Ghostly World

Disclaimer: Nope, don't own Victorious now and never will

A/N:

Chapter 37 (The Convoy)

Jade walked along a cracked and dry, war torn planet. The effects of battle within the Elemental Realm took its toll over the sixteen to twenty years. Beck had been greatly upset when he arrived and immediately took off for the castle, telling her to find her father. How was she to do that without knowing exactly what he looked like? Sure, it might not be too difficult, considering he was both the leader of the fire tribe and the leader of the Royal Guard. That, and, how common was the name 'Phoenix', really? If she could find anyone, she'd ask them to direct him towards the man. She looked off into the distance and sighed as she spotted the castle far, far away. "Stay safe, Beck…stay safe…"

She had to worry more about staying safe herself, she knew this place likely had some demons lurking about. Then again, who could tell? It seemed almost completely barren. It looked like what Earth would seem like after sixteen years of global warfare. Hopefully after this war was over, the elementals could revive this desolate planet. "Okay dad…where might you be…" She looked up at a stone building and frowned. It seemed as though it were a house, but whose home? If she knew what section of the elemental realm she was in, she'd be able to tell what tribe she was located in, and in turn, maybe someone would be able to point her in the direction of the fire tribe. "If I can see the castle from here…what did Beck's dad say about that?" Heaviness descended upon her as she started to realize that she was at least one hundred miles away from the castle. Mr. Oliver stated there was only one city that had a clear shot of the castle from more than seventy miles away with only the naked eye, all others would have buildings, trees, and other obstacles obscuring view of the castle.

There were several hundred, thousands, millions of miles spanning the globe, with the Dark tribe being the furthest from the castle. Each tribe had various sections on the planet and had different impacts in the various cities. Where she was standing, based on what Mr. Oliver's long and dwindling lecture, she would be in smallest city, the one that was completely barren by the man's word. It was one of the first cities to be taken out by the Shadows. She bowed her head and closed her eyes, she needed to move on. There was nothing more for her here.

As she started to walk away, a sound paralyzed her. She turned her gaze to the half destroyed stone house that stood in front of her and listened to the droning cry of a baby. That was impossible, wasn't it? This city had been dead for sixteen to seventeen years. She swallowed and slowly walked into the hut, curious as to whether or not it was a real baby she was hearing, or just her imagination. After all, this city belonged to the Dark Tribe, yet they were completely destroyed by now. After all, they were the first tribe to fall to the Shadows simply because they could not fight them, couldn't resist them with their element. All they could do was fight with their metal like claws, and surely that wouldn't be enough.

As she entered the house, the stench of blood and death stung her nose, she moaned and pinched her nose and shook her head. It used to be that she would get enjoyment from that, but seeing how much something like this affected her homeland and even herself, there was nothing enjoyable about it. She looked around and her heart clenched inside of her at the sight she saw before her.

The walls were splattered and stained with blood, there were skeletons on the ground and any furniture in the room was unrecognizable to her. She took a deep breath and followed the cry of the baby, walking into a small room and seeing what looked like a one year old baby lying on a table. Her heart sank as she saw the baby's mother sitting against a wall, covered in blood. The infant itself had blood on its clothing. Suddenly, fear shot up inside her as she began to understand the gravity of the situation, the woman hadn't even begun to lose her color yet, the blood splattered on the wall above the woman was still moving downwards! Whatever killed this woman was probably still in the house. She moved her eyes to the baby and saw a shadow moving beneath it. As she looked closer, she saw it starting to form a mouth.

"No!" She ran for the baby and grabbed it off the table just as two powerful, dark, sharp teethed jaws jumped out of the table and snapped in the air. Jade's eyes widened as a strange alligator like creature started climbing from the shadow. The baby continued its loud cry and Jade immediately looked to the roof above her. In the other room, the roof had been torn off, so maybe she could use that to her advantage. She looked to the creature, who was eyeing her hungrily. Stomping her foot forward, she clutched the baby close to her and growled. "Stay back! Stay back, I will kill you!"

The creature started approaching her very slowly as wind began flowing into the room. She was trying to use the wind from the other room to blow off the roof above her. The creature lifted its nose up and growled as Jade became more focused on the flow of the wind. With a powerful yell, the roof was torn from the house, allowing her to generate a storm directly above her. "I'm warning you, if you come any closer to me, you will die. Do you know who my parents are? You don't, do you? I bet you don't…but you better start getting scared, because I'm stronger than my mother was!"

Lightning flashed in the sky and the temperature began to rapidly sink below freezing. The creature looked around with concern as ice began to form around the inner walls of the house. It started shivering as Jade narrowed her eyes. "There's many different types of storms, you know…" The creature shifted its gaze towards her and a hint of fear shot into its eyes. "A few of my favorites…well, right now I'm showing you the ice storm, which is similar to a hail storm, minus the icy pellets and hail stones being thrown about by the severe winds. Hail storms can generate hail up to the size of grapefruits or bigger, can be shot very painfully in extreme wind, and tear through sheet metal, and stronger material."

"Now ice storms, they involve strong winds and ice, but the temperature lowers below freezing and thus, everything around it can start to freeze. That would be the rain in the air, as well as the water as soon as it lands. So what I just did was combine that with a thunderstorm, which has severe lightning and black sky mixed with rain." The creature looked up at the light show in the sky, never ending lightning. Rain was falling rapidly and beating against him, freezing as it hit him. It was as several tiny ice daggers. "You should know what a snow storm is, you should also know what a blizzard is…There's also a rainstorm, in which can be confused with thunderstorms, since thunderstorms have more concentration on lighting and the rain just isn't as heavy, but the rainstorm has less lightning and heavy rain. Sounds fun? Yes? No? Maybe?"

The creature backed up a bit as Jade took a dangerous step forward. Lightning shot down in front of the creature and a smirk pulled at her lips. "You've been here long enough to know a storm controller can control several aspects of the weather, so I don't have to say how I can combine them." The creature was blown against the wall with a loud cry. "Oh, feeling the effects of the wind storm? No time to generate a sand storm, because that would turn into mud with all this rain, wouldn't it?"

The demon began to shake as sand started coming in and wrapping around it, but the rain beating down was turning it into thick mud. The icy temperatures froze it around him, crystallizing the mud. "Other storm types I frequently love, Cyclones and Hurricanes, which are a more severe type of cyclone…Then you have the tornado, I use that quite often. But what can I use on you?"

The demon shook its head and struggled in vain to break from its icy cocoon. Jade smirked as the baby in her hands ceased its frightened cry and watched the demon struggle. "There's a typhoon, a tsunami, avalanches are caused by blizzards and snow…but let's go with the earthquake shall we?" She lifted one hand into the air and the house began to shake. The creature let out a loud cry as the wall it was attached to began to fall over. It was now at the mercy of Jade and her violent storms.

Suddenly, all but the howling wind seemed to stop and the creature gave off a soft sigh, hoping it was all over. Jade watched the carbon dioxide flow from her mouth as snow began to fall rapidly onto the demon. It screamed and started trying to shake. Jade chuckled and tilted her head. "It seems you already know what lying still in a snow storm will get you…" The creature cried out once more as the snow began to freeze it. "Did you think I was going to let you live after you just tried eating this little infant? It's anyone's guess what it and its mother was doing here in this city, maybe they were just passing through, but that doesn't mean they should automatically become your meal!"

Within seconds, the demon was now frozen solid and the temperatures had returned to normal. With one loud crack, a lightning bolt shot down and shattered the icy creature into several pieces. Jade turned her eyes to the baby and frowned, it was horrible that it had to lose its mother so soon, maybe the child had a father still alive. "We'll find our fathers together, little one. I promise…if only you could tell me which way the fire tribe is…"

As she walked out of the house, she was met by the light of day shining down upon her. She smiled and closed her eyes happily. Suddenly voices came to her ears and she quickly started searching her surroundings, if someone were here, that might be the best sign all day. She ran towards the voices and soon came upon what looked like a convoy parked right in the middle of a city. She quickly hid behind a stone wall and poked her head around it to look on to the convoy. There were a group of people walking around the six or seven vehicles, calling for someone by the name of Margaret.

Who was Margaret?

She turned her eyes to the baby and was reminded of the woman dead against the wall, the smell of fresh blood, the smell of death. She gasped softly and looked at the convoy. Could this be the child of this Margaret woman? The vehicles resembled dark, wooden wagons. The black horses pulling the wagons, along with the moon insignia, seemed to point to these people as some of the last members of the Dark tribe. She wondered where they were headed and why they had stopped here.

"Hello? Hello!" She stepped into view, calling for them. One man, wearing a dark robe and with shaggy hair seemed to hear her. He looked over and called a couple nearby mercenaries and ran up to her. "Is this your baby?" The man looked to the baby and sighed.

"The clothing it wears, it is Margaret's child. Where did you find him?" The man took the baby into his arms and Jade spoke with a heavy heart.

"He was about to be eaten by one of those demons…I killed the creature, but the mother…" The men gasped and exchanged mournful glances. One man gestured at the man and pointed to the vehicle in the very front.

"Okay…then would you please come with us?"

"I guess…" They walked her to the front, where a thin man with a scar on his right cheek sat in waiting. She remained silent as the Mercenary handed the man his child. The man started to weep and after a minute, gestured to Jade.

"Please, come here." Jade looked up and walked over to him, she felt terrible about what had happened and wanted to do whatever she could to help, if they needed anything. "You saved my son. I am indebted to you. Is there anything you need?"

"Well…yes but, can I ask what happened?"

"We were going through this city because it was where Margaret grew up, she wanted to see what had become of the town. We were all headed to the fire tribe in order to settle a debt with their leader." Jade's heart jumped up and she nearly screamed for joy when she heard they were headed to the fire tribe, but what debt was being settled? Was this bad? Were they enemies of her father?

"What debt are you talking about? Anything serious?"

"Not really, it's kind of amusing really…" Jade raised her eyebrow as the man cradled his son close. "You see, a while back we borrowed some money from the fire tribe to do two things: One, we wanted to have our fortune told by a fortune teller. We know those kind of things are usually hoaxes, but curiosity got the better of us." Jade rubbed the back of her head and chuckled, fortune tellers didn't even exist in the Psychic Realm. Nobody could tell the future, it just wasn't possible. "The other thing was, we wanted money to help form this convoy and find any remaining members of the Dark Tribe. So far, we've found maybe fifty of us." The man took a deep breath and slowly shook his head. Jade felt the depressive feeling coming from him, it had to be hard to be from a dying tribe. "Anyway…the time's come and we've gathered enough money, so we need to pay the fire tribe back. Hopefully the man's there when we get there, he should be since we arranged this meeting a day ago, but there's a chance he could be called up to the castle. He is the leader of the Royal Guard, ever since his wife left so long ago…"

"Yeah…"

"The King is dying and he's doing everything he can to pull together the fighters in one last attempt to remove all the shadow demons from our realm. There aren't that many and we're mostly in the rebuilding state, but first things first…" Jade agreed and glanced over as one of the men whispered into the leader's ear. It was clear he led the convoy, but perhaps he was also the leader of the Dark Tribe. The man pressed his lips together and sighed. "We have to get moving pretty soon. We don't want to miss anything, plus I'm still reeling over that fortune teller's words."

"What did the fortune teller say?"

"Something about finding the child of a very important man, I got no clue what the hell that's supposed to mean." Jade's heart swelled inside of her and her lips curled upwards. Maybe the fortune teller wasn't as useless as people thought. "Apparently we're supposed to protect this child from enemies, but we don't have much further to go until we reach the fire tribe and we have no one here that is anyone famous."

Jade tapped her foot on the ground and wondered if she should mess with this guy, but then, that would be disrespectful. Plus, they were short on time, it seemed. "What about me?" The man raised an eyebrow as Jade folded her arms over and breathed in. "I'm looking for my dad, his name is Phoenix and he's the leader of the Royal Guard. I came here with the Crown Prince of the Elemental Realm, and he already took off for the castle." The man's eyes popped out of his head and he quickly rose to his feet.

"Holy shit!" He looked to the members of his convoy and called out. "Men, I need someone to give this woman some bedding, food, and rest! Pronto!" Jade smiled as several people surrounded her, they were going to take her to one of the vehicles and protect her in there. The man smiled at her, thanking her for protecting his son and giving her one last promise. "We will take you directly to your father, I'm sure he'll be overjoyed when he sees you."

"Thank you." She cheered inwardly as she followed the men to one of the vehicles. They helped her inside the wagon and she carefully leaned against a cushioned area. She loved being pampered and was looking forward to the rest of the trip.

Jade's on her way, she's going to see her father for the first time! Beck's on his way to his grandfather. Keep in mind that the Elemental Realm is the KEY realm, it is the most important realm, next to the Light Dominion. So Jade and Beck really have their work cut out for them here!