Chapter Twelve: Insidious
"Woohoo! Spring Break two-oh-twelve, here we go!" Clad in a striped green summer tank top and shorts, Bumper leapt from the top of the staircase and shot his tongue out toward the chandelier, using it as an anchor as he swung across the foyer. He landed beside his duffel bag by the front doors and raised his arms in triumph. "Panama City Bea-yuh-ch, baby!"
Beca rolled her eyes as she entered the foyer after finishing her eight AM Honors Physics class, in which she was doing surprisingly well. "Could you be any more of a college cliché, Bumper?" she said dryly.
"You're just jealous 'cause you can't come with us, Mitchell," the toad-boy smirked, swinging his bag over his shoulder.
"Please, I'd rather—"
Whatever Beca would rather do was cut off by another "Spring Break! Woohoo!" from the top of the staircase. Three of her fellow female students were dressed down in short shorts and revealing tops, and each of them was carrying her own overstuffed beach bag and sashaying down the corridor. The dark-haired girl in the middle spontaneously spread her iridescent pixie wings and fluttered down to the foyer to smirk at Beca as well.
"Sorry, no kids allowed," she said smugly, with a patronizing tilt of her head.
"Heartbreaking," deadpanned Beca.
Before the college senior could snap back, Luke entered with a clipboard in his hands, looking relieved to find Beca. "There you are," he said, sounding as though he'd been searching for her throughout the entire mansion.
"Hey, Luke!" The dark-haired pixie pushed the tiny brunette out of the way and greeted the Brit in a sugary sweet voice that had Beca cringing. "Wanna come down to Florida with us? It's gonna be fun!"
"I'm sure it would be, Alice," he said with a charming smile, then tapped the clipboard. "But sadly I've got a ton of work to do here. So have fun on my behalf, yeah?"
Alice gave him a pout while Bumper snorted. "Probably too embarrassed to be at the beach with this gorgeous body, eh," he said, gesturing up and down himself.
Luke gave Bumper a once over.
"Here we go…" Beca muttered with an exasperated eye roll when she saw the challenging smirk on her teammate's face.
Lifting his shirt up to reveal his washboard abs, Luke offhandedly said, "I think I'm good."
Alice and her posse bit their bottom lips and fluttered their eyelashes as Bumper scowled.
"Okay, let's go." Beca pushed her blond friend back where he came from. "Careful not to take home any STDs while you're down there," she added in a spiteful farewell to Alice.
"Where's Jesse?" Luke asked, once they began making their way to the Professor's antechamber alone.
"He said he wanted to get a couple of minutes to practice before the demo."
"Okay, well, the two of you are the only ones missing. Everyone else is waiting."
Beca looked down at the clipboard Luke was spinning between his palms. "Isn't that Aubrey's?"
"Yeah," smirked Luke. "I had a feeling Alice would invite me to their trip so I borrowed it to look genuinely busy."
Beca laughed and held her hand out for it. They made fun of the various things Aubrey meticulously kept track of and speculated the blonde's reactions should the clipboard mysteriously disappear, until Beca realized how long it had been since she had shared a lighthearted joke with Luke. The past few months had been all about their trips inside the Realm.
"Hey," she said distractedly, as they rounded the corner to the Professor's wing. "You know, things have been kinda hectic lately, with school and training and stuff—and I realized we've never really had much time to talk, just the two of us."
Luke glanced at her with mild confusion. "Is there something we need to talk about?"
"No... It's just... I guess I just want to ask, are you okay? I mean," Beca hesitated. "How are you feeling? With Jesse's new power and all…"
Jesse had made her promise not to spoil it for their review with the Professor and Gail, but like most secrets that occur in an enclosed space, it wasn't well-kept. The entire Alpha team already knew about Jesse's new power, a power that was very similar to Luke's. Luke smiled knowingly. At first, Beca thought nothing of it, but over the past few weeks she had begun noticing changes in her best friend. There was a swagger in his step and she was getting the impression that he was taking the playful competition between him and Luke more seriously than usual.
Luke, however, seemed unfazed. "Why wouldn't I be okay with it? We should all be pleased with his progress. It only makes the team better."
"I know… I guess I just thought you'd feel a little insecure." As soon as the words were out of her mouth, Beca realized how she had chosen the least likely person to accuse of feeling insecure; Luke was practically the poster boy for self-awareness. She shook her head with an apologetic chuckle. "You know what, forget it. Sorry for assuming that."
"We are all unique, with or without our powers," he said wisely and knowingly.
Beca nodded slowly. "So, it isn't uncommon to have similar powers with someone else?"
"I've never heard of it," Luke replied thoughtfully, "but if it is as Gail says and our powers are coded in our DNA, then perhaps Jesse and I share a genetic history."
"Well, I hope you don't think that we think you're any less useful—" Beca clamped her mouth shut, cursing her stupidity after she realized that it did not sound as comforting as she thought it would be when said out loud.
Luke gave her a wonky, amused smile. "We don't rank ourselves by the usefulness of our abilities, Beca" he reminded her. "In fact, I remember someone who was worried about her powers not being good enough the first time she got here but now she's doing a great job leading the team."
"L-leading?" she sputtered. "My powers aren't that—"
"Being a leader is not about the strength of your powers, Beca, but the strength of your heart. Besides," he smirked cheekily, holding the door to the antechamber open for Beca, "I never said that girl was you."
Beca rolled her eyes but refrained from answering as the people waiting inside the room looked up from their conversations and greeted her. The Professor leapt from his armchair and rubbed his hands excitedly. "Good! We're all here. We can start the review!"
"We hope that the past four months have been very productive for all of you," Gail began in a professional tone. "And I hope I don't need to remind everyone how important it is for us to conduct the rescue as soon as possible."
The six members of Team Alpha nodded.
"So what have you been up to?" the Professor asked, leaning onto the back of his chair and looking expectantly at them.
As expected, Aubrey spoke on their behalf. "Well, sir, we began training with simulated Heartless four times a week last November through December. We moved on to actual Heartless inside the Realm of Darkness twice a week since New Year's," she reported formally. "We have succeeded in efficiently battling Heartless up to level thirteen, which, based on the drones' reports, we believe is enough to get us to the other side. Also, we have placed a total of eight charges within the Realm so far, which gives us a head start."
The Professor nodded satisfactorily. "And how about your individual progress?"
"As you know, sir, we've each been working on a certain milestone for our powers, which we would like to demonstrate for you now." Aubrey looked between him and Gail for confirmation to move forward with the demo and got it. "I'll start."
Aubrey promptly took Jesse by the wrist and made him stand at the center of the room with her. They had cleared away the furniture earlier, leaving a space large enough for them to demonstrate their powers without causing any unwanted accidents. "Are you sure you're okay with this?" she whispered, getting a confident nod from him in reply.
"I trust you," he said, giving her a quick peck on the lips before closing his eyes shut.
Aubrey stepped back a few paces and took a deep breath. Without further ado, she lunged forward and connected her fist with her boyfriend's cheek. They saw a brief sparkle of electricity surround her hand, protecting it, so her audience wasn't surprised that she didn't recoil despite the sickening smack they all heard when the punch landed. Jesse let out a painful cry and instinctively put his hand to his face, only to force it down again when he remembered that everyone had to see the large bruise that was quickly beginning to form under his eye.
"Sorry," Aubrey grimaced, before gently cupping his cheek with her hand and using the technique she had been working hard on for the past several weeks to perfect.
The reason she chose Jesse to demonstrate her new healing power—other than his own eagerness to be her guinea pig—was that needed to strongly focus on controlling the electrons. Going overboard would hurt and leave a nasty burn mark on the recipient's skin, or worse, and with him being her boyfriend there was an extra incentive not to do that.
About half a minute later, she lowered her hand and stepped away from Jesse to show everyone the result. Jesse rubbed his face and moved his jaw around, expecting pain but feeling none. He smiled triumphantly and gestured proudly at Aubrey. Amid her audience's applause, however, Aubrey's eagle-eyed sense of detail noticed a tiny discolored spot below Jesse's cheekbone. She pursed her lips in dissatisfaction but no one seemed to see what she saw.
"Electrical healing?" the Professor said in awe.
"I manipulate the electrons to stimulate molecules surrounding the injury to repair damaged cells," she explained. "It's only good for cuts and bruises; I'm not confident enough to try it on more serious injuries, though."
"Fantastic!" The Professor slapped his the arm of his chair excitedly. "Just when I thought you couldn't get any better, Aubrey."
In spite of herself, Aubrey nodded her head humbly and went to sit back down, leaving Jesse at the center to demonstrate his progress.
"This might be a little bit of surprise," he said as an introduction. Since his friends had already found out weeks ago, he decided to follow his girlfriend's advice and keep the demo simple for Gail and the Professor.
He raised his arm toward the decorative suit of armor standing by the door and carefully manipulated the sword away from its grip. He allowed the weapon to hover in front of him for a few moments to let it sink in that it was metal, not earth, that he was controlling. Then he proceeded to bend the metal into different shapes—a rough shield, a wonky mace—until he found himself turning it into a sphere and pressing it against his palm. The cold metal sent a tingling sensation up his arm and, before he knew what he doing, the metal began to melt in his hand and slowly creep up his wrist and forearm, then toward his elbow, coating his entire arm in a metal skin—
"I think they get it."
Jesse was snapped out of his odd trance by a cold voice that came from… Stacie? He blinked twice and immediately returned the metal to its original form and place. He avoided everyone's eyes, knowing he had gone too far.
"So, you can manipulate metal," the Professor said slowly, looking neither impressed nor unimpressed. "What happened to—?"
"I can still control earth," Jesse answered immediately. "I've researched why. Metal is a subset of earth material, which is why I sort of branched into it development-wise. And although the Realm is, like, mostly dirt and rock anyway, metal is physically stronger than earth, so now I can fight more Heartless more effectively."
The Professor seemed satisfied. "Excellent!"
As he turned to make his way back to the couch, Jesse didn't miss Gail's cautious, sideways glance at Luke before she moved her gaze to the irritable brunette beside him. "Stacie, how about you go next?" she said.
Stacie stood up roughly and walked to the center of the room. She stretched herself upward menacingly, swaying gently side to side like a cobra poised to attack, then nodded at Cynthia Rose, who flicked three of the cards Luke had given her on Christmas straight at her torso. The titanium cards, sharp and deadly as they were combined with Cynthia Rose's expert precision, simply clattered to the ground after hitting Stacie's abdomen.
"Dermal armor?" the Professor asked with raised eyebrows. "Very useful."
"It is," Stacie said emotionlessly. "But I'm also faster—"
She shot her arm at breakneck speed toward the suit of armor and coiled it around its waist a few times.
"—and stronger."
With a small tug, she constricted her arm around the metal, squeezing the suit of armor so tightly that its waist tightened to barely an inch in diameter, easily causing the metal remains to split in half and crash to the ground.
"Destruction of property aside, I am very impressed," grinned the Professor. "Boy, this is fun! Who's next?"
Cynthia Rose raised her hand but didn't get off the couch. "Basically, to reduce my dependence on my cards and dice, which can easily run out during a fight, I learned to charge much larger objects at a faster rate. My current record is Bumper's Rubicon in three-point-two seconds."
Her teammates sniggered openly, remembering the expression on Bumper's face when he had walked into her demonstrating it to them the first time.
Gail frowned in confusion. "But I thought I saw it outside when I arrived? He was loading bags in it for their trip."
"I charged it, but I didn't let it explode," explained Cynthia Rose, demonstrating that very fact by placing a hand on the wooden coffee table and charging it. It glowed the familiar deep pink but didn't explode into pieces. "The timing is also something I've learned to control. Also, I took the liberty of using the chem lab AMG donated to Barden University to create customized bombs. I made them specially for Heartless so we humans aren't affected by them."
She held up a small green die. "This is a poison bomb—at least, poisonous to the Heartless. It emits pulses of manufactured light, which I, er, borrowed from AMG," she looked apologetically toward Gail, who merely shook her head in amusement. "It weakens the Heartless over time."
She held up a small ice-blue die next. "And this one is a freeze bomb, it stuns for about ten seconds. Luckily, the freezing point of Heartless is a lot higher than ours, so if one of us gets hit by accident, it'll be cold but not muchcolder than, say, hugging a block of ice naked." Her teammates winced at the imagery as she continued, "So far it only works on weaker Heartless, but it's good enough for a quick getaway if we were mobbed.
"I also modified their design so that they can only be activated when charged. So none of these idiots," she waved a hand at her teammates, "can cause an unwanted accident."
"Great initiative! Amazing work, Miss Adams—as usual!" the Professor said delightedly, before turning to Beca. He connected the tips of his fingers together and smiled. "And… the chosen one?"
Beca rolled her eyes as her friends hooted and cheered. She didn't understand why they had to make a whole show-and-tell spectacle out of their progress reports, but she supposed it gave the team a boost of confidence before their next undertaking.
"Well, I've pretty much mastered offensive and defensive aerokinesis," she informed them lazily, sending herself off the couch with a gust of wind. "So I've been focusing on what other useful things I could do with it. For instance," she gestured at her teammates, "we all experienced freezing our asses off in the Realm, what with it being eternally dark and all, so…"
Beca took a deep breath and spread her arms out in a circle. An almost visible gust of wind blew from her arms and everyone in the room felt warmth wash over them. She had learned this technique by accident after experimenting on the breathing exercises Luke had given her way back when.
"It's a lot warmer for me," she said, pointing her finger at her chest. "But at least I can keep everyone cozy for a few minutes. Also, I seem to be getting faster and faster," she added as an afterthought, looking slightly confused by her own abilities. "Luke and I think my aerokinesis propels me forward while cutting the air ahead so I could have almost zero resistance. It's the closest explanation to why I've been able to move so quickly."
Gail frowned. "Well, how fast are you?"
"This fast," she replied, moving to stand behind the Professor, covering fifteen feet of distance in a single second. Gail knew it wasn't a blink-and-you'll-miss-it kind of speed, because she felt the wind rush from behind Beca. "It applies to my flight, too, but to a lesser degree. I don't even take the speeder most of the time," admitted Beca, referring to the all-terrain vehicle they used to travel inside the Realm.
"This is excellent. You all have progressed so far and, well, I do believe you are ready," concluded the Professor. He looked at Gail, who nodded solemnly, and turned back to his students. "You all understand what we are asking you to do today, right?"
The students exchanged confirming looks with each other before nodding determinedly.
"You are entering the Realm of Darkness," said Gail, with an air of cautious foreboding, "and not coming out until Chloe is with you."
The team had now been inside the Realm for over ten hours, and every second that passed set the record for the longest they had ever been inside at a single time. They had arrived, on their speeders, at their sixteen-mile checkpoint half an hour after leaving the real world, and they spent the succeeding hours continuing their pattern of fighting off Heartless and inserting more light charges. Exactly twenty days had passed since they inserted the first one, so they gave themselves the goal to make this their final trip lest they lose their convenient highway.
In order to achieve that goal, the team followed Aubrey's carefully laid out schedule and stopped at the twelfth hour to have their first 'night' inside the Realm. After ensuring that the pulses of light were doing their job to keep Heartless away, they located a decent patch of flat ground within the area to set up camp.
"Remember, guys, we only h-have thirty minutes of d-dinner," said Aubrey, her breath condensing in the cold air as she handed out food from the bags. "Then it's straight to the tents to get exactly seven and a half hours of sleep."
Jesse took a break from setting up the tents to wrap his jacket tighter around him. "Beca, c-could you warm us up a bit, p-please?" he stuttered.
"Oh! Yeah, sure." Beca hadn't noticed the cold, since her own breathing naturally warmed her body. She looked around at her teammates and saw that they were all shivering. "Oops. Sorry," she apologized before breathing in deeply and moving her arms in a circle like she did earlier that day in the real world.
The rest of the team sighed in relief as Beca's air warmed them all right up to their toes. Before it got too comfortable, however, Beca's stomach emitted an audible growl and she lowered her arms sheepishly. "I'll eat quickly," she promised, proceeding to wolf down her food. But in the few minutes that she was eating, the rest of them got colder and colder still.
"It w-wasn't this c-c-cold before, was it?" breathed Stacie, shoving her hands deeper into her jacket pocket.
"N-no," answered Aubrey. "I think b-being in here longer while not d-d-oing anything makes it c-colder."
The sound of a motor running and crunching rocks alerted them of Luke and Cynthia Rose's arrival on speeders.
"Any luck finding wood?" Jesse asked hopefully and sighed when Cynthia Rose shook her head.
Beca tried warming them up again but each breath only lasted a second now, and it wasn't exactly easy for her to keep doing it. Turning the empty food carton in her hands, she came up with an idea. "Hey, we can use these food containers! They're made of that biodegradable stuff, right, Bree?"
Aubrey nodded but seemed to hesitate, clearly not comfortable with burning anything. Sensing the blonde's pushback, Stacie added, "Come on, Bree, it's not like we're harming the Earth's environment. If anything, destroying this one would be a good thing."
In the end—and because she couldn't stand the cold anymore—Aubrey agreed and they were able to make a small campfire that kept them warm enough to feel comfortable to sleep. They knew they were never going to be comfortable enough, but they willed themselves to try; they would still rather fight with full energy than continue on.
To save on space, they had decided to share tents in pairs, two to one, and since Jesse had a legitimate reason to be with Aubrey this time, Luke had to find someone willing to share with him.
"I guess I'm the obvious choice, then," Cynthia Rose said with a small chuckle. "You can expect no funny business to go down in our tent. But dibs on the one farthest from those two."
The tradeoff of keeping as close to the fire was the diminished privacy, as their tents were set up only a few feet apart. Aubrey rolled her eyes at the insinuation and barked, "Everyone should be in their tents in three minutes!"
"I guess you're stuck with me," Stacie smiled at Beca, with her bag under one arm, and ducked into the remaining tent. "I hope you're not a noisy—"
Stacie was cut off by the very audible sound of Jesse's voice from the neighboring tent saying, "I love it when you're all bossy." She turned around just as Beca entered the tent herself, wearing a disgusted expression.
"Is it too late to rip the pegs off and move the tent five miles that way?" the smaller brunette asked, jerking her thumb in the opposite direction of their neighbors. "I can keep the two of us warm."
Stacie gave a soft chuckle and took out a tiny pouch from her bag. "I brought an extra pair of unused earplugs if you need them."
"Nah, I was just kidding," said Beca, waving her hand carelessly. "I'm not that worried. They haven't actually done anything yet, at least according to Jesse's endless complaints."
"WE CAN HEAR YOU!" came Jesse's high-pitched irritated voice.
"So can we, you idiot," Beca yelled back. "So you better just follow your girlfriend's orders and go to sleep!"
Hearing agitated grumbling from the other side of the canvas, Stacie stifled a laugh, snuggled into her sleeping bag, and put on her sleeping mask. While Beca was in the middle of getting ready, a beeping noise went off and Aubrey yelled one last time, "Everybody should be sleeping now!"
"Does she really think we can sleep on cue, just like that?" Beca said out loud for all tents to hear. No one dared answer her, for fear of another lecture from Aubrey.
Beca appreciated the sun so much more after she felt the challenge of waking up in the cold, dark night, to Stacie shaking her out of her sleeping bag. "Wake up, Becs," the taller girl mumbled sleepily. "It's already Aubrey's second alarm. Three strikes you're out."
Beca pushed herself up despite her body's natural resistance and desire to not move. It wasn't like the hard ground was comfortable anyway. She ran a hand through her hair to tame it a bit before following Stacie out of the tent. "Good mor—" she began, but upon exiting the tent, she was greeted instead by a most somber sight.
Aubrey was hunched over the now-extinguished campfire, hoping to restart it with what little tinder was left; Cynthia Rose was handing small mugs to Luke and Stacie as though they were at a soup kitchen; and the dark skies and dull rocks did nothing to help the image of a destitute refugee camp. It was decidedly not a good morning.
"God, this is bleak," muttered Beca, walking over to crouch beside Aubrey. "Need any help?"
Aubrey looked up in relief and said, "Yes! Could you warm us up?"
Beca smacked a hand to her forehead. "Yeah! Of course! Sorry, I keep forgetting."
As she did so, Jesse clambered out of his tent holding something rectangular in his hand. "Hey, Aub, is this yours?" he asked, flipping the object over and realizing it was a book when the pages fanned out.
"Careful!" Aubrey cried sharply, rushing forward and snatching the book out of his hands.
"Is that—the Alice in Wonderland book Stacie got you for Christmas?"
Everyone stopped what they were doing and froze—figuratively, although they almost could literally—to watch the scene unfold. Beca might have even heard an "Oh, shit" come from somewhere behind her.
"Yes," Aubrey said tersely. Her voice shook slightly but they couldn't tell if it was from anger or from the cold.
"Any particular reason why you brought it with you? In here?" Jesse asked in a dangerously low voice. "I mean, I don't see you bringing the planner I got—"
"God, Jesse! Will you just—!" Aubrey looked almost like she was about to pull her hair out, but instead she used her hands to shove him back into their tent for what little privacy it offered.
The four left stunned outside tried not to eavesdrop on the hissing argument happening just a few feet away from them, and chose to go back to whatever menial task they had been doing earlier. It only took a few seconds, though, before they realized that they couldn't resist huddling together to make sense of what had just happened.
"Okay, let me get this out of my system before it eats me up inside," Beca whispered quickly, officially starting the conversation, and turned to Stacie. "Is there something going on between you and Aubrey?"
"No!" the accused girl whispered back indignantly. "Alice in Wonderland was her favorite childhood book, okay? So I thought it'd be a nice gesture if I got it for her as a Christmas gift. That's all."
"I don't remember her telling us her favorite childhood book," frowned Beca.
"She didn't."
"So how did you—?"
Beca and Cynthia Rose turned their heads to the only person who had known Aubrey as a child.
"I might have given Stacie the idea," Luke said reluctantly, then rounded on her. "But I didn't expect you to get her the exact same copy she had growing up!"
"I did?" Stacie asked, genuinely surprised. Then she smacked Luke on the shoulder. "Why didn't you tell me?!"
"How was I supposed to know you weren't just going to pick the first one off the shelf?"
"I meant you should have told me she had the first edition!"
"Whoa, wait a second." Cynthia Rose held up her hand. "Girl, you got her a first edition? That's a Big Deal—capital B, capital D."
Beca nodded fervently. "First edition classics cost thousands! I would know; my dad was a literature professor."
"You don't spend thousands of dollars on just anybody," Cynthia Rose said knowingly.
"All I did was pull some strings from a friend of a friend back in New York and cash in a few IOU's," defended Stacie. "Seriously, guys, you're making a bigger deal out of this—"
"Shh!" Luke began waving his arms wildly. "They're coming back! Shut up, shut up!"
The three girls were more surprised by Luke's uncharacteristic jumpiness than by the fact that Aubrey and Jesse were about to witness their conspicuous huddle.
"Sorry about—what are you guys doing?" asked Aubrey, frowning upon seeing the huddle.
The guilty group simultaneously plastered on innocent, nonchalant faces and stared blankly at Aubrey and Jesse. The couple seemed to have worked things out—and then some. Both their faces were a little pink and it was likely not due to the cold. Aubrey's hair was unconvincingly tidy and she was biting her bottom lip to hide it from being visibly swollen. Jesse hadn't even bothered to fix the hair that stuck up at the back nor to wipe the goofy grin he had on his face.
"Just warmin' ourselves up!" said Luke in a cheery voice, encircling the girls with his arms and squeezing them tightly.
"Why didn't Beca just do that for you?" asked Jesse, finding amusement in his friends' awkward four-person hug.
Saving them from having to cook up a bullshit explanation, Beca's stomach made another audible rumble. "I, uh, had no energy?" she offered from under Luke's arm. After an awkward pause she cleared her throat and said more convincingly, "Like, are we going to eat or what?"
With that reminder, Aubrey glanced at her watch and ushered them all to have a quick 'breakfast' (it didn't matter what they called it since it was permanently evening in the Realm) and somehow managed to make everyone feel at fault for being six minutes behind schedule while not mentioning her spontaneous make out session with Jesse.
Fortunately, as they prepared themselves, the atmosphere around them returned to normal, but not without a little smoothing. Jesse apologized to Stacie for putting her at an awkward position, and in return Stacie assured him by recounting the argument she had with Aubrey a few days before Christmas and saying that she thought of the gift as a way to sincerely apologize. With the awkward morning behind them, the team continued on with their routine of fighting Heartless, setting up charges, and doing it all over again for a minimum of eight successful placements a day—according to Aubrey's schedule.
Before long, that schedule went from optimistic to downright impossible. Around their third day, the team started to realize that the Heartless in the Realm were stronger than their simulated counterparts. Some even displayed the ability to intelligently learn and adapt to their combat techniques. Fights were taking longer than their allotted time in Aubrey's strict schedule, which proportionately meant that recovery time did as well.
By the fourth day, they began to encounter Heartless that the AMG drones had never reported. They did not have a solid plan coming into those fights and, as was custom during their training, relied on the team's leader to yell out on-the-spot instructions. But even that strategy was becoming a problem, for there was a power struggle—or rather, a power catch-and-release—happening between Luke and Beca over the position of team leader that none of the others seemed to notice.
By default, Luke always led the team into the attack—it had always been that way, even during their missions in the real world. Aubrey took charge whenever it came to the more technical or managerial aspects of the team, such as filing reports or keeping inventory, but Luke had always been their combat leader. Beca only rarely took over command when either her instincts kicked in—which usually happened in dire situations—or her impatience did. But in the last few Heartless encounters, Luke had been subtly giving Beca the responsibility to declare the plan of action herself.
It didn't bother Beca… until it did.
They had just finished a particularly long and brutal fight with a flock of flying Heartless and Beca was exhausted from spending nearly an entire hour in midair. The team needed the advantage of having someone in the air and although Stacie could have tried, with the team running the clock already, Beca was the more efficient choice. But when she finally descended, hoping for a break, she was upset to find that the rest were all ready to move on to the next checkpoint.
"Come on guys! Let's go, let's go, let's go!" Aubrey called out, punctuating each yell with a loud clap to get everyone on the speeders. "Four more charges to the daily minimum!"
Beca didn't say anything despite her screaming muscles, because the mission was a team effort and they had all agreed to keep going as long as majority of them still had the energy. But in her current state of exhaustion, the sound of Aubrey's commanding tone rubbed her the wrong way.
"You okay?" Cynthia Rose asked in concern, when Beca hopped onto the speeder with her, instead of flying ahead like she normally did.
Beca gave a small nod. "Just tired."
Cynthia Rose returned a sympathetic look and started the engine.
The next batch of Heartless to fight was, as usual, already waiting for them at the edge of the barrier of light created by the charge Aubrey had just set minutes ago. As they got further into the Realm of Darkness, the Heartless that were repelled by the charges grew bolder; rather than disperse and avoid the light, they waited at the edge, hungry for hearts.
These Heartless, which were mostly humanoid in shape and height except for their pitch-black skin, glowing yellow eyes, and long antennae stretching down their backs, were gathered by the dozens—a number that would have been a rare sight in the first two days but was now normal for the Alpha team to be up against.
They slowed their vehicles down as they approached the barrier, and Luke brought the speeder he was sharing with Stacie closer toward Cynthia Rose's. "I'm thinking we could do a counter-offensive or a flank," he said, cruising alongside them. "What do you think, Becky?"
Beca knew he didn't mean to add to her stress, but her exhaustion combined with the sudden responsibility of making the decision fell on her all at once and she snapped, "Why don't you decide for once, Luke."
If the others noticed her unnecessary coldness, they didn't show it. The only sound that could be heard was the engine of the speeder, but that pretty much told Beca how they were all feeling. She felt her cheeks flush and, when Luke still hadn't said anything, quickly amended, "They look strong. I think a counter-offensive would be better."
The Heartless were indeed strong. Not only were they wickedly fast, they were also strongly resistant to their attacks and had seemingly unlimited stamina, which was more than the team could say about themselves, being on their sixth fight that day. Progress was moving at a snail's pace but Beca was still pissed about their last fight so she purposely didn't bother coming up with a new strategy.
She wanted to see how far Luke was willing to take it.
From the other side of the battlefield, Luke himself was pissed at Beca for acting so immaturely. He thought she would appreciate being prepped for leadership, especially since she had been so eager to get the team to agree to take on the mission in the first place. Thinking that Beca needed a lesson in humility, Luke said nothing about their disastrous attempts and let the fight run its course.
Jesse groaned painfully. He was ambushed by a group of Heartless during the fight and got his leg badly cut in the tussle. Aubrey was leaning over his lying form in the camp they had set up after clearing the area.
"Hold still," his girlfriend chastised as she struggled to maintain hold of the electrons around his leg.
"I can't hold still because it hurts! Argh!" Pain shot down Jesse's leg when he moved to make that little outburst, causing Aubrey to lose focus and accidentally shock him. "Aubrey!"
"Don't yell at me right now, Jesse, I'm very stressed!"
"I wasn't yelling! I wasn't yelling," he repeated in an only slightly softer tone. "Just please hurry up."
Aubrey pursed her lips and did her best to close the wound and restore the muscle cells around it. She had left it only three-fourths of the way healed, partly to spite Jesse (because she made it so that he'd be left with an uncomfortable ache the rest of the day) and partly so she'd have the energy because she, too, was exhausted and the others had injuries as well.
Without another word to him, she stood up and walked over to the rest of the group—or rather, to Stacie and Cynthia Rose. "Where are Beca and Luke?" she asked Cynthia Rose, who was charging up a bunch of rocks in an attempt to create heat in Beca's absence. Unfortunately, they only ended up exploding into tiny pebbles.
"Having a 'talk,'" she sighed, giving up on the rocks and nodding to a huge one a few yards away.
Aubrey followed her nod to where Beca was leaning against a boulder with her arms crossed and a scowl on her face, while Luke stood in front of her with his hands on his hips, looking equally pissed. She decided not to comment and just asked her teammate, "Are you okay? Do you need me to heal anything?"
Cynthia Rose shook her head gratefully. "I'm fine, but you should check on Stacie."
Aubrey thus made her way toward the brunette, who was lying on her back nearby. Stacie's eyes were shut in concentration and she was taking slow, deliberate breaths.
"Hey," Aubrey greeted softly. "Need any help?"
Keeping her eyes closed, Stacie took another deep breath before answering, "I'm good—just rearranging some organs."
Aubrey grimaced. "Ouch. I didn't know that could happen."
Stacie opened her eyes. "Only when the fight gets too heavy for me to concentrate on keeping it tight," she winked, then sat up. "Trouble in paradise?" she asked, when Aubrey sat on the floor beside her and pulled her legs against her chest.
"Jesse just needs some time to heal a bit more."
"Is that why you were yelling at him earlier? Because he needs to rest more?"
Aubrey's ears reddened. "Can we talk about something else?"
Stacie raised her eyebrows but nodded. She moved to cross her legs but winced painfully. "On second thought, maybe I'm not so good..." She rubbed her abdomen.
"Does it hurt?"
"It feels like... the worst cramping you could ever have plus how I imagine it feels for guys to get hit in the nuts."
Aubrey laughed at the description and obliged. She helped Stacie lie back down and rested her palm on Stacie's flat stomach.
A few seconds later, Stacie's pain was all gone and her energy even felt replenished. "Thanks! You're getting really good at that," she smiled.
"It's really quite simple," said Aubrey. "I just recharge the electrons around the pain to take away the pressure… at least, that's how I imagine it goes. But like I said before, I can't heal everything," she sighed. "Wounds and cuts are doable, but I can't do anything to affect viruses or diseases—"
"You shouldn't hope to," Stacie muttered under her breath.
"Sorry?"
Stacie turned to her seriously and said, "I'm sure your intentions are noble and all, but don't you remember why we're here? What Gail and the Professor told us? Chloe had a pretty useful power, too, and look what happened to her."
Aubrey looked surprised when she pieced together Stacie's insinuation. "The Professor wouldn't—he knows what he did was wrong. He confessed to everything."
"Yeah, he also basically admitted that he's an ambitious douchebag who would do anything for recognition."
"Was," corrected Aubrey. "He was an ambitious douchebag. He said he isn't anymore."
"You're defending him?" Stacie half-laughed. "After what he did to Chloe?"
"But he and Gail explained everything," reasoned Aubrey, as if the admission was enough to absolve them. "Besides, he wasn't the only one involved in that experiment. I don't see you being afraid to expose your powers to her."
Stacie looked into the distance thoughtfully. "I'm not sure Gail is a hundred percent with the Professor."
"And now you're making conspiracies," said Aubrey, throwing up her hands exasperatedly. "Why are you trying to pick a fight with him anyway?"
"I don't know, maybe because three months' worth of our memories turned out to be wrong?" Stacie said hotly. "Not to mention we completely forgot an entire person! Honestly, I feel like I can't trust anyone anymore, not even my own memories—much less the guy who claims to have caused all this crazy shit."
"You trust Gail," Aubrey pointed out. "She was part of the Project, too."
"Because I have good memories of her that I'm reasonable certain are true."
"Well, that's how I feel about the Professor," Aubrey said dismissively.
"Is it really?" challenged Stacie. "Because from where I'm standing, it seems like you worship the guy."
Sensing an impending fight, Aubrey tried looking for a way out, but not before Stacie had the chance to accuse her.
"You didn't want to go on this mission because you're worried about Chloe. You accepted the mission because it was what the Professor wanted you to do."
"You're being ridiculous," snapped Aubrey. "I wanted to do the mission because it was the right thing to do!"
"According to the Professor!"
"And Gail!" yelled Aubrey, catching Jesse and Cynthia Rose's attentions with her raised voice. She lowered it and hissed, "Stacie, what the hell? Why are you ragging on me about my decisions now when you've made the exact same ones?"
"Because I'm worried that you're being brainwashed by the Professor! You eat up everything he tells you and you do whatever he asks even if it means risking your life," Stacie responded in an even tone. "Look, I know you've known him half your life but it's not healthy, Aubrey. If you did figure out how to take your healing to the next level, I'm worried that you'd give yourself up so easily to his next ambition, and end up just like Chloe."
"Is everything all right here?"
Aubrey and Stacie turned their heads to see Jesse limping over as quickly as he could.
"I thought it was Jesse that changed you," Stacie said quietly, speaking to Aubrey but still eyeing the approaching boyfriend. "But now I think something happened in those three months, something that we forgot, that changed you."
"What exactly are you accusing Aubrey of, Stacie?" Jesse asked darkly, panting slightly at the effort it took to get to them. "Because it seems to me like you're just looking for a reason to be angry at her to deflect from your jealousy."
"What is that supposed to mean?" snarled Stacie. She stood up swiftly to be at level height with Jesse.
Aubrey rose to her feet, too, not wanting to be the only one left on the ground. "Jesse, stop," she warned him.
"Don't think I haven't noticed how you've been acting ever since Aubrey and I got together," Jesse said snidely. "She chose me, okay—"
Both Aubrey and Stacie's mouths dropped open at his insinuation.
"Jesse," came Cynthia Rose's exasperated voice. She had also approached when she sensed Jesse's green monster about to surface. "Come on, we talked about this, man—"
"What?" Stacie rounded on Cynthia Rose. "So you've been talking about me behind my back, huh?"
"That's not what—"
Just before their fight came to a head, however, another one a couple of yards away had already broken out.
"… I told you, it's unnecessary… It's not the right time, okay?" said Gail, a phone clamped between her ear and shoulder. "We have enough of our own capital—hold on, I have another call. I'll call you back."
Gail gave the dress she had picked out to the sales lady with a nod and glanced at her phone. She frowned at the caller ID. "Hello, John," she greeted in a professional tone. "This had better be an emergency because we're not supposed to—"
"The Statute of Limitations ran out on that five years ago, Gail," John reminded her through the phone. "Are you busy?"
"I'm, uh, having a girl's day out."
There was a pause before John asked in an amused voice, "Shopping for Chloe again?"
Gail sighed. She couldn't blame John for being able to read her so easily, even over the phone; they had been working together for several months now and that usually entailed getting to know each other's idiosyncrasies. Even though she could never fully trust him after what he did, Gail allowed herself to have a minimally acceptable working relationship with the man, hoping it would get her closer to understanding his psyche.
"I can't help it," she admitted with a shrug that he wouldn't see. "I guess I'm just excited to see her, and shopping distracts me from being worried about how the team is doing right now."
"Then, boy, do I have a distraction for you," John said in his usual over-enthusiastic tone. "Remember Isla de San Juan?" he said in a mildly offensive Spanish accented. "I don't think the increase in dark activity was a coincidence."
"What do you mean?"
"There's another spike. I think there's something, or someone, over there attracting the darkness. I was hoping you'd want to check it out with me since all the students are gone."
"Well, I guess I could—"
"Great! I'll see you in about an hour."
Without waiting for a response, John hung up. Gail shook her head and glanced back down at her phone. She had received a text message during the brief call from her publicist. The message read, "The Herreras passed away last night. TIME and Forbes are asking for comments. Call me."
Gail frowned and felt a deep sorrow for the passing of her friends. But the sorrow was somewhat clouded by a feeling of unease, because the Herreras were a husband and wife famously known for uplifting from poverty the small Central American country of Isla de San Juan.
"Have you heard about the Herreras?" Gail asked the moment John settled in his seat on the jet.
"The what?"
"Rafael and Vina Herrera?"
"That rich couple from—" John sat up straighter and frowned. "From Saint John's Island?"
Gail nodded. "They died last night; murdered in their own home. I was wondering if this could be the cause of the spike in dark activity, because this can't just be a coincidence."
John looked thoughtful. "They must be really good people if it would cause a such a strong reaction from the entire country though."
"They are—well, were," Gail corrected herself sadly. "They spearheaded the sustainable development of their country's economy, halving the poverty rate in less than ten years. Hell, the two have a higher approval rating than their president."
"Are there any suspects in the murder?" asked John "Do you think the Heartless are behind it?"
Gail shook her head. "According to the reports I read on the way, the only person at home was their son. I don't think the Heartless are intelligent enough to come up with something as targeted as this, do you? It feels almost political."
"The son would be a viable suspect, then."
"I remember meeting him a few years ago," sighed Gail. "He was a regular boy, ambitious and privileged as he was. I don't think he'd be capable of murdering his own parents."
"Young people are more capable than we think," said John. "Trust me, I run a school filled with them. You never know what goes on in their heads…"
The boulder Beca was previously leaning on was smashed to pieces from the force of Luke's body crashing into it. She had flown straight into the air to dodge the attack, bombarding him with successive air swipes as she ascended. Luke, in his fully metallized body, crossed his arms in front of him to deflect the air.
Aubrey, Cynthia Rose, Jesse, and Stacie ran to their two teammates just as Beca, who was still furiously sending air swipes Luke's way nonstop, yelled, "Maybe I could beat your head out of your ass so we finally get a leader who gives a shit!"
Luke took cover behind another boulder and waited for a fatigued Beca to get back on the ground. When she did, he charged toward her again. "What would you know about being a leader?" he yelled back. "You have no regard for your team and you can't take responsibility for your reckless decisions!"
Luke angrily pushed off every air swipe that was sent his way and growled whenever Beca would just jump back to avoid him. Frustrated, he aimed his fist at her chest, formed it into a sharp end, and extended it as far as he could.
Beca's eyes widened as she witnessed her miscalculation; the metal was going farther than she had ever seen it stretched before—
"Luke! Beca!" Aubrey screeched when the sharp end of Luke's arm was mere inches from Beca.
The unfamiliar feeling of his arm being ripped off startled Luke. He turned to the other four members of their team—each looking as dumbfounded as the other—and saw Jesse with his palms out facing him. The calm façade that had already been broken when Beca wouldn't stop taunting him only crumbled further.
Luke glared murderously at Jesse and warned him, in a dead serious tone, "You don't want to be doing that, Jesse."
"What the hell are you two doing?" cried Aubrey, taking the chance to begin an open dialogue. "This isn't the time to be fighting!"
"JESSE, LET ME GO!" roared Luke, the vein in his neck bulging. They had never seen Luke this furious, and it scared Jesse enough to gulp and sweat.
"Let him go. His prissy ass needs this fight," Beca said from a safer distance. Rather than cause her concern, seeing that Luke was serious enough to actually hurt her only made her stubbornly angrier.
"Stop taunting him, Beca!" Stacie yelled angrily, in disbelief at what was going on in front of her eyes.
When Jesse still hadn't released him, Luke made the smart decision to return his body to its fleshy form and continue the charge, only this time he was headed straight for Jesse instead of Beca. As the rest watched in surprise, Jesse backed away hurriedly and brought up walls of rock to deter Luke but the Brit only smashed his way through them, altering his body between metal and flesh.
"Stop!" Aubrey shrieked when, out of the corner of her eye, she saw Beca swoop in to attack Luke for attacking her best friend.
A flash of a smoke bomb later, Stacie had her long arms wrapped multiple times around Beca, restraining her, and Aubrey was standing between Luke and Jesse with both arms keeping them from each other. Every single one of them was panting heavily.
Aubrey stared Luke straight in the eye but saw no sign of the man she grew up with.
Response to reviews:
xcombixgirlx (Oct. 3) - Haha, Chloe should know that anger never solves the problem (as Inside Out clearly taught us), although the guys inside the Realm seem to have forgotten that, too. Oh, boy, I guess I should try disappointing you soon 'cause that's a lot of pressure after 11 chapters haha. I hope you don't hate Jesse even more after this chapter, but there's a reason for everything.
Maggie (Oct. 3) - Thank you, Maggie! I hope you have a great day, too. :)
A/N: Just dropping by to say thanks to all you readers for your continued interest! :) And also to make sort of an apology. Usually, I don't like including OC's unless they're important in the long run (like Jack or Charlene) but I had to include a fictional couple in a fictional country to get to the climax of season 2. Rest assured, the Herreras will only hang around until the next chapter.
