Tabitha Chirrick - Overshadowed

Tayel’s arm tingled from the impact, almost numb. She backpedaled, but Ruxbane shook his head clear — recovered. Her heart sank. He lunged toward her, just as Shy swept his ankle from behind with her polestaff. He crashed to the floor. Tayel had a moment’s fleeting relief before he snarled. He lashed out a reciprocal blast of aether that knocked Shy against the wall. She slumped against it, her staff clattering to the floor as Ruxbane fell through another portal to evade another of Balcruf’s bolts.

Tayel ran to her. “Shy!”

“I’m fine,” Shy gasped. Her arms shook as she pushed herself up.

“No you’re — why aren’t you using the prototype?”

“Tayel, look out!”

Ruxbane grabbed Tayel by her hair. She cried out as he pulled her backward, her scalp burning with pain. She swung wildly with the baton and missed, digging her heels into the floor as he tried to maneuver her into the wavering portal he’d opened against the wall.

Fehn rushed him. Ruxbane lifted his arm to deflect the incoming blast with one of his own, giving Tayel leeway. She elbowed him in the ribs as the two gatherings of aether collided, and the collateral blast finished off his hold. Her hair came free as he lurched back. She stumbled for balance as Fehn, then Shy, then Balcruf ran past her to enter the fray. That left… Jace.

She scanned the hall. She spun around.

Past the fight, the clashing aether, the zipping bolts, the swinging polearm, Jace ran through the only door at the end of the hall — the only one Ruxbane could have come out of. A wave of dread made Tayel sick. She stumbled into a jog, a run, a sprint. Her legs weighed a ton each and the mag baton weighed twenty, but she sped past the fight, skirting it by inches. If the command center rested beyond that door — if Jace went into a Rokkir command center by himself — she couldn’t complete the thought. Fear pushed her harder, and she dashed through the open door, baton ready to strike.

The room beyond was half the size of a magball field, tall and circular. The high ceiling and curved black walls gave it the illusion of space, but working stations at the edges of the room limited maneuverability. To her right and left, grated platforms stood at a second story level, where more work stations were built on top. A single staircase led up to a door at the back of the room, and beside it, Jace’s red feathers stood out in stark contrast to the dark decor.

His talons shook as he unscrewed an access panel, moving from one corner to the next with Locke’s multi-tool. Bolts clattered to the floor.

“Tayel!”

Tayel half turned to pinpoint Shy’s cry from the corridor when a portal opened in the wall beside the staircase — beside Jace. Tayel screamed to warn him, but her cry only alerted Ruxbane as he stepped out. He followed her gaze to Jace, and snatched him up by the throat, knocking away the fiber cutter sphere. Jace squawked. Tayel’s fear of Ruxbane vanished. She charged.

Fehn leapt through Ruxbane’s portal before it closed. He wrestled the Rokkir into a headlock, fighting to make him release Jace, but Ruxbane lashed out with his free hand. A room-wide whip of aether followed its path. Tayel dropped to her stomach. The aether flashed overhead, tossing her hair and crashing through the workstations to her right. Metal screeched apart, and a clamor of whining sirens exploded from the ruptured machines. She pushed herself up.

Ruxbane had gathered another thundercloud of aether around him. He spun around, slamming Jace against Fehn to stop his attack. Fehn and Jace cried out together, and Ruxbane unleashed the mass of power he’d been holding. They were lost in the wave of darkness. Its violent wake threw Tayel off balance. The wave exploded across the right wall, crushing the workstations and platforms until all that remained was rubble and dust.

“NO!” Tayel scrambled to the edge of the debris.

She dug her hands in hopelessly, pulling away chunks of dashboard as exposed wires caught her gloves. No red feathers. No sheen of a cyonic limb. Nothing.

Shy’s panicked gasp as she and Balcruf finally entered the room snapped Tayel out of the urge to break down. There wasn’t time to search. She wasn’t done. They’d thrown everything at this damn Rokkir, and he still hadn’t fallen. She met his gaze. His chest rose and fell rapidly. Sweat mixed with blood slid down from his hairline. She wasn’t a warrior — she wasn’t Fehn or Shy or even Balcruf — but at least that monster was as tired as she was. She squeezed her baton’s handle, feeling the vibrations of the ball as it spun in its crevice, and charged.

The fatigue in Ruxbane’s expression morphed to a confident smirk. He snapped his fingers, and the ground beneath Tayel vanished. She cried out and fell halfway through the portal. The wind knocked out of her as she caught herself on what remained of the floor around her, but with nothing else to grab onto, her fingers slid against the flat surface. She slowly fell back to dangle between two worlds.

“Help!” Her shout didn’t rise about the fight that broke out.

The other-worldly sounds of aether met once again with whistling bolts and maneuvering footfalls. Tayel struggled against the portal’s pull, panic fuzzing out her vision. The cold darkness wrapped around her legs like a veil of ice. Her hands became clammy from the strain. Wherever rested below, she wouldn’t come back from it. She just knew she wouldn’t. Someone had to help her. Any second, Shy would appear. Her or even… Tayel choked at the thought of Fehn — and at the thought of Jace that immediately followed.

Balcruf’s agonized howl echoed off the walls somewhere behind her. Everyone would die in this place. Everyone except her. That Rokkir would get what he wanted after all. Remembering the refugees in Castle Aishan marching to the tune of the strange liquid placed in their heads made Tayel scream for help again. She couldn’t become some mindless slave in Ruxbane’s army. She wouldn’t.

She thrust her right hand forward and smacked it to the floor a few inches ahead of where it had been, re-engaging her grip. A pain ripped up her side at the motion.

Shy screamed, and the twanging note of whatever aether had hit her sang out like a whip. The clatter of her polearm on the floor tightened Tayel’s throat.

She stopped breathing. Stopped thinking. Stopped feeling. She kicked the thick air beneath her and lunged forward, both her hands sticking to the steel. She did it again and again, clawing her way forward until her elbow overcame the lip of the portal. She pushed off it like a lever and tore free, ripping up the fallen mag baton and willing herself to stand.

Across the room, beside the exit to the corridor, Ruxbane loomed over Shy, aether gathering in his fists. Tayel dug her fingers into the baton handle. The steel ball in the crevice whirred to max speed and she launched it, aiming right at his head. It connected with an explosive, satisfying crack .

He staggered rightward. Didn’t drop — didn’t die — staggered. Doubt rooted Tayel in place — she had to think, had to plan — but Shy moved at the sight of her, wincing as she dug a glint of gray steel out of her coat pocket. She lobbed it. Tayel jumped forward, positioned herself right where it would land, and caught the cold metal out of the air. Locke’s prototype, still charged. Her heart rose into her throat.

Ruxbane recovered. He let loose an enraged shout and swung back to Shy. A wave of dark aether knocked her against the wall and pinned her there as he gathered another storm in his free hand.

Tayel bolted toward him. The half of her that longed to flee screamed out in panic: she would die, she’d be caught, she’d never see anyone she loved ever again. But she wouldn’t run away. She wouldn’t let Shy die without a fight. Thirty seconds of shielding from Ruxbane’s attacks wouldn’t do any good anyway. Unless — she rose the baton to strike — thirty seconds of shielding would count for everyone. Her eyes widened at the thought — at the idea behind the thought.