Interlude 23: We Will Be Reunited
The young boy screamed as his mother tripped, both of them falling into the mud as a laughing man swung a misshapen axe through the air. “You are unworthy! Your blood will fuel my evolution! The Cycle will be-”
He was cut short when his head parted from his body as Lumine teleported over the cowering mother and child. She snarled and flicked her blade, scanning the area around her before teleporting again and slicing another of the Cultists, this one a young woman with a spiral carved into her forehead. Behind her, Paimon zipped in and helped the two villagers to their feet, flitting about and guiding them towards the other side of the village to escape the cultists.
Across the battlefield, she heard the snap and crack of Aether’s spear, and she saw another Cyclist obliterated before the spear vanished, returning to Aether’s hand.
Lumine turned back to the battle, where there were another dozen Cyclist thugs, as well as two parahumans. One was hovering in the air with some sort of grey smoke billowing about them and obscuring their figure. Whatever the smoke touched seemed to rot or wither in moments, so it couldn’t be healthy to touch or breathe. The other had fingernails that had turned into long whips that writhed and twisted. Dangerous looking, but not that bad.
They were in a medium-sized town with whitewashed wooden buildings with thatched roofs. To the West rose the snow-capped peaks that Aether and Lumine had been traveling towards for the past several months. They had left the rice fields behind them in the lowlands, with waves of ripening grain in the fields that surrounded this place, as well as a small vineyard with clusters of purple grapes near ready to harvest. The Travelers and Paimon had been walking all morning and had arrived just as the Cyclists had begun their assault.
“I got the smoky one,” Aether said and hefted his spear before launching it with a boom of thunder.
Lumine teleported next to Mr. Fingernails. He had only half turned before she sliced off one arm, then teleported to his other side, and severed his spine. The Cyclist let out a groan of pain and slumped to the ground, but Lumine didn’t have time to focus on him: he was already dead. Instead, she teleported up ten meters into the air and spun about. She spotted four more Cyclists, not capes, just the crazy ones who thought murder was their ticket to power. She zapped into the midst of them. They were armed with crude swords, axes, and spears. They may as well have been standing there naked. Lumine supposed she should feel bad, killing these living human beings so easily.
But there were bodies in the houses and streets of this village. Cyclists didn’t care: they would slaughter the old, the young, the infirm, the healthy. If only…if only they had arrived sooner. But they hadn’t known that an attack was coming, or even that there was a Cyclist cult in the area.
It took only minutes for Lumine and Aether to mop up the rest of the cultists. There had been only the two parahumans, and Aether had sniped the smokey one even faster than Lumine had dispatched the fingernail guy.
However, it seemed they hadn’t quite finished the job.
Lumine saw writhing nails and found the Parahuman whose spine she’d severed was dragging his useless legs along one-handed, leaving a trail of blood on the stones. She frowned at the man, who snarled at her and hissed several swear words. That had been the first bit of Chinese she’d picked up, and while she wasn’t completely fluent yet, she did know how to swear like a sailor, much to Paimon’s mortification.
“What should we do with him?” Aether asked, but his voice was full of weariness and pain. Unlike her, Lumine’s brother had always been averse to conflict and bloodshed in the real world. Heck, in games, he’d usually preferred talking things out or actually using stealth instead of the tried and true method of simply going in headfirst and beating your problems into submission.
“He’s a Cyclist. There’s really only one thing you can do,” Lumine said, and raised her sword.
Aether made a face, but hefted his spear. “Well, at least we’ll put him out of his misery.”
Before either of them finish off the wounded cultist, a howling gale slammed down from the skies and sent both of them flying. Lumine teleported herself before she landed in a heap, but Aeither slammed into a low wall with a gasp of pain. She blinked away flecks of ice and raised her sword, her teeth set in a grimace. More Cyclists.
Out of the storm, a small figure darted at her, four flying swords streaking right at Lumine. She parried two, then teleported past the next two for the controller of the blades. She was surprised to see a young girl in some sort of uniform look up at her in shock, but still made to swing her sword in a downstroke.
Her blade clanged off the haft of a spear, and another girl, this one a teenager instead of a grade schooler, body-checked Lumine so hard she was worried she’d break bones. Thankfully, she was able to teleport again, this time high up in the air to try to figure out just how many of these Cyclist reinforcements there were.
The raging storm prevented Lumine from seeing much, but she did hear the crack of her brother’s spear and saw the icy winds part for a moment as it slashed through the air. She didn’t have time to see more, as three of the flying swords darted up at her, and Lumine was forced to teleport back to the ground, towards the spear-wielding warrior who was charging her brother.
“GET AWAY FROM HIM!” Lumine snarled and performed a series of strikes that Ami had drilled into her over long months as a set of the Origin Bladework school. To her shock and delight, her opponent managed to counter most of the blows, spinning her spear in an intricate dance of counters and reposites.
When both of them backed off, Lumine had a gash on her left arm, but her foe had a cut on her right thigh and a gash that was bleeding heavily on her temple. Lumine grinned, then frowned as her opponent’s eyes glowed blue, and frost from the still-raging storm covered her wounds. That was when she saw the glowing Cryo vision affixed to her foe’s waist by red ropes.
“Wait, a Cyclist Vision holder?” Lumien asked.
She couldn’t make out just what her foe said; the accent was too different from the Chinese Lumine had learned, and the storm was too loud and deafening. It didn’t truly matter, however. The only point in Lumine’s universe for the next span of heartbeats was her opponent’s blade and her own. She teleported rapidly, trying to disorient her foe, but whoever had trained this girl had done a phenomenal job.
Spear met sword, and despite her mobility advantage, Lumine found she was struggling against her foe’s superior reach and enhanced physical abilities thanks to her Vision. Not to mention the way blades of ice attacked her, and the frost on the ground bit at her feet in an attempt to hinder her. If not for her own powers, Lumine would never have been able to keep up.
Suddenly, a white fairy flitted between the fighters, causing both Lumine and the Cryo Vision holder to pause in their struggle.
“Stop! Please! Lumine, they’re not Cyclists! It’s the Crane School! Jok! Nga-tso chölokpa min! Ngé drokpo la ma dung rok!”
Lumine teleported, grabbing Paimon and pulling her back. “Paimon! She’s dangerous! How do you know she’s with the Crane school?!”
The storm about them was rapidly dying down, the winds quieting. Lumine took a moment to really look at the girl she was fighting. She appeared to be about Lumine’s own age, maybe a year or two younger. Despite that, she had stark white hair, pulled back into a long braid that hung down her back and was bound with red ribbon.
A palpable aura of menace radiated from her, and Lumine could sense the other girl’s bloodlust. Her spear was finely crafted, and glowed with elemental power. Its head was shaped to resemble a crane in flight, and the haft was twinned with more red ribbon that had characters in a script that Lumine didn’t recognize, but knew wasn’t Chinese or Japanese. Her outfit was a skin-tight black bodysuit with a white tabard over it, bound with large red ropes.
“Khyö su re? Yidak chung-chung. Ga-ré chir khyö tshö drongsep dir gölwa yin? Di ngé amé sung-kyong ok-tu yö,” the woman demanded, her tone icy.
“She’s asking who we are, and why we attacked!” Paimon hastily translated. “Tell her, Lumine! Paimon and the Travelers were trying to help!”
Slowly, in her very best Mandarin, Lumine said, “I can’t speak that dialect, but my brother and I are Travelers from a distant world. We came here, seeking the Crane school, that perhaps their knowledge could help us find our home. We did not attack this place. We found it as the Cyclist cultists were attacking. We were defending the villagers. Ask them: Paimon was getting them to safety, while my brother and I were fighting the attackers.”
Paimon began to translate Lumine’s words, but the other girl held up a hand. “No need. My mother has taught me this language. I understand your words, Traveler. I am simply unsure if I believe you. What is your name?”
“Lumine. My brother is Aether. And yours?”
“Xianyun Shenhe, of the Crane School. I am the Guardian of this village. We received word there were cultists of Mówáng the Golden. My sister and I came to dispatch them.”
Lumine raised an eyebrow, then glanced over to where the fingernail cultist had been. He was still struggling away, much more frantically now, looking at Shenhe with real fear in his eyes. “Well, there’s one left if you want him. He killed at least three villagers before I took him down.”
The words had barely left Lumine’s lips before Shenhe darted forward. Lifting the parahuman cultist of the ground, she froze his arm when he tried to lash her with his nails. “Who sent you? Why do you attack our village?”
“M-Mowang t-the Great! I-I am evolved! W-we will Evolve! C-complete the-”
Shehu drove her left hand through the cultist’s chest, splattering herself with gore and causing the man to cough blood once before shuddering and rasping out his last breath. With a smooth motion, Shenhe jerked her hand free, then tossed the man into a ditch like a sack of refuse. “I see. It seems you were telling the truth.”
“Shenhe! You didn’t have to kill him; he wasn’t a threat! Now we can’t get any information about if there’s more of them,” the little girl with the flying swords complained. She was supporting Aether, who was wincing as he walked, forced to lean on the young girl, her flying swords now slowly orbiting about the two of them. Lumine noted that the girl had an Anemo Vision of her own. Well, that explained the impromptu snowstorm. Despite their young ages, these two girls were clearly well-trained and powerful Vision Holders. They probably could have dispatched the cultists just as easily as the Travelers had.
Well, good. This broken land needed more who would stand up against evil.
“Why not? It’s not like Cyclist garbage ever has anything useful to say,” Lumine said with a shrug as she cleaned her sword with a strip of cloth. “Evolution this, cycle that, level bullshit? They probably just sprang out of nowhere and have been going around killing people in the hopes they’ll spill enough blood to get the golden asshole’s attention.”
Paimon started to sniffle, and Lumine winced. She’d been too harsh. She sheathed her sword and gave her bestest travel guide a comforting hug.
However, Shenhe nodded her agreement. “Yes. They are a blight. They must be excised from this land.”
“I don’t like it…but we haven’t found any reasonable way to deal with a Cyclist. Especially not one of their ‘evolved,’” Aether said, grimacing in distaste. He started. “Oh, sorry. Shuyu, this is my sister, Lumine. Lumine, Shuyu. She’s one of the Crane School’s Tinkers and daughter to their leader, Cloud Retainer.”
“Yep! But I just call her mom,” Shuyu agreed. “Here, let me heal those wounds of yours.”
After the application of some herbal poultices and healing winds from Shuyu’s Vision, Lumine and Aether both felt much better. Shuyu chattered away while she tended their wounds, but Shenhe stalked about, apparently hunting for more cultists, but finding none.
“Come, Shuyu. We must find their base,” Shehe said once Lumine and Aether were on their feet.
“We can help!” Aether offered. “We’ve clashed with Cyclists many times on our journey. Plus, we came all this way to find you.”
“There is no need,” Shenhe said at the same time as Shuyu chirruped, “Sure!”
“I do not require aid,” Shenhe said, scowling at Shuyu.
“Nope! But you do require friends! So let’s make some!” Shuyu said brightly.
Shenhe scowled at her little sister, then her expression turned more thoughtful as she regarded Lumine. “You are strong. Parahuman?”
Interesting. Most people in this region would have just said Lumine had a devil. “Basically, yeah.”
“Your sword. It is Japanese. Do you serve the Devil Queen of Japan?” Shenhe demanded, her expression still hard.
“We…trained with her,” Lumine admitted. “And Lady Raiden did make our weapons from items we brought her. Er…so I could duel her. Well, both of us. Aether helped.”
Real interest sparked in Shehe’s eyes, which darted to Aether who blushed and laughed, rubbing the back of his head. “Uh, it’s true, but don’t get too excited. We got our asses kicked. Bad.”
“Whoa! You two really fought the Raiden Shogun!? Is that true!?” Shuyu asked excitedly.
“Ugh, don’t remind Paimon! It was super scary! She was so worried about the Travelers! They trained so hard, but the Raiden Shogun, she’s on another level! She was like swish! And bem, and then zoom and zap, and, and-!”
Paimon babbled on about the climactic battle with the Raiden Shogun, adding several details and flashbacks to Aether and Lumine’s training with the Electro Dragon and Lightning Princess. And even their friendship with the Terrible Tanuki Twins. Though thankfully, Stelle’s ‘pregnancy’ didn’t come up.
Shehe listened in silence, while Shuyu made noises of excitement and asked a few questions. During this, they began to walk down a road where they found the trail of the Cyclists. They walked for several hours, until the sun began to set. When it did, the group found a small copse of pine trees and made camp. Lumine and Aether had only their sleeping bags and tarps, along with a little food, but Shuyu pulled out what looked like a little folded bit of fabric.
“Behold! The All In One Marvelous Expanding Camping Tent!” she declared, then snapped the cloth out like she was shaking it free of dust. The cloth unfolded into not just a full sized tent, but one that could sleep a full dozen. Inside, there was a small gas stove with pots and pans and provisions, as well as comfortable looking cots with blankets and pillows. There was even a small stall outside that had a hydro stone connected to a spigot where you could take a shower.
“We haven’t figured out how to heat the water yet, so cold showers only, sorry,” Shuyu said, looking embarrassed at the admission.
“Are you kidding?! Paimon thinks this is AMAZING! She wants you to come on all her camping trips from now on, Shuyu!” Paimon gasped, flitting about the tent and snuggling up to the blankets on one cot with glee.
“It is very good,” Shenhe agreed with a nod. “Shuyu and my mother have created the tent. It is useful. Though I don’t mind sleeping on the ground.”
“Paimon does! Paimon VERY much does!”
The hot meal at the end of a long day of walking, fighting, and more walking was very much appreciated, especially since Paimon did most of the cooking. The little glutton knew how to eat, but she also knew how to cook. She made the simple rice, vegetables, herbs, and meat into a proper feast, and the five companions enjoyed a pleasant meal.
Throughout the meal, Lumine noticed Shenhe staring at her and her brother. The coldness in Shenhe’s gaze made Lumine wonder if it was such a good idea to sleep in the same tent with the other girl.
However, once the meal was finished, Shenhe stood up and looked at Aether intently. “Do you…like to spar?”
“Shenhe…we just walked all day! He’s probably tired!” Shuyu groaned, but Aether got to his feet and grinned. “I’m not quite as good a fighter as Lumine up close…but I’m more than willing to go a few rounds with you, Shenhe.”
Lumine smirked and headed outside with Shuyu as Aether and Shehe found a patch of open ground near the tent and squared off. Both bowed to one another, and Aether asked, “Rules?”
“No killing. No powers. No weapons. To first blood, or yielding,” Shenhe said. Her tone was mild, but her eyes burned with a passion that surprised Lumine.
“Uh, Shenhe? Maybe take an elixir before you fight?” Shuyu said, and held up a red-tinted potion.
Shenhe nodded impatiently, and Shuyu tossed her sister the potion, which was quickly quaffed. Shenhe tossed the bottle behind her, then said, “Begin.”
Like that, it was on. Aether fought rather well, having been trained in hand to hand by the Electro Dragon himself. His technique was near flawless, and even in the fading light, he kept his footing easily and landed more than a few blows.
Shenhe, however, was a monster. Despite her obvious fury and barely constrained bloodlust, she avoided killing blows, and seemed to be holding herself back. Not that it really mattered. Lumine began to wonder if Shenhe was also a parahuman because her speed, strength, and technique were all far beyond what even a Vision holder should have been capable of. It wasn’t long before Shehe had Aether pinned to the ground, slamming her fist into the ground so hard that Lumien wondered if the other girl was going to break her hand.
“Oof! I yield!” Aether gasped. He grinned at Shenhe. “You’re pretty good!”
She nodded and stood, helping Aether up. “Again?”
Shuyu rolled her eyes, and Lumine sighed when Aether blushed and said, “Sure!”
“My brother, the flirt,” Lumine muttered as Aether got pinned again after Shenhe swept his legs out from him, then rose and agreed to another fight.
“Oh, uh…you noticed?” Shuyu whispered, grinning at Lumine as their siblings squared off again.
Lumine sighed. “Aether’s always been into big, muscular women who could break him in half…and I’m afraid your sister qualifies. Please tell me she’s an adult.”
“Uh, I mean…I guess? She’s older than Ganyu or I for sure, and she’s definitely a woman. She leads our warriors into battle, and she’s our strongest fighter, except for Mom herself, who’s the leader of the Crane School. Not even me and Ganyu together can beat her. Not unless she really handicaps herself.”
Lumine shrugged. “Well, it’s been a while since he saw Stelle, and who knows if we’re ever going back to Japan. As long as they just keep it to flirting, it’s fine. Provided my brother isn’t so bruised he can’t walk in the morning.”
Thankfully, Aether begged off after the third bout. That time, Shenhe had Aether tie one of her arms behind her back with red rope, but she still easily trounced Aether.
“Sorry, this is fun and all, but if I keep letting you beat me up, I won’t be able to walk in the morning,” Aether groaned.
“Oh.” Shenhe’s expression fell. “Sorry. I guess you won’t want to spar again.”
“Not tonight, but maybe later. You’ll have to teach me how to pull off some of those moves!” Aether laughed.
Shenhe blinked. “You…still want to spar with me?”
“Yeah, we’re friends! Besides, Lumine is always kicking my ass, so it’s not like I don’t have experience. Stelle did the same thing to me,” Aether admitted. “But her being an enlightened beast is cheating.”
“I see. Mother is the same way,” Shenhe said with a nod. “I can teach you some cultivation techniques to improve your strength and stamina. It is not just my Vision that aids me.”
“That would be useful. Mind teaching me, too?” Lumine asked, half joking.
Shenhe glanced at her, then nodded. “Yes. You are strong, also. We should spar. Would you like to?”
“No thanks, I’m into boys,” Lumine said flatly, which caused Paimon to let out a gasp, and Aether to choke on the water skin he’d been drinking from.
“Lumine, I-” Aether sputtered.
“Relax, I won’t tell Stelle you’re cheating on her,” Lumine said sweetly.
Shenhe cocked her head to one side. “I do not understand. Two women can spar. I rarely spar with the men and boys of the Crane school. They fear me. Do you fear me?”
That made Lumine angry enough that she stood up, eyes narrowed. “Oh, you’re on, Missy.”
However, it only took Shenhe completely annihilating Lumine by punching her so hard in the chest all the breath came out of her at once to disillusion Lumine of the idea. To her surprise, though, it was Shenhe who declined another bout first.
“Hmm. Your brother is more…interesting…to spar with. I am not sure why. You are also very strong,” Shenhe mused. She nodded. “You also have too much Yang energy, I think. It is not as…complimentary.”
“Uh, wait, isn’t Yang energy the BOY energy!?” Lumine wheezed, struggling to her feet.
“No. I am a woman,” Shenhe said, walking past Lumine. “As are you. Come. We must rise early.”
Lumine muttered something nasty under her breath, but accepted some herbs from Shuyu to chew to ease her aches and pains, then turned in. It was actually much nicer sleeping on a cot, even if Paimon still snored.
They awoke just before dawn the next day, and after a light meal, were on the road again, still tracking where the Cyclists had originated from. Lumine noted that Shehe was trailing behind with Aether, and to her surprise, the other girl was actually talking about herself, at least a little.
“My mother adopted Shuyu and I. She rescued us from bandits who killed our birth parents and trained us. We were originally cousins, Shuyu and I, but close. Mother used to be a crane. Ganyu, a storm spirit. But we are family now.”
“Lumine and I lost our parents, to. Our uncle Welt and Aunt Himeko adopted us when we were so small we don’t remember it. Now we’ve lost even them. That’s why we’re still trying to find a way back to our home…”
“Huh. Shenhe almost never talks to anyone. But especially not a boy. She must really like your brother,” Shuyu giggled to Lumine.
“I don’t suppose you have any tall, hunky brothers, do you?” Lumine whispered back.
“Nope! There are some boys at the Crane School, but they’re all stinky.”
“Boys usually are,” Lumine admitted, then giggled.
They walked and chatted for several hours until they came to a small secluded valley nestled within the foothills. There, they found a very out-of-place compound. Instead of the typical wooden buildings with thatched roofs of this region, they found very modern-looking prefab concrete structures. There were sensors, fences, and soldiers patrolling. They were very nearly found by one patrol with a dog, but Shuyu sensed them coming on the wind, and the group managed to hide with Shenhe obscuring their scent with Cryo energy.
“That doesn’t look like a Cyclist temple,” Lumine muttered from the rocky outcrop they were spying from. She pulled out a pair of binoculars and examined the compound. There were a dozen buildings, with odd machinery that distorted the air. The plants and rocks had all been cleared, but the soil seemed…wrong, somehow. Lumine couldn’t quite place it.
“Whoever they are, they are on Crane School land. This facility has not been here long, or my mother would have spotted it on one of her patrols,” Shenhe said. She pointed. “See, there? That stone has not weathered. It is freshly carved, and the earth is freshly turned over. They have been here only weeks at most.”
“Who are they? Old CUI soldiers?” Aether asked.
“I don’t think so,” Shuyu said with a shake of her head. “They always have junk. This stuff looks super new. I think- Look! A portal!”
Sure enough, a door of some kind opened, and out of it stepped a hideous monster. The thing walked on taloned legs that moved backwards like a bird’s and had great feathers poking out from the white lab coat it wore. The thing carried a clipboard in a human hand, and was with more people in lab coats who seemed to be scientists.
“Whoever they are, they’re up to no good,” Lumine said firmly. She looked to Shuyu and Shenhe. “Do you think the four of us can take them?”
Before the sisters could respond, Paimon let out a whimper. She had her own pair of little binoculars, which she dropped so that they hung from their strap about her neck. The little fairy was visibly shivering, a look of horror on her face.
“Paimon…Paimon knows the bird lady! That…that’s the woman…she put Paimon in the box! She…she did things to Paimon! She hurt the Travelers! We, we have to leave her! That lady is super scary and dangerous!”
“The…Protectorate?” Lumine said, peering over the rock. She hastily ducked back down, frowning. “But what are the Americans doing here, in China?”
“Nothing good,” Shenhe said darkly. “Shuyu. Contact mother. Then we attack. This is Crane School land. These outsiders will not claim it for their own.”
After some rummaging in her pack, Shuyu produced what looked like a crank radio set and wound it up, putting the speaker to her ear. “Mom? Yeah, it’s me. Listen, there’s some Americans here or something. They seem to be behind the Cyclists. Shenhe and I ran into some Travelers who are helping us. They’re pretty good in a fight! We’re going to try to chase the Americans off. Hmm? Yeah, OK.” Shuyu passed the speaker to Shenhe, who held it to her ear.
“Yes? I see. I am not certain. Many. Very well. We will wait.” With that, Shenhe hung up the radio, and Shuyu packed it away.
“Well?” Lumine prompted when no further information was forthcoming.
“Mother is coming with Ganyu and several warriors of the Crane School. She requests we wait. If these are Americans, there will be many of them. We will need our strength to oppose them.”
“Um, isn’t Ganyu a little baby? Should she be fighting?” Paimon asked worriedly.
“She’s a qilin. She can get pretty big if she needs to,” Shuyu said with a grin. “In fact she-”
“Hold on,” Aether said, his voice quiet. He pointed towards the compound. “Something’s happening.”
Lumine watched as the green freak in the lab coat stalked out, followed by half a dozen soldiers in armor with elemental weapons. There were two more soldiers in more specialized gear that had the look of capes to Lumine: one a tall, muscular man with glowing golden eyes, the other a woman with neon blue lines on her skin, both in Protectorate armor.
The green freak gestured in the general direction of where Lumine and the others were hidden, and the soldiers started talking into radios while the two capes began to advance.
“How did they detect us? Don’t tell me you just broadcast in the clear,” Aether groaned, turning to Shuyu.
“No! This isn’t even a real radio, it operates more like a quantum entanglement device by harmonising twinned electro crystals!” the young girl protested.
“We need to move,” Lumine said. “Come on. How long will it take your mother to get here?”
“If she were flying on her own, a few hours. But with others…I’m not sure. Not more than a day?” Shuyu offered.
The group hastily moved away, and just in the nick of time. The two strange capes along with four soldiers were sweeping the area, even as the group snuck further up the back of the hill through thick woods. Lumine had to teleport Aether up the steep slope several times, though Paimon was able to fly herself and light gear up, and Shuyu and Shenhe were able to use their abilities to leap gaps or use the flying swords as hand holds.
“They’re still after us. They’re following us somehow,” Lumine said, using her binoculars to peer back down the slope. The soldiers had found their previous hiding nook, and Lumine saw that they had some sort of handheld devices to scan the area.
“They must be able to detect elemental energy! Darn! Guess that was how they realized I was broadcasting,” Shuyu sighed. “Well, what do we do?”
Lumien glanced up at the sun and estimated how long they’d been running. It was over an hour since Shuyu’s call now, and while their pursuers had a general idea of their direction, there was a vast wilderness around them that was slowing down even the capes that were looking for them.
“We keep moving. Maybe we can buy more time,” Lumine said.
“We could fight them. They do not appear especially strong,” Shenhe opined.
Shuyu shook her head. “Best to wait for mom. Look, there. There’s more soldiers now, and that looks like more capes. And…oh no.”
Lumine put her glasses back to her eyes and growled out a curse. There were small drones and flying capes lifting into the air to aid in the search. “It’s definitely the Protectorate. It’s not the Japanese, and no one else has near this level of tech or this many capes to hand.”
“But why are they even here?!” Paimon squeaked, flitting about in a near panic. “Do you think they’re trying to take Paimon or the Travelers back?! P-Paimon won’t let them hurt her friends again!”
“It must have something to do with those Cyclists,” Aether said, shaking his head. “But no idea what. The only question is how much longer we can play hide and seek.”
They managed to evade both the drones and the flying capes for another 20 minutes, sticking to a heavy boulder field up slope of the facility and hiding in some underhangs. But the Americans seemed to be honing in on them, with their search pattern tightening as they closed in on their prey.
Then, one drone floated down to where Shuyu was hiding on near silent fans. She let out a gasp of startlement, then sent one of her flying swords straight through it, sending the black hovering quadcopter crashing to the gravely ground in two smoking pieces.
“Well, that’s done it. Do we fight, or stall for time?” Lumine asked Shenhe.
“Were I alone, I would simply fight,” the other girl said with a shrug. “However, Shuyu is here, and my mother told us to wait. Stall. I can contain my excess Yang energy for now.”
They all tramped out into the open of the gravel field and glared up at the sky, where three floating capes had congregated. They pointed to the small party, but didn’t approach, merely keeping station as drones buzzed about.
“Well, at least they’re not attacking?” Paimon said nervously, clinging to the back of Lumine’s neck. “M-maybe they’re friendly Americans! W-we met some of those…”
“Not since they became the Hegemony and declared war on the Archons,” Lumine said, watching the floating capes, and keeping her sword loose in its sheath.
After another 15 minutes, there was a loud humming sound, and two large hovering platforms carrying more capes and soldiers floated up from the compound. At the center of one was the green thing, which Lumine now saw was female. She had on glasses, and her lips were thinned into a frown as though this were all a tremendous waste of time.
The platforms touched down, and the soldiers fanned out. Shuyu and Shenhe went back to back with Lumine and Aether, the whimpering Paimon trying to be brave, but holding tightly to Lumine still.
“Well, you don’t appear to be more of those Cyclists. A pity. We only captured six of them,” the green haired woman said in English. “Well, what are you? Someone get me a translator! I doubt these bumpkins can speak english.”
“P-Paimon can too speak english! S-she’s the b-bestest travel guide on Earth Bet! A-and she’s not afraid of you!” Paimon piped up.
The green harpy lady’s eyebrows rose. “Well, that simplifies things. Surrender now. This is a restricted facility.”
Paimon hastily translated her words, and Shenhe stepped forward, glaring at the monster woman. “This is Crane School territory! Depart now!”
“Shenhe…we need to be diplomatic. Let me talk,” Shuyu urged before Paimon could translate.
Shenhe grimaced, but nodded, stepping back. Shuyu stepped forward, with Paimon floating at her side. She bowed formally, fist pressed to palm. “Greetings. I am Xianyun Shuyu. On behalf of my mother, Xianyun Shouyang, I thank you for dealing with the vile Cyclists. May we ask who it is that visits Crane School lands?”
“Crane school? We’re two hundred miles from that jumped up stork and her little wuxia cult,” the green haired woman muttered. Paimon whispered the response to Shuyu, but Shenhe clearly heard as well and glared daggers at the monster woman.
“This is a restricted facility,” the woman repeated. “Surrender, and you will be treated with respect. Answer our questions, and we may let you depart once you’ve undergone decon protocols.”
“Decon protocols? That doesn’t make any sense,” Aether muttered.
One of the soldiers with symbols that marked him as a sergeant of some sort approached the green woman and whispered, “Director Meliton, those three are escaped test subjects from the Madison facility. They’re classified as highly valuable and recapture is a high priority. We’d thought they’d been killed.”
“Oh, really?” Meliton said, a grin spreading on her face. “Then this negotiation is pointless. Take them. Alive, if possible. If not…I get to practice my Prometheus protocols.”
“ATTACK!” Lumine bellowed in Mandarin as soon as she heard what Honey had to say. Shenhe didn’t have to be told twice.
“CAST ASIDE ALL BONDS! LET LOOSE THE INNER DEMON!” Shenhe roared, as the red ropes that bound her waist flew off, as a red aura of horrifying bloodlust suddenly emanated from Shenhe so strongly that Lumine immediately teleported into the nearest group of soldiers and began laying with her sword. Despite its godforged nature, the blade met some resistance from the soldier’s armor, which sparked purple and let out wisps of evil feeling miasma as the divine blade bit into the gear.
The temperature plummeted, and as Lumine teleported out before her opponents could respond, she saw half a dozen icy clones of Shenhe engaging the Americans. Shenhe herself was battling Director Meliton with two of her clones, and Lumine was confident the scientist would go down soon. Aether was using his spear with one hand and flicking ball bearings at the enemy with the other, each of the metal balls impacting like it had been fired from a rail cannon and blowing off limbs or pulping torsos.
Shuyu had lifted off into the air, her four flying swords striking out at drones and flying capes as she kicked with the force of a gale, shattering bones and sending her foes flying.
For her part, Paimon was cowering in the lee of a rock and trying to stay out of the fighting as best she could, though she did throw some small rocks at a soldier who threatened to flank Aether. She had the spirit, if not the fighting capability.
Lumine flashed to her brother’s side and dispatched the soldier trying to come at him from the rear, then teleported into two more capes that were trying to go to the Director’s aid. It took nearly half a minute of furious blows to lay them low, but Lumine’s erratic teleporting and Origin Bladework gave her the edge even over trained Protectorate parahumans.
“SHENHE!” Shuyu screamed, and Lumine turned. The bloodlust on the battlefield was suddenly snuffed out, and Lumine watched as Shenhe topped over, a dozen green quills embedded in her, dark wounds pouring blood on her chest and back.
“Hmm. Remarkably powerful. You’ll be quite useful once properly programmed,” Director Melition mused. There was a snap boom, and Lumine expected to see the woman sliced in two from Aether’s spear. Instead, she lifted one taloned foot, and caught the spear, examining it curiously. “God forged. How interesting. I will enjoy analyzing this.”
“LUMINE! GET SHENHE OUT OF THERE!” Aether snarled, clenching his fist and yanking the spear from Meliton’s talons.
Lumine quickly teleported in and grabbed Shenhe’s unconscious body, even as Aether and Shuyu leaped in. Shuyu took a quill to the arm and let out a cry of pain, but used her flying swords to create enough space for her and Lumine to withdraw. Aether tried to do the same, but a sudden vortex of dark mist enveloped him, and he cried out in pain.
“I didn’t have the opportunity to study you before, but if you were at the Madison facility, you’re valuable indeed,” Meliton mused, crocking her talons and drawing a struggling Aether closer.
“AETHER!” Lumine wailed, and tried to teleport, only for obscuring purple haze to fill the air. She coughed and tried to wave it away, but with her vision blocked, she couldn’t use her powers! She couldn’t see more than a few meters in front of her! “AETHER! PAIMON!”
“P-Paimon is here!” the little fairy gasped. She extended her hands, and a silvery bubble formed around Lumine, Shuyu, and the unconscious Shenhe, pushing back the purple mist. All around them, however, soldiers and Protectorate capes closed in, with no sign of the Director or Lumine’s brother.
An elemental rifle barked, and pain exploded in Lumine’s leg. She went down on one knee, gasping in agony, her left calf a mess of blood and bone.
“Careful, Director wants them alive,” a soldier barked, but the others continued to close in. Shuyu desperately tried to use her flying sword, but one was snatched from the air by a cape and crushed, while Shuyu had to dodge away from more bullets.
Lumine thought she heard her brother’s cry of agony on the wind, and tried to teleport, but she couldn’t go more than a few feet. She took two quick blows that nearly knocked her senseless, and blindly leaped back to the safety of Paimon’s shrinking bubble.
“P-Paimon is trying to, to save her friends, b-but…Paimon isn’t strong enough!” the little fairy blubbered.
“I…I’m sorry, Paimon. I’m not strong enough either,” Lumine gasped, her vision swimming. She could feel blackness closing in, and knew she was close to passing out from pain and blood loss. For some reason, she thought she heard the sound of an old car horn, as a wind began to stir.
What looked like an old Jeep dove out of the sky in an explosion of energy, and Lumine was flung to the ground. She hit her head, and saw stars, then blackness.
How long Lumine was out, she didn’t know. She wandered through dark fog, trying to scream her brother’s name, but her voice was so hoarse, she couldn’t make a sound. She searched and searched, but there was nothing but despair.
Then, at last, a silver light. An angel with silver wings and flowing white hair found Lumine just as her strength left her, and lifted her up in gentle arms. “I shall ever be your guide. No matter how treacherous the path, or how perilous the journey. I am with you, Lumine, to the end. No matter where this journey leads us.”
Lumine tried to speak, but couldn’t. She had no strength, and closed her eyes. This time, however, her mind was able to rest, and her sleep was untroubled.
At last, the waking world returned to Lumine. She struggled to open her crusty eyes, and found herself lying under a thick wool blanket sewn in bright colors. Her throat felt cracked and as dry as sandpaper, and she tried to lift her hand, but managed no more than a finger twitch.
That was enough. Someone had been sleeping on Lumine’s bed, clutching her hand tightly. When her finger twitched, Paimon stirred, then instantly floated up, tears in her eyes. “Traveler! You’re awake! Oh, Paimon was so worried! Are you OK!? What do you need?! Paimon can get you anything!”
“W-a…w…a…t…” Lumine croaked, but could manage no more.
Paimon however understood, and quickly picked up a nearby cup. Instead of pouring it down Lumine’s throat as she wanted, Paimon only dribbled a few drops at a time into her mouth.
“Paimon is sorry, but, the Traveler has been asleep for almost three days. She…she was hurt very badly. We almost didn’t make it. Aether…Aether…” Paimon sniffled and started to cry, setting the cup down and clinging tightly to Lumine.
For her part, Lumien could only lay there, stunned. Aether…her brother…her twin. They’d never been apart for more than a day or two for their entire lives. She couldn’t…they couldn’t be separated now. It was impossible! And yet, somehow…Lumine knew.
Aether was gone. And it would be a very long time before Lumine ever saw him again. If she ever saw him again.
After several hours of Paimons careful ministrations of some herbal teas and broth a drop or three at a time, Lumine was able to sit up and speak a few words. She only asked if Shenhe and Shuyu were alright, and Paimon hastily assured Lumine that both girls had survived, though Shenhe was badly hurt and still bedridden, while Shuyu was also injured, but in good spirits.
Lumine slept again, and when she awoke, she had another visitor. A stately looking woman with grease under her fingernails and glasses on her nose was examining Lumine with medical precision, a floating metallic crane by her head.
“Ah, you are awake, child. One wishes to extend one’s gratitude for your efforts in preserving the lives of one’s daughters. And…to extend one’s most sincere grief at the loss of your brother.”
“C-Cloud Retainer?” Lumine asked hopefully.
The woman gave Lumine a motherly smile, and adjusted her glasses. “Yes, though you have earned the right to simply refer to this one as Xianyun. You have saved that which one holds dearest. That is a debt one can never repay.”
Lumine nodded slowly, then licked her lips nervously. “My…my brother…the ones who took him…they were…”
“Americans,” Xianyun said, disgust in her voice. “They have departed. When one arrived alone upon one’s mechanical conveyance, one simply rescued the two stray children and one’s daughters. When one returned with the full might of the Crane School to vent one’s wrath upon them, not a trace remained. The buildings were gone, and the people fled. The only thing that lingers there is…”
Xianyun hesitated, and Lumine leaned forward. “Did you find traces of Aether?”
“No, child,” Xianyun said softly, real pity in her eyes. She reached out and gently squeezed Lumine’s hand. “One found demons. The Abyss has taken root in that valley. Whatever those Americans were doing there…it may be worse even than the horrors the Cyclists perpetuate. I am sorry. It…it may be best to hope that your brother is dead.”
“No! He can’t be! I refuse to believe it!” Lumine gasped, then flopped back on the bed, spent.
Xianyun gave Lumine a pained smile, and sat at her bedside, holding her hand. After long minutes, Lumine began to cry softly, and Xianyun simply reached out, stroking Lumine’s hair with one hand and drying her tears with the other, the way her aunt Himiko had done when Lumine was a little girl.
At last, when Lumine’s tears were spent, Xianyun fed her some broth, then tucked her back in. “Rest now, child. One will be here when you wake.”
With that, Xianyun turned to go.
“Madam Cloud Retainer?” Lumine whispered.
Xianyun half-turned, a look of concern on her face. “Yes, child?”
“Will…will you teach me to be strong? Like…like your daughters? So that…so that I can find my brother again?”
The leader of the Crane school’s expression hardened, and she nodded. “Yes. This one will teach all the Cultivation techniques that one knows to you, child. The Americans shall learn that to invade one's nest and threaten one's chicks is to court death. They shall pay dearly for harming you, and your brother.”
Lumine nodded gratefully and passed back into sleep.
But not for too long. As soon as she could stand, Lumine began a vigorous regimen of elixirs, pills, and intensive training with Shenhe that pushed her mind and body to their limits. It was dangerous and painful, but Lumine endured, even the near beatings Shenhe gave her daily.
Somehow, she would become strong enough. She would find her brother. And she would take him back.
They would be reunited.