Something that looked like a beam of light came from the weapon when Emily fired and engulfed Heather. The moment it touched her body Heather began to scream. She felt like she was being electrocuted, she could feel the energy surging through her body and there was nothing she could do to stop it. Finally the pain went away along with the beam, but Heather knew what had been done to her. She wanted to hit her knees; suddenly it felt like if Superior's magic weren't holding her up she wouldn't be able to stand. The entire room was spinning, she closed her eyes to try and slow her mind but it didn't work, even the darkness seemed to spin. She wanted desperately to sit down; she felt like if she didn't sit soon she would lose consciousness. She was beginning to wonder if Superior was keeping her on her feet simply to torture her when she heard him carelessly casting another spell, and she was released.
Heather fainted the moment Superior released the spell on her and the boys. Emily turned to ask Chloe why Heather had fainted but instead her eyes fell on someone else, Zach. At some point while Emily was firing the weapon not only had her younger brother come and entered the cell but Chloe and Superior had left, and locked the cell.
"What did you do to her?" Zach asked, tears forming in his eyes. He couldn't believe it. His sister, his own sister not only had betrayed them but also had taken out one of their own.
"Zach, I'm fine" Heather's voice assured, Emily turned back to see Mark and Tony had moved to kneel besides their fallen friend who was now awake and getting to her feet. "I'm fine," she repeated.
"You sure?" Mark asked as he and Tony also got to their feet but Heather just nodded.
"Positive" she assured him.
The boys and Emily couldn't see it but Heather was biting back tears. All she wanted to do was break down and cry, but she couldn't. They had other things to worry about right now, bigger problems.
She was snapped out of her thoughts when Zach ran over and hugged her, at first she was taken back by the normally unemotional boy's action but then she figured what he must have seen, he saw his biological sister fire a weapon on his adopted sister only to result in her losing consciousness, he could've thought she was dead. She returned the hug without a word, silently letting her brother know that she was ok. Once she released him she glared at Emily, telling her that the two of them would talk later.
"Are you sure you're alright?" Tony asked and in response Heather rolled her eyes out of annoyance.
"Dude I'm not dead and I can still walk, therefor I can still fight." She told him, this was really her way of admitting that she isn't fine but the problem can be dealt with later.
"Wait you're not seriously still going to fight, are you?" Emily asked; it took all her strength not to quiver in fear under the deadly gaze her sister gave her.
"Of course I am" she said, her voice just as threatening as her eyes.
"But Heather you don't have to. Don't you see? You don't have to worry about an outlet for your powers anymore. Heather you're normal, what you've always wanted, things can go back to the way they used to be." Emily pleaded but Heather's gaze didn't change, if anything it got worse.
"Are you kidding me?" She demanded "Em I haven't wanted to be normal in three years, and I KNOW that you knew that! You're the one who wants things to be how they used to be, because back then you didn't have to worry about not having someone to hang out with because I was so afraid!" Heather ranted, by now the boys had figured out what it was that Emily did and were watching the argument in silence.
"That is SO not true!" Emily defended
"Then why DID you do it?" Heather demanded, "don't even try and say it was for me, because you and I both know it wasn't" she continued, her voice changing over from loud to deadly calm within an instant.
At first Emily didn't answer, she just stared at the ground as if contemplating what to say, finally she looked up.
"It was" she insisted and Heather only narrowed her eyes, the anger practically boiling inside of her.
"Then you're perception of me is seriously jacked up" she said coldly before pushing past Emily and making her way to the door of the cage.
The three boys in the cage watched as Heather took hold of the metal lock and began fiddling with a bobby pin, while Emily just stood still as either Heather's words or the reality of what she'd done began to take effect on her and a silent stream of tears made it's way down her face. None of them knew what to do. Ordinarily any one of them would say that Heather was being too harsh on her sister, but this time she had taken away her powers. It was now that Emily's sniffles became audible and the boys could practically feel Heather rolling her eyes.
"Oh boo hoo poor baby got yelled at" Heather sarcastically mocked, she could be heard muttering something under her breath but no one could tell what.
The fact that Heather had lost her powers didn't make her angry form any less terrifying. Cam was really the only one who had ever dared venture near Heather when she was angry or upset, as far as the others were concerned she may as well have been surrounded by an aura made of barbed wire. It wasn't that Heather was scary when she was angry, it's just that she very rarely is anymore and so none of her friends know what to say to her. So they just decided to let her wear herself out, she only wished they wouldn't. Inside, Heather was desperately wishing that Cam were here, he always knew what to say to her. Even if he didn't he knew to say something.
No, stop she thought silently to herself as tears began to form in her eyes. Stop it right now she mentally scolded herself as she wiped away a tear, but another quickly replaced it. He's not here, he's not here and you're alone again. You have to calm down; there are people around, your friends! You have to be strong; you can't focus on the pain right now. She thought just as a small sob escaped her control oh my god, shut up! She scolded herself. She needed to get out of here, to fight, to run, to cry, she didn't care. She just knew that she had to get away from her friends and siblings; she couldn't bear to let them see her break. But the cell was still locked, and she could try to pick the lock all she wanted but that wouldn't change that she doesn't know how. She finally just dropped the bobby pin and sat there staring down at the dirt floor as if in a trance, forcing back her sobs. For the most part she failed to do this, she managed to keep the sobs silent but they still racked her body just the same, if not harder. She could control the noise, but she couldn't control the violent shuttering of her body, which came with holding the sobs in. At one point she was trying so hard to keep from crying that she thought she may be sick, that was when the door into the dungeon opened.
The second he hung up with Zach Cam began searching frantically through his backpack for something to pick the cage's lock with, not that he could really see what he was doing.
"Ugh this is so much easier when Heather's around to just burn it off" he remarked to himself but that only motivated him to work faster, if he didn't get out of here or Zach got held up then Heather burning off a lock might never again be an option. He was using a paperclip, something that he was continuously dropping.
"Ok, calm down" he said to himself as he took a deep breath, knowing that if he let himself get frustrated then he would never get out.
It took a few tries but eventually Cam opened the lock and the moment he did he grabbed his backpack and bolted. He sprinted out of his cell and the small room it was contained in. Outside of the room was one long hallway carved out of the dirt, off to the sides were two doors each leading to another prison chamber and at the end was a staircase. He opened one door and found that he had guessed correctly, on the other side he found his friends.
But it was also evident that he was to late.
Inside of the room was a fairly large cell, and inside the cell he saw Heather on her hands and knees by the door, her body shaking heavily. Upon hearing the door open she looked up at him and he saw that her eyes were red and puffy, her cheeks were also red, and tears were flowing silently down her face. It broke his heart to see her like this, so much in fact that he didn't even notice the others in the cell. He ran over and fell to his knees right in front of her and then, testing his limits, reached a hand through the bars and placed it on top of hers. She looked down when he did this, as if to confirm that he had done it, then she turned her hand under his and intertwined his fingers with her own. Cam let out a breath he didn't realize he'd been holding as he gave her hand a gentle squeeze, circumstances aside he hadn't realized just how much he'd missed holding her hand.
"I'm sorry Heather, this is all my fault. I let Chloe get close to me and-" he began to apologize.
"No" Heather's shaking voice cut him off. "It's not all your fault, I should've seen it too… Emily's my, my sister" she continued, stuttering through her tears. That's when Cam looked past her only to see Emily on her knees and facing away from them not to far away, and that's when it hit him.
He knew Chloe was using him, but now he saw that it was more than that. She wasn't just after his notes to weaken Heather; she was trying to take down the whole team.
"It doesn't matter" he whispered, "It doesn't matter who missed what, right now all we can do is get you guys out of here, take down the bad guys, and if you want them, get you back your powers" he continued in his hushed voice, making sure that Heather knew it was her choice to have them try and restore her powers.
To be honest he wasn't sure what she would want, to be rid of her powers was something she used to want more than anything but he was almost sure that she moved past that, at least he hoped she did.
Heather nodded in response as she sniffled, making a sound for the first time since she started crying.
The three boys in the cage saw when Cam entered, at first they were angry and Mark nearly marched over when he approached Heather, in fact he would have if Zach didn't stop him.
"Wait" he ordered the older boy, stepping in front of him.
"You want that traitor near your crying sister?" Mark asked in bewilderment.
"Heather's right, we don't know he's a traitor" Zach insisted before looking over his shoulder at Heather, then back at Mark. "Besides I don't want to lose her," he admitted.
Of course Zach knew that he wasn't in any danger of actually losing Heather but her heart, that he knew Emily had broken and Cam was the only person Zach could think of who might stand a chance at putting it back together.