Sonora, and the Scroll of Alexandria Read online

  “What’s that?” Allora asked, letting her mother go.

  “The will to fight back.”

  Just then Tanner, Dax, and Katie popped through the portal.

  “Thanks for coming,” Milly said, directing them to the training ring. “There is something that I needed to teach all of you, something that could mean life or death in a fight. Allora, I need you to demonstrate. Please hit me with a hadron burst.”

  Allora went to the other side of the ring. She pulled in hadrons and fired a burst at her mother. Milly placed her hands, palms out, toward the purple ball of energy. It hit an invisible field and dissipated. Milly barely moved and had no signs that the hadron burst had even caused her to flinch.

  “It’s called a hadron shield, and it’s your best defensive weapon against any attack.” Milly directed them to face her and prepare to defend themselves. “All right, I want you to place your hands in front of your torso and try to focus your hadrons outward from your fingertips. Think about bending that energy toward yourself. That should help make a bubble of energy in front of your body.”

  “Milly, I can barely produce a spark,” Katie said. She had been practicing all summer with only minimal progress.

  “That’s OK,” Milly replied. “You only have to focus a small amount of hadrons for this exercise. The larger the attack, the greater amount of energy you will need to produce.” Milly shot a small hadron burst at her daughter, which hit the invisible shield in front of Allora, blew up in a shower of yellow sparks, and then dissipated. Milly repeated the exercise with Dax and Tanner, who were able to block the attacks after a few tries.

  “You ready?” Milly asked, unsure about Katie’s timid posture.

  “I think so,” Katie responded, putting her hands in front and focusing intently. Milly’s yellow ball of energy flew through the air, striking Katie’s hands and knocking her backward onto the ground. She shook her hands wildly, feeling the sharp sting of electricity. “Well, that felt great.”

  “Again,” Milly said as Katie got to her feet.

  “I can’t do it. I’m just not able to focus enough to stop it.”

  “Just take a deep breath. Clear your mind of all thought. Then let the breath out. Your body will feel a tingling sensation, and the hairs on your arms will raise. Once you feel that energy, take in another deep breath, and focus on that energy around you. Feel it absorbing into your limbs.”

  They all watched Katie close her eyes and take two deep breaths. The hairs on her arms rose as she took in her second breath. With her eyes closed, she extended her arms and placed her palms outward. Without warning, Milly sent a shot of hadrons toward the unsuspecting girl. The ball of hadrons exploded against an invisible wall of energy, showering the rest of them in yellow light. Katie had opened her eyes just in time to see the light display. She smiled emphatically.

  “I guess you can do it,” Allora said, patting her friend on the back.

  They practiced the same exercise on each other, taking turns shooting hadron bursts at their invisible shields. After an hour, they were exhausted. They collapsed on the floor, panting and sucking in air. Milly threw a couple of water bottles to them.

  “Is this even water?” Dax asked.

  “No, it’s not, but your mind can’t tell the difference,” Milly said, walking over to a large lever sticking out of the wall. She pulled down on the rubber grip. Suddenly the whole building shook like an earthquake had started. “You guys might want to move.”

  The ground beneath them started to shake and move. The training circle split in the middle, sliding apart. The four teens got up quickly and ran over to Milly. From below the training circle, a strange contraption rose from a large crevice in the ground. There were large logs, swinging leather bags filled with sand, rope ladders, walls of stone dragon heads, and other strange objects. The obstacle course was over a hundred feet and took up the entire training room.

  “Any keeper, guardian, or rebel fighter must be agile, strong, and quick. They must be able to think on their feet and react to any situation as it arises. This training course will test even the strongest of warriors. There is no slacking when you enter it because if you fail, it will hurt. This is the gauntlet.”

  After Milly explained the different obstacles, the four teens lined up on top of a ten-foot-high platform. The first obstacle was a series of scattered logs. On the ground at the base of the logs were numerous holes in the ground.

  “So who would like to go first?” Milly asked, watching from the ground. Dax stepped forward, looking smug and confident. “All right. You’ve got to traverse and balance on the logs while also avoiding what comes out from below.”

  “That sounds easy enough.”

  Dax stepped onto the log in front of him. Then he leapt to the next one, which only had enough room for one foot. From below, a red burst of hadron shot up and exploded. The shockwave pushed Dax to his right. He tried to adjust his balance, leaping onto another log. Another red burst shot up as he waved his arms, trying to escape from the inevitable. The red burst hit him in the chest, knocking him into the air and then down onto the sand below. Dax made a few weird noises, clutching his chest and sucking in air.

  Milly shook her head. “Like I said, agile and quick. You cannot be careful on the gauntlet. If you hesitate, this course will eat you up and spit you back out.”

  “Well, you are right about the spitting up part,” Dax said, clutching his stomach.

  Tanner stepped forward. He quickly moved across the logs as a barrage of red hadron bursts exploded in his path. One of the explosions knocked him back, but he was able to step back onto another log. He corrected his balance right before another red burst shot up. He was much more coordinated than Dax.

  After a few long strides, Tanner reached the other platform and stared at the next obstacle. Three skinny balance beams ran across a chasm to the other side, with numerous heavy leather bags swinging across the path. Tanner went forward, avoiding the first bag. He had to take a couple more quick steps to avoid the next one. He got halfway across when he slipped on the balance beam. The hesitation was costly. He got up, but it was too late. The leather bag swung down like a pendulum, striking him in the thigh. His whole body dropped onto the wooden beam, the movement knocking the wind out of him, and he swung his legs underneath. Tanner tried to grab the beam, but he had no strength and crashed into the sand.

  “Tanner,” Allora yelled, cupping her mouth.

  “Ugh,” he replied.

  Milly ran over and checked him out. “He’ll be all right,” she said. “Just a little winded.”

  Allora decided to go next. She ran as quickly as she could across the logs, leaping gracefully onto the other platform.

  “Great job!” Milly said.

  On the next obstacle, she moved just as quickly, stepping forward and backward like a coordinated dance. One of the heavy bags knocked her off balance, and she had to reach her leg across to one of the other beams and duck underneath the next swinging leather bag. She grabbed the middle beam, swung underneath, and reached her legs across to the third beam. After the bag swung by, she quickly pulled herself up and ran across the middle beam onto the next platform.

  The next obstacle consisted of ropes of differing lengths. She needed to swing across, but some of the ropes would randomly let loose, dropping her down. Allora made it through most of the course, but one of the ropes detached and dropped her. Luckily, she clutched another dangling lifeline and swung back before she hit the ground. Pulling herself up, she quickly got to the next rope and finally reached the next platform.

  The last obstacle was a long hallway. The walls were covered with stone dragon heads. She reached her foot out and gently pressed down on one of the tiles on the floor. About ten feet away, one of the stone dragon heads shot out a red hadron burst that exploded on the other side. She stepped onto another tile, and another hadron burst shot out much closer. Each tile corresponded with one of the many small statues throughout the narrow corri
dor. Taking it slow, she leapt forward, trying to get as far as possible. Allora was about fifteen feet in when a hadron burst shot right at her. She stumbled forward, hitting a couple of tiles all at once, which shot a couple of bursts from the sides as well as from the wall that shot up in front of her. There was no escaping the impact. Allora focused her hadrons, placing one hand in front and the other on her left side. The double hadron shield blocked the bursts, but she was knocked back and stepped on a few more tiles. She had to roll forward, activating another barrage from every angle. Instead of putting up a shield, Allora grabbed one of the dragon heads on the wall and pulled herself up. For the rest of the obstacle, she leapt on top of the dragon heads.

  “Hey, isn’t that cheating?” Dax said from down below.

  “Just like in any battle, there is no cheating,” Milly said. “As I was telling Allora earlier, your enemy will not play fair, nor will they be merciful. While she may not have gone down the designated course, she very smartly chose another path that was less treacherous.”

  “Well, I wish I had known that before I got pulverized on those logs,” Dax grumbled.

  “Like that would have made a difference,” Katie said, smirking.

  Allora was making her way across the dragon heads toward the end of the gauntlet. Allora looked back at her mother, who seemed to cringe slightly. Allora did a front flip onto the last platform, showing off at her successful completion of the gauntlet. She hadn’t noticed one last dragon heads facing the last platform. The dragon’s eyes lit up red, and from its mouth a large spear shot out. Allora’s eyes widened as she felt the excruciating pain and pressure in her back. She stared down at the metal tip of the spear, which was dripping blood. She touched it, unable to comprehend her current reality.

  “No!” Tanner screamed, running toward the platform as Allora’s body fell.

  It was like the entire world was moving in slow motion. Tanner slid along the ground as the sand underneath began to sink and swirl. Just as Allora hit the ground, they were all pulled from the outer realm, crashing down onto the dirt. They scrambled along the forest floor to Allora, who was coughing and almost hyperventilating. Milly knelt down next to her.

  “Just breathe slowly. You are all right. Just take in slow, deep breaths.”

  Allora slowed her breathing, coughing sporadically. After a little while, she regained control by breathing through her nose. She pulled up her shirt and exposed the circular purple bruise starting to form on her abdomen. It was the same on her lower back.

  “Hurts, doesn’t it?” Milly said, grinning slightly. “I was the first to complete the gauntlet in my class. Don’t worry, though. The pain will only last a few days.”

  “Why was that necessary?” Tanner asked, not amused by the lesson.

  Milly became much more serious. “Because you all must understand that you can never be comfortable. You can never let down your guard, because your enemy will look to strike when you are not expecting it.”

  “Of course I got to be the guinea pig for this one,” Allora remarked, extending her arms. “Help me up.”

  “You guys go on ahead,” Milly said, helping her daughter up. “I’ll take it from here.

  Allora and Milly followed a little way back. The ripe memory of the spear bursting through her body was like a nightmare playing repeatedly in her mind.

  “Doesn’t feel very good, huh?” Milly asked.

  “I feel like I’m going to throw up,” Allora said.

  “That lesson wasn’t just for you,” Milly said, watching the sporadic glances of the others as they walked ahead. “It was also for those three.”

  “How is that?”

  “When I was your age, I was full of spit and vinegar,” Milly began, staring off into some sort of void, like a distant memory in the foliage of the trees. “All I wanted to do was get out there on the battlefield. When I finally did get my chance to fight, we were on a covert mission to infiltrate a village of drow elves who had kidnapped a diplomat of Titanis and his family. We thought that everyone had been neutralized, but there was an underground hideout that we were unaware of. My closest friend in the academy was gunned down behind me.” Milly’s eyes filled with tears. “I held him as he died in my arms.” She closed her eyes and wiped the tears from her cheeks. “I will never forget that, because it put everything in perspective for me and changed everything about my life. I realized that, while necessary, war is not something to seek out. It is terrible, ugly, and filled with pain.”

  “You really think that I want to go to war?” Allora asked, offended by her mother’s accusatory statement.

  “No, but I do think that you would go blindly into a fight if given the chance,” Milly said.

  “And why would you think that?”

  “Because it is what I would’ve done at your age,” Milly admitted, smiling at her daughter.

  Allora tried to laugh, but the pain in her abdomen was too intense.

  “Don’t worry. I’ve got the perfect remedy for that,” Milly said as they got to their backyard.

  chapter

  SEVEN

  Tests

  “Mom, where is my study guide?” Allora yelled, flinging her clothes around. “I can’t find it, and the test is in one hour.”

  “You are seriously a spaz,” Bell said, leaning on the doorframe and eating her cereal.

  “Shut up, pipsqueak,” Allora said, sifting through her bedsheets.

  Katie walked up behind Bell and leaned over her shoulder.

  “Has she gone completely crazy yet?” Katie asked.

  “Getting there,” Bell replied.

  “Would you two stop with the commentary and help me find my study guide?” Allora said while tossing clothes out of her drawers.

  “What in the world happened in here?” Milly said, peeking around the doorframe next to Katie.

  “I think that your daughter has been possessed,” Katie said, causing Bell to laugh so hard that milk came spurting out of her nose.

  Milly looked around the room and pulled out a notebook from behind a picture frame on the dresser.

  “Is this it?” she asked, waving the bound paper.

  Allora darted across the room and snatched the green study guide from her mother’s grasp. She sifted through it, smiled, and clutched it against her chest. She then parted the group and ran to the living room.

  “You’re welcome,” Milly yelled down the hallway.

  Allora grabbed a whole package of number-two pencils and yelled from the front door, “Katie, let’s go!”

  After Katie jumped into her car, Allora sped down the driveway and headed toward Sandy High School. They met Tanner and Dax in the senior hallway, where Dax was quizzing Tanner on math problems. Allora paced back and forth, whispering definitions to herself while examining her study guide meticulously. As the time of the test grew closer, Allora’s movements became more erratic, drawing the eyes of the other students nearby.

  As they started walking toward the classroom to take their SATs, Katie leaned in behind Allora. “Are you all right? You seem a little…crazy.”

  “Oh, I’m peachy,” Allora said, staring at the notebook of paper lying on a desk in front of her. “This is only the most important test I will take in my entire life. Plus, I’ve still got a huge bruise on my stomach from that stupid spear, and it hurts.”

  She lifted her shirt, revealing the apple-sized, circular, purple bruise.

  “With everything that’s been going on, we’ll be lucky to even graduate.”

  They took their seats as Mr. Swan handed out the test pamphlets. Allora stared down at her best friend, who was calmly laying out her number-two pencils on the top right edge of her desk. Katie wasn’t even fazed by what she had just said, nor did she realize her impact on Allora. Mr. Swan instructed the class on the rules of the test just as Mrs. Ferris opened the door. Her hair was sticking out in different directions, and her clothes looked quite dirty.

  “I need to speak with a few of your students
.”

  “Can it wait?” Mr. Swan asked, trying to adhere to the testing criteria laid out by the state.

  “No, it can’t,” Mrs. Ferris said, quite agitated. “Allora, Tanner, Dax, and Katie. Can you come out here for a minute?”

  Reluctantly, Allora got up from her seat and followed the others into the hallway.

  “What is going on?” Allora said, annoyed by the intrusion. “Don’t you know that this test is kind of important?”

  “I wouldn’t have gotten you guys out of there if it wasn’t,” she replied. “I had a gremlin shipped over from the science institute at Shangri-La. Gremlins are really small animals that secrete a very strong liquid that can be used in a number of glue recipes.”

  “So then what’s the issue?” Dax asked.

  “Well, it got away,” Mrs. Ferris said, looking guilty. “I had it sedated, but somehow it woke up and got loose from its bindings.”

  “Sweet,” Katie said sarcastically. “We’ve got a tiny midget creature running around the school. I heard that they are extremely mischievous.”

  “How do you know that?” Dax asked.

  “The general told me all about it.”

  “Kat,” Dax said, lifting his voice.

  “That’s what you call your dad?” Allora asked, thoroughly surprised.

  “Well, he’s more of a general than a dad,” Katie said.

  “Kat,” Dax said, slightly more aggressive in his tone. “We are not getting into this again.”

  “He hasn’t even visited in the eight years that we’ve been here, and you act like it doesn’t even bother you.”

  “Of course it bothers me, but I know that he’s busy trying to hold everything together,” Dax said, becoming more animated. “You really think that he doesn’t want to be here?”