by Simon Archer
“Sure!” She beamed happily. “Family doesn’t always mean blood, you know. Your family is the ones that are by your side, no matter what.”
“That’s right!” Eric chimed in and put his arm around my waist, much easier for him to reach with his shorter stature. “We’re on your side forever.”
A heavy weight settled in my chest as we continued to walk, and I placed a hand delicately over my heart. It was so full of emotion that I didn’t know what to do with it. My eyes started to water, but I would not cry. I was strong. I was a leader, and I would not release my emotions until I had done what I came to do here.
“Thank you both, from the bottom of my heart,” I whispered, and out of the corners of my eyes, I saw Andrea and Eric exchange cheeky grins.
We were upon the door to Kyp Soval’s office before I knew it, and the moment we came before it, it suddenly slid open. Floating in front of me was the man I only knew from hearsay and story. He was tall, and his skin was a few shades darker than my own shade of purple. His markings, though they still glowed, seemed dimmer than my own, though that was perhaps due to the environment. I found that my own glow had become slightly less vibrant because of the volcanic atmosphere.
Despite that, Kyp Soval was handsome. His face was sculpted ideally by the gods, as they gifted him with a chiseled jaw and charming features. Glasses sat upon the bridge of his nose, though I knew that they were for aesthetic purposes only. Our Sahanian lineage granted us heightened senses that worked perfectly for the duration of our lifespans.
“Your Highness.” Kyp bowed deeply. I was honored to see that being amongst the humans had not entirely damaged his manners. “You are a long way from home.”
“Indeed I am,” I replied sternly. “The situation on New Sahana does not look prosperous. I have come to this planet to seek temporary refuge and to find a way to free our people.”
Kyp Soval’s posture tightened, and he nodded tersely. “Please, come inside. You and your friends are most welcome here.”
Kyp stepped aside and allowed us entry into his office or, as we discovered, his home. It was clear to me that Kyp did not actually have a place of his own here, though I suspected that was entirely by his own choice. The tales I knew of his heroics swore that he preferred to work for as long as he could until he could no longer keep his eyes open. It was not a lifestyle I would recommend, although Kyp Soval seemed to manage this just fine.
My suspicions and the stories were confirmed when I spotted a small cot with a kettle beside it. No doubt its contents was tea brewed from the luxurious blue lumis leaves of Alkahan. That was a scent that I knew all too well. Beyond that, small artifacts from our home were scattered throughout the layout of his office. It all combined together, and for the first time in a long time, I felt as though I were truly at home.
“Please, sit,” Kyp Soval offered, and my friends and I obliged. There were a few floor cushions, s’heteth, that surrounded a low table that was customary in New Sahana. When Kyp joined us, he looked troubled and poured us some of the blue lumis tea that had been brewed.
“I have been waiting for some time to talk to you, Your Highness,” Kyp Soval revealed. “I am sorry that it took us so long to finally meet.”
“Your apology is not necessary,” I assured him, “though I am quite curious both what it is that you wished to speak to me about and why it was you delayed this meeting for so long.”
“To be honest, Your Highness,” he began in measured words, “I believe that you and I have similar hopes for our conversation… and it is my fear that you may not, which made me also dread this day.”
After Kyp poured the last of the tea, he set it down in the center of the table, then folded his hands in his lap as we took our first sips. Ah, it was as delightful as I remembered it to be, and I was thrilled that I was able to share it with my friends, a thrill that served to moderate the anxiety that was growing in the pit of my stomach.
“Is that so?” I inquired as I politely placed my hands in my lap.
“Indeed, I wish to have your permission to remain here instead of returning home.”
Kyp’s request was straightforward, and my heart sank in an instant. Perhaps coming here had been a mistake after all.
16
Another week had come and gone, and I finally felt as though things were starting to mellow out. None of us had been out on a call since the night we apprehended Diamond, and I had fallen into a routine with my meditation.
I’d gotten to the point of being able to imagine the field without physically being in its presence. Through rigorous testing each day, I found that my ability to maintain and control my power was increasing little by little each time that I found that sweet silence of peace within my meditated state. Though the added duration of my power-up was slight, I found out that I was also shaving a bit more time off of my cooldown period before I could summon up my power again. Though one could argue a twenty-hour cooldown wasn’t much better than a full day, to me, that was a huge difference. I was looking forward to when I could finally test it out in a practical situation, but for now, I was content with the inner knowledge that I was making a difference and bettering myself.
But despite calls and meditation, I still had to attend class. I was looking forward to today’s rescue class that City Master had set up in the gym. Though rescues didn’t dominate this semester’s curriculum, it didn’t leave it either. After all, a hero’s first job was saving lives. As usual, one of the many Adelaide Joneses was the rescue guinea pig. This time, she was hanging above a pit of poisonous sludge that produced toxic gas, or so that was the setup. Adelaide was never in any real danger, and even if she was, she always knew how to get herself out of it.
As she swung from the cage, she mock-gagged and overplayed her part as usual, but I had to laugh because the Brand kids were certainly not used to her kind of dramatics. I would have thought they would be, given their mighty Lord Inferno and his love for flair and drama, but they were not nearly as amused as the Valcav kids.
“Oof, tough crowd,” Adelaide noted before she went back to simply lying on her back in the cage she was trapped in. “Oh, no. Save me. I’m dying.”
“Adelaide, please,” City Master commented and pinched the bridge of his nose, though it was easy to tell that he was also rather amused by her antics. He then turned his attention to the class, specifically the Brand kids.
“I know we’ve done a couple of these exercises already, but I want to reiterate that the focus of being a hero is to save people. Now--” City Master started but was immediately interrupted.
“What if there are people that don’t want to be saved?” The question came from Cisco Romani, a shorter boy with black hair that hung in his face. His arms were crossed, and he wore a black coat over his uniform. He was definitely a charmer but seemed well respected amongst his peers, as they all looked to him then back to City Master. While I hadn’t seen him at the World’s Finest, I had a feeling that he was someone to keep an eye on.
“What a dumb question,” Matt sniffed and rolled his eyes.
“You were like that no so long ago yourself,” Kara reminded him cooly. He backed off, a chastised frown on his lips as he awaited City Master’s answer.
“It is unfortunate that, as heroes, we do run into those that don’t want to be saved, or so they claim,” the headmaster responded carefully. “In those instances, your focus remains the same: getting them to safety. If they still feel that way, be it from suicidal tendencies or other reasons, talk to them. Heroics aren’t always about dramatic saves and massive explosions. That doesn’t always save the masses. Sometimes, we must concentrate on saving one life, and that’s enough. If you can’t take the time to be the hero everyone needs, then you are not a hero. You are a showoff.”
The Brand kids seemed perturbed by City Master’s answer, and a lot of them shifted from foot to foot uncomfortably. There were no follow-up questions, so City Master continued.
“Your goal today is t
o save the victim before she dies from inhaling too much poisonous gas or before the cage falls,” he explained. “Normally, you would partner up and switch between being the hero or the villain. For the purpose of today’s exercise, though, I would like the Valcav students to be the villains and the Brand students to play the part of the heroes.”
This was nothing particularly new to us, but the Brand students seemed put off by the idea. The reaction didn’t deter City Master, though, and he paired everyone off one by one.
“Mr. Maneru, Mr. Barbur, you’ll be first.”
Niji looked at Matt from across the room and stared as if he had just been drenched with ice-cold water before he tore his eyes away from him. If Matt noticed, he didn’t verbally acknowledge it. Instead, he glanced back and kept his head down low.
“Miss Maneru and Miss Barbur, second. Miss Clover and Miss Johnson, third,” City Master continued to list off names until he finally got down to me.
“Mr. Romani and Mr. Gateon, you will be the last to go.”
I looked around to catch Cisco’s eye and flashed him a smile. The Brand kids might still be a bit off-base when it came to heroics, but this whole exchange program was about building bridges, right? All I got was a sneer in return. Akemi elbowed him sharply when she noticed, and he bowed his head apologetically.
Amazing. Cisco Romani was the first person from Inferno Island to not worship the ground I walked on. In truth, I could respect that.
While everyone else took a seat on the floor, Matt entered the course to get his customary five-minute head start to set up whatever traps or foils he could for Niji. The sludge pit was at the heart of a multi-level mock-up of an industrial complex, suitably warped as per City Master’s usual standards. That left plenty of opportunities for traps, trickery, and confusion if Matt set things up well.
As we waited, Kara plopped down beside me while Kristen stretched and did her warm-up routine. She never missed a chance to bring her A-game, and I knew today would be no different, especially going up against Akemi. Though she hadn’t fought her one-on-one, I bet Kristen wanted to have a go with her after how Akemi’s battle with Matt went in the World’s Finest.
Matt’s time quickly came and went, and Niji entered the rescue course. Niji was more of a trickster hero in the sense that he wasn’t physically oriented, either in his training or in his powers. He had to rely solely on his wits and his physical mimicry to outsmart his enemy.
I knew Matt had worked with him once already on their first ride-along with my father, so maybe he had an upper hand that we didn’t know about, experience in what Niji could do from their work together. On the other hand, you could say the same about Niji. He was a cheeky one, but I had a sneaking suspicion that there was more to him than just a flamboyant attitude.
It wasn’t long before he had tripped one of Matt’s traps as he made a beeline for the cage that Adelaide was trapped in, a path that led up a wide set of industrial metal stairs. There was an audible click when Niji’s foot went down on a step, and a large pipe opened up at the top of the stairs. A loud rattle and clang echoed through the room as a giant boulder dropped out of the pipe and onto the stairs, rolling right towards Niji. Panic flashed in his eyes at first, but then they were calm and collected and vaguely familiar. No, very familiar.
“Matt!” Kristen’s voice rang out as the boulder came closer, and Niji’s form became identical to that of Matt’s sister.
I wasn’t sure where Matt had been hiding or if he had seen the change, but I knew what had gone through his head as soon as he saw his sister standing in the way of the boulder without any means of escaping. He didn’t see through Niji’s facade, and I winced as he blew his cover to swoop in and save the fake Kristen.
“Matt, no!” The real Kristen had stopped her warm-ups and ran towards the simulation. City Master was quick to derail her, though, and held her back. I winced when I heard the desperation in her voice. “Let go!”
While City Master didn’t understand Kristen’s concern, I knew exactly why she was so upset. It wasn’t that Niji had used her likeness, rather, it was that he had manipulated Matt. He’d gotten inside of his head in a similar way that Brad had at the beginning of the school year.
But while I understood it, at the same time, there was no way Niji could have known about that, right? I was sure he didn’t mean it, but then again, these were the Brand kids we were talking about. They played ruthlessly under the rule of Lord Inferno. Maybe he had done it intentionally after all.
Kristen’s warning was obviously absorbed by the rescue arena’s soundproof walls even as it echoed shrilly through the gym. Inside the arena, the action continued on without pause as Matt sprang down from the catwalk he had been lurking on, full wolf mode activated as he swooped the sister lookalike off her feet and back to safety on the opposite catwalk. While it was impressive that he had maintained that much of his humanity in full beast mode, I feared for what he would do when he realized that Kristen wasn’t really in danger and he had been manipulated by a Brand student.
In the cage, Adelaide watched the scene play out in silence, unsure if she should intervene. She remained still, fixated on it as the rest of us and waiting with bated breath to see what would happen next.
Slowly, Niji’s features twisted back into his own, and Matt came to the realization that he had been led on. A pained, angry howl tore out of his muzzle, and before Niji could even flinch, Matt lashed out with his claws. The Brand student let out a cry of pain and fear as he fell backward in an attempt to get away from the furious wolfman.
“You have to stop him!” Akemi stood abruptly and marched over to City Master. “He’s going to kill my brother!”
“Not if I get to him first,” Kristen growled, and her fingers twitched at her sides. I felt the heat rolling off of her from where Kara and I sat.
“Over my dead body, bitch,” Akemi retorted, and she reared her crystallized arm back to launch a devastating punch. My instincts kicked in, and I was on my feet and pulling her away from Kristen before Kara could even get my name off her tongue to warn me.
“Take a walk, Akemi,” I told her, and she snarled as she struggled in my grasp. Her eyes were redder than I’d ever seen them before. She looked downright vicious, not unlike Matt did, and she didn’t have the excuse of his feral powers that made him more savage.
“You stupid little orphan!” Akemi spat at Kristen.
“I said take a walk, Akemi! That is an order!” I didn’t want to pull rank on her as Lord Inferno’s son, but I had to protect Kristen from her… and vice versa. After all, I completely believed Kristen when she said she could pull the iron out of someone’s blood with her powers. There was no way I would let Akemi’s defensiveness over her brother or Kristen’s anger over Niji’s deception put everyone in a bad position.
As it was, things were already looking pretty rough. I turned Akemi around and faced her towards the door to the gym.
“Don’t think I won’t tell my father about your insolence.” My tone was cold then, so much that I didn’t even recognize myself. It didn’t matter, because the threat worked, and Akemi stormed out of the gym like a frenzied whirlwind. Satisfied, I turned back to the rest of the Brand students who eyed me with mild horror.
“I’ll have a go at anyone that thinks the only way to solve problems is through violence. You might have learned that from being taught under my father’s name, but he was once a greater man than he has become.” The room fell pin-drop silent as I continued my speech. “You’re all so quick to end your problems by using force, but why? What does it solve? Does it make you feel good to cause people pain because you hurt? Is that what it is? Don’t you want to escape pain? Isn’t that why you’re heroes? So that you can take that pain and maybe save a life with it?”
I stopped and caught my breath. My chest heaved as I looked out at the faces of my peers. Kristen looked like she was about to burst into tears, a little chastised by my speech as well, and Kara rushed to her side and s
moothed the hair out of her face.
It was then that Niji and Matt had returned with Adelaide, but the lesson had long since been forgotten about, and their fight had been for naught. However, that didn’t mean that there wasn’t a fight at all. On the contrary, Niji had several long surface gashes on his arms, likely from trying to shield his face and neck, because taking the form of Kristen was more than a little ballsy.
Matt, on the other hand, looked as though he was working through some shit in his mind. He kept his eyes closed tight as he tried to steady his breathing. Whatever happened in there, it ended with a high amount of emotions.
Adelaide grinned, though that wasn’t abnormal for her. She was the type to laugh in the face of danger most of the time.
“I darn well needed to save myself, so I could stop these boys,” she declared, clearly not reading the tension in the room.
“You raise a fair point,” City Master intervened and waved Adelaide off. It was probably for the best that he did. Otherwise, I would have kept going, and I could only imagine where that rant would have ended up. It probably would have sounded something like the interview I did with Margo, where I spilled my heart out over several cups of coffee.
“Tell me, Mr. Gateon, if you were in a situation similar to the one Miss Barbur and Miss Maneru were just in, how would you have reacted differently?” City Master posed the question and waited patiently for an answer.
I pondered over it for a moment before I spoke slowly. “If it were me, I would have faith if ever I were put into that situation that I would make the best choice I could.”
“And what does that mean to you, Mr. Gateon?” City Master pressed, and I thought I knew where he was trying to take this lesson.
“When you’re in the heat of the moment, it’s easy to give in to the quickest way possible,” I started. “You’re filled with emotion, and you want to lash out, whether it’s fighting a villain or whatever the case may be.” I shook my head. “The truth is that there is always a choice. The same can be said for being a hero. Killing doesn’t stop the crime. Someone else will likely be around to commit it again, and then what? You kill everyone who commits a crime? There would be no one left. We are heroes, not gods.”
