And I'm back with the very last chapter of this short story! Let's see if Skylar's sacrifice has saved her friends. But before that: thanks for reading and possibly reviewing, favoriting and following the story. Thanks for the support you've given me. It took me longer than estimated to write, but I had a blast and I hope to see you soon. But first, this last chapter and my responses to your reviews:
TKDP: Thanks for reviewing! We know Ayar can lie, so let's see what happens now. Yes, it was the rose. And off course she would give herself up for her friends, she's SKylar Storm. I was thinking the same! I was considering to cut it out, but eventually stayed. Here's the update!
Skoliver4Ever: Here's the last update with a tiny little bit of Skoliver. Thanks for reviewing!
PurpleNicole531: Thanks for reviewing! I like the last sentence, too! I thought it'd be something Skylar would immediately do. It would save her friends, after all. And if I'm not mistaken, yes, I think it indeed was one of your guesses. I remember reading it and thinking: did she read my mind? And here's the last chapter!
Enjoy!
-Writer207
They knew something was changing when they had that feeling again. Only this time, it didn't feel like he was going to pull their ankles, but like he was lifting them up. Their sight was blocked for a short amount of time and before they even knew it, they were standing back on the stage.
Nothing much had changed. The door was opened and the boxes were nowhere to be seen. The grail, with the lid closing it, stood on one of the crates. And there the friends stood, glad they no longer had to spend time in those paintings. They spontaneously started to hug each other – except for Kenny, who just awkwardly watched as the teenagers celebrated being freed.
"We're free!" Kaz exclaimed, unable to control his happiness.
"How did that happen?" Spark asked, voicing everyone's thoughts on the matter. Nobody seemed to be able to think of a reasonable explanation, except that Skylar Storm had saved them from their imprisonment. Oliver already turned around to congratulate her and to discuss some important matters.
"Connie, you…" and then, he finally realized Skylar wasn't anywhere in sight. The door stood open, yes, but he knew her long enough to know she would never in her entire life leave hostages while they were still held captive. And he knew Ayar wouldn't tell her to leave in order to save her friends. There was no explanation for that, just a gut feeling. He grew scared. Her absence terrified him and completely unnecessary thoughts about her slipped into his mind. was is possible he took her anyway? But then why did he release them and only took Skylar?
He shouted her name, alarming the others around him. they started to look around and they too deduced that she wasn't around. "Where's Connie?" Kaz asked out loud, sounding slightly less scared than Oliver. As they searched for Skylar, something caught Jordan's attention.
"Gus, what are you doing?" If she had seen it just a few moments later, they would have been in trouble again for Gus had the grail in his hands, ready to pull the lid off of it for the second time. He looked up, apparently not knowing what made her stop him.
"Maybe this is the way we'll get Connie back!" He said, sounding innocent. He genuinely thought they could save Skylar this way, but that grail had been the cause of today's problems and none of his companions were looking forward to going through that trouble again.
"Oh no, you don't," Kenny said as he grasped the grail and pulled it out of Gus' hands. He pressed on the lid, as to make sure it was still stuck on the grail, and then continued, "I do not want to be trapped in one of those again. Here." He extended the arm with the grail to Spark, who seemed taken aback. She thought he'd keep it for himself.
"What are you—"
"I know I can trust you to keep it as far away from him as possible." Kenny said, for the first time ever looking at the hero properly. He hoped she would be able to guess what she meant with 'him' – that was not just Gus he was talking about.
"Wait!" Alan then said, "If she's not here, does it mean that she…" He trailed off. There was no need to finish that sentence anyway, for everyone knew exactly what he meant. Oliver nodded.
"The Mona Lisa," Kaz said. There were only two paintings left when he get trapped into one. One of them was the Mona Lisa, the other one he didn't know. But he did know he had been stuck in the painting he didn't know because the Mona Lisa had been placed higher than the other paintings – he compared it with looking through a window on the ground floor. If he'd been inside the Mona Lisa, he would've been looking through a window on the first floor.
"Connie!" Oliver shouted her name, having to be careful at the same time so he wouldn't accidentally shout out 'Skylar' instead of her Normo name. But they just saw the fake painting and that mysterious smile only seemed to mock them.
"She's supposed to be there?" Jordan voiced everyone's thoughts, "Why can't we see her?" Yet another mystery they had to solve, but this time without any real consequence. Skylar was in there, somewhere. Maybe it took them some time for her to appear. At least when Oliver saw her he'd know she was alright. She may be trapped, but there was no way she would be harmed. This waiting was worse than anything he could imagine.
"Maybe she became the Mona Lisa!" Gus suggested. He wanted to help, really, but he always had been the one with the weird ideas. Alan, who didn't know Gus as long as the others had, could barely hold in his laughter.
"That's a stupid idea," he then said.
"Says the guy who was barely helpful," Jordan then said. She didn't say it to defend us in any way, she just thought his opinion mattered less based on his input during the tasks when she was present. Alan chose to ignore her comment and instead watched how a desperate Oliver was still trying to get into contact with Skylar, who may just be forced to hide behind the image of the painted lady.
"I'm here!" Everyone jumped up when they heard Skylar shout that. They all turned their attention to the painting, as they were certain that had been the source of her voice. Oliver scanned the painting for any sign of the girl he loved, but she wasn't anywhere to be seen. And why could they hear her voice when they weren't able to communicate with those trapped in the first place? Maybe Gus had been right…
No, that's nonsense. Ayar didn't do that. He just put people in the paintings, he didn't let them merge with the painted people. Giving her the ability to talk may have been part of Skylar's imprisonment
"Connie?" Oliver said, sounding like he hesitated a little. He had no idea what happened in there, but he did know he wouldn't take his eyes off of the painting. The next time Skylar spoke, Oliver saw nothing moving inside the painting, and the Mona Lisa herself remained in place too. and yet, he could hear what she had to say.
"Turn around!" Surprised by this request, he turned around and at the end of the room, at the back row of seats, there stood Skylar. She was grinning when she saw her again and Oliver did the same. She walked towards them as Oliver looked at the painting and back to her. Happily shouting her name, he came rushing to her. Skylar extended her arms and when their paths crossed, he gave her a big hug. After some seconds, he said "I'm so glad you're okay." and together, they walked back to the stage.
"How did you get there?" Spark wondered out loud, pointing at the back of the theater hall, "I thought you –"
"I was," Skylar said, "It was awful!" Even if she might have been there for a short amount of time, she had not liked the feeling of being trapped. She could barely imagine they had been in there for much longer than her.
"How did you escape?" Kenny asked. Skylar shrugged.
"I didn't really escape," she said, thoughts trailing off to the conversation she had with Ayar earlier. They had talked about her, mostly, and whether her friends would abandon her or not. She had explained her current situation to him – he's at least thousand years old, he can't possibly share the superhero secret with anyone else – and Ayar had liked to compare these heroes with gods and the villains with faithless followers of evil. He told her she reminded him of his sun god, whom he believed has long died because his god had lost all of its worshippers. Not wanting to see the same thing happen to one of the new, modern 'gods' – a young female warrior no less – he released her, warning her not to open the grail again. He would not be so merciful next time. in return, she had promised to always remember him and his god. It would be impossible to forget this weird adventure anyway.
"But that's not important," she eventually said, "We're back together and that's all that matters." She left away the part about not opening the grail again, but no such warning was needed. None of her friends would ever want to be in such a situation again.
"What time is it?" Alan asked, for he didn't wear a watch nor did he carry his phone with him. the other soon responded with the time, rather surprised with the current time. This adventure with Ayar had cost them two hours to fix.
"Wow, is that the time?" Spark then said out loud, "I should go home now." She had never intended to stay longer than two hours anyway. There were still some matters she had to take care of – matters with very big consequences if they were allowed to run through the streets.
"But we haven't figured out the script yet," Oliver said, reminding them all of the reason they were here in the first place: to write the script of the play they were supposed to perform next week. and now two hours had passed and they weren't able to put any time into their script.
Then Kenny started to laugh as if someone had just told him a hilarious joke. Everyone stayed to find out why Kenny suddenly burst out in laughter. It took him a couple of minutes to finally calm down enough to answer his brother's question: "What are you laughing about?"
"Haven't figured out the script…" Kenny said, and he had big trouble not to start laughing again. "Dudes, you must be really blind!"
"What is it, Kenny?" Jordan asked. Kenny eventually stopped laughing, but that didn't mean he also lost that big smile on his face. As he was smiling widely, he explained what he was laughing about.
"Seriously, don't you know what just happened to us? This is the perfect story for a play!" He hoped the others shared his opinion, because he didn't want a friend of Kaz' to deliver a play that wasn't nearly as good as the improvised one last year. "Sure, we probably have to adapt some things so it doesn't have to take two hours to tell it, but I guarantee you, this will be a hit. People will adore our creation!"
"Our creation?" Kaz nearly immediately replied, "You weren't even supposed to be involved." Kenny nodded.
"Can't help it, but now I'm in. Where will you find your eighth actor with such a short amount of time? Besides, I do need a hobby."
"You, a hobby?" Spark, who still did not dare to trust the ex-villain, then said "What about that costume? Isn't that your hobby?" Kenny had forgotten that he still was wearing his old costume – without the mask, that is – and he gave her his most serious look.
"You know that's work. I really need something which I enjoy and that won't give me too much stress." Living as a villain was rather chill, except for the times they fought. Living as a hero was more difficult and required more fighting, more teamwork and above all, more paperwork. It was just a job like any other, except you didn't get paid to fight crime in tights.
"How are we going to do it?" Gus then said, "Look around you. We can't just put people inside paintings or mirrors!" He did make a good point. How were they going to fix it?
"But we can place people behind paintings," Kenny said. When he figured nobody was getting what he meant, he started to explain, "Look, we don't need paintings. What about glass plates with those motives on it? We can keep the space behind it dark until we need it to illuminate the one sitting behind the glass plate, making it look like they have been sucked in there – while they're just sitting behind it." The others nodded. They began to realize this was actually a good idea. They didn't need to create a new story, they just needed to piece together their adventure and when rehearsing, make up what they thought they had said and hope nobody would forget what was going to happen next.
Then they just needed to find someone to make those glass plates and someone to play the role of Ayar. They quickly decided to have someone record his lines and film this person while in costume and project it on the mirror – or, in this case, something that wouldn't make it too hard to see what was projected on it.
Then, they all returned home. They had decided to come together before work and after school to go over the details and rehearse. Everyone went their separate ways – all except for Oliver, Kaz, Skylar and Alan. The four of them went to the hospital, because it was time for them to get to work.
As soon as they arrived in the hospital and Alan had gone to his room, Oliver turned to Kaz and Skylar.
"I think it's time you two explained what was going on when you kissed on stage." Kaz and Skylar looked at each other.
"You explain it," Kaz said, "If it weren't for you, I might not have had the guts to do it." And with those words, Kaz left Skylar and Oliver so they would get a moment alone. Kaz knew he could've easily explained it himself, but he felt that Skylar had to be the one to tell Oliver what really happened. Maybe then, after the explanation, they could get the moment Kaz had interrupted after finding a candle.
