Trials - Chapter 7

Date: 12th January 2173

Kaida was, understandably, surprised when she found herself lying in Eric’s parent’s bedroom on their bed and under their covers. She sat up, rubbed her eyes and slowly climbed out of the bed anxiously, carefully and quietly walking into the corridor. She heard someone in the kitchen and, given how Kaida hadn’t been thrown out by his parents, it could only be Eric.

Nervously, Kaida walked down the stairs, preparing herself and found Eric in his kitchen, humming to himself, and cooking some bacon and eggs.

He glanced over his shoulder and smiled when he saw her. “Morning, Kaida,” He said, before turning back to his cooking. “Breakfast will be ready in a bit, so feel free to go freshen up.”

“Eric,” She whispered, her expression pained. Kaida rubbed her eyes and lightly pinched her cheek.

“I hope bacon and eggs are fine with you. We didn’t have anything else in, so…”

She shook her head and smiled slightly. “It’s fine.”

Kaida sat down at the counter and watch Eric’s back as he worked. It still felt a bit surreal to her, seeing Eric again in person after so long. When she had seen him yesterday, he looked like he’d seen a ghost and ran away from her will all his might. Now, though, it was like he had completely changed.

Is he…forcing himself to act how he used to? Kaida wondered, wincing. I don’t want that...If he’s hurting, I want him to tell me.

“Eric, I-” Kaida started to say.

“Ah, it’s done!” Eric cried, turning off the stove.

He quickly put the food onto two plates and then passed one to Kaida and then fetched her a knife and fork.

Just as he was about to start eating himself, he stopped and looked down at his hands. “Sorry,” He whispered. “For ignoring you for all this time.”

“It’s okay,” Kaida said softly, resting her elbows on the table. “I’m just happy to see you again.”

“Hey, Kaida, um…I’m…going to go back to school and…” He looked pleading at her. “I was wondering if you’d help me catch back up with everything.”

Kaida’s eyes widened and she felt them water, but she ignored them and shot him a beaming smile. “Of course!”

***

Date: 13th January 2173

Connor leapt up from his chair when he saw Eric the next day at school.

In fact, their entire classroom went dead silent upon seeing a nervous, shaking Eric standing in the doorway with Kaida holding his hand, smiling reassuringly at him.

“Don’t worry, I’m right here with you,” Kaida whispered and Eric nodded slightly.

“Eric,” Connor said, slowly walking over to him, his eyes and jaw wide open in shock. “That’s…you, right?”

“Yeah,” He said with a small nod. “I’m…sorry…for-”

Connor threw his arms around Eric and brought him into a tight hug. “None of that matters as long as you’re okay.” Connor closed his eyes and put his forehead against Eric’s shoulder. “I missed you.”

Eric embraced him back and said softly, “I’m sorry…that I took so long coming back.”

Over Connor’s shoulder, Eric could see the rest of his class looking at him, their faces filled with relief, and he could see Alexa sat over by the windowsill, smiling at him.

“Welcome back, Eric,” She called to him.

All he could do was smile weakly back.

***

“Ever since then, whenever something bad happens, I tell myself that I should try to live the best possible life that I can even after everything that I’ve gone through. I swore to myself that day that, no matter what happened, I would press on. Even though I always tell myself that, whenever the bad memories resurface, I read to distract myself from it, just like I did back then.

“Even though I’d resolved myself to change and put what had happened behind me, if it hadn’t been for Kaida, chances are that I would never have successfully changed and would still have been a recluse and…I would’ve lost those two as friends.

“About a month after I’d started going back to school, Connor and Kaida swore that they would never talk about it again unless I said they could, which is why no one else apart from us three and you know about it.”

“It seems painful to remember those days,” Laila said.

“Yeah. Even though I no longer feel like I did back then, it still hurts a little remembering that I spent my life like that for what felt like an eternity. If it hadn’t been for Kaida catching me that day, I would never have realised just how much I hated seeing those I loved like that, especially someone as happy and cheerful as her.”

“Do you like her?”

Eric’s face became flushed and he nodded a little. “I do, but I don’t want to ruin one of my best friendships by confessing because, if she rejects me, it’s all over and, even if she doesn’t, it’ll forever change the relationship that we have…and I’m not sure that it’ll be for the better.”

“I see. You’re right that everything would change between you two so I understand not taking the risk.”

Eric laughed a little. “You’re not going to encourage me to go for it?” She shook her head. “Most people would in this situation.”

“What right do I have to comment on the situation?” Laila asked. “If you don’t think you should confess and you’ve known her all of your life, then what right do I have to come in and tell you to do something about it? If you think it’s the right thing to do, then do it and I’ll support you.”

“Um, thanks, I guess?”

“You’re very welcome.”

At some point during the conversation about Eric’s past, the pair’s hands had naturally come together and interlocked with one another, but their backs were still against the tree and neither of them could see the other one’s smile.

***

Evony loosed an arrow and it landed in the dead centre of the target.

She smiled, drew another arrow from her quiver, knocked it against her bow and took aim down the range once more.

Since she had joined Ferris, Evony made sure that she spent at least thirty minutes a day at the archery range so that she remained as good as she was. It wasn’t anywhere near as long as she used to spend practicing, but her life at Ferris was always hectic.

She fired the arrow and it landed right beside the one she had previously shot.

“Very nice,” Jasmine congratulated her, walking over to her.

“Cheers,” Evony replied, placing her bow against the wall. “Did you come here to train, too?”

“Not really. Elthia’s busy reading in the library and I had nothing better to do, so I decided to go on a walk around the campus.”

“Fair enough. Ah, in that case, if you’re free, do you mind doing me a favour?”

“Sure.”

“Great.” Evony smiled and picked up her bow.

She collapsed the string against it, before shifting the top and bottom of it out, clicking it into place, completely turning the bow into a doubled bladed staff.

“Do you mind sparring with me in CQC for a bit?”

After the Bunny Incident, it had become apparent to Evony that she needed to have some form of melee weapon on her to deal with targets who got too close to her to fire at. Laila had suggested to her attaching two small blades to the top and bottom of the bow, effectively making it a polearm.

However, even though she had a melee weapon, Evony had only a handful of weeks practice of using it and was still quite weak in close quarters.

“Sure,” Jasmine replied. “I’ll go grab my gear from my locker.”

Per Aria’s suggestion, Jasmine and Evony had stored spare versions of their equipment in their lockers at the training facility so that, should something happen when they couldn’t make it back to the house, then they could come here, pick up their gear and be ready for a fight.

Jasmine had taken it a step further and had hidden supply caches in the city in places most people would never think to look.

The two girls moved from the archery range to a small open area and stood a few feet apart.

“You ready?” Jasmine asked.

“Yeah,” Evony replied.

Jasmine nodded, deployed her blades, and ran at Evony.

Evony thrust her blade at Jasmine’s head, but Jasmine caught the blade and bashed it away with her own. Jasmine then lunged her free dagger at Evony and Evony stepped away from it, barely avoiding it. Evony spun her staff around and swung it at Jasmine’s temple. Jasmine ducked beneath it, swept her feet along the ground and took out Evony’s legs. Evony shrieked in surprise and smashed her back against the ground, stunning her for a moment.

Jasmine leapt on top of her and stabbed with her blades at her but Evony blocked Jasmine’s arms with her staff. Evony pushed Jasmine off her and got back up onto her feet, but Jasmine sliced her blades across Evony, lightly cutting the girl’s flesh, before kicking her in the stomach.

Evony wretched forward and fell onto her knees.

“Game over,” Jasmine said, lightly pressing her blades against Evony’s throat.

Evony coughed and smiled. “Damn.”

Jasmine offered her a hand and pulled her onto her feet. Evony winced a little at the small burning pain from her cuts.

“Do you want to get those looked at?” Jasmine asked.

“I’m fine, they’re basically just long papercuts,” Evony said. “Still, next time, maybe we should use blunted weapons.”

“Good idea.” Jasmine wiped a bit of sweat from her brow and smiled. “Shall we get some drinks?”

The two girls went to a nearby refrigerated vending machine and they each bought a chilled soda.

“I guess it’ll take a while before I’m used to melee fighting,” Evony admitted, taking a small sip from her drink.

“As long as you keep practicing, you’ll be good at it in no time,” Jasmine told her, finishing half of her can in one go. “It’s actually kind of amazing how quickly you were able to modify your bow like that.”

“It wasn’t that hard. I’d already made my bow collapsible before, so it was just a matter of figuring out how to get it to collapse into a study spear-like weapon. Although, it’s annoying that the blades have slightly increased the weight of the bow and upset my aim a little. Well, I’ve practically adjusted my aim now so that it doesn’t affect my shots too much.”

“Hey, Evony, can I ask you something kind of weird?” Jasmine asked.

“Shoot.”

“This might sound weird and kinda insulting but, why is someone as blessed as you training to be a Guardian? I mean, you’re a natural beauty, are incredibly intelligent and your family is very wealthy, so I’ve always been curious as to why you’re here and not off being a super star model or curing cancer.”

Evony smiled and stared at the ground. “It’s because I didn’t do anything to earn those things,” She said softly. “I was just born with them. I just happened to be born to a rich family, I’d just happened to be a natural beauty and I happened to be a prodigy. I didn’t do anything to earn those things; I was just given them.

“I don’t want to go through my entire life just being given things; I want to earn things for myself, things that I can be proud off. While I asked for materials from my father’s company, I made all of my bows, arrows and heads myself. I spent several hours every day learning how to shoot a bow and I exercised heavily to train my body, mind and improve my stamina and even a little improvement was something that I could be proud off.

“All of my life, I’ve had people ask me why I don’t just model or just spend my days not working and living off my parent’s fortune, but I don’t want to do something like that. I want to do something that I can be proud off, something which I did myself, not something I was given.”

Jasmine smiled and nodded. “That’s really impressive and admirable.”

“Thanks. Hey, Jas, why did you want to become a Guardian?”

Jasmine’s body froze up.

Slowly, Jasmine finished the rest of her drink in silence and Evony knew then not to press any further into it.

“I’ll go and throw the cans away,” Jasmine said as soon as she’d finished her drink.

“Ah, thanks.” Evony handed hers over to Jasmine.

“I’d better head back to the library and make sure Elthia’s okay. I’ll see you later, Evony.”

“Yeah, see you later.”

Jasmine quickly walked away from Evony, a small scowl on her face and her hands shaking.

I’m sorry, Evony, but I don’t want you to hate me.

***

With a long yawn, Connor stretched his arms far above his head and his joints made a satisfying click sound.

After spending the entire day hanging out with Ace, Ajax and Dead Eye at the shopping centre, they had ended their outing at the arcade and spent about four hours playing all sorts of games together.

The reason being that whenever one of the others lost a game, they would immediately demand a rematch and would refuse to leave until they had won and thus hours had flown by without them realising.

“I should’ve known better than to go gaming with three other stubborn guys,” Connor mused, smiling.

Then, Connor felt the hairs on his back raise, an unnatural chill drifting through the air.

It felt like someone was watching him from behind.

Connor snapped around and saw no one behind him, but he caught sight of something that clearly didn’t belong there.

As he had turned around, a black mist had evaporated into nothing on a nearby rooftop.

Connor’s eyes narrowed and made a fist with his left hand.

“Who was that?” He whispered angrily.

***

Just as Eric was about to turn in for the day, his phone suddenly began to ring.

He picked it up and smiled when he saw who was calling.

Eric answered it and said, “Hey.”

“Ah, I finally got through to you,” Alexa said on the other end, letting out a sigh of relief.

Alexa Elvine was the only one of Eric’s close friends that didn’t attend Ferris. The last time Eric had seen her was eight months ago and she had brown hair tied in a ponytail and hazel eyes.

Unlike Connor and Kaida, Alexa was a completely regular human with no secret powers or magic, and, while she was the athletic type, she had no interest in fighting herself.

“How comes you haven’t answered any of my texts or phone calls?” Alexa asked.

“Huh? When did you try to get in contact with me?” Eric asked back.

“Pretty soon after I saw you fighting in the Tournament. Were you just that busy that you didn’t notice?”

“Um, well, that, and I didn’t get any of them except this one.”

“Seriously?”

“Seriously.”

Alexa let out a frustrated sigh and scratched the top of her head furiously in anger. “That’s all it was? A service problem? For a while there, I thought you were just ignoring me for no good reason.”

Eric laughed a little. “Is a problem with my phone’s service a good reason?”

“Well, no, but it’s better than being ignored for the rest of your life. Also, how comes you never called me to tell me you were going to Ferris?”

“Honestly, it just slipped my mind.”

“Oh, I see,” Alexa said angrily, pouting a little. “I guess we’re not as close as I thought we were.”

“For what it’s worth, I’m really sorry about it,” Eric said.

“Well, it’s worth nothing.”

“That’s a bit cold. Is it not even worth a tiny bit?”

“Nope.”

“Ah, that’s too bad. Guess I’d best hang up then.”

“Don’t you dare! Not after how long it took me to get through to you!”

The two of them laughed cheerfully together and Eric felt whatever remaining nerves and anxieties in his body from his conversation with Laila earlier being removed just by hearing her laugh again.

It warmed his heart to know that one of his best friends was safe and far away from harm.

“So, what’s life like over there?” Alexa asked. “Is Ferris as grand as I’ve heard?”

“What you’ve heard and more,” Eric replied. “It’s like a mini city over here and it’s not as lonely as I expected to be living here either.”

“I guess it’s a bit easier for you given how busy your folks are, but I can’t imagine living so close yet so far from my family, you know. Even though I know they’d be right across the bay, I’d still feel like I was in a completely different world from them.”

“I was like that when I first came here, but I’ve gotten used to it.”

“That’s good to hear. So, I take it everything’s going okay over there then? After all, you haven’t contacted me in months about anything.”

Before coming to Ferris, whenever Eric had had a problem, concern or issue that he wanted someone to talk to about, he would always go to Alexa first, even before Kaida and Connor. He felt it was always easier for him to open up to her than his childhood friends, because Eric didn’t want to try and talk to them about something and then end up changing their relationship.

Alexa was always willing and glad to listen to whatever Eric wanted to talk about and, in his mind, she was very good at listening and giving advice.

“So? Has anything happened?” Alexa asked, her concern evident in her tone.

Eric smiled slightly and shook his head. “No, everything’s been okay so far. It’s not like everything’s been great but, whatever problems have come up, my team has been able to support me enough and, well, it’s easier for me to talk to someone face to face than over the phone. Sorry, Alexa.”

“Hey, don’t apologise for something like that. I’m just happy to hear that you’re doing well. Ah, if it’s okay with you, could I potentially visit and stay at your team’s house on the fourteenth?”

“Huh? Why?”

“Well, I finally managed to score some tickets for the Single’s and I’d like to experience what it’s like to live on Ferris, even if it’s just for a day. And it’d be a good chance for us to all catch up, don’t you think?”

“I mean, I’d have to ask the Headmistress for permission but I don’t see why not.”

“Awesome! Thanks, Eric.”

“No problem, but I’ll also be going to the Single’s Tournament.”

“Really?” Alexa asked.

“Yeah. Some of my friends are taking part in it,” Eric replied. “I’m going to cheer them on, so we can watch the tournament together.”

“Ah, the good times just keep on rolling. Oh, I’d also love to see your Armour up close.”

“Sure, but only for a bit. I’ll contact the Headmistress tonight and ask about you staying over and I’ll let you know what she says.”

“Okay. Eric.” Her tone of voice dramatically changed. “If anything does come up, please let me know.”

“Will do. Goodnight, Alexa.”

“Goodnight, Eric.”

As soon as she’d hung up, Eric had texted Kasmine about it and, seconds later, he had been given permission.

It’s fine, I’ll deal with the paperwork myself, it said. As long as you don’t do anything inappropriate, then it’s okay ;)

“I wouldn’t do that!” Eric yelled.

Even though he couldn’t hear it, he knew that Kasmine had to be laughing to herself.

***

Someone knocked at Kasmine’s door and she let out a small groan, all the joy she had just felt evaporated in an instant.

“Come in,” She called, throwing the phone on her desk.

The Merchant walked into her office, a grim expression on his face and offered her a phone in his hand. “We just lost contact with the HMS Darius in Bahrain.”

Kasmine frowned and took the phone and looked at the screen.

The Merchant was showing her a digital map of the entire world which highlighted the digital devices that the Merchant had tapped into and was getting information from. There was a massive dark area over the base, meaning that all of the electronic devices in the area must have been taken offline.

“Michael again?” Kasmine asked, handing the phone back.

“Most likely,” The Merchant replied coolly, pocketing the phone. “I went over to see what they were doing and, unfortunately, he had pulled out all of the stops. I imagine that he’s trying to send a message, or-”

“He wants the warships,” she interrupted, frowning. “Contact our allies and put out the alert for the stolen ships and tag them yourself.”

“I already have.” The Merchant bowed and was about to leave, but he stopped himself at the door. “At this rate, he could be ready for war before we’re able to go on the offensive.”

“You don’t have to worry about that,” Kasmine said, smiling softly. “The Twins are already on their tail in Asia.”

***

Michael landed gracefully in the centre of the burning base.

His soldiers, armed with some of the latest hardware and equipment, had cleared the base, eliminating or capturing everyone inside. Squads of soldiers overseen by Kavachin were moving supplies onto transport helicopters and Phantom’s newly acquired warships. Sangili stood guard with twenty Phantom soldiers, keeping an eye on the prisoners that they’d taken and their rifles trained on them.

Kalaraja cackled as he began torturing one of the bleeding survivors on the ground, tearing the man’s skin from his back.

Michael frowned at him and sent a blue bolt into the man’s skull, killing him.

“Hey!” Kalaraja protested, shooting daggers at him. “Why did you do that?”

“Don’t play with the dead,” Michael warned him, his aura flaring.

Kalaraja frowned and let out a low hiss, before turning on his heel and shooting a black lightning bolt at a distant barracks, destroying it and sending it up in flames.

“What’s his problem, sir?” Kavachin asked, walking up beside Michael.

“I stopped his fun,” Michael said, glancing at Kavachin. “Report.”

“Sir!” Kavachin stood at attention. “All of the sailors on board the ships have been killed and their bodies disposed of in the water. The ships have also had all tracking devices removed from them and we’ve installed our cloaking technology on them, so they’ll be off the enemy’s radar.”

“Good. Load the rest of the base’s supplies and send the ships out to sea. I want us out of here in the next twenty minutes before the Guardians figure out what’s happened here.”

“Understood!” Kavachin was about to leave but he stopped when he spotted the prisoners. “What about them, sir?”

Michael glanced over his shoulder and said, “Kill them.”

A single chain swiftly decapitated the prisoner’s heads and, by the time Sangili had called the chain back, the prisoners had all already died.

Michael flew into the air and oversaw the rest of his men’s operations.

In less than five minutes, his assault force of two hundred men had taken down a base of ten times that number and, more importantly, they had acquired two battleships and an aircraft carrier as well.

They were fully supplied and were some of the finest that the British navy had to offer, and that made them perfect prizes for Phantom to acquire.

After his soldiers had evacuated the base, sent the ships to sea and were safely away from the base, Michael flew as high into the sky as high as he could, turned around and flew with all of his might towards the base. He generated all of his power into his right fist and, just as he was about to hit the ground, he smashed it into the ground, devastating the base like it had been hit by a meteor.

“How many more, Kasmine?” Michael whispered, looking at the destruction around him. “How many more lives will you make me trample over?”