Angst
A W.i.t.c.h. Fanfiction by: A J
Disclaimer: Don't own; don't sue. The O.C.'s Steph and Gen are mine, as is the plot.
Summary: Zenith was NOT the end of the story, even if it WAS the end of W.i.t.c.h. …
Chapter 10
Finally settling on spending an hour practicing their powers at Shell Cove, Dean drove the newest Guardians and Elyon to the shoreline park. An exhausting workout later, the six teens (Elyon had decided she better start honing her various powers as well,) all followed a chuckling Dean back out to his Cruiser.
"Are you sure playing 'target' is the best way to improve your abilities, Your Majesty?" he asked, handing Elyon the towel from his car's roadside emergency kit.
"Hey, for the girl who used to be picked last for dodgeball in gym class for years, I think I've come pretty far," she returned, accepting the towel with a grateful smile. She finished wringing out her two braids, and started in on her hair with vigor. Taranee and Nigel conjured a warm gust to flow around her to counter the winter chill now that they were out of the cave, and between the towel and the breeze, she was dry again in short order.
Dean acknowledged her gym statement with a nod. It was true; she'd only been tagged once in the teen's hour workout, right before he'd called "TIME!" for them. It had taken all five of them working together, too.
Utilizing their extensive educations, Taranee and Alchemy had collaborated with Steph and Nigel to generate a miniature storm around the young Queen while Gen kept her from flying with some quick-growing seaweed out of the tide-pools that were spread throughout Shell Cave. Then Taranee directed Stephanie and Nigel in distracting Elyon with lightning (actually more light than electricity, but they looked real enough from Elyon's viewpoint at the time) and mini-tornadoes, while Gen aided Alchemy in levitating several of her Water-globes behind the young Meridianite, and dousing her.
"That was the most fun I've gotten to have in weeks," Elyon added, obliquely referring to her forced incarceration in her own jewelry, and then the saddening circumstances after her emergence. "It's the one thing I think I regret the most about," she continued, looking over at Taranee. "If I'd found out about my powers when you five had, and we had gotten to practice them together, we could have really given my brother a run for his money." Seeing Taranee's suddenly crestfallen expression, Elyon hastily amended, "Hey, water under the bridge, T." She knew that the Fire Guardian had been one of the first to side with Cornelia about telling Elyon the truth before Phobos had taken her to Meridian, citing 'Forewarned is forearmed'.
Both grinning at her deliberate pun, the two girls were just closing the distance between them for a conciliatory hug, when all the teens doubled over. Brought low by a second attack from whatever had come over them during fifth hour, most of the teens toppled safely into the snow-covered sand. Dean had to jump around the front of his PT Cruiser to keep Alchemy from bashing herself senseless on the bumper, however. Holding her up, he watched helplessly as Alchemy and the others all cried out in anguish.
With a sharp shake of her head, Alchemy snapped upright in his arms. Glaring around, she practically clobbered Dean as she vaulted out of his arms and back around his car to Elyon's side. He noticed that as she passed each of the others, the attacks on them seemed to stop, and their bodies relaxed again. He also saw that each teen had involuntarily let loose with their individual elements in extremis.
Where Gen sat, a wavering ring of beach grass had sprung to unlikely life in the snow around him. The air around Stephanie was swirling with a cloud of animated snow and sand. Dean could feel the suddenly-generated slush under the spot he'd held Alchemy soaking into the knees of his trousers. The greatest disturbance was where Elyon, Nigel, and Taranee lay in a triangle of debris, each within a handspan of the other two. The ground around them was wind-blasted and superheated, as if someone had used a shaped incendiary charge to blow a hollow in the beach under the trio. The sand beneath them had been melted to cracked glass in the form of a three-sided bowl.
Nigel was the last of the new Guardians to revive from the attack. Sitting up, he found Steph and Gen leaning over him worriedly. "Are you okay?" the Heartwielder asked. Nigel nodded, and immediately regretted moving his head.
"Owwww." He gingerly cradled his aching skull, and looked past the other two to see what had befallen Elly and Taranee. "You okay, Beauty?" Taranee looked over from where she was, crouched and shivering in her corner of their crater.
"I will be. Thanks to Alchemy. Elyon?" Alchemy was holding the young Queen's head in her lap.
"She's out still, but her pulse is strong, and I can't find anything broken." Alchemy looked up at Taranee. "Can you hear her?"
Concentrating, Taranee became aware of the faint background murmur of Elyon's mind, just under the expectant wondering of the other five people around her. The poor Meridianite sounded like she was in an exhausted sleep, but otherwise unharmed. Breathing a sigh of relief, the Fire Guardian stood slowly, feeling all eyes on her. 'God, I really hate being the one with all the 'experience',' she thought once again. "She's just asleep, gang. And she's gonna want a Powerade in the worst way when she wakes up. For the electrolytes," she answered the unspoken question from at least two of the others. Then Taranee shivered again, and Nigel fought his way up and towards her, wrapping his arms around her shoulders and guiding her up from their glass pit and over to the car.
Dean had grabbed the two blankets out of his emergency kit, and watching Taranee shudder, he wrapped one around her and Nigel and told them to climb in back with Stephanie. Draping the other over Elyon's sleeping body, the history teacher lifted her up, bade Gen and Alchemy climb in as well, and slid Elyon across their laps carefully. "Just get the middle belt around her," he advised, getting in and starting up the engine, then kicking the heat all the way up once the engine had cycled for a couple minutes. The PT Cruiser slowly warmed the snow-spattered teens through, and Dean looked in his mirror at Taranee.
"Can you call the Browns' house, Taranee?" he asked for courtesy's sake. He knew very well that she had probably sensed the question in his mind before he'd even thought to voice it out loud, but for simple appearances, and for the sanity of the newer Guardians, he made pains to keep interacting with the Fire Guardian as normally as possible.
"Sure, Mister Collins," she responded vocally and mentally, and he knew he was getting an answer to both of his queries. He couldn't have been prouder of her if she'd been his own daughter at that moment. Even her predecessor Halinor had said Taranee was leaps and bounds more well-adjusted to her powers - and their consequences - than the blonde woman had ever been, and they had been active Guardians for close to ten years before Nerissa's betrayal and Cassidy's untimely demise.
The wayward thought of his erstwhile aunt gave him a moment's pause, and he barely heard Taranee's conference call with Eleanor Brown from the back seat. He still had trouble adjusting to the fact that his Aunt Cassidy, ten years older than him, was suddenly physically only ten years older than the teen Guardians he was (hopefully) dating the mother of. Well, stepmother anyway. And just like that, he was back to reliving the first awful morning after the last battle of W.i.t.c.h.