Cyan Falling

Jaesong Moon

When Cyan awoke, he felt heavy, like all of his limbs were weighted down to the surface he was lying on. He blinked a few times in order to try and adjust his eyes to the light. It was a gentle, blue-ish light was coming from the ceiling just beyond the door of the room and a lamp situated on a small table beside him. The room had blue-grey walls and there was a long piece of shimmery cloth that hung in the doorway in place of an actual door. 

The next thing he took note of was that he wasn't wearing his visor anymore. He'd have to get to back if he wanted to have any chance of finding Callus. 

It only took Cyan a moment to realise that he was in someone's bedroom, and that the surface he was on was, in fact, a bed (which explained why it was so soft). He couldn't think of why or how he could be in a bedroom though. Last he remembered he was writhing in pain and a gang of giant dog-like monsters was about to have him for dinner.

Cyan attempted to speak or call out, but immediately started coughing. His throat felt dry and raw, probably from all the screaming and vomiting from the previous evening. It was not exactly the way he had planned things going, but then again, things in Cyan's life rarely went to plan. He tried to sit up and upon propping himself up on his forearms, it came to his attention that someone had taken the time to bandage his shoulder and wrist. Not only that, but his wrist strangely didn't feel as though it was broken anymore and wrists definitely didn't normally heal overnight.

"Hello? Is anyone there?" Cyan called out hoarsely, hoping desperately that whoever had helped him also happened to have a cool glass of water on hand.

Cyan heard a rustling and fumbling from behind the doorway and managed to spot a shadow moving around behind the sheet of cloth before someone was pulling it to the side and ducking into the room. 

The person that entered was nothing short of a vision. He was visually stunning in a way that made him look otherworldly, so much so that it wasn't entirely registering to Cyan that he was real. He had neon yellow hair with a thin turquoise streak in the right side of the fringe, heterochromatic eyes (one brown and the other blue), and his skin seemed to shimmer and sparkle gently wherever the light hit it at the right angle. The lower half of his face was covered by a turquoise, translucent veil of fabric, but Cyan could still just about make out the shape of his soft jawline and the delicate curve of his mouth that were hidden behind it. 

What stood out the most to Cyan though, by far, was that even from a distance, he smelled of something that was eerily familiar. He couldn't quite place what it was, however. It was something that sparked a deep sense of recognition within him, but he couldn't quite place it in his memory.

"You're awake." The man said, his voice deep, but incredibly soft. "I'm Jaesong, by the way, Jaesong Moon... You came through the Vortex Gate, right? You crashed pretty badly out there." 

 "I... I'm Cyan. Thank you for saving my life back there. You got any water?" Cyan asked, wincing at the stinging of his throat.

Immediately, the man, Jaesong, got up and hurried out of the door. A moment later he was back with a tall glass of water and held it so that Cyan could drink with minimal discomfort. When Jaesong was up close that familiar smell was much clearer. It was only when the glass was empty though, that he clocked on to what exactly it was. 

Jaesong smelled very distinctly of lavender. It was something that he had almost forgotten. It had been so long since Earth had been destroyed that he had gotten used to the absence of something as simple as the flowers native to his home. He found himself flooded by memories that had been locked away for so long.

He remembered his mother's favourite perfume, the lavender incense that she used to burn in the living room. He remembered the flowers that grew in the public gardens near his old home, tall and proud, their delicate scent permeating the air and complimenting their vibrant purple colour. 

Suddenly, for a moment, he felt like he was back at home, with the flowers in his garden, basking in the summer sun with his mother, talking about nothing and remembering how she would always tell him how proud she was of him and his achievements. He felt light.

"Hey... are you okay?" He heard Jaesong ask, breaking him from his reverie. 

"You smell like lavender." Was all Cyan said in response. 

"What's lavender?" Jaesong asked, visibly confused.

"It was a flower that used to grow on my home planet. It just... made me feel nostalgic." Cyan explained and Jaesong sat back, contemplating.

"I see... I didn't know... I mean, I just smell like this. Sorry if it makes you uncomfortable." He apologised, looking a bit self-conscious. 

"No, no, not at all. It's... it's nice... being reminded of it. I should be the one apologising. You saved my life and I just made you feel awkward." Cyan countered, feeling a little guilty.

"It's okay." Jaesong's mood seemed to brighten and the freckles that were visible across the bridge of his nose and under his eyes seemed to sparkle a little brighter. "You should be able to get on your feet again soon enough, though I don't recommend trying to go out into the desert without a mask. The atmosphere here is toxic for anyone who isn't a native of the planet." he explained.

"Toxic? That explains why I was in so much agony before. It felt like my blood had turned into acid." He said.

"Yeah, I saw the orange energy spikes." Jaesong replied lightly.

"Energy spikes? That was real? I thought that I was hallucinating." Cyan said, sitting completely upright and gawking.

"It can have varying effects, but yes. The atmosphere can change people, that's why everyone who isn't a native of the planet all wear gas masks. You were lucky, you know? Most people who experience what you did don't make it... some of them explode from the energy surges or die from the pain." Jaesong explained, expression turning grim. 

"By the look on your face, I take it you've witnessed one or two of those less fortunate than me." Cyan joked and Jaesong simply nodded in response.

A small pause stretched between them before Jaesong had something to ask. "Cyan... I have to ask. Why did you come here? Through the portal? You must have known that it would be dangerous. I can assume you didn't know where you were going since you didn't wear a mask."

"I'm chasing someone. Someone who is very dangerous and very slippery. It's bad enough that I've been down for this long already, he could be anywhere." Cyan lamented.

"Oh... is there any way that you can find him again? If he's so dangerous, maybe it's better not to go after him." Jaesong asked.

"I have to, and not just for the pretty little bounty he has on his head. He's done a lot of bad things and killed a lot of people, ruined a lot of lives and I can't let him do that anymore. Most of my gear was destroyed when my bike crashed, but I still have the tracking information in my visor... and I suppose my moonblades will have to do as my only weapons for now." Cyan replied with a sigh. "Where is my visor by the way?"

"Oh! I have it in the other room. It was damaged when I took it off of you, so I've been fixing it." Jaesong said.

"Fixing it? You must be pretty good with tech to know what you're doing with it. It's a custom piece." Cyan said, impressed. "Can I see what you did?"

"Of course!" Jaesong sprung up from where he had been sitting at the side of the bed and dashed out of the room, only to stumble back in, excitedly with Cyan's visor in hand. 

He had this gleeful kind of look in his eyes and his freckles were twinkling in the light. It almost looked like his skin was covered in tiny little silvery stars. It was really quite pretty and it seemed as though his positive moods lead to them shining more brightly. Cyan wondered to himself what species Jaesong was. He didn't look like anyone or anything that he had ever seen before. 

Granted, he had never been to a different dimension before he crash landed through that Vortex Gate the other day. Maybe more of Jaesong's people had never come through into his dimension. Maybe he could ask about it after he checked what had been done to his precious visor. After all, he relied on it pretty heavily.

When he saw it in Jaesong's hands, it was hooked up to a bunch of wires and a small electronic device with a screen and keyboard. Apparently the man hadn't just fixed it but had also taken it upon himself to attempt hacking and modding it.

"So... just fixing it, huh?" Cyan said, eyebrow raised in amusement.

"Well." Jaesong, rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. "There were a few things that could be upgraded and some new software that I could add and modify to optimise its performance. I didn't damage anything or mess with the settings too much, though, so don't worry. All your previous information is still there... just, better than before." 

"So, you save my life and my visor gets a free upgrade? Sounds like a sweet deal to me." Cyan said, brushing off the other man's obvious worry. "You done with it or do you still need to do some tinkering before it's finished?"

"I have a couple of tweaks that I'd like to carry on with if that's okay? You don't have to agree, I probably shouldn't have tampered with it in the first place. Honestly, I'm surprised that you're not angry with me. Most people probably would be." Jaesong answered.

"Well, I'm not most people. Really, you're doing me a favour. Mind if I watch you work?" Cyan said, eager to have a look at all the changes once they had been made. 

Cyan remembered being fascinated by watching the techies work back at the base when he was still in the USF. He would occasionally go and watch them work during his down time, even when he didn't actually understand what they were doing. He thought that he didn't really need to understand it himself in order to find it interesting.

What was truly fascinating though, was watching Jaesong typing away on his tiny little screen and seeing his visor blinking all over the screen as he changed things around. The orange screen turned cyan, pink and yellow in various places, fluctuating and fluttering in waves and blinks and odd patterns that spread across its surface and disappeared again. 

Jaesong looked completely focused too, which was fascinating in and of itself. He had this look in his eyes that made it obvious how passionate he was about what he was doing. It showed Cyan that he was putting in a lot of effort and hard work, even for something that he really didn't have to do. It left Cyan a little taken aback, in fact, that he was seemingly doing all of this simply out of the goodness of his heart. 

When Jaesong was done with whatever it was that he was doing to the visor, he unplugged his little machine and handed it over to Cyan, suddenly losing that focused look for one that was a bit more shy and withdrawn. 

"Here. I hope you like the changes." He said. 

Cyan took the visor in his hands and looked it over, turning it from side to side before sliding them over his eyes and tucking the sides over his ears. Immediately he could see a difference in the interface. The visor was still orange, but there were new colour settings telling him that he could change the display to yellow, blue, cyan or even pink. It was a useless, but nice touch. 

Cyan also noted that the setup on the screen was different. He flicked through and realised that there was, in fact, a ton of new software on them that would be incredibly useful to him, including an upgraded GPS and tracking system. He didn't know what to say as he flicked through all of the new and upgraded settings and options. There was even something added called "signature", which could apparently track the location of any device or vehicle that was synced to the visor.

If only he still had the use of his bike. 

What this man had done in such a short amount of time was beyond incredible. It was amazing what he was apparently capable of. There was no telling what else he might be able to do with access to the right technology. 

"This is... this is amazing. I don't know how you managed to do so much with that tiny device, but this is something else. You're incredible!" Cyan exclaimed, pressing his fingers to the side of his visor so that the lens would become clear. 

"You're welcome." Jaesong replied, clearly flustered by the compliments. "I didn't do much really... though I may have gotten a little carried away with the mods."

"Don't sell yourself short. This is better work than I've seen done by professionals where I come from. Do you do this sort of thing for a living?" Cyan insisted with a smile.

"Actually, I am a Tech Mechanic, but, I'm not actually employed... people don't really... want someone like me. I get hired out to do freelance work every now and then, but no establishment or business would ever hire someone like me full-time. I would be bad for business." Jaesong replied.

"I can't see why that would be the case. Clearly you're extremely talented." Cyan commented, confused as to why anyone would turn away such a skilled tech. "Anyway, is there anything else I need to know about before I set out? I really need to get moving as soon as possible."

Jaesong is silent for a moment, a stunned expression on his face. He didn't quite know how to respond to Cyan right away and so he was left staring for a drawn-out moment. Cyan was patient while he waited for Jaesong to answer his question. 

"I mean... there's a lot that you need that you don't have. You got changed by the atmosphere here on Yandraven, but the air is still poisonous to you. If you go out without the right gear, you'll end up dead. I can hook you up, no problem, but that's not the only issue. You also have a new power that you have no control over. At the moment, that orange energy will fire out of you whenever you experience heightened feelings of danger." Jaesong answered.

"How do I fix that then?" Cyan asked.

"The only way is practice and honing the energy so that you can control it without it going haywire. Other than that... I might be able to help you out, but it'll take time and a lot of effort from both of us." Jaesong had a serious air about him as he spoke, looking directly at Cyan. "I can make you some gear that will help redirect the power through your palms, but I'll need to modify your suit to do it."

"You can do that?" Cyan asked, once again impressed.

"Of course." Jaesong smiled confidently. "I did it for myself, didn't I?" 

Jaesong then flashed his fingerless gloves into view and Cyan saw that they had lights running from little pads on either palm, and went all the way up the sleeves of his skin-tight  turtle-neck top. It was all one piece of fabric that covered the whole of his upper body, right up to the top of his neck, stopping under his jawline. 

The thin, little electric lines flowed all over the top, in simple patterns that lead the energy from his chest, down his arms to his palms.

"So... you're not a native here then." Cyan said more than asked.

"Yes... I actually have no idea how I got here. I didn't leave the house for years, but when I did... this happened to me. I've had a long time to learn how to adapt." Jaesong replied and it looked to Cyan that he didn't want to delve in to that topic if it was avoidable, so he opted to change the subject.

"So, you can help me to control it then? I have to ask, Jaesong: why are you doing this for me? You don't know me, you don't owe me anything. I don't understand why you are being so generous towards me. I could be some dangerous hardened criminal for all you know." Cyan said.

"I like to think that I'm a good judge of character, besides, you haven't tried to hurt me and from what you've said, you're chasing the bad guys. Even if you did also insinuate that you're a mercenary earlier. I think you can tell when someone is bad or good from their eyes." Jaesong replied. 

"Well, I suppose I can't really argue with that. I am a mercenary though." Cyan confirmed with a lopsided smile. 

After talking things over for a while longer and having Jaesong explain the logistics of modifying Cyan's suit, they began their work. 

Jaesong had to give Cyan some spare clothes to wear while he worked on the suit. It was amusing seeing how much smaller Jaesong's clothes were on him. The other man was a lot more slender and toned, as opposed to Cyan, who was taller, more muscular and broad-shouldered in comparison.

Again, in passing, he wondered how he had managed to shimmy himself through that little bathroom window back at the Kratos Lounge.

Cyan found himself silently watching from Jaesong's sofa while he worked on modifying the suit. It was fascinating to see him work, getting the strange threads and weaving and sewing them into place, winding them over the inside of the already existing fabric. 

The weirdest past was the gloves, though. Jaesong cut into the leather and sewed in some pads, much like the ones on his own pair of fingerless gloves. Cyan wondered how on earth the thing really worked, how the little extra pads and strange fabric managed to conduct all that power. Then again, none of this was anything that was normal to him, and he supposed that it was just something that came with being in a completely different dimension.

Nothing here should be expected to be anything like what it was back on the other side of that Vortex Portal. 

When Jaesong was done, he handed the clothes back to Cyan and gestured for him to go and put them on. So, he took them, thanking Jaesong, and headed back into the bedroom to change. The light was bright in the sky, it must have been about mid-afternoon. As he finished dressing and pulled the gloves on, he still couldn't shake that scent of lavender. 

Perhaps it was dangerous that the familiar smell was putting him at such ease, perhaps he should be much more on guard than he was, but he couldn't help it. There was something, other than that lavender, that made Cyan want to put his trust in this unusually kind stranger. 

Whether it be in the short or the long run, he would much rather be making friends than enemies. In this unfamiliar place, he would need a guide. Whether he wanted to or not, he had to admit to himself that without help, he was completely stuck. Sure, he would probably find his way eventually, but there were also probably many more monsters like the dogs he had almost died to the night before. From that fact alone, he knew that his chances of survival on his own were bleak at best, never mind that he was on the trail of someone who would likely pose just as much threat to his life as the monsters.

Cyan looked down at his palms, examining the way the pads connected up to the alien-looking threads that now wound through his top. It was weird, how well it was all attached to the leathery material of his suit. It was practically seamless, despite how it had been rushed. Then, maybe it hadn't been rushed and Jaesong just worked that fast. Either way it was impressive. Jaesong would definitely be someone useful to know.

When Cyan exited back out into the living space, Jaesong was waiting patiently, having prepared a pack that looked like it was packed with essentials. He was just putting two canisters of water into the bag when Cyan walked up to where he was sitting. The bag was propped up on the coffee table in front of the sofa. 

Jaesong carried on, stuffing the canisters into the bag and pulling the drawstrings tightly, pulling down the top flap and securing it by attaching the clips and tightening the straps.

"What are you doing?" Cyan asked.

"Preparing some supplies for our journey." Jaesong replied.

"Our journey?" Cyan asked again. 

"Yes, unless you want to die ten minutes after stepping outside." Jaesong turned to him, an elegant eyebrow raised. "I know my way around this place, you, being from another dimension, do not. You need my help if you want to survive... and if you ever want to get a grasp of your new powers." 

"What makes you so sure that I can't manage just fine on my own?" Cyan challenged. 

"Those powers you have are highly volatile. You don't know your way around. I know the languages spoken here as well as several other languages that belong to the surrounding planets in this system. The atmosphere is poisonous and you don't have access to a mask unless I see fit to give you one. You don't know how to fix the suit if it gets damaged because you have no idea how the technology works." Jaesong listed.

"Well..." Cyan cleared his throat awkwardly. "You certainly make some compelling points. This is dangerous though, you know? You could get killed at any point. Pretty much every day with me will be life or death. There might be a point where I can't protect you."

"First of all, bold of you to assume that I will need protecting. I've already saved you once. I have the advantage of already being familiar with the dangers of this place, plus, unlike you, I've already mastered the power surges." Jaesong countered and Cyan conceded. 

"Alight, alright, I'm convinced. It'll be useful to have you come along, but isn't there anything you're leaving behind? Family? Friends?" Cyan asked.

"I... no, I don't have anyone like that." Came the clipped response and Cyan immediately knew not to push the matter. Jaesong wouldn't be the first person he'd met who had an unfortunate backstory and he certainly wouldn't be the last. Cyan knew all too well what it was like to 'not have anyone like that'.

"Alright then... well, the first thing on the agenda will be following good old Belvarrian Callus and putting a prompt end to his reign of terror." Cyan said, double-checking his moonblades were secured at his sides before he walked to the door.

Jaesong stood up and slung the backpack over his shoulders, following Cyan to the door. "Don't forget this, genius." He said, passing a mask to Cyan, who wasted no time in putting it on. "I'm going to go and get mine."

Jaesong headed to the back of the room and turned away from Cyan's view as he took off his face cloth and replaced it with a sleek black gas mask that had yellow decals down the sides and over the front that made the image of a mouth full of pointed teeth. When he turned around again, he looked uncomfortable and it was obvious that he didn't like the idea of anyone seeing his full face. 

Cyan wondered to himself why that would be when he seemed to have such soft and elegant features. If he himself had a face like that, he'd be showing it off at every opportunity, not hiding it behind a variety of masks. 

Once they were outside, Cyan turned on the tracking system in his visor and immediately it showed up with the location of Callus' getaway vehicle. They had to be quick if they wanted to catch him before he managed to ditch his car for a different one in order to evade them. There was no telling if he'd already done it either, until they were able to find the car.

The dot on his visor flashed lightly on the map and he knew that this would be a long journey. Callus had managed to put a hell of a lot of ground between them in the time that Cyan had been incapacitated. It would be a job catching up to him now, but he had to get it done somehow. He didn't have a choice anymore.

He had become fairly well-known as a mercenary over the years, and although he doubted that he was too high up on the list of people that had been sent to get rid of Callus, he was still on the list. That meant that he couldn't just go back now or everyone he knew would be in danger. He'd be looking over his shoulder for the rest of his life and he didn't want to live like that. 

At some point he wanted to actually live out the rest of his life and not just survive. Granted, that time was still far off in the distance, but there was no point in sending it that much further out of reach when it was already as far away as it was. If he failed now, Callus would never let him live in peace. He had to follow this through.

He could figure out how to deal with his new powers and the accompanying new travel companion along the way.