GLOSSARY 

Malitan - the Empire's term for a city

LOCATION: BLIMORK (THE EMPIRE)

Malitan: Khaerina 

POV: LEA XIMIS

Falling asleep has always been a part of Lea’s daily struggle. Her mind is always on overdrive. As a tinkerer, she always thinks of all the possibilities of weaponry. She thinks about cost-effective materials, how to make the product durable, and making it fit the individual’s preference. Her thought processes don’t stop there. Since she also buys ready-made weapons, she always attempts to reverse-engineer them. Once she understands how a manufactured weapon works, she then can integrate her own theories and upgrade the current weapons. She doesn’t sell it to the industry. She keeps those tinkered weapons to herself unless someone would strike a deal with her.

            Lea doesn’t go out of the house that often. She coops up in her room busy with her own world. She would only go out when she has to eat, buy some weapons or materials from Arsenal Wares, or when she sets out to train in the forest.  That’s her routine.

            Lying on her bed and wrapped in her blanket, she sighs and widens her eyes. Her onyx-colored eyes stare at the ceiling for a short time. She knit her arched eyebrows in response to each sword clash that she hears. She knows that these are coming from the Citadel and have been going on for days now. Days? Weeks? She doesn’t quite remember. Her orientation to time has been distorted due to her lack of sleep. Although, it has been quite a while since Tyrox pronounced the training shifts for the soldiers. All she would hear are fighting noises. It's like a colosseum with immortal gladiators.

            Lea grabs the blanket and puts it away. She was wearing a black tank top and grey shorts. She reached out to the ceiling and while looking at her small delicate hands. She opened and closed her hands repeatedly then made a gun gesture with her right hand.

            “Bang!” she whispered, then let her hands fall sideward.

            She quickly sat up on the bed and rubbed her eyes, getting the sleep off. Her dresser and mirror are right in front of her bed. To the right, at the head of her bed, sits a lamp on top of a stand. Further away from the lampstand sits her closet. Skittered on the floor are pieces of evidence of unfinished tinkering. Scraps of metal, screws, tools, gun chambers, palm-sized pressure plates, and loads of metal rods. Lea stood up and stretched, grunting and exhaling air as she feels each limb and joint warm up. She looks at herself in the mirror. Her jet-black hair was tousled, one of her straps sliding down her shoulder, and her eyes struggling to keep open. While looking at herself in the mirror, she pinches her side and sees that she has little body fat and more muscle. She looks at herself, dismayed. Her eyes then trail toward her chest area. She cups her chest, squeezing them in the process. She lets go and sighs.

            “Well, whatever,” she says, nonchalantly. “No use getting worked up on trivial things like that.”

            Lea grabs a band and a comb on top of her dresser. She combs her hair and then ties it into a ponytail. Upon looking at herself in the mirror, she can’t help but smirk. She pouts and puts her finger on her lips. Pleased with herself, she puts her hands on her hips and does another pose. She giggles and lets out a sigh of satisfaction.

            “I may not be that tall. I may not be as curvy as others would want. There’s only one thing I know, and I’m pretty. No one can say otherwise!” she declared to herself.

            With renewed strength and confidence, she put her hands on her hips and smiled while looking at herself in the mirror. Proud of her looks, she blew a kiss to herself and skipped towards her closet. Fashion wasn’t really a problem for Lea as long as the clothes she wore succeeded in making her comfortable and concealing her face. She always feels the need to hide her face because of her father. He was the first official to ever rebel against the Dark Emperor. He formed the Exiles and was the first to initiate the rebellion against Hadron. Although, that didn’t go so well. Many died in that movement while exposing the corrupted rule of Hadron. Hadron was exhausting every resource, may it be his subordinates or the Empire’s funds, for the advancement of the Dezoksis’ cause. That day will forever be engraved in her memory. The terror and the bloodshed of many innocent lives who fought for change. Many remember that day as The Scarlet Terror. Historians would refer to it as the Cataclysmic Overrun.

            Lea grabbed her outfit for the day and went to the bathroom to wash. After a short while of freshening herself up, she went out with a loud relieved sigh. She grabbed a small band from her dresser and tied her hair into a ponytail. She wore a black trench coat over her maroon tank top, tight camouflage cargo shorts, black knee socks, and a brown scarf that wrapped around her neck – covering the lower half of her face. She grabbed her pair of combat boots found at the lower rack of her closet. Reaching far into the closet, Lea feels the surface of the closet wall. She finds a small button-like texture and presses it. The mechanisms inside the closet wall whirred and quietly hummed as it revealed a twelve-by-twelve compartment. Inside the compartment were Lea’s weapons – a folded bow, some inactivated mechanical arrows, a small sack of rubies and amethysts, and a small metal cylinder covered in a thin layer of resin. She grabbed the cylinder and the small sack. She hid the sack in her trench coat then she grabbed the cylinder and applied pressure to it. Leather extensions shot out from the lower portion of the tube and wrapped around Lea’s wrist, the tube then adjusted its shape in correspondence to the pressure applied by Lea’s hand slowly forming a hilt, and finally, on the upper portion of the tube, a sharp ten-inch blade protruded.

            Lea smiled. “My very first tinkered product. Now, let’s go visit Aubrey, hmm?” she muttered.

            She flipped and twirled her dagger then loosened the leather straps on her wrist and hides her weapon in a sheath inside her right sleeve. Carrying a weapon

            Lea stepped out of her room, took a quick sip of water, then went out of the house. Arsenal Wares, Aubrey’s shop, is always a place Lea goes to since it’s a couple of minutes away.

As Lea exits her house, she briefly scans her surroundings. To her left stands a densely packed area of households. To her front is a pathway that leads to an intersection near the areas of trade and the citadel. It seems that the entire Commerce Zone is bustling with customers. Shoulders are rubbing and bumping against one another as if they are trying to buy a limited item.

Lea briskly walked towards the zone. It didn’t take long until Aubrey’s shop came into view. It was a shop away from the intersection. It is a small and simple rundown house with walls of wood, a haphazardly cemented floor, and a faded red iron roof. Although, behind that house stands a warehouse where all the stock is. Luckily, the place is empty. Lea went inside the shop. The interior has a simple layout and a rustic appearance. On Lea’s left are shelves for the common weaponry used by the trainees and the elites of the Empire: daggers, dirks, plasma-powered pistols, and gauntlets with retractable claws. On the right stands three mannequins clothed with refined obsidian breastplates, stabilized magma gauntlets and sollerets, and some light aluminum helmets and masks. Directly across the door is the counter. Behind the counter sits a young woman in about her early twenties, she has sand-colored skin, a lean yet curvy body structure, a well-defined face with a chiseled jawline, an auburn soft-shoulder-length shag haircut, arched eyebrows, upturned hazel eyes, straight nose, and thin lips. She was a wearing body-fitting three-fourths top under her denim overalls, topping it all off with a long wrap coat. She took a glance from her book and then smirked. She took off her brown beret and put it on top of the counter as Lea approached her.

“Pretty as always, Aubrey,” Lea complimented.

Aubrey chuckled. “Ahh, Lea. You’re always a sight for sore eyes,” she said in an endearing tone. “So, what’s it going to be today?”

Lea got the small sack from inside her trench coat and dropped it on the counter. Rubies and amethysts spilled out from the sack. Aubrey ruffled through the gems and gave Lea an approving look.

“I’ll just have my usual today. I did not really count the amount in there but just give me the equivalent number of items I can get with that.” Lea said.

Aubrey reached down from behind the counter and got a medium-sized chest. She opened it on top of the counter revealing what seemed to be a black cloth covering something underneath. Lea unwrapped the black cloth. The chest contained all the items she always needed: some metal cylinders, scrap metal, vials of different substances, small pressure plates, wires, gears, springs, and batteries.

Lea’s eyes widened. “Woah, this seems a little bit more than my usual. Are you okay with this?” she asked.

Aubrey re-wrapped the black cloth. “Don’t worry. You’re my regular. It won’t hurt to be a little generous. Plus, you’re the Weapon Specialist. I think investing in you would do me good,” she winked.

Lea smiled. “I appreciate the thought. I owe you one,” she replied.

“Oh wait. One more thing,” Aubrey interjected, “I almost forgot.”

Aubrey opened a drawer from behind the counter. She retrieved a rock the size of her fist and a folded piece of paper.  

“Here,” she said as she put both items beside the chest. “One woman came in here and put a special delivery for you.”

Lea picked up the rock and inspected it. The rock had some red-orange streaks. Those streaks faintly glow and the rock becomes warm in response to touch. Lea stuffed the rock with the materials that she bought and put the folded piece of paper inside the pocket of her trench coat.

Suddenly, the door of the shop opened. It seems like someone wants to make a transaction with Aubrey too.

“Ah. You’re here,” a familiar deep voice was heard.

Lea’s eyes widened. She turned around to see a five-foot-ten man in his early twenties, who’s ash-blonde with an undercut slicked back haircut, with a pair of midnight blue sharp upturned eyes, well-defined facial features similar to Lea, and having a muscular body structure. He was wearing a black robe over his official Empire armor. His katana was strapped on his back. He approached Aubrey at the counter and dropped a small sack of amethysts.

“I want to place an order for the A22-Beta Brigade,” he slowly slid the piece of paper across.

Aubrey nodded and then proceeded to go to the back of the shop – the warehouse. The man looked at me and smiled.

“Brother. What brings you here?” Lea asked.

“Oh, just placing some orders for the Acolyte Faction Elites,” Lea’s brother replied.

“Your order has been placed, General Nemesis,” Aubrey called out as she emerged from the back. “Will that be all?” she asked.

Nemesis nodded and bowed his head. “Thank you for your service.”

Aubrey smiled and went back to reading her book.

“Oh, by the way, Lea. I want to discuss something with you back home,” Nemesis told Lea. “It’s something important.”