Toka-Ace #1: The Re-Emergence
Chapter 11

My mind was weary but I could have no rest. I walked the perimeter of the basement. From a table full of beakers I picked up a random beaker with a dull green liquid inside of it. I futilely tried to make sense out of the advanced calculations she had on the board.

“Man I’m hungry. Does she have something to eat at least?” Andrew said. “She wants us to stay put, but she didn’t say to starve.”

Andrew was right about that. I shrugged and started pacing. Andrew headed up the staircase.

“Whoa, man, what are you doing?”

“I’m going to check out the upstairs, see if this woman doesn’t have anything to eat.” Andrew explained.

I resumed pacing.

My anxiety would play tricks on my mind if I started thinking too much. Waiting was no better. I was helpless again. I wondered if Andrew and I would get back to the Herron’s house, if we would be able to resume a normal life. Something made me doubt it.

Luckily, Katherine had a stack of blank papers. I took a sheet and a nearby pen. On the top of the paper I wrote: Thoughts that matter.

It was something I picked up from mom. This way I could look at my situation in a more logical light while keeping my irrational anxious thoughts off of the paper. Where to start?

Mom, I wrote. I tapped the pen on the paper not sure what to write next. My anxious thoughts seeped in. An alien, a clone, a fake… I wrote. What happened to my real parents?

“But she loved me and raised me,” I said aloud to counter my anxiety. I wrote that down. She defied Tovlin.

Tovlin was the next thing that I wrote down. I know they’re after me but what do they want from me?

Andrew came back down stairs. “Did you replace anything to eat?” I asked.

“Not really.” Andrew replied. “Not, you know, what I’d call food.”

“I just can’t figure this out,” I muttered.

“Figure what out?” Andrew asked. He came over to me and looked over my shoulder. Normally I would have been irked by him butting in to my private thoughts. In this instance I was glad I had him to bounce ideas off of.

“I’m trying to make sense of this whole situation,” I said. “I mean what does Tovlin want with me?”

“I don’t know, man,” Andrew said.

Then I had an idea. “You know what? I think that I’ll do what Katherine said. I’m going to practice using my powers. There’s nothing else to do. I might as well test this out.”

Andrew stepped back.

I let out a deep breath. “Okay.” I clapped my hands. “One for the money, two for the show, three to get ready, and four to go.” I expected it to be easy. But there was no change.

Andrew looked at me expectantly. “Well?”

I looked at my hands; they were still the same.

“She said to focus,” Andrew reminded me.

I stood still. I breathed deeply and closed my eyes. I concentrated. Soon I began to feel very warm internally. I noticed that I was sweating. I opened my eyes and witnessed the swirl of white flames at my feet, around my torso, and enveloping my arms all the way to my hands. Then, I could see nothing but the contained swirling of white flames around me. I could feel an electric tingling all throughout my body.

For a few moments, the white flames and the surging of the electric feeling were all-consuming.

Finally the flames broke into small embers and then those embers disappeared.

I looked down. I had left a scorch mark in the carpet. My hands were black. I looked in the mirror. My face was featureless save for my glowing white eyes. My hair was snow white with some silvery streaks. The transformation was successful.

“That’s really cool.” Andrew said. “I feel like Morpheus should be here teaching you how to dodge bullets.”

I laughed. I looked in the mirror. “How can I be talking with no mouth?” I wondered. As I talked my jaw line moved. It felt as though my voice was coming through my entire body. (I’m not really sure how to explain it.)

“Okay,” I said. “She said that I was able to conjure weapons with my mind right?” I extended my hand. “I wonder how I do this.”

“Focus on making a gun,” Andrew advised.

I concentrated. I focused on a gun. Nothing happened.

“Are you focusing?” Andrew asked.

“Yeah,” I answered. “Maybe she was wrong.”

“Try another power.” Andrew said. “What else did she say that you could do?”

“She said I could shoot lightning.” I extended my hand and focused. Electricity crackled around my hand. I jumped back surprising myself. “Whoa!”

“Awesome.” Andrew’s grin widened. “Try shooting something with a lightning bolt.”

“Okay. Andrew, stand right over there.”

“What?”

“I’m kidding.” I laughed.

Andrew grabbed a chair and placed it at the center of the room. “Shoot that.”

I aimed my hand and concentrated on electricity. I fired a small bolt of electricity. Zzzzzsssaaapppp!!

The chair was blown back against the wall. Bam! It hit the wall and clattered to the floor.

“I kinda hate to say it, but this is really cool,” Andrew said.

“Hmm,” I folded my arms. “I just wonder how strong I could go with that.”

“Don’t stop now,” Andrew said. “Try another power.”

“Let’s see…” I thought. I snapped my fingers. I extended my hand. My fingers began to tremble and a purple haze appeared around my hand. Then it vanished.

“What was that?” Andrew asked.

“I was going to use my shockwave power. But I was kind of worried that I might break something. After all I don’t want to wreck this woman’s house.”

“Come on, man,” Andrew pleaded. “You blasted that chair. Just blast the chair again.” He grabbed the chair and set it up for me to blast.

“Dude, these powers are not a toy.” I said.

“These powers are not a toy,” Andrew mocked.

“Mimicking me?” I asked.

“These powers are not a toy.” He repeated his mocking tone. “Come on, man, do you have any idea how lame you sound right now?” I realized he was joking to keep us both from freaking out.

“We’re kind of in a serious situation here,” I pointed out.

“Katherine said that we’re safe in here as long as we stay put.” Andrew said. “So we might as well not be bored out of our minds. I mean she doesn’t have Madden or NBA 2K.”

“Because that would be the first thing that an alien fugitive who cloned herself a human body would do, go to the local Gamestop and buy an Xbox One.”

Andrew cocked his head and looked at me doing his best to restrain a smile. “Anyway, my point is to really test your powers, we’ll have to build some makeshift targets or something.”

“In the meantime,” I said. “I want to know what’s next.”

“I think you have two more powers to go,” Andrew said.

The truth is that while I was trying to comprehend the situation at hand and be more serious about things than Andrew, I was excited about having these powers. I just wish they’d appeared under better circumstances.

“Well, I can’t fly around in here.” I said slowly. “So I guess the last thing is my shadow binding power.”

“I’m really curious about that one.” Andrew said.

“Yeah, me too,” I said wondering what shadow-binding was. “Let me give this a try.”

The room was lit by a fluorescent ceiling light. So I stepped back to the corner of the room where the light didn’t reach. I concentrated on what Katherine told me. I calmed my giddiness and did my best to focus. My body began to feel numb. The feeling in my hands and feet faded as if they’d fallen asleep. Then the numbness traveled up my arms, legs, and torso until it consumed my entire body. It was at that moment, I realized what it was that Katherine meant when she said “shadow binding.” It was as though the shadow that I was standing in was reaching out to me, trying to merge with me. My body was evaporating and vanishing into the shadow until the shadow and I were one. I was watching from the wall. I was vaguely aware of my body, but at the same time I could move around the shadow like the shadow was a pool that I could swim in.

Andrew came to where I had been standing. “Troy?” He placed and hand on the wall. “Where’d you go?”

“Okay, this one is beyond weird,” I said still trying to assess the feeling. “You can’t see me?”

“I see exactly nothing,” Andrew replied. “It’s like one second you were there, the next you disappeared into the shadow on the wall.” He came close to the wall and placed his hand on it.

I could feel the touch as if Andrew had placed his hand on my shoulder except at the moment, I was a shadow in the wall. Like I said, beyond weird.

I tried moving to my right. I was unprepared for the speed with which I moved. Suddenly, I was on the adjoining wall.

“This is cool.” I exclaimed.

“You know that’s really creepy when you speak,” Andrew said looking around for me. “It’s like you’re some disembodied voice.”

“Katherine said that I was made for stealth,” I reminded him.

“I wonder if you can take people with you while you bind to the shadows.”

“Maybe,” I said. “First I have to learn how to un-fuse myself. What’d you have in mind?”

“I’m thinking the girl’s locker room,” Andrew smiled deviously. “You know, for the sake of science.”

I would have rolled my eyes. “Forget it, perv.”

“Worth a shot.” Andrew laughed.

I wanted to get out of the wall, out of the shadows. I thought, Materialize.

I didn’t.

“Umm, Andrew,” I said nervously. “I think, I’m stuck in here.”

“What?” Andrew said concerned.

“I don’t know how to get out of here,” I said with my panic in my voice. “Come on, man, do something.”

“What do you want me to do?” Andrew asked worry seeping into his voice.

“Come to the wall. Maybe I have to be pulled out.”

Andrew came to the wall. “How am I supposed to pull you out, I can’t touch you?”

“Just try, man, you’ve gotta help me,” I pleaded.

Andrew placed his hand on the wall.

“Okay, good.” I said.

“Now what?” he asked. He waited a moment. “Troy, what next? Come on man.”

“BOO!” I grabbed Andrew’s shoulder.

Andrew jumped a foot. “Yaaahhhh!!!” He fell to the ground.

I laughed and laughed. Andrew leapt to his feet, face red. I was holding my sides, laughing at my friend.

“You son of a….” He started. He took a deep breath. He punched me in the arm. Normally, it would have hurt. “You had me worried.”

“I figured out how to come out from the shadows a few moments ago,” I revealed. “But, man, did I ever get you. The best part is that you’ll never get me back.” I transformed back into myself.

Andrew shook his head. “So, Mr. Superpowers, what are you going to call yourself?”

“What am I going to call myself?” I repeated stupidly.

“Yeah, what is your superhero name going to be?”

“I really don’t have any ideas.” I admitted. “And I’m hardly a hero,” I added.

Andrew came next to me and slapped his hand down on my shoulder. “Troy, you have to learn to put your own personal flavor on things. Make your name an extension of your personality.”

On one hand it felt corny; after all I wasn’t a superhero. On the other hand the prospect of giving my transformed state a cool name was enlivening. Clark Kent was Superman, Bruce Wayne was Batman, I was…I was…I thought. I wanted something unique.

For long moments Andrew gazed at me expectantly.

“I got it!” I exclaimed. “I’ll be Toka-Ace!”

“You’re going with your screen name?” Andrew asked.

“Of course,” I said.

Toka-Ace was a named that I came up with a long time ago when I made my Youtube profile. Toka stood for ‘The One Known As.’ So I’d be The One Known As Ace, or Toka-Ace for short.

“Toka-Ace,” Andrew tried it out. He nodded. “Okay.”