Royal Blood

Chapter 15 Pretty Girl

"Okay now focus your energy into one stream and direct it at me." Amber closed her eyes and held her palms open, little orbs of flame appearing at her palms as she focused her energy into her hands. She opened her eyes, revealing the color in her eyes changing from brown to a glowing pink. She put her hands together and shot a stream of fire at Chase.
He held his hand up and the flames stopped in front of him, "Good job!"
Amber smiled, proud at herself for accomplishing her challenge.
"What's next?" She asked with excitement.
Chase tapped his chin and snapped, "I know. Okay I'm going to show you how to block attacks with a wall of fire. It's pretty effective for the most part. Of course it doesn't work against everything but its effective nonetheless."
Chase made a fist and threw it up into a the air, causing a huge wall of fire to appear in front of him. With a quick wave of his hand, it quickly disappeared. "Just Like that. Focus your energy on protecting yourself. Kind of like when you were little and you put the blanket on over your head to protect from the monsters."
Amber nodded and focused on her energy and the times she needed protection, she made the movements Chase did, a wall of flame slowly forming in front of her. She smiled to herself as she was able to accomplish this task.
"I'm doing it! I'm really doing it!" She looked up and saw that Chase wasn't nearby, watching over her, but at the river, peering across to where Luna and Xavier where, "That lucky bastard..." He mumbled. "If only she had the power of fire too..."
Amber's annoyance grew. He was supposed to be teaching her how to use and control her powers and instead he was making googly eyes across the river. She lost her focus and the flames spiraled out of control on their own.
There was a burst of flames that caused the entire clearing to catch on fire. Chase turned in surprise and cursed under his breath for letting himself lose focus.
The waters near the river rose into the air and flew around the clearing, quickly extinguishing the fire Amber started.
The two gasped from the sudden wave of water that greeted them and threw them around the now charred clearing.
When the wave returned to the river, the two coughed and sputtered on the ground, absolutely soaked from head to toe, "Amber," he coughed, "You okay?"
Amber coughed and nodded, "Y-yeah. I think I'll just call it in for today. Thanks, Chase."
She stood up and grabbed her bag, it was just as soaked as she was, with black burn marks all over it.
"Wait! But there so much more to learn. We've got lot of daylight left. You still have to practice."
She sighed, "It's okay Chase. Let's just pick it up tomorrow." She turned and made her way back to the hideout. Her clothes sticking uncomfortably to her skin.
She looked over and saw Zane and Sebastian giving eachother a high five for putting out the fire, "You're a natural!" Sebastian praised.
A cold blast appeared from out of nowhere, causing the wet clothing to almost immediately freeze, "Seriously!?" Amber shouted in disbelief at the series of events. She shivered and rubbed her arms to try and gain some kind of heat from doing so.
When she made it to the entrance, Kane teleported down, "Woah what happened to you?" he snickered, "You look like Chen just played a nasty trick on you."
Amber shot him a glare, "Training accident. Can we please get to the base now? I'm freezing..." She shivered from the cold.
Kane nodded, "Anything you say, Your Majesty." He shot her a smirk and snapped his fingers, causing the two to disappear and at the top of the steps. "So how did this little accident happen anyway?"
Amber sighed, "We all got a little distracted and then I guess our training crashed into someone else's. Then, I ran into someone else's training getting here, so yeah, here I am."
Kane laughed, "Of course that dork tower got distracted. What was it this time? Was it the butterflies?"
Amber mumbled in annoyance, "He was just looking at some other people training that's all. He just got distracted."
Kane gave her a mischievous look, "Oh please. He was looking over at Luna and Xylophone wasn't he? Lucky guy for getting the closest clearing to them. I wish I was out there. She's a cutie."
"So I've heard." Amber said through gritted teeth. All she'd seen and heard since their arrival were people oogling over Luna. She knew Luna was pretty and had many admirers, but this was just getting annoying. She shouldn't have been a reason she couldn't train properly or that the person training her should get distracted.
"Man, all these guys after her, not to mention that Jake guy. And that Zane guy. Nobody can get close to her without those two guard dogs."
Amber sighed and blocked Kane's talking about Luna out, letting her thoughts wander. She counted the days that they had been gone and realized her birthday was today. She was so wrapped up in the events she had completely forgotten. It wasn't like she was big on celebrating her birthday. A majority of the time, she wanted her birthday to pass over without a reminder of it. Maybe just some cake, but that was it. Birthdays were never pleasant for her. She would start the day excited she was a year older and it was supposed to be a special day, but that was when things ended up going bad. Instead of gifts, it was more troubles. No one really stayed around to celebrate with her. It normally came down to just herself and whatever else life decided to throw her way. The day had gone quite accurately to a usual birthday. Beginning with excitement and shortly after, it ending with disaster.
"Amber? Amber?" Kane snapped Amber back into reality, but she ended up tripping upon the last couple of steps and running into the doorway with a loud crash and bang.
Kane burst into a loud round of laughter at Amber and sat on the step, unable to walk anymore because he couldn't stop laughing.
Tristan opened the door and saw Kane laughing on the stairs and Amber on the floor by the doorway, "What the heck?"
"She tripped on the last few steps!" Kane said amidst his laughter. Tristan couldn't help but crack a smile and chuckle to himself, "You dummy. You okay?"
Amber turned a bright shade of red in embarrassment and nodded, "I'm gonna gonna go to my room..." She mumbled before quickly standing up and trying running unnoticed past the canteen to where her room was, tripping a few times on her way as well over the trash that people were too lazy to pick up and put in the garbage can. The two couldn't help but burst into laughter, as well as anyone else who noticed the few times she tripped.
She ran into her room and quickly slammed the door shut, sitting on the floor right in front of it and hugging her knees. How embarrassing! She squealed in embarrassment and cursed her awfully clumsy self. Why today of all days did these events have to come one after the other?
She sighed and peeled the icy cold clothes off of her skin and into nice, warm clothes. "Happy frickin birthday, self..." She sighed and curled up on her bed, hoping for the day to end quickly.
She awoke later hungry and saw the clock to be almost supper time. She made her way down to the canteen and saw everyone back from their training, a large group of people all near the center. She could see that Jake, Zane, Luna, and Kris were at the eye of the storm, everyone else was crowded around them.
Amber rolled her eyes at Luna's flirtatious behavior and Jake and Zane's glares around the room. She grabbed a tray and let the servers give her scoops of food. One seemed to look like a strange, purple goop, while another looked like orange broccoli, a glass of a green liquid, and another looked like yellow squares of who knows what.
She heard someone clear their throat next to her and nervously approach the servers, "Ahem, uh, sorry. Miss Luna didn't like this. Is there anything else to eat."
The fairy server scoffed and rolled her eyes, "What do you think we're running here? A five-star restaurant? If she wants something else she can go hunt it down herself."
Amber chuckled quietly to herself and made her way over to the table, trying to squeeze through the people to get to her friends, "Excuse me. Sorry." She would say. Some gave her glares and some gave her a quick and annoyed glance.
A man bumped into her, the man must have been seven feet tall and very well built. Her tray ended up spilling its contents all over her when the man bumped into her.
The man gave her a disgusted look, "Watch where you're going, you lousy boy." He said rather loudly, although not many seemed to notice.
Amber looked up at him in disbelief. Not even an, 'Oh let me help you there.'
"You know, when someone bumps into someone, they apologize or at least hand them a napkin to clean the mess with."
"Are you back talking me, boy?" He loomed angrily over Amber. She knew he could easily just step on her and kill her but she wasn't gonna give up the fight.
"You heard me. You should have a bit more manners when you bumped into someone. And quit calling me boy. I'm a girl."
The man laughed and grabbed Amber by the collar of her shirt, picking her up to the point where her feet were no longer touching the ground. "Listen here." He started menacingly, "You back talk me, and you're in for a world of pain. I suggest you pick up your tray and move on." He then roughly dropped her in the middle of the puddle made by her spilled food.
"Listen here you big oaf! Its not that difficult to not be a rude ass! I may be tiny but I know my manners!" Amber shouted, she knew it was a bad idea but her stubbornness wasn't going to let her quit that easily.
Anyone who wasn't absorbed in the center table watched with amusement as Amber shouted at the man, knowing that she wasn't going to last an hour longer at this rate. The man growled at Amber and roughly grabbed her arm, flinging her across the table of which everyone was around.
"You dare to challenge me, boy? I'll teach you a lesson you'll never forget." he grabbed a giant axe that he had leaned against the table, and ran after her, letting out a battle cry as he swung at her.
Amber rolled out of the way just as the axe came and hit the floor, just lightly grazing her face. The floor shattered and pieces of wood went flying. The attention was now focused on the battle, many cheering and shouting.
Amber scrambled to her feet, jumping out of the way just in time as the man swung at her with the axe. She hit the wall behind her roughly and in that second of distraction, the man took a final swing at her. "STOP!" She heard someone scream, but she knew it was too late. Knowing she was trapped, she flung her arms in front of her face, quickly closing her eyes.
But the axe never came.
She slowly opened her eyes and saw everyone staring at them in silence. There in front of her, the man was frozen in his position with the axe.
"Y-you! What are you doing, boy?!" The man shouted, screaming as he tried to move his blade.
People around began to whisper in disbelief. Only the most powerful of those who have telekinesis could stop the mighty axe. A stranger girl was able to stop the blade.
"How can a girl like that stop him?"
"She's so young. How?"
"No one's ever been able to stop the axe before."
"But I thought her power was fire?"
"Who is she?"
A door slammed open, and Sebastian, Micah, Chase, and Demitrius filed in, Sebastian looked infuriated, "I leave for an hour and there's been a fight in my hall! What did I say about fighting amongst comrades?!"
The crowd quickly dispersed leaving Amber and the man with the axe still unmoving.
"Micah. Make the blade drop, she can't stop what she's doing." Sebastian said.
Micah nodded and waved his hand causing the blade to drop.
"Who started this?" Sebastian said, trying to be calm, but he still sounded angry.
"The idiot boy." The man said loudly, causing snickers amongst the crowd.
Kris, who was watching from a short distance away, clenched his fist and growling to himself as he imagined his fist making contact with that man's nose.
"Amber. What did you do to provoke him?" Sebastian asked.
"Well its not hard to apologize to someone after bumping into them and causing them to spill the contents of their lunch tray all over themselves." She said calmly.
Sebastian chuckled quietly, "Just like your father. Very stubborn." He ruffled her hair, "Go get cleaned up. Igor, clean this mess up. If I still see a mess by tonight I'll have you on kitchen duty for the next week, you got it? No complaints. Now get cleaning."
The man grumbled in annoyance but knew better than to defy Sebastian.
Kris ran to Amber and began to pick out what looked like little red beans from her hair, "By the gods, Amber! You had me so worried..."
But Amber did not hear him. All she could think of was what Sebastian said. She was just like her father? She felt an explosion of feelings as she heard something about her parents. Anything about her parents that even so much as gave her the tiniest glimpse of what they were like.
"Amber?" Kris waved his hand in front of her face to get her attention.
Amber smiled and grabbed his hands out of excitement, "Finally! The tiniest detail about what my dad was like! Never have I ever before heard anything about them. There's so many things I could learn about them here!"
Kris began to grit his teeth, "That's amazing Amber, but please let go of my hands. You're burning them."
Amber looked at his hands and gasped, immediately letting go, "Oh god. Oh god. Oh god. What did I just do? Kris I'm so sorry!"
She reached for his hand to turn it and get a better look, but Kris winced in pain again as she touched his skin.
Amber quickly pulled her hands back and put them behind her, ashamed she was hurting Kris.
"I'm sorry..." She whispered.
"Amber! The wall!" She heard Chanyeol shout as small flames climbed up the walls from behind her.
She quickly turned, panicking as she didn't know what to do. "Chase! How can I stop it?!"
"I got it!" Zane said, holding his hand out as a ball of water appeared in his hand.
He threw it at the fire and repeated this until the fires were out.
"Good job there!" Sebastian said proudly to Zane. "You're a fast learner."
Chase approached Amber, "Don't look so ashamed Amber. Fire is difficult. We can work through it. We just need to train a little more."
Amber shook her head, "No, no, it's fine. I just need to go to sleep. That's all. I'll see you tomorrow or something..." With that, she quickly turned and ran up to her room.
She slammed the door shut and slid to the ground, sighing out exhaustion, frustration, and relief. She slowly looked around her room. Noticing the little black burn marks she had left behind earlier.
"Great job, dumbo..." she scolded herself, "I hurt Kris. I'm such an idiot." She sighed and changed yet again into clean clothes, washing all of the food off of her beforehand.
She curled up in bed again. Wishing to just sleep the rest of this night away.
* * *
Later that night, she was roughly awoken by Micah, "Get up." He said, throwing training clothes at her.
"Dude. It's like, 10 o'clock or something. Go to sleep. You've probably had a long day anyway, with your position and all."
Micah rolled his eyes and pulled the blankets of of Amber, "You've had plenty of sleep today. If you're going up against the shadow king, you need to train. Now I suggest you get up. I know you're probably really mad at Chase, all of his students are, the guy has the attention span of a butterfly, but that's not the point. The point is, you need to train. Since you've newly discovered the power of telekinesis, I'm going to teach you how to use it."
"Wait, really?" Amber said excitedly.
Micah laughed, "Well of course! Look, I want to be able to live in our land without a constant fear. I want to live in the days from when I was little and life was good. No shadow king. You have no idea how much we need you back in the throne. I'm not sending my leaders into battle unprepared. We will train so you can fight. I'll make sure Chase is on task this time too."
Amber smiled softly, "Okay. But if Chase gets distracted again, I get first dibs on throwing a ball of flame at him."
"Just a small one. We don't want Sebastian throwing a fit." Luhan laughed and grabbed his bag, "Be down by training area 6 in five minutes. I'm timing you."
He closed the door and Amber scrambled out of bed to quickly throw on her clothes and grab her things before dashing out the door.
* * *
After the training, Amber felt especially great. It had gone well as Micah had promised. But just when things were starting to look up, something was brewing nearby.
"Lay off, kid, she wouldn't go out with a dork like you."
"Oh yeah? Who in their right mind would want to go out with a giant idiot."
"Watch your mouth, child."
Amber hid behind a tree and peered around it. There stood Jake, Zane, the man she fought with earlier, and 2 other men. All of them glared at each other with utter hatred as they argued over Luna. Amber rolled her eyes in annoyance at how immature they were all acting. There were serious issues at hand and they were arguing over a girl.
"No woman wants a scrawny little loser."
"I'll show you who's scrawny! Fight me!"
The man Amber had fought earlier laughed and threw his weapons aside, "You and me. Let's go. I'll beat you to a pulp!"
Jake let out a cry and ran at him, jumping to punch him. The man dodged Jake's blow and struck Jake in the stomach, knocking the wind out of him and sending him flying back.
"Jake! Pick on someone your own size asshole!" Zane shouted
All three ambushed him, but he was quick, hitting each attacker and sending him back.
"Guys!" Amber ran out to help them, making little orbs of flame appear at her hands. She hurdled them at the man. He quickly turned and grabbed his axe, blocking the flames with his axe.
"Oh! The stupid boy is back!" He said mockingly to Amber.
"Bug off! Go find something else to do!" Amber shouted angrily as she ran to help her friends up.
"Stay out of it, Amber! I can take him!" Jake coughed, finally regaining his breath.
"No you can't! You're going to get badly hurt and I'm not taking responsibility for you two!"
Zane held his hand out as a sword made of water formed, lightning crackling around it. "We can handle ourselves. We didn't interfere in your fight so don't interfere in ours."
Jake and the other two were ready to fight as well, Jake with a staff of ice forming in his hand, one with a dagger in hand, and another with claws and razor sharp teeth ready to kill.
The five of them glared at each other, each one ready for whoever was to attack. The boy with the dagger and the boy with the claws let out a battle cry and jumped on Zane to fight. With that cue, Jake and the man Amber had fought earlier ran at each other and attacked.
Amber groaned and watched as the boys fought. Zane was getting scratched and cut but he kept up well and wasn't too badly injured. Jake, on the other hand, had his life hanging on a thread. Amber switched her stare between the two and cursed under her breath as she ran to help Jake before he ended up killing himself or getting a limb chopped off. The blade the large male swung had barely missed Jake but left a few significant cuts on his arms and torso, his blood quickly seeping into his shirt.
Jake stumbled and fell back, he knew that he couldn't get up in time as the man swung back. Amber threw a ball of fire at him, distracting him just long enough that Jake could get up.
The man turned and bellowed with anger and he swung at Amber. The blade had missed her mostly, but a long cut was made along her cheek.
Amber focused her energy upon the axe, causing it to fly out of his hands and into the river. From there, Jake blasted a ball of ice from his hands, sending the man flying back away from the river.
Amber turned to Zane, the two males knocked Zane over and were now on top of him. They had lost their weapons but they didn't not hesitate to punch and scratch him.
Amber ran and threw the boys off of Zane, helping him up, "You're gonna have fun explaining this."
Zane nodded, "Here they come!"
Amber turned and punched the half human male, but he was quickly back on his feet, jumping onto Amber and scratching her face and arms.
"What's going on out here?" A light female voice asked.
All five of them turned and saw Luna standing there with slightly messy hair and a sleepy expression as she rubbed her eyes.
They immediately stopped everything they were doing, ran to her leaving Amber, Zane, and Jake, and acted as if nothing happened. "Luna! What are you doing up my princess?"
"You should rest, my dear."
"I just came to check on my buddies." She said with a cute smile.
"Oh they're just training. What can I get you? Food? Water?"
"Oh yes, yes, we could take you back to get anything you need."
"Let us escort you. We will take care of everything."
Luna chuckled, "Uh, sure, can I get that purple cake they had yesterday?"
"Anything!" the three of them exclaimed excitedly, beginning to pull her in with them.
Amber clenched her fists and rage bubbled up inside her. This pretty princess was the reason they incoming such serious injuries for. They could've died for all they knew!
"You..." Amber clenched her teeth and got up, "You pretty princess with your cherry lips and batting your eyes to get whatever you want. You just get everything you want and everyone is treating you like some kind of god. You don't even notice how injured your so-called friends even are!"
"Shut up, witch." The half-man growled, "Nobody wants to hear from you."
"Such a spoiled little boy." the large male mocked her.
Amber had enough, "You guys can shut up yourselves! Since we got here, it had been nothing but people swooning over the trophy girl Luna! I've put up with too much because of you! A training ground bursting into flames, getting soaked to the bone, having to put up with rude neanderthals, and having to stop the boys from getting killed! Not to mention all the other shit we've dealt with because of these two fighting over you the way here! In case you've forgotten, we came here on a mission. You can do what you want princess, but I'm out of here! We came to save Milo. I'm going to continue with or without you guys. The choice is yours. You can stay in your pretty little paradise and get pampered all you want."
With that, Amber turned and stormed off, her form disappearing amongst the trees.
Luna scoffed and went to help Zane up, "You okay Zane?"
"Yeah, I'm fine."
Luna held her hand out for Jake but Jake did not take it, instead picking himself up, "Amber is definitely right on one thing. We came to save Milo. We've been wasting our time here fighting when we were supposed to be training and going to save him. I'm going to go with Amber after I fix up. You guys can do what you want. You guys never wanted to go in the first place."
Jake turned and ran to the camp, slightly limping on his right leg.
Luna sighed and grabbed Zane, "Let's get you patched up. Those two need time too cool."
* * *
Jake limped down the path, his wounds cleaned and bandaged. He had twisted his ankle slightly but all he had to do was walk it off until it got better.
There was Amber, sitting by a small pond, relaxing and staring into the waters that glittered under the light of the moon. The night was quiet with the sound of crickets chirping in the night.
Jake made his way over to Amber, setting his things down and sitting next to her.
"Hey..." Amber glanced at Jake and turned her gaze back to the calm waters, tossing a pebble into the pond, disrupting that peace.
"If it isn't trophy girl's fanboy..." she mumbled.
"In my defense, those guys were being jerks. They were talking about Luna and just dirty stuff." Jake said. He knew it was a bit immature of him to do, but what could he do? He was not going to allow someone to speak to vilely of the girl he liked.
Amber shook her head, "You should've left. Not like they were being asses to you specifically. Those guys wouldn't lay a finger on Luna. They're trying to win little miss pretty girl, remember?"
Jake rolled his eyes, "You were in a fight earlier. How was that any different?"
"I don't take lightly to people bullying me. If you're going to be rude straight to my face, you've got another thing coming. That's one area where our fights were different. You guys were fighting because they were talking about Luna. That's a bit immature don't you think?"
Jake held his hands up, "Okay, point taken"
"So how's your ankle?" She asked changing the subject.
"Slightly twisted, but I'll live." He chuckled.
"But you're in no condition to walk. Trust me, I've gotten enough injuries to know what's up."
"But we're so close Amber! I'm not going to let this set me back from saving my brother."
Amber dipped her hands in the water and washed the blood and dirt from her hands and face. "That part I can agree with you on. Look let's grab our stuff, there's no point in arguing and screwing around. We've got to get your brother."
Jake nodded, "That part I agree on. Let's hurry out."
He stood up and took in a sharp breath as he felt the pain of his twisted ankle. "I'm going to have to get used to not putting any weight on this foot."
"Why didn't you go to a healer? I'm sure they could heal you pretty quickly. It'll save you the pain."
"Oh yeah..." Jake chuckled sheepishly, "I didn't think about that. It does make me look cool though, kindatough, maybe badass?"
"In your dreams, princess' boy."
* * *
"I feel bad." Zane blurted out. "After all we've been through, we made it this close and then we go and forget what our mission was, to save Jake's brother."
"I know I feel bad too. I didn't know Amber felt like that all this time. And now we let them both go ahead on their own to face who knows what kind of danger."
"Luna."
"And what if they get ambushed!"
As Luna began to ramble, Zane noticed Luna's hands began glowing a soft purple as she cleaned his wounds. With each wipe, the wounds began to quickly heal and disappear into a light scar on his skin. "Luna you-"
"Oh my god, what if they get turned into stone again!"
"LUNA!" Zane screamed getting her to stop rambling.
"What?"
"You, uh, healed me. All my injuries are gone."
"No way?! That wasn't me."
"Then why are your hands glowing purple?"
Luna looked then her hands in disbelief, "Could healing be one of my powers?"
"Looks like you are dearie." A husky older faerie woman said passing by. "Me mum had that beautiful gift to heal the wounded. Me not so lucky. But I remember when I would get a cut or cold, she'd be there with her glowing hands and I'd feel better. So treasure this, for its a rare ability." She then parted her way before either two could get a word out.
"That was a touching story." Luna sighed. "But I guess that explains why I never get sick."
"Yeah and now you could heal us if we get hurt like earlier."
"You're right, that means I can heal Jake!" She said as she bounced up and ran out of the infirmary towards Jake's room.
Zane rolled his eyes and shook his head at how childish she seemed, secretly smiling to himself, but followed after her anyway.
Luna bursted into Jake's room but there was no Jake to be found.
"Oh no! He must have already left! We have to go after them before something bad happens!"
"But well never catch up, they're too far ahead. If only we could freeze time." He said. But instead of Luna responding all he heard was silence. He looked up to see Luna frozen solid. He looked out into the hall and saw that everyone walking by was frozen mid step.
"Ah shit! What have I done? I did it again..." He touched Luna's arm, only wanting for her to move and help him figure out what was going on, and she unfroze, to Zane's surprise.
"Zane why isn't anyone moving?" She asked confused.
"I-I don't I don't know, I didn't mean to do it again!" He cried.
"Wait... Again?!?" Luna said surprised.
"I've done it before at school. I don't know what it was, I just got scared and the entire band room froze."
"Zane! You can control time. This is perfect! We can catch up to the other two!" She said, bouncing on her toes in excitement.
"But I don't know how to undo it."
"We can get Kris. Kris will help us. Now let's go unfreeze him and catch up!" She declared charging towards Kris's room.
Once inside Zane touched Kris unfreezing him as well.
"Wait, what's going on?" Kris asked confused.
"We'll. . .the boys got in a fight and then they went gaga over me, but who blames them, hahaha just kidding, but then Amber got offended and stormed off and the injured Jake followed. Then I healed Zane with a power that I don't even know I had and it turns out that Zane can freeze time." She said rapidly.
"Well then let's catch up! Grab your bags, we don't know how far ahead they are." He said quickly stuffing what he needed into his bags. The two nodded and ran to their rooms to grab their things.