Niji

 

My story starts on a crowded spaceship in what I used to call “the Christmas Santa didn’t come.” We had been traveling for at least two days now and we were conveniently going to arrive in the asteroid zone at midnight on Christmas Eve. The little kids on the space ship were all jolly over it and back then I was too. I was only nine years old then and had much less to worry about, unlike my parents who were constantly talking about this trip being the best decision and how it would bring us a new future away from the fragile and quickly breaking galactic alliance. So, well I can vaguely remember being seconds from midnight holding on to my mom and father's hands as we watched the holographic crew members count down the seconds till we entered one of the most dangerous zones in the universe. However, all I could imagine was me with my new telescope I had asked Santa for.

That didn’t happen. 

 

instead, I just remember the sound of the impact, the way bodies flew through the air as immediately an asteroid struck the main engine. Later on, they’d try to explain to me that there was a miscalculation on which point of the zone we were supposed to zap into. They’d try to tell me that all those deaths were just the fault of a human error. That by one inch I wouldn’t have to watch as my parents covered me and somehow in the horrible chaos managed to lodge me into an empty pet carrier. Wouldn’t have to watch the second explosion tearing them from me before I blacked out.

That was the beginning of my arrival to Niji. 

 

 

Time skip to a few months before my 11th birthday. They had found me about one year and a half before in a pile of rubble from the explosion. Somehow a miracle had happened and I had managed to drift into a roaming Niji tele satellite. They had originally presumed me dead and I honestly couldn’t blame them. A young girl found almost a week after the horrible accident, crammed into a dog carrier. I remember them questioning how I had managed without food, how my spine hadn’t been damaged more than it already had, how I had somehow woken up from a vegetable state…

Anyways, that wouldn’t be explained until much later and now I was a living human being adopted by a family in Niji. Not any family, but the family of the Purple Color Guard living in the beautiful palace. However, there was still a problem. Well if we want to be technical two. The first one had to do with my legs. Yes, the miracle had spared me from being paralyzed from the waist down, but that hadn’t stopped me from getting irreparable nerve damage on my legs. I was always to use crutches to get anywhere and if it was too long of a distance wheelchair. I now wish I had been more thankful for that miracle, but what was a girl supposed to do when all she could wish was her parents to be alive once more?
Meanwhile, the second problem was much more pressing and urgent at the time. I somehow hadn’t developed a colored aura yet. It might sound stupid to people from other planets, but back inNiji the situation was tense, a threat unknown to me then lurking nearby, and suspicions were flying high. All of the Colorkeepers trainees had come to check on me. They made me take the tests over and over again, trying to see if I could show any style or hint of an ability like the rest of the people in Niji. However, it was useless. 

 

 

Time skip to May, three months after my 11th birthday. War had broken out in Niji and I was forever stuck in the midsts of it. The Muda and their mysterious leader had taken over Hidari and Queen Juliette along with the King was dead. To make matters worst the Color Guard had decided to remain neutral in the fight and now me, my adoptive parents, and my adoptive older brother was hiding on an island off the coast of Hidari. My aura still didn’t show color and no power showed either, so I was forced by my parents to remain in the house. They couldn’t let others believe I was a Muda or I’d be executed. Nonetheless, someone was bound to found out and one did. A neighbor noticed me through a window and came to investigate. I finally felt my time had come, but unlike most, I didn’t fear it.

However, another miracle came to my rescue. A woman came that same day and said she’d personally test me to see my powers. She made me do all the normal stuff and at the end declared my Aura was just dormant and then she put a hand on my wrist and it happened.

I burst into flames and the woman disappeared along with the suspicious man. 

I was now a Dre.

 

 

When I turn 12,  the war is full on. The Colorkeeper, Mia, is getting old quickly and the Color Guard still doesn’t help, but things have changed. There is a new girl rumored to be living in the palace. Her name is Meca and they say her face is scarred beyond return, they say she is a living flame, they say she is the sunset and autumn in full glory, they say she is wicked and rotten on the inside, they say many many things, but I pay no heed to the comments except to one and only one.

She is the new Colorkeeper.

She is here to set us free again.

 

 

Not even a year passes when chaos strikes again. The girl, the legend, the Colorkeeper, is not Meca. She burns down the palace in her rage, in her endless pain she takes Mia down and she is on the run.

Not our liberator, but our doom.

However, I know the truth. My brother, Lucas, is helping her. He is the next Purple Guard and he has taken a side and so have I. I choose to stop hiding, to avoid being forgotten. So, I sneak out and follow him before the burning of the palace and observe. I see him, Mia, Meca, and an Unknown girl talking. They trust each other and for a second I trust them all too. 

Some people now say I was foolish that night, but I think the opposite.

That was the night I was truly wise. 

Then the mess occurs and Lucas has caught me in the act of spying a few nights before. He tells me to follow him till the end. That the girl, Meca, wasn’t guilty and that we had to help her find the true Colorkeeper fast. That they knew where to find her, but that they need me to stay quiet and help.

Help finally free Niji from the Muda.

So, I follow him. 

 

I remember the day before that year’s Christmas very clearly. I recall using my crutches to my advantage as I made my way through the crowd of new arrives. Somehow in the middle of war, those people had arrived that fateful day fine and dandy. So unlike my own family who had come for a new future not to enrich themselves from disaster.

However, I didn’t have time to dwell on that. 

I needed help. 

My brother, Meca, and Gillian needed help.
We had found Abhaya, Meca’s twin sister, but we needed an army. Not only that, but we needed to get to Earth somehow and get Abhaya here to reclaim her place as the Colorkeeper. Then we’d have to find the queen…but with the Colorkeeper at least we’d survive. 

That day I remember bumping into a man. He was unlike the other crows gathering in the port and he did help me when I fell to the floor, my crutches tumbling out of my reach. 

He had introduced himself as Admiral Sai and I hadn’t really paid much attention to the phrase Admiral until a uniformed boy, about Gillian’s age, comes over and starts telling Sai about the ship and the supplies they had to deliver to the palace to help them get an advantage over the Muda. How they only had few hours before they had to return to Earth. My eyes widened at that phrase and my mind whirls having found one last chance to save this planet. So, with my most convincing voice, I dropped my crutches, got down on the floor, and begged for help. I begged the man and the boy until a crowd of other uniformed teenagers had gathered around us confused and that's when I notice them all smiling at me. At first, I believed they were laughing at my despair, at my attempts of convincing the man to give me and my friends a ride. However, they weren’t making fun of me and the man agrees and leads me to the ship. I recall them helping me get the message to Meca who comes with the gang and then the group give us supplies and food, which I devoured faster than I thought possible. 

Lucas asks the team how they’re called and we immediately get the answer,

“Infinity Knights.”

 

Now let us go to the present. I am going to be 15 in a few months and I am now part of the Infinity Knights. Shortly after we won the war I got tired of being stuck in the palace third wheeling Meca and Gillian and Lucas and Abaya, so I contacted the old crew that had helped us a few years back. They offered me a position on the ship and at first, I had been unsure since I didn’t want to leave my friends behind, but they encouraged me to take the opportunity so I happily did. There were various delays in between me officially joining, like Meca’s coronation as Queen and the two weddings and then the new choosing of the Color Guard, but then I finally joined the crew feeling like I would finally be free. Now people all over planets ask me if I actually did get my happy ending and now I answer them this:

“That Christmas, when I was 12, I finally got my gift.”