"Missed you two yesterday," Ali says as we approach her home, approaching us through flight from the side, landing beside me before walking alongside us. "Did you have fun doing karaoke?"

"How did you know we did karaoke yesterday?" Tanner asks.

"Nick told me," she answers and he looks at me, confused.

"We have long-distance walkie-talkies," I tell him. "More radios than walkies, I guess. They make it easy to get in contact, though attending school is putting a damper on that."

"Ah," he says.

"Out having fun?" I ask.

"Going for a stretch," she tells me. "I figured I'd wait for you two to arrive to do any training."

"Cool," I say. "Let's start off with Tanner's martial arts. I want to go do something."

"Will do," Ali says as Tanner gives me a curious look. "Come on, Tanner, let's head into the garage, we'll practice in the sparring area."

"See you in a bit," I tell them, then break off and head in a different direction.

They'll probably train for two or three hours, so I've got plenty of time to go and relax, enjoying the ruins by myself. Attending school this past week, then working with Tanner on his training for his ability and his body, has taken up more time than I'd have liked. Maybe I should start ditching Tanner whenever he's training with Ali on martial arts.

While I enjoy the sex with him and have my own reasons for letting him stick with me and for helping him, it's taking away from other stuff I enjoy doing. Like just enjoying the ruins. After checking my guns, I begin navigating a little more quickly, jumping and scaling rubble with years of practiced ease.

After more than an hour and a half, I reach my destination, a place Ali doesn't know about, and I prefer it that way. Not everyone needs to know everyone else's secrets. That's why she doesn't know Tanner's ability, after all.

My new location is a zone with several buildings that fell over and formed a sort of pit. With steel frames, they held up rather well when they fell, rather than simply turning to rubble. That doesn't mean the brick, plaster, glass, and whatever else made up their walls did, though, but with nature taking over the area, there still aren't many gaps in the walls.

If someone paid close enough attention, they'd probably notice this area seems to have a lot more brush, vines, and various other plants than other areas nearby. Most people aren't that observant, however, and they'd just assume there's some good, fertile soil here that helped everything to grow faster.

That's a little bit of what factored into this, as these buildings fell onto a grassy park they had bordered, but that's not all there is to it.

I step into a gap hidden by brush and vines and enter one of the buildings. They completely conceal the walls and even grow on the new 'roof', which were walls before the buildings here collapsed. It's perfect cover for hiding, and this area is set deep into another disturbance zone.

Stepping around fallen desks, cabinets, printers, and other supplies overtaken with growth, I make my way through the building and out the far wall, into the central zone.

Several large trees grow here, their canopy completely covering the area between the three buildings. Some sunlight manages to reach down here, but the gaps aren't enough to allow people to see down here normally, which is part of why Ali doesn't know there's something special about here.

The trees were already grown to this greater height before she began hiding out here, and I never took her here before. We always stuck to the zone she lives in. Because of that, she hasn't noticed any real signs that this could be strange.

After all, places with soil naturally already had plants overtaking it and she doesn't know any different, especially since she knows I've created several disturbance zones. I started working on them even before she approached me that day four years ago.

The secret zone I enter into upon exiting the building is about thirty-four yards along one wall, thirty-seven along another, and twenty on another. Not all of that comes from the three big buildings which fell over, though, but buildings still border every part of it.

In addition to the grass and the massive trees here, there's a garden as well, where various fruits and vegetables are grown. A smaller apple tree grows here as well, its branches full of fruit that is ripe and ready for the picking.

Another section of the zone has a pen of chickens that are currently squabbling, though I ignore them in favor of walking towards the pond fed by a stream running through one of the buildings. The surface of the pond is about two feet lower than the stream, creating a short waterfall where it's fed.

Looking into the pond, I examine a couple of the fish swimming in it. Other than it's natural life, the pond water is extremely clear, allowing me to see the smooth pebbles at the bottom. I put them there years ago, when I was probably ten or eleven. I found them in various places and put them there because I felt like the pond needed them rather than just a bottom of sediment.

Though the pond formed during the World Revolt, it's more a natural pond than many others. It formed in the ground rather than through concrete or asphalt, so the sides are made of dirt and rock instead than concrete, asphalt, and gravel at the top.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

It's big enough to go swimming in, though this isn't the one I swim in when I do go swimming. There's a miniature lake elsewhere I prefer.

As there's nothing but the pond's natural residents swimming in the pond, I turn and walk towards the garden, looking at the fruits and vegetables growing in it. Out of season. If anyone saw this, they'd be very curious.

Walking past it, I enter the side of the building the garden is nearby and approach a room formed from the old frame and plants. A heavy wooden dresser rests in one corner, a series of wolf statues and stuffed wolves atop it, along with a box with wolves carved into it. Resting on a wooden chest in another corner are more wolf stuffed animals, including a rather large one that's surrounded by the others.

There's a hammock in here rather than a bed, since it was easier to bring out and set up.

Sleeping on it is a boy of twelve, brown hair slightly shaggy, left arm draped over his stomach, a stuffed wolf between his arm and stomach and another beside his head. At the moment, he's wearing a grey wolf kigurumi. Only his face and hands are visible, though they're completely free of any blemishing or scars despite the fact that a normal boy who went through what he did would be covered in them from scalp to toe.

Frendok's secret Sigil-Bearer, rescued from abusive parents who tortured him regularly. If it weren't for the fact that he was a Sigil-Bearer, he'd probably have scar tissue covering at least eighty percent of his body.

Instead, he healed from it all, not a trace of the abuse left on him. I'm glad for that, I know that some people would end up extremely self-conscious about the scarring and the kid deserves to be happy.

Stepping up to his side, I flick him on the nose, and for a moment, he just scrunches up his face, a sign that he really was asleep and not just pretending as he sometimes does. Then, his bright, vibrant green eyes open, and a smile breaks out on his face.

"Nick!" He exclaims, sitting up, then climbing out of the hammock and giving me a hug. "You haven't visited in, like, a week and a half!"

"I know," I ruffle his hair. "Sorry about that, Jay, some stuff came up. You know that Sigil-Bearer I told you about last Wednesday?"

"Yeah," he says.

"We've been hanging out," I tell him. "I've been helping him train his power, and he wants to learn how to fight, too. I ended up attending school this week, too."

He makes a face at that, aware of how much I don't like going to school.

"We only have a few days next week," I ruffle his hair again, and he steps back. "And I'll be back to visiting every few days. Being around other people so much is exhausting me, so it won't be hard for me to tell him that I need alone time."

"Cool," he grins at me. "Oh! I figured out a new trick! Come on!"

"You put on something more decent," I tell him. "Meet me back in the garden."

"Right!" He grins. "I'll change."

I step out of the room and reenter the Garden, which is our term for his entire secret zone. After I rescued him five years ago, I brought him out here. No one knew about him anyway, and there were circumstances that made it easy to take care of him even with me not being here often.

Sensing something nearby, I look to my left and see a grey wolf sitting near the chicken pen, watching me. The chickens aren't squabbling anymore, though they aren't showing signs of terror like 'normal' chickens would at having a wolf so close to them.

"Hello, Stratus," I walk over to the wolf and place a hand on its head. "Thanks for taking care of Jay for me."

Jay named the wolves who take care of him. He loves the clouds and named all of the wolves after clouds and food. Like Phantom and his pack, Stratus and his pack are special wolves, somewhat evolved by the same forces that caused the Sigil-Bearers.

When I first brought Jay out here, I asked them to take care of him, and they have ever since. They've become his family as much as I have. The true gods know that his real family deserved their deaths, and I have no regrets being the reaper.

Jay is an Immortal Sigil, and was even when he was seven. If Mr. Sonic was a six, Jay is an eight.

At only twelve years of age.

Though he can reach a ten in power, he'll never be a Sigil God. The scaling is intentionally skewed because of just how powerful the Sigil Gods truly are. They shouldn't even be in the same category as Sigil-Bearers, they're that powerful.

If Jay does reach ten before the slowdown to power gain happens, he'll probably be classified as a Demigod Sigil, despite being at the same ranking as a Sigil God. And then the Sigil Gods would be given a separate classification at last.

There are a few others like Jay out there, the abnormally powerful even when young. But Jay is one of the special cases.

He's a single-ability Sigil-Bearer with more than one ability. Or more specifically, with an ability that ranges a wide variety of things. If Tanner turns out to possess the potential to not just sense emotions, but manipulate them in others, read thoughts, implant thoughts, control the minds of others, and so on due to the base of his power being "mind" itself, then Jay's base ability makes his power look like an untalented amateur.

Nature.

That's the name of Jay's ability.

Not something more complicated, but something that simple.

Nature.

Plants and animals, the weather, natural phenomena. All of those fall into the domain of Jay's power. He can communicate with them, he can manipulate them, he can command them, he can grow them. Even the natural elements, the types normally seen in fantasy stories, are his to create and command.

It was through his power that the trees were grown big enough to hide down here, through his power that the walls were fully overgrown with plants to hide the way in. It is his power that lets fruits and vegetables grow out of season, for him to have an apple tree bearing fruit within months of the seeds being planted.

They're delicious, and I have no regrets keeping it a secret from Ali that I've had fresh apples for years. Even in winter, because Jay doesn't really care about seasonal restrictions on anything.

With the natural block on infrared vision here, too, people won't find him by searching with special equipment. This wasn't something he made, but something that happened during the World Revolt. There are a few such zones.

That protection is important. Jay is one of the most powerful mortals in the world, and he's only twelve. The Klen would love to try to brainwash him into becoming a god for them, especially since they'd likely believe he could counter the Sigil Gods.

With the way the mind of a Sigil-Bearer of Jay's type works, he's fine even without that. He's a little carefree now that he's mostly recovered from what his parents did to him, though he does display signs of greater mental and emotional maturity than most twelve-year-olds would, even ones who were Sigil-Bearers.

Jay will be important, after the Revelation occurs. We don't need people turning him into a sadistic, controlling freak. He should remain free and happy, as he is now that I've rescued him from those parents of his.

Turning, I face Jay as he exits from the building he lives in, dressed in blue shorts and a matching tee with a grey wolf on its front, a silver wolf charm hanging from a silver chain around his neck.

"So," I approach Jay, Stratus heading into one of the buildings. "What's this trick you figured out?"