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Stand Your Ground: Legend of the Monster – and the Firebird that Never Returned
Chapter 6
Escape
"Huh?" the salamander lifted his paw only slightly, but Vidia pushed it to one side and threw their last bag of pixie dust at the rock stoppering the barrel.
"Quick, push out the rock! It's our only chance!" Tinkerbell called.
The other fairies and Scruffy pushed it out.
One at a time, they zipped through – and Scruffy stuck. Vidia ran to him to help him get out.
The Salamander saw all the fairies flying around the cavern, glowing, but he wanted Vidia. He saw one standing, with long black hair, near the barrel.
Now I have her! He reached out with deadly sharpened claws.
"Sil! Look out!" Iridessa jumped in front of his prey. She suddenly made a very bright light. The salamander shut his eyes, surprised, but then opened them again and realized that Silvermist wasn't Vidia.
He saw Rosetta, wearing colors sort of similar to Vidia's, but wasn't sure it was her due to being blinded. He brought a foot high into the air to crush her.
Tinkerbell saw it. "Dessa, shine a light off that rock!" she shouted, pointing to a shiny, flat rock on the ceiling. The light reflected off the rock and into Kemalth's eyes.
"Ah!" he shielded his eyes with a foot, and swept across the floor with his tail, trying to take down Iridessa.
He blinked several times to clear his vision, then turned around. There were no fairies in sight.
"Are you okay, Vidia?" Tinkerbell asked.
"I feel like brand new – without wings, of course." Vidia whispered back. "Stay down!" they both ducked as the salamander's eyes swept over their hiding spot.
Tinkerbell looked up again. "We've gotten into more trouble than I ever imagined we would."
"I got all of you into trouble. If I had the personality of one of you, I'd probably apologize."
Tinkerbell grinned. "And what would you say?"
"I'd say -"
"Scruffy, run!" Fawn shrieked.
Kemalth had spotted him.
Fawn grabbed a rock and threw it at the monster. "Here – I'm a fairy! Come get me!"
The salamander turned away from Scruffy and went for Fawn.
Fawn turned to leap into the air and dodge him, but suddenly found that her pixie dust had worn off. She found herself facedown on the ground.
She rolled onto her side. "Ah!" she screamed as she saw his claws descending. She jumped to her feet and ran, flittering her wings to help her along.
Silvermist, seeing her plight, pulled water from the ground.
"Sil!" Tinkerbell shouted, stepping from her shared hiding place with Vidia. "Salamanders are lizards! They like water!"
She ducked into another hiding place as the salamander glanced her way. She moved away from Vidia, not wanting to give away the spot.
Silvermist paused, thinking, then directed the water at the roof above the Salamander's head, having it spray as hard as it could. There was a crack, and the salamander looked up just in time to see a stone fall just in front of him, slicing through the air between him and Fawn.
The salamander turned, abandoning Fawn, and Iridessa's bright yellow dress caught his eyes. He picked up the stone that Silvermist had brought down, and threw it at the light fairy.
She froze, staring at it wide-eyed.
"Get out of the way!" Scruffy shouted, terrified.
Scruffy knocked Iridessa down next to another rock. They both ducked as the rock came down against the rock and was suspended just above them.
"Come on!" Scruffy whispered. They both crawled away from the rock, keeping low to the ground so that Kemalth wouldn't see them.
The salamander picked up another large rock and threw it at the first just for good measure. It cracked the first, and crashed to the ground right where Iridessa and Scruffy had sheltered.
Satisfied that the pesky light fairy was a pancake, Kemalth turned and scanned the cave for Vidia. She was standing alone just next to a crack in the wall that had sheltered her from his eyes before.
Vidia was looking over to where she had seen Scruffy jump underneath a falling boulder. She waited, breathless, for him to reappear, and when she saw him and Iridessa crawling away, she breathed a sigh of relief.
She glanced up at the Salamander and froze – he was staring right at her. She turned and started to run, but he was too close.
"Vidia!" Scruffy shouted, horrified, drawing the other fairies' attention to her.
Tinkerbell sprang into the air, but landed again – her pixie dust had run out.
"Vidia, run!" Rosetta called, running toward her, using her wings to speed her up, but none of the fairies were close enough – they couldn't reach her in time.
"Rosetta! Grow a cactus or something!" Tinkerbell shouted.
"I don't have enough pixie dust!" Rosetta called back. "And there isn't any dirt to grow it out of!"
"Someone try something!" Iridessa yelled.
The salamander reached out with a paw and batted Vidia off her feet, knocking her to the ground. She rolled to a stop, on her back.
"Hang on, Sugah!" Rosetta shouted. She concentrated, and suddenly a large, brown stick wheezed out of the rock, obeying Rosetta's hands. It was dry and dead-looking, but Rosetta snatched it up and threw it to Vidia. It landed suspended in the air over Vidia, with each end on a rock.
Vidia had no time to grab it, Kemalth's foot was already descending. She covered her head with her arms, cringing away from her doom.
But it never came. The salamander's foot crashed down on the stick, which held. Vidia looked up, astonished.
The salamander frowned down at her, trying to figure out what had stopped him. He lifted his foot, and Vidia snatched up the stick. She leaped up onto a boulder and swung it at his motionless foot, hoping to do some damage.
SNAP!
The stick broke into several pieces, leaving Vidia weaponless.
"Sorry, Vidia!" Rosetta called. "I didn't have much to work with."
Tinkerbell was still running toward the Salamander and Vidia, but the Salamander hit her with his tail, and she was knocked onto the ground.
"OW!" she pulled her arm off a sharp rock – which was actually a diamond. "Hey!" she said, surprised. "Perfect!"
She pulled it off the ground. "Dessa! Shine a light through this!" she called.
Suddenly rays of light were shining all over the room. Tinkerbell set the stone down.
"Keep shining at it, Dessa!" Silvermist told her, grabbing her arm and leading her out of the cavern so that she could keep shining the light on the diamond. The light wasn't bright, but it was moving, and shining all over the place, keeping Kemalth distracted.
Iridessa put out the light, and all of them scampered quickly into the other cavern.
"Keep moving." Tinkerbell ordered. "We have to get outside the cave." Everyone kept going.
"Are you okay, Scruffy?" Vidia asked. "You almost got crushed!"
"Same to you." Scruffy pointed out. "I'm fine."
"What are we going to do?" Silvermist asked.
"We have to get out of here." Vidia said. "We haven't got any pixie dust, but Tink can build a boat, and we can sail back to Neverland, and -"
"Hold your horses!" Scruffy interrupted.
Vidia paused. "I don't know what that means."
"It means 'wait a second'." Scruffy explained. "We haven't found a Firebird tear yet! He said that he had them – we can't go back without having accomplished our goal!"
"Our purpose changed when Vidia was poisoned." Fawn pointed out. "The goal changed to saving her life."
"And that's done. I'm not going to die." Vidia agreed.
"But we came all this way . . ." Scruffy protested. "Your wings meant so much to you . . ."
"Not as much as each of you mean to me." Vidia said, seriously.
"Thanks, Vidia." Tinkerbell said, touched.
"What did she say? I didn't hear." Rosetta spoke up, teasingly.
They all looked at Vidia expectantly.
"I am not repeating that." she said, firmly. "No one is going to die for my wings, so let's all concentrate on getting off of this horrid island."
"All right." Scruffy conceded, reluctantly.
Vidia tossed her head to get a strand of hair from her face, and suddenly stumbled and tripped. The others went forward just a few steps before noticing and turning back.
"I'm fine." Vidia pushed herself to her hands and knees, and as she climbed to her feet, she heard a swishing sound -
"AH!" she heard all the other fairies screaming. She looked up and they were gone. She turned, looking all around.
"Tink? Scruffy!" she called.
"We're up here!" Rosetta called. "Run!"
Vidia looked up. The Salamander was towering over her, examining the fairies that he had caught in a net which appeared to be made of feathers – Firebird feathers.
Kemalth was slowly spinning the bag so he could see all the fairies inside.
"Vidia, run!" Iridessa insisted. "He's looking for you."
Vidia ran to a large rock and climbed up on it. "Hey! I'm down here!" she waved her arms and tried to increase her glow to attract his attention. She succeeded.
"Vidia. There you are. How did you escape my net?"
"Fast-flying fairy." Vidia lied, knowing it was dumb luck. "Let them go. It's me you want, isn't it?"
"All fairies are good snacks." Kemalth replied. "I'll just feel more satisfaction when I eat you."
He put the feather bag on the ground and secured the end with an enormous rock so that there was no way the fairies could move.
Vidia took a step back as the salamander reached down toward her. She glanced around and saw a sharp rock edge sticking out of the wall.
He's way too big for me to injure – but if I can just trick him into injuring himself . . .
Vidia forced herself to ignore the scaly hand reaching for her. She scanned the area. The floor of the cave was littered with rocks – some of them big, some small. She spotted another large one near her. She could faintly hear her friends shouting at her to run. She took a few running steps and then jumped to the other boulder. She heard a whoosh behind her as the salamander tried to grab her just as she jumped. She turned, looking behind her, and the salamander was walking toward her. She turned her back on Kemalth and jumped to another boulder, getting closer to the rock in the wall.
Scruffy watched anxiously as Vidia ignored the salamander. Kemalth took another step and Scruffy uneasily noticed a rock split beneath his foot.
"Vidia – watch out!" he shouted as Kemalth lunged for her. His scaly arm blocked Scruffy's view mostly, but he heard Vidia scream in pain and fall from the boulders onto the ground.
"Vidia!" Silvermist shrieked. "Vidia!"