Welcome to the cereal serial version of Octave of Stars! Episodes will release every Monday and Thursday. If you’re finding this story for the first time, be sure to start at Episode 01 for maximum comprehension, or check out The Index for all available Episodes.
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The building lights were off, but both Gayle and Azalea had flashlights, narrow beams searching the darkness. Azalea had strapped hers to her slingshot arm, like a tactical light. Ash made a mental note to get his own gear kit together for future missions. Along with a prayer that they wouldn't have any more.
"Hee hee, your coat is shiny." Azalea giggled, moving her light near Ash to shine off the reflective strips on his arms and back.
"Lights here," Gayle called softly, "look down." The girls clicked off their flashlights.
The room was illuminated by large electrical lamps hanging from the support rafters several feet below the ceiling. After blinking away the transition from dark to light, Ash's heart flared. A central open lane led from the entrance to the other side of the warehouse, where a large rolling shutter took up most of the other wall. On either side of the walkway were a series of smaller rooms, like a strange sort of hotel. Each had a door and a small window. He wanted to run to the first one and throw it open, but remembered the rules.
"That's somethin'," Gayle said, taking in the room. There were at least eight individual compartments, or cells, or whatever they were. In front were wooden crates, some still sealed but others clearly empty. Azalea had her slingshot raised but slack, scanning around the room warily for anything or anyone who needed a pumpkin to the face.
"Alright, let's split up," Gayle continued. "Ash, you take this side, I'll take the other. Azalea, keep us covered from the middle. Holler as soon as you see anythin'."
On his way to the first door, Ash noticed the ground underneath him, for it was actually ground and not floor. Instead of stepping over concrete or tile, he was walking across plain dirt, solid and compacted but still bare earth. He didn't think too much more of it, though, as he found the door handle unlocked.
Inside was a small living quarters, with a bed, table, chair, lamp, and a door to a full-size bathroom. The room was nicely carpeted, light sconces mounted between pastoral paintings on the walls, but no one appeared to be inside. "Cas?" he called, but not loudly. "Cascadia?"
He went out and checked the next room. Not a soul. He saw Gayle across from him, closing a door behind her and shaking her head. They hadn't heard any movement or voices since they entered the warehouse; unless Cascadia was unconscious or asleep she should have been pounding and yelling by now.
"Umm… Holler…" Azalea's unsteady voice came from behind them. The vibrations in the ground intensified, a low humming rising to a roar. The dirt under her sneakers moved around, like it was being blown by the wind, but Gayle wasn't nearby. She skipped back toward the adults, but even on the solid concrete floor she could still feel it.
By then, both Ash and Gayle had returned to Azalea's side. "Something funny is going on…" she said, her eyes darting around.
"I'll say," Gayle said. "Stay on here for now, alright? Looks like we're gonna have company."
"Should we run?" Ash suggested, pointing to the open doorway beyond the shifting field of soil.
"Nope, he'll just grab you."
Ash swallowed. "Who will?"
'He' might have been listening, for just then, the dirt on the ground became more fluid than solid, a roiling mass of earth. A carpet of it extended up over the door, settling into place. This new barrier changed color, becoming less soil-like and more rock-like. Another mound of dirt in front of the door pressed up, first a bump, then a hill.
Gayle stood ready in front of Azalea, her hands out at her sides, fingers spread. She had wanted to extend an arm in front of Ash too, but remembered Lumina's advice. She couldn't protect everybody and herself as well.
The dirt slid away from the front of the hill, and out of it stepped a tall, muscular man with dark, cinnamon-colored skin, dressed in strangely nice clothes for having just been underground. The navy blue slacks and vest as well as the butter-yellow dress shirt he wore were all clean. His short hair was coarse, but the beard on his jawline was perfectly trimmed. He had dirt only on his bare arms, but it seemed natural on him, like it belonged there.
"Rand," Gayle said, making his name sound like a curse.
"Hello Gayle," he replied. "It's been a while." His voice was deep and reverberated around the room. He crossed his arms, making the gesture both aggressive and casual at the same time. A gleaming silver ring on his left hand stood out against his dark skin and clothing.
"Not long enough," she retorted.
"Of course. And Mr. Grisarco, what a pleasure to finally meet in person. Too bad it couldn't be under better circumstances."
Ash never enjoyed trashing his opponents before a fight. He preferred to get straight to the rumble. "Where's Cascadia?" he yelled. "Where did you take her?"
"I…" Rand closed his mouth and frowned. "You really think I'm going to tell you that?"
Ash shrugged. "It was worth a shot."
"Tell you what," Rand said, rolling his neck and shoulders. "I'll make you a deal. Surrender and come with me peacefully, and you'll find out where she is. Of course, you won't be able to leave, but it would accomplish your goal."
Azalea pushed between her allies. "No deal!" she retorted, and followed up with a pumpkin shot. Rand narrowed his eyes, then held up his forearm. The vegetable cracked and bounced to the floor, but he didn't move a millimeter.
Rand frowned at his bare arm. "Disgusting." He leveled his gaze at Azalea, who retreated behind Gayle again, while also wiping himself down with a yellow handkerchief. "And you must be the Wood Star, the source of all the foul-ups we've been having lately. How nice to see you at last."
Ash and Gayle exchanged a look. He hadn't used Azalea's name.
Rand went to pocket his handkerchief, then wrinkled his nose and just dropped it on the ground. "I'll be honest, I've had a long day." He sighed. "Let's just get to it."
"Suits me," Gayle said, pushing a burst of wind directly toward him. It picked up some loose soil, making the vector of the blast clearly visible, and Rand easily stepped to the side. As he did, Ash noticed his lack of shoes, and guessed he must need direct contact to control the dirt. Just like Cascadia did with water. Maybe that would be useful.
"Go for the other door!" Gayle called out. "Ash, try to burn through it."
"Not gonna work," Azalea piped up. She had been scouting a rearward escape, and saw the waves of dirt rolling toward them from behind. The other end of the room was similarly earthen, under Rand's control as well.
"Dagnabit," Gayle said.
"Are we trapped?" Ash said, glancing between both sides at once.
"Not yet," she replied. "Don't step on the dirt and you'll be fine." She shifted the surrounding air as a swirling column, pushing down on the floor so all the soil that crept toward them got blown backward. This left a safe space to stand on, but not a very large one.
Azalea had been looking around the room and making decisions. She pulled a few seeds from her bag. "It's getting a little crowded in here, Gayle, how about you gimme a boost?" She pointed upward.
"Have fun," Gayle said, and as Azalea grinned, a focused blast of air shot her up to the ceiling. Ash stared as she rocketed up, grabbing on to one of the support beams and vaulting over it to stand upright. Stout vines wrapped around the beams as she nestled in.
Ash stood near Gayle, searching for something useful to do. His hands were hot, but only as much as he could still be near Gayle safely. Rand was standing in his dirt pile near the door, frowning with his arms crossed. He directed the dirt on the floor like waves on the ocean, attempting to get some of it through Gayle's barrier and at least wrap around their ankles. His concentration was broken by an orange shape speeding toward him from above, and he raised his arm to block another attack gourd.
"Save your ammo," Gayle called. "He's too hard-headed for that to work."
"Roger," Azalea shouted back, then fired a different seed type. A bright red tomato flew not at Rand's head but at his chest, which was much harder to block. Rand snarled as the projectile stained his yellow shirt a soupy red.
"What? First you insult me, then you ruin my suit? Are you trying to make me angry?" he yelled at his opponents in general.
A voice came from above: "I'll stop if you'll let us go!"
"It won't be that easy," Rand said, his jaw set. He slid side-to-side across the room, as easily as a figure skater glided across the ice.
Ash wrenched off a good-sized piece of wood from an empty supply crate, which was especially useful to someone like him, but he hadn't worked out what to do with it yet. Lighting it up and chucking it at him sounded good, but Rand was moving so quickly. Ash wasn't that confident about his aim. Azalea was, though, as she kept up a barrage of tomatoes in various colors.
Rand shifted tactics; instead of pushing dirt along the floor, he pulled it back and concentrated it into several large mounds, high cresting waves to crash onto his opponents. Gayle whipped up a few blasts to keep these back, but the strain showed on her face. If Rand tried to come at them from both sides again, they might be overwhelmed.
"Hang on, Gayle, I can help with that," Ash said, running his hand along the length of the wood and leaving behind a trail of bright flames. With this crude weapon, he swiped through the nearest mound of loose dirt, crisping it up quickly. The burned soil fell down among the rest, but didn't get drawn back into the other piles.
"Now that's somethin'," Gayle muttered. Ash swung his flaming board again, the smothering dirt putting out the flames, but he got it going again quickly.
Azalea was watching the action below with delight. She let off three more tomatoes at once, one of which clipped Rand's pant leg, but he didn't react at all this time. She ran through her inventory of seeds for something else that might be useful; turnips, cucumber, cabbage, carrots. No, veggies weren't great for a situation like this. Next row of pockets; daisies, roses, marigolds, morning glory… She knew exactly how to stop dirt from moving.
While Ash and Gayle defended themselves on the ground, Azalea got to work above. She reached into the largest pocket of her waist bag and pulled out a plastic zipper baggie, dumping the brown, sweet-smelling soil onto the flat spot of the beam nearest her. Next, she spread out a handful of hard, triangular black seeds. This was loamy earth taken from her garden at home, full of life and bugs both large and small, not like that dead dirt down there. After covering the seeds and singing to them a little, she took the thin, flexible water bottle from her jacket and poured it all over the little patch of soil and love. Now the final ingredients, first a prayer, then her own unique talent.
Gayle noticed the cover fire had stopped, but kept on the defense. She was reckoning a way to get them out; the walls of the room were solid metal, couldn't be punched out with wind alone. Ash could maybe melt through them, but there were yards of dangerous dirt between them and there. Ash was swinging around a burning stick to keep Rand occupied, which was good enough for right then. Her strategy planning was interrupted, though, by a rain of strange black things that fell from the sky.
"Commence seed bombing!" Azalea called from above.
Ash, Gayle, and Rand looked up to see a tangled nest of vines in the ceiling, and a girl with her hands over a clod of dirt in the center, though only Gayle could hear her softly singing a lullaby. The vines were spreading at an alarming rate, curling across the ceiling supports and dangling down toward the ground. Flowers bloomed and curled into seed pods, all within a few seconds, spreading new life across the arena. The seeds carried some of Azalea's power with them, as they sprouted up at once and began the process again. The rolling waves of dirt stilled, and within a few minutes the battlefield would be totally overgrown.
Gayle smiled for the first time since they'd entered the warehouse. "Keep it up, girl!"
Rand retreated back to his mound, ready to make his own escape if needed. Now that a carpet of vines and leaves kept the worst of the dirt-sea off of their shoes, Ash decided to go on the offensive. He made sure his slightly smaller club was good and burning, then called to Gayle. "Let's take it to him!"
"You got it," Gayle answered, shifting around air and making a path for Ash and her to run through, only stepping on the most thickly overgrown areas. Rand looked on unconcerned, despite the fire in Ash's eyes reflecting the flaming piece of wood he was brandishing. And that didn't even include Gayle following him.
She and Ash made it halfway across the room. Rand bowed his head and his shoulders, perhaps relaxing, but still serious. The loose dirt around him swelled up, erupting into a large hill that formed into a more definite shape, two arm-like protrusions shaped on either side of it. His crude dirt golem lurched forward, causing Ash to pull up and stop on a patch of vines.
"We're not done yet," Rand said menacingly.
A young voice called from high up: "Getting close though!" A sturdy potato followed this retort, which bounced off the top of the golem, causing Gayle to furrow her brow. Rand swung one of its arms at them, which Ash neatly countered with his stick, burning it off harmlessly.
"Yeah!" he cheered.
Gayle decided to call his bluff. "Stand back," she called to Ash, but he could only turn his back to her before a powerful blast of wind slammed into the front of the construct, blowing away the dirt and revealing its true purpose.
Rand had found a rock deep within the earth, propping it up on a thick column of dirt. Rough and blocky, it was the perfect tool to knock someone around rather uncomfortably. Gayle shouted: "That's worse than puttin' rocks in snowballs."
Rand didn't respond, just raising the stone up for a pummeling smash. Ash scrambled out of the way, getting beside Gayle, keeping the fire of the stick away from her. The rock landed with a thud, then a new column pushed it back up again, giving it more potential energy in a few seconds. It came down again, but Gayle wouldn't let that happen. She pushed a directed force of wind upward, halting the rock mid-smash. Ash could see the struggle on her face, and suddenly he had the answer.
He got as close as he dared. "Let go when I say so," he whispered, hoping her sensitive hearing would still work through the strain. She nodded slightly. Ash made his stick nice and burning as he ran around to the side of the column, pulling his hood over his head with his free hand. Rand didn't have much attention for him, but he did hear Ash shout "Now!"
Gayle's winds died away instantly. Rand smirked, pulling the rock back up at an angle to try again, but not expecting Ash to plow through the middle of the dirt, both hands as hot as he could manage and a burning stick between them. The stone and the dirt separated, but because Rand had been pulling it upward, it was much like a crude slingshot. The newly freed rock went sailing upward, right into the wall behind them and out onto the street, ripping off a large section of the thin metal wall.
"C'mere!" Gayle called, and Ash hightailed it toward her, throwing the flaming wood aside and canceling his remaining heat in a reverberating boom. Rand's smirk turned into a frown over the loss of his weapon, but he remained standing where he was. "Time to go!" Gayle called upward, then put her arm out for Ash, who put his around her waist as she charged up the air below them.
With a deafening whoosh, Gayle launched them toward the missing wall. They passed by Azalea, still dangling from the rafter beams, hanging from thick ivy vines like a trapeze. The girl threw her arms out and grabbed onto Gayle's neck, tucking into her shoulder as they cleared the opening and sailed into the clear night sky. The angle took them straight past the sidewalk to the waterway nearby. Ash felt the clutch of fear, but it lessened with Azalea's continuous laughter.
Right before they hit the river, the water bowed out like a bowl, and they slowed, held aloft for a moment before rocketing skyward again in the opposite direction. Ash was on a rollercoaster, his stomach left behind on the ground and the wind rushing across his face that wasn't covered up by his hood. When they reached the apex of the jump, he could see the river majestic below, snaking along through the city and shining in the moonlight.
When they started to fall, Gayle manipulated the winds so they were pushed upward and pulled sideways. Their forward momentum carried them a good distance, but they were still falling in an arc, so she pushed again to continue their flight. In this manner, the trio of Stars made their way back across the tops of the warehouses to the car. They plummeted toward it, Azalea's cheers again mitigating his fear. Gayle pushed against the ground at the right moment and three pairs of shoes touched down on the pavement as gently as if they had stepped off of the curb.
"Get in!" Gayle barked. Azalea scrambled to the back and dove in through the open window. Ash yanked open the passenger door, falling into his seat just as Gayle was starting the engine. She drove away before buckling herself in, pulling her seatbelt across and handing it to him. He finished the job and leaned back, his own seatbelt doing little to ease the tense hammering of his own heart. He tried to steady his breathing, pulling off his hood to cool his head faster.
Azalea sat up in the back seat, her hair mussed and a grin on her face. "Whew! Now that was definitely un-boring!"
Octave of Stars is currently airing on Substack for free, with two of the 45 total posts per week. It’ll be fully released at the end of April 2024. If you don’t want to wait that long, you can get the entire story right now, in either Ebook or paperback. Every purchase supports the ZMT Books mission of family-friendly entertainment.
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