Chapter 32 – Letters from May

Tracy got out of the shower and pulled a terry cloth bathrobe around her body and tied the belt around her waist. She had been tired from the camping trip and had asked to be dropped off first. Her friends had readily agreed, even though Tracy hated to be treated as if she were special. She didn’t have a choice though. She was just so bloody tired these days. She didn’t even have the strength to be at the airport to see May arrive from China. Though she desperately wanted to go, she hoped that May would understand.

Of course May would understand! Tracy snorted silently to herself. Out of all her friends, May was probably the one person who understood her best. This even included Michael. Dear, dear Michael. He was trying so hard to please her these days, and yet, deep down, he really didn’t understand what she needed. Tracy just needed everyone to treat her the same way they used to treat her. However, she knew that her friends were secretly horrified at what was happening to her. They saw Tracy’s bare head, the severe weight loss and Tracy’s constant tiredness as ever present reminders that Tracy was anything but the same as before.

May, however, would understand. After all, she was there the first time this had happened to Tracy. That was when they had become best friends. When Tracy was eight years old, she had been diagnosed with a brain tumor. At the same time, her aunt Sarah had also been diagnosed with breast cancer. Sarah had been little Tracy’s closest friend and confidant. However, Tracy’s tumor was benign and after the initial surgery and the rounds of chemo, Tracy had gotten better. Sarah, however, had never gotten better. Before she died, Sarah had taught Tracy some of the most important life’s lessons the little girl would ever learn. The last words Sarah ever said to Tracy were, “Cherish everything and regret nothing and in the end, die with a smile on your face.”

After Sarah died, little Tracy was left trying to figure out what her beloved aunt had meant. Then, a shy Chinese girl of the same age moved into the neighborhood, just a few houses away. Tracy and May quickly became friends, drawn to each other by bonds stronger than blood. In May, Tracy had found a friend whom she could cherish for the rest of her life. In Tracy, May found the lifeline that pulled her out of her self created shell.

Tracy pulled a small box off her shelf and opened it up. In it were all the letters from the last year and a half from May while she was fighting for her life in China. More than anything else in the world, Tracy had wanted to be there with May, and for May. It had been impossible though. Still, Tracy had done the next best thing. She had read and reread all of May’s letters many times over and had experienced as best as she could all of May’s adventures.

The first letter was dated February 2, 2009. May had just landed in Beijing and had checked into her hotel. The letter was long and sappy, and was filled with all the insecurities and nervousness that May had not dared to voice to anyone while she was still in Canada. Tracy read the letter again, and once more, felt her heart go out to her friend even though the letter and the content were well over a year old.

Tracy finished reading the letter and put it back in the box. She was careful to keep it in chronological order with the rest. In fact, that first letter was the only one with a date on it. The rest of the letters from May were not dated at all. It was almost as if soon after May sent the first letter, her opportunities to write became less and less frequent, and more and more rushed. Tracy picked up the third letter from May and began to read.

Hi Tracy, sorry it’s been a while since I last wrote. I can’t believe how easy it is to lose track of time! Let’s see, where do I start? Well, as I wrote in my last letter – I think – I didn’t stay at the hotel in Beijing for very long. Maybe about a week or so. Nothing happened during that time...well nothing significant at least. I saw the sights in Beijing, doing my best to pretend to be a casual tourist, as I continued my search for the Psion Nation.

Damn it, it was so frustrating! But then, what was I expecting? That Chun Peng would be waiting here for me? I knew she wasn’t going to make this easy for me. Anyway, I left the hotel after I bumped into (or was it bumped by?) a panhandler in the street. He was saying weird things about following my nose cause everyone knows or something like that. Weird right? Anyway, it made sense to me. I realized that I was going about this all wrong. That was when I checked out of the hotel and sent most of my suitcases home. If I was right, I wouldn’t need most of the stuff in them anymore.

I kept a few clothes though…mostly outfits that I wear when I’m with the Children of the Night. That night, I geared up, put on my night vision mask and went exploring over the rooftops and through the back alleys of Beijing.

That was when I found the sparks. There were psions in Beijing! I don’t know why, but I guess I was shocked, even though a part of me was expecting it. I found the sparks grouped together in an old warehouse. Rather than jump into the thick of things though, I remained hidden and simply observed. It didn’t take me long to figure out that Chun Peng was not with the group.

I’ll fast track a bit. So much happened after that that I simply cannot put it all down on paper. Let’s just say that I observed the group for a few nights, getting to know their patterns of speech. They have a rather strange dialect and a heavy accent. Of course, in retrospect, it wasn’t them with the accent…it was me! You know me, born and raised in Canada and all. I’ve always said that I’m a banana – yellow on the outside and white on the inside! Hah, I knew that would make you smile! Anyway, I finally figured out that they were going to join up with a larger group and head out to a training camp. This was evidenced by the fact that the group kept getting bigger every night. When they left about three days later, I was right behind them.

I stayed out of sight as best as I could. They mostly traveled by night so I was able to use the darkness to my advantage. While they were in the city, I was able to follow along the rooftops for most of the way. These ribbons that Phoenix gave me are really cool, you know? Not only can I change them into weapons, I can change them into tools, or anything else my mind can imagine. Anyway, I followed them until they got to a train station. I thought that I was so clever! I thought that I was unnoticed! Geez, was I ever wrong!

To put it simply, I got jumped. From behind no less! Somehow, three psions got behind me without me noticing. At first, I thought it was because I was so intent on observing them, but later, I found out that these psions are much more advanced than the ones I’ve worked with back home. Anyway, I suddenly found myself unable to move. This unseen force picked me up and turned me around and I could see that my captors were three girls who looked identical to each other. They introduced themselves as Yen Nian, Yen Yuei, and Yen Tian. Triplets.

They took me to meet their leader, an Indian man with a shaved and scarred head. I somehow knew right away that this man was the third person in the Psion Triumvirate. He introduced himself as Mohit and told me that he had been expecting me. He said, “We have been following your progress ever since we left the warehouse. Your Empathetic seeking abilities are very good, but you have much to learn about hiding your spark.”

They knew! Damn, I really felt stupid right about then. I hid it as best as I could so I said, “Where’s Chun Peng?”

“She is waiting for you at our base. I will take you to her.”

“Am I your prisoner?”

Mohit seemed rather surprised at my question. “Of course not! You are our guest and student.”

“Student?”

“We must prepare you for your trials. Did you think we would just throw you to the wolves? We are not barbarians!”

“But why the threats? Why force me to come?”

“If we had asked nicely, would you have trusted us enough to come? Time is short Pretty Flower.”

Whoa! His English was pretty good, but he must have had instructions in Chinese to know what my name meant. Oh, yeah, that’s right! I never told you what my name translates into, right? Oops!

“Chun Peng shouldn’t have tried to kill my friend!”

“My wife nevers kills without good reason. You will have to discuss that with her when you meet her.”

“Wife?! Why isn’t she here then? Why are you bringing me to see her?” I know, I know, I was running out of patience though. I was tired, hungry and extremely irritated. I was being abnormally rude but I just couldn’t seem to help it.

Mohit smiled in a fatherly sort of way. “We decided that I was the best choice to greet you. After your initial meetings with Chun Peng and Chun Po, we felt that it would be wise if you met with someone with whom you do not have a grudge. Besides, my abilities are best suited to bringing you to this location without a fight.”

As soon as he said that, he closed his eyes for a moment, and suddenly, all the other psions I had been seeing and following just disappeared! The only people left at the train station were myself, Mohit and the triplets. “Where did everyone go?”

He chuckled and waved his hand mysteriously in front of my face. “Hey, it’s kind of like magic!”

I scanned him then. Within him, I found a green Empathy spark, a yellow Clairvoyance spark, and a blue Telepathy spark. Well, now I knew what happens when you merge all three together. You get illusion!

I traveled with them for several days. Not once did they make me feel as if they were guarding me or holding me prisoner. I spent a lot of my time talking with Mohit and the triplets. Because of their shared names, I nicknamed them San Yen Jing, or The Three Eyes. They seemed to like that. Anyway, Mohit was nothing like what I had expected. Apparently, he had been watching me ever since I landed in Beijing. Instead of approaching me though, he was waiting to see how long it would take me to find him. Apparently, it was the first of my many tests. I guess I barely passed it! I knew that I would have to do better in the future. Anyway, I think we’ve finally arrived at our destination. I’m stopping this letter and I’m going to send it as soon as possible. Please tell everyone that I’m fine and give them my love.

Tracy put the letter back in the box. She pulled another one and started to read randomly. She could feel another headache coming and wanted to distract her mind from thinking out it. The last thing she needed was more medications in her system!

The Psion Nation’s base camp is amazing! Most of it is underground in some abandoned mines and the stuff that’s on top is made to look like a nature preserve surrounding a large mountain. Our school was nothing like this. The only similarity so far is that there are cameras here too. However, from what I can see, all the cameras are there for security, not secret observation.

Tracy couldn’t help but to laugh at that line. She hoped that whoever saw the tape of her and Michael getting up close and personal didn’t make copies and circulate it on the Internet!

Chun Peng was not what I expected. By the time I saw her, I had been at the base for over a week – I think. Anyway, the first thing I did was challenge her. I was still pretty angry with her for what she did. Anyway, to make a short sad story even shorter, she kicked my butt – without using any of her powers to boot! Then, something weird happened. My outfit got ripped and she saw my ribbons. I had been keeping them under wraps up until that point. Her face grew as white as a sheet of paper and she muttered something about ‘arms of silver’ and ‘hand of god’. Then she stalked off and I didn’t see her again for a while..

After that encounter, I stepped up my training with Mohit and the San Yen Jing. I hadn’t really been taking my training seriously up until this point. I knew that Mohit was a powerful Empath. He had to be because he was an Altered. I began to really pay attention to what he had to say, and you know what? I almost hate to admit this, but he was a better teacher than my grandfather. Anyway enough about that. What I really wanted to say was that I also started to take my physical training really seriously too. I realized that I had become somewhat arrogant about my martial abilities. I guess my easy victories had something to do with that. Yes, I said easy. I swear, these psions are almost fanatical about their physical, mental, emotional and psionic conditions!

I had been sparring with Yen Yuei up until my butt kicking. I was holding my own against her and I thought was I doing alright. After my encounter with Chun Peng, I changed my outfit into a regular student outfit provided by the psions and went to meet up with the San Yen Jing.

I squared off against Yen Yuei and said, “Don’t hold back this time, ok?”

“Are you sure?” Her English was heavily accented, but she insisted on speaking with me in English rather than Chinese.

I gave her the ok, and we began. OMG! Tracy, she’s really good! We weren’t sparring anymore. We were fighting for real! I went back to my room that night with another set of bruises.

I kept at it though. I never used my ribbons either. I guess I wanted to do this without the advantages they gave me. Anyway, I’ll write more later. My hand is getting sore again and I need to put it on ice!

Tracy shook her head ruefully. May was one of the best fighters she had ever seen. Of course, her available pool of good fighters was rather limited, but May easily outclassed just about everyone but Brandon Lau – and towards the time when May had left for China, May could actually give Brandon a run for his money. For May to have a hard time against someone, that person had to be really damned good! Tracy put the letter away and picked up another one. Again, she started reading at random. It wasn’t so much that she needed to find out what happened to May – after all, Tracy had read all these letters many times over. What Tracy really needed right now, was to hear May’s voice in her head more than anything else.

I beat Yen Yuei today! I couldn’t believe it. We were really going at it, and then the most unusual thing happened. It’s kind of hard to describe but it’s like all conscious thought left my mind. My body began to act and react faster than my mind could cope. At the risk of sounding corny, it was almost like entering a trance. My eyes saw an opening from one of Yuei’s punches and my body reacted before my mind even acknowledged it. Before I knew it, Yuei’s punch slid over my right shoulder and my elbow was in her armpit. Rather than falling on the floor and gasping in pain though, she backed up and I could see that she was re-evaluating me with her eyes. She drove in with another attack, and again, I saw an opening and took advantage of it. This time, I managed to sweep her legs out from under her. She just bounced right back though. She attacked for a third time, and once again, I counterattacked without conscious thought. In the martial arts world, there is a word for this, but right now, I’m too tired to think of it. Anyway, Yuei backed off and bowed to me. Then, without a word, she walked off the mat.

Yen Tian silently took her place. Yen Tian bowed to me and took a fighting stance. Oh boy! Here we go again! Tian didn’t attack me though. At least not right away. Anyway, I grew tired of always reacting to attacks and decided to go on the offensive. Big mistake! To this day, I’m still not sure what happened. I just remember staring up at the ceiling and thinking about how pretty the lights looked.

Well, I’m beat. It’s back to the drawing board until I can figure out how to beat Yen Tian!

Poor May, thought Tracy. She certainly was taking more than her fair share of lumps and bruises. From what Tracy could read though, it seemed that all of May’s instructors – for in reality that’s what they were – were all taking it easy on May. Even though May was getting thrown around a lot, they were obviously taking great pains to not seriously injure her. Having trained with May before, Tracy knew how hard it was to not hurt someone when you were just sparring. It must be even harder when you were fighting for real. It meant pulling your punches just enough to not break anything. Tracy put the letter away and picked up another one.

I must be the most dense person in the world! Yuei attacked and I counterattacked. Tian waits for me to attack and then counterattacks. I’ve tried feinting, but Tian is so damned fast that she can counterattack my feints before I break them off to go into my real attack. I’ve tried waiting her out, but she’s also very patient. So, how did I finally manage to beat her? Simple, I counterattacked her counterattack! With Yuei, I learned that I can’t telegraph my moves by thinking about them ahead of time. I had to react to an attack on a subconscious level. With Tian, it was one step further. I had to attack, but then I had to envision what the possible counter for my attack would be, and then I had to counter that. It became a series of fast hard hitting punch kick combinations. Tian, I’ve noticed, also likes to grapple and throw. So every night, I mentally went over every counter move that she had used on me and mentally prepared reversals to them. Over and over I pictured myself reversing Tian’s counters. I beat it into my brain, and then I meditated so that I could beat it into my subconscious. When I was ready, I used what I had prepared. The next time Tian tried to grapple and throw me, I was ready. I remember it well. It was a straightforward punch at stomach level. She caught my fist and forearm and twisted. I allowed this to happen and rolled with the twist. My other hand grabbed her and as I rolled, I pulled her down and over me. Then, before she could get up, my legs whipped around and pinned her to the floor. Sounds easy? Believe me, it wasn’t!

After I reversed Tian two more times, she silently walked off the mat and Yen Nian took her place. I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this before, but Nian is actually the oldest of the triplets. The next oldest is Yuei and then Tian. Whatever order they were using to face off against me though, it was obvious that they weren’t using age as a method.

Anyway, I thought at first that I was going to fight Nian one on one. Again, I was wrong. Things are never what they first appeared to be here! Anyway, she bowed to me and I was about to return it when I sensed some movement from behind. I managed to dodge out of the way in time to avoid the first attack but not the second, nor the third. Yup, you guessed it. My next lesson was to take on multiple opponents. Ohhh boy!

I think it goes without saying that I got trounced again. After that bout, I had another session with Mohit. He kept going on and on about something to do with muting the song of my spark or something like that. I was so tired and my body ached so much, yet somehow, what he was saying made perfect sense to me. I can’t describe it here though. When I get back, I’ll go into more detail. Love you!

Tracy put the letter down. She couldn’t wait to hear about May’s adventures. Reading the letters just didn’t seem enough because there was obviously a lot of stuff that May was leaving out. Tracy picked up another letter and started to read.

With regards to my physical training, I found myself facing a rather difficult problem. How do you fight three incredible fighters at the same time when each of the fighters is easily as good as or better than you? Remember back at the school, we often had to face off against several opponents right? That was easy because our opponents often got in each other’s way. Fighting multiple enemies was often easier than fighting a single skilled and determined opponent. Not so with the triplets! They moved with almost picture perfect coordination. They never got in each other’s way and they never tripped each other up. It was almost as if they were synchronizing their moves somehow.

Did I ever mention that I can be incredibly dense? Well, if I didn’t, let me say it now. I can be incredibly dense. Yes, I figured it out eventually. I guess what threw me at first was that none the triplets was an Empath. I realized that though they couldn’t merge their gifts, they could still link up with each other to coordinate their efforts. Sort of how I had planned to use Dominic Pedro as our resident Telepath and communications specialist. Well, we all know how badly that turned out!

Anyway, Yuei is a pretty powerful and skilled Telepath. It finally dawned on me that she must have been linking up with her sisters and passing information back and forth at the speed of thought. Nian is the Clairvoyant. I realized that even without a sixth sense ability, she could predict my movements and transfer that to her sisters. Nian is the Telekinetic and she’s also the close range in-fighter. She was using her gift to speed up her movements. Well, if they were going to be using their gifts, then so was I!

Guess what happened? Yup, I got trounced! Again! What was the secret that I was missing? Well, I’d like to take credit for figuring it out but I can’t. My lessons with Mohit were going really well. One of the things that he taught me was how to draw upon my gift faster, and use it in ways that I wouldn’t have thought of on my own. When I finally learned how to use what Mohit was teaching me, I went to work.

On the day I beat the triplets, I had my gift primed and ready to go. Even before they stepped onto the mat, I started pushing out feelings of terror, confusion and uncertainty. The effect was almost instantaneous. Their once sure footsteps and stances were unstable and unsynchronized. I attacked Yuei first. Not because she was the first of the triplets that I had managed to defeat, but because as the Telepath, she was the central link. Her confusion gave me the opening I needed and she was easily put down. Next, I focused on Nian. If she could predict my physical moves, I decided to do something unphysical. I pulsed a feeling of dread that made her feel threatened from behind. While she was distracted, I hit her. That, of course, left Nian. After seeing her two sisters go down, Nian decided to take the kid gloves off. Objects started flying towards me. Thank goodness my Empathy had picked up a red flare coming Tian so I was ready for this. Somehow, and I’m not sure how I managed to dodge the attack of the flying objects. Maybe it was because I was in the groove or whatever it was called. I knew better than to try to charge at Tian though. Instead, I used my Empathy to encircle Tian in a shroud of null emotion. See, as living breathing feeling humans, we constantly feel emotion. We may not realize it but we do. The times that we don’t is when we are in a state of shock – actually, no that’s not right since shock is an emotional state too. Anyway, Tian couldn’t function properly due to the emotional black hole around her. The rest, was as easy as one, two three.

When all three girls were down for the count, Mohit surprised me by stepping onto the mat. “Congratulations Pretty Flower. Go and rest now. Tomorrow, you will face your first trial.”

Though there was more to the letter, Tracy put it back in the box. The throbbing pain behind her eyes was getting too hard to ignore. She went downstairs to the kitchen to take her pain medication. Then, she went back upstairs. By the time she was back in her bedroom, she was nearly out of breath and her body felt like it was about to collapse. She didn’t lie down in bed though. She reached into her box and pulled out another letter.

I faced off against Mohit today. It was the single most bizarre day of my life. I don’t know if I can’t properly describe it. I’ll try, but I’m sure it won’t make a lot of sense. Mohit started off by saying, “When I was young, my teachers taught me that life and the world around us is an illusion. They were wrong. What was done to me, what was done to my wife and her brother and countless other psions was not an illusion. It was very real. Today, you must discover for yourself what is real and what is an illusion.”

After that, things got really weird. Images floated up around me. Strange colors, frightening monsters, loathsome creatures, they all just sort of swam around me. The gymnasium was gone. The San Yen Jing were gone, and most important, Mohit was gone. Suddenly, one of the monsters attacked me. I thought it was an illusion so I ignored it. It floored me with a single blow. I bounced back and attacked it, but my punch went right through it. Yeah, I know what you’re thinking. What the hell?

I remembered how Mohit had tricked me at the train station where I first met him. He had cast an illusion that had me thinking that there were more psions there than there actually was. I knew that it was impossible for him to create psion sparks, but I realized that what he had actually done was to take his, and the triplets’ sparks and duplicated them over and over so as to give the impression that there was many psions when there were actually only four. I confirmed this when I used my Empathy to ‘see’ around me. There were dozens of psions sparks all around me, however, I knew that there were only four real psions in the gym with me. Closing my eyes and concentrating didn’t help either because the illusions attacked all of my senses.

Just then, another monster tried to attack me. With my eyes, I could see it looked like a giant spider while my gift told me that there was a blue spark within it. I had an idea and I hoped I was right, otherwise, I was going to get hurt. I tried merging with the blue spark and found that I couldn’t. When I tried to pull the blue spark into me and merge it with my green one, the blue spark simply disintegrated. I was right! Mohit can create the illusion of a psion spark, but he can’t actually create one!

I walked through the nightmarish world around me with greater confidence. I knew that the San Yen Jing were hunting me, but I didn’t know what they saw. My guess was that they had normal vision and were not affected by the illusion. That was the one edge that I had. Another monster approached me. This one was almost translucent, like a ghost. My gift showed me that the ghost had a red spark. I let it approach and acted as if I thought that the ghost was an illusion. As it got closer, I reached out with my gift and touched the other spark. It didn’t disintegrate. This was Yen Tian! I let her walk past me, and then snapped a back kick to my rear. I was rewarded with a cry of pain. I kept prowling around until I was confronted by three fearsome figures wearing samurai armor and fearsome face masks. My gift showed me that the figure on the right had a green spark while the other two had blue and yellow sparks respectively. I reached out with my gift, just as the warriors raised their swords and prepared to attack me, and I encased the green spark within my own spark. Instantly, the nightmare world disappeared, as well as all the monsters. In the place of the three samurai warriors, I saw a smiling Mohit. He said, “Very good Pretty Flower, you have passed your first trial.”

Tracy put the letter away. She felt a moment of dizziness and paused until it went away. The pain medication was working, but it had a tendency of making her woozy. She wanted to finish reading May’s letters though. She skipped ahead several letters and picked one up at random and started to read.

After I passed my first trial, Mohit had started to teach me on how to merge. In particular, he taught me to merge with Nian and Yuei to create illusions of my own. That was tough. I thought creating psychic fire with Jeff had been tough, but it was nothing compared to merging with two other sparks! Anyway, in the end, I learned it and was deemed ready to face my next trial.

My next opponent was Chun Po, Chun Peng’s misshapen younger brother. He had a badly formed back that forced him to walk hunched over, and his left leg was twisted, as if it had broken a long time ago, and was never set properly. He never talked. His eyes shifted around almost constantly, as if he were seeing things that no one else could see. He also had this creepy habit of giggling at the strangest times. The real important thing though, is that he had the same three gifts as Diablo: Empathy, Clairvoyance and Telekinesis. That also gave him the additional skills of psychic fire, sixth sense and teleportation.

Our fight, if you can call it that, was a random madness. He kept teleporting around the gym in random patterns and would occasionally throw psychic fire at me. I couldn’t get close enough to do anything to him. So, I sat down and waited. I waited and waited, but eventually, his curiosity got the better of him and he appeared right in front of me. That was when I touched him with my gift – or rather, I touched his core Empathy with mine. At first, I was pushed back, as if his Empathy were rejecting mine. I kept at it though, and finally managed to make a connection. The first thing I found out was that Chun Po’s Empathy was incredibly strong. Almost as strong as mine, I think. The next thing I learned was that linking two powerful Empathy sparks was one of the most profound experiences in the world. For the time that we were linked, we learned everything about each other. All of our emotional experiences were interchanged. For that time, I knew him better than anyone else in the world, and he knew me. We talked too. Not with words, nor with thoughts, but with something deeper and more primordial. I found that his mind did indeed live on a different plane than the rest of the world – as if it were always ten seconds faster than everyone else’s. His normal thoughts were so fast that his attention had a tendency of jumping around to anything that interested him. Outwardly, he was misshapen and deformed, but inside, he was just like the rest of us…just different.

I don’t know how long our link lasted, but eventually we pulled our sparks away. When we both opened our eyes, both of us were crying freely and he had a huge smile on his face. A second later, he vanished and teleported away. I had passed my second trial.

My third trial is the most difficult to explain. As I suspected, it was with Chun Peng. I thought that we were going to fight so I arrived at the gym in full contact gear. After my last bout with her, I wasn’t going to take chances. Instead, I found her sitting on the floor in the middle of the gym. She was wearing casual clothes, almost as if she were lounging around. She was surrounded by many of the psions of the Psion Nation. I looked around at the psions and realized that they represented psions from all around the world. Whatever this trial was going to be, it was going to be witnessed by everyone. Seated behind Chun Peng were Mohit and Chun Po. Seated several feet in front of Chun Peng were the San Yen Jing. As I approached, Chun Peng indicated with a sweep of her hand at the area in front of her, so I sat down facing her, but in front of the San Yen Jing.

I didn’t speak right away, even though all the angry emotions I had been harboring against Chun Peng surfaced at that moment. Instead, I waited for her to begin. After several minutes of silence, she began to speak. I thought I saw a look of approval on Mohit’s face but didn’t acknowledge it.

“We are here to judge your suitability to lead the Psion Nation through the storm that is almost upon us. May Hua Li, are you suitable?”

I pushed my angry emotions away and gave that question serious consideration. Was I suitable? Certainly I was now tougher, stronger and faster than when I first arrived, and my training with Mohit had progressed way beyond what my grandfather had taught me. But was I suitable? More importantly, did I want to lead?

“Before I answer that, I have to know. What is the storm?”

Chun Peng’s face remained impassive, but Mohit gave me a nod of encouragement. Chun Peng said a single word, “Hydra” and suddenly a vision appeared in my mind. I realized that it was a vision from Yen Nian and Yen Yuei was transmitting it into my head. OH MY GOSH! Tracy, I cannot begin to describe the horror of the vision. At first it was a top down view and I thought it was some sort of dark tide sweeping over an unsuspecting city. However, there was no body of water around the city. The vision zoomed down and I saw that the dark tide was thousands upon thousands of people rushing forward like lemmings. Every face seemed to be frozen in an expression of maniacal rage and fury. The people of the city were being overrun by this dark tide. Most of the citizens tried to run but they were quickly brought down. Every time a citizen was overtaken by the mob, several people of the mob would hold down the citizen and it looked as if they were gnawing at the back of the citizen’s neck. I thought that the dark tide was eating people alive and I almost retched. However, the truth was much worse. After several minutes, the citizen would stand up and appear to be completely unharmed. However, the citizen’s face would contort with the same maniacal fury as the rest and the citizen would join the dark tide. Was this Hydra? Deeper in the city, the dark tide began to meet with some organized resistance. Police cars and army trucks blocked many of the intersections. Police officers and soldiers opened fire at the dark tide and seemed to slow the mad dash somewhat. However, large walking war machines stalked into the city and opened fire at the blockades with high tech weapons. If this was the storm that the psions kept talking about, then we were in big big trouble.

The vision disappeared but another one quickly took its place. It was a vision of Earth and hundreds of gigantic alien spaceships were flying away from it. Escorting these spaceships were thousands of oval shaped spaceships, and at the head of this exodus was a familiar silvery winged figure. Phoenix! From beyond the Earth, I could see a bright round object which I surmised was the Sun. From beyond the Moon, a vast armada of different alien spaceships suddenly appeared as if from out of nowhere. These new arrivals began to attack the first fleet and the ensuing space battle was both intense and cataclysmic. Suddenly, the Sun went dark and the vision ended.

Chun Peng looked at me with the same stern expression that I’ve always seen her with. “Are you suitable to lead the Psion Nation?”

It took me several moments to recover my wits. The visions seemed so real and I felt very disoriented. Was I suitable? How the hell could I lead the Psions to survive what I had seen? How do I stop the dark tide known as Hydra? How do I stop the world from ending? And what the hell could I do about the space battle? I finally found my voice and said, “I don’t know if I am suitable, but my god, we must prepare for what is going to happen!”

I made no attempt to hide my emotions and I knew they were flaring out from me in desperate waves. Chun Peng smiled for the first time that I’ve known her. She must have felt my utter conviction and dedication to what I had just said. “Good answer! From you, I detect a reluctance for power that is balanced by a desperate need to save people from the storm. One last trial awaits you. You have learned to merge any three of the gifts. You can now create psychic fire, dodge bullets, control minds, create psychic bolts, create illusions and teleport. Now, to prove your worth as the Empress of the Psion Nation, you must merge all the gifts.”

Merge all the gifts? That’s impossible! Did she have any idea how hard it was to merge even two gifts together? I’ve teleported a couple of times. Both times left me, Nian and Tian completely exhausted.

A thought struck me then. If I failed this last trial, then I could forget this whole Empress thing and go back to my life. Everything would go back to normal. I was tempted…I was so tempted to purposely flunk this trial so that I could go home. But I knew I couldn’t do that. If I failed, who would protect my friends and family? Somehow, I don’t think Chun Peng would exert too much effort to protect the ones that I love. Besides, to protect my loved ones, I would need all the resources available to the Psion Nation and the only way I could use those resources was to be their leader.

I closed my eyes and submerged myself into my gift. Then, I reached out and touched Nian’s spark. As always, she gently allowed me access and I slowly drew her spark into myself and merged with it. Right away, I felt more aware of my surroundings, but I also felt huge and bloated. Next, I reached out and gently caressed Yuei’s spark. As with her sister, she allowed me access and I drew her spark into me. Again came the hugely bloated feeling, as if I was about to burst open. I also felt my awareness expand and I could hear echoes of all the thoughts around me. I felt as if I were carrying three super sized bowling balls inside my body. It was all I could do to keep them from spilling out. Could I manage one more? I would have to! I reached out one last time and touched Tian’s spark. She released her spark to me, but I couldn’t hold on to it. It became a sort of a reverse tug of war. Tian would push her spark at me, and I would try to catch it but just couldn’t seem to bring it into my body. I tried and tried and all of a sudden, Tian’s spark popped inside of me as if it were squeezed through an incredibly small hole. I felt as I were about to explode! And yet, I felt something else. The whispers I had heard earlier became full voices, and with a shock, I realized I could not only recognize the words, but I could also recognize who was thinking what thoughts.

“Did she do it?”

“Is she alright?”

“Is she the Empress as foretold?”

I was hearing ALL the thoughts of all the psions in the gym!

“Dear God! How do I explain to Stella that I drove her daughter crazy?”

That last thought caught my attention. I zeroed in on it and then opened my eyes – or at least I tried to. Instead, what I saw was myself sitting cross-legged and hovering several feet above the ground with my eyes shut. I was looking out through Chun Peng’s eyes! What was more, she knew I was in her mind!

“May? Is that you?”

I didn’t answer right away. I backed out of Chun Peng’s mind and entered Mohit’s mind. His sparks touched me in a friendly yet respectful sort of way. Next, I moved over to Chun Po. For the first time since I’ve known him, he actually communicated to me in actual words. “Empress, I await your commands.”

I felt my awareness shift and rise and suddenly, I felt as if I could reach out and touch every psion in the room – and I did. As I touched each mind, each psion spoke to me and gave me their allegiance. I felt reborn!

Tracy drew a deep breath and put the letter away. One more, she promised to herself. Just one more letter. She skipped ahead and picked up the last letter in the pile and began to read.

Hi Tracy, sorry about the long delay since my last letter. So much as been going on! I can’t believe that it’s been more than a year since I left. I have undergone some big changes. How big? Well, you’ll just have to wait and see!

Let’s see, where did I leave off in my last letter? Oh yes. The San Yen Jing and I were prowling around Beijing. There were rumors about a Hydra nest somewhere in the city. Anyway, that was when we rescued Mary Wellington, Michael’s mother. Tracy, I repeat what I said in my last letter. You must keep Mary’s existence a secret! Even from Michael and Serena. No matter how much you think they ought to know that their mother is fine, they cannot know. Not yet at least. Some of the things that Mary told me chilled me to the bone. Her return must remain a secret.

Anyway, since then, Mary has joined our ranks and we have fought many battles against Hydra. The rumors were wrong. There wasn’t just one nest in Beijing. This Hydra conspiracy went all the way up the Chinese governmental chain of command! If other countries are doing what the Chinese government was doing, then the world is in very big trouble!

Enough of that! I don’t want to scare you until I’ve had a chance to talk to you in person. Anyway, I wanted to let you know that I’ll be coming home soon. As soon as I recover from my injuries, I’ll be on a plane back to Canada. Mary says that she’s coming with me so we only have to keep her secret from Michael and Serena for just a little bit longer. There’s been some big changes Tracy. Big changes.

A little over a week ago, the Psion Nation’s base was attacked in force by thousands of Hydra Heads. Thank goodness we have lots of Clairvoyants in our ranks! Anyway, even though we knew about the attack ahead of time, and even though we had sent away all the noncombatants and prepared our escape routes, we got hurt bad. If it weren’t for Mary and her hand…oops, sorry, I promised I wouldn’t talk about that. Anyway, Mary really saved our bacon that day. I think she had a very large price to pay for her efforts though. I just wish I knew what that price was. There was something else…geez, I can’t believe how hard this is to say! Remember how during my trials, Chun Po and I linked our Empathy sparks? Well ever since then, we had become a lot closer - no, nothing like Phoenix and myself. Instead, we had a really odd friendship. Even though I couldn’t talk to him, he always seemed to know what I wanted. I only had to envision something that I wanted him to do, and he would go do it. Chun Peng used to joke about how I had stolen her brother from her.

Well, she doesn’t joke about that anymore. Chun Po is dead. OMG! I can’t believe how sad I feel! Anyway, I need to get this on paper, as a form of permanent tribute to him. You see, he saved my life. The Hydra army had invaded deep into the mines and were almost at the heart of the base. All the psions had evacuated. We had planned on this, and we were going to bring the mountain down upon the Hydra army after everyone was safe. Well, it didn’t quite work that way. We tried to remote detonate the bombs all at the same time. Somehow, not all the bombs went off. Several were disabled. Chun Po and I were the only ones who could teleport so we went back in to manually reset the bombs for timed delay. I got a couple but then Nian was hurt by some falling debris – when I teleport, I have to take Nian and Tian with me, which is why we’re all so exhausted after a teleport. Anyway, with Nian down, I couldn’t merge with her to complete the teleport. Tian was doing everything she could to keep more falling debris from killing all of us. Suddenly, Chun Po appeared. How he knew we were in trouble I will never know. He added his Telekinesis to Tian’s efforts and together, they built a make shift shelter. We managed to revive Nian, and I insisted that he take her to safety first. Tian stayed behind with me to keep me safe. Chun Po came back but a large piece of debris broke through the roof of the shelter and hit him on his head. I don’t know how he managed to remain conscious but he did. He grabbed Tian and I, and teleported the three of us out and into safety. The mountain collapsed after the last bomb went off and buried the Hydra army.

Before he died, Chun Po actually spoke legible words for the first time in his life. There was a hole in his head, but a smile on his face as he said, “My life for yours Empress, and with my death, new life and the redemption of our future.” His eyes closed, but he did something. I knew it even then. I felt my body changing soon afterwards. I won’t tell you now. It’ll have to be a surprise for when you see me.

Tracy felt her eyes grow heavy and she knew that she wouldn’t be able to stay awake for much longer. She carefully put the letter back into the box and closed it. Then she got off her bed and slowly walked over to her bookshelf. She started to feel a pressure build behind her eyes and quickened her pace. She put the box back on the bookshelf and turned back to face her bed. She hoped that she would make it back to her bed before she collapsed. Her vision swam and the room began to spin around her. She tried to hurry, but suddenly, the ground rushed up to meet her face. The room stopped spinning as she blacked out.