Visit
Visit
"I'll get some firewood, ok Sheba?" Ivan called to his girlfriend.
"Yeah, ok! Don't freeze out there!" she yelled back.
"I won't don't worry." He said, smirking, he headed out the door.
Sheba kept on putting up their tree, reflection upon Christmas. She was so excited, it would be their first Christmas together as … well, as a couple. She just couldn't wait for the next day. She'd gotten him a small Jupiter djinni keychain that doubled as a psy crystal-one that didn't disappear at first use. She decided she'd go visit Mia and see if she approved of the present she'd gotten Ivan.
Sheba arrived on Mia's doorstep and knocked on the door. Isaac opened it. "Hi Sheba, come in! Jenna, Felix and Garet are here too-but where's Ivan?" He asked as she shook the snow off her coat.
"Getting firewood in the forest." Sheba replied, as they went down the hall. She saw Mia in the kitchen and Jenna helping her, while Garet pigged out at the table. Felix was nowhere to be seen. Isaac sat down and started talking with Garet while Sheba wandered into the kitchen.
Jenna looked up. "Oh hi Sheba!"
Mia looked at Jenna's words. "We're almost done here, where's Ivan?" Mia asked.
"Out gathering wood." She replied, again.
"Oh. Well, don't go out back for awhile…" Mia said evasively.
"Why?" Sheba asked, curious.
"Because my dear brother is practicing psynergy to use on Garet lest he hurt me." Jenna said, rather dryly.
"Oh…" Sheba nodded in understanding.
You see, Jenna and Garet had married, which meant some trouble with Felix. He always thought Garet would hurt Jenna, and yet, he couldn't care less about Mia and Isaac. Being angry with Garet didn't stop him from marrying Garet's older sister Kay. Piers however, had gone back to Lemuria. He visited at times, but liked to stay in his original homeland.
Sheba watched as Mia and Jenna finished in the kitchen and they all went to the living room together. "So why did you come, Sheba?" asked Mia, setting down mugs of tea in front of all of them.
"Well, it's just that I bought a present for Ivan, but I don't know if he'll like it…" Sheba trailed off, taking the keychain out of her pocket and showing Mia and Jenna.
"That's so thoughtful!" exclaimed Mia, gently examining the keychain.
Jenna snorted. "Well, Garet doesn't need, and I don't think he wants, more than extra dinner!" They all laughed at that.
"Extra dinner, you say?" asked a hopeful voice from the other room. This just made them laugh harder.
"Be quiet Garet! We said nothing about extra dinner, get your ears checked!" Jenna shouted back.
"Oh…" you could hear the disappointment in his voice.
Still chuckling, Sheba turned to the conversation. They talked for a little longer, then Sheba stood up. "I'd better go." She said. "Ivan is probably back and wondering where I am."
"Alright." Mia said, standing to go open the door.
"Bye, take care." Jenna said, still sitting on the couch.
"Be careful out there!" Mia called as Sheba went out into the flurry.
"Don't worry about me!" Sheba called back and left down the path, moving a little slowly against the snow.
Storm
Sheba walked back to her house that she shared with Ivan, but for some reason, he wasn't home yet. 'He must still be out.' She thought, but inside, she filled with dread. She remembered a dream she'd had-no! Not a dream. A premonition. Yes, it was a premonition. First she'd been sitting at the window, looking out into a snowstorm, then she'd seen her and Ivan in a strange darkness and snow falling. There was a person too. Her was watching them and sneering. As she struggled to remember who the man was, she looked out the window. There was a blizzard now.
Sheba shivered. It seemed just like her premonition. But then she wondered when the other part would come true. She remembered the darkness, it was so unnatural. It wasn't like a nighttime darkness; it was like a liquid black, gooey and impenetrable. She looked out again. Ivan would be having a rough time out there.
Sheba decided to go look for him. She put on a coat and walked out into the storm.
Meanwhile, Ivan was huddled next to the enormous pile of wood he'd chopped and trying to stay warm against them. He couldn't move very far while the storm raged so he just kept himself from falling asleep and freezing while wishing he was a fire adept. The wind whistled and howled, it teased him of his home. He thought of Sheba. What was she doing now? Was she worrying about him? He hoped she wasn't looking for him out in the storm. What if she died? He tried to struggle to his feet, but he fell down again. Then he tried to contact Sheba through telepathy, but he was too weak. 'She probably can't even contact me!' thought Ivan, and he was right. At that very moment, she was trying to get to him, and failing.
'Where is he?' Sheba wondered, slowly making her way through the snowstorm. "Ivan? Ivan!" she called through the storm, but she knew he couldn't hear her-after all, she couldn't hear herself. At last she collapsed in the snow and huddled under a fir tree, its branches laden with snow that occasionally fell on her. With a pang, Sheba remembered that it was Christmas Eve. 'Why did this happen?' Sheba wondered. 'Why did it have to happen today of all days?'
Ivan was thinking the same as he crouched mere meters from Sheba, wondering where she was. He thought he heard somebody calling his name, but he thought it was probably the wind. "Sheba…" he said, wishing he was with her.
Sheba looked up. She'd heard her name. She was sure of it. "Ivan?" she asked, not daring to hope she'd found him. "Ivan!"
Ivan heard it. He definitely heard it. "Sheba! Sheba, is that you?" he asked. He started to move around weakly, feeling around until his hand found another hand-her hand- and closed over it. "Sheba… why did you come out here?"
"I was worried about you." Sheba replied, while relief flooded her body at having found him.
"You still shouldn't have come out." He said, though secretly, he felt the same.
"Well, we're together now, so let's just wait out the storm together… wished Jenna was here though. Jenna or Garet. A fire adept would be nice." Sheba said, shivering from the cold.
"Here, you can have my cloak." Ivan said, draping it around her shoulders.
"No! You must be cold too!" she said, although her shivering had stopped.
"Don't worry about it She-Huh?" Ivan broke off. He couldn't see Sheba anymore, nor could he see the tree, the firewood, or the snow. He seemed to be in some kind of black goo. It seemed neither solid, liquid nor gas, but it seemed all of them and none of them all at once. Ivan had no idea what it was, but he wanted out. He panicked, and then decided he'd just have to find Sheba and somehow, get out.
Prison
Sheba was plunged into the same darkness but unlike Ivan, she knew what it was. 'My premonition… it's coming true.' Sheba thought, as she blindly made her way through the murky darkness, hands spread out in front of her in case there were obstacles in her way. This proved useless though, since there didn't seem to be a single thing in her way. Sheba's main concern was Ivan. Was he ok? Where was he? She hoped he wasn't hurt or worse, dead. Sheba shuddered at the thought.
He watched them with his cold unblinking eyes, the colour of ice and frost. He was laughing inwardly at them, while he watched high above. In his vortex of shadow, they were trapped, mere inches from each other and still unable to see each other, wandering in circles in the darkness. He wondered when he should make his entrance. Should he do it after or before the "illusions?" He decided on after and started his "illusions." He made them visible to one another.
"Sheba!" Ivan yelled, but she didn't seem to here him. "Sheba!" he yelled again. He started running but his movements were slow and sluggish, so he couldn't catch up. Worst of all, she started running after what seemed to be something ahead of her! 'What could she see that's so amazing she can't wait for me?" he thought frantically. He just kept pursuing her though, not wanting to lose her to the darkness again. He was so rushed that he just kept running, never looking back into the blackness behind him.
If Ivan had looked back, this is what he would've seen: Sheba, chasing him! In fact, Sheba was seeing him, and wondering the exact thing Ivan was. Why was he running? She chased him, not looking back either. She sometimes tried casting wind psynergy to boost her, but the blackness seemed to suck all the air and wind away.
He laughed again. How amusing they were. He could lead them on like this forever. But he was getting bored. Very very bored. He decided it was time to reveal himself.
"ALEX!" the yells, the gasps. He loved it.
Yes! It is I!" he boomed, relishing his very existence. So what if he couldn't do more than create this dark prison? He still had power didn't her? If the Wise One stole his glory, he would just have to hurt the ones that helped him(hard to inflict damage on a rock, after all).
"H-how did you-?" Ivan spluttered angrily while Sheba watched in horror. Why was it the next time she saw Ivan, it was in the presence of an insane Mercury adept?!
"How did I what? Escape? It was because of my amazing reflexes of course!" He proclaimed, sneering down at them.
"WHAT?! Reflexes couldn't have gotten you out of that catastrophe!" Sheba shouted at him, and then, she realized. He was the one. He was the person from her premonition.
"Hmm, you're smarter than you look, eh?" Alex said, although he wasn't surprised at all. "But still, I'm not going to tell you how I got out. Why should I, anyway?"
"Wasn't expecting you to." Ivan replied shortly, his arm thrown protectively around Sheba's shoulders. "Now let us out now, would you?"
"No, I don't think so!" Alex replied. "Since it's impossible to die here, you'll just stay until you go out of your mind!" He laughed, and with those words, Alex disappeared.
Escape
Sheba looked at Ivan hopelessly. "Do you think we can teleport out?" She asked.
"Worth a try, I guess…" though privately, he thought that Alex had most likely thought of it. He got out the Teleport lapis and tried it out. "Teleport!" he shouted, keeping a firm hold on Sheba's hand.
There was a blinding flash of multicoloured light, and then… "Are we out?" Sheba asked, opening her eyes and blinking. She looked around and groaned. "We're still stuck here! What'll we do now?!" she asked despairingly, looking at the darkness surrounding her.
"I don't know." Ivan replied as he sat down. His mind was numb. All the possible ways out didn't seem to work. He looked down at Sheba once again and said. "If we died here, I want to be able to have one last kiss with you." He told her.
Sheba smiled weakly and said, "Sure, whatever." She closed her eyes as he lowered his head to hers, loving every moment. There was another flash, and as Sheba and Ivan broke apart, they seemed in both the real world and the dark prison.
"What-?" Ivan stuttered, looking in wonder at all the scenes appearing in front of them. One moment it was dark, and then there was snow falling on them, but then darkness again.
"I think… I think our love… got through the prison." Sheba said slowly. "But we aren't completely out yet…" She thought for a small while. "Oh! I've got it! We need to replace us! Something needs to go in the prison, in our place!" she exclaimed excitedly.
"Yes…but…What? What will replace us?" Ivan asked her.
"I'm not sure…" Sheba trailed off, biting her lip.
At that moment, Alex appeared and saw the couple was half out of hi prison. He swore and warped to in front of them. "Dark pri-" he started casting the psynergy on them again. ((A/N: My own inventions, please don't hurt me)) but before he could finish…
"BIND!" the two Jupiter adepts yelled together on some instinct. A third flash of light and then…
Aftermath
"Oof!" Ivan said, tumbling onto the snow — covered ground. He sat up and looked around. He gave a sigh of relief. There was Sheba, and… They were free! "Sheba! We're out!" He called to her. She didn't reply but kept on staring at something in the sky. Ivan looked up too. There, was a gaping blackness, the same that he and Sheba had been trapped in earlier. And inside, banging on an invisible wall, was a certain blue haired water adept.
"You'll pay! You'll pay for this! I won't be locked in my own prison!" they heard him yell before the blackness faded.
"He's gone…" said Sheba, in a bemused sort of way.
Before she could say much more though, Garet, Jenna, Isaac, Mia, Felix, and Piers came running around the trees. "Oh my god! Oh. My. GOD!!" We were so worried! Piers came to visit, so we went to find you, but we couldn't go out because of the storm, and then we came out and searched the whole entire forest, but we still couldn't find you, so we went back, and we came back after another hour, and we've FINALLY found you now!" Jenna said very quickly while Mia just beamed and everybody else just panted. ((A/N: Haha. Nice ramble on, eh?))
"We're fine now." assured Ivan, who was rather overwhelmed by the gang's sudden appearance.
"What do you mean, now?" said Jenna, narrowing her eyes suspiciously.
"It's a long story." Sheba said.
"We want to hear it." Isaac replied, speaking at last. To others made many noises of assent, so they all trooped back to Sheba's place and had cups of cocoa while Sheba and Ivan filled them in on the events of that day.
"So he's gone for good?" asked Piers.
"We think so." Sheba replied, looking at Ivan. "But right now I'm kind of tired, so I think I'll turn in." Sheba headed up the stairs to her and Ivan's bedroom.
"Me too." said Ivan, yawning. He too got up and slouched up the stairs.
"No point in staying now…" Jenna said. "Let's go Garet. … Garet?" He was sleeping like a rock.
"Zzzzzzz…"
"Oh!" Jenna said exasperatedly. "Well, it is Christmas Eve, and I don't have the heart to wake him…" Jenna said, watching the sleeping figure.
"I think we can all stay here for the night." Mia said, while she bedded down on a couch. They all agreed, so everybody slept there that night.
"Get up!" Jenna yelled through the door. "It's Christmas!" she added, then deaded downstairs to help Mia with brunch.
"Urgh…" Ivan mumbled, getting up drowsily. Then he realized something. "Oh no!" he said.
"Huh? What's going on Ivan?" Sheba asked, rubbing her eyes.
"I forgot to get you a present!" Ivan said sadly.
"Hey, don't worry about. Ever since yesterday, I'm just glad you're here." Sheba said.
"But…" Ivan retorted.
"Really! And here's your present!" she said, shoving the djinn keychain into his hands.
"Wow…!" Ivan said in awe. "thanks!"
"No problem!" Sheba replied, glad that he liked it.
"Are you coming, sleepy heads?" Jenna's voice sailed from the kitchen. "Yep!" Ivan replied, as he and Sheba headed down the steps holding hands.
"Not such a black Christmas, eh?" Sheba asked him.
"Who said it was?" he just replied, and pulled her down the stairs.
"She just smiled. "Never mind."
And somewhere, in a dark prison… "YOU WILL PAY!!"