Chapter 35

Artemis plugged her ears as the Pixie Dust Tree suddenly erupted into what sounded like screams. Then the bright light coming from it's heart began to fade slightly, causing the underground area to become darker. With his task complete, Morwen walked out without glancing at the injured fairies. Now alone, Artemis knew she had to get Alfonse some help.

It was difficult and painful as she tried to get up with her injured leg, but sitting there wasn't going to help her. Once on her feet, she groaned in pain as she began lifting Alfonse's arm over her shoulders. She couldn't help the tears in her eyes as she slowly began dragging her mentor through the dark tunnel leading to the surface. At one point, a root caused her to lose her balance, which resulted in her and Alfonse falling over.

Sweat prickling her brow and determination fierce in her heart, she got back up and started the process again. This time, they made it to the surface where Strider was waiting with worry. Seeing his rider's injury and the state of her companion, caused the hawk to become stressed out. However, this was not the time for everyone to lose their nerve and Artemis had to send her thoughts to the bird via Hawk Sight. Calming down, Strider lowered himself down enough to let his rider climb on and they worked together to get the other fairy onto his back.

With Alfonse secure, Artemis had Strider fly to the nursing fairies, only to find their place of work was completely destroyed by the fire. Turning back towards the Pixie Dust Tree, she was met with the sight of fairies rushing to it with injuries or crying over their lost homes. Landing, she was immediately met by Terrence and Dash who both began helping her lift the unconscious water fairy off of Strider's back. With their help, she too was gently lowered to the ground as one of the healing fairies began working on her injured leg.

"What happened?" Terrence questioned, holding her hand as the healer did his work.

"Morwen lowered the barrier and did something to Alfonse- OW!" Artemis jumped as the healer put some sort of salve on her leg.

"Sorry. It looks like it's just a scratch, but it could've gotten infected without this medicine." The healer muttered his apologies as he bandaged her up, and then went off to find another patient.

"Queen Clarion has ordered the injured to go inside, you should too." Dash said, preparing himself to help her.

Grabbing onto his arm, Artemis stopped him in his tracks. "I'm not going in there."

"Artemis, Morwen almost killed you." He reminded her.

"I know, but I'm the only one who can stop him."

"Artemis no!" Terrence tried his best to show his tough brother side, but it didn't work.

Slowly getting up, Artemis looked at both of them in the eyes and said "I know this is hard for you to understand, but I have no choice but to go. Alfonse is in a coma and it has been left to me to take his place. Dash you said once that being a Hawk Rider had given me a purpose, well my purpose is to protect Pixie Hollow from all of the dark forces that Morpheus sends our way, even if that means I have to die while trying."

Dash walked closer to her so they were eye to eye, his face more serious than Artemis had ever seen. "Then you fight. You fight hard. You don't do anything stupid, like taking risks. You take him down and you come back home."

The seriousness in his voice she could tell was to mask his worry for her, but the way he asked for her to come back home, was said in a way which she realized held a different meaning. When she first arrived in Pixie Hollow, she could barely distinguish one emotion from another. Now, after all she had been through, she could see what he meant was to come back to him. And in her heart, she knew she wanted to, but in her mind she also knew it may not be a possibility.

Still she nodded and was immediately enveloped in a hug different from the rest. Once she was let go, her eyes turned towards Terrence, who looked torn between letting her go or doing anything he could to prevent her from leaving.

Seeing how miserable her brother looked, she went to hug him too, and said to him "Everything will be okay, I promise." and in response, she was given a small squeeze and was then let go.

Before she could hesitate, Artemis climbed back on Strider and looked out in the distance. "While I'm gone, I need you both to evacuate everyone. If I succeed, I'll meet you back here. If not..." She stopped, deciding it would be best not to go into too much detail, and instead urged Strider to take off.

"Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" Terrence questioned Dash, as he watched his sister fly off.

"That we'll go after her as soon as we tell everyone to evacuate?" Was Dash's response.

"Yep. Let's get to it." And with this, the two went to work.

Morwen stood on a large oak tree as he watched the dark shadows coming from the distance. With a calm demeanor and a satisfied smirk on his face, he waited as his master begin to encircle Pixie Hollow. However, his smile disappeared the moment the barrier shone like a small beacon, preventing Morpheus from entering. In outrage, he questioned what went wrong. Then, it all clicked into place.

"Curse you Venus!" He shouted, loud enough to be heard even over the roar of the forest fire.

Author's Note: Hola Amigos, I am back! Okay So we got two more chapters left and normally it takes me a while to process the ending of a story. However, I have to say thank you KVill so much for your review in the last chapter, it honestly has made me very antsy and excited to write the conclusion of this story. Now if you hadn't known this by now, well I honestly only wrote this story for my sisters so that way they'll have something to read when I'm off working on stories for people around my age. I did not expect the kind of following I have gotten and it has warmed my heart to know how much you all care for it. KVill, if Disney were to get their hands on this story, I would've been beyond ecstatic, but I do acknowledge that this would not be a possibility due to the vast majority of the characters and the world they live in are not mine. I'm so grateful for your review though as I didn't think it would be worthy to be sent to such a great company and your words have encouraged me to continue working on my writing. Thanks again and I hope you all have a wonderful rest of your week!