The Realm Protectors - Chapter 23: Chapter 23

"Put your hands in the air!" The DJ calls. The crowd cheers. Most of the older adults have made their way off the dance floor and are making their way to the tables of food that have been laid out. Fancy soups and salads to accompany their fancy drinks.
Meanwhile, the younger adults and teenagers are partying it up.
"This is so much fun!" Ciana laughs, grabbing another sparkling lemonade from a passing waiter. I notice that the suns on her dress are slightly dimmer than they were earlier. "This is like, ten times better than Christenville High's homecoming!"
"I know!" I shout back over the music. "Elenatives are party animals!" We both laugh. Nikolina and Avani make their way over to us through the grinding, arm-waving, leg-kicking crowd.
"There you guys are!" Avani hollers. "We've been looking all over for you! We were starting to think you pulled a Nile and Enya!" The couple disappeared quite a few songs ago, probably into some hidden room to work off their drinks. Ciana cringes.
"Where's Carter and Lyra?" she asks.
"No clue," Avani replies. "They left after the slow dance."
I stare at her. "That was forever ago!"
"I know!"
The song ends and the crowd seems to ponder whether to keep dancing or to make their way to the food tables. A new songs starts playing, the pulsing beat filling the space and igniting a fire in the more inspired dancers.
"Let's just have fun." I say. The girls shrug and start dancing. Nikolina seems a little uncomfortable, simply shifting her weight back and forth. Avani is terrible, bucking her hips and swinging her waist in a poor imitation of the other girls around us. Ciana is... Ciana. A living sun. She laughs her way through the song, raising her hands and swaying, dancing like nobody's watching. Except me. I'm watching. And doing my best to make it look like I'm not.
The song starts it's chorus, and the crowd sings along. "I'll never take my eyes off you, yeah baby! I wanna lay my hands on you, ooh baby!"
"Is this really the most appropriate song to be playing at a Coronauguration party?" Ciana asks me over the music. A curl is starting to fall into her face, and I have the urge to reach out and tuck it behind her ear.
"They play anything they want to." Nikolina replies.
"You should hear the songs they play at Asavanra homecoming!" I tell Ciana, laughing. "This is ten times better!"
"Ooh baby! Dance for me baby! Shake your hips for me baby! Let me lay my hands on you, eyes on you! Never gonna take me off of you!" The crowd sings.
"Do they ever play Otherworld songs?" Avani asks.
"Not very often. Very rarely." I reply.
"Just let me touch you, hold you, ooh baby let me kiss you, fold you! Ooh baby dance with me, dance all night long! Oh baby love on me, dance on me, all night long!"
The song ends shortly after, and we decide to make our way over to the food. I grab a plate of the chicken, along with a platter of cheesecake bites. The girls grab their own food, some of them getting some mushroom thing and some getting a salad.
"Are you gonna eat all of those?" Ciana and Avani both ask. They spin to each other surprised. I snort.
"Why, you want some?"
"Yes!" Ciana grins.
"No," Avani cringes. "That'll give me a gut ache for days."
Enya and Nile appear from the hallway, hand in hand. They both look surprisingly put together despite what I assume they were doing. Their matching swollen lips and the dark spot peeking out from under Nile's collar proves my theory. Enya seems to walk a little different too.
"Dancing not enough exercise for you?" I ask. Enya glares at me, but Nile laughs.
"You say anything and I'll make sure you hurt just as bad as her, but for a different reason." His tone is joking, but his eyes are glaringly sharp.
I snort. "Yeah okay."
"You're just jealous you can't get none." Nile says, sitting down in the chair next to me and grabbing one of my cheesecake bites. I start to protest but Enya gives me a look as she lowers herself into the seat next to Nile.
"As if I wanted that right now." I roll my eyes. Nile flicks his eyes between me and Ciana, who I just now realize is sitting closer to me than usual. I gulp.
"Okay, Ris." He shakes his head with a shit-eating grin.
"Oh, kiss my tox." I groan, leaning back in my chair and stuffing a bite of chicken in my mouth.
The two get up to go grab their own plates off food, but everyone eats my cheesecake bites off my platter.
"You know, you could get your own dessert." I growl at Avani. "What happened to 'this'll give me a gut ache for days'?"
Avani shrugs, smirking. "I just remembered I don't have to share a bathroom anymore." She stuffs another cheesecake bite into her mouth.
"You know I can take the breath right out of your lungs."
"You realize I can strangle you with vines that grow out of your own body, right?" She tilts her head. "Or make little tiny birds peck you to death."
"It's just food, Faris." Ciana laughs. The way she says my name calms me slightly. I wanna hear it again.
"Right," I agree. Nile elbows me. I glare at him.
"Have any of you seen Carter or Lyra?" Enya asks. She's scanning the dance floor.
"Nah," Avani shakes her head. "They disappeared before you two."
Enya hums, furrowing her brows. "Hopefully they come back soon. We'll have to make a speech in a few minutes–"
The room shakes as a deafening boom seems to crash into the building. The crowd shouts in horror as fairy lights fall from the ceiling. A huge wave of black dust studded with little bursts of purple and stars rushes through the room, coating everything and everyone with a thin layer of sparkling dust. The dance floor is clear in twenty seconds flat. Enya stands up so fast I think she's gonna keel over.
"What was that?!" Ciana cries. Tucker seems to appear out of nowhere, running towards us. "What is this?!" She stares down at her dress, covered in the black dust. We're all covered in it.
"Are you all okay?" Tucker looks at each of us, as if counting. "Where's Carter and–"
"Lyra!" Enya points to a figure pushing through the crowd from the direction of the hallway.
"Enya!" Lyra shrieks as she sprints into the room, dragging Carter behind her. "Enya!" Enya runs over to them, leaving us all to hurry to stand and follow.
"What is it? What happened?" Enya looks between the two of them. "What did you see?"
"Are you alright?" Tucker asks them.
"The gateway!" Lyra pants. "It is gone!"
"What?!"
"The Capital gateway?"
"That's impossible!"
"How?!"
"Lyra," Enya says slowly. "Tell us what happened."
"We were on the balcony." Carter explains. "Looking at stars. Lyra got all weird and said something felt weird. She wouldn't tell me what was wrong–"
"It was the gateway!" Lyra cries out. "It is collapsed!"
"The gateways are kept heavily guarded at all times." Nile reminds her.
"I know!" Lyra sobs. "But someone must have managed to get past them and interrupted the delicate magical balance that keeps it active! The gateway exploded! I felt it! We all felt it! You heard it! You saw it! That was tunnel magic!" She points at the sparkling black and purple dust coating us all.
"Is that what just shook the Atrium?" Ciana asks.
"Yes! Yes!" Lyra nods. "This is awful, awful!"
The crowd behind us is beginning to panic. Senator Aita makes her way over to us.
"I hate to break up whatever is going on here, but the crowd is getting anxious." She says. "Your highness, you need to address them. They need reassurance."
Enya nods at Senator Aita before turning to Lyra. "You're sure?"
Lyra nods. Enya glances at each of us and sighs. She turns around and walks across the room. We follow her up to the dais and stand in front of our seats. Ciana looks very nervous.
"Your attention please!" Enya shouts over the crowd.
"Quiet!" Tucker yells. People begin to quiet down, turning to us for answers. "Please pay close attention. Do not panic. Everyone needs to act in a calm and organized manner. We have reason to believe that the sound and shaking that we all just experienced moments ago was a result of something happening to the Capital gateway."
The crowd gasps and begins shouting questions.
"Please quiet down!" Enya hollers over them. "We understand that this is a serious matter. Please gather the group you came here with and make your way back to your homes. Teleporters will be dispatched shortly to help you back to your countries." She turns to us and we gather in a little group around her. "Okay guys, this is it. The big leagues, the real deal. There's no time for questions or arguing. I say, you do. Got it?" We all nod. "Good. Pay attention, because this is gonna be fast. Avani, Nikolina, and Nile– find the Five Star General, the Chief of Intelligence, and Officer Alexxi. Get everyone out of here and back to their homes, get teams dispatched to the gateway to investigate and protect the area. Keep the crowds contained." The three of them nod and break off, running through the crowd.
"What about us?" Carter asks.
"Lyra needs to tunnel you and Faris to the Gateway Control Center and try to help any way you can." Enya tells him. She turns to me. "Faris, once you get there, get tunneled to the Otherworld. I need you to assess the damage to the Otherworld side of the gateway. Ciana and I will stay here with Tucker and try to handle the media."
"Let's go." Carter pulls me away from the group and towards the corner where Lyra is muttering to herself as she chops her hand through the air, opening a gateway.
"Be careful!" I call back to the girls and Tucker before Carter drags me into the wound of space.