When the Stars Collide

Chapter 2

Calla's eyes widened as she processed the name Tam just gave them.

Fitz Vacker. Calla's moms best friend. Who she talked about often.

She always just said that he was away on emissary work.

"Fitz Vacker. As in my mom's brother?" Bri looked at Tam and Bronte in disbelief.

"Yes. And most of your parent's best friend." Tam looked at them with sad eyes.

"Mom always said he was just doing Team Valiant work." Calla said with disbelief in her voice.

"The councillors, his parents and your parents thought it would be best to not announce his disappearance. The Neverseen had just been trialled and sentenced to Exile, the elves had just settled down finally after being in panic that their children would be kidnapped." All eyes turned to Calla, "We have looked for 16 years and still have been unable to find him. We have just told people he's on mission. As well as, disguise ourselves as him to not cause suspicion." Bronte explained. "We were all devastated. We thought the Neverseen was behind it, but there has been no activity for years by them."

Calla just blinked at them, trying to process the information overload that was just dumped on them.

"So. You're getting a bunch of 16 and 17-year-olds to solve a 16-year mystery that even the councillors and the black swan can't even solve." Declan asked with a raised eyebrow.

"It's our last hope." Tam said quietly.

"Well guys, what do you think? We've done it before. We found that missing saber tooth tiger in the forbidden cities." Niko said with a smile.

"That took us a year, the black swan has been trying to find him for 16 years. That's a big difference, Niko." Bri said shaking her head.

"I say we try. The least we can do is try. What do we have to lose?" Calla said looking at the 3 of her friends.

"I'm in." Declan declared nodding, his hands going in and out of vanishing.

"Fine. But I think it's a waste of time." Niko said rolling his eyes.

"Shut your mouth, Niko. I don't know why you have to be so negative." Bri said sending shadows to cover his scowl. "I'm in, I'm sure we can figure something out."

"Bri take your shadows off of my face. I can't see a thing." Niko complained from behind her wall. She begrudgingly took down her shadow wall, but as she did Niko conjured a weighted blanket over her head, which tipped over her chair and caused her to fall. Making everyone laugh their heads off.

Bronte and Tam chuckled with them. "Okay, everyone is dismissed. At next week's meeting we'd like to hear a plan on what you're planning to do to find him.

They nodded and headed out the huge crystal doors, and into the streets of Atlantis. Niko and Bri scowling at each other.

"Now you see why your mother couldn't tell you what was going on?" Ro said with a smug smile as Calla looked for her leaping crystal.

"Yea yea, top secret, blah blah blah." Ro just huffed out a laugh as Calla found her crystal and leaped back home.

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"Mom, I'm home!" Calla called, finally being able to take off her crown and cape.

"I'm upstairs!" She heard her mom in the distance. She was probably in her office, going through scrolls for a mission or for her lessons at Foxfire. Where she was a telepathy mentor, in the Elite Levels. Her mom wasn't her teacher, it would be a conflict of interest, AKA too distracting.

Calla threw her bag down on the ground and went to find her mom.

Sure enough her mother was in her office, going through scrolls... typical.

She was hunched over her desk, writing notes on some scrolls. "So, you know why I couldn't tell you."

"Yes mother knows best." Calla rolled her eyes. Sophie chuckled, put her pen down and leaned back in her chair, crossing her arms. "He was one of my closest friends. Your dad's best friend since they were kids. You have no idea how hard it was for us to keep his disappearance a secret." Her eyes started to look dull, "Your dad dedicated his life to finding him, he was devastated." She shook her head and looked at their family picture, Fitz holding Calla when she was a baby and Calla's dad laughing at whatever Fitz had said. Sophie had a sad smile on her face. "Fitz loved you so much. He was always over playing with you, he would talk to you telepathically just to make you laugh." Sophie chuckled. "When he first disappeared you asked every day for months, 'Where's Fitz? He's not talking to me anymore.' it broke our hearts." Sophie shook her head and looked back to Calla, "I still don't know if he was taken or left voluntarily. People always tell us he left voluntarily, but if he did why didn't he tell us where he was going. Everything was normal up until the day he disappeared. Gone. Just gone."

Calla made the mistake of letting her empathy ability sense the emotions, because a massive wave of blue sorrow smashed into. That's more than 1 person's emotion.

Calla whipped around and found her Dad standing in the doorway smiling. Well, a sad smile.

"Hey bean."