Chapter 10

Sadie dodged to the side, but an icy chill brushed her left shoulder. A few icicles stuck to her clothes and stung more the longer they sat. She rolled and called her new weapon. The cutlass formed in her hand, and she charged. Every step felt like running through chest high mud as the icicles seeped into her.

Her right arm, thankfully, was still unaffected by the spell, or the cutlass really did speed her up. Maybe it made her atoms move faster, so she was harder to freeze? She slashed, and the girl effortlessly jumped out of the way. Fawkes followed with a two-handed axe swing.

The girl flicked a setting on her right pistol which brought out a grapple. She shot it, catching the axe and sending it flying out of his hands. Fawkes tried to hold on but fell off balance. Before he could regain his footing, she shot the ice pistol again hitting him square in the chest.

Fawkes collapsed with a thud next to her, and when he tried to jump to his feet, he clutched his chest in pain. “Ugh, icy-hot spell. Watch out.”

Sadie tried to pivot, but her legs felt like lumbering giants. The girl shot her again, for good measure as Sadie could barely move, and Sadie tumbled backwards onto her butt. Her cutlass skidded to her side out of reach. She tried to move but heartburn rose in her chest.

“Now you two are going to answer my questions.” The girl waved the left gun which was still emitting blue vapor. “This baby is just support. Don’t make me break out the actual damage dealers. Why did you break in here? Where’s Ravi?”

“We didn’t,” Sadie blurted out before Fawkes could speak. She didn’t want him getting them shot again with some stupid remark. “The door was already like that. Honest.”

The girl squinted her eyes between them. “And why should I believe you?”

Sadie struggled to a sitting position, and the girl readied her gun.

“Weren’t you at the EDM emu warehouse?” the girl asked.

Sadie nodded furiously. “That was us. We just got to Hicto to get supplies and check in on Ravi, but he wasn’t here.”

“Check in?” Fawkes asked. Sadie shot him a shut-up-the-f-up look, but he continued. “You said you were sent to pick something up from him for the pirates.”

The girl lowered her guns. “Is he not responding to them either?”

Sadie shook her head. “You can check the security footage. It wasn’t us.”

“Let’s go back to the part where you lied to me,” Fawkes said.

Sadie snorted. “Now we want to talk about lying.”

“Those other times were different.”

The girl waved her pistols at them. “I’m the one asking the questions here.”

“Watch the video. It’s still pulled up.”

The girl scooted around them and pulled up the video while keeping one eye and pistol aimed at them. “The hell? That doesn’t answer anything.”

“We don’t know anything more than you,” Sadie said. “I just finished watching it when you came in.”

“Barged in,” Fawkes corrected, “and attacked us.”

“Maybe it has to do with what the guild leaders are…” The girl paced back and forth twirling her pistols. “Are on edge about.”

“You mean about the other Brink payers missing? Or about the deterioration event?” Sadie offered. The girl aimed her pistol at Sadie again. “Woah, woah.” Sadie held up her hands in surrender.

“She’s new,” Fawkes said. “Doesn’t know anything. I literally saved her butt like twelve hours ago from the dead zone scorpions spearing her to death.”

As soon as he said the time, the all-nighter hit her and the need for sleep assaulted her body.

“Know anything about what?” Sadie asked, fighting a yawn.

The girl seemed to debate either shooting her or dancing again. Instead, she holstered a pistol and whipped out her phone. “Who’s your mentor? Let’s check both your credentials.”

“Uhhh,” Sadie stammered.

“If you’re legit, and not some agent sent by Ben, you’ll tell me your mentor’s name. Who vouched for you? I’ll message them and verify things real quick.”  

“Ben? What’s he got to do with you not shooting me?”

The girl frowned and aimed her pistol.

“My mom!” Sadie said it without thinking, not wanting to get shot by that icy-hot spell again. “My mom. You can try to message her, but she won’t respond.” Ben said not to say anything about their conversation, not about her mom at all.

“And why’s that?” Her tone made it sound like she was still ready to shoot at one wrong syllable.

Sadie glanced at Fawkes who looked like he wanted answers too. She never intended to tell him who her mom was in Evarus or anything about what happened at home. Frankly, she didn’t trust him with the information, but she also intended to now get shot by this trigger-happy girl again. And, well, she needed help. She wasn’t finding this key on her own.

“Because her tag is PirateQueen, and she’s missing too.”

“Waaaait, wait, wait, wait.” Fawkes turned from surprise into a pout. “So you had an unfair advantage this whole time! No wonder you had the pirates watching you.”

“My mom’s missing, and that’s what you get out of that?” Sadie snapped. She left out the part where she wasn’t officially in anything.

“Oh.” Fawkes grimaced. “Sorry.”

“Talk,” the girl said, but she visibly relaxed. Sadie explained what happened when she fought the Glitch and got suspended and everything since. “You got any proof?”

“Uh, no?”

“Well, seems legit.” She holstered her weapons.

“That’s it?” Fawkes asked. “You’re just going to believe us now? Like that?”

“Shut. Up. Fawkes,” Sadie hissed.

The girl smirked and shrugged. “Well, she does look like PirateQueen when she doesn’t have her public avatar on. Plus, she’s nice.”

Fawkes gaped. “What’s that got to do with anything? I’M nice. That doesn’t make me more believable.”

“That’s because you’re annoying, and it detracts points,” Sadie shot back as blood rushed to her cheeks.

The girl laughed, the high-pitched kind where sometimes no sound comes out at all. “I’m Jiyu.” She trailed off and dashed to a corner of the cave behind Sadie.

After a struggle, Sadie managed to turn around enough to see her inspecting the air. It took a second for her eyes to focus and see the tiny tear turning into a scar. Without the video showing them where to look, she never would have noticed it.

“Do you know what happened here?” Sadie asked.

Jiyu backed away from the tear. “No idea, but that cloak guy clearly trained with the assassins.”

“He has similar skills,” Fawkes said, “but I don’t think he’s with the guild. He wasn’t wearing their uniform, and they’d never attack another player.”

“Okay, great. So some rogue assassin is kidnapping people for Ben,” Sadie said. “He knows no one has the key since he sent me gallivanting off. So why’s he doing it?”

“Maybe he took them before realizing they didn’t have the key,” Fawkes said. “Interrogating people until he got answers and stuff.”

Sadie wondered what kind of interrogation was possible in cyberspace and didn’t really want to know.

Jiyu paced ignoring both of them. “This is probably the first time someone has captured what’s happened to any of the missing people on video. We should take this to someone.” She sniffed. “The Colosseum. That’s the closest Brink base. Some of the higher ranked players might know what to do.”

“Vidar. He works there right?” Sadie added. “He was talking to my mom on Pidgeon right before I came here. He probably knows more.”

“He’s… difficult, according to Ravi.” Jiyu shifted uncomfortably when she said Ravi’s name. “But I agree. We should try to see him.” She flew through a few menu options and a square save icon formed in the air, which she added to her inventory. “And deliver the video the old-fashioned way.”

“We?” Fawkes scoffed. “Who’s we? Did you hear that?” He looked at Sadie. “She thinks she can just join us.”

“That what YOU did,” Sadie reminded him.

“Maybe with this they can start to figure out why people have been disappearing, and for what, for the last three months,” Jiyu said still ignoring them.

“Three months?” Sadie’s stomach fell. It looked like Dad was around the first to disappear. Why? What exactly happened when he took that key?

Jiyu nodded. “But more have disappeared in the weeks leading up to this Glitch event. It’s weird.”

“Maybe Ben is using this event as a cover to get more info about the key or where it might be. Or using them to help this cloaked guy go after people,” Fawkes said.

“Don’t jump to conclusions,” Jiyu said.

“You literally jumped in here and jumped to conclusions.” Fawkes rolled his eyes. Sadie smothered a smile. At least someone could get on Fawkes’ nerves.

Sadie gasped. “Ravi’s voice. I knew I recognized it. When I was fighting that ghoul cytroll when the event dropped, it glitched out. I heard a man yelling. I thought I was imagining it then, but now… it sounded just like Ravi yelling that video.”

Maybe she didn’t imagine it. Maybe she somehow heard him going through the tear as the monster glitched. Like an echo? It made more sense than her totally making it up.

Fawkes thrust his one working hand at Sadie. “See? No jumping here.”

Before Jiyu could shoot Fawkes as she looked like she wanted to, Sadie asked, “Do you know anything else about the deterioration event that we don’t? Or the Glitch event? When Ben was threatening me he wasn’t exactly specific in the end-of-the-world details.”

Jiyu and Fakes looked between each other waiting for the other to answer.

“Only the top ranked players know exactly how it works,” Jiyu finally said. “They’re kind of stingy with who they tell anything to, but I know a bit. It’s not a game event like the Glitches. It happens in the actual Evarus, and the game seasons coincide with it. Or Ben times it that way. We all train for it in our own way, and every previous season it’s been stopped. But no one’s ever told me what happens if it isn’t.”

“Every season,” Fawkes added, “they raid the Sky Fortress looking for something to stop it from even starting. Which they’ve always been successful with before. They never told us it was a key.”

Jiyu nodded. “They kept the details vague, probably to prevent anyone from interfering. And they’re major mad about Ben mentioning it in those two event notices.”

“My brother told me something else,” Fawkes said. “He said every season there’s a countdown. If the countdown isn’t stopped, the world rips apart. Literally. I thought he was joking, but with what Ben said, he wasn’t exaggerating at all.”

“So what did my Dad do with the key? He told Ravi he found it” Sadie clenched her fists in her lap. Whatever Dad did, it caused Ben to target her family. In the span of three months, some jerk miles away from her took both her parents from her.

“I…. don’t know.” Jiyu looked at the spot Ravi disappeared from. “And I don’t know why Ravi didn’t tell anyone else your dad found it. I DO know they had a reason. Ravi would never do anything to make Evarus collapse like Ben accused your parents of. He loves Evarus.”

She remembered what Gate said during the jade egg quest. Not everyone believed the game should exist. Was her dad one of them? Ravi? And this was their way of ending it?

God, she hated this. Hated this stupid key, hated Ben, and right now hated the game. She just wanted her parents and her life back. She’d get them back. No matter what. No matter what Ben threw at her, she’d get her parents back.

“We need to move.” Sadie stood on shaky legs. “We’re not getting any more answers here.” She’d find answers with Vidar at the colosseum, or the world would rip apart first. One of the two.

“Ravi worked for the raiders a lot,” Jiyu said. “I can use that to help get us in since he was my mentor.”

“So it’s settled. We’re going to the colosseum.” Fawkes looked between them. “And how exactly are we getting there? It’s a two-day ride boarding.”

Jiyu smiled manically. “I have an idea.”