United (Magics AU - Part 1)

Chapter 37 - Ruby

Ruby needed to sit down, but there was nowhere to settle; so she leaned heavily against the wall behind her. She had been trying to tell herself from the beginning of all this that she should expect the worst and try to cope with it, but this was not at all what she'd tried to prepare herself for. Ruby had been twelve and uninvolved when the Darks had been banished, but she remembered hearing stories about the horrible being called The Dark Lord. She remembered hearing that millions of people around the world died, including almost all of the Light race. 

And now Shintaro was saying that The Dark Lord was returning. Ruby couldn't tamp down the terrified panic that was rising in her chest, and she knew that trying would do her no good. She closed her eyes and pressed one hand to her face, swallowing hard against the sick feeling in her stomach. 

How was this happening, and why was it happening so soon? Everything Ruby ever read in history was falling apart - the Shadows, the Darks, and the Shadowbeasts had been banished, so why were there suddenly thousands of them regaining control of Earth? Everything Ruby remembered wasn't true anymore - peace was a long way away now, and according to Shintaro, there was no way to reach out and pull it back. 

The wave of nausea slowly disappeared, and Ruby breathed a long, shaky sigh through her nose. But before she could even push herself away from the wall, let alone speak, the whole room erupted into chaos. 

"What did I tell you?" Linda exclaimed, her tone harder and sharper than Ruby had ever heard it. 

"How do you know that?" Amy said over her friend's voice, pointing an accusatory finger at Shintaro. 

"Where do you plan on going? What are we going to do?" Falte asked at the same time as Amy, his voice panic-stricken. 

"This can't be happening again," Aaron said, but his voice was quiet enough that it sounded like a mumble underneath the rest of the speakers. 

"How are we supposed to know what to do?" Marcus said over Aaron, his voice rough and shocked. 

"You can't leave," Chase said frantically, sounding more panicked with each word. 

"What?" the girl with the midnight hair cried in a panicked voice, her eyes wide, terrified, and confused. 

Faintly, Ruby was aware of Esther's voice - "Hey! What do you think you're doing?" - and then a deep, commanding voice sternly broke through the clamor. 

"All of you get ahold of yourselves!" the man named Caynen, now sitting up shakily on the medical bed, snapped harshly, his dazzling blue eyes trailing over every one of them. His hard frown was etching firm lines around his mouth and between his eyes, making Ruby wonder how old he was. Esther was standing beside him still, holding a bloody cloth in her hands and eyeing the half-stitched stab wound in Caynen's side; but the man was ignoring her and his pain. 

"You, keep going," Caynen said to the doctor, and she ducked her head to continue cleaning the blood away from his wounds. 

When Caynen spoke again, he wasn't paying attention to Esther anymore. "You all have every reason to be shocked and concerned about this, but freaking out about your problems has never gotten anyone anywhere. While you all take a moment to regain yourselves, I unfortunately have to reinforce what Shintaro has already said. He cannot stay here, because it will only bring destruction and death upon Ariel. There is nothing any of you can do to change that, and it is up to Shintaro if he's going to take action to protect you all or not. Knowing Shintaro," Caynen added a little quieter, "he has already set his mind into leaving." 

Ruby saw Chase shake his head, but the teenager didn't say anything. Instead, he dropped his gaze again to the floor in front of his feet, his hands shaking at his sides.