The Mirror Guard

Two

AFTER THIER PARENTS DIED, EVA TOOK CARE OF HER BROTHER AS HIS SOLE GUARDIAN. No one cared about a couple of scruffy kids that lived in the Coal District. Buildings here didn’t have the crystalline luster of the most other parts of Crystalis. Here, the buildings were crafted from cheap crystal parts and metal. From that top of the wall, the Coal District looked like a blight.

Eva’s parents were adrenaline junkies — and biologists. They sought out into the Stark to identify and study the habits of the creatures that lived there. Crystalissians, even powerful ones, had no use for anything on the other side of the Stark. Many thought Eva’s parents were eccentric — and crazy. To some degree, Eva believed that they were.

Her parents published a few books on Stark wildlife and on how to survive on the other side of the wall. Her mother was most proud of her memoir about helping to locate and blueprint a safety bunker where the citizens of Crystalis would go if the wall was ever breeched. Her father’s book about meeting various Cavamen tribes was actually banned within the walls of Crystalis. Eva always felt that that was pretty badass.

However, despite such pseudo-famous parents, when they died Crystalissian culture seemed happy that they didn’t have to hear these two pro-Stark eccentrics talk about what wonders existed on the other side of the wall. Their children were basically forgotten.

Eva and her brother lived in an extended stay hotel in the Coal District. The motel was erected by metal beams coated with cheap crystal tiles. A woman clad in a mini-skirt and fishnet top came tearing out of the room Eva had been rushing by. The two collided.

“What the fuck!” The woman snapped. She didn’t even have her heels all the way on. Her hair was a tangled mess and her lipstick had been smeared. Benjamin immediately bent down to help the woman up. “I don’t need your help!” The woman scolded.

“I’m so sorry, Ness, but as an artificial butler I am duty bound to help any woman in need.”

“Just ignore him. I’m sorry.” Eva said, “Let’s go Benjamin.” The sky was thundering with the attacks that the giant snow wyrms were pounding into the wall.

“You should evacuate the city,” Benjamin continued. “There are news reports that the wall has been breeched. In approximately seven minutes and thirty-seven seconds they are going to sound the evacuation alarms.”

“Benjamin!” Eva screamed. “She doesn’t care. Let’s go. Jono.”

“Is he for real?” The sex worker asked. She got herself to her feet, zippering the last zip on her left heel.

“Too real, I’m afraid.” Eva said. She grabbed Benjamin’s hand. “Let’s go.”

A man appeared in the doorway. He hadn’t finished tying his breeches yet. His body was still semi-excited from whatever the woman had been doing to him. Eva did her best not to look. “What the shards is going on?” He asked, rubbing his bare stomach. “Hey, is that a butler!? I know a place that will pay a pretty crystal for that model.”

“No,” Eva snapped, yanking Benjamin along.

“Get back in the room. I’ve already paid and you didn’t finish.”

Eva brushed passed the scene, towards room 208. The woman clip-clopped towards the stairs. The man still seemed half-dazed. Eva didn’t know all of the specifics of what went on between johns and sex workers, but she knew that it could be anything from sex to fetishes to drugs. What she did know, just from living in the Coal District, was that nothing was ever simple and “vanilla”.

“I am nearly 99.9999999999% sure that woman was a prostitute.” Benjamin said.

The motel room looked exactly how you would imagine it to look with a twenty-something female living there with a teenage boy. Eva pressed her keycard into the receiver and swiped it out, the light turning green. Eva ripped the door open. Clothes were strewn everywhere. Various game consoles were hooked up to the TV — CDs and cartridges with and without their cases piled every flat surface.

Eva burst through the door. It smelled stale. “Jono!” …Nothing. “Get the survival bags,” she said to Benjamin.

“Jono!” She called again. Their parents were survivalists. They had always taught them to have bags full of basic survival gear for just-in-case moments. Jono was on the far side of the couch, heaving, his swoopy hair fell over his eyes. He was clutching tightly to a wolf stuffed animal, his favorite — though he was much too old to be clinging to stuffed animals. He was obviously stressed, scared. “Jono!” Eva moved towards him, to cuddle him, to let him know that he was alright. But her movement was too quick. Jono moved like a cornered animal.

“Jono, it’s okay. It’s me.”

“The...The mon—monsters.” He pointed out the window. The emergency sirens had begun blaring. A chill ran down Eva’s spine when she realized that the sirens screaming weren’t the signals for a wall attack. They were the sirens that meant the wall had been breeched. <Benjamin was right.> The wall had never been breeched!

“It’s okay. I’m here now. We need to get out of here!”

“We can’t go out there!” Jono cried. He leapt from the couch and hid behind the table, wolf animal in hand.

“Ness, I got the bags.” Benjamin announced.

Jono appeared, excited, “Benji!” He said.

Just then the crumbling, rolling crashing that could only be from part of the wall falling, sounded. Jono whimpered. Benjamin immediately cradled Jono in his arms. “We need to go.” Eva said. “We are not safe here. Remember what mom and dad used to always tell us?” Eva handed Jono his survival bag.

There was a moment of intensity as Jono looked into his sister’s eyes, judging her, coming back to the surface of his fear, mastering his fear. Jono dropped his wolf stuffed animal and reached out and hugged his sister, grabbing his bag. “It’s going to be okay,” Eva said — though she wasn’t so sure herself. She’d never heard the siren that was screaming, outside of a drill. “Put on your jacket,” she said as she guided Jono’s first arm through one of the sleeves in his black starka. She was already pulling him through the doorway by the time he wormed his other arm through the other sleeve.

They were used to leaving. No place was permanent. Eva didn’t make enough for an apartment, so they surfed from extended stay hotel to shelters — to even sometimes the streets. Eva was hoping that all of this practice fighting the cold would give them a sliver of a chance out in the Stark. She wasn’t sure why, but she knew that they were going into the Stark…And Eva wasn’t as afraid of the other side of the wall as she should be.

The balcony was chaos as people were grabbing what belongings they could and began running down towards the stairs. Eva pulled Jono along towards the stairs. The gentleman, the “john”, from earlier had a starka on of his own, rushing towards the stairs also. He pushed passed Eva and Jono on his way. “Watch it!” Eva snapped. She held tight to Jono’s hand, squeezing it every so often to make sure he was still with her. He would squeeze back his reply. The john didn’t even look back as he took the stairs down, two at a time.

They reached the top of the stairs when Jono screamed, “Eva!” He was pointing at something. Eva didn’t see what he was looking at. Something had kicked up a good cloud of snow powder. There was a crunch, like two gods exchanging fists. The building across the street was being made into rubble by a snow wyrm! The creature reared up, sitting on the upper-half of its body. Its mandibles opening and closing. It shriek-roared, unlike any sound Eva had ever heard. She was frozen in place. The snow wyrm wrapped its lower-half around the foundations of the building and constricted. People screamed. Crystalissians were throwing themselves from windows and balconies — hoping that they would land the fall.

“Eva!” Jono cried again, “What do we do!?” Eva snapped from her petrification. She could swear the snow wyrm was looking right at her. She could hear the scritch-scratch of the creature’s rough stomach scales as it slide over the snow, crystal, and metal that made up the street below.

“You have approximately a 6% chance of surviving a…”

“Benjamin! Shut up!” Eva snapped.

She didn’t train with the Guardian reserves for nothing. It wasn’t just for the pay either. The pay sucked. Eva reached back and grabbed Benjamin’s hand. “Transform!” She ordered the artificial butler. Eva swung her arm towards where the snow wyrm was staring. It had made short work with the building across the street. There was nothing between them and it. By the time her arm swung around, Benjamin was fully formed into Eva’s version of a mirrorblade. There was actually no reflection to Benjamin’s blade at all, but it was longer than Eva was tall and it could weakly be used to deter some of the wyrm’s most dangerous parts.

Eva stayed on the balls of her feet. Jono’s hand was tight on her palm. The sword was almost too heavy for her to brandish with one grip, but she had to make it work. She attempted to hold the blade over her head in a moving hyperstance. Hyperstance was a stance for quick jabs or slices and recovers or dodges. It was the only stance that was effective for reserves to use against snow wyrms. Though, honestly, no one ever expected a reserve to truly face a wyrm.

“Eva!” A voice from below. Familiar, but Eva couldn’t place it. Not now. Her mind was focused on getting her brother to safety.

“I can’t.” Jono cried. There was a gap in the stairs. A small leap would connect them to the other side. Her brother was scared. He was shivering.

“We’ve gotta do it,” Eva said.

The enormous snow wyrm was pulling its length from around the building. Its head was armored and garnished with tusks and teeth that spun like saws. It shriek-roared again. The very vibration lead a jagged trail up Eva’s arms, and down her spine. “Jono! Go!” She nearly lifted her brother and threw him. Eva followed right behind him as he clumsily landed on the landing below. He’d screamed.

…And then he’d screamed again when the platform gave way beneath them!

Eva fell — and expected the end. Everything left her hands. …But she landed, her eyes gripped closed. “Got you.” Eva looked up at Benjamin’s face. “There was a 10% chance that I wouldn’t catch you without breaking something.”

“Jono!?”

“Got’em.” Eva found Eke with Jono clutched in his arms. Eke was getting to his feet. The impact had knocked him on his ass. Mrs. Shimmyshanks was standing behind her son. Fear in her eyes. She’d been crying.

Eke Shimmyshanks was a typical Crystalissian young man. His hair was cropped short and was pink to match his eyes. His skin was fair to pale, like alabaster. Despite his social status, Eke was well muscled from constant working out. He’s a pretty well renowned puck player. Being a puck player was about the only thing the rich boys did to get their hands dirty. The horns that sprouted from the sides of his head were nearly crystal transparent and thick and curved, the way some of the mountain sheep’s horns were.

“Let’s get out of here,” Eva suggested. Eke helped her to her feet.

The snow wyrm was not picky in who or what it ate. With her brother’s hand back in hers, Eva and the rest of the gang ran down the street. Her brother and Mrs. Shimmyshanks screamed when the wyrm snapped a few running people next to them up into its toothy jaws.

Eva took that moment to look up. The snow wyrm cried in delight. Its many eyes looking everywhere, though Eva felt they were all attuned directly on her. “Get out of the way!” Eva yanked her brother between two closely built buildings. The snow wyrm struck! Eva covered her brother’s body with her own. The wyrm snapped its jaws. Eva could hear some of the buildings on either side of them give. The crunch was the sound of metal and thick glass, giving.

The beast screamed, but this time it sounded different. Eva peeked. Eke had covered her and Jono as much as he could with his body and arms. Mrs. Shimmyshanks was protected under Benjamin’s metal body. Eva felt cool wetness on her face. Some of the green liquid oozed upon Eke’s arm. She felt claustrophobic. She began to push Eke off of her. He blushed. “Sorry.”

“Just get up.”

“Ness, we have a 29% chance…”

“Benjamin, just shut! Up!” Eva was tugging Jono along. Mrs. Shimmyshanks had a grip on Benjamin’s metalloid hand. The two of them brought up the rear as Mrs. Shimmyshanks was clothed in a socialite poofy dress with a long-draping lavender starka to top it all off. There was no way that they were going to get out of the city safely going at Mrs. Shimmyshanks’ pace. <And the witch is wearing heels!> Eva thought.

They were all covered in green liquid — blood. Eva saw the flash of a figure zip across the sky. The beams of reflected light could be seen up and down the street. There were about four of them. Another zipped past the screaming, writhing snow wyrm. Another line of green blood appeared on the beast’s furry hide. It shone so bright upon the snow wyrm’s white pelt. The Mirror Guard was here!

“Eva! Get out!” It was Ono. He was standing on what was left of some crystalline stairway that lead to the sky. The upper floors had been demolished. He was covered with green snow wyrm blood. “Go!” He appeared to be made of ice, like he was sculpted from a glacier. He was holding a weak-looking sword made from ice in his hand. The blade only appeared weak in the presence of the mirrorblades that the other Guardians held as they zipped through the sky upon their pathways of ice. They skated by in streaks of white light, revealing a new green cut that the wyrm bled from.

“Reports are coming through that the wall has been compromised in at least five places,” Benjamin explained. “We have less than a 3% survival rate if we stay within the wall.”

“Where will we go?” Eke asked.

“The bunker.” Eva and Mrs. Shimmyshanks said at the same time.

“That’s real?” Eke asked.

“I don’t have any record of this bunker.” Benjamin scoffed.

“Well I guess you don’t know everything,” Eva said.

“You’re a butler aren’t you!?” Mrs. Shimmyshanks snapped. “Get us safely out of the city.” She looked begrudgingly at Eva and her brother, “I suppose for your assistance, I will make sure that you are all taken care of once we get to the bunker. Only an exclusive list can get in, after all.”

“I’m sorry, Ness, I don’t have any records of the bunker that you speak of. I don’t know how to get there.”

“Useless butler!” Mrs. Shimmyshanks snapped. “I see there is a hierarchy in butler models in the reserves. What’s wrong little la Jaguar, you couldn’t wave your ‘godly’ last name around to get yourself a better artificial than this?”

“We don’t use our last name for personal gain!” Jono growled.

“That’s right,” Eva smiled at her little brother. “Luckily for you, Mrs. Shimmyshanks, I happen to know the way to the bunker. My parents helped find it.”

“I suppose you might prove useful for a street rat.” Mrs. Shimmyshanks said as she began to button her starka closed.

Eva noticed that that chaos behind them had seemed to quiet. She looked back find a giant bleeding wyrm body blocking the roadway. The Mirror Guard and Ono, were gone. They had other snow wyrms that had breeched the wall to deal with.

“There is one problem,” Eva said as they got closer to the gate out of Crystalis. “The way to the bunker is a couple days walk through the Stark…”