The Six Guns

Chapter Thirty-Four: Giving Up

  The sun was setting on Christmas Day of 2191, and the darker it grew, the more the flames in Forehold shone. Vivi, Alex, Zia, Finn, Rose, Holly, Satomi and Mikoto charge into the fires raging from this large base held in Forehold. The base was partially reduced to rubble and fighting was still raging on inside. But this time, the crew wasn't here for the fight, although they were prepared for it. They were here for the sniper who was fighting inside. Zia led the way inside, carving a path through the flames with elemental magic. Where she ran, the fire would part ways, much like parting the sea. Everyone made it inside the base safely, though not completely unharmed. Everyone had at least several first degree burns on many parts of their body, such as the face, arms, and legs. Once inside, they're met with more rubble inside.
  "Where do we go from here, substitute captain?" Alex asks Zia.
  "Follow the path of destruction" Zia says, "that's probably our safest bet".
  "I'd hardly call following trouble safe" Finn says.
  "If it works; it works" Rose responds.
  "No time like the present" Vivi says.
  The crew runs through several tunnels of what used to be walls. So far, no soldiers were in sight. At least, not living ones. As they drew more and more near the center of this building, the sounds of fighting could be heard more and more clearly. Following the sound, the team turned a corner and ran into a group of soldiers with their backs turned to them. Seizing the opportunity, Finn is the first to leap into action. As they drew near the soldiers, they noticed the soldiers here were all MTRU soldiers. However, Finn jumps in anyways. He runs up behind the group and slides between their legs, coming face to face with the group. The soldiers pick up their weapons, but to their surprise, their weapons were gone.
  "I feel like everyone else has had a chance to show off but me" Finn says, dropping several rifles on the floor. He swiped the guns from the soldiers in an instant, using illusion magic to mask his movements. "So I'll be kick starting this show" Finn continues as he gets in his own fighting stance. The MTRU raise their hands, exposing those magic sapping gloves they wore last time the crew ran into the MTRU. Finn smiles and runs up to one of the soldiers. The soldier grabs at his face, but the only thing the soldier managed to grab was the thin air. Finn had dropped below his hand, and by the time the soldier realized where Finn was, Finn had already stolen a small combat knife from a holster on the soldier's hip. Without hesitation, Finn chops off the first MTRU soldier's left hand. The soldier began to scream and look down at his hand, but Finn held his own knife against the soldier's throat. The tip of the blade pointed directly at the throat of the soldier, causing him to raise his chin in a beg of mercy. The other soldiers tried moving, but by the time the soldiers could flinch, Finn swiped the blade in a 90 degree angle; both left and right. The soldiers on either side of the first soldier paused for a second before collapsing. As their bodies hit the floor, their heads rolled across the ground.
  "Move in, quickly!" Finn shouts to the crew. "I'll make sure no more come from this entrance, you keep moving!".
  "Right!" Zia says as the crew starts running past Finn. "Thank you" Zia says to Finn as she passes him.
  "Now" Finn says as he continues to stare the first soldier in the eyes with a cold look on his face, "Where were we?".
  From a distance, the crew could hear screams of several more soldiers from where Finn was left behind. "I hope he'll be okay" Rose says as they continue to run.
  Not long after, they entered an open area. This area presumably wasn't as wide open of an area beforehand, judging from the amount of rubble, but nonetheless they found what they came for. Soldiers were gathered by the dozens here, and in the center was the sniper. The sniper had one hand in the air, and in that hand was a bright white light. The light engulfed his hand completely, and when he swung, the air itself shattered like a window. Cracks were visible, forming out of thin air, but the more surprising part was what came next. Within a 45 degree angle, a ray of soldiers are thrown into the walls behind them, like they were sucked to the walls. The walls them crumbled on top of the soldiers, effectively killing the soldiers and destroying part of the base at the same time. However, before anyone had the time to think about what had just happened, the sniper turns around quickly with a pistol out. In rapid succession, six more soldiers are shot down. The soldiers tried to shield themselves, but this unusually bright white beam of light that came out of the gun melted straight through their defenses like butter.
  "Is there a magic type that can really make digital magic seem so obsolete like that?" Holly asks in surprise.
  The rest of the soldiers attempt to tackle the sniper in order to restrain him. One after another, the soldiers were flung off of him. The sniper seemed to excel at hand to hand combat, both disarming and counter attacking with his bare hands simultaneously. Just when it looked like the soldiers had enough, more approached.
  "Hey!" Zia shouted at the sniper, "we need to get out of here right now!".
  The sniper looks up at the crew, shocked that they're here. However, while the sniper wasn't paying attention, one of the soldiers had thrown an oversized fire spell at him. The fire was in the shape of a bolt and charged at him like a spear. The sniper panicked, grabbing the fire with his bare hands, stopping it just before it hit him. But the soldier clenched his hand once the sniper prevented the spell from hitting him. As he clenched his hand, the bolt exploded. The sniper was sent flying from the impact into the wall. He hit the ground, and tried to get back up. He couldn't stand though, he had suffered a heavy concussion that even his many forms of buff magic couldn't prevent. He was too disoriented to stand. As he looked up, he could see the rest of the crew jumping into action. Finn had eventually caught up and joined the group, however, he looked out of breath. The sniper fought to maintain consciousness, but he lost that battle. He passed out.
  The crew tried their hardest to fight off the horde of soldiers. Alex could sweep a large group of soldiers off of their feet at once with his distortion magic and hand to hand combat, but it took a toll on his body, Finn was already tired from fighting off the other soldiers, Rose couldn't keep up with the ever growing amount of enemies, the Ueda sisters fought vigorously, but their form of fighting was too close ranged and were constantly being drained by the soldiers' sapping gloves, and Vivi doesn't have a large capacity for magic so there was only so much she could do. Zia fought off any soldiers that drew close to the sniper's unconscious body, until she had the opportunity to pick him up and carry him out of there. Once she picked him up, Holly increased the amount of shields behind them to stall the soldiers as they retreated. They simply couldn't keep up with the soldiers, and had to run. They continued to run until they made their way onto their bikes. Zia held onto the sniper, keeping him on her bike with her as they escape. However, the military was still chasing after them in cars.
  While driving away, Rose and Zia would shoot at the military in pursuit since they had the smallest firearms and easiest weapons to use with only one hand, and using the other hand to steer the bikes. While driving, the crew comes across a forest with a wide enough space for bikes to drive through, but too narrow for cars. Zia gestures with her hands towards the forest and then leads the way as the rest follow behind her. The cars stopped once they entered the forest and drove off somewhere else. However, the forest was a lot more thin than they had expected. Not long after escaping the pursuit, they come across a steep hill. At the bottom of the hill was a blockade of armored vans. Alex rigorously points at the blockade, but Zia has other plans. Zia used her micro rocket engine to get a good speed boost, and ramped off of the hill, barely touching the top of the vans. The tires of her bike slid across the roof of the van, but overall, she jumped right over the blockade. So the rest of the crew did the same. After passing the blockade, the crew managed to lose sight of the military and fled to Seeira. Once there, Zia took the sniper and laid him down on one of Vivi's couches. His mechanical mask was cracked and falling apart. Zia reached out to unmask the sniper, but he woke up and grabbed her hand gently. He stopped her from taking off his mask.
  "You shouldn't have come" he says.
  "That voice..." Vivi says, "sounds familiar".
  The sniper presses a button on the mask, under the chin, and the mask starts to come off. As he takes it off, Siran's face is finally exposed. He was still in the same monstrous form that he was in when he ran away. His hair is still white, his skin is still dark and his eyes are still red. "You were supposed to leave me there" he says with a depressed look on his face.
  Tears start to form in Zia's eyes as she says "Why would we ever do that? Why should we just abandon you?".
  "Because" Siran replies, "I'm already dying anyways".
  "No..." Zia says, "you've lived this long, so why now? Why, after bringing us together like a family, why now?".
  "Because" Siran says, his head hanging in defeat and eyes full of sorrow, "I finally found out what The Ly'Lum was up to. They were harvesting endo from Naris's remains and I did the only thing I could think of to stop them. In order to prevent this war from getting worse than it already is, I had to take the endo from them... by absorbing the rest of it inside my own body. I've already once exceeded the maximum amount of endo a single body should contain, and my body is now rejecting it. I can't handle this much endo, so it's tearing my body apart slowly from the inside".
  "How long?" Alex asks. "... how long can your body hold out for? How long do you think you can live in this condition?".
  "I'm not sure" Siran replies, "maybe weeks, maybe months, maybe even years. No way of telling".
  "Out of curiosity" Vivi says as she walks closer to Siran with an angry expression on her face, "Where did you even get your endo? You said you already surpassed your limits once, so how'd you do it? And if you've already done it once, why can't you fix it the same way you did before?".
  "I'm not the one who fixed it" Siran says.
  "Then how!?" Vivi demands. "Not only are you burdening us with your sudden self diagnosis, but you're hurting Zia the most! Look at her!". As Siran looks over at Zia again, Zia's face was overflowing with tears. Siran felt defeated and guilty.
  "Y-you said" Zia says behind tears, "that whenever I need someone to talk to, that you'll be there. But now... but now you're saying you can't anymore!".
  "You better find a fix to this, Siran" Vivi demands, "Because I'll speed up your death if you don't".
  "Let's backtrack a bit" Alex suggests. "Why don't you tell us about your past".
  "Why now?" Siran asks.
  "Well" Alex replies, "I think we're more than deserving of finally getting to know about your history. I think we're all curious about the true story of The Naris Catastrophe, as well as there may be a clue to how to fix this situation".
  "There won't be any answers" Siran says, "at least, none you'll want to hear, and definitely not any answers to how to stop me from dying. But if you want to know so badly, I'll tell you the full story from the very beginning. Bear with me, for I don't remember some parts, like my name. I've forgotten a lot about who I used to be".

  The time was March 23rd, 2020. In a time where magic didn't exist at all, except as a fantasy. In the state of Oklahoma, USA. In Broken Arrow, a town just outside of the city of Tulsa, there was a small neighborhood with very little residents. The neighborhood only had one street, with houses on either side of the road. In the very last house at the end of this single street, there was a man named Jack Pagan. He has white skin, was tall, with green eyes and short black hair. He was 21 years old at the time, and was returning home from a dead end fast food job. Jack lost his own home, and had to move back in with his mom. He didn't have many friends and didn't get along with his family well. Although he got along with his mother well, he could never see eye to eye with his siblings and he never knew his father. He returned home late at night, working the evening shift at work, and wanted nothing more than to just relax. Oh how he yearned for sleep, but never found it early enough that night. All week, it felt like something mysterious was creeping over his shoulders, but no one was following him. He couldn't shake this feeling, until that night. As he tried to sleep, he saw a glowing pair of eyes just outside of his window. However, he was too tired to question it. He ignored it the best he could, until the eyes began to question him.
"What's with the cold shoulder?" The eyes asked. As he leans up and looks out the window with tired eyes, Jack could see that the creature wasn't just a pair of floating eyes. It was like a tiny black cloud of smoke that could fit in the palm of your hand. It had two tiny eyes and a smile. However, Jack just simply stared at the creature in awe.
"No panic?" The creature asks. "I expected humans to panic in the presence of an otherworldly being".
Jack simply shrugged and said "I can imagine scarier things".
"Oh-ho ho!" The creature responds. "I like you. You can call me Naris".
"Jack" Jack replies.
"Just... Jack?" Naris asks. "Nothing else? No special title or family name?".
"Who cares?" Jack asks.
"Fair enough" Naris replies. "You're an interesting human. However, it's plain to see that you're not in any good position in life. How'd you like to change that forever?".
"By doing what? More work?" Jack asks, "I think I'll pass".
"Not work" Naris says, "magic".
"... Magic?" Jack asks skeptically, "like from video games or something?".
"Sure" Naris says, "whatever relativity helps you grasp this situation".
"Right" Jack says, "learn magic, perform in the streets for money, maybe do something slightly heroic... I think I'm good".
"YOU'RE good?" Naris asks with a chuckle, "we both know that's a lie. You radiate apathy. It's plain to see".
"And what?" Jack asks, "what do you have planned? Prettier street magic?".
"No" Naris replies with a chuckle again, "you'll be leading this planet into a new era! I want you to be the catalyst in which magic becomes a part of reality! You can lead this world into a whole new age!".
"That'd be pretty cool, I have to admit" Jack says, "but why should I do that?".
"I don't know" Naris says, "you tell me. You're the one who looks so bored and empty".
Jack sighs and says "I guess if it doesn't get in the way of work, I'll try it. I need my job so I can move out".
"But of course!" Naris replies, "We'll start slowly and teach you more and more as you learn".
"So how do people start using magic?" Jack asks, "and why hasn't it been done before? Why couldn't magic just be discovered?".
"All good questions" Naris says, "there are requirements. One: you require a specific energy source called Endoindustria. I am here to act as a sort of... medium for that. The energy doesn't exist in this realm, but my existence in this realm allows a connection between this realm and the realm where Endoindustria comes from. Two: you need a channeling source. And three: you need to understand how the energy works in order to manipulate it".
"What do we use as a channeling source?" Jack asks.
"There are several forms of channeling sources" Naris says, "but for simplicity, we'll use charms. The charms are symbols that we will draw ourselves. Certain materials, such as metals have more potential channeling capabilities than other materials, such as paper when the charm is drawn on them. For now, we'll simply start with practicing different kinds of charms".
"How about we start like... tomorrow?" Jack asks, "Because I kinda need to sleep for work".
"Oh..." Naris replies, "sure. As you wish".
And so Jack falls asleep, and Naris becomes attached to Jack in a strange way. Naris keeps himself hidden from every other human, only being known by Jack alone, and Jack doesn't bother telling anyone about his new plans outside of work. It's not that the sudden thought of magic being able to exist in the real world hadn't intrigued him, but Jack didn't really have anyone to talk to. Other than that, he also didn't see any reason why anyone else should know about his personal business. As long as he kept doing what he was supposed to, in Jack's mind, everything was going to be just fine. Right?