Aidan

Her voice came through like an air raid siren, forcing my eyes open. “Nadia!”

As soon as the pain and anguish in her voice registered, I was fully awake. However, before I could make my next move, I fell twenty feet. For yet another reminder that I was still not all the way in control of my abilities, I had been levitating in my sleep again.

After hitting the ground with a very loud groan, I rolled over to see Chris sitting a few yards away fully awake.

He had a look of genuine curiosity on his face. “Do you do that a lot? Cause it doesn't look fun.” Chris paused for a second to shake his head. “No, sir, it does not.”

I rolled my eyes at him as I stood up and moved towards a still sleeping Lana. “Lana.” No response. “Lana!” It was possible she couldn’t hear me over her own snoring. “Really?” I breathed out before bending down to shake her awake.

She didn’t seem to notice my vigorous attempt at waking her, but something else did. The black ink from her tattoo spread across her body before shooting off of her skin in ribbons that attached themselves to my hands and arms.

The slick black tendrils quickly progressed up my elbows and headed for my face. I started screaming at the top of my lunges and didn’t care if the entire Fae Kingdom heard me.

Ironically, my screaming did manage to wake Lana up. Her eyes burst open before joining in with my screaming. We were stuck together by her weird tattoo that was acting like super glue. I looked at Chris, but he was frozen on the spot; face pale and staring without blinking.

Lana was freaking out worse than I was. “Stop! Enough! Cease and desist!” It wasn’t clear which command it was, but one of them got the black ink to stop and recede back onto Lana's tattoo.

We both fell back wide-eyed. The only sound passing between us was our heavy breaths.

Chris cleared his throat to get our attention. “So, I guess it’s safe to say that none of y’all got any control over your powers?”

Lana turned to Chris before flipping him off. I could feel myself calming down and when I remembered Nadia’s voice in my head, I quickly stood up. “We can talk about how messed up that was later. Right now, Nadia is awake and she just sent out an S.O.S. Everybody, grab my hands to teleport.”

They both moved towards me, but Lana stopped as her eyes glazed over and her head fell back. Chris and I looked at each other, both clearly freaked out before we turned back to Lana. As quickly as it started, it was already over.

She took a deep breath and shook herself off. “I, honestly, don’t think I’ll ever get used to that feeling.” When her gaze landed on a still freaked-out Chris and me, she took a startled step back. “Wha--Oh! Right. That,” she said with a small laugh, trying to play it off. “That was just the Eye warning me that we probably shouldn’t teleport in this dimension. You know, since none of us vibrate at this dimension’s frequency. It's sort of like what happened when we first got here, except it might kill us.”

I blinked a few times at her to try to, yet again, pull myself from information overload. “Right. Got it. No teleporting. I guess if I go full monster mode, I can fly the three of us to wherever she is, but we really need to get going.”

Chris slapped me on the shoulder. “Shut your slut mouth! You can fly too?”

I was still so freaked out by all the weirdness that kept happening, that I forgot I was supposed to be upset with Chris. “Yeah, I sprout these big black bat wings. They’re actually kind of cool in a Tim Burton sort of way.”

Chris was grinning from ear to ear while wiggling his eyebrows at me. “Well, watcha waitin’ for? Bust’em out.”

I agreed with what he was saying, but his positive attitude in the situation was something I was still trying to get used to. Regardless, I stepped back and cleared my mind. Thankfully, I had had enough experience with transforming in the last week that I could mostly manage it without going homicidal. I felt the usual expansion of my body as my skin blackened and my fangs pierced through. The thing that always seemed to happen last was my wings spreading. “Alright.” The voice that came from my mouth was low and guttural, disturbing me to my core. “I’ll never get used to this voice. I sound like the final boss of a video game.”

Chris’s mouth had fallen open, but he was still smiling. “Can we talk about this transformation, because you look scary, but you also look real sexy.”

I slowly shook my head at him. “Focus, please.”

Chris used his hands to push back the non-existent long hair he didn’t have. He pulled the fiery sword from the ground and raised it towards the sky. The tip of the blade grew brighter than the rest of it before the sword's flames turned white and expanded to cover Chris. A second later, he stood in front of us wearing white armor adorned with a large cross on the breastplate.”

I couldn’t stop myself from saying something. “Did you just ‘Thunder Cats’ that?”

Chris gave me a wink before turning around. He pointed a thumb at the white cloak trailing behind him before it began to glow, split apart and, finally, lift up into a pair of angelic wings.

My face couldn’t hide that I was actually impressed and even went as far as to give him a nod of approval. With Chris done, I turned to Lana. “Which one of us do you want to carry you?”

She softly shook her head. “No need.” In a quick and bright flash, Lana’s glistening silver armor appeared on her body. Without hesitating or saying anything, she punched her fist to her palm before spreading her arms. Two large wings comprised entirely of black ink manifested from her back.

From my left, Chris let out the gayest gasp I had ever heard. “Yes, yes, yes honey,” he said while snapping his fingers. “Slay, slay, slay all day!”

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I cleared my throat to get everyone’s attention. “Alright, if we’re all done with the ‘Sailor Moon’ transformations, we have a nymph to save.”

This was going to be my first time flying and as someone who was deathly afraid of heights, there was no telling how it would go. The weirdest part was the feeling of new muscles in my back. Once I got the hang of the flapping motion, I felt confident enough to take off. “Do you guys think I should just lift, or try jump--.” Lana and Chris were gone. I spun around while my anxiety skyrocketed.

Chris’s voice came from above me. “Up here, slut.”

My eye line moved towards the sky to find them both hovering in the air above me.

Lana snapped her fingers at me. “What are you waiting for? Get that big black body up here.”

Chris flew around in a circle before addressing Lana. “Sugar, I think you mean big African American body.”

Oh, my god. We’re gonna die.

I pushed power into my legs for the jump and reached a few feet shy of them before I started to fall. “Oh, no. Oh, no!” It took a second, but I finally got my wings moving fast enough to lift me up to where Chris and Lana were. “Phew. That was a close call.”

Lana just shook her head at me while snickering. “You have no idea how badly I wish I had my phone right now.”

Chris flew over to Lana with his phone in hand. “Don’t even worry about it, darlin’. I got the whole thing. Remind me later to show you how to keep your phone on you when you transform. It’s not hard.”

I did my best to ignore them as I locked in on Nadia’s mind until feeling the pull of her location. “Alright. Pretty sure she’s in this direction. I should get a better idea of where she is once we’re closer. That’s the theory anyway.”

Chris held his sword out in front of him before his eyes began to shine and a glowing bubble formed around the three of us. “There we go. Now, we don’t gotta worry about being spotted.”

Lana chuckled for a moment. “You’re like Glinda, the good witch.”

Chris snapped his fingers and popped his tongue. “You mean bad bit--.”

I let out a groan that was almost a roar. “Enough already. Let’s go. You guys are killing me.”

***

After flying at full speed for about twenty minutes, we finally saw where Nadia was probably being held. A beautiful white stone castle covered in vines and flowers came into view floating high above the tree tops. The closer we got to it, the stronger I could feel Nadia’s presence. “Alright, guys. This is it. Thankfully, we have the element of surprise on our side.” No sooner had I said it before the glowing bubble around us popped.

All three of us stopped mid-air, with Lana the first to call me out. “Really?! You just had to say something? Have you never seen a movie, or read a book?”

It took everything I had not to roll my eyes at her. “Whatever. Chris, turn the bubble back on.”

He shook his head at me. “I’m sorry, slut. They have some sort of anti-concealment charm up and running,” he said before shrugging his shoulders. “It’s like that sometimes.”

I smacked my clawed palm to my forehead and slowly ran it down my face. “Jesus Christ. Let’s just try to get in there before anyone sees us.” From the castle, we heard an uproar of growls and roaring followed by a slew of elemental soldiers appearing in the air and flying toward us. “Oh, come on!”

Lana flew out in front of us before turning towards me. “Just go, Aidan. We’ll take care of, uh, these things while you get Nadia.”

I looked at Chris and actually found myself stunned by the sheer ferocity on his face. He rushed forward and, with a yell, took out five soldiers with one swing.

Mmkay. I’m just gonna go.

With my wings doing double-time, I rose high into the sky above Chris, Lana, and all of the soldiers. After locking onto the entrance of the castle, I flew full steam ahead. A few element things moved towards me, but I plowed through them, not stopping until finally crashing through the castle doors. Once inside, it was clear it hadn't been maintained in quite some time. The foliage that covered the exterior of the castle was actually from the overgrown plant life coming from inside.

My mind locked onto Nadia and without wasting a second, I flew through the castle, moving past corridors and ballrooms before finally coming to what appeared to be a series of jail cells made entirely of crystal. It was ominous and beautiful all at the same time. “Nadia?” It didn’t bother me that my voice bounced off the iridescent walls. I had made it this far and I was not about to leave without my best friend.

Her voice sounded frantic and scared. “Aidan?! Oh, thank god. We’re down here.”

I took off down the crystal corridor of cells and stopped when I finally found her. Her mascara was all runny like she had been crying. I had never seen her look so beaten down before. It was all I could take. My large claws gripped the cell bars and in one quick motion, I pulled the door off and threw it to the other end of the prison.

Nadia ran forward and wrapped her arms around my large frame. “I’m so happy to see your big, ugly gargoyle ass. I’m so sorry for being rude before. I’mma work on being nicer. Well, less rude. I mean, I’ll do my best.”

Her words actually made me laugh, but still, in my monster mode, it sounded more sinister than I meant it to.

She stepped back with a disturbed look on her face. “Oh, don’t do that again. Come on. We gotta get Noelle out.”

My eyes widened at her words. “You found Noelle?! That’s awesome.” I turned to the cell Nadia directed me to and pulled the door off. The smile on my face quickly disappeared when Nadia pulled Noelle out, and I got a good look at her. “Nadia, what happ--.”

She put her hand up to stop me. “Don’t worry about it right now. Just get Serena out next,” she said pointing to the cell next to the one she had been in.

My first instinct was to ask more questions, but I knew it really, really wasn’t the time. I quickly pulled the cell door off before a woman who looked about forty with olive skin and bright blonde hair stepped out. She had trouble walking at first but didn’t hesitate to take my outstretched claw to help her stand.

She was startled at first but quickly started laughing. “What the literal hell?”

Girl, if you only knew, I thought while giving her as warm of a smile as I could in my gargoyle form.

Nadia, still holding on to a quiet Noelle, moved towards us. “Alright, Aidan. Teleport them out of here.”

I shook my head at her. “I can’t teleport in this dimension.”

Serena put her hand up to get our attention. “I can get us out of here if one of you can make a large opening in the wall. Like, really large.”

Nadia and I both looked like we wanted to inquire further, but pushed past the urge. I moved to the wall that, from the layout of the castle, would be facing towards the front and lead outside to Lana and Chris. With as much concentration as possible, I focused on the wall before thrusting my hands forward. The wall shook and cracked but still stood. I tried again but only produced more cracks. I let my frustration flow through me and with a roar, used all of my anger to fortify my power. The entirety of the wall finally blasted open to the outside of the castle.

Unfortunately, harnessing that much dark energy awakened my feral persona. My wings unfolded and I took off into the sky at incredible speed. Bloodlust was raging through me. I didn’t even wait to reach any of the elemental soldiers but rather used my mind to pull them towards me.

Each time, I had one in my hands, I wasted no time in pulling them apart, limb from limb. With every scream from a soldier, my excitement grew to the point that I was roaring and laughing at the same time. In my peripheral, I caught sight of Lana and Chris. Both of them were just hovering in the air with their mouths hanging open. All I did was laugh as soldiers after soldiers appeared in the air and completely disregarded Lana and Chris in order to attack me. I was loving it.