Chapter 31

The trio had found a small office room in the leader's house, the first home they came to when they saw Marlin and Kurt-Adam for the first time. It was a cramped little room with a big wooden desk, a scuffed black leather office chair, and two green file cabinets on either side of the room. An enormous window with the blinds pulled was on the wall, surrounded by portraits of random people they had never seen.

"Alright, so now the easy part: thinking of a plan," Colson mused while pacing back and forth. He'd been so focused on training and helping Zoe that he hadn't spared a thought for how they were actually going to fight those three.

"Element of surprise!" Ivy shouted, jolting Zoe out of her morning sleepiness. She held her hands over her ears. She had slept horribly that last night, tossing and turning while the rest seemed to fall asleep in seconds.

"Nah, that won't work. It's not like we're gonna one-shot 'em. Like, we may be able to get a lucky hit in, but after like a second, they'll realize what's happening. Oh yea, another thing, we don't even know where the door will pop up at."

Ivy thought for a minute, then sighed, slumping onto a nearby office chair. The morning sun streamed through the window blinds, the shadows leaving lines on her face. Zoe's eyes drifted around the room, focusing on the portraits of the different people, some young kids and some old farmer types. She wondered if any of them were still alive or able to escape. Deep in thought, she leaned against the wall, only half-listening to their conversation. She glanced up; Colson leaned on the desk with both his hands. Ivy was slumped, bored in the chair, fidgeting with the drawers on the desk.

'What does this remind me of? Oh yea,' she thought, thinking back to one of her favorite movies. An old black-and-white detective noir. The room looked almost identical to the lead detectives from that movie. As she looked on, she heard the slow saxophone with a melancholy tune and a jazzy rhythm playing.

Colson's blue sweatpants darkened and changed as they morphed into black dress pants, and his tennis shoes changed to dark leather brown loafers. A grey suit vest over a white shirt, with a long striped tie hung down.

"Bah!" He growled, turning to Ivy. "Listen, Captain, we're this close to catching these boys, alright?"

Ivy sighed, taking a long drag from her cigarette with her right hand. She got out of her chair and walked to the window, her empty, seen-it-all eyes staring lazily through the blinds. She reached over with her left hand, absently snapping one of her black suspenders. Attached to her black pants was a brown leather gun holster on her left side, a small black .38 revolver—the handle barely visible in the oversized strap. She tapped her foot with annoyance. She turned around, looking Colson straight in the eyes.

"Hold on, what'd you just say?" Ivy asked, pointing the end of the cigarette at him."

Colson waved his hand in front of his face, dispersing the smoke, "I'm just sayin', chief, that we got these guys right where we want 'em see? Like, I got the perfect plan; if you just sign off on it, me and the boys can—" There was a light knock at the door; both turned to look.

Cahya slowly opened the door, wearing a revealing low-hanging white blouse with bright red lipstick that cut through the darkness that had overtaken the room. She had that wide doe-eyed look on her face, her lips slightly parted, holding her cat-eye glasses to them.

"Oh, it's just awful!" she said in a painfully forced Southern accent. "Truly, it is!"

"Not now, Cahya!"

A slow smile crept across Zoe's face, "I'll be honest with you, Collie, you're too close to this case."

Everyone in the room stopped talking and looked over at Zoe. Colson squinted at her, giving her an odd look, "What the- Zoe, are you good?" He asked with an accusatory tone—The illusion broke, and the whole room shifted back to normal.

"Uh, yea," Zoe said, trying not to smile. "It doesn't matter," she said quickly. "Anyways, though, I think I have a base of a plan."

Cahya smirked, looking at Colson's confused face, "Yea, 'Collie,' she's got a plan." Colson gave her a sidelong glare, 'One of these days,' he thought. "So, what's your plan, Zoe?" Cahya asked.

"I seem to have found it," Marlin said, patting down Jashin, whose charred body lay in a heap on the ground. Cuts and gashes covered what was left of him. Marlin reached into Jashin's back pocket, taking out a large coin the size of his palm. "They used one of these to get in here, so if I'm correct, this is how we'll leave this hellscape." All three had thoroughly explored the void they were in; nowhere did they find the temple they were searching for or the Angel's Ring.

Kiari took the coin from Marlin's hands, scrutinizing it, "This is the only one, correct?"

Marlin nodded, "this is the only one I could find on either of them."

"Hey, Marlin," Geier grinned, "I bet there's more. Maybe you'd need to do a deep cavity search." Geier snickered at the thought, "I bet you'd like that."

"You are really pushing it," he snarled.

"You know I'm joking," Geier said, avoiding looking at the bodies as he stepped over them.

Kiari wiped the sweat from his forehead. All three were breathing hard; he noticed that he and Marlin seemed the most exhausted as they expended the most energy during the fight. "Let's see…how'd he do this? He yelled the name of someplace, then threw the coin, and a door appeared. Am I right?"

"Yup."

"Well, here goes nothing," Kiari said, taking one last look at the dingy dimension. It's black swirling clouds and cracked brick; he'd seen enough. "Cassius farm, California Island!" He concentrated as he did so, imagining the place he had made his home for the past couple of weeks. He threw the coin at a nearby pillar; it clanged against the side; instead of ricocheting, it stuck to it, slowly absorbed by the dark marble. A few seconds later, a door shimmered into existence, an oval black metal door. A rusted red valve handle with a murky porthole a foot above it.

"Are we going to a farm or a submarine?" Geier asked.

Marlin looked at it skeptically, tapping it with his long nails, squinting to see through the window. Geier walked next to him, attempting to spin the handle, exerting a slight bit of energy for it to give way. Marlin covered his ears from the horrendous screech of the doorway as it swung open. It was as if someone were scraping two jagged metal sheets inside his brain.

Through the doorway was a flowing white wall. Maybe it was his imagination, but if Kiari looked hard enough, he could make out faces and objects in the whiteness.

"We gotta go now!" Geier shouted, pointing to how the bottom of the doorway had become translucent.

Marlin took a deep breath and walked through the doorway. He looked around, his brow furrowed with confusion. Where were they? The first thing they all noticed was that they were high up, on top of a building.

"We were only in there for about forty or so minutes, right?" Kiari asked, staring up at the sky. The sun was at high noon.

"About an hour, I'd estimate," Marlin said, following Kiari's gaze, realizing what he was looking at.

"That's far," Geier noted, peeking over the roof's edge and looking down the building. "Well, we're in Cassius, at least."

"I suggest we find those kids and that one other girl that was with Jashin a while ago. I'd bet they know where the temple is. They won't put up much of a fight."

"Uh oh," Geier said, wide-eyed, looking at Kiari and Marlin.

"Yea?" Marlin said.

"Something weird is happening. My two hawks are gone, out of range. I can't control them."

"Why would they do that?"

"Hmm, I don't know. Even if the connection was somehow 'broken' from the distance, we weren't gone long enough for them to just leave. They'd still be in the area."

Kiari crouched down, placing his flat palm on the house's roof, "I think it's been a lot longer than we think. Do you still know where they could be?" He asked, looking at Geier.

"Let's see," Geier closed his eyes in concentration; with much exertion, a flickering yellow glow surrounded him. His eyes flashed open, "I feel something. Three energies, I don't know them, but it's all I feel. They're a little less than a quarter-mile across the farm over there," he pointed to the east. "Kinda near the entrance sign of the place near that forest." While most energy users could only sense people from at most a few yards away, Geier had mastered long-range sensory.

"Alright, let's go," Kiari said, closing his eyes as an explosion detonated under his palm, blowing a massive hole in the roof.

The sound of multiple people running through the field of tall grass made Ivy, Colson, and Zoe turn. Behind them, several yards away, Kiari, Marlin, and Geier appeared.

The first thing that Zoe noticed was their clothes. Small and large cuts were everywhere, and all three were drenched in sweat. A dark pit slowly filled her stomach, the fate of Jashin and Idris being realized in her mind. The feeling made her want to vomit, but she did her best to hold her composure.

Colson's fists were clenched, and he mumbled through gritted teeth, "I swear I'll kill them!"

"If we end up fighting them, the girl with the black hair is mine," Kiari said, out of earshot of the three colonists. "Geier, you can have the one with white hair, and Marlin can take the kid with the stick." They both nodded.

"Can we help you?" the tall kid, Colson, asked, scowling at the three.

"It's okay," Kiari said, "I just want to make a deal. Is that alright?"

"No. Sorry."

"Also," Ivy spoke up, "we're leaving."

Zoe smiled internally, 'This is good. They have no idea.'

"Aw, come on," Geier whined, "you aren't at least gonna hear us out?"

"No," Ivy said, eyes jetting to each of them.

"Listen here," Kiari said, his tone cheerful, "Money isn't an issue for us, right? All those little grunts that were running around, I paid for them out of pocket. The point I'm getting at is, if you tell us how to get into the temple, you'll be rewarded—handsomely." He elongated the last word.

Colson stared at him with suspicion, "You haven't given us any reason to trust you'll hold up your end of the deal. You guys almost killed us at one point. Actually, you've tried to kill us every time we've met!"

"We decided to forgo the violence and bloodshed."

"Quite," Marlin added. "It's all so…barbaric. Especially against children."

"Okay. That's not proof."

Kiari gritted his teeth, "so would you rather we beat the answer out of you? Fine!"

"Time to go!" Zoe said, backing up quickly.

"Yea, let's do this!" Ivy said, sprinting into the forest. Colson wasn't far behind her.

"My, my, they can move fast," Marlin noted, watching the two scurry into the tree line.

"Good, they're both after us," Colson said, glancing back behind them through the trees. "You remember where to go, right?"

Ivy nodded in response. They continued running until they reached a tree with a jagged marking. Ivy skidded to a stop. Colson leaned on the tree next to her, breathing hard.

Geier looked at Zoe, a twinge of suspicion on his face as he walked forward. "Why didn't you run like your friends?"

Zoe didn't respond. Her eyes went wide with fear, and she slowly took a step backward for every step Geier took forward. "Stay back, or you'll die," she said with no ounce of authority—it ended up sounding more like she asked him a question.

There was rustling in the bushes; Marlin and Kiari broke through the shrubs. Stopping a few feet away from the two.

"This is pathetic; they're already exhausted," Marlin laughed.

Kiari smirked, "what's your endgame here? You can't run from us forever."

"I know!" Ivy snapped back, an angry look on her face, "If you want the ring, you'll just have to fight us then!"

"Ivy, no!" Colson yelled. He looked up at the two. Kiari and Marlin looked at each other and started chuckling. 'Now, if all is good, the proud one will follow me,' Colson thought.

Ivy cut a hard right, running deeper into the forest toward the outer homes of Cassius. Colson sprinted right past the marked tree. Kiari growled, flying after Ivy, while Marlin continued to follow Colson.

"You got this," Ivy said, looking back toward Zoe and Colson. Her breath caught in her throat. Barely rolling out of the way of a hand that swished over her head.

Standing above her, hand outstretched inches from her face. A dark smirk stretched across his lips. "That's enough running."