Sonia finally caught up to me, "My parents aren't home yet," she said, "typical of them. Do you mind if I hang out at your place for a while?"
"Won't they worry if they got home and you were not around?" I asked her.
"I left them a note explaining my whereabouts to them. I honestly doubt they will be back by the time I go back home," she said.
"What's that about?" I asked.
"They are always busy. To be honest, they don't really care what I think. They even came here on business, something about deals they had made with the inhabitants of the estates here. I don't know what they are doing really, but that is how I ended up going to school here in Armenville," she explained. Her story reminded me a lot of how Ciara was also always traveling before her family finally returned to Armenville.
"Okay then, you can hang at our place for a while," I said, "how did you know where we live though?"
"It wasn't hard to guess with the way you acted on the first day we walked home together. So I watched you walk home that day since I knew it couldn't be any further from our place," she explained.
"Great, not creepy at all," I said allowing a ton of sarcasm toleak into my voice, "so you live with both your parents?" I asked as we went up the stairs to the front door.
"My mum and my step dad," she said.
"Step dad?" I asked as I reached for the doorknob.
"My dad passed away when I was little," she said freezing my hand at the door knob. I turned back to face her directly.
"Sorry about that."
"No need, it was a long time ago. So the next time you want to ask where I got my ring, you should know that it was the last thing I have to remember him by," she said.
I opened the door and walked into my humble home only to be hit by the scent of some of my mum's finest cooking. "Welcome to mi casa," I said holding the door open inviting her in.
"I'm home," I shouted and went straight for the kitchen. That is where I knew I would find mum at least.
"It feels like forever since you came home this early, Kevin," mum said engulfing me into one of her long forgotten bear hugs. 7:28:36pm, my internal clock said the moment she mentioned I was home early.
"Mum, you can let go now, I need to breathe," I said, my words coming out muffled.
"No way, you have been dodging these hugs. This is revenge," she said making me laugh, "Good evening, Sonia," she greeted the visitor I almost forgot I had invited.
"Hi, Mrs Johnson," she said.
"Oh, honey, just Sarah can do," she said.
"I almost forgot you guys already met," I said.
"Yeah, we did, but you chose that day to come back home very late," mum said.
"Sonia, you're back," we heard someone say from the top of the stairs.
"Yeah, why do you sound so surprised?" she asked the new arrival.
Gary began his descent down the stairs, "No reason, I just had no idea you were going to become a regular," he said making himself sound so innocent while he said it.
"Gary that is rude," mum said as he picked an apple off the kitchen counter.
"Sorry," he said backing away towards the stairs, "something is wrong with the world. First my brother brings home one girl, now another, where is this world going?"
He was up the stairs and back in his room before any of us had the chance to retaliate. I was going to have his head. "That was inappropriate," mum said.
"It's okay, I wish I had a sibling like that one. They keep the house lively," she said,
"Yeah that's true," mum confirmed before she began pushing us out of the kitchen towards the living room, "you two can have a seat in the living room. The remote is in your dad's chair."
"Do I have to?" I groaned remembering my previous mission of following the artras to Armensia. The worst part was that as long as Sonia had her ring around he finger, there was no way I could freeze time without her knowing it. I was stuck with the one person on earth who wasn't affected by my magic. What were the odds of something like that even happening?
"She's your guest, isn't she? Come on, I know I raised you better than that," mum said still pushing us to the living room.
"Mum we can walk on our own," I said to her. She left us and went back to the kitchen. I took a seat to the right of the three-seat sofa and Sonia took a seat right beside me, a little closer than I would have liked.
"What should we watch?" I asked her while the television turned on. Thankfully my dad could not live without his Netflix so it was always paid for. It wasn't as if I never used it, but after a while, one gets too selective with the shows they want to follow and I was still waiting on the new seasons of my favourite shows to be released.
I handed Sonia the remote and waited as she scrolled through the multitude of shows that Netflix had to offer. After a while I figured she did not even know what she wanted to watch herself. "Trouble choosing a show?" I asked.
"They all look so good," she said. It was like watching a child in a pet store.
"What kind of movie are you looking for?" I asked.
"Could you find me a romance, a good one at that. I don't want to find myself dosing over a cheesy cliché," she said to me.
"Of course," I said bluntly.
"Hey what's with that tone?" she asked raising her voice.
"Don't judge me."
"I am not judging you. I just didn't think you were the kind of person who would like to watch a romance movie, that's all," I said.
"Well, I am a girl, aren't I? We all like romantic movies. But I do like one other genre," she said.
"Now I'm listening."
"Sci-fi," she said with a satisfactory smile.
There was a moment of silence before I realised she was being serious. "Are you messing with me right now?"
"No, hurry up and choose a good one under the sci-fi movies," she ordered.
"As you wish my lady," I scrolled through the movies until I chose to just put on Lucy. I knew from her expression that she hadn't watched it. I didn't want to get that distracted by the movie considering the fact that none of this was part of my plan.
As the movie went on, she lay her head on my shoulder and got comfortable. Naturally I was not comfortable with this arrangement, but I also didn't want to explain the reasons for my actions. I was almost positive that Jacob had his sights set on her, but the thing was that this was supposed to be a two way connection as it did for most of the artras. Dare I say it in this situation, but I just had to know.
"Jacob has got a ot quieter these days," I said.
"What!" she exclaimed surprised at my topic of discussion, "Why are you bringing him up?"
I sighed having gotten the answer I was looking for. She had no idea what was going on in his head, "For someone who knows how to advise people on relationships, you are blind to that one."
"What are you trying to say? Jacob is being just as welcoming as any of you," she said.
"Okay then, forget I even brought it up," I said.
"Now I can't stop thinking about it," she complained making me chuckle.
"Enjoy the movie," I said.
"That also means you are going to be quiet through all of it, doesn't it?" she stated sadly.
"Is there something you wanted to talk about?" she asked.
"Not really, I just thought that I would get to know you better," she said.
"That's a two way street," I said.
"Do you still not trust me?" she asked.
"Trust isn't an easy thing to come by you know. Why are so intent in gaining my trust anyway?" I asked.
"Of all the people in your group, you are the one who least trusts me, sometimes I think you don't even have a shred of trust in me."
"Earning my trust doesn't really matter, you know. It's pointless, you will only get disappointed when you realise I wasn't even paying attention," I literally felt her shudder at the words, but ignored the reaction. I wasn't supposed to be here and yet here I was, stuck.
"You didn't stop time today," she said.
"How much do you know about magic?" I asked her.
"Not much really, that is why I keep this ring to protect me from it," she said.
"That's not very helpful. Who was…"
"Can you go another day without interrogating me?" she said.
"That's just it. The more you thwart my attempts at asking you questions, the more you lose chances at gaining my trust," I kept quiet after that, there was nothing she was going to say even if I tried prying it out of her. She knew when to stop the questions almost like she was hiding something. It wasn't my place to ask all these questions since it was her life. Honestly I wouldn't have cared at all if Texan had never used that breach in the first place, but the events were well aligned. There was no doubting it, she appeared after the breach was sealed which probably wasn't a coincidence. I let my thoughts wander as they was no use pondering about it now. Time was my ally, and I knew that eventually we would find out the truth about her or why she knew about magic. On a planet that was magically dormant like earth, there weren't many places where one could stumble upon magic. In Armenville, everyone who knew about magic had a connection to Armensia in some way, usually because they were descendants of the artras.
Sonia was a different case altogether. One that was bound to be revealed one day. My dad eventually came home from work and to my surprise didn't even step into the living room. Everyone was keeping away from us, mum only came in to deliver food. 'I ask her a thousand times to let me eat food in my room ad I get a pass when Sonia arrives. Real cool, mum, real cool.'
An hour had passed since the movie started and I was getting restless. I didn't know why, but the longer I spent here, the more restless I got. It felt like I had to be somewhere. Each time I ignored it, it only made it worse. Unless I was constantly aware of the restlessness, it was a headache for me. It took everything to pretend to be perfectly fine. 'Brother, what are you still doing here?' I heard Gary's voice in my head.
'What is going on, Gary?" I asked him.
'The artras need your help,' he replied.
'I wish I could go. In fact I had planned to go, but I cannot just bail on Sonia, her ring protects her from my spells, so even if I froze time she would still be moving,' I replied. He went silent for a while till I heard footsteps coming our way. Gary cheerfully jumped into the sofa beside Sonia who had now gotten off my shoulder thankfully.
"Oh Lucy, you're watching this old thing," he said.
"Yeah, have you seen it?" Sonia asked him.
"Yeah, only a couple of times," he replied acting proud of his achievement, "Sonia, can I have a look at your ring? It looked so cool from afar, I just had to take a closer look."
"Oh sure, she said whilst taking it off and handing it over to Gary.
"That's a huge gem," Gary said staring at the ruby imbedded into the ring. I didn't wait another second as I gathered magic from my void enough for a low level time freezing spell. I snapped my fingers and just as I had expected, she froze along with everything else apart from Gary. I guess she really wasn't that powerful without the ring. Gary was still unfrozen because he possessed enough power to repel the spell. "I didn't think she would give it up that easily," he said.
"Me neither," I replied right before someone came running into the living room. It was mum, she was still moving. I guess previous artras still had enough magic in them.
"What's going on?" she asked, her face was full of fear.
"Mum, my friends are in trouble," I said.
"And what can you do about it?" she asked trembling.
"I just froze time didn't I?" I said, "And besides, they are my friends. I don't need another reason to go after them."
"Kevin, you're running out of time, go," Gary spoke up interrupting me with a tone of urgency.
"Okay, wait a minute, you're not coming?" I asked him.
"Not yet brother. It's still too early for me," he said and with that I opened a portal to the Artarak and stepped through waving to my mum.
"Don't worry mum, we'll make it back," I said. The portal opened up in the Artarak lobby. The moment I stepped out the portal a new clock began ticking in my head. I could tell that this clock belonged to Armensia, but that also meant that now I could keep track of time in both worlds. This was getting crazy. I began running to the changing rooms so that I got into my combat suit and armour real quick.
"Welcome back, master Johnson," Jeremy's voice echoed through the walls.
"Where are the others?" I asked him.
"The other artras are in the Forest of Alm, sir. I suggest you make it to the conference room quickly and meet Elder Jovenor, he will be able to take you straight to them," he said, I was burning daylight, I needed to move faster. I finally figured out what was causing my restlessness. It was the fact that my friends were in danger. I tapped into my speed and rushed through the Artarak, getting to the conference room in seconds.
"Oh, the Siege, it is so good to know you're here," he began.
"No time for pleasantries, Jovenor. Get me to the others," I said.
"Open a portal to the forest of Alm and allow me to reprogram it for you," he said and I did as I was told. He raised his hand facing the portal for a few seconds before beckoning that it was ready for me to go through.
"Any words of advice?" I asked smirking.
"Don't die," he simply said.
"Wasn't planning on it," I replied before I walked through it. At my feet lay a carefully crafted staff with an eagle for the top. My magic began leaking out of my void without my command once again like it had when I had reopened my void. My speed kicked in almost on instinct. Everything seemed to slow down. In a short time my eyes picked up a lot of information that I had no idea how to process.
"Would someone fill me in on what's going on?" I asked having seen my friends. Six dragons were currently in my presence. Four of them surrounding what seemed to be a majestic Lion on fire and all too familiar Wolf. The two easily reached up to a height of fifteen feet which only made them look more menacing. Dark magic pulsed off of them in waves, instilling fear into every creature that didn't have the will to stand up against them. The tension in the air was almost deafening as a whistling sound could be heard. I looked up and saw and Eagle approaching and the magic it packed was tremendous. It was getting ready to unleash a deadly spell. Everyone in the clearing was bracing themselves for some kind of impact. The lion and the wolf merely stood by watching. Thunder rumbled in the distance, the rain turned the place muddy and made it difficult to see or move efficiently. A few gigantic trees were on fire with signs of lightning written all over them.
"We don't have time for that," Isaac yelled at me.
My magic had been leaking out of my void and now I had a use for it. It was easier to use magic once it was out of the void and thanks to Kalifa's impossible training, I was releasing magic much faster than I could earlier. I brought my thumb and middle finger together getting ready to freeze time. This spell was going to have to be a lot stronger than the one I cast back home considering I was in the presence of very strong beings that would remain unaffected if it was weak. I also had to make sure the artras weren't affected by it so we could talk. Once the spell was ready I snapped my fingers, immediately flinching at the loud sound that erupted from my hands. The force from the spell pushed all the frozen raindrops away from me. a side effect I hadn't even known would be there. Thankfully, it worked, everything was frozen, although I could feel that I was still supplying magic to keep the spell going. The Beasts were also trying to break free of the spell. The Armensian clock in my head had also come to a stop.
"Now," I said, "we have time."