Their Betrayals: A Change of Heart (aka SkullWitch Academy)

A Christmas Surprise

A day had passed since then and today was the first day of Iris's mentoring. We had decided that I'd mentor her on Saturdays, so we went out to the training grounds. Even though I still had a stuffy nose, I still kept to my word. Cole found out about our spot, so he decided to watch us on the bleachers surrounding the place. Personally, I found my lesson to be rather boring. She had probably learned the basics in fighting in her training class, so I asked her what she already knew. We went over her balance, and her fighting style and whatnot. After that, we decided to duel for a bit. Cole was cheering on both sides. He had brought a notebook and was recording literally everything we did. In the end, I won. That was expected.

The two of us hung out around the bleachers as Cole ran down from where he was to get to us. His stomps echoed with each step he took. He finally made it down to the bottom set of bleachers to where we were and looked out of breath. As we chatted, the subject of Christmas came up. There were two days until Christmas and it had just occurred to me that I hadn't gotten anyone presents. Normally, I wouldn't give presents to anyone because I didn't know what anyone liked. Also there was the fact that I didn't celebrate Christmas in the first place because I didn't care about it. The only benefit from Christmas was sleeping in. It was like a vacation to me. When I told them this, they gasped in surprise and immediately decided to take me shopping for gifts with them. Iris called Klaus and Fannar and told them to meet them at Westside (That was the shopping mall's name). I grabbed onto their arms and teleported us to the city.

- - -

It wasn't raining today, but the sky was mostly cloudy. It was like it could rain at any moment. We walked to the side of the street and Iris called a taxi. It was like a car, but it could fly. I was more of a hovercraft-like thing, and it worked somewhat like Iris's Talent. The guy in the taxi let us in and we took a seat. He was the talkative type, and got along with Iris and Cole pretty quick. He just seemed annoying to me. They told him where they wanted him to go, and he started the hover-car. He had his hair in a high ponytail and he wore a purple trench coat that went down to his ankles. He also had a white scarf that went around his neck like mine. He looked an awful lot like Truth, but was a bit younger. Probably in his twenties from the looks of it.

"Hey kids, you know, it should be snowing sometime soon, right? You guys excited for that?" He cheerfully said as he put the hover-car in auto-drive mode.

"Yeah! Especially during Christmas time! I'll have fun making snow angels!!" Cole replied.

"Haha, yeah. And don't forget about the snowmen! And the snowball fights! Plus the wonderful eggnog for you sir since you don't seem to be all excited about Christmas."

Iris chimed in, "How do you know he's not excited about Christmas?"

"Mind Reading is my Talent. The name speaks for itself." He answered.

"Hey kid, what's your name?" I asked as he pulled over to the cub next to Westside.

"Just call me Niko, sir!"

"Thanks for the ride, Niko," I handed him twenty bucks for the ride as we stepped out of the hover-car.

"No problem- just doing my job. Bye kiddos!" He waved at Cole and Iris.

"Bye!! Thank you!" Iris and Cole said in unison.

Niko sped off and shouted, "AND MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!"

The two kids waved bye until they couldn't see his hover-car anymore and we went inside. Westside was probably the most crowded it had ever been in the entire year. Almost everyone in the city was there rushing to get last-minute gifts for their loved ones. The ceilings were decorated with Christmas lights and everything smelled like cinnamon. The speakers blasted Christmas carols everywhere and I just wish I was deaf. I didn't like how crowded it was, but luckily Iris and Cole were there to guide me so I didn't get lost. Eventually, we made it to the biggest Christmas tree I had ever seen. Lights and sparkly garland in all the Christmas colors wrapped around the tree. There were hundreds of ornaments of all different colors and sizes and shapes hung perfectly on the branches. I heard a loud TOOT! TOOT! And when I looked in the direction of where it came from, I saw a large red, white, and green train turn the corner and go around the tree. The tracks went all around the tree and off into other parts of the mall. Iris and Cole led me over to the gigantic Christmas tree where a bunch of other people were. We waited there for a while, and heard someone shouting at us and waving their hands. We looked over the crowd of people trying to see who it was and saw Klaus waving at us with Fannar close behind. They were holding hands to make sure that they didn't get separated- well actually it was more like Klaus was holding onto Fannar's sleeves because they were covering his hands. Sooner or later, they pushed their way through the crowd and made it to us. The five of us held hands as we made our way to the first shop. Iris told me that it was called Happy Holiday! She said that this place was the best place to do any festive shopping because it always had something new each year for each holiday. It was decorated with all sorts of Christmas decorations. We decided to split up and meet back up at the Christmas tree in an hour, and we went on our way to choose our gifts for each other. I saw a section with stuffed animals with different color bows on it and knew I had to get them the teddy bears. I ended up getting a light brown teddy bear with a red bow on it for Klaus, the dark brown teddy bear with a silver bow on it for Fannar, a white teddy bear with a green bow for Cole, and a chestnut brown teddy bear with a gold bow for Iris. I grabbed a roll of wrapping paper and made my way to the self checkout lane. Surprisingly, it was going pretty fast, and I ended up paying for my gifts pretty quickly.