Stellarlune - KOTLC Book 8.5 Fanfic

Chapter 2

Sophie looked at the cache. And Oralie whispered," Moonlark,"

The cache unlocked with a soft click, and blaring sirens began to thunder. "Oralie! Mr. Forkle? We have to -" Memories began to fill Sophie's mind, as she drifted away into obliviousness. Darkness powered her mind, and she sunk into the dark clouds that awaited her at the bottom. Suddenly, the shadows around Sophie shaped into figures, and -

"-la - Playing with Shadowflux and quintessence can only end disastrously!" Kenric shouted. They were outside a circular, clear dome, and Sophie could see the councillors screaming and yelling at whoever was in the dome. "LADY GISELA!" somebody finally yelled. Sophie's heart stopped. This was it. They were finally going to learn the key pieces about Stellarlune. They were going to wake Keefe up.

"SOPHIE!" someone screamed in her ear, breaking the memory into pieces. Sophie automatically found herself back in Havenfield.

"Why would you -"

"THE CACHE TRIGGERED AN ALARM! WE HAVE TO GO-" Fitz yelled.

"But the council -"

"THEY'LL TAKE CARE OF IT!" He pushed Sophie into the Leapmaster, as they were whisked off into who knows where.

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"Where are we?" Sophie whispered. Trees surrounded her. In every direction. There was a crisp smell in the air, somehow better than the Lost Cities. The sun was shining, and the sky was clear. As she stepped forth, a branch creaked loudly under her foot. The scenery looked like it came from a fairytale. Then she swivelled back. Fitz!

"FITZ -"

Cold hard panic fueled her as somebody or something pulled her under the ground, covering her mouth. A dwarf. Sophie shut her eyes closed, ignoring the moist soil that smothered her cheeks. It was the Neverseen's dwarf. She needed to get out of the dwarf's grasp. She concentrated hard, thinking about all of the dwarves that had died on Mount Everest for her and her friends when the Neverseen dwarves had attacked. Red fury churned from the knots in her stomach, blinding her, taking over her, until... Light stram in the corner of her vision, an unheard message, and Sophie grasped for it, clinging her subconsciousness onto it until she was dragged up into freedom.

"SOPHIE!"

"SOPHIE!"

"I can try aga -"

"She's awake!"

Sophie's eyes opened, and gentle light flooded through her eyesight. It slowly faded away, until nine pairs of worried eyes stared down her.

"Are you ok?"

"What happened?"

"Is -"

"Livvy?" Sophie croaked out. The Black Swan's physician moved to Sophie's side. Livvy's mask was not on, and she had jewels weaved into her hair. She pressed a clear vial to Sophie's lips.

"Hi Sophie. I wish we could have met in better circumstances, but here I am," Livvy grinned, jabbing her finger towards Mr. Forkle. "because this one didn't let me, apparently it might have created suspicions about my real identity." Livvy shrugged like the idea seemed foreign to her. "Drink." She instructed.

Sophie opened her mouth and let the cool liquid dance on her tongue. It tasted like sweet honeysuckle water. She swallowed. The elixir eased Sophie's headache. "It's good," Sophie admitted.

"Now that you can talk," Fitz staked over to the opposite side of the bed. "You can tell us why you blanked out when we told you not to!" Sophie's insides flamed, as she tried to make a reasonable excuse.

She started to talk but Dex interrupted her, saying, "She probably didn't know. And she just blacked out after that. Don't you think you should give her a break?!" Sophie looked at Dex, dumbfounded. He never spoke like that. But then Tam joined in.

"Yeah," he said.

"You're worried, Fitz," Biana whispered. "Take it easy on her."

"Sorry," Sophie mumbled. "I don't know what happened."

"What happened Miss Foster," Mr. Forkle jumped in. "is that Mr. Vacker light leaped you to one of our hideouts. It's typically used for emergencies, and that is why you might notice that the air in uncannily fresh. Anyways. Back to the point. You tried to inflict, but when that didn't fare for you, you panicked and kept inflicting. Fortunately, our dwarf had a cap that blocked your inflicting. I thought this might have happened, so I left my office prepared."

Sophie couldn't speak for a second. Then memories began to flow back into her brain. Cache. Stellarlune. Keefe. Alarms. Light leaping. Forest. The dwarf. The dwarf who Sophie thought was part of the Neverseen. Being dragged underground. Where she was here now.

"Is Oralie and Bronte okay?" Sophie asked urgently. "Everyone's fine, right?" Mr. Forkle smiled.

"Bronte and Oralie calmed things down once the councillors came to Havenfield."

"They came to HAVENFIELD?!" Sophie yelled, worry making her dizzy.

"Oralie and Bronte made sure to trick the rest of the councillors into believing that she dropped the cache when putting it into a different location. She pretended that Bronte and herself were going to check on the alicorns and that the cache started to malfunction at Havenfield." Linh said soothingly.

"But -"

"Miss Foster, we are going to erase their memories later, this is just a temporary cover. Not to worry." Mr. Forkle offered a smile.

"So..." Sophie sucked in a breath. "Everything's fine?"

"Yeah," Dex answered.

"How come we're here then?" Sophie asked, finally taking a look at her surroundings. She was in a white room, with nothing in it, except shelves filled with elixirs, and a bed. And people. Lots of people.

"Granite? Wraith?" Sophie frowned. "Where's the rest of the Collective?"

"They have other matters to work on," Mr. Forkle responded. "And you are here because we needed to get away from the crime of the scene. I added the crystal that led to the forest, into your Leapmaster, and told Mr. Vacker how to find it. You are here lying in this bed because you enraged yourself too much in inflicting. Happens to everybody when they use their ability for too long. A minor crisis."

Sophie could finally let go of a deep breath she had been holding.

"Then when are we going to open the cache?" She asked. The sooner they could, the sooner Keefe would wake up.

"How about you get some rest first," Livvy interjected. "Inflicting drained a lot of your energy." Sophie groaned. "We need Tinker and Dex to deactivate the cache's alarm system anyways," Livvy added with a wink to Dex. Dex smiled, cheeks flushing red.

"Fine," Sophie grumbled.