To RadiantBeam: Good guess, but no.

Chapter Fourteen

Jack found himself being pulled away from the table. He was dragged out the bar through the backdoor.

"Who the heck are you?" Jack asked once he got his hand back.

"Jack, it's me." Violet showed her face.

Jack burst out laughing, "Wha… what did… what did you do to you're ears?" he finally managed to say.

Violet crossed her arms and glared at Jack, "Just in case the hood came off, Tria and I could have pretended to be elves."

"That still doesn't stop us from looking stupid," Tria added as she pulled the hood back to reveal her face.

Jack laughed louder, "Tria… you… you look even more hilarious!"

"Boy, if you don't stop laughin', we leavin' you here, ya hear?" Tria said, clearly showing her annoyance.

"Oh… all right," Jack said, slowly starting to stop laughing.

"Now, that you're sane again, I need to talk to you," said Violet.

"What about?" Jack asked, "Oh, and I'm still thirsty, by the way," Jack added.

"Ugh!" Violet goaned, "Fine," she sighed, pulling her hood back on, "Come on let's go back in," She led them back into the bar, where they ordered a drink for Jack.

"You guys are really using up the magical money dad gave me," Violet glared at them while giving the elf the money.

Jack felt his sister glaring at him as he drank. "Hey, can ya blame me?" he asked.

Violet sighed, "Anyway, Jack I need ya to tell me what you know about what happened to this place."

"Have you been under a rock?" Jack asked.

"Concrete, actually," Violet muttered.

"Whatever," Jack said, "Back to the point, the Dark Dragon's taken over, he's like the big boss o' the city. I mean… haven't you seen the billboard?"

"Yeah, we saw it, he had a picture of himself on it." Tria replied.

"But do you know where mom and dad are?" Violet asked, completely ignoring Jack's last sentence.

"No." Jack shook his head.

"What happened?" Violet asked, "The last thing I remember happened was us fighting the Dark Dragon's army. Then, Tria and I were buried under a building that collapsed."

"So, that's what happened to you guys." Jack said. I fought nearby mom and dad, then the Dark Dragon's son, what's-his-name flew at me." Jack told them, "Then, I felt something hit me. I woke up and found myself nearly trampled by a crowd of mythical creatures. Then I was chased by dragon, found a cloak and found you two."

Rose sighed. 'I failed,' were the words that were repeated continuously in her mind. She'd been staying in a room that survived the battle. 'The battle we lost,' All around were broken buildings and the feeling of failure and death.

"Jake, I hoped you survived," Rose muttered. She remembered the time when she first saw Jake shape-shift from dragon to human. She remembered how she would glare at the dragon that was Jake with hatred during the Equinox Hunt.

She remembered when she prepared to strike. Jake revealed himself just in time. She remembered how the Huntsmaster glared and yelled at her, repeating the word she had come to hate and fear- failure.

A thought that had been pushed away and forgotten finally came to her. She stood up, "How could I have been so stupid!" she scolded herself. She remembered something the Huntsmaster had told her, "Forgetfulness and failure are one, and I do not tolerate failure," he had told her this early in her training, and this was one of the lessons she remembered. Sure, he was evil, but some of the things he'd thought her could have been used for good.

She ran out of the room to search for her children, wherever they were. She ran to what was now the city. She stopped when she saw posters on a wall. There were seven posters, two were of Jake, his dragon and human form, two were of both of Jack's forms, and another two were of Violet in her dragon and human forms, and the last one, the seventh one, was of her.

"We've been waiting for you, Rose Long." Rose spun around and found herself surrounded by dragons.

"What do you want?" she asked in a voice that wasn't as cold as she'd expected.

"Our master wants you and your family," said a dragon, "that much is obvious,"

"Did you hear?" Two leprechauns walked into the bar talking loudly.

"Rose Long was captured today."

Violet spat out the water she was about to swallow. She transformed her ear into a dragon one early enough to hear the first leprechaun whisper to his friend, "He or she has bad manners."

"Wait a moment, did you just say Rose Long was captured?"

"Yes, I did!"

"I flipped a coin on that. Hurray! My luck is returning!"

"That's good to hear, you've been having bad luck ever since you lost that pot of our gold."

"You think the others will get caught too?"

"That's possible, especially since one of them has been caught."

"What do we do?" Violet and Jack asked each other once they were sure the leprechauns were going to talk about other things.

"Hold up!" Tria said, "Knowing you two, you're probably gonna try to go running off to save her an' do something heroic, but I don' think ya should."

"Why not?" Jack asked.

"One- you two don't know what you're up against, two- you both don't know where Aunt Rose is, three- if you do know the other two, you're still outnumbered." Tria explained.

"But we have to do something!" Violet said.

Tria put her hands up defensively, "I never said ya couldn't."

"But what if mom's hurt or something?" Jack asked.

Violet shuddered, "I don't even wanna think of how they caught her."

"Another thing's that we still have to find you're dad and my parents." Tria said.