Shadowforce

EMMA

I was planning to take a ride myself but since Charlie was awake I decided to take him anyway. I needed to get out a little and get some fresh air; I just wanted to be outside. After giving Charlie a little tour of Octave, Charlie started asking some questions to which I gave some brief answers since I preferred silence.

After we returned back to the Mansion all of us met in the team training room all ready for combat. I made Brittney, Lucy and Scott use the most difficult energy consuming spells. I asked Catherine and Drake to practise their transformations so they could transform from bat form to human form and vice versa instantly giving them the advantage of air attack; while I made Josh and Charlie practice their jumps and leaps. I wanted them to be able to play their strengths. We trained for three hours till 8 O' clock, and then we went for breakfast all hungry.

We all waited in the dining table as Alfred and the other gnomes served us our Grand breakfast. There was nothing so grand about it; it was just everybody's favourite dishes. They were overjoyed to have their favourite food. I was just having a plain orange juice as everybody looked at be curiously,

"What?" I Said.

"Is that all you are having?" Brittney asked.

"Yes..."

"But why?" Lucy questioned

"What do you mean by why exactly?"

"What she means to ask you is why you are just having one glass of juice while you have arranged for us such nice..."

"Sorry to interrupt you Charlie, but I have no interest in food. And I was not the one who planned all there Alfred was." I informed Charlie.

"But you said..."

"I said nothing, now dig in."

They were a little hesitant at first but soon everybody was chatting about something or the other until Charlie started describing Octave. All the six of them listened to him with great attention gulping down both food and information. I did not take much time to finish my breakfast considering it was only a drink so I got up from the dining table, excused myself (Which they most probably did not even notice)and went to my room.

I looked around trying to remember why I was back in my room, and then the purple pendant caught my eye. Alice had given it to me when she had returned from a particular quest. We both wore two identical pendants mine was purple while hers was blue. She had said that the blue colour reminded her of me while the purple colour would make me remember her. That was before I knew there was a tracer within it. Even the blue pendant had one tracer but it no longer seems to work. I search for her everyday day at least once; she is the only family I have left. I am not saying that we were close but still I don't wanna lose another member of my family if I haven't lost her already.

I decided to wear that pendant on my first quest which would at least make me think that Alice was around. I put on the pendant and looked at myself in the mirror, the pendant did stand out in my combat dress and so I decided that I would wear it right before leaving.

I went downstairs and the others were still chatting,

"Time to go train again!" I announced as they groaned but they got up and followed me to the training room.

It seemed that all the seven of them were friends now, but I didn't exactly know... I never heard their conversations. I had no intentions of being friends with any of them. I don't exactly believe in friendship but anyways, they seemed to be doing fine until now... no major fights till now.

We trained fine and successfully managed to open the door to the level five room. I was quite satisfied with the progress actually and so we finished our training right before it was time for lunch. All of them finished their lunch quickly and got up,

"Where are you guys going?" I asked them.

"Are we not going to train?" Josh questioned.

"No... The training is over and since you all have finished your lunch go and get ready we will leave in one hour."

"But I though you said we will be leaving around 5 O'clock in the evening. It's 3:15 now; we still roughly have two hours."

"Yes Catherine, we will be leaving one hour early then. Go to your rooms and get ready, your luggages are most probably already in Octave. So just get ready."

And so everybody went to their rooms without many questions. Meanwhile I returned to my room changed and put on the pendant.

By the time I went downstairs everybody were all ready to go. So we then went to the basement, got into Octave and rode away from Helbram Mansion to Dikika of the Ethiopian Desert.

The journey was unbelievably long, we even ran into some thunder clouds. Remember about how I had said that I never listened to their conversations? This time I did since I had nowhere to go... I couldn't just walk away. They all wanted me to tell them about the different functions of Octave. Lucy and Brittney always ended up fighting; it was also the same for Charlie and Catherine. Josh, Scott and Drake remained silent most of the time and when they did talk they managed to startle me every time.

In the end I could not take it any more so I put Octave on auto pilot. It took all of them some time to realize that and when they did they all went to the kitchen except Josh,

"Are they hungry already?' I asked Josh surprised.

He just nodded to me understandingly.

All the others were enjoying the trip it was as if I was in a picnic or something. Josh never left the cockpit while the other never left the kitchen until it was midnight. Then everybody went to their respective rooms and fell asleep.