P - O - W - L - F - I - E - L - D
The best thing about these clear platforms were how easy they were to maneuver. The bad thing was attempting those cool tricks that Tippe kept on showing off. She would do amazing at those skating competitions if she was living at Second Earth. We were in a secluded area now behind dark red buildings. It was almost like a back alley, but much cleaner.
"Hobey, how and where did you learn those tricks, Tippe?" Spader asked whilst Tippe proceeded to ride the platform over the wall.
"Lots and lots of practice!" Tippe giggled. "You guys don't have anything like these back home, do you?"
"Only if we imagined it in my world." Aja said. "But not for me personally."
"We do, but on boards that we can see," I said. "We have surfboards that are meant for the water, skateboards that have wheels on them that can be ridden on hard ground, and snowboards in the winter."
"Everything's on water back on Cloral." Spader said.
"Wow.. that sounds wicked! Well, we can't stay here for too long." Tippe hopped off her platform to make it ours reappear again with her clicker.
Who knew that zooming down on a clear platform could be fun. Even though they didn't have regular cars like back home, most people just walked from place to place. I guess not everyone is immune to motion-sickness on Powlfield. The clear platform boards weren't the only mode of mobile transportation, Tippe explained how over shallow waters people would float above on what to us would sound like hovercrafts only that they didn't fly very high for safety reasons, and occasionally we would see a person riding on unicycles..
Another thing was that since the sky was purple, it would seem like it was night time back on Second Earth, but we could at least see everything without streetlights, I wasn't sure how that was possible until I looked down at my feet. The roads were glowing crystal yellow! I pointed it out to Spader and Aja who didn't (well, Spader at least) notice.
Tippe noticing our lack of attention ahead of us merely said that the roads were made of a special material to almost glow in the dark, but couldn't elaborate anymore on it. It was little things like this that made this place seem like a dream world, but then again, Cloral was the ultimate sea world and Veelox was the closest to ever being a real dream world. I looked at Aja saddened at how it seemed like we had saved her territory until the very end, and now she can't even call that place her home anymore.
"I must take you guys on the Yordel ride, but it's not open today." Noticing our lack of response she added, "It's at the Bovel Hall, where many games and joy rides take place at, and the Yordel is the scariest joy ride ever!"
Oh I get it, it's an amusement park. Spader seemed excited, but Aja seemed pained, after we stopped again at another unknown place she ushered me aside. "Pendragon, listen." She sighed. "If all we are doing here is sight seeing and joy riding then I don't think I can stay here." Huh? Aja wanted to leave before we got situated. This was not cool, but this was Aja, all work and no play. "Look, we're travelers and we should be working to find the turning point, not playing games."
What was I suppose to say? Yeah, we're not here for play, we're merely getting use to how things work around here. But I never got to say it.
"Listen Tippe," Aja went up to Tippe who was talking with Spader. "I didn't come here to go on joy rides, there were more than enough of those back on Veelox." She then turned to face me. "We should be putting our heads together and working on saving Powlfield, which I'm assuming needs saving."
Tippe merely rose an eyebrow while Spader had a look of shock at her boldness. Now what did I do?
Nothing, not saying I chose to do nothing but Tippe already beat me to the punch.
"Look, Aye-sha, I had a feeling already that you were strictly business," Tippe then smiled before patting Aja's shoulder who flinched away afterward. "And that's great, but how am I going to look if I don't make you guys feel comfortable here beforehand?"
"Like a true traveler." Aja retorted. Ouch. Who's to say she had that power.
"That's harsh of you to say." Spader frowned at her. Tippe didn't seem to mind being told that.
"If it makes you feel better I won't take you to Bovel Hall," Tippe shrugged. "I wasn't even planning on going since I don't have any money right now, it was merely a wish."
Aja folded her arms in deep thought, hearing nothing but silence Tippe figured it was safe to speak again.
"Well, my place is past this street, but traffic's pretty high, so we'll take a shortcut." Tippe motioned us to follow her. We cut into another alley in between a yellow and green building, where there was a long narrow pathway of the familiar white grass. On the side showed a broken board that read "Keep out". I stared at it whilst following.
"Is this area safe?" I asked.
"Well, this is my third time taking this way home and nothing's happened yet!" I almost believed her, but I had a very slight feeling of dread. Unfortunately, this comes with being a traveler, so I couldn't help but feel even more cautious. It took a solid five minutes before the narrow pathway opened up larger showing many pink colored trees. Yep, pink trees, the leaves were white like the grass below my feet. Distracted by the new sight I didn't notice that the others weren't continuing straight.
"How much longer, Tippe?" I asked. I didn't hear any response. I looked ahead where they were beforehand, only to find myself alone. Great.
"Spader? Aja?" I called out while walking in random directions. Suddenly this shortcut felt more like a maze. I was starting to get nervous until I heard a voice, almost like a child's voice. But that's not the only thing I heard, I had to stop in my tracks to hear a very distant humming noise, following by a vibration on my chest. Feeling my shirt I had to dig inside to find a tiny pill sized pill. I put it by my ear since well, I wasn't going to eat something that hummed and buzzed.
"BOBBY!" I flinched at the shrieking noise. It was definitely Tippe's voice.
"Hello?" I asked after the pain subsided. How about that, the pill was like a portable phone.
"Oh there you are, Pendragon." Tippe replied. "Stay right where you are, we're coming back for you."
"Alright, then." I put the pill back in the inside of the shirt where the only pocket was at. I sat down on the grass waiting, not that long actually. It was a solid ten seconds before I could see the familiar bright pink hair approaching.
"There you are!" Spader called out. Aja sighed in relief along with Tippe.
"You worried us, Pendragon." Aja said.
"Okay, okay we found Bobby, now let's get home before Judy gets angry with me." Tippe said laughing.
"Who's Judy?" Aja asked.
"My caretaker, she's like an Aunt." Tippe smiled. She took out the familiar clicker to make our platforms strap to our feet again. "We'll get there much faster with these, and I also added a temporarily auto-pilot to your boards so we won't get lost again."
And so we were zooming again. The longer we road through, the more I began to wonder on how this is meant to be a shortcut if it feels like an eternity to get to her house. Was the main traffic really that bad? I had to take Tippe's word for it, because what happened next prolonged our shortcut again.
We were zooming smoothly over the white grass for a while mainly introducing ourselves and our history to Tippe, when our platforms just like the pill-sized phone I had started to vibrate and slow down with a "hum". At first it was barely audible, but as we kept going the humming got louder, until we couldn't ignore it any longer.
"Uh oh." Tippe finally said. Uh oh? I did not like the sound of that. With amazing speed she got her click out again and without any warning we all fell to the ground. But there was no time to complain as she motioned us quickly from behind one of the last pink trees as we were now in a new alley.
"What's wrong?" Spader whispered hearing nothing.
Tippe pointed out a couple of young kids, who looked to be around Tippe's age, only they had black hair. Nothing unusual about that at least by Second Earth's standards, but I briefly was reminded on the lack of brunettes roaming on Powlfield.
"What's wrong with them? They look normal." Aja said.
"Not on Powlfield. See the thing is around here people with black hair have these special powers," Tippe explained gravely. "Unfortunately, their powers aren't easily controlled and so often chaos happens when they are around this area. That is why our boards were humming, because they could sense danger." Tippe motioned us to keep watching them. Nothing unusual, I thought. They were playing what looked like a game of tag as if they're normal kids. Scratch that, what I saw next changed my whole mind about them. All of a sudden a little green haired kid was walking past them oblivious that they were nearby.
At first I wasn't sure why he looked familiar, but then I remembered him as the little kid back at Grubby's All. I wonder where his parents were.. Suddenly a large boom shook us, except Tippe who I could only guess was use to seeing this. I couldn't believe what just happened, the poor little kid just blew up right in front of our whole eyes.
"Anymore questions?" Tippe asked. I was still stunned by her lack of emotion and reaction to this. All we did was shake our heads. What was more horrible was that the black haired kids were giggling and rolling on the floor as if they had just told a funny joke.
"It's worse," She said to us pointing up. "You already know about the sky."
"Yeah, it's purple." I said.
"Well, that's not good, it's not suppose to be that color." She said. Really? So the violet color sky is considered odd here.
"So what color is it suppose to be?" I asked.
"Pink with a hint of lime-green." She said simply. "At least that's the earliest color I could remember seeing it as." Okay... like that was not an even more weird color.
The little kids later were gone now and the poor remains of the kid were a big pile of ash with a large blood stain that almost floated on the white grass. Two adults; one man with blue hair and the woman with purple hair came. I believe that they were his parents. His mother hunched over the remains on her knees sobbing in her hands while the man looked at the remains as if it would bring back their child.
"C'mon." Tippe replied not wanting us to see anymore, so we left.
"Pendragon, Spader, both your natural hair colors is classified as black in PowlField, and people fear them, hence why I insisted you dye your hair to avoid any conflicts." She explained. "Now let's go to my house, it's just past that river behind the road block, but I can draw the portal from here now."
She acknowledged her chalk again and drew a familiar circle.
"Sorry about the long trip, but the encryption to get the portal to take us directly at my house gets complicated the further away we are from it."
It was right then that I realized that Tippe knew her stuff. After Tippe entered in, I stepped right after her as usual fluming down the mini-portal.
Later the ride was over, I saw again the white world but it faded away in two seconds this time. We were in the middle of what looks like a living room, at least by Second Earth standards. Seeing where I stepped out of was no door but a white pad on the floor, marking our entry point. A little private, but cool. It didn't seem like there was any sign of life in the house.
"Um d'you live here alone?" I asked her.
"Oh no, I have Judy. She's really nice and takes care of me." Tippe said. "I wanted to share my traveler abilities with her, but she assumes it's something I'm dreaming of." Before I could ask anymore Aja and Spader arrived looking dazed as usual but they recovered shortly.
"Nice place." Spader said.
"Thanks, Judy takes care of it well." Tippe replied and then went upstairs so we went to follow her. She led us to her room, when she opened the door it was as if we stepped in another world. For one thing the inside of the house had a shiny wood, brown look but when we stepped in her room it was pink. Like Pepto Bismol pink. It made me feel a little sick and the walls were covered with pictures and posters that moved. Weird eh? Tippe then sat in her chair and took out all of her stuff from her pockets and placed them in a desk drawer before removing her vest jacket which revealing her pink stripped tanktop.
She took a red glove to wear and placed her traveler ring over the index finger of it.
"Oh yeah, I almost forgot." She got up and led us down the hallway and led us to a guest bedroom. There was a bunk bed! Only the beds were shaped like boats, other than that it looked comfy.
"You boys can sleep in here." She went to what I assumed was a closet door to pull out a whole boat shaped bed. Wow, for something that looked heavy, Tippe was carrying it like it was nothing more than a beach ball.
"Aja, you get to stay in my room, I'll set this extra bed there right now." Tippe smiled briefly before frowning at the open window that showed the familiar sky which was turning from violet to a blue."Hmm, it's getting dark."
"How can you tell?" Aja asked very interested.
"When the sky turns bright blue then it's night time, purple means it's day time, remember that." Tippe explained. "Well, night boys, if you need anyone just call Judy, I'll be asleep." Tippe then walked off down to her bedroom with the bed over her shoulder.
"Well, good night guys."
"Good night Pendragon." Aja and Spader replied and after saying our goodnights went to our beds. The guest room room was a sorta dark blue, black tile floors with a couple of windows, desk bed, closet and a sort of screen. I wonder if they have internet access or cable? I could figure that out tomorrow.
Spader already hopped into bed without changing, after checking the closet I changed out of my PowlField day clothes and into the night clothes provided. It had a note attached from Eppate "Night clothes for Spader and Pendragon." I was already liking Eppate now.
I laid in my bed ready for my eyes to close. But it never did. I wasn't really tired surprisingly. I guess when you're use to staying awake when the sky is blue it's hard to imagine it as night time. Or maybe it was jet lag. I got up and decided to walk down to the kitchen for any bed time snacks, if they had any.
Can you believe my luck when I walked down the stairway and what I saw was a black haired girl with deep intensive green eyes.
"Wh-who are you?" Now on Second Earth I don't mind black haired people, but here on Powlfield I would have to think differently after seeing what those kids did to the little boy.
"I'm Lily." She said smoothly, clearly aware of catching me off-guard. "I'm a friend of Tippe, is she here?"
"She's asleep." I replied. But Lily didn't seem to hear me or care as she walked past me up the stairs towards Tippe's room.
I wasn't sure if I should believe her so I followed Lily. I found her in front of the door staring at it
as if waiting for it to open for her. Then she spoke silently, her mouth moving but no sound sounding out when suddenly then the door opened.
"HYAH!" Tippe jumped out of her room with two daggers ready to strike. She had a sorta Loor thing going on.
"Hello, Tippe." Lily said before taking out a weird stick that glimmered but looked deadly. I was too speechless and stunned to move all I did was stand there mouth open staring. Where was Aja and Spader if they didn't already hear Tippe?
"So glad see you again, been a while, but that'll be your downfall!" Lily said threatening and then attacked.
I sure hoped Tippe was as strong as Loor, because this could get deadly.
AN: Like the new addition to this chapter? This re-writing is now more than just a fixing of grammar.