The next day rose around. Cy and Peter wake up before everyone to go work on combat skills and train. Zander wakes up and goes on his morning run and back by around 8:30 am. Kat goes in to wake up Annabelle.
Kat knocks on the door and pushes it open slightly to peek inside, "Annabelle? Are you awake yet?" She walks in to see Annabelle sitting on the edge of her bed. Kat's face turns into concern and walks over to her friend. "Hey. What's going on? You're never up this early." Kat sits down next to Annabelle.
"I…I feel like I fucked up somewhere." Annabelle says.
"Wait what? What are you talking about? You didn't fuck up anything." Kat says with rensurence.
Annabelle fixes herself into a position facing Kat, "Those eyes, Ender's eyes. I promise you, those were the ones I saw in my future sight."
Kat asks, "But how do you know for certain? All Enderman eyes look the same."
Annabelle replies back, "I just know it. The ones I saw were full of hatred and pure wickedness. Ender's eyes were the exact same way."
"If you knew they were the same, why didn't you say something earlier? Especially to Zander." Kat asks.
"That's the thing, I wasn't a hundred percent positive. Like you said, all Enderman eyes look the same: purple with a lighter purple." Annabelle stands up and walks towards her mirror and looks at her reflection. "Why have this gift if I can't seem to do anything right with it?" She says, then looks down.
Kat watches and walks over to her. "Look up. Look at yourself. Now, what do you see?"
Annabelle responds, "Myself."
Kat replies back, "Exactly. What I see is a girl who has a gift like no one has ever known. Someone who can see just little moments of the future. A gift like that is being used to help those in need and those in trouble." She turns Annabelle around. "You need to understand that this gift is powerful. More powerful than my potions and more powerful than Peter's whip. You need to own it. Be grateful you have this!"
Annabelle nods. Kat hugs Annabelle tight as Kat leaves the room. Annabelle looks over from her bedroom to see the sun slowly rising in the distance. She smiles and says to herself out loud, "Todays gonna be a good day."
As Annabelle heads down towards the elevator, she runs into Charlie. Then, she feels the jolt of electricity once more. This time, she sees some sort of dark figure with two different colored eyes, one blue and one yellow. Annabelle then rushes back into reality and sees Charlie and her on the ground. She shakes the jolting feeling off.
"Charlie! Oh my God, I'm so sorry! I didn't see you coming in." Annabelle says, helping Charlie pick up all the books and papers.
"It's okay, honestly. I was in such a rush that I wasn't really paying attention to who was in front of me," Charlies says, nervously laughing along the way.
Annabelle then hands Charlie all of the loose papers that she dropped. " Why do you have so many papers and books on you anyway? Are you doing some sort of research project for school?" Annabelle starts laughing.
"No! This is so much bigger than a stupid school project. Besides, what school is going on at this time? The world is under attack by black lengthy creatures from who-knows-where." Charlie explains.
"You're right you're right. So what is so big that you have all of these papers for?" Annabelle asks.
"It's nothing important." Charlie says, frantically picking up her stuff. Annabelle looks at her very confused, but asks nothing of it. She hands her the papers and Charlie waved goodbye behind her as she ran.
Annabelle then heads to the training room to see Peter sitting there, doodling in his book, and Cy practicing his sword skills. Cy sees his target, the practice dummy, and turns his metal sword into a blaze. There, Cy jumps and slashes the mannequin with the blue flaming sword. He pants hard only to hear Annabelle slowly clapping.
"What do you want? Can't you see I'm trying to practice here." Cy says, throwing his sword towards Peter only to land on the ground by his feet. Peter looks down to the sword, back up at Cy, then goes back to his doodling.
"I'm just surprised. You are actually practicing your skills for once. Thought you would just stop after what happened in Tandem." Annabelle smirks.
Cy starts to fume, "Listen, Tandem wasn't my fault. There were so many of them and my sword only had enough power."
Annabelle walks closer, hands on her sides and says ever so calmly, "But come on Cy. You can admit it. You were just too scared to really show your power." Annabelle goes up right behind Cy ever so sleathfully. "I understand now. You were afraid. You thought you would fail, but instead, you failed in another direction. You stood there," then goes up right by his ear and says, "and did nothing."
"Enough!" Cy says, pushing Annabelle out of his personal space. "You're right! I was scared. I felt as if I was frozen in some sort of time warp. I remember getting there and the next thing I knew, there was fire everywhere. People running and screaming in fear." Cy turns around away from Annabelle. "I know what I did. I'm paying the price."
Peter looks up, "Listen, remember what Zander said. Tandem was no one's fault. We were all surrounded. My powers weren't enough and neither was any of you." Peter then stands up and walks over to them both, "Instead of standing around and waiting to do something, why not actually do something" Peter then writes something fast in his book. Then, what seemed to be like a couple Enderman appeared out of nowhere. Annabelle and Cy turn around to see the creature, then jump back in shock.
"Peter, what the fuck did you do?!" Annabelle shouts.
"Relax you two." Peter walks between the two of them to turn around and face them, "These are illusions. Real life illusions. I can tell them what they do with this little book right here." He holds up his book and hits the cover. "You two will figure out a way to work together to take them down." He walks over to Cy. "If I were you, I would use this," He then hands Cy his sword back. Cy grabs it as Peter goes behind them and sits down. He opens his book and starts writing. The Endermans start spacing around as there were three of them. Cy and Annabelle look at each.
"Cy, you go to the left and I go to the right." Annabelle confirms.
"No, you go left and I go right." Cy says already running to the right.
"Cy, no-" Already watching him go, Annabelle groans.
The two of them split off, each of them taking care of 1 Enderman each. Annabelle goes up high to get a good angle and uses her crossbow she shoots the end of Endermans directly in the back. Cy goes head-to-head with another, fills the sword up with its blue flame and bashes the ground as the blaze moves across the ground and towards the Enderman. As Cy was about to strike the last one, Annabelle shoots it from behind and into the left shoulder.
"Seriously Annabelle? I had it all under control." Cy complains
"Really? Didn't really look like it from up here. I do have a better angle anyway." Annabelle says with a confident smirk. Cy snarls at her. As Peter continues to write down more Endermans to appear, Kat walks in all covered in soot and her white glasses smudged.
Kat looks around, "Why is Cy and Annabelle fighting the air? Did the sky anger them both or something?" Kat laughs.
"No. Look at the book for a second and then look back up at Annabelle and Cy." Peter says. Kat looks down at the book and back up to see her friends fighting Endermans.
"Oh my God! We have to go in and help them!" Kat screams, running towards them until Peter grabs her wrist. Kat looks down at her wrist then at Peter. "What the Hell are you doing?! Our friends are in trouble!"
"The thing is, they're not really in trouble." Peter explains.
"What are you talking about?" Kat says. Peter releases her hand and Kat walks over to him, then sits down next to him.
"This book helps create real life illusions. This means that the illusion creatures I make can actually die and take damage. Once dead, they kind of disappear as if they never existed." Peter explains in deeper detail.
Kat looks over to Annabelle and Cy, "So, they're not actually fighting Endermans? Just illusions?"
"Exactly."
"Wow. I've never heard of anything like that before. Kind of cool honestly." Kat says.
Annabelle and Cy continue to argue as they fight. Peter then shuts the book and the rest of the Endermans disappear. Cy and Annabelle look at each other as they lower their weapons, thinking the Endermans won't return. Peter then opens his book, looks straight ahead of them, and writes extremely fast. As Annabelle and Cy start heading back towards their friends, they hear what seems to be a familiar voice.
"Hello again."
Annabelle and Cy slowly turn around to see Ender at her full height staring right at them. They both step back, both full of fear as they see Ender staring right down at them. Ender then stands in a battle position, ready to take them down. Annabelle and Cy look at each other, nod, then run towards the opposite side. Annabelle goes back up to her original height position and draws an arrow back, ready to let it fly. Cy sprints over to be in front of Ender.
Kat looks over from the fighting duo to Peter, "Why did you make them fight Ender? She's way too strong for them. Especially in the state they're in at the moment."
"Do you really think this won't happen in a real battle? You saw what Ender can do and it wouldn't be much of a surprise if she shows up again anytime soon. Besides, after seeing what she did to them yesterday kind of makes me feel bad for them." Peter replies.
Kat looks back at her friends and sighs, "That's true. Cy didn't even have a chance to fight Ender and Annabelle got taken down from that height pretty hard."
Kat and Peter continue to watch as Cy and Annabelle strike Ender. Annabelle launches her arrows into Ender's back and shoulder. Ender turns around quickly to see Annabelle up high and growls at her. She then goes to strike at Annabelle, but instead gets hit in the leg from Cy's sword. Ender turns around quickly to look back at Cy as he tries to catch his breath. Annabelle carefully hops down from her spot and is about to strike, but Ender turns around to face her.
"Come on, take me down already! You're just a weak pathetic human!" Ender yells. Annabelle starts breathing heavily and becomes shaky in her breathing. She starts walking backwards away from Ender.
Cy doesn't seem to notice as he then fills his sword up with the blue blazes and strikes down at Ender. Ender turns to see Cy jump in the air and slash down. The blue flares across the sky and aims for Ender's torso. The Ender illusion disappears as Annabelle turns around quickly. Not able to get out of the way, she gets hit in the back.
Cy starts breathing heavily, then looks over to see Annabelle falling to the ground. His eyes go wide, looks down at the sword and drops it to the ground. Peter and Kat stand up and run towards Annabelle in a frantic hurry.
"ANNABELLE!" They both yell, running towards her. They both go on their knees next to her as she lays down on her chest.
"Can you hear us?!" Peter yells loudly. Annabelle is breathing very shaky as if someone had punched her in the lungs hard. Cy walks over to her, very scared and fidgety.
"Annabelle, I'm-" He tries to say before being interrupted.
"What were you thinking?! You saw she was on the other side!" Kat yells at Cy.
"But I thought-"
"You thought nothing! You only wanted to prove you were stronger than her. Stronger than the rest of us! You don't care about the rest of us. Only power!" Kat screams in his face. Peter helps Annabelle slowly turn onto her back. Annabelle screams in agony. Kat looks down at Annabelle then at Peter.
"Don't you know any healing spells that could help her?" Peter asks.
"I wish I did. I'm not a healer, but I know someone who can help." Kat says, looking up towards the wide archway. "She needs to get over to the infirmary and fast." Kat and Peter slowly pick up Annabelle and help her to the infirmary. As the two of them try to carry Annabelle, Cy stands there looking at his hands and back at his sword behind him. He walks over to grab it, then looks at it with concern and unsure. He sticks it in his belt and heads over to the infirmary.
As Kat and Peter finally make it to the infirmary, Kat yells, "Help! We have an emergency! Help please!" Kat looks around as medical professionals come running to grab Annabelle from them. Annabelle is then taken away to a separate room. Charlie comes running out from the back, looks to see Annabelle being taken away and continues to run towards Kat and Peter.
"What in blazes happened to her?" She asks.
"It's a long story, but what happened was-" Peter tries to explain before Cy steps in.
"It was me.'' They all turn around to see Cy standing in the doorway. He then walks up to the rest of them. "It was my fault. My blazes from my blade hit her. I wasn't paying attention and-"
"Stop. Your blazes hit her? You mean the blue blazes from your sword?!" Charlie asks in a panic.
Cy sighs and looks down. "Yes."
Charlie looks over to Peter and Kat, "Then we better act fast. She doesn't have a lot of time left!" She runs back as Kat and Peter follow behind her. Cy follows behind before being stopped by Peter in front of him.
"What are you doing?" Cy asks.
"I think it's best for you to stay out here. For everyone's sake." Peter says, turning around to run back. Cy stands there in concern.
Peter catches up with the others as Charlie looks over to Annabelle barely breathing, eyes closed. Charlie looks over to the other medical professionals and nods at them to get out of the room. As they leave, Charlie puts a fresh pair of gloves on and rolls up the sleeves of her doctor coat.
"What's gonna happen to her?" Kat asks.
Charlies explains as she gathers up her tools, "Well, since she got hit by the blue flames, there's gonna be more internal damage. Plus, the flames from Cy's sword doesn't just come from the Blue Sardonyx, which is what his sword is made out of. It also comes from within him."
"What do you mean 'from within him'? He's just a human with no powers at all. The Blue Sardonyx stone was a gift. He just decided to make it a sword." Peter explains.
Charlie shakes her head. "You're wrong but also correct."
"Sweet. Wait, now I'm confused." Peter says.
Charlie then explains in deeper detail, "The blue flame from Cy's sword does come from the stone, but it also comes from within him. A stone like the Blue Sardonyx doesn't just work with any being. The Blue Sardonyx only works with certain beings." Charlie then pauses. "The Blue Sardonyx is one of many that represents beings of certain elements. In this case, that element is fire."
Peter pauses and then says, "So, if I'm hearing you correctly, you're saying that Cy-"
"Cy's some sort of being of fire. But clearly not a Blaze as we would be able to tell. It's something more." Charlie says. Kat and Peter look at each other, overwhelmed with this new information.
"Now, where was she struck on her body?" Charlie asks.
"On her back. It's pretty big so you won't miss it." Kat explains.
"Alrighty then. Let's get to work." Charlie says, preparing to help Annabelle. Annabelle continues to breathe very heavily but scratchy. Charlie then gently turns Annabelle onto her stomach and puts her on oxygen. Charlie then cuts Annabelle's shirt from the back in order to see the wound. The wound was deep, the skin covered with red burns and dry marks. Dry blood all around with fresh blood still spreading over. Charlie then grabs a long wet towel to cover the wound.
"What exactly is that towel full of?" Peter asks.
Charlie answers, turned away away from them, "Alcohol. To stop any infections." She turns back around to grab a scalpel to see the internal damage. When looking inside Annabelle's wound, Charlie can see that some of the muscles near her back are injured. Charlie quickly fixes those up, but knows it's going to take more time to heal. Then, Charlie takes off her gloves and puts both of her pointer and middle fingers together in shapes of finger guns. She then touches them together and pulls them apart to show a long light colored string glowing. She takes the long light string and goes up Annabelle's back.
"How are you doing that Charlie?" Kat asks.
"I'm not honestly sure. I just know how to, I guess." Charlie says, finishing up. Charlie goes around to the other side of the table to meet up with her friends. "Luckly, the scar won't be too noticeable in the near future. But she will have to stay down for a couple days for her internal injuries to heal."
"You can heal people. With magic. How?" Peter asks.
"Like I said before, I'm not quite sure. It's just something I've been able to do for quite some time now. I did it before to my knee one time and ever since then, I've been able to do it to other people. That string I used was light. Literal light."
"Wait, that was light? Like from the sun or something?." Kat asks.
"I believe so. Like rays of light and beams of light is just something I'm able to control. Along with creating light like so." Charlie says pointing down to Annabelle's back shining with several light stitches.
"That's amazing Charlie!" Peter shouts in excitement.
"Thank you. But now I think it's best that you leave Annabelle here for the day so I can monitor her. Make sure the wound heals up nicely." Charlie explains. Peter and Kat nod and head out back up front. Once there, they can see Cy pacing back and forth. Cy then looks up and is greeted by his friends.
"So? Is she gonna be ok?" Cy asks.
Kat stops in front of him and looks at him in anger, "Yeah. She'll be ok. No thanks to you though." Kat walks away from him.
Cy watches her go behind him and then looks down at Peter, "Is Annabelle gonna be ok?"
Peter sighs, "Yes. But right now she needs rest." Peter then reaches to touch Cy's shoulder. "And so do you. Just for a few hours." Peter then heads back down the hall. Cy looks down as he watches his friends walk away.
Cy then heads towards the training hall. He sits down and looks out where the incident happened, seeing the fire swing across the room and hitting Annabelle replay over and over in his head. He walks over and sees the burn marks on the ground and the dried blood from Annabelle's wound. He stands up and all of a sudden, gets pushed back against the wall from Zander, dropping his sword.
"Is it true Cy?! Is it true that you almost killed Annabelle?!" Zander screams.
"What?! Who told you that?!"
"Kat! She told me everything! So, I'll ask you one more time. Did you try to kill Annabelle?!" Zander asks, pushing harder against Cys back to the wall.
Cy tries to reach for his sword that he dropped, "No! I did hit her but it was an accident! Not like I did it on purpose."
Zander then angrily flips Cy over to where they face each other. "You almost killed one of your teammates! That's not right Cy!"
Cy then pushes Zander off of him, "I know that Zander! I'm not an idiot!"
"Then why the fuck did you hit her?!" Zander screams back.
"Because I didn't see her walking away! The illusion disappeared after I already fired my blow. Not like I wanted her dead!" Cy replies back.
Zander then walks away from him, putting his hands on his face and rubbing his hair back. "That's it. I'm putting my foot down on this one." Then faces Cy and walks up to him, getting up in his face. "The next time we are called away, you are not to come. You are to stay here and watch over the base along with everyone inside. Do I make myself clear?"
"Zander, are you serious right now? I'm the best fighter you got! You want me to stay here and sit on the sidelines? That's not fair and you know it!" Cy screams back, pushing Zander away from him.
"Be lucky that I'm still keeping you here. The only reason I'm keeping you around is because we're fighting a war here with the Endermans. We need all of the help we can get. So if I were you, I would keep my damn mouth shut." Zander walks away from Cy slowly and heads back out to the main hall. Cy, out of breath, grabs his sword off the ground. He then heads out of the training hall and into his room.
Once to his room, Cy sits down on the edge of his bed. He sets the sword down next time him, keeping it somewhat away. He looks down at it, then away, then back at it again. He grabs the metal sword and looks down at the blue stone in the middle of the handle. His frustration gets a hold of him as he throws his sword into the wall, getting struck inside and marking the wall along with the other sword marks. His face goes emotionless as he goes to turn off the lights, making his room almost pitch black. He falls onto the bed and turns over into his pillow. A few moments pass as he hears a voice almost right next to him.
"Hello there."
Cy quickly sits forward, turns around slowly to see a familiar face: Ender, sitting on the end of his bed looking directly at him and her Enderman eyes being the only source of light in the room.
Cy rushed towards his sword, but was too late as Ender teleported to it and held on to it while still in the wall. Cy stops midway. "What do you want? To kill me?"
"Kill you? HA! What a joke that is." Ender says. She then pulls the sword from the wall, then walks around playing with it. "Trust me. If I wanted to kill you, I would've done it the first time we met."
"Then what do you want then?" Cy asks, watching her walk to the side of his bed.
"Give you a proposition. To give you something you've never seemed to have before." She then teleports behind him. "Respect."
Cy jolts around to face her as she walks backwards. "What are you talking about? I have lots of respect here."
"Really? It doesn't really seem like it after the fiasco from earlier." Ender replies.
Cy's eyes go wide. "How did you know about that?" He asks.
Ender sit's on the edge of his bed, holding the sword straight at him, "You don't think I find out information about my enemies?"
"You never fully answered my question. Why are you here?" Cy asks once more.
Ender then laughs softly but sinisterly, walking towards Cy "Come with me. You can become a part of something truly extraordinary."
Cy takes a step back. "What?!"
"You heard me." Her eyes become full of darkness as she walks closer to Cy, then stopping right in front of him. "You have nothing here. Everyone seems to despise you. Everyone wishes you were gone."
"You're wrong!"
"I'm right and you know it."
Cy starts gasping for air looking around at the ground then to his sword, still in Ender's hand. He looks over to his left to see his practice blade. He looks up at Ender then runs to grab the blade. Ender quickly jumps back as Cy grabs the blade and holds it out in front of him. He feels the blade's metallic energy rush up through his arm and into his chest. He breathes heavily.
"Well well. I see someone isn't backing down." Ender turns away. "Neither am I!" She swings the sword around her body and knocks Cy's blade out of his grasp. He looks down and up at Ender as she comes charging in with the sword out in front. He ducks and rolls back towards the door.
"I will never work for or even with you! You Endermans cause too much harm in this world! I don't even think you know exactly what you're doing!" Cy yells back, stance low.
"Oh, I know exactly what I'm doing." she throws the sword to the ground in front of him. She then turns around and starts walking towards his open window. She stands on top of the window sill and says one final thing.
"The end is just beginning!" She then falls backwards out of the window.
Cy watches, then runs to grab his sword and towards the window. He looks over the edge, sword on the sill, to see no sign of Ender. He looks up to assume she teleported out of there. He looks over to his door, then rushes over to press the emergency meeting button. As he presses the button, blue lights swirl around the different parts of the base. Everyone else looks around and rushes over to the meeting room. Cy sighs in relief and rushes himself down to the meeting room.
~~~~~
Ender teleports back out from Cy's room and into the bushes right underneath the window. She waits a little bit before jolting off into the forest. She runs and runs, laughing hysterically. She continues to run out of the Dark Forest and keeps going into The Painful Savanna. She runs into one of the many treacherous caves lodged deep with the desert, hidden from plain sight. She starts walking down, then teleporting down to the bottom and dodging the stalactites. She walks down and watches all around her as many Enermand gather around in groups. She heads down to a large portal, then falls in.
After several long minutes, Ender walks out to see thousands of Enderman gather around large purple buildings. She heads down the path to see the largest building: a castle. She walks over the bridge and is met with two Endermans standing there, standing in her way. Ender looks up to the guards. Their eyes go wide and move out of the way allowing Ender to pass. Ender walks inside to see several large doors and one very large double in the back. Two more Endermans open up for her as she walks into a large room with a large and empty throne in the back along with a large window behind it.
"What took you so long? I needed you back three days ago." A voice says.
Ender walks forward, "Sorry. Got sidetracked. But hey, I'm here now! Doesn't that count for something?"
"I guess so." A dark tall figure walks out from the window behind the throne to show it was an Enderman woman. But she was not just an Enderman, but also a human. She was wearing a long black cape with a gold headband around her head. Her black and dark purple skin tight dress barely missed the ground before touching in the back. Her eyes were just like Enders and her skin was pale.
She then sits down on the throne with her hands together, "We have much to discuss."