1[A/N]: Revised and updated version of Chapter I.
Chapter I
"Three minutes, Yona!" She gripped her friend's shoulders, shaking him in excitement. "Three minutes until fifteen thousand cubic meters of solid stone and reinforced concrete come tumbling down!"
Yona chuckled nervously, gazing into her crimson eyes that shone with anticipation. She'd dragged him along with her to firing ranges a few times, and he'd seen first hand how explosive destruction excited her. Knowing who she was, her expression was kind of unnerving.
"Er…" Shifting his mind back to what his friend said, there were some discrepancies. "Shouldn't that figure be larger?"
"Yeah, but I'm just using the Divine Divide basic measurements, thirty meter height and ten meter width, and the gate system's length, fifty meters. Too lazy to use specific values. So, you excited to see a very small part of the single largest structure built by the known Sentients demolished?"
Yona sighed and put his palm to his face. "Nailah?"
"Yes?" She looked at her friend with the most innocent eyes she could muster.
"This is the fourth time you've asked me that."
"Well, I'm just seeing if you've changed your answer."
"The third time was not the charm. This is not either, even with the added facts. I am still indifferent to this event."
Nailah put her hands on her hips and frowned. "Still going to be a buzzkill?"
She was definitely going to ignore him after this response, "Yes."
"Fine." She turned her head away form him in mock annoyance, her wavy, shoulder-length ebony hair swishing around a bit. "Since you are just going to emanate dreariness, I shall get to know our Golem buddy a bit better." With that, she strode off towards the two-or-so meter tall idling humanoid formation of stone.
Yona shook his head, an amused smile on his face. Nailah was… well, being Nailah. There was a word for the behavior she was acting out, but it escaped his mind at the moment. Gazing at her and the Golem conversing, he still found it intriguing how the Telegraph Code was modified for communication with certain other Sentients. Nailah always said learning the code would come in handy later…
A blaring voice came from the various loudspeakers of the work camp. "Attention all personnel. Demolition will commence in sixty seconds."
Nailah and the Golem glanced at Yona when the loudspeaker went silent. Something in Nailah's expression made him suspicious. Just what were they talking about?
Now that his gaze was on them, he noted that, as with the other Golems around him, this one was formed with a minimal mass of stone. Presumably so it could ferry the greatest mass of stone and concrete to waiting haul trains once the section of the wall was brought down. The spherical crystalline core, the Golem itself, was a deep blue. Golem colors went down the visible spectrum of light to just into ultraviolet, with red being the weakest in terms of power, and ultraviolet being the strongest. So this Golem was probably rather old too.
"Thirty seconds until demolition."
Yona's eyes flickered to the loudspeaker, falling back upon Nailah when she approached him.
"I know you don't care, but try to enjoy the show."
"No guarantees."
Nailah playfully punched his shoulder. "You're such a jerk."
Yona flinched. She was one hundred seventy two centimeters tall and sixty-eight kilograms of finely toned muscle; her playful hurt. "You should feel honored," Yona replied as he rubbed his arm. "You're the only one who brings out the worst in me."
"Seriously though," stepping up beside him, she threw her left arm around his shoulders and extended her right towards the Divide, "this whole operation is quite impressive. Certainly you can't be feeling noth—"
"Detonation in ten seconds!"
"Oh boy!" The announcement dispersed all thoughts Nailah had at the moment, turning her undivided towards the wall. Yona simply shrugged and mimicked his friend, wrapping his arm around her shoulder and looking to the wall. For some reason, the eight hundred meters separating them from the blast site seemed smaller.
"Nine… eight… seven… six… five… four…"
Yona stole a quick glance at Nailah's face. Her smile was bright as a supernova.
"… Three… two… one… firing."
The spectacle before his eyes seemed to take place in slow motion. The massive wall cracked across the fifty-meter stretch, bulging outwards as if it were a balloon that had suddenly been pumped with air. Yona could feel his whole body vibrate for a split second as a shockwave traveled through the ground. The shattered, blown-up wall began to collapse, a huge plume of dust erupting from when debris impacted the ground. A thunderous roar from the explosions and collapsing wall boomed across the open grounds. In a few short moments, the whole spectacle was over, save for the lingering boom and dust cloud. That nine-point-eight-one meters-per-second-squared sure didn't like taking things slow.
Yona couldn't help but be in awe of the explosive demolition. The sight of the Divine Divide being brought down, the feeling of the shockwave, the crash of the explosion. Sure, he had been far, far closer to another explosion before, but that was on a much smaller scale and he didn't really have the chance to experience it. Rather, he experienced what happens after an explosion.
Moreover, he was impressed by this feat of engineering. The members of the Divine Divide Demolition Division, or 4D for short, had taken it upon themselves to bring down this part of the wall in under a week after the planning was done, as in all of the physical preparations. And here they did just that, six and a half days in and all in one go.
"That was awesome!" Nailah's comment cut off Yona's thoughts, and Yona turned his head to meet her eyes. "Not quite as flashy and crazy as some others I've seen, but the meticulous planning and the attention to detail and the control sure put this near the top of my list."
"I will admit," Yona nodded in agreement, "I was impressed. Mainly by the stuff that happened behind the scenes, but the feeling of that explosion wasn't bad either. Far more pleasant than the first one."
"See?" Nailah broke off from him and made a palms up gesture. "I told you you'd enjoy it."
Yona sighed. "Fair enough." He looked back towards the wall, or rather a huge dust cloud where the wall had once been.
As if wanting to keep the boom going, the hundred-strong Golem workforce began to move out, their heavy stone forms stomping the ground as they marched towards the demolished wall.
"Shall we join Alexis and its buddies to the wall?"
Alexis? So that was the Golem's name.
With a nod from Yona, Nailah happily interlocked her right elbow with his left and they matched the somewhat brisk pace of the Golems. The haul trains rolled out, driving ahead to set up ramps for access to the trains' flatbeds.
"You know," Yona said, "I still can't believe you got permission for us to be right beside the Golems as they work. It just seems so incredulous that the Pantheon Of Light would allow two civilians to be put into a potentially dangerous situation for no other reason than the civilians' own amusement."
"Well, my parents are powerful and influential members of the POL military."
"Nepotism at its finest…"
"Besides that, there are also two Paladin squads here."
"Paladins? Guard duty seems out of place for Special Operation Forces."
"Well, these guys are on their off-cycle, and came here on their own volition when asked. Apparently they were quite interested in seeing the Divine Divide divided. As for everything else, they continuously sweep a large area around the demolition site with Recon Quadrotors, and have a small army on standby in case anything goes wrong. And if something does go wrong, we'll be warned long before we are in any real danger."
"The fact you have a P8 does not give me confidence in that statement."
Nailah glanced at the eight-millimeter high-velocity pistol holstered at her hip, then just shrugged. "It never hurts to be prepared for the worst, no matter how unlikely."
"Hey now, don't tempt fate. I'd prefer that we disappoint Chekhov."
Exchanging friendly chatter all the while, it was not long until the two reached the rubble of the felled wall, which by this time the dust cloud had almost completely dissipated. Looking to each side, the sheer size of the wall still elicited a sense of awe whenever Yona laid eyes on it, especially this close up. It just went on and on, for thousands upon thousands of miles in each direction, wrapping around in a giant, roughly semi circle shape, until the wall's ends met the ocean flanking the Human lands.
But he and Nailah had seen it before; what they had come for were the Golems. Sentients of fearsome power, the crystalline beings could move tons of stone just as easily as a Human could move him or herself.
"Hey!" Yona's attention turned back to Nailah. "Take a look at Alexis!"
And then to the Golem. The two meter tall figure had climbed to the top of a pile of rubble, and bent down onto all fours. Large chunks of stone and concrete rolled up its limbs with an impressive grumbling. Its limbs grew thicker, then longer with the added support, rising slowly off the ground. The torso began to bulge as material flowed into it. The mismatched color of stone and concrete, along with the rods of rebar sticking out of the occasional chunk of concrete, made Alexis look like a beastly Deity. Soon, the rubble stopped moving, leaving the Golem resting completely still. It was at least three and a half meters at the shoulder, spanning at least seven meters in length.
Then Alexis began to move. With slow, deliberate strides, it walked down the greatly reduced pile of rubble, sending small tremors through the ground. Creeping past Nailah and Yona, it headed for the awaiting haul trains. Up the ramp it went, stopping at the top. The core moved from the front of the monstrous quadruped to the rear. It walked backwards and lowered most of itself into the haul train. With only the front legs remaining on the ramp, it let go of everything else. The once animated stone and concrete collapsed into a pile in the haul train's flatbed, and remaining two-meter tall Golem walked casually back down the ramp.
Watching a Golem at its full power was an impressive experience, but there wasn't just one Golem doing this. There were at least one hundred. The whole experience left Yona and Nailah speechless until Alexis reached the pile of rubble again.
"That alone was… certainly worth the plane ride here, and back. The rest make this a profit."
A beaming smile on Nailah's face, her eyes met Yona's. "I wholeheartedly concur. However, the demolition was the first thing that made this worth it."
"You and your explosions."
Nailah broke off from Yona's side and started up a vacant hill of rubble. "Come on!" She gestured for him to follow. "Let's see the forest on the other side!"
"Wait Nai—" but she was already off. "Good grief." This was probably not safe. Definitely not safe. With loose and uneven footings, he was surprised he didn't hurt himself. Nailah on the other hand was right at home traversing such treacherous terrain. She probably could have run down and back up this hill before he could reach the top.
"Gods you are slow." Nailah had her hands on her hips and a smirk on her face.
Yona found footing at the top of the pile and stood up. "You have the physicality and training of a Knight," he deadpanned. "Most anyone would seem slow in comparison."
Nailah just shrugged. "Anyways," she turned away from Yona and took a few steps towards the foreign landscape before them. "Take a look."
Yona was already staring. A clearing of about one hundred meters separated the Divine Divide from the forest. The biggest forest that could be seen from the Human lands in fact, stretching left and right far beyond the limits of his vision. Aside from that though, it looked just like any other forest. He really didn't know what he was expecting.
Nailah's outstretched hand snapped him out of his thoughts. "You up for a stroll beyond the Divide?"
"… Are we authorized to do that?"
"You know that saying about permission and forgiveness?"
"So that's a 'no' then."
"Correct!"
Said with a beaming smile and an innocent looking expression. Of course, Yona knew she was anything but innocent.
"I'm pretty sure that's an abuse of power." Nailah knew how to wield her family's name like a weapon, and would not hesitate to use it if she really wanted to. Not that she ever really did.
"What? Abuse my power? How dare you suggest that I would do such a thing!?" Nailah folded her arms over her chest and frowned in mock offense. "I am simply using my privileges to do that which others cannot."
"Isn't that basically the definition of power abuse?"
"Not according to mine."
Yona and Nailah stared at each other, neither willing to give any ground in their little game. Nailah could switch demeanors and become terrifying at the drop of a hat. Her fearsome gaze felt like it could bore through several centimeters of rolled homogeneous armor, and would cause even a Dragon to squirm. However, they had known each other since even before they could retain coherent memories. While Yona was still unnerved, he could stare her down just fine.
Then Nailah cracked a smile, which Yona retuned in kind. While they enjoyed their foolish banter, now was the time to cut it short; there were Golems to spectate.
Yona was about to offer her his arm to Nailah when the rubble beneath him unexpectedly shifted. He stumbled sideways, barely managing to keep on his feet. But he had no time to muse on his good luck. His flight or fight response instantly kicked in as the cause of the sudden movement clamored up from beneath the rubble.
The glossy black and green carapace, the six spindly legs and two spiky arms, the viciously powerful jaws, the overall insect-like appearance… there was no mistaking it. The wolf-sized creature was a Locust Drone. The only thing Yona could do was brace for the attack. He was caught completely off balance and by surprise, the notion of being in such a situation far from his mind. The Drone was tensed like a loaded spring, ready to leap out and strike, and it had its sights on him.
The moment Yona saw the Drone leap, it felt like a professional flanker had slammed into his side. He felt the air painfully forced from his lungs and his head whiplash from the sudden impulse. Then a second impact knocked whatever had hit him in the first place away—wait! From the side?! Adrenaline coursing through his body, the reality of the situation dawned on him as he hit the ground hard.
Nailah had reacted almost instantaneously upon seeing Yona stumble. She had initially lunged towards him to keep him from falling. When the Drone emerged, she used her momentum to tackle him out of the way of danger. But it was only just enough to get him out of the way; Nailah had taken the full force of the Drone's attack.
Yona felt his whole body go cold. Nailah lay sprawled on the ground a couple meters away with the Drone looming over her. The Drone's focus had completely shifted to the new threat, prepared to pounce and deliver the killing blow. To Yona, it was as if his world was grinding to a halt; there was nothing he could do but watch in horror.
However, reality paid no attention to his perception. The deafening cracks of rapid-fire gunshots filled the air and the Drone recoiled away.
What an idiot, Yona thought of himself, how could he have counted Nailah out? The blood of warriors ran through her veins and the fighting instincts of a Knight were ingrained within her very core.
Nailah put the fifth eight-millimeter pistol round into the Drone when it suddenly seemed to explode in half, splattering the ground with its bodily fluids. A brief moment later, the much deeper crack of a fifteen-millimeter sniper round reached his ears.
Though the Drone may have been killed, panic began to well up in Yona's mind. Nailah made no effort in getting up, instead laying her head down and sheathing her pistol before pressing her hands to her side. Yona's stomach churned as he saw blood seep from where Nailah clutched her side. Apart from a glance in his direction, she did not move. The air was filled by the sounds of more gunshots and the blare of a siren, but Yona paid them no attention, scrambling over to his fallen friend.
"N-Nailah…"
"Hey, Yona." Her voice was calm, but it betrayed a hint of pain. "Nothing like a little excitement, right?"
Her nonchalant response threw Yona's mind in a spin for a brief moment, snapping him out of his near-panicked state. He could only chuckle inwardly at how Nailah had to keep him calm. He also fought the urge to ask if she was okay, since obviously she was not okay.
"How… how is it?"
She lifted her hands for a moment, her palms soaked in blood. "Not good. I'm bleeding quite bit. It hurts. And worse, I just realized I left the stove on at home."
A brief laugh escaped Yona's mouth. Nothing like a little dose of bathos to keep the mood from being too heavy. She always tried lighten things up, no matter how bad things got. Of course, she could be frighteningly serious too if the situation called for it…
"Right!"
Yona dove to his right. In one swift motion, Nailah drew her pistol, aimed, and fired. But Instead of an eight-millimeter round, the distinct sound of a fifteen-millimeter round rang out. A glance to where Nailah was aiming revealed the mangled body of a Drone, fluids draining from the large entry and exit wounds in its body.
"Ouch." She sheathed her pistol and rolled onto her back again. "Heh. Chekhov can continue to rest in peace. Now, please get us out of here."
"Y-yeah." Yona moved to lift Nailah, but the ground under them began to rumble. He was about to curse, but instead of a Drone, a familiar blue crystalline sphere popped up from the rubble.
Alexis acted before either Yona or Nailah could speak, forming a relatively smooth surface under the two Humans. Stone and concrete rose up and formed a solid protective dome around them. Then the whole construct suddenly began to move, throwing Yona onto his backside. It was nearly pitch black inside the dome, save for the faint blue glow of the Golem core. Though the ride was somewhat rough, at least they were moving.
Nailah's hand found its way to Yona's, their fingers intertwining. Despite the more intimate way that their hands were bonded, Yona couldn't help but be a little discomforted by Nailah's blood covered hand.
"I hope you're keeping pressure on that wound."
"I was about to ask you to help me keep pressure."
"Right. I should do that." He shifted to place his free hand on Nailah's wound. He had never experienced a situation like this before. The feel of so much blood was frightening. Nailah was the only reason why he was keeping it together so well. There was no doubt she was in pain and discomfort, but that she was calm and collected put Yona at ease.
"You are a terrible hero, you know that?"
"Who cares? Antiheros are all the rage nowadays."
"Hey…" her tone lowered, "are you okay?"
Only now did Yona realize how much his hands were shaking and how hard he was breathing. "W-well, better than you, all things considered."
Nailah grinned at his response.
The dome came to a quick stop and retracted. The sudden exposure to light blinded Yona for a moment, but the course of action was clear. He climbed off the slab onto the ground, turning around to lift Nailah into his arms.
"What am I, your wife?"
Yona realized he just picked Nailah up in a bridal carry. "Should I carry you in a more practical way?"
"I think I'm fine like this."
Yona stepped back, and Alexis rose up, forming a three-meter tall humanoid figure before marching to engage emerging Locusts. Giant limbs of stone and concrete crushed any enemy unfortunate enough to get too close.
No time to observe the battle, they had to get out of here. Yona looked around, his eyes falling upon armored vehicles in the distance quickly closing in. The cavalry was on its way. He headed towards them, away from the battle and towards safety.
The light about ten meters in front of Yona distorted, stopping him in his tracks. A tall figure clad in heavy plate armor materialized from the distortion. The armor was painted various gray hues arranged in erratic squares and rectangles. Green crosses were emblazoned on various parts of the armor: one on the torso, one on each shoulder, one on each outer thigh, and one on the helmet's face plate. There was probably one on the back too. A large sword was sheathed across the person's back and in the person's hands was a B8, an eight-millimeter battle rifle. Yona breathed a sigh of relief; this person was a Paladin Medic.
Nailah echoed his thoughts. "Hooray, a medic."
The Paladin rushed over to Yona and Nailah. "Set her down carefully and elevate her legs." The voice was husky yet mellow and distinctly masculine.
As Yona kneeled to lay Nailah on the ground and raise her legs, the Paladin set down his rifle. The Paladin raised Nailah's head and placed a gauntleted hand on her wound. "I am going to perform first aid healing magic on you. You may feel a weird sensation."
"I doubt it will feel worse than this wound."
"Heh, very true."
Another light distortion appeared beside the Medic. A Paladin, clad in pure white armor, materialized, speaking in a deep, tranquil feminine voice, "Asa, do you require assistance?"
"I should be fine in handling this, Titania. Go have fun."
The Paladin in white nodded. "I will."
She strode off towards the battle, an eight-millimeter light machine gun in one hand and a massive Kriegsmesser in the other hand. Lazily spinning her sword, she almost offhandedly dispatched with four round bursts any Locust that showed itself in front of her. Twirling a two handed sword as if it were a pencil and firing an LMG one handed with impeccable accuracy… yet her demeanor seemed as if this were nothing more than a casual stroll through a park. Titania's Physiokinetic ability was quite impressive. A few Locusts that tried to flank her were unceremoniously cut down when they got within the sword's reach. As blood splattered on the Paladin's armor, with a little bit of horror it dawned on Yona why the armor was colored pure white.
"Isn't that kind of a waste of ammo?" Nailah asked.
The medic nodded, then shrugged. "It also is a needless dulling of her sword. However, it is not often we get into a low danger level engagement where we are allowed to use our abilities to their full extent. For Titania, it is a time for her to play around with her combat capabilities."
Still striding with an air of odd serenity, Titania ceased shooting but kept her gun aimed at oncoming Locusts. A stream of fire burst forth from in front of the barrel, her gun waving in an arc like a flamethrower. She then pointed her sword at flanking Locusts and a stream of distorted air seemed to shoot out from the tip. Anything that got close to the Paladin was burned or frozen alive. The powerful use of both extremes of Thermokinesis was awe-inspiring to say the least.
"Quite a bit better than my magic, huh Yona?"
"Yeah." After all, Nailah could not do much more with her Cryokinesis than keep drinks ice cold and prevent personal computers from overheating.
"You are one lucky lady." Yona and Nailah's attention shifted back to the Paladin Medic as he spoke. "I mean, you are not lucky for getting impaled by a Drone's mandible. But you are lucky for someone who got impaled nonetheless. The wound is deep, but it missed anything important. You are just bleeding." Asa took his hand off the wound. "Were just bleeding."
"Thank you. Guess that explains why I'm… like this." Nailah's voice was decidedly less strained. "That and my stupidly high pain tolerance."
"Try not to move around, though. All I did was stop the bleeding. You may feel better now, but you are still injured and need to heal on your own."
Nailah shook her head. "Don't worry, I know how healing magic works. Like how pathogens may be sealed in the body during the healing process and that blood is not replaced."
"Good." The Paladin turned his head towards Yona. "Sir, take my place. I must aid my comrades in the containment of the Locusts. Other soldiers will arrive soon to take you to the military base."
Yona nodded, shifting himself to put Nailah's head on his lap. Asa grabbed his rifle and drew his sword, heading to battle.
"Nailah, how do you feel?"
"Fine, at least compared to before. It doesn't really hurt anymore, though my head is a bit light from the blood loss."
"That's… that's good." He gently cleared a few strands of hair from Nailah face, his fingertips lightly brushing against her cheek.
Yona looked up towards the vehicles that had just arrived. Twelve Wolf Battle Cars, four Lion Infantry Fighting Vehicles, and two Ratel Main Battle Tanks were set up in an arc around the fallen section of the Divide. Even two Wasp Attack Helicopters and an Angel Gunship could be seen approaching in the distance. POL soldiers dressed in light plate armor were already taking their positions along the perimeter, with four soldiers on their way to provide aid.
He breathed a sigh of relief. "Looks like the overkill is here. We're officially saved."
"Aw…" Nailah pouted, something Yona found rather cute. "But I wanted to see the battle…"
"Glad to see you have your priorities straight."
"Hey, I'm fine here. Relatively speaking."
The soldiers arrived and, after the usual pleasantries, escorted Yona while he carried Nailah to a Lion IFV with a dedicated medical station. After he settled Nailah and himself down in the IFV, he took one last look at the battle and the wall.
With the Golems and Paladins organized, they alone had already advanced to the edge of the rubble. He watched in awe as lightning arced from the Medic's hand to fry an emerging Locust. That was the first time he had ever seen such powerful Electrokinesis in person. The Paladin sure lived up to his official designation of Combat Medic.
Then the vehicle's doors closed, cutting off the view of the battle. With a soft lurch forward, the Lion IFV accelerated up to speed on its way towards the nearby military base.
Chapter End
Begin [A/N]
The first chapter of my main creative project, Rising. It is a science fiction/fantasy story, with advanced technology right next to magic. Though one could argue it is a pure fantasy story just set in modern times, since the "sci-fi" aspects are just modern day and 20-minutes-into-the-future technologies. The main title is Rising, with three planned Books titled Light, Dark, and Eigengrau.
The idea for this story actually has an odd origin. At the apex of the Twilight Saga hype and hate several years ago, I thought, "I bet I can come up with a compelling vampire story much better than Twilight in about a week." So I did. Created a fictional world and a lot of information about my vampires, along with a rather complex story line. However, as time passed, I slowly added in more fantastical elements to avoid that awkward problem of, "why are vampires the only mythical creature in existence?" As well, I matured, and I stepped off the hate bandwagon. While I am convinced Twilight deserves at least some of its reputation both ways, I never personally read it, so I decided not to be someone who hates on things he never has even experienced.
Anyways, I became enamored (... probably not the right word for that) with the idea of a sci-fi/fantasy story that mixes the two genres such that it is proper, relatively hard sci-fi with fantastic elements integrated within the setting's world. Basically what a typical medieval fantasy setting would be like if realistic human progress was made until the modern day. Because seeing magic, dragons, gods, etc. right next to modern technology, attack helicopters, spy satellites, etc. would be both awesome and hilarious.
So I adapted the idea into what Rising is now. Since the vampire setting was in the modern day with fantastic elements, it was an easy shift.
Despite this being my main project, actually completing and uploading chapters will probably be pretty rare. I was pretty young when I first came up with this idea, so a lot of time is spent refining things and coming up with content other than the big plot points. Well... I still am quite young, haha. I know I still have a lot of maturing and growing to do, which means more revisions. Still, I am quite happy with this draft of the chapter at the moment.
Aaaaaaand with all that said, I hope you have enjoyed the first chapter of Rising - Book One: Light.
End [A/N]