Stormblade 4 C32: San Xavier

32 - San Xavier

Two days later, I rode down to Tucson, Arizona, in Deimos.

Jeff was ‘driving’, and Jessie had claimed the front passenger seat. Meanwhile, I was in the back, finishing up my change into my suit and tie while Ellen helped.

“And you’re sure you need to be back tomorrow morning?” Ellen asked for the third time.

“Yes, I’m sure,” I said. She flipped the wide half of the tie, looping it around in a quick, simple knot and hitting me in the face, and I narrowed my eyes theatrically. “Rude.”

She nodded. “It was, wasn’t it? I miss having you around, Kade.”

“I miss being around, but I have to do this.”

“I know. It’s just frustrating. I should be there with you, doing the same training and clearing the same portals. Any news on that shadow core?”

I shrugged. “Nothing yet. I almost had something, but it turned out wrong.”

“Checkpoint,” Jeff called as Deimos slowed down. We all rolled the windows down and got the bright yellow papers we’d been given ready. When the unawakened humans with guns hanging from their harnesses held out their hands, we passed them over, then waited as Tucson decided whether to let us in. There were only two cars at the checkpoint: Ellen’s sports car and Yasmin’s oversized truck right behind it. She was driving the rest of the Desert Wind guild down—or at least, those who’d wanted to come. A lot of them had other funerals to attend in the siege’s aftermath.

Tucson was a dictatorship, and the Falcon’s Eye was the tyrant in charge. Unlike Phoenix, which was run by the Governing Council with a false front civilian government that took care of day-to-day operations, the city to the south was openly under the Iron Falcons’ political control. I’d heard things were bad inside its much smaller walls, but no one I knew had ever talked about being inside. People didn’t travel from Phoenix to Tucson.

“Your destination is in the far south of the city,” one of the guards said. “Follow the outer road around to it. Don’t try to cut through the center of Tucson; this form doesn’t permit you to go anywhere but San Xavier. Understood?”

Jeff gave a thumbs-up, and the guards waved us in.

As we followed the outer road south, Jessie and I tried to catch a glimpse of Tucson, but from our vantage point, it didn’t look any different than Phoenix: big buildings, suburbs, and a wall surrounding it all. There were plenty of cars on the road, and it didn’t feel like it was any better or worse than Phoenix.

The trip was maybe half an hour with traffic, and after the first three or four minutes, I leaned back in my seat. It was just another city. Different rules, different people, but another city all the same.

“You know, I tried to get into Tucson,” Ellen said suddenly. “I was sixteen, and Bob and I had just had a fight. I was convinced that if I could get inside, I could make a new life for myself. But they wouldn’t even let me in.”

I put an arm around her and pulled her close.

“Kade, you don’t have to comfort me about it. It’s in the past. It’s just funny that a yellow paper did what all my begging and pleading—and fighting—didn’t when I was younger, that’s all.”

The car kept humming as it drove south, toward San Xavier, and Ellen adjusted my tie one more time while Jessie snored in the front seat.

◄▼►

Raul’s funeral was…strange.

Unlike Carlos’s story-sharing, this one felt much more faith-oriented. Raul’s parents had believed, and so had he. There was a lot of sitting and listening as the priest talked about who Raul had been, where he was going, and what awaited him as a martyr who’d died for hundreds or even thousands of people’s lives. It felt…

It was hard to tell how it felt, honestly. Raul hadn’t been a force in my life. He’d been a member of the team, yes, but not a force. His delving career had been about a year and a half, and most of that had been with other teams. He hadn’t had a family of his own; he was an ex-pat from Tucson who’d lived in Phoenix for most of his career. A lot of information, none of which really stuck for me.

As I half-listened to the priest, I couldn’t help but wonder what had changed about me. Carlos hadn’t been a friend. If anything, I’d been closer to Raul, even though he’d been quiet most of the time. He’d been a part of my team. Something had changed in how I handled death or failure. Or maybe Raul’s death had been more…something. He hadn’t died because of bad luck. He’d died fighting a battle he’d committed to.

Either way, I let myself drift and admire the chapel around us. It was ancient—according to the signs outside, it had been built over two and a half centuries ago. Not counting the really ancient Native American ruins, it was the oldest structure in the area by far. And it had been restored at least twice. The first time was before the Portal Blitz. Then, after the Falcon’s Eye took the area back, the Iron Falcons threw money at fixing it up again.

And it had paid off. The building was beautiful. It was almost too detailed inside; there wasn’t a single corner that didn’t hide some secret. So, as I listened, I glanced around from statuary to painting to the intricate tile work on the floor. I wanted to take it all in and remember it.

That’d be the best tribute I could give Raul now—to remember his memorial as best I could.

◄▼►

Raul’s memorial wasn’t over when the service ended. There was a lunch outside the mission church, hosted by the church and his family. But I wasn’t there to attend it—not for long, at least.

I was in the bathroom, washing my hands, when a golden portal opened up and the God of Thunder’s voice echoed in my head. “Get in, quickly.” His voice sounded clipped and stressed, and I followed the portal.

A moment later, I stood in his portal world again.

“You are a maniac, Kade Noelstra,” the God of Thunder said as he walked up in his lightning knight form. “Both of those cores are extremely dangerous, and you’re carrying them around in your pocket? An absolute maniac.”

“Well, I mean, no one told me not to,” I said, shrugging. This was exactly what I’d been hoping for since the moment Ellen handed me my suit and the frigid null core. I needed Eugene’s help to understand either of them—otherwise, experimentation was my only way forward.

“Give me the cold one, kid.” Eugene’s hand snapped out, and I got a good look at his face. Stress lines covered it, and he looked more likely to bite my head off in this form than he usually did as a massive dragon.

I handed it over.

Less than a second after he unwrapped it from the hoodie surrounding it, though, it was on the ground. “Useless. Worse than useless. That core’s a trap. It was for your friend, right?”

“Right. The Fateweaver said it was for Jeff.”

“Good that you didn’t let him use it. In its current form, it’s not compatible with him—or with anyone else. It’d strip his power completely over a day or two.” Eugene stared at me as I winced. “Oh, not a core break. Nothing so violent. And it, like the one Ellen used, would have given him the power to fight against the monsters attacking your city. Just…it’d excise his power afterward, and he’d go back to how he was before his system awakened.”

“I didn’t stop him from using it. He did,” I said.

“Smarter man than you, then. What you’ve been carrying around is a weapon that’s useful against enemies all the way to SS-Rank, but only if they’re arrogant, cocky fools or they trust you. Compromising a Paragon’s system is a sure-fire way to break them and take over their territory. It does have the drawback of not allowing you to gain power from their core, though.”

He pushed the core back toward me. “Take it. You’ll have an opportunity to use this weapon in the future. When you do, it’ll help you achieve victory over your enemies, just like the Fateweaver wanted it to hurt you—or your friends.”

I stared at the core on the ground, but didn’t move a muscle to claim it. The God of Thunder didn’t need this weapon—and it wouldn’t be helpful against any enemies that could challenge him. But at the same time, the implications hit me hard. I’d wanted Jeff to use it. I’d thought it was a way to keep up. Only his good instincts had kept him out of trouble.

After a minute, I shook my head and gingerly wrapped the core back up, then dropped it into my pants pocket—the one opposite the multicolored core. Then I fished the mostly-blue but still rainbow sphere out and held it up for him. “And this one?”

“Ah, that one,” Eugene said. His face broke into a grin. “That one’s also a trap, but a very different one. Let’s talk about S-Rank, though. You’ve gotten an offer from your world’s S-Rankers to help you get there, right?”

I nodded.

“Thought so. It’s fine to take them up on that offer, but only to learn what they do. It has something to do with Paragon cores, right? Thought so. No, you and I are going to get you to S-Rank in a much different way.

“The biggest problem with S-Rank is your Laws. They stop growing with the Last Laws. You can keep forcing your other skills to grow, but it won’t matter, since even if you have more Laws, they can’t be used to push a skill to S-Rank. There is no S-Rank consolidation trial.” Eugene paused to let that sink in.

“If there’s no S-Rank consolidation trial, what are the S-Rankers on Earth doing with Paragon cores?” I asked.

“That’s the question I’m hoping you’ll find the answer to. Earth’s S-Rankers are, in fact, S-Rank. But they’ve done something with those cores, or with how they use them, that stalls their growth there. Granted, their skill builds also wouldn’t allow them further growth except in a sideways sort of way, but even so, they have to be compromising their cores with the Paragon cores. Figure out what they’re doing and report it back to me. I’m curious—it’s an interesting method they’re using, whatever it is.”

“And my own push to S-Rank?” I asked.

“Keep growing your skills. You’ll want the skills you intend to push with as strong as possible before you try ascending.” Eugene smiled, but the smile didn’t reach his eyes. “You’re going to walk the Stormsteel Path. And your shadow mage lover? We’ll get her walking a Path, too, right after we fix up her core.”

“Fine. You don’t want to tell me. Tell me what this core is, then,” I asked.

“That, Kade Noelstra, is a keystone. Much like the one that opens a portal to the Crone’s Ghostmarket that your sister has, it opens a portal. However, this portal is attuned to whoever opens it. Only the opener can enter. You’d be looking at A-Rank monsters inside, at minimum. Very dangerous, even for you. But if you could clear it, it’d almost certainly strengthen your skills to the cusp of S-Rank—and it’d do it quickly.”

I stared at the multicolored core. It was a massive opportunity for me; I had to take it.

“But, like I said, it’s very high-risk.”

My eyes flicked up to the God of Thunder, then back down to the core in my hand. I’d already made up my mind. Sometime in the next day, I’d be using this keystone. I’d enter this solo portal. And I’d clear it—and gain the power I needed to catch up with the S-Rankers, hit S-Rank myself, and start being a threat to the God of Thunder. I hadn’t forgotten about our inevitable conflict. It was coming, and it was my job to make it happen sooner than he thought.

“Shouldn’t be a problem for you, eh? Kade Noelstra, you are indeed a most interesting pupil. Good luck. Now, get out of here. I’ve got SS-Plus-Ranked Paragons to contend with, and you’re a distraction I can’t afford.”

◄▼►

The next morning, after I kissed Ellen goodbye outside of the GC building and took the elevator down, then jogged the long hall into the S-Rankers’ bunker, I locked the door to my room and stared at the multicolored core.

It sat on the Spartan room’s desk, shimmering in different shades—mostly electric blue, but with plenty of other hues thrown into a swirl that reminded me of a snow globe. Now that I knew what it was, it was an incredible weapon; in fact, I almost told Sarah Cullman what she’d traded me in case she wanted it back.

Almost.

But at the end of the day, I needed this—and what the God of Thunder had said about the S-Rankers rang true. I knew there were ways to get past S-Rank. I didn’t know what they were, but they were out there. And every single S-Ranker on Earth was stuck. They had to have done something to themselves that made it that way.

The solo portal wouldn’t help Sarah even if she had it. It would help me, though.

After a few minutes, I picked the core up and held it out. Lightning poured from my core into it as I tried to energize it and force it to activate. Nothing happened for a long time as my Mana ticked down rapidly. It reached fifty percent. Thirty. Fifteen.

Then, all around the core, a portal opened.

It was white-blue—at least, mostly. Shimmers of other colors interplayed around the bands of frozen lightning that formed its frame. It was much, much smaller than any other portal I’d seen before. Where most portals filled the spaces they were in, or capped out at large enough to let the monsters inside out, this one was short enough that I’d need to duck to enter.

I took a breath and checked my stats.

User: Kade Noelstra
Reforged Core, A-Rank
Stamina: 490/490, Mana: 600/610

Skills: 
1. Stormsteel Core (A-05 to A-06, Unique, Merged, God-Touched)
2. Thunderbolt Forms (A-06, Altered, Merged)
3. Mistwalk Forms (A-04 to A-05, Altered, Merged)
4. Cyclone Forms (A-05, Altered, Merged)
5. Stormlight Bond (B-10, Altered, Merged)
6. Shadowstorm Battery (C-10, Altered, Merged, Dual)
7. Stormbreak (C-09 to C-10, Unique)

My skills were still growing, but it was obvious they were slowing down as they moved toward the pinnacle of A-Rank. I needed to speed that up, or I wouldn’t make it to S-Rank before the Carlsbad raid. And I needed S-Rank for that. It was a lot like my first push to C-Rank. In fact, it was strange how similar the circumstances were.

That couldn’t be helped.

My Mana was low, but that couldn’t be helped either. It’d be low no matter when I opened the solo portal. My Stamina was solid, though, and I’d have my armor and weapon. I was as ready as I’d ever be.

I ducked my head and stepped through the lightning-wreathed portal.