Tsubasa drove down the deserted highway, listening to Coldplay and Imagine Dragons. It had taken him some time to get to the compound: he took a Greyhound bus to the city that felt the closest, before renting a car and heading in the direction that just felt right. It was a little weird, trying to trust his own internal GPS, but weirder things had happened.
He glanced in the rearview mirror at the paper bags in the backseat. He’d filled them with a ton of $1 Burpee seed packets, with as many different types of seeds that he could find. After all, it was a lot easier for him to encourage seeds to grow rather than summon up plants from nothing, although for some reason wherever he went, flowers that reflected his mood seemed to pop up from every place they could--cracks in the sidewalk, flower pots, planter boxes. It never seemed to drain that much energy from him, and trying to wither them was far more exhausting, so he decided to let them grow.
There was a curious thing that happened, though. When he had gone into areas where it would be impossible for any sort of plants to grow, he felt really really sick for some reason, so he’d taken to carrying around either a reusable Starbucks cup full of soil, or some sort of container with earth inside. No matter what quality of soil he put in, the flowers grew anyway. As long as he was carrying those around, he felt fine.
Telling his mom about this entire ‘avatar’ thing had been...interesting. It took several tries and 16 plants before she finally believed him. It was pretty difficult to leave her behind, but in case of this was a trap or something, she was staying behind in the apartment. Besides, she had plenty of friends in the apartment complex, so he wasn’t worried about her.
Too worried, anyway. He’d always worry about his mom, since she was pretty scatterbrained, but at least she was back home and not pulling up to a compound based on a supposedly-telepathic message.
He parked the car and grabbed the paper bag and the duffle bag, slinging his backpack on his shoulder, with the dirt thermos in the mesh cup holder. Out of habit, he locked the car, although he supposed that no one was really around to steal it, and anyone who was here probably wouldn’t be deterred by the rusty lock. There didn’t seem to be anyone around, although there was another car and a few motorbikes in front of the complex. He walked forward, Christmas roses blooming in the cracks of the highway. Probably a reflection of his nervousness.
One of the doors was unlocked, so he carefully opened it, looking both ways before entering and closing the door behind him. Picking a random direction, he kept walking. The compound didn’t seem abandoned, per say, just in a bad shape, like there had been a big fight, like the telepathic message had said.
"...ink I'm supposed to be here," a voice said nearby.
"...As you can tell, it's not a easy task," a voice answered. Tsubasa headed in that direction, and came upon what looked like a training area, with several people there already. Oh, good.
“Hello? I’m Tsubasa Kida. Nice to meet you all,” he said, smiling cheerfully at the gathered people.