Sons of Thunder

by Bowen Greenwood

  She growled under her breath and then said, “Why do you act like it’s so simple? I have friends here. There are people I really like, like Spooky. I don’t want to never see her again.”

  Connor replied, “Like I said, your future isn’t set. You may see her again. Who knows what may happen? All you have to do is walk away from something that you know is hurting people.”

  She swallowed. “I try to ignore those visions of the future. Sometimes I see… I see Legion people hurting people… killing them… I don’t like seeing that.”

  “Follow Pitch, Kila. Help him find his way to Mr. Moses. He’s the guy wearing a three piece suit in the middle of World War Three here. Once you’ve made the choice, it should be easy to see the future again. You can use that to help Pitch find the way.”

  She closed her eyes and breathed deeply.

  She said, “I can see Pitch and I diving behind a rock outcropping and meeting an old man there, so I guess if I can see it, I must have made the choice. I’ll see you again, Connor. I don’t need to tell the future to know that.”

  Connor watched her walk away. She met Pitch behind the same cluster of rocks Connor had just been using for cover. Connor turned away. Between her telling the future and Pitch’s ability to defend them, he felt pretty good about their chances. Besides, she had already seen a vision of her meeting Mr. Moses. Connor smiled. Those two would probably have a lot to talk about.

  He marched resolutely into the Legion’s base.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Various Legionnaires were running around in a panic, packing things, or making preparations. Over a loudspeaker, someone was warning that government troops were closing in.

  Most of these people had seen Connor before and apparently Sebastian hadn’t publicized his escape because they didn’t try to stop him. He smiled and waved at them as he walked through the dimly lit tunnels.

  He knew his way well enough; he hadn’t been gone that long. As he walked, Connor took note of the similarities between the Legion’s base and Mr. Moses’ palatial home. Marble floors, wood paneling, and brass light fixtures decorated both.

  Of course, Mr. Moses’ place didn’t have a dungeon.

  The door to the prison was made to resist any attempt to open it from the inside. But from the outside, it was easy enough to simply turn the knob and walk in.

  Unlike the last time he’d been here, three cells were filled now. There was the TK, whose name he still didn’t know. Linc sat beside him, mocking and belittling him to keep him from using his powers.

  In another cell toward the front of the room was the Healer – Renee, he now knew. But unlike before, duct tape over her lips kept her from speaking. Connor barely started to wonder why, when the reason became obvious.

  A third cage in the dungeon was now occupied by Anna. This close, the family resemblance was obvious, where it hadn’t been when he met them separately. To keep Anna from teleporting out of the prison, Sebastian himself was standing beside her cell, telling her that she wasn’t good enough for her family, and that she could never measure up to her sister. Connor figured that Renee was gagged to keep her from contradicting that.

  Sebastian’s verbal abuse had tears leaking out the corner of Anna’s eyes.

  Connor was not about to sit still for that. He took a step toward Sebastian, balling his fists.

  He said, “You shut your mouth right now, Sebastian!”

  Sebastian turned away from Anna to look at the newcomer.

  “Welcome back, Connor,” he said. “Still too chicken to take a bullet?”

  Connor didn’t answer. Instead he said, “You let these people go right now.”

  Sebastian sneered. “No can do, Connor. No one with powers goes to the government. It’s our rule. And I’m afraid it applies to you, too. We’ll keep you with the girls.”

  Connor replied, “Don’t be stupid, Sebastian. Government soldiers have the place surrounded. You can’t win this fight. I’m going to break your rule by turning you in. Then you’ll be a person with special abilities in the hands of the government.”

  Sebastian replied, “Pitch has held soldiers at bay before. He can do it again.”

  “He’s already out of commission,” Connor replied. “I met him on my way in.”

  “You son of a–”

  Sebastian cut himself off in mid-insult, and turned to Linc, who had risen from his chair and stood at the ready.

  “Lincoln,” he said. “We should have the prisoners minds messed up enough that they won’t be able to do anything for a while. Keep Connor busy here. I have to go see Wings about our escape plan.”

  Connor said, “No way! I’m taking you to Flake!”

  He reached out to grab Sebastian.

  In a flash, Linc’s hand intercepted his. The two old friends made eye contact but said nothing.

  And then Sebastian was gone.

  Connor gave a shout of surprise as the man just disappeared from right in front of him. Then he felt himself roughly bumped from the side and heard the door slam shut.

  Sebastian had left.

  Connor turned to Linc.

  He said, “I was afraid I’d find you here.”

  Lincoln’s hair was perfectly slicked back, and he was dressed in the black fatigues of the Legion with the black tank top of an Enforcer.

  He said, “Connor! You walked out on me, man. After everything we’ve been through, you just left me behind without a word.”

  Connor replied, “I didn’t want to get stuck in prison. I’m not going to join the Legion, Linc. And they lock up people who won’t join.”

  By way of proof, Connor waved at the three prisoners.

  “That’s where we part ways, bro,” Linc replied. “I’m part of the Legion now. I’m accepted here. I have friends here, finally. I’m not going to leave that behind.”

  “You had friends in the old days, too, Linc. You had me.”

  Lincoln set his jaw and said through clenched teeth, “Yeah, you took me on as a charity case. But no one else man.”

  Connor shook his head. “You were never a charity case for me. I taught you how to fight myself. I tied your black belt on you myself. You were my friend, Linc. You are my friend.”

  “Not if you’re not one of us man. Sebastian is very clear about this. We can’t have people with special abilities working for the government. We’ve been friends a long time, Connor. I want to help you. If you’ve teamed up with the government, you can still come back and be one of us. Come back. Join us. The Legion needs a guy like you.”

  Connor replied, “I’m not with the government, Linc. And I’m not with the Legion, either. Some of us are banding together. I met a man and a woman who showed me the truth. They taught me that these abilities are gifts from God, to be used for the common good. I think we can work for good in the world; to show people that God helps them.”

  Linc rolled his eyes and replied, “God? What are you talking about? You were never one of those church freaks, Con. Special abilities come from believing in yourself, wanting it bad enough to make sacrifices, and hanging around other people who have them. I ought to know.”

  And with no further warning, Connor felt a fist slam into his midsection.

  As the punch connected, Linc said, “Hanging around the legion worked for me man. I’m super-fast now. Superhumanly fast.”

  It should have hurt. The hard, straight punch right into his solar plexus should have had Connor doubled over and puking. But for a man with skin like steel, it wasn’t even an issue.

  He simply held eye contact with Linc and raised an eyebrow.

  Even so, he couldn’t believe how fast Lincoln’s fist moved. He had never even seen it coming. Lincoln had done much more than just improve his speed by training and practice. He was right: it was a supernatural gift. His mind flashed back to what Anna told him about how evil could use it if a person wanted something that bad.

  He shuddered to think of his friend under that influence.

  Linc shuf
fled back into a guard stance, eyeing Connor warily.

  He said, “Finally got your head screwed on straight about being bullet proof, huh?”

  Connor dropped into his own guard stance and shuffled slightly back from Linc.

  He said, “I don’t want to do this man. Just let me take these people out of here. You heard Sebastian. He’s making plans to evacuate. This is over already. Just back down.”

  Linc laughed. “So you think you don’t have to worry because you’re invulnerable, Con? Think you can’t be hurt? Well, you forgot what the Legion trained me to do. This is Chojin Ken, Roomie.”

  He didn’t even pause, just shifted into a different topic.

  “You’re a terrible leader, Connor. Every choice you made for me just got me into deeper trouble.”

  “Shut up,” Connor shouted.

  “Oh no, Connor. It’s time you faced the truth. You choke under pressure. You can’t think worth anything if there’s even a bit of stress. Without your bad leadership, I never would have wound up falling for Sebastian’s talk.”

  Even knowing what was going on, Connor felt powerless to resist. Lincoln’s “prisoner control” lines sounded too much like the things he told himself. It was true; he’d been a bad leader for Linc and everyone else who followed him. Every decision he made went wrong…

  Linc lunged forward and jabbed him in the short ribs with one of those unbelievably fast punches. Then he brought the same arm backwards with an elbow into his old friend’s kidney.

  Connor gasped and clutched his side. Linc’s talk broke down the new trust he’d been building with God. His Gift went away when he stopped trusting.

  He knew the feeling of broken ribs quite well, and he had at least one. Somehow, he shuffled back and put his guard up.

  Linc’s roundhouse kick hit the side with the already-broken ribs before Connor even saw it coming. He winced and clutched his side.

  Lincoln said, “Superhuman speed, man! You can’t fight that! Not when I can take your invulnerability away!”

  With that he began to pound his old friend. Blows landed repeatedly. Connor couldn’t even see them coming, let alone block. All he could do was try to cover his injured side, but that just led to getting hit in other places.

  Linc grabbed Connor’s shirt with one hand and his left wrist with another. He whirled around and threw Connor to the ground. Lincoln kicked him in the same injured side and then stomped on his midsection.

  Connor doubled over and screamed in pain.

  And then he felt something indescribable.

  It was cozy warm and refreshingly cool at the same time, it was like sitting in the sun and feeling a mountain breeze. His pain was gone – gone completely. And just as he had known at once when Linc broke his rib, he knew at once that it was whole again.

  Connor looked up.

  Renee knelt down at the edge of her cell. Anna’s sister had stretched her arm out as far as she could and held Connor’s hand. Her auburn hair hung around her face like a halo, with strands stuck to her face where they had encountered the tracks of her tears.

  With the duct tape over her lips, she couldn’t speak. But her hidden smile was visible in her eyes.

  He was healed.

  Connor leapt up to his feet. He’d fought Lincoln before. He’d trained him. He taught the guy everything he knew. Linc had a weakness as a fighter. He was left-handed and very rarely struck to his right – which would be the left side for the man fighting him.

  Before even thinking, Connor shifted fast to his left, just in time to dodge a front kick aimed at his groin.

  The trick to beating someone who could move superhumanly fast was to dodge before they moved.

  Connor dodged left again and avoided a fist aimed at his throat.

  Now the fight was completely different. Connor just kept slipping to his left – Linc’s right – knowing that his friend wouldn’t strike with that hand. And every time he did, he connected with a punch or an elbow or a kick. Slowly, he wore his friend down.

  Finally, after one last failed punch, Lincoln was so tired that it took him an extra second or two to get his fists back up guarding his face.

  Connor seized the moment. He used it to drive an uppercut right into Linc’s jaw.

  His head jerked back, and Linc fell backwards onto the floor, groaning.

  He was down but not unconscious. Connor was about to dash to Anna’s cell, when he saw that it was empty. She flashed into existence kneeling beside Linc, taking the keys to the cells off his belt. Anna hurriedly whisked between the unknown boy’s cell and then her sister’s.

  Anna ripped the duct tape off Renee’s mouth, and the latter cried out in pain. Then she put her hand over her own lips and, with a smile at her sister, healed herself.

  She said, once her lips didn’t hurt so bad, “You know Mom and Dad and I are all proud of you, Anna. You never have to listen to garbage like they were telling you. I’ve always been proud of you but never more than now.”

  Anna just hugged her.

  Connor introduced himself to the young TK who had been behind bars as long as Connor had known him. The boy’s name turned out to be Walen.

  “Let’s get out of here,” Connor said to the girls and Walen.

  Just as they were about to pray, Linc looked up from the ground and growled.

  “This isn’t over, Connor!” he said. “You and I aren’t through!”

  Connor knelt down beside his groggy friend, still recovering from being almost knocked out. He put a hand on Linc’s shoulder.

  “No, it’s not. It’s not over Linc. Not until I get you out of this. I’ll be back for you. Hopefully then you’ll be ready to see the truth about the Legion.”

  Connor stood back up and smiled at Walen and the two young women. They all joined hands.

  Anna said, “Lord, we’d really like to be back with Mr. Moses.”

  ***

  Back at the rock outcropping where they’d first seen the government lines, Connor and the girls poured out the barest outline of their story to Moses, Spark, Pitch, and Kila. They had barely even started talking when Renee dropped to her knees beside the injured soldier, laid her hands on his legs, and healed him. His eyes were painfully wide as he rose to his feet, testing his strength.

  In the distance, they could see the government soldiers mopping up after the battle. Once Pitch and Kila left the fight, it had become much more one-sided. Out on the battlefield, some soldiers tended to their wounded while others made cautious forays into the Legion’s headquarters.

  The roar of four propeller engines shook the rocks, it was so loud. Connor looked up and saw the Legion’s stolen C-130 thundering overhead no more than 100 feet as Sebastian and his followers made their escape.

  The soldier they had befriended said, “If it’s OK with you all, I’d like to go back to my own lines. I won’t send them back at you. I’m going to try to spread the word that not everyone with special powers is an enemy.”

  Mr. Moses nodded at the soldier, who then turned and trotted out to where some others were gathering the injured.

  “I think it’s time we left as well,” Mr. Moses said.

  Anna nodded and extended her hands. They all linked up into a circle.

  “Lord, we’d really like to be home in Sol Tower.”

  ***

  They stood in the conference room. Floor to ceiling windows let in the brilliant light of the desert dawn. Tired, dirty from the battle, sore, they stood together exchanging smiles.

  Mr. Moses said, “This is the beginning of something new. We’re together now. We’re a team.”

  Anna stood close to her sister Renee, smiling at her. Walen and Spark had been talking in low voices, but they turned and paid attention when Moses spoke. Kila and Pitch stood off to the side. They weren’t really sure how they fit in yet, and it showed on their faces. But they, too, looked at Mr. Moses when he spoke.

  Connor nodded and said, “The Legion is still out there. We’ll need to be ready f
or whatever they try next.”

  “The gifts we have, we have for the benefit of all,” Moses replied. “It’s not just about the Legion. Wherever God sends us, we’ll go.”

  Connor said, “The Legion has a name. I think we should, too.”

  Moses said, “Jesus’ disciples James and John once wanted to call down fire on a city that turned its back on Jesus. Of course Jesus stopped them, and it’s a good lesson for us. Don’t use God’s gifts to do things God wouldn’t want.”

  “The name Jesus gave those two disciples seems to fit you all very well.”

  Connor remembered it from the last time Moses had told them this story, and he turned to face the others and spoke it aloud.

  “The Sons of Thunder.”

  Dear Reader

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  Acknowledgements

  Thank you God, thank you Stephanie, thank you Mom. Thanks again to Vicki, for her amazing editing. Sherrie Dolby-Arnoldy, thank you for great editing. Any other independent authors reading this, I recommend her. My thanks go out to every person who has been a beta reader, an Ambassador, or helped in any other way with putting my books together. If anything in my writing is accurate about the martial arts, the credit goes to my wonderful friends at Capital City Kenpo: Sifu Charlie Baker, Sibak Eva Baker, Jordan, Jeremiah, Elizabeth, Tracy, Jo, Sarah, and everyone else. If anything is wrong in the fight scenes, the blame for that is mine alone. For everyone I should have thanked and didn't, thank you and I'm sorry.