-Dryl-
As soon as Annika saw Clara, she quickly walked towards her.
"Clara, why did you leave just like that? We thought something bad happened." Annika asked while Alice followed her to Clara.
"Cant I just go out for a second? Im fine. Now what were we about to do?" Clara answered annoyed and didnt look at Annika.
"Well, we were just about to start the studies about the sword, but-"Alice tried to explain friendly, but Clara talked before she could finish.
"Good, then lets go. I just wanted to be alone for a bit." Clara said annoyed again.
"Um... Okay, this way." Alice stuttered and showed Clara the direction. Suspiciously Annika watched her best friend walk away and then followed them back into the castle.
-in the corridors-
The girls were on the way back to Alices lab. Meanwhile they were walking, Annika tried to get into a conversation with Clara, but the princess always walked faster or slower than her.
When they entered the lab, Alice instantly ran to a control panel and Clara sat down on an armchair near a desk with books all over it.
"Alright, girls, so the first half of the research will be only questions about the sword and its power. The second half were going to test the sword in action with the help of some machines. But dont worry, its a painless process. Mostly..." Alice explained and mumbled the last word quietly.
"Im sorry, what was that?" Annika turned to Alice in shock.
"Nothing..." Alice tried to correct herself nervously. Then she walked to a table with three chairs and sat down. "Now lets start with the questions."
As soon as everyone sat on a chair, Alice took a clipboard and a pen. "Okay, so question one, how did you find it?"
"Thats easy, we found it after I discovered the inside of an old tree and there we found writing about the power it has." Annika answered confidently.
"...writing about power" Alice took notes. "Question 2, what can it do?"
"Do you want to answer that question, Clara?" Annika asked her friend.
"Oh no, I'll just talk too much." Clara said sharply and crossed her arms.
"Okay..."Annika continued to answer Alices questions and was trying not to think about Claras weird behavior.
-2 hours later-
"Question 153, does the sword connect only to you or also to other people." Alice asked curiously while Clara almost napped on her chair of boredom and Annika had a hard time consentrating on the questions.
"I... think only me." Annika answered exhaustedly and rubbed her head.
Alice took notes again and stood up. "Yay, we did it. Were done."
"Yes! Finally, now, we acually came here to-" Annika also stood up and wanted to start talking about their acual reason for comming to Dryl.
"Oh. Sorry, I ment done with the questions. Now well do the tests with the machines."Alice reminded Annika.
"Oh, come on! Are you kidding me?!" Clara jumped out of her chair angrily. "I mean, thats fine, we have time, all cool, yeah." Clara corrected herself, trying to sound calmly.
"And how many tests are there to do?" Annika asked nervously.
"I mean the first 30 are pretty rough, but once were through that, well have 46 tests, that arent that bad." Alice tried to sound cheerful and prepared the first machine.
Annika watched her and fell on her knees in disbelieve and fatigue.
A few minutes later Annika's arm was inside a round machine, that looked like a washing machine.
"Okay, now don't move your arm too much and we'll start the first test." Alice told Annika and pressed a button on the machine and it started rotating.
At first Annika's arm just was there calmly, but suddenly it started rotating with the machine and took Annika's body with it.
After it finally stopped Annika gasped exhausted and breathed heavily. Alice and Clara slowly came closer.
"You know, if you don't want to do this anymore I understand. We can continue the studies when-" Alice suggested.
"No, I want to know more too. I just... need... a moment...to breath. Then we can continue... Oh, I just remembered I have a bottle of water in my shoulder bag." Annika was about to get her water, but Clara stopped her.
"I'll get it. I mean, if that's okay with you." Clara asked neutraly.
"Uh... Sure. Thank you, Clara." Annika agreed uncertainly.
After Clara was gone, Alice had a question for Annika.
"You two are friends, right?" she asked.
"Sure we are. She's just a little... weird since she left the room the last time. Why?" Annika said.
"Because right now it doesn't look like it's a good thing to have friends. It's just complicated." Alice suspected disappointed.
"What? It's so much more than that. Sure, it might be complicated sometimes, but it'll be worth it. Friends fight with each other, sure and I don't really know what's with Clara right now, but we also always protect each other and stick together." Annika defended her friendship with Clara.
Alice seemed to think about what she just heard." But if you don't know what your friend is going through then shouldn't you ask her what bothers her so much? "
" I tried, but she just keeps pushing me away. She's never been like this before. She always told me when something was wrong. Why not now? " Annika complained, not knowing what to do.
" Well, I don't have much experience with people... But maybe you should just leave her be. It helps me when I'm stressed or sad. " Alice said hopefully she could help her new friend.
" I mean. She never liked being alone... But Its worth trying if that makes her happy again. " Annika said uncertainly.
" Well, then you can try it right now. " Alice
encouraged Annika and turned her around so she could see that Clara was on her way back to them.
" Here's your water. " she said and gave Annika the bottle.
" Thanks. Hey, can I talk to you for a second? It's important. " Annika asked Clara with a caring smile on her face.
"I thought we had to do more tests? Why don't we finish those before talking." Clara disagreed, not sounding very friendly.
"But I-" Annika tried to chance her mind but the princess didn't want to hear it.
"Great, we all agree. Now let's get back to work as soon as you drank your water." Clara demanded and left a desperate Annika. Alice tried to comfort her by putting her hand on Annika's shoulder.
Many, many, many tests later Alice finally wrote her last note and stopped a machine, that kind of looked like a hamster wheel.
" Aaaaaand done. See, that wasn't that bad, right? " the young scientist praised and noticed Annika slowly staggering out of the huge machine.
"Finally. Now, let's look at the data." Annika said relieved and walked towards Alice to read the results. But before she arrived next to her Annika remembered what she wanted to do after the tests were completed.
She looked around and saw Clara, who read one of the many books in the room. The title was 'science or magic?'.
"Alright, we got the results. Would you like to see them right now or..." Alice informed the other girls and pulled a sheet of paper out of a smaller machine. Before Annika could say no, Clara ran to the machine and grabbed the paper.
"Let's read it together." she quickly answered and looked down to read. Annika looked sad but still went to the other girls to see the results.
Suddenly Imp flew right towards them and quickly grabbed the sheet of paper. But Clara didn't let go of it and so the paper ripped in two halfs.
"Oh no, not again! Give it back, you tiny thief!" Annika shouted after Imp and followed him. Alice and Clara quickly ran after their friend.
Suddenly the machine, which lever were pulled by Imp went on and Alice instantly stopped and turned around.
"What are you doing? Imp will get away!" Annika yelled and looked back to find out what was happening.
"It's the sense sensor! I was still testing it but suddenly it started working! I can't turn it off!" Alice tried to shut the machine down but it was already too late.
A round ball about 4 feet high came out of the machine. After it stopped nothing happened and Annika and Clara were very confused.
" That's what you were so afraid of? "Clara asked in disbelieve.
" I mean it's a nice ball but... What does it do? "Annika added a question unsure.
Suddenly the ball lit up in the middle and an eye appeared on a screen. Then it started talking." What do you think?" it asked.
While Alice almost freaked out, Annika and Clara stood still and just glared at the strange machine.
" Is there anything else it can do? Because right now it just looks like that kind of ball, where you ask it a question and it gives you a random answer. And if that's true, I'm sorry but it's already been invented." Clara explained.
Alice quickly tried to show Clara to be quiet but the machine already answered.
" That does not make sense," it said and suddenly started shooting lasers at the girls.
Annika ran towards the girls as fast as she could and pulled them with her out of the lab.
While they ran through the corridors Annika's cat side came back. The ball still followed them and smashed everything in its way.
Suddenly Alice pulled the others with her in a dark room and closed the door behind her. The machine rolled on and didn't notice their hiding place.
After it was finally gone everyone sighed relieved. Alice managed to find a lever for the light and the room lit up.
Now the girls could see, that their hiding place was full of metal and other useless items.
" What was that thing, Alice?!" Annika asked worriedly and sat down on a box.
"It's a machine, that analysis your every word, so it can understand the meaning of it. I was still working on the consequences if a sentence didn't make any sense, so I didn't test it yet. But now it will laser everyone, whose sentences don't make sense." Alice explained nervously.
"Why would you ever need something like that?!" Clara yelled at Alice, who reacted frightened and took a step back.
"I just... I heard that you were in the other kingdoms and I figured that you'd come to us sooner or later. I don't have much experience with people other than my parents or the clones, so I thought I could make a machine, that can tell me how I should react... I probably shouldn't have done that... I'm sorry I got you in danger." Alice apologized unconfidently.
Annika sighed and put a hand on Alice's shoulder. " It's not your fault. We can learn how to treat each other together. But machines only know as much as they get told."
Alice smiled a little and suddenly noticed that Clara stood a few feet away from her and Annika. Annika followed Alice's look and also saw Clara. She walked closer to her best friend to finally find out about her behavior.
"Hey, can I talk to you now?" she asked softly. Clara sighed and turned to Annika.
"Alright, I'll tell you why I've been so weird today. I know it's not like me, but you said all those things about me being too loud or that I talk too much. And I thought maybe you'd like the quiet Clara more." Clara uttered.
"Are you kidding me? Clara, these things are what makes you you. I like you just the way you are and you should never change. And I mean it, your quiet self is so boring." Annika praised her friend and they both smiled at each other.
" Okay, that's cute, but we still have the problem with the giant ball inside the castle. " Alice reminded the other girls. " And I may have a plan to stop it," she added more confident than normally.