ODE TO THE END: A BALLAD OF BROTHERS

CHAPTER 27

MAVE

"Help her, you idiots!" It was a command that cut through the gray wave in an instant. Everybody in the Warden soup, whisking and swirling from task to task, stopped. Even the Warden General, pulling every string from the backline to unravel this most recent commotion, felt a static shiver run up her spine. She paused, looked toward the sound of the boyish demand, and followed it with an absurd prediction in mind.

Mave looked to be a child among men, but every agent  who caught a glimpse of her made way for their leader. Whatever stole their attention prior to her passing, be it magical killer or abhorrent demon, did not matter. Her people bent around her until she was able to see, and what she saw  was A dark boy struggling beneath a beast in the likeness of a girl. One that bit and snapped at his limbs like wolves upon deer. The boy was losing what little fight remained, but he demanded aid for someone not yet in Mave's view. When the last agent stepped out of Mave's path, she saw her. Naomi, painted in the image of death.

Mave's world was suddenly awash. Amid the muted murk she only saw the body. Naomi's body, and the slow rise and fall of her chest. The faint sounds of her daughter's exhale was a siren's song, but Mave stayed the madness with a nip of the tongue. The Warden General emerged, and she soon saw the scene as a Warden General should.  In detached totality.

Mave gestured to the agents. "Get the civilian to triage. I want her seen immediately." On command, the agents rushed toward the sun-kissed girl and pulled her away from the wild sight. Gun points were then raised, signaled by a single hand from the Warden General, and they placed the dark boy and The Beast he braved at the end of their sights.

Mave watched as some of Warden's pups choked before their targets. The anxiety then spread when the dark boy gave a thundering kick to The Beast. An electric shock was seen where his foot connected and The Beast was blasted into a building that collapsed on impact. The dark boy, now free from predator and protectorate, surrendered himself to the pain and let out a shout. Blood soaked, static singed, and robbed of breath, he shook in response to an overtaxed, overloaded body. In this weakened state, apprehending him would not have been an impossible task. Only a herculean one. Mave's mind conjured a thousand methods of capture, for no effort could go without measure before creatures such as these. Alas, she did not expect for the dark boy to make a desperate plea.

"Naomi," the dark boy cried. "D-did you people get Naomi?! She needs help! She needs a hospital!"

Mave moved on pure instinct. Her pistols were drawn and their barrels were shoved into the dark boy's face before she realized her intent. Her gray-clad soldiers followed suit like shadows, and they each bore down on the boy with the bullet-spitting ends of over a dozen firearms. It was a foreboding vision of steel rain that the boy could not escape, but the impending flurry did not frighten him in the way Mave expected. No. His moonlight eyes ran up the trigger end of her bold, silvery pistols and gazed into her dark glare with a flickering revelation. Mave paid no mind to what the boy presumed to know. It simply did not matter.

"Do not move," said Mave. Her lips parted slowly as her cold gaze set upon the boy like a long night. "Disobey my order and I will fill your face with bullets." She pressed her silver pistols into his eye sockets. "Our data shows that your skin is tougher than most, but I doubt those pretty little eyes are just as sturdy. They never are." 

It was then, and only then, that she saw the dark boy seize. The look on his face translated well. To him, she was irrefutably lethal. Now that she knew she was perfectly understood, Mave continued. "Tell me, Mr. Achim Arbitor, what have you been doing with my daughter?" In response, Mave saw some unreadable thoughts swimming in the light of his eyes. He then eased with some relief. Another unexpected reaction.