Chapter 38

Aiyamar

I awoke in a black room. There was one door off to my right, and the room was only about five feet square. My light didn’t shine when I tried, so I knew that it was a Neutral Room.

Neutral Rooms are specially built so that people in them can’t use their Powers. Mostly, they’re used for intergalactic meeting offices and prisons. But the others are for hospitals. Chances were, after a battle, I was in a prison.

I jumped off of the hard metal table, my feet hitting the floor after dropping a surprising six feet. Look before you leap, I remembered Madara telling me when we were studying possible escapes from any given prison.

The door opened just as I rolled away, absorbing the force of my fall. Since it was such a tight space, I collided with the wall.

“Hey, sis. Trying to escape already? We should have put you on the ninth floor,” a voice said. I jumped back up, prepared to fight if this were a trick. There stood Astulad, looking a little worse for the wear.

His leg was broken, as were both of his wrists. Other than that, he had a huge bruise on his shoulder, and it looked like he had lost a tooth or two.

I said nothing. For all I knew, I was in some enemy castle, and Astulad was an illusion. Sensing my apprehension, he sighed and hung his head. “Security check?”

“Yeah, I’d like that,” I responded. “Code?”

He responded with the appropriate answer (which I am not telling you), and then asked for mine. I didn’t answer him; instead I squealed and almost tackle-hugged him. “Mm mmshed mm mm mmch,” I mumbled into his shirt. He hugged me back, though not very tightly. That probably wouldn’t have been the best for his wrist. “I missed you too.”

I pulled away, wiping away traces of tears. “So what happened to you?”

“I got into a fight with a marble floor.”

“Uh huh…”

“The portals are messed up. We’re not really sure why yet, but rumor has it Kelsey knows. One dropped me 17 feet. The fall was big enough to hurt pretty bad,” he said as he gestured to his broken, beaten body. “But it was short enough that I couldn’t get oriented in time to fall properly,” he added, his brows coming together in annoyance.
“You took a pretty bad beating yourself,” he said, changing the subject. “Or so I heard anyway.” He cocked an eyebrow. “You look fine.”

I laughed and retorted with “That’s more than I can say for you.” I only had a few cuts to show for my battle ordeal.

Astulad stuck out his tongue and then tried to look as if he were doing something else when Hanayni walked in.

“You shouldn’t be walking around, Astulad,” she said. All three of us understood that to be an order. My brother made a face and limped out of the room.

“Hi Hanayni,” I said. She nodded, acknowledging my greeting. “Follow me, Aiyamar.” I did so silently. She didn’t seem to be in a very good mood.

“Glad you’re doing better. When the porters brought you back, you were almost dead. Kelsey herself had to come and heal you.”

I felt behind my head, looking for a bump or dried blood or something.

“Kelsey’s efficient,” Hanayni said without looking back. “As far as your body knows, that blow never happened.”

I chided myself. Of course there would be no mark if I had been healed.

I could see that Hanayni was leading me to the Mess Hall. The buzz of all the people was near deafening.

“What time is it?” I dared to ask. I had so many other questions, but I knew they’d have to wait.

“Period 6, 2nd Quarter,” Hanayni responded, using School time. There are four Quarters, each 6 periods long. Each period is roughly 8 Earth hours. Because the School is located in the very center of the universe, time is always exactly right here, and everywhere else it’s either too fast or too slow. I don’t exactly know how that works, but all the Instructors say that Time is a force, like gravity, and it pushes harder in some places than in others.

For example, people were arriving from the Meeting in bursts about 10 Earth hours apart, even though they were entering the portal at about a rate of 3 per Earth second.

I could see another group of people being led towards the front of the Hall, like I was. I scanned the room, searching for my Teammates, wondering if any of them had made it back. Especially the ones that I never saw at the Meeting.

I saw Eyrad and Ya’asa at opposite ends of the room. Ya’asa was crying, as Llare vainly tried to comfort her. She was really upset; her Power was unstable, causing her hands to morph into paws, talons, and back into human form. The rest of her body was covered with at Neutral Cloak.

She must have gotten hurt really badly; Neutral Cloaks subdue your power so that you don’t end up hurting yourself and reopening injuries (especially for the Shapeshifters).

There was no sign of Ikah, Krystal, Kyle, or Wynn, but Kelta was in a corner sobbing. Fierce wind and rain were buffeting anyone who went too close. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Diane make her way to her student.

Hanayni was still fighting through the crowd, but she had finally reached her limit.

“MOVE, PEOPLE!” The crowd parted quickly enough after that.

We came to the front of the Hall, just before the tall podium, behind which Kelsey presently stepped.

She glanced at Hanayni questioningly, and then motioned for me to go and sit in the row of seats behind the stand. I chose a seat between Aoife and Istalcia. Lorik was nearby, looking ready to kill someone. Hopefully he’d save it for battle.

A couple of other kids were brought forward, including Tzara.

After we were all situated, Kelsey stepped to the stand again and snapped her fingers. The sound was much louder than it should have been, creating a shockwave that easily grabbed everyone’s attention.

She spoke without a microphone, using her Powers to amplify her voice.

“I’m going to make this short and to the point.” There was a roar of approval. “We’ve been attacked. Our portals are malfunctioning. The new numbers have come in: at least thirty of our people have been captured, 700 killed, and over 8,000 injured.” A collective groan and many cries of sorrow erupted from the assembly. A few people doubled over; they were probably Energy Manipulators or Sensers. Even Lorik looked pained. The Energy output in that room had to be massive.

Kelsey waited until the noise quieted, then she continued. “We are here today to plan and respond to this threat. But first, I have agreed to let several people who have witnessed the problems firsthand give their accounts to you all.” With that, she moved to the side and gestured for me to come forward and take her hand.