Chapter 38 Rift Wraith 1
"Face me now, Ninja. Face me with those eyes, if you can." Callin demanded.
He stood over Ahleena, his bone web slowly receding back inside. He could feel it, once again fusing itself tightly to his entire skeleton, giving his bones inhuman strength, like liquid steel. He wished it were bonded to his heart, wished its primal strength was there for him to use now.
Ahleena rolled over onto her back and looked up at him. Really looked at him. Her eyes were not the icy emptiness of the Ninja. Instead, they were painfully human, so filled with devastation, so vulnerable, they reminded him of the look in Mirage's eyes the day they took her away from him. The day they tore her apart, from the inside out.
Looking at her wounded eyes, seeing them ravaged by memories of unspeakable torment, he thought of Mirage. And he realized Mirage had known what was to happen that day in the lab, when they had taken her away from him. It explained so much.
He shoved those memories aside the way he always did, burying them under a screaming wall, an avalanche of fury, carried by the focused intent of total revenge. And as always, he felt it fester just a bit more, felt it etch its poison-filled scars just a bit deeper into his soul. He wondered how long until he broke.
Ahleena broke the day her parents had died by her hands, whiplashing into the empty mindset of the Ninja. A focus so pure it wasn't human. And now, he had shaken that focus. What would happen now?
He stared down at her, momentarily paralyzed with indecision. This was what he had wanted. He had wanted to break down her walls, to get her to see him as a friend, to trust him. The way she had done for him. And now, faced with her soul-shattering agony, he wasn't sure how to proceed. Besides Mirage, he had never had a friend. He found he had to consciously ask himself "What would a friend do now?"
He let his instincts take over and held out a hand, offering to help her to her feet. She stared at it like it was an alien thing, like she hadn't the slightest clue as what to do about it. Tears brimmed in her eyes, threatening to fall like a torrent, threatening to undo her. She didn't move. She didn't let the tears fall. Callin understood. She was more paralyzed than him.
"It's a helping hand. A friend offering to help you up. That is what friends do. Take my hand, Ahleena." He coaxed her gently. Speaking aloud, not trusting his own shaken mind to connect with the storm he could feel within her.
Ahleena made her decision and reached up, clasping his hand with hers, and pulled herself to her feet. Tried to pull herself together. But Callin wasn't about to let that happen just yet. He used their link once she was standing in front of him, throwing his entire self into the link and casting it towards her through their handgrip.
She rocked back on her heels and shut her eyes as their minds entwined through their perfect mind-link, suddenly finding herself on the receiving side of that momentary desperation where she felt like she was about to lose her sense of self within him as their minds blended.
It was a fleeting thing, that panicked, core-deep battle, but it made her understand him that much more. Because she knew immediately it was what he felt every time they spoke through their link, every time their minds touched too deep. And in light of the memories he had shared of Mirage, of his time in the Lab, she now understood why.
They stood, holding hands, blending memories and thoughts, eyes shut, for minutes. Finally, she opened her eyes and looked at him.
"Why? Why do you share so much with me, when I've never done anything to deserve your trust?" She whispered brokenly. Truly off balance more than she could ever remember. Not even feeling like she recognized her own voice. Some distant part of her mind wondered if she were dreaming.
"It's another thing friends do. And you earned my trust when you began to teach me how to live. How to control the monster inside of me. To control the monster that had been my puppet master."
Ahleena didn't speak, couldn't speak, so overwhelmed with a barrage of new emotions she felt like reality was spinning away from her, forming new paths, new directions, faster than she could begin to imagine.
She looked down at their entwined hands in wonder, then back up at him.
"I don't feel ready. I'm this close to you, I'm touching you, and I don't feel ready to fight. I don't have that edge cutting me apart, separating me from...from life." She said.
He understood. She had lived her entire adult life ready. Poised to fight, if need be. Never able to be fully relaxed, never able to trust another enough to stand this close to them without the Ninja ruling her actions.
He heard the vulnerable wonder in her voice. He realized she was experiencing true trust for what could possibly be the very first time in her life.
"Yes. You can trust me to never hurt you that way, Ahleena. I'll never...never force another to do something they didn't explicitly want to do." He said quietly, fleeting memories of exactly that happening to him at the lab making his voice low, with a hint of fury behind it.
Ahleena smiled at him, then. A warm look, an open look, surprising him again with the freedom he could read in her every motion, when previously he could never read her at all. Then she surprised him again when she started walking towards him, moving slowly and confidently. Like she was stalking him.
"Ahleena..." He warned, his own voice strained, rasping out as he fought a different inner beast.
She stopped, uncomfortably close, as his back hit the rock wall. She looked nervous, excited, half-confident and oh-so vulnerable for it. Callin understood. She had never allowed herself to feel true attraction, had never allowed herself to feel anything about another person at all.
"Enough! Ahleena, you should be ashamed of yourself! He is just a 16 year old boy!" Jacob's mental voice rang out with such force in their minds that it momentarily stunned them, sending them both sagging to the ground.
The force of his telepathic disapproval sobered them both instantly, making them scramble away from each other and stand up, embarrassedly brushing off their clothes and glancing around guiltily.
Callin was so stunned by everything that had just happened, he didn't even have it in him to get enraged by a telepath speaking in his head. Instead, as always, he found himself looking to Ahleena for an answer. He wondered if his face was burning as brightly as hers.
She looked even more stunned than he felt, as if she had just woken from one dream to another. Almost like she had woken from one dream into a nightmare. He found himself terrified she would whiplash back into the Ninja once she regained her senses, and he barely dared to even breathe as he waited for her to answer Jacob.
"Maybe I should be ashamed. I'm a 25 year old woman who should know better. But considering the depth and power of the link between us, I'm not ashamed. Despite that, you can rest assured nothing like that will ever happen again." Her firm telepathic voice went out, to both Callin and Jacob, filled with unerring conviction. There could be no doubt she meant it.
The magnitude of the vow she had just made to both him and Jacob was so heavy Callin didn't know what to think, instead pulling his thoughts deep inside, almost like he was pulling into a shell. It was a tactic he had learned many years ago back in the lab, when the circumstance he was in was too much to handle.
Now, as he pulled back, he threw his considerable determination into quieting the link between him and Ahleena. Trying to separate his mind. He couldn't bear the thought of Ahleena separating herself from him, he couldn't bear the thought of never again seeing that look in her eyes. He couldn't bear the idea of losing the mind link with her, now that he had accepted her as his Master. Now that she had allowed him to see a real side of her.
They felt Jacob's mental presence fade away, and both of them shifted nervously on the sand, unable to look the other in the eye. Ahleena's bright laughter suddenly rang out, snapping up his head in shock.
"Look at us! Shuffling around in the sand, faces all red, unable to meet each other's eyes! As if our minds weren't completely entwined, as if we aren't following the others thoughts perfectly!" She laughed, moving away from him in a light, half-dancing series of side steps. Almost as if gravity had no hold on her.
Callin narrowed his eyes at her, then growled low as he shook his head, trying to keep his treacherous imagination from once again taking over.
Ahleena smiled happily at him, following his thoughts through the link. And he suspected she was enjoying it! He figured she really was trying to kill him as she twirled in front of him on the sand, dancing gracefully through the moonlight, eyes closed, moving like an otherworldly angel. Moving to the call of her own inner rhythm, totally unhindered, totally free.
Her eyelashes accented the exotic tilt to her closed eyes, standing out against her delicate features, making her look peaceful, yet mysterious. That peaceful expression made his breath catch in his throat as he watched her. It was so unlike any other expression he'd ever seen, it almost made her look like someone else.
Her grace, her cat-like poise and balance, were evident in every movement she made. She bewitched him all over again as he watched her, sensing her free happiness. A sensation new to both of them. She stopped dancing as she sensed his mood, as she felt him examining their link with wonder, turning to face him.
"A few months ago you accepted my offer to teach you. You accepted me as your Master. But now I know you accepted me as a friend, also. And now, I've accepted you as a friend, too."
Callin simply nodded at her, not daring himself to speak, or even reply telepathically. He was feeling overwhelmed and out of his element, and naturally looked inside, preparing himself to pull up his walls. And an icy wave crashed through him as he saw how much of that strange, gray light had consumed his walls. Ahleena saw it through the link and her eyes darkened, and she stood very still.
"Yes. Your walls are falling as your power grows. This is why you need your Weaver. This is why you need Carmen. I can no longer hold back your power, I can no longer protect you from yourself. But I've seen Carmen's power and yours blending together, I've seen how she can hold your power in check."
"No! You cannot do that to me! You cannot create this link, and then just when I accept it, toss it aside!" His telepathic voice was seething with ferocity, given ragged edges by the chaotic hand of fear.
"But I must. And you must accept Carmen. She is the Weaver you need."
"She cannot bond to me! No one except Mirage can! If you transfer this link to her it will result in a partial bond and she'll die!"
Abruptly, so fast it made him blink stupidly, she dropped into a crouch and her swords appeared in her hands. Her entire demeanor had instantly snapped to that of the Ninja. Death on two legs, standing on the beach, fierce, empty, focused eyes raking the night warily.
"Wake up, little warrior! Something is coming our way fast!" Her mental command shook him out of his surprise, and he bared his claws and put his back against the rocks and focused on his senses. Sending out an expanding ring of awareness, sifting through all living things around them.
He sent his senses soaring outwards and found nothing. His nose was confounded by the water and the sand and the fact that they were down in a little valley of sorts, where scents couldn't easily reach.
"What is it?" He whispered as she cautiously backed toward him.
She used the link to share what she sensed, at the same time naturally reaching into him, allowing his senses to blend with hers. The combination expanded their awareness farther than either of them could sense alone. He was struck by the power of that perfect teamwork, that combination of their abilities. It also allowed him to faintly feel her running thoughts. He was shocked to feel a shred of trepidation in her. It was unimaginable.
"A Rift Wraith." She said aloud, not using her telepathy out of fear.
Callin tensed up as he felt how worried Ahleena was. What on earth could make the invincible, focused Ninja so shaken?!
"What is a Rift Wraith? How come I can't sense it?" He whispered.
Ahleena was looking up the rock cliff, obviously thinking about climbing it. He could tell she hated being in this little bowl, hated being trapped like this. She was evaluating whether they had time to climb out before the Rift Wraith was upon them.
"It's a telepath whose powers are inverted...opposite of ours. It makes them completely insane. You can't sense a Rift Wraith, you need to sense what you aren't sensing in order to detect it. You need to sense what's missing in the world about you as it gets closer. Its powers are so opposite of what's natural that all living things flee it. Whatever you do, do NOT use any of your powers. It will leech them out of you, it will suck you dry." Ahleena explained, gesturing up the wall as she began to plan her route.
Callin didn't examine the rock wall to plan his route like he would normally. He had decided to follow Ahleena exactly, using their link as a guide, following her all the way up. She was a far better climber than him, even though he had his claws which gave him grip where there was none.
His decision to follow her up the wall was tied into his decision to follow her exactly as they dealt with this Rift Wraith. She obviously had some experience with them, whereas he had never even heard of them. The only thing was, her description of how they were impossible to detect had reminded him of how the cameras and other electronic sensors in the underground lab had been unable to detect him when he had gone insane the day he broke out.
Callin began to climb the wall behind her, his eyes shut as he allowed her to guide him completely, using his senses once again to reach out all around them. Now he felt it, the absence of all living things. It was like he was deep underground again, minus the psychic imprint of even the humans and children in the Lab. So far underground, he had never been able to sense insects, birds, deer, rabbits, and so on. He had thought the world an empty, quiet place.
After leaving the Lab, after entering the living world above, he had learned otherwise. Whenever he was alone in the woods, he loved to let his sense expand, to tie himself into the natural ebb and flow of the abundant life all throughout the forest. Now, as they cleared the top of the rock wall, the unnatural stillness seemed like an invisible fist of ice had begun to close around the woods and all living things had run in mortal fear. It was a sense of great wrongness, of something so twisted and foul that it defiled reality with its mere presence.
He began to understand why Ahleena was so concerned. And far back in his mind, a quiet voice began to chant. Chanting "You know this! You know this feeling, you do, you know it truly." It was a distraction during a time that any distraction could be lethal. So he pushed it away, focusing instead on trying to imitate the singular determination of Ahleena as the Ninja. Focusing on that like a lifeline. He would deal with his troublesome memories later.
"Can we speak telepathically?" He whispered.
The scent of the grass, of the massive trees all around, seemed to sooth him, helping to offset the taint that hung in the air, growing stronger by the second. He drew that scent deeply into his lungs, letting it center him, letting the natural sweetness sooth him. And he sent that sensation to Ahleena, through the link.
Despite the situation, he felt a surge of satisfaction when she accepted that strength, effortlessly switching her body's sensations to follow his. Letting herself scent the world around them with his nose. Trusting him.
"No. No powers whatsoever. And it's here already." Ahleena stated, both of her swords held ready as she scanned the darkness with her empty Ninja gaze.
Her dead calm voice and perfect balance belied the tremor he could feel in the link. And he felt a new wonder as he watched her clamp down on her fear with amazing ferocity, bringing a depth of willpower to bear against it that he couldn't see the end of it. Like her own fear made her more focused, more deadly. He wondered if she could teach him that. How did a person even train their mind to work that way?! He couldn't imagine.
He put his back to hers and scanned the woods, wondering what to expect. Did a Rift Wraith even look like a human? He desperately wished he could speak telepathically with Ahleena, wishing he could use that link to nearly instantly form a plan, even as he learned as much as Ahleena knew about a Rift Wraith simply by blending her memories with his. If he could do that, he wouldn't feel so vulnerable, so clueless.
At that moment, facing an unknown but very powerful enemy, totally without knowledge, he understood why Ahleena was always telling him that the first focus of a Ninja was to understand the enemy. Without knowledge, you were truly vulnerable.
It was that vulnerability that now threatened to undo his control, threatening to break down the fragile walls of control in his mind that kept the beast caged within, that kept his powers in check. He couldn't bear the suspense.
"Well?! Are you going to sit around and stare, going to talk, or going to fight us and die?!" He called, suddenly full of a dark, coiling rage.
It was an unwholesome feeling, like he was opening an infected wound, like he was somehow falling back into that creature he had been the day he had escaped the lab. The creature that stalked the corridors of his memories, painting his dreams with blood, pain, and insatiable rage.
In a startling instant, the feeling of wrongness in the air disappeared entirely. Like it just ceased to exist, like a fleeting thought that may have never been real. And standing across the small clearing from him was a flame-haired ghost.
Callin felt like his heart had locked into a fracturing ball of ice, sending tendrils of frigid pain out through his entire body as he stared at Mirage. She was leaning back against a tree, arms folded over her chest, a painfully familiar half-smile on her lips as she stared at him.
The small, secret smile of their past that had been only for him. Except this time, it didn't touch her eyes at all. The contrast, from that look to those cold, twisted eyes, was cutting him apart inside. It was Mirage, yet it wasn't. He didn't know this creature that stood here before him, so relaxed yet radiating danger like an inferno of alien wrongness.
"Hi Callin." She said quietly.
Her voice wasn't laced with her power, it didn't try to invade his mind and run his conscious thoughts out. It didn't try to flay apart his memories and implant itself there. Instead, in its normalcy, it did far more damage. It wrapped around his real memories and yanked them to the forefront of his mind, undoing him more completely than any trick she may have tried.