Chapter One Hundred Seven: ‘Thy strangling breath...’

The fight came quickly. And ended nearly as fast.

The objective wasn’t to win. With only the three of them, a battle against Parson Miles was unfavorable, to say the least. And so, if defeat was all but guaranteed, then the most important task at hand was to ensure someone was able to escape to Luzo and warn everyone else. With that goal in mind, the trio of Rainlords stopped using pan-forma all at once and let their reapers flee underground in separate directions.

This was a mistake, they soon realized.

Rather than attacking them, Parson whipped his own body into a tornadic fury, becoming a veritable blade of gale force winds that carried the strength of his and Overra’s soul. And with that blade, he barreled straight into the ground, kicking up a cloud of swirling dust that became a whirlwind unto itself.

No more than a minute later, Parson returned to surface with all three reapers in his clutches.

Parson descended slowly, accumulating into the form of a man once more and watching the Rainlords carefully as he landed on the bridge with them. Perhaps he was waiting to see if they would force him to kill their reapers right then and there. They didn’t.

“Have you all calmed down?” Parson asked.

None answered.

“Mm. Really, though, you should have known better. Lady Garza, sure, you have the excuse of never having been Vanguard, but Zeff and Angie? We spent years together. And yet even now, you underestimate us?”

Zeff could feel the old well boiling again.

“But then again,” Parson went on, “Rainlords never do make very good tacticians. All that honor and bloodlust mixed together. Small wonder why you always seem to make the wrong decisions.”

Evangelina Stroud kept her voice level. “If you are going to take us prisoner, then please get on with it. I know how much you love to talk, but I would honestly rather be stuck in a holding cell for the next twenty years than listen to you yammer on for another five minutes.”

Parson chuckled with two voices. “Oh, Angie. Silly girl. Now that the Gargoyle isn’t watching, we can do as we please. Naturally, we’re not going to take you prisoner.”

Socorro’s reaper burst apart in a sudden gust of wind and evaporated into nothing.

Socorro doubled over onto the pavement, hands spread wide as her breathing turned irregular and the muscles in her body began to twitch. Then a blade of wind split her head down the middle, and a gale picked her body up and sent it flying over the side of the bridge, leaving her to fall into the empty gorge below.

The old well erupted once more, and Zeff felt the response another time. He clenched both fists at once, and a boiling tidal wave fell upon Parson, converting to steam in midair as it tried to melt the man alive.

A whirlwind blew it all away.

And Parson smiled. “There’s that devil’s blood in your veins! A second emergence!”

Spikes of ice now. Hundreds all at once, shooting at Parson from every conceivable direction as if fired from hundreds of invisible guns. A whirlwind took them, too, and then came for Zeff and Evangelina, propelling them both skyward and holding them there with pressurized air currents.

“Too bad it’s still not enough,” said Parson, rising to look him in the eye. “Story of your life, eh? Always a step behind. Always needing someone to hold your hand and protect you, despite acting like you’re the one doing the protecting. And Angie--oh, you’re even worse than him!”

Hardly able to move, Zeff clenched his teeth and finally just yelled, “Why are you doing this?! Parson! What possible reason could you--?!” But the sentence went unfinished as oxygen flew directly into his lungs and filled his chest nearly to the point of bursting.

And Parson gave a snort. “Reason? Singular? Dear boy, you really did learn nothing from me, didn’t you? Never run with any plan in which there is only one desirable outcome. Fundamentals, Zeff. There’s no substitute for a good grasp of the fundamentals.”

Zeff and Evangelina both struggled there in vain. The soul-strengthened air currents might as well have been concrete.

But of course, Parson wasn’t done talking. “Ah, well. It doesn’t really matter, anyway. Because it’s not about the plan. It’s never about the plan. It’s about what you do when the plan blows up in your face--how you react to unexpected problems. Because plans fail all the time, especially the complicated ones. That’s why it’s so important to leave yourself some wiggle room--so that you can improvise later. You understand?”

As he writhed there, Zeff could not understand why the bastard was taking so long to kill them. Parson had always been an absurd motormouth, but Zeff had never known the man to gloat. This was pure cruelty and stupidity. Ridiculous. All it did was make the old well boil another time.

“I know it’s a bit late for a lecture,” Parson was still saying, “but I hope some of this is sinking in. Oh, but I should commend you for one thing, at least. In spite of all the other mistakes you’ve made, you were correct to not allow Sanko to investigate you. That would not have gone your way. I assure you. For many reasons. One of which is named Blackburn. But I suppose that’s neither here nor there. Let’s see, what else did I want to talk about? Umm... hmm...”

Evangelina’s whole body began to sizzle and burn at once. She might have been immobilized and weakened, but the explosive potential of sulfur transfiguration was not to be ignored, even by Parson. If she empowered the blast with her soul, he would die along with the rest of them. And of course, if Parson was going to kill them anyway, then the Rainlords didn’t have much to lose.

And by the sudden look in the Cpt. General’s eyes, Parson understood these facts instantly. A surge of wind propelled the woman away at the very last moment, and the explosion detonated in a searing flash, ripping through one of the bridge’s center columns. Dozens of cables snapped free at once and whipped around like giant snakes as Parson and all of his captives went soaring across the crumbling structure, pursued by a trail of smoke.

But captives, they still were. Parson retained his grip on Zeff, Axiolis, and even Evangelina’s reaper.

“Whew!” said Parson. “So impatient! Always was her problem! And what a temper!” He’d regained control and started flying with Zeff stuck in front of him. “Not like you, Zeff. In fact, you had too much patience, didn’t you? Never did learn how to strike while the iron was hot. Always needed that extra push.”

Still, Zeff tried to attack with ice. And still, it was fruitless.

“Well, it’s okay,” said Parson. “Because Gema isn’t like you. She’s better than you ever were.”

And Zeff stopped attacking and just stared with hard, wide eyes at the man’s deceptively young face.

“That’s right, Zeff. Gema works for me. I know exactly where she is. I’ve known all along.”

Thankfully, Axiolis was there to ask the question that Zeff couldn’t. ‘Parson, what are you saying?’

Parson abruptly stopped flying. “I’m saying... well, I’m sure you’ve been wondering, right? Why all of this suddenly happened to you and your family? Why it seemed like the Vanguard just betrayed you out of nowhere? What I’m saying is... it was me. I fabricated the entire incident with Gema’s apparent treason and subsequent disappearance. I mean, she’s good, but there’s no way she could’ve avoided the Vanguard this whole time without a bit of help from someone with clout, right?”

Zeff shut his eyes. He focused on the old well as he listened. Focused on his anger and hatred and everything wrong with the world. Focused on what he needed.

“Well, Zeff? Do you understand what I’m saying? I set this all in motion. Oh, but perhaps you’re still wondering why? Like I said earlier, there are multiple reasons, really, but the primary reason is because you have wicked blood in you. And even though I don’t have a problem letting you live--because I know you’re a good guy--I still can’t really take that same risk with your children. They could become real problems when they get older, see? So I have to make sure they die before that happens--preferably without being labeled a child killer, myself. For the greater good, you--”

But by now, Zeff had stopped hearing him. And for the third time that day, he felt it. The response. Fiercer, perhaps, than ever in his life. The old well was gone. It had exploded, and now a volcano of steam and water resided there in its place.

A wave of power and clarity coursed through him, urging him onward, telling him to do something impossible.

The air currents held him fast, even more so than before, preventing the slightest movements of his arms and legs and neck and back, preventing even his lungs from contracting.

But he could still move his face. He could still blink. So that’s where he poured his concentration.

A huge volume of water materialized. But it was all packed into a single point. He didn’t press his soul into it, but he did press as much velocity into it as he could possibly muster. And for the direction in which the water would move, Zeff chose all of them. Three hundred and sixty degrees.

The result, just as he’d imagined, was an explosion.

The burst of water seemed to catch Parson off guard and ripped into the man’s air currents, including the ones composing his own body. The water didn’t touch Zeff, but the shock wave that it created did, and the Rainlord found himself suddenly falling.

But he was free. Finally. And he could see the two reapers, as well. Parson had lost his grip on them, since they had not been affected by the purely physical blast. Zeff had bought them precious few moments. The reapers could try to flee, of course, but as Parson had proved earlier, they did not possess the speed to escape this enemy.

Zeff, however, could. Or at least, his instincts told him that he could. Fighting Parson and actually winning? Certainly not. The difference in soul power was too great. But escaping? With the power of emergence coursing through him and with a head start of a few seconds, that seemed abruptly possible.

He raised an upward-moving platform of ice beneath himself. And kept raising. “To me!” he called out, and both reapers rushed to meet him. He grabbed one with each hand as he shot past them on his growing platform, bending it horizontally.

By now, he had more speed, but it still wasn’t enough for him. He could do more. He knew he could. And when he pressed his mind harder, the jump in acceleration was so violent that he felt a dozen bones snap at once.

And then he was flying. On an icy rocket that arched across the sky, he was flying.

Still, he knew that he could do more.

He removed the cooling aspect from the ice so that he could focus everything on velocity. Water exploded forth on a sideways geyser, growing perpetually forward so as to never lose any of its initial power or momentum.

Then, he finished merging with Axiolis. The added control that pan-forma afforded him was the final push. The speed jumped another time, and Zeff felt the punch of the sonic boom as he rocketed toward the rain clouds in the distance.

-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-

Wide-eyed and grinning, Parson watched Zeff zoom away. He didn’t bother giving chase and instead chose to land. Overra melted out of his body, and Parson let out a weary breath, wiping the sweat from his brow. He started the long walk back toward Rheinhal as Overra kept pace behind him.

‘Wow,’ the reaper said privately. ‘That went even better than planned!’

‘I know, right?! I thought for sure we’d have to let him escape!’

‘Dang. When was the last time ANYTHING went better than planned?’

‘Hmm, not sure. Lac’Vayce went really well... until everyone died.’

‘Yeah, but that one wasn’t even our plan,’ said Overra.

‘I know, but I still feel kinda responsible.’

‘Mm. But anyway! How about that triple emergence from Zeff, eh?! I know he hates us, but I’m so proud of him!’

‘Oh, I know! I really didn’t think he had it in him! Frankly, I was happy with just the double. I only kept pushing him ‘cuz we had so much extra time on our hands, and then he went and did THAT. Just--agh! Beautiful.’

‘And he was even smart enough to flee instead of trying to fight us! That was one of my biggest concerns!’

‘Oh yeah! It would’ve been so annoying if he’d just decided to throw his life away!’

Overra laughed. ‘Ah, Zeff, you darling boy. Now I feel kinda bad for all those mean things we said to him.’

‘Yeah. But nobody ever got stronger by listening to comforting lies.’

‘Indeed.’

They arrived at the crumbling bridge that the Rainlords had been using to escape. Parson had been taking Zeff away from Rheinhal, rather than toward it. It would have been annoying if Sanko interrupted them, after all. Now that the bridge was out, however, he had to briefly merge with Overra again in order to fly over it. They resumed walking afterwards, knowing that they would tire themselves out if they used pan-rozum for too much longer. Parson stuffed his hands in the pockets of his ragged white overcoat and began whistling the tune to Turkey in the Straw.

‘By the way,’ he said, ‘why did we decide to kill Socorro? I can’t remember.’ Now that he wasn’t sharing his mind with Overra, all knowledge that had been acquired during the hyper state had been split between the two of them.

‘Oh, that was mainly to rile Zeff and Angie up--but also, because platinum materialization is way too risky to leave unattended. That woman could’ve crashed the Continental Market by herself if she’d wanted to.’

‘Ah, right. Good call.’

‘With everything else going on right now, we really didn’t need that as an extra variable. And with their backs to the corner, who knows what the Rainlords would’ve done?’

‘I remember the last time some jerkhead crashed it,’ said Parson. ‘Agh! That was such a pain in the butt to fix!’

‘Exactly,’ said Overra. ‘I mean, sure, we have other folks safeguarding that sort of thing nowadays, but eh. Whatever. Two birds, one stone.’

‘I gotcha. Though, the Garzas certainly won’t be happy when Zeff tells them what we did.’

‘Yeah, well. Greater good ‘n all that.’

‘So how upset do you think Sanko will be with us?’

‘What do you mean? We didn’t do anything wrong. Socorro wanted to surrender, but Zeff and Angie went crazy and killed her for betraying them.’

‘Ooh.’

‘In fact, they went SO crazy that they achieved emergence multiple times, which is what allowed them to wound us and escape.’

‘Hmm. You really think she’ll buy that?’

‘Almost definitely not. But she won’t be able to prove anything. And that woman is all about the proof. At the very least, we should be able to avoid a court martial. And if not, well, Lamont’ll help us out.’

‘He’d probably be even angrier than Sanko.’

‘Probably.’