The Bazaar's Fury

The shattering scream was still ripping the air apart when the initial shockwave slammed their floor. The colorful light-crystal front of the clothing store caved inward, showering the second floor in sparkling shards. Auren instinctively wrapped Rose against his chest, holding his hand over her face as the scent of burning ozone grew stronger, pungent, and metallic. The piercing whine built into a blinding shriek.

"Get down!" Auren shouted over the din, his throat strained. He could sense Rose shaking in his embrace.

Sia was different. Her normally serene face had transformed into a grim mask. Her purple magical aura surged, congealing around her like a fighting cloak. "Back off, Auren!" she snarled, not sparing him a glance, her eyes fixed on the destruction below. With a burst of intense magic, she propelled herself across the railing, a bolt of violet light plummeting downwards to the ground floor. Bubu, with an angry chirp, sprang from Sia's shoulder and landed nimbly on the railing next to Auren, its fur already arcing.

Just as Sia was reaching rock bottom, a tremendous explosion shook the very center of the bazaar. Air cracked, sending a shock force reverberating through the whole floating market district. Auren gazed down from the second floor, staring through the open, newly created hole in the floor at a ghastly sight. Debris and dust swirled up, a suffocating cloud of grey that for a moment hid everything.

Then, out of the billowing smoke, a frantic form erupted. It was the yellow-haired boy, his white coat ripped, his face twisted in sheer terror. He was running, tripping over wreckage, his eyes staring and unfocused. And close on his heels, their faces as pale as the ruined buildings, were the three figures out of the Aetherium Gardens.

The lanky white man, his golden chain shining even in the shadows. The tattooed girl, her green stone staff humming with malevolent power. And the obese man in the zebra jumpsuit, his black goggles glinting with reflected, broken light. They walked with an unholy hunter's poise.

Sia stood squarely between the two of them and the running boy, her magical aura burning. Auren could hear her words indistinctly over the lingering ringing in his ears, but her position was unyielding.

"Why are you boys here?!" Sia bellowed, her words amplified by magic. "This is our land! Our territory!"

"Such passion," the tall man, Aster, Guardian of Yuzen City, sneered, stepping forward. His aura, calm but immensely powerful, resonated like a deep, ancient hum that made Auren's teeth ache, a resonance far more potent than anything he'd felt from Sia. "We don't have any interest in your land. We just need a boy who escaped our city. We have something to do with him."

Sia did not blink. "You will not take him." Her hand flashed out, summoning a whirlpool of darkness that formed itself into a huge, shining serpent of liquid night. "Black Bhagwa!" she thundered, unleashing the shadow mamba coiling and striking at Aster with unnatural haste.

Aster simply smiled, a cold, unfeeling crease of his mouth. He lifted his hand, and a shining, ink-black Abyss Maw Gate tore open in the air ahead of him, a churning vacuum that consumed Sia's great serpent without leaving so much as a ripple. The gate closed, with no hint that it had ever existed.

Sia, unfazed, at once released a hail of glittering, razor-edged magical constructs. "Arcane Volley!" Dozens of glowing, star-shaped bullets flew from her fingers, directed at Aster and his friends.

The girl with the tattoos, Viny, whirled her long green stone staff with fantastic agility. An emerald-green Jade Shield Whirl appeared around them, a whirling barrier of swift rotation that repelled Sia's bullets with metallic clangs and showered the air with sparks.

Damn it! Two Elite Mages, and Levi and Viny. Sia's head whirred, weighing probabilities she didn't want. Aster is as good as Ryden. I can't call up actual giants here in this limited space, not using this unstable power. This isn't open Sky-Weave like Ryuki. I'm restricted. I can't beat them all, notably Aster. But I must create a delay. Her eyes flashed to Auren and Rose, still visible on the second floor, ensnared. Dojo will soon discover them. They'll act. I can't allow them to take that boy! And I can't allow Auren and Rose to be caught up in this!

"Step aside," Aster ordered, his power quietly growing, pressing against the air itself around Sia. Calm, yet awful pressure.

Sia's determination stiffened. Her own mystical energy snapping more loudly, she stamped her fist onto the earth, producing a localized shock that stunned Aster's group momentarily, leaving them open to exploitation for an instant. "Go to hell!"

Aster's grin flickered. "Stubborn." In a dreadfully calm tone, he extended both hands. "Sky-Weave Dominion: Reality Rend!"

The actual framework of the Grand Bazaar started to warp and rend. The rest of the roof overhead creaked, then pulled off like paper, floating upwards into the air. Walls twisted and collapsed, ignoring gravity, rising upwards as if pulled by an unseen hand. Panic gave way to general horror as the floor of the shopping area cracked, and all individuals left on the first level, Sia and Aster's team included, levitated wildly into the open air, their cries drowned out by the cacophony of the disintegrating market. Sia's eyes widened in shock. She'd never seen such naked, wanton power, power that directly was twisting the very substance of the Sky-Weave itself.

As the universe broke apart in flying shreds of air and fearful screams, Aster's shout pierced the uproar. "Dark Domain!"

For Sia, the universe instantly became pure, crushing blackness. She sensed a clammy figure at her back. A gaunt figure, wearing a ragged black coat and a conical black hat, stepped out of the dark void—Umange. Its bone-white fist drove a glimmering blade straight into Sia's back.

From the railing above, Bubu emitted a shrill, angry YOWL. The small cat, in a flash changed from smooth black fur to an enraged glob of crackling power, appeared to burst forth with raw, untrained energy. Its body glowed with radiant light. "RRRRAOW!" With a blinding flash of Sky-Spark Rupture, Bubu's lightning-charged roar shattering Aster's "Dark Domain" caused Umange to shriek and disappear into the disappearing shadows.

Bubu, that small, radiating missile of raw rage, subsequently launched himself, with crackling thunder, straight at Aster. "THUNDERCLAP BOLT!"

"Bothering beast!" The fat man, Levi, at last budged. He flung out an arm, and a titanic, shining Ironfall Hammer coalesced in his grasp, heavy with magical weight. He swung it downward with jolting speed, thrusting it into the flying Bubu. A nauseating CRACK sounded.

Bubu let out a pained yelp as he was swatted aside, flying through the air as if a broken toy. Levi, also falling off balance from his own attack, also fell towards the broken-down market floor below. They both fell out of the fight.

Sia, who was bleeding but unbroken, saw Auren and Rose, still holding on to the second-floor wreckage, frantically searching for an escape among the floating wreckage. Her gaze locked with Auren's. This was her moment. She dug deep and mustered all the last ounce of magic she had left, dismissing the burning fire in her back. "AUREN! ROSE! THE LIFT! NOW!" she howled, her voice breaking. She released a concentrated, energetic Violet Nova Burst, a bludgeoning wave of purple energy that did not target Aster but cleared a direct route directly up to the emergency lift platform that was climbing to a separate Aetherium island. The explosion also produced a temporary distraction, causing Aster to cover himself.

Auren, still holding Rose, felt his feet lift out from under him as Sia's magic pushed them. "Sia, be okay! Don't die!" He cried out, his throat raw, as he, Rose, and dozens of other screaming, frightened people were sucked toward the lift, desperately grabbing anything they could.

In the midst of the mayhem, the yellow-haired youth, who'd been cowering behind a falling stall, abruptly came to life. He slapped a hand on the ground beside the lift, his own face twisted in urgent determination. "Cyber Arise!" A burst of iridescent light and a thunderous bellow that sliced through screams materialized beside him as a resplendent, shining lion construct coalesced, its mane searing with magical energy. "Let's go!" the youth shouted, leaping onto its back.

The boy, looking on as Auren and Rose fought to get onto the packed lift platform, shouted to his lion and halted just beside them. "You can ride!" he yelled, holding out a hand to Auren.

Auren did not hesitate. "Thanks!" he panted, hauling Rose onto the lion's back behind the boy. "Rose, come on!"

The lion-construct, though large, moved swiftly, and it made its way towards the lift platform just as the latter was starting to move. As they pushed themselves into the lift, being carried by the construct, Auren faced the boy, with questions and questions clouding his mind. "Who are you?! Why are they pursuing you?!"

The lad looked back over his shoulder at the fast-disappearing pandemonium of the bazaar, his own eyes still wide with terror, but there was a glimmer of something else—desperation, maybe—within them. "I don't know why." His words faded away as the doors of the lift hissed closed, shutting out the ghastly noises of the dissolving market and the combat below, leaving them hurtling upwards into the comparative peace of the Sky-Weave.