"You have any ideas on how to get us out of here, armor boy?" Harper said, punching me in the arm. I didn't feel a thing, compliments of my new toy.

  "I... I'm really not the planner," I said, trying to think of something that wasn't quite there. I snapped my fingers. "First we need to find Michael!"

  Harper rolled her eyes at me.

  "Okay, Einstein," she said. "And where do you expect to find Michael so that HE can figure out how to get us to safety?"

  "I'm sure that if we get to the old mine he'll be there," I said, confident in my ability. "That should work."

  Harper rolled her eyes again and put her hands on her hips.

  "What?" I said. "What'd I do?"

  "You are so ignorant," Harper said. "All you have to do to find Michael is call him on your flesh-watch."

  I was literally so stupid.

  "Oh," I said, as I triple-tapped my flesh-watch and asked the search engine to call Michael.

  "Call functions are disabled by your admin until you have made it to the academy," a voice said in my head. I relayed the information to Harper.

  "You've got to be kidding me," she said. "Well, we might as well use your plan then."

  I gave her a look that said, I guess I was right all along, and started to walk through the trees in the general direction of the mine. Harper and I walked side by side for twenty minutes before we realized that something was wrong.

  "Do you hear that?" Harper whispered into my ear.

  "No," I whispered back.

  "Exactly," she said. "I'm not hearing ANYTHING."

  I stopped dead in my tracks and listened. The forest was completely silent. I didn't hear a peep when before the noise of all the creatures was so much that it felt like white noise.

  It was then that I noticed Harper was waving her hands around frantically. Once she got my attention, she pointed at something a little ways away. There was a very large rock in a clearing ahead of us, the kind of rock that was the size of a house and was most likely great for climbing.

  "What?" I asked Harper, which made something on the rock move, though I couldn't figure out what it was. Harper was slowly stepping away, gesturing at me to stay quiet. I started to back up too.

  Boom! I heard what sounded like a small explosion in the distance. The rock started to move and a head looked up and locked eyes with us.

  "Krap," I said, as the rock stood up and I realized that what I was looking at was not a rock but rather a saber-toothed, jet-black cat. It was a he, too, and he looked very hungry.

  I grabbed Harper and we ran through the trees as the ground shook under us, the giant monster in pursuit.

  "Kryposar," Harper managed to get out as a tree slammed to the ground next to us. I saw that the fallen tree had made a hollow space with the ground, so I pushed Harper toward it. I barely saw a glimpse of her crawl under before I was hoisted thirty feet into the air by the gargantuan creature.

  FEEL THE POWER INSIDE YOU, I felt the voice again and tried to feel inside me, and instead of seeing my light I was met by a faint glow. I reached into the last of my reserve and summoned a tiny white speck into my hand.

  TIME TO GET CREATIVE, I thought to myself as I forced the dot into the creature. I made it love the roots that went under the trees.

  Suddenly, I was hit by a horrible wave of exhaustion and was dropped onto the ground as the Kryposar dove into the ground.

  I hit the ground with a crunch and pain exploded all throughout my body, but somehow I was still alive. Harper ran over to me and helped me to my feet.

  "We have to make it to the old mine shaft," I said, ignoring all the pain I felt. I started to hobble along with Harper as fast as I could, putting distance between me and the Kryposar. We were at what I thought was a safe distance when I heard a horrible scream and the ground exploded where the Kryposar had gone under, spraying dirt everywhere.

  I gasped in horror as the Kryposar burst from the ground, running from something. The look in its eyes was of pure terror, and that is usually not something you want to see in something the size of a house.

  "Run," I said faintly as I picked up the pace of my hobble. Harper was dragging me at this point. I glanced behind me and gasped.

  Long tentacles were grabbing the Kryposar and were trying to pull it into the ground. More and more tentacles latched onto it until the creature was at last pulled into the ground.

  I collapsed and everything went black.

  When I came back around, Harper was gently stroking my face, murmuring something to herself. When she noticed I was awake she jerked her hand away. We both blushed but didn't say anything about it.

  "Thanks for saving me," Harper said awkwardly. "Again."

  "You're welcome," I said. "It was a miracle I even succeeded anyway."

  "What'd you even do?" Harper asked me.

  "Well," I told her, "all I did was give the Kryposar a passion for digging at the roots close to the water, about where they started to turn into tentacles. I figured the trees, or whatever you call them, would start to fight back, you know?"

  Stolen story; please report.

  "Hmmm," Harper said. "Did it ever go through that brain of yours that the Kryposar might not have been able to dig through the dirt? That maybe the roots wouldn't be able to chase it through the dirt?"

  "Uh, no," I said. Harper rolled her eyes. Sometimes I did not get why she acted like this.

  "We have to keep moving," I told Harper, pulling myself off the ground. I felt some aching, but somehow my body wasn't completely broken. I turned to Harper and asked her what the heck had happened. She mentioned that I had been glowing when I fell unconscious, so I felt into my soul. The bright light wasn't there anymore; it seemed that I had used it up healing myself.

  "Are you sure you're fine?" Harper said as we scurried through the forest. We were making a pretty quick pace, and we would probably make it to the old mine in about an hour or so.

  "Yeah," I said, kicking a stray rock out of my way. It ricocheted off the tree next to me. I could have sworn I heard something groaning inside, almost like the tree was annoyed at being bombarded.

  "Sorry for being a bit rude back there," Harper said quietly.

  "It's fine," I said as we came to a big rock. I looked at it for a second and when I realized that it was a real rock, I climbed up it. Once I had my footing, I extended my hand and pulled Harper up. We walked a little farther.

  "I really like the way that gold suit looks on you," Harper said. "It really complements your body build."

  "Are you saying I have good fashion?" I smirked.

  "No, if you would have gotten to pick how the suit were to look it would be horrendous," Harper said with a laugh. "They didn't let you pick out a suit, did they?"

  "Pick one out?" I said. "Nah, they just gave it to me. Did they let you pick out the dress or something?"

  "Yeah," Harper said. "They really had some beautiful dresses."

  "Well," I smiled, "I like the one you picked out."

  She smiled at me and did a little twirl. When she saw me watching she blushed a little bit, but seemed unabashed.

  "I'm glad you like it," she said. "I was hoping you would."

  Suddenly, Harper screamed and I felt myself being hoisted into the air. I twisted around and saw that I was being carried off by one of those stupid skimbas. I grabbed my sword and sliced at the legs holding me. I started to fall back toward the ground and hit a tree. Harper ran up to the tree and I jumped down.

  "Are you okay?" Harper said. I nodded my head. Thankfully it hadn't been too far up. Still, if that had been on Earth, I would have a hundred broken bones right now. I told Harper about it and she laughed.

  "I guess you owe Titan's atmosphere double now," she said. "It saved me too, for that matter."

  We walked in silence again for a little ways until we came upon an opening in the ground. It looked like someone had taken a piece of paper and had sliced a hole in it with a knife.

  "Whoa," Harper said, leaning over the fissure. I peeked over her shoulder and gasped as I saw water below. I asked my flesh-watch what it was.

  "What you are looking at is a fissure that appears periodically around Titan. They lead straight to the ocean and you can occasionally find a rare creature called a Tyfin within. You should be safe, though, because the creatures are in hibernation right now."

  "How dangerous are they if they're awake?" I asked.

  "They are one of the more dangerous creatures on the planet." When I heard this I pulled Harper away from the edge. "They are a lizard-shaped creature that breathes fire and shoots venomous barbs out of its tail."

  I gulped and told Harper what I had heard. We quietly jumped over the fissure and continued walking.

  Whoosh! I felt something whistle by my ear and when I looked up I saw a quill of some sort embedded into a tree. I spun around and raised my shield.

  Thud. Thud. Thud. More quills hit the shield, knocking me backward. I looked around the shield and saw the Tyfin before us looking behind me at Harper.

  "Get out of here!" I yelled at her, deflecting more arrows. She scampered back and hid behind a log. Why didn't she listen?

  The large lizard thing started to approach, so I raised my shield once again. I pulled up the search engine and asked it how to kill that thing.

  "The easiest way to kill a Tyfin," the voice said as I had to dive to the side because twenty quills had been coming at me, "is to take the sword of the golden one and remove the creature's head. At least that is how you kill it according to legend. The beast has never been successfully killed before."

  GREAT, I thought, dodging another arrow. It had never been done before. Suddenly, the creature ran at me with lightning speed and I did the most impulsive thing ever: I jumped right off the creature.

  With a mighty leap I ran and used its back as a springboard, flinging myself away from the animal. I flew through the air so effectively that I started to hone in on the fissure that the Tyfin had come from. It looked like I was going to perfectly end up in the crevice.

  I waved my arms around frantically, trying to stop myself, but nothing happened. I just kept going. The pit rapidly approached and I reached my hand up, barely grasping a stray rock so I was dangling over the side of the fissure. I looked down and saw the water hundreds of feet below me. Something told me that even though I was on Titan, I would still be smushed like a pancake.

  The rock I was holding on to started to slip.

  "Help!" I yelled into the void, desperate for somebody—anybody, really.

  THE POWER IS AT YOUR FINGERTIPS, I felt a voice say. ALL YOU HAVE TO DO IS ASK AND PUT A LITTLE BIT OF MATTER INTO IT.

  Immediately, I saw a little white dot on the side of the chasm and I reached out my open hand to touch it. Instantly, I got stronger, but in that moment the rock I was hanging onto broke and I started to slow-fall into the depths.

  Everything seemed to happen in slow motion as flames erupted where I had just been, blowing part of the cliff to pieces. Rubble started to fall toward me.

  PUT A LITTLE BIT OF MATTER INTO IT, I remembered that voice saying, so I desperately pushed the glowing white stuff into my armor and it seemed to digest it.

  "Give me great big sharp claws!" I screamed into the void as the ocean was almost upon me. I felt something shift in my hands and I plunged my fingernails into the side of the cliff. Somehow, I stopped falling.

  I took a second to catch my breath and then looked around me. The chasm had opened up and I was dangling a hundred or so feet away from a vast body of water that went on as far as the eye could see.

  As I was looking at the water, I saw a huge shape moving under me. Then, a whale of some sort propelled itself out of the water and opened its mouth, trying to pull me down. It barely grazed my foot with the tip of its great maw, and when it hit the water a huge wave hit me, but I still managed to hold on.

  My vision was starting to go black, so I thought about being able to fly my way to safety and just like that I felt a tugging sensation on my arms, so I pulled them out of the side of the rock face and prayed to God I wouldn't fall to my death.

  I shot up like a rocket and before I knew it, I was out of the chasm and shooting toward the sky.

  STOP! I yelled through my own brain as my vision started to go black because I was gaining altitude so fast. I craned my neck behind me and saw these wings extending behind me right as whatever was propelling me turned off.

  I started to drop straight toward the ground, my wings slicing through the air like a knife cutting butter. I instinctively arched my back and instead of slicing through the air, I was gliding calmly down toward the surface.

  Flying was absolutely amazing. The air blowing the hair out of my face and the incredible view below me made me want to stay in the air forever. At least until I saw the approaching cloud of floadons in the distance and noticed that the Tyfin was creeping up on Harper from her hiding place under the fallen tree.

  "Nooooo!" I said, angling my wings directly down, going into a free fall until I was going faster than a car on the freeway. The ground got closer and closer, so I pulled out my sword, pushing all the matter I had in me into it.

  Harper yelled out when she saw me, and I jerked out of my nosedive before throwing my sword at the Tyfin. Right as the sword hit the Tyfin, I dove on top of Harper before the world exploded into the brightest light I had ever seen. It was so bright and pure that I instantly passed out from the stress that was imparted on my eyes. I welcomed the darkness with open arms.