Chapter 16: Chapter 14 Everything has changed

Holding onto that thought, I squeezed my eyes shut and the strangest sensation spread through my body. It was like someone had dribbled cold water onto my head, but in a very pleasant way. It was like my blood had turned into a cool, minty fluid and my muscle loosened and rejoiced as they flew past. I let out a soft moan and snapped open my eyes. My eyes widened in shock at the sight before me.

The Legre was right in front of me, merely inches from my face. It was suspended mid-strike; seemingly frozen into place by some mysterious force. It was staring at me in the most human like way I had ever seen, eyes filled of incredulity at what had transpired. I could hear people shouting around me but I couldn’t make out the words.

Still frozen as a statue, I tried to move backwards and found there was a thick, jelly like wall between us. It was dissipating as I moved backwards and I saw the leopard’s right arm moved; so that was what kept me alive. A normal mind wall would not have worked under such a close proximity if the Legres was two class higher, because the force would merely shattered along and you would ended up getting hurt inside and out.

An energy ball whizzed past my left ear jerked me out of my train of thoughts and my hearing seemed to return to me. Kailey and Jeremy were shouting for me to get back into the circle and Ho was shouting for Steven to run faster.

The energy hit the strange mind wall instead of the Legre, which began the melt the wall down. Bizaarely I didn’t feel anything as the wall melt down; I wasn’t even sure if I had created it in my moment of panic or someone was protecting me. However I didn’t have a chance to think about all these; the Legre was now free from its bond and was starting to advance on me.

“Stay back.” A deep voice that I didn’t recognise commanded and my eyes nearly fell out of my socket as Steven walked right past me, marching towards the Felixia. He was covered in a strange, earthy armour that I had never seen before and with each step he took, the ground below us shook.

Retreating back to the circle hastily I saw that two of the Legres were killed on the ground; Emily had somehow managed to wrap three of the Felixia blanc in branches like a cocoon and they were withering on the ground, obvious work from Jeremy. The poison wasn’t enough to kill them, but combined with the occasional energy blast from Vladimir, it just might.

“Oh my gosh are you okay?” Kailey said, grabbing me by the arm as I stumbled towards them, still a little dazed. Energy seemed to be draining out of my body pretty quickly in a way that felt completely opposite to the nice, dribbling feeling I had earlier. I collapsed into a pile next to them and Jeremy bend down to look at me with a guilty look on his face.

“Sorry Gwen, I shouldn’t have shouted.” He said, scratching the back of his head. I offered him a weak smile and assured him that it wasn’t his fault. John and Kailey were making sure I was geuniely alright whilst Emily blasted questions at me. Vladimir stayed out of the conversation as always whilst I tried to deflect Emily’s interrogation.

Ho had jumped down from his tree and came towards us. Steven was finishing the Legre with surprising ease, grabbing it by its tail and repeatedly flipped it around like a sack of potatoes. I winced at the sound of bone cracking against ground. It was not a pretty sight.

“What happened?” Ho demanded, pinching the bridge of his nose looking pained. I shared a panicked look with Kailey and we turned back to look at Ho. fortunately he seemed more concerned than angry.

“Jeremy.” He said, turning to the sheepish blond. “You do realise that calling Gwen to help it when she was in the middle of a fight was a stupid idea?”

Jeremy looked embarrassed and sent me another apologetic look and nodded his head. Ho shook his fingers at the boy and turned to me with his hand on his forehead as if preventing his brain from falling out.

“Gwen; did you, or did you not realised that the Legre you picked was the leader of the group?” he asked, pinching the bridge of his nose again as if it was what’s keeping him sane. Alarmed, I tuned to look at the poor creature now lying motionless on the ground where Steven had left it. Sure enough; it was bigger than the rest with two stripes across its forehead instead of one. How could I not notice that!

“This one must be young, so it didn’t have much on you; but careful next time.” Ho said, patting my shoulder awkwardly before instructing us to deal with the bodies.

Jeremy and Kailey quickly sprang into action, moving towards the dead Legres whilst taking out their hunting knifes out of their jacket pockets. I sent a furtive glance at the Felixia that almost killed me and went off in the opposite direction. Better not get too close.

Just then I detected there were some large movements coming our way. It wasn’t long before I became audible. Ho’s brows furrowed together and gestured for us to come together in a circle. Paying attention to my surrounding I realised there were a group of people running towards us.

Tom’s group emerged through the bushes, their face lined with worry. The lady that lead their group gave an impressed look at Ho when she saw how many we have killed. Ho visibly relaxed and told us to get back to work while he walked over to talk to the lady. She told her group to help us as well whilst the two of the, including Steven and the illusionist started to engaged in a serious conversation.

Choosing a random body I knelt down and started flipping it over so it was on the side. Moments later a shadow fell on me blocking my sunlight and Tom was crouching down next to me, his signature frown more pronounced than ever. He looked around us to make sure no one was looking our way before scouting closer towards me.

“What’s going on?” I whispered, head gesturing towards the four adults. Tom pretended to be helping me cutting the skin off the Legre before answering.

“Apparently we lost contact with the main teams.” He revealed, I barely contained my gasped and Tom shot me a warning look. My eyes flickered towards the supervisors and then back to Tom, incredulous.

“How is that possible?” I asked, dropping all pretence of cutting the Legres. Tom gave me an impatient look and shrugged. “This is potentially very bad, aren’t you worried?” I huffed, raising my voice before hushing back down in case the other heard us. Looking around I saw Emily was talking to one of the boys from Tom’s group too. Soon everyone will know.

“What do you think happened?” I asked when it was obvious that Tom wasn’t going to give me an answer. He was watching the leaders intently, as if he could hear them this way.

“I don’t know.” He replied without even taking his eyes off the four. A few possibilities came into mind; maybe the communication device was destroyed by one of the Legres, but surely they would have anticipated that. Or there was an interfering signal, but from what? Unless…unless someone was intentionally scrambling our signals so we could not communicate.

In a mad panic I started widening the small area that I was keeping tabs on towards where the main group were supposed to be. Five hundred meters, nothing. One miles, still nothing. This was odd, they were supposed to meet up with us.

Edging forward carefully, I now had my eyes closed to concentrate better.  I didn’t know what to expect; maybe a person hiding, or hoping that they would be hurrying towards us.

“What do you see?” Tom whispered next to me, correctly guessing what I was up to. I kept quiet, continuing my search. I was almost to my limit now, unless I narrowed the side and expand it as a thin line.

Deciding to go due north, I gasped as a large group entered my mind. They were about five miles from where we were, and what’s worse is there seemed to be a fight going on. I recognised Oscar, Fred and Natalie’s mind there but I couldn’t seem to find the others.

Almost instinctively I grabbed onto Tom’s arm and he gave me a worried look. Panic swelled in my chest and I found it hard to speak at all. My breathing started hitching up and I knew I was close to hyperventilating. What had happened to Nate, Holly and Casey? How come I couldn’t find them? Maybe I should try again? Would it be possible to get a message all the way across to them?

“Gail, calm down!” when I came back to my senses Tom was gripping both of my shoulder firmly and was gently shaking me. With a shaky voice I rallied the information to him. “…they are so far away! I don’t know where Nate, Holly and Casey were!” my voice cracked at my friends’ names. “Do you think they are going to be alright? The fight seemed to be bad.”

“Have you checked the other direction? Where Owen and Evanna are?” Tom said, staring right into my eyes. My heart sank as I shakily reached out again.

Going south, they should be about two miles away from us. However, before I even hit the one mile mark I sensed there were a group of people running towards us. A large group of people. My eyes shot opened and Tom immediately read the expression on my face. “What is it?”

“They are coming towards us, from where they were, they must have been attacked as well.’ I said in a rush. My heart beats crazier than ever. What was going on? I thought this mission was safe. Who on Earth are these people that are attacking us? How did they know exactly where to find us?

“What should we do? We need to warn the others!” I tightened my grip on Tom’s forearm but he didn’t seem to feel it at all. “They will be here soon!”

Tom’s face was a mask of calm; to my surprised he patted me comfortingly on the shoulder before getting up and walking over to Ho. I watched, mouth slightly agaped as he talked to them animatedly. I watched as their faces grew more alarmed and the lady shouted some instruction to the illusionist who nodded and closed his eyes. I breathed a sigh of relieve. At least they believed whatever story Tom told them.

“Everyone gather up, we need to leave now.” Ho bellowed, throwing all caution out of the window, since they obviously knew where we were. A few looked confused but most seemed to guess what was going on.

“What’s wrong?” trust Jeremy to be the clueless one. I opened my mouth but Tom gave me a death glare warning me to shut up. I closed my mouth abruptly and gave him a hurt look. What’s his problem this time?

“We are under attack.” Ho replied simply and everyone gasped. Quickly taking out a strange device he pointed west. “We needed to go that way.”

Just as we began to run, a group of people dressed in all black burst through the vegetation and without so much as a word or a pause rushed right at us. A couple of the girls screamed, I think I might have too. My head went into overdrive and I was vaguely awear of Ho swearing and Tom shoving me roughly behind him, whilst Steven barricade himself in front of us as best as he could.

Amidst all these, the only thing I noticed was the look of betrayal the lady from Tom’s team gave the illusionist. Who gave her an apologetic smile and walked towards the mysterious group, donning a black, full face mask himself.

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Surprise update! :D

I feel terrible for not updating in a month so here's a new chapter :D I can't gaurentee to update more frequently but I will try the best that I can!

A little of a shock isn't it? Now it's kind of the half-way point of the story :) I don't think I can finish it for Wattys :( since there's a month left and a likely 14 more chapters to go if not more.

I appreciate everyone's comment and I am toying with the idea of getting Evolution edited over the course of the year and then sending it to the publisher :)

On the other notes, I think I will get my Fantasy/Supernatural novel up around christmas to give myself more motivation to write it as well! Or would you guys want another romance?

Let me know x