Bridging the Divide

Three Legged Torture

Keefe

As soon as Sophie's presence entered his mind, Keefe exclaimed at her worriedly, FOSTER! Are you okay? And the truth this time, none of that 'I'm fine!' stuff. I saw the article. A limp, plus that scar that I assume was from your earlier kidnapping attempt?

Fine. Yes, I did get a little bit hurt, but my leg is as good as normal. The scar I hid because it A) was cool, B) would cause you to freak out and gain attention.

Well, remember that the worrying thing you're the master at? I'm really good at it too. These check-ins are pretty much the only way I don't spend my time pacing and chewing my nails.

You don't need to worry about me, Keefe, I'm sure you have a lot going on right now.

I worry about you because I care. A lot.

Ok... You're a good friend, Keefe. I assume you want the story behind the adventure?

Yes, please!

Okay, I promised not to tell you anything unless you saw something in the human news, but since you saw this mission I can FINALLY tell you the plan.

Secrets? Ouch, Foster. Keefe knew she'd be blushing right now.

I wanted to tell you! Anyways, even though it was a remote outpost they took me to when they nabbed me, it still had a lot of information and some very easy to interrogate agents. We were able to find a list of longitude and latitudes of Neverseen bases. 

At random points of time, the council sends messages, the team assembles, we go to the base, capture or dispatch the agents, secure anything that seems important, destroy the rest. 

We've gotten two bases, plus the ones you knew about already. The tide is turning. Soon, we'll all be laughing about those five, six years where we were trying desperately to defeat a bunch of evil people!

Be careful, Sophie. But yeah, that sounds like a great idea. Hey, quick question, what human candies should I try next?

Oh! I really like Reeses Peanut Butter Cups, Kit Kats are pretty okay, OH MY GOSH ALMOND JOYS!

Keefe smiled at how excited Sophie was getting. Many of the jokes he made and questions he asked were meant to make others feel better. 

As an Empath, he cared about others a lot. He knew from that how amazing Sophie was. Despite all of the horrible things that had happened to her, she was still getting extremely excited about candies in that honest way of hers.

Yeah, my favorites are most definitely Reeses and Almond Joys. You might not like that last one, though. Coconut is one of those like/hate things where about half of the world thinks one thing and the other half disagrees.

Sounds delicious, Foster. I'll have to try some of them. You, on the other hand, should probably go to sleep.

You too Keefe. Goodnight.

Goodnight, Sophie.

Keefe stared up at the roof of the cabin, which was so familiar to him after almost three months of being here. The summer... the summer was almost over, and maybe he would dare to go into the city and get some of those candies. Life was actually pretty sweet, despite all of the uncertainty of the fight against the Neverseen.

Sophie

Sophie was pressing her back against a tree, praying that her opponent would not see her as she passed, her long brown hair swinging in a braid behind her. Her pursuer was gone, and Sophie let out a puff of breath, only to be tagged out by her friend Biana.

"Gotcha!"

Sophie smiled, but her smile quickly turned into a frown when a slightly singed eagle almost crash landed, saved only by Sophie's reflexes. The eagle flapped her wings and landed on Sophie's shoulder, just barely digging her talons into Sophie's cloak to keep her balance, earning a surprised squeak from Fitz.

"Don't sound like a mouse, Fitz," she reprimanded absentmindedly. "She's hungry."

Fitz scooched a bit further away, so that nobody was within five feet of the huge bird except Sophie.

Facing the raptor, she asked it carefully, "What's wrong?"

The eagle shifted its talons and said carefully, There were black cloaks near my nest. One of them shot fire at me, then entered giant top hat guy's nose. I flew as far as I could in hopes of never seeing them again. Then, I landed here.

"Did you see a woman with a jeweled hairnet or a dark haired woman who yells a lot?"

Nope. The guy who singed me was kinda grumpy though.

"Thank you. There are plenty of trees around here, or you could head about..." Sophie turned, then pointed over the trees. "That way, and you'll get to a protected area. Nobody should bother you there."

The eagle nodded to her, then took off. Sophie noticed for the first time that her friends were staring at her incredulously.

Ignoring their looks, Sophie said, "Neverseen alert at Mount Rushmore. If we hurry, we can get them into custody tonight. Call the Council. No Gisela or Vespera, but our favorite pyromaniac is there. "

Sandor, Flori and Ro were somewhat used to her habit of talking with the alicorns, so they followed her, but Dex and the others were still blinking at her.

Linh squealed, "SOPHIE! Can you talk to animals now?"

Sophie nodded, then explained, "Fintan decided to take a shot at that eagle. She was pretty young. It was lucky she was able to fly this far."

A few minutes later, they had a party assembled, and were crawling their way up to Abe Lincoln's nose.

As promised, there was a hole they could all fit through. The mood has been serious, since they all wanted to stop this base from becoming operational. Sophie had briefly explained the importance of the mountain to the elves. If they did something to the national monument, humans would become scared and upset. Start pointing fingers.

Wars could break out. The humans would do the job of defeating each other. When they walked in, they found a few large explosive devices and a small group of arguing Neverseen agents. Shaking her head slightly, Sophie motioned for the group to cover their noses and mouths with the masks they had. 

Once everyone was safe, Dex tossed the sedative bomb into the group. The enemy agents only had a few seconds to wonder what was going on before they fell unconscious. Definitely one of Sophie's favorite inventions, because it gave the people who would hurt them virtually no time to react before releasing the gas. 

Each of her friends grabbed their handcuffs and clipped them around the wrists of one of the enemy agents, taking care to clip two people into the same pair, a habit that they came up with to slow the agents down if they somehow woke up, based on the many three legged races Sophie had seen, and once competed in with her sister.

When Biana had heard of them, she had sarcastically remarked that it sounded like some sort of torture device.

Tam had smiled in a way that made Sophie worry about the Neverseen's safety. "What if we use it as one?"

Now, they methodically followed Dex's instructions as they did whenever they came upon any sort of technology. Team Valiant had been kinda rough at first, but the many months had helped them perfect a system, asking friends for help. Marella often came to the more remote areas to help with destruction, and Linh to make sure nothing that wasn't supposed to burn got caught on fire.

She was still worried about Keefe, but as Sophie clipped wires to defuse the explosives, she was grateful that he was safe. Hopefully far, far away from Mount Rushmore. That night, Sophie flopped onto her bed and reached her mind out to Keefe's.

Hey, Foster.

Sophie had to smile at hearing the voice of one of her best friends.