Meanwhile, at a nearby village ten miles from the cottage

The rain was beginning to lighten a little in the villages around the cottage. Mr and Mrs Perkins' car tarpaulin was soaked with water but they, along with Lizzy and her fairy friends, were dry underneath. As they entered the village of New Haven, they saw that even though it was raining, in which many people would not be out, the roads in the village were filled with cars and there were many people on the pavements. What really drew everyone's attention was that the cars were all heading on direction and some people were following with suitcases in their hands. Most people along the pavement were watching them go by with confused looks. However, Mr and Mrs Perkins, Lizzy and her fairy friends knew what was going on, well, just about. They had not seen these things Martin was telling Mrs Perkins about, who had later told her husband and Lizzy, but they knew that whatever they were, they were dangerous.

As their car entered the village, Mr Perkins began looking around for a way around the traffic jam in front of them.

"Right, which way are we to go?" he said to himself.

As he was looking around, Lizzy and her fairy friends, who were sitting either on her lap, her shoulders or in the back of the car, where Mr Twitches and Cheese were asleep, watching the people on the pavement and the cars, who seemed to interested in everything else to notice the fairies even when they were passing right in front of them.

"What's going on?" Rosetta asked as she watched a group of people walk past on the pavement, each carrying a suitcase or two.

"Everyone's leaving," Silvermist replied.

"Where are they going to go?" Fawn asked.

"Beats me," Terence replied.

Tinkerbell, who was sitting on Lizzy's lap, saw a mother walk past with her child, who was about nine years old and who she was holding her by the hand. Her child was asking her mother why they were leaving their home and she sighed sadly. These children here, they had no idea what was going on and they did not know if they would ever see their homes again with what was going on.

Lizzy had also been quiet for the journey. It was obvious she was missing her father. She did not want to leave him earlier on, but he had wanted her go with Mr and Mrs Perkins so she would be safe. He really did love her and, besides, he was going to meet up with them later on tonight in St Angel and Lizzy would be overjoyed to see him again. Sighing quietly, she rested her head against the back of her seat.

Tinkerbell looked up at Lizzy when she heard her sigh and flew up to her and sat on her shoulder.

"Oh, hello, Tinkerbell," Lizzy said lowly.

"Are you alright, Lizzy?" she asked.

Even though it was jingling to Lizzy, she got a vague idea of what Tinkerbell was saying to her.

"Yes, I-I'm fine, Tinkerbell," she replied, trying to sound a bit more cheerful.

Tinkerbell gave her an 'I'm not so sure about that' look and Lizzy sighed. "Alright, Tinkerbell, you win. If you want to know, I'm still worried about my father,"

Tinkerbell placed her tiny hand against Lizzy cheek to try and comfort her as if to say "Don't worry, Lizzy. He'll be fine," and Lizzy gave her a small smile in return.

"Thank you, Tinkerbell," she said. "I'm glad I have you all here. If both my father and you all weren't here, I don't think anything would cheer me up,"

"Right, keep it moving!" a voice barked from down the street and Tinkerbell and Lizzy looked down the road with the other fairies to see a policeman walking along the pavement, shouting at the cars to continue moving up the road. "C'mon, move forward calmly and quickly," he ordered.

"They want to get everyone out of here," Mr Perkins said.

"Yes, I just hope we don't get stuck anywhere," his wife replied.

"Right, keep those guns moving!" another voice barked from somewhere, though this time it sounded more commanding rather than barking like the policeman.

Those in the car, along with several other people in their cars and a few people on the pavement looked right at a small side road that led off from the main road to see a horse coming towards them. Behind it was some sort of wagon that was attached to the reins and attached to the wagon was a large gun that looked to be an artillery piece. About twelve soldiers, six on either side, were walking alongside the horse. Another horse that was pulling a wagon with a gun attached to it was following close behind with another twelve soldiers following that one. Some of the soldiers were carrying rifles. Leading this was an elderly looking army officer.

"Right, some of ya' are gonna 'ave to move over to the left a bit!" the army officer said as he ran ahead into the road.

Mr Perkins, along with the car in front and the other cars behind, moved the car to the left a bit so it was almost half travelling on the pavement to allow the two horse carriages to pass with the soldiers. Lizzy and the fairies watched them pass.

"Whoa!" Fawn gasped, going wide-eyed, which all the others were doing as well.

"Those are big guns," Bobble said.

"D'you think they're going after those things?" Iridessa asked.

"Most likely," Tinkerbell said, landing next to her. "I think there could be a fight coming,"

"D'you think they'll win?" Clank piped up.

Tinkerbell shrugged. "I don't know," she replied.

They watched as the two horses and the soldiers following next to them turned into the main road and began moving up the path from where they had all come from. Then, a large dark green truck appeared from the end of the side street and drove down it and turned into the main road, following the horses and men. Another one followed close behind the first and another one followed after that. As the trucks turned and showed their backs to the people in the street, the fairies saw that each of the trucks was filled with more soldiers, some of them carrying large metallic pipe-like objects with legs attached to them.

"Oh my," Mrs Perkins said as she watched the trucks disappear up the road behind the flow of people and cars behind them. "I hope Martin's okay,"

Meanwhile, with Martin

THUD!

Martin's car bumped as it hit another pothole in the road and almost threw him out of his seat, though he grabbed the steering wheel and managed to keep himself in the car. The rain seemed to be falling down harder where he was and the light wind was blowing some of it into his face. He grunted as another wave of water was blown into his face and wiped it off from him, but was determined to keep going. Even though the rain getting in his face was starting to annoy him, he knew that he had to get as far away from the cottage as possible and get to Lizzy and the others in St Angel as quickly as he could. St Angel was to the north east of London, near a short, but large river that was on the outskirts of the city.

As he drove on, he was hoping that Lizzy and her friends were okay. He prayed that they were far from what was going on hoped that they were out of any danger. The further they got away from the cottage, the better, but even if they were far away, he wanted to be with them to make sure for himself that they were okay.

Locked in his own thoughts, Martin failed to notice a rabbit run across the road.

"AAAAHHH!" he yelled.

The rabbit, revealed by the headlights on Martin's car, squeaked and jumped off the road and into the bushes near a line of trees that ran along the side of the road. At the same time, Martin swerved to avoid it. The tires of the car screeched loudly as he suddenly threw the steering wheel right and it fell over onto its side and scrapped along the paved road to the side. Martin screamed as he tried to pull himself away from the road and stop his head being taken off. Finally, after a few hectic seconds, the car came to a halt and the sudden halt threw Martin out of his seat and into a ditch by the side of the road.

"Ooooowww!" Martin groaned as he sat up and rubbed the side of his head.

That was a close call for the rabbit, but a bad decision and time for Martin. His car was now on its side and it was going to take more than him on his own to pull it back upright. Looking down the back of his jacket and trousers, he saw they were soaking wet and covered with mud.

"Oh no!" he sighed. "I'll have to dry off when I reach St Angel," he said to himself as he got up and walked up the side of the ditch towards his car.

CRASH! Martin yelled and tumbled back into the ditch again to the bottom near a bush. Groaning again, he sat up and brushed a bit of dirt off himself and pulled himself towards the edge of the ditch. When he reached it, he pulled himself up…and gasped and his eyes went wider than ever before in his entire life, though this time through shock and fear.

Towering over him was a machine, a huge machine, something he had never seen before. It was nothing like he or anyone he knew had seen before, in fact he knew nobody had ever seen anything like this before. It was a tripod and it looked like a creature, a kind of monster. It had a large tear drop shaped head, the point being at the back of the head, with two huge neon green eyes on the front. A cylindrical metallic neck came down from the bottom of the middle of the neck to a large mid-section that looked like a tongue that rose, then went down and then rose again with the tip just starting to go down again. Three huge thin metal legs, a little wider than the width of Martin's car, descended down from the mid-section, two on the sides and one from the back, the left leg being the one that had landed on top of Martin's car and now almost smashed it in two. From the front of the mid-section was a large group of metallic ropes that were waving about in mid-air like the tentacles of an octopus waving about in the sea trying to catch a fish. On the top of the mid-section behind the metallic neck was a small dome-like object that rose about six feet from the mid-section. The cylinder ray that Martin had seen in the pit earlier on today was now attached to the side of the mid-section of the monster. The entire thing was about sixty to seventy, maybe seventy five, feet tall and was a silver colour.

Martin gasped again, though this time more quietly, and ducked down in fear as he watched the tripod turn its enormous head left and right as if it were a predator searching for its prey, which, in an ironic way, it was. The tripod was the predator and Martin, if he was to be found, was the prey.

OOOOOORRRRAAAAAAAHHHHHHH! OOOOOOOOORRRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAHHHH!

The noise sent a chill down Martin's back and he backed off towards the bush behind him, trying to keep as quiet as possible so as not to draw the attention of the tripod. He watched as its tentacles waved madly in mid-air as if they were trying to break away from the tripod. Seeing this thing was, in a way, quite amazing, but it was scary as well, very, very scary.

"Get in 'ere, ya berk!" suddenly, a hand grabbed Martin and pulled him into the bush before he had even time to yell. As he looked up, he saw a soldier with short blonde hair and blue eyes looking down at him. The soldier looked a right mess. His dark green uniform was torn at the sleeves, chest and stomach, much of it, along with his hands, face and parts of his hair, was covered in mud, he was soaking wet and he had a small cut on his cheek and another on both of his hands. He looked like he had been in a battle and had fled from it.

"What the…?" Martin gasped as he looked at the soldier.

"Ya lucky ya weren't spotted, mate," the soldier said to him.

"W-w-what is…what is that thing?" he asked the soldier.

"It's one o' them devils from the pit," the soldier answered.

"Did you go and fight them?" Martin asked, looking at the soldier, who nodded.

"Yea, me and me company went out terwards that area when we 'eard of that meteorite, or whatever it was, hitting there earlier. When we arrived and saw it had killed everyone there, we set up and got ready ter fire on it and then that tripod," he nodded out through a small opening in the leaves above them at the machine, which was beginning to move forward down the road, its feet shaking the ground with every step it took, and began emitting the spine chilling noise. A loud crash came from the road as one of the legs uprooted a tree. "Came out an' started firin' at us with that death ray o' theirs. B'fore we knew it, all the 'orses had been killed, all the guns destroyed and half the men I went there with dead. I legged it and found meself 'ere," he concluded. "An' just in time as well," he added.

"Well, thank you," Martin replied. "I went to that pit earlier on today and I only just got away when they started firing at us. One of my neighbours was killed. Now I'm trying to join my daughter and her friends in St Angel and-wait, did you say…one of them?"

"Yea, mate," the soldier replied. "As I was leggin' it, I looked back and saw two more o' those things come out of tha' pit and they started heading terwards the nearby villages and towns. This one must 'ave lost its way or's scouting ahead to clear a path for the others so they can wait for 'elp and-"

"Wait," Martin interrupted. "D'you mean; they-they're g-getting help?" he stammered.

The soldier nodded. "Yea. This meteorite ain't the first to crash. We've been told tha' four have landed in Ireland, one outside Dubli', one near Cork, one near Belfast and one somewhere alon' the Atlanti' coast of Irelan; one's landed outside Glasgow, one outside Edinburgh and one on the northern coast in Scotland, one outside Swansea, another outside a mining village and another outside Cardiff in Wales; and in England, three 'ave landed in Cornwall, two north of London – one o' them being the one you and I wen' to – and the other near Norwich, one near Birmin'ham, one outside Hull, one outside Sout'ampton between there and Portsmout' and one outside Dover,"

Martin could not believe what he was hearing. For a moment, he sat where he was, wide-eyed and overcome with disbelief and shock. Great Britain…it was…it was at war against an enemy that had come from the skies and was landing all over the British Isles. There was no way he could imagine how much panic and fear this new enemy had brought and was to bring. It was hard to think about, let alone truly believe that it was really happening.

After a few moments, Martin snapped out of his trance and began to crawl back towards the road.

"Where ya goin', mate?" the soldier asked him.

"To see if I have anything left that I, or we, might need," he replied.

He poked his head out from the bush and looked down the road to see the tripod had gone, though his car had been smashed up. Along with almost being broken in two, its headlights were smashed, the seat had been torn, the suitcase had been crushed, along with much of what was inside it, and metal below the seats had been crushed as well. The tree the tripod had uprooted was lying in the road, its roots having been torn clean from the soil, which was lying in the road in great piles as well alongside the tree.

"Is it gone?" the soldier asked from the bushes.

"Yes, it's gone," Martin replied.

"Ah, good," the soldier replied and walked out of the bushes.

Martin knelt down by the side of the remains of his car and began to search through his crushed suitcase. The photograph was broken, his clothes were dirty, wet and some were torn and scattered everywhere and some of the pistol cartridges had spilled out, the bullets scattered over the road.

Martin sighed as he picked up the remains of the photograph and dropped it down on the ground. That was a good picture and probably the only thing it had to remind him of Lizzy and now it was gone. He searched through the clothes and found his revolver underneath one of his pairs of trousers with a cartridge next to it.

"Able to salvage anythin'?" the soldier asked.

"Just this," Martin replied, holding up his revolver and the bullet cartridge. "And now that they have tripods, it won't be of much use,"

"Well, its better than nothi'," the soldier replied.

VVVRRRRROOOOOOOOMMMMMMM! OOOOOOOOORRRRRRAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!

The two looked left down the road. That noise sounded close, and the tripod making it probably was as well.

"We better go," Martin said.

"Good idea," the soldier replied and the two went back into the bushes and began to walk down the road.