Mixels: Descendants (Prologue)

Chapter 3: Wake of chaos

Back inside, Flurr, Zaptor and Volectro were given towel after towel to dry off, the latter pair not being accustomed to having to do so. Teslo hardly even moved from where he was seated, just blankly staring at the floor. The towel was simply thrown around his shoulders, drying up the areas of his skin it did touch. Anyone that came by to ask him about how he was doing was only given back a quiet "I'm fine" or another similarly worded answer.

After recovering from the mad dash downstairs and being accidentally body slammed by Seismo (which the poor Cragster apologized for at least twenty times), Flain was left sorting through what he was feeling. There was some level of relief that his friend wasn't harmed, but that was a speck of sand in the desert of every other thought. In those five or so minutes, he had gotten a glimpse as to the future for himself and the others, was still calming down from the sheer panic of the whole thing, and of course had been terrified the actions his friend had taken.

Taking a seat beside Teslo, Flain tried to figure out what to say next. Of course comforting his Electroid pal was a major priority, but nothing in the Common Mixallian language seemed to come close to what he needed to say. There'd been so few times this had happened, but it never stung any less.

What do I do, what can I do? Ask if he's okay? No, definitely not, he's clearly not okay considering what just happened. Ask if there's anything I can do? No, I know exactly what I could do to help, but if I had the answer to that, we wouldn't be here right now.

Eventually, Flain realized the only way to start this conversation and not ask a painfully obvious question was the sentence most Mixels probably wanted to ask after Flurr had pointed out exactly what Teslo was doing.

"Tes... Why'd you do it? You gave every Mixel a heart attack, you know what would've happened if you were wrong."

"I already knew that I wasn't..." Teslo answered, not even looking up at the Infernite to talk to him.

This managed to immediately douse any of Flain's other emotions, the tension draining from his whole body. He'd always known the Electroid leader as one of the most determined and unrelenting Mixels he'd ever met. If there was a problem to solve, whether it be a huge fight between friends, an experiment or invention not working right, or even just a hard video game level, Teslo would never give up on it. He'd seen that Mixel work for weeks, even months to get through whatever the problem was.

But now, he'd never heard Teslo sound so defeated in all his life.

"How, how did you know your powers..." He didn't dare finish the sentence.

"As an Electroid, I've always had this buzzing in my chest. Every single one of us has it, it's the source of our power. After having it for so long, I didn't even notice it. Not until it stopped. Flain, I know there's been Electroids born with less power that get by just fine, but, there's never been one with absolutely no power at all! Even mixing doesn't give us any kind of power boost anymore, and that just defies what we are as a species!!" Teslo half snapped at the end before taking a breath.

Flain gently took a hold of Teslo's shoulder in one hand to ground him. "Tes, it's okay, you don't need to be ready to fight right at this moment. No one needs you to Max, or even mix. We're safe here, and no one is in danger. Besides, it's been a long time since the Nixels have tried anything, and if anything were to happen and you need us, we'd be there, no questions asked." Flain reassured him gently, to which Teslo only responded with silence for a while.

"... Just having power for mixing isn't the only thing, Flain. Without it, it feels like I lost a part of myself, not just my power, but, like a part of who I am is just, gone. I can't fully explain it, I don't even get it, I can't even tell if half of what I'm saying makes any sense, but I..." Teslo's voice got caught in his throat as he stumbled over his words, trying to make his explanation make sense.