Part 14: Great, ghasts. Not what I ordered. Can I get a refund?

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 "So... what's this thing you've been wanting to tell me about your powers?" Jesse asked.

"I never told you how I found out I had powers. One day when I was fourteen years old, I woke up and everything was normal. I cleaned for about three hours because my friends were coming over-"

"Fred and Xara?" Jesse replied. Romeo shook his head.

"No, this was before that. Their names were Elias and Felicity. Anyway, Elias and Felicity came over after I cleaned the house for three hours. We spent two hours together, then they left and I decided I'd go to the kitchen to make something to eat. They'd really been pushing me around that day so I was very stressed and frustrated. My hands grasped the edge of the kitchen table... and that's when it happened. I felt something crackling under my hands and when I lifted my hands off of the table there were hand-shaped burn marks. My heart began to beat very quickly and my eyes widened. I didn't know what was going on with me. I spent the next minute or so staring at my hands and breathing heavily. I managed to convince myself that the burn marks were already there from something else and I just didn't see them, but the next couple of weeks more strange things happened to me. A door opened when I hadn't even touched it and there was no wind that day, I found a diamond sword in my chest that I knew I didn't have before then, and I woke up on the floor in my bedroom and the blankets hadn't moved. Again, I made up excuses to convince myself that nothing was wrong... there'd been a sudden gust of wind that opened the door, someone had left the sword as a gift, and I'd rolled out of my bed. I guess I just didn't want to believe the alternative and I was willing to accept any other explanation. My life was normal- and I still thought I was normal- until a week later. I was staring at the mirror and I looked down to pick up my toothbrush... then I looked at the mirror again and saw my white scleras had become red and my black eyes had become yellow. My mouth dropped open and my breathing was definitely very heavy and shaky," Romeo said.

Jesse stared at him, waiting for him to continue. After thirty seconds of waiting, she finally got fed up and asked him a prompting question. "So what happened next?"

"Eventually everyone in town found out about my powers, I was an outcast, and I decided to run away. That's when I met Fred and Xara. Well, I met Xara first... then Fred later on. I just can't help but feel like I have these powers for a reason. I don't know how I got them. I like to think I was born with them and I either didn't know I had them or they took a while to develop, but that leaves the question of 'why were Xara, Fred, and I the only people born with powers? What made us...'" Romeo paused for a moment as he searched for the right word. "'...different?'"

"Luck maybe. Twist of fate? Destiny?" Jesse guessed. Romeo gave her a skeptical look.

"So you have no idea?" Romeo answered. Jesse beamed at him and nodded.

"I have no idea," Jesse admitted. There were about three seconds of silence.

"I feel like I could be doing more, but I'm not," Romeo sighed.

"You're doing the best you can," Jesse insisted. She glanced at Lukas, who was talking to Stella, Petra, Axel, and Binta. "I'm kind of nervous about my date with Lukas tonight. Any tips?" Jesse added.

Romeo held back a laugh.

"You're asking me for dating tips?" Romeo snickered.

"You probably have at least some dating tips because you're old," Jesse responded. Romeo rolled his eyes and gave her a look.

"Thanks a lot, Jesse."

"How old are you exactly?" Jesse asked. Romeo clearly didn't want to answer her question and let out a sigh.

"About one thousand. I remember that I was born on July twenty fourth... but I eventually stopped counting, forgot my birth year, and lost track," Romeo stated.

"Wow. You really are old," Jesse commented. Romeo looked extremely frustrated and annoyed.

"Can- can you just...?" Romeo grumbled. Jesse smiled at him.

"Okay, I'll stop. It's super fun to mess with you though. So, what's your love advice?" Jesse questioned.

"I guess just be yourself and don't come on too strong. Most importantly, don't kiss on your first date. Ever," Romeo told her.

"That's actually good advice," Jesse said. Romeo rolled his eyes and was about to answer her when a ghast glided into Lizzie's backyard. The ghast was a ghost-like creature. It had a very large white head with closed eyes that seemed to be eternally crying and a mouth. Nine white tentacles were connected to the bottom of the ghast's head, drifting through the air as it flew. To Romeo, the tentacles looked like long smooth white socks that had been filled with stuffing.

"What's a ghast doing here? They only spawn in the Nether," Romeo said. Jesse frowned as she stared at the ghast.

"I hate ghasts," Jesse muttered. She drew her sword. Eleven more ghasts floated over to the first ghast to join it. "Of course. There's never just one. Why would there be just one? No one ever goes easy on me and says 'oh, you just have to kill this one monster and you're finished,'" Jesse quipped. Romeo's hands became filled with red electricity.

"Yeah, I find that really annoying now that I know what it feels like," Romeo agreed. Jesse looked at his hands, then made eye contact with him.

"Don't burn yourself out, okay?"

"I'll be fine," Romeo assured. He left out the "at least I think so" at the end for Jesse's sake.

Jesse looked at the ghasts and a smirk appeared on her face.

"I thought you guys were checked off my to-see list a long time ago. Huh, I guess not," Jesse joked. She pulled out her diamond sword. A ghast opened its eyes- which were glowing red and especially noticeable against its black scleras, opened its mouth, and spat out an orange fireball.

Jesse deflected the fireball with her sword, the fireball flew at the ghast's face, and the ghast vanished in a puff of smoke.

"It's like tennis, only deadlier," Jesse commented.

Lukas shot one of the ghasts with an arrow. Binta climbed up a tree, jumped off the tree and onto a ghast, and stabbed the ghast with her hoe. The ghast left behind nothing but smoke and Axel's eyes widened as Binta safely fell from where the ghast once was. Petra took her golden sword out of her inventory and used it to hit the ghasts' fireballs back at them.

"It's like you guys aren't even trying," Petra taunted the ghasts.

Axel lifted a block of TNT out of his inventory, lit the TNT, and threw it onto the head of a ghast. The ghast was promptly blown to smithereens.

Romeo destroyed two ghasts with bursts of red electricity. His vision blurred and his head felt like it was spinning, so he decided he'd have to sit down until he no longer felt like he was going to collapse. Romeo made it about halfway to a bench when his legs gave way and he fell to the floor. He was still conscious, but barely. His vision kept on switching between clouded and clear.

All he could see was the floor, so he didn't really care if it was blurry or in high definition.

In about thirty seconds, Romeo lost consciousness.

There were two ghasts left. The first ghast was shot by one of Lukas' arrows and the second got a block of Axel's TNT thrown in its mouth, which caused it to explode.

"Man, that was awesome! Did you guys see that? That ghast popped like a white balloon!" Axel exclaimed.

"Yeah, we definitely saw that. Giant explosions are hard to miss," Lukas responded. Stella noticed Romeo's unconscious body and then turned to Jesse, Axel, Binta, and Lukas.

"Jesse, the Ad- Romeo's face down on the floor," Stella faltered. She had an expression of worry on her face.

Jesse's eyes widened. She rushed over to Romeo and shook him, but he didn't move.

"He's unconscious. He told me that his powers drain his energy, which causes him to pass out. Romeo's fine, we just have to wait for him to wake up... which he said took fifteen minutes last time, we shouldn't be waiting that long," Jesse explained. She knelt next to Romeo and Petra, Lukas, Binta, Stella, and Axel stood behind her.

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