Triton Prism

CHAPTER TWO: TRAINING

On the outskirts of the city was Lysander's modern base. It was the tall glass house they lived in, but it was more reminiscent of a base. The blonde man had a left arm of black metal, his orange crystal embedded at his shoulder. That was his elemental crystal – Lysander could never die unless it was broken but doing so was no easy feat. He wore a white kimono-uniform. His only other distinguishable feature was his right eye – red and slitted. The 'Dragon's Eye'.

"I know I'm in trouble for sneaking out and fighting the Titania gang last night," Douglas said as he followed his elemental around the house "but can't you tell me if you have any idea how a Triton clan member could do what I saw?"

"Mutations are always possible," Lysander admitted with a sigh as he entered one of their mission-briefing rooms "But what you've described sounds so unlikely that it's virtually impossible."

"I know!"

Lysander stopped by a corkboard at the end of the room. Pinned up were wanted posters of criminals that the crushers went on missions to capture or kill. One printed picture was a candid shot: a group of three hitmen. A squad consisting of a reedy man, shaved-headed guy and a woman with purple hair. They'd been spotted a few times in the local area but so far haven't been caught.

"You said his name was Reburn?" Lysander picked up a pen and scrawled it on pinned paper, Douglas felt relief that his crazy story was believed. Lysander turned to face him "Elise wouldn't want you risking your life and dying just to avenge her. Think of what it'd do to the others. Now go out the backyard with your siblings, I'm going to introduce the new crusher."

The black-haired teen left the room. He took the long staircase, it bent at square angles down several levels. Abstract paintings lined the walls and there were uni-coloured vases on pillars, everything in the home fitting into a modern aesthetic. Douglas walked the black tiles of the bottom floor, past the granite counter and quietly-running miniature waterfall complete with smooth stones. He passed spiky indoor plants and the sliding door to their backyard.

There was no fence outside, just acres upon acres of long grass, gently rolling until the distant forest. The planet Haphestus was fairly new and only the cities were packed and sprawling. Beyond them there was still loads of unclaimed space.

The other crushers were lingering and sitting by the tall tree outside. Lysander's elephant-sized black dragon lay with them, it had a synthetic black-metal arm of its own. As Douglas walked to the others he saw only two with the dragon... someone was missing.

Vines whipped out from the tree, tying around a lower branch then a girl jumped off from above. Tugging the vine and swinging around, her extended foot aiming for Douglas's face. A hexagon of black metal sprouted from his shoulder and she collided, falling into the grass and clutching her leg with pain.

"Oops... sorry Shari."

"You broke my foot you asshole!" she continued rocking painfully on the ground and the other two ran over.

"Well you were too fast for me to dodge, so take that as a complement." Douglas lied.

"I have got stronger, thank you very much." Sitting up she started testing her sore foot on the ground.

"You're still Mark Two." A big, long-haired boy laughed "Lysander won't let you go on missions until you're Mark Three. Zao's newer than you and even he's Mark Three." He pointed with his thumb to the messy-haired boy beside him.

"Shut up, Kanra..." she mumbled.

"In fact Lysander said I'm almost Mark Four." He puffed his chest out proudly, self-absorbed as always. Kanra had always been obsessed with getting stronger.