Several weeks later on a bright, sunny morning, two minors were sent off tearfully away from home. Through instructions of safe travels for the older and multiple orders to behave for the younger, the kids set out for a brand new location in pursuit of growth.

After a long trek on a winding dirt path, a short horse carriage ride, a taxi trip towards the nearest train station, the now weary pair of young travelers finally had a chance to settle down once they boarded their final vehicle.

More accurately put, only the older of the pair had settled down — the younger, a preteen girl with shoulder length black-and-purple hair and startling green eyes, was excitedly zooming around the seats and baggage, questioning everything she set her eyes upon as she moved.

“What’s that thing on that guy’s wrist?”

“What’s the pole looking thing called?”

“Do you think Gran and Gramps can handle the harvest this year by themselves?”

“Are we supposed to keep the, uh, tickets in our hands until we arrive?”

“What…”

The older companion, who had a full head of bed hair and wore a pair of lopsided glasses, grew increasingly agitated as he was pestered by the stream of endless noise. Eventually, he yanked on his companion’s arm as she dashed past him once again, and tugged on her arm forcefully: “Amara, you’re gonna make everybody hate us!”

“Why?”

“Because…because we’re gonna leave the station soon, okay? So sit down and make sure your suitcases don’t start ramming people.”

Amara begrudgingly sat down in her seat. “But Pauley…”

“What?!”

“I don’t have a suitcase?”

Pauley’s gaze immediately landed on Amara’s hands. She was holding a palm-sized gem in her hand, which looked mostly transparent, save for a slight sliver of darkness that seemed to float freely within.

Quickly holding back a gulp of nervousness, Pauley covered the gem under his own hands, and whispered: “Are you crazy?! Put it out of sight! Fast!”

Shocked by his sudden change of attitude, Amara put the gem inside her pocket.

“And keep it hidden! You don’t want your storage stolen on the train, Miss Richness!” Pauley grabbed a jacket and covered Amara under it.

Amara was annoyed and threw the jacket away from herself. “Okay, fine! You didn’t need to suffocate me too!”

“Alright, how ‘bout this? If you can keep it down until we get to our stop in the capital, I’ll buy you something there.” Pauley bargained.

“Like I’d need your money?” Amara grumbled, but she did stay seated and quiet…until she realized she had other options for chatter.

‘Hello? Anyone awake?’

Years of having other presences inside her mind has taught Amara how to be aware of her consciousness. In her current level of awareness, she’s capable of only letting her thoughts be known to the two other occupants when she thinks in full, complete sentences. As a result of decreased mental interaction, the deities now spent most of their time in a dormant state, becoming active usually when Amara seeks their advice or company.

What do you want today, child? The Deity of Destruction was the first to respond this time. New training regime? My special pesticide recipe? Prank ideas?

‘I’m bored.’ Amara yawned at the scenery outside. The train had just left the station.

Oh, right, today’s when you leave town. Destruction said. This view is awful.

Despite not having any control over Amara’s body, the deities are capable of sharing her senses. At the moment, Destruction was seeing exactly what Amara was seeing.

‘I know right? But the ticket prices were cheap. I specifically picked a time in the middle of summer break too.’

Got snacks?

Amara put her hand in her pocket, where the alternative storage gem was resting. A few moments later, she pulled out a small bag of carrot chips.

Disgusting. Has that one kid not given up on his carrot cult?

‘Nope, and this is all Gran packed for me.’ Amara thought as she put a chip in her mouth. ‘Suffer with me?”

How dare you offend me so, mortal? Destruction said. Offer your measly goods to someone with poorer taste.

Hm? The Deity of Life came out of the dormant state.

I said nothing, I pro-

Minutes passed by as the two deities said no words, but a few yelps could be heard every now and then inside Amara’s mind.

When Amara finished eating her carrot chips, Pauley had already fallen asleep in his seat, using her abandoned jacket as his makeshift pillow. Attempting to find a garbage can somewhere, Amara carefully snuck out of her seat, and silently moved away without waking Pauley up. On her way back, Amara glanced outside the train window using the corner of her eye, only to be shocked to the core at what she saw.

The train was rapidly approaching a grand city, with multiple buildings taller than Amara had ever imagined buildings could be. Gigantic vehicles not only weaved through each other on the ground, but also high up in the sky; As Amara watched, another train zoomed past hers traveling in the opposite direction, taking off into the air right as she blinked. Mouth wide open in surprise, she turned her head around, just to see a row of trees blossom in unison along the train tracks.

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

Human society has progressed quite significantly. Life suddenly spoke, breaking an hour-long silence..

Amara snapped out of her trance. ‘How so…?’

I hope their weaponry has improved like this as well. Destruction added to Life’s comment.

Before Amara could ask them to elaborate, a hand seemingly appeared out of nowhere and grabbed her by her shoulder. Whipping her head around to see who it was, Amara stared right into Pauley’s widened eyes.

“Where’d you just go? You scared me!”

“And you scared me! I was just tossin’ out trash.”

“I’d be murdered back home if I lost you on the way.” Pauley breathed out a sigh in relief and put his hand down. “Let’s go back to our seats.”

Amara felt confused. “Wait…ain’t we already gettin’ close to the capital?”

Pauley glanced outside. “That’s the wrong city.”

“You’re kidding me.” Amara stood still in the walkway, staring outside in disbelief. “All that fancy tech n’ trees around and it’s not the capital?”

“Nope, and we gotta stop blocking the way for other people. I got something for ya if you’re bored.”

Amara followed Pauley, taking a look outside the windows every few steps or so. True to Pauley’s words, the train did not slow down at all as it approached the settlement. By the time the pair sat down again, their vessel had already left the city behind.

Pauley started to rummage through his many suitcases, eventually yanking out a piece of something that resembled a strip of black cloth. He then took one of Amara’s wrists and wrapped the cloth around, before trying to grab his other possessions that were starting to roll away on the floor.

“What’s this thing?” Amara looked down at the mysterious object, while simultaneously catching a stray wrench with her free hand.

“Infoportal.” Pauley answered as he hunched down. “Help me get my—”

The train suddenly shook as if it was going over a bumpy road, causing more of Pauley’s property to fly out. Just as things began to tumble out of their section of the carriage, several rope-like plant vines shot out through the air and wrapped around each individual item, pulling them back towards their owner in an organized and unusual manner.

“Thanks.” Pauley started shoving the contents that remained in his suitcases to make more space. The items that were pulled back to him remained wrapped, and managed to form into a line while waiting for their owner to pack them again. Amara leaned towards the nearest window to see if she could spot what caused the turbulence, completely ignoring the surprised stares from passengers around her.

‘I can’t see behind the train.’ She thought as she nearly strained her neck.

Beware! Life’s voice warned her.

‘Beware of what?’

Amara barely finished her thought before a sudden force threw her back and pinned her to her seat. Without any time to react, her entire carriage tilted upwards, then flipped upside-down as it was lifted cleanly off the railway. As bodies and possessions flew towards the ceiling, Amara managed to kick off of her seat handle, and slammed her body sideways into a window.

You’re not strong enough to break it like that.

Destruction’s presence reminded Amara. With a slight glint of purple light, she quickly channeled a little bit of energy from the pool within her mind, and successfully melted a hole in the window glass to let herself out.

Now dropping through the air, she then instinctively tapped into the other pool of energy within, and sent out even more plant vines behind herself, controlling them to grab onto anything they touch and to pull them out of the train.

Just as she landed on solid ground, another blast of force knocked her off balance, causing her to fall and tumble through dirt, barely able to avoid tangling herself inside her own plant vines.

Amara stopped rolling once her back slammed into a boulder, just in time for her to see the now airborne train carriage cast a shadow upon her head, its trajectory ending right on the spot where she was at.

Before she even had time to blink, something—or rather, someone—swooped in from her side and scooped Amara up, taking her out of danger right before the train carriage crashed into the ground.

“Pauley!” Amara screamed. While she was saved, the plant vines she had conjured were also pulled out of the landing zone. However, while she saw plenty of travel bags and a few confused passengers tied at the other end of her vines, Pauley was nowhere to be seen.

“Miss! Are you alright?” the individual who had saved Amara asked. They were covered head to toe in a hazmat suit, and their voice was muffled behind several layers of masks.

“I’m okay! But I can’t find—”

Behind you!

Amara instinctively tried to drop to the ground in defense. However, she was still half-hugged, half-carried by her savior, who was yanked downwards by her sudden movement. Once they managed to straighten up, the back of their head was smoking.

“What was that for, miss?”

“Uh…” Amara hesitated from the ground, then pointed at her own head. “The back of your head is…”

Her savior reached behind their suit and patted a few times, then froze as they touched the spot where smoke was coming from.

“Also,” Amara continued rather timidly, “There’s a…thing behind you too.”

Her savior did a full body turn to face down another train carriage that was quickly rising by itself into a vertical stance. Within the time span of a blink, countless metallic tendrils protruded from said carriage, and came flying towards the pair of humans.

Without time to form a single coherent thought, Amara rolled on the ground again, then sent out more plant vines to attack the strange tendrils coming her way. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw her savior complete several nimble turns in midair, avoiding the surprise attack with far more grace than she could muster.

‘What is that thing?’ With her vines successfully blocking off the tendrils, Amara finally found the time to stand up. Brushing off a few pebbles, she reached into her mind and asked the residents within for information.

A piece of human technology gone very, very wrong. Destruction replied in a serious tone.

‘Thanks.’ Amara thought somewhat sarcastically. She then dipped into her inner pool of energy and created several longer vines, and attempted to wrap them around the train-carriage-octopus monster.

Meanwhile, she could hear her savior loudly shouting: “Team Four, member Noah speaking, two new mutative entities observed—”

An even louder rumble covered over the rest of the words. Glancing over to the source of the sound, Amara saw the train carriage she jumped out of rise up in a very familiar motion. More tendrils protruded out of that carriage, and were swiftly moving toward a few injured passengers laying on the ground.

“Sir! Can I call you sir? Noah?” Amara turned to her savior, who was just about to dash and help save the civilians.

“Yes?” Noah paused and looked at her in a mix of anxiousness and confusion.

“Do you smoke?”

“WHAT?!”

Before Amara could elaborate, the second monster suddenly swelled up like a balloon. A large popping noise and a great flash of heat and light followed, then a large cloud of smoke covered up the aftermath of these changes. Blinded by the smoke, Amara hurriedly drained out every last bit of energy she could wield, and created a cocoon of plant vines around herself to prevent being attacked.

Another muffled popping noise sounded as soon as she finished making the cocoon. At the back of her mind, Amara could vaguely feel through her plant vines that the tendrils she was wrangling with were heating up, likely being set on fire by some unknown source. Though some of her vines were also burned up, she wasn’t able to be harmed, as her plants were connected to her mentally rather than physically.

After what seemed like hours, something knocked on the outside of Amara’s cocoon. She immediately paused her breath, while quietly reaching within for any leftover energy she could have left. This cautiousness, however, quickly evaporated as a familiar voice rang through the layers of plants:

“I’m gonna count to three before I start torching again! One, two—”

“Pauley!” Amara clawed her way out of the remains of her cocoon. What met her eyes was a metallic suit covered with soot, with Pauley’s face peeking out from underneath the hood. He held what looked like a nozzle in his right hand, and had a scythe laying by his left foot.

“No time to explain.” Before Amara could even breathe in relief, Pauley interrupted her. “How much more fuel can you make? There’s another one of those train-gone-rogue things that we should burn.”

“Not much.” Amara replied. “Wait…where’d it go?”

As soon as those words were spoken, a loud explosion nearby masked up any words that could’ve been uttered after. The ground shook violently, toppling both kids while opening up a huge crack that perfectly swallowed Pauley’s scythe. Gigantic clouds of smoke soon followed, causing coughs and removing the possibility of recovering possessions.

By the time the pair recovered from the blast, they were met with a group of uniformed adults, all ushering them onto stretchers and towards vehicles flashing red and blue lights.

“Hey, please! I’m FINE! No, don’t take my helmet off…and I lost my stuff!”

Amara laid on her stretcher, dazedly getting carried into a car, but through her still ringing ears, she could faintly hear Pauley struggling. She vaguely thought about what had just occurred, until a loud screech scared her back to her senses.

Hopping off of her stretcher like she would a garden fence, Amara dashed toward where Pauley was speaking, pushing adults aside with adrenaline-fueled ease as she ran. As the other stretcher came into view, Amara saw a fully masked person holding something that looked like a sharp blade directly above Pauley’s head, and Pauley was holding his helmet in place with trembling arms.

Without thinking, Amara’s body automatically jumped off the ground, leaping through the air and delivering a flying kick right into the malicious person’s chest. Before she landed on the ground again, she yanked the blade away from her target, then slashed downward at the knees of the adult carrying the front of Pauley’s stretcher.

The carrier dodged away instinctively, though the temporary imbalance was enough to cause Pauley to slip off. Amara managed to slide an arm under him before he landed face first, and Pauley was able to regain balance and stood up back-to-back with Amara.

“I think we’re surrounded.” Amara said in a half whisper, eyeing the circle of people that were closing in on them.