Author's Note: Chapter 9 is here! Thanks to all the reviews! The Robot Reader, ZazzyZ, ChildOfChaos, I'm Number Eleven, I am number 10 and Loricfan – I understand you guys would be quite busy around this time of year, so thank you so much for taking the time to read my story!

Previously on The Stand of Eight...

Marina/Seven POV

I lean into Eight's face, and stare at his gorgeous features. The blue lighting has stopped shining through his eyes and mouth – so hopefully he'll wake up.

"Please don't leave me again… I need you…" I whisper into his ear,

I stroke his face and hair more and lie back into his upper chest, placing the side of my head above his heart…

My head lies directly above the wound… the wound.

The blow that took him away from me. I lay a small kiss onto top of it and start to rest. As my eyelids are about to slowly close,

Something extraordinary happens…

Emily/Five POV

I sit across from Marina and Eight. Well I think it's Eight. He's not moving.

The blue light shining from his eyes and mouth has stopped, but I'm still worried. Eight was the first Garde I met. I guess that's important; John with Six, Marina with Ella...

Marina really cares for Eight; she strokes his head and lies on his chest. The weather is nicer now, probably due to Marina's Cryomen Legacy. But the snow is still quite cold underneath me. All I'm wearing are jeans, and an orange shirt. I really need a jacket, Where you gonna find a jacket Em?

"I don't know" I mutter to myself, I face palm realising that I'm talking to myself. Marina's falling asleep – thank Lore, all this touchy feely stuff from before was making things very awkward for me.

I return to going through my chest; considering none of us are bothered to move to a safer or less cold place. I open the Loric box. I don't know most of the contents. Kessandra only showed me the weapons, Zythardic and cloak I had, but I'm very curious to know what the rest is.

I run my hand throw the contents, feeling every corner, side and item. I dive in and start looking at random crystals found in the chest. I see what I think is called a Xitharis, Macrocosm, the Legacy Book, Healing Stone and my Zythardic. I pass my hand over a roll of... tape. Really Lorien? Tape, a frickin roll of tape! What am I going to do with it?

I throw it back into the chest and slam it shut – very pissed off and upset. I get very angry, very easily – that what makes up my charming personality. Eight and One do tease me about my anger management issues.

I'm about to lie back and stare at the stars but Marina's voice interrupts,

"Emily... what's happening?" she asks, fear in her voice, I jerk up and crawl over to her, I look at her face, she's shaking a bit. I look to Eight... Good Lore.

The blue lighting has returned, but that's not what's worrying her... he's lying down, only he's floating a foot off the ground! My eyes widen and my mouth drops open,

"Holy... moly" I mutter, I try to move Eight, but he won't budge – it's like some force is holding him in place. Marina joins in; Eight's body just stays suspended a foot in mid air. The air around us starts to get incredibly cold, the snow on the ground starts to freeze, I shiver, holding myself, rubbing my arms and hands together. I look to Marina, her eyes are centred on Eight, sorrow and sadness fill them, but a hint of anger as well. Tears form in her eyes, but soon freeze and disintegrate into snow from the extreme cold she's causing.

"Marina..." I whisper, the cold being too icy for me to speak loudly, bits of mist float out of my mouth. Marina doesn't respond,

"Marina" I say now, trying to sound more firm – but the cold isn't making it very easy. She stops staring at Eight and looks to me, sorrow fills her eyes for a second and the coldness stops, instantly going back to the temperature it was before.

"Sorry" she says, looking back to Eight, and stroking his face and leaning close to him. I give a quick smile and kneel down next to him. Marina is shaking less now, about I can see small tears forming, I place my hand on her shoulder,

"He's going to be fine" I say, trying to sound reassuring. But I have no idea if he will be. She nods, trying to hold herself together. Six told she had been very emotionally unstable ever since Eight died. Her Cryomen Legacy was apparently developed the second after Eight died – so I guess whenever something bizarre happens to Eight she gets a bit emotional.

I look over to Marina, she's taking deep breaths in and out, I smile at her, and she gives a faint one back. Her thoughtful eyes returning to their natural appearance.

But this calming moment gets ruined again.

Marina/Seven POV

I'm on the brink of freaking out – I've heard Two is an expert at that.

Emily is trying to calm me down, but it doesn't go very well when a roar in the distance cuts the tension filled silence. I look up to Emily, she nods and goes to her chest, I wipe away the tears forming in my eyes and fire up my Cryomen.

"They'll probably go for Eight, I'll take on the front line, if any get close kill 'em" Emily orders, strapping on the Hidden Blade and placing the Externa balls in her pocket. I shiver at the Hidden Blade's presence, Emily extends it and the gleaming silver blade, reflects the small sliver of sunlight. She looks at me one more time before flying off towards the advancing Mogadorians. I start to shoot icicles that stab Mogs from a distance, still staying nearby Eight. Emily flies through the Mog ranks, her skin glistening steel and Hidden Blade flexed to its full length. Ash is soon mixed in with the snow, creating a grey discolouring to the white sheet of coldness.

A group of Mogs get past Emily's rampage and stalk towards me, firing their blasters rapidly at Eight's body and me. I manage to block the blaster fire with Telekinesis and divert the bullets from us. I'm using my Legacy to its full extent.

I stomp on the ground and icicles shoot out of the ground, impaling the group of Mogs, they explode into ash that flows towards the ground. I'm about to turn around to see if Eight has changed but a splitting pain in my right lower leg makes me scream. I groan and fall to the ground, I look to my leg, and there are 2 bullet holes in the calf, my leg bleeding out rapidly. I look up to the figure that shot at me.

The Mog stands over me, dark eyes and a shark grin planted on his face. The gun in his hand smoking slightly. I wince at the pain, I try to crawl away, the Mog just kicks my gut; I go sprawling into the nearby snow.

The Mog takes a look at Eight's floating body then turns to me. Crap. The Mog takes out a curved knife and flips it a bit in his hands.

"MARINA!" I hear Emily scream from the other side of the battlefield, her duplicates and her attempt to fly over, but they're tackled by Mogs, the original Emily goes down shouting my name. I look again to Emily, trying to see if she will break out... nothing. I try to heal my bleeding calf, but the Mog just kicks me again, I grunt and cough up some blood.

The snow is now stained with a portion of my blood, the Mog goes for another kick; but I'm ready. I quickly counter and roll sideways, freezing his legs where he stands. He's trapped. He struggles against the ice holding him in place. I get up slowly, resting my weight on my left leg and look at the Mog. He tries to stab at me with the curved knife in his hand, I dodge out of the way, and dislocate his extended stab arm, he howls with pain and drops the knife – I don't feel for this monster. I quickly form a 2 foot long, sharp icicle – the Mog looks at it fearfully. Without hesitation I stab the Mog through the jaw, the icicle protruding through the top of his skull. He explodes into ash and my icicle falls to the ground.

I grab the icicle and limp over to Eight; I stand in front of him and quickly bend down to heal my wounded leg. The iciness of my Legacy comes over my calf, the two bullets pop out the holes they made and fall to the ground. After a few seconds there's only stained blood where the wound was. I quickly stand back up, a Mog runs towards me – nothing but a gleaming sword in his hand.

I flip the icicle in my hand and javelin throw it at the Mog, it blurs quickly and goes straight through him, and his body falls to the ground, limp and slowly turns to ash. I quickly return to defending Eight and shooting Mogs off with Cryomen from a distance. But an ear splitting scream breaks the not so loud battlefield.

"Emily" I mutter and look over to her, still shooting icicles at the remaining Mogs. A knife is embedded into her gut; blood instantly flows out once the Mog standing over her pulls it out. The steel Externa ball Emily had is a few meters away from her, and a duplicate of her returns to her in a small ball of light. There are about 5 other Mogs around her; all have shark grins on and swords or blasters in their hands. Fear spreads through me; Emily falls to the ground, her Hidden Blade retracting back into its sleeve. No.

I have to heal her. I look to Eight, tears fill my eyes. I don't want to leave him, but I know I have to; another Garde's life depends on it.

"Don't give up on me now" I whisper to Eight's floating body before I bur towards Emily's body. Blood runs out of her gut, she winces at the pain and tries to move, the Mog standing over her cleans the blood from the knife in his hand and gets ready to stab again. I increase my speed, and shoot at the Mog holding the knife. My shot hits his hand; he yells in pain and turns to me. The other Mogs start shooting vigorously; I roll and dodge out of the way from a huge blaster fire. I return Cryomen shots at them, icicles impale their throats, and soon all that is left is Emily and her wound bleeding out into the snow. I sprint to her and slide down by her side,

"Emily, it's going to be OK" I say straight away – not wanting to have her die from shock or panic. I lift up Emily's orange shirt a bit to see the stab wound. She winces and her breathing quickens. I place my hands on her gut, blood instantly flows over my hands, but my icy healing eventually comes through. Emily stops breathing quickly and takes a deep breath, then looks to me. I have Emily blood on me, but I can't help but smile at her.

"Thanks Marina" she says with a smile, I help her up and hug her. We pull apart and she walks over to her steel ball. When she's about to pick it up, a deafening roar stops her.

"Piken" I mutter, I hear Emily swear – I smile a bit then return to the Piken. It's lumbering over the snow, it's a lone one. But just as scary.

"Hey, you ever killed a Piken before?" Emily asks, slowly backing away – I follow her lead.

"Nope" I say, and for some reason smiling – Eight must be rubbing off on me. Emily nods, and extends her blade out; I form two sharp, long icicles in my hands and get into battle stance. The Piken lumbers towards us, I can smell the stench of its breath from where I stand. The teeth drip with Piken saliva. I know - typical monster thing.

But something else grabs my attention in the face of fear...

Nine POV

I hate this so much. Next time we teleport like that – I call shots not getting grouped with Mr. And Mrs. Nerd over here. They won't stop talking about science and book stuff. We're walking to the nearest town that Two has managed to find via satellite using her Technokinesis. And just to top it off, we're trudging through a forest in the late afternoon. Great, just great.

"Hey Two, we're camping here" I say, stopping and placing down my chest. She turns around with an annoyed face, but obeys, Sam follows her – of course.

I pull up three logs around the spot where I'm going to make the fire. Two and Sam take their seats. I sit down and open my chest.

"So Nine, what Legacies do you have?" Two asks, trying to start a conversation – I really don't want to do this now. I look up from my engrossed session with my chest and place it next to me on the log.

"Well my first Legacy is Antigravity, then I got the power to transfer Legacies, and then Super Speed and Super Hearing, then I got my ability to talk to animals, like Johnny boy" I say, ending my answer in my famous mocking smirk. Sam grins and Two rolls her eyes, but I see a grin forming at the edge of her lips.

There's an awkward silence shared between us – Two just shifts uneasily, Sam just stares at the ground, occasionally looking at Two. And I just look at my chest. I take out the broken pipe-staff. Bad memories flood back, creating all these negative feelings. I kept on beating myself over Eight's death. It was my fault, taunting Five... the clone of Five. But he broke not only my pipe-staff that day, but also Marina's heart. I knew from then onwards she would never be the same. Even when Eight returned, she still has a certain coldness that comes with her Cryomen Legacy. I know she'll probably never forgive me for what I did that dreadful day.

I drop the broken pipe-staff back into my chest and look back at Sam and Two, they're in a deep nerd conversation – I'm guessing. I decide to go and get firewood, I tell Two that and she nods, returning to her chat with Sam. I wonder through the forest, looking at the trees and stars – kinda weird for a guy like me. But memories of Eight's dead body lying on the ground come back; Marina crying hysterically over him – trying to heal him, even though his scar already burnt into our ankles, Six's unconscious body lying to the side and the ice... I realise I can't change back to the guy I was before right now,

Cocky, Arrogant Nine will have to wait for now. I think – it's probably the best move, I can't let something like that happen again. I need time to 'get over' it.

Hopefully I can get over it.

Author's Note: hey guys – Sorry if this was a bit less action; since last chapter was an action one, I decided to take things down a notch. What did you think?

What caught Marina's attention?

What will Nine be like? How will he deal with his unresolved emotions?

What will happen to Eight?

All these questions will be answered my good readers! Please tell me your theories on the prophecy (sacrifice, exchange, blah, blah...) and visions/dream that One, Three, Eight and John had. (One of you is correct on the vision).

Thank you again and please review!

Ciao

Paragon 8