Maddy

I'm not typically one to complain about a party. I'm the kind of girl who gets excited about school dances because my friends are going. The ball would have been no different I weren't so tired. We just fought a freaking demon! Why can't we just get some sleep?! If I didn't get sleep soon, I'd start going into energy saving mode which seems to consist of many 'ya bois' and 'that yungs,' and I could guess no one wanted to deal with that.

Life and Death ended up forcing us to go, which earned them lots of moans and groans.

"Oh, calm down," Life said. "It's not the end of the world."

"I'd be very busy if it was," Death said with a small smile. "Now please, do try to enjoy yourselves." With that we found ourselves standing in an elegant room with marble floors and pillars, crystal chandeliers, and gold plates with small finger foods on them.

"Food," is all Sara said before we began our walk to the elegant table. As we reached the table, I felt a tap on my shoulder.

"Keanu," I said after I turned around to face him. He was still about an inch taller than me even with the two inch heels that came with the dress (which I did not appreciate at all). I was a bit confused because I didn't remember him being that much taller than me, but I chose to ignore it for now. "What's poppin'?"

"What's poppin'? What in the world are you saying?" He asked.

"What's poppin'," I said to let him know he didn't hear me wrong. "It means what's up."

"Okay then," he said, accepting my madness. "I'm grabbing a sandwich. What are you up to?"

"That yung chocolate chip cookie looks great," I said, catching Sara's attention.

"Is she saying crap that makes no sense?" Sara asked as she came over and handed me one of the beautiful cookies. "She only says that stuff when she's tired or has insane amounts of energy."

"So every second she's awake?" Amber laughed as she and Adhya walked over to our little group. I didn't get the chance to respond because my friend's partners came over at that moment.

"I hope we're not interrupting anything," Jared said politely.

"You're not," Adhya said, looking up to see his face. "Maddy was just saying random stuff again."

"It's not random," I defended. "I only use it in context."

"I'm pretty sure there's no context to anything you say," Sara said.

"You're like a random thought generator," Amber said. Griffin groaned at that comment.

"Not another one," he complained.

"Keanu says the most random things," Adam said, "but he won't just stop after we point out how random it is. He feels the need to explain how it's not random." My friends gave me a pointed look causing the boys to laugh.

"They'll understand each other well," Jared said with a smile.

"Some one understanding Maddy?" Sara asked. "That'll be a first."

"Ha ha, very funny," I replied sarcastically.

"Jared?" I turned towards the voice to see four people walking towards us? "We were-" The girl who was speaking stopped when she saw us, and I tears beginning to form when I saw the pale red head who was so close to my height. I really did start crying when I noticed the insanely thin girl with dirty blond hair, tan skin, and purple glasses standing next to her.

I took a shaky breath before tentatively asking, "Kathryn? Madi?" The two broke into huge grins before I felt myself get squished into them. I realized Sara, Adhya, and Amber had created a group hug, and I had been caught in the center. I wiggled around, trying to escape. I gave up quickly, as thy only tightened their grip.

"I thought you two won some contest or something," Sara practically yelled. "After the whole demon attack thing, we didn't think we'd ever get to see you again." We slowly released each other so we could hear the story.

"We thought we won a trip to an arts festival," Kathryn started. "Turns out it was a demon trying to get us out there."

"He was ugly," Madi added 'helpfully' (please note the sarcasm).

Kathryn continued as if Madi hadn't said anything, "He said something about 'other worlds' and 'getting us out of the way.' Based on what he said, I assumed he'd come after some of you next." I felt myself frown; despite the fact that I typically say a lot of stupid things, I'm a detective. I take the information given to me and sift through it to create a plan of action, and this demon business was practically screaming for me to take a deeper look into it.

"So," Sara said with a smirk, "are you going to introduce us to your friends?"

Kathryn rolled her eyes but began to speak, "This is Charlie," she said gesturing to the guy standing next to her. If I only had one word to describe him it would be hot. I could tell he wasn't white by his perfect, tan skin, though I couldn't seem to figure out his exact ethnicity. He had black hair and dark brown eyes that were framed by dark eyelashes. "And this is Ginger." Kathryn gestured to the girl who was standing slightly behind Madi. Her red hair was about the same color as blood, her eyes were a strange algae green and her skin was pale with a bit of a silver tinge to it. She was only a little bit taller than Madi, which isn't hard to achieve.

Charlie smiled and stuck out his hand, "It's nice to meet you..."

"Maddy," I filled in as I shook his hand.

"Sara."

"Adhya."

"Amber." Each of us shook his hand and waved at Ginger who gave us each a shy wave, but refused to come shake our hands or talk to us.

"So you're the girls who preformed the soul merge?" Charlie asked.

"Yup ya bois here did that," said Sara and she punched me playfully on the arm.

Amber rolled her eyes, "No one has bothered to explain why it's such a big deal. 'It shows you have great power,' isn't a good explanation."

"A soul merge can be used to kill upper level demons," Jared said. "The more people in a merge, the more powerful it is. The more powerful the merge, the stronger the demon you can take out it."

"How do they work?" I asked. This demon business was No longer screaming, it had started a metal band with velociraptors.

Madi (oh great, there's two of us again) threw her arms up and joyfully said, "Friendship!"

"I know it's cheesy," Kathryn said seeing us roll our eyes, "but it's true."

"You have to be insanely close to each other to even attempt a soul merge; that's why it's only performed by soul partners after years of monster hunting," Adam said.

"Well we do know each other insanely well, emphasis on the insane," Adhya wisecracked. Still eating, Sara whacked her on the arm, eliciting a groan of protest.

"But we did it with four people," Amber said sounding confused.

"It is possible to merge more than two souls," started Jared, "but it isn't common."

"The largest soul merge in history only had twelve people," Griffin said.

"If you can even call them people," Adam added and snatched a cookie from Sara's ever growing stack. She glared at him, and smacked his arm hard enough to make him drop the cookie. Amber snagged it a second before it hit the floor and swallowed it whole.

Adhya rose an eyebrow, "What is that supposed to mean?"

"They were the Rulers of the Worlds," Griffin said in a tone that made me feel like he was mad about something, but the feeling quickly faded; it was replaced by confusion when I realized he said 'worlds.' Plural. As in more than one. Oh joy.

I assumed Keanu saw my confusion because he quickly began to explain, "You could say the Rulers are the strongest Powers ever; they're all immortal is why we're not sure whether or not their people. But we know they're something above even Life and Death and any God." I nodded at Keanu to let him know I understood before he continued. "They all live on one world, Realium, the world of pure magic; their merge expelled the demon Zanta, mother of the demons and the dark world, Nemum: their merge wasn't powerful enough to kill her, but she's been dormant for about sixty-five million years."

Amber's jaw dropped, "Sixty-five million..."

"Demons don't have souls, so when they die they simply disappear, but putting them to sleep causes death within a certain area, usually the size of an apartment building, depending on how powerful they are," Jared explained. "Zanta would have destroyed the planet if they hadn't have stopped her when they did, but putting her to sleep caused death over a large part of the planet: she killed the dinosaurs."

"Wait," I said as realization hit me. "If she's just taking a nap..."

"It is said that she'll awaken when the children of the Rulers are found," Jared said. Oh more joy.

"None of us really want them to be found," Charlie admitted. "I know it sucks that their kids are lost, but if them coming back means the possible end of the world..."

"Got it," Adhya said. "No kids, no apocalypse."

"Why would she wake up when the kids return?" Amber asked.

"They're the only ones who can kill her. If she takes them out before they perfect the merge, she may be able to convince Dysis and Aleron's child to host her. If that happens we might as well say good by to all the worlds other than Nemum," Keanu explained.

"Who the heck are Dysis and Aleron," Sara asked, "and why does it have to be their kid who hosts Zanta?"

"Dysis is the queen of the sun and Aleron is the king of the moon," Jared said, "together they rule the worlds. As for their daughter, it was long prophesied that their child would save or destroy the worlds with the help of the other royals, so it must be so." No one said anything after that. How could we after a bomb like that? The fate of the world rested on some kids' shoulders? That did not sound like it would end well. What is this, an anime? Adam was the first to break the solemn silence.

"On that happy note, it looks like everyone is leaving. We should all go to bed," he said. We all agreed and decided to meet up the next day to hang out before heading up to our dorms for some well deserved sleep.

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A/N: Hey lovely readers! I'm one of the new coauthors @Mad_Eyed_Maddy. I'm so happy I get to do this whole cowrite thing, I think it'll be neat seeing the different writing styles, and I hope you think it is too. I hope I didn't blow your brains up with info, I promise my chapters won't always be this full of information, and they'll usually be funnier. I hope you all enjoy the other chapters and authors. *high-fives for all*
-Maddy