3 days until the Last Ordeal

Whether or not normal people could perceive our battles, they were starting to affect the world around us. Two of us were dead, and a third was missing. Laura and Marie’s deaths had made the news, and the police were hard at work trying to solve crimes that they literally couldn’t understand. If anything was going to be done, we would have to be the ones to do it.

The monsters had been quiet for a while. Maybe it was because the Last Ordeal was so close. The lack of fighting was a good thing, but didn’t make me feel any better. The final battle was coming, and we were down to seven Chosen to fight it. Realistically, that would probably be six, because there was no counting on Chris to be any help. Nobody had seen him since he killed Marie.

Harley’s text came two days later, three days before the Last Ordeal. They wanted to get the group together again, not to exchange intel or interrogate 101 but just to be together. I didn’t have anything better to do, and if I was being honest with myself, I could use a bit of human interaction.

That evening saw us all in Harley’s backyard, after the sun had fallen. They had a fire pit, and between their and Julio’s efforts, a sizeable fire had been started. I looked around the fire at the other faces: Harley, Rita, Keiko, Akio, and Julio. Some of them I thought of as friends, some I still felt like I barely knew. Chris, of course, wasn’t there.

As we all stared quietly at the flames, I was the first to break the silence. “What are we gonna do?”

“What do you mean?” Harley asked.

“We’re running out of Chosen. The last hundred teams all lost, right? We haven’t even started the Ordeal and we’re already down three people. What chance do we have?”

“It’s too early to give up, I think,” Keiko said. “We don’t know anything about the other battles. Maybe this always happens, and we’re ahead of the curve.”

“There’s a scary thought,” I muttered. “Do people our age always just explode when given enough power?”

“I mean, maybe!” Keiko said. “101 basically said that we were chosen because if we were actually mature, we wouldn’t be strong enough to fight. Maybe our stupidity is our best asset.”

“How are you so optimistic?” I asked. “After everything that’s happened, I can barely imagine how horrible the Ordeal is gonna be. I wish I could just be as fearless as you.”

Keiko stared into the fire, hugging her knees. “I’m not fearless. If anything, I bet I’m more scared than you.”

“You are?”

“Yeah. This is just how I cope. Fake it ‘till you make it, right? The worse I feel, the harder I act like I’m doing fine. It helps, sort of. Deep down, I’m like a useless little kid.”

“You’re not useless,” Akio said quickly. “Acting strong when you feel weak isn’t just a coping mechanism. It helps the people next to you feel strong, too. That’s a kind of courage.”

“There you go again.” Keiko regarded Akio with a complicated expression. “See? Even when it comes to cheering people up, I’m no match for my little brother.”

I looked at Rita, who hadn’t said a word. She had a look I recognized; she was lost in some private thought.

“You okay, Rita?”

She hesitated before speaking up. “Am I a coward?”

“No way,” I said a little too quickly. “If anything, I think you’re really brave. Even when things are this bleak, you’re staying true to yourself.”

 “But does that matter?” She pressed. “There’s only six or seven of us left. If I don’t fight, that’s one less. Is being a pacifist really so important that I should risk all of your lives for it?”

“Marie would probably say it isn’t,” Harley said. “She was really intense about how we all had to do everything we can. I don’t think it’s that simple.”

“What do you mean?”

“I think that there’s more to life than doing the logical thing, even at a time like this,” Harley said. “If you give up on what makes you you, that’ll break something inside you. It wouldn’t make you stronger, just more violent. There are ways you can help us other than fighting.”

Rita blinked. “Like what?”

I interjected. “Your branch thingy is really versatile, right? I bet you’ve been practicing with it, experimenting to find out exactly what it can do.” She nodded.

“So, don’t fight,” I continued. “Protect people. You can probably grab people or monsters and restrict them or move them around. You don’t have to fight, just stop people from getting hurt.”

“I…” Rita looked a little ashamed, as if she was mad that she hadn’t thought of that before. “I think I could do that.”

“Great!” Harley clapped. “It’s settled, then. You don’t have to fight, just help out however you can.”

“Look at you,” Julio said, regarding Harley with a wry smile. “You’re so good at this. Laura said you helped her get along with the others, too.”

Everyone went quiet again for a moment. Julio’s expression darkened with regret as soon as he mentioned Laura. Harley saved us from the uncomfortable silence. “Did you know that I lost basically all my friends?”

“What?”

“I’m supposedly one of the cool popular kids, but that kind of thing doesn’t stick as well as you think it might. As soon as I was Chosen, I started having to disappear and miss plans to fight aliens. I couldn’t tell anyone what I was doing or why, and the stress was piling up. I kept trying to see if it was even possible to get someone to believe what I’m going through, but obviously that didn’t work. I wasn’t very fun to be around. So, they left.”

I winced. I had considered trying to tell someone about what was happening, but hadn’t been able to work up the courage to do it, for exactly this reason.

“That’s kind of why I’ve been so pushy about getting the group together,” Harley said, avoiding any eye contact. “I want new friends. We’ve only known each other for a couple weeks, but I really do like you guys. I just want there to be people who like me, who I can talk to about this stuff.”

“Well, I think you’re cool, Harley,” I said. “You can get a read on people quickly, and help them get along. In a situation like this, that’s probably more important than any kind of fighting skill.”

Harley laughed at that. “In a couple days, we’re gonna have a hell of a fight on our hands. I just hope we’ll be able to face it together. If we stay friends afterwards, that’s just a nice bonus.”

“What are we going to do about Chris?” Rita said suddenly.

“We need to find him and stop him,” Julio said quickly. “He killed someone. There’s no coming back from that.”

“Stop him how?” Rita asked. “Are you going to kill him?” When Julio didn’t answer, she pressed further. “Won’t that mean there’s no coming back for you, either?”

“We… Maybe we can stop him without killing him,” Julio said, sounding unsure. “Just hurt him, or tie him up, or something.”

“What if we just left him alone?” Keiko asked. Julio stared at her like she had lost her mind, but she continued. “He obviously doesn’t want anything to do with us. Maybe we should just stay away from him until the Ordeal’s over.”

“No,” I said on reflex. “If we don’t do something soon, he’s going to be a problem when it really matters. We have to at least try to talk to him.”

“I’m with you there,” Julio said, nodding in my direction. “Harley said that we have to stick to our guns, right? Well, if I just let Chris go after everything he’s done, I won’t feel like me anymore.”

Keiko sighed, and looked at Akio. “What do you think?” He nodded. It looked like they were in.

Harley watched the exchange, but didn’t say anything. I could tell without asking that they wouldn’t join us if we went to find Chris. So, I didn’t ask.

“Well, whatever happens, let’s make a promise,” Harley said. “When this thing starts, we’ll face it as friends. All of us. Even Chris, if we can manage it.”

“Sounds good,” I said. “Friends.”

“Sure,” Julio said, clearly distracted.

“Friends,” said Keiko. Akio nodded again.

“Friends,” Rita confirmed. She looked a bit more resolved than she had when the conversation started.

Around the fire, we all swore that we would face the end of the world together, and that nothing it could throw at us would break our group apart.

If only we knew.