Chapter 4 Wolf Castle
The next morning, after spending all night catching up, Xin slept in past his normal wake up time. Mystique Sonia snuck into his room and tickled him awake.
"Rise and shine, sleepy head!" she giggled.
"Aha! Stop!" Xin writhe, "I'm up! I'm up!"
"Come on, Xin. If you don't wake up early enough, Mighty Ray will eat all your breakfast!" she stuck out her tongue in a teasing way.
Xin laughed, "I don't want to starve. I'll meet you in our deployment room later. I have to go shower and stuff."
"Alright, but you better hurry!" she grinned and left the room.
Xin took half an hour to get ready and arrived at the room with the hatches. Everyone was eating fried rice and Xin's bowl was still steaming hot.
"You made it, finally!" Mighty Ray grinned, "I was about to eat your bowl."
"Well, I'm glad you didn't." Xin laughed.
First Squad spent their morning eating breakfast together as a team for once in two years. The conversation was picked up from last night and it was still going.
"So yeah! Now, I can shoot fire out of my eyes!" Mighty Ray grinned.
"Woah! Really?" the rabbit king was surprised.
"That makes three powers. I truly am mighty." the man grinned.
After some slow eating, First Squad finally finished their meal, and were still talking. Minutes later, Commander Apetrully poked his head into First Squad's deployment room.
"Sorry to bother- Oh! Xin, you did it! You managed to get First Squad back into a team!" Apetrully said in glee, "Your heart truly is full of compassion and goodness."
Xin blushed, "I just wanted to do the right thing."
"I hope you are up for another good deed!" Apetrully smiled, "There is trouble at Wolf Castle and we must try to make peace with the wolves." he held up a tray of gold, "I will offer them gold and-"
"No, no." Mystique Sonia took the tray away, "The tray of offerings just never works."
"I want to approach the Wolf King and his pack in a peaceful way first." Apetrully tugged the tray of gold back from Mystique Sonia.
"He's the WOLF King. I highly doubt he'll take any interest in gold." she swiped the tray down from his hands with her tongue.
"We will go negotiate with the Wolf King." Lin Chung offered, "And if he becomes aggressive we will be prepared. It will save you the trouble of being a hostage."
"Alright then." Apetrully sighed, picking up the gold bars sadly.
"Alright, First Squad. Deploy!" Mr. No Hands hollered.
The heroes along with their new and treasured friend, Xin, jumped down the tube of twists and turns and landed on the turtle tanks. As the tanks jetted out of Big Green, Xin held on for dear life on the turtle since he was still not use to the speed. The heroes swam their way through the waters and treaded on land towards Wolf Castle.
Once arriving the heroes dismounted on their turtles and slowly walked towards the castle entrance. Almost immediately, the wolves leaped out of the castle. They were large wolves, large enough to be ridden on. They also had two wheels clasped together by the front and back paw. They looked like a two wheeled motor vehicle.
Xin was ready to fight, but Mystique Sonia pushed him out of the way and told him it was too dangerous. "I'm ready. I can fight these wolves!" the prince insisted.
Mystique Sonia remembered that she was not suppose to treat him like royalty, so she allowed him to fight.
One of the wolves thought it might be a good strategy to separate the team. A wolf raced towards the prince with the intension of making him stray from the team since he seemed to be the most inexperienced one. Xin saw the wolf coming at him and pulled out his blades, ready to fight. The wolf ran into him knocking him back a few feet.
"How dare you, you filthy animal." the prince snarled and chased after him.
Lin Chung noticed the prince fighting a wolf. At first he wanted to help, but he then he thought that since it's just one wolf, the Prince should be able to handle it himself.
The wolf raced towards him again ready to run the young boy over. Xin positioned himself then used the hook side of his blade to grip on of the wolf's leg and bring him down to the ground. The wolf snapped, and bit the boy on the arm as a counter attack.
"AH!" Xin screamed.
"Xin!" Mighty Ray gasped, but the wolves he was fighting were keeping him occupied.
The prince was slightly bleeding through his sleeves. However if he moved, his arm will tear apart.
Kill the wolf!… How dare it sinks its teeth into your royal skin!… Kill it!… KILL IT NOW!
The young prince was then consumed by anger and he raised his blade. Lin Chung took another glance at the prince to check on him, and his eyes widened.
"Xin! NO!" Lin Chung screamed dashing his way towards the prince.
The others looked and gasped, "NO! DON'T!"
Xin struck down his blade on the wolf badly maiming it. The wolf released the Prince, falling to the ground. The cry of the wolf stung the ears of the heroes and the Wolf King who quickly leaped out of his castle to save his pupil. The King was even bigger than his soldiers and had red and white fur.
Do not stop there… Finish the job!…
Xin raised his blade again only to be tackled down by Lin Chung.
"What are you doing?" Lin Chung shouted at him.
"That beast bit me! I want revenge!" Xin screamed.
Lin Chung remembered Xin's hatred towards the animals, but he never imagined that it had this much malice.
Mystique Sonia dashed up to the king, "Wolf King, Prince Xin did not know what he was doing. Please forgive him."
The king snarled at the humans and Jumpy hopped up to the king, "Prince Xin is angry with us, animals. We have to prove to him that we're good too."
The king continued snarling and then howled. The other wolves carried the injured wolf back in the castle and they all retreated. First Squad decided that the mission was a failure and retreated as well. The prince realized what he has done but felt no remorse. His inner voice was all the reason he needed to injure that wolf.
You did well… I am very proud… Next time… strike harder…
The Zebras Brothers poked their heads through the castle windows, witnessing everything.
"Prince?" Sparky Black was puzzled.
"Big Green's new member is a prince?" Sparky White added.
They decided to bring their new found information back to their master, High Roller. The two combined into a wheel and rolled off back to their lair.
Arriving at High Roller's citadel, the Zebra Brothers arrived at their master's throne room quickly wheeling their way towards him. In the throne room, High Roller was toying around with his imported toy from Japan called a kendama. There stood, one by each of the false emperor's side were bears. They were fanning him as the immature emperor was playing with his toy. Once High Roller noticed the brothers he seemed to be anticipating the news they have brought.
"Well? What happened?" the villain asked.
"There's a new kid in First Squad. He's a prince!" one explained.
"Maybe it's the Emperor's son!" the other added.
"Emperor's son?" the trickster was puzzled, "The emperor never had a son. At least not when I was his court jester. Even if he did, he would be much too young to join Big Green." He groaned and tugged on his face, "That can't be his son. The emperor had nothing but…" he paused in realization and then grinned wickedly, "… daughters…" He faced the zebras, "Say, what did the boy look like?"
"He's kinda short, but he has really long black hair and big green eyes. Like jades!" Sparky White explained.
"Personally, I think he looks like a human girl." Sparky Black giggled.
High Roller's eyes widened and then began to laughed maniacally, "There is only one offspring of the Emperor that had jade eyes. The beautiful, the enchanting, the one and only Princess Liang Qiao." He began recalling a few memories as a court jester, "Ah, Liang Qiao. I remember laying my eyes on her for the very first time. I was young. She was young. She absolutely LOVED my acts." he signed in love, "I knew it was meant to be."
"What happened next?" one of the zebra brother's asked.
"I was thrown out of the castle." the false emperor scowled, "All before I could really tell the princess how much I loved her." He sighed then perked up, pulling out his puppet stand. He held up a puppet of him and of the Princess, "Now I've been given a second chance! It's my destiny to have the Princess's hand." He jiggled the puppet version of himself, "Liang Qiao, marry me and help me rule these animals." He jiggled the puppet version of the princess, "Oh, Master High Roller, you're so handsome and mature! Of course, I will!" He mashed the puppets together making kissing sounds. He started to manically laugh again and knocked down the puppet stage, "I have to get my hands on her." he glanced out the window and at the waters, "But with Big Green in my way…" he paused trying to come up with the plan.
At first he thought of the Folk Game Competition, however, he already did it five times and now the heroes are much to wary of his actions. Therefore, a competition for her is out of the question.
"Maybe I could get one of my followers to lure First Squad into a trap and then capture her." he muttered to himself.
One of the brothers spoke up, "Um, Master High Roller, there's one more thing you should know."
"What?" High Roller scowled.
"The Princess… um… she almost killed one of the wolves." the other added.
High Roller seemed almost shocked, but in a sarcastic way, "Hmm, I guess I must have scarred her when I overthrew her father." he laughed, "The poor thing. She probably wants my head!" he laughed even harder, mocking her hatred towards him. When he finally stopped laughing, he said, "I still want her in my arms, and you, Zebras, are going to deliver her to me."
"But she'll kill us!" they both cried out.
"You're going to wish she killed you after I'm through with you two if you DON'T. BRING. ME. THE. PRINCESS." the immature ruler stomped on the ground.
It's getting very dark, and luck was on the Zebra's hooves. It was a full moon tonight. They could use their Ghost Lanterns to capture the Princess.
"Don't worry, Master High Roller." one of the brothers spoke.
"We'll get her for you!" the other one added.
"One more thing." High Roller brought up, "She's dressed like a prince, right?"
"Yeah." the two nodded.
"That means Big Green doesn't know she's a princess." High Roller grinned, "If they did know, they won't let her set a foot outside and I'll never get a hold of her. So you two lame brains better not mention her as a princess in front of Big Green. Keep calling her a prince. She'll probably lower her guard too, since she'll think she's fooling me." he grinned, "Got it?"
"Yes, sir!" the two nodded and rolled off.
He sat back on his throne imagining how she would look after six years. He rubbed his hands together, "I can't wait to see how much she has grown after all these years!" Then chuckled darkly, "I learned some new tricks for her. I'm sure she'll love it!"