PHOENIX

𝙿𝙷𝙾𝙴𝙽𝙸𝚇 𝙱𝙻𝙸𝙽𝙺𝙴𝙳. When he fully understood what the task Zamora had given him entailed, his heart sank in a mouthful of hair-raising regret. Eyes lambent and watchful, he sighed and closed them in thought. Killing people was difficult, even if they were evil and deserved nothing less; for someone like Shadow, it was easy, for someone he didn't even know or understand, it would be much harder. He was a little lost about what to think. Yes, he had a power supposedly beyond most, one that could help him survive practically any fight, given that he didn't go overboard and use it all up in one breath, as Shadow had said. (Because if that were to happen—and he was certain this happened to a weather-caster in the past—someone that got a little too cocky and forgot they weren't omnipotent—then he'd be done for. To survive in this world Phoenix had to be smart, quick, and perhaps merciless. Any weakness could be used against him.) But he still couldn't bear the guilt of murder, even if it was in self-defence.

  And this was the only way he could reach Alex.

  What if she's not out there? What if I kill people for nothing? What then? Sighing, feeling the lukewarm heat of the fake sun bake the interior of the room, Phoenix wiped away a bead of sweat from his forehead. He'd been perspiring all throughout the silence—the one initiated by Zamora's question—not because he found the room too hot but instead because he'd been anxious.

  Phoenix lowered his head. "Then I need you to bring me to Alex," he said. "Don't just show me where she is. I might not be able to get there in time." Slowly, he began raising his head again.

  Zamora shrugged in soft discontent. "I can only bring you as far as I've travelled, or as far as you've travelled. If she's too far, I'm sorry, then I won't be able to help you with that. I can bring you as close as possible, but no farther."

  Phoenix was a little irritated with the circumstances of the situation. More than irritated—he was scared. Gripping his silver jacket, along with the torn sleeve sitting on top, he looked down at his hand and inspected the fingers, making sure this wasn't all some fucked-up dream. They were all there, perfect, still clean, well-trimmed. Sighing through his nose, Phoenix's sight trailed up the desk to Zamora's stern, palpable stare. "Okay." He nodded. "I understand, and I agree. What I want to know most is if she's out there, and if she's . . . okay."

  "You'll do it?" said Zamora, letting her hands rest on either side of the desk. Phoenix could tell that she had been disciplining herself from speaking with excitement—it was a serious moment, after all.

  "Yes," said Phoenix.

  Zamora reached down to the paper on which she had crossed out the name of Aaron Kessler, said, "Very well," and navigated through the list with the tip of her quill pen. The blue candlelight gave an impressive air of magic to the whole action. Without notice, she circled a name not once but four times and placed the pen down. Raising both hands, she said, "The first person on this list is uniquely evil . . ."

  As she spoke, small yellow orbs began forming. They spiralled out towards the ceiling, hosting vague images Phoenix could just about make out. One of them was a motion-picture of a tractor; it sat in front of a small house in the middle of a starry night. The next was of a mountain, casting a grave shadow over a patch of green blooming with wildflowers. Each bubble shared a similar environment: a glade.

  "He's killed almost a hundred people, most of which out of a taste for blood, including some members of the Castle," continued Zamora.

  And then, as the seconds turned into minutes, the orbs displayed one single image: a cloaked figure, a pair of ski goggles shadowing the purple film of the Spiral, with a sinister smile cut out at the bottom of a mask.

  Gooseflesh pimpling his skin, Phoenix was about to ask who the figure in the image was.

  "Chrono," said Zamora, eyes shut in concentration. "A ruthless killer . . . He's dangerous, not just to people like us . . . but to weather-casters, too . . ."

  "Is he a weather-caster, too?" asked Phoenix, interlocking his fingers through the jungle of his afro. The question was asked with consideration for his own life this time.

  "No," said Zamora, "but he can freeze people in time."

  Eyes widening, Phoenix asked, "Well, how am I supposed to kill him?! He can just freeze me forever!"

  Suddenly he thought this task was pretty taxing. Is this a fucking death sentence? What's lightning gonna do against that?

  "Not forever," said Alysia, gaze wandering from bubble to bubble. Her mouth gaped open until forming a mesmerised 'O'. "That power must take a lot out of him, a whole lot."

  "What do you mean?" Phoenix was shaking his head. Stepping beside Alysia, hands still tangled in murky anxiety, he wondered what that could have meant. Then he remembered that no one was limitless. Still, how would Phoenix even get a chance to unleash his power over Chrono if all he had to do was press the stop button and everything would fall to his will? In his eyes this was a Dragon-Level threat, a term he'd derived from a set of old comic books he used to read about a man that could level a skyscraper. It essentially meant that the hero was powerless unless he had . . . help.

  Alysia reposited her gaze from the orbs to Phoenix's badly frightened face. What had left him this way would have perhaps remained a mystery in her mind. Because it was obvious, from having talked to her, that she saw Phoenix as someone that could make it through anything, but she must have forgotten that he was still a kid. A teenager, more specifically.

  I guess I won't be a teen forever, thought Phoenix. I'm gonna be here a long, long time. I'm probably gonna grow old like everyone else. God, that's awful!

  "I mean," began Alysia, "he's limited by how much he can do at once. If we were to all attack him together, we might have a chance. He can't freeze us all at once without using up most of his energy." She spoke with confidence, though not with enough. Phoenix was still paddling through a foamy lake of unbridled alarm.

  "Who's we?" asked Phoenix.

  "Well," said Zamora, and Phoenix looked over at her, "I would usually say Eric, Sebastian, and Alysia, but since they're not here . . ." The orbs spiralled down in a backwards sort of way, not stopping until they each vanished into nothingness, leaving only the dim glow of the blue candlelight once again. ". . . I'll have to leave it to you three."

  "What?" said Valerie with sudden, jerk-of-the-arm panic.

  Phoenix looked back and saw her face contort into the shape of an angry teenager moments after having their phone confiscated by the principal. Had Phoenix examined her a little longer, he would have maybe seen the fear in her eyes. He thought, not for the first time that day, that Valerie was a little on the childish side of things, despite looking to be at least in her late twenties. In some ways, she reminded Phoenix of Alex, and in other ways, she carried an unfitting cosplay to his father, who was more than enough to qualify for a strict hothead position. He had the sort of fuse that blew like a levee on a particularly sunny day. Though he didn't whine as most would expect—no, of course not. Phoenix's father would roar.

  "I didn't agree to any of this!" Valerie continued. "I was just curious to see if you could find her, that's all! I don't want to risk my life!"

  "You won't be risking anything," said Zamora, "not with Levin. I know Chrono frightens you . . ."

  "Like shit, he does! He's a psychopath!" yelled Valerie.

  ". . . but Levin is stronger. I can already tell just by looking at his eyes. And I should remind you, you can tell a lot about someone just by looking at their eyes."

  That statement alone waved a silky flag of nostalgia. Because, even though it took him a moment to realise it, his parents used to say the same thing.

  "Eyes don't tell lies," Phoenix murmured. He made sure to whisper it just low enough to where nobody would be able to hear it. And lies are the only truths there are . . .

  Unwillingly, Phoenix dropped his hands to his sides, looked at Zamora, who wore a faint smile, and thought, She looks honest. Real—like someone I can trust. Her eyes told him so. Even though they were a little yellowed around the sockets, enduring the reaper of age, Phoenix believed they carried an important message: there was hope. Hope lingered in the people, it seemed. And Phoenix thought it was beautiful all the same.

  His heart rate reduced, becoming nothing more than jazz percussion, then nothing more than a tap. Sighing, Phoenix said, "It's okay," and turned to console Valerie. "I can handle it. I'm sure I can. Nothing will happen to you, you don't have to worry." Hearing Zamora's words had no doubt instilled refreshing hope in his system. "And if all he does is kill, then we can't in good conscience let him out there. What if he kills more of us? What if he finds this place? What if he . . ."

  . . . kills Alex?

  "You have a good heart, Levin," said Zamora. She cleared her throat, stood up from the desk, and added, "Now, I know where you must go—it is a large glade five divisions from the urban sprawl. I've been there before, it has all sorts of mountains, deep woodlands, but mostly large grass areas."

  "Is it ahead of the city or behind?" asked Phoenix curiously. He relaxed his shoulders.

  "Ahead," answered Zamora. "So you're getting a bypass for months of work. Each division is about a thousand miles in length, but with my help I can propel you through months' worth of land. But I must warn you, Chrono isn't an easy man to catch. If he sees you, he could easily reverse time . . . However, given his level of arrogance and propensity for bloodshed, he might see you as an easy kill, which is why it is important you keep your goggles on. If he sees that your eyes are cyan, which he indeed knows marks that of a weather-caster, then he mightn't even try.

  "Your main strategy should involve having him use a great deal of power before you reveal your own. That way he will be significantly weaker, and thus unable to just reverse his own perspective of time and travel back whence he came. You understand?"

  "But how am I supposed to survive long enough to do that?" asked Phoenix. "Won't he just kill me once I'm frozen?"

  "Not all three of us," Alysia quickly said. "Had he used most of his power by freezing even one of us, then that will give two of us a chance to attack and wear him out.”

  As Alysia explained, Zamora raised her arms, made a couple of circling motions (just as Alysia had done) and conjured a large green-purple portal on the opposite side of the room. It buzzed to life with a gurgling, stir-the-cauldron sound, shedding a powerful light over the room. A part of Phoenix had expected it to be the same colour as Alysia's portal . . . except, he remembered, people don't have the same abilities. They may have similar ones, but just like with the Shadow, there was a slight difference among them. That way nobody could be a direct copycat. By the same token, Phoenix had been the only person in the entire shit-eating world that possessed this lightning ability, and what was more powerful than that? Time was a possible answer, but he'd have to wait to see if that was the case. This Chrono individual had to be stopped, for the fate of the Castle and for the fate of all the innocent lives he may rip away.

  I know this is a game about survival, and there can be only one winner . . . but still, it pisses me the fuck off that there actually people that want to kill others . . . And there aren't enough to stop him, either. Weather-casters are rare as hell, and evil not so much.

  Zamora walked towards the portal, the boards creaking and groaning and whining under the weight of those ruthless bootheels, stopped, and asked, "While you're gone I can look for your friend. It may take a while, as it did with the Shadow, but if she's out there, alive and well, I will find her. And if she's . . . dead, I will find the remains of her clothes."

  That last part swallowed Phoenix's throat in nausea.

  "Understood?" Zamora said.

  Phoenix nodded, and croaked, "Yes."

  "Are you ready?"

  Pausing for a moment, Phoenix considered the question tentatively, whether he actually was ready. He came to a decision later, then said, "As ready as I'll ever be," and strode towards the portal.

  When he entered the portal he felt that same dramatic mixture of images and starpoints, though now it seemed he had travelled for so much longer. The colours warped around him. A white blinding light covered his vision, and when it swept away, he zoomed through a tunnel the very same as the ones from before. Only this time there was a squared-in frame of a glade divulging a large and purple Spiral in the distance, sitting among the clouds of a patchy purple-black sky.