Crystal Powers

~31~

After the final goodbye, they headed out to their school.

At this point, they wondered whether or not school had already started.

When they eventually got to the building, were they going to have to go through a bunch of things? Sure, it was supposedly magical, but they only found everyone this year.

"Hold on a second," Camden said, stopping suddenly, making everyone look at him.

"We know where the school is, so why don't I just fly you guys there? It's with the extremely tall trees anyway so the fear of us being caught is smaller," he said, as he hovered over the ground.

The team shrugged. Although he flies often, it would be more efficient to just fly there - they didn't want to walk all those hours again.

"Well, I'm not sure you can carry all of us..." Phoenix said, giving Camden a suspicious look.

"Well, of course, I can, it's more whether or not you are comfortable flying." he said, "See? If you just hang on to one of my arms or legs, we'll be fine."

Phoenix still didn't break his look, but hesitantly went over and held his arm tightly.

"Alright, it seems as though we are leaving now. 'Kay everyone, hold on." Camden said as the two girls held his other free arm and leg.

They took off - with Phoenix still hugging Camden's arm like a koala.

They had been flying when suddenly, Camden swerved sharply to the left, causing the others to cling to him tighter.

They relaxed once Camden was flying at his normal pace again, but not long later, he began swerving, so sharp that it threw off the children as they all had to take a crash landing.

They were met with mud and dirt, each of them groaned because of the pain.

Phoenix got up, his sandy hair now colored dark brown and his face was covered with the same shade, only with a few strokes of green imprinted on his cheeks. He spits out some of the mud that had gotten in his mouth and used his hand to wipe some of it off.

"You said that we would be fine!" Phoenix shouted.

After getting the mud from his eyes. he looked up and had eye contact with not his team, but the same awful hunter from long ago.

"BEEP BEEP CODE RED CODE RED!" Phoenix shouts, but the hunter's hand was over his mouth, making it all mumbled.

"Listen, I'm not going to hurt you. All I need for you to do is to listen to the words that I am about to say," grumbled Ceren.

"How did you even find us..?" Phoenix whispered, feeling the fear in his stomach slowly rise.

"More like how did you find me - I was just walking when you guys fell from the skies," Ceren mumbled, slowly letting go of his hand from the boy.

"That was Cam's fault, but you told me to listen, so speak before I kick the shit out of you." threatened Phoenix.

"Oh, you must be a fighter, aye? I have to apologize-" Ceren started, but was cut off by Phoenix.

"What do you have to apologize for? Is this about...Tesla?"

Ceren opened his mouth to say something, but closed, thinking about how to word it.

"After I...got rid of your friend, I realized that the career that I had chosen, well, born into, was not the profession that I wanted to do. I don't want to kill innocent children, just because someone else thinks that they should be exterminated. My heart has changed, but please, you have to believe me. If they figure out that I quit, I am going to be killed. That's why I exterminated your friend in the first place. They would praise me and I would get by since I already left the group once." Ceren explained, his eyes brimmed with tears.

Phoenix looked at the broken man in front of him. He was still wary about what he claims. He witnessed him killing one of his team members, but looking at how damaged and heartbroken this guy in front of him looks, he wasn't sure whether or not to forgive him from his heart or out of pity.

The fire boy sighed, running his hand through his still mud-covered hair. Decisions, decisions.

Right as Phoenix was about to say something, he saw something move right behind Ceren.

A mud-covered, long-haired "beast" sat up and looked at the two boys in front of it. The thing's eyes widened and the creature washed with some water.

"What the heck are you doing, Phoenix?" Sapphire snapped, looking at the fire boy before flickering her eyes back to the killer.

"Shh, calm down...just listen to him. You were the guy who helped him in the first place, Sapph," said Phoenix.

Ceren took a deep breath and explained to the blonde girl his claims. She just stared at him until the very end of his speech.

"Hmph." Sapphire simply said.

"The only thing that you get out of me is pity," Phoenix confirmed, making Ceren sigh in relief.

"Thank you, I honestly mean it. Where are you even trying to get to?" Ceren asked.

"None of your business."

~~

Dawn and Camden stretched as they tried wiping the dirt off of their faces.

"I-I don't know what I did...I just accidentally swerved." Camden whispered. Dawn turned to face him. She saw that the band geek was looking directly away from her, but luckily she still could read his thoughts.

His mind was scattered with a bunch of self-blame - so much it gave Dawn a headache.

She went over and tried to clean off some of the dirt from his face. "Where are the others?" she asked, wiping the mud from his cheeks.

He shrugged, "Judging by the crash-landing, I'd say that they are just a few feet away."

And if on cue, they saw the mud-covered children wobble over to them.

"You guys alright?" Sapphire asked, washing the mud from everyone.

"For the most part, yes," Dawn said, running her hand through her hair.

Camden dried off everyone, as they discussed how much further they needed to go to reach their destination.

"Not too long, maybe another day's worth of flying, if nothing goes wrong," said Camden, staring at his shoes.

"We all are a little sore, but it would be better to fly rather than walking on sore muscles." Dawn explained.

After a few moments, everyone agreed with her.

"For now, let's just rest a little - today was quite exciting." Sapphire smiled, as she began climbing up a tree. Eventually, the rest of the team climbed and slept well.