Teenage Sorcerers: Prophecy Foretold

Chapter 12: Awkward Friendship

Chaz had just finished cleaning up the kitchen when she heard a knock on the front door. She peeked through the window before opening the door. "Hey guys! Did you-" Chaz stopped mid sentence when she saw the large satchels the group was carrying. "We got food and we're rich!" Sabbi cheered as the others brought the food inside and placed it on the kitchen counter. "How did you guys manage to get all that?!" Chaz exclaimed as she went to the satchels and looked through them, pulling out packaged meats, bagged vegetables, some dairy products, and other small items. "Yup! We also made sure not to spend everything we earned, we need to save some since we don't know how long it'll take to get more money!" Sabbi set down a smaller satchel that was filled with the change they got for the sea serpents scales and teeth. "That's great and all, but what happened to him?" Chaz pointed over to Lulu, who was still being held up by Sabbi. "Yeah...we had to fight a sea serpent to get the money and he got knocked into a tree." Sabbi set Lulu in the rocking chair by the fireplace. "But there's still good stuff that came out of the fight! Kennethn got his second ability! He can freeze time on anything he wants!" "Really? I finally got my first ability while you guys were gone! Look!" Chaz stuck out her hand and began to manipulate its shape, turning it into the paw of a cat. "Shapeshifting! That's so cool and adorable!" Kennethn gushed as he quickly went over to Chaz and held onto the paw to examine it. Malik and Bryan went over to Chaz as she shapeshifted her other hand into a cat's paw, showing off her new ability. Sabbi stood there beside Lulu and stared at the others admiring Chaz's new ability. She was happy that her friend got her first ability, but this had her thinking about her own mythical abilities. When will she get hers? How much longer would she have to wait and train? Sabbi looked down at her feet, wondering if she'll even get her abilities. "Sabbi? Did you hear what I said?" Chaz asked her, making Sabbi snap out of her thoughts. "What? Sorry, I wasn't listening." "I said the chicken that was cooking got destroyed because Josephine and Andre got into another fight and it led into the kitchen. They knocked the chicken off the counter when we took it out to let it cool." "Oh...well, good thing we bought extra meat!" Sabbi smiled as she entered the kitchen and began to sort out the different meats they bought. "We got pork chops...steaks...sausages..." Sabbi named each packaged meat that was pulled out from the satchel. Sabbi suggested to Chaz to get everyone else in the group so they can pick out what they wanted for dinner, but she said that Aurora and Bora were occupied with trying to calm down Josephine and Andre after their fight, so it was best to just pick something for everyone. Sabbi looked through the items before settling on making sausages and pork chops with sauteed vegetables. She wanted to add more stuff with the food, so she sent Chaz, Malik, Kennethn, and Bryan out to pick up side dishes and to get some spices along with it since they didn't have much left in the kitchen. Sabbi handed them the satchel of change they got and reminded them not to spend too much. Once they all left, Sabbi pulled out a small pack of plastic wrap from one of the bigger satchels and tore a piece off. She took a small chunk of ice from the cooler and wrapped it in the plastic wrapping before taking it over to Lulu. The group found out that Lulu had sprained his ankle from the tree, which explained his limp. Lulu watched as Sabbi wrapped the ice around his ankle with more plastic wrap. "That's the wrong ankle." Lulu spoke up, causing Sabbi to stop wrapping the ice and look up at him. "Wait, really? I thought it was this one..." Sabbi was about to unwrap the ice from Lulu's ankle before he stopped her. "Nah, it is, I was messing with you." Lulu chuckled and gave off a small smile. Sabbi finished wrapping his ankle and stood back up. "How come you're rarely happy?" Sabbi looked down at him, resting her hand on the back of the rocking chair. "What do you mean? I'm happy most of the time." "But you almost never smile...I've seen you smile like twice." "Just because I don't smile that much doesn't mean I'm not happy." Lulu looked up at her, leaning against the chair and letting it gently rock. "I guess you're right..." Sabbi went back into the kitchen, putting everything from the satchels away before grabbing some of the vegetables and cleaning them in the sink. "Something on your mind? I sense that you're kinda out of it." Lulu turned his chair a bit so he was facing the kitchen instead of the fireplace. "Maybe..." Sabbi glanced over at him as she set the washed vegetables into a bowl. "It's about the mythical abilities, isn't it?" "Huh? How did you know?" "I noticed the way you were acting after Chaz said she got her ability while we were gone. Upset you're the last one to get yours?" "A bit, yeah..." Sabbi sighed as she got the kitchen appliances prepared. "I'm supposed to be the leader of the Midnight Crusaders, and yet I'm the only member without any abilities. I mean, how long did it take for you to get yours?" Lulu went silent at the question, looking down as he refused to answer. "Lulu? Is something wrong?" Sabbi stopped what she was doing and looked over at him. Lulu remained quiet for a few more seconds before sighing and looking back up at Sabbi. "We're technically working together now so...I guess it's better to let you know. The truth is that...we didn't get our abilities like you and your friends. We didn't have to train or get put in life threatening situations to get them, we use these..." Lulu rummages through his pocket and pulls out a small transparent bottle with a midnight blue liquid inside. "What is that?" Sabbi went over to him and examined the bottle. "It's a potion Blanche brewed for all of us...you guys got your abilities because you're all the chosen ones, you never wondered how we got ours? Or thought it was weird how we're not from the sorcery realm and yet we have these abilities? Plus we don't need transformations to activate anything with our weapons, we just have them normal." Lulu handed the bottle to Sabbi, who held the bottle up carefully to get a closer look at the liquid inside. "We all have one...we need to take a sip of the potion a day to maintain our abilities. We're supposed to keep it a secret from others..." "I see..." Sabbi gave the bottle back to Lulu. "If you need a potion to keep your abilities, how come you and Malik were talking down to us about our abilities back when we were looking for the ocean?" "You heard what Malik said..?" "I did, but I didn't bother to confront him because we had something more important to focus on." "Okay, but what about me? I didn't say anything bad about you guys with Malik! If anything, I was defending you!" "Not with Malik or about my group...you said it directly to me, don't you remember?" Lulu paused for a moment to recall saying anything negative about Sabbi having no abilities. Sabbi sighed and turned over to him. "When we had our fight. You called me the weakest link in the group, which as of right now, isn't wrong. All I have is my sword and I don't want to put all the pressure of battle onto Acqualina, so I just try to get by with my own strength." "Well, I'm sorry for saying that, it was just the heat of the moment and I didn't mean it. If anything, I can't really be talking shit about you not having your abilities when I'm not even supposed to be having mine nor did I earn them." "It's fine, don't worry about it." Sabbi reassured Lulu as she went back to prepping everything to cook. The room was filled with awkward silence as Sabbi kept working in the kitchen, Lulu sitting there and glancing at her every now and then. After a couple of minutes, Lulu got an idea, quickly turning over to Sabbi. "Hey, do we have any spare sausages? And did you pick up the cheeses I asked you to get when we were at the market?" "Yes to both questions, why?" "We can make a fondue with the cheeses we bought and we can have the sausages to dip them in there. This can be considered like an appetizer to hold us over until dinner." "If you want to, but I've never made cheese fondue before." "That's fine, I can make it, you can take care of the sausages." Sabbi nodded and took out the cheeses and other ingredients that Lulu claimed to need for the fondue. It took a while to get everything made, but Sabbi and Lulu eventually finished making the starter food, Lulu having to use a cast iron pot and the fireplace to make the cheese fondue since his ankle was still in too much pain for him to stand in the kitchen. When everything was done, the smell of the food began to emanate around the house, catching the attention of Bora and Aurora. "Who's cooking?" Aurora asked as she opened the bedroom door. "Oh, I forgot you guys were here." Lulu looked over at the two girls as Sabbi already began to dig into the fondue and sausages. "Yeah, Andre and Josephine finally calmed down, we're leaving them alone in the rooms for now." Bora sat down on the circular carpet and picked a piece of the cut up sausages, eating it. After the mention of Andre and Josephine, Sabbi began to think about their relationship. She knew that they would probably never get along after what happened with Tempest. As she thought of this, she thought about what Lulu told her earlier about the potions. Since Lulu and his group all used potions, it made sense to her now why Tempest's orb didn't transfer to Josephine. Josephine's abilities weren't authentic when she killed Tempest, which meant that she couldn't possess a real ability when it was stolen with a fake one. As Sabbi continued to process this theory, Rana and the rest of the group had come back. "Hey guys! Sorry if I was gone for too long, the cafe got backed up with customers!" Rana smiled as the others followed in after him. "It's alright, want some sausages and fondue?" Lulu looked up at him as he motioned towards the food. "Sure, but what happened with the chicken? Did you all already eat it?" "Yeah, we already finished it, but we're still hungry. We're about to make more food, we just needed to get some spices!" Chaz lied as she went to the kitchen and placed down the change and spices on the countertop. "I see..." Rana went into the kitchen and picked up the satchel of change. "Where did you guys get the money for more food and spices?" "We went sea serpent hunting and caught one!" Kennethn exclaimed as he began helping Rana with putting the spices away. "Yeah, and Lulu got his ankle busted." Malik chuckled a bit. "Don't worry, I put some ice on it to numb the pain." Sabbi brought up as she pointed out Lulu's wrapped ankle. "You all need to be more careful...you don't know much about this realm yet, so you might get yourselves into a fight you won't be able to finish." Rana looked concerned for the teens before his expression changed to a soft smile. "But I'm definitely impressed that you guys managed to win a fight with a sea serpent...it's hard enough to find one of those things, but beating one is even harder." As everyone continued to talk about the sea serpent fight, Rana, Chaz, Bora, and Kennethn decided to take over cooking dinner, leaving everyone else to either help put everything that was purchased away or to relax by the fireplace with the sausages and cheese fondue. The rest of the afternoon went swimmingly, everyone enjoying a nice dinner and getting to know Rana better, along with Rana getting a glimpse on how the teens were. After everyone ate and cleared the table, Rana quickly went over how the sleeping arrangement would be for the others. Rana's house had three rooms, one being his bedroom, the second being his office, and the third being a guest bedroom. Rana decided that he would convert his office into somewhat of a bedroom for the boys and push some furniture to the side in the guest room so the girls can stay in there. As Rana went to go through with the plan, the teens stayed in the living room to relax for a bit until the rooms were ready for them. Of course, a few teens had to sit in between Josephine and Andre to make sure they wouldn't get into another brawl. As everyone else talked and goofed around, Lulu remained quiet as he gently rocked back and forth on the rocking chair. Everyone but Sabbi expected it to be because of his injury, so they didn't bother him. It took a while for Rana to get the rooms set up, but he managed to get everything ready in a little over an hour. None of the teens had pajamas yet, so they all planned to just sleep in their regular clothes, not like they had much of a choice anyway. As the group split up between genders, Sabbi watched as all the boys were already goofing around as they entered their room, forgetting about Lulu still on the rocking chair. Lulu slowly got up from the chair and carefully wobbled over to the bedroom, having to use his hammer as a crutch to keep his balance. Once he entered the room, he closed the door behind him and sighed. "This is going to be so much fun! It's like having a sleepover!" Kennethn cheered as he sat on the makeshift bed Rana made for each of them. "It'll be a permanent sleepover if Lucius doesn't get that realm warp machine working again..." Bryan sighed, sitting on the floor and leaning against the wall. "Chill out, guys! We'll be fine!" Andre moved towards the window and opened it. "Lucius can fix the machine, and in the meantime, we get a once in a lifetime experience in this new world!" "Yeah, with a higher potential of dying." Bryan glared up at him. "We have abilities and weapons though, we can fight off people if we really need to! Besides, didn't you and some of the others take down a sea serpent earlier? If you can take down one of those, imagine what we can all do together!" "All together? You and Jospehine can't even stand being near each other for a single minute, how are you two going to work together and help the group?" "Okay, that's a different story, and you know exactly why I can't stand her..." Andre grumbled a bit, his mood getting soured at just the mention of Josephine. Andre quickly turned his attention to outside the opened window, trying to relieve himself of the anger he could feel building up already. "Regardless, we shouldn't stay here for too long, we have our actual lives to live in the human realm." Bryan stood up and went over to Andre. "Are you feeling better now?" "Yeah...I just don't want to hear anything about Josephine..." Andre pinched the bridge of his nose as he pulled away from the window. "Okay, we get that she killed your companion, but you really need to push that aside for now. What happened then shouldn't affect the whole group in surviving in this realm for the remainder of our stay, especially when you and your friends are the ones that need to restore the Crystal Calamity. Don't you think that you and Josephine's feud is affecting all of us? If anything, you guys are the reason we're all stuck here in the first place! You guys knocked over the realm warp and broke it!" Malik spoke up and stood in between Bryan and Andre. All Andre could do was stand there in silence, not sure of what to say back to Malik. "Okay, can we all calm down? Maybe we should just get some sleep..." Kennethn quickly got up and tried to settle Malik down. The group of boys gave each other looks before nodding in agreement, making their way to their own makeshift beds. Lulu had already gone to his bed and laid on his back, staring up at the ceiling and going through the several thoughts in his mind. All he could figure out right now is that the partnership between his group and the Midnight Crusaders might not be such a good idea to continue with.