Children of Power

CHAPTER 1

Unburnable

Brycius looked down at the young girl in front of him. She had been stirring up trouble around the Revolt for some time now, but he was only now seeing her up close. He had heard that this girl was a youth, but even with that prior knowledge he couldn’t help but be surprised at the girl before him. She seemed to be a little taller than five feet, with layered brunette hair that stretched just below her shoulder blades. She was finely built, with a rather developed body for her age. Her hourglass figure had gotten her immediate attention when she’d first appeared snooping around, and had made her very memorable. She’d been showing her face in places she shouldn’t have for over a month and a half now, and only just now had he been able to catch her. Since there hadn’t been any patterns in where she had gone snooping, Brycius had needed to send out a warning for everyone and anyone to inform him immediately when she was spotted, and he promised a reward with that warning. Once he found her it took three grown men to subdue her, and then they needed two more to hold her and take her to Brycius while the other men shook off their bruises. She had given him one surprise after the other, but seeing her here, now, she didn’t seem to be the girl she had made herself out to look like. Close up, she was just a puny teenage child.

Brycius shivered, momentarily distracted by a heavy breeze that seems to come out of nowhere. The musky underground air swirled around the room, unsettled. He growled under his breath. He quickly shouted at one of the heavy muscled henchmen to his far left to investigate the draft and close whatever opening had come up in the tunnels.

“Tell me, girl, how old are you?” asked Brycius, looking down on her from his tall throne-like chair, surrounded by a handful of gorgeous women, giving him the air of a pack leader. He was a tall, beefy muscle man, with a deep scratchy voice, and long ratted dirty blonde hair. He had beady black eyes that could glare any man into submission. But here, standing tall between two grown men almost twice her size was a young girl glaring right back into those eyes. Her own eyes were just as piercing, but a deep purple that seemed to shine across the room. She stood up straight, proud, and challenging, as if daring him to try and break her. When she first entered the room, he almost laughed to see such a glare from what looked to be a mere child.

“I’m thirteen.” She said, leaning on one leg and with her hip stuck out and her arms crossed.

“Aren’t you a bit young to be snooping around theses parts? It could be dangerous for little girls, especially the pretty little ones, like you.” There was a hint of menace in his voice at this point, that would have made any woman’s skin crawl, but this girl stood her ground and continued to give that same, meaningful, bold, furious stare. “Tell me, girl, what’s your name? Who are you working for?”

She laughed, a loud hilarious cackle. “What’s wrong?” She cooed. “Upset that a ‘little girl’ like me could infiltrate this so called ‘Revolt’? I’m not working for anyone; I’m here on my own, of my own accord. I‘m on my own.”

“What is your name?” Asked Brycius again, frowning with furrowed eyebrows.

“My name is Rika Mezzeta.” She said, almost confidently.

“I’ve never heard that name before. You must be from the burbs.” He said, narrowing his eyes at her. The burbs were slang for the suburbs, which referred to the city that the Revolt was against. Not the entire city was the suburbs of course, but it was a term used to refer to the city in general.

“I was.” She replied, tilting her head as she glared, as if studying the man before her.

“You shouldn’t have stuck your nose where it doesn’t belong. I don’t know how you managed to elude capture for almost two months, but I’ll be making sure that you don’t bother us anymore.”

Rika snorted loudly.

“What’s so funny?” Brycius asked coldly.

“Nothing important.” She replied, smirking. “Just that you’re somewhat mistaken. I first infiltrated the Revolt three and a half months ago, and I’ve been coming back here ever since. Either I’m too good to be spotted, or you’re not good enough to catch me.”

Brycius was shocked that Rika had kept herself hidden for so long without him knowing about it. But, what’s more, he was furious at this girl. For her attitude, her living in the burbs, and her seeming to think that he was in the palm of her hand, even though it was him who had her. Was she not being guarded by two giant muscle men, being held on enemy territory? Was she brave, or insane, to act so smug and challenging?

“Well, I caught you now, didn’t I? You were careless, I was quick, and now you are no longer able to walk away from here unharmed. And you know what? I’m tired of you. Boys,” he said, indicating to the guards on either side of her. “Do whatever you want with her, I don’t care. But make sure she’s dead before tomorrow.”

The two men smiled at each other from over Rika’s head, and gave a couple menacing chuckles. One man began cracking his knuckles, and the other reached down to take hold of Rika in however manner he pleased, because his master said he could.

Rika saw his hand coming to grab her, and the smug look on her face immediately vanished. It was replaced with a concentrated frown, as she seemed to be contemplating her situation. Hardly two seconds later, she had taken hold of his outstretched arm and pulled down with all her weight, momentarily lifting herself from the ground. Taken by surprise, the man fell forward. He attempted to change his footing so as not to fall, but Rika was already there. She hit the ground before he did, and kicked at his beefy legs from her position on the dirty floor. He fell and hit the ground hard with the full weight of all his muscle. The second man reached down to grab her by the shoulder, but she was expecting that. Before he got the chance to do that she swung around, still sitting on the floor, grabbed his arm and bit down hard. He howled with pain, and Rika could faintly taste the iron in his blood on her teeth. Before he had pulled back too far, she let go of him in her mouth, jumped to her feet, and took off at a run for the door. All this seemed to have happened in slow motion, but in reality it took a full ten seconds. Rika had always found that speed was the answer to getting out alive. She would always escape before the enemy knew that she was gone.

Earlier that day, Rika had decided to visit the Revolt again to see if she had missed anything on her last trip. She knew that Brycius was one of the many self appointed leaders of the Revolt. Rika had been ‘visiting’ mostly his territory, and she knew that his allies were loyal to him, so she had been expecting them to rat her out when she first started lowering her hood to ask questions. It was no surprise that she had been caught today; she had almost felt it coming.

The Revolt was a place outside the city where thieves, killers, and general criminals dwelled. It was a place where outlaws escaped to. But it hadn’t always been that way.

Common people who were fed up with the ways of the city originally started the Revolt. They hated that the city so openly separated the rich from the poor, that the voices in charge were so ignorant to the world‘s escalating problems, that no one listened to the people, or new ideas, that the people in charge were so pig headed and obsessed with organization that they didn’t think of the lives they were affecting, and most of all, they hated that so many other people accepted this way of life. It’s said that they banded together and left the city. There were rumors that they weren’t too far outside the gates, and that they mostly lived underground. No one in the city bothered going after them, and they didn’t bother coming back. But, as the rumors of a civilization outside the city grew (there were just enough people in the revolt to consider it a small village), the information also reached the ears of criminals who were condemned by the city. These criminals left the city for the Revolt. What better place to escape to than an organization that hated the city that perused them? Eventually, almost every inch of the place inhabited by the Revolt was considered home to evil and horrid people. Those of the original Revolt who couldn’t adapt to living like a thief, murderer, or all over evil doer was always around the corner, returned to the city, and kept quiet.

When Rika had first set eyes on the entrance to the Revolt, she was mildly surprised. The rumors were true about one thing, the place was underground. It seemed to be held in a well built, abandoned, old underground sewer. Over the years that followed the invasion of the criminals, the people who lived in the revolt had built onto the underground passages, created a proper entrance, and had received new inhabitants.

When facing Brycius, she had been in his hearing chamber. That’s what he called it, at least. It was a room just off the main tunnel road where he came to see his ‘clients’. He had enough power in the running of the Revolt that he got plenty of people who wanted to ask him favors, give him something in return for promised future help, advise, wanted to strike up a ruthless deal, so on and so forth. It was dark, dank, and filthy (What underground chamber isn’t?). He made a point of surrounding himself with henchmen and women. The moment Rika was hauled into the room she was disgusted with Brycius. Everything about him screamed, “I’m stronger than you.” and Rika hated it so much that she promised herself that she would act just as smug, no matter how nervous she was, if only to get under his skin. Her pride wouldn’t allow any less. It had worked; she could see on his face that he was just as disgusted with her smugness.

However, that challenging act had gotten her into the predicament she was in now. If she had kept calm and attempted to negotiate her way out of the situation better, she might not be running from a group of tall, buff, ruthless men who had anything but innocent intent. She took a left after leaving the chamber and started running. The tunnel was dark and unlit. She could hear her pursuers scrambling for a light. She smirked as she continued running. She had always been unusually able to find her way in the dark. She could sense the stonewalls on either side of her, four feet the right and ten feet to the left. The tunnel had never been lit by lamps or anything else hanging from the walls or ceiling, it help shadow those who didn’t want to be seen. In this case, Rika was one of those people. She felt a draft up ahead, in a manner suggesting there was a chamber or narrow passage to her right. She cut right just in time before the men managed to switch on a flashlight, not too far behind her. She stopped running and shuffled sideways into the empty tunnel as slowly as was quiet. The men went running past the tunnel entrance with out a single glance in her direction. She sighed in relief. Chances are, she would get away unharmed if she kept low and watched out for hidden eyes.

She sighed again, silently cursing for a getting into this predicament. The lights the men had taken with them had faded away and then disappeared altogether as they turned a corner down the main tunnel. Just to be safe, Rika decided to go down the tunnel she had hid in rather than the main tunnel. She was lost anyway, for the men had blind folded and carried her by her arms and legs when she had been captured, which completely disoriented her. She had no promises that the main tunnel is the one they had taken her down. She turned around and made her way silently through the darkness.