I'm back! Sorry for the very late update. I haven't had much time to update any of my stories. But, I'm here now, aren't I? :)

Title: Warriors in Shadows

Chapter 8: Underwater

Natalya's POV

Six days after Kayla was revealed as the Shadow Warrior, myself, Will and the others continued our frantic search for Irma. Right now, the five of us were on Meridian to search for possible clues Kayla left for us on Irma's whereabouts. Cornelia was in the Palace of Meridian to talk to Queen Elyon to see if she knows anything. Taranee and Hay Lin were searching for clues inland and Will and I were searching the outer banks. Will was saying something to me, but I wasn't really paying attention. I was too busy thinking about how my "best friend" betrayed me and the Oracle and kidnapped Irma. And on top of that, I pulled another all-nighter on Kandrakar again.

"So, what do you think?" Will said, snapping me out of my thoughts.

"What? Oh yeah, nice." I said quickly. Will playfully glared at me.

"You weren't paying attention, were you?" Will asked. I shook my head.

"Not really. Sorry Will." I said. Will chuckled lightly.

"It's fine, sis. I was just talking about Matt Olsen anyway." Will said, blushing lightly.

"You mean the boy that you practically drool over?" I asked teasingly, causing Will to blush harder. "Ok, so I am correct." Will playfully smacked my arm and laughed. We continued flying along Lake Meridian. After a short silence, Will spoke.

"So, what were you thinking about earlier?" Will asked. Just as I was about to answer, the Heart appeared and glowed brightly. We just froze.

"Now what's this thing doing?" I muttered. I looked down at the water for a second before turning to Will. "Lets go find the others." I continued, turning to fly away, almost choking on the chain of the Heart because it didn't move.

"I guess it doesn't want you to move." Will said. I kept looking at the water and at that moment, the other Guardians showed up.

"We sensed something's wrong. Are you two ok?" Hay Lin asked.

"Yeah, we're fine." Will said. I zoned out and was in a trance, staring at the darkening water.

"Natalya, what are you staring at?" Cornelia asked, seeing the now black water. "Asked and answered." I was still staring at the water and I started to hear voices calling for help. I went down closer to the water only to be pulled back up again. The Heart stopped moving and choked me again, snapping me out of my trance and held my throat.

"Nat, are you ok? You seem out of it today." Will said. I looked at my friends and blinked.

"Voices. I heard voices. They're calling for help." I said.

"Nattie, either you need sleep or you need to be locked up in an asylum. We don't hear any voices." Cornelia said somewhat harshly. Cornelia's been a little on the moody side since Caleb went missing four days earlier. He went on a mission for us on Meridian and he never reported back.

"No, I'm serious!" I said defensively. "I heard voices. I get why the Heart won't let me go away from the water. It wants me to go in the water." Everyone looked at the shadowed water then to me, giving me a weird look like I was crazy. At this point, I was starting to believe it was from the lack of sleep but quickly shook the thought away.

"Nattie…" Taranee started.

"What if Irma's under there? What if Caleb's under there?" I said. "What if—" I started to say before I got a major headache. I held my held before my eyes transfixed on the water and fell into the trance again.

Will's POV

I flew next to Natalya to see if she was alright. I saw that she fell into that trance-like mode and tried to shake her out of it, but to no prevail. I definitely believed her. We needed to go in the black water.

"Come on, lets get out of here." Hay Lin said. Before we knew where we were going, Natalya jumped into the water.

"Natalya!" we all shouted.

"We need to follow her! What if Kayla's in there? You saw the she tried to kill Nattie six days ago!" I said, severely concerned for my little sister's safety.

"Then why are we just standing, uh, flying here? Lets go!" Taranee said.

"Uh, do we have to? That water is gross!" Cornelia said. I jumped in the water after Natalya, hearing three more splashes behind me. We swam for several minutes before spotting what looks like the underwater mines. We quickly found a way in and saw that the inside was like a small palace.

"Look! There's Natalya!" Hay Lin said, pointing to the Princess. Natalya was still in her trance, following the Heart to the north side of the underwater structure. We finally caught up to her and followed her silently to the main prison cells. Nattie stopped in front of one of them and we looked inside…

I'm gonna play Evil Enigma and cut it off right here. Heehee. XD I'll try to update more. I'm on summer break and my parents keep me away from my laptop most of the day. 'Till then!