AN: Thanks to everyone who voted for this series in the DOTM awards!!
Chapter Eleven: Crescendo
She was going to totally puke.
"Focus," came the overhead voice of Esme from the background, sounding more than a little annoyed.
The image that Imy saw of a tranquil section of the woods began to blur and distort around the edges, looking as if someone had decided to suck up the middle of a landscape painting with a straw.
It pulled, a black hole appearing out of nowhere as the scenery vanished, warping and pulling and making Imy want to barf up a lung.
"Very good," came the same voice, but distorted now, like someone was yelling into a loudspeaker.
Tiny, cold beads of sweat were beginning to bubble on Imy's forehead, and she felt her limbs grow heavy and numb.
Vanishing…everything was disappearing…
But what came next?
With that one thought, Imy's concentration was shut off, and everything snapped back into place as if it had been held by rubber bands. She groaned, panting as she sunk to her knees.
"Holy shit," she mumbled, out of breath.
"Shit, definitely. Not so sold on the holy part," Esme muttered bitterly, her lips pursed as she stood next to her student. "We've been working on this for a week now, and you've barely improved."
Imy shook her head, "Get off my ass. It feels unnatural-"
Esme rolled her eyes, "It feels unnatural," she mimicked in a whiny voice, causing Imy to pout, "You're not going to grow if you don't reach outside your comfort zone."
"There's comfort zones and there's feeling yourself turn into a pincushion," Imy snapped, crossing her arms and standing with somewhat shaky legs, "When I teleport, I teleport what I touch, and I definitely send it somewhere. Not this weird bullshit you've got me trying."
Esme matched her stubbornness easily, "That's because you've never tried any other possibility, Imy. The whole point of you opening your teleportation spheres without a set destination is to see where your limits lie. If we can get them to open, we can get them to travel anywhere-"
"Spare me the 'we' bull, I'm the one doing all the work!" Imy huffed.
Esme glared, "Your Magna Mater may tolerate this kind of attitude, but I will not. I have far too much riding on your childish shoulders-"
"You're calling me childish? How old are you, ten?"
She sniffed, "I'm quite old enough. And you're the one acting like a spoiled brat!"
Imy's jaw went slack, "What? Because I don't like running my insides through a cheese grater?"
"No, because you're not even willing to try. You're arrogant. This whole week I've abandoned my duties for you, and you're not even committing to the lessons I'm trying, and apparently failing, to teach you." Esme said coldly, glaring at the teleporter, "Now, are you going to try and vanquish Tatum before she gets you first? Surely you see the big picture here."
Imy swallowed hard, "Whatever. Just tell me the stupid chant again."
"It's an incantation-"
"What. Ever." Imy grumped, rolling her shoulders.
Esme frowned deeply for a few moments before taking a deep breath, "Nocere Transitus Vagus."
Imy repeated with absolutely no soul, "Nocere Transitus Vagus."
The usual white disk that appeared around her feet when she teleported appeared, before hissing with a dark electricity, morphing into a black hole. Slowly, she monitored her breathing, repeating the mantra over and over. The black hole spread, crawling over the grass and pulling everything but Imy in. Imy grunted in pain but honed her focus, and slowly, the picnic table that was resting in the corner wavered on the edge of the hole. It toppled in, swallowed with a burst of black sparks and Imy's eyes shot open.
"Whoa," she mumbled, and the darkness vanished, "What was that?"
Esme said, with a ghost of a smile on her face, "That was finally improvement."
---
"Let me see if I got this straight. You came over to our house, across town, in the middle of the night, because Imy didn't show up to rake leaves?" Said one very grumpy Kyle Ormond as he leaned against the counter in his kitchen, wearing some bunny patterned pajama pants that his daughter had gotten him for Christmas the year before.
"Yeah, downright irresponsible of her," grumbled Gordon Jacobson, for once in plainclothes and trying not to demand to search the premises for the errant Daughter of the Moon.
"This couldn't have waited until, say, after one in the morning?" Kyle said flatly, not quite annoyed, but confused and more than a little cranky from a lack of sleep.
Jacobson rose an eyebrow, "You would have preferred two?"
The glare Kyle leveled him with spoke a thousand words, thankfully, Jacobson wasn't fluid in tact.
"Look, I have a staff meeting tomorrow, so I'll let her know you stopped by, Mr.-?"
"Jacobson. Where is Ormond, if you don't mind me asking-"
"I do. I have no idea who you are, and you've been eying my dining room as if it were a chalk outline at a crime scene," Kyle said flatly.
Jacobson sniffed the air, "I'm Imy's…instructor."
Kyle's eyebrows creased, trying to envision the rough man in front of him with glasses and a coat that had leather elbow patches, "…I see."
"Look, let's just cut the crap," Kyle frowned at the use of language, "I'm with Jimena. Imy's been playing hooky, and it's high time you reigned that shit in."
Kyle's tolerating mood instantly vanished, "Tell Jimena that what Imy chooses to do with her own life is not any of her concern."
Jacobson groaned, "Oh for Christ's sake, not you too. Look, grand destiny outweighs after school teatime, capiche?"
Kyle was already steering him out the door, "I'll let her know you stopped by, eventually, have a good night Mr.-"
"Detective!"
"-Gordonson."
"Jacobson, and whaddya mean-" the door slammed shut on his particularly big nose, "Eventually."
Almost as soon as the door shut, the cell phone in the now detective's back pocket went off. Groaning, Gordon flipped open the screen, "What?"
"This is why I told you to go and to not mention me," came Jimena's rather cross voice, "Kyle doesn't exactly see eye to eye with Selene."
"No shit."
Jimena sighed, "We'll try tomorrow. Until then, try to stay out of trouble and for Hera's sake cut back on the whiskey."
"You know, your seeing the future thing is really starting to get on my nerves-"
"I don't need premonition when I can practically smell the Jim Bean over the phone. Sober up next time you try to impersonate a teacher." The line went dead, and it was obvious that Jimena was more than a little perturbed.
Gordon snorted, shutting his phone, "Sweet dreams to you too, pookie."
---
"I'm getting damn annoyed," Aria said in a huff as she bent over on her bed, brush in hand as she painted her toenails a deep red, "Next time I see Imy, I'm giving her the ass chewing of a lifetime."
Tessa tossed a curtain of blonde hair over her shoulder, flipping through a magazine as she lay sprawled out on Aria's bedroom floor, "I think I'm more justified for giving the ass chewing. You used to pull the same shit."
Aria rolled her eyes, "That was so three months ago."
There was a ghost of a smirk on Tessa's face as she continued to read an article, absent hand crawling around, looking for the bowl of popcorn that was situated about two inches to the left of where she was pawing.
"One thing's for sure, I'm not dealing with miss crabby pants Magna Mater anymore," Aria said, "I stopped by this morning to drop off Carlos's stuff that he left here yesterday-" At this, Tessa waggled her eyebrows suggestively and Aria huffed, "-and instead of a 'How are you?' she totally had me recite out of this crusty old book that was a relic of Eileithyia or something-"
Tessa nodded, "I was doing illusions until I couldn't see straight-"
"Isn't that kind of the point of them?"
Tessa pointedly ignored her, "And then Jacobson threatened to make me take a home drug test that he stole from work."
Aria couldn't help the little vindictive giggle that escaped her mouth. Tessa finally managed to locate the popcorn bowl and promptly threw a handful of the stuff at her.
"Ugh, whore!" Aria said, trying to brush kernels out of her hair.
Tessa winked, finally placing down the magazine, "Have you seen Imy at all this week?" There was a serious tone to her voice that wasn't usually present.
Aria sighed, "Not really. She hasn't been to school and I texted her like a million times."
"That doesn't sound like her," Tessa said slowly, "Maybe Riley has a point."
At this, Aria's attention was fixed, "What do you mean?"
Tessa sat up, shaking her head slightly, "The other night, at Erebus, Riley told me that Imy was becoming someone she didn't like…and I'm starting to agree. Our loveable flake is becoming dead weight."
Aria worried her lower lip, "Yeah, I know." She paused, "Maybe we should go talk to her mom?"
Tessa snorted, "What would that accomplish? 'Oh, Hi Mrs. Turner, we were just concerned that your only child wasn't showing up to our little girl scout meetings to vanquish evil for all of eternity. Would you mind grounding her even though she can teleport away whenever she wants?'"
The healer grimaced, "Good point." She sighed, "Well, Ian's party is tonight, maybe she'll finally resurface."
Tessa looked down at the floor, "I hope so. What good is the Higher Calling if she doesn't even answer her phone?"
Aria said, with mock solemnity, "Deep."
Tessa snorted, "Shut up."
Aria stood up from her bed, heading over to her closet, "Enough of this talk, it's depressing me. Make yourself useful and help me pick out an outfit for tonight." She paused, "Are you sure you don't want to come? I mean, I know it's mostly Turney kids, but-"
"Can't. I have plans already," Tessa said, a weird shifty quality appearing on her face, before she quickly steered the conversation away, "Besides, a toga party? No thanks. I do enough pretending that I'm in Ancient Greece."
Aria laughed, "Good point." She eyed her closet critically, "So should I wear the Prada shoes or the Jimmy Chu's?"
"Who cares? They're both knockoffs."
"You are such a bitch sometimes."
"You love me for it."
---
Imy groaned as she practically staggered into her house, Esme in tow. The place was empty, as it was the middle of the day, meaning her father was at work and her mother was most likely out cold for at least a few more hours.
"Cute place," Esme said politely.
"Whatever," Imy muttered, managing to coordinate her noodle like limbs enough to get to the kitchen where a nice, cold pitcher of lemonade waited for her. Like a robot, she mechanically poured herself a glass, begrudgingly getting one for Esme as an afterthought.
"Here," she said less than kindly, thrusting the glass at the younger looking girl who grasped it and took a delicate sip. Imy took huge, monstrous gulps of hers by contrast.
"Thank you," Esme said calmly, eyeing the worn out Daughter as she sagged against her kitchen counter, boots that went up to her thigh being kicked off as her toes wiggled. "Perhaps I've been giving you a hard time," she said, measured.
Imy's eyebrows shot up, "Ya think? My bruises have bruises."
Esme's usual grim line of a mouth turned up for a slight smile, "You have to admit that you've made significant improvements in your powers. You can now teleport things without touching them, after all."
Imy snorted, waving her hand, causing her now empty glass to vanish in a white circle before reappearing in the kitchen, "Only for small stuff."
"Still, that's more than what you could do before." Esme paused, taking another thoughtful sip, "How would you like a night off?"
Imy's face lit up like a Christmas tree, "You would actually consider stopping this form of unusual torture?"
Esme sighed, "I am a merciful god."
There was a lengthy pause.
"Esme?"
"Yes?"
"…did you just make a funny?"
The girl huffed, "I am human, you know." She paused, "Besides, I sort of wanted to go to Ian's party."
Imy's eyes widened, "You know Ian?"
She shrugged, "I met him briefly in an art class, he seemed nice enough. I haven't been to a party in what feels like centuries."
The teleporter's eyes widened further, "Just how old are you again?"
Esme smirked, pressing a finger to her lips, "A lady never reveals her age," she paused, looking at the digital clock on top of the Turner home's oven, "Let's go pick out something to wear," she said somewhat wistfully, "I love dressing up."
Imy smiled, "Wait till you see my closet!"
Somewhere between trying on different pairs of sandals and makeup, Imy found herself having fun with the stoic agent of Ananke, even though it felt as if an element to getting ready for a party was missing…the distinct lack of pulling someone's teeth…
---
"Riley, you can't wear a librarian sweater to a toga party," Carlos said as he entered the room the two foster siblings shared, pulling off his sea-soaked shirt in the process, knowing Riley wouldn't care.
Riley didn't even look up from her history homework, "I don't plan on staying."
"But you'll look uncool," Carlos said heavily, taking a seat next to her on the bed they shared.
Riley looked up from her textbook archly, and Carlos gave a beaming smile in return. She shook her head affably before returning to her homework.
"I'm really just going to see if Imy will be there."
The heavy tone with which the empath said the sentence killed Carlos's usual jovial mood, "You haven't heard from her yet?"
"It's been a week, she hasn't been to class," Riley said in what anyone else would have perceived as her usual tone, but Carlos knew her well enough to detect the trace of bitterness in his kid sister's words.
"That's weird, aren't you two usually attached at the hip?" Carlos asked carefully, going over to his side of the room to pull a clean shirt out of his chest of drawers.
Riley remained thoughtfully silent, turning pages in her book that she obviously wasn't reading anymore. Carlos continued to watch her, not for the first time noticing the dark, heavy bags under her eyes. As her roommate, he knew firsthand that the girl never got a full night's rest, usually every two or three hours he could register her rolling about in her bed, trying to get back to sleep. He had been debating if he should mention something to his mom, but something stilled his actions for some reason.
"She hasn't called me for band practice or anything at all," Riley mumbled, "Jake and Twiggy haven't heard from her either. I'm…concerned."
Which in Riley-speak meant she was having a near aneurysm, "Huh." He scratched the back of his neck awkwardly. He wasn't used to giving the comforting words of advice, and Riley had never needed them before, "I guess…Well, yeah." He shifted his weight from foot to foot.
Riley cracked a rare smile, "I'll be fine," she mumbled quietly, noticing the feelings he was projecting around them. "I'm sure I can talk to her tonight."
Carlos snorted, "Yeah, and you'll stick out like a sore thumb because you'll be the only one not in some sort of stylish bed sheet, you incurable nerd."
Riley's eyes widened slightly.
"It needed to be said."
Riley's smile widened as well.
A knock at the door interrupted their talk, and both teens turned their heads to see Jimena leaning in the doorway, arms crossed over her chest and looking more than a little annoyed.
"I couldn't help but overhear," Jimena drawled slowly, "that Imy might grace some kid's party with her presence?"
Riley and Carlos both cringed slightly, knowing that the end was nigh for a certain teleporter if Jimena ever got her hands on her.
"When you see her, tell her that she needs to talk to me as soon as possible, understand?" Jimena said, her tone strongly implying her authority not only as the reincarnation of Pandia, but also of their maternal figure.
"Yes ma'am," Riley and Carlos both stated quickly.
Jimena smirked, "At ease, soldiers." She paused, noticing Riley's homework on her bed, "Carlos, don't you have homework you should be doing?"
Carlos shook his head, "Not until about midnight on Sunday, it's the weekend mom. Only incurable nerds do their homework on Friday afternoon."
Riley gave a long-suffering sigh.
Jimena's smirk stretched, "Oh, good for you then. Because I happen to have about three tomes worth of ancient Grecian poetry for you to read through-"
"And I suddenly remembered that I love calculus," Carlos said quickly, making a beeline for the backpack at the end of his bed.
Jimena smiled, "Play nice at the Saratoga kid's party," her glasses slid to the bridge of her nose, "There's no moon tonight. So be careful." And as an afterthought, "And I don't care if you have to drag her lazy ass here, make sure Imy talks to me."
The door closed behind her, and Riley and Carlos sent each other a look.
---
Imy smiled as she twirled in front of her mirror, enjoying the way the pleats at the bottom of her white mini dress spun around her with the motion. The tall, gold strappy sandals that Tessa had loaned her worked wonders for her legs and she could practically feel the confidence radiating around her.
"You look beautiful," Esme commented serenely from behind her.
Imy finished the half complete braid she had been working into her hair and spun around. One look at Esme was enough to make all her positive self image feelings vanish. No one should look that good in a bed sheet.
Imy groaned, the girl was wearing a bed sheet and she looked way hotter than her. Her lower lip pouted.
Esme gave a small smile at that, looping a long, silver earring through, "Don't feel too bad. I have a lot of practice with this look."
Imy rose an eyebrow, "Exactly how old are you again?"
She smirked, but didn't answer the question, "Are you going to be asking that servus of yours to escort you?"
Imy rolled her eyes, no one used words like 'escort' anymore, "His name is Art, not servus. We've been over this," her voice dropped in sound, "And no, I'm not asking him to come with."
Esme's eyebrows arched, as she leaned over Imy's vanity, expertly applying eye makeup to her face, "Don't boyfriends typically go with their girlfriends to these sorts of things?"
Imy exhaled, somewhat with irritation, "Sure, when said boyfriend doesn't want to kill the host of the party."
She pursed her lips, "A servus with spine? How revolutionary."
Imy scowled, "His name is Art-"
Esme sighed, "I apologize. Art does know that you're going though, doesn't he?"
Imy suddenly became intensely focused on her hair, finishing braiding little ribbons of gold through it.
---
"Holy Hera, you look hot," Carlos said with an appreciative thumbs up as Aria met him outside of her parents' house.
She blushed, "My mom helped me," Tianna had been more than excited about the toga party, the humor not lost on the volunteer Daughter of the Moon as she made her daughter look like a genuine Grecian Goddess. A lazy smile spread over her face when she realized that Carlos had gone for the shirtless look with his toga, "You don't look half bad yourself."
He waggled his eyebrows suggestively, pulling her closer to him by sneaking an arm around the small of her back, "You want me, it's obvious."
She snorted, craning her neck up to steal a kiss when-
"Achem," came the somber, quiet tone of someone who could only be Riley.
Carlos rolled his eyes, stepping away from his girlfriend, "Riley, I love you, but you can be such a cockblocker."
"So I've heard," came Carlos's foster sister as she crossed her arms over her chest, her face flushed a deep red, "But could any of you please keep in mind that I feel whatever it is you're feeling?" Her face flushed deeper as she awkwardly shifted her weight to the left.
Carlos smirked wickedly, "So that means-"
Aria smacked her hand against Carlos's chest, "Oh shut up," she said snappishly, turning to greet her fellow Daughter of the Moon. Her mouth fell open, "Please tell me you're not going to the party in that."
Carlos groaned to her side, "I told her."
Riley said nothing, merely plucked off a piece of lint from her librarian sweater.
"Ian's going to make you change as soon as you get there," Aria said pointedly.
Riley shrugged, "I'm not planning on staying."
Aria caught the look in her eyes, "Let me guess, Imy?"
"Yes."
Carlos sighed, "Mom's got a death warrant on her, it seems."
"Poor her," Aria said with pursed lips, not without a hint of sarcasm. She brushed her thick, curly hair over her shoulder, "Well, let's get this show on the road, right?" She said, offering her arm to Carlos who let out a chuckle before hooking his through it, Riley following them a few steps back as they walked over to Ian's.
---
Imy could practically hear the sharp intake of breath that several guys made as she and Esme entered the large house, and she smiled wickedly. Tonight was going to be a good night.
The place was huge, thanks to Ian's famous mother, practically a mansion and it was full to near capacity with teenagers clad in togas. Imy laughed a little at the image of seeing the uniformity of clothes, especially with the huge, football players like Micah. Most of them just wore bed sheets like skirts, giving Imy a nice view of their athletic chest muscles, not that she was complaining. Heavy metal music, Ian's favorite, filled the area and she could tell from most of the people's rowdy behavior that drinking had already started.
"IMY!" Came the cry of the host, and she laughed when she saw Ian, obviously hammered, stumbling towards them, "I'm so glad you came!" He said, his handsome features lighting up as he slung his arms around her in a bear hug. Imy awkwardly patted his back.
Esme made a light clearing of her throat.
"Oh! And you! I don't know who you are-"
"Esme. We have art together."
"-but I'm so glad you came too!" He rambled, giving Esme a similar hug. Due to her smaller stature, her feet actually lifted up off of the ground. Imy let out a less than friendly snicker at seeing her stoic, mentor-figure's panicked face before she was set back on the ground.
"Looks like a good party," Imy said happily.
"GREAT party, keg's in the back," Ian with a drunken smile over his face, before his attention went back to Esme, "Hey, wanna dance?"
Esme smiled in a way that almost morphed her features entirely from innocent schoolgirl to seductress and Imy paused in her step for a moment, "Certainly," she said in a low tone, taking Ian's outstretched hand.
Imy watched, with a bit of a pout since Esme was asked first, as the two of them made their way into the throngs of dancing teenagers, before deciding that perhaps a cup of beer wouldn't be an altogether bad thing.