Board Thread:Short Stories and Fanfictions/@comment-43347423-20200111144721/@comment-44943658-20200213052117

Swearingparrot wrote: This is what I think will happen in book nine. Have fun reading, I hope you enjoy it!

Chapter One

“So, how are we supposed to do this?” Sophie asked.

Councillor Oralie wrapped her fingers around the cache. “The password should be generated by the cache for me, so if I think about it I should be able to find it.”

Sophie nodded and Oralie closed her eyes, deep in thought. Sophie began counting the seconds. She got to 209 before she noticed someone leap into Havenfield’s pastures.

“Sophie! Sophie!” Fitz yelled, and Sophie got up, hoping his news was about Keefe. “We need you in the healing center! Keefe woke up and he wants to see you!”

Oralie had her eyes open at that point, but it didn’t matter to Sophie what Oralie said. Sophie ran towards Fitz and screamed, “Levitate us!”

He did so, and Sophie transmitted to him, How long has he been awake?

The second he was up I ran to the Leapmaster, Fitz promised. That was good enough for Sophie.

Drop us! she exclaimed, ready to teleport.

Fitz did, and as they plummeted towards the ground, Sophie realized they should have used her newer type of teleporting. The one that didn’t require levitation. They would’ve been there to see Keefe faster, and–

SOPHIE!

They were about to hit the ground. Sophie opened a crack in the void and heard the familiar crash of thunder. She imagined the healing center, and within seconds they were there.

Sophie began running towards the healing center’s doors, transmitting to Fitz, Is he still in there?

As far as I know, Fitz replied, following her.

When she got there, she saw Keefe alone.

“Keefe!” Sophie screamed, and rushed forward to hug him.

Keefe tried to scoot away from her. “Foster! You can’t be around me anymore!”

Sophie pulled her arms away and backed away. “What? Why can’t I? Seriously, I carried you all the way here, and now you tell me I can’t be around you anymore? And this is after you lied to me about not going! Why–”

“You carried me all the way here?” Keefe asked, his voice definitely cracking a little.

Sophie crossed her arms. “Yeah, I did. Is this how you repay me?”

Keefe covered his face with his hands. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

“Then what did you mean?”

“I’ll always want you around, Foster,” Keefe said. “But I manifested an ability–”

“You manifested?” Sophie asked. “What are you?”

“I… can take away special abilities. But it kind of happens subconsciously… I did it to Elwin by accident, and now I feel really bad because he couldn’t check on me with his Flasher-y lights. He went off to get candles or something.” Keefe fidgeted around, clearly uncomfortable.

Sophie looked at him, stunned. “So you’re saying that if I tried to use my telepathy right now, I couldn’t?”

When Keefe didn’t say anything, Sophie tried.

It didn’t hurt, but…

It felt just like the ability restrictor Dex had made once.

“I know,” Keefe said. “I’m not even an Empath anymore.” His voice broke, and Sophie rushed over to hug him.

He wasn’t an Empath anymore?

That should’ve made Sophie relieved. Him reading her emotions always got them into trouble. But instead she felt sad, and she wasn’t sure why.

“I’m okay, Foster,” Keefe promised.

But she knew he wasn’t. Not really, at least. “It’s not okay. But I know we’ll get through this.”

“Do you realize what this means?” Keefe asked, and his words tickled her ear. “You can’t be around me anymore. You need your abilities all the time, and if I’m here you can’t use them, and–”

“You’re worth losing my abilities for,” Sophie said.

“What if you can’t get them back?” Keefe asked.

Sophie pretended to consider it. But really, she knew that her answer, from the bottom of her heart, was: “It still doesn’t change anything. But if I can’t get them back, then it’s already too late, so it looks like I can hang out with you all I want.”

“Thank you so much, Sophie,” Keefe said. He sounded like he was crying, and he was shaking against her. Sophie was so surprised that he was crying, she almost didn’t realize–

“You called me Sophie,” she said. It had felt so weird to hear Keefe say her name.

Was she turning red?

Keefe nodded against her.

“Why?”

“It felt right.”

They stood there for a moment, just hugging, before Keefe pulled away. Sophie studied his face, and as he wiped his eyes, she noticed the tiniest bit of pink on his cheeks.

He shouldn’t have to be embarrassed about this.

Sophie pulled him in for one last hug, saying, “Keefe, you don’t have to be embarrassed about this.”

“Oh, that’s not what I was embarrassed about. Hunkyhair is on good terms with his new ability.”

Sophie frowned, pulling away. “Okay, well I guess I should test if I can still use my abilities.”

“Yeah, you should.”

Sophie got up, surprised Fitz wasn’t behind her anymore. He must have left.

Funny, she’d forgotten Fitz had been there at all. THIS IS SO GOOD!