The Awakening: # 49 #

The magic of that man was strong but he finally figured out that he could absorb it. It was, after all, only energy created by the air. The whole of the magic ropes that bound him was made of an invisible air but since he could feel the ropes, he could also figure out a way to make them go away with dimensional shifts. Tiny ones. However, this wasn't working and Lacroise kept using his magic to hold him tighter, yet now Billy saw something that others perhaps couldn't. He could see that he was being held not by magic but by voids. He could see the voids. They were gray and black and they were chain-linked to each other. They formed a curling rope around his body that criss-crossed over and around his shoulders and neck.

It was then that Billy figured out something cool about traveling. Something he had forgotten about. The lion had told him about the hunt. He didn't need darkness to travel. But, also, he didn't need voids to make things travel away from him. Thus, he made the whole rope itself travel to another dimension and as, for some odd reason, Lacroise felt a need to tell everyone his life story, Billy just lay there pretending to be ensnared with the void-made chains. When the right time came, he used a multi-void attack that Billy had only just recently figured out how to do. It was becoming tiring how often he learned new tricks with his talent. Nothing he did was going to be good enough to capture this man, though. He was much more talented than Mark had let on.

And, as fast as Billy had made the ropes vanish from him, they reappeared again. He made them vanish to another dimension again but they reappeared again. This was now a race with traveling skills. He would create the dimension-chain and Billy would get rid of it. Somewhere, in some unknown earth, there lay a pile of invisible void chains that was quickly escalating to new heights.

This didn't mean that Teresa or Mark were not trying to help but they too were bound by the ropes and Billy couldn't exactly keep the ropes off of himself, let alone all three of them.

"It's too easy," Lacroise said, smiling. "To think, a child challenges my talent. Come, come. Keep trying, boy, you amuse me. I know everything about you, Billy. You know next to nothing about traveling. You lost a friend with a click of my fingers. What makes you think you won't lose another? The girl, perhaps?"

"NO!" Billy yelled.

The ropes could no longer stay on him, though the magic was still being cast on him. Billy's eyes only saw a blinking on and off of grey and black chain-linked void ropes appear and disappear.

Lacroise was about to click his fingers but then both of Lacroise's hands were gone.

"What is this?" Lacroise asked, looking at his hand. "What is this trick, huh? No one should be able to do this!"

Lacroise's hands began to heal themselves. "How did you do that, huh? You made my hands disappear without voids...are you a magician as well, some Piersley-born child, is he your son?"

Mark couldn't speak.

The other two Mark and Teresa were sneaking up behind Lacroise who was now only ten feet off the ground.

Teresa's hand went up and Lacroise became an ice cube but as soon as this happened, so did Teresa. Mark was careful not to step on her. Billy blinked in her direction and sent her to the Nordit world. The other Mark looked at him and crossed his hands.

"This is our fight, too!" That Mark complained.

Billy shook his head and blinked him to the Nordit world as well.

"Mark!" Keya yelled.

"Relax," Billy said to her, "I sent them somewhere safe."

"What are you doing, Billy?" Keya asked. She was afraid.

"Not right now," Billy said, "I can't have you be afraid of me, right now, okay? I just need you to trust me."

"His weakness!" Lacroise growled.

He put a hand out, now it was fully-healed and re-grown. Keya was lifted in the air. The ropes were on her but they were so intricately woven around her body that Billy could not possibly make them leave her body without hurting her.

"Leave her alone!" Billy snapped.

"Ha," Lacroise snapped back, "Like a child with a lost toy. Do you want this girl back?"

Billy checked Lacroise's eyes. Yes. He could see it now. Something about him was wrong. Keya vanished. Billy smiled. A second later, he too was gone.

"So," Lacroise said, "It's just you and me now Mark and Teresa. What shall I do with you, huh?"

Billy caught Keya from falling into a pit of flaring lava. Lacroise was true to his word. He had definitely been in an earth made of entirely huge mountains of lava and brimstone. Billy could barely breathe in this world.

*

It comes to mind that even after all that has happened, a man will win this fight. Most of the fights are won by men, some say. Keya didn't like that sort of thing but this was how it was going to be, it seemed. Keya was in Billy's arms, which was the only place she wanted to be but he was falling to their doom into a fiery pit from hell. Below them lay a black and red pool of lava that meant it was about the end of their travels together, which made her sad. As far as Keya was concerned, it was about damn time. She was tired of fighting. Since she had left her world, she had been fighting with herself, her people, and her friends. It was time to stop, stop all this craziness with traveling from one world to another.

The fight in the past, that was not her fight and the fight of the future, well, that was Billy's fight. It didn't matter now. Soon, they would be dead.

Billy tapped her on the forehead gently with a finger. For a moment, time seemed to stop. He smiled down at her and she looked up at him dreamily.

"Is it over?" She asked him, in a whisper?

"Don't give up on me yet," Billy said and he smiled. He smiled so sweetly that Keya almost lost track of something that Billy put in her hand. It was handle-shaped and bone-made. It was a freaking slingshot!

She looked down. Before they hit the lava a black void appeared under their feet.

Maybe, a girl could be the hero for once.

A light blinked into existence, a normal purple and black light but something made it blinding to the eye. Was it a trick? Billy couldn't guess. He had come out of voids before without them exploding into an affronting light. When they popped into the area, he noticed that it was Keya that was glowing.

Brilliant girl! Glowing before traveling, how come he didn't think of it?

Billy saw Mark and Teresa suspended in air. The problem was that Lacroise saw them. A rock flew in the air.

It happened so fast that if Billy had blinked, he would have missed it entirely. The rock flew at Arthur Lacroise's head. Somehow, the nearly invincible Lacroise saw it. He vanished. Mark and Teresa now no longer controlled by magic fell to the ground on top of them.

Rocks began to fly everywhere and Teresa and Mark took cover. Billy landed on the ground beside Keya, who was shooting rocks off at irregular speeds and at anything near her without control. The bag around her neck spat them out at incredible rates.

Glass from the building in front of them shattered. Billy made the slingshot travel elsewhere and reappear in his hands.

Keya fell to the floor and looked at her hands.

Some of the rocks he had to travel to other dimensions or they would have killed Mark and Teresa.

Keya's Mark and Teresa opened their eyes. Mark examined his body nervously. "I'm not dead, thank god!" He exclaimed.

Billy looked at the slingshot in wonder. Mark snatched it from his hands and gave Keya a mean look. "That wasn't a good plan," Mark said, "I mean of all the plans to have, that measures on the scale of idiotic. Rather leave us to that man's incessant rant that to the mercy of that ones slingshot."

Teresa got up and dusted herself, "Well, so long as you kids don't ever do that again, I guess I'll be fine."

In the next instant, three things happened that Billy just couldn't explain.

Mark fell on the ground and began to convulse. A vampire in chains fell from the sky and died right in front of them. And, a woman of undeterminable age fell with him, except Teresa made her float lightly on the ground. Then, the third thing, she began to go into convulsions.

"Travel him to the Nordits, please," Teresa told Billy.

Billy shrugged and obeyed, although he had mixed feelings about seeing Mark in pain.

As soon as Mark vanished, the young woman stopped convulsing. She was wearing nothing but a white dress. Her bare feet were scarred in places but otherwise she was okay. She had golden hair and pretty blue eyes. She was among the top two most beautiful women that Billy had ever seen, next to Simon's sister from that other dimension. At the thought of Simon, Billy frowned a little but he shook the thought of him out of his head.

"Now," the girl said, "Who do I have to thank for my stupendous rescue?"

"What was that whole thing about?" Billy asked.

"Oh," Teresa said, "This is Mark's would-be girlfriend. As the first curse is broken in our world, it's not broken in this world, so when they get close to each other, a fair amount of pain is inflicted to both of them."

"Why didn't you ask me to send her to the Nordits?"

"The little princess doesn't like them," Teresa said, "Never accepts anyone's help. It's probably the reason why we got to rescue Mark first."

"Mark is safe!" the girl exclaimed. "Not that I care because I don't. But he is safe, right?"

Teresa shrugged. "You see? Both of them are crazy, if you ask me."

"You're Wendy," Keya exclaimed at Billy's side. "Of course! You're the one who we were supposed to rescue but how did you escape?"

"Well," Wendy said, "That has to do with luck. One of the magical vampires up there slipped up enough for me to get into his mind. After that I took over and he was doing things to his buddies that it will never forget, except it has to forget since it did those same things to itself."

"She can control your mind," Teresa said, "It's creepy."

Wendy looked at Billy and Keya and smiled. "Well, well, well, we have a situation here, don't we?"

"Don't read my mind," Billy said, looking down at his feet.

Keya shrugged. "Can I get my slingshot back?"

All three of them yelled, "NO!"

"Oh, sorry," Billy said, "I mean, maybe that thing is best kept away from you...for now, Keya. For now."

"It's a joke, okay, wow, when did everyone get so pushy?"

Billy realized he was still holding it in his hand and when Keya had asked for it, he had squeezed it in his hand. Billy, then, traveled everyone back to their own world and traveled to the Norditz with Keya on his side.

He threw the book that Keya had to Mark and Teresa from the vampire world. "Find a world," Billy said, "And take your friends there with you. Lacroise is that guy's problem and, from the looks of it, he has friends that can take care of themselves in this matter."

The white-haired Mark was leaning on a Nordit-made tree eating an apple. "Coulda killed Lacroise, Keya. You coulda. But no, let him escape to some other world, didn't you?"

"We have to go," Billy said, "The best thing to do now, is to travel to your own world."

"The idiots came here," Mark said.

"Who?"

"James and his band of misfits."

"What did you do?"

"Well," Mark said, "I explained the finer details of traveling to them."

"You sent them to the world with the lion and the tiger didn't you?"

"Did you know," Mark said, "That if you don't learn your lesson from the lion and the tiger, that stupid tiger and lion will keep on messing with you? I believed that twenty tigers had died before I realized it was the exact same one he was eating every day."

"So you gave them the power to travel during the day, smart," Billy said.

"Ah," Mark said, "Now you're giving those fools too much credit. They'll never learn their lesson. I hope they like rabbit. That's all those fool tigers eat in that world. Twenty days there and nothing but rabbit, sometimes not even cooked right."

"Ugh, raw?"

"No, overcooked," Mark said, "Tigers love fire."

Billy and Keya laughed.

Keya was still holding his hand for some reason. Well, good, it was reassuring him that he had to go back to somewhere real.

"It's time," Mark said.

*

For a moment, Keya didn't know what was happening because Billy let go of her hand and she looked shaken by this, as though it was one of the greatest crimes committed against her. And she could tell that Billy didn't want to let go of her hand, either.

"Don't panic," Mark said, "He's just letting you say good bye."

"Oh," Keya said, "I get that."

"Saved our lives back there, you know that right?"
"Well," Keya said, "I still don't know if I could ever control it."

"Work on that," Mark said, "But you might never need that sling shot again, that is to say, not anymore."

"Well," Keya said, "How do I keep him in good order, then?"

Mark sighed with a frown but said, "I think, you should relax. You're young and you never know what the future might bring."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"I wish you the best of luck, Keya, I mean that with all my heart. You were a dear and kind friend to me, when I thought I had none. But now, I know different. I could feel her alive out there in my world again. I have a reason to live and it feels wonderful, even if there's still a few vampires out there to deal with."

"What about the pain you felt when she got back?"

"Actually, that felt better than you think. It was like a reminder of what it means to be alive. I hope you never forget that, Keya. I truly do. Be careful out there. The world is...unexpected."

*

While Keya talked with Mark, Billy traveled one last time, to a world that he had been avoiding this whole while. He knew that it led to somewhere important because it was a shiny dot above the universal triangle that connected all their earths together. This dot shone to him only, or that's what Billy thought. It didn't have correct dimensional coordinates like other worlds, either. If anything, the symbols for this world would all show infinity because they were not part of the triangle. This world was like a star inside of the triangle shining brightly.

When Billy got there, he had expected some grand earth with shiny roses everywhere and an enormous measure of light.

Instead, he found himself in a room not unlike the Traveler's court from before, except here there were no judges but three men in black cloaks, whose faces were covered the whole time. They did, however, speak to him in respectful tones and knew that he was the one traveler. Their voices boomed like a loudspeaker.

Billy looked up in wonder trying to find the speakers.

"At last," one of them said, his tone deep and as he spoke the room became purple and darker, "Welcome, traveler to the domain that is but is not. You may ask your question."

Billy thought about this. He didn't know the rules of this dimension but he knew what the important question was. In his heart, he kept thinking about Keya and how he had enjoyed holding her hand but this was different. It was time for a change now. His heart kept asking for an answer to his Keya question. Did she like him, was she as fond of him as he was of her? But, no, this was more important that.

He chose, instead, the lingering question and the reason for this whole thing.

"How can I keep the universe from collapsing?" Billy asked.

"This is a wise choice," the voice said, "We will deliberate. When you return to us, you shall have your answer."

Billy returned to Keya. Keya was happy to see him and even held onto his hand. It was as though she was holding on for dear life.

"Do you want me to travel you to your home, Piersley?" Billy asked the only Piersley still left in the Nordit world.

"No way," Mark said, "And go back to constant bad luck? I think I'll stay here for a day or two, let Wendy take the heat for a bit. She can read minds, you know."

"We know," Billy and Keya said, looking at each other with a smile.

"I've decided that it's going to take me three or four days to be able to travel again. Besides the Norditz aren't so bad," Mark said (Billy thought he heard faint cheering from below), "Even if their wine is horrible."

Now, the noises from below sounded like complaints from drunken men and women.

Billy and Keya waved goodbye to with a smile.

At last, Billy and Keya had their moment. The library was quiet and Billy and her sat in the tiny room from which Keya had come. "I attacked you here," Keya said.

"Well," Billy said, "It isn't the first time you attacked me."

Keya looked at him and put her hands on her sides, "That's not really me, you know."

"Oh," Billy said, "I know, I know. The you I know would never throw rocks at me."

"Rock," Keya said, a blue rock spat out of her pouch, and she threw it at Billy, who let it hit him. She hadn't thrown it with much effort. "Don't expect me to treat you differently than I did before just because you saved my life."

"Ditto," Billy said, "I mean, because you saved mine and then almost killed me right after."

"That's not fair," Keya said, "You can't just..."
Then, Billy found that he couldn't keep the charade going for a second longer. He pulled her to him and kissed her and forget if she didn't like him or not. That fact had long since stopped being the issue.

"Also, not fair."

The door burst open and Francine walked in with a fly swatter. She hit Billy over the head with it once. "What are you two doing in here, huh?" She pointed her fly-swatter at Billy and said, "Get out, you!"

"Also, not fair!" Keya snapped.

"I have to go," Billy said to Keya, with a hand above his head trying to avoid being swatted but failing miserably.

"When will you be back?" Keya asked, pushing Francine aside.

"Soon," Billy said, traveling away from her.

"He returns," the voices said. Now they spoke in unison and the room was near black. "We have an answer for you, young one but you will not like the outcome. You must make a choice."

"What is it I must do?" Billy asked.

"Choose, to save the universe or leave it be. You would live happily for many years but the world will be no more if you choose to stay in your world. If you choose to save the universe, your future is uncertain at best, as has been the lives of all travelers."

"I must make this choice now?"

"Yes," the voices said, "We are sorry, young one. There is no other way."

Billy thought about this. The Norditz had known all along. Damn those drunken fairies! Of course, he hadn't asked, so they hadn't told him. He would get them back for this, that was for sure. Mark seemed to know something of it, too. No wonder he wanted to speak to Keya before they left.

What could he do now?

"Can I ask a question about the nature of my saving the universe?"

"It is not forbidden, young one. In order for you to save the universe, you must travel from earth to earth, consistently. Only the true one's talent can link earths together with enough energy to hold them together. This is the only way, young one."

"I have to travel from earth to earth, forever?"

"No," the voices mumbled, "Your destiny is uncertain. An answer to this may lie in another dimension but this you must do now, to save the universe from collapsing twenty years from this day."

"And if I do not?"

"Then we are all doomed, all universes, not only this one."

"There is more than one universe?"

"There is a universe out there, young one, shaped like a triangle, as this one, and as there are infinite earths, there are infinite universes made like triangles and infinite made like squares, an infinite amount of true earths, all of them with their own unique traveler that could travel to all coordinates and all earths."

"But to save them all, I must do this, travel from earth to earth until I find the solution?"

"Starting in two days, young one. That is your timeline. You may remain in your earth a total of one more day. Should you choose to stay the second one, then we know what decision you have made, to live happily for twenty years more, while the universe fades away."

"No need," Billy said, "I'll make my choice right now. I'm going to save the universe. No more people will die because of me. No. Not anymore."

"Your friend, Simon, he lives. The Lacroise man traveled him elsewhere. You may yet find him. Is this still your choice?"

Billy thought about it but a smile was coming across his face. "Simon lives," a tear formed on his face. Billy shook his head, "I've made up my mind. I'll say good bye to my parents and to Keya and that's that."
"You choose to save the universe, then?"

"Yes," Billy said, "And I will not fail."

"An unwise choice."

"You'd think you'd appreciate it more, what with that I'm saving your lives," Billy said, frowning at them.

"We didn't say it wasn't the correct choice. Things of that nature are for destiny to decide but, if it were up to us, we would have chosen happiness over nobility or the ability to do the right thing."

"It's kind of my problem," Billy said, "It's kind of the reason why I almost got kicked out of Space Dreg."

"Oh, so you're the one who...hrrm. Carry on, traveler."

"Wait, you guys play......?"

"We will speak again traveler."

And he was forced to travel back to his home. Billy smiled, as he thought about how the men who gave him his answers played Space Dreg, too.

After getting a backpack on him in the morning, his mother said to him, "You don't look the same, Billy." She didn't just mean that he was wearing black jacket with the letter V stitched on the back. He had almost forgot about his friends from the Vampire Academy. Maybe, that's the first earth he would visit and teach those vampires a lesson for messing with him.

"I'm going to miss you, mom," Billy said.

"It's only camp, dear," his mother said, "How bad could it be?

Little did she know, that Billy's ruse of going on a camping trip for the summer with Simon's family was so that he wouldn't have to say good bye to his parents forever. He did talk to his dad who told him to stay away from the beehives and to try and act respectable in front of the young ladies.

When he got near the library, a very upset-looking Meryl in pink shorts and pink blouse looking prettied-up with a bonnet on her golden hair and with red lipstick on her lips waited for him. He didn't want to deal with her, so he traveled her to a laundry mat across the street from the library. She ended up on top of one of the machines looking confusedly at a boy that resembled Billy, except that other boy had freckles.

Billy smiled, thinking that's how things got started for him. He had traveled to some unknown place and had made strange new friends.

Keya, on the other hand, he couldn't escape. She was in a blue dress that day with a red flower on her hair. She rushed out of the library and hugged him. Then, she planted a kiss on his cheek, retracted her grip and held onto his hand. "What are we doing today?" Keya asked.

Billy didn't know where to begin.

Keya's eyes marveled at his in a glamorous way. She was enchanted by him and his new jacket. There was something about this boy with the heavyset arms and the charming smile that just got her to hold onto him for dear life. She didn't think she could ever let go of him.

But then the dreaded words came out of his mouth. Keya felt her world spin. It was worse than when she'd been drained out of magic. Her heart felt like it was dropped off a cliff. "We have to talk," Billy said.

But she wouldn't let it happen, "Talk about what, huh? Let's not start out this beautiful thing between us with we have to talk, please."

"There is no--okay, okay, there is but there can't be. I have to travel and you can't come with me. I would worry too much. You have Francine here and someday, I'll return Simon here."

"Simon's alive?"
Billy nodded at her with a smile, "I think I made the wrong decision, deciding to leave you in order to ..... maybe, I could leave my parents, that was hard. Leaving you, it's like leaving part of me behind."

"I can come," Keya said, "Just give me..."

But Billy held onto her hand.

"You know you can't."

Both of them were sad for a moment until Keya said, "Fine, leave me. Always, Billy, you're choosing to leave me behind. You leave without saying good bye and now you leave me and you say I can't come with you. Well, that's just selfish."

"But Keya--?"

"No, go!" She was crying now.

When she came back in the library, she looked back. Billy looked at her through the glass and he made a heart-shaped void. He smiled at her as he walked into it, out of her life, forever.

Keya looked back at him and put her hand out to the door's glass touching it, as though it were part of Billy, her Billy. "Good luck," she whispered at him, at the nothing that remained.

Then, she fell on her knees and cried.

Francine rushed to her side and hugged her.

"It's okay," Francine said, "It's okay. Oh, girl, if only you knew how many traveler's I had to say good bye to. If only."

They say that right afterward, the last instability that was felt was in an airport near downtown, Los Angeles but then, the media wrote it off as the antics of an overweight man who was jumping up and down on the plane. For once, the media actually got it right. Maybe, Keya thought, the world was truly safe now from dimensional destruction and she didn't care. She even threw the remote and broke the television, that's how much she didn't care.