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Chapter 1 - Forsaken

Kai looked out at the mass of trees beneath him.

The thick green canopy didn't leave much to be seen from his vantage point, but there wasn't much he needed to see.

His heightened eyesight picked up movement as a native swung from one branch to another.

Kai lifted his binoculars to his eyes, focusing on the bare chested male. He wasn't the leader, that much was obvious from the singular lines painted in blood under his eyes. A newbie then.

Kai's lips lifted wickedly. Nefasu would be pleased with the information.

As he watched, a second barbarian jumped on the first's back, tearing into its skin with its teeth and nails.

Kai rolled his eyes, looking away. Since the Quakes had ended, more and more people were giving themselves over to their inherent primal instincts. It was the biggest cop out known, choosing to only act on instinct and sensation because you couldn't handle thinking about the shit hole the world had become.

He rose from where he sat crouched on the branch of an emergent tree. If he was to get home before nightfall he'd have to hurry.

His long legs gracefully carried his form to the edge of the branch, hundreds of feet in the air. There he spread his arms and breathed in the scent of the jungle. He loved coming out here, away from the pollution and devastation of the city.

Then he tipped forward, plummeting through the water saturated air.

He grabbed a branch once he was over half way down, using the momentum of his fall to swing from tree to tree towards the floor.

His feet landed silently on the thin layer of leaf fall. Kai was the quietest of spies; he never made a sound whilst on the job.

The sound of birds twittering filled the space as he moved like a shadow through the trees. Where they would usually have stopped singing when someone passed, they didn't notice him and he was privy to their song.

The jungle depleted as he ate up the miles. Trees grew fewer and further between as enormous steel structures rose like soldiers around him. Craine City; once a thriving metropolis, now a crumbling perdition.

The sun was setting in the East today, the orange rays glimmering briefly from around a soaring skyscraper. Dark smoke fluttered through the air, its opacity in stark contrast with the translucent sun rays.

Kai heard giggles and the gentle patter of feet coming from around the corner. He quickly stepped into an alley so he could watch the laughing children pass. If they saw him, their fear would swallow their happiness whole. And he didn't want that.

Their faces were gaunt from hunger and their skin dark with dirt. They seemed ignorant to these facts as they ran on spindly legs towards their homes. Kai knew they were likely to die within the year, some of them within the month.

He was not in a good part of the city and it was especially dangerous for him considering his rank. Others of his stature wouldn't dare venture within ten feet of the Craine ghettos but Kai liked to think of it as a reality check.

He couldn't help them in the way they all wanted, but he could at least do them the respect of acknowledging their hardships. He'd been in the same position himself, enough times to know of desperation.

He made it into the centre of the city with surprisingly few altercations; usually at least one person attacked him. It was only when he heard the anguished cries of a woman that he understood why the streets were so deserted.

The town square was packed with people, some watching in stoic silence and others sobbing quietly whilst clutching one another.

Kai understood why he'd seen the children going home so early and suddenly felt stupid for not making the connections sooner.

At the edge of a one hundred metre building stood Toff. A boy half his height stood in front of him, being held up by the collar.

"No!" Screamed what he knew to be the boy's mother. "Please!" Her cry echoed around the quiet square.

While many of the women looked away from the scene, most men watched with boiling fury in their eyes. Kai knew how much they craved vengeance.

Rita caught sight of him from the platform and motioned him over with her eyes. He wished that he'd taken longer returning from the city outskirts, it would have allowed him to avoid all this.

Dutifully, Kai was forced to walk through the crowd, which parted for him like water. However if the crowd were a river, it was a river of fire, for the blazing gazes should surely have ground his ashen body into the floor.

Kai forced himself to stand tall under their hate. There was nothing he could do, nothing he could do. Repeating the words to himself didn't help convince him that they were true.

Being under the scrutiny of so many people made him extremely uncomfortable. He was used to blending in with the shadows, passing invisible under everyone's eye. Now they all looked directly at him.

Kai watched as the mother's hand shot out to grab his sleeve as he passed. He stopped in his tracks but did not look at her tear drenched face.

"Shade please!" She wailed, "You can stop this."

The eleven other Aris members who had gathered to watch the execution now watched him pointedly. There was nothing he could do.

With a breaking heart, he shook off the mother's hand, continuing on towards the platform. There he stopped at the side, tagging on the end of his people.

Toff started speaking down an electric megaphone, addressing the whole crowd and the Aris.

"This boy has been convicted of attempted thievery." Kai knew Toff enjoyed the words he was saying much more than was socially acceptable. Not that anyone cared in this social circle.

"He tried, and failed, to steal an eight pound sack of blue glass from Aris master Valyn."

Valyn stood at the opposite end of the platform to Kai but his distress at the whole matter was plainly evident. Kai doubted that Valyn had been the one to report the crime, it had probably been a separate onlooker who saw the small boy dart in and out of the Valyn mansion.

If you reported a crime, you were rewarded for your loyalty to the State. Some desperate mother was probably drowning herself in guilt at this very moment, lamenting at how she had managed to feed her own children for another month but at the price of another child's life.

If you wanted to survive in Force, you put your own life before everyone else's. Kai was no stranger to this fact.

"He must pay for his crime with death," the megaphone made Toff's voice metallic and grating.

"He must pay for his crime with death." Kai mumbled the echoed words along with the rest of the Aris.

He wanted to look away but knew he could not do the child such a dishonour. His heightened eyesight picked up, with perfect clarity, the tears spilling from the boy's eyes.

He had been brave so far, not making a single sound. Now he whimpered in fear, cowering as far from Toff as he was able to without falling from the building.

"Any last words?" Kai heard Toff ask the boy, even though he didn't speak down the megaphone.

The mother's sobs grew louder and Kai's fists clenched. Rita set a placating hand on his arm.

"Take me!" The mother yelled at the Aris, collapsing to her knees in front of them and knowing that it would do her no good. "He's only a boy, a child! He didn't know what he was doing."

Up on the roof, the young boy had taken the megaphone. Everyone's attention went to him, all curious to know what the soul's last thought before rushing air and death would be.

The breath of his whimpers sent a buzz through the megaphone. Then he appeared to compose himself, his jaw setting determinedly.

"The Aris are mean bullies and they all deserve to die." The boy's childish voice was at odds with the fervour in his words.

Kai squeezed his eyes shut against the pain the boy's words caused. It was at times like these when he questioned his choice to leave the Five Nations. Had life there really been worse than this? He answered his own question even as he thought it. Life there had been so, so much worse.

High in the sky, the boy was screaming. Toff grabbed his collar and Kai was helpless to do anything but watch as the boy was thrust into the free air.

He glided on the breeze, sailing towards the ground. The mother screeched in denial, running forward as if she truly believed she could catch her flailing son.

The muted thunk of the body colliding with the floor silenced every sound in the square. Kai counted, one, two, three, a howl ripped savagely through the congregation.

It was always three seconds.

Kai pushed callously through the shocked, motionless crowd. His responsibility to watch the atrocity was over.

He didn't look twice at the mother who was now sprawled protectively over her son's broken and bleeding form.

It was fairly common for a family member or lover to run to catch their loved ones during an execution. Some kind of manically misplaced sense of virtue.

On one instance, a woman's husband had succeeded in breaking her fall enough to save her. They'd both been hanged for going against the will of the state.

Kai was approaching the alley he would use to slip away when a man behind him swung a steel bar at his head.

Kai felt the change in air patterns and spun, grabbing the bar before it could come within a foot of his body. The crowd surrounding them reared back in seconds, all wanting nothing to do with the spectacle taking place.

Kai met the lad's eyes and realised that he could hardly be called a man. His features seemed vaguely familiar and after a second, Kai made the connection. This was the dead boy's cousin.

There was no fear in his eyes, only blinding determination and crass hatred. Kai clenched his teeth and shoved the young man away from him. He'd been utterly foolish to attack the Aris, especially Kai of all people. But then, maybe it hadn't been so foolish. Had he attacked any of the others, they'd have killed him for certain. Was this boy trying to make him look weak?

Having changed his planned course of action, Kai threw the steel bar aside and grabbed the younger man's arm. Feeling the eyes of the whole square on him, Kai dragged the man behind him as he left the square.

No one questioned him, for he was part of the Aris. And in the Land of the Forsaken, the Aris ruled. 

--- A/N ---

I know, I know. New faces, where the hell is Nereyda at. SORRY but we've got to get into these things slowly XD. The next chapter will be fun though, we'll see what kind of mess she's gotten herself into ;). Stay tuned, I love you all! - Zoe x

(P.S. - what does everyone think of the new characters?)