by K T Kaye
“The colours represent different emotions and thoughts, right?” Angel asked.
“Yes normally,” Jin explained, “Grey is often linked to sadness however I don’t think that’s the case here. It doesn’t look like sadness. This is something I haven’t seen before. Notice that its fading, what is that? It’s not his life force, a person’s life force doesn’t look like that.”
The pair were silent for a moment, each deep in thought, then Angel exclaimed, “Fading…stone! Paris’ powers! He’s part gorgon but he’s lost his powers! I think that ball represents the loss of his gorgon ability.”
“You might be right about that. The green one, I’ve seen that colour before, it’s peace. Paris has made peace with the fact he’s going to die. He’s prepared for it. Lights like that often appear in the minds of suicide bombers and martyrs. We don’t need that one.”
“Oh…the red one is hate and anger, right?”
“Pain and anger in this case, make sure that ball doesn’t hit you. All the anger and the pain Paris is feeling has been forced into it.”
“Yes boss. What about the white one?”
“I think that’s the one we need to catch. A white ball in this part of the mind normally means surrender. When people are questioned, the answers are normally right at the forefront of their mind even if they don’t say them aloud.”
“So you think the information is in that one?”
“If it isn’t then we’ll have to go in deeper.” Jin reached out his hand and tried to call the ball over to him but it kept slipping through his fingers. It didn’t want to be caught. It was teasing him. Jin held out both his hands and gestured for the ball to come towards him. Angel watched, once again, in awe of Jin’s abilities as the ball slowly landed in his hands. Jin pressed his forehead against it. He pulled his head away, smiled, then passed the ball to Angel who pressed it to her forehead. All the answers entered Angel’s mind. Once she was done, Angel handed the ball back to Jin, who pushed it together until it became a tiny ball of light which he could put into his pocket.
“This is far too easy,” Angel muttered.
“I know…let’s…” before Jin could finish he was hit in the stomach by the red ball of light. All of Paris’ pain and anger crashed into Jin, forcing him to his knees. Suddenly, a large cage dropped from the sky and trapped Jin inside. The ground shook violently and the world around them began to crumble. Inside the cage, lightning forks hit Jin’s body repeatedly. He doubled over in pain as the lightning struck his skin. Angel tried to run over to him, but her legs sank into the ground like it was quicksand. The shapeshifter struggled and began to pull the rope that was around Jin’s body. The rope not only connected Angel and Jin together but also connected Angel to the real world. If she pulled the rope both she and Jin would be transported out of Paris’ mind and back into their own bodies. However before she could finish the process a large ogre-like creature crashed through one of the doors, that led to Paris’ deeper mind, and started attacking them.
The ogre lifted Angel out of the quicksand. She landed heavily on a pile of rubble. Angel ducked as the ogre swung its sword in her direction. Angel mentally created a sword and a shield. The ogre and Angel fought against each other. The battle wasn’t productive for either party. Angel was trying her hardest to keep the rope out of the direction of the ogre’s sword. If the ogre cut the rope, then Angel would be transported back to her body but Jin would remain trapped in Paris’ mind. The ogre clearly knew this as it kept aiming its sword in the rope’s direction. The ogre pushed Angel to the ground, she pulled herself up quickly, throwing away her sword and shield. She glowed white and transformed into a dragon. The dragon roared, fire burst from its mouth burning the ogre into pieces. The world around them began to fall apart. Strange disfigured monsters crawled out of the darkest corners of Paris’ mind. The sky began to cry fiery tears. Angel fought against the monsters, desperately trying to reach Jin who was collapsed on the ground still getting hit by lightning forks. Angel flew over to the cage, killing monsters and avoiding meteorites as she did so. When she finally reached him, Jin was barely conscious. Angel transformed back into herself, glowed bright white, and pulled the rope as the world around them melted into a hellish chaos.
* * * * *
Angel gasped as she was forced back into reality. She was back in her own body, sat on the floor of the torture chamber. Jin was sat in front of her. His body convulsed as his soul returned, then he slumped and collapsed into Angel’s lap. His body was boiling, and blood dripped from his lips.
“How did you do it!? That’s not possible my mind is protected! You evil bit…” Paris continued to scream abuse in Angel’s direction, but she ignored him.
“Hiroshi take Jin to the hospital wing,” Angel ordered, “He was hit pretty badly.” Hiroshi and Ambroise carefully lifted the unconscious Jin up and carried him out of the room.
“Did you get the answers we need captain?” the Colonel asked.
“Mr Jet sent Paris a message to go guard the Polar warehouse. Mr Jet told him that this was a crucial factor in his ‘master plan’. Apart from on the night of the attack Paris has only met with Mr Jet once. The night I was made Captain. Surf thought he should have got my job, so he and a few others went out and got drunk. Paris was annoyed so left the others then he ‘bumped’ into Mr Jet. Instead of arresting him, Paris found the idea of power more appealing so swapped sides. He doesn’t know who any of the other terrorists are, he only knew the girl, who we did the mind take on, because she had been converted at the same time. When they met in the forest, they were told not to reveal their identities,” Angel said without taking a breath.
“That’s,” the Colonel started.
“Oh, and you know how my sword, my favourite sword Ted, yes I named my sword, don’t judge me, had been stolen and that I found it in the hands of one of the terrorists, yeah well it was Paris here who nicked it!”
“Well done Captain! You and Captain Lu have done an excellent job,” the Colonel applauded, “Well done indeed, I’ll arrange a meeting with the Emperor in the morning and get a search warrant for the warehouse.”
“You will die Angel Night!” Paris screamed, “You will die! You will die on Halloween.”
“Yeah well, you’ll be dead by then so it’s not like you’ll be able to enjoy it,” Angel got to her feet.
“Knowing you will die will send me to my grave happy.”
“You know what, I don’t care. I don’t care about you or your grave! I would happily leave you down here to rot and not even bother with an execution.”
“Then why don’t you?”
“You see the thing is, you stole my sword. No one steals my sword. In fact no one touches my sword.”
“You’ll execute a man because he touched your sword?”
“Oh no you’ll be executed for being a demon worshipper.”
Angel then punched Paris’ face, breaking his nose, and knocking him to the ground.
“That,” she smiled, “Was for touching my sword.”
21
‘Needles!’
JASON
“Ouch,” I gasped as Rowan stuck a huge needle into my arm. Due to the threat of another Mr Jet attack, everyone at the base had been ordered (by the Colonel) to get a medical examination to ensure they were fit for duty. Meaning that I was forced to come face to face with my worst enemy…Needles!
“Wimp,” Rowan laughed as she drew the blood from my veins.
“Hey, I thought nurses are meant to be nice.”
“I’m not a nurse.”
“Fine, I thought healers were meant to be nice!”
“Yeah, about that, I’m not officially a healer.”
“I beg your pardon,” I spluttered. Not that I wanted to offend Rowan when she had a huge needle in her hands, but I was slightly concerned that I wasn’t being treated by a professional.
“Well I’m a princess so I can’t be made an official healer.”
“So how come you wo
rk here?”
“The Colonel keeps quiet about me being here,” Rowan removed the needle from my arm and emptied my blood into a vial, “My parents don’t exactly know I’m here.”
“Are they really that bad?”
“Well I guess they’re not the worse parents in the world, but they are very strict and have some rather old-fashioned views. What about your parents? You haven’t spoken about them since you arrived.”
“My mum was a nurse. She really wanted me to become a doctor.”
“Did you want to be a doctor?”
“No. To be honest I never really thought about what I wanted to do in the future. I was too busy getting in trouble and accidentally setting people on fire. Don’t look at me like that. It was an accident! See I was messing about with a mate of mines lighter and it slipped or something.”
“You sure? Maybe you were using your powers before you came to the base, you just didn’t realise it.”
“I was already using my powers, that might explain the crazy building incident. Oh, I was on a school trip and half of a building decided to collapse…when…no way! It happened when I got mad!” I realised. Thinking back to the incident, that occurred when I was seven, the museum had only started to collapse after Billy Broker (a small but large boy who had bullied me during my primary school years) had stolen my chocolate bar. Needless to say I had been distraught by this so, as all intelligent seven year olds do, I had a tantrum, and then the museum had started to collapse.
“That was probably your powers breaking through. When your emotions are high your powers feed off the energy, making your powers both stronger and harder to control.”
“It would explain why some of my dates went wrong too.”
“You sure that wasn’t just you?” Rowan smiled cheekily.
“Hey! No but sometimes odd stuff would happen. See I get panic-attacks easily and I don’t always like meeting new people. So I’d get really nervous. see what happened was, well one time a water pipe burst, another time I think I gave the girl an electric shock…oh and once the girl got hit by a bus! Don’t worry she’s fine, she was in a coma for three months, but she’s fine now.”
“And you didn’t think that there was something strange going on!?”
No I hadn’t. Despite all the strange and unexplainable events that had happened during my time in the human world, I had never considered that there might be something strange going on. And I certainly never considered that these weird events were happening because I was a supernatural being! I just thought I was incredibly unlucky!
“Now I just have to give you this injection,” Rowan lifted another big needle filled with a green coloured liquid. Why is it never a small needle!?
“You’ve been living in the human world,” Rowan continued as I stared down the needle, “So you’ve been vaccinated against human illnesses but not paranormal ones. You were vaccinated in the human world, right?”
“Yeah…Ah!” I exclaimed as the needle was stabbed into my skin and the liquid pushed into my blood.
“You really don’t like needles, do you?” Rowan grinned as she took the needle away.
“No, no I don’t, and you wouldn’t either if you were sat in my position.”
“I love seeing how pathetic people get around needles, it’s great fun.”
“For you! Ouch that really stung! Is everyone having this done?”
“The blood tests yes but not the vaccination. Normally you get that when you first arrive at the base, as a trainee, but with everything that’s happened your vaccination got forgotten. Right now I just have to put this in you,” Rowan held up what looked like a small microchip.
“What is that!?” I exclaimed louder than I had intended.
“It’s a teleportation chip. Everyone at the base has one of these implanted into their arm. You need it so that we can teleport you out of danger. Let me implant it, then we can give you a demonstration of how it works, okay?”
“Okay.” No, not at all, not one bit of this is okay! Rowan gently took my arm and with a small surgical knife she cut into it. I stayed cool, calm, and collected on the outside whilst completely freaking out on the inside! I didn’t like this. I didn’t like this at all. Just nope! The needles were like cuddly teddy bears compared to this! She was cutting me open and putting this microchip, which I still didn’t completely understand what it was for, into my arm!
“Done,” Rowan dripped water onto my arm. The water sunk into my skin and pulled the broken parts together. I could see, if I squinted my eyes and put my arm next to my face, a small black square under my skin.
“Jason, are you okay?” Rowan asked.
“Perfectly, completely, totally.”
“Are you sure because you’ve been staring at your arm for about five minutes.”
“I’m good. What is this for again?”
“Come with me,” Rowan smiled as she led me out of the hospital wing. As we headed down the navy corridor, we bumped into, well actually I walked straight through, Helena the ghost, who had been floating by the door to the library, looking glum. She screamed at me for walking through her, which I apologised for repeatedly, then she started to laugh, which was just as scary as her scream!
“Well look who it is!” Helena shrieked after realising it was me who had walked through her, “Not dead then. It’s a shame, I would quite like to have you as my death companion.”
I wasn’t quite sure how to respond to that.
“Where are you going?”
“It’s none of your business Helena,” Rowan said firmly as the ghost followed us further down the corridor.
“None of your business Helena, do this Helena, do that Helena! No one cares about poor dead me! No one! Everyone just forgets us ghosts. Do this Helena, do that Helena, don’t go into that room Helena! Keep your mouth shut Helena!” the ghost continued to moan as she followed us into a small room. The room was grey and empty apart from a couple of computers and Willow. The telepath was sat behind a computer desk, softly discussing something with a house fairy. Upon seeing us arrive, the fairy quickly vanished.
“Jason,” Willow smiled widely, “Here to test your teleportation chip?”
“Yeah,” I muttered, “I think.”
“Hello Helena,” Willow greeted the ghost politely.
“Willow, nice Willow, she respects me! She greeted me; the others just ignore me!” Helena continued to mumble to herself.
“Come on I’ll show you how the chip works.”
“Jason if you just stand here,” Rowan pointed to a spot right next to the computer desk. I did so, feeling slightly nervous. Willow sat down at the computer with a smile on her face that I didn’t like the look of. Rowan stood behind her and whispered something in her ear.
“Right, you ready Jason?” Rowan asked.
“For what?” I answered.
Rowan just smiled as Willow pressed a button. My world began to spin. I couldn’t feel my legs or my arms. It was like my whole body was turning to jelly! My knees felt as though they were giving way and my eyesight blurred. Everything went purple and then, with a POP, I fell to the ground. I laid on my back for several moments trying to work out what had just happened. As my senses returned, I realised that someone was laughing, someone with a very high-pitched laugh.
“Look at him, he flopped like a fish!” Helena squeaked.
“What did you just…what the!?” I exclaimed. I had just sat myself up when I realised, I was not where I was meant to be. I had started by the computer now I was lying on the floor of the corridor! I had moved! I had moved without moving! I wasn’t sure whether I was supposed to be thrilled by this experience or terrified. My mind raced from one emotion to the next. This was insane! I had moved. I had teleported!
“What did you do!?” I laughed as Willow and Rowan came out of the room and into the bright corridor.
“The teleportation chip, this is what it does. We can move you out of harm’s way and teleport you home,” Willow smiled.
“Haha the Master of Darkness gets portal sickness! Sickly little master!” sang Helena.
“Are you okay Jason?” Willow asked, “Portal sickness is very common. You’ll get used to it after a few more test runs.”
“A few more, you mean I have to do that again!?”
* * * * *
I fell flat on my face.
“Ouch!” I exclaimed. I was outside the squad house, fight training with Roxy and Willow. The downside to this ‘wonderful’ plan was that both girls had telepathic powers, so every time I went to move, they were two steps ahead of me. It was mid-afternoon and the crispy March wind tickled the back of my neck. I was tired. It had been a long day for me. I had tested out my teleportation chip (10 times), had thrown up (also, sadly, 10 times) and now all I wanted to do was relax, not have fight training!
“Oh, come on Jason put some energy into it,” Willow teased from the side lines as I pulled myself up ready to face Roxy again. I swung my sword, but it was automatically blocked by Roxy. I pushed Roxy back and she was forced to break hold. I swung my sword again, but it was once more met with great ease. This fight was going nowhere. Roxy was blocking my every move! She suddenly leapt forwards and I had seconds to react as her sword came bearing down on me. I blocked but my feet weren’t properly balanced, which was exactly what Roxy wanted as with a smile she twisted her sword and kicked me in the chest. I fell to the ground. Roxy smiled happily at my defeat as I lay flat on my back in the mud.