Convergence

Chapter Eight: Blue

It took a while for them to catch up with Nick, Ella, Matilda, Alistair, and Wylie, but as they finally did, they all seemed to cluster up and bump into each other.

"Where'd she go?" Alistair's head turned from side to side.

"All ten of you should not be here," a small voice echoed around them.

"Who said that?!" Matilda spread her hands out. "Show yourself!"

And the girl who ran materialized in front of them. "Calm down, Matilda Matkins. You can't hurt me."

"Wanna bet?" Matilda raised her hand, before Nick grabbed it.

"Matilda, hold on. She's like, nine years old."

And Matilda slowly lowered it. "Alright. But who are you? What are you doing here?"

"My name is Zoey Ansley." She smiled, waving her staff. "It's been 46 years since I came here. And some of you have been here for almost as long. Right, Morgan and Riley?"

"How do you know our names?" Riley stepped forward fearlessly.

"That's my job." Zoey smiled, waving her staff in the air.

The wind picked up, but it was no fault of Ella's; she knew that herself. Visions of purple and blue danced in the air, everyone looking up in amazement at the pictures being made in the sky. The splash of color sparkled on the faces of everyone, however inhumane, and brought light to a world that had become darker, yet darker.

"Your stories are all unique, and fascinating." Zoey waved her staff in the air, purple dust spinning around her hand as she created copies of Morgan, Riley, Pyro, Xudio and River. "However tragic they may have ended," she said as it now created images of Nick, Matilda, Alistair and Wylie, "they were nonetheless incredible."

"You sound amazingly mature for a nine-year-old." Alistair scoffed.

"Only my body's a child." Zoey smiled, looking down. "I've been here for almost fifty years, remember?"

"I know who you are too," Nick stated. "You started all this."

"Yeah, I did." Zoey's small voice gave a chuckle, though she clearly wasn't happy about it. "And I promise, as grim as the situation seems, I'm on your side."

"On our side about what?" River repeated with a question. "What's happening?"

Zoey put her staff down, as the purple and blue magic sparkled down from the sky. "I don't want to be here either. As far as I'm concerned, all but two of you are dead, and those two had awakened all of us. Nick and Ella."

Ella looked from Nick to Zoey, blinking. "Us?"

"You're more powerful than you realize, Ella." Zoey looked solemnly at her. "And your mentor knows this."

"Yeah, tell me about it." Nick nodded in agreement. "This kid's probably stronger than I am."

Zoey didn't say anything in response, knowing they were wrong. She just smiled, and looked at the group of ten souls brought together. "You all have some sort of power that's linked you here. When you died, your souls were caught in a net, so it could feed from you."

"What is feeding from us, though?" Xudio asked.

"And will we need to fight it?" Wylie piped up, following Xudio's question. "I'm not against it, but I've been fighting a lot lately."

"Well, I should hope you'll fight it." Zoey hushed her voiced to a whisper. "But we can't talk about it too much. Not here."

"What do you mean, not here?" Matilda pushed with the questions. "Where else would we go?"