"No, it can't be." Elena repeated as she stood. Blaze fluttered over to Isabel. Last they had seen Shuriki she had been an old woman who had fallen off the bridge that lead to the castle. The fall was so far down that even with the water below surviving would have been nearly impossible. It was a fall that she and Isabel had taken during a storm, and Sonya had saved them from it.
"This is impossible." Esteban murmured as well.
"It has been a while hasn't it Chancellor?" Shuriki said smugly with a laugh. "I see that you've still managed to do well for yourself Esteban."
"What does she mean by that?" Sofia wondered.
"I don't know how you survived, or how you…" Elena started but kind of hesitated. What was she supposed to say about the fact that her old nemesis once again looked young, at least relatively speaking. "Or how you changed, but we've already beaten you once and we can do it again."
"Look around Shuriki." Sonya now spoke up. Any evidence of the young woman still getting used to life on the surface was gone in favor of the confident Merroway Cove warrior that she was. "You have your followers and we have our people, but we still outnumber you."
The wicked sorceress took a moment to realize that the crown princess had more than just her family, the Enchancia royals, and the amateur sorcerer with her. This included two semi-skilled warriors, one of whom she could tell was a mermaid, a young blonde woman who seemed at least capable, and another young man who if she was right was also more than he seemed. "How interesting." She murmured. "So you've gotten some new blood to follow your lead."
"Look around you Shuriki." Roland now said. Like Elena and her friends he was also unarmed but they all knew he could defend himself and those he loved just as easily. "You're outnumbered and will be defeated. You should take this chance to surrender."
And indeed all around them the guards that were there were in an evenly matched fight, though the truth was that any of the tri-kingdoms could call for backup and as far as they could tell Shuriki had none, just whoever she could recruit from her old regimen. The other change was Queen Erika as well, who had jabbed her elbow into an attacker's throat to disarm him and was easily starting to knock out those around her.
"We have to keep this flow going and put an end to this before something bad happens." Elena said to Sonya. "Move in low, I'll move in high. I'm going for the wand, if I can get a hold of it I can end this just like I did the last time. But what's important is that you get into the carriage and get our weapons." The mermaid girl nodded and together they moved in.
Elena reached up for the wand and her hand brushed against it, she noticed dimly that it felt very cold for some reason before Shuriki pushed Elena down to the floor hard. She heard her little sister call out her name. "Not this time Elena." She hissed.
Elena looked up at her with a slightly victorious smile. "I did what I needed to do Shuriki." She said. The sorceress turned around to see that Sonya had gotten into the carriage and moved out with the bag containing their weapons, including a couple of swords. Shuriki tried to shoot magic at her but she dodged it easily.
Elena fell back with Sonya and turned to their friends.
"Great job." Mateo said to Sonya and Elena though his smile was reserved especially for his beautiful mermaid girlfriend.
"And what exactly do you hope to accomplish?" Shuriki asked with amusement.
Elena got her scepter of light and the stone spear and handed that to Gabe. Sonya tossed the swords to Erika and Jorge while Mateo pulled out his tamborita and the magical throwing axe that Naomi had pretty much adopted.
Roland had taken a sword from one of the fallen guards even as Miranda and some of the others were doing their best to keep the children safe. Sofia and Isabel exchanged worried glances. Beside Isabel, Christina held onto Kara, trying to hide her fear. From behind them so did Amber and James, and the prince of Enchancia even still had Isabel's hand in his.
"Impressive." Shuriki allowed. She saw the scroll that Mateo had placed in his robe as well. "Ah, and those must be those mystical orbs I've heard so much about." She added.
"How does she know about those?" Gabe wondered.
"I don't know." Elena said. "After we subdue her we can ask her. So let's put an end to her reign of terror before it begins." With that they started out to help the guards of the tri-kingdoms. Some of Shuriki's men started toward them, even though it meant diverting their focus.
Elena easily made her way to Shuriki. She was more than willing to feel a bit weak if she could use her scepter's powers to take out the evil sorceress's wand. Without that her power would be gone and she was sure everyone else could defeat the guards that were already slowly losing this fight.
But as Elena got closer to Shuriki the ground in front of her began to glow an eerie orange color and in teleported a very familiar and very unwelcome visage; the almost pugged nose face of the large and very dangerous Caballero del Infierno appeared in front of the crown princess. She let out a gasp and stopped short, which was the only thing stopping the large demon from swatting her aside as it had a couple of the guards back in Avalor.
"Oh no, Elena." Isabel whispered in horror. Beside her she felt Christina shudder in fear as she remembered what they had gone through that night as well. Sofia glanced at them curiously. Behind them were Hildegard, Clio, Desmond, Hugo, Jun and Zooey.
"I thought that thing was supposed to be dead." Esteban noted with a bit of a glare at both Mateo and Gabe as he fought one of the guards.
"I also remember saying that there were probably more than one of them." Mateo reminded Esteban as he couldn't help but stare up at the large demon in front of them. "Still, I guess we know how Shuriki knew about the orbs. That last one came to the castle looking for them."
"You made an alliance with these monsters?" Elena questioned aghast.
"I needed strong allies, and what better than these." Shuriki replied gleefully. "And not just this one either." With that that same orange glow appeared not too far from them and a thin and very vaguely female shape appeared. It seemed to have light blue body armor except for the hands, which were all fleshy and red like what one assumed a person would look like without their skin. It also had wings of the same color. Its head seemed very much like the Caballero del Infierno except for the large round bone structure on the back of its head.
"That's a new one." Gabe noted distastefully.
Mateo and Christina were the only ones to have ever tried combing the Enciclopedia Daemonica back in the wizard's workshop in Avalor and the young sorcerer had to jog his memory to remember what it was. "Invocador." Mateo whispered.
Christina had whispered the same thing and Sofia looked at her curiously before somehow realizing what she had said. "Summoner. What does that mean?" She wondered.
"It sound somewhat obvious to me Sofia." Amber told her. "And if it is, I don't like it."
Sonya overheard what her boyfriend had said. "Not on my watch." She declared simply and charged toward the fleshy red and blue skinned demon. She aimed a very solid kick at its chest just as she had Collin's head when he tried to assault Naomi, which would have killed it easily.
If it had connected. At the last moment it seemed to disappear and then reappear several feet away even as the mermaid girl rolled to her side and then to her feet. "I didn't see that coming." Mateo admitted.
The Summoner let loose with a wave that knocked over several of the guards. The one thing that Sofia noticed though was that it didn't discriminate. It was only pure luck that it knocked down more of their guards than the ones Shuriki had with her.
"Naomi, try using the throwing axe." Gabe called out to her. He thought there was a chance that the demon might not be able to respond as quickly to a long range attack and she was the only one capable of that besides Mateo, and somehow magic against this demon seemed like a bad idea.
"I'm on it." Naomi said to him. But the Summoner release another wave and this time multiple bipedal, red eyed creatures appeared now. Several of them stood up with a screech and fireballs appeared in the palm of their hands and tossed them at the crowd, forcing many to scatter.
"Hang on." Christina said as she linked arms with Amber and James.
"Oh, I was afraid that it would do something like that." Amber commented.
"What are those?" James wondered.
It didn't require a translation for anyone to understand Christina's answer. "Those things are called Imps. They're like practically legion in the demon world, at least according to the book Mateo and I skim read at the castle."
Several other of the creatures, the Imps, didn't stand but instead leapt at nearby targets. One of them pounced on Jorge but he raised his arms to block the demon's claws with his sword, keeping it at bay with a move that would have impressed Naomi had she been in a position to see it. He kicked it in the stomach hard and forced it off of him, then he rose and decapitated the demon, it fell back and vanished in the same orange haze, leaving no evidence of it behind.
Several of the Imps jumped at Erika and she swung her sword, cleaving two of them in half before a third one landed on her, forcing her to drop the sword. "Quite an ugly little creature." She noted distastefully before tossing it off of her. Another slashed at her back and she kicked it backwards and recovered the sword.
"This isn't looking good." Roland said to her as he came to stand beside her sword to sword, forcing the Imps to take a quick step backwards.
"No, it doesn't." Erika agreed. "If I had known this would have happened I would have brought my own army." It had been her army that had backed up Sofia, Amber and James when they had gone in ahead to rescue Elena and the Avalor team when they had been ambushed by the Throg Shaman Gorda and his Throgs.
The Caballero del Infierno tossed one of its green fireballs and turned the two swords into melted metal, and the Imps screeched before pouncing at the King of Enchancia and the Queen of Aniluna.
It took over a dozen Imps to do so, but they finally succeeded in subduing Francisco, Luisa, Esteban, Erika and Roland. The chancellor suspected the only reason they weren't dead at this point was because Shuriki had other plans.
"At least it cleans up after itself." Gabe noted with some satisfaction as one of the Imps threw a fireball at him. He moved to the side, barely avoiding a singed uniform and took out that Imp with his stone spear, causing it to dissipate as well. "No muss no fuss."
"No muss sure." Jorge agreed as he dodged another Imp that tried to jump on him. "I think the fuss is debatable." The Imp tossed a fireball at him but he blocked that with the sword.
"I have to put an end to this before it gets worse, no matter what the consequences." Elena decided and raised her scepter of light. She aimed it at the Caballero del Infierno and hoped she had the power to take out the large demon and Shuriki's wand. "Blazes!" She called out.
The power of her scepter shot out and struck Caballero del Infierno and it let out a roar, but the crown princess had forgotten how durable the thing really was. It took several steps toward her, completely blocking out Shuriki from Elena's view.
"On no, Elena." Isabel gasped as she remembered the last time her sister had done this, it had put her out for hours, with help from one of the orbs. Before that it had taken two days for her to recover after beating the moth fairy Lady O. This was not the time to become weakened. "Blaze, ayudar a Elena por favor." She pleaded.
Blaze left Isabel and charged toward Elena and Shuriki. She intended to dive right at Shuriki and snatch the wand from the evil sorceress.
The Summoner let loose with another wave and two more demons appeared, but these ones were different. They had no feet, floating just above the ground. They had leathery dark pink skin with a green eye in the center of the face and large horse like mane in the back of their heads. Instead of arms it had two multi teethed mouths and after giving off sinister laughs, they opened their mouths and spit out flaming skulls, like what had accompanied the Caballero del Infierno the night it had invaded the castle.
"I'm afraid to ask what those are." Sofia noted.
Christina knew she had to answer anyway. "Elemental del dolor's." She told her.
One of the flaming skulls rushed forward and struck Blaze head on. She let out a screech of pain and started to tumble toward the ground.
"Blaze!" Elena gasped and stopped her attack to catch her little bujito companion. The Caballero del Infierno turned toward Elena and swiped at her again, catching her across the shoulder, the crown princess gasped in pain.
Sonya kicked it in the chest hard. "This thing is built solid." She commented ruefully.
"I think it's time to end your token resistance." Shuriki stated. More Imps appeared and the Elemental del dolor's continued to release the flaming skulls as the Imps started to attack. That made the people start to panic, Miranda did her best to protect the children. "Starting with you." She said and looked to Sonya. "I don't know why a mermaid is here but I bet I know how to stop you."
"You can't stop me witch." Sonya said. She dodged under the incredibly strong and bulky yet slow demon and started toward Shuriki. "It's time to shut you down."
Shuriki laughed and waved her wand. "Transformo deprivo." Magic shot from her wand and slammed into Sonya hard. She was surprised to find her moon ring fly off of her fingers and into the bushes. When she hit the ground she had a tail instead of legs and she raised her hands to stop the Caballero del Infierno from trying to crush her underfoot.
"Protect the children." Elena ordered Naomi and a very concerned Mateo. She looked to Gabe and Jorge. "Help me." Together the crown princess and the two boys charged forward toward Sonya.
A second Caballero del Infierno appeared. Shuriki now called out, "No one dies until I say so. Apprehend everyone and bring them with us." She ordered. Meanwhile the demon raised its arms and hurled a large green fireball at the three approaching people. Gabe pulled Elena to the side with him even as Jorge dove to another side.
As the flaming skulls increased the Summoner now summoned two large skeleton creatures that let out roars before moving in as well. Elena heard Mateo whisper, "Empezaban." Which she knew meant Revenant.
Naomi got a little ahead of Mateo as he stumbled over his own robe, something he hadn't done in a while though this was far from a normal circumstance. Then the Summoner appeared in front of the royal sorcerer and the blonde turned toward him, but Mateo waved him off. "Go protect the children, I'll worry about the Invocador."
The demon slashed at Mateo and he fell back with a yelp. He then got ready to send a magic shockwave at the demon but it vanished and appeared behind Mateo before shooting an energy wave of its own at Mateo and struck him back hard. It felt very weird and very evil, making him involuntarily shudder.
Naomi slashed at an Imp and with a screech it went down. She raised her throwing axe and got ready for the next demonic attack. But she lost track of the fact that Shuriki had human guards still standing and one of them grabbed her wrist and twisted it hard, she screamed in pain as he forced her to drop the axe, then he tossed her to the ground hard.
Even weaponless Naomi wasn't normally defenseless but as she looked up to figure out how to strike back she stopped at the malicious grin on the face of the guard. "Hello Naomi. It's such a pleasure to see you again." He said, his voice a combination of mockery and desire. She felt frozen as memories from a year ago rushed to her.
A warm but almost starless night…the sound of footsteps…her mother's hand being torn from hers…the flash of a knife and the spatter of blood…the man's words of, "You have something I want…"…fear that the knife that had cut her mother's throat would then kiss hers…and the knife did touch her, not her flesh but her clothes…the pain and violation, the horrid laughter and the knowledge that what had happened had been almost as bad as death…the despair of that night, which still haunted her today, the secret she had never told anyone, not even her father.
"It's you." She could only say in shock. For that moment everything around the blonde had been forgotten, like nothing was going on.
"It's me sweetie, I'm back. Something you'll grow to enjoy." He said and slammed his booted foot into her head to knock her out.
"Naomi!" Christina gasped in fear as her blonde friend head hit the ground hard.
One of the Imps turned toward the children and let out a hiss before jumping right at them. Sofia looked like she wanted to stop it, but rather it would have succeeded or not would not be known as Miranda rammed into the demon as hard as she could. "Run." She ordered them all. At this point it just didn't matter what happened because it was all falling apart. "Run, get out of here." She instructed again.
After momentary hesitation they all tried to do so but were almost immediately surrounded by the flaming skulls. Amber fell back as one of them snapped at her, and James tried to protect her only to get struck down by another one of them.
Christina tried to run and was rammed in the chest hard by another one, she fell back with a gasp as if she were being choked and Kara swiped at the flaming skull for what good it did them. The other souls had blocked off everyone else but Sofia and Isabel.
Sofia watched her siblings worriedly. Then she glanced at Isabel as her thoughts went to the next level. Together they both said, "Elena."
"You heard Queen Miranda, go!" Elena shouted to them. "We'll find you when this is done, I promise."
"Sometimes I hate when she says that." Isabel confided to Sofia softly. "She usually keeps her word but when she doesn't it's because of a really bad reason."
Sofia found the moon ring that Shuriki had magically removed from Sonya to make her revert to a mermaid, which didn't help her out right now. "Come on Isabel, maybe we can get help or something. Maybe Mister Cedric or Lucinda or someone." Sofia said. The young Avaloran princess nodded and the two ran off.
"Stop them." Shuriki ordered and two guards chased after the young princesses.
"Leave them alone Shuriki." Elena demanded. She was struggling not to succumb to the loss of energy she was feeling from trying to use the scepter of light to try to stop the Caballero del Infierno and shatter Shuriki's wand.
"This wouldn't be happening if it weren't for that little brat." Shuriki retorted contemptuously as she recalled that it was Sofia who had stolen her wand from her during a dance demonstration, which she already hated. She had combined it with that amulet of hers to free Elena. If she hadn't done that then Shuriki would still be running Avalor. "I'll make sure that Sofia pays just as much as all of you."
"No." Elena tried to protest again even as she struggled to stay conscious.
"Having a hard time princess?" Shuriki taunted her with a smirk.
Gabe and Jorge were back to back as the two Empezaban's and the Caballero del Infierno that was not trying to crush Sonya all but surrounded him. It was actually quite a testament to the mermaid girl's strength that she could stop the demon from crushing her.
"This does not look promising." Jorge noted as he slashed his sword at one of the Empezaban. The strike against the bone did nothing tangible.
"No kidding." Gabe agreed a bit shakily. It wasn't fear of the large demon that shook him, it was the fact that he had heard his little sister's scream but couldn't find her or figure out what had happened to her.
Gabe jabbed the stone spear at the Caballero del Infierno and it let out a roar of pain as it struck the monster in the chest, but it was too broad and thick skinned to do much and Gabe wished he had the orb that granted super strength, but this was a representative of the same demon that took Elena several minutes to blast with the scepter of light before defeating it. Then the Caballero del Infierno swung one of its massive arms and the hand slapped Gabe in the side hard, sending him flying.
"Gabe." Elena gasped and turned to start toward him but Shuriki blasted Elena in the back with a spell and she tumbled end over end for a minute before hitting a tree. She struggled to rise but her view was blocked by the Caballero del Infierno.
Jorge tried again to get at the Empezaban but it swung it's arm and knocked the sword from his grasp. The other skeletal demon was behind him now and then the two of them struck, one of them punching Jorge in the face and the other in the back of the head. He fell to the ground unconscious, some blood coming from his nose.
Elena looked around in despair. She could see the Caballero del Infierno working to crush Sonya, the mermaid girl barely keeping it at bay. She could see Gabe unconscious near her from the blow that had injured two other guards earlier, she couldn't tell how he was. She could see Jorge unconscious and bleeding a little, and further on her best friend was in much the same condition as a result of a man rather than a demon, he was kneeling above Naomi and his hand was running over her cheek, it made Elena feel sick. Mateo was lying unconscious under the Invocator's gaze. The rest of her family was with Roland and Miranda, subdued by the Imps. Only Sofia and Isabel were missing for the moment but she feared her little sister and chosen sister would soon be brought before them.
Shuriki was now towering over Elena. "I win Elena. Soon Avalor will be mine once again, and I will add the likes of Enchancia, Wei-Ling, and Freezenberg under my rule. Soon this entire world will be mine, it will be one big empire and I will be its empress." She taunted Elena. "And the only reason any of you are still alive is because I want you all executed together, just as you stood together to oppose me."
"You won't get away with this." Elena warned her even as she cradled an injured Blaze to her chest.
"I already have. Four royal families in my possession means no one will try to attack me until it's too late." Shuriki said and then magically zapped Elena into blackness. She looked down contemptuously at the crown princess of Avalor and then looked up. "No one dies until the brat princesses are found and brought before me."
"Most of the servants have fled as well." One of the men said to Shuriki. "Shall we make this our base of operations Queen Shuriki?" He asked.
The evil sorceress shook her head. "No." She answered. "I don't want to be in such an open place as this. There is a building not far from here where all of this," She indicated the now ruined food and the damaged furniture. "Was kept. We'll set up shop there until we can execute them all. Now, pick them up and let's go."
The Invocador levitated Mateo up, the man above Naomi picked her up almost caringly as he pressed her body against his. While one Caballero del Infierno picked up Gabe and placed the royal guard over his shoulder, the other picked up Sonya by the waist and dug in, making her flinch in pain but she couldn't break free. One of the Empezaban picked up Jorge as the Imps gathered up the kids and the rest of Elena and Sofia's families and followed Shuriki to their new destination.
"As soon as Princess Sofia and Princess Isabel are brought here, you will all die." Shuriki declared with a gleam of amusement at Sonya, the only conscious member of the group.
Sofia and Isabel ducked behind a large rock to try to catch their breaths, not to mention get a hold of their fears. They both sat down and took heavy breaths before Isabel laid her head on Sofia's shoulder. Sofia laid her head against Isabel's.
"What are we going to do?" Isabel asked Sofia quietly. "How do we rescue Elena and James and Christina and everyone else from Shuriki and all of those demons?"
Sofia sighed, worry for her family and Elena and her friends weighing heavily on her. "I don't know Isabel." She confessed. "So many times I try to do everything I can to help everyone around me but I don't see how I can make a difference this time. This is different from everything I've ever done, even freeing Elena from the amulet. I don't even see how Mister Cedric or anyone in Enchancia could help us."
Isabel gently ran her finger over the golden feather. "I wish there was a fighter or something hidden in this feather." She lamented softly.
Sofia grasped her amulet in the palm of her hand softly. "I wish I could summon a princess to help us here too, but no one princess could possibly stop all of this." She mused softly. She sighed, "What are we going to do?" She repeated. Being so pessimistic was not normal for Sofia but neither girl could see a way out of this.
They heard the trampling of the guards approaching them. "Where did they go?" One of them asked.
The other glanced around and caught sight of their footprints. "They're behind the rock." He told his companion.
"Time to go." Sofia announced and the two of them stood up to run, but Isabel didn't notice a root protruding from the ground and she tripped over it, falling hard to the ground, the air knocked out of her lungs.
Sofia stood came to her side but as the two guards approached the young Enchancia princess stood in their way, unsure of how to protect Isabel and stop them. As they raised their swords Sofia held firm, and then her amulet began to glow.
"What does that mean?" Isabel wondered.
"It usually means a princess is coming, but I don't get it." She answered.
Then in between them there was not one but four glowing shapes, and when it passed there stood four girls only a little older than Elena. One had the coolest purple hair that Sofia had ever seen, a few shades darker than her favorite dress. She was all decked in purple. Another had blue hair, she wore a blue shirt and black leggings. The third was a light black haired Asian girl in a pink skirt and pink shirt. The fourth was a brunette girl in a red and pink dress that came to just below her kneecaps.
"What the…" A guard started.
The brunette girl echoed that statement and looked to the purple haired girl. "Mal, what did you do this time?" She asked.
"I didn't do anything Audrey." She replied. "I don't know what happened any more than you do."
"Where do you think we are Evie?" The Asian girl asked the blue haired girl.
She shook her head. "I don't know Lonnie." She answered.
Then Lonnie looked to Sofia. "Wait a minute." She saw Mal look at the guards.
"Um, is this good or bad?" Isabel asked nervously. Sofia wasn't sure.
The guards decided to ignore the four confused teenage girls in favor of capturing the two princesses as the evil sorceress had ordered. Sofia knelt by Isabel, ready to try to protect her…
