(And we continue!)

"SKY!" She stood there gaping as she realized that the person she had just dragged out of the portal was the person that had broken her heart, and that this person was slipping down on to the ground at her very feet.

Julian heard Bloom's cry of distress and ran out from the bushes where he had been waiting during the battle…

"Bloom? Are you ok? What's wrong?" Julian asked, feeling as if a great weight had been lifted from his shoulders, now that she was safe… Or so it seemed.

"Julian, I… I… can't stay, not with him, not with this 'thing' in my midst." Her eyes turned red with the first sign of tears as she said this.

"Why, what is it?" His eyes began to wander towards the body she had thrown so violently to the ground.

"Huh? Bloom, this is prince Sky of Eraklyon... He's one of my best friends." He looked once again at the unconscious king on the ground.

"You...you...you're his friend," Bloom stuttered and looked at Julian in pure disgust.

"What did I do?" Julian looked suspiciously over at Bloom, thinking he had found another element of her secret.

"I guess I have no right to blame you for what he did. It's not your fault that you don't know the real Sky." With that Bloom smiled and walked over to Julian so she could place her arms around him in an amorous, consoling hug.

Julian smiled and circled his arms around her in return, knowing now that he had at least made a dent in her tough exterior. His smile grew bigger as he leaned forward to let his lips meet hers, but he thought better.

But Bloom, she had a different thought… She moved slightly forward in his arms and gave him a kiss. Not an ordinary kiss, but a kiss like those she had once given Sky… Julian kept his eyes open for a moment, in shock that she had not held back. That didn't stop him for long, he hugged her closer to himself and let his eyes drift shut as he removed himself from the real world so that he could float into a universe of peace.

(That was what Sky awoke to.)

As his lids slowly flittered open, almost too heavy to crack, he let his eyes roam over to his right, where he heard sounds.

"Julian, are you there?" Sky asked, his vision still blurred by the fall Bloom had given him. He had not noticed what stood right in front of him.

With that Bloom eased herself out of her serenity, to look over to the voice… Almost forgetting, for a complete second, who it was.

Julian, having been drug out of tranquility himself looked slowly over to Sky, making sure that he still held Bloom safely in his arms… He knew something was wrong.

"Dang it already, did he have to wake up now?" Bloom said silently enough so that only Julian could hear her mumbled protest.

Julian then cracked up laughing, thus clearing the last bit of unconsciousness left in Sky's gaze.

As his vision cleared Sky's mouth opened slowly as if to speak, but instead it sagged as he saw his best friend holding his girlfriend in his arms.

Bloom continued to stare into Sky's face as he wakened, and was tugging out of Julian's arms before she could think better of it.

Julian in turn held her harder, coaxing a gasp of minuet pain from Bloom, knowing that his so called friend had harmed her in a way unknown to him.

"Bloom, don't, you needn't be hurt again," Julian looked deeply into her eyes, becoming lost in the fathomless blue. But Bloom knew she had to do this, so she placed her hand on his shoulder in reassurance that she would be ok.

He released her then and she walked over to the dazed king. Stopping just in front of him to kneel down and look into his eyes.

"Wh… what, Bloom! What are you doing here. Are you ok!" Sky sat up then as if he had not been hurt at all and threw his arms around his 'should-be' girlfriend.

Bloom cringed as if he were a drop of acid that was slowly seeping into her skin, and pulled away.

Sky's eyes widened as he realized she would not let him near her.

"Can you not remember that you broke my heart Sky! I said I never wanted to see you again and I meant it! Now get back to your realm before I carry out my threat!" Her hands started glowing with a deep red flame that came to her only when she was extremely angry.

Julian could take it no longer, he stepped out of the shadows to stand by his sweetheart's side.

Sky looked at him with unwarranted relief. "Julian, you've got to help me!" Sky said, having lost all hope that Bloom would help him. Knowing for sure now that he had done something bad that he could not remember. (He had not quite heard the part where she had told him, he had broken her heart.)

"I do not help those who have hurt the people I love! Whether or not you were my closest friend, does not matter, you mess with Bloom… That just doesn't matter anymore." Julian walked up to Bloom's side and put his arm around her.

"You...you don't understand Bloom!" Sky said, once again turning to her for help. "I… I was under a..." Bloom cut him off.

"I don't care what you were under Sky! You broke my heart! And nothing can ever change the past! Now leave, and never come back." Bloom yelled at him, and walked out of Julian's reach.

"Cantriala!" She yelled and her signature fire portal opened behind him… And for the second time that year, she shoved Sky through. Without a care in the universe, to where he landed.

Bloom closed the portal and looked at Julian, "Now you know."

(Eraklyon, we find Sky)

Bloom's voice echoed through the portal into Sky's realm as he dropped into the courtyard of Eraklyon's palace.

"I said I never wanted to see you again Sky!" The words continued to reverberate in his ears as he looked at the last eminence of fire coming from the slowly dissolving portal.

"What did I do to her? I knew I did something! But the last thing I can remember is her kiss… And her loving arms around me. Then the spell took hold, what am I supposed to do? I've ruled out all hope that Julian'll help me. But the way he held her, the way he protected her, like I used to; it's as if… As if… He loves her! And she loves him back… The only person she ever looked at like that was me." Sky's eyes wandered once more to the charred remains of grass where the portal had opened.

"Why do I feel as though my heart has been torn out of my body… When I do not know the full truth? Why does my conscience keep telling me that I have done something totally and utterly wrong?" With that Sky let his head fall into his lap, where it remained until he did not wish to wallow in his own self-pity any longer.

"She wouldn't even hear me out… Now she might not know that the realms are in danger until...until it's too late! Once this thing over takes me, I'll be forced to destroy all of the realms!" As his body sagged with grief, he sat down on the shore of the lake by the royal family's palace.

"What am I to do," Sky asked once more and went on speaking to himself. "I can feel the spell's power pulsing through my very veins. I can feel how evil it is. I... I just can't believe! That my own mother did this to me, I can't believe that she could make my one and only true love… Hate me." He paused before saying the last two words.

"SSSSSSSKKKKKKKKKKKYYYYYYY! Darling, do you mind if your loving mother joins you?" Sky's eyes shot up with panic as he heard his mother's voice.

No! Not again! Not now!

"Yes mother," he said, mimicking the hypnotized voice.

"No need to pretend darling, I know the last spell wore off. So you can stop making a mockery of my powers. You see, I couldn't let you find out about my plan. I knew if you did, you would try to stop me. But I certainly fixed that didn't I?" A maniacal grin crossed the Queen's face.

"But why Mother!" He questioned. "Why do you insist on ruining my life?" He looked pleadingly up to her.

"Oh, but darling. It's not your life I'm looking to ruin. It's Bloom's, and everything that doesn't have a drop of my blood in it!" The smile grew larger yet.

"But why!" He asked again.

"Why, you ask? Tell me Sky, does everything have to have a reason? Do you have to see everything, just to believe it? But if you must know, I am destroying her, because I hate her, and I hate this universe! Truth is, she doesn't deserve you! No one does, and I'm going to ensure that!" She put her arm around Sky's shoulder, he flinched, and she went on.

"We're going to rule the universe, you and I. But I'm afraid, Sky, that I'm going to have to put you back under the spell. For, I don't wish anyone, not even my own son, to truly know about this." She said and looked him in the eye, prepared to unleash the obedience spell yet again.

"Wait!" Sky screamed, beseeching his Mother's attention.

"What?"

"Why take the spell off of me? If you don't want me involved in the first place?" His eyes blared the question.

"To gloat, of course! And to see your face as your life slips out of your own hands!" With that his mother started chanting the spell.

"Life becomes mine! Show me the power! Give me obedience!" As the spell finished Sky doubled over as a burst of pain erupted inside of him and all control was given to his mother yet again.

As he lay unconscious, the Queen said the one thing that would change thousands of lives forever.

"War!"

Sorry I haven't been putting chapters up lately, I got a new computer and my parents had this crazy idea to put blocks on it, it took me a while to hack through them... Oh well, it's fixed now, no use living in the past.

Crystal Hauntress