41 XLI. | 'When the Thunder doth roll...'

Hector watched his metal break apart. Truck-sized chunks of iron circulated around Karkash, all connected by a web of lightning, crackling with emergent energy.

They went spiraling toward Stoker's fog.

Hector rushed to annihilate everything, but he couldn't get to it all fast enough, and Stoker was forced out of his cloud by a tumbling iron boulder.

Stoker kept making more fog, but it was an obvious stream behind him now, no longer obscuring his position. Everyone knew what was coming next. Hector raised two spires in Stoker's defense, and when the lightning struck through the air, it was undoubtedly more powerful in every way--brighter, thicker, certainly louder. It crashed into the spires, making the dirt around them explode into dust, and the ensuing sonic boom nearly ruptured Hector's eardrums.

The force of the impact sent Stoker toppling head over foot through the dirt, away from the supposed safety of the spires. So Hector made more, and he made them larger, sturdier. They took a half-second longer, which was precious time in this fight, but they absorbed the electricity better.

Karkash shot up into the air and rained lightning down from above. The sparking branches were so numerous that they formed a kind of cage around the spires, and Karkash increased the voltage even further. Stoker was trapped, and the electricity closed in, lashing against his body, making him convulse and sending him to his knees as his flesh began to smolder and burn.

Hector made to increase the size of the spires even more, but Karkash apparently predicted as much and abruptly ceased his attack on Stoker in order to focus on Hector instead.

He barely made half a spire before the lightning smashed through it, making the ground explode directly in front of him. He went flying. His hearing was gone, ears bleeding from the deafening boom, and he hit the dirt again with a numb thud.

Hector looked up immediately, expecting another attack from Karkash, one he wouldn't be able to mitigate at all, but that was not what he saw.

Instead, Karkash was going for Nize, yanking away the spires that protected her. And he saw Stoker, charred and battered, but standing in front of her, ready to take more lightning.

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Stoker knew he was outmatched--if not from the start, then certainly now.

He had the idea in his head, a chance at how to improve his odds. And he knew his power was lacking. He had never accomplished this particular feat with his hydrogen before. He'd never had enough control.

It began with selfishness. The instinct to survive. A kind of personal and glorious greed. He knew it well, even before becoming a servant. And of course, he knew how easily that instinct could fail. Before meeting Nize for the first time, he remembered being so determined to go on living, to make it through that battle--only to be killed anyway. Terrible luck, it had been. An ill stroke of fate, as his supposed comrades might say.

So he knew this desperation, this helplessness. And likewise, he knew the desire to do more, to be more.

Emergence was no complicated thing in itself. It was at once acceptance and rejection: acceptance of one's helplessness, and rejection of the notion that this helplessness should warrant quitting. It was a perfect concoction in one's mind, to know an imminent demise and to still refuse to go quietly.

And that was what he had now. That was how he achieved counter-emergence.

Controlled combustion was the idea. Stoker set his back ablaze, hydrogen mixing violently with the oxygen in his cells, heated with precision. And his flesh exploded, just as desired--not enough to destroy anything unwanted, but just enough to propel him forward. It gave him speed, and he did it again, more this time, and he kept doing it, until he was hurtling over the ground so quickly that his legs couldn't keep up.

He barreled toward Karkash at rocket-speed, giving up on running to simply flying across the ground. But it was not exactly a surprise attack. Karkash dodged smoothly and flew away. And Stoker followed.

He leapt up and made the soles of his feet explode. Bone and flesh blew apart, and the force carried him higher, as if he'd jumped a second time in mid-air. And he did it again, destroying the rest of his feet. And after climbing all the way up to Karkash, everything below Stoker's knees was gone.

He sacrificed a forearm next, converting it entirely to liquid hydrogen and reaching out. Karkash jolted left, losing an arm of his own to the freezing temperature, and swung an electric fist, detonating Stoker's hydrogen and sending them both reeling in opposite directions.

Stoker fell back toward the ground in a bloody heap. He needed time to regenerate, and Hector was busy trying to provide it. Karkash couldn't yet use the left side of his body, but even without it, he could still tear Hector's metal apart before it even finished forming.

Stoker could see Hector struggling to maintain the protection on Nize, but it wasn't long before Karkash regained enough use of his arm that Hector had to withstand two-handed lightning. Another dirt explosion, and Hector went flying. But most of Stoker's flesh had returned now. That would have to do.

With jets of hydrogen exploding out of his shoulder blades, Stoker accelerated back into the fight. Karkash soared up. Stoker kept pace with him, zigzagging as each explosion corrected Stoker's course. Karkash spun and knocked him back, and Stoker regained his momentum with an explosion from his elbow. And before he could start falling again, Stoker sacrificed the rest of his legs and launched himself the remaining distance. He caught both of Karkash's forearms and squeezed, snapping bones.

"Enough!" Karkash roared. Sparks gathered around his eyes, then flashed across his skin, and lightning shot out, everywhere at once.

Electricity cut through Stoker's body like a dozen blades, leaving holes in his chest and arms, even his face.

He couldn't tell if Karkash had purposely avoided his brain or if it was purely coincidence, but with his body in tatters, Stoker plummeted back to the ground. He could see Hector struggling on his own now, but the kid could barely protect himself. The lightning ripped the metal apart on impact.

Stoker put a ruined arm forward, scratching at the dirt and trying to crawl toward Nize.

But it was too late.

The last of Hector's defense was stripped away from her, and Karkash thrust two fingers toward Nize.

Stoker watched the lightning tear into her.

She vaporized.

He just stared, wide-eyed. His hearing was already shot, eardrums in the midst of repairing themselves, so it was all a numb sight, making it somehow harder to believe.

He'd failed. She was dead. His body was still regenerating, but he could already feel the shift taking place in his mind. Stoker blinked, eyes blurring and then refocusing. And he saw Karkash and Hoyohté there, both looking back at him.

He wondered if they would even bother to finish him off. It would make little difference, so he doubted it. For all this chaos, Stoker knew that Karkash took no pleasure in killing him. This had all been Karkash's duty, nothing more.

Sure enough, after a few moments of their silent deliberation, Karkash leapt into the sky with booming force, and they flew off together. They soon vanished beyond the horizon.

Stoker climbed onto his knees and elbows. The reverberations in his chest were growing stronger, stealing his breath away in increments, and his whole body flashed between sweltering warmth and shivering cold.

His muscles convulsed. Everything went dark. And he saw a life.

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A boy. Growing up in Vaeland. A country of water. More sea than land. The city of his birth floats more than it stands. He learns to swim. He learns to fish.

It was once a prosperous nation, he hears, back when his parents were young.

Life is hard here. But not for the boy. He is lucky to belong to one of the wealthiest fisher families in the city. And he knows his fortune. He sees his schoolmates. He sees their patched clothes, their skinny arms and legs. Childishly, he thinks fortune makes him better than them. It is difficult to make friends. He is not sure he even wants them.

The boy is eight years old when his parents remove him from school. He has a private tutor now. It is rather boring. He wants to go outside, but he is rarely allowed to. Only in the company of his parents.

The boy is ten years old when the riots start. He sees them through the window. People in masks, burning cars, looting buildings. More than once, they break into his house. They steal. They destroy. They terrify him. But they do not hurt him.

His parents consider leaving. This city is dangerous and frightening. But there is nowhere to go. And the military is here now. He likes the soldiers. They keep him safe. They make the scary people go away.

His parents say the riots will stop soon, that it will be safe to go outside again. And they are right. He gets to go play outside again. But the soldiers stay. He does not mind.

The boy is twelve when civil war breaks out. The soldiers force them to leave the city. They have nothing now. His parents do not know where to go. They spend a long time talking about it.

They find a refugee camp. Everyone here looks sad, save the very young children. But that is only because they do not understand anything. They annoy him.

The boy is thirteen when the camp is attacked. It is utter chaos. Gunfire. People running everywhere. Blood and dead bodies. He is told to flee, and he does.

He makes it to the forest. There are many children with him. He does not know where his parents are. There is only one adult here. And she is wounded.

The children are all panicking. The boy is no exception. The only adult is too injured to move and bleeding profusely, but she tries to direct them. She tells them to find help but to also stay hidden. The boy is the oldest of the group. She appoints him to look after everyone. He is to lead a search. He is more terrified than he has ever been. She tells him to be strong for the others.

They set out. Hours pass without results. The others are complaining. They are tired and hungry. He leads them back. When they return, they find the woman dead. The children who remained with her are now missing. The others are losing it.

Four more children appear. They had been hiding. Soldiers came and took everyone else, they say. After killing the woman.

Including himself, there are eleven children. They look to him for guidance. He has no idea what to do. The fear does not go away. But neither does the hunger. He has everyone split up and look for food. When they reconvene, there are only ten. They look for the eleventh and find his body.

A week later, there are nine. A month later, there are eight. That one was not lost to the wilderness. That one was killed by a stranger. They had found the edge of the forest, found a ransacked town, thought the lone man there would help them. That was not the case.

They flee back into the forest.

Four years pass.

There are five of them now. Mira, Loren, Kaul, Trill, and the boy. Sickness took the others, but these five have survived. The boy has taught them to fish. Loren has taught them to hunt. Mira has taught them to climb. Together, they have learned to build shelters. Together, they have also learned to steal. And to kill.

There is a road along the western edge of the forest. Asking travelers for help has never gone well. They have learned not to trust outsiders. They are bandits now.

They acquire a few comforts of their previous lives. Food, clothing, books and baubles. And a few weapons. Knives, mainly, not much better than the wood and stone shanks Loren has already fashioned for them, but they are appreciated.

Another year passes. They occasionally loot newspapers. Vaeland has been at war all these years. No longer civil. Now the country is caught in a different fight. It is the battleground for Intar and Dozer. Warnings of immortal soldiers afoot. People of terrifying strength. The young forest bandits soon see for themselves.

The young man is eighteen when they try to rob the wrong vehicle.

It is only an old man, they think. All by himself. Easy.

Mira feigns injuries and waves him down. When he stops, the rest of them descend upon him. Loren goes in for the kill. He is stopped by a monstrous creature, appearing as if from nowhere. It is humanoid, perhaps, yet still a thing like nothing they have ever seen. Black scales cover its body instead of flesh.

They make to turn and flee, but four more people arrive, blocking their paths and pinning them down.

"It is okay," says the old man. "They are but children. Not the prey we were looking for."

And the monster speaks. "What shall we do with them?" Its voice is low and vibrating.

The old man looks over the young bandits. "You are homeless, no?"

No one dares answer.

"They can come with us," the old man says.

Loren is braver than anyone else when he asks, "Who are you?"

The old man eyes him. "My name is Dozer."