Guardians of Plaxas

Chapter the Tenth: Opal

They're in the office for hours.

I'm not joking.

After what happened in the hallway, Bella brought me to Carrie's office. When we told her we found my source, she phoned my trainer right away. I was forced to show what I could do for them--I managed to get into my trainer's emotions, into her energy.

I was informed, by my trainer, that my source is manipulation, after we did a few more tests. I've never heard of a source being manipulation before. It just sounds like I can control....everything.

And then Carrie and my trainer made us sit on the bench outside Carrie's office and they went inside and talked.

For hours.

I have no idea what they were talking about, but Bella and I are forced to sit here. Someone brings us lunch at around noon which is good because neither of us have eaten breakfast and we're both starving.

At 1:30, Kaitlynn comes by. She has a worried look on her face and when she spots us she looks surprised and relieved. "Oh, gee! Where were you guys?"

Bella sighs and points her finger towards me. "Ruby here decided that today was a great time to find out what her source is and apparently it's SUPER INTERESTING to Carrie and her trainer and they've been holed up in Carrie's office for hours chatting about it.

Kaitlynn looks impressed. "So what's your power, Ruby? It can't be that interesting!"

"My power is manipulation," I say. I still don't understand what the big deal is.

"Woah. So you can like control people and stuff like that? You can just....make them do what you want them to? That's so....creepy,"

"Is it really that big?" I ask her, already knowing the answer.

"Oh, yeah! Says Bella. "I mean, she can like get into people's minds and control people like that!"

"It's....not exactly like that," I say, feeling uncomfortable.

"Are you sure? It sure seems like that,"

Because she seems to want to know what to feel, I reach into her mind, feeling her emotions. Boredom and excitement. Angriness because her friend is slowing down her learning process.

I latch onto that last one, trying to push it out of her head and leaving the mental message, "It's not my fault!"

I back out of her mind after that, and I find her nervous and shaken beside me on the bench.

"Did you really just do that? What....what did you do? What was that?"

I look at her, feeling hurt. "I latched onto your emotions, and I controlled them. Bella, were you really angry at me because my source didn't come? You know I can't control that!"

"I-I'm sorry, Ruby. I-I guess I just didn't understand how....how this power choosing thing works." she stammers.

I appear in her mind again, this time with a different intention. I feed her my emotions right now. Disappointment. Embarrassment. Hurt. And....The feeling that I don't belong."

Bella looks over at me. "I'm sorry, Ruby. I didn't realize how you felt."

Kaitlynn watches us. "Woah. Can you....do that to me? What does it feel like?"

Bella shudders. "It feels weird. You don't want it to happen to you,"

Kaitlynn looks excited though, so I try.

Her mind is....bright. It seems to sparkle and shine and her emotions are ones of friendliness and happiness. Excitement, like Bella. There's a lot of them, some of which I've never heard of, like Jouska.

"Ahem."

A hand closes on my shoulder and I'm pried away from Kaitlynn's very fascinating mind to find myself looking into the face of Carrie.