Chapter Fourteen #2
“Fucking hell, is that a Warrior Games portal?” Zev exclaims as the familiar swirl of magic builds in the middle of the room.
I have to admit that’s what it looks like, and surprise floods me. I don’t know why, but I had sort of assumed that we weren’t involved in the Warrior Games anymore, but if Zev is right and this is one of those portals, then I was obviously wrong. Which just brings up a whole slew of questions.
Just like before, we have no choice about whether we’re going through it or not, we just get pulled in.
My vision is thankfully not clouded by magic at all this time, unlike when we got pulled into the God Realm.
Where we have ended up is even more of a surprise than it was to realise that a Warrior Games portal was taking us somewhere.
“Holy shit, we’re back at the academy, aren’t we?” Zev asks in shock.
“Yep, that’s what it looks like,” I say, as I look around the room that is only mildly familiar to me, but thankfully has all of my creatures in it.
They all look just as confused as I feel, but I’m really glad that they’re all here and didn’t get left in the Shadowlands.
Poca most likely would have brought them all here as soon as he realised this was where I was, but thanks to recent events, I know that they would have most likely panicked before they worked that out.
“Khaos and Hades aren’t here,” I say with an edge to my voice, I don’t like that they aren’t with us.
“That makes sense, to be honest, they aren’t a part of the Warrior Games,” Rival says, although he doesn’t look too happy about it either.
“I didn’t think we still were,” Reaper adds with an unhappy grimace.
“I’m sure that they’ll turn up here if they can figure out where we are,” Storm says hopefully.
“Can’t we just leave and head back to the Shadowlands?” Mayhem asks, “It feels really weird to be here.”
“I agree,” Loki says. “I don’t like it. It doesn’t feel like this is a place that we should be anymore. Which is strange in itself.”
Zev shakes his head as his eyes flash white, “There’s a reason why we’ve been brought back here now.
We need to stay. I think if we were to leave, we would just be brought straight back by the portals.
I don’t really know why it’s so important, that’s not clear.
The whole thing is pretty murky, actually. ”
“Well, that answered that then,” Storm says. “I guess we’re staying.”
“Oh, I can see what happened to Magnus,” I say suddenly as the thought occurs to me.
“Why? What happened to Magnus?” Mayhem asks, looking confused.
I frown, “I thought I mentioned it. When we were in the Underworld, just before we got pulled through the portal into the God Realm, I saw him.” I stop talking, swallowing thickly, I haven’t quite come to terms with what that means yet.
“I’m sorry,” Kill says gently, reaching the same conclusion that I have.
I just nod in acknowledgement. I don’t want to get into it right now, but I do want to know what happened and who I have to kill. It’s been a rather long time since I’ve been able to blow anyone up.
The guys all seem to sense that I don’t want to talk about it, because they move the conversation on.
“I guess we should figure out what’s going on around here then, until we know for certain why we’re back?
” Rival suggests. His eyes light up, “The good news is that this is one of the best stocked libraries in the realm, so I might be able to find the book. Although I would be very surprised if the book is here.”
“I would be too,” Reaper agrees. “It would be a bit too coincidental.”
“It would,” I say with a frown. “Are we just supposed to go back to classes?”
“I guess so?” Loki replies, sounding unsure.
“Classes seem so incredibly unimportant now,” Mayhem mutters with a frown.
“That’s because of what we’ve been through, and what we know that we still have to go through,” Rival replies simply.
“We also now know that the majority of the information that they teach here is missing big chunks,” Storm points out.
“That’s true,” Rival nods, he glances around at the room that is far more familiar to him than it is to me, since they’ve been going to the academy for years, and I had only been here for a short time before we got pulled into the Warrior Games. Continuing, he says, “There are two extra rooms.”
“I’m going to assume that one is for Kill and the other one is for Zev,” Reaper points out. “He wasn’t on our team before we got pulled into the first task. He must now officially be a part of our Warrior Team.”
Zev’s eyebrows rise in surprise, “I had completely forgotten about that.”
“So had I,” I reply. “This is going to be so much weirder than we thought it was going to be, and I already thought that it would be really weird to come back here after everything.”
“So what do we do now?” Kill asks after a moment of silence.
“Oh, thank fuck you are here,” Hades says, as he and Khaos suddenly appear in the middle of the room.
Kill looks at me, “Didn’t you use the bondlines to tell them that we were okay?”
I wince, “No. To be honest, that hadn’t even occurred to me.” Glancing at the two of them, I add, “I’m sorry.”
They both smile.
“We both could have done the same thing, none of us are used to the bondlines and being able to communicate that way yet,” Khaos reassures me.
“That’s true,” I smile.