Chapter sixteen

[Val’s POV]

“Where the hell have you been?! Are you okay?! I’ve been so-so worried!”

Serena’s voice shrilled through the phone as she sobbed and I sighed quietly. I knew she’d act like this...  I didn’t blame her, but I didn’t really have the energy to handle her intense reactions. Right now, she was a sobbing mess and I couldn’t understand a single word that came out from her mouth.

“Serena... Serena, I’m okay. I went to see the Healers almost as soon as I came back and I’m fine” I stressed.

“You could have died!” She shrieked. “Maybe it’s best if you came home?!”

I was already shaking my head. “No, Serena. There’s a lot happening right now and it’s safer for everyone if we stay where we are and you all stay where you are. Our classes are changing so we’re more focused on combat and we’ll be learning first aid as well. Mr Obsidian needs us all here...”

“Then we’ll come to you-“

“Serena, no. Think of Troy. He’s human... not Abled. He’d be in the most danger out of everyone here if you both came here. I’ll be fine. We’ll all be fine, just stay where you are and know I’m probably in the safest place right now”

I could hear Troy’s deep voice in the background and, by the sounds of Serena’s softer sniffing, it seemed as though he’d calmed her down. “Okay” Serena whispered. “But make sure you’re careful. Don’t go anywhere alone, Valerie. Your parents left me and Troy to take care of you and I would never forgive myself if something happened to you”

I smiled and clutched the phone tighter. “I know, and I will. Take care Serena, okay? Give Troy a hug from me”

“I will. We love you Valerie” I blinked back tears as we both hung up and tossed the phone on the table in front of me. I missed Serena and Troy. I hadn’t seen them in so long and I’d do anything for a hug from them both.

“You alright, Tadpole?”

I swallowed the lump of emotion in my throat and smiled as I turned around. “Yeah, I’m fine”

“Oh... ‘fine’. I’ve heard of this before. Is this the ‘I’m-fine-but-not-really-fine-I’m-actually-pretty-close-to-ripping-someone’s-head-off’ type of ‘fine’? Or, the ‘say-one-more-word-and-I’ll-bawl-my-eyes-out-until-you-drown-in-my-tears’ type of ‘fine’?” Derrek smirked as he leaned against the door frame.

I chuckled with a roll of my eyes. “It’s the ‘I’m-actually-literally-fine’ type of fine”

“Never heard of it before... you must be lying”

I finally laughed aloud and his smirk widened into a full smile. “That’s what I wanted to hear. So what did Serena say?”

I sighed. “She was a little hysterical, you know her. She even wanted me to go back home, and when I said I couldn’t, she was determined to bring Troy here with her”

“But that wouldn’t be safe” Derrek frowned.

“I know... and I told her that. So she and Troy are staying home. She’s just... worried”

Derrek pushed off the door frame and walked towards me, pulling me to his chest and wrapping me in a tight hug. “We all are, Tadpole. These are some crazy times... but this is history we’re living through right now. So we better do our best to make sure there’s a good turnout for future generation to read about”

“When did you get so smart?” I murmured hugging him back.

“I always was! Maybe you’re getting dumber?”

I laughed and pushed him away. “You’re a jerk”

“I was beginning to think you’d forgotten!” He laughed. “Come on, let’s go check if Helena’s being released from the infirmary yet”

After our meeting with Mr Obsidian this morning, Derrek and I checked up on Helena and Blake but were told that Helena just needed to have another check up before she could leave. Blake was apparently all fine, but his uncharacteristic groans made me believe he was acting up so he could stay beside Helena until she left.

Together Derrek and I walked down towards the infirmary and this time we were greeted by Nurse Oakley rubbing her temples. “I’m head Healer here at Abled University, and yet even I can’t seem to stop the pounding headache your friend is giving me. Your friends are free to go... immediately”

Derrek and I threw each other a look and rushed past her to see Blake hovering around Helena who seemed a little flushed at the attention he was pouring over her. At the sound of our entrance, both of them looked up and Helena smiled. It was so good to see her, and with colour in her cheeks as well. She looked much better and more like the Helena I remembered before I was captured by Malum.

“Helena! How are you feeling?” I rushed forward hugging her.

“I’m all better” She smiled, “Totally fine”

“That nurse didn’t even do a proper job” Blake announced as he squeezed himself onto the hospital style bed Helena was sitting on. “Look, she still has a scar see?” Blake ran a fingertip over the pale, thin scar that ran all around her arm that seemed to stand out against her olive skin tone. Helena bit her lip with a frown.

“Do you think it’ll disappear?” She whispered.

I shook my head slowly. “No, I don’t think so. I think anything that has to do with Malum or Elementals harming us will never fully heal. Obviously it can be healed, but it’ll just leave a scar in its place” I unconsciously lifted my fingers to the small circular scar on my temple that was left from Malum experimenting on me the first time and shuddered.

“So I’m stuck with this ugly scar?” Helena choked out.

Before I could comfort her, Blake laid his entire hand over her arm, covering the scar, and spoke seriously. “Helena, this scar doesn’t define who you are. It’s a reminder of how you lived through what we went through at the Stinger hideout. You made it alive and that’s much more important than whether or not you have a scar”

I lifted a brow, impressed that Blake could actually be serious. Then again, whenever it came to Helena he was almost always serious. “He’s right, Helena. The scar means nothing except that you’re strong and living to see another day. Don’t concentrate on it... you’re a beautiful person whether or not you have that scar”

Helena’s lips grew into a small smile and nodded. “Thanks guys”

“Come on, let’s go. I’m sure Nurse Oakley wants you guys out of here already... especially you Ice-prick-le”

Blake snapped up and threw Derrek a look. “What the hell did I do to you today, Matchstick?”

“You’re just annoying. Let’s go!” Helena and I rolled our eyes and soon we were all walking out of the infirmary together.

***

“I’m glad to have you back and I want to be around you, Tadpole... But do I have to be here too?” Derrek groaned.

“No, actually, I didn’t want you here for it in the first place. I don’t know why you always think I want you around” I teased him with an innocent blink.

“Under normal circumstances, I’d take that as an insult... but considering it’s getting me out of this, I’ll take it as a blessing. Have... fun, I guess. I’ll be in Cameron’s apartment” He replied pointing his thumb over his shoulder.

My mind flew to the sulking Cameron and frowned. “Good idea. Make sure he keeps his mind busy... I couldn’t imagine what he’s going through”

Silence filled the air and I looked up at Derrek, thinking he didn’t hear me. Instead he was staring down at me intently. “I can... and it’s not a good feeling, Tadpole”

I frowned, stood up and walked over to him. It wasn’t very often that Derrek showed his emotional side, and when I got glimpses of it I could really see how much my kidnapping had affected him. “I’m here now, Sparky. I don’t plan on leaving”

The corners of his lips turned up and he kissed my cheek before saying a gruff goodbye. “It wasn’t easy for any of us, Val” Helena said from behind me. She walked out of our bedroom and into the lounge, stepping through her meadow and sitting down at the base of the tree before speaking again. “When you were missing, and we had absolutely no idea where you and Cara were, we were all lost”

I didn’t really know what to say to that. It was touching, I hadn’t realised how much everyone cared about me and Cara. “Well, I’m here now. And, like I told Derrek, I don’t plan on leaving until we finish university”

She smiled at me and picked at a rosy pink coloured flower before tucking it behind her ear. “So what made you want to do this?”

I shrugged and looked over at the clock, it was nearly midday. “I just thought that we needed to bond. I mean, besides us, the rest of the girls are Elementals and considering what’s happening with Malum and this unknown attack that could happen at any moment, I believe it’s best if we bonded together. Don’t you think?”

Helena shrugged one dainty shoulder and slowly wriggled her fingers, making the tall grass and flowers sway a slow dance. “I guess you’re right. Yeah... this little get together would be a good idea. And it means the guys would bond as well”

I giggled. “Well, as much bonding as Blake and Derrek can handle anyway”

We didn’t need to wait much longer until there was a knock at the door and when I opened it I smiled to see all the Elemental girls outside. Bree, Sophia, the shadow girls – Evanesce and Chimera, plus the two new Elementals Michelle and Leah strolled into the apartment. Sophia and Bree comfortably walked to Helena in the meadow. Evanesce and Chimera eyed the meadow before moving to sit on the sofa while the remaining two girls just stared around the apartment. I was so used to the apartment with its own meadow that I forgot that it wasn’t exactly normal for others to see.

“Helena likes to be in her element” I shrugged before insisting for them to take a seat anywhere. “Okay... so you all may think this is odd... but I thought it would be a great idea for us to get together and just... bond. Any time now, Malum and his Deviants will attack the university and whether we like it or not, we’ll all have no choice but to fight side by side against them. I believe that for us to fight strongly as a team, is to be strong together”

“Val, this is sweet that you want us to uh, be good friends and all... but we don’t need to be” Sophia spoke up as she flicked the bulbous yellow flower by her knee. “We’ll be fine”

“I think Val’s right Sophia” Bree chirped. “Haven’t you heard of the saying ‘united we stand, divided we die’?”

“... it’s fall, Bree. ‘United we stand, divided we fall” Helena quietly corrected her.

“Yes, fall... anyway, if we knew each other better, then we would be able to fight better with one another too. I think this is a great idea”

I smiled at Bree and she winked back. Sophia sighed but nodded before falling back to lie down, effectively disappearing in the tall grass. “So what exactly did you have in mind?” Chimera asked.

I actually hadn’t thought this far ahead. I didn’t really know what we could do to bond together, and so I went with the first thing that came to mind. “We can have a little verse-à-verse?”

Silence greeted me.

“A what?” The new Elemental, Michelle, asked.

“A verse-à-verse.  We just blend our abilities together, or see what we can come up with by mixing two or more abilities together. It’s just for fun, and it’ll be helpful if we ever need to do the same thing when we fight”

“Sounds like fun!” Helena beamed.

“So who wants to go first?” I smiled, feeling excited to test drive my abilities again. I felt so much better and much, much stronger than I had been for the last few weeks, that my want to use my abilities was becoming a need. I needed to freeze something or throw buckets of water; I needed to feel the tingles of water molecules as they rearranged themselves in the air. I missed the feel of invisible moisture in the palm of my hand as I collected the molecules all around me.

“I think Leah and I will just sit out of this” Michelle murmured quietly from the sofa. “We’re not really a complete anything. We’re not Abled, and yet we’re not even Elementals”

Beside her Leah growled long and quietly. Before I could do anything or say anything Sophia scoffed from somewhere in the meadow. She sat up and looked straight at the two new Elementals. At first I thought she was going to say something to Michelle... instead she spoke straight to Leah.

“That’s a load of crap, Leah”

“You understand her?!” Michelle was as stunned as the rest of us.

“I’m a shape shifter... and I talk to animals. Leah is as clear to understand as you are. And both of you need to get a grip of yourselves”

“Sophia... what did Leah say?” I asked softly.

“She was saying that Michelle was right, that they weren’t anything and shouldn’t even be alive. She said that, though she can’t speak for Michelle, it would’ve been better if Malum had just killed her instead of leaving her as half an animal”

Leah growled low and angrily at Sophia, leaning forward as she bared her slightly pointed teeth. Michelle placed her hand on Leah’s shoulder and Leah calmed down... or at least, she stopped growling, and yet again Sophia spoke. “You need to realise that whatever life throws at you, you need to grasp it and use it to your advantage. So Malum’s experimenting went wrong, doesn’t mean you deserve to die. I hated what Malum had turned me into... but then I realised that now I can use it against him. It may have been a crap way to get it, but it’s a gift and I plan on using it to my advantage”

My eyebrows shot straight up, and probably hid somewhere in my hairline. Sophia had always been the tough, outspoken and sometimes slightly crude girl of the Elementals, and yet today she had just shown deep compassion towards Leah... even if it was a little straight forward. I looked over to Leah and Michelle to see that even they were stunned.

Someone cleared their throat, breaking the awkward silence.

“I’ll go first” Bree offered.

“I’ll join you” Helena jumped in.

The conversation between Sophia and Leah was momentarily forgotten when Bree stretched her hand out, palm down, and waved it in small circles over the tall grass and flowers. So slowly that, if I hadn’t been watching, I wouldn’t have noticed the seeds from the flowers began to rise up and swirl around and around. The tiny grains suddenly whooshed up and swirled around the apartment like ripples in a pond, and just as quickly, Helena smiled widely and clapped her hands together once before swiftly spreading her arms out wide.

The seeds suddenly burst and grew until we were surrounded by dancing flowers all in different colours and sizes ranging from yellow to blue to red and every colour in between. It was beautiful and mesmerizing, like a symphony of coloured petals, it was as though the flowers had come to life as Helena made every seed bloom before our eyes. We watched Bree blow wind around, making the flowers spin and twirl, and I grinned holding my hand up tapping my middle finger to my the pad of my thumb.

Just as though I was flicking something away, I flicked my finger and the flowers directly in front of me froze. The petals stiffened as ice froze over them all and I flicked my finger again and again, freezing more and more until the brilliantly coloured dancing flowers were merely slowly hovering icicles. Bree held her open hand in front of her lips and blew out, as though blowing kisses, and the coldness from all the ice had fog blowing out of her mouth. Her frosted breath flew out and all the flowers continued to swirl around – slower than before – out of the balcony into the heat of the midday sun.

Before long all the frosted flowers had disappeared and we all began to clap.

“That was awesome!” Everyone cheered. The tense atmosphere beforehand was now completely evaporated and a cosy camaraderie could be felt amongst us all.

In a bold move, Leah stood up lithely. She really did have animal tendencies - judging by the spots and pointed teeth these tendencies would have belonged to a leopard. She walked steadily, her head up proudly as she stalked gracefully to the meadow, which had only grown bigger to accommodate the extra people sitting in it. If she hadn’t walked right in front of me, I wouldn’t have noticed her shaking hands.

“What’s she doing?” I heard Bree whisper, not to anyone in particular, but more out of curiosity.

Once Leah was standing on the opposite side of the apartment from the meadow she crouched down low, rolling her shoulders lightly while her eyes focused intently ahead. She bared her teeth and a low rumbling growl came rolling up from her throat. Before I could blink she was sprinting fluidly across the apartment, her limbs a fuzzy blur. She raced ahead straight towards the girls sitting in the meadow, their eyes began to grow when they realised she wasn’t slowing down.  They ducked their heads but Leah silently leaped up, as though she was lighter than a stuffed toy and landed on the branch of the tree above their head.

She kept her head up high, but looked down at us with the ghost of a smile as she purred lightly. “Impressive...” Sophia sniffed with a smirk. “But anything you can do, I can do better”

Sophia was smirking, and although it sounded like she was degrading Leah, I knew she was lightly pushing the boundaries with friendly competition. Sophia stood up, her back towards Leah, and rolled her head in a circle. As she stretched out her neck muscles her already dark skinned darkened more, as black fur sprouted out from her pulse and grew out. She fell to all fours and a tail elongated from her spine while her head transformed as well.

Sophia raised her head and stepped slowly through the grass. Her black, heavy paws barely making a sound. Sophia had shifted into a beautiful pitch black jaguar and, by the looks of it, was in hunting mode. We all watched silently. Above, in the thick bough of the tree, Leah’s animalistic eyes watched Sophia. With every move one predator made, the other mimicked it. With a loud screeching cry Sophia pounced from the spot she stood in into the tree but Leah fell backwards, back flipping to the ground with feline grace. Sophia landed on the branch, and pounced straight back down again only to miss Leah once more. It seemed as though the human limbs but feline movements had given Leah a bit of an upper hand-

Just as the thought entered my mind Sophia was able to land on Leah, and kept her down with her sheer weight. Both girls growled lowly from their throats, but after a few seconds Leah bowed her head slightly and Sophia removed her paw before slowly shifting back to her normal beautiful self.

“You did good, Leah” Sophia nodded in acknowledgement. “But just remember that I made us on an equal scale. I could have easily shifted into any other animal and beaten you in a second” Leah simply blinked at her.

“You think you’re fast?” Chimera laughed lightly.

“You couldn’t catch us, even as animals” Evanesce finished.

Sophia and Leah swapped looks and smirked. Leah purred while Sophia raised her chin. “Care to prove it?”

The shadow girls grinned, and then began to blur like grains of sand being blown about by wind. Their hazy bodies blurred and swirled together, darkening until the shadow hovered where Evanesce had stood. By the time I looked back at Sophia, she had already changed back to the ebony jaguar. The shadow didn’t move, it simply floated in its spot, waiting for their first move. Both cat girls were crouched down low as they stalked around. They had split up so that kept the shadow between them.

Sophia pounced first. She used her powerful hind legs to launch herself at the shadow but the shadow quickly flew into the dark shadow of the light shade before reappearing from under the sofa. Leah pounced next, and I was so sure that she would catch the shadow... until the shadow cloned itself, multiplying until there was a wall of shadows circling around her. Leah’s face contorted with confusion, and she launched herself at the closest one. She shadow disappeared into black wispy smoke and soon Sophia and Leah were confusedly pouncing at any shadow they thought was the real one.

I glanced away at the scene in front of us and noticed Michelle frowning. Her gaze was transfixed on the shadows and it looked as though she was concentrating extremely hard. My attention was, however, brought back to the girls when Sophia let out a growl. It turned out that Sophia had pounced through a shadow and landed right on top of Leah, who shoved her off roughly. The shadows flew around, like dark ghosts haunting it’s victims, when all of a sudden metallic hair shot out from the corner of my eye and whipped all the ‘false’ shadows; leaving one standing... well floating. Leah and Sophia perked up and snapped their heads to Michelle who was smiling triumphantly.

“Wow! How did you know which was the real one?” Bree gasped happily.

Michelle’s smile faltered when her hair flicked back to normal, and shrugged her shoulders. “I’m not really sure. I was watching them all and noticed that the fake ones were a little repetitive; like each one was programmed to do the same things over and over. The real one changed its actions and movements all the time, it was never the same ones”

I beamed at everyone. “And you guys thought this wasn’t a good idea. See all the ways we could mix and use each other’s abilities? We could either do what Helena and Bree did and do it a collaborate together, or like the rest of us did and push one another and learn from mistakes!”

I was thrilled at how it turned out. No one thought we’d be able to mix and match abilities but we did, and we even learned a thing or two as well. If Malum had created another Deviant that was anything similar to Evanesce and Chimera’s abilities – and knowing him, he probably has – we’d be one step closer to spotting the little faults here and there to help beat him.

*********************************************************************************

A/N

Hey you crazy amazing people who I love so much with every beat of my heart!

I don’t think you all realise how much I appreciate your patience and willingness to just not hate me for my long absences. So, despite me wanting to finish this story by the end of this year.... yeah that’s just not happening haha. I’ve been busy lately, as well as researching my family to make a family tree and I just didn’t have the inspiration to write when my mind was so cloudy. I had to force myself to sit down write this chapter out... sometimes averaging half a sentence every 15 mins lol!

Umm... oh yes... the shipping names I found I liked best for the three couples are:

Verrek for Val and Derrek
I like both Belena and Helake hehe

For Cara and Cameron - Rameron was interesting, and a whole lot of you said Camera hehe (Well, Cameron and Cara are pretty picture perfect... see what I did there? Har har)

I tried making this chapter longer to make up for my long absence (naughty Nix), and because since Christmas is coming up SO SOON (seriously, where did the time go?! I need to finish my Christmas shopping and start baking/cooking!!!) I thought this would be my Christmas present to you all in case I didn’t get to update again.

Once again, I send virtual kisses and hugs to you all! You make me feel so loved and I could never thank YOU for that. You are all amazing <3

Merry Christmas!!! (/Happy Holidays!!!)

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