Skypiercer Prologue

It was a rare summer day when the eternal cloud surrounding the Skypiercer receded far enough to let the rays of the midday sun touch its entrance. To the children of the Base Camp General Orphanage, it felt like a blessing to have happened on their one day off every month.

Some took the opportunity to play in the city's alleyways with the toys they secretly cobbled together from items found during their work of dredging through the Skypiercer's buried depths. Others snuck into the Auction House to peek at the selection of exotic fragments Aspirants carried down from new lofty heights. One particular group of four children decided to make their way to Lake Svarus, away from all the buzz, and take a dip in its pristine waters.

Adults rarely had a mind to come here. Even though the dancing reflections of its gentle waves could soothe even a hardened Aspirant's spellbound spirit, not one would choose leisure when there was climbing to be done. Those who still had such inclinations were the young, those not yet allowed to challenge the Skypiercer.

These four children were outcasts even among Base Camp's orphans. Few Aspirants stopped their life's work to take care of their children. As such, they would often be left with their grandparents, if they had the luxury of having any, or at one of the city's many orphanages. And as the nature of their aspirations had it, many did not return to pick up their children ever again.

But these four had illustrious parents or family members few would dare say could ever perish during their climbs. Their families could only be considered as away on an extended journey, sure to return someday. Even if that someday lay many years away, it mattered not to the envy of the pure-heartedly cruel children.

"Hey, Old Tommas is there," Kilian announced when they approached the Distant Pier. The red-headed boy was the tallest and oldest among the band of outcasts and liked to act like the leader.

"He's always there," Natalee said with a shrug before grunting in pain. She hadn't noticed that her long black hair had been caught under the strap of her big leather bag since they had left the orphanage earlier. Shifting the weight and pulling her hair free, she glanced around with an embarrassed blush. As the second-oldest, she always felt the need to act mature, but everybody knew she was quite clumsy and lacked self-confidence.

"Don't let him know that we're coming," Dyanna muttered with an annoyed tilt of her head, frowning at the prospect of hearing the elderly fisherman's ramblings about his glory days. She felt she had outgrown listening to stories about the Skypiercer; she was ready to face it herself.

"I like listening to him," Allen pushed up his cracked hand-me-down spectacles and complained with a pout. As the youngest of the four, he was still easily entranced by the legends adults told of the worlds inside the tower.

"Then you can go and keep him busy while we take a dip," Kilian suggested with a toothy grin.

"I'm here to swim," came the pouty response from the youngest.

"Why do you have that with you, then?" Dyanna pointed at Allen's satchel, which had a rigid rectangular shape due to the large object inside it. The boy pulled the satchel behind his back as if to hide it from the others but realized how foolish he looked. It contained his greatest treasure: A tattered homemade notebook where he jotted down every tidbit of information he gleaned from Aspirant conversations.

"Much like Old Tommas is always on the Distant Pier, Little Allen always carries that with him," Kilian spoke in the slightly exaggerated tone of a narrator as if stating a truth of the world.

"Leave him alone. He's doing great," Natalee stepped in with a frown and reprimanded them. The red-headed boy was taken aback by her defending Allen and turned away with an embarrassed blush.

"Whatever." Dyanna rolled her eyes and walked past Kilian.

As they reached the Distant Pier, Natalee shadowed her eyes to look ahead. The figure of Old Tommas was slumped in his wooden folding chair as if he was asleep. She frowned, then exchanged a glance with her fellow outcasts. They all understood and shared her concern: He had looked old the first time they met him many years ago, so they feared that his day to depart this world had finally come.

"He's just asleep," Allen declared as if to convince himself and walked ahead of the others. When he stepped onto the planks, the old man suddenly stirred, and the boy breathed a sigh of relief.

"Oh, the young'uns have come again," Old Tommas said in a cheerful tone, his usually raspy voice clearing up for but a moment as if his throat remembered its younger days. There was life in him yet.

"How did you know?" Kilian walked across the pier and yelled into the old man's ear.

"I sensed the vibrations of Allen's footsteps on the planks," The wizened old man replied with a toothless grin. He was hard of hearing and almost blind due to age-induced cataracts, but his mind was still sharp.

"Aspirants are a different breed," Natalee whispered to herself and shook her head in disbelief. Old Tommas was a retired Claimant, the second-highest rank an Aspirant could reach. A crushed leg had put an end to his career at the height of his prime a long time ago. Now, he spent his twilight years fishing on the lake and relating his many stories to anybody who would listen. Of course, all that ever did was teach future generations to fall for the Skypiercer's bittersweet beckoning.

"If ye want to swim, go further down the shore to the rocks over yonder. Don't want ye scaring the fish away," Old Tommas pointed a gnarled finger down the shoreline and spoke in an exaggeratedly hushed tone.

"I'll stay here with you," Allen announced while opening his satchel to take out his notebook. "Tell me more stories."

"Of course," Dyanna muttered and rolled her eyes. She walked back up the pier first, leaving behind Kilian and Natalee, who stared in the direction the old man had pointed.

"Where did we stop last time?" Old Tommas wondered while scratching his chin. His fishing pole suddenly shook, and he grabbed it with incredible speed and precision that belied his apparent age. As he pulled the fish from the water, his cataract-covered eyes widened, and he broke out into a broad smile. "Ah, yes, I remember now. My mentor and leader, Imperishable Nox!"

Allen listened patiently while watching the old man take the fish off the hook and put it in a bucket by his side with practiced motions. He had heard about Nox, history's first female Ascendant, the highest Aspirant rank, many times before. But he felt he could glean more valuable knowledge from Old Tommas's stories yet.

"She was the most beautiful woman I'd ever seen, and she had the fortitude of a hundred men," He recounted with newfound liveliness in his voice, preparing another bait for his hook. "I was there when she discovered the fragment that made her Ascendant. It was the-"

"Hey, what's that over there?" Kilian suddenly exclaimed while pointing at the water beyond the rock formation.

"Shhh, ye scaring the fish away," Old Tommas put a finger on his lips and warned the boy in a reprimanding tone. Not letting the interruption throw his peaceful fishing and story time into disarray, he continued. "Where was I? Ah, yes, the fragment..."

"I see it. Something shiny," Natalee asserted while squinting her eyes.

"What is it this time?" Allen adjusted his glasses and turned to Kilian in annoyance. But when he did so, he saw an unnatural glitter in the distance and was drawn to it immediately. As Old Tommas continued to speak, unable to sense the children's change in focus, Allen shaded his eyes from the midday sun.

A golden glint stood out from among the light reflections on the gentle waves. It appeared to be floating on the lake's surface just beyond the rocks from which the children liked to jump into the water.

"It's something metallic!" Dyanna shouted across the pier with excitement in her tone before taking off along the shore. "Maybe it's a fragment that got carried down from the Wound!"

The Wound was the massive gash in the Skypiercer, located at around the one-thousand-meter mark, from which a mighty waterfall gushed forth and flowed down the tower's flank. It was the origin of Lake Svarus, Base Camp's main source of drinking water.

"You know that's impossible. It's been a long time since a fragment was discovered around these parts," Allen replied with a skeptical shake of his head.

"Then what could that be?" Natalee wondered, scratching her chin.

"Maybe someone dropped a brass pot. Who knows?" Adjusting his glasses once again, Allen presented a likely answer.

"I'll check it out!" With these words, Kilian took off his shoes and jumped into the water without hesitation. Dumbfounded, the other children stared at the boy swimming toward the golden glint with quick strokes.

"I told ye not to jump in here!" Old Tommas complained, raising a fist in Kilian's general direction. Natalie and Allen exchanged a look with each other before running back across the pier.

"It's actual gold! I think," Dyanna called out to the swimming Kilian while wading into the water herself. They came here to swim anyway, so she was not worried about getting wet.

As Kilian approached the floating shiny object, he realized it was a large golden gauntlet, too big even for an average adult's hand, clutching driftwood. It could only be a fragment from the Skypiercer. However, upon closer inspection, he found that a person was attached to it. It was a young girl around his age, floating on the surface with her face down. Her long, light-green hair swayed in the water like seaweed. It was a hair color he had never seen before.

Not wasting another moment, Kilian quickly swam toward her and grabbed her arm. Her skin was as cold as ice. And as if the disturbance was an impetus, she let go of the driftwood and began to sink. Fearing the worst, he quickly flipped her over and propped her head above the water. She showed no signs of stirring, so the boy began dragging her toward the shore.

Halfway there, Dyanna joined him and wordlessly helped him steady the girl. When their feet finally touched the ground, the two children coordinated to carry the girl onto the beach. As they lay her down on dry land, they beheld her full appearance for the first time.

She wore a torn and ragged green sundress, but her almost pale white skin was spotless and perfect. Certainly, she could not have come from the Wound and tumbled down the waterfall, or her body would have been shattered. Even if she did not breathe, it did not look like she was dead, merely asleep. However, when he tried to find her pulse, there was nothing.

Looking up, Kilian frowned in realization. Dyanna had yet to learn first aid, and Natalee was still too far away. He gathered his resolve and began to perform CPR on the green-haired girl. Pinching her nose shut, he lifted her chin and parted her lips before placing his mouth on hers and blowing air into her lungs. Pushing down on her sternum in the rhythm of a heartbeat, he unhesitatingly and faithfully labored to resuscitate her.

"What's going on?" Natalee cried when she approached them, out of breath, "who is that?"

"Never seen her before," Dyanna asserted while scrutinizing the green-haired girl's golden gauntlet instead of worrying about her life. Some would say she was cold-hearted, but all orphans of Base Camp knew the reality of this world. It was a cruel place where life was only worth as much as one's achievements in the Skypiercer. She had seen many corpses before, and she understood that nothing mattered after death. "This is definitely a fragment."

The ancient runes of the Skypiercer were engraved across the golden gauntlet's surface. Even after many centuries of exploring the tower, the meaning of those symbols was still unknown. One could only guess what purpose this fragment served besides protecting the wearer's hand and wrist. And an even bigger mystery was why this girl around their age wore it when it was way too big for her.

Without further ado, Dyanna pulled on the golden gauntlet, but it would not come loose. Lifting the girl's arm and peeking into the gauntlet's opening, she could only see that it appeared to be enclosed around her slender wrist. Perhaps there was a mechanism to release it, but there was no immediately obvious button for doing so.

"Stop that!" Kilian demanded in a chiding tone without stopping his laborious work. He knew resuscitation could take a long time, and he started feeling fatigued after swimming through the water and carrying the girl to land. "You take over for a moment, Natalee."

"What? No, I can't-" Natalee shook her head in shock, her lack of self-confidence coming to the surface.

"Yes, you can," Speaking in a softer tone without breaking his rhythm, Kilian tried to reassure her. She was the only other person here who knew first aid. "You can do it."

She stared at Kilian's smile for a moment before gathering her resolve. As the boy finished his set of chest compressions, he moved aside and let Natalee take over. Slumping down on the rocky beach, he took a deep breath and sighed, his whole body shaking from the exertion.

"What is this fragment?" Dyanna wondered while knocking on the golden gauntlet with a rock. The resulting dull sound made it clear that it was quite thick. "Whatever it is, it won't come off her arm."

"Hey, who is that? What is that fragment?" Allen finally reached them, breathing heavily from the exertion. He scraped his knee when he slipped on the rocky beach along the way but appeared to be unbothered by it. His interest was focused entirely on the gauntlet covering the green-haired girl's left hand and wrist. "Power Loader?"

"No, it doesn't seem to be that," Kilian stated while taking a closer look at the gauntlet's design. "Never heard of a golden one before, either."

"Could be a very rare fragment!" Dyanna's eyes lit up in excitement.

Suddenly, the gauntlet's fingers moved, startling the three children. They spun their heads around to look at the girl's face, but there was no sign of her having woken up. Maybe the movement was from Natalee's continued chest compressions.

The moment they calmed down at that thought, the girl suddenly swung her gauntlet up at Natalee. The latter barely dodged out of the way and fell onto her back. Then, the gauntlet hit the ground on her other side, generating an explosion of rocks and pebbles. Luckily, nobody was in its path, or the flying debris would have pummeled them.

The four children watched in stunned silence as the girl curled up into a fetal position without opening her eyes and seamlessly slipped from unconsciousness into careless slumber.