Orion: A Heroic Novel

by Travis Johnston

  “Okay,” I responded half-heartedly, still gazing at her.

  “We’re going to play a new game,” she said turning back to me. She slowly strode toward me, grinning at me the entire time, exaggerating her hip and shoulder movements. “This one involves some… personal contact.” She drew very close, shifting her attention to my lips, and she started to lean in! I raised my eyebrows. Is this really happening? I thought, my heart racing. I closed my eyes and leaned in too.

  Then, she pushed me away, causing me to stumble. I opened my eyes, confused.

  “Tag! You’re it!”

  And she burst into a run, leaving me in a gust of wind and a cloud of dust.

  I stood there for a moment, baffled and sputtering. She kept running through the desert, dust trailing behind her. I chuckled to myself and shook my head. She definitely knows how to play with my head, I thought. I narrowed my eyes, smirked, and leaned into a sprint.

  The world seemed to slow down as the tingling in my legs increased, causing me to speed down the rocky hill toward Angela. I was gaining on her, but very gradually. I tried to stay out of the dust she kicked up, but sometimes it was impossible. I had to squint my eyes and hold my breath while running through the dust clouds.

  Angela rounded a crater. I think this was the one where I found my stone. Two days ago we’d discovered the third crater and found nothing inside. Either someone took the third stone and left town, or there was no stone in there to begin with.

  Our campsite was basically at the same place where Angela and I had gone stargazing on our first date. Red Knoll was the hill Angela and I were speeding down. Short bushes and tall cactuses were the main vegetation we had to run around. The ground was rocky and uneven, which made it hard to stay balanced while running, but we hadn’t fallen yet.

  Instead of rounding the crater like Angela, I leaped over it, landing close to her. She yelped when she saw me so close and increased her speed, just staying out of arm’s length. Her Yankees hat fell off, letting her hair flap wildly behind her, but neither of us stopped to pick it up. This was a chase!

  She glanced at me from over her shoulder and laughed, a playful grin smearing her face. She weaved between tall cactuses like a downhill slalom skier. I kept on her heels, amazed that I hadn’t tripped yet. I’d never run this fast yet! True, we were playing games, but playing with another Starling was helping me test my powers and become more familiar with their limits.

  Angela jumped suddenly, flying higher than a Las Vegas hotel. She came back down and landed with a thud, causing the ground she landed on to cave in and form a tiny crater, but she didn’t stop running. I had to catch up to her. Her jump had moved her further down the hill.

  She leaped again, soaring even higher this time. I bent my knees and jumped after her, hoping to catch her midair. I went up and up, higher than I’d ever jumped before. Angela had jumped higher than me, staying far out of my reach. When I looked down, I gasped. That was a long ways down!

  I plummeted to the distant ground, my stomach climbing up to my throat. It was intense and thrilling, but I felt confident that with my powers I could land on my two feet, just like Angela had. Sure enough, my feet pounded into the ground, forming a crater around me. My momentum carried me forward, causing me to stumble, but I caught myself and kept running.

  Angela landed her jump and sprang into a higher one. She looked like a tiny dot in the sky, a speck below the clouds. I flung my arms this time as I jumped as high as I could.

  “Woo hoo!!!” is what I screamed going up, and “Aaahhh!” going down.

  Angela spun in the air and looked back at me, grinning from ear to ear. She laughed as she plummeted back to the earth, her T-shirt, jeans, and light brown hair flapping in the wind. Even though I’d jumped as high as I could, Angela was still dozens of yards higher than me.

  We came down, forming our craters, and then went back up. It’s strange to think that we were having so much fun playing tag and jumping around. Most teenagers don’t do that, right? But superhuman teenagers do. Why? Because it’s a blast!

  I needed to jump higher!

  As I approached the ground, I prepped myself for the biggest jump ever. The tingling sensation increased within me. It felt like thousands of tiny rubber balls started bouncing around my stomach; it was like the feeling I got when cliff diving, that pivotal moment just before jumping into a fifty foot free fall and splashing into a cold river. You couldn’t think about it. You just had to do it.

  Just after Angela jumped back into the air ahead of me, I hit the ground hard, forming another crater, allowing my knees to bend. I extended my legs, springing into a massive leap. Something peculiar happened in this jump. The tingling feeling from my powers did something unusual. It… moved.

  How do I explain this?

  My powers had always felt like that electrifying, invigorating, tingling sensation. The tingling would spread through my entire body as I used my powers, and the tingling would intensify in the limb that was in use. When I punched, my fist tingled the most. When I kicked, my feet tingled more. You get the idea.

  But, this time, when I jumped with everything I had, I felt the tingling actually escape my body. The tingling, like millions of miniature airsoft bullets, shot right out of the soles of my feet. It didn’t hurt, and the tingling within my gut didn’t subside. Just, some of the tingling—or the physical, invisible essence of my power—was forced downward, which launched me upward like a human rocket.

  I was surprised by the power in my jump, and almost screamed like a little girl, but I’m glad I didn’t.

  I raised my eyes skyward as I soared, keeping my gaze on the clouds high above. I stretched my arms vertically, which seemed to help me cut through the wind resistance. Whoa, I thought. I keep going up!

  Mid-jump—somewhere around the height of the Eiffel Tower—Angela watched me soar past her, a look of amazement spread across her face. “Hey!” was all I could say as I whizzed by with a quick wave.

  I glanced down at the distant ground below, amazed by my height. I looked back up and closed my eyes just before colliding with a white cloud. The air around me grew moist for just a moment, and then I popped out of the cloud, the sun reappearing in the eastern sky.

  As I came to the peak of my ascent, there was a long moment of weightlessness. A sea of white clouds spread below me. The air felt cooler up here, even though the sun was unobscured and shining brightly. It was a moment I would never forget.

  I’d seen the tops of clouds from an airplane, but it seemed much more surreal—more personal—without any windows to block my view. This is what I imagined heaven looking like.

  Then I started to fall.

  The sun disappeared as I sunk into the clouds, suddenly becoming blind… and wet. The wind resistance pushed me into a spin, flipping me end over end as I fell.

  I didn’t scream. I was too terrified to scream.

  I reemerged below the clouds and caught a glimpse of the quickly-approaching, rocky ground. Could my body handle a fall like this? I wondered.

  I knew what I needed to do. I needed to get my powers to move out of my body again. That’s got to be the secret, I thought.

  I spread out my arms and legs, which stopped my spinning and left me facing the ground, belly-to-earth position. If I was going to make this work, I needed to do it fast. I closed my eyes and concentrated on the tingling in my gut, trying to get it to shoot out my feet like it had before.

  Nothing happened.

  I opened my eyes and gasped. Only a few seconds left.

  I closed my eyes again and yelled at my powers, “MOVE!”

  Nothing happened.

  I opened my eyes and curled up into a ball just as I made impact with the earth. With a loud crunch, my whole world stopped.

  But I wasn’t dead.

  The wind got knocked out of me, which hurt a lot, but that was it. No broken bones. No concussion. I finally regained my breath after rolling into a sitting position and looked around, gratef
ul to be alive. Grateful to have superpowers. Getting hit by Ray hurt ten times more than that had.

  Angela suddenly appeared in front of me, skidding to a stop, a dust cloud blowing over us. “Michael!” she said enthusiastically, extending a hand to pick me up. “That was amazing! At first it looked like you were flying! And then…”

  “And then I dropped like a rock!” I finished for her as she helped me to my feet. “But I think you’re right! I think I figured out the secret to flying! You’re it, by the way.”

  She scrunched her face. “I’m the secret to flying?”

  “No,” I said, patting her hand. “You’re it. You know. Tag?”

  “Oh, who cares? Tell me how you flew!”

  “Well, I…” I paused, brushing the dirt off my clothes as I spoke. “I made the tingling move.”

  She just looked at me for a few seconds, her mouth half open. “What?”

  “You know, the tingling that spreads through your body when you use your powers? I made it move out of my body.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Isn’t that what you feel when you use your powers?”

  “No,” she said flatly. “It’s more like… pressure, for me.”

  “Pressure?”

  “Yeah. Not painful pressure, though. It’s kinda like my body is filled with air, like a balloon or an air mattress, and it makes me feel lighter on my feet.”

  I frowned. “That’s weird.”

  “Not as weird as tingling.”

  “Okay, so our powers feel different, but I think the idea should be the same. Take that pressure feeling you have, and push it downward, all the way out of your feet.”

  “And how do you do that?”

  “I’m not entirely sure, but that’s what I did to jump so high.”

  Angela stared at the dry ground, deep in thought, her eyes still glowing. She seemed to be concentrating on her powers, trying out my idea. After a moment she shook her head and groaned. “Doesn’t seem to be working,” she said. “I can’t get my powers to move.”

  “Maybe we need to try it while jumping. That’s how I got it to work last time.”

  I closed my eyes and bent my knees, focusing on the tingling power in my gut. I sprang into a leap, but it didn’t budge. I fell back to the earth, a long distance to fall, but not nearly as far as before. I landed with a deep thud on both feet and jumped back in the air, trying to move my powers again.

  Angela joined me in the practice. We wore smiles because it was thrilling, but we also kept our eyes straight ahead, focused on trying to get our powers to move. From a distance, someone watching would’ve thought we looked like two giddy teenagers jumping on a giant trampoline.

  I need to put more into the jump, I thought. That’s how I moved my powers last time.

  As I landed on the ground from a Statue-of-Liberty-sized leap, I flared my powers, flung my arms upward, and launched high into the air.

  I felt it again. For only a brief moment.

  The tingling passed right through the soles of my feet, pushing me skyward. It wasn’t quite as high as my last jump, not enough to reach the clouds. I closed my eyes, concentrating on my powerst. I bent my knees and brought in my arms, as if prepping for another jump midair. I flung my arms upward and sprang my feet downward.

  Nothing happened.

  I tried it again. Nothing.

  I reached the peak of my ascent, forming a small arc. I desperately tried a midair jump again.

  It worked!

  The tingling feeling shot out of my feet, thrusting me upward. It was a short spurt of power, but it was enough to get me close to the clouds. Again! I thought.

  I performed another midair leap—which probably looked weird, like a breastroke without any water—and it worked again! I shot into the cloud, my vision turning gray and the air feeling damp.

  I’m getting the hang of this! I thought. Now I need to make it more consistent.

  I had gone into pure practice mode like I had many times on the soccer field. I just needed to keep on trying and trying until I got better and better. And I’d never felt more determined to practice than right now on this. I mean, c’mon… I was flying!

  Though, it didn’t feel much like flying. It felt more like doing burpees in the air. It was exhausting like burpees too. I was breathing hard, grateful for the cool air provided by the cloud. I performed another midair burpee the tingling shooting downward and launching me upward. I emerged above the clouds and squinted in the sunlight.

  That’s it! I thought. It’s like another limb! My powers are like an extra appendage that I can move around me, but just like any untrained muscle, it takes work to make it stronger and more coordinated.

  With that realization in mind, I closed my eyes and focused on my powers, treating it more like a third arm than an abstract power cloud in my gut. “FLEX!” I shouted out loud.

  The tingling moved! And this time it stayed in place!

  I stopped moving. The stillness caught my breath. I stood on top of the clouds, the sun pouring down on me.

  The tingling sensation had moved out of my body and remained below me, creating an invisible platform for me to stand on. Not all the tingling had left my body, I still felt the majority of it coursing through me, keeping me strong.

  I didn’t want to move. I felt like I had when I first learned how to juggle—once I finally got three balls in the air, I didn’t want to stop because it was so hard to start back up again. I kept my arms spread out to my sides to help me balance. My powers fidgeted a bit, making me wobble.

  The tingling was no longer shooting out of my feet. It was like a chunk of my powers dropped out of my body and formed an invisible cloud below me that continued to shoot downward. I couldn’t see the cloud of tingling power, but I could sense it just like you can sense where your pinky toe is even though you can’t see it.

  I was about to attempt movement when I heard someone screaming. Was that Angela? I paused as I noticed the screaming was getting closer.

  Suddenly, Angela poofed out of the clouds to my right and kept soaring upward. She was screaming out of pure joy. She flew in an arc above me and landed gracefully on the white cloud I was standing on.

  I gawked. “How did you…”

  “Pick it up so fast?” she said as she strode toward me, the cloud vapor parting around her as she walked on air, the wind blowing her hair to one side. I kept on gawking. “It’s like riding a bike. I have very faint memories of flying as a child, before my dad took away my stone. I thought they were just dreams, but no, they were real!”

  I tried taking a step toward her, but stopped myself about to fall off my invisible pedestal. Okay, I thought. I have to move the powers with me as I walk, like a third leg. Or maybe more like one of those metal walkers with tennis balls on the bottom. No, a plastic baby walker that bounces as you step. Yeah, that’s more like it.

  With concentration, I moved slowly, moving my powers with me, and managed to take a step. I looked up. Angela stood there with a hand on her hip and a humored smile.

  “Hey,” I said. “Cut me some slack. I’ve only had superpowers for a month. You’ve had them most your life.”

  She just kept smiling at me as she extended me her hand. I didn’t take it at first, but eventually I swallowed my pride and clasped hands with her. Immediately I found my balance and stood up straight next to her. We stood there for a moment on the cloud, facing each other, not letting go of each other’s hand.

  I looked down at the cloud below us; it was moving in the wind beneath us, like a white river of marshmallows and cotton candy.

  “It’s so beautiful,” Angela said. “I’ve dreamt of this moment my whole life. Standing on the clouds. Flying.”

  “This is your wish come true,” I said.

  She nodded, smiling brightly.

  We held each other’s gaze for a while. The white glow in her pupils seemed to complement her chocolatey brown irises.

  A gust of wind blew around
us, causing us to wobble. Angela lost balance. I reached for her other hand and pulled her back to her feet, and closer to me.

  It was my turn to have the humored grin. “Hey, I thought you said this was just like riding a bike?”

  “Yeah,” she said. “An invisible bike without any training wheels.”

  The wind began to die down, making it easier to balance.

  I squeezed her hands. “Let’s try something.” I concentrated on my powers, increasing the downward flow a tad, which, in turn, levitated me upward.

  Angela was quick to follow, slowly soaring higher with me, both of us grinning. As we flew higher in the air, I redirected my power at an angle, causing us to spin ever so slightly. About the speed of a slow dance.

  The view changed as we got higher. We could see the white sea of clouds spread below us. Some large, some small—like little white islands in the distance. The cool wind blew again, threatening to knock us off balance. We pulled each other closer into an embrace, partially to hold each other steady, but mostly just to be close.

  We held each other’s gaze for a long moment.

  “And this is your wish come true,” Angela said.

  She leaned forward and closed her eyes. I did the same. And this time, she didn’t push me away.

  Chapter 33

  Ray

  “What are you doing here, Mark?”

  “Waiting for you, Draco.”

  I hovered there for a moment, just outside the abandoned building, looking at Mark through a broken window. His motorcyclist’s leather jacket creaked as he folded his arms.

  “Where is Invisiguy?” I asked threateningly.

  “Who?”

  “You know who I’m talking about, Mark. He’s the invisible guy who stole my money and flew in this building.”

  “Scorpio?”

  “Yeah, whatever his name is. He’s the guy you’ve been training the past few days, and I know he’s around here somewhere.”

  “Oh, he is…” Mark turned around, looking at the dusty, concrete building he was standing in. “But, I don’t even know where he is.”