"Wha—what do you mean it might be over for Darian?" Liro couldn't believe those words. The moment he heard them, his eyes remained open, staring in a random direction, while his heart started to beat faster.
"There must be something we can do to save him…" whispered Vane, annoyed, as he slowly punched the tree.
"I've told you, it might be over, but it's not certain, it depends on how interesting Zrelekai finds Darian. For now, it's hard to say," answered Tyel.
"Then we need to do everything we can to save him… I can try to use my power to free him and then we—" Lily started to search for a solution on how to actually save Darian, but as she saw everyone's faces, she slowly turned silent and started to look at the ground.
"I've told you, I suggest you think about your own escape first. You're not alone; we rebels might be few, but we're preparing a route to save you, Catripple, and Darian too. We…" Tyel said as he started to grit his teeth, "…we just need time."
"We should give up on saving Darian, then?" whispered Liro, as he couldn't believe what he had just heard.
"I'm not saying that. We're first preparing the route for you to escape, then we will come for Darian and Catripple too," said Tyel, as he clenched his fist even tighter.
"Trust me, we don't want to leave Catripple there in the hands of that stupid, crazy scientist either, but we have to do what's possible for us," added Tyel.
"Even if I can't accept leaving Darian here… I agree; we first need to think about ourselves," said Vane. Liro looked at him with desperate eyes. "But we can't leave him here… you know it. Just think about how much he will suffer…"
"But the same will happen to us if we don't actually do something. I have known Darian for only a little while, and I can already tell how great he is, but we can't depend on him for our whole lives. We have to fight back ourselves," said Lily. Even if she didn't want to leave Darian there, she knew this was the right decision.
"And you're imagining the worst scenario. If this Darian isn't stupid, Zrelekai will not kill him," said Tyel.
"Then we just have to trust him…" whispered Liro. Suddenly, Vane positioned a hand over his shoulder and smiled warmly. "Like he trusts us." Hearing those words, Liro could only nod his head.
Tyel looked back at the group and smiled for a moment before speaking again. "I still have to give information to the others, but soon I will contact you again so we will be able to actually prepare this plan. I might need to ask you something first… I would like to know your powers so we can prepare a plan based on them."
"I can turn into three animals: a polar bear, a buffalo, and an eagle," said Vane. Tyel looked confused. "Eh?" he asked, as he didn't even know what those animals were.
"I can create roots that can be poisoned, while Liro…"
"I can create any type of illusion." Hearing those words, Tyel opened his eyes wider. "Illusions? Like what kind?"
In front of Tyel, one of the robot guards suddenly appeared. Caught by surprise, he couldn't help but gasp. 'When did he get here?' thought Tyel as he tried to think of an excuse, but the robot disappeared in front of him like nothing.
"I couldn't tell the difference… in fact, I thought it was a real one at first, hehe," said Tyel, as his heart had started to beat faster from the sudden illusion.
"Do you think it might be useful?" asked Liro.
"I'm not the one who creates the plans… but yeah, it will definitely be useful for us. I'll tell the others about your powers so they will be able to create an actual plan to make us work together," said Tyel, as he had started to smile happily, realizing that these people's powers might be more useful than he thought.
"The fact that you're all Alterids definitely helps us," added Tyel.
"By the way, we were wondering… first, how many people are still in the rebels?" asked Liro.
"Excluding Catripple, who has been caught, there are three of us. But I swear we're stronger than it seems," said Tyel. Hearing this number, the others felt scared, wondering if so few people would actually be enough.
"Well, Catripple told us that you're all Alterids. What kind of power do you have, Tyel?" asked Lily curiously.
Hearing this question, Tyel suddenly turned quiet and looked down at the ground with his eyes closed. "My power, you're asking?"
The others didn't know how to react, as they hadn't expected this. "Maybe it's like Alerya's power; he can't use it because it hurts him?" whispered Vane in Liro's ear. Liro nodded his head in agreement. "I guess so…" he whispered.
"Is it something bad that you can't say?" asked Lily, worried, as she saw Tyel's expression.
"No, no… it's just that… it hasn't actually awakened yet." Hearing those words, the others all opened their eyes in surprise.
"What do you mean it hasn't awakened yet?" said Vane, as he tried to hold back a laugh. "It normally happens when you're two years old…" whispered Liro, as he couldn't come up with an actual answer.
"I clearly remember when I first started using my power; I was two years old… but it happened automatically. I couldn't control it," said Lily. Liro and Vane agreed with her. "Yeah, the same happened with me," said Vane.
"Then why hasn't it happened to you yet?" The more he thought about it, the more Liro couldn't actually find an answer, as he had never heard of something like this happening.
"I don't know why… but it just never happened. I tried to do multiple things… like getting my body wet to see if something would change, throwing strong punches at the wall, trying to read people's thoughts, trying to stretch my body… but none of those things actually did anything," said Tyel, as some tears started to flow down his cheeks.
"It's strange… only Darian hasn't got a power, and he had been away for five hundred years. But you were born here on Earth, right? Aren't you supposed to be an alien or something?" asked Vane playfully. Tyel, who had just wiped away his tears, looked at him confused, not understanding what he was talking about.
"Every human has a power… it shouldn't be possible for a human to awaken without one… but what if your power is just not having a power?" proposed Liro, as he tried to come up with a solution. "Like, think about it: your power is just the fact that you don't have a power," suggested Liro. But the moment he realized what he had just said, he felt extremely sorry for Tyel.
"Oh my god, sorry. I shouldn't have said that…"
"Don't worry, I've gotten used to this kind of argument now… I even thought that myself for a bit," said Tyel, as the tears stopped flowing and he returned to his usual expression.
"But… if you don't have a power… why the hell did you join such a group? Like, isn't it dangerous?" asked Lily, her voice slowly rising in surprise. But as she realized other guards might hear them, she lowered it just in time.
"Because I need to become a hero, and because…" Suddenly, Tyel smashed his hand over his chest and smiled warmly while looking up at the sky. "I believe with all my soul that it will awake in a moment of danger. Just as a hero arrives at the last moment, my power will do the same."
Tyel had started to get used to not having an actual power, so he always enjoyed reading books from the old world about heroes, stories that talked about people who at first had nothing, and then, for a reason, would wake up with special powers.
Tyel, understanding that it hadn't happened to him like everyone else, firmly believed that his power would arrive like a hero when there was a need. "And that moment hasn't arrived yet, but I'm sure it will arrive soon! I will never give up on my dream of becoming a hero, like the ones in the books I used to read when I was a child."
Tyel was looking happily at the sky. The heavy air from before, when he was talking about Darian, had completely disappeared. Now the air around them felt happy; it seemed that with these words, Tyel had been able to raise the mood of the conversation.
"Well, it's still curious. I wonder how Darian would react knowing this," joked Liro.
"Hehe, he will probably ask to analyze your blood or stuff like that," Vane playfully answered while laughing softly.
"But still… if you don't have an actual power, didn't Zrelekai start to make experiments on you?" asked Lily curiously.
"Not exactly experiments, but the moment he knew there was a guard who didn't have a power, he was curious and started to speak with me. He asked if he could get some blood to study it, and in that moment I agreed… because I didn't have much choice…" Tyel remembered that when it happened, Zrelekai had his pistol with him, so he couldn't say no.
"But then, wasn't he able to discover something?" asked Liro.
Tyel nodded. "He compared it to the blood of other people, but it was normal, so he came to the conclusion that this power might awake only under certain conditions."
The moment Tyel finished speaking, the bell in the garden started to ring, meaning the free hour had passed and it was time for dinner before going back to the cells.
"We will keep talking another time. Tomorrow I have a day off, so I'll go to the others. Now you should head back." With this, Tyel moved closer to the group and waved his hands as if he were telling them to go away, so the other guards wouldn't suspect anything.
"I'll contact you again when I have the plan ready. For now, keep living your prisoner's lives…"
"Yeah, we will wait for you, Tyel." With that, the group, without waving back at him, started to re-enter with the other prisoners.
"Hey Tyel, what were those prisoners saying? You've listened to them for the whole hour," said one of the guards as he slowly approached.
"You remember the three prisoners who arrived during lunch today?" asked Tyel. The other guard understood immediately.
"Oh, right, I remember now. But what were they talking about? Was it something important?"
"Nothing. Literally, they were talking about what happened this morning with that crazy prisoner and what they would eat for dinner."
"Oh well, it must have been tiring. I got lucky and no one came into my territory, so I could relax for the whole hour." With that, the other guard gave a small bump to Tyel's back and started to walk away. "I'll wait for you to have dinner together, Tyel!" said the guard as he waved back toward his colleague. Tyel waved at him too while smiling, and in his mind, there was only one thought: 'I need to tell the others about Liro's power… they will definitely be able to come up with something.'