The feel of the Plasma Caster in her hand was both familiar and strange. It’s been several weeks, more than a Season, now that she thought about it, and two planes ago. Yuriko’s hand trembled as she sighted down the barrel, barely remembering her Da’s instruction.

Breathe in and out. Slowly, and again, until her heartbeat settled.

Minute fluctuations of the hand would cause a divergent path, making her plasma bolt miss. It wasn’t that apparent at close range, but over a distance of hundreds of paces, even a tiny fraction of an inch from her end meant she’d miss by more than a pace by the time the bolt got to the target.

Well, she wasn’t shooting at range, really, and she found that by projecting her Anima over the weapon, it steadied her hand by such an extent that none of her three hundred pace shots actually missed. As for what she was shooting at, well, they were beached inside a Waypoint, with multiple hull fractures that Layla and Christoph were desperately repairing.

All while being assaulted by a veritable horde of Wyldlings.

When they crashed past the Veil, it was to find themselves at the tag end of a Chaos Storm. Bad luck or the Threads of Fate simply didn’t let them escape so easily. The powerful Chaos flows eroded the already weakened Protective Sphere, and those corrosive flows blasted away at the Venere Wood hull. Thankfully, the treated wood was resistant enough to Chaos that it didn’t change into something else. Otherwise, maybe the hull would turn from wood to water, or worse, fire. Then, there’d be no Chaos ship and they’d be stranded in the middle of the Primordial Sea.

The Waypoint was a literal island surrounded by murky seas. The land was barely a longstride wide, and most of it was cliff faces and rocks, save for a crescent-shaped sandy beach that they landed on. For the first few moments, all was well, then the water started to boil with activity, and Chaos dwellers emerged looking to eat them.

“These aren’t swarmlings or Wanderers,” she muttered.

“Not in the usual sense,” Aidan agreed. “I’ve seen worse during my tours. They’re just at the same power level, and aside from their numbers, not really much of a threat.” Her older cousin casually sent plasma balls into a controlled revolution around the ship, taking out any dweller that came too close.

The things looked like a mix between fish and some kind of rodent, Yuriko decided. Utterly disgusting to behold. When the plasma bolts struck them, they died in a burst of icky goo that stank so much she had to manipulate her Anima to prevent the fumes from getting to her nose.

Bzzt! Bzzt! Bzzt!

About half of the sailors were stationed at the left side railings and shooting at the emerging fishrats. The other half carried replacement cartridges to the shooters while bringing the depleted ones to the engine room to charge them. The Animus quality inside the jade cartridges was terrible, feeling so unresponsive to her Will that she had to divert her focus from shooting to control. She resisted the urge to spend her own reserves though. Anyway, the resulting bolts were barely enough to pierce the Wyldlings’ Protective Field.

Her hands itched to summon either Fri’Avgi or her sunblade but she resisted. For one thing, the stink would probably drive her back should she lose focus enough for it to seep past her Anima, for another, there was simply no need to wade into melee. The edge of the water was nearly a hundred paces away, so there was ample space for defence. Some of the Wyldlings emerged further out, but that only made them juicier targets that she took out with prejudice.

Whoosh!

An arrow of greenish-blue light sped from the deck towards a huge clump of Wyldlings. The missile punctured through a dozen fishrats before it exploded in a wildfire that set another dozen ablaze.

Yuriko couldn’t help but glance at its source, the woman named Zoey who said she was from the Coalition. She’d watched the woman fire her weapon several times already and every time, Yuriko couldn’t help but stare with her Chaos Sight on.

Zoey pulled the string back with her fingers. While the line was slack, there was no arrow, but the moment she pulled, Yuriko could see the ambient Chaos gather and form into one. Each draw took nearly a dozen seconds, but Yuriko suspected it was because Zoey put a lot of Chaos into the projectile. She certainly took out more than what Yuriko could manage in the same amount of time.

Well, she was using a Plasma Caster instead of her blades, so…

Oh. Yuriko blushed. Didn’t she want to be a marksman? Ah, it was just so easy to fight with blades now.

Shaking her head, she aimed and fired a couple of bolts, making sure each and every dweller that came out was killed. She kept at it for about an hour, with someone replacing her spent cartridges every five minutes or so. The tide of fishrats never wavered, but it didn’t intensify either. It was almost as if they were heading up on land to die. For what purpose though?

The Wyldlings never planned anything, at least, that’s what was taught in prep school. The subject barely came up in Sharom though, but maybe that would be the upcoming term’s subject. After so much time shooting, the itch on her palms from wanting to use a Plasma Caster again was well and truly satisfied. She sighed happily and shot another one’s head off.

It almost felt as if Da was here watching over her shoulder. She could practically hear his mantra. Aim, breathe in, and out. Pull the trigger between the beating of your heart. Time it right so you don’t jostle the muzzle. Again. Again.

“Aim, breathe, hold, shoot.”

Yuriko paused. She actually heard the words.

A couple of paces away from her, Riley aimed his Plasma Caster, murmuring Virgil’s mantra under his breath. Or maybe it was the Davar method after all.

Her cousin didn’t use wide range attacks right now, and he kept to using the cartridges rather than his own Animus. In fact, Yuriko thought he wasn’t even using his personal Plasma Caster and was using one from the armoury. On her left side was Aidan, doing much the same. Strange. When did either of them take a position at her sides?

After firing, Riley glanced over at her, eyes widening fractionally when he met her gaze unexpectedly. He coughed, and Yuriko thought his sun-browned face reddened a bit. “You practice the Davar Marksmanship, too,” he said after an awkward silence.

“Yes. Da taught me,” Yuriko answered.

“Bit of a waste,” he said, “since your close combat abilities are incredible. But, I suppose a ranged skill is useful no matter what. In situations like this.” He grinned. “Most battles on the Ebon Horizon involve having the ship’s Carronades fire. These are rare times when we use small arms.”

“Oh.” Yuriko frowned. I originally wanted to be a marksman, you know! she thought, though she didn’t say it out loud. Instead, she asked, “Does this kind of thing happen often?”

“Which? Us crashing or being assaulted by dwellers?”

“Either?”

.Well, this is why we don’t normally go through Veils.” He shrugged, “It’s happened a few times, and usually when we’re running from pirates.”

“Pirates? Those ships in the last plane?”

“Well, privateers, more likely,” Riley said. “I’ve had one action before, but, hey, this is my first year aboard the Ebon Horizon, but Aidan’s had his fair share. Haven’t you, big bro?” he yelled over her head.

“About two or three times a year we run into hostiles. Human hostiles, not Chaos dwellers. The dweller kind, we run into almost every trip between planes.” Aidan said while he yawned. He didn’t stop shooting though.

“Privateers? Pirates?” Yuriko asked in confusion. “What was the difference?”

“They’re often one and the same,” Riley answered. “But privateers are usually backed by a nation. As weapons used to harry an enemy nation’s mercantile and logistic interests.”

“And those ships were?”

“Belrath’s.”

Yuriko fell silent as she focused on shooting. The Belrath Xylarchy. Little was taught about it in school, other than they were at war with them, and every time that strange nation was mentioned, Da’s face would twist and he would pucker his mouth as though he’d bitten something sour. He didn’t say anything about it though, only that they were as far from the Xylarchy’s borders as possible.

“We have never been at peace,” was the only thing Da said about it.

“Never?”

“Not in the three thousand years of the Empire,” Da said grimly.

She wanted to ask her cousins and aunt about the mysterious nation, though now wasn’t really the time. Instead, she asked, “How long before Aunt Layla finishes the repairs?”

“Who knows?” Riley shrugged. “I just hope those ships don’t find us before we can leave.”

Yuriko nodded, but somehow, she felt that it would be extraordinarily lucky if that were to happen. Shivering at her own dark thoughts, she focused on the targets, relishing the feel of the Caster in her arms. She’d missed this.

______

Riley couldn’t help but sneak glances at his strange and gorgeous cousin out of the corner of his eyes. He couldn’t help it. Despite Aunt Layla warning the both of them about Yuriko’s Mishala aura, his Animus control clearly wasn’t enough to ward off the effects completely.

Strange thoughts often crossed his mind when he looked at her, and even worse ones surfaced when he didn’t. The thing was, they were only considered cousins because they shared the Davar name. At best, her father was third cousin to Layla, which meant he and Aidan barely shared a blood connection, if at all.

That was only considering blood though, as the Family was bound by more than such ties. The shared Heritage determined familial connections, and this was the common mindset throughout the Empire.

If a child awakened to the Davar Heritage even though their common Ancestor was dozens of generations away, then they were cousins. Simple as that.

Of course, she didn’t have the Davar Heritage…

‘Stop it! She’s fourteen! And why are my thoughts lingering there! What about Noanne then?’ His childhood sweetheart was waiting for him. Would he throw her away to be with an impossible crush?

There was no doubt about his sudden infatuation. He couldn’t really just blame her aura either. Though her father and brothers were Davars, she definitely took after her mother of the Mishala clan. He hadn’t seen any Mishalas since most of that clan lived in Realmheart.

Ulmira was a core plane though, just a single Chaos Channel away from the Imperial Capital, and home to King Jezzen Ulmira, the Empress’ great-grandson who managed to distinguish himself from the rest of the Pia’Vasi and got himself crowned by the Verdant Empress herself.

The plane of Ulmira was quite cosmopolitan, with nearly the entire plane cultivated into gardens and city. It was what drove Riley, and he supposed Layla and Aidan, to a life on board a merchant vessel. It was incredibly boring there. He sometimes wondered why the Davars, well known for their wanderlust, ever settled there. Of course, after a Davar had their fill of adventure, Riley supposed that returning home to peaceful surroundings was a soothing balm.

Not for him though. He’d travel the myriad planes and Primordial Chaos Sea until his deathbed. Ah! He’d buy into a Chaos ship and run it as the captain, then he could determine where to go. He’d wander off to uncharted Chaos, discover a new plane and claim it for Empress and Empire!

His daydreams were interrupted by Yuriko’s gasp. He turned to where she was looking, half expecting those pirate ships to appear from the Waypoint’s boundaries. Ah, he shouldn’t think about them as that could potentially lead them here. The Chaos was dangerous like that.

Chase something, or run away from something. There was a connection between the pursuer and pursued. And it was as if the Chaos pushed them together to clash. Like a child prodding two reluctant fighting spiders on a stick, forcing them to engage in a battle for survival.

It was superstitious nonsense but he half believed that there was a single guiding mind to the Chaos, buried so deep into the Abyss that nobody could find it, but its tendrils stretched all the way up to meddle in the affairs of mortals. No, superstitious nonsense, and worse, the Chaos might form something out of his fears and nightmares.

Well, what he was looking at, what everyone was looking at, was the reason why all the dwellers were running out of the water to their deaths. It looked like a cross between a crab and a lobster, if such a crustacean was as big as the Horizon. Squirming dwellers were caught in its numerous feeding claws, while it shovelled them whole into its grotesque mouth.

But the eyes were dull and without a spark of intelligence, Riley thought. In other words, it was an easy fight.

Well, time to look good.