For a moment, one brief moment, time seemed to stand still and a harsh tense silence encompassed the room, almost like in the unsettling, suffocating starting seconds of an important race. And then, suddenly, Pokémon leapt at each other from all sides, clashing violently in explosions of fire, ice and lightning. Without even realising, I was left in command of six Pokémon all at once, my father yelling instructions to the various beasts and brutes of Pokémon he commanded while the twelve opponents on Nathan and Helene's sides tore into us relentlessly. Everything was a blur, such a mad, manic rush that I could barely even process what was going on, let alone hope to react to each individual occurrence. My Pokémon bellowed and howled, a horrific, nerve-jangling sound, a merging combination of cries of anger, stocky determination and bitter pain as they battled, degenerating into a vicious, writhing scrum. My panic rose in me in great swells, like the powerful currents cruelly manipulated by the burgeoning winds out at sea. My eyes darted back and forth until everything became a haze that I simply couldn't hope to clear. My legs shook until I feared they wouldn't be able to support me any longer, my mouth ran dry until all I could do was draw ragged, croaky breaths and I felt a scream tickle the back of my throat as my Pokémon clashed and scrapped, bodily tackling each other, the entire ghastly scene lit up against a vibrant backdrop of explosions, fire, lightning and pulsating torrents of water.

"Sienna!"

A pair of hands suddenly seized me from behind, causing me to shriek. However, quick as anything, the grip loosened and softened, and I heard Elliot's voice, comforting and gentle whispering in my ear. Just the sheer noise of his voice made me feel secure and my stretched nerves eased, despite the violent, constrictive haze I was trapped inside. "Sienna!" he called again.

"Elliot!" I cried, instantly spinning around in search of his voice, my hands instinctively reaching out and pulling him close. "Elliot, I…!"

"Sienna, it's alright!" Elliot said, drawing me into a hug. However, his hand suddenly sought out the Pokeballs at his waist. "Nathan and Helene are good, I won't argue with that, but there's no way they can take us all on!"

"N-no!" I protested, immediately thinking of the rest of our friends, still mostly unconscious and injured at the end of the room. "You… you can't stay! You have to get everyone out!"

"What?!" Elliot looked aghast. "N-no! I won't leave you!"

"And we can't leave them!" I insisted, wishing I could just grab him around the shoulders and forcefully shake some kind of sense into him. "Are you mad, Elliot? Don't you understand?! They're all unconscious! And if all this goes out of hand and they get caught in the crossfire, then—!"

"Si-Sienna!" Elliot's face, which had been twisting like he was in pain the whole time I was speaking, suddenly fell. He cut me off abruptly, his voice noticeably strained. "A…all right… I'll… I'll get everyone out… B-but… but you!" His face suddenly became marred with resolve and his grasp tightened around me. "You… you be damn careful, alright? Don't do anything stupid! If you… if you dare do anything to jeopardise your own safety, I'll… I'll never forgive you!"

When Elliot fell silent, I felt strange all over, caught in the grips of a prickling cold. I tried to speak but there was nothing adequate I felt I could say to Elliot's plea. His voice was wavering dangerously, thick with emotion and his eyes looked suspiciously watery. It broke my heart, my sadness clinging to me with its fish-hook claws. All I could do was reach out, slot my arm around his neck and pull him in for a kiss. It was maddeningly brief, lasting barely all of a few seconds before I pulled away.

He looked stunned for a few moments, before his entire face seemed to droop and fall like he has resigned himself to some unspeakable fate. Even his posture changed, the whole of his body falling limp, like a puppet cut from its strings. His hand reached out and touched my face, his fingertips soft and light, almost like the touch of a ghost. "Please…" his voice was hoarse, barely even audible. "Please… just be safe. Promise me that you'll be safe. Promise me that you'll come back to me…" his voice cracked on the final word and he looked away, his shoulders trembling.

"Just… just you try and keep me away!" I said fiercely, clinging onto his hands. "But you… you have to promise me that you'll look after everyone… that you'll keep them safe."

"I… I will…"

"Promise me!"

"I promise."

I leaned forward, fully intending to kiss him again, seal our promise, but the horrid, piercing scream of a Pokémon made me instantly wrench myself away. I turned around so fast I almost tripped over my own feet, my eyes scanning around the room looking for its source. My Pokémon were all bound to the responsibilities of battling, so at first I had no idea which one was in trouble. But then, I saw it. My poor Indigo, already weakened to the point of bitter exhaustion was tackled to the floor under the giant might of a Krookodile. A frightened yell escaped me as her tiny fragile body completely disappeared under the Krookodile's massive girth. It was crushing her!

I yelled out, begged and pleaded for any of my other Pokémon to come and help, somehow rescue her. But no-one came. Meloi was in the middle of fending off a Mandibuzz, Aurora was desperately trying to keep a Chandelure at bay, Monty was locked into combat with a Butterfree, Kiba was snapping at the heels of a Reuniclus and Cairo was taunting a Klinklang. I couldn't even focus on what my father's Pokémon were doing. All I cared about was my little Girafarig, slowly, and no doubt painfully, being squashed under the incredible weight of the Krookodile. She squealed and bayed, her thin limbs scrabbling uselessly.

"Please!" I screamed in Nathan and Helene's directions, completely at a loss as to who the giant brutish Pokémon even belonged to. "It's killing her! It's killing my Pokémon!"

But my pleas went unheeded. In fact, it only seemed to make Nathan and Helene laugh, call out their commands with even more gleeful pleasure and exuberance than before. My breath lurched out of me in sporadic, horrified gasps as I screamed for Indigo, over and over again, my heart rate intensifying with every second she remained trapped under there. However, just as I feared the Krookodile would end up crushing the very life out of my Pokémon, a giant Golem suddenly bulldozed past, colliding straight with the Krookodile. It was Dad's Golem! I watched in amazement as the Golem swept the Krookodile straight off my Girafarig, leaving her undoubtedly unconscious, but so far as I could tell, still alive. The two massive Ground types seized each other, roaring and bellowing right in the other's faces, grappling like sumo wrestlers trying to knock the other out of the ring. I glanced at Indigo, quickly holding up her Pokeball to recall her. She was done. There was no way she could fight any more.

As I stood there, trying to digest what had almost just happened, something darted across the edges of my peripheral vision. I looked up to see Helene approaching me. I let out a gasp, staggering backwards, inexplicably frightened just at the mere sight of her. She lunged for me, her fists closing around the front of my shirt and she yanked me foward. I tried to struggle, get away somehow, but her grip was tight, and try as I might, I simply couldn't wrench myself away. She pushed her face right up against mine, so close that our noses practically touched. Her breath broke out in waves over my face, her eyes narrow and ablaze with anger.

"You! You little bitch! You'll pay for what you've done!"

I found myself looking deep into Helene's eyes. They were mad, crazed, but strangely glassy, almost like they held no conviction behind them. They were eyes of someone who almost looked like they'd given up. Eyes of someone who was just mad for the sake of being mad. I locked my gaze with hers and I found I wasn't afraid.

"Yeah? I'll pay for it?!" I demanded of her. "Pfft! What can you do to me?! What can a so-called genius scientist who designed such an ineffective device do to me?! I'm no scientist, Helene, and you can sit there and preach to me about your superior intelligence and all your university degrees and all that, but what sort of idiot designs a piece of equipment that works on electrical energy and then tries to use it on Ground Pokémon?! Are you insane? I don't pretend to know how all that physics crap works, but I do know that electricity doesn't affect Ground types!"

"I did the best with what I had!" Helene snarled. "If you hadn't interfered there would have been no problem!"

"Face it, Helene! Your design was flawed!"

"Nathan didn't allow me any more time!"

"Oh, what a shame!" I cried, letting out a little burst of laughter, before I found my voice taking on this peculiar hardened edge. "You're no scientist, Helene! No real scientist would send out a piece of inferior equipment!"

"You shut your mouth!" she hissed.

"No, I will not shut my mouth!" I yelled back. "Face it, Helene! It's all your fault that this little operation is crumbling around you! Nathan says 'jump' and you say 'how high?' don't you? All you cared about was getting his approval! So as soon as he said he wanted the technology, you gave it to him without a second thought! Just to please him."

"Shut up!"

But I didn't listen and ploughed on regardless, my throat raw, and my entire face hot and flushed. "You compromised yourself and what you knew as a scientist! And for what? The approval of some guy! That's disgusting! You're no scientist, Helene! You're just a stupid, lovesick fool!"

"Shut up! Shut up! You… you don't know anything!"

"Do you wanna know the best part?! The words were spilling out of my mouth now in floods. I was surprising myself with everything I was saying, shocked at the horrible, cutting, brutal things that I spat out without even thinking. "Nathan will never love you!"

As those words left my lips, I suddenly felt force collide with my face. It was so strong my entire body twisted around from the impact and I stumbled, lost my footing and came crashing down to the ground. I looked up in shock to see Helene standing above me, her hand raised in the shadow of a strike. She had slapped me and I felt the pained area gingerly. Helene's chest was heaving, her breath juddering and her eyes wild.

There was blood in my mouth and I spat it out onto the floor. "Is that all you can do?" I asked her, wiping the leftover red smear from my lips. "Hit out because you know I'm right?"

"You don't know anything about me!" Helene snarled.

"On the contrary, I know everything about you!" I cried, getting to my feet. I wobbled and staggered, my body cripplingly exhausted. I took a few seconds to steady myself. "I know, because… because… because I know exactly what it feels like to think you'd do whatever it takes to get the approval of a man!"

For a few moments, Helene and I just faced each other, the battle raging on around us. I couldn't even bring myself to pay our surroundings any attention. I was too fixated on Helene as we stared each other out, my arms clutching at each other for support. I wasn't sure which one of us was going to move first or what would happen when one of us eventually did. Against all common sense, I dared to hope that what I had said had stirred something in her spirit, possibly even make her see some kind of sense. I found myself praying that she would see sense. As much as I hated to admit it, something had become abundantly clear to me. I despised Helene for her evil-doings, that much was obvious, but I couldn't deny she and I were in similar situations. We both yearned for the approval of a man we feared, hated and loved. And tragically, from whom we most likely would never gain that approval. I realised, with a vivid horror, that I probably despised her as much for the fact we were so alike as for the fact we were so different.

My moment of clarity was violently punctured and destroyed as a sudden crash sounded from only a few feet away from where Helene and I were standing. I glanced over in shock just in time to see a Golurk completely flatten my dad's prized Machamp with an expertly timed Shadow Punch. I let out a screech of surprise as the giant Fighting type came flying towards me, and I had to dive to the side to avoid being bowled over by it. Once the Pokémon hit the ground, it stilled and didn't get up again.

"Oh no…" I said, my heart in my mouth. I couldn't even see the Pokemon's chest rise and fall. "Is it…?"

I couldn't bring myself to look at it any longer and forced myself to turn my head away. The situation was beginning to look dire. Everywhere around me, Pokémon were at war. However, to my absolute horror, most of Dad's beloved Rock, Ground and Fighting types lay unconscious and still on the floor of the dojo, somehow overpowered by Nathan and Helene's teams. The five remaining members of my Spirited Six were noticeably struggling; so far the only causalities they had managed to elicit were Nathan's Butterfree, a Lilligant and a Helene's Serperior. These were largely down to the efforts of Kiba, who was sending out twisting and spiralling plumes of flame, practically barbequing the more fragile Bug and Grass types. While there were Pokémon injured and bleeding on both sides, my Pokémon were outnumbered. And while I stood there, panicking, trying to come up with a solution, the Golurk suddenly rose up to a frightening height, towering above me, casting me into the inky darkness of its imposing shadow.

"Golurk!" I heard Helene's voice and my heart instantly juddered in my chest. "Get that girl! Use Shadow Punch again!"

At Helene's command, the Pokémon suddenly darted towards me, its massive fists raised. I entertained visions of that terrifying entity squashing me with one attack, unleashing God knows how many more unspeakable horrors upon me. I backed away as fast as I could, my feet acting on instinct alone, my hands raising to shield my face. An odd notion swept over me as I did so. Would protecting my face even help?

"Blaze!"

I screamed again as another plume of fire suddenly roared past me. I could feel the air around me seem to dry out and crackle with the bursts of fiery embers that swept past. The Golurk let out a cry of surprise as the flames stopped it right in its tracks, hindering its movement, and I looked up to see the figure of a giant Charizard come to settle down beside me. It was growling, fixing the enemy Golurk with a mean stare, its eyes hardened. Helene looked enraged, screaming until her voice was so high pitched that it was almost impossible to decipher what she was saying. The Golurk lunged for the Charizard at her command, but the Charizard beat its massive tail off the dojo floor before blasting the incoming Pokemon straight in the face with such an almighty stream of fire that I was suddenly terrified the whole dojo would catch alight.

"Nikki!" I screamed, spinning around trying to find her. "Nikki!"

She was standing at the opposite end of the room, clutching at a bloodied gash on her arm. She looked white and petrified.

"Stop Blaze now!" I cried, as the smell of burning wood suddenly began tickling my nostrils. "The whole dojo's going to catch fire if you're not careful!"

Luckily for me, Blaze had somehow floored the great, hulking Golurk, knocking it almost completely unconscious without the use of another fire based attack. While Kiba was acting carefully, keeping his flames to a minimum and its use limited only to a close, secluded range to attack, ensuring that nothing could come to any more damage than already had. The dojo had almost caught fire once before and I didn't want it to happen again. Not this dojo… Not this wonderful dojo that symbolised so much to both me and my father. I felt oddly protective over it. In reality, I knew that it was just four walls and furniture, but at the same time, it was so much more than that. Those four walls contained hope! It contained hope for the future, for a better future for everyone, for an equal future for everyone. And what's more… it was a symbol of how people really could change… How my father really could change… I didn't know if I could entirely ever get the approval from him I so desperately yearned for, but all the same… I still couldn't let this dojo, or anything it stood for, be destroyed!

I looked back at Nikki. She was standing there, helplessly, completely locked in place.

"Nikki! Get out!" I yelled. "You need to get out!"

"Sienna…!"

"Get out!" I cried before she could protest any further. "Just… get out! Take everyone and get out! We… we can sort this ourselves!"

I didn't even wait to see how she reacted, simply spun around on my heel and faced the fray again. Helene was kneeling beside her Golurk and as my eyes fell on her, she recalled it, looking furious. I bit my lip and I was quickly distracted when I heard the howl of a familiar Pokémon coming from somewhere nearby. I turned around and saw Monty had come under attack and was now lying completely unconscious. This was entirely the work of that horrifying looking Klinklang that I knew belonged to Helene. I cursed under my breath, a vicious jolt of panic piercing me like an arrow through the heart, knowing I was down to just four Pokémon.

"Sienna,"

Just as the panic was threatening to overwhelm me, a voice came from nearby and I realised that without my noticing, Dad had come to stand by my side.

"D…Dad?"

His voice was calm, tinged with ominous finality. "This isn't looking good."

Even as he said that, I saw Aurora crumple to the ground, completely obliterated by the attacks of the Reuniclus. I was down to just Meloi and Kiba, and I didn't even know how many Pokémon were still able to fight on my Dad's side. I swallowed, my throat suddenly running dry.

"I… I know…" I said, my voice choked, feeling tears suddenly prick at my eyes. As I stood there, feeling helpless, my grief only seemed to intensify exponentially as I saw Kiba suddenly come under a ferocious attack from a Mandibuzz. It ripped at Kiba's soft orange fur with its sharp black talons and I could only yell in petrified horror as I saw splashes of blood splatter the dojo's floor.

"Is everyone out? Your friends?"

Dad was remaining stoically calm while I was practically hysterical. I had vaguely hoped his calm exterior would have held some influence on me, but in fact, it only served to make me worse. I opened my mouth to answer him, but I stopped dead as I heard the pained screech of an Ampharos. Right there, only mere feet away from me, all I could do was watch, a helpless observer, as Meloi suddenly fell to the ground. She had been hit right in the face by a merciless onslaught from the Krookodile. Every fibre of my being burned and ached with the desire to run forward and go to her, wrap my arms around every one of my injured Pokémon and protect them from all the horrors of this terrifying situation. But as my feet attempted to carry me forwards, my Dad reached out and grabbed my arm, rooting me to the spot.

"Don't be stupid," he said, his voice low. "You'll be ripped apart before you even take one foot near them."

"But my Pokémon—!"

"Sienna, are your friends out? Have they reached safety?"

"Huh…? I, uh… I don't know…" I floundered, turning around and glancing all over the dojo for any familiar faces. Unbelievably, where there had once been a pile of injured Pokémon and friends, they had all suddenly disappeared. Nearby, a door was ajar. A little jolt of relief stabbed me and I let out a quick sigh. "Y-yes! I think so!"

"Good." He said, his voice still quiet and low. "I don't want to bring anyone else into this. This is probably going to get ugly…"

"Ugly…?" I whispered hoarsely.

Nathan was slowly approaching us, a devious, twisted smile now tugging at his lips. He moved slow and deliberately through the fallen debris and unconscious Pokémon. He motioned to a Pokémon nearby, a Chandelure. He came to stand in front of us, the Pokemon following in his wake.

"Helene," he said, his voice tinged with glee. "Is the perimeter safe?"

Helene was grinning, a collection of Pokémon surrounding her. "If they even try so much as move an inch, my Pokémon have orders to kill them."

"K…kill…?" I breathed out in shock.

"How over-dramatic," Dad said callously, fixing his eyes on Nathan. "What do you intend to do with us now, Nathan? You have us trapped in here like cornered Rattata. What's the fun in that? You'll suck all the fun out of killing us,"

"Dad…" I said warily, my heart banging against my ribcage.

"You're mistaken, Cal Volbeda," Nathan said with a slight chuckle. "I fully intend to kill you. And I fully intend to have my fun while I do so,"

"Wh…what do you mean…?" I asked, my voice catching.

"Heh," Nathan looked up at the Pokémon he was currently standing next to, his eyes bright. He looked thoughtful, his fingers curled around his chin. "You know…" he said, a strange, conniving, sinister glee tinging his words. "They have some very interesting things to say about Chandelure,"

My nervous gaze settled uncertainly on the Pokémon that was floating idly by Nathan's side, wondering what exactly he meant. The Pokémon barely moved, its pupil-less eyes unblinking and vacant, hauntingly hollow and empty. The purple flames flickered gently, the faint crackling the only noise that reached my ears. I caught sight of Dad out of the corner of my eye. His voice may have remained calm the entire time, but his body language was betraying the front he was trying to convey. His chest was rising and falling erratically, his face was red and sweaty, and his eyes constantly darted between Nathan and Helene and the grounded Pokémon that littered our feet.

"Nathan…" Dad said warningly. "What are you doing…?"

"Chandelure…" There was a glint in Nathan's eyes, somehow reminding me of the burning embers in a smouldering fire. "They say their flames do not burn the physical body…"

"They… don't…?" I found myself saying hoarsely, looking at the trembling purple flames that burned on the Pokemon's curled spikes. The dancing flames held the same hypnotic quality of regular fire and despite the unusual colour of it, I wasn't overly frightened it. I imagined it to be no different than regular fire. In fact, I bet if I got close enough, I would feel their blazing heat just the same as if I stood close to Kiba as he used Flamethrower. Despite the obvious difference of colour, I couldn't distinguish anything special about this Pokemon's flames. However, Nathan had hinted at them being different. But for the life of me, I couldn't fathom how they could be so different…

Nathan's lips curled into a thin smirk, his pointed tongue slowly coming out to moisten his lips. He gazed down once at the collection of both unconscious and conscious Pokémon around us. Most of the unconscious Pokémon were mine and Dad's. In fact, every single Pokémon that was not unconscious belonged to either Nathan or Helene. I wondered if he had noticed this as he looked towards Helene, his thin smile slowly developing into a sly, knowing grin. She returned this grin, causing him to begin chuckling to himself. It was soft at first, barely even noticeable, but sinister, the noise of it sending a bizarre chill down my spine despite the suffocating heat of the room. Above me, a piece of ceiling that had been damaged in the attacks suddenly dislodged itself and fell to the floor, splitting in two with an ominous crack! And Nathan's laughter suddenly became twisted and maniacal.

"They say!" he cried out with unbridled glee, amidst crazed bouts of laughter. "They say that Chandelure..." he paused, just for a second as if he was savouring every moment he kept us in suspense. "…have the ability to burn out your very soul."

"What?!" I cried.

Nathan's smile was cruel and unpleasant, his hands rubbing together in sheer pleasure. As he fixed his eyes on me, his laughter fell away into a soft, low, ominous chucking. "If you are consumed by the fires of a Chandelure… your spirit will be absorbed into Chandelure! Your spirit will be trapped! It will be burned! Burned for all eternity! And your body… your body will be left behind, hollowed out and empty."

And with that horrifyingly stark revelation, his laughter became shrill, high pitched like the sinister noise of a disturbed child torturing a favoured plaything.

"My… my spirit…?" I croaked out, my hands automatically forming over my chest. My entire body suddenly ran cold, like the blood in my veins had been replaced with ice. I began to tremble, my entire body shaking so violently that I couldn't even control the impulse to scream. "No!" I cried. "No! No! No! No!"

Nathan's whole body had gone limp from his ecstasy, his movements suddenly jerky and erratic, and his laughter coming in irregular crazed bursts. "None of you will ever make it out alive!" he cried.

"So that's what you intend to do?! Burn everything to a crisp and take our souls with it?!" Dad yelled.

Nathan said nothing, but his crazed laughter was all the answer we needed.

"Y-you fool! If you set this dojo alight, you'll burn with it!"

Nathan didn't even seem to hear us. He was still chuckling, a devious smile stretching slowly over his face. He seemed to have relished every little bit of what he had just said.

"Sienna." Dad said, his voice low. "Get out."

"What?! No!" I protested at once. "I won't leave you here!"

"I'm your father, you do what I tell you." His voice had regained that oddly calm quality to it, and I found it barren of emotion.

"You can't pull that card on me now." I said, my own voice was thick and cracking with every word I attempted to speak. For some reason, I had tears in my eyes.

"Get out, Sienna." He said, in that same calm, composed voice. "I'll take care of Nathan. You get out."

"But Chandleure's flames!" I protested. "It… It sounds… it sounds like the fires of hell…! Y-you can't let yourself be taken in by that…"

My dad chuckled humourlessly. "My spirit is already black. It's beyond salvation. If it burns, so be it. I cannot expect forgiveness for the things I have done. If my soul burns for all eternity… I will consider it the work of karma."

"Dad, no!" I protested. My hands reached out and seized his arm, my fingers closing around him tighter than I ever expected. On my wrist, the red beads of my bracelet shone like flames. "You can't do this!"

"Sienna, I won't tell you again. Get out."

"And I won't tell you again. I won't leave you."

"Oh, how touching…" Nathan's voice was dripping with venom as he took a few further steps towards us. "But I'm afraid, you're too late."

"Too late…?"

"You won't escape the fires of hell." Nathan said. "You will both die here. And suffer a fate more horrible than anything you could ever imagine."

"You're going to kill yourself too!" I cried. "You're going to kill Helene! You're going to kill everyone! But… but at least… at least I know you're gonna suffer more than me! You're going to go to Hell for this, Nathan! You'll get off worse than me!"

"Don't count on it," Nathan grinned. "All those consumed by a Chandelure's flames are guaranteed a one-way ticket to purgatory, regardless of how "good" or "bad" they've been in their lives. And you know, I've always wondered what Hell would be like. I imagine it has quite the selection of interesting characters. And how lovely to spend all eternity wandering their fiery pits with the man who betrayed me?" His voice hardened, like shards of glass. "And the little girl… who ruined it all."

"D…Dad!" I cried out in fear, reaching out to him again. "What… what are we gonna do?" Tears were spilling over my hot cheeks.

Dad was still. Silent. He then looked at me, his eyes suddenly soft. Softer than I'd ever seen them before. He smiled, but it was limp. Weak. His mouth parted and he spoke one word.

"Pray."

Nathan's voice rose up again, loud, like the startlingly triumphant cry of a Braviary. His laughter filled my ears, chilling me right to the spine. "Chandelure!" he called out. The Pokémon instantly took to attention, its flames suddenly bursting upwards in plumes. I screamed as the purple spirals of fire shot upwards, but they died away again and became relatively still, as quickly as they came. Nathan paused, looking at me.

"Aren't you going to run?"

"Aren't you?" I asked bitterly.

"It's always more fun when they run," he said, shrugging. "Oh well. Never mind. The conclusion will be the same either way."

There was a moment of silence. Dad's hand found mine. I squeezed it. And I prayed.

"Chandelure! Inferno!"

I closed my eyes against it all as the entire room was suddenly ablaze and lit up with the towering rage of purple fire.

Author's Note

Well, this is it, guys. Free Spirits is reaching its final conclusion. After this chapter, there's only around three or four more to go to completely wrap up the entire series before I finally retire it and its characters. It's going to be quite emotional, and next chapter, you'll see what I mean. Expect a lot of tears xP

I figured that I would end on some symbolism. What better way to end a series focused on the importance of spirit than to threaten the very existence and safety of that spirit Sienna, Meloi and the other characters so deeply admire and want to protect?

I don't really have much to say, considering this chapter marks the real beginning of the end and further chapters will just be drawing the story to a close. Thank you all for your patience and please, sit back, relax and enjoy the end of Free Spirits.

Big thanks go to my lovely, dedicated reviewers, Shadow Serenity 57, MasterFreezeman, ArchXDeath, TwewyReaperGirl, Lmv16 and antonm1107!

Oh, and yeah, to anyone who hasn't already heard about it, I've published a new fanfction entitled "Don't Forget To Write" with my boyfriend, so please do check it out if you haven't already. *shot for shameless self-advertising*

That's all for now. OceanSpiral out! Until next time!