On Matters Edge

  Chapter 11: Aftermath

  He awoke with a jolt as he was jostled about by their landing. The world before him was blurry as his eyes took a moment to focus, the effects of the script taking their toll on him. His head was pounding and his chest felt like it was bruised. He could see his father's face above him smiling at him before a big kiss was planted on Cale’s forehead. He smiled back in return and felt beyond relieved to be away from that beast of a bird.

  Outside of the bird, the fall should have killed him, but somehow his father had kept him from that fate, and he wasn’t sure how. He had last seen his father leaving the tent to go check out the noise and he had no idea how his dad had gotten into the air. Regardless, he was thankful his father had some surprises since it ended up saving his life.

  As he rested in his dad’s arms, his father caught his breath and took a few seconds to orientate himself now that they were back on the ground. It didn’t take long for his father to get orientated before he was off running. It wasn’t hard for Cale to guess where they were going. The danger had not yet ended, and his mother was still back at their tent. As they sprinted back toward their destroyed tent, from his vantage point in his dad’s arms, he could see other people battling with these giant birds and chaos seemed to be everywhere as people fought for their lives.

  The chaos made navigating to his mother a challenge. His father had to backtrack and take a few detours to avoid a few of the ongoing battles or places with a lot of screaming. It was obvious he didn’t want to get into a fight while holding his child, Cale understood the reasoning, but he felt guilty knowing his dad wasn’t stopping to help others because of him. His father was prioritizing his family, as he should have been, however it still didn’t help with the guilt as they ran by destroyed tents splattered in blood.

  His father tried to shield him from the worst of the gory views, but he was only able to do so much while running. Cale saw people's chests split open as giant birds devoured their insides. Their dead eyes piercing into him as their bodies shook while the beasts ate away at them. As they ran past, their presence was barely even registered by the beast as it was distracted by its meal. He wanted to look away from these horrendous scenes, but this was the world he was in now. He couldn’t avoid the dangers and realities of this place, especially if it was going to literally drop on top of them in the middle of the night. He took in the horror around him and let it be seared into his mind. The blood, the cries for help, the sound of battles around him. All things he never saw on Earth, and it pierced him to his core. This memory would not be leaving him soon.

  Not everything he saw was gruesome, Cale was able to catch glimpses of more fighting scripts in action as they ran. He couldn’t help but be amazed at the power shown before him by some of the people on this planet. So far, his experience had been mostly the same as on Earth, but here he watched seemingly weaponless people become their own, living weapons and Cale was enthralled by what he saw.

  There were so many fireballs being thrown around that the night sky would sometimes look to be held at bay. As they would fly over their heads, he could feel the heat on his body and hear the roar of the flame as fireballs zoomed by and crashed into something outside of his view. A few times his father had to duck or dodge if one got too close; he was impressed by his father's agility while holding him. One wrong step and both of them could have been hit by either the birds or friendly fire.

  He saw blasts of ice that caused giant spikes to come out of the ground that were so cold that they would drop the temperature of the area as they ran through it, causing the sweat on his father to turn to ice for a few moments before evaporating. He even saw an illusion and didn’t realize it until his father had burst through it. He had thought his father was going to run through a tent wall, but he never felt a thing. In confusion he looked behind them to see the wall was wispy and swirled like smoke at his father's intrusion. It didn’t take long for it to snap back into place like they had never been there. Neat, he thought.

  When they got to their destroyed tent, his mother was still stuck. The young boy was still there hiding, and his father started to chastise him for not helping, when his mother spoke up in his defense. The boy had tried to get her out from under the table, but he was too small to move the thick table, so instead he had stayed by and made sure she wasn’t alone.

  Once he calmed down, his father helped get his mother out from under the table, Cale felt a giant weight come off his shoulders that he wasn’t aware he was even carrying. The lightweight feeling was followed by a wave of drowsiness as the stress he was carrying faded away. His entire being had been on high alert and his little baby brain, along with his body, was exhausted from the night’s events. He felt his mother pick him up, he could hear her crying and mumbling as she held him tight, but he wasn’t worried because he knew both his father and his mother were nearby. Though the battle outside the tent raged on, Cale peacefully fell asleep with a soft smile on his face. Knowing he was safe in his mother’s arms.

  Administrator Olter Vank

  The Administrator stared at the stack of envelopes on his desk. Personal letters to the families of everyone who died on the night of the Moon’s Fury. He SHOULD have seen it coming. This was not the first night they had felt the effects of the Moon’s Fury, however previously it was barely noticeable, and they only had animals come up to the walls on occasion.

  That night though... his thoughts trailed off as he got up from his desk and walked over to his window. With an office on the top floor of the central tower, he could see the whole base. Even with the best view around, it had done him no good, as they were still blindsided by the Moon’s Fury aligning with the seasonal migration of the Giant Scaled Condor. One flock had been flying overhead when the Moon’s Fury began and seeing the lights from the sky, they had dived into the base with a curiosity that soon turned murderous. Fifty-one civilians and seventeen soldiers died that night. Nobody had been prepared for beasts of that magnitude to drop into their base.

  The attack had been rare, Giant Scaled Condors were not native to this area and almost never landed once their migration flight had started. He himself had never seen one on the ground until that night but he now knew what they looked like up close and personal since he had used his fire script to kill many of them before the night ended.

  Their battle against the beasts had not been an easy one. With the scattered nature of the attack, it had taken him a while to make it around and get everyone to rally to the center of the camp, where the dig site was underground and would keep them safe. He had his subordinates directing those that couldn’t fight to go underground, and those that had battle scripts to protect the tower entrance.

  If the birds had attacked them in a coordinated fashion, and all at once, they would not have survived; fortunately, the bird-brained beasts seemed just as determined to fight each other as they were to go after his people. The beasts assaulted the tower for hours before the flock of manic birds saw something in the sky that looked better than their current victims and they took off. Nobody dared make a sound as they watched them all leave. The Moon’s Fury had still not abated and wouldn’t for hours.

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  A week later he still found himself checking the sky every time he walked outside. Out of paranoia, he ordered any exterior lights to be off at night or covered unless there was an emergency. Additionally, he requested special personnel with abilities that let them see at night so that he could post people on the roof to keep an eye on the night’s sky. On the exterior walls of the base, he directed the commanders to install spikes on the watchtower roofs and to propose ideas on ways to better protect their base while under attack from the sky. After all, he wasn’t the only one with ideas around here.

  He walked back over to his desk, grabbed the envelopes and looked at the remaining sheets of paper. There were two documents he had just finished writing. The first one was his resignation letter. There was no way the church would let him stay in charge after such an oversight. They hadn’t told him yet that they were going to remove him, but he knew it was only a matter of time. Some of the people that had died were relatives of high up members of the church. They would be looking for someone to blame, and the blame would fall on him. The second sheet of paper was an application to the Ranger garrison that was stationed at the base. His shame would not let him step down and do nothing. No, he knew there were other threats out there that would be problems on nights of the Moon’s Fury. He would hunt them with the rangers and maybe find a reason for what was causing it.

  The idea had occurred to him while fighting the beasts at the base of the tower. There was a man he fought next to that had a devastating kick and an uncanny ability to sense an opponent's move before they could execute it. Multiple times he saw him expertly dodge attacks without losing momentum and it impressed him. Olter would watch as his partner would spin his entire body to dodge their beaks as they tried to pin him to the ground. He would then use the spinning momentum he had already created to propel him farther into the beast, giving his legs extra force as he would slam his kicks into the joints of the giant birds.

  Olter had been surprised that the sturdy bones would snap under the excess raw power put behind each kick and he noticed it was like his temporary partner knew exactly where to cause the most damage. The man who helped Olter – who he later found out to be named Phil – would snap the beasts' legs, causing them to tumble. Olter would then use his fire script like a burning sword and finish off the beast with one swing. It was a very nice, very deadly combo. With dynamic use of force, and quick thinking the both of them quickly dispatched the encroaching beasts without attracting the entire flock. Olter didn’t even want to think about what would have happened if all of them had attacked at once.

  He put the thought of battle behind him as he looked at the stack of letters in his hand. He steeled himself for the task ahead of him as it would not be an easy one. There were families who needed to find out they had lost a loved one, and it was his responsibility to break the terrible news. Olter left his office with a heavy heart.

  Diana

  The gods above, what had she done to deserve this? She, and a good portion of the base’s population was currently sitting in the main tower basement in the tunnels and rooms near the dig site. After Phil brought Xavier back to her, Administrator Vank had quickly found them and ordered them back to the tower where it was safer. Phil, being the person he is, had stayed up on the surface to help fight the beasts while the women, children, and the injured were sent below.

  The danger wasn’t cleared until morning and the mood of the base was very somber. When it was light out, Phil had gone back to their tent and salvaged some of their bedding and amenities that had survived, but there was only so much that they could fit in the little nook they had been assigned, so most of their items had remained at their tent site.

  She had wanted to go along with him to help, but Phil had warned her that there were many bodies lying around and he did not want Xavier to see any more than he already had. Plus, he was worried about scavengers and potentially dangerous beasts that would be attracted to all the death. The area around the base was supposed to be clear, but like the night before had proven; danger can be anywhere.

  She stayed in their underground nook for days holding Xavier and trying to help those around her that were injured. She wasn’t a doctor by any means, but she could change bandages and help with small tasks or by assisting others. During this time Xavier said almost nothing, and he seemed to be in shock. She knew he could talk, because he had spoken to her a lot when they first arrived, but he had yet to say a word since they had been in the tunnels.

  Every time she thought about that night, her memory would replay the moment that she saw her boy almost get eaten before he killed that bird. There was no mistaking what she saw. She hadn’t seen how her boy had ended up in the nights sky, but she remembered seeing him up in the air and she recalled the absolute horror she felt as she saw him falling toward the bird’s widely opening beak.

  With vivid detail, she could recall the look on his face as it showed a mixture of fear and determination. Her own fear clawing at her throat as she screamed in sorrow for her boy’s death and probably hers. To her, this memory should have been one of sorrow, but instead, it was a joyful memory, albeit very confusing as she wasn’t sure how it was possible that Xavier could use a script.

  When the interface had notified her that Cale had turned thirteen and then she watched him pass out on his birthday, she had been horrified! She had almost lost her boy that night and it scared her, distracting her from the larger ramifications. The next day, worried about the future, she had gone to work and asked to be re-assigned to a job in the city but had been denied. Her boss had reminded her that they were all under the order of the church and their task was bigger than themselves. They had a duty to their people to learn what had been lost and to redeem themselves in the eyes of the gods. Her boss reminded her that almost everyone had lost someone due to the interface. For as much as it gave, it also took away.

  Though she would not be given any special treatment in the matter he encouraged her to bring her family to the base as they were allowed to live with employees at the work site. It was clear that she should take solace in the fact that she would only be away from her baby for a few short months. With nothing else to say, her boss had kicked her out of the office. Pressuring him any more would have brought consequences to both her and her family.

  In her heart she knew that her boss was right. They did have a duty to their people and when she signed up for this job, she had agreed to the conditions and fully agreed with the mandate of the church. She had cried for many nights after that, thinking that her boy would die at any time, or even when she was away. But the divine had taken mercy on her, and when the time was right, her family had been brought back together, and her boy was not only healthy, but eerily smart. She had initially thought that he was just ahead of the curve, but after seeing him activate his script and kill that bird. Her mind had been changed. She now knew that something about her son was strange and she wasn’t sure what to do about it…

  He was so young, yet the system recognized him as a teenager. On top of that he wasn’t supposed to get a script yet – nobody was born with a script; you had to earn one or be given one. She herself only had a few scripts; her scanning script had been given to her by the church after she had signed up to work for them and was very rare among her people. Only a few researchers had access to it.

  How Xavier had gotten a script – let alone one so powerful – was a miracle to her. It had been strong enough to not only split the beast in half, but it had then propelled him back into the air. She recalled herself gasping at the scene only to hear another person gasping beside her, the boy that had run into the tent.

  With his acknowledgement she couldn’t pretend that she hadn’t seen it. It was real, it happened, and she wasn’t sure what to think. Once everything was cleared up, she would have to go to their local priest and ask for guidance. This was beyond her and her family. It was her job, no, her duty, to help her people get back into the graces of the gods, and what she saw was nothing short of a divine miracle. But as a mother she had a duty to protect her boy, as well as her people. This mixture of responsibilities weighed heavily on her and it was not something she could handle alone.

  Once the dust settled from the attack, she would figure out what to do. But until then her main duty was to protect her boy and her family. She hugged him tightly in an embrace and felt him squirm at her sudden affection, the sign of life bringing a smile to her face. Her boy was alive; he was here now with her. She would do everything in her power to make sure he stayed alive. Even if it killed her