The Great

Taran Brunner: Why are these trees so tall? I swung with all my might as I effortlessly cut through about twenty trees. I leapt into the air and skid to a stop as I blasted a channel of black lightning towards another set of trees. We were stationed in a thick forest filled with trees which were impossibly high. The thick, green canopy blocked out almost all sunlight and the cold forest soil didn’t feel particularly pleasant to fall on… On my first school tour of Eden I looked at all the training facilities, liquor technology, and resources available to students. It all seemed very impressive but I had no idea that this arena could do stuff like this. Being able to summon giant forests, portals to obstacle courses, and even entire oceans was far more than I ever thought any bit of liquor technology could do. At the same time however, I really hated some of the exercise courses Professor Vylen cooked up. “Taran, on your left!” I heard Aurora shout in my direction as I immediately ducked out of instinct. The giant, gray claw of a huge stone ant soared above my head. I spun around and hit the ant right in the abdomen with the hilt of my sword. The ant went soaring back as I chucked my sword at its body. The blade went flying—trailed by a streaming channel of purple lightning—right into the ant’s head. The stone instantly vaporized as I called my sword back into my hand. A flock of ants–maybe twenty–converged onto me in one big cluster, flowing off the hillside like some sort of evil river. I took a deep breath and gathered all of the energy stored in my body. I felt the energy stored inside my body rise to the surface as I directed it all into the blade of my sword. I lifted it up into the air and braced myself. A huge torrent of power came crashing down onto the ground as the army of stone ants were instantly turned to dust. I strained my entire body and kept commanding energy to rain down onto the forest floor as more and more ants converged onto me. I watched as they charged and died in droves, killing themselves by running into the walls of dark lightning. I clenched my teeth as I strained my body even more. The seemingly endless supply of ants kept coming and coming and coming. Are all these things just trying to attack me? Am I like the ant-guru or something…

My knees started to feel weak and my arms started to fail as I felt myself running out of energy. The ant barrage didn’t stop, but my body started to collapse under strain. I cut my attack off and put all of my strength into my legs. I jumped far into the air and somersaulted onto a high hillside. I could hear a hoard of ants scurrying behind me as I immediately turned my back and slashed my sword in a wide, moon-shaped arc. A sickle-shaped blade of dark lightning went flying out of my blade and decapitated most of the ants, but the stragglers started to converge and charge towards me. A group of four scurried up the trees and separated themselves as they dove at me like some ant-torpedo. A group of three borrowed under the soil and another group of three went wide on a flank. Meanwhile the five ants at the head of the charge dove onto me, jaws open and claws primed. I grit my teeth and slammed my sword onto the ground. The burrowing ants were immediately vaporized as dark tendrils of energy pierced deep into the ground. The giant chunks of rock and dirt were smashed into the air as they flew into the other ants at immense speeds. I jumped into the air and slashed in wide, curling arcs, right through the necks of the ants. One by one huge stone ant-heads dropped to the ground as I landed back on the ground with both of my feet. I turned around and the flanking ants were already on me. These are the last ones right? I channeled all of my remaining stored energy into all parts of my body and tensed myself.

A giant, knight-like coat of dark armor encased my body as I felt the entire world crumble at my feet. The ensuing energy that was fired into the air instantly vaporized the flanking ants, and I leapt high into the air in search of the remaining creatures. I spotted a group of ants all gathered around one glowing figure… It was Aurora, and she was surrounded. I dove straight down into the crowd of ants surrounding her as a crater formed beneath my feet. Aurora saw me and she instantly leapt out of the crowd of ants. She seemed perfectly fine, no cuts, no injuries, no bruises. She seemed to have a lot of energy left and yet….she was cornered. I saw tears in her eyes as she landed on a tall cliff of rock and dirt. I took my attention off of her and lifted my sword into the air. I slammed my sword into the ground and commanded all of my armor to fly off of my body and right into the ground. My armor gathered into a giant, dark, channel of lightning and danced along the blade of my sword as it traveled towards the earth. A resounding explosion echoed throughout the forest as all of my stored up energy passed through my sword right into the soil. I was blasted back from the force as giant, dark purple cracks spread through the floor of the forest. Giant trees were uprooted and thrown into the sky, while huge boulders were blasted through the air. All of the ants in the surrounding area were instantly vaporized as I tried to gain my footing in the air. Branch, branch, branch, I need a branch to land on….

I felt something crash into me and drag me through the air. My body instinctively tensed as I flailed and thrashed in the air. What the fuc– “RELAX MAN! Hey, hey, hey it’s me. It’s Geon! Stop kicking, woah!” Geon barrel rolled around a giant tree branch as he flew me around the forest. I stopped kicking and flailing as I let out a big sigh.

“Thanks for the save,” Geon rolled his eyes.

“Oh thanks for saving me Geon! Oh thanks for lifting up that pile of rocks Geon! You're so wonderful and awesome Geon, is more of what I was looking for, but I’ll take it.” I sighed again as he lowered us both down onto a grassy hillside where everyone was gathered. Most of our class had made it, including Lila, Aurora, Nila, Mena, and Deven. They all looked a little beat up but for the most part everyone seemed ok. Some of the kids were probably knocked out in the forest, but Professor Vylen almost always retrieved them so I assumed it would be ok. But one person wasn’t here. Evay….

Everyone at the school was shocked to hear what had happened to him, and our classmates were even more shocked. I was never that close to Evay, especially since I almost killed him on opening day. But I saw him almost everyday. He was here, I heard him, I talked to him, I even exchanged notes and supplies with him. He was a good kid, he was dedicated and relentless in battle. But he was dead….He was really dead. I had heard about people dying in tournaments but I never expected one of us to die. It wasn’t even the fact that he was dead–it was the mystery and conflict surrounding it. Aurora started to count heads as she examined our surroundings. “Hmmmm….alright. Wow, only this many made it back. It's ok, good work guys, the portal should open now.” A giant portal with a stone frame opened up as Professor Vylen stood on the other side–arms crossed and blank faced like always. Aurora went through the portal first and we all went in after her. I landed back on the marble stadium floor of the arena and instantly felt the tiredness hit my body. Nila and Deven fell onto their backs and let out groans of pain. Professor Vylen marked some things down on his clipboard and spoke. “Good, things are going to get hard from here. This exercise is the first one that most people do not pass. The fact that you all passed this exercise means that you are well prepared for the future. Go on and get some rest, we will meet again tomorrow. We slowly walked out of the arena and into the locker rooms. As I followed Geon and Deven to the lockers I took a good look at Aurora’s face. She looked fine now, almost as if nothing had happened. Her eyes were still sharp and her facial expressions revealed nothing. She was pretty vocal throughout the whole exercise and saved me a couple times, but I could sense something was wrong. When she was surrounded by the ants it was almost like she had given up. She was cornered and alone but the Aurora that I knew would have easily gotten herself out of that situation. I mean, when I arrived she literally did. It was more of the fact that when she was alone, she could show her true emotions.

Hence why she had tears in her eyes.

Evay meant a lot to her–at least I’m pretty sure he did. I don’t know much about feelings, or girls but I think that they had liked each other. She was there with him when he died and she was almost killed herself. I felt sorry for her and Lila, and Geon as well. Geon seemed to be taking everything a lot better than both of the girls though. Maybe it was because he was an idiot, or maybe it was because he was just really good at hiding his feelings. He was crowned the Ace Warrior—or number one individual warrior—of the Youth Championships, and not without lots of controversy either. I saw the papers and the results. The statistics backed him up but it was true that he didn’t win the whole thing. Well, no one won the whole thing. Geon tossed his shirt into his locker and took a whiff out of one of his socks. He gagged and threw the sock back into the locker. Deven picked out a clean, white shirt from his extremely organized and well kept pile of clothes inside his locker. I opened my own locker which definitely looked a little more like Geon’s than Deven’s, and picked out a fresh black shirt. Deven passed by Geon’s locker and almost fainted. He pinched his nose. “Geon, you have to clean that out sometime,” he placed his folded up, dirty clothes into the laundry basket. Geon had one of his socks on, one leg half way into his pants, and was desperately trying to pull a gray shirt over his head.

“I will someday. Listen, I’ve been away for a while ok? You can’t blame me here, oh shit,” all of Geon’s clothes fell onto the floor and a couple of old sandwiches and books fell onto the floor. I gingerly picked up one of his yellow-stained packets.

“This is last month’s mathematics homework, it was worth like a hundred points. Why is this here?” Deven picked up another packet and held it far from his face.

“This is…..I think this ecology homework…yeah it is! This is due tomorrow, how did it get so yellow already?” He plopped it back on to the ground as Geon shoved all his clothes back into the locker. I shoved him aside and looked inside his locker. I saw a bright colored book and a giant smirk fell across my face. I pulled the book out of his locker and his eyes went wide. He reached for my hands but I jumped back. Immense concern fell across his face as he tried to grab the book from me. I summoned my sword and pointed it at him while I held the book up.

“Hey Geon, I didn’t know you read this type of stuff,” I held the adult magazine up in the air as Geon tried to make his way towards me. Deven took one look at it and burst out into laughter.

Deven spoke with a visible smirk on his face, “is that what you were doing in the bathroom Geon. Geez, they really drew those naked girls well.” Geon flew above my sword and snatched the magazine out of my hands.

“I had it in here because…uh….it was a gift? I don’t know man, some kid I met in the bars gave it to me. What was I supposed to do?” Deven replied quickly.

“Maybe not bring it to training.” I chuckled and Geon rolled his eyes. I spoke with a cunning tone.

“What would Lila say about this, huh?” Geon looked at me with immense panic.

“Don’t! Don’t! This was before…Come on, please. Listen, I'll do anything! What do you want! Money, food, I’ll give you a free foot massage or something, I don’t know!” Deven started laughing again as he started to make his way out of the locker room. I smirked.

“Nah, I won’t tell. Think about this as payment for saving me today.” He sighed in relief. We both followed Deven out of the locker room as we ventured out into the rest of campus. It was Friday, and the weekend was fast approaching. The pinkish evening sky rose about the school grounds as the student bars and concession stands were bustling with people. Deven spoke up.

“Let’s get a drink or two, it’s been a long week.” Geon nodded in agreement and I did the same. We didn’t really bring anything about Evay or the tournament up, but I could hear the whispers around us. At this point I was used to it, but it was a lot worse whenever I was with Geon. Normally it was because of all the annoying girls from all grade levels–which was the disturbing part–fawning over him literally every second of the day. But today, it wasn’t admiration I was hearing, but sorrow and shock.

“Did you hear what happened,”

“Did he really die?,”

“Is that really him? I didn’t think he’d be out and about so soon…”

He ignored all of the chatter and just moved on. We pushed through the doors and went into the bar. The lively and bustling atmosphere of the bar always soothed me as the usual crowds of people crowded around the pool table, huddled next to each other to play darts, or sat at the bar waiting for their drinks. The bar never sold any alcohol but Geon always told me that some kid would spike the taps with alcohol to try and give everyone a good time… The bartender was a small, old man who always seemed to be in a good mood. He saw us and gave us a big smile, “Hey Geon, Deven, Taran! Haven’t seen you in ages!” Geon gave him a wave, Deven gave him a nice smile, and I gave him a nod.

“Hey, Lenny. Three honey beers please.” He nodded and got us our drinks quickly. We took them and sat down in the sofa section, where we had some sort of privacy. Geon was normally right in the middle of the hectic party crowd, but today he seemed a lot more reserved. Maybe it was because of the recents events in his life, maybe it was because he was just tired, maybe it was all of that. Nevertheless he guzzled down his honey beer in an instant and looked leaned back in his chair.

Geon spoke with a slight groan in voice, “Man, I’m really tired.” Deven laughed softly.

“Yeah, it would be weird if you weren’t. By the way Geon you did good man, I think everyone was pretty proud–of all of you guys.” I couldn’t see Geon’s face, as he was leaning back in his chair, but I could tell he appreciated Deven’s comment. He let out another big sigh and smiled.

“Thanks man.” Deven took a sip of his drink and smiled.

“While you were gone we’ve all been leveling up. You saw us today–Taran practically cleared-house all by himself,” Geon smiled and chuckled softly.

“Yeah, you guys got a lot stronger. Maybe the girls will finally notice you.” Deven chucked a dart at Geon’s forehead, but a gust of wind blasted it away right into the middle of a dart board. Deven smiled.

“Looks like you’re just as good as ever, Ace Warrior.” He stared blankly at his glass of honey beer.

“Do you think that they’re alright, Lila and Aurora I mean. Without Evay around I haven’t talked to them a whole lot.” Deven’s smile faded as he looked down at his feet. I put my glass down and tried my best to look Geon in the eye.

“They’re probably doing about as good as you. I don’t really think they’re the type of people to let anything shut them down. They’re strong.” Geon nodded and stretched.

“You know, I’ve been thinking. Imagine what things would be like, if no one had any liquor abilities at all. What if we were all like the farmers that live in the hills and forests. Do you think we would all still have met like this? Do you think that Evay would still be here?” All of us stared blankly at the glistening glass of honey beer placed in the middle of our oak table. The joyful and vibrant chatter of happy students faded into the distance as none of us said a word. Geon broke the silence. “Maybe things would be ... .better. Maybe it would be worse, maybe nothing would make sense, but for all I know, if the world was like that, Evay would still be with us today.” Deven didn’t argue, and I didn’t try to either. Geon grabbed his beer glass and continued speaking. “I know saying that is wrong. I know I’m not thinking like a warrior, or a fighter, or a noble. I know that that’s not what we’re all supposed to think. But honestly, I don’t really care,” his extremely cold and terrifyingly calm gaze child the air around us, “because who really gives a shit about all of that. Maybe we are all trying to become warriors, nobles, and leaders, but I like you guys. Friends mean something to me and I’ve just lost a pretty good one.” His grip tightened, and tightened, and tightened until cracks began to form in his glass. Deven finally spoke.

“You’re not wrong.” Geon immediately relaxed a little, and his cold gaze softened slightly. “I don’t think it’s too much to ask–keeping your friends alive, I mean. From now on, I feel like we should keep that as a priority.” I nodded and Geon did as well. I heard an eerie sound coming from under the sofas and immediately turned around to check it out. I let out a slight yelp as Millen appeared behind me. Millen was always sort of a weird guy. He was nice, but also looked like he was constantly being doused in liquid darkness. His pale skin and sunken face, as well as his matted black hair, gave me the impression that he had a dangerous obsession with the dark–and with not sleeping. He was able to use shadow transport–which meant he could hop in between shadows in order to travel. He had a habit of appearing out of nowhere–which always gave someone a good scare.

Millen laughed in his usual dark, raspy voice. “Sorry Taran.” Deven smiled,

“what’s up Millen?”

“Not too much, everyone else should be here soon.” As he said that Lila, Mena, Nila, and Melissa walked through the door. I felt myself instantly start to panic as I desperately tried to smooth out my clothes and comb my hair. When did Mena decide to show up… I was never good at talking to people and I was even worse at talking to girls. I really liked Mena a lot, but I could never bring myself to approach her. She was the exact opposite of me in many ways. She had a bubbly, outgoing, and charming personality and was constantly surrounded by friends and loved ones. Everyone had generally positive opinions about her and she was extremely pretty—to me at least. Her long, waist length blonde hair accompanied her bright, crystal blue eyes, and her soft, pearly white skin. I always found it extremely ironic that her powers were related to ice, since she wasn’t a very cold person, but her skills on the battlefield were always impressive. Maybe I was a little biased, but in my opinion, she could give Aurora a run for her money…

They came over to us and Mena gave a little wave, “high guys.” They took one of the big sofas for themselves and brought over some snacks and more honey beers. Lila went over to Geon and slumped into his arms. Melissa emptied a huge pile of notes and packets onto the table as she handed Mena a pile of note cards. Deven let out a little laugh, “are you still studying for the medical exams.” Melissa nodded and fumbled through her endless pile of papers.

“I have a test tomorrow and need to study a little bit before. I think most of the stuff we learned should be common sense, but can’t ever be too sure.” Geon picked up one of the papers and took a good look at it.

“As an oligo–oli–oligosaccharide enters into a….eukary–eu–eukaryotic cell it does….Melissa what does any of this mean?” Mena chuckled a little bit and Melissa smiled.

“It’s not too hard to understand, oh wait, no that one's pretty difficult.” Mena took a look at the paper.

“Oh, I’m not too sure if you guys learn this much about medical stuff in classes but you should’ve learned this in biology, right?” Geon shook his head and Lila chuckled.

“Do you really expect him to? I’m not sure if he’s even opened up the class text book.” Everyone chuckled a little bit and Geon rolled his eyes.

“Yeah he can barely read, right Geon?” Deven winked and Melissa laughed.

Geon rolled his eyes again as he caught a menu item from Nila. Her eyes suddenly went wide as she looked at Geon with a devious smile.

“Hey Geon, look at the bottom.” Geon’s eyes slowly made their way to the bottom of the page and they lit up like a fireworks show.

“FREE—FREE WINGS! Nila! Is this today?” She nodded.

“All we have to do is win at darts today, the competition starts in five minutes. We need to sign up! Now!” They both darted towards the table, jumping, hurdling, and sliding under couches and chairs. I saw them both try and locate the darts table like numbskulls until they finally saw the giant, red sign saying DARTS, above a corner. It’s like they shared one brain cell at all times… Lila sighed and Deven chuckled a little while looking at Nila. He was always pretty serious and cynical, but he had a good sense of humor as well. He seemed to be happiest when hanging out with Nila though—which had to mean something. Nila was usually super sleepy or uninterested in whatever we were doing, but when she got excited, she got super excited. It was really dangerous when she got excited too, because all of her abilities were related to her emotions. No one really knew the entirety of what she could do, but generally things exploded when she got excited, things lit on fire when she got angry, things started to freeze when she got sad, and the ground started shaking when she felt fear or panic. Then there was always the chance that something absolutely random would happen—like the time when she blasted Geon into a toilet stall after he tried to scare her on purpose. The championship squad had suffered a lot of emotional and physical damage, and the rest of us who remained at Eden were trying our best to cheer them up. Even people that had never talked to Aurora, Lila, and Geon were giving them genuine words of comfort. Savian on the other hand, was more of a mystery. He wasn’t in our class, which made it way harder to see him or check up on him. From all I knew he wasn’t even in Eden, but away on some type of trip or mission. I asked Geon about him and his words about Savain were surprisingly positive—at least compared to before the championships. It seemed that those two had grown closer and weren’t mortal enemies anymore—although that wasn’t a huge accomplishment all things considered, it was for them. But even if we were all trying our hardest—it was hard to ignore everything that was going on. All the drama, all the tragedy, and all of the world conflict sparked from that day of the tournament were bearing down on everybody. It was hard to ignore all of the negative attention and for Geon, Lila, Aurora, and Savain, the world had just turned upside down in one single day. But even with all of that, with everything that had happened, everyone really only fixated on one thing. Because no matter how conflicted the world got, no matter what anybody said about any of us, nothing hurt more than one simple fact.

The fact that Evay Maver was dead.