Kyle:
Onward we trudged. It had occurred to me to use jumps to quickly catch up to our adversaries, us closing the distance to less than a mile, but we had to stop there. Neither Xao nor I could be sure of scouts seeing us. We were just two people, in the end, the element of surprise was an asset we couldn't afford to lose.
We were currently traveling through the mountains, both of us getting pretty thirsty. We never counted on a journey like this before we arrived to rescue Bart. Our supplies were our weapons and my magnatron which- did nothing to tell us about water.
As we continued, Xao didn't look at me. I felt I had to say something, but what? I knew I crossed a line, but I didn't know how to go back. "So Darius... what was he like... before. You told me before he used to be a good person."
He didn't look back. "He wasn't anymore. Hence how you gunned him down. Do you really care?"
"You care. Enough for me to."
His head turned quickly to me. "This isn't about me Kyle!" he nearly shouted. "You killed someone. You didn't feel anything when you did, did you?"
"I... no. I still don't." I looked away. We continued to walk as we talked. "I mean... not nothing. I felt... I don't wanna say."
"Say it anyway."
I kept walking, wanting to stop for this, but we had a mission. "I felt he deserved it."
"Maybe he did. Was it your place, to decide that?"
"I mean... as a person he tried to kill more than once, kinda feels like it." I gave a weak chuckle.
He sighed. "Guess I can't blame you for feeling that way." We walked on for a few more minutes. "We deal a lot in fighting prejudice, I've noticed that." I nodded as he said this. "But not so much in redemption." I gave him a curious look. "Think about it. That whole issue with the gargoyle genocide, none of us participated. People angry at you or me for it are just prejudiced. We're innocent."
"Well I mean, I can own that I didn't try hard enough to find the truth."
"More a secondary thing that," he noted. "Don't think any of us have done anything that bad. We're not killers- not monsters. I made deals that maybe I shouldn't have, maybe perverted the very idea of being a hero or charitable- but I was misled- even thought I was helping people. And you, you hated people, enough to think mass murder was justified... but I'm sure that was okay to just think right?"
"Well... when you put it that way it doesn't really sound secondary." I started getting a sinking feeling in my stomach.
"We've all messed up Kyle. What would happen if someone called you to account?" I blew out the air in my stomach. Xao calmed down as he continued." I understand people can force your hand, but what makes you so much better? Darius was driven insane by the power of the Tricksters- their deals perverted everything he used to stand for and I doubt he even noticed at the time until it was too late. Couple that with the horrors he witnessed, anyone could crack. He did deserve to die, probably by your hand, you're not wrong. But was it really right to embrace it?"
I closed my eyes, feeling so frustrated, feeling my wits starting to crack. All I wanted was to be able to function. Maybe I had turned off some emotions but- I did what I had to. "When someone you love is about to die you tell me how good you are at making-"
"Cry me a river!" He turned and shouted. "My friend was actually cut down and I'm looking at his killer! I'm holding back aren't I?"
I paused, breathing slowly. He stared at me shaking with fury. "Holding back? Who blasted Jaden while he was just talking?" Xao's breath seemed to catch in his throat. He looked down. "Let me guess, you wanted to protect him right? You stated it yourself, I did what I had to so stop dumping on me about not having the right attitude when I did. What difference does it make!?" I started shouting back. "Who knows what Darius had in mind? He could have made a deal that could kill us all or sent some poor soul after us. And don't talk to me about reform, he was a lost cause and you know it. Sure we've all made mistakes but I never tried to get a girl to cut off her own arm with a scalpel so I could hear her scream! THAT is what happened when Jess and I first met him." Xao was silent. "Good. Just listen. I met your friend, and he was more than just corrupted. If you tried to reform him face to face, either you would have died or come out corrupted yourself. Yeah, yeah, I get it, we're all messed up but there's still a line and he crossed it!"
Xao shook his head. "Where is that line, Kyle?"
I breathed in deep through my nose, nearly hissing in the process. "How about murder? Seems like a good place.- And don't even try, I didn't murder him, it was self-defense."
"It was an outcome you wanted."
"Who cares!?"
"You killed someone I cared about."
"I apologized for that."
Xao clenched his hands together and threw them apart in frustration. "No-you apologized for hurting my feelings." His fists were tightly clutched, as were my own as we stared each other down.
"Yeah, because it sucks I had to hurt you, so I'm sorry for that. As to the act itself, I'm not apologizing for doing the right thing." I stomped on that last statement, having to dearly fight the urge to go for my swords. There actually was a part of me that thought overpowering him would at least get him in line. I stopped myself, both because it felt wrong- and because I wasn't sure who would win.
We both paused. Xao looked down for a bit, then back up and spoke normally. "That's not what Allen taught you. Every life matters. Everyone has friends, family- everyone has a life that can mean something. You just snuffed one out."
I just looked away. There was cold again, this time not from Xao, I just felt cold myself. It- it had to be because I was losing control- that had to be why...
We continued on, having a hard time looking at each other.
Following the signal on the tracker, we came to some trees.
I looked up and in front of us hundreds of trees spread out, some reaching to the sky they were so high... guess I didn't see them coming because I was concentrating so much on... not looking forward, where Xao was walking. The trees were mostly bare of leaves and giving off a "dead" look, as the cold snow forced them to have. However all around were large fir and pine trees, some of which were bright green even in this land.
A forest at last! Trees meant water. I started scanning with my eyes. "We have to drink..."
Behind me, there was suddenly a voice. "Ya know a smart person would have brought a tool for detecting that." Xao and I both stopped in our tracks. We turned curiously.
Behind us now stood a girl. She looked a little older than Xao and just barely his height. She had brown hair and eyes and scattered freckles. Honestly, her appearance was even a little amusing- Nadine would have called it "string-bean" she was so skinny. To the right of her right eye was a strange tattoo that read J-96 with three lines leading away from it. She wore beige jeans and a beige brown long sleeve shirt along with a white cap on her head. "Seriously neither of you are dressed for this, good for you these things headed for trees." Xao and I both looked at each other and shrugged.
The girl rolled her eyes and pulled out two metal poles attached at a ninety-degree angle to two rods. "You know where the legend of the dowsing rod came from?" I shook my head, looking to Xao who just did the same thing. "People who found one and didn't know what made it really work."
She put the device away. Then she swung a backpack in front of herself. Out of it she produced two canteens and tossed them to us. Without thinking I quickly pulled off the top and downed several gulps. "Yep- desert travel will do that," she narrated pulling out a canteen of her own and having a drink. "Name's J-Star."
"Thanks a lot," I said, pushing off the water that I accidentally slobbered on my chin while drinking so greedily. Xao didn't look much better. "Um... can you walk and talk?"
She nodded and the three of us continued forward. "You two were doing more than just talking a bit ago."
"Yeah well- kinda got a personal issue," I said.
"What are you doing out here?" Xao asked. "Oh and, interesting tattoo."
"Was looking for you two actually." She looked off in the tattoo's direction. "Yeah, got it to look cool a while back... does it work?"
Xao chuckled at her. "I think it does."
"So a pharaoh- from your technology, weird tattoo, and brown skin- and you knew where we would be... so you're a trickster," I said.
"Got that fast," she noted.
"Like to think I'm quick on the uptake."
"You've gotten better over time," Xao said. I looked over, he had a simple smile on that comment. I was happy to see that again.
"Well look, thanks for the water and all- really thanks- but I told your boss I didn't want a trickster companion."
"Well technically..." Xao said stretching out his hand and pretending to examine it, and giving a small grin. "There's me."
"Not for another deal," I said.
"You wanna save the girl right?" J-Star asked.
I clenched my fist. Xao looked over to me quietly saying, "The girl?"
"We don't need this right now," I quietly said back. She was turning out to be just like one would expect from a trickster- if you encountered them enough times. Surprisingly, a number had crossed our paths to catch up with Xao. First sign, flaunting pharaoh tech like no one's business. Next sign- a person who wants you to believe they care and know a lot about what's happening, and probably believes they do themselves, but their actions prove otherwise.
Years ago, Jess and I were on our first case when we met Xao. He seemed to know way more about what was happening with the kidnapping ring we were chasing than we did, he had even gotten pretty close to saving our objective, Thomas. It wasn't until Xao and I both looked back years later that we realized something. He DIDN'T do everything he could to save Thomas. He could have talked to the police or left an anonymous note. Instead, he acted like his trickster powers were the only way to do things. By not acting independently, he actually risked Thomas's life. All of us were fooled, even Xao. There were so many things he could have done, but the power made him not even think of them.
"I can see you talking to each other- something about... girls. Trust me, boys, I can keep up, even with "boy talk"," J-Star piped in.
I clenched my teeth, just avoiding doing a face plant. "That's not the issue. Look if you need the canteens back, fine, but we don't want someone along who has no idea what they're doing."
"What? Cause I'm a girl?" J-Star insisted again.
"NO!" I snapped, turning around. "Wow- hey brain trust, what's her name?"
"Whose name?"
"The girl. Ya know, save "the girl"? What's her name?" I reiterated.
"How should I know?"
"You could have asked," I said. I shook my head. "Girl-and you seem to be attached to the fact that you are one so I'll refer to you as such... Girl, you're kinda confirming our low opinions of you and your fellows." I started walking again, her following, making a frustrated grunt.
"You're not giving me much of a chance. What's wrong with being a trickster?" she asked.
"Look, it's probably not a good time for this..." I replied.
"If she wants to follow I'll explain," Xao said. "Eagerly really. If I can get another person away from Tarth I welcome the chance."
"She's your responsibility," I said.
"I am no one's responsibility. I have the others, I'm fine," the girl noted. "You two on the other hand- you're trying to take down an army of Leprechauns with just the two of you."
"It's a squad, not an army," I said rolling my eyes.
"Well... when that ship comes they might have one."
"The Leprechaun government on planet Keshnaw has a shaky treaty with Triad," I quickly checked my tracker as I had been doing periodically. "Harvesting humans is strictly illegal. They can't send an army even if this expedition is government sanctioned- and good money says it's not. We're dealing with the Leprechaun black market. You don't know the first thing about what's going on here and you think you have a solution. Better yet, you have yet to directly ask for any information." She continued after us, starting to trip on her own feet, apparently surprised by how quickly she was corrected.
"Ignorant or not, I'm still a trump card. Look, get me in close when the ship comes down- understand I can't do anything till it's in the atmosphere, tricksters aren't THAT powerful- and I'll just have a bomb planted on it. The leprechauns will have to leave it behind and keep moving. Especially if you two start bombarding the area from a distance. Problem solved."
"Yeah unless they shoot back-" J-Star just "appeared" in front of me after I said that.
"Won't be a problem," she said.
I stopped in my tracks. I looked behind myself again, seeing the girl still there, waving at me with a small grin.
Xao had stopped with me and nodded in approval, looking at the girl and the projection, neither of us sure which was which at the moment. "Cool trick," I said. "We're still not using a deal- mostly because you're idea is terrible, you have no idea what's going on and you're not endeavoring to find out- and because you don't seem to know what's wrong with those last two points."
I looked back at the girl behind me, who grunted. I proceeded forward and bumped into a solid object. I backed up looking at the tree that was now in front of me.
I spun around to look at J-Star again, fighting the urge to glare. She grinned pointing at a device on her wrist. "I can project a lot with this thing- even cloak a whole tree."
I looked down, keeping my feelings in check best I could, but still growling out, "the answer is "no".".
"The answer is "yes"," she said.
"Look," I said, giving a stomp. "Is my deal with Tarth still on either way?"
"Like I have the authority to override him," she said rolling her eyes.
"Then please, leave- you want your canteens back or not?" I shook the one she gave me.
"No you keep them- and we're making a deal. You'll see." She tossed me a wadded-up envelope. "Give me that back and the deal is on. The tricksters will down that ship for you."
"I'm just gonna burn this," I said, holding the envelope up.
She reached for a sword I had failed to see on her side before. "I don't recommend that."
I reached for both of my blades and Xao pointed his pulse cannon at her. "You really want to do this?" I asked.
"I'll give you time to think. But one way or another, we're making this deal." She disappeared.
I spun around, scanning the trees over and over. "Where is... where-"
"She already said she could cloak," Xao said, letting his hand fall to his side. "Probably just cloaked and jumped away."
"Great-we have to deal with that too now don't we?"
"She's not a "that". She has a name-"
"I respect girls plenty Xao-"
"Girls yes." He threw up a finger on that point. "Tricksters not so much. You're starting to get a little "prejudiced" let's say."
"Against a voluntary group, yes," I said back.
"Do you remember her name-"
"J-Star, Xao. J-Star. I'm not a trickster, I actually pay attention."
We both proceeded forward, Xao noting, "We got more to work through than just her."
"Yeah I know, we got an "army" of leprechauns."
Xao sighed. "Look..." he then spoke quietly. "She close?" I shook my head. "But she's following us?"
I tapped my wrist device and nodded.