Previously on Talents Activate…

Chiamaka, a lady who did not believe in the supernatural, has been opened into a new reality, a world of beings able to manipulate blades, wield flames, invade minds, and affect different forces. A mysterious man, Ezeogu, having the probability of being her father wants to take her for reasons best known to him but her friends resist. Ife zooms off to quickly engage Oge in order to save her team while the fierce battle between Ifunanya, Aisha and Tomisin is about to be concluded…

At the Lofty Place, Nelo dances beautifully, flowing along with the rhythm of the music beats and Rume follows her on the dance floor toe-to-toe. They soon move to the side to get some drinks and catch their breath.

“You move quite well, Mr…” Nelo states, trying to guess his name.

“Rume. My name is Rume,” he responds with a light smile.

“Nice to meet you Rume, you can call me Nelo,” she replies, smiling back while taking a sip from her glass cup.

“So, Rume, what other interesting things are you good at?” Nelo asks.

“Hmm. Quite a lot but I’d rather you experience them than I bore you with just tales,” Rume replies, looking into Nelo’s eyes.

“Hmm? a bad boy I see,” Nelo lightly whispers.

ID soon finds Nelo and quickly approaches her.

“Sorry to interrupt your flirting but we have to go now; Trouble might be brewing somewhere,” he says.

Nelo frowns a bit and lets out sigh, “he’s the one flirting by the way, not me.”

“What kind of trouble are we looking at?” she inquires.

“It’s Ife, she might be in danger as the assassin known as Oge went after her team and Ife has now zoomed off to fight her,” ID answers.

“Oge? That’s very dangerous,” Nelo says and drops her glass cup at the counter of the bartender.

“Let’s hurry then,” she adds and proceeds to move.

“Do you mind joining us?” ID asks Rume.

“Hmm… sounds like fun and I’d still get to be with this my new found crush. Alright my man, I’ll go with you guys,” Rume answers with a smile.

Nelo pauses looking at both of them, “You two know each other?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” ID replies. “Let’s go,” he adds.

***

Meanwhile,

Ifunanya, who is glowing brilliantly like the sun, is standing looking at Aisha and Tomisin.

“This will be over in a minute,” she says, brings out a coin from her pocket and flips it vigorously that it spins high up into the sky.

“Before that coin lands, this battle will be over,” Ifunanya adds.

“Humph!!! That means we’d have pinned you down,” Aisha replies and dashes off as lightning to attack Ifunanya.

Ifunanya uses her swords to block the attack from Aisha and a massive shockwave of lightning and fire is released. Immediately, multiple images of Tomisin appears at the battle area surrounding Ifunanya and Aisha.

“A new trick?” Ifunanya thinks to herself, looking around.

“Concentrate!!!” Aisha yells and swings her second sword, clad with whirling clouds, against Ifunanya but Ifunanya instantly dashes off to Tomisin’s position, at the rooftop and launches a heavy kick against her with her right foot.

However, the kick phases through Tomisin and the image of Tomisin there fades off.

“Interesting,” Ifunanya says as she spins to block an incoming lightning bolt from Aisha who swiftly appears at Ifunanya’s side and clashes swords with her once more. Soon, they both begin to move around so fast that only the shining yellow light ray from Ifunanya and the blue lightning streak from Aisha can be seen flashing around the battle area at high speed while some of the images of Tomisin fade off after being hit by the yellow ray.

Tomisin quickly shoots one of the arrows from her bow, releasing it with a mighty sonic boom. The speed of the arrow is so fast, Ifunanya is forced to block and Aisha quickly uses that opportunity to unleash a mighty attack at the Ifunanya from above.

“TSANANIN SAUTI TSAWAR WALƘIYA!!!” (Hausa - Furious bolt of lightning).

In a flash, a powerful huge bolt of lightning rapidly shoots from the sky against Ifunanya, as the coin quickly spins and is about to land on the ground. Ifunanya takes a deep breath, closes her eyes, saying, “Let me show you the difference in our abilities. If you can survive this, then we can talk.”

A ball of fire, like a mini sun, forms at the palm of Ifunanya’s hand as several rays of light move into the ball and just when the huge lightning bolt reaches her, she closes her palm, making a fist and opens her eyes.

“Violent Sun.”

BOOOOOOMMMMM!!!!!

Tobi who is riding on a power bike along the stretch of the ten kilometer bridge, the third mainland bridge popularly known as ‘3mb’, stops abruptly with a screech, covering his face from a mighty dusty wind with immense heat.

“What in the world?!” he says to himself.

“The heat is powerful that even in the normal realm, I can clearly feel it to this extent. How much more in the Phasic dome?” he adds.

The heat wave is so mighty even in the normal world that it causes some vehicles to overheat and stop immediately but luckily no buildings or tankers catch fire.

***

Elsewhere…

Dan, one of Ife’s team members who betrayed the team and sided with Oge, is putting the rest of the captured team members into a van. Oge is resting on one side of the can looking at her silver plated wristwatch.

“Are you done?” she asks.

“Yeah. Last one has been put in,” he answers and heads for the door of the van when he quickly halts as a sword appears and pierces the ground in front of him. He shivers, turns in fear and sees a furious Ife standing at the top of a building.

Dan quickly makes a move to run but Ife instantly appears at the location of the sword close to Dan and moves to slash him with the one in her hand. Oge who quickly notices, brings out a gun and releases a shot against Ife with the bullet passing through the wound down glasses of the van. Ife is quick to see the attack and steps back, evading the bullet. Oge quickly jumps over the van, landing on the other side, opposite Ife. She moves to attack Ife with a swing of her sword but Ife uses her leg to lift the sword previously stuck in the ground, blocking Oge’s assault. She spins and tries to cut Oge but Oge is quick to switch and immediately defends against the attack with her sword. Ife steps back again and says, “I’m not even going to waste time on you. Activate: Blade Coliseum.”

Instantly, her necklace shatters and floats high up into the sky forming an array of multiple blades surrounding the entire area.

“Hoo, Ife the famous swordsmith,” Oge teases, resting the blade of her sword on her shoulder while looking up at the array of blades.

“You don’t have the luxury of admiring such,” Ife states.

“Rain down,” she utters and immediately, several blades from the array point at Oge and begin moving towards her at an immense speed.

BUZZ!!!

The wristwatch on Oge’s hand, makes a noise and Oge directs her gaze at the watch.

“My, my, seems my time’s up here. I really have to go now, would’ve loved to enjoy this battle. However,” she says and gives off a light smile of confidence at Ife.

Once the swords are an inch away from the top of Oge’s hair, she says, “Activate.” What is seen next is Oge standing behind Ife with her sword in her hand as Ife gradually falls to the ground with a heavy diagonal slash running across her body, from her left shoulder down to her right hip, spewing lots of blood. Ife’s eyes and mouth are open wide, perplexed at the situation.

“What…just… happened?” Ife stutters as she lands on the ground, with her facing touching it and blood gushing from her mouth. All her blades that were coming for Oge fade away. Even Dan who is at the driver’s seat of the van is lost in thoughts as to what happened.

“I couldn’t see a thing,” he says, filled with fear.

Oge turns, looks at Ife and says in her smooth seductive yet strong voice, “I really don’t like using my talent at times like this but you see I have a client to meet, an important one at that. So forgive my manners of not having to savor our battle.”

“Dan, come pick her up and get her into the van,” she adds.

“Yes Ma’am,” Dan replies as he alights from the van to come and carry Ife.

When Dan reaches Ife, she hisses and yells, “If you think I’ll let you take me, you’re a learner!!!”

Her bracelet swiftly fragments and materializes into a dagger with a unique hilt in her right hand. As Dan’s hand reaches to grab her, Ife stabs herself in the thigh with the dagger and in the blink of an eye, vanishes from that site.

“To think she still had such tricks, what an interesting chic,” Oge states.

“Let’s go Dan. Let’s not keep our client waiting,” she adds, puts her sword into the duffle bag, tosses it into the back of the van and gets into the van.

***

After disappearing from the site, Ife appears at her room in the house she shared with the team and slams into floor still bleeding heavily. Her vision is blurred and her eyes slowly begin to close.

“I guess… this is… a good place to die,” she mutters as her breathing also slows down.

ID, Nelo and Rume just arrive and are parked outside the gate of the house.

“Hey, I can feel Ife’s aura,” ID states.

“We should hurry because it seems to be slowly fading away,” he adds as the three rush out from the car and head into the house. They come to a halt at the front of the gate.

“The house is locked from the inside,” Nelo says, trying to push the gate open.

“Should we activate a Phasic Dome and just jump over it? That way, no one would see us,” she suggests with a shrug.

“Humph! We don’t need a Phasic Dome for that,” Rume says and pushes the smaller part of the gate a little.

The padlock on the other side of the gate cracks and the gate opens up. The three quickly rush in with ID leading the way to Ife.

“Seems there was indeed a battle here. I can still feel the faint presence of Phasic aura that was exerted here,” Nelo says as the move from outside to inside of the house.

On getting to Ife’s room, ID quickly opens the door and the three are surprised to see Ife lying on the ground in a pool of blood.

Ife, whose vision is fading away, sees the blurred image of ID and says to herself, “You…again? I guess… I’m in luck… today.” Her eyes then close fully.

“Ife,” ID utters. Nelo quickly steps forward and spreads her hands over Ife.

“Activate: Ọkụ Ọgwụgwọ (Igbo – healing light).”

Her palms begin to glow with light green luster with round particles of it hovering over the injured area of Ife.

“You can heal too?” Rume inquires.

“Yup. That’s one of the attributes of the Crest of Agwu Nsi however, I never really learned it so for now I can stop the bleeding and keep her alive but if she’s going to be fully restored then I have someone in mind that we should take her to,” Nelo replies.

ID sighs and says, “At least she’s alive. Let’s go meet this your person, Nelo.”

Meanwhile at Aisha’s house...

The battle is now over, Ifunanya walks to her bag and picks it up. Aisha and Tomisin are on the ground, lying down, completely beaten and exhausted. The entire area is filled with immense heat with steam rising from the ground a various points. A quarter of the coin that was tossed earlier can be seen near Aisha, with its edges melted.

“Sorry Aisha, Tomisin but as a friend this is what I must do. I cannot risk you all going into such danger. If you cannot win against me then you certainly cannot win against him,” Ifunanya says and sighs.

“Bye, it was nice knowing you all,” she says with a sad tone in her voice. A tear rolled down her face.

“Ha! No matter how ‘emotionless’ my personality seems, I still cry at these moments,” she adds and tries to force a smile. Ifunanya fades off into light ray, instantly zooming off.

Back at Ife’s place, Rume puts Ife in the back seat of his SUV jeep and as ID is about entering the jeep, he receives a phone call from Tobi.

“Tobi, How far?” he says, answering the call.

“Not so good here,” Tobi replies.

“What do you mean?” ID asks.

“There seems to have been a huge battle here. Getting here, I let myself into the Phasic Dome which I met still active here and guess what? The whole place’s a mess. I found Aisha and Tomisin lying down, looking real beat,” Tobi answers.

“What??!” ID exclaims.

“That’s not all. The place seems to be filled with great heat and Aisha was able to stutter a bit. She said that Ifunanya has gone to sort things out by herself. She and Tomisin tried to stop Ify but were not successful in doing so,” Tobi states.

“So like Ifunanya to do so,” ID responds.

“What do you mean?” Tobi asks.

“Ify would never let others fight her battles. I guess also the trauma of having lost her dad as he tried to save her is stopping her from allowing others into her battles,” ID explains.

“Yeah and also, Chiamaka isn’t here either and Aisha never mentioned anything about her being here,” Tobi adds.

ID looks up into the night sky, with some little stars shining and lets out a deep sigh.

“This is bad,” he utters.

Elsewhere…

Ifunanya arrives at the border of the state known as Lagos. She walks down to a nearby filling station and stops at a black SUV parked at the exit of the station. Oge is leaning on the SUV, at the door of the front passenger’s seat. Not far from her, is another lady and Ifunanya is shocked to see the lady as is the lady.

“What are you doing here, Chiamaka?” Ifunanya enquires about the lady’s being there.

“I could ask you the same, Ify,” Chiamaka replies.

“I have a cause for which I’m going. The lives of my friends are at stake,” Ifunanya responds with her expressionless glare.

“So you want to sacrifice yourself?” Chiamaka questions.

“Aren’t you doing the same?” Ifunanya counters.

“I’m going to see my father,” Chiamaka responds.

“Is that so? Or you just tell yourself that trying to play the hero,” Ifunanya retorts.

“Consoling yourself I see. Anyway, this is my decision and this is what I will do,” Chiamaka states.

“Chiamaka, go back home,” Ifunanya tells Chiamaka, looking at her in the eye.

Oge steps in and says, “No she can’t, sweet cheeks. Both of you are coming with me. That was the instruction.”

Ifunanya gives off a fierce glare at Oge who smiles and responds, “Do you want to have a go at me? Take into cognizance, the fact that Chiamaka your dear friend will get caught up in our bout and that might result in some casualties. Surely, you wouldn’t want that.”

“Quite the smooth talker, aren’t you?” Ifunanya mentions.

“You flatter me,” Oge replies.

“Alright so that’s settled. Let’s go you two,” she adds and they all step into the car which departs from Lagos.

***

Some minutes later, ID receives a text from Chiamaka, reading, “Hi ID, sorry for this impromptu notice however, I have decided to go see my father. Sorry for not telling you. I had so much fun with you and Ifunanya and I’m sure I would’ve had more with Tobi, Aisha and Tomisin. This message was scheduled so by now I’m long gone. Goodbye ID, thanks for everything. You’re such a good friend, who knows, maybe if you had made a move and also without all this, I may, may ohh, have agreed to you. Lol. Byeee *hugs*. PS, I’m with Ifunanya…”

ID lets out a deep sigh, gazing at the dark night sky with its dazzling stars.