SkyEarth 1: Stratos Rising (Act 1) Chapter 6

Chapter 6

Confrontation



               This might be the most reckless thing Shaun had ever done, and that was saying something. His mother was calling him back, but he seemed to not hear her as his mind raced with the possibilities that might happen toi his sister or Persephone. None of them were good, but he forcefully kept those thoughts aside as he navigated his way in the darkness.

               Fortunately lights from the buildings turned on, giving Shaun visibility. He left Cadafalch Place, dashed down Leana Avenue till he reached the Pavilion, and then went to East Wistoria Avenue to the bridge that connected the Ingary orchard fragment to the mainland.

               It was strangely quiet. He expected to hear his dad and the kidnappers in scuffle somewhere, but then the kidnappers have Addie and Persephone as leverage. One mistake, and the kidnappers will snuff the life out of them. He needed to move quickly.

               He ran towards the house as swiftly and silently as he could. Lights shone through the windows, and he could hear sounds of crashing inside. Wooden furniture snapping and breaking, glasses crashing and shattering, and other things upturned and thrown away. Either his dad might be fighting the kidnappers in another fistfight indoors, or the kidnappers are saerching high and low, and nook and cranny for the journal. It was the latter when Shaun bumped into a dark crouching figure checking through the window with caution and wariness. It was his dad.

               "Shaun?" whispered Thomas. "What are you doing here? I told you to escape with your mom."

               "Persephone's been kidnapped." whispered Shaun. "That's why I'm here."

               "Persephone?" said Thomas. "Come to think of it, I heard someone calling for you. I thought it was your sister, but now that you told me that I think it was Persephone who's calling you."

               "I don't hear her or my sister." said Shaun.

               "Our kidnappers must be smart. They must've gagged them to keep them from calling for help."

               A sound of plates and china shattering were heard.

               "Maybe not that smart." Thomas dully noted. "Shaun, I think our kidnappers are those two thugs who were looking for that journal. I saw their faces. Have you hid the journal?" he asked.

               "Yes." replied Shaun. "I've hidden in someplace safe." More crashing sounds were heard. "So... how are we going to save them?" he asked, but before his dad could answer, the front door opened and the man with the handlebar mustache appeared and saw them. He pulled out a pistol and aimed at the father and son.

               "Not a move on both of ya or I'll blast a hole on your foreheads." threatened the mustachioed man. He wore the same clothes as the last time Shaun saw him: a crisp grey suit and pants, a black bow tie, a pair of small rounded sunglasses (which was weird since it's night time), fancy leather shoes and a bowler hat. "My index finger is itching to pull the trigger, so if you don't want any ah... 'accidents', I suggest you cooperate."

               "Shaun, run." said Thomas. His son looked at him shocked.

               "But-"

               "Run! Just run!" urged his dad and, very reluctantly, Shaun did so.

               "Hey!" said the mustache man and aimed his pistol at the defenseless fourteen-year-old.

               "Oh no you don't!" said Thomas and he lunged at the man, trying to disarm him.

               Shaun ran as fast he could. He tried not to look back, but he heard two popping sounds from behind him. A horrible possibility urged him to look back, but hid dad wouldn't want him to look back so he resisted as hard as he could. Eventually he made his way to the back of the house and stopped at the cellar door. His dad may have told him to run, but he didn't say to get away from here.

               I hope they are all right thought Shaun. With a silent prayer to his deity, he pulled the cellar door, trying to get it open. It didn't open in the first and second pull, but by the third, adrenaline rushing in his veins and giving him strength, pulled it open so forcefully that Shaun landed on his rump. The kidnappers didn't seem to hear the cellar door open, probably the other kidnapper heard the two gunshots and head to the front door to investigate. This was his chance.

               He went down into the cellar, which was dark and musty but he could see light seeping through the thin gaps of the door that leads to the kitchen, so Shaun followed the light, climbed up the stairs and opened the door.

               There was a sound of scuffling coming from the outside, and Shaun could hear Thomas and the kidnappers cussing and swearing as they landed punches and kicks on each other. Now that he thought about it, it was kinda weird. He's dad's an aeronautical engineer, a man who creates wonderful flying machines, but now he's in a fistfight with two kidnappers, swearing like a pirate. His dad might've been working out while he's in Granoden, Shaun concluded. It's the only explanation he could come up.

               Shaun left the kitchen and entered the living room. It loooked like it was trashed by a hurricane. Furnitures tipped over, books from the bookshelves strewn and scattered, fragile objects such as plates, vases, and glass smashed into sharp shards scattered everywhere. If his mom were ever here, and thankfully she wasn't, she would've exploded in a fit of rage. Despite the mess, there was no sign of his sister or Persephone. Probably upstairs, so Shaun climbed up the stairs to the second floor of the house and saw light coming from his room. Without hesitation he head towards his slightly opened bedroom door, opened it, and found the two girls slumped on the bed, bound and gagged.

               "Addie! Persephone!" cried Shaun, which roused the two girls. They groggily looked up and their eyes widened as Shaun stood right in front of them. There was fear in their expressions. Thick ropes bound their wrists and ankles together. Red lines marred the exposed skin of their arms, legs, and faces. All of these angered Shaun.

               "Mmmpf! Mmpf mmfmmpf!" Persephone muffled, crying tears of relief.

               "Don't worry!" said Shaun. "I'm gonna get you outta here!" He looked around his room for something to cut the ropes. He found a palette knife sitting on his desk, the dull edge sharpened through prolonged use. He could see a thin line of blood on the edges, suggesting that it was used by the kidnappers to torture the girls. He remembered Persephone's story of how she was almost tortured by some stranger high on drugs. It was happening again, and this time his sister joined in as a victim of torture.

               He wiped the blood from palette knife using his coat. After it was cleaned he used it to cut the roped that bind the girls' wrists and ankles. He did his sister's first, and then Persephones. After that, he removed the thick cloths that filled their mouths. Adelaied and Persephone were free and they hugged Shaun in a tight embrace, crying and sobbing.

               "It's okay." Shaun cooed, patting and rubbing the two girls' backs for assurance. "I'm here. There's no one to hurt you now. You're safe." After a few pats and back rubs the two girls stopped crying. Persephone looked at him in the eye and said, "Shaun. We need to get out of here!"

               "Why? What's gonna happen?" asked Shaun. His little sister answered his question.

               "Our kidnappers." said Adelaide. "T-they told us that our town will be destroyed unless they have this 'journal'"

               "We didn't know what journal they were talking about." Persephone told him, rubbing her wrists where the rope formed red marks on it. "They asked us about it. They believed that you told us all about it, but when we answered them truthfully that we didn't know about it or where it is, they-" Her hands grabbed the sides of her head and she began sobbing. Shaun already figured what happened. The red slash marks on their skins made by the palette knife.

               "We need to tell the others!" cried Adelaide. "We need to evacuate as soon as-" she gasped. The two girls looked scared out of their wits, and they were looking right passed him. He didn't need them to tell him that someone's behind him. He turned around and saw the two grey suited kidnappers, and holding in their hands was his dad, bloody, bruised and limp, held by the collar of his shirt like a mama cat holding her young kit by the scruff of its neck. They tossed the unconscious Thomas to the ground like he was some garbage bag needed to dispose off. His limp body bounced ever so slightly be he didn't give any indignation of a response.

               "Heh! Not much of tough guy, your old man." said the mustachioed man. He had a black eye and a bloody head.

               "Yeah. I still don't understand how we got beat by him the last time." said the man with the cane. He had a bloody broken nose, an ugly bruise on the cheek, and when he grinned at Shaun, three or four teeth were missing.

               "Maybe because you two got chickened out the last time?" retorted Shaun, and he recieved a cane to the face. It hit him so hard that he felt a tooth loose and tasted blood in his mouth. After the painful whack to the face, Shaun turned to his kidnappers and spat blood and tooth as them. The blood stained their suits and the tooth bounced off the mustachioed man's body. The man put a finger on the blood stain and then wiped it off on Shaun's sunrise painting.

               "Tch! Disgusting." he said after wiping his finger.

               "What do you want from me?" asked Shaun. "My sister and my friend had nothing to do with this. Why did you kidnap them?"

               "Simple kid." said the man with the cane. "And we'll answer them accordingly in order."

               "First you asked what we want from you." said the mustachioed man. "You already know what we want from you. Well... actually our client."

               "Our client hired us to get the Ingary family journal and bring it to him." it was the cane man. "'And who is this client?' you might ask. It's highly confidential."

               "Actually he didn't give us his name, saying that he preferred to be anonymous when doing these kinds of businesses, and we're hitmen. Our job is to eliminate people and making it look like an accident."

               "But when he showed us two suitcases full of ringen... Well it was a job we can't refuse. So we took it, gave us pictures of the house where the journal is hidden and the family who lived there. And don't ask us how he got those pictures, kid. Our client was very secretive about how he did it. The money helped us not to question it."

               "And as for why he wants it, you don't know either." said Shaun and the two kidnappers gave him a wide amused grin.

               "And now why we kidnapped your sister and your girlfriend." said the mustachioed man, looking at the two frightened girls in amusement like a cat who cornered two helpless mice. "We thought you told them about your little secret, but obviously they didn't know about it."

               "Try as we might, and we even used that palette knife to torture them into telling, but they were telling the truth after all." said the cane man.

               "But we did lure you and your dad here, hoping that we might ask you where you hid the journal." said the mustachioed man.

               "Over my dead body!" spat Shaun, and he received another painful cane whack, and this time it hit his head hard. Adelaide and Persephone yelped. Shaun felt blood dripping on his forehead from the gash in his matted earthy russet hair.

               "I'm afraid you don't have a choice." said the mustachioed man. He put a hand in his pocket and produced a thin metal box with a black button on it. "Our client gave this to us and said not to use it unless it's absolutely necessary. If you don't give us the journal, I'll push this button, which will carry on a signal to the airships. You're little town will be reduced to nothing but ash and rubble, unless you be a good little boy and give us the journal."

               "The fire!" muttered Shaun. He knew the kidnappers were dangerous, but he didn't expect them to firebomb a town full of innocents. "You call that 'absolutely necessary'?!"

               "It was an accident." said the cane man. "My partner has slippery fingers, almost as if he covered his hands with butter. We were in Hawthorn a few hours ago too. But at least we know what happens."

               "You killed hundreds of people!"

               "True." said the mustachioed man. "And we'll kill even more if you don't give us the journal." he threatened.

               The two girls were awfully quiet, but it was Persephone who spoke to Shaun. "Don't give them what  they want. I don't know about the journal or what was written inside, but I know there was something important in there. Don't give them the journal." she pleaded.

               "Aw how cute." said the cane man. "So that's what you want? To die? To have someone discover your body and never know who you were? I know that's not what anyone wanted."

               "Yes!" said Persephone proudly. "Yes we do!"

               "Aw c'mon!" cried the cane man again. "I know you wanted us to spare your pathetic lives. I wanna hear it! Say that you want to be spared!"

               "I won't!" spat Persephone. "You can't make us!"

               "Yeah!" cried Adelaide. Shaun was a bit surprised that  his sister could speak up for herself like that. "We won't give you what you want, and Shaun won't give you what you want either!"

               The two sides began a lightning verbal war. Only Shaun stayed quiet, his eyes scanning his surroundings, thinking of a clever plan to get the girls out safely. When he fixed his attention on the bedroom door, which was slightly ajar, he had to keep himself from smiling because peeking through the gap was his best friend Oliver.

               They exchanged a silent conversation and they came to an understanding. With that, Oliver left. A few seconds later, Shaun started screaming.

               "STOP IT!!!"

               The girls and the two men stopped arguing and turned to look at Shaun, who was on his knees, his palette knife slipped from his hand and his head slumped sadly. He looked defeated like a soldier who surrendered in a battle that he could not possibly win. Adelaide and Persephone had never seen Shaun looked so down before. He didn;t strike as a person who gives up so easily. The sight of him pained their hearts.

               "Fine." Shaun said in resignation. "You win. I'll show you where I hid the journal."

               "No!" cried Persephone, but the two men laughed in triumphant. What they didn't know was that it was all a ploy.

               "You made a smart decision, boy!" said the cane man. "A smart decision indeed!"

               "Where is it, then?" asked the mustachioed man. His grin was so horrible to look at. It looked like he hadn't heard of oral hygiene. "Where's the journal?"

               "Wait." said Shaun, acting like he had given up. "Before we do that, I have one condition. Swear that you'll follow them."

               "No way, kid!" the cane man scowled. "Tell us where you hid the journal, then we can talk about that condition."

               "But if we're to do that, how do I know I could trust you? If I showed you where I hid the journal, you might leave us for dead and push that button of yours. I think it's best that we discuss the condition first before I show you the journal." Shaun looked at the men's eyes. "After all, I'm just a boy. You two could easily kill me if I try anything funny." He waited for the two men to be baited. The two men exchanged whispers to each other, probably figuring out whether to do Shaun's conditions first or not. After a few minutes they both nodded.

               "I guess it wouldn't hurt to hear your terms." said the cane man. "So what are your terms, boy?"

               "I just want my dad, sister, and Persephone to get out of here. That's all. Nothing more, and nothing less."

                "Is that it, kid?" asked the cane man, looking very skeptical. Shaun nodded. The cane man didn't look convinced.

               "And what if those two girls spill the beans to anyone?" he asked.

               "Don't worry." said Shaun, keeping up his surrendered act. "They won't tell anyone. Now, are we going to find the journal or not?"



               They bought it. After the two kidnappers agreed to his terms, Shaun was given a minute to talk to Adelaide and Persephone before leading the men to the journal. He whispered to them that Oliver came to rescue them and what Shaun did was all a ploy to get them and his dad to safety. He also instructed them to act like they did before, sad and frightened, until they reach Oliver outside. The girls understood and wished Shaun luck before lifting the unconscious Thomas up and propped him on their shoulders. Shaun helped them a bit and he watched as they half carried, half dragged his father out the room and disappeared down the stairs. After they were gone, the two kidnappers turned to Shaun.

               "So," said the cane man. "lead the way." And so Shaun lead the two men out of his room, down the stairs, to the kitchen backdoor, and then along the path to the workshop. By the time they got there, the door was locked so Shaun used a discarded twisted piece of wire to pick the padlock, which Oliver had left. He activated the tumblers a few seconds later and opened the door.

               It looked empty without the Peryton inside. Shaun missed the plane so much, but he couldn't dwell on that now. Among the heaps of scrap metal and discarded machinery was something that could save his life. He just hoped it was there where he and Oliver left it.

               "It's among these heaps of materials." said Shaun and he lead the two men to a pile at a corner. The two men looked around the workshop, probably figuring out what it was used for. The mustachioed was the one who asked.

               "What exactly did your dad do in here?"

               "Actually it's mine. My dad gave it to me before he left to work in Granoden." answered Shaun. He didn't know why he was answering the kidnapper's question. Maybe because he would be killed by them soon or he will escape alive and tell them on the authorities. Either way, it didn't matter. "Me and my friend used it to build a working plane. Actually we restored my dad's old plane, a Herstellen G7N Fighter or commonly known as 'Bayonet'. Used by the Granazian pilots of the Unity during the Dogfight Wars. Of course we took out its machine guns since we have no real use of it anymore."

               "Then maybe you should reconsider." said the cane man ominously. "Soon fire and metal will rain down on SkyEarth."

               Shaun had no idea what he was talking about, but for some reason he felt a stinging chill of fear and dread running up his spine, making him shudder. Then he remembered that the town of Hawthorn, which was way up north from here, had been bombed. And then there was this client the two creeps were talking about. Somehow those things were connected, and he shuddered to think of what it's connected to.

               They arrived at the corner pile. It's all just a bunch of spare parts, failed parts, rusted parts, and parts Shaun and Oliver didn't even know they had. Aside from those things, a Herstellen G7N Fighter machine gun was propped up to make it look like it's aimed at Shaun and the two men. When the two men saw the machine gun, at first they were scared out of  their wits for fear of being shot repeatedly by it, but then they took a closer look and realized it was dead and unarmed. Shaun would've laughed, but decided not to or else he'll get another whack from the cane man's cane.

               Speaking of the cane man, he asked, "So, is the journal somewhere in that pile?"

               "Yes." Shaun confirmed. "It's somewhere in that pile. Only I know where I put it so I'll find it." The men didn't disagree, so Shaun started throwing bits of parts and scrap metal away. He wished he had gloves because he cut his hand while handling a strange looking machine part with sharpened edges. Thankfully it's not rusted, or he would have acquired tetanus. It was strenuous work, but pretty soon he found what he needed. He just needed to find a window of opportunity.

               "Um I don't even get your names." said Shaun. The two men looked at each other like they were having a quiet mental conversation. They nodded, thinking it wouldn't matter in the end since they were planning on killing the boy.

               "We're the Schmidt Brothers." said the cane man. "My name is Werner and my associate slash younger brother is Kai."

               "Infamous hitmen hailed from the impoverished ghettos of Granoden." said the mustachioed man, Kai, proudly. "We do are work exceptionally."

               "Oh okay." said Shaun, holding the object with his two hands. He hoped that he wouldn't make a mistake, or else it would be his last. Shaun steeled himself, took a deep breath and exhaled.

               "So uh, why are you two wearing sunglasses when it's night time? Because it's kinda weird and unusual." he said.

               "So?" said Werner. "You suggest we take 'em off?"

               "I don't see any harm in taking them off." said Shaun. Werner looked suspicious, but decided to take them off. He had dark brown eyes like black coffee. His brother followed his example, and his eyes were also dark brown.

               Either those two were very confident or very stupid. It won't matter to Shaun once he used Oliver's old machine. He hoped it's still malfunctioned.

               He quickly turned around, a large wooden box with a circular lens on it and a lightbulb on top in hand. The two men weren't able to process what the fourteen year old was holding when Shaun, eyes closed, pushed a button. There was a bright white flash, followed by the sound of a shutter. Werner and Kai had their hands over their eyes, screaming in pain and agony. They were blinded by the camera's flash, and a black and white photo came out of the camera's horizontal slit like a mouth of a box-headed cyclops.

               "You little punk!" cried Werner, wandering aimlessly and cursing angrily. "You tricked us!"

               "Once we see again, we'll definitely kill you!" yelled Kai and he tripped and fell to the floor by a random toolbox.

               "Sorry." said Shaun as he took the photo from the camera. "I'm afraid there will be no killing tonight."

               "Oh yeah? You think you're so confident?" Werner brought the button remote out of his pocket, but before he could push it, Shaun made him tripped. Werner dropped the remote to the floor and Shaun kicked it away. He soon regretted it when Kai unknowingly pushed the button by crushing it with his foot.

               Shaun cursed. The whole workshop shook and rattled by a loud booming sound. No doubt whatever bombed the town of Hawthorn, it'll come for Easthaven. He looked atthe stumbling men. Shaun and Oliver had experienced it before. It took them a few minutes to recover, and after experiencing life as a blind person for the first tim, they swore to never to use it again. It came in handy in stunning your persuers, but with the inevitable coming, he couldn't just let those two die, even though they're killers.

               "Listen!" said Shaun to the two blind men. "It'll wear off in a few minutes, and by then you must flee the town fast!"

               "Don't you think we know that?!" yelled Werner as he stumbled near a workbench.

               "Just get out of here! Quick!" said Shaun, and he left the workshop where he bumped into Oliver.

               "Ow!" cried Oliver who landed on the ground with his bum. "No need to tackle me!"

               "Oliver!" cried Shaun and he helped Oliver stand up. "Oliver, it worked! Those two goons are stunned for now!"

               "That's great!" Oliver swatted his bum from dirt. "And I got the girls safely out of town along with our families and the rest of the town. They're in the valley, up in Windmill Hill, waiting for us!"

               "Right! We need to get outta here!" said Shaun and the two dashed their way through Wistoria Avenue, but when they got to the abandoned Pavilion, Cadafalch Place exploded and burst into flames. The powerful force of the shock wave knocked the two boys off their feet and the loud crashing and booming sounds sent waves of pain through their ears, which left them deaf ringing ears. They didn't need any prompting to know to get out of Easthaven as fast as they could lest the fire and metal will consume and kill them.

               Shaun and Oliver managed to regain their composure and continue running. All around them, buildings exploded, showering them in dust, brick, and splintered wood. They had to cover their heads with their hands as they run. Sure it won't protect them from being bonked on the head by debris, but it helped them feel safe a bit. As the bombs detonate, fiery orange and red light bathed the night. The explosions were so loud and powerful it made the two boys stumble and fell but they quickly got to their feet and continued their run. But then things started going south.

               Fire blocked their exit, Fire also blocked the path where they came from. They were trapped in a ring of inferno, and there's no way out.

               Shaun cursed. Oliver fell to his knees. They were covered in scratches, scorch marks and bruises from head to toe. Their formal attire had been torn from being pelted with debris. But that's the least of their worries as they were forced to inhale the toxic smoke that will soon suffocate them to death.

               Shaun looked around. There's no way out, he already knew that. But then he looked up and saw what's been dropping bombs.

               It's a bit large to be a passenger airship and a bit  small to be those commercial airhips that carry heavy loads of shipment. It looked like a long cigar-shaped zeppelin. He could see the lines of rigid structure, the cannon turrets and machine guns in the gondola, and the inside of the bomb bay, but strangely it's not the bombs or weapons that terrified him. What terrified him was what's on the airship.

               It was a heraldic logo of a gryphon with a feather-plumed lion's tail like the deity of the northen nation of Ensis, but the gryphon's color was balck instead of metallic grey, and instead of holding a standard flag of a winged-tree in it's claws, it held a guisarme. Not only that, a black Clerestory font S was branded on the shield/shoulder guard of the black gryphon. Shaun knew that logo well. He'd seen it in history books. The logo was prominently known to inspire fear and terror across SkyEarth, and it had cost the lives of millions of innocents.

               "No." quietly said Shaun, shocked and afraid of what he was seeing. "It couldn't be..." It might've been the smoke causing him to see things. He didn't know whether it was real or a hallucination, but his moment of ultimate disbelief and confusion was short lived when he felt strong arms wrapped around his waist, and the contact shocked Shaun back to reality. He looked at the owner of the arms and saw that it was his dad, Thomas.

               "Never scare me like that, okay?" said Thomas as he looked at his son. He nodded meekly and said nothing. Clearly his son's in shock and needed to get away from here.

               "What about Oliver?" asked Shaun, and he looked at Oliver, who was picked up by a large man with reddish auburn hair. Probably Oliver's dad.

               "Don't worry." said Thomas. " Duffin will get him out of here safely, as I will do to you." He looked at Duffin MacDuff, who cradled his half-conscious son in his arms. Duffin nodded and the two dads carried their sons out of their inferno.

               Shaun's vision was a blur. Colors of fire and night blurred and blended. His ears were still ringing but h could hear the muffled sounds of screams, gasps, and urgent voices. He could distinctly feel the grass and dirt on his back and hear his mother and sister crying, Persephone looked like she's about to be blown off by the wind like smoke or mist. The only person who looked clear and solid was the ghost Melody. She looked sad, but serious. In her hands was the jewelry box where the journal was contained. How she dug it out from Shaun's hiding place, a hole in front of the windmill, he didn't know or how it was possible, but Melody put a finger on his mouth.

               "No need to talk, Shaun." said Melody, her green eyes meeting his half-opened ones. "You need rest. Soon you'll find out the importance of the journal's contents. All I want from you is for you to get better. Once you wake up, your life will change." She made a gesture with her hands. It looked like she was drawing a seven pointed star in the air, and it made Shaun sleepy.

               He closed his eyes, and went into deep sleep.