“You go that right.”
Regardless of the protest, they all buckled down to work on the parts that Aurum asked them to do. Since she was the most cautious of Renmar, she assigned her to clearing up any area that the other five would be working on.
Pina Tuvo came to watch them each day. He was not there for more than a few minutes. Luckily, Pina Tuvo was a creature of habit. He doesn’t change the time when he would meet with people. That meant that the rest of them can work on the more pressing thing that we need to do.
Vester was focused on using sound energy to destroy their bracelets. He thinks that enough vibration would snap a bracelet. “If you do anything to our wrists, then that means our bones can also shatter, right?
Vester hated Felip since the guy always said the truth. Because Felip didn’t have a proper filtering system so he always gives his honest opinion. Oftentimes they just let him talk as much as he wants to so that they could be left in peace.
“If you are not going to help, then go away.” Vester shoed Felip away.
Felip then proceeded on bugging Dios, Cullen, and Nase who were trying to mentally plan how the repairs were going to start. Aurum interceded by giving them a map of the whole ship based on what she could remember. The other guys were astounded by her powerful memory.
“When you are not given many things, one must fill one’s mind.” Aurum quoted her father.
“Can you please fill up my time? I have nothing to do.” Felip was not much of a scientist. He was more of a soldier than researcher.
“You already agreed to be the guy we test this thing to. Why are you being so annoying?”
“I’m very bored.” Aurum shook her heard in annoyance.
“Here, train with this.” Aurum gave him a stick that she made. Felip looked expectant.
“What can this do?” Felip asked her.
“Anything you want it too. Just imagine it and I will make it later.”Aurum knew that Felip had a lot of extra energy. So if she could make him work on something else for a little bit, the others would get more work done.
True to form, Ken was already using the stick to practice moves in the ancient fighting style in Estelia.
“Why are you training using that? Use the Nevernight drills!” Renmar went towards Felip and made the other guy move the same way he did.
Renmar took the stick from Felip's hands. The guy didn’t even get angry. He changed his fighting stance and within seconds was able to take revenge. Renmar and Felip clashed, Renmar using the stick while Felip used his arms.
That evening Aurum saw the bruises and made the two of them sit down and reflect on how reckless they were. “Why would you hurt each other for the sake of competing with each other? What if you get hurt?”
Felip’s back straightened when he heard Aurum sniffing. The young woman knew that in the cases of young men like Felip and Renmar, tears were their weakness.
“We are really sorry. We won’t do it again!” The two young men said in unison.
Aurum smiled at them in a way that made them even more nervous. “Since you two like to break each other’s physical records. I need you to do it in a way that no one gets hurt. You two would start make armor for the rest of us,” Felip and Renmar high-fived because they were finally free from doing absolutely nothing. In a place like the NEO youth camp, doing nothing allowed you to think of home and that was a luxury that they are not preview to.
Chapter 9: Breathing In
In three months, all of the preparations were already set in place. Pina Tuvo, although impatient, knew that it was going to at least take them a few years to make anything useful.
They hid the components of what they needed to escape in the parts of the machine. This was to make sure that even when their group made a run for it, the things that were helping them would not be destroyed easily. There would be two choices, let them go or let the machine go up in flames.
After finishing the machine, the rest of them set out to chose the first person to send out. Vester already had someone in mind, “There is a trainee who keeps stealing and then blaming it in others. I think that it is very unfair that he can do whatever he wants but has no remorse whatsoever.”
“Remember that he might die during this process. How would we even tell him that it is a good idea?” Dios asked Vester.
“He has such a big ego. Let’s start spreading a rumor.” Aurum whispered to her brothers and they all looked at her like she was the devil.
“What? That’s what guys like the most. Winning and having the reputation of a winner.” Aurum’s words hit the rest of them hard.
“It’s true. But you don’t have to say it out loud. Using it to get a test subject feels off with me.” Nase said his piece.
“Okay so what do you want to do? Do you want to let NEO pick the person?” The rest of them were unsure. “I didn’t think so. Let’s let others know that we need to talk to the strongest man in the camp.”
“Let’s say he takes the bait and then he agrees to do it. Are we going to send him somewhere in particular?”
“I have the perfect place for him.” Aurum had read about a place that the master creator heard about from magical travelers. There was a place where only fearsome warriors lived. There were no women to win over and males had babies. If that bully lived in a place where there were other men who love to compete, he would like it in the beginning. But if he kept losing, then he would finally meet his match. It would be hell.
“Sometimes I don’t know if you are a genius or a sinister mastermind.” Nase was able to read her mind and was working on something new on his desk.
“Quit reading my mind and tell me what that is?” Aurum just smiled at him. Nase was used to her dark thoughts.
“It’s the machine, but in a miniature form.” The rest of them stopped what they were doing and rushed to Nase’s side.
“An intergalactic travel steam punk watch. I call it TI S.W.” Nase was about to explain the name but Felip stopped him.
“We get it. You can travel somewhere if you are wearing it.” Felip anticipated that it was going to be another boring Nase speech. The younger member stopped him. The rest of them looked a bit relieved when Nase kept tinkering with the watch.
Aurum asked something that made everyone else groan. “But where is the steam? It’s a steam punk watch, right?”
“Aurum! We just stopped his very long speech.” Dios was annoyed. Nase didn’t care and just continued to talk about what the watch could do and how the process of making it was like.
“Aurum, just know that this is all your fault.” Felip pointed at Nase who was describing every single gear change.
“Yeah, I can’t say no to that.” Aurum laughed as the rest of the guys were fighting the urge to knock their friend unconscious.
Cullen shut Nase up when asked, “What if your wrist is the only thing that travels across space?”
“That is disgusting.” Nase shooed them way so he could focus.
“Good one, Cullen.” Cullen smiled at Aurum who was relieved.
“I thought he would never stop talking.” Dios completed and sat down on a chair he made. He pressed a button and it started massaging him.
“When we get out of here, let’s find a semi-deaf girl who can put up with that much talking. “ Felip often said weird suggestions.
“Nase is not so bad. He just likes to give lectures. He can teach people about whatever he is good at.” Vester was on Nase’s side this time.
“Anyway, let’s check if we have everything that we need.” Aurum asked the six guys.
“There isn’t much to bring anyway. We decided to just bring food. Nothing in this place should be brought out or we might risk Renmar telling them we stole their stuff and left. Being a thief and a refugee are two different things.”
As the days to their D-Day approaches, the rest of them were careful with the rumor they started out in the camp. If it blows out of proportion then their plan would not work.
; The strongest bully of NEO Youth Camp was called in to do the travel procedure. For NEO, despite their spouting their ideals, each prisoner was expendable. But Pina Tuvo gave the man his so-called freedom papers.
Time and space are tricky if you are not a genius in bending them. Once the volunteer was strapped on the machine, Aurum pressed in the correct date and time for the intergalactic warp. The man said goodbye to them and Aurum knew he was going to go to a place where he would become a slave of gigantic creatures.
“Have a nice life.” Aurum waved at him then gave the signal for Dios to pull down the lever.
The young man’s eyes were covered with tinted lenses. The rest of them moved out of the room where the machine was being controlled. Everyone else from NEO was watching from a safe distance. The rest of them told Pina Tuvo that there would be an energy blast so they had to turn off everything lest the camp would be in chaos after the experiment. This allowed them to escape because the electric fence was turned off.
Renmar looked at the people who were leaving the room and said to the wind, “Good riddance.” He knew that they would come back to try to bring down the camp. But it would take them years to make the same machine or the weaponry to fight off the NEO. Renmar was a realist. He knew that the magic and technology combination that NEO showed would overpower Estelia in no time.
“Maybe I shouldn’t have let them go after all?” He thought to himself. But he didn’t want to kill them just to gain what he was hoping to get.
He sat on the floor and hit himself several times. He wiped the blood off his knuckles on his pants and then lied down. The machine was still churning out the energy and the bully sounded like he was being ripped apart. He didn’t need to see what was happening in the room. They already knew that it was possible and had even sent a monkey somewhere in the other side. A human would not be too difficult. What he was doing was far more important. It would gain his friends the freedom they wished for, it would make him a loyal hero in the NEO ranks.
His eyes were closed and he had to fend being unconscious for almost half an hour. The experiment had ended a few minutes ago and the power was slowly being returned in parts of the camp. They had told Pina Tuvo to return the power in a certain flow in order to check if the power pockets would be safe. The worst thing that could happen in the camp was for it to lose power or go up in flames.
Aurum had suggested making the latter happen but the pro-life members of the squad stopped her from doing that. Renmar knew he changed but something inside Aurum was awakened when she learned about the true history of Nevernight and Estelia.
He smirked while his eyes were closed. “They must think I was the only one who was converted. Fools.”
Chapter 10: Breathing Out
Stell’Vester, Nase, and Felip where hunched next to the Elder Tree they had located using Nase and Cullen’s abilities. Cullen, Aurum and Dios were not yet there. The three guys were nervous because the light in the camp came up sooner than they had expected. They wondered if Renmar had betrayed their plan and had come out sooner to tell Pina Tuvo that the six of them meant to escape.
“What is taking them so long?” Vester asked Nase who was supposed to keep on communication with the other group.
“If you don’t stop talking, the rocks around us will burst into dust.” Nase could feel the young opera singer’s power bubbling up to the surface. The sound vibrations coming out off Vester was making the ground sake.
Felip gave Vester a piece of brown candy. Vester chewed on it then spat it out. “That tastes horrible.”
“Medicine is supposed to taste that way.” Felip shoved another one in Vester’s mouth then placed his hand over the younger member’s mouth. “It helps young men to train without being too nervous.”
Nase caught a glimpse of Felip’s memory of flying through a space with only one rope to use. “That’s too death-defying.”
Felip smirked, “Imagine having to do that without ropes.”
“Can you really fly in the air like that?” Nase asked Felip.
“I will when I get back and complete my training.” Felip smirked. “I can do it now but I need guidance to be able to do it for farther distances.”
While the two were talking Vester was sitting back, totally relaxed because he had one and a half of Felip’s relaxation medicine. Felip pointed at Vested and Nase laughed quietly.
“You guys are so noisy.” The three of them all looked up when they heard the voice of Aurum from above them.
“What are you doing on top of the Elder tree?” Nase knew that was not allowed. The tree was a sacred relic of the time when Estelia was old and magical.
“What is wrong with a monkey being on a tree?” Dios teased Aurum who did a free-fall and landed on Dios’ shoulders. “Get off me, you’re heavy.”
“She really became quite a bit of a ruffian since we met her, huh?” Cullen asked Dios who was relieved that Aurum came down from his shoulders.
“She is evil, that’s what she is.” Dios was by far Aurum’s favorite member to tease. Little did he know, the rest of the gang was envious of his level of skinship with Aurum.
“So what do we do now? We have a lot of ground to cover and very little planning was laid out from this point on.” Nase was always nervous when things were not planned out.
But Aurum had a natural instinct for making plans as they went along. “Dios and I are going to go ahead, each pair must leave ten minutes later and using a different route than the other.”
“Can’t we just stick together?” Vester was making the ground vibrate again. Felip gave him a pouch. “Are these things going to make me poop a lot later?”
“They are organic so you can eat as much as you need.” Felip shook his head when Vester chewed on another one. “I am going with this scaredy-cat. If we don’t go together he might eat all of the medicine in one go.”
Felip and Vester were paired up so naturally, Cullen and Nase were together. “Are you sure it’s okay for the two of us to be together?”
“You two can work on covering for us and telling us if someone is on our tail. Felip and Vester can go after me and Dios.” Aurum figured that having someone physically strong to come after her and Dios would be safer. It was a two-part force field. Even if they all wanted to escape, the most important matter was that they get the prince back to the castle in Estelia.
The safety of the whole kingdom was in their hands. If Prince Dios doesn’t get back then whatever Pina Tuvo and NEO were planning would come to be.
“Are you ready, Your Highness?” Aurum asked Dios. The latter had almost forgotten his position because no one in the camp called him that.
“Ready whenever you are,” Dios smirked, challenging her to make a run for it. Aurum wanted to laugh freely but she decided that she would do so in another time. For now, they had to do this swiftly but as quietly as possible.
She took out the wheels she made for her team. She gave a pair to Dios who strapped it on his boots. The road was paved, luckily and they were able to roll across the road without worrying about slowing down. If they were in a different situation then Aurum would have challenged the prince to a race. But now they were trying to escape so they had to be extra careful. Aurum continued to whirl the flashlight’s knob so they could see the road. Dios had one as well but they needed to make sure not a lot of people could see them. If a carriage passed by them then they could turn off the light and go down on the side of the road to hide.
It was one thing to make good time but it was more important to do it safely and undetected. They didn’t talk until they reached the first town. They took off their shoes and changed their clothes while they were still in the forest space. Aurum was wearing male clothes in order to help them cloak. Dios had put taken a dress from a barn they passed and work it over his clothes. Aurum laughed when the dress actually looked good on him and the young prince had put on a scarf over his head to hide his hair.
“I wish I could draw as well as Nase. I need to
keep this memory in my head as clearly as I can so that I can show this to the rest of them later.” Dios winked at her and Aurum bowled over laughing.
“I think I make a prettier woman than you, Aurum.” The girl elbowed Dios who ended up coughing as he laughed.
It was already very late so they wanted to get some sleep. When they got to the inn it was already full so Aurum asked the innkeeper if there was anywhere that they could stay.
“There is an old lady who has room in her home. You can try to ask her if she is willing to put you up. Tell her that Baraki sent you.” Aurum thanked the friendly innkeeper and told the rest of the group to avoid the inn and go to the location that he and Dios were going to. If the Nevernights came to the inn, only one pair of strangers would be described. That would help throw them off the group’s scent.
The old lady was happy to have the couple in for the night. She was surprised when a few more guests came a couple of days later. Her house was full of energy for a full week. They had all said that they were seeking to sleep for a bit then head out of first light. Dios and Aurum told her that they were mugged on their way to their wedding trip and the old lady gave them food to bring as well as money to pay for their boat ride.
Nase and Cullen had sold some things when they arrived in the town. When they saw the state of the old lady’s kitchen, they fixed it up for her. They had food and money from their exploits.
Felip and Vester had stumbled upon a town when a festival was starting. They fashioned some costumes and masks and performed for the townsfolk. They got a lot of money from it but had to leave most of the food behind because it would be too heavy to bring with them. They packed the cured meat and the food they could cook later. The rest of the food, they left it with the innkeeper who gave it to the people who asked for free food.
When NEO finally came to the town where all three pairs had all passed through, looking for six escaped teenagers were not a memory that people would have. They didn’t see six people but three pairs of strangers among the many pairs of strangers who came and went.
The Wonders of Estelia- Aurum’s Shining Dawn Page 4
