Escaping Ordinary

by Scott Reintgen

  Below, there was a road that had fallen into disrepair. It was clear no one traveled this route, at least not often. A pair of towers—although the word tower felt a little generous—flanked both sides of the road.

  “It’s pretty narrow,” Indira noted. “Good place for an ambush.”

  Squalls recited to them, “It’s the only way into the mountain passes. It was abandoned after the Howling King destroyed all the cities there, because they were loyal to the Drago. No reason to maintain trade routes with a kingdom that no longer exists. We should be fine.”

  As the group’s “supernatural aid,” Allen had apparently been given a lot more of the backstory than the rest of them. After brief consideration, they started forward cautiously. Indira’s senses told her to stay on her guard. She pulled out her hammer. Phoenix noted that and straightened, ready to summon his fire at a moment’s notice. Gadget was distractedly fiddling with a handheld device.

  Indira whispered to her, “Gadget. Focus. Maybe pull out a weapon or something?”

  The girl looked up in surprise. She frowned once before trading the strange device for one of the larger wrenches on her tool belt. She hefted it into the air for Indira’s inspection.

  “Guess that’ll have to do,” Indira said.

  The towers appeared empty. Bricks had fallen out of place, leaving sad gaps in the framework. The doors had all been torn off their hinges, and the wild growth of ivy had started splitting the rest of what was left of both buildings. The hairs on the back of Indira’s neck stood on end. Footsteps sounded.

  “Anyone else hear that?”

  Instinctively, their crew circled up at the center of the road. Indira knew this place looked like an ambush waiting to happen. She resisted telling Squalls told you so as they heard more footsteps. The sound was coming from both towers. Indira realized it didn’t sound like human footsteps. There was the gentle scrape of claws on stone: kingswolves.

  Her whole body was poised, every muscle flexed and ready, when the enemy finally came flooding out of both towers at once. The sight was more shocking than she’d expected.

  Phoenix burst out laughing. “What. Are. Those?”

  Not kingswolves. Indira was certain of that much. She started laughing too as a group of puppies surrounded them. There might have been six or seven, though it was hard to tell as the golden balls of fur darted in and around each other. One barreled into Phoenix. Another duo tried to leap on Squalls, but their little legs failed them, and both went spinning adorably into the dusty street.

  “Puppies!” Squalls said with relief. “Finally! Something that can’t kill me!”

  Indira wanted to keep her guard up—thinking maybe this was all a trap—but she couldn’t resist. She leaned down and scooped one up. It licked her face twice, huffing pleasantly.

  Only Gadget didn’t join in. “This is…illogical. How does this connect to the scenario?”

  “Who cares?” Phoenix called back. He was down on the ground, surrounded by “attackers,” laughing as they did their best to wrestle a cloth handkerchief from his grasp.

  Indira was still trying to figure out what was happening when her tutor device pinged a message into her vision. The arrows were pointing at the puppies, swirling to follow their movements, and a single warning flashed over and over.

  “Um…” Indira frowned again. “Is anyone else seeing this message?”

  “It says we should attack,” Phoenix confirmed. “I’m confused. Why would the tutor device tell us to attack puppies?”

  Gadget frowned. “That message is also illogical.”

  Indira turned in a slow circle, her eyes scanning the hills. Something was wrong. The puppies didn’t look like baby kingswolves. In fact, she wasn’t sure such a thing existed. How was this supposed to factor into the Road of Trials?

  The tutor device was starting to get annoying, too. It made the font in Indira’s vision bigger and bolder. It even went as far as subtracting points each time she failed to respond. The same order flashed again:

  Defend yourself! You are under attack!

  “This is so weird,” Indira muttered.

  At least the puppies were cute. Most of them had turned their attention to Squalls, who was down on the ground, playfully fending them off and simultaneously scratching their bellies. It was nice to see him laughing for once. Indira was about to give in to the fun when a figure appeared on the lonely road ahead of them. The puppy ambush was strange, but this was stranger.

  It was a boy with blond hair several shades lighter than Allen’s. His eyes were ice blue, his lips rose red. The colors stood out to Indira because they looked so much sharper than the rest of the world around him. Indira was reminded briefly of the brainstorms at Protagonist Prep. The first time she’d seen them, there’d been an odd quality to their appearance too.

  The approaching figure was even more distinct. The edges of his outline seemed to blur in her vision. Indira found herself feeling dizzy if she stared for too long.

  His outfit was equally strange. So far the scenario had offered them a rustic look. Farmers in old-school tunics or fashionable suits from an earlier time. This boy wore a mesh tank top that was navy blue. The number twenty-three was printed on the front. He wore a matching pair of athletic shorts. The only other item in his possession was a lacrosse stick.

  “Hey!” he shouted. “Those are my puppies!”

  Even his voice was strange. It sounded like he was speaking from very far away, as if each word were lightning striking in a distant sky. Indira’s crew turned to face the new challenger. She saw her own confusion echoed on their faces. Clearly, something strange was happening. Even her tutor device was struggling. The device kept trying to home in on the approaching figure, but it would flicker weakly, unable to identify the threat. All the guiding text faded.

  Her screen went blank. What was happening?

  “I said those are my puppies.”

  The boy lifted his lacrosse stick into the air like it was a magical staff. Their only warning was the way the puppies darted fearfully back toward the tower entrances. A second later, magic sliced through the air. Indira’s entire crew stumbled away. The space between them and the boy had been empty. Now a massive pirate ship loomed.

  Indira’s eyes widened. There wasn’t an ocean nearby. There were no rivers. Nothing. All they could do was stare up at the impossible. An actual pirate ship had appeared in the middle of the road. The boy stood at the prow of the boat, looking down at them.

  “What’s wrong?” he taunted. “Never seen a pirate ship before?”

  Squalls was muttering to himself. “Oh no. Pirates. Cannons, sharks, walking the plank…that’s like a hundred new ways to die. I’m going to just…”

  Before Phoenix could say something to calm him down, Squalls bolted. Indira stared, jaw open, as he made for the nearest hillside.

  “There goes Allen,” Phoenix said.

  Indira didn’t have time to deal with this. Her attention turned back to the unwelcome guest. How did this fit the scenario? She wondered if this was one of the Stained that had been mentioned before. She’d certainly expected someone powerful, but all the details felt like pieces to the wrong puzzle. Nothing about this fit with the rest of the story so far.

  She could only think of one logical question. “Who are you?”

  The boy shrugged. “My name’s Joey.”

  Phoenix and Indira exchanged a glance. He mouthed the name to her. It wasn’t the sort of menacing name most antagonists used. Most bad guys went by something like Spike or Bonesaw. At the risk of losing even more points, Indira decided to break character.

  “Excuse me, but are you the assigned antagonist? I’m not sure we’re getting this….”

  The boy heaved a huge sigh. “Boring! This is boring. Time to make things exciting. What’s that phrase pirates always use? Oh yeah.
‘Fire in the hole!’ ”

  Joey pointed his lacrosse stick. Magic filled the air. All the cannons lining the side of the ship came to life. The black mouths pointed at Indira and her crew. Fire flashed within, sparking fuses, spreading from window to window. Instinct forced Indira to backpedal. “Fire number one!” Joey shouted.

  There was a stretching moment where Indira thought they were all doomed. Smoke burst out of the first cannon, but it was a misfire. Something with the powder must have failed, because nothing shot out. Joey leaned over the deck and shouted in frustration.

  Indira grabbed Phoenix’s collar and pulled him into a run. The two of them bumped into Gadget, and all three nearly toppled as they scrambled away from the road. Up ahead, Allen Squalls had already reached the woods. He’d apparently had the right idea.

  Joey’s voice echoed again. “Fire! They’re getting away! Fire!”

  Indira barely kept her footing as they sprinted toward Squalls and the nearby forest. More cannon fire thundered out. Something hissed overhead. The ground shook, but Joey’s first shot landed thirty yards to their right.

  “He’s firing on us with a pirate ship!” Gadget screamed. “This makes zero sense!”

  Another round of blasts tore through the air. Two cannonballs missed overhead, but a third struck just to Gadget’s left. The explosion lifted her feet briefly off the ground, throwing her into Phoenix. The two of them went down together.

  “No!” Indira screamed.

  She darted back. Phoenix was climbing to his feet, a little shaken. Gadget wasn’t responsive at all. Together they dragged Gadget’s unconscious form into an awkward fireman’s carry over their shoulders. Indira’s ears were still ringing as they stumbled on with the girl held in the air between them.

  “Come on!” Squalls shouted from the edge of the tree line. Indira was surprised he hadn’t kept running. “We can take cover in the forest! Come on!”

  More explosions followed. Indira ducked through the first row of trees, but they didn’t stop running until the cannon sounds were well behind them. It was only when they reached a clearing deep in the forest that they stopped to assess the damage.

  Chests heaving, they looked around at each other, and it was Allen Squalls who summed up their plight best. “We fell for a puppy trap!”

  After cleaning and bandaging their wounds, the crew retreated deeper into the forest. There were still some howls sounding in the hills, but Indira found those noises more comforting than what had just happened. A random boy had summoned a pirate ship out of thin air.

  And fired on them.

  It took almost an hour for Gadget to wake. She couldn’t hear too well out of one ear, but at least she didn’t appear to have any long-term damage. Indira was relieved that all of them had survived in one piece, but that didn’t make their next move any clearer.

  “What do your tutor devices say?” she asked.

  Phoenix answered. “Mine keeps subtracting points. I’m in the negatives now.”

  “Same here,” Squalls added. “It says we’re supposed to go back to the towers. Where I’ll probably be fed to sharks. But if we wait here, I’ll probably be attacked in the night by wolves. Can’t believe I actually thought puppies were safe!”

  Phoenix tried to calm him down. “But you didn’t die, Allen. We’re still here. You survived the attack. Let’s try to focus on what’s happening, not what could have happened. The directions on my device are really specific now. It says we’re supposed to survive a kingswolf attack and escape into the mountains.”

  Allen muttered, “Which will start a chain of events causing an avalanche….”

  Indira ignored him. She caught Phoenix’s eye and nodded. Her device said the exact same thing that his did. “We know there weren’t kingswolves at the tower,” she said. “And that kid…I’m not the only one who thinks he was strange, am I?”

  “He didn’t fit the scenario,” Phoenix agreed. “His clothes were out of place.”

  “Could he be one of the Stained?” Gadget asked quietly. “We haven’t met one yet. They’re supposed to be superpowerful, aren’t they? The only description I could find in my tutor device was that they ‘used dark magic to defeat the dragons.’ Everything that kid did was totally illogical, but maybe we just weren’t prepared for a new type of magic.”

  Indira frowned. “But was that dark magic? The kid was cackling to himself the whole time. And you heard him. There was no mention of the Howling King. Nothing about dragons. Nothing about his noble duty to find Phoenix. There weren’t any lines or anything! He just said he was bored. He summoned a pirate ship and fired on us out of boredom.”

  Phoenix stood. “We need to go back.”

  “Go back?” Squalls looked properly terrified. “Are you serious? No way. I did not sign up to get killed by a cannon. Or sharks. Or to be launched by a cannon into a pool of sharks—”

  “Allen. Pull it together,” Phoenix replied. “We’re all taking a risk. Besides, even if one of us did get launched by a cannon into a pool of sharks—which is really unlikely, by the way—we’d come back to life. That’s the whole reason the Ninth Hearth exists.”

  The Ninth Hearth was back at Protagonist Preparatory. It was also known as the Nine-Lives Hearth, because it brought characters in their world back to life. Indira unfortunately knew from experience how the hearth worked.

  “Coming back to life doesn’t make death hurt any less!” Squalls complained. “I just don’t see the point of going back to such a dangerous place.”

  “The devices are telling us to go back,” Phoenix replied. “It’s like we didn’t succeed in our mission. I’m not sure what just happened, but clearly the only way to continue the scenario is to go back. Our scores are tanking. If we fail the tutorial, finding a story will be even harder.”

  “Plus, we need to investigate what happened,” Indira said. She didn’t see any other options. “He might have left by now. Phoenix is right. The only way to keep the quest moving is to reach the mountains. If Joey’s still there, we can retreat and figure out a plan of attack.”

  Squalls stared at her. “Plan of attack? You want to plan an attack? He summoned a pirate ship with less than a thought! Our plan should be to run. Or hide. Or both.”

  Phoenix held out a palm and summoned fire. “That ship was made of wood. And wood burns, right? My fire would work. Or how about a full-fledged dragon? I didn’t react last time because I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to do. The tutor devices were freaking out. So I just froze. It won’t happen again.”

  Indira liked his confidence. She met Phoenix’s eyes and gave a nod.

  Silence was as close as they’d get to having Squalls agree to come. Indira helped Gadget to her feet, and when she was certain the girl had her legs back under her, she led them all out of the forest again. The towers loomed in the growing dark. The ship was still there too. It appeared Joey had abandoned the area. Indira could hear some rustling from one of the towers, and a quick check inside showed the puppies were huddled there. Cautiously, their crew circled the ship.

  There was no sign of Joey.

  “It’s so strange,” Indira said. “I just don’t get how this fits—”

  Movement cut her sentence off. Someone had slipped out of the distant forest. Indira’s heart started beating faster, but she let out a little sigh of relief when a kingswolf came loping toward them. Indira’s crew gathered around. Somehow, the creature wasn’t frightening to her now. Not after what had happened. She stood her ground and called out to the creature.

  “You there! Come here. What’s going on?”

  The wolf transformed. Indira was surprised to see it was a woman. She wore the same half armor, half robe that the kingswolf who’d visited Ordinary had worn. Her human form was also a little wolfish. She had thick eyebrows and too-sharp teeth.

  “Is he gone?” the
woman asked.

  Indira frowned. “Who? Joey?”

  The kingswolf nodded.

  “It looks like it,” Indira answered. “Is he one of the Stained?”

  That drew a laugh from the kingswolf. “The Stained? No. The Stained have very specific powers. I’ve never met someone like him. We were waiting here for the scheduled attack. It’s all in the scenario script we were given.”

  It took Indira a second to realize the kingswolf was breaking character. This was no longer a part of the scenario. This was a trained character—a hired actor—who looked completely terrified.

  “Joey stumbled out of the woods,” she continued. “He didn’t exactly fit the description we’d been given for you all. But we decided to go with it. The scenario changes sometimes. We’ve had previous tutorials where the characters completely messed things up. When the brainstorms hired us, we were trained to be flexible in our roles and to do our best to get the story back on track.

  “So we ambushed him,” the kingswolf explained. “Well, the others did. My job was at the end of the fight. You know the surprise attack that comes at the very last second, when you finally think you’ve won?” The woman’s voice was shaking. “That was my job. But Joey saw the other kingswolves coming and he just laughed at them. I watched him point that stick and…”

  Indira finally understood. “The puppies.”

  The kingswolf snapped her fingers. “It was over in less than a second. He transformed them into puppies like it was nothing. Just kept laughing to himself about it too.”

  And that explained the directions from the tutor devices. The tech wasn’t smart enough to figure out what had happened. It was identifying the puppies as kingswolves. No wonder it had been confused. It must have been strange to see Indira and the others playing with their enemies rather than fighting against them. Indira traced those threads to their inevitable conclusion.

  “So we were right,” she said. “Joey isn’t supposed to be in our scenario.”