Q-Tip(KOTLC) {Completed}

15

Blur gently shook Janessa awake as she started to drift off.

"You have to stay awake, Janessa." Blur whispered urgently as they were led into Prentice's cell, where the rest of their team and all twelve Councillors were.

"What did you do to her?" Sophie demanded.

Everyone was looking at her in horror, Councillor Oralie had a hand covering her open mouth, her eyes full of pain.

Janessa struggled to lift her head. "It's not... their fault... The alarm scared me... prisoner I angered... grabbed me... ate my shoulder." Janessa trailed off in the middle of each point, barely managing to get all the words out before she coughed blood onto Blur's shirt. Her cloak was damaged beyond repair, the same as Keefe's.

Just then, everyone remembered the giant bugs in the room. Biana screamed as one of the arthopleura hissed at her. Keefe pulled her behind him.

"Yo guys, I hate to break it to you, but giant bugs are so last year. All the cool villains are threatening with ogres now."

"We are not the villains." Emery, the leader of the Council, snapped.

"Are you sure?" Granite asked. "Threatening children and letting them bleed out without allowing proper medical care seems rather villainous to me. As does leaving a damaged prisoner in a cell without so much as a bed." Granite gestured to Janessa whose eyes kept fluttering shut until Blur woke her again and again.

"Brave words coming from a talking rock," Councillor Alina said. 

Alina continued. "Do you honestly expect us to take you seriously in those disguises?"

"We do indeed," Squall said as all the Councillors' circlets were covered in hoarfrost.

"We can do tricks too," a female Councillor said, electricity sparking from the edges of her fingertips.

"You're not honestly going to electrocute us, are you, Zarina?" Mr Forkle asked.

"There are different levels of shock."

"RUN!" Dex shouted, throwing one of his gadgets at the Councillors.

A green, putrid smoke that smelled of rotten jalapeños filled the air and the Councillors coughed. Dex threw two more, causing loud squawking to be heard and blinking lights to flash.

Councillor Zarina zapped the light gadget with her lightning, but instead of shutting it down, the gadget absorbed the power. 

No one noticed Dex scream "EVERYBODY GET DOWN!"  except Fitz, who lunged for the cube and threw it down the hall. The explosion flung Fitz backward, who flew several feet before crashing onto the antenna of a charging arthropleura.

"STOP!" Sophie yelled after screaming, being the first who noticed Fitz's fall, and ran to Fitz's side, where Dex was frantically trying to stop the bleeding.

Della gasped. "What happened?"

Janessa gradually slipped in and out of consciousness from that point onward, hearing Sophie use Kenric, a previous Councillor who died's, cache of secrets as blackmail in exchange for their safe passage. 

"What are your demands?" Emery asked after what seemed like an hour-long silence to Janessa.

"Let us go!"

"Yes, we figured that. What else?"

"Full pardons for all of us, including Prentice!"

Janessa took a shuddering breath as another wave of darkness crashed over her, dragging her further into unconsciousness.

Janessa couldn't understand half the words being said, but before she slipped completely into darkness, she heard Alina say, "You've just banished yourself and your friends from the Lost Cities—permanently."

***************

When Janessa woke up, she was lying in her bed, wrapped in bandages. She looked over and saw Keefe entering the room.

"Keefe? What happened?" Janessa reached her right hand up to touch her face and cried out at the pain it caused in her entire right side.

Keefe rushed to her side. "Don't move. You've got almost no left shoulder and huge cuts all along your right side."

Janessa sighed. "Is Fitz okay? I think I remember him being stabbed by a bug?"

Keefe snorted. "Yep. He woke up two days ago. Also, we learned Mr Forkle is Sir Astin."

"Oh. He told you?" Janessa's eyebrows furrowed. "I guess he had to tell Sophie something true so she would be less mad about him withholding information."

"You knew?" Keefe gaped at her.

Janessa rolled her eyes then flinched. "I've been living here for like seven or eight years — I've honestly lost count. But, I know a lot of secret identities."

"You want to tell me them?" Keefe grinned, widening his eyes and pouting his lips.

"Not a chance, Sencen." Janessa tried to smile but let out a groan at the pain. "Mind getting Physic?"

Keefe nodded.

Physic rushed into the room and immediately started feeding Janessa various elixirs, most foul, some sweet.

"How are you feeling, JJ?" Physic wondered.

"I've been better. Keefe said Fitz is awake? That looked gnarly." Janessa asked.

"Not much gnarlier than being eaten by an ogre. Everyone was so freaked out about Fitz because he was poisoned and by the time I got to you, you were almost closer to being dead than he was. You were bleeding out for quite some time." Though Physic's face was professional, her voice wavered. "You're not going to want to see this, Keefe. It's pretty gruesome." Keefe begrudgingly left, giving Janessa's hand a reassuring squeeze.

Janessa winced as Physic pulled off the bandages, revealing deep wounds, mostly healed, on her right arm, cheek, and hip and a half-formed shoulder bone covered in a strange silver goop surrounded by a few small ligaments and some scar tissue. Janessa cringed at the lack of skin and muscle.

"Thankfully, the cut on your face is shallower than the others so you'll still look normal enough, just a little more badass." Physic said lightly, though the expression on her face said otherwise, as she added lotions on the healing gashes and put a gross-smelling white goop on the shoulder, making Janessa's nose crinkle as she gasped in pain.

"What about my shoulder?" Janessa asked.

Physic cringed. "Most of it was gone, so it's not going to be able to heal completely. If you had gotten here earlier, maybe, but it had already been missing most of the skin and muscle for a while and your bone had been crushed. I gave you an elixir to grow back the bone and the goop is speeding the process along but it's going to be a long, gross healing process. It's going to look a lot smaller than your other shoulder for a long time and it's going to be a while before you can really do anything with your left arm."

Janessa frowned. "When can I get out of bed? My legs are fine."

"You can probably get out of bed tomorrow, but only walk, nothing else." Physic warned.

"You know I know better than most what can happen when you don't follow the doctor's orders. I am your apprentice" Janessa reassured.

Physic smiled. "I know. And I'm glad you're okay. I was really worried — we all were."

Janessa returned the smile tiredly. "I was too."