The Youngest Blue Cellodian: Chapter 3 - A Sidewalk Slam Story
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Chapter 3: Rhythm of War
The bell’s last note hadn’t faded before the sky cracked.
From beyond the veil of Aetha Doma, three streaks of obsidian fire tore through the cloudstruck heavens. The air thickened. Everything shimmered a shade darker. Even the trees, rooted in open gravity, began to curl inward like they were bracing for something old and unfinished.
Yero flinched. Alriya did not.
“They’ve come early,” she said. “They never announce themselves unless they want the City to tremble.”
Jerry watched as the three streaks coalesced into forms—humanoid, like Telos and the other Blue Cellodians, but leaner, dressed in cloaks scorched with smoke and edged in flickering red thread. No cloud patterns. No gold. No warmth.
“Who are they?” Jerry asked.
Yero’s jaw tensed. “Clashborn. The Fourth Clan. They think chaos is the only purity left in time.”
Jerry nodded slowly. “So… the angry, edgy cousins. Got it.”
The leader of the newcomers floated down with casual menace. Her cloak flowed like molten obsidian, her eyes two shards of broken time. She touched the earth like it owed her something.
“Alriya,” she said, a smirk in her voice. “Still collecting lost things?”
Alriya did not move. “You are not permitted in the Garden.”
“Permission is for those still bound by patience.” The woman’s eyes landed on Jerry. “And what is this? A breach of blood?”
Yero stepped forward before Jerry could speak. “He’s mine.”
The woman laughed. “So the rumors are true. The prodigy conjures his shadow from a dead timeline.”
Yero’s fists clenched, but his voice stayed calm. “Speak your purpose.”
“Fine,” she said, voice sharp as static. “Your verse has traveled. Across clans. Across walls. Across futures. And now? Even the elders of my own blood are wondering if perhaps the child has a flame we should extinguish. Or preserve. Depending on your answer.”
She turned to Jerry.
“Do you believe in peace?”
Jerry blinked. “Sometimes.”
“Wrong answer.”
The ground erupted.
Yero shouted, but it was too late. The woman’s fist was already in motion, a sweeping strike made of flame and collapse, aimed at Jerry’s chest. But the moment it connected—he vanished.
No, not vanished—shifted.
A backflip.
He’d moved without thinking, flipping and hoping backwards landing bolts on his skateboard. Time shimmered around him, and the air cracked with displaced rhythm.
He landed behind her, knees bent, hand slapping the pavement with practiced style. “Sorry,” Jerry said. “I freestyle.”
The Clashborn woman turned, now furious.
But Yero had already stepped in front of her, hands glowing.
“Leave. Or I’ll finish the verse.”
She paused. Her eyes locked with his. And for a breath, everything held still.
“You wouldn’t.”
Alriya finally spoke. “He would.”
The woman’s scowl deepened. She signaled to the other two. In unison, they turned to shadow and vanished in trails of smoke.
The garden was silent again.
Yero exhaled.
Jerry turned to him. “You okay?”
“No,” Yero said. “But I’m ready.”
Alriya approached them both. “You’ll need to be. They won’t return alone next time.”
Jerry rubbed his palms together. “Cool. So, what’s next? Battle training montage? Power discovery? Secret Cellodian weapon with a name like The Final Stanza?”
Alriya smiled faintly. “No. What comes next… is your introduction to the High Verse Council.”
Jerry looked at Yero, eyebrows raised.
Yero gave him a half-smile.
“You’re about to battle with words that shape reality,” he said. “Hope you brought your A-game.”
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