A New King - An unOrdinary Fanfic

Chapter 17

Everyone assembled in John's kitchen. Elaine healed Arlo, as he coughed up some more blood. Sera lied on the couch with Claire sitting next to her, putting a rag on her forehead.

"Eek! Hang in there, I'm almost done!" Arlo peeked over to see John glaring at him.

"Geez. What's the problem now? Aren't you done being angry for one night?"

"You had one f*cking job." Arlo glared, and tension filled the air again.

"Excuse me?"

"I had him. All you had to do was keep your weak-ass barrier up, and you couldn't even do that. In the end, you let that first guy get away too. So useless." Arlo got mad and slammed his hand on the table, startling Elaine and Claire.

"You wanna talk about useless? Who was the one that left Seraphina all alone in the first place?! And instead of trying to stab that guy to death, you should've pulled her out of danger! If you had focused, we could have captured them easily! Evaluate yourself before throwing all the blame at me, you fool!" John slowly stood up, making everyone nervous. Arlo stared at John, before he punched him, knocking him over and onto the floor. Arlo tried to sit up, before John pushed his head back down into the ground with his foot.

"Better watch your mouth!" Arlo stared up, the vision of John at the field the one day flashing in his mind. But instead of being afraid, he activated his ability.

"Listen here, you little sh*t!"

"Enough!" Claire and Elaine yelled, catching both boys attention.

"We get it, they escaped. But Seraphina is safe, so shouldn't we be happy with that? We need to recover, not fight amongst ourselves."

"Hmph." John took his foot off of Arlo's face and sat down again, while Arlo stood, holding his chest.

After a little while, everyone had healed and was trying to comprehend what just happened. Arlo, Claire, and Elaine were all sitting at the table, while John sat by Seraphina who was asleep on the couch.

"Two high-tiers overpowered by a knife and a van? Ridiculous." John looked at Sera, not responding.

"That break in was undoubtedly premeditated. Those guys knew exactly where to be and what to do. It's no coincidence that our abilities just happen to fail us either."

"How were they able to weaken all of us at once? I almost couldn't heal myself at all." Elaine added, and John looked down at his hands.

"So it was a drop in ability strength. The reason I couldn't detect any aura until after activation....that explains it."

"What I don't understand...they had everything where they wanted. So why suddenly drive off like that?"

"Uhm...I think they mumbled something to each other before they left, but I couldn't quite catch it."

" "It's going to wear off soon, and when that happens, we're done for." That's what I heard. It seems like they were on some kind of timer."

"A machine, maybe?" Claire jumped in after gathering her thoughts.

"It would explain the van. Not just to get Sera and go, but something in that van was weakening us." John replied.

"WOAH! Welcome to the conversation!"

"Gr...shuddup."

"Wear off...you know, now that I think about it, shortly after they left my healing started to come back. I just figured it was whatever was affecting us  had left too."

"Then maybe it was a machine. It can only dampen our ability for a limited amount of time and that's why they rushed out. Regardless, at least we now know what happened to Seraphina. Her  strength was reduced, and that's how they were able to get her. She managed to escape, but they traced her back here. Whatever she was injected with rendered her unconscious."

"But how did they know where to find her? Did they follow her...? Or maybe they already knew where she would go-!" Arlo stopped, remembering a conversation he had with Remi.

"John!"

"What?" He stood up and sat back down beside his couch.

"A while ago, you went to Kovoro Mall with her, right? You stopped by a booth that took ability measurements and she scored a prize?"

"What the...how did you know? Were you stalking us?"

"What? No! Remi stopped by the same booth last week. She found a tracker in both her's and Seraphina's prizes."

"What? What do you mean "a tracker"?"

"Something that pinpoints your-"

"That was a rhetorical question!"

"Did Seraphina stop by here before returning to the dorms?"

"Er...yeah. I think she spent the night...!" Everyone except Claire's eyes widened in shock. She just sat and listened, trying to piece together her own theory.

"No way."

"Then this place has been under surveillance since that incident." John sat there, cursing himself for never noticing.

"That's bullsh*t! Don't lie to me, asshole!"

"What...? Why would I lie about something like this?"

"John. It makes the most sense in this scenario. And since it wasn't an ability, you'd have never noticed it." Claire finally said, making John sigh in defeat.

"Sera never mentioned anything about a tracker in the bear."

"That's not even the point! I'm telling you, whoever these guys are have been planning her abduction for over a month now! Why can't you get that through your head?"

"You know, Arlo. Not everyone spends an entire month planning the downfall of a single person." Arlo was taken aback by the comment, and turned away in annoyance.

"Hey. If all this is true, what do you think they want with her?"

"I don't know."