by Corey Tate
They walked for a while, deeper into the Cavern. It seemed to stretch on forever, and once again, wherever Scott looked he saw life. People of all different colors, shapes, and sizes. Scott decided the architecture was just as diverse as they passed what looked like an old West trading post, adobe buildings sporting Southwestern décor, and ornate manicured gardens out of an English storybook. Sometimes the group found themselves navigating through crowds of people, and when they did Scott could hear a multitude of languages and dialects.
“There are so many different ethnicities here,” Scott said. “Do you guys not have race wars, World Wars, Hitler, that sort of thing?”
Everyone looked confused, except for Seth.
“Dude, we’ve got Terminus. The good news is, nothing unites people more than a common enemy,” Seth answered for everyone.
They kept walking, trudging over loosely packed dirt as they got further into the Cavern.
“There are so many languages here. Why is it you guys all speak English?”
“Because, Scott,” Claire replied, “English is the universal language. As far as we can tell, every planet speaks English. We speak other languages too, but English is the most common.”
“Here we are!” Sam cheered.
Scott looked at their surroundings. In front of them were miles and miles of plants and farmland. There were hundreds of people scattered throughout the endless fields, some harvesting plants, others causing new stalks to grow by merely waving their hands. Still others were shooting water out of their hands and coating crops of plants with mist.
They were still in the Cavern, though. The rock ceiling loomed high above them, blocking out the dark skies and purple lightning Scott had seen through the roof of the Coliseum.
“I just thought of something,” Scott stated.
“That happens sometimes,” Nick responded.
“Do you always have to—”
“Interrupt?” Nick said as he grinned at Scott.
“Yeah, I’m ignoring you,” Scott said good-naturedly.
Nick didn’t know how to react to this. Scott could act like a little prick, but sometimes the kid was alright. He bounces back quick, Nick silently admitted.
—Good, Claire agreed, mentally eavesdropping. Because we need him.
—Claire, Nick thought, agitated, what did I say about getting inside my head without—
—Okay, okay, I’m out.
“How can those people and I generate water?” Scott said, bringing Nick and Claire back to the present.
It was Seth who answered. “All atoms are made up of the smallest particles known as quarks. Armadronians can manipulate the quarks and create certain energy. Our atmosphere is mostly nitrogen, but that doesn’t really matter because we’re channeling this stuff by using the planet’s energy.”
“How?” Scott was genuinely perplexed.
“Quarks are so small that they don’t obey the laws of physics,” Seth explained.
Scott was still confused.
“Basically, if you think it, you can do it,” Nick explained gruffly, cutting into the conversation.
Sam rolled her eyes. Nick was always so straight to the point.
They all stopped talking and walked toward the plants again.
Almost all the plants that Scott saw in the fields were unfamiliar to him. Most of them had bright, vibrant colors that were very appealing to the eye.
“Let’s go!” Sam gave Scott a little push from behind.
Before he knew what was happening, he was immersed in the exotic world of plants. Everyone was explaining all the different varieties and how they tasted, and he could hardly keep up.
“That’s a Scranton plant.” Nick pointed out a light-blue plant that was bearing large, dark-orange banana-looking fruit. “The Scranton seeds taste really good but have a sour aftertaste. They’re good if you mix a Bixtoan plant with them. Also any plant in here instantly fills you up. I don’t know how the overgrows do it, but it saves time. All you have to do is eat the whole thing.”
Scott pulled a Scranton seed off the plant and almost dropped it. It was heavy.
He took a bite and almost sighed in relief. It had the crunchiness of a crunch bar, but the softness of a banana.
His face suddenly squeezed up like it was in a vice, and his eyes became intensely dry.
Ohmygodthisissour! his brain screamed. Water!!!
—Use your curse, he heard Claire say inside his mind.
Without any time to think, he put his right hand up to his mouth and thought of having a mouthful of water. He got one.
Water shot out of his hand like a fire hose. He was thrown backward about five feet, his hand still streaming water.
—Stop it, Claire told him.
Scott concentrated on his hand and successfully shut off the flow of water.
His sonar vision was going ballistic though, because he had just accidentally Accelerated.
“There you go!” Nick grinned at Scott, who was almost completely drenched. “Are you full?”
Scott stood up, his jaw aching, and looked at Claire. He Decelerated, returning to normal almost immediately.
“Thanks,” he told her.
—No problem, he heard in his head.
“What are you thanking her for?” Nick asked.
“She told me to use my power,” Scott answered.
“Yeah, she was trying to teach you,” Sam cut in. “Most infants on Armadron take years to master their curses, but we don’t have that long for you—”
“She just called you an infant,” Seth joked.
Scott smiled good-naturedly and motioned for Sam to continue.
“Still, we wanted to teach you control. Your body was full of adrenaline just now. That makes it easier for you to access your curse, but harder to use it in small portions. You could have just blown your head clean off if you activated your curse to your full potential.”
“That would have sucked,” Seth added. “And I’m not eating you, no matter how hungry I get!”
“Speaking of food, now the rest of us gotta eat,” Nick concluded, bored with their exchange. “I’m hungry too.”
Cannibals
They were seated on a wooden bench in a big smelly hut. Around them were perhaps a dozen other people in various seating areas in the room.
A big man, about half the size of a sumo wrestler and dressed in dirty, worn-out clothes, emerged from a room toward the back and headed their way. On Earth, Scott would have put him at about forty years old.
As the man drew nearer, Scott could smell him. He had an overpowering stench that reminded him of pigs.
“Ernie! How goes it with the kids?” Nick stood up and the two shared a quick hug.
“They’re alright. Tommy’s a little crazy, though. Just got the wind curse. The wife’s doin’ alright too.” Ernie looked at Scott. “Who’s your friend?”
Scott got the sense Ernie wasn’t too pleased to see him.
“Joseph,” Nick lied easily.
“Huh,” the big man huffed. He kept staring at Scott. “You ain’t from around these parts, are ya, Joseph?”
Nick’s eyes pleaded with Scott from behind Ernie’s back.
“What makes you say that?” Scott asked, faking confidence.
“You ain’t got no scars, boy,” Ernie accused. “You ain’t been through nothin’.”
“He lives in the Balrean Village. The one on the Sea of Sand on the other side of the world,” Nick cut in. “He’s part of a clan of Sandboarders. They don’t fight each other,” he lied further. “Peaceful meditation and all that crap.”
“I see.” Ernie eyed Scott a moment longer. Suddenly he shrugged and turned to the others. “So what’ll it be, kids?”
He took out a yellow notepad and a thing that looked similar to a pen. He smiled at them.
Scott looked around, completely baffled. The man’s personality had just changed like the wind!
“I’ll have some thigh fat. Rare,” Sam answered Ernie
.
“Can I get the bicep muscle with about eight percent of fat? Raw,” Nick spoke from behind Ernie.
“And I’ll have some buttocks fat this time, also raw. With some Hevxita soup, please,” Claire added.
Ernie wrote it all down, then looked at Scott.
“And what do you want?” he asked.
“Uh . . . I already ate,” Scott answered sheepishly. He felt like he was going to throw up.
“Okay.” Ernie turned to Seth. “What about you?”
“I’m a vegetarian,” Seth answered. “Could I just have some Hevxita soup and some Nammionbal seeds, cooked lightly?”
“Sure. I’ll have it all ready in a coupla minutes.”
Ernie walked away, and Nick sat on the bench next to Scott. Claire, Seth, and Sam were seated on the opposite side.
“Nick, why did we have to lie to Ernie?” Scott asked.
“Outside the walls of the Cavern, Armadron’s a savage place. We’re less than a mile from the entrance right now. Maybe it’s Ernie, maybe he’s a shape-shifter or something. Anyone could be. It’s only safe to trust yourself,” Nick said in a hushed voice.
“Rriight,” Scott nodded. “So how come we haven’t seen any other Icranu like us?”
“There are hundreds of teams of protectors all around Armadron. Probably thousands. We’re a secret order dedicated to preserving this planet and stopping Terminus. We formed four years ago. You’ll see more of us soon.” Nick’s brows furrowed. “Do you remember Thaught, the man in the Library?”
“Naaaah, I forgot,” Scott answered sarcastically. He was still a little shaken from hearing his friends order lunch. It felt good messing with Nick.
“He and Artam are the heads of our order,” Nick finished proudly.
“So they tell you to go on missions and everything?” Scott said with mocking wide-eyed wonder.
Nick looked like he wanted to punch him. He almost did.
“Yes,” Claire answered seriously, cutting in. “And our next mission is to get you to the first checkpoint in the route that Thaught gave us.”
“Okay, then I think I’m ready,” Scott said energetically. “I mean, it’s been like a day, right? I’m freakin’ set to go!”
Everyone laughed.
“You still have to take on the Path of Ascension,” Seth told him. “It’s what every Icranu has to do before he or she becomes a member. You have to go to the Infinite Cave and face your demons. Once you’re done with that, we can get started.”
“Path of Ascension?” Scott threw his hands up. “Can’t we just skip it? I thought we had less than five days left. Now you’re telling me about some frat-boy initiation thing?”
As often happened when Scott made Earth-references, everyone except for Seth looked confused.
“Yes,” Seth answered for all of them. “You gotta do it, man. We all did. Everyone does. No one is going to rally behind you if you don’t go through with this. We need the other Icranu on our side.”
—Quiet! Claire’s voice hissed inside their heads.
“Here’s your food!” Ernie was suddenly beside them, setting four trays of food on the table. “Enjoy!” He clapped his hands together merrily and left them.
Nick took his raw bicep muscle from the tray and held it out to Seth. Sam and Claire did the same with their thigh fat and buttocks fat.
Scott stared at the plates and was about to say something else when Seth rubbed his hands together faster than normal.
Smoke started to come out of his hands, and Seth blew it away. He touched the bicep muscle and the thigh fat with his hands and closed his eyes. The air around the food looked like it was shimmering. Slowly, the pieces of meat started to turn golden brown from the inside out. As soon as the golden-brown color reached the edge of the bicep, Nick tugged it out of Seth’s hand, who didn’t seem to notice.
“Thanks,” Nick said between bites.
“Anytime,” Seth answered.
Sam waited a lot longer. She waited until the large chunk of thigh fat turned completely brown, and then took it out of his hand.
“Thank you, Seth,” Sam said, winking at him.
“You’re welcome.” Seth blushed awkwardly.
What? Does she do that to all the guys? Scott wondered.
Sam started eating immediately, even before Claire handed Seth her piece. The funny thing was that as soon as their meat was cooked, it didn’t make smoke and it didn’t look hot. Still, when Nick bit into his piece, he mumbled something about it being a little fiery on the outside.
“Could you please implode the heat to brown on the outside but golden brown on the inside?” Claire asked Seth politely.
“Sure.”
Seth held the piece of buttocks in his left hand while he flexed his right. The right hand instantly was covered with red fire. He made a slight pushing motion with his hand, and the meat was covered in flames. Then Seth curled his right hand into a fist, and the fire seemed to burn inward through the meat, without actually catching it on fire. A couple seconds later, Seth closed his eyes and there was a slight hissing sound that came from inside the freshly cooked buttocks meat.
Nick and Sam had not looked up through this entire process. Claire started eating as soon as she said thank you.
“That was actually pretty awesome!” Scott cheered loudly.
“Thanks. It’s a little trick I—”
“Shut up, both of you. Don’t draw attention to yourselves,” Nick interrupted Seth and glared at Scott.
“Sorry,” Scott whispered sarcastically. “I’ll try to not exist.”
“I’ll help,” Nick growled between chews.
Everyone ate silently for a while until Scott asked another question.
“What do you guys do?”
Everyone at the table paused and looked at each other.
“We are Protectors,” Sam answered, confusion creeping into her voice regarding Scott’s question. “We are Icranu.”
“Nooooo.” Scott almost chuckled. “I know that part. What I mean is . . . what are your curses?”
“Oh!” Seth laughed.
Nick, Claire, and Sam smiled.
“You’ll find out,” Nick replied.
“What? Come on!”
“Scott,” Sam explained, “your curse is highly coveted. Never tell anyone the extent of your true potential. With every curse that has ever existed, there is a way to beat it with another one. Knowledge is power. Protect the true nature of the exact way that your curse works.”
“Sure, I guess. So what did Ernie mean when he said that his son just got the wind curse?” Scott questioned.
“That,” Seth said between slurps of his soup, “I can answer. Elemental-type curses—like what Nick and I have—are usually the most powerful, and the most dangerous. People like Nick and me got our curses around the same time that you did. We went through qualiph—Armadronian puberty—and got them. Focal curses, like what Claire and Sam have, are inherited when you’re born, but that’s dangerous too, and babies often don’t survive because they levitate and fall, or they die by telekinetically lifting something heavy on top of themselves.”
Seth paused long enough to swallow another spoonful of soup, then added, “And Conjurers like Artam get their curses after their parents die, because their power is inherited to them magically.”
“Alright,” Ernie said as he came to a stop at their table, “time to pay. I will take exchanges or favors, as per usual, unless if any of you are lookin’ for a job.”
Scott realized with a start that Armadronians didn’t have any sort of money. They were still using the barter system, and he didn’t have much to trade. He suddenly felt the weight of his dead cell phone in his pocket, along with Jared’s blue inhaler.
Seth was doing something, though, so he turned to watch with the others.
He had his elbows on the table and was cupping his hands together, holding a large imaginary ball. Sparks were coming out of his hands that made Scott’s hair stand on end. After
about five seconds a blue ball of electricity filled up the space between Seth’s hands. His brow furrowed in concentration, and the ball got considerably smaller. Then Seth dropped his left hand, and the energy, about the size of a golf ball, levitated less than an inch above his right palm.
Ernie stood staring in amazement.
“This will power your restaurant for one year,” Seth told Ernie.
Seth got up and walked over to the back room. He came back about ten seconds later without the ball.
“Where’s the ball?” Ernie asked, bewildered.
“I put it under your power box. Don’t worry,” Seth added, seeing Ernie’s terrified face. “It won’t release all the electricity at once. I made it so that it only releases electricity into the box when it’s needed.”
“Alright!” Ernie cheered. “I guess that pays for all you guys! That’s a hell of a lot of energ—”
He made a gagging sound, and a lazy stream of blood leaked out of his nose. He wiped at it, blurted, “Excuse me for a moment,” and rushed into the back room.
“We’re leaving,” Claire told everyone suddenly.
“But I’m not done,” Nick whined, still holding his nearly-finished meat.
She got up quickly and power-walked out the door. The group followed behind her, with Nick begrudgingly in tow.
Scott took a moment to look behind him before they left. His gaze caught the eye of a woman in the restaurant who was staring at something out of his line of sight.
Scott Accelerated, activating only his eyes. He focused and manipulated his sonar vision until he could clearly see the image reflected in her eyes. He took in a terrible sight.
He saw Ernie reflected in the eye of the woman. He was lying on his back in the kitchen without moving. There was a pool of blood surrounding his face.
“Come on, Scott!” Nick called from outside.
Scott left the restaurant and caught up with the group. As soon as he was with them, they all switched to a fast jog. Once they were hidden deep in the plant fields, they stopped.
“He died in the back room,” Claire told them sadly. “I felt his life force crack at the table, his brain popped, and his nose started bleeding.” She shook her head.