Chapter 19: Friends
I see a light, I see all the people that I met, I see all the places I have visited, I see... I see.
"Ahhhh! Penny, Please let go of me! I'm tapping out here!"
"Okay, Friend Seth." With that, she lets go and I fall to the ground.
Freedom at last. Oh thank you I thought I was going to Die at the hands of Penny.
"Seth!"
I soon hear someone calling my name. I look up and see two people running toward me.
"No wait!" I raise my hands.
Too late.
I get jumped on by two people.
"Whyyyy."
"Seth, why are you here? When did you get back to Mantel?" Marrow began to ask me some questions.
"Seth! Why do you have a dark blue streak in your hair? Why are you wearing sunglasses? Are you going into a rebellion faze?" Now Fiona starts to question me.
"Um, guys I think you should let him stand up."
Both looking back at a tall girl, the pair soon see that I was on the ground in pain.
"Whoops sorry bud." "Sorry, Seth!"
In the past 30 minutes, I have been shot at, put a blade on my neck, put a gun on my head, suffocated, and now trampled. Well, this settles it. Worse day of my life so far.
"Okay, guys we need to check on the Police and see how we can help out. Once we are done you guys can play catch-up with the kid." The girl with blue hair said.
"Right. Seth will be right back." Soon Fiona starts to walk back to her team.
"Yea don't go running off now." Marrow soon follows and starts to head toward the entrance of the facility.
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"Mom, what just happened?"
"Your friends are here. Why do you ask?" She ask in a confused voice.
"I think I'm just recovering from Penny's hug."
"Do you wish for another one?"
"NO!"
The police ask my mother to have a word with her. Must be trying to get any information on what had occurred inside the facility. Penny and I were able to wait near a bullhead. We couldn't go back inside the facility so we just had to wait for Mom to finish but as we were waiting Pietro and Jillian started to walk outside.
"Thank goodness you two are alright. After some members of the White Fang entered the lab we knew that it was some sort of attack. Lucky for us, your mother was with us, or else who knows what would have happened."
Yea. I guess it was a good thing she went with you guys then. Don't even want to imagine what would have happened if she wasn't with you guys.
"Seth, are you okay?"
"Ye... Yea, everything is fine. Thanks to Penny we both were able to make it out of there alive and well."
"Well, I'm glad. Penny thank you for taking care of Seth."
"It was my pleasure Father. Seth is my friend, I wouldn't want him to get hurt on my part."
"Thanks Penny."
I'm just going to ignore you hurting me with that hug for now, but it's good to know she had my back.
"Seth I'm sorry that this trip didn't go as planned."
"Hey don't worry Doc. I think it was a nice surprise, to say the least."
I mean half of our time here was a tour around this facility and the other half was running for our lives. So it had a good mixture of both.
"I think the important thing was not many people were hurt right."
"Yes... Right, Seth."
I saw that his eyes were not looking at me when he said that.
"What's wrong?"
"Oh, it's nothing you should be worried about. Look your mother is coming back." He soon starts to change the subject and pointed at my mom returning back to us.
"Okay, finally that's over with. Now how about we start to leave this place before anything else happens here." For some reason, her tone was different from her usual voice.
"Is everything okay Mom?"
"Everything is alright sweet heart. How about we get back inside the bullhead and start to head back to the shop."
"Um Sure. But should we wait for Fiona and Marrow I want to talk to them a little before we go."
"I can go and tell them to meet us back at the shop I'm sure they are busy at the moment so let's just start to head back."
Okay, no something was really wrong here. She is trying to rush us to leave here. Did something else happen here? I was about to speak but mom beat me to it.
"Penny can you please take my son inside the bullhead and wait for us."
"Of course Miss Sapphire. Let us go Seth." With that Penny took my arm and began to drag me toward the Bullhead that we came on. I try to protest but when I turn my head back towards my mom I saw the entrance of the facility doors open and soon saw people dragging out stretchers with blankets covering the bodies.
It didn't take a genius to know what was going on and for some reason, it made me sick to my stomach.
"Are you alright Seth." I hear Penny talk.
"Yea, Penny... Everything is fine."
As we made it back to Pietro's shop, he was kind enough to give us a room where we will be spending the night. Sitting in the room I just looked out the window, listening to a song to try and relax my nerves. To be honest I kept picturing the person I broke the arm off, the noise it made, the scream he made, and then I picture the stretchers that were coming out of the facility. How many died in there, did we cause any death? No, if anything Penny looked like she knew what she was doing so there was no way she accidentally killed anyone.
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Penny... I soon start to picture her body on the ground when we tried to rescue her. I had no idea what they were going to do to her if we didn't show up. I mean she handle them with no problem, but it looked like she didn't do anything because she must have thought I was in danger.
What the hell happened to me? I train for so long and when a serious event happened I acted like a novice. I let my guard down and was captured by the Fang and we nearly die because of it.
Sigh..."This has not been my day today."
KNOCK! KNOCK!
A knock at the door was heard and I told the person that it was open. Soon the person enters and to my surprise, Penny walks in.
"Penny what a surprise to see you." I get up from my seat and tap at my heart to stop the music.
"Salutations Friend Seth how are you feeling."
I really hope she doesn't begin to call me that in public now.
"Yea Penny everything is fine. What about you?"
For some strange reason, she just looks at me. Was it something on my face or did she need something from me?
"Uhh. You need something Penny?"
"Strange..."
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"Uhhh. What do you mean by 'strange'?"
What the hell does she mean by that?
"That sound that was coming out of you? Where does it come from?"
Oh... So that's what she meant.
"Oh well, Penny this is my Semblance. I call it 'Jukebox'. I tap my heart and say a song and it plays. This was also the reason why we were about to get caught back in that place. My bad."
Funny enough the name was funny to me. I could have called it 'music box' but it doesn't have that spice that I want it to have. So I ended up with 'Jukebox' for the final name.
But it's strange now. This has happened two times now, that it just begins to play by itself. What is wrong with my Semblance that it just starts out of nowhere?
I look up and see Penny continue to look at me. But for some weird reason, her eyes are just staring at me, it's almost like she's not even there.
I walk up to her and snap my fingers in front of her but she doesn't respond.
"Penny are you-"
She starts to move her hand on my heart and places it there.
That gets me to blush.
"Wah! Penny what are you doing."
I take a step back but she follows my movement.
"Strange... I have never seen this before."
Yea, and I have never had a girl make the first move before. I take her hand and try to pull it away but she keeps it there.
'How strong are you Penny!'
You know holding her hand like this now, I am realizing that her hand is really cold for some reason. Funny how I never realize this before but I guess running and trying to escape was a bigger priority.
As I try to get her off me, I hear the door open. Turning to it I see standing outside the door My mom with a surprised face. But that face soon turns to a smirk.
'Please don't make this awkward.'
"Should I come back later or..."
"I can explain!" I turn back to Penny and snap my fingers right in front of her face. Luckily that got her attention and turn to my Mom.
"Miss Sapphire what a lovely surprise to see you."
"Same as you Penny. Your father needed you for something so he told me to call you."
"I see, thank you for informing me I shall go at once." She soon starts to walk toward the door and turns back toward me. " Goodbye Friend Seth!" She waves and soon leaves.
"Bye Penny." I just wave and turn to my Mom.
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"Sooooo. Do we need to have the talk?"
Son of a bitch!
After explaining what had happened and trying to not get into the discussion of the birds and the bees. My mom just kept on teasing me about my reaction to what just happened.
"Look I'm just saying she's a nice girl. And you are getting at that age where-"
"Can we please not have this discussion now."
"Alright... But you seem to have a thing for green eye girls."
"MOM!"
She begins to laugh knowing too well she had a point.
"Sigh...You needed something?"
"No, I just wanted to check up on you. And see how are you feeling."
Well, besides the embarrassment. I feel like I got a lot better, now that I had something to distract myself from earlier.
"A lot better now. Still, I just felt a little jumpy from what we experienced."
"That's normal Sweet heart. Having been in danger can cause a little bit of fright from time to time. Do you want to talk about it?"
I told her what my feeling was after the whole situation and what I saw after. The feeling of all the training she put me through and the mistakes I made in that situation, I feel like I let her down, and at any moment we could have died.
She kept on listening to me ramble and soon when I finish she places her hand on my head and ruffles my hair.
"It's only natural to feel that way in any situation. You made some good calls and some bad ones as well, but you are still learning Seth. You made the right call on falling back when you knew you were out number and had Penny with you. You made the right call on distracting that man when you saw the other man about to be impaled. And you made the right call to stop Penny from blowing up the facility. If it was any other kid with an ego, he would have just rushed in without a plan. So it's a good thing you took a moment and thought of something first and then attacked. I know I had to learn that as well."
"Did you ever have that happen to you?"
"Well not me but Rosemary did. She always went in without a plan and we were the ones fixing her mistakes." I can tell she was reminiscing on the past. "But over time she learn to be patient and wait for orders. Me and Freesia really had to put that in her head."
Huh... Well, I do kind off feel better now, but I guess I will have to find my own way to try and move past this. I am training to become a Huntsman so this is something I will have to deal with in the future.
"Now how about we start to head down I invited your Friends here to celebrate your birthday so they should be arriving any time now." She gets up and starts to walk towards the door.
Yea, I guess we still got a party to do.
As night came and the guest all gather around Pietro's shop I was surprised to see Marrow and Fiona come together with the rest of their team.
"Seth we like you to meet the rest of our team." Fiona pulls my arm toward the new people.
"Nice to meet you kid. Names Joanna Greenleaf the leader of this ram bunches group." A really tall girl introduces herself.
"Hey! Were not that bad!" I heard Marrow just yell behind us.
"Yes, you are. Hi, my name is May Marigold. So you're the kid who left our poor little Fi alone here in Mantel." The girl with Blue hair said.
"May! That was not what happened! Seth ignore her she just likes to tease people like that." Fiona gets in front of her trying to change the subject.
"I mean I was only Five so I really didn't have much of a choice in the matter."
"Don't encourage her!"
Soon the people gather around the shop to celebrate Seth's birthday. There were drinks and food for everyone. Seth also realize that Penny wasn't eating anything which was weird, so when he asked she said 'she wasn't hungry at all.'
Seth was also able to catch up with Marrow and Fiona and see how they have been for the past years. Apperently after leaving Mantel Fiona was able to tell him all the stuff that has happened with the City and all the improvements that Atlas was able to do. She also told about how she decided to become a Huntress and help the people of Mantel and how the rest of the team also wanted to change Mantel for the better.
Marrow on the other hand told his side of it all. How once he got back to Atlas he decided to trained to become a huntsman. He said he wanted to help others as well and to make it into the high ranks of Atlas so people will get the courage to stand up for themselves.
However, when I told them I was also training to become a huntsman they all agreed on one thing.
"Don't join Atlas." The group said in unison.
"Huh? Why not?"
"Kid, take it from us. Atlas may seem all high-tech and fancy but it is hard to be here. The Atlas academy is also part of the Atlas military so they will ring you up for the next four years. It's a miracle we all made it to our last year but we all decided to change our course to be here in Mantel... Well, except for Marrow."
"Hey, all I'm saying is Atlas has its good sides here. Also, I want to stay in Atlas cause it's still my home."
"So Seth what academy are you thinking of joining?"
"I still haven't decided yet. I still have a year before I graduate from Sanctum. So I need to check on where I should go."
"Well just keep in mind that you better make the best choice because you will be spending the next four years at that school and will be dealing with the other four as well. I know I had to learn to adapt to them." May just chime in.
"Hey!" Fiona and Marrow yell.
So Atlas is out of the question on school I might enter too. I like the cold environment, but if they are telling me that it's hell to be in. Well that only cuts my decision to three left. Well maybe two I really don't like the heat.
As the party came to an end and the team decided to start to leave. Fiona and Marrow both came up to me and gave me a hug telling me how they miss me. I was able to get their number before they left and promise them I will keep in contact this time once I get a new scroll.
With a few goodbyes and a thank you on my part they soon left. Leaving Me, Penny, Mom, and Pietro at the shop.
Mom told me to relax and enjoy the rest of the night, while she cleans up, so I took it and went to the roof of the shop.
Stepping outside I just looked at the city nightlife on the roof and enjoyed the cold air hitting me.
What a crazy day it was. It started off annoying with us trying to get to Mantel and that old lady being a pain. Then meeting Pietro again, also meeting Penny someone who has been a mystery up until now. Getting to the facility and it getting attacked, escaping from the White Fang and nearly dying today. And it all ended with meeting some old friends and celebrating my birthday. I don't think Pyrrha is going to believe how crazy this day was.
I hear the door open behind me. I turn and see Penny walk toward me.
'Penny I swear if you do what you did earlier.'
As she gets close to me I see her raise her hand and I raise my hand to try and stop her.
She looks at me confused.
"What's wrong Friend Seth?"
"That's my line. Why are you trying to touch my heart? Also, you can drop the whole 'Friend' thing. You can just call me Seth, Penny."
"Vey well Seth. Also, the reason why I am trying to touch your heart is because it's strange. So if you would please allow me to analyze it."
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Okay, Penny really is a strange one.
Sigh..."Fine, just no funny business." With that out of the way I move my hand away from hers and let her place it on my heart.
We just stand there for a good minute and I can see that her eyes just stare at her hand and soon her eyes go wide. She removes her hand from my chest and takes a step back.
"I see. Well, Seth wonderful news. This thing in your heart is not your Semblance. So you still haven't unlocked it yet."
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"I'm sorry what?"