He tore through his chicken wings as I gobbled up the remaining Chinese food. Soon after finishing, we made our way through his house to the back. Walking through, I noticed that he doesn’t have any family photos or anything showing pictures of his past. The only real things he had in his house were couches, a TV, his bed, and essentials.
We made our way to the backyard, and the first thing I noticed was the number of bright lights lit up around the perimeter of the yard. He had lights strung up above the yard and lights almost anywhere he could put them, among tons of training equipment and what looked like practice dummies that had been marked up with knife attacks.
“Alright, you saw my Gear, LightSpeed. As I mentioned before, Gears are personalized, meaning your Gears are based on your personality. Before we get to your Gear, the most important part about all of this is knowing other people’s Gear’s.”
“Why is that, I mean won’t you see what their Gear’s are when you fight them and stuff?”
“Yes, but what if you can’t SEE their Gear, like mine, it’s not an external effect that allows people to see me, you can’t see super speed. Besides, if you’re able to read a person’s personality, then you’ll know how to combat them and how to go about a fight in your favor.”
“So then like the guy who attacked me, Murdock, his personality seemed to be on the creepy side, borderline stalker. So his Gear would be something dark or creepy right?”
For the first time since I’ve gotten to know him, Cain looked at me with an ever so slight smile of satisfaction.
“Yes, that’s correct. Murdock’s Gear is Shadow Manipulation. It allows him to control the shadows that are around him, and use them to cloak himself. He can even go into a shadow and transport himself to places.”
“So then, if that’s Murdock’s, what would yours be? You seem like an impatient guy, and with the lack of family photos or even anything about the past, you seem like you’re running from something, maybe trying to forget what happened in the past.”
Once again, Cain looked at me with satisfaction, as if his ‘skillful’ teaching had finally paid off.
“You can say that, more like I don’t like standing still, things bore me easily and I try to find a way to preoccupy myself, as you can see” as he guides his hand around as to display all the practice dummies and exercise equipment in his yard.
“I’m quite surprised you’re so good at reading people though, would've never pegged you as someone smart like that. Big brawns idiot sure, but not smart.”
“Trust me, I’ve always been like this, how do you think I got so good at playing cornerback? You gotta be able to anticipate what the receiver will do, and what the quarterback will do. It’s all a process, one that I’m the best there is at.”
“Well good for you on that, but you’ll see once you start fighting people, it’s not as easy as you think. For now, though, let's focus on what you’ve been wanting so much. Your Gears.”
“YES! Finally, get to do something awesome-” As I finished my sentence, his fist connected with my jaw this time and I swear I heard a slight crack on the impact.
“What was that for!?”
“That was sounding like an idiot. This is not some fantasy or fairytale where you get all these powers and get to go on your merry way. Murdock was only the surface of the problems you’re going to go through. If you keep acting like this, you’re gonna get killed.”
Rubbing my jaw, making sure nothing's broken I reply “okay okay, so how do we start?”
“You need to concentrate on the flow of your energy. Gear Shift is an ability in which one's energy flow changes from passive to active, which is how we use our abilities. Focus solely on yourself, disregarding the outside distractions.”
I close my eyes and concentrate. I try to feel the flow of energy in me, the way the air feels on my body, all my senses heightening. I didn't realize it but marks started materializing on my arms, ones that look like Kākau, Hawaiian tattoos. As I opened my eyes I jumped back, scared of the markings on my arms.
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
“Woah, what is this?” I go, examining the markings. As I do, sparks fly out of my hands setting fire to the patches of grass around my feet.
Cain quickly gets a fire extinguisher and sprays the fire out and looks at me as if he wants to punch me again, but doesn’t want to cause another fight.
“How about we try and be careful about this, okay?”
He looks at the markings on my arms and then back at me.
“Well kid, you've got Gears that match your personality, that's for sure. For an arrogant, competitive, and loud person, Pressure Manipulation and Electrokinesis do put the icing on the cake.”
Showing me the meanings of some of the markings, two things stood out the most. A pressure and lightning bolt symbol combined so the bolt was inside the 'P'. These were meant to show what Gears a person has. By locating the Gear specific markings, he explained that one can tell what kind of ability they have.
“The way that you activate your Gears is by saying ‘Gear Shift’ and then the respective number. Since you have 2 Gears, the first one would be zero and the second one would be one. They build off each other so Electrokinesis would be your ‘zero’ and Pressure Manipulation is your ‘one’ Gear.”
Things started making sense as I continued to listen to him explain how Gears worked, but I was still confused about one thing.
“You said the ‘Boss’ is coming for me. You never really explained who he is, I know why he’s after me, but I still don’t know anything about him.”
For a moment Cain looked like he had an expression I haven’t seen on him since I’ve met him. Fear. It was quickly replaced with his usual stern look, but for a moment there, I realized the severity of my pursuer.
“The ‘Boss' as he’s dubbed is the main reason why you have to get trained on using your Gears, and the reason why crime has been on the spike lately.”
“But I thought that crime has been spiking because of the nearby growth of cities.”
“No, ‘Boss’ is looking for Gear users like yourself, ones that are unique and strong so he can build himself an army. Murdock was what you might call a Lieutenant, the one who scouts kids like you to join them.”
“So then those crimes they’re-”
“Kids getting killed off because they refused to join.”
The severity of the situation soon began to settle in me. I was relieved that I was alive, but remembering my 2 friends who weren’t as lucky or all those other kids made me realize that there wasn't any moment to spare when it came to protecting myself.
“So this army, who’s he building it for?”
“Not who, but what. He wants to issue a new generation of Gear users. People who aren’t afraid to get their hands dirty, superior, and ready to follow his command. He intends to wipe out every person who’s not a part of his army and revolutionize the world we live in.”
I scratch the back of my head as I try to wrap my head around the intensity of what he just said. The entire population? That’s crazy, but if he’s willing to kill for answering no, then this may not be so far off. But I soon realized something.
“Wait, how do you know so much about the ‘Boss’ anyways, I mean I thought that only those who are a part of his army or group know what’s going on.”
And that’s when I realized it. How Cain knew so much about the ‘Boss’, why it seemed in the few moments I was conscious during his fight with Murdock, why they acted as if they knew each other from the past.
“You’re right,” he said as if he were reading my thoughts.
“I was a part of his army for the past 3 years. I was his right-hand man. And yes I’ve killed people, kids your age.”
“Is that how you know about so many of their plans? You know how they think and what they’ll do.”
“The reason why I know so much about their plans is that I’m the one who created them. Before I left, we scouted out individuals such as yourself to join our army. I thought it was merely for the sake of growing our numbers or making ourselves protected from a fight.”
Looking at him in disbelief, I started to put the pieces together. The reason why he had no family or past photos in his house, why he and Murdock seemed to acknowledge each other as if they knew each other, how he knew so much about me.
“So then why help me? Why even save me? Why even leave them, you must’ve been living the high life.”
“I had no intention of being with a group that planned on destroying the world. I only wanted to create a world that brought peace and equality with those with strong Gears. Once I found out the ‘Boss’ true plans, I burned all ties and left.”
I still couldn’t believe what I was hearing. The man who I for a second thought was on my side, caused all my problems thus far. He’s the reason why I have to go back to school tomorrow and sit in a ceremony honoring my two best friends. Looking at him, anger swelled up inside of me, and with it, my arms started to glow more intensely. Snapping me out of it were my arms going numb with my veins turning a light blue color.
“Look Cain, I appreciate you leaving them and saving me, but I’m not going to stay here and act like this isn’t all your fault. I’ll figure this whole Gear thing out on my own, I don’t need nor want you anymore. And if I even dare to see you” I raise my fist at him as if I was going to hit him.
“You’ll what, huh kid?” he mockingly says as he calmly walks straight towards me until my fist touches his forehead.
Realizing what he’s doing, I back off and suppress my anger.
“Whatever, I’m done here.”
Scoffing he replies “well don’t come back crawling when you need my help. Guess you are the dumb arrogant kid we all thought you were anyways.”
I ignored him as I walked back into his house, threw my jacket on, slipped my shoes on and ran as fast as I could back home.