Aftermath

Lisa walked out across the rocky landscape, relieved to be free of the Ice Cathedral and its appalling spiralling cycle of violence. She had stayed too long, letting her curiosity get the better of her, and now Ibex had alerted Malkor to her presence. Riser had created a powerful shield around Ibex, imprisoning her beneath a small green dome, but it hadn't been able to stop her from broadcasting a message with her mind. There were ways to send messages long distances. Lisa had sent them to her mother in the past, but she hadn't thought about the fact that maybe other lords could send mental broadcasts too. She had become complacent in her abilities, almost getting herself killed in the process.

Riser loped alongside her in his now battle-tested exoskeleton. He didn't seem to be having any trouble with his movement like before.

'How did you do it?' she said.

'Do what?' he said, glancing towards her.

He looked powerful and invigorated, despite everything they had been through.

'How did you create a shield to imprison her? How did you prevent her from teleporting away?'

'I told you. I used the Refractor Orb.'

'But it's just a weapon, isn't it? What you did back there must have required great skill and subtlety. I didn't think it could be used like that.'

Riser rubbed his unruly beard with one metal paw as he walked with a regular gait beside her. 'I'm just scratching the surface of what it can do. I wouldn't stand a chance of understanding it without my neural implants. I was upset when you first told me about them. The Kamari should never have done that to me, but now I've had some time to think about it, I'm starting to see some advantages.'

'You should keep studying the Refractor Orb. It could be far more useful than I realised.'

Riser nodded. 'I will. Where did you get it - originally, I mean?'

Lisa glanced down at her hands as she walked beside him, wondering how much to tell him. She didn't want to drag up painful memories but she didn't want to lie to him either. He was her friend and he deserved to hear the truth. 'My father used it when he was the war droid. The Kamari gave it to him. I don't know where they got it from.'

'Wait - your father was the war droid?'

'No,' Lisa said shaking her head. 'It's not as simple as that. The war droid was autonomous, capable of killing on its own. My father was trapped inside, a prisoner forced to do things against his will...'

Her sentence trailed off as she fought against a sudden wave of despair that rose up inside her, and she found herself blinking with tears in her eyes.

Riser gave her a sidelong glance. 'Why didn't you tell me this before, Lisa?'

'Would it have made any difference?'

'It might. We need to be wary of Kamari technology. They have a tendency to leave traps and malware inside.'

Lisa sighed. 'There aren't any traps in it, Riser.'

'How can you be sure?'

'Because they never intended for us to have it. This was their weapon, not ours.'

Riser grumbled, making a grunting noise in the back of his throat.

Lisa dried her eyes, taking a deep breath before looking at him once more. 'Is there something you wanted to say to me?'

Riser shook his head and they walked in silence for a while beneath a gloomy, grey sky full of disturbingly-shaped clouds. Thunder rumbled overhead, though there was no rain in the sky.

'Did you hear that?' Lisa said, fluttering her wings behind her.

Riser nodded. 'The sky doesn't look right today. I don't know what's wrong with this place.'

'Do you think it's an omen?'

'I don't know. I don't understand anything anymore. I knew what I was dealing with in Cinnamon City. The people were greedy and selfish. Everyone looked out for themselves. It's different here. I have no idea what's fucking normal. Anything can happen at any time.'

Lisa nodded. 'I've been feeling like that for some time. Don't let it get to you, Riser.'

'I'm not. I'm just saying.'

Lisa stumbled, tripping over a loose rock before Riser reached out and caught her with one of his titanium paws.

'Careful,' he said.

Lisa frowned, shaking off his support. 'I'm okay,' she said. 'I can walk on my own.'

Riser shrugged, gazing towards the horizon. He was a strange travelling companion. Sometimes he was brave, and sometimes cowardly. Sometimes he was caring but at other times he acted like he didn't care about anything at all. Lisa didn't know when she would truly understand him.

'What happened back there?' Riser said, trying to change the topic.

Lisa shrugged. 'It was strange seeing another sky lord. I couldn't stop staring at her wings. Ibex was just like me in many ways, but in other ways she was so different.'

'You scared me in the caves. What happened to you? You just kept screaming. I tried to help you but I couldn't understand what was happening.'

'It was Malkor. He invaded my mind.'

'What do you mean? Was he there?'

'Not physically. He entered my thoughts, wrapping me in a dangerous illusion. It felt like I was on fire. I was so scared. I thought I was choking on thick black smoke while flames devoured my skin, but when I looked down my body was still whole and there wasn't any smoke.'

'Can he do that - enter your mind?'

'Not normally. The lords often try mental attacks on each other. Generally it only happens at short range but it can happen over large distances too - if the attacker is powerful enough. Usually I maintain a mental shield to keep them out. I guess I wasn't thinking straight. I was focussing too much on Ibex. I forgot about our other enemies.'

Riser walked for several paces, his exoskeleton's feet crunching across the cold, hard ground beneath them. 'Can he target you now? Does he know where you are?'

'I think so,' Lisa said, wrapping her arms around her as a biting wind swept her long blonde hair into a tangled mess behind her. 'It's more about awareness than physical location. I think Ibex did something to make it easier for him to enter my mind. I wish I'd had a chance to learn more about her.'

'She was a homicidal bitch. Why would you want to know her?'

'She lived for a long time, Riser. I could have learnt so much from her. The Lasrecon shared some of her memories with me, but they're incomplete, fragments of another place and time. I might never be able to make sense of them all.'

'You need to learn how to fight. That's your problem.'

Lisa shook her head. 'I'm not here to fight. I'm a sky lord, not a war lord.'

'But you need to survive.'

'That much I know.'

'Ibex was better at teleporting than you. She shifted and fought with fluid motions, combining her talents together rather than using them in isolation.'

'Not like me, you mean?'

'You can teleport, but you do one thing at a time. You shift position, and then you throw a wave of air, and then you shift again. It seems somehow mechanical, predictable.'

'Thanks!'

'Ibex was good at fighting. She launched an attack while teleporting into position at the same time. That's what I meant by fluid. I'm just pointing out what you need to learn. Maybe she just had more practice than you, that's all.'

'I'm no good at this,' Lisa said, shaking her head.

'I didn't say you were useless. You're skilled at shaping air. You made that tornado, spinning ice and air. That was a great weapon! You should do that again.'

'I wasn't sure what I was doing.'

'It worked really well. You should develop your skills until you can do it without thinking. That way it'll come naturally when you need it most.'

Lisa shook her head. 'I'm not a killer, Riser.'

'Neither am I, but we'll need to improve if we want to survive out here.'