Now Heroes

“Thank you kindly,” Jake said to the guard after he limply used his key to unlock the storage room door. “Now, did it have to be so hard?” The guard shook his head. “Want me to let you go?” Jake asked. The guard nodded his head. “Okie dokie.” He tossed the guard down the hall towards Alex who did a roundhouse kick to his face, knocking him into Kraelin who grabbed him and performed a full suplex on the much larger man. Stick walked calmly over to the unconscious man and whacked him in the face with his tail once for good measure.

“I’m unbelievably pleased with how this went down,” Alex said.

“Me too. It…it feels good to fight alongside you,” Kraelin said.

“Hey, we get you bantering, you’ll fit right in,” Alex said. He held up a fist and Kraelin took a second before remembering he was supposed to bump it. “Hey! There we go!”

“Come to papa, buddy!” Jake said, reaching for his sword. The shelves were a mess of weapons, ammo, gold and machine parts, but he paid attention to none of it. Jake only saw his weapon ahead of him. “Yeah, daddy missed you, my pointy little buddy!”

“Come here, stupid cloak,” Alex said, having a much more complicated relationship with his magical item. He pulled two daggers out of the lining, flipping them in his hands. “Yeah, okay. Now we can do some damage.”

“Any idea how to find Elyisa?” Jake asked Kraelin.

“Normally I would have some strategic plan, wouldn’t I? But today, I think I’ll turn it over to you and your strategy. Let’s tear this castle apart until we find her,” Kraelin said.

“I like the new Kraelin!” Alex said. “Let’s make these bastards afraid of the…the…hell, we need a cool group name.”

Shouting was heard outside as more guards began charging towards them. Jake slapped Alex on the back. “We’ve got time to come up with a name, bro. For now, let’s work on the making them afraid part!”

The group of guards rounded the corner, now carrying guns as well as stun batons. They thought they had the advantage until they saw Jake, Alex and Kraelin standing before them, swords and knives drawn, staring them down with an unwavering resolve.

“Boo,” Jake said.

They were on them, Jake and Kraelin’s swords slicing through guns before they even had a chance to fire, Alex jumping off of walls, kicking and stabbing with his knives, Stick tripping men with his tail and setting people up for a takedown, the entire hall turning into a  chaotic mass of blood and sweat and courage pushing through the fear and anger which threatened to overpower them at any moment.

“Retreat!” one of the more armored higher ranked guards yelled. “Back to the hangar!”

The guards turned tail and fled, leaving their broken and unconscious comrades behind them. “Anyone else think a good idea is to follow them?” Alex asked.

“After them!” Kraelin shouted, running ahead.

“Hey, assholes! Where’s Elysia?” Jake yelled after them.

“This boy! Gets his sword back and not even a minute later he’s complaining he doesn’t have his girl! Someone is getting greedy!” Alex joked.

“Who said Elysia is Jake’s girl?” Kraelin asked, a bit of a strange look on his face.

“Please. You see her as a sister and I don’t have the right parts at the moment!” Alex said. “Of course they’re gonna get all kissy kissy after we save her!”

“I’m sorry, are you shipping me right now?” Jake asked, unsure whether to be amused or annoyed.

“I mean, tell me those late nights you and Elysia spent around the fireplace didn’t…” Alex started before Kraelin interrupted.

“Look!” he cried out. The guards were disappearing into a small side door beside the large hangar doors they had seen before. The three stopped before them, panting from their run.

“We all know what’s behind there, right?” Kraelin asked.

“Twisted,” Jake said, nodding.

“Lets face it. We have to go through them to find Elysia,” Kraelin said. “And all the Twisted you two have killed died because of a lucky save.”

“You’re right,” Alex said. “We’re simply two idiots who always got our asses beaten. By any standard of logic of any universe which makes sense, we should not be standing here.”

They stared at the giant door before them. Jake thought back to the video games he and Alex used to play, with giant boss doors leading to encounters where he would surely die over and over again. Like how he and Alex kept getting beaten up by Craig and his goons. Like when Alex got slapped around by his stepdad, or how his own dad told him he was worthless, a loser, a failure.

“But I always got back up,” Jake said. “We don’t quit. We never will. You’re wrong. We do deserve to be here. Heroes don’t fight when it’s easy. Heroes fight when they know they’re about to get their asses kicked, and they still go in swinging.”

Kraelin looked at the two of them. “By the First…” he said softly as their eyes began to glow.

“We are going to go on there. We are going to stare those bastards square in the eye. And we are going to go right through them until we find Elysia!” Jake said, his fist raised.

The gleaming bronze metal expanded from the tattoos, moving over Jake’s body like it had in Gravine. He grew and expanded as his sword vanished into his body, and two long and powerful blades emerged from the backs of his wrists. Alex, meanwhile, seemed to grow immaterial, his body becoming something akin to a living gas. He looked at his hands, willing them back to solid form, them back again.

“This is it! The feeling when I changed the first time!” Alex said. “When those plant zombies were about to get me, I wasn’t thinking of myself! I was thinking of saving the villagers! And all of you! I was thinking of how I had to stay alive to save everyone else!”

“Great power for great heroes…” Kraelin said. “Yeah…the weapons chose well.”

“Damn right they did!” Jake said. “So let’s show these bastards what it means to screw with real heroes!”

*

“Heroes…”

The word stuck in Malphi’s throat. Something about it felt sickening to him. They thought of themselves as heroes. Clearly such a thought made sense. Everyone is the hero in their own story, as he knew so well. But seeing them standing there before the door leading into the hangar, their bodies changing as magic surged through them, it made him feel a unique form of anger. The magic was reinforcing the notion. They were stronger now because they were the heroes. So if the powers of magic chose them because they were heroes, it would make him…

The years peeled back for him within the space of seconds. He could see the moment when he was four, his older sister killed by a stray lightning bolt from a sorcerer feuding with another. She had been beautiful, kind, the light of his young life, and within seconds she was gone, murdered by an accident which the sorcerer barely thought about. They were upper class, magic users of noble birth, and their duel had been granted legitimacy in the days when such things were allowed. Nobody would punish them.

It must have been so shocking when his mother and father leapt on them, bashing their heads against the pavement in grief. The guards tore them off, hauling them away, leaving him alone. But he had learned his first important lesson then about cruelty, justice and heroes. Would the magic have chosen the men who murdered his sister for such power?

He had nearly been sent to an orphanage before the Children of the Turning Gear broke his parents out of prison before their executions. It made sense. They were picking up three new members in one raid. His parents didn’t last long, as their grief had made them reckless, leading to their easily preventable deaths during an attack on his eighth birthday against a sorcery academy. It was a miracle they hadn’t left any evidence which led to the discovery of the Children. But it wasn’t like they had another child to look after. Their little Varden was alive, but was in no way living. He functioned only to help the Children in their goal.

“And now here we are…” he said, watching the heroes assault the hangar door. If they knew why he did what he did, why all the sacrifices made sense to him, would it matter? Probably not, he thought, answering his own question while thinking of Elysia's immature philosophy. Nobody dies. How quaint. How useless. Of course people die. But the worst way to die is pointlessly. Each death laid at his feet moved him towards a goal. No more sorcerers. No more stray magic. No more shattered childhoods.

Was any of it real?

Saphira’s question again. He shook his head, trying to clear it. Stop thinking about her. You never cared about her. Of course it wasn’t real. The nights spent watching her sleep were all about observation. The days spent educating her and patching her cuts and bruises were about asset management.

You’re not the hero.

He heard her voice clearly. A voice from long ago, long dead and infinitely sad. No, he supposed he wasn’t. Maybe there were no heroes. But he would succeed. There was a point to all the horrible things he had done.

There had to be.