Part VII

I knew it would happen. I always knew. Everything had been predetermined and set. From the beginning, I had known. No matter how many times I tried to change what was to come, it never worked, for it was bound to happen, even if it was delayed. In the end, I was the only one who tried to manipulate fate; the others knew that it was hopeless and stopped after a few times. Of course, I was always the one who was most naive out of all of us, or at least, so they said. And perhaps I was, but I tried my best to get the life I wanted.
It was inevitable for me to fall for the Controller of Time. I tried to stop myself, knowing that it would make his or her job that much harder. But I fell for Gwen, even with the pain of losing the six before her. And then I couldn't help myself that day at the beach. I wanted her to badly. I remembered all my past lives, where I had wanted the Controller of Time as well. But I held myself back those other times. This time, I couldn't.
As I held her close to me, I resisted the urge to take it farther. I felt my blood pulsing through my ears and my heart pounding like a drum. I was so frustrated and seeing her there, so beautiful in the soft moonlight... I couldn't help but take it one step farther than I had before.
I knew that she had to go save the world right after the movie I took her to, and I still tried to stop her, futile as it was. And I knew that all of them would die this time around. So I tried to make her stay with me. But I couldn't; she escaped from me. There was nothing I could do as I felt her life blink out of existence as I raced towards her and her companions. I was too late to do anything.
I found her unmoving body a couple minutes afterwards. And the notebook that she had written in. I gingerly took it out of her cold hands, kissing her bloodless cheeks and then gently on her lips. I felt a tear run down my face, and I wiped it away angrily, desperately trying not to break the dam I had built to hold the tears back.
And then I read, savoring each word that flowed onto the page from her hands. The writing was simple, but considering the circumstances, it was very good. I kissed the cover of it and slipped it into my hoodie pocket.
The Seven had not failed, nor had they succeeded. They had destroyed the opposing forces, but they could not stop the Apocalypse. But it was bound to happen. And now it was time for my group of seven to take our places.
The sky was now dark, and flashes of lightning filled the sky. A light drizzle began to fall, and the wind picked up, making my hair whip around in all directions. I held out my hands, watching the rain fall into my palms. And then I waited. I waited for the others, the ones who had traveled through the years with me. The names that they had over the years were not their real names, the names that I knew. Most people in this time called them Jacob, Jason, Johnathan, Aaron, Adam, and Alexander. I knew them as Zhakra, Crion, Skrau, Uan, Oisil, and Ealo. I felt as if it was time when they were reborn as two sets of triplets. Never before had they been born at so similar a time and location. I had also been born nearby, and as our old memories came back through the years, we became closer to each other and met secretly as we watched the two groups of seven grow up.
~*~
I felt their life auras move toward me from behind and I turned around to greet them. I hoped that the tears on my face were not visible and that my eyes were not red.
"Mrawlinn." they chimed together, for that was my true name. It had been a while since anyone had called me by that.
"I'm sorry about your sister." I said, clearly betraying my love for her. I had tried to hide it from them for a while, but I was sure that they knew anyways.
"I'm sorry for you too." Zhakra murmured, his eyes also filled with the pain of his own loss, his own affections that his sister had so adamantly protested against. And now the one that he cherished was gone, just like my own was.
"I suppose it is time for us to do what we were made for?" Skrau said quietly, his voice nearly lost in the wind.
"Yes, it is time." Uan agreed, his eyes etched with the pain of the world.
"This will be the end. We will not remember the lives we've lived if we are reborn again, including this one." Crion said, eyes looking distant and unfocused.
"We will not be able to sense or do what we can now. This is the end of the line, what we were made for." Oisil murmured. I could tell that he was thinking about the one he had lost as well. He held out his hands and Crion took one while Zhakra took the other.
"What resides in us will flow out of our bodies." Ealo added, taking Zhakra's hand. Uan and Skrau joined in, and then I finally completed the circle, connecting the gap between Skrau and Crion. There was no awkwardness, even though in normal circumstances, we would have acted as if this was uncomfortable.
"Is everyone ready for the pain we have to go through to complete this?" Skrau murmured, closing his eyes and lowering his head.
"Yes." the rest of us replied in unison; we had prepared for this day through seven generations of Controllers. We all knew of the pain that we would have to go through, but didn't know exactly how bad it would be. I never figured out how exactly we knew, but somehow, the knowledge was there.
Zhakra had always held the hope in the world inside of him. Through the years, he had felt the hope of those around him and now it was time to give that hope to the new world.
Crion could see the souls of the creatures around him, and it was his duty to give the new world its souls using his life.
Skrau would release the elements of the new world. He held the elements of the periodic table, but he also held another set of elements that the Controllers had. When they died, their elements were taken into his body, and he would give that to the new world.
Uan held all the pain of the world. Every single living being that felt some sort of sadness, hurt, and physical pains...he felt it all. The new world needed this pain despite the fact that everyone wished they could have a life without it. Life would not be life without the pain it went through.
Oisil's life would create the animals that roamed the world, including humans. His life would mold the shapes of the animals in the new world.
Ealo would use his life to create the plants that grew in the world, all the porcelain-like flowers and sturdy trees.
~*~
Without death, there is no life. Without destruction, there is no reconstruction. Without the Apocalypse, there will not be the rebirth of a world.
Now it was time for us to create the new world, the rebirthing of the world that was being destroyed by the Armageddon.
The wind whipped around us, blowing our clothing and hair in every which direction. We were now soaked and thunder sounded more and more often. There was a enormous rumble of noise and a flash that blinded us. And then there was nothing but us. It wasn't black or dark, or light or bright, but there was nothing-ness. The only thing that existed was us, floating in the middle of nothing.
"With my life, I give the new world hope." Zhakra started, face lighting up with all the hope he had felt from the world through the years.
"With my life, I give the new world its souls." Crion cried out, remembering all the souls he had seen as they passed.
"With my life, I give the new world its elements." Skrau sighed, recalling his time just listening to the wind blow of the feel of moss beneath his fingertips.
"With my life, I give the new world all the agony it must go through." Uan screamed, his whole body rigid with all the pain he had held from all in the world as it flowed freely from him.
"With my life, I give the new world its creatures." Oisil murmured, thinking of all the animals and people he had encountered.
"With my life, I give the new world its plants." Ealo whispered, imagining the delicacy and durability of the greenery he had been around.
"With my life, I bind all of these together for the new world." I ended, tying together what they had offered at the cost of their lives.
And then I threw my head back and screamed, feeling the searing pain rush through through me. I couldn't see, I couldn't hear. I could barely think. Mostly, I could feel the pain and cry out as it made it destroyed me. It was as if something was ripping me apart from inside, consuming my innards, but not killing me. And at the same time, it felt as if I was burning in the most intense heat I'd ever felt, as if I was on fire but not dying. Then it felt as if I was drowning, for I couldn't breathe; it was if there was no oxygen anymore and nothing was filling my lungs. My hands gripped ever tighter and I felt the two next to me digging their nails into my skin. And then even the sensation of their hands against mine faded. I had no idea what happened to them; I only knew that I was left with only my own pain and my mind.
Holding onto my thoughts of the Controllers of Time and my love for them through the years, I tried to block out the pain.
Remember Kiersa's gentle hand on your cheek. Remember Alexandra's soft kiss upon your forehead. Remember Anne's beauty as she walked down that gilded hall, the one where you were a simple servant. Remember Meng, the ruffian boy who almost killed you but stopped when he looked into your eyes. Remember Elaine, though she was older than you, you loved her. Remember Will, the gentle boy who saved the world. Remember Gwen and the feeling of her lips against yours and the warmth of her body against yours. Remember...
~*~
And the world began anew again, a new place that would have new Controllers, new Guardians, and a new group of seven that would have to recreate the world again.

Part VI

"Gwen!!!" whined Justine, her eyes flaring up into flames.
"What?" I snapped, frustrated with my own failures and my friends' failures.
"I'm tired. We're tired. Can we stop yet?" The fire died from her eyes and smoked slightly as I sighed.
"Fine. Take a break." Carmen's water weapons dropped to the ground and she jumped into the salty ocean.
"What's the rush anyways? I mean, it's not like we're going to be up against the Apocalypse anytime soon." Linda huffed, creating a tree to lean against. Carmen's head popped out of the waves and she climbed back onto the beach, completely dry still.
"Did I not tell you that it's probably going to be in 2012?" Carmen, Kendra, and Ellen joined Linda under her tree.
"So? We've still got three years." Tiffany sighed and plopped herself next to Ellen. She waved an absentminded hand in the air and a light breeze swirled around the tree. The tree stuck out in the middle of the beach. If anyone had seen, it would have been a weird sight.
It was the beginning of our sophomore year. I had trained them hard during the summer. They hadn't liked it at all, but I was scared. I didn't want to die, nor did I want them to die. With added school work, the amount of time we had to do homework and train was slowly decreasing. I could slow down time enough for our homework to take only 30 minutes in real time, but it was taxing on me.
The opposing seven were beginning to travel around the world and wreak havoc. So we had to fight against them.
Natalie's power allowed them to travel from place to place quickly, but we couldn't. We depended on Tiffany's wind to carry us from place to place. And it was difficult.
Natalie caused volcanic eruptions and earthquakes that were difficult to stop. We had no control over the earth, and Linda did her best to hold the earth together with her plants. Justine also worked with Linda, holding back the volcanoes as best she could.
Meanwhile, Queenie was creating massive sandstorms, increasing the rate of growing deserts. Tiffany did her best to hold back the powerful torrents of sand.
Rachel and Kimberly were causing problems in large cities, causing blackouts. There was little we could do about that, but Carmen was doing something with her water to prevent Rachel's electricity from messing with the cities. But even if the power didn't actually go out, Kimberly sometimes was still able to create a cloak of darkness. Justine usually worked with Carmen because her flames sometimes could penetrate the muffling gloom.
Somehow, Bianca had helped to create better, more powerful weapons under a false name and now some countries were turning against each other in fear of being attacked. This one was difficult. With the countries bombarding others with destructive weapons, they were essentially helping with creating the Armageddon. They didn't know it, but we did. Justine also helped out here, trying to extinguish the flames or the firepower of the weapons before they got anywhere. I also gave her time, especially since she had such difficulty putting out the fire. It was easier for her to create rather than destroy flames. Tiffany helped a bit as well, using air to slow down the weapons and try to put out the fire.
Michelle worked to make the sun's rays brighter and more brilliant, helping with the greenhouse effect. Ellen and Kendra mostly worked against Michelle. Having Ellen there made it hard for Michelle to do what she was supposed to. They still loved each other, but they had to fight against each other. I know it killed Ellen to go against Michelle, showing Kendra mentally what Michelle was about to do as they attacked each other. Michelle could only create illusions, but her illusions often were so powerful that the body imagined being hurt and actually damaged itself. Kendra was the one who was hurt most of the time. Ellen must have been dying inside, fighting against her love, but watching her twin get hurt. It was a good thing that Carmen was slowly learning how to manipulate the body's cells to heal wounds.
It was a dangerous experimentation of Carmen's and she was terrified of hurting someone. But some of the wounds we got had to be healed by someone within the seven. If our parents found out, or anyone else... I shudder to think what could have happened if we had gotten caught. It would have made it even harder to get out of the house and save the world.
She was very careful though, and most of her attempts did work. It was harder for her to heal though, because liquids other than water used up more of her energy and more effort. We tried our best not to get hurt, naturally, but sometimes injuries couldn't be avoided.
We also learned to watch out for the opposing seven's Guardians. There was Yolanda, Marianne's monkey, Oliver, Natalie's red eyed tree frog, Samantha, Rachel's cheetah, Rose, Bianca's humming bird, Issac, Queenie's king cobra, Artemis, Kimberly's panther, and Apollo, Michelle's lion. Those guardians sometimes would attack us while we were fighting against each other. Thank goodness we had Hana and the other Guardians to help.
Our parents wondered why we always were so tired and ended up coming home with wrinkled or ripped clothes. They were worried for us and sent us into therapy. Not like it helped. It just wasted time. Ellen helped us, thankfully, and read the therapists minds for us, instructing us what to tell them so that they would be convinced that we were fine. Well, we were fine, in our opinion, but our parents sure didn't. They were annoyed at the therapists and basically every day, tried to wheedle information out of us. Naturally, we couldn't tell them that we were trying to stop the Apocalypse. I mean, we could, but they wouldn't believe us. Who would?
Jacob and Aaron continued their relationship with Bianca and Rachel, much to my distaste. I loved Jacob and Aaron, but who in their right mind would go out with those two?! I suppose that people who didn't know that they were out to destroy the world would see them are cute, attractive girls, but they repulsed me. They had my two brothers practically under their spell. Jacob and Aaron were almost like dogs, begging Bianca and Rachel for their love and affection. It was disgusting. I wished the two would snap out of it. I wasn't even sure if the two girls liked my brothers or not.
The world was slowly deteriorating and there was little we could do about it. Hurricanes and tornadoes were becoming more and more common, and Tiffany couldn't hold them back by herself. All she could do was weaken them and hope they wouldn't do too much damage. Global warming was increasing its speed and almost all the coral in the ocean was gone. The ice in the north was nearly all gone, and so many species had died. It seemed no matter what we did, things just got worse. And the opposing seven knew.
~*~
"Um... Gwendolyn?" I whipped around on my heels to see Erin sheepishly looking at me through a curtain of chocolate brown hair. Erin was my lab partner in science class. He (yes, HE!) was a pretty good partner, a little shy sometimes, but overall intelligent and athletic. He was a runner too, but he did a different style of running. I did more cross country style, and he was a sprinter. And he was FAST. He was one of the first I'd ever seen who could beat me in running speed, even though I did cross country.
"Oh, hi Erin." We had a thing going on between us. He refused to call me Gwendolyn, and since he hated being called Erin (he preferred Eri), I called him that.
"Do you want to go running with me today?" I hesitated. The Apocalypse couldn't wait forever, but it would have been nice to go running with him.
"I...have something to do today... How about after dinner?" I'd have to slow down time a lot in order to finish homework really quickly after dinner.
"After dinner? But it'll be dark then." I sighed.
"Who says you can't run in the dark?" I had run after dark a couple times, though it was a little difficult. With one of those lights that could be mounted on one's head, it was possible.
"Ha ha, fine, you win. See you at your house at around...?"
"Seven would be good." I smiled and winced inwardly at the time. There were seven of us, but there were seven of them as well. I just hoped that things would turn out alright.
"Cool. See ya then." He walked off with a little grin on his face, hazel eyes sparkling slightly. I wondered if Justine and Dustin were right. Justine heard from Dustin that Erin liked me, and I suppose that it was likely, but... I sighed. I liked him as a friend, but I wasn't sure if I liked him that way. Or maybe I did. I didn't really know.
I wandered off to the tree and readied myself for another battle.
~*~
"Alright, let's get going then." Linda smiled, weariness etched into her eyes. We all were tired. No matter how hard we tried to hide it or how much we slept, we looked exhausted. And we were, though we had enough energy to make it through each day.
"Ready, Gwen?" I nodded to Carmen.
"I'm ready."
"Tiffany?"
"Ready."
"Ellen?"
"All set!" I began to rotate my left hand and Tiffany whisked us into the air. That took some getting used to. It was an odd sensation, knowing that we were in the air, standing on nothing but air. Ellen took care of the minds of people who happened to see, modifying their memories slightly. The people knew that they saw something, but they thought it was a flock of birds. It was hard for Ellen to do, and birds were all she could do for now. Her usual work involved reading minds and talking to other people telepathically.
Ellen also directed Tiffany where to go by showing where the people were. Interestingly enough, when we landed, all of them were there. And they weren't doing anything. Yet.
I took a quick glance around as my feet touched the ground. We were in a heavily wooded area, probably somewhere in northern Europe or Asia, judging from the cool temperature.
"Hello all." Marianne said. Yolanda rested in her arms as she spoke.
"What do you want today? Haven't you caused enough trouble as it is?" Linda's words were cold and edgy.
"We want one final battle with you. The Apocalypse is almost there. But we want to face you one last time before we destroy this world." Bianca smiled icily, with Rose fluttering next to her. The end of the world wasn't in 2012 after all. At least, I hoped it wouldn't be then or the next day.
"Is that what it is? You get to go to another world if you destroy this one?" Justine's eyes were narrowed as Vinnie slipped into his fox form. I felt Hana slip from my neck and morph into a wolf beside me. She rubbed against my leg comfortingly as Rachel replied.
"Something along those lines. And of course, you won't be there." She ran her fingers down the side of Samantha's spotted pelt as she laughed, her voice echoing through the trees.
"You'll all be gone." Bubbled Kimberly and Michelle, though Michelle's eyes were still sad, as they had been from the start. That ghost of sorrow had never disappeared during the whole time. Their two large felines slunk next to them, one a dark shadow, the other a glowing sun. Artemis and Apollo, respectively. How fitting.
I felt a growl ripple through through Hana, and a put a gentle hand on her shoulder to silence her. Now wasn't the time.
"When will this battle be?" Tiffany's voice floated around on an invisible breeze as Pax flew around us.
"Tomorrow after school at 5. I'm sure you'll know where from your little mind-reading freak." Natalie spat.
"Freak? Just look at yourselves. Then you'll know where the real freaks are!" snapped Kendra. Laura let out a menacing screech, or however one would describe the noises a komodo dragon makes.
"If we're freaks, then what are you? Life's final mistakes?" retorted Queenie. Issac hissed angrily as he hung loosely around Queenie's neck.
"We'll see you tomorrow then." Carmen said calmly, clearly trying to end the pissing match.
"Fine. Goodbye." Marianne gave a tight lipped smile, eyes emotionless.
"See you tomorrow." I said, with an edge to my words.
The earth came up from underneath them and then they were swallowed up into the ground.
"Let's go back then. I see no point in staying any longer." Linda said.
"I'll send you guys back, but I'll go around with Ellen to try to fix a couple things." Tiffany looked at Ellen who nodded.
We went back in the same manner as we left, except that Tiffany placed us on the beach.
"See you later then." I said, giving Tiffany and Ellen a gentle hug.
"Yeah, we'll see you later!" Ellen smiled before they both flew up into the air. Ellen and Kendra had gotten a little more distant lately, especially since Kendra was spending so much time with Carmen. It didn't seem to bother Ellen though. She seemed to understand, I guess.
The others departed for the bus, and I went back home. I didn't bother speeding up time around me so that I could make it seem like I did my homework at super speed. It was the first time in a long while that I had actually done my homework at normal speed. I finished just in time for dinner and didn't wolf down my food. My parents looked puzzled, but they didn't ask. I was thankful that Rachel and Bianca didn't join us for dinner. They did that sometimes, and the meals ended up with me glaring at them and them glaring back at me.
After dinner, I found that it was only half past six, so I went up to the roof and just stared at the sky, watching the blue turn darker until I felt it was about time to get down. Just in time, too.
"Gwen! Some...boy is here!" I winced. My brothers would have heard my father shouting.
"Ooo, looks like someone's got a BOYfriend!" Jason said, nudging me as I walked down the hall.
"Gwen, the loveless, has actually gotten someone interested in her?" Adam said mockingly.
"The question is, does she like him?" Alexander said, grinning evilly.
"All of you just shut up!" I screeched, annoyed. They took this as a yes.
"Gwen and mystery boy sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G!" taunted Johnathan. I could only hear the rest of the muffled song as I went to the door with my light. He had gotten one too.
"Hey Gwendolyn." Erin said, hands stuffed in his pockets.
"Hey Erin." I said, smiling slightly.
"Have fun, Gwen!" My father said, winking at me. I gave an exasperated groan and pushed him away as I closed the door behind me.
"What was that about?" Erin asked. Clueless.
"Nothing you want to know." I replied, rolling my eyes. We ran in silence, listening to the noises of the night, the pitter patter of our feet, and our ragged breaths. He tired quickly (or at least, faster than myself), so we made many stops. It took us around an hour and a half before we got back to my house. I suggested we go to the beach, and he followed me down to the water's edge.
I kicked off my shoes and rolled up my pants, dipping my feet into the water. I shivered slightly as the water flowed up to my ankles. I waded in a little more until the water was up to mid-calf level.
"Eee. It's cold." whined Erin, who had waded in behind me.
"Well, deal with it." I smiled. I wiggled my toes in the wet sand underneath my feet, feeling little rocks mixed in with the grains.
I took a sharp breath as I felt arms wrapped around my shoulders. If anyone else had done that, I would have ripped their arms away from me, but.., Somehow...it was okay when he did it.
"Gwendolyn?" he asked, his head resting on my shoulder next to my ear. Gods, he was warm. I could practically feel the heat radiating from his body.
"Yes Erin?" My voice came out more quiet than I had wanted it to.
"I... I really like you a lot. I've been dying to say this. Will you go out with me?"
"Erin..." I thought about how much time I had. "Alright. Tomorrow after school okay with you?"
"Yes. Thank you, Gwendolyn. You won't regret it." He released me from his hold and turned me around, looking deep into my eyes.
"We'll see." I said, smiling.
~*~
As we walked back to my house, with slightly damp and sandy feet, we talked about who was the better runner, a long term argument that still hadn't been decided. When we got to the door, I pulled out my house key and prepared to open the door.
"So...see you tomorrow?" I said, fiddling with the key with my fingers.
"Yeah, see ya." He turned and I heard his footsteps move away from me for a couple seconds. But then the sound stopped, and I turned around, key still stuck halfway through the lock, confused at why he stopped.
"Eri-" I was about to ask him if something was wrong, when I found his lips pressed gently against mine, for just a moment.
"Goodnight, Gwendolyn." he said quietly, flushing slightly in the pale light of the moon. And then he was gone.
I touched my fingers to where his lips had just been and felt heat rising up to my cheeks. I stayed there for a couple minutes, waiting for the heat to die down before entering the house.
"How did it go, Gwen?" Jason asked, smiling mischievously.
"None of your business, Jason. But if you must know, it went well." I replied coolly, smiling at him sweetly before going up into my room.
I flopped myself onto the bed even though it was only around 8:30. For the first time in a long while, I was able to fall asleep peacefully.
~*~
"Did something happen to you, Gwen?" I smiled at Justine.
"Nothing, nothing at all!" I chirped happily.
"You seem... Different, somehow." Linda said suspiciously.
"Something good happen?" Carmen asked, definitely trying to get me to say what occurred the previous night.
"Maybe." I didn't really give them time to ask more before I began to ask what we were going to do today.
The rest of the early morning was spent discussing the plan for after school. I briefly mentioned I'd be going somewhere before the battle, and they tried to get me to say, but I kept my mouth shut. But then Ellen had to go and read my mind.
"Ooo! I know now!"
"What is it Ellen, what is it?" Carmen was half jumping up and down in excitement.
"Gwen's got a b-" I clapped a hand over her mouth.
"I've got a...brother." I said, trying not to blush.
"Why are you blushing?" Tiffany asked, expression innocent.
"Could it be that...GWEN'S GOT A BOYFRIEND?!" Justine shrieked.
"Shhh!" I hissed, putting my other hand over Justine's mouth.
"NO way!" Linda screamed, eyes going big like saucers. I sighed.
"It's Erin."
"Erin? A girl?" Tiffany asked. "Not that there's anything wrong with it, I just didn't know!" she added quickly after.
"Erin's a boy." I said, chuckling slightly. "You probably know him by Eri."
"Oh... Though you said you only saw him as a friend..."
"Justine, times change. Stuff happens." I rolled my eyes.
"So you have a date with him?" Kendra piped in.
"Yes, I have a date. If all goes well after, I can continue dating him. If not...well...we're all screwed. Hope it doesn't happen."
"Well... Good luck with the date! And the rest of school!"
"Thanks, Linda..."
~*~
School was pretty much a blur. I was mostly too preoccupied thinking about Erin and saving the world after our date. The only class that I really paid attention to was science, because Erin was there.
"No, Gwendolyn, that goes there." I sighed and looked again. He was right, as usual.
"Sorry, Erin, I guess I'm just a little out of it." He smiled at me and then took my wrist gently, moving the piece I had been working with to where it should have been. I had always been hopeless at trying to set up the microscopes properly, and today definitely wasn't my best day.
"I'll go get the sample. Be right back." Letting go of my wrist, he left my side, and I felt as if something was missing as I waited for him. I tried not to let myself speed up time. I would need all the energy I could get for later.
"Back." The sample slid under the lens and he nudged me gently towards the microscope.
"You should look first." I protested, but I looked into the microscope all the same.
"My turn." I moved away and he took my spot, marking information on the assignment paper. I knew that he was pretty much doing all the work, but I really needed a break. Everything was insanely stressing, and though he was soothing to be next to, it wasn't enough.
For the rest of the class, I could tell that he was flirting with me. My body reacted to it, but the rest of me remained stressed out and distracted. It wasn't until after school that I could really pay attention to him.
~*~
"What movie do you want to watch?" I stared at the movie theater sign.
"Um..." I hadn't watched a movie in...a very long time. "How about you choose?"
"What kind of movie do you like watching?" He really was very determined to get me to choose something.
"I'm an action girl, but I like movies with complicated plots."
"Er... How about... The Dark Knight?"
"Sure, I don't really know if there's anything good to watch anyways... I don't watch movies very often."
"Alright." I felt his hand slip around mine, and I looked up at him. Smiling a little, I turned back to the counter.
"Two tickets for The Dark Knight." I pulled out a 10 dollar bill, and he took my hand gently and pushed it down.
"I'll pay."
"No you aren't."
"Why not?"
"Because I said so. I'll pay for myself." We both put our money on the counter. My ten ended up on top of his 20.
"Whose money should I take?" asked the bewildered lady behind the counter.
"Mine." we both said at the same time.
"This isn't helping me." She threw up her hands into the air.
"Here, you know what?" I shoved my ten into his jacket pocket and pushed the twenty towards the lady.
"What? Take back your ten!"
"I don't want to!"
"Here's your tickets. Enjoy the movie. Next!" I shoved Erin towards the concessions stand.
"You can pay for the food if it makes you feel better." He smiled.
"Okay, what do you want."
"Nothing." I beamed. He scowled. "I win." Sticking out my tongue at him in defiance, he challenged it and stuck out his own tongue. We just glared at each other until we both burst into peals of laughter.
He bought a small coke and a medium bag of popcorn. We settled down in the middle of the theater, not too close to the screen, but not too far away.
I honestly didn't really pay too much attention to the movie. All I could concentrate on was listening to his breath soft against my neck as he whispered comments about the movie. I guess I really did like him.
~*~
When the movie ended (and I didn't really know what happened at ALL in the movie), he ended up with his arm around my shoulder, and we walked out in that fashion. Flipping out my cell phone and turning it on, I realized that it was already ten minutes to five.
"Erin?"
"What is it, Gwendolyn?"
"I'm so sorry, but I really have to go now."
"Why such a rush?"
"You wouldn't believe me if I told you. Hopefully I'll see you soon. If things don't turn out well...I can't say much more than that."
"Wai-" That was all I heard before I dashed off to find my friends.
We'll come get you at that tree over there, Gwen. I heard Ellen's voice and I skidded to a stop. I had to hide from Erin in the tree as he ran by it, probably frantically searching for me. I sighed and wished that I didn't have the huge responsibility of saving the world. That just wasn't cool sometimes.
My friends showed up a couple seconds after Erin passed and I jumped to the ground and joined them.
"Let's get going then, shall we?" I said, giving a worried smile.
"I guess so." Justine said, sighing and visibly preparing herself for the ordeal ahead. Tiffany lifted us up as I slowed down time enough for us to get to the location that Ellen found by five. They were already there and waiting for us.
They had taken us to a desert location with giant hunks of rock circling the area. They had clearly chosen an area to their advantage.
"You're late." Marianne remarked, looking casually at a watch on her wrist.
"We're not late, you're just too early." Carmen said, taking Marie from her neck. Hana slipped off my neck of her own accord and shifted into a wolf beside me, hackles raised and fur rippling.
"Then let us begin." Queenie said, and sand lifted up into the air around her.
~*~
"Fuck!" screeched Justine, tossing a fireball the size of my head toward Kimberly, who wrapped a shadow around Carmen's eyes. The shadow twitched and released its hold over her eyes, and a torrent of water covers Queenie's sand, dampening it and making it heavier. Queenie cursed as her sand dropped with the extra weight, missing me by inches. Tiffany sent a sand tinged gust of wind at Michelle, who lifted her arms and braced herself against the grains of sand. Queenie had been distracted enough not to block the sand, and drops of blood began to flow down Michelle's arms and legs where her skin had been vulnerable.
I felt useless as I tried to help my teammates by slowing down the opponents' attacks. Ellen stood beside me, connecting our minds and showing all of us what the others intend to do.
Marianne gave a shout and I was thrown backwards with the force of the sound. I slowed down time for me and managed to catch myself. Barely. My arms and palms were scraped from the impact and begin to bleed. Normally, Carmen would heal us, but she needed all the energy she had to protect herself.
Linda made a cactus appear underneath Natalie, who yelped with pain and ripped the plant to shreds with shards of earth. Bianca tried to strike Kendra, but Ellen warned us just in time. Carmen shot a ball of water above Kendra's head and the water absorbed the electrical shock. I watched in horror as Carmen, concentrating only on save Kendra, was shot down by a pellet of metal. It embedded itself into her back, and crimson blood poured out from the wound. I rushed to her side, slowing down the time around us so I can talk to her while protecting her.
"Carmen. It's going to be okay." I tried to sooth her, but it didn't help. Her eyes were wide with fright, and her brow was pinched with pain. My eyes welled with tears and my vision blurred, but I had to keep my concentration.I kept one hand twirling as I listened to Hana's growls and barks, along with the snarls and hisses of the guardians.
"Gwen... Get Ken-" Her words were cut off by shriek that sounded forced out of her lungs. Body writhing with agony, I tried to hold her down as Kendra reached Carmen's side.
"No. No. Oh god, no." I hear Kendra whisper next to me as her crumpled and she collapsed to the ground, head in her hands.
"K-kenda." choked out Carmen.
"Carmen, my darling Carmen." whimpered Kendra as she dragged herself to Carmen's side.
"Don't be afraid, dearest. I love you, Kendra. Ah..." Her words were a sigh as her eyes fluttered shut and her body went limp. Marie looked at us sadly as she faded away into the air. Now that Carmen was gone, she would not appear again until the next Controller of Water was born.
The tears from my eyes fell freely as I stood up and tried to pay attention to the fight ahead. There would be more time to mourn later, I told myself. I couldn't afford to break down now.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see the tears of the other members glistening in the sunlight.
"NNNNNOOOOO!!!" screamed Kendra, head tilted to the sky. Her eyes filled with hatred and she lifted up hunks of rock. Natalie tried to take the rocks back into her control, but Kendra was too strong, too angry, too powerful.
With a flick of her wrist, all the rocks were sent shooting towards Bianca, who had no time to react. The rocks pierced through her, and she stared at the hold in her body before her eyes flipped up and she fainted. Rose gave a few feeble flutters before she melted into nothingness.
Still angry, Kendra lifted more rocks, sending them shooting towards the other members of Bianca's group. But they were prepared this time.
"Kendra, stop! You're using too much energy!" shouts Ellen. I realized that Ellen was right as I side stepped a slowed down sword of sand sent to me from Queenie.
Almost as if something snapped within Kendra, she suddenly froze in her movements, and the items in her control dropped to the ground. Her body fell to the ground. She had exceeded her limit and her body couldn't take it. I hope that it was a painless death. Laura gave a screech of lament before she disappeared, just like Marie had done.
More tears blurred my vision, but I whipped them away with my left hand, still keeping my right hand moving. Now I tried to slow the time around the objects that were being shot at members of my group.
I would have carried Carmen's body out of the way, but I couldn't afford to stop slowing down time. The only thing I could do was stand next to her unmoving body and protect the others.
Ellen walked up beside me and put a hand on my shoulder.
She died happy, Gwen. Carmen at least. Kendra felt no pain and was at peace at the last moment of her life.
"Thanks, Ellen." I murmured, knowing that she was going through as much pain as I was, if not more. She had been inside their minds in their last moments. For her, it must have been like dying twice. She had even taken the consideration to cut the rest of us off from their minds before they died. My heart ached with their deaths, but I had to go on protecting the remaining 4 members of my group, not including myself.
Would all of us die like the pattern had revealed? I didn't know then, and I hoped it would not come to be true.
I whipped around my head just in time to see a sand dagger plunge into Linda's leg. She fell onto her knees without a sound, eyes closed tightly in agony. I watched her take a deep shuddering breath before she ripped it out of her flesh. Only then did she allow herself to scream.
Rachel sent a bolt of lightning toward Linda, and I slowed it down in time for Linda to create a tree to divert the deadly shock.
Linda, are you alright? I asked, tears still refusing to stop falling from my eyes.
I'm...okay. I can't stand... she gasped out mentally, hands clutching her wound. One of her hands wrapped several leaves around the wound, stopping the blood from leaving her system, while the other created a wall of thorns to block Natalie's wave of sand. Will should have been at Linda's side, comforting her as she bled, but I noticed that he lay on the side, limp and unmoving. He was dead, but would stay there until Linda's life fled her body. A new Guardian of Plants would help the next Controller of Plants.
I watched an illusion of a stampede of cows ripple toward us. One of Michelle's mind tricks. Ellen did her best to block it, and through the mental link, I felt her sadness and pain at fighting against Michelle. Despite all that she had gone through, her feelings for the other girl had not diminished.
The bovines disappeared from my vision, but cuts appeared suddenly on Ellen as her body imagined horns cutting through her skin. I winced at the shower of blood. She let out a hoarse cry, and Marianne took advantage of the sudden noise, throwing me backwards. I didn't have enough time to react and my arm scraped against the ground as I landed.
Gritting my teeth, I lifted my arm and glanced at it to inspect the damage. It was a relatively deep cut, and there was a lot of sand in it. And it hurt. A lot. I could barely contain the scream the welled up inside my throat.
The bright red blood gushed down my arm, dripping to the ground, staining the sand crimson. I must have hit a rock somewhere along my fall, but I couldn't see any around where I fell. It probably was Natalie, for that would be the kind of thing she would do. I was luck to not have been stabbed by a rock spear.
It seemed only seconds passed as I watched Justine get stabbed with a sand sword through the stomach, her fireball engulfing Queenie at the same moment. Vinnie yelped and vanished with a poof of smoke, as Issac did the same.
Rachel hit Tiffany with a bolt lightning. She gave a triumphant shout as Tiffany crumpled to the ground, but her celebration of cut short when a rock that Tiffany had been blowing fell onto her head. I heard a deafening crack, and I assume the rock broke something or knocked her unconscious. Pax and Samantha were gone.
Linda had vines around Kimberly's throat, the suffocating girl gave a strangled gasp for help before she went limp and the vines curled away. Artemis gave a something between a snarl and a whimper before she faded away. Beside me, I heard Ellen begin to retch as her stomach churned. I barely could hold onto the contents of my own stomach as I continued to watch in rising horror.
Marianne shot Linda across the sea of grass with a shout, and Linda crashed into a rock sticking out of the ground. A trickle of blood came from the corner of her mouth as her eyes grew dim and sightless. Will's limp body seemed to almost melt into the sand and then was gone.
Ellen's brow furrowed in concentration, and I stared as Natalie walked right onto a some snake that did not look particularly friendly. The viper lashed out and bit Natalie on the leg, and she cried out in pain as she killed the snake with chunk of earth. Then she fell to the ground and writhed in agony as the poison rushed through her veins. Oliver, her frog guardian, could do nothing as he watched his controller die.
Michelle walked up to Ellen, no illusions, just two daggers.
"Kill me, Ellen." she whispered softly, putting one knife into Ellen's hand.
"We'll die together then." Ellen murmured, tears streaming down her face. I couldn't move, or think, as I watched them kiss each other once, before plunging the daggers into each others' backs. Cam and Apollo disappeared together, looking at each other and their guardians sadly.
Then it was just Marianne and myself. I was almost completely helpless against her. I was wounded, and my powers could do little against hers. She, on the other hand, had no wounds, and her powers were offensive. I looked at her across the plain that was covered in blood and the bodies of our friends.
Her eyes were full of tears as she screamed, sending wave after wave of pure energy rolling off of her. I curled up into a ball, covering my ears. It did little to help against the pure, unfiltered cries that pierced my ear. I'm surprised my eardrums didn't break.
Hana had no way to cover her ears in time, and was only a couple of feet away from Marianne. Her body went stiff and then she fell. I don't know what happened, for there was no wound, but her brain must have not been able to handle the extreme power.
Then, I watched as she dropped to the ground. She had overused her power in her grief, and killed herself. Yolanda gave Marianne a little caress on her cheek before I could no longer see her.
I could still hear the echoes as I lifted my hands from my ears.
I spilled out the contents of what I had in my stomach, body heaving. Moments later, I lay against the ground, body almost entirely spent. Only then did I cry.
I cried for Justine, my best friend. I cried for Linda, our group leader. I cried for Tiffany, the smart one. I cried for Carmen, the bubbly cheerful girl. I cried for Kendra and Ellen, the twins who had loved with so much passion. And I cried for myself, for I knew I was going to die soon.
I sighed and looked down at my arm, which was still bleeding and throbbing. Using my unharmed hand, I pulled out the notebook and pencil that was still in my pocket. I was glad I had brought it. I set it down on the ground, and began to write, carefully moving one foot to slow down the time around my arm. I would need all the time I could get without killing myself.
I began to write down the story of what had happened to me, and my friends. Even if no one would read it, I wanted to free myself of the events that had led to now, before I would be no more.
The sky began to darken, and there were flashes of lightning, though no rain. The Apocalypse was on its way, but I still wanted to finish. That was the last thing I wanted to do before I died.

Part V

When I woke up, Hana was back in her necklace form.
"Good morning, Gwen!" she chirped, the little wolf pendant giving a wolfish grin in the mirror. I narrowed my eyes. If there were two things that bothered the crud out of me, it was people who were overly happy and people who always p.o.ed at the world.
"Good morning, Hana." I replied through gritted teeth. Why did it have to be only Thursday?
"Don't forget to put me on, shower, eat a good breakfast, g-" I cut her off.
"Hana, I've done this every day for the last couple of years, I think I'll be okay without your reminders, thank you." I gave an annoyed smile and went to take a shower.
"Err... Hana?" I asked her as I was standing in the bathroom with my clothes and towel.
"Yes, Gwen?"
"Shouldn't I take you off when I shower?"
"No, I'll be fine in the water. Thanks for your concern!" It wasn't what I had meant.
"You're welcome." I said, sighing. What I had meant was about my embarrassment at having someone look at me while I was showering. I had tried to make it subtle, but she didn't get it. I didn't want to press the issue though, so I showered with her on, blushing the whole time.
When I got to school, I wasn't the only one who was still blushing. Justine, Linda, Carmen and Kendra were blushing the hardest. The others were considerably less flushed. I had no what I looked like, but I did know I was flushed.
"Shower?" I asked everyone.
"Shower." they all said, nodding, flushing even more.
Justine began to do her homework, and Tiffany tsk tsk-ed her for not having done it the night before. Then she took out some flash cards to study. Linda absentmindedly made a couple plant sculptures with a hand while talking to Ellen, who looked like she'd been crying all night. Poor Ellen... Kendra and Carmen were sharing secret little words were each other, and I smiled to myself as I watched them out of the corner of my eye.
I just sat there by myself and listened to little bits and pieces of the others' conversations. Sometimes I felt as if I didn't fit in, and this was definitely one of them. But then Justine would usually invite me to do some great one on one trip to somewhere and we would have a blast. If not for her, I don't think I'd be a very big part. But then again, I supposed, now that we were gifted with powers, we kind of couldn't separate from each other. We had to work together.
But what about the other seven? Did they have powers? We had taken up most of the usual powers, and the only other thing I could think of was electricity or something along those lines. What could drive them to want to cause the Armageddon though? That was what puzzled me most. Why would they want to do such a thing that could harm them?
I sighed and then looked at my cell phone. It was time to go to class.
"Guys." I said quietly. "Guys." I said louder, but they didn't hear. I rolled my eyes. "GUYS!" I half-screamed at them. And then they finally heard me.
"What?" Justine snapped. She wasn't too pleased about being distracted from her homework since she really needed to get it done. I couldn't blame her.
"It's time to go to class." I said, picking up my bag. The others had this "oh..." expression on their face as they followed my example and headed off to class.
My day wasn't the most exciting, but I finally finished learning all the verb tenses in Latin and all the declensions, which was really exciting. I only wished that I could remember the all the verb tense properly. Despite the fact that there are only six verb tenses in Latin, there is the active voice and the passive voice. And of course, there are the irregular verbs that drive me crazy.
In science, we learned about global warming, which I paid a lot of attention to. If we were going to save the world from it, I'd have to learn about how it works first. I already knew a bit about how earthquakes and volcanoes were created, but global warming I didn't know quite as well.
Math was just more Algebra, and history was a test which...I hadn't studied for as much as I would have liked. Law was...alright. Not the most interesting lesson of the year, but important. And English was the start of yet another essay. I decided that I would write a draft and then write the pre-writing afterward as usual. I could never write a pre-writing before a draft. I guess it should be called a post-writing for me.
When school let out, I wove through the people in the hall and made it to the tree first. And then I waited for the others. I don't know why I wanted to get there so fast; there was just this strange force pulling me to the tree.
The others were there quickly as well. Tiffany was first, then Justine, Kendra and Ellen, Carmen, and Linda. They all seemed to feel an urge for speed. I sped up the time around us and the people were gone quickly. And then I saw seven shapes in the shadows.
"Hello, Gwen." It was Marianne. She was the first to step out of the dark. She seemed a little sad, but set on whatever she wanted to do. The six other shapes came out behind her and they stood facing us. We stood up as well and looked back at them. My group and their group had been friends, but now it was time to sever the connection.
"Hello, Marianne. It's unfortunate that we had to meet under these circumstances. And it's also too bad that we must sever our friendship because of our differences."
"Yes, Gwen, it is rather a pity. I think we would have been very good friends if it weren't for this."
Gwen, take me off! I heard Hana's voice in my head and obeyed, pulling off her and placing her gently on the ground. In a moment, she grew larger and took on her wolf shape.
Marianne had done the same, for she had a necklace with an animal on it as well. Hers was monkey, with golden fur and bright brown eyes.
"Yolanda." Hana's voice was strained and angry.
"Hana, my good old friend!" Sarcasm laced the monkey's words.
"I still don't understand why you've chosen to cause the Apocalypse. You had a choice to save the world, like me." Her words were cold and harsh. Her yellow eyes were narrowed with anger.
"If you knew, you'd join too."
"Over my dead body." Hana snarled, hackles rising. She seemed to be resisting the urge to rip Yolanda apart.
"We're just here to show you what we can do. And see what you can do as well." A short haired blonde with a cap on stepped forward. She was Bianca. A small ruby-throated humming bird fluttered beside her head.
"Are you ready for what we can do, Bianca?" Linda sounded upset, sad, and angry all at once. I couldn't blame her. I was feeling the same.
"More ready than you could imagine." Rachel said, stroking a purring cheetah next to her.
"I'll go first." Natalie said, stepping forward ahead of everyone in her group, with a small, red eyed frog on her shoulder.
She closed her eyes for a moment before a bike of earth rose from the ground. She mounted it and where she rode, a path of earth followed. The path behind her broke into pieces as she rode forward until she was high in the air. Then she suddenly shot to the ground and screeched to a halt. The bike disintegrated beneath her and then she backed up into her group.
"My turn." Queenie said, shaking her long black hair as she strode forward. A large cobra was wrapped around her head like an Egyptian crown. Her eyes met Natalie's for a moment, and I got the sense that they were more than just friends from the way that Natalie's body relaxed into mush for a second. But only a second. She pulled herself together right after.
The earth that Natalie had left began to break into smaller and smaller pieces until it was just fine grains. Was she a controller of earth as well? But then the grains rose and swirled around her like a sandstorm. Which is what it would have been if it was on a larger scale. She controlled sand. The storm slowly died away, and the sand settled back down on the ground.
"Ooo! Pick us!" It was Kimberly and Michelle. One was more excited than the other though; the other had a slightly sad expression. I guessed that sad one was Michelle. I saw Ellen close her eyes out of the corner of my eye. A shudder of a sob ran through her body, and Kendra put a gentle hand on her twin's shoulder.
Behind Kimberly was a large panther, while behind Michelle was a lion. Kimberly created clouds of darkness that seemed to suck away all the light, and Michelle created a couple illusions ghosts/people. I guessed that they were dark and light controllers, respectively.
"You ready for this?" Rachel asked, smiling. Her eyes glowed with pleasure. She stuck out a hand and a sword of crackling electricity whipped out. With a couple of fancy steps and flicks of her wrist, she created a glowing intricate design in the air that lasted for a couple seconds before fading.
"I'm next." Bianca stepped out from her position and took off a large ring of metal from her pocket. She held in gingerly in her hand before it floated into the air in a shapeless blob. And then she began to give it shapes and whip it around the air like a dancer's ribbon. Then it settled back in her hand in the ring that it was before and she slipped it into her pocket.
"Now it's me." A twinge of pain hit my chest and I tried to ignore it as I watched her step out into the center. She held up her two hands, and then clapped once. The resulting noise caused my temporary deafness and some leaves to be shaken off of the nearby trees. She smiled and then moved back into her group.
"Now it's our turn." Justine growled, stepping forward. Her body burst into flames and then there was a skateboard of flames underneath her. So she had listened to Tiffany's idea all those months ago. She whizzed through the air a couple time, performing some of her competition tricks in midair before coming back down to earth and fizzing out.
Carmen chose to go after, whipping out a large water bottle from her backpack. She opened the bottle and with a fluid motion, pulled the water out from the bottle. It swirled around her like a dancing snake, creating constantly changing designs. Then she allowed the water to go back into the bottle and let the twins go.
Kendra and Ellen held each others' hands as they showed off their powers, Kendra silently comforting Ellen. Stones and sand began to swirl around them as Kendra picked up the results of Natalie's and Queenie's work. Ellen began to say random things that were floating around in the heads of our opponents and some of them flushed when she mentioned some things that I won't put down here. The levitated items slowly floated back down and Ellen stopped talking. They smiled to each other, probably some joke between them, and Tiffany stepped forward.
Tiffany seemed a little sad as she performed her air tricks, whipping leaves into different patterns in the sky. She also managed to mess up Queenie's hair, much to Queenie's annoyance. She stopped abruptly when she was done, and the leaves slowly fluttered back down to the ground.
Linda grew a couple plants and began to use them to bear fruit, create works of art out of twining branches, and some with thorns that swayed dangerously close to the other seven. Flowers of all colors and variety bloomed and filled the air with a intoxicating fragrance and I felt my head go dizzy with pleasure from the smell.
Finally, I went. I took a moment to think about how I wanted to show them before I began. I picked up a couple stones and whipped them into the air. Then I began to slow time around the stones, making it slower with each passing moment. They watched as the stones fell slower and slower in their separate time. When the stones were about head level, I abruptly sped up time around them and they almost seemed to teleport to the ground because of the sheer speed.
I stepped back to join my group. Our group glared at theirs and they glared back. Marianne was the first to speak.
"So now you have seen our powers and we have seen ours. Impressed? We're not impressed by you." She gave a smug smirk.
"No. We're not impressed at all. In fact, we're disappointed at how pitiful your performance was." Justine snapped back.
"There'll be time for you to appreciate the sheer power of what we can do." Natalie retorted. And then walls of earth engulfed them, and they disappeared into the ground. I guessed that was Natalie's work.
"Ellen?" I turned around to see Carmen and Kendra over Ellen, who had slumped down against the tree, head in her hands. She began to cry, and all we could do was try to sooth her as she poured out her emotion through her tears. Hana and the others changed back into necklaces, and we had to help Ellen put Cam on properly, for her hands were shaking so much she could barely pick up him. Kendra decided to take Ellen home, so we all went along to try and comfort Ellen. Their parents seemed a little confused why we were all at their house, but they greeted us warmly and set out some drinks and food for us before disappearing upstairs.
"Kendra? Do they know yet?" Carmen asked, jerking her head upwards.
"No, they don't." Kendra sighed, and fiddled with her hair with one hand while patting Ellen on the back with the other.
"Know what?" Linda asked, confused. I had a general idea of what it could be. It could have been their parents not knowing about them being bi, or their parents not knowing about Ellen's relationship with Michelle.
"Their parents don't know they're bi yet." whispered Carmen softly, so they wouldn't hear from upstairs.
"Oh..." sighed Tiffany, closing her eyes.
"Do your parents know, Carmen?" It wasn't really the time to ask, but I couldn't blame Justine for asking all the same.
"Not yet." Her expression grew a little sad but she wiped it away when she turned back to Ellen to help Kendra comfort her.
"What am I gonna do?" wailed Ellen, sobbing against the table.
"Shh... It's going to be alright. We'll figure something out." Carmen said, trying her best to calm the crying girl.
"How can it be alright? I love-" she broke off. I noticed that they were careful not to mention the gender of the person or the name.
"Maybe we can change the person's opinion and get the person on our side." Kendra suggested, trying to remain optimistic.
"Do you really think so?" Ellen asked, sniffing and rubbing away tears.
"Yeah, I think so too." Carmen replied, smiling at Ellen, although her eyes betrayed that she wasn't quite convinced. There was a moment of silence as Ellen hiccuped and recovered. When she finally stopped crying, we all gave her a hug and had to leave for dinner. There wasn't quite enough room in their house for seven hungry girls. My house was probably the only house equipped to handle so many people. Carmen stayed though. I bet Kendra and Ellen's parents thought that Carmen was just a close friend. Well, technically she was. But more than a friend as well.
The rest of us went to my house, calling parents on cell phones along. Both sets of triplets were a pain during dinner, bothering us while we were trying to eat by stabbing us in ribs with their fingers. I had to lock them out of the room. Sort of. That is, if you count propping chairs against the doors as locking. But it worked.
After dinner, we had a couple hours of homework (with Justine whining the whole time until I turned on my computer and played some of her style music, much to the despair of everyone else) and then we started talking.
"I feel really bad for Ellen..." murmured Tiffany, looking at her toes as she talked.
"Yeah, what's she gonna do? Hell, what are we gonna do?" Justine said, clenching and un-clenching her hands.
"I don't know..." Linda, our planner, didn't know what to do. We were sunk. Unless someone else could come up with something.
"I guess... Try to save the world and make sure they don't get in our way while trying to convince Michelle to get on our side?" It was weak, and I knew it. We all already knew what I said; I didn't present anything new.
"Yeah, how the hell are we supposed to do that?" Justine was definitely frustrated. She was swearing more than usual.
"Well...we could start buy recycling and trying to stop global warming. Linda could grow more trees and Carmen could try to help clean the water. Justine could try to do something about the volcanoes and Gwen can slow down time to make sure we have time to do everything else we need to do. I could try to do something about the storms. Ellen can search for people who want to attack us, AKA Rachel and them. Kendra could just help around as she sees fit. Ellen can try to talk to Michelle without Kimberly interfering and maybe work something out. What do you think?" We all stared at Tiffany for a moment. She'd never really spoke up about things like this before and now that she had, she seemed to be our newest planner. What else did she have in that head of hers that we'd never heard?
"That...is a pretty good plan." I managed to say.
"Why haven't you ever spoken up like this?" Linda asked, also having picked up on what I had.
"Because I never saw the point of doing so. You always took lead, so I let you. Since you couldn't come up with anything this time, I decided to take your place. Temporarily though."
"Daaamn!" Justine said, laughing. We joined in with the laughing, though I was still worried about everything we had to deal with. I guessed the others were too. I let Tiffany log onto gmail to tell the twins and Carmen about the plan. Ellen was a little worried, but Tiffany convinced her that it would all work out in the end. Although, I don't know about how convinced everyone else was. I know I wasn't very, and I shouldn't have doubted Tiffany, but in this situation, who could help themselves?
"GWEN!!!" My head jerked up. Someone was calling me from downstairs. It was my mother.
"WHAT?" I shouted back to her.
"COME MEET JACOB AND AARON'S GIRLFRIENDS!" I sighed.
"Want to come see?" I meekly asked my friends, feeling slightly embarrassed. My mother always had me meet my brothers' girlfriends. They nodded, smiling slightly, and we clunked down the stairs.
When we got into the living room, my breath stopped dead at who my brothers had their arms around.
~*~
"You!" I said accusingly, pointing a finger at one of them. "And you!" I pointed my finger at the other.
"What the hell?!" screeched Bianca from underneath Jacob's arm. Why did it have to be Jacob?!
"What are you doing here?!" screamed Rachel, still pressed against Aaron.
"I'm their sister." I answered as cooly as I could, resisting the urge to really hurt the two girls.
"Oh, so you know each other already?" Jacob said, smiling. Gods, he was so clueless sometimes.
"Well that's great! You'll all get along well, I hope?" Aaron said, also grinning. I really wanted to smash in their heads.
Behind me, Justine, Tiffany and Linda stared at Bianca and Rachel. Justine had murder in her eyes, while Tiffany and Linda were just plain old shocked.
"We'll get along...just fine." I growled through gritted teeth.
"Then we'll leave you guys here for some quality bonding time. See ya later, Rachel! Don't worry, I'll be back." Aaron kissed her on the forehead (he KISSED her!!!! *twitch*) and dragged Jacob out.
"Dammit, why do you have to be related to him?!" shouted Bianca, stomping over to me and getting all up in my face.
"It's not my fault. It's your fault for choosing him." I tried not to smack her.
"And I had thought that I finally found a decent guy." snarled Rachel, staring me down as well.
"You're two on four; outnumbered." Tiffany pointed out.
"We could take you." Bianca said, giving an smug grin.
"No way in hell could you do that." Justine shot back, baring her teeth in a feral manner. I wondered when she'd learned how to do that for a moment, then focused back on Bianca, who was still in my face. I pushed her away.
"Don't you get in my face." I said, keeping a dangerous quiet tone in my voice. She faltered for a moment, then put on a determined expression.
"I can get in your face if I want."
"Yeah? Just try, one more time." My hands turned into fists, and my stance shifted slightly to a more guarded one.
"I will." She smiled, and then stepped forward.
One foot spun counterclockwise as I shifted my weight and slammed a fist into her stomach. I stopped spinning my foot and watched her double over in pain.
"You asked for that." I said, standing over her crumpled form. Rachel then cried out and leapt at me. Justine was in front of her before I time to react, and slammed her in the side of her face. I hoped she didn't break anything.
Rachel fell over, clutching at her cheek. I made a quick check, and was pretty sure she'd only end up with a bruise. A nasty one though.
~*~
I got in trouble, grounded for a month. My laptop was taken away. I wasn't allowed to text. And I got beat up by Jacob and Aaron while Mom wasn't looking. I ended with a lot of bruises. Mostly on my arms and stomach, so it wasn't too hard to hide the next day. They hurt whenever I moved though.
I told the others when we got to school, and we talked about what we were going to do in each household to recycle and the like. My house already had a recycling system set up in our house, so I didn't have too much stuff to do. We were already doing a lot for the environment. That was all we got to before it was time to go to school though.
Through the school day, I was pretty much sulking and when classes were over, I said goodbye to my friends and slunk home. I did homework, did some swimming, and then stared at the sky for a while on the roof. It was really boring. At around 6, I had dinner and then went back to my room. Hana chose that time to change into her animal form.
"Hana?" She turned her head to me.
"Hn? What is it, Gwen?"
"Do you have any other forms?" She was thoughtful for a moment before answering.
"Just my human form."
"Wait. You all have human forms?"
"Yes." She shifted a little on my bed, getting more comfortable.
"Why don't you use them?"
"I don't know. I just prefer my animal form over my human form."
"Can I see your human form?" She sighed.
"Sure, why not?" She jumped off the bed, landing on the ground with a gentle thump and then turned around to me. With a fluid motion, she shifted her weight to her two back legs. Her fur began to grow shorter and her body began changing to a more human shape. She grew taller and the tail and ears disappeared along with most of the fur.
When she was done changing, she had a pale silver dress that went to her ankles. It was a simple strapless dress lined with fur at the bottom and shimmered in the light. Despite her tall, slender human appearance, she could never have been thought as a normal human. Her yellow eyes and grey hair were a little out of place. And she had an air of wildness, something not human. But she was gorgeous.
"Wow." I breathed out, staring at her.
"It's not that impressive." she said, blushing slightly.
"Not that impressive? Right..." I said, rolling my eyes and smiling.
"You should see the others!" she protested, her face still flushed.
"Whatever you say..." I wasn't convinced. But then again, I really hadn't seen the others.
"Anyways, can I change back?" Her yellow eyes wide into puppy-dog eyes.
"Fine." I consented. She shrank and her fur grew back as she dropped to all fours. Then she was back as a furry wolf again.
She bounded back onto the bed, the whole frame quivering for a moment before she settled down.
~*~
The next couple weeks passed uneventfully. I ran, did homework, talked with Hana, and sat on the roof. But Hana and I began to tighten our bond during this time. She began to teach me what the previous Controllers of Time had learned during her time as the Time Guardian (which is what she was officially called). Here is a snippet of one of our conversations.
"Hana?"
"Hm?"
"Can I, er, we only speed up and slow down time?"
"Well...I mean, that's all that most can do."
"What do you mean by most?"
"Some of the past Controllers could see possible futures in their dreams on occasion."
"I had a dream where there was a huge storm while there was an earthquake and a volcano. And then there was just...nothing. I don't know how to describe it."
"Ah...the end of the world dream. There was one boy who had that dream."
"Boy?"
"You didn't think you were all girls, did you?"
"I um..." She laughed at me at that point.
"There have been six before you. You are the seventh."
"Again." I laughed a little.
"The first one was a boy, and then two girls, another boy, a girl, a boy. Three girls and three boys. Four girls now that there's you."
"Who were they?" Her eyes grew distant and sad, and I immediately regretted it. Then she shook herself internally and then come back to the present.
"The first had no name. He was an outcast and lived only for himself. I had to lead him to the others." She smiled a little. "He tried to kill me at first. I couldn't blame him. Of course, in those times, I was a spear. I called him Kiersa. It was his...word for when he was frustrated."
"What about the others in his group?"
"The others were a mix between boys and girls."
"Then why are we all girls now?"
"I...don't know. It's never happened before." I thought for a moment before asking.
"So how did..Kersa...turn out?"
"Kiersa. He..." Her eyes had become watery. "...sacrificed himself to save the others, to save the world." I quickly changed the subject.
"The second one?"
"Ah... Alexandra. She was only ten when I went to her. I was a pretty marble lying on the ground when she found me."
"When did you have to part with her?"
"I had to leave her when her job was done. As I will have to when the time comes for you as well."
"What about the third girl?"
"Anne. She was seventeen, and royalty to boot. It was hard sneaking her out of the palace to make sure the Armageddon didn't occur. I was a necklace abandoned on the ground in her room. She was...assassinated shortly after she saved the world." Her eyes had gotten watery again, so I moved onto the next Controller.
"The fourth?"
"Meng. A young boy living in the streets. He was around thirteen. I was a shiny bauble. He almost sold me." She chuckled a little. "The others were a little different from him because they were all wealthy merchant children, but they learned to get along with each other eventually."
"And the next one?"
"Elaine was...unusual. She was twenty-five, older than the previous Controllers. And all the other Controllers in her group were around ten. It was very strange. I never quite understood why that happened. She had a hard time accepting that a book could change into a wolf."
"The last one?"
"Will." Her eyes filled again, and this time tears ran down from her yellow eyes. I didn't dare ask.
"It's okay, you don't have to answer."
"No, you should know." She closed her eyes and took in a shaky breath.
"Seriously, you don't need to te-"
"Just let me say it. It was close last time. Too close. All the other members died except for him. He was the one who saved the world. But only by a hair. It's been getting harder and harder ever since Kiersa. My first time, it was just one. During Alexandra's time, it was two. For Anne, we lost three. With Meng, four were lost. And Elaine, it was five. You already know what happened with Will. I'm..." Her whole body shuddered and her voice trembled as she continued to speak. "...afraid. I don't want the end of the world to happen. None of us do except for the opposing seven."
"Oh gods..." My voice came out more shaky than I had wanted it to. I didn't want to die. I didn't want to lose any of my friends either. They were all precious to me. I loved them with all my heart.
That was the most important conversation I had during that month. It scared me. But I didn't tell my friends. I didn't want to be the one to tell them. I didn't want to bring fear into their hearts. So I pushed them to learn how to use their powers even harder during the mornings that I saw them before school. And when that one month ended, I had them fight against each other for practice. I didn't want them to hurt each other, but I felt it was better than them dying. I hoped what I was doing was right.

Part IV

I waited until all of us were there.
Justine looked exhausted when she arrived, muttering something about "friggin' stupid Mondays." Linda looked fine, although her movements indicated that she was a little tired. Carmen had faint circles under her eyes, though one couldn't tell unless she was really close. Tiffany had fairly dark rings under her eyes, though I could tell she was trying to hide them under light makeup. Kendra and Ellen both were...full of energy as usual. They bounced on the balls of their feet lightly, bobbing up and down and flitting around people, poking them gently.
The only one of us who really was bothered by their energy was Justine, who snapped her head around to Kendra - or was that Ellen? - and shot a death glare at her. Justine was not to be messed with on Mondays unless you were asking to be killed. Which ever one of the twins who had poked Justine was lucky that she was in a forgiving mood. Well...more forgiving than usual.
She gent- fine, not so gently - pushed the twin away with her elbow and clenched her hands into fists, holding them by her side. I guessed that she was exercising a lot of self restraint. Had her assailant been someone she wasn't close to, that person would have received a hard blow to where ever Justine wanted. She usually went for the stomach, though if the person was unlucky, they got hit in the face.
I sighed and put a warning hand on her shoulder. She whipped her head around, eyes steely, but her gaze softened slightly when she saw it was me. Gritting her teeth, she slowly unclenched her fists and ground a foot into the ground. The twin had bounded off to another victim, which was Tiffany. She was too weary to do anything but weakly push the twin's finger away. If my suspicions were right, she had stayed up working on some homework assignment.
"Kendra. Ellen. Please stop." Linda had stood up from her seated position under a nearby tree and walked over to us. They settled down a bit but fidgeted impatiently as she spoke.
"Did you all have a good weekend?" I smiled slightly.
"Yes. And I have some ideas for our gift control." Tiffany perked up a little at this. As I scanned my eyes over the group, I noticed Carmen gazing at Kendra (or so I assumed, since I couldn't tell who was who), who was absentmindedly fiddling with the bottom of her shirt. Kendra snuck a look out of the corner of her eyes at Carmen before flushing slightly. Carmen noticed Kendra's eye flicker and knitted her fingers together, looking down at them. I chuckled internally. They were really cute like that.
"So what did you come up with?" Tiffany's voice brought me out of my observation of the two lovebirds.
"I think our powers are linked to concentration. And perhaps..." I suddenly realized it. "...maybe our talents can influence them."
"What talents?" scoffed Justine, scuffing a black boot casually.
"You skateboard well." Carmen offered, looking at the skateboard propped up against Justine's leg.
"That's not a talent." she replied, rolling her eyes.
"Anyways, I think you're onto something." Linda smiled slightly as her eyes unfocused into thought.
"I was thinking meditation or yoga could hel-"
"Hell no!" I was cut off by Justine just like I thought I would.
"Justine, just hear me out!" I snapped back.
"There is no way I am going to do either thing." she retorted, narrowing her eyes. She wasn't pleased, and I knew.
"Look, it's only a suggestion; I never said that we would actually do it!" I half growled at her, beginning to feel irritated.
"Oh. Fine." She calmed down and rolled her eyes, her expression softening.
"I don't think it's a bad idea, but we're going to need to find something else for Justine." Tiffany said quietly, her voice as soft as the wind. I could barely catch her words.
"Maybe we could have Justine do competitions. Competitions require concentration, right?" Kendra bubbled excitedly. It was pretty clear Kendra wanted to see Justine skateboard against other people. I gave a little smirk. If there was one thing Justine absolutely could not back out from, it was a dare. Even if it wasn't really really a dare.
"I'll do it." I resisted the urge to laugh. Justine couldn't help herself.
"Maybe the rest of us should do competitions too!" Ellen exclaimed, popping up and down.
"Tiffany could do ice skating, Lin-" Kendra began.
"I'm not doing ice skating. I do not do ice skating competitions. Period." Tiffany's voice was serious and said that she wasn't going to be convinced otherwise.
"Maybe you can do a math competition? You're very good at that." Carmen suggested.
"That's a great idea!" gushed Kendra, clapping her hands together at super speed. Carmen's eyes dropped to her feet as she rolled her foot around against the ground. She blushed slightly, her cheeks tinged with a soft pink. Kendra didn't seem to notice.
"Fine. My parents will probably be ecstatic." Tiffany rolled her eyes slightly, but smiled. Math was her strong point.
"Drawing competitions for me, I suppose?" Linda asked, knowing that there was no answer really necessary. Of course she would be doing something along those lines. With her amazing art skills, it was only natural that she would compete with her artwork.
"Track or cross-country for Gwen!" Justine trilled, putting her hands on my shoulders. I scowled. She knew how much I hated being in a team. It was more fun to run by myself, with no distractions, no crowds, no prying eyes.
"Singing for Carmen and dancing for the twins." I said finally, trying to resist the urge to smack Justine on the head.
It was evident that I would be racing with the track team, and despite that I knew that, I still didn't want to. The team had wanted me for a long time, and they would take me in even though it was right before their next competition. They would be incredibly joyous at my joining, and I would have to deal with it. I sighed. As soon as the competitions were over, I was getting out of that team. I only had to deal with it until summer. Which was in couple of months. Otherwise known as an eternity.
~*~
In the next couple of months, we trained for our competitions. The track team was trilled. I was not. Especially since I couldn't see my friends as much. They were busy with their activities and I was busy with mine.
Kendra and Ellen were the first to have their performance, and they did spectacular. They ended up first place. Funnily enough, the second place winners were also a set of twins. Japanese twins. I think their names were Michaela and Carmendy or something similar to that.
Justine was next up, and got second place after a girl named Natalie, who used a bike. I honestly couldn't tell the difference of who was better. I thought both were insanely amazing and daring.
Mine was a couple days after Justine's and shortly after my competition (where I came in first), I crashed into a girl named Marianne. We hit it off right away, after our embarrassed apologies. She was a drummer, African style, and we recorded some of her music. It made for great running music. Steady, strong, and quick beat.
Carmen became close to a girl named Queenie at the Drama Club where she worked on her singing and general presentation of herself for the talent show. She made third. Queenie made second. I thought that Carmen was better than all of them, but...I suppose I was biased.
Linda made first at the art show. She did an amazing piece with the four elements (was she influenced by the events?) and it was almost as if the painting was jumping of the paper. The girl in second, Bianca, her piece was...more of an invention than a piece of work. It was some sort of plant blooming. Very pretty, but...she got some points off since it was more of an invention than artwork. A pity really.
Tiffany was the last one of us. Her team came in second in the nation, which is incredibly amazing. I saw her talking with some girl with brown hair before going on stage. I was a little upset, but then again, I didn't tell Tiffany I'd be coming anyways.
Along with the competitions, I worked on my time control, which improved a bit. I was able to hold the increased or slowed down time for longer than before, but only by a couple minutes. The thing that I needed to do to slow down or speed up time was to rotate a part of my body counterclockwise or clockwise and a lot of concentration. Still, it was hard, and drained me of my strength after pushing myself to the limits. I guessed if I tried to go farther than I knew I could by too much, I might lose consciousness. I remembered one time which I lost my vision for a couple moments.
After so many months, the competitions were finally at an end. I quick the track team ASAP. They were...upset to say the least and begged me to come back a couple times. More than a couple times.
The day after Tiffany's competition, we all got together at the beach near my house and finally shared information. Kendra had finally gotten the guts to tell Carmen, and now they were a couple. Out of school anyways. I swear I could feel the waves of passion rolling off of them as they sat next to each other, cuddled under a blanket.
Tiffany and Michael managed to go out a couple times while she was preparing for the math competition, and the last time, he took her home and kissed her gently on the forehead before heading home. She turned incredibly red as she shared this piece of information with us. Just when I couldn't think she couldn't turn any redder, Justine gave a smirk and winked at Tiffany. God knows what she thought, because she managed to turn even more flushed than she was.
And Justine? She was glowing as she shared what had happened to her. I knew already even though she hadn't said anything the month before. I could tell. Dustin asked her out. They'd gone to a horror movie and apparently he got so scared that he ended up using Justine's shoulder to avoid watching. And she thought it was cute, what he did. She had enjoyed every moment of that movie, especially when he started burrowing his head into her shoulder.
Finally, I shared my own information. Not very...happy really. Xavier and Peter (the two idiots!) just had to confess their liking me and ask me out on the same day. The SAME day!!!!! It was extremely annoying. I hadn't wanted to be mean to either of them, so I'd ended up telling them I'd think about their offers and see if I had time. Which I didn't, but I could have just turned them down. I'd turned them down a couple days after. They were still sort of after me though. Xavier opened doors for me almost every time he could, and Peter was always trying to help me by carrying things for me.
Carmen pulled herself from Kendra (a little reluctantly, I think) and hugged me to comfort me when she had heard my sob story. She took my shoulders, looked into my eyes and said that I would find the right person for me someday. (Whatever she says...)
My parents had said the same as well when they heard the news. My brothers just took the chance to bother me about it. They kept saying that I was hopeless before and was an idiot for turning down both. And they really rubbed in the fact that I hurt them. I hoped I didn't...
And then we showed each other what our powers could do now. Justine could now cause her whole body to burst into flames at will, though she could only do her hands if she wanted to do only a bit of herself. The other bits she was working on.
Tiffany could create gusts of wind up to 20 feet away, and was steadily increasing the distance. So she claimed anyways. She hadn't been able to measure, and we didn't know how far she could blow before.
Linda was coming up with more kinds of plants and creating hybrids for different uses. It was clear that she'd been studying her plants.
Carmen was like Tiffany, water up to 20 feet away. But she needed water to begin with, and hadn't figured out how to draw water from the air. She managed to get a little out of the air before, she said, but it was hard.
Kendra was becoming more skilled with her telepathy and could handle more than one object now. It was dizzying to watch her shift around stones with simple flickers of her eyes.
Ellen...was frightening. She began to spew information that we had in our heads that we weren't even thinking until she brought it up. We begged her to stop after a minute.
And I? It was hard to show them the difference in my powers. I'd only increased by a little bit of time, barely noticeable. I felt...ashamed of myself. And disappointed at how little progress I'd made compared to the others. My heart sank, and there was a bitter taste in my mouth at the end of the day.
We all went home at around 5 to do homework and eat dinner. During dinner, the A triplets were still teasing about Xavier and Peter, while the J triplets had gotten bored of that and were bothering about my height. Whenever they couldn't find anything else to bother me about, they turned the subject of my height. I flicked three peas at them, with the peas in fast motion, and they whacked their foreheads. My parents missed the shooting of the peas, and I gave a smug grin at them as they glared at me.
I scuttled upstairs as soon as I finished eating and finished off the last of my homework. By 9, I was on the computer and chatting with the others. We didn't talk about anything important, just life and girlfriends/boyfriends and stuff. Carmen was even beginning to finish sentences made by Ellen and Kendra. Scary...
At 12, everyone else off of the computer, so I got myself off and flopped on the bed. I wasn't tired, though I should have been. As I looked around my room for something to read, my eyes fell on the leather book with my name. It almost seemed as if it was...calling me from its place in the bookshelf. I pulled it out gently, but then dropped it as soon as I had it in both hands. It was...shaking.
As I stared at in horror, it began to grow bigger, and I backed up as far as I could, hand ready to slow down time if needed. The lettering almost seemed to bleed and cover the entire book in silver as it expanded. The leather turned to fur and I began to see a four-legged shape. A dog?
Or...not. Intelligent yellow eyes opened and...the book shook itself before opening its mouth. Except whatever came out was all distorted and slowed do- I looked down at my foot, which was turning counterclockwise. Whoops. I stopped and this time when it spoke it was normal. At least, as normal as a talking wolf's speech can be.
"I greet you, Controller of Time." I blinked a couple of times, aware that my mouth was hanging open and that I couldn't do anything about it.
"Um... Hi?" I squeaked, nervously wiggling my toes.
"I am Hana." It...um...she was a female. I kind of guessed from the slightly feminine shape of the wolf, but it confirmed my thoughts. It took me a moment to realize I was supposed to reply with my name.
"I-I'm Gwen. Short for Gwendolyn."
"Gwendolyn...goddess of the moon. Not quite suitable, but a nice name all the same." I nodded dumbly at the talking wolf, which had sat down and began casually scratching an ear with a paw.
"There's no need to be afraid. I'm not going to eat you. I don't think you'd be very tasty anyways. No offense intended, of course."
"N-no, of course not." I stammered, sinking to the ground and sitting down where I had stood.
"You can come closer if you like." Her eyes were friendly and warm, but I was still in shock at the fact that my book had turned into a wolf whose head rested at my waist level.
"I think I'm okay here." I mumbled, staring.
"Alright, if you say so." she got up and walked over to me and sat down next to me. I could feel warmth radiating from her form.
"You may be comfortable talking to someone from far away, whereas I am not. Also, it's rude to stare." I blinked a couple times, shifted away from her slightly and tried not to stare.
"Sorry."
"Anyways, I am your book. In a different form."
"Will the other books turn into wolves as well?"
"No. The others will be other animals."
"So...why have you turned into a wolf? And why now?" She sighed and shook her head.
"You have met the opposing seven forces. It has come time to teach you how you must go about saving the world from the Armageddon."
"Pleasant. But we haven't met seven forces yet."
"You have. You just don't know it." I thought about it. Where were there seven people in our lives...? It suddenly came to me. And it filled my heart with dread.
~*~
I couldn't speak for a minute or so. It couldn't be. It couldn't! Why?!
"Not Marianne... Oh gods, not her."
"I am unsure if that is her name, but I know that you seven have met the opposing forces."
"It can't be her. It just can't. She's too nice, too kind."
"Don't judge a book by its cover." Hana put a gentle paw on my shoulder as I slumped my head into my hands. I ignored it.
"I hate those stupid sayings." I muttered, rubbing my temples with my fingers.
"You aren't the only one going through this. The others will be experiencing the same thing now, but with their books. I will stay with you." I looked up at her.
"A silver wolf by my side during school. Funny, I don't think that would work too well at school." I couldn't help letting bitter sarcasm leak into my words. She laughed, a surprisingly high pitched chime.
"Silly. I'll be with you in a different form. Not my book form, it'll be too much of a hassle for you. And you might lose me." She gave a kind smile before she began to shrink. I gaped at her as she began a silver wolf pendant on a black rope. The wolf winked and Hana's voice came from the pendant.
"Yes, I'm a necklace. Put me on. Don't take me off. Ever. Unless I tell you so." With shaky hands. I fumbled with the clasp until I finally got it onto my neck. I tried to put my thoughts aside and fell asleep without turning the light off.
~*~
The next day, we were all up early and met under our tree. Everyone else was also wearing a necklace. Except the color of the pendant was different. Ellen's book told her to check for anyone looking. There wasn't, so all of them changed into their animal forms.
There was Hana, my silver wolf, Vinnie, Justine's red fox, Pax, Tiffany's dove, Will, Linda's garter snake, Marie, Carmen's tiger, Laura, Kendra's komodo dragon, and Cam, Ellen's chameleon. The books all knew each other already.
I was a little intimidated by Marie and Laura, but they turned out to be very friendly. Vinnie was a playful little creature, and he apparently liked to play tricks on people. Justine appreciated Vinnie's tricks on her brothers. But she didn't say what he did. All she said was that it was something that she probably shouldn't share. That worried me a little. Pax was very quiet, but her voice rang loud and clear when she wanted it to. Cam sort of disappeared somewhere, and only Ellen knew where he went off to. And Kendra sort of knew I suppose, but she acted as if she didn't know. Maybe she really didn't, but then again, I wouldn't know. Will reminded me of a British gentleman, and if you weren't looking at him, you could just imagine a tall handsome gentleman. Hana was playful like a pup in some ways, but in others, more mature than the others. It was interesting to switch back and forth between the two.
After some time had passed, it almost seemed like they had some sort of a signal, and they all turned back into necklaces at the same time. A little creepy how they changed at practically the same instant. We picked up our...necklaces and put them on and headed off to class.
~*~
I tried to ignore the necklace I was wearing the entire day. It was hard though. I kept feeling as if there was a spotlight on it, as if everyone who looked at me was looking at it. It didn't help that Hana told me to stop worrying while I was in the bathroom. Not the most comfortable day. Especially when Mrs. Alic, my English teacher, pointed it out. She said that it was really pretty. All the while, I was sweating like a pig. I'm surprised she and everyone else didn't notice. I swear my heart could have jumped out of my throat at that moment. Good thing it didn't.
I met with the others after school. It was then that I remembered about Marianne and the other six. As casually as possible, I brought it up.
"So...you guys heard about the opposing forces that we've supposedly already met?" Internally, I whacked myself for sounding so obvious.
"Yeah, but...who?" Carmen's face wrinkled in thought. I realized that the others probably didn't know about the people I had seen. Not everyone had been able to go to the others' competition.
"I can't think of seven people that we've met." Tiffany said, also looking thoughtful.
"Who the hell cares?" Justine said cheerfully.
"I do. And I know who they are." I said quietly. "Or at least, I think I do."
"You do?" Linda looked rather surprised.
"Yes. We've all met one." I sighed and ran a hand through my short choppy hair.
"We still don't know who you're talking about." The twins also had no idea.
"Marianne was the one I met. She's African. Justine met Natalie. I think it's Natalie anyways. I couldn't stop looking at her when she was performing."
"It can't be her!" Justine half-shouted, causing the passing students to look at us funny.
"Justine, please calm down." Tiffany tried to sooth Justine, putting a gentle hand on her shoulder. Justine ignored it.
"The twins met another set of twins."
"Michelle and Kimberly?!" they screeched. (I got the names wrong.) One of them looked like they were going to faint, the other looked horrified, and Carmen was immediately at the side of the one who looked like she was going to faint.
"Ellen, it's going to be alright. It might not be them." Carmen murmured, gently rubbing her back.
"Is there something we should know?" Linda had picked up on the same thing as I did. There was something more than met the eye.
"Ellen?" Kendra said softly, looking her twin in the eye. There was a moment of silence before Ellen nodded.
"Ellen and Michelle have...been more than just friends over the last couple months." Kendra finally said. And then Ellen burst into tears, with Carmen desperately trying to calm her down.
"Oh god." Justine whispered, wide-eyed.
"I am so sorry Ellen. I didn't know." I managed to choke out. Tiffany didn't say a word, but went to help Carmen sooth Ellen.
"Who are the others?" Linda eventually said, after Ellen's sobs had turned into quiet hiccups.
"Queenie. Bianca. And a brown-haired girl I saw talking to Tiffany." I listed.
"Why did it have to be Queenie...?" Carmen mumbled, still comforting Ellen.
"I can't believe that it's Bianca..." Linda gasped.
"Rachel...?" Tiffany choked out. I felt really bad being the one to share this piece of information. But I figured that it would have been found out eventually.
"I'm sorry. It was hard on me too." I said guiltily.
"It's not your fault, Gwen." Ellen said, looking at me with teary eyes.
"Yeah, don't feel bad." Kendra said, trying to smile. And failing.
"Let's all go to the beach. Maybe we'll feel better?" I hoped that maybe once we were there, Hana and the others could explain some things.
~*~
The trip was spent in silence, and because the others moved slowly, I made time move a little quicker so that we could get there faster. Or at least seem faster for me.
Once we arrived, Hana and the others changed and took their animal forms.
"I'm sorry Ellen." Cam said, changing into the color of the sand.
"We're all sorry." Laura said.
"I'm proud that you told everyone." Hana praised, though there was a tinge of sadness in her voice. She gently nuzzled my leg, and her silver fur was soft against my leg. I sat down and hesitantly rubbed her fur, sinking my hands into the softness. Her eyes closed in pleasure and we sat there, comforting each other.
Meanwhile, Cam had made his way onto Ellen's shoulder and Laura to Kendra's side. Will lay curled around Linda's neck loosely, and Pax stood on Tiffany's outstretched finger. Vinnie was curled up on Justine's lap and Marie was nuzzling Carmen. We all needed as much love and friendship as possible. It was hard knowing that the friends we had made over the last couple months were actually our enemies. And in Ellen's case, more than just friends. We just sat there in silence for an hour, just trying to heal the wounds of the spirit inflicted by the new knowledge.
And now, we would have to learn how to defeat the friends we had bonded with.
"We know this will be hard, but you will have to learn how to defeat the oppossing forces. That is, unless you want the Apocalypse to occur." Marie smiled (as much as a tiger can smile), but her eyes were serious.
"The other seven will be out to cause the Apocalypse. Not that they need much help." Hana added.
"What do you mean, not that they need much help?" Justine asked, scowling.
"The universe is ready to destroy Earth and cause the Armageddon. All the opposing forces need to do is stop you seven." Pax twittered, not helping the situation much. She only had the best intentions though.
"So what are we supposed to do about it?" Carmen asked, nervously leaning on Marie and holding Kendra's hand.
"All you need to do is don't let the opposite side defeat you and try to make sure the Apocalypse doesn't occur." Laura said cheerfully. We all glared at her. Except for Cam. At least, I didn'think he did. Then again, I couldn't really see him too well.
"Fantastic. How are we supposed to prevent the Apocalypse then?" I asked.
"Stop global warming, help save the environment... Just make sure the world isn't destroyed by storms, heat, loss of land by water, volcano erruptions, and all that stuff. Those are all actually signs that the Earth is ready to break into bits."
"That's...lovely." Linda said calmly, probably trying not to sound sarcastic or annoyed. It worked, to some extent anyways.
"We'll talk to you guys more about it later. But now, I think it's about time for you to go home." Cam's voice suggested. I couldn't figure out where he was, but I nodded. We exchanged hugs and farewells then headed off to home.
I spent dinner worrying about what we were going to do while maintaining a cheerful exterior. Or at least I tried. When I finally finished dinner and homework, I flopped onto my bed and Hana turned into a wolf. She came up onto the bed with me (causing the bed to creak a little with the weight) and allowed me to sink my face into her silky fur.
"You should try to talk to the opposing seven like normal until you have your first real encounter. We don't know for sure if they are the right ones, though we're pretty sure. Still, try to maintain the friendship as best as you can until then. Alright?"
"Alright." I mumbled into the warm pelt.
She acted like a warm squishy pillow to hug for the night. It was comforting to have her warm prescence by my side, and I wondered why I never wanted a pet before. They were really soothing.
I fell asleep listening to Hana's gentle breathing. The last thing I remember seeing was her silver fur shining slightly in the streetlamp light that leaked through my windows.