A Swiftly Passing Storm

[Summer]

Another return to neutrality. No winds stirred across the white void of the Nexus, air remaining unperturbed. There was no sun nor blue sky above to shift the temperatures about, no convection, no currents, no wind. Cloudy grey eyes stared out across the vast expanse of nothing, flicking from one tiny dot in the distance to another, each seeming to hang still against the vacant backdrop. All of them were gates, strange portals leading into another realm, and one of which he could have sworn he had gone through just yesterday.

Yet here he was, back in this unimaginative wasteland. Why? What in the actual hell happened? Somerled dropped to the ground, vision jumping as he fell to a sit, bringing his legs up to his chest. His mind scrambled for answers, but found nothing but a thick fog of confusion and amnesia.

“I was...” he mumbled to himself, “in Neuschwanstein, I think...” Vague images of a stone city propped up against a mountain came to mind. “For what purpose, though?” Pulling himself out of this thoughts for a moment, he focused again on the world, turning his head and sweeping his vision across the Nexus. “No Son- right!” A single piece clicked into place, and the storm spirit shouted as he leapt to his feet. “The split! Sonny! Did we have any leads?” The monster asked frantically, spinning around in desperate search for his other half.

“Shhh...” his own voice shushed him, not out of his own effort, and the swiveling ceased.

“What ar- oh...” he quieted himself the moment he realized his other half’s intentions. The air settled around him, silence sitting heavily around the split spirit, who remained perfectly still.

“Thank you,” his voice broke the quiet, picked up by his other half when he knew Somerled wouldn’t try to speak. “Short form, I can’t say I remember either. But!” Sonny left no room for the storm spirit to complain. “We aren’t at square one....” he drifted off the moment he said that. “Actually, outside of the fact that we went through a second one of these gates, we may be at square one....”

“One of those gates led to some sort of medieval fantasyland,” Somerled said, seizing  the opportunity his other half’s silence left. “Did we pick up any leads there though? Also how did we die!”

“Let’s just assume we’re at square one until our memory, hopefully, comes back.” Sonny suggested. “As for death... I got nothing. I don’t even remember entering the city.”

“It was your body that we got killed in, so that’s a starting point,” Somerled said, glancing towards one of the gates in the distance. Letting his thought hang in the air, he stepped towards the dot on the horizon.

“That’s what makes it confusing...” the sun spirit responded, once he knew his other half wasn’t going to continue that train of thought. “We’re in a different reality, away from everyone we’ve ever known and inevitably pissed off. Thanks for that, by the way...” he growled.

“You’re welcome!” the monster said without an ounce of shame. “But yeah, I know where you’re going with that. Even if I’ve irked everyone to some fashion, they wouldn’t attack you over it.”

“Right, as far as they’re concerned, I’m a separate person....” he trailed off.

“Huh?” Somerled hummed, stopping in his tracks. “Did something come t- oh.”

“If someone were to realize we’ve semi-merged,” Sonny began. “Well, don’t you think that’d be the perfect opportunity to off both of us at once?”

“So anyone who’s hated me now had an opportunity to kill me without retaliation,” he responded. “If Mr. Mysterious grabbed someone we might have known such as, say, the squirrel, this situation would be perfect for some vengeance.”

“All the more reason to hurry up and get us split or whole again.”

“You’re not thinking with enough ambition,” there was a new layer of intensity to the storm spirit’s voice, and he stepped forward once again. “If everyone’s equal here, then it’s not just perfect to take me out,” his mouth cracked into a grin. “I can return the favor.”

“Well we’re back and alive and still as stuck,” Sonny responded, worry showing as his tone picked up the pace. “So I think that probably the same thing would happen to anyone we try to kill. They’d...” he trailed off for a moment, desperately scrabbling for words. “They’d resurrect just like we have been. Then they’d come after us for revenge and the cycle would continue.”

“Oh don’t you worry, my dear, naive second half.” A menacing chuckle seeped from behind the lips of the monster. “Don’t you worry. I’ll ensure that there’ll be nothing to come back from.”

“That’s why I’m worrying.” Sonny sighed. “We don’t need yet another death just because you’re too fixated on taking revenge on someone who may or may not even be here. Now is not the time for your pointless fucking vengeance. We’ve got a split to undo, and here, the methods may finally be in our grasp!”

“And if we have someone actively impeding our progress,” the storm spirit growled. “Then it doesn’t fucking matter how hard we try to figure this bullshit out. We get them out of the way first, and then we’ll have all the time in the world.”

“But that’s a moot point anyway because, currently, we don’t know shit about who or what killed us you goddamn cactus,” Sonny spat. “We have no memories from within that mountain city. Anything you try is a shot in the dark, and knowing you, it’s a shot into your own goddamn foot. So let's get back to work, get this split sorted out, pay attention, and take some notes while we’re at it.” Silence once again fell over the split spirit, as Somerled gritted his teeth in the wake of his other half’s rant. An indeterminate amount of time passed, punctuated only by the deep breaths and steady footfalls of the storm spirit, with the gate drawing slowly closer, before the sun spirit spoke up once again. “Look, as long as we keep a sharp eye out, we’re not gonna get killed again so easily. And once we figure out who’s actually done it, we can take note of it immediately, write it down somewhere. I assume things we’re carrying get respawned with us?”

“Hmm....” A very dissatisfied hum rose up from Somerled’s throat, before he responded. “Yes. I’ve got the Indiana Jones whip, and the outfit you summoned up.” His hand dropped down to his hip as he said that, patting at the weapon hidden beneath his green cloak.

“So that means we can remember even if we’re killed immediately. Consider this our safety net, since we can’t set up any contingencies until we know who or what we’re facing.”

“Aye,” the monster mumbled, eyes glued to an all-too-familiar gate, growing steadily nearer. “Can’t believe I’m the one with the body and you’re still bossing me around....”

“You’d be dead in the water without me, and you know it,” Sonny responded cheerfully. “Well, that was a good talk. Now I’m gonna take a nap and let you do the driving. Wake me up when we get there,” he sang sarcastically, before falling silent and leaving Somerled to his thoughts.

[Summer]

“We’re here.” Somerled’s voice broke the silence of the Nexus, a flat, dull note to it as it fell over the perfectly undisturbed air. In front of him loomed a great gate of stone and brick, all too recognizable as the entrance to the place he had last died.

“So we are.” His voice once again said after a moment of hesitation, disinterest plainly obvious from the monotone. “Why’d you stop here?”

“For reasons unknown,” the storm spirit vaguely responded to himself, taking another step closer to the gate. Silence returned to the void as he slowly inched closer.

“You know sitting around and twiddling your thumbs isn’t gonna make the teleport any easier, right?”

“Yup,” he answered immediately, taking another step forward.

“Would you just-” a flash of brown interrupted the sun spirit’s objection. Somerled’s vision shuddered, wind driven out of his chest as whatever just came flying out of the gate crashed into him.

“Christ...” the spirit muttered, stumbling backwards. He planted his left foot firmly against the ground behind him, driving all his weight onto it and stopping his momentum. Now with his balance properly regained, he swiveled on his heel, anger flaring up on his face as he turned to face the newcomer. “Watch where you’re going you fucking donut!” He growled, taking a step towards the collapsed person. A simple brown cloak covered their body, concealing most of their form as they slowly pushed themselves up off the ground. “You listening?” he demanded, right hand shooting down and grabbing onto their shoulder. With no visible effort on his part, the monster forced the person to their feet.

“And how about you don’t block the fucking gate like a dumbass,” a decidedly masculine voice shot back as soon as his feet were on the ground. The hood of the cloak fell back, revealing a dirty, black-bearded face as pissed off as Somerled’s.

“I’ll walk where I damn well please.” His hand, still clenching the man’s shoulder, began to squeeze. Metal squealed beneath his grasp, and the monster’s face broke into a devilish grin.

“Fine, but don’t get pissed when people knock over your lanky ass.” The man responded, face stoic as he grabbed hold of the spirit’s wrist. His muscles strained as he slowly but surely forced the hand off his shoulder. Somerled dropped his hand off to the side, keeping the same menacing grin on his face despite his failed attack. Brown eyes crawled along the form of the spirit for a moment, before settling on his face. “You seem like a match.” His hand crept inside his cloak, before bringing out a piece of parchment.

“Oh?” Somerled’s face fell into a look of interest, eyes darting between the paper and the man carrying it.

“Are you one uh... Som... Som-hair-lid?” the man leaned closer into the note, eyeing it closely as he tried to work out the name.

“That depends, has a relative or friend recently died?” he responded quite morbidly. Hopefully this man wasn’t someone on a righteous quest for vengeance, those guys were always annoying to deal with. “Or has your farm recently been leveled?”

“I’m a courier not a peasant,” the man spat. “And no, this is strictly business.”

“Alright how’s that spelt then?” he stared intently at the newsman. At least as far as he remembered, his name hadn’t been that botched in years.

“Uh...” he paused for a moment, taken aback. “S-O-M-H-A-I-R-L-I-D-H.”

“Well that’s a pretty old spelling,” he responded, stepping closer and leaning in. “Mind if I see that? Oh, and a pen too?” he tried to peek around to see what was written.

“Here. Doesn’t change my message.” The courier all but forced the parchment into Somerled’s hand, along with a perfectly normal pen. “Now, there has been a strange uprising of beings recently.”

“Mhm...” He hummed an affirmative, only half listening as he put the pen to the note and began scribbling.

“These strange beings point to an even bigger problem that might be rising. The one who hired me, Dr. Regal, is seeking out as much help as he can get to make sure this doesn’t get out of hand.”

“Uh-huh...” the monster nodded along, scratching deep furrows into the parchment.

“In particular, he asked me to seek out you.”

“Well that’s disturbing,” the writing stopped. He thought he had been doing a damn fine job of keeping his head down. Thus far he’d only summoned a bit of wind unintentionally. Unless he did something while over in the fantasyland... “Did he say why?” he asked, glancing up from his scribbles.

“If you have questions, ask him.”

“Looks like I have to go meet this guy,” Somerled said, the hand holding the pen dropping to his side. “I take it that’s the whole message?”

“One last thing. He’ll be in tier two of Coruscant.”

“Huh...” he nodded along. The name sounded vaguely familiar but he wasn’t going to waste time thinking about why. “Where’s that?”

“Here, I have a map for you,” the messenger answered, hand darting back under his cloak.

“Wait, a physical map?” Somerled couldn’t help but break into a grin as the man pulled another piece of paper out of what was probably his hidden satchel. “A man after my own heart.” he said, trading the scribbled-on parchment for the map.  A giddy feeling welled up in the monster’s heart as he unfurled the paper, lifting it high above his head. Finally, someone who didn’t foist technology upon him! “Thank you Mr. Courier!” He lowered the map to get a closer look. “May you see clear skies on your travels.” Eyes glued to the directions, he unceremoniously turned and began walking away.

“Uh, thanks,” the voice behind him responded, pausing for a moment. “And what the hell does this say?”

“Oh, the paper?” he made no effort to turn around. “That’s just a spelling correction. Now it spells my name properly.” The spirit heard a muffled what the fuck in response, but ignored it, never breaking stride.

“Ah, hold on...” Somerled finally lifted his gaze from the map. His eyes slowly focused on the gate that the directions were leading to. The destination lay across the vast expanse of the Nexus, far beyond even the fountain. “I am not walking that far.”

[Summer]

The empty openings of two white helmets, positioned on either of the gate, stared intently at Somerled, seemingly fixed to his cloaked form. Two people in their brilliant, white armor stood stoically, their guns unwavering as they held steady over the spirit of storms. Beneath him, his chestnut steed remained dispassionately still, holding no worries and giving no thoughts to its creator’s current predicament. A soft “Quoi?” escaped the monster’s mouth, his eyes flicking back and forth between the two guns fixed on him.

“I said, get off the horse,” the armored man on the left barked, his order punctuated by a few quick jabs of his weapon roughly at Somerled. His eyes fell upon the black metal of the gun, and the monster stared at it for a few seconds. If he recalled correctly, he got shot by a few of those last time he’d been through this cursed white void, in a nice little skirmish that ended in five dead soldiers, and a few more new holes than he liked having.

“Get. Off. The. Horse.” Another curt order came from the same man, much more forceful than last time. At this rate it seemed like not getting off was liable to get him shot. With that in mind, the spirit turned his gaze up towards the blank sky. He supposed it was perfectly possible to smite these assholes. Though the atmosphere didn’t churn about, he could call upon his power and give them one hell of a shock. Maybe he’d conjure up a tornado. It was always fun watching people scramble when one of those sprung out of the aether. He dropped his gaze back down to the soldier who’d been trying, and failing, to order him around.

“Why should I?” The monster asked for purely contrarian reasons, pulling his feet out of the stirrups and getting ready to dismount as he said it. Perhaps playing nice-ish would get him somewhere this time.

“Just do it.” He barked out yet another command. Not the answer he’d been hoping for.

“Shit!” With a quick curse, his other half hijacked his voice. The spirit’s eyes quickly darted over to the other soldier, hand up to its mask, no doubt calling for backup. Electricity welled up and coursed through his right arm, conjured by his power as he simultaneously flung himself off the horse, away from the soldiers.

“Don’t kill them!” Sonny yelled through him, trying to take control of this situation. A single, bright bolt of red plasma hissed over the top of the horse, quickly followed by a second burning through its chest and barely missing the spirit as he fell. The beast let out a panicked, screeching neigh, hopping backwards as Somerled landed feet-first on the blank floor, his stallion now an unfortunate meat shield.

CRACK

In the blink of an eye, the lightning spirit’s hand rocketed forward, slamming into the horse and turning the meat shield into a meat missile. Tremendous pain flared up in Somerled’s hand, bones fracturing as the impact sent a tremor down the entire length of his arm. He gritted his teeth, shoving that distraction away as he charged forward, after his steed. The beast crashed ungracefully into the white-clad soldier, whose attempt to dive away resulted only in being knocked over and pinned beneath the dead horse. In a moment, the monster was upon him, stomping his left foot down firmly onto the ground, and then unleashing a swift and powerful punt with his right. His foot slammed into the downed soldier’s helmet, snapping his head to the side and knocking his body free from his meaty prison.

Planting his foot back into the ground, Somerled quickly ducked down, hands closing around one bony horse foreleg as a blaster shot whizzed just over his head, where his chest had been not a moment before. With tremendous strain, the monster lifted the dead horse from the ground, swinging it up above his head, and letting loose one hell of a scream as he did. Another blaster shot rang out, burning past just below his feet as the horse’s momentum carried him into a mighty leap. His frenzied yelling grew louder yet as he came plummeting back down with a mighty swing, slamming the equine downwards and crushing the last soldier beneath its muscled corpse. A sigh escaped the spirit once the proverbial dust had settled, and he released the leg.

“Woo...” he took in a deep breath, straightening up and stretching. “That makes seven, right?”

“Make sure they’re alive, please.” Sonny responded, ignoring his other half. The monster breathed out another sigh as he stepped up to the soldier trapped beneath the horse.

“Yo, you alive?” Somerled asked dismissively, giving them an experimental kick. “And no, I’m not gonna eat you so feel free to answer truthfully.” Despite all his prodding, the body remained still. “Hey Sonny, you know how fast blunt horse trauma kills?”

“Depends on how much horse is involved, I’d assume,” the sun spirit replied monotonously.

“I mean, I am a horse to be reckoned with,” he said, squatting down and working his hands under the steed, pain coursing through his right fist all the while.

“A real horse of nature,” Sonny’s monotone never broke, even as Somerled hefted the beast up, rolling it off the armored soldier.

“If only they hadn’t tried to horse my hand. Maybe they wouldn’t be in such a world of herd now.” He gazed down at his now crumpled opponent for a moment, before kicking the gun out of their hand, sending the metal weapon clattering a fair distance away, just in case. Instinctively, the kicked hand jabbed out towards the blaster, falling still again in an instant. Somerled’s mouth unconsciously twitched up in a grin. Still alive.

As nice as that was, though, there was still the matter of the other soldier, the one whose head he had punted. He cast his gaze over to the other side of the gate, where the stormtrooper lay, faintly moving. Odds are he was pretty disoriented after that mighty kick, so he probably wasn’t going to be a threat for a while. The real threat was whoever the backup was when they showed up. Somerled may be a master of horse-based martial arts, but they probably had protocols for this sort of thing. For example, bringing a lot of guns. So he needed to wrap this up quickly.

“Sonny, diplomancy time. Work your magic,” the storm spirit whispered, turning back towards the soldier next to him and squatting down.
“Sure, make me do the boring stuff,” the sun spirit responded, sighing. “So, why’d you guys go and try to arrest us, er..” he coughed nervously, “me. Or whatever that was?” Somerled’s body remained perfectly still as Sonny was talking. The soldier suddenly turned his head over, the empty eyeholes of his helmet meeting with the placid face of the split spirit.

“Shit...” the stormtrooper muttered after a few silent seconds. Though Somerled wasn’t nearly the conversationalist that his other half was, there was no mistaking the regret in his voice.

“Ah, wrong guy?” Sonny asked.

“We thought you were from Camelot,” came the answer. Somerled unconsciously raised an eyebrow. Camelot? He wanted to ask, but smartly kept his mouth shut.

“Camelot?” The sun spirit mirrored his other half’s thoughts. “Would that happen to that uh...” he paused for a moment, “medieval realm, I guess you could call it, over in yonder direction?” There was a moment of stillness before Somerled realized that was his cue, after which he hastily jammed his thumb back in the direction of the gate he had come from. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that names from Arthurian legends and medieval fantasylands probably had some sort of connection. Which likely meant that these guys were from that Empire that Mr. Hound had mentioned long before all this abduction bullshit had taken place.

So it’s like that, huh? Somerled thought to himself. There was a nice little turf war going on here, a battle between past and future. In the first corner, some shitty little upstarts with a penchant for swords and serfdom, in the second corner, generic evil empire number three hundred forty four, sci-fi subspecies. If pure logic applied, he was fairly certain that there really should be no reason a bunch of peasants should be able to take on such a militarized dictatorship. But then again, he just beat these two people to the ground using nothing but a horse, logic clearly didn’t apply here.

“That’s the one,” the soldier said.

“An understandable mistake.” Sonny had undoubtedly come to the same conclusion, not that the soldier would be able to tell, with the level of disconnect between his words and Somerled’s blank face. “You have to protect your country after all, and I can see why this outfit would make you think I was from there. Call it poor timing on Omnis part, he abducted me while I was attending a LARP event.” Laughter welled up deep in Somerled’s gut, and it took all his willpower to maintain a straight face in the face of Sonny’s so unexpected lie. “In the interest of preventing more mistakes, I’ll switch to a more modern dress before heading in.”

“LARP?” asked the soldier. The storm spirit just knew that if that helmet was off, he would be making an interesting face.

“Reenactors,” Sonny explained, “Imagine a bunch of socially awkward people running around in peasant garb and smacking each other with sticks.”

“Uh...” the only response the soldier could muster was a drawn-out hum.

“With that said, sorry for the whole horse-beating thing,” the sun spirit said, before quickly whispering for Somerled to stand up. “I felt like I was going to be executed or something and panicked,” he lied as his other half rose back up to a stand. “Now help him up,” another quick whisper prompted Somerled to bend back down, grabbing hold of the soldier’s arm and helping him to his feet. The storm spirit couldn’t help but find himself vaguely impressed as the man actually made it back to his feet despite being crushed beneath a fucking horse. That was some armor he was wearing. “I personally don’t have any first-aid training,” Sonny said, a half lie, he knew it all too well. It was his other half, who was currently in control, who didn’t, “But if you or your friend over there need a first-aid kit or something I’d be more than happy to summon one up.”

“That won’t be necessary,” he replied, a note of hesitation to his voice. Somerled vaguely wondered how caught off-guard this guy was in the face of his other half’s overbearing politeness. “We have supplies of our own in case of this.”

And reinforcements on the way, if the storm spirit’s pre-horsefight observation was correct.

“Alright then,” Sonny said, and Somerled, realizing that they were nearing the end of this, mustered up an amiable smile. “Glad we cleared that up, and again, sorry for everything.” The storm spirit bowed respectfully as his other half said that, hoping that would help pile on the civility. “I’ve got it from here,” the monster whispered, half to himself, before straightening up out of his bow. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to summon up some more era-appropriate garb and be on my way.” He dismissed himself, stepping a bit off to the side to get out of everyone’s way, not that there was really anyone to get in the way of.

Now came the issue of modern era clothing. He seriously preferred when he could base his outfit off of someone else’s, that made it so much easier to fit in. But here, it seemed that no matter where he went, it was complete guesswork without looking suspicious as all fuck. First Camelot and its medieval aesthetic, now whatever the hell this place was. That made two entirely different time periods. At least with normal human advancement he was close enough to not be sketchy, but here?

Fortunately, he did have at least one person’s book he could steal a tip from. Chip, that damnable squirrel god, wore something sort of sensible. If he mimicked it, that would at least give him something a bit closer to the time period. With that in mind, he closed his eyes and began to concentrate, guiding the Omnilium into the form of a new outfit. And thus, after only a quick few minutes his cloak and peasant-wear had been replaced by something newer. He now donned a neutral grey button-up shirt, tucked into a pair of black jeans, over which was a dark grey fall coat, open and reaching down to his thighs, a set of dark brown boots, a short, light grey scarf wrapped around his neck, and a black flat cap to top it off the ensemble of tones.

“I look like a proper tool now,” Somerled mumbled to himself, tucking his bullwhip into a convenient inner-coat pocket. The storm spirit wasn’t quite sure whether to be pleased or disgusted with himself, having just stolen the style of his second greatest nemesis. On one hand, there was the childish catharsis of “hah, this isn’t yours anymore.” On the other, he was now dressed like his second greatest nemesis, with a palette swap. Now wasn’t the time to debate about how he felt about this, however, he had a doctor to visit, one creepy doctor who apparently knew who he was.

The spirit took a step towards the gate, slowly getting used to the new tight pants. Offering one last apology to the gate guards, who were now both back up and in top form, he walked through the gate, finally reaching Coruscant.