So...late by a day, I guess. Welp, I officially suck at self-created deadlines. Big procrastinator right here, guys. I give myself a week then end up writing the bulk of the chapter on the last day :(
Chapter 9 is especially important to me, because it features the first character created by me in this fanfic! Whoo! She is my small child, guys - who is maybe going to dye. Who knows. I have some interesting plans for this story! *maniacal laugh*
Also, tell me in the comments if you want me to start posting a question of the week. I feel like that would be interesting, but I don't want to do it if nobody will respond. So, yeah. There's that. And...I don't have anything else to say. So here we go:
Replies:
Xylia Neo: YES! SORA! Oh my god, I love your story. AND SORA! And I don't blame you for being a fangirl of your own story. I'm sure I'll be once this really gets rollin'. I love terrakinesis, though, and I figured since we have Linh and Squall and numerous pyrokinetics (I'm sure we haven't even met them all, lol), we need a terrakinetic! Sorry I haven't reviewed your fanfic yet, I've been kinda short on time...but I swear I'll do it soon! I can't believe how long it is, too! Like, it's longer than most published fantasy books for this age group! Thanks for the comment! 3
copicrazeunwoltxnaa: Wow, your usename is a mouthful! So, Linh and Tam will come in soon. There's a part in this chapter where I make you guys think they're gonna appear, but then disappoint you all with my laziness! Yeah, sorry about that. Linh will have a bigger part, and Tam will definitely come into play. *spoilers* Shades are gonna be super important to the plot. But you're going to have to wait a little longer. Glad you like my story and thanks for the review!
Revel Temptation: *screams and runs around house with you* I DON'T KNOW! Everything kinda just comes spilling out of my overflowing brain and onto the page and sometimes it's not that great but I do the best I can and aaaaahhhh! Also, for me there is never enough fangirling. Emphasis on "never." I personally ship Team Foster-Keefe, buuuuut Sophex has been growing on me recently. And Sophitz is always really cute. But you'll have to wait and see who she ends up with, because I'm not making any guarantees! Thank you for being an amazing reader! 3
Okaaaay, here we are. Nothing really exciting happens this chapter (so many empty promises, sorry), but next time I promise - no, I SWEAR there will be action! And I GUARANTEE chapter 10 will be more than 3,000 words!
Word Count: 2,051
Chapter Nine
ALLUVETERRE LOOKED JUST THE SAME AS IT HAD A FEW DAYS BEFORE.
Except this time, Sophie wasn't hiding away from the Council's watchful eyes. Now that the immediate danger had passed, the forested underground cavern teeming with life looked bright and beautiful and not at all foreboding.
She tucked the black leaping crystal into the bag she'd brought with water, custard bursts and her imparter, and turned to face Dex.
"Should we just wait?" she asked. He shrugged.
"I guess. We could sit down where we used to eat meals. Hey, do you think Linh and Tam are here?"
"Maybe. Let's go see." They walked over to the east treehouse, where Sophie and Biana had stayed, but when the ascended the stairs and knocked nobody answered the door. When the same happened with the west treehouse, Sophie led Dex over to the picnic tables in the center, and they sat down to wait and snack on Edaline's famous custard bursts.
"Is it wrong for me to miss this place?" Dex mumbled with a mouth full of the gooey treats.
"You miss Exillium? And everyone keeping secrets from us?" Sophie asked.
"No, but I miss all of us being here together. Plus, the Lost Cities have changed. Everyone is always so nervous now. And I can't walk in a crowd without wondering who's on our side and who's with the Neverseen."
Sophie agreed. After so many betrayals, it was hard to know who to trust.
The minutes passed by, enough that Sophie started to wonder if the Black Swan's terrakinetic was ever going to come. Then there was a miniature avalanche of pebbles and dust as a spot on the cavern ceiling above them crumpled and twisted away so a short, dark-haired elf could leap through. She stopped her fall with levitation right before she touched down, and when she threw back her hood Sophie couldn't help staring at her striking egyptian blue eyes.
"Well?" the elf said after a moment of silence, tugging on her green, neck-high shirt which was partially covered by an dark brown jacket. She looked maybe eighteen, but she could've been older—it was hard to tell with elves. "I hate these things. They don't give you any room to breathe. Anyway, I'm Kesia—Black Swan operative, blah blah blah. You must be the Moonlark—and, Dex? Deck?"
"It's always Deck," Dex mumbled and Sophie resisted the urge to grin. Kesia reached over, her shoulder length, cleopatra-styled hair rustling behind her, and shook Sophie's pale hand with her own warm brown one.
"Normally I do away with formal greetings and such," she said distastefully. "But, y'know, leading the Moonlark on a top secret mission doesn't really count as 'normal.'"
"Um, can I just be 'Sophie'?" Sophie asked.
"Whatever you want." Kesia shrugged. "We're going to leap now, so you guys should concentrate."
Dex was still muttering about "Deck" as Kesia pulled out a magenta-colored leaping crystal, so Sophie grabbed onto his arm and wrapped a portion of her concentration around him like a shield.
"Don't let the pretty color fool you," Kesia warned. "Austeria—that's where Exile is—has the harshest conditions in the world. You pretty much never want to go there. Only below the surface is habitable, yet half the dwarves live there. They're pretty amazing, right? Orion—" she broke off, her expression becoming unbearably sad. "A friend went there once as the ogreish ambassador to the dwarves. She was an elf...but she always had a way of instilling peace…" There was a moment of silence as Kesia cleared her throat and tried on another smile. "Okay, enough useless rambling."
She held up the crystal to her eye level and grimaced. "Buckle in, everyone, 'cause without magsidian this is not going to be a comfortable ride."
Before Sophie could ask who Orion was—or what she should brace for—Kesia raised her hand to the ceiling and closed up the opening in the cavern, catching the last ray of light on the leaping crystal and pulling them into the glittering path just before it dwindled out of existence.
The magenta light rushed them away, and for one blissful moment Sophie thought nothing bad was going to happen. Then harsh granules of sand hit the flow of light, scratching and poking at Sophie, whittling away at her essence. The dashes of sand turned into a downpour, and she felt she was going to suffocate under the countless layers of pain. Just when she thought it couldn't get worse, the light made one final turn downward and sunk into the ground, abandoning the re-solidified elves.
Sophie tried to scream, but the tons of sand buried on top of her crushed all the air in her lungs. There was nothing but darkness and the distant howl of wind. The pressure bore down upon her until she felt she was going to turn into one large, buried Sophie-pancake.
Suddenly, the weight was lifted and hot, dry air hit her mouth right when she didn't think she could hold her breath any longer. She gulped it down, calming her pounding heart.
"Sorry about that," Kesia apologized. Sophie craned her neck up to see out of the ten-foot-deep sandpit she was lying in, and spotted the terrakinetic perched on a pile of sand, looking perfectly unharmed. "Um, Infiltrators can be sort of unpredictable."
She flicked her wrist, and the sand below Sophie swelled, pushing her up up up towards the sky. WIth a flick of her pinkie, Kesie swept all the excess sand off Sophie's clothes. Next to Kesia, Dex was hunched over, spitting out sand from his mouth.
"Ugh," he complained. "Tell me what an Infiltrator is so I don't have to use it, like, ever again."
Kesia grinned. "It's a mechanical leaping device," she explained, handing the magenta "crystal" to Dex. "Bet you thought it was a crystal. But nope, it's a gadget, except for its eudialyte chip in the center. Our most talented technopath made it—but I'll tell you about them another time." There was a mischievous glint in her eyes that made Sophie wonder who all these mystery elves were—and what they had to do with her.
"What does the eudialyte do?" Dex asked, his curiosity apparent.
"It's one of the only substances able to navigate through different currents and types of light. But because of that, it's unpredictable, can only be used a few times, and doesn't always get you where you're going. For example, we're about a mile off from where we want to be right now."
Sophie and Dex both groaned.
"Aw, don't look so miserable," she said. "I can speed up the process. You ready?"
"No," Sophie was about to say, just as Kesia held her arms out in front of her and the sand zoomed forward. Sophie screamed and flailed as the desert roller coaster sped and twisted away, wild and very much out of her control. Kesia just laughed, steering the flow with her arms as if driving an invisible car. Then she pointed her fingers downward and Sophie braced for the worst.
Her stomach dropped with the horrible sensation of free-falling as the sand below them gave way to oblivion. She tried to gather enough core energy to levitate, but the scrape of rushing sand bit into her concentration and made it impossible to rally.
Suddenly the floor solidified underneath her enough to get her bearings, and Kesia pounded on her and Dex's backs as they coughed up what felt like enough sand to fill a beach.
"So much better than light leaping," Kesia said and stretched her arms, laughing when Sophie and Dex flinched. "Oh, come on, you've gotta admit it's fun."
"Nuh-uh," Dex said as Sophie shook her head so hard it hurt.
"I guess only a terrakinetic can appreciate the power of the earth," Kesia said dismissively and shrugged. Sophie remember Fintan saying almost exactly the same thing a few months ago when she'd been forced to help Alden break his mind. It was eerie and Sophie wondered if pyrokinesis was really that different from the other elemental abilities.
"So, this is where things get complicated." Kesia's expression turned deadly serious for the first time, and Sophie had a feeling she wasn't going to like the plan.
"What do you mean?" Dex asked, echoing her thoughts.
"Dwarves are able to sense living things in the barren areas they inhabit. So the moment we break into Exile, they'll know we're here. Which we don't want, to be clear. So we have to be...creative."
"If it's so hard, how is Keefe sneaking in?" Sophie asked.
"Good question, Sophie." Kesia smiled and flashed a thumbs up. "Actually, that's Plan A. Plan B isn't so pleasant. So...ugh, I think I have it somewhere in here…" She plopped down into the sand and leaned against the stone sides of the tunnel. Sophie waited, growing impatient as Kesia casually checked all the pockets in her brown cargo jacket before finally pulling out what looked like a black imparter.
"A Penetrator!" Dex said, taking the object without Kesia's permission. "I've always wanted one of these!" He held it against the stone wall, grinning when the screen whirred to life, showing a three dimensional, full-color x-ray of the solid rock beyond.
Sophie wondered if every piece of elvin technology was named after what it did. It did kind of make sense, though. And she definitely did not want Dex getting his hands on an x-ray machine.
"Yep. But see that line where the picture cuts off? Exile has an impenetrable barrier around it—designed for both sight and sound. So now comes the fun part." She crossed her arms and stared up expectantly at Dex.
"What?" he said, then was silent for a moment. "Oh. Um, so you want me to rewire this Penetrator to see through something that's not supposed to be see-through?"
"That's the idea, yeah," Kesia agreed.
"What happens if he can't? I can always try, um, Mr. Forkle's theory," Sophie offered—reluctantly. Not that she doubted Dex. He'd done some pretty amazing things with his ability as a Technopath.
"Don't worry, I can," Dex interrupted. "The barrier blocks out sound and sight—so that just means I have to make this use touch. But, I, uh, don't know how to do it."
Sophie groaned as he opened some sort of compartment in the Penetrator and fiddled with the wires. After about a moment, he snapped his fingers and looked up at her.
"Phasing!"
"What?" Sophie asked as Kesia smiled.
"Wow, you're better than I thought. Sir Kerlof was right—you do have an interesting way of approaching challenges."
It took Sophie a moment to realize Sir Kerlof was Magnate Leto, long enough for Dex to ask: "Are you a technopath?"
"Nope. But I've spent a lot of time around some, so I know more than most people."
Dex made one last arrangement to the wires, then, rather reluctantly, took out the pouch containing the purple flakes from Magnate Leto's black leaping crystal and adding them to the contraption.
"We won't have a live video," Dex informed them. "But it's better than nothing. Okay, you might want to stand back," he warned and held the altered Penetrator at arm's length like it might blow up any moment—which did not comfort Sophie.
He held it up against the wall, and there was a bang as a boomerang-shaped flash of light passed through straight through—just like phasing, the rare elvin ability to break down one's own molecules in order to pass through solid objects. The boomerang was gone for five, ten, twenty seconds—then it rocketed back through the rock and disappeared into the Penetrator, filling the screen with the projection of a spiraling staircase.
Sophie barely heard Dex's celebration as she leaned in closer. Three figures were walking down the staircase, two of them definitely dwarves. The third was taller, and seemed to be arguing with the others. He pointed back up the staircase, and the two smaller creatures seemed to shake their heads and take off back the way they'd came. Then the taller figure buried his face in his arms, taking a deep, shaky breath before throwing back his hood.
Sophie's eyes widened. "Keefe!"