A Brief Rest After Victory

Jake extended his hand into the well, pulling Elysia out as she climbed the last bit of rope. She looked at him in surprise, seeing the extent of his transformation.

“You…” she said, impressed.

“Yeah. Cool, huh?” he said, flexing his metallic arm a bit.

“Hello? Two people still dangling from a rope here!” Alex called out. Elysia stepped aside and Jake pulled his friend out, Eldrin clinging to his back.

“Holy crap, there was an old guy down there?!” Jake exclaimed.

“Yeah. Somebody better get him some food and medicine real damn quick!” Alex said as Eldrin was laid down on the ground. He looked noticeably better than before, but still, weeks spent at the bottom of a well as the root of the Twisted left him incredibly weak. Several villagers came over, picking him up, thanking Alex and Elysia.

“So…” Alex asked, looking over Jake. “Metal, huh? That’s your thing?”

“Yeah! And check this out!” He extended a sword from one of his arms. “Yeah? Right? I mean…”

“Crap this is cool!” Alex said, touching the sword. “And hey, when I’m invisible, I can move, like, super fast! And I can jump super high! I got on top of the building over there to get out of the way of the zombie guys!”

“Dude! We have legit super powers!” Jake exclaimed, pumping his fists into the air.

“Like a friggin’ comic book! It might make me stop hating this stupid body!” Alex shouted, high fiving Jake. He stumbled back a bit from the force of the high five. “Dude, could you…”

“Oh, right. Sorry,” Jake said, concentrating as he shrank back to his smaller flesh form, the metal receding into his tattoos.

“They’re idiots…but they came through for us,” Elysia said, staring at the two boys.

“They’re not the ones who killed Cucuboros, though,” Kraelin said softly to her. “Elysia, you used Void magic.”

“I know,” Elysia said, looking away from her friend.

“You said you would never…”

“I know!” she cried out, a hint of anger in her voice, though anger at who she didn’t know. “But everybody is alive right now! It isn’t like last time! I’m older! I…I might be able to…”

“Stop,” Kraelin said. “I’m following you because I believe in you. I trust you. Where everyone else in Lugara saw a dangerous little powder keg, I saw a friend. Don’t make me regret it.”

From a distance, Silver watched it all play out. She had no friends, nobody to celebrate the liberation of Gravine with. She had even failed in her mission to bring Cucuboros back alive to her employer. But she wasn’t bothered by her failure. She kept remembering the dark surge of energy blasting Cucuboros to pieces, the terror which had gripped her heart in seeing that energy…

“You coming?”

Silver looked up. All four of them were suddenly standing before her. Elysia extended her hand.

“Coming…where?” Silver asked.

“We’re going to check around, make sure everyone is okay. Then people have said they wanted to reward us. Food, money, all the good stuff,” Jake said.

“But…I didn’t…my plan failed.” Silver shook her head. “No, thank you, I…”

“So your plan failed. We’re stuck here because Elysia’s plans had some weird twists and turns,” Alex said, shrugging. “Believe me, I hate when a plan doesn’t work out. But hey, you helped.”

“Yeah dude, you chopped those vine people right along with me and Kraelin,” Jake said. “So, you get the reward too.”

Kraelin simply looked at her and nodded. “You earned it.”

Underneath her mask, Silver smiled. “You people…I knew you were a bunch of idealistic idiots when I saw you in the bar. Fine, if you’re the type to share a reward, this Sweeper won’t mind.”

As they walked through Gravine, Silver felt something she hadn’t felt in a long time. However, she pushed those thoughts down. Soon they would be ready to depart, and she would be alone again.

*

Jake and Kraelin finished loading the last of the supplies into the truck. The past three days had been spent helping the people recover and giving the group some much deserved rest. The people of Gravine had gifted them enough provisions and money to keep them from having to take Sweeper jobs for a couple of weeks, leaving them pretty happy.

“We’ll be able to make a lot of progress east now!” Elysia said happily. “Without having to stop all the time, we should blow through a lot of the western lands!”

“Yeah, only now we gotta get Alex back in the truck!” Jake said with a laugh. Alex was playing with some of the village children and Stick, the whiptail engaging in a keep away game with a large tree branch.

“He seems to gravitate towards kids a lot,” Kraelin said, watching Alex.

“Yeah. I always thought he’d make a good teacher or something someday. He wanted to write books. Hell, now he’s living one of those stories,” Jake said.

As the kids gathered around Alex to say goodbye, they kept screaming and asking questions at him.

“Can you turn invisible again?”

“Can I pet Stick?”

“Are you guys gonna find the Eastern Treasure?”

“You’re so pretty! I hope I can be pretty like you one day!”

Being called pretty got to him. “Okay! Okay, time…time to go! Bye bye now! Be sure not to pick up any pumpkins!”

“What’s a pumpkin?” one of them asked in a parting shot.

Alex walked over to the truck, grumbling. “Pretty like me…funny, I was starting to feel normal again…”

“Hey, they don’t mean anything, man,” Jake said, putting his hand on Alex’s shoulder.

“Yeah, they don’t know better. Which somehow makes it worse.” He shook his head. “Hey, where’s no face going?”

Alex pointed at Silver, slinking off into the woods without saying a proper goodbye. “Hey! No no no, not so fast!” Elysia said, making a green energy wall appear before her.

“I can’t see what else I could possibly have to say to you,” Silver said, not turning around.

“Well, where are you going?” Elysia asked.

“East. Why?”

“Well…we are too. You could come with us if you wanted to.” Elysia’s suggestion hung out there.

“Why would I want to go with you?” Silver asked.

“Well, you’re good in a fight,” Jake said. “You can clearly hold your own.”

“Besides, you want to come with us. You simply wanted us to ask first,” Alex said.

“I absolutely was not waiting for you,” Silver said.

“Okay, whatever. Guess I was wrong. Bye, I guess…” Alex said, getting into the truck.

“You’re going east…” Silver said. “Which way?”

“Well, there are a couple of different routes,” Elysia said. “There are three main routes to Central City. We were going to go straight through Blackpoint…”

“I’m heading towards Havenbrook,” Silver said. “It’s on the way to Central City, though a bit further out of the way. If you wanted to…”

“Havenbrook…” Elysia said softly.

“We're not going to Havenbrook,” Kraelin said solidly.

“Wait, what’s in Havenbrook?” Jake asked.

“We’re not going to Havenbrook,” Kraelin repeated.

“No, I think…I think it might be a good idea,” Elysia said. Kraelin looked at her, surprised.

“Good. Give me a ride,” Silver said, getting in the back of their truck.

“You don’t have to,” Kraelin said to Elysia as he got into the driver’s seat.

“I know. But I…I want to. Something about this feels like…fate.”

Jake and Alex looked at each other and shrugged.

“We’ll find out eventually,” Jake said.

“Yeah, and I’m sure we’ll regret it then,” Alex said as the truck pulled away from Gravine, rumbling down the road towards Havenbrook.