Is This Destiny?

Some people might remember this story, it was a while back so although I could find it again I've changed it a bit to make it better (I've also given it a title)...

So:
Prologue.

I.
A deserted, overgrown garden was situated on the edge of the village. No-one knew who it belonged to, as not even the local gardener went there. Trees, bushes and weeds were vying for space in the massive grounds as a fourteen year old girl blasted them out of the way. She was slightly tall for her age and currently had dark brown wavy hair and piercing ice-blue eyes. This was what she liked to and normally looked like, though she changed her appearance many different times. That was what she had mastered when she was four years old, even though most adult magicians had not even learned to change their hair colour – without the aid of a potion, that was.
She stopped dead. The air was filled with the sounds of birds. Suddenly a huge flock of them flew out from inside the great oak tree in the middle of the messy lawn. Sapphire took off. She jumped straight towards the source of the disturbance, ducking and weaving between trees as she went. She reached a tree next to the clearing in which the oak tree was placed and paused. He had tried this before. Why couldn’t he give up old tricks? She peered cautiously round then started back in horror.
“Christian…” She whispered, petrified. Her boyfriend, Christian, was lying half-conscious underneath one of the huge branches of the oak tree, snapped clean off the trunk. A huge, towering shadow loomed over him.
“Tell…me…where…she…is.” A deep, booming voice froze Sapphire’s racing thoughts.
“No…” She could barely hear Christian’s voice, “Never…”
She could tell he was about to lose consciousness.
The huge shadow reached over and, with the strength of ten, tugged him out from under the branch.
“Very well then.” There was a flash, and they both disappeared.
Sapphire ran over to the place where they had just stood. They had been completely wiped out from that spot. She turned her head this way and that, looking for any sign of movement, trying to find any clue where they had gone.
But it was no use-
And it had begun.

II.
“Ruby,” hissed her best friend Kieran, “Hey! Psst! What’s the answer to question eight?”
“Shut up, you’ll get me in trouble.” Ruby looked up at her teacher and sighed. “I think it was… Napoleon went to Egypt to try and block supplies going to…India or somewhere. Now phrase that properly.”
“Thanks.” Kieran leaned back towards his test. “Don’t know what I’d do without you.”
“Kieran, Ruby,” Their teacher looked up, “If you’re talking I assume that means you’ve finished. Please come up and give me your papers.”
“Well, you probably wouldn’t get yourself into trouble for one thing.” Ruby laughed as she handed in her completed paper, and Kieran handed in his unfinished one. He gave the teacher a very dirty look and Ruby almost burst trying not to laugh.
“I did see that, Kieran, but I’m inclined to let it rest if -” she took a glance at his history test “-you managed to get one hundred percent on what you did do on your rather short test.”
At that, the bell rang, and everyone handed in their own papers and rushed outside to go home.
“So, shall I meet you outside?” Ruby glanced at the disgruntled Kieran. “I mean, are you going to try and exact some revenge on our poor teacher?”
“No, it’s alright. I’ll just dump my gym kit. I’ll meet you–”
“Oh yeah, I have to put mine away too.”
“Oh, fantastic.”
Kieran resigned himself to seeing many more hordes of giggling girls staring at him.
They dropped Kieran’s bag off first, then headed towards the girl’s changing rooms. Ruby slipped in as Kieran said shiftily, “I’ll wait round the corner, okay?”
“Yeah…” Ruby muttered vaguely.
She went to put her bag in her locker before going back outside. Once there, she looked round for Kieran, then remembering what he’d said she decided to sneak up on him. She crept along the wall, ready and perfectly poised to scare him, when she heard talking. Curious, she stepped closer.
“Tell me where she is.”
Ruby was surprised to hear such a deep voice. Surely none of the teachers could sound like that, and certainly none of the pupils did. So who was it?
“No! Who wants to know anyway?” Kieran asked suspiciously.
“It is none of your business, human.” The voice sounded offended. There was a silence, then Kieran screamed, very loudly. Suddenly, though, it was sharply cut off and it was this, probably more than anything else, that terrified Ruby. She ran out from behind the wall, and what she saw made her fall backwards with horror.
Kieran was being held up by his throat, barely breathing. Holding him was a tall, hooded person, clad entirely in a black cape.
She gave a scream of fright, still on the floor, and the figure turned to face her. She gave another scream as she saw it’s eyes. Eyes so blood red they literally flashed fire, and she was surprised it’s cloak wasn’t smouldering.
It suddenly dropped Kieran, but then reached for her. She pushed herself backwards until she slipped, just as the figure reached out. She almost fainted as she saw that it wasn’t even a hand. The cape fell back as far as the elbow, and the arm and hand appeared to be that of a skeleton.
Suddenly it paused, then fell to her side. She looked up and saw Kieran standing over her, white-faced and wiping blood from his lip. He reached down and hauled her up. The figure stirred, and Ruby and Kieran wordlessly started running.
“Where…are…we…going?” Ruby panted.
“I don’t – ” His answer was cut short as a loud screech filled the air. There was a shadow flickering overhead, then the black figure landed almost sickeningly gracefully in front of them as they stopped dead.
The skeleton hand reached out, again towards Ruby. There was a flash, and all Ruby could feel was Kieran shoving her out of the way, then the cold, hard tarmac of the road. She stood up again almost immediately, but it was too late.
There was absolutely no-one there.

Chapter 1.

“I take it your training didn’t go quite as planned then.” An elderly man, about five inches tall, was standing on a ladder, reaching for a glowing pink bottle (with apparently nothing inside it) on the top shelf of his bookcase.
“No, it flipping well did not, genius.” Sapphire, stood on the floor, bent down to pick it up for him. “I need to know where he is. Can you please hurry up with that locator spell thingy?”
“Yes yes, Sapphire, but are you sure you’re quite ready for this?”
“Of course I’m – ”
“No, I mean do you even need to do this? Christian is a qualified member of the Amionese, after all, so I’m sure he can find his own way back.”
“Yes, but I’m also a trained member of the Amionese, and this is obviously ‘Simyonova the evil genius’ we’re talking about. He won’t escape from ‘Simyonova the evil genius’!”
“Calm down, Sapphire. Christian’s been in tougher spots than this one…”
“No! You don’t understand! They weren’t even looking for him!”
This made Kai, the old man, look up sharply.
“What do you mean?”
“You heard me.” Sapphire said grumpily. “They were looking for a ‘she’. I assume that was probably me, seeing as we were the only two on the field at that moment.”
“And you’re sure about this?”
“Of course I’m sure.”
“Stop saying that.”
“Of course. Stop saying what?”
“That.”
“What, stop saying what?”
“What?”
Do you mean, stop saying ‘stop saying what’?”
“No! Stop saying ‘of course’.”
“Oh, of- yes. Right. Sorry. Anyway, I have to find him.”
The old man grimaced.
“I’ve been waiting for this your entire life.”
“Waiting for what? Tell me!”
The old man shuffled over to a cupboard about the size of Sapphire’s fist. He reached up and yanked the door open, and inside there was a scroll which, when opened out, was about the length of Sapphire’s arm. He handed it to her and she read it aloud.
“’When a girl becomes a mid
And then when she is called,
Then must she her double find
And then defeats them all.’
But…what is this?”
The old man sighed.
“This was delivered shortly after you were. ‘Brig’ means teenager, as you are, and you’ve been ‘called’ by the Amionese.”
Sapphire’s face went pale.
“‘Then must she her double find…’ So…would that be talking about Christian?”
The old man nodded gravely.
“This is your destiny, my dear.”
“’Then defeats them all…’ Defeats who all, Kai? I was aware only of the one.”
“My dear, did you really think Simyonova worked alone?”
“Well…No…Yes…I dunno… I suppose the thought had occurred to me, yes… So you mean that wasn’t really Simyonova that took Christian?”
The old man chuckled.
“No, no, my dear, haven’t you heard enough of him to know he’s so much worse?”
“Well, I didn’t really think it was the best idea to have a look and ask who it was. I was slightly more concerned with what it was doing with my boyfriend!” Sapphire snapped.
“Well, anyway, I suppose you had better go after them then-”
“But I don’t even know where they are! And anyway, I’m not qualified enough for a mission like this!”
“If destiny demands it, it must be so.”
“What? You can’t let me go with a cheesy line like that!”
“I thought you were rather eager to go earlier.”
“I am eager!” Sapphire stopped. He had caught her there. She continued, slightly quieter. “I want to get Christian and rid Siale Valley of all evil, blah blah blah, but I just think someone should come with me.”
Kai scratched his head.
“Well, as a matter of fact, someone is coming with you. A human with extraordinary magical powers that she doesn’t know she has - much like you. Her name is Ruby and her best friend Kieran was also taken-“
He looked at his watch.
“Exactly five minutes ago.”
“Thank you very much.” Sapphire said sarcastically.
She rolled her eyes as she followed him through the door, being careful not to step on him.
“Right. In about one minute she will appear in this circle on the floor.” Kai said, indicating the teleport on the floor. “She doesn’t know anything about magic, so you must fill her in on everything you know, then come to me and I’ll tell you what I know about the mission.”
“Where is she at the moment?”
“Well, should be…” He glanced at his watch, “ At about the red moon of Tiscae/four*twelve.”
Sapphire dropped the bags.
“You said you’d take me there soon! That isn’t fair!”

Please tell me where I'm going wrong!

Oooooooh, I have more...

Chapter 2.

“Kieran! Kieran!” Ruby called out, “Where are you? Kieran please…come back…please…” she was sobbing as she realized he wasn’t coming back.
Suddenly a bright flash enveloped her and she felt herself being pulled away from the ground. She fought desperately - after all, if it was anything to do with what had just happened, she would be in trouble. But there wasn’t really much to fight against. All that seemed to be holding her was this light. She stopped, seeing it was useless to fight against it, and just let herself go. After all, she would rather be there (wherever ‘there’ was) with Kieran than here without. But…she wasn’t disappearing instantaneously, like Kieran. She was just gently floating away from the ground, seemingly invisible to everyone on Earth. She looked above her, and immediately started squirming again. For she was heading straight up and out, and didn’t look like she was going to stop anytime soon. But it was absolutely no good. After all, how can you break out of light? But, thinking about it, how could light hold her up???
She was floating on light, flying away from the Earth, and her best friend had just been kidnapped or something by some weird bloke in a black hood, and had just disappeared into nothingness. No one was ever going to believe this.
Why? What was happening? She was heading out of the Earth (quite fast actually, she thought to herself indignantly), and she was being pulled further and further out until she could see the clouds, and then she was right next to them, and then suddenly she was through! She didn’t just stop there though. She was still heading up, and further out, and she could see through the clouds (unbelievable!, she thought to herself). She could stare directly above herself, and she could see for…well, not just miles, but millions of miles in every direction! She was entranced, and stopped squirming at how surreal everything was.
(“Thank goodness for that,” Kai said grumpily, “I thought I was going to drop her.”
“Kai!”
“Not very far…”)
Ruby stared out around her. Never mind other people, she couldn’t even believe what she was seeing. She twisted round to look at the Earth, and reeled back (or would have done if she could). That was her first glimpse of how…huge wasn’t the word for it. She’d always been one for reading, but even she was having difficulty thinking of a word to describe it. She decided to try to come up with some sort of word. Colossally huge, would have to do. Yes. That was her first glimpse of how colossally huge everything was up (or out) here. And she was still moving. She was heading away from the Earth, out towards other planets, and she let out the breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. She suddenly remembered what she’d been told about space, and how there was no oxygen, so she desperately tried to cling to what little breath she had left. But she’d realized too late, she didn’t have enough breath left, her lungs were gasping for air, but she couldn’t take a breath in because there was nothing to breathe, but she had to, she had to-
And then she did. And…nothing happened. She could - she could breathe. In space. How on earth…?
But she had no time to think about it, because she suddenly picked up speed and she was racing along, past all of these glorious sights that she wanted to see but kept on just missing, and she looked ahead of her and the only light she could see were little tiny pinpricks of light. She was heading out of the solar system, past all of the planets that she or anyone else knew about, and she was heading towards blackness. That’s all there was, just absolute, pitch-blackness. No stars, no planets, no pinpricks of light at all. But there was something there, she could feel it. It was like some huge (sorry, colossal huge) fore emanating from it, slightly roughly dragging her in. Again, she was picking up speed, going faster than she would have believed possible, faster than anyone could have believed possible, but she suddenly felt that she didn’t want to go into the blackness, it was too dark and dark meant bad-
(“Sapphire!” Kai said through gritted teeth. “I do actually sort of need your help here-”
“Alright, alright,” Sapphire waved her hands around ineffectually. “Is that better?”
“SAPPHIRE!” Kai bellowed.
“OKAY!” She shouted back at him, and then she worked her real magic-
“You’ll have to hold her still!”)
So suddenly everything stopped for Ruby. She wasn’t moving, forwards or backwards or even down or up. She had just stopped. She tried to put her weight on herself rather than the light, but it just seemed to be too much effort. So she tried to lift up her arm to wipe her hair out of her face. Again, it just seemed like too much effort. She was paralyzed because she was feeling weak? Whatever it was, she couldn’t move. Nothing was moving near her, either. Well, nothing she could see was, not that she could see much. She couldn’t turn her head to look at the planets behind her, and all that was in front was the giant hole in space. She suddenly remembered what she’d been doing before she stopped, and resumed doing it. But she wasn’t panicking this time, she was in control of what she did, not someone who was too cowardly to face her to do whatever they wanted to do-
There was a burst of laughter inside her head.
Who was it? Ruby certainly wasn’t the one laughing.
But it sounded like her.
It sounded exactly like her.
But it couldn’t have been her.
Could it?
Tentatively, she tried a message.
Who…Who is this?
There was a pause, and then:
Oh my…You speak in your mind too?
Evidently.
Wow…Hold on for two seconds.
To what?
That’s a tough one. Ask me later.
But-
It was too late, the voice had already gone.
(Kai was watching Sapphire closely, and as she returned to herself he said,
“You do know that this is hardly the time to talk to your friends?”
But she was too excited, she wasn’t listening to him.
“Kai, you’ll never guess who I just spoke to!”
He raised his eyebrow.
“It’s her! Loony or whatever her name is!”
“Do you mean…Ruby?”
“Yeah, her! I just talked to her in my head!”
“Well, carry on. Try and convince her to come through. Use magic if you have to!”)
Then the voice was back.
Loony?
Ye- What?
That’s your name isn’t it?
No. My name is-
I know really. Why do you think we picked you up? You weren’t just some random person off the street, we chose you special.
What?
I mean specially, specialLY. That’s what I said.
No it isn’t.
Oh, don’t be so pedantic. Look, we need to talk to you proper. I mean properly. I can talk properly you know. I just don’t feel like it at the moment.
Ok…
Indeed. But look, come on. You have to go through the dark to see the light.
The voice was about to withdraw again, but Ruby shouted:
Wait!
I’m waiting…
Do you…I mean have you…Why do you sound exactly like me?
I don’t know. I’ll find out in a minute, I’ll tell you when you get here.
Have you got Kieran?
There was another pause, then:
No.
With that, the voice withdrew.
Slowly, Ruby started moving again. She braced herself, and suddenly…Whoosh! She was sucked in to the darkness. She couldn’t see anything, no light was coming from anywhere. Even the light around her had disappeared. She could feel herself tumbling around, over and over and upside down and she was even bouncing off the sides – even though she couldn’t actually see where they were. After a while she couldn’t tell which way up was. She didn’t even know which way forward was, she was going so fast. But then a light appeared, quite far off, and she seemed to be heading towards it. She got faster and faster (she didn’t think it was possible, but apparently it was) and suddenly she was right next to it, and then it was around her, taking her over-
And then she was on the ground. And she really was, she could feel it. She tried stamping (slightly warily – she also discovered that she was quite unstable…), it didn’t even wobble. She looked around her. She seemed to be facing a wall, unremarkable except for the fact that it was continuously changing colour. She heard a quiet cough from behind her and span around.
Behind her someone was watching her warily. But…No, it was impossible. It couldn’t be. It was just a mirror. It couldn’t be herself. Herself as a different person, like, herself…independent from…well, herself.
"I'm sorry, what?" Her mirror image said.
Ruby realised she'd been speaking out loud.