"Agent Dare, are you there?" my walkie talkie says. Honestly, these people come up with the stupidest code names. Dare. What kind of name is that? But it makes some sense. I'm known for the daredevil I am.

I sigh and talk back into it. "Yeah, I'm here. What do you want?" I'm turning out to be a little rude nowadays. "We need you outside in garden."

I sigh and exit my room. As I leave the palace, I spot Ash training his group. His group. I hate them so much, mostly because Amber's in it. She's everything I'm not. Perfectly curled blond curls, big blue eyes, natural beauty. Ash spends a lot of time with her. I see him smiling at her and laughing with her. He hasn't talked to me ever since we started with our groups. But, I don't care. At least, I hope I don't.

I get to the garden. I've always had allergies to flowers, but now I'm immune to all diseases and allergies, so I don't sneeze anymore. A dark purple flower catches my eye. It's streaked with black and has five petals. The stem is a dark green with two leaves.

"That's a really rare flower. It's called Poison's Beauty," says a voice behind me.

I jump, startled. Ash stands behind me, slightly smiling. I look away, my heartbeat suddenly racing. I can feel heat creeping onto my face. Why is this happening? I talk to him all the time... Well, I haven't for three months.

I decide to ignore Ash. If he ignored me for that long, I'm ignoring him for the same amount of time, or even more.

I'm pretty sure we're having another meeting because Tori and Aaron come into the garden holding hands. I haven't seen them for a while either.

I give Tori and Aaron a hug. Ash opens his arms. "What about me?" I give me my Death Glare. He lowers his arms.

"What's up with her?" I hear Ash ask Aaron. He shrugs his shoulders.

Tori interrupts by saying, "As you can see, the groups idea was fantastic. I think we might actually win the war. I think the most successful group was The Penetraters."

That's my group. I guess I'm doing a good job after all.

Tori continues, "Ash, your group is falling behind. You better get them into shape." She didn't sound very happy.

This is one thing I'm gonna defend Ash for. His entire group of eight consists of girls. There's only one guy and he seems like Ash's really good friend. The girls giggle most of the time and flirt too much. I don't like any of them.

"I might need Cressy to join your group for a while," Tori says.

"'Kay, great," Ash says while grinning.

"Absolutely not!" I scream. "I don't care if I'm in someone else's group, but I do not want to be in Ash's group!"

Aaron and Tori look startled. They probably thought we would be best friends by now.

I can feel electricity crackling through my body. I'm mad at everyone. At ash for being with Amber all the time and ignoring me, at Tori for putting me in Ash's group, and I'm mad at Aaron 'cause I feel like it.

All three of them back away a few feet. I look down at my hands and see that they are bright white. My hair falls down from my bun and I see my hair sparking with purple electricity.

"Your eyes!" Ash whispers. "What about them?" I snap at him.

"They're beautiful," he says, entranced. Aaron punches him and he snaps out of it. "I mean they're purple," he says.

"Purple?" I ask. I've always wanted purple eyes. This calms me down a bit and I start to turn back normal.

"Alright, we won't put Cressy in Ash's group," Tori says carefully. "

"Who do we—" Aaron gets interrupted by Phillip bursting into the garden.

"They stole it! They stole it!" he shouts. "You four have go after them! Take three of your best fighters to go with you. And be careful there's a very intense battle going on out there."

"Do you know where they went? The ones who stole the Talisman?" Aaron asks.

"I heard Zyter say they were headed for Florida. Hurry now!"

As soon as he said that, the garden explodes into pieces. Ash pushes me to the ground and starts pulling me along while crawling. Three wizards come into the garden looking for any victims. They spot Tori and Aaron and start shooting sparks out of their wands immediately. They both jump out of harm's way.

I'm not so lucky, on the other hand. One wizard finds me and aims his wand at me. He mutters something I can't hear. My only instinct is to roll out of the way. The spell hits the ground and dirt flies everywhere.

I pull out a knife and throw at the wizard. It sticks in his rib cage and I hear a satisfying crunch. He doubles over and I have enough time to shock the guts out of him. He falls to the ground. Dead.

Ash and Tori took the other two down. We dash out of the garden and I rush to find Kyle and Jonathan, my two best fighters. Ash said he would get the other good fighter. And guess who he brings along. Amber Davis. I'm about to barf when another explosion brings us to the ground. This time, over a fifty wizards crash into Transville Square.

We all know what to do. We split up and start taking down two or three wizards down at a time.

One of them seizes me by the neck and picks me up. Of course he can't shatter my collarbone, but he's still making it painful. I swing slightly and kick him in the stomach. He lets me go and I take the opportunity to break his head off. I grab his head and twist it completely off. He's dead.

Something pierces me in the back and I fall to the ground in agony. Fire crawls up and down my back and I see black spots in the corner of my vision. This is the most pain I've felt in my life.

"Cressy!" I hear someone scream.

That's the last thing I hear before I black out.

Someone's slapping my face real hard. It's not feeling good. The next time that person slaps me, I will shock their brain out of their skull.

I snap my eyes open and find myself nose to nose with Ash. Automatically, I turn red.

"Good thing you woke up, or else I would have to do mouth-to-mouth resuscitation," he says while trying to hide his laughter.

I scowl and push his face away. I sit up, but everything starts spinning in circles. Ash pushes me back down and says, "Don't push your limits."

I listen to him, for what seemed like the first time in my life after the ignorance I've received.