Crystal Folly

Xeno, The Crystal Giant

As the truck approached the parking lot, Ender and everyone else inside watched it from a nearby window, unsure if it was Stella's sister. A minute after it parked, the rear right door gently opened to reveal Arthur, with a clean bandage on his wing, seemingly in a conversation with the driver.

"What are they saying?" Sadie asked, curious as to what could keep him outside instead of coming in and greeting everyone.

"Something about two artists I'm very familiar with. It's definitely Sonui in the front seat," Ender answered. "Let's go out there so that they know we were waiting," he told the group before heading downstairs himself. Everyone else followed shortly afterwards and noticed that he had transformed into his cat form right outside the entrance without making any noticeably loud sound.

"So you have gotten better at it," Arthur shouted from the truck. Sonui threw a snowball at him for yelling so close to her ears, which he surprisingly retaliated with his own. "Hey, careful with the wing, Sonui!"

A snowball hit Ender in the back from some unknown angle, which made him begin to scale the wall to look around for Stella. When he looked up, he immediately ran onto a window to avoid the next snowball. "Oh, come on! That's an unfair advantage and you know it!" he teased, hoping to get her to land.

"I'll come down if you teach me how to lift things," Stella replied, laughing. Before he had a chance to respond, she got on the ledge right below him and transformed into her cat form. She jumped on the wall and was mildly surprised when she could walk normally on it.

Before Ender could say anything, Sonui got out of the driver's seat and asked, "Where's Milo? I need to know about this Plane thing." Milo raised his arm upon hearing that and began walking towards her, taking the notebook out of his bag before he stopped at the car.

"We'll practice on the roof, its more snow up there to use," Ender whispered. He then proceeded to scale the hotel until he got to the top ledge. When he turned around, he saw that Stella had almost matched his pace, only a few steps behind him.

"I'm starting to get the hang of this!" she gleefully shouted. Someone below them opened a window only to see them both seemingly glaring down at them.

"Oh, it's you guys! Sorry to bother you, I had no idea you were training!" the stranger called out.

"Nah, you're fine," Stella replied. The stranger looked relieved and waved goodbye to them before closing the window. He looked oddly familiar, she thought. It might've been one of those retired interviewers we saved last year. "Back to getting on the roof, then," she told Ender, who seemed to be lost in thought. He jumped high enough to be at her ice dragon form's shoulders, landing cleanly on the roof, which Stella mimicked with ease.

"So here's the first lesson, selection and manipulation," Ender began, moving some of the snow around him. "It's the most important part of being able to move things around. Think of something you want to move that's nearby. It has to be pretty specific, so don't only think the snow on the roof." Once Stella looked as if she had a fixed point in her mind, he continued, "Now think of a direction you want to move it. Open your eyes so you can see it at least, that's very helpful." When he noticed that he was floating, he looked at her in amazement. "Why didn't I expect you to pick me over all the snow? Anyways, this is a super advanced thing to learn, seeing how you need to pay close attention to them."

After setting him down, Stella yawned and asked, "What color were my eyes glowing? I know yours are purple and Johann's got a greenish glow." She seemed more interested in this than the next lesson in Ender's eyes, so she got a "Neon blue" as her answer.

"Now back to the train..." Ender trailed off, hearing some sort of static on someone's television below them. "That doesn't normally happen. We need to investigate, more training later." They both ran down the wall and found the room it was coming from and walked through the wall. When they found the living room, there was a live news report currently going on from England about a different country.

"...multiple witness reports are saying the creature is entirely crystalline and is destroying any building in its path. No one truly knows the casualties and possible fatalities that have occurred since its appearance, but there are no known methods of destroying it. Our best warlock squad has been dispatched and has not reported back since they were deployed forty miles away from the creature. Fari Varis has had little to say in the matter, having just recently let the seven most capable people go on break. If any of them are watching this, please, try your best to stop this beast."

As the story continued to escalate, the room owner walked inside and saw both of them sitting in front of the T.V. in horror. "Shouldn't you guys go help take that thing down?" she asked, very worried about what might happen if they did nothing. They seemed to ignore her and walked back out the way they came. Have things become too much for them to look at it with a straight face? Not a single word was spoken on the walk back to the group. When they reached the suite, everyone noticed the shock on their faces.

"What's going on?" Arthur asked, nervous about the answer he might receive.

'It's Xeno. He's out there somewhere. And we need to stop him."