Chapter 10
Ashley wasn’t a runner, per se. Her hopes of making the top 24 seemed dashed when she heard that she had to run 30 miles through the Eden Valley. She stepped out of the gondola, feeling the bitter cold of the snow, and then… everyone fell asleep. But not Ash. When she saw everyone go wobbly and crash to the ground, snoozing in the snow, Ashley played possum and followed suit. Through squinted eyes, she watched some guy look around at his handiwork before having a short conversation with the girl next to him. Ashley tried to see if she could recognize either of them, but she didn't get a good look since she couldn’t risk opening her eyes too wide, possibly attracting their attention. Since she didn’t know what the mystery couple’s powers were, it just seemed too risky to appear anything other than fast asleep.
She watched the pair sort through one of the statue piles to find what they were looking for, then head down the mountain toward the finish line. Once they were out of sight, Ashley rose and surveyed her fallen competitors, who were currently dotting the landscape. She had a choice to make. Should she sift through the haystacks to find the proverbial needle? Or should she make her way toward the finish line and spring a trap to steal someone else’s idol? The worst thing she could do was blow the lead that she had been so graciously gifted. “Trap it is!” she thought.
But first, Ashley had to deal with the 30-mile journey ahead, starting with scaling a full-blown mountain. Looking around, she noticed that there were plenty of trees that could make things a whole lot easier. Ashley closed her eyes and reached out with her green-sense to get a feel for all the plants in range. Currently, she could reach out about 15 feet in a circle around her, or if she focused on a specific plant, she could latch on to its essence within 20. Closing her eyes wasn’t necessary, but it helped her isolate the plants amongst all the surrounding visual noise.
Ashley started with the tree closest to her, a giant Northern Red Oak. Connecting to its essence, she used it like a new arm, bending it toward her and using its heaviest, longest branch to pick her up and pass her to the next tree and the next, moving down the mountain methodically. Ashley kept a lookout for Mr. and Mrs. Sandman but never came across them on her mountainous trek.
She reached the valley floor without issue and quickly assessed her options for traveling north along King’s River. One option was to use the river plants to make a boat to ferry herself downstream toward the lake. Otherwise, she could just try to use vines and trees to carry her above the ground as she had just done to descend the mountainside.
Ashley decided that the water would be the easiest, quickest route and would likely leave her the most time to design her trap on the other end. Plus, it would take less energy. Luckily, it was spring, and there were tons of thriving plant life to work within this vibrant valley. She walked over to the riverbank and kneeled, again closing her eyes. She felt all the water lilies, algae, and duckweed floating, abundant in the rushing water. Ash activated her green-sense once again and pulled all of the glowing greenery together to form a raft. Luckily, once she created the raft, it held together without much effort. It was as if once they had accepted her commands, the plants instinctively knew what to do. Ashley stepped onto her new floating apparatus, and a large vine, summoned by the blond chlorokinetic, flew into her hand from a tree on the river’s edge. Like a gondolier in Venice, Ashley Mills began her aquatic voyage down King’s River and began planning her great heist.
She giggled a little as she thought about all the ways she could trick, trap, or subdue her opponents. The simplest would be to use the classic “vine trap”: Wrap them up with a tangle of vines in midair so they couldn’t move. However, that wouldn’t stop a lot of metas from using their powers. Anyone with a strong physical gift could pretty easily break free of the simple hold. She could also make some sort of water trap. But, there was no guarantee that her rival challengers would even need to go into the water to get to the finish line. Maybe if they did, that could be an option, but Ashley was already leaning a different way.
Making good time, Ash had almost caught up to Sleep Dude and his apparent ally. After sailing for the majority of the day, when the sun was about an hour away from setting, Ashley could see, in the distance, a very small lake. In the center of the lake was a tiny island. Two silhouettes stood on the island before suddenly blinking out of existence. “Well, I guess two spots have been snagged already,” she mused. “Top three ain't bad, though.”
***
“I told you that your horoscope would provide a new opportunity today. You can’t fool the stars!” Ashley’s mother, Christina, said. She was decked out in various crystal jewels and handmade clothes. “Just follow your heart, honey. I know you can win this competition.”
Ashley was standing in the only flower patch in a massive scrapyard, wearing a long flowery dress and jean jacket, her golden hair drenched in sunlight. Her green eyes scanned the area as she spoke to her moms through a video app on her Onyx 6 LE phone. “I’m sure it's a great opportunity, but I have my own stuff going on,” Ashley mumbled, barely paying attention to her video call.
Ashley’s mom, Tammy, popped into frame, wearing a more business casual look, with a detective’s badge dangling from her chest. “I agree with your mimsy on this one Ashley. It could provide some…stability.”
Ashley rolled her eyes, having heard that worried yet stern tone practically every day of her childhood. She let out a small sigh. “Not you too, Mom.” Ashley mostly appreciated having two very different parents, one stuck in the clouds and the other rooted in the earth. She felt it made her develop both practicality and the ambition to dream big. However, in their moments of agreement, she found them both at peak annoying. Mainly because it usually meant that they were right.
“Imagine how many people you could reach and include in your future plans if you could win this competition. You could make a huge difference sitting in the seat of The Seed. I mean, it’s the freakin’ Council of Heralds!” Tammy’s excitement for her daughter was ramping up.
“Language, sweetie,” Christina chimed in, sensing the building tension between the two people she loved most in this world. “You know, The Word always said you are destined for greatness. Now you have a chance to fulfill that destiny.” Christina decided to go all in. She knew her wife and daughter hated hearing her prattle on about The Word, but sometimes she just couldn’t resist. After all, he had been such a large part of her life for so long.
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Tammy leaned over and kissed Christina on the forehead, then looked deep into her eyes. “You’re pretty great yourself, Christina. You do know that, right?” They held a deep loving stare for a long while as they both smiled before Chistina gave Tammy a proper kiss.
“I’ll think about it. Promise. And I’ll give you two some alone time,” Ashley said as Chistina and Tammy ended their moment, re-centered themselves in the frame, and turned back to the video. The family said their goodbyes and ended the call. Ashley stared out across the vast scrapyard and thought how much easier it would be if she had a team to back her up.
***
Ashley disembarked onto the bank of the small lake. The water trap was definitely an option now, as every competitor must cross to the island to complete the challenge. But Ashley had had a lot of time to think as she sailed, and Snoozy-Boy had planted a seed in her mind. She was going to build a sleep-pit.
While developing her plant-based powers, Ashley had researched the many effects that plants could cause without having to be ingested. In her research, she had stumbled on the phenomenon of “Sleepy Grass.” Certain grasses could become toxic when developing a specific type of fungus, the main effect of which was putting animals, including humans, to sleep. For an entire year after discovering this grass, Ashley had trained every day to be able to recognize it, and to pull it toward her through the soil. Eventually, as long as there was even a small sample within a few miles, Ash could create a small patch of Sleepy Grass wherever she was standing.
Ashley assessed the battlefield and chose the spot where her fellow competitors would most likely cross the lake. She sat down cross-legged and slowly expanded her green-sense. As each plant popped up that wasn't fungal grass, she eliminated it from her sensory field, allowing her to extend her typical maximum distance a tiny bit each time. Eventually, she found what she was looking for and drew it through the ground to her. Once she had the small patch, she asserted her control, quickly pollinating and growing more and more until she had a grassy area that was about five-by-five feet.
Now, Ashley needed to figure out a way to slow competitors down as they moved through the poisonous sleep turf. The easiest way was to wait until someone ran through and then pull the soil out from under them, creating a pit. She found a spot in a nearby tree to wait, hidden, for the perfect moment to capture her statue of Eclipse and finish top three in this challenge.
She quickly realized that her top three wish wasn’t going to come true, as a very athletic man jogged up and, through some sort of radiant transformation, became a giant katana-wielding turtle before her very eyes! She had learned a long time ago that shifters didn’t always follow the same rules as everyone else when it came to physiology, so she was forced to let him pass, without springing her trap. She had only one chance with this ploy, so she decided to wait for a less risky opponent.
Several minutes passed while she waited for someone, anyone else, to arrive. Ashley’s mind raced during this time. “This was a huge mistake. I should have just found a statue in the piles. I had a huge head start. Did I overcomplicate this? I totally did, didn’t I? I always overcomplicate everything. Mom and Mims both tell me all the time that I need to keep it simple. But they also tell me to trust my instincts, and usually, my instincts aren't simple, so I’m not sure those pieces of advice don’t contradict each other.” She was beginning to lose hope as a rabbit person hopped up to the edge of the small lake, pausing to assess her options. Ashley noticed that, unlike the Turtle, this competitor looked more like a girl with rabbit ears and a small puffy tail than a full shifter. “Ugh, I hope this works,” Ashley crossed her fingers and parted the ground below Rabbit.
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me!” The rabbit person screamed from the bottom of the sleep pit as Ashley pulled the ground back together above her. “If you fucking steal my statue… I swear! I already had to find two of these stupid things!” The words were faint by the time they reached Ashley.
“Sorry!” Ash said as she made her way over to her little trap. “I figured this would be easier than searching for a statue of Eclipse. I've never been a huge fan of The Council, and I’m not sure I could have distinguished him from any of the other Heralds. Plus, this just seemed like an easier proposition, if I'm honest.” Ashley paused. “Are you ok down there? Can you hear me?”
When she was pretty sure enough time had passed to knock out the little bunny, Ashley opened the roof of the pit.
“Fuck you,” Rabbit spat, her words slurring as if she were drunk. She tried to jump out of the pit, but in her drowsiness, she scraped its wall and released more fungal spores.
“It’s a competition. I did what I had to do!” Ashley retorted.
Rabbit was quiet for a moment as she lay on the floor at the bottom of the eight-foot hole. Ashley felt awful. Her guilt threatened to take over as she stared down at the young woman, picturing herself lying there, unconscious, as her dream was being literally stolen from her. In Rabbit’s left hand, half buried in the dirt, was a golden statue. “Gosh, I hope she grabbed the right one!” Ashley thought.
Ashley still held the vine staff that she had used to steer the gondola. She pointed it down into the pit and used her powers to extend the vine to the bottom of the chasm, wrapping it around the golden idol. As the vine retracted, pulling the statue toward Ashley, Rabbit’s vice-like grip held, and she was pulled out of the hole as well. Immediately upon touching the ground, Rabbit leapt at Ashley, throwing a haymaker that could end the fight before it began. Unfortunately, the fungal drowsiness affected her coordination, and the punch went wide. Rabbit took a knee, barely able to open her eyes.
“You were pretending?!” Ashley yelled.
“Not entirely, that shit sucks, but it doesn’t seem to last that long,” Rabbit said as she launched another attack at Ashley.
The blond botanist used her vine staff to catch the oncoming kick, but Rabbit shifted her momentum to vault over Ashley and come down behind her. Ash spun quickly, intending to swipe her staff under Rabbit’s legs, but only saw the fist that was aimed right at her face. Knocked back, but not out, Ashley extended the vines from the staff, grabbing Rabbit’s ankle and throwing her back into the sleep pit. She frantically looked for any glint of gold in the area, smiling as she saw it. Finally, Rabbit was in the hole, and the statue was not!
Ashley, as fast as she could, pulled the ground back over the pit, trapping Rabbit inside. She could hear a series of muted curse words coming from underground. She wiped the blood from her mouth, walked calmly to the golden statue of Eclipse, bent over, picked it up, and walked toward the edge of the lake. Ashley activated her power one more time in this challenge, summoning her duckweed raft from the lake’s floor. She looked back at the sleep hole as she stepped onto the raft. She could see the dirt shifting as if the very ground was being repeatedly punched from below. “Better hurry.”
It took less than a minute for Ashley to make her way across the lake to the tiny island, place her statue on the pedestal, and blink away, finishing fourth place in the trial.