205 Proper raising (1/2)

She was laying on a soft bed with her face aiming the ceiling covered by a long blanket over her body. The room was big and painted in white color with a few details in the shape of fire colored in red. She recognized that pattern, it was the same one from Leona's robes.

”Where... Am I...?” she whispered.

”Ellie!!!” several people shouted.

She lowered her view and noticed her friends, Claire and Joseph, both wearing white robes, as well as her allies, Marcus, Lilith, and Detra, with Leona and a woman with long red hair standing on the back of the room.

They all took turns hugging her and asking if she wanted food or if she needed to rest more. Everyone was just relieved to see her waking up. The girl took a little time to catch her breath from them and finally felt like she was good enough to start talking properly.

”Ellie!! Ellie are you ok!!??” Marcus shouted.

”We were so worried about you!! You just kept sleeping and would barely move!!” Claire added while holding the girl's left hand.

”I'm fine... I'm fine... I'm just tired, that's all...” Ellie explained as she realized she was probably in a facility from the east followers.

”Ellie...” Lilith spoke next, ”what happened to you??”

Ellie tried to think back to the last thing she remembered before passing out and tried to retell her tale, ”I was dragged out of nowhere by the forest and forced to fight her in the core ring...”

”The forest?? You faced the forest on your own!!?” Lilith gasped.

”Yeah... It was really annoying because she kept coming back even after I slashed her a bunch of times... It looked like the only way to beat her was to go for the core itself, but I didn't want to touch it before finding out what kind of powers she had... so I kept stalling until I found out more about her abilities...”

”Wait... Stall...?” Detra interjected, ”can't the forest read our minds? How did she no see through your plan?”

”Oh, that... I kept distracting her by trying to annoy her... she was so angry that she could barely read what I was doing...”

”That's true... Blue can be really annoying when she wants to...” Claire commented, trying to lighten up the mood.

”You would know best... You taught me most of what I know after all...” Ellie replied.

Claire then raised her hand to fist-bump Ellie, ”damn right I did!”

Ellie grinned back at her but when she raised her arm as well, both hers and Claire's face began to lose color.

”Aaaaahhh!!! What happened to my hand!!!???” she yelled as she gazed at her amputated arm tied up in bandages.

Claire became shocked as well, so did Joseph. The two hadn't seen Ellie until now so they weren't aware of her current state.

”What!!?? What!!?? What happened???” Ellie kept shouting. Her loud scream could be heard from outside by the two kids as they continued to leave. Claire was about to start crying after realizing what she did.

”Ellie calm down!” Marcus tried to say while raising his hands.

”Calm down!!??” Ellie yelled while starting to tear up, ”WHY IS MY HAND GONE!!!??”

”We don't know... When I found you your arm was already like this... we tried to apply some healing magic once we were back but they said that there was no saving it...”

”No... No saving it?? I'm going to stay like this!!?? This isn't fair!! Why did this happen to me!!?? What did I do to-” Ellie was about to continue to cry but then she looked at Lilith who was now also wearing a bandage on her eyes to block the light.

She thought about how unfair it would be to complain about losing a hand while Lilith had lost her vision when trying to help them and started to feel embarrassed.

”I... I'm sorry...” Ellie whispered.

”You don't have to apologize...” Marcus commented, ”We were the ones that did a poor job on protecting you...”

”That's not entirely true actually...”

The entire room turned around to glare at the one who said that, Detra.

The woman quickly noticed their anger but decided to continue anyway, ”young miss... you said that the forest dragged you to fight her, right?”

”Tha- That's right...”

”Why didn't you just use your power to escape? With the mirrored ability from Marcus, you should have been more than fast enough to successfully run away from her.”

”Run away...?? I- I didn't even considered that...” Ellie admitted while lowering her head.

”East!! What are you doing? Can't you see that she's already feeling bad?” Lilith shouted.