Top!

Top!

Also, I really hope that I did not control anyone too much. Is what I did to Hugo's tattoos OK?

I WILL POST!!! I PROMISE!!!

So sorry; I've been neglecting this thread. I hope I can get around to posting soon. Right now I'm feeling under the weather, and I don't think my mind is up to an RP post. :(

What if Charn/Monster King needs specific types of "unusual" people (us). He needs an Airling, but has no idea that Cobalt's powers are way different than your average, everyday Airling. I might not let Cobalt get caught... I don't know. 

/-\ Ash

I sit up, scanning my surroundings warily. I'm still lying on my bed, and that Crystal girl is still curled up not too far from me, a smile on her face. Oh. Right. Jasmine put us back to sleep. What had she said? "Dream about your happy memories," or something like that. I snort, shaking Crystal's shoulder in an attempt to wake her. I ran away when I was 9. Even before that, my mom packed us up and moved every couple years. I never had a permanent home. So really, not too many happy memories. 

"Erm wha..?" Crystal mumbles, still half asleep. 

"Get up," I say. "We need to find Jasmine."

"Oh right." Crystal stands and walks over to the edge of the roof. "I wouldn't call her Jasmine when she's here though. She hates the name."

We stand there for a minute, trying to decide what to do. Then suddenly:

"What's that?"

A dark shape is hurtling towards us through the air. It screeches to a halt above us and hovers in the air for a moment before settling between me and Crystal. 

"Hello Crystal, Ash," the figure says. 

"Jen!" Crystal squeals, and tackles her freind in a hug. 

"Hello Jasmine," I say, then frown when she doesn't respond. Crystal said that she hates being called that, so why would she...

"Crystal, come over here."

"Why? Jen just got here-"

"That isn't Jasmine."

Crystal gapes at me, but before I can say anything else Fake Jasmine spurrs into action.

"Is a shame really," she says, advancing on me. "You're a smart one Fireling. It's a shame we'll have to kill you."

She swings her fist out almost faster than I can blink. I try to duck, but I'm still weak from earlier, and I'm not fast enough. Her fist collides with the side of my head.

///////////////////

The next thing I know, I'm waking up in a dark room. So dark, in fact, that I can hardly see. I squirm around, trying to get my bearings, but someone's strapped me to the table I'm lying on. Upon further inspection, it seems that someone has also removed my coat, shirt, and shoes, and rolled my pants up to my knees.  

"Hello dearie," a hoarse voice whispers, very close to my ear. I jerk my head away from it.

"Who are you? What's going on?"

"Oh, you don't need to worry about that. As for what's going on, well, you'll see soon enough."

Before I can say anything more, a hand shoots out over my face. It's a very old hand, full of liver spots and sagging skin, but it's steady as it descends over my forehead.

"This may hurt a bit, dearie."

The hand touches my forehead. My vision tunnels immediately. I can feel the flames in my hair start to flicker and die. All the heat is being leached out of my body, and the fire, all the power. My screams are mingled with the maniacal laughter of the voice. My life force is literally being dragged out of me. The flames in my hair dim, dim, dim, and then die, taking my consciousness with it. 

All right! I'm ready to post! I'm feeling a lot better today. Here goes:

{Hazel}

I hope they don't get mad at me for following them, I think as I follow them around on their very weird mission. I'd introduce myself, but for some reason, I can't! I really, really like them. I mean, a lot. And it looks like one or two of them have the same problem I do! Or had. When half the group ran off, I didn't want to follow them. I was more interested in the fire guy and the girl with the grey wings.

Who has fire in their hair? I wanted to touch it. Or ask him to do cool things with it. I don't know why. But I find myself feeling better with him around...Not much better. Not enough to join their group and travel with them or anything.

For the umpteenth time that day, I scold myself for following these people. What if I turned dark and attacked them? It hasn't happened for a while. The darkness is probably going to grow up my leg anytime soon now. I guess maybe I want something from them. Friendship? No. I can't have friends. Or maybe I can? Not right now, though. I don't think I'm ready yet.

I'm laying down kind of farish from the group in a [field???] of tall, tall grass. The clouds in the sky trudge slowly across the horizon, forming enormous billowy shadows over the plains. I hear some sort of noises...

"Crystal, get up!"

That would be Ash...

"...But Jen's already here!"

That would be Crystal.......... 

SPLACK!

That would be someone getting punched...

Wait, what!?!?! What's going on?

I sit up, not by enough to give my location away, but just so I can peer over the top of the grass. A weird Jasmine look-alike is attacking the fireling. She's knocked him out...Now she's going for Crystal. Oh, help them...Help them, Hazel, you have to!

Now I can see that the Jasmine figure is actually a witch. She's dropped her disguise and is stuffing Crystal and Ash into their own bags. The one Ash is in looks like chainmail. So she won't get---

Suddenly blackness creeps into the edges of my vision. All goes quiet, all senses leave me, and the earth rushes for my face. I am still conscious, but barely so, so that when the tattoo creeps up my leg another inch the world explodes back at me and I can hear everything louder, feel the searing pain of another part of me being ripped away, and then collapse into unconsciousness.

Hazel stood up. Her eyes were now electric blue, and electricity of the same color crackled around her. The witch was heading off into the far, far east. Traveling at an insane speed, she was already miles away.

Hazel's gaze swept the landscape. It was time for some chaos. She jumped, fueling herself with stabs of lightning that propeled her forwards by leaps and bounds. She was immune to the bolts, but some of the grass was not so lucky.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

At the witch's fort, Hazel blasted through the doors. She stormed into the building and zapped the walls. Cracks formed, and widened into gashes. Another tap and the witch would be no more, trapped under her own home.

A goblin or two would fly at her occasionally. Hazel disposed of them with a zap of lightning, reducing them to splats of hot tar.

Hazel was about to reach the room with Ash in it. She paused, and then knocked the door down.

"Ahhh!" Ash screamed. The witch looked more or less surprised, but she had been right at the door about to check out the strange thunder rolling through her base when Hazel knocked it down, so she was unconcious at the far end of the room.

"Ash," Hazel said. "Did you know I was following you?"

The boy just laid there. Hazel realized he was unconcious and all the flames had died from his hair.

"Goody! The fire boy can't snap me out of it now. Let's get you to your friends. And then we can do something terrible together!"

With that, Hazel zapped away. Every bolt of lightning weakened her true self more, but when she was insane like that, she could care less.

---------------------

So like what if Ash had some sort of power to drive the darkness from the cursed people? He'd have to do something to get more powerful and stuff, but that could explain the reason Hazel wants to follow them, because her body knows she's less likely to transform with his power around. 

So, I was thinking that the look-alike Jasmine was actually Eclipse that the monster King made out of the tar that was inside Jasmine. And maybe he wanted the Fireling, Earthling, ect, so that he could take the tar from them and become really powerful. Like, Hugo's tattoos came alive and now they're hunting the others? And he took Ash's fire for himself? I dunno, just thoughts. :)

Those of you who've read The Son of Sobek, remember when Carter gives Percy a magical way to call him? Let's say the 15-year-old Cobalt had the same idea...

Cobalt~

Ash's running away is playing over and over in my head in a series of events that won't stop flashing in my mind. Everywhere I look in the darkened forest, I think I see flames spurting from the shadows, but it is just my imagination. Since when have I had an imagination? I do know, though, and the underbrush looks more and more like the charred remains of a clearing in the dim starlight. 

"Are you okay Ash?"

"I've got to run, I can't stay here."

"You're nine, where will you go?"

"It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter!" I'd never heard him growl that way before. He took of running, his shoes stamping out the last remains of hissing orange sparks playing along the blackened grass. Before I could stop myself, I called after him.

"Ash, wait." He stopped, his eyes still burning like twin flames billowing from an evening nearing dusk.

"If you ever need help, just ask the wind." He rolled his eyes. Sparks seemed to fly from the fire in them. Then, before I could stop myself, I told him two words in the wind-symbol language. My name. 

I shake the memory from my head. Was it coincidence that I found Ash again? Or did he call for me without admitting it. As if answering my question, the top button on my jacket burned red-hot. The symbol on it gleamed as if molten lava had been poured into it's carving... 

Oh, YES!!!!!!!

/-\ Ash

I can't see. I can barely hear. I can feel the blood oozing from a cut on my forehead, but I can't taste it when it drops into my mouth. Two of my senses are completely gone. I know they'll return with my fire, but still, it's unnerving.

Wiggling around a bit, I find myself once again bound, but I'm standing in my own two feet. A pillar, I decide. I'm tied to a pillar.  

I peep my eyes open again, to find that my sight has returned slightly. I can see a dark, murky for hovering in the center of the circular chamber I'm in, along with five other figures. One is shimmering with earthy hues, greens and browns swirling together. Hugo maybe? The one next to him is illuminated by blues and silvers, obviously a Waterling. Crystal then. The second to last figure looks dejected, shoulders slumped a head down. She is surrounded by bright, brassy colors, silver and gold mainly, but it's the tallest of the group that catches my attention. Dark and swirling on one side, and raniny-looking and dark on the other, it almost seems as if the aura was fighting against itself, vying for dominance. 

"Well?" A deep voice asks. It's cold and smooth, yet jagged and unyielding at the same time. "Are they here?"

"Yes Master," a second voice replies. I know this one. It's Eclipse.

"We've brought the other too Master," another new voice says. I'm confused. It seems to be coming from Eclipse but... "The Fireling."

"Excellent. You have done well Sorceress, and you Eclipse." It's the first voice again, the one called 'Master.'

"Master, I grow tired of sharing this form!" Eclipse cries. "Please, let the Sorceress go free!"

"Very well. Bring the boy here."

Eclipse approaches me, and swiftly slices the rope away from my body. She snatches up my arm and drags me behind her, which is good since my knees gave out the second the ropes were gone. We come before the dark shadow, and Eclipse shoves me down to my knees.

"Well," Master says. "You are a strong one. Most Firelings wouldn't survive our treatments. Sorceress, give me the boy's power."

Eclipse reaches out her hands, and my fire flows out of her. It surges through me, and for a second it's all there, right where it should be, deep inside me. But then, it's gone. Ripped away, ripped out of me for a second time. My fire flows into the shadow, where it forms into a shape. A body, matching the one I had seen as I lost consciousness in the dark room. For a moment, it doesn't move. Then, it gasps, and jerks around to face me.

"Hello dearie," it hisses, and I shrink back from it, remembering the terrible, terrible pain.

"Thank goodness," Eclipse drawls from behind me. "I was about to die in there."

The old hag looks about to retort, but Master interrupts.

"That's enough. Rena, you may go. Take the others with you."

Hugo and Crystal rush forward, and drag me to my feet.

"Are you ok?" They ask as we stumble out of the room. I take a moment to consider the question. My shirt is back on, but my shoes are still missing, and my entire body is covering in a cold sweat.

"No. I am most definitely not."