Anisa walked up the boarding ramp to her ship to the frozen expressions of her team, everyone reverted to their usual appearances and all of them stunned. All but her sister. Katsi seemed distant but she eventually stood up and hugged Anisa. Katsi whispered in her sister’s ear, “Thanks for listening to me, Ani. If you hadn’t…” She trailed off in her thought, the implication clear.
Anisa felt the cold focus she had had mere moments ago fade, her transformation fading. Speaking with warmth she hadn’t truly felt in years, Anisa whispered back, “I should be thanking you. After losing so much, you followed me all the way out here. Keeping me safe despite how crazy this has been.” She held her sister close and realizing how much of her life she had been missing out on in her relentless chase to save Shawn. Her brow furrowed in concern as she wondered if this was the same way he had felt back then.
Before she could think too deeply on it, Gavin broke the emotion with a scoff, “Are we ignoring the actual conversation here?” When the sister broke the hug, Katsi huffed in annoyance and Anisa gave him a puzzled look. After a moment of silence, he seemed to realize Anisa didn’t know what he was talking about. He sighed, “You just destroyed THE Batta the Beast. A walking natural disaster that has even escaped black holes. No one has left anything close to a lasting impact on him and you just destroyed him. Completely. Not a trace of him left.”
Dean, who had been smiling contently at the moment of sisterly support nodded slowly, “Yeah, even back in the old times, Shawn himself couldn’t put him down. Threw whole planets at the guy. Kept coming back. The only thing more durable than him is me. So you destroying him the way you did and the planet still being here… I don’t have an answer for that.”
Katsi snapped, “Of course you don’t! But I saw the data! From every angle!” When everyone’s eyes lingered on her, she looked away with annoyance, “I’m sorry, Dee. It was just a lot.” She walked over to Narine and ran her transformation device over the tablet that Kai was in, allowing the data it had collected to be sent over. She explained, “There’s a lot of moving parts and I don’t understand all of it myself. But the term I got from Dean’s mind is Null Resonance.” Dean jolted at this phrase and Katsi nodded slowly before continuing, “I’m hoping Kai has enough information to explain it better, but the best I can understand it, by saturating the air with total despair it condenses what other emotional energy remains into a more dense and potent form of energy. Not exactly stronger, just more dense.”
Anisa thought back to that feeling, that sensation that seemed like second nature. She wanted to correct her sister. To elaborate on every nuance and detail of it. But she quickly realized how pointless that would be. Simple navel gazing. Dean shook his head in amused disbelief, “We tried so hard to figure it out so we could either use it or defend against it. But this is nothing like we theorized it would be like. We didn’t even think it could be used safely without someone losing their mind into some berserker rage. Watching the footage, I don’t think I’ve seen anyone more calm and collected against him. And that’s impressive after that speech he gave about you.”
Anisa admitted dismissively, “I wasn’t really listening when he did that. I had other things on my mind. I saw him beating the crap out of you, but all that showed me is that Kat was probably right.” She watched the footage back and went cold. It was a terrifyingly short clip. It had felt like minutes spent trying to fight him and avoid the damage. Watching it back, it was only half a minute even when it was slowed down. What was this?
Dean clapped her shoulder and laughed, “Ah, I see someone finally put two and two together for the first time. We all have this moment when we face big league threats. You see we are a little faster in thought and action in the middle of a fight than we are in our day to day. Usually, you don’t notice it. Your body can just feel when the fight kicks off and adjusts instinctually. Watching back the fights is always so disorienting because you sometimes forget just how fast we are moving.” He watched the footage back as if trying to spot something the rest of them would miss. When she pulled off her cloak, the feed went entirely black for a moment before it showed her landed from her attack and Batta exploding. No remains and her not bothering to look. Dean chuckled, “Your first ‘Super Move’, as Shawn would put it. I’m guessing that whatever you did in there is what did him in. So, don’t get cozy and be careful who you use that move on.”
Anisa eventually looked away, realizing this was familiar in a way she didn’t expect. Not from her time with Magnifico and not even from her time as Sculptura. All of this sort of thing felt far too familiar. As she meditated on it, she saw Narine looking over the data but her mind was still elsewhere. Anisa couldn’t help but think again to the day in the graveyard with Gina. She wasn’t going to fail a friend again. She sat down next to Narine and asked, “So, anything in there stand out to you?”
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
Narine jolted, but smiled weakly, clearly glad for the distraction, “Um, yeah. But I could be imagining it. It seems like when you ripped off your cloak, you didn’t just create some pocket dimension. You took that entire section of space somewhere. I don’t know where but what took your space while you were gone was literal void. Compare that with Katsi’s data and it really feels like you didn’t just cover the place in despair but took him and you to where all Despair energy comes from… or maybe where it all goes?” She laughed nervously, “Honestly, Kat’s right. Even with Kai’s information from being half Cyrus it is more complicated than we can safely understand.”
Anisa could see the grief in Narine’s eyes, the doubts that she would ever see the man again, but she also saw a glimmer of hope clinging to Anisa’s promise. That he would come back. Deciding it was best she leave before she made the problem worse, Anisa stood up and said firmly, “Between the three of you, I’m sure you can figure it out. When you do, don’t hesitate to tell me about it.” As Gavin set the craft on its course, he motioned for Anisa to follow him as they stepped into one of the bed chambers on the ship. When they entered, she could see a certainty about him that she hadn’t seen before that gave her some courage as well. “I take it this is where I get my proper status report?”
Gavin nodded, “I mean, what else is there? We have some time before we get back to Cosmic Patrol HQ and I wanted to ask what your read on the situation was. Since you got new duds so soon after your last wardrobe change, I figured you might be putting together where we go next.” When she hesitated to respond he was quick to follow up, “There’s no rush. If anything, I prefer when you take your time. Makes me confident you are feeling better.”
Anisa shook her head, “I wouldn’t say I am. I guess I just realized I was done running blind. All this time I’ve been focused on what I needed to get done and not really looking around. Spending so much time running away from what I’ve done and who I’ve been that I didn’t realize the road I was walking down.”
Gavin nodded slowly, “I mean, we have been trying to save the entire cosmos, right? Wasn’t your friend some great hero who kept the Falos in check? It makes sense we would want him back as soon as we can.”
She shook her head, “That’s unrelated, oddly. I think that even if he was still here I would have just found something else to chase. Some other cause I could use to tell myself I’m a good person.” Gavin nodded knowingly and looked ready to speak but she shook her head, “I am sure you have something similar, but we can’t just keep licking our wounds like this. If we feel bad and really regret what we have done, that should propel us to be better now. No, more than that. We should be resolved to accept it. To not run or hide from it but to live our lives knowing that those scars made us what we are now.” When she saw him tug at his left sleeve she felt a twinge of guilt.
When she went to apologize it was his turn to cut her off, “Cap, there’s no need. You are right. Something that was bothering me since my little mission is that killing Permiso didn’t make me feel any better. I’m glad she is gone. I’m elated beyond all reason that no one will ever be torn apart by her and put back together a monster. But it didn’t make ME feel better. I just felt empty. Like a large portion of my life was nothing but dead weight now. That all the pain that came from all she put me through really meant so little. That just like every other part of my life at that point, I was dependent on her existence to close that wound.” He rolled up his sleeve to expose the brand to open air and said sadly, “The truth is that I won’t ever escape the scar tissue. Emotionally or mentally. All I can do is make what health I have left mean something. And I can’t think of another place I can do that than with all of you.”
Anisa nodded slowly in thought, the question still in the air. Is this what she was missing? In her drive to save her friend, had she completely lost out on these kinds of moments? Eventually she said in a gentle but commanding tone, “Our mission remains the same as it ever was. Recover the Phoenixian Crystal and save my friend.”
Gavin blinked, “Recover? I thought-”
“Short version, our little tour guide stole it from me during a disagreement and when I get my hands on him I’m going to get an answer as to why.”
Gavin thought about it and nodded slowly, the warning to be careful clear in his eyes. After a moment he reached into his coat and pulled a flask free, offering it to her. “Just a quick swig. We haven’t had a chance to do this since the Light of Dawn incident, but we have earned it.” She took it from him and took a deep swallow of the whiskey, letting it burn her throat as it went down. As she handed it back and watched him take a drink as well, she allowed herself to sit down and relax, even if it was just for a moment.
