Ghost One's POV
I watch Zakos open the pod where my body had been perfectly preserved in ice, and I look down at Adam. "You're not really going to let him get away with this, are you?" I asked.
I don't really have a choice. He says. I'm trapped here. I lean against the counter. "You always have a choice. You had a choice to screw up today on the job, to bait your father into sentencing you to death, to do it in Zakos's earshot so you'd end up here…"
I was afraid you were already gone. I couldn't think of anything else. I ran out of hope, figured I was going to lose you anyway, and we could at least -
"See each other one last time?" I say, flashing a cocky grin. I'd been inside Adam's head so long, I sort of knew how he felt about me. His feelings were buried in confusion, but then again, so were mine.
"That's sweet." I replied, and Adam was bound in a chair, connected to Zako's console by a bunch of wires and cables. The machine that will plug him back into my consciousness is already humming. "The parameters are in place." Zakos says excitedly, gesturing towards a syringe on a tray of tools.
Zakos approaches Adam and holds his left hand against the arm of the chair. "Now!" I yell, and Adam jerks his hand loose from Zakos's grip and grabs one of the syringes and stabs it into his throat. He punches Adam desperately, making contact with his face, but it's too late, he's injected all of the liquid in the syringe.
He staggers back in a woozy daze, the drugs making their way into his system and falls to the floor. "Why…?" he says, puzzled. "What could you possibly hope to accomplish…"
He falls unconscious, and as Adam goes to free the last keeper that's alive, locking the door, I feel a strange energy coursing through me. Although I was dead, I could feel my body calling out to my very soul.
Zakos's machine hums, I began to convulse vigorously, and next to me, Adam does as well. "What's going on!?" Malcolm yells, and I could feel my soul rip away from Adam's body and go into my own body.
I open my own eyes and realize I'm looking up at the ceiling. I'm somehow back in my own body, and I can feel the hole in my sternum regenerate rapidly, turning into a scar. I'm alive! I think in absolute disbelief.
I use my telekinesis to rip away the door to my pod and ran over to Adam, who's eyes were wide with shock. "How?!" Adam exclaimed, looking dumbstruck.
"Z-Zakos's machine, it must've malfunctioned, putting your consciousness back into your own body, but the way your wound healed itself… I've never seen anything like it." Malcolm says, sounding perplexed.
"A new Legacy… it has to be." I realized. "But forget about it for now. We have to get out of this place, I'll be damned if I let the Mogs kill me a second time."
We hear the unmistakable sound of Mogadorians attempting to break down the door. Suddenly, I feel the ground rumbling at our feet, but it's not coming from me. The door is snapped off the hinges, and the Mogadorians began to rush through the door. I glanced over to Adam, and cracks spread across his feet, generating a huge fissure, causing the nearby Mogadorians to fall into the ground, turning to ash.
"No way!" Adam exclaimed. "I did that?!"
"Whatever the bastard did, it must've linked us together. My Legacy… you have it too." I realized, but I knew he didn't take my Legacy permanently, I could still feel it's energy flowing through me. It makes sense… my earthquake Legacy was the first Legacy that I had developed before I died, and it took my consciousness coming back to my body for me to wake up, and I would've died again if it weren't for my new regeneration Legacy.
"Together this time, let's bring this whole damn building down on their heads!" I declared, looking over to Adam, and the two of us raise our feet together."
The both of us stomp the ground, and seismic waves erupt from our feet. The whole building is quaking and I can feel the structure collapsing. A piece of the wall cracks behind us, revealing the sunlight. We run out of it and don't turn back for miles.
We've been traveling for days, heading west. We make our way on foot through forests pastures and farmland, traveling mostly at night to escape detection. We're heading west, trying to get as far away from Ashwood Estates as possible.
Adam and I fill Malcolm in about everything that happened until this point. When Adam told him that he was a Mogadorian, he laughs. He was in absolute disbelief about what had happened to me, and to be honest, so was I. I was dead, I knew it for sure, it was the only reason they were able to kill two. If I hadn't died, the others would've been protected by the charm, but they weren't.
The three of us get into a routine, sleeping during the day and walking by night. Being physically there and by Adam's side made all of this better, but I've been inside his head for six years, I knew how he felt about me – but it was weird. Although I should be twenty years old, my body was that of a fifteen year old girl. It tangled up my feelings, and although Adam didn't say it, I knew that it was weird for him as well.
Training takes my mind off of everything. Malcolm or Adam had no experience with Legacies, but I did. Although I slacked off on my training, I knew the ropes. My earthquake generation Legacy is powerful, but I had no idea how to control it well yet, and it exhausted me quickly.
In today's training session, Malcolm takes position on the other side of the field, and he's set pebbles on top of the fence posts running the distance between us. The goal is to not knock down the pebbles and get the seismic wave to him. At first, both of us have terrible precision, I knock down damn near every pebble the first time, reaching Malcolm easily, but losing the challenge.
On Adam's first time, he doesn't put enough power into it, not getting all the way there. After that, I practiced my telekinesis, building up it's strength by lifting heavy boulders. Hilde always told me that using my telekinesis is like flexing a muscle, and the strength of my telekinesis would eventually surpass my physical strength.
Eventually, we're both able to control our tremors with pinpoint accuracy. Adam was able to win the game we've created first, to my irritation. It wasmyLegacy, I should've mastered it first, but it's the only Legacy he has to focus on, I focused on my telekinesis as well, but once I saw him get it down, I put everything I had into it – exhausting myself from overusing my Legacy, but I beat our little game.
Our route through the country becomes a zigzagging path, designed to evade the Mogadorians. "Where are we going" I asked, wondering if Malcolm had a destination in mind. "My son, hes back in Paradise Ohio, it's only a day or two from here. He's one of the things that aren't fuzzy, his name is Sam."
"But our path, it's been so random." Adam says. "I'm still trying to keep the Mogadorians off our tail, we need to keep evading detection. You both don't have to come with me, it's dangerous. The Mogadorians could be waiting for us."
I remember the day I left Lorien, how I saw my parents and grandparents die right in front of me, dying to protect me. "Kids need their parents, I'm coming with you." I say seriously. "Besides, with your faulty memory, who's to say you even remember where your house is."
"I agree, let's go." Adam pipes up.
Paradise, Ohio is a small town, and it looks boring as hell compared to California. I couldn't live in a place like this, not enough going on – but then again, getting into trouble got me killed, maybe a place like this would be good for me. I found out when we go to Paradise that the day that Hilde had used for my birthday had passed. Physically, I'm sixteen now, give or take.
We walk for a mile through the trees, and Adam asks what he's like. "He's a great kid, but he isn't a kid anymore, he could've changed with me being gone, it's enough to change anyone. I just need to see him, to know that he's okay. The three of us are marked for death by the Mogs, and I need to see him at least once. After that…." his voice trails off.
"We run." I continue, and Malcolm nods. "It won't be safe for us to stick around."
We walk a while longer, and I see a house up ahead, through the trees. "We're here." he says. As we walk, I look down and see some scorched earth and fallen trees, there had to been a battle here recently. "The Mogadorians have been here." Adam says, but he's already racing ahead towards his house.
Adam and I exchange looks and run after him. When Malcolm runs up to the house's side door, a shocked looking woman comes out and he begins to talk to her, asking her questions. She slaps him, and Malcolm just stands there. "Where were you?!" she yells, sobbing.
We wait as Malcolm goes inside with the woman for an hour now, and I'm hoping that the worst hadn't happened. Malcolm then emerges from the house and walks over to us. "Come."
We follow him across the backyard to a large stone well. We climb down it, and a lamp lights up the room, and I see a massive skeleton, with blonde hair growing out of his skull and a big amulet that looked similar to my own pendant. "That skeleton, he's Loric!" I realized. "Who is he?"
"I don't know…" he says. "My wife saw Sam with some other kids; she said there was a battle. By what she described, those other kids had to be members of the Garde." he says, and a chill runs down my spine. The Garde was here!
"In my absence, I guess he took up my cause, and wound up in the battle with Mogs and now… he's gone. My son Sam is gone." Malcolm says, a haunting look on his face.
Malcolm's wife won't let him in the house again, so we camped out in the underground bunker. It was tough trying to sleep knowing an eight foot tall Loric skeleton was staring at me. Malcolm explained that his wife is crushed with grief at Sam disappearance.
"It was my fault. I was so excited to make contact with the Loric. I didn't even consider what a risk I would put my family in. Before I could do anything to protect them, it was too late." he says sadly. "If it weren't for you Greeters, we wouldn't have any guidance on this planet. It would've been much harder for us to survive." I try to console him, but it doesn't do much.
"Malcolm." Adam begins. "I think I know where your son is."
We're in a storage facility on the outskirts of Paradise, and there's an old Chevy Rambler covered in dust, and Malcolm explained that he'd paid for the storage space years in advance. "Your memory is improving." Adam says, he's been helping Malcolm recover his memory.
"Yeah, must be all your annoying quizzes." he laughs. He turns to the car's glove compartment, pulling out a pair of prescription glasses. He wipes the dusty lenses and slips them over his eyes. "It's been so long since I've seen clearly."
"No wonder you thought Adam was a human, you can't see for shit." I joke, and Malcolm chuckled. "Shotgun." I called, hopping in the passenger seat of the car, and Adam groans as he hops in the back. Malcolm slips into the driver's seat and we head for New Mexico.