The next day had passed in a flash; each hour was just a count down until the girls could once again use their powers and experiment. It was fascinating to imagine the possibilities. Last night the group had each gotten back home with an insatiable thirst to know more about the symbol. Mei Lin had immediately gone to look over the evidence, surprising herself that her parents had never looked through the photos and now that she hid them in a better place, they never would. It was better if they didn't know about Meridian and magic powers. Her search had turned out absolutely fruitless.

At the end of the school day, the girls met once again at the gate, leaving quickly to go to the Silver Dragon. It was easier parting from Tia this time; she had been complaining of a headache so they suggested she went home to rest. Of course that's what she wanted them to think, getting away for her was easy too.

The map lay in Kara's pocket, the corners of its folded form poking at her sides as it was stuffed into her jacket as much as possible. Last night, she had checked over it with the others when they reached the Silver Dragon and landed in the alley behind. The portal had vanished and the map only showed their location. Kara checked the map every few hours, the unfolding and folding back up becoming strangely familiar. By the this time she could do it with her eyes closed.

The Heart lay on the soft skin a few inches below her throat, almost invisible but reassuringly present. She bought out the map from her pocket for the umpteenth time and glanced over it, relieved to find it empty as the group settled in various sitting spots in the basement. The basement was safest for anything Meridian related. Mei Lin had found a little hiding spot which fit some of the photos comfortably under a floorboard of the dinning room where the cabinet was. The rest of the stuff was hidden in her room and various places around the house which were guaranteed to remain untouched.

"So…we need to go practise guys, I don't feel like I could do anything yet." Natalia began. She fidgeted slightly as she sat on a stone ledge under the horizontal window which let in some light to the dark room.

"Well sure you could, you just haven't tried." Ashley uncrossed her arms and clicked her fingers, a small flame appearing at the tip of her index finger. She blew on it and the flame ceased to exist. "See?" she said pointedly at her friend.

"How about that pot over there? I've forgotten to water it since like August." Mei Lin gestured to a brown pot filled with what seemed like a dead houseplant in it. The stem was droopy and very melancholic looking. Natalia grimaced a little at the poor thing. She got up and went over to it, opening her palm and putting it over the top of the remaining plant, willing it to heal and become whole and healthy again. She curled her fingers slightly as the plant began to grow again, fresh buds sprouting and then opening up to reveal the light pink colour of the gentle petals. Five pairs of eyes widened at the phenomenon taking place in front of them, the urge to dismiss the magic incredibly easy to ignore.

"I-" Natalia started. "I didn't know I could even…do something like that, did you see it too?" she looked around in desperation at her flabbergasted friends.

"Yes but define "it"?" Cleo gaped at the pot. She looked down at her own finger tips, unsure if she wanted to find out what she was capable of. On the other hand Mei Lin was staring at the small trash can in the corner of the room, an idea sprouting in her mind. She raised her hand at the trash can and it flew into the air, spilling out all of its contents in the process, all the various items flying in a mini tornado then falling back together in the trash can with a clang as Mei Lin pointed her finger to the ground.

"Okay, we get it, let's not just completely give ourselves away…what if someone heard that?" Kara snapped slightly. She was all for doing this but there were people up in the restaurant who could have heard that.

"Fine, let's go play outside then, chief." Ashley grinned and stood. The group grinned back all in different stages of excitement. They wanted to try it already. Without any more delay, the girls got up and out of the basement quickly, skirting out of the Silver Dragon through the back. It was still light so they couldn't do their flying over the city trick. They walked instead, just like normal people. Their days of normal were definitely over now that they were the new guardians; the question was, could they handle it?

"Guardians unite!" Kara said as soon as they had secured the large under city bridge area – the activity was dying above so it was all going to be pretty secretive and if not then they could probably witch the people into forgetting. Cleo had been trying to figure out if she had mind control powers; last night when she got home her parents were concerned as to what took so long and she willed them to forget she even went out. The miraculous thing is that it worked. Within the minute her parents were asking her if she was going out. She had just been out, she said, and yet…something was missing from their minds. They shrugged it off and told her to tell them next time. If it were only that easy…

Once the girls had changed form, the rush of power mixed with excitement imploded in their lungs, building the wind beneath their wings from within. Mei Lin flew off to the other side of the patch of dirt road and back, testing her wings in a flashy manner. She landed perfectly in the small huddle her friends had made.

"You guys have to try that!" she laughed.

"Flying drills! That's a brilliant idea. We can take it in turns to watch each other fly and then we can work on improving. I used to do that with hockey a lot." Cleo felt a little brash suggesting something so boldly, but to her surprise the others nodded in agreement. It was a good idea.

"You played hockey? That's so awesome!" Ashley clapped her hands excitedly. Cleo felt a rush of pride for being seen as cool by her new friends; she was suddenly reminded of just how lonely she must have been before Heatherfield.

"So who's going first?" Kara tucked the Heart into her own heart. Or wherever it went when it made itself invisible whilst she wore it. Ashley lifted off the ground effortlessly, turning in the air gracefully and zooming off the same way Mei Lin had. She returned momentarily, slowing down before touchdown. The girls clapped at the display of technique – Ashley somehow seemed to be great at the whole guardian thing already, and it was only two days.

"I'll try it," Natalia said. She felt inspired by her friends' performances and hoped it was as easy as it looked. To her dismay, it was not. Natalia lifted off the ground fine but lost her balance and flew off to the side ending up falling into a trash heap. The urge to laugh plastered across the girls' faces but they thought it'd be a bit cruel.

"Hey, come on, let's try together." Ashley helped Natalia out of the pile and linked arms. "Slowly, okay?" Natalia nodded uncertainly. Their feet left the ground and this time Natalia stayed upright and in the same place. Ashley smiled then tugged her arm forward as they flew off in the direction of the bridge itself. Natalia's hair whipped back from the force and she felt the cool air on her face thinking that perhaps this won't be as bad as she thought. To the girls this was a new hope. It was the start of something new.

As the group each had a turn at flying, the sun fell from the sky, darkness flooding from above and beyond. The Heart appeared around Kara's neck, tugging her in the direction of the trash heap Natalia had tripped in earlier. Kara struggled slightly at first but let the jewel lead her. Behind the messy pile of cardboard boxes and trash cans there was a patch of bare ground and much to her horror Kara saw what the Heart was pointing to. There were footsteps marked in the patch. And they were fresh. Who could it have been? Would they have seen?

Kara's previous haunch, from the night before to now, had now been proven. Someone must have seen. In a moment of plain fear and raw anger which Kara had not experienced since her mother left, she let herself drown in the rush of feelings. It was intoxicating how angry she was. Her hand formed a fist then shot out in front of her blasting the heap with a surge of power – a blue lightning of sorts flashed from her hand and she gasped in surprise as it blackened the pile after blazing it. Cleo was first to notice the outburst and pointed it out to Mei Lin. The two had been practising to make ice and cold winds. Now they rushed over to Kara who still stared at the set of footsteps. Cleo and Mei Lin looked around at first but settled on where Kara's gaze rested. Eyes widening and mouth opening, Mei Lin and Cleo turned to their friend.

"When did this happen?" Cleo's tongue felt dry as she asked the question. It was obviously recently but how so?

"I have no idea but clearly we need to be more careful." Kara almost flinched at her own words. The sun was in the final stretch before disappearing completely. Natalia and Ashley flew over, having spent most of their time learning to swerve and dip nicely.

"Wow, what the hell?" Ashley stomped over to the pile and shook her head, speechless for once.

"Maybe we should go?" Natalia suggested gently. She had seen the look on Kara's face and was sure their friend was about to explode worse than the garbage heap had a minute ago. What had gotten her so worked up? She was the only one completely over the edge at this. Ashley had shrugged it off, Mei Lin and Cleo clearly puzzled and Natalia herself was a little scared but Kara – why?

"Hey, Kara, come on." She put a hand over the dark haired girl's shoulder. She snapped to attention.

"Right, here." Kara held out the Heart and the girls were back in their normal forms.

"Maybe we need to find a better place?" Cleo asked. She stepped back a little to examine the ground for more footsteps but there were none. Nothing but a small slide of mud which had been trodden on by the same shoes.

"I don't know but-" Ashley was cut off by a cardboard box falling from the heap. She stumbled back.

"Oh my god! I think I did that!" Natalia yelped. Her hand was pointing slightly at the box which lay on the ground now. She willed it to get back to its previous place and successfully moved it with the flick of her hand. The girls all cheered, even their stony faced leader cracked a little smile. Kara had been certain they were being followed and now it made sense. But who were they and why hadn't they exposed them yet?

"I need to get home, I have stuff to do, see you tomorrow?" Mei Lin said. She didn't mean to make it a question but her friends nodded at her and she went off, shortly followed by Cleo who headed out in the same direction for the most part, bag slung lazily over her shoulder. Ashley made an effort to get the others to leave quickly so that whoever it was watching wouldn't find them if they came back…

Nothing made sense to Cleo. Not right now. She was used to being confused from all the moving around and starting on loose ends and leaving with ones too, but this was by far the weirdest thing to happen yet. And the best. She hadn't been so trusting of the girls at first, wondering why they suddenly wanted to befriend her? She had given her paranoia a chance to set in; were they her friends or did they plan to hurt her? But the guardian thing was enough to keep her from losing to the paranoia; they were connected by something bigger, so they wouldn't hurt her like those girls before? What if she had to move away again? What would happen to all of this? What was this?

"Stop it-" Cleo muttered to herself. She was walking to school from the bus stop. A crowd of people passing her by with each step, the different bodies shifting around, all these individuals making up a crowd. She found it fascinating that every person was part of this even if they weren't aware; people were too busy to notice that they belonged to something, even if it was just this collective thing called humanity. Cleo shut her eyes for a second; her head was suddenly pounding.

Yesterday, Cleo had tried the mind control theory on her little sister Lola. The two were sitting on the couch, drinking soda and watching some dumb quiz show whilst their parents went out to buy some groceries. Lola had left the remote on the small coffee table in front of the couch and forgotten the power within it – to spare them from the idiocy of people on TV. Cleo was about to reach out for it, but instead feigned stretching and fixing her side braid by tugging on the hair bubble. Lola didn't even blink. Cleo then leaned back and sidled into the couch and started chanting in her head. Give me the remote. She said it in her head over and over. After the third cycle Lola suddenly came to life and grabbed the remote from the table and presented it to her sister.

"Here." Then Lola sat back limply like before; she showed absolutely no recollection of what just happened. She didn't even notice Cleo had the remote in her hand. Cleo stifled an ecstatic grin trying to break out across her face, but she managed to let slip a little giggle. Lola turned slightly and then back seemingly disinterested. This is awesome, Cleo thought, totally terrifying and too much power, but awesome.

The doors of the classroom opened up and a stern faced teacher walked inside. He was bored by the requirement of making an appearance all these years, each year a group of students coming in and then walking out and him being stuck there. Cleo was sitting down next to Natalia, who was trying to solve some mini many sided rubix cube which was pretty much rainbow coloured and didn't make any sense at first glance. The pair were the only girls from the group in that class; Kara, Mei Lin and Ashley were in history next door. This was geography, the study of the Earth. Cleo thought about how much they know about their own planet, and how little they knew of Meridian; they knew nothing. What was it like? What made it so special?

"Good morning class, please turn to page twenty." And so it began, another day of torture before they could switch their boring lives for something exciting.

Next door, Kara and Mei Lin sat hunched over their desks passing notes to each other, Ashley a couple of rows behind the two. The class was somehow making the clock tick slower. At the end, Ashley was the first one out the door, making a b-line for her locker. She forgot all about her other books, which was beyond unusual, for her organisation was practically perfect. And her attendance record. Maybe it was the skull splitting headache she had acquired over the course of the morning. Why did it hurt so much? It was like a million bees were playing chase whilst carrying static radio signals. It was unbearable and Ashley wanted to scream. Next class was math; life sure did get worse. Surely she could go to the nurse's office for some painkillers? Or would that be dumb? She'd have a lot of catching up to do if she did that. Maybe at lunch? Yes, it seemed a better idea. Ashley then relaxed a little and sauntered off to the math classroom.

As she walked the headache seemed to start dissipating, the bees were taking a time out or something and suddenly she started hearing a strange whispering; it was faint and far away but also very obviously real. She looked around and saw that there was no one directly close to her. More like there were huge crowds of people in the corridors and they were all shouting about something or the other. This was different. It was in her head, she could swear. What the heck? Was she going insane or something?

The closer Ashley got to the math room, the clearer the whispering got; something about…math. Then a snide comment about teachers being sadists. What? Where did that come from? Ashley walked through the door and the whispering turned to quiet talking, she spied the teacher holding a pile of papers - a pop quiz - then she saw Natalia sitting down on the right. She turned to Ashley and as soon as she did, Ashley heard the thought – Oh Ashley's here, about time! It was Natalia's thoughts. But how?

"Nat, shut up." Ashley sat down next to her friend cradling her forehead a little with a weak hand. Natalia looked baffled and the quiet talking turned to louder but incoherent speech.

"But I didn't say anything." She replied. Ashley shot her an annoyed glance.

"Fine then stop thinking or whatever, you're splitting my head open." She complained.

"What?" the speech was between blurred and flying off to outer space.

"I can hear your thoughts, I think it's a-you-know-what thing." Ashley rubbed her temples in an attempt to massage them but nothing was helping the pain that came with it. She was trying to shut it down or control it but this was way harder than flying or using her fire powers. The pain was easing a little bit now that Natalia was trying to shield her thoughts from Ashley; barricading a high wall between herself and her friend's innocent intrusion.

"Well I hope that helped, now get out of my head, Ash!" Natalia was fascinated by the new found power but also a little angry that it had to be her head first.

"A little, I think that it'll be easier if we work together rather than you trying to force me out. Also, do you think I could hear the others?" Ashley frowned for a second and forgot that she hadn't opened her mouth just then. Did she say it out loud or in their heads? Natalia's eyes widened as she realised too what they had achieved.

"Wow, okay you're in my head!" Natalia was confused whether this was cool or just annoying for the moment. Cool, she decided.

"And you're in mine, but you can only hear what I want you to hear. I think I'm starting to understand how this works? I'll try the others." Ashley nodded to the bushy haired girl next to her and the two left a small thread of consciousness keeping them together. There was silence but each knew the other was there. It was as if they were in a dark room with nothing in it but their voices. There was nothing quite like it. The lesson rolled by quickly as the girls were busy trying to understand how the mind thing worked. Ashley couldn't reach the others yet but she decided it was because they weren't close enough or because she hadn't heard them before to just find their mind. It didn't work on anyone else but guardians luckily, otherwise Ashley's head might have exploded by now.

Meanwhile, Kara was battling her lab partner, the tall and mysterious Will. The two were a sight for sore eyes. Both dressed in dark clothes, momentarily hidden by white lab coats, dark hair messily tied back and held by their goggles' elastic, and each sporting a deep frown on their face. Kara was holding a conical flask full of a clear liquid; a perfectly neutralised solution with just enough acid and alkali to make the pH an outstanding 7. They had done this first, but now there was a different task to get on with and the two weren't exactly agreeing. Will wanted to just get on with it, but Kara wanted to plan out their results table and sort out the 'paperwork' as she called it. They had enough time to do both, so why not?

"You know, we could just waste our time arguing if you'd like?" Will snapped pointedly. Kara rolled her eyes and put the solution down before she could smash the glass flask.

"Or you could try to be more organised?" she countered. The experiment wouldn't matter if they didn't write it down. Why wouldn't he just see reason?

"Because it's not difficult anyway. Let's just do it." Will disappeared to find some of the equipment they would need. Kara glared knives at his back. It's not that she was used to getting her way, it was that she wanted to have control over how things went. She realised that's not how it's going to go this time or any time and physically slouched over the desk. It wasn't even about the dumb experiment any more, it was about not being able to keep things from happening. The same helplessness that she always felt. Her parents were a prime example. Whatever she tried, she had no control in keeping them together.

Will came back in a minute, carrying a couple different liquids and a Bunsen burner underarm. He put down the flasks and then started to put the rubber tube onto the gas tap. Kara watched him, the fight in her gone, leaving her numb and spacing out. Will threw a glance in her direction, over his shoulder. He did a double take when he saw her face – she stared into space, glassy-eyed and perfectly still. His face softened and he pretended not to have noticed how she looked like she was about to cry. Instead Will pulled the stool from under the table and sat down with a piece of paper.

"So…how does this table even work, huh? Help me figure it out." he shrugged at the paper in front of him. Kara felt a pang of gratitude for the boy; he had seen her defeated but didn't mention it, or perhaps hadn't noticed. Help...she heard a voice in her head repeat. She snapped out of it.

"We need to make a list…" and so the two worked together on the assignment, suddenly harmonious at the face of a task. Kara even found herself laughing along with Will at his failed attempt to draw a straight line. The line was crooked just like Will's smile and Kara shook her head in disbelief. Just half an hour ago she was ready to fight him, but now...

"What?" Will asked meekly.

"Nothing." Kara smiled. It was nice – getting along was.

"Okay."

The end came soon and Kara was packing her things when she noticed footprints on the sleek floor. They were faint and quite dusty but there was something odd about them; they were only around the back of the table and maybe a little beyond that. Red alarm bells were going off in Kara's head – she recognised the prints with heavy hearted dread. Speaking of which, the Heart was now resting on her skin, keeping itself somewhat concealed by not glowing like usual. She fingered the pendant's metal point in thought, then let it drop on her t-shirt.

Will was momentarily back at their desk, packing his own things away, his face no longer as frowning as before. Kara stared at him. It couldn't be- No. It was just her imagination. There was no way. No way. He just had the same shoes. She shrugged it off and finished packing, turning to leave and running into Will, his arms automatically shooting up to catch her as she stumbled. The two were startled. Will's eyes met Kara's and held them for a second. She hoped that his gaze would not fall to her throat where the chain hung and the Heart was on full display. It didn't.

"Nice necklace." Will's face was challenging, smirking slightly as he stepped back and walked away. Kara's heart was racing. He definitely didn't look at it. There was no way. Her eyes snapped down to his feet. Oh no. His footsteps matched the ones she had seen yesterday. The air puffed out of Kara's lungs as the realisation dawned on her. Or was it her imagination playing tricks on her? If Will was there yesterday, was it him in the old rail station too? What if it had been?