by Adam Holt
“You won’t live in fear of him forever. I choose to stay and fight. Not for me. For you.”
In an instant one hundred black staffs unloaded on the center of the arena where I stood next to the portal. I knew what must be done. Focus. The incinerator blasts slowed down to nothing. I dropped into the portal, created another portal on the wall of the arena, rolled out of the way of what was behind me—a forest-fire sized fireball. It roared out of the portal and into the stands, setting them ablaze. The spectators dove out of the way.
They won’t try that again, I thought. The black staffs leaped down from the parapet and began to attack me five at a time. I could sense their movements around me. The arena became a blur of entry and exit portals. The black staffs tried to stun and incinerate me but I turned their shots back on them and remained untouched. I made quick work of the first five and quicker work of the next five. And the five after that. Victory after victory. All the training on the Mini-Mane paid off. It felt like a video game. Player One was doing well against the enemy horde, as long as he did not exhaust all his energy. The Lord Ascendant realized this all too soon. The attacks stopped. My sweaty bangs fell into my eyes and I pushed them back.
So the Lord Ascendant called for another champion, who showed up without warning. His eyes gleamed blue and unscrupulous. I would have feared him, but I knew this moment must come. I must face him again. Lincoln Sawyer, Version 2.0.
“My secret friend, your skills and speed have grown,” he said, spinning the black staff overhead like a helicopter blade, as he did on board the Adversity. “Fortunately, I can say the same thing. You won’t catch me off guard this time.”
“I won’t need to,” I said. Sawyer advanced on me. A few Ascendant crept toward me from behind. I could sense them. Never taking my eyes off Sawyer, I reached behind with one hand, opened a portal, and blasted the Ascendant into it. I opened the portal in front of Sawyer. The Ascendant popped up in front of him. Surprise! I thought, but in a flash, he grabbed two of them by their arms and flung them toward me. They came in like angry bowling pins, spinning and firing their black staffs in all directions. I ducked into another portal and popped up behind Sawyer, but he was ready with an incinerator shot. I caught the shot in my hands but it partly blasted through and singed my tunic. Another incinerator shot went toward my feet, and I made my first mistake of the battle—I leaped high into the air.
“Never let your guard down, Tully. I taught you better,” he said.
The Ascendant Lord could have grabbed me at that moment and thrown me into the dust, but he left the game to Sawyer, who seemed up for the challenge. I panicked for a moment, a floating target for everyone to see. Then I opened another portal in mid-air and popped out on the arena floor again.
Whoah, midair portal. That’s new, I thought, but didn’t have long to think about it.
Sawyer said something in Greek. More attacks from all directions—incinerators, tosses, stuns. I dodged or deflected everything I could. I caught a glimpse of Tabitha: for the first time she showed emotion. She looked nervous, doubt in her green eyes. Was she worried about me? Not that I had time to care. The stuns became almost impossible to defend. Sawyer was coordinating the attack, and he had his troops firing at me in rhythm. Shot after shot, every second they came with no time for me to open an escape portal. I couldn’t catch my breath.
“All defense as usual,” said Sawyer. “You can only play this game for so long.”
He was right. My focus slipped. A stun hit my wounded arm and knocked me to my knees. Just as I thought it was over, a solitary voice shouted someone’s name. And again and again. I turned to see the young boy from the virtual room pointing at the sky. It took me a second to process the name though he yelled it clearly.
“Icarus!” he yelled. “Icarus! Icarus!”
Hope.
UNEXPECTED EQUAL
Over the parapet of the arena wall floated a globe of red light. In the center were Icarus, Sunjay, and my dad. Adèle provided the web of protection. Icarus provided flight. His transparent wings extended through the web around them, his glowing hands above his head like he was praying, while my dad and Sunjay gripped their black staffs, ready for battle.
The enemy focused their firepower on this wonder, but their shots deflected in all directions. The arena exploded in purple fire. Doubt crept into the black staffs around me. Icarus directed the globe to the middle of the arena. He put his hands to his sides and landed beside me in the arena, the globe now shielding us all.
“You stand alone no longer,” he said.
“But you left the peace march,” I said.
“I swore to guide you, and I stand by that oath even now.” With that, he lifted us all back into the air, but before we flew more than a few feet off the ground, the globe lurched to a halt.
“Keep moving!” my dad said.
“No, we can’t leave without Tabitha,” I yelled.
“I can’t move us anyway,” said Icarus. “Something has stopped us. Not black staffs. They don’t have the power.”
“And what do you know about power?” the Lord Ascendant said. In the stands in front of us, he had risen to his feet for the first time. His hands extended toward us with his black gloves glowing purple, a look of dire intensity in his eyes.
“This went much better than planned,” he said, “but I should have guessed. You Encountered were always so sentimental. You work so hard to save the weak, but your actions are futile. You destroy yourselves.” The Lord Ascendant pressed his hands down and we descended to the floor of the arena. He turned to the rest of the black staffs. “Leave us! Prepare the ships. We launch soon. I will handle this with Sawyer’s help.”
Confused, his men waited for him to repeat the command. The Lord Ascendant does not repeat commands. Instead, he tossed the nearest black staff out of the stadium. The rest of his men took the hint and bounded over the walls or toward the exits. Sawyer stood on the far side of the arena facing the Lord Ascendant.
The Lord Ascendant’s brought his gloved hands above his head and clapped once. The noise reverberated off the arena walls, and the globe that encircled us disintegrated. We stood before him in the arena unprotected.
Then he peeled off his gloves, and underneath the gloves I saw something that changed everything. He held up his hands. My heart sunk. On the backside of his hands, running down his forearms, were lightning scars. Days ago I had worried about finding my Ascendant equal, and now I had.
“Impossible,” I said. “You can’t be.”
“Encountered,” he said. “Icarus never told you? Well, the gloves are useful. They hide the truth, but I don’t need to hide from any of you. I’m among friends. And family. Aren’t I, Icarus?”
Icarus took a few steps toward the Lord Ascendant. My mind did a backflip. They looked so similar. The same height and build, the same facial features, although one held a constant sneer while the other had compassion in his eyes.
“My father raised you better than this. There’s still time,” said Icarus.
“What do you know of time, other than it has passed you by? You don’t know any better than your father.”
“You were good once,” said Icarus, “and you could be good again.”
“They know each other,” I said to Adèle. “He’s Encountered, like us.”
“No, he was never like us,” she said.
It was an Encountered secret, one that had not been shared with me. I could only guess at their relationship now—friends, cousins, brothers?
“Are you so blind?” Icarus continued. “We could return to the Earth and give them our power. The people would love you more than you could imagine.”
“After all this time, you think I desire love? No, Icarus. Our power has returned, and I will not share it with you or these low-born Earthers.”
The Lord Ascendant raised his hands and a red dome covered the arena. The Firsters cheered no longer. Many ran to the exits, but an electric shock knocked them back.
> “To me,” Icarus said. “His powers are greater than I imagined. Prepare for anything.”
“Anything is hard to prepare for,” Sunjay said. “Could you be more specific?”
The Lord Ascendant clapped his hands again. A puff of red mist hid him from our sight. Then I heard a loud pop. He reappeared on the other side of the arena.
“Get your guard up,” my dad said, but there was no time. I heard another loud pop behind me. Suddenly the Lord Ascendant in our midst. Red lighting exploded from his hands. Before we could react, he blasted Adèle toward Sawyer, then reappeared on the other side of the arena, blasting the rest of us. We dove out of the way, but we needed a shield, which was Adèle’s strength—Adèle, who was floating helplessly toward Sawyer. Not if I can help it.
I created another mid-air portal and Adèle fell into it, returned to us as quickly as she had left. She raised a shield.
“This won’t work,” my dad said. “They want to split us up. We’ll split them up instead. Sunjay and Tully, focus on the android. We’ll keep the Lord Ascendant busy.”
Adèle held her shield. The Lord Ascendant spewed lightning from his hands, and then from his mouth.
“Yikes, mouth lightning,” Sunjay said. “I’d rather fight Sawyer. Wait, did I really just say that? Well, I mean it. He’s about to get my best. Let’s do this.”
The android awaits us on the other side of the arena. Sunjay went left and I went right. Sawyer reacted in a microsecond, stunning Sunjay once and leaving me alone to face my android foe. As usual.
“That was his best?” Sawyer asked. “Now you will get mine. There are no more human limits on my power. The Ascendant have freed me.”
“You’re not free,” I said, “and you’re not that fast.”
Sawyer smirked at me. Then he leaped toward Sunjay on the arena floor. Big problem. Sunjay couldn’t jump through a portal because he was stunned, and I couldn’t blast Sawyer with fire before he reached Sunjay. The only thing I could do was open a portal for Sawyer. I decided to make the exit portal in front of me. It was time to finish this fight.
As usual, he anticipated my move. He launched an incinerator shot into the portal. Bigger problem. If I left the portal open, the shot would hit me. If I closed it, the shot would hit Sunjay. One of us was about to get incinerated. It was checkmate.
I had closed a portal on a friend once before. That choice still tore me apart. It haunted me and led me to this point, millions of miles from home. I would not do that again. I left the portal open and took a deep breath. I watched as the flames of the incinerator shot reached me. I could feel the heat on my skin. My tunic burst into flames. About that time something slammed into me. Sawyer. He had followed his incinerator shot into the portal. The impact and blast knocked us across the arena. I rolled in the dust to put out the flames on my clothes.
My powers must be growing, I thought. I’m not a pile of dust.
Only my injured shoulder seemed to be on fire. I rotated my arm, trying to loosen it up, but pain shot through my fingers. Dirty, slightly toasted, and spitting dust, I hopped to my feet.
The Android did the same, but the incinerator shot did more damage to him than me. His skin was gone. He was a gold-plated skeleton with cold blue eyes—and a broken black staff that he tossed aside.
Behind us the other battle raged. I could picture the whole scene: the Lord Ascendant popping up in clouds of red smoke, my dad dodging stun shots, incinerator blasts, Adèle protecting him, Icarus flying side to side, quick like a hummingbird, too quick for the Lord Ascendant’s teleportation attacks. It was an even match, and I realized, as I looked at my golden foe, that the outcome of our fight would decide the battle. The Android must have realized this long before. There was nothing more to say.
We fought hand to hand. To the Firsters in the stands we were a blur too fast to see. Punches, kicks, blocks, and holds. Every punch he threw I turned away. Every grapple and choke he tried I avoided. He could overpower me if he could only catch me. It was an even match except that the sweat beaded on my forehead and flew off the tips of my hair. I would eventually tire out, and he would not, so I started to take more risks, to counterpunch when he threw a punch. He saw the change in tactics and grabbed my bad arm in his crushing grip, twisting it until I thought my bones would snap, but I flipped in that direction and grabbed his arm. Immediately his arm felt soft in my grip, like a tube of cookie dough. I squeezed. He wriggled away from me, his forearm bent and glowing. My left arm hung limp at my side, shooting pains in my fingertips. I rubbed my shoulder, which felt out of socket.
“Did I find some weakness?” he asked, smiling.
“Did I?” I replied. Sawyer’s forearm was melted, his hand limp at his side, just like mine.
He came at me again, kicking and throwing punches, even head-butts in my direction. I dodged and blocked as best I could, but Sawyer grabbed my bad arm again and tried to get me in an arm bar. He wrapped his legs around my head and pulled on my arm. My arm went from injured to snapped; my mind clouded over, like I was going to faint again.
No.
The pain blinded me and left me desperate. My arm had no strength left but Sawyer kept tugging, like he was trying to rip me to pieces. Then came a moment of slack. Someone re-entered the fight.
“That was not my best!” Sunjay said. He grabbed Sawyer’s head and twisted it sideways. There was a loud crack. Unfortunately the android’s head stayed on his shoulders, but his neck looked bent. Sunjay was thrown through the air, and Sawyer pressed the attack again.
No.
I would not let him do this. My arm was dead but my hand…I could feel it moving, reaching out, searching for some way to end this struggle. Finally it found his neck. I realized that while my arm burned with pain, my hand blazed much hotter. I reached higher, and suddenly my hand found his face. He let go of my arm and tried to escape my grip. He kicked and punched. His jaws snapped at my fingers like a rabid dog, but Sunjay had damaged his neck. He could not shake away from my grip. I could feel the metal beneath my hand growing white-hot.
What had been hard metal turned to liquid in my fingers, until I felt hot wet sand beneath my hand. Moment by moment, I was melting him down. His arm shot up in one last effort to stop me, but it only made me remember my good hand. I brought it around and blasted him with fire. The blast threw me backwards, and when I pushed myself back to my feet, all I saw in the sand in front of me was a sizzling mound of melted metal that used to be Lincoln Sawyer.
For the last year I had lived with the image of his eyes burned into my mind. He was my sparring partner, my confidant, my adversary, my secret friend; he chased me on land, in space, through my dreams; he battled me on board the Adversity, in zero gravity, and finally on Europa; he would battle me no more. For a moment I felt alone in the universe and felt the sheer relief of vanquishing an enemy, once and for all.
“Stars, you melted his face,” said Sunjay, shaking off the stun. He was in no condition to fight. Neither of us were, but fighting was our only option.
With Sawyer gone, I looked into the royal box. Trackman had stayed to watch my death at the hands of his android, and he had stayed too long. He and Tabitha were on their way out through an escape hatch in the royal box. He jumped in, but I opened a portal beneath her feet. She fell in and landed beside us in the arena. She looked shocked.
“Whatever you do,” I told Sunjay, “do not let go of her.”
“Tully, no! I have to go with him!” she yelled. Sunjay held on to her, confused at what was happening.
In the distance the newel rumbled to life. Everyone in the arena stared at the great black shadows beneath the ice of the newel. The Ascendant ships began to work their way up from the Undercity. They erupted from the newel top of the newel and into the night sky, bound for Earth. The Exodus had begun.
They were beyond our reach, but the Lord Ascendant had not yet joined them. The fight raged on. I strapped my broken arm against my tunic and headed toward the final battle.
A SEA OF FALLING DAGGERS
Across the arena my dad and Icarus battled the Lord Ascendant with black staffs. Adèle shielded them from the Lord Ascendant’s vicious attacks when she could. I charged toward the fray, opening a portal behind the Lord Ascendant. I blasted him with red fire but he vanished into a cloud of mist and the shot almost hit my dad.
“Duck!” my dad yelled. My dad launched an incinerator shot over my head, which the Lord Ascendant deflected into the crowded stands. I didn’t even know he was behind me, and before I could spin around he was gone again, popping up beside Adèle, who shielded herself until Icarus could distract him. Then he appeared beside me, throwing deadly punches. He was as fast as I was, and if he landed a punch, I would not have survived. Suddenly he stopped his attack and withdrew to the middle of the arena. He looked at what remained of Lincoln Sawyer.
“An inferior machine made by an inferior race,” he said. “Still, I am surprised that you defeated him.”
More ships rumbled up the newel into the black sky, their black silhouettes like marbles rolling across the face of Jupiter. We watched them through the glowing red shield that trapped us. The Lord Ascendant smiled and put on his black gloves.
“My Dear Firsters,” he said to the terrified crowd, “I hope that you have enjoyed today’s show. I am sorry that it will have to be cut short. The ships are leaving, but do not fear. You have been chosen to stay behind.”
The crowd murmured in confusion.
“Today I am making you the masters of Rathmore, or whatever is left of it.”
At that, an earthquake shook the arena, knocking us off our feet. Something monstrous was ascending from the Undercity. The newel ruptured and splintered. The entire Fifth Step swayed back and forth, but it did not break. Out of the top of the newel we saw a ship five times the size of the Lion’s Mane. It ripped right through the newel and headed on a collision course with the dome. That didn’t look good.
