The Esoteric Design Read online

  “My, my…aren’t we angry?” Euclid chuckled, slowly approaching the scarlet Sorcēarian.

  From behind Dovian came a flurry of shouts and the sound of weapons readying to fire. About twenty soldiers stood behind Dovian on the floor and platform with their guns at the ready and aimed at Euclid. The azure-robed Sorcēarian chuckled and shook his head. Two small flanks slowly descended the staircases on either side of Dovian, their assault rifles readied.

  “Is this your backup, Dovian?” Euclid smiled. Dovian remained in his crouching position, watching his opponent with glaring eyes.

  “Fire!” Kovacevic shouted from behind the group, his body guarding the small armored door leading to the reactor core. Euclid’s amused expression quickly fell.

  Dovian immediately lowered to the ground. An explosion of gunfire erupted, all ammunitions directed toward Euclid. A concussive shot, EMPs, and a couple of frag grenades were unleashed upon the madman. In seconds, the room was filled with smoke and glittering lights as ammunition ricocheted off the dark metal walls. Dovian’s eyes never left Euclid’s form. After a minute, the constant firing finally halted. They all stood in silence, at the ready, watching the clouds of smoke slowly clear to reveal Euclid still in one piece, his hand lifted with the palm out toward the army. Dovian could physically feel the disappointment and shock of the soldiers surrounding him. He, however, wasn’t surprised at all. In front of Euclid’s palm stood an invisible wall suspending hundreds of the tiny projectiles in place. The look on Euclid’s face was one of discontent, his breathing a little irregular as a bead of sweat dropped from his brow. Dovian frowned, knowing Euclid’s next step.

  “You think this can stop me?!” Euclid shouted angrily.

  Forcing his arm forward, the invisible wall protecting Euclid shoved all ammunitions back toward the army. Dovian shouted; his staff clanged against the grated metal floor and released a protective barrier around him as the bullets zipped by. In one second, the whole army backing Dovian was on the ground, their bodies penetrated by their own weaponry. With eyes gleaming in contrast to the charcoal-grey metal and bright reds of the emergency lights, Dovian matched Euclid’s cold stare.

  “You underestimate me, Dovian. You think your soldiers can stop me? You think the human army can stop me? Don’t you remember, Dovian? Surely you haven’t forgotten how weak the species is,” Euclid taunted as he teleported to a soldier on the floor, pressing his boot on the man’s throat. The soldier was choking on his own blood, his shaking hands gripping the black leather of Euclid’s boot. Dovian quickly rose to his feet just as Euclid smashed the man’s neck, crushing his airway.

  “Damn you, Euclid,” Dovian seethed.

  “I already am,” he said with a chuckle.

  Dovian assumed his fighting stance, at the ready with his staff held firmly in his hands. Slowly, he rounded toward another fallen militant. Euclid watched Dovian with disgust. Never tearing his eyes from Euclid’s, Dovian crouched and pressed his fingers against the soldier’s throat. There was a faint pulse, but the man was quickly dying. He rested a palm on the man’s chest where he was fatally wounded. One of Dovian’s black wings flickered to white, a stream of feathers dropping to the floor. Giving a small whisper, a tiny wave of blue light flooded from Dovian’s hand onto the man’s wound, the orb on his staff shimmering with matching luminosity.

  “You can’t heal them all,” Euclid sneered.

  “No, but I can try to save them.” Dovian stood. The soldier beside him gasped for air, his eyes widening. As he caught his awareness, he rolled to the side and aimed his rifle at Euclid. “Leave him to me,” Dovian said lowly to the man. “You tend to your comrades.”

  The soldier nervously licked his lips, giving an unsure look at Dovian and then Euclid. After a quick deliberation, he turned and ran up the staircase toward Kovacevic. The general was still alive. A bullet had passed through his shoulder and a few others had grazed his arms and legs.

  “Save them?” Euclid wrinkled a nostril. “I get your metaphors, Dovian, but they mean nothing.”

  “Trying to save them means everything!” Dovian shouted back.

  Euclid neared the staircase, his eyes watching the soldier Dovian had just saved.

  “You leave them be, Euclid. Your quarrel isn’t with them. Not as long as I am around.” Dovian pointed his staff at the taller Sorcēarian.

  “Oh?” Euclid returned to facing the other of his kind. “You want to be the protector of this race?”

  Dovian swallowed thickly.

  “You hesitate, Dovian. Is it because you are finally seeing what I saw all those thousands of years ago? Disgusting aren’t they–living their lives to fight wars, only to kill one another? They care about as much as I do about their own lives. All I am doing is speeding up their untimely demise.”

  “It isn’t your job to do such things!” Dovian finally spoke, watching as Euclid slowly circled around him. The white wing on his back rotted, the feathers dropping to reveal its black scales, as Dovian let his anger consume him once again.

  “Then whose job is it, Dovian?! He left us a long time ago! Left them! Your job is finished; it was finished once you hypocritically destroyed your own kind, you traitor!” Euclid lunged at Dovian, gripping the silver-haired Sorcēarian’s neck. Dovian winced as Euclid slammed his body roughly against the wall, his form sinking into the metal. “If you think our own race to be damned, then why do you think these horribly imperfect ones deserve to live? Huh?” He pulled and then slammed Dovian into the wall once again. Dovian’s hands gripped Euclid’s wrist, his face contorting.

  “Because…” Dovian gasped. His fingertips dug into Euclid’s flesh, making the man grimace. “He told us to take care of them. It is our job. It always will be.” A small sound to the side alerted Dovian of the soldiers’ presence. Slowly, the ones who were still alive were retreating.

  “It doesn’t give you a reason to destroy us in order to save them!” Euclid yelled, his face centimeters from Dovian’s.

  “It is the reason! You all betrayed Him as much as we betrayed them!” Dovian bellowed.

  “He left us! He abandoned us long before you or I were ever born. I wasn’t given the decision, the choice!” Euclid growled, his teeth grinding together.

  “Because you are not human! They were not born with the knowledge and understanding that we have. They were meant to be innocent. We were supposed to keep them that way!”

  “They are no longer born innocent! They are of evil! They all are!” Euclid spat.

  “And you are any different in your desires?” Dovian retorted. “You, who are jealous of them, treat them like measly fleas. For what purpose? Because you want an excuse to act just like them?!”

  “Shut up!”

  Euclid tugged, throwing Dovian onto the floor. The scarlet Sorcēarian slid across the grated metal, slamming into the opposite wall, a huge dent molding into the surface. The raven-haired man neared Dovian, his footsteps heavy. He reached down and Dovian lifted his staff, the end ramming against Euclid’s chin. Dovian quickly spun, wrapping the curved edge of one of the metallic wings on the top of his pole around Euclid’s heel, tripping the larger man. He then flipped his staff, aiming it at Euclid’s head.

  “We were never given the chance to make our own lives, Dovian. We were damned to begin with.” Euclid, hair scattered over his eyes, breathed heavily.

  “You damned yourself, Euclid,” Dovian sneered, shoving a pointed tip of the golden demon wing of his staff against the other man’s neck. Dark blood dripped across Euclid’s pale skin and onto the floor through the grate.

  “The rules don’t apply to us, Dovian! We can’t merely believe! As you said, we know too much, and too much is expected of us! It may have been easy for our elders, those that were originally pure, but what about us?! What about you and me, Dovian?” Euclid gasped.

  “We are a blessed race. We had specific rules, and you ignored them all!” Dovian growled, gradually pushing the point of his staff into Euclid. The
dark man grabbed the ends, pressing against Dovian’s weight.

  Through gritted and bloodied teeth, Euclid growled, “If it were as simple as that, then explain I’Lanthe!”

  Dovian’s very being froze. Slowly, his whole form was covered with pinpricks. An electric shock shivered down his spine. What was that? Did he hear Euclid right? Unknowingly, his mouth dropped open, his blue eyes staring into Euclid’s once again, looking for any indication that the man was lying. Euclid, regardless of his precarious position, smiled in response to Dovian’s expression.

  ‘No, it can’t be true. He is lying,’ Dovian thought. Still, he saw no hesitation, no flicker in the other man’s eyes to reveal that he was trying to pull a fast one.

  “W-what?” Dovian stuttered finally.

  “Oh? You didn’t know?” Euclid laughed. He quickly swiped away the end of Dovian’s staff, his body disappearing altogether.

  Dovian grunted, feeling the force of Euclid’s body ramming him toward the metal staircase. Heavily, he crashed through the stairs, the support beams wrecking the upper platform as they crunched underneath his weight. Before he could even respond, Euclid was atop him, planting his fists into his face. Dovian guarded himself the best he could. After receiving a couple of nasty blows, he wrapped his legs around Euclid’s waist. Lifting his arms, he caught one of Euclid’s hands and then crossed to seize the other. Euclid pulled against Dovian’s hold to no avail. Dovian quickly rolled to the side and straddled the other man, pressing Euclid’s forearms against his own throat.

  “What do you mean?!” Dovian yelled, pulling and slamming the back of Euclid’s skull against the floor.

  Groaning, Euclid struggled under Dovian’s strength. He may have been thinner and shorter than the other Sorcēarian soldiers, but Dovian always had an incredible amount of strength in his lean muscle. Euclid sneered, trying to kick the man off of his form. Dovian easily locked his feet against the man’s legs instead.

  “What?” Euclid gasped loudly. After a second’s thought, he gave a raspy laugh. “You’ve lost your connection, haven’t you?”

  Dovian frowned, struggling against the taller man’s pushing as he tried to free himself.

  “You have! You’ve been forsaken! You’ve been left behind, and still you wait for His beck and call like a sad, little dog!” Euclid cackled. Eerily, his humored features quickly dimmed to a critical look. “Which means you can’t talk to the elders. You can’t speak to Him, can’t speak to…her!” Euclid laughed again.

  Giving more struggle, Euclid finally shoved Dovian to the side. Gasping, he took a deep breath of air. His hands gripped his throat, quickly healing the wound on his neck. A small hum sounded from the pendant of his necklace. Once healed, Euclid quickly tucked the item into his robes, hiding it. Turning to face Dovian, he felt a ton of weight ramming against him. A bright flash sent Euclid backward. He slammed into the opposite set of stairs, the structure caving in atop the man.

  Approaching the rubble, Dovian growled, not finding Euclid anywhere. Turning, he quickly met the force of Euclid’s invisible blow which sent him back into the same rubble. Euclid didn’t let up, sending wave after wave upon Dovian, pressing him deeper and deeper into the floor until he finally fell through. Hitting every I-beam on the way down, Dovian dropped twenty meters to the bottom of the reactor core. His senses were filled with the deafening, quaking roar of the electric current and pulsating rotors that pumped the energy into various lines that distributed the power. Rolling to his hands and knees, Dovian held onto his side; a deep gash had been made by a thick piece of rebar as he had fallen into the suspension lines.

  The core room was massive, full of tiny cylinders of electric orbs, all marked with radioactive symbols and warnings. The silver of the metal and glass encasings reflected the blue energy like flashing strobes. Dovian’s mind reeled momentarily at the obtrusive lights.

  ‘Don’t worry about me, Dovian. I can take care of myself. I’m more worried about you.’ The soft vocals from a far away memory replayed in his mind as his fingertips focused energy into the deep wound in his oblique.

  A soft whir sounded high above, and Dovian moved. Euclid drove violently into the floor beside him, the gridded metal sinking beneath his weight. He slowly turned his head toward Dovian, glaring.

  “What, what happened to her?” Dovian winced as he stood, bringing his staff in front of him.

  “You mean in the afterlife?” Euclid asked.

  “You know what I mean, Euclid!” Dovian wanted to kill him so badly, just twist his neck right there, but Euclid knew something of great value.

  The azure Sorcēarian watched Dovian for a few moments. He enjoyed seeing his eyes glow brighter and brighter with impatience, with anger. Flipping his long hair over his shoulder, Euclid tapped a gold claw against his lip.

  “I expected better of you, Dovian. I would have expected you to have known about her fate. But, how could you possibly know, especially since you’ve been ignored by your Father,” Euclid chuckled, ignoring the staff aimed directly at his head. “I can’t blame you, Dovian. No one can. No one can blame you for not knowing that I’Lanthe is burning in Hell.”

  “You lie!” Dovian shouted. His black wings spread widely from his back. He tackled Euclid into one of the cylinders; the electric current exploding against both of their forms. Dovian didn’t halt; he gripped Euclid’s robes about his neck and furiously pounded into his face. The sound was sick and forceful. After only a couple of hits, his knuckles were covered in Euclid’s blood. Dovian continued his rage, choking the man. Euclid, for the first time, looked frightened. He was a master at toying with people’s emotions, but he knew from long ago not to piss Dovian off. It actually had the opposite effect. Dovian’s concentration may have seemed lagged, but his sheer rage and strength could leave him psychotic until everything in his path was destroyed, even if it killed him, even if it killed everyone. That is exactly why Dovian’s race no longer existed.

  Dovian continued pummeling Euclid. The only time he paused was for when he lifted the man only to punch him again, kick low to bring him to his knees, and then grab his long hair to knee him in the face. He grasped Euclid and threw him one after another into the various cylinders of the reactor. After destroying the tubes with Euclid’s body, he was atop the man once again, sending his fists into his face. Everything melded together, lined with the icy glow of Dovian’s eyes, as Euclid’s vision blurred. Suddenly, the raven-haired man’s ears burned with a horrible sound. It was a two-tone growl, a guttural sound. It was coming from Dovian as he shouted in Legacy. It contained all the threats known to the Sorcēarians.

  “You lie!” Dovian gasped out, his evil energies overtaking him. He needed to stop, or he was going to wipe out the entire facility. Looking over his shoulder, he found nearly every cylinder destroyed. The core was churning violently, the energy growing wildly inside its confines. A loud whine vibrated within the room. Dovian finally let up, stopping his brutal assault on Euclid’s face. He looked down and felt his heart skip a beat. The man beneath him was unrecognizable. He did this. He did this to Euclid, to a man he once knew, to a fellow Sorcēarian.

  Still, Euclid continued his antics. If he couldn’t destroy Saray, then maybe he could get Dovian to do his dirty work with his rage. “She burns, Dovian, just as you will someday.” Euclid coughed, gurgling on his own thick blood as he reached into his robes, his hands gripping the pendant.

  Dovian quickly rose. Preparing his staff, he lifted it over his head. It was now or never. Why waste time beating the wicked man to death when he could just end it all seamlessly and effortlessly?

  “Then I’ll see you soon,” Dovian murmured. His pale eyes stared into Euclid’s.

  “Dovian! Dovian! Where are you?!” Aria’s voice mentally called out. “Help Ivory!”

  ‘Ivory!’ Dovian’s mind spun back to his other reality. Up there, where the war was continuing with the humans, his friends were in danger.

  “Better go save her, Dovian. Before
the demons get her,” Euclid gurgled.

  Dovian looked down and swung his weapon. He can kill him now and check later to make sure the deed was done. As his staff swooped for Euclid’s head, an explosion sounded from nearby and knocked Dovian off balance. In that split second, Euclid disappeared.

  “Damn it!” Dovian cursed.

  Lifting his wings, Dovian didn’t hesitate further. He jumped back up through the hole in the roof, into the main room he and Euclid had begun their encounter, and out through the broken door. He lifted high into the air. A finger gripped the camera looped around his ear, picking up a multitude of sounds and colorful life signs. The cityscape was now covered in thick smoke. Dovian’s lungs immediately dried as he pulled in the sulfuric air. Rising even higher, he reached the height of his tower and caught a rather terrifying sight. Ivory’s overlook was quickly crumbling and falling to the side. From his optics, he could pick up her form in the top. Giving a quick push, his body pulsated and moved at nearly light speed, a quick burst of noise following a second afterward.

  It was falling, falling so close to the ground. Creatures were already filtering into the building even as it fell, all scattering to the top to capture Ivory. Dovian covered his face and prepared for impact. He crashed into the wall and then came out the opposite side with Ivory in his arms. Pulling up, he caught the vibrant life signs of Aria and Troy and a third man. Aria’s sign was not as colorful as the others surrounding her. Leaning to the side, Dovian turned and quickly moved through the air toward them. He slid harshly on the pavement, his feet planting into the ground. Looking down at the blonde in his arms, he sighed. Ivory was unconscious once again.

  “Ivory!” he shouted, shaking her gently.

  “Nice save, man.” Troy patted Dovian’s shoulder.

  Dovian didn’t pay Troy any attention. He checked Ivory’s vitals, trying to get some sort of a read. Her blue eyes were wide open; her pupils were small instead of dilated. Was she alive? Passed out? Why couldn’t he get a read on her vitals?