Tenecrils Eighth

Looking every bit evil as she looked, she slowly walked towards me, an evil smile playing on her lips. When she lifts her hands up to me, I’m expecting pain, but instead of pain, I’m shocked by energy, instantly revitalising me and allowing me to think more clearly. Thinking of my hands burning, I feel the ropes burn away into nothing, and before anyone can react, I blast a fireball up to the disgusting woman who bursts into ashes.

 I’m about to take on Morgyew himself when a small beam of light gets bigger and explodes in front of the field, both me and Morgyew are knocked to the ground by its power. Morgyew recovers first and yells commands to his army, but the air is filled with deafening, ear splitting and agonising screams. 

I thrash about as someone grabs me and pulls me somewhere.

In the distance I hear someone scream “NOOO, stop them!”

I see Morgyew materialize a rust old sword, but when I squint at the rust, I realise with a deep shock hat its not rust, but dried up blood. He lifts his hand and throws it at me at lightning speed, I wait for the impact, wait for the split second where my heart stops and I fall to the ground.

But the world shifts and I’m lying in the middle of the castle living room. With a heap of blood stained warriors slumped on random pieces of furniture around me.

It takes them a split second to recover, but when they do, I’m surrounded by fussing teenagers.

“Are you alright?”

“She looks hurt”

“Get Miss Maskeráde”

“Where Xander, or Ruby?”

“Where’s Emerald?”

I sit up slowly, actually, my warriors sit me up, and I manipulate the air around me to create a glass of water. When I’m completely satisfied, I ask them where everyone is. A panicking voice across the room answers the question for me.

“Guys, quick, Miss Maskeráde looks bad, one of those disgusting demons slashed her.” Esther is hovering over Miss  Maskeráde’s profusely bleeding body, hands red and looking hopelessly unsure.

I hurried over to where Miss Maskeráde was, I hadn’t yet experienced any kind of serious injury, nor had I bore witness to it. Ruby put her hands around Miss Maskeráde’s heads and focused as an almost pure white glow surround Miss Maskeráde’s head, then she shook her head, frustrated and angry.

“I’m not strong enough, the teleport drained a lot of my energy, she’s slipping away” she spoke, her voice rising a few pitches with each word.

Xander pushed through the group from nowhere, he gave me a quick check up before taking his place next to Ruby, Emerald started to touch everyones shoulder, but when she touched me she got zapped.

“OW! What the-“

“Emerald no time- get over here NOW” Xander scolded.

Together, the three focused combined powers but they still couldn’t make her pull through, feeling nervous, and desperately hoping that my plan would work, I started walking to Miss Maskeráde and the trio trying to heal her. 

All three of them looked up, and they looked sorry.

“You can’t, you’re weak enough as it is” Emerald whispers.

“If our combined powers don’t work, then it obvious that the gods and Tenecril want her back” Ruby says.

“Don’t worry about her Priya, we’ll save her” Xander murmurs. But I can see the doubt in his eyes, the uncertainty.

And before any of them can stop me, I bring my hand down to their glowing combined aura around Miss Maskeráde, although I feel all of my energy and power drain my body, I can feel the aura of blue and green swirl and intensify around Miss Maskeráde’s still body, in a few minutes, close to absolute exhaustion, I hear her cough, and Seth tries to pull me away from the little healing group.

I try to protest but he insists in his low voice “You’ve done enough Priya, you saved her, just like you wanted to, now, let your body save yourself” and he carried me and laid me in the beautiful room I had found myself in earlier. Where I swiftly fall into a deep and uninterrupted sleep.

My eyelids are heavy as I slowly open my eyes, it takes a while for my eyes to adjust to the room, but when I see clearly I stretch my seriously stiff body, cringing when I hear various cracks. I try to get my body to stand, but fail miserably. When an arm reaches to support my body I almost fly 50ft into the air from shock.

A voice chuckles, “Calm down, its only me.” The voice belongs to Logan, and it sounds tired and weary.

Concerned I look at him, the unmistakable signs of sleep deprivation are spread all over his face.

“Please don’t tell me you stayed here watching me” I whined.

“yeah, Xander and Seth thought it’d piss you off, that’s why they rostered me for when you were predicted to wake up” he scowls.

“Yeah well,” I started, pissed with the fact people had been watching me sleep, which was embarrassing and that the gang wasn’t looking after themselves. “They’re gonna see just how much better I am when I tell them off for rostering you lot to watch me sleep”

“Hey” he reasons “At least it was entertaining”

My mouth opens in embarrassment but I’m still weak and I’m too tired to say something to defend my cause. “how long was I out?”

“About three days” he pauses and looks at me again “Though you don’t look as well as we were hoping you’d be”

“meh, it’s a living” when I see his puzzled l manage to laugh, somewhat. “I AM  17, I had no life back home, I was always doing some sort of assignment, or studying for some sort of test and arguing with mum and dad for some sort of free time…” my voice trails off.

“I always found time to just sit outside in the sun though, it really relaxed me, kind of, I dunno, it like, charged me up”.

Then an idea struck.

“Open the curtains Logan”

He nodded, letting one hand continue to support my waist whilst he pointed the other to the far end of the room. Instantly, a green energy slithered out of his fingers and made their way to the curtain, in one swift movement, he swiped his hand and the curtain responded.

Warm, inviting and healing sun poured into the room, lighting it up, though it wasn’t instantaneous, I felt my body revive a bit.

“Take me outside, to the balcony”

We trudged our way over and once I opened the door, a massive amount of sizzling energy entered my body, buzzing its way up and down my spine, rushing to aid my immune system heal me, relishing the feeling I waited until my body stopped absorbing the suns energy.

I felt powerful, awake and not the least bit weak or sleepy. When I opened my eyes, Logan was staring at me, curiosity and uncertainty flashing though his eyes.

“You can let go of me, I’m fine now, seriously” I laugh.

He lets his hands slip, and relief washes over his face, I pretend not to be offended by that.

“You don’t look to good” I point out.

“State the obvious much? His snarky voice replies, “Nothing lots of sleep won’t heal” he finally sighs.

“Why don’t I see if I can somehow, conduct the suns energy to you? Like what Emerald can do?” I ask.

“Emerald can’t conduct an objects natural energy but, give it your best shot” he says, bowing his head and closing his eyes.

I’m suddenly aware that I have NO IDEA of how exactly I should be doing this, resorting to what people did in the movies, I tentatively take his hand.

“You have to put your hand over my heart to conduct the energy more efficiently, that’s where all the blood eventually goes” he says, leading my hand under his shirt and on his chest, I can feel the strong beating of his heart.

Well, this isn’t awkward or anything is the only thing that goes through my mind as I try and focus, imagine the suns powerful energy coursing through me and then entering and strengthening Logans body through my hand. Its silent for a few heartbeats, then Logan gasps and stiffens, I open my eyes but don’t move my hand, his heart beats faster and when its mad beating finally slows down, I remove my hand.

His eyes are still closed, and feeling confused on whether or not now was the time to speak I whisper “How do you feel”

We were pretty close to each other and I could hear his breath slowing down, as his eyes slowly opened, I saw his signature green energy colour flicker in his eyes before vanishing.

A smile spreads across his face, “Me? I’m feeling AWESOME!” and we both burst into laughter, but for different reasons, mine is relief, his is happiness. When we both settle down his eyes widen as recognition washes over his face.

“Wow, you’re really powerful, none of the leading warriors have ever been able to have so many abilities at once.” His eyes look at me respectively and I flush. He suddenly brightens up “Heyyyy! You can totally give everyone an energy hit too! I mean, the sun isn’t going anywhere so you can charge up at any time too!” he smiles, and before I can stop him, he bounds out of the room in superspeed and tells everyone of my newly found healing power.

An hour has passed and I have so far given everyone a charge except Seth and Xander who are both doing separate solo missions. Surprisingly, I didn’t once need to recharge myself. I was standing proudly through the whole thing, luckily for the girls, my first idea was right, I just had to hold their hands, palms together. The guys were cheeky, but I knew that they’d never betray their ass kicking warrior girlfriends so I played along with their stupid games.

When my door is knocked on, I automatically call “Come in”

When Seth and Xander both cruise in, looking tired with wild untamed hair, cargos and a t-shirt with casual shoes, I’m kinda hypnotised at the sight of them. They’re both so unbelievably… good looking, I was saying hot too often for these guys.

When they realise me gawking at them they both shift uncomfortably and share nervous glances.

Finally Seth jokes “Are we really that bad?” making me snap out of it, I furiously shake my head.

“No, actually, you’re both looking pretty ho-…hamazing?” I try, wanting to slap myself for almost speaking my mind. Which I have nothing against, until you blab to two guys that really hardly know you, in this life anyway, that you think they’re hot, gorgeous, smokin’… shut up brain!

They both just share a confused, amused then unbothered glance before looking at me again.

“errr, do you know why you’re here?” I ask, hoping they’d say yes so that I wouldn’t have to explain the whole embarrassing concept.

“Yeah, Logan filled us in when we came in” Xander replies, his coffee skin turns a little red and he looks away. Making me blush as well.

The uncomfortable atmosphere was getting heavier and heavier, it looks like it’s up to me to get this over with.

“So, who’s going first??” I look between the two, meeting their eyes and getting a glimpse of their thoughts, awkwarrdd I let my eyes drop to the floor and try and shake the embarrassing thoughts out of my head, I have got to figure out a way to stop looking at people’s thoughts accidentally.

Sensing my uneasiness Seth steps forward and looks at Xander, who gives him a nod.

“Looks like you’ll be helping me out first” he grins, and the atmosphere lifts, instead, happiness and relaxation is floating around.

“Okay great!” then my eye shifts to the bedroom balcony, and Xander sitting inside, watching how I’m healing him. I try not let my cheeks go warm as I lead Seth outside, he instantly shields his eyes.

“Woah” he whispers, “I haven’t been in sun this strong in…ages” he finishes.

“Well, get used to it, because I’m going to be fixing all of you up with the help of the sun” I say, stepping away and facing the sun, closing my eyes as I soak it in. when I’m ready I turn and face his inquisitive expression.

“You could say that the sun is my best friend in a way, all the time, even in my life as a normal girl back home, I would sit outside and let myself soak up its warmth.” I shrug, trying to brace myself for the cruel laughter and remarks.

I’m met instead by blue green understanding eyes that try to look up at the sun.

“Don’t even bother” I laugh, Seth joins in a few seconds later.

From inside we can hear Xander clear his throat loudly.

“Kay, just relax” I say, feeling him settle, it took all of ten minutes, and when I was finished, he was practically jumping up and down, trying to get rid of excess energy.

“wow, thanks!” then, from down below, Logan whistled. Narrowing his eyes at Logan and making a…gesture, he turns to face me again.

“I have a bit of unfinished business to get to,” glancing quickly at Logan “So I’ll see you later gorgeous” he leans down and gives me a quick kiss on the cheek before jumping off the balcony and landing softly on his feet, then chasing and tackling Logan. Their fight takes them out of my sight and I stand there, replaying the probably friendly kiss and compliment over and over in my head. Then I remember Xander and quickly bring my shaky voice to call out his name

“Your turn Mr.Macho!” he walks out, slowly and a little surprised not to find Seth.

“He went to have a friendly fight with Logan after he got cheesy about me healing him, typical Logan” I answer his silent question.

“Yeah” was his only reply.

“Alright,” I whisper, getting back into the necessary serene mood I needed in order to pull this off, I let my mind clear, and as that happened, my hand searched for Xander’s heartbeat.

 When I found it, it instantly quickened, beating away endlessly, even though I hadn’t started the energy transition. Ignoring some petty thoughts from my mind, I focused on the suns energy coursing through me, through my hand, and into the body, healing his internal injuries, emotional and physical, when his heartbeat returned at a somewhat normal pace, I started withdrawing my hand, but he put his hand on top of mine and kept me there.

“Don’t go” he whispers through closed eyes, “Just stay here, with me, a little longer” feeling obliged to do as he says, I stand there, my hand over his heart, until he opens his eyes and just stares at me, an unrecognisable expression blanketing his face.

“You look so beautiful when you’re not on the brink of death” he chuckles softly, sweeping a strand of hair out of my face. I’m hypnotised by his face, his touch leaving an electric sizzle that makes something in me feel a little weak. My hand starts to stroke his bare skin, and he closes his eyes, savouring the moment. When he starts leaning in, I don’t resist or pull away and when the sun finally sets over the horizon our lips meet in a gentle kiss.

Until it grows to something more, he pushes me into the door and eagerly ties his tongue with mine. I’m getting breathless and my common sense is slipping. When I gasp for breath he starts moving down, and that’s when I return to reality.

I push him away, with super strength, and it sends him flying over the edge. Worried that I might have hurt him again I jump and land to where he’s slowly sitting up and dusting himself off. We’re both silent for a while until he gruffly speaks

“Sorry, I didn’t know I was...going too fast for you” his voice softens with every word.

Feeling guilty I sit down beside him “It wasn’t your fault, I haven’t been with anyone since…” my words fade away

“I know, you don’t have to tell me” he whispers begrudgingly.

We don’t say anything for the rest of the night, and watch the millions of stars overhead twinkle away. When he suddenly stands up, I look at him with confusion as he pats his pockets searching for something. When he finally finds it he digs deep and pulls out the beautiful T.E pendant that I returned to him after the showdown in the classroom.

A wide smile spreads across his face as he holds it up, allowing the letters to catch the moonlight and glow “I haven’t been able to give this back to you cause it’s been hectic around here but… I believe this belongs to you?” he says in a gentleman’s voice.

I blink confused “Isn’t that yours?”

“Nope, I got my own right here” he fishes out his own, except his isn’t red and gold like the one that’s supposedly mine. His is black gold with dark blur gems encrusted on the golden parts. And his has two swords crossing over each other behind the letters T.F which must mean Tenecrils Fifth.

“May I?” he asks kneeling down behind me with the clasp ready.

I nod and shift my wavy black hair away from my neck. I feel the lock clasp and him move away, when I look at him, a satisfied look crosses his face.

“Beautiful necklace for a beautiful girl” he concludes. He looks back the castle, “I reckon we should head back, the gang’ll start eating dinner soon.” He pauses, “and I think we should go in at slightly different times, you know” he says uneasily.

I’m too mortified to say anything so I simply nod in agreement.

“You should go in first, they know I have a habit of coming in last.” He looks at the castle.

I bring myself to my feet and square my shoulders, then I manipulate a hair tie into existence and bring my hair into a messy ponytail, at that moment I make my way into the castle, hearing their excited  ‘shushes and shut up’s and act normal’.

When I walk in they look as casual as ever, too casual.

“No, I wasn’t with Xander guys, he had a lead to check up on” I smile at their disappointed groans “hows Suzanne?” I ask, not hearing anything on her wellbeing for the whole day.

“Shes on the slowest road to recovery” Emerald sighs.

“It’ll be a while before she’s well enough to fight again” Ruby adds.

“Hey! I’m not that bad, I can still run the school, which, if I may say so myself, is an achievement in itself!” Suzanne walks out, with a sling on her arm and a disturbingly red bandage that wraps around her shoulder before going deeper underneath her clothes. “I’ve been better Priya, really, in fact, if it weren’t for you, I’d probably worse than I am right now” she hushes, noticing my crestfallen and guilty looks.

“You shouldn’t have jumped in front of me” I whisper, bowing my head down and untying my hair so that my tears aren’t seen. “It wouldn’t have made a difference, I’m not ready for this, I’m so scared that I’ll fail you all again.”

A sad silence fills the room and its at that moment that Xander decides to walk in, making all eyes look at him, including mine, I try to channel my thoughts to him

I told them you were checking out a lead, he meets my eyes and understanding flashes through.

“Where were you??” Esther demands.

“Checking out a lead on something. Turns out it was a dead end” he replies, then looks at me, his eyes seeking the necklace, “Nice necklace” he smiles.

“Thanks” I smile back, enjoying the secretive feeling; I take note to shield my thoughts, laughing when Dustin whines unhappily “No fair! Why can’t I be let in on your dirty little secret??!!”

Xander opens his mouth to reply but I beat him to it.

“You’re not welcome in there without my permission” Which shuts him up and makes him understand.

TAKE THAT! I tell him telepathically.