The Secret of the Stone
Chapter 19

The next day we arrived in the city of Eerht where we met with some messengers from Nevele. A merman was with them and he told us that Julian had taken Seala away and was holding her captive. We also learned that because Julian was furious that we had succeeded in rescuing princess Celestia, he had also kidnapped Jailan in revenge and was holding the hounds captive on his mountain. He knew that the resistance, a coalition of free kingdoms had gathered together in Nevele led by Census’s father to thwart his continued advance. Julian was sending invasion armies from another secret base to Nevele for a massive attack on the so called “rebels” meaning us. They had already reached Enin and the gnomes had joined with him. The combined army would reach Nevele in a matter of days and we still had not found the last piece of the casing. I also still had more than a lingering doubt that my powers were still not good enough to help Celestia defeat him, even though Celestia practiced with me every day. To make matters worse she and the captain were not getting along very well and I feared that I had something to do with it. The messengers from Nevele did however come with a present. They left us a flying transporter to reach Nevele more quickly.

“You mean to tell me all this time we’ve been hiking for miles and miles. Why didn’t we have a transporter before?” I complained to Nayr as he inspected the ship.

“Because it would have been easier for Julian to replace us if we had been flying around.”

“And how has that changed now?”

“Now, we are in a big hurry!” He smiled.

“I didn’t even know you had airplanes?” I mumbled to myself.

“Come on Violet!” said Nayr. “We are going to be late.” We headed toward the cottage that we were staying at to join the others for lunch and to discuss what would be our next move.

The rest of the afternoon everyone stayed busy with their assigned tasks. Tem and Josili went into town to buy food. Census, Cordum, Nayr and Celestia were being debriefed by the messengers from Nevele concerning the upcoming battle with the Yar. I sat in on the meeting towards the back of the room but they were talking about people and places that I had never heard of so most of it went in one ear and out of the other. But, one thing was clear, my part was to fight Julian and try not to be obliterated in the process. Cloud was bored too and fell asleep on the floor. I whispered to him that we should leave and we snuck out the back door. The house where we were staying was close to the forest on the edge of town.

“Nevelians,” said Cloud. “They sure are long winded!”

“Yeah, they just kept on saying the same thing over and over again!” I complained.

“We got the gist of it, besides I don’t know what’s more dangerous Julian or being bored to death,” said Cloud trying to justify our abrupt exit. Cloud found some berries in the woods and we sat out on the grass eating them and relaxing out in the sun when Celestia found us.

“Oh, there you are! I have been looking all over for you.” She looked at us and shook her head because we were not busy getting prepared like the others. “Looks like the two of you are enjoying yourselves.”

“Well, I know what I’ve got to do.” I said.

“What we’ve got to do,” she corrected me. “Let’s see what you’ve got!”

“Oh, alright!” I stood up unenthusiastically. I had been quiet content lounging around with Cloud enjoying the sweet red berries. As soon as I was clear of Cloud she shot a pink beam at me. It was so close I could feel the wind.

“Hey, what’s the big idea,” I said not quite ready to start. She then shot at me again! This time running towards me. I stepped back and then ran to the other side putting some distance between us. “Oh, so you want to play like that!” I said returning my own beams of light. We went back and forth sending beams at each other ducking and dodging the attack and almost hitting Cloud a few times in the process.

“Hey watch out!” He complained taking cover behind a fallen tree.

“Sorry Cloud,” Celestia apologized. I used this opportunity to try to get her in the back but she sensed what was coming and did a back flip into the air and landed on a tree limb behind me. Before I knew it I was stunned and catapulted forward. I didn’t realize that the fairies had come back until I heard their annoying giggling.

“Nice shot!” said Josili to my sister.

“Hey!” I complained rubbing my shoulder. “We are supposed to be practicing!”

“And we have a lot of practicing to do little sister! It is only a matter of days before we will face the Yar prince.”

“May we join you?” Tem asked eager for the exercise. He and Josili then flew up into the air.

“I call Princes Celestia to be my partner,” said Josili joining her on the limb ensuring herself a place on the winning side.

“Fine, I’ll be on Violets team,” said Tem. There was a sound of regret in his voice that he had not called dibs on Celestia first. I was annoyed by his lack of faith.

“You don’t have to be on my team. Cloud will be on my team.”Cloud looked as if he wanted to take a nap but he was too worried about getting stung.”

“Cloud is going back to the house!” He said as he headed towards the cottage.

“Come on Violet, we have the advantage. We have fought together before.” Tem tried to sound optimistic.

“Yeah, whatever!” I shrugged off his attempt at sudden loyalty.

“Remember to use the force field Violet. It can save your life,” advised Celest.

“But the last time I used the force field against Julian he was able to break through it.” I reminded her.

“That’s because you were trying to match power with power. You can use your shield to deflect his power. You have to push his power away. I will show you. Tem hit me.”

Celestia generated a shield and Tem shot a beam at her. The beam bounced off and flew into a nearby tree shattering it to cinders.

“Wow! That’s great.” I watched the tree in awe.

“Now it’s your turn.” After getting zapped a few times I began to get the hang of the deflection concept it was really quite easy to accomplish. I hadn’t realize that Cloud and Census where walking by but Celestia spotted them and was watching them to ensure they would be out of the way before we started practicing again. I took the opportunity to get even with her from her earlier shot and I zapped her. Besides that I hadn’t had a shot on her all day. Bull’s-eye right in the middle of her back. She tripped over a log on impact and landed on the ground.

“Yes!” I danced victoriously. “I finally got you!” She looked over to where Cloud and Census where standing embarrassed that they had seen her take a blow but they had only watched briefly and continued walking to the other side of the house. She then rose up with her lip puffed out and zapped me again but this time it was harder than her usual shots I slammed into a nearby tree.

“Well, now we are even.” She said trying to play off the incident.

“Hey what was that for!” I yelled at her. I could tell the hard hit was intentional. Tem noticed it too and came to my defense.

“Yeah, Violet hit you fair and square.” said Tem.

“It was a cheap shot,” said Josili defending her partner. “We were on a break.”

“It was not!” I yelled. “Who called a time out?”

“It was unfair Violet,” said Celestia dusting herself off and trying to maintain her princess posturing.

“You are just mad because I showed you up in front of Census!” I said walking towards her slightly limping because I still felt the effects of the beam.

“Oh, so you were trying to show off for Census?” She replied.

“Uh, oh” said Tem as he and Josili exchanged glances.” Come on you guys, we are just practicing!” He tried to laugh it off but we ignored him.

“Violet, it’s going to take more than cheap shots if we are going to defeat Julian.”

“And you, “I retorted, “shouldn’t let yourself get so distracted, if we are going to defeat him!”

“Distracted! Well you, you…” she stuttered.

“What!” I dared her.

“You come here trying to be me, with my clothes on trying to make moves on my boyfriend!”

“I don’t want your ugly clothes and your boyfriend came on to me, sister!”

“What did you do go through my closet, you just can’t keep your hands off what’s mine.”

“You want your clothes back, here take um.” I took off the cloak and threw it at her.

“Alright come on!” Tem grabbed me by the arm pulling me in one direction and Josili took Celestia and dragged her the other way. I marched off to the other side of the house leaving Tem as Census and Cloud approached us.

“What is going on?” said Cloud. “We heard shouting from the house.”

“It’s all his fault!” said Tem pointing at Census.

“Me?” Census replied.

“I remember when I was dating two sisters once.” Tem reminisced he laughed to himself shaking his head. The captain glared at him insulted that Tem had indicated that he had anything less than honorable intentions. Cloud gave Census a hard look.” That takes guts!” Tem laughed as he walked back to the other side of the house. Census met Cloud’s stare.

“Census I told you before I will not tolerate you doing anything to hurt Violet.” Cloud started in on him.

“I am not trying to hurt anyone, Cloud!” He tried to reassure him.

“All I know is you are going to have to do something about this.” He growled. “They need to focus all their attention on defeating Julian, not each other.”

“I don’t know what to do, I love Celest but she thinks that I am in love with Violet!”

“Well why don’t you tell her!” said Cloud.

“I tried,” he sighed.

“Well, try again!”

“Your right I am going to replace away to fix this.”He said as he went off into the woods to replace Celestia. Cloud took a deep breath.

“Man is a military mastermind, but doesn’t know the first thing about relationships.” Cloud sighed as he watched him enter the woods.