Marcellus stood silently beside his daughter`s bed while she explained her theory to him and his brothers. Brothers that had gone through hell and back with him. They had watched him marry the love of his life before she gave him a daughter, only for her to leave him six years after she was born.
His Marina had been the constant thought that pushed him to be better than he was today and to protect his daughter after that horrible day ten years ago. He hadn`t fully moved on from her and planned on dying alone what his daughter was saying was just impossible.
When she was done, Marcellus kept silent as he processed the information long and hard. Dalton risked a glance at his best friend and wasn`t surprised to see it in a mask. Nikolai and Brad were looking at their niece with shock written all over their faces.
"Papa? Say something," Jia quietly. Her nerves shot and the feeling of guilt was killing her. "I`m sorry, I know you don`t want to hear this now but-"
Marcellus held up a hand to stop his daughter who pursed her lips and furrowed her brow. She didn`t mean to tell him but she needed to explain why she and the girls had gone on their study trip.
"We`ll talk about this when you get home," Marcellus finally stated.
"But Papa-"
"Not another word," Marcellus ordered her before he sighed," If you would please, tell me about this Tablet that the Emperor`s Goons were looking for?"
"I don`t know, only Fiona knows and she hasn`t woken up yet,"Jia answered with a rush.
"Okay, update me when she does, for now, you rest. I`ll come and pick you up for the holidays."
Jia nodded as Marcellus and her uncles quietly said their good byes before the call ended.
The blue-eyed sorceress slummed up back against her pillows and tried not to cry. She didn`t expect her papa to act that way, not after finding out that there could be slight chance that her mother was contacting her from a place that wasn`t the Afterlife. Marina was still watching over her daughter it made no sense for Marcellus to act that way.
She sighed unhappily before putting her phone away and getting under her covers to get some sleep. She heard the door open just before she was completely drifted but didn`t pay any attention to who it was. For a while, she drifted into a dreamless sleep and thought of nothing about the real world.
When she finally woke up, the place looked a bit dark and it was sounded like it was raining outside. Jia turned in bed and saw that Zoey wasn`t in bed but it looked like she had slept in it.
She yawned and stretched before turning to her night stand. The sorceress smiled when she saw a Chicken Lunch pack and a Six pack of soda under her phone case.
"Thank you, Roy,"Jia muttered to herself as she sat up and was even more happy to find two huge bars of her favourite chocolates behind the Chicken Pack. She was about to reach over when she heard the Main Door open before she heard the sounds of someone walking into the room. She leaned back and waited to see who it was. She was honestly, very shocked when she saw a familiar red-head.
"Fiona!" Jia exclaimed as she took in her friend coming to stand outside in the living room.
"Hey, you`re awake as well," Fiona said with a smile as she moved to enter her lightning friend`s room.
Jia`s mouth moved wordlessly as she friend shuffled forward and sat on her bed before she blurted out, "What in the Goddess name are you doing?!"
The lava sorceress arched a brow at her friend, "Getting out of the Infirmary?"
"Why are you walking around, should you even be on your feet?!" Jia scanned her friend from head to toe. Like her, she looked sick, tired and pale. She had a bandage wrapped around her head and she bruises on her elbows and cheek. Honestly, she looked like death.
"This coming from the girl who left the Infirmary at the Knights Academy after suffering from Soul Magic injuries," Fiona chuckled humourlessly.
"This is different!"
Fiona gave her a hard stare and sat up straighter, "How?"
The teenager tried to answer but bit her lip and looked away before signing, "Okay, it is a bit similar but come on, you have a bandage on your head and you were bleeding from your mouth when I found you."
Fiona winced slightly, "Yeah, let`s not share that detail with everyone."
"I was so worried about you."
"I`m okay," Fiona insisted before she pouted at the sorceress, "I am a bit hurt to find out that you all left me in the Infirmary today."
Jia shook her head, "We didn`t, your papa was there."
"WHAT?!" Fiona shouted.
"Yeah, he came in to stay with you so we left," Jia explained," Although. I am not so sure where the other girls went. I came back to the room to rest some more."
This time it was Fiona`s turned to scan her friend for injuries, "Are you alright?"
Jia looked taken back, "Really? I should be asking you that since your suffered more than I did."
"Oh really?! You have a bandaged shoulder!" Fiona exclaimed, her hand gesturing to the injured limb of her white-haired friend," What happened?
Jia recounted the details of her attack and when she was finished Fiona looked haunted.
"You could have died from Magic Depletion." The red head pointed out.
"Me? You looked near death when I found you! What happened to you?"
That`s something all of us would like to know."
Both girls turned to see their other teammates who came in and hugged each other. It was Rose who had spoken.
"Thank goodness you`re okay," Clary said as she took her seat on Zoey`s bed. The girls filled in the room with Zoey, Rose and Clary on one bed while Jia, Fiona and Kyra on the other.
"I`ll be fine, I promise you all but I do have things to tell you all, "Fiona said as Jia jerked her chin at her," You all might want to brace yourselves for this."
"So I was able to tail that woman who was leading that monster and she was muttering about a Tablet that meant the end of the Emperor. "Fiona took a deep breath, "It had the secret to completely destroying the Emptor and about finding a New Honour Guard to defeat him."
"What?!" Clary exclaimed.
"How can something like that exist?" Kyra muttered.
"Listen, before the Great Goddess left this land, she was afraid that someday the Emperor would rise again since he was desiccated and not fully destroyed. So she had her Seers and the Fair Folk look into the future to find out if she was right. And she was."
"So the Goddess knew that he would rise again? Why didn`t she warn the people of the Fifteen Kingdoms?!"
"That`s just it, The Tablet had the warning but since so much time had passed, people thought it was just a fairy-tale!" Fiona explaind further, "That female goon was counting on it. The Goddess wrote the instructions down on the Tablet and had it sealed in blood magic so that only new Honour Guard to decipherer it and defeat the Emperor."
"Did she find the Tablet?" Jias asked.
Fiona looked away," She did. I tried to stop her. I really did but she…I was honestly no match for her. I just got my butt handed to me. She tossed me around like some kind of rag doll and my lava sphere`s didn`t even faze her. She had no burn marks on her when I unleashed the Core on her."
Jia remembered that the Core was an ultimate Magic Spell that Fiona wielded, it was similar to Storm Rider.
Kyra rubbed her friend`s shoulder ina comforting gesture," You did your best. We can`t win every battle we fight."
"That`s what hurt me the most," Fiona raged," To her, it wasn`t a battle. I was just a distraction to her. Like a fly someone just wanted to swap away because I wasn`t worth the attention."
"What did she look like?" Zoey asked, genuinely curious.
Fiona put a hand on her head and squinted her eyes as she tried to remember her attacker, "She had umm, blue hair and yellow eyes. She wore a black and orange armour and here magic was black."
"Like the smoke that swallowed up the Monsters," Jia muttered to herself.
"I should have stopped her."
Rose shook her head, "No, you did what you could. We all did, "When she said 'we', she gestured to all the girls," None of us were trained to take on a sorceress who worked for the Emperor or the Dark Monsters. There was nothing more you could have done."
"Rose is right Fiona," Zoey pointed out," It wasn`t your fault."
"Look, we just lost one battle, but we won`t lose the war. So cheer up Fiona, it`s not over yet," Kyra encouraged her. Fiona scanned the determined faces of her fiends before a smile broke over her face. Jia reached across and pushed her shoulder playfully as Kyra turned to see Clary and Zey hug Rose. The girls chuckled and giggled until Rose suddenly stopped and groaned.
"What`s wrong, Fiona?" Zoey asked.
"A thought just hit me," the red head said as she bit her lip.
"What?" Rose asked.
"Instead of using Zoey`s Zeo Crystal, I could have just used my Lava sphere`s to light the way or have Jia`s lighting give us light."
All the girls excluding Zoey groaned and muttered curses, this time the blonde just rolled her eyes at her friends.
Suddenly the door to the room opened before they heard someone shout, "Fiona Angel Beckett!"
The red head shrieked and turned to the door before scrambling out of the room, only to freeze in the living room.
"I thought I left you in the Infirmary and I come out to see you walking by yourself to your room!" her father shouted as he marched further into the room.
Iona held up her hands in an effort to plead with him, "Dad! Please don`t-"
"Should you even be walking around kid?! You just cheated death and already you`re in a rush to go back to school!"
Jia and the other girls walked her move out of their line of sight before appearing again whilst dragging her father into her room. Next thing they knew, the door shut and it glowed red.
"We`ll, that was something else," Kyra muttered as she turned to Jia, who bit her lip to stop herself from laughing. "What?"
"At least of a change, I'm not the one with over protective family.," the lightning sorceress commented before she sighed," Thank goodness all of your parents' haven`t showed up. Then we`d have a real crisis on our hands."
However, luck seem to be ignoring them all today. Their room door burst open as several people entered and started yelling.
"Is that my mother?" Zoey whispered, looking horror stricken as she dunked under her sheets.
Rose frowned and check her PDA, "It sound like my parents but they haven`t sent me a message to let me know of their arrival time. How odd."
"Oh my goddess, that`s my parents!" Clary said as she ran out of the room and froze exactly like Fiona did." Mom? Dad? What are you two doing here?!"
Jia only saw a flurry of movement before two blondes, one male and one female, grabbed her hands and pull her away.
Kyra groaned and glared at her friend, "Did you just jinx us?"
The lightning sorceress held up her hands," I swear, I didn`t do anything. I just made an observation!"
"Kyra mummy!?" A woman shouted at the top of her voice before the Shadow sorceress flinched. She then got to her feet and slowly walked out to see her parents.
Zoey, on the other hand, had to be pulled out of bed by Rose, "If I have to see my parents, you have to see yours."
"Tell them I`m sick," Zoey whispered harshly. Jia snickered but then she stopped when an older version Zoey walked into the room in Ravenpoint Guard uniform. No doubt about, this was her roommate`s mother.
"Zoey, time for a talk," the woman said and Jia watched with amazement as Rose stopped pulling, and her jaw dropped at the sight of Zoey`s mother. The blonde in question, quickly got up and followed after her mother.
The last person to leave was Rose, who turned at the last second to Jia," How can a scary woman produce such a sweet girl?"
Obviously, Jia knew that she was referring to Zoey.
" I don`t know," Jia said with a shrug before Rose shook her head and left.