“You will all search – in a sort of scavenger hunt, if you will – for this box, containing this object. This is drawn to scale, so you will notice the box is pretty small – only about a foot and a half or so in length. Pass it around so you can all get a good look at it.” The Legend handed the piece of paper to someone in the front row who began to examine it. Lyght frowned, thinking about Lyn’s words. A scavenger hunt? How were they going to find such a small object in such a large place as Zone Zero?
As Lyght was thinking, he couldn’t help but notice some kid off to the side staring directly at him. Lyght glanced over quickly, trying to recognize him. He looked vaguely familiar. A short kid with sandy-blond hair and a slight build, Lyght had seen him around training like the others, but had never talked to him and didn’t feel like he particularly knew the guy. That was definitely strange, as the kid was staring at him with something that looked pretty close to hatred. Lyght glanced back at him again, to make sure he wasn’t imagining things. No, he definitely wasn’t.
Why then? Lyght clinched his hands in his fists and tried to concentrate on Lyn up front. What had he done that made this guy so upset? He didn’t understand. Nevertheless, Lyght had to focus back in and pay attention to his teacher, trying to ignore the pair of eyes burning into him in the corner of his vision.
“The point of this exercise”, Lyn continued on, “is for me to evaluate your Dreamcasting abilities and see where you all stand before we begin officially training you in the subtle and powerful art of energy manipulation that we know as Dreamcasting. Now I’ll admit, the choice of the box with the orb inside as the object of interest is not a coincidence. I won’t tell you what it means, because it probably won’t factor in here, but it is possible I will learn something about the person who captures the orb.”
Lyn paused and looked around the group, listening silently with anticipation. The Legend looked up at the overcast sky for a moment, then back down at his students, “Of course, the objective is to capture the orb. As soon as someone on one of the teams opens the box and touches the orb, I will be alerted, and the exercise will be over. I will send red light into the air over base when that happens, and you are all to return back here at that point, no more fighting. Understood?” The group all nodded their heads; Lyght along with them. He shifted a little bit, getting really annoyed at the kid staring at him off to the side. He’d have to talk to that guy later. Lyght sighed, already exhausted, and looked up at the cloudy sky, threatening rain. He was so tired, and the morning was just beginning.
He didn’t have time to think about that, however, because four sergeants walked out of the base behind them at Lyn’s signal. Lyn nodded to them and stepped back, heading into the base, presumably for a cup of morning coffee. Lyght wished he could follow him, but he had to pull himself together. In minutes, he would be expected to lead a team of students to victory against three rival teams. He had to stay focused.
The sergeants split them up as evenly as possible into four teams. Lyght was highly annoyed to see that the kid who had been staring at him was placed on his team. Great, he thought. Just what I need right now.
Nevertheless, the sergeants finished off the grouping and commanded each team to follow a sergeant to the starting spots. Lyght and his team followed an old, balding sergeant who was generally quieter than the rest, but not necessarily nicer. They walked in silence for a while, and a light drizzle started falling from above, a slight chill along with it. Lyght noticed his teammates shifting quietly behind him, glancing at their leader. Remembering himself suddenly, he spun on his heel to look at them, walking backwards with his navy cape fluttering in the head-on wind. That kid was still staring at him angrily, but Lyght studiously ignored him as he focused on the rest of his teammates.
It’s time to lead now, Lyght. You’ve got to earn this uniform to keep it. Start now.
“You guys doing good?”, Lyght asked. Heads nodded as his teammates looked at him, curious as to what he had to say. Even as a leader selected by Lyn, Lyght had definitely spoken the least of his fellow class leaders; Seth being the exception, of course. But even Seth was leading strongly by example. Lyght knew he had to step it up. So he took a deep breath, looked into their eyes, and laid out the plan.
“Ok, so here’s the deal. We’re one of four teams; meaning that statistically, we only have a one-in-four chance of winning here. However, we don’t have to play to the odds that way. I can almost guarantee you that the other teams, especially Mikael’s team, will search out the other teams to test out their Dreamcasting abilities in a real conflict. However, any two or more teams that get pulled into a battle will be relatively evenly matched, and they will essentially cancel each other out, removing them from contention in the main goal of finding the box. So, our strategy will be to remain distant, staying close to the perimeter of the Zone and searching there, while making quick forays into the center to search as well. We’ll work our way around the Zone like a clock, and if we don’t find anything, we’ll work from different depths on the second and third time around, and so on. The main point is: we won’t get caught up in a battle with the other teams, and we will retreat from any conflict that could trap us. The other teams will likely fight each other, but we don’t have to worry about that.”
Lyght paused, looking around the group to gauge their reaction. Not bad, they were looking at him with a bit more confidence now, except the kid to the side. Lyght ignored him still. “Make sense?”, he asked. The group nodded. Lyght nodded back appreciatively, “Good”.
They were not long after that in reaching the dispatch point. They waited for about a minute before the sergeant saw the signal; green light over the base. He nodded to Lyght, then walked away, no advice given. So much for that, Lyght thought. The sergeant disappeared into the thick trees, leaving Lyght alone with his team.
Lyght froze for a second, but snapped to it as he realized where he was. No time for weakness now, he had a job to do. So he turned in the chilly air, cape flying behind him, to look at his team. He made himself smile, “Ready?” They nodded; a few even smiled back. Lyght took that for a good sign. He turned and motioned for the team to follow, and they began working their way clockwise around the massive oval-shaped perimeter of the Zone, eyes peeled for any enemies. Lyght figured the enemy teams would dive straight into the Zone, leaving the path on the outside relatively clear for Lyght’s team. This way, they would see anything coming their way, and even had slightly higher ground. Not only that; Lyght also felt that it would be just the sort of tricky thing the sergeants would do to hide the box on the outside of the Zone, where all the teams started.
The rain started falling a bit harder as Lyght’s team worked their way around the perimeter, breath fogging in the air. Moving as stealthily and silently as possible across the increasingly slippery ground, Lyght directed his team to step on needles when possible to soften their footsteps and conceal their presence. They moved rapidly despite all the stealth, using the tried-and-testing method of moving with Dreamcasting power.
The team moved variously in runs and jumps, using touches of Dreamcasting to generate bursts of movement much faster than that of a normal human. Lyght, thoroughly awake now, felt the familiar sense of humming energy as he sped along at a run, momentarily going faster than the full sprint speed of a normal person. He would only use a short burst of power at a time in order to maintain his spirit level as he moved, running and jumping off of tree trunks to keep up his forward momentum. It was the preferred method of moving with Dreamcasting when speed was of the essence.
As it was, he had only started with about ninety minutes worth of spirit. At the strength of two versions of himself, Lyght could boost his strength to run twice as fast and jump twice as far for a second, then let off the power as he flew through the air. He cycled between two, three, and four times strength, making sure to use the greater burst in strength more sparingly. In this way, he managed to conserve his strength as he sped along, eyes peeled for a small b
ox anywhere on the ground, in a tree, wherever he could think of.
As they went on and encountered no enemies, as Lyght had hoped, he looked back and gave the command to spread out in a line over a couple hundred feet or so in either direction, to increase their perimeter and likelihood of finding the box. Along the line, Lyght assigned half the team to look in the trees, with the next person in line scanning the ground left and right. Lyght himself was scanning the ground and looking out for enemies, as he had positioned himself deepest into Zone Zero along the line.
They continued on searching in the chilly morning rain for over half an hour, finding nothing. Lyght wasn’t discouraged, however – he knew the contest wasn’t over yet, as he hadn’t seen red light in the sky near the center of the Zone. Lyght also knew it might take a few rounds around the Zone before they found anything. As it was, at their speed, they were a little over halfway around the Zone perimeter by now, so they could be moving for a while yet. Furthermore, he was inclined to think the other teams might have sought each other out and started battling. So he hoped, anyway. Lyght was more than happy to showcase his team’s Dreamcasting abilities through their movements and searching abilities. That was, after all, what this test was about, right?
Lyght put on an extra spurt of speed and flared his Dreamcasting spirit as he jumped powerfully off the bank of a small pond, aiming for the far side. He swept his vision back and forth as he flew through the air; seeing a tiny island in the center of the pond, the dull gray water rippling with raindrops, and the shore he was going to land on. It took him a second to process, but as he landed with a thud on the far shore, he spun back around quickly to look at the tiny island, spotted with a few pines and shrubs. He had seen something from his height in the air, nestled in a bush near the center of the island. He thought he’d seen a point sticking out of the bush, and a dark flash, but he’d been flying by too fast to see it clearly. Lyght looked over his shoulder, then spun to look back at the island. He had to go check. If it was nothing, he could meet back up with his team in a second.
Decided, Lyght crouched and jumped again, using the strength of ten Lyghts to fly over the rippling water and onto the wooded island. It was only a couple hundred feet across, so Lyght only had to work his way through a small batch of trees to get a good view of the center. Yes, there was certainly a dark… something nestled in the bush ahead. It very well could be a box. Lyght dug a foot into the ground and launched forward, Dreamcasting strength sending him flying. However, he immediately noticed something shooting down through the air above on the far side on the island. A navy flash burned right through the pine branches and hit the ground running, close to the center of the island. Lyght’s intake of breath indicated surprise, but he really shouldn’t have been.
Mikael.
Oddly enough, Lyght didn’t see Mikael’s team coming with him. It seemed very unlikely that they’d both reach this spot at nearly the same time under identical circumstances, but Lyght just had to go with it. Mikael was closer to the center, and now that Lyght was rapidly approaching, he could indeed see what looked like a dark box nestled in a stout green bush next to a towering pine in the center of the island. A good hiding spot – one would have to see it from high in the air to notice it. In other words, you would have to be searching with Dreamcasting. Just what Lyght’s plan had been. He was pretty frustrated to think that Mikael might beat him to it.
Not this time.
Lyght dug his feet into the ground and prepared for a huge jump, one that could maybe put him on an angle to attack Mikael from above. It was all he had. He had to stop Mikael, to put him on the defensive. He had to…
“Aaargh!”
Lyght tripped and fell, hard, as something hit him from behind right as he jumped. He went spinning across the ground and slammed into a nearby pine. Stars flew in Lyght’s vision as he groaned from the impact, trying to get up. Thoroughly shaken, Lyght got up on one knee, seeing a silhouette fly past him towards the box in the center. Trying his best to focus, Lyght narrowed his vision and tried to identify his attacker. One of the other leaders, maybe? No.
Lyght was nothing less than furious to see that it was just the kid who had been staring at him angrily before. He must have followed Lyght onto the island unannounced.
He must have just tripped up his leader just short of the goal.
Lyght growled in frustration and jumped to his feet, spitting out pine needles and running forward as best he could, which wasn’t fast enough. He must’ve twisted his right angle as he had jumped and been hit. Lyght was somewhat relieved to see, however, that the kid had reached Mikael just before his friend could reach the box. And not only that, the kid was actually holding his own.
Going on the attack, the kid was using a fury of power to rip rocks, shrubs, and sticks from the ground and send them flying at Mikael, who was on the defensive, dodging and jumping, trying not to get hit. It was a smart tactic; Mikael didn’t have the precision of spirit to be able to directly counter by deflecting each object as it flew. With so many things flying at him, as Mikael could do was dodge, and he was barely able to do that without getting hit. It was only matter of time until something reached home and hit him – hard. As much as Lyght was annoyed at the kid, he had to be impressed by his skill. Lyght was fairly good at precision of spirit control, but not nearly advanced enough to send multiple objects flying at a moving target, let alone dozens at a time. As much as he hated to admit it, Ben’s skill was impressive.
While his teammate was distracting Mikael, Lyght ran and tried to reach the box in the center. However, after the kid sent a sizeable rock flying at Mikael’s head, he turned towards the box himself, a mere few feet from Lyght’s position. As he saw Lyght bearing down on the box, he spun and flashed an arm forward with the speed of ten men, blasting Lyght right in the gut.
The vicious punch landed with a force like nothing Lyght had ever felt. Bent double by the hit, Lyght coughed up blood as he plowed into the hard ground. Vision blurred and head hammering, Lyght forced himself to stay conscious. He spat out more blood as he lifted his head slightly off the ground, seeing the kid grab the box and look inside. Indeed, a small, clear orb sat nestled inside in a little depression. The kid reached for it, smiling.
Lyght did the only thing he could think of. Reaching out his right arm and yanking it towards him, he pulled gravity – hard – onto the kid’s foot and send him spilling to the ground, unprepared for the attack. The box slipped and tilted as he hit, and the orb rolled out, but away from Lyght. Lyght jumped up, his every muscle fiber protesting, and limped over as fast as possible. The kid must have thought he’d just tripped on something, for he inched across the ground toward the orb, hand outstretched. Lyght reached him just in time. Giving his non-twisted ankle the necessary speed and power, he kicked outward powerfully, knocking the kid’s hand away with a crushing blow.
As he cried out in pain, Lyght looked down at him, breathing hard, and kicked the orb up. The kid on the ground watched followed it with big eyes, then saw his leader standing above him, bloodied and hurt. Lyght looked down his supposed teammate in disbelief, but raised his eyes again as the orb fell, glinting.
Lyght caught the orb in his hand, and as he did it suddenly pulsed with a blinding, burning electric blue light, like a ball of icy fire.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Seth never could stand the Southern weather.
He stood out on the balcony of his room, looking out over the busy channel, steel-gray under the cloudy sky. It felt weird – by this time of year, Seth was used to bitter cold and driving snows. But winter was a lot later in coming here in the Pride domain, and when it did come, it was but a whisper compared to the roaring snowstorms and lethal cold of the far north domains. Seth had not yet shaken his habit of dressing too warmly, and so he stood out on his balcony wrapped in several layers of black cloaks, unnecessary in the brisk autumn weather. His navy blue cape was still tied on from training. The wind blew in off the channel, whipping th
e cape behind him, rustling and snapping. He blinked as his eyes began to water. It really was windy out here on the shorefront.
Off to the left, Seth could make out a massive dark steel bridge, which he knew was over ten miles across in width, not to mention its ridiculous length. It was so large, one could stand on the far right of the bridge and not even see the channel on the other side of the bridge to the left. Seth knew it ran all the way to the North, where he had come from. This bridge, and two others like it, connected the North and South domains all the way across the massive channel. They were a highway for trade and industry, and yet regular people rarely if ever seemed to use them.
Seth had hardly ever met anyone in the North who had been to the South before. Seth had been to the distant South, once or twice, on matters concerning the Dream Syndicate, which he helped lead. He had always tried to avoid the capital, however, considering that the four leaders of the Dream Syndicate were the most wanted criminals in the land. Luckily, the King did not know what they looked like, but it was a deadly risk nonetheless for Seth to show his face for an extended period of time in the heart of the King’s territory. Decimader Vuruman had always had a much weaker hold on the North, but the South was a different matter. Seth had to be very careful.
Which was why he had originally objected, for example, to enrolling himself and Iri in the program at the Legion Academy. It had seemed like the worst idea in the world to Seth to try and enter the training program for the very organization whose mission in the past few years was largely to hunt down and destroy the rebellious Dream Syndicate group. It seemed stupid beyond belief to Seth that himself and Iri were told to capture and kill two separate Dreamcasters who were on their way to the capital to join the Legion Academy, and then show up in their place.
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