Deathchill - 6 Meeting The Team

It’s hot, really hot. It’s hotter than any flame I have ever had. It’s so hot, I feel like I’m melting. I hear a faint laughter, it sounds like a little girl. She must be happy, I mean really happy. The laughter continues then, silence. I hear nothing other than the sounds of a boiling pot, the sound is getting louder and louder. Until it sounds like it’s just right beside me, I jump at the sound of it. I turn around, the boiling sound is gone but I hear a dog barking, actually a dog barking and some puppies squeaking along with it. They’re so small and cute, as for their breed they’re clearly a mix. Probably along the lines of sheppard, lab, dingo. The mother is so fat I almost laugh, almost smile. There’s a little puppy fighting with the others. He has black, white and yellow fur. There’s another one jumping around and messing with his mother, he has only yellow and white fur. I want one, I want a companion, I want a pet to go for runs with, cry to when I’m upset and spend all of my time with. The fighter somehow got a T shaped bone from I don’t know where and walked up to me, “You are my favourite,” I say, picking him up. I hear a door open and I turn around, just pure darkness. I would expect the puppy to be gone but he isn’t. In fact, now he’s an almost fully grown dog, looking at about two or three human years old. One of his legs is wrapped up in bandages that are stained with blood and he has a scar on his face, he looks up at me and smiles with his tongue out like nothing is wrong. I smile and pet him then look back up, the door is there now. It has a dim blue light about twenty meters away from the entrance and a tall shadowy figure is standing in front of the door. They have bones for hands and carry a large scythe with black smoke surrounding it. I can almost see a face and it looks like someone I know. They have a flaming battle axe on their back, with a cape u0026 hood flowing in the non-existent wind. They reach out their hand and begin to ask, “Are you ready?” I hear a scream, and wake up.

“Wakey- wakey, sleepy head,” Des says once I finally get my hearing back from the scream. Of course it’s a dream, why can I never pick up on this stuff? My life is nothing like that dream, reality is nothing like that dream. I give Des a death stare and unlike other peoples death stares people can actually feel mine.

“Woah, watch it there, Lexus, wouldn’t want to go killing one of your brothers, now would you?” Troy asks, putting his hands up in surrender. I didn’t even notice him standing there.

“Which one of you two screamed in my ear?” I ask irritatedly.

Des immediately points to Troy, “He did it.”

“Do you really think I would believe that?” I raise an eyebrow at him and he jumps off my bed.

“What were you dreaming of anyway?” Troy asked, concerned. “You were saying some weird stuff in your sleep.”

“Yeah like, ‘Are you ready?’ ‘Really,’ and ‘You are my favourite.” Des continued.

“Oh it’s nothing,” I shrug.

“Were you dreaming about me?” Des asked all innocent looking.

“That’s kind of weird, dude,” Troy said to Des.

“How? How is it weird?” Des asks, throwing his arms up in the air.

“Because you just asked your sister if she is dreaming about you,” Troy facepalms.

“Okay you’re getting it the wrong way,” Des says looking at both of us. “I meant because she said, ‘You are my favourite,’ that she was dreaming about me because I’m obviously her favourite brother.”

“I’d say the position is pretty vacant,” I smirked. Des gives me the middle finger.

“So, Lexus, your dream?” Troy continued. I can tell that he’s just worried about me.

“It was mainly just a dark room,” I answer. “Now both of you get out of my room so I can get ready.” I say as I push them out my door.

I walk into my bathroom and look at myself in the mirror. Look wise I’d say I’m average, not incredibly hideous nor model-level beautiful. Shit, I have a pimple. Not like anyone cares anyways, after all it’s highschool, and hardly anyone cares about me. I brush my teeth, wash my face, brush my hair and do my morning stretches.

“Time to weigh myself,” I say to myself as I step on my scale, 134.0 LBS. Are you kidding me? I gained a pound since yesterday? That’s what I get for treating myself, I didn’t deserve it anyways, I don’t deserve anything. That’s it, no breakfast and lunch today, I’ll just tell everyone that I’m still full from yesterday.

I put on my workout clothes, a Nike sports bra, basketball shorts and put my hair up in a ponytail, leave my room and walk downstairs, Des and Troy are watching some old cartoons, like bakugan or something. They’re so hyped over two creatures beating each other up.

“Where’s mom and dad?” I ask, putting my running shoes on.

“Oh, hey, they were called in early,” Troy said, just noticing me. “Something about a gas station blowing up.”

“Going for a run?” Des asked, not even looking away from the TV. His hands are still up by shoulders like his favourite team is about to score a game winning shot.

“Yeah,” I say as I put on my bluetooth headphones and head out the door.

It’s surprisingly bright outside for being seven in the morning, why did Des and Troy even wake me up this early anyways? Practice doesn’t start till twelve and it’s also Saturday! I just want to lay in my bed in the dark and stare at the wall, not doing anything unless someone tells me to or invites me somewhere. I miss when times were simpler, waking up at one in the afternoon, feeling all happy and energetic, and mom makes you a sandwich with some juice then you go outside and hang out with your friends until nine o’clock at night. When you come back home your parents made mac u0026 cheese with little cut up hot dogs and you have ice cream for dinner. Then after dinner your mother carries you up into bed, tucks you in and kisses you goodnight. I wish I was that little girl from my dream, I wonder what happened to her after she disappeared.

I run across a floating bridge, I love to look down on it. I love looking at all of the sparkling bright waters flowing healthily under the bridge. I’m so happy that pollution doesn’t exist in our world.

I’m in a nice dog park, I see a little chihuahua chasing a squirrel up a tree. I hear birds chirping everywhere, a nice and healthy world, friendly wildlife everywhere. I see an eight month old pitbull almost caught a chipmunk but then a Canadian Goose came in and saved it, because of that the pitbull is crying to its owner. Pitbulls aren’t violent, I don’t get why the non-magic users can’t get that, they’re just not given the proper necessities.

I don’t know if it’s my body temperature rising or if it’s actually getting hot out but I’m starting to feel a little dizzy from all of this heat. I probably should’ve had an apple or something, no, no eating until dinner.

I almost faint until I hear an eerie caw, jolting me awake. I look around for where it came from and I see a giant twenty- thirty foot tall hawk. The parents of the dogs grab them and hide under a tree, we have powers. What are they so scared of? The hawk bolts down towards me with its claws out, someone probably sent it after me to pick me up. It isn’t the first time, twenty foot tall birds are great forms of transportation.

The hawk grabs me and flies away, I see the people sigh in relief and put their dogs back down. The hawk tosses me up and I land on its back, the view is so beautiful up here. I wonder where it’s taking me, too bad I don’t have a ruktuk so I can’t talk to it. A ruktuk is a stone that allows you to talk to and understand animals. What gender even is this hawk? I wonder who sent it to pick me up. I guess that I’ll just enjoy the ride for now, I like the feeling of the wind blowing the sweat off of me.

We’re flying over a more suburby area when the hawk starts to slow down a bit, a lot of my friends live in this neighbourhood so I still have no clue who wants to see me. The hawk is now going into a landing position so I climb up closer to its head and hold on tight. It’s a fairly nice house, I can tell that has lots of history though. There’s a pool in the backyard and I also think I can see one in the basement as well. The hawk lands on the ground and I slide off it’s back, the second I get off it flies over and lands on a bird stand that looks big enough to fit two of them and a baby. None of my friends have birds for all I know, who lives here?

“Goodmorning, Lexus,” I hear a voice calling down to me from one of the balconies. “Oh sorry did I interrupt your run?” I recognize that voice but I can’t quite put my finger on it.

“Um, n-no it’s fine,” I studer trying to figure out who it is.

“Hey step back a second I’m coming down,” the person calls out to me and I see them jump on the banister. They look really badass with the shadow and mix of lighting.

I ran a few feet back and they jumped down, they did a very dramatic superhero land and got up even slower. As they slowly started to look at me I noticed that it’s just Bryan, he’s this rich?

“Oh it’s just you,” I shrug.

“Hey, at least try to act like I looked cool!” He yelled at me.

“So what do you want?” I ask as he leads me inside.

“I want to ask out Anne,” he says nervously and tosses me a water bottle.

“Hearing what you did after you saw her in the hallway,” I take a quick sip. “Good luck with that.”

“We don’t talk about that,” Bryan says and pushes me onto the couch. This living room is so big it’s almost the size of a quarter of the training fields.

“So what do you want me to do about it?” I say as I grab a T.V remote and flip through the channels. There’s so many choices, who are these guys’ parents?

“I want to know what she thinks of me,” Bryan is looking at me like how a little boy looks at their hero, it’s kind of cute but mainly creepy, especially since he’s a highschool boy who doesn’t resemble ‘cute’ one bit.

“You do know that you could’ve just called me and asked,” I chug the rest of the bottle, Bryan is still staring at me. “Right?”

“Yeah sorry, it was in the heat of the moment,” Bryan scratches his neck.

“Look she doesn’t have any feelings for you at all,” I say chucking the bottle at his head. He looks down at the ground with a sad look on his face, he doesn’t fit that look one bit. “But you can always change that.” He looks up at me with a smile pretty much tattooed on his face.

“Really?” He looks so stupid I almost laugh. “You think so?”

“Yeah, dude, want to know a secret on how to get any girl you want?” I ask. “Even Anne.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” he’s starting to act like a hyper little dog. “Tell me, tell me.”

“Talk to her!” I smack him in the back of the head. “And I mean actually talk not whatever you did last time.”

“Talk to her,” he looks like he’s going to faint. “Okay.”

“Can you use your powers to give yourself some more confidence?” I ask, finally looking away from the T.V.

“Sadly no,” he looks down with a sad look again, I shrug and look back at the T.V. “And I don’t want anyone controlling my emotions either, even if they are helping, you can’t trust that they won’t stop after that.”

“Well if you want you can join us on our next movie night,” I almost laugh. “No promises that you won’t have to hear about boys though.”

“Anything,” he’s starting to sound like he’s begging, it’s kind of sad. “As long as I get to spend some time with Anne.”

“The next movie night is this Friday,” I sigh and turn off the T.V. “Every month we have a movie night at a different house.”

“Okay,” Bryan says with a sparkle in his eyes.

“This month it’s my house, next is Anne’s,” I rolled my eyes at the sight of him. “Just pop by my house sometime after six o’clock or I can meet up with you somewhere.”

“What movie do you guys have planned?” Bryan asked, tossing me a towel.

“We decide what genre the day of and just pick a random movie,” I wipe myself off.

“So the only thing you guys plan ahead is the day?” Bryan asks.

“Not even we just run by a pattern,” I chuck the towel at him. “We have been ever since we first became friends.”

“Friday after six,” Bryan writes it down on a hologram calendar.

“Anyways I got training soon so I gotta go,” I say as I get up and head for the door. “If you have any questions, call me, got it?”

“Hehe, yeah sorry about that,” Bryan waves to the hawk to come over.

“See you soon, man,” I say as I hop on top of the hawk.

“See ya,” Bryan waves me goodbye and as I fly off I see him doing a little happy dance into his house.

“Now I’m alone all over again,” I say to myself.

The view is quite beautiful, the water flowing down from the floating islands, there’s not too many clouds but there still are a few, mating season also recently finished for the bigger animals so there are a few babies that you can see in the area.

“I can see my house from here!” I point, I don’t really know who I was talking to, the bird maybe. The hawk starts to glide down to the front entrance of my house and I slide off it’s back.

“I never got your name?” I say to the hawk as I walk past it. “I’m sorry that I have nothing big enough to give you, thank you for the ride though.” The hawk lifts up one of its wings and brings me up to its face. “I’m sorry but I don’t have my ruktuk on me so I can’t understand you.” The hawk puts me down, nods its head and flies away.

I turn around and see Troy standing behind me holding an ice cream cone with his mouth wide open.

“Sup?” I nod at him. The ice cream falls out of the cone.

“What was that?” Troy yells at me.

“What do you mean?” I turn and look at the hawk flying away. “Huh, so it’s a boy.”

“Why did a hawk just drop you off?” Troy asks me as I walk past him. “I thought you were going for a run?”

“I was and then my friend Bryan wanted to talk to me so he sent his hawk after me,” I completely ignore all of the shock he has right now. “Where’s Des?”

“Upstairs getting ready for training,” Troy looks at the staircase. “So what did Bryan want to talk to you about?”

“No I can’t tell you because then Des will hear and he’ll tell the whole world about it,” I start walking up the stairs to my room.

“Alright, who’s your new boyfriend?” Des asks, popping out of nowhere.

“See what I mean,” I say, turning to Troy and turning back to Des. “And no it was not about me.”

“Oh really?” Des says with a mocking voice. “Then who was it about? Come on, tell me!”

“Go away!” I yell at him and run to my room.

“Tell me, tell me!” Des runs after me and runs into my door. Hopefully that knocked him out.

I exhale, “Time to get changed!”

I throw off my workout gear and head towards the scale, 132.4 pounds. Cool I lost almost two pounds since this morning, it’s mainly bloat I bet though. I’m such a loser, well whatever. I should wear something that is easy to get out of since I’m getting the uniform today. I wonder what my teammates will be like, most likely none of them are as cool as Hunter. I don’t know what last night was but it certainly wasn’t a date, at least I hope not.

Someone starts knocking on my door, “Hey, sweetie, why is Des knocked out in front of your door?”

“Oh you know,” I say as I throw some clothes on. “Casual Des stuff.”

“Can I come in?” The person asks.

“Yeah, sure,” I say and sit on my bed.

My mom comes through the front door, “Are you ready?” Des’ body’s wound like a pretzel in front of my door.

“Yeah, I’m ready to kill,” I say, getting up to give her a hug.

“The exact opposite of both of your parents,” she gives me a tight bear hug. “Amazing.”

“And technically the opposite of Destroy as well,” I say going back to sit on my bed.

“So you’ve finally seen how they work together?” My mother asks sitting next to me.

“Yes and it’s beautiful,” I say, laying my head back. “What do you want, mom?”

“Before you go, if you’re fine with it, of course, we need someone to help us figure out where the flames came from and I think that this would be an amazing learning experience,” my mother suggested.

“Sure,” I shrug and get ready to be teleported. “Not like I have a choice anyways.”

“Oh don’t be like that,” my dad says walking in my room. “Now let’s get going, you have practice soon.”

Before I know it we’re teleported to a neighbourhood that is burning down. “I thought it was just a gas station!” I yell.

“It was just a gas station, we can’t extinguish it,” my dad explains. “Then it spread.”

“What about people with water powers?” I ask.

“We tried nothing worked,” my mom said, starting to push me into the flames. “Now go make us proud.”

“You know most parents don’t tell their kids to go straight into a burning neighbourhood,” I say, walking backwards into the fire. Before I am able to see their reaction the flames takeover my sight.

They’re actually not that hot, a simple breeze can extinguish all of this. So why didn’t it? I start to walk down the streets looking into all of the buildings, all of the trees are dead. If something doesn’t happen fast then our whole world will burn down, and the innocent non-magic users will have to deal with it as well. I find the gas station where everything started, I walk inside and I see about twenty wasops. A wasop is a magicvourous monster, native to volcanoes and hot areas. It eats the magic out of flames and lava. It is currently at a healthy population percentage. It’s average size is one foot tall, with a maximum height of three feet tall and a minimum of five inches tall. It looks like a goblin but smaller and uglier. It enhances your silence, speed and magic power.

It makes sense that they’re here, it is a burning neighbourhood afterall. Except that doesn’t explain how they got here, I’m guessing that there must have been a harbourer or caretaker in the area. I walk up to where they’re eating the fire and I can see that they’re not really interested in its taste but it’s fire so they must be in a trance by it.

I put one of my own flames in my hand and I grab their attention immediately, most likely because my flames are much hotter than the flames surrounding them.

“Come on little guys,” I say as I set myself on fire to get all of their attention. I start to lead them to where my family is waiting for me. It may just be me in my head but I feel like I look really badass right now.

I start to see the exit of the neighbourhood, it looks like the flames have spread by a few hundred feet already. I can see my parents’ faces, a look of shock spreads over them and I can see people teleporting in The Creature Capturerers. I feel kind of bad for them but it makes sense, they’re not native to this area so it would be best for everyone if we take them away.

“Where’d you find those little guys?” My dad asks me as the wasops are captured.

“In the gas station,” I say as I walk back into the flames.

“What are you doing?” My mom asks.

“I’m putting an end to this,” I say and I disappear into the fire.

I walk into the center of town and get into a spell casting stance. “Morth-ple-tongi-ac-de-do-yeeps-mig-de, xite-dorp-co-ac-yeeps-co, di-ple-de-rai-ac-mig-de, rai-rod-co, mo-dorp-ac-pi-co-yeeps, rai-rod-ac-rai, rod-ac-wonge-co, zak-kai-mig-de-co-ri, rai-rod-mig-yeeps, de-co-mig-do-rod-boe-ple-kai-zak-rod-ple-ple-ri, mig-de-yeeps-mig-ri-co, rai-rod-co, dorp-ac-zak-do-co-yeeps-rai, ple-mo, rod-co-ac-zak-rai-rod-yeeps, mo-mig-zak-co, do-ple-ri-ri-co-yeeps-yeeps!” I cast the spell. The spell that I have cast was pronounced ‘Jowangsin, please contain the flames that have ruined this neighbourhood inside the largest of hearths, fire goddess!’ It’s one of the more basic ones but it still looks so cool, I might as well give these people a show.

A ray of light shines down in front of me and Jowangsin appears, she’s surprisingly beautiful. Jowangsin starts to spin around really fast and all of the fire in the neighbourhood starts to fly towards her. All of the fire creates a tornado and then a giant hearth falls from the sky, the hearth opens up and the flames spiral into the hearth. Like I said it’s really cool. The hearth sucks up all of the flames and then its metal gates slam shut. Jowangsin starts to raise her arms to the sky and the hearth rises. Before she leaves she turns and smiles at me, she puts one of her own flames in her hands and lowers it towards me in a handshake formation. I put one the hottest flame I can muster into my hand and I went to shake her hand. We’re about a centimeter away from shaking hands then Jowangsin pulls her hand away and wipes her hair back.

“Sike!” Jowangsin laughs.

She lowers her flaming hand back to mine and I reach mine out again, this time there’s pretty much no space between our hands, maybe half a micrometer. Before we finally shake hands I pull my hand away and it appears that she has done the same.

“Sike!” We both say in unison and laugh.

This time we both lower our hands and actually do a handshake, no pulling away. Her flame mixes with mine and I can feel the heat, my flame was probably nothing to her.

“Summon me in when you go in for your practice, you have a lot of potential,” Jowangsin said to me. Then she blew up and her flames rose into the sky as she rose higher the light that was shining down slowly became slimmer and dimmer. So cool!

I can hear some people running towards me, “Good job, Lexus!” My mother’s coworker congratulates me.

“You really are truly amazing, Lexus!” My dad hugs me.

I turn and look at him, “What time is it?”

“Five minutes until your practice,” my mother says. “We can just teleport you there.”

“Is Destroy there yet?” I ask.

“Yes, Sweety, they arrived ten minutes ago,” my dad lets go of his hug and give me a sweet and lovely smile.

“I would like to be teleported as soon as possible,” I say as I turn to my mother’s coworker. “Preferably right now.”

“Why so soon?” My mom asks me as her coworker prepares to teleport me.

“Just something I gotta do,” I say as I’m teleported to the outside of the training area. My mom hates it when I don’t give her a complete explanation, classic mother stuff. I bet that she was probably someone that almost everyone thought was annoying. Either that or she was the mother of the group and everyone was her child.

I see that Des and Troy have already met everyone, like always I’m behind and last for everything. No one will ever wait for me.

Hunter sees me and comes running outside, “Good afternoon, Lexus!”

“Morning,” I say without smiling. Shit now he’s gonna ask what’s wrong.

“Tired?” I asks with a nice and calming smile.

“And full,” I laugh hopefully that clarifies things a bit.

“Well you need to put a little meat on those bones,” Hunter brings me in for a hug. “How much do you weigh anyway?”

“132.4 pounds,” I answer as he lets me out of the hug. “And I’m 5’8″.”

“So you’re still in your average,” Hunter looks at the people staring at us in the window. “I will have to keep a close eye on you to make sure you stay there.”

Des and Troy come outside, pick me up and drag me inside.

“Come on meet our new team mates,” Des says as he chucks me onto a mat. Troy falls down with me since he didn’t let go.

“Alright, everyone!” A voice yells. “Line up side by side one partner behind the other!”

Before I get the chance to see who’s yelling out the orders Hunter grabs me and pulls me behind him. We are beside my brothers, Des in the front and Troy in the back. As well as a pair that I don’t know, they’re both boys, the one in the front has a colour changing mohawk, most likely a phase. The one behind him has long black hair and glasses, I think I see a scar on his face as well.

“I see that the newbies have arrived,” I try to look over Hunter’s shoulder. The man is wearing a desert camo jacket and bubblegum camo cargo pants. I can’t get a good look of the man’s face because Hunter is so tall. “Why don’t you introduce yourselves?”

Troy pushes Des out of the way and in a very formal tone he says, “My name is Troy Deathchill and I my power is yang.”

I hear a voice laugh, it’s a girl and she’s three rows down from me, everyone here is so tall I can’t see what she looks like but I already don’t like her. “You know that yang is supposed to be female right?”

“Want to experience our power?” Des says, backing up Troy. “You should’ve seen what we did to those people yesterday.” Des points to the two people that they trained with yesterday, I hope the girl is okay.

“And who are you?” The man asks, with a stern look on his face but it also looks like he’s trying to hold back a laugh.

“I am Des Deathchill and my power is yin,” Des says with his ‘I’m better than everyone else,’ confident voice and a back so straight it looks like even the tiniest bend can snap it in half.

“Another pair and a confident one,” the man says with both his eyebrows raised. “This should be good.” Des and Troy go back into their spot, Des gives the girl a death stare and turns back to look at the man.

“Alright so it appears that that is everyon…” The man continues.

“Wait there’s one more,” Hunter interrupts him and steps out of the way to show me. I probably appear so pathetic and weak.

“Who might you be?” The man asks me. A quarter of his face is burned, he has light yellow eyes, his hair colour is brown, the hair style is a faux hawk fade. He has a slight beard stubble, most likely shaved three weeks ago. Despite the burned face he’s actually pretty good looking. He has a mix of lean and buff throughout his body, I don’t think even a centimeter of his body is symmetrical. He also has a barcode shaved into the side of his head.

Hunter looks at me and smiles, “I am Lexus Deathchill and my powers are Death, Fire and cold.” I walk up in front of everyone and point and point at the girl that dissed Troy. “What’s your name?”

“Carol Simmons,” she responds with a bitchy face. She has pale clear skin, almost resembling snow. She is short, she has long blond hair, not styled in a particular way, she also has blue eyes. She is wearing a pink crop top that pretty much covers nothing and even pinkier pink booty shorts that clearly show her g- string panties. I hate everything about this girl, I will probably end up ‘accidentally’ killing her. I need to teach her a lesson, this is no longer about her treating my brothers like shit. This is personal.

“Good to know,” I give her a half smile with squinted eyes.

“Everyone start your warm ups,” Ragnar commands everyone. “As for the newbies, follow me and I’ll give you your stuff.”

Des, Troy, Hunter and I follow Ragnar to his office. I don’t know why Hunter is coming along but I’m sure that I’ll know soon enough.

Ragnar’s office is pretty nice, it has a modern soldier theme to it. Ragnar points to three outfits hanging up in a closet, “They all may have the same last name but I’m certain that you’ll know which one’s yours.”

Hunter runs to the closet and pulls out my outfits, A training uniform, a home uniform and an away uniform. All of the uniforms have ‘Deathchill’ and ’16’ on the back of them, they also have ‘Lexus’ written on one shoulder. The front of them has ‘Elder Sholo’ written on them with a clip-art picture of a sholo under it. The training uniform is gray and white, like always, the home uniform is black and red and the away uniform is black and gray. I am already in love with the home uniform. Once my friends see the uniforms they are probably going to make me do a fashion show. I would rather do a fashion show on stuff like team uniforms and workout gear instead of stuff like dresses, so I guess I would be fine with it.

“Put it on, put it on!” Hunter throws the uniforms at me and jumps up and down like a child.

“Come on,” Des says, pulling me and Troy to the change rooms. “Let’s get changed!”

“Put on the training uniforms!” Ragnar yells out his office as we run out.

I swear Des and Troy are going to make me do a fashion show before Anne can even sense that I’ve gotten new clothes. I bet even once my friends make me do a fashion show Des and Troy are still gonna be as energetic as they are right now.

I throw on the training uniform and exit the change room, Des and Troy are both outside on the benches waiting for me. Des has his hand to his cheeks with his mouth wide open when he sees me, he’s like a father with a three year old daughter. Meanwhile, Troy is pretty much having a photo shoot of me, he’s most likely going to post this all over Uinip.

I’m guessing that Hunter heard all of the noise because he came in with such a huge smile. He looks like he’s taking me to prom, well if prom involved powers and broken bones.

“Sadly practice is starting soon so you can’t put every single one on,” Hunter says, I bet he’s going to laugh at Des’s reaction.

“Okay,” Troy says, putting his phone in his bag in one of the lockers. “Let’s go guys.”

Des doesn’t even look at Troy, he just stands up, walks over to Hunter very slowly and dramatically and stares him dead in the eye.

Before Hunter can say anything Des falls to his knees and starts to beg, “Please, please, please, one quick runway walk.”

I look up at Hunter with a ‘please say no’ look. Hunter smirks, looks at me dead in the eyes and says, “Better start strutting, Princess.” Why did he call me princess?

I give him a quick death stare, it wasn’t strong enough to kill him but just enough to hurt him.

He just smiles at me, that damn smile. How can he handle the pain? About a hundredth of his organs should be malfunctioning right now! He must be using his life powers right now to heal himself, or Destroy is helping him.

“Fine,” I walk to one side of the hallway and turn around. “Care to walk with me, Prince?”

My brothers are looking at both of us like middle schoolers after someone roasted someone else.

“I would love to,” Hunter says as he walks over to me, bows, takes my hand and faces my brothers.

Troy grabs Des’ phone and takes out his own, and starts to record us like this is a legit fashion show. Hunter and I link arms and start to strut, it actually feels real even though we’re in a sweaty locker room, filled with dirty clothes. Does this mean we’re dating? I don’t think that I’m ready for a relationship! Besides I would probably gain a lot of wait if I were to date him. Plus we are exact opposites, I’m death, fire, cold and he’s life, water and heat, it would be too dangerous if we were to date! Alright, calm down, calm down, I’m just overthinking everything again. How long is this runway?

I look up at Hunter and see that he’s already smiling at me, kind of creepy, but I don’t mind. How is his teeth so perfect? His hair is so perfect, his face is perfect, his eyes are so cool and perfect, his style is perfect, he is perfect! Am I in love? No, no, no, we’re just teammates, fighting and having each other’s back, that’s all.

We almost reach my brothers until bitch, I mean, Carol, enters the room with her arms crossed. I swear I will kill her right here right now.

“If you’re done with my sloppy seconds it’s time for practice,” Carol says with the bitchiest face I’ve ever seen. All I have to do is a death stare, that’s all and no one will have to deal with her ever again. I’m sure that her parents will be thankful. Also, what the hell does she mean by sloppy seconds?

“By sloppy seconds I mean that I’ve already had him,” Carol says with a face like she thinks everyone has her back meanwhile everyone here is on my side. “You will always be a loser, no one will ever actually have your back.” She is starting to make Rebexca look like a sweetheart. Is she reading my mind? “Yes.” Shit.

“Get out of my head,” I say, Des and Troy are looking at me like I’m about to get in a fight, which I might.

“Then stop thinking so loud,” Carol mocks me, somehow her face is even more scrunched up. She looks like a hoe, who am I kidding? She most likely is a hoe.

“If I’m a hoe then you really are a loser,” Carol laughs. “You’ll probably die a virgin.”

“Carol, go away before Stef hears you,” Hunter interrupts her. I don’t know who Stef is but I’m guessing that it’s her new boyfriend.

Carol rolls her eyes and walks out of the room, Des, Troy and Hunter all look at each other and start to laugh. What is it with boys nowadays?

“Let’s get to training,” Troy says after he sends himself the video from Des’s phone to his.

We exit the change room and see everyone split up into their categories, healers and fighters. The researchers are currently in the library, most likely creating game plans and gathering information on their competitors. The researchers have it easy, no combat, but their job can be very stressful as well, after all, they have to be very smart, understand what they’re doing and have connections.

“Hey, you okay?” A tall and skinny boy asks me. He has curly brown hair, brown eyes with an ocean blue outline, he appears to be a mix. I love his style, he’s wearing a gray Toronto Defiant hoodie with black sweatpants. His voice is very unexpected for his appearance but it’s quite soothing. I feel like I can trust him with everything already.

“Huh? Oh yeah, yeah I’m fine,” I answer, I must’ve been zoned out.

“You’re the new girl right?” He asks me. “Lexus right?”

“Yeah, Lexus Deathchill,” I stick out my arm to shake his hand. “You?”

“Stef,” he responds. No last name? “I saw you on the news, that was a badass spell.”

“Thanks,” I start to blush, I think I really like him, I think that he may be the one. Wait did he say Stef? “That reminds me, Jowangsin told me to summon her during practice, I better get to it.”

“Welcome to the team, by the way,” Stef yells after me.

“Thank you! You too,” I yell back. Shit. Stef smiles at that, I can tell right now that he’s not judging me but most likely later tonight before I go to bed I will feel like everyone was laughing at me.

“Lexus, be careful,” Hunter pulls me aside before I can summon Jowangsin. “Stef is Carol’s goal boyfriend, she’s aiming for him.”

“I’ll focus on that later,” I say, pulling my arm out of his grip. “If you can please tell everyone to step back I would be grateful.”

“What are you gonna do?” Hunter asks me.

“You’ll see,” I smirk and run into the center of the room.

Hunter gets right to the point and tells everyone to step back. It appears that Des and Troy overheard me because they’re doing the same thing. I go into the spell stance and start the incantations. “Xite-dorp-co-ac-yeeps-co di-ple-pi-co boe-qiot pi-qiot yeeps-mig-ri-co, Pre-ple-tongi-ac-de-do-yeeps-mig-de!” The spell translates to ‘Please join by my side, Jowangsin!’ Before I can even react Jowangsin comes down from the sky holding a… donut? I guess gods have lives as well, but seriously, a plain donut? If you’re going to break a diet you might as well enjoy it.

Jowangsin looks at me, at her donut and then back at me, “My friend made donuts and I didn’t want to offend him.”

“Why didn’t he make any icing?” I ask, pointing at the plain donut. I actually kind of like the taste of plain donuts, sometimes the sugary icing is too sweet.

“My other friend ate all of it and we didn’t have any extra ingredients,” Jowangsin explained. “Are you ready?”

“I don’t know what I’m supposed to be ready for, but yeah sure,” I throw my hands up in the air.

“Okay, hold my donut,” Jowangsin says as she hands me her donut. I look around and see everyone staring with their jaws dropped, I forgot they were here. Is this even a donut? It’s hard like a bagel. Why am I being so casual about this?

Jowangsin puts out her hands horizontally and a glowing orb of fire starts to grow in between her two hands. It’s so beautiful and bright, I want to touch it, I want to eat it.

“Put your hands next to mine,” Jowangsin said, gesturing to me to join her.

I walk in front of her and put my arms out so that the tips of our fingers are touching.

“Now, mix your hottest fire with mine,” Jowangsin told me as her fire stopped growing but continued to glow brighter and brighter. I do as she tells me, I put flames in between my hands and as it grew larger it started to mix with hers. What’s going on? She still never told me what she was doing. Her flame is a pure white and mine is a light red, you’d expect the flames to turn pink when they mix but they didn’t. They’re green, why are they green? What does this mean?

“What’s going on?” I ask Jowangsin, panicking.

“Don’t worry,” Jowangsin assured me as she started to push the green ball of flames towards me. The flame goes into the center of my chest right next to my heart. Is that where my soul is? What’s going on?

My back starts to twitch, Jowangsin looks me in the eyes and smiles a sweet smile like a mother looking at her child.

“You will do amazingly,” she says to me. My body completely absorbs the green flame.

“What do you mean?” I ask as all of the pretty lights slowly fade.

“Tell me what colour was the flame?” Jowangsin asks me.

“Green, I guess,” I shrug.

“Yes,” Jowangsin nods. “But what shade of green?”

“Light green,” I give her a weird look.

“Yes and what does it represent?” Jowangsin asks.

“I don’t know, growth, harmony, freshness, fertility and safety,” I explain.

“Do you think that you resemble any of that?” Jowangsin asks, putting her hand on my shoulder.

“Not a single one,” I smile. I have to smile, if I don’t smile then people might figure out that my emotions aren’t genuine.

“You will figure everything out soon enough,” she smiles. “Well, see you later.”

“Bye,” I say waving at her.

“Oh yeah and you’re more powerful now,” Jowangsin finished and then she rose into the sky, just completely through the ceiling. Nothing broke surprisingly, it was kind of like a ghost going through a wall.

Stef comes behind me and holds me up, I didn’t even notice that I was all wobbly. What does she mean that I’m more powerful now?

“That was so cool!” Stef says, putting my arm around his shoulders to help hold me up.

“Leave her alone, Stef!” Hunter yells, pulling me away from him.

“I’m not doing anything to her!” Stef yells back. Carol has run by his side now, why do I feel so dizzy?

“Go away, Hunter!” Carol yells at him.

“No one asked you to come over, Carol!” Hunter yells back. I feel like I’m about to collapse. Why do I feel like this?

“Stop yelling!” Des interrupts everyone, it appears that they were starting to grab each other to fight.

I blackout, after what felt like five minutes I can hear everyone’s voices. Troy is standing over me with a bottle of water, Hunter is using his life powers on me. Why didn’t anyone notice me getting dizzy? I guess I’m that invisible huh.

“Hey, she’s waking up,” I hear Stef say to everyone once he notices my eyes start to open.

“Wow, you really are a loser huh?” Carol says, already mocking me.

“What happened?” I ask, sitting myself up. I can tell that ignoring Carol made her mad, good to know.

“Sorry about that,” I boy says, scratching the back of his head. He’s short and not very good looking, average at best. He probably gets friendzoned a lot. “I’m Jeffrey Simions, my powers are intoxication, invisibility, flight, and growth. I’m a fighter on Elder Sholo.”

“Tell her what happened before I make you,” Des says, grabbing him by the collar. Classic protective brother, he makes me proud sometimes, sometimes.

“Be a little more gentle, Des,” Hunter says, taking Des’s hands off of Jeffrey. He’s clearly not as protective over his teammates as I thought.

“Well you see, my sister, one of our researchers, saw that your power levels were rising too quickly and well, she asked me to make you intoxicated to calm you down a bit,” Jeffrey explained.

“Where is your sister?” Des asks, I honestly don’t know what emotion he could be feeling right now, that question sounded so calm yet terrifying at the same time.

“She has social anxiety so she’s probably invisible somewhere,” Jeffrey answers.

“You do too, Jeffrey,” a voice says out of nowhere. I’m assuming it’s his sister’s. She makes herself visible and slaps him upside the head. “You should also know that you should never share that kind of information to people, It’s not yours to share. Besides, you were invisible when you were making her intoxicated.” She’s short like him but slightly better looking, I can tell they’re siblings.

“Blah, blah, blah,” Jeffrey says, mocking her. He turns himself invisible and goes to join everyone else practicing.

Ragnar comes over now that everything has died down, “What the hell just happened?”

“I suggest that Hunter, and the other noobies train separately from everyone else for now,” Samantha instantly suggests. “I’ll help them as well.”

“Why?” Ragnar asks.

“Lexus recently got a goddess blessing so I want to help her master it,” Samantha explains. “As for why I also want Des and Troy to train alongside us is because they know each other very well so it’s most likely that once we’re in a battle that they’ll be around each other the most.”

“Lexus got a goddess blessing?” Ragnar starts to freak out. “Which goddess?”

“Jowangsin, sir,” Samantha answers.

“Oh yes the goddess of fire, hearths and the kitchen,” I think I heard Ragnar quietly laugh to himself. Is he mocking her? Ragnar is now walking away clearly holding in his laughter “Well alright then, you may train separately from the rest of the team, but make sure they’re ready two weeks before our first battle.”

“You got it,” Samantha salutes to him. I can tell by her face and the fact that she just became a little transparent that she didn’t mean to do that and now she’s embarrassed.

“Don’t worry,” I say, putting my hand on her shoulder. “We’re not judging you.”

That seems to make her relax a bit, she smiles and says, “I like you already, welcome to the team.”

“Well let’s get to training,” Des says as he throws me over his shoulder and leads us to one of the training rooms.

We enter one of the training rooms and Samantha locks the door behind us, “Alright line up beside your teammate.”

Des and Troy stand beside each other like they’re soldiers, meanwhile Hunter pulls me beside him and holds me very tightly. What’s up with him? Why is he treating me like this all of a sudden? I swear I will burn him right here right now if he doesn’t stop.

Samantha looks at me then gives Hunter a death stare, she can tell that he’s bothering. Hunter rolls his eyes and loosens up his grip a bit. I look at Samantha and give her a nod.

“Alright so you guys are complete opposites, correct?” Samantha points at Hunter and I.

“Yes, I’m,” I try to respond but then Hunter cuts me off.

“Yes,” Hunter responds, annoyed. I burn him. “Stop.”

“You started it,” I snap at him.

“Des, Troy, please stand in between them,” Samantha points at them and then at us. Des stands behind Hunter, here we go.

“You better leave my little sis’ alone,” Des whispers.

“Whatever,” Hunter rolls his eyes. Oh boy if a fight breaks out Troy will have to hold back Des and if this continues Troy may not even do that. Why is everyone so protective over me? I’m just a waste of time and space.

“Alright, well, I heard that you and Hunter came up with a cool new attack yesterday,” Samantha just completely ignores the vibes in the air. “Care to share it?”

“Okay,” I shrug and walk to one side of the room as Hunter walks to the other.

We are both getting into a fighting stance and I wait for Hunter to start so I don’t hurt him, although at this point I wouldn’t mind it. I’ll just shoot, he can start on his own time.

Right as I start my stream he starts his and gives me a ‘how fucking dare you’ face. How dare I? How dare he! He has been such a controlling jerk today! I want to hurt him, I want to hospitalize him, I want to kill him. Our streams blast into each other and the yin yang starts to grow, it seems that Samantha is already analyzing it, she seems… terrified. The fire and water have turned into vapour and the warmth and cold are making a sickening mixture. I feel like I’m going to throw up and I can tell Hunter feels the same because his stream is getting weaker. I have to help him, make him angry. What should I do? What should I do? Oh, I know! I stick my out at him and roll my eyes with a smirk. That should do it. It worked, he’s pissed.

I hear someone fall to the ground, if I look over Hunter might try to hurt me, I can’t let my guard down. My death stream is so much bigger now, I can’t even see Hunter. As long as I can see the Yin Yang he’s fine. Although mine seems a little bit bigger, I should signal him to stop. How? If I can’t see him then he can’t see me either. I look over to see if I can get someone to tell him to stop but everyone has collapsed and Troy is barely holding on.

That’s it, I stop my stream and Hunter falls to his knees. Was he using all he got to try and stay alive? What happened to everyone else? Is this all my fault? I’m the worst, I should just go and disappear. It would be the best for everyone.

“Lexus,” Hunter says in between his coughing. “Unlock the door.”

“Got it,” I say as I run over to Samantha’s body, grab the keys and unlock the door. So I guess that everyone couldn’t breathe from the vapour and the temperature. Why didn’t it affect me?

I unlock the door and a bunch of people come running in, mainly healers and researchers. Ragnar is standing outside with his arms crossed, is he mad? Before I can say anything, Stef comes running over to me.

“What happened?” Stef starts asking me. “Are you okay?”

“To be honest I don’t even know myself,” I shrug. “I’m still trying to figure out what happened.”

Stef shakes his head and picks me up, “I’m taking you to the nurses office.”

“Okay,” I say as I start to doze off.

“Seriously, Jeffrey, stop,” Stef groans as he sees me slowly becoming intoxicated.

“Sorry, man,” Jeffrey says, he’s clearly invisible right now. “It’s protocol.”

“She’s not going to hurt anyone!” Stef yells and I fall asleep.

I wake up after what feels like three or four hours, I wonder how much weight I’ve lost after everything that has happened. Why am I thinking about that right now? Where am I? Where’s Destroy? Where’s Stef? Where’s Hunter?

I sit up and see Stef sitting beside my bed, “Just so you know it’s six o’clock.”

“What happened? Where is everyone?” I ask.

“Don’t worry,” Stef says as he pushes me back into the bed. “Everyone is okay, well, semi-okay.”

“What happened?” I ask as Stef gives me a glass of orange juice. “Wait, what do you mean by ‘semi-okay’?”

“Well, Hunter’s barely breathing, Des refuses to let anyone near Troy because he doesn’t trust them, I’m pretty sure Troy is in a coma and Samantha is having a mental breakdown,” Stef explains. “You’re quite something, absolutely nothing is wrong with you yet we’re keeping you here just in case.”

“Does anyone know what happened in there?” I ask. “Wait, Troy is in a coma!”

“It’s best if you rest for now,” Stef tucks me in. “We’ll be letting you go home in around an hour.”

“Everyone hates me now, I’m guessing,” I say as I look into his beautiful yellow sun eyes with a red lava outline. Wait. Something’s up.

Stef notices me notice and yells to someone that is not in my peripheral vision, “Put her to sleep, stat!”

“Mo-mig-zak-co!” I yell ‘Fire’. A wave of green flames shot out from all directions of me. All I hear is screaming. I don’t know what’s going on but that wasn’t Stef, Stef’s eye colours are brown with a blue outline, not sun and lava. It’s so hot, am I not even able to handle my own flames anymore? Where’s Des and Troy? I need to find them.

I go to the door and before I leave I see Des, “Lexus!”

“Des!” I yell back. “Where’s Troy?”

“Over here,” he points to a bed right beside him. “He’s paralized.” I run over to them and take a look at Troy, his eyes are darting from side to side, he’s probably seeing something that isn’t us. Wait, oh my god. They’re testing us!

I try to tell Des and Troy but before I know it I’m woken up in the middle of the floor. Stef has his hands hovering over my brothers, he seems very focused, probably trying to find a way to play off what I almost did.

“New record,” Hunter says, smacking my back.

“Why is everyone always putting me in those false situations?” I ask, annoyed.

“Sorry, protocol,” Hunter shrugs.

“When did this start?” I ask, rolling my eyes.

“Right after Jowangsin left and you ‘blacked out’,” Hunter air quotes.

“So what time is it then?” I ask.

“Like, I don’t know,” Hunter checks the clock on the wall. “6:04PM. Stef ran out of energy at one point so we put you guys to sleep for a few hours.”

“So what’s my record?” I ask, staring at my brothers. They’re holding hands.

“Well, excluding the nap, forty minutes,” Hunter responds. He notices me staring at my brothers. “You know, we’ve paralized you’re real life bodies when we put you into the simulation. Yet somehow Des and moved their arms and held each other’s hands, we thought something was wrong so we increased the power yet somehow they were still able to break through that. Destroy is really something.”

“That’s my brothers for you,” I laugh. “So we’re good?”

“Oh yeah, don’t worry about it,” Hunter says as he gives me a hug.

“So how much time do they have left?” I ask, looking around. Carol is giving me a death stare from the training room, Samantha is celebrating, I think she won a bet, Jeffrey is barely visible hiding behind a wall and Ragnar is just drinking his coffee watching everything happening.

“Until seven,” Hunter says, staring at the clock.

“Give them thirty seconds,” I smirk.

“Care to make a bet,” Hunter smiles back.

“Hundred bucks,” I nod.

“You’re on,” Hunter shakes my hand. Twenty five seconds left, twenty, fifteen, ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five.

“Better pay up,” I smile. Two, one.

I don’t know who set a timer but I can hear a faint ringing in the distance and right on beat Des and Troy wake up. Des looks pissed and Troy looks like he’s happy that it’s over.

I lay my hand out flat in front of Hunter and say, “Come on, money, right here.”

“I’ll give it to you tomorrow,” he shrugs with a please believe me smile.

“I’ll hold you to it,” I give him a ‘you just made a deal with the devil’ smirk.

Without missing a beat Des stands up, grabs Troy’s hand and turns into Destroy, “How dare you guys treat my brother and sister like this!”

I walk up to Destroy and put my on top of theirs and I freeze them, “Chill, dude.”

I look behind me and Hunter is shaking his head and smiling, shit, I just made a pun. Des and Troy let go of each other’s hands, “Please tell me we don’t have to go through this ever again,” Des whines.

“Gonna have to get used to it,” Ragnar says, handing us cups of coffee. “Happens to us sometimes, we normally figure it out when it’s too late.” Stef falls to the ground and starts to snore. Ragnar laughs.

“I’ll throw him into the shower,” Hunter says as he picks up Stef. “Come on, buddy.”

“So you guys don’t actually hate each other?” I ask, pointing at them.

“No, of course not,” Hunter says as he carries Stef into the change room. “We’re actually best friends.”

“It’s getting late,” Ragnar says as he helps me up. “Why don’t you guys head on home.”

“I swear, if we’re still in a simulation,” Des starts.

“Come on,” Troy cuts him off. “Let’s go already.”

We’re walking home and we’re about half way there when it starts to rain and of course Des and Troy are already trying to help me.

“Please, take my jacket,” Des says, taking off his jacket.

“You know she can just evaporate the rain falling down around her,” Troy laughs.

“Guys, trust me, I’m fine,” I say as I run in front of them and jump into a puddle. “Afterall I love the rain.”

“Lexus!” Des yells out and begins to chase me. “These are brand new!”

At this point we’re running up and down the sidewalks and roads, Troy is walking with his hands in his pockets as we splash him and pretty much ruin his outfit. Luckily he left his uniforms in his locker. Meanwhile, Des couldn’t bear to part with his.

“Don’t you dare,” Des says, pointing at me as he’s surrounded by puddles.

I give him a pesky little smile and then Troy taps him on the shoulder and says, “Checkmate,” and then he jumps into the puddle soaking us all and a little girl that was coming in to join the fun. It looks like she’s about to cry.

“Get over here you weasel!” Des yells and chases Troy. I don’t know why Des called Troy a weasel but it seemed to have made the little girl laugh.

“Yeah you’re a weasel,” the little girl laughs and chases Troy alongside Des. Her voice is so high and the girl is so cute. I see two adults running down the sidewalk, one has long luscious hair and the other has short messy hair. They both appear to be female, they must be the girl’s parents, or maybe they’re sisters. Either way I have the feeling they’re this little girl’s guardians. They see her playing with my brothers and sigh in relief, she must have wandered off a little while ago. I smile and wave at them to let them know we’re safe and they come walking over.

“Nice weather we’re having,” I say sarcastically.

“Make sure to be more careful nowadays,” one of the ladies warn me. “I heard a few moyky’s were spotted in the area.” Moyky’s are carnivorous monsters native to deserts and areas that can reach both dangerously cold temperatures and dangerously hot temperatures. It solely eats magic users but can get confused if there is a hint of magic on a non-magic user and may eat them. It’s population is currently endangered. It’s average size is seven feet tall, with a maximum height of fifteen feet tall and a minimum of six feet tall. It looks like a giant, muscular gerbil with claws that can grow up to five feet long and fangs sharper than any sword ever forged. It enhances your magic power, strength and speed.

“Wait, seriously?” I ask, amazed. “When did you first hear about this?”

“We first heard on the news about two hours ago,” the other woman answered. “Then our daughter wanted to go and play so obviously we went with her.”

“Well yeah of course,” I nod in agreement. “So are you guys from around here?”

“Yes we are,” the lady continued. “Oh and guess what I’ve recently seen. Some non magic users have found their way into the city.”

“Well I’ll be sure to keep my sensors on me,” I say, waving to my brothers to signal them to finish things up. “Best be heading home, would you three like an escort or should you be fine?”

“We should be fine,” one of the women says as they turn into a Sholo. She doesn’t look like she fought for it so she must be part of the military. “Have a good night.”

“You too,” I say as I wave them goodbye and run to catch up with my brothers. The little girl and I high five each other as we run past each other.

“Spill the tea, sis’,” Des says to me.

“There are both non magic users and Moyky’s in the city,” I say.

“Let’s go home,” Troy says, looking at Des.

“Let’s,” Des nods at Troy, picks me up, throws me on his back like a piggyback ride and then they run home.

We get home and burst through the front door. I’m guessing that mom is working late because all I see is dad sitting at the counter drinking coffee.

“Dad,” Troy says, running up to dad and hugging him like a little boy. Des puts me down and we walk over to them. “There are non magic users and Moyky’s in the city!”

“Wait, what?” Dad asks. He sounds very worried now. “Um, I’m going to see your mother, cook yourselves dinner, then go straight to bed, got it?”

“Got it,” we all say in unison.

“Alright, I will see you all tomorrow,” dad says, grabbing his jacket and running out the door.

“Want us to help, dad?” Des asks, sounds like he’s already pumping himself up.

“No!” He yells back.

For a moment we all look at each other, “Well, I’m going to bed.”

“No dinner?” Troy asks.

“Still full,” I answer.

“Alright, goodnight,” Troy responds. “Come on, Des, time for bed.”

“But,” Des says, pointing at the door.

“Bed,” Troy demands.

“Fine,” Des slumps after him.

“Goodnight,” I say.

“Goodnight,” They both say in unison, Troy is more joyful than Des.

I walk into my room and jump onto my bed, “Goodnight?” What’s good about it?