Miracle's pov
Freaking Alaskan icy winds, man. Even with two blankets wrapped around me like a makeshift sleeping bag and sitting three inches away from a campfire courtesy of our resident portable stove, James, it still hit my bare skin like needles. Back in Zomba, my biggest weather complaint was the humidity messing with my mood. Out here? If we didn't find a proper shelter soon, we were going to get hit by sub-zero temperatures, turn into human ice lollies, and end up completely screwed.
"Cold?" Sylvia asked, tilting her head. She was sitting across from me, cross-legged with her blanket covering her. The cold was finally starting to get to her but not as bad as me.
"Meh, I'll live," I muttered, pulling the cover so tight around my neck I was practically strangling myself.
Using my psychokinesis, I plucked a thick branch from the pile beside us, lit the top using the campfire's embers, and floated it directly over to James.
"Okay, test number six, get ready." I announced.
James grabbed the branch out of the air with an annoyed grunt, his shoulders completely tense. He stared intensely at the flame, his brow furrowing as he tried to concentrate. The teal fire began to flicker, growing slightly larger.
"Remember, keep it controlled and let it burn smoothly." I said keeping my voice level a bit low. "Don't force it. Let the heat flow."
For about three seconds, it looked like he was actually managing it. Then his fingers twitched, and—
FWOOOOSH!!!
The teal fire erupted violently from the branch, reducing the entire three-foot piece of hardwood to white ash in a split second. The heat blasted into my face, nearly singeing my eyebrows off.
We all stared at the pile of ash in dead silence. James gritted his teeth, whirled around, and punched a nearby pine tree, leaving a fist-sized dent deep in its trunk.
"ARRGHH!" he growled, steam literally rolling out of his nose like an angry bull. "This is stupid! Why am I playing with sticks when I can easily burn down a whole tree if I wanted to?"
"The whole point of this exercise is so you don't accidentally incinerate our rations, hothead," I sighed, rolling my eyes. Plus it didn't want to piss off what ever divine entities or freaky spirits which might be in this forest.
"Hehe… James lost again," giggled Sylvia.
"Hey, shut up, crybaby!" he yelled, causing her to immediately flinch and scramble behind my back.
"Miracle! James… mean! He… yell!" she stuttered out.
"It's not my fault this test is garbage," James poorly defended himself, crossing his arms and huffing. "Mrs. Sandra used to make me do the exact same thing back at the lab. She'd bring candles and make me practice for hours not to completely melt them away, but they always turned to liquid. It was boring then, and it's boring now!"
Well, that got me thinking. So far, I was just mimicking popular basic fire control exercises from fiction, but looking at James, it made sense why it wasn't working. I'm not some wise old mentor; I don't have the grand wisdom or world experience to handle his deep-seated psychological blocks. But people learn differently. Maybe I needed to play directly into his aggressive personality.
'Hey, Tinashe. A little help here,' I mentally asked.
"Well, like you already concluded, Miracle, the dragon child's personality isn't suited for rigid, suppressive discipline," she murmured in my mind, her tone warm and thoughtful. "He views suppression as a cage—the very cage he just escaped. Try a form of training that forces him to control his flames, but feeds into his desire to fight. Give him an adversary, not a stick.'
'Hmm...' I snapped my fingers as an idea clicked. "Okay, let's see if this works. Hey James, change of plans. Let's try something a bit more your style."
Using my telekinesis, I lifted a heavy, solid log and landed it a good ten meters away from us. Then, controlling one of those salvaged demonic daggers, I quickly carved three decently sized target circles into the wood.
"Alright, tough guy, it's simple," I said, crossing my arms. "We're just going to play a game. All you need to do is shoot your fireballs directly inside these circles. Just the circles, nothing more. If your fire spills over, or if any other part of the log gets caught in the flames, you lose and have to start over."
James blinked, his red eyes briefly flashing as they lit up. "That's it? Easy."
"Okay, big man, give it a shot." I floated backward, giving him some space.
James dropped into a low stance and focused on his target, his hands igniting with teal fire. Hurling his hand forward, he launched a dense fireball straight at the log.
BOOM!
The projectile slammed directly into the center target. But the moment the blast connected, the residual heat expanded outward, charring the entire top half of the log.
"You lose," I said flatly, waving a hand to telekinetically snuff out the remaining sparks.
"What?! But I hit the target!" James barked, throwing his hands up in furious protest.
"I said you can only hit inside the circle, not the whole log. Your output is too wide, genius."
"Tsk! That's total garbage!" James grumbled. In a fit of frustration, he marched straight over to me, aggressively yanking my shirt to pull me down to his eye level.
SMACK!
My hand connected with his top head, backed by a localized psionic push that sent him tumbling into the dirt. Before he could scramble back up, I instantly switched to my Sacred Gear, multiplying the gravity around his body.
"Chitsilu cha mwana," I glared down at him. James flinched, gritting his teeth as he struggled against the sudden, crushing weight. It was infuriating, but I could tell he was slowly starting to adapt to the extra Gs. "Calm down, dumbass. Yank my shirt again and I'll increase the weight until your ribs start cracking."
I sighed, my voice softening just a fraction. "Look, man, I know it's hard. But I know you can get this right. You're fast, but you're sloppy. Refine it. Tell you what… If you can hit just the inside of the circle without burning the rest of the log, I'll give you extra pieces of meat from the next hunt."
"W-What?" James mumbled, entirely confused by the sudden shift from a slap to encouragement. I mean I don't blame him when my mom hit me and switched up being a little softer and nurturing confused the fuck out of me.
Wait… Oh damn.
'I believe this is what they call poetic irony.' laughed Tinashe.
"Don't even go there."
Back to James the words extra meat sank into his stomach, his eyes widened with renewed hunger. He calmed down, giving a reluctant, pumped-up nod.
Seeing he was no longer throwing a tantrum, I cut off the extra Gs, letting him bounce back up to his feet. "Good. Now try it again, and focus on the shape of the blast."
"Miracle!" Sylvia suddenly bounced over to me, tugging my sleeve aggressively. "ME! ME!… WHAT… SYLVIA DO?!"
"For you, uh..." I rubbed my curly green hair, feeling a massive headache coming on.
Shit, man, this was going to be hard. For James, I could pull inspiration from a dozen different fictional characters. But for Sylvia's abilities, I didn't know jack shit about how to systematically tackle plant magic. Most media characters just waved their hands and nature magically obeyed, which was exactly what Sylvia already did instinctively.
"Would you like more of my assistance, *mwana wanga*?" Tinashe asked softly in my mind.
'Yeah. You got anything?'
"Sylvia doesn't just make things grow; she projects her chaotic life force into the environment, causing instant mutations," Tinashe explained. "Right now, she operates on two extreme settings: pure happiness when she is with you, or a terrifying, psychotic defense mechanism when threatened. She has no in-between. She needs to learn how to isolate individual commands, like adjusting a dial."
'A dial, huh? Positive and negative control vibes. Alright, Tinashe, thanks.'
"Anytime, my wielder. Now, you should focus on the physical world; James is starting another fire," she informed me, her tone shifting to mild amusement.
"Ah, shit!"
I whipped my head around. James had tried to sneak in another shot, missed the log entirely, and ignited a nearby bush. I slammed a heavy wave of telekinetic pressure down on it, smothering the oxygen and snuffing out the flames instantly.
"Dude, really? I took my eyes off you for like three minutes," I deadpanned.
"It was an accident!" he shouted back, crossing his arms defensively.
Before I could finish chewing him out, a brutal, freezing gust of wind swept through the clearing. I shuddered violently, wrapping my blankets around myself even deeper.
"Miracle..." Sylvia whispered worriedly. She walked over and wrapped her arms tightly around my torso. I instinctively raised a hand to push her away, tired of the constant clinginess, but stopped when I realized her frame was shivering just as badly as mine. Despite her dryad physiology, the raw Alaskan frost was breaking through.
James looked at us, his hands sparking with localized heat. "Uh... what's wrong with you two? You need more fire?"
Later that night,
I floated against the trunk of a massive pine tree, letting out a long, exhausted sigh.
We had spent two agonizing hours tracking the dense wildlife further up the mountain and found thick-furred mountain goats, thanks to Sylvia. James had managed to drop them using precise physical strikes instead of his fire, preserving the pelts. It was grisly work, but using the daggers and psychokinesis, I had managed to scrape together enough raw hide and fur to fashion makeshift insulating wraps for Sylvia and me.
After the hunt and a quiet dinner of roasted meat, the two had gone back to training. James was still struggling with the target method, but he was throwing himself into it with actual enthusiasm now that it felt like a challenge.
But as the silence of the night settled, the weight of the world crashed down on me. I stared out into the pitch-black woods, my mind spiraling into a dark, familiar pit. We were completely lost in Alaska. No papers, no adult supervision, and a global supernatural terrorist organization was likely hunting us down. I was mentally sixteen, but I was stuck in a body that could barely reach a high shelf, trying to raise two traumatized super-weapons.
My subconscious panic began to warp the air. A heavy, crushing pressure rippled outward, splintering three big pine trees and cracking a nearby boulder right down the middle.
"Perhaps instead of stressing yourself into raising your blood pressure, you should use this chance to get a bit more rest, my wielder," Tinashe's voice gently echoed in my mind.
'What are you talking about? I got enough sleep,' I snapped back internally, my thoughts dripping with venom. 'I don't need a lecture right now, Tinashe.'
"No, you haven't, Miracle. You were awake the whole night and only slept for two hours. You've been doing this to yourself for the past three days now," she countered, her tone remaining frustratingly calm. "I don't know how many times I have to remind you that abilities are heavily mental-based. If you keep doing this, your brain will fry, and you won't be efficient when a real threat shows up."
'Oh, so now I'm inefficient?' I blew up at her, my mental voice shouting inside my own skull. 'I'm the only one keeping us alive! I'm the one dealing with a human-sized lizard and a girl who talks to bushes! So stop coddling me like a toddler! I took all the abuse from those bastards in the lab, I can handle a few missed hours of sleep!'
There was a long pause in my mind space. When Tinashe spoke again, her voice had shifted from playful to a soft, deeply sorrowful whisper.
"Mwana uyu..." she murmured. "Your argument falls flat, Miracle. Back on Earth, you were sixteen. Out here, your body is nine. You are still just a child, no matter how old your spirit feels. I am not trying to undermine you. I am worried about permanent neurological damage."
Hearing the genuine, maternal pain in her voice completely deflated my anger. I let out a ragged, defeated sigh. 'Yeah... whatever. Touche. Look, I'm sorry I snapped. I'm just... I'm running on empty.'
"I know, mwana wanga," she whispered, her presence wrapping around my psyche like a warm embrace, melting away the stress-induced headache. "Come inside the mind space. Let your consciousness rest ."
I didn't have the strength to fight her anymore. Closing my eyes, I let go of the physical world, sinking into the quiet sanctuary of my mind.
Two hours later
Slowly opening my eyes, I felt a familiar warmth beside me and saw Sylvia laying at my left side, fast asleep. I let out an annoyed sigh, but before I could float away, my internal alarm bells went off.
Something felt profoundly off about the forest. It wasn't the standard, creepy atmosphere we had grown used to over the last few days. The air felt incredibly ominous, heavy, and choked by a thick, unnatural mist that was rapidly rolling through the trees.
I instantly activated my radar to scan the environment, half-expecting another one of those otterman things. But the mist was actively scrambling my telekinetic awareness. When I tried to force my energy through the fog, a sharp, stabbing pain flared behind my eyes.
"Seriously? My radar has a lower success rate than my Form One math grades," I mumbled, nursing the growing ache. I managed to lock onto multiple signatures, but they were small—much weaker than the otterman, but highly coordinated.
The distinct crunch of footsteps got my ears twitching, and my heart rate spiked. Sensing something tearing through the air at high speed, I instinctively threw up a localized telekinetic barrier.
Thwack! Thwack! Thwack! Thwack!
Five wooden arrows froze mid-air, hovering inches from my face.
"What the hell? Great, the local wildlife uses archery now," I muttered.
"Miracle?" Sylvia woke up, rubbing her sleepy eyes. "What… happen?"
Before I could answer, a shadow leaped straight from the fog, aiming directly for her neck. I flicked my wrist, catching the attacker mid-air with my psychokinesis and slamming it hard against a nearby pine tree pinning it there.
"What's going on? Is Miracle destroying stuff again?" James asked, yawning as he stumbled out of his moss bed.
Ignoring him, I stepped forward to inspect what had just attacked us. It was a small, diminutive creature, not much bigger than a human kid heck i was a bit taller than it, it was wearing um Eskimo clothes I guess. Using my powers, I ripped the wooden mask off its face to get a clear look. It's faces appear looked heavily wrinkled and weathered, dark, leathery, skin, and glowing purple eyes.
'What is this guy, an Akhafula? They got Akhafula in America?' I thought in shock, referencing the mythical, aggressive little people my grandparents used to warn me about back in past life to keep me out of the deep forests.
But it could be there version of them, different cultures have different versions of the same thing after all, with a few tweaks here and there.
"Miracle…" Sylvia whispered, her voice trembling as she stared into the mist. "Forest… say dangerous. Forest… say… bad things… many teeth… awake. Want… drink… our skin."
"Ah what?" I'm starting to learn to accept this forest thing with her but what the hell was that?
"It feels like the lab." James growled.
Suddenly, multiple objects came flying out of the darkness. They weren't arrows this time; they were glowing purple orbs. Before I could redirect them—
BOOM!
The orbs detonated with concussive force, throwing up a massive cloud of dirt and debris.
"Cough! Guys, you—"
My sentence was cut short as several thick, enchanted ropes shot out from the smoke, wrapping tightly around my arms and torso, pinning me backward against a tree.
"SERIOUSLY?! Ropes? What is this, a budget cartoon?" I yelled in sheer frustration.
Ten more of the corrupted little people emerged from the fog. Leading them was a slightly larger, heavily muscled variant holding a massive, crude iron cleaver. The mini-hulk barked out a series of guttural grunts and clicks. Three of his subordinates immediately darted toward our camp, grabbing our remaining stack of roasted goat meat.
"HEY! THAT'S OURS!" James roared.
Sparks flew from his skin as he completely lit himself on fire, the sheer intensity of his teal flames instantly vaporizing the ropes binding him. The little people let out surprised screams, quickly pulling out blowdarts and launching a volley of glowing needles at him.
"Oh no, you don't. Return to sender," I snarled. Using my psychokinesis, I seized control of the incoming needles mid-air and hurled them right back at the attackers in case they were explosive. The creatures shrieked, diving frantically into the underbrush to dodge their own weapons.
"Leave… us!" Sylvia screamed, her eyes flashing ominously.
Thick, black roots laced with massive, jagged thorns erupted from the frozen ground, tearing through the dirt. The roots clamped down on four of the raiders, piercing their flesh and causing them to screech in agonizing pain as blood pooled on the moss.
Glancing down at her, I felt a chill. Sylvia had that exact same twisted, serene smile on her face that she wore when she slaughtered the goons back at the facility. She turned her glowing green eyes toward me, looking entirely innocent despite the carnage. "Miracle… Sylvia… do good? Pests… gone?"
"Yeah, great job, kid. Now let us down before you plant a garden over me," I muttered.
Using a sharp, concentrated burst of my psychokinesis, I sheared through the remaining ropes binding Sylvia and me. The surviving little people, realizing they had completely underestimated their prey, grabbed our stolen meat and retreated into the thick mist, creating a tactical smokescreen.
"James, wai—"
I was too late. Blinded by rage and the loss of his precious meat, the kid charged headfirst into the fog after them.
I loudly clicked my tongue in absolute irritation. "Tsk. Chitsilu cha mwana."
"James… help?" Sylvia asked, standing beside me nervously.
It was incredibly reckless to follow them. This was basically in their home turf, and charging blindly into an Alaskan mist was a one-way ticket to getting ambushed, cooked, and eaten. But James was still just a kid under all that dragon posturing, and leaving him behind would be a real dick move on my part.
I let out a long, deeply tired Malawian sigh. "Aw, man. Yeah, let's go move before he gets himself killed."
We ran after him and thankfully they weren't that far away from us.
James was completely surrounded and getting heavily jumped. The corrupted little people were incredibly tricky, seamlessly utilizing the environment, the heavy mist, and coordinated ranged attacks to keep him off-balance. Every time James tried to unleash a massive fireball, three of them would flank him from the blind spots of the trees, forcing him to defend rather than attack.
Sylvia instantly panicked, her childlike demeanor fracturing into stuttering fear at the sight of James taking hits. "James… hurt! No… no!"
"Sylvia, shut up and look at me! Move your legs!" I barked, grabbing her arm telekinetically and ripping her forward just as a volley of glowing purple needles hissed through the space where her head had been a microsecond ago.
James was completely cut off from us on the other side of the clearing, surrounded by a swirling vortex of fog and teal fire as he clashed with the muscular leader. That left the remaining eight miniature eggplants entirely to us, and they weren't running. They vanished into the thick mist, their tiny, rapid footsteps echoing from three different directions at once.
This wasn't a standard, mindless monster brawl; these things were executing a highly coordinated ambush. A shadow blurred out of the fog to my left, swinging a bone-tipped spear. I didn't even turn around, casually slamming a concentrated shockwave of telekinetic pressure that shattered the spear and sent the creature flying into a pine tree.
I was handling them well enough because I had already analyzed how the otterman utilized localized environmental anomalies. But Sylvia was a complete mess. She stood frozen in the center of the clearing, her arms raised defensively, completely overwhelmed by the chaotic sounds and the blinding mist. A purple scout dropped silently from a high branch right above her, pulling back a crude glowing stone dagger aimed directly for her neck.
"Sylvia, look out!" I yelled. I pushed my psychokinesis to the limit, snapping a massive, invisible shield over her just as the dagger struck. The impact rippled against my brain like a physical punch, forcing a sharp spike of pain behind my eyes.
"Listen to me!" I roared, grabbing her shoulders and forcing her to look into my ringed eyes. "Stop looking at the fog! Focus on getting angry, just like we practiced! If you don't flip the switch right now, these things are going to butcher us! ?!"
That did it. The mention of the lab was the ultimate catalyst. Sylvia's frantic breathing stopped instantly. Her face froze into that eerie, terrifyingly vacant mask, and her green eyes flared with a brilliant, predatory light. Her dryad instincts finally took the wheel. She slammed her hands directly onto the earth, and the entire clearing violently shuddered.
Working together, our counter-attack became an absolute meat-grinder. While I used localized psionic bursts to forcefully disperse the mist and neutralize their nimble mobility, Sylvia manipulated the earth itself. Massive, black roots laced with jagged, venomous thorns erupted from the dirt like striking serpents, snapping the little creatures mid-dodge and dragging them kicking into the soil. Within three paragraphs of absolute, coordinated violence, we completely shut down their ambush tactics.
"I… trap them!" she declared, her voice dropping into a cold, rhythmic, unnatural tone as the thick roots bound the remaining raiders entirely immobile against the ground.
Meanwhile, James was dealing with the leader. Because it was happening on the other side of the clearing through the lingering smoke, I couldn't see the exact mechanics of the fight, but the constant explosions of teal fire and the distinct sound of snapping bones told me everything I needed to know. By the time the dust cleared, the muscular leader was laying entirely dead on the ground, his skull fractured by a direct, flaming strike from James.
"Phew," James panted, extinguishing his fists, though his clothes were torn to shreds. "Told you I could handle it."
"Yeah, barely. You look like you got dragged through a thorn bush backward," I muttered, walking over to the surviving little people trapped in Sylvia's roots. I tightened a telekinetic grip around their throats just to be safe while gathering their weapons too.
"Why are we tying them up? Let's just burn them," James growled, his hands sparking with teal fire again.
"Hold it, you pyromaniac, I need to check something first," I snapped, waving him back.
I knelt down, using my sensory abilities to focus deeply on their unique energy signatures. Their skin was too purple, and the lingering residue in their blood felt entirely unnatural.
'What do you think it is, Tinashe?' I asked mentally.
"I'm just as much in the dark as you are, Miracle," she admitted, her voice echoing seriously within my mind. "My first thought was that they might have had demonic energy forced upon them, but this doesn't feel like the devil from the lab. It could still be a form of demonic energy, or perhaps an ancient, corrupted power native to this region."
I frowned, trying to piece together if the Khaos Brigade had actively experimented on the local folklore creatures of Alaska. But before I could investigate any further—
FWOOOOSH!
A massive torrent of teal fire washed over the bound creatures, incinerating them into black ash in a fraction of a second.
"James?!" I yelled, whirling around in pure annoyance.
"What? You were taking too long," he muttered, crossing his arms and looking away like a petulant toddler.
I sucked my teeth loudly but ultimately chose not to blame him too harshly. Pragmatically, he wasn't entirely wrong. We couldn't take any chances by letting them go. If we spared them, they would either hunt us down for revenge or report our location to the rest of their tribe, bringing an entire army of corrupted folklore monsters down on our heads.
But as the flames died down, a heavy, unsettling silence fell over the clearing. The final, agonizing screams of the little people as they burned didn't sound like monsters at all. They sounded exactly like the high-pitched, terrifying screams of human children.
The three of us stood there in the freezing Alaskan fog, completely disturbed, staring at the glowing ash as the horrific echo lingered in the air.
"Let's get out here before something else shows up." I said quietly making their weapons float beside me.
"It's alright Miracle like you said you did what you had to do. It was either all of you or them."
'I know. So you still going to call me over paranoid?'
" 'Huff' Don't you dare start. This won't be a suitable excuse to go back to ignoring your health."
'Yeah. Ye..' I paused when I felt something cold touch my nose.
I froze.
I lowered my hand, staring down at the tiny which fell to it, intricate crystal structure. It didn't look like rain. It didn't look like frost. It was a single, perfect snowflake.
And then, the sky opened up.
Millions of white flakes began to drift down through the dark pine branches, twirling lazily in the freezing air like a shower of tiny, glowing stars. Back in Malawi, the closest thing I had ever seen to ice was the frosted condensation on the inside of our old freezer, or seeing it on TV
A sudden, overwhelming warmth flared behind my chest. For a split second, the heavy, suffocating weight of the Chaos Brigade, the corrupt scientists, the Alaskan monsters was gone.
I reached out, my fingers trembling slightly as I tried to catch the falling snowflakes.
'Wow.'
End of pov
Syliva just stared at Miracle as side of him she has not seen in the brief time they spent together.
She had never notice who small was compared to her and James, he looked so fragile, his looked softer, and beautiful shine in his ringed eye. She wanted to see that light again. She wanted to keep that awe alive. She didn't want him to carry the heavy weight all by himself anymore.
Author Note:
Phew this one took a bit off time to upload and I'm sorry about that, I was busy looking at ideas of my MHA story so it sort of took my attention. But I'll try pumping out more chapters of this story this weak.
Like always don't be afraid to comment or leave a review of the story from likes, dislikes and ideas you want put in the story.