Anakin struggled in the kelp as more of it wrapped around him, and he was trapped inside a bubble beyond the cove
The royal family assessed the situation. Rule #1 of any battle: always assess the situation before doing anything.
Here's what they knew so far:
1. Tropi-Callous was made entirely out of water and took control of pretty much everything that was in the water and controlled the weather, apparently.
2. The mari-clava was in Garrett's necklace, which was currently around his neck.
3. For some reason, he was after Anakin, and was holding him captive
and 4. Tropi-Callous was using whatever sea creature everyone feared most to distract them.
This was going to be a big test of the royal family's strength and how well Garrett taught them.
"Here's what we need to do," said Kara. "We have to split up into three teams. One team will keep Tropi-Callous distracted, another will rescue Anakin, and the last one will get everyone else to safety."
"My team can get everyone to safety." Hunter said.
"Then I will help you, since we need to get it done quickly."
"Boba is the fastest swimmer, so he should take fighting under the water." Gabby said. "And I can use my weather power to see if I can tame these clouds a bit."
"Then Lamenta and I will rescue Anakin since she can make us invisible." Carmine said.
"How exactly do we distract Tropi-Callous, though?" Omega pointed out.
"Leave that to us." Mariposa said, gathering the other doresho gypsies and spreading her wings out. "One of our best lines of defense has been a method we call wing perplexity. For the first time in years, it's time we spread our wings for the greater good."
The wind got really strong, so everyone quickly split up into teams and got right to work.
The Bad Batch and Kara quickly started gathering everyone and guiding them to the mansion to get inside and into the basement where they would be safe from the storm.
Meanwhile, the royal family and all the maricambas rushed into action to stop Tropi-Callous.
Boba leaped into the water and swam as quickly as he could to see the conditions of the water underneath, while Gabby flew up high to use some weather magic to try and tame the clouds and let some sunshine in. And the maricambas, the ones who had their wings anyway, flew up and started flashing their colorful wings in front of Tropi-Callous' eyes, which temporarily blinded or confused him. Except, the moment he regained his sight, Tropi-Callous started to swat at the maricambas like a normal sized human would a housefly, making it very difficult for anyone to get close enough to grab his necklace without getting soaked.
The water underneath was very rough, and more water started getting pulled toward Tropi-Callous, and Boba got caught in the current! Quickly, he tried to swim harder than he'd ever swam before, but ended up caught in Tropi-Callous' grasp anyway, and the villain trapped him in another bubble.
"What have we here? Another one for Mariverde." chuckled Tropi-Callous. "In with the other one you go!"
And Tropi-Callous threw the bubble past the cove to where Anakin was.
"Boba!" Gabby exclaimed when she saw what'd become of her brother. She looked to her right and screamed as Tropi-Callous spotted her and was ready to trap her as well, and he would've caught her too if Carousella hadn't swooped in and pushed her out of the way.
But now, Tropi-Callous caught Carousella in a bubble too! And he threw her past the cove to join the other two prisoners.
"This is all too easy!" Tropi-Callous laughed.
The other unicorns began firing magic spells at Tropi-Callous to try and distract him more, while any horse who could fly attempted to grab Garett's necklace... except, no one could get close enough without being seen, nor would he hold still long enough for them to reach it. Even Indira couldn't get close enough without getting caught in the wind or getting completely drenched in sea water.
"He's too powerful!" Indira coughed, shaking the water out of her mane, not that it did much good, as it started to rain really hard too.
Qui-Gon picked up a huge rock and kicked it towards Tropi-Callous' head. It literally went through one ear and out the other, which seemed to provoke the villain even more.
"Not one of my smarter decisions." Qui-Gon said, embarrassed. There was no time to be embarrassed though, as he had to duck some more eels that were thrown at him.
Qui-Gon quickly got out his lightsaber and struck at a shark that nearly chomped him, but to his great surprise... the shark turned into a cloud of black smoke with red eyes. And before it could do anything else, Omega struck it with bright light.
"That shark was just a pesadila?" Omega said, sounding confused.
Qui-Gon did the same thing to an octopus. It was a pesadila too!
"These sea monsters aren't even real sea monsters!" Omega said. "They're all pesadilas."
Qui-Gon shouted for everyone to watch for any sea monsters, and if they spotted one, shine a bright light on them because they were just pesadilas creating illusions. It helped the others to start charging at Tropi-Callous, but he just made his storm stronger!
Meanwhile, Lamenta turned herself and her father invisible as they flew beyond the cove to where the two bubbles carrying Anakin, Carousella, and Boba were, and turned them both visible once they were sure Tropi-Callous wasn't looking in their direction.
"Don't worry, guys." Carmine said, coming to his twin's bubble. "We're gonna get you out."
Carmine and Lamenta tried popping the bubbles, but they didn't pop.
"Wait a minute," said Lamenta. "These are aqua bubbles. Didn't Garrett say there was only one way to pop them?"
Carmine thought back a moment, and recalled the very thing to pop such bubbles: siren song.
"You might wanna cover your ears." Carmine said.
Anakin, Boba, Carousella, and Lamenta all covered their ears, and Carmine took a big breath and unleashed the loudest sonar wave he could muster. The next thing they knew, the last thing they heard was a loud popping noise with a boom! and Lamenta, Boba, Carousella, and Anakin all popped out from the water for air, not seeing Carmine anywhere.
"Carmine?" Anakin called, looking around for his brother. "Carmine?! Where are you?!"
Boba swam underwater, and gasped when he saw Carmine suddenly drop into the water, unconscious!
"Uncle Carmine's unconscious!" Boba told his father. "I'll get him!"
"I'm coming too!" Carousella said, taking a big breath and diving underneath with her rider's brother.
Boba swam as fast as he could, Carousella swimming after him to help. Boba managed to grab Carmine before he could sink deeper, and Carousella helped him pull him up to the surface for air, but he wasn't breathing! Boba placed his ear over Carmine's chest; his heart was still beating, but he needed medical attention fast!
"I'll get Mariposa!" Carousella said. So while the others helped Carmine back to shore, Carousella flew out to fetch Mariposa.
Hunter, Kara, and the other batchers did a quick head count to make sure everyone was inside.
Garrett having a big family meant they had a lot of people to count over, so the Batch split up and took a check to make sure everyone was in the basement, safe and sound. Padme, Caroline, and the babies, of course, were counted too.
"Where's Keanu?" Mr. Heartwood said, looking around for his brother.
"I thought he was with you," said Mrs. Heartwood.
"Uh oh." Kara said, looking at Hunter. "You don't think...?"
"He'd better not!" Akamu said, rushing out, Kara rushing out too.
"Crosshair, we may need your sharpshooting skills."
Crosshair didn't hesitate to get out his weapon in case they needed it. Koa also came along; if there was one thing he was accustomed to as a cop, it was chasing after criminals in dangerous pursuits. And despite being out of uniform now, whenever duty called, he answered.
Boba quickly called Mariposa over as he and Anakin finally managed to get Carmine back to shore.
Mariposa had them carefully lay Carmine on the sand so she could begin inspecting him. He was definitely unresponsive to any touch or sound.
"He needs CPR. Stand back." Mariposa instructed.
Mariposa began immediately performing CPR on Carmine, unaware that someone was sneaking up behind her.
It turned out, Keanu kept a spare weapon just for any case if he lost one weapon after coming across a doresho gypsy. He aimed a smaller blaster right for Mariposa, and with careful aim... fired!
Mariposa cried out in pain as she felt something graze her arm. She looked behind her to see Keanu with a gun, and getting ready to fire a second time!
"I'm should've finished you when I had the chance years ago!" Keanu said. "I won't make the same mistake now!"
But before Keanu could fire again, Anakin quickly began holding him in a Force choke and forced him to drop him weapon, giving Boba time to grab it!
Mariposa, however, couldn't keep working while her arm was hurt. Now she needed medical attention too! And with Gabby still battling the wind and rain, she wouldn't be much help. Luckily, that was when Kara arrived with Crosshair and Akamu!
"Mariposa's been shot!" Boba told his aunt. "She needs help now!"
"Minka's a doctor. She'll know what to do!" Akamu said, helping Mariposa up. "Don't worry, I won't let anyone hurt my brother's wife."
While Akamu got Mariposa to safety, Anakin started fighting Keanu as he kept trying to get to Mariposa or any other dorehso gypsy he could spot.
"Let go of me!" Keanu demanded. "You are committing an act of treason to this entire galaxy!"
"The only one committing treason is you by trying to kill your own nephew's wife!" Anakin said, trying to apprehend Keanu with his vines, but Keanu cut them with a knife, and when Anakin tried to stop him, Keanu kicked him in the stomach really hard and grabbed Goldie, and dragged her into the jungle.
"HELP ME!" Goldie screamed as she was dragged away by her great uncle, who was not so great at all!
"Goldie!" Kara exclaimed.
"We got her!" Crosshair said, getting out his weapon.
Hunter whistled for the horses, and Indira and Maybelle rushed into action to go and rescue Goldie while Kara continued CPR on her brother. They weren't the only ones to spot trouble though.
Initially, Mona was flashing her wings to distract her uncle so the others would have time to try to grab the necklace. But then she heard someone crying for help, and when she looked behind her, she saw her cousin being grabbed and dragged into the rainforest!
"Goldie!" Mona screamed.
Mona didn't know how to face a doresho hunter, but her cousin was in need, and that was all she needed to motivate her to fly!
While the other maricambas flew around and continued to distract Tropi-Callous by flashing their wings, Gabby kept blasting the clouds with magic to try and stop the storm, but Tropi-Callous kept making it stronger and stronger. The maricambas' greatest method of defense was using their wings to flash color and light, thus temporarily stunning and confusing their enemy, but it only lasted so long on this particular villain. And none of them looked like they could handle all the water much longer!
But then, Gabby thought of something. Currently, Garrett was made out of water, and water could be stopped in a lot of ways. It could be stopped by plugging a drain or turning a valve, but Garrett wasn't running through any pipes. But, she recalled how the lakes and rivers always stopped flowing in the winter time... because they froze in the cold! Gabby then had an idea! If she could pump up her ice power to blast extra strong, freezing cold, she could freeze Garrett long enough to grab the necklace and release the mariclava!
"Oh! But I might hurt him!" Gabby hesitated. She thought again. "But if I don't freeze him, we might never be able to free him."
Gabby knew it was a big risk, but she knew that someday as Naboo's new queen she would likely face even bigger risks. And then she remembered; in a previous lesson on inspired spells, Garrett taught her and the others that they could make almost any spell work in a safer way if they chose their words very carefully when casting a specified spell, which didn't always come easy since a big requirement was to have it rhyme. And on a giant villain like Tropi-Callous, Gabby would need more than her powerful magic; she needed to use what she'd learned from the Jedi as well. A little something called the Force.
So, Gabby concentrated hard, combining her power with the Force, and she remembered what her uncle Obi-Wan had taught her the last time he'd tutored her in Force training.
The Force is with you, always. Remember, Gabriella, you are stronger than you realize. You have two kinds of power, and you can unite them as one.
Gabby put her hands close together and concentrated as snow and ice started to form. Little by little, the ball of ice got bigger and bigger until Gabby conjured up an inspired spell.
"Don't harm my teacher who's been clavatized, keep him still as a statue of ice!"
When Gabby's spell hit Tropi-Callous, the villain was in for a real cold shock! Sure enough, Tropi-Callous began freezing from top to bottom, which gave Gabby time to tame the storm, and for Violet to fly up and grab the necklace and break it in two, releasing the mariclava so Qui-Gon could cast the Luminesk spell. And then, Tropi-Callous slowly unfroze and transformed back into Garrett.
Garrett fell into the water with a big splash! Luckily for him, Crescent came and quickly pulled him out of the water.
"Garrett, are you okay?!" said Anakin, seeing Garrett looking like he was hypnotized.
Anakin snapped his fingers in front of Garrett's face, snapping him out of it.
Garrett snapped out of the trance with a gasp and looked around frantically.
"Huh? What? Was I just-?!"
"Yes, you were." Qui-Gon said. "But we took care of it."
"Thanks to your teachings." Anakin smiled.
But, Garrett was still not smiling, as he looked around and found his family was missing.
"Where are Mariposa, Goldie, and Mona?"
"Mariposa had to be taken inside because your uncle shot her." Anakin said.
"What?!" Garrett exclaimed.
"He's going after Goldie now too!" Kara said, just managing to get Carmine standing up. "Hunter and Crosshair have already gone after him, but they may need help!"
Goldie struggled in Keanu's grasp as he continued to drag her through the rainforest.
"Let me go, you psycho!" Goldie said. "My daddy is never gonna forgive you if you do anything to me or my mom!"
"He stopped being a part of this family the moment he married your mother and brought you into this world," said Keanu. "I'm gonna rid this galaxy of your kind if I have to eliminate you one by one. You're only lucky I need you alive now to get your grandfather talking."
Goldie was confused.
"My grandfather is dead. You admitted to killing him not that long ago, remember?"
"I never said I killed him. Just that I shot him down. As weak as he was, I saw a better purpose for him."
It turned out, all those years ago, Keanu saw that Constantine was barely alive, and initially was going to finish the job once he finally managed to swat away all the butterflies Mariposa flung on him, but then he saw what he believed to be a better use of him. Over the years, it had been rumored that the remains of the doresho gypsies who'd gone into hiding began building new villages in remote areas. If he could find the locations of all of them, he could create a bomb of some sort to wipe out many of them at once. But knowing doresho gypsies were smarter than he would've liked, he knew he wouldn't be able to find their village easily. So, instead of letting Constantine die, Keanu nursed him back to health enough to stay alive and imprisoned him in a secret doresho hunters lab.
For thirty years, Keanu did any method of torture you could imagine to try and force Constantine to reveal the location of any doresho villages. But Constantine, much like his daughter, was a fighter, and refused every time, saying he'd sooner die than betray his family and leave the innocent members of his people to face genocide. Still, Keanu was a stubborn hunter who wouldn't stop until he got his target hit.
"He's a better fighter than I realized, I'll admit. But he won't be able to resist caving once he sees that I have his granddaughter now, not that I will even keep you alive after he does. This universe will be rid of you monsters one way or another."
"You're the monster!" Goldie said. "You don't know anything about me or my mother's kind! She was the one to save your nephew's life! How can't you see that?!"
"I only see the truth, little brat. You're nothing more than a descendant of thieves and liars."
Suddenly, Keanu was thrown off balance by something orange swooping down at him at the speed of sound. Keanu looked around and tried to prepare for whatever it was, only for the orange something to swoop again from behind and throw his jacket over his head, making him let go of Goldie.
"Leave my cousin alone!" Mona exclaimed, kicking Keanu to the ground.
Mona grabbed her cousin's hand and began running with her as fast as they could to get out of the forest, only for both girls to scream as a knife just barely missed them and stabbed a tree trunk.
"You two won't make it out of here alive if I have anything to say about it!" Keanu said, reaching for another weapon, only to be hit by a stun blast and knocked out before he could do anything else. And as he fell down, he was lassoed by some rope that just appeared from out of nowhere and tied up, and his belt of weapons was swiped too!
"Yeehaw!" exclaimed a familiar mare's voice. "Now that's what I call wranglin'!"
Mona and Goldie both looked up to see Crosshair and Hunter riding in on their steeds.
"Hunter!" Mona cried, running into Hunter's arms as he got down from Indira.
"Are you both okay?" Hunter asked, picking up Mona and putting her on Indira's back.
"Shaken up," said Goldie as Crosshair placed her on Maybelle's back. "But alive at least. He was gonna use me as a hostage and then kill me too!"
"Then it's a good thing we got here when we did." Indira said.
Just then, Koa and Akamu arrived.
"What's happened here?" asked the policeman.
"Kidnappin' and intent to kill is what." Maybelle said. "And to on a couple of innocent little girls, no less."
Keanu struggled in the rope as he came to, and demanded that his nephews untie him.
"Can you prove what you're saying is true?" asked Koa.
"Just look into Goldie's memory," said Mona said. "And I'm a witness too."
Except, Koa didn't know how to cast that spell, so Maybelle helped out with that.
"The royals ain't the only ones Garrett's given lessons." said the country musicorn.
It hurt Koa that he had to do this, but seeing the proof, he had to do his job, off-duty or not.
"I'm sorry, Uncle Keanu. I have to place you under arrest." said Koa, getting out handcuffs and placing his uncle in them.
"You brought handcuffs to our luau?" Akamu said.
"A good officer is always prepared."
"What?! You don't know what you're doing!" Keanu said. "I was doing this galaxy a favor."
"Tell it to the judge. Besides, if a maricamba saved my brother's life and gave us such a sweet niece like Goldie... how big a threat can they really be?"
Koa took his uncle away, and Akamu ruffled Goldie's hair.
"You okay, kid?" he asked.
"Yes, Uncle Akamu." Goldie said. "Wait a minute. Where's my mom?"
"Minka's looking after her." Hunter said. "Apparently, Keanu tried to get her too."
Goldie didn't hesitate to make Maybelle run and get to her mom.
Minka, with a little help from Shmi, bandaged Mariposa's arm. Minka also did a full check on Carmine, who quickly found himself unable to even speak, which Minka diagnosed was a simple case of losing his voice from straining his throat on the Sonar Wave.
"Can anything be done?" Shmi asked Minka.
"Right now, vocal rest and some herbal teas with honey for the next few days will help him." Minka said, putting her medical tools away. She was a doctor who liked to be prepared for any time a patient may be in need. "His throat doesn't look too bad, so I estimate three to five days at most."
"Don't worry, Carmine." Susy said, holding Carmine's chin. "If you just rest your voice, it'll return in no time."
Carmine gave a simple nod.
"What about Mariposa?" Garrett asked, looking worriedly at his wife.
"It looked pretty serious, but it was just a flesh wound." Minka told her brother.
"Mommy!" Goldie exclaimed. She ran over to hug her mom. "Are you okay?"
"Don't worry, Oruguita. I'm fine." Mariposa said. "Wounded, but fine. I'm just glad to see you're okay."
Garrett hugged his wife and said, "This is all my fault. I should've thought about my uncle. He's always been the most prejudiced, but I never thought he'd actually do this to his own family."
"He should just be glad I'm not nearly as violent as my sisters." Mariposa said. "Especially after what he did to my father all those years ago."
"Um... Mom?" Goldie said. "There's something I need to tell you."
"What?"
Goldie explained to everyone that when Keanu captured her, he foolishly revealed to her that his plan was to use her as a hostage to make her grandfather spill the location of other doresho gypsies, and then kill her once he had what he needed. At first, Goldie didn't believe him, but he also spilled that he hadn't actually killed Mariposa's father, but kept him alive still trying to make him talk.
"My father's alive?!" Mariposa exclaimed in disbelief.
"How do you know he isn't just lying to lead you into a trap?" Gabby asked.
"She does have a point," said Qui-Gon. "Koa? Would you mind if Lamenta-?"
"No problem, your majesty." Koa said.
Lamenta touched Keanu's shoulder and read his mind. Sure enough, she found that Mariposa's father was indeed alive, and she even got a location to where he was being kept, as well as a few other maricambas he'd captured.
Mariposa rushed over to the location where Lamenta had said Keanu's lab was located.
Qui-Gon kicked the door right down, while Anakin destroyed the security system with his lightsaber, and once they got inside, no one could believe what they saw.
The whole lab was filled with all kinds of scary-looking devices and science experiments, like a mad scientist's lab in a scary movie or something. It was also very dark and chilly in there too. And in the far end of it, Mariposa spotted what looked like jail cells, and there inside, there were three maricambas in chains Mariposa had never seen before, a mother with a young boy and a girl, and one older one with graying brown hair and a long beard Mariposa almost didn't recognize.
"Papa!" Mariposa exclaimed, rushing over to the jail cell. And casting a powerful spell to blast the bars out of existence and then entering to get the chains off all the prisoners.
"You're free now," said Kara. "Don't worry. We're here to help. Carousella, Crescent, get these three somewhere safe."
Carousella and her brother grabbed what pieces of cloth they could find and wrapped them around the other prisoners to hide their wings until they could get them to safety.
Mariposa did not hesitate to break the chains on her father, who collapsed to the floor weakly. The poor man was very weak and looked like he hadn't had any water for a while.
"Someone, get some water! Now!" Mariposa called.
Gabby cast a little spell and conjured some cool water for Constantine to drink while Mariposa checked him over to see if her father was okay. He was bruised and scarred in a lot of places, potentially in places she couldn't even see. Luckily, this time Gabby was right here to kiss and make it better. Constantine was breathing slowly and tiredly.
"Papa? Papa, I'm here! It's me, Mariposa." Mariposa said. "Can you hear me?"
Constantine slowly opened his eyes, his vision a little blurred.
"Mari? Mari?"
"Yes, Papa. It's me."
Constantine looked again and slowly smiled when he saw the woman in front of him was in fact his daughter.
"Mari...you did make it. You're so big now."
Mariposa had happy tears in her eyes as she hugged her father for the first time in over thirty years.
"I can't believe it. All these years…I thought you were dead."
"I feared the worst all this time too. Not a moment went by I wasn't praying I would get to see your face again even just one more time. You've hardly changed."
"Growing up isn't the only thing about me that's changed."
"For one thing, she's married now." Garrett said. "To me, Garrett Heartwood. Pleased to finally meet you, Mr. Morphina."
Constantine was surprised to see that his daughter's husband wasn't a maricamba, but at the same time not too surprised. Mariposa was a real beauty inside and out, and he always had faith that she would attract a lot of men, though he wasn't certain she would meet anyone worthy of all she had to offer. He chuckled and was happy to meet the lucky man to have married his daughter.
"Call me Constantine." Suddenly, Constantine was feeling a lot better seeing someone had been around to take care of his daughter when he couldn't.
"Mommy? Is he gonna be okay?" Goldie asked.
"Mommy?" Constantine said, confused for a moment, and then he was happy when he realized what this meant. "I have a granddaughter too?"
"Two, actually." Mariposa chuckled. And she introduced Goldie and Mona. "This is our Goldie. And this is Mona...Marianna's daughter."
"Your sister is alive too? Where is she?" Constantine asked.
The others were hesitant at first.
"That's a long story." Garrett said. "For now, we best get you and everyone else out of here."
The rest of Garrett's family was glad to see he was alright after being released from clavatization, and there were quite a few apologies that had to be said. Cho felt bad about having to lie all these years about not being a doresho gypsy/maricamba, and even more that he and Lisa had to force the triplets to hide it as well. Garrett's siblings also found some good points in why they were wrong about them. For one thing, Nani was married to someone a different race than her, and her parents gave their blessing to their marriage, and Kuko was from a totally different island than the Heartwoods', yet they also gave blessing to him marrying Minka. So, why should they not accept that Akamu, Lisa, and Garrett fell in love with maricambas?
Cho never did anything wrong, and the family loved the triplets long before they ever had wings, so why should that change now?
"I hope you can come to forgive us, Mariposa." Mr. Heartwood said. "Our son chose well. If it weren't for you, he might not even be here now. And, for that, we thank you."
"Perhaps doresho- maricambas aren't all as bad as we initially thought." Mrs. Heartwood said. "And we would still very much like to help with Goldie's future in any way we can."
"I appreciate that," said Garrett. "I still hope you can come to realize that teaching is a respectable career too."
"It's true." Mariposa said. "If it hadn't been for his teachings, the royal family might not have been able to defeat him as Tropi-Callous so quickly."
"You really should try reading some of his books, Mom and Dad." Mahani said. "They've helped a lot in teaching Miles and Davie a thing or two about controlling their own powers."
"Is that so?" Mr. Heartwood said.
"He's a gifted writer. You should see even the fictional stories he's written."
"Yeah," said Gabby. "Like this one I've been reading called Secret of the Aloha Alpha. It's about a young wizard who finds out he's actually half werewolf and his mother is the queen of the werewolves. That was a great story."
Garrett seemed to get nervous when Gabby mentioned that book.
"Yeah...a great story. That it is, if I do say so myself." Garrett said.
Mr. Heartwood coughed and said, "Perhaps I was wrong about you, Garrett. You've become far more intelligent than I. And from what Mariposa told us about your past, I've come to realize you've become very respected in your career and changed lives beyond what I could do simply selling beach gear. If Goldie is anything like you and her mother, she certainly has a bright future ahead of her, and I hope that we may be a part of it if you would allow it."
Goldie looked up at her father with pleading eyes. Despite what happened before, Goldie didn't want to kick her grandparents out of her life just because of one mishap right after she'd finally gotten to meet them and the rest of her family.
"Of course, Dad. I don't need my degree to know that Goldie deserves to have her grandparents in her life, especially after being denied knowing them for almost seven years."
Sad as it was, Garrett did have to return home with the royal family two days later.
Garrett shared a big hug with each of his siblings before he left though, and Goldie with all her cousins.
"You'll come back to visit, won't you?" said Mahani.
"Of course, I will." Garrett said. "We're ohana, and family means no one gets left behind or forgotten."
"We'll write lots of letters," said Goldie after getting everyone's numbers on her phone. Three days was not nearly enough time to finish catching up with her long-lost relatives, and she was going to waste no time continuing to make up for lost time. "And facetime lots too."
"It was such an honor to have your family come along," said Nani to Padme. "Feel free to come back and visit us too. Any family of my brother's is family to me."
"Thank you so much, all of you, for welcoming us." Padme replied. "I'm only sorry it took so much trouble to finally bring you all back together again."
"I actually should be the one thanking you," said Garrett. "I may have taught you a lot about spell casting and other things, but you all taught me to remember one other important lesson. Running and hiding from my past didn't make the bad things go away. The only way to truly mend the wrongdoings of the past is to confront the problem face-to-face. And I wouldn't have had the courage to do so without all your help. Thanks to all of you, I finally feel like I've regained a piece of me that I've been missing for a long time. For the first time in years, I feel whole again."
The royal family was touched to hear Garrett say those things.
Luke babbled and reached over for Garrett, prompting Anakin to pass him to Garrett, the baby boy hugging him.
"There's one thing that definitely hasn't changed," chuckled Kaia. "Garrett's always been popular among the little ones."
"A fitting quality for a good teacher," smiled Shmi.
It was time for the royal family to head home, so everyone gave one final goodbye to the rest of the Heartwoods and got onto their ride home.
The whole family had a great time on their short tropical vacation trip. Not only did they reunite two families, stop another clavatized villain, and lessen the number of doresho hunters at large by one, but perhaps increased hope that maricambas would be able to roam the galaxy freely again without being hunted or treated as monsters.
"I'm so proud of you, Garrett." Mariposa said, kissing her husband's cheek. "And I feel very blessed that Goldie and I were finally able to be accepted into your family."
"You have no idea how happy it makes me that they came to accept you too." Garrett smiled.
Suddenly, Anakin got a call on his phone from Ahsoka. And he answered it.
"Hey, Snips." Anakin said. "Really? Sorry, we were dealing with a clavatized villain and couldn't really get to a phone then."
However, Anakin's expression quickly turned to one of shock when he stopped to listen.
"Wait, what? Really?" He listened again. "You found what?!"
"What?" Kara said. "What is it, Anakin?"
"I'll be there soon. Fill me in when we get there." Anakin said before hanging up.
"What did Ahsoka say, Dad?" Boba asked.
"You're not gonna believe this," said Anakin. "But apparently one of the horses has a connection to the Force."
That had everyone flabbergasted! None of them had heard of any quadruped species being able to use the Force, though animals did have the capability of feeling it. Still, none of the Jedi could've anticipated a horse having power over it.
"Did she say which one?" Qui-Gon asked.
"Yes, she did." Anakin nodded.
"Which one?" Lamenta asked.
"Well..."