Chapter Twenty-Eight

Oh God, did I just turn this into Naruto?

Training for the day was over, but Bree had lingered behind to watch Raven and Spencer spar.

"Do we have to do hand-to-hand combat? We get enough of that in school," Raven complained.

"I guess you're right," he agreed.

Spencer paused mid-punch, and grew thoughtful.

"Feel like a game?" he asked.

"A game?" Raven repeated. "...What kind of game?"

"A guessing game."

Raven pursed her lips and disappeared.

Bree, curious and confused, waited for her mentor to appear on the field.

"What do you think?"

She whirled around, expecting to see Raven standing behind her. All she saw was empty air.

A ghostly laugh sent a shiver down her spine.

"Almost forgot. Sorry 'bout that."

Bree watched as Raven seemed to melt out of the shadows.

“So, what do you think?” she asked again.

“Wha---Um...Is...There a bet in with this game?” Bree asked after she recovered from the shock.

Raven looked at Spencer curiously.

“I don't see why not,” he shrugged.

Raven eyed Bree, pursing her lips. “You won't mind being left out?”

“No, not really.”

“If you're sure,” Raven said in a sing-song voice.

“I am.”

“Okay then!” the mentor giggled, stepping back and melting away into the shadows once more.

She reappeared in front of Spencer.

“Now, what kind of guessing game?” she asked.

“You just try to find the real me,” he said simply.

“Um...Using, what method, may I ask?”

Raven circled him, her green eyes questioning.

“Any. Do whatever you like.”

“Reeeeeeeally? Any?” she asked again, leaning in close.

“Uh-huh.”

Raven giggled and pressed a kiss to his cheek before melting away. She stepped out of a shadow a few yards away.

“You may begin,” she told him.

“Ah, ah, ah,” Spencer chastised. “Close your eyes. And no peeking.”

Raven did as instructed, an amused smile on her face.

Spencer started to glow a green color, and exact replicas seemed to step out of his body.

When Raven opened her eyes again, there had to be at least fifty of them.

“Ready now?” the Spencer clones asked in unison.

“Born ready.”

Raven smirked, her skin pulsing as the shadows tattooed her flesh.

And then she was gone.

Blurs of black came out of the ground, sliding into a group of clones. They pulsed, skin tinged with black, before glowing, and warping into a small, green sphere.

They floated there, and Raven made herself visible.

“Hm...Smart move.” She glanced around, and threw a shadow rope around another's neck.

“You're learning,” she praised, before pulling.

She smiled as blood seeped out of his neck.

It turned into a sphere like the others.

Bree watched Raven kill in various ways, each morbid and gruesome in their own ways. But they always reappeared eventually.

After awhile, though, their numbers began to die down.

“Tired yet?” Raven asked when only ten remained.

They all shrugged.

“We haven't done this in awhile,” one said.

“We're getting rusty,” another added.

“For the best, though,” Raven sighed, looking at her arms. “My shadows seem to be fading. And you know what that means...”

“So, are you giving up?” one of the Spencers asked, stepping forward.

She pursed her lips, then sighed. “I suppose I am,” Raven said reluctantly.

The remaining clones, as well as the ones that had fallen, were absorbed into the real Spencer.

“Good game,” he smiled.

“Agreed.”

“Again next Wednesday?”

“Wouldn't miss it.”

Raven turned to walk away when he stepped in front of her path.

“Ah, ah, ah.”

“What?” she frowned.

“Our bet.”

“Yes, what about it?”

“You owe me something.”

“Oh. I suppose I do.”

“Well?”

“Oh you meant now?”

Spencer merely smiled patiently. “No time like the present, right?”

Raven rolled her eyes before giving him a quick kiss.

“That's all you're getting,” she warned.

Spencer just grinned. “A kiss from you is the best prize there is.”

He walked away, grin still plastered on his face, hands behind his head.

Raven looked over to where Bree was sitting under the shade of a tree. She walked, rather then went through shadows, over to her.

“I have more than a few questions I deserve to have answered now,” Bree said emotionlessly, staring out in front of her.

“And I'll answer them to the best of my ability,” she replied, taking a seat next to her.

“What can you do? Ability wise, that is.”

Raven raised an eyebrow. “I do believe I've already shown you, although it'd be difficult to do again.”

“No, no.” Bree shook her head furiously. “I mean, everything. What's the full extent of your powers?”

“I can move in the shadows, control them,” Raven told her. “I can't create them, only...Borrow them, so to speak. And it takes energy. If I'm actually in the shadows when making one, it's much easier. But everything requires energy to do. And it's not exactly easy to keep up.”

“You look okay now, though,” Bree said, looking at her out of the corner of her eye.

“I'm exhausted. But more mentally than physically. Using abilities puts strain on not only he body, but wears on their mental strength. Which is why we meditate for the fist part of Lenobia's class.”

“Oh.”

“I won't be fighting like that again for awhile.”

Bree looked up at her.

“Do you...Enjoy it?”

“Fighting?”

She shook her head. “No. That...That wasn't fighting. It was more like...Torture.”

“...”

It was a few minutes before Raven spoke again.

“Yes, well...I'm bloodthirsty.” She smiled at Bree wearily. “It's...Manageable, I suppose. But...It needs to be let out every so often. If it gets bottled up for too long then...”

“Then what?” Bree pressed.

“Then things happen.”

“What kind of things?”

“...Like what I did to you about a week or so ago.”

“I was fine...” Bree said looking down. “Just...Don't do it again, okay? It wasn't very pleasant, I I'd rather not repeat that experience. I think Lenobia said that she was worried about some sort of poison?”

“There should have been,” Raven said softly after a moment. “But there wasn't. None. Not even the slightest trace.”

Bree thought about it for a minute.

“What do you mean, poison?”

“If in a high enough concentration, one's body can become poisoned, or infected with a residue left from the shadows.”

“So...What does that mean? That I didn't get poisoned.”

“It could mean a number of things,” Raven sighed, leaning against the tree. “One could be that you're just immune to it. It happens. Another could be that there wasn't enough in your system. But there was. Or, you could have an affinity for it. Or an affinity that counter-acts it.”

“Is there anyone I would know that's immune to it?”

“Spencer. That's why I do sparring mainly with him. I don't have to worry about going easy on him. It helps keep my sanity in check.”

“Was it possible that there just wasn't enough in my system or something?”

“Tch. No,” Raven scoffed. “There was so much that you should have gotten sick that instant. But your body just burned it off, or absorbed it.”

“So, does that---”

“Enough questions,” Raven said suddenly, with a finality that Bree didn't dare push the subject. “Let's go watch a movie or something. I'm tired.”

She rose to her feet, and held out a hand to help Bree up. She took it without question.

“But I get to pick it out,” Bree decided.

“Just don't make it the Titanic,” she smirked.

“...I. Am going. To murder. Him.”

XxoxX

Somewhere, Seth felt a chill go up his spine.

He couldn't help but feel that his life was going to end very, very soon.

Author's Note

First chapter of the new year! yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay........Yeah, all of you can just pretend to be excited. x3
Um...Yeah. I have nothing else I' love to just pour upon you people. x3

Reviews

[halflives]

lhdksjfppihspdf. HOW DID I MISS THIS. SERIOUSLY.

Lawls, Naruto. It's a more brilliant version of Naruto, in that case. I love Raven and Spencer's sparring session, they're so cute and sdjofodpf. It was entertaining, as usual, and YOU BETTER WRITE MORE NOW D****T OR ELSE I SHALL KILL YOU.

NOT REALLY.

JUST KIDDING.

...OR AM I?