Estrella remains out of touch with reality and helplessly sobs on the ground, the red dust sticking to her tear-soaked cheeks. "Esmeralda… please!" she sobs, reaching out with a hand trembling relentlessly.
Esmeralda does not blink, her face still washed with a cold blank slate. She takes a slow step forward, and then in a blur of motion, she launches off the ground into the air.
The jump was impossibly high, but there she hangs, suspended in the air for two agonizing seconds. Then like a falling meteor, she quickly crashes down.
CRASH!
A slam so hard into the earth with blinding speed kicks up a massive blinding cloud of red dust that swallows all around. The ground trembles under the sheer force of the impact.
As the thick dust slowly begins to disperse, a silhouette sticks out of it. Estrella still sits in the dirt completely unharmed and standing above her stands Milan.
Milan's arm is locked upward, his hand tightly gripping onto Esmeralda's fist just inches above Estrella's head.
As Esmeralda's arm vibrates with terrifying frequency, the vibrant green patches on her skin pulse downwards in rapid waves, which channels the crushing amount of kinetic force her fists are carrying.
Milan's jaw clenches tighter, his boots digging into the dirt as the overwhelming vibrating pressure slowly forces his arm downwards towards Estrella's head.
-
A few feet away, Silas continues his slow, soulless march toward the camp's sliding gate.
Boz takes a step back, his boots dragging in the dirt as he instinctively raises up his arms to square up. "Silas, there is no way it's you buddy," Boz states. "It's been so long, do you even remember me," he says with panic bleeding into his voice as he backs up toward the scrap metal. "You know… we didn't mean to leave you back there! We – "
In a fraction of a second, Silas warps and vibrates out of thin air, the spot he was standing, left with the remnants of dust from his movement.
Boz looks to his left, then his right. Nothing.
With no time to blink or take a breath, Silas reappears right in front of Boz, closing the distance to mere inches. As Silas reappears a powerful punch from his fist leads him and vibrates with that same sickening high-speed frequency with a sound imitating a buzzing fly.
Boz aggressively dips down, slipping under the vibrating arm of Silas, and fiercely tags Silas right in the stomach.
The sheer force of Boz's tag launches Silas backward. Silas's boots tear through the dirt and skids heavily across the ground as he absorbs the blow.
But as Silas slows down and comes to halt, the damage of Boz's tags Meraki takes effect. The flesh and uniform around Silas's stomach begins to violently bubble and fizz, melting away like acid burning through plastic.
Silas doesn't bat an eye, his cold, soulless gaze remains locked onto Boz.
Suddenly, the sizzling, melted flesh simply stops bubbling. The wound begins to rapidly close and seamlessly heals itself back together in a matter of seconds.
"Holy mother of… what the hell have they turned you into!" Boz whispers under his breath.
Without a single change in expression, Silas takes another step forward and repeats his march toward Boz once again. He instantly launches forward, causing Boz to lose his footing.
With a devastating, vibrating strike, Silas absolutely smashes into Boz. The sheer force launches Boz backward like a ragdoll, sending him crashing through the heavy scrap-metal sliding gate. The metal shrieks intensely and buckles as Boz's weight tumbles through it. Boz's body falls hard onto his back causing him to groan. As the red dust settles around him, he opens his eyes and hovering over him stands, Vince, Chris, Dean, and Alana.
The deafening crash of the gate tearing apart makes Milan instinctively snap his head back. "What the hell was that?" he thinks to himself.
"A single second of distraction is all I need," Esmeralda whispers lightly.
Esmeralda shifts her weight, her vibrating fist surges with a certain increase of kinetic force. She violently pushes downward, breaking Milan's guard and throwing him hard onto his back beside Estrella.
"Stop! Stop this!" Estrella screams, her voice cracking with desperation and a certain frustrated tone.
Esmeralda, as if she didn't hear a thing Estrella uttered, continues to lock her gaze onto Milan. She raises her left vibrating arm up ready to deliver a brutal finish to Milan.
"Give me my little sister back!" Estrella sobs out as she crawls towards Esmeralda and holds onto her knees.
Esmeralda without even a look of acknowledgement, shakes her older sister off and boots her onto the ground. She continues to charge up her arm and aims directly for Milan's chest.
Suddenly, a fierce, high pitched, "meu!" cuts through the air.
Meumeu, still clinging to Milan, conforms back into its original shape and squints its eyes directly at Esmeralda. Its dough-like green texture instantly shifts. Starting from the base of its tail, a vibrant magma gradient ignites – a glowing, fiery orange that bleeds perfectly into a metallic pitch-black tip. In the fraction of a second, the squishy tail elongates, thickens and sharpens into a devil-like tail.
With blistering speed, Meumeu whips its magma devil-like tail forward. For a fraction of a second, its tail was invisible, and as it reappears, Meumeu injects it straight into Esmeralda's right shoulder. "meeuu!" it says with a slow and dragged-out tone.
That soulless, blank slate of Esmeralda's face suddenly cracks. Her features sharply scrunch up – not in agonizing pain, but as if she's been severely pinched. She takes a step back, forcibly pulling out the devil-like tail out of her shoulder, but just like Silas, the flesh immediately begins to bubble and seamlessly stitch itself together.
Meumeu's large expressive eyes continuously narrows into an angry frown whilst turning its entire body to face the horned girl.
"Thank you little friend," Milan says as he groans and gets onto his feet. "You've bought me some time," he whispers as he pets Meumeu, whose gaze is locked onto Esmeralda.
As Milan plants his heavy-duty boots into the dirt, he looks down and wipes the dust off his vest. His eyes begin to pan up with lethal intensity.
"I guess I have to bring out my big guns," he says.
Milan rolls his shoulders and cracks his neck left and right. He raises his right hand and thumps his left bicep three times – thud, thud, thud.
"It's been a long, long time," Milan murmurs to himself.
As he stops thumping his biceps, Milan stretches out his left arm straight out toward Esmeralda with his palm wide open, he then imitates the action of pulling a rope with both his arms, as if a tag of war battle was occurring.
Instantly, the air between him and Esmeralda warps, a certain heaviness shrouds their surrounding area. Esmeralda's boots begin to intensely skid across the red dirt. She tries to stop herself by digging her heels in, but the rule of gravity around her doesn't allow her. An invisible, crushing force pushes against her back, forcefully dragging her straight onto Milan.
Milan aggressively yanks both arms back. "How dare you make your older sister cry like this Esme!" he screams as he does this.
Esmeralda flies forward and pulls directly into Milan's left hand, which tightly wraps around her throat, ceasing her momentum instantly. With Esmeralda struggling to breathe, Milan pulls his right fist back and launches a bone rattling punch straight into her ribs.
Esmeralda violently coughs dark blood onto Milan's left arm which then drips onto the dirt.
"MILAN! Why would you use your Meraki on her, are you trying to kill her?" Estrella screams out as she crawls on her knees towards them.
Milan's jaw clenches. He stares into Esmeralda's blank, soulless eyes for a brief second before opening his grip and dropping her onto the ground.
-
Away from the battle, Sven stands with Shinra, Kira and the black skeletal horse which one of the obsidian cavalry riders adorns.
"How unfair the universe is, the traitor of the Lonares family is the holder of Gravity's Meraki…," Sven whispers to himself. "Karagoz, get three of your obsidian riders on Milan," he says whilst looking at Karagoz who sits on the black skeletal horse.
Karagoz nods his head without uttering a word. Slowly the black skeletal horse begins to slowly strut ahead of Sven, Kira and Shinra. He lowers his head towards the ground and takes a deep breath as he closes his eyes.
-
Meanwhile, inside the camp, the situation is completely deteriorating.
Boz groans wildly, the pain of getting thrust through the metal scrap gate affecting his back. He tries to scramble backward on the ground as Silas marches through the wreckage of the metal gate with little pieces of rubber wheels spread onto the ground.
"My meraki doesn't even work, what the hell can I do," Boz thinks to himself, an expression of someone who is intimidated drawn on his face.
Silas's arms hang rigidly at his sides, but they begin to slowly twitch and vibrate.
"Boz, who is that?" Chris gets lower to ask.
Without responding, Boz continues to scramble backwards, his face twisting with fear by the second.
Vince stares at the tall soulless boy approaching them. His Jaw tightens. Without saying a word, he instinctively takes a step forward, placing himself directly in front of Boz and Chris.
Seeing Vince move, Chris gets onto his feet away from Boz and takes a deep breath, he steps up right beside him. Alana steps up on Vince's left side; her fists balled. Dean behind all of them, swallows hard, trembling slightly, but he takes a step forward too. The four of them form a wall in front of Boz.
Silas halts.
The air beside him begins to violently ripple and distort like a mirage. The empty space seamlessly bleeds away. Standing right next to Silas, having been completely invisible the entire time, is the white skeletal horse with the crimson and gold pattern masquerade. Sitting atop it is the obsidian cavalry rider, the blood of Jackie still dripping from its razor-thin sword
Lying on his back in the red dust, the chaotic shouts and noises of the camp begin to muffle and fade out in Boz's ears. As he watches Vince, Dean, Alana, and Chris form a wall in front of him, his vision slowly blurs.
His mind violently pulls him back to the orphanage.
The sun was warm. A young Boz and Malik wore the same outfit; a grey sweater and navy pajama pants. They playfully toss and wrestle each other in the dirt courtyard. A few feet away, there a much smaller, incredibly fragile Silas sat on the ground crying softly after being knocked over.
"Why are you always crying Silas," Malik shouted out, his voice blended in with the joyful shouts of the other children in the orphanage.
Silas's cry instantly jumped from a little wheeze into a loud scream.
Boz and Malik immediately stop. They jog over, "I was joking Silas, you know we love you," Malik said whilst he and Boz scooped the crying boy up by his arms, brushing the dirt off his knees and wrapping him in a tight warm hug.
"Here, have some bread," Boz whispered whilst pulling a piece of bread out the pocket of his navy pajama pants.
Boz blinks hard, the warm memory begins to shatter.
As his vision begins to unblur, he stares at the terrifying, horned figure standing just a few yards away from him.
"How did you get so strong, my old friend, I don't even recognize you," Boz mumbles to himself, his heart pounding heavily within his chest.
Silas and the Crimson-masked horse with its obsidian rider, begin to take steps forward toward Vince and the others. The sheer terror of their advance pulls Boz straight into another memory.
At the corner of the orphanage, Silas is curled into a tight ball, his knees pulled up to his chest, his dirty skinny arms wrapped around his legs. He sobs quietly in a corner as other children run and play in the distance. A young Boz slowly walks up to him
"Silas, what happened?" Boz asked
"No… no one wants me, my mum, my dad, my brother… they all don't want me, am I dirty? Is there something wrong with me?" Silas asked, every word he spoke was followed by a strong wheeze.
"We weren't born onto this world for nothing, that's what I think. Just because those that have the same blood as us don't want us, doesn't mean that we are not special. Do you remember what Mama Yaya told us, 'Family is more than blood' that's what she said," Boz responded.
"That… that means we can make our own family?" Silas asked whilst quickly wiping the tears from his eyes.
"As soon as we set foot in this place, we became family," Boz shouts whilst wrapping his left arm around Silas.
A sudden hollow growl of hunger creeps between them. Boz lets out a soft smile whilst he reached into his pocket to pull out a loaf of stolen bread.
The memory begins to fade, replaced by the chilling galloping sound of the obsidian rider's skeletal horse.
Boz's eyes snap wide open. The obsidian rider raises his razor-thin sword high into the air. In the blink of an eye, the rider and its skeletal horse turn completely invisible, vanishing into thin air.
-
"BOZ BEHIND YOU!" Milan shouts out from outside the camp.
In a fraction of a second, the air starts to distort directly behind Boz's head. The crimson masked skeletal horse reappears. The obsidian rider is already mid-swing, his razor-thin blade violently slicing the air towards the back of Boz's neck.
Boz squeezes his eyes shut.
Suddenly, Vince's eyes snap wide. The whites of his eyes, his irises, his pupils – everything is instantly swallowed by a deep, absolute pitch-black darkness.
"Stop it," Vince says in a chilling yet soft tone. He doesn't shout. He doesn't scream. But his voice echoes with an unnatural, world-shaking vibration. The sound waves engulf the entire camp and cut through every scrap metal structure through into the wasteland outside the camp followed by fainting of individuals protected by the skulldem and a few core soldiers fall unconscious.
Outside the gates, Sven's eyes widen, "I can feel someone else in the abyss, his air is thicker and denser than I," he says with a slight shake to his voice.
Milan freezes in place.
The remaining conscious core soldiers who continue to march into the camp, flinches as the heavy, vibrating voice seeps into their ears.
Inside the camp, the air completely stifles.
Boz slowly opens his eyes. It's as if the obsidian rider and its skeletal horse are slowly moving through time. The skeletal horse is slowly coming down from its gallop; its two back hooves planted in the dirt while its two front legs hang suspended in the air. Sitting on top of it, the obsidian rider's razor-thin sword continues to slowly move towards Boz's neck.
The dust hanging in the air around them slowly droops down.
"What the hell is happening!" Dean shouts out.
It seems Vince, Chris, Dean, Alana and Boz can move freely unlike their environment.
Vince's eyes continue to get swallowed by the pitch-black darkness as he slowly bypasses Alana, Dean and Chris. His hair begins to grow slightly longer, and streaks of black peek through his magenta purple hair. His hair continues to fully elongate and wraps around the slow-moving hands of the rider, violently yanking him off the crimson-masked skeletal horse.
"Your hands are dirty, it annoys me," his voice echoes.
END OF CHAPTER
THEORIES MERAKI – THE CHAOTIC MERAKI OF VINCE HAS REAWAKENED ONCE AGAIN. WHAT TYPE OF POWER DOES HE TRULY POSSESS TO HAVE THIS EFFECT ON HIS SURROUNDING ENVIRONMENT?
NEXT CHAPTER – TBD