♫ The bonds tested ♪
♪ By this sword wind won’t... ♫
♫ Be broken again! ♪
The Forsaken Belt barely has any roads still, as such, the term Blazer still holds strongly to its original meaning.
♫ In the midst of raging time ♪
♪ You carry with you ♫
♫Power by providence trusted upon ♪
And currently, an all-terrain auto was making its way through the plains. With an observant redhead on its roof, a melodious voice to its right, a priceless relic on the back, and a bombshell with sunglasses to its left as the driver.
♫ Pushing through ♪
♪ Carrying through ♫
♫ Is pure proof of your life! ♪
Turns out that the real reason they got delayed a couple of days was because Regina managed to procure the vehicle and the rest of the supplies were being transported with it. By which point the Committee receptionist handling her requests had given up on applying logic to the woman in front of them.
♫ Hollow claws rend light and dark ♪
♪ Casting away ♫
♫ The myriad shades of upcoming fate ♪
With the nice weather and Carmen seemingly improvising lyrics to a classical composition that filled in the radiocast’s dead time, it was easy to forget for a moment that the trio was not, in fact, on a pleasure trip.
♫ Gathering up... ♪
♪ In the distant void ♫
♫ Once again… ♪
“Wooo!” Regina pumped the arm she rested casually by the window after Carmen finished, and Enio’s polite but enthusiastic clapping could be heard from upwards.
I remember wanting to learn singing but they insisted I learn dancing instead.
“Thank you, thank you…” Carmen bowed her head in appreciation, her penchant for showmanship briefly overriding her concern that she felt the presence of someone else aside from Enio and Regina.
I like dancing, at least… or I did when I had a body with legs.
The radio kept on droning with more ambient music. The Station 24 antenna only broadcasts warnings and the like, so most of it was filled with the sort of music they teach in stuck up music classes.
Oh, I remember trying to learn this one in synthographone as a kid…!
The suspension of the auto was shockingly good, so much so that after singing, Carmen briefly dozed off leaning on the open window, as much from the crisp sun and cool breeze as it was from the surroundings blending together hypnotically.
“Where are we heading?” She finally asked after a while, stifling a yawn.
“Open the compartment in front of you and get the map.”
Carmen did so and she found a small folder with neatly printed but haphazardly scribbled papers.
The first was a very zoomed out view of the Forsaken Belt. At one end there were different circles and numbers within those circles that felt indecipherable.
“That’s our end goal… or rather the starting point of our end goal.” Regina explained, stealing a quick look before returning her eyes to the road “Landmass F-T235-HW… roughly meaning Forsaken Belt, 235th major landmass, barely explored and high risk.”
Carmen started going through the other papers and they looked like a more zoomed in approximation with notes like “Volcanic snowfield”, “Cave system”, “Dense forest”, and “The one with the ‘ghosts’”.
“Those are points of interest on the way.” Regina explained “There’s a bigger map on the trunk, but it’s good to have these smaller references at hand.”
Carmen’s eyes glazed over a little until she saw one point marked “Station 24”. There was a general route and at the end of it there was another point called “Station 46”.
“That’s our first major stop.” Regina added “We’re gonna need to take a transport from there to Station 46-b which is where our search will properly begin. But it’s about a week or so away with non-stop driving and we might take a bit longer than that.”
“46-b…” Carmen muttered, annoyed.
“A station is an administrative element, so there’s a couple of them divided with letters to indicate they’re the same jurisdiction but different physical points.”
“Are we going straight there?” Carmen asked to push away her growing annoyance with naming conventions.
“No, I have mapped a couple of stops on the way, including settlements I was asked to check on while I’m here. And to refuel both the auto and us” Regina rested her face on her free hand “If everything goes well, we’ll arrive at Forlorn Wheel, the first one, by lunchtime tomorrow.”
“What a name…”
Knock knock…
Before Carmen could ask anything else, a knock came from the roof.
“Alright! I’m stopping so be ready!”
Eek!
Regina pushed the brakes and while she and Carmen were pushed forwards but stopped by their seatbelts, Enio used the momentum to jump forwards.
“What did they see?” Carmen asked.
“Oh, there’s a rusher there…” Regina replied.
Rushers are a subspecies of Frolicker that can be best described as “a bodybuilder frolicker”. They’re just as suicidally dumb but they might actually survive their reckless antics.
Enio approached it cautiously but it was clear that the quadruped chose violence from the moment they smelled a human. At that moment, Enio started circling it so that if it started running it wouldn’t aim for the vehicle the others were in.
“Should we help them…?” Carmen ventured.
“Help?” Regina let out a laugh “Princess, you’re about to see a spectacle very few get to see nowadays.”
The rusher charged at Enio and Carmen didn’t finish covering her face in horror when she realized that she saw something wrong, the rusher hadn’t hit Enio at all even though Enio didn’t move at all.
“Eh?”
“And that’s all it takes.” Regina sounded delighted. “If you’re gonna hit a Meriem Knight you better not miss ‘cause you won’t get a second chance.”
The rusher turned 180 degrees suddenly mid-charge and aimed for Enio again. At that moment, the patterns in Enio’s suit turned from gold to red and they grabbed the rusher by the neck. They then used the momentum of the charge to spin around while holding the rusher.
One revolution… two… by the third they let go, sending the rusher flying.
The action was surprisingly gentle, however. Or as gentle as it can be given the circumstances. As the patterns in their suit went from red back to gold, Enio looked in the direction of the rusher who had decided this human wasn’t worth the effort and ran away.
“Prosperity through discipline…” Regina chuckled “Meriemites don’t leave anything mid-meal.”
“What… what happened, exactly?” Carmen asked, still baffled.
“The Meriem combat style is all about economy.” Regina explained “No wasted movements, no wasted energy. Analyze your opponent quickly and make every single hit count.”
By then Enio had arrived by the auto and Regina extended her fist towards them.
“Been a while since I’ve seen a Meriem knight in all its glory, thanks for the show.”
Enio hesitated for a moment. As far as they were concerned that was a poor display. Their superiors would’ve thrown the beast in a single spin, their teachers wouldn’t have needed a second charge from the beast…
Just take the blasted compliment you stubborn loader!
Enio shrugged, let out the smallest of exhaled laughs and reciprocated Regina’s fistbump.
“Please lift the Pri-… the Original Sin back onto the seat.” Enio pointed out in their quiet whisper voice.
“Already on it!” Carmen exclaimed, having turned back and lifting the relic back into the backseat.
“My most sincere thanks…” Enio added before gently jumping back into the roof.
“They don’t say a word and when they do they sound like a rustin’ letter to his blasted majesty’s court.” Regina turned to Carmen “Are you done?”
“Almost…” Carmen then finished tying the seatbelts onto it “Done! I’m still shocked at how light it is…”
Enio says the same, I think I’m light because I want to be light, because I remember hearing the relic used to be really heavy.
“…want… because…?” Carmen mumbled confused.
EH?!! You can hear me?!!
“Hear? Hear wha-AAAAAAAAAAAH!!”
Carmen’s sudden attempts at trying to decipher what she was hearing were interrupted by an even more sudden jolt of Regina accelerating.
“You okay, princess?”
“I’m fine.” Carmen grumbled.
“…are you really?”
“I am…” Carmen relented, realizing Regina didn’t have much fault in the matter “Just a bit shaken, that’s all.”
“…just for the sake of clarity…” Regina ventured “I may be talented and gifted in plenty of fields but perception is not one of them.”
“No way…” Carmen replied flatly, her voice filled with sarcasm.
“I’ll allow you the jab because you are, in fact, markedly more perceptive than I am. I would trust your gut feeling over my own senses without a doubt.” Regina said with her usual blunt sincerity “But amongst my many talents I am a quick learner and I’ve chewed mud on more things than you.”
No jab from Carmen, she knew this to be true.
“MY. POINT. IS!” Regina exclaimed, slapping the steering wheel with each word “If I don’t catch something it’s not malice, let me know so I can learn.”
Carmen couldn’t deny this.
In the short time she’s known Regina she went from aiming guns her way and going berserk on Enio to being open about everything and clearly making an effort to not be so… eccentric with them. She wasn’t really vulnerable, necessarily, but Carmen should clearly give her more credit.
“I will…” Carmen replied finally “But this time things are actually fine.”
Night fell and everyone decided to stop and camp for the day.
“Come on, I can-”
“Princess, this isn’t me looking down upon you, there’s just no need for it.”
As preparations were being made, the topic of who would keep guard came up and Carmen was immediately left out as an option, to which she protested.
“Up until a few weeks ago you were living a normal life” Regina continued “It’s not that I don’t think you capable, in fact, if you keep guard all you have to do is knock when you see something and I’ll jump into action. But the point here is that we’re here for the long run and there’s no need to exhaust you so early.”
Carmen knew, intellectually, that Regina wasn’t talking her down, that this wasn’t like her soft hands comment at Station 24. But the fact that she couldn’t help in this situation still annoyed her.
“Besides, after today you’re gonna be my copilot more than ever.”
Regina said this while pointing at the roof.
Their current setup was that Regina and Carmen would sleep inside the auto, with the seats reclined horizontally fully; while Enio kept guard on the roof. However, after today they decided it’d be wise for Enio to sleep in the back while they kept driving.
Enio as the night shift, Regina as the driver. This is why Carmen felt left out without any explicit task, being told she can take it easy.
“What kind of thing might try to get us all the way out here, though?”
“There’s a couple of Blazers that think they’re above the law while here, but by volume and chances I’d worry more about wildlife.” Regina stretched and peeked Carmen’s way, who was facing the door while under her blanket “The fauna isn’t really used to humans yet so we might have a charger that thinks the auto is just a really weird rival charger in their territory.”
“…we really are just invading virgin lands, huh…”
“Not just here, frolickers aren’t as suicidally dumb back in Valvion.” Regina paused for a fraction of a moment “I mean, they’re dumb, just not suicidal… not as much at least.”
“That’s… a lot…” Carmen said, getting overwhelmed.
“What? The frolickers being smarter?”
“No, like… the idea that we’re so alien to this land that the animals are still coming to terms with us…”
“We ARE aliens, Princess. We’re a species from a planet whose exact name has caused at least two schisms trying to figure out. Our generational spaceship crashed here and it just so happened that it was somehow inhabitable.”
“I mean, yeah…”
“Honestly, if what the planets said is true -and I’ve got very little reason to doubt it so far-, we’re lucky we’re the only thing with our level of intelligence in the whole belt. The idea of all the nonsense humans do AND politics with some sort of native people gives me headaches…”
“How does one come to terms with that sort of thing, though…? The part where we’re basically invading, I mean…”
“Can’t say I’ve got an answer, and I for certain don’t have YOUR answer.” Regina yawned and turned her back to Carmen “But that mess is bigger than either of us, we’re just caught in the motion of a machine that’s been moving for 600 years before any of us was born.”
“…”
“You just… try to not make a mess… and leave the place nicer than when you came…”
After a few moments Carmen could sense Regina breathing slower as she fell asleep. At that moment Carmen laid on her back staring at the ceiling of the oddly spacious auto.
Her head was spinning with so much thirst for information. The idea that humans are still alien to the belt, frolickers being different in Valvion; she was also wondering if the Archivum might have some novel about people finding out other higher intelligences in the belt, that definitely sounded like something that exists.
After a while all these questions and ideas became noise, but in the middle of all the noise once bit kept floating to the surface.
“We’re just caught in a machine that’s been moving for 600 years…” she mouthed quietly while turning to face the door again “Just try to not make a mess and leave the place nicer than when you came…”
As she drifted into sleep, Carmen hoped she’d get more of the Regina that said things like that.
“Oh! A Seeker!”
“Where?” Regina exclaimed, slowing the auto down and looking around.
“No, not on the road…” Carmen added blushing slightly in embarrassment.
“Where then?” Regina added accelerating the car again.
Carmen pointed with her thumb to the backseat, where Enio slept placidly while hugging the Original Sin.
“I was just trying to remember what Enio reminds me of.”
“And they remind you of a seeker…?” Regina asked with a shocking lack of sarcasm or irony in her voice.
“Kinda?” Carmen looked out the window as if she was embarrassed she even thought about pursuing this line of thinking “Ever since I first saw them in Station 51 they’ve given me this vibe of like… one those really big family seekers that are more hair than animal”
Hahahaha! You’re not wrong about that!
“…hm?”
“I said…” Regina repeated, snapping Carmen out of her distraction “What do I remind you of, then?”
Carmen laid her head on her hand and thought for the briefest of moments before saying.
“A scavenger.”
Regina chuckled, and Carmen continued.
“Specifically this one scavenger in Station 35 that likes to bring things to Tia but makes angry cawing noises at her mom.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment, believe it or not…” Regina then noticed something in front of them “Ah, we’ve arrived.”
Carmen peered ahead and noticed the small settlement.
It was an interesting architecture to her, something about the way the houses and facilities were placed looked ramshackle, improvised, but the material they were made out of wasn’t the same flimsy wood that the Western Belt’s settlements used, it looked more… scientific, deliberate.
“I have a friend that really likes architecture, it’s her hobby…” Regina explained as if sensing what Carmen was interested in “She explained to me that in those circles they call this sort of thing ‘third wave frontier style’”
“Third?” Carmen asked “I don’t know what that means but I know I’d expect ‘second’ at least, not ‘third’”
“Yeah, I said the same thing!” Regina added with a chuckle “If I understand right, ‘first wave’ is the more scientific outposts like Station 1 or Station 24, then came ‘second wave’ which was people improvising with whatever materials they had around.”
“So I’m guessing ‘third wave’ means ramshackle and improvised but with more advanced materials?”
“There’s apparently some minor infighting with architecture historians about what constitutes each wave specifically with some arguing this still counts as second wave.”
“That sounds exhausting…”
“Pencilpushers are an exhausting lot” Regina added as if conceding something “I should know, people forget that underneath all of this hotness I am, in fact, still as much of an insufferable pencilpusher as those types”
The auto slowed until it stopped a few meters away from the entrance of the town.
“Alright! Let’s go and stretch our legs.”
After saying this Regina was about to turn around and wake Enio up, but Enio wasn’t just already up but had also walked out and was opening Carmen’s door for her.
“I’d expect no less from a knight…” Regina mused to herself while waiting for Enio to get to her door and not deny them the pleasantry.
Forlorn Wheel felt slightly off to Enio and Carmen, but especially off to Regina.
Normally these sorts of settlements are supporting the exploration of the belt, providing food, fuel, and shelter for a price. Regina expected surprised faces because she assumed the locals would be used to a crowd of regulars from Station 24, Station 46, and Station 58; perhaps even excitement at having business to do. But their reaction felt… wrong, not wrong as in suspicious but wrong the way an answer to a question is wrong.
Carmen, meanwhile, noticed things with more granularity but less context. She saw locals be wary, or wary and then relieved which would be par for the course, but in some she sensed… hope? For what?
Enio for their part, being more logistically-minded than a people person, noticed how desolate things felt despite the settlement being fairly crowded for its size. Like everyone kept to their corner and mingling was at a minimum.
They all got their answer the moment they stepped into the local restaurant.
The inside was full of a rowdy crowd of Blazers that went dead silent the moment the three stepped through the door.
The tension in the air was so thick that you could slice through it with your finger.
“Looks like the sanhounds brought us a bimbo looking for a good time, huh?” A burly man with a poorly shaven beard and a receding hairline said while approaching Regina with swagger.
“Yes!” Regina replied as if seeking to one-up his swagger “But this bimbo isn’t gonna have a good time nowhere near all of you stinky miscreants”
“Oh, babe’s got a tongue! You better watch how you use it though, or-”
The poorly shaven man stopped when he heard familiar grunts from one of his lackeys. He peeked behind Regina only to see “Chomperfin” visibly struggling and flailing his arms as he tried to grab a hold of Enio only to seemingly grab empty air as Enio, without even looking their way, kept evading them with so little movement that it felt as if Chomperfin was swiping at a hologram.
Then, from the corner of his eye the poorly shaven man caught a glimpse of “Donnie” trying to grab hold of Carmen, focusing right on time to hear her say.
“Don’t touch me.”
ZAP
She said this almost in a disinterested whisper but it was heard as if from a megaphone, and no sooner had the words registered when Donnie was repelled by red lightning surrounding Carmen and pushing him back.
At this point the poorly shaven man felt something cold under his chin and heard the familiar, metallic cocking of a gun.
“What’s your name, friend?” Regina told him slowly.
“Marco.” He grunted, the pressure of the gun shutting his jaw shut.
“Alright Porco” Regina replied, mishearing his name “I’m gonna have to ask you very politely to leave this establishment with all of your friends.”
“Or else what?” Marco dared Regina while keeping eye contact as if daring her to look away.
Regina didn’t say a word and reached into one of her pockets with her free hand. Enio, noticing this, walked away from Chomperfin still trying to grab them and quickly told Carmen…
“Miss Carmine, please hold your breath, grit your teeth, and cover your ears.”
Carmen obeyed and no sooner had her jaw locked in place when…
FSHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIN!
Regina activated… something from her pocket, producing a brief but powerful screeching sound that paralyzed everyone not prepared and even breaking a couple of the glasses closest to it.
In the confusion, Regina spun around and behind Marco with pain still visible in her face and kicked him squarely in the back, sending him flying out of the restaurant.
The locals who first gathered near the restaurant out of concern for the outsiders and then from the ungodly noise, got there just in time to see Marco flying out and rolling a couple of meters on the gravel in the ground.
No sooner had they parsed this and they saw all the other Blazers following Marco being thrown out of the place, but compared to Marco they were being thrown in a… gentler manner, some even landed on their feet! But even those that didn’t, landed on their ass at worst.
By the time the seventh member of the group had been forcibly expelled from the establishment, Marco was on his feet ready to run back in when he heard another loud noise followed by something grazing his cheek.
The noise repeated twice more with others from his group groaning and shrieking in shock or surprise.
He looked up and saw Enio gently throwing out the last straggler while Regina held her still smoking gun aimed at them all.
“Or else we’ll have to be very rude about it.” Regina said as if replying to a conversation that never really stopped.
“You whore, we’ll be back!” Marco said walking out with everyone else following behind him.
Everyone was ready to breathe a sigh of relief when an alarmed voice came from behind them.
“WHAT DID YOU DO?!!” Came the owner of the restaurant, screaming “NOW THEY’RE ANGRY AND THEY’LL BE BACK WITH WEAPONS, AND…”
“Will they now?” Regina said in a voice that was low but full of enough strength to quiet the hysteric owner down “Then we’ll just wait for them to arrive.”
Regina and Enio stood by the door of the restaurant as if being bouncers, prompting the owner after half a minute of stillness to go back in, cursing them under their breath.
Carmen, meanwhile, just stood by them for a moment.
Enio was standing in perfect parade rest like nothing had happened. Regina meanwhile, was playing it cool but was clearly trying to be discreet about the self-inflicted pain from her sonic bomb device.
“So we’re doing this…” Carmen said, more baffled than exasperated.
“Well, we are…” Regina said casually including Enio and herself, her voice loud as if to hear herself over the ringing in her ears “You can go rest on the auto if-”
“WE are doing this.” Carmen replied, cutting Regina off as she stepped back into the restaurant.
“WHY ARE YOU HERE?! HAVEN’T YOU CAUSED-”
“Shut up.”
ZAP
The owner went quiet after Carmen told him to shut up and a warning lightning hit the counter breaking another glass.
Paying no mind to the damage or the owner’s face, Carmen grabbed two chairs with one hand, one chair with the hand that also holds her Fonologium, and went back out again.
Despite their vehement insistence of staying in place while they waited for “Porco” to come back, the travelling trio eventually conceded to the hospitality of the locals.
They were having a very belated lunch inside the house of Tomás, one of the first settlers and de facto mayor of Forlorn Wheel. Though the occasion was attended by other locals that were curious about the travellers or just wanted to show their gratitude for giving the rowdy blazers a good scare.
“Mr. Tomás, if you’d allow me a question-” Carmen started saying before getting interrupted.
“Please, your highness. No need to be so formal, just ‘Tomás’ is fine.”
“Then you must call me Carmen and nothing more. I can’t allow dispensing with titles to be a one-sided affair, can I?”
Oh wow…
While Tomás got taken aback by this show of perceived humility, Enio and Regina couldn’t hide a smile at how snappy-yet-dignified Carmen came across in that instant.
“You’re absolutely right yo-… err… Carmen. What did you want to ask?”
Carmen finished taking a sip of juice before talking.
“What motivated you to come all the way here and settle Forlorn Wheel?”
Tomás looked around the dining room full of familiar faces before continuing.
“Well, I know at least all of us here just wanted to help in making history… and if we got a bit of land while at it we wouldn’t complain.”
This comment lead to nodding heads and a couple of giggles from the other settlers in the room.
“All of us here…” Enio said so quietly that Tomás didn’t hear it.
That’s quite the operative phrase there, yeah…
“So what’s the deal with Porco and his lackeys, then?” Regina asked while putting aside a napkin.
Tomás mouthed “Porco…?” in confusion before the word “lackeys” gave him the context he needed.
“They’re fortune seekers that haven’t found said fortune and have grown frustrated.” He finally replied.
“Many such cases…” Regina added “Gotta say, I’m really curious to know where the name of the settlement came from”
“So when we found this area and gave our notice to settle, there was actually already an old tire in the area” A man in his 30s, Rowan, interjected “Apparently an expedition’s auto just had it loose.”
“It’s not just that it got loose!” A slightly younger man, Jean, apparently Rowan’s romantic partner added “It happened quite a while into the main road, the tire just traveled uninterrupted like ten parcubes and only stopped because it hit the tree we saw it near.”
“How… do you know all this?” Carmen asked intrigued.
“Oh!” Jean exclaimed before continuing “That’s because when the committee officer came to check the area and we explained the name came from this tire we saw, the officer went ‘So THAT’S where the bastard ended up at…’”
Huh…
“Huh…” exclaimed Regina and Carmen in unison while Enio let out a small, amused giggle.
Night arrived and the three travellers were making a small camp in what amounted to the settlement’s square.
As Tomás explained they sadly didn’t have any inns they could stay in because the research caravans only stopped for refueling and supplies so the need just hadn’t come through.
They did, however, let them use the space and not only provided supplies and a campfire, but someone present in the dinner eagerly pointed out they had drained and cleaned the outhouse just for them.
The three sat quietly by the fire, but Regina out of all of them was particularly lost in thought.
“Alright, when are you gonna share what’s on your mind?” Carmen finally said out loud.
“Take a guess what I’m thinking about.” Regina told her with a smile.
Carmen groaned but obliged, going through everything that happened in the day in her head. There was one minor “inconsistency” that kept cropping up, it was minor, insignificant, but something told her that’s the sort of thing Regina would be bothered by.
“What was that group of Blazers anyways?” Carmen said more to herself than as a reply to Regina “The restaurant guy was the only one worried today about any repercussions from them.”
Regina snapped her fingers and pointed at Carmen as if indicating she got the answer right.
“‘All of us here just wanted to help in making history’” Enio repeated quoting Tomás earlier in the day “I assume we didn’t have the whole settlement in that room today, but the restaurateur was amongst the ones absent”.
Regina, again, snapped her fingers and pointed towards Enio indicating that they got things right too.
“Good, we’re all on the same page.” She finally exclaimed, her eyes still lost somewhere between the fire and the horizon.
“So what do you think is going on?” Carmen asked.
“I don’t know, I just noticed the same thing as you two.” Regina laid back, looking at the dark green sky “I suspect we’ll get our answers tomorrow.”
“Yeah, Porco and his lackeys probably took him.”
The next morning the whole settlement was bustling as apparently Phido, the owner of the restaurant they entered yesterday, was nowhere to be found.
Regina made that assertion more as if throwing a theory at the wall to see if it stuck and if the reaction of the settlers was anything to go by, it didn’t just stick to the wall, it broke a hole through it.
“Long overdue if you ask me” A woman in her 40s, Mona, interjected.
“What’s Phido’s story?” Carmen asked, pre-empting Regina on the query.
“He came later after the settlement was set up, he had all those Blazers with him then” Mona continued “They built his restaurant. He told them he’d pay them when his business bustled. Didn’t count on Forlorn Wheel being at most a supply stop.”
“Some people don’t learn…” Now it was Mona’s husband, Rolo who spoke while cradling their baby son “You’d think forty something years of things happening in the Western Belt would’ve set proper expectations but you still see some poor strays that come here thinking ‘yeah, but the forsaken belt will be different!’”
I wonder what brought these people here, then?
“What brought you specifically here?” Surprisingly, it was Enio that asked this.
“Making history!” Tomás who came back from checking the inside of the restaurant once again said in a tone that was clearly more of an inside joke “I cannot talk about other settlements, but aside from Phido and two others, we all came from Station 29.”
Enio tilted their head in confusion, but Regina took over to explain.
“Station 29 has grown to be one of the most high-class areas of the Western Belt due to its prime location.” She shrugged and continued “So in recent years it’s gotten gentrified to Mothership and back.”
“It’s not easy…” Rolo conceded while handing his kid to his wife “But it’s a good life we’ve been carving here.”
“What do we do about Phido, however…” Tomás wondered out loud.
“Leave that to us.” Carmen said in advance of either Enio or Regina.
Regina conceded that she was going to suggest that anyways, but then her concern for Carmen getting into trouble resurfaced… but so did Headmaster Clint’s advice that trying to hold Carmen back like that would only result in her wanting to prove her wrong.
“We’ll take care of it.” Regina added, patting Carmen in the shoulder in approval.
In the outskirts of Forlorn Wheel, on a small shack hidden along the trees, nature got some very loud visitors.
“HEY PORCO COME OUT TO PLAY!!!”
Marco and his gang didn’t waste time with threats, half of them were readying their firearms when-…
“STOP!!”
ZZZZZZZZAP!!
With Carmen’s shouting, red lightning hit them, and when they flinched Enio and Regina swept in to separate them from their weapons.
Then, chaos broke loose.
Some of them were prepared with their own weapons they hadn’t taken out yet and Enio made sure the weapons were out of their hands, some tried to use improvised weapons and were rewarded with Regina playing with even dirtier tactics, a few stubborn ones tried to recover their firearms and were met with more red lightning strikes from Carmen.
This continued for a few seconds, perhaps even one or two minutes, before it hit the turning point.
“Shut up you freaky bitch!”
It all started when Marco, unaccounted for, snuck in the middle of the chaos and tried to shut Carmen up by covering her mouth with his hand.
He overpowered her easily, shutting her up with one hand and trying to get her to drop her Fonologium.
“Mph…!”
In that instant, Enio grew frustrated at being stuck in a struggle with three of the Blazers, unable to disengage properly with them to assist her.
“Mmmph…!”
In that instant, Regina was ready to take drastic measures and transform into her alloyed form if it meant helping Carmen.
“Mmmmmmph…!”
In that instant, Carmen grew afraid. Her brain ran wild with everything from Marco doing unspeakable things to her to even Marco snapping her neck.
“…!”
This cannot be, this will not be.
Carmen has a family, a girlfriend to return to, she was also determined to not be a load to her travelling companions.
If there was ever a time to prove that it was now.
As mean as Marco was, he was ultimately dumb. When he covered Carmen’s mouth, yes, he was covering it so her voice wouldn’t come out, but her mouth was still open.
One instant later, he would realize his mistake.
Chomp
Carmen bit into Marco’s hand with all her strength.
“GYAAAAAAAAAAH!!!”
He started screaming and she summoned more anger and more strength to bite even harder.
“GAAAAAAAH!!”
Now he was trying to shake her off, hitting her in the head, but it wasn’t the hits of a big man overpowering a young girl half his size, but the desperate punches of a hunter being attacked by his supposed prey; however, this pain only made Carmen angrier, so she started biting with even more strength.
“GRAAAAAAARGH!!!!!!”
Another instant passed and Carmen was free, Marco let out a blood curdling scream of pain and Carmen quietly spit the chunk of flesh she tore from his hand into the ground.
Then, as soon as the flesh hit the ground, it started sizzling and bubbling.
“You slag from the stars, dust of the void…”
ZAP!!
Red lightning, three times as big and five times as fierce as her regular strikes, homed in on Marco and each of his lackeys.
“Who do you think you are laying your filthy hands on me and thinking you can overpower me?”
ZAP! BZZZZT!!
The lightning strikes continued, the lackeys started shouting in pain.
“Your existence is a disgrace to this beautiful planet…”
ZAZAZAZAP!!!
Carmen’s voice boomed like thunder, her eyes were glowing a deep blood red and her normally silver hair started glowing red intermittently, the color flowing root to tip in waves.
“Die.”
BOOM!!
Marco got hit by red lightning, drawing blood.
“DIE!”
BRRRRRZT!!!
He started falling when one more red lightning hit and he was briefly propped up in the air, not allowed to fall.
“DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE-”
“Carmen!”
Carmen?
Familiar word, familiar voice… but a word unfamiliar in that voice.
Regina?
A gentle tap on her shoulder seemed to make her aware again of her body.
Carmen, slightly confused, looked around her.
The grass and foliage in the nearby ground looked scuffed like someone played with fireworks there for hours.
All the Blazers they came to deal with had open wounds and they were looking at her with the deepest of fears. Less like looking at a beast and more like looking at an incoming tornado.
“I will count to three…” She said, her voice low but still booming. She held onto enough anger to not lose the effect but was making a big effort to not get lost again “And if you’re still here by then, I WILL finish the job. You will all die.”
The air felt charged with pure expectation.
“One.”
A rumbling could be felt. Not heard, felt. The fear was enough for the adrenaline to make all the Blazers stand up.
“Two…!”
Now the rumbling was audible and a red mist seemed to start coalescing around the area. All the blazers ran in pure fear screaming in a very undignified manner.
“Three…”
Lightning rained all over the place, though at this point it was just for show.
The Blazers were out of sight, Carmen blacked out and started falling and Enio managed to catch her before she was anywhere close to the ground. Lifting her in a princess carry and gently kicking upwards the Fonologium before catching it with one hand.
Phido came out of the small shack almost like an afterthought. He started running towards the trio with clear gratitude in his eyes but Regina immediately kicked him with the same kind of kick that had sent Marco flying out of Phido’s restaurant one day earlier.
“We’re not a rescue mission.” Carmen said while Phido couldn’t speak from the kick “You have one day to leave Forlorn Wheel or my friend will follow through with the threat with you.”
With these words said, the two plus the sleeping Carmen left Phido on his own.
After all, Regina and Carmen never said they would rescue Phido, they just said they would take care of things.
That night the settlement celebrated… very modestly, but they all felt like not needing to deal with Phido and the Blazers attached to him was enough of a boon to make it a special moment.
Everyone turned in early, however, and the three travellers were left in their same spot to pass the night, with a bonfire burning and an outhouse that got cleaned up yet again just for them.
“You did well, Princess.” Regina told a sulking Carmen with a pat on the shoulder.
That was the thing that annoyed Carmen currently, the fact that she felt like she had done well. She should be kicking herself for hurting people to the point they were all bleeding, but the pain and bruises from being punched in the head repeatedly made her ignore all this.
No… it wasn’t about having done harm to those bastards, it was about having lost control like she did. Even now she was more intrigued than scared about the specific way she lost control, about how her mind felt lost in a sea of… red desolation.
She felt like she needed fear to ground her, to avoid taking such a thing so lightly.
“When you’re in that sort of situation you can freeze or you can be desperate and personally I prefer desperation to freezing in place.” Regina continued.
“Thank you.” Carmen said finally while tapping the hand on her shoulder “For keeping your promise.”
“I’m not a murderer nor will I let either of you become one.”
Regina said this a few days ago, and if Carmen had any doubts about Regina’s thoroughness with promises, if nothing else, she got quite the confirmation with this incident.
“The Lady Death Forgot never breaks her word” Regina said boastfully standing up.
Carmen wanted to ask what this “Lady Death Forgot” deal was… in fact, there were a few things Regina said in the past that had her baffled, like… what’s a “Planet Singer” anyways?
But for now, there was one more matter she felt the need to address. To distract herself, if nothing else.
“Say Enio…” Carmen started “We’ve been travelling for a while now, why don’t you introduce us to your friend?”
Eh…? EH?!
“Y-You know?” Enio asked, baffled.
“I don’t know if I know, but I can sense, I guess…?”
Regina was about to ask what in the void Carmen was talking about, but Enio stood excitedly, laid the Original Sin propped vertically against the Auto, and then, with practiced expertise, did a really complicated bow, made a gesture as if introducing someone into a room, and said with a loud and clear voice:
“Her Royal Highness. First successor to the throne. The pride of the pseudoroyal house of Graham: Princess Anastasia Valeria Graham The Fourth.”
It’s so nostalgic to hear that introduction…
“So um…” Carmen started saying, clearly not expecting her query to have gone this far “What would be the proper way to refer to her?”
No titles, I don’t really have a kingdom anymore, so…
“She preferred people refer to her as just ‘Ana’” Enio explained with a smile that went ear to ear.
“So…” Regina finally said when she saw her chance to interject “The Original Sin does have someone in it?”
“I guess?” Carmen looked at Enio for answers.
“You two know as much as me, possibly more, since I was never one with a predilection for the pursuit of knowledge…” Enio gently tapped the Original Sin and continued “I just know beyond any doubt that my princess is inside this relic.”
Regina’s eyes gleamed with scalding curiosity as she muttered about storage, mimicry, and wavelengths. But Carmen was the one to continue the conversation.
“Hey Enio, I’m gonna request something… odd, and I wanna apologize in advance if this is rude or improper…” She took the briefest of breaths before saying “…do you mind if I spend time with the O-… with Ana?”
“Oh?” Regina exclaimed, curious.
“I keep feeling like I know when she talks, and I hear pieces here and there of someone speaking, so I wonder if maybe being near her and paying attention I can-”
Carmen hadn’t finished talking when she felt something dropping to her right and looked up to see Enio with a grateful smile that immediately broke into sobbing as they walked away.
“Y-You didn’t have to if you didn’t-…”
“People don’t cry just out of sadness, Princess.” Regina said as she stood up to be by Enio.
As Regina went to give Enio some handkerchiefs as they let emotions out, Carmen was left with the Original Sin to her right.
Okay, so first of all, please call me just Ana, I HATE IT when people try to be too formal.
She could sense a voice even if she couldn’t make up words, she could feel human warmth even if there was no physical warmth. The fact that this wrapped relic was giving her such a feeling of human connection was outright uncanny.
I have so many questions for you! How did you learn that you were a Planet Singer? Is your mom or your dad a Planet Singer too?
Carmen felt at a loss for a moment before she figured that if there was a person inside the relic, there was just one logical first step to take.
Eh?
With a hand on the handguard of the massive sword, Carmen just said…
“Nice to meet you, Ana.”
Forsaken Gaia – Chapter 10: Making History
Written by: Fernando Damas (@ironiclark)