Stella pushed through her limits as she came near the edge of the forest. She had finally arrived on the grounds of civilization, but the reminiscence of the wilderness behind her had never left her anxiety. There were still a lot of people gathered around the funeral scene, even though the clock had reached nearly five A.M. Police cars and their red sirens were beaming over the green plains. Crowds of lifeless people dressed in black were gossiping and peering over each other's shoulders at the unexpected situation of cops questioning and taking notes from random attendees of the funeral.
"There! There she is!" Stella's personal governess pointed at her from a far. Approximately fifty people turned their heads like automated robots to where the governess pointed. They gasped at the sight of Stella, as Stella stood there with a gobsmacked expression.
Immediately, all the police crew ran to encircle around her as if she was the honey and they were the bumble bees surrounding her in hasty motion.
"Where were you Stella?! Your mother ran straight after you during the middle of the funeral! We tried to stop her, but she ran out on us just too suddenly! We didn't sprint straight after her… we thought she'd bring you back by herself pretty soon… we didn't think it was a big deal at first… like where would you go? We predicted you would come back to us, as the forest had its limits… but… we waited… and the more we waited… the more we found it strange that neither of you were coming back! we wondered what took both of you so long…? And then… your mother..." Stella's governess put her own black coat around Stella's fragile shoulders to warm her cold body.
"Where is she?!" Stella shouted back with great fear.
Nobody spoke a word. They all seemed to be troubled with great discomfort as they fidgeted like immature toddlers who were dreading to be grounded by their higher authority.
"What happened? Where is my mother?!" Stella demanded at the top of her lungs as great anger swelled up the tears in her eyes.
"She ran about ten minutes after you into the forest." One of the police narrated the events to her in order.
"At that time, the bodyguards didn't know what to do. Leaving the funeral would be a great disrespect and dishonor to your father, while the funeral was still in service." The taller bodyguard explained humbly.
"IT'S MORE OF A DISRESPECT AND DISHONOUR TO NOT PROTECT HIS WIFE YOU IDIOTS!" Stella screamed through the tears that flowed down her chubby cheeks.
"WHERE IS SHE?!" Stella shouted once again at the chief police officer who seemed to be more afraid of the thirteen year old girl than the monsters in the forest.
"The bodyguards followed her about twenty minutes after her, after they finally realized that she wasn't coming back. They said that they'd thought that your mother went to get you and that you two would both come back in a few minutes or in about twenty minutes at the very most. They thought that you wouldn't have gone far... That you just went to blow off steam, and to have some time alone from the crowd… they waited for you two to come back peacefully hand in hand, but after they realized that Duchess Fleuret was unusually late, they finally followed after her..." The police officer repeated the same scenario over and over, as if he was trying to prove their innocence with perfect excuses.
"Well where are they now?! The bodyguards?!" Stella calmed her sobbing down as she tried to listen as rationally as possible.
"At first, if was rude to call them up in the middle of the eulogy service, but eventually we did call them up... We tried to call them on their phones, but they still aren't answering…" The chief officer put his eyes downwards, unable to look at Stella directly in the eye.
"Then have you tried calling my mother on her phone? She always takes it with her wherever she goes! I'm sure she will answer!" Stella was unwilling to accept any ridiculous excuse that was unworthy of listening to in this chaotic emergency.
"Yes… of course we tried! We have called her many times, but she wouldn't pick up either… we even left emergency texts and voice messages asking that we would send all the assistance she needed to find her daughter... But as no response came, we are speculating that she has purposely left her phone on silent mode or flight mode to pay respect to the funeral service and that her phone is perhaps at the moment unavailable to receive any messages or calls from other phones... And by this point, her batteries may have run out too…" The chief officer explained rather calmly to settle the girl down.
"You and your blasted excuses! Have you any idea what kind of danger you are playing at?! Have you sent in more bodyguards or police recruitment after them?! The bodyguards we had at the funeral are no match for what's inside the forest! You have no idea who is in the forest at the moment! Don't you understand that it is dangerous at this hour?!" the fire that crept out of Stella's throat was as boiling hot as a dragon's magma breath.
"We have. We've sent in more police crew to go find them, find them all…" One of the younger brunette policemen tried to calm her down.
Suddenly, the head speakers of one of the blonde headed policemen sparked up.
"Sir! Team A on the line!" A fuzzy male voice buzzed through the speakers.
"Inspector Gibben Affirmative. Speak Team A." Inspector Gibben responded immediately.
"A sighting of Eidolon Alexander! Location on the South West brim of the forest grounds, Mark 49.65! I repeat! Team A has spotted the Eidolon Alexander, South West brim of the forest grounds! Mark 49.65!" The speaker buzzed an urgent voice full of immediacy and terror.
All of the police crew listening on to the conversation looked like little kids who had just heard one of the most terrifying ghost stories they had ever heard.
The chief commander immediately started making calls to the national security.
Inspector Gibben gave orders for all the bodyguards, police and any personnel with battle skills to go into the forest to the designated spot of the Eidolon with communication head speakers. The superintendents started giving out whatever weapons, emergency potions, ethers and phoenix downs they had in bulks to the groups entering in to the forest to rescue Duchess Fleuret from the possible danger. The funeral grounds soon became a place of chaos and panic as men with swords and guns ran around the fields, planning and readying their defense and rescue strategies.
All Stella could take in were the whispers from the scared women, the media crew pointing their cameras, television news reporters with their microphones explaining the situation, and countless random men shouting "Go! Go! Go!"
Disorder and tense nerves were flying everywhere.
Stella's governess seated Stella on a folding police picnic chair. She wrapped the half unconscious girl in a warm blanket.
Stella was beyond her usual self as she shivered in worry and shock.
She couldn't feel her governess's hand gently calming her down. All she worried about was the faint possibility at what might've happened to her mother.
It didn't matter who had summoned the Eidolon Alexander at such a pivotal time when her mother was in her most vulnerable state.
It didn't matter to her who was behind this mayhem.
"Oh for the love of Etro, please don't take her away from me too… not my mother too… Please no, no, no! Not my mother, not her please…" Stella started praying frantically to the deity with the most desperate plea she had ever given Etro in her whole life.
The governess was crying alongside Stella, understanding and sympathizing along with her. She felt great empathy for the girl who had just lost her mother as well as her father.
Through her prayers of sobs and pleas, Stella's brain gradually started to reignite her memories.
"Rossell." Stella whispered the name as she slowly raised her head to meet her governess's inquisitive eyes.
"Pardon me? Stella? What is it?" The governess leaned in towards Stella as she tried to listen more attentively to the whisper.
"Rossell Iliev. Mammy, there is a young man, a man by the name of Rossell along with his mansion in the woods right now. I think he can help save my mother and others from Alexander…" Stella stood up from her picnic chair, pushing away the blanket and coat that the governess had snuggled her in. She looked like a butterfly that had shed its shell.
"Rossell who? Who on earth are you addressing Stella?" The governess looked more worried by the minute about Stella's sanity.
"We need to tell the police officer now! I have to go tell him now before it's too late! Rossell knows these woods! And I think he's the only one who has the powers to defeat Alexander before it gets to my mum!" Stella cried in haste, panic and impatience marking every note of her syllables.
"Stella, Calm down. Before we come to such hasty conclusions, we need to remember that we are to stay here until we hear more news. That is the command from Lieutenant Turdling that I have been assigned to before he left." Her governess looked at Stella as if she was handling a fragile glass that was about to break at the slightest touch.
But the problem was that by this point, Stella was partly mad.
No way was she going to sit here and do nothing when she knew that there might be one last hope left that could save her last family member she had left in the world.
"Governess. Find out the chief's phone number, or Lieutenant Turdling number, or anyone else in charge. I need to call them right now, that there is an eighteen year old boy dressed in white robes inside the forest grounds, who can help us! Or you can call them up yourself to tell them that we should ask for his help to defeat Alexander or to rescue my mum and others from its harm! This is my last request of you." Stella held the governess's hands tight in hers, and after her request, she sprinted back towards the dark forest.
The governess shouted after her in desperate pleas, but Stella never looked back.
She couldn't give up now.
Not while there was still hope.
The forest was brighter now than before she had entered.
The white artificial torch lights and light spells were moving about in frantic motions around the woods. More men were shuffling about on the edges of the forest, some of them scared to enter more deeply into the woods. A few of them tried to catch Stella to return her to her designated safe care and guidance. But Stella, being incredibly small and agile, was the one child they couldn't catch. Her legs were carrying her like the wind across the bushes.
"Mum! Mum! Where are you?!" Stella called out for her mother wherever she went.
"Rossell! Rossell! I need your help! Hello?!" Stella also called out for Rossell as she ran with all her strength to where all the other footsteps were headed to.
She followed the footpaths in the dirt tracks left by the crew.
It was leading her south west, just as how Inspector Gibben first heard.
"Protect!" Stella cast a blue magic shield on herself to light up the path, as the forest around her became darker.
She could not see torch lights in the distance anymore.
It was getting more quiet as she approached the fading boot marks on the dark dirty ground.
She could now only hear her gasping breath and the sound of owls quietly hooting at her, as if they were warning her not to go deeper into the forest.
She slowed the pace of her running speed in the pitch black woods, as she could not see ten meters further ahead from where she currently stood. Her vision was failing her, and her ears were silently readying her for what might pop out suddenly.
"Mum…? Anybody…? Rossell…?" Stella whispered for help faintly as she felt the beginnings of fear seeping into her veins.
Her careful footsteps became louder in volume, but she still took herself deeper into the woods. The foot marks she followed were now reduced to only a few, and she could only make out the traces of them by her waning blue shell magic light. At last she spotted a torch light in the midst of darkness about seven meters north.
"Mum…?" Stella called for her mother even though she knew the chances were slim of meeting her.
When she neared the source of the still, motionless torchlight, she realized that there was no human sound to occupy it. Dead silence and no signs of life were associated with the light source.
The words 'no life' reincarnated itself to describe the horror that she saw.
Stella's eyes were disgusted with disbelief as she witnessed more than twenty bodies lying dead, blood still oozing out of their fresh bodies.
The broodiest rosy blood soaked the black uniforms of policemen and bodyguard tuxedo suits.
The torchlight was still shining in the hands of a dead policeman.
They had died fighting or defending whatever they were obliged to defend.
"No… No… No…" All Stella could repeat through her tears were the words of denial.
It was a denial of this never ending nightmare that gave her no rest, no peace and no hope.
"Please… Etro… Please… not my mother…" Stella pleaded as she stepped over the bodies to look closer at the lifeless carcasses that lay beyond her feet.
"Shell!" Stella cast another magic defense spell on herself to light up her way in the darkness.
She turned her head this way and that, to spot out any monster in her sight. As she was searching for signs of monsters nearby, she finally spotted an unusual sight.
The bluish light from her protection sphere, casted a blue shadow onto the back of a woman lying backwards on the ground.
Her blonde curls were stained in red ink, her lifeless arms crunching the grass beneath her palms in agony. This woman had died in pain, with her face downwards towards the dirt of the earth, having not even the time to look up to see the night sky for the last time. Her last breath was buried on the earth's pavement, as she had died instantly by a magic blow to her spine.
It slowly donned on Stella's mind, that this was her worst nightmare reincarnated into reality. The stature and body figure of the woman matched that of Stella's mother, Duchess Fleuret.
In tears of disbelief, Stella rolled over the dead body to face hers.
She wanted it all to be some kind of a joke.
Her mind started playing denial games with her.
She wanted this body to be a long lost twin, or a clone, or even a mannequin, or an android copy of her mother.
She wanted this body, as beautiful as it was even in its last breath, to be unreal, artificial or fake.
She tried to make out that maybe this was someone who looked like her mother, that she was wearing the same black loose fitting medium sized dress as her mother had put on gloomily in the morning, that somehow, this woman had plastic surgery or just looked immensely like her mother in some unexplained miracle, that she tried to perhaps imitate her mother by getting the same blonde hair cut in the same barber shop… or the same shade of coral lipstick…
But once she saw the woman's all too familiar set of eyes, all her denials slapped her in the face.
Her mother's blue eyes were wide open, lacking all the lights of life and spirit she once had.
"NO! NO! NO! TELL ME THIS ISN'T YOU! DON'T LEAVE ME MAMA! NOT YOU! NOT YOU TOO!" Stella cried out her piercing wail in ecstatic agony as she felt every single muscle of her body swell up in fluid of unbearable sorrow and heartfelt pain.
Her chest exploded with the cry of intense loathing and meaninglessness at the harsh tragedy of what her life had fallen into at such a young age.
She hugged her mother's bleeding head by her chest as hundreds of tear drops stained her mother's red soaked face.
A cry so ear shattering and loud that could never again be heard from the likes of a thirteen year old girl roamed over the forest.
Approximately three hundred meters from the centre of the moans of agony, Alexander responded.
His robotic feet shattered and rumbled the forest floors into earthquake scaled vibration as he headed to where the girl's cries were coming from.
His strides were wider than any leaps of man.
Stella didn't care whether the woods around her were shaking, whether or not the giant's footsteps were louder and closing in on her by the second.
It was all over for her.
She didn't care if she died now.
In fact, she wanted death more than anything.
To die by her mother's side.
Nothing could be more welcoming for all of this to end.
The earth beaneath her rumbled, until all the shaking in the forest finally stopped.
Alexander's titanic figure rose over Stella's little body as he stopped to observe the little girl whose arms were still wrapped around her bleeding mother.
Stella openly invited death as she kissed her mother goodbye.
As Alexander readied to step over the little girl with its enormous heavy feet, a great burst of Blizzaga came crashing down on its head from behind.
Alexander looked around to see Rossell at the ready to defend Stella at the cost of his own life.