The Rising Sun: Episode 3 (19 page)

The girl’s look grew fazed for a moment as
she thought. “I won’t pretend to know … but he won’t forget
you.”

Ion suddenly felt something he had never
imagined he would feel his entire life. Dread…

By the sound of things, he had made himself
a marked enemy with the warlord who commanded them, the
Zelgron.

He turned to the girl, who was gazing at him
with a scent of the previous concern in her deep black eyes. As if
sensing his fears, she gave a warm smile and said, “Look, believe
me, there are far better things in this world to be afraid of than
facing something you’ve already faced.”

“How’s it you came by there, when they were
attacking me?” he asked the girl, frowning.

“I was just crossing by, from a nearby
village.” she answered.

Ion raised an eyebrow. “Odd to find a mystic
at a place like this, in the inner spectrum. What were you doing
there?”

“I don’t live here. I was just here for a
mission.”

“A mission?” repeated Ion.

The girl scanned her surroundings again,
looking slightly reluctant. With a sigh, she said, “You see, I’m a
part of a group of,” She paused, searching for the right words. “A
group of … crime fighters, you can say.”

“Crime fighters?” asked Ion.

“Mystic crime fighters.”

Ion stared. “You mean … you’re a part of a
group of
mystics
who … fight crime?”

The girl inclined her head for a moment,
looking wondrous. “Well, yes … I can’t tell you exactly what we
are.”

Ion felt the words elude him, as he tried to
describe the sheer madness of this new twist in the world. “But …
why?”

The girl stared at him, confused. “Why?” she
chuckled. “Why what?”

Ion shook his head, feeling the onslaught of
the past rush back again. The memories of everything. Everything
he’d lost.

“This world,” He gazed about at the wide
field, which was now sinking to a new quiet around them. “Hates us.
And it’s given us nothing but pain. misery. And you’re telling me
that there are
mystics
who actually fight for it? To protect
it? This cruel world?”

The girl continued to gaze at him, her look
slowly transforming from confusion to disbelief.

“The only way to heal a cruel world is with
compassion and love.” she said softly. “Not hatred.”

“If only you knew,” Ion felt his teeth grit
as he spoke. “if only you knew my pain … and the fact that it was
all because of this soulless world! Because the people’s inability
to accept us was the reason I lost everything. This inhumane world
deserves nothing better than what it gave me.”

The girl gave a gentle shake of her
head.

“You’re making a big mistake by thinking
anger and hatred can amend the things we hate.” she said. “If
anything, anger and hatred turn us into the very people we
hate…”

There was a trace of warmth in her voice as
she spoke. Ion turned around and looked at her, feeling a less
discernable emotion: he had half expected his outburst to repulse
her and get her to storm off. But she still sat there, consoling
him … and as she watched him, Ion thought he saw something stir
within the depths of that serene pair of eyes. Sympathy…

Ion held her gaze for a moment. And then
another…

And then, without warning, he burst into the
entire story.

The whole story. Of how he’d been snatched
from his home at the age of five. Of how his brother Eol, though
innocent, had also been condemned and killed because of it. Of how
he’d endured years of misery in the Naxim office. Years of torment
and torture. And of how he’d returned to find his parents’ graves
the only thing remaining of his shattered family … How he’d
resorted to joining the assassins, to repay this world, to exact
vengeance on the world responsible for tearing his family
apart.

The girl listened to him closely. She
appeared to be breathing in his emotions as he spoke, his pain…

When Ion was finished revealing the entire
story, he felt his eyes sting.

He almost felt as though he had re lived it
… and it was the same feeling he had felt standing before his
parents’ grave after leaving the Naxim station … it took him to the
verge of tears.

The girl was watching him closely, and there
was nothing changed in her concerned look. Drawing in a deep
breath, she asked in a soft voice, “What’s your name?”

“Ion.”

She stretched out a hand and patted Ion
gently on the back.

“You’re not alone, Ion.” she said. “We’ve
all faced what you’re going through. It’s called
life
.”

“I somehow doubt it.” snapped Ion. “Nobody
would have survived what
I
went through.”

Vestra shook her head. “I don’t deny it.
Nobody would have. But we all face our dark phases in life. If
you’re facing a darker phase that anyone else, it just means
there’s going to a brighter dawn at the end.”

There is no dawn … not for me
. Ion
thought bitterly.
The light had left my world the day I was
freed from the Naxim station.

Ion stared across the green field, watching
the healers prepare to pack up and leave for the day. Half of the
patients were dozing on their straw mats.

“When I was younger,” the girl said. “I used
to wonder why there’s so much suffering in our world. So much pain.
Evil. Why, I used to ask myself, were we put here … in a world
which brims with chaos?”

Ion slowly turned his head to look at
her.

“Surely there had to be a reason for it,
right?” she went on. “Surely there was an explanation for the
suffering in our world … what was the meaning in our living in a
world filled with so much pain?”

“I ask myself that everyday.” said Ion,
scowling. “Still haven’t found it.”

“Well, I have.” A soft smile touched her
lips. “And it’s an answer we’ve all known deep own … all
along.”

She turned and looked over the wide green
field, and the dozing patients on the mattresses, a majority of
whom she had healed. “The pain in this world is the reason we’re
here, Ion. because we’re the ones meant to stop it. We’re put in an
imperfect world, so that
we
can make it perfect. We’re
thrust into a world with suffering for the purpose of erasing the
pain, and giving it happiness. Because in the end, it isn’t what
you ask of life … it’s what life asks of you, that matters.”

Ion was momentarily transfixed. He watched
her for a few silent seconds, dwelling over what she had told
him.

“I’m sorry for whatever you’ve been
through,” she said. “and whatever you still are. But just remember
what I’ve told you, when you wake up tomorrow, and go on with your
life. And maybe you’ll find a measure of peace amidst the turmoil …
a glimpse of calm amidst the chaos.”

As the heavy feeling slowly passed, and
Ion’s mind fell back to the present, he suddenly realised something
with a jolt of shock. He had only come to feel impact of what he
had done…

“Well, are you gonna arrest me?”

Something in the girl’s eyes hardened as she
fixed her gaze on him again. The knowledge that the person she had
saved was a dangerous mystic assassin, for some reason, didn’t
shake her as much as it should have. As she gazed at him, the
seconds lengthening, Ion felt a strange compressing sensation
inside him.

He had accidentally spilt everything,
including the fact that he was an assassin. To somebody who turned
out to be a crime fighter.

And it was common knowledge that crime
fighters brought down assassins.

“Just so you know, I’ve found a place in
almost every cluster’s criminal database.” He stopped and thought.
“I think soon, they’ll probably have warning posters of me spread
about - I’d be surprised if they didn’t already.” It was true. He
would be surprised if they didn’t. “Imagine what your superiors
would say. They sent you for some stupid Zelgron warlord, and you
instead managed to bring back one of the
most dangerous mystic
assassins
.”

The girl had fought off an entire Zelgron
horde to save him. Her mystic powers clearly were no joke.
Meanwhile, Ion was lying in a badly scarred, ravaged form, with
half his body aching and searing from the brutal incident he’d
faced…

The girl would thrash him without a
sweat…

As their gazes remained locked over a wide
passing moment, Ion felt something shift within the girl’s black
eyes, turning them soft again.

“I think I’ll pass.”

Ion looked at her for a long, unblinking
moment. “Why?”

She was silent for some time, her black eyes
now roving over the stars overhead.

Then, slowly, she brought her gaze down to
him and smiled. “Because like I said … the only way to fight
cruelty, is with compassion and love. And I believe the same would
work for you.” She plucked a blade of grass from the floor around,
looking at it as she spoke. “I believe that everything happens for
a reason, Ion. Today, someone lived to see light the next day
because of me. And I think perhaps that person was meant for
something more.”

Ion was speechless. As he listened to the
girl, the side of him that knew nothing but hatred and cruelty
seemed to shrivel and die. The monster within him had gone mute,
and a new, powerful upwelling arose within him. An emotion that
seemed to sweep away all others.

Affection.

“Meant for something more, huh?” Ion felt
his lips strain in a smile. “You sure about that?”

Twirling the blade of grass in her hand, the
girl looked up at the stars again, a faint smile on her lips. “I’ll
chance a bet.”

She threw the blade of grass and brought her
eyes to him, and they narrowed slightly as she surveyed him for the
smallest second. “All I have to say is this, Ion: I saved your
life. Make it worth it for that one reason.”

And with that, she rose, turned and headed
off into the night.

Ion was left to stare at her as she shrunk
into the distance, her form growing smaller and smaller … before
vanishing completely, absorbed by the vastness of the world
beyond.

Keeping his idle stare on the hut’s ceiling
above, Vonayz mentally strolled past the events of the past week.
he had been forced to keep up a rather hectic pace this week, going
through almost ten assassinations and hunts all together within the
pressing span of the past seven or eight days. The kind of
lifestyle he now had afforded him little leisure time. Little space
for comfort, relaxation, and for himself.

But Vonayz required none of those.

He had been raised in a tough means, one
that had moulded his mind to a state of steel. And it was that
steel that now made him what he was: a powerful, deadly mystic. And
a lethal killing machine. At times, when he was alone and left to
himself, Vonayz would let a sliver of his thoughts roam back to
those days … his earliest days as a mystic. A different life…

But Vonayz would collect himself to the
present almost instantly, admonishing himself for letting his mind
wander. Because Vonayz knew he couldn’t afford to let it. He came
with a past that was no longer his. And that past was now a
disconnected portion of his, which he no longer associated
with…

Although, at times…

No way!
He scolded himself coldly.
Don’t think that. Don’t think that. This is my life now, and I
would’ve given nothing at all to be elsewhere.

Mustering the same, remorseless state of
focus that he had lived with for years now, Vonayz drew himself
upright on the cot and looked about.

The rest of the group were all lying around
lazily, making use of the silence to go on with their own
activities. Monaz was toying with the head of the chicken like
creature he kept strapped around his neck: Sidro was lying curled
up at the corner, snoring. His younger brother Alcrox was sitting
by the bed next to him, also silently gazing across the hut. He
pulled himself straight and yawned. Through the open door to their
hut by the wall on the left, they could see the grass covered lands
beyond, enveloped by the night sky above.

Vonayz looked at his brother by his side and
said, “So, what’s up with you next?”

Alcrox shrugged. “There’s a crime lord in
the planet Harakol with a job for me. A hunt. I’ve got a couple
assassinations that I’d rather put on hold: I’ve gotten tired of
assassinations lately.”

Vonayz looked about the rest of the hut.

“Fill me in on what’s up with the rest of
the troop, won’t you?” he asked, turning to Alcrox. “I’ve been
rather busy this week. Anything important lately?”

“Oh, nothing much.” replied Alcrox, as he
surveyed the three others in the hut, from the kid playing with the
chicken head, to the one huddled at the corner, snoring and
drooling, and finally the open door by their left. “The same
stuff’s goin up.” He paused, and something thoughtful deepened his
gaze as he looked out the door. “Though I think Ion’s been rather …
strange
since he came back from a hunt Grando had for him, a
hunt for some vigilante creep, and he hasn’t found the guy
yet.”