Chapter 21

Darkstalker

He's always hated the beach. Always leaving with sand in between his claws, literally anywhere was better than the beach. "I don't understand why I can't just do this myself, why do we need him?" Darkstalker asked his mother, they had found a private patch of sand to "resurrect" his brother, as if he hasn't come back from the dead enough times already.

"Because Wasp will immediately assess a giant and intimidating NightWing as a threat and quickly overwhelm you," his mother explained. "While a cheerful NightWing, the size of a normal seven year-old would be assessed as nothing but a blade of grass compared to an entire meadow."

"What are you talking about?" Hope asked them, it was rare that Hope left Faith's side... Other than to go to school and do chores...

"Darkstalker's brother."

"Woah... Darkstalker, you have a brother? That's so cool! Why did I never meet him?"

"Because he's gone, and I still say that he should remain that way," Darkstalker said.

"He sacrificed himself for you, have some respect," Faith chastised him.

"I do! Whenever I'm about to make a big decision, I ask myself; 'what would they say?' and 'is this worth losing part of my soul over?'. If he didn't do that, I'd probably not even be here right now."

"We'll deal with this later, just bring him back for now."

Darkstalker sighed and turned to Hope. "Absolutely not!" Faith exclaimed, putting a wing between him and Hope.

"What do you expect me to enchant then? I can't just make him appear from thin air!" Darkstalker argued.

Faith pulled a small sculpture from under her wing and gave it to Darkstalker while she set up a table and place lots of food which Hope tried to eat, but she stopped him, saying that it would be rude.

Darkstalker set the sculpture down on the table, and getting a good look at it; it was a sculpture of a dragon in battle position, and the stand said "Lightwing the Great".

Turn this sculpture into my brother Lightwing.

The sculpture did nothing. "Wha-?"

I enchant this sculpture to turn into Lightwing.

It remained as it was. Darkstalker growled at the second fail of his magic.

I COMMAND YOU TO TURN INTO LIGHTWING, MY BROTHER, NOW!

The sculpture taunted him by still not doing a thing. Faith and Hope turned the other way, in search of more food for the picnic. Darkstalker stomped the ground and kept trying... before finally giving up and joining his family's hunt.

Scratchhhh... Scrrrrrr

"Did you hear that?" Hope asked, his head perking up to try and locate the source of the noise.

Darkstalker looked back at the scul-... It left the stand, but no Lightwing could be found anywhere.

There was a rapid scratching noise from the grass below, Darkstalker went to investigate.

The sculpture was now flailing about in the grass, as if it were possessed, but its head was buried in the dirt.

Darkstalker slowly pulled the sculpture up to eye level. "Lightwing?" The sculpture nodded angrily. It did not enjoy being picked up.

He passed the miniature Lightwing to Hope, who took it with curiosity. "Here, I want to see how cute he looks in your talons."

"Is this your brother?" Hope asked.

"Funnily enough, yes."

"He looks mad at me... No... At you..."

Mini-Lightwing pointed at Hope, then himself and then at the grass. "He wants you to put him down," Darkstalker translated for Hope.

Hope placed Mini-Lightwing on the grass, where he stood for a few seconds, staring down a squirrel. When the squirrel started running at Mini-Lightwing, he looked like he wanted to scream, but couldn't. The two of them ran around the clearing for about a minute before Mini-Lightwing instantaneously grew back to his normal size, and got his head stuck in a tree.

His wings were different though, instead of being white, they were white with colorful lightning strikes along them, spreading as they went down his wing. Lightwing tried to pull himself out of the tree, desperately flailing his wings around and kicking up dirt in an attempt to back up.

"...This is not my proudest moment..." came a muffled voice from within the tree. Hope giggled and Faith came to look at what had happened.

Lightwing appeared to have given up with trying to free himself, his wings drooping and him sitting down.

Darkstalker ripped the tree apart and tried to restrain himself from laughing.

"Come on... I can see that you want to laugh at me, just laugh."

Darkstalker shook his head, but a snort escaped his mouth.

"...How did this happen?" Faith asked.

"I don't want to talk about it..."

"Even I'm confused, and I saw the whole thing!" Darkstalker said.

"Alright, what do you want from me? There has to be a reason that lightning was thrown at me COUNTLESS TIMES!" Lightwing exclaimed.

"...I didn't summon any lightning?" Darkstalker said, confused as to what Lightwing could be talking about. "Oh! Was that why my magic wasn't working?"

"Yeah, I used my absolute awesomeness to dodge the lightning, then caught a bolt and harnessed it, giving myself animus magic and bringing MYSELF back," Lightwing explained.

The three of them were speechless as Lightwing demonstrated his newfound power by pointing his tail at the tree his head was previously stuck in and setting it ablaze.

Malcolm

Malcolm opened another door, as carefully as he could, and laughed at what he saw. "Hey! I found Jack's room!"

Ian bounded over, inspecting the items laid about the room. "There no way that he actually recreated the Black Pearl as an entire model..." he said, picking up one of many models.

"And apparently all of the other ships from the movies..." Malcolm said, finding a small box filled with other ships.

"Hey, did you hear the news? Wasp is back apparently," Ian said, starting to inspect the shelf of scrolls along Jack's old room, most of the notches were empty. He sighed and showed Malcolm the title of a scroll.

"Are you kidding me? That idiot actually decided to do that?!" Malcolm exclaimed, the scroll was called Shazam. "I didn't even know he watched that movie." Ian unrolled the scroll.

"Hey, if Shazam is here, then his 'oh so special' Pirates of the Caribbean must be here somewhere," Ian chuckled.

Malcolm laughed. "I wonder what Darkstalker would do to us if he found us here."

"I don't want to imagine that, especially since you're an IceWing," Ian commented.

"...Alright, Peacemaker is most certainly in the rainforest, should we leave?" Malcolm asked.

"Yeah, let's go."


List of the whereabouts and status of The Fiery Four: (Last recorded)

Jack: Identity: Lightwing, whereabouts: the Sand Kingdom, status: alive

Ian: Identity: Sunburst, whereabouts: the Night Kingdom, status: alive

Malcolm: Identity: Iceclaw, whereabouts: the Night Kingdom, status: alive

Daniel: Identity: Bandit, whereabouts: NightWing Village, status: alive