Chapter 13

The Heavens

Flying. Or was it floating?

Meredith didn’t know. The sensation was unfamiliar to her. With eyes glued shut, all she could do was ride whatever wave she was on. Scattered thoughts reigned in her head as she did so.

Was she dead?

Had she been teleported somewhere?

What had even happened?

The answers weren’t exactly forthcoming. All she knew was that Marcus had succeeded in gathering all seven of the Weapons, and with it, he had appeared to split the sky right in half. Or maybe it had been the seal that had long blocked off the doom of their world. She really didn’t know, and her mind was craving answers.

Hoping for some, Meredith forced her eyes to open. It was slow-going at first, like pulling away from a sticky surface, but at a certain point, her eyes snapped into place.

White. Nothing but white.

“The Soul Realm…?” she said. Her breathy words were amplified by the overall silence in her travel, with no one to hear them or respond. Her mind was rejecting the possibility of being within permanent stasis inside the Soul Realm. It just wasn’t possible to pass through it unwillingly, or so she figured. She had never exactly tested it. Things were a bit different this time, though.

She was flying, and not standing. There was nobody there, and no other kind of soul to interact with in any physical form. She was alone in that journey to…wherever she was going. Still, she had no idea what had happened, giving rise to a sigh upon her lips.

“Damn it…what the hell is going on?!”

Whether it had intended to answer her or not, something flew past Meredith, joined with many others in a collective stream. They almost sent her off-course, but she came to realize that was impossible. Everything was a one-way ticket to wherever all of this was taking them. Knowing that allowed her to focus on just what it was: little balls of light sailing towards the sky. She tried to reach for one, take it in her hand, but her fingers ghosted through its intangible nature.

“Ahhh…” she said, realizing just what was traveling upwards with her. “Souls. But whose?”

It was a question to ask, indeed, and Meredith struggled to get her own calm enough to look at it through the lens of her Vision. When it came on, the sight surprised her. Every soul there was recognizable, stolen of their own wills and being sucked up into a vacuum. Now, she really wanted to reach for them, and their ghostliness was a detriment to that plan.

“Viv! Emil! Commander!” she shouted, swimming in place while the souls accelerated ahead of her. They weren’t the only ones, as she twisted to see Raymond’s soul flying up the way, and the annoyance that was Maria’s. All of them were there, no matter which side of the battle they’d been fighting on. Likewise, none of them could be touched, although Meredith didn’t stop trying to reach them. Her efforts were fruitless, and she eventually put a stop to them.

A couple more souls flashed by, and Meredith wondered if everyone else that had been at the battle was sucked up inside this…thing. She couldn’t figure it out, and she folded her arms to emphasize that fact, watching the souls drift by into the endless nothingness. Sal. Kenny. Some Renegades. Lovelia. The only ones she wasn’t seeing by this point were Rico’s and Marcus’s, a fact which disturbed her.

Mera…

The voice of Eddie caused Meredith to whip around, but the space through which she was floating prevented her from doing so with any speed. She could have sworn she heard her best friend, wondering if he’d been freed from Marcus’s soul. Nothing suggested that, and she didn’t hear it again as it lost its voice, traveling to the light at the end of the realm. That’s where she was heading, and she wasn’t going to fight it. Taking in one more breath, Meredith allowed herself to ride the wave to the end, closing her eyes against the ever-brighter light.

The luminescence reached its zenith, popping white flecks and stars behind her eyelids until it faded to something normal. Of course, the only reason Meredith knew that it had stopped was her landing on a hard surface, her arm feeling the pressure of her body crushing it. Other than that, she could still say that it was bright beyond the coverings of her eyes, and she opened them to get a better look at just where she’d ended up.

“What the…?”

Buildings, far as the eye could see. That was the initial sight upon opening her eyes. They were all blinding, each of them a blank canvas, rimmed with some gold on the edges. Sitting up, bringing each of those constructs the right way up in her head, she realized she was in the middle of a street, pristine and empty. Far away, almost out of sight, were pearlescent gates, their shine reflecting a golden hue.

Meredith would have taken in the details, but she was getting the feeling that there were no details to take in. Everything was a white backdrop. It could have been stone or paint or anything else and she would have never known the difference. There was complete homogeneity through the entire crosswalk she found herself in. At least, she thought it was a crosswalk. There were no lights in any of the buildings or signs telling her which way to go.

The eeriest thing, however, was the silence.

For a seeming cityscape, there wasn’t a single noise or a lick of breeze or the indication of life anywhere. Just silence. Meredith felt her heartrate quicken, a panic rising at being alone in such a place. Curiosity was gone, replaced with the more primal fear. Had Marcus succeeded? Was this the end result of the world he wanted to build? Or was it something else?

“Hello?!” she shouted. Her voice didn’t carry, dead on the air as soon as it had left her lips. No echo was produced, and the fact her voice didn’t bounce back to her at all increased the creepiness. “Anyone there?!”

The buildings told her nothing.

Okay…calm down, Mera. This is just a stumbling block. Her mind was trying to sooth her jumpy body, hardly pushing the confusion away, but giving her enough prescience to check her body over. Her vest pocket still held her cherished picture, and at her side, the hilt of her collapsible blade hung. Clearly transferring through the Soul Realm hadn’t removed the physical objects from her. That was a net positive. Now realizing she was more equipped, Meredith stood, turning around in the blank crosswalk.

Meredith cupped her hands, mouth facing upwards. “Is anyone out there? Helloooo!”

When her voice failed to echo for a third time, Meredith sighed. This was getting her nowhere. Calling for people yielded no results. Meredith shook her head, and by the time she was back to looking at the realm around her, she had turned her Soul Vision on.

Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

“This can’t be possible…” she breathed, already growing accustomed to the fact her voice wasn’t traveling. “Where are they…?” Her heart clenched, and she gripped to her chest, taking her first steps forward in this strange place. No matter which direction she walked in, it didn’t matter. This place was empty, and there was no soul in any general vicinity. Meredith bit the inside of her cheek, attempting to expand her vision, but got nothing from her efforts. “Eddie! Viv! Emil! Guys…where are you…?”

Her words grew quieter with every syllable until she barely understood what she was saying. Had it all been a hallucination, watching their souls? Was she so traumatized that she heard Eddie’s voice by wishing hard for it? Or better yet, Meredith began to reason as she took her first steps deeper into the city, was this all some elaborate dream and she’d wake up back in Lumarina?

If only…Meredith laughed in her head. The reminder that they’d failed to stop Marcus from gathering the Weapons hurt. Not that she would have known it here. Far as she could tell, she was alone, with no idea of where any of the other souls had gone, or even the direction. Exhausted from thinking so hard about it, Meredith ran her hands through her hair, mussing up her shortened locks while she deliberated her next course of action. Nothing to do but move forward.

“Right. Those gates it is,” she huffed. Kicking at the empty road, Meredith shoved her hands in her pockets, careful to keep one hand as near to her sword as she could. There may have been no presence there, but that didn’t mean she was safe. Feeling more assured of her battle-readiness, Meredith walked forward into the street.

The farther along she walked, the more certain she was that this place was a city. She didn’t have the greatest frame of reference, only being used to the Metropolis, but it looked closer to that than it did to Lumarina. The biggest difference was that all of the buildings here blended together thanks to their color, looking more like one massive conglomerate than any individual buildings. There was no life coming from any of them, either, adding further to the silence.

Walking a couple blocks towards the gates, Meredith started to realize something else: there were no shadows here. No matter how tall the buildings stretched, there wasn’t a single shadow cast over her or them, and nor was her own body casting one. This revelation turned Meredith’s face skyward, where she realized there was no sun or other source of light. It was starting to feel like some perverse version of the Soul Realm.

“Who would create such a place?” she asked herself. She wanted to fold her arms across her chest for protection, but found that to be a foolish thought. Deciding against that course, she approached one of the smaller buildings, looking more like a house than a business center. It contained a porch and all, though had no furniture. There were still windows, though, an accent that Meredith felt was a bit odd to include. She stepped up on the porch and looked inside. “Of course…nothing…”

She was getting quite sick and tired of it, groaning loudly as she jumped off the porch and back to the street. No souls. No cars. No sounds. No nothing.

“Where in the hell am I?!” Meredith shouted. She wanted answers now, and wanted someone to give them her, even if it wasn’t one of her friends. The lack of echo reminded her that that wasn’t happening. “Okay, fine, guess I’ll find out on my own…”

Meredith puffed her cheeks, blowing breath out through a small gap in her lips, and chose to not be distracted further by the multitude of creepy buildings there. The gate was her new destination, and there was no delaying in getting there. It was, after all, the only distinct object in the mess of white, and she hoped to find an answer lying in wait beyond it.

It was quite a bit easier said than done, mostly because even her footsteps wouldn’t make noise. At some point, she was wondering if she’d found herself going in endless circles, round and round. The gates looked to be getting closer, but there was no promise of that, especially since all of the buildings continued to look the same. There was no guarantee she hadn’t passed right by the street she was approaching. It felt endless.

“Gah! Get me out of he-huh?!” Meredith forced her own tirade to cut off. She squinted at the gate. Something looked different, though she wasn’t sure what it was at first. Most of that had to do with the fact everything in this place seemed to blend as one. It was all white on white, and the change she was witnessing was no different. The squint got so narrow, she was certain her eyes would fuse into that state before she could discern any details.

She was thankfully, and frightfully, wrong.

Continuing to squint, Meredith could see that there were…things…floating in front of the gates. They were white, as with everything, including the backdrop they were dropping down from. The only thing indicating they even existed beyond being a figment of a dream was that they passed in front of the gold trim, exposing their white forms. Meredith found her feet screaming to step back.

Get out of here! She was inclined to listen to her mind, but the fascination of there being something, anything, else here kept her rooted in place. Not that she wasn’t wary, her hand gripping her blade and preparing to fight. One of her feet managed to step back, just as the first of the figures landed.

“Intruder spotted and detected. Body intact.” It was robotic, no free will of its own to be seen. Another landed nearby, looking exactly like the first one. Meredith swiveled her head between the two. They looked humanoid at first glance, but with something disturbingly off. Perhaps it was the lack of facial features barring a mouth. Where there should have been a set of eyes and a nose was a visor, obscuring those features. Even the ears seemed to be missing, like magical constructs that were crudely shaped in the image of…something.

“Uh…hi? What…what are you?”

“Retrieval process initiated.”

“O…kay…?” That didn’t sound good, whatever it was. Her hand felt it was going numb from being ready on her weapon. The golems (which was the only term she could use to describe the things) didn’t hear her. They didn’t even look at her or any of their fellow comrades as more landed behind and to the side of her. One or two even landed on rooftops, their white robes fluttering out. If she didn’t already think otherwise, Meredith would have thought they were angels. “Guess you don’t understand much, huh.”

“Target in sights. Prepare for extraction.” One of the later arrivals walked forward, and Meredith felt a tug on her elbow. They were cold to the touch. Meredith yanked herself away.

“Hey, now. I’m not going anywhere with you creeps!”

Her shout triggered something. Or maybe it had been her immediate resistance to them taking hold of her. Whatever had caused it, the golems acted by creating weapons out of thin air, each of a different type, but all in the same style. Meredith’s body shifted to the defensive, her eyes taking in as many details of these new foes as she could, from their expressionless faces to their white robes and the pale-golden crest upon them. That made her double-take, recognizing the emblem as something Matthew had shown to them.

“Crea…?”

“Intruder confirmed as hostile. Initiating combat retrieval.”

“Combat retrieval?” That didn’t sound good to her whatsoever. The weapons whirled around in their hands, and Meredith made a quick count of how many there were. Seven. Seven golems. Seven weapons. All of them looked familiar to her. She stopped wondering, and unsheathed her blade. The first blow was struck.

One of the transparent blades broke apart as a chain-linked whip, smashing into the ground. The space remained unbroken, but Meredith rolled to the side to avoid it, only to find an axe swinging down at her. She dropped to her stomach, using her feet to propel her body to the side, but stopping before the bow’s energy arrow could impale her. A sword came flying down. This time, she blocked.

The weight was immense, forcing her to grit her teeth as she felt her body sinking. Her foot lifted as her heart thumped louder than her breaths, kicking to the creature and driving it off her. Hot pain suddenly appeared on her side, and the first splash of color in that place was seen: her blood had been drawn, dripping red on the white. She hadn’t even seen the attack coming.

I’ve gotta be more aware…Another sword flashed out. Meredith slashed upwards to deflect the blow, bringing herself back to her feet as she clasped her side. It ached, but was nothing against the pain she’d already endured. She backed up, her Soul Vision coming on to help her keep track of her camouflaged foes.

She certainly didn’t expect all seven of them to have the same soul.

“What…what is this…?” she breathed. One was coming for her, an orb of light around their figure that was multiplying through the staff they held. Meredith stood still a moment, trying to figure out what it all meant before she realized she stood no chance. There was no soul to use for magic freely, and she was vastly outnumbered. “Gotta run.”

The orb fired, scorching the ground but leaving nothing behind. It still burned up the spot where Meredith had stood mere seconds before. Her panting breath turned to a gasp at the pain that ran up her side. Her blood was pooling through her shirt, dripping on the canvas like an ugly painting. Worst of all, it was a trail, leading right back to her. She held tighter, hoping to stem the flow of blood as she darted down a clean alleyway. One of the beings caught up with her, swinging its sword out. She blocked it, making a tight turn at the corner to avoid the creature.

Her flight slowed when she saw it meld into the building and come right out the other side, untarnished. Its soul was steady as a rock, working directly in concert with the others.

“You have to be…kidding me…” she groaned. There was no more holding on to her wound, and she let go to clasp her blade in both hands. The wound bled afresh, staining more of that pure whiteness. The golem slashed at her, and she blocked it again, twisting the blade around to make her own strike. The creature didn’t avoid it, taking the stab to its side. There was no blood, but a gash appeared…only to be stitched up. “This is next-level screwed up…”

“Do not resist. You will not be harmed if you do not resist.”

“Like hell…” Meredith growled. Her side hurt so badly, the wound so fresh it felt like the rest of her body might split open. In the air above, the other six had gathered, closing off any manner of escape. Her heart pounded with fear. “So that’s what it is. Is this Marcus’s doing?”

“He awaits you. As does your companion.” This response felt different. Less robotic or rehearsed, and more of an actual conversation with a person on the other end. The emotion fueling her adrenaline spiked. “Come. They will not harm you, child of the soul.”

Meredith didn’t believe the voice. The creatures closed ranks, and Meredith couldn’t stop the shaking inside or out. Her blade clattered inside her hands. Loneliness. Fear. It was a cocktail of the worst emotions, but she didn’t relent, taking sharp breaths to make her body stand strong.

So…this is the kind of world Marcus envisions. All the same soul. All the same thoughts. Damn everything else. Meredith shook her head from side to side rapidly, wishing to clear it and ready herself for the next assault. That’s no way to live. That’s just living in fear of what comes next instead of changing it.

“I’m not going with you…” she said. Whatever was on the other side heard her, for the dronish construct dropped any attempt to communicate with her, returning to its previous state. There was only one command on its empty face: capture.

A shot was fired down, which Meredith barely saw coming. She used her sword to bear the brunt of the blow, only for the sword and spear users to rush at her from all sides, closing her in. She dropped, allowing the three to clash before she stabbed in the center of them and broke them apart.

It was the next miscalculation that cost her. Keeping track of all of them at once was impossible, and the chain shot out, suddenly wrapping around her figure, binding all of her limbs. Meredith fell to the ground, sword still in hand, but strapped to her side. Within the shackles, she struggled, but didn’t break free.

The violence the drones exhibited vanished. They all dropped to the ground, and the one carrying her with its blade began to drag her along. The road wasn’t rough, and they were careful not to bang her into any buildings, but Meredith inflicted her own bruises with her writhing and twisting to get out.

“Let me go! Let go!” They didn’t comply, or more likely, didn’t even hear her protests. They continued dragging her through the streets and buildings until there was nothing left but the white, open stretch to the gates. They gave no intention of freeing her, and Meredith relented for the moment, collapsing her blade to make it easier on the ride to wherever they were going.

They trudged along the smooth path, right up to the gates that swung open at their arrival. To Meredith, it was like this whole realm belonged to them, operating at their very touch and no one else’s. She had to wonder just whose soul was inside, controlling them, but with her being dragged up short and shallow steps, she focused more on not throwing up and retaining her wits. Gratefully, it stopped as soon as it started, and Meredith felt her limbs suddenly freed from their confines.

“You’re here, too?” Meredith blinked, knowing the voice. She sat up swiftly, her head spinning from the blood rushing to her head. Once it balanced itself out, offering clearer vision, Meredith turned towards the voice. It was Rico, his hands bound. She considered herself lucky.

“It would seem we three are the ones gathered.”

That voice made Meredith’s blood run cold. She craned to the side of Rico’s restrained figure to find Marcus. He, too, was bound on both hands and feet, staring ahead at something hidden by a blinding light; perhaps the only light in this entire place. Meredith felt her figure trembling at the sight of him there, unharmed despite his captive nature. However, it made something clear to her that quelled the fear.

He was as bound as the rest of them. He wasn’t behind this.

Meredith whipped her vision around, searching for what must have gathered them there. Not much had changed from the city, other than the lack of buildings. If anything, it looked like they were floating atop clouds, though the surface beneath their knees was hard and solid as could be. The gates were behind them now, and in front, Meredith saw a chair, or the form of one. Its details were too hard to make out, the light in that area blinding them so much that she couldn’t see if anyone was occupying it or any of its decorations.

All of that blindness had to do with the one thing she could fully make out: a glass orb next to the chair. It was giant, and there was a tube running from it to the chair. Meredith inched forward out of curiosity for what it was when it shined brighter, eclipsing her vision. She found her neck suddenly pressed down by one of the drones, dropping the orb from her view. Rico and Marcus had the same done to them.

“Where…are we…?” Meredith asked of the other two.

“Ask the Reaper. He’s the one that brought us here,” Rico grunted to her, though his face sought that of Marcus. “Surely it’s no coincidence those things mimicked the Legendary Weapons. Did you plan this?”

“In part…though I didn’t expect all of we soul users to pass through the rift.”

“Nor did I.” That voice was an unknown. Meredith tried to lift her head and see who was speaking to them, but the pressure kept her locked in place. “Oh, that level of force won’t be necessary for our kindred souls. There is a reason they all gathered here. Though, the influx of souls was an altogether unexpected boon.”

“Who…?” Meredith voiced, and she could hear Rico asking the question with her. Marcus was the only one unsurprised and un-wondering. Footsteps clopped down from the chair in front, a shadow obscuring the light that dimmed just slightly. It was enough to give Meredith sight as she laid eyes upon the woman before her.

Colorless hair, and a youthful body, her clear eyes radiated warmth, while her open arms welcomed to wherever they were. She smiled at all of them, and with a wave of her hands, the drones stepped back and their shackles were gone. They sat up to pay witness to the woman. Meredith watched her slow approach, unable to read a thing. Only one observation could be made: she was the source of the things that had captured her.

“So…you do exist…” Marcus uttered, his eyes focused with burning intent.

The woman stopped before them, an empty smile given in Marcus’s direction. “Welcome to the Heavenly Realm, my fellow children of the soul. It has been too long since I’ve met one of you. My name is Crea.”