Chapter 11: The First of the New
If you have not been reading in order up until now, please go back to Chapter 8f and read from there, in order, until you reach Chapter 11. Thank you. It will make the story a lot better.
The door closed with a thump behind Jin’s dejected shoulders, and nearly everyone felt sorry for him. Nearly everyone.
“Come on, guys!” said Christine, “It’s almost sundown! I’ve gotta find the Avatars.”
“Give us a minute, here!” Flora half-muttered, half-snapped, half-angrily. She looked at Jin. “Come on, Jin. It’s disappointing, but it’s over. Parli’s not coming back.”
“Yeah,” answered Jin not-quite-dejectedly, “I know.”
There was a loud flash and a bright bang that sounded like a hanging gong being hit a bit too hard. The flash reverberated around the clearing and wouldn’t quite fade away completely.
A man of moderate build and of no discernible description stood there. Everyone’s eyes turned towards him but they all seemed to slide off again.
“What the…” Elaine began, almost mad.
“Greetings, everyone,” said the figure, “Congratulations on finding the last remnants of Parliamentary Debate.” This was not congratulatory but slightly contemptuous. Only slightly. “With your motivation, you’ll be able to bring Parli back. Just…don’t make it any trouble of ours.” The last was said with a bit of distaste.
“What…what are you talking about?” said Elaine.
“This world is coming to a great conflict.” The man gestured dramatically. “The Hahr Kerr is on the rise.”
Blank stares.
“Oh, come on, people!” said the man, losing his drama. “The ancient enemy? You know?”
More blank stares.
“They rig tournaments!”
Indignant outcries.
“That’s more like it.” The figure cleared his throat…or at least, made a noise as if he was clearing his throat.
“Dude, what about my brother?” said Richard.
“For once you’ve got the best priorities out of all of us,” Gordon remarked. He quailed under Christine and Elaine’s combined glares.
“Your brother has been taken for…You don’t need to know why he was taken.” The man was flustered and trying to hide it. “He was taken by agents of darkness to the Lee-Land.”
That got a reaction. The Lee-Land, the low land, was a place of darkness that filled many a nasty children’s tale. It was, however, known to exist, as an inhospitable wasteland full of people with very strange (and usually unpleasant) talents. It was most often referred to, even by royalty, as “that shadowy place.”
“Then I have to go and get him!” said Richard. His somewhat obvious fear was apparently counterbalanced by his ego.
His resolve, unexpectedly, brought out something courageous in Da Seul. “I’ll go, too!” she said loudly, surprising even herself. Still, she stared at Kellie until the latter grumbled and nodded. The two of them moved to stand by Richard.
Gordon and Kushal looked at each other. “We’re in too,” confirmed Kushal. Kellie let out a quiet, mostly-joking curse.
Christine squared her shoulders. “Hold on a minute! ‘Just…don’t make it any trouble of ours’…That was an Avatar! Oh, shoot!” She stamped her foot. “Now what should I do?”
Fritz looked up. “I’m going to find Andrew,” he said with the tone of a person doing something he really believes is the right thing to do. Ivy trailed silently behind him and stole his pencil, looking up as she and Persia too stood behind Richard.
Elaine was looking troubled. So Edward pitched in. “Look, Elaine, this wasn’t in the original contract, and apparently finding Parli was.” Elaine still looked unconvinced, so Edward went on. “OK, then, look how many people they already have! They don’t need us.” He looked back at Jin, who was staring down at the papers in his hands. “And we’ve got the chance to restore a legend. Who hasn’t heard of Parliamentary debate?”
Elaine looked up at him and nodded. Flora, with only a hint of emotion in her eyes, looked out from her position at Jin’s shoulder with firm conviction.
That left Christine.
“UGHHHH!” she screamed, frustrated. (Not a loud scream, just the sort of scream that someone lets out when they’re frustrated.)
Flora, Jin, Edward, and Elaine stared at her from one side.
A huge mass of people, everyone else, stared at her from the other.
She made her decision.
“Good luck finding Andrew,” she said, almost stomping over to where Jin was standing, his shoulders back for possibly the first time in his life.
“Thanks, I choose to take that more sincerely than you said it,” Richard replied. Kushal saluted from the brim of his cap.
“We’ll be back by the last round!” called Gordon as the group began to move off. “See you tomorrow!”
“Bye!” Flora called back. Christine stared down at her hands. Jin had just begun eagerly scanning the packet Yining had given him. Edward and Elaine looked at each other.
“I wonder if I made the right choice.” Christine grimaced. “Will I get a talent by doing this?”
“Sure,” said the man, shrugging, and disappeared quite neatly. (He turned off the lights as he left; since they were outside, that was the sun. And the sushi store across the street.)
Christine jumped; she had pretty much forgotten he hadn’t disappeared yet until he actually disappeared. “AAGH!” she cried again.
“The Parli Rebellion,” said Edward in a fit of grandeur.
“The what?” said Elaine incredulously. Then she grinned. “OK. The Parli Rebellion it is. And let’s get to the bottom of all this.”