The Rising Sun: Episode 4

The Rising Sun

Clocks

BOOK ONE

J HAWK

Copyright
© 2014 J Hawk

EPISODE 4

Everything was spinning … spiralling.
Everything had dissolved behind a sickening, ghastly whirl.

“No…” Ion staggered.

Grando and the other men had failed to notice
anything, their burning, glee filled faces fixed on the boy on the
floor between them, as Grando slowly took aim with his
Sparkler…

“THAT’S MY BROTHER!!!”

Before he knew what had hit them, Grando was
sailing backwards at the mighty force of Ion’s
smash
, a
hurtling wave of fury and rage like nothing else he had released
his entire life. Grando seemed to stay airborne for an eternity.
Ion watched as his body slowed and sank in its arc, before crashing
painfully onto the wall opposite and falling to the ground in a
dull thud.

The rest of the men’s glee filled, sneering
expressions slowly died out, and they all rounded to look at Ion.
Their faces grew fazed as they realised what had just happened, and
raised their Sparklers as one at a new enemy amidst them.

As an ocean of rage came crashing through
him, Ion raised his hands at the men who were a split second from
firing. And as he kept his hands raised, he didn’t know how it
happened, but it happened as though a sudden force gushed through
his mind, acting through him. A tide of bright, crimson flames
flowed out from both his hands, licking the air around and in
front, enclosing it in a cage of burning inferno.

The flames leapt over the group of men,
leaving the body on the ground to be spared. Before the men even
realised what had happened, before they could begin to scream, the
splash of fire engulfed them and they were burnt to crisps. As they
topped to the ground, steaming, sideways, Ion leapt forward,
bending over Eol. He lay on the ground, white and shaking, his
orange eyes dilated in terror. His crimson hair was tousled and
messy.

Ion felt a stab of horror unlike anything he
had felt his entire life … his insides writhed in agony as he
realised what had just been done. What
he
had just done.

“
Hatred turns us into the people we
hate.”
The voice echoed in his head, like the residue of a
distant booming sound.

And for the split of a moment, Ion saw his
own self mirrored in his twin brother, tortured by Rox … He had
become the person he had hated.

Eol was breathing in heavy rasps, and every
part of him seemed to be trembling. He was a reflection of Ion,
looking exactly like himself. His crimson hair was tousled and
messy, and his skin bore the same tint of orange as Ion’s own
did.

My brother … my twin brother.
Ion felt
as though an invisible hand was crushing his insides.
This can’t
be…

Breathless, Ion pulled him up with both arms,
and their eyes met. And a humorless smile awoke on his twin
brother’s twitching lips.

“Now you understand,” He croaked, fighting to
form words. “why you should know who you’re talking to before you
threaten him.”

And with that and a dry chuckle, his eyeballs
rolled over and he became limp in Ion’s arms.

“No…” moaned Ion, carrying him in his arms as
he lay as still as a corpse. “This can’t be.”

He looked across the large room … And there,
across the chamber, Grando was scurrying to his feet from where he
had fallen. At the sight of that man, rage like nothing he had
known his entire life flooded Ion, wiping out all else from
existence…

The Redling slowly rose, and locked eyes with
Ion…

“You.” Ion growled, every word ringing with
fury. “
You
…
you’re
responsible for this…”

Before Ion knew what he was doing, he cast
the unconscious body of his brother aside and leapt forward, every
inch of him possessed with a fury like no other. He dashed towards
the terrorist leader, his cry of rage splitting the room.

Grando stood rigidly frozen on the spot, his
eyes widened in terror as he watched Ion hurtle towards him. Then,
seeming to muster every ounce of courage within him, he turned to
the walls of the room and roared, “Rash-cons, ATTACK!”

Ion barely knew what was happening. But by
the time the group of robotic soldiers bounded in towards him from
all sides, he had his sword ignited and spinning furiously. He
could feel the space around him dissolve in a mesmerising swirl of
orange light as he slashed down the robots that came charging
towards him. They sent jets of light at him from their guns, which
he flicked aside with the laziest swipe of his sword. As he fought,
he felt his being scoured of the meanest flicker of hesitation or
doubt. Right now, only one deadly force pulsed through him, so that
power like nothing before thundered across his being.
Rage
.

Moving faster than the haziest blur, he
chopped down the dozen or so Rash-cons, leaving a clutter of their
body parts to fill the ground around him.

Finishing with them, he raised his eyes to
where Grando had been standing. But it was empty: the Redling was
gone, having fled through the door at the corner of the opposite
wall.

Ion felt himself tremble with fury. Without
wasting a second, he charged across the room towards the door
Grando had vanished through.

__________

Grando’s lungs were torn of breath as he
sprinted senselessly down the long corridor, which came beyond the
door he had escaped from. He chanced a fleeting glance back every
second or so, terrified of seeing the red haired boy darting in
right after him. But as he ran on mindlessly, the corridor swerved
so that the exit was blocked.

As he turned back, cursing under his breath,
he saw a pack of his terrorists striding down the corridor. The
entire lot of them froze on seeing their leader pelting down the
corridor as though having seen a ghost.

Without stopping, Grando panted to them as he
ran on:

“If you see a red haired boy coming down the
corridor, DON’T let him pass!”

Looking puzzled, the group of five terrorists
nodded as he swept past them, reaching for their Sparklers in their
belts.

And right then, Grando heard a grinding
shriek of fury emit from the beginning of the hallway. And then
came the furious thudding of a pair of feet…

Grando glanced back to see the five men he
had crossed step back hesitantly, wary of what they were about to
face. Before Grando had completed the turn of his head to face in
front of him again, his eyes caught it all happening in the flash
of a moment…

Zipping forth like a bullet, the red haired
boy appeared across the bend of the hallway, sword in hand, blade
shining in bright orange. The men held their Sparklers higher, but
at the same time staggered back at the panic of what they were
seeing. But before any of them could move another flinch, Ion had
launched over them. The shining orange light from his sword sliced
the air rapidly, like a brandished whip flying wild. And the men
standing before him crumpled and fell to the ground, all of them
sliced into two or more senseless pieces. Ion dashed right on, his
burning orange eyes locked over Grando as he furiously ran on in
front.

The thudding of footsteps grew closer … Ion
was closing in on him rapidly, and Grando knew he had never stood a
chance…

And then, as though by a miracle, he tore
past another curve in the hallway and found himself dashing towards
the door to the balcony. The door slid open as he approached,
revealing a large balcony with a hover car and a few bikes parked
upon it. Behind him, he could hear Ion’s panting grow louder, and
he knew that the boy was less than a few feet behind him.

Bolstered by the urge to live, he slashed
aside all petty pains and weaknesses: as he ran into the balcony
towards his hover car, he summoned every bit of steel in his bones
and took a leap forward. Landing before the car, he wrenched the
door open, and jumped in. But as he shut the door the next second,
something hard collided by the side of the vehicle. And a shower of
glass pieces sprayed him. Before he could even scream, Ion, who had
hurled his arm through the window, grasped him by the throat. Wild
with panic, Grando jabbed the buttons, sending the car’s engine on.
And floored it…

The car took off from the ground with a
sudden lurch, but Ion kept his hands clasped around Grando’s
throat, his other arm holding the car by its side as it hovered off
the ground. As the balcony below him dropped, Ion’s strength waned
and Grando felt the boy’s fingers slide loose on his throat. As the
boy’s burning orange eyes stayed firmly latched with Grando’s for a
final mini second, Ion gave a low growl:

“I’ll kill you … I swear it.”

And with that, as the car flew upward, he
lost hold: Grando felt a large weight give away by the side of the
car as the boy let go, dropping back to the balcony through a
serene five metre drop. He landed with a
slam
on one of the
hover bikes before rolling over, picking himself up instantly, and
bringing his gaze above. Watching Grando’s car as it soared
away…

Grando turned back, suppressing a cold shiver
at the fury in the boy’s voice as he spoke those final words:

“
I’ll kill you … I swear it.”

Without thinking, he gunned the engine
harder, sending the hover car shooting faster into the skies…

__________

His insides burning, Ion carried his
brother’s body over his shoulder and raced down the empty lands
that came around Grando’s base.

After chasing Grando, he had returned to take
his brother’s unconscious body and scurry in search of a healer.
But he knew that the nearest village would be miles away … and Eol
had already been badly wounded, with five shots of the Stinger.

His hopes were flickering, and a part of him
was dying alongside Eol.

This can’t be happening!

He fuelled every ounce of energy into his
legs as he dashed senselessly across the empty lands. Hoping wildly
that he would reach the nearest village in time to save his
brother…

And then, he heard something stir from the
mass he was now holding by his shoulder.

“Eol!” Coming to a stop, he gently placed his
brother’s body on the ground, holding his head raised. Eol was
stirring feebly, coming back to consciousness. His eyes fluttered
for a few seconds before opening fully. Ion saw his own burning
orange eyes mirrored within his brother’s.

“Eol … you’re all right.” he whimpered,
holding his brother’s wounded, ravaged form over the ground. “Don’t
worry … I’m getting you to a healer. You’re gonna be fine.”

His brother held his gaze, unblinking.
Watching him steadily. But within the depths of his orange eyes,
Ion saw something churn, something immense and powerful. Hatred.
Fury.

“You…” Eol croaked. “You’re not my
brother.”

Ion thought something inside of his chest had
turned fragile. “No … Eol, don’t say that.”

“I was a mystic.” Eol’s voice as weak as
possible, and yet contained with a rage like nothing before. “I was
the one who set the alert off in our village … You weren’t the only
mystic in our family.”

Ion flashed back to that day, years back …
The Naxim had taken Eol as well, for some unknown reason. But the
others thought that they were doing it out of pure insecurity, for
they thought Eol was not a mystic. He realised that they’d been
wrong. Eol had been a mystic as well. The family just hadn’t
known.

“I escaped.” Eol went on, his voice now
growing into a rasp. “From the Naxim station … and years I’d been
trying to find you … and then, I found
this
.” His hand
trembling, he thrust it into his pocket and withdrew the same
parchment Ion had seen earlier. But as he unrolled it, Ion felt
speechlessly stunned.