The Conciege
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August Intruder- Chapter 87- Aurora
🕑 Added 2024-10-11 11:54:37 +0000 UTCThe force with which she was pulled from the portal was almost disconcerting. Aurora struck the ground hard, barely landing on her feet.
Around her, her teammates landed haphazardly. One hit the ground in a tumbling roll, as if he had been thrown by a powerful enemy.
Aurora ignored him, rising with an annoyed scowl on her face.
What the hell was that about?
The portal quest she had been sent on had tasked her and her team to find a monster that had been feeding on the core of that world. It had been an S-rank portal and she’d been attached to some random team on a last minute call.
“That’s fucking bullocks!” Fendi, a balding man on her team cussed. “What the hell does it mean by the world is evolving?”
Aurora looked around her, at her team of four that wasn’t really her team. The source of Fendi’s annoyance was the notification her interface had shown her, which meant that everyone else had seen the notification.
It begged one simple question: Did all the Gifted get the notification?
If the answer was yes, then there would be a widespread worry. There would be peace at knowing that the portals were closing, but there would also be panic at not understanding what it meant. Humans, after all, were not known for their ability to keep calm in the face of the unknown.
If the portals opening--which was already a known part of life--were no longer going to be opening, what did that mean? And for how long were they going to stay closed?
Aurora dusted her pants. The stain of ash from a monster that had been burnt all the way to the bone was beaten off her pants, and she realized that they had not been thrown out with their weapons.
Just the clothes on their backs.
She turned, confirming that the portal had not thrown them out to the middle of nowhere. Around her was a forest. There were countless trees of different colors, temporarily evolved by the presence of the portal. Not too far away, a few trees away from them to be precise, a helicopter waited with a pilot at the ready.
A grizzled man sat in the back, waiting patiently. He was bulky for his age and powerful.
I guess it brought us right back to the entrance, Aurora thought.
Moving a few stray strands of hair from her face, she turned her attention to the portal and watched it close. It sealed itself up like a healing injury, closing up slowly until there was nothing left of it.
As for the colorful trees around them, their different colors from pink to blue to yellow to mint green slowly faded away, evaporating into the air. It left the trees in their mundane black and brown barks.
Jenny, their Healer, got to her feet and stretched as if she was just getting out of bed. For a Delver, she was always very lax about everything. To her, things either worked out or did not work out. Aurora knew that the lady gave it her best in everything she did, but her lax nature always made it seem as if she just did the barest minimum and moved on with her life.
Jenny groaned in satisfaction as she stretched. When she stopped, she stooped down to pick up her glasses.
She claimed they were medicated but Aurora had a feeling that the lady was probably just accustomed to wearing glasses from her life before becoming a Gifted.
The glasses had massive circles for lenses and the moment the woman put them on, they framed her face, giving her a cute look. She was like those scientists in movies that spent their entire time locked up in their rooms doing research only to come out with a messy bun and tired eyes.
Sometimes it was hard to believe that the woman, by virtue of her skills as a Healer, was also a tank. The woman wasn’t a tank by fortitude, not in the slightest. She was only a tank because it took far too much to kill her.
She had at least one skill, maybe more, that helped her heal faster than most people could damage her. Aurora had seen her run into a burning situation just to find a teammate and rescue them inside a portal. She’d burned all the way into the flames, then burned all through her search, then burned when she found the person. Then she burned while healing the person and bringing them out.
By the time the rescue was done, the woman had been nothing but healing tissue and no clothes. Her glasses, however, had survived.
Aurora had no idea how and didn’t care to ask.
“I guess that’s all for today,” Jenny said, carefree, then turned to Aurora. “What’s next?”
Aurora was not the leader of the group. But during their time in the portal, she had called enough shots for the others to realize that listening to her had been in their best interest.
They’d lost one of their members, Jenny’s skills being unable to save his life, but losses were a part of a Delver’s life.
But that was within the portal, and this was outside the portal. Aurora was not inclined to keep giving them instructions.
“No idea,” she said then cocked her head in the direction of the helicopter. “We should ask the general.”
Personally, she just wanted to go home.
The man that had cussed, Fendi, shook his head as if he was trying to confirm that he got a headache.
“This is bullshit,” he said. “There were a lot of good things we could’ve come back with.”
Aurora frowned at his words. Spoils of war were only the right of the victors. The key word being the victors. They were Delvers, not thieves. If you did not earn the spoils, move on with your life.
Their war was over, bickering about what could have been was unnecessary.
Aurora frowned at herself. It’s been over ten years. You’re not an Oath anymore. You have to stop thinking like you used to.
She turned her attention to the helicopter, ignoring the others. After all, despite what they’d just been through, she’d only just met them before entering the portal. They really weren’t that close.
Aurora had questions for the general, because even from here, she could see that he had worry in his eyes, confusion. Something had gone wrong, and it seemed like the man knew exactly what it was or at least had an idea.
Times like this was when she missed being the Oath of War. For something that had never happened before to happen, she had no doubt that all the Oaths had been informed of it or had at least been given some knowledge that would help them deduce what it was by their interface.
She frowned as she started making her way to the helicopter.
“Where are we going?” Tech, another teammate asked. He was in his thirties and had a habit of telling anybody willing to listen that he was looking for love in case they knew anyone that would be willing to date him.
He’d already told Aurora that he was looking for love more times than she could count during their time in the portal.
Most people just laughed him off. But while Aurora knew that he was actually being serious while he said it jokingly, she knew that he also used it as a tool.
In the time she’d known him, she’d realized that whenever a conversation was getting too serious for the man, he’d shift it very quickly to the fact that he was looking for love. The person talking to him would laugh about it, take him as a joke and let him be.
It was a nice trick the man employed.
“We are not going anywhere,” Aurora answered as she passed him. “I am going to have a word with the general.”
“I’m coming with,” Tech said.
Aurora withheld her groan, kept it to herself..
Most people said she was rude, even when she had been an Oath. She was never inclined to disagree with them. Growing up she’d learnt to fend for herself, to take care of herself on her own. To mind her own business was to understand that it was her duty to make sure that she was the only one minding her own business.
She’d grown up tough, and she’d had to be with the life she’d lived.
Aurora’s life was very much unlike her husband’s. Where David, the Oath of Madness, had had loving parents and fun siblings, she’d been saddled with a father who lost himself at the bottom of a bottle and came back home to lose his fists in his family’s face. Her mother had taken her escape in drugs which had always baffled Aurora since they were the kind of family that had to save up just to be poor.
Her older sister took her own escape in pot and other kinds of drugs, and it had taken all that Aurora was not to take her escape in the path of gangs like her brother had chosen.
Instead, she had lived a life doing whatever she had to make money in the slums, from selling drugs to stealing cars to working part time gigs at convenience stores and technically anywhere that would hire her. She always chose anywhere she could work with her head held high… well not necessarily high, but at least a place she could work without having to lower her head in shame.
And whatever paltry sum of money she made was money she spent the rest of her time hiding from her father.
On more than one occasion she had been the only thing standing between her family and getting kicked out of the house, and none of them had ever known about it.
Then there was the disadvantage of being the younger sister to a girl that only knew how to get high and a boy that was always a mid-level member of a gang. She was always somehow dragged into their problems.
If a rival gang member had a problem with her brother, she became a way to get to him if they couldn’t find him. If her sister owed one of the drug houses for one reason or the other, they found her because touching her brother could spark a gang war.
Life had been hell growing up. Aurora had had to stab a few people and break a lot of bones to survive before the age of sixteen. And while she’d fought against the world, the world had fought back. Before becoming a Gifted, she’d had her fair share of injuries and bones that had been broken and never healed right. She still had a crooked nose from too many old fights that had never healed right, but luckily for her it never really affected her beauty. Her first boyfriend had once complimented it saying that it gave a little danger to her aura.
She’d broken up with him because he’d wanted a toxic relationship when all she’d wanted was a healthy one, but even now she'd never healed the nose right.
When she’d become the Oath of War, she couldn’t say she had been surprised. Her entire life had been a war up until she’d managed to get herself into college.
Aurora shook the thoughts of her past as she marched through the trees, ever thankful for finally running into David when she had.
He’d always been a breath of fresh air in her life, and he still was with his stoic expression and head full of random and often times chaotic thoughts.
No matter what she thought or what anyone said, he was perfect for her.
Many people didn’t understand how they were together despite Oaths being territorial creatures, but they just worked.
David was the control to her precise rage and wrath. His Oath had threatened to run him into madness but all it had done was strengthen his control. Yes, it came with downsides like having him talk far less than he used to, sometimes even in a manner that was incomprehensible.
But when has he ever been easy to understand, Aurora thought with a fond smile.
She could still remember when they’d started dating. He hardly called her his girlfriend whenever he was talking about her. She had always been 'the girl that chose him.' Which was hilarious since she knew that he could’ve ended up with someone far better if he had wanted to. With amazing grades and a good family background, he had been any girl’s dream.
She didn’t deserve him.
Aurora frowned at that.
You’ve grown to deserve him, she scolded herself.
Before she knew it, she was already at the helicopter, and she was thankful for it. It allowed her forget her own thoughts.
“General,” she greeted casually.
The old man ran a hand through his thinning hair. “War.”
Aurora cocked a brow then looked back at the rest of the team. They were still far away from them.
“Last time I checked,” she said in a low voice, “I’m no longer War.”
The general shrugged. “Until there is a new War, you’ll always be war to me.”
“Same goes for me, ma’am,” the pilot said without looking back.
The pilot was a man who’d served as her pilot for a few years when she’d been an Oath. Aurora always found it funny how those that had served with her during her time as Oath still held some level of loyalty to her. Unlike her husband with his team, she hadn’t been nice to them or rude to them. She had been their commander, and they had been her subordinates.
She had rewarded those under her accordingly and punished them accordingly. Sometimes she had tempered justice with mercy, but only when it was necessary and never for the sake of empathy.
But that was that, and this was this.
“Something strange just happened to us,” she said to the General. “Any idea what it was?”
“Y’all got shoved out of the portal?” the General asked.
Aurora nodded. “We got a notification from our interface as well.”
“About access to the world being cut off?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I got that, too.” The General sighed. “And I ain’t even in a portal.”
“You know if this is happening everywhere else?” she asked.
The General chuckled. “Oh, it’s definitely happening everywhere else. Just before you got to me, I got a request to confirm if you were still in the portal or if you’d been kicked out. Heard there were reports about portals kicking people out and sealing themselves up.”
That meant that David would’ve been kicked out of his portal, too.
Unless it’s different for Oaths.
“What about the Oaths?” Aurora asked quickly, checking to see how far back the others were.
Unlike her, they hadn’t been in a hurry. They were on a leisurely stroll that was slowed down by conversations amongst themselves. Considering how long ago it had been since she'd stopped being the Oath of War, they were still relatively new.
They had no idea that she'd been an Oath. They also had no idea that Oaths existed. At least, she didn't think they did.
“Inevitability cleared his portal a while back,” the General answered. “But Pain was kicked out just a few seconds ago. I assume everyone’s being kicked out.” The man leaned in and lowered his voice. “Any idea what’s going on?”
Aurora missed having an idea of what was going on with things like this. Right now, not being an Oath made her feel blind.
You are not an Oath, and you’re happy with that.
“No idea,” she answered, shaking her head. “I need my phone. Need to call my husband.”
The General’s face turned blank at that.
Aurora’s brows furrowed slightly. “General?”
"One moment."
The man reached for a box beside him. He opened it up and pulled a phone from it. He handed it over to her.
Aurora opened the box and dialed David. She had his number on speed dial. She also had it memorized. She could call it in her sleep if she was asked to.
Aurora frowned when she was informed that his line could not be reached. But she did not worry. The procedures surrounding Oaths that worked with the government when they returned from a portal were different from the average Delvers'. It would be a while before David got to his phone.
She dialed a different number next and waited. It rang for a while, but no one answered. She wasn’t surprised at that. Ark had a habit of never being with his phone. Even when he’d had a girlfriend his phone was unimportant to him.
Since Ark was now a Gifted, she guessed he would be doing his mentorship program. She’d wanted to check on how that was going. Melmarc was likely in class seeing as it was just getting to evening. Either that or he was just leaving school.
She tried him anyway.
She frowned when his line didn’t even ring. She was told that his phone was switched off.
That’s odd. He’s always with his phone and always keeps it charged.
Melmarc was meticulous like that. He always made sure that he was reachable. According to him, it was in case Ark was doing something he shouldn’t, and people were trying to reach him in order to have him stop Ark.
She also knew he was that way because he worried and wanted to be able to reach anybody he felt needed to be reached at any time and vice versa.
So now she was worried.
Knowing that it was a long stretch, she dialed Ninra. Ever busy, Ninra answered with the busiest voice Aurora had ever heard.
“Hi, mom,” she said. “Good to see you’re back from work. School’s very hectic right now so I can’t talk. I’m fine, eating my meals and studying. I’m not missing any classes. No, boys are not distracting me. I forgive Ark for whatever he’s done. I’m sure Mel loves us and does what he’s supposed to do and still doesn’t have a girlfriend. I haven’t heard from dad yet, so I’m guessing he’s not back… Uh… I don’t think I missed anything. Uncle D is uncle D. Not much I can say there.”
In the background a voice said something about not taking calls in their class and Ninra gave a quick apology.
Aurora sighed not wanting to intrude on her lecture or whatever Ninra was doing. “Love you, too, baby girl.”
Ninra groaned like a child. “Love you, too, mum.”
Aurora hung up before Ninra did.
The General was watching her with an odd expression while the others had gotten to them. They spoke to the General about what had happened to them while Aurora stepped away to make one more call.
It was a long shot, but it was a shot she was going to have to take. Melmarc’s phone not being reachable was a very worrying thought.
The phone rang twice before the person picked up.
“Human.”
Aurora groaned. “Hello, Dorthna. Can we stop calling me human?”
“But you are a human,” Dorthna chuckled.
“Well, it’s creepy having you call me human every time we talk. You used to call me by my name.”
“Actually, I used to call you War.” Dorthna paused. “Just out of curiosity, I’ve got a question.”
Aurora kept her question at bay, held back by all her willpower. Now that she was no longer an Oath, Dorthna giving her answers to whatever questions she asked was completely and entirely out of his goodwill. He still upheld his contract with them since David was still the Oath of Madness, though.
“What’s up?” she answered him. “What do you want to know?”
“If you could get your Oath powers back right now, what would you do?”
Aurora paused. She looked back, checked on the others that were still at the helicopter. They were there, oblivious of her as they spoke with the General.
Aurora knew her go to answer to that question. But she knew Dorthna well enough to know that the worst thing that she could do was lie to him.
“I don’t know,” she said finally. “It had its good and its bad.”
“If you were not a mother what would the answer have been? If you could become an Oath again, what would you do?”
Aurora’s mind went back in time, back to the night where everything had changed. She’d spent hours in the hospital wondering what kind of mother allowed her trait as an Oath to protect her world and accept collateral damage—her own kids—in order to do that.
She’d spent days crying in the hospital, ashamed of herself for choosing to fight the Player to the end rather than surrender for the safety of her children.
So many times David had told her that it was not her fault. When your traits as an Oath took you, in its moment, it was almost impossible to fight it.
But David fought his every day, so why hadn't she been able to fight hers when it mattered most?
She had been the Oath of War and a Player was an invader seeking to attack her world. It was the purview of war and war dictated that you fought until you could fight no longer. Her Oath had accepted her children in that moment as possible collateral damage for the possibility of the greater good--to win the battle.
It had been a terrible moment in her life. It had been a time when she’d felt like her own parents. She’d known that she wasn’t, but the mind was a terrible thing. And without the trait of her Oath to justify her actions after she’d woken up in the hospital, she’d been left with her mind plaguing her with judgements for her decision.
“I am a mother,” she answered Dorthna in the end. “That will never change.”
“Your kids have grown up, though,” Dorthna pointed out.
“Doesn’t matter,” she answered. “Anything that stands in the way of me being a good mother is something I do not want.”
Dorthna was silent on the other end of the call for a while. In the end, he let out a resigned sigh.
“Humans never see the big picture,” he said finally. “They are always held down by their selfish microcosms of reality.”
“You've asked me this question every year since that night,” she said. “What makes you think I will change my mind one day.”
“Because every year I ask you, you take a moment to think about it,” he answered. “An each year, the moment gets longer. Your case is not as rare as your world makes it sound, human. The spot for War is still unoccupied in this world. If there is anybody that can take it up again, it’s you. You have the highest likelihood of getting it.”
“It already left me, Dorthna.”
Dorthna laughed. “It didn’t leave you, human. You gave it up. There’s a difference. I’ve seen what happens when a concept leaves an Oath. Trust me, it is not pretty.”
Aurora sighed. Every year she was tired of this conversation. She and David were the only ones alive that knew what Dorthna was, but even now none of them had an idea of what Dorthna truly wanted. They didn’t know why he’d chosen to go with them or bind himself to the contract that kept him bound to them.
It made him a dangerous friend. And that was the problem, he had become something of a friend over the years.
“Dorthna,” Aurora said.
“Yes, human.”
“I’ll think about this question again when you ask it next year,” she said. “But right now, I have a more important question to ask.”
“And what is that? What is more important than being an Oath right now?”
“I can’t reach Melmarc,” she said. “Please tell me where he is.”
“You do not have the authority to make request of m—”
“Please,” Aurora pleaded. “I’m pleading. This is just a human pleading, not a command. I’ve never given you commands before, Dorthna, not even when I was War.”
The only reason she’d never given him a command as War was because even her Oath had identified him as outside her hierarchy despite their contract.
Dorthna sighed. “It is a sad thing that you do not want to become an Oath anymore, human. I always thought of you as my favorite.”
That was surprising. “I always thought you preferred Madness.”
“Oh, Madness was fun. He and I are quite similar in a way. Personally, I understand him better than I do most of you. Still, you were my favorite.” He paused. “Now you’re not.”
“Dorthna, please.”
“The boy is with his father.” Dorthna’s tone was suddenly empty now. “When you return, we will need to revise our contract.”
“The children aren’t old enough,” Aurora complained.
With her and David’s job, they couldn’t leave the children unprotected. The worry would make her slip up in a portal and that could cost Aurora her life.
“Your family is safe, human,” Dorthna said with a finality. “That is all I am willing to tell you. Return home. Once you do, we will revise our contract. Although, our contract might not be the only contract that you will be revising.”
Then he hung up.
Aurora blinked. What did he mean by that?
She tried David again and his line still wasn’t going. Melmarc, too.
Dorthna said that Melmarc was with his father. Then he’d said that the family was safe. And she could not reach Melmarc and David. It did not take a high level of intelligence for the wife and mother in her to jump to a conclusion in the way both instincts were often wont to do.
Something had gone wrong. Something had gone terribly wrong.
Aurora turned on her heels and stomped her way back to the helicopter. Whatever had gone wrong, the General knew what it was.
And she would have answers.
When she got to the helicopter, the others turned to greet her only to pause.
“Uh…” Tech scratched the back of his neck nervously. “You’ve got a little something on your face there,” he said. “A little emotion just right there. I think they call it anger.”
Aurora’s eyes moved to him ever so slowly. “This is not the time, Tech. I need a moment with the General. Everybody give us the space.”
Sometimes, even though she was no longer an Oath, she still commanded and expected to be obeyed. In the past people obeyed her because of her authority. Now people obeyed her because they knew what she was capable of doing when they didn’t obey.
After all, nobody wanted to get on the bad side of an SS-rank Gifted. And as far as she knew, she was the only one of her class above A-rank. And even without her rank, no one wanted to get on the bad side of a Gifted with the unique class [Dreadnought].
The others paused for only a moment before they started moving away from the helicopter. Jenny hadn’t even paused. With both hands casually behind her head, she’d already started strolling away.
“Sorry, General,” she said as she left. “You’re on your own. Good luck.”
Alone with the General and the pilot at the cockpit, Aurora could ask the question she wanted to ask.
“General,” she said slowly.
The man gulped. “Yes.”
“Something has happened, and you are very aware of what it is. Now, I will get the unnecessary part out of the way.” Aurora placed a hand on a part of the helicopter and squeezed as she leaned forward. The metal bent like rubber in her hand. “You will not tell me that you are not authorized to share the information. You will not tell me that it is above my pay grade. You will tell me nothing but what I need to know. If you do not, I will do whatever it is that I must in order to get the answer. And collateral damage will be acceptable.”
“War—” the General began, only for her to cut him off.
“It is about my family, Triton.” Her voice came out more ominous than she’d intended. But it didn’t matter. “My actions will most likely cost me, but that will not dissuade me.”
“Think about this, War. You’ll lose the support of the government,” the General, Triton, pointed out as if she didn’t understand what she was saying.
Aurora met his gaze. “I have given up far more than the government for them. You do not want to see what will happen if I don’t get the answer I want. Are we clear?”
The General nodded after a moment of pause. “Crystal.”
“Good. Now where is Madness?" The part of the helicopter she was holding finally gave out and was ripped out of place completely. She had not intended for that to happen but it had happened.
It also didn't matter. Only one thing mattered to Aurora.
“Where is my husband?”
Comments
ZaA
The reason she doesn't want to be War is because it mad her sons just collateral damage," but if her sons were both extremely important then thered basically be no reason to accept becoming War again.
Simon Hoerder
I wonder how that decision will play out -- the way I understand it, both Ark and Mel will be a lot more mobile than the Oaths who're tied to their original world. Aurora not being an Oath may help more than the other way round. Also, it might lead to evolutions. But Dothna sounds a lot more creepy just now. Aurora got a completely different Dorthna to see than Mel and Madness.
Signspace
Coooool, I wonder if she will become War again when she finds out the whole world is gonna be gunning for Mel, in every way, good and bad.
