The Mantis Corruption - Book Three - 20. Chapter 20 - Found Family

“Olona!” Tisa cried with delight, as she opened the front door to the shop and headed up the stairs to their living quarters. “I met this great group of people!”

“What, really?” Olona replied. “That’s wonderful! I’m so happy that you’ve found some folks to call friends!”

“Will you come meet them?” Tisa asked with a beaming smile.

“Oh, I don’t need to be friends with your new friends,” Olona replied.

Tisa’s expression dropped. “Why don’t you want to meet the people I’ve met? Making friends has been so hard for me. I could really use your support.”

“I do support you, Tisa,” Olona said with a smile, “but I’ve got lots of friends, and I don’t want to interfere with your life.”

“But you’re a major part of my life,” Tisa retorted. “We live together. What if I have them over here someday? Will they just be perfect strangers to you?”

“No,” Olona said with a chuckle, “they’ll be your friends, and I will look forward to meeting them then.”

“Why are you being like this?”

Olona paused. “I’m not being like anything,” she said. “I just don’t need more friends.”

“How can you say that? Everyone needs friends!”

Olona put her hands up in a gesture of surrender. “Tisa, I don’t even know what we’re arguing about. I want you to make friends, and I know it’s been difficult, so I’m happy that you’ve…”

“I just want you to meet them,” Tisa pouted, “because I know they’ll love you.”

“I love when you act like you’re the bratty 19 year old,” Olona teased.

Tisa scoffed. “I’m not bratty!”

“No,” Olona laughed, “I was saying that I’m bratty, and you’re being like me, even though you’re over 30.”

“Why won’t you meet them?” Tisa whined.

“Okay, okay, I’ll meet them,” Olona agreed. “I wasn’t trying to be difficult,” she added under her breath. “Will you tell me a little about them?”

“Several are Bio-Shifts.”

Olona perked up at the mention of the rarely-seen but incredible individuals who made up the small percentage of the population that were Biological Shifts. Since the underground became unlivable more than a year earlier, many of them now dwelt in Gate Town, and particularly Shifton, and Olona enjoyed their uniqueness.

“You made friends with a bunch of Bio-Shifts?” Olona asked in excitement. “How did that happen? Where did you meet them?”

Tisa furrowed her brow. “I’m not sure exactly how it all happened. I was here earlier, and…” she hesitated, “I think he was a Bio-Shift, but he looked like a big machine. The others called him Tualu. While I was here, he appeared.”

“Appeared?”

“Yeah,” Tisa confirmed, “out of thin air. There was a hand-shaped symbol on him, and I touched it. I can’t explain it, but there was something comforting about his presence, like I trusted him.” Tisa smiled. “I think he teleported us, because suddenly I was in an underground chamber, and there were a bunch of Bio-Shifts!”

Olona looked amazed. “You should have opened with that,” she teased in a tone of pseudo-sarcasm. “Hey, Olona,” Olona said in a dramatic impression of Tisa’s voice, “I met a bunch of Bio-Shifts today.”

Tisa snorted a laugh and slapped at Olona. “Shut your face! I don’t sound like that!” she laughed. “Anyway, they told me about their team, and I told them about when I got attacked last year.”

“Their team? Tell me about that,” Olona asked.

“They didn’t tell me much. I know that they’ve hunted some Messiahs, and they were somehow involved with the battle of Gate Town a few months ago,” Tisa explained. “They wanted to discuss things amongst themselves before they told me anything more.”

“Do you think they want you to join them?”

“They seemed to think Tualu wanted me to be part of the team, which is why he teleported me to them, but he can’t speak, so they wanted to talk about it.”

Olona was enthralled. “Wow,” she said.

“Lahari, that’s the name of the one who seems to be in charge. She’s got blue skin and these black spines all over her.” Tisa’s eyes were sparkling. “There was a woman whose skin moved with pretty patterns, kind of like what an oil slick on water looks like. Another woman, who I think had feathers all over her, she didn’t talk much. They told me there were a few others from their group who weren’t there.”

“How many?” asked Olona.

“They didn’t say. When we all left, Lahari took me to her house where she lives with her dads. There was a whole bunch of people there, like a party or something. That’s where I met everyone. Oh,” Tisa paused, “and one of them attacked me, another Shift girl. She’s probably close to your age.”

“Wait, wait, wait,” Olona interrupted, “one of them attacked you?!”

Tisa shrugged. “Apparently she thought I was someone from her past.” She then looked like she forgot something. “Oh, and she and another girl are from Xin!”

“What?” Olona asked in surprise. “You met someone else from Xin?”

“Two people!”

“And one of them attacked you?”

“Yes,” Tisa confirmed, “she can create knives out of light, but my shadows were able to protect me. It was intense for a minute. Then the other girl from Xin, who is also a Shift, she used her power and something happened.” Tisa furrowed her brow. “It was like all three of our powers negated and canceled each other out. It was really weird.”

Olona looked curious.

Tisa continued and told Olona about the others in the group, although in the moment, she realized that she could not remember most of their names. She did her best to describe each person.

“Now will you come meet them?” Tisa eventually asked.

“Of course,” Olona replied with an apologetic smile, “I’d love to meet them.”✪