Courage (40 page)

Once he reached an altitude of four hundred feet, something punched into the rear of his craft. The manticore clawed its way up to the cockpit, covered the dome with its chiseled chest, and dug its claws into either side of the dome.

Oemaru began executing aerial maneuvers designed to shake off someone chasing him. He rolled and dived, but when he tried to bank back into a higher altitude, he started tail-diving.

“Warning,” a calm female voice said over the hull breach alarm, “Your craft is overburdened. Please dump a minimum of seven hundred units.”

“Oh, shut up!” Oemaru snapped as he jabbed a choice button to cut off the voice before it repeated itself. The Sky Fang rocked as the manticore dug its claws back into the shredded hull. Oemaru pressed a button near the tip of each joystick, cutting off the front thrusters as he drove his steering forward. He thumbed a second pair of buttons, causing his rear thrusters to flare to max. The engines screamed at him as he leveled out two hundred feet from the ground, the fight below getting terribly close. Oemaru turned the front thrusters back on and continued sinking. “Fly, Vancor curse you!”

The manticore had to be half the size of Oemaru’s Sky Fang, which was not only sinking, but listing to port. His port wing was wobbling dangerously close to snapping off. Oemaru mashed an emergency button right in front of his elongated face and the cockpit dome popped off with an explosive hiss, socking the manticore in its stomach. The beast let go, clutching its stomach, and flew out of sight.

Oemaru had hoped dumping the excess weight would ease the burden on his wings. Instead, the port wing snapped off and spun out of sight. The jet’s descent turned into a spiraling nosedive. Oemaru undid his belt and leapt into the air as his beloved craft explode on a cavalry unit. He’d spent centuries in that craft, tens of thousands of hours of flight time, and had killed countless aliens with it. The Sky Fang’s explosion left a twenty-stride wide crater. And just to add insult to injury, it had plowed into ally cavalry. That manticore was going to receive retribution.

Something huge barreled into him, knocking the air and anger out of him. Claws dug into his shoulders and they dived towards the rocky ground.

Oemaru tried to break free, but the manticore was exponentially stronger. It released him just before impact. Oemaru willed himself to fly, but managed to reduce his velocity enough to, instead of making his own crater in the ground, dive into backwards somersaults, until he rolled to a stop. A fur-clad ally helped him to his feet, then pushed him away. Oemaru stumbled towards the empty space, then coiled into a fighting stance as the manticore landed before him with a ground-vibrating thud. Oemaru tore off his helmet and chucked it aside. Despite the beast’s sheer strength and size, he could take it on. He had more weapons than his beloved craft.

* * *

“Wait! Why do you have to kill me if I fail?” Roxie said, eyes warm with a yellow glow. “I know this is dangerous, but isn’t that a little extreme?”

Aerigo looked at her with blue-glowing eyes. “If I were fully powered, this wouldn’t be an issue. We can’t afford to wait until I can.” The glow in his eyes glistened and his grip around her wrist tightened. “This is one of those terrible decisions that must be made for the greater good. Should you fail to control your power, I will have to kill you so you and your power can’t inadvertently kill me while it rages uncontrolled. After that, I will be forced to wait and recharge enough power so I can release Frava. Who knows how many people will die in the meantime? And then I will face Nexus alone and do what needs to be done so his prophecy can’t give him what he wants. The loss of your life will save so many billions in the mortal realm.” He tightened his grip on his dagger, and his pain-filled, glowing gaze begged her to not put him through that.

To Roxie’s surprise, the fact that Aerigo would kill her for the greater good deepened her respect for him. She understood the logic behind it, despite how devastating that act would be for him and the few people who knew her. His dedication to the greater good strengthened her resolve to control her own power and master wielding it. She removed her hand from the sandwich and touched Aerigo’s dagger-wielding hand. “You won’t need that,” she said with a shake of her head.

The blue glow faded from his eyes as he studied her. The faintest of smiles touched one corner of his mouth. He nodded once, then chucked his dagger next to their packs, took her free wrist and she his, and they clenched their elbows to their sides.

“Alright,” he said, confidence softening his deep voice, “Controlling this power is all about strength of will. All the power wants is to be released, so it will fight your will. Give your power a focus or intention, like when I shaped it to look like me on Phailon. You don’t have to shape it into anything. You can just hold it in place and imagine a container you want it to stay in while I pull what I need into myself. Do whatever makes you feel comfortable and confident that you can maintain control. Got that much so far?”

Roxie nodded. “My intention is to help you.”

Aerigo gave her wrists a gentle squeeze. “Thanks, but you have to give your power an intention as well. Focus on your power; not on me. Okay?”

“Ah. I get it, now.” She’d settle on a container.

“Good. You might not feel anything when I siphon off your power, or it might feel like I’m draining you, or something else. Prepare yourself to anticipate it so you don’t get startled and lose concentration.”

Roxie nodded again. The sensation of growing had startled her the first couple of times. She tried to remember what that was like and filed the sensation near the forefront of her thoughts so she’d remember to expect discomfort.

“Can you relocate your power?”

Roxie brought her awareness to her stomach and felt the power. Her body vibrated and heated in response. She took note of the sensations then pulled her awareness away from it. It felt like, if she focused on it too long, she’d start drawing it out before she was ready. The location of the power reminded her of chi, a well of energy the Asians said all people had. It was no more difficult to locate the power than it was to focus any part of her body and pay attention to how it felt. Tense, relaxed, in pain, hot, cold, etcetera. Her power was there, and there was a
lot
of it.

“You got it. I felt you vibrate in my hands. Now let me explain one last thing. Drawing the power out and pulling it back in is essentially a tough mental pull-and-push exercise. You have to really pull the power out to release it, but once it’s released, it’s going to explode out. You won’t have to keep pulling. Prepare yourself for that. Expect it. It’s going to be frightening. It still scares me.” He eyed his abandoned dagger, then met her gaze again. “Now, when you pull it back into yourself, you can’t stop pulling until it’s all back inside, or else it’ll keep trying to explode out. You’ll know when you’re done. If you have any doubt, just keep pulling the power back into you. And that’s it.”

Easier said than done
. At least that’s what it sounded like. Just one tough mental exercise, using her imagination and focusing her will on telling a lot of power what to do. This was what everyone needed her to be able to do so she could protect the mortal realm. It scared her, but she was determined to succeed. “Let’s do this.”

Aerigo sunk into his horse stance so he was almost eye level with her. “Take your time releasing the power if you can. Just be ready to seize it once it’s free. It helps to close your eyes. And fair warning: it’s just as hard to unlock the power as it is to control it. Be patient. This power is meant only for emergencies when you have no other alternative. And never forget: depleting yourself of that power will leave you vulnerable and defenseless for at least a day.”

“Right.” Aerigo had passed out within minutes of releasing all his power.

“Ready when you are, Rox.”

“Do I need to visualize or concentrate on anything special to help you siphon off the power?”

“I don’t know. We’ll find out when we get that far.”

“Okay.”

“Go.”

Heart racing, Roxie closed her eyes. She couldn’t think of anything else to say so she could stall doing this. She wanted to better brace herself for the danger she was about to put the both of them in, but Aerigo looked ready to stop letting the anticipation build and just get this done. She bowed her head slightly, feeling like angling her gaze towards her stomach would better help her concentrate. Touching her awareness to the power made her stomach heat up and her body vibrate, but it gave her no clue as to where the door unlocking it lay. Her Mana felt like it had been compressed into the space of a softball, when it wanted to take up the space of a large city. No wonder it would explosively release. Now how was she supposed to find its door?

She felt around the power for any clues, but sensed nothing, other than the fact that the power wanted out it.
It
wanted out. What did she want to do with it? Help Aerigo, of course. Help him how? Give him the power he needed to unlock the other half. She was going to pull this power out and give it to Aerigo.

Her awareness suddenly slipped deeper into the well of power. It felt like she had been pulled under the surface of a dark lake that had never been disturbed before. She could still breathe, yet the sensation of her awareness being yanked inside the well of power put her on guard. A monster lay at the bottom of its depths. Roxie steeled her nerves and willed herself towards that monstrous power. She felt her eyes warm as if they’d started glowing. Maybe they had, but she let her wondering go. That tidbit of trivia didn’t matter right now.

Roxie sank to the bottom and spotted a metal trapdoor, and felt a fiery heat emanating from the other side. It felt like she was dreaming lucidly. In the waking world, she was bent in a horse stance, holding onto Aerigo’s wrists, but now she wasn’t seeing them or the realm anymore. Wherever her mind was, she stood atop a hot trapdoor as big as a room, and she was surrounded by darkness. It was reminiscent of her nightmare with the dragon.

Roxie crouched and touched her imagined hands to the door’s surface, which vibrated as all the locks unbolted with metallic thuds. She flinched, then scolded herself for flinching. How was she supposed to control her power if she flinched at the sound of a metal door unlocking? She steeled her nerves again, reminding herself that she was creating danger, to expect the power to fight control, and to anticipate some sort of sensation accompanying Aerigo’s siphoning of her power.

She tried to think of a container she could visualize to control her power and help siphon it into Aerigo. An hourglass came to mind, but glass was way too fragile to contain something explosive. How about a steel one? Maybe focusing on a stronger metal would help even more, but she didn’t know much about metals, so steel it would be. She formed an image of her actual body standing inside one half of the steel hourglass, ready to catch and contain her power, and encompassed Aerigo’s body in the other half, then turned her attention back to the trapdoor.

The door felt curved, smooth, and solid as a one-foot-thick reinforced vault door. She searched for a handle or knob. Indents formed under her hands. She paused, startled by how the power responded to her intentions. No wonder Aerigo didn’t like this power. It was like it had a mind of its own. Her fear of her own power was healthy, though. Using it to sharpen her mental awareness, she dug her fingers into the indents and braced herself for the explosive release as she pulled.

The door didn’t budge and the power didn’t explode out. It pushed against the door, trying to help her release it, but Roxie instinctively knew the power couldn’t release itself without her consent, her intent. She widened her imagined feet and began pulling on the door again.
Power, I command you to release. You will be contained within my steel hourglass, and nothing more
. The door didn’t budge at first. However, after several seconds of sustained pulling, it lifted an inch with a deep, resonant metallic groan. Roxie didn’t let up on the pulling as she willed her Mana to release. The door inched closer to opening, catching every time she lost her focus. Every time the door moved, it surprised her. Her thoughts swirled between marveling at her drawing closer to wielding the same power as Aerigo, and focusing her will on the power and giving it direction. Somehow she knew pulling the trapdoor open didn’t have to be this hard. It was all a matter of strength of will. Her caution was causing friction. The power just wanted to explode out. Part of her wanted to let it, just to feel it release unhindered. But what she really wanted was control and containment.

The trapdoor inched its way upward until a white light outlined it. Roxie stuck her fingers in the gap and willed the power out as she heaved upward.

The door swung open so fast that it banged against the container with a deep ring. The power surged to the surface of the mental lake, to outside her body, then exploded through her steel hourglass. Roxie’s awareness surged to the forefront of the power. Wind roaring in her ears, her vision shot towards the aurora borealis, and hers and Aerigo’s bodies dwindled in size. She mentally tried reigning in the power with giant hands, but it shot between her fingers without slowing.

She began to panic.

“Control it!” Aerigo yelled over the wind.

The power filled up every cubic inch of her physical body and exploded in every direction. Aerigo staggered, but she pulled him back into his horse stance. The power lashed out at him, giving him a bloody nose.