Impressed, Qyro made a note of it.
He drew up again, enjoying the feeling of
being able to move again.
The thundering footsteps swiftly neared the
end of the corridor. Without even glancing back, the two of them
slung their sheathed swords over their backs and dashed off.
Evading more unwanted company.
They exited the building and tore down the
street without a second glance at anything. The street ended with a
large green field which the two of them raced through, bounding
across five steps in the time a normal man would have taken for
one.
Their training had given them a glimpse of
what it felt like when facing life or death situations. But as
reality cast them into one, Qyro realised that this was nothing
like anything they had trained for. They had glared death in the
eye and had escaped its brutal grasp by a whisker.
The green field seemed to go on for a mile or
two, ending in the unlevelled terrain that they had crossed, which
surrounded the village. Just when the two of them thought they were
safe, Qyro felt his ears twitch slightly, as they heard it:
The sound of an electric engine. Buzzing
straight their way.
Vestra seemed to have noticed it as well, and
the two of them glanced back to have their worst fear confirmed:
two hover cars and a rebel on a hover bike came soaring their way
across the green clearing, from the village. They came zooming
towards them dangerously fast, and even before they reached, Qyro
knew there was no hope of outrunning them. The vehicles were too
fast. Even for their mystic superspeed.
“We’re gonna have to take them,” panted
Vestra, as she bounded forward by Qyro’s side.
Qyro nodded, his hand jumping onto his sword
handle. As they drew their sabers, the
vroom
of the engine
drowned the air: one of the hover cars came gliding by Qyro’s
right, and a masked rebel leaned out of the window, aiming his
Sparkler. Qyro held up his hand at the car. Using his powers, he
made the steering wheel spin off control. The car lost altitude,
jumped to a side, and then crashed to the ground in a mighty
shattering sound.
A jet of blue sailed past Qyro, hitting the
ground ahead of him. He twisted his head around to see the hover
bike rider closing in on him. The second hover car came gliding
over Vestra’s side. A rebel hung out of the window, his Sparkler
aimed at them, and the hover bike’s rider braced the canon
stretching at the front of the sleek black machine…
Even as Vestra ignited her sword, Qyro leapt
towards the rider, knocking him off the bike. He took control of
it, steering it over and behind the hover car. The rebel clinging
out of the window shot jets of blue at Vestra, who ran along by the
vehicle’s right. Her ignited sword spun wildly to block the shots.
Qyro aimed the canon, and shot … A beam of red erupted from the tip
of the bike’s canon, and sailed over to the hover car. A dazzling,
orange explosion swallowed the car, shattering its remains on all
sides. Vestra leapt out of the way of the wreckage sent spewed at
her, and Qyro spun the bike to the left just in time to avoid the
flaming remains of the car which continued to sail forward in the
air, before slipping off and toppling to the ground loudly.
Qyro landed the bike and Vestra came to a
stop by his side.
“This would come in handy.” he called to
Vestra, tapping the hover bike. “Hop on,”
She slid over behind him on the bike. Qyro
gave a half glance back, and saw that the coast was clear: the
rebels had given up. Or he hoped so. He spun the throttle, and the
bike lurched forward, soaring over the ground and away from the
village behind them…
__________
In a tower rising high up, close to where the
two Nyon were, the rebel warlord Razvol sat with his back reclined
against his seat. A set of pounding footsteps broke the silence,
and before he could begin to wonder what was happening, the door to
his room had blasted open. One of his rebels, cloaked in white,
stood there, his chest heaving rapidly.
“My lord,” said Pavio, as he finished
catching up on his breath. “It’s the two prisoners that we caught
earlier … They’ve escaped.”
Razvol allowed not the meanest shred of
emotion to show on his face as he held his gaze over Pavio, who
seemed to shrink inwardly. Rising to his feet, he strode across the
room, facing Pavio with his nose inches from the other’s.
“Do you have any idea what you’ve just done?”
he breathed.
Pavio blanched. “My lord … I swear, we -”
“Those are no ordinary prisoners, you blasted
fool!” erupted Razvol. “Those two are anything but ordinary
prisoners: they’re sworn enemies of our masters, the ones we answer
to. The sworn enemies of the
Xeni
.”
The final word seemed to leave a thunderblow
over Pavio, whose jaw dropped. His eyes went round.
“The Xeni…” Pavio whispered, the blood
draining from his face. “They’re the ones in control of this entire
rebel operation. Our superiors.”
“Yes, fool! And I answer directly to them.
Displeasing them is certainly not a wise thing to do.”
He twisted around, letting his gaze fall over
the window outside. He scanned the village expanding below him,
suppressing the rising panic mingled with rage. “We can’t let those
two get away. It would bring great displeasure from my masters when
they find out.”
“It’s not a problem, my lord.” said Pavio,
his tone now gathering a new confidence. “They haven’t gotten far
at all. I’ll take my men, and put a stop to them!”
His insides heralding another blast of fury,
Razvol spun towards Pavio. “We need them alive! Don’t you put a
stop
to them, when they’re so much needed alive.”
Pavio’s expression grew fazed with confusion.
“Alive? For what?”
“I wouldn’t expect you to know why.” said
Razvol. “My masters have long wanted the chance to capture a member
of the brotherhood of Nyon. You see, the Xeni have long fought with
the Nyon… and have long wanted to vanquish them forever. But the
Nyon had been sealed in hiding, so well hidden that none even knew
of their existence this long. All along The Xeni have yearned to
find them, and slaughter the entire lot of them. But the location
of their hideout, the Nyon temple, has always remained a hard
fetched secret. The Xeni will be delighted in having two members of
the brotherhood delivered to them, so that they can squeeze out the
location of their hated enemy’s hidden lair from the two of
them.”
As Pavio continued to standing there, Razvol
wheeled towards the window again, feeling a new rush in his veins.
There was absolutely no mistaking it. No mistaking what this meant.
And why those two had come here. He slowly strode back to his desk,
and punched a security code into the digit pad. A small container
unlocked itself from the surface of the desk, the two lids over it
opening outwards. And inside the secret vault, carefully hidden for
so long now, undisturbed … lay the object.
It resembled a splintered glass shard, no
larger in size than a prick. But its size was a deadly illusion
that concealed the true depths of the power, and the madness that
lay within it. This, Razvol realised with a slow sinking in his
stomach, was what the two Nyon had come here for. And for that one
reason itself, they could not be allowed to leave the village from
them. Because if they now carried the knowledge of this object’s
presence here, then things were far worse than they appeared. And
the Xeni certainly wouldn’t be happy…
Zardin certainly wouldn’t be happy…
Hands trembling slightly, he placed the
object back in the desk. Then he raised his gaze back to Pavio and
barked, “Well, have the two of them subdued and brought back.”
Pavio’s eyes contracted in a focussed frown.
He gave a salute and said, “Not to worry, they’re as good as ours,
now. I’ve got something up my sling that they’d never see
coming.”
__________
Qyro felt his bronze hair blasted backwards
at the force of the wind as the bike raced forward over the
unlevelled, rugged terrain.
They must now be miles from the village,
having rode across the lands beyond it for more than five minutes
now. They had streaked forth in a wild, unhindered speed, throwing
glances back every few seconds. To ensure that the rebels had left
them alone. And it seemed they had.
“They’ve given up, then.” came Vestra’s
voice, slightly uncertain. Her head was turned back towards the
village, watching nervously.
Qyro nodded. “No way they’re catching us now,
anyway.”
He gave the bike a little more throttle, and
felt the tug of inertia pull him back slightly as the bike jumped
forward, faster. They kept on for what seemed like a few minutes,
the bike’s high speed flow unhampered. Qyro cast a final glance
back. They had clearly traversed many miles from the village, which
had now faded, merging into the line that made the horizon.
“I think we’re safe now.” he concluded,
letting the bike’s throttle fall.
The bike came to a steady stop over the
unlevelled ground, hovering a feet over it so that the two of them
slowly climbed off and stood by either side of it.
“What now?” asked Vestra, her gaze still
fixed on the horizon behind them, as if anticipating another attack
from the rebels.
Qyro shrugged. “Nothing more we can do.”
Vestra looked at him uncertainly. “It was
crucial that we retrieved that crystal object … and we failed.” She
sighed. “I guess the masters really overestimated us, eh?”
Qyro gave a short laugh. “No. they
underestimated the rebel village we were attacking. Nobody could’ve
attempted breaching a place so tightly guarded. And hoped to get
out alive, that is. We were lucky we did.”
__________
The electric buzz of the ship’s large engine
was faint inside of the hull. Pavio stood with his fists clenched
behind his back. About a dozen of the rebels stood ready behind
him, clutching Sparklers with both hands. They were all in the hull
of his ship, a large black machine, which had served him in his
brutallic ventures for a decade now. Pavio had called in a dozen
other of his men into the ship, and had set off after their two
prized targets. This ship was no ordinary one, and Pavio saved it
only for the biggest of hunts and pursuits. Pursuits that he would
not fail in, no matter what. There was no way the two kids weren’t
getting away from him this time.
The lone pilot of the ship sat behind the
control desk, looking sideways at Pavio. Awaiting the green
light.
Pavio nodded, and the pilot turned back to
the control desk.
__________
Qyro and Vestra stood by the hover bike,
still watching the horizon behind them. As though expecting the
rebels to come soaring at them with a giant battle troop.
“Well, they really have given up, then.” said
Vestra, turning to Qyro.
Nodding, Qyro drew his eyes back in front of
the bike, preparing to mount it. “Guess they have.”
The ground ahead of them exploded: an air
splitting blast blew out a large crater in the land, giant chunks
of the earth tossed outwards. And hovering out of the crater was a
large black ship, perching itself dead ahead of them.
The two of them, hiding behind the bike to
shield from the chunks of earth soaring at them, looked up and
froze at what they saw. The ship hovered on the spot, its canons
aimed right at them.
“Run!” bellowed Qyro, leaping to his feet.
But it was too late: the canons fired. A beam of red leaped out of
it, shooting right towards them. The two of them flung themselves
behind, to no avail: the canon’s beam hit the ground ahead of them
with a violent blast. The force of the blast sent the two of them
soaring backwards, as though hit by a crane. Qyro felt himself fly
backwards. He smashed to the ground over the unlevelled terrain,
the impact making pain explode over his back which took the full
weight of the landing. The speed of his landing left him to spin on
over the ground in a whirl of sand and dust.
As he lay crumpled and half broken on the
ground, he felt his vision dull, and blackness closed in on him
slowly. His limbs seemed to burn with the pain of the heavy,
crashing landing. With all the effort it could cost him, Qyro
fought off the onsetting unconsciousness. Breathing slowly, he
craned his head up and looked about. He saw Vestra lying in a
small, unmoving heap of blue a few metres to his right. She
whimpered in pain where she lay.
Qyro’s trembling hand reached for his sword.
But before he drew it, the thudding of multiple footsteps came
closing in from ahead of him. He looked ahead to see more than a
dozen masked rebels surrounding the two of them, every pair of
hands aiming a Sparkler at the two of them. One of them took a step
forward towards where Qyro lay in a crumpled heap, and held his
Sparkler an inch from his face.
“Play time’s over, kid.”
Pavio flew the ship right over Razvol’s
tower, landing over the roof. Razvol’s room was at the topmost
floor. He exited the ship with five of his men who escorted the two
bound Nyon, and together they strode down the hallway leading to
Razvol’s room.