The Luna Moth landed gently on the ground in the hills just outside of Gulfen. The trees parted on impact, and when the ship was once again motionless, the air around it and inside was completely silent, as if nothing in the area was alive. Dark clouds were forming in the west.
This is the day that Emily Hayes has been fearing the most. She has been training for so long to get to these hours, the minutes filled with a fight that she would have to carry out. She had to face Lezelldium, and his puppets, The Elf King and Max Griffin, or else this world would suffer greatly. Every day she tought and hoped that her rag-tag team of soldiers would be stong enough to take down the elf army. Everyone had told her about her destiny, for two long years they had put their trust in her actions. But as she stood facing the path she would soon be walking on, her confidence faltered at the idea of losing. The fate of Alledia was waiting to meet her on the battle field.
She sighed and took a step down the platform, dreading what lay ahead of her. Fear overcame her thoughts, although she knew that she wasn't alone.
A hand clapped her shoulder and she turned to see Leon giving her an encouraging look, as well as Enzo and Rico standing behind him. They were all in battle-dress.
"Ready?" her mentor asked.
She nodded and muttered, "Pressure's on."
They got to the end of the landing platform when she looked back to see if the Elf Prince was following; and he was, in a new suit of armor, since his last one had an arm blown off of it. Trellis stared grimly back at her, then glanced towards the trail. Leon motioned for them to start moving, and left with the elf and Emily towards the narrow path, while the two cats stayed to gaurd the ship.
The trees seemed to bend over the three of them as they walked, concealing them from unwanted eyes. The ground crunched beneath Emily's boots and thunder rolled somewhere behind her. Gulfen was much more ominous then she had imagined it, and the feeling of discomfort in her chest rose with heart rate. Someone or something was watching her. She could feel it.
"Watch him closely."
Her head snapped around at the sound of her stone that she hadn't heard since the incident in the Void. But the humanoid was nowhere in sight, and only too late did she realize she had stopped walking and was looking directly as Trellis.
He wore a suspicious look and asked, "What?"
Quickly, she turned and shook her head, taking careful steps once again. What had the Voice meant? She knew better than to acknowlege her stone, but it bothered her that she couldn't tell if it was talking about her frenemy or her mentor.
"We're about to enter the bridge between life and death and you still don't trust me?"
Again, she stopped abruptly and expressed hurt towards his statement. "I never said I don't trust you."
"Then what is it that you're hiding? What did Lezelldium tell you?!"
There was no way she would be able to tell him what her stone said, so she answered, "He's just a liar! It shouldn't matter what he says! Even if it was about you!"
Leon got in between them and glanced at both of their faces. "Calm down! We have a fight to win! This isn't the time to have an arguement!"
Silence followed. They continued walking again until the reached the end of the trail. Before them, a barren field stretched out, with one end occupied by gruff-looking elves in heavy armor. At the other end where Leon, Emily, and Trellis had emerged, stood colossus suits and at least five thousand rebels.
Her heart pounded as she walked out onto the field and took her place at the head of her army. She drew the sword that Evalia had made from her belt, and raised it in the air. The sound of five thousand swords being drawn echoed after her's.
Another thing that bothered her was that she couldn't see at all where the Elf King and Max might be standing. She skimmed over the crowd of warriors and upon the bridge that led ot the entrance of the castle. The large mass of soldiers did nothing to show that they were about to charge. In fact, a hush fell over all who stood on the field, and Emily lowered her weapon for a moment.
The castle gate rose. Standing at the foot of the fortress was the Elf King, followed by Max and a company of twenty guards. The warriors parted for them as they made their grand entrance and shuffled back into formation when the king had reached the front lines. In a booming voice, he called out, "Emily Hayes! I am giving you one final chance. Save the bloodshed and become my successor! Perhaps I will be gracious enough to spare your friends if you join me! So what are you going to do? Certainly you understand that your poor excuse of a military cannot win against my power!"
There was no way she would be his successor. No way. Once again, she raised her sword and glared defiantly at her oponents.
"Very well." The king drew his sword and pointed it towards Emily. "Now you shall die. ATTACK!" His entire army lurched forward like a wave.
Emily yelled and her army joined in with her, charging towards the elves. The colossus suits and gunships aimed for the castle, but the king had plenty of machines for himself. Missiles streamed over the battle and blew up, bullets rained down from the sky, and swords clashed in every direction, while Emily stood behind her military, waiting for the right moment to dive in and take down the tyrant; but the king appeared to be doing the exact same thing she was.
The Elf King and Max just stood ther behind the line of fire, overseeing every move as if they had planned it out themselves.
She was about to start pursuing them when a burst of energy from her stone made her head feel like it burst. She let out a strangled cry and dropped to her knees, holding her head as it burned and Lezelldium whispered, "I have been far too generous to you, young master. Now you will see that I am the only one in control, and that you have never had any in the first place. I gave you the choice to accept me and you have rejected my power, so I am taking back what is rightfully mine. Watch as I destroy everyone you love." This time she let out a shrill scream, and both Leon and Trellis turned their gaze to her, as well as the king and Max. The Voice hissed in her head, chanting phrases in a language that no one knew.
Trellis got to her first. He knelt down beside her and grabbed her wrists, shaking her tense form in attempt to set her free - but nothing happened. Footsteps crunched in the dirt and stopped behind him. Hoping it was Leon, he turned around and started to ask for help, but only let out a nervous breath when he discovered that it was his father. Immediately, he sprung up and removed his sword from his belt and shielding Emily with his body.
The king said, "I am not surprised that you have failed to make the right choices. Nor will I be surprised when you die for trying to save this girl from something that absolutely no one can ignore. However, I will give you a one more chance. If you accept that you cannot defeat me, and become my apprentice, you will become the greatest king in all of Alledian history, Perhaps even greater than me."
Trellis glared. "You're not my father. And I will be a great king - after I KILL YOU!" He swung his weapon towards the king's head, but the king deflected it with his own sword. Over and over, Trellis tried to slash the walking corpse of his father, but each time, it was stopped and the Voice would disrupt the boy's concentration. In one swift motion, he raised his blade over his head and was about to bring it down when the Elf King engulfed his sword with stone power and sliced through the armor and his son's chest, leaving a deep gash.
The Elf Prince yelped and fell backward, his sword flying out of his hand and into the bushes. The king took this chance to run his blade through Trellis' body.
Leon had finally broken through an assembly of guards and reached where his students were laying and cringed in horror when his eyes met with the scene in front of him. "EMILY! TRELLIS!" He noticed the king look in his direction and his anger rose. The fox man lunged onto the tyrant and dug his claws under the mask, tearing it off and flinging it as far as he could.
The face beneath it was frozen, and the body collapsed under Leon's weight. Then it ceased to move.
Emily felt like she was in prison; but no, she was in the Void. She could see all that was happening around her in the battle, but she couldn't do anything to help her friends. She was stuck.
Lezelldium's humanoid form was a whisp of black matter that wrapped itself around her. He smiled wickedly and laughed when he saw that she knew she was losing. His grin got especially wider when she screamed at the sight of her elf companion being slayed.
"LET ME OOOUUUT!" she shouted as tears streamed down her face. She had no clue what she would do if she wasn't trapped, but anything was better than staying here where the shadows had eyes.
The Voice stopped grinning when Leon tore the mask off of his puppet and chucked it into the trees. The Elf King did not get up. Furious, Lezelldium whipped around and stared angrily into Emily's brown eyes. "Obviously, I have underestimated the fox man. However, I can kill him off just as I did the prince."
She struggled in her stone's burning grip. "NO! You can't!"
"Watch me."
Outside, the elven guards near Leon froze as their minds were taken over; their eyes glowed pink. There were at least fifty of them that got into formation and charged towards Emily's trusted mentor.
In response, Leon attempted to spring over the first few that he encountered, but soon almost all of them were advancing up to him and burried the fox with their weight. A paw with a sword in it could be seen struggling, but after a few moments, the sword fell out of it and the paw flattened on the ground.
"LEON!"
"I have warned you before, young master. I have asked you how you would feel when you witnessed everyone you love die around you, and now I have my answer."
She glared at the Voice as tears streamed down her face. "BRING THEM BACK!"
"Why should I?" Lezelldium grinned once more.
"I need them! It's bad enough that I lost my dad, but now you have to take away my friends, too?!" She did her best to make her eyes look at pleading as possible.
After a moment, the humanoid smirked and said, "As you wish - but on one condition."
"What condition is that?"
All she recieved in reply was another evil smile and the Void deteriorating around her. Peices of the dark landscape flew into nothingness as Emily shouted for him to answer her. As expected, he did not.
The scene was not a good one; guards were persuing her other friends, the youth army was growing smaller, ships exploded in mid-flight, and worst of all, the stonekeeper's two best fighters were dead. Or at least, she assumed they were dead.
Leon shoved his way out of the pile of elves and helped Trellis get back on his feet. But something was wrong. Neither of them spoke, nor showed any sign of emotion. Their eyes glowed pink. Emily cringed when Trellis' wound closed itself in a matter of seconds. Out of nowhere, a sword swung over her head and she ducked, barely missing the blade. The prince had tried to behead her.
"Trellis! What are you doing?!" she asked, confused and deeply troubled.
"This is the condition, Emily." he answered, but the voice didn't belong to him; it was Lezelldium's.
Before she had time to comprehend this statement, both her mentor and her elf companion were lunging towards her with their weapons raised. She created a force field around herself as they brought their swords down. Repeatedly, they tried to break the barrier while she frantically tried to peice out what options she had.
The Voice chuckled in her head.
Emily's heart changed from afraid to angry. Swiftly, she pulled out a dagger and slit the rope that her amulet was hanging on. The force field broke, causing her persuers to fly backward. She grabbed her sword and barred down on the stone, destroying it under the weight of her body. A wave of pink energy blew out of it and traveled over the entire surface of Alledia, demolishing each amulet on, above, and below ground. Every lifeform on the battlefield was flattened on the impact.
Silence remained. Not dreadful, but peaceful. It hung in the air like a cloud for what seemed to be ages. Emily Hayes hesitantly got up and examined her surroundings. The entire elf army had turned to stone and was now crumbling away in the wind. Her team and her army rose and cheered for they had won. For the first time in many years, every individual in sight was smiling - even Trellis.
She smiled back at him. He waled up to her and said, "I never want to do that ever again." She laughed and threw her arms around him. The other team members spotted them and joined in the group hug.
Navin asked, "What are we going to do now?"
A brick wall stood in front of Emily, Navin, and Karen.
Emily wanted to stay, but something was tugging on her heart, telling her to return to Earth. The responsibility of being a Gaurdian Council member was just too much for her, and anyway, she knew there would be more people to help in her own world, as well as new friends. Hopefully, she'd be able to visit everyone she was leaving behind at this moment. Somehow.
She looked back at her rag-tag group. All of them had sad smiles on their faces except for Prince Trellis, or more accurately as of now, King Trellis. The only expression he posed was that of flat-out disappointment. She waved at him. He smirked.
The portal began to open and her and her family stepped through it. Once it closed behind them, they were back in the old house they had first arrived in.
"So, when are we going to start cleaning again?" she asked.
Navin and Karen laughed as they climbed the stairs.