Aeon Legion: Labyrinth (29 page)

Alya stood and looked at the
sky. “She was my greatest squire. A true savior,” Alya said
before sitting in the grass in front of the sword.

Terra sat beside Alya. “What
was she like?”

Alya thought for a moment.
“Actually, she was a lot like you. She loved the soil like you
loved stone. Always with her nose in a book. She had a passion for
gardening. In fact, she made this garden. She planted every flower by
hand. This was her favorite place. Her one place where she could be
at peace, much like your quarry.”

“That's odd. Most of my
instructors keep saying how I'm not like her.”

Alya's eyes narrowed on the
sword while she frowned. “They remember Kairos the savior not
Kairos the person. Not the Kairos who cried every time she had to
leave a comrade behind. Or the Kairos who loved her garden. Or the
Kairos who was my friend.”

“What happened to her?”

Alya closed her eyes. “They
came. About a century ago we encountered... things. We called them
Faceless. They were monsters in every sense of the word. An avatar of
decay, a plague that spilled from the End of Time itself,” Alya
said, cringing. She took a moment before continuing as though
suppressing old nightmares. “They spread across time in a wave of
death. The Legion had never met anything like them. These monsters
also used time as a weapon and they were difficult to kill. Even
worse, they absorbed our casualties into their ranks. For the first
time we were fighting a hopeless war. We couldn't even contain them.
Our allies fell one by one. Soon the Legion stood alone. Then Kairos
ascended through the ranks.”

Alya stood and smiled, looking
at the sun. “I wish you could have seen her. She was glorious.
Standing like the burning sun at dawn, bringing light back into the
world. Her blade always fell at the right moment, cutting away the
darkness and rot. The death and decay of the Faceless parted for her,
breaking like waves on a rocky cliff. The Legion drew up, rallying to
her call. She drove decay itself into oblivion.”

“Where did they come from?”
Terra asked.

“No one knows. Some say they
are time travelers who went to the End of Time. They say it twisted
them into the Faceless who take from time what they lost at the End.
They first appeared in the Bleak near the End of Time. Others think
they were a singularity weapon that went rogue. Kairos also wanted
answers. When the war was won, Kairos came to me and gave me her
blade, saying she didn't need it. She told me she was going to the
Beginning of Time. She was certain the answer was there. I offered to
go with her, but she wanted me to stay and rebuild the Legion.”

“The Beginning of Time?”
Terra asked, trying to wrap her mind around all this information.

“I know little about it, but
if you travel back in time far enough past the beginning of the
universe then you enter the Beginning of Time. Those who go there
rarely come back. The few that do are always changed. No one comes
back from that place the same. Kairos left. I never saw her again.”

“I'm sorry.”

“Kairos isn't the only one I
lost,” Alya said while looking at the sky. “They told you that
all my squires are famous. That they all went on to achieve great
things. They probably didn't tell you they all died achieving those
great things. They died heroes and I lived on even though I don’t
deserve to. I am no stranger to loss, but I do grow weary of it. I am
tired of losing squires. I am tired of losing friends.”

Alya then turned to Terra with
a warm smile. “But I have faith in you. You will survive. You can
take a hit and keep going. Tough as stone and twice as stubborn. I
want you to be the squire that survives.”

Historical armies sometimes
use the designation MIA or Missing In Action. The majority of tirones
are reported as missing in action or some similar designation in
their home times. They are all lost to history, therefore recruiting
them for Legion use can be done without disrupting the flow of the
continuum.

-Excerpt
from Chapter Two of the Aeon Legion's
Squire Recruitment Manual
by Praetor Lycus Cerberus

S
hani
and Nikias's
conversation maintained a casual tone even as they took
shots at the tirones with rifles. Each had a tactical light on the
end of their rifles they used to spot the tirones hiding in rocky
crevasses.

“I mean I just don't know,”
Shani said as she lined up her sights on Zaid. She took a shot at
Zaid who blocked with his shieldwatch. “I mean we thought about
moving to a better zone for a while. Between us we have about three
centuries of time saved up.”

Zaid ran as Shani's light
followed him. He rolled out of her light, disappearing in the shadows
of the dimly lit area.

Terra assumed the point of
this test was to hide and remain quiet, though it was hard to tell.
They had arrived at the salient an hour ago for an unspecified team
activity when Nikias and Shani showed up with guns and started
shooting at them. One couldn't hide for too long though, for the
instructors constantly surveyed the area with their lights and fired
upon spotting someone. She wondered why they didn't use the night
vision feature of their shieldwatch.

After a moment, Nikias spoke.
“You could find a third person to split it with I guess. Though I
don't know why everyone is so keen to get tier three residential
homes. A tier one apartment is like a palace compared to what I grew
up with.”

Shani growled. “The top
scoring tiro in my class ended up joining Endymion. He already has a
home in the Elysian Fields. It's so unfair. There you are!” Shani
said, firing at Zaid again. Her gun then clicked. “I'm out.”

Nikias fired two more shots
before his gun clicked. “Me too.”

“I suppose that's enough,”
Shani said, touching her shieldwatch holoface. The lights came on and
illuminated the area.

Nikias discarded his rifle.
“Good job. This test is over.”

The tirones approached with
caution, still expecting this to be ruse. Terra thought so, for she
remained hidden in a small cove that the lighting didn't illuminate.

Shani looked at her
shieldwatch. “Tiro Hikari, I am giving you just one point for this
test. You shouldn't have rushed us at the start.”

Nikias then looked at his
shieldwatch. “Zaid you get zero points. You were spotted several
times.”

Shani awarded points to the
rest of Zaid's strike team before nodding to Nikias. “Well I think
this is done. Let's reset the salient.”

A ring descended, erasing the
rocky arena. Terra yelled when the ground disappeared beneath her and
she fell to the floor with a hard thud.

Nikias laughed. “Looks like
we forgot one.”

Shani faced Terra. “Well,
Tiro Mason, congratulations. I think we found something else you are
good at.”

Nikias still chuckled. “Yeah.
Being ignored.”

Shani touched her
shieldwatch's holoface. “That's three points. If you had been any
better concealed, you would have been labeled missing in action a
second time.”

Terra dusted herself off as
she stood. She felt thankful that she had spent points on knee and
elbow pads at the armory since they absorbed some of the fall. “Wait.
Missing in action again?”

Shani nodded. “Yes. Most
potential Aeon Legion squires are MIAs from various wars. That way it
doesn’t disrupt the flow of the continuum.”

“That can't be right,”
Terra said more to herself than anyone else. She wasn't missing in
action. Terra stared for a moment before checking her shieldwatch.
“Minerva. What would have happened to me if I hadn't joined the
Legion?”

“Sorry I cannot answer your
query,” Minerva said.

“What? Why?”

“Access to your records is
restricted by order of an anonymous centurion.”

∞

“What are you hiding from
me?” Terra said hands on her hips as she glared at Alya.

Alya leaned against the tree
at the top of the hill, reading something on her shieldwatch. She
shifted her gaze to Terra. “Hiding what?”

Terra
pointed at the screen on her own shieldwatch. The screen read
Access
to records locked
.

“Oh that,” Alya said as
though it were a minor detail. “Crash. I thought I unlocked that. I
didn't want others looking into it when I was trying to recruit you.”

Terra scowled. “What is this
about?”

“Minerva. Unlock it,” Alya
said in a dismissive tone.

“Unlocked,” Minerva said.
“Terra Mason age nineteen. Cause of death, internal trauma and
bleeding due to a vehicular accident. The source of the accident was
concluded to be the intoxicated driver whose vehicle collided with
Mason's car.”

“Killed by a drunk driver?”
Terra said in a dumbstruck tone. “I had a year to live?”

“Apologies. I meant to tell
you when you started the training, but forgot.”

Terra glared at Alya. “Why
didn't you tell me! This is kind of important don't you think? What
would have happened if I failed the training?”

“Even
if
they sent you back, there would be chance you would survive. Besides,
you would be allowed stay in the city by working a low level job.
Then you could try the training again next year.”

“Wonderful. I could be an
immortal janitor!”

“You are rather lucky. Many
Legion recruits don't have the option to return home. Is there a
reason this bothers you?”

“Because I could have died
and you didn't even tell me!”

Alya sighed. “I already told
you. I wanted a volunteer, not a conscript. If you had known then it
would not be a choice, but a necessity you join the Legion and you
would have felt forced into it. I gave you a choice. You made it
yourself. I swear I meant to tell you when we arrived at the city,
but I forgot.”

Terra glared at Alya.

Alya sighed again. “Well I
told you the truth,” Alya said before she walked away, leaving
Terra alone with her anger.

∞

Terra's frustration with Alya
the day before was now replaced with dread after receiving orders to
report to Praetor Lycus's office. She had already faced the man once
and had almost gotten her head smashed in for the trouble. Why did he
wish to speak with her now?

Terra hesitated when she saw
the open fadedoor into Lycus's office. Lycus sat not with his
customary snarl, but a look of irritation. The expression seemed odd
to Terra as she had never seen the man annoyed at anything. Then she
saw why. Alya stood near the fadedoor, facing Lycus with her usual
smile.

Terra tensed, but entered his
office.

“You can't stop me,
Cerberus,” Alya said in a casual tone. “The rules allow it. At
least I think they do. Even if they do not, I like breaking rules.”

Lycus tapped his finger on his
desk. “I told you not to call me that.”

Alya grinned. “Cerberus?
After your aeon edge? It has been centuries, Cerberus. Can you still
not accept your past?”