Chapter 17 - Empathy

↤Chapter 16 - Fight for your Life

Thankfully, it wasn’t long until Glo found Shure and Cat, the pair of them were fighting back to back against a quartet of Guardians. It was too obvious that the Abstracts were giving their all while the Nobles were only amusing themselves by holding back their true power, Cat was dueling his pair with a glowing red cutlass and a small parrying dagger in his offhand. Shure on the other hand was fighting like a drunkard, somehow wobbling along the ground with enough room to lazily dodge between sword and spear strikes. He had scattered seeds around the place and was causing them to erupt like snares around the Guardians’ feet. Both had been caught out by the Guardians though, Cat was fighting to keep his vision after they had scraped him across the face by one of the Abstracts and Shure was limping with blood soaking through his trouser leg.

“You alright there, Shure?” Glo asked as he walked up to them, fending off an Abstract with a few shots of his pistol.

“Ah, hey Glo, hey Izzy.” Shure replied, sliding under a spear blow and clothes-lining the Guardian who had tried to stab him, “I’m smooth, doing alright. Got stabbed a bit.”

The Guardian on the ground let out a surprised cry as the seeds Shure had scattered around her germinated and wrapped around her arms and legs to restrain her to the ground.

“Hi Shure!” Izzy mumbled, waving her sleepy hand at him, “How’d you got stabbed?”

The other Guardian grit his teeth, starting to slip backwards along the ground with his sword raised in self-preservation.

“Yeah yeah run off.” Shure jeered, releasing the Guardian on the ground and shooing her off with her friend, “Pussies.”

When Shure was using his Nobility, it looked like he had dipped both his hands in a bowl of mud. Gloves of brown muck swirled around his hands and up his forearms, bubbling and mixing around with a sheen like soapy water.

The group of Nobles quickly defeated the other Guardians, the ones who had been losing their lopsided duel against Cat, barely giving any notice to them as they scrambled back to the ranks of Abstract soldiers. The battle was waning now, the armies were beginning to tire and the day had already been decided when the last prisoner had stepped through the portal. A great blast on a horn from the portal recalled the invading army back through the portal, the ranks of Abstracts broke off from their individual fights and reformed. They began to steadily march backwards, helping the wounded Abstracts where they could.

The Novans formed ranks too and aimed their guns at the Abstracts as they backed off, but no shots were fired, respect was had of both sides in the battle. The home defence of Nova just had it’s first true taste of a small-scale Abstract incursion and they had been shaken, about a third if not more of the Novan army were lying dead or wounded.

The Abstracts had now felt the pounding of laser on steel and tasted the ozone in the air, they had experienced the advanced weapons and tactics of the Novan Empire; now hundreds of Abstracts lay dead while the wounded were carefully returned to Imagination through the portal.

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“You do not need to be so concerned, Cathode.” Espre grumbled, monotone as she cleaned out the wound in Shure’s leg. “Izzac simply needs some sugar in her system and a night’s sleep”

“She nearly got herself killed out there Espre!” The red-haired Noble growled, receiving a spiteful stare from the quiet Noble.

                “You are also asking to get yourself killed, Cathode.” She hissed, pointing a red-stained cotton ball at Cat before slapping Shure’s hand away from the bottle of alcohol sitting on the table next to her.

                “Shure just sit still.” Glo warned him from his spot near the door to the underground clinic, “You’re lucky Espre let you in here again.”

                They had come down here a few hours after the battle had concluded, the Nobles didn’t trust the field medicine of the Novan medics, so they had collectively decided to come down here to get their wounds properly looked at. Izzac had passed out on Glo’s shoulders shortly after they had found Shure and Cat, she was now sleeping peacefully on the medical bed Cat was leaning on with a drip in her arm.

                “What, I’m thirsty.” Shure whined, folding his arms when Espre had to slap his hand away from the bottle a second time.

                “Then drink water. Alcohol will not hydrate you.” Espre hissed and tossed the cotton ball aside before taking a suture kit out of a cupboard. “Do not move or I might nick your artery and then you will die.” She warned as she threaded a needle with the carbon-laced fibre.

                “Can I have a cup of water or something then?” Shure asked and Espre looked at him like he’d just asked if he could break her arm, the piercing stare made the man quiet down. He winced as Espre began to carefully and skilfully suture the wound closed, hissing between his teeth when the needle pierced his skin.

                For a few minutes silence reigned through the room, only broken by Shure’s quiet exclamations of pain and Izzac shifting in her sleep. It was broken again by Cat with a single word.

                “Svari.” He muttered, Glo looked up from his thoughts at the Noble.

                “What about him?” The Noble of Time asked.

                Cat clicked his teeth together, “He’s up to something.”

                “When isn’t he?” Espre muttered, “He’s a self-centred psychopath with all intents set on getting his own way no matter what he must do.”

                “Way to put it in words Essie.” Cat applauded her, being cut off by the other Noble.

                “Do not call me Essie.” She growled quietly before cutting the suture loose on Shure’s leg and standing aside. “Don’t run about or the suture will snap and then you will bleed everywhere and die, I won’t be sympathetic.”

                “Ok Espre.” Shure mumbled as he slid himself down off the table, wincing as his injured leg touched down on the floor.

                “Back to the topic on hand, the bastard in chief.” Glo called, standing up off the wall, “He wouldn’t have let those Abstracts go back to Imagination, he was willing to kill me and Izzac just to keep what he called his science experiment.”

                “As Espre said, he’s a psychopath, he’d have tried it on with any of us.” Cat replied, “I’m not gonna lie, I’d have preferred that they stayed here where we could have kept an eye on them.”

                “As would I, but he was near-on fanatical about it.” Glo growled, “It took three of us to get him to back down.”

                “Three?” Espre questioned, washing her hands in a basin of disinfectant. “As you said it was only you and Izzac who fought Svari.”

                “Yes three.” Glo said after a moment of thought, “An Abstract Guardian fought alongside Izzac and I.”

                “A Guardian fought alongside you?” Shure asked with his husky voice, “Sure you’re not going soft Glo, you coulda killed Svari without lifting a finger.”

                “I could have, but I would have destroyed everyone in the area, if not more.” Glo warned the other Noble, “Time is a fickle thing and it never does what you want.”

                “Anyway, what’s this about the Guardian fighting alongside you.” Espre asked, “You know I’m impartial, I don’t care for this heinous war or taking sides.”

                Glo sighed and thought for a moment before sighing and launching into the story of how he and his gunner had crashed in Imagination after Quizzical had punched her way into his ship. Then they had spent too long cooped up in the basements of some abandoned house before the Guardian had felt herself able to allow them home. Before all of that, when Glo had saved her life during the crash, she had sworn some sort of oath to help him in any way she could and she was somehow honouring that when they were fighting Svari.

                The other Nobles nodded along with the story, asking the occasional question here and there before Glo was finished speaking at which Cat asked about Glo’s more inappropriate opinions on this Abstract. The Noble of Time replied by punching Cat in the mouth, Espre demanded that if they were going to have a fist fight, they do it outside and away from her clinic.

                An hour later, the Nobles were on the way back to Izzac’s apartment complex to drop the sleepy woman off. Glo was pretty much carrying her as she drowsily plodded along next to him, her head kept lolling onto his shoulder. Shure had gone off alone into the night, he’d left them with a promise he’d have their back before tottering off down the street in his perpetually uncoordinated stride.

                Cat was silently walking along; he’d been shouted down by Glo once already when they were coming out of the clinic. After he’d been pulling on Glo’s strings for a while about Quizzical, the older Noble had snapped and yelled at him to be quiet and leave his business alone. The shouting had quite spooked Izzac from her sleepy state and Espre had asked them both to leave and take her with them. Of course they agreed and taken their tired friend off the hands of the other Noble.

                “You can take her from here, Cat.” Glo muttered, “I need to get home and sort some things out, it’s just over there.”

                “My what?” Cat answered, being roused from his thoughts rather suddenly. Glo repeated himself and Cat nodded, gently taking Izzac from his friend and supporting her as she leant on him.

                “See you round.” Glo muttered before clicking his heel on the concrete and turning towards another street.

                “Yeah, see you Glo. And thanks for what you did for us today.” Cat replied, then gently took hold of Izzac’s limp arm and waved her hand at the other Noble, in a bad rendition of Izzac’s voice, he squeaked, “Bye Glowie!” as if Izzac had shouted at it.

                Glo replied by making a rather rude gesture on Novan, crossing the middle and ring fingers over each other, without looking back. The Noble stuck his hands in his pockets and began walking into the unlit alleyway to cut closer to his apartment.

                He got a few steps into the alleyway before one of the large bins at the wall was crushed with a resounding crash, steel bent and warped under the sudden weight that had been dropped on it. Glo instinctually drew his pistol from its holster and aimed it at the cloud of dust that had been thrown up from the lid of the bin.

                His trigger-finger trembled a little, not out of fear but the sudden rush of adrenaline running his veins ragged. He relaxed a little when the figure that had decimated the bin stood up and ran her hand through her dark green hair. Quizzical wasn’t being careless, he could see she held her sword behind her leg with her free hand.

                “Brave of you to wander into a dark alleyway alone, Prizmatica.” Quizzical said to him, crouching and ready to leap in case he fired at her.

                “Brave of you to surprise a Noble.” Glo replied, the pistol still aimed at her, “Put the sword away and I’ll put this away.”

                “You first, Novan.” Quizzical hissed, baring her teeth at him in a small challenge.

                “I’m the one with the pistol here, it’s faster than a sword Quizzical, put the sword down and then we can talk.” Glo repeated calmly, flicking the switch on the side of the gun to have it charge with a quiet whine.

                “Fine fine.” The Abstract growled, rolling the blade around the back of her hand to make it melt and reform into its small cylindrical form before tucking it into its holster at the back of her hip. Glo took his finger off the trigger and discharged the weapon before returning it to its own holster as Quizzical vaulted down from the bin.

                “Hello Quizzical.” Glo greeted her properly, looking down at the much smaller woman, “I’m surprised you’re back so soon.”

                “Glo, call me Quiz please.” Quizzical said, smiling at him with all too many teeth and very little warmth, “And I have my reasons.”

                Glo beckoned her to walk alongside him and they did, going on their way towards Glo’s apartment complex. They didn’t talk at first, they had nothing to talk about, then Quizzical asked Glo a very simple question.

                “Why were you fighting Svari?” She asked, glancing up at him for an answer.

                Glo hesitated a moment before hastily replying to her, “He wasn’t being ethical, he was doing something bad and I believe that you should try and stop people doing bad things whenever we can.”

                “Huh, you see I was fighting him because I had been told to.” Quizzical responded swiftly, kicking her foot against the ground, “I didn’t have a choice whether I fought him or not, those Abstracts we helped were grateful but now there’s stirrings in Imagination of the Guardians working with Novans. My fault.”

                “Well we were working together, what is wrong with that?” Glo reasoned as they walked into the open street in front of them, “We did something that helped Imagination, did we not?”

                “It’s not that we did something to help Imagination. It’s that we did it with Novans.” Quiz sighed, “Honour is a big thing in Imagination, I dishonoured the Guardians Guild by getting your help.”

                “Well it sounds like bullshit to me.” Glo stated bluntly before pushing the door to his apartment complex open, he ignored Quizzical’s protests to the contrary, stating that she shouldn’t have to live her life around upholding honour.

                “Its not bullshit! It’s society.” The Abstract protested, “Anyway I don’t do much honour stuff, I don’t really like being the face of the Guild.”

                “Anyway, are all of them alright?” Glo asked, concern hinting in his voice, “The ones we helped back into Imagination.”

                “Most of them are, Glo.” She said sullenly, “A lot of them have severe physical injuries and more have developed all manners of problems with their minds, some of the people in Imagination are saying you’ve put demons in their bones.”

                “Demons in the bones?” Glo looked at her, confused, “I’ve been around a bit and I haven’t heard that one before. Put your hood up over your head.”

                Quizzical shrugged and did so, she wasn’t overly superstitious and didn’t believe anything like that existed on Nova. She was angry though, she hadn’t seen Ukedideka after he had gone missing, she’d been told that he had come back to Imagination and told the Poltergeists’ Guild about the facility before curling into the corner of Inkosi’s office with his hands over his ears. The Guardian had decided to wait to see him again until the Healers had a chance to look at him and she had spoken to Glo as she was now.

                The unlikely pair walked into Glo’s apartment, the Noble was glad to be out of the cold Novan night as he wasn’t wearing anything more than a t-shirt. Quizzical wasn’t too happy about it, Glo noticed her shoulders tense up as they walked inside.

                “You alright?” He asked, being careful of her as he’d seen how volatile Abstracts could be when threatened.

                “There’s a lot of malachite here and I don’t like it.” Quizzical answered, feeling her skin crawl as she walked past the desk.

                “The last guy who came in here didn’t have a problem doing his stuff, trashed the robot and nearly killed me.” Glo muttered the last bit disdainfully, “Bloody assassin.”

                “What do you mean the last guy?” The Abstract questioned, moving out of Glo’s way as he went to call the lift.

                “As far as I know, the last Abstract who came in here didn’t have any problems doing that flickery Abstract thing that you do.” Glo answered, pushing the button on the lift. It read his thumbprint and flashed white to signal that the lift was on its way down to them. “I don’t really know what it’s called.”

                “Candelaum. Although the act of jumping into and out of it doesn’t really have a name.” She replied, holding her hand up and gently allowing it to flicker in and out of the Candelaum like a brightly lit candle. “I thought you were meant to be one of the most intelligent people in the universe.”

                “Intelligent, yes.” Glo said, smiling at her joke, “Although uneducated in the customs and language of another people.”

                “Well get educated, if you’re wanting to fight against us then you should know what you’re fighting against.”

                The elevator arrived with a quiet tone, thankfully empty. Quizzical’s hood protected her from the cameras, but it wouldn’t protect her from being seen head on. Glo offered for Quizzical to step into the lift before him. She took his invitation carefully. She was conscious that Glo was her enemy and that he couldn’t be completely trusted, she was also aware that she shouldn’t be meeting him like this. If she was found out to be friends with a Novan, especially a Noble, she would surely be banished from Imagination.

                Thankfully, she knew that Glo was taking a risk by talking with her like this too, he’d be ousted by the other Nobles if he was found with an Abstract.

                Glo stepped into the small box with her. She realised just how small she was compared to him now. Her nose just came up to his chin. The space was small enough for him to have to stand just close enough to make her feel a little overshadowed but not uncomfortable.

                They stopped talking for a moment as the doors closed and the floor began to move, Quizzical had a moment of panic as she didn’t know what was happening, never having been in an elevator before. But that was quickly reassured by Glo not batting an eyelid at the sudden shaking of the floor, she was relieved when the doors opened again and they allowed her to spill out of the box.

                “You all right there?” Glo asked her as she composed herself again, pushing her hood down.

                Quizzical straightened herself and rolled her shoulders to try and remove some of the tenseness from them, “Yes I’m fine Glo.” She curtly replied after a short moment.

                “You’re extremely tense Quizzical.” Glo stated as he began to walk down the corridor of doors, silently counting his steps.

                “I’m in a hostile place, surrounded by people that I don’t trust one bit and a shockingly large amount of malachite.” She replied quickly. “Anyway, I have a lot to deal with, a student to train and a war to fight.”

                Glo chuckled quietly, “When you put it that way, I can understand.” He purred, then turned to her, “A student to train, haven’t heard this before, detail?”

                “Like hell, Novan.” Quizzical spat with a small smirk, “Some things have to stay confidential between warring sides. Anyway, we’re not anywhere private, are we?”

                “True… true.” Glo tittered before turning on his heel to the door on the end, he pressed his hand to the flat metal surface, around his print the door flashed white just as the elevator button had. After a moment the door clicked gently and slid aside, revealing Glo’s pitch black room. “After you.” He indicated, waving her inside.

                Glo waited for Quizzical to walk in before stepping inside and closing the door. When it had clicked shut, he waved his hand at a panel on the wall and the lights began to gently glow. Quizzical hissed quietly and covered her eyes with her hand for a moment before she adjusted to the sudden bright light.

                “Welcome to my humble abode, excuse the mess.” Glo muttered, gesturing to his meagre home. It was a perfectly comfortable place to accommodate oneself, but Glo didn’t care much for décor. They had trashed most of the decoration during Ukedideka’s assassination attempt, the Noble hadn’t bothered to replace it. The most time he spent in here was when he was asleep, eating breakfast or working on something in the workshop that he had replaced the walk-in wardrobe with.

                Quizzical was staring out of the tall windows, gazing at the magnificent city sprawling around her. When out of Imagination, she wouldn’t usually have time to just look at the scenery. She placed a gloved hand on the cold glass despite the revulsion she felt from the malachite laced through it, lights danced through the city like fireflies jetting about through the roads and sky.

                “You like Nova?” Glo asked, beginning to pour himself a drink.

“I don’t know.” Quizzical answered him, still staring out of the window. “It’s nice and all, but it’s not home.”

“I don’t expect you to like it, once you’ve been living here for long enough, it all starts looking the same.” Glo said to her, “Do you want a drink?”

                The Abstract nodded and took her gloves off, asking Glo if she could sit down anywhere to take off the heavier pieces of her armour. He indicated one of the sofas in the room which Quizzical quickly took to as he brought her a glass filled with gently sparkling, pale gold liquid.

                 She took it in hand and tried to take a sip from it, being quite shocked when she tasted the bubbles, enough so that she spat it back out and nearly dropped the glass. Glo chuckled and sat down at the other end of the sofa to her, taking a long swig from his own glass.

                “It’s fine, Quiz.” Glo reassured her, handing her a piece of flannel to wipe her chin with. “It’s not dangerous, spark’s something a lot of people on Nova drink.”

                “I think I’ll have water please.” Quizzical rallied, pushing the offending glass towards Glo.

                “Alright, I can do water.” Glo stood up again and took her glass away. “Anyway, what do you want to talk about?”

                “I want to know something. Why do you fight?” Quizzical asked, undoing a buckle keeping a plate of leather to her arm.

                “Expectation, Quizzical.” Glo replied solemnly, presenting her with a glass of water, “I fight out of self-preservation and expectation I will do so.”

                “Aye, upholding the honour of the Guardians by doing as I’m told.” Quizzical replied, yanking on another buckle, “You mind if I stay here tonight, I don’t want to go back to Imagination today.”

                “I don’t see why not? As long as you don’t mind bunking down here.” Glo replied, a little startled by the invitation the Abstract gave herself.

                A few minutes later, Quizzical had rid herself of the vast majority of her armour. Underneath she was wearing a black under-armour piece, it looked somewhat like a tank top but reaching up to a collar around her neck. The trousers matched it nearly perfectly but were much tighter but not so much to restrict movement. Her actual armour was piled up neatly on the floor between Glo and herself, the Noble was inspecting one of the leg pieces, admiring the craftsmanship that went into the layered leather and steel armour.

                The suit wasn’t lightweight, but it was on the lighter side of armour that Abstracts wore, nothing compared to the plate metal or chain-mail that some other Guardians donned for battle; and her armour was nowhere near as intricately crafted as the ceremonial armour she wore sometimes.

                “It works against blades, but against anything more than that it may as well be damp paper.” Glo stated after a long moment of looking over the piece of curved leather. Then with what Quizzical swore was a flirtatious smirk he said to her, “It looks good on you though.”

                This brought a gentle blush to the Abstract’s grey cheeks, even though it was a passing comment it made Quizzical feel a little more comfortable in the Novan’s presence. She was still very tense, her hand rested close to the belt that remained around her waist. At the back of it was her sword, but her hand was resting close to the short combat knife that she used to gut fish and animals when she went hunting.

                “Another question, if you wouldn’t mind indulging me, Aphré?” Glo asked, looking over at her as she took a sip from her glass before nodding for him to keep talking, “Why do you hide your sigil?”

                Quizzical shook her head, “I’d prefer not to talk about that, but as far as you need to know I’m a celebrity who hates the attention.” She answered slowly, shifting where her hair fell so it better covered the black mark across her eye.

                “I can understand that, now most people ignore us Nobles.” Glo said to her, downing the rest of his spark. “There’s too many of us for people to keep track of.”

                “Only sixty-three of us Guardians.” Quizzical groaned, leaning back on the sofa and relaxing. She swung her legs up onto the table in front of them and placed her hands under her head. She sighed before beginning to speak again. “You’re lucky that you Nobles are left alone, everything we do is plastered all over the news, spoken about in back alleys. They’ll know that I was fighting alongside a Novan man yesterday, that’s why I just need one night without someone coming to my door.”

                “If I go back now, someone’ll find me and won’t stop pestering me until I tell them exactly what happened. Then I won’t be able to go back to the Guild, I’ll not be allowed to speak to my brother and then I’ll end up banished from Imagination!”

                She realised that she was speaking way too quickly and getting herself worked up over something that might not happen, Glo placed his hand on her shoulder with a tenderness she simply melted into. She hadn’t had anybody really care about her since her parents died apart from the cold, half-love that Ukedideka offered her and the professional compassion offered by the other Guardians.

                “Calm down Quizzical, I can’t have an Abstract melting down in my apartment.” Glo warned her, he didn’t know a lot about Quizzical’s kind, but he knew that their abilities were tied to their emotional states. If an Abstract suffers from an emotional meltdown, their abilities can’t keep up and they frequently end up injuring themselves or other people around them.

                Quizzical took another drink from her glass as she calmed down, she’d broken her arm with a meltdown when she’d been told about her parents’ deaths. Glo could see her hands flickering a little. They weren’t flicking strongly out of anger or a miserable, wet flame, it was bordering on frantic, fearful flickering as if her hands were trying to escape her insane thinking.
Glo gently placed his hand on her back and pulled her closer to him, putting his arms around the scared Abstract in a show of silent empathy.
Chapter 18 - Listeners' Fever↦