A/N
Hi, this is said friend from earlier chapters. My name is actually Kayla, not 'my friend'. I'm punishing Kari by making her let me write this author's note. And she was an accomplice in me making the last chapter so dramatic. Sorry about the cliffhanger, by the way. Not really.
Anyway, this chapter is a lot better than the last in the way of dramatics. I didn't blow things out of proportion this time. Much.
And I actually am sorry for making the recent chapters so long. I like to drag things out, as I am discovering. Much like I am this author's note. Sorry about that as well.
FIVE |
SAM WASN'T REALLY sure what to think of the girls. They were an odd bunch, but they seemed to have a connection that was rare to see in even the closest of friends. The one with the black hair and brown eyes - Sophia - seemed to act as the mother hen of sorts to the bunch. She reminded him of his own mother, at least before the FAYZ. Although she seemed to have a major protective streak.
Rose seemed to be the second oldest. She had bright red hair and green grass-like eyes. Often, she acted like the overprotective older sister, but she was a little timid.
The twins truly puzzled him. They were fraternal twins, not identical. Sapphire had blonde hair streaked with light brown, while Scarlett had the same blonde hair, without the brown, and dark eyes that seemed to glint - a sort of combination between chocolate brown and amber.
Sam had seen a lot of twins before, seeing as he was a twin himself. But not even any identical twins he'd seen had had a connection as deep as these two. Not even Emma and Anna. Their personalities were so different, though. As close as he could figure, Sapphire was the kind of girl that would hide her own feelings behind a mask of confidence and happiness. Scarlett was more on the side of 'I will say what I mean and you can not stop me'. How complete opposites could get along so well was a puzzling thing.
Angelina was the youngest. She had light golden blonde hair and multicolor kaleidoscope eyes. She was hyper, strong and, much like Brianna, didn't seem like the type that would easily take orders from anyone, no matter the authority they had.
It was odd how so many different personalities could even be in the same place as one another, much less get along with one another. How they were related was a mystery to him. Sam sighed. Girls were confusing. It was like a rubix cube strapped onto strangers screaming at you in another language. Completely incomprehensible. Hopeless, really, to try and figure out what they were like. He glanced over at Astrid, a small smile playing on his lips. She was certainly no exception to this mysterious world of girls.
He was still pondering all of this when a roar built up, sounding like hurricane force winds trying to demolish a small village. Immediately all other thoughts evaporated, remembering that Scarlett and Sapphire were somewhere in this building, most likely the cause of the racket.
He rushed to the door along with everyone else in the room. Rose got there first, as she had been standing nearest to it. She yanked on the handle, and everyone surged forward, expecting the door to swing open normally.
But it didn't. The door handle would turn perfectly fine, but when Rose tried to open the door, it wouldn't budge, as if it were sealed shut.
Finally, Sophia and Angelina joined her, seeing her struggles and comprehending the problem immediately. All three of them heaved mightily, exerting their greatest force upon the door. Together they managed to crack it open, but as soon as they did, a gust of wind blew through it so powerfully that it caused all three of them to topple over one another and collapse into a heap on the floor. The door was closed before any of them even touched the ground, slamming shut so strongly that it rattled everything in the room.
Sophia, Rose, and Angelina disentangled themselves from one another, helping each other up and staring at the door.
"What was that?" The voice came from Diana, who had, until now, remained silent throughout pretty much this entire visit. Everyone just looked around the room helplessly, as if the answer to her question as well as all of their unspoken ones were hidden in the walls and dark corners. Nobody really knew how to answer her.
/Break\
Sapphire jolted back into reality, and instantly the mobs of emotion retreated. The power was still there, though, and it sent an exhilarating thrill through her now that all the ugly feelings were gone. She shoved that back almost as vigorously, however; Scarlett needed help.
"Scarlett!" she cried out into the maelstrom.
There was no reply.
Desperately, Sapphire fought against the wind to regain her feet, and then she realized, truly realized, even though it should've occurred to her much sooner, that she was the cause of this. She was using her power.
And she might've hurt Scarlett.
That thought alone was enough to propel her to her feet, and this time the winds didn't try to stop her, actually supporting her and helping to hold her upright. She still staggered through the tornado, looking for a glimpse of anything that wasn't just swirling debris in this mess - blonde hair, tan skin, clothing, anything. Several times she was lifted off her feet, but all it took was a thought and the wind set her back on the ground.
The twisting and thrashing of the wind made her dizzy, but she remained focused entirely on her task. She needed to find Scarlett. If she was hurt because of her, Sapphire would never, ever have the ability to forgive herself, nor would she ever be able to look her sister in the eyes again without remembering this.
Finally, she spotted her. She must have subconsciously acted on her resolve to protect Scarlett, because Scarlett was encased in a pocket of air, untouched by the winds, unconscious.
Sapphire nearly had a breakdown right then and there at the sight of her limp sister. Scarlett's long golden hair was spread out behind her head, and she lie completely unmoving. For a horrendous moment Sapphire assumed the worst and thought she was dead, but then she shifted and Sapphire nearly wept with relief. Scarlett groaned, and the sound carried to Sapphire even though the wind still raged on. She figured that the wind had brought the sound to Sapphire because of her control over it, but at that moment she wasn't really concerned about how she heard a noise.
She rushed to her sister, unknowingly lifting herself off the ground and zooming through the air to get to her. As soon as she entered Scarlett's little air oasis, the winds relented and ceased around them. Scarlett still remained floating, though, and so did Sapphire, but Sapphire still took no notice of the fact she was airborne.
She caressed Scarlett's freckled cheek, hugging her so tightly that even if she had been conscious in the beginning, she would've passed out by now from sheer lack of air.
Scarlett groaned again and rolled over in midair, as did Sapphire because she was still floating and squeezing the living daylights out of her twin.
Scarlett's eyes opened groggily. Her eyes cleared and widened, however, when she tried to take a breath and promptly found that she couldn't.
"Sapphire," she wheezed, "Can't- breathe-"
Sapphire squealed and released her, concentrating and using her newfound power to help Scarlett access some breathable air even though most of it had flown right out the room. She wasn't sure how she was still breathing, but she somehow she knew that she'd be fine without oxygen. Scarlett, however, would not.
She wasn't sure how she was able to do anything that concentrated, seeing as, just a moment ago, she'd been completely incapable of stopping an icy tornado from nearly killing her twin sister.
Scarlett just seemed to realize that she was no longer touching the ground. Her eyes widened, and her memory seemed to return to her all at once: how she'd fought with Sapphire, Sapphire had run off, and she had gone after Sapphire only to find this. And then she woke up with the life being squeezed out of her as she and her twin hovered in midair.
Kind of a lot to take in. (And the award for greatest understatement goes to...)
Sapphire looked down, finally noticing that she and Scarlett were hovering about 5 inches below the ceiling.
"Oh," she said, frowning, as if the fact that they were flying was just a minor nuisance to her. She lowered Scarlett gently to the ground, then descended gracefully herself, pausing to do a front flip midair before landing.
She giggled.
Scarlett just stared at her incomprehensibly, rendered completely speechless by her twin's bizarre behavior.
She didn't have much time to dwell on those thoughts, however, because at that moment Sam burst into the room with a glowing Sammy Sun at the ready in his palms, closely followed by Diana, Astrid, Edilio, Sophia, Rose, and Angelina. The youngest was in the back, undoubtedly because her legs were too short to keep up with the people who were over a year older than her and undoubtedly taller than her as she raced here.
As Sam sprinted through the door, he yelled, "Sapphire! Scarlett! Are you okay? We're coming!"
He stopped dead when he saw the two girls, looking unscathed except for a scratch across Scarlett's forehead.
They just dissolved into fits of uncontrollable laughter. Sam looked around the room, which undoubtedly looked as if a bomb had demolished everything but its inhabitants, in complete befuddlement. "What…" He trailed off.
Angelina, comprehending this faster than some of the others, rolled her eyes. "I was expecting more action than this. I'm going back to the room." With that, she grabbed Astrid by the arm and started towing her out of the room. Astrid looked amused, both by Angelina's antics and Sam's failed heroism, and allowed the smaller girl to drag her out of the room.
However, Rose grabbed Angelina and, with the help of Sophia, managed to keep her from kidnapping the genius and dragging her away.
In response to Sam's half finished question, Sapphire said, "Way to go. You're a little late, Hercules. We handled it. Oh, yeah, in case you haven't caught on yet, I discovered my power. It's air," she finished, sarcasm dripping from her tone up until the afterthought where she revealed her power to Sam.
Scarlett wiped tears from her eyes caused by laughing so hard, but she still didn't stop. Everyone else joined in, even Sam, though somewhat reluctantly in his case.
Finally, Sapphire and Scarlett stopped giggling long enough to tell everyone what happened, and though that sobered them up a bit, every time they got too serious, someone, namely Astrid or Angelina, would bring up the image of Sam bursting into the room, ready to save the day, and Sapphire's sarcastic comments in the moments following, they all started laughing again except Sam, and they laughed even harder as his face reddened, beginning to resemble a ripe tomato.
After quite some time, Sophia reminded them that they still needed to discover the other girls' powers. Scarlett slapped herself in the forehead.
"I completely forgot about that!" she exclaimed. The others nodded and murmured their agreement.
Sapphire hadn't told them about how she had gotten so worked up and actually used her power in the first place, but everyone was afraid to ask. Even Sam seemed a little intimidated by her. She'd proven just how powerful a five could be.
And he was sitting in a room with three others just as powerful as she was.
The thought made shivers race down his spine, but he kept his expression neutral. He knew what it was like to be judged and feared because of something he had no control over, and he knew it wasn't fair to do that to the girls. Still, he found himself distancing his position from Sapphire in their little congregation.
Sapphire wasn't oblivious. She knew that the others, even Scarlett, were scared after her little display. It hurt her, but she reminded herself that she would probably feel the same way towards any of them if they were to trade places, and with that knowledge she pushed the pain deep inside her like she'd always done.
It was the same as before her outburst. All her walls were back up, more guarded than ever, the way she liked it. She herself was afraid of her new power. She didn't want to trigger it accidentally again. Sapphire was acting like her normal, bright, bubbly self once again, and she could tell everyone was starting to relax a bit faster because of it.
Scarlett wasn't sure what to think of her twin. First there was the outburst that was so unlike her gentle, optimistic sister, and then the sudden pulsing of power coming from her that had rendered her unconscious, and the freaky things she used her power for afterward, like drawing the air to her so she could breathe.
Sure, Sapphire had saved her life, but Sapphire had also been the reason her life even needed saving. Scarlett knew that her twin hadn't meant to, and it had all been because of some mysterious new power that she had no control over at the time, but it was still a scary thing to know that she could do that. She wasn't sure which was worse: Sapphire having no control over her power and having these sudden outbursts all the time, or Sapphire being able to control her power and being drawn into all the fights and conflicts of the FAYZ because of it.
And it didn't help that she was terrified of discovering her own power. It could be something even more destructive than Sapphire's, and they already knew it'd be as powerful.
She hadn't noticed Sapphire was watching her, so she was startled when Sapphire placed her hand on Scarlett's arm comfortingly and smiled. Scarlett just looked away, knowing that her thought were most likely on showcase through her expressions and Sapphire had known exactly what she'd been thinking about her.
Indeed Sapphire had, confirming her hidden fears that her own sister would be scared of her.
Scarlett turned around and hugged her sister fiercely. "I'm sorry," she whispered softly. Scarlett wasn't even sure what exactly she was apologizing for, but she felt Sapphire's muscles relax regardless.
Scarlett felt a sudden upsurge in emotion as her grip on her sister was returned. Almost as soon as Sapphire's arms embraced her, her feelings seemed to just soar out of control, much as Sapphire had described, but unlike her twin these were good feelings.
But the power rose up in her anyway.
A/N
So there you have it! Chapter over! Kari will be back to doing the authors note next chapter. Review and make sure you hit that Follow/Favorite button! CYA!
-Kayla