Page 88 of Elex

“The one I wear is deactivated. It’s a fake,” he reassured me. “We had it made to look like the ones the Elusians use, but it’s just a hunk of tin.”

I felt more than heard the click as the collar separated and the medallion dropped to the table.

“Here. Have a souvenir,” Betts set the pieces of the collar on the table.

“What do you do with them now?” I looked to Hel.

“Before theChrysalisgets here, I’ll drop them into some pits that lead to an underwater river that flows through some of the old sewers under the city,” he said. “The water will eventually take them out to sea. If the Elusians are even able to track them that deep, it will just look like someone is moving through the sewers.”

“Are the explosives still active?” I looked at the medallions on the table. Betts shook her head.

“I deactivated the chemical compound that creates the explosion,” she swept her hands together as if she was brushing off dirt. “Easy peasy.”

V looked at her questioningly. “Easy peasy?”

“You know! ‘Easy peasy, lemon squeezy?’” she recited in a sing-song voice.

V shook his head.

“I feel like you are speaking a foreign language,” he said.

She laughed at his confusion.

“Don’t worry, we’ll get you up to speed in no time.” She patted his head like he was a child.

“So what’s next?” I reached up, unable to keep myself from rubbing my neck where the collar had chafed since it had been locked.

“Time to go hunting Mageia,” Hel responded.

We spent the next few days hunting for other Mageia in Heraklion.

There were numerous blind alleys, dead ends, and traps for the unwary. We barely escaped two ambushes laid by Mageia that first week before we started to find our rhythm as a team.

The first Mageia we were able to speak to wasn’t even from our Legion.

We found the boy caught upside down in a trap Hel had placed, hanging high overhead from a metal outcropping. He had to have been an Earth Mageia who hadn’t seen the net Hel had concealed, and now hung far above his chosen element, unable to reach the ground.

We watched him struggle from a distance for a while. It was apparent he had tried to use his powers to summon earth to him, but all he’d succeeded in doing was create several dangerous-looking spikes of rock underneath himself.

“I got an alert this morning that something had triggered this trap, but I thought it would be best if we approached him together,” Hel said, ducking his head into the shadows of his hoodie. He was dressed much as we’d first seen him but wore the hood up, helping him conceal the scarred side of his face.

Something bothered me about the gesture. He was so conscious of his scars all the time; I wasn’t sure he realized how beautiful he was. Hel shouldn’t feel like he had to hide any part of himself from anyone, much less from V or I. We certainly had our own share of scars. Unfortunately, now was not the time to address it.

I looked at V and he nodded silently at me. I’d have his back and let him do most of the talking. That tended to work better for us, since I wasn’t always the most diplomatic person.

The boy saw us approaching long before we reached him. His struggles intensified, but all he managed to do was cause the net he was trapped in to spin more quickly.

“Hey,” V whispered as we approached. “Easy…”

The boy - he didn’t look like he could be any older than fifteen or sixteen, even though Machi participants were supposed to be at least eighteen - watched us in terror.

“Stay away from me!” he yelled, twisting and turning desperately.

“Easy!” V summoned his power and drew earth to his hand. The boys’ eyes widened but his struggles didn’t stop; if anything, they increased as he saw the power of another Mageia. Some Legions were like that. Our Legion tended to group Mageia by abilities, but others made them compete against each other. He may have suffered more at the hands of those with powers like his own than those from other elements. Around his neck hung a collar like to ours, its medallion jangling in his struggles.

“We want to help,” V insisted.

The boy shook his head and kept struggling. As we drew closer, I could see that his ankle was twisted oddly under him. If it wasn’t broken it was severely sprained. Every time he twisted, I could see the wince of pain as it put more pressure on his damaged leg.