Violet Detours (BOOK 2) : Badly, Madly, Deeply

Love and War in Zen City

They emerged at the other side of the portal on top of a building, Gusion hitting the floor flat on his back and receiving Guinevere's weight as she came falling into him before rolling off into the floor herself.

Lying there, he had thought of the countless times he'd wondered how would Guinevere react if she would witness things in the city that couldn't be found on the Moniyan Empire.

Now she was really there, yet he couldn't figure out whether he should feel glad or worried.

He'd made enemies in that dimension, and it would've been easy to handle them if only they were familiar of the weapons the City had to offer to the criminals.

But Zen city was the city of technology, and it seemed to be everyday that a new weapon gets to be released into the black market.

He didn't want any of those to be used against them, especially towards Guinevere.

He also wondered how Guinevere find the place. It was so much different from the Moniyan Empire's blue sky and fresh air and woodlands as far as the eye could see.

Upon Gusion's tour around Zen, he observed that the whole city seemed to be floating on dead air, the sky nothing but darkness above and the whole ground nothing but a big chunk of metal under pavements.

And judging by how close they were at the dark sky, worry started spreading in his gut.

"Is this...is this Zen?" Guinevere asked, panting.

He turned his head to her direction. She was lying next to him, her dark hair sticking on the sides of her face and her soaked clothes stuck on her skin.

"Yes." he answered. "This is Zen."

He watched as she got up and looked around, her eyes wide with curiosity.

And he didn't know why he found that look so damn attractive that he sat up only to gaze at her.

She was looking above and around, her eyes absorbing everything she was seeing.

He was amused at how her mouth hanged open the moment she saw a couple of cars floating in the airway, and she ran to the edge of the rooftop just to watch it zoom away.

A smile tugged at the side of his lips, and he got to his feet to go near her.

"Your jaw might fall down." He teased.

She finally turned to him as if she had just remembered his presence. "How do those things work?!"

He shrugged. "Something about turning gas into energy and sorts."

He leaned against the railing of the rooftop and looked down.

"Look." He told her.

She followed her gaze and later heard her sigh of awe.

He had always seen Zen as this dark place with nothing but the extinction of mankind in its future.

But standing there right next to Guinevere and seeing how amused she was, he was having a hard time figuring out how the place suddenly seemed to be looking fine, aesthetic even.

The Empire was beautiful, but there was something about seeing a city filled with different colored neon lights and the cars' taillights looking like fireflies from above that was quite astonishing.

And not to mention that they were in the tallest building of the city, giving them the full view of the city below.

How they were teleported there, Gusion did not know. It was the last place he wanted her to be in, but he couldn't help giving Guinevere the luxury of time to admire the view it was giving.