Kingdom Keepers: Next Generation (Unfinished/Unedited) *Republished

Chapter 14- A Meeting and Brooms

Sofia's POV

A few hours later, we were in the car going to the guy, Brad's, office. We sat quietly in the back. When we arrived, we were greeted by several guards who escorted us to an office in a nearby building. We met Emma, Eli, and Alex in a waiting room. Lucas and I still needed to explain to Emma and Eli about our powers. I pulled Emma off to the bathroom. I checked that no one was there before launching into my explanation. She actually took it better than I thought she would. Then I needed to show her my powers.

"Now, don't be afraid." I said, cautiously.

She looked curious. "What?" she asked.

I looked towards the line of sinks and raised my hand. Water burst from the sink and Emma looked at me.

"You and Lucas. It was both of you. But, you are opposites. He is fire and you are water. OMG!" she said, smiling at me. It caught me off guard. She was taking it so well.

"There is one more thing," I said, "Lucas and I are connected. So, if something happens to me or him, the other feels it. So, if something cuts us, the other gets cut in the exact same place."

I waited for her reaction. She looked slightly shocked.

"Why do I think you haven't told your parents about this?" she asked.

"Because we haven't. This is something we want to keep between us and you, Eli, and Alex. Not that we don't trust our parents, but, we want to keep this between as little people as possible. And we trust you guys. If we are going to find this Wayne guy, we need to know our strengths and our weaknesses. Strengths: our powers. Weakness: if one of us gets hurt, so does the other. If one of us goes down, well..." I didn't have to finish, she understood exactly what I meant.

"So, what do we tell Brad?" she asked.

"We tell him about the fire/water thing, but not the empathy. We can't let that slip out at all. It's important that they know that we have powers, but not the weakness of those powers. We don't know who we can trust."

We were led down a hallway to an office. The guy who we saw at our parents' filming was sitting in one of those spinning office chairs and was staring at his computer screen. Our parents sat us down in five chairs opposite of his desk. I sat down next to Lucas and Emma.

"Brad, I can explain..." my dad started.

"You didn't tell me he was a fairlie." Brad said, not taking his eyes off the screen.

"To be fair I didn't know." My dad retorted.

"You didn't know?" Brad said, looking up at my dad. "How could you not? I thought their powers showed at a young age."

"Normally they do." My mom said.

"Well, it doesn't matter now that Maleficent is back and knows about him."

"Back?" Alex asked. "She was gone?"

The room went silent. Our parents and Brad looked extremely uncomfortable. I tried to break the silence.

"Why does Maleficent want a fairlie anyway?" I asked.

"Who knows? The point is you crossed over and put your lives in danger. Your brother's powers are exposed. If you want to protect him, then you guys need to not cross over anymore." My dad said.

"Maybe if you guys didn't keep the secret from us, we wouldn't have wanted to in the first place." I said, standing up.

Water burst from the cup on Brad's desk, making a geyser erupting from the bottom of the cup. He looked up at me with a different look in his eyes. I couldn't tell if it was fear or understanding. I stopped the geyser with a flick of my hand.

"I'm sorry." I said as Emma and Lucas pulled me down back to my seat.

As soon as I turned my unplanned geyser off, the things that had been soak dried. I suspected that Lucas had something to do with it though, as steam came off from the now dry papers. He zoned back into me.

"Both of them?" Brad asked, still staring at me. I looked away under his stare. Alex was staring at something outside the window. Eli had a look in his eyes like I had just confirmed what Lucas and Alex had told him. My dad nodded.

"But she doesn't know about her?" Brad asked, again.

"No." my mom said.

"I see."

"Hey, guys," Alex said calmly.

I looked over at him. He was still staring out of the window.

"What's wrong?" Emma asked.

"Lucas, what movie?" he asked.

My brother got up and looked out the window. A look of recognition dawned on his face. "Fantasia. The Sorcerer's Apprentice." He said.

Uncle Philby went to look too. His face went pale. He looked back to my dad and said one word: "Brooms."

It seemed to have an effect on our parents. My dad went to the window as I joined him. Lucas was right. Two broomsticks were "walking" towards the building outside. But they weren't really walking. Their "feet" were just two tuffs of bristles supporting their handle. They also had two stick hands that were carrying buckets. I couldn't see what was in the buckets, but my dad's face said he knew exactly what these brooms wanted.

"Sofia, Lucas, Alex, get away from the window!" my dad said, pulling us back.

We were about to fall, but my mom caught me and Uncle Terry caught Lucas. Alex was able to stay up on his own.

"What's wrong?" Alex asked.

"You have to get them out of here, now." Brad said.

"Agreed, we will see you soon." My dad said.

They pushed us out of the door. We were hurried down the hallway by our parents. As we got out of the building, the two brooms had turned into thirty. We were surrounded.

"Sofia." My dad said to me, "Get your friends out, get into the Hollywood Studios, that way, you will at least have some backup in the good characters."

"What about you?" I asked, not wanting to leave him.

"Don't worry about us. Just go!" he said louder.

I knew he wasn't going to take no for an answer. I grabbed Lucas and Alex's arms and pulled them with me. Lucas got Eli's attention, while Alex got Emma's. We ran for the park. As I looked back, our parents were in battle mode. I thought about how my dad had singled me out to take my friends to safety. I felt important, but I didn't know if I wanted that burden. My dad was the obvious leader of our parents, The Kingdom Keepers. Did he think I was going to be the leader? Like him? I didn't know it at the time, but that would be the last time I saw my parents for a long time.