The people were already pretty close. When a visible line divided the green grass from the ground where a fission reaction had occurred, it was pretty easy for people to stay tightly to the green.

Krish knew the spot. He’d seen it only once, long ago, when exploring astrological charts and scanning the skies was his life’s only joy. He’d even convinced a now-deceased White to shift them there, and had been suspended of his weapon for a week after the event. When he, the unconscious Prophets, and the thousands of survivors from Soul blinked in the noon-day sun of the unnamed planet, Krish let out a massive sigh. They were surrounded by trees growing low and wide, edging a field of green-yellow grass that had grown waist-high. The sweet smell of rotting leaves and a coppery metal smell in the air told those gathered that they’d been taken far from their home. The high mountains the field came up to, caves dotting the steep, honeycomb-like edifice, had a bluish hue that seemed to intrigue and frighten the survivors.

The urge to sit and rest after such a use of stolen power overwhelmed Krish’s thoughts. So he used some Gold power to steady his muscles and nerves as he empowered his voice to speak to the now frightened survivors.

“People of Soul,” Krish said, quieting the people for the most part. It was impossible to silence all the crying. “This is Spirit. It is your new planet.” Murmurs and more cries came from the people. “Soul is dead. You killed it. So I have brought you here. There are caves behind me where you can live. Handle for yourselves how to lead each other. I’ll be back. I have to get the others.”

Without further word, Krish shifted back to Soul, standing across a fire-engulfed ruin from where a White was holding a bleeding arm. “Are you a Gold?” she asked when she saw Krish. “You have Gold in you. But… why do you have Red power?”

Krish noted the body lying near the White, a Red dagger just out of reach from a stilled hand. The White put a shield around herself as Krish approached.

“I saved these people. The radiation would have killed them,” the White said, and pointed to the Red lying on smoldering timbers. “He tried to stop me.” She took a step back as Krish casually advanced. “Are you going to stop me?”

“No,” Krish replied.

“Good. There are maybe a hundred people around here.”

She was right. Krish could sense them.

“It’s alright. You can come out now,” the White said to the huddled survivors. The moment she turned her eyes from Krish, he sent a blast of Gold energy that knocked her off her feet. The blow from his fiery Red hatchet shattered her shield like invisible glass, and she screamed when Krish took her by the neck and drained her of her White energy.

“You don’t have to run,” Krish announced to the people who had peeked out of ruined holes and attempted to stifle their screams from the burns. “Stay where you are and you’ll be safe.” Krish noted that the Red was actually alive, but unconscious. He drained his power before transporting the Prophets and the survivors to Spirit.

“Here are more survivors. I hope you’ve worked on getting food and shelter and some form of administration. It gets cold here at night,” Krish said as he placed the new Prophets next to the others. The new survivors hadn’t stopped screaming even as they saw the mountain and Krish shift back.

Krish shifted into the middle of a mountain shelter where a Red had just slashed open a White’s stomach. He fell backward and the female Red screamed at him, “I will not abandon them! I will… who are you?”

“Krish,” Krish said.

The woman fired a blast of Red at Krish, which Krish absorbed with his hatchet. A series of blasts flew at him, and he closed to within striking distance. The Red’s dagger slashed at Krish’s hatchet, deflecting the blow and giving her a chance to stab Krish through the chest. Krish took the blow and stepped forward and slammed his forehead into the woman’s nose. She fell backward and Krish sent a blast at her that knocked her unconscious as he used his Gold energy to fully heal his wound.

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“Help me,” the White pleaded. “Krish. Krish, is that you?”

“Yes,” Krish said. He recognized the bleeding White from the Sept Chambers.

“She wouldn’t listen, wouldn’t come back. I can’t concentrate. Can you call a Gold? How did you heal yourself?”

“You won’t need a Gold,” Krish said, and laid a hand on the White’s stomach. It took a lot of power, and felt nauseating as Krish did it, but he was able to heal the White’s injury.

“Thank you. I—”

Once Krish was sure the man would survive, he drained him of his White energy. He then did the same with the unconscious Red before shifting the survivors in the shelter and the other Prophets to Spirit. “Stay here,” was all the instructions he gave before returning to Soul.

One of the Prophets was dead before he got there. But he was able to drain a White and a Gold before returning another fifty survivors. The people had started entering the caves, and had largely organized themselves. One man stepped forward to Krish as the Prophet laid the latest unconscious Prophet next to the others.

“Prophet. We would like to know your name,” the survivor said.

“Are you their leader?” Krish asked.

“I stepped forward, among others. And I convinced enough people to speak out for me. So that others didn’t fight over the decision, three others are in control directly below me.”

“Good. Keep that going. I will get very mad if you start killing each other after all this effort to save you.”

“Yes.”

“Food? Shelter?”

“We’ve broken into teams for that purpose.”

Sure enough, several hundred were already splitting off toward the woods and mountain, some grabbing branches and rocks to craft into weapons for hunting.

“Good.”

“There is a problem, though. Some of those you brought back are doctors. I’m told they have diagnosed several hundred of us with incurable radiation sickness. I believe all of us have it to a degree.”

“You want me to heal you?”

“You saved us. I, well, I would hope you don’t want us to die of radiation after having gone through all the trouble of bringing us here.”

“How long do they have?”

“A day, maybe less.”

“Line them up. Put them in order of sickest, with those near death at the front. Give me a moment. I’ll return in an hour.”

When he returned, Krish had several hundred new survivors, three new Prophets, and a large truck full of food.

“This should last you a day or two. I’ll get another,” Krish said. “Have people start unloading it.” Krish then healed those near death before walking over to his line of unconscious Prophets. One of the Golds was stirring, so he drained him again.

As Krish stood over the once again unconscious Gold, he noted that there was White energy once more in the first Prophet he’d drained.

“Come here,” Krish told the elected leader of the survivors. “Have these Prophets tied, tightly, and ensure that their weapons are kept far away and out of sight.” He drained the White, and the others whose power had returned, and went back to Soul for more supplies.

Three days he was at it. He returned to Soul once an hour, always to a different place. He only rescued people from near death. He ignored the many thousands who were safe, and three times returned to save a person who was moments from radiation-induced death.

The only rest he took was to sit on a rock and allow the survivors to come to him to be healed one by one. The Prophets he took from Soul he had tied and kept with the others. Every hour, before he returned to Soul, he would drain those who had rejuvenated a trickle of power.

He returned, with food, water, tools, all of which he had to cure of radiation before they could be used, and one or two survivors. Every other trip he’d return with a new Prophet. When the group of Prophets reached fifty, he gave spears to a group of survivors with instructions to prevent them from escaping should he fail to drain them before they awoke. The draining itself was becoming a more significant part of his hourly trips.

Distribute, discuss, heal, direct, drain, shift, fight, collect, return, distribute, discuss, heal, direct, drain, shift, fight, collect, return, and on and on for days. The survivors had all been healed by the time Krish returned to Soul and subdued a Prophet who had no trace of radiation on her. The survivors were all healed. The jobs of establishing a settlement in the warmth of the mountain were set. The leaders had asserted their authority with only a minor conflict and only one murderer Krish had to execute.

Krish stood over his group of nearly one hundred Prophets as he drained those attempting to wake up. With the amount of White energy he’d drained, he could sense everything going on in the seven planets. He recognized there wasn’t a single Prophet on Soul who had been present before the bombs fell. They were new. And they were terrified.

Those he could save had been saved. Those who could survive on Soul were left. Those he couldn’t save had already died. Using a telepathic call, Krish summoned the leader of the survivors to the cave he’d set aside for housing his captive Prophets.

“Yes, Krish?” the leader asked.

“I’m going now,” Krish said.