Days Union Oneshot Book [DISCONTINUED]

turns out the bouncer's ex-marine...

A/N: rise and grind du nation we drop silly ideas while practicing writing fight scenes

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The ashy sand shifted beneath the Minister's boots, sparkling shards of broken glass crunching underneath the hard rubber soles. The land he trudged through, once the glorious territory of Aurora built of spiraling towers to gaze up at the skies and solid stone walls to protect its people, was now nothing but rubble and glass tucked in the gray sand. The days of the wasteland's former glory were long behind Yokhlinu's time, yet he still heard stories of the first jet prototypes soaring across the breathtaking cities as Aurorians trotted across fertile soil blooming with luscious fields and vibrant wildflowers. It was a shame that a place once so magnificent was now nothing but distant fragments of the past reflecting mournfully back at the Minister through its fragile remnants.

But it was not all a barren desert that mirrored rusted misery. Something was here.

Something powerful.

A few Aurorian pilots had flown over the Eastern Wasteland where they spotted an abnormal activity of thick fog. It polluted the air like a factory's byproduct and could have easily choked someone to death if one had been lost in its smog. It was a strange color, too: ashy gray with a tint of blue, as the cameras had been able to capture. It billowed and swirled like an uncontrollable cyclone, taking up a good chunk of the wasteland's area.

It was smoke, powerful enough to be sourced from a property shard.

Yokhlinu insisted on venturing out alone into the desert with a single line of communication to keep him in contact with Aurora. The scarf over his face was carefully crafted to protect his lungs from inhaling the air's dangerous fumes, still carrying microscopic shards of glass from decades past. Traveling alone, the Minister felt no need to slow or quicken his step; besides, there was no one else so foolishly devoted to their nation to tread upon the ashen wastelands unprepared.

This was once Aurora's territory, after all, and Yokhlinu knew how to tame it.

The smoke around him grew denser the further he walked into the cyclone. His breaths became heaves, yet he still trekked on with the strength of his determination. Winds howled around him, billowing his cape until the force of the wind nearly knocked him back. It pushed the sand over his boots until he was buried almost ankle-deep. As he yanked his feet from the desert sand, Yokhlinu listened closely to the sound of the wind—a cautionary wail to him, as if it expected tragedy to ensnare him in its jaws if he walked any farther.

Perhaps if he was a better whisperer to the winds, he would have heeded such a desperate premonition.

Grains of sand carried by the wind lashed across his face, leaving thin and shallow scratches that slightly stung in the gusts of wind striking his exposed skin. The smoke only weighed down until the atmosphere was hardly breathable by the unprotected lungs, but Yokhlinu's scarf provided sufficient protection for him to breathe steadily enough to continue his quest. He must have been getting close to the shard's location.

Yokhlinu had never had the luck to lay his eyes upon any shard of the Goddesses' power... at least not yet. In the very few remaining memories of his past, he remembered the tales of their power and erratic fluctuations in power. They were almost like demigods in their power, sentient and prone to furious offense to the slightest mistreatment. While those who nurtured and cared for their shards found great success, those who abused their shards found themselves victims of their uncontrollable power.

Yokhlinu shivered at the very thought of the consequence of a foolish soul misusing this shard.

The smoke blackened around him, blinding him of any of his surroundings. However, a light glow beckoned him closer. He could feel the energy of the shard ahead, almost whispering to him through the howling winds. Yokhlinu shuffled through the sand, almost stumbling a few times as he approached the light closer and closer. The glow brightened slowly, as if to welcome him into the core of the storm.