Chapter 18
Prince Peasley gives in and nods to accept in repaying the snow witch. Jojora squeals in delight and excitement as she snaps her fingers, magically causing the ice sealing the prince's lips to shatter without shattering his lips.
Prince Peasley manipulatively suggests to Jojora, "I know a good location where we could play, Jojora…"
But the snow witch places her finger on the prince's lips to silence him and say, "Now, now, prince. I am owed to also decide where and what to play. We will play tag inside the palace."
Prince Peasley gently pushes Jojora's hand away and replies to her, "But I know much more interesting games…"
"We'll move on with that later," the snow witch insists and tells him, "You're it!"
Jojora starts flying away. The prince rushes towards his winged board to ride it. He weighs his foot on the front of the board to cause it to fly forward to start chasing the playful snow witch. They both fly outside. Jojora has her scepter in her hands, playfully waving it but its core is not glowing, which Prince Peasley deduces that she is not using it, but rather attempting to deceive him.
As the winds blow in the pinnacle of Joke's End, Jojora is unfazed by the cold due to her nature as part-Clumph and part-snow witch. Prince Peasley tries his best to not feel the shivering cold this time ever since his initial and first visit. He puts more weight in his foot on the front of the board to cause the board to fly faster towards the snow witch he is pursuing for sport.
The prince's hand reaches his hand out to catch Jojora. His hand finally touches Jojora's leg. The snow witch pauses in the air upon being tagged. Prince Peasley jumps to elevate the winged board and weighs his left foot on the left side of his board to steer to the left while his right foot weighs on the front of the board, causing the prince to fly southeast.
Jojora notices the direction her playmate is going and yells at him, "Why are you leaving the border of Joke's End? I thought you promised to play with me!"
Prince Peasley puts his feet together to stop the winged board from moving whilst just staying in the air carrying its passenger. The prince yelled to reply, "Oh, I did! I am just introducing you to a better playing field."
"Oh," Jojora responds with a blush and giggle, but her expression returns to a serious one and reminded the prince, "But being part of the snow witch family would mean I should share their exile from other Bean-bean Kingdom's territories."
The prince smiles and shines his golden hair with his hand and proclaims to Jojora, "My dear, I am the prince of Bean-bean Kingdom. My mother, the queen, would grant me the same political power in her hands to me. Therefore, I, the prince of Bean-bean kingdom, end the banishment of you and your family."
Jojora's eyes are filled with tears, which run down on her face and froze into bits of ice. She smiles in joy as she shatters and wipes her frozen tears with her fingers. The prince flies with his board closer to Jojora.
The snow witch, now clean from her tears, thanked the prince, "Thank you so much. You weren't such a jerk after all."
Jojora opened her arms for a hug, but Prince Peasley jumped and made a flip in midair as the winged board elevates in the air as the prince lands his feet on the board.
"Are you afraid of hugs?" the snow witch awkwardly asks.
"Don't forget," Prince Peasley reminded her as he waves his finger at her, "we're still playing. And you're welcome."
The prince flies his board away from Jojora, who giggles playfully and voices out in excitement, "I'm gonna tag you with a hug, you!"
Jojora proceeds to chase the prince to continue their game of tag. As they continue to play, they come across the warm ocean, where there are sandy islands. The newly-experienced heat and the newly-discovered islands greatly awes the newly-freed Jojora.
She happily expresses in her mind, "It is so warm, much warmer than the pedestals back home… I thought I would burn like my fellow witches claimed, but it is just as refreshing as the cold. And those islands… they have beautiful green pastures and funny-looking creatures."
The snow witch reconfigures her focus on the prince. Jojora waves her scepter. The blue core glows as it begins to freeze the waters below her and the prince. Prince Peasley looks down and gasps upon seeing a part of the ocean freezing into ice. He turns around to look at Jojora and begins puzzling what she might do.
Jojora raises her scepter up while its core still glows. Her action causes the frozen part of the waters to rise and form a giant ice spike that emerges in the prince's airborne path. The prince smiles in challenge and jumps two times to elevate the winged board to fly over the ice spike.
Jojora playfully growled and shouted, "So uncool!"
Prince Peasley laughs in response and continues to fly away from his playmate. He inhales calmly as the wind blows his golden hair beautifully. The prince slightly turns his head around to look at Jojora. His face makes a blush, which he hides from his playmate.
"What am I doing?" the prince annoyingly questioned himself, "Expressing too much for the sake of emotion, this is absurd! This… butterflies on my stomach thing, it is weakening my pride! My task is either protect her or let her awaken the Beanstar. Perhaps, it's a procedure to create trust…"
In a mischievous surprise, the prince is knocked off his winged board when a launched gray missile with a drawing of a grinning face collided against the prince in the air. Prince Peasley begins to fall towards the ocean. Jojora gasps and flies towards the falling prince. The prince screams as he waves his arms in the air while falling. The snow witch catches the prince by hugging him as she carries them in the air.
Prince Peasley blushes uncontrollably when Jojora hugged him. The snow witch blushes, too, and giggles. The prince awkwardly hugged back. Jojora's eyes widen nervously as she slowly flies towards the prince's winged board left in the air. Prince Peasley realizes what he is doing and ends his share of the hug in embarrassment.
The prince thought to himself in panic, "What the bean am I doing? I hugged Jojora without thinking. I… I know now, I betted emotion for the better of my people. This is definitely absurd, ridiculous… I can't believe I'm openly showing my emotions for them. I gotta tell Jojora about the Beanstar!"
Jojora places Prince Peasley on his board, but the prince was focusing on his mind that he accidentally falls off again when the snow witch placed him on the west side of the board, this time by accident.
Prince Peasley starts to scream again and falls into the ocean. Jojora dives down into the water as well.
In the underwater, the prince's drowned body is slowly placed on the ocean's surface. Like all Beanish, Prince Peasley could not adapt the marine environment, but Jojora could. Though Jojora is cold in nature, the water around her would not freeze. She holds the prince's hand to drag him back above the water, where Prince Peasley could breathe.
They are suddenly encountered by a squid-like robot. It is big and is shaped like the head of a squid. It has two yellow eyes on the small rectangular black screen on its face and snorkel-like tubes connected to a white cap below its small screen. There are more missiles clustered together in place of the tentacles, which the robot does not possess. These robots live underwater and they are called Squidroids.
Another missile, which looked similar to the one that fired on the prince, is fired by the Squidroid. Jojora carries Peasley in her arms and flies all the way out of the water. The missile is homing on the two of them. The Squidroid looked up and started to move up as well without any effort, not even a wiggle or twitch. It flipped upside-down for a brief moment to launch its last three missiles before flipping right back where its squid-like head should be on top.
The snow witch finally got out of the water as she emerged like a geyser. She continues to fly upwards while carrying the prince in her arms. She looks down to see the missiles homing on her, with the first missile taking the lead. The Squidroid, however, could not fly, so it simply emerged from the water and stayed to float on the ocean as its eyes watch the sky above the ocean.
Jojora's arms struggle to take the weight of her playmate. Her teeth grit as her expression shows her draining effort to save them from the Squidroid's missiles.
Suddenly, a flock of Tanoombas are flying above the ocean, flapping in the air with their big tails to fly. They passively ignore Jojora and Prince Peasley, but one of them has bruises all over its body and recognizes the prince.
"S-Stay back," Jojora nervously ordered the Tanoomba.
But the Tanoomba growled angrily and demonstrated its attack by spinning its tail in the air before flapping it repeatedly to remain in the air. It started to fly towards Jojora and Prince Peasley. The Tanoomba's face expresses remembered revenge.
Jojora tries to fly away slowly, but she could not take the weight of the prince anymore because of his armor. She starts lowering down, trying to lift the prince until he is slipped off her arms. The snow witch's hand luckily managed to grab his red cape, but in the air, they are between the Squidroid's missiles and the Tanoomba, whose flock appears to be flying away as part of their migration.
"I have a plan…" Jojora says in regret upon coming up with a plan.
She executes it naturally. She allows herself to fall down with Prince Peasley. The Tanoomba proceeded to chase them and flapped its tail to speed up its own fall. The missiles are about to meet Jojora and the prince. Jojora, with her other hand, brought her scepter out and waved it. The core of the scepter glowed and conjured an ice sphere to protect Jojora and Peasley.
The protective ice sphere knocked many of the missiles away as the ice sphere proceeds to fall down right above the Squidroid. The missile-launching robot panicked, but its eyes are actually set on the knocked-away missiles. The Squidroid proceeded to swim towards its defused missiles one-by-one as it catches them with its hole.
The ice sphere landed on the sea while the Tanoomba landed on top of the ice sphere, angrily pounding it with its pair of weak feet.
Jojora looks through the ice sphere to see the Squidroid, which gathered four of its missiles. She sees one more slot open, which the Squidroid notices before swimming away. The snow witch wanted to wonder, but she turns her attention to Peasley.
She shakes his body with her hands and cries out, "Peasley? Hey, I got you out of the ocean! Wake up. Please wake up!" And then, she worriedly thought to herself, "I don't know what to do…"
Jojora looked up to see the Tanoomba feebly trying to enter from the top of the ice sphere.
She opened little holes of the sphere with a wave of her scepter to speak to the Tanoomba, "Come on, little guy. You can't be one of the cold-hearted monsters in Joke's End. You have to help this guy, please. I know that he isn't a prince to everyone, but he ain't got a heart of a cruel monster. I'll let you in, okay?"
Jojora grips her scepter, causing its core to glow as the top part of the ice sphere opened up. The Tanoomba entered from above and growled at the drowned prince. Jojora places her hands on the prince to protect him. The Tanoomba kept a closed mouth and a silent demeanor as it stands perfectly still and its tail wags slowly and normally.
The Tanoomba approached the prince, turned around and whipped its tail against the prince's chest, causing dents on the chest plate before it breaks apart. The Tanoomba proceeded to beat the prince's bare chest with its tail. Jojora notices Prince Peasley's mouth spitting out drops of ocean water he took in as cause of drowning.
Prince Peasley finally choked the water from his mouth.
Jojora hugs and cries out with frozen tears. She cries to the prince, "You almost died!"
The prince lays his head on Jojora's shoulders as she hugs him in worry. His eyes look at the Tanoomba, whose bruises are remembered as expressed by the prince's widened eyes.
Jojora added while sobbing, "This cute little thing saved you. It whacked its own tail against your chest so you could choke the water out of you."
"That thing tried to attack me," Prince Peasley claimed.
The snow witch releases the prince from her own grasp to proceed petting the Tanoomba on its head, which the Tanoomba reacts with please. Its eyes close, mouth smiles and its tail wags.
Jojora giggles and blushes and corrects the prince, "This thing saved you. Look at it, it won't attack you or me. Though it has gone through a rough fight. I wouldn't forgive anyone who did this to this thankful cutie."