The Sankari Legends Book One: The Scars We Hide

I landed in the middle of the floor in Zig’s bunker. Once I managed to get my head to stop spinning, I looked around in shock. Megan was sitting in the floor not far from me, holding her head and blinking rapidly, her face looking green around the edges.

“Meg, are you…” I started to ask, right as she jumped up and sprinted into the bathroom.

“The first time’s the worst,” Emmalie remarked casually from the chair she was sitting in. I realized with a twinge of irritation that she was sitting in the same chair Alia had sat in last time we were here.

I frowned at her as I stood up. “How did you do that?”

Emmalie smirked. Apparently it was a permanent expression for her. “Because I’m me, that’s why.”

“You’re a teleporter too?” I asked, completely confused. “Is there anything else I should know about, or do you have every power?”

“Hmm, I can’t shape-shift,” Emmalie answered. “Well, at least not well. And don’t worry, I’m not nearly as strong of a telekinetic as Alia or even as strong of a telepath as your friend Tyler.”

I was about to say something more about her not being able to shapeshift well or the fact she knew about how strong Alia and Tyler were when Megan finally emerged from the bathroom, her face still pale and her walk shaky.

“What. The. Hell?!” she shouted, coming to a stop right in front of Emmalie. “Look, I don’t know how you are able to be a telepath, teleporter, and telekinetic all at once, and honestly at this point I’m beyond caring. But next time you make a teleportation jump like that, you will tell us beforehand!”

Emmalie laughed, not put off by Megan’s statement.

“I will most certainly try,” she answered.

Megan glared at her for a few more seconds before smiling slightly. “Okay, thanks. Now, if you don’t mind… could you please explain how the hell you managed to transport us to Inon? Because what you did should be impossible.”

I couldn’t help but allow a small grin of my own as I notice Megan was shedding her tough soldier demeanor and allow her true self to show through to Emmalie. While I never claimed to have the best ability to remember things, pretty much all of my memories of Megan from when we were younger were that she always wanted to figure stuff out. It was good to see that at least that hadn’t changed about her.

“You know, I’d love to answer that question,” Emmalie said. “But I think there’s someone else who would be able to explain that much better than even me.”

“Well thanks, Emmalie, but I don’t know if that’s quite true.”

Megan and I turned towards the stairs, where three people had just walked down into the bunker. I couldn’t help my mouth falling open as I realized who they were.

“KC?!” Megan exclaimed at the same time I said “Tyler!”

“What are you guys doing here?” Megan asked.

KC smiled. She was one of the senior drill leaders for the Situational Specialists at Edil—which was Alec’s specialty, I remembered. I didn’t know much about KC, other than that she was pretty well known around the academy for being one of the most powerful teleporters of our generation.

I knew she had graduated in the same class that Zig had, most likely at the top of her specialty. (That was the only way to be able to become a senior drill leader). She bounded forward to embrace Megan, and I couldn’t help but laugh at the two of them. Where Megan was all ivory skin and light, KC was a rich brown, her unruly black hair only reaching the top of Megan’s shoulders and standing in stark contrast to Megan’s blonde. Her accent, a thicker version of Alia’s, showed that she was from the Valta territory.

As I looked away from KC and Megan my eyes met Tyler’s and he grinned that crazy lopsided grin that he’d had since we were kids growing up in Aelston together. He shoved his light brown hair out of his eyes as he crossed the room to stand in front of me, pausing only a second before grabbing me and squeezing me as tight as he could.

“Long time no see, Raider,” he said. I let out a laugh and squeezed him back,

It’s good to see you too, Tyler, I thought.

He let go of me and took a step back, his pale blue eyes glinting with a mischievous edge, like they always were. I let out a breath and grinned back, I hadn’t realized how much I’d missed him.

We all turned at the sound of someone descending the stairs. I was shocked and surprised when the eyes of my younger sister met mine.

“Nicki!” I rushed forward and grabbed her up in a hug, then set her down. “What are you doing here?” I asked seriously, “Are you okay?” My mind went into overdrive as I thought of everything that could’ve happened, because Nicki wasn’t supposed to leave the academy under any circumstance. First year students were kept on the campus year round, unless and extreme circumstance arose. Then it hit me.

“You saw what happened, didn’t you?” I asked my sister. I didn’t feel the need to hide her secret in this crowd, though I should’ve maybe been skeptical about Emmalie since we had just met. But she probably already knew, being a telepath. KC seemed to already know, and even though I hadn’t really asked Nicki if I could tell Megan, I had.

Nicki nodded, her bright green eyes - identical to my own - met mine and conveyed her calm. That was the thing about her: she was rarely surprised by anything.

“I’ve seen a lot of stuff, Sabin,” she said. “Some of it was Alia and Alec getting captured, some of it had to do with Edil. The rest I haven’t completely made sense of but…”

“It’s alright,” I said. I put my hands on my shoulders and drew her in for another hug. I knew from experience Nicki got frustrated when she couldn’t figure something out. I’d always tried my best to make sure she understood it was okay when she didn’t know everything—that her powers already gave her a lot more of a heads up than what most people got. I decided to shift the subject of conversation, letting Nicki go, “But I’m still not sure why you’re here?”

KC set her hand on Nicki’s shoulder.

“Nicki’s here on my authorization,” KC explained. “We knew something was going to happen, and Nicki knew she needed to tell you. So we worked it out to where you and Megan could meet us here.”

I nodded slowly. It was all starting to fall into place. Except for one detail that Megan was nice enough to point out.

“How does she fit into all of this?” Megan asked, hitching her thumb towards Emmalie.

“We needed two strong teleporters,” KC said. “I was coming from the academy with Nicki and Tyler, so we had to rely on Emmalie to find you guys.”

“But… how do you know her?”

“I knew her when I was younger,” Tyler said. “I was born in Aelston, you know, but my family moved to Bundok when I was three. I met Emmalie there. I moved back to Aelston when I was eight and hadn’t heard from her since until a few weeks ago Nicki told me that some red-head from my past was going to re-enter my life or something like that? I didn’t believe her, at least not until I was visiting my brother in Aelston and I literally ran into Emmalie on the street.”

“From that point on, we’ve kept in touch,” Emmalie finished. “Tyler and Nicki both expected they’d need my help with something, or else I wouldn’t have ever come back.”

Megan nodded slowly. I wondered if she could see into Tyler and Emmalie’s memories to check their stories. After a few seconds, she finally said.

“Okay, fine. So why are you guys here? I know you said something about Nicki seeing what happens… but why?”

“We have a plan,” KC said. “You guys won’t be able to rescue Alia and Alec on your own, so Tyler and Emmalie are going to help. Nicki and I are going to work to figure out what might happen to Edil.”

“What do you think is going to happen there?” I asked Nicki.

Nicki shook her head. “I don’t know. I couldn’t see it clearly. But as soon as you guys get going, we’re going back. I think that there’s something going on among the top leaders of the academy.”

“But you don’t need to worry about that,” KC said quickly. “Your main priority now is getting Alia and Alec back.” She frowned and added on, “We’re going to need them, no matter what lies ahead.”

We all grew quiet at this, but a moment later the silence was broken by Megan. “I just have one question.” She turned to Emmalie. “Where are our horses and the rest of our supplies?”

Emmalie simply chuckled.

“So that’s where Alia and Alec are being held?”

As it turned out, the “konna encampment” we’d been sent to investigate was a gargantuan building, built out in the middle of nowhere.

Four stories high, the building was twice as long as it as wide. It was surrounded on all sides by a tall, barbed wire fence. It was hard to see from where we were standing, but behind the building there seemed to be some kind of drilling field. It honestly looked like a typical military outpost, if it weren’t for the smothering pressure of dark energy in the air.

Emmalie had teleported us here after we’d managed to map out a solid enough plan, which had taken most of the morning, so we ended up staying in Inon, despite mine and Megan’s protests.

“Every minute we spend here is another they’re with the konna!” Megan had protested. “We can’t just abandon them.”

“We aren’t,” had been KC’s kurt reply.

We left that night, right after the sun went down. Without knowing exactly what we were going to be facing once we were inside, we knew that any plan we did come up with would most likely change, but Megan and KC both felt that we at least needed some kind of idea of what we were supposed to be doing.

I refocused on the konna building. The dark energy surrounding it put me on edge, and I could tell by the way he was fidgeting that Tyler was feeling the same way. Neither Megan nor Emmalie seemed to be too bothered by it, but I didn’t stop to wonder why that may be, even though it did strike me as odd. There were too many other things about the building that was weirder than why those two weren’t seemingly affected by the dark energy.

The oddest thing was that there was absolutely no one in sight.

“This is what we were suppose to scout?” Megan asked. “How on earth did Commander Mecah expect us to do that?”

“Maybe he didn’t,” I muttered. I admit I’d been thinking about the same thing. While Mecah had never given us completely clear details on what this encampment was, and Megan hadn’t gotten anything from the IGSs in Inon except a relative location, I feel the fact that the encampment not being a camp but instead a large building would’ve been a detail that shouldn’t have been left out.

I remembered what Nicki had told us, about her suspecting something going on with the higher ranking officers at Edil. Could Commander Mecah have something to do with that?

Focus Sabin,Tyler said in my head. I shot him an annoyed glare while he smirked.

Meanwhile, Megan and Emmalie had started to go over the plan… again. Normally I would’ve been helping make the plan. I had been trained as a strategist while I was at the academy. But I also knew Megan was just as good of a strategist as I was, so I was letting her handle this plan.

“Okay, Emmalie, here’s what I’ve got: assuming you can teleport us inside the building, we split up from there. You and Tyler will connect all four of us telepathically so we can communicate. We’ll each search a different section for Alia and Alec.”

“And we’ve gotta be stealthy,” Emmalie said. “We can’t risk getting caught ourselves.”

“Right,” Megan agreed. “Anyway, once we’ve found the twins, we let the others know and then get the hell out of there.”

“Sounds simple enough,” Tyler commented.

“Which means it probably won’t be,” I muttered.

“Well, obviously this is a ‘if-everything-works-out-perfectly-and-goes-according-to-plan’ plan,” Megan stated. She reached into her back pocket and pulled out a map. She knelt down on the ground and flipped the map over so that the blank backside was face up. Then, pulling a pen out of one of her other pockets, she went to work drawing back-up plans.

Of course it won’t be, Sabin.

I looked up suddenly, wondering where the voice had come from.

“Did you guys hear that?”

The other three shook their heads. Tyler gave me a funny look.

“You okay man?” he asked.

“I…” I frowned, not knowing what to say. The voice had come out of nowhere—gone as suddenly as it had appeared. “It’s nothing, don’t worry about it.”

“Okay, well I’m going to walk over here to see if I can locate a good spot to teleport us in,” Emmalie said, her voice hinting that she was starting to think I’d gone insane. Maybe I had.

She walked off in one direction, and Tyler wandered off in the other. I could tell he was trying to separate himself from the rest of us so that maybe he could sense the minds of the other people inside, despite the fact that we were still a good distance away. Despite the fact that he liked to not be serious , and was generally immature about most things, Tyler took his job very seriously. When it came down to it, he would always do everything within his power to help. It was probably the reason why we were such good friends—I was the same way.

With both Tyler and Emmalie off playing with their powers, Megan was the only one left close to me, and even she wasn’t paying attention. She was too busy drawing plans on her map.

I turned away from her and concentrated. I didn’t know who was talking in my head, but I could tell it wasn’t the same kind of communication to expect from a telepath—even a really powerful one like Tyler or Emmalie. It was different… which meant whoever it was may not hear me if I tried sending thoughts back.

I don’t know who you are, I thought, pushing the thought towards the strange voice as much as I could. But you need to get out of my head, now.

I stood still for a few minutes, fully aware of the other three shooting me the occasional glance every so often. I chose to ignore them. I stayed silent for a while, but soon it seemed like the mystery voice was gone.

Oh, I’m not gone Sabin. The voice said right as I thought that, I’ll always be here. But you might as well consider your friends as gone. Because that’s what’s going to happen. You’ll fail them as their leader and then- They’ll be gone.

I shivered despite the heat. I didn’t understand what was going on, but I couldn’t do anything to stop the growing sense of dread building in my stomach.

Megan looked at me with concern. She was about to say something when suddenly the sound of Tyler shouting interrupted her.

“Bugs!” he shouted. “Stay away! Dammit I said stay away!”

“Tyler?” I asked, just as Emmalie started called out.

“Guys? Did it suddenly just get really dark? I can’t see anything. What is going on?”

I looked up at the sky and noticed it had gotten a bit darker out.

“Yeah I guess it has, Emmalie,” Megan answered. “But it’s still light out enough to see.”

“No it isn’t,” Emmalie insisted. She was looking in our direction, but I could tell she wasn’t actually seeing us.

Meanwhile, Tyler was still yelling about bugs. I couldn’t see any around him, but I knew that one of his worst fears was of bugs.

“Sabin,” Megan said, grabbing my arm. I turned to look at her. “I think I know…”

She stopped short when her eyes got a faraway look in them. She pulled away her hand and took a step back.

“No,” she breathed.

I looked in the direction she was. What I saw surprised me. Walking towards us, head held high, was a woman who looked scarily like Megan, only shorter, and with a bit darker hair and eyes.

“Sabin, Megan,” the woman said calmly, her voice even. “Glad to see you made it here safely.”

“Where are Alia and Alec?” Megan demanded. I looked at her and noticed the look of pure hatred she was sending at the woman.

As I looked closer at the new comer, I realized she did look familiar. I couldn’t figure out where I would’ve known her from, though. It wouldn’t have been the academy, she was too old for me to have been there at the same time as her. Besides, she didn’t look much like the Edil type. Especially if the way Megan was glaring at her was any sort of tell.

The woman waved her hand dismissively at Megan’s question. “Oh, they’re somewhere. You know those two. Always wandering off and getting in trouble.”

Megan didn’t seem to have any patience for the woman’s games because the next thing I knew she’d pulled out her gun and had it pointed straight at the stranger.

The woman didn’t even flinch, and kept walking towards us.

“Put that away, Meggy,” she scolded. My eyes widened at the recognition of the nickname. It was the same nickname that Megan’s… but that was impossible.

As if she knew what I was thinking, the woman flashed a small smile at me before looking back at Megan. “Now, Meggy, just sit tight. There’s some things that I want you and Sabin to see…”

No sooner had she said that did she disappear. Not only that, but as I turned back to ask Megan if she’d just seen the same thing I had, I realized with a shock that Megan was gone too. And as I strained my ears to hear, I noticed even the scared voices of Tyler and Emmalie had vanished.

“Some leader you are,”a voice said from behind me. I spun around and saw—much to my surprise—Alia standing there. Her hands were resting on her hips and anger radiating in waves from her. I felt my cheeks heat up in a blush despite my best efforts when I realized that she was only dressed in a sports bra and shorts. Her brown hair, while normally held together in a tight braid down her back, was falling out in places, covering parts of her face. She looked beat up and run down, like she’d been through hell and back.

“A… Alia?” I asked. “How… how did you get out? Megan said you and Alec were captured.”

“Yeah, and a lot of good you did protecting us,” another voice—this one I recognized as Alec’s—said from my right.

Alec stepped out and stood next to his sister. He looked just as ragged as she did—maybe even more. He was shirtless and for a brief moment I caught myself wondering if I looked like that when I didn’t have a shirt on.

Get your head on straight Sabin, I scolded myself. Try and figure out what’s going on.

“Look, I tried…” I said. “Guys, we were trying our hardest to help you. Megan and I were working to get into…”

“Megan and I?” I spun around once more to see Megan standing behind me. Unlike the twins she was fully clothed, and by fully clothed I mean she was in full military uniform. I frowned, knowing Megan hadn’t been wearing when I’d last seen her only a minute ago. As I studied her uniform more, I was shocked to see that she was wearing the uniform of a Class III Alpha, which was the highest rank anyone could be awarded.

“Honestly Sabin, you’re giving yourself far too much credit,” Megan continued. “You wouldn’t have even been able to figure out what happened to Alia and Alec without my help.”

“Megan?” I asked. “What are you doing here? Why are you dressed like that?”

Megan, Alec, and Alia all laughed in a cold way. Chills ran down my spine. I could tell something was wrong.

“I don’t understand… what’s funny?”

“You, Sabin,” Alia said. “You think you’re such a great leader, but honestly it’s amazing you’ve gotten this far without losing even more of your team.”

“What are you talking about?” I snapped.

“Oh I think you know,” Alec said, crossing his arms over his chest.

“Last year,” Megan clarified. “For your graduation mission.”

My breathing hitched. Of course Megan would’ve known about that, but Alia and Alec?

I wrestled back the flashbacks of gunfire and my teammates fighting to move around me. I pushed away the sight of my supervisor struggling to hand me the orders for the mission before she died. How did Alia and Alec know about how close our mission had come to failing? And why were they bringing it up?

“Your leader died and gave you the command,” Alia continued. “But you failed didn’t you? You barely managed to complete your mission, and your team… they all almost died Sabin, because you couldn’t lead them!”

“And you can’t lead us, either,” Alec said. “Why else do you think Alia and I were captured?”

“I’m sorry!” I cried out, panic welling in my chest as my breathing sped up, “I was coming to save you, I was going to-”

“Sorry doesn’t cut it,” Megan retorted. “You can’t lead Sabin. You never have been able to, and you never will. You see this uniform?” She gestured to the uniform she was wearing. “You aspire to someday have this uniform? To make your dad proud, right? Well you’ll never achieve that!”

“She’s right you know.”

I felt my heart drop when the new voice spoke. I turned around once again to see Nicki and Tyler standing a few feet away. They were both dressed in uniforms of high ranks as well: Tyler as a Beta and Nicki as a First Gamma. It’d had been Nicki who’d spoken.

“You want to become a great leader to make Dad proud,” she said. “But you aren’t even a competent leader. How do you expect to become a great one?”

I opened my mouth to respond, but realized I couldn’t. All the words stuck in my throat.

Fortunately, I didn’t have to speak, because the sound of Emmalie shouting interrupted our conversation.

“Sabin! Sabin, it’s not real!”

I felt someone grab my shoulder and I spun around to face Emmalie.

“Sabin,” she said. “What you’re seeing isn’t real! None of it’s real.”

As she spoke, the others around me: Tyler and Nicki, Megan, and Alia and Alec all vanished. I gasped as it suddenly became easier to breath. The cold feeling of dread and panic I’d been feeling went away.

I looked behind Emmalie and saw Tyler bending down to check on Megan, who was down on her hands and knees crying. This Tyler was just as I had last seen him, dressed in his IGS training clothes. Gone was the Beta uniform. It was just normal Tyler. When he sensed me looking at him, Tyler looked up at me.

“Dude, you look like hell,” he said.

I didn’t trust myself to speak, since I was still recovering from what had just happened. But I managed to respond with a hand gesture and a few strong thoughts directed at Tyler, but I’m pretty sure Emmalie heard them too, since she snickered.

Tyler snorted when he heard my thoughts, but looked at me with concern. “But seriously, are you okay?”

I took a deep breath and stepped away from Emmalie. They both watched me cautiously. I knew they were worried, and honestly I didn’t blame them. What had just happened to us… I understood what it was, but I didn’t really want to dwell on it much.

We’d been attacked by a takot—a fear spinner. I didn’t really get how the powers worked, but I knew it was one of the stronger konna powers. It was a power that was used to show enemies what they feared most and therefore render them incapable of fighting.

That was what I’d just seen. My worst fears brought to life through images of my friends and my sister. Just like they had been last year when my graduation mission team was attacked by a takot.

Two years in a row, I thought.

Don’t think about that, Tyler sent back, meeting my eyes and giving me a stern look. I don’t know what you just saw, but what happened last year is in the past. We need to focus on the here and now.

Of course Tyler knew what I had meant. He’d been on that team last year. Because of that, and my failure to be any help at all to my team, he now had a prosthetic right arm.

“Sabin,” Tyler said firmly, not bothering to speak through thoughts anymore. He walked over and gripped my shoulder—using his right hand. “Stop. Stop thinking about that, okay? If you want to have a sob party later, that’s fine. I’ll bring the ice cream. But right now, we’ve got to help Alia and Alec.”

I took another deep breath and shook my head to clear my thoughts.

“Right,” I said. I looked over at Emmalie, who gave me a determined nod. We might have just added her to our group, and she may not have had any kind of formal military training (a fact we were currently overlooking) but at that moment, I was thankful to have her.

“Thank you,” I said to her. Then: “How’d you manage to drive her away?”

Emmalie waved her hand dismissively. “Oh, you know. Just by being me. I told you I was amazing.”

I scrunched my nose, not really satisfied with her answer, but knowing I didn’t have time to waste pressing for more. I let it drop and turned to Megan, who had stopped crying but was still kneeling on the ground with her head down.

“Hey Megs, you okay to go?”

She looked up at me, nodded, and then stood.

“Yeah, I’m good. Just… give me one…”

She didn’t get a chance finish her sentence before she turned around and puked on the ground beside her.

When she had regained her composure, Megan stood up and looked at me.

“Sorry,” she said. “Let’s go.”

But I wasn’t convinced she was okay. I had planned to just let it go, but the way she was struggling to recover…

Tyler gave me a look, one that I understood easily.

I took a breath, something I seemed to be doing a lot recently.

“Megan, is there something you need to tell me?” I asked. “I assume Tyler and Emmalie already know, but is there something that I need to know before we continue with this mission?”

Megan looked at me with an expression I couldn’t exactly interpret. She was silent for a few seconds, but then she finally spoke up.

“I guess there isn’t really a point in hiding it. You were there when she was appeared.”

I thought back to the strange woman who’d shown up right before the takot visions had started—the woman I had no doubt was the takot. I couldn’t deny the resemblance between her and Megan, nor the fact that Megan obviously seemed to recognize her. Hell, she’d even seemed familiar to me.

“That woman,” I said slowly. “You’re related to her, aren’t you?”

Megan nodded. “She… she’s my sister. Brittany.”

I stared at her, my eyes widening. I had known Brittany back when we had all lived in Satama. She was about five or six years older than Megan, and had never been very nice to us, though if I remembered correctly her and Megan had been fairly close. But I’d never thought she’d become a konna.

“But… how?” I asked. “I mean, Brittany was mean to us as kids - or mean to the rest of us anyway. Maybe not you. But enough that Alia nicknamed her ‘Brat-ney’ but… she became a konna?”

“It really isn’t that hard to believe,” Megan said. “Considering…”

She paused, seeming unsure of what to say.

“Considering what?”

Megan took a deep breath.

“Considering my dad was also a konna.”

I couldn’t help the shocked look that came across my face. Megan’s dad… was a konna? But that couldn’t be right at all. Everything I remembered about Mr. O’Carroll was him helping other people, taking care of Megan and Zig. Sure he’d been kind of quiet and reserved, but a konna? I didn’t believe that.

Tyler was watching me intently, seeing how I would react. Emmalie was shuffling uncomfortable, which I found very out of character for her, but I didn’t say anything. Megan was looking at me with a still unreadable expression, but I could see a faint hint of desperation in her eyes. She needed me to understand what she was saying.

“Your dad is a konna?” I asked.

“Was,” Megan corrected. “He died a few years ago.”

“Was… sorry,” I said. “But that means…”

She smiled sadly. I noticed her eyes flashed briefly between their normal light blue and a darker color of blue to match her sister’s.

“That’s right,” Megan said. “I’m half-konna.”