Everywhere we looked, the Morgans were attacking with a ferocity that hadn’t been in them before we left. Guards were fighting them and losing as they were caught in serrated teeth and torn apart. The village was littered with dead or dying Kin and blood. So much of it. It rained from the skies where the Morgan were feasting on a male Kin.

  One was munching on his innards, while the other held on to a limb, until they tore the Kin in two. His dying wail caught on the wind. I gasped. These weren’t your soul-sucking demons! These were real demons! What had happened while we were gone? What had Medina done to them to make them so...vicious?

  “What in hell!” yelled Jonah as he took in what I was. “This is…”

  Datha came over to him and smirked. “Reality, baby brother. Things have changed while you and Crazy were gone...and as you can see...not for the better,” she walked past and stepped over a Kin’s carcass. Its heart was missing, and I felt bile rise to my throat.

  She slid her gun from the harness and touched the two runes with a glowing magenta finger. Streams of purple power shot a Morgan through the eyes. It squaked as it ate a hole straight through its skull and attacked its brain before its head exploded. Jonah covered me and got most of the brain matter on him. I winced. That was an innocent person trapped as a monster, but I didn’t see any other way out of this except killing these demons before we became food.

  “Gross sis! Can’t you be cleaner in killing?” he grumbled, shaking off brain matter off his shirt.

  “Why should I? These things can’t feel anything. They are just monsters,” she shrugged and walked off and firing at another Morgan.

  Jonah growled. He looked as if he was about to go after her for a minute before shaking his head and taking out Whirl Devil, while handing me my sword. Dancer was an Earth broadsword, strengthened by the same type of runes as his along the guard. It kind of reminded me of Percy’s Riptide in shape, except mine couldn’t transform into a pen. It fit my hands perfectly.

  Datha scoffed. “As if Crazy can do a thing with that! She’s too human to…”

  I sliced a Morgan’s head clean off as it tried to eat me and prayed for whoever’s soul it was as I moved on and ignored Datha’s remarks. I could and would save these slaves. They didn’t deserve this. No one did.

  Jonah grinned and chuckled beside me. “You were saying?”

  The others moved about, slaying Morgans as they tried to move around the blood-soaked demons and carry on their way. They were blocked by Morgans and by guards who seemed immune to the Morgans, as the giant beasts seemed to miss the memo of their existence. They disappeared underground, where the children were. I roundhoused a guard out of my way when a small cry caught my attention.

  I gazed behind me and watched as a mother who was running with a small child in her arms was grabbed by a guard and detained. The small child was pried from her arms, and she was led to a nearby Morgan.

  No! I wasn’t going to let a mother lose her child to the mines on my watch! I gritted my teeth and hurtled towards the mother first, killing the Morgan who had ripped into her shoulder.

  “Isma!” she cried, the gaping shoulder bite dribbling blood all down her front, making her slip several times in the soft earth. She groaned as jagged rocks dug into her wounds, stretching them open even more. She outstretched her hand, pleading, as the guard was handing the child over to another guard. No! I gripped Dancer ignoring my aching wrists and started rushing forward.

  Maryanne: Not on our watch!

  If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

  Strength: Yeah!

  Mark: This will solidify to others we are dangerous.

  Jack: Do you feel that?

  Maryanne: It’s our powers!

  Strength: Where are they?

  Mark: We’re about to find out.

  Jack: Incoming!

  The earth trembled around me, and streams of clear blue water blasted from me in thick tendrils to wrap around the child’s waist and hoist him back from the guards. I faded into black mists as the shadows swallowed me and the wind blanketed making me a black bullet in the underpaths, streaking straight towards the mother. Even from this distance, her milky white pallor and shallow breaths meant nothing good. She was bleeding out.

  Like a ghost, I faded back into view, getting a strangled and hoarse sound from the mother as she collapsed to the earth. Trading Jack’s powers for Maryanne’s, I came closer and placed a warm hand over her wound. Streaks of white and gold seeped within, knitting the wound closed and revitalising the mother. She took a big breath and sighed before turning to me.

  “How? Why? Who are you?” she asked breathlessly as I handed the shivering little boy to her. She took him gleefully. “Isma!”

  “Go. Run to safety. I will detain them,” I said, and she smiled and nodded, picking the little boy up. She was soon dashing away from the fight and the town. A Morgan shimmered into view. I grabbed my sword before shaking my head and rushing it head-on. When it seemed I was about to be eaten, I glowed golden and touched its forehead with a glowing hand. It reverted into a seventeen-year-old boy.

  I wanted to do that to every Morgan here that was still alive. I pushed my power out and felt it expand as it left me. Tendrils exploded from me like extra hands, holding every Morgan down. Everything they touched it healed.

  The dying Kin were healed. The wounded Guards were healed, and the Morgans that were attacking were reverted into their true forms. The twenty or so that remained. I fell to my knees, exhausted. I felt my powers leave me and felt weaker than a newborn. I knew somehow I had lost them again.

  Maryanne: What happened? I thought we had our powers back?

  Strength: So did I!

  Mark: I concur.

  Jack: I don’t know. The subconscious has them. Come on! We’ll go get them!

  They walked into the subconscious’s room, and Jack dived into the swirling black whirlpool of images.

  “Jack!” Maryanne cried and went to step into the subconsciousness, but Strength stopped her.

  “He’ll be fine. Remember, he can live inside the subconsciousness, while we can’t,” he said.

  Maryanne blushed and nodded. “ I forgot about that.”

  Jack came swimming to the surface, a strange glowing black ball in his hand.

  “They’re all down there chained!” he said, gasping as he crawled onto the ledge.

  “Who?” asked Mark.

  “All the rest! Jessica, Roy, Benny, Siren, Preacher, Sympathy, Lesley! Our powers are down there as well. He held out the black, glowing orb. “This is mine. It called to me, but I have no idea how to rejoin with it,” he said.

  Maryanne bent down and inspected the glowing ball. It had runes on it. Out of everyone, she read runes best.

  “It says the one true path will regift it to us,” she said.

  “That sounds ominous,” Mark said as he helped his brother up off the ledge.

  I wondered what they meant when Datha exploded in anger. “You don’t have your powers back? Then what the hell was that! And why did you attack those Kin that were saving the boy from a frantic mother?”

  Jonah ignored his sister and walked towards me. “You ok?”

  “Yeah, they were going to…”

  He nodded. “Probably. You saved an innocent kid from the mines. I have a feeling that this attack was a ruse to steal the children from their moms. The safe haven has probably been breached, and the kids were taken from their moms.”

  I nodded and looked down, feeling something drip down my arms. Crap! I had reinjured my cuts!

  Jonah noticed and sighed, raising a brow, as the dripping became more fervent. “Let’s get away from here, and I’ll have a look at them.”

  I nodded sheepishly and tried to stand up, only to find my legs were made of jelly.

  He smirked and lifted me into his arms. “Come on, Aragorn. Let’s clean those cuts up. Then you can explain to me why you broke your promise.”

  “Oops?” I said, smiling.

  We headed back the way we came from, but were stopped by Datha and the rest. I rolled my eyes.

  “Are you really going to abandon us for her?” asked Datha scathingly. She stood between Jonah and the exit.

  Jonah sighed again. “We came together, Datha, and I trust her with my life, which is something I can’t say about any of you.”

  Datha took a step forward. “I’m your sister, and she just proved how crazy she is! She attacked two Kin helping out a child!”

  “There are things you don’t know that are going on in this world, Datha. She saved the kid from eternal suffering. Those Kin weren’t good. We’ll leave it at that. As for you being my sister, well, you sure aren’t acting like it. You were ready to leave me to the council. I don’t know what happened to you while I was gone, but you’ve changed, and it hasn’t been for the better. Now, move! We have an oracle to find.”

  Datha smirked haughtily, crossing her arms. “So do we.”

  “We are not traveling together, Datha. I won’t let you humiliate Myra more than you have.”

  “It would be faster without her,” said Niran, and I sighed. Sighing was going to become a habit if they all tagged along.

  “See? This is why we’re better off traveling apart. So I don’t end up stealing your guns and shooting your asses,” Jonah muttered, and I snorted.

  Datha scowled. “Crazy, can come. It’s not like she’s the savior we’re looking for.”

  My eyes widened. Boy, would they be surprised.