glance with the New Wave pilot who simply does a quick raise of her eyebrows as if to say, told you so. Regarding her choice to not take them directly to Isi-Iyi. Solara acknowledges with a nod, perhaps trying to make up for her admission earlier. But that damage between the four of them is already done. She’ll move forward regardless.

Solara, serious and focused now, lightly taps her fist to The Broker’s chest while her eyes scan the battlefield around them. “Glad you made it. So where are the keys?”

The Broker gets nudged back by the strength of her ‘light tap’, but recovers and points towards the War Cry statue.

Solara smirks as she looks at explosions coming from the battle between the Warden and the Dark State Hero. “Today must be my lucky day.”

She eagerly turns to leave, “You guys watch his back and I’ll go handle this.” But then she stops in her tracks, yet again paused by the guilt from their earlier conversation. She’s never really given much importance to anyone other than Aiye, and perhaps not even enough to him. This realization makes her cringe. It wasn’t intentional. It’s just her mind was always set on things. She had always felt sure of herself until now, but maybe she was never sure of herself and simply just didn’t consider anything else. Meh.

“When I get back we should get her to the medical bay.” She reassures them, pointing to the pilot still in bad shape. Tozi and Junaid nod, then she looks at The Broker who is slightly smiling in a mix of confusion and pride, looking her up and down like a proud father. Solara shakes her head with a smirk and takes off at amazing pace, striding great lengths across the island towards the destroyed transport near the statue.

As she nears it, she spots the bag that most likely has the keys in it. She then sees more clearly, for the first time in what feels like a long time, The Warden—her father. And for the first time ever, she sees a Hero of the Dark State. The woman looks strong and admittedly impressive in her armor. She looks like someone who can hold her own. She looks formidable, for sure. She looks like- huh. She looks familiar actually… Solara skids to a stop and looks closer, this time studying the facial features of the lady. She looks like Aiye!?

—

Aiye is completely covered in blood that’s not his own. Holding her by the throat, he peers into Silver’s horror-stricken, now-dead eyes. There’s dripping. He glances down before he throws the upper half of her body away, opposite direction of her lower half. Then, he tightens his grip around her halberd before looking down at his blood soaked hand he just threw with—he’s expressionless.

After a while, he finally looks back up towards Thema who is still taking on both Gold and Carbon, his Uncle. My Mother’s brother, he thinks to himself as he turns to look over the edge of the city, in the distance towards Isi-Iyi. He watches the bright flashes on the island, emitting from what he assumes to be the battle between The Warden and his Mother, apparently a Dark State Hero. A Hero of Core, of Earth. What could’ve been. What should’ve been.

He wonders to himself if he wants to go down there to save her, to see her, or simply just both—or none at all. He’s unsure how to feel. He shakes the blood off his hands and wipes his face, sending it splattering onto the ground. He turns fully towards Thema’s fight just in time to see her swing her sword with a shriek—not as piercingly loud as it used to be, but by now he’s figured out it happens when she’s getting tired.

Her attack blows away both Carbon and Gold who land on their feet and remain in a defensive stance, preparing for a follow-up. Thema takes that moment to glance over at him.

Upon seeing his current state she quickly looks away. Seeing him in that mode is a constant reminder of the trauma she gained from facing him so many times in the ranking trials back when they were young. It was the same trauma many other New Wave experience first hand or witnessed.

She thinks back to when they were 12 years old. When she first encountered this version of him. He ran through everyone else, and she was the only one remotely strong enough to stand up to him, but it made little to no difference at all.

At first she “hated” him like any kid would, for stealing her best friend—a sister, and making her look weak every time by one-upping her in any competition they were forced to do. She desperately tried to prove herself so she could win her friend back, and her rank—her respect. But then their monthly ranking trials began and Solara was exempted because it was a forgone conclusion she would place first. That’s when Aiye’s cruelties really began to trickle out, when Solara wasn’t around. No one knew what happened to initially trigger this side of him. Everyone has their thing, was a common understanding amongst them. But Aiye’s thing was just something else entirely.

“Get this damn shield down!” She shouts at him, shaking off the memory as she charges Gold and Carbon. She’s hoping to keep them off Aiye’s back while he destroys their mechanism so that they can regain control of the city.

Aiye snaps out of it, back to himself and then nods before sprinting towards their drop pod with the antenna still redirecting energy.

With Silver’s halberd still in hand, Aiye jumps far, landing directly in front of the pod, right into a gathering motion for an attack. He takes a full-strength swing at the pod and for a second he could’ve sworn the halberd lit up for him—blink and you missed it.

Aiye’s swing slices directly through the upper half of the cylindrical pod. The beam, that was constantly traveling from the antenna to the shields, flickers off and the shield begins to go down like a curtain dropping. He’s mesmerized by this, caught in a sort of trance as he watches the shields of Core drop, then revert back to the shields of the city in the the sky.

A piercing shriek from Thema using a powerful attack with her sword is what shakes him out of his awe. He turns towards her again. The sword is getting louder. She must be getting tired physically, mentally, or both. Which means those two are much better fighters than Silver was.

He watches them longer which leads him to realize that regardless of them being better fighters or not, those two are actually getting even faster and stronger. He forgot! He thinks back to when he took down Silver the first time, for a brief moment they had gotten stronger and faster then too!

They must sharing a power source or something. Now that Silver is down for good, they’ll have become a much tougher challenge. He thought this antenna thing was making that happen in some way but maybe the suits are transferring power amongst each other somehow? He’s unsure how it really works, but there’s little time to think about that.

Carbon clashes his sword with Thema’s, who with her other hand catches Gold’s rod as it is slammed down on her. Thema grimaces and grunts while fending off more attacks from Carbon, who is by far a better sword fighter. She would’ve been dead several times over in this sword fight if it weren’t for her sword’s innate defenses. She could take him in a fist fight easily, both of them really, but they are extremely skilled with their weapons. It’s like fighting two supercharged Tozis at the same time. She could finish them off with something strong, but her control over weapon is weak when using an attack that strong. The damage it’ll do to the city could be bad, and it’ll most definitely put her back to sleep for another day.

Shit. There’s no way I’m gonna ask Aiye for help after telling him I’d handle this. She continues thinking to herself while fending off Carbon and Gold. I can’t. It’d be too embarrassing! Pitiful! Shameful! Her breathing starts to get heavier than normal as she slashes harder and harder. Then, a dark violet aura starts to emit from her, but it’s slowly turning dark red.

Angering. Now her eyes begin to turn all black as the sword starts to infect her mind. Just the thought, I would HATE it! I HATE him! She internally rages as she starts attacking instead of defending. She’s more so slamming the sword at them now then slashing. There’s no attempt at grace or skill as her mind begins to falter.

She doesn’t realize that every swing she’s taken, since the infection started, is hitting with that shrill, shriek-screech-like noise. A cross between metal screeching and people screaming. Not only that, each swing is slamming down with a weight that is maybe 20x the already extra heavy gravity that is on top of the city, making the ground quake.

Carbon and Gold are beginning to struggle greatly, but Aiye—watching this all occur—realizes he can’t let this go on much longer. Thema will end up like Sollar and become just another powerful enemy he needs to defeat.

Buttttt, she’ll probably defeat those two in a moment if I do let it go on. Except the only problem is that he thinks the infection is almost done. He observes her veins blackening slowly up into her brain. I bet once it gets there she’s done for. Hm, and it’s almost there. So, he launches himself toward her, hoping her automatic shield works, as he swings the halberd at her with all his strength. Her shields do activate and he ends up batting her the top of the city. Then turns to fight Carbon and Gold himself.

Unlike Carbon, Gold doesn’t hesitate when she sees this. Instead, as if realizing some opportunity of hers—Aiye can’t imagine what, she sprints towards Silver’s body. When she gets to it she crouches above her and sheds a quick tear for her, gently closing her lifeless eyes. Then she takes a deep breath and hesitates before she slams her fist through Silvers chest. Gold holds a disgusted and angry expression through some tears as she sifts her hand around until she finds something. She pulls it out, a pulsating Silver sphere about the size of a small apple. She gags for a moment, then swallows it.

What. Aiye stops in a disgusted surprise. Carbon stops too, rather than trying to take advantage of Aiye’s lack of attention. He seems unbothered and too relaxed.

“It looks as though the real fight is about to begin.” Carbon observes calmly.

Aiye ignores him as he continues watching the Gold warrior. Gold, crouched down on one knee, begins to sweat profusely as she struggles to withstand whatever pain that sphere is causing her. Suddenly she sprawls out on the ground, moving as if she is no longer in control of her body. Convulsing violently on the ground like a fish out of water. Then after some violent seizures, she roars in pain.

Aiye, with his mouth slightly open while watching this transformation, snaps-to suddenly when he remembers that he never followed up to see if Thema stopped her own transformation. He shoots a glance over at Thema who seems to be slowly standing up. The sword floating next to her while she holds her head. They make eye contact and she flips him off. She’s okay, so he turns back towards Gold…who is not quite Gold anymore.

Aiye speaks up in her direction, “I’ve been calling you Gold in my head, because you looked gold. Now you look kinda—I don’t know, like a palish, greenish gold. I’m kinda stuck on what to call you? Any ideas?”

Carbon smirks and chuckles, seemingly amused. Aiye forgot he was standing so close to his Uncle. The man could have taken his head at any moment. Aiye tries to hide his sudden alertness, but Carbon notices nonetheless.

“Don’t worry, nephew. I’m not going to do anything that cowardly. You will definitely see your death coming. You’re looking at her after all.” Carbon says while gesturing towards his partner before speaking to her directly. “You hear that K, the boy doesn’t know what to call you.”

Still getting her bearings on her new self, she replies, sounding fatigued, “So *huff* I’ve heard. He can call me *huff* whatever he wants… No difference.”

Her voice is a lot calmer, more peaceful than he imagined it to be. She’s so militarily stiff in the way she carries herself. Her walk, her fighting style—mannerisms. Aiye assumed her voice would follow the trend but it’s very soothing, he thinks to himself as Thema walks to his side. They share a knowing glance and then both look back towards her.

“You called her Gold. Now’s she’s combined with Silver. Hm. How about, Electrum.” Carbon replies, his proud eyes admiring his partner.

The look in Carbon’s eyes makes Aiye wonder if there is a deeper connection between the two, like him and Solara, or perhaps something like lovers. But it doesn’t matter, he says to himself, brushing off the thought. Electrum. Not bad.

“Electrum.” Thema echoes in a mutter to herself. Her mood impossible to interpret right now.

“So, Electrum I become,” Electrum replies as she gets into battle stance. She doesn’t bother to pick up her cudgel before she charges the two.

Aiye, not realizing Carbon had moved out of the way, twirls the halberd around into an attack stance, eager to take on a serious challenger for once. Just as he is about to engage Electrum, Thema interferes.

“Aiye! Idiot! MOVE.” Thema reaches over to Aiye to blow him away with the flat end of her blade and then in the same motion, with the little space that’s left between them, she swings her screeching sword hard at Electrum.

—

Both The Warden and The Dawn Hero, along with everyone else on the island, stop fighting to look towards the city as a quarter of it is completely blown off in a large explosion.

For the first time, they both notice Solara standing there as she stares in horror at the chunk falling down, through the sky, into the ocean.

“AIYE!” Solara’s face is horror-stricken, knowing she left him there to fight them by himself.

The Hero can see the sincerity in her eyes, “..Ai- Aiye?”

She steps back, taken aback—shocked. Her eyes dart between Solara, The Warden, and the city. Then back to the Warden who simply gives a short, but slow nod. Her face goes from shock, to joy, to horror, to rage as she realizes that Aiye is still alive…and that everyone, every single person around her, has lied to her.

The thunderous drum strikes once…