Phoenix Chosen #3 (The Phoenix Guardians #3)

19. Tyler

19

TYLER

W e slowly trudge in single file through the forest toward Kalistratos and Alyx’s old hideout on the outskirts of Aelonos.

Honestly, I’m glad we can’t go back into that town. It reminds me of when I first arrived here and nearly got myself trafficked by the Erpetosi frogs. Aelonos is a trading hub, and I can still picture the slave wagon clattering past us on its main street.

“Just let me get this straight,” Jackson says. “You, me, and one other poor son of a bitch are for some reason destined to reincarnate a god exiled by his twin brother to a skyscraper in downtown Bakerville and save a dying culture? And we’re going to do this… how exactly?”

“Well, I was getting to that part,” I say. “Uh… maybe we should take a break. You might want to sit down for this.”

“We need to keep moving, Tyler,” Kalistratos says.

“Lay it on me,” Jackson says.

“I don’t know the specifics,” I tell him. “The Great Phoenix—Aethereos—he was pretty vague. He said the three Chosen carry children who will reignite the flame in his lost temple. So, uh, yeah. You’re kind of pregnant, dude.”

Jackson doesn’t react the way I’m expecting. There’s no freakout, no near meltdown. The complete opposite of what happened when I realized that bump in my stomach wasn’t from the chicken nuggets I’d eaten the night before.

“Let me guess,” he says. “One of those is gonna pop out of me.” He points at my egg sling and then nods grimly to himself, looking like a man who has just been told to sacrifice himself to save the world.

“I figured out the pregnant thing a while ago,” he admits. “Didn’t want to believe it, but I knew. My stomach grew fast. I thought I was having some kind of nightmare. Maybe I was part of a government experiment. Hallucinogenic chemicals. A waking dream. But everything in the world was just too real. I surveilled the town and saw other pregnant men, some carrying babies, and then the beast people looking like a damn furry convention. So I thought, ‘aliens’? Did I get abducted and implanted?”

“You’re taking this a lot better than I did,” I tell him. “And I have to say, it’s a fucking miracle you made it this far on your own.”

“I’m a resilient man. I’ve never been one to lay down and just take it in the ass.”

“You’re a fighter, then?” Airos asks with a snort.

“Absolutely. I told myself I was never going to give up. I would stay alive until rescue came or until I could figure out how to get back home.” He turns back to me. “I just gotta know… how is that thing gonna come out of me? Front or rear?”

“Rear,” I say.

“Definitely the better of the two options. Thank God for that. What’d it feel like?”

“Like a giant egg coming out of your asshole. What else do you think it felt like?”

I’m irritated at the apparent nonchalantness to this. It’s not that I want him to be freaking out. I just feel like he isn’t taking this seriously.

I mean, I get it. Even after everything that’s happened, I’m still wrapping my head around this reality. But he doesn’t know what I’ve seen. He’s been here in the woods, contributing to the local black market with his stolen goods. He’s somehow been thriving on his own.

“Christ. At least I have, like, seven months. Is that how it works?”

I shake my head. “Not for me. I gave birth just a few days ago.”

“Are you serious? Wait, seriously? Hey.”

“Yeah. I’m serious. I’m wondering why it didn’t happen yet for you if we were brought here at the same time. I had a two-month delay where I was sent back to Earth, so if anything, I would think you would’ve already dropped that egg. Right, Airos?”

“It is puzzling, indeed,” Airos agrees.

“How’d you get back to Earth?” Jackson asks.

“Umbrios opened some kind of portal,” Airos says. “Perhaps it was the same way he banished Lord Aethereos.”

“So… you’re saying this evil god guy can just send people to other realms willy-nilly? What’s stopping him from doing it again?”

No one says anything. We’ve all wondered the same thing.

Where was Umbrios? How much access to us did he have? He’d once entered my mind and nearly sent me off the side of a building. Could he do it again?

“I think he’s trying to, but he can’t,” I say. “It’s why he sent Praxis and all the rest after us. His reach is limited right now. I don’t know how, but maybe he’s been weakened since he sent us back to Earth.”

“Or, like your babies, his powers have not yet come to full term,” Airos says.

“Please don’t say ‘full term,’ it makes me wanna barf,” Jackson mutters.

We walk for a few hours. Jackson’s questions fall quiet as the way becomes more and more difficult, and he struggles to manage the rugged terrain. At one point, he loses his balance and begins to slide down a steep hill, but Airos catches him by creating a dirt speedbump. We’re all exhausted. I’m a dozen feet above them, clinging to a tree trunk, trying to catch my breath. Airos quickly goes down to Jackson and helps him up to his feet.

“This march would be nothing if I wasn’t implanted,” says Jackson. “I’d be fuckin’ flying down this hill.”

“Kalistratos, are we still on course?” Airos calls.

“Almost there,” he says.

I lean in and quietly ask, “Really almost there? Or kind of almost there?”

He gives me a wry smile and doesn’t say anything.

We don’t reach our destination until sundown. The smell is what tells us we’re close—a tantalizing, complex aroma both delicious and disgusting; hearths, cook-fires, incense, livestock, and sewage. The odors of Circeana are like everything I’m used to on Earth dialed up to eleven, with even more on top. Not to mention, a shower is few and far between. I don’t mind it, though. I’ve gotten used to it. That said, I remember the hideout has natural hot spring baths around it, and I can’t wait to dunk my crusty self into one of them.

The forest ends, revealing rocky hills surrounding Aelonos below, which twinkles with firelight and a surprising amount of nighttime bustle. Kalistratos leads us along a hidden path weaving amongst the stunning rock formations that make up the hillside. Mountain goats watch from precarious perches and hop away when we get too close, little trickles of pebbles clattering down in the wake. And then we’re finally at the mouth of the cave Kalistratos had used as a hideout.

He holds up his palm, silently telling us to wait, and he and Airos cautiously proceed inside, staff and sword ready.

“I keep asking myself, why couldn’t I have been carrying when I was abducted,” Jackson whispers to me. “My Sig would’ve gone a long way here.”

“At least you have that backpack. I had nothing.”

“Sheesh, man. Must’ve been wild. What were those first few days like? How did you take care of yourself?”

“I got captured immediately,” I begrudgingly admit to him. “Nearly got trafficked.”

“Let me guess, the frogs?”

“How’d you know?”

“I’ve dealt with their kind before,” he says. “Picked up on the tell-tale signs real quick the first time I scoped out the town. How’d you get away?”

“Kalistratos,” I say. “And he almost left me behind, that asshole.”

I realize I’m smiling. Those were fucking crazy times. It’s hard to believe how fast everything has happened.

Jackson cocks his head. “So, uh, personal question. You and Kalistratos… You guys are…?”

I nod. “Partners. Mates.”

“Right, that’s what they call it here,” he says. He crosses his arms over his chest, shifting from one foot to the other, before awkwardly scratching his neck. “A lot of, uh, alternative family structures in this place.”

I’m confused. Jackson’s body language is all too familiar. He looks like a dude who’s just realized he’s accidentally come to the club on gay night.

“Yeah,” I say. “Shocked me too. Men like us are called omegas. Guys like Kalistratos and Airos are called alphas. They’re the ones who can get omegas pregnant.”

Jackson holds up his hands and recoils like I’ve just slapped him in the face. “Whoa, whoa, whoa. This little alien implant thing… I came here like this. No one got me…” He struggles to say the word.

“Pregnant,” I fill in.

“I ain’t gay, alright?”

“What do you mean?” I ask.

“What do I mean? I mean I’m not gay.” He laughs. “I have no problem with gay people, by the way. But just because I’m a Chosen whatever, doesn’t mean I’m gay.”

I’m stunned, but before I can get my brain working again and come up with a response, a family of startled rats comes scurrying out from the mouth of the cave, squeaking as they scatter and run past us. Airos appears after them.

“Aside from the rodents, it’s empty,” he says. “Come on.”

Airos goes back inside. Jackson is staring intensely at me. It’s like he’s waiting for me to affirm what he’s just told me, but I don’t know what to say. At first, I’m in disbelief—he’s an omega. How could he not be gay?

But does he have to be gay? Was there anything in the prophecy that said all of the omegas would end up mating with their guardians? Maybe because Jackson is from Earth, he’s a straight omega. But he is pregnant…

What a mindfuck.

“Alright,” I say a little awkwardly. “We should go inside.”

As I turn to leave, Jackson grabs my arm. “ Hey ,” he says, his voice serious. Defensive. Almost angry. “I’m telling you, I’m not gay.”

“I heard you, dude,” I say, shaking his hand off. “Sheesh.”

The cave looks almost the same as we left it, except where the rats and other creatures had made their dens. The place is well-hidden. None of Kalistratos and Alyx’s plunder is missing or touched. Scraps of tattered fabric lay in the dirt on the cave floor, undisturbed from when Kalistratos had altered Alyx’s old cloak for me to use on the road. The empty earthenware cups and wooden plates we used for our last meal before leaving the cave are still on the rock slab table.

Kalistratos is next to the pile of loot, prodding at it with his foot. I go to him and slip my hand around his waist. He quickly hides the frustrated look on his face with a smile.

“Rats ate the food stores,” he says. “Did you see them? They were as big as cats.”

“No sign of Alyx?” I ask.

He shakes his head. “Nothing. No one has returned here since we left.”

“I’m sorry, Kalistratos. I know you were hoping to find him here. I was too.”

“We are back to… How do you say it? The first square.”

“Square one.”

Jackson is sitting against the cave wall rummaging through his bag. He pulls out a pair of over-the-ear headphones, the cheap kind with the adjustable metal headband that they used to include free with portable CD players. The wire gets stuck on something inside the bag and he tugs at it like a fisherman trying to reel in a catch. With a frustrated yank, it pops loose. He stares at the neutered headphones, their plug dangling uselessly with no hole to mate with, and with a sigh, tosses them aside onto the ground.

A connection forms in my brain. “Oh shit,” I say. “That CD player was yours!”

Jackson looks up at me. “You saw my player?”

“A Sony DISCMAN, right? It was locked away in a chest in the Aelonos treasury like the goddamn crown jewels.”

“I traded that thing away on my second day in this hellhole. Managed to get a sack of grain for it. I was so damn hungry.” He laughs. “If I’d known someone was gonna treat it like a million bucks, maybe I could’ve gotten something better. Turns out, a sack of raw grain kind of sucks when you have no idea what to do with it. You know what I ate for a week? Soggy, pounded gruel. It was like a mouthful of shredded, wet cardboard.”

“The last time I saw one of those players was when I was a kid,” I say.

“I got that one in the fourth grade. Gift from my old man. Never could get rid of it. Well, until now, I guess.”

Jackson unzips the other pouches and turns his bag over. Out falls a small first-aid kit, some clothes, his wallet, a vape pen, and a couple of AA batteries. He gives the end of the vape pen a suck.

“Hold on, rewind a second,” he says, exhaling a cloud of syrupy vapor. “You saw my player in a treasury? And just what were you doing in there?” He looks around at the cave. “You know, this place looks a hell of a lot like a thief’s den.”

“That’s exactly what it is,” Airos says.

“Breaking and entering!” Jackson says to me with an annoying grin.

“And we never did it again,” I reply. “Anyway, we weren’t fucking robbing a bunch of grandparents of their food and medicine.”

“Hey, like I said, I feel like shit about that. But I was desperate.” He takes another pull on the vape, but it fizzles out mid-suck. Dead battery. “Aw, come on.”

“What is that incredible scent?” Kalistratos asks as Jackson exhales his puff. “It’s like… By the Gods, it smells like Coke .”

“Caramel vanilla,” Jackson says. “But if you’re talking about a different kind of coke…”

“He’s not,” I say.

“Too bad. Otherwise, this whole trip would’ve gotten a lot more interesting.” He drops the dead vape next to the headphones. “So, what are we doing here since your friend isn’t here?”

“Salvaging what we can from whatever supplies are still good,” Kalistratos says. “And then we keep moving. If he’s not here, he’s gone further west.”

“I didn’t think he would go beyond Aelonos,” Airos says.

“If he’s searching for me, he would head to Kausos,” Kalistratos says. “It’s where I was born.”

“There’s a thousand miles of perilous land between here and Kausos,” Airos replies. “You know the dangers. So does Alyx. I don’t understand. Why would he not regroup with me before taking on such a journey?”

“I don’t know,” Kalistratos says. “He has to be there. He must .”

“Airos,” I interject. “You told us that Alyx went west to look for us and to check out some of the spots on the phoenix temple map, right? Aren’t there any other locations he could’ve gone to that are on the way?”

“The map was still largely a mystery to us,” Airos explains. “Neither of us could make any sense of its writing. You were the only one who could read it in any capacity.”

I remember seeing the map the night we were attacked by the soul reaver. The writing had become a jumble of cursive script, some legible but not written in any order that made sense to me. I’d thought it was pretty odd a map from Circeana would have any sort of recognizable writing on it, let alone cursive script.

“So, he’s just going blind then?” I say.

“More or less,” Airos admits. “He was determined to find you two, more than anything else.”

Kalistratos sighs. “Idiot… He should’ve just waited.”

“Uh, excuse me?” Jacksons says. “Sorry. So, I know I have zero idea what you guys are talking about, but I have to ask. This whole thing hinges on Tyler, me, and one other Chosen guy getting our alien implants to this Great Phoenix’s lost temple… right? So, shouldn’t we be doing that? Shouldn’t we be looking for this third omega?”

Airos, Kalistratos and I all silently digest Jackson’s point. Airos’s arms are wrapped over his chest and he drums his fingers on his bicep. Kalistratos stares at the floor.

He’s right. We got lucky that Jackson had no problem looking out for himself this whole time, but what if the third omega isn’t so resilient and resourceful? There’s still the possibility they could’ve already given birth to their egg like I did, which would make them extra vulnerable.

“No,” Airos says in a decisive tone. “Alyx is our friend. We are all bound by this destiny. It makes us a family. I will not give up on my family. I believe our path will take us in the direction we need to find Alyx and our final companion.”

Kalistratos looks at Airos with genuine astonishment. Then he smiles. “You’re damn right. If Alyx were here, he’d probably say something about trusting the Great Phoenix, that there are no coincidences.”

Jackson nods. “Got it. No man left behind. Forget I said anything.”

“Then do we agree?” Kalistratos asks.

“We find Alyx,” I say. “The plan hasn’t changed.”

“Find Alyx,” says Airos, with a nod. “But first… allow me to speak for all of us when I say, we desperately need a bath.”