• Chapter 1 ~ Smoke, Silver, and a Prince

    “Argh, pant, puff,” Pearl panted as she dashed through walls of greenery. “Tay is so dead when I get back at the base.”

    “He was supposed to send me to the Ckroll dimension but instead I think I’m in some part of the Arelle Continuum. Grrr, why couldn’t he fix the portal before I left?” she sank into deep mutters, “It’s fine, he says. There’ll be no problem whatsoever in inter-dimensional travel, he says. It’ll work as it always has, he says. I’ll throttle him when I get outta here.” She heard distant rumbling from behind her. “Well, at least I’ll squeeze the life out of him after I get Amy to heal my injuries.” There was blood running down the side of her head and there were rips and tears in her outfit.

    She was almost flying through the forest at her current speed. She wasn’t even looking at where she was running. Suddenly, the ground in front of her exploded in a shower of dirt and rocks. She held up her hands in front of her face to shield her from a spray of rocks and with her other hand, took out her stun gun. When the dust cleared up, it revealed the gigantic purplish worm that had been chasing her for half an hour now. And she didn’t want to remember their last contact; that was where she got her cut in the head.

    After a quick scan of her surroundings, she ran toward a tall tree in her left. They were in a small clearing now and there was a thick canopy above them that covered the ground in grayish shadows. The tree she was on was hidden in the shadows and had a perfectly clear view of the clearing where the worm was. It was also near the top and barely had branches. In other words, it was the perfect place to set a trap.

    The thing below her had begun thrashing the minute it broke the surface, which led her to think that maybe it was more powerful underground. She quickly took down her side pouch and begun rummaging inside it. Finally, she pulled out an orb that looked like it had smoke in it, a length of bungee cord, her archery charm, and her field limiter.

    After positioning herself where she could see five thick trees surrounding the clearing, she snapped on her archery charm, a small silver-wrought pendant in the shape of a bull’s-eye, and fed maryoku into it. A bow of light appeared in her left hand. Focusing on an imaginary line orbiting the clearing, she held out her hand and produced a silvery bow that looked a bit misty. Holding a stretch of bungee cord, she used her maryoku and stiffened it, and at the same time, she left a guiding spell on the tip. She took her aim and imagined her makeshift arrow following the orbit around the trees. When she released her arrow, instead of going in a straight line, it curved and after a second, it had come back to her after going around her imagined path. She caught it and tied the remaining length around the branch. After that was done, she picked up the orb and did her chants. Just as her father had taught her, she emptied her mind of all thought and imagined a single flame into which she fed all thought, emotion, and sensation. When the flame was too big to imagine, she let it go. What was left was an emptiness, or rather, a semblance of an emptiness where she was at the center and all thought and emotion was outside, as if she were contained in a bubble.

    And also contained in that emptiness was a warm light—The Light. She stretched toward it and felt it suffuse her body; felt its warmth spread through her entire person, felt it pass through the orb and multiply in intensity. And using the power she felt filling her up, she wove a barrier on the ground and hanging from the cord tied all the way around the clearing, making a cage trapping the worm that was still thrashing around.

    When the cage was done, she released her bow—it dissolved into mist—and the orb and picked up the field limiter. It was a little heavy for its size, just a little box small enough to fit into the palm of her hand but it had the ability to enhance the technical ability of any Tay-created weapons in the area. This was very convenient because Tay had a version of almost every weapon made, and a few inventions of his own.

    She pressed the red button in the center and it began beeping. After it began beeping, she removed the cover on the super magnet in the back and attached it to the stun gun. Now, it was only a matter of seconds before the stun effect exploded on an area with a sixty-meter radius—except for when a barrier was surrounding it. She quickly threw it into the circle and with her remaining maryoku, wove a cover of steel-hard air on the cage trapping the still-thrashing worm in it.

    It was only a matter of time before the air was filled with bright, bluish light, zapping noises and high-pitched screeches coming from the gigantic worm. When the light and zapping stopped, there was only popping noises coming from the worm and a smell of something roasting in the air.

    She released her maryoku cage and felt the power drain from her. It felt as if all of her remaining strength went along with it and she slumped on the tree trunk. Panting and exhausted, the only thing she could think of was what she would do if the dying worm’s screeches managed to attract some of its friends. She sat on the tree branch, panting and began putting back her things in her pouch. She stared at the stun gun and field limiter in the ground near the charred worm for a few moments and decided to get it later on after her nap; both the magic and screeches must’ve zapped her of most of her strength.

    She had only begun dozing off when she heard beeps from her watch. She groggily held out her arm and pressed the blue button on the side. This was another one of Tay’s inventions, the Inter-Dimensional Communicator. Tay made hers a watch for easy travel. Everyone on the squad had one, for missions and personal use. Only the higher members of the team had special features installed, though, like the hologram or other nifty things that could help in pinch situations like the one she was just in. Luckily for Tay, he didn’t install the mini-warp system on her watch because if he did, she would’ve reached over to Tay’s current dimension and strangled him then and there.

    A hologram of a brown-haired, good-looking guy with slightly tilted eyes and a perpetually annoying smile pasted on his face appeared, looking positively beaming. It made her feel sick.

    “Hello, Tay,” she said in a carefully moderated voice. Inside, she was quietly planning on how and when to smother his last breath out of him.

    “Hel-lo, beautiful!” He said cheerily. Then suddenly, he noticed the blood running down the side of her head. “Whoa, what happened to you? I thought planet Amity was s’posed to be the most peaceful planet known in all the dimensions—well, according to the polls, that is. Had a bit of run-in with thugs, huh?” he squinted through the screen, “What’s up with you? Your eyebrow’s twitching. And from my years of experience”—he said, quite matter-of-factly— “eyebrow-twitching coming from a woman is not a good sign. It’s usually done when they are thoroughly annoyed and are on the brink of violence. Frankly, I—"

    “YOU SENT ME TO THE WRONG DIMENSION, TAY!” She yelled through the microphone. “I DON’T KNOW HOW, I DON’T KNOW WHEN, BUT THE MOMENT I GET BACK THERE, I’LL BE HUNTING FOR YOU AND WHEN I FIND YOU, I’LL STRANGLE YOU TO THE BRINK OF DEATH!!! THEN WHEN I’M DONE WITH THAT, I’LL REVIVE YOU SO THAT I CAN STRANGLE YOU SOME MORE!!! YOU GOT THAT?!” She was panting when she finished, but she had a strange sense of elation, as if a big burden had been lifted from her chest.
    She closed her eyes for a second and took a deep breath to calm herself. She didn’t really plan to kill Tay. Just hurt him a lot. It was just that, sometimes Tay’s stubbornness did get a tad bit annoying sometimes. This was really going too far. He was an amazing inventor, providing them with really convenient gadgets for their missions and he was usually really reliable, but this was the first time she had heard of that Tay Clearwater’s creation got a glitch and he himself was dragging his feet in fixing the thing. It was just really strange that Tay was starting to ignore his Portal. And he was spending most of his time locked up in his room when they had free time. It just made everyone think that he was working on something that was supposed to help in his or her missions.

    When she opened her eyes, the sight of Tay rubbing his ears greeted her. “All right, all right. I’m sorry about that. I’ll prepare another portal to take you back immediately,” he said exasperatedly while typing on his computer.

    “Oh. And Tay, dear,” she said in a too-sweet voice, “Don’t mess it up this time.”
    She received a grunt in reply and after the hologram disappeared, she sighed then slid down the tree. So much for a nap, she thought. She did a few stretches and walked toward the stun gun still lying on the ground beside the worm. Just as she was bending down to pick it up, the Communicator began beeping again.

    Tay appeared, still busy with his computer. “It’s all ready, P,” and seeing the look on her face, he added, “and I double checked the coordinates so you won’t get lost again,”
    “Hey! I did not get lost! It was your fault that—” she gushed.

    Tay laughed. “Hey chill, Pearl. Sheesh. Can’t anybody in this whole station take a joke anymore?” He finally looked up at her, “Okay. You’d better take a step back, just in case,”
    “I do know that, you know,” she muttered. Tay just chuckled.

    A vertical slash appeared in front of her and widened into a silvery arch. “That’ll take you right to your room,” Tay told her through the hologram, “Clean up and put on your formal outfit. We’ve got a top priority mission for you when you get back,” then Tay paused a moment, looking at her. “You’d better ask Amethyst to heal your scrapes, too, Pearl. You don’t look too good with your face all red and blotchy. Your pretty looks go down when it’s obvious that you’ve been brawling with thugs that’re way bigger than you,” It infuriated her, how nonchalantly he said that. She revised her idea of not killing him when she got back. Not—kill—exactly. But what she would do would put him a hair’s breadth from it.
    But she put that thought aside, for now. Her mouth had dropped open at the mention of ‘formal outfit’.

    “What?! Why me? Where’s Nixon and what’s he doing? He’s the captain; he’s supposed to do the top priority missions!” She squeaked. It was too much for her to handle; she had just been chased around for half a mile by a giant man-eating worm and now she was supposed to do official galactic missions? She was good at public relations, but she was just too exhausted to babysit a whining, bleating politician. Her own thoughts shocked her; she didn’t normally refer to politicians that way but her exhaustion seemed to have drawn out the rough side of her tongue.

    Tay sighed. “Oh, come on, Pearl. Did you really have to ask that? You know what Nix has been doing these past few days as well as anyone does in the squad,”

    Actually, she knew a bit more than anyone did. Nixon had been busy this past week showing Sapphire around the planet. They had to take a few of the men along with them, but luckily, some of Pearl’s men were with the escort. She received reports that Nixon and Sapphire often snuck out by themselves and came back hours later. She didn’t know if she should’ve been glad or what that she sent some of her spies after Nixon the night after he vanished with Sapphire from the base. “Can’t you contact him, wherever he is, or something?” she pleaded.

    “Sorry, P. He left his CommRing in his room—I’ve got a feeling he did it on purpose—but since the captain’s gone, and you’re the vice-captain of this squad, anything the captain gets in his leave of absence automatically plops onto your desk.” He groaned, “He’s got tons of paperwork again, and since I can’t trust you not to set fire to the papers while signing them, I’ve got to do it myself. Anyways, get through the portal already. We’ll talk about his later on.” The hologram winked out.

    She gave a gigantic sigh then picked up the stun gun lying on the ground—the field limiter was now totally useless. Checking her surroundings, she stepped through the portal—and came out in her room. As soon as she stepped out, the portal spun and disappeared into thin air. She had a fairly sizable room, here. A bit bigger than all of the other rooms except for the captain’s, it had a big bed on one corner and a whole wall filled with shelves of books and another corner held her desk that contained her papers. Actually, there was very little work that she had to do here. Even though Tay always teased her, he was always concerned about her well-being and did most of the paperwork assigned to her himself. And when it came to personal reports, Tay was always there to help her out. Even though she didn’t want to admit it aloud, she was really happy having Tay act as her big brother. She never had anyone treat her that way for as long as she could remember. But it was a bit embarrassing to have him act as her big brother in public. I mean, what would everyone think—a person of a lower rank demeaning his superior? The thought made her shiver.
    She plopped down her bed and began pulling off her combat boots: This pair was the new and improved Tay-made combat boots. It had helpful features such as an anti-gravity device implanted into it to make it almost weightless, a hidden compartment on the heel, and it was almost just as comfortable as wearing rubber shoes.

    Actually, it wasn’t just Tay. Everyone in the squad treated her like his or her own little sister, as if she was made of glass. It was a bit annoying sometimes—she was legendary in the Inter-Galactic Space Academy, after all—but she was just happy that everyone had that much love for her.

    Before stepping into the bath, she put her weapons in their respective shelves and drawers then surveyed herself in the tall stand mirror by the bed. She had fairly light skin, darkened now by all the dirt and blood that covered her. Her kettle-blonde hair was a bit unruly in spite of the ponytail that held it in place. She was wearing her most comfortable casual clothes: her blue-and-white vest, the baby-blue shirt she got for her birthday—now baby blue and metallic-red because of the blood from her cuts—,her army cargo pants, and her custom-made panther belt; made especially for her by planet Valence’s best blacksmith on her fifteenth birthday.

    Having her quick shower stung a bit because of her cuts but she quickly learned how to ignore the pain as she started to get dressed in her green officer’s uniform. It took her some few minutes to pin on all her medals, and when she was finished, the outfit weighed more than it was supposed to because of all the metals pinned to her chest. It actually looked like a metal, mini-rainbow, her medals.

    Just as she was combing out her hair, the doorbell rang. “It’s open,” she yelled. The door opened and Amethyst came in.

    Amy was wearing her office uniform, the white blouse and skirt, and had her usual platinum band belt to accentuate her thin, willowy features. Her bushy, purple hair was tied back in a ponytail, and the oval, wire-rimmed glasses she wore only enhanced the effect of her burnished gold colored eyes. Eyes that were now looking absolutely murderous.
    Pearl backed off a few steps before asking what the problem was.

    “It’s that jerk Tay’s fault. He’s a human looking snake, if you ask me...Grrr...” Suddenly, Amethyst’s hands clenched into fists and she punched the wall beside her. Pearl looked shaken when Amethyst removed her fists from the wall; It had cracked and there were fragments of concrete falling from both her hands and the wall.

    “Um... Amy, I think you should relax a bit. Uh, come on, I’ve got tea in the kitchen and—” she cut off as Amethyst threw her a dark look.

    “E-hehe... umm... so, what is the matter, Amy?” she asked, half-nervously, half-worriedly; Amethyst was usually calm and collected, and the most levelheaded of the squad. Now it looked like she was going to break the first thing she could touch.
    “It’s that playboy of a technician we have. Ugh, and here I thought he was serious about that apology of his.”

    “Um, playboy?” Pearl asked confusedly.

    “Oh, yeah. You don’t know because you just arrived here, huh?” and she began telling the Pearl about the incident that happened while starting to heal Pearl’s cuts and scrapes.
    “Well, there was an ambassadress from planet Vulcan who came here to request for an escort for their prince, and Tay was all over her!” she said, sitting Pearl on the bed by the corner of the room. She kneeled down in front of her and took Pearl’s head in her hands, which were glowing with a mysterious green light. “Sheesh. That guy doesn’t contain a scrap of loyalty or dignity in that whole chubby body of his. I swear—what’s up?” she asked, looking up to see the look on Pearl’s face change.

    “Wait, you think that could be the top-priority mission that I was called back for, Amy?” she asked.

    “Well, I guess it was. I mean, having to escort a prince is top-priority. But then, aren’t top-priority missions usually reserved for squadron captains or a special team or something?” Amethyst asked, confused.

    Pearl sighed. “Yeah, it is. Unless the captain isn’t here...”

    Amethyst looked more confused than ever. “But... Nixon is here. I just saw him walking around the corridor to the galactic archives—” she pursed her lips for a moment. “Sneaking was more like it. He looked like he didn’t want anyone to see him there.”

    It was Pearl’s turn to punch the wall; although hers didn’t take off flakes from the wall, it still left a sizable crack. She had to remember to call someone to fix the walls in her room; they seemed to be softer than she remembered. “Tay told me that Nixon wasn’t here! That’s why I was called back, but I’m exhausted and now I’ve got to baby sit an old fart whose brain would probably be less than mush by now,” she broke off to catch her breath. Then, a sudden thought occurred to her. “Hey, um, wait. Doesn’t Tay know that Nixon’s here already?”

    Amethyst laughed. “Obviously, Tay doesn’t know that Nix is here, but I don’t know about that ‘old fart’ part,” She was wearing a sly smile now. “I know for a fact that planet Vulcan’s prince is just about the same age as you. Plus, I hear he’s cute, too. He’s been the favorite cover boy of some of the hottest teen magazines now. And aside from being talented and smart, he’s also been a topic of interest of some women’s magazine’s because he still doesn’t have a girlfriend.” she paused, studying Pearl. Then she grinned, “Just like you are, P. Maybe now you’ll get to have a boyfriend. You’re almost sixteen and the only date you’ve gone to was the one where everyone in the squad came along and there was an attack from a Valkyrian terrorist where your ‘date’ fled in terror for his puny pathetic little life. I’ve got to say, not much of a date.”

    Pearl pretended to not have heard those last parts. “Oh, great. Now I don’t have to worry about babysitting an old fart; I’ll just be plain babysitting. A cherry on top of a fantastic day, don’t you think?” Pearl said sarcastically while allowing Amethyst to pull her head down to heal her wound there. Amethyst however found everything Pearl said amusing.

    “Now that’s where you’re wrong, P,” Amethyst chuckled, “Don’t you watch the news?”

    “Amy,” Pearl said indignantly, “you may be older than me, but don’t act like my mom,
    please? Don’t you think I’ve got more important things to do than watch the news?”
    “You call digging through the central library’s hidden archives important? Anyway, it was just recently reported in the news that planet Vulcan’s prince was hailed as the new Angel of War. Now I know you know how humongous that title’s requirements are.”

    Pearl’s eyes widened and she choked. It was impossible for her not to know everything about that title. While in the Academy, many of her teachers trained her for that title, but much too many of the missions a person needs to complete to get the title were too gruesome for her to do, even though her tactical and magical skills were far greater than the level of the strongest known Angel of War. She just didn’t have the heart to participate in a war, kill a hundred or more men of the enemy’s, and bring home the heads of those you killed back to your country with the high priest’s blessing to be considered proof of your feat. And that was just one of the many tasks needed to achieve the Angel of War status. It was impossible that someone her age could’ve achieved something so great, unless he had been worked harder than she was, both mentally and physically.

    Suddenly, a warm ripple passed her whole body, starting from the top of her head to the bottom of her feet and back again. It felt as if she had slept for a week. “Okay, I’m finishing up here. By the way, Pearl,” Amethyst asked, “How did you get these injuries, anyway? I know you well enough to know that you would take the easy path rather than go about roughly. And if you do fight, you have way too much skill to get beaten up this bad.”

    “And now this is where I sympathize with your expression, ‘that human looking snake’. Tay still hasn’t fixed that Portal of his, and I landed in a planet that had seven-foot-long carnivorous worms.” Pearl said hotly.

    Amethyst heaved a sigh. “I’ve been meaning to talk to him about that. I think he’s working on some top-secret project assigned to him by the head honcho of the Weapons and Artillery department. His room’s three times messier since last month. I’ve been picking up after him when he falls asleep at his desk. But I must say,” She said dreamily, “He looks so adorable when he’s asleep.”

    Pearl hid a giggle behind a cough but Amethyst wasn’t fooled. She turned brick red and stood up while smoothing skirts that didn’t need any more smoothing. She walked stiffly to the door and opened it. “U-um. Forget what I said—not that it was true, or anything—just my mumbling—don’t think I actually find that chick boy attractive or anything—just that—ugh,” she exhaled roughly, “aren’t you supposed to be getting your mission specifics by now?”
    It was so cute, how Amethyst was trying so hard to change the subject. “Yes, mum. I’ll be going to daddy now to get my homework,” she quipped. A stammering Amethyst followed her to the hall.