Ellay Saga Chapter 4: Tension
“It’s that one…over there.”
Through much trial and effort Julian and his friends were able to get to Vee’s elegant, uptown house. Vee had had to lead her friends there through the longest route possible, as taking the short route would have exposed the group to the risk of being spotted. This, Nicholas pointed out, was bad: Joshua had a nasty burn on his chest, Peel suffered from two broken limbs, and Vee was being magically suspended in mid-air by Julian’s PSI.
“So, once we get a chance to settle down for
a bit, we can worry about getting everyone to a hospital, right?” Julian had
finally shed his paralysing fear and was beginning to show his old ways
again. Even now, he was unable to
explain why he freaked out the way he did, but he had other things to worry
about at the time.
“Yeah, sure. We need to wait until the heat
dies down too.” Teddy was actually nicer than his appearance made him out to
be. This was masked, however, by his
brash manner and straightforward attitude. The fact that Kir was now standing on his
shoulders annoyed Teddy to no end, and he constantly snorted at the tiny
primate in an effort to get him off.
The small group trudged slowly down the
street to the house, then wearily made its way to the door. Suddenly Vee used her free hand to clutch at
her forehead, and she uttered a grunt of disgusted surprise. “Oh no! I left my
backpack at the office…my keys are in there!” she exclaimed. “Now how are we
going to get in?”
Teddy wordlessly stepped up to the door and
kicked it open, breaking it off its hinges and permanently damaging the lock in
the process. “That’s how.” he said gruffly. “Now show me where I can set this
kid down!”
***
Vee’s house was incredibly tidy. It looked like there wasn nothing in the
entire place that hadn’t been dusted, scrubbed, or otherwise rendered spotless
to the point of absolute cleanliness.
Whoever maintained this house was thourough. It was fortunate that Vee’s parents were gone
for the moment, giving Julian and his friends free reign of the house. “You can
set Joshua in my room. It’s upstairs to the left.” Vee told Teddy, who began
lumbering up the stairs, with Kir in tow. “In the meantime, we can put Peel
down on the couch in the living room. Hope you don’t mind.”
Peel managed to shake her head politely,
jarring her wounds and making her wince a little. “It’s okay…just, call an
ambulance fast, you know? This stuff hurts!” Nicholas gently lowered Peel onto
the couch in question and then proceeded to stretch himself out, cracking the
bones in his back after the extensive workout. “Ugh…this would’ve been easier
if Teddy had let me carry Joshua…” he commented. He then turned to Peel and sized up her
wounds: her left arm and right leg were swollen to almost twice their original
size, and she had a couple of nasty bumps on her forehead. She was alive, though, and relatively better
off than Joshua. The beam had burnt
through his clothing and seered his skin, leaving a large, open wound. As for Vee, she simply stated, “I’ve suffered
worse when I was in Judo…worry about the other two first” then settled on another
couch in the living room and relaxed.
Once Teddy had returned and gotten to the
process of calling an ambulance, he, Nicholas, and Julian sat down in the
dining room. Nicholas had removed his
glasses and was massaging his temples while Teddy took off his sunglasses. The two of them looked at Julian, who was
sitting across the table from them.
“So you’re ready to explain what happened
back there, or am I going to have to wait?” Nicholas went from massaging his
temples to pinching the bridge of his nose; he was obviously stifling a
headache. “I don’t know.” replied Julian casually. “I just…when I saw the two
Starmen were still alive, I…”
“You what? It’s not like you hadn’t fought
worse stuff than that before! I mean, come on, it’s two Starmen, and not even
the big ones that could fly!”
Julian raised his eyebrows quizzically. “And
how do you know about those?” Nicholas sighed. “Never mind. What I want to know
right now is what happened to you. Between the four of you, that fight should
have been a cinch!”
“What do you mean, ‘between the four of you’?”
Julian’s tone raised itself a notch and he stood from his seat. Nicholas accepted the challenge and stood up
as well. “That’s right, four! Or do you want me to count the monkey too?!”
Teddy used his massive hand to calm Nicholas
and sit him back down. Then he did the
same for Julian. “If you ask me, I’d say you were thinking of taking those
things on by yourself.” he commented. “I think you freaked because YOU wouldn’t
be able to fight the two Starmen.” Julian scoffed. “You said that already.” he
said scathingly. Teddy shook his head. “No,
no…I mean, YOU by YOURSELF. You gotta remember that there’s four of you. When
you went bananas back there you forced your teammates to fight by themselves,
just like you. You gotta work as a team, get it?”
Julian sighed and leaned back in his chair. “I
don’t want them to get hurt.” he said.
Nicholas shook his head. “Well, that attitude didn’t get you very far,
did it?” he snapped viciously. “Had you bothered to fight as a team, like you
were supposed to, you would’ve ended up far better.”
Nicholas had a point. Julian tried to respond, but he found that he
couldn’t. Maybe he had been looking at
things the wrong way…maybe he could trust in his friends a little more…
“Ambulance’s here.” Teddy proclaimed as he stood
and headed towards the entrance. “I’ll go smooth things out with them. You stay
put, hear?” Julian and Nicholas nodded, shooting each other snide glances in
the process. When Teddy was out of
earshot Nicholas swiveled over to Julian and leaned over. “I think it’s high
time you reevaluated your priorities, Julian.” he mused.
In the meantime, Teddy greeted the two
paramedics that had just come in the same way he would have greeted anyone
else: he stared at them and ordered them to hurry up before they got in anybody’s
way. The paramedics, somewhat startled,
found the three injured children and hoisted them one by one into the
ambulance. Peel’s limbs were dressed and
bound with white bandages, while Joshua had to be toted gently in a stretcher. “Just
how did all of this happen, anyway?” one of the bemused paramedics asked when
he saw Joshua’s gaping wound. Teddy
scoffed. “They had an accident playing basketball this morning.”
The paramedic stared at Teddy in disbelief. “…Basketball?”
“Basketball.” came Teddy’s short reply.
Everything else was sorted out very
quickly. The paramedics called Vee’s
parents from a mobile phone in the ambulance, and they were to meet up at the
hospital. From there Vee would be able
to explain just what was happening. She
also gave Teddy certain vital information, such as the address and telephone
number of the house, and which hospital they were being taken to. Soon enough the ambulance was off and
running, carrying the three wounded children.
***
“The kid’s are off. We can swing by this
afternoon and check up on them.” Teddy returned to the dining room to find
Nicholas and Julian practically staring daggers into one another. They had at least taken the liberty of
extracting the last of Julian’s provisions from his pack, and munched on the
remaining fruit mechanically. Teddy felt
a little uneasy at this sight and tried to correct it as soon as possible.
“Hey umm…you’re gonna stop doing that now,
right? The worst is over.” he commented, trying to order them out of this
little trance than anything else. Julian’s
eyes narrowed. “I think he’s talking to you, Nicholas.” he placed extreme
emphasis on that last word. Nicholas, in
turn, raised an eyebrow. “Cut the act and I’ll be more than happy let you out
of my sight. That is, if you won’t try and kill me when I do.”
Very calmly Julian set down the half-eaten
apple he was working on and crossed his arms. “I’m afraid you’re going to try
and steal something from me. Again.” he sneered. Nicholas, his gaze unwavering, leaned back in
his chair, almost seeming to relax if his face didn’t demonstrate the contrary.
“And what are you going to me? Fear me to death?” Julian’s eyes widened in
anger and he stood abruptly, knocking his chair down. “That’s it! I’ve had it
with you and your lies!”
“And I’ve had it with your attitude!”
Nicholas stood and both tried to lunge at each other across the table, but
Teddy caught them both midway. “That’s enough, you two.” he scolded. “You look
like children.”
“Tell him that!” Julian quipped, and Nicholas
struggled against Teddy’s grip. “Oh, yeah, well I’m going to—”
“ENOUGH!!” Teddy grabbed both Julian and
Nicholas by the collar, then dragged them off into the living room and plopped
them back down on the sofa. He had had enough
of their quarrelling and was determined to make it stop. Before either could say anything he began to
speak. “You wanna know what I think? I think it’s time we cut the lies, cut the
attitude, cut EVERYTHING, and get down to the bare facts. Your fighting isn’t
going to solve anything. Now shake hands!”
Both Nicholas and Julian shot each other hateful
looks. Teddy spoke again. “I said, SHAKE
HANDS. NOW.” Without looking at each other, the two extended their hands, shook
them briefly, then retrieved them, still as angry as before. It seemed to satisfy Teddy though. “Good.”
his tone dropped back down to its normal register. He sat down on the other couch and crossed
his arms. “Now…I don’t like playing shrink, so you two work your problems out,
got it? And don’t try anything funny.”
Julian crossed both his arms and his legs,
still not bothering to look at Nicholas.
Nicholas did the same, and they both sat there, back to back, for a few
seconds. Then Nicholas spoke:
“You shouldn’t have run away.” he snapped.
Julian grunted. “You could have helped me.” he retorted.
Nicholas sighed. “You’ve blundered into every
single battle without thinking. You’re lucky to be alive.”
Julian bit his lip. “You stole my prism.”
“It wasn’t yours to begin with—and I only did
it for your own good.”
“You led me into a haunted house. You call
that ‘my own good’?”
“It allowed you to meet Gleyd, didn’t it?”
“It made me fall into a coma for a week.”
“Had you stayed in Snowman, that would not
have happened. Instead you chose to run around the country like a chicken with
it’s head cut off.”
“So instead of helping me you lie to me? Made
me do everything from fighting thieves to walking across the country for days
without food? That’s not very helpful, Nicholas.”
“My name,” Nicholas lifted a hand to pinch
his nose soothingly. “is not Nicholas. I had to assume that identity because I
didn’t know whether or not Ana had said too much.” He turned to Teddy. “You
mind getting my glasses?” he asked. “I can’t see and it’s giving me a headache.”
Teddy nodded. “Fine.” he then got up and left the room. In the meantime, Nicholas turned halfway
towards Julian and lowered his head. “I guess I should explain.” he admitted
half-heartedly. “If you’ll listen, that is.” Julian also turned half-way
towards Nicholas, but refused to make eye contact. “Okay.” he answered dryly. “Go
ahead.”
Teddy promptly came back with the glasses in
question and Nicholas set them on to his eyes, automatically bringing the
wish-wash of colors before his eyes into focus.
Feeling much better, Nicholas leaned forward and set his arms on his
thighs wearily. He looked straight
ahead. “I guess I should start…at the beginning.
“When Ninten set out on his journey five
years ago, he met, as you probably know, three other people. One is Ana, back
in Snowman. The other is Teddy over here. The first person he met, though, was
a boy in Merrysville called Loid. Me.
“Ninten was my first and best friend. Thanks
to him I was able to see things in a way I never thought possible. He helped me
learn what it was to be really strong…not just physically, but mentally and
emotionally. I owe him my life.
So it was quite a shock when he disappeared…not
too long after our adventure, and the defeat of Giegue. He just…vanished. Not a
single trace of him anywhere…not even his family knew where he went. Ana nearly
died of sadness. We all did. Then, one day, four years ago, I received a message
from him. It was in a dream; he communicated with me telepathically through PSI.
‘Go to Podunk and look in the basement of my house.’ he said. ‘I have left
something very important there.’
“That ‘something’ was his great-grandfather’s
old diary…I had already had a chance to read it, so there was nothing there I
didn’t know. However, Ninten had used the few pages left in the diary to write
me a message. The message…was odd. He said that something was happening…something
that involved Giegue but wasn’t directly related to it. He told me of the
meteor shower in Snowman, and when I asked Ana about it she told me that it had
been made a tradition…the Cosmos Festival, she called it.
“The Diary also came with a small object
that, according to Ninten, had been procurred from the cave at the top of Mt.
Itoi, where we fought Giegue. It was the prism…although I didn’t know what it
was at the time. Ninten’s message said to guard it with my life. The message
ended there.
“A few weeks later I saw something in the
newspaper…a scientist named Gustav Schneider had perfected a device that used a
mathematic equation to predict any and all conceivable futures…he called it the
‘World Device’. He claimed that it would end all wars, prevent any natural
disasters…he also claimed that its activation was only possible due to the
utilisation of a strange metal found at the top of Mt. Itoi…it had ‘special
properties’…
“I was very surprised when Ninten actually
visited me a short while later. It was a short meeting…but in that short time
he told me lots of things. He told me that this prism…it was the piece of the
World Device that regulated the mathematical operations of the machine…he also
told me that it was of alien origin. Someone…someone who had been with Giegue
when he invaded Earth had helped Schneider with the completion of the device.
Ninten also told me that the World Device could do more than predict the future…it
could take any conceived future and alter events so that they could become
reality. It literally gave the user the power of fate!
“So I finally understood why I had the prism…without
it, the World Device could only predict, and not alter. The mathematical
equations, without the prism in place, were so complex that it required an
entire year to make one prediction. This was all he was able to tell me, and
then he left. But before he did, he asked me to be careful…that within a few
years something might happen.
“Then, last year, Ninten reappeared. He
gathered the three of us, Ana, Teddy, and I, and told us what we had to do. He
said that the World Device predicted that someone would be granted a [key].
This [key] would be used to open something, a door of some sort. It also said
that it would grant the [key] itself, and that it would do it through the
prism! The World Device had developed a sense of initiative…it had already
found the [key], and was going to have a hand in altering the future, with or
without someone behind the controls…
“We decided that we had to take matters into
our own hands, and make sure the [key] ended up in capable hands. So we decided
to search for someone with latent PSI abilities, who would, according to
Ninten, be the most likely choice for the role of keyholder. We then found the
perfect candidate…you, Julian.
“The plan was simple. We would get the prism
to you, then you would get the [key]. Once that was done we would teach you all
about PSI, all about what happened these past few years…then we would take you
to Ellay, to find the World Device, open the door, and see what was inside.
“Of course we didn’t count on the fact that
whoever was helping Schneider was still active. After the Cosmos Festival, we
were feeling like everything would turn out all right. But then the attacks
began. We knew time was short. Still, we tried to proceed with the plan just as
before. We were confident we could hold anything at bay until you were strong
enough, but then…”
“But then I ran away.” Julian interrupted
Nicholas, now Loid’s, discourse and sighed deeply. He looked to both him and Teddy, and, seeing
the look of gravity on their faces, couldn’t help but feel somewhat guilty
inside. Things could have turned out
very differently…Julian shook his head. “If…all of this was planned, why didn’t
Ana say anything?” Loid shrugged. “We were going to break it to you slowly, bit
by bit. When you ran away…Ana told me instantly, and we decided that it was
better to somehow lead you to Ellay…then we would meet and everything would
proceed as planned. I forged the documents needed to get you across the bridge to
Podunk.”
Then Teddy spoke for the first time in a
while, interrupting Loid. “Then that we found out about Gleyd.” he began. “He
was apparently an accomplice to the whole thing, and his death led his spirit
to the Rosemary Mansion in Spookane. We decided then that if you allied
yourself with him, things would be easier. Plus, leaving the prism inside the
mansion would blanket it with PSI energy, making it untraceable. We though that
if they thought it was still with you, it might be better.”
So that was it…he was supposed to open a
door. The Aswer, HIS Aswer, was just
some sort of key. And then, he had been led through the entire journey…then,
what about his friends? “Peel, Joshua, and Vee…I dragged them into this.”
Julian said to himself. He had messed up
five years of Ninten’s planning…it was all his fault…
“Where’s Ninten now?” he was finally going to
get the answer to his question, even though now it didn’t seem very
important. Teddy was the one to answer. “The
last time we saw him he told us about Gleyd…then he left. Probably looking for
the World Device, seeing as how it disappeared a while ago.”
Julian felt that familiar mawkish feeling in
his stomach again. All this time…what
had he been doing? What had he been fighting for? Why had he been fighting at
all?
Loid stood and faced Julian, completely
devoid of rage but still very upset. “If you would have just stayed put…none of
this would have happened. Your friends wouldn’t have been hurt.” Julian shook
his head. “If I had just stayed put,” he muttered, “I wouldn’t have met my
friends at all.”
Suddenly Julian stood and turned to Loid,
looking him dead in the eyes, his face clearly reading resentment and
determination. “I’m not going to forgive you for what you did to me.” he
stated. “I’m going to finish this my way…I’m not going to let you manipulate me
any more!” Loid waved him off. “Don’t start this again. We’re all in this
together, so let’s just—”
“NO!” Julian took a step back, anger flaring
up. His hands were clenched into fists
and he shook one at Loid and Teddy defensively. “I’m sick of people telling
what I have to do! I’m tired of being led around like a puppet! “I’m going to
end this! I’m strong enough!”
“You don’t get it, do you?” Loid snapped
back, visibly restraining himself, but keeping his feelings in check. “The
[key] isn’t your power! Neither is Gleyd! Once those two are gone, you’re done
for! Then what am I going to tell your family, huh?! That you died just to
prove that you could do it by yourself?! I—”
Loid never finished. His glasses flew off of his face, tumbling to
the floor and landing with a soft thud.
His head was turned to one side, a large red mark visible on his cheek. And standing in front of him was Julian, with
his hand held out before him and his eyes wide.
Teddy hadn’t been fast enough to stop him, and he certainly didn’t do so
afterwards. The three stood there for an insufferably long moment, not daring
to say anything. It was only after he
lowered his hand that Julian spoke.
“I’ll do what I think is right.” he said
weakly. “So either help me or get out of my way.”
Loid gingerly lifted a hand to rub at his
face. Very slowly he bent down and,
after groping the ground for a bit, he found his glasses and slid them back
on. He sighed. “If you die…don’t expect
me to cry. I’m not going to take care of you anymore.” he then paused and
looked over at Teddy. The latter shook
his head in resignation. “We should help him,” he said. “He earned it.”
*ring*…*ring* *ring*
It was the telephone. Teddy walked over to it very slowly and
lifted the receiver to his ear. “Hello? Yeah, we are…now? That fast?…no, I
understand…about a half hour, maybe…yeah, thanks. Goodbye.” He looked at Julian,
relief coming over his features. “That was the hospital. The kids’re okay. The
girl’s parents are already there, and they want to talk to us.” a
self-conscious smile creeped across Teddy’s mouth. “I don’t think they believe
what I said about the basketball accident.” Julian heaved a tremendous sigh and
let his shoulders droop. His eyes seemed
to go out of focus for a second. “Okay…I’ll explain everything to them.” Loid
opened his mouth to complain, but Teddy silenced him with a wave of his hand. “Do
what you want.” said Teddy. “After all, you earned it.”
Thus began the most difficult part of Julian’s
journey.