Legion of 8

Chapter 9: Ella

I'd pulled all-nighters before, but never like this. It was already late at night when we'd arrived, and we researched all night, as well as far into the morning. It was mostly silence, with the occasional interjection only being when someone found out something interesting they wanted to share with the rest of the group. De had put on some music, so it wasn't entirely silent, but still. I think she liked the aesthetic of research more than she liked the actual research because though she had the perfect playlist and messy bun, her fancy gel pens and notebook sat mostly untouched.

Acer had been occasionally dozing off, and once he arose from his most recent napping stint, he said, "Okay, if this night is going to go on, I'm going to need some coffee. I'm gonna fly to Lava Java, anybody want anything?"

"I don't think Lava Java is going to be open," Coda crossed her arms and looked up from her computer, where she'd been splitting her time between research and bossing people around.

"They switched to the twenty-four-hour model last month, remember?" Acer responded, getting up from the chair and stretching his wings.

"I know," said Coda, "But there's not many places open now due to everything going on."

"I'll fly there and it's not far," Acer grabbed his wallet from the counter, "What do you want in case it is open."

"Chai tea latte," said Quillion, not even so much as looking up from his area, which took up half the table with his laptop, planner, several notebooks, and a hoard of pens.

"Whipped mocha caramel frappe, please!" De enthusiastically added, "With oat milk, no whipped cream."

Acer shot her a weird look but still wrote it down on his arm along with Quillion's order.

In contrast, Safiya just said, "Large black coffee," before getting right back to work. She'd collected the most notes out of all of us, her notebook a mess of notes and connecting red lines. As for what she'd found, I wasn't sure, but I could see the gears turning in her head from where I sat next to her.

Harvey didn't look up from his work, just mumbled as he stared at his computer screen, "Same, but with an extra shot of espresso." I guess he needed the extra caffeine with all the work that he'd been doing. I hadn't seen him take a break all night.

I was learning that Harvey was the type of person who didn't start things often, but when he did, he was intent on getting them done.

"Same, I'm gonna need the caffine" Coda laughed as she went back to her laptop to finish her research, before wrinkling her nose at Acer's almost blank notebook, "That's all you've gotten?"

Acer didn't respond, and instead just looked at me after writing everyone else's order down. I had no idea what I wanted because granted, I'd never been to a coffee shop in a superhero town, so I just gave my best answer.

"Something with tea?" I shrugged.

"I gotcha," Acer put the pen down and pointed finger guns at me, "I'll get you what I'm getting."

He left, and the rest of us got back to work. I wasn't being much help in the grand scheme of things, as I had already gone through the entirety of the book Coda had showed me, and I wasn't even sure where to look outside of that. None of the other books on the digital bookshelf looked to be of any help, and I didn't know where to even start on the internet. Safiya probably had most of the research covered anyway.

Safiya eventually leaned over to me, "Hey, if you're not having much luck with research, you can always see if you can find a spell that will close the portal."

I shook my head, "How am I going to do that if the portal isn't open?"

"You tell me," Safiya shrugged and went back to her own work. Reluctantly, I took the pen I had been using for notes and opened my backpack, where I pulled out my notebook of the spells I figured so far, as well as the original book I'd used to get here. Carefully, I studied the symbol I'd drawn in the book and copied it onto the page of my notebook, but nothing happened.