A LEAP OF FAITH

Chapter 17: So, what is it we have to do?

In front of the staircase were two guards dressed in strange suits that looked futuristic, in a way. When the seven of them tried to get on the staircase, but the guards blocked their view. They looked almost identical in height; they were wearing masks and unitards with an odd pattern on them. One of them was female, the other being male.

"Hello, can we get through?" Sugar asked, as politely as she could.

"Nope! You need to give us..." The male guard looked at his companion, almost as if he was asking her something.

"You need to give us one hundred fifty space coins!" The girl said with confidence.

"That wasn't what they were called, were they...?" The boy whispered, but he wasn't very good at whispering, so the others heard him. The two looked as if they were around their age, sixteen or seventeen.

"It was your job to remember!" She argued.

"It was not! It was my job to stand here and guard!" He folded his arms, sticking his nose up in the air snootily.

"THAT WAS MY JOB, YOU- ugh, whatever..." She pinched the bridge of her nose. The seven watched the guards argue.

"You guys aren't very responsible for guards, are you?" Ari tilted his head.

"Yeah, he isn't." The girl scoffed, glancing at the other.

"I am AMAZING at guarding, thank you very much!" He said in a sassy tone, jabbing his finger into her shoulder.

"Doesn't matter what the coins are called! You can't pass through here without 'em! SO SCRAM!" He shooed them off with a wave of his hand. The seven groaned and reluctantly walked away.

"We should've just beat them up..." Kiren mumbled, crossing his arms.

"Yeah, we would've gotten in a lot of trouble, though." Malcolm pushed his glasses back up his nose. They walked back into the forest, and tried to figure out what they were going to do.

"Well, maybe we could just sneak into the staircase..." Sugar proposed.

"Perhaps." Ari gave a soft nod, agreeing with her idea. Just before they could say anything else, they heard footsteps, it sounded like multiple people were running.

A group of kids emerged from the trees; they were all wearing some kind of identical uniform.

"Hello, we are the children's scouts for the Town of Asterius! Will you please support the scouts by buying our cookies? They're only ten chirons each box!" One of the kids, a girl with light purple skin and hair that was in two braids that hung down her back, held out a packet of cookies. She gave a sweet smile and talked in a polite voice. Sugar glanced at Mugi; he was the best with children. Meanwhile, she hated kids, she thought they were utterly annoying. Mugi stepped forward, he was just a bit taller than the young girl.

"We'd love to support the scouts, but we aren't from here, and we don't have any... what was it..." he paused.

"Chirons?" A boy that stood behind the girl tilted his head.

"Ah, that was it..." Mugi nodded, "we don't use that type of money, so we don't have any. And... we actually need to figure out how to earn some, because we need to go to a very special place," he explained in a soft tone, simplifying in a way that the children would understand.

"Why do you have to go to a special place?" The girl asked curiously.

"We're actually... superheros..." Mugi gave a small smile, "we have to go find a bad guy and defeat them to save our school."

The kids gasped in unison, "I'VE NEVER MET A REAL-LIFE SUPERHERO!" One of them shouted eagerly. There were about five of them in total. Two boys, three girls. The main girl, the one with the braided hair, perked up. "Well... we can tell you how to get chirons if you give us your autograph! All of my friends will be so jealous if I got a real autograph from a real superhero!" She talked quickly; it was evident that she was excited.