Teenage Sorcerers: Prophecy Foretold

Chapter 9: The Truth that Lies Within

The sounds of voices overlapping each other could be heard as Sabbi slowly woke up. She opened her eyes and could see Chaz and Kennethn next to her while hearing Bryan and Andre talking in the distance with other voices. "Guys, she's waking up!" Chaz called out to everyone, making the voices go quiet. "Finally! It took her forever!" Bryan went over to Sabbi and helped her sit up. Sabbi looked around the room and could see Lulu and his group were now inside the hut with them. "What the hell happened..?" Sabbi muttered a bit as she rubbed her head. "You passed out from blood loss and from Lulu nearly choking you to death." Chaz sighed as she leaned against her chair. "I remember that...but why are they here? Weren't we just fighting them?" Sabbi asked as she motioned towards the opposing group. "You said something about how you and your group are trying to restore the Crystal Calamity, but you said it was to save the sorcery realm. We're sent on the same mission of saving the sorcery realm, but we were told that the Crystal Calamity must be destroyed. It's been harnessing people's souls and taking over the whole town until it eventually conquers the whole realm itself." Lulu stated as he folded his arms. "We also found out that they're the group that belongs to Blanche. She told them those lies!" Kennethn exclaimed. "Hold on, we still don't know if Blanche is the one lying here. If anything, how do you know if Lucius is telling you guys the truth about the Crystal Calamity? How do we even know if the Crystal Calamity is real at this point since we're assuming people are telling lies!" Malik quickly spoke up and caused everyone to turn their attention to Lucius for his response. Without saying a word, Lucius went over to his bookshelf and pulled out the smallest book he had. He flipped through the book before stopping at a page and handing it to Malik. "The Crystal Calamity is very much real...it was the reason behind my wife's death." Lucius spoke with a slightly broken voice. This had everyone stare at him in shock from his sudden words. "You...were married?" Bora looked up at him with a saddened look, matching everyone else's facial expressions. "Yes...and my wife wanted to restore the Crystal Calamity...this book is her journal of every detail and theory she could gather on why the Crystal Calamity is how it is now..." he gently rubbed his arm as everyone except Sabbi gathered around Malik to see the contents of the journal. "If you don't mind me asking...what exactly does the Crystal Calamity have to do with your wife's death..?" Kennethn asked. "It's too much of a touchy subject for me to get into detail about right now...the most I can say right now is that...she's the someone that I mentioned earlier on how I got my other two mythical abilities..." Lucius sighed as he sat on one of the dining chairs. The two groups understood and agreed to not ask him anymore questions on the subject. "According to the journal, your wife believed that the Crystal Calamity had a prophecy that a group of sorcerers will be the ones to restore it back to its pristine condition, but nobody from the sorcery realm fit the prophecy. She was in the middle of creating a realm warp machine after theorizing that the prophecy was referring to people from the human realm. There's some small notes in here about her creating some type of magic that should be able to detect who the chosen ones are, but that's the last thing written in here..." Malik read the journal out loud for everyone to hear. "And I'm assuming that the chosen ones are you guys?" Aurora spoke up, looking over at the Midnight Crusaders. "Yeah, we're supposed to restore the Crystal Calamity to save the sorcery realm! That's what I've been saying ever since I almost got choked to death!" Sabbi called out, glaring a bit at Lulu. "Where's the realm warp machine? Maybe we can go see the Crystal Calamity for ourselves, just to see how damaged it is." Bora looked over at Lucius, who nodded in agreement before leading the two groups down the ladder to his training area, Sabbi taking a bit longer than everyone else due to her injuries. Lucius turned on his realm warp machine and led the groups inside one by one, going once again into the sorcery realm. Once everyone went through the warp machine, Lucius brought them through the town and over to where the Crystal Calamity resided. A few townsfolk noticed Lucius and welcomed his return into town, some even showing great amounts of respect towards the man. Lucius led the two groups through the town before taking a turn towards a pathway of dark gray cobblestone, looking a bit off compared to the normal beige cobblestone that was used through the town. Down the darker stoned pathway stood a large building surrounded by tall men and women wearing maroon knight suits. As Lucius stepped towards them, the knights immediately stepped aside, letting him and the others through the tall metal gates. "Where are we exactly?" Chaz asked as they all walked through an empty corridor, only having a long red carpet laid along the floor. "This is where the Crystal Calamity is kept! Only the higher ranked sorcerers, such as myself, are allowed to enter through here! We're also allowed to bring in as many guests as we please!" Lucius smiled as they reached the end of the corridor and now stood in front of a maple wood door with a bronze door handle. Lucius opened the door for them and led them towards a large glass dome with a ginormous crystal cluster that once was completely uranian blue, but now only the bottom half of the cluster had the blue color, the top half turning an eerie black slop. "Oh dear...the deterioration is getting worse..." Lucius examined the Crystal Calamity from a distance as smoke was emerging from the parts of it that were black. "What's that smoke..?" Bryan asked as he stood beside Lucius. "That's the Crystal Calamity slowly dying from the inside..." Lucius moved over to a staircase so he could be at the lower level and get a closer look at the Crystal Calamity. As the two groups followed him, Lucius put an arm up to them. "Don't get too close to it...the closer you are to it, the higher chance of you getting harmed or killed by its smoke." "But it's in a glass dome, how is the smoke going to hurt us?" Chaz asked as she moved to get closer to the dome, only to get gently pulled back by Lucius. "Despite it being in a glass dome, the smoke can sometimes seep through the glass when it detects anything living..." Lucius stated as he ushered the groups over to another entry way that led to a different corridor. "This is another exit we can take, plus it's a bit more secretive compared to the front entrance." Lucius smiled as he opened the door that led outside. As Lucius led the group through the town once again, he made sure nobody noticed them going behind the town's buildings towards the realm warp machine, which had spawned in front of the woods. Lucius turned it on and waited for the light to generate, which didn't take long. "Alright everyone, I'll go in first, then you follow after a couple of minutes so it'll give me time to transport back." Lucius stated as he entered through the light after turning it on. As the groups began to wait, a commotion could be heard from behind them. Josephine and Andre could be seen arguing with each other, the argument slowly becoming physical. "Don't touch me, you monster!" Andre yelled as he pushed Josephine off of him, making her bump into the side of the machine and making it fall over. "Guys, what's going on?!" Lulu went over to Josephine and helped her back up. "She killed Tempest and now she's trying to start more shit with me!" Andre scowled at her as Josephine launched herself at him. "Stop it, guys! We need to stay focused!" Lulu called out as Bora and Aurora tried to pull Josephine away. Once they managed to pull Jospehine away, Sabbi and Kennethn went over and held Andre up. "Andre, I know you're upset with what happened to Tempest, but we really do need to stick with Lulu's group! We need to figure out more about the Crystal Calamity with them, so for right now, we need to push any ill intent to the side. I promise you that it'll be worth it." Sabbi reassured Andre as she tried to calm him down. It took a couple more minutes, but Andre eventually cooled down. "Fine...I'll try my best, but I'm not making any promises..." Andre sighed as he brushed himself off. "Josephine, that goes for you too. The Midnight Crusaders are becoming an asset to us, so don't mess this up." Malik looked down at Josephine, her grumbling in response. "Good, now someone go through the machine, I think Lucius made it through by now." Bora said before noticing the machine on the ground. The gray light was out and parts of the machine were busted. "Shit, what did you two do?!" Chaz exclaimed as she tried to lift up the machine, not surprisingly with no success. Aurora went over to her and picked up the machine with ease, setting it back up on its base. "How did you-" "Super strength, it's one of my abilities." Aurora quickly cut off Chaz as she examined the machine. "Damn...looks like the machine is down. I can't even turn it on anymore!" Aurora tried to activate the machine, but nothing was working. "What do we do now?! We're stranded here!" Kennethn panicked before getting smacked behind the head by Bryan. "Kennethn, we're not stranded! We're literally standing a few yards away from a town!" Bryan scolded at him as Sabbi stood in front of the machine and folded her arms. "Regardless, it's pretty damaged, and we don't even know if Lucius could tell from the human realm! I feel like we should find a place to stay, just in case we end up staying here overnight." "I doubt that we'll be here overnight, but I guess we can still look for a spot." Lulu shrugged as both of the groups began making their way back into town. As they strolled through the town for a few minutes, the faint aroma of baked goods and fresh coffee surrounded a small cafe with its door opened halfway. It was one of the few shops that had a sign, its sign hanging above its door reading 'SPICY SANCTUARY', the title in complete uppercase. "Hold up, do you guys smell that?" Andre asked his group as he was the first to smell the aroma. Before the others could take in the scent, Andre was already making his way into the cafe. "Andre, wait!" Chaz called out to him and followed him into the shop, the rest of the Midnight Crusaders and Lulu's group entering soon after. The groups stopped and began looking around the cafe in amazement. Despite how small the cafe looked on the outside, it was decently big on the inside. There were small tables set around the room, each table had a set of two chairs. Each seating arrangement was made with polished maple wood and had short crimson red table clothes covering each table. On all the tables, there was a flower sitting in a slim vase, each table having a different flower. "If there's no customers, why is there food being made?" Malik questioned as he walked past all the tables. Sabbi stood by the counter that seemed to be where you pay for your items. An old rustic cash register was placed in the middle of the countertop, coffee brewing machines on the left side and a case display of freshly baked goods on the right. Behind the counter was a slightly darkened doorway that led to what looked like a small kitchen area. While everyone else was distracted by the interior of the cafe, Sabbi snuck behind the counter and made her way into the kitchen, the aroma from earlier becoming much stronger now. Sabbi turned to her left and could see a slim figure with their body half way down, rummaging through a cooler. The person's sleeves were rolled up, revealing their green skin tone. Before Sabbi had any time to process what she was seeing, the person quickly stood up and turned to face her. Sabbi quickly dashed out of the kitchen and towards the others. "Guys, there's someone in the back!" Sabbi called out, but by the time she reached the group, the green skinned person was now standing at the kitchen's doorway. The groups watched as the person began slowly moving out of the darkened space...