Elysian (After Stellarlune)

25. Keefe's POV

 Dex was bouncing up and down in anticipation as everyone gathered around him. He seemed ecstatic about sharing his breakthrough.

"Ok, you'll never guess what I found!" Dex exclaimed.

"Well then, let me guess: You found how Elysian used a gadget to speak in our heads telepathically without her being a Telepath?"

Stina smirked at her own snarky answer, but Dex replied in stride. "Yes, I did find that, but I also found so much more. It only took a few seconds for my brain to figure out how the mind-speak, which is what I'm calling it by the way, worked, so in that other few minutes of Enhancing, I solved a lot of other problems that I've had. Like, Keefe, that thing we're working on? I didn't necessarily solve it, but I have some ideas I want to experiment with. I also came up with some new ideas for the Illusion Breaker, but that doesn't really matter anymore. Here, I can show you my notes if you'd like."

Dex pulled out the notebook with the notes, but flipped through and read aloud another twelve pages before Maruca came up to him and said, "Dex, no one understands this. Maybe you could speak to us in elvin terms?"

Dex blushed apologetically. "Sorry, everyone. You're right. So, basically, I got a gadget that blocks abilities, but only Keefe's abilities and it blocks them in a non-harmful way; I made another Illusion Breaker; a device that searches all human technology based on search terms that I input; something that can mind-speak; something that can block mind-speak, and a device that senses germs on your hands and cleans them with a super efficient sanitation spray."

"What's with the sanitizer spray?" Biana asked.

"Oh, I've just seen a bunch of sicknesses on human T.V. feeds, and I want to start being more clean in case they can spread to us elves."

"What kind of sicknesses?" Sophie asked.

"Um, I don't know; I just heard that they've seen all of them before. It's all repeating."

"Did they say that they're new strains?" Sophie seemed to be concerned about hearing of the viruses.

"Um, yeah, the news guy said, and I quote, 'All new strains that we don't have a cure for; doctors are concerned by the death count that these viruses are taking, especially considering that these viruses didn't used to be considered deadly.' Or something along the lines of that."

"What's the death count?!" Sophie asked him frantically.

"Um, around 4-5 million people worldwide. Why?"

"Oh my gosh, Dex, that's an insane number of deaths! How long has it been like this?" Sophie was pacing furiously now. Keefe hadn't seen her this stressed since... well, it'd been a few days, but that was a record!

"They said that they've spread in a record amount of time... I think it's been 2 or so weeks."

"What?!" 

Sophie opened her mouth, then closed it, as if speechless.

She wasn't.

"We need to look into this. Dex, please go and grab the Collective, the Council, and my parents. I think they went inside. Biana or Fitz, one of you will want to inform your parents or just bring them over here, since they are very high ranking in the Nobility and will definitely want to hear about this. Anyone else with parents in the Nobility who thinks that their parents will care about hearing this information before the public is welcome to invite them as well." Sophie gave out orders without struggle, and Keefe felt a small surge of pride in his chest. She was getting very good at this.

Not the time. He scolded himself.

Sophie continued to issue orders. "I know that it wasn't a lot of time, but did anyone else get anything done besides Linh and Marella? Also, after all of this, if we somehow have the time, we will be going back to what we were doing, because it is super important, like I said before. So? Did anyone find anything?"

Biana's group shook their heads apologetically. "No, we didn't." she replied. "Me and Tam were... busy."

Keefe perked up upon hearing this. Biana made it sound like she and Tam were doing something together. Keefe had long suspected the couple's feelings for each other, but never commented on it on the off chance that he was wrong. But with confirmation...

Let the Tam teasing begin.

"So, Tam, what were you and Biana doing?" he asked, trying and failing to sound nonchalant.

"Um, we were- um, yeah, we just-"

"They were looking on the wrong side of the library for the stuff we needed." Marella interrupted.

"Uh-huh." Keefe wasn't convinced, but he let it slide, since they had things to do.

"Continuing," Sophie said, steering them back on course. "We're going to have to- never mind, we can discuss it later. We need to explain the situation." Sophie was looking over their shoulders at the group of adults heading towards them.

"Here we go." Keefe said under his breath.

"Agreed," muttered Maruca, who was standing next to him. "Who knows when this conversation will end."

To everyone's surprise, it ended just half an hour later.

After having the whole situation explained, all of the adults agreed that they should go back to their respective duties whilst also keeping a close eye on human newsfeeds. Sophie, of course, argued that more needed to be done, but even she was tired from the day's events, so she quickly gave up and started to head inside.

"Oh, no you don't." Keefe said as he grabbed her arm.

"So, we've already played Kiss, Marry, Kill, even though that ended kind of abruptly. We still have loads more games to play, including, but not limited to, Spin the Bottle, Truth or Dare, and Two Truths and a Lie. So, what I propose is a group sleepover. Yes, everyone is tired and all that; but that makes it even more fun because no one will have the energy to complain about whatever they have to do!"

Reluctantly, knowing that none of them were getting out of this and too tired to even try to argue, everyone agreed, even Sophie; albeit still protesting about the work that they had to do.

"But we need to do stuff." she whined.

"It's 9:00 at night. Most of us would have been going to sleep soon. We aren't getting anything more done asleep than we are staying up and playing games."

"But now we'll be tired tomorrow, which makes us less productive."

"Foster, with everything that happened today bouncing around in your brain right now, do you really think you would have slept at all? I mean, what good is lying in bed, unable to fall asleep, when you could be partying with your friends? Oh, and your amazing boyfriend."

Sophie couldn't seem to argue with that, so she just nodded. Keefe noticed that Fitz had flinched a little when Keefe said that last part, and Wylie seemed almost intrigued.

He wasn't at lunch to hear the news. Keefe remembered.

Oh well, he knew now.

So, after finalizing where they'd stay and alerting their parents, the gang all locked hands as Biana held up her home crystal, taking them away from their problems and into a blissful night of no worries.

Get ready for even more fluff! (Look, im sorry, ok? The opportunity arose for a group sleepover and I couldnt resist some more truth-revealing fun. I promise, it'll only be a part or two (I think)

Question: I said a few parts ago that I was trying to appeal to both the action-loving readers and the ship-loving readers, so which one are you? I much prefer the ships, but I understand that having some action really enhances the ships most of the time, with the hardship and all that, so I dont mind some action. For this fic, im trying to push away my wants (except my ships) and make it as realistic as possible (meaning it's like it was written by Shannon Messenger and is a real part of the Keeper series)

Anyways, bye, and have a great day!