Disclaimer: If I were to threaten to go all Hulk on Disney and Marvel, do you think they'd give me the rights? No I didn't think so either.
Susan Vandom was driving to pick Will up from the Silver Dragon when she saw it for the first time. A huge, tree-like monster with long grey-blond-ish hair stomped past her, leaving footprints in the concrete. Pulling her car over to one side, Susan pulled out her mobile and dialled Will's number as a sense of foreboding overcame her.
Will heard her phone ring and stared at it. Here she was, trapped in Nerissa's jewel and she was receiving a PHONE CALL. It was just so surreal that Will just stared at her phone for a few minutes. Finally she pressed the answer button.
"Hello." Will said into the speaker.
"Hi Will, are you okay sweetie?" Susan said.
"I'm fine. Really!" Will shot out just a touch too quickly. "Why wouldn't I be?"
"Oh just a feeling. I should be at the Silver Dragon in a couple of minutes, so be ready."
Will panicked. There was no way the others could have come up with a cover story for Will's vanishing act. "Actually I'm at the library with Taranee. Her brother's giving us a lift home later."
Will could hear her moms frown down the phone. "I wish you'd told me earlier. Be careful, there's …some kind of strange creature in town."
Will gave a faked laugh. "Creature? Come on mom, its Heatherfield. What could possibly be magical and mysterious about Heatherfield?"
"Hmm." Susan replied, making it clear she knew Will was lying. "Well I've just seen some kind of tree-like creature walk past me. You wouldn't happen to know anything about it now?"
"WHAT!?! No of course not!" Will paused and thought for a moment. "Well…actually yes."
"Yes?" Susan asked and Will mentally prayed that she wouldn't be grounded until she was thirty and pulled out of Heatherfield for what she was about to tell her mum.
"Well it's kind-of like this…"
"I have returned Mistress." Shagon said as she arrived at the cave and Nerissa smiled.
"Indeed, you have done well, my creation." Nerissa answered with a smile. "Now allow me to introduce our newest recruit. Yan Lin, meet Shagon. Shagon, Yan Lin."
"What makes you think I'll join you Nerissa?" Yan Lin asked quietly. Nerissa merely grinned.
"It's only a matter of time, my old friend. With the power of the Heart of Candracar, we will make the world we always wanted, the way it should have been." Nerissa shot back with genuine warmth. Yan Lin shook her head.
"You never understood, did you? We are-" Yan Lin paused mid-sentence. "Were merely protectors. Humans must make their own choices, not have them made for them. It is how they grow."
"And if they destroy themselves in the process?" Nerissa snarled. "A benevolent dictatorship could fix Earth's problems, do what needs to be done."
Yan Lin continued to shake her head. "Like you did for Cassidy?"
Nerissa scowled. Then her face switched into a smile.
"No matter." Nerissa continued "You WILL join us, one way or another."
"Can anybody hear me?" A voice yelled down to where Hay Lin and Irma were trapped.
"Hey we're down here!" Irma yelled back and grinned to her friend. "We should be outta here in no time." Then Irma's face fell. "Then all we have to do is save your grandma, rescue Will, get Corny to calm down and have to explain to our parents about the whole Guardian gig."
"At least we've got Elyon and Corny with us." Hay Lin said smoothly. "That's gotta be useful."
"I'm not worried about stopping Corny. I'm not worried about rescuing Yan or Will. But explaining the Guardian gig to my parents and hoping they don't freak? I'd rather face every monster and bad guy the universe has to offer than face that!"
"Okay, let's get this straight. You're the leader of a group of intergalactic …superheroes? Peacekeepers? Soldiers? For the forces of good and all that, and now you're trapped in some kind of jewel?" Susan asked down the phone.
"Mum, I know it sounds crazy, but trust me, it's all true." Will replied quickly.
There was a distinct silence. Will wasn't sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing.
"Mum?" Will tentatively asked into the phone. Still nothing. "Mum, are you there?"
"YOU'VE BEEN RISKING YOUR LIFE AND THE LIVES OF YOUR FRIENDS FOR THE PAST FEW MONTHS AND YOU DIDN'T EVEN TELL ME!?!" Susan bellowed down the phone. Will desperately tried to calm her mother down.
"Mum, it's not as bad as it sounds." Will answered.
"NOT AS BAD AS IT SOUNDS!?! HOW MUCH WORSE COULD IT BE!?! YOU COULD'VE BEEN KILLED! GOD, WILL, YOU'RE TRAPPED IN SOME OLD HAGS JEWEL TO BE HER PERSONAL DURACELL!"
"Mum I…" Will started, but Susan cut her off.
"We'll talk about this when you get back. Just…make sure you get back baby." Susan finished sadly.
"You two are lucky to be alive." One of the men who was clearing the rubble away told Hay Lin and Irma firmly. "After that monster knocked the building down, we were starting to worry that we wouldn't find any survivors."
"Corny didn't knock the building down!" Irma snapped at him. "She only turned into Corny AFTER the building was destroyed!"
The man backed off. (Which would've been an amusing sight, a six foot six man, intimidated by a girl who was much smaller than him.) "Well, you should be glad to know you're not the only survivor. A couple of girls your age have been found alive as well."
"Taranee? Elyon?" Irma asked hopefully.
"That's who the dark-skinned girl said they were." He replied. "Taranee's got a broken arm and Elyon's semi-comatose though, so neither of them will be able to help out there."
"Wait, is there any other survivors? Like from the main part of the restaurant, or the kitchen?" Hay Lin cut in suddenly. The man shook his head.
"The bodies are over there." He said sadly, pointing to the lines of bodies behind them, covered by sheets. "There are twenty-three people there."
Hay Lin stepped over to the row of corpses and approached a pair of Asian bodies in the line. One male, one female. On the right-arm wrist of the male was a small heart tattoo, barely noticeable unless you knew where to look for it. On the female was an identical tattoo on the left wrist.
"Mummy?" Hay Lin asked in a little child-like voice as she felt tears begin to well up in her eyes. "Daddy?"
Irma reached over to put her hand on her friend's shoulder, but Hay Lin just pulled away and took to the skies, tears flowing down her cheeks.
"Did she just start FLYING?"
Lieutenant James McKenzie of the Heatherfield police department watched in amazement as he watched the huge, tree-like monster stomp through Heatherfield. If he hadn't seen this for himself, he wouldn't have believed it.
His orders were simple. Keep a track of the creature, warn units of where to evacuate and wait for the army to stop it. But so far, the creature hadn't attacked or damaged anything in Heatherfield yet. In fact, if you excluded the potholes in the ground and the supposed destruction of The Silver Dragon.
Four US army tanks were waiting for the creature at the next intersection. As the creature walked into the middle of the intersection, they opened fire, sending the creature crashing to the ground in a cloud of dust. Pulling his car into a parking slot, James prepared to start organising damage control.
"Corny smash!"
James stared in disbelief as the creature jumped to its feet. The tanks started firing again, but Corny jumped onto the lead tank and ripped its main gun off like it was nothing. She (Was it a she? James wondered to himself) then proceeded to beat the gun off the next tank in line. Ripping the turret off the next tank, Corny proceeded to tip the final tank upsidown.
"This might be problematic." He murmured to himself as he pulled away.
Hay Lin didn't know how long she'd been flying and frankly didn't care. No doubt about it, Nerissa was here. Clearly, she hadn't expected any of the Guardians to survive the collapse of the Silver Dragon. Nerissa's mistake, Hay Lin thought to herself as she landed just outside the cave entrance.
Irma was panting with exertion as she reached Corny, just in time to see her smash up the tanks.
"Uh-oh, not good." Irma muttered under her breath. Spotting a police car, she ran up to it and hit the window to get the drivers attention.
Hay Lin exploded into Nerissa's private domain, brimming with pure hatred for Nerissa and what she had done.
"Nerissa, I'm going to KILL you!" Hay Lin bellowed as she landed, an unusually bright flame of anger in her eyes.
"You survived I see." Nerissa merely commented laconically. A blast of air knocked Nerissa over like a bowling pin.
"YOU KILLED MY PARENTS!" Hay Lin yelled. As she pulled up a second blast of air, Hay Lin was blasted aside by Shagon into the opposite wall. Before she had time to recover, Shagon had her by the throat.
Nerissa stood up and dusted herself off.
"Little fool!" she sneered. "Did you really think you were a match for me?" Nerissa turned away. "Kill her!" she snapped out to Shagon.
"Wait!" Yan Lin cried out. Nerissa raised her hand to stop Shagon.
"You want to say something?" Nerissa asked firmly.
Yan Lin lowered her head and took a deep breath.
"Nerissa" Yan Lin began, tears running down her face. "I will join you, as long as you let my granddaughter live."
"Shagon, release her." Nerissa ordered. Turning to face Hay Lin, she gave a cruel smile. "Run along home now, little girl."
The last thing Yan Lin remembered before Nerissa drained away her freedom was Hay Lin looking at her through worried eyes as she left the cave.
"Tell them to stop firing at her, they'll only make things worse!" Irma bellowed at the police officer.
"What do you kn-"
"I know this creature! The angrier she gets, the more powerful she becomes!"
After a moments hesitation, James called the army units to back off. Much to his surprise, they did. He turned to face Irma.
"Now you need to explain what the hell is going on here." He said firmly.
Elizabeth Hale opened the door to see a young police officer standing there.
"Can I help you?" she asked curiously.
"Are you Mrs Elizabeth Hale?" he asked. Elizabeth nodded. "Can you come with me please? It's about your daughter."
Elizabeth's heart went straight to her mouth.
"What is it? Is she…"
"She's alive…" the officer paused. "It would be better if you saw it for yourself."
With a dry mouth and a heart pounding, Elizabeth Hale followed the officer.
Hay Lin was sitting on a ledge in a cliff, berating herself.
If only I hadn't gone after Nerissa, if only I'd stopped to THINK! Hay Lin kept thinking to herself, over and over again as she shivered in the cold. (Her tears had run out earlier it seemed.)
Pulling herself up, Hay Lin took off towards Heatherfield.
Elizabeth Hale recognised something in the creatures eyes the moment she saw it. Stepping out of the car, Elizabeth Hale stepped towards Corny.
"Cornelia?" she asked, recognising her daughters eyes. Corny looked at her and let out a roar of pain and shrunk down to her Guardian form, followed by a glow of magic that restored her to her human form. Cornelia's legs buckled from underneath her and she fell to the ground. Elizabeth Hale rushed over to her daughter.
"You have a lot of explaining to do." Elizabeth told her daughter firmly.
Nerissa looked at her old friend and grinned.
"Now it's time to upgrade my power." She murmured and raised her staff towards the sky.
Above Candracar, the veil crashed and flashed like lightening. The Oracle stared at it in alarm, as did the council.
"Sweet Candracar." He murmured. "The veil is being ripped back to the Heart."
AN: One thing that puzzled me with the Nerissa story arc is that Nerissa never tried to use Hay Lin to bring Yan Lin into the fold. Certainly it strikes me as the most obvious line of attack. Please R&R