The True Meaning of A Warrior

Chapter Eleven: From the Base (EVE)

"Is it ready?" Stella's voice called from outside the doorway. The entire room rattled as she knocked from outside the room.

"Not quite, but almost. Come in," I ushered a reply, allowing myself to lift my head once to gaze slowly at the doorway.

Click! The room's lock gave way, and then the door was heaved open with a mighty swing. Stella and Zara stepped in, their arms filled with baskets of food.

Dinner.

My mouth watered; I hadn't eaten all day, missing lunch and breakfast working on my project. The only time I'd paused in my deep concentration was when I'd heard some kind of strange scream outside...but oh, well. I'm not sure what it was. I couldn't recognize the scream...and maybe it was just a young girl who'd seen a spider for the first time. Who knows.

Anyway, the story is, after we'd discovered the Dark's main base, we marked it on the map, but weren't daring enough to actually enter in and sneak around.

After all, the place must be swarming with Dark soldiers.

Anyway, after that, Zara had had the idea to place a recording camera into the base of the Dark to record it and then pick it up a few days later; this way, we could video-tape and spy on the Dark...in a much safer way. Ever since, I'd been working with the Chosen Ones, joining my swords' powers with theirs to create some sort of...video camera.

I'd missed lunch and breakfast this way, but luckily, Stella and Zara were generous enough to pick up dinner from the kitchen and bring it into the bedroom on steamy wooden plates and crystal-clear glasses of water. They were also extremely kind and helpful for filling up with my collector duties for the day; they'd each done seven and a half hours of collector work, to fill up for me while I worked with the Chosen Ones. As for the Chosen Ones, well...the Spring Tribe leader was generous enough to give them a day off.

"Hey, you guys, chill and have some dinner." Zara's lips twitched into a smile that curled at the edges of her teeth. She and Stella headed over to the table that we were all crowded around; a table messy with papers, journals with drawings and writing scribbled all over them, and other materials used to create the camera. Examining our work carefully, they dumped many platters and glasses of water onto the table, almost spilling their food over our project.

"Hey, be more careful with that," Brooke muttered, starely in intense concentration at the camera, as if trying to make it out. Finally, she let a little gasp escape her mouth, and reached over the table, snatching a pen and the notebook.

"You got something, yo?" Stone leaned in eagerly, as Brooke began scribbling furiously on the piece of paper.

"Yeah, yeah. You guys got to eat. All five of you missed breakfast and lunch!" Stella remarked. It seemed she and Zara had given up on trying to figure out our confusing work; she grabbed a steaming hot dinner roll and crammed the front of it in her mouth, chewing thoughtfully.

"Uh-huh," I muttered, subconsciously reaching for a dinner roll. Warmth showered my fingers as I lifted one to my lips and took a massive bite, filling my stomach with warmth and relief from my hunger. With my other hand that wasn't holding the dinner roll, I pointed to Brooke's writing. "Hey, you done writing? I want to see that notebook for a second."

Brooke nodded pensively, passing the notebook down to me. Half eating my dinner roll, I examined her complex writing and drawings. Everybody else at the table stared at me, waiting for my making of Brooke's writing.

My forehead creased as my gaze shifted between all the confusing words, and then darted back again. If we did that, that would alter the electricity's powers...but if we did this...