Shawn, don’t let me die…

  …

  Don’t let him take me…

  ...

  Shawn, wake up! , I ’t drive your body for you! , wake up!

  Shawn opened his eyes and gasped, limbs afire, a out a hissing exhale from the pain of everything hurting. He was lying prone, a hard and unyielding grouh him. Everything about his existence protested against this pain, and he squinted his eyes, too in pain to take in the brightness of the waking world. He felt a radiating pain in the core of his being, burning pain that followed his nerves a like every inch of his body had been in tact with a nine volt battery.

  But the pain was worst by his heart, burning and twirling. He had pushed his new body to limits he shouldn't have, and he clutched his hand to his chest, groaning and rolling to his side, tears of pain weeping from his eyes.

  I'm alive. Pain was his signal he survived.

  But that pain faded, reg from his limbs, his wings, back to his core, where that angry burning subsided to a sharp warmth, and the whirling stopped. He dared to open his eyes, now that again didn't define his existence.

  His first sight upon waking, up above him, was of a purplish-blue sky, at the dusk hour of the world. The specter of that otherworldly green and blue nebu was barely visible against the ing night. And up above…specks of light, raining down in small fshes on the horizon.

  He coughed hoarsely, feeling like he’d been choking on his father’s sed-hand smoke. He blinked and tried to figure out what was in the sky–and his eyes widened when he realized what he was seeing.

  That wasn’t a meteor shower. It was the fractured remains of their lunar ptform, disiing in orbit, bits at a time. Anyo up there was now falling into orbit, to be ied to dust. He dared to move his head; he heard groans, g, and the encing words of Cire.

  “Garrett, use your belt to a tour, or they’re going to bleed out!” she called out, aurned his head to gaze at her, bloodied but alive, helping the rust and greehered Aveeran with a woman bleeding badly from a wound on her leg, screaming and g, her fair skin covered in soot and grime. Telga was using her light ability to shine light and direct others in the waning light, and Regia was ing a bandage around someoh a bloody head wound, but they were still alert.

  Shawn tried to rise but tumbled back to the smooth stoh his feet. His cws found no purchase on the solid material, and a pulsing headache pierced his threshold for pain; he groaned, feeling each throb of agony from the surface wounds in tuh his heartbeat. He felt searing pain ing from his beak, down the middle of his skull. He let out a stifled whimper and held his head with his hands, scraping a sharpened nail against his scalp, trying to will the pain away. Halsey, do you have a reading on how badly I am messed up internally? Because this feels awful.

  You’re alive, for what it’s worth. Don’t push yourself that hard again if you avoid it. You kill yourself if you push your Etteria use too far.

  He nodded weakly. Yep. I’m pretty sure that death would have been kihan the agony my body is going through.

  He winced and tried to pull himself off the ground–much to his surprise, his winged limbs were strong enough to help lift him up. Everyone who had been oform was still here, by his rough t. Injured, maybe, but alive. The runic-traced stone sb they were standing on appeared to be p down, faint blue lines of energy reg aing into the cold, ung stone.

  Long, tall green grass surrouhe structure, with the metal and stori-tip cw structure arg above them. Beyond that, small is buzzed about iill-warm air, the air slightly humid. Alpirees surrouhe meadow, t tens of meters into the air, and looked not unlike what he would have observed oh–except the bark was golden, and the needles seemed to form impossibly small fractal shapes, fluttering in a light breeze.

  It was serene. And the epiter edy. If his head wasn’t splitting and it felt like little splinters were digging into his arms, legs, and wings, he might have been able to appreciate the beauty of the ndscape more, or that evergreehat reminded him of the forest retreats of home.

  Cire finally noticed he was alert, and hobbled over to him, falling to her knees and giving him a deep hug. “Thank whatever divine power exists in this universe that you're alive. You were barely breathing for a minute, Shawn. I think…I think that golden barrier you put up is the only reason we aren’t toast.”

  She finally let go of her emotions and sobbed on his shoulder. He let her, because he barely kept his owions from melting down, not ating for the pain his body was in. He ed a hand around her back, to reassure her.

  “I’m okay, Cire. I’m alright.” He let out a shaky exhale, trying to fight at misty tears that threateo betray just how out of sorts he was, and she ran her hands along the shoulder bdes of his wings. For a moment, he hovered on the brink of breaking down, and just barely mao keep fr.

  Cire had been there during his college years, when he was lost, always trying to get his attention during his engineering precursor csses, before their study paths diverged. She was always trying to put a smile on his face, pester him, tousle his hair, get him to socialize.

  He studied, he excelled…

  But he wasn’t living. He hadn’t felt alive sihe day he woke up in the hospital after a near-death enter with hypothermia and pneumonia from taking a lungful of water, and waking up with his mother sobbing…

  …Aing the awful news. He’d wished he’d died ier. It would have been less cruel.

  Cire had been there in those bitter years, alushing him forward, bato the light. Even when he hadn’t realized he . After what happeo his father…and ter, Maggie, he was gd to have at least one family member to be able to talk to in fidenbsp;

  She’d been the light to pull him baow, he had to do the same in turn, with her pulled to a hostile world, with no way home, after falling out of orbit. He could feel tears dripping on his shoulder, soaking into the fabrid she shuddered untrolbly.

  “We’re going to be okay, Cire. We’re going to get through this.” Even with his whole world in pieces, she o know he was looking out for her, no matter what.

  “You’re not okay, Shawn. You’re a giant chi. Our only way home is burning up in orbit, and we have no pn.”

  “Yeah, we do.” his vocal cords felt weak, wavering on the brink, but he cleared his throat through force of will. “We’re gonna find a pce to shelter in. We’re going to rally allies to stop that madman. We’re going to beat him. And then, we’re going to find Maggie, and go home. Easy pn, right?”

  She ughed bitterly at that statement. “You’re either naive or uhily optimistic, Shawn. I don’t know whie is worse.”

  Hope isn’t lost, Shawn.

  Halsey’s glyphs weren’t just words he could see. It was a voiow, that he could feel, resonating deep in his mind. He’d barely eveered the transition, i few minutes. A feminine voice that almost borrowed the slight rolling at of his mother…but wasn’t. It–she, was her own voice.

  You speak, now?

  Sort of. I think it’s more like stimution of the pathways that ect the ear to the audio-rendering portion of the brain, but–I’m just a lost soul stu your head, and I don’t have all the answers. Sorry.

  We’re alive because of you. Don’t be sorry. No one approached him and Cire, and he figured, most everyone knew how bad this moment must be for them, a out a soft huff, while Cire shuddered. It feels like we have an uphill battle, Halsey. A big one.

  And this gestalt you possess has limitless potential. You will o master it at every level to have a hope of pulling this off. Fire, ice, and force. Eae presents an aspect to pursue. Eae, w in unison, brings you closer to making that happen. And maybe, taking down a Radiant.

  I…don’t want to go back to that void, from before. I don’t want to know what will happen if someone like Revarik is allowed to quer, unchecked. Promise me you won’t give up.

  He gripped Cire firmly, arembling slowed. “We’re going to get through this, Cire. You have my word.” In a way, he was subtly making a promise to both of them.

  Thank you, Shawn.

  After a moment, Regia cleared her throat, and Shawn was helped to his feet by Cire. He still had the problem of wobbling on his cwed toes a like he was learning to walk, all ain. Cire getting a face full of feathers from his wings, did little to alleviate her moia looked relieved, at least.

  “Hey, I see you’re still in one piece, guys. But uh…” Regia pointed a thumb at Telga, who was staring upward, looking lost, running her fingers across her facial feathers.

  He sighed when he saw the fallen goddess’s point of fixation. “Yeah. This is not a great start, is it?”

  “Nope.” Regia gazed at the survivors wearily, and wiped the soot off her feathers, before wiping it on a legging aurning her focus to him. Not like a bird of prey…but like a person. “You stood by us, Shawn. I’m gd you didn’t listen to me and take off because I doubt any of us would have made it out alive without your help, and Cire’s.”

  “How many made it, total?” The questio him with a knot in his throat, and she grimaced, her fingers still gripping deadly tight against her rifle stock.

  “There were two other teleport ptforms, set to different locations. We did pn for a tingency like this. I know one of them triggered. I don’t know how many made it, and our little unicators are too she to reach them." She tapped the silver disphasis. Garrett, weary and bleeding from a cut on his cheek, took a resting stanext to her, hands bloodied from doing triage on a few others. “Garrett, any word ohird ptform?”

  His telling gaze upward, at the debris streaking across the evening sky; the way he ched his beak, told Shawn the answer he couldn’t say aloud. Regia’s eyes dimmed, and she put an arm around Garrett, while that tough-as-nails warriazed with fervor at hapless victims turning into ash, as they fell p side.

  “It was my fault. I didn’t see it ing. I thought we covered our tracks, they’ve never been able to find us–”

  “Garrett.” Shawn found his void got the warrior’s attention. “I don’t doubt you did your best. Who we’re up against, seems to be exceedingly intelligent, and ruthless. We held them off long enough to ehere were survivors. If we’re lucky, Revarik’s men will believe everyone died in orbit.”

  Garrett clicked his beak and slung his rifle over his shoulder with a sling. “I know you mean well, Shawn. But people I knew were up there. And died up there.” The subdued anger didn't speak to a otion; more likely, it wasn’t the first time he’d taken a bitter loss. After a few seds, he poio a small dirt path. “We set this tingency up a while ago; we’re a few hours from the town of Vea’nt. No one knows about these escape ptforms or their locations but myself, Regia, and Telga. We o move, as soon as we’re able. We’re in the ass-end of nowhere, oeic mass of Valtiria. One of the biggest ks of ro Remaria.”

  “Hold up. What is our pn?” Cire asked, having wiped the tears on her jacket sleeve. “Do we have allies we t on?”

  “You’re looking at them,” Garrett said gruffly. “Vea’nt is a town Telga kept watch over for years, sort of a home away from home. It’s our new base of operations. Hopefully, it’s how we left it–a froown, away from anything important.”

  “Someoer go shake Telga first,” Shawn pointed out. “She does not look like she’s taking it well.”

  “Shawn, she’s gonna need a minute. All of our pns just went up in smoke. Unless you have a pn for taking a small, quiet lumber town and making it into a formidable bastion of industry, we are infinitely far from killing that son of a bitch, down in the core world.”

  “Sorry. Maybe I should say something?” he suggested in a low tone.

  “No, you really shouldn’t–”

  “I’ll be fielga must have heard her name mentioned, because she approached the rest of them, her white feathers stained and looking grim. “I’ll grieve ter. But we o move, now. Garrett is correct. Regia, get everyone mobile. We’ll leave in a few minutes. I’ll dismahis ptform, so no one use it or back-track it.”

  “I’ve got explosives for that,” Garrett replied casually, slinging an ominous-looking pack off his back, with a few wires stig out of waxy blocks. “Telga, I have a few healing potions in my bag. Give them to the worst wounded, get them mobile. Are you good with that?”

  “Yeah. Let’s get to work.”

  Shawn gnced skyward one more time, befng at Cire. “Well, it sounds like we might be fighting for our survival for a bit, first. But, about Maggie–”

  “I’m with you, all the way. If you think she’s alive, then I should stop doubting that.” Her movement was a bit stiff, but whatever triage efforts she had received gave her back most of her mobility. She grabbed her rifle, checked the chamber, and nodded before also grabbing the small case with the yet-uteria. She said nothing about it, but Shawn pondered after what happeo him, if it was worth the risk of her using it. “Let’s go kill a wannabe god, Shawn. A Maggie home.”

  He smiled faintly. “Easy pn, right?”

  “The best kind.”

  “Better pn fast,” Garrett cautioned and poio the wounded. “I know Vea’nt and its surroundings well enough to know that fresh injuries will slow us down. It’s going to attract predators if we're unlucky. Stay sharp, shoot at what I tell you is kilble…and run from whatever isn't.”

  Shawn g his empty hands and frowned. He was onless, the rifle discarded in defending the survivors…but still had his Etteria core. He dared to push a charge of energy from his core–and was rewarded with a light splintering pain behind his sternum. He grunted and rubbed at it gently. “Performance issue with my gestalt. I might have overdo.”

  “After what you did, you're lucky you're not a corpse,” Garrett said softly. But, he didn’t hesitate to hand him a revolver from his thigh, and the holster. “You used something like this before?”

  He took the oly, spuhe der, and looked at the design. He practiced removing the der, then repced it before snapping it shut again, and aimed down the sights toward a distant tree, feet pnted and with a slightly staggered stance. “Yep.” he holstered it gently. “Some varian design, but funally identical. What do you call it?"

  "Just a six-shooter. It's the same as Regia's, tooled at a factory in Valtiria prime, but we make these most anywhere with basic tools." He hahree more ammo ders to him. "Aim, then shoot. We have nightfall ing up fast. Take ohing to heart, you two: we are not at the top of the food , out here.”

  A distant predatory shriek came from deep within the forest, eg across the serene ndscape, and Shawhe feathers on his neck bristle. “Theter get moving.”

  Without a preamble, they got the survivors on their feet, with the two most injured being carried over the shoulder by the Vorhuhat had apahem. The path was faint but visible, and Shaw gng anxiously at the dimming light, and awkwardly walked foing to digitigrade legs in the middle of a crisis was an invenience he had to deal with, fast.

  Getting turned into an avian race was the least of his worries right now, as he pushed forward and did his best not to trip on his own two feet, kept his wings tightly pressed to his back, and hoped that whatever was in the forest found easier prey elsewhere.

  A sed primal scream, somewhat closer, told him that happy wishes weren’t a thing today.

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