The Powerless Series: Complete 5-Book Set

by Jason Letts

  The rain turned from a trickle to a light shower, and a lightning bolt struck off in the distance. Roselyn had joined Aoi and Mira, where the war cries had been replaced by moans and calls for help. Vern and Will came running up the field, looking like they’d been through a tough fight.

  “Having fun yet? Boy, they’re gonna remember what I did to them when they wake up in the morning,” Vern grinned, rubbing his hands together. He started to jog closer when Mira spoke up.

  “I told you you’re better off not being near me!” she scowled.

  “Let’s just go, OK? I don’t think we can handle this by ourselves,” Will argued.

  Seeing others zigzagging their way up the mountainside made them realize they were falling behind and didn’t have any time to lose. They didn’t need to be reminded only the toughest had made it through, and so each person they saw would be a dire threat. Crossing the end of the field, something shuffled within the dark trees at the mountain’s edge.

  Someone climbed among the branches and the shadows in one of the trees at the foot of the mountain, crouching low to avoid being seen. Bare branches swayed and cracked under the pressure. Her eyes fixed on the person in the trees, Mira fell backward when someone else suddenly appeared right in front of her.

  Crawling on her back to get some distance, she realized the apparition that startled her was Neeko. Despite his light complexion, he looked unnaturally dark, like every trace of light avoided him. This imprint of a shadow seemed unscathed by the conflict.

  Behind him, another Darmen Elite shadow dropped out of the branches and jogged over to join him. A few others emerged from the bushes to back him up. Among them, the liar boy Vern and Will had followed in Darmen’s marketplace and the boy who had been possessed by the spy ambled forward. A girl, standing a foot taller than either of her classmates, took her place alongside.

  “Don’t you have better things to do?” Mira said, clambering to her feet and rejoining her friends. Vern and Aoi stood by her side, with Will to the right near Vern and Roselyn a few paces behind.

  “I told you I was going to put you down,” Neeko said. “And I’m here to show you I wasn’t kidding. There’ll be plenty of time to catch up. We’ve got all night. Someone needs to show you how weak and pathetic you are.”

  Without hesitation, Mira stepped forward. “You talk too much. If you want to fight, why don’t you stop gabbing like a sissy and just do it?”

  But Neeko didn’t move, and in that pause a shout came from Mira’s right.

  “We tried to help you!” Will hollered at the lanky boy whose muscle had disappeared with the spy. His face had lost its rocky appearance, but they could still recognize him. Even the same condescending smirk remained.

  “You made me look like a fool!” he griped, drawing a snide cackle from his leader.

  “OK, you asked for it,” Neeko replied. “Get her!”

  Mira crouched down and prepared for their attack. Vern and Aoi huddled close to defend her. Obeying Neeko’s command, the small boy grabbed the tall girl. Pushing her, she hopped and bounced forward like a rubber ball on a hard floor. Mira readied herself for impact, but the girl sailed clear overhead. Arcing downward, she stretched her hand, catching Roselyn, who had no time to react, on the shoulder. As the tall girl landed and rolled to a stop, every muscle in Roselyn’s body went limp, and she spilled onto the ground.

  “Roselyn!” Aoi shouted. She rushed over and kneeled next to her. Roselyn’s eyes moved around in her head and she blinked, but other than that she couldn’t move a muscle. The tall Darmen Elite girl approached them from behind with ready hands while Neeko’s companions fanned out on each side. At his hoarse, croaking laughter, Mira turned back to the shady image of Neeko.

  “You didn’t think I meant you, did you? No, we learned well enough which one of you had the real power. Don’t worry. It’ll wear off over time. But what I’ll do to you won’t!”

  Neeko and his company started closing in from all directions. Mira still didn’t understand what he did with light, but she knew enough to recognize Neeko wasn’t where he seemed to be. Unlike her friends, who waited for an opening, Mira twisted around to confront the tall girl. She removed the Leyden Jar from its spot against her side.

  “Aoi, out of the way!”

  Aoi dove to the side as the girl ran at Mira. The blast of electrified water splashed against her body, shocking her like a bolt of lightning. Rattled by the severe dose of electricity, the girl fell flat on her face, her hair frizzed. Neeko and the others stopped in their tracks, astonished at what they had just seen.

  Mira knew she had no choice but to use or lose the jar because of the increasing rain. If it got wet, she would be the recipient of its charge. Though it only worked once, it would certainly be enough to make her point.

  “Do you still think I’m defective? Maybe you want a taste for yourself.”

  “You’re worse,” Neeko stammered after witnessing his friend’s electrocution. “You disfigured, ghastly, wretch.” Repulsed, he could barely get the words out before his legs took him running at her.

  “Aww, that’s so sweet,” she glowered, clenching her fists and readying herself. Vern and Will blocked the attackers careening at her from the sides. Neeko’s shadow snapped a fist forward, and Mira put up her arm to block it, but the shadow was still several feet away. Instead, the impact of a fist drilled right into her stomach, though nothing but air appeared before her. Mira doubled over in pain. A sharp shot caught her in the back, leveling her against the ground. Mira groaned, her head against the dirt and facing back.

  Neeko’s shadow towered just behind her to one side. Standing over a vacant stretch of ground somewhere between Mira and the tall girl’s body, it raised one foot, suddenly stomping down. The foot drove into her back. Neeko’s satisfied laughter echoed from his ghostly shadow.

  Watching Neeko’s dark reflection, she waited for the foot to rise again. When it came, she rolled away and snapped her leg out at the open air. She connected and Neeko lurched to the side. Mira delivered another kick, but this time her leg swung through without hitting anything. She turned to look at the shadow, but it had vanished.

  Vern squared off against the liar boy who stood puny and frail in comparison. Vern treated it like a game, smiling and shuffling back and forth as a boxer would. The liar, however, didn’t make an attack.

  “You can’t fight,” he said, and immediately Vern lost all rhythm. He held his hands awkwardly, holding his thumbs under his fingers. The confident expression on his face turned to a puzzled frustration. The boy quickly rushed in, raining punches down on Vern’s stomach, arms, and chest. Vern staggered back at the flurry of little jabs.

  Administering a number of blows but never forcing Vern off balance, the weight of his punches softened as the scrawny sixteen-year-old’s arms began to tire. Just when it seemed he would give up punching and resort to pushing, Vern reached back and snapped a shot to the jaw that dropped him straight to the ground.

  “It’s a good thing you didn’t say I can’t clock you in the face.”

  Behind him, Will and Aoi were facing off with the spy’s host, who possessed little fear despite being outnumbered. His skin hung loose on his body, but he still moved quickly. Running at Will, he grabbed his shirt and tried to push him off his feet. But as soon as his hands touched Will, Aoi ripped him off and knocked him to the ground. The boy bounced back to his feet as soon as he touched the ground and immediately rushed at Will again.

  Will blew at him, slowing him down. Aoi tackled him and held him still. Will ran up to them and began jostling for space to fight. As lanky as their opponent was, he managed to hold his own against both of them. Will stepped awkwardly in front of Aoi, who had no choice but to lunge over his leg. She received a swift push, bounced on her butt, and sailed clear out of sight.

  Backing away from his opponent, Will saw Aoi drop into the trees several hundred yards away. A fight took place nearby on the ground, and a few others raced into the dea
d forest to take on the mountain. Holding his hands up in defense, Will struggled to avoid a similar sudden departure.

  Stepping back steadily as his attacker advanced, Will bumped into something with his back. His mouth dropping open in unabashed terror, Will twisted his head only to find Vern and sigh in relief.

  Vern swung out to the side while the Darmen Elite shadow continued to pick on Will. Trying to knock him off balance, the boy lunged forward, suddenly stopping and drifting off his feet toward Vern. The loose skin on his arms flopped in all directions. Will ran in to attack while he spun helplessly in the air but caught a flailing leg to the face for his troubles.

  Just before the boy would have collided with him, Vern dropped him flat on his back. He bounced, but as he came back up, Vern caught him in the stomach with a brutal punch. Falling onto Vern’s leg and rolling down to the ground, he was unable to get up. The furious shouts and noises from the fight died away, and the silence seemed overwhelmingly disconcerting. Taking stock, Vern and Will glanced around at who remained and who didn’t.

  “Mira’s gone,” Vern wheezed, releasing a forlorn sigh and turning to the mountainside before them.

  “Aoi too,” Will said. “She’s off closer to the southern end.”

  “Really? How stupid of me to waste all that time fooling around. We’d better look for her before we catch up to Mira,” Vern called. A bolt of lightning echoed in the distance. The rain drizzled steadily now, falling from the black clouds concealing the upper slope of Shadow Mountain, where flashes of light from the fighting pulsed as though it were ridden with giant fireflies.

  “I can’t go any further,” Will hesitated behind Vern.

  “Are you hurt? I didn’t see what happened,” Vern said, finally turning around to see Will kneeling by a body. Roselyn’s blond curls lay flat against the ground, collecting the falling rain.

  “No, I’m fine, but I can’t leave her out here like this.”

  “She’ll be fine,” Vern asserted. “What about Mira? What about you? What about us? You said yourself we need to stick together.”

  “Maybe she will be fine, and maybe I could help, but Mira was right. And Aoi before her. Everyone was right but me. I shouldn’t have made it this far, and I have no business going on when things’ll get even more dangerous. Maybe it wasn’t a mistake to come, but it took coming here to realize I have my limits, and ignoring them will only burden you all. Now let me do something useful for a change. A night out in the rain is no place for a friend,” he said. Acceptance crept into Will’s voice, and Vern abandoned the rest of his resistance.

  “So be it,” Vern affirmed, casting a definitive nod. “You’ve made your choice, and I can’t judge it wrong. We’ll be looking for you on the way back.”

  Vern turned and raced for the mountainside alone. He met the edge of the tree line and began to hurdle up through the rocks and the dirt. Another few steps and he vanished completely.

  For all the world it seemed like Will was alone, but he wasn’t. Lazy eyelids drooped over Roselyn’s glassy eyes. She wore a blank expression on her beautiful face despite the rain falling on it. Her breathing was slow and shallow. It was a sad sight for Will to see her lying on a field of forsaken friends.

  “What’s this? I’ve never noticed this before?” he asked.

  Will touched his finger to the aqua stone around her neck. Though he expected it to be hard, it felt soft to his touch. Roselyn blinked.

  “It’s pretty.”

  He looked off at the pillars and the tents in the distance, trying to determine if he could recognize their own. They seemed a long ways away.

  “I’m going to give you a piggyback ride. OK? Come on.” He bent and tried to figure out the best way to get her onto his back. He sat her up, kneeled in front of her, and then pulled her arms over his shoulders before standing up. His own bruises made carrying her a painful endeavor, and he often sank to his knees for breaks, but he refused to stop and leave her out in the rain.

  “Seems like you’re getting carried around a lot lately. Who knew a body was such a hard thing to keep a hold of? Don’t worry, you’ll be back to your old self soon enough. Then you’ll be gossiping and singing and making clothes like nothing ever happened. You’ll see,” he said back to her, her head somewhere on his shoulder. He could only imagine what was going through her mind and what she felt about what he was doing to her. If only she could talk to him, then he’d know.

  Will plugged along, weaving around the bodies of those on the field. He caught eyes with a few of them, and his heart suddenly quickened as he wondered if they would try to attack even though the Rite had long since left them behind.

  “Meeeeeee next,” groaned one.

  “I could have my work cut out for me. Maybe I’m not getting off easy after all!” Will complained.

  They trudged on past the belt of bodies strewn around the mountain and through the expanse of short grass before reaching the starting line. Will couldn’t remember which direction they had come from, and he momentarily considered taking one of the nearby empty tents. He decided it wouldn’t have the same sense of safety as their own, and so he picked a direction and hobbled down the field. Eventually, their white tent, matching their uniforms, came into view. His legs, entranced by the prospect of finishing, gave out immediately. He had no choice but to drag Roselyn the rest of the way by her arms.

  Finally propping her up inside their own tent, cold but dry, Will collapsed by her side. Exhausted from the effort, he could do little more than stare out through the entrance as the mountain faded into darkness. Roselyn blinked, and Will smiled at her.

  “I wonder what’s going on up there? It’s a strange thing to be so close to so much action and excitement and yet completely oblivious of it. It might be better to just sleep it all away and wait for our own adventure to resume tomorrow.”

  He knew Roselyn couldn’t answer, but it still disappointed him when she didn’t. He wondered why the one person he always wanted attention from was the least likely to give it to him. They sat in silence for a few minutes, and Will started to think about looking for food and getting some sleep.

  “I know what you’re thinking, and we don’t have to talk about it now. We can figure out what you owe me for my heroic act of self-sacrifice later.”

  Roselyn managed to roll her eyes.

  Chapter 14: The Slope

  The shadows assailed the mountain from every possible angle. They scoured its surface like starving ants, greedily looking to make their way up in the cool, rainy night. Flashes of lightning momentarily illuminated the rugged, coarse terrain. Intersecting pathways between the trees created archways over rocky clefts as they wove their way to the jagged cliffs of the mountain’s upper reaches.

  The remaining combatants tried anything they could in their pursuit of the Rite’s transcendent glory, though none of their tactics came without danger. Sneaking and tiptoeing among the trees worked only as long as a brittle branch or creaky stone didn’t give away their position. Hollering and thrashing like a fiendish banshee worked just as long as it didn’t attract attention from a stronger opponent. Only solitude could offer any safety, but the rampaging fighters and howling victims echoing around the mountain instilled in each mind the hard truth that there was nothing less likely than being left alone.

  Vern trotted along the foot of the mountain, rounding southward in hopes of picking Aoi out of the darkness. The last remaining dry spots in his clothes surrendered to the heavy drops indiscriminately bombarding the ground. Only Will’s rough directions guided him, and he looked through the brush to the nearby plain to judge how far he’d come. As soon as he stopped, someone jumped on him from behind a tree. Not perceiving any hint of his attacker, the sudden impact against his ribs knocked him against the dank dirt.

  The silent onslaught continued, and Vern could hardly find footing to stand much less retaliate. Finally giving in to his downward momentum, he bought himself space enough to spring off a nearby tree into a horiz
ontal leap with arms outstretched. He caught the dark figment and began returning some of the punches he’d received.

  For a second, it crept into his mind he could be fighting Aoi, but a flash of lightning revealed a battered Darmen Elite thug who had already received more punishment than Vern could ever dish out. He checked his last punch and let the desperate loser rest on the ground. Vern wouldn’t need to worry about this one again.

  Continuing for another hundred yards and listening to the fierce melee above, Vern became convinced no one but the walking wounded and the flat-out defeated populated this area along the mountain’s edge. Just in case Aoi fell into either of those groups, he shouted her name, despite the risk of inviting more troublemakers. Not having her around unsettled him more than any of the blood-curdling cries in the darkness.

  No response reached him from either friend or foe. Knowing that spending more time looking for Aoi when she had probably kept up with the pack would be wasteful, he took to climbing. Using his feet for little more than landing, Vern savored his effortless yet profound progress up the mountain. He floated between the tree trunks and skipped over the tops of embankments. The gravity of the mountain and its sturdy trees drew him forth through the air. His rapid progress made him think of the top, and how easy it would be bounding from every precipice in reach, pulling himself over that one plateau where there could be nothing higher.

  The pleasant dreams distracted Vern as he met with a wet ledge and his foot slipped. Gravity suddenly betrayed him, compelling him to tumble down until he landed on ground solid enough to support him. Smacking into the rocky rubble, the sting of his new scrapes made him flinch, but once his senses returned he realized he had fallen into a small enclosure.

  Looking up from the ground, he could see only a section of the dark sky through the opening. The sounds above drifted in easily, and Vern sighed with relief realizing his fall would not invite the surrounding fracas. He could hear people running and fighting within yards of the enclosure.