Orion heard the mission and was ecstatic. His entire being seemed to vibrate with a raw, untamed energy that he could scarcely contain. This was it—the moment he had been waiting for, the reason he had pushed through every hardship, the dream that had fueled his nights in the cold back alleys of Central.
"An elimination mission!!" The words were like a spark to tinder, igniting a fire within him. To get a chance to fight a monster so early on, was just so perfect! He couldn't stay still in his chair; his legs jiggled nervously, and his fingers tapped a frantic, silent rhythm against the worn wood of the chair.
In front of him, Ashka pondered for a second, his sharp, experienced eyes analyzing Orion with a swift, almost dismissive glance that nonetheless seemed to miss nothing. He was weighing the boy, measuring his mettle before a single blow had been struck. "Got weapons, kid?" he asked, the question casual, yet it was layered with a deeper consideration, as if the answer would determine much more than mere armament.
Orion nodded with unbridled excitement, a quick, jerky motion that showed his enthusiasm. "Good," Ashka assured, though his tone was flat, merely acknowledging the fact. "I plan to depart immediately. Do any of you have other affairs in the settlement that should be dealt with?" Ashka asked and crossed his arms, his gaze sweeping over the other three individuals in the area. They remained as they were. All except Orion, who constantly fidgeted in place, a live wire of anticipation, excited to leave.
"Perfect. So, let's move for it," he said. Immediately, all three of the crew members stood up with a synchronized, fluid motion. Orion stood up too, actually, almost jumping out of his chair in his eagerness, the legs scraping loudly against the stone floor. As they all started to leave for the entrance of the settlement, Ashka stopped Orion, a firm hand landing on his shoulder, its weight both physical and symbolic.
"Orion… Your name is Orion, right?" The use of his name, spoken without the earlier aloofness, commanded the boy's full attention. "Listen kid, you are the most vulnerable of the group, so you shouldn't try to engage in any direct combat, you hear me?" Ashka asked, and the uncaring tone from before was gone, replaced by a grim seriousness that seemed to etch new lines onto his tired face.
Orion looked at him for a second, the excitement in his eyes momentarily tempered by the gravity of the man's tone, and he nodded, a more subdued gesture this time. "Thankfully you're a reasonable kid…" Ashka muttered, though it sounded more like a hope than a statement of fact. "So, what do you know about weapons?" he asked again, his voice dropping as he tried to measure the true depth of Orion's capabilities, to find a baseline from which to work.
Orion held his chin like an old man pondering, a comically thoughtful expression on his young face. Then he turned to Ashka and replied with a big, beaming, and utterly unashamed smile. "Absolutely nothing!" He declared it with the pride of someone announcing a great achievement, complete ignorance!
In direct contradiction to that bright, naive smile, Ashka's face seemed to grow even more tired, his world-weariness a palpable force. His posture slumped a little bit, a silent surrender to the inevitable headache this boy represented. "Awesome…." he said, the word dripping with such thick, ironic disdain it seemed to hang in the air between them. He pondered it for a bit longer, thinking some more, his mind clearly racing through a list of complications. He pressed his lips together and sighed, a sound that seemed to come from the very core of his being, a sigh of exhausted patience. "Bah! fuck it, you know what? Forget anything I just said." He started to leave as well, shaking his head as if to dislodge the foolishness of his own decision. "I'll need to teach you some tricks personally. From now on, you stick with me, ok kid?" He said it without looking back, throwing the words over his shoulder like a challenge, both to himself and to the universe that kept throwing him such curveballs.
Orion heard it, and somehow he seemed to grow even more excited!! His initial disappointment at being told to stay back was utterly forgotten, replaced by the thrilling prospect of personal instruction. He was gonna be taught by a probably famous person?! How more awesome could this become!! It was a dream scenario, a turn of fortune he had never anticipated. He quickly ran out with everyone else, his spirits soaring higher than ever.
Orion caught up to Ashka, and the two of them walked towards the imposing gates of the Settlement. As they walked, the sounds of the settlement fading behind them, Ashka started to speak again, his voice low and meant for Orion's ears alone.
"Also.. Orion, don't let those three get to you," He said without looking at the boy, his eyes fixed ahead, as bored and casual as always, yet the advice was anything but.
Orion looked at Ashka with a confused expression, his brows knitting together. "What do you mean?"
"…What I mean is…" Ashka began, choosing his words with a deliberate care that felt foreign to his usual bluntness. "No matter what these three say, don't let it affect you. I can already tell, they'll be rude, they'll be aggressive, and they can be offensive. No matter what, you must stay strong, Orion." He said it with slow and careful words; the words themselves were meant to be inspiring, a pep talk for a new recruit, but his tone was flat, almost casual. Orion concluded he actually… didn't want to show too much care, as if revealing genuine concern was a vulnerability he could not afford. "Just remember, kid, Radiants aren't made of bloodlines or connections, but of desperation and greed. You may have nothing now, but you have Fire, kid." Just at that moment, Ashka looked down at Orion, and his gaze, for the first time, held a different quality. "…And as long as you never lose that fire, you'll Radiate brighter than all else." His gaze now finally showed some emotion, a complex mix of warning, of deep-seated worry… and beneath it all, a faint, lingering trace of guilt, as if he were responsible for leading this bright flame into the coming darkness.
Orion stared at Ashka with eyes wide open, taking in the unexpected depth of the man's words. But then his expression softened, and he smiled, a genuine, grateful smile. Orion put his arms behind his back and stepped forward, his usual fidgeting stilled as he took a while thinking, trying to formulate a response worthy of the moment. Maybe something poetic could work better here, something that sounded clever and nice to the ears, a worthy retort to such solemn advice… But Orion wasn't a very poetic person. He was a creature of action and feeling, not of refined words.
He spun around and stared straight at Ashka, his golden-orange eyes alight with determination. "Don't worry, Captain Ashka, like I would let some folks blur my vision." The wind swept across the area at that precise moment, a sudden gust that shook Orion's clothes and whipped his hair across his face. And Ashka could swear just then, in that fleeting instant, Orion's golden-orange eyes shone with a mysterious, internal light, a flash of something profound and potent, for just a second.
Ashka's eyes went wide for a moment, his practiced composure cracking. "...What...?" He thought, the word a silent echo in his mind.
After his words, Orion turned around, his moment of intense declaration over, and joined the rest of his group with a serene expression, a light smile still on his face as if nothing out of the ordinary had occurred.
Ashka didn't remain stunned for long; a lifetime of survival had taught him to process shocks quickly. Right after what he conclusively decided must have been an illusion, a mere play of the dust-laden wind and the setting sun, Ashka reached the giant, reinforced gate, and was the first one to step outside the settlement, followed by the silver-haired girl and the two other men, their movements efficient and devoid of ceremony.
Orion was the last one to step outside. He paused at the threshold, a tangible line between the known and the unknown. He took in a last breath of the air inside the walls of Central—air that smelled of people, of industry, of cramped safety—and then he stepped outside, and had his first true peek of the world beyond the Walls of Central.
When he stepped outside, Orion's eyes went wide, his jaw going slack with pure, unadulterated awe.
Around Central… was a complete wasteland. It stretched forth for hundreds of meters, maybe even a few kilometers, a vast, flat, and dead plane of nothingness. The earth was scorched and barren, devoid of life. It was only way in the back, where the horizon ended in a hazy, blurred line, that Orion started to see the suggestion of forests, a dark, jagged band that promised a world beyond this desolation.
He was stunned for a few moments, his mind struggling to reconcile this reality with the vague, unformed ideas he had always held about the outside. But seeing his crew advance without him, their figures already growing smaller against the immense landscape, he picked up the pace and hurried to them, his feet crunching on the gravelly soil.
There was a deafening silence as they walked, a silence so profound it felt heavier than any noise. The only sound was the rhythmic crunch of the soles of their boots against the gravel and dirt of the ground, a monotonous drumbeat accompanying their march into the unknown.
As they walked, Orion started to ponder what could have happened here as he looked around, his head turning constantly to take in the sheer scale of the devastation. The question nagged at him, a puzzle with missing pieces.
To be honest, Orion didn't know much about the world he lived in. He was born in the back alleys of Central, and since he was young his only worry and his only task was to… survive. There was no room for other things, really. He knew the name of his Settlement since everybody said it, he knew about the Radiants, Sparklings, Champions, Heroes, and of course the Monarchs, because everybody knew about the Monarchs! But he never came across the information that Central was surrounded by such a desolate plane… Could it be, this information was just so obvious, that nobody ever cared to mention it? Was it like the air one breathes, never noted because it is always there?
Thinking about the subject more deeply… Orion did not remember any instance where he had spoken to anyone about the outside world. His conversations had always been about the next meal, the next warm spot to sleep, the next avoidable threat. The world beyond the walls was a story for another class of people, a luxury for those whose survival was not a hourly question. And so, he walked on, the silence giving him ample room to wonder, the barren landscape a blank page upon which his new story would be written.