Vas Forterai

End of Ch. 1: [Before she could come up with anything though, Uloch seized the red-haired woman with both of his gigantic hands, at the base of her neck and at the top of her head. In one quick movement, he twisted her head up like a bottle cap and tore it off, flinging it into the crowd. All hell broke loose.]

What was a concerned group of civilians suddenly morphed into a vicious frenzy. People stampeded away from the table, running over each other to get away as fast as possible. One unlucky man who had gotten the closest to Uloch suffered a brutal left swing from his now wild, stretching hands and was hammered into the ground.

Vas leapt towards the table, careful not to enter the danger zone. Uloch might’ve been weakened during his time behind bars, but this was still a behemoth of a man. Vas was nimble enough, but she remained aware of the chance that’d she’d miscalculate and be severely wounded. Or worse, and end up like the red-haired woman who’s head was currently bleeding out into the storm drains.

She had received ample martial arts training during her stint as a Mirage, but she had never really been forced to put it into effect. Temple Arrastrar had not required any serious defense for over a thousand years, so the forms had become much less martial, and more artistic. This was a real-life scenario, made immensely more difficult by the sheer unpredictability of Uloch’s size and enraged movements. To be frank, she wasn’t confident getting up close at all, but she had to get the glasses off of his head somehow. From there, her plan was to cloak the area in front of his eyes and try to undo whatever effect he was under. That would be a long shot at best though, since there was no guarantee that he would stay still enough–for long enough–to negate the trance. She wasn’t even really sure it’d work.

In the middle of her train of thought, a hoverboard whizzed in from the alleyway and struck Uloch in the stomach before crashing down a few meters to the right and skidding to a stop. A young man jumped in right after it and, dodging Uloch’s extended hands, managed to drive a shockswitch into his leg before jumping out. The device delivered a strong electrical current which constricted the giant’s muscles, causing his forward movement to slow considerably, though it wasn’t enough to make him stop. This did however, provide Vas enough time to assess the new variable.

“Young man!” Vas shouted. “Get away from here. This man is dangerous.”

“I know!” he shouted as he pulled out a knife, “I’m gonna stop him.”

“Hang on-hang-on-haaang-on. Put the knife away, we can stop him without killing him.”

“Good jokes. He’s thirty times our size and he’s fuckin’ insane. You wanna tickle him into submission?”

“Just trust me. Please. All we need to do is get those glasses off his head. They’re controlling him.”

“Whoa. How do you know that?”

“Not the best time to explain. I’m sure your shockswitch’ll run out of juice soon. Either stay back or help me take em off.”

Vas rushed forwards and grabbed hold of Uloch’s overall straps to thrust herself up. His hands inched closer to his chest staggeringly, but his muscles were still heavily incapacitated. She was struggling, reaching towards his face, but as soon as she got close the shockswitch barbs unlatched and Uloch crashed down onto his knees. Vas was shunted onto the floor, only keeping semi-upright by her hold on the straps. His arms went slack for a moment, but then kicked back into raging gear and pressed tightly down on Vas’s back. She was stuck under the weight of what felt like a fridge, and it was getting heavier by the second.

Not for nothing though, the young man was able to sneak up from the back and tear the glasses off, revealing Uloch’s eyes. There was a thin veil of light covering them, though Vas couldn’t see what was being projected on the other side. She shot her hand up, concentrating on forming a cloak that would obstruct the veil, but it was getting harder and harder to focus. Vas was barely able to eke out tiny breaths at this point, and it felt like her spine was bound to snap at any moment.

“Hey lady! MISS? I don’t know what you’re doing, but he’s gonna kill you before you can finish.” The young man unsheathed his knife again. Vas was desperate. She thought she felt ribs breaking, but she wasn’t sure. The lights swirling around Uloch’s eyes were battling each other for dominance. Her cloak was perfect, but it still wasn’t breaking him out of his trance. She hadn’t wanted to resort to this, but it was much more preferable to death. Vas wormed upwards with the last ounces of her strength and managed to suck in enough air to make one final command.

“LOOK AWAY.”

The boy barely had time to register the words, but turned his head away just before Vas released a condensed supernova of light into the air. It shone briefly with the brightness of a small sun before collapsing in on itself and exploding, turning the area within a nine-hundred foot radius into a white void. A conjured stun grenade. It overwhelmed both the veil and the cloak enveloping Uloch’s eyes, going so far as to permanently destroy any chance he’d ever see again. The color in his pupils and irises was burned away. The giant dropped his vice grip and stumbled back, slamming onto the floor.

“I gotcha,” the young man said, catching Vas before she tumbled the same way. Vas let out an agonizing gasp, the swell of oxygen in her lungs feeling like a sharp stab through the chest. She coughed up blood through her mouth and nostrils, falling limp into the boy’s arms.

“Miss? Fuck. We need to get you to a hospital.”

“No-no-no,” Vas whispered, wiping away the blood and snot, “Two things need to happen right now. We need to somehow get that man out of here before the DHE show up. And then–”

“You’re absolutely crazy. Just let the cops take’m! He just killed two people and almost popped you too.”

Vas stood up slowly, and steeled herself against the pain. “No. He’s innocent. The second thing is–”

“There is no second thing. You’re injured. I’m getting you out of here.”

“NO. Please. Just-” she sighed. “I’ve just now decided that I’ve invested too much into this to quit,” she wheezed while grabbing her sides, “You’ve already seen what I can do, even if you don’t understand it. I can protect us. Just help me get him into that alley. It doesn’t have to be far. What’s your name?”

“Kalona.”

“Okay Kalona, help me do this. And I’ll explain everything later, yea?”

“Fine. Alright,” he said while picking up the unconscious Uloch’s left arm, “But you gotta show me how you did that fuckin’ bomb-thing too. Let’s go.”

Vas moved to join him and took up the right arm. She looked back to check the street, and it seemed like everybody had left at least the immediate vicinity. There might have been eyes watching from within the storefronts, but that wasn’t something she could worry about at the moment. She heard the sirens of the Dias Half Enforcement vehicles steadily approaching from all sides, though they were still a considerable distance away. They started lugging the incredibly heavy man into the alleyway adjacent to the restaurant. Hammers were pounding inside Vas’s chest, warning her that she should probably stop moving or drop dead, but that wasn’t an option.

Once they got about a third of the way into the alley, Vas directed Kalona to help her push Uloch up against the wall, next to some crates and trash bags. As soon as they were in a stable position, Vas took a deep breath in and began cloaking just the domain an inch surrounding their collective bodies. From the inside, Kalona saw a curtain of light appear out of thin air. On the outside, seven new trash bags were added to the landscape. The hair on his arms raised instinctively. He moved to touch the transparent, ethereal-looking wall, but Vas nudged his arm down before he could.

“Don’t disturb it,” she cautioned, “It’ll keep us safe, for now. Just let me rest a bit.”

“What is it?”

“Camouflage. Of sorts. To those on the other side, we look like any of the other garbage strewn across this corridor.”

“Is this… magic?”

“Yes. I’ll tell you more about it once we’re truly in the clear,” she lied. In reality, she was planning on having his memory erased as soon as she had the chance. Vas was kicking herself for getting a civilian this far involved, but her harebrained scheme for this “mission” was prone to disaster from the beginning. The DHE had arrived on the scene and was interviewing storeowners and people who had just come back to see the aftermath.

They, the DHE, were the largest crime prevention organization in Dias Half. Though they worked closely with the government, this was only due to the fact that they had grown so large. The DHE didn’t actually serve the government, nor were they paid by them at all. They had actually started as a tight-knit banding together of willing members from large neighborhoods, after the disintegration of the government’s corrupt police force many long years ago. Now, they were a legitimate and sizeable group, taking over the precincts and establishing themselves as the standard for community protection. They had the full support of the community as well, and people from every neighborhood were glad to serve shifts on the local watch teams. The DHE was a truly pure effort, standing on the pillars of service to the people alone.

On this day, Vas noticed that the DHE’s head, Chief Adjudicator Allory Fost, had come down personally to survey the scene. CA Fost had been placed in this role through a unanimous decision from the public, after leading the revolution against the previous police force’s tyrannical reign. Though his scary title might have conjured the image of an unforgiving bureaucrat sitting in a high office, sentencing criminals to their deaths, he actually did little judging whatsoever. For the most part, CA Fost led patrols himself, preferring to be out in the communities he served rather than locked away behind opaque walls. Because of this, he might’ve been the most recognizable face in Dias Half, far more than even the governor. On rare occasion, for crimes that particularly piqued his interest, he would personally command the investigation behind the case.

CA Fost was a smart man, but even he was unaware of the existence of magic, or so Vas hoped–stuck between a strange boy and a pile of trash bags not seventy feet from the restaurant. She had to pray that they wouldn’t bother to root through the heap of junk, which was a dwindling possibility by the second, since Vas was becoming less and less convinced CA Fost wouldn’t look for evidence everywhere he could. That’s when she remembered–Greymore. She had never been happier that that man had gone down the path he decided to go.

“Listen up Kalona–” Vas whispered.

“Just call me Kal. Saves time.”

“Okay then Kal. Do me a favor. Take my phone out from my pocket.” Normally, she’d be able to multitask without much trouble, but this was a new environment with an unpracticed cloak, so it required a decent amount of concentration.

“Now, search for the name ‘Greymore’ and dial it.” He did as he was told. Seconds later, a man picked up.

“Vas? What’s up? I’m in the middle of something.”

“Please tell me you’re stationed outside Marjory’s right now.”

“Whoa, yea… How’d you know? I’m with Fost and the team from Central.”

“Lucky guess. You’re gonna love this story later. But this is serious. Fost is planning on searching the area right?”

“Of course. Evidence is already combing through the restaurant. I’m interviewing witnesses.”

“You are? Put a pin in that, we’ll get back to it later. For now, I need you to join Evidence and give an all clear on this alleyway. Left of Marjory’s.”

“I’m not on Evidence right now. Why are you asking me this?”

“Make yourself on Evidence. Do whatever you need to do. I’m cloaked in the rubbage just a bit down the alleyway. I need to get out of here unseen.”

“What?! Why are you here? Aren’t you supposed to be training the Mirage candidates today?”

“I left it to Baftan. Anyways, I need you do this because I have Hauhan Uloch unconscious here with me.”

Greymore paused incredulously, then loudly whispered, “VAS. Out of all the days–”

“I’m pulling senior rank on you. Help me or I’ll subject you to Mirage duty. I’ll explain everything later.”

“...Fine. This is serious though. Whatever you’re doing needs to make a lotta sense when I catch up with you. Also, you know I’m exempt from duty for a year.”

“Not exempt from my decree. But a million thanks Greymore, I owe you one.”

“Yeah you do. Stay safe.”

With that, she instructed Kal to hang up. In a few moments, Vas saw a familiar face step into the alleyway. Greymore looked around as if trying to decipher the location of Vas’s cloak, then left inconspicuously with a middle finger pointed up.

Kal then questioned, “So what now?”

With no concrete answer in mind, Vas answered, “We’ll figure that out once the DHE leave. For now, we wait.”