The sun was beginning to rise over Eukerion but nobody could be seen moving around in the academy yet as the students were still sleeping in their dorm rooms, well not all of them.
Tania had gotten up early because she had not really been able to sleep.
She was really excited to see the sun rise over this new day, the day they were going to go to Phoenix academy and meet students from the other three academies, and the day she was going to find Luis.
She wasn't only excited, but she was also scared, scared that maybe she wouldn't be able to find Luis, scared that he wasn't in any of the other three academies, and scared of what that could mean for her.
Her thoughts were interrupted by Chloe's yawn as she turned on her bed to see Tania sitting on her bed.
"I see the excitement got you up early," Chloe said with a smile.
"Yeah, I was just thinking about how today's going to be," Tania said.
"The inter-academy tournament is awesome although this is my first time attending one as a student of one of the academies, last year's own was held here in our academy," Chloe said.
"Yeah, I know," Tania said as her voice seemed to have gotten a little low and the expression on her face had changed.
"Hey, what's wrong?" Chloe asked on noticing the change in her voice and the expression on her face.
"Ummm… it's just that."
She wasn't able to finish what she wanted to say as she was interrupted by knocking coming from the door.
"I'll get it," Tania said as she jumped down from her bed and walked to the door.
She opened the door to see someone she never expected to see, at least not at this time of the day.
"Hi, Tania," Bryan said.
"Hi," Tania said.
"How are you doing?" He asked.
"Great," Tania said. "Are you here for the letter?" She asked, pointing backward with her thumb.
"Yeah, we're planning on sending it out now because the portal will be opening up in a few minutes," Bryan said.
"Okay, let me go get it," Tania said as she left the door open and went to get the letter where she had kept it.
"Hi, Lieutenant," Chloe said with a wave on seeing Bryan.
"Hello…."
"Chloe," Chloe said.
"Okay, hello Chloe," Bryan said.
"Here's the letter," Tania said, handing the letter over to Bryan.
"I'll make sure it gets to your brother," Bryan said, taking the letter from her.
"Wait," Tania said just as he was about to turn his back and leave.
"What?" Bryan asked.
"Can I come with you?" Tania asked.
"When are you guys moving out to Phoenix academy?" Bryan asked.
"Nine AM," Chloe said after popping up behind Tania.
"Okay, you can come." He said. "And I guess you want to come too." He said, turning his gaze to Chloe who responded with a little nod and a smile.
Layla was busy running some test flights on her specially built drone just outside the military base when she saw Bryan's black SUV coming toward her from afar.
She safely landed the drone before making her way to the car as soon as Bryan had parked in his favorite spot.
"I was afraid you were going to take too long," Layla said after Bryan had come down from the car.
Bryan didn't reply to her as the backseat doors opened for Tania and Chloe to come down from the car.
"Oh, I see you brought Tania and another pretty young girl," Layla said.
"It's Chloe, Chloe Winter," Chloe said. "I'm Tania's roommate."
"Oh hi there Chloe I'm Lieutenant Layla," Layla said.
"How much time do we have until the portal opens?" Bryan asked.
"About fifteen minutes now," Layla said, checking her watch.
"Good let's go," Bryan said, making his way to the base.
"The letter Bryan," Layla said.
"Oh, right," Bryan said as he quickly turned, pulled out the letter from his pocket, and handed it to her. "I'll see you in the base."
The two teenage girls followed Layla as she walked to her drone which was standing just in front of the base.
She opened the place meant for the letter, slid the letter into it, and closed it up.
"That is a really cool drone," Chloe said.
"What's a drone?" Tania asked with a confused expression on her face as she looked at the drone.
"It's a little flying device just like the one we have here, they are used for lots of things like monitoring a city, making deliveries, and even spying on people," Layla explained.
"Oh, how come you didn't tell me about drones?" Tania said, turning her gaze to Chloe.
"Learning new things is a gradual process Tania, you don't expect to learn everything at once," Layla said. "Now let's go get that drone throughout that portal." She said, making her way to the base.
The three entered Bryan's room to see him sitting in front of the monitor in his office which was displaying the area where the portal appeared every morning.
"Cool office," Chloe muttered looking around.
"We have ten minutes left, you should get that drone as fast as you can Layla," Bryan said.
"On it," Layla said as brought up the controller and turned the drone on. "The drone's camera system is coming online now."
As soon as she had said that the visual on the monitor had changed to what the drone was currently seeing.
She flew the drone across the city heading for the portal area and it had not taken her up to five minutes before she had gotten there.
"Messengers getting killed while delivering messages would have been stopped a long time ago if we had something like this in my world," Tania said.
"Just hover there, it's going to open anytime now," Bryan said.
Layla kept her drone hovering in the area until they had entered the last minute and Bryan didn't mind doing the countdown when they had entered the last five seconds.
"Five, four, three, two, one, go!" He ordered.
Layla did as she was told and flew into the portal as soon as it had opened but just before they could see anything the whole place went dark as everything connected to a power source had tripped off.
"What just happened?" Tania asked, looking around.
Bryan quickly picked up his ear com and attached it to his ear to send a message to someone.
"Winsley fix this now." He said.
p It didn't take up to two minutes before the power had been restored and the monitor was on again but the whole screen was dark.
"What's going on?" Layla said trying to control the drone but nothing was happening, the screen was still very dark.
Bryan quickly switched to the normal camera to see that the portal had closed up but there was something in the area.
He zoomed down just on the road to see Layla's drone there and it was partially destroyed.
"What?" Layla was stunned as she couldn't believe what she was seeing. "How did that happen?"
"Let's see if we can find out," Bryan said as he played the footage from the part where the drone had flown into the portal and the lights had gone off.
The two Lieutenants had horrid looks on their faces as they watched what had happened to the drone.
The drone had flown into the portal but just a few seconds later it had come falling from the sky like something was pulling it down.
"Maybe it was an engine failure," Chloe said.
"That's not what happened Chloe," Layla said. "That drone was dragged down."
"Huh?" Chloe said with a confused expression on her face. "Dragged down, by what?"
"That's the problem," Bryan said. "It's like it was some kind of invisible force."
"Invisible?" Tania said.
"Yeah, watch," Bryan said as he played the footage in slow motion.
The footage showed the drone slowly falling and when it hit the ground it didn't seem to have gotten destroyed until something from above had smashed it, rendering it flightless and destroying the cameras.
After watching the footage in slow motion Chloe and Tania understood what they were talking about now.
"Something did pull it down." The two girls said in unison.
"And there's no way that something could have returned to the portal before it closed," Layla said with her eyes fixed on the monitor screen.
"What are you trying to say?" Chloe asked.
"What she's trying to say is that someone or something has come through the portal and that someone or something is still here," Bryan said, turning on his chair to face them.
"Invisible someone or something," Layla said.
****
Mass release goals...
Normal update: 2 chapters daily
1 magic Castle or 300 power stones= 1 extra chapter
2 magic castles or 500 power stones= 2 extra chapters
3 magic castles or 700 power stones= 3 extra chapters
4 magic castles or 1000 power stones= 4 extra chapters.