Tellus

the third chapter

“Son of a….” He kicked the metal door which was lying scrapped by the root of a tree. “Defect pod. Never should’ve…” he mumbled to himself as he held his head, walking back and forth, staring at the ground. “Where the HELL am I now?” He kicked the pod once again, shaking his head and gritting his teeth tight together.

He lifted his head up and saw a fair girl with long blonde hair and a horn stuck out of her head. Beside her, on each side, were two boys in light armour.

“Oh great. A Carnival! Can you guys tell me where I am?”

The two guards looked at each other and then back at the purple-haired man. “A Mindphaser? Here?”

The Purple-haired guy shook his head at the ground again and touched his forehead lightly with his pointy and middle finger. “Seriously, is it that obvious?”

The two guards stepped back two steps, keeping their distance from the purple-haired guy. The Purple-haired guy looked up at them and then touched his hips as he shifted his stance to just one leg, resting the other leg upon the first one and just looked dumb silly at them. The girl with the horn in her forehead rolled her eyes. “This is Eden”, she said.

“Eden? Are you f*****g kidding me? I had hoped this was Earth or something…”

“Take me with you!”

“Say what?!”

“To Earth! Anywhere is better than with these guys”.

The Purple-haired guy looked over her shoulder and on to the two guards behind her now. “I don’t get it. Why would a princess escape her guards, that doesn’t really look like bodyguards?”

“Because they are my executors, not my saviours. I am cursed and they are banishing me…” she said and instantly regretting saying it.

“What exactly makes you think I would like to hang around a cursed human? And what the f**k is up with that?” He said and pointed at her forehead. “What?” She said and touched her head. “OMG �" WHAT is that???!!!” She ran over to the guards. “You have a mirror? Do YOU?” She said towards the purple haired guy. “Looks like a horn to me!” He replied. “That’s just weird!”

“Oh no, I really AM cursed”, she said out loud and tried to pull whatever was stuck in her face. Pulling it didn’t help. It was like glued to her with superglue. It wasn’t even budging. Then all of a sudden, she just sat down sulking, hiding her entire face in her hands.

The purple-haired boy asked the two puzzled boys if they knew any way out of Eden.

“We are to send this girl to Xsanto with a transporter in the neighbouring village. They also have a transporter to Zeist. I guess you can pick one of them”.

The purple-haired guy shook his head. “What’s up with all the transporters to Tellus. I remember there used to be tons of them”.

“Not around here. Eden doesn’t really need transporters to Tellus. Not many people want to leave.”

“What about those people coming in?”

“There’ve been wars. It’s a good system for confusing the enemies”.

“….and locals apparently…. Ok, take me to this village. Maybe they know where I can get to Earth”.

Both the boys with the spears, raised the girl up from beneath her arms, held her tight and started moving. She shook them off and started walking on her own, silently sulking.

 

 

After 3 hours of walking through the thick forest, they finally came to a clearing, where the sunlight shun down on the ground. It lifted the spirit of the girl, and as they came into the clearing, they spotted the village that had the transporters. It was fairly big �" probably a trading place, seeing as they had the transporters as well.

 

 

“You will go to Tellus?” The guard asked Vortex as they approached the village.

“Yes. I have nowhere left to go!”

“Take her with you. Promise, Mindphaser!”

Vortex looked at Light with pleading eyes and sighed. “Sure, why not”. He shrugged and looked around. “Wait here”, he said and headed towards the entrance and into the village. Shortly after, he came out with something in his hand.

“Here, put this on!” he said and threw to Light. It was a cape of some sort, in white. “Put the hood over your head. You don’t want the same reaction as those guards, do you?”

“Why aren’t you reacting the same way?” Light asked him as she put it on. “I think we are somewhat of the same. I don’t have a horn but… I didn’t use to have purple hair or purple eyes before either. It just happened. Just as you didn’t used to have that horn”.

She placed her face in her hands and started sobbing again. “My village…”

“Um, what happened to your village?” Vortex said, a bit uneasy. He wasn’t accustomed to being around crying persons. The guards nodded at him, then left.

“I don’t know”, she said and shook her head while her face was still in her hands. “They said it was pulverized to the ground �" that there was (*gulp*) nothing left. Her long blonde hair brushed softly in the gently wind as teardrops fell quietly into the grass.

“Do you know why you survived?” Vortex asked.

“I…. I didn’t. I think I was killed. Or I don’t know. I keep getting these weird flashbacks, or a memory of something that I thought was a dream, but, it’s been such a long time. How can I have slept for 5 years?”

“I think…” Vortex stopped, then continued again: “I think I have slept for almost as long time as you have”. She raised her head up from  her hands and looked at Vortex, tears filling up her eyes. “Did it have anything to do with a Spear?”

Vortex opened his eyes wide. “Now that you mention it… it was the ancient spear. I saw it and I thought I’d get it back, and the holder easily felled me…I thought I was a goner for sure”, he said and touched the area it had hit him. He remembered the despair, right before everything went dark. He closed his eyes shut.

Light put her hand on his shoulder and said “Don’t worry. You’ll get your answers, I’m sure of it!” He opened up his eyes. Things felt a bit lighter and the problem wasn’t as heavy on his shoulders as it had been up to now. “You’re right. We’ll figure out what’s happened soon”, he said and smiled to Light, who smiled back through worried eyes.

“Let’s go”.

 

 

 

“Thank you”, Earth said and smiled to the girl holding the cage. “He’s beautiful!”

“Straight from Eden, this one! A fine specimen! His singing is amazing”.

Earth held out her arms and received a small cage with a little rainbow coloured bird inside of it. “They eat flower nectar, so be sure to have a lot of that around. I also hear they are fond of small bugs, so it shouldn’t be that hard to please him.”

“Thank you so much!”

Earth looked at the little bird in the cage. She opened up the cage and as the bird flew up to the sky, and Earth gave the cage back to the girl, the girl went: “No, what are you doing? It’s not tame! Ahhh….” And then she sighed.

Earth held her right hand in front of her temple, to shade from the sun, as she looked up towards the sky, smiling. “He’ll come back”, she said as she turned around to face the girl again. But the girl was staring at something else,- behind her. She turned around again, to see what she was looking at, and saw two people coming out of the green transporter machine.

“Eden….” The girl behind her said in a low voice.

“Excuse me?” Earth faced the girl again, who suddenly remembered that Earth was still there. “Oh. Nothing. They come from Eden. Not a lot of people come from there any more”.

“Oh…” Earth said. “Which of the teleporters go to Tellus, by the way?”

“Hmmm, that would be the black one over there”, she said and pointed towards the east side of the market.

“Thank you again”, Earth said and walked in a slow pace towards it. On the way to the eastern side of the market, she turned her head for a split second to look at the strangers. They both had their backs against her, talking to some other local people, when suddenly one of them turned their head looking at her.

Their eyes met and instantly, the insides of her body were blustering up in a rage in which she had never felt like before. A voice inside of her urged her to fight: “ATTACK” it whispered into the depths of her soul. Without even thinking about it, she grabbed her bow and shot a powerful shot, straight at the other person. Her eyes widened, as she didn’t know why she would do such a thing.

Vortex reacted the same way, yet, as he had no current weapons, all he could do was counter the attack, and he did so by shattering the arrow to dust by using an invisible sound field around his own body.  He got up from his kneel, which he was forced to do as he defended himself. All around him, people were screaming, running out of the way. The sale stalls were abandoned, as people dived out of the way and ran towards the exit of the market.

All three of them stood there looking at each other. Earth and Vortex, just ten metres from each other. Light was standing a bit further behind Vortex with an open mouth towards the recent incident.

Earth moved first again. With the palm of her hand, she slammed one arm into the ground, and as she did so, an earth tunnel came towards Vortex in a hurling speed and as it hit him, he was sent flying backwards by numerous blunt spikes that shot out of the ground. He hit a stall hard in his back and didn’t get up again, trying to figure out what he could do.  Earth was still standing in the same place as previous, just staring at him. When he didn’t move, she reached out an arm, and grasped something invisible in the air. No spikes or boulders came out of her hand, but instantly something was squeezing him tight and he almost lost the ability to breathe. “Ghhhhhhhhh”, he cried as he tried to break free from whatever was holding him tight. He looked down and his body had been tightened by green and brown ropes, squeezing even more as he resisted it.

“Please stop!” Light cried out to Earth, who completely ignored her. Earth’s eyes were glowing green and suddenly veins with flowers attached to them, came hurling out of her body and went straight for Vortex, who was struggling to get free from her tight grasp. Light threw herself in between them and got hit by the slashing veins, which whipped her to the other end of the market and fell with a loud thud and the breaking of some bone. She didn’t move. Vortex looked at her lifeless body at the other end, and concentrated harder to fell his opponent.  He thought of his previously teachings and with some Mindphasing, he managed to annoy Earth so much, she loosened her grip around his body. He used this opportunity, to cut himself free of the veins with a knife that was lying on the ground. He got up, as Earth regained her wits about her again, and ran straight for her, with the knife in his hand. Earth didn’t waste any time and forced an invisible wave of something towards Vortex as he came hurling towards her. He was hit in the chest with rocks, and he fell to the ground again, bleeding from his mouth. “Damnit!” He used one arm to push himself up to a crouching position again and then finally up on two feet. Earth turned around, touched a plant on a stall-counter and spoke something in whisper. The plant released some kind of powder that came flying towards Vortex in a slow-motion speed. In panic, he fenced with his arm across it, and they vanished. Earth smiled a gruesome smile. At that point, Vortex realized he had done something wrong. He looked back at Light �" still lifeless at the ground. Then he looked up at Earth again, realizing that his power were useless in this fight. What could Sound possibly do to an Earth element?

He looked everywhere for aid, but as he could find none, he ran again, straight for Earth, this time aware of her movements so he could avoid them. Earth pulled the string of her bow again without using any arrows, but then the arrow magically appeared as she released the string. He used Mindphasing again to defend himself and shattered the arrow into sawdust. As he came close and about to strike, she said something he couldn’t understand and his arm was attacked by invisible razorblades, that pierced his arm a thousand times, over and over. The pain was excruciating and he fell down to a kneel once again screaming his lungs out. His scream shattered most objects in the stall into a thousand pieces, which again shot in all different directions. The razorblade pain on his arm ceased, but as he rolled up his sleeve, the marks of red bruises were still there, burning his skin. He looked sideways and up to Earth, who had fallen down on her knees, holding her hands tight shut over her ears. Her body was bleeding from all the cuts she had received from the exploding pieces.

Someone walked up right behind him and held out a hand for him to grab. As he grabbed it and it pulled him up, he realized who it was. “But….” He said and looked towards the end of the market where she had been. “You were….”

“I broke a few ribs apparently, and my shoulder went out of place”. Light smiled up at him and touched his arm. “But I wasn’t in pain. It’s scary �" but a relief. I didn’t take me long to realize that…” she bent down and touched his arm with the horn on her head, “my power is healing”, she finished off. She nudged her head at his arm and when he looked at it, the pain was gone and he could see the burning marks were slowly disappearing. “You heal?”

“Mhm!” she nodded. They both looked at the girl sitting in the market place, still holding her head in her hands. Vortex moved over to her and helped her up. As they stood facing each other, Vortex took a few steps back, readying for a new attack, but the Earth girl only stared at him. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what came over me”, she said with a soft clean voice. Veins spread throughout her body, and Vortex took another step back, grasping his sword tight again. Light held out her hand; “Look!” He loosened his grip and stared at the earth elemental’s body. The veins were pulsating slowly as they moved across her body like snakes and as they slid over the cuts, they left behind a small trail of sap and the cuts had turned to bruises and small scars.

A bird came flying down from the sky and sat itself on Earth’s shoulder. She giggled “why hello there, little fella’” and she smiled the sweetest smile Vortex had ever seen in his life.

“Ohhh, it’s from Eden! I haven’t seen those in years.”  Light suddenly said. Earth looked at the bird while saying “This is Pretu. He’s coming to Tellus with me!”

“So are we!” Vortex said and for the first time, Earth could look at him without feeling the intense anger she had felt previously. She looked at Light as well. “I’m so sorry!” she said again. “I don’t know…”

“Don’t worry about it. All is good!” Vortex said as he showed her the way with his arm. “I want to leave before the townspeople come and arrest us”.

 

 

 

They were all standing in the teleporter, when they heard shouting from afar. “That’s our cue to leave”, he said and pushed the green button. The machine scanned all three of them with a flashing light and then they vanished two seconds later into thin air and found themselves staring at the ocean from a rocky point. To their right was the vast sea, but to their left was a small trail leading up a wall of pointy rocks, up to a cliff.

“Wonder where we are”, Light said as she scouted the area.

“Hopefully Tellus”, Vortex said with a relieved voice. “I’m sick and tired of being sent to different places, although” he finished off and sat down with a hard breather looking at the slow water movements in the red sea, “now that I’m here, I don’t know where to go”.

“Something urged me to come here”, Earth suddenly said, looking at the sea as well. “And I will walk until I find that something. But I will start from my village, up north, with my tribe”.

“Tribe?” Light sounded surprised. “Oh, you’re native American, aren’t you?”

“Yes! I must go and see my tribe. If I am lucky, none will remember me. I don’t want to explain”. She hung with her head.

“I guess I am going back home as well then. Maybe the answers will find me there”.

“I don’t have anywhere to go”, Light said after a while. “I know my ancestors came from America, but I lived my whole life at Eden. I don’t know much about Tellus”.

After a few minutes of silence, Earth spoke: “you can come with me if you want to. I would like to know more about you”, she said and smiled sweetly at Light. Light smiled back. “That’d be very kind of you!” she said and placed the hood from her cape back over her head again.

“Oh, I should introduce myself to you. I am Earth Siege. As you might have guessed, I control the earth elemental”.

“I am New Dawn…and I think I am the healing element”, Light said with uncertainty.

“And I am Time Vortex Oblivion. But you may call me Vortex. I am of the Sound”

“Yes, my ears still rings after that scream attack you gave me”, she said and touched her temple with her left hand.

Her dark brown hair brushed over her face softly like silk as the wind started to catch up. “I guess this is it then. I’m going north. You are welcome to join me if you please”, she hinted at Light, turned around and started climbing the rocks. Light turned to Vortex. “Thanks for bringing me with you. I am sure we will meet again some time” she said and ran after EarthSiege and they both vanished in between the pointy rocks. Vortex sat for a while longer, listening to the sounds as the water hit the rocks.