CHAPTER 17: THE END

In the last remaining light of a day that had gone on for way too long, three young people sat together on a deserted road in the middle of nowhere. Between them, an ordinary-looking crystal ball lay in the dust as if it wasn't the most powerful amplifier in the world, as if it belonged there.

“It all has to do with the compartments,” Valeria said with a slight frown, looking down on the Lentagon. “I have to use metal and air manipulations to loosen them up and shatter them, bit by bit. But because the damn thing is an amplifier and I'm channeling energy into it, this might become a very messy job. I'm not quite sure how it'll respond to breaking down, because the compartments will become unstable and I might very well end up blowing us all up.”

Seamon nodded. “And that's where I come in, I suppose?” He still didn't look very happy and he had his fists balled next to his side, but he was working along at least.

“You're supposed to draw up a shield. You need to be prepared for anything; fire, pressure, wind.” Valeria seemed to be lost in thought. She was all professional business now; Joy could see why she'd been good at her job. “It can get messy, but you should be strong enough to cover for us, even if we'd get all the force of a double compression upon your heads.”

Joy's heart skipped a beat. “A double compression? That's a twinbomb right? Isn't that what wiped out half the Jedian coastline?” During the war, Jediah and Parsia had attacked each other with troops at first, but the weapons they used had become steadily more exotic and devastating. After Parsia had deployed a twin bomb and nuked a major city on the coastline of Jediah into oblivion, the international community had finally gotten off its cowardly ass and bullied both nations into a cease-fire by threatening with major economic sanctions. They had not really interfered before, also because they were undoubtedly making a good penny out of the wartime economy themselves, but when the major weapons had been deployed, the community had finally felt uncomfortable enough to pull the breaks on the dispute before it had escalated in the total destruction of whole countries. And Valeria thought of such explosions?

Valeria nodded. “I'm counting on that kind of force. In that case, we're prepared when it happens. I hope not, though. If we indeed blow up the whole area, there's no way we can get out of here undetected. It's a good thing that there's nothing out here, but it's still going to be tricky.” She looked at Seamon. “Can you do that?”

“Sure,” he said nonchalantly. “Although I don't think it's going to be that bad. I'm more thinking along the lines of what happened when my parents died. It took leveled the street that we lived in and it ruined a lot of surrounding houses, but it wasn't a twinbomb.”

“It doesn't hurt to be prepared.”

“Okay.”

Valeria and Seamon exchanged one of their looks again while behind them the sun was slowly sinking beneath the horizon. Joy looked at them and detested them a little bit for their unspoken understanding. Sometimes it seemed as if they were completely in tune with one another in a way she did not have with Seamon and she felt jealous because of it. “What is it?” she asked, perhaps a bit more sharply than she intended.

Valeria just eyed Seamon. “I don't think your heart is into it.”

“I'm having a hard time,” he admitted. “But I can do it.”

“No, I want your full commitment, man,” Valeria said, looking both troubled and angry. “This is the way Paulo died – the rookie's heart wasn't into it. He was distracted and he was scared and he was bitching me out because I didn't say anything, so I let him. Paulo and the rookie both died, and I was in the hospital for weeks. I'm still all fucked up because of it, I'll never be the same again. I'm not going to include you on this thing if you aren't ready to go out going all the way, Seamon.” She shook her head. “Not when we're playing for such high stakes.”

“I can do it,” Seamon said flatly.

“That's what the rookie said, too.”

His eyes narrowed. “I can do it.”

“Are you sure?” Valeria insisted.

“Look, I told you that I'd do it, and I can do it. Get off my case!” he burst out, balling his fists once again. “I just had a /very long day/, okay? Give me a bloody break.”

Valeria was getting angry now too. “Look man, you can't blame me for being careful, okay? I sacrificed my future to be here and to do this, I'll be saving your ass in the process, and I have some bad experiences with misplaced confidence, so please don't treat me like shit just because I don't trust you implicitly. It's not like you've got the best track record on trust out here.”

“Ha, now that's rich!” Seamon laughed bitterly. “Look who's talking!”

This was going completely wrong. Time to cut in. “You're both a bunch of fucking sellouts,” Joy sneered, positioning herself between them and shooting the both of them dirty looks. “Look people, if I had the skills I'd do it /for/ you, but I can't. So get off your high horses and just do it, as long as you're certain of it. Are you?”

“I am,” Valeria said flatly, glaring at Seamon. “Are you?”

“I am,” he glared back.

“Right then, let's do this then,” Joy said, avoiding both of their looks and focusing on the crystal ball at their feet. “Before the sun has completely set. We need the light.”

“Right,” Valeria said, picking up the Lentagon. She took a deep, shuddering breath as her fingers touched the crystal ball for the first time. “Oh hell,” she whispered as her hazel eyes rolled upwards. “I knew it would feel great, but this... the things I could do...”

“Focus, Val,” Seamon said.

“...I could get us out of here. I could obliterate the motherfuckers that double crossed me, especially the bitch that I talked to in Zyx... with his reward money and his 'we'll let you go'... he was using me, he would have locked me up... I could get /back/ at him...” She sounded breathless and incoherent, as if she was not aware that she was speaking out loud. She sounded like Sirka.

“Valeria,” Joy urged, grabbing the other girl's wrists. She immediately shared in the revelry, but closed herself off from it. “Valeria, snap out of it! Think clearly; we won't be able to get out of here unless we destroy that thing.”

“Yes we will,” Valeria said. She smiled a frightening smile, one of total abandon. “I just blow up everybody who gets close. That's funny... isn't it? I worked years to prevent explosions and now I can blow up anything.” She laughed delightedly. “Didn't you ever want to blow stuff up?”

“Explode the Lentagon if you want,” Joy said. She fought the desperation that was starting to bubble up inside of her. “Let go of that thing Val, I'll hold it for you if you want to, just snap out of it!”

Valeria's gaze focused upon Joy's. Her eyes sparkled with bright intelligence and intensity in the dying sunlight. “Do you think that I'm losing my mind? I'm just going over the possibilities.”

“Well, your possibilities /suck/!”

“Perhaps they do, but they'll make me feel better.”

Joy wanted to weep in frustration and anger. Her desperate hold on Valeria's wrists tightened, as if she wanted to squeeze sense into the other girl. “You sound like Sirka!” she shouted. This whole confrontation seemed an echo of what happened with Sirka in the boat and she did not think she would live through a second one. Besides, Valeria was her only chance of actually destroying the damn weapon. Crystal bonds might shatter, but the ball had been created to withstand a smack onto the ground. Or a metal edge, for that matter. “It's all lies and promises of nothing,” Joy begged. She was crying again for what felt like the millionth time that day. “It feels like you can have it all, but you can't. It destroys everything, don't you get that? Everything!”

“Fuck.” Valeria's face contorted with something that resembled revulsion and she suddenly thrusted the crystal ball into Joy's hands. “Here, you have it, then.” She took a couple of steps back and took a few deep breaths. “I thought I'd be stronger than her,” she said. “But it's just... I'm so angry, I so can't stand what they did to me, all I want is to kill them. And with that thing in my hands, that urge can become reality and it's so tempting... it's so bloody tempting.”

Joy cradled the crystal in her arms and wept hot tears onto the warm smooth surface. She was so tired. She was so bloody tired. “Just let it go, Val. It's not worth it.”

Maybe those words were exactly what Valeria needed to hear. Suddenly she nodded and focused her steady hazel gaze upon Joy's arms. “Seamon, the moment I give you the signal, conjure up the strongest shield you can create,” she said through gritted teeth. “Joy, put that thing down on the ground. Nobody needs to touch it. I know the fault lines now, I've felt them. Quickly now, before I change my mind. Let's end this for real.”

Within the blink of an eye later, the Lentagon lay in the dust again and Joy took her place next to Seamon. As Valeria knelt down before the crystal with a frown of concentration, she took his hand and twined her fingers with his. He did not look at her but stared intently at the red-haired young woman before them.

He was rigid with tension as he whispered: “I can only stare and wonder. I can only think of my dad, the day he was on the news, announcing his invention. And I can only think of Sirka the day she pursued me. She alerted a Port team that I was coming, and they caught me unaware. She ported right into the instable area of the Kalmstad Port, nearly killed herself to stop me from fleeing with the Lentagon. Turns out that she nearly drowned herself in the lake when she wanted to get rid of the damn thing. She'd walked over the water to the deepest point of the lake she could get to that quickly, and dropped it there. Completely forgot that she had to get back, too, and she didn't have a boat. It was pure luck that somebody was fishing nearby and picked her up, half drowned and suffering from hypothermia. She said with only ten minutes more in the cold water she'd been dead.” There were tears shimmering in his eyes. “And you pushed her into the water when she cut herself up with those shards. Do you think she lives still?”

“I don't know,” Joy breathed. “Perhaps it'd be best if she didn't.”

His grip around her fingers tightened for a second. “Perhaps. You think we're doing the right thing?”

“Yes,” she said, closing her eyes for a moment.

On the ground before them, Valeria was manipulating air and metal to disintegrate the compartments of the crystal ball. Little lights were dancing around her and illuminating the Lentagon from within. The light scattered like drops of water upon the road and Valeria's face. She worked quickly and steadily like she had on Seamon's bonds. Never blinking, never faltering, methodically breaking down, piece by piece. The light inside the crystal ball intensified. More small lights joined the ones inside the Lentagon, until it seemed like the whole crystal was glowing.

“How do you know that you're right?” Seamon murmured. He was shuddering a bit, still avoiding her eyes but fixing his gaze upon the Lentagon. “How do you know it will end here?”

“Because it has to,” Joy said, unable to tear her eyes away from the bright light that was emanating from the crystal now. Whatever Valeria was doing to it, even she could feel it now. It felt like disintegration and it felt horrible. In the same way its energy had pulled her in on the bottom of Lake Mentorna, she could now sense it disintegrating... crumbling down bit by terrible bit. She had touched that crystal, she had held it like a baby. It had made her an adept, it had made her powerful. “It has to,” she repeated.

He squirmed where he was standing. “I can't take this. I can't stand it.” he sounded as if he were panicking now as the pressure increased. They could both feel it, and Seamon could feel it even clearer than she did. “Hold me back, Joy. Please.”

She heard the unspoken question, an echo of the plea he had made only a few days ago. It seemed an eternity. /Distract me.../ and she had done so in the only way she'd ever wanted, the only way she'd could. She would do so now. Joy turned around lightning fast and threw her arms around his neck to kiss him hard and passionately. She pressed her body against his and poured all of her passion, all of her desperation into that kiss, pushing him against her so he would not escape. He was stronger than she was, he was an adept, but he was also a guy her age and he was attracted to her. She would distract him.

The kiss was hard, overpowering, bordering on painful, but it went on and on while behind Joy, the light intensified and she heard Valeria's ragged breathing while she worked and the disintegration began to increase exponentially. Bit by bit, the crystal ball was falling apart and the levels of energy behind them were beginning to reach critical levels. Through the kiss, Joy could smell the scent of ozone in the air.

Seamon began to struggle under her hold, fighting to get out of her embrace, but Joy clung to him and distracted him in the best ways she knew. Seconds ticked away while Valeria worked and while Joy did her best to keep Seamon from changing his mind and snatching the crystal ball away from her destructive actions. She tasted tears in her kiss and wondered distantly if they were his or hers, and then decided it didn't matter.

Outside their embrace, the world kept turning and Valeria kept working. She was working more slowly now; channeling her manipulations more carefully as to not trigger anything that would blow them all sky high. Painful heartbeats passed, until Seamon suddenly sobbed and took action. His teeth sunk painfully in her lips and drew blood as he finally pushed her away abruptly-

And something crumbled-

Something gave way, they could all feel it-

“Seamon!” Valeria cried out, scrambling backwards...

And Seamon Lentan did what he was born to do. He raised his hands, and with that a shield came into existence. It shimmered in the bright light that was emanating from the disintegrating crystal only a few meters away. Brightly and confidently, the shield stood like a bubble of energy. It was all Seamon, and it was all pure strength and skill and the finest that his family could have ever conjured. If his father would have been here, he would have been proud of his only son.

Even Joy could see that – the shield was flawless and it had been drawn up within the smallest of instants. It was the kind of shield that could have been drawn up while a gun was fired within three meters distance – and it would have kept the bullet from impact.

What the Lentagon did, was much more devastating than a simple bullet, plasma or no. The Lentagon continued to remain for a precious half-second while Valeria let go of whatever she'd been holding back. It was exactly that pressure that she was releasing now, creating a chain reaction within the amplifier. The energy within the crystal amplified upon itself once, twice, three times. It drew upon itself, and then, like a fireworks display on New Year's Day, the whole thing erupted.

There was light- as bright and sickly white-yellow as Joy remembered it on the day of the Lentagon Tragedy. As overpowering and horrible as it had been that day of the pool, the early evening sky now lit up with that sickening colour. They barely had a second's time to register this, because that was when the explosion occurred.

The sound was beyond deafening. The impact catapulted them all through the air as if they were weightless. They smacked against the ground – but Seamon's shield held off the worst of the blow. Proudly and shimmering, the shield remained. That was more than could be said for the three people that were protected by it. Joy's head slammed against the dry earth.

There was a moment of not-remembering. One instant of nothing.

The next moment she found herself on the ground with a mouth full of dust and the metallic taste of blood and ears that were ringing. She blinked against the evening sky and found it dark again. Evening had fallen more intensely after the bright explosion because of the dust that was softly raining down on them. Her eyes were burning with bright violet afterimages and her whole body was aching. It was severely shaken up, but it also felt as if all of her nerve endings were on fire.

“Are you guys okay?” she said. The sound of her own voice sounded oddly far away. She rolled over on her back and tried to sit up, only to find that her head was spinning. Nausea got the better of her and she quickly laid down again. /Concussion,/ she thought, spitting the blood and the dust out of her mouth. /Could be worse./

“I'm okay,” she heard Valeria groan from somewhere behind her. “Fuck, that sucked.”

“Seamon?” she asked, desperation tinging her voice.

A strangled sob sounded from a few meters to the right.

“Seamon? Are you okay?”

Sob, sob, another muffled sound... and then the sound of laughter rung through the dust-ridden evening sky. Seamon was laughing and he was laughing hysterically. He was barking out his laughter through quick gasps of breath, bubbling over his lips in a response of the enormity of what had just happened.

Valeria's laughter joined his, and Joy could not help it. Even though her head hurt, the relief was crashing over her – they were still alive, they'd done it. She could not feel the pulsing power and temptation of the Lentagon anymore. Where there had been an energy amplified before, there was now only dust. The energy had been released, and they had survived it thanks to Valeria's skillful deconstruction and Seamon's powerful shield. The sky had lit up to swallow them, and they had weathered the storm of the explosion.

They were still alive, and to laugh simply seemed like the best possible reaction to everything that had happened; even though she ached everywhere, even though she was tasting blood in her mouth and she felt as if she could faint any minute. They were still alive.

Their laughter went on for minutes on end, until they were all completely out of breath. When they'd finally calmed down, Valeria sat up. She looked wrung out. Her face was smeared with dust and her mouth and nose were bleeding on top of the injuries that Sirka had inflicted on her earlier, but otherwise she looked pretty okay. “Why were you laughing so hard?” she asked.

Seamon was also sitting up. He looked a little worse for wear; his t-shirt was ripped in many places, showing bruises and blood smeared all over his body. The left side of his face looked bruised and he had a black eye and swollen lips, but he was smiling that heartbreakingly beautiful smile. “I was just thinking... that money of yours, Val, those funds.”

“What about them?”

Carefully, he wiped the tears of laughter from his filthy face. “I was just realizing that the way I set up your accounts, we'll be able to access them from here. All it takes is a call with Joy's communicator.” He chuckled, although it still sounded as if he were half crying. “We did it. We fucking did it.”

“So we can call a transport company and get out of here?” Valeria asked.

“If you speak Jedian,” he said, still chuckling.

“I do,” Valeria said.

Joy nodded. “Me too, a little.” She rolled upon her back and looked against the first stars above that were trying to twinkle through the dust. “So that means that this is the end of it? We'll be okay?”

“We should be.”

They spoke too soon.

Before they'd finished their sentence, a Port opened next to them, and three men stepped through.

In the light that poured from the large Port, they looked dark-skinned and they wore the uniforms of soldiers. The amount of insignia on their clothes indicated that they were pretty high in rank, too. And they were heavily armed.

Within a second, Joy found herself staring down the barrel of a gun for the third time that day. The adrenaline came back as quickly as it had vanished her system. Her heart thundered in her throat and she was gasping for precious breath.

“Oh fuck no,” Valeria mumbled, scrambling to sit with the other two. “They're Jedian, I'd recognize that uniform anywhere. Any bright ideas?” she mumbled, as the men took their positions in front of them.

Seamon blinked against the bright light. “Who are you?”

One of the men spoke. His gun never wavered while he did. “We know who /you/ are,” he said in accented Parsian, gesturing with his free hand at them, at their situation: sitting in the dust, helpless and recognized for the crimes they'd committed against their nation. “We saw the news, and then the explosion. So we came here, and we find you.”

/It's all over now./ Joy stole a glance at her two partners in crime and found that they were as flabbergasted as she was. Weak and still reeling from the explosion, there was no way they could get out of this one. They couldn't talk themselves out of it, the Lentagon had been destroyed and both Seamon and Valeria were exhausted. /We are now truly screwed/.

“There are two things we could do,” the man continued, and it sounded as if he were /amused/ of all things. “We could give you back to Parsia, as a sign of our friendship to your nation. You'll be sentenced to death, probably.” It all sounded so matter-of-factly, as if he were speaking to other people, not them. As if he wasn't telling them casually that they would die soon. “But I have another proposal. The war never really ended, and we all know what you can do and who you are.”

Joy's heart caught in her throat.

“Not that you really have a choice, of course,” the Jedian official said. “But let's be civil against each other. You'll come work for us now, or you die. It's your choice. You have two minutes to make up your mind. Good luck.”

Joy, Seamon and Valeria exchanged a look of utter desperation as they realized that it wasn't really a choice, indeed. They were traitors to the nation already. To be handed over meant a certain death, to work in Jediah meant the betrayal of a nation that had readily betrayed them before. So what else was there?

There was magic, and there were crystals. And they would work with them, against the nation they were born in. They'd be terrorists, now with the three of them.

It should have ended here. Perhaps it hadn't.

the end