Oracle--Mutant Wood Read online

  “No!” Ret objected. He lunged forward to stop the pair, but the four remaining revenants blocked his path. Ret took a step back and glared at his familial foes. They were poised and ready, waiting for him to make the first move.

  With a grunt, Ret blasted the revenants with a gust of hurricane-force wind, and with that the family feud was underway. The wind revenant immediately countered the attack by removing the energy from the air and then funneling it back at Ret, who absorbed it into his palm. The revenants separated, encompassing Ret on all sides and besieging him simultaneously. The arena erupted in elements—landslides and earthquakes, fireballs and lava flows, heavy chains and sharp swords, bright lights and gamma rays. Earth, fire, ore, and wind—Ret quenched everything that was thrown his way.

  The gang decided to team up instead of split up. The earth revenant lobbed rocks into the air like a skeet machine, then the wind revenant propelled each one with a supersonic burst of wind. The projectiles were extremely difficult to dodge, coming so fast that they exploded upon hitting the ground.

  Meanwhile, the ore revenant, a brute of a man, jammed his hands into the ground, sifting through the sand and attracting all kinds of metals to them like magnets. He brought them out covered in flecks and fashioned them into a heavy wire, which he began to swipe at Ret like a whip, passing it through the fire revenant’s superhot flame with each swing to make it temporarily pliable.

  Ret had no time to strike with his own attacks. The revenants truly were experts in their respective elements, conjuring things that Ret had never even imagined, from dust storms to laser beams. The fire revenant was supplying the spark to ignite the earth revenant’s gun powder in order to shoot the ore revenant’s bullets-turned-heat-seeking-missiles under the wind revenant’s direction. It was four minds against one. Alone, they were manageable; but together, they were unstoppable.

  Ret was growing weary. He would just quell one threat when a new one would arrive. There was time neither to rest nor to think. His senses were being overloaded. His adversaries were working as a single team now. Ret saw them exchange glances and then nod, as if they were about to execute a much-rehearsed plan. Then they struck. In an instant, the field erupted in walls of sand, which were melted and blown into glass. A blinding light appeared, intensified by the glass and bouncing off it at all angles, forcing Ret to shut his eyes. When he opened them, he found metal cups clasped around his hands, limiting his powers. Then he was pinned to the ground.

  The excitement subsided. Ret, his face in the sand, finally had a moment to think. This was like fighting his clone all over again—futile and going nowhere. He needed now what he had needed then: something unique to him that would give him the upper hand. Last time, it had been Paige. What could it be this time?

  Just then, a tiny root emerged from the sand near Ret’s face. Like a worm, it silently wiggled for a second or two, just long enough to get its point across, before sliding back into the ground. Ret’s gaze shifted to the other roots in the vicinity—the large and mighty ones. That was when he realized the wood revenant had fled with Lye. As powerful as these four revenants were, they were not complete. Something was missing.

  Ret could beat them with the power of wood.

  Suddenly, four roots shot out of the ground, wrapped themselves around each of the revenants, and yanked them away from Ret. He rose to his feet and commanded more roots to peel away the metal from his hands, which they did with impressive strength. Ret was back in business.

  Each of the four revenants devised some way to break, burn, or blow their bands away, but Ret was ready for them. He enclosed the earth revenant in a cage of briars, so tightly that he couldn’t move without getting severely poked. Next, he doused the fire revenant in a tangled mess of seaweed and then cast up an entire field of extra tall grass around the ore revenant, who was soon as lost as a child in a corn maze.

  Ret was about to turn his attention to the wind revenant when he was thrown to the floor. Though back on his feet in an instant, he was soon punched in the face and kicked to the ground. He looked around, but his attacker was nowhere to be seen. Then he saw footprints in the sand, coming towards him. Ret knew what was going on: the wind revenant was manipulating the waves of light to make herself invisible.

  Ret sent a gust of wind towards her, spraying sand in her eyes. He quickly turned around and outlined a series of tiles in the dimension of time. He bonded them together and rolled the scene back to a random moment in the past.

  Ret had just turned around when he was tackled. He switched his vision to energy mode and found the wind revenant leaning over him.

  “You’ll never get the best of me,” she threatened. “I’m the cleverest of them all.”

  “We’ll see about that,” Ret countered.

  Using his legs, Ret launched the woman behind him, directly through the tiles and into the past. Then he rolled the scene back to the present, sealing her inside.

  “I’d like to see your cleverness get you out of there,” Ret remarked.

  With the four revenants detained, Ret hurried towards the root bulb, hoping it wasn’t too late to stop Lye and the fifth revenant from collecting the wood element.

  CHAPTER 18

  MUTANT WOOD

  Leaving four of his revenants behind to keep Ret occupied, Lye hastened toward the great tree’s root bulb, the wood revenant right behind him. Nothing could stop them from collecting the element now—or so they thought. They abruptly halted when they found a man standing in front of them.

  “And just where do you think you two are going?” the calm-mannered man asked.

  “Well, if it isn’t Neo,” Lye scoffed, “the part-time Guardian. Tell me, old friend, done any vacationing lately? I’d love to see pictures.”

  “We’re not friends,” Neo retorted, “and you know very well the great tree can detect you a mile away.”

  “That may have been true in the past,” Lye said, “but this time I brought an acquaintance.” Neo stared at the revenant. “Turns out he and his scars are just the trick in tempering this troublesome tree. I’d say he must have been a lumberjack in his former life—before I brainwashed him.”

  “You’ll never reach the element,” Neo pledged.

  “Hmm, let’s see,” Lye poked. “I’ve got the Oracle, he’s got the scars—looks like the only thing standing in our way,” Lye’s countenance fell, “is you.” Without warning, Lye shot a lightning bolt from his cane, but Neo, expecting as much, caused a root to latch onto the base of it and tweak it, sending the bolt zigzagging into the night sky.

  Neo grinned and teased, “You missed.”

  “I may not be a match for your green thumb,” Lye jeered, “but I do have something you want.”

  “Oh?” Neo doubted. “And what’s that?”

  Lye reached inside his robe, retrieved a flask from the chest pocket, and said, “This.” Neo glared at him curiously. “I know how you’ve been staying alive all these years, Neo.” He shook the contents of the container. “And you’ve been stealing it from me—right under my nose.”

  “Not bad, huh?” Neo beamed.

  “Well not anymore,” Lye shot back. “I know about the portal that you installed on my island.” Worry seized Neo’s face. “You can thank Ben Coy for that. And if you or he or anyone else so much as sets one toe on my island again, you’ll be dead before you can blink.” Neo swallowed hard. “So consider this flask your only hope of surviving because after I collect the element tonight, this tree will be dead—and so will you. Unless, of course, you’d like to fight me for it.”

  “If I must,” Neo said through his teeth.

  Lye handed the Oracle to the wood revenant and instructed him, “Go and collect the element while I take care of this grass stain of a Guardian.” The revenant rushed off. Lye turned to face Neo, who was slowly pacing around him in a half-circle. “Alright, spinach breath. Give me your best shot.”

  Just then, Neo transformed the plain into a watermelon patch.


  “Really?” Lye looked at his opponent pitifully. “Is that the best you can do?” From behind, Neo sent a watermelon crashing into the back of Lye’s head. He fell to the ground, seeds stuck in his beard. “Enough of this child’s play,” Lye seethed. He rose to his feet, but the watermelons were now as large as cars, and Neo was nowhere to be seen.

  “I don’t have time for your games,” Lye growled, walking through the field in search of his rival. He shot a watermelon with a lightning bolt, causing it to explode, followed by another. Lye was too busy smashing melons that he failed to see the little vine that had crawled up his clothes, reached into his robe, and filched the flask before slithering away. “Come out and face me like a man.” Another watermelon exploded.

  “Okay.”

  Lye spun around to find Neo behind him, clutching the flask.

  “I win,” the Guardian smiled victoriously.

  In his anger, Lye rolled one of the watermelons directly onto Neo, knocking the flask from his possession.

  “Watermelon was a poor choice of produce, plant man,” Lye derided as he regained the flask.

  Lye’s jubilance faded when he felt the ground at his feet rumbling. He scarcely had time to react as Neo sent a full-fledged forest of great and towering trees surging up through the sand. Engulfed in the treetops, Lye was taken into the sky. Neo wasn’t far behind, carried into the canopy with the help of vines that he lengthened and shortened as desired. He found Lye stuck in the branches, hanging by his robe. Pulling and tugging, Lye struggled to free himself until he managed to straddle his cane, emit a powerful bolt, and break free. The evil lord flew through the trees, dodging the limbs and vines that Neo was growing and throwing in his way. In a desperate effort to escape, Lye broke through the canopy but enjoyed smooth sailing for just a moment before the living forest reached for him and swallowed him whole. Lye crashed and tumbled to the ground.

  Furious, Lye stood and erupted in electricity, sending currents in all directions that reduced the entire forest to splinters. Then he vaporized the organic material, condensed it into water molecules, and sprayed it at Neo with the force of a geyser. Neo was propelled several hundred feet backwards, where he lay lifeless on the ground.

  Lye strode past Neo without showing any concern, determined to join his revenant and collect the element. Without the wood revenant at his side, however, Lye now had a much bigger problem on his hands than the Guardian: the great tree.

  Lye was approaching the root bulb when he heard a bone-rattling moan, like the call of a large whale. Alarmed, he glanced around, then panicked when he saw a massive root in the sky, directly overhead and falling fast. Lye turned back and leapt out of the way as the root came crashing down, creating a tidal wave in the sand. Lye rolled away, then braced for another attack. The entire tree was aware of his presence now. Every root was awake, swooping in the air like the tentacles of a sea monster and colliding into the ground, transforming the desert sand into an ocean of deadly dunes.

  Just as all the roots were coming at him, Lye ran full speed toward the bulb. Like a warrior charging into battle, he held out his cane and shot a colossal current of electricity into the air. With great effort, he kept the flow of power constant. Great bands of electricity burst from the main conduit, keeping the roots at bay. As he neared the entrance to the root bulb, he saw the tree sending out smaller roots along the ground in an effort to trip him up, but Lye stretched out his hand and shot electricity from his fingers, repelling them.

  After centuries of trying to subdue the infinity tree and claim its prized element, this was the closest that Lye had ever been. He sprinted toward the entrance, cane in hand and still surging with immense power. He thought he had succeeded when dozens of roots came flying out of the bulb. They collided into Lye’s chest, knocking the wind out of him and driving him back. His lightning beam ceased. The roots dragged him out a far distance and left him sprawled out on the desert sand, not far from where Neo still lay. As always, the tree had won.

  A moment later, Ret appeared at the scene. He checked on the Guardian, who was badly hurt but still breathing. The same could be said of Lye. The wood revenant was nowhere to be seen. Ret knew he had to stop him from collecting the element. He ran towards the root bulb and, upon reaching the entrance, hurried inside.

  Though dark, the root bulb surged with a palpable energy that gave off a subtle luminescence. Ret felt like a flea inside a ball of yarn. There were roots all over the place, swooping every which way and branching off in every direction like enclosed waterslides. Some roots were very large and straight; others were quite small and twisted. It was the most maddening kind of maze—one where he could go anywhere.

  Based on what the Guardian had told him, Ret had to remind himself that the great tree was not the element but only its protector, born from a seed that the First Father had given to Neo when he was called to be a Guardian. Neo had personally grown the tree around the element, sealing it somewhere inside its root structure, which, as Neo pointed out, had become more and more complex with the passage of time—though ‘complex’ was quite an understatement, to which Ret could now attest. He wished there was some way he could roll back the clock and see what the roots looked like in their younger years.

  Fortunately, he could do just that.

  But someone had already beaten him to it. Off the right, he saw a doorway to the past. The wood revenant had been here.

  Ret studied the tiles. Whatever year their footage belonged to, it was a time when the root bulb was much smaller, so much so that when Ret stepped inside, the floor was no longer made of roots but dirt. Ret hadn’t wondered far when he saw another open doorway. He looked inside, where he found an even smaller root bulb.

  It would be three more doorways until Ret caught up to the wood revenant. He was standing with his back to Ret, swiping the tiles of yet another doorway. As the years flew by, the root bulb shrunk more and more until, at last, the element came into view. He reversed the scene to the time immediately prior to when the great tree fully enclosed the element in its roots, leaving just enough space for him to reach in and procure it. He passed through the doorway, sphere in hand.

  Ret’s heart leapt in his chest. It was now or never. He ran after the revenant.

  “Stop!” Ret cried. He waved his hand to manipulate some of the roots of the bulb, hoping they could knock the Oracle from the revenant’s hands, but the roots did nothing. To Ret’s surprise, they wouldn’t budge.

  And then it was too late. Cradling the Oracle, the wood revenant held it under the wood element and waited for it to open.

  But nothing happened.

  He tried again. Still nothing. He held it higher. Nothing.

  “Why isn’t this working?!” he cried.

  Suddenly, Ret knew why. It was the same reason why the roots hadn’t obeyed his command.

  “We can’t change the past,” Ret said, standing behind him, “but we can learn from it.” It was something Neo had taught him. “You used the past to learn where to find the element, but it cannot be collected in the past because the past cannot be changed.” Ret hadn’t known this before; he was simply learning it in this moment.

  They were both too distracted, however, to notice the appearance of a new doorway in the room. Like a window in mid-air, scenes from some other time period flashed by until they stopped. The figure of a woman could be seen through them. She had recently been sealed in the dimension of time and was manipulating the tiles from within the other side.

  “Thanks for the tip,” the woman said, passing through the doorway that she had (cleverly) created.

  Ret turned around to find the wind revenant.

  “You,” Ret said, stunned. “But how did you—”

  “I’m a fast learner,” she said, punching Ret in the face and knocking him to the ground.

  Using the knowledge that Ret had imparted, the wood revenant turned his attention to the tiles that portrayed the wood element. This time, he rolled the clock forward, all t
he way to the present. When he finished a moment later, he was still standing in the past but now looking at the element in present day.

  Once again, he held the Oracle under the element, but, like before, nothing happened.

  “Nothing’s happening,” the wind revenant observed.

  “I’m trying,” the wood revenant said, now thoroughly frustrated. “What’s wrong with this thing?”

  “Let me see that.” The wind revenant grabbed the Oracle and looked at it closely. She tapped the wedge that housed the wind element. In doing so, she chipped off some of the paint. She rubbed off the rest of it. The sphere was empty.

  “This isn’t the real Oracle, you fool!” she roared. She shattered the replica over the wood revenant’s head, rendering him unconscious.

  “Where is it?!” she bellowed at Ret, who was still dizzy from this woman’s punch. “Where’s the real Oracle?” She blasted him with a gust of wind, sending him rolling across the room.

  “I—I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Ret confessed.

  The wind revenant picked him up by his shirt and threatened, “You’d better give me the real Oracle, or I’ll send you so far back in the past that—”

  Just then, a strange noise was heard from across the room. It sounded like someone was watching a movie.

  “Nika?” Ret wondered when he saw his friend. “What are you—?” She was clutching the real Oracle. Distressed, Ret looked to the tiles where the element should have been, but it was gone, replaced by chaos. In that moment, Ret realized Nika had followed him into the root bulb and used the unconscious wood revenant’s hands to collect the element.

  There was no time to explain. Although the post-procurement bedlam was presently nothing more than a few tiles, Ret knew it was currently playing out in real life. They needed to get back to the present.

  “Come on!” Ret yelled.

  “What about them?” Nika asked, looking back at the wind revenant, who was dragging the wood revenant along. “Should we help her?”