You are not strong enough. You are never strong enough. You have never been strong and you will never be strong enough. If there is any grand, sweeping truth that can be laid across the whole world, that everyone should understand, it is that. And it is the goal of everyone to fight against this wicked truth. Because it is the truth is precisely the reason as to why it needs to be fought against. Because it is such a monumentous statement, and yet one that cannot be allowed to stand. The sole fact that it is an impossibility is the sole reason that we must stand against it. Nothing can be done, until one can decide they can decide to do anything, and with that, they become strong enough to make the impossible possible.
Everything is impossible until it is until it pre-ordained.
You are never strong enough, until you are so strong that failure was never an option.
- Excerpt from the Diary of Aggriyana, who would later ascend to become Elassa of Sorcery, then Anassa of Sorcery.
Arthur Bryant Senior as his team ran up a series of stairs to get to higher ground. There were precisely two styles of buildings still in Rockport. It was either the huge, formidable structures that made up the cities’ town hall, the library, and several of the apartment blocks fashioned out of thick concrete, or it was the rubble. There was nothing in between. The smaller homes, and anything that had been fashioned out of timber or just brick and not reinforced by steel beams had been washed away. And now, Arthur’s team raced up the stairs of one such apartment block.
The air was somehow both cold and stale. It reeked of mold, every single step creaked in an absolutely terrible fashion under the weight of the Rescuer’s black boots. It had been looted of valuables, but not of things that were too heavy to move or ruined by the water. Doors had been broken or kicked in and cupboards were scattered, with their thrown out and personal belongings strew about the room. Normally, the rescuers were here to search for valuables, for personal documents or proofs of identity. Family pictures and letters regarding utility bills or bank statements. Anything to prove that someone had existed here. Anything to be able to calculate the tragic cost of just what had been lost.
Yet now, Arthur did not care, he raced up the stairs in his fluorescent suit of bright-red illuminated only by the flashlight on his head. Heavy gear, it could have been combat fatigues if not for the eye-catching colour. With one hand, he pulled on the strap of his backpack to hold it against his back and stop it bouncing into his already hurting spine. With the other, he kept a hold of the pistol on his belt to stop it jumping out the holster. The button that would click the flap shut had become jammed up with mud on the walk here and he didn’t have a time to clean it yet. Arthur’s black boots took the stairs two at a time as he lunged up after Commander Noel and turned to give Henry, the radio operator, a hand on each set of stairs. If Arthur’s backpack of supplies was heavy, then he did not even want to think about what Henry went through with that pile of electronics on him.
The rest of the team followed quickly and following them, came the defeaning, low rumble of yet another mudslide. It was the low, terrible, tired growling of a valley that sounded like a cornered animal giving its final shot at intimidation. Yet that low growl quickly grew as Arthur turned up yet another series of eight steps in the staircase. The smear of a sound that was rumble gave way to distinct, sharp cries and squeaks of snapping metal and breaking wood and masonry crashing and a thousand over things.
“HERE!” Commander Noel shouted and light opened up as he reached the top door. In one huge, victorious crash, the Commander charged shoulder-first into the door, destroyed the sodden wood and escaped out onto the flat roof of the building. Arthur came to a stop just before the door, he grabbed Henry’s arm and he all but threw the man outside with a great heave of effort. And the next team member. And the next. And the next. Joel, one of the new Rescuers who had only been dropped off by helicopter to replace a wounded member two days ago, yelped as he landed on the ground. That made up five though, Arthur himself was number six. Everyone.
Arthur jumped through the doorway just as the mud crashed into the building and exploded up the side of the wall like a wave crashing into a cliff. Noel and Henry and Arthur all stayed flat on the concrete cold concrete roof. Joel, who had tried to pick himself up, was knocked back down as the building shook and creaked and cracked appeared in the stone-work. Noel and Arthur locked eyes, the Commander’s green met Arthur’s steel and without a word, they assessed the damage to the structure. The grey skies above, smattered with shades of pathetic, pale blue, turned darker as the huge crash of mud blocked out the sun for a moment.
Arthur nodded to Joel, shook his head and lay flat on the ground. Noel gave a thumbs up. Trying to wade through a slide was borderline-impossible on the best of days. Even experienced Rescuers wouldn’t attempt it, with young blood about, that was a surefire to lose someone. If the building would collapse, then the building would collapse. They just had to hope that the cracks were only surface level and not structural.
The entire building shook as the six Rescuers, all in their bright red fatigues, lay flat on cracking roof. Arthur heard a few of the members praying quietly to themselves for a Divine to intervene and save them. He just lay on the ground, took a deep breath, and prepared for what was to come. He wanted to move his entire body, to jump off this roof and take a chance trusting his own body and not this failing building. Yet he knew it was stupid. He knew it was panic. He shut down. Thought of nothing. Did nothing. Became nothing. Just the back of his eyelids, the screaming of the mud around him, and his own breath.
A drop of water on his cheek forced his eyes open. Another sat him up. The sound had gone. The rest of the team were getting up. Commander Noel was already on his feet and looking over the edge. Splashes of mud came down to discolour the smooth concrete roof the apartment block a smattering of different shades of brown, and give it texture in the form of pieces of rotten wood and small stones and clumps of soil that had exploded when they cascaded back down, although just as the mudslide had splashed up vertically, it fell vertically and must of the refuse had landed back down on the ground. “That was a wet one.” Noel shouted, still looking over the edge.
Arthur didn’t know why it was funny. There was nothing funny about it. It wasn’t a joke. It was just true. The mudslides had been getting wetter and wetter as the refuse carried in from the tidal wave which washed the eastern seaboard away was getting cleaned out by the autumn rains and floods. It was just a fact. And it was it the funniest statement Arthur had ever heard in his life. That was a wet one. Arthur burst out in laughter and so did the rest of the team. Even Noel joined in, looking as if he didn’t know why he was laughing but laughing nonetheless. “That’s your first slide Joel.” Noel shouted as Henry started to take off his backpack and set the radio open. It was standard protocol for all the teams to rendezvous and make sure everyone was safe.
Arthur looked around at the city. The mudslide had passed quickly, it had entered the ocean now. Crashing waves that once splashed on the rocky beach now broke apart in the floating pieces of wood. Another dozen or so cars had been pulled into the water, even though the Rescuers had gone about and tried to secure all the vehicles the moment they arrived. A building was toppling across the wet ruins on the other side of the town. From the public library that stood where there should have been a city centre, another a pair in bright red waved to Arthur. Arthur waved back. If something had happened, they would have just fired a flare.
In the distance, an Imperial Ship was working on pulling more of the vehicles out of the ocean. Some people had an issue with them. Most people did. Arthur… Arthur supposed he did, but he supposed he was much too tired to truly care. At the end of the day, it had been disconcerting when the same nation that caused this disaster in the first place had entered the scene and began to help, but at the end of the day, they were still helping. If an extra pair of hands was always needed, then an extra ship was a gift beyond words. And the Empire sent hundreds of ships and thousands of hands. Arthur watched that ship in the distance, he couldn’t make out the name on it, but it had a huge magnetic crane it was sticking into the water and using to pull out wrecks.
Wrecks of cars, wrecks of telephone poles, wrecks of foundations, wrecks of batteries, wrecks of everything and anything that could be magnetized. Supposedly, there were actual Alanktydan mermen working in the larger cities, and some of the huge cities like Alkai had entire Imperial fleets stationed offshore, but here, in Rockport, it was just this lone vessel.
Primrose sat down next to Joel. The woman had short hair, tied and she pulled out her seemingly-endless packet of mints. Like the rest of them, her face and red suit were all smattered with specks of mud that had been dropped from the sky after that huge crash against the side of the building. “What do you think?” She asked.
“Of what?” Joel asked. Arthur shared a glance with Noel and with Carter. The Commander nodded to Primrose and Joel. Carter bit the inside of his cheek as if obviously containing laughter and Arthur pretend to look everywhere but at them. Young love was so cute it was funny, especially for the older men in the team.
“Of your first time out here.” Primrose asked as she finally managed to twist the cap of her mint box open. Tradition. Everyone bar Henry, who was screwing an antenna into the box he had set up in the ground, went to get one of the green sweets. Arthur got one for Henry too and held it in front of the radio operator’s face as the man worked.
“Thanks.” Henry finished on the antenna, pressed a button, took the mint, his radio started to whirring and lights came on, and he threw the sweet into his mouth. “The fruit ones were better.” He said. Primrose overheard him.
“Of course you’d prefer the fruity-tuity ones.” She said, her tone light and jovial.
“Well of course, I’m as fruity-tuity as a fucking ray of sunshine.” Henry said as he put the speakers over his ears and the rest of the team burst out in a laughter.
The laughter last for a second. Not even a second. Everyone saw Henry’s bushy eyebrows dart downwards. Everyone saw the man’s lips quiver. Everyone saw his sudden grab and twist of one of the knobs and frantic press on another button. “Sarah’s injured.” Henry suddenly exclaimed. Sarah was Team Three, although the Rockport platoon all knew each other. The Empire had only sent one ship to this town, the UNN had only sent twenty souls.
“What happened?” Noel immediately asked and Henry shook his head.
“It’s bad. I’m radioing pickup.” The team all fell silent as they let Henry work. Henry worked quickly though, he only took maybe five seconds of making the radio squeak and buzz to give an update on the situation. “No signal.” Suddenly, that grey sky and interspersed with pale blue looked a whole lot worse for Arthur.
“Have you tried the other teams?” Noel asked and then immediately correct himself. “Other cities I mean. Nearby cities.”
“Calling.” Arthur started thinking too, he looked out over the city and… The moment he saw it, the moment the idea came to his mind, he could not push it away.
“The ship.” Arthur shouted and pointed to the distance. “It’s an Imperial. They all have helicopters.” The rest of the team looked at him as if he was mad for a moment. All save Henry who re-affirmed the situation.
“Busy. Radios off.” Only then did he catch onto what Arthur said. But he followed along immediately. “I’ll have to open frequency it because we don’t know-“
“We’re not ringing an Imperial ship.” Noel said. The commander and Arthur locked eyes as Arthur’s mind raced. It was not a matter of love and closeness, they were merely in the same team, but Sarah was another soul that had come here, another soul that gave all they had for this work. Arthur had not lost so much only to let more be lost.
“I’m not killing her but I’m not-“ Arthur wouldn’t take it. Every second mattered. He rounded on the Commander and Noel, in that dirty-red uniform, shrunk back under the way Arthur pounced on him.
“Ring the ship. She’s going to die.”
“It’s them that did this and now we-“ And again, Arthur interrupted him. The valves inside twisted, the aggression came out in a flood. But it was too important. This wasn’t a time for calmness and planning and talk or anything. There were times like that, but when lives were on the line, one made a decision and one stuck with it.
Arthur had come here to save every life he could, whether it was the lives of those that needed memories, whether it was the lives of those that needed to be sent off to the next world, and especially if it was the lives of those that still walked this world. “Are you that much of a bastard you’re going to let her DIE!?” Arthur found himself raising his tone as he swept across the roof in pure rage. “And for what?!”
“It’s…” Commander Noel trailed off, actually taking a step back to retreat from the furious man that was quickly closing the distance in on him. Arthur struggled to believe what he was hearing. To think that he once respected this man. To think all that respect had been washed away as quickly as the magnificent cities of the eastern seaboard. To think that now, Noel was acting like nothing more than the mud which was trying to swallow Rockport. “We’ve all lost someone.” Noel took another step back, his red suit rustling as he almost tripped over a loose pipe that once would have been part of the air conditioning system.
“So we must lose more?” Arthur shouted immediately. “Is that it? We just keep on losing until we’re all gone?” The rest of the team took a step back from the two arguing men. Arthur stared into Noel’s eyes. They were friends. He did not hate the man. Frankly, even now, they were friends. The only reason Arthur could push Noel like this was because he knew that Noel was a friend. But a life was on the line. And Arthur expected better of his friends than to let lives be thrown away.
“Arthur!” Radio Operator Henry shouted as he half-lunged, half-retreated from Arthur, resulting in an odd motion that looked like a shake. The mudslide gave another crash as it snapped something under its weight. A cloud of dust rose in the distance, from behind another abandoned block of apartments. Yet Arthur did not stop. He ignored the shouts and protests from the rest of his team, he sidestepped the surprise and sudden onset of fear in Noel’s face. The Commander’s eyes went green as they concentrated on the pistol and he froze in place.
“There you go! There you go!” Arthur slid back the slide on the pistol and chambered a round. He flicked the safety off. “Can’t do it now?! Can’t do it? Oh it’s so easy when you can’t see her? Come on Noel, don’t be a fucking coward. Be a fucking man. You’re here to do that, aren’t you? Come on, be decisive.” Arthur ranted rapidly and quickly as he forced the pistol into Noel’s hand and manhandled the commander’s rough fingers into keeping hold of the pistol.
“Stop Art.”
“Give the command to ring the ship.”
“It’s because of the-“ Noel began and was interrupted.
“Pull the trigger or ring the fucking ship Noel.” Arthur commanded, his cold steel-coloured eyes staring into Noel’s green. He pressed the barrel of the pistol deeper into his forehead until it left an imprint and he let go. Noel managed to hold the gun steady for only half a second before his hand fell to the ground and he passed the pistol back to Arthur, his eyes shining.
The command came in a whisper. “Ring the ship.”