“Wait, no, really!?” Me Berry and Zenit were amazed and shocked.

“But when did you do it?” Berry asked.

“But have you tested it?” I curiously asked.

“How did you make it?” Zenit wanted to know the full details.

“Whao! Jeez! One question at a time.” Stephanie and Zoe were overwhelmed by our questions.

“First off, you can not know what is inside it, second, we have tested it and it works on us, at least, third, we found the time to make it, you were gone rather long to talk with Kevin, you know.” Zoe looked at me point blank.

“Are you ready for the big revival of the potion?! Well ready or not, here it is!” Stephanie took a long and skinny glass out of her purse. I had never revised that she wore a purse before. The bottle looked too long to fit in the purse. It was shaped like a spiral with color changing liquid in it. One moment it was pink, the next it was blue.

I think I can trust them but what if? They are keeping so many secrets.

“Can Zoe or Stephanie try it first? I want to see if it will work.”

“Umm, I’m not doing it!” Zoe put her hands up.

“Why?” Berry asked.

“It is because it tastes horrible, like worse than dog poop, kind of horrible.”

“You have tasted dog poop before?”

“Unfortunately yes.”

“Well then, let us give it to Kevin.”

In the mud room, Kevin had awoken and was struggling furiously to break the rope that was binding him. Without a word, I forced Kevin’s mouth open and gave him a drop. I tried to give him more but no more would come out. I wanted to ask him questions but my mind went blank.

“What does it taste like?” I blurted out.

“It tastes like dog poop.” Kevin replied automatically in a robotic tone.

“See! I told you!” Stephanie smirked.

“Is the voice real?” Zoe got back to the main question.

“The voice is- is not real.” I could tell that Kevin was struggling to not speak the truth.

I shared a look with Zenit, and his eyes portrayed the same worry.

“Um, are you being controlled?” Zenit asked.

“Yes.” Kevin answered.

“Who are you being controlled by?” Berry asked.

“I don’t know.”

“Are you on our side?”

“I-” Kevin started to answer the question then came back to his senses.

“Why would I tell you this?!” Kevin’s voice returned to normal and he started struggling again.

“Should we give him another drop?” I asked.

“No, we can’t. You can only have one drop per day. We will have to wait until tomorrow.”

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We left Kevin in the mud room, and returned to the throne room.

“So he is being controlled but he is also lying to us? How does that make any sense?”

“I know right? Maybe his unknown controller made him say that the voice was real?”

“Wait but how was he able to slightly resist the question?” Zoe and Stephanie shared a nervous look.

“That should not be possible.”

I could sense that it meant something bad.

“What is wrong?” I asked.

“It- it means that he possesses beyond the uttermost power.” Zoe replied shakily.

“More power than the world has ever had, that means,” Stephanie trailed off. And I had a horrible feeling in my gut that something was wrong, terribly wrong.

I went to bed in a sleeping bag on the floor of the throne room, even though the workers had just finished making a sleeping place I didn’t feel the need to sleep on a bed. Plus I need to check on Kevin in case anything out of the ordinary happened. I was planning on doing routine checks every hour or so but my tired body said otherwise. I was asleep before my head hit my sleeping bag.

I woke to the sound of Kevin’s voice, laughing evilly. I opened my eyes and saw that Kevin had me at gunpoint. It was still dark outside and everyone else was asleep.

“Quietly,” he hissed.

“Get up, hands up and I don’t want to hear a peep from you. Or else.”

I followed his instructions slowly, desperately trying to stall for time. I racked my brain for a way to leave a clue to let Zoe or Zenit or even a maid or anybody else know where I was going.

I am pretty sure they would know something was up if me and Kevin were both gone, but how could I tell them where we were going without arousing Kevin’s suspicion. Also, I didn’t even know where we were going.

“Follow me.” Kevin turned around and put his gun to his own head.

“One wrong move and I’ll be dead. The Esd will find a more competent host.”

I realized that Kevin had found out how much we valued his information. I wondered if I was fast enough to kick the gun out of his hand before he shot himself. But if what Stephanie and Zoe had said were true then I was definitely no match for him.

I followed behind Kevin slowly, hoping that somebody would get up to go to the bathroom or anything but nope, everyone was sound asleep.

Right before Kevin was about to push open the door and take me outside, I tackled him and we tumbled head over heels, literally. Blindly, I reached out and gripped for the gun, trying to aim it at the floor instead of at either of us.

“Give- it to me!” I growled and tugged with all my might.

“Never!” Kevin shouted.

One of us must have accidentally pulled the trigger as a hot pain spread from the palm of my hand.

“Ahhh in the lord of ****!” I screamed and prayed that the gun was not an automatic gun. I heard footsteps from the sleeping area and people shouting. I slapped my hurt hand against Kevin’s face and sprayed him with blood.

“Ugg! Kevin spit a mouthful of saliva and blood. He got up and looked for the gun but what he didn’t know was that I had covered it with my legs. I released that the gun was tiny in comparison to normal sized handguns. No wonder I hadn’t noticed it before.

“You dirty little-” he was cut off by a figure leaping off the huge throne. The figure landed on Kevin’s chest and must have broken at least a few ribs.

“Uh, oww.” Kevin groaned. I realized that Zoe had come to the rescue. Behind me Crystal’s unflappable voice rang out.

“Is everyone, I mean Joe okay?” She seemed to realize that my hand had a hole in it.

“Oh, nevermind.” Crystal shot an icicle and bound Kevin to the ground. Stephanie ran over and started fixing my hand.

I was so focused on what was happening that I barely felt the pain. It still hurt like the d*****s, even though I was trying not to focus on the pain.

Crystal and Dave stood shoulder to shoulder, and tilted their heads towards each other, glaring at Kevin. They matched so well it would look like they were a couple if you didn’t know them.

“WHY DID YOU DO THAT!” Zoe got up to my right, she had a few bruises on her face and legs but other than that, she looked alright. Zoe stomped over to Kevin and kicked him in the leg so hard I heard a crack.

“Jeez, we still need him alive!” I protested as I tried not to pass out from the pain.

“I- will, not be defeated!” Kevin squeezed a bottle of hand sanitizer and it flew in a line, squirting Dave in the eye, but Crystal blocked it with ice, it then splattered on to me, and more importantly, my hand. The pain was overwhelming but my anger took over, I forgot all about keeping him alive and all of that stuff. I stomped over, and kicked Kevin so hard his stomach bent at an impossible angle. Dave sent a small wall of fire in front of me to stop me from harming Kevin even more. Kevin groaned and a few of the servants carried him away, followed by Stephanie!

“That’s my brother!” Zoe cheered me on and I realized how she had felt.

Heaving, I sat down and tried to take deep breaths and calm myself down and calm my anger and energy. I clenched my fists and realized that was a horrible idea. My blood started leaking through the gauze on my hand.

“Here let my help you” a little servant boy talked to me and I felt like I knew him, his voice and his face both looked oddly familiar, I just couldn’t place it. He led me to the small makeshift hospital where Stephanie was treating Kevin. Another person took over when Stephanie saw me, she rebandaged my hand and put me in a cast to stop me from reinjuring it again.