As I felt my consciousness drift back into my body, I felt my heavy eyelids lifting lazily, my sight unfocused. I sat up in my bed, the surroundings dark and blue. The sun that had spilled through the small circular window before was gone, and no sign of Dylan's presence was around anywhere.
I got out of bed as I rubbed the sand out of my eyes. I hadn't undressed before I had gone to sleep, making my clothes extra warm and comfortable. I walked up to the door and opened it, hearing the slight wooden creak it made, feeling the early night breeze brush upon my face. My hair disheveled and clothes wrinkled, I walked out to the outside of the slowly rocking ship against the gliding sea to find Dylan on the side of the ship, standing stationary against the moving waves.
The moon shone in its gibbous state high in the sky, the accompanying stars' lights complimenting it. I walked up to Dylan slowly, his green zip-up sweater being shaken slowly by the touch of the early night wind. I continued to walk up to him, straightening out my clothes as best as I could. "Hey," I said in sleepy voice. My eyes were closed again, too tired to open and see the expression on his face. I yawned and continued talking. "What's going on?" I asked him, my eyelids slowly opening to find him right next to me with a serious look on his face
He had his hands tightly locked on the railing of the ship, clasping it too hard for comfort and his back slanted and his expression staring out into space. "Nothing," he told me in a blank voice. I knew immediately he was bluffing.
"No, really, tell me. What's going on?" I asked, eager to find out why and how much he and changed over the past few hours when I was asleep.
"It's just, I realized," he told me, relaxing his hold a bit on the metal railing of the ship. "What if we were to go searching for another Minor? Another Minor just like me who could be in danger just like I was?" he asked me. I was shocked by the sudden bring-up of the subject. After my second's worth of a shock I began to consider his question. And to be truthful, I really didn't know the answer. "If they were in trouble and had their powers unstable, totally confused about who they were anymore, and they were attacked by someone way stronger than who attacked me, who would help them out? Who could beat those people after him or her or whoever it may be?"
I sighed. I leaned against the cold, metallic railing alongside him, both expressions of ours pondered in thought. "I really don't know," I told him, staring back to the stars, remembering the thoughts that flew in my mind during the early afternoon. Still no sign of anyone caring, I realized.
"What if that next person after me won't be so lucky? What if that person actually…dies?" he turned to me, expression full of concern, but this time it wasn't concern for me. It was concern for the future.
"Listen," I told him, listening to the calm rush of the sea. "I know that, if we work together, we can make things happen. And don't worry. If we really need that much of a desperate help, we can just call the council through my locket," I told him, feeling my shirt for the protruding shape of the large, golden antique.
"And what if there's not enough time?!" he told me seriously, his eyes slowly framed with wetness. His look made me feel guilty. I couldn't protect him, I knew that much. So who would? He was right. I couldn't answer his questions he wanted to know the answers to, and could do nothing but sigh.
His stare wandered off into the deep, black-blue sea, the crinkling wonders brushing on the sides of the ship slowly and steadily, like our own private tides, trying to reach us desperately to tell us something. "That's why, I've tried to become better at this," he told me, his stare still deep into the ocean, lost. "I've been trying to control my powers better so I could protect the next Minor, who would also help me defend the next. That's why I've been out here for six straight hours, trying to learn the basics, trying to become one with something I'm totally unfamiliar with."
His grip on the railing tightened again and my lean against the railings became softer. "Let me ask you something," I asked, my mind filled with curiosity. "Why? Why do you care about someone so much, when you haven't even met them yet? Aside from it being our task, you seem to really care about these people as people. Why?"
"Why?" he asked me while turning his stare at me, as if I was asking him a silly question. "Because, those other eleven teenagers out there, they've just begun their lives. Why should they die so early, when they've barely had a chance to live? It makes no sense if you ask me. I don't know why it doesn't make sense to you, though," he said, turning away from me again, pacing down the ship's walk, going to the back.
I followed him with ease, still many thoughts running through my mind. "And also, who's going to protect you? You have power, but you don't even know how to use them, or what it is. So who's going to help you when you're in trouble?" he asked me, still walking towards the back of the ship.
His words warmed and surprised me at the same time. Okay, so at least there was one person I knew who cared about me, I guess. I felt less lonely all of a sudden and felt like hugging the guy tight. But I restrained myself from doing so, since I knew that I was just hyped up at the moment, and that he would turn completely freaked if I did. My thoughts about this whole thing were wrong after all, I realized. I paced with him down the ship walk, around the inner cabins until we finally reached the back. "So, how did the practice go?" I asked him, curious to see how much progress he's made.
"You tell me," he told me, giving me a look hinted with excitement. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes as he faced back at the sea that crept farther away from us. The fresh, fish stained air was thick by now, and I waited until I saw green energy flowing from his hands. So he's learned to manipulate, I saw. Impressive for a two day period, I thought, watching the green energy flow from his palm and fingers wildly like they were set on fire.
When he reopened his eyes, I saw that they were glowing slightly with a green color, and that they were expressionless like he was a robot. He crossed his arms against his chest, and moved his arms to the front, to the outside of the railing, and above the quiet waves. His hands, set on what looked like green fire gave off a faint light into the night sky, like the weakest lighthouse imagined.
I began to wonder what he was trying to do. What technique could be used in the sea? I thought with interest. "Look," he told me, his eyes still glinting with light.
I faced forward and turned to the sea. What was he about to do? In only a few more moments after my thought did I see one rising vine, covered with thorn spikes and the darkest green due to the black night and dark waters. It waved and followed the ship slowly, water dripping from the top of it to the bottom where it rejoined the sea currents. It was soon followed by two more vines, then three, and then five, until about twenty of them were following the ship at once, crawling towards us like long, drunk snakes.
As more of the vines came up to follow us, I noticed the green energy on his hands spread to his wrist and grow stronger in amount. Almost his whole forearm was completely covered in it until he let go, the power slowly fading away from his arms, his eyes closing, and reopening to their normal green colored state. Even if his original eye color was like that, the green hints in his eyes when he was controlling the vines from underground seemed neon, like a store's window sign. He took another deep breath, breathing the ocean air into his lungs and asked, "So, how was that?"
It wasn't technically amazing. He could summon his powers but couldn't manipulate as well as an expert like Kakori and couldn't use them in a technique as good as Kakori, either. But I had to give him credit. He progressed well by only using sheer motivation and the information I had told him. "Good," I said, "for two days."
I could see his eyes tinted with disappointment. "Hey, don't worry about it. You'll get better along the way. You can't expect to become an expert in six hours can you?" I told him, cheering him up somewhat. At least that's what it looked like from his expression.
"I guess," he told me, stuffing his hands nervously into his sweater pockets.
"Let me ask you one more thing," I told him, holding the metal rails by my right forearm, another curious thought desperately wanting to be answered in my mind.
"Yeah?" he asked with wide, considerate eyes, glowing in the night scene like the stars in the blackish blue sky.
"What made you realize that you had to become stronger in order to protect the future Minors and me? Did the idea just come into your mind in a flash?" I asked him finally, waiting patiently for the answer with the most honest look I've had in years.
The look in his eyes changed. He sighed. "You're probably going to get all tensed up after I tell you this, but…"
"Go on. Tell me, I won't care," I told him, wondering what the reason could be, unsure of whether my words were true to myself or not.
"All right. While you were sleeping, something woke me up. It was a beeping, and it was coming from your side of the room." Uh-oh I thought, my mind going into a slow paced panic. "So I went to see what it was, and all I saw was a red dot blinking over and over again in unison with what sounded like a fire alarm." He shifted his feet and started tapping the wooden floor of the outside ship with it. It made an echoing click-click-click nose. He was obviously nervous about what he was going to tell me. So he didn't buy my excuse either about not caring whatever it might be that he would say, I realized. "I suspected it was your locket, so I took it out of your shirt while you were still sleeping and opened it."
"No!" I told him, feeling my locket hot against my midsection, the panic in my blood rising. The coolness of the early night had calmed the excess warmness of my clothes when I had woken up, but the locket was still hot and cozy against my skin, underneath my shirt. I caressed it lightly, feeling its features from underneath my white-stripe long sleeve shirt.
"Yeah… I didn't know what it meant when I opened it, but I had a good idea. It had a part of a twelve-piece chart glowing with black light."
"No! No, no, no!" I yelled, furious. I can't believe how much time I wasted! I quickly took out the heavy locket from underneath my clothes, feeling its warm gold on the outside with my cool touch. It felt so hot and comfortable in my hands as I opened it up, the lid still rising with its everlasting grace I wished at the moment would go faster. The screen still had that chart with a black piece of it blinking like the red garnet did on the front of the lid when it was beeping wildly. I couldn't believe I didn't hear it in my sleep! I felt so stressed and panicky as the chart went away and took me to a map, showing me a different kind than that of last time.
This blinking red dot was near the coast like last time, but to the north. We were at sea, and the town his power was last recorded (about four hours ago) was a town up north of the town the ship would dock.
"Are you okay?" Dylan asked me, leaning down to me and looking at the map on the circular screen.
"No I'm not okay! What if this guy is dead? I can't lose one of the Minors! What if they found this person because the Minor used its power and was able to track the Minor down and successfully kill him?" I whined in an annoyed voice.
"It's okay, calm down," Dylan told me, trying to comfort me.
"No it's not!! The town is just too far away from here!" I told him in the most whiniest voice I've ever heard.
"So?" he said, standing back up, facing me with crinkled eyebrows, one raised and one bent down.
"What do you mean 'so'? Are you crazy? We won't make it there in time!" I told him furiously.
"So… just get the Council to teleport us there," he told me in an obvious voice.
I immediately felt stupid. I had forgotten that Shintenmaru offered to teleport us anywhere depending on how far it was. And this was an emergency, so we had to get there fast. I gulped down my panic to let in relief, and some embarrassment for acting so immature suddenly.
I took notice back to the locket again, still slowly cooling down from its last state of warmth underneath my shirt. I focused on what I wanted to see, just like last time, and it took me there obediently. It was like Minoa, always reading your mind when you're not noticing. It took me to the static-covered screen again and in a few seconds I saw Shintenmaru answer my call through the video again. "May I be of assistance, Jeremy?" he asked.
I explained the entire situation to him, which didn't take long, and Shintenmaru listened to each piece cooperatively, nodding his head now and then. He also got a chance to actually see Dylan, who was glad to finally meet someone from the Council. Anyway, he told us to "jump in" when the portal came out. Then he left us alone with the static screen again, fizzing loudly among the quiet seas. I closed the lid of the locket before it could do any more sound polluting and put it back into my shirt. Now the metal was cold to my body, cooling it to some degree.
We waited about five minutes to see what would happen, but nothing came. We were about to give up until a large vortex suddenly opened out of nowhere, moving alone with the slow ship and right next to it above the ocean like an companion.
"So, what now?" Dylan asked, sounding confused, placing his hands on the knees of his jeans and staring at the portal with wondrous eyes.
"I guess we 'jump in,'" I told him, giving him a short glance and quickly turning back to the portal. I jumped in first, putting my feet on the metal railing of the ship, careful not to fall off and into the ocean, and took off. For a moment I felt free, nothing holding me up in the oceanic air, but started to feel chained down again as I was sucked into the portal, white light consuming me right after I entered the purple and green swirling wonder.
I was soon followed by Dylan's presence in the possessive white light. We floated in "midair" if you could call it that, our eyes squinted only to allow vision and our bodies slowly falling down like we were on the moon. Soon, the white light became brighter, and we were totally lost.
Moments later, we found ourselves in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by nothing but rocks and dust, the clouds heavy and dark with thunder and lightning flashing upon the early night sky. No stars could be seen, and no houses or anything either. Where the heck were we? I thought.
Dylan came up from behind me and said, "Where are we?" like he was repeating my thoughts. The area was flat and barren, and just to be sure, I checked the monitor on the locket to see where we were compared to where the last record of the Minor was last seen. The golden antique told me that the Minor last used his powers in Jagrock Town, and that we were in the West Valley of Jagrock. Why did the portal take us here? More importantly, where was the Minor now?
As if answering my question, Dylan tapped my shoulder and pointed to the north. "Look over there!" he cried. I looked towards the direction he was pointing, and found dirt smoke rising from some distance far away. Lightning crashed and rang in the sky above as drizzles of rain came down upon us. Just what was going on? What was that smoke?