Sophie grew tired of the constant Neverseen attacks that were terrorizing the Elven population, along with her friends and family. After regaining contact with the Black Swan, Sophie and her friends begin to fight back. But after learning the heartb...
"How can you feel like this will work Alvar?" A voice asked behind them. They snapped their heads around and saw Ruy standing there. He had no signs of reinforcements or weaponry on him.
"Ruy..." Alvar whispered. Ruy glanced back at the base.
"She is going to find out any minute now, and she will capture you. You have seen what she has done to traitors. What about Lilac? What will they do to her?" Ruy asked, looking at Lilac.
"I hate that building Ruy." LIlac started. Everyone seemed kinda startled that the shy little girl piped up.
"How can you stand being in there? The screams of tortured echo through the hallways. The terror among their own members of failure is contagious, everyone terrified of one another." Lilac asked. Ruy's face was plastered with a bunch of different emotions.
"We are going to Inalia-" Sophie started. Ruy glanced at her, wondering what she was doing.
"And I want you to come with us." Sophie declared. Ruy looked surprised that Sophie was extending her offer to him, and so was Sophie, but she just felt it in her core. She couldn't leave him.
"If I spend one more minute in that building, I'm going to kill her Ruy. And we both know that is only going to get me murdered. I miss my people, I miss my family, who I don't even know are alive anymore. But there is more to life than hiding in terror from your own blood." Sophie said.
"You say she is your family, I say blood. A family is a group of people who support, love and watch out for one another. And you have gone too long without one. She has been nothing but careless, cruel, and vindictive to you your entire life, and you just happen to share her blood. but that doesn't mean you have to ber her puppet and call her family!" Sophie begged her hand tight on Lilac's shoulder. Ruy glanced back at the Neverseen base one more time, not knowing what to do.
"Come with us," Sophie whispered. Ruy glanced at Sophie, and Sophie saw his eyes were slightly tears, but he blinked them away before Sophie could say anything.
"Okay." He whispered. He was about to walk forward, but a roar echoed through the trees, startling everyone.
"Shit, the troll guards. Everyone go!" Ruy said, motioning everyone out the exit. Sophie picked up Lilac and rushed for the exit, glancing behind her and saw two ogre warriors following her. Sophie tried to inflict on them, but like when she tried with Alvar, the power flickered and died in her hands. Alvar vanished, holding Maha's hand and making her invisible too. Ruy took a device from his pocket and threw it towards their pursuers. It released a heavy thick smoke, and Ruy started to follow out the escaping prisoners. He made it through the exit, and when the trolls were almost to the exit, he flashed up a blue forcefield around the exit. The trolls couldn't stop in time and hit the blue shield at full speeds, flying back 20 feet and being knocked out cold.
"Nice hit." Sophie complimented, still holding Lilac close to her chest.
"Thanks. Now how do we get to Inalia?" Ruy asked. Sophie thought back to how you exited and entered Inalia.
"We don't know how many exits are still up and running after the attacks. But the best one has to be in, well..." Sophie trailed off.
"Where?" Maha asked.
"The Forbidden cities." Sophie chuckled. Everyone went silent.
"Will I have to eat a corn dog? I heard human eat those things by the pack." Lilac asked, honestly worried.
"Okay, well let's get going," Alvar said. The other prisoners thanked them and said if they want to go to Inalia, they will, but they need to go home to their families first.
"Alvar I'm going to transfer over the instructions to get into Inalia. There is something I need to do first." Sophie said, transferring over the instructions.
"Can I come with you?" Lilac asked as Sophie put her down.
"It's just a quick errand. Stay with Alvar and everyone-" Sophie looked at everyone.
"I'll be quick," Sophie confirmed.
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Sophie pulled herself up the side of the Lumangwe base. Sophie had a tough time teleporting over to the base and reminded herself she needed to find a doctor about her finicky powers. Sophie pulled herself into the girl's dormitory, carefully trying to not make any noise. Sophie looked around for her bag and her journal. She saw that they were both gone, and Sophie heard voices from the commons. She creaked open the door and saw her team all huddled around her items, looking through them for clues.
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"Tam, tell us again what the tattoo look like?" Keefe asked, huddled over a sketchbook. Tam explained Sophie's tattoo to Keefe, who sketched it onto his sketch pad. Fitz, Dex, and Biana were gathered over her journal.
"By these notes she made, it sounds like she figured out who her family was." Biana reasoned.
"Why wouldn't she tell us all of this?" Dex wondered. Fitz picked up her journal and looked at all of her notes and drawings.
"Right here, this watercolor drawing. It looked like her when she was little. And the man she is hugging, he has brown eyes as well. I think he might be her dad." Fitz reasoned. Fitz looked terrible, his hair was longer and messy around his head. His teal eyes looked muted of color, and he had deep undereye bags.
"Maybe we could bring this all to the collective. They might be able to help us identify the symbols." Linh whispered. Everyone left Sophie stuff scattered all over the floor as they left to find the collective. Sophie didn't even notice she was crying until she went into the light. Sophie collected all of her things and put them into her duffle bag, leaving behind their notes. Sophie wanted to do is explain everything to them, but she knew in her heart that she just couldn't. IT would be too hard to explain, and it would be easier if she were assumed... missing.
Even then, Sophie wanted to just run to her friends and hold them tight, but she knew she just couldn't. Right as Sophie was about to sneak back out the window, she heard her friends start to walk back. Sophie couldn't just leave them. Sophie slowly unraveled the brown ribbon from her short hair, and delicately placed it on the table. Sophie watched as her friends burst through the door with the collective on their heels, their jaws falling when they saw all of her stuff gone. Fitz leaned down and picked up the bronze ribbon, feeling it shift through his fingers. Sophie glanced at her friends one last time before throwing herself out the window. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
