“Dalirena. Are you coming in?”

  “Just one minute.”

  Dalirena’s glassy black eyes regarded the night sky. She had such a perfect view of the Washington D.C. skyline from her balcony. In the distance, she could see the numerous trees hiding the Fistborn Academy campus.

  Ruhirians carried a large weight on their shoulders. They were meant to be messengers of God to all members of the Utopia, no matter what species. He would grant them the privilege of peeking ahead and saving people from danger or bad decisions. They weren’t supposed to outright tell people what would happen in these visions, but they would drop hints, warnings, and choices wherever they could.

  Unfortunately, with that power came greed and arrogance. Dalirena’s father had fallen into the former of these, thinking he could make an extra digit off of the gift he had. He sold visions to hundreds of people, on many different planets. After the Ruhirian Planet Seers discovered his betrayal of the code and their purpose, he and his family were banished from their planet to Earth for nine Ruhirian years, which would’ve been only three years on Earth. Dalirena’s father had to make a living for his family, however, and continued selling visions until he was caught and wound up dying in prison, murdered by those he lied to for some extra money.

  They would’ve been able to return to Ruhiri after her father’s death, but Dalirena fell into the same trap, and earned them another three years on Earth. But it was practically impossible for Ruhirian exiles to find jobs on Earth, what with their background. Other species didn’t fully trust them, thinking that they would have some sort of advantage over them by seeing their future. Selling visions was all Dalirena could do to make a living for herself, her mother, and her sister until they got to return home. As long as she didn’t get caught like her father, she could make it.

  So she kept going. She feared the impact this would have on her soul, the consequences this dangerous, illegal business would bring on her and her family. But otherwise, they would starve to death on a foreign planet.

  Her sister would never know her secret— hopefully. They were close, but there was that underlying resentment and mistrust, reminding Dalirena of what she did, repeating her father’s mistake. If she ever found out about her continuing her business… she would never forgive her. For now, she thought she was teaching Ruhirian languages to Earthians.

  Misusing her gift would cost her one day. It would bite her back, corrupt her soul. But the more Dalirena continued, the deeper she sunk into the void. As long as her family was okay…

  “Isa, come on,” her sister, Pustani, beckoned. “It’s going to rain.”

  “I’ll be right in.”

  Closing her eyes, she let her vision eye open. The golden iris glowed in her forehead. Her mind fell into a state of tranquility, her soul pulsing. She could feel herself getting closer to God.

  She now saw time fast-forwarding, the movement of the city bustling and the sun and moon flying across the sky.

  Then, she saw her.

  Nylon black hair, emerald eyes, a perfectly Thinned waist. But now… she looked different. Stronger. Her body was tougher than before.

  The vision then transformed, showing the human girl in a combat suit, but the colors were off. It was as if it were unclear whether she would make the Earth team or not.

  Dalirena felt herself traveling backwards on the timeline, now seeing the girl’s sister, the one with matching eyes, but blonde. She was crying, sitting in a corner. She looked dirty and tired, maybe beaten. There was an aura of danger and fear around her. What was this? How did it connect to Calista’s fight?

  She gasped, shot forward again. Now, she saw Calista running with… a boy? Curly brown hair, blue eyes… that was Harrison Smith.

  She returned to the scene of Calista’s fight. The girl punched and kicked with the grace of a ballet dancer. Her opponent still managed to subdue her, grabbing her by the neck and holding her over what looked like… a pit of some sort. Dalirena couldn’t tell. It had lava at the bottom— a volcano?

  The vision blinked, cutting to Calista falling into the pit of lava. Dalirena could feel the sharp blade of death nicking at her throat. As the vision faded, she could hear various screams, many desperately shouting familiar names. The feeling of death and danger got heavier.

  Her vision eye stopped glowing and closed, returning her mind to the real world. She panted, overwhelmed from the wild travel through time. The thrusting back and forth had made her dizzy and nauseous. Her visions didn’t often do that; usually it was linear, showing snippets of events in order. This one was very unclear, confusing, and unorganized.

  Realizing what she saw, she covered her mouth. One thing she understood: the Fistborn team was in a lot more danger than she initially thought.

  She ran inside, heading to the office. Pustani was there, browsing on an AIDA screen. She exclaimed when Dalirena shoved her out of the seat and logged on.

  “What is your problem?!” Pustani yelled in their native language. She huffed and dusted herself off.

  Dalirena stopped, realizing she would be outed if she used her own AIDA. She ran down to the front door.

  “Where are you going?”

  This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

  “I’ll be back!”

  She needed to warn Lisa White again. Whatever happened during the Versus, it obviously meant danger for her and her students, especially that human girl. If she got her out of the academy, maybe she could change the vision. She was clearly one of the key components of the outcome.

  Dalirena had a feeling Lisa wouldn’t take her seriously the first time at the bar. She hoped that she would at least feel a bit paranoid and keep a watchful eye on her students when they went to LA. This vision was a lot worse, though. While she couldn’t understand exactly what would happen, she got a dreadful feeling.

  She scrambled out of her Air-Car and ran into the alleyway. She stopped in front of a glitchy door. “Pass-s-word?”

  Dalirena spoke a word in her Ruhirian language. She was granted access. She rushed to one of the available stations, using her secret account to message Lisa.

  ‘Lisa, this is your business partner from the pub. Once again, I’m trying to contact you about the deal with the other company. You need to break this deal. There are motives behind it. Please respond to me ASAP. This is entering very dangerous territory for your entire company, especially the new employee you recently hired. Please respond. If you see this too late, I will try to reach you during the trip. Please read this.

  Regards,

  Your Pub Pal’

  She hoped that the pub hint would be enough for Lisa to figure it out. She would probably have to message her a few times so she could actually open the messages; it was likely she’d block her or ignore her.

  She went onto the black market for Versus Preliminary tickets. She hadn’t planned to go at all, but with that vision, it was crucial. Being pulled back and forth in time… that never happened. It had to mean something serious. If only her father were alive so she could ask him.

  “Well, well, look who it is.”

  Dalirena didn’t realize they were talking to her until a spidery hand touched her shoulder. She turned in her seat, confronted by a gang of tall Earthians, Mearthians, and a couple of Emitonians. They were eight people in all.

  She instantly recognized them, and her stomach sank. She’d forgotten about them. They were a gang of Black Market fighters— those that fought underground, making a whole separate Versus away from SECURE radars. Unlike the real competition, they fought to the death, as Socializers claimed the Versus Games would do.

  This group of fighters had found Dalirena a few months back and demanded she give them a vision about who would win their next tournament in D.C. Visions were never summoned on command; if a Ruhirian attempted deep meditation, they had a small chance of achieving an actual vision. Most clients didn’t understand that, which was why most Ruhirians in the illegal vision business lied their way through, making plenty of enemies.

  “My savior,” one of the humans said with spite. He was a tall one with bulky muscles. “The one who would make me rich.”

  “How did that turn out?” his Mearthian friend asked.

  “Oh, it turned out to be the opposite, actually. I lost 300,000 digits that day.” He smiled humorlessly at Dalirena. “Be honest, three-eyes, do I look like I have 300 grand worth of digits in my account?”

  Ignoring the slur, Dalirena calmly smiled, her eyes darting around for an exit. Without visible pupils, they wouldn’t notice she was that frightened. She tried not to spend her time wondering how they found her regular workplace and concentrated on escaping.

  “Sometimes outcomes vary,” she said serenely. “I don’t remember having told you to bet digits you don’t have to get the outcome I saw. It could be that you broke my vision with that decision.” She hadn’t seen any vision about them at all, but nonetheless, betting 300 grand on a fight was a foolish decision to make, even if she did have a vision of these people getting rich.

  The human chuckled, looking at his friends with indignation. “So it’s my fault, is it? After you told us we would be showered with riches and have enough to pay off all our debts from the last decade?”

  “In fact, we have more debtors now that we listened to you,” said one of the human women in the group. “And you know what they’ll take if we don’t pay up.”

  “I’m assuming you want me to give you a vision guiding you to a way to pay these new debts?”

  The group of eight laughed. “Oh, no. You’re going to pay the debt,” said one of the Emitonians, his large forehead wrinkled in anger.

  “Do I look like I have that many digits in my account?” Dalirena echoed the muscular human man.

  “Don’t you play smart with us now.” One of the Mearthian men leaned forward, his hands on Dalirena’s chair’s armrests, closing her in so she couldn’t escape. “There’s plenty of ways you can pay. And considering how much you chiseled us out for, I’d say this is a fair deal. You pay the debt for us and we give up trying to find where you live.”

  “I don’t think you can find where I live.”

  “How many Ruhirians are on this planet?” said the Emitonian man. “We found your workplace, didn’t we?”

  She had to get rid of them. If they found where she lived, her family would be in danger, but she couldn’t go with them and pay their debts— which would no doubt end up paid in blood, knowing what kinds of people went to these fights.

  But Dalirena, unfortunately, didn’t know how to fight. All she could do was escape and hope that SECURE found the group before they got to her.

  “Now, be a good little three-eyes and come with us quietly.” Dalirena felt a sharp poke in her ribs. Realizing she had no escape at the moment, she rose from her chair and let them lead her out of the underground communication café, the sharp object staying at her ribs, which had wider gaps than most species’, making it easier for them to wound her.

  They walked down the alleyway and approached an Air-Car waiting for them in the shaded dark. Dalirena stole a glance behind her, towards the street. If she could somehow run out and trigger a SECURE bot without giving herself away…

  An idea sparked. She cried out in mock pain and clutched her head, sinking to her knees. The gang stopped, watching her with confusion.

  “What’s her problem?” someone asked.

  “I… I see something!” She ducked her head so they couldn’t see that her third eye wasn’t opening at all.

  “What are you talking about?” a woman said.

  “I see… all of you! I think…” She cried out again, pretending to fall so she could crawl away from the group. Thankfully, they were too confused— and too dense— to stop her.

  “She’s lying,” the human man said.

  “No, wait! Maybe she actually does see something. She can get us out of the debt.”

  “I’m not falling for that again.”

  “It looks pretty real to me.”

  “What do you know?”

  As the group began to argue, Dalirena crawled away fast enough to spring to her feet and bolt to the street with all her might. The group noticed her departure almost instantly and ran after her. Dalirena turned down the sidepath, looking for a SECURE help button to press. She needed to be far enough away from the alley so it wouldn’t implicate her in the crime.

  As the group was starting to gain on her, she reached out and slammed a button just as she got to a travel tube. The group yelled out and ran the other way as SECURE drones activated and scanned the area. Dalirena watched the street zoom away as she zipped to the other side of town, far away from home, in case the group would read the last destination on the travel tube.

  She stepped out of the machine and collapsed from exhaustion. That was way too close. She couldn’t use that location for her communications anymore. She’d have to find some other way to contact Lisa. If she had another vision about her and her students, especially the Medley girl, that would be confirmation that something very wrong was yet to come.