The Great

Geon Leventen: “Where is Evay?” I spoke but it seemed like no one was listening. I’d gotten ego-d by a lot of people in my life but I didn’t expect to get ego-d by Aurora, Lila, and a fleshy ginger-bread man. Aurora was pacing around our tiny little tent while speaking to Lila—who was still trying to heal Taran. Emergency medical personnel and forces from the Taegan military were set up on campus in makeshift white tents. The emperor had ordered aid to be given to Eden and protection around all major cities and establishments were tightened—hence the military presence. It was all really depressing but it was even more depressing that no one seemed to be listening to me. I spoke in a louder voice, “um—GUYS—where is Evay?” Aurora looked at me with concerned eyes.

“I have no clue. We left him in that interrogation room. They said he’d be taken for further interrogation but I have no clue what that means. I don’t think he’s being harmed.” I looked at Aurora who seemed to be losing her cool.

I didn’t like it when she lost her cool. It was weird and literally never happened. But I didn’t blame her—anyone would’ve lost their cool in our situation too. I nodded, “I’m gonna go see what’s going on out there,” I ducked under the tent door and walked out into the night. There were hundreds of tents and medics treating injured students. One of the warriors saw me and spoke up,

“You’re that Leventen kid right?” I nodded, “You seem like the real deal…my name’s Dier, of house Damien. I’m the one in charge of the perimeter.” He held out his hand and I shook it.

He seemed to be a fairly good guy. He had short and fluffy black hair, a wide smile, and kind eyes. He seemed to be older than me—maybe 20, 21? He wore a black vest and black pants which made him blend into the night. I heard a voice echo out behind Dier, “Dier, stop trying to flirt with the new kid, he probably has enough to deal with everyday already.” A woman with short red hair and a muscular frame walked up next to Dier. She looked at me and smirked, “you’re the famous boy? To be honest, you don’t look like much? How much do you squat?” I hesitated,

“Uh….like..a big rock?” She rolled her eyes.

A smaller girl—who looked to be my age—appeared out of the darkness and stood next to the woman. She had long, bright green hair and seemed to be really shy—since she couldn’t even meet my gaze. The woman laughed loudly, “Hey Phoebe! You finally have a boy your age to talk to, go on, do your thing.” Her face went red as she whispered something to the woman,

“Vivian, stop. Stop speaking.” The red haired woman—Vivian—laughed loudly and put her arms around Phoebe,

“Come on, you're always talking about how your squad is filled with old geezers, but you have your little young knight in shining armor now.” Phoebe put her head in her hands and Dier spoke,

“Stop Vi, you're making her melt.” Vivian rolled her eyes,

“Let me deal with the romance here, I know you don’t have much experience so I’ll show her the ropes,” Dier furrowed his brows in confusion,

“Wait what does that—huh?” Phoebe laughed,

“It means you don’t get any, Dier.” Vivian laughed and shoved Dier in the shoulder,

“Are you gonna take that from the 15 year old?” Dier rolled his eyes and he smiled at me.

“Sorry, we’re a squad. You get assigned one when you join the military, and your squad gets put into a battalion which gets put into a legion. You’ll learn, with how strong you are you might be put in a special unit.” Another girl walked up and stood next to Dier and spoke in a smooth, relaxing tone,

“I’m surprised you don’t know all about this–most warrior kids do.”

The newest girl was taller than the rest and she had long brown hair, and very clear, smooth, white skin, and she was pretty attractive—having the type of figure most guys I know liked. She wasn’t as attractive as Lila of course, but Deven and Taran would’ve definitely been drooling over her—mainly because they were dumb and stupid and dumb.She stared into my soul, “you're taller than I expected you to be. Anyways, he’s trying to recruit you into our squad. Not that you’ll accept anyway.” Dier spoke with a hint of annoyance,

“He probably won’t but it doesn’t help that you're scaring him off, Jenna.” Jenna laughed,

“You’re the one who was looking at him like a shiny new silk robe, Dier.” Phoebe and Vivian laughed,

“He’s not a product Dier—maybe he’ll like you more if you just talk to him next time. Ask him what type of girls he likes, or whatever guys talk about.” Vivian laughed and Phoebe let out a giggle. Dier threw a towel at her face and sighed,

“Our squad. This is us. Nice to meet you Geon, we all hope to see you again soon.” Vivian spoke with a sarcastic voice,

“Especially Phoebe!” Phoebe’s face went red like a cherry tomato which made me laugh.

I spoke, “hold on. If you guys are patrolling the perimeter I can help.” Dier nodded and motioned me to come with him.

“Alright, follow us. We’ll probably need your help anyway.” The squad ran off into the woods and I walked behind them.

We’d been walking for a while without speaking to each other—which felt really awkward. I could’ve just flown around the forest but squads were meant to stick together—I think? Vivian smiled at me and pushed Phoebe backwards into me. She whistled innocently as I caught the small girl before she fell down. She looked up at me with horrified eyes and a face so red I genuinely thought she was going to explode into cherry-mist. I put her to my side and looked at her with confusion, “you….ok? Phoebe, hey,” I waved my hand in her face, “you good?” She nodded and kept walking alongside me. I inched a little closer to her to avoid stepping on a couple puddles, but she immediately stepped away from me. Damn, am I that ugly? Lila told me I was cute..was she lying? She was definitely lying….

Phoebe spoke in a soft voice, “sorry—I’m just not used to talking to people my age out in the field, you know?” I felt relief flood over me–so I’m not weird, or ugly, she’s just shy.

I laughed, “it’s ok. To be honest I thought you just hated me.” She shook her head vehemently,

“No I don’t! I don’t at all! I—never mind. Why did you say that?” She looked a little angry and I held up my hands defensively,

“Woah, sorry for saying that I guess. Usually, new people I meet outside of school want to kill me. Probably because of my family.” Phoebe spoke in a much more confident voice,

“Children are not their parents and people are not their families. I don’t believe you are a bad person, and that’s all I care about.” As we walked along the forest floor I felt a deep appreciation grow in my heart.

Jenna came out of nowhere and spoke, “sorry for eavesdropping but yeah, Geon, we all have families that we aren’t too proud of. But you’re you, and to be honest I thought you were gonna be a massive playboy and a dick-head.”

I spoke in an offended tone, “hey! Why does everyone say that? I’m very loyal to one woman, for your information. And I’m not a dick-head most of the time. Hopefully at least… I don’t know—that one’s really up to you to decide to be honest.” Jenna laughed,

“Are you now? Well sorry Phoebe, he’s taken—you’re out of luck.” Phoebe rolled her eyes and whispered in a slightly disappointed voice,

“Whatever.”

Jenna spoke to me in a softer tone, “it’s because people with fame and power are usually like that. When everyone always sucks up to you and never defies you, you become arrogant and selfish. But I guess you're different, you’re just one of us. And for not understanding that, I’m sorry.” I nodded and as Jenna walked on ahead of us.

I looked down at Phoebe and looked at her wrist, which had a small bracelet with a golden owl attached to it, “Do you like owls?” She nodded,

“They’re super silent when they fly and they have really cute little heads and eyes. I want to have one for a pet but it’s not easy having pets when you're a warrior.” I nodded.

She looked away from me and spoke in a guilty tone, “um, I saw a girl next to you in your tent. The one with black hair, is she your…”

“My girlfriend?” She nodded. “Um…yeah. She is. How did you see her?” Phoebe pointed to her jade-colored eyes.

“I’m an intelligence warrior. I gather intel with my abilities. I can see through objects and can extend my sight range to see across far distances. I was spying—I mean looking—at you and saw her.

I laughed, “her name’s Lila. She’s a medical specialist warrior but she can fight too. Your squad should meet my group sometime, I know this friend who’s really good with nature, he can probably catch an owl for you or something.” Phoebe laughed and gave me a big smile,

“Thanks for the offer, I’ll tell everyone else about it.” I summoned some silver into my hand and I morphed it into the shape of an owl. It wasn’t that good—it kinda looked like a dog with weird ears and wings. That does not look like an owl. How did I screw it up this bad? I gave it to her and smiled,

“this is a token of promise, you can come with my friends to catch all the owls you want. After all of this is over.” She laughed,

“Are you sure this is an owl?” I squinted,

“If you look really closely, yeah, but you have to like, look really closely.” She laughed and looked at me with a kind smile,

“Thanks Geon, it’s been nice talking to someone like you.” She put the owl on her bracelet, “Lila, she’s very pretty by the way. I can see why you—“ Phoebe’s entire body turned into red mist as her blood splattered onto my body. There was none of her left, every molecule of her had vanished as her bracelet fell to the ground. I looked over and Jenna stared at me with horror,

“Geon, wh-“ her head went flying off her shoulders as her body hit the ground.

My mind went into battle mode. Vivian ran to my side and her eyes went wide with horror. I felt a strong force slice through the air as every fiber of my being told me to duck. I dodged the attack while Vivian didn’t. Her whole body was sliced in half as her lower torso fell in front of me. I heard a thud sound out behind me as Dier’s head came rolling to my feet. His eyes were filled with shock and his mouth was wide open in fear. I looked up and saw a figure—with tattered and torn gray pants as well as a loose black shirt stand before me. He had very messy silver and black hair, which covered his crimson red eyes. He spoke in a casual tone, “oh, no wonder that seemed so easy. I got the wrong guy.” The man smiled manically, “What’s up Geon Leventen, did I ruin your little moment?” I shot up into the air and pulled the forest floor out of the ground. Literal mountains rose into the sky as I slammed my two hands together. The man kept smiling at me as I threw two giant mountains on top of his body. Giant dust clouds rose into the sky as I flew straight into the chaos to clear my visibility. I stuck both of my arms out in front of me and channeled all of my power into the middle of my palms. A giant explosion lit up the night sky as fire and steam erupted in a brilliant roar of destruction. I flipped over the giant flames of death and held my hands up to the sky. The entire forest floor beneath me rose up out of the ground and formed into the shape of a fist. I blasted down into the fiery and smokey crater–now about the size of the entire forest–and threw my entire body into a massive punch. Huge trees which usually shot into the skyline were uprooted, boulders and entire caverns were shot out in every direction, and a massive ravine running along the entire length of the forest formed as the giant earthen fist slammed into the crater. The earth shook at the force of the attack as earthquake-like vibrations reverberated around us. The fires blazing in the forest seemed to only grow and the crater I created took up almost the entire forest. I descended into the giant crater and landed with a soft thud onto the dirt. I tensed up my body and looked at my surroundings with wide and stupidly-focused eyes. Every single gust of wind, every sound, every small little vibration, and every little snap of a twig made me tense up as the man seemed to disappear into thin air.

He’d been following us for the length of our entire walk. I hadn’t been able to detect him and I wasn’t able to stop him from killing everyone. He took out an entire squad of fully trained Taegan military warriors in the blink of an eye. If he was that good at masking his presence then I had no chance of chasing him around in this dark, dense forest. When facing someone who is impossible to track in the heat of battle the only way to win is to make it so that they have nowhere to run. There were no more trees, there was no more forest, and nowhere left to hide…I had the advantage now. “Where are you going to hide now?” My voice echoed out into the dark forest as the moonlight and stray flames illuminated my surroundings. A chill went down my spine as terrifying voice whispered into my ear,

“Right here,” I spun around and threw a backfist at the man’s chin. The force from the strike blew another crater in the ground, but he easily leaned back and dodged it. I spun around and tried to sweep his legs but he jumped over my strike and tried to stomp on my body. I blasted into the air and dodged the initial strike but the power coming off of it was crazy. His strike–which went into the ground–somehow reverberated into the air and went straight into my body. I crossed my arms and tanked the shockwave–which was a very bad idea. I was blasted back at shockingly high speeds as the ground beneath me got smaller and smaller and smaller. I kept rising until I started to feel my breath disappear–I was exiting the atmosphere. I looked down and my heart dropped into the deepest pits of my stomach. I was so high that all of Taegan was clearly visible. The thousands of lamplights lit in Taegan’s capital and the giant crater I had created were visible even from this high up as the entire globe shone beneath me. It was all really beautiful–I had never seen the world from this high up before…. It would’ve been a very nice moment if an absolute psycho wasn’t waiting for me back on the ground. I gathered up all my energy and blasted myself towards the earth. I felt the wind rip away at my skin as I raced towards the giant crater etched into Taegan. I caught my breath as the flames and destruction on the forest floor became visible once again. I crashed onto the earth as a resounding roar rang out into the air. The man was sitting on a broken and jagged boulder while calmly smiling at me–he hadn't even broken a sweat. Anger welled up in my heart as I clenched my fists and spoke with rage and hate, “Who the fuck are you?” He laughed and stood up,

“You don’t know who I am? You haven’t seen the posters and the flyers? I’m a big celebrity you know.” My eyes went wide and I felt a very strange feeling creep into my heart. My chest tightened, my heart went cold, and I started to feel nervous. I hadn’t felt like this in a very long time…..I hated feeling nervous, I hated it with every fiber of my being. I had a bad feeling about him—a very bad feeling.

I steadied my voice and stared into the man’s soul, “you’re Teras, the butcher, the most wanted man in the Taegan empire.” He smiled and mockingly clapped his hands together as if he was trying to congratulate me. I took a moment to breathe. He’s a hard puncher and a hard hitter. He’s sneaky and fast and can take a lot of damage. Those are all things I can manage—I got this. I put up my hands and steadied my nerves. Come on Geon–lock the fuck in–you can manage….I got this.

I go this….