Jacob rushed into the shadows, ignoring the cries of his fellow teammates. His only thought was to find the one who had attacked him, and make him pay for what he had done.
Tet’s mocking laughter echoed through the desolate cave, making it sound like the very earth was mocking him. Some might have found the sound unnerving, but Jacob only became incensed. Finding Tet and killing him was the only thing that mattered to him now. He came to a junction, where two tunnels began, leading their separate ways into the darkness.
Tet’s laughter ceased. "Which way, which way?" he taunted haughtily. "Oh, how could a simple human being guess right in this darkness?"
Jacob merely knelt to the ground, putting his finger to the earth. Summoning what strength he had left, he poured his energy into the rocks, sensing what had just passed over the ground. Almost immediately, he felt the ground shake, and the tunnel to his right began to illuminate a soft, silvery glow.
Jacob grinned, rising to his feet. He could see the footsteps Tet had left on the rocks, the very earth betrayed him. Charging forward, he soon found himself in a cavern, surrounded by heaps of boxes filled with weaponry.
"You were planning a war, weren’t you?" Jacob demanded, his youthful voice ringing through the cavern.
"Perhaps one or two," Tet replied jaggedly, content to remain hidden from sight. "I’m more interested in how you found me. Was it you who created that light?"
"I don’t create, I merely use the heat of the earth," Jacob responded.
"Ah, so you’re not a human being," Tet commented wisely.
Jacob felt his temper flare. "How DARE you!" He raged. "I’m just as human as-"
"As human as what?" Tet interrupted sharply. "As human as I am? But you know full well I’m not really human at all, and I never have been...Just like you."
Jacob tensed himself, preparing to counter whatever attack was about to be thrown at him, waiting for Tet to strike at him, and break his will...
"Oh, I’m not going to control you," Tet guessed shrewdly, "I have more respect for you than that now. If you were just human, however, you wouldn’t be able to know the difference."
"So is that your secret, then?" Jacob asked, scanning the room. "You do have a power, you can twist the minds of others."
"So much power, yet so foolish," Tet laugh harshly. "Simple fool, you may not be human, but you know so little of your own kind."
"Enough riddle-talk, and just answer me, Tet," Jacob said, almost weary.
"I can only place a hold on a human mind," Tet answered. "One like you, is impossible. After all, who can control someone with your kind of power? It used to be I could only place a hold on one mind at a time, but my power grew, and soon I found I could muster an army, under my direct control."
"So you took it out on the rest of your nation," Jacob murmured in the darkness, "why did you only choose some of them? If you’re as powerful as you claim, then why slaughter thousands of your own country?"
"You know how you power works, don’t you?" Tet barked. "I know full well that even my power has a limit, that sometimes direct control is necessary. It’s always best to have a direct link, the power can fade if I don’t replenish my hold on each subject in person."
"So all those crowds that gather around you, you force them to come and then...increase your grip?" Jacob guessed.
"I grip so tightly I break their minds to mine," Tet whispered darkly. "I am this country’s master, and none can stand against me...save for a few."
"A few like me," Jacob guessed aggressively.
"I did not say you could defeat me, only stand against me," Tet reminded him. "Just because you have a strength no others have doesn’t mean I can’t crush you like a bug underneath my heel."
"Good luck with that," Jacob spat, tightening his fist. An ominous rumbling began to shake the cavern, small rocks beginning to rain from the ceiling like hailstones. The ground gave a painful groan and started to surge upwards, heading slowly for the ceiling.
Tet gave a maniacal laugh, his voice brimming with a horrific delight. "You know you can’t complete the task," he gasped. "You don’t really want to kill me, you never did."
The rumbling stopped, and the cavern was again silent, save for a few pebbles striking the stone floor. "How did you- what do you mean?" Jacob stammered.
Tet gave a gleeful bark. "Oh, did I forget to mention it? I guess I did. Just so you know, I can do more than control the minds of hundreds, I can read their thoughts, sense their deepest emotions. So what was it like to have to watch her go?"
The floor fell so fast it almost seemed to have deflated. If anyone had been able to see through the pitch darkness, they would have seen Jacob go stark white with horror, the memory searing through his subconscious. "What did you do to me?" he snarled.
"I only wanted to know what happened to you, to come to know you," Tet replied. "You, a child abandoned by your parents, raised by a foster family who neglected you, taken to a school where you were mocked day after day, forsaken by all. Did you ever stop and wonder why?"
"I was not forsaken," Jacob protested, yet fear struck him like a bolt of lightning. He couldn’t stop him...
Tet merely laughed. "Save it, I know what their actions revealed," he spat. "Didn’t you ever wonder why your foster parents mistreated you? Didn’t you wonder why your fellow students stayed away from you?
Why she didn’t choose you?"
"Eva and Tony-" Jacob blustered.
"They have had children before, and you know full well their eldest son isn’t truly their child. You know Caleb was once one of their foster children, and they adopted him! Why are they going to send you back to foster care? Well?"
Jacob couldn’t stop it; that awful September night broke through his concentration, wiping the present from his vision. He could hear Eva saying "We don’t really want him, do we? There’s just something wrong with him...I don’t like the thought of him in the house, especially when he’s alone with Caleb."
"She was talking about Tony, they’re getting a divorce-" Jacob stormed, but the creeping sense of terror was growing.
But Tet seemed to be able to sense his advantage and pressed harder. "What about the students -you go to Ballard High School, don’t you?- who taunt you? From the moment they met you, they feared you. You didn’t have your power then, you were just a teenager, trying to belong in a world that rejected you without hesitation. Didn’t you stop and ask yourself why?"
"I had friends-"
"Wrong, you never had friends," Tet said, his words piercing Jacob’s heart like an iron spear. "Don’t you remember when you overheard Sean talking to Jeremy outside the locker room after your homecoming game? Yes, I know that memory, I see it as clearly as I see you now. Tell me, just what did he say?"
Jacob could hear that deep voice muttering through the seemingly desolate halls, and he heard Sean derisively say, "I can’t freakin’ wait for college, just to get him away from me. Thank God he’s so stupid, he’ll never be able to enter medical school-"
"And what about Hannah?" Tet purred, perhaps sensing the turmoil in Jacob. "Three days before she started dating- wait, who was it now?"
"She started dating Jeremy Comb, the school football star, most popular guy in Ballard..." Jacob shook, his breath coming in ragged, furious gulps.
"And what else?" Tet urged viciously.
"And my enemy," Jacob added. "Every day he taunts me, mocks me, humiliates me in front of everyone. Always acting the good guy, making me look like an evil little-"
"And who started dating him?" Tet savaged, his voice braced with unconcealed excitement. "Who, despite having been your friend well before she met him, despite all the times you tried to tell her how you felt, ignored you...and chose him?"
"Hannah did," Jacob wheezed, pain and fury constricting his throat, bringing his hands to his head, tearing at his skull, desperately trying to ride himself of the raging storm within him.
"All your life you’ve been alone, as if separated by a veil," Tet counseled. "When you cried, no one came to your side, when you were hurt, no one tried to mend you, when you were under attack, no one came to your defense. And you’ve had to live with that for seventeen years, and NOT ONCE did anyone ever think you were worth a thing!-"
"I wasn’t alone-" Jacob protested feebly.
"Liar!" Tet stormed, his voice rising. "You’re pathetic, so scared to face yourself you can’t face that everyone in this world was out to break you from the moment you started breathing-"
"She loved me-" Jacob said, a sob catching in his throat.
"LIAR!" Tet roared, his voice so full of fury, so loud it seemed that the very earth itself was screaming in rage at him. "She NEVER loved you, no one has EVER loved you! Who could love you, why should they? After all, who can love a mutant? Who can love a freak...a freak like you?"
As Jacob fell to the ground, writhing in agony, he felt something break inside him, something snapped within, and it seemed as if a furious flood had welled and was rushing inside his tattered heart. A pulsing sound began behind his right ear, and his vision began to glow like gleaming silver, like the elements of the earth he could control.
"Those people out there, those people who claim to be on your side?" Tet said, and Jacob could envision him pointing at the tunnel exit. "They call you extraordinary, they say you have something wonderful, they call you a hero, but you know better, just like I do. They don’t think you’re a hero, they think you’re a mutant, they don’t think you’re really human."
Jacob rose to his feet in silence, eyes closed and quiet as the grave. He seemed to be listening intently.
"All this world will hate you, just because you walk this earth," Tet whispered. "Yet they also fear you; they have seen your power, and they know you can destroy them. They have no reason to hate them, but you do. After all the taunting, all the pain and hurt they dealt you, isn’t it time for a little revenge?"
Jacob didn’t reply and stood stock-still in the cavern, seemingly ignoring Tet, but the earth said otherwise. All around them, the walls began to glow with a silver light, as the fury within Jacob streamed into his surroundings.
"So how about it, Jacob?" Tet asked. "You know the truth: this world doesn’t deserve a hero, it only deserves destruction, to burn and be as shattered as your heart is. If you want, I can help you. Join me, and I will help you make this world pain ten times over for what it did to you!"
Jacob opened his eyes and turned to the tunnel entrance, Tet standing in the entryway. His sallow skin was flushed with excitement, his beady eyes alight with energy, his thin mouth tense. then he smiled.
Jacob’s eyes were glowing silver, and his hands were balled into fists. The cavern behind him was shuddering, as pieces rose up from the floor, floating several inches off the floor. The cavern gleamed brightly, bathing Jacob’s dark black and gray clothes in the eerie glow.
"You have powers that make the earth shake, young American," Tet whispered. "You have journeyed for many years to realize your true self, master of silver. No more shall you be known by your common, human name. From hence forth, you shall be known as... Silver Journey, Lord of the riches in the Earth."
Jacob remained silent, but a venomous smile carved his lips, and his eyes, still glowing brightly, began to burn a deep red, as if behind them a flame had been kindled, a flame that would soon turn into a raging fire.
