"Go!" I shout.

Fair is fair - of course there was resentment for how I treated them, so what better way to equalize things between us, then for them to test out their powers on me? All together? Not to mention a chance for them to see just how much I was actually holding back -

Because crabs - they aren't my enemy, not my fight. I was becoming a bastard brawler - I used two wood hooks instead of my mauls, and even still -

Brandon exploded in violent red so deep it threatened purple - and I felt the waves of fiery fury rolling off of him - the others diving back away from him, throwing hands up as a shield against the heat, but I noticed they weren't burned or charred, even though I felt a strange heat -

I'd left my Cowl off, it was still in disrepair and I didn't want to waste it - on this.

Brandon sprinted at me - sand scooped and sprayed out behind him as each foot tore a piece of beach, his bare abdominals and chest flickered with a translucent flame that almost mimicked his hair, up and down his body, each moving and curling in the wind, and I already knew I'd overestimated my confidence -

Derek stood, and his bow appeared, but even before he shot an arrow I noticed one sailing toward me - I flipped, summersaulting to the right, not stopping as Brandon's charge carried him right past - Jason stood there, flicking magic missiles to sizzle uselessly, and a glow began to emanate from Mike's chest -

My hive was depleted from my escape - I wasn't willing to risk them either -

An arrow was pushing at my side. Not puncturing me, just sort of nudging me? I sucked it into my inventory, even as I flipped backwards, spinning - Brandon's growing shout orchestrating his movements, I flicked out with a spinning kick, connecting with his shoulder and sending both of us stumbling apart -

Hot - Not fire but fury - I realized it as he approached and felt it splash over me. It seared my leg even as it twisted and sizzled my gut. It didn't make me angry - but I felt it, felt it aimed at me, the flames whipped from his body in my direction on an invisible wind -

-1 HP

It was pure and mighty, how my body wanted to twist under it, a screaming sunburn -

Jason had his hand stretched to me, a confused expression on his face, and I felt a pull but it was nothing like before. I realized he was glowing with a shimmery pale light as Mike's glory grew - it wasn't the terrible exulting gold as before that had fallen upon him like a melted halo, now it struggled to find a color, alternating and unsure

Brandon recovered first, on his feet and attacking again, but my wood hooks caught his thrown blows - an arrow snapped into me, a punch - I jabbed with the hook letting him swing his head left, twisted and threw myself back catching his neck and coming up with both feet - driving them into his stomach - a grunt of air, another arrow smacking the top of my head like a returned blow -

I kicked my foot up into his face -

-1HP

As he threw himself back and roared, I rolled and dodged around his body using speed, licking out quick blows across him, then as he surged his direction, discarding caution for bodily assault -

I felt another arrow smack me as he took two full handed blows to the arm to close, and grapple - I felt his teeth tear into my chest, his hands wrapped around me, and I let my flesh stretch and squish like bubblegum in his mouth and I hugged his face, around his neck -

-1HP

Ocean water began pouring out of me, out of the loose skin flap he bit into and failed to tear off - I held him tight, drowning him, feeling him struggle - feeling his anger.

All the while feeling Brandon's pounding assault and the furnace of his emotion, the growing strength of his blows as he choked and gagged and vomited, I thought I could drench the fire, but it didn't so much as sizzle - the heat felt no stronger in the center of the flame -

But the power of his temper built within me, and I realized how it was damaging me - just one HP at first, a trickle - feeling the anger he had for me was worse then any damage or pain itself, but now chunks of me were boiling. Pustules.

It festered, inside my body, pockets of anger and it was radiation - he was literally radiating with anger...reacting with it -

-3, -3, -3 HP

Bursting inside me - I fought an internal war, trying to sense their formation, dissipate that part of my body into my inventory, lancing it before it could burst and spread, thinking that it had some sort of spore effect. But the pustules were the result of the damage...

I felt him spinning, twisting, but not tapping out or screaming for me to stop even as his body must be sagging with the spinning white lights of oxygen loss -

More arrows - more blows - and then Jason hit me, finally - with the siphon, I felt my mana being dragged away, and my strength as well was waning, it was imperceptible at first - but, I had to do something -

I threw myself off, kneeing Brandon away from me with a burst of strength, distancing myself - to avoid the flames, but in terror, I realized -

-4HP

I continued to cook, continued to melt internally, my muscles were weakening.

I thew ripped shrubs at him - entangling him - why was my shield not stopping it!

Jason started laughing, and the plants stopped growing - and I realized...my health was at half -

-4HP

Silver flared!

Mike once more was drenched, this time in quicksilver, trickling and wicking across his body, and a shield formed around Brandon, but I was already moving to stop Jason, anyway - I could feel the weakness setting in, leaching away -

Brandon wasn't chasing me I realized - he'd stopped, just glaring as I sprinted -

-4 HP

I darted across toward the others, Mike began backpedaling, still holding his shield for Brandon -

"No!" He shouted, "Cody, No!"

But he couldn't escape the collision course I'd set and I dove, my hooks out appearing, ready to punch him off his feet and Bam -

Another wall of silver flicked in front of me - not quite, more like foil, but my hooks tore through it but my head, my face didn't - my forehead slamming, then my nose crushed, my arms staying trapped as I slid down - weak -

Jason fainted, blood pouring from his nose, and Derek was cussing at something, and I realized the arrows had stopped - that him and Mike hovered with wide eyes -

-4 HP

"Stop!" Mike shouted, again, reffing - and I was done, down to 28 health - drained -

The foil shield I'd entangled myself in vanished, Derek leaned over Jason, and I was sagging in the dirt, waiting for that pulse of health, to recover and end -

"I won't!" Brandon shouted at me, spit flying from from his mouth, his short hair matted and crunchy with dried salt and sand and blood - "I don't want -!"

He gritted his teeth and punched at the shield - Mike bit his lip, it wavered -

-4 HP

"You -

The shield -it'd thought it had been protecting Brandon, but -

Still the anger poured out of him it had been building, stronger and stronger, even the short distance between us wasn't enough for me to escape the heat of it, I felt it like a volcano that wanted to erupt, I knew I had to escape, knew the shuddering, knew the power -

I'd spent my coins on them - hunted to get them all potions this morning after last night, for them, but not -

"I'm dying?" I said it - surprised, as I tried to lift myself up - the mix of weakness, my muscles felt like old scabs, still I crawled - pulling myself -

"How can you live with it!" Derek screamed - twisting in the sand.

Hot gold flared! - and the shield wrapping Brandon was pushing him back, even as he pushed against - digging his feet in the sand and trying to reach me - back and forth as I turned to look - I wasn't going to make it -

A potion shattered above me - I heard the glass cracking - grunting, the splash over my face like a health grenade -

+20 HP

-4HP

"Brandon!" I shouted - the burst of health like hope as I searched for an exit but -

"I trusted you!" He screamed, punching and thrashing against the golden glow - Mike jerked and stumbled with every attack, his whole body purpling, bruising -

-4HP

"I know." I couldn't run, I could crawl, my muscles were cooked, my organs blistered, but I didn't want to crawl away - turn my back on him, on what I did - he faced me when he told me about Hannah, of what happened, I owed him my life. "I understand."

I dropped a notebook - To Mom and Dad, looked into Brandon's eyes, if I had to die -

"You hurt me!" He screamed, slamming his head against the shield, and the flames became a tempest - not just red, not anymore, but black. Fingers of hot blue and yellow and red all confused into black and exploded out of him - all pointing at me as they stretched, breaking free and tearing into -

It was too much - I twisted beneath it, so incredible, the anger had been bad enough, had been fair, had been - this wasn't just anger - I lost control to the seizure, lost thought and just existed - layers of emotion that didn't have words, it was Dante's Inferno slow roasting Cupid on a spit, and it was -Black -

I heard the others shrieking and with the implosion, I passed out -

-10 HP

Gone.

I woke up moments later - in the sand, breathing -

"So much -" Derek whispering over and over again-

"To keep inside." Mike sobbed and I was alive...

I felt grains of sand pulled into my mouth, grate between my teeth with each breath, enjoying the slow return of health. I didn't want to move. My brain existed in a puzzled state -

What power was that? It was so strange, I couldn't imagine feeling, but I had, it was...unbearable. That was the only way I could think to describe the pain, the damage. It existed in both my body, and over me - it had flushed into my system. It was so much more then anger -

Anger didn't feel like that to me, never had I felt that, and the other -

"So much anger." Mike whispered -

"Passion." Derek stated strangely, kneeling next to Brandon who had fallen into a trance, he knelt down - first waving his hand in front of Brandon's face then touching his shoulder.

I ignored them, pulling the grits of sand in my mouth into me, pulling drinking water after, spitting out dust and quenching some of the heat that still roiled within me, dropping a blanket out in front of me. I climbed on it, collapsed, and slept -

I awoke in the shade of the tree -

"He was right, fuck him, but he was right." Derek whispered -

"He went too far - he's fucked." Jason interrupted, "First the pain - and he was happy, cool, now this? A day later? Hours later."

"Your just mad he called you a puss." Mike whispered.

"He is a puss." Brandon said.

"We all are." Derek spat, "We're fucking kids fighting monsters - what the fuck else would we be? And don't forget, the crabs happened between -"

"Speak for-"

"Bros." Mike coughed -

"Shut up, Great Leader -"

"I didn't -"

"Listen - He's crazy, I don't - Fuck!" I heard the punch, Jason rubbing his shoulder.

"He saved your life - all our lives already. You think we'd be alive if not for him?"

"I know that - that's the point. He has been though- "

I stood up, making enough noise, and their voices dropped off. I climbed the tree and laid out on the long shaped platform...

I was beginning to understand them - still stood by my decision. They can bitch and debate, but Jason had made the most poignant point - that if we were friends, then there should be nothing I can do to surprise them. My intentions - they are good and pure, if my tactics or incorrigible...

I looked up into the tree, the twisted branches - it was nothing like the one from the jungle. The bark was dark and slick, almost shiny. The leaves were sharp where they caught the sun, and each branch spiraled - rather it was because of night - it grew with the moon, the stars -

I pulled out one of the fruits again, examining it. They were black too, on the outside, I slammed it down and pried the shell apart. I tasted it - bitter, wild. Salty from the soil. The core gushed in my mouth and at first I thought I would gag, spitting it out in my hand -

Staring at the crushed mess, I couldn't decide if I liked it - what it tasted like, still didn't know, after I'd finished eating it but the flavor had grown on me...

Where would we appear after the dungeon ended tomorrow? They'd be back safe in their small town - our small town. Me? I was going back to Alcatraz-51 or whatever the hell that place is. Why would it send me back with them?

Every moment I spent with them -

It was an investment, for a better world, to protect my family. Even if the rest - I know Brandon, Mike, too...they'll make sure my family is safe. Probably Derek, too, in his own way. Probably a big way if I'm right about him...one day.

They'd warn my folks, tell them what really happened. Let them know I didn't just stop calling, the I did love them, and I'm sorry. They'll find a way to give them the book...

I have a plan, even if I can't make it out of there alive, it's enough to plant seeds...

And if I do get free, what then? A revolution. However short lived, an uprising? A five man resistance? Can five people change the world?

Brandon dropped down next to me on the blankets. I thought of how many words we'd said to each other and realized, it was probably less than a hundred. And I knew he'd changed - since we'd spoken, since we wrestled - but these changes - the hard changes, they weren't really changes. It was refining.

Getting rid of the unnecessary - the parts of ourselves too weak, parts that don't make it. The only question is what's left, what's at our core -

I liked laying next to him - the way the leaves rubbed against each other, the sway of branches in the breeze, the air leaving the heat bearable - and it was hot.

I liked not talking.

'What am I to you?'

He asked by letting his shoulder stretch against mine.

'Close. What am I to you?'

I left my shoulder there, the edge of skin severed the distance between us -

'Here.'

The silence. It was important. Treasured?

As he lay next to me I find myself thinking about Hannah - the easiness of her momentum, perfectly still she moved me, the casual dignity, the way she permitted the bus to carry her, like a palanquin. Would I ever see her again?

I remembered I could make a feast of every word she shared -

Silence.

How hot she made me feel, and I know this to be the opposite, that it is as it should be, for a woman to be warm and blushing and soft -

And for a man to be hard.

It's why they fit so naturally -the man reaches for her and the woman lets him - it's in every dance, every smile, to see a woman and not see beauty -

A man is strong, he can never be vulnerable. A woman's strength is her vulnerability.

It was hard. What was between us as we turned to each other - we didn't need to speak - not about his power, what happened before, the passion. I hurt him - what I did caused him pain inside, but as he erupted I knew - it was relief. That I had given him the ability to express the pain -

I was proud that I faced him, that I didn't turn away. That neither of us had to. I didn't like what I felt inside him, didn't know what it meant.

And when we were both good - when the silence was finished, we got up and rejoined our group - and the pressure was gone.