UNTITLED: Book One

REWIND 128

The strongest mettle is my will

{

We lost our heart, then all discretion followed

With the truth laid out in front of me, I couldn’t recognize ‘em any longer

Shit, or anything else.

Now they’ve returned to the dirt

So I bury my head in the dirt

Bow my head to commune, they never got the last word

I face communion—body and blood

Soiling the moment I thought I was in

My eyes drop seeds of pain and they pollinate—giving rise to nothing but anger

These drops don’t grow trees

These drops fuel fire

These screams pyre.

I need to change

This is a eulogy,

To all of me

Change.

So, this first Old Guard was meant to be the Sun Spark against the Dark State?

Then why is the Sun Spark in such a dark state?

Sollar is dead!

My mind screams, I ignore it

Sollar is dead!

I didn’t listen—mind only ‘mission’, so I couldn’t hear what his eyes said

Sollar is dead!

I didn’t know what to do

Thema, girl, you need to move!

For Sollar, is dead!

And -wait, this man has no eyes?

Change.

No.3 and No.4 charge recklessly—or so I thought it’d be, but they actually had way more control than me. I couldn’t even get my body moving, but they’re out there doing everything I should be doing, like choosing to fight. Like trying to win. And I’m just here failing again and again to do anything as I watch them. So the show starts without me.

And it’s on now.

No.4 thunders while No.3’s staff twirls like a baton in hand, doing her water dance. Her attacks, flowing out like tap. But soon they rain down. Pouring. Flowing. Flowing. Every twist and twirl keeps it going. Unsure if this is her greatest performance, or if she’s just the greatest performer. She’ll need an encore to defeat this foe. Her storm is flooding Sollar, and it’s got him on the ropes… Or so we hoped. But even while he gets thrown around, his water’s calm. Because his waves rock steel.

Change.

The dead man danced with them. No.3 and No.4. His fire listless and light missing, it’s like they were taken over. Every strike pitched the threat of forever like a flickering flame when it flicks it’s… wait, either he’s moving, or the sword was?

Ah. That’s why his eyes are gone. He was losing everything. Everything that the sword took, and he couldn’t stand to watch. He lost, his freedom of will—no control of his choices. His mind expanding only after the sword chose. His brain eventually caved to the voices. Like air going in and out, the sword contracting the noises to keep him voided. Paid him no mind. Making it so he’s not actually breathing, but more squeezing and repeating—corrupting his choices. His brain a bag of nothing. Sollar was dead! They’re NOT fighting him. They’re fighting the fucking sword. THIS, this is the fate of a prisoner of war.

Change.

Sollar is dead, but the sword is alive!

Change.

No.3! At her peak! She continues dancing around the plateau like she’s skipping around a vast blank canvas. Moving faster! Every slash, cut, strike, and blast from the tip of her pulse staff is a stroke from her brush. Attacking and defending at the same time. And my heart beats to her every step. I’m grateful she’s smooth and paced. This weapons master.

In her black battle skin she looks like a ballerina twirling her baton with the spotlight on her. But enter the antagonist. Jumping in the air—a fallen star tryna…steal… Her shine. As she paints out the side of the mountain where he was meant to be. Life can’t seem to bring this dead man down to where he’s meant to be, just how the pressure of his weapon won’t stop her.

She feels the weight of the moment and still doesn’t miss a beat despite him being off-key. No.3 remains in her trance. Launching rocks at him to offset his poor performance. Her eyes half closed as she feels it, she’s locked in to the flow and, it’s like she remembers what to do. She trusts her legs on the stage they grace.

Change.

The rocks get blocked as they barrage him. Floating in the sky by a shield that automatically comes. He drops back down with a groundbreaking pound then, slashes her pulse staff in half as her instincts take control. They erupt with words probably like, “block this!”

But thankfully, No.4 rushes to tackle. Initially waiting his turn, he’s not one to normally gang up. He prefers one-on-one, but he sees that No.3 needs that… that… thing, something that can help—I don’t know. I just can’t think straight. The point is, No.4 knows the sword is alive, and that No.3 needs him. He sees this, but as he nears Sollar, Sollar grins then stomps the ground again. No.3 shouts at him. It doesn’t reach him. So instead she decides to dive to protect him. She won’t lose another. She’d die to protect him. So she pushes No.4 out of the way as Sollar slashes down. His sword screeches like it’s releasing shrieks of pain from a million souls.

…Change.

No.3’s arm falls.

Then she drops, to her knees with her other hand covering the chopped part.

Then the mountaintop, about four mountaintops away across the mountain range—it lops off.

Our hearts stop, and

Sollar’s lips part, revealing the blackened decay of his mouth and his teeth.

This former Sun Spark now a Dead Star.

No.4 shocked.

Paralyzed by fear of a power he’s never seen,

His brows arched, in horror.

Realizing, like me, this plan—FARCE.

This joke stops.

No.4 desperately tending to No.3. Sollar pausing, looking down on No.2 and No.5. Their bodies next to No.3 who’s confused and out of place. Her mind entering a terrible space.

Poor child, flows Sollar’s toxic pity from this empty shitty weapon. All sympathy missing from his words, not even sure if those are his words. His demeanor on full display with his dark smile. So now with his sword high, again, waiting to strike at No.3, then No.4. More piercing shrieks sound from the sword as Sollar swings it from high to low—with every ounce of power he has, upon the New Wave child. Before the sword even makes contact, its force smacks No.3 and No.4 down into the ground as if the gravity around them increased tenfold. But I launched an attack to defend what’s left of what I want most. Family.

And so it’s on again.

Change.

Sollar’s strike is redirected by me, destroying half of the canyon. It disappears like a pile of leaves being blown away by the wind. The force from the clash then reverberates throughout my arms, threatening to make them explode in pain.

I don’t have much time to be in pain because the Fallen Star Zombie Hero Old Guard Sun Spark Dead Star named Sollar, slashes horizontally at my neck. To dodge, I only have time to lean back, bending backwards 90 degrees at the knees. My hair drapes over the edge of the plateau. I see another mountain, in my upside down point of view, get gutted in the distance. He then immediately stops the momentum of the down slash and brings it back up to finish what he started. It nearly grazes me on the upward move but he’s fine with that because it was the next move that was meant to end me. He brings it back down. Still bent at the knees, I first twist, then touch the ground and roll out of the way. There’s blocking that. It takes a chunk of the plateau we were standing on, sending it tumbling down the mountainside.

I almost slip with it. Almost falling with the plateau chunk while trying to escape its collapse, and dodge Sollar at the same time. I’ve been living my life too much on the edge, and I’m not about to let it catch up to me now. Instead, I jump over Sollar, towards the devastated canyon entrance with all my strength. I land deep into the middle of the remaining plateau ground.

I know my weapons aren’t enough to do shit to this guy. My twin blades are nothing like the real deal that The Warden carries—especially if those things are anything like this thing. This sword. The only thing I can beat this guy with is his own weapon… HIS sword. His sword! Time to make a

-change…please

How far is the most regarded Star Man? How can I beat a Fallen Star when, things like their rays can destroy a mountain? What’s safe? The Sun is strongest from a distance—its mystery and gifts endless. But if I get up close, it’s all power and at its most destructive. But up close is the only way to touch it.

So I go close. I got to. It’s my only hope. Because behind me my new family, and I’m not tryna say ‘was’. This imploding star is a threat not to just them, but to everyone.

I take off. Leaving orbit, I shoot out towards him. My only wish is to make contact. Pulse weapons are no match. But I push on. With all my power I block each attack lashed out while Sollar flares. Desperate star. A black hole in his heart. He’s getting pulled back past his limits as he sees his future heading towards him—on a collision course.

I’m coming at him, fast. My arms falling apart inside. I get close enough to strike. I throw one blade, as a distraction, and then two quick stabs into his liver and thigh before stabbing it through his foot—nailing him into the ground. He doesn’t feel pain, but he panics when trapped. It panics when trapped. Whatever this thing is.

I turn it. It slashes again, then I grab the sword’s grip when, suddenly, images from deep within the actual stars rushes in? Taking me somewhere to see—maybe someone? Something? Some something that I don’t get to see long enough to make sense of because Sollar punches me with its Old Guard strength. My body flies, skips, and tumbles across the plateau. Luckily, in the opposite direction away from my family.

Change!

My body skips and somersaults across the ground and toward the edge on the other side of the plateau. I’m not slowing down? Mid-flip I slam my fists into the ground but they can’t dig deep at all into this hard rock, so I spread my hands and use my fingers and nails to scrape across the ground to stop my fall. Finally catching myself in a crouch right before the edge, I see a thin, long trail of blood that traces my path. The skin on my fingers’ tips are gone. And my hands are blackening? What is thi- ?

But I don’t have time to think about that because I hear the shriek of the sword and see Sollar is right in front of me and about to strike. Sword now ripping through the air.

CHANGE.

I catch the sword in my hands by clapping them onto the blade just in time, then turn my wrists fast enough to offset as much downward momentum as I can. My wrist are fucked up now, but I don’t stop. I can’t.

The blade slams into the ground and I hold it there with one hand while I slide the other hand up the blade to clasp around its grip. I get another surge of burning pain through both my arms, and this time I can see my hands and arms blackening the longer I hold on. Creeping down my arm like a shadow. Another vision comes.

Rushing back to the far out, into the deep of space. Passing planets and black holes, then entire galaxies. Faster and faster I’m rushing past them until I arrive at the somewhere. The silhouette of someone or something staring out into the distance with its back turned. Is it a person…a- an alien? A god? Monster?… Is it me?

Just as it is turning its head, my senses are all overloaded.

Images, that I can’t make sense of, flashing rapidly through my mind.

The screeching sound the sword makes, louder than ever in my ears.

The taste of blood, on my tongue, filling my mouth.

The burning pain throughout my body, stronger than ever—stop.

The silhouette of the someone or something, flickering like a flame between being something or someone. Stop!

Large, then small, then the size of a planet. Then a galaxy!

Then an ant then, my height again… Is this me?

This sword is the strongest weapon I have ever seen. I don’t even understand it. My current battle between life and death has prevented me from simply losing my fucking mind thinking about this weapon’s existence. And yet, here it is, this lump of strange metal. Trying to force me to lose my fucking mind. I won’t let it. Right now, the strongest mettle in this universe is my will.

So I scream. It hurts so much I feel like I’m going to die. I want to claw my eyes out and burst my eardrums. I want it to stop. But I don’t scream in pain or anger. I scream for what I want most. STOPPPPP!

I open my eyes to see my hands and arms blackened completely, down all the way to the elbow. It looks permanent. I wipe blood from my nose, eyes, and ears. That hurts? I realize my hands are rough like stone.

My blurry vision correcting. Ears not quite working yet. I still see that Sollar is floating in the air, missing an arm. I have it, and in my other hand is the sword. Whatever power that’s been in this sword, Sollar gained some and retained some. Probably by holding onto it for so long. Using it so much. But it doesn’t matter now, because it’s mine.

I charge, and we fight a battle that changes how maps present this land for years to come. With a whole new world in my grasp, what happens next I barely remember or understand. I just know that for a moment I am able to do things I never thought possible.

And I remember how I felt.

CHANGE NOW!

I was expecting Sollar to fight harder to escape his hell.

To climb out of this well, this abyss.

But where’s his fire gone?

Was it just the sword’s fight all along?

He’s been slipping and climbing on ash and blooded stone—grip strong.

For so long

But his grip was off his rock, or holding on to the wrong stone.

Ahh, so your mind slipped past you.

And your flame’s gone.

And now it’s back to, that black you, had around your heart—it’s grasped you.

Well, here I come. Up close.

I’ve caught a glimpse of your heart.

Sollar long gone.

I wonder, the things it’s done.

How long has it been since the dark won?

I know a monster when I see one.

Tragic, the story, of what he’s become.

The something, no longer someone.

CHANGING.

So I meddle with this ill swordsman.

We’re clashing—evenly? Hm, it’s even sick without its weapon.

I felt this.

Earlier when our blades hit.

And now it meets slashes from this sword with an energy formed where its arm went

—give a medal to this sword smith.

But its mental is corroded.

This man’ll never heal.

His steel is mine.

My new metal is a steal.

I steel my mind.

I hope the mettle in it’s real.

Then I grip this foreign feel and start performing.

I’ve got it bending to my—hahaha! The strongest mettle is my will!

Change.

And somehow, now, the hill I’ve always climbed just became a mountain!

I see how I went back to hills because I couldn’t guarantee the size of the challenge

Figuring it’s,

A plain life trying to climb a mountain range whose peaks are the same height

—parallel in mind and sight.

But this time,

I still climb,

Holding on to the planet for my dears’ life—I’m expanding.

Realizing that life is more dimensional—I am standing.

A Sun orbited by mountains as planets—I’m established.

Moving mountains as planets—I’m surrounded.

Then, they all fall back.

Blooming flower.

Changed forever

…now as I stand above this former war veteran. The original Old Guard. The former ‘Sun Spark’. No longer even Sollar. This dead star now just fallen apart.

I watch his hands drop to the side of his body and his body drop to his knees. His head rests inside mine. My hand the only thing on his mind. It’s only in this moment we finally see eye-to-eye—or what should be. If he had eyes. But then, I drop his head and the sword on his body’s side and walk to the edge to fall over… Not wanting to become a monster too.

No.4’s hand rests on my shoulder, forever the perfect soldier… and friend. No.3’s hand on my chest. I’ll find out later, whether or not, stopping me was for the best. But for now they’ve got me. Because although we were only together for a short time, we’ve all searched an eternity to find this peace. Even if it’s just pieces off me whenever something falls free. Still I hold my cries and, I look in their direction—just not in their eyes when, suddenly I receive a kiss on both sides of my cheek. To show me they’re fine since, they believe me strong.

The transport comes. It takes them home. I remain and stand there. Alive. Still on the edge.

}

The thunderous drum strikes once…