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4

Doctor Conway asked Rhy to see him after class. The wolf (reasonably) had no idea what to expect. He thought about it and realized he didn't know who to expect either. Would Conway be Conway when the student entered his office? Before Seth parted ways with him, the leopard was adamant that the doctor liked to play tricks (if the surprise transformation in class was testament enough), so anyone--anyone--could be just on the other side of the pristine, mahogany door. Or maybe Seth was full of shit. Still, with baited breath, a sweaty brow, and a squirming gut (just nerves), Rhykard raised a shaky paw and tapped gently on the door. He himself could barely hear the noise. Conway probably hadn't at all. But he was scared to knock again. He supposed it was just the situation.

Rhy had never been a troublesome pup; his tenacity for good behavior had always just been second nature. He'd never gotten into a fight, never really raised his voice in anger, never been grounded or reprimanded academically for misconduct or bad grades. He knew he did alright in school, but he also knew he could do better; he knew that his tentative lifestyle was probably boring to most, but he also knew that he enjoyed himself. He knew he was quiet, but he had friends--Seth was his best, of course. That knowledge didn't help him to feel any less...disconnected, though. Often times Rhy found it difficult to understand others. That lack of understanding made him nervous, because (living a routine like he did) the unexpected was, well--

Scary.

He raised a paw to knock again, but apparently Conway had heard after all.

"Come in," he beckoned.

Rhy tugged his slipping pack back onto his shoulder, turned the brass knob, and shoved the heavy door with a grunt. As it opened, he noticed that it was nearly five inches thick--a barricade practically. It took just as much effort to close the door as open. Rhy felt tired afterward. Blood pounded in his skull. He cupped his paw there and felt his heartbeat in his temple. The light inside the office was cozy and not too bright, but the wolf still had to squint as he looked around.

The room was as big as his and Seth's dorm room, but maybe a bit bigger. Shelves stuffed with books lined three of the four sides, reaching up to the ceiling; the walls (that Rhy could see) were a deep scarlet, both warm and cool like a red-tide; an antique globe sat in the back, left-hand corner beside a tall window overlooking the campus, and opposite on the right sat an advanced looking stereo system. No music played from the black, glossy thing, but Rhy glanced up and saw speakers tucked into the upper corners of the room. Conway, rummaging through a bookshelf directly behind his mammoth, mahogany desk, looked like a classical man when it came to music, but that was just a guess.

Two elegant chairs were before Rhy, and Conway turned to greet the wolf and motioned at them. "Take a seat, Mr. Dean. I insist." He then turned back to rummaging, his ears back and tail flicking. "I'm just trying to find...something...I believe you'd...AHA!"

Rhy sat, placing his book bag between his feet, as Conway yanked out a thick book and caressed its cover before blowing a thick cloud of dust from it. The good doctor, as far as Rhy understood, was a new teacher at the college, but looking around it seemed he'd been in this office for a while. A number of coats were racked by the door, papers were scattered in little piles here and there, and coffee mugs were just as numerous. He'd sure made himself at home, and dust like he'd choked the air with doesn't gather overnight.

"You'll really enjoy this," Conway said after he'd sat in his own chair and placed the book on the desk.

Rhy squinted at the book's spine. "The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri..." He'd read that in AP English back in high school.

Conway nodded and winked. "Pardon the cliché, but don't judge a book by its cover." The lynx grinned, both warm and cool like the color of his walls, happy and sad. "I should know that better than anyone, right?"

The wolf just watched the doctor, observing how his golden eyes twinkled as if on the verge of tears. But none fell. In turn, the doctor watched Rhy with a foreboding sense of insight, an urge in the back of his mind that told him the wolf was important. That same urge had made him think of what was hidden inside the book he held, made him realize that the boy would be greatly affected by it. Before that, the urge had made him take Raymond up on the teaching offer, too, so he'd tacked it up to something higher than himself. He was cautious to reveal the memento, but it just seemed right (like everything else), especially after Rhy had displayed such adamant admiration in class.

Conway patted the book. "This belonged to a dear, dear friend of mine. I knew him well, and you know well of him. I was quite surprised by your knowledge today, Rhykard." He sniffed. "You'll really enjoy this," he said again before opening the book. The spine cracked like dry leaves.

Rhy expected to see pages filled with verse, but the inside of the book had been hollowed out. In the center rested a piece of wood, which Conway reverently lifted out; a leather chord was attached, and it curled down the back of the lynx's paw. Still, it just seemed to be a piece of wood that fit in your palm. But then Conway offered it to Rhy, and the wolf's chest tightened as he recognized it for what it was.

"Oh..." was all Rhy could manage. Like in class, his mouth had stuck in an "O" and his eyes were just as round.

Totemic's heirloom necklace.

He leaned in close (almost touching the thing with the end of his nose) and took in every little detail: the thing's resemblance to some ancient God, face both menacing and beautiful; the natural scars in the wood, so deep that shadow seemed to leak from them; the three eyes, sharp and piercing; the pointed snout and dagger-teeth; the native symbols scarred into the totem's hard flesh--air, fire, water, earth. Rhy stared into the totem's inanimate eyes and thought how ancient are you? He'd never believed that he'd see this; something as powerful and, and...legendary as this little, wooden carving. Never. He couldn't peel his eyes from it. More than that, he could feel something the closer he drew to it, and it was seemingly drawing him in. His eyes began to sting, and he blinked, realizing he hadn't been before.

"You can hold it. It doesn't bite," Conway said, voice low. Then he chuckled. "Well, it doesn't bite anymore. Not since..." The lynx's face darkened and he suddenly looked one thousand years old. "Well, you know."

"How did you..."

The lynx didn't budge, his hands still extended. "Totemic gave it to me before he died. He said, even after his death, this would still serve a purpose." He then brightened. "Even if it was as a paper weight."

Funny. Rhy squirmed in his chair, tilting away from the totem. His eyes finally left the heirloom to peer at Conway. The doctor was staring himself, off into the back wall with a glazed expression and hollow, remembering eyes. His paws shook a tiny bit.

"I'm sorry," was all Rhy could think to say.

He knew the horrors of the battle where Totemic died; it was the very same battle where Atlas finally defeated Nemesis, the super-war that had destroyed Masonport and wiped the slate for Bellemont to be built from the ashes. Totemic had been one of the five remaining, full-powered heroes when the final standoff came to pass; Atlas, Magus, Red Corona, and Lady Lillith were the other four. At some point during the fight, he took a Death stare from Nemesis that was meant for Atlas, and (as always with Nemesis' most fearsome attack) he died 24 hours later. It was a curse of some kind. Rhy guessed that time had given Totemic the opportunity to settle things, give things away. Rhy read that, in his final hours, Totemic flew north into the Adirondack Mountains and vanished. That night, an aurora danced across the night sky. Everyone took the spectacle as a message from nature, that the hero had died, but a body was never recovered. That thought alone horrified Rhy, that his biggest role model was nothing but bones somewhere in the middle of nowhere.

Conway pulled himself back. "No, it's quite alright. Totemic was an amazing hero and an amazing man." The lynx gave another sad-song smile and let the totem dangle from his fingers by its leather chord. It swung back and forth like a sleepy pendulum. "You picked a wonderful person to look up to. Now, here--" He swung the totem out wide. Rhy, suddenly terrified that the doctor was going to drop it, plucked it out from the air. The wooden figure met his fur and flesh and--

The room, the air, everything flashed white. Rhy's ears pounded with the drum beat of his own heart. His blood coursed crackling lightning paths through his veins and leaped in his limbs. His lungs burned, their sail-like tissue near bursting with air he was taking in. His stomach boiled, a fire stoking in his belly and swirling like a cyclone up his throat and into his mouth and nose. His eyes watered. His fingers and toes clenched and clawed. His teeth vibrated in his gums and his tongue slapped the inside of his mouth like a serpent in the throes of death. He felt he should scream, but he didn't want to. There wasn't any pain, just the unnatural energy bursting through him, pouring and pounding and rivaling ecstasy. His heart beat still flooded his hearing, but there was also a river-rush of white noise. Rhy was transfixed by it. It was the song of everything and nothing, rhythm and chaos.

And then it was gone. Not just the sounds, but everything: the strange energy from the totem, the sensation of predestination. Even his headache was gone, and he didn't feel feverish. He felt dandy, actually.

But then there was the voice out of the nothingness.

"It comes soon," it said, as it had done so before. Or had it? Rhy thought he'd been hallucinating or overhearing someone, but--no--this time it continued. "It comes soon, the storm. On land toiled thrice in darkness and blood, lightning--at once--strikes twice the tree of new beginnings. No pain, no suffering, until the faceless take form and shape the hearts of their masks. Till then you will grow. Hold tight to strength, hold firm to lessons old and new, for the words of heritage speak louder and truer than the words of acquaintance. But listen to your allies, for you have a pantheon of them now. They are old Gods and new Gods, sons and daughters of the mighty. You stand among them. Do not fear. I am your guide."

Rhy could still only see white. He wished to say something, but he wasn't sure if that was possible. He felt as disembodied as the voice he heard.

"Speak if you will speak, young one."

And he did. "Who--what--_are you? _Where_are you? Where am _I? What's happening?"

Out of the white, a spot ahead of Rhy wavered like desert heat and took some form. It wasn't much (just a head, a torso, two arms crossed across its chest, an abdomen and then nothing), but it gave the wolf something to fixate upon in this world of emptiness and infinity.

"In time you will learn my name. For now, call me Spirit, for that is what I am: a guide. And, again, you will learn of where you stand in time." The hazy silhouette uncrossed its arms--the motion seemed to stir up a wind gust--and Rhy looked down (for the white suddenly took up the concept of physical space, that of a cave belly, and he and the silhouette were deep within it beside a bonfire, a hole cut into the intangible ceiling's roof and revealing smoky stars). "And you are awakening," Spirit said. "That is what is happening."

Rhy once again had a body. He was naked and sitting Indian style, and he could feel the warmth of the fire as if it were real. Spirit lacked any physicality still, but his shape had solidified somewhat and he'd taken up the orange glow of the fire. Rhy could make out the sheen of eyes, a sharp face and snout, and a mouth pressed into a staidly line. He (Rhy guessed it was a he considering he had pecs) could have had wolf ears, too, but Rhy's eyes may have been making something from nothing. Still, there was something so familiar yet alien about Spirit. He wished to bolt forward and grab him, to keep him from slipping away. For, even though the strange being had shown no intention of departing, Rhy knew this wouldn't last. Whatever it was, and if it was happening at all. Maybe he was going crazy. There was always that.

"You are more than sane, young one," Spirit said. His legless torso hovered closer to the cave floor as if he too was sitting down. "Do not fear. The inheritors before you all jumped to the same conclusion before they were convinced."

"Wait, you can hear my--"

"Your being, here in this place, is pure consciousness. You are personified thought. Of course I can hear what you perceive to be saying within in your own mind, for your mind is everywhere."

"Oh. Well, what am I being convinced of?"

"That there is more to our world than what you can see or touch or comprehend."

Rhy grinned just because. "Like you?"

The apparition nodded. "Indeed. And like this place, like your very presence here."

Rhy looked down at his body. It looked like it always had in all its naked glory. He thought to cover himself, but--for some reason--he felt that might insult Spirit. And it seemed pointless. He wasn't uncomfortable or embarrassed. Just confused. Well, duh.

He scooted closer to the fire, and Spirit appraised him with that transparent gaze. His knee caps and toes began to tingle unpleasantly from their proximity to the flames, but they didn't burn. He sat there and paid the sensation no mind, and eventually it ceased.

"I'm sure you have questions."

"What'd you mean when you said I'm awakening?" Rhy asked, tapping his chin.

"You know the answer to that question already. You've been dreaming of this day since you were a child, and rightly so. Dreams are powerful things. You've known this was coming. I believe that is why you are not more surprised. It just feels--"

"Right," Rhy finished. Spirit nodded. "So, I'm manifesting?"

Spirit cocked his head to the side. "You are inheriting your birthright: the power and strength of your shamanic ancestry. You are becoming a vessel to carry on the traditions of your kind. If that is what 'manifesting' means, than yes."

"It's not as glamorous as I would've expected."

Spirit seemed to frown. "It hardly ever is."

"So," Rhy coughed. "Does this mean that...that my father..."

Spirit just gazed as Rhy fumbled to ask the question he'd been working up to for most of his life. Sure, at first it seemed like nothing more than fantasy, like the world of consciousness he was sitting in this very moment, warming himself by a fire and speaking with a sprit guide. Anything could be possible.

"Was Totemic my father?"

The silhouette seemed to sigh. "No."

"Oh. This isn't how I imagined this scenario to be."

"I apologize. But, again, nothing is ever as you imagine. You shall learn that soon enough."

Rhy's brow beetled. "What's that supposed to mean?"

The fire burned low all of a sudden and the flames turned a deep violet. The sight made Rhy back away. Spirit lifted an arm and pointed. Rhy followed his outstretched limb and saw something along the cave wall: another spot shimmering like heat across blacktop. Rhy crept closer to it, and the nearer he got the more it took on a physical shape. When he crouched next to it, Spirit hovering over his right shoulder, it became recognizable: a body curled into a ball against the stone.

"No," Rhy muttered. He reached out and his paw went through the body altogether. Jerking back toward Spirit, he was on his feet in an instant. "What is this thing? Why does it look like Seth?"

Spirit rose a few feet more off of the ground until he loomed over Rhy. He once again crossed his arms.

"Because it is Seth. It is his spirit manifesting in this world."

Rhy turned to the balled up form of his friend and scowled. "Why is his spirit manifesting here? What does that mean?"

"His time is drawing to a close."

"What!?"

Spirit's eyes blazed blue and his voice was suddenly everywhere at once.

"He is about to die."

The apparition was at Rhy's side in a flash, and the wolf screamed as those formless hands latched onto his shoulders. The fire the two had left suddenly burst upward and rocketed through the hole in the cave roof, and drums were beating. The deep, resonating sound was everywhere. Spirit lifted him up as he was suddenly weightless.

"I am sorry,"_the being said. "_Shadows are lurking. Be wary, thunder child. We shall commune again soon."

And Spirit let go. Rhy fell through the cave floor, and all was black. His screams didn't seem to carry.

He awoke and, even given the foreshadowing of his dream, he was still surprised. His breaths came quickly, the sheets knotted around his shaking body were soaked through with sweat, and darkness was everywhere. His eyes quickly adjusted and he realized he was back in his dorm, lying in bed and staring at the ceiling. Somehow he'd left Conway's office. What had happened?

He turned his head and saw Seth slumbering on the other side of the room. He relaxed a bit. He thought of the dream and the talk with Spirit and tensed up again. Had that actually gone on? He remembered it all so well, so vividly; the message Spirit had told him was fresh in his mind like good song lyrics. "It comes soon, the storm. On land toiled thrice in darkness and blood, lightning--at once--strikes twice the tree of new beginnings."

Nauseous--that's how he felt when making sense of it all. Then he thought of the balled up figure in the cave, of Seth, and what Spirit had said. Rhy watched his friend for a few minutes and all seemed well. The leopard was snoring slightly, lying on his back, his chest rising and falling with ease. Nothing to worry about.

But then Rhy felt more than nauseous. A feeling, a familiar churning of his blood, grew in him. His chest began to burn. His stomach quickly followed, then his sides, groin, shoulders, legs, arms, feet and hands. Like in the white space from the dream, that otherworldly energy was filling him up. Spirit had been right: he was manifesting.

And he couldn't move or do anything about it.

As hot, blue light danced across the walls, Rhy remembered his voice and began to scream. The lights were coming from _him,_from his eyes and the eyes of the totem figure resting atop his chest. The rush of white noise returned full force, but through it and through his screams he heard Seth stir. He heard Seth scream, too. Then the leopard was beside him and reaching out a paw, his eyes terror-stricken and hair whipping around from the energy boiling from Rhy.

"Rhy! Oh my God, what's happening! Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit! AGH!"

An arch of blue energy shot out from the wolf's body and whipped across the room, slicing clean through his clothes and closet. Another soon followed, then another. Rhy screamed; he screamed for Seth to run, to get out. The energy was past the point of ecstasy like in the dream, and now it was filling him up to the point of rupture. It was discharging, but it was still building and pounding off of him.

The room shook, and Seth screamed again, stumbling backward with his arms smoking. He couldn't even get close, and whatever Rhy was radiating was burning closer and closer to the leopard. The bed sheets Rhy was lying on had already burst into flames, the carpet was following suit, bed posts lit like giant candle sticks. The walls, however, only shimmered. They didn't burn.

"Rhykaaaard! AGHHHA! Stooop!"

Seth was coughing and choking on smoke, curled into a tight ball against the far wall as his best friend burned. The fur was singed from his forearms, and the flesh beneath was a pulsing, crisp of black and blood-red. He'd never been in so much pain. The burns hurt so bad. But Rhy didn't stop; he couldn't stop. The room was as hot as hell itself. When Conway and a nurse from the health center had brought Rhy back and laid him in bed, saying he'd passed out and needed some rest, the leopard had thought nothing of it. Stupid, was all he could think now. Stupid, stupid, stupid! They'd done something to him. Conway had done something to Rhy, and now the wolf was dying. He was dying! Burning alive!

But Seth knew better. He was just in shock. His friend wasn't burning, he was manifesting. The leopard had read about hero's stories from when their powers had come in, and this fit the bill of many of them. That scared the shit out of Seth, too, because (in most of those similar cases) someone died; usually an innocent in the wrong place at the wrong time. Someone like him.

Rhy wailed again, a droning sound like a cracked siren, and the energy expanded all the more. Seth screamed and it sounded brittle. Why had no one come? Surely someone had heard this shit happening!

The blue energy was arching off of Rhy in tendrils and dancing all across the room, burning everything as it went. Luckily they hadn't hit Seth. Somehow, they just skipped over him at the last second. But he was still being burned. Rhy's stomach, through the sickening adrenaline and boiling energy spikes, soured as he smelled the frying hair and flesh. He was killing his best friend.

There was a pounding on their door, at last; Conway, maybe, or another super to rescue them from this living nightmare. But the door didn't open. It was just shaking and jumping on its hinges as the energy flowing from him churned like rabid water. Rhy's hope died, and it died even more as he tried to control the power, tried to cut it off, but to no avail.

Seth screamed again, and then he moaned. Rhy knew what was happening, and it was tearing him apart.

"Sethhhh!"

Then Rhy felt as if his innards had been exp_e_lled from his body. He felt hollow. The energy was cut off. He couldn't think. It was quiet as the white-space. The wind stopped. Everything seemed to stop. The walls even stopped shimmering. He looked at Seth through his flaming bed sheets, and the leopard's eyes met his own. He looked relieved.

And then Rhykard Dean exploded.

The backlash from his manifesting powers filled the dorm room with blue, plasmatic fire and (because one of the M.E. shielding devices was off by a critical degree) the energy first blew out the windows and door, shooting horizontal pillars of flame down the halls and fifty feet across the dorm lawn; Seth, having no time to even scream or comprehend what was happening, was swallowed by the fire and blackened along with all of his Atlas memorabilia and everything else. Then, when the explosion could no longer be contained by the 20 x 20 foot dorm room, the entire space was blown apart. Half of the three story dorm building was reduced to smoking rubble. The flash could be seen from fifteen miles away.

~*~

Raymond Belle was speaking with a friend over the phone when he caught the flash of light through his window. And then he heard the explosion. Deep in his bones, he felt an expulsion of manifest energy. He immediately stood with the phone receiver still at his ear.

"I'm going to have to call you back, Vincent." And he hung up.

He wasn't at his office in City Hall, but at home with his wife, Carmen, who was down stairs pressure-cooking some apples for a pie with the aid of her shielding abilities and a very powerful oven. Raymond could hear the hiss of the steam and the straining of fruit and machine as they cooked and toiled. He heard Carmen singing her favorite song, _Landslide,_he heard (from far away) a siren begin to blare. He got to the stairs and simply glided down them, his feet not touching a single step, and met his son at the bottom as he was about to race up.

"Did you hear that?" Carson gasped.

The young shepherd was the spitting image of his father, and--looking at him standing there and ready to take off at a moment's notice--Raymond felt nostalgic. But then he remembered the situation.

"I did. Someone just manifested, and it was powerful." The elder shepherd slipped past his son (feet now on the ground) and plucked his coat from the rack by the door. He slipped it on and shook his head at his son who was in the process of jacketing himself. "No, Carson."

The twenty year-old's ears fell and he frowned. "But dad, I can help!"

Raymond smiled. "I know you can, but this is something we have to deal with."

Carson rolled his eyes. He knew that by "we" his father meant "real heroes." The blow was subtle, but it still hurt and put him in his place. He hung his jacket back up and grimaced as his father nodded approvingly.

"I'll be back. Hopefully no one was killed." Raymond opened the front door and slipped his wide shoulders through. He unlocked his truck parked in the driveway and climbed in. Flying would be much faster, but he had an image to maintain: retired. He had to project himself to be as normal as anyone else nowadays, and that meant living by normal standards. So he drove. He waved at his son as he took off down their street.

Carson stood on the porch and waited for his father's truck to disappear into the night, then he waited for his mother to appear as he'd heard her mumbling "What the hell?" and "Where is he going?" Like clockwork, the petite collie woman was by his side in seconds, her hands on her hips and a sour expression upon her gorgeous face.

"Where's he going now? He knows I'm making pie!" She turned to Carson, tail flicking. "Did he say? Or is this hero business?"

Carson sighed. "Business as usual."

Carmen watched her aggravated son and smiled in sympathy. She patted his broad chest. "Don't worry, honey. It'll be you racing nimbly off one day."

The shepherd just grunted. His mother went back inside, whispering "Pie'll be ready soon." He waited to hear her steps entering into the kitchen, and then he vaulted off of the porch and flew into the sky.