Guardians of the Watchtower: North

Chapter 18

"Please, Dovarian, take me, you want me not her."
"She's lying, they both have ascended!" The glare, from the mystery man, with the galaxy on his face, growing darker, was almost as pernicious as the words coming out of his mouth.
"Don't lie to me you little wench," Dovarian spat out of his mouth, like someone spitting on the sidewalk at their feet.
"I'm not lying," Ivy begged as she began to slowly get down on her knees with her hands up in a submissive way to show him she meant it. The man who had tried to foil her plan stood in front of the hordes of men inching closer, as soon as Dovarian swung his massive arm up, they screamed all at once giving warning of the immediate attack. They rushed forward but as they did the ivy took to life and began to attack back. Wrapping like a boa constrictor around the ones closest to it, men began screaming and slicing frantically at it. The man with the galaxy mark came forward out of nowhere and his fist connected with Ivy's mouth, metallic copper liquid poured from her lips. Drawing his sword from its sheath at his side, he was going to fillet her where she kneeled. He raised his large arms high, both hands on the hilt and brought it down on Ivy when a rush of water gushed upward sending him flying, where he bounced off the wall behind the throne before landing unconscious with a thud. The screams of men and metal clanging they fought off the attacking ivy that surrounded this tainted king. Dovarian feeling cornered grabbed Addy's shoulder, spun her around to face him and wrapped his large hands around her throat trying to squeeze the life from her. Ivy saw the glimmer of the glass shard in Addy's hands feverishly cutting the rope as she gasped trying to breathe around his hatred. Ivy tried to run and help her, but one of the men managed to grab Ivy by the arm and slammed her hard into the ground knocking the wind out of her. Watching in gasping horror as Addy's body went still under Dovarian's raging form.
He stood up from where he had her on the ground, a smirk of triumph on his face as he lifted his leg kicking her body down the stairs of his throne. Ivy screamed out in pain and anger as she crawled over to Addy, trying to wipe the blood from her mouth as she tried to pull her body into her lap. Trying to wipe her hair from her face Ivy wrapped her arms around her, it was like time itself had stopped, the world grew silent and still and Ivy looked around.
The entire place had frozen all at once, Dovarian whose face was frozen still contorted in hatred and the men, frozen in their battle frenzy. Ivy looked down to Addy's face. She was even more beautiful up close.
"Please Addy, I can't do this alone please for the love of the Goddess please wake up, the world needs you...I need you, take me instead!"
The tears began to break the surface of her eyes, and it was like she could feel the Goddess standing there with them. The smell of wet earth and flowers filled her nose, and she heard the Goddess' voice.
"The purest form of love is the sacrifice of oneself for another. The fact that you would give your life for hers, even though you barely know her, shows the reason why you were meant to be the Guardian. Touch her heart and give her life."
Ivy did just that placing her hands over Addy's chest she felt the power surge in her heart making her palms flare to life. The glowing light grew and grew, and before Ivy knew what was happening something like a cannon went off, and the power flowed down her arms sending arcs of green fire shooting from her palms and fingertips into Addy's chest. Ivy pulled her hands back and looked at Addy, waiting for something, anything to show that it had worked. It felt like an eternity, but Addy sat straight up, gasping for air, coughed harshly grabbed her throat. The world came back to the movement and volume it had lost. Addy looked Ivy in the eye, then they both looked up at Dovarian, who was looking down at them, disbelief and anger on his face.
"That's not possible!!!!"
But before He could do anything Addy moved her hands in swirls encasing both her and Ivy in a globe of water. Ivy pushed a surge of ivy outward, encasing the globe of water with the living ivy that was interweaving itself tighter and tighter making the swords useless against it. The more they cut the more that grew in its place. This stolen moment was theirs, and Ivy wrapped her arms around Addy's neck, hugging her so tight, and Addy did the same knowing that Ivy had somehow managed to save her life. Ivy pulled back as she pushed her powers to ignite her palms and Addy followed setting hers' to life as well.
"Let's go home!"
As their pentagrams connected fully with each other it was like nothing before, blue and green solar flares leaped forward from them shattering the globes of life around them making them look like an atom molecule with rings of power circling them. The power flowed out of them and lifted them where they had been kneeling on the ground; together they were floating upward in this hall that was their prison. The men stopped for a split second watching in awe at this display of power before Dovarian's screams for their heads brought them back. They began to throw spears, swords, and daggers at the girls but nothing came close to touching them, their powers were protecting them from it all. Even the galaxy man's attempts to bring chunks of the ceiling and walls at them that split in half, as the arcs of power went through them sending them crashing on top of the heads of their men instead. The hall filled with moans and screams of agony as blooms of reds burst forward from some of their own.
The space behind Dovarian throne split open, and Ivy could see the ballroom where her party was still going on, Ivy looked at Addy.
"We'll only have moments to get to it and get through it together before it closes once we let go, we have to run!"
"Okay let's go!"
As they let go, they dropped to the ground, hand in hand they both ran, full on, for the closing portal. Ivy and Addy dove for it but Dovarian tackled Addy mid-air, ripping her hand from Ivy's shoving her through. Ivy landed on the floor of the ballroom and the portal slammed shut, sealing into place. Ivy didn't even know what to do but scream Addy's name in a blood-curdling scream that stopped the music and made everyone turn to look at her gasping in horror. People rushed to her aide picking her up from the floor as the room filled with hundreds of voices shouting and calling for John and the Goddess.
John came running into the ballroom, and as soon as Ivy saw him, she ran to him, practically collapsing in his arms, tears came hard and fast making what she was trying to say hard to understand.
"We have to go back! we have to save Addy!
"Addy?"
"She's the Guardian of the West Tower, she's his prisoner."
"Whose prisoner?"
"Dovarian's!"
The crowd of people gasped, and that brought more shouts and screams of traitor and hushed whispers of the Wastelands. The people began demanding answers and asking more questions than Ivy could even begin to comprehend, John saw that Ivy was overwhelmed and grabbed her up in his arms, and carted her out of the ballroom. A trail of people was on his tale still demanding answers, but the servants closed the ballroom doors on them leaving without answers. John carried Ivy upstairs to what she thought would be her room but he took her down the center wing. She felt his powers surge as all the doors in his way swung open and slammed shut after he passed through them till they made it to the room at the very end of this hallway. It was as big as a ballroom, but the walls were not lined with mirrors or windows, but with glass front cabinets that appeared to hold hundreds of bottles of herbs. The room smelled of New Moon and Nag Champa incense. Ivy looked around to find a huge pentagram drawn on the floor, an ancient Spell of Protection following its outer circle, and the Goddess was standing at the top of it with her arms wide open. John set Ivy down on her feet and Ivy ran to the Goddess who encircled her in her arms the smell of wet earth and flowers was so pungent you could taste it this close to her. The Goddess took Ivy's face into her hands and made her look up at her.
"We will get her back I promise you that, you must train and find the other Guardians to get her back."
"How will we do that?"
"We will scrye for her when she ascends in the spring We'll go and search for her and have her help us get back to the Wastelands for Addy, Dovarian won't kill her because he knows you'll be coming back for her, so we must prepare you for battle!"
"But won't they come back here for me?"
"No, we found the person who betrayed your Coven and she has been banished. I put a new seal of protection over this place, and now I'm gonna do the same for you. Over the next few weeks you will train, and then when you're ready, you'll face Dovarian again, and this time you won't be alone."
Before Ivy could ask any more questions, she felt the Goddess' power wash over her, like being wrapped up in a warm blanket and the pains of the battle and portal jumping caught up with her as her vision began to slip around the edges. The pentagram below their feet began to flare to life and rotated as the Goddess moved them both into the center of the pentagram. The rings spiraling upward orbited them as the Goddess' voice rang out filling the entire room.
"By the power of the sun and moon, I ask them to protect you and to hide you from the eyes of your enemies until you're ready to face them."
Ivy's palms flooded with power, and like being wrapped up in the warm blanket again, the seal was in place, The Goddess looked down and kissed Ivy's forehead as she motioned for John to come and help her. John reached out for Ivy, but she pushed John's hands away as she slowly made her way back out the door he'd carried her in.
"I'm going to my room." Wrapping her arms around herself as she fought back the first of many tears she was sure would fall.
"Sylar wants to see you."
"Well, you'll know where to send him." She looked back over her shoulder at John for a second before turning back and walked back down the corridor. It seemed much longer of a walk to the main wing than it had when she'd been carried down.
Ivy turned the corner and walked down her wing lifting pieces of her dress from where it laid against her bare legs. Sighing to herself as to how she let materialistic things become so important, pushing past the curtains sure she would be walking into a room half blown to pieces. She was clearly surprised once she pushed past the ivy door to find her room immaculate and perfect as if nothing had ever happened. Not knowing why she had felt like she had been Dovarian's prisoner for days and days, but here they were still celebrating her birthday. How come John and Sylar hadn't come for her? What she was going to do until she was able to save Addy? Thinking about her being locked up and beaten by that monster brought more tears to her eyes, and hurt her heart like nothing else because she wasn't strong enough to save her on her own. Ivy crossed the sitting room and made a direct line to her bedroom. She didn't even bother going to her bed, but straight to the bathroom, she dropped her clothes as she went, slammed the door shut behind her and locked it shut.
Going to her bathtub Ivy turned the water on, the hot water hitting the cold marble made the room steam up in a matter of moments. Ivy slipped into the water that burned and reddened her skin, but it didn't matter to her, all she could think about was the look on Addy's face as her hand lost grip of Ivy's, and the portal closing before she could escape to safety with her. She had promised that she wouldn't leave her behind and she did. Ivy pulled her knees to her chest; the soap that had fallen in the tub was putting a lavender scent into the air and tickled her nose with the bubbles. The tears came hard and fast and stole her vision. Ivy wouldn't leave Addy in the Wastelands forever, one way or another she will go back for her.
The gentle knocking on the bathroom door tore Ivy from her thoughts as she looked over and asked who it was.
"It's just me." Sylar leaned his head against the wood of the door frame biting his lip.
"I'll be out in a minute."
"Okay, I'll be in the sitting room waiting for you okay?"
"Okay" was the only reply he was going to be getting from her right now.
Ivy sank into the water letting it cover her head as she lay on the bottom of the tub looking at the ceiling through the watery glasses while holding her breath. She wasn't ready to face the world or Sylar or anyone for the matter, but she knew she had to get the answers to all of her questions and start training as soon as possible so she could get back to Addy. Ivy surfaced and leaned out of the tub to grab a towel that she wrapped tightly around herself until she was able to go for her robe that was on the chair in her room.
Ringing out her hair as best as she could, Ivy traded the towel for the robe and tied the sash into place snugly pulling her hair out from the neck of the robe, she grabbed a stray pencil from her desk and quickly made a chopstick bun on her head. She had to face him eventually now was better than later, and maybe after getting the answers she needed, she could get some rest.