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-Tai", "writing": "MOVEMENT THREE\n\nChapter Thirteen - October 7th, Mid-Afternoon\n\n\t“Welcome back, Master. Did you enjoy your...\" A creepy, almost deranged voice stops whispering, and then snickers at the sight of his master with no clothing on, \"Oh?\" There is no response from Vincent, who instead keeps walking toward the dresser. He was so upset as he brought himself back to his safe house, that he wasn't focused enough to bring his clothing with him. The source of the voice The voice belongs to a very fluffy tan and white hare, wearing nothing but a spiked collar. stands up from the bed and comes out of the darkness. A very fluffy tan and white spotted hare, wearing nothing but a spiked collar and brown boxers, is revealed. “Master, I know you’re upset, but your clothing can be-.”\n\t“It’s not that, Austin! Just because I was stressed out and unfocused, to the point where I left my clothing behind, doesn’t mean it matters right now. I have more.” The brown stallion flips his white mane back out of his face, but some of it is stubborn and falls into his vision again. He pushes it behind his ear with his finger as he dons some new garments. He is slightly embarrassed that he left behind his favorite shirt and the skinny jeans he wore to the hotel. “I guess I was too distracted by what I had to do to Daron, and how I failed. It made me forget to bring back my knife as well. It’s too bad, that was the one Father had given me. But the point is that I had to turn on my own lover! I had to kill him!” Vincent Parrish continues to don a pair of black jeans, covering the bottom of his naked body.\n\tAnother voice from the shadows can be heard now. An ominous voice; one to wet oneself hearing. “I gave you specific instructions, child. You have dishonored them. Therefore, you have dishonored me.” Then a man steps into the light, a black and white border collie, dressed in a black t-shirt and jeans. He gives the horse a very stern look, his arms crossed. “I told you to use your power, not a knife.”\n\t“Father, I’m sorry! I didn’t want to risk being seen by-” Vincent is interrupted by the collie.\n\t“RISK!?” He rushes at him and gets in his face, pinning him to the wall. Even though Vincent is nearly a head taller than the collie, he still cowers in fear. Arno stares into the stallion’s fearful, brown eyes with his own. “Everything in life has risk, child! Now, if you want me to forgive you for your mistakes, you’ll have to try again. Find him, and kill him. My visions always come true, unless action is taken, remember?”\n\tThe stallion sighs, “Yes, Father. I’ll find him.”\n\t“Good. Now finish dressing yourself.”\n\t“Yes, Father.” Vincent whispers as the collie leaves the room.\n\t“Ever since he got out of jail, he has been nothing but picky about everything. Master, I know you are far superior to him in every way, and one thing puzzles me still…” Austin whispers as the dog is just out of earshot. “Why are you below Mr. Arno? Why wouldn’t YOU lead this cause, and maybe just kill the bitch?”\n\tAt that last word, Vincent snatches a lash from on top of the dresser next to him and whips his slave’s belly with it. As the rabbit collapses, whimpering in pain, the stallion scolds him, “Don’t you EVER use that word.”\n\t“Of course, Master. I’m sorry.”\n\t“ARE YOU!?” He shouts at his slave.\n\t“YES, YES! I’M SORRY, I’M SORRY!” Crying and cowering in fear of being whipped again, the sound echoes throughout the small, run-down house, rather than being absorbed by the carpet.\n\t“You had better be.” The horse backs off as he says this, and continues to put on a pair of loose trousers. “Now, Austin, I know what you can do, and when you’re ready, I want you to find Daron again.”\n\t“Oi! Parish! You may want to see this!” A voice calls from the next room.\n\t“Just a second, Father!” He turns on the hare again. The stallion grabs the rabbit’s chin and holds it up. He bends down and pecks Austin’s nose saying, “Take your time.”\n\tIn a room down the hall, Vincent sees, what could only be described as, a bad-ass computer setup at the very least. Six monitors all mounted to the wall, and a tower with green lights inside. The room is completely dark. The border collie is sitting in front of it with a window open showing a black background with fast-scrolling numbers and letters in green text. He is smirking deviously. “My child, this is one thing I could never trust anyone with before I was caught, ending my drug days. Come over here.” \nThe stallion obediently responds as he does as he is told his hoof steps echoing loudly, “Of course, Father.”\n\t“You see this? This line right here…” He points to a single line of code that is completely static, unlike the constantly changing remainder of the code. “Do you know what that means?”\n\t“I’m sorry, but no.”\n\t“This means that this person right here…” He pulls up a picture of a computer-generated bear. “Has an ability. Find him, and if he doesn’t want to join us…” He looks up at the stallion standing above him. “You know what to do. And don’t fuck it up again, child.”\n\t“What can he do?” Vincent asks.\n\t“The bear is able to shape-shift. And you can easily tell that he would be useful.” Julius shrugs as he speaks.\n\t“Augustus Clarkson… I’ll get Austin to find him.”\n\t“Just remember what I told you. If you have to, use your ability. Got it?” He points at the horse breathing down his neck.\n\t“Yes, Father.”\n\t“Wonderful. Now go do something productive until Austin is ready. I heard that whip crack earlier. Sounded like you did a number on him.” Vincent nods as his steps can be heard throughout the room, clicking on the wooden flooring.\nSuddenly the brown and white stallion stops and turns around. “Father?” He inquires to the dog.\n\t“Yes, what is it, child?” He responds without looking away from the computer screens, typing rapidly on the keyboard. The loud clicks of the keys being pressed are easily audible from across the room.\n\t“What am I? To you, I mean.”\n\tThere is a long pause as Julius ceases his frantic typing. He rests his paws on his lap and folds them together. “What do YOU see our relationship as?”\n\tWithout hesitation, Vincent blurts out, “Partners! But…”\n\t“But what?” The border collie now looks at the stallion standing in front of the doorway.\n\t“Well, you see, when I actually get the gemstone, I only get one wish. And well, you told me that I had to wish for you to have your wife brought back to life.”\n\t“Your point being?”\n\t“Well, since I took the power from the interpreter the other day, I looked a bit closer at some of the tapestries, and I found something a bit odd.”\n\t“And what would that be?”\n\t“I noticed some writing that was cut off in some of the pictures, but I put them together and it went something like, ‘In the darkness of the cavern in which It is found, should It be taken by the Horse or the Hound. Whomever it is should beware, whereas the Power is too rare. To falter on their desire would be mislead, and should be shunned, along with the dead.’”\n\t“The dead…?” The collie tilts his head in confusion.\n\t“It’s just a thought,” the stallion states quickly as he turns around, and with a swish of his tail, he is gone.\n\t“I was listening in on the conversation. He never told me he had a wife.” Austin points out to the stallion as he re-enters the bedroom.\n\t“Well, here’s the thing about Arno.” He goes down to the floor and kneels down in front of where the hare is doing so in front of the dresser. “He’s very determined to get what he wants, and he won’t stop until he gets it. This happens to be what he really wants, and he doesn’t understand that if I wish it for him, he may not get what he wants.” The horse replies very quietly, intentionally trying to avoid being heard by Julius. “Many years ago, Father was married. This was when he was just starting to get into drugs. Eventually, he started to get obsessed with drugs, and his wife was completely against it.”\n\t“I knew about the drugs, but…” The rabbit is cut off by Vincent.\n\t“Lest you interrupt me again, I swear to God there will be a repeat of what happened earlier.” The rabbit covers his muzzle and cowers in fear of being whipped again. The stallion sighs and continues, “Anyway, he was obsessed, and his wife was against the drugs. When she confronted him about it, he would beat her for questioning him.” Austin refrains from saying anything. “Eventually, she left him, and… well… She was so upset that night that she didn’t pay attention to the red light in front of her. She just sped through it, and there was a semi coming from the left. They came into contact at full speed, and basically, the truck won.” Immediately as he finishes speaking, he stands up from where he was kneeling. He makes his way over to the bed, which he lays down on.\n\t“My God…” Is all Austin is able to manage. “Well…” The hare begins to say after a long silence. “I also heard that I need to find some people for you. I can do it now, if you want me to.”\n\t“Wonderful. I’ll go get the pictures.”\nAfter coming back with printed pictures of Gus and Linus, Vincent presents them to Austin, laying them out in front of him. After studying the one of Gus, the rabbit closes his eyes. He begins to concentrate on the image in his mind, and he starts to shake violently. He stays like this for several minutes, and Vincent leaves him alone, as this is normal for Austin. But eventually, Austin stands up from in front of the bed, and slowly shambles over to the wall next to the dresser, where there is a giant map of the US, Maine, and the world. Slowly, he moves his finger all over the map of Maine, and finally lands on a single spot. A small town called Akron, just to the Southwest of New Olive.\n“Give me a pin.” Austin states flatly. Vincent then reaches into a box of long pins, and gives one to the rabbit, who places the pin in the exact same spot where his finger was.\n\t“Akron, huh? That’s not far from here, I think.” The horse pulls out a phone from his pocket, which he draws a shape on, which unlocks the device. He starts searching for Akron in a map-based application, and gets directions to it. “Twenty minutes to drive, but I’m not doing that, am I? If you can give me an address…\n\t“Give it to me.” The light brown hare snatches the phone from Vincent’s hooves, and starts frantically swiping, tapping, and dragging his finger all over the screen. When he is finished, he hands it back, saying something very unclearly, but the stallion figures it out as, “Here!” The stallion takes back the phone, and looks at it.\n\t“Alright, then.” Before he steps out of the room to let Julius know where he is going, he crosses the room over to the bed, over to where Austin is sitting on the bed. He bends down and gives him another kiss on his nose. “I’ll be back soon, hun.”\n\tHis hooves click loudly and echo throughout the corridor that leads to the master bedroom, which is the only other bedroom in the entire house. The bedroom door is closed, so Vincent knocks three times. “It’s me,” he shouts through the wood. The corridor is too dark to see anything.\n\t“OH! Erm… don’t come in, I’m… Just hold on!” After a few seconds of what sounds like scrambling, Julius emerges from the room. “Yes, yes, what is it, child?”\n\t“I just wanted to tell you that Austin found Clarkson. I’m going to get him…” He looks in the room, and there is very little light. The stallion continues, “Should I ask what you were…”\n\tThe collie cuts him off before he can finish, “I don’t believe you have the right to do that, Parish. Now go get him, and don’t come back without that ability in some way, shape, or form. Don’t fuck up again!” Before Vincent is able to reply, the door is slammed shut, banging against the stallion’s face.\n\tAs he makes his way back to his and Austin’s room, he finds the rabbit still sitting on the bed, not having moved a single muscle. However, he turns to Vincent, and wishes him luck.\n\t“Love you,” he whispers to the hare, whose eyes grow as large as dinner plates. Vincent then kneels down in place, closes his eyes, and simply vanishes.\n\nChapter Fourteen - October 9th, Late Night\n\n\t“But he’s a good guy! Good guys aren’t supposed to die!” Whimpering at the sight of Daron resting peacefully in the bed, Gaige covers his eyes with his paw, “And I was the one that killed him!”\n\tA lion approaches Gaige, saying to him, “It’s okay to cry if you want to.”\n\t“I don’t have anything left in me.” He sighs, “I’m such a baby I shed all my tears before.” He chuckles a bit. He remains still for a few minutes before he sighs and slaps his paws over his eyes. He groans loudly, letting everyone in the room know about his despair. “I just can’t believe I killed him.”\n\tThe next thing Gaige knows is that the back of his head is slapped rather hard. “How many times do we have to tell you that it WASN’T your fault!?” The husky turns around to see his sister with her arms crossed. “Look, I can only assume that we’ll leave you alone with him if you want… right doc?”\n\t“Only for a few minutes, but yes.” Dr. Raghuraman chimes in.\n\tThen the lion doctor points out to the snow leopard, “You may be a geneticist, and though I agree with you, you have no business making decisions here, Abhi.”\n\t“Fine…” The spotted feline grunts as he replies, dropping his vision to the ground.\n“Yes, I would like a few minutes.” Gaige sniffles as Idaline, the lion, and Dr. Raghuraman leave the brightly lit room, and close the door behind them.\n\t Gaige walks over to the side of the bed where Daron lay with his paws folded over his belly. The husky boy sits down in a chair next to the bed and leans over it. He rests his head on Daron’s lifeless arm. It is cold, like a piece of firewood after sitting in the snow for hours on end. “Daron,” He rubs his paw over Daron’s. “I’m so sorry, Daron. I should have warned you. But I didn’t.” Another sniffle. “And you paid the price for my mistake.” He does not cry at all. He simply rests there, his ear against the wolf’s chest, trying as best as he can to listen for a heartbeat, but there is none. Only complete silence.\n\tHe stands up and gives the dead wolf a kiss on his forehead. There are several knocks on the door, which opens to reveal a lion and a snow leopard. “I’m sorry Gaige,” The lion states as he steps out of the way, “But your time is up. I must ask you to leave.” Obediently, without an argument, Gaige gives Daron one final kiss on the back of his paw, and leaves him, knowing well that he may never see him again.\n\tIdaline sees Gaige performing this act, and begins to shed a first tear. She hasn’t cried since the first dinner with Daron.\n\tHe closes the door behind him gently, and makes his way back upstairs. Up the elevators to the twenty-third floor, down the key-lime-pie-colored hallway, and into his and Idaline’s room. One that is no longer shared with Daron. Contemplating what had happened that day, recalling the events one by one, from him being woken up by the wolf, up until seeing him on his deathbed. It is night time now, and the city glows with building lights. Towering above it all, the red husky boy can see the new World Trade Center in the distance, standing high and proud.\n\tI could go there… Gaige feels like he can do anything, and now that he has his powers, he realizes that he is right. I CAN do anything. What happens next can only be described as being done out of pure anger. Gaige slams his paw through the window, bursting a hole just barely large enough for him to fit through, which he does so, flying out into the night. I need to prove myself again… oh shit… I need an identity… He quickly flies back into the room and finds one of his shirts still packed away in his bag.\n\tHe tears off the seam of the green t-shirt, and pokes two holes through it using Daron’s strength. Once he has successfully made two eye holes, he ties the strip of cloth around his head. Now I won’t be flooded with paparazzi everywhere after this whole thing blows over.\n\tWithin seconds, he is off to the Freedom Tower once again. The sky is clear, stars are easily visible, and the city looks amazing. I wonder what would happen if I went down… The wind blows through his face as he dives down to the street below. He can almost feel a burn on his fur as he speeds down to the street below.\n\tThen it hits him… I’m flying… I’m actually flying! But… How? He stops diving to the street well above the ground. What have I been doing differently this time? This can’t be right. No, I should be flying all over the place, but when I just… Then he blurts out, “RELAX! YES!” He is so overjoyed he continues to dive to the ground, finally pulling up just before he make contact with the asphalt. He hears many people around the intersection scream. Some run for their lives, but others stay and watch Gaige floating twenty feet above the pavement.\n\tOne middle-aged hyena man shouts out to Gaige from the street corner, “Get your bloody ass down from there!”\n\tGaige shouts back at him with his arms crossed, “I’ll never get my bloody ass down from here! My ass is perfectly fine and fluffy!” As he finishes his statement, he crouches in mid-air and speeds upward along the side of the nearest skyscraper. He slows down when he’s about 100 feet up, and comes to a complete stop when he sees a little squirrel girl looking out one of the windows.\n\tWhen the little brown squirrel sees the husky on the outside of her window, she slaps her paws to her muzzle in shock and joy. She sprints away from the window, most likely to get her parents. Gaige decides to play a trick on the girl’s parents, and hide. Though Gaige cannot see it, the little squirrel brings her father back to the window with her. He peeks his head in front of the window to see that the girl and her father are standing there, the girl waving frantically, and the father staring in awe. Gaige decides to wave back to the girl, and leave. Soaring off into the night, Gaige salutes the father as he turns away and leaves them behind.\n\t\n\tAfter he finally makes it to the World Trade Center, he flies up to the observation deck where he finds a few tourists still in the restaurant there, and a family of black panthers outside on the actual deck. The parents are away from the two children, conversing amongst themselves. The children are both repeatedly running back and forth between the glass walls and the tower’s window, and banging into them. Gaige is above all this, watching it happen. He thinks to himself, These kids are going to kill themselves aren’t they? As the children run at the glass together this time, it finally breaks into several pieces, forcing the brother and sister to fall down off the deck, and down the side of the building. “GODDAMMIT I HATE IT WHEN I’M RIGHT!” He dives down after them, traveling faster and faster, passing floor after floor. The sister isn’t falling as quickly, so Gaige tries to get her first, which he does without a problem.\n\tThe brother, however, is accelerating much quicker. They are very close to the ground now, and if Gaige doesn’t get him soon, it most certainly won’t end well. He’s almost there, “Reach out for me, kid!” He shouts to the boy, which he does so. The next thing the children know is that they are no longer falling, but flying upwards. The three of them gently come to a complete stop in front of the adults, who saw the whole thing happen open-muzzled. The children sprint to their parents as fast as they can, who welcome them with open arms. Both the mother and father have eyes full of tears.\nThey all thank Gaige meaningfully, and the mother asks, “Who are you?”\n\tI hadn’t thought of a name… He thinks to himself before telling the panthers, “Well… I don’t plan to make this a regular thing. This was more of a joyride at first. I only put on the mask because… you know… obvious paparazzi is obvious..” He thinks about it for a second until Gaige is stricken with an idea, “You can call me the CopyDog... for now! Just be more careful, okay?” As he says this, he soars out into the night once again.\n\t“Thank you…” The entire family shouts to the husky as he flies back to the UN.\n\n\tThe next morning, Idaline Slaps Gaige’s head with a rolled-up newspaper. “I don’t know what the HELL has gotten into you, but this right here,” She then lays it out on the dining table in their room. It shows a colored photo of a silhouette of what appears to be the scarlet husky boy himself. “Is absolutely CRAZY! There’s a reason why we’re locked up in this hell hole! We can’t control our powers yet, you idiot!”\n\t“Bitch, please, I was productive with what I did. I saved two lives last night who…” Gaige tries to explain himself, but he is cut off by his sister.\n\t“I already know, and so does the rest of the world. Look…” She grabs the remote for the small TV on top of the counter. She flips the channel to a news channel, where a ferret in a suit is speaking, “...the World Trade Center last night, and began to plummet to their deaths, but…”\nAs they both sit at the small table, Idaline then changes to the New York news station, where a tigress is saying, “They fell about 30 stories down, before the girl was caught by the mysterious red husky stranger…”\nAnother channel… showing a meerkat and a koala, both very old, are speaking on a talk show. The meerkat behind a desk says “...do you think is his name, I heard he called himself the CopyDog, but…”\nThe koala interrupts him, “Wait, WHAT!?” The studio audience roars with laughter as the TV is shut off by Gaige, who gets up from his seat to do so. “Look…” The scarlet furred husky pauses and changes topics mid-sentence. “How did you even…”\n\t“Pre-programmed shortcuts I discovered while you were out on your little, ‘joyride.’” She places her paws on her hips.\n\tThere is a long silence as Gaige thinks of what to tell his sister. “Look, I don’t get it either, but as long as I’m relaxed, I can just think of what I want to do, and I just do it.”\n\t“Goddamn fags always have to figure it out,” Idaline chortles, but Gaige is not amused. \"That was uncalled-for. I'm sorry.\" Gaige turns away. \"You do realize that I just said you were gay...\" There is a pause as Gaige attempts to process the whole situation. \"I had a dream last night about you and Daron getting married. When I thought you two looked good together, I realized the possibility you might actually be gay.\"\nGaige looks up at his sister and answers, \"I am.\"\n\"I know. And I'm sorry I didn't believe you.\" The bright orange husky smiles warmly and opens her arms. “Just get over here, you fag!”\n\t“I feel like I don’t want to right now.” Gaige gets up from his chair, and crosses over to the door to the bedroom. “I just want to be alone…” As he steps through the white doorway, he gently closes it behind him, giving off a few soft clicks.\n\tIdaline’s arms flop to her side, slapping her body. She stares at the white painted door, and the tan wall around it. She trudges over to the other side of the kitchen, where the rust-red colored couch is sitting in front of a large television. The husky plops herself down, laying on the couch, her paws just short enough to comfortably stretch from end to end. God, what the hell did I even- She tells herself before being cut off by the main door to the hall.\n\nChapter Fifteen - October 7th, Early Evening\n\n\tAs the wind begins to blow in the stallions face, he stands up from his kneeling position. Vincent looks down at himself, and sees that he was focused enough this time to remember his clothing. “Well, at least that’s taken care of,” he tells himself, checking to see if the address is correct. The street he should be on is called Jameson, but the stallion glances the street sign in the distance. He begins to make his way to it to get a better look. Eventually, as he can now read the green and white sign, he can make out “Jameson.”\n“Good. Now to find number three…” The one to his right has white siding, green shutters, and a black roof. Immediately, Vincent knows this is not the one. Then he eyeballs the mailbox, which says, “One.” Logic would dictate that the third one would be right next to it… Right? \n\tThree knocks on the door lead to no answer. A ring of the bell, still nothing. Is this even worth my time? Vincent listens at the door, through which he can make out an announcer, and an audience cheering. As well, he is able to hear a subtle sound of snoring. Realizing someone is still there sitting in front of the television after again knocking loudly several times, he finally proceeds to slowly open the door.\n\tAs the knob clicks quietly, and the door slowly creaks open, the stallion can just barely make out the silhouette of a gazelle sleeping on the couch. All the lights are off, and all the floors are carpeted. Vincent creeps ever so slowly up to the snoozing gazelle, where he lightly taps his shoulder three times.\n\tThe gazelle springs up from his seat on the black sofa, gaining his footing on top of the back of it. As he crouches on it, the gazelle angrily holds his fists in front of his face. “Get out of my house!” He shouts at the stallion, who has also taken a ready stance on the floor.\n\t“I just want to talk to you.” Vincent replies back even louder, but calmer.\n\t“To hell with you! You just want my money, don’t you!?”\n\t“No, I don’t. I want to ask you about Augustus Clarkson.” This makes the gazelle’s eyes grow to the size of dinner plates.\nThe gazelle waits for several seconds in silence. His expression goes from sheer anger and fear, to that of remorse and sadness. He sighs, “What do you want to know?”\n\t“I’m looking for him. I just want to know where he might be.”\n\tThe gazelle crosses his arms in frustration. “Well, he’s not here, if that’s anything to you.”\n\t“Really?” Vincent lets his guard down and tilts his head in confusion. “I could have swore he was here.”\n\t“I told you, he’s long gone. Now scram!” The gazelle shouts again.\n\t“Just a moment… maybe you can help me!” The stallion points a finger at the gazelle.\n\t“What? Why me? And why should I care?” He starts backing up through the living room.\n\t“Because I know what you’re thinking.” This makes the gazelle stop completely dead in his tracks. His arms fall stiff at his sides, rustling the black jeans and the white shirt he has on.\n\t“Erm…”\n\t“Yes, I know. I know what you’re hiding.”\n\tI need to get out of here… the gazelle thinks to himself, attempting to rationalize any possible way to leave. He continues to back up.\n\t“In fact I know exactly where Clarkson is.”\n\tPlease, don’t… He is now against the white painted wall.\n\t“And he’s in this very room… I know it’s you. Just reveal yourself to me, Augustus. Or do you prefer ‘Gus’?’”\n\tThe gazelle sighs deeply, looking at the floor. A split second later, he has melted into a pink-orange gelatinous mass. Another moment later, he has reformed into the shape of a brown grizzly, still wearing the same clothing as before.\n\t“Surely, you can agree this is more like it.” Vincent speaks calmly. Holding out his arms to the sides.\n\t“I’m sorry. I discovered my power on my own long ago. I was just wishing at the window of my college dorm, wanting to be someone else.”\n\t“What?”\n\t“It was out of control at first. I kept changing into people I knew in real life. I was afraid to come out of my dorm, and I missed so many classes, I was kicked out of school.”\n\t“That’s an interesting story. But how did you get here?”\n“Well, a few years ago, I lost by bartending license. I got into a lawsuit with the city because I served a minor drinks. I lived in the upper floor of that bar, and when I came down one morning, there were police officers standing in front of the window.”\n\tThere is a pause, and the dim room is silent. I need to remember this, the stallion tells himself as he listens to the story. It could be helpful.\n\t“It’s just that the kid was so adorable, and he went to so much trouble to print a fake license, I just couldn’t help myself. I just wanted to be nice to him.” Gus is now raising his voice slightly.\n\t“Do you know who he was?”\n\t“I… think-,” He whispers.\n\tVincent cuts him off, shouting, leaning forward intimidating the bear, “Do you KNOW who he was?”\n\t“AAUGH, erm, Gaige Lane! He’s a short, scarlet husky!” He begins to cower in fear.\n\t“I see...” The stallion leans back to an upright stance.\n\tRegaining his footing as well, Gus states strongly, “Look, I don’t want to help you. I’ve said too much already.” He steps forward, putting his foot down. “Whatever it is, I want no part in any of it.”\n\t“That’s alright.” This shocks Gus. “I can do this myself… Just at one small price.” The horse leaps from one end of the room to the other, extending his arm forward. As he lands on the coffee table, with his arm still extended, he grips the air in his grasp.\n\tThe next moment is occupied by attempted screams as Vincent uses his power to choke the bear, but only enough to torture him into submission. Gus begins to float forward towards the stallion. Vincent grips the neck of the bear and pulls him close.\n\tHe whispers very quietly in the bear’s ear, “You.”\n\tBlood-curdling screams fill the house, demonstrating the agony Gus is feeling. The top of his head is being sawed off by the mere point and drag of the stallions index finger. It shakes violently as the muscles of Vincent’s finger lose control of the energy flowing through them.\n\tWith a splat and the sound of chewing, the bear’s brain is on its way into the stomach of the stallion.\n\tThe next moment, he is on the ground as a molten mass, with a color if pink and orange. The stallion is then reforming himself, not into himself but into a brown grizzly bear, wearing a green and yellow tee, and black jeans, just as he did before.\n\tWith his new power in his grasp, he turns around and faces the dead body that belonged to Augustus Clarkson. He blows him a kiss as he begins to leave through the front door.\n\tMeanwhile, the bear is laying on the ground, missing the top of his head. Blood has fallen from it and has stained his fur, and the white carpet he rests upon. It continues to leak, and drip from the inside of his skull.\n\tVincent crouches on the cobblestone patio, and with a wave of his arm, closing the door behind him, he is gone.\n\n\tAs the stallion disguised as a bear lands outside the door of his home, he knocks on the door three times, to which he is answered by a black and white border collie, whose eyes widen at the sight of the bear. “Clarkson?” At this, the bear begins to melt into the pink-orange mass. Even more shocked, Julius Arno jumps back, clutching his heart. “Holy fuck!” As the mass begins to reform, it forms the shape of Vincent Parish. The brown stallion stands tall above the collie, looking down at him smiling. His white mane flows in the gentle breeze. “God, child, you almost gave me a heart attack!”\n\t“I didn’t mean to, Father.” Vincent replies with accomplishment.\n\t“Yes, but I didn’t, child,” the collie reaches his arm up, and around the stallion’s neck, and finishes, “And that’s what matters, Vincent.”\n\tWhat? Vincent!? He’s never called me by only my first name! He screams to himself in his mind, practically jumping for joy within the confines of his imagination. This is wonderful!\n\t“Come inside, child! I saw on the news a storm is brewing.”\n\t“Of course, father.”\nThe pair make their way into Vincent and Austin’s room. The collie sits down on the bed, inviting the stallion to do so with him. “Austin?” The horse asks.\n“Yes, master?” The rabbit emerges from the shadows still in nothing but a pair of boxers.\n“Oh, stop with all that ‘Master’ nonsense!” This makes the hare’s fur stand on end. His eyes grow in confusion. “You can call me Vincent if you want. And could you put a pot of coffee on for all of us?”\n\t“All… of... us?” Austin stutters his question. “As in… me… too?”\n\t“Yes. You too.” The hare’s eyes relax a bit as he smiles widely.\n\nChapter Sixteen - October 10th, Mid-Morning\n\n\t“Doctor!” Idaline exclaims as she opens the door of the room.\n“I want to come to talk to Gaige. I have something I’d like to say in regards to what happened today.” The doctor is holding a clipboard, which he gives to one of the guards, who agrees to hold onto it.\n\t“Well, I guess you can come in.” As he takes the step inside, the Idaline closes the door behind the doctor. “He’s locked himself in the bedroom, and he won’t come out. I don’t know what he’s doing in there.”\n\t“Contemplating his situation, perhaps?” The snow leopard asks plainly. He sits down and crosses his leg over the other on the white sofa under the large window.\n\t“I doubt it. Usually he uploads a video every day, so if I know him, he’s using his webcam to…”\n\tJust then the door to the bedroom clicks, and the knob turns. It slowly opens, revealing the head of a scarlet-furred husky. Gaige speaks. “Doctor Ragh? What do you want?”\n\tHis face is one of remorse. “I wish to formally apologize for your loss, today.”\n\t“Oh, who am I kidding. I did everything I could. I tried to help, but I just ended up failing.” Gaige steps out of the doorway at this point, and reveals himself.\n\t“Listen, my friend. I know it’s very hard to go through something like this. In fact I watched my mother perish.” Gaige’s eyes light up. Dr. Raghuraman stands up from the sofa and begins to approach him. “I was walking in the city with her as a young adult. We approached an alleyway, and of course we kept walking. But as we passed, we were jumped by someone in a mask. All I could make out was that he had yellow fur, and he was a canine. He shot my mother with a gun, and I ran. Since we didn’t have cellular phones, the next best thing I could do was use the payphone across the street. By the time I had made the call, I noticed my mother lying on the ground. She was bleeding badly. She died at the hospital a few hours later.”\n\t“But what does that mean to me?” Gaige presses with a sense of childishness.\n\t“To you, it’s supposed to mean that you’re not the only one who has felt like they’ve killed someone, when technically they didn’t. Look, I feel like I could have saved her, but I did the right thing instead, and called for help. At the time, I was stupid, and my first instinct was to do the right thing. In that case, it killed someone.” Gaige’s eyebrows sink, as do the corners of his mouth. “What you can take away from this is that some things are out of your control, and you must…”\n\t“Wait a minute! ‘Out of control...’ That’s it! That gem we’re looking for…” Gaige cuts off the doctor, extending his arm in front of him.\n\t“What about it?” The doctor chimes in curiously.\n\t“It grants a wish, right? I believe you told us that when you first showed it to us at my house.”\n\t“I believe I… Wait, you don’t plan to…?” Gaige nods his head. “Oh, God.”\n\t“We can get started right now, if you want.”\n\tIdaline interjects worriedly, “Gaige, I know you miss Daron, but you need to understand that it may have been meant to be this way!”\n\tDr. Raghuraman chimes in as well. “I agree with your sister, my friend. Bringing him back is wrong!”\n\t“You would do the same for your mother if you had the chance, right?” Gaige shouts at the two people in front of him.\n\t“I-I-I…” The snow leopard stutters nervously.\n\tIdaline approaches Gaige while he isn’t looking, and takes a whack at the back of his head. Gaige yelps and stumbles forward. “Stop putting the poor doctor on the spot like that!”\n\t“Did you HAVE to hit me?” Gaige yells, rubbing the back of his head where he was stricken.\n\t“It seems to be the only way to get through to you right now. Am I correct, idiot?”\n\t“No. I’m still going to use my wish to bring him back.” Idaline slaps her own face with her paw.\n\t\n\tAs the group of subjects enter the dark room, they immediately notice the vast number of monitors, all showing things from pictures of the gemstone, to heart monitors, to lines upon lines of code. However, among the rapidly changing code, there is one static line of still numbers. There are three people in lab coats working, two lions and a tigress.\n\tThe doctor welcomes the group into the dark room. As he walks them over to his own desk in the corner, all the subjects look around in confusion. Adam Xin points out, “Why the hell are we even here?”\n\t“Well, if you’ll come over here, you’ll be able to see.” As the doctor replies, he sits himself behind the desk, and turns on a rather large monitor behind him, which reveals a map of a satellite view of the Great Pyramids. “This is Project Phoenix. All of you have been briefed on the situation, and most of you have fulfilled your destiny already, but you could still be useful. X Case has surfaced. This man right here, Vincent Parish,” The brown stallion that killed Daron is shown on the screen. “Struck us yesterday at approximately 3pm. We lost some of our own, unfortunately.”\nGaige looks down at the floor at this. God, I wish that guy was here right now, I’d kill him on the spot. He tells himself, repeatedly.\n\t“But nonetheless, we must pursue this man. He was the first to be brought in by the FBI a few months ago, and when we told him about the stone, he resisted. I was not there, but from what I was told by…” When the snow leopard stops, all attention throughout the room falls on him. “By Gaige and Idaline’s father. God, I miss that bastard!” Gaige and his sister both roll their eyes at this. “Anyway, when we told him what he was already capable of, he immediately ran out, and escaped. We searched for hours, but we could not find him. And now that he’s shown himself once again, we know he’s most likely found some others who want to steal the stone and misuse its powers. Gaige, like you, Parish is able to copy others’ abilities.” Gaige’s eyes light up. “But, it’s different. The reason why he did what he did is to try get other powers to add to his own. He eats people’s brains to get them! And his root power allows him to do that!”\n\t“Oh, don’t worry, Doc. He won’t be doing it that much longer,” Gaige shouts at the doctor.\n\t“I agree. We must find him and put him behind bars!”\n\t“No…”\n\t“No?” The doctor is puzzled by Gaige’s response.\n\t“We can’t put him away. You couldn’t manage that if you tried. We should kill him. I was trying as hard as I could when I hit him yesterday, and he put up a lot more resistance than Daron’s car. I imagine if he were anyone but himself, I would have sent him through the walls and...”\n\t“We get it! You’re really strong, and it’s pretty easy to tell your ego is too. Now would you SHUT,” Gaige’s sister slaps his face. “YOUR MUZZLE, ALREADY!?”\n\tGaige silences himself immediately. “Thank you,” The doctor professes. “Gaige will go with me and two officers, as well as the local police in New Olive. Our target is the murderer known as Vincent Parish!”\n\tGood. Gus thinks to himself, watching the doctor give his spiel. Everything is working perfectly... Now for the next phase…\n\tStanding next to the bear is an otter. Gus lightly taps Linus with the back of his hand, giving an indication to execute what is about to happen.\n\tLinus fakes a loud sneeze and voices, “Shit! That’s a lot of blood! Please excuse me while i fix this!”\nAs linus steps out of the dark computer room, Gaige turns back to watch. He can’t see very well due to his view being blocked by other people, but he recognizes the voice of the otter. I have a really bad feeling about this...\n\t\nChapter Seventeen - October 8th, Early Morning\n\n\tA few miles west of Akron, Maine lies the town of Sentro. The storm has passed through the night, giving the sun means to reveal itself. There are a few clouds, but they are all too pleasant. The next thing the tall, drunk vixen notices while passing is blinking, and then seeing a light brown-colored stallion with a white mane, crouching before her in khaki shorts and a green short-sleeve shirt. She stops dead in her tracks with a foot in front of her, which she pulls back slowly. She looks at the bottle of opened wine after pulling it out of her purse. She checks the label wide-eyed, and looks back at Vincent who has stood himself upright, looking at her blankly. I am never drinking again… She tells herself as she runs back the other way.\n\tRaising his eyebrows, the stallion turns his back to the road and checks the house in front of him. The mailbox says it is the right one. He approaches the green single-level establishment with caution; he keeps light on his feet.\n\tThree knocks and about 10 seconds later reveals Linus VanDiesel standing in the doorway. He offers his paw to shake Vincent’s hoof. Vincent accepts and speaks, “Are you Linus?”\n\t“Yes, I am. Who are you, might I ask?” The otter presses releasing his grip on the stallion.\n\t“I’m Vincent. I’ve been meaning to ask you some questions...”\n\t“Well it’s kind of warm, don’t you think? Come inside, I have the AC on.” The pair make their way into a living room. There is an old red loveseat, as well as a brown leather recliner placed on the wall next to it. Both sit under windows with the dark green blinds pulled down. They are the only light source, so the room is very dim. There is a coffee table with a small laptop on it, plugged into a power outlet behind the recliner. The room is carpeted with a white shag, and there is an old CRT TV on the opposite wall from the sofa.\n\tThe otter sits down on the recliner, and Vincent takes a spot on the couch. “I’m looking to improve myself.” The stallion states plainly.\n\t“What does that have to do with me?” Linus replies.\n\t“What would you say to unlimited power?”\n\t“Not interested.”\n\tThere is a moment of silence before Vincent stutters, “But, that doesn’t make sense.”\n\t“I know what people like you do to people like me.”\n\t“Wait, what do you think I plan to do?”\n\t“Well…” Linus turns away. “You are a tranny chaser, aren’t you?”\n\t“Erm, no.” Beneath his fur, Vincent is blushing hard.\nThis catches the otter’s attention. He turns back around around. “I’m listening.”\n\t“Don’t be alarmed…” The horse stands to his feet, nearly hitting his head on the ceiling. He closes his eyes and simply melts into a pink-orange colored gelatinous mass, which reforms into a black and white border collie wearing the same clothes as before. Throughout the moment, Linus VanDiesel is sitting wide-eyed and open-mouthed, ears perked up high.\n“This is Julius Arno. He’s my boss, but I call him ‘Father,’” Vincent explains. “We’re looking for something. Something very powerful.” The horse continues to explain what the Phoenix Gem is, meanwhile Linus is silent, listening closely. “But we don’t know where it is. we have a plan, but it requires you.”\n\t“Why me?”\n\t“Because you have a power like I do… almost.”\n\t“Almost…?” The otter cocks his head to the side a bit.\n\t“It’s really just that your ability is different from mine. For example, I’m able to copy others’ powers. We’ve been able to determine that you can communicate with technology. Accessing mainframes, hacking through firewalls, even completely shutting down entire systems… all of it is just with your thoughts.”\n\tLinus leans back in the recliner and puts his paw on his forehead, looking up at the ceiling. “This is crazy. This can’t be real…”\n\t“Then how do you explain what I just did a minute ago?”\n\t“That’s true…” He sits there with his eyes closed for a few seconds, thinking hard about what he wants to do. Finally, he blurts out, “I’ll give it a try. I want this.”\n\t“Good, good.” After resituating himself as the stallion he arrived as, Vincent plops himself back on the loveseat. “Try to control that television.”\n\tThe otter looks at the CRT across the room. “On,” He says flatly. Nothing changes. “Activate?”\n\t“You aren’t wanting it to turn on. You’re just telling it to. Try really concentrating on it… Really try to speak to it.”\nThe otter closes his eyes tightly, making his absolute best attempt to communicate with the electronic equipment. He thinks over and over, Turn on… Turn on… Suddenly, a short buzz is heard, and the sound of static resounds throughout the room.\n\t“Excellent,” The brown horse mutters. “Now, do you still want to help me find this gemstone?”\n\tLinus takes a second to answer, “Yeah. I want to.”\n\nAs Dr. Raghuraman continues to explain the plan, all of the electronic equipment suddenly shuts down. Computers, monitors, cellular phones, even the lights, all are down. Everyone immediately tries to restart their electronics, but Gaige instead leaps into the air, soaring over the heads of the group of subjects. He flies out of the room in a rage, and whizzes down the hall. When he gets to the end, he stops for a moment, still floating in mid-air. He begins to utilize more of the powers he has been given, like Brooklyn’s mind-reading powers, which he uses to track their path.\n\tWhen he hears in his mind, the roof, he immediately takes off for the stairwell. He enters through the metal door, and begins to speed up through the floors, flying the whole time.\n\tGod do these ever end!? He shouts in his mind. He begins to hear footsteps above him, and he immediately begins to scream, “Move to the side! Move to the side!”\n\t“What? Me?” The government officer looks over the rail and sees the side of Gaige’s body whizzing against the inside rail. The officer realizes the situation and backs away to the outside rail. The next thing he knows is a scarlet and white blur speeding past him. “Holy shit,” he whispers in amazement.\n\tFinally, Gaige is able to almost catch up to the bear and otter. He can hear them sprinting just a few floors up. He hears them break down a huge metal door, and the stairwell lights up a bit. They had made it to the roof, and Gaige flies out into the bright sunlight. The husky holds still, but not by choice. He is being held in place by a brown stallion with a white mane. Vincent is choking Gaige almost to death, standing nearly ten feet away, holding out his hoof in a fist.\n\tBehind him is the otter known as Linus. “Good morning,” The stallion yells halfway across the helipad, “Oh, wait. It’s afternoon isn’t it?” The horse gradually makes his way closer to Gaige, who also starts to float steadily closer to Vincent. When Gaige is directly in front of him, halfway between their original positions, the stallion drops the husky, but only after cutting open his skull. As he chomps down on Gaige’s brain, he walks away from the scene towards a helicopter, leaving behind nothing but a dead, limp body behind on the hot metal platform.\n\tAs Linus starts up the helicopter with his mind, he clambers into the pilot’s seat, with Vincent closely following behind, who takes shotgun, having finished consuming the brain of the scarlet husky, who still lays limp in the helipad platform. As the pair of them take off, Linus and Vincent head back to Maine to pick up Julius Arno.\n\tThe rest of the subjects as well as the doctor finally arrive on the scene, and Gaige is still lying limp where he was, only there is one abnormality. The top of his head has regrown itself. The second piece is still there, but it has decayed. The fur has fallen off of it and blown away, and the flesh is slowly turning a nasty green. Everyone gathers around Gaige and Dr. Raghuraman checks for Gaige’s pulse.\nIdaline is about to kneel down and mourn for the death, but suddenly there is no need. One of Gaige’s eyes shoots open. “Gaige?” Idaline whispers, standing in front of the boy’s face.\n\tWhat happens next can only be described as momentary chaos. All of Gaige’s might becomes concentrated in one huge burst of flight. He knocks back all the people surrounding him, soaring nearly ten feet into the air. The scarlet husky screams, his eyes flowing with tears, “WHERE ARE THEY!?”\n\t“Gaige! They’re gone!” Idaline shouts.\n\tGaige looks down at the group of people, some of them still on the ground. He grits his sharp teeth, showing fangs. He slaps his paws over his eyes, tears still leaking through his fingers. Whimpering, he begins to slowly lower himself back down to the platform.\n\tAs he makes contact with the ground, he gives himself a moment before collapsing on his knees. “I really hate them,” Gaige sobs into his paws. “I really do.”\n\t“Well, there’s nothing you can do about them right now.” Idaline interjects frankly.\n\t“No…” All the others’ eyes widen as Gaige stands up. “I still have my powers, but...” Gaige pauses as all the others lean in, listening intently. “It’s different. I feel stronger… stronger than before!”\n\t“Given the circumstances, I don’t see how that’s possib-” The doctor cuts himself off to say something else. “Wait a second. Could it be that since some of Gaige’s powers aren’t embedded in his brain, he could have been able to salvage a few of them?”\n\t“Not just a few,” Gaige replies. “I think I managed to get ALL of them back.”\n\t“Care to elaborate?” The doctor inquires.\n\t“Who has their phone, or whatever?”\n\t“Got it,” Idaline interjects, holding out a white rectangular device.\n\tGaige shuts his eyes, and he begins communicating with the device. In his mind, he tells the device a single time, Turn on… Suddenly the device’s company logo glows on the screen, indicating its activation. When the scarlet husky sees this, he tries again, this time to reactivate all the electronics in the city. When he hears sirens from below, he opens his eyes, and all the rest of the group are smiling warmly at him.\n\tIdaline walks up to Gaige and wraps her arms around him, embracing him warmly. But this embrace is different than any other embrace exchanged between this brother and sister. Not since the loss of their father had Idaline shed a single tear. “I almost lost you today, bitch.” Some of the others try to forget hearing this last word. Idaline pulls away and scolds her brother, slapping him in the muzzle once, “You’re a crazy idiot, you know that?”\n\t“Yeah, I guess I am!” Gaige grins happily, and Idaline returns it. “But we can’t waste any more time! We need to get to Egypt!” The brother and sister break apart, and Idaline brushes off her hoodie and jeans.\n\t“That’s right! We need a jet though…”\n\nChapter Eighteen - October 10th, Noon\n\n\t“I do apologize but this is the only way.” Dr. Raghuraman points out to the other 4 people in the back of the Escalade as they weave and wind their way through the frozen traffic of abandoned cars. “That helicopter they took was the only one we had stationed at the U.N. Headquarters.” Gaige, Idaline and the doctor’s children are all sitting comfortably in the back, with the twins in a third row behind the two huskies. Still, Gaige is nauseous at the constant turning back and forth.\n\tFinally after surviving the ordeal, Gaige manages to stop himself from vomiting throughout the ride. They arrive at LaGuardia Airport after much pain and stress, and all exit the vehicle. Gaige has some trouble standing up for a minute, and Idaline volunteers to guide him through the terminal. By the time they had made their way to the gate, they had stopped at the door. Gaige is still stumbling at every step, and Idaline can tell through his fur that his face had gone a pale shade of green.\nThe german shepherd FBI officer who is with them flashes his badge at the guards already stationed at the gate. When they recognize it, one of the airport security guards, a very tall giraffe, bends down to unlock the door, which they all sprint through. As they travel down the tunnel, Gaige nearly tumbles to the ground twice, and once he does completely fall, rolling forward about a foot before the german shepherd picks him up. “Honestly, you can fly in circles a million times real fast, but you can’t handle riding in a car?” The officer asks sarcastically.\n\t“Those two… instances… are different.” Gaige is now being legitimately carried into the plane by the german shepherd. “One is controlled, and the other I can do nothing about.”\n\t“Well, to me, you’re just a selective wimp.” The officer replies.\n\tAfter being set in a seat of the small plane in the first class section, the other subjects, Brooklyn Murray, Adam Xin, and several more FBI officers eventually arrive and strap themselves in on the plane, also in the first class section. Once everyone is strapped into a seat, the officer steps through the door and alerts the pilot they are all ready for takeoff. As they begin to taxi out onto the runway, Gaige dreads the ride to Egypt due to already being nauseous. Next to him is his sister who places her paw on his leg, reassuring him it’s alright.\n\tAs they begin to speed down the runway, Gaige can see out the window. He gazes out the window, watching the airport whiz by, but as soon as he feels the plane lifting into the air, he turns away. He places his paws on each side of his head, rubbing his temples, trying to calm himself. Idaline interjects, “You need to sit back if you want to feel better.” Gaige is unsure if she is right, but he considers all that’s happened. He decides he has no choice but to trust his sister’s judgement, even if she may be wrong.\n\tSitting across from Idaline is the yellow mare Brooklyn. The orange husky inquires once the plane has leveled off, “So, if you can read minds, why didn’t you pick up on Gus and Linus plotting to double-cross us?”\n\tThe yellow horse looks down at her lap. “I almost did.”\n\t“What do you mean?” Idaline asks angrily.\n\t“See, I’m able to read THOUGHTS. Reading their inner opinions is not within my reach. I could only tell what people are thinking at the exact moment I try to read them.” Brooklyn looks up at Idaline across from her, who is listening with her arms crossed. “I was able to tell what Linus was thinking, and he was saying things like, ‘I wonder what this is going to be like?’ But Gus was a puzzle.” Gaige’s ears perk up. “From him, I never got anything. Not a single thought. Just silence.” A hush falls over the entire plane. “I just dismissed it as me making a mistake, and I didn’t bother to try reading him again.”\n\t“This would have been much easier if you had told us about this,” Dr Raghuraman points out. He is sitting across the aisle of the plane, but he is still attentive of Brooklyn’s speech. “We could have questioned him, and held him captive.”\n\t“No.” A voice from the scarlet husky resounds throughout the plane. “You couldn’t have held him. He has a telekinetic ability, and he can teleport. You’d never be able to hold him in one place for long.” All the subjects, officers, and the doctor all pay close attention to Gaige. “He’s a cold-blooded killer. He tried to murder his own boyfriend. The second time he actually did. Daron told Idaline and I what happened the first time, and he told us that he was attacked by Vincent with a knife.”\n“A knife?” The doctor responds.\n“Yeah. Apparently he must not have known then that Daron had his ability, but by the time he came to kill him the second time, he must have known. He tried to get to his brain, and he used his power to do it that time.”\n\t“What do you mean, ‘He must have known?’” Idaline chimes in.\n\tThe doctor interjects, “From what Gaige has said, I can say there may be some other force at work here. Correct me if I’m wrong, Gaige, but it could be another person, perhaps. It may or may not be Vincent himself, but somehow someone close to that stallion has access to a similar, if not the same system that we use to find people with abilities.”\n\t“I agree with that. But that brings up the question… ‘Why is he doing this?’”\n\t“If he’s trying to gather powers, he may be trying to get to the Phoenix Gem!” The doctor exclaims. This makes all the subjects’ eyes widen substantially.\n\n\t“I got him, Father! We need to go!” Vincent shouts through a megaphone. The helicopter hovers above Julius Arno’s home. The black and white border collie rushes out to see a ladder in front of his door, with Austin following closely behind. “Austin, I’m glad to see you out of that phase!” Austin’s attire, normally consists of him wearing nothing but a pair of boxers and a collar. Now, he is wearing a graphic tee-shirt depicting a rabbit on a bike smiling, with a caption, ‘Life is good.’ He also sports a pair of jeans, similar to Vincent’s own pair.\n\tAs he begins to climb the ladder, Julius Arno holds his tongue until he successfully clambers into the back of the chopper, with Austin again following closely behind. Vincent reaches out his hoof and helps the two of them up into the chopper. “So where are we going, child?”\n\t“Egypt,” Vincent replies, shouting a bit due to the spinning blades. “The gemstone lies under one of the pyramids.” Once the three of them are strapped in, they retract the ladder and fly off for the nearest airport.\n\tGod. What the hell am I doing? Vincent asks himself on the way. I must be mad. Why did I kill innocent people!? They didn’t do anything wrong. Nothing! Was it just to please Julius? Why should I listen to him at this point? I’m stronger than him, and I could kill him easily. Why didn’t do that before!? He’s crazy! Completely bonkers! He’s stupid, too! I blatantly told him NOT to bring back his wife, and he didn’t even get a hint!\n\t“I’ll set us down next to that private jet down there,” Linus inquires into the microphone of his headset. “Is that one okay?”\nVincent is woken up from being lost in his thoughts. “What? Oh. Yeah, that should be fine as long as it’s been fueled.”\nLinus closes his eyes, concentrating on communicating with the plane on the tarmac. The helicopter begins to lose its flight path, and starts to lean to the right side a bit. When Linus stabilizes it again, he opens his eyes and speaks. “It’s full.”\n\tAfter touching down well away from the plane, the four of them sprint to the staircase leading up to the jet. There is a fox in a blue suit with a red tie standing at the foot of the stairs. He flashes a badge at them saying, “Lieutenant John Smith. This plane is private property, and you are trespassing.”\n\tVincent sticks out his hoof, and grips the fox. He levitates him to the side, choking him in the process. When he lets him go, the stallion whispers the lieutenant’s ear, “I only spared you because you’re cute.”\nJohn nods in fear. “Thank you,” he replies.\n\tVincent proceeds to lead the way up the staircase, entering the cabin. All of them immediately turn left and intrude on the pilot and copilot, a tabby and a bull, having a conversation about music genres. Vincent proceeds to choke the pilot until the bull sprints out of his chair and out of the plane. When Vincent releases the the tabby, she does the same. Austin closes the cabin door behind them. As Linus assumes the pilot’s position, he begins to speak to the plane again in his mind, telling it to start up. “I think I can take it from here. You take a seat in the cabin.”\n\t“If you say so.” Making his way back to the cabin, Vincent notices Julius beckoning him over. He accepts with reluctance, still unsure what to think of him. “Father, you and I go back. Far back.”\n\t“Yes, I know.” Julius is typing in his phone. His leg is crossed over the other, his short, fluffy tail curled up on his side. “I remember I pulled you into an alleyway and knocked you out with a single blow with the back of a gun. You were such a wimp back then!”\n\t“Yes, I remember, Father…” Vincent stares at the border collie, until he speaks. “Father, there’s something you should know before you do this.”\n\t“Hm? What is it, child?” He replies, continuing to type on his phone.\n\t“I don’t think you should bring her back.”\n\tThis causes Arno to cease his rapid clicking of the phone’s keyboard. “Why?”\n\t“‘In the darkness of the cavern in which It is found, should It be taken by the Horse or the Hound. Whomever it is should beware, whereas the Power is too rare. To falter on their desire would be mislead, and should be shunned, along with the dead.’ Don’t you see? ‘shunned along with the dead’ means you shouldn’t bring back the dead. I’ve told you this before, but you just didn’t listen!”\n\tThis finally triggers an instinct in Julius to drop his phone to the ground, giving off a few soft thumps on the carpeted cabin. “I…”\n\t“I’m really sorry Father! I should have explained it further, but instead I just left it alone!” Vincent shouts at the border collie, falling to his knees, and waddling his way over to Julius. He places his head in the collie’s lap.\n\t“It’s…” Vincent faces the border collie face to face. “It’s okay, child.”\n\t“What!?” Shouting, the stallion leaps up from his kneeling position. Standing upright, his ears scrape the ceiling of the cabin.\n\t“Eeep!” The voice of a small, tan rabbit shrieks in fear of the sudden sound. Both the collie and the stallion gaze blankly at the hare. “Sorry… I got scared.”\n\t“What do you mean ‘it’s okay?’” Vincent inquires as he plops back down on the seat.\n\t“I was thinking about it myself. When you told me the passage the first time, I didn’t think it mattered.” The stallion grunts quietly. “But, the more I thought about it, I began to question its meaning, and I eventually had a sneaking suspicion that what I wanted to do might not work the way I would think it to work.”\n\t“So… you want to call it off?”\n\t“Hell, no! I just have something comparable to my original desire.”\n\tVincent raises his eyebrows, and his eyes widen. “What?”\n\t“If I can’t bring someone back from the dead, I can create a NEW Sheila that’s just like her!”\n\t“You know what? If you REALLY want to try to do that, go ahead, but it will probably fail.” Vincent slaps his hoof to his face. I can’t believe I’m stuck with this idiot. If I could teleport while moving, I would easily leave these schmucks behind and get the gemstone for myself.\n\n\tGaige turns over in his sleep. His feet are kicked up, and he is leaning back. He begins murmuring in his slumber, “Daron… I’ll bring… you back.”\n\t\nVisions of Daron fill his head; visions of him staring at his screen in the hotel with glasses on, typing up a document. His silver fur shines in the light of the chandelier. He sees himself crawling on the floor. Gaige fails to surprise the wolf, and as he straightens up, he sees Daron, no longer hunching over the keyboard, but rather leaning back, completely lifeless.\n\tHis eyes are completely black, the top of his head has been cut clean off, his brain is missing. Suddenly, Daron begins to move. His head jerking from side to side, like a glitching animatronic. Gaige wants to flee, but when he starts, he slips on the floor and falls, landing on a wood floor. \nThe environment has changed. Gaige is back at his home. He is playing a game with Idaline in the two recliners. The doorbell rings, and Gaige stands himself up and makes his way out of the living room, stumbling all the way. He opens the door to see Daron just as he was in the hotel. He is still sitting in the desk chair limp and lifeless, his head still jerking back and forth. The wolf steadily begins to move forward, floating towards the scarlet husky.\nDuring this entire time, Gaige remains silent, with a blank expression on his face. Now, he refuses to move. Instead, he opens his arm as if to embrace Daron. Daron begins to stand up and walk towards Gaige.\n\t“Daron! You… You’re better!” Gaige shouts.\n\tThe tall wolf stands upright, with his head normal again. Stepping lightly into Gaige’s embrace. He returns it, and bends down to whisper into Gaige’s ear, “Leave me.” Gaige is shocked. “Don’t bring me back, whatever you do. It’s not meant to be.”\n\t“NO!”\n\t“Gaige, please find someone else. Do this for me.”\n\tScreaming, Gaige watches as Daron begins to detach from the embrace, disintegrating, turning into a gray dust. The wind catches the dust and blows it away.\n\n\tGaige opens his eyes to see that outside the window of the plane, it is dark. Gaige turns over and sees Idaline standing over him, shaking him awake. “We’re almost there. How are you feeling?” The bright orange husky asks her brother.\n\t“How am I feeling?” Gaige mumbles, his eyes still partially closed. “What do you mean?”\n\t“You were acting really sick when we left New York. Remember? You completely passed out about a half-hour into the flight.”\n\t“How long was I out?” Gaige inquires, sitting upright, resetting the seat to the normal position.\n\t“About eleven hours. Are you feeling okay?”\n\tGaige looks around and sees Brooklyn Murray, Dr Raghuraman, the twins, and Adam Xin, along with several officers, all sitting comfortably in seats. Idaline takes a set next to her brother and fastens her seatbelt.\n\t“For the third time, how the hell are you feeling?” She yells at her brother, startling everyone on the plane. One of the officers reaches for his pistol.\n\t“I’m fine. Much better.” Gaige replies calmly, strapping himself in.\n\n\tChapter Nineteen - October 10th, Late at Night\n\n\tThey all feel several large bumps as the jet bounces down the runway in Cairo. After taxiing to come to a complete stop, there are two large, black Navigators waiting at the gate for them. The group of people exits the plane, and all of them have glum faces. They are all worried about what Gaige might do with the gemstone.\n\tThey clamber into the Navigators and zoom off to leave the airport. Idaline taps Gaige on the shoulder, whispering, “What are you thinking?”\n\t“I’m not sure. I feel very conflicted about bringing Daron back now,” Gaige answers, staring out the window. The lights are all whizzing past them, looking like a blur. “I had a dream about him.”\n\t“Tell me about it.”\n\t“I don’t remember it too well, but I remember at the end, we were hugging and he told me not to bring him back. Then, he turned into dust and the wind picked him up.” Gaige turns over and faces his sister. “Then I woke up.”\n\t“Damn… I wish I knew what to say,” Idaline answers.\n\t“I wish I could even make a decision. Daron, world peace...” There is silence in the SUV for a moment. “Do you think I should reveal to my fans why I haven’t been uploading?”\n\t“What do you…” Gaige cuts his sister off.\n\t“I mean, should I reveal my abilities?”\n\tIdaline remains completely silent for a solid minute until she says, “I wouldn’t, but I’m not you.”\n\tGaige pulls out his modified iPod and checks if there is a signal. When he sees his bars are full, he states, “Good enough for me.” Opening up the camera, he turns on the light in the SUV. He hands the device over to his sister and asks, “Would you mind filming it?”\n\tIdaline swipes the ipod out of his paw and aligns the shot. “You can crop with this right?”\n\t“Yeah. Just start recording when you’re ready.” A beep comes from the device, signaling the start of the video. “Guys, I haven’t been uploading much since I hit a million subs, and I want to make up for it with this video. If you haven’t heard, look up right now… And I mean it! Pause this video, and go on any news site. There’s probably an article about some unidentified object flying through New York City and saving the lives of two children who fell off the Freedom Tower.” There is a second of silence.\n\t“Now that you have seen that, there is one thing I’d like to admit… I’ve never really had many secrets throughout my career on YouTube. And I guess I’m lucky for that, because I’m not good at keeping secrets. What I’m saying is that it was me. I saved those kids. The reason I haven’t uploaded these past few days is because I’ve been all over the world. Normally I record from my house in Maine, but recently, I’ve been working with the government at the United Nations Headquarters in New York. Now I am in Cairo to execute the mission.\n“If you want proof, flying is not the only thing I can do…” Gaige holds out his paw, snaps his fingers, and his thumb catches on fire. The glow of the flame reflects off the windows of the SUV. Gaige increases the size of the fire to cover his paw completely as he continues, “Like I said, there are other things, but given the environment, and what I have available to me, this is all I can do right now. If there is demand for another video like this, I’ll put one out. If you made it this far into the video, kudos to you, and I’ll see you in the next one.” There is a pause, and as Idaline taps the button to stop recording, she returns the iPod to her brother’s grasp.\n\t“Thank you. I’m curious to see how this will all play out.”\n\t“No problem.” As Gaige shuts off the light in the car, and begins to edit the video that was just taken, Idaline continues, “Just don’t put me in the description, okay?”\n\t“Wouldn’t dream of it.”\nThere is about ten minutes of silence in the car before someone else speaks. “We weren’t in the video, were we?” Two snow leopard children simultaneously turn on the light in the back of the Navigator. Anirudh and Arvind look as if they are at gunpoint.\n\tGaige turns back and looks at the twins. “I don’t think so. Not as long as Ida kept the camera focused on me.” Gaige flips through the video quickly and checks for a stray shot, and he does not find one. “You’re good,” Gaige presses, giving a thumbs-up. The twins sit back in their seats.\n\tAs they zip past the streetlights, Gaige leans on the vibrating window, thinking, I can’t believe it. Why would he want to stay dead? Is he happier there? I wish I knew. Why does it have to be in a dream. The vision I had when I met him… The one at HQ… Now this… They don’t even seem related! The first one almost wants me to get together with him, the next tells me I’ve killed him, and now this one wants me to leave him for dead!\n\tThey all told of the future. One was proven impossible, the next was proven correct immediately, and the third… No, that wasn’t the future. That was advice. But why…\n\tWithout warning, the SUV grinds to a halt. Gaige looks out the window he had been leaning on, and can easily make out the Great Pyramid of Giza. Gaige, Idaline, the doctor, and the twins all step out of the car and stare at the sight. It is immensely cold, and the night is clear. Maybe my answer will be in there.\n\tSuddenly, the ground begins to shake, and a massive amount of sand and dust begins to fall onto the group of people, who have now been joined by Brooklyn and Adam in the other car. Idaline loses her balance and tumbles over onto her brother who catches her in time.\n\t“Doc, is this supposed to be happening!?” Gaige shouts to the tall snow leopard.\n\t“I don’t think so, but it would make sense if there is another pyramid!” He replies.\n\t“What do you mean ‘another!?’” Brooklyn jumps in sarcastically.\n\t“Apparently, when archaeologists did all their initial work here, they weren’t very thorough.” Dr. Raghuraman stares at the screen of his tablet. It is beeping and flashing furiously. “I’m reading a huge piece of metal or something similar right below us!”\n\t“So it’s rising up!?” Idaline screams as she gets to her feet.\n\t“Yes! We need to move now!” The doctor shouts through the dust storm.\n\tThe road begins to crack, and holes begin to poke through revealing nothing but darkness under the asphalt. Gaige instinctively grabs Idaline around the waist and lifts her and himself off the ground and into the air. As the two of them soar through the air, Gaige looks back to see the others. Adam sees the two huskies, and he proceeds to approach Brooklyn as they sprint.\n\t“Do you mind? I could save your life!” He points to the sky at Gaige and Idaline, which Brooklyn takes a notice of.\n\t“You do realize I knew what you were thinking already, right!?” The mare shouts back. The reindeer hesitates, trying to make sense of what she said. “We don’t have an eternity! Just do it!”\n\t“Er, right!” Wrapping his arms around the yellow horse, he begins to lift them off the ground and into the sky. As he turns back to see through the dust and sand, he can barely make out the doctor carrying his children and several officers sprinting as fast as they can. “What about them?” Adam yells.\n\t“I really don’t know. I can’t predict the future,” The mare responds in a depressed voice.\n\tFinally after the earthquake has stopped, and the dust settles, Gaige looks up at the sky and sees no stars, nor does he see the moon. But he can barely make out a spiral of clouds. The scarlet husky turns his attention to the ground where he can see something that was not there before. “A metal spike? But… Oh no...”\n\tSkewered on the end of the spike is a body; the body of Dr. Abhimanyu Raghuraman. The twins have fallen on either side below, and both are on all fours, trying to stand up. The amount of blood gushing from the adult snow leopard is immense. Simultaneously, the two of them make it to their feet, and stand upright. They look up and see their father impaled by the enormous spike. Both of them are stunned. \nAnirudh and Arvind each scream at the top of their lungs, “APPA!”\n\tGaige and Adam immediately lower themselves and their passengers to the ground, dropping them off. The husky and the reindeer each nod at the other, and they take to the sky once again. The two of them approach the doctor, and Gaige checks for the doctor’s pulse. His eyes widen in shock. The doctor whispers, “Take… me… down…”\nThe husky turns back to Adam and repeats, “‘Take me down.’ That’s what he said.” The reindeer nods and grips the doctor above and below the wound. When Gaige does the same, the two of them begin to slowly lift the doctor off of the spike.\n\t“Do it quickly… please…” The doctor gasps, but by the time he had finished speaking, though, he had already been removed from the spike. Spitting up blood, Gaige and Adam begin to lower the snow leopard down to the ground. They set him down to the side of the spike, and an officer comes over with a first aid kit. The doctor reaches up and tells the officer as he opens the case, “I don’t think that will do much good.”\n\tAnirudh and Arvind sprint over, shoving Adam out of their way, screaming and crying. As they kneel beside their father, they simultaneously whimper in sadness, “Appa, don’t die!”\n\t“Listen, my children…” The doctor moans. “I want you to leave me.” The twins gasp in shock at the thought of leaving their father to die. “Go with Gaige and the rest of them. They will need you more than me.”\n\t“Never!” Anirudh shouts.\n\t“You need to live!” Arvind presses.\n\t“Enough!” Their father yells, silencing both of the twins. “Go… Sometimes... Things must be done.” The twins each start to bawl even louder at their father’s statement, but they are cut off by him continuing, “You’re wasting time! Go now!”\n\tThe twins hesitate, look at each other, and then at their father. Tears continue to flood from their eyes as they simultaneously scream, “Goodbye!” The two boys immediately stand up and run away towards Idaline and Brooklyn. They both stop between the two females and face the spike. Gaige and Adam follow, as well as a pair of FBI officers, a dalmatian and a black fox.\n\tThere is a huge puff of steam from the underside of the spike, and a large platform begins to lower to the ground in front of the group of people. They all step on, and the platform begins to simply float back into place.\n\nChapter Twenty - October 10th, Late at Night\n\n\tOnce inside the spike, the inside is revealed to be metallic as well. Long rows of lights illuminate the inside like a sloped, curved, tubular hallway. There is a soft buzzing sound, supposedly from the machinery, as well as the whimpering from the twins. Gaige starts to lead the way down, but the dalmatian steps in front of the scarlet husky. “Please, let me do my job, sir.”\n\tGaige sighs deeply, and answers, “Go ahead, I guess.”\n\t“Jackson, you’re with me.” The the group splits, and a short, black fox rushes to the dalmatian's side.\n\tThe group of people continues down the tube for nearly ten minutes, travelling downward all the time. They are all completely silent the entire time. None of them know what to expect, or anything remotely close to what could be at the end of the tunnel. Finally, the silence is broken by the sight of a large, blue, circular door. Gaige pushes the officers out of the way and walks up to it. Meanwhile, there is chatter behind him.\n\tGaige places his paw on the door and before he pulls it back to punch a hole through it, he looks to the right and sees that a small keypad with space for input on it. It is floating a few inches from the husky’s head. I see… so you want proof? Gaige focuses on the keypad and closes his eyes tightly. He begins to communicate with the keypad’s computer processor, urging it to open the door for them.\n\tSuddenly there is a hissing sound, and the door simply melts away into a blue metallic liquid. It is sucked into the floor through a row of holes which seal themselves after the liquid has completely receded into them. Gaige tells the computer in the keypad a simple, Thanks, and the pad beeps before retreating into a compartment in the wall of the doorway.\n\tThe group of people proceeds through, and after turning a corner they find themselves in a large room. The floors are all lights, the walls and the ceiling are white, and the walls extend nearly thirty feet above the ground. On the other side of this room is a platform of the same appearance as the wall floating about four feet above the ground. Floating above that, however, is the reason they all came to this place.\n\tAll of them slowly step forward to see the blue, glowing gemstone. It is small, just barely large enough to fit in Gaige’s paw. Before Gaige is barely close enough to grab the Phoenix Gem, it is snatched away from him, by a brown hoof.\n\t“Hello, Gaige.” A deep voice from the entrance of the room resounds throughout the area. Everyone turns back to see four people; a brown otter, a tan hare, a black and white border collie, and a tall brown stallion with a white mane.\n\t“Wait, I know that voice!” Gaige yells from across the white room. “That’s Julius Arno!”\n\t“Correct, my dear Gaige. No I have not forgotten you. Why do you think I wanted you to work for me in the first place?” There is a moment of silence in the room. The collie speaks again. “I had been working with your father, and I secretly perfected the technology to find subjects like us.”\n\t“What do you mean us?” Gaige yells, flying above the group of people and landing in the space between the two clusters.\n\t“Have you been having any strange premonitions or dreams recently?”\n\tGaige stands upright and cocks his head to the side. “Yes. I have been.”\n\t“Did Daron?” The thought of Daron brings back the memory of his death for both Gaige and Vincent. Gaige nods in response. “That was me. I can see into the future, and take action to prevent what I see.”\n\t“Then how…” Gaige is cut off.\n\t“One of the things I’ve yet to perfect about my ability is that if my vision is about someone else, they can see them as well. Don’t worry, you aren’t crazy. All that was me.”\n\t“So killing Daron prevented our marriage? But that was just a dick move! Why would you have the need to kill him?!” Gaige screams at the collie.\n\t“It was more for Vinny.”\n\tAll attention turns to the stallion. “I kind of hated him from the get-go. He was annoying, he didn’t care about what I had to say unless it applied to him directly, and he…” At this point his smack talk had been interrupted by a scarlet-furred fist that was lit on fire. Vincent flies backward, caught off guard by Gaige. Realizing that none of them are able to help, Julius, Linus, and Austin all back away into a corner.\n\tWhen Gaige sees that the collie has done this, the husky immediately lifts himself off the ground and soars straight at Arno. Both Austin and Linus duck out of the way as Gaige punches the chest of the collie. His fist leaves not only dent marks, and broken bones, but searing burn marks.\n\tWhen the husky straightens up, he turns around not by choice, but by force. Vincent has recovered from the flaming punch from Gaige, and is holding the scarlet canine by the neck from across the room. Gaige steadily floats closer to the stallion until Vincent’s hoof is wrapped around him. “If you couldn’t tell… from before…” Gaige grunts, nearly suffocating, “You can’t kill me…”\n\tVincent tilts his head to the side, but realizes the mistake he’s made. the stallion looks at his hoof, and he can see through the fur that it had turned completely blue. He felt cold, the feeling travels slowly up his left arm, into his torso and downward through his legs. At the same time, the cold makes its way up his neck and to his brain. “What are you doing to me!?” The stallion shouts at the husky.\n\t“Giving you a cold front in your blood!” Gaige yells as the stallion drops him to the floor. The horse begins turning completely blue, to the point where ice begins to form where sweat has appeared on the ends of his fur follicles. Gaige seizes the chance to stand quickly, and winds up one last punch to head. “With a chance of hail!” Upon impact, Vincent’s head shatters into pieces. Gaige has won. “Now you know something like what you’ve been doing to people, you bastard!”\n\tGaige turns on Austin and Linus, who are cowering in the corner of the room. “You two!” He yells at them. They both straighten up at attention, standing upright. “I’m giving you one chance to make yourselves into decent people. Leave now, and I’ll spare you.” The otter and the rabbit look at each other in confusion, and they attempt to bring Julius Arno with them, but Gaige stops them. “Forget him! He’s dead anyway. I’m not getting any thoughts from him.”\n\tAs Austin and Linus sprint out of the room and through the tube, Gaige returns his attention to the statue of a decapitated brown stallion with a white mane. There is a light blue glow coming from the pocket of his pants. Gaige reaches in and sees the Phoenix Gem. The blue crystal glows brightly in his paw. “Can anybody get a signal down here? I want to see if Dr Raghuraman is still alive.” The twins’ eyes immediately light up, and the rest all tilt their heads.\n\tIdaline steps forward and shouts at her brother, but he does not turn around, “What about Daron? I thought you wanted to bring him back.”\n\t“I know. I had a change of heart when we got onto that platform.” Finally, he turns. “I can’t easily let go of the fact that I would be separating the family of some children. I would just be satisfying my own desires to be with someone who asked me to let him be dead.”\n\t“What do you mean?”\n\t“The dream on the plane... I’m taking its advice. Now, would someone please tell me if the doctor is alive!?”\n\t“I just got word that they moved him to a hospital, but it doesn’t look good. His condition is getting worse by the second!” Says the black fox after locking his phone.\n\tGaige begins to pace himself over to the floating platform on the other end of the room. With the gemstone in his grip, he steps quickly across the area. The group of people part ways, clearing a path for Gaige. There are two exceptions in the way, however. Anirudh and Arvind simultaneously scream at the scarlet-furred husky, “Thank you!”\n\tWhen they split and allow Gaige to pass, the husky approaches the gray platform. Suddenly, Gaige feels vibrations in his right paw; the gemstone is pulsing. It continues to quicken, and Gaige looks down at the small crystal in fear that it might explode, but he still carries on.\n\tAs he arrives in front of the platform, the Phoenix Gem has ceased pulsing, and is now continuously glowing and vibrating. The floating gray platform has changed, however. It is now glowing as well, and it has changed from a gray to bright white.\n\tGaige reaches out above the platform, and he feels like the stone is trying to float above the platform like before. He lets it go, and it does just that. Floating like nothing Gaige can imagine, the gemstone rests in its place. Then, Gaige can hear something. A voice? He leans in closer. I can hear a voice.\n\tThe rest of the group stands in awe and confusion. They are all intrigued by the gem, but they cannot hear anything. For them, the room is silent. Gaige cannot understand what exactly the voice is saying to him, but he answers in his mind, Save him. Save and heal Doctor Abhimanyu Raghuraman. Spare him from the death he does not deserve. Heal his wounds, and give him life again.\n\tThe Phoenix Gem begins flashing rapidly. Faster and faster, until the light completely blinds everyone in the room.\n\tSometimes, things have to be done. Gaige tells himself.\n\nChapter Twenty One - September 4th, Morning, Ten Years Later\n\n\t“Daron, you’ll miss your bus!” Gaige calls up the stairs to his son. He is waiting for him in the front door holding it open. Meanwhile, the black wolf child suddenly comes bounding down the pine wood staircase clad in a red and black striped shirt and jeans with brown sneakers.\n\t“Sorry, Daddy!” He shouts back. Gaige gives Daron his backpack and a brown paper bag full of food as Daron whizzes by.\n\t“Hey, kid!” The husky yells to the wolf who is now about to enter the driveway. He turns back still running, and forgets he is about to collide with the side of Gaige’s cherry red Camaro. When Gaige realizes that this has happened, he immediately rushes to aid his son who has steadied himself again. Staring blankly into Gaige’s eyes that are burning with anger, he cringes in fear of what the husky might do to him.\n\tGaige kneels down next to his son and looks at the car. “Great job, kid.” He turns to face the young wolf. “You scratched the paint.” He smiles, which confuses the child immensely.\n\tDaron thinks to himself, But, I just scratched! I scratched his special car! The one he got from his special friend! If it were Papi’s car, he’d spank me real hard! Does daddy not care about his own? My brain hurts…\n\t“Now I have a reason to change the color!” Daron is in shock. “I never told you this, but ever since my special friend gave me this car, I really hated the color. The problem was, I never had a reason to change it because it never got damaged or anything. But now, you fixed that problem for me! Thanks, Daron!” Gaige gently hugs his son as the bus pulls up to the house. “And there’s the bus! Come on, I’ll walk you up.”\n\tAs Daron climbs the steps onto the bus, Gaige pulls the driver aside for a chat. “You know, if there’s any problems, just let me know.”\n\tThe otter woman replies, “Well, I’ll just tell the school, and they can tell you, okay?”\n\t“That’s perfectly fine, too. Thanks, err…” Gaige hesitates for input of a name.\n\t“Kathy.”\n\t“Right. Thank you!” Gaige steps back and sees his son sitting in the front window. He waves to Daron, and Daron waves back as the bus pulls away.\n\tAs Gaige reenters the house, he shuts the glass door behind him. He climbs the stairs and enters his studio. His dual-monitor computer setup lays waiting with a blank text document left open from the night before. Gaige closes the door behind him and secures the lock.\n\tAs he sits down at his L-shaped desk, he scoots the chair forward across the wood floor. He pulls out the keyboard tray and begins typing…\n\nDear Daron,\n\tI know it’s been a few years since I’ve written to you, and I apologize. I really do miss you sometimes. But honestly, how could I completely forget? Those were the most memorable days of anybody’s life. I remember making the wish to save the doctor instead of you. But, I’m glad because if I hadn’t saved HIM, Anirudh and Arvind probably wouldn’t have grown up the same way. Last time I checked, Anirudh is going to major in music therapy and minor in neuroscience at NYU. His brother was accepted into Yale, and he’s studying to be a mathematician. Or maybe it’s the other way around? Honestly, with identical twins I haven’t seen in several years, I have no idea.\nAfter the event, Idaline got the job she always wanted… Being the owner of our diner. It got pretty popular when that video I made on the way to the pyramid went viral. Adam and Brooklyn went back to their normal lives, and nobody knows what the hell happened to Linus and Austin, though, so I can’t say. And me? Well, I lost my powers like everyone else, and things went sort of normal for me. I was accepted into Johnson and Wales, and I graduated with a bachelor’s degree in 3D animation, and a master’s in game design.\n\tWhile I was there, though, I met Neil. We hit it off okay, and though there were some bumps in the road, we overcame them in the end. Sure, he was a band geek, and I was a computer nerd, we still both shared a lot of interests. We both like video games (it’s obvious for me, right?), any music that’s not rap, we both like marching bands, and we both had our own YouTube channel. Sure, mine is bigger because of the whole event, but nonetheless, we’re both pretty big. And, unfortunately we both keep it secret that we’re married because the world sadly hasn’t changed in the way of gay rights still (seriously, republicans have ruined everything these past few years).\n\tWe had a kid you know. We named him Daron. I thought you might like that. And yes, I still have your car. Daron actually scratched the paint this morning, but I treated it as a reason to change the color. I hope you don’t mind, puppy.\n\n\t“I thought you stopped writing to him years ago.” Ian’s voice is heard by the husky, which startles him.\n\t“Jesus, don’t sneak up on me like that, Ian. And how did you get in here?” Gaige replies, clutching his heart like it’s about to burst. He turns to see the black wolf, not much taller than Gaige. He is wearing a leather jacket and jeans, but he feet are naked.\n\t“I know where you keep the key. Why are you writing to him again?”\n\t“I saw him last night in a dream. This is probably not really cause for alarm. I just felt like venting, I guess.”\n\t“I see. Well, are you done?” Ian inquires.\n\t“Almost.” Gaige replies.\n\t“Then I’ll give you a minute.”\n\t“Thanks, puppy.” Ian shuts the door and stands to the side of it. Gaige continues...\n\n\tAnyway, I hope everything’s going well upstairs. Say hi to Gus for me, okay? The real Gus. And as for Arno and Vincent? I would hope and imagine hell is treating them nicely.\n\nSuddenly, there cursor leaves where Gaige left it. A few lines below the word “nicely,” there appears the line…\n\n\tI would have to agree. ;)\n\n\tGaige grins from ear to ear.\n", "writing_bbcode_parsed": "MOVEMENT THREE

Chapter Thirteen - October 7th, Mid-Afternoon

\t“Welcome back, Master. Did you enjoy your..." A creepy, almost deranged voice stops whispering, and then snickers at the sight of his master with no clothing on, "Oh?" There is no response from Vincent, who instead keeps walking toward the dresser. He was so upset as he brought himself back to his safe house, that he wasn't focused enough to bring his clothing with him. The source of the voice The voice belongs to a very fluffy tan and white hare, wearing nothing but a spiked collar.  stands up from the bed and comes out of the darkness. A very fluffy tan and white spotted hare, wearing nothing but a spiked collar and brown boxers, is revealed. “Master, I know you’re upset, but your clothing can be-.”
\t“It’s not that, Austin! Just because I was stressed out and unfocused, to the point where I left my clothing behind, doesn’t mean it matters right now. I have more.” The brown stallion flips his white mane back out of his face, but some of it is stubborn and falls into his vision again. He pushes it behind his ear with his finger as he dons some new garments. He is slightly embarrassed that he left behind his favorite shirt and the skinny jeans he wore to the hotel. “I guess I was too distracted by what I had to do to Daron, and how I failed. It made me forget to bring back my knife as well. It’s too bad, that was the one Father had given me. But the point is that I had to turn on my own lover! I had to kill him!” Vincent Parrish continues to don a pair of black jeans, covering the bottom of his naked body.
\tAnother voice from the shadows can be heard now. An ominous voice; one to wet oneself hearing. “I gave you specific instructions, child. You have dishonored them. Therefore, you have dishonored me.” Then a man steps into the light, a black and white border collie, dressed in a black t-shirt and jeans. He gives the horse a very stern look, his arms crossed. “I told you to use your power, not a knife.”
\t“Father, I’m sorry! I didn’t want to risk being seen by-” Vincent is interrupted by the collie.
\t“RISK!?” He rushes at him and gets in his face, pinning him to the wall. Even though Vincent is nearly a head taller than the collie, he still cowers in fear. Arno stares into the stallion’s fearful, brown eyes with his own. “Everything in life has risk, child! Now, if you want me to forgive you for your mistakes, you’ll have to try again. Find him, and kill him. My visions always come true, unless action is taken, remember?”
\tThe stallion sighs, “Yes, Father. I’ll find him.”
\t“Good. Now finish dressing yourself.”
\t“Yes, Father.” Vincent whispers as the collie leaves the room.
\t“Ever since he got out of jail, he has been nothing but picky about everything. Master, I know you are far superior to him in every way, and one thing puzzles me still…” Austin whispers as the dog is just out of earshot. “Why are you below Mr. Arno? Why wouldn’t YOU lead this cause, and maybe just kill the bitch?”
\tAt that last word, Vincent snatches a lash from on top of the dresser next to him and whips his slave’s belly with it. As the rabbit collapses, whimpering in pain, the stallion scolds him, “Don’t you EVER use that word.”
\t“Of course, Master. I’m sorry.”
\t“ARE YOU!?” He shouts at his slave.
\t“YES, YES! I’M SORRY, I’M SORRY!” Crying and cowering in fear of being whipped again, the sound echoes throughout the small, run-down house, rather than being absorbed by the carpet.
\t“You had better be.” The horse backs off as he says this, and continues to put on a pair of loose trousers. “Now, Austin, I know what you can do, and when you’re ready, I want you to find Daron again.”
\t“Oi! Parish! You may want to see this!” A voice calls from the next room.
\t“Just a second, Father!” He turns on the hare again. The stallion grabs the rabbit’s chin and holds it up. He bends down and pecks Austin’s nose saying, “Take your time.”
\tIn a room down the hall, Vincent sees, what could only be described as, a bad-ass computer setup at the very least. Six monitors all mounted to the wall, and a tower with green lights inside. The room is completely dark. The border collie is sitting in front of it with a window open showing a black background with fast-scrolling numbers and letters in green text. He is smirking deviously. “My child, this is one thing I could never trust anyone with before I was caught, ending my drug days. Come over here.”
The stallion obediently responds as he does as he is told his hoof steps echoing loudly, “Of course, Father.”
\t“You see this? This line right here…” He points to a single line of code that is completely static, unlike the constantly changing remainder of the code. “Do you know what that means?”
\t“I’m sorry, but no.”
\t“This means that this person right here…” He pulls up a picture of a computer-generated bear. “Has an ability. Find him, and if he doesn’t want to join us…” He looks up at the stallion standing above him. “You know what to do. And don’t fuck it up again, child.”
\t“What can he do?” Vincent asks.
\t“The bear is able to shape-shift. And you can easily tell that he would be useful.” Julius shrugs as he speaks.
\t“Augustus Clarkson… I’ll get Austin to find him.”
\t“Just remember what I told you. If you have to, use your ability. Got it?” He points at the horse breathing down his neck.
\t“Yes, Father.”
\t“Wonderful. Now go do something productive until Austin is ready. I heard that whip crack earlier. Sounded like you did a number on him.” Vincent nods as his steps can be heard throughout the room, clicking on the wooden flooring.
Suddenly the brown and white stallion stops and turns around. “Father?” He inquires to the dog.
\t“Yes, what is it, child?” He responds without looking away from the computer screens, typing rapidly on the keyboard. The loud clicks of the keys being pressed are easily audible from across the room.
\t“What am I? To you, I mean.”
\tThere is a long pause as Julius ceases his frantic typing. He rests his paws on his lap and folds them together. “What do YOU see our relationship as?”
\tWithout hesitation, Vincent blurts out, “Partners! But…”
\t“But what?” The border collie now looks at the stallion standing in front of the doorway.
\t“Well, you see, when I actually get the gemstone, I only get one wish. And well, you told me that I had to wish for you to have your wife brought back to life.”
\t“Your point being?”
\t“Well, since I took the power from the interpreter the other day, I looked a bit closer at some of the tapestries, and I found something a bit odd.”
\t“And what would that be?”
\t“I noticed some writing that was cut off in some of the pictures, but I put them together and it went something like, ‘In the darkness of the cavern in which It is found, should It be taken by the Horse or the Hound. Whomever it is should beware, whereas the Power is too rare. To falter on their desire would be mislead, and should be shunned, along with the dead.’”
\t“The dead…?” The collie tilts his head in confusion.
\t“It’s just a thought,” the stallion states quickly as he turns around, and with a swish of his tail, he is gone.
\t“I was listening in on the conversation. He never told me he had a wife.” Austin points out to the stallion as he re-enters the bedroom.
\t“Well, here’s the thing about Arno.” He goes down to the floor and kneels down in front of where the hare is doing so in front of the dresser. “He’s very determined to get what he wants, and he won’t stop until he gets it. This happens to be what he really wants, and he doesn’t understand that if I wish it for him, he may not get what he wants.” The horse replies very quietly, intentionally trying to avoid being heard by Julius. “Many years ago, Father was married. This was when he was just starting to get into drugs. Eventually, he started to get obsessed with drugs, and his wife was completely against it.”
\t“I knew about the drugs, but…” The rabbit is cut off by Vincent.
\t“Lest you interrupt me again, I swear to God there will be a repeat of what happened earlier.” The rabbit covers his muzzle and cowers in fear of being whipped again. The stallion sighs and continues, “Anyway, he was obsessed, and his wife was against the drugs. When she confronted him about it, he would beat her for questioning him.” Austin refrains from saying anything. “Eventually, she left him, and… well… She was so upset that night that she didn’t pay attention to the red light in front of her. She just sped through it, and there was a semi coming from the left. They came into contact at full speed, and basically, the truck won.” Immediately as he finishes speaking, he stands up from where he was kneeling. He makes his way over to the bed, which he lays down on.
\t“My God…” Is all Austin is able to manage. “Well…” The hare begins to say after a long silence. “I also heard that I need to find some people for you. I can do it now, if you want me to.”
\t“Wonderful. I’ll go get the pictures.”
After coming back with printed pictures of Gus and Linus, Vincent presents them to Austin, laying them out in front of him. After studying the one of Gus, the rabbit closes his eyes. He begins to concentrate on the image in his mind, and he starts to shake violently. He stays like this for several minutes, and Vincent leaves him alone, as this is normal for Austin. But eventually, Austin stands up from in front of the bed, and slowly shambles over to the wall next to the dresser, where there is a giant map of the US, Maine, and the world. Slowly, he moves his finger all over the map of Maine, and finally lands on a single spot. A small town called Akron, just to the Southwest of New Olive.
“Give me a pin.” Austin states flatly. Vincent then reaches into a box of long pins, and gives one to the rabbit, who places the pin in the exact same spot where his finger was.
\t“Akron, huh? That’s not far from here, I think.” The horse pulls out a phone from his pocket, which he draws a shape on, which unlocks the device. He starts searching for Akron in a map-based application, and gets directions to it. “Twenty minutes to drive, but I’m not doing that, am I? If you can give me an address…
\t“Give it to me.” The light brown hare snatches the phone from Vincent’s hooves, and starts frantically swiping, tapping, and dragging his finger all over the screen. When he is finished, he hands it back, saying something very unclearly, but the stallion figures it out as, “Here!” The stallion takes back the phone, and looks at it.
\t“Alright, then.” Before he steps out of the room to let Julius know where he is going, he crosses the room over to the bed, over to where Austin is sitting on the bed. He bends down and gives him another kiss on his nose. “I’ll be back soon, hun.”
\tHis hooves click loudly and echo throughout the corridor that leads to the master bedroom, which is the only other bedroom in the entire house. The bedroom door is closed, so Vincent knocks three times. “It’s me,” he shouts through the wood. The corridor is too dark to see anything.
\t“OH! Erm… don’t come in, I’m… Just hold on!” After a few seconds of what sounds like scrambling, Julius emerges from the room. “Yes, yes, what is it, child?”
\t“I just wanted to tell you that Austin found Clarkson. I’m going to get him…” He looks in the room, and there is very little light. The stallion continues, “Should I ask what you were…”
\tThe collie cuts him off before he can finish, “I don’t believe you have the right to do that, Parish. Now go get him, and don’t come back without that ability in some way, shape, or form. Don’t fuck up again!” Before Vincent is able to reply, the door is slammed shut, banging against the stallion’s face.
\tAs he makes his way back to his and Austin’s room, he finds the rabbit still sitting on the bed, not having moved a single muscle. However, he turns to Vincent, and wishes him luck.
\t“Love you,” he whispers to the hare, whose eyes grow as large as dinner plates. Vincent then kneels down in place, closes his eyes, and simply vanishes.

Chapter Fourteen - October 9th, Late Night

\t“But he’s a good guy! Good guys aren’t supposed to die!” Whimpering at the sight of Daron resting peacefully in the bed, Gaige covers his eyes with his paw, “And I was the one that killed him!”
\tA lion approaches Gaige, saying to him, “It’s okay to cry if you want to.”
\t“I don’t have anything left in me.” He sighs, “I’m such a baby I shed all my tears before.” He chuckles a bit. He remains still for a few minutes before he sighs and slaps his paws over his eyes. He groans loudly, letting everyone in the room know about his despair. “I just can’t believe I killed him.”
\tThe next thing Gaige knows is that the back of his head is slapped rather hard. “How many times do we have to tell you that it WASN’T your fault!?” The husky turns around to see his sister with her arms crossed. “Look, I can only assume that we’ll leave you alone with him if you want… right doc?”
\t“Only for a few minutes, but yes.” Dr. Raghuraman chimes in.
\tThen the lion doctor points out to the snow leopard, “You may be a geneticist, and though I agree with you, you have no business making decisions here, Abhi.”
\t“Fine…” The spotted feline grunts as he replies, dropping his vision to the ground.
“Yes, I would like a few minutes.” Gaige sniffles as Idaline, the lion, and Dr. Raghuraman leave the brightly lit room, and close the door behind them.
\t Gaige walks over to the side of the bed where Daron lay with his paws folded over his belly. The husky boy sits down in a chair next to the bed and leans over it. He rests his head on Daron’s lifeless arm. It is cold, like a piece of firewood after sitting in the snow for hours on end. “Daron,” He rubs his paw over Daron’s. “I’m so sorry, Daron. I should have warned you. But I didn’t.” Another sniffle. “And you paid the price for my mistake.” He does not cry at all. He simply rests there, his ear against the wolf’s chest, trying as best as he can to listen for a heartbeat, but there is none. Only complete silence.
\tHe stands up and gives the dead wolf a kiss on his forehead. There are several knocks on the door, which opens to reveal a lion and a snow leopard. “I’m sorry Gaige,” The lion states as he steps out of the way, “But your time is up. I must ask you to leave.” Obediently, without an argument, Gaige gives Daron one final kiss on the back of his paw, and leaves him, knowing well that he may never see him again.
\tIdaline sees Gaige performing this act, and begins to shed a first tear. She hasn’t cried since the first dinner with Daron.
\tHe closes the door behind him gently, and makes his way back upstairs. Up the elevators to the twenty-third floor, down the key-lime-pie-colored hallway, and into his and Idaline’s room. One that is no longer shared with Daron. Contemplating what had happened that day, recalling the events one by one, from him being woken up by the wolf, up until seeing him on his deathbed. It is night time now, and the city glows with building lights. Towering above it all, the red husky boy can see the new World Trade Center in the distance, standing high and proud.
\tI could go there… Gaige feels like he can do anything, and now that he has his powers, he realizes that he is right. I CAN do anything. What happens next can only be described as being done out of pure anger. Gaige slams his paw through the window, bursting a hole just barely large enough for him to fit through, which he does so, flying out into the night. I need to prove myself again… oh shit… I need an identity… He quickly flies back into the room and finds one of his shirts still packed away in his bag.
\tHe tears off the seam of the green t-shirt, and pokes two holes through it using Daron’s strength. Once he has successfully made two eye holes, he ties the strip of cloth around his head. Now I won’t be flooded with paparazzi everywhere after this whole thing blows over.
\tWithin seconds, he is off to the Freedom Tower once again. The sky is clear, stars are easily visible, and the city looks amazing. I wonder what would happen if I went down… The wind blows through his face as he dives down to the street below. He can almost feel a burn on his fur as he speeds down to the street below.
\tThen it hits him… I’m flying… I’m actually flying! But… How? He stops diving to the street well above the ground. What have I been doing differently this time? This can’t be right. No, I should be flying all over the place, but when I just… Then he blurts out, “RELAX! YES!” He is so overjoyed he continues to dive to the ground, finally pulling up just before he make contact with the asphalt. He hears many people around the intersection scream. Some run for their lives, but others stay and watch Gaige floating twenty feet above the pavement.
\tOne middle-aged hyena man shouts out to Gaige from the street corner, “Get your bloody ass down from there!”
\tGaige shouts back at him with his arms crossed, “I’ll never get my bloody ass down from here! My ass is perfectly fine and fluffy!” As he finishes his statement, he crouches in mid-air and speeds upward along the side of the nearest skyscraper. He slows down when he’s about 100 feet up, and comes to a complete stop when he sees a little squirrel girl looking out one of the windows.
\tWhen the little brown squirrel sees the husky on the outside of her window, she slaps her paws to her muzzle in shock and joy. She sprints away from the window, most likely to get her parents. Gaige decides to play a trick on the girl’s parents, and hide. Though Gaige cannot see it, the little squirrel brings her father back to the window with her. He peeks his head in front of the window to see that the girl and her father are standing there, the girl waving frantically, and the father staring in awe. Gaige decides to wave back to the girl, and leave. Soaring off into the night, Gaige salutes the father as he turns away and leaves them behind.
\t
\tAfter he finally makes it to the World Trade Center, he flies up to the observation deck where he finds a few tourists still in the restaurant there, and a family of black panthers outside on the actual deck. The parents are away from the two children, conversing amongst themselves. The children are both repeatedly running back and forth between the glass walls and the tower’s window, and banging into them. Gaige is above all this, watching it happen. He thinks to himself, These kids are going to kill themselves aren’t they? As the children run at the glass together this time, it finally breaks into several pieces, forcing the brother and sister to fall down off the deck, and down the side of the building. “GODDAMMIT I HATE IT WHEN I’M RIGHT!” He dives down after them, traveling faster and faster, passing floor after floor. The sister isn’t falling as quickly, so Gaige tries to get her first, which he does without a problem.
\tThe brother, however, is accelerating much quicker. They are very close to the ground now, and if Gaige doesn’t get him soon, it most certainly won’t end well. He’s almost there, “Reach out for me, kid!” He shouts to the boy, which he does so. The next thing the children know is that they are no longer falling, but flying upwards. The three of them gently come to a complete stop in front of the adults, who saw the whole thing happen open-muzzled. The children sprint to their parents as fast as they can, who welcome them with open arms. Both the mother and father have eyes full of tears.
They all thank Gaige meaningfully, and the mother asks, “Who are you?”
\tI hadn’t thought of a name… He thinks to himself before telling the panthers, “Well… I don’t plan to make this a regular thing. This was more of a joyride at first. I only put on the mask because… you know… obvious paparazzi is obvious..” He thinks about it for a second until Gaige is stricken with an idea, “You can call me the CopyDog... for now! Just be more careful, okay?” As he says this, he soars out into the night once again.
\t“Thank you…” The entire family shouts to the husky as he flies back to the UN.

\tThe next morning, Idaline Slaps Gaige’s head with a rolled-up newspaper. “I don’t know what the HELL has gotten into you, but this right here,” She then lays it out on the dining table in their room. It shows a colored photo of a silhouette of what appears to be the scarlet husky boy himself. “Is absolutely CRAZY! There’s a reason why we’re locked up in this hell hole! We can’t control our powers yet, you idiot!”
\t“Bitch, please, I was productive with what I did. I saved two lives last night who…” Gaige tries to explain himself, but he is cut off by his sister.
\t“I already know, and so does the rest of the world. Look…” She grabs the remote for the small TV on top of the counter. She flips the channel to a news channel, where a ferret in a suit is speaking, “...the World Trade Center last night, and began to plummet to their deaths, but…”
As they both sit at the small table, Idaline then changes to the New York news station, where a tigress is saying, “They fell about 30 stories down, before the girl was caught by the mysterious red husky stranger…”
Another channel… showing a meerkat and a koala, both very old, are speaking on a talk show. The meerkat behind a desk says “...do you think is his name, I heard he called himself the CopyDog, but…”
The koala interrupts him, “Wait, WHAT!?” The studio audience roars with laughter as the TV is shut off by Gaige, who gets up from his seat to do so. “Look…” The scarlet furred husky pauses and changes topics mid-sentence. “How did you even…”
\t“Pre-programmed shortcuts I discovered while you were out on your little, ‘joyride.’” She places her paws on her hips.
\tThere is a long silence as Gaige thinks of what to tell his sister. “Look, I don’t get it either, but as long as I’m relaxed, I can just think of what I want to do, and I just do it.”
\t“Goddamn fags always have to figure it out,” Idaline chortles, but Gaige is not amused. "That was uncalled-for. I'm sorry." Gaige turns away. "You do realize that I just said you were gay..." There is a pause as Gaige attempts to process the whole situation. "I had a dream last night about you and Daron getting married. When I thought you two looked good together, I realized the possibility you might actually be gay."
Gaige looks up at his sister and answers, "I am."
"I know. And I'm sorry I didn't believe you." The bright orange husky smiles warmly and opens her arms. “Just get over here, you fag!”
\t“I feel like I don’t want to right now.” Gaige gets up from his chair, and crosses over to the door to the bedroom. “I just want to be alone…” As he steps through the white doorway, he gently closes it behind him, giving off a few soft clicks.
\tIdaline’s arms flop to her side, slapping her body. She stares at the white painted door, and the tan wall around it. She trudges over to the other side of the kitchen, where the rust-red colored couch is sitting in front of a large television. The husky plops herself down, laying on the couch, her paws just short enough to comfortably stretch from end to end. God, what the hell did I even- She tells herself before being cut off by the main door to the hall.

Chapter Fifteen - October 7th, Early Evening

\tAs the wind begins to blow in the stallions face, he stands up from his kneeling position. Vincent looks down at himself, and sees that he was focused enough this time to remember his clothing. “Well, at least that’s taken care of,” he tells himself, checking to see if the address is correct. The street he should be on is called Jameson, but the stallion glances the street sign in the distance. He begins to make his way to it to get a better look. Eventually, as he can now read the green and white sign, he can make out “Jameson.”
“Good. Now to find number three…” The one to his right has white siding, green shutters, and a black roof. Immediately, Vincent knows this is not the one. Then he eyeballs the mailbox, which says, “One.” Logic would dictate that the third one would be right next to it… Right?
\tThree knocks on the door lead to no answer. A ring of the bell, still nothing. Is this even worth my time? Vincent listens at the door, through which he can make out an announcer, and an audience cheering. As well, he is able to hear a subtle sound of snoring. Realizing someone is still there sitting in front of the television after again knocking loudly several times, he finally proceeds to slowly open the door.
\tAs the knob clicks quietly, and the door slowly creaks open, the stallion can just barely make out the silhouette of a gazelle sleeping on the couch. All the lights are off, and all the floors are carpeted. Vincent creeps ever so slowly up to the snoozing gazelle, where he lightly taps his shoulder three times.
\tThe gazelle springs up from his seat on the black sofa, gaining his footing on top of the back of it. As he crouches on it, the gazelle angrily holds his fists in front of his face. “Get out of my house!” He shouts at the stallion, who has also taken a ready stance on the floor.
\t“I just want to talk to you.” Vincent replies back even louder, but calmer.
\t“To hell with you! You just want my money, don’t you!?”
\t“No, I don’t. I want to ask you about Augustus Clarkson.” This makes the gazelle’s eyes grow to the size of dinner plates.
The gazelle waits for several seconds in silence. His expression goes from sheer anger and fear, to that of remorse and sadness. He sighs, “What do you want to know?”
\t“I’m looking for him. I just want to know where he might be.”
\tThe gazelle crosses his arms in frustration. “Well, he’s not here, if that’s anything to you.”
\t“Really?” Vincent lets his guard down and tilts his head in confusion. “I could have swore he was here.”
\t“I told you, he’s long gone. Now scram!” The gazelle shouts again.
\t“Just a moment… maybe you can help me!” The stallion points a finger at the gazelle.
\t“What? Why me? And why should I care?” He starts backing up through the living room.
\t“Because I know what you’re thinking.” This makes the gazelle stop completely dead in his tracks. His arms fall stiff at his sides, rustling the black jeans and the white shirt he has on.
\t“Erm…”
\t“Yes, I know. I know what you’re hiding.”
\tI need to get out of here… the gazelle thinks to himself, attempting to rationalize any possible way to leave. He continues to back up.
\t“In fact I know exactly where Clarkson is.”
\tPlease, don’t… He is now against the white painted wall.
\t“And he’s in this very room… I know it’s you. Just reveal yourself to me, Augustus. Or do you prefer ‘Gus’?’”
\tThe gazelle sighs deeply, looking at the floor. A split second later, he has melted into a pink-orange gelatinous mass. Another moment later, he has reformed into the shape of a brown grizzly, still wearing the same clothing as before.
\t“Surely, you can agree this is more like it.” Vincent speaks calmly. Holding out his arms to the sides.
\t“I’m sorry. I discovered my power on my own long ago. I was just wishing at the window of my college dorm, wanting to be someone else.”
\t“What?”
\t“It was out of control at first. I kept changing into people I knew in real life. I was afraid to come out of my dorm, and I missed so many classes, I was kicked out of school.”
\t“That’s an interesting story. But how did you get here?”
“Well, a few years ago, I lost by bartending license. I got into a lawsuit with the city because I served a minor drinks. I lived in the upper floor of that bar, and when I came down one morning, there were police officers standing in front of the window.”
\tThere is a pause, and the dim room is silent. I need to remember this, the stallion tells himself as he listens to the story. It could be helpful.
\t“It’s just that the kid was so adorable, and he went to so much trouble to print a fake license, I just couldn’t help myself. I just wanted to be nice to him.” Gus is now raising his voice slightly.
\t“Do you know who he was?”
\t“I… think-,” He whispers.
\tVincent cuts him off, shouting, leaning forward intimidating the bear, “Do you KNOW who he was?”
\t“AAUGH, erm, Gaige Lane! He’s a short, scarlet husky!” He begins to cower in fear.
\t“I see...” The stallion leans back to an upright stance.
\tRegaining his footing as well, Gus states strongly, “Look, I don’t want to help you. I’ve said too much already.” He steps forward, putting his foot down. “Whatever it is, I want no part in any of it.”
\t“That’s alright.” This shocks Gus. “I can do this myself… Just at one small price.” The horse leaps from one end of the room to the other, extending his arm forward. As he lands on the coffee table, with his arm still extended, he grips the air in his grasp.
\tThe next moment is occupied by attempted screams as Vincent uses his power to choke the bear, but only enough to torture him into submission. Gus begins to float forward towards the stallion. Vincent grips the neck of the bear and pulls him close.
\tHe whispers very quietly in the bear’s ear, “You.”
\tBlood-curdling screams fill the house, demonstrating the agony Gus is feeling. The top of his head is being sawed off by the mere point and drag of the stallions index finger. It shakes violently as the muscles of Vincent’s finger lose control of the energy flowing through them.
\tWith a splat and the sound of chewing, the bear’s brain is on its way into the stomach of the stallion.
\tThe next moment, he is on the ground as a molten mass, with a color if pink and orange. The stallion is then reforming himself, not into himself but into a brown grizzly bear, wearing a green and yellow tee, and black jeans, just as he did before.
\tWith his new power in his grasp, he turns around and faces the dead body that belonged to Augustus Clarkson. He blows him a kiss as he begins to leave through the front door.
\tMeanwhile, the bear is laying on the ground, missing the top of his head. Blood has fallen from it and has stained his fur, and the white carpet he rests upon. It continues to leak, and drip from the inside of his skull.
\tVincent crouches on the cobblestone patio, and with a wave of his arm, closing the door behind him, he is gone.

\tAs the stallion disguised as a bear lands outside the door of his home, he knocks on the door three times, to which he is answered by a black and white border collie, whose eyes widen at the sight of the bear. “Clarkson?” At this, the bear begins to melt into the pink-orange mass. Even more shocked, Julius Arno jumps back, clutching his heart. “Holy fuck!” As the mass begins to reform, it forms the shape of Vincent Parish. The brown stallion stands tall above the collie, looking down at him smiling. His white mane flows in the gentle breeze. “God, child, you almost gave me a heart attack!”
\t“I didn’t mean to, Father.” Vincent replies with accomplishment.
\t“Yes, but I didn’t, child,” the collie reaches his arm up, and around the stallion’s neck, and finishes, “And that’s what matters, Vincent.”
\tWhat? Vincent!? He’s never called me by only my first name! He screams to himself in his mind, practically jumping for joy within the confines of his imagination. This is wonderful!
\t“Come inside, child! I saw on the news a storm is brewing.”
\t“Of course, father.”
The pair make their way into Vincent and Austin’s room. The collie sits down on the bed, inviting the stallion to do so with him. “Austin?” The horse asks.
“Yes, master?” The rabbit emerges from the shadows still in nothing but a pair of boxers.
“Oh, stop with all that ‘Master’ nonsense!” This makes the hare’s fur stand on end. His eyes grow in confusion. “You can call me Vincent if you want. And could you put a pot of coffee on for all of us?”
\t“All… of... us?” Austin stutters his question. “As in… me… too?”
\t“Yes. You too.” The hare’s eyes relax a bit as he smiles widely.

Chapter Sixteen - October 10th, Mid-Morning

\t“Doctor!” Idaline exclaims as she opens the door of the room.
“I want to come to talk to Gaige. I have something I’d like to say in regards to what happened today.” The doctor is holding a clipboard, which he gives to one of the guards, who agrees to hold onto it.
\t“Well, I guess you can come in.” As he takes the step inside, the Idaline closes the door behind the doctor. “He’s locked himself in the bedroom, and he won’t come out. I don’t know what he’s doing in there.”
\t“Contemplating his situation, perhaps?” The snow leopard asks plainly. He sits down and crosses his leg over the other on the white sofa under the large window.
\t“I doubt it. Usually he uploads a video every day, so if I know him, he’s using his webcam to…”
\tJust then the door to the bedroom clicks, and the knob turns. It slowly opens, revealing the head of a scarlet-furred husky. Gaige speaks. “Doctor Ragh? What do you want?”
\tHis face is one of remorse. “I wish to formally apologize for your loss, today.”
\t“Oh, who am I kidding. I did everything I could. I tried to help, but I just ended up failing.” Gaige steps out of the doorway at this point, and reveals himself.
\t“Listen, my friend. I know it’s very hard to go through something like this. In fact I watched my mother perish.” Gaige’s eyes light up. Dr. Raghuraman stands up from the sofa and begins to approach him. “I was walking in the city with her as a young adult. We approached an alleyway, and of course we kept walking. But as we passed, we were jumped by someone in a mask. All I could make out was that he had yellow fur, and he was a canine. He shot my mother with a gun, and I ran. Since we didn’t have cellular phones, the next best thing I could do was use the payphone across the street. By the time I had made the call, I noticed my mother lying on the ground. She was bleeding badly. She died at the hospital a few hours later.”
\t“But what does that mean to me?” Gaige presses with a sense of childishness.
\t“To you, it’s supposed to mean that you’re not the only one who has felt like they’ve killed someone, when technically they didn’t. Look, I feel like I could have saved her, but I did the right thing instead, and called for help. At the time, I was stupid, and my first instinct was to do the right thing. In that case, it killed someone.” Gaige’s eyebrows sink, as do the corners of his mouth. “What you can take away from this is that some things are out of your control, and you must…”
\t“Wait a minute! ‘Out of control...’ That’s it! That gem we’re looking for…” Gaige cuts off the doctor, extending his arm in front of him.
\t“What about it?” The doctor chimes in curiously.
\t“It grants a wish, right? I believe you told us that when you first showed it to us at my house.”
\t“I believe I… Wait, you don’t plan to…?” Gaige nods his head. “Oh, God.”
\t“We can get started right now, if you want.”
\tIdaline interjects worriedly, “Gaige, I know you miss Daron, but you need to understand that it may have been meant to be this way!”
\tDr. Raghuraman chimes in as well. “I agree with your sister, my friend. Bringing him back is wrong!”
\t“You would do the same for your mother if you had the chance, right?” Gaige shouts at the two people in front of him.
\t“I-I-I…” The snow leopard stutters nervously.
\tIdaline approaches Gaige while he isn’t looking, and takes a whack at the back of his head. Gaige yelps and stumbles forward. “Stop putting the poor doctor on the spot like that!”
\t“Did you HAVE to hit me?” Gaige yells, rubbing the back of his head where he was stricken.
\t“It seems to be the only way to get through to you right now. Am I correct, idiot?”
\t“No. I’m still going to use my wish to bring him back.” Idaline slaps her own face with her paw.
\t
\tAs the group of subjects enter the dark room, they immediately notice the vast number of monitors, all showing things from pictures of the gemstone, to heart monitors, to lines upon lines of code. However, among the rapidly changing code, there is one static line of still numbers. There are three people in lab coats working, two lions and a tigress.
\tThe doctor welcomes the group into the dark room. As he walks them over to his own desk in the corner, all the subjects look around in confusion. Adam Xin points out, “Why the hell are we even here?”
\t“Well, if you’ll come over here, you’ll be able to see.” As the doctor replies, he sits himself behind the desk, and turns on a rather large monitor behind him, which reveals a map of a satellite view of the Great Pyramids. “This is Project Phoenix. All of you have been briefed on the situation, and most of you have fulfilled your destiny already, but you could still be useful. X Case has surfaced. This man right here, Vincent Parish,” The brown stallion that killed Daron is shown on the screen. “Struck us yesterday at approximately 3pm. We lost some of our own, unfortunately.”
Gaige looks down at the floor at this. God, I wish that guy was here right now, I’d kill him on the spot. He tells himself, repeatedly.
\t“But nonetheless, we must pursue this man. He was the first to be brought in by the FBI a few months ago, and when we told him about the stone, he resisted. I was not there, but from what I was told by…” When the snow leopard stops, all attention throughout the room falls on him. “By Gaige and Idaline’s father. God, I miss that bastard!” Gaige and his sister both roll their eyes at this. “Anyway, when we told him what he was already capable of, he immediately ran out, and escaped. We searched for hours, but we could not find him. And now that he’s shown himself once again, we know he’s most likely found some others who want to steal the stone and misuse its powers. Gaige, like you, Parish is able to copy others’ abilities.” Gaige’s eyes light up. “But, it’s different. The reason why he did what he did is to try get other powers to add to his own. He eats people’s brains to get them! And his root power allows him to do that!”
\t“Oh, don’t worry, Doc. He won’t be doing it that much longer,” Gaige shouts at the doctor.
\t“I agree. We must find him and put him behind bars!”
\t“No…”
\t“No?” The doctor is puzzled by Gaige’s response.
\t“We can’t put him away. You couldn’t manage that if you tried. We should kill him. I was trying as hard as I could when I hit him yesterday, and he put up a lot more resistance than Daron’s car. I imagine if he were anyone but himself, I would have sent him through the walls and...”
\t“We get it! You’re really strong, and it’s pretty easy to tell your ego is too. Now would you SHUT,” Gaige’s sister slaps his face. “YOUR MUZZLE, ALREADY!?”
\tGaige silences himself immediately. “Thank you,” The doctor professes. “Gaige will go with me and two officers, as well as the local police in New Olive. Our target is the murderer known as Vincent Parish!”
\tGood. Gus thinks to himself, watching the doctor give his spiel. Everything is working perfectly... Now for the next phase…
\tStanding next to the bear is an otter. Gus lightly taps Linus with the back of his hand, giving an indication to execute what is about to happen.
\tLinus fakes a loud sneeze and voices, “Shit! That’s a lot of blood! Please excuse me while i fix this!”
As linus steps out of the dark computer room, Gaige turns back to watch. He can’t see very well due to his view being blocked by other people, but he recognizes the voice of the otter. I have a really bad feeling about this...
\t
Chapter Seventeen - October 8th, Early Morning

\tA few miles west of Akron, Maine lies the town of Sentro. The storm has passed through the night, giving the sun means to reveal itself. There are a few clouds, but they are all too pleasant. The next thing the tall, drunk vixen notices while passing is blinking, and then seeing a light brown-colored stallion with a white mane, crouching before her in khaki shorts and a green short-sleeve shirt. She stops dead in her tracks with a foot in front of her, which she pulls back slowly. She looks at the bottle of opened wine after pulling it out of her purse. She checks the label wide-eyed, and looks back at Vincent who has stood himself upright, looking at her blankly. I am never drinking again… She tells herself as she runs back the other way.
\tRaising his eyebrows, the stallion turns his back to the road and checks the house in front of him. The mailbox says it is the right one. He approaches the green single-level establishment with caution; he keeps light on his feet.
\tThree knocks and about 10 seconds later reveals Linus VanDiesel standing in the doorway. He offers his paw to shake Vincent’s hoof. Vincent accepts and speaks, “Are you Linus?”
\t“Yes, I am. Who are you, might I ask?” The otter presses releasing his grip on the stallion.
\t“I’m Vincent. I’ve been meaning to ask you some questions...”
\t“Well it’s kind of warm, don’t you think? Come inside, I have the AC on.” The pair make their way into a living room. There is an old red loveseat, as well as a brown leather recliner placed on the wall next to it. Both sit under windows with the dark green blinds pulled down. They are the only light source, so the room is very dim. There is a coffee table with a small laptop on it, plugged into a power outlet behind the recliner. The room is carpeted with a white shag, and there is an old CRT TV on the opposite wall from the sofa.
\tThe otter sits down on the recliner, and Vincent takes a spot on the couch. “I’m looking to improve myself.” The stallion states plainly.
\t“What does that have to do with me?” Linus replies.
\t“What would you say to unlimited power?”
\t“Not interested.”
\tThere is a moment of silence before Vincent stutters, “But, that doesn’t make sense.”
\t“I know what people like you do to people like me.”
\t“Wait, what do you think I plan to do?”
\t“Well…” Linus turns away. “You are a tranny chaser, aren’t you?”
\t“Erm, no.” Beneath his fur, Vincent is blushing hard.
This catches the otter’s attention. He turns back around around. “I’m listening.”
\t“Don’t be alarmed…” The horse stands to his feet, nearly hitting his head on the ceiling. He closes his eyes and simply melts into a pink-orange colored gelatinous mass, which reforms into a black and white border collie wearing the same clothes as before. Throughout the moment, Linus VanDiesel is sitting wide-eyed and open-mouthed, ears perked up high.
“This is Julius Arno. He’s my boss, but I call him ‘Father,’” Vincent explains. “We’re looking for something. Something very powerful.” The horse continues to explain what the Phoenix Gem is, meanwhile Linus is silent, listening closely. “But we don’t know where it is. we have a plan, but it requires you.”
\t“Why me?”
\t“Because you have a power like I do… almost.”
\t“Almost…?” The otter cocks his head to the side a bit.
\t“It’s really just that your ability is different from mine. For example, I’m able to copy others’ powers. We’ve been able to determine that you can communicate with technology. Accessing mainframes, hacking through firewalls, even completely shutting down entire systems… all of it is just with your thoughts.”
\tLinus leans back in the recliner and puts his paw on his forehead, looking up at the ceiling. “This is crazy. This can’t be real…”
\t“Then how do you explain what I just did a minute ago?”
\t“That’s true…” He sits there with his eyes closed for a few seconds, thinking hard about what he wants to do. Finally, he blurts out, “I’ll give it a try. I want this.”
\t“Good, good.” After resituating himself as the stallion he arrived as, Vincent plops himself back on the loveseat. “Try to control that television.”
\tThe otter looks at the CRT across the room. “On,” He says flatly. Nothing changes. “Activate?”
\t“You aren’t wanting it to turn on. You’re just telling it to. Try really concentrating on it… Really try to speak to it.”
The otter closes his eyes tightly, making his absolute best attempt to communicate with the electronic equipment. He thinks over and over, Turn on… Turn on… Suddenly, a short buzz is heard, and the sound of static resounds throughout the room.
\t“Excellent,” The brown horse mutters. “Now, do you still want to help me find this gemstone?”
\tLinus takes a second to answer, “Yeah. I want to.”

As Dr. Raghuraman continues to explain the plan, all of the electronic equipment suddenly shuts down. Computers, monitors, cellular phones, even the lights, all are down. Everyone immediately tries to restart their electronics, but Gaige instead leaps into the air, soaring over the heads of the group of subjects. He flies out of the room in a rage, and whizzes down the hall. When he gets to the end, he stops for a moment, still floating in mid-air. He begins to utilize more of the powers he has been given, like Brooklyn’s mind-reading powers, which he uses to track their path.
\tWhen he hears in his mind, the roof, he immediately takes off for the stairwell. He enters through the metal door, and begins to speed up through the floors, flying the whole time.
\tGod do these ever end!? He shouts in his mind. He begins to hear footsteps above him, and he immediately begins to scream, “Move to the side! Move to the side!”
\t“What? Me?” The government officer looks over the rail and sees the side of Gaige’s body whizzing against the inside rail. The officer realizes the situation and backs away to the outside rail. The next thing he knows is a scarlet and white blur speeding past him. “Holy shit,” he whispers in amazement.
\tFinally, Gaige is able to almost catch up to the bear and otter. He can hear them sprinting just a few floors up. He hears them break down a huge metal door, and the stairwell lights up a bit. They had made it to the roof, and Gaige flies out into the bright sunlight. The husky holds still, but not by choice. He is being held in place by a brown stallion with a white mane. Vincent is choking Gaige almost to death, standing nearly ten feet away, holding out his hoof in a fist.
\tBehind him is the otter known as Linus. “Good morning,” The stallion yells halfway across the helipad, “Oh, wait. It’s afternoon isn’t it?” The horse gradually makes his way closer to Gaige, who also starts to float steadily closer to Vincent. When Gaige is directly in front of him, halfway between their original positions, the stallion drops the husky, but only after cutting open his skull. As he chomps down on Gaige’s brain, he walks away from the scene towards a helicopter, leaving behind nothing but a dead, limp body behind on the hot metal platform.
\tAs Linus starts up the helicopter with his mind, he clambers into the pilot’s seat, with Vincent closely following behind, who takes shotgun, having finished consuming the brain of the scarlet husky, who still lays limp in the helipad platform. As the pair of them take off, Linus and Vincent head back to Maine to pick up Julius Arno.
\tThe rest of the subjects as well as the doctor finally arrive on the scene, and Gaige is still lying limp where he was, only there is one abnormality. The top of his head has regrown itself. The second piece is still there, but it has decayed. The fur has fallen off of it and blown away, and the flesh is slowly turning a nasty green. Everyone gathers around Gaige and Dr. Raghuraman checks for Gaige’s pulse.
Idaline is about to kneel down and mourn for the death, but suddenly there is no need. One of Gaige’s eyes shoots open. “Gaige?” Idaline whispers, standing in front of the boy’s face.
\tWhat happens next can only be described as momentary chaos. All of Gaige’s might becomes concentrated in one huge burst of flight. He knocks back all the people surrounding him, soaring nearly ten feet into the air. The scarlet husky screams, his eyes flowing with tears, “WHERE ARE THEY!?”
\t“Gaige! They’re gone!” Idaline shouts.
\tGaige looks down at the group of people, some of them still on the ground. He grits his sharp teeth, showing fangs. He slaps his paws over his eyes, tears still leaking through his fingers. Whimpering, he begins to slowly lower himself back down to the platform.
\tAs he makes contact with the ground, he gives himself a moment before collapsing on his knees. “I really hate them,” Gaige sobs into his paws. “I really do.”
\t“Well, there’s nothing you can do about them right now.” Idaline interjects frankly.
\t“No…” All the others’ eyes widen as Gaige stands up. “I still have my powers, but...” Gaige pauses as all the others lean in, listening intently. “It’s different. I feel stronger… stronger than before!”
\t“Given the circumstances, I don’t see how that’s possib-” The doctor cuts himself off to say something else. “Wait a second. Could it be that since some of Gaige’s powers aren’t embedded in his brain, he could have been able to salvage a few of them?”
\t“Not just a few,” Gaige replies. “I think I managed to get ALL of them back.”
\t“Care to elaborate?” The doctor inquires.
\t“Who has their phone, or whatever?”
\t“Got it,” Idaline interjects, holding out a white rectangular device.
\tGaige shuts his eyes, and he begins communicating with the device. In his mind, he tells the device a single time, Turn on… Suddenly the device’s company logo glows on the screen, indicating its activation. When the scarlet husky sees this, he tries again, this time to reactivate all the electronics in the city. When he hears sirens from below, he opens his eyes, and all the rest of the group are smiling warmly at him.
\tIdaline walks up to Gaige and wraps her arms around him, embracing him warmly. But this embrace is different than any other embrace exchanged between this brother and sister. Not since the loss of their father had Idaline shed a single tear. “I almost lost you today, bitch.” Some of the others try to forget hearing this last word. Idaline pulls away and scolds her brother, slapping him in the muzzle once, “You’re a crazy idiot, you know that?”
\t“Yeah, I guess I am!” Gaige grins happily, and Idaline returns it. “But we can’t waste any more time! We need to get to Egypt!” The brother and sister break apart, and Idaline brushes off her hoodie and jeans.
\t“That’s right! We need a jet though…”

Chapter Eighteen - October 10th, Noon

\t“I do apologize but this is the only way.” Dr. Raghuraman points out to the other 4 people in the back of the Escalade as they weave and wind their way through the frozen traffic of abandoned cars. “That helicopter they took was the only one we had stationed at the U.N. Headquarters.” Gaige, Idaline and the doctor’s children are all sitting comfortably in the back, with the twins in a third row behind the two huskies. Still, Gaige is nauseous at the constant turning back and forth.
\tFinally after surviving the ordeal, Gaige manages to stop himself from vomiting throughout the ride. They arrive at LaGuardia Airport after much pain and stress, and all exit the vehicle. Gaige has some trouble standing up for a minute, and Idaline volunteers to guide him through the terminal. By the time they had made their way to the gate, they had stopped at the door. Gaige is still stumbling at every step, and Idaline can tell through his fur that his face had gone a pale shade of green.
The german shepherd FBI officer who is with them flashes his badge at the guards already stationed at the gate. When they recognize it, one of the airport security guards, a very tall giraffe, bends down to unlock the door, which they all sprint through. As they travel down the tunnel, Gaige nearly tumbles to the ground twice, and once he does completely fall, rolling forward about a foot before the german shepherd picks him up. “Honestly, you can fly in circles a million times real fast, but you can’t handle riding in a car?” The officer asks sarcastically.
\t“Those two… instances… are different.” Gaige is now being legitimately carried into the plane by the german shepherd. “One is controlled, and the other I can do nothing about.”
\t“Well, to me, you’re just a selective wimp.” The officer replies.
\tAfter being set in a seat of the small plane in the first class section, the other subjects, Brooklyn Murray, Adam Xin, and several more FBI officers eventually arrive and strap themselves in on the plane, also in the first class section. Once everyone is strapped into a seat, the officer steps through the door and alerts the pilot they are all ready for takeoff. As they begin to taxi out onto the runway, Gaige dreads the ride to Egypt due to already being nauseous. Next to him is his sister who places her paw on his leg, reassuring him it’s alright.
\tAs they begin to speed down the runway, Gaige can see out the window. He gazes out the window, watching the airport whiz by, but as soon as he feels the plane lifting into the air, he turns away. He places his paws on each side of his head, rubbing his temples, trying to calm himself. Idaline interjects, “You need to sit back if you want to feel better.” Gaige is unsure if she is right, but he considers all that’s happened. He decides he has no choice but to trust his sister’s judgement, even if she may be wrong.
\tSitting across from Idaline is the yellow mare Brooklyn. The orange husky inquires once the plane has leveled off, “So, if you can read minds, why didn’t you pick up on Gus and Linus plotting to double-cross us?”
\tThe yellow horse looks down at her lap. “I almost did.”
\t“What do you mean?” Idaline asks angrily.
\t“See, I’m able to read THOUGHTS. Reading their inner opinions is not within my reach. I could only tell what people are thinking at the exact moment I try to read them.” Brooklyn looks up at Idaline across from her, who is listening with her arms crossed. “I was able to tell what Linus was thinking, and he was saying things like, ‘I wonder what this is going to be like?’ But Gus was a puzzle.” Gaige’s ears perk up. “From him, I never got anything. Not a single thought. Just silence.” A hush falls over the entire plane. “I just dismissed it as me making a mistake, and I didn’t bother to try reading him again.”
\t“This would have been much easier if you had told us about this,” Dr Raghuraman points out. He is sitting across the aisle of the plane, but he is still attentive of Brooklyn’s speech. “We could have questioned him, and held him captive.”
\t“No.” A voice from the scarlet husky resounds throughout the plane. “You couldn’t have held him. He has a telekinetic ability, and he can teleport. You’d never be able to hold him in one place for long.” All the subjects, officers, and the doctor all pay close attention to Gaige. “He’s a cold-blooded killer. He tried to murder his own boyfriend. The second time he actually did. Daron told Idaline and I what happened the first time, and he told us that he was attacked by Vincent with a knife.”
“A knife?” The doctor responds.
“Yeah. Apparently he must not have known then that Daron had his ability, but by the time he came to kill him the second time, he must have known. He tried to get to his brain, and he used his power to do it that time.”
\t“What do you mean, ‘He must have known?’” Idaline chimes in.
\tThe doctor interjects, “From what Gaige has said, I can say there may be some other force at work here. Correct me if I’m wrong, Gaige, but it could be another person, perhaps. It may or may not be Vincent himself, but somehow someone close to that stallion has access to a similar, if not the same system that we use to find people with abilities.”
\t“I agree with that. But that brings up the question… ‘Why is he doing this?’”
\t“If he’s trying to gather powers, he may be trying to get to the Phoenix Gem!” The doctor exclaims. This makes all the subjects’ eyes widen substantially.

\t“I got him, Father! We need to go!” Vincent shouts through a megaphone. The helicopter hovers above Julius Arno’s home. The black and white border collie rushes out to see a ladder in front of his door, with Austin following closely behind. “Austin, I’m glad to see you out of that phase!” Austin’s attire, normally consists of him wearing nothing but a pair of boxers and a collar. Now, he is wearing a graphic tee-shirt depicting a rabbit on a bike smiling, with a caption, ‘Life is good.’ He also sports a pair of jeans, similar to Vincent’s own pair.
\tAs he begins to climb the ladder, Julius Arno holds his tongue until he successfully clambers into the back of the chopper, with Austin again following closely behind. Vincent reaches out his hoof and helps the two of them up into the chopper. “So where are we going, child?”
\t“Egypt,” Vincent replies, shouting a bit due to the spinning blades. “The gemstone lies under one of the pyramids.” Once the three of them are strapped in, they retract the ladder and fly off for the nearest airport.
\tGod. What the hell am I doing? Vincent asks himself on the way. I must be mad. Why did I kill innocent people!? They didn’t do anything wrong. Nothing! Was it just to please Julius? Why should I listen to him at this point? I’m stronger than him, and I could kill him easily. Why didn’t do that before!? He’s crazy! Completely bonkers! He’s stupid, too! I blatantly told him NOT to bring back his wife, and he didn’t even get a hint!
\t“I’ll set us down next to that private jet down there,” Linus inquires into the microphone of his headset. “Is that one okay?”
Vincent is woken up from being lost in his thoughts. “What? Oh. Yeah, that should be fine as long as it’s been fueled.”
Linus closes his eyes, concentrating on communicating with the plane on the tarmac. The helicopter begins to lose its flight path, and starts to lean to the right side a bit. When Linus stabilizes it again, he opens his eyes and speaks. “It’s full.”
\tAfter touching down well away from the plane, the four of them sprint to the staircase leading up to the jet. There is a fox in a blue suit with a red tie standing at the foot of the stairs. He flashes a badge at them saying, “Lieutenant John Smith. This plane is private property, and you are trespassing.”
\tVincent sticks out his hoof, and grips the fox. He levitates him to the side, choking him in the process. When he lets him go, the stallion whispers the lieutenant’s ear, “I only spared you because you’re cute.”
John nods in fear. “Thank you,” he replies.
\tVincent proceeds to lead the way up the staircase, entering the cabin. All of them immediately turn left and intrude on the pilot and copilot, a tabby and a bull, having a conversation about music genres. Vincent proceeds to choke the pilot until the bull sprints out of his chair and out of the plane. When Vincent releases the the tabby, she does the same. Austin closes the cabin door behind them. As Linus assumes the pilot’s position, he begins to speak to the plane again in his mind, telling it to start up. “I think I can take it from here. You take a seat in the cabin.”
\t“If you say so.” Making his way back to the cabin, Vincent notices Julius beckoning him over. He accepts with reluctance, still unsure what to think of him. “Father, you and I go back. Far back.”
\t“Yes, I know.” Julius is typing in his phone. His leg is crossed over the other, his short, fluffy tail curled up on his side. “I remember I pulled you into an alleyway and knocked you out with a single blow with the back of a gun. You were such a wimp back then!”
\t“Yes, I remember, Father…” Vincent stares at the border collie, until he speaks. “Father, there’s something you should know before you do this.”
\t“Hm? What is it, child?” He replies, continuing to type on his phone.
\t“I don’t think you should bring her back.”
\tThis causes Arno to cease his rapid clicking of the phone’s keyboard. “Why?”
\t“‘In the darkness of the cavern in which It is found, should It be taken by the Horse or the Hound. Whomever it is should beware, whereas the Power is too rare. To falter on their desire would be mislead, and should be shunned, along with the dead.’ Don’t you see? ‘shunned along with the dead’ means you shouldn’t bring back the dead. I’ve told you this before, but you just didn’t listen!”
\tThis finally triggers an instinct in Julius to drop his phone to the ground, giving off a few soft thumps on the carpeted cabin. “I…”
\t“I’m really sorry Father! I should have explained it further, but instead I just left it alone!” Vincent shouts at the border collie, falling to his knees, and waddling his way over to Julius. He places his head in the collie’s lap.
\t“It’s…” Vincent faces the border collie face to face. “It’s okay, child.”
\t“What!?” Shouting, the stallion leaps up from his kneeling position. Standing upright, his ears scrape the ceiling of the cabin.
\t“Eeep!” The voice of a small, tan rabbit shrieks in fear of the sudden sound. Both the collie and the stallion gaze blankly at the hare. “Sorry… I got scared.”
\t“What do you mean ‘it’s okay?’” Vincent inquires as he plops back down on the seat.
\t“I was thinking about it myself. When you told me the passage the first time, I didn’t think it mattered.” The stallion grunts quietly. “But, the more I thought about it, I began to question its meaning, and I eventually had a sneaking suspicion that what I wanted to do might not work the way I would think it to work.”
\t“So… you want to call it off?”
\t“Hell, no! I just have something comparable to my original desire.”
\tVincent raises his eyebrows, and his eyes widen. “What?”
\t“If I can’t bring someone back from the dead, I can create a NEW Sheila that’s just like her!”
\t“You know what? If you REALLY want to try to do that, go ahead, but it will probably fail.” Vincent slaps his hoof to his face. I can’t believe I’m stuck with this idiot. If I could teleport while moving, I would easily leave these schmucks behind and get the gemstone for myself.

\tGaige turns over in his sleep. His feet are kicked up, and he is leaning back. He begins murmuring in his slumber, “Daron… I’ll bring… you back.”
\t
Visions of Daron fill his head; visions of him staring at his screen in the hotel with glasses on, typing up a document. His silver fur shines in the light of the chandelier. He sees himself crawling on the floor. Gaige fails to surprise the wolf, and as he straightens up, he sees Daron, no longer hunching over the keyboard, but rather leaning back, completely lifeless.
\tHis eyes are completely black, the top of his head has been cut clean off, his brain is missing. Suddenly, Daron begins to move. His head jerking from side to side, like a glitching animatronic. Gaige wants to flee, but when he starts, he slips on the floor and falls, landing on a wood floor.
The environment has changed. Gaige is back at his home. He is playing a game with Idaline in the two recliners. The doorbell rings, and Gaige stands himself up and makes his way out of the living room, stumbling all the way. He opens the door to see Daron just as he was in the hotel. He is still sitting in the desk chair limp and lifeless, his head still jerking back and forth. The wolf steadily begins to move forward, floating towards the scarlet husky.
During this entire time, Gaige remains silent, with a blank expression on his face. Now, he refuses to move. Instead, he opens his arm as if to embrace Daron. Daron begins to stand up and walk towards Gaige.
\t“Daron! You… You’re better!” Gaige shouts.
\tThe tall wolf stands upright, with his head normal again. Stepping lightly into Gaige’s embrace. He returns it, and bends down to whisper into Gaige’s ear, “Leave me.” Gaige is shocked. “Don’t bring me back, whatever you do. It’s not meant to be.”
\t“NO!”
\t“Gaige, please find someone else. Do this for me.”
\tScreaming, Gaige watches as Daron begins to detach from the embrace, disintegrating, turning into a gray dust. The wind catches the dust and blows it away.

\tGaige opens his eyes to see that outside the window of the plane, it is dark. Gaige turns over and sees Idaline standing over him, shaking him awake. “We’re almost there. How are you feeling?” The bright orange husky asks her brother.
\t“How am I feeling?” Gaige mumbles, his eyes still partially closed. “What do you mean?”
\t“You were acting really sick when we left New York. Remember? You completely passed out about a half-hour into the flight.”
\t“How long was I out?” Gaige inquires, sitting upright, resetting the seat to the normal position.
\t“About eleven hours. Are you feeling okay?”
\tGaige looks around and sees Brooklyn Murray, Dr Raghuraman, the twins, and Adam Xin, along with several officers, all sitting comfortably in seats. Idaline takes a set next to her brother and fastens her seatbelt.
\t“For the third time, how the hell are you feeling?” She yells at her brother, startling everyone on the plane. One of the officers reaches for his pistol.
\t“I’m fine. Much better.” Gaige replies calmly, strapping himself in.

\tChapter Nineteen - October 10th, Late at Night

\tThey all feel several large bumps as the jet bounces down the runway in Cairo. After taxiing to come to a complete stop, there are two large, black Navigators waiting at the gate for them. The group of people exits the plane, and all of them have glum faces. They are all worried about what Gaige might do with the gemstone.
\tThey clamber into the Navigators and zoom off to leave the airport. Idaline taps Gaige on the shoulder, whispering, “What are you thinking?”
\t“I’m not sure. I feel very conflicted about bringing Daron back now,” Gaige answers, staring out the window. The lights are all whizzing past them, looking like a blur. “I had a dream about him.”
\t“Tell me about it.”
\t“I don’t remember it too well, but I remember at the end, we were hugging and he told me not to bring him back. Then, he turned into dust and the wind picked him up.” Gaige turns over and faces his sister. “Then I woke up.”
\t“Damn… I wish I knew what to say,” Idaline answers.
\t“I wish I could even make a decision. Daron, world peace...” There is silence in the SUV for a moment. “Do you think I should reveal to my fans why I haven’t been uploading?”
\t“What do you…” Gaige cuts his sister off.
\t“I mean, should I reveal my abilities?”
\tIdaline remains completely silent for a solid minute until she says, “I wouldn’t, but I’m not you.”
\tGaige pulls out his modified iPod and checks if there is a signal. When he sees his bars are full, he states, “Good enough for me.” Opening up the camera, he turns on the light in the SUV. He hands the device over to his sister and asks, “Would you mind filming it?”
\tIdaline swipes the ipod out of his paw and aligns the shot. “You can crop with this right?”
\t“Yeah. Just start recording when you’re ready.” A beep comes from the device, signaling the start of the video. “Guys, I haven’t been uploading much since I hit a million subs, and I want to make up for it with this video. If you haven’t heard, look up right now… And I mean it! Pause this video, and go on any news site. There’s probably an article about some unidentified object flying through New York City and saving the lives of two children who fell off the Freedom Tower.” There is a second of silence.
\t“Now that you have seen that, there is one thing I’d like to admit… I’ve never really had many secrets throughout my career on YouTube. And I guess I’m lucky for that, because I’m not good at keeping secrets. What I’m saying is that it was me. I saved those kids. The reason I haven’t uploaded these past few days is because I’ve been all over the world. Normally I record from my house in Maine, but recently, I’ve been working with the government at the United Nations Headquarters in New York. Now I am in Cairo to execute the mission.
“If you want proof, flying is not the only thing I can do…” Gaige holds out his paw, snaps his fingers, and his thumb catches on fire. The glow of the flame reflects off the windows of the SUV. Gaige increases the size of the fire to cover his paw completely as he continues, “Like I said, there are other things, but given the environment, and what I have available to me, this is all I can do right now. If there is demand for another video like this, I’ll put one out. If you made it this far into the video, kudos to you, and I’ll see you in the next one.” There is a pause, and as Idaline taps the button to stop recording, she returns the iPod to her brother’s grasp.
\t“Thank you. I’m curious to see how this will all play out.”
\t“No problem.” As Gaige shuts off the light in the car, and begins to edit the video that was just taken, Idaline continues, “Just don’t put me in the description, okay?”
\t“Wouldn’t dream of it.”
There is about ten minutes of silence in the car before someone else speaks. “We weren’t in the video, were we?” Two snow leopard children simultaneously turn on the light in the back of the Navigator. Anirudh and Arvind look as if they are at gunpoint.
\tGaige turns back and looks at the twins. “I don’t think so. Not as long as Ida kept the camera focused on me.” Gaige flips through the video quickly and checks for a stray shot, and he does not find one. “You’re good,” Gaige presses, giving a thumbs-up. The twins sit back in their seats.
\tAs they zip past the streetlights, Gaige leans on the vibrating window, thinking, I can’t believe it. Why would he want to stay dead? Is he happier there? I wish I knew. Why does it have to be in a dream. The vision I had when I met him… The one at HQ… Now this… They don’t even seem related! The first one almost wants me to get together with him, the next tells me I’ve killed him, and now this one wants me to leave him for dead!
\tThey all told of the future. One was proven impossible, the next was proven correct immediately, and the third… No, that wasn’t the future. That was advice. But why…
\tWithout warning, the SUV grinds to a halt. Gaige looks out the window he had been leaning on, and can easily make out the Great Pyramid of Giza. Gaige, Idaline, the doctor, and the twins all step out of the car and stare at the sight. It is immensely cold, and the night is clear. Maybe my answer will be in there.
\tSuddenly, the ground begins to shake, and a massive amount of sand and dust begins to fall onto the group of people, who have now been joined by Brooklyn and Adam in the other car. Idaline loses her balance and tumbles over onto her brother who catches her in time.
\t“Doc, is this supposed to be happening!?” Gaige shouts to the tall snow leopard.
\t“I don’t think so, but it would make sense if there is another pyramid!” He replies.
\t“What do you mean ‘another!?’” Brooklyn jumps in sarcastically.
\t“Apparently, when archaeologists did all their initial work here, they weren’t very thorough.” Dr. Raghuraman stares at the screen of his tablet. It is beeping and flashing furiously. “I’m reading a huge piece of metal or something similar right below us!”
\t“So it’s rising up!?” Idaline screams as she gets to her feet.
\t“Yes! We need to move now!” The doctor shouts through the dust storm.
\tThe road begins to crack, and holes begin to poke through revealing nothing but darkness under the asphalt. Gaige instinctively grabs Idaline around the waist and lifts her and himself off the ground and into the air. As the two of them soar through the air, Gaige looks back to see the others. Adam sees the two huskies, and he proceeds to approach Brooklyn as they sprint.
\t“Do you mind? I could save your life!” He points to the sky at Gaige and Idaline, which Brooklyn takes a notice of.
\t“You do realize I knew what you were thinking already, right!?” The mare shouts back. The reindeer hesitates, trying to make sense of what she said. “We don’t have an eternity! Just do it!”
\t“Er, right!” Wrapping his arms around the yellow horse, he begins to lift them off the ground and into the sky. As he turns back to see through the dust and sand, he can barely make out the doctor carrying his children and several officers sprinting as fast as they can. “What about them?” Adam yells.
\t“I really don’t know. I can’t predict the future,” The mare responds in a depressed voice.
\tFinally after the earthquake has stopped, and the dust settles, Gaige looks up at the sky and sees no stars, nor does he see the moon. But he can barely make out a spiral of clouds. The scarlet husky turns his attention to the ground where he can see something that was not there before. “A metal spike? But… Oh no...”
\tSkewered on the end of the spike is a body; the body of Dr. Abhimanyu Raghuraman. The twins have fallen on either side below, and both are on all fours, trying to stand up. The amount of blood gushing from the adult snow leopard is immense. Simultaneously, the two of them make it to their feet, and stand upright. They look up and see their father impaled by the enormous spike. Both of them are stunned.
Anirudh and Arvind each scream at the top of their lungs, “APPA!”
\tGaige and Adam immediately lower themselves and their passengers to the ground, dropping them off. The husky and the reindeer each nod at the other, and they take to the sky once again. The two of them approach the doctor, and Gaige checks for the doctor’s pulse. His eyes widen in shock. The doctor whispers, “Take… me… down…”
The husky turns back to Adam and repeats, “‘Take me down.’ That’s what he said.” The reindeer nods and grips the doctor above and below the wound. When Gaige does the same, the two of them begin to slowly lift the doctor off of the spike.
\t“Do it quickly… please…” The doctor gasps, but by the time he had finished speaking, though, he had already been removed from the spike. Spitting up blood, Gaige and Adam begin to lower the snow leopard down to the ground. They set him down to the side of the spike, and an officer comes over with a first aid kit. The doctor reaches up and tells the officer as he opens the case, “I don’t think that will do much good.”
\tAnirudh and Arvind sprint over, shoving Adam out of their way, screaming and crying. As they kneel beside their father, they simultaneously whimper in sadness, “Appa, don’t die!”
\t“Listen, my children…” The doctor moans. “I want you to leave me.” The twins gasp in shock at the thought of leaving their father to die. “Go with Gaige and the rest of them. They will need you more than me.”
\t“Never!” Anirudh shouts.
\t“You need to live!” Arvind presses.
\t“Enough!” Their father yells, silencing both of the twins. “Go… Sometimes... Things must be done.” The twins each start to bawl even louder at their father’s statement, but they are cut off by him continuing, “You’re wasting time! Go now!”
\tThe twins hesitate, look at each other, and then at their father. Tears continue to flood from their eyes as they simultaneously scream, “Goodbye!” The two boys immediately stand up and run away towards Idaline and Brooklyn. They both stop between the two females and face the spike. Gaige and Adam follow, as well as a pair of FBI officers, a dalmatian and a black fox.
\tThere is a huge puff of steam from the underside of the spike, and a large platform begins to lower to the ground in front of the group of people. They all step on, and the platform begins to simply float back into place.

Chapter Twenty - October 10th, Late at Night

\tOnce inside the spike, the inside is revealed to be metallic as well. Long rows of lights illuminate the inside like a sloped, curved, tubular hallway. There is a soft buzzing sound, supposedly from the machinery, as well as the whimpering from the twins. Gaige starts to lead the way down, but the dalmatian steps in front of the scarlet husky. “Please, let me do my job, sir.”
\tGaige sighs deeply, and answers, “Go ahead, I guess.”
\t“Jackson, you’re with me.” The the group splits, and a short, black fox rushes to the dalmatian's side.
\tThe group of people continues down the tube for nearly ten minutes, travelling downward all the time. They are all completely silent the entire time. None of them know what to expect, or anything remotely close to what could be at the end of the tunnel. Finally, the silence is broken by the sight of a large, blue, circular door. Gaige pushes the officers out of the way and walks up to it. Meanwhile, there is chatter behind him.
\tGaige places his paw on the door and before he pulls it back to punch a hole through it, he looks to the right and sees that a small keypad with space for input on it. It is floating a few inches from the husky’s head. I see… so you want proof? Gaige focuses on the keypad and closes his eyes tightly. He begins to communicate with the keypad’s computer processor, urging it to open the door for them.
\tSuddenly there is a hissing sound, and the door simply melts away into a blue metallic liquid. It is sucked into the floor through a row of holes which seal themselves after the liquid has completely receded into them. Gaige tells the computer in the keypad a simple, Thanks, and the pad beeps before retreating into a compartment in the wall of the doorway.
\tThe group of people proceeds through, and after turning a corner they find themselves in a large room. The floors are all lights, the walls and the ceiling are white, and the walls extend nearly thirty feet above the ground. On the other side of this room is a platform of the same appearance as the wall floating about four feet above the ground. Floating above that, however, is the reason they all came to this place.
\tAll of them slowly step forward to see the blue, glowing gemstone. It is small, just barely large enough to fit in Gaige’s paw. Before Gaige is barely close enough to grab the Phoenix Gem, it is snatched away from him, by a brown hoof.
\t“Hello, Gaige.” A deep voice from the entrance of the room resounds throughout the area. Everyone turns back to see four people; a brown otter, a tan hare, a black and white border collie, and a tall brown stallion with a white mane.
\t“Wait, I know that voice!” Gaige yells from across the white room. “That’s Julius Arno!”
\t“Correct, my dear Gaige. No I have not forgotten you. Why do you think I wanted you to work for me in the first place?” There is a moment of silence in the room. The collie speaks again. “I had been working with your father, and I secretly perfected the technology to find subjects like us.”
\t“What do you mean us?” Gaige yells, flying above the group of people and landing in the space between the two clusters.
\t“Have you been having any strange premonitions or dreams recently?”
\tGaige stands upright and cocks his head to the side. “Yes. I have been.”
\t“Did Daron?” The thought of Daron brings back the memory of his death for both Gaige and Vincent. Gaige nods in response. “That was me. I can see into the future, and take action to prevent what I see.”
\t“Then how…” Gaige is cut off.
\t“One of the things I’ve yet to perfect about my ability is that if my vision is about someone else, they can see them as well. Don’t worry, you aren’t crazy. All that was me.”
\t“So killing Daron prevented our marriage? But that was just a dick move! Why would you have the need to kill him?!” Gaige screams at the collie.
\t“It was more for Vinny.”
\tAll attention turns to the stallion. “I kind of hated him from the get-go. He was annoying, he didn’t care about what I had to say unless it applied to him directly, and he…” At this point his smack talk had been interrupted by a scarlet-furred fist that was lit on fire. Vincent flies backward, caught off guard by Gaige. Realizing that none of them are able to help, Julius, Linus, and Austin all back away into a corner.
\tWhen Gaige sees that the collie has done this, the husky immediately lifts himself off the ground and soars straight at Arno. Both Austin and Linus duck out of the way as Gaige punches the chest of the collie. His fist leaves not only dent marks, and broken bones, but searing burn marks.
\tWhen the husky straightens up, he turns around not by choice, but by force. Vincent has recovered from the flaming punch from Gaige, and is holding the scarlet canine by the neck from across the room. Gaige steadily floats closer to the stallion until Vincent’s hoof is wrapped around him. “If you couldn’t tell… from before…” Gaige grunts, nearly suffocating, “You can’t kill me…”
\tVincent tilts his head to the side, but realizes the mistake he’s made. the stallion looks at his hoof, and he can see through the fur that it had turned completely blue. He felt cold, the feeling travels slowly up his left arm, into his torso and downward through his legs. At the same time, the cold makes its way up his neck and to his brain. “What are you doing to me!?” The stallion shouts at the husky.
\t“Giving you a cold front in your blood!” Gaige yells as the stallion drops him to the floor. The horse begins turning completely blue, to the point where ice begins to form where sweat has appeared on the ends of his fur follicles. Gaige seizes the chance to stand quickly, and winds up one last punch to head. “With a chance of hail!” Upon impact, Vincent’s head shatters into pieces. Gaige has won. “Now you know something like what you’ve been doing to people, you bastard!”
\tGaige turns on Austin and Linus, who are cowering in the corner of the room. “You two!” He yells at them. They both straighten up at attention, standing upright. “I’m giving you one chance to make yourselves into decent people. Leave now, and I’ll spare you.” The otter and the rabbit look at each other in confusion, and they attempt to bring Julius Arno with them, but Gaige stops them. “Forget him! He’s dead anyway. I’m not getting any thoughts from him.”
\tAs Austin and Linus sprint out of the room and through the tube, Gaige returns his attention to the statue of a decapitated brown stallion with a white mane. There is a light blue glow coming from the pocket of his pants. Gaige reaches in and sees the Phoenix Gem. The blue crystal glows brightly in his paw. “Can anybody get a signal down here? I want to see if Dr Raghuraman is still alive.” The twins’ eyes immediately light up, and the rest all tilt their heads.
\tIdaline steps forward and shouts at her brother, but he does not turn around, “What about Daron? I thought you wanted to bring him back.”
\t“I know. I had a change of heart when we got onto that platform.” Finally, he turns. “I can’t easily let go of the fact that I would be separating the family of some children. I would just be satisfying my own desires to be with someone who asked me to let him be dead.”
\t“What do you mean?”
\t“The dream on the plane... I’m taking its advice. Now, would someone please tell me if the doctor is alive!?”
\t“I just got word that they moved him to a hospital, but it doesn’t look good. His condition is getting worse by the second!” Says the black fox after locking his phone.
\tGaige begins to pace himself over to the floating platform on the other end of the room. With the gemstone in his grip, he steps quickly across the area. The group of people part ways, clearing a path for Gaige. There are two exceptions in the way, however. Anirudh and Arvind simultaneously scream at the scarlet-furred husky, “Thank you!”
\tWhen they split and allow Gaige to pass, the husky approaches the gray platform. Suddenly, Gaige feels vibrations in his right paw; the gemstone is pulsing. It continues to quicken, and Gaige looks down at the small crystal in fear that it might explode, but he still carries on.
\tAs he arrives in front of the platform, the Phoenix Gem has ceased pulsing, and is now continuously glowing and vibrating. The floating gray platform has changed, however. It is now glowing as well, and it has changed from a gray to bright white.
\tGaige reaches out above the platform, and he feels like the stone is trying to float above the platform like before. He lets it go, and it does just that. Floating like nothing Gaige can imagine, the gemstone rests in its place. Then, Gaige can hear something. A voice? He leans in closer. I can hear a voice.
\tThe rest of the group stands in awe and confusion. They are all intrigued by the gem, but they cannot hear anything. For them, the room is silent. Gaige cannot understand what exactly the voice is saying to him, but he answers in his mind, Save him. Save and heal Doctor Abhimanyu Raghuraman. Spare him from the death he does not deserve. Heal his wounds, and give him life again.
\tThe Phoenix Gem begins flashing rapidly. Faster and faster, until the light completely blinds everyone in the room.
\tSometimes, things have to be done. Gaige tells himself.

Chapter Twenty One - September 4th, Morning, Ten Years Later

\t“Daron, you’ll miss your bus!” Gaige calls up the stairs to his son. He is waiting for him in the front door holding it open. Meanwhile, the black wolf child suddenly comes bounding down the pine wood staircase clad in a red and black striped shirt and jeans with brown sneakers.
\t“Sorry, Daddy!” He shouts back. Gaige gives Daron his backpack and a brown paper bag full of food as Daron whizzes by.
\t“Hey, kid!” The husky yells to the wolf who is now about to enter the driveway. He turns back still running, and forgets he is about to collide with the side of Gaige’s cherry red Camaro. When Gaige realizes that this has happened, he immediately rushes to aid his son who has steadied himself again. Staring blankly into Gaige’s eyes that are burning with anger, he cringes in fear of what the husky might do to him.
\tGaige kneels down next to his son and looks at the car. “Great job, kid.” He turns to face the young wolf. “You scratched the paint.” He smiles, which confuses the child immensely.
\tDaron thinks to himself, But, I just scratched! I scratched his special car! The one he got from his special friend! If it were Papi’s car, he’d spank me real hard! Does daddy not care about his own? My brain hurts…
\t“Now I have a reason to change the color!” Daron is in shock. “I never told you this, but ever since my special friend gave me this car, I really hated the color. The problem was, I never had a reason to change it because it never got damaged or anything. But now, you fixed that problem for me! Thanks, Daron!” Gaige gently hugs his son as the bus pulls up to the house. “And there’s the bus! Come on, I’ll walk you up.”
\tAs Daron climbs the steps onto the bus, Gaige pulls the driver aside for a chat. “You know, if there’s any problems, just let me know.”
\tThe otter woman replies, “Well, I’ll just tell the school, and they can tell you, okay?”
\t“That’s perfectly fine, too. Thanks, err…” Gaige hesitates for input of a name.
\t“Kathy.”
\t“Right. Thank you!” Gaige steps back and sees his son sitting in the front window. He waves to Daron, and Daron waves back as the bus pulls away.
\tAs Gaige reenters the house, he shuts the glass door behind him. He climbs the stairs and enters his studio. His dual-monitor computer setup lays waiting with a blank text document left open from the night before. Gaige closes the door behind him and secures the lock.
\tAs he sits down at his L-shaped desk, he scoots the chair forward across the wood floor. He pulls out the keyboard tray and begins typing…

Dear Daron,
\tI know it’s been a few years since I’ve written to you, and I apologize. I really do miss you sometimes. But honestly, how could I completely forget? Those were the most memorable days of anybody’s life. I remember making the wish to save the doctor instead of you. But, I’m glad because if I hadn’t saved HIM, Anirudh and Arvind probably wouldn’t have grown up the same way. Last time I checked, Anirudh is going to major in music therapy and minor in neuroscience at NYU. His brother was accepted into Yale, and he’s studying to be a mathematician. Or maybe it’s the other way around? Honestly, with identical twins I haven’t seen in several years, I have no idea.
After the event, Idaline got the job she always wanted… Being the owner of our diner. It got pretty popular when that video I made on the way to the pyramid went viral. Adam and Brooklyn went back to their normal lives, and nobody knows what the hell happened to Linus and Austin, though, so I can’t say. And me? Well, I lost my powers like everyone else, and things went sort of normal for me. I was accepted into Johnson and Wales, and I graduated with a bachelor’s degree in 3D animation, and a master’s in game design.
\tWhile I was there, though, I met Neil. We hit it off okay, and though there were some bumps in the road, we overcame them in the end. Sure, he was a band geek, and I was a computer nerd, we still both shared a lot of interests. We both like video games (it’s obvious for me, right?), any music that’s not rap, we both like marching bands, and we both had our own YouTube channel. Sure, mine is bigger because of the whole event, but nonetheless, we’re both pretty big. And, unfortunately we both keep it secret that we’re married because the world sadly hasn’t changed in the way of gay rights still (seriously, republicans have ruined everything these past few years).
\tWe had a kid you know. We named him Daron. I thought you might like that. And yes, I still have your car. Daron actually scratched the paint this morning, but I treated it as a reason to change the color. I hope you don’t mind, puppy.

\t“I thought you stopped writing to him years ago.” Ian’s voice is heard by the husky, which startles him.
\t“Jesus, don’t sneak up on me like that, Ian. And how did you get in here?” Gaige replies, clutching his heart like it’s about to burst. He turns to see the black wolf, not much taller than Gaige. He is wearing a leather jacket and jeans, but he feet are naked.
\t“I know where you keep the key. Why are you writing to him again?”
\t“I saw him last night in a dream. This is probably not really cause for alarm. I just felt like venting, I guess.”
\t“I see. Well, are you done?” Ian inquires.
\t“Almost.” Gaige replies.
\t“Then I’ll give you a minute.”
\t“Thanks, puppy.” Ian shuts the door and stands to the side of it. Gaige continues...

\tAnyway, I hope everything’s going well upstairs. Say hi to Gus for me, okay? The real Gus. And as for Arno and Vincent? I would hope and imagine hell is treating them nicely.

Suddenly, there cursor leaves where Gaige left it. A few lines below the word “nicely,” there appears the line…

\tI would have to agree. ;)

\tGaige grins from ear to ear.
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