The Moon's Fangs | 1
6 | star crossed deception

Reks Arlen

He had no control over the memories.

Fires raged. The innocent screamed for their lives. Trees and homes were burned and crushed while the Adamant Horde laid siege. He fought back like hell had a time limit.

Ba-dum.

“Has the Little Moon abandoned the Fangs which protect her?” The Full Spectrum’s manipulative threats sliced into him. Molten rage seared through his veins until the memory of their fight erupted. He lunged for the tyrant, but...

Ba-dum. Ba-dum.

Ellison swarmed to the forefront of his mind.

Serenity mutated into betrayal when pain like a frigid needle sank into the back of his neck. A tangle of deception ensnared Reks as Ellison’s glacial eyes stared down at him in a critical way she never had before.

Why… he didn’t understand. Reks stared up at her, waiting for her to explain, waiting for the answer that would make the expanding hole in his chest go away.

Her lips parted, but he couldn’t hold on. Cold grey light blurred in his vision before being consumed by an unforgiving darkness. Trapped with no means of escape.

Ba-dum. Ba-dum. Ba-dum.

Lethargy weighed down on his eyes as he blinked. It was like his lids were leaden, and it was a fight just to keep them open. The blur of moonlight which had loomed over his head before was now replaced by an unfamiliar golden haze.

The blood in his veins throbbed with a fresh intensity as warning signs of danger went off in his brain.

Reks mentally called out to Luk, but instead of the usual reassurances, a grey fog separated him from where his Guide resided.

Luk? Luk!

Why couldn’t he reach his Guide?

Strange words spilled from the golden haze, and he realized he must be under attack. This golden haze must have done something to his Guide - Fates - maybe had even done something terrible to the empress. No. Had he been tricked so easily? Had he been deceived?

Instinct took over.

“Who in Fate’s name...” voice trembling with raw anger, Reks reacted, snatching the girl by the neck. He couldn’t shake the blur from his vision. This imposter must have done something - must have struck him with an illegal sedative, disabling Luk, causing hallucinations. “Damnit, what have you done to me!”

She gasped out under his grip. If it weren’t for the bad eyesight, he would have been able to dodge the foot the girl planted in his gut.

Reks cursed, losing his weak hold on her. She scrambled to her feet, slipping from something warm and wet covering the ground, crying out as she hurried in the opposite direction.

Where the blazes did she take him? His vision was too blurry to make anything out. But the lack of fire and a crystalline tyrant gunning for him gave the impression he was no longer in the forest, defending the reliquary. …The runes stained in the murdered High Emperor’s blood.

“Be still, my vitiate. For your greatest test has yet to come.” Ellison swam back to the forefront of his mind. Anger and disorientation drowned him.

His muscles fought the sluggish weight as he forced his way up from the ground, going after the fleeing golden haze. Fates — Reks nearly forgot how terrible his eyesight had been before receiving his Guide back when he was just a kid. Was this what it felt like to be Guideless?

He snarled, missing her arm by a hair. She screamed, making a hard turn around a blueish blur of tall rocks. But she tripped on something poking out of the ground and stumbled to catch her footing. Reks snatched her leg, and her scream broke off as she slipped and fell the rest of the way.

She sobbed in protest while his greater weight firmly pinned her limbs. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t get his eyes to focus. “Answer me!” He growled.

The girl sputtered unintelligibly under choked sobs. Reks couldn’t understand a single word. Shayd damn it. He wouldn't be able to get a read on her, figure out who she is, until Luk resurfaced. How did this happen?

The orleizen language is commonly spoken throughout the vast empire. If she couldn't understand him, then she most likely was not under the Lucil rule. That, or she took advantage of his current conditions and feigned ignorance. Even with blurry vision working against him, it was obvious she wasn’t of the Adamant Horde. A spy from another enemy territory, perhaps? Here to reap the benefits of the orleizen empire being distracted while under heavy attack.

She kicked her feet and struggled to no avail.

The muscles in his jaw tightened. There was a war happening - he needed to get back to it and fight. Only the Fates knew how much time he’d already wasted. Did he stop the Full Spectrum in time? No… Everything turned fuzzy when Ellison showed up.

His head throbbed, increasing his frustration even further.

He blinked up, ignoring the girl’s pleas - he couldn’t understand her anyway - and tried to figure out their location. Slowly but surely, the blur began to deteriorate. A breath of relief filled him when feeling Luk slowly stir to life from within.

Good. Whatever he’d been struck with began to wear off.

As the heavy fog in his head started to dissipate, so did the blur. But what he could partially make out didn’t make sense. Dead plants? A dark, enclosed space? The sound of trickling sand? He looked back down at the girl but still couldn’t make out her features.

He didn’t have the luxury of time to wait for this sedative to completely subside. He needed to move now. The girl screamed something in his face, which rang unpleasantly in his ears while she attempted another go at pulling free.

He sneered down at her. “Don’t you know who you’re up against, little girl? You’ve rendered me temporarily Guidelines and blind, and still you’re no match.” he was no stranger to assassination attempts against his life. Enemy nations sent them often. He made a habit of never returning their kill-happy messengers.

Reks yanked her up and swung her body over his shoulder, pinning her wild legs against his chest. She screamed, punched, and scratched at his back ineffectually while he pulled his gate-ring off his finger with his teeth.

Her nails dug into his back, and he realized something. Where the blazes did his shirt run off to?

The thought triggered a memory of a barrage of crystals ripping and tearing through his uniform all at once. He winced. It was both vivid and ambiguous.

“Damnit, Luk… wake up.” When he squeezed his eyes shut, the chaos of the ambush rebounded in his head. His knees went weak, and his body partly stumbled into the stacked stones. He caught himself, managing to not drop his suspect.

~Sedative recovery has reached thirty percent.~ his Guide stirred heavily in his mind. ~It appears my connection with the main interface has been corrupted. Once fully recuperated from the paralysis, I will be able to provide status reports.~

Luk… thank the stars.

Even with that breath of relief, concern rolled down his tensed shoulders. If Luk couldn’t provide status reports, then he would be left in the dark on information regarding the empress and the empire’s state. Reaching out to his team via comm wouldn’t be an option either with the link being corrupted.

He glowered at the trembling girl’s legs he kept pinned against his chest, mentally running through his available options at present. As he did so, another ten percent of his vision came back. It was still difficult to make things out, but it was enough to put together they were in one of the botanica conservatories, however, strangely abandoned.

The dead scenery left a pit in his stomach.

Luk, I need you to sync the gate ring to the warzone. He thought to his Guide, gripping the ring tight in his hand. After that, work on a translation input in the suspect’s language.

The synthetic serpent felt groggy, like moving against an ocean’s current. He could feel the internal struggle as Luk attuned with the location.

The moment it synced, Reks tossed the ring in the air, which warped into a liquid galaxy. His suspect screamed in protest, another burst of energy surging through the girl as she squirmed and punched his back.

He braced himself for the chaos to come, prioritizing locating Sorren, Cyra, or Yuri over fighting any crystalline monsters of the Horde until then. It would be difficult to find them, but it was his best option right now. He’d have to leave this girl with one of them while he checked on the reliquary, to see what the empress had done. Just the thought sent sharp ripples of anger down his spine. He didn’t care if she was the empress. He’d demand answers.

He stepped through the open gateway and was stunned into silence.

Even though his vision had recovered halfway, he still couldn’t believe his eyes.

Where the orleizen jungles once stretched on towards the horizon, now unfolded into a barren wasteland. He blinked, stumbling back a step. Flashes of the ambush fogged his memory.

The dark purple sky blended into amethyst as Orlaith’s sun dipped under the horizon. A streak of white and blue stardust cast luminescent light across unfamiliar dunes instead of over the lush environment. A haven once lush with so many walks of life.

Something within him hollowed.

The astral barrier which once protected the entire planet now only surrounded the equivalent of an oasis-like city compared to what the empire had been. He stared blankly at it, through the thin forest behind the reduced barrier.

The sickening dread expanding inside his body knew this disaster hadn’t been the work of a single night. No.

“Luk…” he swallowed roughly. “Warp me to the citadel.”

The girl must have thought he spoke to her, because she squirmed, replying in a foreign language Luk hadn’t yet learned.

~All gates within the barrier have been locked to only specific individuals. The only available, undetectable waypoint is the one in your lab. I can hack into one of the other waypoints, however, it will likely trigger a breach of security.~

He knew that already about his lab waypoint. It had been intentionally kept off the records.

But still, all other inner waypoints were locked? Strange. Vitiates were supposed to have access to almost all waypoints. What justification was made to take that access from Orlaith’s champions?

Fates. He needed to figure out the situation. Vital pieces of information were missing, and he suspected this girl had something to do with it.

His emotions turned dark and sinister as he mentally prepared himself for what would come next.

Sync it to the lab. We’re going to get my questions answered before dawn.

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