"Percy?" The White Snake tried, hoping her friend would be able to tell her that their fears were unfounded, that Naomi was safe, or at the very least be able to tell them where she was.
"I'm not hearing anything...
"That's bad right?" The White Snake didn't claim to be an expert on mind reading, but she was pretty sure Perception had told her that every living person had something she could hear.
"Yeah..."
There were footsteps, and the heroes, except for Macho who was still paralyzed on the floor, and The White Snake and Perception who were still mentally having a serious discussion, sprang into their action poses, as if ready to fight the newcomer.
Which turned out to be Illusion. "Peace, peace, um, are you looking for Naomi?"
"How did you know about Naomi?" Artie demanded.
"I don't know much about her...but I think I know where she is."
"You think she's in the freezer?!"
Illusion balked at that because getting screamed at by a thought was very strange, especially if you've never experienced that before, but nodded. "Hurry!"
The heroes seemed unsure of whether or not to trust Illusion, but they were more concerned about their teammate being in trouble, so they ran after him.
Thanks to the White Snake turning into a gorilla and ripping the freezer door off of the hinges, it didn't take them very long to find Naomi.
Naomi who was deathly white and not moving, not even to shiver. "Come on, wake up, wake up..." Artie fumbled with his jacket as Sekhmet and the White Snake pulled her out all the way.
As he was wrapping his partner, his friend, his...girl friend up in his coat to try and warm her up, Blaze approached, hands glowing.
"Not too much warmth at once." Whirlpool spoke up.
"I know the drill..." Blaze nodded, with her newly reacquired powers prepared to be of service.
At some point during the struggle to warm Naomi up enough, which involved Blaze running her warm hands all over her body, The White Snake turning into a cat and cuddling up with her, and Black Swan conjuring a blanket, Naomi's sunglasses slid off of her face, but no one really noticed, or cared.
Artie pulled Naomi all the way on his lap, at least as much as he could manage, and they waited. After what seemed like forever, Naomi started shivering again, before her eyes blinked open drowsily.
Arthur should have looked away, she had warned him about the effects of looking at her eyes unprotected, but he was so happy to see her alive....
She yawned and closed her eyes, snuggling closer to him almost without realizing it.
"She should be fine when she wakes up again..." Amra spoke up. "It's a warm day."
Artie wasn't listening to the conversations. He was too busy thinking about whether or not he was now obsessively, dangerously in love with her.
Surprisingly he didn't feel any different.
The moment Naomi was roused for the second time, she was confused. she was laying on a bed, but not her bed, it seemed more like the cot that was at the stables, and hadn't she just...
"The heroes!" She struggled, trying to untangle herself from the blankets.
"Sh...I know your disoriented right now, but you gave me quite a scare." Artie soothed. It was then she realized he was meeting her eyes and she wasn't wearing sunglasses.
"Don't look!"
"I've already looked. And I don't feel dangerously obsessed with you."
Naomi didn't look up from where she was burying her face in her hands. "That doesn't make any sense! It works on everyone, my aunt was affected by it, so was my babysitter, and my teachers..."
"Maybe it doesn't work if a person is already in love with you." Artie said without thinking.
Naomi looked back at him, sure she had heard him wrong. "Or maybe there's another reason your powers aren't working, maybe I'm just not affected by powers you know..." He started to ramble.
"Don't worry." Naomi slid her sunglasses back on. "I love you to." She surprised herself with a yawn. "Now what happened? My memory is foggy...'
"Jeremiah says that's normal." Artie reassured her as he gave her a hug, not trusting that they were at the kissing point yet. "If you feel up to it, we kind of have a lunch plan with a few people and I can explain on the way..."
Naomi was now even more confused, but she figured, why not?
With more help from Artie, she untangled herself from the blankets and surprised them both by kissing him, (accidentally kissing his nose when she was aiming for his lips) as a thank you.
It was two scarlet faced teens who made their way out of the stables, and down the street, Artie telling her all that she had missed...
Deep within the Canary industries, a firey teen surfaces, thankful she had just managed to escape being arrested or worse, but saddened because of what happened with her mother.
She needed to think of another plan, of true revenge on those that had wronged her and her family, revenge on the two traitors who had decided to go to the good side no matter who their parents were or how much she offered to pay them, a plan one hundred percent Inferno.
To her surprise, her phone dinged, indicating a message.
You hate the heroes right? Well so do I. Come to this address and together we can prove to them that "Evil never dies."
There was no indication of who sent the message, other than a sugar cookie emoji at the end, which didn't scream evil, but Inferno didn't care.
Evil lived on, in her and now in this newcomer. Inferno would see what they had to say, and then they would take down the heroes, One, by One.
Starting with her sister.