"What is this place?" I asked in awe as I took a look around that new area.
There was a huge room which looked like it was bigger than... I didn't have anything I could compare it to, but it was huge!
But the room itself wasn't what shocked me, no. It looked like the place was some sort of shelter, or even a place to live.
There were many doors practically everywhere I looked, and in the middle was a huge, wooden table with well over fifty seats.
And the craziest thing? There were people going left and right!
"We do not need these anymore," Wu's voice rang in my ears as the torch in my hand was taken away.
I tore my gaze off of the scenery in front of me to look at him, only to see the once-lit torches not lit anymore.
How did he distinguish the flames in a matter of seconds?
I looked back at the place and took a closer look at the people rushing around. Many looked older than me, but also not that older at the same time.
But definitely over eighteen.
One girl, for example, had completely pink hair which looked pretty good.
I wouldn't think I'd be able to pull off pink hair with my black hair, when I thought about it.
Anyways, that girl was rushing from one door to the opposite one, walking right in front of me and Wu to get past. As she was nearing us, she looked up at Wu, only to focus on me instead.
She halted in her tracks, mouth open and eyes wide. I frowned, looking at Wu who was nodding his head at her.
She audibly gasped, throwing her hands up to cover her mouth, but didn't say or ask anything before she hurried away from us.
"What was that about?" I asked him.
He smiled at me. "Patience."
Then he turned around and walked over to a door, leaving me there to stand for a few seconds on my own.
This guy was testing my patience more than I could take. But I still wanted to have some answers, and if I were to ask more than I already did, he would give me the same answer.
Patience.
And let me tell you, I only had that much patience before hands would've gotten thrown.
"Are you coming?" he turned around to look at me as he stopped in front of a door, his hand on the shiny handle.
I nodded, finally coming back to my senses. I quickly hurried over to him and stood behind him as he turned the door handle and opened the door smoothly.
As I walked in after him, I immediately looked around, my mouth opening slightly at the magnitude of the, again, new area.
There were many bookshelves reaching up to the ceiling that were filled with different-colored books. The room didn't look like a room at all, it looked like a literal underground library.
So cool!
"We have everything we need down here," Wu began to tell me as I subconsciously grazed over the books with my finger as I walked by. "From this library here to our own bedrooms. We have a medical bay, as well as our own gaming room. This is our home, and it is also your home."
"How did you build this?" I asked after I had the feeling he was done.
"It was left behind by our ancestors, Nya. They wanted us to live up to their legacy."
"Legacy?" I furrowed my eyebrows.
"Yes, legacy. But before I tell you about yours, I want you to see for yourself. I want you to discover it," he smiled, coming to a halt in front of one of the books and taking it out of one of the shelves.
Before I had the chance to look at what the book was about, he hid the cover by lazily letting it hang down in his hand.
"And how will I discover it?" I asked, playing along in this little game he started.
Only, I had the feeling it wasn't much of a game anymore.
I could feel how he was holding back a grin as the one word I was tired of hearing escaped through his lips.
"Patience."
I bit the inside of my left cheek, desperately trying to control the words that were trying to get out. And they were definitely not good ones.
When I focused back on his face, I saw him looking back at me with a smirk on his lips.
Oh, how much I wanted to slap it off-
"Are you done?"
I snapped out of my gaze. "Huh?"
"Are you done?" he asked me again.
I nodded, letting a calm look return to my face. Of course he had to ruin that again.
"Good, because I thought patience wasn't much of your thing."
"Of course it is," I said through gritted teeth. "Why would you think it wasn't?"
"Oh, no reason," he answered me before walking past me towards the door. I did see his smirk as he walked past, though.
Knowing I couldn't get anywhere on my own, I followed the old man out of the room like a lost puppy.
He wordlessly went over to the other side of the place where another hallway led to another dark place, to which we lit torches again. Once we got to the end, there was a single door.
Wu opened the door, and immediately some sort of light shone through. He got rid of the torches again and walked in with me following him.
When I was able to look around, I was instantaneously greeted by shouting.
"You're ruining our streak!"
"I am not! You didn't pick up the power up, so we're stuck running instead of being able to fly!"
"Whatever!"
I gave Wu a questioning look which he returned with a shrug. The voices came from two different people, probably two men because of the deep, partly raspy voices.
We were surrounded by all sorts of things; a pool table, a dartboard hanging on the wall to my right with a few darts stuck to it, a bookshelf covering a quarter of the room (which I assumed was where the people were behind, because I couldn't see anyone at first glance), many posters of different things like bands and famous movies covering the walls, beanbags and chairs all over the place, a white fan in a corner, a whiteboard on the opposite wall which had what I assumed was an unfinished game of hangman written on it, and a round table in the middle of the room.
There were also sounds of aggressive clicking of controllers, and game music.
After a few more moments of awkwardly standing in the doorway with Wu next to me, he let out a sigh and went to the wall next to the door where a big, red button was located. He waited for exactly five seconds before pushing the button, causing the game music to stop abruptly.
The silence lasted for only a short moment before screams of frustration and probably anger took over.
"Oh, come on!"
"We totally had it!"
"Who cut the power?!"
It was all silent again, as if the people were looking at each other for answers, before shuffling was heard, and suddenly four figures appeared from behind the bookshelf.
I didn't think they noticed me standing there, because one of them immediately targeted Wu and stormed up to him with his pointer finger fiddling above Wu's nose. "How could you shut down the power?"
I looked at the boy and furrowed my eyebrows. It didn't seem like Wu had shut down the entire power because the lights were still on, so I assumed that button was only meant for the TV or the games console.
Then I focused on the boy who was ranting on about the important game that Wu had just interrupted.
He was tall, taller than myself and Wu, so probably above six feet because I was 5'7''. His hair was brown — as well as his eyes — and combed upwards in a weird way. He probably had hair gel in his hair for it to stay that way. There was a scar above his right eyebrow. He was wearing some sort of... tight, red body suit? It looked like it was a traditional type of clothing, but I couldn't put my finger on it yet.
As he was still talking about his lost game, I averted my gaze from him and focused on the three people behind him who were staring right back at me.
The first thing to catch my attention was the fact that they were all wearing the same clothes but with different colors.
The boy to the left was wearing all black. He had black hair, brown eyes, and very bushy eyebrows. On top of that, he seemed really buff.
The one in the middle was wearing all green which matched his bright, green eyes and his blonde hair.
The last one was wearing all blue. His blue eyes were mesmerizing as the freckles on his nose and cheeks were rather cute. He had lighter brown, almost auburn hair.
I gave the still rambling dude a side glance before giving the other three a questioning look with one of my eyebrows raised.
Two of them just shrugged and relaxed a little, whereas the blue guy kept on staring at me with an unreadable expression on his face.
"Kai, that is enough," Wu finally got to speak, rolling his eyes.
So his name was Kai.
"No, you don't get it! Lloyd and I were about to win, but no, you had to ruin it for what, another boring lecture?!"
"Kai-"
"Wu!"
At that, Wu gave him a hard look which immediately managed to shut him up. The old man then gave me a quick look which Kai copied. He then took a double take at me before widening his eyes.
"Who's that? Wu, why would you bring a stranger down here?!" Kai panicked.
You're not the only one who wants to know that, my dude.
"Patience, Kai," Wu said, making Kai roll his eyes at the word.
Guess he hates that word, too.
Kai then walked over to the rest of the boys and went to stand next to them in a line. When I looked at the other three again, I realized that the blue one had a weird glint in his eyes as he was looking at me. I had no idea why, but I didn't feel uncomfortable. I just wanted to know why he was staring.
"Students, this is Nya," Wu gestured towards me. Then he pointed at each of them from left to right. "Nya, these are Cole, Lloyd, Jay and Kai."
Huh, cool names, I guess.
"'Sup," Kai nodded at me before turning back to Wu. "Now why's she here?"
And that's when I just had to open my mouth.
"Kai," I emphasized, putting a hand to my heart and putting on my most annoyingly innocent face. "We've just met, and you already want me to go?"
His eyes widened in horror as Wu looked at him angrily. "N-No! I mean, I was just wondering what you were doing here, since-"
I then chuckled, causing him to stop rambling on about a poor excuse and look at me, unimpressed.
"I'm just kidding," I smirked at him. "But I'd like to know why I'm here, too. This guy is very secretive," I nodded my head in Wu's direction.
"I know!" the one in black — wait, Cole — exclaimed. "He literally never tells us what needs to be known until it's almost too late."
"You really need to work on your communication skills, uncle," the green one told Wu, causing my eyebrows to shoot up.
"He's your uncle?" I asked Lloyd, to which he answered me with a nod. "Interesting. Any other relationships I should know of?" I asked no one in particular.
The guys all shook their heads with casual 'no's and 'nope's, but Wu stayed silent.
"Okay, look, dude," I turned to Wu. I heard light chuckles coming from the boys but I chose to ignore them for now. "If they," I pointed at the four boys, "were the reason why I followed you across half of Ignacia, I'd regret to inform you that they're not really that interesting for me to drop everything and come here with you." I then turned to them and gave them a sheepish smile. "No offense."
"None taken," Cole assured me.
Wu then smirked after a short minute of silence.
"As I've said, there is a lot you don't know about yourself yet," he told me.
"Yeah, I know, it's not like you've told me this every time I asked you where you were taking me or anything," I told him while rolling my eyes.
The old man stroked his long, white beard as he turned around and began to walk back out of the room. I just stood there, looking at his disappearing form with a raised eyebrow.
Is he seriously leaving me alone with four guys I have just met like five minutes ago?!
Before he completely disappeared, he let out three words. Three weird words.
"Prepare the pit!"