Chapter 3

Asher ran out of his room with Blink hovering behind him.

"Bow and arrow!" Asher shouted and Blink abruptly burst apart. The next second, a high-tech compound bow was in his hand. The arrow fell into his other hand and he stuffed it through his belt.

When he got downstairs, he nearly crashed into the Rook. The man was at the bottom of the stairs, still blubbering although he seemed to finally be calming down now. His face was red and blotchy and there was a crust of snot underneath his nose. He looked at Asher with exhausted, bloodshot eyes.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry for hurting you," he said, reaching out and grabbing hold of Asher's pant leg. "I was wrong. I never should've taken her. I never should've hurt her like that either."

Asher ripped his pant leg out of the man's grip. His face twisted with revulsion as he stopped and bent down in front of him.

Then he smacked the Rook across the face as hard as he could.

"Stop it!" Asher shouted at him. "Get up and get it together. We're under attack and you need to hide. You may not be worth saving in my opinion, not after everything you did, but I won't let your death be my fault. I'm better than that. I'm better than you."

Lord Guilder looked at Asher with an expression of complete shock. Then a look of resolution came over his face. He got off the floor and wiped his nose on his sleeve. He patted his clothes to get the wrinkles out and stood a bit straighter.

"Thank you. It seems I needed that," Lord Guilder said. "But I will not hide. I've done enough of that already. I helped create this mess by siding with Wilhelm Coran. I believe it is time I helped fix it."

He took a deep breath and stared at Asher with regret in his eyes.

"You could've killed me, you and your mother, but instead you saved me. Mostly from myself. Let me help repay you both. Let me help you fight," Lord Guilder said.

He looked completely serious and Asher was taken aback.

"Good. That's good," Aeole said as she walked down the stairs and joined the other two. "It looks as if you have finally come to terms with all the pain you have caused, Reginald."

Lord Guilder stared at the terrifying savage woman with a look almost like gratitude. He bowed deeply to her.

"I have been blind my whole life but you, dear lady, have let me see. I am forever in your debt."

"Then it is time you make good on that promise. The invasion of the one called Blak is here. I can feel the presence of its evil in the air." She looked at the both of them with an air of grave severity. "This fight will not be pleasant."

Aeole looked pointedly at her son.

"Get to the western overlook and take position there." She eyed Blink's configuration. "Your new bow should serve you well there."

Asher shifted nervously. He tightened his grip on the bow as he looked at his mother.

"I was going to tell you about Blink," he said, his voice wavering slightly.

"Now is not the time to worry about hiding your Rook toy from me," Aeole said. "Now go. Get to the overlook." She turned her head to Lord Guilder next. "If you truly want redemption, come with me."

**

Asher ran across the bridge that would eventually take him to the western overlook. He could see it in the distance. It was a broad platform with a sturdy railing surrounding it. Most of it was obscured by leaves and branches.

He sped up and tried his best to ignore the screams of pain, fear, and anger coming from the people of Vitari down below. He also blocked out the sounds of gunfire and war too. Instead, he focused on the task at hand.

Getting to the overlook.

He made it in time to see a Terra warrior already stationed there get hit with a blast of killing fire. The man's body flipped over the edge of the railing and disappeared from view.

"No," Asher cried with despair. "This can't be happening. This can't be happening!"

He stopped at the ladder that went up to the platform and hesitated. He was scared. He didn't want to fight. He didn't want to die. Everything was becoming so real. Real danger. Real carnage. Real death. It wasn't some nightmare that he could wake himself up from.

This world of chaos and loss was reality.

Asher still stood frozen at the bottom of the ladder, trying to muster up his courage. The only thing that got him up there was knowing he could do something to help. That he could save lives. So, he decided he wasn't going to give in to that fear.

He took a deep breath and scrambled up the ladder. He crawled to the edge of the overlook and looked down to the ground.

His vantage point was extremely high but he could still see things pretty clearly. The fight was going poorly for his people. The stealthy onslaught from the Rooks had taken everyone by surprise. Terras were scrambling to form together and fight back but they were either picked off with Rook gunfire or taken over by swarms of what looked like mutated spiders to Asher.

He had no idea what the creatures were or where they came from but every time they swarmed a Terra, the Terra would stiffen first and then abruptly turn on their own and start killing without thought.

No! he thought as he saw what the spiders were truly capable of. What are these abominations?

He watched in horrified fascination, frozen in fear. His body wouldn't respond and he thought he was going to be stuck like that.

He forced himself to snap out of it. He grinded his teeth and his hand tightened on his bow. He took out the arrow from his belt and notched it. Then he pulled back and sighted, breathing steadily. He found a lurking Rook getting ready to shoot Hert in the back as the big man stabbed an enemy soldier in the chest.

Asher let the arrow fly. It flew fast and with devastating accuracy. The arrow pierced his target's body armor and then immediately burst apart. The Rook dropped to the ground, his wound still pumping out blood.

Blink flew back to Asher, who was waiting for him. Without needing to be told, it merged itself into an arrow again.

Asher grabbed it out of the air and knocked it to his bow. He sighted carefully and fired again. His technique and speed was flawless. The arrow flew straight and smacked into a Rook's leg.

The Rook soldier didn't even look like he felt the pain of the wound but the leg buckled anyway. It left him vulnerable to a savage mauling by several Terras in their animal forms. The man went down fighting though. Even as he was killed, he still managed to stab a Terra and turn another by throwing one of the spider-things at them.

Blink came flying back and turned into an arrow again. Asher let it fly and downed yet another Rook. Blink flew back and Asher repeated the process. He did so unrelentingly for as long as he possibly could but in the end, it was futile. He knew that.

There's no way we can win this. There's too many and they have those...those...spider-things turning us against our own people, Asher thought. We have to run. It's the only way we survive.

He fired one last arrow, waited for Blink to get back, and then headed for the ladder down to the bridge. Just as he got his feet on it, his world exploded around him.

Heat, fire, and concussive force slammed into him with all the force of a herd of rampaging bulls. Everything immediately hurt. He wasn't even sure he was conscious. He just felt like he was floating through the air. And his head felt so fuzzy. He couldn't think straight.

He even thought he might be dying.

A loud series of beeps brought him back to himself. He shook his head and his vision cleared. He could see the world clearly now.

He looked around and saw he was flying through the air. As a human.

Confused, he looked up.

There was Blink, back in his drone configuration. This time, however, there was a thin cable hanging from him. It was attached to a metal claw that was hooked onto Asher's pants.

The Rook machine was chugging through the air, trying to stay afloat with Asher's extra weight. It was hard for the little machine. Its flight was jerky and erratic and it almost rammed into half a dozen trees before it was able to safely make it down to the ground with its cargo intact.

"Thanks, Blink," Asher said once he had his feet on the soft earth again. He breathed a sigh of relief that he was okay. Then his head swam and he suddenly sank to the ground. He hadn't noticed all the blood flowing down the side of his face or coming out of a wound in his back from where a piece of wood had impaled him.

He tried to say something else, but the words wouldn't come out. He was too tired.

"Asher!" someone screamed. There was hysterical panic in the person's voice. It took him a moment to realize it was his mom that was screaming.

"S'okay," he murmured back. "I'm just sleepy. I'mma takes a nap."

Then he passed out.

Rook soldiers almost immediately circled him. They inched closer, cautious at first. When they realized the boy was injured, they converged on him even quicker.

The barrels of their guns glowed with red light.

"Asher!" his mother screamed again.