Mallory Is Medusa

Chapter Twenty Three

"So, not only the whole city of Colossus Gate is missing, but now three of our own are?" Alisa asked as they sat around the campfire eating breakfast.

"How is it possible that they just disappeared?" Noah asked. "There's no way that Ben would just leave us all here."

"Remember, we're apparently up against a teleporting faerie. If they felt that we were getting too close, they might have snatched the others up to get them out of the way." Leo said. "If that's the case, then we'll need to contact Alabasan to tell them. It'll become an official report at that point."

"More importantly, how are we supposed to continue on without the brunt force of our group?" Milo asked. "Sure, Leo and I have some abilities because we're reincarnations, and Noah and Alisa are in the training program, but how are we supposed to battle against Medusa and a member of the fae?"

"We can't. There's not much even an entire room of reincarnations, people in the training program, and people designed to cleanse the reincarnations could do to handle Medusa, and now we have another unknown variable." Leo said, crossing her arms. "Our best bet would be to round up all of the reincarnations we have left and take them to one place and then evacuate all of Alabasan. If Medusa knows where the cleansing takes place, she'll aim to destroy it using the help of any other monsters and the reincarnations that haven't been contacted by Alabasan. She'd destroy the city, and anyone in it, in the process. We can't let that happen."

"There's another unknown variable, too." Mallory said, though it sounded like she was apprehensive. "When Medusa first came out of my body, she knew who Ben was. She knew that his mother made us mac and cheese. Things like that. She didn't recognize Mikey, or anyone else in the room."

"What does that have to do with anything?" Noah asked. "You think that Medusa is going to see Ben if the faerie really did capture them and she's going to do bad things to him?"

"That is a factor, but that's not what I was going for." Mallory said. "I didn't know Mikey or anyone else in that room at the time either. It's possible that, while in my body, Medusa was able to see and hear what I was seeing and hearing."

"That makes sense." Alisa said. "But that shouldn't matter now."

"See, that's what I was going to ask. Mikey said that I could reabsorb Medusa since we're still connect. He said that I'll always be her reincarnation, or something like that. Is it possible that she could still see what I am seeing?" Mallory asked.

They all sat quietly, pondering. It was definitely possible. It was also terrifying. There was no way to not include Mallory in the mission since they needed her in order to absorb Medusa, but they also couldn't find Medusa if she knew their every move.

"What do we do then?" Alisa asked. She chuckled, and it was a dark sound Mallory had not heard from the girl. "This is so stupid. It sounds like the trails some storybook characters would face. Everything seems to go wrong for us, and now Ben, Mikey, and Jenna are missing in the middle of the country, which is only the country because the city was teleported away by a faerie who's working with, at the moment, our most evil of enemies."

"It does sound like a story, doesn't it?" Mallory asked quietly. She felt again like crying, which was a feeling that she'd become more and more used to since she'd been released from her house in the swamp.

The days that went by without Ben went by some much slower, she'd realized on the third day of her travels with the reincarnations. Now, he was gone for who knows how long, if not forever. If Medusa was smart, and Mallory knew that she was, she would have killed Ben by now, if she had him. Either that or she should use him and the other two as bargaining chips. That was a good idea, and Mallory, which no experience of the real world except for what had happened in the past month, knew that.

They decided not to leave the hill for another night. That way Ben, Mikey, and Jenna would have a few more hours to catch up to them before the group kept moving. Every second they stopped moving was another second that Medusa either got farther away from them or got closer to building a team to defeat them.

Mallory laid in her tent, with the two girls on either side of her. Leo was clinging onto Mallory's arm while she slept, and Alisa was laying on her stomach with her leg spread over Mallory's own, but Mallory felt so alone. It was all her fault that her friends were missing. It was all her fault that they were trying to find an ancient monster who had been released on the world.

It was all her fault, and she had to fix it.