A/N: After a long wait, it's finally here! Hooray procrastination! I feel so much better now that this is out of the way. Sorry for the delay, but my personal life kind of got in the way (school, exams, work, having a social life, etc.) Hopefully chapter 9 will be out this month or next month. Thanks to all who reviewed. It seriously gives me such a huge desire to write when you guys review. :)
Chapter 8
It didn't take Max long to find a carriage that could take her, Ike and Pit over to the Mountains. Despite all of the doctor's warnings and precautions, Max moved forward with her plan. She couldn't watch Aria being hooked up to a bunch of machines only to die in just a few hour's time. She swore her heart would have given out.
About two hours after the scene in the doctor's office Max, Pit and Ike found themselves speeding away towards the mountain palace. Max watched the terrain change from desert to plains, then to a dense forest. The land had an amazing amount of diversity, with a forest running through the midsection of the country, the ocean running along part of the southern boarder, and the edge of the largest desert on the continent on the other side of the southern boarder. Ice and mountains glazed the northern part of the country.
"Isn't that weird Max?" Pit gently asked. Max blinked. She hadn't been paying any attention to Pit and Ike's conversation, she'd been too wrapped up in her own thoughts.
"What?"
"Well," Ike joined in. "Me and Pit were sayin' it was real weird that she was just poisoned or whatever and there wasn't even a note or anything to explain how she got the poison."
Now that Max thought about it, it did seem strange. Her stomach twisted up in knots when she thought about it. She faintly muttered, "It doesn't add up."
"There's really no motive we know of..." Pit's voice trailed off when he saw the pained expression on Max's face. "Don't worry Max, we'll save her." Max gave a half-hearted smile. "You two are really close..." He commented.
"She's the only one I have left. I have no other siblings and my mother died shortly before we adopted Aria." Max could feel the tears mounting. "And our father is the king, so h-he doesn't have time to fool around. Of course we have our various cousins and second cousins, but it's not the same." Ike and Pit nodded. "I mean, out of all the relatives around our ages..." Max paused to count and think. "There's Taylor, we don't see him much, Kristen who is a whore, Phoebe and Lori Anne, who you've met, and Shea, who's a bit odd, but she manages to run the Ocean Palace quite well."
"Wow," Ike muttered.
"Yeah," Max could hardly hold the tears back. "We're a bit dysfunctional...And we fight a lot...But Aria was different. She was just quiet and shy, a w-wallflower. But everyone else has to be loud and get their way, they have to be on the cover of whatever magazine is the shit right now. Aria never wanted any of that. She-She's always hated the spotlight. Always. That's why she feels like she doesn't fit. She was adopted, so all of the tabloids want to make her out to be some drunk-ass party girl or a crack whore who should've n-never been adopted into the royal family..." Max couldn't speak any longer. She completely broke down. Tears were pouring out of her in buckets, and her body began to ache.
Ike handed her a few small pill caplets. "You're gonna need it. You need have your strength for later. Get some sleep." She swallowed the pills and slowly drifted off into an uneasy sleep.
Max could hear screaming. She could feel the carriage slowly tip over from the upright position and fall onto its side. She felt herself fall and her body slam against something hard. She could faintly hear voices screaming, the sounds of battle. But, she could not wake herself up. It was like her spirit had been detached from her body. She knew something bad was going on but could not wake up. It wasn't until she felt something land on her face, and warm liquid begin to slide down her face. Am I...bleeding? Oh my god! I must be!
Her whole body tensed and she instantly jumped up. A small shard of glass fell off of her face, and she glanced up to see the window that was originally on the side of the carriage above her, and completely shattered. She looked past it to see the setting sun turn the sky a bright magenta. Then she heard the screaming louder, now mixed with the sounds of clanging metal on metal. We must have been attacked... She searched the carriage until she found a small sword, and crawled out of the carriage laying on its side. She saw Pit and Ike each fighting two men, all four covered in black, only their eyes were visible, and by the looks of things the fight was not going well for Pit and Ike.
She pressed herself against one of the sides of the carriage, out of view of the fighters. Okay...I'll just jump out and attack them...Then what? I can't fight...Oh god! I'm going to die! Okay Max, breathe you can get yourself out of this, just relax, just relax and-"GOTCHA!" A rough pair of hands grabbed Max and pulled her up off the ground. "Boys!" the large muscular man shouted as he walked over to the other side of the carriage. "I got her!" Max struggled to get away from the man, squirming, kicking and punching, but it was no use.
Great. I'm definitely going to die now. But just then the man fell to his knees and his grip on Max slackened. She slid out and away from him and noticed an arrow, made of light in his side. But there was something strange about the arrow, it had a soft lavender glow around it. Max glanced up to see the outline of a young man with beautiful white wings with lavender tips silhouetted against the sun. The man then raised his bow again and shot two arrows, each hitting the men fighting Pit, and repeated for the men fighting Ike.
He lowered himself to the ground, and Pit instantly ran and bowed at his feet. "My Lord, thank you for your assistance."
"Pit, you've saved my neck on so many occasions it's about time I paid you back." Max instantly recognized the man, it was Prince Kaden. "Maxie!" He turned to Max. "What's up? Where's Aria?"
"Hey Kady. About Aria. Well...erm..." Max bit her lip. "We should probably go inside our carriage..." Max's voice trailed off as she turned to see the smoldering, wrecked carriage.
"I can fix it." Kaden smiled. He pulled out a white, sandy powder and threw it on the carriage as he muttered words Max could not hear. In a few seconds the carriage was back right side up, and fully fixed, as though it had never even been attacked. Kaden opened the door and smiled a cocky grin that made Max go slightly weak at the knees. "After you!"
