Powers

Chapter 11: Hard Decisions

At sun up we were fed. That was about all the interaction with other people we had. We all decided to have a nap. If I had my powers, I could just build a comfy bed, but how could I, with this bracelet on? Soon I nodded off. I didn't dream, but something felt off. My sleep was light, almost too light. A bright green light began filling my vision. My eyes snapped open before I looked for the source of the light. However, it wasn't anything around me, it was me. My hand was feeding this glowing light into the bracelet. It looked as if it were to explode. By now, everyone was awake and staring at me. The bracelet began vibrating.
"Cover your faces!" I shouted. I covered my own with my other arm and I lifted the hand with the bracelet up into the air. It was shaking violently before I felt it explode off of my hand. I looked up to see the green light still filling the room, but shooting plants from the explosion. I stopped it, letting the light slowly fade.
"What the hell was that!?" Aukai unburied himself from a pile of flowers. I just realized now that I had practically filled up the cell with plants.
"I don't know. I've worn one of these bracelets before and that never happened" I shook my head. I watched the remaining green light fade and disappear back up my arm.
"Well! Get to it! Try to get us out, Jack!" Felix encouraged. I nodded. I backed up to the wall of the cell, focusing on the bars in front of me. I shot vines at them, pulling with what strength I had. It's like I had thrown a pebble at it.
"Everyone grab on" Isole demanded. Everyone did. We tugged and pulled at the bars.
"It's no use, those bars are reinforced. You can't break them down" I heard Leader's distinct voice come from down the hall. I dropped the vines I had in my hands and walked up to the bars.
"We will get out" I spat.
"I don't believe so. I'm keeping you very well hidden" he shrugged.
"Trust me, I will find a way"
"However, I am surprised your powers burned through that bracelet. I never thought someone could" he grabbed my wrist, pulling it through the bars. I tugged back, trying to pull my hand back to my side.
"Let me go" I struggled with him for a moment. When he did let go, I flung myself backwards, just catching myself with my vines.
"Well, have a nice day, I do have other things to attend to" Leader waved at us before walking back down the hall.
"At least we have unlimited food and beds now, right?" Isole half heartedly laughed.
"Right" I smiled. I sat down in the stall.

As the sun went down, after what felt like an eternity, we shut our eyes again. This time, on softly woven beds made from sturdy branches and soft grasses, with palm leaf woven blankets. We resorted to bunk beds. I made four. Mark and I, Felix and Marzia, Aukai, then Isole. As snoring began to rise from their mouths, I lay wide awake, just thinking. I wove flower crowns. Something I did when I needed to sort things out. It was comforting to keep my hands busy as well as my mind. I wove one from Birds of Paradise and pink roses. I placed them on everyone's heads. They looked happy in their sleep. Something I knew didn't exist in this prison.
I watched a guard walk by. I could try to make him pass out and grab the keys, but I decided people's sleep was more important. Maybe Mark was right. I used my heart before I used my head. Right now my heart was saying to keep quiet and let these wonderful people sleep while my head was just screaming at me. Because, oh my god, that guard has a set of keys on his belt. I stood up.
"Hey, you" I whispered. My voice traveled far enough that he turned his head.
"What do you want?" He asked soon as his face was right in front of mine. It was now or never. I had half a plan, just hoping he'd be stupid enough to fall for it. I pretended to waft air in front of my face like someone had farted.
"Phew, no offence dude, but you need serious mint before I ask you" I plugged my nose.
"Well, plant boy, grow me some damn mint and maybe we can discuss how I'm going to beat you up" he threatened. I nodded my head. In my hand, however, I wasn't growing a mint leaf, I was growing water hemlock. A dangerously poisonous plant. It caused seizures, and without the proper treatment, could be lethal. I grew a small bit of the root on it, hiding it from him.
"Here" I handed it to him. He shrugged and took a bite.
"This shit isn't even minty" he nearly spat it out before I wrapped a vine around his mouth. I pulled him against the bars.
"Swallow it" I spat. I grabbed the keys off of his belt. I pushed him to the wall opposite. "If you go get anyone, I'll kill you right this instant" I growled. I needed to make it look like he accidentally ate something. He sat down. I watched his every move, waiting for the sixty minutes to be over. He should be dying within an hour and a half. I hid the keys under my bed, watching the guard sit there.
After about fourth five minutes, something began to happen. In the bit of light, I watched sweat bead down his face.
"My stomach really hurts, man. Can I go to the bathroom?" He started rubbing his stomach. I pointed to an empty cell.
"Go ahead" I watched as he stood up, walking to the bathroom. I turned my head. That poor guy was not having a good day. I looked at my friends who were all still asleep. I grew cotton, covering their ears. Whatever was going to start happening, would not be good.
"Agh! God! I don't think I should be having this bad of cramps!" He raised his voice.
"Shut up!" I whisper yelled. He sat down beside the toilet. I watched as the seizure began. I couldn't look now. I turned my head from him again. Although my heart screamed to save him, I needed to stay put.
Soon, I looked back to see him dead. In a pool of his own vomit. I cringed. I took my chance exactly then. I began waking everyone up. I told them to be quiet before they said anything. I brought out the keys, waving it. They nodded. On it, I then realized it had the key for the bracelets. I pointed to my wrist. I grabbed Mark's wrist, inserting the key into the lock. The bracelet popped, falling to the ground.
When I had gotten everyone out, I reached around the lock, putting the key in. I heard a mechanism click before the door opened. I waved everyone forward. Now, with everyone at full power, we could escape. We tiptoed down the halls, me taking lead. I had an advantage. I wrapped up the guards tightly before Isole put them into huge ice cubes. There weren't too many, which helped. I spotted the glass door that lead down to the beach. We all began running at it without looking back. I ran at full speed towards it, twisting my body at the last second, smashing through the glass. Alarms began blaring as the glass shattered to the ground.
"Run!" Isole screeched.
I didn't even care if I could feel glass stuck in my skin or that I just killed a man, all I cared about was getting over that fence and making it to that boat we had down at the beach. Heavy footprints sounded from behind us.
"Everyone in front of me!" Marzia yelled. Somehow everyone filed in front of her before the gate. It was going so fast, I couldn't even describe it. We were lifted off the ground, just barely clearing the fence.
"They cleared the fence!" I heard a guard yell. On the ground, I stopped in my tracks.
"Everyone, go!" I yelled. I counted to make sure everyone was there. I defended my people. I stopped the guards who had come over. I shot vines at them, entrapping them. There were so many of them. I nearly felt overwhelmed as I took down each one.
"Jack! Let's go!" I heard someone yell. I looked down at the beach to already see all my friends in the boat, except for Aukai, who was ready to push it into the water. I turned back to my fight, picking up one guard, and flinging him into a tree, also knocking down one other. I turned around, booking it down the sand. Aukai already began pushing the boat off. I skipped through the water, jumping into the boat, just as Aukai got us going. I was breathing heavily. I was also in a very uncomfortable position as I had just jumped into the boat. My arm was pinned. Mark pulled me up. I looked back to see the guards in the water, coming after us.
"Aukai! Can you get us going?" I was panicking.
"No, the water isn't deep enough here" he shook his head. I could only see him in the pale moonlight. I thought for a moment, how else we could defend ourselves. I couldn't think, I was drawing a blank. Just think of the simulation! It's like a timer, I have to solve the puzzle to save these people. It suddenly clicked.
"Isole! Freeze them in the water!" I pointed.
"It's difficult in salt water" she cried out. The guards were so close.
"I don't care! Try it!" I demanded. She nodded, shooting ice at them. Miraculously, the water around them trapped them. It stopped them dead in their tracks, just as Aukai began to have enough water to create his wave. And we were off again.
"Jack, look at me" Mark called. I blinked before my head turned. My eyes were wide. Everything that just happened smashed through the wall of adrenaline. I killed a man. I killed him without blinking. I injured so many more. I was in shock. A tear fought its way down my cheek.
"I killed a man" I whispered. Mark grabbed my hand and pulled me into his chest. I felt nothing. My emotions were frozen.
"You were doing what you thought was best for us. Like a true Chief" Mark rubbed his hand up and down on my back.
"I could've chosen other plants. One that would've paralyzed him, not killed him" I shook my head.
"Its alright, Jack. You got us out of there" Mark's comforting wasn't comforting me as well as I thought it would.
"But I killed him"
"Shh"

By the time we had arrived at the mainland, I had calmed down. Everyone, but Mark and I, was injured. When we got to shore, the Chiefs were standing there. They rushed everyone off to a hospital while Mark and I were placed in a library.
"This is only for this evening, until your friends return. We want everyone's side of the story" Ice chief nodded. She closed the door, leaving us alone in the room. I huffed. I'll admit, I need a good book right now to distract me.
"You want to talk about it?" Mark asked, his voice breaking the long eerie silence.
"No, not really, I just want to read a book and forget what I just did" I smiled. I turned from him before I looked at a section of books. Mark went opposite of me. In my searching, I happened to come across a book I've been wanting to read for a while. Plant species and what they can do. It was on the tallest shelf above me. I couldn't reach it. Vines came around my ankles then, picking me up just high enough for me to pick the book up. As I opened it up, the vines brought me over to a table and put me in a chair.
The pages of the book were old and yellowed. They looked to be hand written. As I flipped through the pages, Mark called out my name.
"Jack! Come here!" He seemed alarmed. I turned my head to see Mark buried in a book.
"What's wrong?" I stood, walking over to him.
"You won't believe what I just found in this book" he put it on the shelf. When I finally reached him, he took me by my shoulder, and put me in front of him and pointed to a large paragraph mid page.
"Read it out loud" Mark encouraged. He was still holding my shoulders. I began reading out the words.
"If the two wish to have a child... what must be done, is a combination of powers. Not a formation, but rather an orb of magic. From the orb, a child will be created from the two counterpart parents. Parents will not lose their powers, but simply hand it down" I was in shock. My knees felt weak.
"So there is a chance we could have kids" Mark twirled me around. Don't get me wrong, I was ecstatic as well, but I was concerned over the fact that Mark and I had two different powers.
"Mark wait" I stopped him from spinning me around. His face dropped.
"What's wrong?" His voice seeped with deep concern.
"But we have two different powers. What if our child would have two different powers? What if they don't have powers all together?" I pointed out.
"That's not how it works, I'm afraid" a voice carried from the door. I turned my attention to see the Ice Chief.
"How does it work, then?" Mark asked.
"If you two wish to have children, you will have twins. One with the water power, the other with the Nature power" Ice chief nodded.
"How do you know?" I shook my head.
"Because, despite everything, it has happened many times before. During the war, especially. People feared the families would disappear. So they took whatever they could. Unfortunately, a few times, there were some mistakes. We had a child born of two powers. It survived its first five years, but the powers which were unfortunately mixed, were opposite of each other. One fire, the other, ice. With the power becoming too powerful as the child grew, it burned through the poor child in a fire-y burst. Since then, we've only allowed such thing to happen if the powers can unite if such a child is born. The two of you, of course, are perfectly safe" she nodded. How she knew so much about this was beyond me.
"How do you know so much? I'm sure they would've kept it quiet from the Chiefs" I pointed out.
"Because it had happened to my own son. He found a beautiful wife from the Fire family. Nothing like that had happened before, so we allowed the marriage and child" she seemed to be tearing up. I walked up to her, rubbing her back. She smiled.
"I'm sorry that happened to your family" I assured.
"Thank you, Jack. You are going to make an amazing father. The both of you. You're both so kind" she hugged me. All this time, the Chiefs seemed emotionless. Made of stone, to lead the factions, but sometimes I forget that they're human too. They were born, and grew up. They had feelings.
"Wait, hold up here, you said it happened a few times, correct?" Mark stopped the moment of silence. The Ice Chief turned her head.
"Correct" she nodded.
"So that means that there were powers combined that weren't like the child you told us about"
"Yes. But he is in no condition for anything. He has a multiple personality disorder so we keep him locked up. Neither of his personalities are nice"
"So you never put him out of his misery?" Mark shook his head.
"We had no reason. He did nothing wrong. Anyway, I should be going,"
"Alright. Thank you so much for the talk" I smiled as she left. I turned to Mark as the door shut. A huge smile was spread on his face.
"We can have children!" He yelled as if he had been victorious in battle.
"We can!" I chuckled.
"Oh Jack! I can't wait to have children with you" he pulled me to his face. He put his forehead on mine. I shut my eyes, just feeling his breath slowly go in and out on my skin.
"I can't wait either" I whispered