Valerie stood up quickly, and asked "How, exactly, do you know my father and what he will do?"
Nari put her hands on her hips and said "We have fought him before, and he lost. But he knows that we are the most powerful here on Earth, so he will surely come to them."
"Uh, who's 'us'? And who's 'they'? Kinda got me confused there" Toby asked, curiously.
"Us means me, and my siblings. We were the Arcane Order. As you know, I am Nari of the Wild Wood; my brother is Skrael of the North Wind, and I have a sister named Bellroc-"
"of the flames of the Underworld? Ooh, cool name." Toby said grinning widely.
Nari gave him the 'seriously?' look before saying "Actually, she is the Keeper of the Flame. We are demi-gods, and together, we could do basically anything. I ran away from my siblings because they wanted to bring balance between humans and magic. Humans were destroying the balance, so they resolved to destroying the world. I didn't want to, so I ran away to the Wild Wood and put a barrier, where only magic at the same level as mine or those I allow could come in."
Mezra gave a frustrated grumble and said "Okay, enough! My whole crew was killed by Mordred. I want revenge! Just tell me how to kill that sunova-"
"Mezra!" Aja interrupted, calming Mezra down.
"I understand that all of you are tired, and want to get this whole problem over with. But we must act wisely, else we risk giving Mordred the chance to unleash the End of Days…" Nari said, empathy apparent in her voice. Then she continued speaking "You have all three Lifeleads, but it still has not corrupted you or destroyed you. That means we still have time to master the Lifelead weapons and learn how to use them against Mordred. That is the only way to kill him, once and for all."
Varvatos quickly asked "And how is it that you know how to truly slay this enemy? And if it is true that you ran away from your siblings, whom you say are most powerful, how is it that you have come this far without dying?"
Nari tried averting the question, saying that she will ready the food, but Lena stopped her mother, saying "Mother, you haven't answered Varvatos' question yet." Nari was inwardly frustrated at her daughter, but she knew that she couldn't escape the question.
"I ran away from my siblings while they were busy discussing plans to destroy the world. Douxie helped me get as far away from them as possible." Nari answered, trying her best to not look at Douxie, or any of the others, for that matter.
"If Douxie helped you, why did you attack him a while ago?" Valerie asked, very confused at this point.
"That is none of your business. Now, I must go to the kitchen to prepare the food." Nari answered, turning around to head to the kitchen, when she came face-to-face with a black cat with glasses
"Archie! You startled me" Nari exclaimed, backing away from the cat, who looked at her from his resting spot atop the doorway.
"Archie! You scamp, I missed you!" Douxie said, getting up from the wood sofa and approaching the cat.
"Douxie? Douxie! How glad am I to see you!" Archie said in a British accent, surprising the others with his talking. The said cat looked at them from left to right, then from right to left, and said "Meow" and shifted into a dragon (a cat-sized one at that) and flew over to Douxie.
"How do you know that talking cat-dragon-whatever it is?" asked Toby, still wondering how Archie could talk.
"He's my familiar, I left him here to keep an eye on Nari and alert me in case anything goes wrong." Toby was still confused "Familiar?" he asked. "Wizard helper" AAARRRGGHH suggested.
"Helper? I prefer the term Wizard's associate" Archie said, looking offended. "It's nice and all that you reunited with your pet, but we're going to need all the help we can get. We all saw how powerful Mordred is…" Claire stated
"Say no more, Claire. The cavalry is coming" Toby said, showing his phone.
"Who exactly did you contact?" Aja asked. But Toby didn't need to answer the question, because people suddenly appeared in front of them.
"Steve? Star?" Aja asked, surprised at the sudden entrance. Steve was more surprised when he saw Nari, and screamed "Aaaaah, Veggie Lady!"
"Darci! Isaac!" Toby exclaimed, running to his family.
"Why did you bring THEM here?" Aja asked, concerned about the well-being of her husband and daughter.
"Hey, you said we need all the help we can get. and they were the ones in my contacts." Toby answered.
Then Darci checked her watch and told Toby "I'm so sorry, but the military has a case we need to work on, and I gotta go. You can take care of Isaac, right?" Toby and Isaac grinned identical grins and Toby replied "Of course, no problem-o." while putting an arm on his son's shoulders. Darci nodded, and teleported away.
"I still don't understand how Darci is cool with all your heroism stuff, Tobes" Jim said, walking over to Toby.
"She's the head military officer of the National Guard, Jimbo. She understands the oddities that her super awesome husband needs to face." Toby replied, fist bumping his son; who then ran to play with the other kids. Aja's daughter, Star; however, kept her distance from the playing kids, reasoning that she 'doesn't want to get her hair messed'.
It was a moment of peace, in Nari's nest. The adults talking about times of the past and the kids playing their made up games. But while there was peace for the group, Mordred was stirring up trouble.
"I have come because I need your help." the evil wizard said, his voice echoing from the walls.
"And what does a wizard need so much to dare and come here?" an icy cold voice asked, the voice coming from what looked like a giant skull with horns that was at the very end of the cavern.
"I know that you want to destroy the world, and so do I. We have the same goal. A goal that we can reach if we help each other out." Mordred reasoned, stepping a little closer.
"You have a good offer, and we know of your goals and attempts to take the Lifeleads. But it will take more than us to fight the group that holds those Lifeleads." A flaming, feminine voice said.
"I know. And I also know who we need. We can revive Morgana, my younger sister. She is powerful, and she can help us in our goal." Mordred offered, pleased at how the conversation was going.
"And how do you propose we revive your younger sister?" the cold voice asked.
"We will need something that the group has, and we will take it at midnight two days from now. That is, if you agree to join me." Mordred tempted.
The skull instantly glowed with orange light, and lifted itself from the ground. Mordred realized that it was a flying ship, and two figures flew out of the eye sockets of the skull ship.
"The Arcane Order" Mordred said breathlessly.
"Yes. I am Skrael of the North Wind" Skrael said, his chilly voice seeming to make everything around him cold, but that cold was replaced by heat when the feminine voice introduced herself
"And I am Bellroc, Keeper of the Flame." she said, her hand bursting into flames, but not burning from it. Mordred grinned evilly, and joined the two demi-gods in their ship, saying
"Finally, my plan is in order."