Dullahan

Sticking close behind Elijah, Slater walked down the dimly lit passageway alongside Lillian, making especially sure the two of them weren’t so close that they got stuck in the narrow corridor. This hadn’t been his first time through here, but it was the first time with three of them. His first experience with it had come just recently, right after Lillian told him to follow the directions on the paper,

While navigating was difficult, Slater eventually found his way to the passage they were now headed through. He initially was skeptical, but followed the instructions through and knocked on the door at the end. It was swiftly answered by the man who was now guiding them back, Elijah. His appearance initially turned Slater’s face into a waterfall of sweat, but as soon as he saw Slater’s face, Elijah spread his arms and gave him a long embrace. That was the moment Slater had figured out the importance Elijah held to both Lillian and him.

“Cora’s dad..?” Slater had said, still locked in a hug by the man. It was only after hearing his daughter’s name that Elijah composed himself and set the boy down. The conversation was sparse from there on, with the next topic being why Slater had come. Once he knew about Lillian’s predicament, the two rushed over to save her by the skin of their teeth. On their way back to Elijah’s home, the two had informed Lillian about all that had happened between them during her fight. It was only now the group finally were able to move onto a new topic, with the help of a stray comment from Slater:

“Did we have to take such a cramped route?”

“Would you prefer those guys to be able to follow us here?” Lillian stabbed back.

“Speaking of which,” Elijah piped in, knowing when a fight was at risk of breaking out. “Whatever reason you two rushed here for, I’m sure it can explain those freaks in white?” Asked their guide, who now was stepping out of the corridor to the door, fumbling with an archaic ring of metal keys.

“They ran through the house supposedly, but we didn’t have the luxury to check. So we came straight here.” Lillian informed the man, who had just found the right key and opened the metal door.

“Are you saying you need a place to stay for the foreseeable future?” He turned his head over his shoulder to Lillian, raising an eyebrow and standing in the entrance to the house. Lillian stared back for a moment before breathing in to answer.

“Just for tonight, tomorrow we’ll… go forward with what we’ve talked about.”

Elijah’s face was struck with a sense of cathartic justice as his mouth curled into a smug smile. He lifted his voice to target his subject in the back.

“You hear that, Slater? You finally get to join in on the fun!” He walked into the dark room and flicked on the lights, revealing a whole interior to the guests he just made way for.

Lillian stepped in first, making her way down a hallway right across from the entrance, seemingly with a location in mind. Slater, however, stopped as he entered to take in the sight of a real home, extending his time by being especially slow at closing the door behind him. He was more used to he and his sister’s messy living arrangements in the rotting shack. Here… was admittedly, only slightly better. The main living space he saw first certainly wasn’t cleanly, with bags scattered around the seats and couch which occupied it. His line of sight traveled through the room, until it made it back to where he stood, and he noticed a pile of coats and hats in the corner, almost as if their hanger had been taken from them and left them to find their own space.

Coming out of a side room down the hallway, Elijah called for Slater. “If we’re going to tell you what you need to know, we’re going to need a more private space.” He called him down the hall with his hand, approaching the door Lillian had been heading towards earlier. Elijah’s arm pushed the door open, revealing a room dimly lit with red lighting. The host entered the room first, with Slater poking through right after as the door shut. A table sat in the center with maps and schedule documents scattered all over the surface, with a collection of four chairs randomly dotted around it without direction. One was even facing away from the table, which is the one Slater claimed as he sat down, resting his arms on the back as he leaned forward in the backwards chair, intent as to what the next few minutes would hold.

“Where do you want to start, Lillian?” Elijah questioned her, leaning against a wall, off to the side. If Slater hadn’t known any better, he would’ve thought Elijah was the guest with how far removed he made himself.

Slater’s sister centered herself, rubbing her temple and breathing in. “I’ll just start simple: For a long time now, I’ve been collaborating with Elijah—“ Elijah held his head down, hearing Lillian ignore his name suggestion yet again. “—on a plan to smuggle the two of us over the border to the East.”

“You mean— Through No Man’s Land?!” Slater stood up, knocking over his chair, almost scattering all the contents of the table, but he had caught it just before it did.

Lillian gave a nod. “We’ve worked out the details, trust us. For the past year of ‘scouting’ I’ve been climbing the fence and meeting with Elijah—“ Who, once again, felt his request his ignored, “—on my way home.”

“But… What about Elio? I thought we were gonna stay here until we found where he went! Don’t you care abou—”

Lillian’s hand slammed the table, sending papers into the air. She looked directly into Slater’s eyes. “Of course I care! But it takes some serious wishful thinking to believe after five years of daily searching for evidence trails, that there’s something here I’ve missed. Five years is a long time, he could be on the other side of the world even! But, I’m not abandoning him. Staying here though? You’re just abandoning yourself to complacency under the pretense of hope.” Lillian pointed to her brother, who just looked away and to the side.

She’s right. He thought. I blamed her for why life was this way, but I’ve been trapped in the same moment for the past five years… At least she did something about it! Slater could feel his throat start to tense up as his fists clenched. Lillian simply crossed her arms.

“Hey!” Slater looked up at his sister’s commanding voice. “Don’t beat yourself up about this though, I thought you’d take this way worse. Honestly, I didn’t want to tell you for another year at least.” Her stern expression began to slowly shift into a more somber, yet proud, one. “But, you told me that you were ready to start fighting. I’m going to hold you to that.” She walked around the table and placed her closed fist on her brother’s shoulder. Looking up at her, then looking back down, he gave himself a smile. Lillian then nodded, walking back towards the table.

“Regardless, whatever happened to you seems to have put heat on us. At this point, it’s just a better option for us to cross No Man’s Land than avoid those freaks in white every day. Plus, Cora still is on the other side of No Man’s Land somewhere.” Lillian sorted through some of the papers that had flown up from her earlier slap, which Elijah took advantage of to come present the next topic, trying to move past the mention of his daughter.

“Good thing we got this off of them, though.” He presented the gauntlet with the brown orb attacked to its end. “If you have a core with you, things should go a lot smoother.”

“A… Core?” Slater remembered the man he fought when this all began had mentioned that term, but he still was unaware what it meant.

“Oh, right, you never would’ve encountered one.” Lillian piped in, not even realizing Slater was out of the loop. “Elijah, you take this one.”

He, yet again, flinched, but kept from correcting her. “Alright, sit down for this one, kid.” Elijah’s hand hovered over the brown orb in the gauntlet, before clasping down on it and giving it a few twists, before popping it out of the socket it was in. Slater, watching him do his work, took a seat back in his backwards chair, leaning in to see the orb better.

“This here is a Core, an Earth Core specifically.” Elijah’s hand turned to show all the angles of the brown-chrome ball. “Cores come in all varieties. Fire, Ice, Wind—“

“Lightning.” Lillian chimed in.

“Yes, that too.”

“Water?” Slater asked, confident he knew he was right, but nobody but him would’ve figured that.

“Yep! They really are interesting pieces of technology. They were invented a few decades ago by a Western States tech guy. The mechanism inside is like a little factory, taking electricity, nuclear radiation, or other power sources and converting them into the element they represent. They actually were for military use, leaning in to a more man-to-man style of warfare after the mass denuclearization following—” Lillian hit Elijah over the head with a stack of paper she had collected.

“Spare us the history, get to the specifics.”

“Right!” Elijah then pointed to the object in his hand. “Cores like these actually have three main types: Armament, Conjuring, and Hybrid.” He placed the brown orb back in the gauntlet, putting it on so stone of the same color began sprouting out of the knuckle. “This right here is an armament-type. The weapon harnesses the orb’s abilities to enhance it’s existing properties.” He took the core out, now tossing it up and down like a baseball. “However, you’ll also see a lot of conjuring-types, where the users have the core connected directly to their brain via a chip, letting them control the output themselves.”

So that’s the kind the man in the alley had. He relived his battle, now feeling like he understood how his opponent fought better.

Elijah broke his focus though. “Hybrid is simple though, it’s simple one that function as an armament-type but also is connected to the user’s brain.”

Looking into the orb, Slater wondered what mechanism could even have an effect like that, but he put that aside for a more pressing question. “So, why do we have one now?”

Elijah gave a small chuckle, catching the core, leaning forward and displaying it for Slater. “Because, this little baby is your ticket out of here!”