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It felt like walking through a dream. Everything seeming so familiar, as if she had seen it a thousand times before. But at the same time everything was so foreign to her, as if experienced for the very first time.
This was how it felt for Will's astral drop as she moved through the halls of the school before class, alongside Cornelia's astral drop.
"Urg, why did it have to be on dissection day?" Cornelia's astral drop whined as the two astral drops went to their original's lockers. "Maybe I should just play sick and try to get sent home."
"Come on isn't not that bad," Will's astral drop said as she finally jiggled the rusty locker's door open. "Would you rather be in Cornelia's shoes and having to deal with giant man eating roaches?"
Cornelia's astral drop shuddered. "Alright, you got a good point there," the blonde astral drop said as she put away a backpack and pulled out a biology book.
Will's astral drop smiled a little at how easy it was to distract this Cornelia. But that smile quickly disappeared when a new thought in the blonde astral drop's head caused an odd question to be asked. "So is Will still crushing on Matt, or is she crushing on Danny now? Oh or is it both?"
Will's astral drop blinked in surprise. Without the weight of being a Guardian of the Veil on her mind, this Cornelia was even more of a gossip queen than her original was. "No, she's definitely still 'crushing' on Matt," Will's astral drop said with a bit of a blush, since that crush was one of the many things she shared with her original.
"Really? Odd, I always thought she had something for that Ghost 'King'. I mean, she's always so defensive about him," Cornelia's astral drop said as they started for their biology classroom. "If she did I wouldn't blame her that much, he does has a mysterious air about him."
Will's astral drop had to stop herself from laughing. 'Mysterious' would not have been Will's word to describe Danny. The boy was rather transparent, no pun intended, never really hiding his opinions or emotions. 'Childish', 'arrogant', 'experienced', those were the words that Will would have used.
"I thought Cornelia had a crush on Caleb, so why are your eyes wondering?" Will's astral drop teased back.
"Oh Caleb is definitely much better looking," Cornelia's astral drop said. "But he's taking so long. Surely he doesn't expect Cornelia to ask 'him' out," The blonde astral drop said, throwing back her long hair in the same way Cornelia always did.
"Surely," Will's astral drop said, rolling her eyes yet again.
They entered their classroom to see Danny sitting with Elyon. The two seemed to be laughing about something or other, but as Danny's eyes scanned over the people who were coming in before he raised an eyebrow.
'Of course he knows,' Will's astral drop thought with a sigh as she went to sit down in Will's seat. She could only hope that things weren't about to get complicated.
Phobos's prison. A large domed fortress that held his political prisoners. And that day, it was also home to an entire army, just waiting for the rebels and the Guardian's to make a move.
"It looks like this was all a trap," Hay Lin said looking over at the domed fortress through her binoculars from the hill they were using as a vantage point.
"We already knew it was a trap. That doesn't change the fact that we have to do this," Caleb said, clenching his fists. "But it does change how we do it."
"What's the plan?" Will asked.
"We use a distraction to draw all the guards out to the prison's front gates, and then we tunnel in from below the main structure from the infinite city," Caleb said starting to push himself up.
"So Cornelia needs to be down in the infinite city," Taranee said. "That leave me, Hay Lin and Irma to distract all those guards."
"Hey, what about me?" Will said a little angry.
"Um... you should probably go with Corny and Caleb, in case she needs back up," Irma said, trying to be tactful, but Will got the message, they thought she was the weakest of the group and that she would just get in the way. But today was going to be the day that she proved them all wrong.
"Alright class, now that we've gone over the equipment and safety, I want you to go to your lab tables and wait for me to bring out the pickled worms," Mr. Cabot said in his monotone voice.
"Danny, let's be partners," Elyon said, a little cheerful considering the situation.
"Alright, sounds good to me," Danny said, but Cornelia's astral drop freaked.
"What? But you're my lab partner, Elyon. Please don't leave me in my time of need," She said rather over dramatically.
"But Cornelia..." Elyon whined but they had already caught the teacher's attention.
"Is there a problem here?" He asked calmly.
"It's nothing, I just want to be Danny's partner," Elyon said quickly.
"I'm sorry Mrs. Brown, but partners were decided on at the beginning of the semester. Mr. Fenton will just have to be with Mrs. Vandom since this is the first lab for both of them," Mr. Cabot said shifting his spectacles.
Elyon wanted to object but the teacher just walked off. Cornelia's astral drop gave a say of relief.
"Guess it's me and you then," Danny said looking at Will's astral drop who nodded nervously.
They went to a lab table and got to work after the materials were handed out. In the beginning they worked in relative silence before Danny finally spoke up.
"So, where's fairy girl ran off to? Need to fight a giant six legged toad or something?" Danny asked not looking away from his work with the scalpel.
"Giant man eating roaches," Will's astral drop replied.
"Uh, sorry I asked," Danny with a fake gagging sound. "Hope she remembers that you can't intimidate insects using Aether. Chemical based brain signals rather than electric."
"Oh... yeah... she probably doesn't remember that," Will's astral drop said, a little flustered since she herself hadn't remembered.
"Hmm. Well hope that doesn't bite her in the butt, literally," Danny said as he pinned down the worm's outer skin to expose the hearts and digestive trails. "So, do you have a name?"
"What?" Will's astral drop asked a bit surprised as she started sketching out watch they were looking out.
"Well you aren't Will herself. So I was just wondering if you have a name of your own or if you would like for me to just call you Will," Danny said with a shrug.
"I... I don't really have a name of my own," Will's astral drop said, thinking about the concept. "I haven't really thought about it. Astral drops are supposed to be like mirrors of our originals. But I suppose it might be nice to have my own name."
"Well, Will's real name is Wilhelmina right?" Danny said.
Will's astral drop winced. "Please tell me you aren't planning on calling me that."
Danny chuckled a bit. "No, no, but how about Mia? If she's using the first part, you can use the last."
"Mia... yeah, I think I can live with that," Mia said nodding.
"Alright then, Mia it is," Danny said before returning to work. He kept up a certain level of small talk with the astral drop girl, making jokes and talking about normal things.
Mia was surprised, Danny was treating her like a normal person, even though he knew that she was just a reflection.
Elyon looked over from her table with Cornelia's astral drop to see the two laughing at a joke about 'Big Jimmy'. "They sure seem cheery," Elyon said a little jealously.
"Who does?" Cornelia's astral dropped asked and looked over to see Will's astral drop flushing as she looked at Danny. "I knew there was something going on between them!" She said with a certain amount of victorious cheer, until she realized her mistake. "I mean..." She mumbled as she looked to Elyon who looked hurt. Was Danny cheating on her?
Will was walking through the infinite city along with Caleb and Cornelia. She had the Heart of Kandrakar held out in front of her, both for light and to guild the way. The rest of the girls of WITCH were all hiding in the clouds directly above. So Will was able to track their position by using the Heart of Kandrakar.
Will stopped as the Heart pulled straight upwards. "Alright, we're directly under the prison," she said as she put away the Heart.
Caleb pulled out a hand held walkie-talkie. "We're in position, so get started," he said into the hand held.
"Got it," Irma replied quickly.
The group in the underground city waited a few seconds before getting started, since they didn't want any guards to hear them. But then Cornelia began to dig using her powers over earth.
Cornelia had been digging for five minutes before Will decided that this was as good a chance as any to talk to Caleb.
"Hey Caleb, can I... talk to you about something?" Will said not really sure where to begin.
"Is now really the best time?" Caleb said with a raised eyebrow.
"Do you have anything better to do?" Will pointed out. The boy scratched his head, too proud to say no, so Will just continued. "I kind of found a book that had a record of a war on Earth a long time ago. One that the Guardians were a part of."
"That shouldn't be that surprising. The Guardian's do live on Earth after all," Caleb said not impressed.
"At the end of the war they killed Earths hero, murdered him while his back was turned. Apparently under orders from Kandrakar," Will said angrily.
This got a bit more of a reaction. "They did what?"
"They murdered someone who helped them beat the Ghost King. Someone who saved their lives. They killed him in cold blood while his back was turned, all because Kandrakar thought that he was a threat," Will said giving a brief summery. "I guess what I want to know is, do you know anything about Kandrakar? Because even after the last month, I still know absolutely nothing about them. Why is everything so secretive? How do I know that we aren't going to free Meridian from Phobos, only for some evil dictator from Kandrakar to just come down and take over?" She paused for a moment before add. "I don't want to get the other girls involved in this, or confront Yan Lin just yet. Not until I have some more to go on."
Caleb nodded. "I understand how you feel, but I'm afraid that I'm not the one to help you with this. The Guardians first came to Meridian over twenty years before I was even born, in order to explore the newly discovered Infinite City," Caleb said, gesturing to the endless room that expanded out around them. "But I don't think anyone from Kandrakar itself came. Just the Guardians."
"Great back to square one then," Will said with a sigh.
"Maybe not. My father was supposed to have acted as their guide. So there is a good chance that he knows more than I do," Caleb said looking up at the lengthening hole that would lead them into the prison and to his father. "All we need to do is save him."
As if on cue, Cornelia's voice called down to them. "I've broken through!"
"Well then, let's get this over with," Will said grabbing Caleb under the arm and flew him up. It was time to show everyone how much she had improved.
Sorry, if this chapter turned out a bit lower quality, today was that day I call 'that time of the month', the one day a month when my computer randomly crashes without any explanation and forces me to start over just as I am typing the very last sentence of the chapter. This happened twice today, so I'm out of steam right now. I fell like I did it the best the first time though.
I also had to remake the second midterm for my class... don't worry I didn't take my frustrations out on my students. I only do that to them if they are being stupid.