The Dawn of Destruction, Chapter 19 (Clean)

                               The Dawn of Destruction

Interitus 1 – Book One

            Chapter Nineteen

 

            “What are you guys planning to do to me?! I promise, I’m harmless!”

            With his head tilted in confusion, Seth stared at a woman who bore a deep resemblance to Naomi. She stood with her back pressed against the cave wall, her legs shaking from anxiety. And though Seth was distracted by her familiar appearance, Zheng and Felix stood at the mouth of the cavern. She furiously stared at her captors, but her hands were tied behind her back. Astonished that they had captured her, Seth chuckled and shook his head. He then glanced outside of the cavern and watched Felix’s dog. The creature happily bounded along the mountainside, unconcerned with the situation.

            “How did you even catch her?” Seth asked.

            “That’s just the thing! This one does not have any powers. The others do; that’s why they’re all elsewhere. We found her in the ashy field outside the church! I figured we could get some information out of her,” Felix explained.

            “It’s not fair; my powers were stolen from me! I was supposed to be with my sisters,” the girl said with a quiver in her voice.

            “Who took your powers?” Seth asked while the dog approached the cave opening.

            “I don’t know! When we were flying away from the cathedral, I felt something sharp, like in my stomach! I didn’t know what was going on, so I got scared. My body started to seize, and then I fell all the way down! There was another girl, and… she looked like my sisters, but her face was different. I saw her fly away with the others, but I couldn’t go with! Not anymore. Nobody noticed. I lost my Creation! And then these scary guys found me,” she explained, motioning toward Felix and Zheng.

            Seth took a moment to ponder as he listened to her words. With one glance at Zheng’s face, Seth knew that the story had confounded him as well. Then again, no one seemed to entirely understand the way that Naomi had split into different people. Though whether she meant to or not, this defective piece of Naomi had just confirmed that the others possessed the power of Creation.

            “May you give us reason why Naomi seeks the death of all?” Zheng asked.

            “I don’t really know. I think that information belongs to my sisters: Malevolence, Anguish, and Intelligence. They seem to be the strongest of her guardians. I am Trepidation; they don’t even know I was left behind! I hope the sisters are alright without me… and I hope they get me out of here.”

            While Seth silently remarked on the way that she acted more human than expected, he realized that she was starting to notice the same in him. They both knew terribly little about the situation. However, Zheng and Felix knew that this belief would not help them extract information. They feared it could lead her to possibly give false information.

            “I notice you suddenly relax. Why?” Zheng said.

            “Well… aren’t you three going to let me live since I’m no threat?”

            “That all depends on you. Tell me where your sisters went,” Seth demanded, cracking the knuckles on his right hand.

            “I might as well tell you, but only because you three are too weak to stop them anyway. Everyone is too weak to stop them. My sisters planned to Create a small island off the coast of San Diego, far enough that it can’t be seen from shore. That part was my idea! A place to regroup and come up with a plan. But even if you can make it that far, it’d be too dangerous for you three to take them on. And I’m not just saying that because I scare easily! I think the best thing to do, I think the only thing you can do, is run and hide on some unknown corner of the planet. Somewhere my sisters won’t find you. I think that’s the only chance you have, and I’m just being honest.”

            Felix motioned toward the exit, indicating that he wanted a private conversation with his allies. As the three allies and the dog exited the cave opening at the foot of the mountain, Zheng turned to face the west.

            Seth said, “I think we should attack immediately, ‘cause every second we waste is a chance for the Naomi pieces to come up with some kinda battle plan. And besides, I’m pretty sure all of the sisters are probably weaker than Naomi, like her power got cut into pieces. It only makes sense, since she couldn’t use temperature Creation after giving it to Felix. So if we can take out some of those pieces, she might be weaker when she regroups. Let’s hurry!”

            Felix and Zheng nodded in agreement, though Felix motioned that he needed a little privacy. Seth watched suspiciously as Felix took out his phone with his left hand. He was still not used to using this hand, and bandages covered the stump of his right arm. He made a phone call as he walked deeper into the cave, but Seth overheard him ask for a ride over to the coast. Seth also heard some mention of jet skis. As Felix closed his phone and awkwardly placed it into his right pocket with his left arm, he called Skipper over and bent down to the dog’s level.

            “Skipper, if I don’t come back in a few days, I want you to chew through her ropes and find a new owner. You’re my best friend, and you are my gift from God. If I can’t make it home, I want to give a gift of equal fortune to someone else,” Felix whispered to his pet.

            Zheng, on the other hand, appeared confident in the face of opposition. His resilience reflected the cold discipline he had gained from eight years in the astral plane. Seth figured by his contemplative stare that Zheng was mentally preparing for the coming battle. His body had already repaired itself from the stab wounds Naomi inflicted, leaving little damage outside of a few faint marks. However, Felix wore his uncertainty on his face. While his thermodynamic power was not weakened by the injuries he had sustained, he was still coping with losing an entire extremity. Seth wonder if Felix still felt like he had God’s support or even His permission, but he did not question it. Felix was too strong of an ally to risk losing.

As Seth tried to determine Felix and Zheng’s confidence levels, he realized that he was the most anxious of them all. Because he had fought against Naomi before anyone else, he knew that she could turn defeat into torture. He knew they would never win unless their attack was perfectly premeditated. To make matters worse, she had become much more fearsome than one girl with the power of Creation; she now had eight or nine conduits, depending on the allegiance of the one who consumed Trepidation’s powers. The best-case scenario was a campaign against an eight-headed monster. This was not a crusade; it was a kamikaze mission at best and suicide at worst.

            Shaken from his contemplations, Seth glanced around when Felix nudged him. He noticed that a large van with a solemn driver had arrived at the foot of the mountain. The driver slowly rolled down the window and spoke to Felix in Spanish. Felix replied in the same language, and then the back doors of the vehicle clicked open. The driver awkwardly motioned to Zheng and Seth to join Felix in the back.

            “Seth, I am not so familiar with language they speak. Is it something you and I are meant to understand?” Zheng quietly asked.

            “They’re speaking Spanish, I think. They’ll tell us anything we need to know.”

            As Seth climbed into the van, he wondered if Phil would make any politically incorrect jokes from hearing Felix’s conversation. As Seth laughed quietly to himself, Zheng climbed into the back and then closed it. The van slowly started rolling along the winding streets between the foothills. As he glanced out the window, Seth found himself unimpressed by the mountains, though he figured this was because he had just been in the Himalayas. As his mind slipped to that memory, he recalled his uphill battle with Phil against Felix, noting that their alliances had shifted quickly; he wondered if he would actually be able to depend on Felix in the coming hours.

            “This doesn’t have to be a suicide mission, guys, and I’m not just saying that because that crazy bitch scares the hell outta me. I think we should really think about this tactically, ya know? We can rush the sisters, kill some of them guerilla-style, and try to escape before they fight back. We could really weaken them if we do it well, so what do you think?” Seth asked.

            “I like the idea, but I don’t know if it’d really do any good. What would stop the remaining girls from recreating the ones we kill?” Felix asked.

            “Well… I guess I don’t have any evidence of this, but I really, really think that she had to divide herself to make all those doppelgangers. It does make sense, I mean, she lost her thermal Creation power after she gave it to you. I feel like each sister probably has one-ninth of the full force of Creation, so if we kill two of them, she’ll only be at seven-ninths power,” Seth reasoned.

            “We must stay reactive, and vigilant! We go in with mindset of the guerilla, but we must be prepare for sudden switch to total execution. In case we get the chance,” Zheng added.

            “Agreed. Say, Felix, is that guy a friend of yours? The one driving us.”

            “No, no, he is my brother. I had asked for his help when I tried to fight you and Naomi, but he is a pacifist. He insists that God shall see the evil away Himself,” Felix explained.

            “Just curious, and I know this is probably a little awkward coming from me, but I’ve wondered since we fought the first time. Do you think that God can’t carry out His own plan?” Seth asked.

            Without pondering at all, Felix said, “I believe that God works through many different instruments. In this situation, we are the instrument He has chosen to protect the world. That’s why I know I have His protection. But as far as you and your Destruction go… I think I will leave that up to Him for now. I know that this may seem complicated, but to get right down to it, I trust you. At least, I think I do.”

            Seth gave an appreciative smile, but because of his prevailing anxiety, he instinctively jumped when the car drove over a small pothole. Zheng and Felix laughed lightly to themselves, but Seth did not feel embarrassed. The tremor in their laughs revealed their own anxiety. As he quickly raised his head to look forward, a light from the windshield blinded him; he could see the reflection of the sunlight on the water in the distance. His pupils started to contract and adjust to the light, but he knew that the brightness was deceptive. He knew that something treacherous lay beyond the horizon; they all knew it. This sunny weather would do nothing to protect them in the coming battle.

            After a short while, the van parked a short distance from the side of the road. The back doors clipped open, and the three allies stepped out onto the warm sand. They looked up and saw three jet skis waiting at the edge of the ocean. Felix spoke to his brother briefly again, and while Seth could not translate everything, he recognized the words for God, thanks, daughter, and death.

            Seth, Felix, and Zheng slowly walked toward the jet skis that were half-parked in the water. They placed their shoes on the sand and then dipped their feet in the ocean. Seth stayed silent, contemplating the prospect of fighting against Naomi on a jet ski. After a few seconds, Zheng effortlessly pushed his jet ski until it floated on its own. He then walked back to help Felix, since the weight of the machine proved to be too much for the one-armed man. When they all assembled in the cold water of the Pacific Ocean, they wrestled with the jet skis so that they could board from the water. Seth quickly realized that none of them had operated a jet ski in the past.

            Despite his unfamiliarity, Seth quickly figured out how to drive the jet ski. When he got up to speed, the ocean wind charged through every loop in his short afro. Every second on the jet ski felt exhilarating; every wave became a ramp on which he could fly over the saltwater for seconds at a time.

Seth steered his jet ski between oncoming waves at an exhilarating speed; it was a white-knuckled battle between the jet ski’s engine and the force of water resistance. In the past, Seth had always seen jet skis as a rich man’s toy; he never even considered using one as a vehicle in a fight against Naomi. It almost felt like they were riding into a battle where the horse was more valuable than the fighter atop it. After all, if they lost their jet skis, they would likely drown far from the shore of San Diego. For that reason, Seth decided to exercise more caution, but he continued to jump the big waves.

            As Seth reached the summit of another large wave and jumped into the air, he saw a thirteen-foot wave barreling toward him.

            “Full speed ahead!” Zheng shouted from a short distance.

            When Seth’s jet ski crashed into the water near the foot of the next wave, he had no time to veer away. Therefore, he accelerated so that he could jump the wave before it started breaking. Seth charged upward at an exhilarating speed, but gravity and drag quickly tried to pull him down. The peak of the wave started to break, and Seth had no way to make it in time if he kept pushing forward. Seth suddenly veered the jet ski ninety degrees and thrust his left hand into the water. He Destroyed the wave’s energy and forced the water to become still. This let his jet ski fly over the top of the towering wave, only a short distance behind his friends.

As he sailed through the air, falling back toward the ocean’s surface, Seth saw that that was the last of the large waves. The ocean was calm, and there was a thin sandbar to his right. Seth shouted to his allies and pointed toward the long sandbar, noting that it might be Naomi’s hideout. Seth, Felix, and Zheng all veered their jet skis toward the sand, but they decelerated as they approached the sandy island. The blue-green water sparkled beneath the sunlight. A dark cloud crawled across the western sky, growing quickly.

            “You guys wait back here. I’ll step onto the sand in case it’s a trap. I could probably Destroy a trap or ambush if there is one. I’m kinda good at defense,” Seth said, receiving an affirmative nod from Felix and Zheng.

            About thirty feet from the sand, Seth climbed off his jet ski and stepped into the waist-high saltwater. Despite its uncomfortable temperature, the touch of the ocean felt refreshing. The underwater sand was smooth and untouched. As he walked closer to the dry sand, he felt welcomed by this small island; it was certainly not one of Naomi’s sterile creations.

            Seth looked back to shore from the island, noticing that he could barely see the San Diego skyline. Cumulus clouds hung over the city, but they were larger and darker in the west. These ominous clouds forced the sunlight to fade, and they were possibly a sign of Creation’s lair. As Seth watched the dynamic sky, he saw two different cells of dark clouds creep toward each other. One began to block out the sun, and because the top of the cloud eclipsed a powerful light, it appeared darker than ever before.

This caused a curtain of shadow to drop upon the farthest end of the sandbar. The curtain intensified both in darkness and speed; the shadow cast by the storm quickly approached Seth. He stopped watching the sky and jogged back toward his jet ski as the shadow crept across the island. In just a few seconds, Seth ran at full speed through the shin-high water until the darkness overtook him. At this same time, Seth stumbled into deeper water where he tripped and fell into the ocean. As he lay momentarily with his face buried in the underwater sand, he turned his head and opened his blue eyes in the stinging saltwater. The water, which had glowed with an aquamarine color, now reflected the overcast skies. He lifted himself into a crouch and saw that Felix and Zheng were concerned with the storm.

            The rising storm would invariably complicate the upcoming fight, but Seth figured he could use it to hide his approach. Seth stared at the black clouds in the sky, knowing that thunder would soon crash and winds would soon roar. In the meantime, he ignored the tempest and climbed onto his jet ski. He started the engine and accelerated toward the west with Felix and Zheng behind him. The waves began growing from the wind. In just a couple minutes, it became necessary for the three friends to surf diagonally along the waves just to dodge each turbulent break.

            But the waves were not the only obstacle; the gusts became strong enough to obstruct the jet ski’s speed. In one precarious instance where Seth reached the top of a monstrous wave, a powerful gust struck the jet ski and pulled him beneath the wave’s breaking point. The breaking wave engulfed Seth and his jet ski, and then it slammed them underwater; Seth spiraled downward at a dizzying speed. Disoriented by the spin, Seth could not tell which way was up. Therefore, he grabbed the jet ski as it moved in some indeterminate direction, merely hoping that it would float instead of sink. Furthermore, Seth clung to the jet ski because the ocean would likely kill him without it.

            The overturned jet ski surfaced just before Seth had to take a breath of saltwater. But as soon as he inhaled and glanced out front, he saw the next large wave barreling toward him. Knowing that he would not have time to board his jet ski, Seth sighed and grabbed the wheel. The wave crashed down upon him for a second time, and as he was thrown into the depths, saltwater smothered his face. Between this wave and the last, it had been almost forty-five seconds since Seth had taken a full breath.

            “Hey man, you can’t let some dumb-ass storm kill you; I teached you betta than that! Those are some big-ass waves, you right. But don’t be ‘fraid to go up into the wave, man. Don’t forget about Bernoulli’s Principle—there’s less pressure where them big-ass waves is moving fastest. Just gotta tilt yo angle of attack, and it’ll push yo fat-ass up. Don’t give up,” Phil’s voice said into Seth’s mind.

            Seth knew it was crazy to trust the voice in his head, but given the danger of drowning underwater, he decided there was nothing to lose. Therefore, while underwater, he lightly opened his stinging eyes so that he could see which direction was up. Just a half meter overhead, he saw a white layer of foamy water from the crashing wave. He tilted the jet ski up so that it crossed into this layer of high-speed water.

            Phil’s voice was absolutely right. The calm layer of water beneath the wave moved slowly, and therefore it had an intense pressure. However, the higher water flowed so swiftly that it had lower pressure. Because of this offset, an upward force pulled the jet ski up, and since Seth clung onto it, he quickly ascended through the foam toward the surface. This continued until he broke the surface at the last second before he would have had to breathe in water.

            Seth was still dazed from this detour, but the saltwater had not reopened any of the wounds on his chest and trapezius muscle. As he quickly steadied and boarded his jet ski, Seth realized that he had not been knocked off course by much; Felix was only a couple waves in front of him. However, this was still a cumbersome distance to cross, since two large waves barreled toward each other in between Seth and Felix. Seth tried to calculate the trajectory of the waves in his head, and then he realized that the two waves would crash together right on top of him. He tried to accelerate as much as his jet ski would allow, but he knew he had no way to escape in time.

            But then, the saltwater beneath Seth’s jet ski suddenly transformed into a narrow strip of ice between the waves. His jet ski slid along the ice at an incredible speed, unencumbered by water resistance. As a result, he narrowly dodged the torrential explosion of the two waves behind him.

            “Thank you so much, man! I couldn’t have made that without you!” Seth yelled to Felix over the howling wind.

            “You’re welcome, but keep your eyes on the water! I think I see the isle of the Creation sisters on the horizon,” Felix yelled back as he pointed into the distance.

            Dark clouds converged upon the distant island. Blackness stained the sky and the sea. Standing upon the sand were eight women who all bore a deep resemblance to Naomi. They locked eyes with Seth, Felix, and Zheng; it was clear from the start that they had already lost the element of surprise. And in that moment, like a turbulent mirror of the chaotic ocean, the billowing atmosphere diverged and unleashed an orchestra of rain and thunder.