The Debrief: Arctic Aftermath

[Zero Venkage]

Deep within the darkness of the Nogris Jungle lies a ghoulish white stronghold. It members revered it as a holy ground, one sacred to the touch, always emanating warmth divine in a forest of eternal night. The Southern Shadelands always seemed to Zero darker than their name implied, the pitch black darkness cast by the thick canopy only made the ethereal white of the shineoak trees look brighter. The same, white, shining oak the Acolytes used to construct their stronghold centuries ago, leveraging old knowledge shared with them by the Jaidans of the time. As Zero traveled from his Atelier to Sol Gamera, the bright white monastery in the pitch black jungle, he gained a new appreciation for the craftsmanship that the acolytes applied to any project they took on.

He approached the hand carved shineoak doors and raised his hand to knock, or he would have if the pain that shot through his bandaged appendages hadn’t locked them at his sides. Smoky bandages wrapped his hands and fingers individually, coiling around his forearm all the way up to his elbow. His face scrunched in frustration and a throaty sigh rumbled from his mouth.

“I’m baaaaack,” he projected through the door, sure the attendant on the other side would recognize his voice.

A moment of silence passed.

The grand, carved doors slowly and silently swing inward and revealed the realm within the walls clad in Vermeil light, a silvery glow drenching the forms of every individual and item within. The inner sanctum of Sol Gamera was a wide open, flat field with a number of brighter corridors opening and closing, producing and disappearing people of all shapes and sizes. The scene was busy, but not bustling, with each of the people sporting a white sash over their shoulder moving through this space from lanes between destinations in a field that might have gone on forever, or its perimeter was hidden by the foggy field that hid the corners of each inner wall from sight. Zero stepped through the threshold and the doors swung closed behind him, and the doors, walls, and fog all disappeared. It just left the field, now a more recognizable shade of green, glowing with Vermeil more gently, and the people passing through without missing a beat.

One person coming out of a corridor directly in front of Zero emerged walking away from him, but whipped their head around in search of him. They wore a mask, a white rabbit’s face with long ears flapping above their heads, and a large, hooded robe, just as pristine white as their surroundings. The mask was adorned with small, black features that gave it a whimsical character that their small stature reinforced.

“Hey,” Zero said to their backs and they turned around with a surprised peep.

“Oh, wrong way! How’d you do? It wasn’t too cold down there for you, was it?” They asked excitedly. The person in the mask had to look up at Zero, even with his modest, sub 6 foot height. The eyes of the mask made it up to his chest and its ears draped half down their back as their neck craned, but their hands were clasped expectantly.

Zero didn’t say anything, but looked off to the side nervously and held his still burning hands up to let the rabbit get a better view, but he didn’t say a thing.

“What’s this?” The rabbit asked, eyes darting between the two bandaged hands in front of them. “You’ve never had a cold, what happened to you?”

Zero laughed as his eyes drifted back to his own broken hands. “I’ve been on a special string of luck lately.”

“It’s gotta be special for you to wind up like this. Did you at least anchor the Traversing Mirror?”

“No.”

“Whew, good. I thought you were goin— What do you mean no?”

“We didn’t make it.”

“But we told you exactly where it was.”

“Yeah.”

“And you weren’t able to find it?”

“No, we did.”

“So why didn’t you Anchor it?’

“Because we were stopped by a Herald.”

“A Herald?”

“A Herald.”

“Of what?”

“The Horsemen.”

“The Horsemen?”

“Yes, the Horsemen.”

“A Herald of the Horsemen kept you from Anchoring the Traversing Mirror?”

“Actually a bit worse.”

“How much worse?”

“A lot worse.”

The rabbit’s head cocked to the side, “How much?”

“I’ll show you,” Zero said, his eyes squinting as tight as the rabbits neck craned. The pain in his hands waned since leaving Aeon, or he adjusted to the ambient burning cursing his forearms. The corrosive energy sapped energy from him and he shared that unfortunate fact with the rabbit as they took a few strides into the grass and a corridor opened in front of them with a wave of the rabbit’s hand.

They stepped through the portal of Vermeil light and emerged standing in the skies over the island at the End of the World. The rabbit looked down through their feet and got to experience a slice of Zero’s memory with a bird’s eye view.

He got to relive it with a new vantage.

They emerged in the moments after the Herald’s energy took over Zero and Zeik’s opponent and changed their attack pattern.

“What is that?” the rabbit asked, watching the cyborg streak across the frozen battlefield between the fiery giant and Zero’s own glowing sparks dancing on the ice. “That… thing isn’t supposed to be there.”