Chapter Text
It’s a peaceful Saturday morning. Or at least, it was.
“Hey! Hunter! Are you ready for our mission today?” The muffled voice of my friend; Alexander, breaks the thick silence by staring up at the ceiling on my bed.
“Yup. What time are we leaving again?” I ask as I sit up in my bed, stretching my arms up until I hear the usual pop of my shoulders.
“Uh…” Alexander says, and I hear the quiet beep of him looking at his wrist band. “We have to leave in about 20 minutes!” he says cheerfully, and my eyes widen in shock. “W-Why didn’t you tell me that sooner!?” I throw the door open to stare at him, in all his bright and sunny glory.
“I was taking a nap.” He shrugs, all nonchalant, as if we weren’t about to risk our lives doing who knows what. I glare at him with a scowl.
“You’re impossible.”
He grins confidently. “I will take that as a compliment,” he states, and then strides away.
I walk back into my room, grabbing my pocket watch and a few other objects I would need. I reach over to my night stand to grab my sword with one hand, but I grabbed at empty air. “...oh right. Need to head to the armory,” I sigh, “more chores.”
I turn to look at myself in the mirror, leaning on the table the mirror was on as I stare at myself. My pale face stares back at me, the forever bags under my eyes noticeable. I swear, I do sleep, hell I have a better sleep schedule than half the people here, but they never go away. I rub my face, and run my hands through my hair to try and tame my bed head, which didn’t work too well. I groan, and stand up, grabbing my coat and pulling it on along with my shoes before walking out of my room, shutting the door behind me.
The hallway is bright, sunlight pouring through the windows lining the wall opposite to my door. It was early morning, the sun still rising, letting the light directly come through the windows. I squint slightly and then rub my eyes, adjusting to the light as I start to walk down the hall, my hands in my pockets as I wrap my right hand around the pocket watch that’s always in my pocket; the cool yet warm feeling of the otherworldly metal against my hand comforting.
As I keep walking down the hall, past doors on doors that house others who live here, each door is as unique as the people living in each one.
“Let’s see..Val, Ark, Tea…” I list names as I pass the doors. “Aha, here we go.” I say as I turn a corner into a huge room that looks like a foyer, the ceiling stretching up high with a stained glass ceiling.
On the ground are many more halls, with creatures of all shapes and sizes walking around. There was a huge spiral ramp leading up with other paths coming off around, with more halls as they went up, leading out to more rows of doors.
There were about 6 floors of these halls, I was on the 4th floor. I slowly start the walk down, people walking past me and around, some greeting me and others avoiding.
After a few minutes of walking, I reach the bottom floor, which is an airport-like area, with the bottom floor’s doorways leading to portal-like gateways that had a bar over them with a computer screen on the side. I grab my wallet from my pocket, taking my passport out and showing it to the computer as I walk to one of the gates. The computer beeps, and the light on it turns from red to green as the bar lifts and the gateway activates.
I step through, and for a split second my vision goes black and everything feels like it’s spinning; after that, I step out in a whole new place. The sunlight blinds me and I put a hand over my eyes as I squint and blink rapidly.
My eyes adjust to the harsh light slowly as I look around. I’m now in another area that looks like a small sun shelter in a large field, similar to a summer camp with picnic tables under the sun shelter, some empty, others with boxes of supplies, ranging from simple art supplies to swords and bundles of arrows. There are other people walking around, mostly younger kids, holding weapons and such. The area around the sun shelter is varying. There’s a firing range, where some kids are testing bows and other long range weapons, a makeshift training arena made of stones stacked on top of one another into a barrier around it. Inside are training dummies made of a variety of materials, some kids attacking the dummies, or sparring with wooden weapons together. There are also areas for painting, for whittling, for climbing and navigating, you name it, there’s an area for it.
“There you are, about time!” Alexander says, drawing my attention away from looking around as he walks over to me from his spot sitting on top of one the empty tables. I look over at my very bright and cheerful friend, and crack a small smile.
“Yeah yeah, it takes a while to travel without using your powers,” I reply, “I understand why they banned powers in buildings though, too much destruction from newbies.” Alexander nods in agreement. I say, “Also, nice area you’ve built. Really going for the fun summer camp vibes, eh?”
Alexander nods. “Yeah, I thought that if I was going to work with poor kids who had lost so much I should at least give them something happy to look forward to experiencing, while also training their gifts,” he replies and I hum in agreement. “That’s really kind, and smart. Didn’t think you’d have that in you.”
“C’mon, you really think all I do is be rude with Koa 24/7?” Alexander says, and starts to walk. “Follow me.”
I nod and start to walk beside him as we walk past all different areas, some recreational, others training. “I remember when I helped you train here,” Alexander says.
“When it was still a dump?” I tease.
“Oh please, that was 2 years ago. Look how far it’s come since then!” He responds, ever cheerful.
We keep walking through the camp for a few minutes, until we reach a more deserted point. Alexander taps his watch, and a hologram pops up on it. “Aha. Here we go, ready? Everything packed?” he asks.
As I am about to nod, I freeze. “...I forgot to get my sword from the armory on the way here.”
“...well. That’s not good.” Alexander’s eyes widened, “And it’s kind of too late to go back and get it.”
“You think? We have less than 5 minutes to get to our mission!” I scowl. “And I know it’s too late to go back! Can I just borrow one of your weapons?” Alexander nods, grabbing one of the swords sheathed on his belt and unclips it, handing it to me. I nod in thanks and take it, clipping it onto my belt. “This should work.” I hum. “Let’s go.”
Alexander nods, and then taps his watch, a dot glowing on the screen as he points his wrist to an empty space in front of us, and then flicks his finger off in that direction, sending the light gathering on the glowing screen out into that area where it turned into a portal-like gateway that looked like a mirror, which led to a dense and dark forest on the other side.
“So that’s where we have to go? Looks pretty spooky, I like it.” I step in without a second thought, and I feel a sudden weightlessness as my vision goes black. My vision fades back in as I feel the ground beneath my feet. It’s surprisingly mushy and the air was hot and humid. I step out of the way as Alexander walks out after me, the portal closing behind us.
“Oh, gross, it’s so humid! This is more like a swamp than a forest, yuck!” Alexander says, gagging as he pulls his shirt away from his neck, using his hand like a fan. “How are you still in a sweater? This is unbearable!!”
I bark out a laugh. “Oh please. It isn’t hot.”
“NOT HOT??” he groans. “I am dying over here in just a shirt and shorts! And you’re in jeans and a coat! A leather coat!” Alexander gestures to me, exasperated.
I chuckle. “It’s barely hot here. Just a little humid.”
“Oh, whatever. Let’s go find what’s causing this place to need a mission.” Alexander nudges the green and purple vines covering the surrounding forest with his foot and says, “Bet this is the problem, and what is making the place so swampy and humid.”
I nod in agreement. “Definitely. This place doesn’t look right with those vines, the report said it was a dry and pretty sparse forest. Not like this, like a jungle,” I say and Alexander nods as well.
“Then let’s do this,” he says and starts walking through the forest, and I follow right behind him as we walk, avoiding the suspicious vines as we go.
“So what else did the report say about this place? I mean it’s gotta be pretty serious if we have to go, of all people.” I ask, and Alexander shrugs.
“Just something about the possibility of someone dangerous.”
“Oh wow, very detailed.” I say sarcastically. “Whatever, let’s get this over with.” We kept trudging through the forest, as it got more tangled and dense as we walked, the vines covering every surface, making it harder and harder to traverse across.
“Ew, these vines are so nasty! Some of them even have thorns in them, and I’ve gotten so many scratches and stabs and it hurts!” Alexander whines. “I want to get this over with and go home to a nice bubble bath.”
“Oh shut up, golden boy,” I say.
“Hey! Rude.”
“How? Your hair is literally bright yellow and you’re like the ultimate dumb blonde.”
“Why does everyone bully me…?”
“You’re an idiot.”
“And you’re a little kid.”
“I am 15. You’re 23. You’re old.”
Alexander scowls. I laugh and then walk off expertly through the forest, him clumsily following behind, hitting and running into branches as he goes. “How do you make this look so easy?”
“Skills. And y’know, being small,” I reply, weaving through the branches as he follows. “Maybe try climbing? You’re good at hopping between branches and more aerial stuff right?” I offer.
“Oh you’re right! Smart thinking.” Alexander climbs into the tree and jumps between branches, suddenly moving a lot faster. “Catch up!” he teases and I scoff, taking off running on the forest floor, both of us going a lot faster than before.
A couple minutes later, we reach a clearing where it seems the vines are conjoined into something that looks like a pod.
“What is that??” I gag. It smells awful, like rotting flesh. The pod is green, with a dark purple pulsing ball in the centre with the vines climbing and twining all around it. It's the size of a grown man and seems to have some kind of living being in it, and it gives off an eerie light that lights up the area in the purple hue.
“Oh ew, look at this! There are bones all around it!” Alexander points them out. They’re littering the ground, some as small as a mouse, to even a few human bones lying around in the darker corners that weren’t lit up by the purple light.
“Do we have to kill that thing?” I question. “It looks impossible to kill. How can you even kill it? Would you have to cut all the branches of vines or something?”
Alexander shrugs in response to my question. “We’ll have to see. We can start by stabbing it.” He creeps closer and drops down to the ground silently, unsheathing one of his swords slowly.
“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” I ask in concern.
“What’s the worst that could happen?” He says and then holds the sword above his head, and drives it down into the pod.
And then, all hell breaks loose in the forest.