The Warrior’s Bible
Isabella Kraft
Copyright © 1999 Isabella Kraft
Tao stood there in front of a face that was the perfect combination of her and Kane’s features. The smooth curves of those features, the sharpness of his eyes, the perfect texture of his skin, all mixed into one face so foreign but so familiar. Only nature could construct something so utterly flawless as a face drawn from two sources. She probably would have stood there forever just staring at the boy if it were not for the fact that he happened to be on the wrong side of the battle field.
She knew that their kind developed quicker and lived longer than the race they had been spawned from, but this boy could only be a few days old. Already the structure of a six year-old had sprung from his face. “Amazing,” her mind raced under the pressure of such thoughts. Was it some kind of growth hormone or genetic programming?
She wasn’t too surprised to find that she would have fight her own son. Koan had designed him as a weapon and had probably programmed his mind the same way as well. But what did surprise her was the sudden realization that his appearance had triggered, he was her son. It surprised her that facts could be brought to form and have more influence on her emotions that way. There was no denying it anymore he simply looked too much like her to begin with.
It was a nice combination; her and Kane did produce beautiful children. Tao supposed that if nothing else came out of this battle just picking out what had come from her, what had come from him and what had come from both of them would be more than enough to entertain her after she died. Although the thought of her own son striking her down didn’t sit right, Tao was still relatively mellow. She supposed that was what they had always called “her kind’s way”, but it didn’t feel right for her to be so apathetic about fighting her own son to the death. She certainly didn’t think that if ever placed in this kind of situation she would become more preoccupied with her son’s appearance than with the course of her own life.
Quickly she glanced back at Koan, who was sitting at his throne like a vulture from the dark claws of a dead tree looking down eagerly at the scene before him. She hated him, an emotion she was not accustomed to feeling. Tao felt her blood flush through her veins even faster as she stared at him, as his laugh appeared to slow time, and as the light from the rapid bolts of pyrokinesis that would make her grave pasted him by without a scratch. It seemed things had grown more interesting than originally planned.
She didn’t know what she expected to find in this man when she first ventured out on a mere rumor. Certainly he didn’t expect them to come claim T’ai. Nor did Tao expect to find Kane flying cautiously behind her eager to help her out. That one moment made her realize how little she had known Kane.
Years of hate were buried under the bones of their people. Her race and his were so close in their son, so close it made him too powerful. He was the ultimate weapon. He was the Supreme. T’ai.
How dare they be so presumptuous as to try and save the boy from his creator. A creator whose skill with the ladders and threads of life were only matched by his thirst for conquest. An cliché of a dozen lunchbox super villains but true to the very last. And now that he was unleashing T’ai on his own parents she supposed she understood why he found this amusing.
In some sick demonic way she also found the sport in this match. Did she like the fact that a certain part of her was more intrigued by which of them was stronger? No of course not. If she had been self-conscious of the purity of her soul she probably would have hid this feeling from herself to the best of her ability, but she wasn’t and hiding her true feelings about this battle would give her no advantage in it.
Kane stood behind her in his usual defensive battle posture. She scanned his mind for a moment. He was more uncomfortable with the turn of events than she, and he had already noticed how much he and T’ai looked alike. It seemed to please him but other then that had no effect on his disgust for the violence they would pursue. He knew that T’ai was more powerful than both of them.
Had it had the power to give her hope she would have done it. But she didn’t bothered reaching out to T’ai’s mind, because her mind told her he was too young for her to pick up on a thought pattern. No matter how old he looked. She wouldn’t have been surprised if he actually was being controlled by Koan.
He had thrown two strong punches. She had caught them both. She had both of his hands in hers; they were deadlocked for the time being. “Hand and hand at last,” she thought.
Tao was content just to leave it this way for awhile so that she could study the boy. She needed to devise an attack that would remove him from the battle field without doing any serious harm. So she noted everything about him to find that opening.
“He’s got my hair,” she mused. “And Kane’s eyes.”
The rest was hard to determine clearly. His face was so distorted by rage that his features were hard to read, but where this rage came from was the real question she should have been asking herself. This flaw in her concentration was not lost on Tao, or Kane as she noted, but she could force herself to remove the amusement that filled her mind every time he looked at her son.
T’ai had an advantage, he was a whole lot smaller than she. Though the deadlock had held him at bay for awhile it didn’t take long for him to throw her off to the side. She tumbled hard into the harsh dirt below, feeling to rocks stab at her as she fell. “That brat,” she remembered thinking.
She wasn’t really hurt so she remained on the ground watching T’ai fight, searching for a flaw. At first she thought to boy careless and poorly trained for he wasn’t finishing what he started. He had gotten one good hit on her but left her here and went after Kane instead of finishing her off (or at least getting a few more hits as to incapacitate her). Then she noted the slight way he was pulling back just before his knuckle made contact with the skin. He was holding his punches. This was fine if he was sparring with Kane and herself but not in a battle to the death. That it was not his true force. And that brought up the most frightening question, was this hesitation for love or for sport?
An interesting thought crossed Tao’s mind. What if the boy saw it too? What if he knew and was reluctant about killing them. The resemblance between them was amazing, surely he hadn’t ignored it?
Tao found herself smiling.
She looked up at Koan again. Such an arrogant smug bastard and he didn’t even see T’ai’s hesitation. Or maybe he just didn’t care, maybe sport was sport to this guy regardless of who won or lost. Such a spiteful horrible creature, it would be too easy to call him of an alien race.
Suddenly on an impulse she scanned T’ai’s emotions. He couldn’t have formed any real thoughts and quite frankly even emotions were rare at this stage of human development, beside basic pain and pleasure, but there must be something there.
She was easily surprised at how complex the boy’s mind already was. There were no thoughts but a fully developed emotional instinct instead, which was already divided between the orders “kill them” and a unsettling familiarity with “them” that kept him from complying.
Such doubt could easily be talked out of the boy. They would have to used it as quickly as possibly if they were to use it at all.
Tao gritted her teeth as a rock slammed into her. A rock was better than the spiked mines that were shooting and bouncing around the Koan’s arena.
Apparently Koan had invested in some new toys just in case T’ai hesitated in attacking them. And now that he had finally noticed the Supreme’s one flaw they were dodging spiked mines, lasers shots from below, and rocks that T’ai was managing to throw at them. These were BIG rocks.
For the time being it appeared that the only thing T’ai could do was throw rocks at them. It was the only action that would make it look like he was carrying his orders without doing any serious damage. The static that plagued the child’s head were to harsh to ignore, to strong to suppress and to random to follow. His sharp his dulled to a wide ovalish form as he watched his parents dance above his head aglow like fireflies. “Master, they look familiar.”
“They all look the same,” Koan answered.
For a second Tao thought that T’ai wasn’t too far for them to correct the harm done to his mind, but as she glanced back at T’ai and saw the joyous expression on his face upon hitting her she was starting to doubt that anything could save this boy. “The game had been lost before it had began,” she thought. “His mind is to weak to save from the dark rhythms that demon chimes in his head.”
Kane was managing to keep himself in control to avoid killing T’ai. “Damn him,” she thought. His blasts were so controlled, so precise, if he just let go they’d be out of danger in no time at all. Why had human kind evolved to bear such great power over all? To light fires from their own souls. To fly into the sky like birds. To read the minds of others. Why if their was nothing they could do to control themselves from facing this?
With the explosions they were causing it was hard to believe that all they were shooting was their own energy. A small beam of energy hot enough to melt though steal, powerful enough to knock down mountains. Those of our time would call it magic or make them gods among us. Such a force is almost impossible to describe in the words modern thinking has provided, but if I was forced to put it in terms I would call it simple fire. Life brings it up from the deepest crevasses with such speed as to blind the eye if it had been visible. It’s the kind of force that yields to nothing and nurtures everything through it’s destruction. It is a miracle of nature that in even a thousand years time man learned to contain it. And in Kane’s case controlled enough to avoid hurting their son.
She wasn’t sure if she could blame him for that. After all her own blasts had been unusually sharp, although she had never intended them to be. It seemed that her instincts were to keep their son unharmed as well.
She sighed. They were getting no where like this, and she was beginning to tire. If things kept at this pace she would be impaled on one those spiked mines in no time. As soon as one blew up Koan released seven more. They had to attack him. That would stop the onslaught and free their son’s mind.
She looked to Kane and reached out with her mind. It was hard to get through to him because of all the projectile flying around robbing them both of any concentration, but she saw him nodded his head at her and she knew he got the message.
Silently she counted off. Tao jumped on to one of the rocks T’ai had thrown at her and rode it in to the sky, collecting as much of the energy she had managed to absorb as she rose toward the ceiling. “One.........,” her fingers tingled as she formed a tight ball with her hand. “Two........,” her fist began to glow and had completely gone numb; she crouched down and prepared for their attack. In the back of her mind she picked up on Kane’s attack charging too. She smiled to herself, part of Kane power was in his emotions. It appeared he had put every ounce of hate into this one. He would advantage their son.
“THREE!” she cut through the air as her body shot like a bullet towards the target. She lifted her fist and sped towards Koan. She criss-crossed with Kane as they left brilliant trails of gold in their paths. She hadn’t needed to yell, but it felt good to charge at her enemy screaming into the wind. For a second she understood Kane’s kind perfectly; there was nothing more exciting than this moment. A warrior she was not but in another life she could be a bearer of arms.
She opened her fist and shot her arm forward, sending a thick beam of blinding gold to Koan. She felt Kane let loose and for a while all she could see was the light. Her hands had faded into clouds of radiance and her hair was wiping through the backlash of air that tried to escape ground zero.
She saw it before she felt it. A small bolt of blue lightning disturbed the calm gold that surrounded them. She turned her head to see Kane fall to the bolt and managed to barely dodge it herself. In the shock she had lost the last of her attack and the clouds of gold were swept up by the wind almost suspiciously. They twisted around a dark figure who stepped put from the mist of their one chance at victory. Darkened by his own glowing blue aura that rose from him in flames that grew like cones and carried his hair into the hands of the wind.
As his glow subsided she saw her face looking back at her. After her own clouds of gold finally cleared she saw more clearly that it wasn’t her face at all.
It was T’ai.
Without taking her eyes off T’ai she scanned the area to find Kane. His presence wasn’t hard to miss in the energy, but he was seriously injured. T’ai probably wouldn’t have been able to do that much damage if he hadn’t caught both of them by surprise.
Much to her irritation she also picked up on Koan. “He’s still alive,” she thought. Of course he was, the full force of their blast hadn’t had enough time to hit him. If only they had a few more seconds.
She suddenly realized that she would have to track T’ai’s movements
with her sixth sense. T’ai was a lot faster now that he had gotten over his shyness towards attacking them. Tao was finally aware that the real battle had begun.
Crafty in his tactics he tried to catch her back with his fist by appearing behind her, but she turned sharply with a kick to meet him midstrike.
She nursed the sting in her soul as she watched T’ai’s body flash through the air, but there was little time to concentrate on how hard it was to attack him. He soon regained control and came at Tao with such swiftness that it made his feet seem like wings. He was so fast that she barely saw his fist as clenched and sliced through the air towards her.
Much to his surprise, she caught his fist. Tao glazed at her own hand in frank amazement and never noticed his speed causing her to swing over and loose her balance. Her mind flooded with contradictions and complications. “How could I do that?”
She was weightless perfection. Once again her conscience body escaped time’s restraints and broke free into a freefall of time. But even floating in midair she still couldn’t avoid the blow that T’ai sent to her back. He proved her speed to be a fluke as he demonstrated his again. Two passes and T’ai was in front of her again. Two passes and he hit her hard in the abdomen.
It knocked the wind out of her and she was still recovering from his first blow. Her mind spun out of control with the air in her lungs. So much so that she didn’t even notice it when she hit the ground. But she did feel the trickles of blood flooding her mouth and running slowly down her throat. She coughed and discovered new pains she wasn’t even aware of.
“Damn kid, is this the way he treats his mother?” she thought as she managed to roll herself over. At least she wouldn’t choke on her own blood. But he hadn’t really hit her hard enough for this kind of physical damage, or had he? Hell it had only been two blows, was she losing her mind? Maybe it was true what they said about her kind being frail and fragile.
It was then that she looked up slightly and realized what had caused the damage. Her body colliding with the Earth had created a huge crate at least a few feet deep. “This is unbelievable,” she thought. “There’s no way.., how did I survive that?”
Did she survive that?
A few droplets of her blood hit the dry tan dirt as she tried very hard to catch her breath. Surely things weren’t going to end like this.
In the distance, or at least what she thought was the distance she heard laughter. And as she lifted herself onto her elbows she saw it. Koan was sitting on his scarred throne laughing his head off. The throne was charred to a crisp black, but the scene had remained uncharged since before they attacked.
“No,” she ground her teeth together. “We’re not strong enough. I’m going to die here because that .....thing decided that corrupting my son would be funny.”
T’ai stood over her at Koan’s side smiling a smile that didn’t belong to that face.
Koan laughed at her again. She was so infuriated that if she had been able to stand she might have attempted to attack him, but her spirit was broken (along with a few bones). She glazed into the empty black eyes of her son, Kane’s eyes, and found herself wondering why she had come at all. Had she thought this child was going to love her? Had she thought this child would just be waiting for them? What had made her think that this was even her son? Yes he bore half of herself in that blood of his, but what difference did that make if his blood was cold?
Tao had always been told that her kind had children that immediately connected with their parents, but as she stared into those dark orbs she knew that this child would never be her son. He had shut her out. He had obviously recognized her, and that he had overcome his attachment to her and was now ready to carry out his mission.
Ideally she wondered whether another thing they said about her kind’s children was true. That the child could not live without the parent, at least one, up to a certain point. Her kind lived so long that no one knew at what age the parent could die without killing the child or whether it was true at all. It was said that this psychic connection mentally supported the child throughout the early years and without it the child would become as lifeless as the crater she was sitting in. The parent need not be present, just alive in order for the child to live. But no one knew for certain whether such things were true or just wild myths that rose up from creative minds.
Well she was about to find out
Koan managed to tame his laughter for a moment and he turned to T’ai who stood there like an empty drone waiting for his next orders. Judging from the stories of parentless children Tao again wondered whether she was already dead. Perhaps it was T’ai that had already died, her T’ai. The T’ai that had inherited her reddish hair and her smile. This one floated like a lifeless basket of hope and used her smile to throw out his intentions.
“T’ai,” Koan said. It burned Tao that he used his name. It fitted the boy. So much so that she would imagined that she would have named him the same thing herself if she had been given the opportunity. “You may kill her now,” Koan finished.
Koan was gitty with amusement as T’ai raised one glowing hand to her. “Damn,” she thought. “I can’t even gather enough energy from the soil to defend myself and I’m too weak to channel all that energy.” She clenched her fists and braced herself to die. She wasn’t sure how it would happen, but in all likely hood he would throw that thing at her and it would consume her whole. It was now that she realize how impossible it was to prepare for death.
T’ai’s blow of fury left his hand as he swatted it down at her. She saw the ball of light grow into the crater and as Tao felt the heat dance across her skin she noticed a figure moving to her side. She clenched her teeth and finally just gave up and curled herself up into a small ball, hoping for the best, hoping for a painless death.
It was then that she felt him. As his own blast easily knocked away T’ai’s. She tried to look up at him. The light pierced her eyes from around his body, casting a brilliant glow around his figure and drowning out his golden aura. She had thought he was dead, but it appeared that Kane was still very much alive.
As the dust cleared Kane stood to face their son. His body had been bruised a little and the last blow had probably knocked him unconscious for this whole time, but he was finally ready to fight their son.
T’ai seemed generally amazed by Kane’s display of honor. He had saved his mother’s life and Tao was sure that somewhere that registered with the boy. T’ai was frozen. His eyes lightened slightly and his skin paled. Was he afraid of Kane? No, T’ai could kill Kane easily and he knew it, but the showcase of emotions and motivating factors that had just been displayed were completely foreign to the boy. He had never known love, he had never felt its warm presence and gentle glow, and although Tao and Kane were not in love there was a respect between them that had become a stronger bond then simple affection.
Kane’s breath was heavy, his energy was weak and his body displayed this. He knew that if T’ai attacked now he would not survive. But he stood still, waiting patiently for the inevitable as if he was looking forward to it. His eyes burned with the life he could not find in himself. He couldn’t find that last ounce of strength that he could use to defend himself. His hair was weighted down with sweat that ran off his tips and vanished into the humid air. His chest throbbed as the lungs strained with their last breaths and his heart pounded away on it’s last work load.
Tao looked up in amazement at a strength she couldn’t even begin to comprehend. Kane had arisen from a state so drastic that she could barely tell he was alive to this, bathed in the fumes of adrenaline and filled with the only life he had left.
Koan smiled to himself, interested by the turn of events and certainly not threatened by anything that had developed. He smiled wickedly at Kane and snapped, “wait your turn.”
T’ai was not unaffected by this. His smirk had long drained from his face leaving it empty except for the undeniable shock he felt. His hardened features had melted from their cold lines and Tao realized that a soft skin was lying underneath. The boy’s eyes remained locked on her, puzzled by her face, confused by her presence, but all together unconfident in his convictions. He remained focused on her even as the words “kill her” left Koan’s lips.
For a second Tao thought it was all over, but the new energy ball T’ai held in his hand was different. It was warmer, gentler, and peaceful in a sense. She realized immediately what this meant and she found herself smiling broadly. As he raised his hand to prepare the deathblow she spoke quietly to the sprites circling around her, “that’s my boy.”
Quickly his hand came down and the ball expanded to a large beam that would consume her. Her bones ached in anticipation as the small star in his palm attacked her like a comet.
She heard Kane scream out her name.
Tao screamed. She tossed her fiery hair into the wind as the blast consumed her completely. She couldn’t help the smiled that crept across her face as she felt no pain in the light. She knew it!
Tao felt the energy flow into her pours so fast it was like someone had opened a flood gate. It filled every muscle, every bone, every cell to the breaking point with the purest of energy. It hit her like a rush of cool water and twirled inside of her like a whirlwind of sparkling pixies. She felt her body almost budge under the new strength and for a moment she thought her knees might buckle under the incredible weight had she been standing.
She felt no sting as her wounds faded into new skin nor did she feel the strain of her muscles tighten and grow. Her hair wiping widely about as the remaining energy circled her like a whirlpool. Her insides felt like they were being massaged by thousands of tiny hands. Her skin tingled and stretched to accommodate the new stronger body underneath it.
She didn’t need to scream but she couldn’t help it. It felt good to be reborn in a blaze of light, it felt good to absorb the energy that would surely help her defeat Koan. She was overwhelmed with such a profound sense of joy she couldn’t help crying out in something that was more like a battle cry then a shriek.
Tao felt her hands raise as if the were being lifted for her and she felt the spark as her palms met heel to heel. She felt the energy swirl up and surround her palms as she gently drew it close to her skin, but not in her. Not this time, she still needed to take care of other things. She felt the ball condense and rest in her hands. It was unstable but it would do. The energy pulsed and swelled as she held it and she knew that in all likelihood she would not be able to control this, but it was the only way. It may kill her, but there was no other choice.
Her eyes snapped open. She eyed Koan for a moment, his face frozen in fear and confusion. “He must think me a demon,” she mused. He was shocked by the fact that she had come back from the dead and was now going to be the instrument of his destruction. She relished in one last look at his face before her hand sliced down like the blade of a guillotine.
The force of the impact knocked both Kane and T’ai off their feet and launched them into the air. Kane struggled to keep afloat but T’ai, who had given all he could so that Tao could defeat Koan, was quickly taken up by the wind. His body was flapping around like a dead leaf. Kane caught sight of the boy, whose face would have been frozen fear had he not been too exhausted to even breathe.
“If it wasn’t for the harsh wind filing the boy’s lungs, he’d probably be dead,” Kane realized. He suddenly jumped after the boy, managing to get behind him and catch the boy as he was propelled onward by the force of whatever Tao had done, “Gotcha,” he told T’ai.
T’ai groan in response, the boy was obviously not doing so well. He would be fine if they could get out of here and if he could have a few days in bed, now that he was conscious again of course.
But before Kane could figure out how to get out of the area an aftershock of Tao’s blast hit them. It felt like a small bomb had gone off right in front of them. Kane couldn’t find his footing in time to prevent them from being sent through one of the marble columns of Koan’s arena. Kane, still holding tightly onto T’ai, crashed into the rumble below. He was glad to finally be on the ground and thankful that he took most of the blow and had probably save T’ai. He smiled as his vision began to fade to black.
“Shit,” Tao thought. She had been too rash, she had attacked too soon. She hadn’t waited for the energy to stabilize and now Koan was dead and she couldn’t control it. She couldn’t stop it. It had carried out its orders and now it was time to pay the bill, she was going to go with Koan.
“Stupid,” she cursed herself. “You’re going to die at the hands of your own son anyway aren’t you? The one shot that he fires to help you and you’re going to let it destroy you.” She tightened her muscles as the pain became unbearable. If she tried to reabsorb it when it was this unstable she might as well kiss her ass goodbye, but it wasn’t her doing that was causing her body’s reaction. The energy was actually forcing it’s way in. Ripping, tearing, breaking bones as it went. She was being pressed to death.
As the monster sunk its teeth into her skin she screamed. The same force that had helped her was killing her as slow as possible. She felt the kind of pain she had only imagined before. The kind of pain that cripple the body and paralyzed the soul and forced your mind to stop everything to focus solely on the damage that was taking place.
“Damn this, I don’t want to be a spectator at my own execution.” She had to figure something out before she was crushed to death. The force was pushing out the forces pushing in and every organ, every bone or muscle in between them was being destroyed. She knew the way out of this, but logically it would only speed up her death rather than prevent it.
“T’ai............I tried.......I suppose this is the end,” she thought. There was a chance she would survive but a very slim one considering the surroundings.
She needed to remove one of the forces, which meant either drawing all the energy in, which would never work because she probably combust, or push it all out. If she did this she would lose her life energy, in essence her soul, and there was no life too draw from in order to quickly recover here. This barren war zone would provide nothing for her to hold on to while she sent away her life, nothing that might sustain her.
But she had no choice. This was too horrible for her to consider anything else.
Slowly she let go, releasing her chi felt like a rush of golden air through her beaten body. It was surprisingly refreshing like cool water on hot bodies, and she was content for a moment in the peace of it all. Her body felt completely relaxed.
“Was death always like this?” she wondered. And if this moment could last just a few more seconds it would completely eradicate any memory she had of the pain she once knew.
But that was not meant to be.
She felt as if she were falling a great distance to the ground, but she had not be flying and was in fact kneeling on the earth with no where to fall to. As her vision waved in and out she realized that she was falling. Her upper body had swayed to the ground so lightly she had barely felt it.
Or maybe it that she just couldn’t feel anything at all. Her body was a cold numb shell. She couldn’t even hear the soothing rhythms of her breath or her faint heartbeat anymore. Was it because those things had already stopped?
In the vast sea of silence she did hear something on the winged feet on the wind. A voice, small but vocal and yet so faint she could barely make out its message. She could only hear the urgency in it call, the fear and shock that vibrate softly off its tongue, and the sadness that it suddenly painted on her death.
It sounded like “Mom!”.
T’ai awoke with a harsh start. His body snapped forward in a sudden precognitive sense of doom. His breath had become suddenly like rushing locomotives and his heart pounded like a steel drum of deafening proportions. He looked around him, bewilder by the sight of the ground latent with rubble and grasping desperately to identify his location in relation to the battle.
The last thing he remembered was looking into that strange woman’s eyes and feeling that she wanted him to follow his orders. He didn’t want to follow his orders, but that woman’s face had argued better than any vocal objection could have. He didn’t understand why she wanted him to kill her. At first he had thought it to be an issue of pride where she would either return victorious or not at all, but that wasn’t pride he had seen in her eyes. That wistful look in her eyes was hope. Had she hoped to be killed? Could any warrior with such spirit and vigor really long for such a fate? She had fought with such determination was it really all just a suicide mission?
It didn’t make sense, but nothing made sense to him anymore. Who were this strange two? Why did that man fight to protect the woman if she was wishing for death? Why did they fight for each other?
He had felt the difference as soon as he shot at her. He knew that it wouldn’t kill her and originally he had thought this feeling was because his aim was off, but it was not off. He saw her stretch out her arms, which was odd because he had assumed that he had broken the left one, in what seemed to him to be an attempt to deflect the blow. The look in her eyes didn’t sway from their message.
He knew she would never be able to block that blast. Even the man standing close by mumbled, “Good God Tao what are you doing?”
Tao. So the woman had a name. That still didn’t clear up what her relationship was to him, but at least it was a name. He wondered what the man had to do with this Tao and why he hadn’t interfered again that time. Perhaps he hadn’t had the strength to stand a defense again, but he had trusted this woman enough with her own life.
Then something sudden happened, he watched his blast seem to fade into her and her body emerge remolded into a more spectacular form than originally. A mist of glowing embers circled her like a cyclone and as she raised her hands it seemed that the world rose up onto them. He was blinded by the giant orb in her hands very quickly.
He felt the rush as he zipped through the air and for a moment it was wonderful, but he knew that when he hit the ground he would be dead. He had hit something, but it was softer than he had anticipated and although it was painful it certainly hadn’t killed him.
He turned his head and sudden realized that it had been that man who had caught him. It was that man whose arms wrapped tightly around him even as he lay unconscious here to protect him. It was that man whose body had been buried under the rubble instead of his. It was that man’s beaten body that rested almost under his own and, even in it unconscious state, shielded him from the jagged rocks below.
He felt compelled to help him somehow, but wasn’t really sure why. This man he had tried to kill; this man he was suppose to kill. But this man had saved him, didn’t that mean anything? Besides these two were not his enemies, his master’s but not his. Hadn’t he proved that when he had helped Tao?
Had that been what she had wanted the whole time? Had the blast helped her? He had already seen what she had become because of it and it was undeniable that what he had thought was the kill shot he had exactly subconsciously intended to help her.
He began digging out the man’s body. He could feel his life flowing in his veins still; there was still time to save his life then. He lifted the stone and rocks in an endless quest to uncover something of what he was feeling by freeing this man. “He is pretty badly hurt, but removing these ruins will help his chance of surviving,” T’ai reasoned.
At least it was something.
T’ai glanced back to the bright light a half a mile away. She was still going strong, he noted, “but something’s wrong,” he realized.
Yes he could feel it clearer now. The energy was winding like a serpent around the battle field, enclosing everything in it’s painful torment. “She’s in pain.” The revelation struck him like a bolt from the heavens, but he remained frozen in uncertainty. Had she indeed been suicidal after all? What this what she want or should he try to help her?
Her scream launch him into the air after her. He couldn’t stand the sound of it. Whether she wanted it or not he was going to try his best to help her. He flew swiftly to ground zero, smiling to himself when his speed had advanced to the point that he didn’t feel the dust sting his skin anymore.
Suddenly the candle flickered out. All the light vanished as if it had never been there in the first place. He stood there baffled for a moment wondering what he should do now. He scanned the area for Tao but could find her with his eyes. He tried to sense her presence, but he couldn’t.
It felt like someone had impaled him. The thought that this woman might be dead struck the bottom of his soul and painfully vibrated up his spine. He zoomed down into the crater aimless and cried something almost insane within itself. He didn’t understand the words as they left his mouth but he only knew that they felt right.
“MOM!” he tearfully screamed out to her, but she did not respond.
Then he spotted her desecrated body on the ground lying in the dust. He quickly rushed to her side and simply stared at her wondering if she was dead. She wasn’t breathing, her heart had stopped, but she seemed to continue to be tinted with life. Perhaps there was time still.
Without understanding really what he was doing he place his hands above her skin. He felt his hands tingle as the twinkle sprinkle down into her skin. A sharp bolt of lighting shot gently from his hands and jump started her heart again. He stared at his own palms in utter amazement at what they were doing.
“Mom?” he asked her as she showed signs of recovery.
Tao slowly opened her eyes and glazed at him as if he had been speaking Greek. She searched his face for confirmation of what she thought he said, and when finding it in his traumatized large watery eyes she took him into her arms.
Her recovery had not been so quick that she didn’t flinch in sudden pain when he tighten their embrace, but the gentle sound of his tears flowing onto her shoulder seemed to muffle out the small grunt. She fought back dizzy spells and the pain of trying to wield a body that no longer worked by focusing on the small lost sheep in her arms, her son.
His tears had brought him home in her heart.
