Running for the entrance, she saw the Major from the park try to get in her way and took a few shots with her pistol to clear a path. When the beam made contact, an impressive fireball knocked the officer to the ground, causing the other officers to back off. Leaping into the cave entrance with her sister on her shoulder, Zora entered the caves and kept running, an oddly warm feeling filling her. She continued sprinting into the caves until the entrance was nothing but a distant memory.
Once the panic wore off, she finally heard the yelling and insults from her sister who was punching her back repeatedly. She put the girl down and in a flash of light returned to simply Anisa. “Katsi, is it just me or is it hard to breathe in here?”
Katsi huffed, “You are probably just winded from abandoning Dean!” Anisa reached out to reassure and explain but Katsi turned away, “I don’t want to hear it. I don’t want to know why he will be fine or why this was the best move.” She huffed, “We are heroes. Heroes never leave people behind and they save the day.” Anisa sighed and nodded, not sure how to respond. “I’m gonna go ahead. I’ll see you at the crystal or whatever.” Anisa watched her sister walk into the darkness of the cave.
After a few minutes had passed, Anisa would take a deep breath and mutter, “Time to press on, right Shawn?” before walking down the tunnel. “Katsi is probably gonna be fine.” The sensation in the air only seemed to linger and intensify. She felt like she was walking into a volcano. After what felt like an hour, the cave seemed to open up and she saw many tunnels leading various ways. She sighed, “Of course he didn’t give us any directions. Maybe if I center myself...” she closed her eyes and tried to reach out with her heart.
“Hey, Ani. Been a hot minute.”
She looked up and saw a man in a power suit not unlike her own but with more of a lioness motif. His jacket long and flowing and bearing a cosmic patrol badge without any numbers on it. But she didn’t need to see his face to know who this was. She could feel it in the air. The way he stood, the casual tone he took in this situation, the hesitation in his voice. But she couldn’t shake what she had been told, “Are you the real deal?”
The figure shrugged, “Maybe a little yes, maybe a little no. Let’s say I’m his essence for now and leave it at that.”
She glared at the phantom, “No, you are a pretender. He would have known the right answer.”
“Then I guess you have your answer.” The imposter motioned to her. “You doing okay? You seem a bit… stuffy over there. Need some air?” She tried again to focus on the right path and the phantom spoke again, “Hello… I’m talking to you.” She tried to deepen her focus when the figure placed a hand on her head. “Kid, you have got to relax.” She grabbed the phantom by the wrist and attempted to throw it, “I am the power to shatter black holes. I don’t-“ he was cut off by a powerful kick to his gut, her leg seeming to glow afterwards.
She grabbed him by the collar and glared into the visor, “You have no right. Not to his face. Not to his voice. Not to hold him or me hostage.” The figure seemed to pause before grabbing her hands and gently pulling them off of its collar.
The figure stepped away from her, refusing to face her as it responded, “That’s why I look like this. This isn’t his face. I have no voice of my own. He is the one being who embraced my sacrifice without hesitation. Someone who truly understood the power one gained when they let go of the chains binding their heart and grabbed for the impossible.” She tried to block out the banter, tried to stay focused, but this specter felt both foreign and very familiar. The figure walked down one of the tunnels as if he expected her to follow.
Shaking her head, she went down a different tunnel. She refused to trust a fraud. As she walked, she felt the air around her change, an autumn breeze blowing across the dry golden grass of their clearing. “Man, I’m so glad we came out here, Ani.” She saw a younger version of Shawn walk by her.
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She growled, “You aren’t Shawn.” How many times would this phantom try to mess with her? She waited for it to respond but he looked back at her confused with a raised brow before putting a hand to her head to check for a fever. She didn’t understand what was happening until she saw his familiar evil smile and he jammed the ice cream sandwich in his hand onto her forehead.
He laughed, “There! Cured your fever for you.” She glared a different glare this time, feeling herself slip into this moment, “There you are. Geez! Who in the hell would copy me?” He put his hands into his ragged black hoodie and jeered, “You done hallucinating or are you ready for the race?”
She wiped the ice cream off her face and laughed, “You are gonna get so creamed, Hemingway.”
“Bullcrap, Smoker’s Lung.” The lined up on the edge of the tallest part of the grass and got into their running poses. “Ready, Steady…. LEG IT!” The two began running in their own ludicrous ways towards the tree. Shawn flailing his limbs like mad as if clawing at air as he leaned forward and her running sideways with her arm bent as if she was leaning on something. The two smiled at their insane running and each winced as the tall dry grass scraped their skin. The further into the field they went, the harder it was to run on the thick hills of grass they were pushing down ahead of them.
Getting to the top of the hill, she laughed as Shawn fell forward onto his gut, continuing to playfully scramble towards the tree. She jumped over his arm trying to grab her ankle and almost reached the tree when he finally latched on. Pulling it, he made her fall backwards and leapt to his feet, touching the trunk. “VICTORY! And the crowd goes wild!” He ran a lap around the tree before doubling back and offering her a hand up. Accepting the help with a smirk, she took his hand and was hoisted to her feet.
“That was so cheap.”
“Well, you had it coming after that time you threw sand in my eyes.” She laughed with him on this and they sat down on the hill with a sigh. “I can’t believe I still can’t look directly into open sky. I mean, I stare at rain clouds all the time.”
She nodded. “Yeah, your brain is weird. It knows you won’t drown yourself but apparently something being blue and transparent at the same time makes it freak. It’s like me and sponges.” They sat there for a moment before she spoke again, “You dropped out of honors finally?”
He shook his head, “Dumb teachers keep saying that I’m too smart to drop out of it. Like how many times do I have to request and tank my grades before they treat me like a normal kid?”
“You are just too smart for them. They don’t get you. You finish chapter 5 yet?”
He rolled his eyes and looked into her beaming smile with annoyance, “They say never meet your heroes. I say never meet your fans.”
She leaned forward excitedly, “But I want to see how Tony does! Does he finish his training as a detective? Does he discover the secret behind the mysterious Mu? Does he ever get with that chick with the lowcut dress?” She winked playfully at him and he responded with a groan. “You keep saying she is evil but come on, that’s just you teasing the reader!”
He explained again, “You can’t romance embodiments of the fundamental laws of the universe. It creates an expectation that blocks the progress of the story, let alone one as impulsive as her. I’m making a different story. I could make her the indirect cause of his issues but this time it needs to be his own actions. This story is about accountability.”
She blew a raspberry at his comment and when he went to explain she began to boo and jeer him. Eventually he stopped talking with a smile and they went back to sitting on the hill, staring at the sky. She sighed, “Next year is gonna suck. All the people I like are going to Southeast.”
“Yeah, but…” he trailed off and then asked, “You’ve got me?” She glared at him and he shrugged before they both laughed, “I know, crappy answer. But we are gonna run this town. I’m gonna get Gena to actually have a conversation with me instead of just knowing I exist. Try not to break too many hearts while we rise to power, Ani.” He let out a truly evil laugh and she joined in with him.
The two continued to watch the sky for a time and he said, “I’m glad we found this place. I can’t think of any better place to blow off steam and forget about our lives.”
“Ditto.” She closed her eyes for a time, embracing the autumn sun and wind until she felt the choking humidity and warmth of the cave once more. She opened her eyes and tried to get her bearings only to realize she was back where she started and the cave she had just used was gone. “Great. A memory hole. What the hell do I do now?”