Episode 17 Crimson Sky

Several rows of wooden desks, each with a child seated behind it, stand assembled in a schoolhouse, where a female teacher stands at the front, lecturing.

In the middle row of these desks sits a rather pale youth about twelve or thirteen years old, with wavy brown hair and deep, contemplative gray eyes. He and other boys sitting nearby smirk as he appears to be reading a textbook but is instead holding a dirty magazine.

Outside the window of the schoolhouse, the sky is a bright crimson, with stormy red clouds, as if the sky were bleeding from some anonymous wound.

“Zachary!” the young female teacher cries in a scolding manner.

Zack nonchalantly glances up, folding his magazine closed and replacing it in his pocket. The rest of the class stares in a hushed silence, watching the standoff between student and teacher.

“Please stay after class, Zachary,” the teacher mutters, “I’d like to speak with you.”

“Whatever,” Zack shrugs, picking up his pencil again and resuming with his notes.

The teacher sighs and returns to the front of the class, and starts writing on the blackboard with chalk. “Okay, class. Now we’ll continue with our unit on monsters that have been dubbed Class A Dangerous Monsters by the Myougun Government. Yesterday we went over Papulatus; today we’ll go over Paradoxes.”

The class suddenly falls into a silent reverie again, as each student strains to listen carefully to their teacher’s words, obviously anticipating this as an interesting lesson.

Zack remains haughty, determined to pay as little attention as possible. Very soon, his falls become droopy as he plays around with the pencil on his desk, and he begins to fall asleep.

“Now, class, can anyone please tell me how many classes of Paradox there are?” the teacher asks, glancing around the class. “Yes, Nicholas?”

“There’s fourteen different classes of Paradoxes categorized by their form and power,” Nicholas answers, as if reading a textbook.

“Correct,” the teacher replies happily.

“Ms. Ceres?” a girl asks suddenly, raising her hand.

“Yes, Alison?” Ms. Ceres asks politely, turning to the girl with her hand up.

“I heard that Paradoxes can turn into other monsters to disguise themselves. Is this true?” Alison asks, a tone of worry hidden in her voice.

“Yes, that’s true,” Ms. Ceres answers, “They—”

A loud snore suddenly interrupts the class, and all heads inside the schoolhouse turn to Zack, whose head is resting peacefully on his desk, drool pouring out from his open mouth as he snores.

Ms. Ceres shakes her head, slightly angrily this time, at Zack. “Zachary. Zachary…ZACHARY!”

Zack suddenly raises his head in alarm, and cries out in surprise. He wipes the drool off his mouth hurriedly and attempts to regain his composure. “Uhh…um…I’m sorry, Ms. Ceres! I just…” he trails off, unable to complete the sentence with a reasonable excuse.

Ms. Ceres shakes her head disappointedly. “Please pay attention, Zachary. Should you ever run into a Paradox, this information might even safe your life, or the life of someone precious to you.”

“Now, continuing from where I left off before we were interrupted, yes, it’s true. Paradoxes can take on the shape of virtually any other creature, but to do that it must first find a suitable body in which to inhabit. It then completely destroys the soul of the creature inside and assumes the body of that creature.

“This is a very rare occurrence, because once the Paradoxes assume an actual physical form, it makes them much weaker than opposed to stronger. This is usually only a method they use when hunting for more souls to shatter or if they are simply attempting to conceal themselves.”

“Then doesn’t that mean that whatever we run across could actually be a Paradox?” Nicholas cries in alarm.

“Yes, especially since this world that we live in, Rift, is home to many of our Paradox friends. That is why you must be especially careful when dealing with strange people or monsters, even if they seem completely harmless. However, there is one way in which you can tell if something is a Paradox, and it works one hundred percent of the time.”

“What is that?” a boy in the corner asks.

“It’s simple. Even when a Paradox takes on the form of something else, it still cannot hide the fact that it’s pupils are red. If you see anything with red pupils, then that is a definite sign it’s a Paradox.”

“What should we do if we run into a Paradox? They sound so scary…” Alison murmurs.

“If you ever run into a Paradox, run away and call an adult if you can. If you can’t, then remember to try not to provoke it, and as a last resort, if you must fight, then remember to strike it in the eye, because that is it’s weakest spot.”

A bell suddenly rings overhead, followed by groans of dissent from the various students. Zack sleepily follows the others as they rise from their seats, pack up, and depart the classroom.

As the other students leave, Zack trudges slowly up to his teacher. Ms. Ceres scowls down at him, though it is not a frown of anger or hatred.

“Zachary,” she murmurs, “why don’t you take an interest in our daily studies? Does the material that I teach bore you? I only teach you this because I want you to learn how to identify deadly monsters in the event that you are in a grave situation.”

“I’m sorry, Ms. Ceres,” Zack replies, “but it’s just that this stuff is really boring to me, y’know? I mean, why do we have to go and learn all this stuff that we’re never gonna use in our lives anyway? It just doesn’t interest me…”

“What I teach may not be the most interesting thing in the world, Zachary,” Ms. Ceres begins, “but what you’ll get out if it is far more important than whether or not you’re bored. I know it’s hard for someone like you, who prefers out of the ordinary fun, but please try to pay more attention in my classes, okay?”

Zack swallows hard, not daring to look his teacher in the eyes. Finally he nods, and mumbles, “Yeah, okay. I’m…I’m sorry, Ms. Ceres.”

“There we go,” Ms. Ceres grins, patting Zack on the head, “Just remember that what I’m teaching you is valuable information. You shouldn’t take it lightly.”

The air remains still as Zack trudges home by himself, his classmates, having left earlier than he, already departed from the empty streets. Overhead, the sky begins to darken as dusk sets in, and a shade of black storm clouds gathers in the sky, hinting at the approach of a storm.

Zack takes his time walking back home, pausing outside a small bakery where the delicious scent of fresh bread rings in the air. Finally, he leaves the bakery, his arms laden with paper bags of unnecessary treats.

Zack fails to notice as a light, misty fog surrounds the sky above, and trails slowly behind him. Finally, Zack returns to his home, a small brick building built in the slums of a forgotten kingdom under the shadow of the Castle of Kyreim.

Just outside the brick house in the dirt streets are two small children—a boy and a girl. They are sitting on the road huddled together, playing with their dolls in the middle of the road.

“Big Bro!” they cry, as they see Zack arriving in their midst.

A tall, bulky man wearing an apron peeps out from within the interiors of the home. “Zack! You’re back! Good, I need you to help out with dinner; I need you to go and bring back some apples from the orchard down the street.”

“Apples?” Zack mutters, coming to a stop at the threshold of his own home. “Sure, Dad, I’ll go get some apples for ya.”

“Don’t dawdle along the way, either!” Zack’s dad scolds, “Go there and come straight back with the apples! The weatherman said there’d be a Paradox storm tonight and it’s already getting awfully dark. Bring your brother and sister along with you to help pick those apples faster!”

“Sure, Dad, whatever,” Zack shrugs, nodding to his younger brother and sister. “Yo! Adam, May, let’s go get those apples! The faster we get outta there, the less Dad’s gonna yell.”

“Okay!” Zack’s brother and sister cry joyfully, and skip after Zack down the road toward an orchard, standing on a hill off in the distance.

As the three of them nonchalantly stride down the street, the fog about the air quickly begins to thicken, and the sky grows ever darker, blocking out the sun and the crimson sky overhead.

As Zack and his siblings arrive at the orchard, the two younger children hurry towards the trees, and clumsily clamber over the trunks in search of some ripe apples.

Zack lazily strides over to the nearest tree and nonchalantly picks any apple within his reach, not paying attention to the quality of the fruit. He calmly places each picked apple into a burlap sack until he has a fairly large collection.

Suddenly behind him, Adam shouts out, “Hey! Look May, a Lupin!”

“Oh my god!” May squeals, “It’s so cute!”

“Can we pet it, Big Bro?” Adam and May cry happily.

Zack shrugs, not bothering to turn back and face his siblings. “Yeah, sure. I don’t see why not.”

Zack resumes picking apples, not paying attention to his brother and sister, until May murmurs, “Wow! It’s getting pretty dark! This mist is so…”

With a flash of realization, Zack drops his sack of apples, and turns in absolute alarm around, only to watch as the Lupin morphs into a large, spider-like Paradox. It leers down at Zack’s younger siblings, rendering them immobile with intimidation.

Adam and May merely stand frozen to the spot, their eyes glued to the fearsome beast sitting on a branch before them. Zack jumps forward in surprise, and whips out a Wizard Staff, casting Magic Claw on the spot.

Zack’s projectile claws slash at the beast, and it falls to the floor, wriggling frenziedly. “We’ve taken too much time!” Zack mutters, serious for the first time in the journey.

At once, a clap of thunder tears across the sky, and as another thunderbolt illuminates the blackened sky, the clap of thunder following it explodes overhead, signaling the entrance of a fearsome dragonish creature.

The Dragon Paradox towers over them, its fangs bared as it leers hungrily down at the three children gathered under the apple orchard.

Zack shouts in alarm and hurriedly runs so he stands between the Paradox and his siblings, his arms outstretched to protect them. “Stay back!”

The Paradox merely swipes away Zack, throwing him into the trunk of a tree with the force of a battering ram. Zack cries out loud and coughs out blood, as he falls limply to the floor.

Meanwhile, the Paradox lowers itself, grinning at Adam and May. Zack cries feebly out loud, but remains immobile, paralyzed by the powerful attack of the Paradox.

Zack watches in horror as his siblings, defenseless, are ripped apart by the Paradox. Zack snaps his eyes shut, screaming in protest and agony at the sight before his own eyes.

All of a sudden, another roll of thunder bursts skyward, and without warning, Zack stops screaming as his entire mind goes blank.

Zack wearily opens his eyes, finding himself lying face down on the ground, his nose breathing in dirt. He raises his head from the floor, feeling an intense pain in his abdomen.

As his vision clears, Zack quickly realizes that it has become day again, and overhead the sky is as bright as ever, reflecting the bright red pallor of the Rift World heavens.

Standing in front of Zack is a cloudy-faced archer, glaring down at him as if in a silent reverie. Zack hurriedly notices the presence of his Hunter, and raises himself from the ground with difficulty, staring into the face of the Hunter.

“D-Did you save me?” Zack stammers.

“Yeah,” the Hunter replies. He inclines his head to his side, where Zack’s siblings lay silently in puddles of blood on the floor, their clothes soaked in blood, their faces splattered with blood.

However, Zack notices that their wounds had been treated, each tear in their young, supple flesh bound with bandages. “Did you save us…all?”

“Yeah,” the Hunter answers again.

Zack stares the Hunter in the eye, his expression resolute. “What is your name? I want to thank you.”

“I have no name,” the Hunter replies. He steps aside, and slowly trudges down the hill where the orchard stands. “They only call me Arayu.”

“Arayu…” Zack murmurs, “thanks.”

Whether by a trick of the light or because of some unknown power, Adam suddenly opens his eyes, dreadfully slowly, revealing a pupil red as blood, crimson like the blood-tainted sky above.

“Thank you, Arayu,” Zack mutters to himself, “If you hadn’t shown up that day, my brother and sister would be long dead. Now, it’s my turn to save them…to save them from this grief hovering over them…this thing called Paradox mutation.”

Zack shivers as if a cold breeze had blown by, but in reality no such breeze had occurred. He brushes back the hood of his cloak, and clasps his Kage still more tightly, turning away from the scene of confusion between the Joukai and the Reds below.

“Hey, kid. So your name is Alex, right?”

Next Time: Episode 18 The Rule of Boom

Arai: [chewing noise in background] Wow, wow! Amazing! So that was Zack’s past, eh?

Ryuu: Would you stop eating those damn cookies?!

Arai: Never!

Ayame: Next time bombs go off!

Arai: Boom!

Episode 18 The Rule of Boom coming soon!