Part 2: Chapter 3

It had taken a long time, but Luke managed to get Chase home and safely in bed.

Luke had never been so worried in his life as when he popped his head in the next morning to see Chase still sleeping fitfully, his face still deathly pale. "Chase?" he asked quietly as he walked across the room to check on his boyfriend.

"Let me sleep," Chase mumbled, still not entirely awake. "My head hurts…"

"I'll let you sleep, I just want to make sure you're okay," Luke replied gently.

"Of course I'm not okay, I feel like my head's being split in half," Chase replied grumpily, opening his eyes before immediately closing them to stop the painful sunlight from entering his vision.

Luke frowned. "I'll leave you alone then, I guess…" Luke sighed, leaning over to place a quick kiss on Chase's forehead, halfway hoping that the whole 'kiss it to make it better' thing would actually work. "If you need me, just yell." Chase simply nodded, not bothering to open his eyes or make a sound.

Luke returned to the living room to find that Alan and Collin were standing on the coffee table arguing quietly. "We should just leave them alone!" Alan said quietly to the yellow sprite.

"But we have to do something!" Collin protested. "You have to be feeling how weak Chase is!"

Luke sighed. "What are you guys arguing about?" he asked half-heartedly. He was growing weary at the fact that Chase was suffering; he had been so glad to see a smile on that beautiful face, and now it was replaced by pain.

There was a knock on the door, causing Luke to quickly jump up to answer it and stop the noise. Kathy stood on the front step. "Hey… I just thought I'd come and check on Chase since you said he wasn't coming to work tonight. I had a bad feeling," she explained.

"Oh," Luke said quietly. "Well, he's sick, so I guess your bad feeling was right." He stepped out of the way to let her in.

Just inside the door, Kathy stopped in her tracks, staring at the sprites on the table. "What the hell are those?" she asked with wide eyes.

"She can see us?" Alan asked Collin with an equally confused stare. When she nodded, the red sprite shrugged. "I'm Alan, the Harvest Sprite of fire."

"I'm Collin, the Harvest Sprite of earth," the yellow sprite also introduced himself.

Luke covered his mouth to keep from laughing and waking Chase. "So, uh, yeah. That's what's happening," he told Kathy slowly as the sprites began arguing over whether maybe Kathy could help them too.

"Uh…" she slowly began. "What exactly is going on, then?"

Ben suddenly popped out of nowhere in front of the two other sprites. "You guys! Seriously, stop goofing off!"

"Now there are three?" Kathy asked dully.

Ben looked up at her. "She can see us too?"

"There are actually five of them; there are just three here at the moment," Luke answered with a shrug. He looked at the sprites. "Can I tell her what's going on, or should I keep it a secret or something?"

The three Harvest Sprites shrugged in unison.

Luke took it as an approval and turned to see Kathy looking at him worriedly. "Okay, you're going to think I'm crazy, but keep in mind that you're seeing those guys too."

"Okay… go on."

"So, long story short, apparently nature's off because the Goddess Tree is dying, so Alan came and got Chase for some reason. Chase went up to the Goddess Spring, and I saw him walking by my dad's shop, so I went to see where he was going and ended up seeing Alan." He paused to try to figure out where to go with the story; he sucked at keeping things organized. "So I went with them. When we got to the tree, the thing like absorbed a bunch of Chase's energy or something. Oh, we talked to the Harvest Goddess too; that was a weird one. Apparently she's Chase's mom."

"What?" Kathy asked in shock.

"Yeah, weird, right?" Luke sighed. "Anyway, now Chase has a bad enough headache that he can barely move. I'm trying to figure out some way to fix nature or whatever."

"This is all very…" Kathy began. "Strange? I guess that's the only word I can come up with."

Alan looked up at Kathy. "It's true though," he replied.

0.o.0

(Flashback)

A young 'student' of a 'professor' of defunct science rushed home to his master. "Professor Malcom!" the young man exclaimed. "You won't believe who, or rather what, just came from out of town for that stupid cooking workshop!"

The eerie man looked up at his slave. "This had better be worthwhile, Brandon; I was in the middle of an important experiment." He gestured at the now shattered crystal ball in front of him.

Brandon huffed. "Obviously it is since I burst in like that," he insisted. "I wear that there is a nature spirit in town; a descendent of a Harvest Goddess perhaps. He came from Castanet."

The red headed professor looked up, his weary purple eyes swirling curiously. "Castanet?" Professor Malcom asked slowly. "You mean that Castanet?" the man pointed to a fading map on the wall.

"Yep," Brandon replied, his neon blue eyes gleaming. All he wanted to do was please his master.

"And what makes you think that this person in related to a Harvest Goddess?" the man asked in an annoyed tone. He hated Castanet with a passion; or rather, he loved the place but hated that he could never return.

The student smiled at the question. "His energy; and I'd swear that I saw a strange aura around him briefly." He pulled a photo from his pocket and slowly walked over to the professor.

Professor Malcom took the photo in a shaky hand, staring in wonder at the young man that was obviously unaware that his photo was being taken as he glared at a raccoon that had cornered him as if it wanted him to pet it. The man was a spitting image of the goddess he had once loved… Well, she didn't love him, but still… But this young man had red hair, though far lighter than his own, and lavender eyes that seemed to reflect the sunlight even from the distance. He dropped the photo with a gasp. "Tell me, Brandon; do you know this person's name?"

"I heard one of the girls I was talking to call him Chase," Brandon answered as he picked up the photo. "You told me about your encounter with the Harvest Goddess of Castanet when we left… this Chase looks a tiny bit like you, though that could easily be a coincidence… Are you thinking…?"

The professor nodded slowly, looking back at the map of a land where nature had literally chased him away. "Get him to trust you; then bring him here," the professor ordered his servant.

.

Brandon always returned seeming frustrated, though secretly he was happy. "The more I try to talk to the guy, the ruder he is!" he told his teacher with a sigh of false frustration. "I mean, no one ever ignores me; he told me to stay away."

Malcom grimaced. "Brandon, you know that you can't get to everyone by flirting, right?"

"I wasn't flirting," Brandon protested.

Malcom chuckled. Brandon was not human; that was why Malcom had stolen and raised him. Brandon was a spirit of love; a blue bird, a cupid; the names were endless. However, Malcom had raised him to fit his own plans. "Maybe that was the problem."

"No way!" Brandon shook his head and crossed his arms. He refused to use his powers on this person, for he knew how terrible him master's intentions were sure to be.

Malcom punched the young man across the face, knocking him to the ground. Brandon protested no further.

Regardless, Brandon spent the next eight months pretending to try to gain Chase's trust, always making sure the plan backfired; the chef left before the cooking class was even finished, hopping back onto a boat to leave this city forever. For that, Brandon's punishment had been harsh.

.

More recently Professor Malcom had discovered a method to drain energy from nature, choosing Castanet for his plan as revenge, through an artifact. Now, he stood in shock as the image of the Goddess Tree was largely revived in front of his eyes. "Brandon?" Malcom called to the blue bird within the cage. "I think Chase went home."

((Author's note: And there you have it. A villain and minion. Brandon has his own story separate from this one, so… Yeah. Now you have met him.

In the meantime, I swear I am working on this story.))