The Third Sister

"I know exactly what this is."

"You do?" Tanya exclaimed in surprise. "Then what is it?"

"Can you give me a knife?" Ignoring Tanya's question, he stepped up to the glowing green sphere.

Tanya, using one of her leaf talismans—because going through Violet's hat once was enough, created a three inch knife. Handing it to Mao Mao, she looked on in confusion and curiosity.

Mao Mao held the knife in one hand, brought the other to his mouth and bit down on the tips of his fingers. Mao Mao pulled his hand out of the glove, which now hung from his teeth. Pressing the knife to the palm of his hand, in one swift and sharp motion, Mao Mao cut a gash into the pad in the center of his hand.

Tanya's eyes widened. "What are you doing?!"

Mao Mao, trapped in his own world, paid her no attention. He pressed his bloody palm to the sphere's surface, and spoke in another language.

Judging by some of the sounds he was making, Tanya surmised that it was Sanskrit. As far as she was aware, Mao Mao didn't know Sanskrit. Or at least she thought he didn't. Maybe he just didn't bring it up? Tanya herself spoke several languages, but Sanskrit wasn't one of them.

Mao Mao finished what he had been saying, and pulled his hand away, his palm was now perfectly healed, no scar or any indication that he had cut himself at all. Stepping back, Mao Mao picked his glove off the ground, which had dropped during his speaking of Sanskrit, and placed it back on his hand.

The emerald green sphere, in response to Mao Mao's incantation, began to open up, starting from a small dot that began to widen until a third of the sphere was gone. This revealed that the sphere was hollow on the inside, and inside was...

"Oh thank heavens!" screeched a high pitched voice, as a pink maned lion barreled out of the sphere and gripped Mao Mao in a bear hug, lifting him off the cold tiles.

Mao Mao's face contorted in confusion, Snugglemane was the last person he'd expect to be in the sphere. "You're grace?" Mao Mao gasped, as the king's arms had much more muscle mass than his huggable appearance implied.

Snugglemane lowered Mao Mao to the ground, looking upon the sheriff in relief. "Thank goodness you finally made it, that cold hearted witch is so rude, I thought I'd never see another friendly face again!"

"I'm going to assume he doesn't mean me," Tanya spoke out, her hands on her hips.

"No," Mao Mao assured her, "I believe he's talking about her." Mao Mao pointer to the two thirds of the sphere that remained.

Tanya creeped around the sphere, gazing into the open portion of it. Between all the shadows and the green light, the individual blended in perfectly with their surroundings, the only exception was their golden glaring eyes.

"Oh you're joking," Tanya said, immediately realizing that the woman in front of her was yet another member of Mao Mao's family. "Ashaki, right?"

Ashaki scanned Tanya over quizzically, her expression never changing, similar to Violet, but this felt colder. "You're well versed," her voice wasn't monotone like Violet's, it felt more analytical.

"I've seen pictures," Tanya said back, sitting down on the cold floor for a rest.

"What are you doing here Ashaki?" Mao Mao asked. First it was Minori, then Violet, now Ashaki? This was just becoming too coincidental. Though a part of him kind of wanted his sisters to come to Pure Heart, maybe Hinata would come! But she's been missing for ten years, why wouldn't she come out sooner if that was the case.

"I'm here on business," sliding her hand under the green sash at her midriff, Ashaki produced a curved knife with etchings into the handle, and a weirdo shaped jewel on the pommel. "Look familiar?"

"No," Mao Mao said.

"Really?" Ashaki flipped the knife, holding it by the blade, pointing the pommel upwards. "How about now?"

Mao Mao looked at it again, this time there was something familiar about it. Taking a closer look, it began to look like the Pure Heart Spire; the etchings in the handle looked like the rock formations, and the weirdly shaped jewel looked like a heart, the Ruby Pure Heart! "That's-"

"Correct," said Ashaki, seeing the look of realization on her brother's face. Placing the knife back in a secret pocket in her sash, she pulled herself from the ground, standing almost two feet taller than Mao Mao (for reference, that's two inches shorter than Badgerclops). "I found this ceremonial knife in the possession of a cult group, and I traced the origins of this blade all they way here, where I plan to find out it's purpose."

Of course she was really here to complete the pact with Minori and Violet, but nothing she said was a lie. She traveled to Pure Heart to do some work of her own while waiting for her other sisters.

"What is your purpose here?" Ashaki asked Mao Mao, her gaze concentrating on his body language, the pulsing of his veins under his skin, the dilation of his pupils.

"I'm the protector of this valley," Mao Mao answered.

Ashaki's contacts revealed no irregularities, he was telling the truth. "I see, well it sounds like your doing some good work." Ashaki looked over at Tanya, who sat off to the side. "And you are?"

"Oh you know," Tanya said in a sarcastic tone. "Your friendly valleyhood tanuki bounty hunter."

Minor irregularities. So she wasn't entirely untruthful, though the sarcasm was a clear indicator of that already. "Well what are you doing here now?"

"The alarm was set off, so we came straight here, then that moth attacked us-" Mao Mao was only halfway through explaining when Ashaki interrupted.

"You saw the Moon Moth? Did any of its stardust make contact with you?"

"Yeah, we saw it on our way in," Mao Mao told her. "It's dust took out Minori and Violet."

Ashaki's eyes went wide at the mention of the two sisters. Out of the dozens of scenarios she mapped out, this was the worst possible one. "Damn it!" Ashaki's voice rang off the walls, as she condensed the glowing sphere to that of a smaller one, comparable to that of a baseball that floated above her left shoulder, keeping its purpose of illuminating the room.

Ashaki's cry caused Snugglemane to jump. "Good heavens!"

"What?" Tanya raised a brow. "Is that a bad thing?"

"Of course," brushing her hands through her fur, Ashaki took a deep breath. "Anyone that comes in contact with the stardust first enters a comatose state, after a few minutes, when the dust settles into the target, they become one of the moth's soldiers in its army, adding their skills to the moth's reservoir of pawns."

"Well I am less worried if it chose the palace guards to be the base for its army," Mao Mao said nonchalantly.

"This isn't a joke," Ashaki waved her hands through the air, emerald green energy seeping out from beneath her claws. The tendrils of energy began to twist and take form, becoming a smaller scale palace of another kingdom, a moth to match flying in from the sky. "Within the span of a few months, kingdoms would fallen because they didn't act fast enough to eliminate the beast."

Ashaki's ethereal 3D model enacted a small play of the moth turning people one after another, and those people would grab others and bring them to the moth, letting it turn their closest friends and family into sleeping zombies.

"The guards we could handle, but both Minori and Violet?" Ashaki swiped her arm through the ethereal models, smiting them into emerald smoke. "We've officially been placed between a rock and a hard place."

"It could be worse though, right?" Snugglemane said, worried for his personal safety.

Ashaki didn't even look at him to humor the thought. "We're dealing with someone who has mastered every martial art under the sun, and another that's mastered every weapon in existence. It couldn't possibly get worse."

Snugglemane's face drained of color as he moved over to Mao Mao. "Sheriff, you do plan to do something about this don't you?"

"Of course your liege," Mao Mao placed his hand over the king's. "Your safety is our top priority."

"You're not serious," Ashaki tilted her head.

When the king had initially entered the room, he first pulled the alarm, which sent the signal to HQ. Beyond that, he was a nervous wreck, jumping at every little thing that moved. When he finally worked his way into the middle, he saw Ashaki, with dozens of books spread before her, her eyes darting back and forth.

First he had ordered her to tell him who she was, and what her business for being in his castle was. Ashaki had told him, but she didn't look him in the eye, or even followed any of the usual steps when it came to addressing a king. She had treated the situation like a child reacts when one of their parents walks into their bedroom to check on them.

Snugglemane didn't take kindly to being disrespected as a King in his own palace. He ordered her to leave. She said "no". Snugglemane then informed her that the Sheriff's Department was on their way to their location, and they were going to take care of her themselves if she didn't do as she was told.

Ashaki merely scoffed. It was now her turn to inform him that Mao Mao, Violet, and Minori, were all her siblings. Snugglemane trued to pray on this, saying how if she was their sister, then she should know to bow to royalty.

Ashaki just glared at the king, which in turn caused him to step back. Ashaki then snickered and went back to work.

All the while, Ashaki's ears had been twitching nonstop. At first she believed these sounds she was picking up was just the palace was settling in. However, the sounds were too arrhythmic, and the sounds were different every time. Looking up, she used her contacts to peer through the walls and check the situation. It was then she saw the Moon Moth using its stardust to knock out a group of guards.

Ashaki, quick to move, closed the distance between her and the king in less than a heartbeat. Pulling him towards her, she threw her hand in the air, where emerald energy folded out, and enveloped the two. They stayed that way, until Mao Mao came along and using the technique that Ashaki had showed him and their sisters years prior, opened the sphere to find them.

Ashaki's overall opinion of the king was, as of current, in the red. Being trapped in a sphere with him, while he threw out complaint, after worry, after gripe, was small piece of hell for her.

"Why wouldn't I be serious?" Mao Mao asked, like not doing it wasn't an option.

To Ashaki however, it was very much an option. Not having to look after this emotionally frail king would be to their benefit. Besides, once the Moon Moth is taken care of, all those under its spell is set free. "Fine," she decided it wasn't worth the precious time to argue. "But we need to move fast. When the sun rises, the Moon Moth will retreat as far into the castle as it can to escape the sunlight. If it does that, it's not going to budge, and we'll be stuck trying to keep its army contained until sunset."

"Well doesn't that sound splendid ," Tanya said sarcastically. "I hate to tell you this, but we have an hour at least until sunrise, and Mittens and I are exhausted. Any plan we come up with will be doomed to fail."

"Who's Mittens?" Ashaki tilted her head, unable to bury her curiosity at this new name.

Tanya just smirked over in Mao Mao's direction. Mao Mao just buried his head in his hand. Ashaki looked between the two, a spark going off in her head.

"Oh, I get it now," her eyes glazed over, the truth making it a much less engaging topic. "A pet name."

"I am not a pet!" Mao Mao bursted out, gritting his teeth together.

"Nevertheless," Ashaki waved the topic aside. "I can help you with your fatigue."

"The only thing that can help us is an eight hour asleep," Tanya said sarcastically.

Ashaki raised both of her hands, focusing on the claws on her pointer fingers, they began to glow an emerald green. She began to draw pictures into the air, the light hung in place as the images came together. Once the drawings were complete, Ashaki threw one at Tanya, and the other at Mao Mao. The images dissipated when they came into contact with their targets.

All at once, Tanya and Mao Mao felt the fatigue fade away from existence. Looking down at herself, Tanya checked herself, feeling invigorated. Mao Mao immediately knew what happened.

"What did you do to us?"

"I simply reinvigorated you," Ashaki said this like it was a simple matter, like correcting a spelling mistake on a piece of paper. And for her, it was, with her mystic arts. However, what she did was not a fix, what really happened that she controlled the chemical release in their brains, and tricked their minds into thinking they were well rested. Though there is a downside to the technique. But, with the clock running down as it was, they needed every second they could get, so she withheld the information.

Tanya jumped in place, she felt like she just had a good night's rest. "I feel like I could take on the whole castle!"

"Okay, but first a game plan," Mao Mao looked over to Ashaki. "I'm guessing you have something up your sleeve?"

"Right now... I've calculated nineteen different stratagems with varying probabilities of success," Ashaki said.

"If you don't mind me asking," Snugglemane stepped in. "What are our best chances?"

Ashaki took a second to do the math. "...approximately eighty-eight percent."

Snugglemane gulped, afraid to ask his next question. "A-and our worst?"

Ashaki spoke almost immediately. "Thirteen percent. But I'm hoping we won't need to resort to plan Gamma."

Tanya, still wrapping her head around how her stamina had been refilled, ran up to the wall of a book shelf, stepped out onto it it, and kicked backwards, launching herself into a backflip. "I think we'll be able to handle it."

They began by information gathering, and with Ashaki, that as simple as pie. Using her contacts, she scanned the many layers of the castle, taking notes of every single guard and where they were currently stationed. After another minute of searching, she came across Minori, who was keeping herself occupied by tearing up a couple of leaves.

With a quick roll of her eyes, Ashaki went back to searching the castle. She located the Moon Moth fluttering about the throne room. As for Violet, she was in the throne room with the moth. The purple clad Mao sister stood still, her milky white eyes focused on the points of entry.

So she's taken up protecting the Moon Moth, Ashaki thought to herself. This definitely made things more difficult, but it wasn't entirely unexpected. Ashaki shared the information she just gathered and used it to formulate a few stratagems, which she relayed to Mao Mao, Tanya, and Snugglemane.

"Excuse me!" Snugglemane exclaimed, taken aback by the notion Ashaki had just thrown out. "But why am I a part of this plan?"

"Because the best plans make use of every tool you have available to you," Ashaki said nonchalantly, "which includes your physique."

Snugglemane harrumphed at the thought of throwing himself into danger... again. Once was more than enough. "I have no wish to be a part of this ludicrous strategy of yours!"

Ashaki glanced at him out of the corner of her eye. "That's a shame, because you don't have a choice in the matter." Ashaki strode over, standing face to face with the king. "We either defeat the moth, or we could lose everything! But I suppose the choice could be up to you."

If there was one thing Ashaki could gather from this Snugglemane character, it was that he prized appearances over the broader scope of things. He doesn't want to be seen as the king that lost his kingdom to a monster under his watch, it'd be better if it was lost under someone else's watch, say Ashaki's.

"Oh well," Snugglemane took on a delightful, everything will be fine, tone. "If you must insist, I'll help!"

Ashaki smirked and nodded. "I'm glad that we've come to a consensus." Ashaki lead the three of them to the door that lead out of the archives and back into the corridor. Bending down, she pulled Mao Mao's cloak out from underneath the door, and handed it back to him. "Now, you all know what you need to do. Let's get to work!"

Tanya ran through the corridors unimpeded, getting the attention of as many guards as she could. That was her part to play in Ashaki's master plan.

Up ahead we're three palace guards, standing there, merely existing. Running by, she jumped over them, knocking on each of their helmets. Completing the arc, she landed on the other side of them, with the grace of an pro acrobat.

The zombies turned and began to amble after her. This made seven on her heels now. But Ashaki's plan required a lot more than that. A lot, lot more.

The real trick here was that the guards were big slowpokes, so she had to stay at a consistent pace where they could keep pace with her. If anything, she found this a little tedious. But the plan called for it.

She turned a corner, where a couple more guards were waiting. Just like she said.

Ashaki had given Tanya precise locations of a majority of the guards during the debriefing of her master plan. Having burned the route into her mind, she followed it to the letter.

Slapping a one of guards in the back, she ran past looking back to see her crowd join the two she just came into contact with. That makes nine.

Mao Mao and Snugglemane made their way back through the castle's infinite winding corridors. Mao Mao moved at a brisk pace, not worrying about the sleep walking guards. One of the reasons this plan was so good, was that Tanya's path intersected with theirs multiple times. But since she was moving faster, and taking as many guards as she could find with her, that left Mao Mao's path virtually without danger.

Snugglemane trudged behind the sheriff, still sour about being involved in the plan. It wasn't even cool, like Tanya's part.

Ashaki had tasked Mao Mao and Snugglemane with going and finding a large painting. The Moon Moth showers its victims with its stardust from above. They were going to use the painting as a large umbrella to shield them from the dust.

"Using one of my beloved paintings as a shield," Snugglemane griped. "Forgive my language, but your sister is a piece of work."

"That's just how Ashaki does things," Mao Mao replied. "Prestige and titles don't have a lot of meaning to her. She'll speak her mind whether it's the time and place for it or not. If you want her respect you have to earn it."

"I am the king, I shouldn't have to earn anything!"

"Ashaki definitely wouldn't agree with that," Mao Mao muttered under his breath. "Hey, what's with those portraits of the past rulers?"

"What about the portraits?" Snugglemane grew curious with Mao Mao bringing up those old things.

"I was wondering, they start with you, and date back all the way to Snugglemane XIII," Mao Mao explained. "But I-XII, weren't anywhere to be found."

"Oh is that all?" Snugglemane laughed. "To be frank with you, sheriff. I don't know where the rest of the portraits are. Supposedly they still exist, but they're hidden somewhere in this palace."

"Why would anyone want to hide the portraits?"

"Don't know, don't care," Snugglemane finished, clearly not wanting to continue the conversation any further.

They walked along in silence for a few minutes before finally coming across a painting.

"Looks as good as any other painting," Mao Mao said. Extending his claws, he jumped onto the wall, scaling towards the thin piece of string that held the painting up. "Get ready to catch!"

"Excuse me?" Snugglemane barely had time to react as the painting plummeted to the floor. Diving for the painting, Snugglemane slid his hands under the painting, inches before smashing into the floor.

Mao Mao hopped back onto the floor, barely making a sound.

"Must you have cut the string so abruptly?" Snugglemane scolded, "You nearly destroyed it."

Mao Mao just rolled his eyes. "Apologies my liege." The two positioned themselves to carry the long painting, Mao Mao in the front, Snugglemane in the back. Let's hope Tanya is doing her job. They'll need their path to be clear for what's to come.