Wow, I must say that a few of you are pretty soft-hearted. Lol. That's good, because it means I can make my readers feel whatever emotion I want them to feel. Muahaha, I feel like a complete puppetmaster. Dictator. Boss.

Ah, the sweet bliss of power.

CHECK OUT MY NEW POLL! It's just for fun, but it's really interesting to see how my readers feel. The poll is 'Who's your favourite Syzygy/Ebony Moon character, of the ones I created?' YOUR FAVOURITE NEEDS YOUR SUPPORT!

Lol.

Ebony Moon Chapter Four

Shannon POV

I glanced at Natalca. We both had tears falling silently down our faces. I hate crying. And if any of you dare call me soft-hearted, wimpy, or weak, say your prayers, because I will destroy you.

"I miss them." Natalca said quietly.

"So do I. So do I." I whispered.

It was amazing how attached you could get to someone, and not realize it until they were gone. I'm sure its different in your life, where you have countless friends, family members, teachers, team mates, blah blah blah. I had exactly ten people I could trust. Ten people I knew. I didn't know anybody outside the flock. And when you lose someone out of your already teeny group of acquaintances, it hurts.

A lot.

Imagine that you have ten arms. Ignore the hilarious mental image that looks like an octopus. Imagine you were born with ten arms. Grew up with all of them, got used to them, used all of them all the time. Ten arms were totally normal to you, like two are to the rest of us.

Now imagine that two get cut off. You feel weird, off-balance, messed up. Yeah. Welcome to my life.

"What do we say?" I wondered.

She knew what I meant. What the hell were we going to tell everyone else? Especially the younger kids? Oh, Madysyn and Regan were dreaming about bloodily and gruesomely murdering us and having us for lunch. But don't worry, they left.

Yeah. That's great.

"We'll tell them the truth. All of them. We can't keep it from Angel, she's a mind-reader. And it's not fair to Gazzy and Nudge to keep it from them. Especially when they've been through enough to take this on, as well. They'll be okay. We'll all be okay. And we'll see them again."

She didn't add the two other words we were both thinking. I hope.

"Okay." I agreed in a whisper.

Max POV

Crap. Double, triple, quadruple, quintuple, sextuple, septuple, octuple, nonuple, decuple CRAP.

Madysyn and Regan left. Shannon and Natalca had just told me. And Fang, Iggy, and J.J. They were leaving it to me to tell the other three. Lovely.

"Angel, Gazzy, Nudge, come in here, please." I called.

Here goes.

J.J. POV

Max had just called the younger kids in to tell them what had happened. I could tell that Natalca was itching to get out of there before Max broke the news.

I gave Fang a significant look, making sure he knew what I was doing, and took her hand, leading her out of the room. I pulled her across the hall and into our room, not pausing before going to the bed. I sat down, leaning against the headboard, and she sat beside me. I pulled her into my side, her head on my chest.

"Oh, Natalca." I murmured.

She sniffled. "I hate crying."

"I know. But I'm not judging you. You were close to Madysyn. I was close to Regan. I know how it is." I rested my cheek on her hair.

"It's so…so wrong. The universe hates us. We make some friends, but no, they have to leave because we're going to kill each other."

The brazen way she put it was so typically Natalca. I didn't know what to say, so I just held her while her body quivered in my arms. About half an hour later, there was a knock at the door. I glanced down at Natalca. She had stopped shaking a while ago, but hadn't moved or said a word. I figured she had fallen asleep. It was the middle of the night, after all.

But her eyes opened, and she didn't look sleepy. So she had just been thinking to herself the past while.

"Come in." I called softly.

The door opened, and Iggy poked his head in, the rest of his body and a spent-looking Shannon following.

"Mind if we join you?" Shannon asked, her voice slightly hoarse.

"Not at all."

We talked for a bit, first about what happened, and then about anything but. Then we all ran out of things to say, and fell into comfortable silence.

"Regan was wanting to watch the news. Find out more about the CN Tower. I wonder if he can where he is." I said suddenly, retrieving the remote and turning the TV on.

"What channel is the news?" I asked after a moment.

It seemed like a rather easy question, but no one answered. Sighing at our ignorance, I flipped channels until I found it.

And my jaw dropped. Again. For the second time tonight, third time in, like, two days.

"-terrible loss of one of the wonders of the world, the Taj Mahal. Investigations have yielded very little information, but police have come to the conclusion that the startling attack must be the same group that same one that destroyed the CN Tower a week ago. But this time, more lives were taken. If these terrorists are trying to make a statement, they are succeeding. 1569 people were inside the building at the time of the implosion. Authorities and explosives experts have determined that small not too lethal bombs were strategically placed inside the building so that when set off, key structural points would rupture, causing the entire building to collapse. There were no survivors. Again, 1569 people were killed in the implosion.

Then, not five minutes later, security cameras on nearby buildings caught some more adventure movie action. Fifteen evenly placed explosives had been planted around the marble building, and were detonated all at once, ensuring the deaths of everyone remotely near the building, taking out a few small buildings, as well. I am very, very, grieved to report that the heart-stopping fatality toll is 5019, and counting.

And now over to Rob, who has a very lucky witness with him."

Slowly, I looked at the other three. Natalca was outright dumbfounded, her eyes wide and her jaw slack. Iggy was motionless, his eyes swimming with surprise. Shannon's eyes were as wide as ostrich eggs, and her hand was over her mouth in the classic oh my god I don't believe it pose.

Then 'Rob' began talking.

"This is Calisa, an incredibly lucky witness to the destruction of the Taj Mahal and the surrounding buildings. What did you see, Calisa?" Rob asked grimly.

'Calisa' didn't look too coherent at the moment. Her eyes were wide and uncomprehending, and she was staring unblinking at something behind the camera.

"Blood…" she said shakily. "Blood everywhere. Screaming…more blood. I was scared, I tried, I ran, but there was so much blood!"

"It's okay, Calisa. You're safe. But tell the camera exactly what you saw. Did you see anybody suspicious?"

It was a stupid question. Obviously the terrorist or terrorists wouldn't be walking around in plain daylight with a bomb detonator in their hand. But he needed her to talk, and he needed it to make sense, not random babbling.

"There was pretty white marble…and then there was blood everywhere, red and white, red and white…blood on marble…"

We all dived for the remote at the same time, so I wasn't sure who actually pressed the 'off' button, I just knew I was just grateful.

"Blood runs down a marble staircase." We all said it together.

We didn't need any more words.

Except an expletive or two.

"Shit." Natalca said at the same time Shannon said, "Hell."

"It's already starting. We're through with one prophecy, on to the next." I sighed.

"Haven't you learned yet, J.J.? Nothing ever goes well for us." Max said from the doorway.

"No, I figured that out pretty soon after I joined the flock, Max. I just felt it needed to be expressed."

"Blood runs down a marble staircase. That's the first line. What's next?" Fang asked.

"Blood spills in a deadly race." Natalca answered.

"Each one must be a world disaster. Six more 9/11's, and then the apocalypse." Iggy said grimly.

"'Cause the world really needs more blood and gore." Shannon commented.

"Well, we'll just have to be Fate's fly in the ointment and stop them." She paused.

"By destroying the world early!" I suggested sarcastically.

"Yeah, with our bad sense of humour." Shannon rolled her eyes.

"Uh-huh, because you're so much funnier than him." Natalca gave Shannon a light smack on the arm.

Slapping her back, Shannon said, "Nope. He's funnier in the head than me."

Everybody groaned at her lame joke, including her.

"Sorry. I just couldn't resist."

"Could we be serious again? Please?" Max demanded. "If we're going to stop this deadly race, we're going to have to figure out what it means. Any ideas?"

Everyone looked at each other, saying nothing.

"I think I speak for everybody when I say we're drawing a blank." Iggy told Max.

"What if…there's, like, a big stadium somewhere? Horse-racing? And the stadium is going to collapse or something?" Natalca suggested.

"Not a bad idea. But there's thousands of races everyday. Millions, probably. How the heck could we figure out exactly which race, where, and when, out of all the freaking lots of stadiums there are? Especially when that may not even be what the prophecy is?" Shannon bit her lip.

"If we see on the news tomorrow that a stadium collapsed somewhere, and lots of people were killed, I blame it entirely on you." Natalca told Shannon.

"Well, sorry! Someone had to be logical!" Shannon snapped.

Yup, nerves were frayed, all right. I glanced at Max, and her brown eyes seemed weary and grim as she said, "All right, enough for one night. Everybody in bed, now."

Natalca glanced at Shannon. "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"

"When am I not?" she rolled her eyes and nodded. "Yeah, I got it, too."

Natalca giggled, and Shannon smiled and laughed at the expression on the rest of our faces.

"Inside joke. It's nothing." She assured us.

Everyone left mine and Natalca's room, and she immediately flung herself under the blankets and curled up in a catlike ball.

"'Night." I murmured.

"G'night." She responded sleepily.

Shannon POV

Well. First the CN Tower, one of my favourite things in my home country. And now the Taj Mahal. I'd dreamed about visiting that place…

So many dead. So many innocent, unlucky people that were in the wrong place at the wrong time. So many people that had been snuffed out just because some terrorists decided to blow them up? There were probably many children in there…

Oh, boy, it made me mad. And what really got me? For all I freaking knew, my whole family could have been killed in that blast. Unlikely, but very possible. Dad had always wanted to make a trip there, with the whole family. And that was one of the reasons I was so sensitive to children getting hurt in stuff like that. Hurt, or worse. My eldest sister had been pregnant when the whitecoats kidnapped me. I never met my niece. Any of the young kids I saw, anywhere, could be her.

Grr. Sometimes my life could truly suck. But yet we all trudge onwards anyway. I think we'd all die if it weren't for sarcasm, black humour, and witty comebacks. Ooh, and roundhouse kicks.

The next day was a weekend, and we were all quite hungry, and pretty cranky, from not enough sleep the night before.

"So, what now?" Natalca asked as cheerfully as she could.

"I interrogated the Voice, detective style. I think I can find it now." Max declared.

"We've heard that before." I murmured in Iggy's ear.

Iggy snickered, and Max shot us a glance as she continued.

"It's about forty miles east of the city, actually quite close to the border of India. Apparently this School specializes in modifying animals, so that's why it's in the middle of nowhere."

Max's words (especially the forty miles part) made us all groan.

Fang rolled his eyes and said, "Come on, you lazy group. At least we don't have to walk."

He was entirely right about that.

On second thought, I think I may have enjoyed walking just a bit more. Ever flown through seven clouds in the course of one mile, and continued for another thirty-nine miles?

No? I advise you to keep it that way. It is an experience you may just want to forfeit.

Clouds are not fluffy, or made of cotton candy. They are wet and cold, and render your vision useless. Hence the reason all elev- nine of us were freezing, soaked through, and very grumpy.

"Max, if you are wrong and we flew out here for nothing, I am going to kill you." Natalca said matter-of-factly, teeth nearly chattering.

Natalca had always hated the cold. I grinned, summoning my power and channelling it to my hands, feeling my skin heat, and then I let it out in a burst, sending it in her direction. She hissed in surprise and wheeled away, then yelled my name.

"What?" I said indignantly. "I was just trying to warm you up. And I don't smell any singed feathers, do you?"

Nudge giggled and, in an attempt to distract us, said, "Max, how much farther?"

"It should be anywhere here now, sweetheart."

Fang glanced at Natalca, and, as concisely as always, asked, "Radar?"

She blinked and then veered left, the rest of us following like a flock of…well, birds.

And sure enough, she was entirely right, the familiar, yet horrible, building soon came into view. Low, white, slightly run-down looking—yup, it was a School, all right.

"Ig, Gaz." Max said shortly.

I smiled at Iggy as he cackled, letting his blonde hair fall into his bright blue eyes as he pulled his pack off his back and conferred slightly with Gaz before they made a decision and both yelled, "Hit the dirt!"

Oh, we hit the dirt, all right. We all folded our wings in and let ourselves plummet. For a few moments all I saw was the red of my wings before we snapped our wings out and glided, so close to the ground I could almost reach with my hand.

Then there was a huge, ear-splitting, thunderous roar, and shrapnel rocketed into the sky. We pinned ourselves to the ground to avoid being hit, and I felt Iggy's body beside me, hard and warm and safe.

As if on cue, we all raised our heads and looked around at each other, making sure no one was hurt. Everyone looked fine, and then Angel suddenly frowned and cocked her head to the left.

"Something's coming." She murmured.

Fang and Max dropped into battle crouches, Natalca leaped atop a boulder, Iggy swung into a tree, and J.J. and I soared into the sky. Gazzy and Nudge went back to back, looking around wildly.

Angel tsked softly. "Not like that, you guys. Like…a train! That's it! There's a train coming! Can we please stay to see it?"

The word 'train' made me look around, searching for tracks. Sure enough, twenty, maybe thirty feet off was a set of train tracks. At one point the tracks split off into a turn, and I squinted, trying to determine whether the tracks were set to go straight or turn. The pole thingy looked like it was set to straight.

I looked back at the young girl. The excited light in Angel's adorable, clear blue eyes was so cute I had to fight not to go awww.

Max debated for a moment, then glanced at the smoking remains of the School and said, "I don't think any Erasers are going to pop out of that, so sure, why not?"

Angel grinned and Nudge smiled happily. Gazzy rubbed his hands together, and I could just see he couldn't wait to try to determine how the mechanics of the train worked. And so we waited.

J.J. joined Natalca on her boulder, and I saw them talking to each other quietly, fingers laced. Max and Fang began to spar. Iggy jumped down from his tree and came over to me, kissing my forehead lightly.

"Hey, I can see it!" Angel shouted, ecstasy clear in her voice. Gazzy cheered and Nudge jumped up with excitement as the train breached the horizon.

"Have they never seen trains before?" I asked, somewhat bewildered by their excitement.

Iggy chuckled as he wrapped his arms around my waist from behind. He shrugged and said, "From the air, maybe. Never this close up."

That was weird. But on the other hand, I was a girl born and raised in Manitoba prairies, where trains were frequent in certain areas.

Suddenly Natalca shrieked. I whirled, fists clenched, eyes wild. She was standing on the rock, body tense, eyes wide and staring.

"There's another one!" she shouted.

At first I didn't realize the problem. But then I looked to the west, and saw what she meant.

There was another train.

Coming the opposite direction.

On the same track.

And they were going fast. The distance between them had already been halved.

And those were passenger trains. Which meant there was people on them.

Many people. And they were going to crash.

In a flash I was in the air, streaking towards the switch-bar. If I could throw the switch in time, the train coming from the east would turn.

I had to get there.

I felt Natalca and Iggy right beside me, winging me, having come to the same conclusion.

Max screamed our names from behind.

Iggy POV

Shannon threw herself into the air in the blink of an eye. Natalca was right after her, streaking along beside her. I raced beside them.

All of us had the same target. We knew that switch had to be thrown. I heard Fang telling the younger three to get out of here.

He didn't want them seeing the trains (and therefore the people inside them) going smoosh. Or worse, us going smoosh.

Max screamed our names from behind, screaming at us to stop. At least I thought that's what she said. I really wasn't listening.

Until I heard the word trap. I snapped my head around, looking over my shoulder.

And saw a very familiar scene. Max, with a battle light in her eyes, kicking a creature with the face of a wolf. Fang, snapping an Eraser's neck. Gazzy, hurling bombs. Nudge and Angel tag-teaming them.

And ahead of us, more Erasers. No, they didn't magically pop out of the ground. They were slowly but surely crawling over the top of the trains.

It was genius. The Erasers had hidden on the far side of the trains, where we couldn't see them. Now, with nowhere to run, they came to get us.

Oh, hell no.

We didn't have time to deal with Erasers. We had trains to stop. Slightly ahead of me, Shannon beat her wings down with a screech, flying harder than she ever had. On her other side, Natalca snarled and shot over the ground. I streaked after them.

Everything slowed down right then. Suddenly the cold, hard logic of it hit me. We had a good twenty feet to go. The trains, with their cargo of innocent humans, were about a hundred feet apart, but they ate up the ground just a little faster than us.

The switch bar was on the opposite side of the tracks. Which meant that if we cut it real close, somebody could really go smoosh.

And even if we did manage to get to the bar before the trains collided head on, the west train would still blind-side the east train.

I quickly judged the east train to be about eighty feet long. Which meant we had to get there with at least eighty-one feet between the trains.

We weren't going to make it.

Shannon POV

We weren't going to make it. I could see that.

We had to go faster. But my wings were already liquid fire. Beside me, Natalca was desperately trying to levitate the switch bar, but it was too heavy, too stiff, too rusted, and too far.

But we weren't giving up.

Ten feet away. I pinned my wings as tight to my body as I could, making my wing span smaller but keeping my speed up. On east train, Erasers perched on the top of the engine.

Everything went into extreme slow motion.

The Erasers leaped from the train, which was right there. I ducked and weaved, managing to make it through.

Natalca and Iggy attacked the Erasers with fury.

I glanced towards the east train. In the first passenger car, I saw a face.

A young face, with wide green eyes and bright, curly blonde hair. Terrified. A child. Her innocent eyes met mine, and in them I saw everything—somehow she knew I was trying to save her. She knew—she was depending on me.

There was a space of about five feet before the east train crossed in front of the switch bar.

Five feet.

I went for it. I turned my body sideways, my stomach facing the roaring steam engine as I zipped through.

The bar, so tantalizingly close. My hand reached out, and then my fingers closed around the cool metal.

My whole body slammed into the bar, and I felt something crack inside my body met the metal with all that force—but I didn't even feel it.

The bar slammed into the other position, and the track creaked and changed, diverting the east train's path into a turn.

I don't know how the train didn't topple. It was nearly on top of the track when it moved, but somehow it thundered right on by, and the face of the girl broke into a smile, and I nearly mirrored it, nearly gave into the relief, until I remembered the west train.

Had I made it in time?

I picked myself up off the dusty ground, ignoring the searing pain in my body and launched myself back into the air, eyes wildly lighting on the west train.

I nearly fell back to the earth in despair. The fight went out of me.

No way were the trains going to miss each other.

No way.

I was right.

With a horrible, ear-splitting screech of metal ripping and rending more metal, the west train slammed into the side of the east train.

My heart sank even lower as the whole east train became like a string of dominoes and toppled onto it's side, skidding and screaming over the ground, hitting bumps and slamming back to the ground. Glass shattered; metal screeched….

People screamed.

The west train's engine got stuck somehow under the side of the east train when it fell, and the whole engine, with all its speed and momentum, went completely vertical, nose to the ground. The rest of the train followed, before it slammed back into the hard, unforgiving ground with a sound so terrible I wanted to die.

More glass shattered. Any vestiges of control or composure I had shattered with it. More metal screeched—my heart echoed it.

More people screamed. I screamed with them, their voices full of terror, my voice full of rage.

And more blood spilled.

We had been beaten.

We had lost the deadly race.

I really don't know what to say….besides Yes, I am aware it has been nearly a whole year since I updated.

Hehe. Sorry 'bout that.

*SanraitaFang*