“Bring them all,” Aidan said, and the boys stared at him in surprise. Best chuckled and smirked at each of his friends.
“Got ourselves a tough one today,” he said. They all chuckled as he stood to his feet and threw the stick into the sand. He turned to Aidan and Leah. “If that’s the way you want it. Sure. I’ll bring them all. But I don’t recommend it.”
“Just keep heading straight?” Aidan asked, pointing behind the houses.
“Yep. See you there, tough stuff.” Best smiled. Aidan and Leah headed out, taking note of the numbers on the houses they passed by.
“I take it that the names Best mentioned are the tiers of the little kids,” Leah said as they walked. “The Poopers are probably their youngest fighters.”
“I just want to see what they have to offer us in terms of training. It doesn’t seem like much.”
“Two minutes ago you were excited over the potential of this place, and now you’re scoffing at the challenge.”
“I want to test my limits,” he said. “That’s all. If I get beat by a group called the Poopers, then all that will do is show me just how weak I really am.”
“You and me both,” she said, tucking her arm into his. “Let’s do our best. No matter what age they are. We can’t underestimate them.”
“I won’t,” Aidan said as they arrived at the field. It was unkempt, with an abundance of weeds, mud patches, and high grass, but it was at least three times the size of the street in the front. Plenty of space to get the job done.
“So we’re working together, right?” Leah asked, stretching her neck and arms.
“Yep. We should probably try to subdue them as quickly as possible. Should we do a trap?”
“Like you scare them with fire and I come from behind with a cage?”
“Yeah, like that.”
“Sounds good to me,” she said, opening and closing her fists, stretching out her fingers. After a few minutes, the crowd began pouring in. Literally. A tidal wave carried all the children through the housing district and onto the field, circling the perimeter over and over with Leah and Aidan staring in awe from the middle. The water circled four times and then settled into the soil, putting everyone gently onto their feet. Best slapped the hands of one of the pre-teens.
“Bad as always, man,” he said to him, then he walked out to meet up with the couple. A large beetle sat upon his head. “Okay, everyone!” he shouted, his voice somehow not coming from his lips, but the beetle itself, acting like an organic loudspeaker. “We’re going to get this show underway soon. These two young adults have asked to join us and you know we’re hospitable to anyone here, but then they said they want some training.”
The crowd giggled and oohed and aahed.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” he chuckled. “So they’re going to face off against the Poopers first, and so on and so on. Whoever they lose against will be training them until they’re ready to graduate. Everyone got snacks?”
Toomuch held a thumbs up high in the air from the center of the crowd. Jar and Rot handed out the last of the pastries and all the children were munching away like it was their last meal.
“Then let’s give it up for the Poopers!” Aidan winced at the designation. This was just degrading. Two kids, no more than three years old, stepped out into the circle. Both of them had tussled hair and clothes far too big for them. One was crying. Aidan rolled his eyes and looked back at Best.
“Are we seriously going through with this?”
“Why? Are you scared?” Best smiled. Aidan turned his attention back to the kids. The crying one had stopped and was wiping away his tears while the other one was glaring at Leah and Aidan like they had just taken his most precious toy. Before Aidan could say a word, he started growling and barking at him, and then he attacked.
He ran at them both as fast as he could, both arms cocked back. He was so slow that Aidan had to refrain from laughing. When the scowling kid finally reached them, he cocked back a painfully slow fist, and unleashed it towards Aidan’s abdomen. But Aidan knew better than to let the fist connect. For all he knew, the kid could have wished for crippling strength. Aidan dodged the blow and punted the kid in the stomach. The child keeled over and crumpled to the ground, clutching his wound and crying into the dirt as Aidan glanced over at Leah with concern.
“Now I just feel bad,” he said as the crowd booed them. Best cleared his throat loudly.
“I would get defensive if I were you,” he warned over the loudspeaking beetle, but it was too late. Something uppercut Aidan in the chin, so fast and so hard that he nearly blacked out in mid-air. All he knew was that one second he was on the ground and in the next, he was twenty yards away on his back, his jaw aching so badly that he could barely speak.
“Whoa,” Leah said, ducking down and scanning the area. The kid who hadn’t attacked yet now ran at her, in the same manner his friend had earlier. But she didn’t wait until he got close. With a quick gesture of her hand, she called the earth up to swallow him whole, trapping him in a cocoon.
But while she began commanding lightning bolts to hit him from inside, an invisible force grabbed her mid-section and lifted her up into the air. Before she could protest, it turned over, and slammed her head first into the ground, releasing her body on impact. Her legs flopped into the dirt behind her and she did her best not to get up. Dizzy and disoriented, she managed to climb up onto all fours, and then back to her feet.
Aidan ran over from behind and began summoning fire to hurt the kid outside the cocoon but another invisible force smacked his head from the side, sending him back into the dirt.
“What’s going on?” Leah groaned as she saw the cocoon she had created being peeled back like an orange, letting the kid go free.
“It’s their abilities,” Best called out from a distance. “They have imaginary friends. Invisible monsters.”
“How are we supposed to fight that?” she yelled back.
“Figure it out! They’re invisible, remember?”
Leah sensed a shift in the air and she created a rock shield with her hands. An invisible fist slammed into it, sending her down to one knee.
“How do we defeat it?” she shouted.
“I don’t know,” Best laughed with the crowd. “Those imaginary monsters of theirs don’t have any limits that I know of.”
“That doesn’t make any sense!” she groaned under the weight of the fist, which was slowly pushing her further down. Aidan climbed back to his feet.
“Are you sure?” Best called out. “What limits do kids place on themselves? They think they can do anything! Accomplish anything! You’re the one limiting your power!”
Another fist hit Aidan in the face the moment he took a step forward.
“The only advantage adults have over children are experience and knowledge. But children don’t restrict themselves like the grown-ups do. You gotta know things like an adult to make it in this world,” Best said, placing a hand to his chest. The rest of the crowd followed suit. “But you gotta have the heart of a child to master it.”
There’s a way around this, Aidan thought, as he climbed to his feet for the third time. This is the first string, not the last. Best and his boys had to have beaten these two. So how did they do it? What are they seeing that I’m not?
Aidan summoned several fire shields to encompass him as he glanced at Leah, who was still struggling with the invisible giant, and then the two boys, who were playing with a bug that was sitting on a blade of tall grass. They’re not even paying attention, he realized. Their monsters are doing all the work. But if we can’t see them, how can we defend ourselves?
An invisible fist broke through three of Aidan’s shields and nearly knocked him off balance. Taken by surprise, once he had gained his footing, he began running around the field, giving himself time to strategize while he dodged the monster’s blows.
An ability is tied to its owner, Aidan thought. If I knock out the kids, then the monsters should go away. Ignore
the creatures I can’t see and attack those I can!
With a plan in tow, Aidan ran for the boys, warming and hardening his hands simultaneously. Another swipe at his back took out the last of his shielding but he ignored it and kept moving. He reached the first boy, closed his fist and punched him across the cheek, with as much strength as he could muster. The kid went unconscious immediately and the giant attacking Leah immediately disappeared.
But the other kid was still awake, and once he saw his friend lying still in the grass, he threw up his hands in surrender and cowered under Aidan’s raised fist.
The crowd began clapping and a few teenagers went out into the field to grab the fallen three-year old and tend to his wounds. Best was clapping hard and slow as he walked out into the field with a big smile on his face.
“Looks like you’re moving on to round two,” he said. “And you’ve learned your very first lesson. When in battle, there is more than just your enemy. There is everything else. When adults fight an enemy or are faced with a problem, that’s all they can think about. But kids think of solutions that adults can’t even dream of, because they’re looking at everything, not just the problem. Once those invisible giants started smacking you around, that’s all you could think about. But once you saw that knocking out the kids themselves was the key, you won! So congrats! You ready for the Nose-wipers?”
“No,” Aidan laughed, poking at a bruise on his face.
“Definitely not,” Leah laughed, rubbing her head. “I don’t think I could survive another bout so soon. Maybe tomorrow. I have to say though, I am very impressed.”
“Why, thank you,” Best beamed. As the crowd began to disperse, they suddenly stopped in their tracks as the sun was eclipsed. “What’s that?” Best asked, pointing up into the sky. Leah and Aidan followed his index finger up to what it was pointing at.
A winged creature, larger than the tallest of Onyx Major’s buildings, was descending. But it became smaller and smaller as it got closer and closer to the ground. By the time it hit the grass, in the same way it would if it were landing on a runway, the dragon was no larger than a dog, and once the black-haired child riding it jumped off, it magically transformed into a tiny, stuffed animal.
“Charlie, this is how it has to be,” the child yelled at the stuffed animal as it dangled from his chubby fingers. He ran over to Aidan and Leah who were staring at him in shock.
“Sawyer, right?” Leah asked, stooping down to his level. “What are you doing here?”
“Whatever the reason is,” Aidan said, “it can’t be good. How did you know we were here?”
“You were seen last night,” Sawyer said to him. Leah and Aidan looked at each other as the boy continued. “And the Elders have been looking for Leah since she left. They were sure you two were together.”
“What’s going on here?” Best asked, the rest of his crew coming up behind him.
“There’s not a lot of time,” Sawyer said. “Where are the others?”
“We’re not saying anything until you spill it all,” Aidan snapped. “For all we know, you’re here to assassinate us.”
“Charlie wishes that were true, but it’s not. Morrigan sent me. She couldn’t leave but she knew I wanted out bad. You have to come quick. The Elders made a mistake. Ne-cro-sis has arrived.”
“Necrosis?!” Best exclaimed, nearly falling backwards. His boys buoyed him. “What’s a guy like that doing around here?”
“It’s because of us,” Leah said. “But don’t worry. We’re not going to let anything happen to this place. We’ll leave before he gets close.”
“No, that’s not it,” Sawyer said, shaking his head. “He’s not coming after you. He’s attacking the other groups.”
“What? Why?” Aidan said.
“Aidan, the others have to hear this now,” Leah said. “Let’s go.” She grabbed his arm and started urging him back toward their original team as Best and the boys were joined by groups of other children.
“You come back soon,” Best shouted as they began heading to Onyx Major. “And if you need help tucking Necrosis into his grave, you call on us. We’re ready. Just send us a message.” He threw two beetles to Aidan. “Tap it on the back once to record a message. Two taps to make your voice amplify. Or tap once on one and twice on the other to make one the recorder, and the other the amplifier. You say my name at the end of a message, and the beetles will come right back here.”
Aidan caught the insects and gave the boys a smile and a wave of thanks. Leah doubled back and gave Best and each of his boys a hug. Then they headed off for Jin and the others, ready to discuss the horrible news.
Chapter 20 – Eleven
“It’s not all your fault,” Sawyer said to Aidan as they all sat in the middle of Grain’s building. “The Elders were all talking about this change of plan before you were spotted yesterday.”
“How do you even know all of this?” Jin asked. “Who are you?”
“Morrigan’s my big sister,” Sawyer said, rubbing his own hair. “This is my pet, Charlie,” he said, holding up the stuffed animal, “and Elder Thine is my mother.”
“So that’s why Morrigan’s trusted you with so much information,” Leah muttered. “And why she’s trusted with a great deal of it herself. She’s probably next in line for Eldership.”
“Lowsunn is not going to attack Onyx Major,” Jin said. “It would be insane.”
“Yeah,” Leah chuckled. “Even the children are a force to be reckoned with.”
“They can’t have you so they want your friends instead,” Sawyer replied. “The Elders have been gathering information on your secret group for years, and Aidan, you were their main target at first because you were making the biggest noise. But that was before you ran here. So they changed the mission lists, called everyone back to the village and then resent everyone out, writing down that you were off on an N mission while everybody you know is going to fight Necrosis.”
“There is no way Necrosis is going to let that go,” Grain said. “It was up in the air for us whether he would show or not, but not this. What is that? Like two hundred people assigned to be threats against him? He’ll come and squash that for sure. Are the Elders insane?”
“Morrigan told me that Mama says you all are making an army here, so she has to crush your friends now, while there’s still time. Necrosis hit our land a day ago and he’s slowly making his way to the first group.”
“Who’s in the first group?”
“Bailey, Elias, Makana…um, a couple others. I’m sorry. I forgot.”
“They’re not even trying to hide their intentions,” Jin snapped. “And Bailey probably has no idea what they’re walking into.”
“Their paper says they’re on a D class mission,” Sawyer said.
“Yeah, I’m sure they sense something amiss,” Jessica said. “But they don’t know what. It will be a slaughter. I still can’t believe the Elders would be so stupid though. That’s a big risk to goad Necrosis into coming so close to the village. Anyone else think this is a trap? That the Elders are just using Morrigan to get us out into the open?”
“It’s not a trap!” Sawyer screamed, and Jessica threw up her hands in surrender.
“Whether it is or not, what does Morrigan expect us to do?” Leah replied, resting her face in her hands. “Any group that comes across Necrosis will be slaughtered.”
“She thinks you all have an army here. She wants you to make them fight Necrosis and save our village. She thinks Mama is making a mistake.”
“Too bad we don’t have an army,” Leah sighed.
“You don’t? Charlie, shut up! You can’t beat him alone!”
“Not at all,” Jin said. “Actually we’re one down. Grain is stuck here. We’re the whole cavalry, and not much of one at that.”
“Why does Morrigan even care?” Teller interrupted. “Why is she going against her mother?”
“Morrigan has this sense of order,” Isaac replied. “This sense of right and wrong tha
t few understand. I think she’s looking out for the good of Lowsunn over the wishes of her Elders. It is her future, after all.”
“Either way,” Jin sighed, “Necrosis is going to wipe out most of who we know before we get back there. I guess the question becomes…should we intervene?”
“Is it a question?” Teller asked. “I mean, what happens when they’re all murdered? We’ll have no one.”
“No, it’s more than that,” Aidan said. “They’re our family, and it would be downright evil to not help them in some way. We may not stand a chance, but you have to admit, we brought this on ourselves. If we had just intervened earlier…we could have talked with more people in the village, demanded for the Elders to make changes. We could have altered our way of life, but now all of it is threatened. Now all of us are in danger, and we have no one else to blame but ourselves.”
“He’s right,” Jin said. “We’ll go fight Necrosis. Who knows? Maybe we’ll be able to reason with him. But regardless, if we survive that fight, we can’t play around anymore. We have to make changes in Lowsunn.”
“What are you saying?” Teller asked. “We just take over the place like Duncan did?”
“We have a place in that village just as much as the rest of them. We do it right. We go to Morrigan for help. We go to the Elders and confront them. We expose their secrets and dealings and we take them to the people. They can decide.”
“Then who’s in charge?”
“Don’t know. But the pain of change is far better than certain desolation. Isn’t fighting Necrosis harder than what we would have to do after?”
“Then let’s hurry,” Leah said, standing to her feet. “Sawyer, would Charlie be able to take all of us to the battlefield?”
“He doesn’t want to,” Sawyer smiled. “But he will.”
The Works of Julius St. Clair - 2017 Edition (Includes 3 full novels and more) Page 53
