Chapter 5

[The following chapter contains strong language. Reader caution is advised.]

Friday 17th July 1998

“Have you ever… eaten a snail?”

That was the question posed to us by a particularly-bored Bao as he lay on the roundabout at the local playground.

“What…?” Zahid grunted in disbelief.

“You mean like in French cuisine? Or just picking one up and…?” I asked for the sake of clarity.

“Yeah, French food,” the shorter guy confirmed, as he slowly swung his raised knees side to side, moving the roundabout to-and-fro while his feet kept him anchored.

“Okay! No,” I told him.

“I… almost did one time, on holiday,” Kendal remarked.

“I thought you’d never been abroad?” Dakota pointed out; Kendal nodded an affirmative.

“Yeah, it was in Brighton,” she explained. “It was like… Little Paris or something. Actually, it might’ve been just one restaurant.”

“So, Really Little Paris,” I proposed. The others found it funny – even Zahid smirked! What an accomplishment!

We had already apparently run out of exciting things to do. Kendal couldn’t think of any new activities to try, several days of gaming had grown tiresome, and Zahid was refusing to genuinely start a band. To that end, we had gone out for a walk to see if inspiration would strike, and we wound up gravitating towards the playground. It was past 8pm, so there were only a handful of children around, none of them in the playground itself: just a group of boys playing football on the adjacent field. Dakota and I had taken to the swings, Kendal to the rocking horse, and Bao, the roundabout. Zahid declared that the bench would be more comfortable to sit on, so he’d taken to that instead. It had been a hot day, but the air was cool now as the sun slowly sank into the horizon.

“So, no one else has had snails?” Bao confirmed.

“Nope. Have you, then?” Dakota asked him, lightly swaying on her swing.

“Yeah, Mum and Dad like doing themed parties, so I always try the food they make,” he explained, still moving around himself. “They did a French night and I thought ‘when in Rome’. Then I thought ‘or Paris’, cos y’know…”

“What was it like?” I enquired. I didn’t really fancy eating snails, but you have to wonder.

“About the same as all their other parties…”

“No, I mean the snail…”

Dakota stifled a giggle at that.

“Oh! It was…”

He trailed off, mulling over it, even coming to a standstill on the roundabout. Several seconds passed.

“Weird.”

“Ace food critic Bao Thomson,” Zahid quipped with a very unimpressed expression and a sullen shake of the head. His gaze off into the distance suddenly sharpened.

“Anyone know who she is?” he asked, nodding in the direction he was looking. The rest of us turned to see who he was talking about.

There are a hundred ways I could set this up, but I might as well say it bluntly: my sister was marching over to us.

“Oh crap-” I uttered. It was all I could say before she was within earshot.

“My spy network pulls it off again!” Lucy declared as she completed her journey towards us. Lucy-English translation: one of her friends saw me and told her where I was.

She was dressed in a small, midriff-baring tank-top, shorts that were a little too short, long stripy socks and Converse. This was the type of thing she’d wear all the time and it made me want to wrap her in a big coat like an actor would use between takes in the cold. Seriously, she’s not even 15 until next month…

“Hi! I’m Kendal! Who’re you?” my afro-sporting friend asked of the new arrival. Lucy looked at her, and for a brief moment, she softly bit her lip.

“I’m Lucy! Alex’s sister. You’re telling me he’s not mentioned me?!” she gasped.

I had. In passing.

“What are you doing here, Lucy?” I asked her, hoping against hope that she would leave without probing us all for information.

“I came to see the band!” she declared, throwing her arms out wide for emphasis. “You’ve got your instruments with you here, huh?” Her line of sight bounced between our gathered cases (the others had followed my idea and purchased instrument cases for their weapons – Dakota had struggled to find one long enough for her spear).

“No drums? I can play drums if you want. I mean… this is a real band, isn’t it?”

For a moment, it seemed like none of us were able to scrape a convincing answer together.

“Actually, see,” Bao began. My heart started beating twice as fast in nervousness. “My parents have invented these cool new instruments that we’re using, and we can’t leave them unattended.”

… okay, actually, that was pretty reasonable.

“They’re powered by chocolate-”

No, Bao, no!

“- and so we’re always working part-time at Cadbury’s to get access to the fuel we need. But there’s this rival band working there and we’re both going to enter battle of the bands. So we’re out here trying to gain inspiration. We were thinking ‘Playground’, kind of like ‘Fairground’ by Simply Red but I guess smaller. Hey, that’s a good idea!” he concluded.

Lucy tilted her head, eyes locking onto me, as she smirked the biggest “gotcha” I’d yet seen from her.

Wavering under that, I looked to Dakota to see what she would advise. After all, she was the one who was calling the shots on all this Lokonessence-related stuff. Unfortunately, she was just as uncertain in her response – no nod, no confident smile, just a look of caution on her face.

Well then. This was on me.

I stood up, put on a stone-cold face, and walked over to my sister. Her smirk faltered but didn’t fade, at least until I took hold of her shoulders.

“Lucy.”

“Alex…?” she replied, looking thrown now.

“I can tell you what’s really going on,” I began, trying my hardest to keep my tone deadly serious and just a little bit ominous, “but you’re going to have to swear to keep it secret. Not a soul can find out about any of this.”

“Whoa… you’re weirding me out,” my sister informed me. “This isn’t like you. I thought we had our dynamic worked out?”

“Not. A. Soul,” I insisted, shaking her lightly on each word, glaring right at her.

“Okay, okay!” she blurted, looking increasingly disconcerted. “So long as I get to find out what the hell you’ve been up to for the past few weeks…”

I released her shoulders and softly dropped the act. Job done. Turning back to the swing, I made my way over to the case containing my sword.

“I think you’re gonna like it!” Kendal informed her, while rocking back and forth on her spring-loaded horse.

“Better be worth the wait,” Lucy purred, her voice closer than I would expect. Apparently, she was following me.

“You can trust her, right?” Dakota asked me quietly as I picked up my sword-case.

“She’s my sister,” I nodded, hoping that that was a good enough response. I took my seat on the swing again, while Lucy hovered in front of me, leaning forward in eager curiosity. Setting the case on my lap, I slowly opened up the clips, giving my younger sister a teasing glance. She began to bounce rapidly in response, a grin spreading across her face.

“Get on with it…” Zahid sighed on the bench.

Taking that suggestion on-board, I stopped dragging the process out: I turned the case around on my lap and opened it up, unveiling my Lokon sword to my sister. Her eyes widened, her grin transformed as she gasped loudly, her fingers immediately began wiggling in anticipation.

“Oh man that looks so cool!” she exclaimed, promptly picking it up out of the case. “Where did you get it?!”

“I don’t really know,” I began. “It got delivered a few weeks ago. The others each have one too. Please be careful-”

I didn’t even get to finish my sentence before she started swinging the sword around frenziedly.

“Hahahahahahaaa! Fear the Majestic Lucy, for she shall smite you muchly!” she bellowed all the while. Kendal seemed amused; Zahid threw his head back in exhaustion.

“Lucy, seriously! Be careful!” I shouted, knowing that it was all I could do as approaching her could result in being smited muchly.

“Yaaaargh!” she cried out in defiance, stabbing repeatedly at the air. Yeah, didn’t think that would work…

“Listen to your brother.”

Kendal had her bow out, a neon pink arrow aimed right at Lucy. Despite the threatening aim, she was smiling brightly.

On her part, Lucy stopped messing around with my sword as soon as she noticed.

“Watch where you point that thing, Cupid,” she winked, and once Kendal lowered the bow and dissipated the arrow, she ran over to investigate it.

“So, you’ve all got different weapons? Sweet!”

“Yeah! And they’re all different colours!” Kendal enthused, showing off her bow (while making sure to keep it out of Lucy’s grasp).

“I’ve got two!” Bao chimed in from the roundabout. “I mean, two of the same, but still!”

“Lemme see!” my sister grinned, running over to him now. I heard Zahid groan loudly. Evidently three flavours of energy were too much for him.

“Now I get why you can handle Bao and Kendal,” Dakota told me while opening up her own case. Lucy was too busy with Bao and his tonfa blades to notice.

“She’s more of a handful than them,” I noted. “Keep watching. You’ll get it.”

“Must be nice, though. Having a sibling.”

I only realised then that Dakota seemed… troubled. Despite myself, I felt a pang of guilt.

“Hey, I mean, sometimes I think it would be better being an only child!” I insisted, hoping to ease Dakota’s woes. “You’re not having to compete for attention! And that goes double when Lucy’s your sister…”

As Dakota took her spear out of its case, she looked at me with eyes pleading me to stop. My guilt doubled over.

“I’ll… shut up…” I muttered, turning my focus back to my sister. She was now playfully clashing my sword against Bao’s weapons as he held them up defensively. This was an accident waiting to happen…

Movement over on Zahid’s bench caught my attention from the corner of my eye. When I glanced over, I was surprised to see a small, furry creature sat next to him. It seemed like some kind of rodent/feline/primate hybrid, with long limbs, grasping hands, big eyes, attentive ears and a tail far longer than it really should be. A sort of… weird racoon thing, perhaps? Taking a couple of curious steps forward, it placed its paws on Zahid’s leg and began chattering away at him.

Zahid groaned, and without even lifting his head, tried to swat it away. With impeccable reflexes, it dodged out of the way before his hand could reach it. Even as Zahid lifted his head to look at it, it leapt up onto the back of the bench playfully.

“Don’t d-d-do this…” my friend warned through gritted teeth. The creature responded by leaping onto his head.

And Zahid roared.

The creature scampered off, halting a few metres away and sitting down to watch. Bao, Kendal and Lucy stopped dead, turning in shock.

Visibly twitching, Zahid reached for the case next to him and began fumbling to open it. When that failed thanks to his jittery fingers, he snarled again and threw the case hard to the ground. It cracked; he stomped and kicked at it until it was in pieces all over the place. Breathing sharply, Zahid took his axe from the shattered remains of its case and held it in front of his chest. Red burst forth like a torrent of blood, consuming him and unveiling him in his battle costume.

“Whoa,” I heard Lucy coo.

The creature was still watching on innocently. Zahid locked onto it, and slashed straight through the bench, breaking it apart and cutting into the ground beneath it.

“C-C-C-Come here, you fucking bastard!” he shouted, running over to the critter with his axe primed to swing – it scampered away as soon as he reached it, his axe blade narrowly missing it. Stopping a few feet away, it again turned to look at Zahid, almost taunting him. My friend stumbled after it in his fury, again failing to strike it as it scurried at the last possible moment.

I had no idea what to do. I knew that Zahid had come close to expulsion for having gotten into fights at school. They were rare, but intense. What was I going to be able to do to calm him down? Could he even be calmed down?

Clearly, Bao, Kendal and Lucy felt the same way, as they remained still. Bao and Kendal seemed anxious, concerned, maybe even scared… Lucy was more fascinated.

Dakota stood up next to me, spinning her spear around before generating her costume with a strong burst of green.

“Dakota, wait-” I began. She held a hand up to me, a gesture to hold, to wait. As Zahid continued to chase after the mystery creature, she walked straight into the scene.

“Zahid,” she spoke, calmly but firmly. His head snapped in her direction, shooting daggers at her.

“F-FUCK OFF!” he snapped at her, then immediately turned his attention back to the creature.

A cold chill went over me when he spoke to her like that. I immediately got to my feet, but they wouldn’t move. So what was I hoping to do? Why did I shoot up like that?

Lucy dashed over to me, her expression still entirely inappropriate for the situation.

“Aaaalex!” she called out dramatically before she reached me. “I guess you should be the one to fight him instead of me.” She held the sword out for me.

“I’m not fighting him!” I insisted.

“You want me to then?” she asked, waving the sword around in anticipation.

“No! Neither of us are! We need to…”

It made sense to me that, if he gets rid of the creature, he might calm down. All we had to do was keep it still.

We needed to lure it in…

“Lucy, call it over!” I ordered, taking the sword from her all the while.

“Okay!” she saluted, before dropping to her knees and making the kind of noises you make to call a cat. Fortunately, that really did capture the creature’s attention. She held out her hands and it came running towards her.

All the while, I held my sword blade-down like a knight guarding treasure, both hands on the handle. Over the past several battles, I’d continued to experiment with creating things with my sword. I had to get this right.

As the pseudo-racoon came within a foot of Lucy, I pressed my sword into the ground and used the sensation to imagine “pushing” my mental image along with it. Blue light instantly flooded the ground, surrounded the critter, and rose up around it to form a small circular cage.

“Yes!” I cheered. I’d managed to create something! I mean, the smallest, simplest thing you could ever hope for, but still!

I turned to see Zahid already approaching. The sound of Lucy’s hurried footsteps confirmed that she was sensible enough to get out of the way.

In one swift movement, he lunged axe-first at the trapped creature and sliced it in half. Thankfully, no guts spilled – after a brief screech, its body began to smudge into thin air.

“Phew-” I began. Zahid stood upright and rounded on me.

“That was m-my kill! F-Fuck you and your help-!” he screamed at me, advancing with his axe at the ready.

“Wait, wait, don’t!” I urged him, trying to take a good grip on my sword all the while to be safe.

“Why not?!” Zahid demanded. There was nothing of the usual Zahid in there, just unlimited rage. “D-Don’t fucking get involved!”

He raised his arm, axe primed to strike. I braced and prepared to block.

Dakota sewed her spear in front of his arm and behind his head, debilitating him in one swift movement. Taken by surprise, he writhed about, unable to free his arm.

“Leave him alone,” she spoke with almost the same tone as before, only more forcefully now. She withdrew her weapon, and he turned to her, incensed.

“Do not tell me what t-to do!” he snapped, his teeth bared.

For a moment, Dakota’s eyes widened in fright. I remained braced, ready to return the favour to her if Zahid went to attack.

“Everyone. Back to mine,” she ordered. And then she walked away from Zahid.

“Hey! Come back here, bitch!” our angered friend roared after her. She didn’t stop, or turn back. I took a few steps backwards to keep an eye on him before following after her; Bao, Kendal and even Lucy likewise took after her.

“Don’t turn back,” she advised us amidst deep breaths.

The five of us left the park as the setting sun’s orange began to surrender to the black of the night sky. Zahid’s roars of fury echoed out behind us like the howling of a wolf.

…

For a little over half an hour, we remained at Dakota’s place with no sign of Zahid. Dakota had all but collapsed as soon as we got in, her front dissolving in the security of her home.

“Holy crap…” she’d uttered more than once as Kendal and I supported her. Bao managed to make her some tea without incident.

Lucy took the opportunity to investigate the house, and upon returning to us, declared “I’ve seen cooler superhero bases.”

For the record, she hasn’t.

… as best as I’m aware.

Thanks in no small part to Lucy being somehow utterly unphased by Zahid’s fit of rage, we quickly recovered and returned to something akin to our usual conversational atmosphere. It wasn’t quite the same, of course, because Lucy would steal focus at every possible opportunity. When Dakota started talking about the time she’d tried to bake chocolate chip cookies while home alone, Lucy attempted to give Bao a lap-dance. When Bao recounted other parties his parents had thrown, she attempted to give Kendal a lap-dance. When I was part-way through talking about a mild allergic reaction to peanuts, she started whispering in Dakota’s ear.

Dakota had giggled, a lot. And refused to tell me what Lucy had told her. She relished it, in fact. Lucy grinned ear-to-ear all the while.

I dread to think what shameful secret she’d imparted…

A slow, steady knock on the door disrupted the chaos, dousing it in silence. Dakota took a steadying breath.

“I’ll get it,” she spoke, standing up and heading off to answer the door. Our silence allowed us to listen on with ease.

The door opened.

“I’m… I’m so sorry…” Zahid said shakily.

A moment of silence.

“I just… I went red and…”

A haggard exhalation.

“I am so, so sorry. You don’t have to forgive me…”

Ambiguous movement.

“O-Or hug me…”

“I forgive you,” Dakota assured him.

Sure, the atmosphere was tense when he followed Dakota back to us in the living room. Sure, his apology wouldn’t fix the bench he broke, or the memory of how much hatred I saw in his eyes. Sure, none of us had any idea if this would wind up happening again.

But we forgave him. All of us. Even Lucy, for what it was worth. Of course we did. Because he was soaked through in so much palpable remorse, it may as well have been blasted onto him by the port on his axe.

…

“You’re like him, sometimes,” Lucy informed me matter-of-factly as we walked home together under the shine of the streetlights a short while later.

I didn’t answer her.

“See! You can’t argue it. Cos you know you can turn into a monster just like that! You’re like one of your Transformers. ‘Beast mode’ or whatever!”

Stop it, Lucy. Stop and move on.

Don’t remind me of my temper, please.

“Anyway, when are you gonna bone Dakota?” she asked me with a twinkle.

The world froze and I ground to a halt.

“… what?”

She turned to me and laughed hard in my face.

“Dude! You’ve gone tomato-red!”

No, no, no one can go that red unless it’s a bad sunburn. Stop exaggerating, sister of mine!

“I-I-I- what?!” I reiterated.

“You. Want. Her,” she sang with sadistic glee.

“No! No! Don’t get me wrong, she’s amazing, but- but it’s not like I like her that way or anything and she’d never go out with me anyway!” I expressed desperately.

Really.

“Get a griiiip,” my sister whined, before slinking out of the spotlight we were under, melting into the night. “You literally have ‘love’ written on your face whenever you look at her.”

Not unless someone’s writing it there, Lucy.