by Corey Tate
Even inanimate objects looked different. For example, things like the council table and chairs consisted of molecules that vibrated so fast, they gave off electrical pulses that were normally invisible to the human eye. But not for Seth. Not anymore. The pulses of electricity illuminated these objects for Seth in a whole new way. Even scratches and imperfections in the wood seem to glow from within.
Scott’s not The One, Seth smiled to himself. I am.
“Council, this is it,” Cameron announced ominously.
The council members slowly took their seats while nodding to each other. Whatever “it” was, it seemed unanimously understood.
“What are we talking about now?” Seth asked.
“Ahem.” Abigale cleared her throat.
Seth gave her his full attention.
“Thaught created the secret order of Protectors a half decade ago. I was there. For years, Thaught has created teams consisting of Protectors who have similar curses. But your team is unlike the others. I understand that your team represents a wide range of curses. That was the first sign.”
Another woman spoke up. “Thaught gave us the five signs. He said that a boy would have an inner fire unlike anything we have ever seen. He then prophesied that your inner fire would absorb the ancient Etherfire and your body would mutate to suit a new set of abilities. Thirdly, he stated that you would become that new ability: Otherfire. He also said when that happened, you would lead us to the half-Armadronian, and with his help the Icranu would come together as one driving force. Lastly, once that is done, we will annihilate Terminus and set free his army of Conjurers—and take back our planet.”
The woman stopped speaking, and the council chamber was silent.
“You’re saying all this is going to happen because I became Otherfire,” Seth said, “but there’s one thing wrong. My body hasn’t changed! The only thing that’s changed is that I can see a lot better.”
One of the men sitting at the council nodded to Cameron. Cameron walked out of the room and came back a second later. He now had a mirror in his hand, pointed at Seth.
Seth looked in the mirror and yelled in surprise.
“The room’s on fire!” he bellowed at everyone.
He turned around but saw nothing.
What the . . . ?
“Seth, the inferno that you see in the mirror is your Otherfire,” Abigale explained. “You have to suppress it from your eyes so that you may see what other people see when they look at you.”
Seth shut his eyes and tried to subdue the energy surging through him. The Otherfire was so powerful that it only receded halfway down his irises. He concentrated harder. The energy leveled down to the high part of his cheekbones.
He opened his eyes and saw himself the way other people perceived him to be. He looked like hell. Literally.
He no longer had any hair. Instead, there was a thick outcrop of blue, yellow, and red fire in the exact shape that his hair used to be.
I look like Ghost Rider mixed with Bobo the Clown.
He glanced down at his hands next. They were giving off a rich white glow. So was the rest of his body. He tentatively touched his left forearm with his right hand. When he made contact, a jolt of electricity went off, popping the air and releasing a small cloud of white smoke.
“How am I not having a seizure or Accelerating right now?” Seth asked the council, still staring at himself in the mirror.
“You channel your energy from Inno Mountain now,” one of them answered, “not from Armadron. You are one with us, and one with fire. You are the Otherfire. You no longer need to Accelerate, and this is no longer a curse to you. You are above such things.”
Seth nodded. He continued to look at himself and his eyes nearly fell out of their sockets. He wasn’t wearing any clothes! They were in a heap at his feet, burned to a crisp.
Well, technically he wasn’t wearing any clothes. Instead he was wearing a covering of fire.
Red fire coated his legs, his torso, and his arms. It looked like he might have been wearing red shorts and an orangish-red shirt made from moving, hissing fire. They were all the same design as the clothing that he had been wearing; just the color was different. Plus, the fire had structure. If you looked at it, you couldn’t see through it like you could with ordinary flames. It seemed solid, in some fashion. Seth’s new clothes looked and felt the same as before.
“Your mind semiconsciously thought of clothes, and the Otherfire obviously supplied them,” Cameron explained from behind the mirror.
“Cool,” Seth said.
He took some time to turn every which way, admiring his new body. He played with the electricity between his fingers, watching how it arced between joints, and he smiled.
What happens when I have to pee, though? Seth thought, dropping his hand.
Seth suddenly realized that the room had become silent.
“Council,” he addressed everyone, still looking down at his fire-shorts.
“Yes?” they replied in unison, along with Cameron.
“We are all Protectors, all Icranu, right?” he looked at every one of them in turn.
He heard murmurs of agreement from members of the council.
“So let’s get to work.”
Nothing can stop me now, Seth thought.
“I agree,” someone said, chuckling behind Seth.
All the council members looked behind Seth and gasped. He whipped around, shooting off sparks, prepared to fight with his new power.
“Seth!” The man exclaimed as a spark hit his shirt. “This is a good shirt. Please control yourself.”
“Sorry, sir,” he said and smiled. It was always good to see Thaught.
“Thaught,” the woman in the center called to him. “What brings you to Inno Mountain? This?”
“Yes, Abigale. This. I was on my way here to inform you that I have found a young Mediator who is half-Armadronian, and to tell you that Seth was the boy for the Otherfire. They are both with Team 61. However, it seems that you already know everything.” Thaught nodded approvingly.
“We do.” Abigale smiled. “But how did you know that it was this boy?”
“I had a feeling. You all knew his parents and how powerful they were.”
The council members nodded at Thaught and each other.
“I am not a scientist like Terminus, or an atomizer like Artam, but I know potential when I see it. Seth’s father asked me to watch over him.”
At the mention of his dead father, Seth teared up. Or he tried to. Mini lava droplets, like tears, leaked down his face but only as fast as molasses.
“At any rate,” Thaught continued, “the boy is clearly up for the task. I have seen his curse myself, and even before this he was powerful.”
“Indeed,” Abigale agreed.
“But why is this fire constantly on?” Seth asked. “Will I die even faster now?!”
“No.”
A man with a short black beard seated at the council table spoke up. “Seth, as we said before, you are the Otherfire, which is the embodiment of all of our curses, along with the mountain. You can feel our energies if you concentrate. We supply you with the extra energy.”
Seth thought for a second. “Then what happens if one of you dies?” he asked.
“Then you will grow slightly weaker, until we can create a new council member who is worthy.”
“In that case,” Thaught interrupted, “I take it that you will join us in the battle for our planet? That you recognize the threat and will no longer be a neutral party?”
“Yes,” Abigale answered.
“Good.” Thaught nodded. “Then I am off to alert the rest of the teams around Armadron. In two days, you must try to meet me and the other Icranu at the Gateway.”
“And where exactly is that?” Abigale crossed her arms. “Do we know where the Gateway is appearing?”
“We won’t know the location until the wormhole reverses; at that point the Gateway will become visible on Armadron. Keep your Bastums at
hand and you will be informed of the location when it is confirmed. I will have a teleporter team try and collect everyone we can.”
“Wait, what?” Seth glanced at everyone. Clearly, he was missing something.
“Terminus will strike fast, and he will strike hard,” Thaught explained. “It’s what I would do. He will attempt to reach the Gateway first, so as not to draw opposition from the Icranu or from civilians who will fight him. We may be outnumbered. It’s going to come down to old-fashioned, last minute luck of the draw.”
“Geez,” Seth raised his eyebrows, “we have a whole freaking planet to cover. And we’re relying on Bastums.”
“And Terminus has his Conjurers,” one of the council members spoke up. “They have a hive mind and can communicate instantaneously. We cannot compete with that.”
“We have to try,” Thaught set his shoulders. “Or we subject another innocent planet to Terminus’s torture. I for one, cannot do that. I cannot do nothing . . . again.”
The room was silent as everyone thought of all that they had lost.
“Mobilize your forces,” Thaught ordered, turning away.
“Wait!” Seth shouted desperately to him.
Thaught’s form shifted, then solidified.
“Yes, Seth?” he asked.
“Before you leave, how many other teams of Icranu have you assembled?”
“Three hundred and seven. I have been to the red continent and assembled many teams while I was there. Artam is working around the clock as well. The last I heard from him, he had convinced some Gravics, Storzals, and many others at Hellhole to heed the call, and he has long been involved in the process of freeing those who are trapped within Terminus’s castle. At last count, he had freed seventeen Armadronians. I believe that he is still continuing in that work as we speak.”
“Great,” Seth said.
They were gathering people and saving lives. This is what the Protectors were meant to do. This is what his parents had dedicated their lives to.
“Is that all, Seth? I really must be going,” Thaught told him. “We have less than three days left.”
“Yeah, that’s all.”
“Thaught?” the council leader said.
“Yes?”
“Respectfully, why is Artam not delivering these messages? You are our commander, in charge of all the strategies and training, while Artam is to handle the communications.”
“I do not know, Abigale. Perhaps he is too busy. We all are. We must split the work.”
“Indeed,” she agreed.
He turned to Seth. “I leave you with this: Fight with your new set of abilities. Find your team immediately. You will receive the location of the Gateway soon, and I will meet you there.”
“Yes sir.” Seth nodded his head of fire.
“As for all of you,” Thaught projected his voice, addressing the council members, “be warned. Terminus has now finished creation on a new set of abilities. He calls them Upgrades. We must fight through Terminus’s supporters without killing them, and then deal with the remaining Conjurers. It will be no easy task, but I assure you that we will have a strategy in place by the time enough of us arrive at the Gateway. We will rely on guerrilla tactics due to his large amount of assets.”
Thaught turned around and shifted into a dragon.
Literally, a dragon.
He was now at least as long as a school bus and had thick red and black scales. The dragon, Thaught, turned its head and winked at Seth with its large, terrifying yellow eyes.
Thaught threw back his head and blew red fire onto the rocks above. Then he flew up the stairs, through the magma without any of it harming him, and out into the sky without hesitation.
He was quiet on the entrance, Seth thought, stunned. But he sure as hell knows how to make an exit.
One Down, Four to Go!
“Terrifying, isn’t it?” Kane regarded the sword in his hand with mock interest. “I think I’ll call it Friendkiller.”
Sam cringed. “Kane, don’t do this,” she whispered.
“Oh, I’m not going to do this. You are.” He pointed the sword down at Claire’s face. “You are going to kill your friend, and I get to watch!”
Claire looked away. Sam closed her eyes and shivered.
“Kane, if you think for one second that I would—”
“Shut up,” he threatened.
“—that I would let you hurt Sam, then you’re not as smart as you think,” Claire finished, ignoring him.
“Shut up!” he barked at Claire.
“No!” she bellowed. “You’re just Terminus’s pawn. You think that whatever enhanced power he gave you doesn’t come with a cost? You’ve been living under a tyrant who will throw you aside the second he doesn’t need you.”
Sam was looking back and forth at them, helplessly struggling against her bonds.
“Lord Terminus is the strongest being on the planet. In the universe. You cannot hope to even touch him. Once he leaves for Earth through the reversed Gateway, he has promised me control of Armadron,” Kane explained proudly.
“What do you mean?” Claire asked, buying time. “Terminus doesn’t even control all of Armadron. He doesn’t control anything past the Unknown Waters. He has experiments in there that prevent anyone—even Terminus himself—from going further. That’s a quarter of the entire planet that no one knows anything about!”
“Then I shall explore that side when I become king. Now be quiet.”
“Make me, you effing puppet,” Claire spat at him.
A wad of spit almost hit him in the face, but he dodged it.
“You insolent little girl,” Kane sneered at her and then smiled as he was struck by a sudden thought. “If you will not shut your mouth, then I shall do it for you.”
Claire had seen that expression before in the Coliseum. She had seen it when her parents had been killed, too. It was a look of pure lunacy.
“What are you . . . ?”
Claire stopped what she was about to say. Her mouth felt like it was literally getting sewn shut. She would have screamed and pleaded for him to stop, but no words would come out. Blood leaked from her mouth as something cut again and again into the soft skin around her lips.
“Stop! Pleeeeaaase!!” Sam screamed, clawing at the ground, trying to look away from Claire.
Kane glanced at her and shifted halfway into another person whom he had killed. He overpowered her physical will with a simple thought. He forced Sam to look at Claire and locked her eyes into place so that she couldn’t look away.
Sam watched in horror as Claire’s mouth was sewn shut by a floating needle and a thick black thread.
Sam felt Kane’s power release her and she turned to the side and hurled. She sat back up straight and wiped the foul acid from her mouth with the back of her hand.
Claire was now lying sideways in the fetal position.
“Stand up and take the sword,” Kane ordered Claire.
She didn’t move.
“Kill the dumb animal. Or I will.”
Sam’s piercing cries banged against Claire’s consciousness. Claire stirred, then crawled to her feet and began to walk slowly toward Kane.
“Good. Now take the sword from my hand and kill her,” he ordered with no emotion.
Except pure, psychotic joy, that is.
Claire took the sword from him with cold, dead eyes. She walked over to Sam and rested the sword on her neck.
Sam was trying to say something.
“I’m sorry, what are you trying to say?” Kane mocked her.
“Now,” she whispered to Claire.
Claire whipped around, sword in hand, and flung it at Kane as hard as she could.
Sam had been trying to save up the energy fueling her curse. She unleashed it now, trying to neutralize Kane’s curse for as long as she could.
He faltered for a moment but had just enough time to jump out of the path of the sword. He landed on his side in front of the entrance to the Infinite Cave, morphing aga
in, this time into a thin man with a thick stubble on his chin.
Claire used her telekinetic power to change the course of the sword. It whipped around and rocketed at Kane’s heart. He jumped above the sword by pushing up on a pillar, which he’d suddenly built from the earth using the ability of his current body, and the sword shot into the cave.
Kane shifted into a short woman and attacked Sam’s mind with a thousand mental knives. Sam went limp and fell backwards, her eyes rolling back. Kane smiled.
He morphed back into his favorite body, which was heavily muscled and stood a couple inches above six feet. With his “Kane” body he reached out with his hand, and something unexpected happened. Green sparks danced across his wrist and palm, and a strong electrical pulse shocked him. He fell to the ground, grimacing at Claire.
“Resourceful, Claire. Very resourceful.” Kane clapped, suddenly now only a foot away from her. “Having Sam try to neutralize me long enough for you to kill me? That was very good. I did see it coming, though.”
Kane paced around her. Claire tried to concentrate on the sword’s energy. If she could only locate it . . .
“Trying to find my sword, are we?” Kane smiled. “Don’t worry. My master’s curse took care of that. I attempted to teleport it to my hand again, but the cave ran interference due to whatever forces repel him. I imagine that the sword is lost now in the depths of the cave.”
My vision, she remembered with a start. Nick and Scott!
“Your friends?” Kane interrupted her thoughts. “Ah, yes. We will see them soon. Hopefully they will last longer than that unsightly animal over there.” He twisted his head in Sam’s direction. As did Claire.
She attempted to scream for Sam, but the thick thread around her lips had them firmly sewn shut. She cringed in pain as the thread stretched when she attempted to speak. Claire limped over to Sam, sat beside her and drew her head into her lap. She hummed soothingly to her friend.
“She obviously can’t hear you,” Kane explained, examining his clothes for dirt. “She’s dead.”
Claire glared at him. Dirt and blood covered Sam’s face, making her not even look human anymore. He was right, though: Sam had no pulse.
“Look, I’m sorry!” Kane cried, acting like a little kid. “I just got a little carried away! It won’t happen again. Well, maybe it won’t happen again.” He grinned an evil grin. “Maybe next time you and your little friends try to fight me, you will learn to—”