Frozen Falsehood

  AUSHEN

  Out of all the people I met in the previous days, Blu was by far the most amusing and a definite moron when it comes to humor. He had come to see me and ask if I wanted to, “Do bad shit,” as he put it.

  “Hey, John, how’s it going,” he said casually to one of the guards near the ballroom.

  “My name ain’t John,” the man said with gruff indifference.

  “How’s the wife?”

  “She’s been dead four years.” His stony look did not change.

  “Honestly, couldn’t be me.” Blu strode off past him and opened a random door, disappearing behind it. The man had no care.

  “Sorry about him,” I addressed the guard.

  “No need, we need all the amusement we can get down here; and the woman was a witch anyway.” He flashed me a bearded smile.

  I hurried off in search of the Blue-haired echo and found him searching through a box set against the wall of the cluttered room, it had the emblem of AID on the side. He drew out a circular object and held it out to me.

  “Bomb?” I said excitedly.

  “This shit is a beacon or some manner of battery. I refuse to believe they have a supply of bombs just lying in here.”

  “Bomb,” I said with feigned sadness.

  Blu thumbed at the orb until a red light lit up, and a beep sounded. Followed by another, and another, with speed increasing exponentially. He turned to look at me with theatrical slowness, his face displaying thorough disappointment in everything ever.

  “damn.”

  “Bomb.” I smiled.

  Blu tackled me out of the door as the explosive… well, exploded. We tumbled back into the lobby at the feet of the guard Blu had addressed as John. “I see you two found our armory outpost.”

  “Dat shit blewed up,” Blu said in a voice resembling a toddler.

  “Bomb,” I said, unable to help myself.

  “Next time I see any of you in a restricted area, I’ll have to report it; stay out of trouble.” The guard walked back to his post without another word.

  “He was more lenient than I would have expected,” I pointed out.

  “Man does not get paid enough for this,” Blu agreed. “I still want to do something other than get physically harassed by my wife or verbally harassed by your… suitor.

  “They are not a suitor; they are a to-be-married individual with…” I couldn’t think of an appropriate description.

  “Yeah, nice try.” Blu pulled me to my feet and checked his phone; his eyes widened at the screen.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “Nika needs help.”

  “With?” I willed him to continue.

  “Not sure, something to do with something called needlers and some shadlings. Sounds like fun.”

  “Sure, I guess I’ll go. I need to clear my head anyway.”

  “Wait, why doesn’t she speed up time?” I wondered aloud.

  “She’s out of Connie, whatever that means.”

  “I’m so going to tease her about this for weeks.”

  “As you should,” Blu encouraged.

  ***

  “Oh, my goodness!” Blu put his face in his hands, after slipping on another patch of ice. “Cut it out.”

  “Okay I will.” I lie, as I fling a chunk of frost in front of his feet.

  “AUSHEN!” Shouted Blu as he failed to retain an annoyed look.

  I busted out laughing, nearly collapsing on the ground.

  “We have been walking for nearly an hour,” Blu took a shaky breath to regain his composure, “and have not found jack shit.”

  “Found deez nuts.”

  “I can’t even with you right now.” He shook his head at me. “Let’s go.”

  We began on foot once more towards a barricade in one of the entryways of the hotel. Blu made a point to avoid any of the guards in the area in the event that they may be watching us. With our detour on top of me tripping Blu, we haven’t made much progress in finding an entry. When we finally did reach one of the “turn back” signs Blu began moving chairs and tables out of the way.

  “Help me move these. Quietly, please.”

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  I picked up a chair and threw it noisily behind me, causing Blu to blink at me several times, at a loss for words. I kicked over the barricade, bringing out immediate laughter from me, but also delayed snickering from Blu.

  “Why do I bother.” He hopped over the mess and into the next section of the hall.

  This area of the hotel had noticeably less lighting and seemed much older than the previous sections. Paintings lined the walls and wicker furniture sat overturned and covered in dust. There was a distinct eeriness about the rooms going forward, devoid of life entirely. No, not entirely. There was something nearby, a lot of somethings. So, as one does, I decided to ignore the eerie feeling and keep goofing off.

  “Blu, I found something,” I called out to him.

  He hurried over to me, scanning our surroundings for potential threats. “What is it.”

  I pointed to a framed image I’d never seen before. “NFT.”

  He stifled a laugh and tried to remain above my obnoxious humor. “I think that’s a painting.”

  “What?”

  “Painting,” Blu reiterated in a slow, deep tone.

  “Like a physical NFT?”

  “I’m going to go insane if I keep talking to you,” Blu got out between wheezes and laughter as he continued over to a rusted metal door.

  He looked at me, said, “Subtlety’s for bitches,” and kicked violently against the door and it flung in a downward arc, tearing the loose top hinge off and twisting the bottom one, revealing a segment of the basement. The metal door crushed a shadling that was standing right outside the entrance, the horde in the desolate hall turned to look our way.

  “I want first kill,” Blu said quickly.

  He would have gotten it too, had I not frozen his feet in place. I heard him howl my name in amused fury as I jumped into the air and drew my staff. I formed a huge cubic hunk of ice on the end and brought down the light-blue hammer on the head of a flying bug, crushing its skull.

  “So, are these needlers?” I thought aloud.

  I summoned a ball of ice in my hand, preparing to toss it at one of my other assailants. I had just decided on a target, only to find the ball wrapped in shadowsteel and tethered to the sleeve of Sifyx.

  Blu flung the piece of ice into the mouth of a shadling, it exploded on impact, rewarding him with a burst of blood and frost. “That’s what you get, asshat.”

  “You stole my ball,” I whined satirically.

  “Yeah, that’s what happens when you piss me off, you get your balls snatched.” He paused for a moment. “Actually, I regret that sentence.”

  We might have continued our senseless yapping, but our enemies weren’t having it. They began to converge once more, their revolting stenches competing for our attention.

  “Man, when I get my hands on these pieces of fodder,” Blu ruminated on what I imagined to be various killing techniques.

  “Freaky ass.”

  He rolled his eyes and Shadow Shifted into the middle of the horde, slashing and hacking with his sleeve-made blades. Occasionally one of the blades would change form into a tether with a sharpened blade at the end that Blu would use to pull himself around with, or to pull enemies to him. At times I would find my airborne chunks of ice, pierced by his threads and thrown into a target other than the one I had intended. I inconvenienced him similarly by swiping his legs with my bare staff or blasting ice at his feet, occasionally unbalancing him, resulting in him missing fatal blows on his targets.

  The mood was extremely casual for echoes in a hallway, cutting down everything in their way as if we were doing nothing more than racing or playing video games. We made it challenging for each other but also made sure we didn’t get seriously hurt.

  Blu moved to shield me with Sifyx whenever a needler spat acid too close, and in return, I blasted fire at any of the demoryns that seemed to get to his blind spots. In the span of minutes, we had reduced the room to husks of needler exoskeletons and chunks of nasty shadling flesh.

  I haven’t had this much fun since I broke Nika’s combat simulator back at our safe house. I had to spend the day putting out fires and helping repair damaged furniture and then getting yelled at for doing neither as thoroughly as I should have. Blu gave me a nod of assent. “Finally okay about killing, are we?”

  My stomach churned, though not as much as it would have if the blood were human. “Not quite, I don’t have a gripe if they aren’t people.”

  “That’s funny. I see humans as more deserving of my blade than animals. Of course, the term, “animal” here can mean many things, so at least considering that, I can more easily agree with your reasoning.”

  It smells of fresh meat in here, said a superior, slightly annoyed voice.

  “Valuni, what are you doing in here?” Blu raised an eyebrow at the cat, who casually strode in through the demolished doorway.

  Dinner, she said coolly and began feasting on the emaciated corpse of a shadling.

  “I thought you were with Nova,” I said, taken aback. “How did you get here so quickly, much less find us, even.”

  I am tied to my master, Valuni justified. She continued to tear at the shadling's muscle fibers. I know where he is via his mental presence.

  “I’d rather you didn’t refer to me as master.”

  Very well, my liege, the Son of Shadows, shall have his demands met. I thank you both for the meal. Valuni pranced out of the room the way she came, leaving us with one last sentence in our minds before she disappeared around the corner. Your companion, the Queen of Clock and Circuit, is near, although I do not know where specifically.

  “I don’t understand the deal with that cat,” I said to Blu, who lifted his head. “I’m a dog person anyway.”

  “What are you doing?”

  Blu lifted his hands in a receptive gesture. “I’m feeling for shifts in the lighting. I’m aware of slight movements in the shadows. Based on the size and shapes of the shadows themselves, I have an idea of who or what is creating them.”

  “That’s honestly kind of cool,” I commended Blu.

  “It would be kind of cool if it was of any use to me now. I can’t sense anything that would give away her position, which makes no sense, as rowdy as that girl is.”

  That got me thinking about the nature of Blu’s abilities and the nature of this section of the level. “It’s extremely dark in most places down here; maybe she’s not in a place with any light. Or she might be unconscious; using her time discs puts too much strain on her mind, so if she’s in light but not moving, then it’d be hard to tell which shadow is hers, even with the shape.”

  “Ran out of Connie, is that what she meant? She spent too much Concept Energy on messing with the laws of reality, and she got a little sleepy?” Blu speculated.

  There was little indication of Nika’s whereabouts, no sign of desperation or struggle, just the remains of the demoryns that we had previously dispatched. Blu and I searched around the area, trying to spot anything out of the ordinary, at least out of the ordinary in terms of Verestia.

  “Let me try something this time. Stand behind me. Additive Concept: Winter's Whisper.” I flicked my hands outward, and frost spread across the walls and floors, coloring the room in glittering white.

  “Okay cool, how does that help?” Blu asked in a bothered tone.

  “I’m going to maintain the coating of ice at a heat that will barely melt at body temperature. Look around for melted patches; one of them may be Nika. I need to stay here and maintain the flow of Concept Energy to keep the temperature level across the hall.”

  Blu vanished before I got the last few words out, hopping back on the Shadow Express. The only thing that occurred while I waited was a group of needlers passing by me, sparing little notice since I had no light for them to cozy up to. It wasn’t long before Blu returned with an incapacitated goth chick in his arms and dead air about him.

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  Additive Concept: Winter's Whisper: Allows Aushen to coat an area in a thick layer of brittle ice that is regulated via Concept Energy.