757 What is Qi?

'No. No, I gave her a command, didn't I? I told her not to get involved. So how did it become like this?'

Quinn was unaware of everything that Layla had done beforehand. Knowing that it was quite possible her mother would die in this fight, she needed to make sure that wouldn't happen, not just for herself, but for Quinn as well.

If Layla had to pick who she sided more in this fight, Quinn or her mother, it would have to be Quinn. Whenever she thought about this, this was what her mind wandered to.

And at the end of the day, not only did Layla not want her mother to die, she also didn't want Quinn to become a large target of Pure. He wasn't ready for that yet.

Beforehand, when Layla had made her plea to her mother and gave her a warning, she had reached out and grabbed her hand. At that moment she had activated the skill Spiritual Partner. The skill, when activated, would allow Layla to choose what attacks she would take instead. Any damage that would be inflicted on Lucy, would come back and be dealt to her.

When Quinn started to get the upper hand in the fight, she had tried to activate the skill, but it hadn't worked. The skill wouldn't activate as something was stopping her, and Quinn's words would ring in her mind.

Since the skill was activated on her mother before, she thought it would be okay and since it was a skill that didn't do any damage to Quinn, nor really would change the fight, she thought that it would activate. But in her mind, she knew what she was doing, she knew it would be interfering with the match.

That's when she started to wonder, how did Quinn's command actually work? There were limits to it, as she remembered that the council had told them they needed to keep an eye on Paul. Even if Quinn had ordered Paul not to tell anyone, it would only last so long and when Quinn wasn't there he could speak to whoever he wished. This was what the council was worried about.

There were a number of parameters that they still didn't understand about the skill. How long it would last, how detailed the instructions needed to be given, or if there was any work around.

Thinking about this, Layla started to focus her mind on some distant memories. Ever since she had been turned, in order to control her emotions she had gotten good at picturing herself in certain situations, they had to feel realistic, feel like she was there. It was even easier to do when there were negative emotions around her, as their feelings would enter her and at the time she had the perfect two people who were filled with negativity.

The outside world no longer existed and only the thoughts in her head seemed real.

A glowing feeling was felt in her chest as her skill had been activated, then when she opened her eyes and looked up, she had done so at the worst time. For Quinn was ready to deal a devastating blow to her mother, one with great power.

"Quinn, no please!" She shouted.

The skill was already activated and seeing the scene in front of her, had changed nothing. The only thing she could do was absorb the rest of the smog empowering herself. If she was going to take this blow, she needed to heal from it.

With the smog of negative emotions, she started to partially evolve into her next form, but before she knew it, there was a large wound in her chest and she had fallen to the floor.

While Quinn was standing there with a blank look on his face, not even running over to Layla, it was the perfect opportunity for Lucy to strike, but she hadn't done so. Instead, she tried to run over to Layla's side, but had fallen and stumbled.

She was still hurt from the injuries that she had been dealt before. Internally she was hurt and her kneecap was busted.

The shadow dome surrounding the two started to lower down, and the situation was being reached by the others, they could see Lucy hurt on the floor holding one knee, Quinn standing there with a blank look, and finally Layla in a pool of her own blood.

"Quick!" Lucy shouted out. "The match is over, we lost, someone just help my daughter!" A sudden pain was felt around her chest as she shouted out those words. Uncontrollable tears started to flow down her face.

The Pure members were stunned by this scene as they had never seen Lucy ever act like this before. She was their cold hearted leader who even treated her daughter like something that could be replaced at any time. In some cases she was treated harsher.

Hayley had returned from looking after Peter for a while and she immediately dashed into the arena to have a look at Layla who was on the floor. The wound was so large that the floor could be seen through the hole in her chest.

'This doesn't look good, part of the heart has been destroyed….but how the hell is she alive? Whatever the case is, she won't be alive for a lot longer if I don't do something about it.'

Hayley got to work. It looked like the body had already been trying to heal itself beforehand, it was the only reason why she was still alive right now. However, her body could only do so much. Even with Hayley's healing abilities and the body's natural regentive abilities, they would be lucky to bring her back.

"What's happening?" Lucy asked, choked up on tears.

"She's dying quicker than I can heal her." Hayley said. "I'm afraid, there's nothing I can do. It would be best if you could say your goodbyes to her now, while she can still hear your voice."

Hearing this had just further put Quinn in a strange state of mind.

'No, I did this to her, she had to have used her ability, right? Can't I do anything? Can't I save her like the others..'

Unlike the time before, when someone was on the verge of death, Quinn could turn them to save them, but this wasn't the case this time. Snapping out of it, he rushed over to Layla's side. Her eyes were barely open and she could only see blurry figures above her.

The first thing Quinn tried was giving her blood from his flask.

"What are you doing?" Hayley asked, "How is that meant to help?"

"Just leave me alone!" Quinn shouted, "I have to try something!"

Even though she wasn't a vampire and didn't need blood, he tried it anyway. There was no response. The next thing he did was make a cut on his hand, and tried to feed her his blood. He didn't really know what his thoughts were behind this, maybe he could have activated another blood ritual turning her into something else, or maybe his blood would empower her like it did with Peter.

Still though, there was no response. The people watching from the sides thought it was a desperate act from a stranger to do something. They were unsure why he was even acting this way, when the girl wasn't even on his team.

"Move idiot." Lucy said, shoving passed Quinn and falling to the floor on her knees. The tears were no longer dropping down the side of her cheeks, it was as if she had come to accept what was about to happen.

"Good it looks like you are still alive," Lucy said, brushing her to the side, and that's when she could see two small bumps on the top of her head. "I knew you were hiding something from me."

She then placed both hands above the wound on her stomach and left them there.

"You know, when you were born I hated you. I hated your guts because every time I looked at you, you reminded me of him. Oh how much you had to take after him rather than me.

"I know I shouldn't have blamed you, an innocent child for something he had done, but I couldn't help myself. When the organisation asked for someone to volunteer to infiltrate the academy and use an ability, I chose you straight away. Why? Because I didn't want to see you ever again.

"But then, you came back and returned, came back to me for some stupid reason. Whenever you would go away you would somehow come back into my life. You're such an idiot….it looks like you took after me in that aspect at least.. Only now seeing you like this, I realised how much I care about you.

Hayley couldn't believe what was happening, but the colour and the wound in her body was starting to close up. It was no short of a miracle. When she turned to look at Lucy to have a look at what she was doing, she could see her hands were changing by the second.

The skin on her hands was becoming thinner, wrinklier, and her face and hair were ageing by the second. In front of her very eyes she was turning into an old woman.

"Do you know what Qi is?" Said Lucy. "It's life energy. Use it well." She lifted her hands off Layla's stomach as her body fell to the side. Her heart, no longer beating.

******

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