Chapter 2

My eyes start to open slowly as I feel something cold and wet being placed on my forehead, I slightly hear an unfamiliar voice, "Miss, miss, are you awake?" says the unfamiliar voice. My vision clears and I see who's talking to me, an ocelot. Her fur was light brown with a few shades of white but had black bat like wings.

"My name is Jade, you already met my parents. So how ya'feelin?" she said to me in a somewhat kind but slightly annoyed way.

'Reminds me of that bat.' I think to myself as I sit myself up and leaned myself at the top of the bed. "Not all that dizzy anymore but still feeling weak." I slightly smile at her.

"There is a bowl of fruit right next to you y'know." She says to me as I turn my head to the night stand to see a huge bowl filled with assorted fruit.

"Oh, thank you." I tell to her, not even turning my head to look at her, I grab a banana.

As I peel the skin off of the banana I look over to jade as she walks over to the window and picks up a pot of beautiful red flowers with purple rays coming out from its center. " Those are beautiful …hellebore is a very pretty plant but its very poisonous so don't get any of the chloroplast on your fingers."

"These were dead a couple days ago so I don't know why they're alive now…but wow they really are pretty." She whips her head around to look at me as she smiles widely and holds the pot covered in bright colored flowers. "So you know a lot about plants?"

That one question… hearing those words I start to think and try to remember how many I really did know. Balm of Gilead, bergamot, chrysanthemum, coltsfoot, damiana, goldenrod, lovage, oleander, olive, rose, saffron, sage, and so much more other names and pictures of herbs and plants started coming into my mind. I knew what plant did what and how to use them, which ones to eat and to avoid. So many and yet I am keeping track of all of them. "Yes I do actually… I'm glad I remember something a least."

"That is soooo cool." She sets the flowerpot back down and starts to walk toward the exit door. "Some of my moms old clothes are in that closet there" she points to the tall wooden closet on the other side of the room away from me, "feel free to pick out an outfit, she never wears them anymore so you can keep what ever you pick out." She walks out of the room, closing the door behind her.

I eat more of the fruit from the fruit bowl until I was full and my tummy was happy then I get up from the bed and fall to the ground as soon as I put my weight onto my feet. "Ow, what the hell?" my legs tingle for a sec and then it starts to feel like pins and needles, I start rubbing my hands up and down my legs to get the blood flowing again. My legs start to feel the circulation again so I try to stand one more time and I manage to regain my balance. I walked over to the closet and open its double doors and inside I see a couple of T-shirts and tube-tops, only one pair of actual pants, they were long, black skinny jeans and they were just my style. I look through all the shirts on the hangars but all that were there were either pink shirts or small shirts… so I see a small pile of clothes in the bottom corner so I sit on my knees to look through them and when I got to the very bottom I find what feels like a sheath. I move all the clothes out of the way and pull out a ketana… and on the handle dangling off was an all black spaghetti strap tank-top, "Perfect" I said as I slipped the slim tank-top on. I continue to observe the sword as I draw it from its sheath. My muscles twinge and urged to wield the blade so I got up and made my way to the middle of the room, plenty far away from anything. As if it were second nature I put my dominant foot forward and did a right diagonal swing and then a left vertical swing, listening to the whistle of splitting wind. I am brought back to reality when I hear someone entering the room, and it's Stealth.

"O-oh, I'm sorry I found it in the closet and I-" I was cut off as he asked.

"Have you done this before?" he started circling and observing me, that's when I realized that im still in a wielding stance.

" I honestly don't know… it was all instinct just now." I said honestly but somewhat modestly. He paused for along time, I didn't know when he was finally going to say something again. Finally he looks up at me.

"I use to be a thief for hire at one time, when I was sent out to go retrieve some old maps and old trade routes from this old sword smith I decided to take one of the plenty of swords he already had with me too. Why, I don't know but I did know that he had enough to never realize that one was gone." He freezes in his tracks and gives himself a face palm. "I am a horrible role model." He looks back up at me and says, "Well anyway, if you want you can have it. I think you know how to use it better than I ever would." He looks over at the window and notices the pot of flowers. "Weren't those dead the other day?" looks over at me as if I had the answer.

"That's what Jade said but how would that be possible?… There isn't even any sun light." I said as I shrugged my shoulders. Before I know it Stealth leans into my personal space and glares at me suspiciously.

"Then explain those apple cores that were next to you when me and Rouge found you. There aren't any apple trees for miles from there." He says glaring at me without blinking but strangely has a deviant smile.

A flash of memory peeks into my mind, and then I remember about the small basil plant. How I so desperately urged to eat, to live. So out of curiosity I walk over to the small plant and hold my hand over it. I immediately thought of an orange poppy flower, so that is what I desired to be there. Slowly but surely a single and very small flower starting to grow and then bloom right before my eyes.

"Ahhh… so you are a life whisperer. That would explain some things." Says stealth as he lingers his head over my shoulder. "Very rare to have that kind of skill but hey why ask questions?…" he turns around and is almost out of the door when he turns around and says to me, "I got to make a phone call so if you are curious enough you should venture around a little bit." Then he continues his way out into the hallway.

I honestly was a little curious about where I am and what not but first thing I do is I run back into the closet and pull out a white belt in which to strap the sword to my side. I run out the door and jot down the hallway, Stealth was nowhere to be seen, and so I look all around me to see a couch and a love seat next to each other at a 90 degree angle. The kitchen was on the far side of the room, and the front door strait ahead of me. I walk towards the door and turn the handle, outside was covered in trees and grass, I look to the side of the building and surprisingly… it was in the side of a cliff and was covered in vines and plant life. 'How is that even possible?… There isn't even ant sun light.' I look at a tree with some lower branches the a lot of the other trees, I started to run and then I leaped to the lowest branch I could find, the branch was still twice as high as I was tall but supprised, I almost jumped over it but brought my hand to it and I did a complete 360 then finally landing on the branch. As shocked as I was I still felt kind of cool knowing that I can jump like that. Leaning against the tree, I drift into a little daydream about leaping onto buildings and flips off of one building to another.

Walking into the supply room, Stealth grabs the step latter by the door. He walks over to the far side of the room and sets the step latter in front of a wall of shelves and uses the step latter to reach the second to top shelf. On his way down he has in his hands a slightly large shoebox and inside were a practically new pair of black steal toed boots. He takes out the boots and dusts them off. He turns around to see Jade in the doorway, "Are you finally going to wear those or are you giving them to the wolf girl?" she says in a way to where she is curious but could honestly care less. He walks into the doorway next to her and places his hand on her head.

"Yes, I'm going to give them to Shade… and I already told you that I don't wear heavy shoes." He laughs and walks strait down the hall, Jade remains in the doorway.

Looking in the room that Shade had been sleeping in for the past five days, Stealth discovers that she was nowhere to be seen inside the base, 'Did she go outside?' as the thought came through he suddenly gets a small twinge in his gut. 'This can't be good…' Stealth quickly dashes to the front of the base and hears, a good 50 yards away, the grinding and turning of gears. Just a few feet away on the branch of one of the trees sat Shade lost in a daze.

"Shade! Get down from there," said Stealth, as he slightly shouted but not enough to eco out into the woods.

My head turned quickly to hear who was calling out to me, I was slightly surprised to myself on how I got use to the name so quickly, but I looked at Stealth and saw some worry in his face so I figured that there was some trouble so with out a second thought I jumped down and dashed toward him. He turned around and started heading toward the door, quickly opening it as I came up right behind him, I shut the door behind me. "Something wrong Stealth?" I said as I looked at the door and then back to him curiously.

He looks at me slightly relieved, "Do me a favor and make sure you listen to your surrounding when you're outside ok?" he looks down to the pair of boots in his hand. "Try these on and tell me how they feel to you." He said as he tossed the boots in front of me.

"Um… ok sure thing." I said as I sat on the floor to put the pair of boots on, I slipped my left foot inside a boot and then my right foot in the other one. They fit me perfectly; I stood up to get a better feel of the soles of the shoes. They were my kind of shoes, I looked up at Stealth, "Thank you so much, they're perfect." I smiled at him and he slightly smiles back.

"No problem… they were just taking up space in my closet anyway." Suddenly as he said that a large thud from outside shakes the wall. We jump back away from the wall and the doorway, "Damn, so it was coming this way." Getting into his battle stance he extends his claws. "Stay back, I don't want you getting hurt." He said not even looking back to me. After another loud thud part of the door and most of the wall are bashed in.

With all the dust and debris, I cover my head and face to prevent getting knocked out by it hurling towards me. I look up and I already see Stealth using his claws to rip off the metal on the robot. He pulls some wires out of it and so I see that the lights that it has for eyes go dim and it crashes to the floor. My ear twitches, I look out of the giant hole in the wall and I see little beams of red lights moving back and forth behind the trees. "Stealth…" I point out into the trees as his eyes follow the direction on my finger, "It's a mob." A sudden movement out of the corner of my eye, it was at the corner of the caved in wall that there was and quick moving robot, dashing strait for Stealth. Before I even realized what I did, I drew my sword and cut off three of the robots four legs, it hurtles and rolls onto the ground. I freeze for just a moment as my heart races with a somewhat familiar sense of excitement but also a slight sense of fear. I let my reflexes take over and I quickly turn around with my blade and slice the head in half of the beast. I turn to look at Stealth whom was smiling at me. I realized just how fast I did it the act.

"Flawless, you were practically born to do this." He says with a large grin as he runs to the remaining two and he leaps into the air and on to the top of one of them. I follow quickly behind and I aim for the other one. It strikes at me but I swiftly barrel role underneath it and slice the single discolored plate on the entire thing, it shuts down immediately. I stand up onto my feet and turn my head to Stealth who was tapping his foot and looking at the caved in wall. "This is going to take a good two weeks to fix. Damn…," he looks over to me, "Mind giving me a hand at piling these rocks?"

"Yeah sure." I put my sword back into its sheathe and started to grab some rocks and putting them into piles in where the wall use to be. "This is gonna take a while." I sighed and continued piling.

About an hour later when we got the wall only half way high it suddenly comes crumbling down. "Damn it… and that took forever to do!" said Stealth, as he sat onto his knees "I'm really no good at carpentry…" he said as he looked down exhausted and annoyed. I turn around and walk to one of the trees, I place my hand on the trunk of the tree and focused. Visualizing about what I wanted to happen, I thought of a branch coming out and baring some fresh oranges. As I was thinking the growth of the actual thing happened just as fast. I picked the fruit when they were nice and ripe, I took them over to Stealth.

"Why don't we take a little snack break?" I said as I handed him the fruit. Then a thought occurred to me, I wondered if I could just make the wall out of tree roots. I kneeled to on knee and placed my hand onto the ground, feeling for where the life of the plants are and wanting them to grow into the place of the wall. I thought of the roots forming around the rocks and grabble, moving its way upward in thick roots and as it reached the top of the gap in the cliff the rots would thicken and merge together into a sturdy and strong wall. I looked up to see stealth grinning at me.

I went to look at Stealth who now had his hand on my shoulder and was giving me a thumb up. "Nice work, why didn't you do that before?" he said looking at me. He walked over to the wall and started kicking it, "Yup nice and strong." He started to walk toward the entry way where the door use to be and went inside, I walked in after him.

Both Jade and I were sitting in the lounge waiting for Stealth because apparently we were called for a meeting. We sat there in silence, Jade was becoming impatient and when I was about to say something I turn my head to see Stealth walk in around the corner. The first thing he does if hold out $50 to Jade and $50 to me. Jade took the money immediately, while I was reluctant to accept.

He turned his head toward Jade, "I want you to take Shade into town and get things that you need." He said looking at Jade strait in the eye.

"Yeas dad, of course!" she said in an extremely happy tone but looking slightly deviant when saying her words.

"And I don't mean nail polish or a new purse, only things that you actually need." He glared at her expecting her to listen. She was unphased.

Her face now looked disappointed as she sank into the couch with her arms crossed over her chest. "Yes dad…" she finally said.

He turned back to me and reoffered me the money, this time I gratefully accepted it. "Thank you." I smiled at him.

"Come on! Hurry up!" said Jade who was already at the door.

I ran out toward the door and I turned to look at Stealth, "Bye, I'll see you later." I smiled as I waved to him. Then I quickly continued out the door.