by Corey Tate
Before he could process the details of the note, he heard a howl of rage. He looked up and saw someone standing between him and Nick. The man’s six-foot frame was muscled, and he had brown hair and red eyes that glowed in tune with his obvious rage. He was dressed in a sleeveless shirt, sleeveless suit coat, and a silk tie.
“Where did they all go?” the man spat at Scott.
“They left,” Scott answered, grinning.
The man moved so fast that Scott didn’t even have time to suck in a breath. While in the process of morphing into another body, the man punched Scott dead center in the chest so hard that he flew backward into the Coliseum wall thirty feet away.
Scott crawled to his feet. He felt fine. Well, not completely fine, but the punch hadn’t hurt as much as he’d thought it would. Scott looked at the man and grinned madly at him from across the Coliseum.
—Do not get overconfident. We do not know how extensive my power is in your frail body, Plegaborne warned.
Scott noticed that when the man’s nostrils had flared with anger, the haze over Nick’s eyes had lifted. In that moment of clarity, Nick looked pleadingly at Scott. Then the man regained his composure, and Nick slipped back into being controlled.
“I see that your curses are becoming substantial,” the man called from across the Coliseum. “When I took your blood for Terminus, he did not tell me that you don’t feel pain.”
I don’t feel pain? Scott thought. I felt that. To the angry man he said simply, “You took my blood?”
“Come, Scott,” the man called. “Let’s finish this. We don’t have to keep you alive anymore. We know everything we need to know, and now we’ve got the blood we required, too.”
“Finish what?” Scott yelled. “You’re already finished!”
Just as he had hoped, the man fumed.
The haze over Nick’s eyes lifted temporarily.
“Kane!” Nick gasped.
Kane turned around and looked at Nick, who slipped back into being controlled, and the man smiled.
“Clever, Scott. You’re trying to release Nick so that he may help you fight me. Ask yourself this, though. Whose side is he really on?”
Kane morphed into a five-year-old boy with long brown hair, then disappeared and reappeared as a man again, now sitting in the empty stands with one leg crossed casually over the other.
“Fighting stance!” he yelled as he shifted into a large, barrel-chested man.
So this is Kane, Scott thought to himself. But why isn’t he just fighting me?
Nick snapped to attention and lowered his center of gravity. He put his palms curled up by his sides and his elbows back.
Kane? Scott thought frantically. Of all the things he could say, why say Kane? I could have figured that out on my own!
“Attack!” Kane shouted happily.
“No!” Scott yelled.
Nick did a perfect front flip right onto the ground. The second that his feet touched, his whole body covered itself with metal. The dim Armadronian light reflected off the metal like cheap, deadly glass.
Nick shot a wall of sharp metal at him. Scott dove to the ground, and the metal soared over his head, burying itself in the Coliseum wall.
—He is very powerful, and we are not completely invulnerable, Plegaborne warned Scott.
Scott improvised as fast as he could. He willed the black soil to wrap itself around his body.
—Not enough, Plegaborne chastised from inside him. I’m going to have to help, or we are going to die.
—Fine, go for it.
Scott backed off a little bit and felt Plegaborne take control of the curses that he had inside him.
The soil hardened and became a suit of rock, copying Nick’s suit of metal. The black soil was thicker and harder than Earth soil, but it was also more flexible somehow and allowed for better movement.
Scott made enough space in the rock so he could see and breathe, and then steeled himself.
Nick hurled a javelin made of metal at him.
It All Comes Together
Seth had been flying nonstop for nearly thirty hours. He’d passed over the Sea of Sand, the Telemines, and the Bridge of Fate with no incidence. He had crossed over the Armadronian Equator, and before that he had flown over what people on Earth would have called the polar ice caps. The entire planet of Armadron was about double the size of the United States as far as Seth could tell. He had seen deserts, mountains, valleys, and volcanoes, but no rivers, oceans, or trees. Or animals. It was all very depressing.
He was about to take a rest because he was hungry.
Out of the blue, Seth saw familiar landmarks and knew that he was near the entrance to the Cavern. He thought about the map and realized he was slightly off course. He stopped, landed on the ground, and slumped to his knees, taking a short break. When he looked up, he saw two little kids. They were maybe nine or ten years old. They were both wrapped in Carcan bolos, the same bolos that he and the team had been attacked with before they landed on the telemine.
Dammit.
He shot fire from his hands and legs and propelled himself to the kids as fast as he could. He landed easily and observed them for a second. There was a boy and a girl, both of whom were wriggling on the ground, trying to escape their bonds. The girl was crying frantically for help, and the boy was focusing all his energy on breaking the ropes wrapped around their limbs. Neither of them had seen him yet.
“You guys look like you could use some help,” Seth said.
The kids stopped moving and looked up at Seth.
Initially, his appearance shocked them so much that they were utterly speechless. The girl seemed to ponder her situation and either didn’t care or was just tired of being tied up.
“Pleeeease help us!” she cried desperately.
The boy just looked at Seth suspiciously.
He stooped to their level and, without touching the ropes themselves, held his finger out. A thin flame the size a welder might use came out of his finger. Seth cut the bonds with the flame without harming the kids.
The girl shot to her feet and went to hug Seth around the waist.
Just before she reached him, he extinguished his fire and pushed all the energy out, compacting it into a flame bracelet around his right wrist.
“Thank you, thank you, thank you!” she whispered, still hugging him. “I thought the bad men were going to take us.”
“Are you one of the bad men?” the boy asked Seth, getting to his feet.
“No.”
“You look like one of the bad men,” the boy pressed.
“Well . . . I’m not.”
The boy nodded slowly, dropping his tough-guy persona. “Thank you.”
“We’re the bad men,” someone said, chuckling.
Seth whipped around to find three men in their mid-twenties and a child. He realized with a shock that it was the same boy who had pretended to guide him and his team through the Invisible Telemine Blockade.
“Get behind me,” Seth whispered to the kids.
They happily obliged.
“No,” Seth shouted at the opposing group. “You’re the dead men.”
He released a wave of fire at the four people. The man all the way to the left disappeared before the fire could get to him, but the man next to him was not so lucky. He was so surprised that he didn’t even move.
The man instantly turned to ash because the fire was so intense.
The man next to him shot water out of his hands. The water connected with the rest of the fire, and the elements canceled each other out, creating steam. The boy who’d appeared with the three men looked frightened.
Seth felt the air get warmer directly behind him. He was feeling someone’s body heat in the atmosphere. Someone much bigger than the two kids who were cowering nearby.
He dove to the ground and turned immediately before one of the men slashed a sword through the air where Seth had just stood. The man stumbled, and before he could regain his balance, Seth kicked fire at him
. The man teleported away as he had done before.
Seth used fire to get himself back up to his feet.
The man who had shot water from his hands did it again. Seth twisted his body to the right and just barely dodged the water stream. He shot fire from his own hands, and the man was forced to stop releasing water in order to dive to the side. Seth glanced around for the little boy and girl.
He found them hiding behind a rock near the Cavern entrance, about twenty feet away.
Seth turned his attention back to the hydro-powered man on the ground and the boy who had once led them into danger, now standing next to him, frozen in fear. In that instant, Seth felt another temperature spike to the right of him. He turned and melted the sword being thrust at his heart by simply looking at it and focusing his energy. The man didn’t see what happened to his sword in time and didn’t let go fast enough. The melting process was so hot that the teleporter’s hand melted right off. He screamed, and the melting began to slow.
Before the man could teleport away—if he even could anymore—Seth punched a red-hot fist through his heart, melting his internal organs. The man screamed one last time, then died looking like a melted wax candle.
Seth turned to the man who had shot water at him. The guy was lying on the ground about ten feet away. He looked at Seth and gasped in fear. The boy guide shrank away as well. Deciding they were no longer a threat, Seth turned to leave when a powerful torrent of water hit his back. He was knocked to the ground.
Seth regained his footing and was starting to visualize his next move when he stopped and looked at the man’s hand.
He couldn’t be too sure with his new vision, but there were swirling molecules in the shape of a cube hidden in the man’s palm.
“What the hell is that for?” Seth demanded.
The man smiled oddly and threw the cube as hard as he could at Seth. Immediately the boy guide opened his eyes from a trance-like state.
The cube expanded exponentially right in front of Seth’s eyes. Watching molecules going haywire, Seth couldn’t tell what the cube was made of until it was right in front of him. Even after he figured it out, he couldn’t believe it.
It was a solid wall of Armitranium, the toughest metal on Armadron. Nothing could cut, slash, or grind into it. Supposedly.
Seth couldn’t find a way out. The wall was flying at him so fast that he didn’t have time to run, fly, dive left, right, or under. Plus, even if he got out of the way, the wall would hit the kids.
He made himself become hotter than an exploding star for about a microsecond and directed the heat straight in front of him.
As the wall hit Seth, he melted through it like a hot knife through butter.
The boy guide, or what was left of him, was now about ten feet in front of him. Seth felt the wall disintegrate into nothingness as the boy who had created it died.
He walked up to the kid. The boy had melted so much that his entire body had become thinner than water. His “remains” seeped into Armadron and disappeared.
Seth’s shoulders suddenly sagged. He missed Earth. He never had to kill anybody there.
Suddenly he remembered something.
The two kids!
He found them still hiding behind the rock, crying. The rock was slightly melted in the front and steaming.
Suddenly Seth spotted Mr. Hydro out of the corner of his eye. Seth had forgotten about him.
Contorting his face and body, the man conjured up a ball of exploding ice, sending deadly shards slicing toward Seth like shrapnel. Seth flung lightning at the shards, and they broke up into flakes, then melted into water.
Without pausing, Seth hurled a small ball of pure heat at the man.
The guy tried to put up his hands as a shield, but instead his body fizzed on the spot and evaporated out of existence.
Great. Now they’re all dead, Seth thought glumly.
He hated having to kill people. He really, really did.
He flew over to the kids, and they instantly backed up and started wailing. The girl ran away, fearfully looking over her shoulder. The boy did the same, but not before having the last word.
“Monster!” he shrieked at Seth.
He watched them go and sighed. It didn’t matter. Those kids would understand someday. Actually, hopefully they wouldn’t have to if Terminus was out of the picture.
I have to find my team, he thought, and immediately took flight in the direction of the Infinite Cave.
He’d barely gone five feet before he touched back down. Out of the ground, there were dozens of edible plants growing, producing fruits and seeds. They were all growing in the exact place where the little boy and girl had been standing.
They both could grow food!
Seth began to eat with ravenous hunger. The kids obviously hadn’t been trained to grow food, so it took a lot of fruits and seeds to fill him up. He gulped down every bite, attempting to fill the hollow pit in his stomach.
Once he was finished, he shot back into the air, still feeling empty even though his stomach was full.
Twenty minutes later, he was finally standing at the entrance to the Infinite Cave. Seth looked down at it in complete and utter puzzlement.
There were signs of a brutal fight. Still, he couldn’t discern one pair of tracks from another! It looked to him like there had been seven people, but that couldn’t be right. The tracks were probably just overlapping each other.
“Uuugghh!” he growled.
“This piece should be good,” someone muttered, not too far off.
Seth walked toward the voice. The first thing he realized was that someone was dead. He could smell it. The second thing was that someone was getting ready to eat whoever had died. A man hunched greedily over the body.
“Hey man!” Seth shouted.
The man whipped around, knife in hand. He glared at Seth, then grunted when he saw the Icranu symbol on his shirt of fire. The man put his knife away by attaching it to his belt.
“‘Lo, stranger. Ya nearly gave me a heart attack, lookin’ like that ’n all,” the man replied. “You off to save another world ‘er somethin’?”
“Who died?” Seth asked, not even attempting to explain his new fiery appearance or answer the question. The man didn’t seem interested anyway. He had already turned back around to his dinner.
“How should I know?” the man grumbled. “D’you always know the names of yer meals?”
Seth was somewhat curious, so he leaned over the man to get a good look.
“What’s wrong with you, man? You ain’t ne’er seen a grown man eat before?”
No. No way. This cannot be happening. Not now, not ever.
The man looked at Seth uneasily, then said, “Could ya take a step back, mister? You might cook the meat, ’n I wan’ it raw.”
Seth’s anger exploded. He took the man by his shoulders and threw him a good ten yards from Sam’s dead body. Then he collected a ball of intense energy in his hand and threw it at the ground right where the guy had landed.
The blast was short but powerful. With a tiny pop, the guy was blown off his feet, far into the distance. He went so far away into the air that Seth couldn’t even see his outline after a while. The man screamed the whole way, smoke trailing in his wake.
Seth crouched down next to Sam. Turning off his heat, he carefully picked her up and cradled her in his arms.
“Sam, Sam. Nooo, Sam,” he moaned, his mouth against her hair.
He closed his eyes and willed her to respond. Did he have powers he hadn’t discovered yet? Could reviving someone he loved be one of them?
“You have to be alive. Please be alive . . .”
Nothing.
Seth shook his head and howled to the sky. He rocked back and forth on his heels for a while, continuing to hold her lifeless body.
“You were closer than a sister to me,” he whispered.
Eventually he did what he needed to do. He gave her a proper burial. He called fire out of the depths of his bein
g and burned her to ashes. Then he levitated the ashes and scattered them far and wide into the winds of Armadron.
Once the last of the ashes had blown away into the distance, he looked around for a few minutes for other bodies. Holding his breath . . . afraid to look . . . afraid to hope . . .
Please don’t let Claire be here. Pleasepleaseplease . . .
After finding nothing, he took off.
There are only two people who have the power to do this, he thought as he flew toward the direction of the Coliseum. Kane and Terminus.
And I’m going to kill them both.
Breaking Bonds
Scott waited for the right moment. Once the metal javelin was close enough, he intercepted it with a boulder. The boulder knocked the javelin off course, but with a wave of Nick’s hand, it made a beeline toward Scott once again. Scott immediately used a constant stream of both water and earth to slow the javelin in its path until it dropped to the ground.
Nick walked slowly to the left while repeatedly punching the air. Every time he did so, a thin layer of metal flew off his suit and sliced through the air toward Scott.
Copying his technique but moving to the right instead of the left, Scott retaliated by quickly shedding a layer of the rock he’d formed around his body. He repeatedly shot the rock to collide midair with the metal, sending it spinning and crashing down.
Nick and Scott were now circling each other, neither of them getting the upper hand.
Scott risked a quick glance at Kane. He was gone from his place in the stands.
Dammit, Scott realized, this was all just a distraction.
“Nick,” Scott shouted at his friend over the repeated clash of metal and rock, “you’re too strong to be controlled like this. You can stop it before you lose yourself.”
The attacks continued. They stared each other down, looking like demons in their Accelerated forms.
Scott ground his teeth together. Using one hand, he continued to block the incoming metal by shedding and throwing rock from his improvised body armor. With the other hand, he summoned a huge mass of moving earth and waved it toward Nick, willing it to encase itself around Nick’s body. The metal instantly stopped coming because Nick could no longer see. Scott stepped toward him and continued to form the earth and rock around him.