Chapter 2
The sun was restless as they glided through the sky, traveling at modest speeds as the city came into view across the distance.
“Is that it up ahead?” said Sean.
“Yep, shouldn’t be much longer now,” said Lily. “We should be able to make it just in time going at this speed.”
“What were you saying before, by the way? About this tournament and everything.”
“You’ll see when we get there. It’s too much to explain right now. We’re almost there…” They continued blasted through the air at modest to fast speeds, passing over prairies, plains, and lakes along the way. They each different shapes and sizes, some large, some round, cool, crystal light blue reflections shone through the clear transparent waterways just below then, each getting smaller and smaller as they shifted by the only for a brief second. The land below them looking like building blocks you could pluck up with a simple gesture of the hand. They came further into view as time passed and came just over the top of the city grounds. They looked down at the plot of land with caution.
“Ok, so from here...” Lily said, adjusting her weight and position, “we shall teleport our way in.”
“Teleport? How are we going to do that?” said Sean, perplexed.
“I have the ability to do that as well.” She further gripped his hand standing them both upright. “Hold on tight…” A flash of white energy encapsulated both them, and before they knew it, the emanating energy blipped them off in an instant, showing no signs of them being there before. The quiet sky stood still as the soft winds blew by in the skyline.
They traveled to what had felt lightning fast and suddenly appeared before an open hallway, void of any people or life, just silence and open space and narrow ways leading off to undiscovered spaces. “Looks, we made here ok.” Lily was wiping off her dress, shifting it back and forth to push out the wrinkles and folds. “All this air travel can really mess with my outfit.” Sean let go of her hand and began situating himself. He had been through so much already and tried to compose himself with all the flying, fighting, and plethora of information. He started looking around curiously, observing all the nooks and crannies of the room; all the corners didn’t escape his eyes as he looked around. Lights were all over the ceiling; opaque public building like architecture riddled each wall across each turn. It seemed like they were in some moderately important place to him, it looked like a fairly public space with the way the walls were built and the atmosphere it gave off to him through the lack of a family house feel you’d feel at home.
“That was pretty fun, so where are we anyway?” said Sean as he kept looking around. “This place doesn’t look like the arena.”
“It’s not…well at least not the main one exactly. Were at another arena, much smaller than this one. This is just the main office building placed right next to it. We’re here because I have someone for you to meet first.”
Sean continued looking around curiously, almost as if not paying attention. “Oh, I see…so we’re in another arena.”
“All right, let’s go. I got to get back to the Promised Land soon, so we can’t be wasting any more time.” Lily began walking forward and guided him down the hall. Sean followed with haste and began jogging forward to keep up with her fast pace. They came around a corner to find a much larger open space and a desk that looked like a main desk type of area. Windows could be seen beside it and across throughout the room along with an entrance doorway and a matt to match the furnishing. Bright lights lit up the room nicely and illuminated it fairly strong to create a casual public atmosphere surrounding them. But they weren’t the only ones there, behind the desk stood a rather tall, big black man, with sturdy shoulders and dark glasses. He wore himself a nice hat and semi casual outfit that still looked very formal enough to let you know he may be working here of some kind. The tall dark man noticed them coming around the corner and waved with a greeting fashion, signaling them to come over for initiating discourse. Sean and Lily walked over to the counter with haste.
“Hello there Mr. Francis, good morning to you,” said Lily bowing her head.
“Good morning to you too Lily, what brings you on over to these parts,” said the burly black man. “We’re not used to seeing too many angels over here that often.”
“I’m just here to drop off a delivery. You see this boy here needs assistance…” She pointed over to Sean in an introductory fashion
“Oh and who is this young fellow here?”
“This my good sir is Sean; he was a stray soul I found out in the woods. He’s said to be special in some way, but I don’t know why, I was just instructed to retrieve him upon arrival. We were hoping to sign him up for the tournament, that part was strict orders too.”
“Hmm, I see.” Mr. Francis looked over with a sharp look and inspected Sean. Sean couldn’t help but feel slightly embarrassed, but he stood still with a common smirk on his face until the burly man chose to speak again. “He certainly looks fairly fit, a little on the smaller side than most fighters, fairly skinny too. But we might be able to move him in.”
“That’s great news! Since your one of the main heads of the Committee I figured you’d be the perfect person to ask for permission for this. You Committee members are always having your hands full with managing the tournament that I was hoping you’d be here still with the whole preliminary rounds going on right now. I’m glad I got caught you before you left.” said Lily, in a very longwinded fashion.
“Yes, we are quite busy. We received a lot of fighters this time around; they must be really getting hasty for battle this time of year. I’m actually on break right now so I actually wanted to get some peace before I headed on over just as a bystander to see how it was going, but I’m in no rush to see it. I already got a look at the applicants and I got a good estimate on who’ll make it to the final rounds, so I’m in no rush to see it,” said Mr. Francis.
“Well I hope you can get him signed up before they end. This one looks pretty fired up for battle, I can feel it.” Lily waved over at Sean. “Don’t be wary Sean, you haven’t even said hello yet.” Sean’s face lit up as she instructed him to induce a proper greeting.
“Oh, I’m sorry my mistake.” Sean took a slight bow to Mr. Francis while maintaining eye contact to him over the counter. “Hello, to you sir. My name is Sean.”
“Good day to you too, my boy. You look mighty athletic for a boy your size, do you work out?”
“Well no…not really…maybe sometimes. I suppose I got it all from just fighting bullies on the streets so much.” Sean said, bashfully. “They weren’t all that strong usually, I guess that gave me a sort of workout every day.”
“Oh, we got ourselves a street boy, eh?” He reached his arm out to shake and Sean responded to the gesture and proceeded to shake back. “You’ll fit in nicely, my name is Albert D. Francis. I’m one of the only African Americans you’ll see around these parts. But don’t worry you’ll get to see a fair amount of us all ‘round here and the rest of the continent.” They let go of each other hands still facing each other.
“I see.” Sean began to stammer a little in his words. “That’s good to know, um sir. It’s nice to meet you.” Formalities weren’t his strong suit.
Mr. Francis made a slight chuckle in his voice. “You’re a strange one aren’t you? I like that. Might make this place a little more interesting ‘round here. It can get a little too peaceful sometimes y’know. Some days you need a little more excitement in your life, y’know what I’m saying?”
“Yes sir, I sure do.” Sean made a mild smile to him. “I know what exactly what you mean.” Sean wasn’t too sure really if he did or not, but he went along with what he was saying anyway, since he seemed like a pretty nice guy.
“Alright then should we head out? We won’t be making much progress standing around here,” said Mr. Francis.
“Yes, yes. You all should get going. I need to get back to my duties myself, so sadly I won’t be able to accompany you on your journey. Best of luck to you Sean.”
“Yeah, same here.” Sean waved goodbye to Lily as she rose up in the air and went straight into the wall, headfirst like a ghost, disappearing from the room in an instant like she was never there.
“Wow, she can really do that?” said Sean, with his mouth gaping wide staring at the ceiling.
“Yep, all angels can go through walls, there almost like ghosts in a way,” said Mr. Francis. He reached in his pocket and pulled out a big, burly cigar, one big enough that it looked like he could smoke it for ages, and he lit it up quick, sparking with yellow light and took a deep breath and exhaled smoke between his sturdy, dark fingers. “We can go but let me get my son Darion first. He’s lazing around in the back.” Mr. Francis turned around facing towards the wall behind him. A door came into view, which was a sudden surprise to Sean because he hadn’t beforehand while they were busy talking. “Darion, Darion. Get your ass out here boy, we gotta get up on out of here and head over to the stadium.” He knocked on the door hard enough to hear from the other side. After a while, the silence broke and the door opened to reveal a younger black male with a jacket on and similar black shades. He stumbled a bit through the door entrance before he situated and spoke.
“What up pops? What’s with the ruckus? Why you trippin’? I’m just chillin’ in the back, I ain’t doin’ nothin’ wrong, Jesus, I’m just listening to music…”
“Boy, don’t use that tone with me. We don’t talk like around here. I’m calling you cause we gotta go now. We have to escort this boy on over to the stadium.”
“Oh, I see.” Darion looked over at Sean across the counter causing him to smirk awkwardly a bit. “Wassup, the names Darion,” he said reaching out his hand over the counter towards Sean’s direction. “How’s it goin’ man?”
“I’m cool, the name’s Sean. Nice to meet you.”
“Same here.” They shook their hands a little longer before letting go and shifting around for their next course of action. “You knew here?” Darion said, gracefully.
“Yeah, I hardly know what’s going on actually. One minute I’m in a forest and some plains in the middle of nowhere, next minute I’m greeting you through the introduction of a supposed angel.” Sean chuckled at the words he just uttered. It flashed in his mind for real that he barely knew what was going on and he found it all amusing.
“Yeah it sounds like you’ve been having a crazy time, yo,” said Darion. “Don’t worry man, things will probably start making more sense for you in a few.”
“Ok.”
They began to lose some eye contact and started shuffling around their feet across making casual gestures to lighten the mood. Mr. Francis went into the lit room behind the counter and after a few moments came out flicking the light switch off behind him as he looked over at them both.
“Alright now, shall we go then?” said Mr. Francis. Both boys nodded and they shuffled their gear in place and Sean followed them as they stepped out of the counter and left out through the main entrance in unison.