UNLOCKED, kotlc

Chapter 39

Sophie barely had to focus.  Her anger boiled up, bubbling against her consciousness, as she directed it straight at Adela. Despite her mental exhaustion, she was furious enough to scrape together enough to Inflict on her. Adela looked at Lady Gisela- at least her unconscious form- and then crumpled to the ground beside her.

"Keefe, get up!" Sophe shouted.  Keefe groaned and slowly opened his eyes. Thankfully, now that the Neverseen were knocked out, he was back to normal.  On normal circumstances, Sophie would've took the two Neverseen members as prisoners. For, now there were more important things to worry about.

Sophie hauled Keefe to his feet, and almost had to drag him out of the cave, leaving the two most valuable people in the Elvin world unconscious and alone on the ground.  Above them, the scream sounded again.  Was that Biana? Or Dex? Sophie couldn't tell.

All she knew was that she'd fell for the Neverseen's tricks again.  It had all been a diversion.  They knew that she would go down there for Keefe- use up all her mental energy, nonetheless- and then at the same time, they were launching an attack on her friends.

When she finally emerged, Sophie could now see the chaos.

Gethen and several other cloaked figures were wrecking havoc on her friends- Sophie could sense a few Phasers, Flashers, a Charger, and maybe a Guster.  They're hoods covered their faces.  Sophie could barely see anyone.

Sophie could now see who had screamed.  Biana was scrambling away from a cloaked figure on the ground who was about to do something to her....  Sophie dived for her, sending them tumbling away. The person behind the cloak looked both ways like he or she was wondering where they had went.

"Sophie!" Biana gasped.  "You're here!!"

"Yeah. You okay? What happened?"

Sophie realized too late there was no time for that.  Biana opened her mouth to speak as Sophie helped her up, but somebody- one of the Neverseen members - shoved her backwards, on purpose or on accident, Sophie had no idea. Her knees buckled and her vision turned blurry, her head swimming.

Sophie would've gotten up, but she was already half dead before she joined the fight.  Her mental energy was already drained to a pitiful zero- she'd never actually inflicted twice, especially without anyone's help- and between levitating, teleporting, fighting with Keefe, and all the other physical exhaustion she was already suffering, she could barely bring herself to open her own eyes.

Biana had been swept away in all the chaos.  Across the field, she locked eyes with Fitz who was currently not fighting with anyone.... surely he would save her.  But instead, his eyes filled with hurt, he turned in the other direction, rescuing Linh instead.  The person who came to her rescue as she scrambled to her feet was... Keefe.

He helped her up, and asked her, "You okay there Foster?"

Sophie's mouth didn't seem to want to work.  "Um... yeah.  Wait- sorry, no- wait, what do they want?"

"They're the Neverseen," Keefe pointed out. "All they do is cause chaos, cause more chaos, and oh yeah, try to destroy the entire world in a desperate attempt to take over the Council."

"That's true," Sophie admitted. "But they made a big show of luring me there, and then they made you fight me, and then..."

"Wait, they made you fight me?  Who's they?"  Keefe asked, as Sophie realized that they had so much control over him that he must've not even realized what he was doing.

Sophie condensed the entire night down to two long, run-on sentences.  Keefe's eyes went wide with shock.

"You just left my mom down there? When she's the supervillain that controls the Neverseen?"

"Technically Adela is the supervillain that controls the Neverseen...."

"Yeah, but she's down there too!"

"Please don't become Fitz like he did with Alvar," Sophie pleaded, remembering the horrific Ragemonster sessions she'd had to endure.

"There's a difference," Keefe growled.  "I'm going down there."

"Don't! If they're awake they can make you come with them by controlling you or even if you don't you can't beat them all by yourself, and I need to help out up here and drive the rest of the Neverseen away and-"

"I'll take the risk," Keefe said, and Sophie knew from the blazing determination in his eyes that there was nothing she could do to stop him.