4

"Hey! You!"

Ivy's eyes shot open at the same time as Tobi's. Standing in front of her was an almost middle-aged black woman, who looked quite pissed. Her accusatory finger was pointed just a few inches from her face. 

"Hands above the blanket!" 

Both Tobi and Ivy had been sleeping on the futon in the living room, covered by a heavy blanket. 

It took Tobi a second to wake up and comprehend what was being said. He glanced over, seeing Ivy's confused face. "Ew! Mom!"

"Tobi! I thought I raised you better than this!" She shrieked. 

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw his sister poking her head out of her bedroom door. Her phone camera was aimed at them, capturing every moment. 

"Mother," Tobi protested. "She's like twelve. It's really not what you think it is. It's not like that, and you know it." 

"She's 'like' twelve? You're disgusting!"

"Of course, you'd take that the bad way," Tobi rolled his eyes.

His mother held her hands in the air, trying not to laugh. "You know I'm just giving you a hard time," she said.

After introducing herself to Tobi's mother, who was on her way to work, so she didn't have much time to chat, Ivy, Tobi, and his sister all sat around the kitchen table. Tobi had his head in his hands, while his sister giggled to herself, rewatching the video. 

"Dude, why do y'all do this to me?" Tobi asked, giving a defeated glare at his sister. 

"It's funny!"

Ivy glanced out of the kitchen window, looking at the position of the sun. "Well, I'm going to go train. Is there an empty field or a forest around here?" 

Tobi and his sister exchanged looks. 'Train?' they both thought. 

With Ivy clinging to his back once again, Tobi hopped on his bike and zipped through the local suburbs toward his school—A large campus beside a well-forested park. Grant Park. He knew the perfect place. 

"Alright," Tobi said once they reached a small clearing. He leaned his bike against a nearby tree. "What is this training you do?" 

Ivy crouched down, stretching her legs and arms. Springing off the ground, she jumped high enough to grab onto a tree branch above and hang from it. "Just exercise, y'know?" She said between pull-ups. 

Tobi stood and watched in amazement. 'Her speed and strength are almost inhuman,' he thought. During a break, Ivy sat on the ground several minutes later, catching her breath. "How are you this strong? Even when I first met you, I remember you were strong then, too." 

Ivy shrugged, "I mean…energy helps. But I guess you're right, I could do this stuff before I learned energy," she laughed. 

"Hold on." Tobi shook his head, confused. "Are you using energy right now? I'm confused."

"Here," Ivy got to her feet. She glanced around the small clearing, "I don't think there's any monsters or other people around…" she muttered. "Yeah, I can show you!" She took a wide stance and took a deep breath. "Only a small bit of energy, since it might draw unwanted attention." 

Tobi fell back, the force, plus the shock of it all, knocking him on his ass. Blinking rapidly, he couldn't believe what he was seeing. 

White energy, like bubbles, floated from the pores in her skin. "Ta-da!" She grinned, enjoying the moment. 

Even though they were in a clearing, the leaves blocked most of the sunlight overhead. Ivy's aura was like a spotlight flashing through the woods. 

Tobi stared at the girl in front of him. The sensation was foreign, but it was as if he could feel the light radiating from Ivy. She was powerful. 

Standing up, getting to the bottom of this, he asked her to explain everything once more. When she was done, he stared at his hands trying to will colors to come from them. 

"It's not going to be that easy," Ivy said.

"I know, it's just…wow." 

"Yeah," Ivy nodded. Grinning, she said, "In about a month, I'm going to Dubai to fight in the NFC tournament! I'm gonna win it too!" 

'Is she talking about Nike's Fighting Championship?' Tobi thought, bewildered. 'Nike is known as the goddess of victory if I recall correctly.'

After a few hours of training, and Ivy attempting to teach Tobi how to activate his energy, they decided to head back to his house. 

Collapsing into a chair at his kitchen table, totally exhausted, Tobi laid his head down. 

He must've dozed off, because a few minutes later, his eyes shot open, feeling something lick his face. 

The Charcat that he had adopted was sitting on the table in front of him, head cocked, looking at him like it always did; then it turned to Ivy, who approached slowly, trying not to scare it. 

"Is that the same…"

"Yeah," Tobi yawned, wiping his face with his sleeve. 

Ivy clicked her tongue, trying to get it to come to her. "Here, Tuck-Tuck," she called. 

"No, there was a name change. It's called Pee-Pee now. You can thank my sister for that."

"Oh, my," Ivy looked on, a smirk curling at the edges of her lips.

"Yeah…So, by the way, about that NFC thing you're doing…"

"Mhm?" Ivy looked up from petting the fluffy orange-striped CharCat. 

"Why?"

"There's gonna be this tournament where basically anyone can sign up and fight in it. So people from all around the world are gonna come watch and fight! The winner gets a bunch of money. When I win, Imma go to the Isle of Skye and train to get even stronger!"

"This is something you're like really serious about?" He regarded her, "You think you can actually win?"

"Mhm!" Ivy nodded. 

"They don't have an age limit for this kind of thing?"

"No, they say they're about full equality. You've got to be willing to fight anyone."

"So you could end up fighting some thirty-year-old man?"

"I'm going to see my mom again one day. That's a fact!"

'She's so confident in this,' he thought. 

A few days later, Tobi and Ivy stood outside of his home, waiting for Bryce. The sun was about to set, slowly turning the sky a fiery orange. Minutes later, Bryce puled up in his dad's new pick-up truck, grinning, "He let me borrow it for tonight." While driving, he turned to Tobi, apprehensively saying, "So, I was talking to Londeen earlier-"

Tobi let out a sigh. Bryce stared at him expectantly. "Continue," Tobi said.

"As I was saying…I was talking to Londeen, and, well, she wants to come."

"Bryce-"

"It's not gonna be on some weird shit, a'ight?" He glanced at the back seat; seeing Ivy looking at him, he leaned in, whispering in Tobi's ear, "Plus, I got her to bring these mushroom and weed brownie mix."

"I get the feeling she was already invited, whether or not I say yes."

"The intuition is real."

Driving out of the city, they reached the desert, where they found her car away from the lights and noise of the town—a peaceful cliff's edge to study the stars. 

Hopping out of the backseat, the air was warm and windy, blowing wistfully over the miles and miles of sand and rock. 

Ivy, still wearing cargo pants and a cut-off shirt, walked to the edge of the cliff, holding her arms to the side and feeling the breeze. 

Londeen leaned against the hood of her car. A large black plastic bag sat next to her. Ivy turned from the cliff, looking at her, making eye contact. Something about her expressionless gaze weirded Londeen out, but she felt a silent understanding develop between the two—basically, we aren't going to be friends, so we don't need to talk to each other. 

Eager to start, Bryce began rooting through Londeen's bag, taking out the brownies, and distributing them. "Does she want some?" He asked Tobi, who looked at Ivy standing expectantly a few feet away. He was not sure what was going on but curious. 

"Sure…" Tobi said hesitantly. 

A while later, Ivy sat atop a large mound of sand, staring out at the infinite desert. Each dune and hill curled and rolled in front of her; the sand and earth beneath her breathed in and out, synching to the rhythm of her heartbeat. 

Startling her, Tobi sat beside her. Looking at each other, seeing their pupils as big as saucers, made them burst out laughing. 

Tobi sat back in the cold plastic school desk, spinning his pencil between his fingers. His science teacher was at the front of the class, pointing to the board, talking about the structure of the atom. 

Deep in thought, 'I wonder what this teacher would say if I asked about energy? He'd probably say it was nonsense…I wonder if energy is some kind of sacred knowledge that only some kind of mountain monks would know about. I mean- that's kinda where Ivy was…' before he knew it, the bell was ringing. Walking out of class, 'It's like my whole reality has shifted, and I'm supposed to be able focus here? I've always got the highest grades in my year, and always trained hard at football for the scholarship, but now…I bet you, there's more to this energy thing than just fighting. If I would've known about energy when my dad was still around, I bet there would've been a way to fix him…I could've used energy to fix everyone like him. I wouldn't even charge anyone, it would all be totally free.'