A/N: Okay, wow. I just realized that I changed one of the character's names from Jake to Jack. But from now on he'll be called Jack. Sorry for the possible inconvenience!
Stella's eyebrows rose so suddenly, and she swiftly turned her head towards the door. She glided to the door and touched it with two fingers, the stone almost immediately grunted and moved aside, letting in only one young man a little older than her and looked almost exactly like her. Their facial structures were similar and both of them had the same colored eyes, except the man was taller and wore male clothes. Samantha's eyes widened, and as an immediate reflex, Mark grabbed her hand, squeezing it tightly. He was not going to risk losing her again.
"You can come out, now," his voice was deep and didn't crack even once as he spoke. "It turns out the arrival wasn't much of a threat."
"So, it was a false alarm," Jack peered at him. His good looks almost pushed down Jack's own self-esteem so he tried to make it faintly clear he didn't like the young man.
"Not exactly," he seemed to be almost smirking back at Jack. "I believe it's safe for you to come up and see, now."
As they made their way out of the corridor and into Taskura's cave, Stella briefly explained who the stranger was. Not surprisingly, he was Stella's elder brother, Scyph, the last two letters pronounced as an 'f.' In the past years, he has been working hard and long to prepare for the upcoming battle, but is rooting for the position of the assistant of the commander. That was the second highest position in the battle, and Scyph was fully aware of the load he has to carry when in that rank.
"What's up there, then?" Jack asked, swinging his arms, swimming briskly alongside Scyph, who was more than a foot taller than him, or in this case, longer.
"Either a messenger or a spy sent by the Fire clan," he responded, not taking his eyes off of ahead of him. "I couldn't get a close look, because of the crowd already gathered, but from what I took a glimpse at, it seemed like the messenger was a girl."
"A girl?"
"She was also screaming in rage and seemed to be calling out a human's name of your world."
Jack looked up at him, curiously. "What was the name?"
He paused as they all entered the edge of the cave, barely enough light streaming down from above. It was around evening time.
"Jack," he immediately took off, pushing his toes away from the rock below him, and swished out into open water, then slowed down, making smooth, and soft bounces to the surface.
Jack stared after him, recollecting what he had just said to him at the same time admiring his way of swimming. Stella swished past him and swam to the surface the in the same swimming pattern as Skyph. They all soon followed the jellyfish humans to the surface, but once the mortals were out of the water, they were shivering, their clothes completely soaked. As they squeezed the water out as much as they could, the sea creatures followed them out of the water and a stretched bubble of water was fit around Spade's head allowed him to breathe, and a whole extra layer of a similar type of bubble was attached to the jellyfish's body like another layer of skin, making them look more transparent than ever.
Walking speedily to where the large crowd was gathered, the tiny group made there way through and in the center, standing and bound by a certain spell, was a young girl, her hair messily flowing down and her eyes tired and welled with tears. "Jack!" she screamed, almost sobbing, once he came to her view. "Help me! Jack! Please! Don't let them hurt me! No, Jack, don't let them do anything to me!"
Jack raised an eyebrow at her and scooted over to Taskura, Granc, and Caran. They didn't even realize when Caran left, but he assumed he did once Poul had come in to report the news of the invasion.
"Jack!" she was still screaming.
Jack stayed close to water creatures as one of them lifted their hands and a shell-patterned slash of rubber clamped immediately over her mouth. Tears still continued to stream out of her eyes, and she looked like she was still trying to scream and yell. Jack peered closer at her looking at her eyes and the messy hair. Those characteristics were very similar. She looked up at him with innocent, damp eyes, then fell to her knees, her hair falling in front of her face.
"Alex?" Jack asked.
She snapped her head up and from her eyes and her cheekbones, he could tell that she was smiling.
"Hey," Jack motioned to Granc. "Let her talk."
Granc looked at him for a moment, and with his nod, he willingly pulled the shell plaster free from her mouth. Alex let out a gasp and bowed her head for a few seconds, then slowly lifted it up and smiled at him, trying her best to stand.
"You know her?" Caran asked putting on a disgusted face.
"She's one of the people who captured me," Jack replied not taking her eyes off of her. "I want to hear what she has to say."
Alex remained silent for a moment or two, then her eyes began to water once more, "Jack…he's gone. Danny's gone, Jack."
"What the, what are you talking about, he's gone?"
"He's DEAD!"
That's why they were able to free themselves. Danny was probably the one who tied them up, and he lost his powers. But how did he die? "What happened to him?"
"He lost his powers…" she sobbed. "He died, Jack. He was flying when he lost them. He was so high…he fell so fast…we couldn't get to him on time."
Jack looked at the others who just nodded and made their way out of the crowd again. Jack stood still when Mark motioned him to follow, but he stayed put.
"Why are you here?" Jack asked the miserable girl.
"I was tired of working for them. The entire clan. I want to join yours. Please, help me."
"How?"
Alex looked up at him, her brows slightly furrowing, then relaxing, her entire body trembling as she looked at the crowd surrounding her. She shook her head.
Jack nodded, and told them all to disperse except his three trusted sea-creatures, Caran, Granc, and Taskura. "Whatever you have to tell me, you must also tell them."
"Please…" she whispered. "We have to talk alone."
Jack sighed, but when he prepared to send the three away, they assertively shook their heads and folded their hands, signaling they were not going to leave him alone.
"We can't," he replied. "We can't trust you, yet."
"That's why I need your help."
"No, you have to prove to me, to us, that you will give us no harm." Suddenly, something struck to him. He thought she was invincible. How could simple water magic be able to tie her up? The water clan was more powerful than he thought.
"How…" she tried freeing herself from the tight binds around her, but it didn't work. When she tried to bring her fire power to dry out the water, she was not able to conjure it.
Jack raised his eyebrows and prepared to talk, then closed his mouth again, turning and looking at the three, then looking at Mark and the other three mortals standing a few yards away silently watching. "That," he began, "is an excellent question. Uh, you will prove to us…by uh…"
"No," Taskura simply said. "No, you will not prove anything to us. I know you are new to the fire clan, but there must have been a reason they kidnapped you to join them. A very. Good. Reason." He sighed then looked up at her with a solemn facial expression, but reproachful eyes. "I'm sorry, but you must go back to your clan. You belong there." With that, he glided back to his fellow crabmates and began chatting happily as if nothing ever occurred in the past fifteen minutes.
Jack looked at her, and gently shook her head, then jogged over to the other four mortals. He heard faint sobs and some soft screams, finally followed by a an ear-piercing cry of the word 'No!' He jerked his head to look behind him, but Alex was nowhere in sight.
"Come on," he heard Mark's voice behind him, but didn't move. Then he felt a tug, and looked at Samantha slightly pulling at his arm, and then quickly holding on to Mark's again. "Let's go Jack," she said in a shaky voice.
He didn't know what Mark saw in her. She was weak, unintelligent from what he was seeing so far, and couldn't stick to one boy for more than an hour. But Mark's gentle kiss on her neck and appreciative smile proved to Jack that he was in love with Samantha. Jack never was the lustful type. He remembered the first attack of Alex of him. She looked beautiful, near angelic, and her personality would be too, if she hadn't attacked him or behaved the way did a few seconds ago. Any boy would have fallen in love with her, but he didn't feel a thing when he first looked at her. Not even a small spark of the slightest affection.
Ahead, Mark was happy to be with her. A rush of energy soon filled him up, and as much as he tried to soothe himself down, he couldn't. It was still dark and the crowd of trees lined the edge of where the sand turns swiftly into moist dirt. Mark put his arm around Samantha's waist, who smiled, but gently pushed it off. He did it once again, squeezing her waist a little, and this time Samantha looked up at him and grasped his hand tightly, both of them heading to a tiny secluded area, barred by boulders and small island trees.
Jack didn't even want to know what they were going to do, but knew this was not the time to be goofing off. Mia and Kris exchanged glances with him as the two lovebirds left happily to there cavern-like spot, but the three just sat down on the sand in a random place. A five-year old kid, who looked like another scorpion, skipped happily over to them and pressed her hand in the middle of the three, on the sand. A light emanated from where she had laid her, and a glow, similar to ones in the underwater caves, brightened up in the middle, lighting up only that circle where they were gathered. Proud of her work, she skipped away again to join her friends playing a game where at the end they sting the loser who lets out a scream, but within seconds smiled and laughed all of them starting the game over again.
