Flame Touch

Chapter 23-Sunny

As soon as I woke up from my nap I immediately noticed something was off. I didn’t even need to use my “vision” to see it. Semba was fidgety and Knox was pretending to sleep (I could tell because her eyes were slightly open and her breathing was unsteady. Not a very good pretender like yours truly). Finally, Semba stopped twirling his thumbs around each other and shook blond boy’s shoulders, “We’re here.” He said, seeming extremely tired as Taris tried to get out of sleepy land, “Man, its cold,” he shook his head for a moment to clear the drowsiness and his eyes suddenly widened, “Did you manage the tornado all this time? Why didn’t you take a break or something, you must be tired as hell!” Semba shrugged, but I could see the weariness in his shoulders as he finally started to slow the tornado and bring it to a stop about ten feet above the snow. Wait, snow? Last time I checked, it’s about eighty-five degrees out. Oh goodness. Semba motioned for us to jump and I groaned. Why couldn’t he stop the thing two feet from the ground? Or even three? I’d be cool with three!

I moaned, but we all managed to jump out safely. Well, Semba more or less face-planted, but someone caught him. The last person I expected.

“Thanks Knox.” He said, and I swear I saw a burst of white light between them.

She shrugged and Melody burst out in concern, “Are you ok?!” I strove to hide a laugh; she always gets melodramatic when someone gets hurt. Semba nodded, “Yeah, it’s just the cold. It makes sense for Luminosity to weaken when the weather gets frosty right? But, unfortunately, we are lead to an uncomfortably cold environment.” Blond boy nodded and shivered.

“I don’t feel weaker.” Knox said in a confused tone. Blond boy looked at her, “Hm. Strange. Maybe it’s because your new to all of,” he spread his hands out in a gesture that was supposed to encompass the entire snowy landscape, “this.” Knox just nodded and I had a sneaking suspicion that she knew a little more than she was telling.

Isn’t it weird? Whenever I hear the phrase “sneaking suspicion” I think of a neon blue ninja creeping in a neon blue alley. What about neon pink? Has there ever been a neon pink ninja? Come to think of it, has there ever been a neon blue ninja? I think the closest humanity has gotten to a neon blue ninja is Swiper the fox. You know, cause his headband (eye band? Mask? Mexican Mariachi Band costume?) is neon blue. Right?

Ok. Sorry. Off topic.

Blondie reached into the brown bag he had the whole trip, “And this,” he looked at Semba with a glance, “is why I took so long to pack. Like a women.”

“So you heard that.”

Taris shook his head and clucked his tounge, “Tsk tsk. You should do well to know that I see everything. Hear everything,” he puffed up his chest, “I am your god.” Semba punched him in the stomach and our “god” went flying across the snow. I looked in the now open brown bag, “Coats!” I said taking out five heavily layered white coats in five different sizes. I took the one that looked my size, “Perfect fit!” I squealed excitedly. Knox took the one that was about an inch shorter than mine in length, “Wow. Mine is perfect too. Are these custom made Taris?”

He nodded, and then looked at Semba with a raised eyebrow, “That punch was weak.”

“It did send you flying.”

“Only ‘cause I let it.”

“Uh huh. Right.”

Blond boy glared at him for a second, but then gave up the angry act, “Do you need to sit down, you must be exhausted.”

Semba flumped down on the snow and spread his hands out, “Sitting down, honestly I’m not handicapped, you don’t have to worry about me.”

“I wasn’t worry about you. You are an important asset to the team and if you’re tired after managing a tornado for six hours, then that jeopardizes the mission.” Blondie said in a very calm calculate way, but Semba placed walked over to me and pretended to fake cry on my shoulder, “Did you hear that? He just called me an important asset! I don’t think anyone has ever said anything that nice to me in my life.” I fake cried with his and pat him on the back, “You truly are blessed. Truly. The nicest thing Knox has ever said to me was that my socks looked better mismatched than matched because I never bother to match them anyway.” We both burst out in “tears” at that point and Taris just rolled his eyes, “Ok. I get it. You’re rested.”

“Yeah, he’s rested, but what are we doing here? Couldn’t we have gone someplace that looked a little less abandoned?” Knox asked looking at the mountain range in front of us in confusion. Taris shook his head, “Sorry. The letter took us here.”

“Letter?” I asked curiously. Blondie nodded and took out a role of ancient looking paper that was laminated and kept in a blue folder, “When the Libra went missing, this is all we found in her place.” I started reading.

Chaos in masses when I look to the right

Trouble up heeds with murders and theft

And vicious blood fights

When I look to the left.

Is the only salvation

In salvation alone?

Then I will leave now

To disappear. To be gone.

And I await the next great one

To balance the scales

And to come find me, to run

And then to prevail

Here where the next one should be found

Is in a place far above ground.

A place where everything’s always asleep.

And always sleeping, for eternity.

I felt a chill go through me as I read the words on the parchment paper. When I looked at it again with my vision, I saw that it was half black and half white. The black was deep and unending, and the white so bright and curt that it almost made me cry out. I gasped in amazement, “It’s perfectly balanced.” I whispered, wanting to touch the paper, but too afraid, “Libra wrote this right? She must have wanted this to fall into the hands of someone she trusted to restore balance and only that person can find her.” I stared at blond boy, “Tell me I’m wrong.” I challenged, but he shook his head.

“Right on the money. When the three of you came to the dorm hall, this paper started to glow like crazy. I thought that it must have been a sign. Libra left clues as to where she was,” he breathed out, “I know she just wants balance, but what she’s doing, just leaving us here to fight the war without her, it’s right and wrong. But I guess that’s the way she likes it.”

It was at that point that Melody nodded and said, “Yeah that’s great and all, but why are we here? A place above ground? Yeah. Mountains are above ground, but so are a lot of other things like planes and plateaus.” Semba smiled, “Melody, do you know where we are?”

“Uh, in the middle of frickin’ nowhere wouldn’t be wrong, right? ‘Cause it sounds pretty accurate to me.” I laughed and waited for Semba to tell us where exactly we were. He gestured at one of the biggest mountains on the range, “That there is Mount Everest. Think about it. A place where everything sleeps for all eternity? Asleep equals rest, for eternity equals forever put it together for Everest!”

“Isn’t that a bit of a stretch?” I asked and Taris laughed, “I thought so too, but when he said it the paper started glowing again, so we thought we must have been right.”

“So what? We just go searching through a bloody mountain looking for another piece of paper that has some balance-obsessed loony’s handwriting on it?” Knox asked in an irritated way, “If we wanted to do that we would have just come alone.” Taris said and then looked at me meaningfully, “We thought that if we brought Sunny here, maybe she could use her powers to guide us?” he said, a bit awkwardly.

“So I’m your blood-hound?”

“No! But, well, can you do anything?” the hope in his voice became prominent.

“So you dragged us all the way to the base of a mountain not knowing what the heck you were doing all based on the hunch that I could ‘do something’?” I asked and the look on Blondie’s face fell, “So you can’t do anything?”

I sighed and closed my eyes, focusing on my mark. When I opened them I saw a very clear path through the mountains outlined in black and filled with bright white.

“Sunny’s bloodhound service operation “Find the needle in the Mountain” is a go!” I said and started walking.