Lester Yong & Rosa Fontelera-Yong

CoESC Book 2-14.1: Sharom, Aneurin, and Lunette

That evening, Yuriko returned to the Shepherd’s Cross feeling wrung out. She went past the common room, ignoring the tantalising scent of sizzling beef steaks on the grill and the bubbling pot of gravy right next to it. True, her tummy started rumbling at the aroma but she ignored it and went straight into the room she shared with Kato and locked herself in the bathroom.

She drew up a bath, watching as the faucet gushed out warm water. She dipped her hand in the tub and frowned.

CoESCBook 2-13.3: The Other Trials

The next hundred paces down the path were hard-fought. At the first intersection, Ifra blasted a stone at them. Yuriko barely managed to deflect it with her side-blade before she got hit, and returned a shot from the Plasma Lancet. The other girl had already ducked out of sight by then.

Ptang!

The stone smacked against the cobblestones and bounced into the hedges. Yuriko remained on guard. A glance behind her showed that the squad had pulled away a couple dozen paces, and...

CoESC Book 2-13.2: The Other Trials

Thankfully, when Yuriko tried the defensive second sword dance, the training blade didn’t gain a deadly edge. She didn’t even want to try the third dance, already sure of the result. Still, she would be hampered from performing well, considering none of them had any additional protective gear.

Yuriko had worn her forceweave clothing to the exams but she saw nearly half of the examinees wearing casual, though still easy to fight in, clothes. Which meant that if she used the first or ...

CoESC Book 2-13.1: The Other Trials

Yuriko returned to Room 213 half an hour early with butterflies in her stomach but the determination to do her best. There were a few nervous kids already in the room and, from the lingering scent, they had brought their lunches with them and ate there.

She waited quietly in her seat while practising some Animus manipulation exercises. She kept the strands inside her Anima though, so she wouldn’t create a scene. She wondered why the instructors insisted that she not impart an Intent t...

CoESC Book 2-12.3: City of Dreams

Vinze Hall was the east wing of a much bigger building just north of the Central Reserve. Kato led her through a cobblestone path in the park instead of taking them around the perimeter road. The path was barely wide enough for the two of them to walk side by side and it went around several nooks and sequestered clearings before they wound up back on the perimeter road within a stone’s throw from Agaza’s Main Hall.

Any other time, she would have enjoyed that route; it was a beautifu...

CoESC Book 2-12.2: City of Dreams

While entering the Mid Rings were quite easy, Yuriko and the twins found out that the Upper Ring was an entirely different affair. For one thing, the City Above the Mountain had walls ten paces high that encircled the area about a league across. As the Circuit Tram trundled up the switchback road, they could see tall towers peeking above the wall.

The perspective made it seem as though the walls were no more than a couple or so paces high and it was only when they arrived at the broad p...

CoESC Book 2-12.1: City of Dreams

The first thing they did when they arrived at Rumiga City was to hop on another Tram, an intra-city Circuit Tram which moved Yuriko, Kato, and the twins out of the Southern Mid Ring to the Northern one.

“There aren’t any good hotels over here,” Kato said bluntly. “This is the industrial and storage zone, full of rough people.”

Yuriko looked blankly at her brother then at the early evening crowd on the streets. They seemed no rougher than the folks back at Faron’s Cross...

CoESC Book 2-11.3: Journeys

Lukas held a piece of paper with barely legible scribblings up to his face. He was supposed to head to Quartz Avenue on the Southern Mids at midmorning but he was honestly lost. After weeks of procrastinating, he had finally decided to follow Mr. Kincaid’s advice and look to Mr. Mazer for employment.

He’d waited for the creditor to come by and brought it up when he paid his weekly interest. Mazer grinned, his grey eyes crinkling as he smiled. Lukas couldn’t help but stare at the o...

CoESC Book 2-11.2: Journeys

The next day, the Commuter Tram continued on its way from the miner’s camp. Centurion Lleufer, Decanus Cavin, and the two other Colossus Core pilots who didn’t introduce themselves, not where Yuriko could hear anyway, gave them a salute as they left.

Yuriko rubbed her gunky eyes while she stared out the window. They didn’t have a place to refresh themselves and she was feeling out of sorts. The fact that she tossed and turned last night, frequently awakened by horrid dreams, proba...

CoESC Book 2-11.1: Journeys

“Great! Another detour. How many are we going to have to go through and how long before we finally make it back home? Fallen Sun, Virgil!” Balliol ranted while he channelled his Animus into the co-pilot’s chair.

“Easy there,” Sarra said while leaning against the bulkhead.

Virgil snorted but didn’t comment. He was the pilot for this round with Amiri as the second co-pilot.

“Sure, we’ve got another errand to run and who knows how long this would take,” Ballio...

CoESC Book 2-10.3: Zarek

Kato pointed the muzzle of his Plasma Caster at a Grunder headed towards his little sister. She had opted to fight in melee with the side-blade attached to her rifle, instead of standing back and shooting like he did. He squeezed the trigger as soon as he picked his target and the bolt melted into its temple.

This close to the lair, the other Grunders, the ones shaped like canines and ursines were more prevalent. There was blood on their jaws--fresh, red blood.

He pointed at three...

CoESCBook 2-10.2: Zarek

“I’m going,” Yuriko firmly declared to Kato.

Her elder brother stared down at her, nearly a head taller than she was after his latest growth spurt, but she didn’t let it intimidate her. Kato, unlike Marron and Rami, had an angular face,  sharp, almond-shaped eyes and thin eyebrows. His features an even mix of their Da and Mum which meant that his expressionless face was oh so cold.

“Are you sure?” he asked. “It won’t be pretty. Or clean.”

“What are G...

CoESC Book 2-10.1: Zarek

“Master!” Kato yelped, turning to the red-haired woman seated a couple of rows behind them. Kale, Rorke, and few other passengers stood up, faces twisted in anger.

For a moment, Yuriko didn’t know what to do. The…things…were trampling the people of the camp with the Koinos trying their best to push them back. But the Colossi…not only were they smaller than the craggy boulder monsters, there were only a couple of them against five.

Yuriko’s Animus channelled into her ...

CoESC Book 2-9.3: The Long Road

The next morning, an hour before dawn, Yuriko got up bleary-eyed from bed. Unexpectedly, Kato was already up with his gear in his backpack, face and hair wet from washing.

“Good morning, Yuri,” he said simply.

“Morning.” She yawned. “This is unusual.”

“What?”

“You, up this early.”

“I don’t want to hurry just before boarding. The Tram will leave us if we’re not there on time.”

“Oh.”

She grabbed a change of clothes, a ...

CoESC Book 2-9.2: The Long Road

The Travellers’ Inn had a nice and cosy common room, with twelve round tables that could comfortably seat five or so people apiece. The Innkeeper was a stout woman with her greying hair in a bun and her dress covered by a clean white apron.

“Welcome! Welcome! Come rest your weary selves, dear travellers! Have a seat, dinner will be served soon!”

The twins joined Yuriko and Kato’s table, drawing another fierce glare from her brother. He didn’t protest too much even though...

CoESC Book 2-9.1: The Long Road

Yuriko held Fri’Avgi fondly in her room. She ran her fingers down the hilt and around the cross-guard while rubbing her thumb on the red gem. A small light seemed to flare from deep within the gem and she wouldn’t have noticed it if she wasn’t staring.

A sense of melancholy rose up within her. If she weren’t used to it, she would have thought that the emotion was hers but there was little doubt it was the artefact. That Fri’Avgi could feel and express emotion wasn’t somethin...

CoESC Book 2-8.3: Leavetaking

The next day, Yuriko began her day with her usual routine. She grabbed Krystal as she began her morning run, tacitly permitted by Sandra Farrow, Krystal’s mum, to drag her childhood friend out of bed.

“Hey, wha-what’s happening? Five more hours!” Krystal murmured sleepily while Yuriko stripped her pyjamas off and dressed the other girl in training clothes. “Yuri? Why you do this?”

“Come on, I need company.”

“So you just drag me out of bed?”

“Yup....

CoESC Book 2-8.2: Leavetaking

Orrin put down his book, Essential Runescript for the Neophyte Scribe, when he heard Braden moan. His twin was seated in a meditative pose on his bed, going through Recovery. Beads of sweat poured down the other boy’s forehead and he nearly toppled over.

“Braden!” Orrin jumped off his own bed and caught his twin before he fell off the bed. Braden coughed and there were flecks of red in his spittle. The connection inside his Anima was stable though, so whatever this was, it wasn’...

CoESC Book 2-8.1: Leavetaking

“Alive,” Marron said.

Yuriko’s heart lifted, joy suffusing her body that it spilt over her Anima and her skin started glowing faintly. Kato and Rami stared alternatingly at her and their eldest brother.

“You’d be damn useful underground,” Marron muttered in a deadpan voice before continuing. “We discovered traces and determined that they were alive, or at least Da was, as of the twenty-ninth or thirtieth.”

“That’s very good news.” Kato jumped to his fee...

CoESC Book 2-7.3: Contact

If she weren’t so tired, Yuriko would have immediately bolted upright and woken up. In fact, she felt herself at the edge of consciousness, a hair-thin line between sleep and wakefulness.

“Get a…your…limi…me…settle...do…”

Even as a shadow, the frustration on his face was clear. What held her consciousness to sleep, what made sure her dreaming was lucid, were goassamer threads that could break at the tiniest movement.

“Listen…have…time…”

Yuriko...

CoESC Book 2-7.2: Contact

“Hem hem.”

Alderman Ferell Rivos cleared his throat while looking out at the entire Assembly Hall. Yuriko straightened up in her seat, assuming the proper posture drilled into her by half a decade of primary schooling, her Mum, and Matron Rosie.

“Welcome, citizens of Faron’s Crossing and visitors alike, to our Twenty-first Harvest Festival. Let us welcome our children who have crossed the threshold into adulthood and responsibility…”

Rivos’ voice droned on but ...

CoESC Book 2-7.1: Contact

Yuriko followed her nose to a stall grilling cubes of meat. The chef drizzled tiny pink salt crystals on the meat making the aroma even more enticing and mouthwatering. There was a substantial line in front and she and her friends weren’t the only teenagers in the crowd: it was a tradition for the students younger than thirteen to run some of the festival stalls.

She fell in line, noting that the price indicated on the sign was four copper marks per stick. A bit pricey but from the sc...

CoESC Book 2-6.3: The Harvest Moon

Heron couldn’t keep the smile off his face while he stood in front of his bedroom mirror, trying to style his hair just so. His dark hair would have grown into unruly curls if he hadn’t had it styled short though really, it was more his father’s idea back when he was six years old in an effort to keep it from getting to his eyes.

It was no longer as short as it normally was--it was in that awkward stage where it was long enough that it refused to stay orderly, but too short to be ...

CoESC Book 2-6.2: The Harvest Moon

“What do you mean it costs twelve for a fresh loaf now?” Lukas yelped incredulously at the baker’s assistant.

The boy shrugged and said apologetically, “You must have heard: there’s a shortage of grain in the west. The cost of grain here shot up.”

“But there’s a lot of farms here, more than the west would need,” Lukas protested. “How can a shortage on this side of the mountain happen?”

“Not a shortage, really.” The assistant baker leaned over, “I ...

CoESC Book 2-6.1: The Harvest Moon

For the next couple of days, Yuriko maintained her strict training regimen. She woke up before dawn, ran a league around town, accompanied by her friends mostly, though it was Heron who had, lately, been consistently joining her.

Krystal had to be dragged out of her house, Mikel could barely keep up and could only join sporadically, while the twins needed to rest and recover. As it was, on the Fortieth Day of Fire, Yuriko and Heron were the only ones running.

His stamina had incre...

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CoESC Book 2-5.3: Discoveries

“Chaos Lord!”

Marron wasn’t the only one with sharp eyes in the group. A legionnaire, a woman with brown hair and red eyes, spotted the figure on the Behemoth before he could call the alarm. Decanus looked back, green eyes narrowed and started glowing orange. Niamh clutched at Marron’s sleeve, squeezing hard enough to pinch his skin.

The shadow figure, the Chaos Lord didn’t move. It continued to stare in their direction while the Behemoth meandered.

“Who is it?�...

CoESC Book 2-5.2: Discoveries

Trevor Elov Byrne watched with some amusement as the kids’ expressions changed in light of what he had just told them. As much as he sympathized with Cadet Davar, he wasn’t about to meddle in some clan’s business. Not directly anyway.

“Mind you, it's not the top percentile for the current applicants,” Trevor continued, “but the top percentile for the objective results.”

“Eh?” The look of confusion on Yuriko Davar’s face, scrunched brows, pursed lips, but wide e...

CoESC Book 2-5.1: Discoveries

The rest of Yuriko’s morning run was slow and relatively uneventful. The twins lagged behind along with Krystal and Mikel. Heron kept pace with her easily but mostly because she had slowed down to accommodate the others.

“I should run another lap after this,” Yuriko muttered.

Heron raised an eyebrow. “They’re too slow?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll join you, if you don’t mind?”

“Sure.”

Heron grinned while glancing back at the others.

They ...

CoESC Book 2-4.3: A Ray of Hope

“Ancestors!” Marron muttered as he glared down at the crystal screen. He felt his blood rushing up to his head and his sight tinged red at the edges. “Why is Mum doing this?”

A glance at his sister made him sigh. He recognized that stubborn light in her blue eyes and the way she ate, chomping down on her food aggressively. However, she would occasionally stop eating and stare blankly out the window looking lost. She didn’t want to just follow, she wanted to fight back but she ...