The Magpie

The next day, Seth called us to a small meeting room tucked in a random corner of the base.

Its walls were a simple egg white instead of cave stone, with a boring gray table and some wooden chairs to accompany it at the center. Unlike yesterday’s room, this felt like the type for boring small tasks, without the presence or prestige.

Back on Earth, it would have been like a small club room at most.

Yet here we sat with the second most wanted person in the world. Not even a bland room like this could reduce the aura that emanated from the man. Francis kept his true abilities discreet; Seth didn’t bother to hide his.

“According to Lilly you two couldn’t stop asking her for the truth. I’m here to give that to you.”

Both of us stayed quiet at his revelation. Internally, I was screaming—after all, the time spent in Unit E and what came after, all these fights and days running from the law, were all for this moment.

“Where is Lilly?” I asked, not bothering to keep the emotion from my tone. Sitting peacefully at this table while she was out there all alone felt agonizing.

“Cottol, Eastol’s capital,” he said. “Her last communication was from last night, though I can’t say much more than that.”

“Fine,” I grumbled.

Seth continued. “As you know, Sarai is a world controlled by East, where gods summon humans from elsewhere and give them unique powers, whether they become heroes or villains. The important question to ask here is why.”

Seth pulled a stack of papers from the counter. “We’ve been collecting data from rescorge for the past five hundred years with Francis’s help. Through that, we’ve noticed a few things.”

I glanced down at the pages as he slid them over. Rows upon rows of names, countries, dates, and more information than my brain could process were all laid out before me.

“The summonings here seem random on the surface, but we’ve noticed a pattern. Look at the countries of origin for example. Time here runs at roughly four times that of Earth—with that we’ve found out that there is a direct correlation between what's happening on Earth and who gets summoned.”

Seth turned the page of his dataset. “Five hundred years ago, Europe made up the majority of rescorge. But times changed. Look at three hundred years ago. Then, most rescorge were European, American, or Japanese. Move two hundred years into the future and we start to see rescorge appear from Korea, Brazil, China, and many more countries.

“That’s not the only interesting piece of data. Rescorge are never summoned above the age of thirty, with most being students, or soldiers.

“Of those summoned, a vast majority held some position of authority, think anywhere from student council president to a military officer. The average rescorge was also at the top of their class. One thing that is undeniable is that to get summoned, you have to stand out in some way. That alone tells us East’s summoning method isn't random.”

“I see…” Everything he said made perfect sense. Lilly was the definition of exceptional; she was top of the class and could have easily been elected president if she ever wanted the position. “But, I’m none of those things.”

“Let me guess. Troubled family, high but not extravagant grades, above average ability in combat, and you have a wealth of fighting experience.” Seth grinned. “Is that correct?”

“Y-yeah.” I narrowed my eyes. That felt too accurate for my liking.

“That’s the other kind of person East summons to this world. They’re the outliers accounting for around one in every ten summons. For unknown reasons, their Senn’s tend to be more powerful than the rest.” Seth said.

“You keep saying East summoned,” Aila asked. “I thought every god could summon rescorge.”

In response, Seth scoffed. “That’s the official story the church puts out. In practice, it’s a little different. Gabriel, Raphael, Urial, the real versions haven’t been to this planet in millennia.”

Aila gasped. “You mean the gods are fake?”
“Not exactly,” Seth said. “They’re fragments, small bits of the gods cast aside to serve here. They can do the bare minimum, but connecting a tunnel from Earth to Sarai is out of their wheelhouse.”

“But East can?” I asked.

“Kid, East can do things neither of us could ever imagine. Moving people takes him infinitely less effort than blinking does for us.” He wore a sad grin as he said this. “But back to what I was saying. That got me wondering, what’s the method to the madness, why only summon those two groups of people? Ironically, it was Thien who gave me the answer. Have you heard him ask about evil before?”

“Back at the border!” Aila said. “He kept asking us questions about why evil exists and how he’s going to hurt the world to help it grow.”

“He’s been asking those questions for the past five hundred years.”

“Five hundred?” I raised an eyebrow. “I thought he was turning sixty.”

“That’s the official story. He keeps coming back again and again—sure, his name may be different, he may live in a different continent, but it’s undeniable that it’s the same man. I may be old, but that man’s lived a lot longer than I have.”

“It makes sense…” Aila said. “Thien always did look young.”

“Nevertheless,” Seth continued. “After years, we’ve finally found the truth. This world is part of a grand test hijacked by Thien, and with the absence of East he plans to manipulate the systems in place to cause a war.”

Seth’s last sentence put a sour taste in my mouth. It lined up. Put the world in a mass recession, make countries compete for resources, have them fight to influence Thien’s imaginary progress.

“War…” Aila’s face grew pale as she contemplated Seth’s reveal.

“You may not know this, Aila, but the world me and Rin are from is one where war is commonplace. All throughout history people, countries, nations have fought one another for resources and pride. Even now in a world far more advanced than this one, people still fight and die in skirmishes. Thien doesn’t just want a simple recession.”

“He wants war across all of Sarai.” I finished Seth’s sentence.

“This is why my boss sent me here. To save these people from this avoidable war, arrest Thien and have him charged for his crimes.” Seth stood up and put on a grin. “Now with that out of the way. Lilly’s talked a good bit about what your Senn can do, Rin. Let’s Spar.”

“Alright,” a grin sprouted on my face. “You’re on!”

֎ ֎ ֎

We met again back in the stone training hall. All around us, people gathered around the main courtyard, standing on bleachers to get a good view.

“Rin, you got this!” Aila yelled from the front.

I steadied my breath. Standing opposite of me on the cave floor, Seth stood with his eyes closed and arms crossed, taking a single deep breath.

One look at the man in a fighting stance sent a chill down my spine. Any other day I would have fled at the sight of him—yet, to gain his respect I had to face this demon.

It wouldn’t be an easy fight, that much was clear. Seth was easily in the top three in terms of power from everyone I’d met so far.

Forget winning, the only goal I had was to survive.

“Are you ready?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Very well,” Seth gave a quick nod and opened his eyes.

BOOM

Seth launched like a cannonball toward me. His eyes glowed a pale white as I let my light propel me into the air. The breeze swept through my hair as I seemed to float on the misty light emanating from my feet. It felt so free.

Yet that moment barely lasted for a second. Seth stopped in his tracks. He reached out into the air, letting freezing water droplets fall from his hand.

His droplets sizzled, sending smoke up as they hit the ground. The steam began to swirl around, droplets falling on droplets as ice began to form out of the mist. First a few toes, then a foot. Mere seconds later, the sculpture of sizzling ice formed two sets of arms nearly identical to Seth’s.

“May the best of us win.” Seth’s ice clone blasted into the air, head now fully formed. The reflections of its creator felt uncanny.

Yet I had no time to focus on that. I rocketed back toward the ground, narrowly avoiding its massive frozen fist.

Light condensed on my fists. This was bad, I’d always excelled in hand to hand because of my reach and talent. Seth beat me on both fronts.

If he was a swordmaster, archer—anything but a hand-to-hand specialist I would have had a chance, yet when faced with fundamentals sharper than my own my options dwindled fast.

“Nice try,” Seth rocked toward me the second I hit the ground. My light covered arm blocked his first punch, then his second, third, more than I could count.

Yet I kept on standing. Each punch felt like a cannonball blasting my arm off. Stone would have shattered at this point, and even I was barely staying on my feet.

I leaped backward, nearing the edge of the coliseum. “You won’t win like that, Rin!”

“Try me!” He was right. Even with Thien, the goal was never to win—here, the obstacle was insurmountable.

Light began to pulse on my fingertips. Back during my first fight with Riverlight I’d tried to destroy that grunt once and for all with one single light filled punch. That time I’d failed; this time I’d lose on the spot if history repeated itself.

I gently landed on the ground. Barely twenty seconds had passed since the fight began. “Come at me!”

“Gladly,” Seth grinned. His clone landed next to him as the two charged like twin bullets towards me.

I readied my stance. The light shook the earth under me, pebbles floated in the air and my bones felt like they were shattering beneath my skin. This was another level; I couldn’t handle this much condensed light for much longer.

Luckily, I didn’t need to.

I wound my fist back as the ice clone raised its fist, staring to spin midair as it launched toward me. The energy burst, begging to be released.

“Good fight,” I let my fist hit true.

BAM

Ice scattered all throughout the crowd as my fist shot through Seth’s statue. Its face burst into a million shards, trails of light following them into the stands.

I’d done it!

Yet, even my best fell short in the end.

Mere inches from my face, smoke wafted from Seth’s fist, so close I could feel the heat from his punch stopped just short of sending me into the cave wall. “Not bad, kid.”

“Thanks…” I couldn’t look Seth in the eye.

Inside, a fire burned in my stomach, different from the simple flames that came with fighting. This burned like a loss, and that feeling made me almost puke.

That was part of the reason I’d been so drawn to Lilly. I hated losing fights—yet with her, whenever she beat me, I never felt this, never felt this rage that made me want to explode.

It was a feeling I wish I could forget.