I stood with my back up against a tree, staring at the nearby river. Everyone wanted to get started, and we had spent the day walking with our stuff, following Jess the whole way. Surprisingly, nothing had attacked us. 

"I wouldn't expect it to last for long." Jess had said. "After that announcement, they'll all be running for me, so sorry 'bout that in advance."

We had decided to stop when the sun began to set, and everyone else was at the small camp we had set up- a small campfire, surrounded by enough blocks to keep most monsters out. 

Now, the sun was just on the horizon, and I was waiting for Jess. 

I pulled the amulet out from underneath my hoodie, staring at the purple center. It seemed different, like the bright purple center was duller than usual. 

Probably just the lighting, I thought. Never really gotten a good look at it at sunset. 

"Hey, what're you doing out here, Tyler?" 

I jumped at the sound of a voice, and turned to see Quinn's dad, who stood with a nervous looking Quinn and a smiling Jenna. 

"Oh, hi." I said, tucking the amulet back underneath my hoodie. "Nothing much, I'm kind of bored, actually. What are you doing out here?"

"Quinn's gonna figure out what she can do with her powers!" Jenna grinned. 

Now that was interesting. 

"Wait, really?" I asked, looking over at Quinn. 

She nodded. "Better than being useless in the fight." 

"You're not useless." Her dad said. "Powers or not. Come on, let's go." 

"You wanna come watch, Tyler?" Jenna asked. 

"Is that a question?" I countered, giving her a smile. "No way I'm missing something like that! If that's cool with you, that is, Quinn." 

She gave me a small smile. "The more the merrier, I guess."

"Cool." I grinned. 

We started towards the river, and I thought about what Quinn knew what to do and how much she could do with her powers. One thing was for sure: after seeing what she could do last time, if she knew what she was doing, she'd definitely be a pretty lethal force on the team. 

We stopped right in front of the river, and I could spot a few pieces of floating debris in the water. 

"Alright. I guess you should be able to try what you want, but be careful. If you feel lightheaded or anything out of the ordinary, you tell me immediately, okay? I'm right here if anything gets to be too much." Quinn's dad said, his hand on her shoulder. 

"I know, Dad. I will." 

Jenna leaned over to whisper to me. "He's here in case anything bad happens. I didn't think I could carry an unconscious Quinn anywhere if things went bad." 

"Fair enough." I replied. 

Quinn took a deep breath, and raised her hand in the air. 

A small trail of water raised from the river with it, leaving what looked like a small waterfall that fell upwards instead of down. 

She closed her hand into a fist, and the water came together to form a bubble of water in mid air. She raised and lowered her hand, and the bubble followed. She pointed her index finger to the sky, moving her hand in a circle. 

Slowly, the bubble became a small whirlpool in midair, swirling around without a drop spilling back into the river. 

"Woah." I said. "How much water can you do that with?" 

She shrugged. "I don't know. I've never really tested it." 

"Can you try?" I asked. 

"I say we let her go at her own pace." Her dad said. "You have to remember, she doesn't do this often. We don't want her to accidentally hurt herself."

"...Right." I said, having forgotten. "It's just that, if Quinn can bring that into a fight, those Shadows don't stand a chance." 

Quinn smiled. "I don't know...I'm not very good."

"Not very good?" Jenna asked. "Quinn, you're literally controlling water right now. You're so awesome!" 

"Thanks." Quinn said, and raised her other hand underneath the one that was spinning. 

Slowly, more water rose into the whirlpool, and it became bigger and bigger until it was at least big enough to carry a block. 

"This is insane." I said, staring at the whirlpool. "Jenna's right, Quinn, you are awesome."

"Thanks, Tyler." She smiled. 

"Psst."

I turned, hearing a fourth voice. There, hiding amongst the nearby trees, stood Jess. She jerked her head to the side. 

"Let's go."

I looked back at the others, who hadn't seemed to have heard anything. How did they miss that?

"I'm speaking in your mind, genius. Don't want them knowing about all this, right?" 

She could do that?

"Obviously!"

Okay, so she could hear my thoughts as well. Great. 

"Um, I'm going to head on back. Maybe go for some zombie hunting in the woods. Don't worry about me."

"Are you sure, Tyler?" Quinn's dad asked. "A lot of zombies can get out of control pretty fast."

"I'll be fine. I checked earlier, it's not a typical spawn point for many zombies." I lied. "I just kind of want to practice a bit."

"Alright then." He said. "I'll let your dad know where you are." 

"No, that's fine." I said. "I won't be gone long." 

"You are a terrible liar."

Quinn's dad hesitated, but then he shrugged. "Alright then. But if you aren't back in a few hours, we'll come looking for you."

"Cool. Thanks." I said, and walked over to where Jess had been standing, and a few feet into the woods, there she was. 

I walked up to her, the trees completely blocking me from the view of the others. 

"Finally." She said. "Let's go."

"Right." I said.

***

We had been walking in the woods for a while, and I finally heard the unmistakable groan of a zombie.

I summoned my sword, and it appeared in my hand within seconds. I was getting pretty good at it, or maybe the amulet was beginning to trust me. 

The zombie rounded the corner, bringing along three friends with it. 

Jess stepped back so she was standing behind me as the zombies spotted me. 

"You ready?" She asked. 

I nodded as the zombies began to come closer. "Do it."

I ran towards the zombies, and a few seconds before reaching them, I felt the already familiar surge of power. I felt like I could destroy just about anything, and time felt like it had slowed. 

I sliced my sword straight through the first and second zombies' heads, killing them in an instant, and stabbed the third through the chest. 

Suddenly, the fourth one grabbed my wrist, pulling my hand towards it's mouth, and before I could swing my sword, I thought one thing. 

No. 

BOOM.

A blast of smoke came straight from my hand, hitting the zombie square in the face and taking it's head off. 

The surge of power was suddenly gone, and I nearly collapsed, suddenly exhausted. 

I stared at my hand, wondering how I had done that. Nothing looked wrong. My skin was the same pale tone it had always been. 

Jess ran up next to me. "Oh my Notch, Tyler, this is amazing!"

"What?" I asked. "What's amazing?"

"You're a natural, that's what's amazing." She said. "Most people can't control the magic until they've been practicing for at least a week! You've just done it after three days!" 

"Magic?" I asked. "What magic?"

"I didn't want to tell you because I didn't think you'd be able to do it yet." She explained. "When you start doing stuff like this, after a while, you can take the power I give you and turn it into a totally different attack that's more similar to what Shadows can do. It's essentially like creating a ball of smoke that you can shoot at enemies with just your hand. I've never even heard of anyone being able to do that this soon without imploding." 

My throat went dry. "I could have imploded from that?"

"You should have imploded from that." She corrected. "In fact, you shouldn't even be able to do that at all." 

"Then how did I?"

She shrugged. "I guess you're just special. And pretty freaking powerful on your own."

She extended a hand. "Come on. You may not have imploded, but you must be exhausted. Let's get back to the camp."

I nodded, taking her hand. I was exhausted. 

So exhausted, that I didn't notice the tip of the hilt of my sword slowly turning black.

---------------------------------------------------------

You guys might be happy to hear that I've decided that after this book is over, I will be completely redoing most of my other books and finishing them! I've recently gotten sudden inspiration for A Crafted Kind of Games, so that one will be completely redone and completed, and it will also be given a sequel, so get hyped for that! I'll be putting out a more detailed announcement sometime soon, and it's going to regard what'll happen with the rest of my books after TC2G is finished!

Also, that thing where I asked for your character descriptions IS NOT CLOSED. I will put out an announcement on my profile when it is officially closed, but for now, keep sending me your characters! (Note: please only send me descriptions of your characters ON THE CHAPTER I ASKED FOR THEM, AND ONLY THAT CHAPTER. Sometimes Wattpad doesn't notify me about comments, so it will be a lot easier for me to find all of your characters if they're all on the same chapter. Thanks!)