After Aiven and Citali informed me of their plan and left, I laid back down on the floor, staring at the ceiling, casually listening to their conversation as they got farther and farther away from where I was. Soon, I would lose the connections with words, but the emotions and feelings would still be there.

Currently, all I heard were grunts and pants, occasionally a thought of 'I have noodle arms. Freaking noodles.' Okay...

Then I realized they hadn't taken anything with them to bring the water back from the river. Hahaha their whole adventure would be for nothing. I almost felt bad for them. Key word: almost. Laughing to myself, I casually rolled onto my stomach and pushed off the ground, standing up.

Making sure to keep an eye (or an ear) on Aiven and Citali in case either of them slipped, I quietly tiptoed around the cave. If people were asleep, I could read their minds with ease. Time for me to get some answers. Surveying the room, I decided who to read first.

Torren was an open book, no need to read his mind. Frankly, I was too scared to read Zenos again in case he woke up. That left Kalani, Vaia, and Serein. Deciding quickly, I moved towards Serein, curious to know what her powers were.

I sat down a couple feet away from her. Sleeping people are so easy to read I could do it without even having to touch them. Carefully, I slipped into Serein's mind. Most of what took up her thoughts right now were her dream.

Concentrating, I closed my eyes and let the image come. Suddenly, I was overwhelmed with fear that was not my own. Standing in front of me was Serein, facing what looked to be chaos.

People were screaming, running around and covering their faces. Some of them seemed to have gone completely mad, scratching at others and giving strangled screams. Stepping forward, I faced Serein. She couldn't see me, thankfully, and her face was screwed up in concentration.

Suddenly I realized something. Serein was completely unaffected by the chaos, just standing there calmly and taking it all in. Was she doing this? Her power was fear? Or something much worse? I stepped forward, about to intervene and was stopped suddenly.

The place began to shake violently, and began to fall apart. Serein was waking up. I tore myself from her mind and flung myself away from her, afraid she would go berserk and attack everyone. But that's not what happened.

She shot up, eyes wide and tears streaming down her face, giving a strangled scream. This immediately woke everyone, and they shot to their knees and feet. Kalani immediately saw Serein crying and sank to the floor next to her, giving her a comforting hug.

Serein turned to everyone and whispered "I'm fine, you can go back to sleep." Vaia responded "You are obviously not fine and I will not go back to sleep. What happened?" Serein whimpered and said louder, "It was just a nightmare, I swear I'm fine."

Vaia eyed her and then offered Serein her hand. She took it, and Vaia helped her up, then surprised everyone by embracing Serein. "I have had my fair share of nightmares too, if you ever need to we can talk." Vaia told her softly.

Serein nodded her head. "Thank you." Zeno interrupted the moment and said "Where are Citali and Aiven?" Oh shoot. I completely forgot about them. I did a mental sweep of our surroundings, but there was no sign of them.

Running to the mouth of the cave, I spotted them down at the river. At the same moment Citali was shot in the leg and fell into the river. I turned back to the others frantically. "In trouble!" They rushed to the mouth of the cave to see what I was looking at and Zeno turned even paler, if that was possible.

Serein and Kalani said in unison "We have to help!" Torren looked surprised, saying "You can talk!?" "Not now Torren," Vaia snapped. She turned to Zeno. "How do we get down there?"

The next thing I know, I'm standing in the shadow of a giant boulder. Zenos doing. He was already running towards Aiven, followed by everyone else. I stopped Kalani and said "We have to get Citali out of the river." She nodded and we both sprinted to its edge.

She dove in, but was immediately shot up into the air on a column of water. Scanning the deep river quickly, she located Citali and raised her arms, and the water surrounding Citali responded, spitting her out onto the dry ground. She lay there, motionless, and I ran to her as fast as I could, kneeling by her side.

Kalani's water column began to lower her towards the ground as well, and as soon as she touched the dry earth with her feet, she pointed her arm at Citali, and closed her hand into a fist, pulling it towards herself. All the water in Citalis lungs came shooting out of her mouth and her eyes shot open and she sat up quickly.

Coughing wildly, she said in a very scratchy voice "Kalani...Thank you." Kalani gave a firm nod and turned to run to the battle between the men in white suits and our friends, Citali and I standing to join her.

The three of us reached our friends and we began to fight the dozens of men, hitting them with our powers, Kalani drowning them in balls of water, Zeno wrapping them in darkness, Vaia freezing them to death, Aiven burning them, Torren flinging them into the sky, Citali finally using her powers, the gold touch, whirling around the field and turning people into unmoving statues. 

Serein wasn't using her powers, and I was kind of glad, her powers scare me. She just fought with fists and legs, so did I as my powers were kind of useless in a fight. As much as we all tried to stop the men, they seemed to only have one target: an unfamiliar girl with dark purple wings soaring through the air delivering swift kicks to the enemies' heads.

Turning to look at building on the hill, I realized that these men were guards from the facility. Did that mean that the girl we were fighting alongside was an escaped prisoner? That couldn't be possible, Vaia was the only one there???

Suddenly, the girl fell out of the air and landed on the ground with a crack. A large metal thing was clamped to her wings immediately. Why had she fallen? Then I noticed the darts sticking out of her skin on her neck and shoulder. There was another thump and I turned to see Aiven on the ground, more darts sticking out of him.

Torren gave a snarl and sent the man who had shot him straight up into the sky, then knelt at Aivens side, not caring about the advancing guards. "Is he dead? He asked fearfully. Vaia stopped setting people aflame with white fire and said "No, I think he's just unconci-TORREN LOOK OUT!!!"

Torren whipped around just in time for his face to be introduced to the butt of a gun, and he crumpled to the ground. The only ones who seemed to notice were Citali, Vaia, and I. Everyone else was busy trying not to die. Before we could make a move and blast the man who knocked out Torren into oblivion, he yelled to his companions and into a walkie talkie "Package ready! We got three!!"

The other men immediately retreated and sprinted towards a white van that was heading their way from the facility, three of them grabbing the limp bodies of Torren, Aiven, and the girl. Vaia growled "Oh no you don't," and blasted them with her cold fire. Two of them stumbled, but regained their footing and continued to run.

The one with Aiven fell to the ground, shaking from the blue frost that was spreading over him. I bent over to read his mind, but Citali grabbed my arm. "We don't have time, the others are getting away!" I nodded and yelled to the others to follow me.

Serein nudged Kalani, and said something I couldn't make out. Kalani yelled to me "She's staying with Aiven!" I gave her a thumbs up and continued running.

Vaia and Citali were already ahead of me. The van reached the guards with Torren and the girl, and they loaded them into the back. The vehicle then swerved to the left, back towards the cliffs, obviously trying to shake us, which wouldn't work because we knew where they would end up: the facility. We sprinted after them relentlessly. My friends and I could not be defeated when they had Torren (and some girl) captive.