"Are you sure going in that direction is a good idea, Emira?" Edric asked looking at the mass of tentacles waving before them.
"If there is such activity there, then there must be someone there" his sister replied, almost dragging him by the ears. "So let's go there!"
Emira knew that they were most likely going to throw themselves into the lion's den... in fact, a lion's den would probably be a more pleasant place. But if Belos was so agitated there, then there was probably someone there who was bothering him, which was exactly what they were looking for. It was very dangerous to head in that direction, but given the situation they found themselves in they could forget about caution; even walking on that monster's back was dangerous, or even just sitting and waiting, so they might as well try to do something and hope that someone would invent a solution to get out of that situation.
"What will we do when we get there?" Edric asked her again. "I don't think it's a good idea to announce ourselves out loud"
"No, in fact. We will hide with our illusions" Emira replied to him. "We will approach secretly and without being seen, and then we will decide what to do based on the situation. If we find one of our friends, we will try to help them... but if Belos is just getting agitate for no reason, then we will run away before he notices us"
"Why should Belos get agitate for no reason?" Edric asked her skeptically.
"Why, are you still trying to understand this monster with logic?" Emira answered him rhetorically. "Belos has proven to be anything but logical. He's a monster with a deviated mind who thinks with completely different patterns than ours. Trying to predict his moves is impossible, so come on, he might as well have started fidgeting there for no reason. we can exclude the hypothesis"
Edric bit his lip; he could clearly see how tense his sister was. If there was one thing he had learned about Emira it was that the more nervous she became the more she tried to think rationally, so all he had to do was listen to her to understand her mood. "Emira... maybe you should stop for a moment and take a deep breath"
"We can't, Edric" his sister snapped. "We're in a total emergency situation in case you haven't noticed. We need to find someone, save our sister, escape from here and…!"
Her speech had become faster and faster, speeding up with her breathing, but she immediately fell silent when Edric put his hands on her shoulders and pinned her to the spot; Emira tried to resist him for a moment, but the difference in strength she had with her brother, even if it didn't seem like it, was too significant, especially when she was in such a mental state. Edric held her there for a moment, and then told her: "Breathe"
Emira obeyed him and took deep breaths, and finally Edric could feel her body relax a little under his hands. He couldn't blame his sister: they had experienced too many emotions for a single day... and they were still experiencing too many. In comparison, getting captured by the Titan Trappers or hindering Grometheus were a child's play. Their mental endurance was really being put to the test.
That moment of tranquility didn't last long, however, because suddenly what sounded like a solid whistle came at them and bounced off their bodies, coming back like a high pitched sound. "What was that!?" Edric exclaimed.
"I don't know, but I don't want to find out! Let's hide!" Emira answered him, and immediately she hid both of them with an illusion.
For a while there was silence, then the sound of numerous footsteps was heard, and again the strange whistle came towards them and bounced; both Edric and Emira gritted their teeth, realizing that their illusions were of little use against the sound. But they were quite surprised when Skara appeared in their field of vision pointing her finger at them: "They are right there! Guys, show yourselves! It's us!"
Both Edric and Emira were filled with an extraordinary feeling of relief, and immediately they made the illusion vanish; only after doing so did they think that perhaps they had been a little reckless and that perhaps the one in front of them was a Belos henchman disguised as Skara to mislead them, but fortunately this was not the case and indeed in addition to her, Boscha, Cat, Amelia and Willow. "It's good to see you're all in one piece, guys"
"Yes, a miracle in the tragedy" Emira commented with a smile. "See, Edric? We found someone!"
"Yeah" Edric commented. "How did you find us? What was that strange whistle?"
"A trick that Skara luckily learned" Willow replied, pointing to the girl in question.
Edric looked at them all, and then he said: "Many are still missing"
"Yeah. Long story short, Belos took Amity and Luz away, and Hunter and Gus went to help them out" Willow explained hastily. "I know you probably have questions, but now we need your help. We need to free the Collector"
"The Collector!? Is he the one attracting all that attention?" Emira exclaimed, pointing to the tangle of tentacles that had formed and continued to get bigger and bigger.
"That's right. We need to free him from Belose's grasp if we're going to have any chance of getting out of here, he's our ticket to escape" Willow answered them. "Listen..."
She quickly briefed them on the plan, and both Edric and Emira understood what they needed to do almost before she even got to that part; and so they quickly ran in front of the tangle of tentacles, where Vee, Salty and all the others were already waiting for them, and there they prepared to create the illusion. This time it wouldn't be so easy, since they would have to create such illusions in a place that they couldn't see with their real eyes, so they had to use maximum concentration; to have a better chance of success, instead of each acting on their own they drew a circle together in the air, effectively combining their powers and acting as one.
Inside that horrendous tangle of tentacles, the Collector was locked inside a bubble that seemed to be made of stardust; the divine child was continually trying to push away that horrible cage of decayed organic matter, but he couldn't: he was barely holding on to avoid it crushing him. He was sweating profusely from his forehead, but he couldn't allow himself to stop because otherwise Belos would crush him and then slowly consume him, absorbing all of his power and also gaining access to his realm, so he couldn't allow it. As he tried to resist, however, a tiny image that looked like a sort of mix between Edric and Emira appeared on his shoulder and whispered in his ear: "Collector, we have a plan to get you out. We will distract Belos for a moment, so you can concentrate your your magic in one place. Be ready for our signal"
The Collector was surprised, but nodded nonetheless. Outside that organic cage Edric and Emira exclaimed: "Okay, we've sent the message! It's your turn!"
"Good. I just wanted to let off steam!" Boscha said with a sneer, and flames immediately exploded from her hands and hit the tentacles; unlike usual which she tried quite hard to limit herself, this time she used her power to the maximum, to the point that the fire turned white from how hot it was. Skara then let out a long whistle and shaped it to rotate around the tangle of tentacles, and in doing so moved the surrounding air, creating a real microclimate. The fire began to swirl around the cage violently, and Cat also began to support Boscha with her flames.
The fire clearly couldn't hurt Belos, who in fact didn't even get a scratch, but the sudden change in temperature to such drastic levels couldn't avoid to catch his attention, and for a moment the tentacles stopped putting pressure on the Collector; that was the moment Emira and Edric yelled at him: "NOW!"
As soon as he received the signal, the Collector made the bubble vanish for an instant and concentrated his magic only in front of him, generating a multicolored beam of light that shattered the tentacles, opening a gap at least a meter wide. Belos noticed this and was quick to start asking, but Willow threw the seeds that Hunter had given her into that opening and with Amelia's help made them sprout, creating strong vines and roots that pressed against the tentacles and kept the open passage. This resistance lasted just ten seconds before Belos' extraordinary strength broke the plants, but it was enough for the Collector to come out and fly high into the sky, away from the tentacles.
"Yay!" Willow exclaimed. "We did it!"
She was a little less pleased when the tentacles lowered and seemed to be aiming at them. "Um... we also thought of a plan on how we were supposed to escape, right?" Skara murmured with a lot of fear.
"I'm afraid we forgot it" Salty admitted. "Run!"
The tentacles lowered, and if they had hit them it would surely have beaten them to pulp, but magical shields formed around them protecting them. They looked up and saw that the Collector was creating new shields while overhead and winking at them. "Thank you!" Willow yelled at him. "Guys, run! The Collector is still here anyway, so Belos will continue to be focused here, so if we move away he should stop chasing us"
"I'm not sure" Vee told her. "Belos is capable of holding a lot of grudges...!"
"Then all you have to do is get away pretty quickly!" a familiar voice told them. Suddenly, bands of purple liquid appeared out of nowhere, wrapped around their waists, and then it dragged them away so fast that their hair became disheveled. In an instant they were hundreds of meters away where they had been, where the airship had crashed, and Darius was standing in front of them.
"Guys!" King exclaimed running into their arms.
"Ugh... hi!" Willow murmured, happy to see the young Titan again, and then looked at Darius: "Thanks for the help"
"Yeah, but next time anyway, warn us before dragging us away like that!" Emira blurted out, not having liked the experience she had just had at all, and given the expressions of the others she wasn't the only one. "How did you find us, by the way?"
"A wish from your mother. She and your father went to retrieve your sister" Darius replied. "As you can see, I took advantage of this desire to recover all the kids"
And indeed behind him Raine, Derwin, Amber and Katya were helping an ever-increasing number of kids who were brought there by Darius' beams of purple liquid and were making them board the airship which, although ruined, still seemed to be capable of fly. The djinn was about to say something else, but Vee suddenly grabbed his lamp: "Um... excuse me, sir, but I have to make a wish! Make everyone return to normal immediately!"
"Your wish is granted" Darius said immediately, and Masha, Viney, Jerbo, Barcus and all the others still transformed into donkeys were enveloped by the purple liquid and returned to their human forms, although like everyone else they kept their ears long and the tail, everyone except Barcus who instead returned to normal completely. As soon as they realized that they had returned to a more familiar form, everyone let out a cry of joy; and they became even happier when Owlbert flew above them and nullified the magic that was blocking their voice. "Yay!" Masha exclaimed as they hugged Vee. "Thank you! You're the best girlfriend ever!"
Vee hugged them back so hard she nearly crushed them. When she realized that her girlfriend was turning blue she let them go: "Sorry, I didn't mean to..."
"Are you kidding? You can make me spit out my lungs if you want, I'm too happy right now!" Masha replied by showering her with kisses.
Viney was also over the moon: "Finally! I didn't think I'd ever be able to walk again!" she exclaimed looking at her hands which were finally human again.
"You can say it loud. Man, this is the best day of my life!" Jerbo told her back.
"Interesting to know that the best day of your life is to become a human being again, not even completely, while we still find ourselves on the back of a very angry giant monster" Barcus commented, but he didn't sound too harsh. "By the way, thank you, mister Djinn"
"Call me Darius" the djinn replied with a smile Barcus' words however reminded everyone of the situation they found themselves in.
"We freed the Collector, but we still need to reunite everyone" Willow said. "Darius, are you really bringing all the kids here?"
"Yes. I'm already almost done actually" Darius answered her. "The plan is to take advantage of the fact that Belos isn't actively looking for us to load everyone onto the airship and fly up as fast as possible, and then have the Collector open a portal for us. But we have no idea how we're going to get Luz back, or Eda, or..."
"We know how to do it" Odalia said coming down from the sky together with Alador.
"Mom! Dad! Where's Amity!?" Emira immediately exclaimed.
"Don't worry, she knows what she's doing. And so do we" Alador said jumping to the ground. "Your sister has a plan to save everyone. We won't have much time, but it should be enough"
"Oh, really? Great! We absolutely needed a deus ex machina!" Darius exclaimed, clapping his hands. "So, are we about to save the world again?"
"Technically we'll save the universe, since if Belos takes Luz he'll consume literally everything" Raine pointed out.
"I like it!" Darius said with a laugh. "If we save the entire universe we will surely be remembered forever! Maybe we will become a beautiful legend to pass down!"
"Your mental paths remain a mystery" Raine commented a little disappointed by his friend.
"It was just a random thought! Of course I care about the continents, the forests, the buildings and all the animals!" Darius replied.
"And the people" Raine added.
Darius shrugged. "Well... more or less. It depends which ones" he replied, earning a dirty look from his friend.
"Seriously, is that the guy with you're spending your time to now?" Odalia asked Alador. "Wasn't there really anyone better?"
"The choice was between him and one of my machines" was her husband's reply.
In case anyone noticed, yes, the last lines are a reference to Guardian of the Galaxy 2. Kudos to anyone who guessed it before reading this note