The warm rays of the sun peaked over the tall grey walls of the outpost, creeping their way over Barak’s face, shining down on him, He squeezed his eyes together, the slight burn from the sun causing him to wake, he wiped his hand over his eyes rubbing them open, The next morning after an all nigh party was always the worst, he sat up, finding himself on the same bench that he had been drinking at with Zach and Bard, Next to him on another bench was Polaris, passed out and using a wooden jug to cuddle with as he slept, he glanced around the sleep still lingering in his eyes, But he couldn’t find Levant or Aster anywhere in the training area, he realized zach and Bard were also gone, but besides that many of the rebels had found somewhere to pass out or sleep, he pushed himself up from the wooden bench, steadying himself as he stood, he could still feel thee grogginess of the alcohol from last night, he made his way to a large Barrel, stepping over many of the sleeping rebels to get to it, it had been a barrel filled with ice, courtesy of Polaris, but now all that ice had been mostly melted, leaving the water mildly cold, he took the wooden Ladle sitting in a notch at the top of the barrel and dipped out some of the water, he stepped away and splashed it on his face to fully wake himself, after that he made his way to the staircase that led to the top of the wall, soon barak was sitting atop the wall lookin out over the sea of trees, he noticed a few broken and leaning ones a little ways off but thought nothing of it, he took out a joint from his pants pocket, it had been one he had from last night, he patted his pants pockets for a his metal flint lighter,

“where is Lev when I need him”, he said, finding the lighter on his calf pocket, he lit the end of the joint exhaling the smoke into the air,

 

Back inside the base

Levant rolled over onto his side, rubbing one of his eyes open, where he was met with the sight of a hand next to him, and a large curly afro, he looked up at the woman next to him, he met her eyes, her beauty sent his mind blank, she had a cigarette in her mouth but it was unlit,

“well this is definitely a good morning”, Levant said, propping up his head on his hand, taking in her beauty,

“good morning to you to”, she said with a small chuckle and a smile on her face, she was covered with a sheet from the chest down, and on her chest was a gold necklace with a pendant on it, that looked like a shield with a diamond in the middle, that stood out to lev

“I take it we both had fun last night”, Levant said,

“yes we did, but I believe I had a lot more fun than you”, she said her eyes trailing down levants body,

“well I’m glad I could please you…ahh”, levant paused,

“Tessia, my name is tessia”, she answered,

“tessia, well I hate to do this but I’ll be off”, Levant said, swinging his feet off of the bed, only to be met with the loud noise of glass rolling into each other, levant looked down at the foot of the bed seeing that it was full of  many many bottles of what he assumed had once had alcohol in them, he looked around the room, they were the only two in there, and it was definitely the room that Yumi had given to the boys sleep in,

‘did everyone else sleep outside’, levant thought to himself, levant rummaged around looking for his pants and shirt,

“you know, you’re an interesting person, I’ve never seen eyes quite like yours”, Tessia said, laying on her side looking at levant,

“besides I gave you my name, but you didn’t give me yours”, she continued, Levant had finished buckling his belt, he slung his grey shirt over his shoulder, partially blocking out a diagonal scar he had running from the base of his neck to his shoulder,

“Names Levant, but my friends call me Lev”, Levant answered turning around to face her,

“what is it you find interesting about my eyes anyways ? ”, Levant asked, holding his palm upright trying to summon his weapons,

“well it’s not everyday I come across someone with scarlet eyes like yours, only things you see with those kind of eyes are the demon kin”, Tessia said,

“well no need to worry if I’m a demon in disguise or anything like that”, Levant answered, both of his weapons flying from under the bed into both of his hands, he put them into the waist holders attached to his belt, he snapped his fingers and the end of Tessia’s cigarette lit up then died down,

“that’s the reason my eyes are red, are atleast that’s wht I’ve been told”, Levant said, walking towards the door,

“well I hate to leave so quickly, but hopefully I’ll see you after this tessia”, Levant said walking through the door, he made his way through the base, he walked through the endless corridors, a very tiring yawn escaped his mouth,

“that’s the last time I’m letting a girl distract me for the entire night”, he said out loud to himself,

‘ id on’ know why, but she didn’t seem like one of the regular rebels and then theres her pendant, it looked familir, but I can’t tell from where’, he let a deep sigh,

“ohh so she kept you distracted all night now did she”, Aster said, throwing his arm around Levant’s shoulders, and letting out a small chuckle,

Levant jumped at the sudden appearance of aster,

“ you say that but where did you now appear from, you ducked out of the party last night”, Levant questioned as he looked at aster,

Both boys began to laugh at each other,

as they walked down the corridor Aster felt something tug on his hoodie sleeve, both of them stopped and Aster looked behind him, there stood his old friend , that he met last ight,

“ohh seems like we both had the same idea last night”, levant said jokingly to aster,

“nope she’s an old friend, she’s actually from Arteva just like us”, Aster explained,

“so what happened that you were looking for me”, Aster asked her,

“well I finished what we were working on so I thought that you would like to see it”, she said In a rather soft spoken voice,

“ I swear skipping partying to work on a project what the hell is wrong with you Aster”, Levant said to himself,

“hmm, okay lets go”, Aster answered,

but before he could move levant loudly cleared his throat, stopping aster dead in his tracks,

“oh right Brie this is Levant, Levant this is Brie”, Aster said quickly introducing them,

“well now that that’s out of the way, what is it that you two were working on ​”, levant asked,

“it’s easier to show you rather than tell you”, Aster said as he followed Brie back down the corridor that they now came,

“fine then” Levant said, shrugging his shoulders, following th other two down the corridor,

Back Outside

Barak was still siting atop the wall, behind him he could tell that many of the rebels were starting to get up from their long night of partying, but he kept sitting where he was, immersed deep in his thoughts, his memories flooded back to his childhood, or at least what he thought to be the end of his childhood,

the village had been raided, houses were on fire, his house was on fire, he could hear weapons clashing all around him, he began to run all around looking for his mother, his father, any of his siblings, he heard noises coming from the courtyard, he rushed there, Only to find his father in center of the commotion along with the elders of the clan, he couldn’t see what was happening clearly but he could hear,

“you’re the reason for this”, the voice shouted above the crowd,

“this is senseless violence, our clans don’t have to fight each other over this”, Barak recognized this voice, it was his father’s,

“you see it fit to steal another man’s wife, but fear the consequences of what would happen, she was not only my wife but the matriarch of our clan, YOU have not only slighted me with this transgressions but our clan in it’s entirety”, the voice roared,

“I admit I knew what I was doing but so did she, so take our elders offer and just take me, leave my clan out of this, leave here with my life gone and your honor and dignity intact”, Barak’s father strongly pleaded,

“HONOUR, DIGNITY, you should’ve thought about that before you disrespected our entire clan, with your tainted blood”, The voice retorted,

“NO, you still have your honour and dignity if you stop this act of revenge with me, if you proceed with this you and everyone that followed you here are a disgrace to your clan”, Barak’s father shouted,

“and what do you know of our families name or honor, Or even yours, You have disgraced your own family by producing a child with another woman, a married woman at that”, The voice shouted,

Chaos had erupted, the crowd roared with shouting as the invaders ferociously attacked, someone shouted out, ”maria and her pack of hounds are here, boss lets go before she catches us,

“no not before I take from him what he took from me”, the voice shouted, The next thing barak knew his mother was rushing him into their house to take shelter from the hail of arrows that rained outside, after that night, barak felt a piece of him, a piece of him that made him feel whole, made him feel human, die,  two years later barak had left the village snuck out without anyone knowing, well almost anyone, Aster had found him at he gates of the village when he was sneaking out, sometime after all three of them, levant Polaris and aster had found where he was staying, and frequently came to visit him, Barak shed a tear at the thought of the painful memory that had resurfaced, he closed his eyes and wiped away the tear, looking down inside the training area he noticed he lost sight of Polaris, he made his way down from on the wall and headed inside of the base

Back with Aster and Levant

The three made their way through the narrow pathway of metal boxes, eventually making it out,

“you really need to clean up in here”, Levant commented,

“wasn’t me that made the mess, it was yumi”, Brie retorted,

“that actually makes a lot more sense now that I think about it”, Aster chimed in,

“anyways lets get down to business”, Brie stated,

the three of them walked to a large table that stood in middle of all of the mess of confusion, and on it laid a set of armor,

“okay so it’s armor”, Levant said in a sarcastic tone,

“nope it’s not just armor, turns out that the giant I captured and had Kwanae analyze came in use, though I did tell him not to tell anyone”, Aster said,

“what the hell are you talking about”, Levant questioned,

Aster held up and let out a disappointed sigh,

“ I had my friend kwanae analyze the giant I captured, and it turns out his body is extremely well made, naturally I mean of course, and he enlisted the help of Brie here”, Aster explained,

“uh huh go on”, Levant said,

“turns out the giants are able to live about five to six times longer than us humans, every last one of his cells are extremely dense and along with his bones and muscle, not only that but they can draw out one hundred per cent of all the nutrients from the food they eat not one shred is wasted, but the real prize was there blood they have such high levels of iron in their blood that we were able to figure out a way to bond it to metal, though I wonder how they process that much iron through their bodies”, Aster continued on his rant,

“Aster get back on track”, brie said,

“right so basically they couldn’t figure out which metal the blood would bond to easily and for a long period of time but luckily with me there able to bend and mold the metal we were able to complete it”, Aster concluded,

“okay so basically it blood armor”, Levant said,

“yup but this armor is super durable and it shouldn’t be able rust or corrode and from what we’ve tested if you heat it up it will self repair”, Brie started to explain,

“wait, it self repairs through heat, Aster, I hope you’re not planning to”, Levant said,

“no, no I won’t use it against you, hell it would be perfect for you but I’m pretty sure with you flames intensity it would last as half as long, you’d burn through it way to fast”, Aster said,

“anyways enough of all the science talk, we made it according to yumi’s size so that she can back us up with fighting Aluric, plus its something he shouldn’t be able to copy”, brie stated,

“the only other problem I have with this is that you experimented on a giant, a person, an intelligent being”, Levant stated,

“oh come one Levant don’t go growing a saintly conscience on me now”, Aster stated,

“I’ve always had this saintly conscience, you just didn’t notice it”, Levant retorted,

“you mean it was hidden under all of the sarcasm, violence and general womanizing you do”, Aster said,

“plus they tried to kill us first, and as they say all is fair in love and war”, Aster pleaded,

“ it’s scary how twisted your sense of right and wrong becomes when it comes to you tinkering with shit like this”, Levant said,

“dude you killed two of them, at least this one is still alive, I think”, Aster said chuckling slightly,

“ how the hell did they even get into contact with each other ?”, Levant asked,

“I’m Glad you asked, Comm crystals usually have to use a Large central crystal within a specified area to be able to communicate, but a decade ago when a rare dungeon popped up a subtype of comm crystal appeared in that dungeon, unlike the comm crystals that can grow and develop into varying shapes and colors, these crystals that were called spirit crystals were almost completely clear and wee always found to have a pyramid like construction to them, however only a few hundred of them were  brought out of the dungeon, Dracht posses around thirty of them”, Brie explained,

“okay, the history lesson is all well and good but what do they do”, Levant asked,

“oh simple, you can send things through them, but it can’t be larger than the crystal, not to mention the natural network they run on is nowhere near as stable as the standard comm crystals, I lucked out running across Kwanae a few months ago and his is the only spirit crystal that mine’s been locked onto since then”, brie finished explaining,

somewhere Else

Yumi opened her eyes to find Aluric sleeping in a chair across from her.