Several months had passed. Tom and Laura sat together on a hard laminate floor. They were in a different bunker, one that was quite some miles away. It was significantly smaller than the other one, containing only a few bedrooms, some other basic niceties and the small gym they now resided in.
"You're not feeling it properly," she said, "You're trying too hard."
"How can someone try too hard?" Tom rebutted, "Maybe your aura's just stronger than mine."
Laura sighed and rolled her eyes, "It can't be stronger, you're just not getting it. Maybe if you stopped trying to do it with a clenched fist."
"But it looks so much cooler," Tom protested.
Aaron and Zach entered the room alongside Michael. Zach carried a bag-pack over his shoulder.
"Finally," moaned Laura, "I was starting to wonder if you'd be training us today at all."
"Sorry," apologised Michael, "But finding this copy wasn't easy."
He was now clean shaven and looked decidedly more well-kept. He reached in Zach's bag and dropped a copy of 'The seven sources of power' in front of Laura.
"How much of this did you read?" he asked Laura.
"Not much," she admitted, "I only had that one night."
He sat with them and gestured for Zach and Aaron to join them.
"Alex not joining us again?" Zach asked.
"He's up on the ground talking to his Mum," explained Aaron.
Tom shook his head disapprovingly, "Is he going to be alright? He spends nearly all his time there."
Michael opened the book toward the latter sections, "We'll have to catch him up later. It's time you all knew the truth about my time beyond. The task I've been set. We've been set."
The page illustrated seven circles. Green, red, blue, grey, yellow, black and white.
"Each of these represents a source of power. Earth, Fire, Water, Wind, Energy, Dark and Light."
He turned the page, the illustration now showed the seven orbs surrounding a person's silhouette each connected to him via rays of auras.
"I don't remember much from my time beyond. It's all a little too much to think about. But this I remember. They gave me a task. A quest."
"What kind of quest?" asked Tom.
"The devil-killing kind," explained Michael, "Or at least that's what some cultures have called him. There's been many names for him throughout history. Abaddon, Hades, Pluto, Satan. You know him better as the darkness."
The two teenagers stared with blank expressions at him.
Laura gulped and said, "We're...going to kill the devil?"
Michael nodded.
"You're joking," Tom said.
Michael's expression did not change from serious, "We've got a plan."
"What?" Tom asked incredulously, "From some old book!"
Michael nodded again sternly, and it was Tom's turn to gulp nervously.
"It's long been written that if someone were to unite the seven sources of power," said Zach turning the page, "they could harness them all."
The next page illustrated the silhouette's hand outstretched, firing an aura of the seven colours mixed together.
"Ethereals only have one power." continued Aaron, "But it's been said that somewhere, in another realm, there exists a place where you can gain more. You can harness more powers if you bring the source to this place with you. Harness them all, and you will be stronger than any being in history."
Michael agreed, "That's right. The orb's are scattered throughout the realms, their locations lost to history. We have to find them. Then, we can end the ancient war forever. Once and for all. Good will triumph over evil, eternally."
"Great," Tom said sarcastically, "So all we need to do is find an unfindable thing of which we don't know what and then go looking through entire universe's for small spherical objects."
"These things won't just be any old place, Tom," Laura said, "These are items of great power. There'll be a trail. Somewhere."
Tom reached in to his pocket and pulled out a small Polaroid picture. It was him, on his thirteenth birthday. Besides him, was Christian. They were both smiling broadly. Tom was happy because Christian had given him an Xbox 360 that year. Christian was just happy to be with family, Tom thought.
He sighed audibly, "He was the closest thing I had to a dad. He always taught me that family mattered, more than anything else in the whole world. The possession made him betray that. Betray us."
Tom looked at his companions, a single tear fell from his left eye on to the picture.
"The dark hurt my family." he said, "Nothing is more important than family. I'm in. Where do we start?"
"Luckily," said Zach reaching in to his bag-pack, "we've got a good place to start."
He placed the two pieces of the broken dark orb in front of them. Laura looked tense and nerved by the artefact.
"It's alright," reassured Zach, "There's no acolytes left in Ethereum who can use it any more. It's safe to put it back together."
Tom picked up one half as Laura collected the other. They pushed the pieces in to each. It glowed for a few seconds and floated in the air between them. Then, dropped to the floor in one solid piece.
"One down," said Tom, "Six to go."
YOU ARE READING
The Ethereal Saga - Volume One - The Child of Light
FantasyA mother who refuses to remember, an all too familiar school counsellor, and a teacher hiding a terrible secret. Alex never knew his father. A fact which he has allowed to define him for his whole life. He always believed there was more to the myste...
