Chapter 7

I was discharged at around 3 PM, and Gene and I boarded a chopper that was supposed to drop me off at my place.

“You’re not coming with?” I asked Ysandra before I left my hospital room. She shook her head.

“The next two days will have to be up to you and your team. Well, there’s only two of you right now, but trust me - that won’t be the case for very long. Just… don’t overuse your Brand.” She put her hood and mask back on. “Emergencies. Only.”

My team. Shit, Ice would get a kick out of this… if she were still alive, that is. I tried to contact her and the rest of my guildmates, but my phone was destroyed during my little accident. Which is why we’re currently inbound to my apartment.

“Hey, Blaze, uh… not to doubt our friend, but how can we be sure your apartment hasn’t been destroyed yet?”

“We can’t,” I replied. The city was in bad shape, but it looked mostly contained to a semi-circle of fire and destruction. The hospital we were just at was just outside the broken half of the city; so there must be something holding back whoever or whatever was doing this. No, it was definitely whoever, because Ysandra said that out-of-control Branded were the ones responsible for this chaos in the first place.

“On approach to Mulberry. Building and surrounding areas appear to be slightly damaged, but otherwise stable. Permission to land on your roof, sir.”

“Uh, go ahead. I should have a ladder to get down from above.”

The streets were filled with crashed cars, and some of the buildings have had their walls caved in… or out. Parts of the asphalt were frozen, the late afternoon sun reflecting pink on the icy surface. Other parts looked corroded somehow, like someone splashed a huge bucket of acid to deliberately create potholes in the road. The few trees that used to line Mulberry were burnt to cinders.

My building looked mostly intact, though a few windows were broken and the sidewalk was strewn with different articles of clothing, their owners having Disappeared. The chopper soon landed, and Gene and I hopped out with our bags. My bones rattled a little on impact, but I was otherwise fine - the healer nanobots did a great job. I waved a confirmation to the pilot, and he took off. The collar on Gene’s dark green shirt flapped around wildly until the helicopter cleared the roof.

“Over here.” I led Gene to a nondescript spot in the middle of the cemented rooftop. If you didn’t know what to look for, you’d have missed it. Instead I put a thumb against a barely visible crack on the cement, and a hatch opened. A ladder then unfolded all the way down to my penthouse’s floor.

“After you,” I told Gene. He dropped his stuff through the hatch, leaving only his camera bag on him before descending. I took a moment to breathe in the afternoon air - which was a mistake, because I was downwind from the destroyed half of the city. I coughed out the ash and smoke and swiftly descended the ladder.

“Well, here we are,” Gene said as the ladder folded itself back up and the hatch closed. “What’s the plan?”

“I need to contact some of my friends. I don’t even know if the servers of... anything are still up, but… hey, there’s a chance, right?”

“Right. Permission to use the TV?”

I waved my consent. “Do whatever. We aren’t staying long anyway.” Gene turned on the TV before crashing down on the sofa. He began to switch channels, but most were either static or were playing a ‘Please stand by’ message on repeat.

I entered my room and headed straight for my computer. Thankfully, Mulberry didn’t lose power while I was away. The familiar and comforting light of the monitor came on, and I was immediately barraged by messages from my guildmates.

R. Pavisi: ⌜Is everyone okay? And what the hell is this thing on my arm?⌟

I. Gehenna: ⌜Has anyone heard from Blaze yet?⌟

E. Sturm: ⌜Rex hasn’t been online since he told us the situation at South Aftland. Please tell me you guys are alright.⌟

The last message was sent just a few hours ago, from Eton himself.

E. Note: ⌜If you are reading this, congratulations. You will soon be witnesses to the birth of a new world. I hope to meet you all again one day. Until then, do your best to survive. ⌟

My fingers flew over my keyboard.

B. Aequitas: ⌜Hey, guys. Sorry I haven’t been in touch. Got into a little accident, but I’m fine now.⌟

Click. Nothing happened.

Click. Click.

Click. Click. CLICK. CLICK CLICK CLICK CLICK CLICK BANG

“Dammit!” I knew deep down that New Pines wasn’t the only city affected by the Disappearance and the Branded, but I was holding out hope that I could talk properly to my friends one last time. I didn’t know what was happening to them. I could only hope for the best.

A second tab caught my attention. It was still blinking yellow, indicating an unread personal message:

⌜Blaze,⌟

⌜I’m fine, if you’re wondering. I hope you are too. This might be the last time i’ll ever send a message to you here, or anywhere, really. I’m being rescued by the city’s police force soon. All us Branded are. I don’t know what else to say. Maybe… thank you. For all the good times and the memories. ⌟

⌜And good luck.⌟

⌜-Ice Gehenna, World’s Wisest Warlock⌟

I was struck with a sudden loss for words. I never even got to say goodbye to any of my friends from Last Thoughts. Never even got to thank them for all the support they gave.

One day…

For the second time in as many days, I felt tears run down my face. I let them flow, because I had a feeling it would be a long time before I could afford to do so again.

It was about 6 PM by the time I finished gathering what I needed, and the sun had already disappeared. I put all my special flash drives into a box, which I stuffed further inside a shoulder bag. I added a holster to my belt using a few hundred nanomachines and put Ysandra’s pistol into it - I had forgotten to give it back to her, but then I had more immediate concerns at the time.

Speaking of nanobots, there was no way I could take them all with me. I modified a backup phone with a few to bump up its processing speed and storage space, and I filled three tubes about the size of a can of bug spray with as much as I could from my latest unprogrammed batch, and another tube with some healer nanos. The rest I had to leave behind. With any luck, I could test out that new program I made once we were safe. I put these in the same bag as my special flash drives and went out of my room for probably the last time.

“Yo, buddy. So you got a plan this time?” Gene had turned off the TV and was now just cleaning his camera.

“Hey, wait, if the city’s in shambles, what shoot did you go to yesterday?”

“Propaganda piece. ‘Branded destroyed the city, and Branded can rebuild it’. Who the hell they’re gonna show that to, I don’t know. Though it was pretty cool seeing a guy turn everything he touched into steel and remake the walls of a house.”

“Just the walls?”

“Yeah. The inside still looked like shit. Anyway, back to my first question: plan?”

“I got nothing. We can’t stay here, that’s for sure. In about two days, something will happen, something related to the Valkyries, Babel, and the army. And us Branded, of course.” I flexed my right hand a little. There was no use hiding it under a glove anymore. “Speaking of which, what does your Brand actually do?”

He grimaced. “Uh… you have any seeds here?”

“Sure, there should be some fresh chilis in the fridge. Cut ‘em open and grab the seeds.”

The city was dark. Way darker than normal. A few street lights still worked, but more than a couple were cut in half or bent out of shape. Smoke still filled the air, and some of the buildings in the broken half of the city were now on fire. Helicopters still filled the air, and I swear a jet passed by once, leaving behind a sonic boom and causing a building to finally collapse.

I inspected my Brand closely for the first time in days. It was inert at the moment, although since I kept my apartment at a constant 16 degrees and I was feeling closer to 21, the anti-cold effect must still be active. How could these things bring down New Pines in three days? Even online, the most spectacular I’d seen a Brand do was let a guy catch an arrow mid-air.

And I guess there’s me, having survived being slammed against a balcony at 50 kilometers an hour, AND dropping three floors straight into solid concrete.

A whistling brought me out of my reverie. “Uh, dude? You okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. Just… thinking. Whatchu got for me?”

Gene was holding a few seeds in left hand, and his sleeve was rolled up to make his Brand visible. He closed his eyes, and his Brand started to glow a nice, soft green - kinda like a pine tree in spring. At first, it looked like nothing happened, but after about a minute, the pepper seeds cracked open and small sprouts started popping out. The glow from Gene’s Nabaath Brand faded as he opened his eyes.

I leaned over to inspect the seeds more closely. Each seed had a small stem growing in the middle, with a tiny leaf just starting to grow at the top. Roots had also grown around the bases of the seeds. “Dude, that’s pretty awesome. No wonder the Valkyries were hired to get Nabaath for the greenhouses.”

“Eh, it’s… fine. Would be better if I could grow them to fruit-bearing size immediately. And I’m not quite sure if I could survive a three-storey fall, either…” Gene put down the seedlings on the countertop. They were… well, green, but vibrantly so. It was almost like they were bursting with life. I had a feeling that they’d experience a massive growth spurt if they were planted on some soil.

“Oh right. How do you turn the lights off?”

“Switches are there by the elevator.”

My apartment went dark, and we were left with barely any light aside from the occasional eerie illumination of our burning city. But, the seedlings… I could still see them, clear as day. It was almost as if they were glowing. “Nice. Flashlight plants. Could be useful, actually…”

Gene laughed. “Why bother with those when a flashlight from my phone could probably do better?” I heard him flick the switch several times. “I don’t have your healing. Or that bonemetal thing you mentioned.” On a whim I stuck the seedlings into my bag, making a mental note to plant them later.

“Uh, dude. The lights aren’t working.”

I approached him. “That’s impossible. This penthouse is connected to a backup power source that’s never supposed to run out.” I took a look at the switch and flicked it several times myself.

Nothing.

As I stood there puzzled, eyes squinted to make the most use of what little light there was, a shadow passed in front of me. It was humanoid, but it disappeared way too quickly. I whipped my head around and scanned the windows. “Gene. Grab your stuff. I don’t like th-”

The windows broke without warning, sending out shards of sharp glass. Gene and I shielded our eyes, stepping back against the elevator door as we did so. “I cannot believe my luck. You seriously went back here?”

The voice was male, and full of malicious amusement. “And you even brought a friend with you! Nice! I can get two for the price of one!”

“Who are you?” I dared to ask as I lowered my arms. In response, a knife flew out from the dark, hitting the light switch next to my head.

“Tut, tut. Prey don’t get to ask questions.” Another knife came rushing out of the dark room, this time almost pinning Gene’s arm to the wall. He screamed in surprise, and was starting to breathe heavily. “Hoho! This one isn’t used to death! I think I’ll keep him alive… might entertain me for a few days.”

“Gene. I know you’re panicking, but you need to listen to me,” I whispered as softly as I dared. My nerves were on red alert, ready to dodge if our attacker sent out another knife.“Break left and head to the kitchen.”

“Then what?!”

“BREAK!”

As I expected, more knives came flying at us, landing with a loud thud where my head and Gene’s leg used to be and embedding themselves into the limestone wall. “Hey! Over here!” I sprinted towards my room - if I could activate a few nanobots…

But it wasn’t meant to be. I suddenly felt the cold steel of a knife against my throat. Not only had this guy caught up to me, he had done so without making a sound. “Nice try. I already found your little power cell, you know. If that was why you ran all the way here, well, that’s too bad.” He put the flat of his knife against my chin and pushed up.

Even in the dark, I could see his face when it was this close. He had a flat nose, almost like it was hacked off by someone or something. One of his cheeks had a massive gash running across it. His eyes were crazed and wide, and his manic grin revealed rows of sharp, uneven teeth. I could hear him breathing heavily… no, excitedly.

“Ooooh, I haven’t had prey like you in ages! It’s been so boring, you know, when all I could find were dull, Brandless people that were gonna Disappear anyway. But other Branded? Oh yes…” Faster than my eyes could follow, he took away the knife from my throat and stabbed me in the leg.

“GAH!”

I fell to the floor in agony. I managed to quickly find the handle of the knife, and I pulled it out. My Brand immediately flared orange, and my wound began to smoke until it was closed. It hurt, but I feel that I could stand up if I had to.

“Interesting, interesting! So the rumors were true!”

Before I could start crawling away, another knife stabbed me, this time on my left hand. I tried my best to not scream in pain this time. My attacker giggled, then slammed a heavy boot onto the knife handle, piercing my hand and pinning me to the floor.

I could feel some blood pour out of my wound, but the knife actually kept the worst of it at bay. If I were to guess, this was entirely on purpose. I gritted my teeth; I would not give this sadist the satisfaction of hearing my pain again.

“Hm? Cat got your tongue? Well, that’s boring. Now, where’d your friend go?”

“Right here, you bastard.”

I was blinded by a sudden flash of very bright light. Dazed, the Knife Nut staggered backwards, rubbing his eyes. I reached for the blade on my hand and tried to pull it out, but it was stuck. So instead, I pulled out Ysandra’s Tesla and aimed it at my attacker.

“You… are… DEAD!” he roared, followed by a deep silence.

“Gene, flash him again!” I closed my eyes as my friend did as instructed, and this time there was the sound of heavy boots staggering backwards on the wood. Every few seconds, whenever the worst of the blindness disappeared, Gene would use his camera to stun Knife Nut again. “What are you waiting for, man? Shoot!”

I clicked off the gun’s safety and pulled the trigger, hoping to hit our attacker. Instead the shot went wide and hit the ceiling, the bullet embedding itself into the concrete with a loud crack. Even worse, the shot was loud enough to leave my ears ringing. Gene dropped his camera as he covered his ears, but at least our attacker also fell to the ground, deaf and blind.

I dropped the gun and tried to pull out the knife again. It budged a little more this time, though the pain almost made me want to stop. Slowly, the knife came free, revealing a sharpened steel blade covered in my blood. When it was finally all gone, my Brand flared to life again and cauterized my wound shut. My hand still smoking, I picked up my gun and pulled Gene up.

“Shit. Shit, shit!” I rushed as fast as I could to the elevator, my leg stinging a little with each step. One of Gene’s ears was bleeding, but he looked fine otherwise. His camera was still strapped to his neck, though I had no idea where its bag could be. That’s for later. “Come on. Come on..”

The elevator still worked - its backup power ran on a completely separate grid specifically for outages and other emergencies. I made sure to keep my back to the elevator, my eyes and ears alert and my gun raised, ready to fire.

Ding.

I stepped backwards into the elevator and lay Gene down at the corner. I pressed G on the panel, and the door closed slowly…. Too slowly. A rough-looking hand with fingernails covered in dirt and dried blood blocked it from closing all the way, and the elevator opened up again with another ding.

SHIT.

Knife Nut was smiling again, knowing his prey had nowhere to go, and thanks to the light in the elevator I finally got a full glimpse of him. He was wearing a blue shirt coated in dried blood and other fluids, and his pants were half-torn at the knees. A battered-looking leather belt was alternately lined with knives and small bones, all of them sharpened and deadly. His hair was bald in patches, as if someone had pulled out tufts of it randomly. His nose was worse than I first thought; it was pretty much gone, and all that was left looked like a random mound of mutilated flesh.

“Oh, no. You’re not getting away.” His breathing was even heavier now, perhaps sensing an impending victory. He reached into his belt and pulled out a knife, running the flat of its blade against his tongue, relishing his kill. “Any last words?”

A blaze of heat flared on my right hand - a different kind of heat this time, as if it was covered in fire. On instinct, I grabbed Knife Nut’s wrist, squeezed, and it immediately started smoking.

“What are y- AAAAAH! IT… BURNS! WHAT THE HELL IS THIS?!”

He lost his grip on the knife and it fell through the crack between the elevator and the room. Still keeping a firm grip on his wrist, I tackled him back into the penthouse, my Brand illuminating its dark with a bright orange glow. I could hear his skin begin to sizzle and bubble, and the smoke was turning blacker by the second. The elevator closed shut, and the scent of burning flesh filled my nostrils.

“I don’t know who you are.”

I could feel a similar heat on my left hand now as well. I used it to clamp down on his neck. His screams faded as my flames destroyed his vocal chords and heated up any air that passed through his throat.

“I don’t know why you’re after me.”

Knife Nut tried to use his right hand to stop me from choking him, but he got burned for his trouble instead. He gasped for air, and every time he exhaled ash would puff out of his mouth. I lost my grip on his left hand, because I had completely burned through its muscles, sinews, and bones. It fell to the floor with a sickening thud.

“But if you wanted me dead, you should’ve tried harder.”

I now used both my hands to squeeze his neck. He was barely breathing now, but I could still hear him choking on his own burnt flesh and blood. Small wisps of smoke were starting to billow out of his broken nose, his bloody ears, and his eye sockets.

Blaze. That’s enough.

I blinked. That… that was Aria’s voice. It was the same gentle tone she’d use whenever I’d lose my temper…

You can’t let your anger get the better of you, you know?

I let go. The man I almost killed was gasping for air through a mess of nose and a broken windpipe. He probably wasn’t long for this world regardless, but I took a couple of healer nanobots out of my bag and dropped it straight into his charred mouth. It would be a long, agonizing process, especially since these nanos didn’t have nutrients loaded into them, but he’ll live.

On a whim, I searched his back pocket for a wallet or identification of any sort. No dice. I did find a radio inside one of his other pockets, but it was broken. I put it inside my bag anyway. Maybe I could use it to find out who this guy worked for later.

“I’m not sorry for what I did,” I told him. His eyes were wide and full of hate, reflecting the light of my Brand as it slowly faded. “But you’re damn lucky to be alive.” I stood up and turned my back on him. “No second chances, buddy. Stay out of my sight.”

Just… don’t overuse your Brand.

The elevator dinged again, and Gene was still inside, still looking a little out of shape. “Holy shit, dude. I thought I’d never see you alive again. W-what happened?” I stepped wordlessly into the elevator. When I went to press the panel, I saw my hand was charred. Both my hands were. It wasn’t painful, though, and as the elevator went down I just wiped away all the ash against the elevator wall.

Gene was staring at me as I did so, jaw agape. “Is… is he dead…?”

I leaned my head against the elevator wall, facing away from my friend. “No. But he probably wishes he was right now.”