LUCINA'S POV

After leaving Lissa in the reliable hands of Miriel, I started running to the enemy fortress as fast as my legs would carry me. It was odd; according to Miriel my wounds had healed so effectively that they had already faded to pale white scars.

The front gate of the fortress was completely unguarded. The gates were ripped off of their hinges and were lying in the snow, abandoned. Something powerful had clearly been through here, and probably very recently.

Now don't get me wrong, I wasn't exactly eager to go running into the face of danger. However, considering both of my children are inside I think taking the risk is necessary. So steeling what was left of my nerves, I dashed inside before I could change my mind.

The main room was not a pretty sight. I'm sure it used to be quite beautiful before it was ripped to shreds. The room itself extended upwards to the roof. On every floor, balconies jutted out into the room; or at least I assume they did before they fell to the ground and broke. The domed roof was in pieces on the scorched carpet, and purple fire was burning everywhere. Which, unfortunately, could only mean one thing.

Of course, I didn't have long to ponder/shake in fear. A new threat had entered the room. And, go figure, I recognized them. It seemed like a lifetime ago when I last saw them. Back when I was fighting for my life at the Dragon's Table.

They were hulking, massive humanoids that couldn't contain Grima's power inside them. They didn't live for very long after they were corrupted, but they were certainly a force to be reckoned with when they were still alive.

There were five of them, all smashing willy-nilly through the already-ruined fort, destroying walls and shooting fire from their mouths and such. My master plan was to hug the wall and creep silently to the nearest door before they noticed me, but that plan fell flat in about 10 seconds.

I had just started to make my way around the room when, of course, three of them simultaneously turned around and let out the loudest inhuman shriek I've ever heard in my life. The other two soon turned around and joined in the ear-splitting crescendo and charged at me in perfect sync.

I let my instincts kick in as I drew Falchion and dropped into a defensive stance. The best course of action would be to lash out at the beast at the far left and break for the door. However there was a good chance that the second I struck one the other would converge on me, and my chances of being able to open the rather heavy-looking door in time was pretty slim.

Unfortunately, once again my time for pondering was cut short as the center goon leaped at me. Instinct kicked in as I sank Falchion up to the hilt in its chest. With a scream, it flung me to the side, forcing me to lose my hold on Falchion. Weaponless, I had no choice but to make a beeline for the door.

As I raced down the hallway, the five beasts pursued me, and they were gaining quickly. Perhaps luck was on my side that day, for the second I yanked on the huge door's handle, the entire thing fell forward with a groan. It was, perhaps, a little less gratifying when it landed on me. Did I mention how heavy this door was?

Before I could wriggle out, the first goon jumped onto the door, adding perhaps another 150 pounds to the already crushingly heavy door. Within seconds I forgot what it felt like to have unbroken ribs.

The other four walked towards me slowly, breathing heavily as if they had just ran a marathon. I hoped that meant they were close to death. One of the brutes stepped forward. Purple fire swirled in its hands. With another ear-splitting synchronized screeching, purple fire surged in all of the mutants' hands. The fire all rose into the air into a single sphere of horrific purple nightmare fuel.

Then, all hell broke loose as all five monsters burst open like some mutilated piñatas. Dark red blood and some other, less favorable, substances splattered all over the place, including all over me. The flaming ball of death collided with the door next to me, blasting the entire thing off of its hinges.

After a second of silence, Christian stepped out through the doorway, with Morgan slung over his shoulder. "Mother," Christian's voice was barely louder than a raspy whisper. "We need to get out of here quickly. Father is trying his hardest to suppress Grima and this place is no longer stable."

My confusion must have been plain to see, because Christian just smiled briefly and shook his head. "It's a long story, I'll explain once we're out of here. Take my hand."

Jack's Corner

God I need to explain myself! Bold text because this is rather important. It was a nice, lovely December 23rd. I was enjoying a lovely cup of hot chocolate whilst writing one of seven chapters I had planned to upload between Christmas and New Year's. Oh, 'twas a grave folly. With a single cry of distress, half a mug of lukewarm hot chocolate splashed onto my laptop. There were no survivors. Cut to December 28th when I received a new laptop using Christmas money and receipts. Not my proudest moment. Who would guess that I was stupid enough to leave my flash drive in my laptop? Silly me for wanting to save my writing so I wouldn't have a fiasco like last time. Like I said, no survivors. So with a clean laptop and a busted flash drive, I began the long, arduous process of recovering all 80 chapters using 's handy but not-too-convenient download feature you can use on your posted chapters. I had to resort to this instead of copy-paste because only chapters 67-80 were still in my Doc. Manager. So that took a while, and due to the outcry of hella schoolwork and midterm prep, as well as become horridly obsessed with Doctor Who, I found myself with barely any time to rewrite the seven chapters that tragically perished. Like in Homesick when Karkat only briefly reads through his memories in the past so basically he forgets how to write them when the time rolls around in the future so basically he wings it. That's what is about to happen. Sorry guys, and thank you all so much for your patience and kudos if you actually read all of this.