Consumed

"What's wrong with seeing an old friend?" Simon chuckled foully. I glared at him.

"What the hell are you doing here?" Talking to him brought back bad memories of my childhood I would do without. He was the reason everything bad happened to me. Yet, he was right here in front of me.

"Same reason why you're here," he said, his eyes turning cold and icy like his power.

"You got banished?" I asked, confused. "What the hell did you do?"

"Sonuvabitch dad said I was too dangerous," he spat. I looked at him with confusion, then suddenly erupted in uncontrollable hysteria.

"Waddaya laughing at!" Simon shouted, pointing his hand at me, threatening to ice me.

"Oh man, what goes around comes around, Simon," I said, clutching my stomach from laughing too hard. Simon Dent. Banished. I love this world.

"What's that supposed to mean?" He sniggered.

"I guess you don't have your goons to back you up this time, huh?"

"Zolcs, my crosshairs are on you," he said, as he shot out a beam of ice and drew it in a straight line in front of me. The cold shot towards me quickly. Absolute zero. "You're ice."

"That's a pretty good catchprase," I joked as he stormed away, with that stormy look in his eyes. For a person with a cold ability, he has a pretty hot head.

I started to think about my survival. I couldn't shake off the uneasy aura that came from every corner. All of Ao's most dangerous have been imprisoned here. I followed the gravel path that led from the entrance towards the forest. It seemed to be the only path to take.

The light shone through the autumn leaves and created light shadows on the ground as I walked. It was summer outside, yet it was autumn inside. A weather manipulator, obviously. I had read in a book once this was a phenomenon called 'komorebi' in a Japanese text. It was a word that had no translation in English.

The breeze felt cool against my skin, as I rustled against the falling leaves in my hoodie and shorts.

"You're new," a voice appeared above me, all of a sudden. I didn't even sense him there. I look above and somebody drops down, to see an Asian man, maybe in his mid twenties with headphones around his neck . "I'll take you to camp, follow me."

"Er, who are you?" I asked.

"I'm Alfonso, and you are Gin," he replied, pointing a finger at me. Without waiting for my response, he put a hand on my shoulder. "Let's head back," and everything went white.

I woke up in what seemed to be a traditional Japanese room. I was tucked inside a futon when I did. An electronic song was playing in the background, what seemed to be a remix of the Victory Road song in Pokémon.

"You're awake," Alfonso said.

"Yeah, I am. Now please tell me what happened?"

He brushed through his black hair (with a tint of brown) and tapped stop on the speakers. "You couldn't handle the power I used, so you whited out."

"Teleportation magic?"

"That's right."

"Damn, how far did we travel?"

"About 1500 miles."

I almost choked, but managed to regain myself. "So what am I doing here?"

"The head's gonna orient you," he says with a huge smile, placing his hand on my shoulder again and everything went blue.

The first thing that came to my senses was the sound of the wind. I opened my eyes to see that we were on top of a mountain, with the light mist blowing around, the gale cool against the skin, the view serene and quiet, overlooking all.

A group of three people sat in haphazard positions, with one sitting on the peak of the mountain alone.

"That's Jericho right there," Alfonso pointed to the top, sticking a lollipop in his mouth.

"How do you get lollipops around here?"

He shrugged. "We have food manipulators."

"What he means is we have candy factories, run by an earth manipulator who grows the sugar around here," the woman from the group walked forward, wearing a tanktop, and a sleeve of tattooes running down her left arm.

"I need to get tattooes like that..." I whispered to Alfonso, which he replied with a grin.

"What?" The woman asked sharply.

"Oh, uh, aren't you, like, cold?" I spoke in a louder voice.

"Never, ever, comment on Steph's clothing," Alfonso whispered into my ear.

I gulped, thinking of the consequences, despite not knowing who she was, and stuck out a hand. "Gin Zolcs."

"I know who you are," Steph waved a hand brusquely. "I scanned you with my Knowledge Eye the moment you stepped through the gates. Now go, before Jericho kills you."

"She meant that as a joke," Alfonso whispered again.

I looked at the other two. One was an old man, who I really couldn't tell the age of. Despite his white hair and beard, his body was epic, almost like a giant, with muscles protruding in every inch of it. The other was a boy, a few years older than me, with brown hair and looked as if he were perpetually depressed. He caught my glance, and I shivered from his soulless, purple eyes.

I started to tread my way towards the top of the mountain.

"You can stop right there," Jericho's light yet commanding voice spoke. It had a slight tint of a German accent to it, so I assumed his nationality. I froze three meters away from him. He was facing me with his back, and his brown hair rustled in the wind. He was wearing a long sleeved white button up, with the sleeves rolled up, tucked inside long black pants. He looked like a waiter.

"Tell me, boy, what's your power?"
''Uh... uhm," I stuttered in the presence of him. He was like nothing I had ever seen before. The mere fact he was speaking to me almost made me drop to my knees. It may have been an exaggeration, but the fact that he was strong was not. "I... I don't know."

"Yet that is exactly the reason why you are here. You do not know your powers, however I can sense the darkness inside you. His words made me freeze, unlike anything before.

"Then what do you want with my power?" I asked, taking a step closer.

"You're here because I need you," he shifted his head a little so I could see the side of his face. "Gin, let's get out of this prison."