Conscious, Conscientious

As if to empathize with Deon and Skrili—or perhaps mock them—the drizzle over the Fiction Country hills grew steadier. A deep, rolling rumble of thunder shook the dampened ground.

The grass was still flattened where Lammy and Zayza had just been sitting moments ago. Tall and sharp, the rocks on the hilltop fenced in Deon and Skrili’s new misery from the ongoings of the Conscious Conference not far below.

Lammy had been right in front of them. The instant shift from elation to utter despair and horror left Deon nauseous.

Skrili still hadn’t released her hand from his shoulder. Nor did their eyes leave each other.

“Skrili,” Deon started, “I have to go after him—”

“I’m coming with you,” she said immediately. “This time, I’ll bring him home alive. I swear.”

Deon recalled her tears on his shoulder from the night she opened up about her little brother’s death. A small tear escaped to her cheek now. He knew she meant it.

She would give everything.

Skrili averted her eyes for just a moment, realizing her phrasing.

“That vision…it won’t come true. It can’t.”

Deon was talking to himself just as much as his teammate. For all he knew, it could have just come true before their eyes.

But he refused to accept that.

Just after another boom of thunder faded, they heard Skrili’s TeamTrack go off. Shaking, Skrili was swift to retrieve it.

“Kotono…” she whispered.

Deon dared to look at the screen.

“SURPRISE!!! :-) Be there in a sec. We’ll explain everything!”

Deon clutched his head in both hands. “What the heck is going on? What is going on?!”

For once, Skrili had no explanation.

Only moments later, they heard careful steps shuffling through the grass.

“Come on. Hey—careful! Come on, Fang promised us five minutes. He can only distract the other guards for so long.”

It was Hiroko’s leathery voice.

“Sh! I know.”

Kotono.

“Um…T-TA-DA!!!” Kotono proclaimed rather shyly, her voice now coming from above them.

Deon and Skrili turned to find her standing atop the tall rocks, her face flushed but excited. But once she observed her new surroundings, her sunny complexion immediately went pale.

“Wait…where are…?”

Hiroko emerged with a flip, and landed expertly beside her. Her stoic face remained unchanged, but her eyes fell to Deon and Skrili intensely.

“What happened?” she asked.

“THAT’S WHAT WE’D LIKE TO KNOW!!” Deon shouted. He shot to his feet. “EXPLAIN YOURSELVES!!”

Kotono gasped with a flinch. Red energy automatically burst out around her.

Hiroko was quick to clutch her hand. “Breathe,” she said. “Were they here? Did you see Zayza and Lammy?”

“Oh, they WERE here!!” Deon shot.

“Someone took them,” Skrili stressed, standing to join him. “We need to do something, please.”

Hiroko’s free hand tightened into a fist, and her toned muscles showed clearly. She cursed under her breath several times, shaking her head.

“No…no…” she growled. “Then there’s no time to waste.”

She hopped down from the stones and met the duo. Kotono joined her, her mouth quivering.

“Where are they taking my cousin and that Phoenix worker?” Deon demanded. “Where?!”

“I’ll tell you everything. Listen closely—this is about to be a lot,” Hiroko said soberly. “That girl isn’t just a Phoenix employee. That’s Zayza, an Azvaylen princess from Fantasy Country. Her kingdom convicted her of murdering her own royal family to take the throne.”

“WHAT THE—Why is my little cousin with a crazy killer?!” pressed Deon.

“Sh—she didn’t really do it! She’s innocent!” Kotono anxiously assured.

“Zayza met Lammy in No Man’s Land months ago, and he’s been helping her escape her hunters ever since,” continued Hiroko. “Zayza’s like a sister to us. And your ‘little’ cousin has saved her life multiple times over. We owe him everything for that.”

Deon’s hands shook endlessly. This couldn’t all be real. Why would Lammy set foot outside Tailpiece? Why would he get caught up in something like this?

And…he saved that girl Zayza multiple times? Someone as timid and gentle as Lammy?

“We found them at the Fantasy Country Conscious Competition, and we made a plan to get them in hiding. We’re too high-profile, but Lammy spoke highly of you. So we tried to get them to you discretely, then have you and Skrili guide them to my home tribe.”

Deon grit his teeth. “Discretely?” he repeated.

“Wait…just listen,” Skrili urged.

But Deon stomped forward. Hiroko didn’t flinch, or even blink, as she found herself face-to-face with him.

“Why didn’t you tell us sooner?” Deon demanded darkly.

By Hiroko’s unwavering, urgent glare, he knew he hadn’t intimidated her in the slightest. He may as well have been an insect.

“We couldn’t. We didn’t know about your relation to Lammy, and he didn’t even realize you were nearby until after you’d left Gloat Center,” she said. “Zayza is a famous wanted convict. Half the Multiverse has heard about her case.”

“It’s true…I’ve seen headlines,” Skrili confirmed quietly.

“So we couldn’t risk communicating in an easily traceable way like a TeamTrack. We had to get creative, so we led you both here,” finished Hiroko. Her icy eyes narrowed the slightest bit. “I’ve placed all of my trust in Lammy with our Zayza, and he showed nothing but courage and strength. I hope you can learn to return that level of trust to me.”

She broke off from Deon to face everyone else.

Deon went silent—he didn’t regret his aggressive concern or questioning for the sake of his cousin. Yet…this seemed so foreign.

Lammy…’strong and courageous?’ Last I saw him, he was still too scared to walk home in the dark, he pondered. His heart tightened with pride and desperation. Hang in there, buddy. Keep fighting…

“I assume you’re going after them,” Hiroko inquired to the young team.

Deon and Skrili nodded instantly.

“Good. We just have to figure out how to shake our security team.”

“S—screw this Conscious Conference!” Kotono puffed defiantly.

“We’ll get past them,” Hiroko assured. “Then we’ll lead the way to Azvaylen. I don’t care what it takes—we’ll save them both.”

Deon squirmed a bit, quelling his still subtly glowing eyes. “Hey uh…sorry for getting all…you know.”

Hiroko simply nodded once. “And I’m sorry it happened like this. Just understand, you two: the world is against us. Nobody believes Zayza is innocent. Nobody will help—it’s just you two, Kotono, and me.”

“That’s all we need,” Skrili said. She stepped closer to join Deon’s side.

Despite his spiraling emotions, Deon mustered a smirk. “Heck, we’re the strongest two teams combined. That’s more than enough.”

Hiroko welcomed Kotono closer. The four fighters stood together in the increasing rain.

“Then let’s save—” Kotono started.

All four of their TeamTracks vibrated.

“Who’s…?” Hiroko wondered.

Their screens illuminated their faces under the gray sky.

Phillip:

“Hello. Can you please tell me if you’ve seen Pang? She stepped away for a moment and still hasn’t come back. I can’t find her anywhere. It’s been an hour and I haven’t gotten a call or message.

She just…vanished.”

~~~

“Deon…? Why did you do…Ugh…Why am I…Huh? Hey—wait a second…you’re not…”

Lammy’s eyelids lifted in response. At first, in a haze, all he could see was red, with gold in the middle.

“Who are you?”

It was a woman’s voice—full and mature, but slurred.

But when his eyes finally focused, Lammy didn’t find a woman lying directly before him. It was a teenage girl, just a bit younger than Deon.

More than that—she was the recently famous Conscious Competition runner-up.

“You’re…Pang Pereo,” Lammy uttered.

“Yeah thanks, I noticed. I asked who you are, kid,” Pang said, her recovering golden eyes landing on him. Up close, her frame was much smaller than he’d perceived while watching her dominate most of the Fantasy Country Conscious Competition. But despite her size, the way she glared at him made him feel tiny.

“Uh…I’m Lammy. Where are we—?”

“Lammy? That’s dumb. Man, what did your parents have against you?” Pang continued on. “You look just like this guy I know—”

“Deon?” he immediately guessed. “That’s my cousin. And my best friend.”

Finally, it all came back. He’d just seen Deon running towards him and Zayza, with Skrili close behind. He’d never seen such shock and joy on Deon’s face. They were so close. They were right there.

What happened?

He’d felt a pinch in his neck. Zayza suddenly fainted. His mind spun.

That was all he remembered.

Again, Lammy realized, heart aching.

“They got us again…” he mumbled.

“’They?’ ‘Again?’ What the heck are you talking about?” Pang demanded. “Also…is that chick alright? She’s still out.”

Head throbbing, Lammy rolled off his side and onto his back. It wasn’t until then that he noticed his hands and ankles were tightly bound. He looked over to find Zayza lying on the other side of him. With her hair brushed to the side, he noticed a dried red drip down her ear.

Suddenly, his own ears stung. He reached to find new scabs.

The magic earrings are gone.

The ground—no, floor—was cold and hard, and rocking a bit. He finally felt the pushes and pulls with each turn—they were in some sort of transport, speeding across a road. He recognized the fluctuating rumbles from the blue taxi back in Conscious City: it was a vehicle like that, but much larger.

The light was dim, only bright enough to see Pang and Zayza, who were just as bound up as him. Other objects rocked and creaked around them.

“Wait…no way…she looks just like that murder girl…” Pang observed in fascination. “Is she that one girl…Princess Zayza?”

Lammy’s eyes couldn’t leave his companion.

But…could he even see her as a companion, anymore?

She finally recovered all of her lost memories, before completely annihilating Fewpar’s Dream World body. And once she remembered, the ultimate question found an answer at last—an answer Lammy could never have fathomed to be true:

Fewpar and Najinzu were right. Zayza murdered her own family.

Her sister, her father, and her mother.

She said it herself.

Her words shattered the stability of their long friendship almost instantaneously. Even as Zayza pulled Lammy out of the Dream World and guided him away from Najinzu to safety, his trust was rattled.

Who even was she? How could she do that?

Their final few days of travel towards Kotono and Hiroko’s planned meeting point were quiet and uncomfortable. Lammy couldn’t sleep. He couldn’t even look Zayza in the eye.

Even when he built the courage to finally ask, in a desperate attempt for clarity, it changed nothing.

“Why, Zayza…why did you kill them?”

Her careful response came after a long silence.

“Lammy…please understand…I wish with everything in me that I didn’t have to,” she’d said. “But…if I didn’t…do what I did…if I let them stay alive…Well—we’d better keep hurrying.”

And that was that. She’d never brought it up again, and Lammy couldn’t either.

But if she couldn’t tell him why, how could he trust her again? How did he know he was safe?

Even still, for some reason, Lammy remained traveling with her for the rest of the journey. Perhaps he should have snuck away. Perhaps he still subconsciously hoped all of this would undo itself, and Zayza could go back to the innocent companion he knew.

But if he had to guess why he didn’t leave her, the only explanation that made sense right now was his utter terror of having no one to protect or comfort him. Remaining with Zayza—even after everything he learned—still somehow felt safer.

I’m pathetic, he thought.

Blinking, he realized Pang was still awaiting confirmation.

“So uh…that is her, right? The murder princess?”

Lammy glanced at Zayza one more time. He recalled all the times he stood up for her, defying anyone accusing her of such monstrous acts.

This time, he nodded.

“Yeah. That’s…that’s her.”

When he returned his attention to Pang, she simply raised her eyebrows briefly and nodded. “Hm,” she said casually. “Maybe we shouldn’t wake her up then, huh?”

Despite her subtle concern, her sheer lack of fear took Lammy aback. She had just discovered there was a killer right across from her, and she was merely intrigued.

“Yeah…” Lammy found himself agreeing.

“Hey. You know her or something?”

He looked away. His heart twisted as he tried to find the words.

“I…I thought I did.”

~~~

It wasn’t long before Deon, Skrili, Kotono, and Hiroko heard footsteps rapidly sweeping against the grassy hill in the steady rain. Deon had almost forgotten how fast Phillip was—and given the current emergency, he probably didn’t hold back.

He arrived to the top of their secret spot, drenched and panting. His long, spiky black hair and black and white attire presented him as quite an eerie figure.

“She’s not here,” he quickly found. “Where is Pang?”

It wasn’t a demand, as Deon had spurted before, but a patient, expectant question. Just then, Deon noticed Phillip’s skin wasn’t quite as pale anymore—clearly the new treatment was working. Phillip eyed Hiroko and Kotono not in confusion, but hopeful expectation.

It made sense: after all, it was only because Kotono and Hiroko donated their championship earnings to him and Pang—after defeating them—that he was even able to receive his treatment.

His trust and respect came through clearly in his demeanor.

“Why did you send me these coordinates?”

“To bring you to us. We need to talk,” Hiroko started swiftly and solemnly. “When was the last time you saw Pang?”

“We were walking to one of the convention’s panels an hour ago. But she remembered she wanted to visit out a particular shop—something about seeing the perfect birthday gift for me,” Phillip shared. “She cut through an alleyway between two buildings…but she never came back. I couldn’t find or get a hold of her.”

His eyes shifted to Deon and Skrili, registering their presence for the first time. Phillip gave a quick, subtle nod to each of them, but his worrying eyebrows furrowed further.

“Wait…what’s going on?”

“Something,” Hiroko replied. “Only a few minutes ago, Azvaylen officials kidnapped our closest friend and Deon’s cousin. Skrili and Deon saw it happen.”

“They were gone before we could even act,” Skrili uttered.

Phillip’s face hardened, his gaze intensifying. “And you think this is connected?”

“It might be. Would you and Pang have any reason for Azvaylen to target you?” questioned Hiroko.

Phillip shook his head.

“Hmm…Have you two encountered anyone who might have a motive to take Pang?”

Deon couldn’t help but admire Hiroko as she pressed forward her investigation without hesitation. If she had any sense of panic, she wasn’t showing it. Somehow, she knew exactly what to do, and how to act.

He expected Phillip to shake his head once more, but instead, he shifted uncomfortably.

“There were…these odd men,” he said. “Just after the award ceremony at the Conscious Competition.”

Deon’s ears perked up.

“Odd in what way?” probed Hiroko.

“When the ceremony wrapped up I headed down to the fighting platform to meet her, and someone started interviewing me about her,” Phillip recalled. “I was a bit distracted with that, but out of the corner of my eye, I noticed these men. I didn’t see them down near the platform with the rest of the press before. They merely…appeared. And they took Pang aside for a moment to talk. It didn’t look like an interview.”

“Did Pang tell you what they said?”

“She shrugged it off, and said they were just a bunch of creeps with a stupid offer,” explained Phillip.

Definitely something she’d say, Deon thought.

“But they tried talking to her again later that day,” Phillip continued. “And after we left, Pang kept getting messages from them asking to set up a meeting. It seemed harmless enough, just persistent. So Pang ignored them. I only started worrying…when they showed up at our Legend Training.”

“Huh?!” Deon exclaimed.

“Skip’s home is in a secret location—all Legend Trainers’ are,” Skrili noted. “How did they find out where…?”

“We were in his cabin after winning the Challenge, and I saw them approaching through the window. Skip saw them too, and he demanded that we hide in the kitchen. We listened through the door while they talked. Skip swore to them that we were off on a trial, and if we returned, it wouldn’t be for days. Eventually they left.”

Phillip shook himself out of the unsettling memory and returned his full, anxious attention to Hiroko. “We never ran into them again…unless they’re the reason Pang’s gone.”

So Skip knows something about those guys…Deon noted.

He remembered his teacher’s vague story—the peculiar disappearance of his teammate.

His whole body felt heavy as he remembered Skip’s warning:

“The more success you find, the more eyes on you. And with more eyes on you, there’s a greater chance the wrong eyes will find you. And you don’t—I don’t—want those eyes to find you. Because once they do, it’s already too late.”

“Could…could this all be related?” wondered Kotono. “Why would the Azvaylen kingdom want Pang?”

Hiroko’s head shook back and forth in deep contemplation. “This doesn’t give us enough to know why,” she said. “But we know several things: Zayza, Lammy, and Pang all disappeared within an hour of each other, in the same exact place. We know who took Zayza and Lammy. So it’s highly likely they also took Pang.”

Deon’s fists clenched. They felt warm. His heartbeat pounded.

He stepped forward, into the middle of the group.

“Listen up, Phil,” he began.

“Phillip.”

“Whatever. The four of us are going after those dirtbags. We’re saving my little cousin, and Kotono and Hiroko’s best friend. And if Pang’s with them, you better believe we’re saving her, too,” Deon told his ghostly peer. “You in?”

“There’s no guarantee Pang is with them,” Hiroko reminded him. “But this is our only lead.”

Phillip nodded. “You four are the very people I’d want helping me find her,” he insisted.

“Aw, even me? Thanks, bud,” Deon butted in.

Phillip tried to ignore him. “I’m in,” he confirmed. “Where do we start?”

“First, we alert the Conscious Conference and report Pang as a missing person,” Hiroko planned immediately.

“Not Deon’s cousin and your friend?” questioned Phillip.

“Well…considering the murder charges…” Skrili uttered.

“Murder charges? Wait—it’s that Zayza??” Phillip’s deep voice broke up a bit.

Kotono waved her hands in desperate dismissal. “I—It’s complicated! Don’t worry, we’ll explain!” she struggled out.

“Then, with that covered,” Hiroko continued, “We go back to Fantasy Country. But we’ll need to figure out a way to fly to Azvaylen’s reality—and fast. So it can’t be helped: we need someone else we can trust.”

While Hiroko, Kotono, and Phillip stood brainstorming hastily, Deon and Skrili turned to each other. Skrili’s eyes seemed to glisten a bit.

“We have someone,” they both said.

“Alright then,” said Hiroko. She turned and looked towards the rainy sky—coincidentally, in the same direction Deon and Skrili had helplessly watched Lammy and Zayza vanish over the horizon.

But now it was their move.

“This isn’t about to be the Conscious Competitions. This is real life,” Hiroko warned everyone. “Like I said, the Multiverse will be against us.”

The four fighters all followed Hiroko’s gaze into the sky, standing side-by-side.

Deon’s heart pumped, heavy with both desperation and adrenaline. He didn’t even need to see Skrili right now to sense her aura beside him. Somehow, with Fiction Country’s odd ways, he knew she felt just as alive—just as vital.

Hiroko rolled her shoulders.

“Here we go, then. It’s about to get dangerous.”