I was awakened early in the morning by a now familiar buzz in my ear.

"Indigo? Wake up, it's me." I groaned and rolled over onto my pillow. "I know you're awake, let me up." Lucas's voice demanded.

"Fine," I half yawned into the mic on the earpiece. A few moments later, the button on the elevator let out an exasperated ding signaling his arrival. Lucas and two others stepped out.

"Who-?" I began. "Indigo, meet Natalie and Kayla. I know you don't like it, but the director's ordered them to help you get ready for our ceremony."

I smirked. "What? They don't trust me to get ready myself?" He looked down at what I was I was wearing. A plain grey v-neck and jogging shorts. I sighed.

"Fair point. Okay, see ya later then?" I replied, embarrassed. "Yep, I'll come back to get you later. See you then." I turned towards the girls.

"So... Hey!" I said, giving in to my inner awkwardness. "What's up?" The girl with auburn hair, Natalie, proceeded to practically drag me up the stairs. The other girl, Kayla, had hair dyed so dark red that it almost looked purple. I guess they might've been nice, but they were much too girly for my taste, they were definitely the type of girls who loved to go shopping and gossip. They ordered me up into my room and in the shower. I took as long as I could in there until the hot water ran cold. Even the freezing liquid was better than the torture of a makeover.

"Hurry up in there!" I heard from the other side of the door. I rushed to rinse the soap out of my hair. I ran out as fast as I could wearing my blue bathrobe. They shoved me into a chair in front of my vanity. They brushed the tangles out of my wet hair and blew it dry. They played around with my layers for a while, debating with each other how my hair should be done. They finally agreed after five minutes of discussing it with one another. They took two strands of hair on each side of my face and french braided to the back of my head where they pulled up the rest of the brown mess into a curled ponytail. I thought maybe they were trying to make me look stronger than I was, maybe it would make me seem more like a leader. Even though they did this, I knew that eventually, someone would see through the mask that they'd put over the scared little girl to the was inside.

They'd finally finished doing my hair and ordered me to get dressed in the clothes that were folded for me on my bed. There were black jeans, a grey shirt, dark brown combat boots, and an army green jacket. When I was finished, they outlined my muddy green eyes with black eyeliner and put on a coat of dark red lipstick. I stood in front of a stand up mirror and my breath hitched in my throat. If they'd been trying to make me look like a completely different person, well they'd certainly succeeded. I was truly impressed, they were miracle workers. I barely recognized myself.

"Beautiful," Natalie breathed, obviously pleased with her complete destruction of a small innocent Amethyst girl.

"Thank you," I spoke so quietly that I wondered if they could even hear me. I was still in awe with what they'd shown me. This was what I could look like if I gave a crap what other people thought? Wow. They then explained that they'd be happy to redo it anytime if I wanted. Yeah, right. I totally wanted that to happen.

"We'l be back around five to get you ready for the banquet." Kayla beamed. Oh, I just can't wait, I thought. I thanked them again, then they packed up their things and directed me down stairs to face Lucas before leaving. He took in my appearance, the no longer matted strands of brown hair and the not baggy clothes that clung to my small frame. I could see that he'd been cleaned up too, but he'd most likely been trusted with getting himself ready. We seemed to match almost exactly. He too, wore an army green jacket with black pants, but with a black shirt and brown biker boots.

"Wow," He gave me a smile that caught my heart in my throat. I don't know what it was lately, but Lucas was amazing. Like, really amazing. I got my head out of the clouds and forced myself back into reality. That was never going to happen, he was completely committed to the mission, that was his life. I stopped thinking about it for then, I didn't like relying on false hope. His eyes fell on my amulet.

"What is that?" I'd insisted that the girls let me wear it, and they'd thankfully given in.

"It used to be my mom's."

He sighed. "I knew that I'd see it soon enough," My eyebrows furrowed. "Excuse me? See what?"

"There is, um, one thing that I must've forgotten to tell you." He ran his fingers through his jet-black hair. "Every Amethyst has a source of their power. Even before they know who they are, they're drawn to it."

I thought back to the day that I'd started wearing it.

****************

A small, rosie-cheeked toddler ran into the conference room. Her eyes lit up at the sight of her mother, who was, of course, busy as always. Her brown hair bounced down her back as she came to a stop in front of the black, wooden table.

"Momma?" She ventured.

"What, sweetie? Mommy's really busy right now." She didn't even look up from her paperwork, addressing the city plans for the new company building. The three-year-old, now upset by the lack of love in her mother's stone-cold eyes, began to cry. She rushed out of the office to her mother's room, hoping that she would follow. As luck would have it, she did, calling out to her daughter, asking what was wrong.

"Indigo, why are you crying, baby? Mommy's here, what's wrong?" Indigo didn't say anything, silently pleading that her mother would figure it out by herself. She didn't. Finally, after a long silence, a shaky voice snapped, "You nefer haf any time for me!" As was hoped, the coldness lessened and her mother brought her in for a hug.

"Your right, darling. I promise that I'll try harder for you, okay?" She said in the most caring tone that she could muster. The child nodded and held her arms out for a hug. Still in a tight embrace, the mother asked, "What can I do to make it better? We can go anywhere, do anything you want, you can have whatever you want."

The fire in Indigo's eyes rekindled as she pointed at the small amulet resting on her mother's dark brown dresser. "You want it?" Indigo's head shook fiercely up and down. "Okay," Her mother laughed quietly to herself, then picked up the necklace and stung it around her daughter's neck. It was a bit large for the small girl, but it was perfect all the same. From that day on, Indigo almost never took the thing off.

************

I came back to the room in front of me, shoving myself out of the memory. I guess this 'source of my power' thing sort of made sense. Lucas continued on.

"If you took an Amethyst's or hound's power source, they'd have no power whatsoever. They'd be completely defenseless." He pulled a black leather cord from under his shirt. His amulet was a gold circle with strange runes on it. I refrained from touching it, even though it was nearly irresistible to. Suddenly, a whispered question escaped my lips.

"Where are your parent's?" I hadn't known him for very long, but he'd never spoken about his family, apart from Brayden. He reached out to put the amulet back down his shirt, and I realized that despite my best efforts, I'd held it and had stepped a little to close to him to be comfortable. We both stepped back a bit and he cleared his throat, signaling that the conversation was over without having been started. I sighed.

"Shall we go?" He changed his face quickly, as if he'd never remembered something that he didn't want to.

"Yep," He smiled, again stopping my heart momentarily, "We don't want them mad at you for being late." We walked into the elevator, out the building, and to an open stadium. We didn't see anyone on the streets, so I assumed that hey were all here. A very reassuring thought. Note the sarcasm. I guessed right now that I was in the "backstage" area. A few girls equipped with headset microphones brought me out into the limelight. I saw four people standing behind me, who were dressed matching me and Lucas, who went to go stand by them.I immediately assumed they were the other Amethysts. I stepped up to the mic, took a shallow breath, and began a speech that would change me forever.

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HEY GUYS! SORRY FOR NOT UPDATING IN FOREVER, BUT HERE'S A CHAPTER FOR YOU ALL. AND I JUST REALIZED THAT I NEVER THANKED ANYONE FOR GETTING ME TO 100 READS, BUT THANKS GUYS!! WELL, ANYWAY, THE MEDIA IS LUCAS'S AMULET. THANKS FOR READING! COMMENT AND VOTE(IF YOU WANT) BYE-BYE, WAIT, NOT BYE-BYE.........

ALLONS-Y!!!

-AJSMITH