Lucas, Ian, Samantha, Chase, Lane, and Dylan met up after Academy classes had ended. "Where's Greenheart?" Chase asked. "Cleaning up his classroom," Lucas replied, "We should probably help." The rest of the group shrugged and walked into the Earth Tower and into Greenheart's classroom. "Hi professor," Lucas greeted, "Do you need help?" Greenheart nodded. "Could you help put the textbooks on the bookshelves?" He pointed to the 3 partially filled bookshelves in the far right corner of the room. The wizards nodded and started moving the books to the bookshelf. Chase, of course, tried carrying a tower of textbooks at once. Lucas started, "Chase, you really shouldn't-", but was inevitably interrupted by the books toppling over and crashing into the bookshelf, which Chase had finally reached. A clock-like item with a blue, red, and green buttons tumbled off of the top of the bookshelf and landed on Chase's head. "Ow..." Chase rubbed his head, as the group heard a whirring sound. A flash followed and in place of the group was a sideways Timekeeper.
Professor Greenheart sat up and facepalmed.
"Aw s**t, here we go again." Dylan complained.
Chase sat up and looked around, only to see snow and ice surrounding the group. "What just happened?"
"I think we're in Shiverchill Mountains?" Lucas said, shivering.
2000 or so years ago...
An archagent is taken by large surprise when a massive cluster of random people flop out of a rift in timespace and onto the floor in front of him. The only words he can muster are "What the f***?"
"Oh. Hello." Samantha said awkwardly, noticing a person standing in front of the group.
"Yeah cool formal entrances and all, but what in the french f*** are you doing in the middle of a locked office inside of a maximum-security castle currently undergoing an ALLOUT WARFARE!?" The person seemed extremely appalled and for good reason- every single time someone suspicious appeared on either side's territory it always ended in escalated conflict.
Greenheart adjusted his glasses. He seemed uncomfortable because of the foul language that was being used.
"How should I know?" Samantha replied, kind of irritated.
"...Alright, I'll get this straight. Legal names and business falling out of a hole in the middle of the air with unknown intent and frankly horrible fashion taste. Now." said the official, immediately applying an extremely forced monotonous tone.
"Hey! I like fire items!" Chase protested to the wizard, evidently about his fashion taste. Lane punched him in the arm. "Don't make things worse," he hissed.
"Fire? Excuse me? Under normal circumstances you'd be executed on the spot, but unfortunately every single guard is off duty. So now you're dealing with me." Immediately, an extremely sharp symmetrical crystal spike materialized in the wizard's outstretched hand before the light wizard could say anything- pointed at Chase. "In case you've been stuck flipping through random pockets in existence for the last 3 years, we've been fighting against the Bonfire Colony for so long my brain is starting to freeze over. You know how hard it is having to deal with spies, thieves, and full-out sieges? Tell me who you are, and if you aren't one of them? You live."
Chase raised his hands. "I'm Chase Flamemaster and am not part of the Bonfire Colony. Please don't kill me."
Lane shrugged. "Honestly, I have zero issues with you killing Chase," he said casually. Samantha glared at him.
"Affiliation? Haven't seen many literal teenagers tumble out of nowhere onto my office floor in the middle of a Sunday while I'm writing consolation letters to the parents of the dead." continued the official, still holding up the crystal.
"Academy student," Chase said, also glaring at Lane.
"Hasn't been open for the past 3 years. War. Actual affiliation?" inquired the increasingly skeptical official, not letting go of the crystal spike.
"What the-we were just there a few minutes ago-" Chase looked at everyone else behind him. They nodded, also confused.
"Excuse me? I have no idea what you're saying anymore- ok let's recap. You tumbled out of a cyan hole in the air, in the middle of an ongoing war, saying you've recently been in a building that has been closed for the longevity of said war. You'd be suspicious too, right?" explained the official, uncaring for the expressions of the masses.
Chase opened his mouth then closed it. "Well that's where we were," he said defiantly.
"Explain what you were doing in the last 10 minutes. How the hell are you going to work this out?" replied the official, extremely skeptical and somewhat irritated.
"We went to the Earth Tower to help Professor Greenheart with cleaning his classroom. We started to put his textbooks away before I had the brilliant idea of-" "Not a brilliant idea," Lane interrupted. Chase glared at Lane, then continued. "To take a big stack of books to the bookshelf, but the books fell, hit the bookshelf, then I got clocked by a clock." Chase laughed slightly to himself, scooting away from Lane's rising fist. "Then we ended up here," Chase quickly explained, scooting further away from Lane, who was advancing towards him.
"...excuse me, who? If I'd known a Professor Greenheart, I've had read his name in the massive list of resigning Academy workers engrossing the entire school. Anything strange happen with the inanimate objects? The books? The clock?" replied the official, who had slightly lowered the crystal.
"That's Professor Greenheart," Chase pointed to Greenheart, who was standing next to Ian. "Also, the clock did make a weird whirring noise..."
Footsteps could be heard outside the room, and then the door swung open as a young woman, no older than eighteen barged in. "Alan I swear to god, CURFEW EXISTS FOR A REASON-" Her sentence cut off as she saw everyone else in the room. "Who- who are these people?"
"No idea, boss. Fell out of a portal in the air. Claims to have been in the Academy a few minutes ago. Claims to know a teacher that wasn't in the mass-resignation... Even I don't know what's going on here." replied Alan, who had immediately lost some of the edge he felt having to deal with the cluster of pre-adults on the floor.
"Perhaps we're in a parellel universe where I don't exist and the Academy has been closed for three years, or we're in future, 3 years after our old 'present'." Greenheart suggested quietly to Chase, Lane, Samantha, Dylan, Lucas, and Ian.
"Huh. It's as if the clock moved you somewhere in a different period of time... They're not talking about the Expansion Age's Great War or whatever in your school, are they?" said Alan, obviously satirical.
"Very funny." Greenheart replied in a monotone voice.
"Expected as much. Clock come with you? Somewhere underneath the dozen leg cluster you've got going on?" inquired Alan, who replicated the monotony Greenheart pulled off so naturally.
Greenheart noticed the clock had fallen on the ground, and he picked it up. "Here it is." Greenheart answered, even more monotone, and it seemed to be a sign of.....silent war?
Alan had a perfectly even and one-pitch voice, without any recognizable alternating cadence. "It's 2 hours back." Flipping the clock revealed... "Its gears seem to show several centuries of wear. This most likely means this has rewinded extremely. Our comparable signs of wear are the First Mechanical Marvel in Skywatch and its gears. They show the same damage and those gears were 2000 years old. I wouldn't find it far-fetched to say that you've been sent 2000 years in the past."
"Wow...didn't think we were sent back in time. Interesting. I wonder how we can go back." Greenheart gasped, practically sounding like a male text-to-speech robot.
"Holy crap! We've been sent back in time! Ohmygodohmygodohmygod!!!" Samantha panicked, beginning to pace back and forth.
"As opposed to your students, I find it curious you aren't as surprised to learn this. It's as if you've seen something similar before, but that isn't the problem. The problem here is your clock is apparently run by the same steel that makes up the Volcanic Ultimus, or that's what the Bonfire Tribe calls it. It's really just an extremely hot brand made from volcanic metal. Our two options are either make an extreme effort to finish the war and take down the tribe, heist their ultimate weapon, and reshape into functional gears, or alternatively dive headfirst into extreme volcanic lava that even dragons could not stand up to." read a completely black and white sign that Alan was holding up while mouthing the words, fully blank of expression.
Greenheart gave up the silent war and said "Neither option sounds good, but I suppose making an extreme effort to finish the war is the better one."
"Won't be exactly easy. However, that metal doesn't respond to anything unless it's of incredible power- and you ALL got sucked in. Welcome to the Crystal Caverns. Let me give you a half-hearted tour so that I can look professional for when I yell an extremely over-simplified plan for what's going on." Alan gestured to the door as he finished speaking, traces of complete emotionless speech draining.
The group approached the door and walked through it.
"What is this about?" Lane asked Alan suspiciously, while Chase attempted to calm a now hyperventilating Samantha.
"Look who's asking questions. This is a tour. The entire purpose is to tell you 'what is this about'. Shut up." replied Alan casually before cutting into a hallway leading to the throne room. "Throne room. Walk in without authorization and it won't end well. Luckily for you, i'm supposed to be in charge of the security around the main facilities, so you don't have to get killed when you walk places. Mostly." Continuing to a doorway on the left side, a massive open-air containment area housing an enormous Crystal Golem- a lot larger than the ones from the Wardens' present. "Meet Lucy, our resident powerhouse. Would rampage across the entirety of this kingdom were it not for the fact she trusts people who give her food." Walking back through the throne room entrance, he gestured at the window to an extremely elaborate fountain surrounded with benches and frozen foliage. "Courtyard. Hosts a lot more arguments than you might think." Down the hall, a massive open area that was more well-decorated than the rest of the rooms other than the throne room. "Great hall. Leads everywhere. Bathrooms are on second floor as well as sleeping quarters, dining all takes up entire left wing. The right wing includes the armory, the training area, and our final destination- the briefing room." As Alan said this, he went through the door on the right.
The group followed Alan.
"Oh, hi Ala-wait who are those people?" A boy with an arm of ice gestured to the wizards behind Alan, putting down his pencil.
"We're a bunch of wizards who got poofed into this world. Simple." Greenheart replied.
The boy raised an eyebrow. "Ooo-kay. And the fire-themed wizard?" He asked, pointing specifically at Chase.
"Not part of the Bonfire Colony, or affiliated with them." Chase said proudly.
"Or so he says." Iris added.
"I get the feeling that being the fire warden is very much unappreciated here," Chase muttered, too quietly to hear. "Chase Flamemaster. Academy Student...from the future...or would it be present since this is the past...wait but since we're here, does that make this the present..." he trailed off, deep in a paradoxal thought over how to refer to the present/future.
"Alright, let's not get Ryder over here on a roll- he doesn't stop for hours if you mention something paradoxical- hey don't give me that look. You know i'm right." Alan looked pointedly at the boy, who did not appreciate it. Walking towards the whiteboard to the middle of the room, Alan snapped a rough diagram of the current territorial positions of the two warring parties, with various red circles marking current important battles ongoing.
"So. Bonfire to the South. They've taken hold of Firefly Forest and are steadily trying to advance into Shiverchill, meaning they have to flatten us in the process. We're losing. Our current only plan is to create a massive distraction while a special ops team goes behind the enemy lines to assassinate the enemy leader, Lord Flame. However, everyone that might have filled that spot has already been killed. This is where your faces come in. Everyone who tumbled through that portal is on the special ops team. Their base's defenses can only be breached by wizards with warden-tier elemental power. As it happens, Lord Flame is our current Fire Warden- and their Ultimas Weapon only responds to him. I have reason to believe you're most likely the wardens of your time, though I've never seen any so young... I digress. Our main problem is that Skywatch tech is required to make this plan happen, and there's currently a Bonfire occupation there. Our first priority is to take out the commander that runs the occupation, some idiot who's codename is Infernus Cloak. Questions?" finished Alan. Ian had been processing what was happening for the entire duration- he was the first to discover the origins of why the wardens were who they were.
"Infernus Cloak.....what a odd name....c-codename, I mean." Lucas muttered.
"Well no one said codenames were supposed to make sense." Iris shrugged. "I'm Iris Crystalheart by the way. Queen Iris Crystalheart." She added sourly.
Ian slowly nodded, still trying to comprehend the existence of 2 fire wardens in one point in space and time. He appeared to be having an actual brainmelt.
"You can find them at latitude 47.8642165, longitude 65.489104," Ryder told the wizards. "We're kids," Lane grumbled. "So am I. You don't see me complaining," Ryder sighed, "Just go to the place known as 'Factory: Old Man's Room' and you'll find Infernus Cloak." The group nodded.
"Got it. That's right here." Greenheart said, pulling out a map and pointing at the exact area.
"Alright. I've still got to finish the stack of consolation letters before they double up"- here he muttered something unintelligible-"so I'm staying back. You'll find a Gloricious or 2 and at least 3 Batterbots on the way, so do be prepared for that encounter. There will, of course, be a stupid amount of guards in the area- the only teleportation area we have left is Sky Shovers. Try for stealth and if necessary just go loud. Good luck." Alan stood up and left the room.
"C'mon guys! Let's go!" Samantha exclaimed, dashing off.
"Wait up!" Chase dashed after Samantha. After the other wizards left the room, Ryder turned to Iris. "So...they're not going to use the map?" She simply shrugged.
Immediately, at least 3 goliath robotic Batterbots with gleaming azure furnace cores turned their heads slowly towards the party. Soon enough, they were surrounded by guards as well. Apparently barging into a high-security temporary fort loudly guarded by beings with enough elemental power to do unspeakable things to aerogel isn't the best way to execute a plan.
"Can we try to find a alternate entrance?" Samantha asked, slowly turning to the front door of the building.
Lucas glanced at all the guards. "Oh uh hey guys..." He said nervously. Samantha tried to use Downpourtal on one of the guards... only to see that instead of water drenching them from above, a whirlpool appeared below him, and then drowned the guard.
"What-"
Chase tried to use a Volcannon, but ended up summoning a flaming rock ball that knocked one of the Batterbots over upon contact. "Um...that works." He fired more at the Batterbot that had just gotten up and laughed. "I'm on a roll!" Lane promptly attempted to use an Ion cannon, but ended up summoning 3 lightning bolts that closed in on Chase, creating a small explosion. Lane looked at his hand then shrugged. Chase was unconscious now, so he was satisfied.
Ian, now slowly beginning to comprehend whatever the hell was happening, proceeded to attempt to use a Spearicle. It took form for a fraction of a second before reforming into a spiky ice-snowman with a mace handarm. The attack proceeded to beat the absolute hell out of a Batterbot before tearing off its arm and shoving said arm back into the furnace-chest. The spell seemed both familiar and ancient- as if magic had degraded greatly over time. Whatever it was, its effects were... effective.
Samantha repeatedly used the unknown water-element spell on a Batterbot, hoping to eventually kill it.
Lane attempted to use Ion Cannon, but ended up summoning lightning from the ground (?) and air, creating an electrical dome that electrocuted the Batterbot, simultaneously overloading and deactivating it. Smoke arose out of the furnace-chest as it sputtered out.
"Ah, thank you, Lane." Samantha thanked, very grateful.
Then, suddenly, there was a flash of purple, and the rest of the Batterbots were dead. Once the flash of purple went away, there was a girl with neat, long red hair who had a beret on standing on their remains. She was holding a HUGE purple scythe, and she said "No need to thank me for killing those guys for you."
Ian didn't say a word and looked incredibly unimpressed. "I'd say you're compensating for something, but that isn't quite gender-appropriate."
Lucas elbowed Ian and frowned at him, before turning back to the girl. "Thank you for helping us." He said politely, "I'm Lucas."
Ian gave the "ok geez dude" look to Lucas before resuming the previous tone of expression, invisibly admiring Lucas' ability to somehow never act on impulse. Ever. It was kind of scary...
Chase sat up, rubbing his head and groaning. Getting struck by 3 lighting bolts at once is quite the electrifying feeling. He looked up and saw a girl holding big purple scythe and proceeded to lie back down.
"I'm Marielle Magiccatcher. Pleased to meet you guys!" Marielle replied happily.
Dylan climbed over the edge of the cloud which served as the ground for Skywatch. "Nice of you to realize you left someone behind without a map," he grumbled. He collapsed on the ground from exhaustion.
"Anyway, where is this Infernus Cloak guy? I'm looking forward to beating up someone other than Chase," Lane stated plainly.
"Wait. You're coming here to challenge Infernus Cloak? You're not serious, right?" Marielle asked, shocked.
"Well, if we want to get back into our timeline, then we're definitely serious..." Lucas trailed off as he said that, a small part of his brain wondering if they ever will get back to their timeline.
No, we're fixing that clock, we're going to get back, and EVERYTHING will be fine.
"You'll never make it. But, I'd be glad to help you! If we team up, we can all probably beat Infernus Cloak." Marielle insisted.
"Sure, you can help." Lucas replied. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Professor Greenheart tense up. "Professor? Is something wrong...?" Greenheart shook his head.
Lane shrugged, not really caring.
Chase, finally deciding that he wasn't dreaming, sat up.
"Thank you." Marielle thanked, hopping off the Batterbots' remains. Once she did, her scythe disappeared, and she brought out a camera from her coat pocket. She took a photo of the Batterbots' corpses, and then she put the camera away.
"So...where do we go now?" Chase asked.
"That way." Marielle said, pointing to a long, ominous hallway.
"Of course it has to be dark and ominous," Chase muttered.
The group walked into the tunnel. Shortly after, the wizards started bumping into each other in the darkness. "Ow!" "You're standing on my foot!" "Oof." "Sorry." "Who just elbowed me?" "You guys don't have a torch or something?" "Oh, good idea!" The tunnel brightened up from the light emitting from the flames on Chase's hands. "Anyone smell something burning?" Marielle asked. "Yeah, I'm basically holding fire," Chase replied. "No, something is burning," Marielle said. The group tracked the smell to the shoulder of Lane's burning Black Fang Coat. Lane yelped and Samantha attempted to use Water Burst on Lane's shoulder, but instead fired a ball of water at Lane, putting out the fire. The water ball more or less exploded, drenching the group and putting out Chase's fire. "When was Water Burst so powerful?" Samantha muttered. Lucas proceeded to summon a star of Astral Magic. "How about I handle the light from here on out?" Lucas said. The group nodded and advanced down the tunnel.
"Ugh, it's taking so long to get to Infernus Cloak...." Samantha complained.
The group finally approached the end of the tunnel and sighed. They walked out...
And straight into the middle of a group of Bonfire Soldiers.
"Not again." Lane mumbled.
Chase summoned multiple balls of flaming rocks once more and fired them at all the guards, all of which made contact, followed by a miniature explosion. "Well that was an explosive mome..." Chase trailed off as the smoke cleared and the Bonfire Guards simply brushed off their armor. Stupid elemental resistance, Chase thought as backed away as the guards advanced towards the group.
Lucas attempted to use Super Nova on the guards... but ended up with a different result...
A large, blinding orb of light formed directly above the guards, sucking them all close to it before repelling each of them. All the guards were now laying on the ground, unconscious.
"Woah. Lucas, when could you do that?" Chase asked in awe. The rest of the group, except Marielle, were gaping at the outcome of Lucas' spell.
"I couldn't- not before, at least. But the magic felt familiar..." Lucas said, staring at the guards on the ground. "Something about being in the past must be changing our magic- it's like the spells we normally use have been drastically altered."
"Well, we did go to a different universe, so don't be surprised." Greenheart said.
"Wait.....you guys are from a different universe?" Marielle asked.
"Yep." Samantha replied.
There was a pause.
"T-t-that's so cool!!" Marielle exclaimed, kind of shocked, breaking the silence.
"Actually Professor, we're in the past of the same universe." Lucas corrected.
"Nerd, we just want to get back," Lane muttered, before he was whacked by an ice hammer from Ian. He rubbed his head. "Hard luck, Lane," Chase laughed.
Lane sat up, glaring at Ian and Chase, not sure which one to hit first.
"I won't hesitate to bonk you again, Lane." said Ian, who was not receiving the glare well.
Lane looked away from Ian and Chase in defeat.
"So, which hallway do we go down now?" Chase asked, gesturing to the 3 hallways in front of the group. The group turned to Marielle, who shrugged. The group then turned to Greenheart. He paused for a moment, then said, "We'll split up. Chase and Samantha, who go down the first hall. Lucas, Ian, and Dylan you go down the second. Lane, Magicca-I mean Marielle, and I will go down the third." Marielle slightly winced at the slight note of distrust in Greenheart's voice when he mentioned her name. No one else seemed to notice, though. Lucas appeared to disagree with the idea of splitting up, but he didn't say anything.
"Well, c'mon Lane!" Marielle said, running into the hallway, waiting for him.
The group nodded and split off.
Chase and Samantha dashed down the left, Greenheart, Marielle, and Lane went down the right, and Lucas, Dylan, and Ian finally walked down the center hallway.
Ian summoned a smaller Ice to Meet You sentry that reflected light a couple hundred times over. Lucas fired a small shot similar to a Starbit (but brighter and less yellow) into its one fist, and they continued. Shadows danced across the walls and a thousand moving feet were heard- but maybe that was just the echo. The hallway was strangely long... mesmerizing... was there anything outside this corridor? Nothing seemed to matter other than what was lying further ahead...
Chase and Samantha walked down the hallway, with Chase emitting fire from his left hand, the two growing increasingly bored and tired.
After walking for a while, they arrived at a dead end. "CRAP!" Samantha yelled.
"SERIOUSLY?!" Chase exclaimed. He blasted the wall with flames in frustration. "Guess we're going back," Chase sighed. As he was turning, he noticed a little tunnel in the right side of the wall. He and Samantha looked at each other, then back at the tunnel.
Meanwhile, Ian, Lucas, and Dylan were walking down an extraordinarily long tunnel.
The three walked, and walked, and walked, and walked, and walked. Finally, the group stopped to rest, exhausted. Dylan sighed in irritation and laid against the side of the wall and instinctively jerked away from it, when it sent a weird feeling through him.
Immediately, a door materialized at the end of the hallway which was now evidently extremely short.
"I'm so gonna tear that Cloak guy apart," Dylan growled.
Meanwhile, Chase was trying to squeeze Samantha through the tunnel, and it looked like some scene from a ecchi anime.
Meanwhile, Marielle, Lane, and Greenheart were getting beat up by 3 Batterbots, 3 Gloricious, and 3 Nebluffs. They were trying to fight back, but the enemies were attacking them nonstop.
The three wizards walked into a well lit room with nothing in it. "Well at least they gave us decent-looking dead end," Dylan muttered. He turned around to go back where they came, but the entrance was gone. "What the-"
The miniature corridor Chase and Samantha were trying to cram through widened exponentially and abruptly. In the well lit room, an audible sigh was heard echoing from the roof.
"Thank god." Samantha sighed. The two went through the corridor, since there was now enough room for 2 people to go at once.
At this point, Greenheart, Marielle, and Lane gave up on trying to fight the hordes of monsters and ran down the hall as they could, Lane occasionally zapping a monster that got too close.
The three burst through a door and slammed it behind them, panting heavily. "Oh hey," Dylan waved at the three. The group turned and looked at Dylan, Ian, and Lucas and waved. Lane looked back at where the door had been and jumped.
An extremely ruffled Chase and a quite unkempt-looking Samantha emerged from a door which disappeared when they walked through. The room seemed to glow brighter, and everyone started looking around at the ceiling and walls in anticipation.
A wizard in a blood-crimson and charcoal-black coat and fedora appeared out of nowhere in a flourish of his own clothing tornado-whirling around him. The most odd thing about him, though, was his mask- a simple drawing of a maniacal-looking smile in the form of a circular emoticon face.
Lane hopped to his feet. "So you're the Infernus Cloak guy we're supposed to beat up?" he asked, pounding his left fist into his right hand. Dylan stood up and brandished his scythe, grinning.
"What a grand entrance!" Marielle exclaimed, practically glittering. "I've gotta take a photo! This is an opportunity I'll never get again, so I'm gonna make the most of it." She pulled out her camera and quickly snapped a photo. She then quickly put it away.
The wizard seemed to smirk from beneath the mask. "Not the most cautious of actors, are you? What a scene... frankly impressive play. They send me a team of young teenagers and a singular adult... how interesting. A cliche at best, however. In the end, it's not my job to care. You invaded. You tried to take hold of Skywatch. And now? A crushed rebellion." said "Infernus Cloak", in an extremely calm and sinister voice.
The flames around grew ever higher as the walls of the arena were lit like pyre.
Lane twirled his scythe. "Are you done with your villainous monologue so we can be done with you already?"
Marielle's scythe appeared in her hand as she shivered. "Y-yeah, are y-you done?"
Fireballs hovered over Chase's hands as bubbles of water rose up behind Samantha.
No response. Instead, a massive fire tornado- 2, actually- whirled into existence between the 3 groups. An immense amount of fireballs appeared over the masked wizard, primed and rapidly heating up. Traces of white and blue appeared at their fronts.
A single word was emitted from Chase's mouth. "Crap."
The wizards quickly dodged multiple fireballs being fired within split seconds of each other.
The two fire tornadoes rushed at the wizards that were now clumped together as a result of their attempts to dodge the fireballs. A nearly fatal mistake. Chase instinctively thrust his hand out to control the flames, slightly slowing the tornadoes down, long enough for Samantha to create a whirlpool large enough to extinguish both tornadoes at once.
The masked wizard summoned another fireball volley, now white-hot. Razor wheels of fire appeared around the cluster, all aimed at the general center but moving in a curved pattern.
Chase summoned his own wave of blazing rocks and fired them at Infernus', resulting in the destruction of both Chase's and Infernus' fiery rocks. Meanwhile, Ian had formed a shield of ice that blocked the fireballs.
Marielle had no idea what to do, but then she had the idea of deflecting the fireballs with her scythe. She tried it, and it somehow worked. Samantha was putting out the fireballs with waterballs she was shooting at the fireballs, and Greenheart was doing the same thing as Marielle, but it wasn't going as well, since he just had a hammer.
Infernus seemed frustrated and immediately built up a ring of fire that forced the wizards closer together. It did not put out for all the efforts of everyone combined, and another volley was summoned- but the fireballs were combining?
A massive orb akin to the actual sun appeared overhead of the cloaked wizard, who seemed to be holding it together with incredible effort.
QUICKTIME!
WEAKEN THE DRAGOS WITH ANTI-FIRE ATTACKS AND MANIPULATIONS (ICE, WATER, ETC.)
READY...
GO!
"What the heck is that?!" Dylan exclaimed. Chase attempted to separate the orb into it's smaller components, but failed, collapsing on his back from exhaustion. "Yeah...that's not...going...to work."
Samantha fired multiple balls of water at the orb, none of the attacks had much effect. Ian summoned another snow golem that attempted to punch the orb with it's one hand, but melted before it could do anything. "Seriously?" Samantha complained, "How are we supposed to stop that thing?"
The Dragos heated up but appeared to slightly separate due to strain on Infernus, exposing a blue-hot core, extremely exothermic but not as durable as one might think.
Marielle just gave up when she saw the Dragos. She then just started repeatedly slashing, hoping for the best.
The core dimmed at a slower rate than the outer layer with each strike, but still dimmed. Ian aimed and flicked his weapon in the direction of the exposed core, which would have normally taken the form of a Snowling Ball- instead seen as a blizzard.
The Dragos' core barely emitted any light after Ian's spell. Suddenly, three lightning bolts closed in on the Dragos, but instead of dimming the core, it brightened up. "Seriously?" Lane muttered.
Chase once more tried to control the Dragos, in attempt to stop it's decent, along with Samantha and Ian using spells of their respective elements on the core, in an attempt to destroy it. The Dragos slowed significantly and it's core was almost completely out. Samantha fired one more Water Burst at the Dragos.
An explosion followed. The Water Burst, inches away from the Dragos' core, vaporized the second the Dragos touched the would-be crater in the ground. All the wizards were knocked back into the wall behind them, some letting out cries of pain, others just slumping over, unconscious. The conscious wizards (Samantha, Lucas, Greenheart, and Lane) just inhaled sharply at the pain of the burn marks all over them.
As the smoke and dust cleared, Infernus Cloak was gone and where he was standing pre-explosion, his mask laid face-down.
Lane took in a shuddering breath. "...Coward...get back...here. I...was...n't done yet..."
"H-Holy....s-crap." Samantha said, in shock that they survived the Dragos.
Lane staggered to his feet and winced as he got up. "So...what now?"
Ian stood up and tilted his head. "We report back. Should have a teleport location somewhere in the castle. Not like they would lock us out."
Chase groaned, then sat up. He winced at the burn marks all over him.
Dylan and Marielle sat up, rubbing their faces. "I hope not," Dylan muttered. He pulled out his map which had...changed? "Okay, what in the name of the Astral Warden is this?" Dylan said. Lucas glanced at him. "Oh riiiight..." Dylan slowly hid his face behind the unfamiliar map.
Chase looked at Dylan's map. "Well that's weird but this still looks like Shiverchill Mountains," Chase said, pointing to blue mountains with snow on top. He tapped it and the group landed in the frigid temperatures of Shiverchill Mountains.
Marielle looked around the caverns in shock. "WHOA! I don't think I've been here before!!" She started taking pictures of practically everything around them.
When the group reached the castle, Alan and Iris were there, waiting for them.
"Who's this?" Iris asked, gesturing towards Marielle.
"Marielle," Lane said plainly.
"I'm Marielle Magiccatcher, a photographer!" Marielle proudly said, still taking pictures.
Ryder walked out to the castle entrance. "Alan, the amount of consolation letters we need to send just doubled and there are 160 orders for new spiked gauntlets for Blizzard Garbs," he said. Alan muttered something unintelligible.
Then he looked at the wizards. "You look like you've been hit by a Dragos," was his statement. "If that's what the flaming oversized orb is called, then yes," Dylan muttered in response.
Alan nodded. "Yeah, pretty much that's it. So. Now that the Skywatch grip is finished, we'll be able to make preperations for the final siege. However, we've got one problem- we've got so much to do mainly due to the rapidly advancing front directly toward the Caverns from the Spire. Our next deal is to disrupt the advance via a whole lot of chaos- just stir up some disorder, whatever means necessary. Plus, we got some new Skywatch prototypes- they call em Inter-territorial Explosive Mortar Spikes- ITEMS. Have fun."
Ian encased the prototypes inside his ice golem. "We'll have a blast, don't worry," Chase replied to Alan.
Ryder returned to the entrance. "Alan, the orders just doubled." Alan sighed, evidently annoyed. "Also you seven might want to heal yourselves before you go," Ryder said, heading back into the castle, summoning a shield of ice in front of the group behind him. Almost immediately, the groups burns and injuries disappeared. "Whoa," Chase looked at his hands, then the shield, then his hands again.
Marielle was the only one who laughed at Chase's pun.
Lane shot Marielle a look of annoyance and she closed her mouth abruptly.
Ian nodded approval and looked as though considering backhanding Chase- behind the shield, it wouldn't do anything. Alan went off to go "accidentally" lose some consolation reports and deal with them when the war was over.
Ryder's voice could be heard down the hall. "Alan, you dropped some consolation reports again." An annoyed grunt was Alan's response.
"Aight so let's stir up some chao-wait where do we go?" Chase turned to Iris.
Iris simply shrugged and Chase ran down the castle hallway, yelling, "Alan! Where are we supposed to go anyway???"
A few minutes later, the wizards were located just outside the territory of Dyno Dig Oasis, a few miles away from the approaching front of Bonfire Colony soldiers.
Marielle was rapidly taking photos, and there, they saw a girl in a red jersey burning sand. It was quite odd. "Hey, what're you doing?" Marielle asked. "Burning sand." The girl repiled. "It makes a cool noise."
Lane swung the flat side of his scythe at Chase's head, knocking him out.
The entire group looked somewhat relieved, then tried to look nonchalant as they noticed that Samantha had drenched Lane with the upside-down Downpourtal spell. The girl just looked utterly confused.
"You guys are weird.....which in my book, means you're cool! Can I join in on whatever you guys are doing?" The girl asked.
"About to place and detonate these things," Dylan replied, holding two ITEMS in his hand while the rest of the group-excluding Chase-took others out of the ice golem.
"And sure, feel free to help us." Lucas replied. Greenheart frowned. "I highly doubt Queen Iris will approve if we bring another new person into her kingdom." He muttered.
Lane shrugged. "It'll probably be fine, Professor Worrywart."
Greenheart glared at Lane, evidently thinking of a punishment for Lane when they get back.
"Woohoo!" The girl cheered. "And oh, by the way, I'm Kelsey."
Lucas politely smiled. "I'm Lucas." He gestured to each of his friends, "This is Ian, Chase, Samantha, Professor Greenheart, Dylan, Marielle, and L-"
"I can introduce myself, thank you very much." Lane snapped at Lucas. He then put on an angelic smile. "I'm Lane Stormclaw."
Chase sat up, rubbing his head and groaned. He waved then collapsed back onto the ground.
Lane handed one of the spikes over to Kelsey. "Place these wherever you want, then we'll set them off later...somehow."
Ian's golem drove a spike into the floor and it emitted two beeps before deploying what looked like a miniature satellite from its flat end. Ian tilted his head slightly before deploying a couple more.
Lucas carefully placed another ITEMS down. "I hope these don't hurt anyone too badly." He said softly to himself. Almost no one seemed to hear him.
Chase stumbled away to weakly put down an ITEMS in the sand. His stumbling like a drunkard was likely a result of Lane whacking him too hard on the side of his head.
Meanwhile at the palace, Ryder poked his head into the room Alan was currently in. "We are picking up signals from the Skywatch prototypes. Seems like they got them working. Should I call them back?"
"Hmm... Get them to a safe distance away, if they're on the field doing their thing it'll really assist in shock value. Oh, and the frontal platoon is a good 30 feet away, you might wanna do the thing faster," Alan suggested.
"On it," Ryder responded.
Lucas felt a slight vibration from his backpack and took out a scroll known as the Wizard Watch. Why it's called a wizard watch when one can't see anyone through it, let alone it not looking like a watch? Nobody knows.
The scroll had a message from Ryder that said, "Walk 15 feet away from the prototypes and wait for the frontline to arrive. They are currently 27 feet away and approaching quickly. After we remotely detonate the prototypes, attack and stir up more chaos. Also, try not to get captured or die." Lucas found that last sentence VERY reassuring.
Kelsey and Marielle attempted to peek over Lucas's shoulder, but he gently pushed them away. Marielle didn't care that much, but Kelsey did. "HEY! I wanted to see it!" Kelsey "growled", dropping the spikes that were still in her hand.
The moment the spikes touched the ground, everyone began to yell variations of "WHAT THE HELL KELSEY" and run around, panicking.
"What the-"
Ryder scribbled a note onto the Wizard Watch. You have 2 minutes and 40-probably 15, by the time I am done writing this-to get 15 feet away from the prototypes before you get blown apart. Still try to ensue chaos on the frontline.
Kelsey didn't know what to do so she just sat down, curled into a ball, and began to sing Japanese songs to herself quietly.
Lane sighed and grabbed the back of her collar and dragged her away from the spikes and behind the Glacial Shield Ian created. 10 seconds later, the approaching Bonfire Colony front arrived and looked at the spikes. The general, who was evidently Infernus Cloak with a new mask identical to the previous, looked at the spikes, then the Glacial Shield in the distance, then barked an order, to which the Bonfire colony backed away from the spikes and approached the shield. Dylan swore, noticing that the Bonfire colony was approaching them. "They're coming, what do we do now?" As an answer to Dylan's question, missiles came in contact with the spikes, creating an explosion that superheated the sand, forming melted glass that fell from the sky as well as forming a crater of melted glass in the sand. "Well that was a clear response," was Chase's statement. He ducked under a punch from Lane.
The group walked out from behind the Glacial Shield and looked down into the crater, in which several Bonfire Soldiers were stuck knee-deep in liquid glass, others lying face first in the glass, completely covered. Samantha fired balls of water at the glass, cooling it, with Ian somehow conjuring snowballs that turned into snowmen halfway down the slope before melting. After a few minutes, the Bonfire Soldiers were all stuck in a crater of solid glass, completely immobilized.
"So...do we go back now?" Chase asked.
"I guess." was Ian's response. Evidently their distraction had worked- distant shouts and general panic came from the area around. However, something that no one noticed had occurred. Infernus Cloak had apparently vanished, mask and coat stuck still in the glass.
Chase took out his map and tapped Shiverchill Mountains and the group teleported away.
"Oh. Thank god....it's all over...." Kelsey sighed, standing up.
Lane rolled his eyes. "Like you ever helped." He muttered. Kelsey looked down, slightly ashamed.
Lucas frowned. "Lane please stop being rude to everyone. It's really tiring."
Ian shifted an invisible smile glancing at Lucas doing diplomacy and turned his gaze to the hall. He concentrated before sending an entire glacier sliding across the tile. Alan burst from his office, door demolished, scythe ripping into the ice. "WHAT THE F***, DUDE?"
"Well it wasn't like you would exit any other way. Anyone can see that much."
"You're too good at this, man. The faster we can get you back to your future, the faster I can stop looking like an idiot."
"So what now?"
Alan kicked aside the pieces of the glacier and created a crystalline geo-map of the territories. He pointed at a chasm evidently newly carved, bordering from the east side of Shiverchill to the north side of the Spire.
"That's your next objective. There's something down there. Something that continuously keeps on killing anything that approaches. We're going down there to calm it down, and if possible, get it on our side. We have no idea what it is, but it keeps roaring."
Ian took it in before looking up from the map. "We?"
Alan placed 3 fingers on the bridge of his nose and forehead, sighing. "Yes. Does it look like I keep this deathblade around for paperwork?"
Chase inched closer to Samantha, eyeing the blade and remembering Alan's earlier hostility.
Lane twirled his scythe. "So can we go?" he grunted.
Alan frowned at Lane's impatience, and then nodded. "Let's head down there."
Greenheart smirked slightly. "Lane, since you want to get there so much, why don't you be the first to greet this beast, once we reach it?"
Lane nodded. "Deal."
Alan slammed his fist through the map made of multicolored crystal. In an instant, he phased into thin air, and a hovering shard marker with some runic text carved into it appeared over the chasm on the map.
Constant, earthquaking roars came out of the chasm. Something appeared to heat up- the crystals around fell into the chasm, expanding it. Alan created a barrage of overhead crystals in a blue tinge and tossed them all raining down into the pit. Anyone there who had been in the Caverns instantly recognized it- Makalu's Crystal Crash. A mass of incomprehensible rocks and shards came out of the pit, culminating into an absolutely monstrous winged Ice Wyrm 10 times the size of any of the Wardens' known Ice Wyrms, tinged in red and pulsing with radiative heat. The textbooks in the Wardens' present had called this thing the "Artificial Deathwyrm", and no pictures existed. Alan's hair went white. Ian staggered.
Lane's face turned pale. "Uh- uh please tell me that's not what's been roaring down here."
Alan spun his scythe and gripped the handle's end, lining up the handle and blade so the handle went up the length of his arm and the blade curled around his shoulder. Ian summoned a couple hundred icicles and aimed. The A.D roared and fired a volley of flames at the group.
Marielle instinctively took a picture, before Chase told her to "Snap back into reality". She put her camera away and pulled out her scythe.
Alan bended to his bottom right, sliding the blade down his front and mitigating a fireball. As it reached the end of its movement, Alan gripped the area just below the blade and slammed it into the floor, creating a gigantic crystal wall blocking more of the volley. Ian fired the icicles, impaling a centimeter into the the snout and detonating. The wyrm reeled and started charging up a heat cannon in its throat.
As the flames burst out of the wyrm's mouth, Chase redirected them upwards, back at the wyrm. "I'm fired up!" he exclaimed.
The wyrm clamped its jaws down and snorted ash in indignation. With flaming jaws it dashed forth, mouth wide open, aimed at Chase. In an instant, it was so incredibly close...
QUICKTIME!
Halt the jaws to not get gored on its canines!
READY...
GO!
Chase braced himself as the jaws flashed towards him. He heard a thud and some muffled roaring and opened his eyes, to see a massive cinderblock of ice wedging the jaws of the wyrm open, which was evidently controlled by Alan. "Thanks," Chase said.
Alan had both of his arms held out towards him, and was evidently bracing as if he was the block. "MOVE!" was his one callout before the block was crushed in the wyrm's jaws. He was knocked back by what might have been the pressure of the jaws on the block, and Ian raced to the front.
Chase melted the flying remains of the ice block before they hit anyone and Samantha fired the melted remains at the wyrm.
No matter what the wizards did, the wyrm recovered from every attack. Suddenly, Greenheart called Ian, Samantha, and Lane over and said something to them. Samantha summoned 5 bubbles of water. Lane fired a lightning bolt into each and Ian quickly encased the electrified bubbled in ice. Samantha fired the electrical icebombs at the wyrm, and they hurtled towards it with incredible speed.
Greenheart appeared to have thought of a memory that always worked.
Somewhere in reality, a tech wizard feels a strange sense of nostalgia.
Ian stared up at the spectacle- lightning and ice danced in an explosion rivaling a max-power Supernova. The wyrm's midsection had multiple chunks broken off of it, and its lower jaw had a piece simply vaporized. Its left wing having been detached, it plummeted from its spot in the air onto the floor, apparently dying. The crystals around its... wounds? began to turn to ashes, and it lost its red coloration, turning a normal blue. Alan walked over, took a good 2 seconds looking at the fallen beast, and watched it die. He proceeded to close its eyes solemnly...
And hurled it with maximum force into the cavern like a slam-dunk, barely any effort due to its crystalline composure.
"That's done and done. Anyone want a snow cone?"
Everyone stared at Alan, their faces a mix of awe and horror.
"So I assume that means you don't want to get snow cones. Alright, everyone back to the castle..."
Alan pulled up another crystal geo-map and crushed the floating shard over the chasm. The wizard immediately phased out along with the map.
The wizards stared at where Alan and the map were previously. "Does he know that he left us behind?" Dylan said.
“Probably not.” Marielle sighed.
Chase sighed and pulled out his map and tapped Shiverchill Mountains. The group appeared at the entrance of Shiverchill Mountains. They trudged to the Caverns and burst through the palace doors, half of them glaring at Alan the second their eyes located him.
Lucas looked at Alan. "So... what's next?"
Alan pulled up a map. It cracked in its center and broke into fragments on the floor. In the table's place was a knife with words etched into one of its flat sides.
"Your informant is an infernus! Come then, archagent, let's finish this! You and your entourage, to Glacias' den. Don't leave me waiting! :) -Cloak"
Alan cut the knife in half and looked towards the castle gates. A commotion outside, but they'd have enough time to encounter Infernus Cloak before whatever was out there got to the gates. Guards stood ready in their positions. Alan nodded a signal to them and they pulled out their wands.
"We go to the den of Glacias. We finish this idiot. We go home, and we stop the front. We move forward, we infiltrate the Bonfire palace, we kill their leader."
Iris burst in right at that moment. "Don't be an idiot Alan, he's going to kill all of you the minute you step in that den." She hissed.
Lane growled. "I'm all for killing him."
Iris' eyes narrowed, and suddenly she seemed to look extremely terrifying.
"Now, Lane, there will be none of that in these Caverns. In my Caverns. I suggest that you wipe your annoyed expression off your face right this instant because, in case you didn't know, I'm in power here, and I have the ability to wipe your head off your shoulders if I wanted to."
Lane's eyes widened.
"Can I just critically injure him?" Lane peeped.
Iris' hand moved towards her scabbard, where a deadly sharp blade had been kept.
Lane's eyes widened even more. "Okay okay we won't kill Cloak," he croaked. "Please don't kill me..."
Alan changed the blade of the scythe between forms before deactivating it.
"Given the circumstance, we don't have a choice. He's done something extreme. Made an entire artificial Wyrm in the Wyrmchasm on a whim. Without assistance. I'm willing to bet he's made something on our side, too. He's just toying around at this point- so i'm betting on the off-chance he'll try to play with his prey. It's there we strike. And hey, if anyone ends up dead, it's gonna be me." Ian serrated the edge of the sickle and considered for a moment. A choice. The cloak or the advancing... army, presumably? If they went for Cloak, they had a higher chance of dying. If they went for the army, Cloak would trigger something unimaginable a millisecond after every body dropped. In the end, the choice was a coin flip. It happened to land on a head to take.
Iris stared at Alan in disbelief. "Alan I can't let you die I-" She paused. "Fine. But if any of you die I will find my way to hell just to kill you again."
Alan snickered. "And where would we go, double-hell? Relax. We'll probably win." He proceeded to slink back with the main group, almost silently but panickedly whispering "do we win do we win" over and over.
"So are you guys coming?" Chase asked, tossing a fireball back and forth between his hands.
Iris glared at Chase. "Do you know what is extremely abundant in this palace, Chase?"
Chase looked around blankly. "Ice?"
"And what are you currently playing with right now?"
"Fire."
"And what happens when fire comes near ice?"
"...It melts?"
Iris kicked Chase in the stomach, and the fire went out. "Insufferable fools." She muttered, shooting once last worried glance at Alan before leaving the room. Chase was clutching his stomach. "...Is s-she always this scary?" He gasped.
"Only since the war," Ryder said, walking past the group with a stack of papers in his hands.
Lucas glanced at Ryder.
"But why did the war even happen? Why can't you find a peace?"
Why can't there be a way to stop the killing?
Lucas shook his head at that last part. He was nearly certain that no one- not even his friends- perhaps not even Ian- would ever understand why he refused to take someone's life.
Unfortunately for Lucas, Ryder was already out of earshot.
Alan sighed. "One of us provoked the other. I'm still not sure who fired the first spell. High ranking officers in the dirt. It was a matter of time before it broke out. Bonfire, admittedly, is incredibly stubborn for their good traits. If we don't stop, they'll overrun us. Our best bet is capture- but if it comes to it, we aren't supposed to hesitate in killing their leader."
And their leader is their timeline's fire warden. NO stress, Chase thought.
Lane frowned. "I don't get why we're helping you idiots fight a war. We're trying to get back to our timeline, that's our first priority. Why should we even care about a war that doesn't involve us?"
"Remember how the gears on this clock are made of an unknown metal? The only other instance of this metal happens to be in our enemy's leader's staff. At least, that's how it appears. Sheen and toughness line up. Plus, I have this irking feeling the Caverns play a role in your jobs." Alan stated. Ian remembered Makalu and opted to try stabbing it into the floor next time.
Chase was standing at the door, evidently waiting for the group while fidgeting with his hands, trying not to instinctively toss a fireball between his hands.
"Can. We. Please. Go?" Chase was getting impatient.
"Sheesh." Alan proceeded to pull up a smaller map of a cave and a separated island within, and slammed his fist through the middle. He phased off and the map remained, plainly hovering in wait of another user.
Chase tapped the center and teleported after Alan. "Hey look, he remembered us this time," Dylan said, before teleporting away as well. The rest of the group followed, ending up in a cave lit by a fireball hovering above Chase's right hand.
"This doesn't seem safe." Lucas said softly. He didn't like the cave they were in at all. It was dark and foreboding, and there was no sign of Infernus Cloak.
"Thank you Mr. Obvious," Lane said, rolling his eyes, "Of course it isn't safe." He walked towards the ice surrounding the mini-island, but tripped over a small stone and fell on his arse. "Ow..."
"Honestly you deserved that."
"Yep."
"Without a doubt."
"Should've broken your hand along with that too."
"Agreed."
"Are you okay Lane?!"
"Guys don't be rude. Lane, you good?"
"Honestly though, you have to admit he's been a jerk for quite a while."
"Yeah, I'm not sorry for you, Lane."
Lane growled and stalked off to the mini island.
Suddenly, knives began to protrude from the walls- the kind seen in those stupid magic shows that are either optical illusion or sleight of hand. They advanced no closer than the edges of the bridge to the den, but they appeared to be... destabilizing the ice?
"We... should get out of here." Lucas said, staring at the ice nervously. Chase glanced around suspiciously. "I don't see any Infernus Clonk guy..."
Lane looked around.
The group backed away from the ice.
Lane looked at the entrance.
Felix had his cloak ability on, he wandered when he saw a group of wizards.
Felix flickered. "Oh no."
"Did you see that?" Chase asked.
Felix appeared, Oh no, he thought.
A 14 year old teenager on a rainbow cloud stood before them, he looked nervous. And a golden staff with a fire orb was strapped on his back.
"Who are you?" Dylan asked.
"I'm Felix, Felix Frostblade", Felix said, a Prodraxis and Terrosaur was behind him.
"I'm Lucas Herolight." Lucas said, before taking in a deep breath. "These are my friends, Ian Frostbreaker, Dylan Nightshadow, Chase Flamemaster, Professor Greenheart, Samantha Waterwhisper, Kelsey Wildvault, and Marielle Magiccatcher." He gestured to each of them as he spoke their names, and exhaled when he finished listing them.
"The tall guy who looks like he hates everyone is Alan Everfrost." Lane chimed. Alan glared at him.
"Ok", Felix said, "Uh-I'm supposed to be an ice wizard, but I'm an astral wizard."
"Well it's ice to meet you then!" Chase laughed. Ironically, Lane grabbed Chase by the back of his collar and crammed him into a larger version of Ian's snow golem.
Felix shrugged, he sat down on his rainbow cloud.
Chase increased his body heat, and the ice melted away. Alan shot him a piercing look.
"Riiight. Don't melt things in a cavern filled with ice." Chase said sheepishly.
Felix's Prodraxis slithered up to him and curled around him, he smiled.
Felix's staff glowed, well- the orb glowed.
Chase was the only one who didn't seem to notice, as he was busy rubbing the water off his face with his hands.
Felix looked at the orb, he took out his staff.
"You're not going burn this place down with that stick, are you?" Lane asked half-jokingly.
Another glare from Alan. "I strongly advise that you put the staff away." Greenheart said, adjusting his glasses.
"Sorry", Felix said, he strapped his staff back onto his back, "Soooo, how did you guys get here?"
Felix's Terrosaur was looking around curiously.
Felix's Prodraxis looked at his Terrosaur.
Felix looked at his pets.
Felix sat down on his rainbow cloud.
"So where's the Inferior Clonk guy anyway?" Chase said. "He said he'd be here..."
"Who?" Felix asked.
"Infernus Cloak," Dylan corrected. "Well I'm going to clonk him anyway," Lane muttered.
"Hm."
Felix looked around.
Lucas glanced at the walls warily. "If he isn't here... then is he just trying to distract us? He could have lured us here so we wouldn't be at the castle- he could already be at the castle by now!" A panicked expression took over his face.
"The castle in Shiverchill Mountains?" Felix asked.
"Is revealing that there's a castle in the Crystal Caverns that doesn't belong to that weirdo yeti against the law or...?" Kelsey asked, glancing at Alan.
"Hm, do we need to get there?", Felix was suddenly serious, as he always was, well mostly.
As an answer, rumbling followed and the entrance to the cave more or less imploded, trapping the wizards inside.
"Uh oh", Felix looked at his pets, and then his staff. And then his pets again. Felix took out his staff and then his pets.
Chase summoned two molten rocks that landed on the ground and started revving up.
Felix started destroying rocks with his staff, his Prodraxis were squeezed the rocks into pieces, while his Terrosaur was shooting flames at the rocks, which did nothing.
Nothing, except for making Alan's hair whiter than the insides of a jicama.
"Is there a way out of here that doesn't involve fire?" Dylan asked, staring at the ice on top of the blocked entrance. Greenheart stepped forwards, his hammer smashing into the ground. The rocks shook slightly, and now some of them could easily be taken out of the way.
Felix started blasting the rocks.
"Fire is my thing, Dylan. Don't try to overshadow it," Chase said in response to Dylan. The Razorfires blasted their way through the ice and rocks, leaving a trail of flames that quickly died out in their wake.
Felix sighed.
Something thumped from behind. Something... light. Barely noticeable- wait no, the sound of 50 blades scraping against ice. No longer as quiet....
Felix turned around.
"Uh, what is that?" Chase said nervously. The group stared down the tunnel, slowly backing towards the entrance.
Felix looked at his Prodraxis. "We ride."
Felix strapped his staff on his back and jumped on his Prodraxis' back, "C'mon!"
"Do you think that can fit all of us on it..?" Chase asked skeptically. Lane nodded along. "Nothing can ever fit Chase on it, his mouth is too big."
"My Prodraxis is not even at it's max length, and it can fit my terrosaur and me", Felix shrugged.
Chase shot Lane a scorching gaze.
"Hop on!", Felix said .
Lucas shivered as the sound of the blades came even closer. They all slid on to the Prodraxis, and he slithered away from the noise at an alarmingly high speed.
"Hang on tight!", Felix yelled as his Prodraxis' wings appeared and launched into the air.
"THIS THING CAN FLY?" Marielle shrieked.
"OF COURSE IT CAN, ITS A PRODRAXIS!", Felix yelled, "AND I TRAINED IT!"
"Marielle have you ever seen a Prodraxis before?" Samantha asked, slightly irritated by the yelling. Marielle shook her head. "I've seen them but they always just looked like snakes. My father instructed me to stay far away from them. Actually now that I think of it, he instructed me to stay far away from nearly everything."
Again, Greenheart's face darkened. Lucas noticed, and was about to ask him about it, but then the palace came into view. Felix's pet swooped down, landing at the front gates.
"We're here," Felix got off.
The others followed. Lucas frowned. "I don't think he's here yet. If he was, then this whole place would probably have been burned to the ground."
Felix looked around.
The group walked inside the palace. "I don't think anyone's here..." Dylan trailed off, his eyes moving to a currently boiling puddle in the corner.
Felix looked around again.
"Maybe he's still here?" Samantha suggested.
"Hm," Lane looked around.
"There's no way the puddle got here naturally. He has to be here." Lucas said as Ian froze the puddle before anything else could melt.
"Thank for the info, Lord Obvious, but newsflash: we already figured that out." Lane replied sarcastically.
"Is Lane always sarcastic?" Felix whispered to Samantha, who apparently was the nearest to him. She nodded. "He's just irritable in general," she whispered.
Felix shrugged.
Felix pushed open a door.
Iris was on the other side of it. "I told you not to go there Alan, now look what's happened! Your little masked friend is somewhere in this stupid labyrinth of a palace and I have no idea where. He could melt down the whole place if he wanted to-" She noticed Felix. "Don't tell me it's another person from your timeline. How many of you guys are there?" Iris groaned. She spoke in a panicked and stressed way, and for a moment, the oh so brave queen had appeared to have finally broken down from the stress- of course, it was only a moment and Iris regained her composure.
Felix frowned.
"Well let's find him," Dylan said, pounding his left fist into his right hand.
Felix looked at his Terrosaur and nodded, it ran off in the corridors of the palace, "She should be able to find the Infernus Clonk guy"
"What would we even do if we found him? We're not gonna kill him, right?" Lucas asked. Everyone stared at him.
"W-we're not gonna kill him, right?"
"If he's after someone to kill and is working for someone evil, then we'll have to kill him", Felix sighed, "Which I have no idea of, because I have no idea what's going on."
The Terrosaur returned, nudging Felix. "Did she find anything?" Lane asked.
A Blizzard Buster dropped from her jaws, and fell to the floor.
Ryder's Blizzard Buster.
Iris' eyes widened. "Where is Ryder? Where did you find this?!"
"Its dead, meaning. Whoever this Ryder guy is, is captured by this Infernus Clonk!", Felix said.
Felix looked at it, he jumped on his Terrosaur, "You guys stay here", he said, he tapped her and she zoomed off into the corridor, his cloak behind him.
"We're going to follow him, right?" Dylan asked.
"I guess we should." All of them started chasing after the Terrosaur.
Felix's Prodraxis followed.
Chase sighed and summoned a Pyromane and pulled Samantha on board.
The Pyromane bolted after the Terrosaur and the rest of the group stared, dumbfounded at the scorch marks left behind by the Pyromane Chase and Samantha were on.
Felix's Prodraxis looked at the rest of the group.
Felix's Terrosaur seemed to know where Clonk was.
The rest of the group arrived, hands on their knees, panting heavily.
Felix landed gracefully, he looked at CLONK.
Felix took out his staff.
Both sides were at a standstill, each waiting for the other to make the first move. Infernus attacked first, blasting a torrent of flames at the wizards, splitting the group apart. Cracks spread across the wall from the hole the flames caused. Samantha, Ian, and Iris split off from the group to repair the wall and prevent the castle from falling in on itself.
Felix shot multiple rays of light at Infernus.
Infernus decided to discard the flames for his own specialty- blades. In an instant, approximately 12 knives appeared in the path of the rays, refracting the beams across the room. Ian slammed a deactivated sickle into the wall of the castle, before muttering something unintelligible. Frost formed at his feet and on the wall's cracks, before being replaced with ice- the wall stabilized.
Meanwhile, the cloaked chaosmaker continued to wield the blades, using the heat of such concentrated light energy to keep the knives aloft. With a distant laugh he regrouped the blades and swept his arm upwards diagonally- the steel responding by shooting forward with incredible speed.
Felix smirked and casted an astral dome around them, deflecting the steel back at Clonk and stabbing him straight in the head.
Or at least, where his head should be. The metal impaled his cloak, pinning it to the wall, Infernus standing 2 inches away from where he was previously.
Felix sighed.
Something glowed in the distance.
Infernus paid no mind and took advantage of the situation, blades appearing from nowhere and circling around the astral dome. Light creates heat. Heat attracts knife.
A witch appeared from the light and used storm shields to blocked the knives.
Infernus did not quite account for the intrusion, but did not care. Recalling the knives, he floated them into the shields, where the blades hovered in conductive static.
Coming closer, Felix knew who she was. he released the dome and charged up a blast.
The witch did as well.
"Hang on is this like, your girlfriend or something?" Lane asked Felix. Felix ignored him, focusing on the ray of light he was charging up.
The witch blast a ray of lightning at Clonk, Felix also unleashed his ray of light, both rays combined and shot at tremendous speed straight at Clonk.
Infernus Cloak dashed out of the way at an impossible speed and instead of spearing him, the ray tore through the castle.
The witch summoned a ton of electric energy and held the castle up, a knife cut through a band that bundled up her hair. Her hair fell down and sort of shined.
Iris grumbled and muttered something about "castle" and "careless wizards". Chase and Lane charged at Cloak, the two attacking, surprisingly, in sync. Spear, scythe, dodge, spear, lightning and fire magic, scythe. Infernus was slowly being forced back before releasing a wave of fire, the two wizards, barely dodging, their sync thrown off.
Felix and the witch blocked the fire, Felix casted a shield while the witch used multiple storms shields to stop them from hitting the others.
Infernus swept the area around him in a blanket of flames. A massive effigy of a mask appeared in an orange glowing outline behind him as the knives fell back and regrouped behind him in troves. Every single blade was engulfed in flame, and with bated breath did everyone hold anticipation overwhelming.
Cloak raised a hand and closed it into a fist.
CHIMERA ATTACK!
BLADESTORM+FIRE RAIN
BLAZE OF EDEN ACTIVE
Flames rained from above encasing sharpened and tempered edges. It was miraculous the castle did not simply melt. The group had to have perfect movement to not get singed, and exquisite dodging to not get cleaved.
Felix and the witch formed a large shield around the ground and themselves, powerful enough to withstand the entire attack.
Ian formed a massive Glacial Shield above and in front of the others as Chase strained to pull all the flames together while Samantha hit any knifes that came close with a Water Blast.
"Water only slows down the knife!" the witch told Samantha.
Knives slammed into the shield, deeply gauging cracks into it.
"Olivia, form an inner shield!" Felix yelled.
Olivia formed an inner shield, while still the other shield that combined with Felix's weakly withstood from collapsing.
The knives slammed into the dome relentlessly, forcing weak points into the dome, eventually shattering it. The knifes reared back and hurtled towards the wizards with astonishing speed.
That was, before they were incinerated by a Dragos from Chase, formed by the fire he had been redirecting.
The Dragos blasted through a wall, melting a hole that was quickly frozen over by Ian and Iris, the latter glaring at Chase, who had collapsed on the ground in exhaustion.
Felix and Olivia released the outer dome and then casted another one, this time weaker.
"Let the waves consume you...." Samantha summoned a massive Angel's Fountain, that even Infernus couldn't evade in time, and sucked him in. He burst out of the Angel's Fountain, unconscious.
Olivia sat down on the ground, exhausted.
Felix walked over, "Need a hand?"
Dylan slung Infernus over his shoulder, after taking all weapons off of him, hence the abnormally large pile of sharp objects next to Dylan. "How does he carry so many weapons around at once without so much of a clink?" Dylan muttered.
Olivia nodded and took his hand, Felix pulling her up and reluctantly letting go, but he didn't show it
Olivia's Solarasis was flying around the group.
Lucas eyed the weapons. "He didn't even use most of these. How can he even battle with all this on him?"
"The real question, is who's behind the mask?" Iris said darkly, striding up to the wall Dylan had propped Infernus Cloak up against. She reached for his mask, about to yank it off, but unfortunately, Cloak recovered from his unconscious right before she could. Moments later, Iris was flung into a wall with such force that you could hear her bones cracking.
Felix took out his staff and Olivia took out her Draconyx.
Vines from Greenheart wrapped around Infernus, restraining him...before he lit the vines on fire, turning them to ash. Just as he stepped forward, another set of vines grabbed him.
Infernus torched the vines, via heat wave that knocked the wizards back once more. Lane and Marielle were the first to respond, immediately slashing at Infernus with their scythes, but neither successfully landed a blow on him. "Hey Clonk!" a voice behind Infernus exclaimed. Infernus lashed out his right leg, tripping Marielle and Lane causing the two to land on each other. Infernus turned around, only to be met in the face with a basketball that sent him staggering back. The ball bounced back at Kelsey and she threw it again, knocking Infernus back, into the path of Felix's prepared blast.
Felix shot the blast directly at Infernus.
Infernus was slammed into the palace wall with a massive thud. He stood up, only for a solid punch from Dylan to send him tumbling back, unconscious. Lane and Marielle both stood up, red-faced.
Olivia giggled, watching Lane and Marielle.
Felix walked over to Infernus, tapping him on the shoulder.
Without warning, a glowing orange effigy of Infernus' mask appeared overhead, before fading. The cloaked chaos stood again, mask cracked.
Infernus did not appear distraught, rather... smiling?
"Haha! Such brutality... it's a shame I picked the side of the flame this war around. If I'd known how violent you could have gotten, I'd simply have sabotaged Skywatch's missiles and sent YOU to shred their forces! Well played!" he commented, having seen this deathbattle as a test. "Finish me now, and go revel in your demonic ability to hurt, kill as you rip down the lair of their Lord Flame. If only I'd be able to watch..."
Lane fiddled with his scythe, as if he had no idea what to do with it...which was likely true.
"We're not going to end you." Lucas said. A long rope of light was conjured, and flew towards Cloak, tying him up. "We're going to get answers on whatever we want to know about the Bonfire Colony, and then your fate is up to Iris." Greenheart coughed. "Queen Iris." He corrected.
"Preparing is an essential, however. Overpreparing is crucial," Felix said.
With a swift crack!, Felix snapped Clonk’s neck with his staff.
Infernus' body thumped over and the group's eyes widened exponentially...well except for Alan who was used to death at this point, and Iris, who was concentrating on trying to block out the pain flooding over her body.
Felix strapped his staff and looked at the horizon.
Iris was now standing up, leaning on Alan, both having one arm wrapped around the other's neck.
"So what's behind the mask?" Dylan questioned.
"Lets find out", Olivia said, walking forward. She was now kneeling next to Clonk, she pulled the mask off.
Felix watched.
The second the mask came off, a burst of flames ensued, knocking all the wizards back, blowing another hole in the wall, and incinerating the body. "Talk about masking your identity," Chase muttered.
Felix created a sphere that surrounded him and Olivia, protecting them from the blast.
Alan sighed, both relieved and exasperated.
"I'm assuming we just got through the easy part. Now... now we have to get into their palace... under a volcano... drenched in lava." Alan kicked the floor, and a massive clatter from the sleeping chambers ensued. Some kind of impossible hybrid between a bed and a chair slid across the hallway and stopped at Alan's feet. He shifted to the right and laid Iris onto the... unnatural furniture.
"What the-" Felix released the sphere.
Elsewhere, magma drenched a palace in protective measure. A king and a warden, the opponent at the end of the line.
Soon.
Felix sighed.
Lucas eyed the very odd piece of "furniture" Iris was lying on. "Will she be alright?" He asked, concerned.
"Hopefully. Besides, I'm contractually obligated to keep royalty alive. Failure is akin to death-warrant treason. Plus, I actually want the queen to not die." Alan looked as if he were about to continue, then quickly decided against it as if it embarrassed him.
"Well of course not, she's your queen," Dylan said, ever so densely. The entire group stifled a laugh except for Iris, Alan, who was turning less pale than would be considered normal for him, and Dylan, who was genuinely confused.
Felix looked at the chamber.
Olivia watched her pets.
"Shall we go to the fire palace?" Felix asked.
"It's not that easy, I imagine that we can't just saunter up to the palace and barge in, weapons drawn, Someone's going to catch or kill us if we do that. Maybe we could disguise as guards at the palace?" Lucas suggested.
"Pshh, disguises are old fashioned. Ever thought of cloaking yourself?" Felix said, he swished his cloak over him and he disappeared.
"Don't be cocky you brainless twit, given that we can't disappear like you can, disguises are our best option." Greenheart snapped in his "scolding teacher voice".
Chase looked at himself. "I think I'll fit right in." Dylan activated his Invisibility Cloak.
"Does anyone have cloaks?" Felix repeated.
"No, we don't, BECAUSE WE DIDN'T PLAN ON GETTING SENT INTO THE HELLS OF TIME TO FIGHT AN IMBECILE OF A FIRE WARDEN." Lane yelled before storming off angrily.
Kelsey stared at the others. "What's up with him?!"
Marielle quickly followed Lane.
Felix sighed.
Chase summoned his backpack and pulled countless amounts of fire-base outfits out. "Will these do?" he asked, standing next to a massive pile of fire outfits.
"Alright, me and Dylan won't need them. We can get in with our cloak abilities," Felix said.
Lucas hesitated. "At the very best, we'd pass as civilians with those outfits. They don't let those in castles, do they?"
"Me and Dylan will take out some guards, drag them away and take their outfits," Felix replied.
"Will Candle Knights outfits work?" Chase asked.
"Candle Knight outfits should work," Olivia said.
"Great." Chase turned his backpack upside down and at least 20 Candle Knight outfits tumbled out.
"What the-"
Meanwhile with Lane:
Lane stared at the palace walls, angry, annoyed, and mostly helpless. He hated this place and everything about it. It was awful, being stuck here, helping with a war that he never should have been involved in. It's all Chase's fault, really.
Marielle walked up to Lane, interrupting his hateful thoughts. He heard the soft crunch of snow behind him and turned around, eyes narrowed. "What do you want?"
"Are you ok?" Marielle asked.
"You have to be empty in the head to not be able to answer that question yourself," he muttered.
Marielle sighed.
Lucas and company stepped walked out to where Lane and Marielle were. "Stop moping and put this on." Kelsey said, throwing a set of Candle Knight armor at him. "You too Marielle."
"Where are we going?"
"On a rescue op. Maybe if you hadn't stormed away so early you'd have known!" Chase replied cheerfully. Lane glared at him, pulling his scythe out threateningly.
Chase backed away, hands up in front of him.
Not that it made Lane rethink stabbing Chase though.
And so began another episode of Tom & Jerry but with thunderman and flame boy instead of cats and mice...
In the end, Lane's weapon was confiscated and duct tape covered Chase's mouth. A perfect solution.
"Wff diff if a shtffy situafun," Chase mumbled behind the tape. Lane took a step forward.
"Are we going or what?" Felix said, impatient.
Dylan stepped between Lane and Chase. "Yes, let's go," he said with an edge of exasperation to his voice.
Felix turned invisible.
"I'll stay with her," Alan said, looking at Iris.
Dylan pulled out his map. "Well here goes nothing," he said as he tapped the location of Bonfire Spire.
Felix took out his map and pressed Bonfire Spire.
The rest of the group that was coming along did the same.
Felix looked around.
“If haf if?” Chase mumbled, pointing to a castle halfway up the volcano, seemingly made out of igneous rock.
Ian appeared even more uncomfortable than he normally was around volcanoes.
Olivia looked around.
Samantha yanked the tape of Chase's mouth. "I'll admit you're adorable when you can't speak clearly, but we need communication right now." She said. Chase blushed.
"Stop with the sappiness and lets go!" Olivia hissed, hurrying towards the palace.
"Woah..." Chase looked around the inside of the palace in awe.
Everyone else on the other hand, were busy sweating from the heat of the palace.
Felix looked at a large door.
"Where's all the servants and palace security and staff?" Lucas asked, staring at the empty halls around them.
Felix pushed it open.
The door widened to a group of Bonfire Soldiers currently cleaning their weapons. The group stiffened.
Felix shot the entire group with a ray of light.
"...Well I guess we can screw the stealth option," Dylan said, brandishing his Candle Caster. He looked at it then tossed it away, pulling out his Eclipse Sky Scythe. "Good. I didn't want to either," Lane said, doing the same.
Felix looked at a giant pair of doors that was decorated with jewelry.
The group brandished their weapons (except for Lucas, who took his out reluctantly). Lane and Dylan were the first to make their moves, incapacitating the soldiers with the end of their scythes.
Lucas immediately put his bow away after the first few guards dropped. "Stop! We're not here to kill them!" he cried, hands thrust outwards to stop Lane and Dylan. Light flashed across the room, dozens of soldiers falling to floor, unconscious. One of the guards had dropped in front of Lucas, his head missing from his shoulders. There was a ring on his hand and a splotch of dried milk on his left sleeve.
He was married... and had kids too.
His poor family...
Lucas' face flushed with guilt as he dropped to his knees.
Lane looked at the the unconscious soldiers on the ground, blood tipped scythe in hand. "Lucas, why didn't you just do that earli-Lucas?"
The Astral Warden had gone quiet, shaking slightly. "I don't want to go on with this mission." he whispered, staring at the bloody mess that Dylan and Lane had created. The image of the guard was embedded into his brain, the evidence of his family more vivid than ever now.
"..."
Nobody knew how to respond. They hadn't seen Lucas like this since...ever.
"You're not the only one who wanted their close ones to stop whatever they were doing," Felix said, appearing.
"Lucas, you can stay here if you want. Ian, you stay with him," Greenheart said.
Felix put on his hood and walked towards another pair of doors.
"Haven't we had enough doors for one day?" Samantha muttered.
Felix shrugged.
Greenheart seemed to be the first to know what was going on and vines snaked in from the outside, surrounding the group, right before the door exploded in a burst of flames. The group was knocked back and the vines instantly turned to ash.
"The heck?" Olivia sat up.
And in the place of the door, was a wizard with slightly duller colored hair looking similar to Chase.
"I think that's the fire warden 2000 years ago," Samantha whispered to Chase
"I still think I look better," Chase whispered back. Samantha smothered a laugh.
Lane groaned slightly. "Like one Chase wasn't enough."
"Hey!"
"Is for horses." Greenheart said.
"So you're the flame boy of this time?" Dylan grinned, brandishing his scythe.
"Like a sarcastic lightning warden wasn't enough," Samantha shot back.
Felix and Olivia took out their wands.
"Anyone else feeling uncomfortable about fighting, well, me?" Chase asked. Samantha was the only one to raise a hand. "Wow, thanks guys."
Lane was the first to make his move and was immediately forced to the side by a blast of flames.
Felix cast a sphere of light around himself and rolled towards the fire warden 2000 years ago.
Razorfires came from the warden's direction and slammed into Felix's sphere, shattering it and knocking him back. Lane charged at the warden, scythe outwards, lighting trailing from it. He did a downward slash, only for the warden to step to the side with the scythe slamming into the ground next to him. Lane quickly recovered, slashing left and right at the warden, who clasped the edge of the scythe, yanked it out of Lane's hand, and bonked him several times on the head with the hilt of the scythe before knocking him away.
Felix shot a dozen rays of light at the warden.
Samantha shot 6 rays of water at the warden.
Unlike the others, these attacks met their target, forcing the fire warden back.
Olivia shot rays of lightning at the fire warden.
Lord Flame spun Lane's scythe, which deflected the lightning back at Olivia.
Olivia was knocked back.
Felix cast a light rope and snatched Lane's scythe back.
Lord Flame fired a torrent of flames at the group. Samantha was the first to react, raising a wave of water that extinguished the flames upon contact. "Well that was a blast," Chase and Lord Flame said at the same time.
"Jinx!"
"Double jinx!"
"Okay this is getting weird..."
"What the-"
A ripping sound came from behind Chase and Lane had a piece of duct tape in one hand, the roll in the other. He tackled Chase and quickly applied the tape before getting off.
"Now is not the time for games, annoying storm warden!" Olivia yelled, shooting a dozen rays of lightning.
The bolts of lightning made contact with Lord Flame, sending him flying back into the igneous walls while paralyzing him. Lane approached the warden, scythe in hand. "Be careful Lane!" Marielle's voice rang out. Stifled laughs that resulted in Lane's face turning red-not that anyone could see it-were cut off by a burst of flames from Lord Flame that sent the wizards hurtling back in front of the entrance to the room where the guards were. Lucas was still trembling, and didn't seem to notice the rest of the group. Ian, however, noticed and stood up, looking out the doorway.
Felix looked at Lane.
Lane growled and stood up. "Let's try that aga-" He was cut off by a blast of fire sending him spiraling into the wall with a thud. "...Ya know what? I'm gonna just sit here for a bit...ow..."
Felix disappeared and 5 seconds later, Lord Flame was punched in the face.
Ian focused. A cyan sigil appeared on the floor, creating what appeared to be a ring of glacial shields near the perimeter. However, each shield was soon attached as another hand to what appeared to be various ice golems. Indeed, approximately 16 golems with shields and flail-like weapons for floating appendages were flooding through the doorway, suppressing Lord Flame's movement and striking with surprising efficiency and brutality. The sigil faded.
Lord Flame summoned several Razorfires that reduced the golems to melting shards of ice.
Lane staggered to his feet, picking up his scythe. The sooner we beat this guy, the sooner we can go home.
He stood up and charged at Lord Flame once more, slashing repeatedly, opening several, small gashes across the fire warden’s arms and chest.
Dylan disappeared and ran around the palace, searching for Ryder.
Felix punched Flame in da face, causing his nose to bleed.
Behind all the fighting, Chase was curled up on the floor, breathing heavily while flickering in and out of existence.
Lucas noticed and ran to help Chase. "Chase? CHASE?! GUYS STOP CHASE IS- I don't know, dying?!" Concerned, everyone stopped fighting as Ian froze Lord Flame. Even Lane looked worried. Samantha was practically crying.
Dylan dashed around the corner, Ryder trailing behind. "Hey guys, I foun-" Dylan stopped abruptly as he noticed Chase, his tone and expression quickly shifting over to worry. "W-what's happening to Chase?"
Ryder looked at the frozen Lord Flame, then at Chase. "The more you injure kill Lord Flame, the higher the chance your friend has to stop existing entirely."
Olivia grabbed Lord Flame's wand.
The sound of ice shattering cut through the room as Lord Flame broke from Ian's ice cage thingy, only to be frozen again. Chase finally stopped flickering out of existing. Samantha was still crying though.
Lucas inspected the wand. "It just looks like a regular wand. I don't see anything special about it."
Lane peeked over Lucas' shoulder. "Can't imagine a Lord using something with "Flamerose" in the name." He snickered.
Lord Flame glared at Lane and melted the cage once more.
Meanwhile, Chase was hugging Samantha, who had finally stopped crying.
Ian recreated the cage.
Again.
"Please tell me it's not going to be like this forever.." Dylan groaned.
Lord Flame melted a rod off the cage and hurled it at Ian.
Ian caught it, "Thanks," and threw it at his face.
Lord Flame fired a fireball at it and melted it.
Ryder eyed the wand. "That isn't even anything close to Lord Flame's staff. What is Alan telling you people?!"
Annoyed, Lane threw the wand at Lord Flame out of anger.
"WHY WOULD YOU GIVE HIM HIS WAND???" Kelsey shrieked. Lord Flame caught the wand, smirking slightly.
"We got what we wanted. Let's get out." Lucas said. They rushed out of the palace and Greenheart sealed the doors behind them with vines.
Felix punched Lord Flame, invisible.
Lord Flame grabbed Felix's hand and flipped him onto the ground with incredible force.
"Go to the academy. Dale will most likely know where it is," Ryder informed the group. "Dale?" Chase asked. "This timeline's Academy Keeper," Ryder replied.
"Where's Felix?" Olivia looked around.
Felix cushioned his fall with an astral pillow, he then blinded Flame and rolled away.
"His fault for being invisible." Lane shrugged. Olivia attempted to electrify him, but since they both practiced the storm element... it didn't do much. Moments later, Felix tumbled out of one of the palace balconies, landing gracefully on the ground.
"Great that's everyone. Let's head back to the Caverns." Ryder said. They all teleported to Shiverchill Mountains.
When she saw Felix she hugged him.
The group walked into the castle and down the hall to the room where they left Iris and Alan.
Iris was half-asleep, her head resting on Alan's shoulder. She straightened up, yawning, when the group walked in.
"..."
"..."
"You know what, I'm just gonna pretend I didn't see that."
Ryder picked up his ice arm and froze it back onto the jagged ice stump attached to his shoulder. Ice swirled around that arm and he created his own crystalized map of the inside of the Academy. "Dale is likely in one of these two locations. The Astral Tower or organizing the Archives. He doesn't take very kindly to strangers and is the only one currently in the academy-apart from the current Astral Keeper."
Ryder's wizard watch buzzed and he looked at it and inwardly groaned. Then he looked at Alan. "I'll give you 3 guesses, although you'll probably get it on the first." Alan sighed. "I'll go get the papers and pens," Ryder walked off. "Wait, you're gonna just send us alone to the hostile fairy?" Lane asked, somewhat annoyed. "Yes," was Ryder's brief response from around the corner.
"Guess we're going to the academy," Olivia said
"I wonder what the Academy is like right now..." Lucas said.
"Really awful. Bonfire forces march below there everyday, since it's much faster to cut below the Academy to get here, than to go around on land or water." Iris said, helping Alan carry a large stack of condolence letters. Which was a bad idea considering that she got flung into a wall not very long ago and hadn't fully recovered yet.
"Sounds great, considering how they're probably searching for us because WE JUST BROKE INTO THEIR BASE AND ATTACKED THEIR LEADER!" Lane exclaimed.
"You think we wanted to fight him?!" Lucas yelled.
Lane didn't know how to respond. Lucas hadn't ever yelled at anyone before either.
Felix looked around.
"Lucas, Chase, Kelsey, Dylan, and Marielle, you go to the Astral tower, Lane, Samantha, Felix, Olivia, Ian, and I will check out the archives," Greenheart stated. The groups nodded and teleported to their respective locations.
Lucas, Chase, Kelsey, and Dylan appeared in front of the Astral Tower. "Wait, where is Marielle?" Kelsey asked. Chase opened his mouth. Dylan covered it with his hand. "No valley puns."
Lane, Samantha, Felix, Olivia, Ian, Greenheart, and Marielle teleported in front of the archives. "Marielle? What are you doing here? I thought I told you to go to the Astral Tower," Greenheart said. "I..." Marielle closed her mouth as if she didn't know what to say, and simply shot a glance at Lane.
Meanwhile, in the Great Hall, a figure walked along the rafter, watching both groups through the gapping doorways.
The Academy remained dim, and seemed as if no one been there for years.
"Wait, did anyone hear that?" Kelsey asked.
"It seems the sarcastic storm warden has a girlfriendddddd," Samantha teased.
Lane simply blushed. "Can we just go search for him in the archives now?"
In front of the Astral Tower, the wizards stared at the tower. "Well looks like our answer to Dale's location is towering in front of us!" Chase joked. The rest of the group groaned and pushed open the door.
The figure began scoffed at the intruders after hearing them speak. Clearly, this was a group of immature scoundrels, but nevertheless, he decided to make sure they wouldn't cause any trouble as he kept an eye on the other group.
A barrier of light crashed down over the entrance of the Archives, sealing them in its cursed labyrinths.
Felix took out his staff.
He was about to head towards the Astral Tower when he saw one of the group pull out their staff.
He sighed and remained on his perch a bit longer.
Lucas drummed his fingers on the Astral Tower's walls. "Dale?" He called out. No response.
"Maybe he's in the Archives?" Dylan asked. "If he is, then I hope Greenheart's group is doing better than us." Kelsey muttered.
Chase summoned a flame that lit up the formerly dim room. "Yeah, he's not here. What an enlightening discovery!" "Lets just go check out the other floors, PLEASE," Dylan sighed.
The figure waited impatiently to see what the wizard was planning to do. His pointed ears perked at hearing the other group climb the stairs.
Olivia looked around.
Becoming aggravated, he began to wonder if he should hurry up and strengthen the barrier or wait.
Felix weakened the barrier by a huge amount.
The figure stretched out a hand and clenched his fist, solidifying the luminous barrier into a rock-solid material, then the Archive doors slammed themselves shut.
He walked along the rafters until reaching the Astral Tower, a bit tired out by the spell.
Felix sighed.
Flying down from the rafter, the figure waited patiently in the shadows of the first floor, fiddling with his seemingly useless wand.
10 minutes later, the group came back down the tower. "Well he's definitely not in the tow-oh there he is!" Chase exclaimed.
He lowered his arm, the wand now at his side. The fairy's eyes narrowed, his tone cold. "Who are you and what are you doing here?"
"Chase Flamemaster. That's Lucas Herolight, Dylan Nightshadow, and Kelsey Wildvault," Chase said, pointing to his friends. "We heard you knew the location of Lord Flame's staff, and we need it it beca-" Chase was interrupted by a blast of light to the face that sent him staggering back. "OW! WHAT WAS THAT FOR?!"
"And this is where I'll have to stop your introduction. You are not getting that staff, and I recommend leaving before worse happens," he replied, hostile.
"Ok ok, but can we get our friends first?" Lucas asked.
Chase was still rubbing his eyes.
Dale glanced at Chase. "It won't get any better if you rub it." He said gruffly. Now glaring at Lucas he responded with a sharp, "No." He didn't trust them to leave after retrieving their 'friends'.
"Why not?" Kelsey asked defiantly.
"Well we need that staff to get out of this timeline." Dylan glared.
"And I need you to get out of here."
"Ugh he's more awful than Gale."
"Ow... My eyes still hurt..."
"Please, we need that staff to get out of here, there are people in our timeline that need us."
Meanwhile in the Archives, Greenheart was hammering away at the blockage. He sighed. "That's not coming down anytime soon."
"Isn't there supposed to be portal out of here?" Samantha asked.
The rest of the group nodded.
"Then let's go find it!"
"The problem is we can't split up, or else that someone who blocked us in will be able to separate us PERMANENTLY", Olivia said.
"So we go down every doorway together and hope we get lucky," Marielle replied.
"I can go with that", Lane said.
"Look, if you don't leave, then you can join your friends in the Archives. You aren't going to get that staff as long as I live, which is never seeing how short humans live." He retorted, clenching his fist around the wand, causing the wood to splinter. "I don't care about this make-believe timeline of yours, and it's not my job to care. If you have trouble understanding that, then hurry up and take the hint!" At that, light swirled around the wand and hardened into a blade-like weapon. The move had greatly tired him, but he refused to show it.
"How do we know you're not tired?", Chase taunted.
“Hm,” Dylan grunted, pulling out his scythe.
Anger flickered through his gaze as he yet again blasted Chase - but, this time, not in the face.
Dale raised the former wand and held the blade in a battle position. He seemed to be trained on how to use it.
"Wait, did you trap our friends in the archive?"
"And what if I did?" He responded, not taking his gaze off Dylan.
"Why did you do that?", Lucas asked.
"I'm not sure if you noticed, but it's impossible to be in two places at once." His solar-gold tail began to lash impatiently. "And during a war, you can trust no one. Not even a group of immature human idiots." He said drily.
"You say 'human' like that's a bad thing," Kelsey muttered.
"I'm not sure you noticed, they're not evil," Dylan said.
"Last time I checked you haven't been around for the last century." He snapped, not lowering the blade.
"That's because we're from 2000 years later", Dylan said.
Lucas stared at Dale. "We're telling the truth. You don't have to believe us, but it would be nice if you could help us get back home."
He set his bow and quiver on the floor and raised his hands up.
"Do what you want. We're not here to fight you."
"I'm pretty sure Dylan is!" Chase chirped. Dylan glared at Chase.
The fairy watched the group, before sighing. "I'm sorry but I won't be helping you. You made your choice."
A few minutes later, the gang was at the entrance of the Archives, locked in.
"WHY DOES EVERYTHING HAVE TO GO WRONG!", Lucas yelled as Dylan grimaced and tightened his grip on his scythe.
Meanwhile, Dale stood at the other side of the barrier, expressionlessly watching them.
Olivia sighed.
Without looking up, the fairy casually brought something up, "So, what side are you with anyhow?"
Felix jumped.
Without hesitation, Olivia said, "We're on nobody's side at all, we're just a group who wants to go back to our timelines."
He lowered his blade, which he was fiddling with. "I'm afraid it doesn't work that way. You know something I noticed about Queen Iris and Lord Flame? Their armies always find a way to trick you into working for them - I should know."
Felix looked around.
Dale's bright, golden eyes were cold as ice, "So, which unlucky bunch got you to do their dirty work?"
"Me and Felix have no idea, these guys and their friends who are in the Astral Tower found us, well they found Felix. I found them during a fight."
"Uh, the Caverners," Chase answered,
He looked at Chase, "Well then, looks like I just gained another excuse to yell at Iris." Dale then added under his breath, "To think I actually decided to give humans another chance when I accepted this job."
Felix sat down.
The fairy pulled out the Academy Amulet, warping away, only to teleport back inside the Academy looking traumatized. "Nevermind I'll just ask Ivan..."
"Who's Ivan?", Chase asked.
"The new Astral Keeper," Dale answered reluctantly, "And he won't be back until next month..."
"Ok."
"Hey guys I found the portal out!" Marielle's voice rang out from further down the archives.
"Finally!", Olivia said.
The group walked down a maze of bookshelves and found Marielle with the portal. "Alright, lets get out of here," Greenheart said. When they approached the portal, the Acromi Wheel materialized in front of it. "Huh, that exists in this timeline too?" Chase questioned. Each of the group spun it once, except for Felix, Olivia, Dylan, and Kelsey, who spun it twice.
The wizards walked out of a portal into the Academy's Main Hall.
Dale leaned against the wall, "Huh, turns out you're smarter than you look."
"No Chase is dumber than he looks," Lane laughed.
The fairy watched as the boys tackled each other, "Are they always like this-"
"Yes," was Dylan's response as Ian froze them.
"Humans are weird, change my mind." He muttered in response to the situation.
"That's exactly why I joined them!" Kelsey exclaimed.
The fairy slowly facepalmed with a heaving sigh. "I wasn't joking."
"I wasn't either," Kelsey responded.
Felix and Olivia looked around.
"This is why I don't like kids, and frankly, humans in general." He said, his expression emotionless.
"Can we please get back to the topic at hand?" Dylan asked. The group, except for Lucas and Ian, stared at him blankly. "The staff."
Dale stared at Dylan coldly, "And you're still not getting it."
Felix looked at Dale.
He lashed his tail before glaring at Felix, "Now what?" He snapped.
"All in favor of locking Dale in a room with Chase until he tells us where the staff is, say 'I'," Dylan announced.
Dale crossed his arms, "That, is not happening."
"I!" The group said, except for the frozen Lane and Chase along with Lucas. "It's settled then." Dylan took a step towards Dale.
In that instant he fey stepped onto the rafters behind the group, a golden mist where he once stood. "Told you that wasn't going to happen." He yelled down to the group, clearly annoyed.
"Dylan calm down. Dale's a friend." Lucas said. "And we only need the metal in the staff, not the whole thing. Is there a way to keep the staff intact, but without the metal?" He asked, turning to Dale.
He blinked in surprise at Lucas' comment. "I'm... a friend?"
"Well I consider you to be one." Lucas replied. Dale still looked stunned.
"Oh! I'm sorry did I... was it wrong of me to assume you were a friend? I didn't mean to insult you or anything..." Lucas worried, glancing at Dale's face.
"No I-" He rubbed his arm self-consciously, "For someone who's been around for a century, I never made many friends." He looked at the ground, "You can guess why."
"Because you're a fairy? Or is it because of your attitude?", Felix asked.
Dale looked a bit embarrassed, "Both."
"Are most of the people you meet like Lane?" Chase, asked, having melted his way out of the ice while leaving Lane frozen.
Lane glares at Chase, before conjuring enough heat through lightning to melt his way out and electrify Chase at the same time.
Chase yelped.
Felix glared at Lane, "Could you not? It's annoying."
Greenheart's face looks extremely disturbed. It was unfortunate really, that his experiences with fairies included no friendship whatsoever.
"Professor Greenheart, are you okay?" Samantha asked.
Dale noticed Greenheart's expression and suddenly looked incredibly uncomfortable.
The fairy, now avoiding Greenheart's gaze, finally said, "To answer your question, no, there is no way to get the metal from the staff without destroying it, seeing how the whole rod of the staff is made of it. How come you want it anyhow?"
Chase pulled the broken Timekeeper out of his backpack. "We need the metal in the staff to repair this, so we can get back to our timeline."
"Can I see that?" He asked.
"Sure." Chase handed it over to Dale.
Dale flipped open the timekeeper and inspected the mechanics before muttering, "Well this was the last thing I wanted to see again..." Handing it back to Chase, he said, "Let me guess, someone told you that the metal making these gears is only found in Bonfire's lava. After that, you wound up doing the Caverner's dirty work thinking the only safe way to get the metal is in Flame's staff?"
"...wow he's really good at guessing," Chase whispered to the group.
The fairy heard Chase clearly. "Piece of advice, if the person your talking about has pointed ears, don't bother talking behind their back."
Elsewhere, in the space between the multiverses, a tech wizard has the irking feeling of complete manipulation and masked intent.
Somewhere between the war and the present, the same tech wizard assembles a drone with the feeling of an unsure end.
Lane glared at Dale. "We didn't have a choice. That weirdo archagent guy would probably kill us if we didn't help them." He growled.
"As if I didn't know that?" The fairy responded coolly, clearly having been manipulated himself.
Lucas glanced at Dale. "How would you know that?"
He now looked very uncomfortable, "Let's not address how many times both sides forced me to help them..."
"Forced you? So you did help them?" Kelsey asked.
"...yes..."
"Iris doesn't really seem like someone who'd do that..." Lucas muttered.
Dale's gaze grew dark as he muttered, "That's because she wasn't..." Not wanting them to know anything else, he immediately changed the topic. "So none of you ever wondered how someone got their hands on the metal to begin with?"
"Well it's got to come from somewhere, but I thought all of it was used in the staff." Lucas muttered.
The rest of the group nodded, except Greenheart, who was still giving Dale a look of suspicion mingled with uncomfortableness.
Ignoring Greenheart, he said, "So an igneous metal made from lava is now an exhaustible material?" Dale shook his head in disappointment, "No, Flame just made the only people who can retrieve it mad, and the slimes are too lazy to be an alternate."
"So can we just send Flame Salamanders down the volcano to get the metal? I've somehow got 10..." Chase replied.
"If it takes an entire tribe of Fire Salamanders to move a single ore, I doubt ten regular old Flame Salamanders can get it." Dale responded. He paused for a moment, "How did you fit so many in your bag to begin with?"
"It's like a void in our backpacks..." Chase replied.
"....well then, I recommend tracking down a Fire Fairy or the Salamander Tribe at Bonfire-" Seeing their expressions at the word Bonfire, he sighed. "You got on Flame's bad side, didn't you?"
"Yeah, we kind of...fought him, while nearly removing Chase from existence..." Dylan trailed off.
He stared at them blankly, "You weren't lying about the timeline thing, were you?" Finally flying down from the rafters, he towered over the group. "So you're saying not only did you nearly kill your friend, you managed to get on Flame's wanted list? Well that's just great."
Each of the group looked at each other. "Yes...?"
Dale slowly facepalmed.
With a sigh, the fairy crossed his arms, "Well, that'll mean you can't ask the Fire Salamanders. It'll take too long and you might get caught."
"So we need a fire fairy. Where would we find a fire fairy." Dylan asked, frowning at the idea of meeting another fairy.
"Still in Bonfire, but in the caves, meaning you won't have to worry about being spotted." Responded Dale. "Though your problem would be approaching one."
Of course it is, Greenheart sighed internally.
"They'll be just as hostile as I was." The fairy said, looking awkward, "Especially because of the Faen War, which happened a while before this one. Fairies aren't exactly treated very well by you wizards, so if you can't understand why we hate humans so bad by now, I don't know what world you're living in. On top of that, they're rather grouchy to begin with."
Everyone looked at Lucas.
Dale looked relatively confused, trying to figure out why the group was looking at Lucas that way.
"Um... something I need to...?" Lucas trailed off before he finished his sentence, realizing what the others were trying to say. "I'm not a peacemaker you guys. I just... say what I believe and hope it's worth something to someone."
"Oh," the fairy said quietly to himself, now understanding.
"In case you haven't noticed, we have no idea where the Bonfire 'caves' are," Greenheart pointed out.
"Well," Dale began, "It's not exactly just in Bonfire. You'll simply only find the Fire Fairies in the part that runs under it. As for where they are, I should probably shut up now." He muttered that last sentence to himself, knowing he was saying too much.
"What was that last sentence?" Dylan asked, "I didn't quite get that."
He began to fiddle with his tail nervously out of habit, "Uh, well, um... Humans aren't exactly supposed to go down there."
"So you mean they'll attack anyone without a second thought?" Chase asked, "Sounds like someone I know...." Lane glared at him. "I'll give YOU a second thou-" He was interrupted as Ian froze him once more.
"Correction, kill you without a second thought." The fairy said grimly.
The entire group's eyes widened.
If it was possible for a fairy to wilt, that's exactly what Dale did. "...I'm going to have to come, aren't I?"
"...so we don't die...probably."
Looking a bit terrified at the thought of going with them, he finally said, "Seeing you probably want to get out of their as quickly as possible, we should go to the closest entrance, in Firefly Forest. It's easier to find and the Earth Fairies there are normally above ground."
Blood and gore in general flashed through Greenheart's mind. "Professor Greenheart?" Samantha asked, breaking him out of his trance. "Are you sure you're okay?" Greenheart nodded, looking slightly stressed. Dylan raised an eyebrow, crossing his arms.
The professor sighed slightly, still looking shaken. "If it's possible, I'd like to stay at the Academy. You kids can get the metal."
Dale noticed Greenhearts expression once again, looking uncomfortable. "As much as I would like to discuss this, we should probably go." His tail curled around his blade, which was leaning against the wall, causing the crystal to melt back into light and to generally fade. With a quick motion, he tossed the now normal wand into his hand, which he slid into his pocket. He looked at Greenheart, "You may want to come. You wouldn't want to be stuck in here later ." He said sourly for no apparent reason.
Ian nodded. "Wouldn't want to leave you alone here. Last time that happened you ended up getting stabbed by Dylan."
Dylan glances away, slightly embarrassed.
Dale suddenly looked very uncomfortable at the word stab. Palming his amulet, he tried to avoid letting them see his expression, "Let's jut go already. I don't even want to know about it."
The group pulled out their maps.
After teleporting to Firefly Forest, Dale reluctantly led them. Noticing Greenheart's traumatized expression as they neared the closest entrance - the stone fish, he decided the better of it and led them deeper into the woods, to another opening. He sighed, "If we come across anyone, anyone at all, I'll do the talking. Understood?"
Lane pulled out more duct tape and approached Chase. "Understood."
He plucked the roll of tape from Lane's grasp, "And you won't be duct taping Chase or interacting with him in general." With that he pushed aside the vines neatly covering the entrance then walked inside, the group captiously following.
The cave had multiple plants growing in multiple nooks and crannies, and a light shone in through an opening. However, they didn't get to stay in there for long, seeing Dale had already flown down a winding path.
Dale had set foot at a fork in the caves, waiting for them. Chase was behind the group, sped up, then tripped over a small stalagmite. The sound echoed through the cave and a hostile voice shouted out, "Who goes there?"
Lane glared at Chase. "Even when you're not running your mouth, you're still loud," Lane hissed. "I can still hear you..." the voice sighed. The group stifled a laugh, except for Greenheart, who glared at all of them.
Dale gave the group an unreadable expression before answering the voice, "Dale," he reluctantly added, "Dale Starheart."
The owner of the voice flew out of the cave with snow spewing out. He looked at the group, Chase and Lane - who were strangling each other again, then at Dale in disbelief. "I... what in the name of the Faen Wind are you doing with this..." The fairy paused and glanced at them again, "chaotic group of... of..."
"Humans?" Dale supplied, looking incredibly uncomfortable.
"Why must you say 'human' in that tone?" Dylan muttered.
"I think humans might have done something to them before." Lucas whispered softly. He stepped forwards, holding out his hand. "Lucas Herolight. These are my friends, and we promise not to hurt you or anyone else you care about."
"That would've of worked if I had someone to care about." The fairy said drily. "As for my question, why are you of all people with them?"
Dale looked like he wanted to disappear, "I- uh.... well-"
Lucas pulled his hand away, the fairy clearly not interested in shaking it. "It's not his fault we... accidentally dragged him into this, and I promise you, we mean no harm. The reason we came here because we need your help... if you're willing to give it to us."
Dale slowly facepalmed, mouthing "wrong fairy" at Lucas.
"Do you really expect me to believe you persuaded someone who killed-" The fairy was immediately blasted in the face with light. "OW!"
"Shut up before you experience it first hand." Dale snapped, lashing his tail.
"You tried that before and look what happened." The fairy responded, rubbing his face.
Greenheart stared at Dale, internally terrified.
They're all the same, aren't they?
Dale looked just about ready to pick a fight when he once again noticed Greenheart's expression. "I... I never meant to do- Oh forget it. If no one believed it before, what will change now?"
The other fairy smirked, while Dale simply walked off, pausing at a different path than the fairy was in.
The group had a simple choice; follow a killer, or run while they still can.
Lucas hesitates. "Should we follow him?" He asked quietly.
While the group pondered on what to do, Dale and the other fairy argued.
"What did you think you were going to get out of it?"
"Nothing, that's just what a friend would've done."
"Friend? Have you gone mad?"
"According to half this forsaken island, yes, I have."
"Either way it wouldn't matter. I don't know what made you think they were your friends, but they clearly don't care now."
Dale looked at the ground and sighed.
"I care." Lucas said, stepping forwards. "And so do the rest of us." Samantha added. The others nodded, although Greenheart still seemed unsure.
Dale looked at the group a bit hopefully, but whatever hope he felt was quickly replaced with shame.
The other fairy, however, shook his head, "It's your death wish." He flew back into the icy cave, leaving them alone... for now.
"What's his problem?" Chase asked bluntly.
Lucas hesitated. "What was his name?"
Dale sighed, "That was General Icetalon, and his problem is humans, life, and fairies who don't have a problem with humans."
The group blinked simultaneously.
The fairy was about to say something, but decided the better of it and walked into the cave. The group hesitantly followed at a distance.
Soon they reached a larger cave with an opening at the top.
"Where are we?" Chase asked.
"Astral Tribe." Dale whispered. He led them down another path, and soon reached another fork. The group followed him on the left path and they arrived at a burning hot cave. The stone was red like Bonfire Spire and there were dragons sleeping near pools of lava. Dale looked at the group, "We're here. Just don't make eye contact with anything until we reach the Flame Weaver cave. They're more... civilized."
Unfortunately, Dale was a little late, as Chase was already stroking one of the dragon's heads.
He was about to stop Chase when a Fire Fairy marched up to him and angrily tapped him on the back, "I'm not sure if you're aware of it but that's my dragon."
Dale immediately ran up to her apologizing then awkwardly dragged Chase away muttering, "You're lucky you look like you're from the Bonfire Colony or you would've been roasted."
"Guess that means our plan almost went down in flames...heh," Chase joked with a nervous laugh.
Dale glared at him before leading the group to a cave with flames hovering in the air. A dragon was breathing a few rings of fire, revealing the source. The fairy looked just about ready to leave, "Well, no one seems to be home- CHASE." The young fire warden now had a baby dragon clinging onto his leg, and it didn't look like it was going to let go soon.
"Aww it likes me!" Chase exclaimed.
Before Dale could even begin telling him off, there was a crash behind the group and a fairy around the young wardens' age fell out of a passageway and on top of the older dragon. The group stared blankly, with the exception of the baby dragon, who began to purr while hugging Chase's leg.
The older dragon growled at the fairy, who immediately scrambled off. Now that the fairy was out of the way, it noticed the baby dragon on Chase's leg and stomped over with an angry roar.
"Well, hi there!" Chase greeted it. "You idiot, give it the baby dragon and get over here," Lane hissed. Chase either didn't hear Lane or was just ignoring him and was stroking the dragon on the head. The dragon snorted in confusion and discomfort.
Meanwhile, near one of the lava pools, the fairy was staring at Chase in shock.
Dale would have been in a state of shock as well... if he wasn't currently embarrassed because the younger fairy somehow forgot they were fireproof.
"...when did Chase become a dragon tamer?" Dylan asked. Lane shrugged.
The Fire Fairy silently watched, bewildered.
The dragon, looked almost as bewildered as the fairy, before calming down as it stopped growling. Chase handed the baby dragon over to the older one and stroked that one once. "That's your parent. Not me."
The baby dragon looked at the older dragon, let out a little sound, then crawled back over to Chase.
The older dragon glared at Chase and started growling again, this time louder. It slammed it's tail into Chase, sending him flying between the gap in the center of the group. The baby dragon let out a protestive squeak and crawled over to Chase once more. The older dragon responded to this by grabbing Chase with its tail and slamming him into the ground on either side of it.
Dale sighed, carefully avoided the dragon, and flew off somewhere.
Moments later he dragged the younger fairy by a scaly ear in between the older dragon and Chase. The red-headed fairy chuckled nervously as the dragon glared at him.
The baby dragon bounded over to an unconscious Chase and poked him.
"Why must I do everything?" Dale wondered aloud, feeling a strong sense of Déjà vu before dumping a whole handful of fairy dust on Chase's face.
He woke up with a start and began sneezing. Meanwhile, the Fire Fairy continued to stand in the way of the older dragon.
Chase started sneezing repeatedly, nonstop.
The dragon, meanwhile, snort smoke out of it's nostrils while glaring at the young fairy. It blasted flames at the fairy who stood frozen in its way, terrified.
The fairy blinked as the fire was redirected around him.
Until Chase sneezed again.
Flames went flying everywhere and everyone except an irritated Dale screamed in terror as they dodged falling flames.
Dale slowly facepalmed.
Within moments, dozens of sharp light crystals spiked out of the ground under the older dragon, who barely jumped out of the way in time. As the crystalline structures faded, the hundred-year-old fairy flew up to the dragon and actually proceeded in scolding it. "Stop being an overgrown baby and pick on someone your own size you scaly idiot. The draglet likes him better, so what? You're over a thousand years old and act like a demanding toddler!" The dragon whimpered in protest and Dale crossed his arms.
The dragon looked longingly at the little one, before nuzzling it and nudging it over to Chase with its talons. "Wait, I can have her?" Chase asked the dragon, an inquisitive look on his face. The dragon let out what sounded like an accepting grunt and backed up as the baby dragon perched itself on Chase's shoulder. "...Thanks!"
Dale set foot near Chase, exhausted. Meanwhile, the Fire Fairy attempted to sneak off, only to be met with a hard stare from Dale. The older fairy looked at the group, "Well are you going to ask him or not?"
"Oh yeah, HEY KID! WHAT'S YOUR NAME?" Dylan yelled from across the cave.
The Fire Fairy looked terrified and didn't answer.
"Um, sorry about Dylan. I'm Lucas, these are my friends, and thank you for helping out. What's you name?" Lucas asked gently.
"Dr... Dr.. Draco." He stuttered in response, clearly still frightened.
Dale sighed, seeing this was going nowhere. "Well then, Draco, this group is in need of some of the metal from the lava pools. Obviously, none of us can go in ourselves, so we were wondering if you could help."
"What are you gonna name her?" Samantha asked Chase, both at the back of the group. Chase thought about it for a minute. "Scarlet," he decided. Greenheart cleared his throat. "Would you two mind paying attention?" he said, turning around. "That's a nice name," Samantha whispered to Chase. "Thanks," he replied.
Draco glanced at the group then at the older fairy before stammering his response, "I... I don't know..."
"Lane, stop staring at him so hostile-like," Chase nudged Lane. "Hey, he can't help distrusting a stranger!" Marielle shot back. "...I-I'm right here..." Draco muttered. "No, no, he's right," Lane sighed. He put on an angelic smile once more. He turned 90 degrees to the left and clonked Chase on the head with his fist. "OW!" Lane turned back to Draco, still smiling.
Draco took a step back, slightly more terrified than before.
Moments later, a small dragon was clawing at Lane's face, nearly knocking him into the lava.
"OW! You little devil-" Lane yelped, throwing Scarlet off. She hissed at him, before curling around Chase's leg.
"I'm really sorry if we're scaring you, but we need that metal. I know you might not want to help us, but I'd appreciate if you could help." Lucas politely smiled. Draco seemed to relax a bit, but still looked hesitant.
Dale was still biting down a laugh when he noticed Lucas looking at him for help, "We'll leave as soon as we get the metal, then you can go back to what you were doing. If you don't want to help, we'll just find someone else, it's fine if you feel uncomfortable."
Draco sighed, "I... I guess I'll help, only if you promise to leave me alone?"
"Deal," Dylan said.
Draco looked at the group then nervously flew over to one of the pools of lava. After he dove in, the group had no choice but to wait.
Moments later, Draco popped out from a different pool of lava, and pushed something out of the pool, allowing the lava to drip off before hauling it over.
"Um... That looks nothing like this metal in the clock." Lane muttered, eyeing the big rock-like thing Draco had pulled out of the lava.
"It's an ore you idiot." Kelsey hissed. "Thanks for helping us." She nodded at Draco.
The Fire Fairy sighed in relief of being done. "Your welcome," this time he spoke without a stutter, being somewhat used to them by now. He then flew off, leaving the group in the cave.
"So do I melt this or what?" Chase asked.
Dale sighed, "If it can stand the heat of lava, then no, you can't."
Greenheart pulled out his hammer and slammed it into the ore, splitting right down the middle.
And in a million other places too.
The ore shattered, scattering tiny pieces everywhere, each making a tiny Clink! upon making contact with the floor.
Dale watch them collect the pieces with a sigh, "Avoid the red pieces, only pick up the silver ones." He then knelt down and began to help them out, able to sift through them slightly faster with the help of his tail.
Lane opened his mouth, then noted the professor's hammer in his hand and simply closed it.
Dale noticed Lane but said nothing. After the group collected all the fragments of the metal, they looked at each other with the same question in mind, Now what?
Without warning, Greenheart thrust his hands out at the pile of metal. Nothing appeared to happen at first, until the metal started vibrating, then hovering in the air. The pieces of metal were relocated until they made the shape of several gears, before warping into each other, solidifying the gear formations.
Before anyone could attempt to repair the clock, the gears and clock froze over in blue ice. "And what exactly were you thinking?" A voice rang.
"Frosty attitude much?" Chase remarked, holding a flame near the ice.
The owner of the voice harrumphed before revealing himself to be the fairy from earlier.
Dale had an unreadable expression, "What are you doing here, General?"
Chase was now summoning Razorfires that kept ramming into the block of ice, barely chipping it.
"Hurry up and melt the damn thing already." Lane muttered.
Scarlet, Chase, and Kelsey tried blasting it with massive amounts of flames, only making a tiny puddle on the ground.
Icetalon noticed them failing and smirked before drawing his sword, "Well, last time I checked, traitors and humans aren't welcomed here."
"Yeah, yeah, yeah, before you attempt to kill, us, let us get the gears out of this thing," Chase said, now repeatedly hurling the ice block into the ground.
"Chase, Icetalon lost his mind at the beginning of that blasted war, he can and will kill us." Dale muttered under his breath before tiredly turning his wand into a blade, readying it for the General's blow.
"Let me break it," Lane growled. He picked up the ice block and simply hurled it at General Icetalon, slamming it directly in the center of his forehead.
At least, that's where it would have hit if he hadn't blocked it with his sword.
It harmlessly bounced off the flat end of the weapon, irritating the General. He vainly attempted to deal with Lane but was stopped by Dale.
Lane picked up the unharmed block. "...nothing?!"
As Dale struggled to block Icetalon's sword, he looked at Lane, "Stop fooling around and do something logical already!"
"Okay fine," Lane replied, stomping over to Icetalon with the ice block in hand. He raised it and brought it down repeatedly on Icetalon.
The icy fairy soon got tired of blocking Lane's attempts to maul him and with a quick motion, pinned the wizard to the wall by the neck.
Lucas shot an arrow, which hit the wall next to Lane. A light shield covered him, repelling Icetalon. "Why are you doing this to us?!" Samantha yelled.
The General ignored Samantha, but Dale answered. "He's insane. Lost his mind after his whole family was killed in the war."
Lucas glanced at Icetalon sympathetically. Within seconds, the general's surroundings changed, and he found himself in a room made of light. A window-like object gave him a view of everything around him.
"I'm sorry about your family." Lucas' voice echoed.
The ice block Lane had just thrown slammed into the ground where the general was standing. "Wait, where'd he go?"
"I'm guessing he fey stepped. It was going to happen eventually." Said Dale, but looked as confused as everyone else.
Meanwhile, Icetalon was having mixed feelings about his situation. "Who are you?"
Ian thought for a moment, and then- "oh."
Ian proceeded to hover the ice block before breaking the encasement in half midair. Moving his hand as if holding it, he let one half fall, grabbed the gear, and then let the other fall. "Neat."
"...You're kidding me, right?!" Chase and Lane exclaimed simultaneously.
"I was more preoccupied with staying out of reach of the murderous fairy general, but if that's out of the way..." Ian inspected the cog from both sides. "...prying control from the original creator becomes much easier."
"...I was preoccupied trying to crack it on his head," Lane replied.
Dylan waved his hand in front of Lucas' face. "Hellooo? Prodigy Island to Lucas? Ya done daydreaming yet?"
Lucas didn't respond, his eyes closed as though he were focusing on something.
"I'm Lucas Herolight. We've met before."
Icetalon eyed the bright room warily. "You're that blonde one?" He asked, pointing at Lucas through the window.
The fairy palmed a heart shape amulet thoughtfully before opening his mouth to speak again. However, he picked up an odd sound and glanced around.
Felix and Olivia were bored.
Yet, Icetalon saw nothing, and Lucas didn't seem to hear it.
Chase was currently tossing a fireball, which Scarlet would go grab in her mouth and return. Samantha also tried with balls of water but Scarlet kept drinking them.
"Why do you want to hurt us so badly? We haven't done anything cruel to you."
The General scoffed, "That's what you think. Have you never once wondered why you barely seen any fairies outside the caves?"
"I know we've done cruel things to you before, but we're not the people who made you hurt. Why do you still want to harm us?"
"You're avoiding my question. Do you know why we've been harmed by you humans to begin with?" The sound was beginning to irk the fairy, but he attempted to ignore it.
"I don't. But I do know that you've harmed humans too. We owe you an apology just as much as you owe us."
"That's where you're wrong," he said coldly, "No one wanted a war to begin with, we acted out of self-defense. Yet you humans were so determined to label us as monsters and make us pay that it turned into a war. And do you know why we were labeled as such? Because of you children."
Meanwhile, Greenheart was in corner of the chamber that didn't have lava bubbling in it, as far away from the group as possible. Marielle was the first to notice and began to walk over. "Don't come any closer," he said harshly. Marielle stepped back, hurt.
Though, it clearly wasn't far enough, seeing Dale heard him clearly. Walking so he wouldn't intimidate him, the fairy came over to Greenheart. "Okay, what's bothering you?"
"Two of my friends died because of one of your kind killed them, along with the fact that other tried to kill the rest of us too," Greenheart started.
Dale looked at the ground, "Well... I can see why you don't like me then...Yet how come you treat her like that?"
"She's a descendant of the fairy that killed them."
Dale glanced at her, then at Greenheart, "Are you sure about that?"
"Marielle Magiccatcher and Maddox Magiccatcher? Yes I'm fairly sure."
Dale crossed his arms and gestured to Marielle with his tail, "She isn't a fairy. She might be something else but a fairy? No."
Marielle was hiding behind a conveniently placed rock, listening to their conversation. She fiddled with her camera straps nervously when Greenheart mentioned her father's name.
Olivia looked around.
Icetalon was still waiting for Lucas' response when the sound was closer. Blue light began swirl around the fairy as he instinctively readied a fey step.
Lucas sighed. "Then I'm sorry."
He exhaled, about to let Icetalon out of his mind...
A shadow jumps into Icetalon, taking over his body. Icetalon struggled, but the shadow was stronger, and soon, the general stood up straight, glaring at the room.
"Apology unaccepted." He hissed.
Lucas opened his eyes and stumbled back, crashing into Ian's arms as Icetalon reappeared.
The general differed wildly from his earlier appearance, and shadows wisped about his presence. His grip tightened on his sword and his now-black tail lashed behind him.
The entire group turned on the General. "Is that Icetalon?!" Samantha exclaimed.
"The... the shadow got him... I forgot it was there..." Lucas breathed.
The general's eyes glowed a menacing purple as he summoned a purple sphere which surrounded the group, causing them to levitate before smashing them on the ground.
"Well that's a new shadow spell," Dylan groaned as he stood up, drawing his scythe.
Icetalon eyed Dylan as he held his sword to block the wizard's possible attack.
"How about we don't deal with this guy and get the heck out of here?!" Lane yelled, grabbing the clock.
"We can't just leave and let people get killed by the shadow!" Kelsey argued, a Dragos about to slam over Icetalon's head. The general dodged it and fired multiple shards of shadow infected ice at Kelsey. She blocked it with her basketball, but it deflated after the first hit.
"Aw man, that was expensive!" Kelsey pouted, staring at the deflated basketball in her hands.
Ian stood up and decided he'd had quite enough of fighting anywhere warmer than room temp. He proceeded to hold his right hand out, palm facing upward- immediately, a double barrel shotgun with a meathook made entirely of ice materialized in his hand. Two powerful ice shards appeared in his left, and as he reloaded, the temperature got slightly colder.
"We aren't doing this again."
Ian pulled a secondary trigger underneath the first- the hook, bound to a chain, went flying forth and appeared to be launched to latch onto Icetalon.
Icetalon simply fey stepped out of the way, appearing behind the group.
The chain recalled. Ian blindfired the shotgun in a general direction behind him- one of the shots went flying, ice spikes appearing out of the ground in its path. It managed to go in the general direction of Icetalon- shockingly.
This time Icetalon conjured a blast of shadow energy to destroy the attack.
Ian fired the other shot, reloaded, and decided on a slightly more... widespread option.
The shotgun reformed into a minigun. The minigun then split into four barrels. All with 8 barrels within. Spinning at speeds completely unreasonable for a quad minigun.
The General, seeing there was no way to avoid the attack, became a shadow, allowing it to harmlessly pass through.
"Ian you can't hit him. Stop wasting your energy." Lucas said quietly.
Meanwhile, Dale was muttering something under his breath in the corner while clutching the Astral Amulet. As his exhaustion left him, he wondered aloud, "Now why didn't I remember that earlier?" Yet, anything he or the group did would be useless, seeing Icetalon was currently a shadow.
Lane shoved his hand into Lucas' backpack grabbed ten of the Astral arrows within it and threw all of them like darts at the shadow.
Icetalon took on a solid form and fey stepped out of the way. Dale quickly took the opportunity and conjured crystalline astral spikes below the general, but as usual, he dodged.
Samantha and Chase walked up behind Icetalon, trapping him between the three, readying their elemental magic.
He once again became a shadow, absorbing the energy of their attacks. Using the newly harnessed energy, he created three spheres, flinging the trio into the air and slamming them into the ground again.
"Why can't this ever be easy?" Chase complained as he stood up.
Icetalon noticed Dylan raising his scythe behind him, spun around, and countered the attack with his sword.
"You. Stupid. [BLEEEEP]. IDIOT OF A SHADOW!" Dylan hissed, his scythe slashing at the general, lightning crackling every time he swung. "YOU RUINED MY LIFE YOU-" Icetalon knocked him away with his tail, sending him flying back. An icicle speared his arm, pinning him against a rock. A cry of pain escaped Dylan's mouth.
The general smirked as Dylan continued to bleed out, the shadow using Icetalon's voice, it hissed in Dylan's ear, "You shouldn't have gotten rid of me."
As the group watched in horror, Icetalon then took a step towards Lane, shadows concentrating at the fairy's fingertips.
Ian appeared to be anticipating something. The chaingun faded.
Three lightning bolts slammed into the ground with remarkable ferocity and quickly closed in on the General, creating a massive shockwave.
Too bad it didn't connect. The General had once more melted into a shadow, dodging the attack.
Meanwhile, Samantha removed the icicle, applying pressure in the wound to stifle the blood loss while wrapping a Bandana around his arm.
The general conjured yet another sphere, but this time Dale fey stepped into the way of it and created a barrier.
The shadow ball collided with the barrier, kicking up a massive cloud of dust that covered the entire battlefield. Lane, being relatively close to the center of impact, was sent skidding on his back across the floor, an inch away from a bubbling pool of lava. The rest of the group more or less stumbled, some clinging onto their balance, others completely losing it and falling over. Poor Dylan landed on his injured arm and sharply inhaled through gritted teeth as he did so.
Dale held out a hand to Lane, who reluctantly took it. After helping the wizard up, the fairy glared at Icetalon, angrily conjuring another wave of crystalline spikes over a massive radius, both above and below the general.
When the spikes faded, Icetalon was gone, or so they thought. The fairy general took on a solid shape, unharmed.
Ian shot two shards of ice at Icetalon as Lucas tried to use mindtrap, and failed. The shards pinned the general against one of the walls as Lucas focused, and they were suddenly back in the room. It was the same process as Dylan. But when he got to last step...
It didn't do anything. Icetalon remained in the same state as before, but the amulet he wore was gone. In subconsciousness, Icetalon was having a mental breakdown, but the shadow ignored him.
Somewhere in the room of light, a young fairy was confused about her situation, trying to figure what the heck happened.
"Wha.."
Lucas let both of them out, staggering back, confused on how the girl got there. Alarm seemed to flicker across Icetalon's face, but only for a moment.
It took a minute for the shadow to regain control over its host, something about the girl had caused Icetalon to try to force it out of his consciousness. The general curled his hand into a fist, concentrating more on the mental situation than what was going on around him.
"Wait who's that?" Chase asked, staring at the girl who had just appeared in front of the group.
The young fairy's eyes widened and she took a step back from the group, fear filling her gaze.
Lucas stepped forwards. "I'm Lucas Herolight, who are you?"
"Ir... Iris Icetalon." She answered Lucas a bit frightfully.
Meanwhile, the General mentally tackled the Shadow to no avail.
"Iris?" Chase asked, "Isn't that also the name o-" Samantha covered Chase's mouth with the palm of her hand as Dale's tail twitched repeatedly.
The young fairy watched the group curiously. "Name of what?" She asked. Dale had an unreadable expression, whilst at this point Icetalon was busy mentally strangling the shadow, only succeeding in distracting it.
Lucas eyed the girl. "Is he... a relative of yours?" He asked, pointing at the General.
The girl glanced at him, "No... but he looks like someone I know."
"Hold on," Chase said. "HEY! STUPID SHADOW! COULD YOU STOP POSSESSING THE CRAZED FAIRY FOR A MOMENT SO IRIS CAN TELL IF SHE KNOWS HIM?"
The shadow, startled, unknowingly slightly relinquished control, which it struggled to gain back as the General fought back harder.
At this point, Iris was giving the fiery wizard a very obscure look. ".....he's possessed?"
Chase nodded.
For a brief moment Icetalon's eyes returned to their usual gray, but turned amethyst moments later. The shadow was officially irritated with it's host and had enough of their mental quarrel.
Lucas quickly took advantage of the situation and with a few astral magic shenanigans, the shadow's hold on the general was even weaker. Now Icetalon was basically flickering between his real self and his possessed version.
One last try...
The general broke free and Lucas immediately trapped the shadow in his mind, where it would hopefully never see the outside world ever again.
The girl was trembling slightly after seeing Icetalon.
"D-dad?!"
Icetalon didn't seem able to react, he spent so long hating the world that he couldn't find it in himself to care again. All those years he spent missing his daughter he thought she was dead. Now that she was here... he couldn't help but wonder if this was a trick, and he wouldn't be able to bear caring again only to broken once again.
"Are you okay?" Iris whispered, stepping closer.
At this point the general avoided meeting anyone's gaze, and simply looked at the ground, still unable to respond.
Iris stared at Icetalon. "Dad... Is there something wrong?"
He closed his eyes, holding back tears. The icy fairy tried to conceal his feelings for so long, but this was too much.
Iris took the general's hand. "Did something happen?"
Icetalon immediately pulled his hand away, not used to being touched.
Iris glanced at her hand, sadness flashing though her face. "Am I... did I do something wrong?" She whispered quietly.
"It's my fault!" The general finally blurted, sobbing. "It's my fault." He said again quietly, this time to himself.
Iris hesitated, before hugging Icetalon. "I don't know what happened but whatever did, I hope the pain ends soon Dad." She whispered.
"So don't mind me asking, but can we PLEASE go back now?" Lane asked, exasperated.
Ian pulled out the remaining half of the map that remained after the first relic incident, but hesitated in touching the mountains. He instead decided to see if Alan's weird-a** crystal map worked, and summoned the same geomap model the archagent did and raised his sickle over Shiverchill. "Are we finished up here?"
Lane glanced at the clock. "Do we even have to say bye to anyone if we have the metal with us? I say we just screw it and get the heck out of here right now!"
Dale sighed before flying over - to Greenheart's discomfort. "You should listen to your friend, it's best to go before you get any more involved."
"Honestly, I'm with Lane on this one," Chase said, "They'll probably find a way to make us do more work for them."
"What? No pun?" Samantha asked.
"Of course there's a pun. To not say one would be punishment."
"That's wordplay."
"..."
Ian grabbed the clock and was about to insert the gear before he noticed something.
"Problem- there appears to be a major component missing. I think the Caverners took the... 'batteries' as a safeguard? Either or, we can't really do much without them. What's our plan here?" Ian had considered the possibility that the Caverners wouldn't take lightly to a rogue situation - and they'd likely be fighting for their lives against the Bonfire colony alongside whatever massive abominations they could conjure. Guards would be abundant on both sides, so they couldn't just stroll in casually after what was very near treachery.
"ARE. YOU. KIDDING ME?!!?" Lane exclaimed.
"Jerks," Marielle muttered.
"Well that's expected," Dale muttered under his breath, once again forgotten.
"Ask nicely and hope for the best?" Lucas suggested. Everyone stared at Lucas with an expression that read, "are you serious."
Dale suddenly had a very bland expression and drily stated, "Asking nicely didn't stop Icetalon from forcing me to kill an whole army. Now if you excuse me, I'll be going, I prefer not getting involved in this."
At that, Greenheart stiffened and went pale. "Guys, I think he's broken again..." Chase said.
Dale stopped and sighed after seeing Greenheart's expression, "Will I ever learn?"
"Can't I just zap this thing continuously?" Lane sighed.
Lucas stared at the gears. "It won't work. It doesn't run on electricity."
"S**t," Lane swore.
"Language!" Chase chirped.
Lane shot a withering glare at Chase.
Dale had an unamused expression before finally teleporting away, soon having another yell session at the Academy.
Dale being unnoticed, Lane and Chase were once again tackling each other despite the severity of their situation.
"So anyone care to explain how we are going to fight our way through both masses to get batteries 5 times smaller than a piece of gold?" Dylan asked, irritated.
Ian thought for a moment, before realizing:
"Do you think Skywatch has finished making the final version of the ITEMS missiles?"
"...I don't know. Maybe-wait, you're not suggesting that we blast them all into oblivion?" Dylan replied, somewhat surprised. "No, idiot. That would destroy the battery too," Lane replied. "Wait, that's not your plan, is it?"
"Not... exactly. Just enough to absolutely ruin the frontline engagement between both sides, but not enough to FULLY obliterate the castle."
"Hope we don't screw around with our present by doing so," Chase said. "Chase, this isn't Back to the Future," Lane said. "Well you nearly stopped me from existing so I'd be willing to debate that."
"Everyone just- stop. We're on our own now. No allies except each other. Our main option is to infiltrate Skywatch and hijack a shipment of the completed ITEMS receivers. It's likely that the Caverners are making an attempt to push back using the missiles. If we can hijack the shipment and relocate the receivers, the havoc caused will be enough to get into the castle." Ian suggested.
"Sounds like a plan - wait how do we do that, exactly?" Chase questioned.
"Skywatch still exists. We teleport up there, but we'll probably have to actually use stealth now. It's likely the missiles are utilizing the Storm energy produced from the combination of products that regulate the atmosphere. Upon sabotage of the Great Graters (if Lane has the ability to overcharge them), all personnel will likely move there. We can then retrieve intel on the situation from the Old Man's Room: and we'll hope we figure out the location of the shipments from there. When we get to the crate or rack, I'll freeze us all in a form of cryostasis so we don't burn alive in the upper atmosphere as we descend. By the time we hit earth, the ice alone will break our landing... I hope."
"..."
Dylan especially did not look too fond of this plan, being stabbed through the arm with an icicle earlier. He winced at the memory.
"I guess we have no other choice..." Kelsey sighed.
"Well, lets go," Felix said. Olivia pulled out her map and tapped on Skywatch, the group teleporting there.
Felix looked around.
Ian surveyed the area around the upper beanovator before summoning what looked like a drone. He dipped the drone into the clouds and it was immediately charged with residual storm energy. Soon it instantaneously rose from the floor level and hovered over in the general direction of the Great Graters. Upon moving past the first room of the path, it loudly shattered- though it would be under the guise of stray hail.
The group instinctively tensed. "Please tell me they didn't notice," Marielle whispered.
"..."
"They didn't notice," Lane exhaled. The group relaxed.
"Termination charge security systems. Disintegration. We'll need another route."
Ian summoned the shotgun again and hooked to the top of the main Skywatch complex, past the carrier. Looking down, two guards stood on both sides of the door, evidently bored. They somehow didn't notice Ian, likely because of the sheer boredom destroying all sensory response. Two miniature icebergs knocked them out instantly, and the shotgun faded.
"...so how exactly, do we get over there?" Samantha asked.
In response, Ian reconjured the shotgun and hooked every single person in the group onto the roof, one by one, taking approximately 3 minutes.
"Seems like he hooked us on that plan," Chase said.
Ian proceeded to lift a grate over a convenient vent port on the roof and froze the fan before lifting it out of the way. Immediately, conversation and footsteps faintly resounded from the inside.
Dylan threw a rock farther down the opposite side of the corridor, to which the voices stopped and two soldiers thumped down the corridor. "Huh. That actually worked?" Samantha asked as the group hopped down the hole where the vent was and into the corridor.
A couple guards stood on the other side, watching the front door with no sign of stopping. The 2 guards investigating the corridor were originally posted at the Old Man's Room, but there were likely going to be more inside the room. Ian moved up to the investigating guards, knocked them temporarily unconscious with miniature icebergs, and silently pushed them to a side where no one would see them. The blast doors were directly ahead of the corridor, and as it stood, the mini door for whatever reason lodged in between the two sides was unlocked. Beyond the blast doors was the end chamber in which the factory generators were likely held (tightly secured), and the outskirts beyond, where one could theoretically have a clear overcharge opportunity on the Graters- even if far.
Olivia stared at it.
Lightning bolts sparked between Lane's fingers as he looked at Ian for confirmation.
Ian took 2 seconds to stare at the graters before nodding.
Lane dashed towards the graters, appearing to disappear before reappearing and driving his palm into one of the graters. Immediately, three purple bolts of lightning slammed into the ground and closed in on the graters. The conveyors sputtered to a halt. "Well that was anticlima-" Chase was cut off as the graters exploded, followed by two shockwaves, decimating the structure.
"Well I guess you could say it sparked out," Chase joked.
Lane hauled himself over the railing of the area and fell back onto the ground. "I'm fine," he said.
Much bustle resounded from the building as personnel poured forth to go figure out what the hell just happened. Ian ran back into the end chamber and through the corridor, stopping outside the door to the Old Man's Room.
Guards thumped down the corridors and stared in shock at the destroyed graters. Others had cornered the wardens. "Seriously? A couple of kids and an old man caused this?" One of the guards slightly chuckled. Greenheart gave him a stern glare, not that it did much.
"Call me a kid again, why don't you?", Felix dared them, pulling out his staff.
"Whatcha gonna do...kid?" the guard taunted. "Gary don't provoke them," one of the other guards said, "I mean, look at what they did to the graters."
"They're KIDS."
Scarlet, sensing the hostility in the guard's voice, hopped off of Chase's shoulder and headbutted Gary's leg. "Aw cu-AAAH AHH!" Gary screamed, hopping up and down on one foot.
Scarlet, not appreciating the taunting, had set Gary's foot on fire before returning to Chase's shoulder.
Felix literally blasted a hole through Gary.
Gary stared at Felix with an expression of shock and pain before collapsing on the floor, motionless.
The group stopped and stared at the guard in horror. Lucas curled up into a ball once more.
Ian sighed exasperatedly and backhanded Felix before summoning another shotgun, grappling one guard and launching the guard into another.
Felix glared at Ian.
Ian rehooked the first guard, wrapped the chain around the second, and swung the bodies like a wrecking ball into the others. Retracting the hook, he kicked the pile to the side for someone else to... "deal" with.
Chase and Scarlet were currently torching the wall, trying to burn a hole in it. "Chase, step back," Greenheart said, hammer slung over his shoulder. Chase picked up Scarlet and backed away. Greenheart gently tapped the wall twice before rearing back and smashing a hole in the wall, sending the debris that flew outside miles away.
"...Oh that's convenient," Chase said, staring at several opened crates containing spike-like structures to the side of the hole in the wall.
Ian told everyone to group at the crates- he then froze the lot and kicked them haphazardly off the edge of the continent before freeze-jumping off himself. What felt like a moment later was actually 10 minutes: but the ITEMS were secure and the most anyone got from the impact was an ache and a cut from the ice.
"Ow . . . .", Olivia said, her arm had a cut from the ice.
Dylan shuddered as the impact jarred his injured arm and rolled over, clutching it.
Everyone stood up, as Ian and Lucas helped Dylan to his feet.
"Now lets get these to the Cav-" Lane was cut off as a mechanical, humanoid hand burst out of a blue rift, quickly being pulled back by another hand in a blue glove, followed by hushed voices, in which only the words "stay irrelevant" could be made out.
"...the heck?"
"...Igni...idiot bot...liza...fine..."
"Who's Igni?" Chase asked.
Whatever was going on in the other side of the rift exploded in chaos. "WHY YOU LITTLE-"
The voice was cut off as the rift closed abruptly.
Ian stared at where the rift was before storing the crates in another golem and teleporting into the middle of the Shiverchill Mountains. Faintly heard were the sounds of battle- flame and ice clashing.
"So do we chuck these at them or...?" Lane questioned.
Ian summoned a pillar of ice underneath himself, then elevating to a height beyond normality. The ice warden looked beyond the rocks ahead to the battle- commanders and royals on the frontlines with infantry falling one after the other.
Ian descended.
"Maybe. Anyway, ever went skiing?"
Ian pushed off another summoned diagonal pillar and slid down the mountain at rapid speed, golem retrieving spike after spike and launching them down at the intersect. The rest of the group soon followed, expediting the process by firing spikes in between the golem... "reloading"?
Meanwhile, Alan nearly got stabbed by one of the spikes and turned his attention towards the mountain - beholding what looked at first glance to be an avalanche, later being obviously a bunch of idiots kicking up snow as they launched missile receivers into the battlefield.
"They've got the ITEMS," Ryder sighed, firing shards of ice at the group with his ice hand whilst punching a bonfire soldier in the face with his normal hand.
Ian held every shard incoming in stasis as he slid, redirecting the shots in the general direction of everywhere besides behind him. The shards that got through were dodged or whiffed entirely. Recievers continued to fling until they got to the bottom of the mountain and the golem reached for another spike before appearing to realize there was nothing there.
Meanwhile, missiles of incredible power automatically launched from a silo near the factory, targeting the active receivers. They'd arrive in approximately 3 minutes. Alan cleaved through the frontlines for a couple seconds before turning attention to the group.
"Should we get Lucy?" Ryder asked Alan, hacking away at the frontlines with him.
"...Yeah."
Elsewhere, the golem within the castle roared at its mention. Something rumbled from beneath the earth and other problems screamed their way through the sky, assuring destruction.
"What the heck was that?" Kelsey asked nervously.
Answering her question, a golem of a cyan and purple coloration, with snow on it's shoulders burst onto the battlefield.
"...why does it look bigger than it does in our timeline?!" Chase exclaimed.
The crystalline creature let out a roar of assertion before ironically glancing at the Caverners for instruction.
Ryder pointed at the group currently still skiing down the mountain while continuing to hack away at the frontline.
The golem moved towards the mountain, paying no attention to the Bonfire Colony, who was running out of the way as Lucy bulldozed its way towards the group.
"It's coming this way!" Marielle screamed. Ian, Chase, and Lane looked at each other, evidently thinking the same thing. An ice pillar launched Chase into the air, where he launched Razorfires at the golem, only to get blasted out of the sky by a water spell from it. Lane immediately slammed his palm into the ground sending a lightning bolt down onto the golem. "NO, LANE WAIT-"
The living heap of crystals had already switched back to ice type, Lane's lightning having little to no effect. With an angry roar, a snowball crashed into Lane, making him look like a living snowman.
The snow exploded(?), releasing Lane, who more or less mumbled "I'm okay" while lying face-down in the mountain snow.
Lucy was watching the group somewhat crossly before summoning a miniature blizzard.
Samantha pulled Chase out of the snow, handing Scarlet back over to him.
Two seconds later, they were buried in another foot of snow.
One by one, heads popped out of the snow. While Chase was pulling Samantha out of the snow, Scarlet growled and shook the snow off her head before dashing towards Lucy. "Scarlet! Come back!" Chase exclaimed. The fire and water warden resumed skiing down the mountain, in pursuit of an angry little baby dragon.
Scarlet started headbutting the golem's leg and breathing flames at it, both doing not so much to the cluster of cyan crystals.
The golem lifted a leg, which was being gnawed on by the baby dragon. The crystalline figure, now distracted by Scarlet, cocked it's head curiously, attempting to figure out what the draglet was doing.
Scarlet, sensing this wasn't working, climbed onto the golem's forehead and started clawing at it's eyes.
Lucy, startled, shook her head causing the baby dragon to slide onto it's nose.
Scarlet aggressively bopped the golem's nose with her front right talon repeatedly, while below, the two wardens were moving around wildly, trying to get in the right position to catch Scarlet if she fell.
The golem blinked before lowering. Its face nearly touching the ground, it tilted its head causing the winged reptile to slide off in front of Chase. Now resuming its former posture, the golem let out a roar to warn the group off.
"...uh, thanks?" Chase said, somewhat confused.
Lucy shot him a perplexed expression before letting out another warning roar.
Just then, several ITEMS slammed into the ground in front of Chase and Samantha, the missiles not far behind. "Run!" Samantha exclaimed, the two dashing back up the slope surprisingly quickly. The rest of the group attempted to stop skidding down the mountain and go back up to avoid the coming explosion.
The ITEMS exploded on impact, blasting snow over a mile radius. When it finally cleared, a noticeably smaller Lucy remained, surrounded by an army of aggravated snow-covered Crystal Monsters.
"Wait what the-" Lane was interrupted by a Crystal Monster dashing towards him, which he zapped several times while backing away. Marielle started hacking away at Crystal Monsters with her scythe. "I like the way you think!" Lane said pulling out his scythe and hacking away.
The Crystal Monsters repetitively used Spike Strike against the group, dodging their weapons and running between their legs in an attempt to confuse them. Lucy sat down in the snow, watching her litter cause chaos pleasedly.
The Crystal Monsters split up the group, swarming each of them. The group hacked away at them faster, but in vain. Chase was the first to be lost in the sea of crystals, and the rest of the group went down the same path as him, yelps of pain ringing on the mountain.
One thought was evident in all of their minds.
Is this it? Will we ever go home?
Suddenly a burst of flames emerged from the swarm of Crystal Monsters. The tiny purple menaces turned towards the flames and dashed over, smothering it.
The other wizards rolled over onto their backs, breathing heavily. Scarlet limped onto Samantha's lap and laid there, exhausted. "Wait where's Chase?!" she cried frantically, sitting up.
Elsewhere, a particularly grumpy fairy noticed a bright orange glow emerging from one of the elemental gems. "What the-"
The Crystal Monsters skittering around on the source of the flames wee instantly either sent hurtling down the mountain and into the battlefield or instantly disintegrated by a massive burst of flames emerging from an enraged fire warden. The injured warden tried to stand up, but faceplanted into the darkening pinkish-colored snow beneath him.
Lucy glared at Chase, and all the remaining Crystal Monsters turned to face the young warden.
Samantha and Scarlet were the first to scramble over to Chase, standing in front of him protectively. The rest of the group followed, staring down the Crystal Monster army.
Space-time ripped open forming a cyan rift and an odd techy wizard tumbled out. "S**t, your cross dimensional-self is going to kill me for this."
"Just hurry up and drag them through already." Snapped a voice on the other side of the rift.
"Alright, alright, don't get cold."
"SHUT UP BEFORE I COME OVER THERE." Exclaimed another voice.
"Would you stop getting your tails in a twist and let me deal with this?"
The Crystal Monsters and Lucy glanced between the gray-haired wizard and the hole in time, bewildered.
The wizard pulled down his visor further obscuring his face before turning to the group, who looked hostile enough as they were.
The entire group turned around and looked at the rift. "Who are you?" Lane asked, an edge of hostility to his voice, confirming the wizard's observation.
While the group was facing the rift, the Crystal Monster army rushed forwards.
"Wait a moment." He powered up a device creating a blade-like weapon and quickly slicing it through solid rock, which was conveniently placed right next to him. "Lucy, call them off, now." The golem reluctantly roared for the Crystal Monsters to retreat. He turned off the device and shoved it in his pocket.
Something flashed below his visor causing him to groan in irritancy, "Look, I'm currently paralyzed, your friend over there's hurt, Aly's going to murder me in cold blood for this later, and I generally don't have the time to explain something that happened... 15 years ago? Do you want to go home or not?"
Somewhere behind the rift, another portal could be heard ripping open.
Faintly, one could make out a voice- one Greenheart recognized- shouting profanities in the general direction of the first rift, and in particular, the gray-haired wizard.
Alan wasn't even confused: just a mix of angry, disappointed, and preparing to meet death.
Felix and Olivia watched.
The techy wizard winced at the sound of the rift opening and sighed, "I really need to get the hang of this."
Much pushing and shoving later, another techy wizard got through the rift. "You're going to f**k everything over with this. You LET them kill over half of the forces on both sides and then proceed to make them ditch. You know how F**KED this timeline is yet, fool?"
"Yeah, I'm well aware." The gray-haired wizard said bitterly. "And I didn't let them, Aly did."
The feminine voice from earlier rang at that, "I'M NOT THE ONE WHO LEFT THAT BLOODY FAEN WIND CURSED CLOCK IN THE EARTH TOWER."
The gray-haired wizard glared at the rift, before facing the older wizard, "Point is, would you prefer that guy," He pointed at the rift, "As Fire Warden? You know better than I do what he'll do in that position, and last time I checked, the last thing we need is the Ancient unleashing an elemental storm because of that idiot."
"I can hear you." The male voice snapped from within the rift.
"Well he's ABOUT to be if you guys don't help Chase," Lane growled, currently holding Chase's body in his blood-soaked arms.
Samantha exploded in sobs.
The wizard tugged at his sleeves right-handedly and casually glanced at the other wizard, "You can yell at me later, for now, they're coming with me." With a flurry of his lab coat, he led the group into the rift, arriving at what was hopefully the "present-day" Academy.
Chase's breaths were now significantly more shallow and slower.
The wizard glanced around, "GALE! Hurry up and get over here, won't you?"
"Storm, I'm right behind you." The fairy shook his head disappointedly at seeing Chase's state before dumping an entire bag of fairy dust on the Fire Warden's face. "Someone bandage him, it'll take a minute for that to start working."
The group surrounded their friend, wrapping bandages delicately around his arms and legs. Chase groaned, slightly twitching, his breathing returning to normal. A few moments later he sat up, rubbing his head.
And sneezed.
Over and over.
Gale had a slightly concerned expression, "Please don't tell me I did it wrong."
"Nah, you're fine. This happened last time."
"...last time?"
"They crashed into one of your relatives and he got like this when he got dusted-" An echoing sneeze rang in the great hall, causing everyone to jump in surprise.
Ian looked a lot more than preoccupied. Given the current situation and the fact that the heat of the battle in the past was likely escalating, history itself could have changed: and the fact it happened in the first place might mean it'll happen in more than one timeline. They'd escaped to an "original" timeline, but if they'd escaped to their first reality then...
Ian began silently pondering.
Storm, still waiting for his brace to unfreeze, shifted from side to side impatiently. Noticing Ian's expression he frowned, remembered the older wizard, and turned to face where a rift would open in approximately... five milliseconds if he remembered correctly.
Fractals of reality shattered in midair as an incredibly irate Raid along with a horribly pissed Cloud double-hammered their way through a rift.
"500. 500 duplicates and counting, Storm. The biggest total I'm sure you or I managed to correct put together? 260. Months of dealing in the dirt with ourselves and we've got to double that. I know you had to screw around here to get everyone in touch with each other. But this didn't happen the first time. This didn't happen the way it is now when it got you here. They would have lived - through sheer fate, luck, otherwise. Enough of them, at least, to repeat the cycle that ensures we don't all die to shadow-filled influence. Maybe not everyone. But enough."
Raid barely stopped to breathe as he spoke - Cloud kept a running number on the amount of timelines where the war didn't end in a half-draw and the future either held an ongoing war or some kind of deadly weakening in the Spire. As the number steadily climbed, Cloud would quietly state when an interval of 10 was reached- usually every 30 seconds.
"Which," the younger tech wizard dared to mutter to himself, "Is a screwed cycle seeing someone fails at the end of nearly every f**king timeline." He sighed knowing that arguing was pointless. "Alright, which timelines did I ruin and what do we need to do?"
"We can preserve this vanilla timeline, but the root sector is still active- and by now, a gateway back to the root would warp us a little too forward to be able to re-balance the fight. Basically, we need to stop that golem from duplicating- and make sure they never go AWOL in the first place. The AWOL route leads to ITEMS leads to explosion leads to everyone almost dying leads to now," Raid explained.
Ian stared at the floor.
Meanwhile, Samantha and Chase were hugging each other tightly. "Don't ever do that again," Samantha whispered. "I won't," Chase said, hugging her tighter.
Storm blinked, now slightly confused, "Then how the heck does Lucy become small in the original timeli- wait, no, I know the answer to that." Something flashed beneath his visor and with a sigh of relief, he was able to move his arm again. "So we need to stop them from following Dale's influence?"
"Yeah. But this time, we're going to the root timeline, so the only option is to try and reloop ourselves into the same rift that took us out of there. Luckily, Cloud's on that already. Unluckily, to get to a viable rift, we need to make our way through the most powerful iterations of both sides of the war that will ever exist."
At that point the gray hair wizard lowered his visor and looked the older wizard in the eye, or at least, where his eyes would be if a visor wasn't in the way. "I'm sorry WHAT‽" Despite his bangs covering the left side of his face, enough of his expression was visible for one to tell that he was beginning to have second thoughts.
"What did you expect out of an unbalanced war? That the victor wouldn't become more powerful, that the remnants of those who lost wouldn't seek revenge? The scale at which you screwed that timeline is implausibly massive."
Storm facepalmed, "I really should've thought things through. Didn't mean to make things stormy." He ignored an aggravated-looking Lane and added, "Then again, knowing me, my ability to screw things up is... out of the ordinary. How long until we'll be able to attempt a reloop?"
"You know, I'm starting to like this guy!" Chase said.
Despite the serious matter, Storm allowed himself a small smile at Chase's comment before raising his visor, properly concealing the wizard's eyes.
"Approximately somewhere between 3 hours and 12. Preferably 3. When Cloud's halfway to position, we'll use that peak in continuum movement and launch ourselves through the four-hundred... what, 79 timelines? Anyway, we'll use the same gateway and exit when we get to the rift point the root timeline sits on now."
"Sounds like a plan. I'm guessing we're bringing them?" He beckoned at the group standing behind them - excluding Gale, since this version of him was native to the current timeline.
"Yeah." Raid's visor began to blink rapidly- a holographic display of Navigator Curio appeared in mid-air.
"Your past self is approximately 5 minutes from the halfway point!" Curio appeared to buzz and glitch. "Start considering moving."
Storm looked just about ready to go when he remembered something. Looking at the group he inquired, "You guys still have that clock?"
"..."
Silence was the group's response.
"DON'T TELL ME YOU LOST IT." Storm was suddenly enraged, and had good reason for it. The 50 duplicates he accidentally created somehow replicated to 500, and if they left one copy in the Caverners hands... He shook his head, not wanting to even think about what would happen to the time continuum.
The group shuffled about, rubbing their arms and/or looking at the ground.
He stressedly placed a hand to his forehead, "Oh dear lord God please save me." He took a step away from Raid, now incredibly wary of his weapon. "If the Caverners got their good for nothing hands on it... I just hope they don't figure out how to use it."
He immediately began to search for something on his Visor, "Yet again, knowing Ryder and Alan, they'll figure it out and open the gates of hell itself. I'm not sure our plan's going to work if they create who knows how many duplicates with that thing." Now glaring at Greenheart he added, "Now I'm really beginning to wonder why you never mentioned I forgot that stupid a** clock in the Earth Tower."
"Storm, language, please," Greenheart sighed.
"My point still stands, and I can get a lot more foul if I want to Jacob, you know that better than I do." He said while crossing his arms, ignoring the young warden's surprised expressions relating to how they knew each other.
"To be honest, I thought it was a replica that belonged to a past student," Greenheart replied.
"That doesn't mean it was a good idea to leave it there unattended." The technical wizard snapped, exasperated. "You could of given it to me or Cloud but no. You ignore all possible logic and left something considerably dangerous in the Earth Tower. Did you learn nothing from the first time you time traveled? You really should've planted it in the nearest river in hope it'll ruin the tech." He threw up his hands in defeat, knowing this would change nothing. Realizing he really screwed things up big time, he continued to search for something on his visor, muttering to himself occasionally.
"Excuse me, did you just make a pun?" Lane hissed.
Storm, well aware that this was going to happen, lowered his visor and glared, "Yes, and I'm also who've would've been Storm Warden if you hadn't been born, so I recommend holding your tongue and giving Chase a break, I'm your real problem."
Curio reappeared. "Your past self is 2 minutes from the halfway point!" Buzzing and glitching. "GET MOVING, IDIOT."
Now ignoring an enraged Lane, Storm glanced at Raid, "You ready?"
"Yeah- it's not like Curio would let me not be ready," Raid responded.
The group didn't seem too happy about going back in that timeline but shuffled back into the rift behind Storm.
As usual, Storm fell facefirst out of the rift. "...Ow..."
Lucas and Greenheart helped him up. "Are you okay?" Lucas asked.
He brushed himself off, and shrugged in response, "I've been through worse. Alright, time to fix this mess."
Lane looked like he was holding back a Thunderdome.
Once again the wizard ignored the rival Storm Warden, remembering what Raid said about the war, "Wait aren't things supposed to be a mess-" He didn't get to finish as he had to dodge the casting of a Razorfire.
The group split in two, avoiding the Razorfire. "To be clear, that wasn't me," Chase clarified.
Storm continued to search for something on his visor, "Seems that things got fiery while we were gone. Anyhow, we need to somehow-" He jumped out the way of a literal fireball, "-stop your past selves from following Dale's advice so you don't go AWOL." At that exact moment, he had to duck to avoid an Ice Cannon. "HOW COME EVERYONE'S AIMING AT ME?"
"I guess you seem like an ice target," Chase replied.
Lane clenched his fists. Everyone shuffled slightly away from Lane. "Breathe," Marielle whispered into his ear.
Ignoring Lane as he's been doing for past fifteen years, he grumbled, "That's right, aim for the kid that's trying trying to help fix this s**t, he totally won't mind."
Felix looked around.
Storm scarcely avoided a Dragos, "Seriously, why are they aiming for me? Am I doing something wrong by standing here-" He paused, "S**t, I am." Moving out of the evident target zone he glanced at Raid, "Mind filling them in on the chaos I somehow caused?"
"No thank you", Olivia said.
"Yeaaaaah I'm going to have to stop you right there missy. We're currently thousands of years in the past, except, unlike the time where you guys crashed the place with," he suddenly got very sour and glared at Greenheart, "my clock - which may I mention, you weren't supposed to have to begin with - this time the timeline's been ruined because I made the mistake of allowing you guys screw with things unattended, and the war is now a complete and utter disaster."
"Well someone had to stupidly carry a stack of books taller than themselves and knock over the clock," Lane said through gritted teeth while glaring at Chase.
Storm sighed, realizing he was becoming a bad influence, "Hey, no need to get all tempestuous about it, I'm still the one who's going to be in trouble at the end of this."
"Well, actually Lane's been like this ever since he got here," Chase muttered, his shoulders sagging after Lane's last comment.
He shrugged in response, "Still, my point stands- oh there it is." The last part was mainly muttered to himself, and he looked like he regretted searching for it to begin with. "Sheesh, Aly's mad. Raid, recap, please?"
Samantha draped one arm around the dejected Chase, trying to cheer him up.
"Lucy army decimated Bonfire troops, Caverners took over, Bonfire remains now in hiding or rebelling. We're seeing a rebellion group that managed to make it past the abominations Alan tosses at them. Bonfire Spire now 80% Caverns converted, fire warden imprisoned - just to make sure the Ancient doesn't wreck everything."
"Jesus, that's worse than last time." He mumbled, shocked. "One event caused all that?"
"Apparently. Let's ditch this joint before-"
A loud roar like the one from the chasm emanated from the distance shook the earth.
"-the deathwyrm sees us."
Ian whipped around and saw a blue-tinted Artificial Deathwyrm serpentine charging at the group.
"Holy motherf**king s**t-" Storm was beginning to wish he could cast Fire spells instead of Storm spells. Instead, he readied a Zero, since that was the next best thing.
After the Zero had done its thing, Scarlet hopped off of Chase's shoulder and climbed onto the Deathwyrm's head and started batting at it with her front talons.
Storm, careful to avoid hitting Scarlet, repetitively used Powerbeam, which was surprisingly effective.
Elsewhere, an archagent began to observe a battle through the eyes of the wyrm.
Moments later, Storm was stuck in the result of the use of Ice Prison. He glanced at Chase, "A little help?"
Chase placed his hand on one of the bars, melting it, somewhat preoccupied with watching Scarlet closely.
He muttered a thanks, "I'm not sure spells are really effective, melee combat might be necessary, either that or I somehow became underpowered while I was taking a break from the Academy."
The wyrm burrowed into the earth - Scarlet was scraped off onto the ground. The ground rumbled, and something glistening appeared in the distance.
Storm frowned, not understanding why the Deathwyrm would retreat like that.
The glistening object appeared closer, and closer, and- OH S**T!
Indeed, Alan's Crystal Scythe implanted into the floor where Ian stood 2 seconds ago, now with said ice warden a mere inch from certain death. The Deathwyrm's rumbles did not cease.
Elsewhere, an Archagent made his way toward the conflict.
Storm instinctively pulled out his saber, then realized how much of an idiot he was for not bringing it out earlier. "That coward son of b**ch, how come he hasn't come out here himself." Noticing Raid's expression he remembered that the gang left the clock behind in the past, causing the blood to drain from his face. He silently turned on a function on his Brace, hoping he wouldn't have to deal with paralysis anytime soon.
The wyrm appeared to be moving backwards - towards something else.
A moment later, the wyrm exploded out of the earth, Alan crouched on top of its head.
With a trench coat. Like a f**king chad. Because everyone knows trench coats are cool.
The wyrm hovered over the battle, surveying the fight - before immediately turning attention to the group.
The wyrm flapped its wings once, and millions of crystal hailstones went raining down - along with a couple of massive shards.
Chase walked over and picked up Scarlet before launching Razorfires at the scythe, shattering the blade. "Wanna take a break yet?" Chase yelled at Alan, dodging falling crystals.
Alan recalled the scythe and reformed its blade, and the hailstones stopped in midair for a moment. "I can suspect why you came back. But this ability... is far too powerful to relinquish. We've gotten so far." The wyrm roared. "And I'm not going back."
Holding up his saber so any crystals near him would vaporize instantly, Storm glared at Alan with the usual territorialism he gained when someone messes with his tech. "You shouldn't mess with something you don't understand. You are destroying the time continuum."
"The consequences? Minor alterations. Infinite timelines - am I wrong?" Alan continued the hailstorm and jumped off the worm, scythe brandished.
"Minor? Minor? MINOR? YOU SON OF A B**CH YOU RUINED EVERYTHING." The heat rose to his face as he blocked another crystal.
Felix and Olivia watched the conversation.
"Alright, screw this."
Lane literally bolted in front of Storm and brought his fist around in a lighting-trailed arc that sent Alan flying 10 feet to the right of the group.
Alan regained footing by planting the blade through the floor - as soon as he stopped, the blade snapped off and descended into the ground.
Alan pointed the handle at the group before flicking it upwards - and a supersized blade ripped through the floor in the middle of them, covered entirely in ice. It fell onto its side and started becoming something of a sawblade.
Storm immediately muttered, "Harmony's going to hate me for this," before jumping up and using an unspeakable amount of Storm Energy to charge his saber. With a quick motion, he sliced off the tip of Alan's blade, but before he could try the move again, the timeline's current Storm Warden regained control of the Keystone.
The group jumped and dodged the spinning blade which took balls of water, spinning balls of fire, bolts of lightning, balls of mud, massive snowballs, and colorful beams of lights that smashed onto it, all of which merely slowed it down.
Storm, at noticing he's been getting rusty, frowned before once again attempting the stunt from earlier, since his Powerbeams weren't doing any good. Pushing his components to the maximum, he avoided the spinning part of the blade and took out another chunk with his lightsaber. "Want a piece of me?" He taunted with yet another pun.
Felix looked at Storm's saber.
Back in the castle, a queen shivers as she stares at the scene from a balcony, her eyes fixed on the archagent in the center.
He’ll be fine. We’ll be fine. Everything is going to fine.
Meanwhile, again, something flashed below Storm's visor, causing him to grit his teeth in annoyance.
Chase was now forming a Dragos above the blade while the academy was filled with a red-orange glow.
"Keep the blade in one place!" Greenheart ordered, driving his hammer into the ground, a rock quickly emerging from the ground and destabilizing the blade. The blade scraped the ground and was flipped vertically as it was sucked into a whirlpool that had formed on the ground then shot upwards, immediately trapped in a ball of light then blasted into a ball of snow.
At this point the entirety of the Academy was a light show as Chase brought down the Dragos.
That was, before the current timeline's wardens regained control of their respective keystone and the academy went dim, relieving the eyes of those currently inside.
"Something's wrong..." Chase said as he felt his control of the Dragos quickly slipping away. It smashed into part of the snowball, before simply separating into flecks of Fire magic. The blade burst out of the snowball and resumed its charge at the group.
"What the heck was that?!" Dylan yelled at Chase over the whirring of the blade.
Storm groaned, now incredible ticked off. "The current Wardens. They have dominate control over the Keystones, everything we do puts them in a power struggle." He shouted back in response.
Lane, who was locked in a melee battle with Alan for the past 5 minutes, finally gained the upper hand, forcing the archagent back. Alan, finally forced back into a wall, spun around Lane, a makeshift ice dagger crystalizing in his hand, thrust it at Lane. Unfortunately for him, Lane was faster. Alan skidded 5 feet backwards by the force of Lane's punch.
Right in the path of the spinning blade.
The gray-haired wizard was momentarily in a state of shock. Despite being well learned in how to handle a weapon, invoking death was still unfamiliar territory.
Silently noting not to underestimate the younger warden, he turned off his lightsaber and shoved it in his pocket for now... only to notice Alan standing alive and well behind the group.
Lucas and Iris let out sighs of relief.
It was too late to power up his weapon now, so he once again attempted to reason with the archagant, hand signaling at Lane to bring out his scythe. "Have you never considered the consequences of messing with the timeline? The slightest mistake might stop you from existing."
"That's why I use test subjects."
Alan blinked, and hundreds of dead... himselves? pattered onto the ground before fading.
"Makes a good plan. Always gonna need one."
Alan twirled the scythe and regained grip of it 45 degrees straight to the side, lined up with his arm. His appearance seemed to buzz and glitch momentarily as he advanced, signaling the Deathwyrm to descend to his level.
"You... monster." No foul language emitted from the techy wizard, for even that couldn't describe the person Alan became. "Your very existence treads on a narrow thread, and all those timelines... are doomed because of your stupidity."
A single sentence formed on his visor, causing it to let off a slight glow, Mention Iris.
"What would Iris say? In one of those timelines she might be dead because of you, aren't you supposed to protect your queen?"
Alan grimaced before recomposing. "Long dead in every timeline I selected. The Cloak got to her first- then I tested myself right after." As he glitched, dead bodies of both him and the sovereign flashed in the air- crumpled, slashed, maybe just a pile of ash. A corpse strung up to a wall as a trophy. A body gashed by thousands of knives. Fragments of the Timekeeper littered on the ground.
Innumerable.
Trying to ignore the pieces of the clock, he breathed deeply, "It seems that I may have to stand correct. That... might have been thei- my fault, and the reason we need that clock back."
Text in all caps flashed on his visor, three of his colleagues criticizing his stupidity.
"And before you say anything, note that if you or Iris dies, our present's ruined. Is it best to be selfish and ruin the future, or to do the right thing while you still can?"
A singular unnoticed message formed in the corner of his visor, If I know anything about things like these... then he might do what you think is the wrong thing...
"Wait so I can't kill him?" Lane asked disappointedly.
A faint golden-gray glow appeared on the snow before Lane, forming the words, No, I lied, in the icy powder before vanishing with a great gust of wind.
Lane rubbed his eyes. "Am I seeing things now?"
Again, another set of words formed, No, you're not. Now shut up before someone notices. Another gust of wind cleared the snow, whilst Storm remained tense.
The wyrm hovered protectively to Alan's right.
"You don't come from one of those futures."
The wyrm bit into the air and crystal spikes jutted out of the floor underneath the group.
"Leave."
"F**k, F**k, F**k, F**K." Multiple messages displayed on Storm's visor, vainly attempting to knock sense into him.
Felix grabbed Olivia onto his rainbow cloud, looking at the crystal spikes underneath them.
The rest of the group leaped onto ledges on the cave walls as the spikes protruded then receded back into the ground.
Forcing himself to calm down, he read the argument going on his visor.
Please?
No.
Oh come on, they need you to do this.
Harmony barely knows me at this part of the timeline, how am I supposed to-
Just ask them to help you.
Wait, me? No, just no.
You're being selfish.
Do I care?
Knowing you, no.
He sighed before writing out his own message, I know this hasn't been sorted out, but I don't believe that'll be the best idea. I'm trying the clock first, alright?
Storm glanced at Lane, "Well, seems Alan went too deep into hell, time to do this the hard way - GET THAT CLOCK." Without warning, he powered up his lightsaber and jumped off the ledge, landing in front of Alan. Spotting a slightly smaller version of the Timekeeper hanging from Alan's coat pocket, he took a step forward.
Lane leaped off the ledge and quickly restrained Alan with a headlock.
Storm ran in and snatched the timekeeper, snapping it off the chain that kept it in place. He immediately pried open the back and crushed something inside before tossing it on the ground, hard. "Whatever you do, run." He warned Lane before readying a trinity. The power source of the timekeeper was highly explosive, and he already started the first steps of the reaction. Ignoring the warning messages displaying on his visor, the air around him charged up intensely, sparks visible.
Lane flipped Alan onto the ground and dashed to the entrance of the cave, the rest of the group following. "Ian-" Lucas stopped as Ian nodded, rolling a snowball towards Storm. Almost immediately after, an explosion enveloped half the cave in flames. Out of the cave rolled a slushy snowball that Storm emerged out of.
"Remind me never to do that again," Storm mumbled under his breath while slumping to the ground, cuing four messages on his visor - all saying the same thing. Tis Granted.
Iris stared at the explosion, devastated. But she wasn't allowed to leave the castle when the Caverns were under attack.
Well f*** the rules.
An ice slide formed at the balcony, as she jumped out, the cries of several guards coming from outside her door. She landed a distance away from the explosion, the slide shattering behind her, and then ran towards the scene the explosion had created.
No, no, no. This wasn't supposed to happen. He isn't supposed to die yet.
The snow was stained with ash and faint traces of blood from the inside of where it caved in.
The smoke, slowly wafting away, gave a darkened appearance to a body underneath a small pile of slush, surrounded by multiple large rocks. As it cleared, one could observe a spreading patch of reddened snow underneath an unconscious Alan, small patches of fire still active around what was once a cave.
Storm, having finally gotten to his feet, instantaneously turned pale and averted his gaze from the sight of Alan.
Olivia looked at Alan, Storm, and Lane.
Storm was about to suggest that they get moving but instead frowned as he heard a noise coming from around Alan.
The group turned around and looked at Alan's location and saw another figure kneeling over Alan's body, tears dripping from their face onto his body.
Iris.
She lifted him up and wrapped her arm around his shoulder, stumbling as she tried to move the unconscious archagent away from the devastation.
The group silently watched her struggle, unsure what to do.
Then Lucas took a step forward. And another. And another. He kept walking until he was next to Alan, wrapping his arm around Alan's other shoulder and helped Iris move him.
Greenheart was the next to react, raising rocks in the air as stairs leading back to the castle balcony.
Guilt filled the techy wizard, to the point he semi-consciously touched the left side of his face, able to relate greatly. He immediately flinched away from his own touch and lowered his arm to his side, the metal being cold to the touch. He decided to remain at the back of the group, hoping no one would pay mind to him.
The group walked up the stairs and onto the balcony. The guards awkwardly shifted to the side, allowing Iris and the group to pass.
Upon entering the castle, Ian materialized a bed-like structure out of ice that somewhat resembled an operating table. Lucas and Iris gently lifted him onto the structure. Chase placed his hand on the floor, melting a puddle in it. The water levitated next to Samantha's hand and was used to rinse Alan's wounds before the rest of the group bandaged him. Ian then refroze the hand-shaped impression on the floor left by Chase's melting of it.
Felix and Olivia stared at Alan, unsure what to do.
Unlike the rest of the group, Storm decided to hang around by the doorway, waiting for some smart-aleck to realize who set off the bomb.
"Wait a minute, you're the one that set off the explosion," one of the guards hissed, pointing his spear at Storm. The rest of the guards tensed and pointed their spears at Storm too.
Storm blinked in response, "Well things got electrifying."
"...what did you just say?" Lane hissed, slowly turning his head to the wizard.
"Hm? I didn't say anything, he did." He gestured to the nervous-looking guard to his right.
"Do I look like an idiot, you storm element disgrace?" Lane lowered his head, an irritated look on his face.
"Yes," Chase chirped from behind him.
"I'm sorry, but who asked you?"
"Can we please just get back to bandaging Alan?" Samantha sighed.
Storm calmly responded, "No, but it wasn't me." While the guards were somewhat distracted by an angry Lane, the wizard took the time to slid a device out of his pocket.
Lane muttered something and went back to bandaging Alan's arm with Marielle.
Looking at the guards, the wizard inquired, "Now where we?"
"...what?" the first guard asked, confused.
Storm sighed, "So you don't even know why you're pointing spears? Shame, I'm sure Alan would gladly fire you if he found out..." He trailed off, leaving the air of a threat.
"Stupid short-term memory loss," the guard muttered.
The group inside the castle looked at the guards and raised their eyebrows, except for Lucas and Iris, who were finishing up with bandaging Alan.
"Well then, I'll be going, seeing that you can't do anything without a valid charge."
"Anyone remember why we pointed our spears at him?"
"No sir, none of us were paying attention until you pointed your spear at him."
"..."
Storm was about to walk away when the guard stopped him, clearly not intending to let the wizard go free until he was proved innocent.
"John, let him go," Iris sighed.
"But Queen Iris-"
"Let. Him. Go."
The guard muttered something under his breath, yielding and placing the hilt of the spear on the ground, holding the upper part of the handle vertically. The rest of the guards did the same. Iris gave Storm a forgiving look as he walked back in the room.
Now in the room, Storm slipped the device back into his pocket, a bit surprised Iris interjected this time. As expected, something flashed below his visor and the wizard was once again unable to move his arm, causing it to fall limply to his side.
"You okay?" Kelsey asked the increasingly irritated wizard.
"I'm fine!" He snapped in response, despite himself.
"You didn't have to be mean about it," she muttered, shrinking away.
Storm ignored her, ticked off and feeling useless. Why is everything going wrong?
First the timeline (which he had expected), then the Death Wyrm, then Alan, then the guards, and now this? He had well enough reason to lose his temper, but frankly, no way to carry it out.
Raid appeared out of nowhere, holding an empty nearly empty of popcorn with some unpopped kernels inside. He zapped the bucket into a pile of ash and insensitively called, "Are we done here yet? Cloud's been waiting for 10 minutes already."
In the distance near a mountain north of the battlefield, a tech wizard stood solitary in the cold, rift gateway behind him.
"No, otherwise I wouldn't be freezing in the corner." Grumbled Storm. As Lane raised a fist he immediately added, "Pun wasn't intended! Since you brought it up, where were you when we were being mauled by a Death Wyrm?"
"Eating popcorn. And knowing full well you probably wouldn't die." Raid seemed incredibly unconcerned, like a jacka**. He wasn't full time jacka**, but he was now.
Felix sat down, bored.
Storm looked like he was about to tackle Raid, that is, if he could. "If it wasn't for this stupid brace-" Yet the other tech wizard just waved him off.
Olivia looked at Raid.
Lane clobbered Raid and tossed him back in the rift, which closed behind the tech wizard.
"Glad someone had the sense to do that." Stated Storm after a bit.
Felix looked at Lane.
Storm sighed, "As much as I would like to spite Raid, we do have to go." Turning to Iris he added, "I apologize about the... mess we made. I hope Alan recovers."
Raid popped out next to Cloud, facefirst in the snow, visor askew. Cloud looked down, puzzled.
"What happened to you?"
"eugh"
Lane raised an eyebrow at Storm's comment. Marielle nudged him with her elbow while smiling at Iris.
After they exited the room, Storm (with some difficulty) conjured a holographic map, teleporting the group at where Raid and Cloud would be, that is, if he recalled correctly.
Felix and Olivia followed.
Raid looked 5 feet to his right and located the group, before getting up from the snow and fixing his visor. Cloud looked back into the rift.
"We're going to need to go to the past in this timeline, but whoever had the clock f**ked the timeline so bad that the translation rift isn't exact. Basically, because I know for a fact (by looking through Raid's visor camera) the clock here is destroyed, we'll need a secondary timeline with an intact version of the clock. Anyone willing to go deal with that, or should I just..?"
Storm looked guiltily at the ground before saying, "I'll do it, it's my fault to begin with." He chuckled nervously, "Besides, I already know a timeline with another clock."
He right-handly opened a rift and vanished before falling out of another rift seconds later, hair singed slightly. Having fallen face first in the snow, he held up the clock and mumbled, "Got it."
"Did you go to a timeline with too many Chases?" Kelsey asked, staring at Storm's hair. Lane shuddered.
"There's nothing wrong with that!"
Greenheart rolled his eyes.
"Nope, worse, an enraged Ignis." Responded the tech wizard before getting up. "On the bright side, I can move my arm again. Honestly, I wouldn't have brought the clock here, but since he was about to burn it..."
Greenheart glanced at Cloud awkwardly. "Erm. Hi Cloud."
"Who's Ignis?" Chase asked.
Storm slowly facepalmed before explaining to Chase, "Ignis is the would-be Fire Warden. Though I believe you know him as Igni. Piece of advice, don't call him that in front of him."
"Oh. Okay."
The techy wizard glanced at Cloud, "Think we'll be able to use the rift now?"
Cloud nodded and flicked the long hand of the clock before going back into the first rift. The pathway to the exit had changed, shorter now.
As they exited the rift, Storm, as usual, fell out face first. "Ow... I really need to work on that."
Lucas helped him up.
"Thanks," Storm paused at seeing a message on his visor.
Are you seriously going to forget me that fast?
Oh. Heh, sorry.
Across the island, another rift opened, allowing someone to pass through.
"What was that about?" Marielle asked.
"Hm?" Storm glanced at Marielle, confused before realizing she noticed the flash below his visor. "Oh, nothing important at the moment."
"So...are we heading back to stop 'us' now?" Chase asked.
"Yes," the tech wizard answered. "If I recall correctly, you went AWOL at the Bonfire Caves, correct?"
The group collectively nodded.
"Well then, obviously no one in those caves will recognizes me at this point of the timeline, so we're going to have to find a fairy." A message flashed under his visor at that.
NO. NO, NO, AND NO.
Please?
NO.
Pleeeease?
No, and if you keep asking I'm telling Aly to have Lucy sit on you when you fix this mess.
"Seems like that's not an option." Storm muttered under his breath.
Felix looked at the visor.
"Any ideas?" The tech wizard asked.
Felix shook his head, "I'm not the one who comes up with ideas."
"What about Draco?" Samantha asked.
Olivia was just bored.
Storm glanced at Samantha, "That could work, but we'll have to find him. Maybe Scarlet can? Fire Fairies have a strong connection with dragons after all."
Scarlet, resting on Chase's shoulder as usual, perked up at hearing her name.
"We'll have to go near the caves to test it out though, which would be a risk. Yet if she finds him..." He looked at Chase, "Willing to try it out?"
Scarlet chirped happily. Chase stroked Scarlet's head. "I think she agrees!"
Felix looked around.
"Alright then, we'll go to the entrance at Firefly Forest." He summoned his holographic map and teleported the group. As they approached the entrance he looked at Chase, "Welp, here goes nothing. Tell her who to find and put her down."
"Remember Draco?"
Scarlet chirped.
"Good. Now can you find him?"
Scarlet bounced up and down before walking down the path.
After a bit, Scarlet returned tugging Draco out of the cave. He looked confused, and frankly, terrified.
Felix frowned.
Storm took off his visor and slowly waved before introducing the group, "Hi, I'm Storm, that's Chase, Lane, Ian, Samantha, Marielle, Dylan, Olivia, Felix, Kelsey, and Lucas. Oh and the old guy over there is Jacob, but he prefers 'Professor Greenheart'." Greenheart shot him a look, having something to say about being called an "old guy". The gray-haired wizard ignored him and continued, "I know you just met us, but we were wondering if we can get a bit of help."
"...w-why?"
"Well, it's a bit of a long story. You see, I forgot this timekeeper in the Earth Tower, Chase knocked it down, activated it, caused a rift in space-time to open, and everyone excluding myself was sent 2,000 years back in time until now. Back in the pre- I mean, our present this mountain lion woke me up, scared me half to death, then I realized it was someone I knew and I opened a rift and kept an eye on these guys because one tiny mistake can ruin a timeline. Yet somehow things got crazy in your present, Chase nearly died and I had to open the rift, and then we reached the present we realized that because the ITEMS caused Lucy to gain an army of crystal monsters, Alan became an insane tyrant, took control of a Death Wyrm, kidnapped the Fire Warden, and planned to take over the world." Storm paused to take a breath, "So now we're trying to fix this mess, and to do that we need to stop these guys' past selves from going AWOL and ruining the future, and soon enough their past selves will be heading to the Drake Tribe cave."
Draco blinked, a puzzled expression across his face. Cocking his head slightly in a confused manner he eventually said, "Wha...?"
The Professor slowly facepalmed in the background.
Back at the caves, Icetalon had noticed Draco being led by the young dragon. Knowing that the Fire Fairy was a known prankster, he decided to see what he was up to... only to see the odd group assembled in front of the cave entrance. Walking out, his eyes narrowed, "Who are you?"
Dylan tensed. The group just stopped altogether.
Lucas decided to introduce the group again. "Hello, I'm Lucas. They are Ian, Chase, Lane, Marielle, Samantha, Dylan, Olivia, Felix, Kelsey, Professor Greenheart, and Storm. We've already met, General Icetalon, but in a different timeline."
"I know him." He gestured to Storm, "But I don't recall meeting the rest of you," the General hissed.
Storm completely ignored the exchange, "Icetalon? Wait, didn't you die after the Faen War-"
"Clearly not, as the shadow went ahead, possessed him, and shot an icicle through my arm," Dylan growled.
"I never-"
Storm didn't let the general finish, "Wait, shot you through the arm? Did you guys go AWOL purely due to Dale's influence or did something happened? I admittedly left the rift a couple of times."
"Well, the Caverners stole the battery to the timekeeper," Dylan responded.
"So that would we need to convince your past selves that they'll return it if you ask, correct?"
"Yeah that could work..." Dylan said.
"Well then, all that's left to intercept your past selves, which means we'll have to go in the caves." At that, Icetalon cleared his throat, "And what makes you think you'll be going in?"
Lucas glanced at Icetalon, several rules going through his head:
- Don't use mindtrap.
- Don't leave without getting Iris out of that necklace.
- Don't hurt the general.
- Don't let the general hurt his friends.
The issue with that was Iris escaped the necklace when Icetalon got possessed, and he could only get possessed if Lucas used mindtrap, and if he were possessed then what was stopping him from hurting himself or his friends?
Yeah.
This would require some more planning than just that...
"We all know that there is going to be at least 2 or more gashes on everyone when this fight ends", Felix said, his hand gripped on his staff tightly
The instant Felix gripped his staff, Icetalon drew his sword. The Ice Fairy's tail lashed as he tensed, unsure who will make the first move.
Greenheart facepalmed. "Felix, please put the staff away."
Felix ignored Greenheart.
"Are you trying to get us killed?!" Marielle exclaimed.
Felix's terrosaur roared.
That had done it. Within seconds spiked shards of ice brutally rained down of the group, and Felix seemed to be the first target.
Felix conjured a ray of light, blinding Icetalon.
Meanwhile, Raid looked on from the mouth of the cave, appalled. One, why did they have to go agressive immediately (dammit Felix), two, why does no one listen to anyone (dammit Icetalon).
Raid decided he'd had enough of this garbage and snapped his fingers. Curio's face display materialized in a hologram near the mid-center of the room, before glowing a bright cyan and supercharging the floor. Soon, pieces of the ground began to hover about, charged with electricity and being held in static. The entire area was now the equivalent of a stun gun's barrel should anyone have stayed in place too long. Curio's display disappeared.
The group looked around at the floating pieces of the ground, unsure what to do. Icetalon stumbled about, looking around, blankly. Lucas quickly blocked his path into a charged rock, narrowly dodging the general's sword. "Guys...I think he's blind..." Lucas said, horrified.
At the time Felix blasted him, Icetalon's vision blurred and color briefly danced before his eyes - the classic response to light exposure. However, a sense of dread came over him as his world darkened. This isn't supposed to happen.
His suspicions were confirmed as he heard one of those annoying kids say that he had gone blind, but the fact he considered the possibility didn't stop him from feeling an overwhelming panic.
Felix stared at Icetalon, and suddenly, his eyes went blurry.
Storm, who had helped Draco get out of the way of the chaos that somehow occurred over a span of seconds, looked irritated. He stormed to the middle of the area, stuck an arm into the air, and clenched his fist as it began to be enveloped in Storm energy. Instantly all the electricity was instantly redirected to the past Storm Warden, bits of it going to Raid and Lane. The chunks of land crashed to the ground kicking up clouds of dust causing dirt to spray, as they were no longer repelled.
The air around the wizard was static as he spun to face Raid, "You're. Not. Helping." Gritting his teeth and attempting to stay calm, he walked over to the group. "I don't mean to pressure you, but Old Edur over there can't stay blind, and your past selves are getting rather close. Now before we go with plan B, HURRY THE F**K UP AND DO SOMETHING THAT DOESN'T INVOLVE PROVOKING RANDOM FAEN."
Felix's vision returned to him and floated down.
Electricity crackled around Storm and not a trace of his usual playfulness filled his icy blue gaze as he shot Felix a death stare. Normally he wouldn't be too bothered, but right now, one too many things have gone wrong.
Felix looked at Icetalon.
"Maybe we can heal his eyesight?" Samantha suggested.
Greenheart turned to Ian. "Ian, a Glacial Shield please?"
Icetalon, at hearing that they were going to do something, tensed. He lived by an unspoken set of rules, and he was already about to break the first.
"Wait", Olivia said.
"Hm?" Greenheart turned to Olivia.
"We can't just heal him, what happens if we do heal him? He could attack us again!"
"But we're not just going to leave him either," Felix said.
The fairy General was temporarily relieved but quickly irritated. This is why humans are idiots.
His tail quivered impatiently as he could do nothing but listen to their petty bickering.
Lucas stepped up. "We're healing him, and that's final, and I don't care about what you think of Icetalon. Ian is going to heal the general right now and no one is ever going to argue against helping someone ever again." His voice was as cold as the Glacial Shield that Ian quickly cast on Icetalon, and no one said a word.
After a few cautious glances from Chase, who was smart enough to not say anything, guilt dripped into Lucas' heart, the ice beginning to melt.
It took a bit, but Icetalon's vision blurred before returning to normal. He stared at Lucas who was standing in front of him, a trace of surprise in his gaze.
Storm sighed in relief and he seemed a bit less likely to electrocute someone as he pulled out his visor, "Thank you."
Dylan cleared his throat. "Well now that's all done, are we going to stop our past selves from screwing up our timeline or...?"
"As much as I would like go in now, I believe we owe Draco an explanation and Icetalon an apology." The gray-haired wizard crossed him arms, once again shooting Felix and Raid a look.
"And we weren't going to be able to get in there if Icetalon was just going to stand there, and nobody does anything!", Olivia said.
At that Storm looked confused, "What in the name of the Astral Warden is that supposed to mean-" he paused at seeing Lucas' expression, "Oh, right, sorry."
"What I mean was, we were going to have to get in there somehow", Olivia said.
"Oh. I'm an idiot."
"That you are," muttered an irritated fairy under his breath.
Storm turned to Icetalon, "Heh.. uh, sorry about that General. Um... would you mind not killing me and letting us pass?"
The ice fairy glared at him in response.
Someone tugged Icetalon's clothes and he looked down to see a younger fairy.
Draco's tail quivered nervously as he said, "Let them pass, please? They sound like they really want to fix things... except for him." He shot an accusatory look at Felix.
The General crossed his arms, wary, "And why should I trust your word?"
"I promise I won't ever prank you again if you do." The fire fairy eventually said with a sigh.
"If they do anything-"
"We won't," Storm quickly interrupted.
"...the weird metal kid is going to be the first to die." Icetalon finished, regardless, causing the tech wizard to pale.
Felix crossed his arms.
Dylan cleared his throat. "So, uh, can we go and stop ourselves from destroying our timeline?"
"Yes," Storm answered, "Draco, do you mind?" The fire fairy nodded before leading the group into the cave, but unlike the rest of the group, the tech wizard stayed behind for a bit, "Oh, and Edur if you happen to see us in... a few minutes and I'm not there, would you mind pretending not to know any of them? Thanks." He dashed off to catch up with the rest of the group, leaving a confused Ice Fairy behind.
Following the familiar pathways, they eventually arrived at the Drake Tribe cave, where a familiar dragon slept peacefully.
Chase inched closer to Samantha, seeing the dragon.
Yet as before, a small dragon showed up near Chase's leg, looking quizzically at Scarlet.
Scarlet growled inquisitively, looking at Past-Scarlet, then back at Chase.
Past-Scarlet cocked her head before creeping forward and bonking Present-Scarlet on the snout, trying to figure out if the identical dragon was real.
Present-Scarlet shook her head and stepped away from Past-Scarlet, surprised.
Storm chuckled softly at seeing the two dragons interact with each other, "Seems like Scarlet's having a bit of a scaly situation." Yet he anxiously looked at the clock displaying at the edge of his visor, 3 minutes to go. Raid you better not be eating popcorn again.
Past-Scarlet was also surprised that Present-Scarlet actually existed. Lucas smiled a bit. This is exactly the kind of thing that would get my dad on a roll for hours.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Storm's face tense up. He turned to the tech wizard. "We're running out of time, aren't we?"
"So...do we hand this Scarlet over to Past-Chase and tell them to go ask the Caverners for the battery or go through some relatively more complex plan to make sure they-er...we don't screw up our timeline?" Samantha asked.
"We need to make sure most of things happen the same way as before," answered Storm, "The only thing we should be influencing is keeping Ian from persuading the rest of you from following Dale's advice-" He paused as voices became audible, discussing something about a dragon.
Felix looked at the past Scarlet.
The tech wizard immediately hissed under his breath, "Quick, hide. We can't risk ruining this timeline any further." Footsteps began to be audible as the group's past selves neared.
Felix cloaked him and Olivia with his invisibility cloak.
Storm snatched Past-Scarlet and shoved her in Draco's grasp, muttering quick instructions before hiding along with the rest of the group.
A familiar voice rang out, "Well, no one seems to be home- CHASE."
"Aww it likes me!" Past-Chase exclaimed.
Everything happened just as before... until Icetalon showed up. In that instant Storm began explaining the plan.
"This is going to sound crazy, but we have to swap Ian's past self with our Ian. Otherwise, we're doomed."
"And how, exactly, do we do that without being seen?" Kelsey inquired.
"Uhhh..." The tech wizard looked stressed, and clearly lacking a solid plan, "We can have Lucas mindtrap your past selves, and immediately place them in an imagination of their current surroundings, let our Ian get into position, and release them all except past-Ian." Seeing their expressions he quickly added, "Then again I don't know much about mind traps and flunked my test so that most likely won't work. We can also use Felix's invisibility cloak to swap them while your past selves are distracted, but I'm afraid I had to leave the rift for a bit around now, so I don't know what happened."
"One issue with that first plan," Dylan said, "The shadow's still in Lucas' consciousness and could easily kill at least one of our past selves while they're mindtrapped."
"I have a plan. But it's risky", Olivia said.
"Forgot that thing existed." He said while facepalming, "Olivia, your idea?"
"I say we let that past tense Scarlet go. When they go to examine it, grab the past-tense Ian, and replace him with present-Ian, SILENTLY."
"I gave Scarlet's past-self to Draco, she's currently with Chase's past-self." He sighed, "If we can't come up with anything we'll have to go with Plan B, which I'll like to avoid."
"And Plan B is?" Lane asked.
"It's... complicated," he ruffled his hair nervously, "unless you guys are interested in finding out what an Elemental Storm looks like, I think it's best to avoid- why do I not like that face?"
Chase shuffled out of arms reach from Lane.
Storm looked at them before saying, "So which plan do you prefer?"
"Plan B," Lane said.
"Lane, drop the stormy attitude please?" Chase responded.
"Hey! What's wrong with being stormy? Besides, you probably shouldn't be inflaming him-" Seeing the younger storm warden's expression he chuckled nervously, "Whoops."
Lucas sighed. "Lane, stop promoting chaos. I'll mindtrap them." He'd been slightly irritated ever since the argument about Icetalon.
"Well then, you might want to do it now, the General's back." Storm informed the Astral wizard while peaking through a crack between the stalagmites they hid behind.
Lucas hesitated before focusing on the group. He focused and focused and focused... and focused... and focused... but he shook his head, shivering. "I can't do it to them." He said guiltily.
"Can't or won't?" Storm asked, annoyed.
"Can't."
The tech wizard had officially run out of ideas, "Look, I really didn't want to do this, but if you guys can't figure out how to swap Ian with his past self in the next... ten minutes, we're going to have to carry out Plan B." He typed out a message on his visor with a quick twiddle of his fingers, Please tell me you're up to this.
Five minutes passed. The wardens still had no ideas.
Six minutes. Nothing.
Seven. Eight. Nine.
"Alright, screw it. Let's do 'Plan B'." Dylan said.
Storm twiddled his fingers through the air again and a message popped up on his visor.
When Harmony gets mad at me for this, you're the one paying the consequences.
A slight scratching sound echoed through the cave, gradually growing louder as Storm counted the seconds on his fingers. Elemental energy filled the cave and a bright light filled every crevice - unleashing every possible spell in existence to the tenth power. Causing anyone unlucky enough to be exposed in the cave to be brutally hit until they were finally knocked cold.
A familiar, slightly British accented voice yelled out, "They're out, now are you planning to send me back or not? I don't exactly want them seeing me."
"Right." Storm muttered under his breath, a rift opening for the unknown personnel to return to their present. He then stood up and walked out from behind their hiding spot, the group following from close behind. There were leaves, ice, scorch marks, and puddles of water everywhere - and a group of very dead-looking people near the wall.
Felix's eyes widened.
The tech wizard looked entirely unconcerned as he opened another rift, which his own past-self happened to be standing in, eyes-wide with shock. He glanced back at the group, "Are you going to help me get them in there or not?"
Lane and Storm started hauling the unconscious past-wardens' bodies and placed them in the rift. Past-Scarlet laid on Past-Chase's back, looking at the rift quizzically.
After the storm wardens shoved all of them into the rift, Storm glanced at his past self, "If you want to avoid ruining the future again, I recommend not letting them go anywhere until I come back for them." He picked up Past-Scarlet - to her disdain, gently placed the dragon on top of Past-Chase's unconscious self, then closed the rift.
"Well time to get mauled by the Caverners again," Lane muttered.
"I heard that." Storm picked up the timekeeper which was strewn on the floor. "Before we can even go to the Caverns we need to deal with a specific fairy-" The sound of arguing drifted to the cave. "Make that two fairies. Anyhow, once we do that, there's a way to get to the Caverns unnoticed, is there a specific reasonable Caverner we can talk to?"
"Ryder seemed reasonable... until he ordered a giant Crystal Golem to kill us. But Iris actually seems to have morals. I think we can talk to either of them." Greenheart said thoughtfully.
"Giant Crystal Golem? Do you mean Lucy?" He then added under his breath, "Sheesh, I should've brought Aly or Cyro."
The tech wizard didn't wait for a confirmation, "Nevermind that, we should probably help Old Edur now, if we don't, we can potentially make things worse - in fact, you might not even be here, Jacob. After that, we can take a shortcut through the Glacier Tribe into the throne room, then sort out this mess with Iris."
"So...how do we get Iris here?" Samantha asked. "You know, Icetalon's daughter."
Storm glanced at her, "Simple. You know how cleansing works, right? Well the Heart of Ice, that is, Edur's necklace, is tainted with Shadow Magic. If one were to cleanse it, it would force Iris to be released as the Shadow Magic keeping her contained will be gone - wait a minute. How did you get her out last time if you don't know how-"
Heads turned to Lucas.
"So I just have to cleanse the necklace when we see Icetalon? And you're certain it will work?" Lucas asked skeptically. He'd never really cleansed an object before, but he assumed it would be similar to how he would cleanse a human.
"Yep, works every time your-" A message popped up on his visor, DON'T SAY IT.
"Uh nevermind, let's just get to the General, he's in the cave up ahead."
"My what?" Lucas frowned.
He chuckled nervously and ruffled his hair. "Er- let's just deal with Edur."
"What's the secret you have to keep, and is it really big enough to be kept from the one person in Prodigy Island that couldn't possibly do any harm with it." Kelsey asked coolly, staring right into Storm's eye. The tech wizard just glanced away. "I think I can hear him coming. Better get ready Lucas, it's your job to lighten up the mood this time.¨
As expected, a crossed-looking Ice Fairy flew into the cave. "I said if you did anything-"
Lucas immediately focused on the Heart of Ice. He could feel the shadow magic in it, and found himself quickly cleansing it (using astral magic shenanigans of course). Compared to possessed Icetalon and Dylan, the Heart of Ice was a piece of cake.
"I..." Icetalon was at a loss for words at seeing the girl.
Iris was trembling slightly, "D-dad?!"
The General looked taken aback, unable to respond.
"Are you okay?" Iris whispered, stepping closer.
He avoided her gaze, not knowing what to say.
"Dad... Is there something wrong?" She held his hand, only for him to immediately pull his hand away.
Iris glanced at her hand, downhearted, "Am I... did I do something wrong?"
He shook his head, tears streaming down his face, "No... I am. It's all my fault..."
Iris hesitated, before hugging him, whispering something to him.
Storm looked slightly less tense, That's one thing done, one more to go.
He glanced back, "I don't want to sound insensitive but we should be going now."
Raid punched open a rift in the wall. "Yeah let's move." Cloud stepped through and kicked open an exit near the south wall of the castle.
Ian watched with a kind of happiness at the reunion, but with an intrinsic feeling of déjà vu.
Storm glanced at the two, "There was an easier- nevermind let's just go in before things get icy."
The entire group shuffled inside of the rift. Raid pulled the seams closed behind them.
Expectedly, Storm fell out of the rift when the group headed out to the other side, swearing under his breath as he got up.
"You okay? You seem to have fallen flat on your face," Chase commented.
Storm failed to notice his visor was positioned askew, pushing his bangs out of the way, so when he fully got up...
"COOL." Piped Chase, not the slightest bit fazed. "So that's what's under there."
The entirety of the left side of his face was visible, which wouldn't have been a big deal if it wasn't for the reason he kept that side covered up. Metal plating was located in multiple areas of the left side of his face, as well as a horrid burn scar running down his face. His left eye was lighter than the other and there was a slight glassy glint to it as he nervously glanced at the group, having figured out what happened and knowing it was too late to try to hide anything.
Lane simply shrugged, "I don't care."
Samantha took a step back, horror filling her gaze, "W-what happened to you?!"
"I've seen worse," Ian said while handling his sickle.
"Guys, calm down, don't overreact-"
"Too late," Dylan informed Lucas as Marielle fainted.
"Tis but a scratch," Storm joked, trying to lighten the mood as Greenheart facepalmed.
Raid had seen this before and was surprised at how well the rest handled what was under the visor the second time. Cloud popped back into the rift and ushered them into the exit hastily.
Inside the rift, the wardens' past selves stirred.
Storm stumbled out the other side and turned to face the rift, "Damn it, they're waking up."
"Holy shi-", Felix said.
Lane clonked a waking Past-Chase on the head, sending him into unconsciousness. "There. That's one less to deal wi-" Lane was cut off by an angry Scarlet repeatedly scratching his arm before retreating.
Storm stared at him, "You really drain the charge of things, don't you?" The tech wizard clenched his fists, concentrating on the charging Storm energy around him, lightning striked thrice, electrocuting some of their past-selves back into unconsciousness.
Cloud did the same thing he'd done during the Magiccatcher confrontation, but this time just kind of donking everyone still awake in repeated succession until they were out cold. "Ok, we good?"
"Think so," Storm responded, "We should really hurry up and get to the Caverns before anything else happens."
Cloud stepped through the exit. Raid followed suit and so did Ian.
After the rest of the group filed out, the rift closed and halls of ice loomed before them.
Felix and Olivia looked around.
Storm spun to face the attacker, not looking forward to anything else related to ice. If my f**king brace freezes up one more time-
"You fire-loving idiots never learn, do you?" A very pissed-off Iris Crystalheart growled, her eyes piercing into Chase. "Last warning. F**k up again and that icicle is going to become more than a threat."
"Listen, we just want the clock batteries and then we're out of here. Than we'll be out of your life," Olivia said.
Storm cleared his throat, "Technically, they're not batteries, they're-" At seeing her expression he immediately looked at the ground, "Actually, nevermind, you can call them batteries."
Olivia waited for Iris' response.
Iris glanced out the window, biting her lip. "We're in a war right now, in case you couldn't tell."
"That doesn't answer our question-"
"You think I prioritize you strangers over the lives of my people? Either you find the batteries yourself or be useful and help us win." Iris lashed, before storming out of the room.
"Guess we're hunting down batteries now." Marielle sighed.
Chase removed the icicle pinning him to the wall by his collar. "Well the air is certainly charged with frustration," he said, tossing the icicle away.
Elsewhere, fractals form around a dead body.
This is not one of the mortis processes! However, it totally won't become relevant later.
"That it is," Storm responded, crossing his arms, "We can't do this the easy way because the cold messes with my tech and if Cloud or Raid opens a rift so we can cheat and go back the faster way, we risk ruining the timeline again." He sighed, "So, where in Astral would Iris hide something as static as that thing..."
Lucas glanced at Storm. "I don't think she would hide the batteries, it's probably in a storage room or something."
Felix looked at Olivia.
"Then that's the first place we should look." The tech wizard responded.
Felix sighed.
"Wait, where are the storage rooms?" Chase piped.
"Somewhere in the lower level parts of the castle I believe." Greenheart replied.
"That is correct, or at least, 2000 years after this point in the timeline." Storm muttered under his breath. Out loud, he stated, "We don't know if that's accurate or not seeing none of us been here at this point of the timeline - specifically, this version of the timeline where we went with Plan B. I think it's best for us to split up, checking this floor and the floors below it."
"Alright," Chase said, beginning to walk away, before turning around. "Where, exactly, are the stairs?"
The tech wizard was about to comment when he realized he didn't know where the stairs were either. "Er- um... I have no idea, heh."
"Down the hall, to our left." Lucas sighed. Chase blinked, confused on how he knew.
"Alan gave us a tour when we first got here." Lucas explained. "Oh yeahhh. I remember now!" He said.
"Well then let's go. Greenie- er, Greenheart, Lane, Marielle, Felix, Olivia, and Samantha can check the lower floors, the rest of us can check this floor and any higher floors - if we find any."
Ian nodded and dropped to the floor on one knee, hand planted in front of him. His eyes glowed a bright blizzard cyan as the ice symbol appeared as a glyph on the floor, coursing through the building with each fractal. He stayed there for 5 seconds before standing up. "2 higher floors- and an enclosed room in the south side of the basement."
Felix looked around.
The group parted ways, searching throughout the frozen fortress. Storm and the rest of his group weren't having much luck on the higher floors. .
Ian looked around as if sensing something... off. He planted his right hand into the wall and the same glyph appeared again, coursing through each room.
But something was wrong.
Immediately, he recoiled onto the floor as the glyph began to hiss as if burning against the ice- and the ice warden himself appeared to be losing control of this area's composition. It was as if something was sapping his abilities.
Something that wasn't another warden.
Elsewhere, crystal grows and invokes a death pact written between a fool and time itself.
Storm glanced at Ian, alarm filling his gaze, "Are you alright?"
Elsewhere in the castle, Greenheart's group debated on which passage of the castle to go, somehow turning 180 degrees the wrong way 2 minutes earlier and taking a bunch of wrong turns since. Greenheart rubbed his temples, letting out a sigh of exasperation.
Lucas worriedly touched Ian's shoulder. "Ian, what's wrong? What happened? Are you okay? Did you get hurt? Are you tired?"
Ian nodded, sharply inhaled, and got up. "I- I'm fine. It's... nothing. It's just the Caverners having a lot more ice sovereignty over this place than me right now. Let's keep going."
The ice warden started down the hall, muttering silently to himself something no Ice Warden probably ever has or will.
Why is it so cold in here?
Lucas made a note in his head to talk to Ian about this later. But for now, he didn't push it. Lucas started to follow Ian, before turning to the others. "You guys coming?"
Storm had an unreadable expression but nodded, "Yes, of course."
Cloud and Raid exchanged a glance and forged forward with the group. However, the energy signal of the "batteries" was still unreadable.
"Is Ian...shivering?" Kelsey asked.
Meanwhile, Greenheart's group had finally decided on which way to go before ending back up in the main room. "...well at least we know which way to go now..." Samantha sighed. Greenheart slowly facepalmed.
Meanwhile, Cloud looked on at Ian.
"...looks like he is."
The warden in question felt very off.
Elsewhere, crystal builds up and takes the form of one fallen.
Unease wormed it's way into Storm's consciousness, which he immediately blocked out by quickly reprogramming one of his components. No thank you, not today. Last thing anyone needs is me screwing things over again.
The grayed-haired wizard looked at the group, "We should probably hurry up and get home, it's been a long day and-" At that exact moment his brace shut down due to subzero temperatures, leaving his arm immobile, "...we're all probably tired of the cold."
He tried to sound optimistic but concern dripped into his thoughts, which he immediately blocked out again. I can worry about that later...
Cloud nodded while Raid stared inquisitively at the site where the glyph had been negated. Glancing at the Curio face on his visor, he nodded. Almost immediately after, the right arm of his jacket began to look as if it was glitching- something was materializing on it. Bits of a Tech Wizard Jacket from another timeline began to encompass the whole of it, but this time forming with a Mega Man-esque buster cannon. Raid lined the barrel up with the mark of the burnt glyph as the glitches finished forming. His visor glowed a brilliant bright blue.
"Clear."
The cannon frilled as heat vents and ports went open-air and metal folded back, releasing steam and smoke. Cyan rings began to glow near the core where the insides of the vents were visible- and mass amounts of cyan electric discharge poured from the barrel as it fired.
Of course, most of the lightning was negated by the ice, but not the area where the glyph had burnt. Behind the wall, it sounded like something was conducting the shot. Raid swept his arm to the right and the cannon disappeared in a shower of cyan polygons.
"Well, I've got good news, and I've got bad news."
"Bad new first." Storm immediately responded, unphased.
Raid stayed near the back of the group, trying to keep the news relatively quiet.
"I'm pretty sure Ian just got denied every single warden inheritance power possible during that... rejection. It's not like someone else is the warden- but those powers belong to someone else for the time being." Raid grimaced as he finished the sentence, visor turning a sickly green.
"...but...who?" Kelsey tentatively asked.
Cloud stared at the burn on the wall. "That's the issue. We don't know."
Storm abruptly took off his visor and turned it off. Looking at Raid he said, "We can't deal with that for now, but at least we have someone in the present keeping Harmony from interfering." He added under his breath, "Regardless of them having a panic attack and blowing up my notifs." Then, out loud he continued, "What's the good news?"
In response, Raid signaled for Storm to cut open a door-shaped hole in the wall where the burn had occurred.
The tech wizard powered up his light saber and right handedly cut the ice. He turned it off and pushed the frozen block, causing it to fall into the wall and leaving an opening.
Raid stepped in- and so did literally everyone else. After all, there's only so much noise that can occur before even the farthest away of people start hearing.
As Raid continued in, one thing became apparent. A massive crystalline pillar jutted through the floor and ceiling. Cyan lightning ran through it, arcing and coursing, contained in a layer of diamond-like ice.
Storm's face fell the instant he saw the pillar, "It's in there, isn't it?"
Raid nodded. "Somewhere in there."
"F**k this. If we melt the ice, we risk setting off the equivalent of a bomb. If we try to chip away at it, someone's going to get electrocuted - not to mention it'll be in vain seeing we don't know where it is." The wizard sighed, trying to find another way to get out the so-called batteries.
Ian stared into the translucent, angular pillar, trying to get a downward angle. "Whatever's causing this has a source. These don't just appear out of nothing, and this one's growing from the bottom of this place. Destroy the source, and the crystal should crumble. So if the rest are downstairs, we just need to get them to take it out- or get down there and do it ourselves."
Promptly after, Greenheart's group turned around the corner, face-to-face with Storm's group.
The tech-wizard blinked, "How did you get here-"
"We...got lost," Marielle responded.
Storm stared at Greenheart, "Since when did you have this bad of a sense of direction?"
"Ever since four ice halls looked exactly the same," Lane muttered.
He sighed in response, "Nevermind that, we need to destroy the source of this," he gestured to the frozen pillar, "in order to get the power source for the clock and leave before things get frigid."
"So all we have to do is source it and find some way to navigate this castle!" Chase piped. "Any ideas on how to do the latter?"
"Ah, that part is easy," the tech wizard proceeded to walk over and touch the pillar barehanded, not even flinching as the electricity sparked. Seconds later he returned to the group, "Alright, the source is definitely on the lower floor, maybe even buried under it, but it's hard to tell since I went numb touching that thing- what's with the shocked expressions?"
Ten minutes later the merged group was surrounded by 5 hallways, unsure of where to go now to reach the floor below.
Storm sighed, "Annnnd we're lost. At least things can't take a turn for the worse if we guess?"
"Please, can I zap him? We don't actually need him right now," Lane said.
Storm stared at him, "Zapping won't really do anything. Anyhow, I think we should take the left, it seems to go downhill."
Raid couldn't feel the signal of the battery charge- instead, some kind of... releasing energy. Difficult to identify, but still there.
The path indeed in fact went downhill, eventually changing into stairs. Yet it wasn't long before the group reached another fork in the path.
"...again?" Storm sighed and glanced at Raid, hoping he picked up the signal by now. "Found it yet?"
Raid pondered for a moment. "No, but there's another energy here. We're probably getting closer to the source of the pillar, so that's something."
The tech wizard glanced back at the fork, at least we're moving in the right direction.
Feeling useless as his tech would've succumbed to the cold by now, he was once again forced to guess a path. "I suppose we go with the right this time, it gets darker as it goes down - lower floors aren't normally lit, are they?"
Felix looked around.
Ian appeared increasingly discomforted. His shivering was not too apparent, but still there. Raid's expression towards the young warden would look perturbed if his eyes weren't covered 20/7, and he proceeded to nod to Storm. Curio's display popped up almost immediately, with a multitude of floating cyan screens and a brightness slider. As Raid began to step into the hall, his footsteps echoed more than normal, and he cranked up the brightness setting to provide any form of tangible light.
Finally they reached the end of the hall, which opened up to a larger room. The entirety of it was pitch dark - except for one spot...
"What the f**k?"
X3 COMBO!
+30000 SYNC POINTS
+560000 TIMEWARP RE-RE-ANTIDUCTION
+890005 MURDER REPURCUSSION
RANK: WHA++++++ THE FU(ber)CK!!!!
In the middle of the pitch black room was the base of the crystal. However, it was... awfully small, and not for a good reason. Alan's dead body managed to get down here, and every single piece of crystalline energy from his own time shenanigans had powered the entire pillar's growth. The base of the crystal spawned from a gaping hole where his heart should have been. The pillar was probably due to some kind of "last will" shenanigan with defending his changes to the timeline. Artful blue glowing and a resonating blue sphere contained within the pillar finished the picture
And of course, it wouldn't be right without something to fight in the pitch-black, musty base room.
Indeed, an azure Crystal Golem assembled itself in the shadows, hard to see but easy to hear. Its features could be made out faintly, though. It had more spikes on its joints and feet than usual- oh, and the sharp, curling, blade-like fangs piercing from its bottom jaw didn't help, either. However, the ice glyph was engraved in its main "body", glowing white and pulsing- the most visible thing on the entire beast.
Ian's eyes resonated with the blizzard hue of the glyph, and he immediately knew what happened.
F**king hell.
Elsewhere, someone punches a wall into the void out of sheer and utter anger.
"What. The. F**king. Hell." Storm didn't wait for an answer before pulling out his saber and powering it up - the only damn thing that worked in this cold.
Left handed? He was dangerous and well trained. Right handed? Dangerous... but to everyone, including himself.
Not the smartest move, but he wasn't waiting around to be killed by that thing.
"All right, calm down, no need to swear and-wait why is it glaring at me specifically?" Chase said.
He got his answer in the form of being encased in a snowman several times over as Lucy raised her foot over the unsuspecting Fire Warden.
Storm stuck his saber in the snow, melting it, and practically body slammed Chase out of the way of the golem's foot before saying, "That thing is ice elemented, you're the one with the best chance of doing any damage, so expectedly it's going to hate you." Then he muttered, "In the meantime, it looks like I'm going to be doing some incredibly static s**t with Raid."
"Too, bad it's not frozen in fear. That would make this a whole lot easier," Chase responded, launching Razorfires at the Golem while avoiding being stomped on. Scarlet, once again, climbed the golem, scratching and breathing flames onto it's back, much to the golem's displeasure.
As the Fire Warden did his thing, the tech wizard glanced at Raid, "What now?"
The golem fired a blast of ice at the group, of which Samantha blocked with a shield of water.
Well, that would have happened if the water didn't immediately freeze, clattering to the ground, forcing the group to run towards two opposite sides of the cave to avoid being frozen.
"Follow me."
Cloud went into that lightning trance state, ramming directly into the pillar foot-first. As it began to electrify, it appeared internal damage was being done to Alan's body. Cloud grimaced and reared back before unleashing the most anime-esque flurry of punches to ever (dis)grace the world of Prodigy, causing further damage to the body from the inside. Raid watched for a moment before running towards the crystal with Storm, prepping the arm cannon. "Hit it with all you've got- and make sure it's near the body."
Meanwhile, Fractalgor Lucy began a further assault on the rest of the team, not noticing the time travelers. The golem dug her tusks into the floor, preparing to charge. With her size, if not stopped, Lucy could easily bring the roof down on everyone.
Greenheart tossed his hammer at the golem, slamming into it's head, forcing it to remove it's tusks from the ground. Lane caught the hammer and threw it at the golem again, only for it to dodge the wand that was instantly ricocheted back at the golem's head by a fire blast from Kelsey, taking a chunk out of its head.
The chunk was almost immediately regrown- and Lucy was pissed. The ice glyph flared as her eyes went bright white. Scary, but easier to see. She proceeded to split herself into an army of Crystal Monsters- or at least, really convincing decoys with just as much hurt. The little creatures were nigh impossible to see in the dark, but 2 glew dimly from their cores...
Meanwhile, Storm lifted his saber, charging it with as much storm energy as he could, and slammed it into the pillar as Cloud continued his rally of punches on the other side. He had missed his target by a bit, but lightning arced and struck the pillar. He raised the weapon and prepared to strike again, a certain keystone bursting into a light show as he did so.
Raid aimed the cannon directly at the intersect point between Alan and the base, charging up immense amounts of elemental energy. The cannon frilled and expended gas and smoke as the rings at the core began to circulate and pulse. Curio's display appeared again, and the floating emoticon face began to circle around the pillar while scanning it. "58% charge! *kzzt* Better get going, numbnuts."
The gray-haired wizard glanced at Curio before striking again, aiming higher so he'll hit closer to the mark this time.
Cloud appeared to be channeling another timeline- one where the trance state was much stronger- because his strikes were at least twice as powerful than they were before.
Storm frowned as he wasn't doing much, then decided to try something else. He turned off the saber, shoved it in his pocket, then focused on conducting the remaining storm energy from his last blow.
Astral-infused lightning struck the pillar, the storm magic feeding off the astral magic and magnifying the power.
Curio scanned again, this time displaying a progress amount. It was rising quickly without stopping, by approximately 2 percent every 3 seconds. Which was actually jack s**t in the long run.
The tech wizard repeated the stunt, conducting electricity until a notable amount of energy had stored, then blasting the pillar at full force, conducting it even further with astral magic.
Meanwhile, a fire-happy Chase had started bouncing Razorfires off the walls, of which slammed into the increasingly agitated golem, chipping it with each contact, too fast for it to efficiently regenerate, the pieces too small to turn into Crystal Monsters.
The main "body" of Lucy began to crumble quite easily- but the rest of the Crystal Monsters continued to harass and rattle.
The other wardens hacked, smashed, and arrowed the Crystal Monsters that were trying to swarm them once more, including Samantha who was doing what she could with her Aquarius Star Wand.
As the time travelers continued to electrify the pillar, Storm glanced at Raid, "How much longer?"
Chase's hair blazed upwards as more Razorfires were summoned, bouncing around wildly, chipping Lucy further. Adding on to this, the walls began to slightly crack where the flaming balls hit, of which were getting closer to the pillar ever so slightly.
The gray-haired wizard noticed the cracks forming near the pillar and shot a look in the group's direction, seeing pure chaos - and a hell lot more cracks.
"CHASE, YOU'RE GOING TO-"
The fire warden, too absorbed in his current activity, continued firing the Razorfires, sending millions of cracks spiraling through the golem...
as well as the pillar.
The pillar remained standing in some miracle of structural support- and the gaping hole in Alan's chest began to send energy up the crystal. It began to regenerate in some absolutely idiotic ex machina manner. Alan's body wasn't gone, and it wouldn't be until more internal damage was done. The charge reset to 0 as the cracks expended electrical energy upon healing.
"ALRIGHT, I HAD ENOUGH."
The timeline being screwed up, experiencing paralysis a record amount of times today, and now this?
The amount of electricity that struck the pillar over a span of seconds was unspeakable - and frankly, Storm ironically lost full control over the Storm Element by the end of it, a very confused Storm Warden on the other side of the island resuming control.
Chase was thrown back by the resulting shockwave, the Razorfires dissolving. Lucy, finally being no longer attacked, laid down, slowly repairing the cracks within itself. The fire warden tried to stand up before collapsing again. Scarlet leaped off the golem, bounding over to Chase, prodding him with a talon. He rolled over, staring up at the ceiling. "...what happened?"
Raid looked incredibly disappointed as Alan's corpse disintegrated and the pillar began to decompose. He proceeded to fire a 5-meter wide electric laser with enough power to completely overcharge most of Skywatch directly into the south wall, immediately being canceled out by the ice.
Elsewhere, a founding entity overdoses on copium and Canada Dry out of sheer and under rage, aura of pissiness extending to Raid.
Raid proceeded to tear open a rift and hopped in the midspace, closing it behind him and likely curling up in a corner while Curio blasted Numa Numa in his ears.
The would-be warden panted, out of breath from pushing himself that far. "What happened? What happened? WHAT HAPPENED? YOU MOTHERF**KING SON OF A B**CH. YOUR STUPID A** FIRE SCREWED EVERYTHING UP, THAT'S WHAT HAPPENED." Chase flinched at the comment, looking at the floor, and at that point, a certain component decided to kick in a second too late, causing Storm to feel a certain thing called empathy. "...sorry, didn't mean to yell like that."
Cloud's visor turned a shade of disapproval dark salmon as he glanced at Storm, before looking at the pillar as it began to crumble. A bright cyan sphere descended from the ceiling, and Cloud caught it as it dropped. "Battery acquired."
"What the f*ck is that?", Felix asked blankly.
"Haven't you been paying attention for the past 8 hours? This is how we're righting this bulls**t," Cloud responded.
"Uh-no", Felix said, clearly something-or someone, was on his mind.
Storm looked at him tiredly, "What?"
Felix looked puzzled, but didn't answer.
The tech-wizard sighed before turning to Cloud and pulling out the clock, "Let's just hurry up and fix this thing, I think we all had enough."
Ian stepped deftly towards the pile of crystals that was once an extended Lucy. His eyes began to radiate a shining platinum as energy of the same color rose from the crystals, spiraling towards him. As the energy made contact, he could feel the sense of Warden power he'd felt before- and he wasn't quite as cold. The energy tendrils began to finish absorbing into Ian, and he tested the power by pointing at the floor.
A massive ice cube shot out of the ground, completely encasing Lucy's main body fragments. Smaller icicles rose out of the floor to contain the Crystal Monster fragments. Ian clenched his hand into a fist, and the ice recalled.
"Neat."
Meanwhile, Cloud ungracefully slammed the cyan sphere into a Timekeeper copy and hovered it toward the ceiling. The hands of the clock began to rotate faster and faster, eventually beginning to glow with electricity and what was likely the essence of time itself.
"Alright, we good? Then let's unf**k this."
Cloud made a 2-finger gun gesture at the clock, and snapped it back with imaginary recoil from a shot. Upon this signal, the Timekeeper began to tear open an absolutely massive rift in the timespace continuum, trying to consume the original timeline and spit it back out again at a point where it never changed in the first place. Raid made a rift of his own and ushered everyone in before closing the seams.
As pretty much everyone expected, Storm fell face first once entering the rift. Regardless, he let out a sigh of relief once sitting up, "Finally."
Lane stared at the pile of books on the floor. "I volunteer Chase to clean up his mess."
"We just got back and you already have a stormy attitude, huh?" Chase replied.
Storm chuckled softly, "Aight, I better be going, my past self is still relatively confused about what happened back there." He shot Greenheart a look before a rift opened up to let the tech wizard leave.
He had just about time to shout, "See you later", before the rift shut tight, causing the Professor to sigh.
Ian blinked twice and realized it was over. They won. They'd unf**ked it.
Cloud and Raid did some kind of lightspeed secret handshake, afterwards saying a quick farewell to the group. They then proceeded to tip back, appearing about to fall into the floor. Instantly, a rift tore open beneath them. The rift closed once they were through.
The ice warden looked at the pile of books on the floor with some thought.
"So... think we're in our own history books?"
Chase's Pyro Peck hopped out of Chase's bookbag. "Oh so that's where you were this whole time!" The Pyro Peck chirped before noticing the orange dragon perched on Chase' shoulder. Glaring at it, it flew up and pecked Scarlet on the snout. The baby dragon toppled backwards, startled, snorting flames onto the piled books.
Within a matter of seconds, Samantha and Ian were extinguishing the flames while Ian checked the salvageable, semi-intact books for evidence of their time-travel experience, Lucas was trying to catch Chase's Pyro Peck, Marielle and Kelsey were trying to catch Scarlet, who was running from the Pyro Peck, Lane was strangling Chase, Felix and Olivia slowly backed into the Earth Tower elevator, and Greenheart stared at the chaos, dumbfounded.