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I suddenly awoke from my rest. Something wasn’t right. I took care to keep my breathing at the same rate and opened my eyes a little to look around the room. Jenna was curled up next to me on the bed. I continued looking around the room, and noticed a cool breeze. I glanced to the windows to find them completely missing. A quick look around showed me that nobody was in our room except for our own little party.
I carefully slipped out of bed, taking care not to wake Jenna, and wandered over to the window. I was just in time to witness the end of a fight between two people. One was obliviously the assassin from the other night, and the other was…a soldier in the Unknown Man’s army. I stared in confusion as the soldier suddenly tumbled backwards and pulled a large gun from under his cloak. It hummed to life, and a tiny beam of light shot from it. The assassin was hurled into a wall, where he laid smoking. The soldier looked up at me from under his cloak, and took a little box out of his pocket before lobbing it at my window.
I reflexively caught it, and when I looked back down at him, he was gone. I inspected the box in my hand closer, and found that it didn’t answer a single of the hundreds of questions that had suddenly invaded my mind.
A small note was taped to it, so I pulled it off the box to read it. “Horse lord is not what he seems,” read out loud, and frowned.
Whoever this soldier was, he seemed to know me somehow. I was debating whether I should open the box or not when I felt a hand on my shoulder. I spun quickly, my hand going to the energy dagger strapped to my side.
Jenna reflexively jumped backwards, her hand automatically preparing to spear me with one of her daggers. I stepped backwards with my hands raised in the air, and she immediately sheathed her dagger. “Oh, I’m so sorry! It’s just sort of automatic for me. I didn’t mean to…”
I shushed her and nodded. “It’s no problem, you just scared me.”
“So what’s in that box?”
I decided to trust her, and took her hand. I pointed at the missing window, and she rushed over to it. She looked out of it to see the dead assassin slumped against the wall. She spun back to me. “What happened?”
“Keep your voice down. Lilly can’t see this. Did she fill you in on the Unknown Man and his army?”
Jenna nodded. “What does that have to do with that box and the dead guy outside?”
“The man who killed that assassin was from the Unknown Man’s army. He tossed me this box and disappeared.”
“Lilly said you have a tracking device, can’t you use that to find him?”
I slapped my forehead, and pulled the device from my belt. I looked at it, but it was too late and the soldier was already gone. I sighed and shook my head at Jenna. “It’s too late, he’s already disappeared.”
Jenna shrugged. “So what are you going to do with the box? I can already tell that if you give it to Lilly, she’ll either burn it or ship it off to the Pisces Empire.”
I ignored the fact that the only way Lilly could ship the box anywhere would be if I Leaped back to the void and then she found the plate where the Pisces Empire’s time pocket was. “I think that since it looks like that soldier could have easily killed us, it’s probably safe to open. Although it is possible that the assassin saw him and attacked, causing him to kill the assassin…”
“Oh…I’m confused, Drake. Wouldn’t it have been easier to shoot you instead of disappearing while you were preoccupied with the box?”
Jenna had a point. “Oh, screw it.” I whispered, and carefully lifted the cover off the box. Inside were several things. The first was an envelope addressed to me, a black glove, and a small black cube the size of a penny.
I lifted the letter out of the box and opened it first, since that seemed like a good idea to do. I read it quietly so Jenna could hear it.
“Hello, Mr. Jinx, I hope you have been enjoying your time prancing through the Void and wasting time fiddling around with the destinies of who knows how many worlds and pockets of time. I’ll have to go out on a limb here and guess that you are, since you still appear to do it. I have certainly enjoyed it as well, but I fear I must get down to business. I am sure that you were smart enough to read the letter before you messed around with the objects. I know this because if you weren’t, you would be lying dead on the floor because you would have probably used the items within the box wrong. Now read closely. For this to work, you must follow the instructions in the letter exactly as you read. Now, pick up the glove.”
I reached into the box and pulled the black glove out. I inspected the inside for any needles or things that could prove dangerous or a way to administer a poison before returning to the letter.
“Slip the glove on and pick up the black cube WITH THE HAND THAT HAS THE GLOVE ON IT. Then hold it for exactly five seconds, and then throw the cube out the window as hard as you can.”
Jenna moved out of the way of the window, and I slipped the glove on. Nothing seemed special about it, so I picked the cube up and held it in my gloved hand for five seconds. I then hurled it out of the window with all my might, and there was a crushing pain in my hand. I screamed, and I could almost hear the bones in my hand cracking. There was a loud bang from outside as the cube burst into a huge firework, showering the ground with large flaming red and blue balls.
Jenna rushed over to me, and grabbed my shoulders. She tried to pull the glove off of my hand, but it was stuck there. Her touch sent a blast of pain through my body, and I felt a shock of electricity blast through my body. I was hurled backwards and into a wall, and smoke started to rise from my belt. Oh great, I fried my stuff. I never should have trusted that bastard…
I started to fade out of consciousness, but a sudden jolt of electricity snapped me back to normal. I shook my head in confusion. All the pain I had been feeling a moment ago was gone, aside from a dull throbbing in my right hand where the glove was.
Jenna rushed over to me. “Drake! Are you ok?”
“Ugh…What the hell just happened? I feel sort of woozy… can you help me to my feet?”
“You shouldn’t move! You hit that wall pretty hard, you must have broken something!”
A glance down at my belt agreed with her statement, although probably not in the way she intended. “My stuff is ruined!” I complained.
Jenna rolled her eyes, and carefully grabbed my shoulders. She slowly lifted me to my feet, and I leaned heavily against her. “Drake, are you sure you’re fine?”
I chuckled weakly. “Oh, I’m fine. I’m not actually having any problems standing, I just like this position.”
She laughed and shoved me off. I hopped backwards easily, feeling strangely refreshed. I looked down at my belt again with disappointment, and carefully peeled it off of my body. It was partially melted, and its contents were still smoking. I took out my gun and tried to activate it, but it just released a large puff of smoke.
“Aw, crap. I liked that gun!”
Jenna rolled her eyes, and then froze. “Why isn’t Lilly awake?”
I paled, and rushed over to her bed. She was completely still, and I placed my head above her heart to listen for a heartbeat.
I didn’t hear one, but I did hear a sudden, loud snore.
Jenna tapped me on my shoulder. “That’s the wrong side of her chest, you idiot.”
Whoops.
Jenna shoved Lilly, but Lilly didn’t even respond. “Drake, I think she’s been drugged.”
I rolled my eyes. “Oh, whoop de flipping do. One of the best warriors of the Pisces Empire, and taken out by a drug that she should have been resistant to due to her training. That won’t look great on her resume.”
Jenna scratched her back idly. “I’m confused right now. I’m sure you should be in at least a little pain, but you’re standing here without a scratch on your body. Not to mention that Lilly is fast asleep, and all your things just got zapped. I only have a small amount of fire elemental power, so I couldn’t have done that.”
I flexed my glove hand and felt no
thing out of the ordinary aside from a slight weight from the glove. I tugged at it, but it was stuck fast. “Can I borrow one of your daggers really quick?” I asked.
She took one from its harness and flipped it over, handing it hilt first to me. I nodded my head to her, and placed the tip of the dagger at the edge of the glove.
I tried to wedge the dagger under the glove. My hand suddenly dropped a little as the glove suddenly became heavier, and the tip of the dagger suddenly shattered. It spun into the air, and embedded itself deep in the ground.
Jenna stared in a mixture of awe and horror. “That dagger was imbued with some powerful elemental flame. It shouldn’t have broken at all, much less so easily.”
I scratched my head. “Oh, I’ve been meaning to ask you something. Magic isn’t real, so how come you can mess with fire and stuff?”
Jenna giggled. “For someone so interesting, you can be stupid sometimes. Did you honestly think the Pisces Empire was the only pocket of time with a special ability unique to them?”
I had never even considered the possibility, and told Jenna the very same. “But how come I’ve never heard of this? I never knew anything about this from my planet, and certainly not from planets that the Pisces Empire has conquered.”
“Oh please. Did you really think that they would let word of that get out? The Pisces Empire has always taken care to find out the power of the world they attack before they take over it. They’ve never taken a planet that has a dangerous offensive power.”
“So the reason that this pocket of time is still safe from the Pisces Empire is because…”
“Yeah. Shadows would be able to fight back and cause some serious casualties. The Pisces Empire isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be. But, there is one thing that they have that nobody else does. They can go to any point in our history, and attack whenever they wish. In that regard, we can never win against them. So the reason we are still free is because they just don’t feel like taking over us yet.”
“How do you know so much about the Pisces Empire anyways? You told me that you can only see a few of my memories that aren’t very important.”
Jenna nodded. “When a Shadow is still in its egg, it can communicate with other Shadows across great distances. One Shadow was captured by your empire some time ago and studied thoroughly. We saw everything he did.”
I nodded and reached for the paper. I figured I might as well see what else the jerk who had gotten this glove stuck on me had to say.
I grabbed it, and prepared to start reading. I stopped at the look on Jenna’s face. “What?”
“You…what did you just do?”
“What are you talking about?”
Jenna pointed at the paper in my hands. “That was at the other end of the room. Didn’t you see that dot of darkness just suck it up and take it to your hand?”
My laughter filled the room. “Ok Jenna, that’s enough. You looked so sincere there I almost believed you for a moment.”
Jenna glared at me. “I’m not lying!”
The glove on my hand almost seemed to stare at me innocently. I made a dismissive noise. “So you’re telling me a dot of darkness appeared around this letter and magically teleported it to my hands?”
Jenna nodded. “Yes.”
“So you’re telling me that I can somehow summon stuff?”
Jenna was the one who burst into laughter this time. “Summon? That’s a good one! What the heck do you think that thing is, magic? I bet it gave you something like telekinesis or the like.”
“So theoretically I could steal stuff from people without them even knowing?”
“You better not use it that way. Besides, I’m just guessing here.”
“So how do I work this then? Do I just point it at you and want to take something?”
She covered herself protectively with her hands. “Don’t you dare.”
There was a sudden flash of darkness, and her shoe appeared in my glove. “What the… I wasn’t aiming for a shoe! I wanted your other dagger…”
Jenna glared at me. “Right…you wanted a dagger. Can I have my shoe back?”
I shrugged, and tossed it back to her. The shoe disappeared into a small circle of darkness. I stared in surprise as the circle also disappeared.
Jenna stared in dismay. “My shoe!”
I was more concerned with how I had magically kidnapped her shoe, not the shoe itself. I was shaken out of my thoughts by a thin black line behind Jenna’s head.
“Duck!” I yelled.
She obediently dropped to the ground, and the line suddenly expanded, looking disturbingly like a mouth with spiked teeth. It was approximately two feet in length, and maybe half a foot tall.
Jenna’s shoe shot from it like a bullet, embedding itself in the wall, and the mouth snapped shut and disappeared.
Jenna stared at the new decoration stuck in the wall.
“Oh wonderful. Now the owners of this room are going to shoe us away…” I complained.
Jenna glared at me. “You’re going to be buying me a new pair of shoes.”
“Oh, have a sole! Wait, it’s in the wall.”
“Did you make two shoe puns in a row?”
“If you intend to stick around with me, you better get shoest to it.”
Jenna grinned at me slyly. “Oh, you don’t know what you’re getting into.”
I gulped, and finally looked back down at the piece of paper.
“Ah, I must apologize for the sudden shock you must have received there. (Ha-ha, not funny.) As you have probably discovered by now, that glove stuck to your hand isn’t going to come off, and I don’t recommend trying to get it off either. I have one very much the same as yours, although I have learned to control it much better than you currently can. That glove is part of the heritage that the Pisces Empire stole from you. It is known as a Conduit by the late people of the time pocket you…and I come from. We both happen to have the same power of opening and closing wormholes if we are holding or wearing a Conduit. That was the power of our planet. The reason you never knew this is, as you know well, the Pisces Empire decided to completely wipe our planet from the universe and leave nothing but rubble behind. We are the only survivors…for now. I won’t go into that anymore. Just know that you’ll never get that Conduit off…so don’t even bother trying. I recommend you practice with it a little, since I’m sure it will be useful in the future. Now from here on forth, read this quietly. This is for your ears alone.”
Whatever you do, do not ever show the Pisces Empire the power you have. They will kill you for it. They thought that you were one of the few people on a planet who failed to inherit our ability, but only because you fell asleep while you, along with the rest of the planet, were given conduits to allow them to try to escape. The second one activated the Conduit, they were instantly killed. Not to mention that you were only a few months old around then. They just figured that since you were asleep and so young they just wouldn’t let you get a Conduit.
However, now that you have both the powers of our planet and that of the Pisces Empire, you are a danger to them. Since only one of their own can have this power at a time, they are at a severe disadvantage if you turn out to be their enemy, so they will attempt to eliminate you.
Oh, I also had my men leave you one last gift. Don’t forget that we’re still enemies. I just felt it my duty to grant you your true ability. It was quite sickening to watch your progress as that weak geek that spent his time making useless junk in his office and making playing card stacks. And attacking a Cyborg with a sausage? Really? Anyways, I recommend dropping this paper now. Your friend will probably wake up about now, and this paper is going to blow up- much like your career if the Pisces Empire finds about your powers. Have fun trying not to die, and be careful around Donkey Face!