by DM Fike
Five pinpoints of light formed around Braellia: silver, brown, blue, red, and yellow. “Her Guardians were born of both powerful Aossi and of humankind. Like all Guardians, they vowed to protect her ’til death. They prepared for any number of scenarios, since many people yearned for the Indulia—the ability to wield all five magical elements. Everyone knew Kryvalen, the last dragon and dark magic caster, had his sights on the Child.”
Ladybug paused, a dark shadow on her face. “But they didn’t predict Nobody.”
The water displayed Nobody jumping into view, dragging Braellia toward Mt. Hornley. “My brother, in his bid for personal power, gave Braellia over to Kryvalen. When he did, he set a series of events in motion that he never could have predicted.”
Avalon watched in horror as a massive black dragon formed in the water’s foam. He towered above a frantic Braellia, clutching a statue made of jade to her breast. Easily twice the size of any dragon Avalon had ever seen, it was clear this creature moved with a measured intelligence. Braellia fought him, lightning erupting from her fingertips, ice forming up the dragon’s scales, but to no avail. He shoved Braellia into this very pool inside the Temple of the Heavens. Then, placing one claw over her, he held her face down in the direct center of the pool. Green fire erupted all over her. She convulsed as the eternal flame morphed into a sick, oily black. It seeped from her body, slithering up the dragon’s claw and limb until it pierced the scales just above the dragon’s heart. The dragon writhed in pain but accepted the influx of flames, keeping Braellia’s head underwater until he completely absorbed the entire mass of energy into his own. By the time he lifted his claws from Braellia’s lifeless husk, his own eyes burned with green fire.
The scene shifted. Dragons like the ones from the island swarmed like locusts over Llenwald, covering fertile lands with their fiery breath, their tornados, their mudslides. Ladybug continued her story, sweat forming on her brow. “Kryvalen re-created his race of dragons and laid waste to everything in his path. He meant to kill everyone—human or Aossi—as revenge for his fallen people during the First Reformation. He wanted to create a utopia solely for his new dragons.”
The pool then focused on Kryvalen’s fiery green eyes. “But Braellia lived on, inside of Kryvalen, part of him now. She fought him at every turn. She was forced to use her magic, Gaea’s magic, at his command, and his command was to destroy everything, to pay back all of Llenwald for killing off his kin.”
Avalon shuddered at the scenes that flashed inside the pool. A lightning dragon blasted a horde of fairies out of the sky, their charred bodies falling into rocky terrain below. An ice dragon ripped apart a dwarven mountain, rending bodies in half in its wake. An earth dragon buried human villages, thick sludge raining down on the poor victims attempting to flee. Avalon almost couldn’t bear to watch as a wind dragon cornered a tribe of gremlins on a seaside cliff, their backs to the ocean. The gremlins tried to set up a dark magic bubble around them, but their shield had a fatal flaw that an earth dragon discovered by crumbling the ground beneath them. As gremlin bodies began to tumble, one gremlin rose above the rest, morphing into a crow and clawing at the earth dragon’s face. More gremlins morphed into birds and animals, picking at the two dragons while the rest fled, teleporting in and out of the woods away from their pursuers. Most of the tribe escaped unscathed, save those few animal-transforming gremlins who fell underneath a flurry of wind, broken earth, and claws.
Ladybug shifted, pale now as well as weary. “This is when Gaea came to me. She visited me in my dreams after my father died, asking me to end this violence. Even though a Child of the Statue still existed inside Kryvalen, she knew she would have to break tradition and create another to contain the first. She told me it could cost me everything, but the more death I saw, my life’s worth shrank anyway.”
Avalon’s heart stopped. “That’s not what Nobody told me. He thinks that Gaea forced you to be a Child of the Statue to atone for his crimes.”
Ladybug gave a mirthless laugh. “Nobody always makes it about him, but he’s wrong. I chose to help Gaea. I wanted to stop the war.”
Ladybug slapped her hand across the water, changing it back to the massive dragon inside the Temple of the Heavens. In front of him stood Ladybug, holding the statue high like a flag, standing on the surface of the pool, her feet above water. The Guardians flanked her in a semi-circle pattern, a green light very much like the one that raged inside Bedwyr’s eyes glowing all around them.
“The Guardians and I confronted Kryvalen, here in this very temple. He was at his most powerful in the Temple of the Heavens, surrounded by Gaea’s power, but also at his most vulnerable with the statue nearby and this pool, a gateway to Gaea herself. We used it to our advantage. We banded our powers together and drew the Indulia and Braellia back, attempting to seal her soul back inside the statue and release her from Kryvalen for good.”
The reflection of Ladybug in the water directed the Guardians’ green light straight at Kryvalen. It struck him on the shoulder and spread all over, swirling in a dizzying fractal pattern. Then it pulled backward, drawing the green flame out of Kryvalen: through his eyes, his mouth, even in a stream right above his heart. All that energy formed a new line, back into the statue in Ladybug’s hands.
“We thought we had won.”
With almost all of the eternal flame fading from Kryvalen’s eyes, the dragon’s limbs lurched unnaturally like a puppet on a string. He attempted to spit fire, but it sputtered out as smoke. His ice melted into puddles almost instantly. Roaring, he reverted to his dark magic, turning the Guardians’ stream of green light into an oily black. This caused Ladybug and the others the first bit of struggle as they engaged in a tug of war of magic flowing between them.
“We were wrong.”
Even with this last-ditch effort, Kryvalen struggled to get the upper hand. He screeched, a horrible cry as the Guardians ripped the last of the oily black flame from his body. In his death throes, he launched himself onto Ladybug, striking the only thing within distance. She stumbled backward into the line of Guardians, and they toppled outside of the pool’s edge. The statue itself tumbled onto the water’s surface, not sinking. It glowed alive with almost all of the Child’s light, strands of it floating around.
Using his final strength, Kryvalen bore down directly on the statue. His sharp teeth bit into the statue, causing it to crack and then explode into an awful light as bright as staring at the sun. In the aftermath, bits of statue hurtled itself across the room, embedded into the walls and ceiling, falling as dust everywhere. Kryvalen’s lifeless corpse hissed as it sank into the pool itself and disappeared.
“You defeated him!” Avalon cried.
Ladybug’s breath was labored now. “But Braellia remained.” The light faded but did not completely go away, instead forming at the edge of the pool into a figure. Avalon’s heart seized as she recognized the ghostly outline of Braellia she had seen inside her own mind dozens of times, scowling across the pool at Ladybug and the Guardians. “She had not been completely absorbed by the statue when Kryvalen destroyed it. Kryvalen had poisoned her, made her unwhole. She had been merged with him for too long and yearned for destruction, for blood. And she had access to the Indulia, all five magical elements.”
“You’d have to fight her now,” Avalon said.
Ladybug shook her head. “Not fight her. We were both Children of the Statue. We could never defeat each other. But I knew she could be contained within the right vessel. With the statue gone, there was only one option left.”
In the pool, Ladybug rose before the Guardians could get their bearings. She screamed as she flung a new fractal line of green toward Braellia. Braellia twisted in agony as it landed inside her ethereal form, but Ladybug did not relent as they struggled. She yelled for the Guardians to help her with the binding. Slowly, the others Guardians stood and relit their own eternal flame. J.T. was the last reluctant member to ignite his magic, but when he did, it finally gave them the leverage to dr
aw Braellia’s essence straight into Ladybug.
Avalon went numb as she understood the implications. “You were that vessel.”
“Aye,” Ladybug whispered.
Braellia’s face twisted in pure hatred as she clashed into Ladybug and faded. For a split second, Ladybug seemed fine. Then she fell to her knees, clutching her head, the green fire in her eyes now.
“I tried to contain her, but it was useless. We were too evenly matched. Kryvalen’s soul was still locked into hers. I would eventually go mad, just as she had.” In the pool, Ladybug turned to the Guardians in absolute misery.
“I had to ask my Guardians to end it. To kill me.”
Avalon gasped. “No! You couldn’t. They wouldn’t.”
J.T. broke down in tears at this request. The other Guardians conferred among themselves. Ladybug continued to plead. She stumbled forward, grasping for Halicia’s sword, wanting to end it herself. Halicia easily wrenched the weapon from her but stared down at a pain-wracked Ladybug, for once her stoic face lined with deep emotion.
Despair wracked the Guardians, but they knew it had to be done. They did not assign only one to perform the task. They all grasped the handle of Halicia’s sword, its tip pointed down toward Ladybug.
“The Guardians murdered you,” Avalon cried.
“They used the Child to save everyone,” Ladybug corrected. “I was willing to pay the price.”
Avalon couldn’t stand it anymore. She had seen too much death and destruction in too short of a time period. Before the five Guardians could plunge the sword into Ladybug’s pain-riddled body, Avalon slapped the water and all the images faded, leaving only her angry reflection behind.
Avalon trembled with rage. “It didn’t work, did it? Bedwyr found this temple and retrieved bits of the statue. We’re right back where we started.”
“It’s worse actually,” Ladybug replied, slouching down on the pool’s edge, too tired to even sit up straight. “Returning Braellia to the statue would have let her soul rest in peace, and then I would have been the next Child of the Statue. Now two Children of the Statue had been killed at once. Our souls could not rest. We floated in eternal limbo, until Bedwyr injected you with bits of the statue. When your body accepted us, you became our new prison.”
Avalon went cold. “What does that mean? Am I supposed to shove Braellia back into me and then kill all three of us to save the world, or something stupid like that?”
Ladybug abruptly stood and turned away from Avalon.
Avalon felt her composure completely drain away. “Don’t you turn your back on me, Ladybug!” she cried. “Answer me!”
“It’s between you and Gaea,” Ladybug said, her voice muffled, as if talking through a thick blanket.
“And how do I go about talking to her?”
Ladybug stood eerily silent.
Avalon glanced upward, Isolde and Kay hovering up above. Isolde looked like she might faint while Kay had grown pale, as if staring death itself in the face.
“Fine!” she yelled at Ladybug. “Abandon me, as always! I’ve got better things to do than play your little mind games.” She took a step inside the pool, hoping that entering the center again would get her out of this creepy place.
It is not a game, a voice that was not Ladybug’s whispered from the gremlin’s direction.
Avalon halted in her tracks. The voice sent shivers down her spine. It sounded like Braellia’s but smoother. Not of this world or any world.
Ladybug slowly turned back around, and when she did, her eyes shone with intense green light. The eternal flame. It ran all throughout her, causing her skin to glow even through her thick cloak. The light gave her a phantom appearance, and she approached Avalon hovering instead of walking.
Avalon found herself unable to move, whether due to fright or fascination, she did not know. But she could still speak. “Are you Gaea?”
Ladybug ignored the question, instead placing her hand on Avalon’s shoulder. Avalon could feel it through her tunic: warm, cold, and with an electric sizzle all at once. You must use the five Guardians once more, she said directly into Avalon’s brain, her mouth not moving. Ladybug opened her free palm and five lights flickered across them: a comforting brown, a swirling silver-yellow, an inky black, a fiery orange tinged with blue, and a searing white.
Avalon shivered right down to its core. “You’re asking me to die, just like Ladybug.”
Ladybug blinked, the green light almost blinding Avalon as it intensified. Braellia is sick.
“You’re sick!” Avalon shot back. “Creating a power that causes so much destruction.”
An emotion flickered across Ladybug’s face. Remorse, maybe? Sadness? I am sorry.
“You’re sorry?” Avalon sputtered. “I never asked for this, never wanted this! You gave me no choice!”
The blank expression returned. I always grant choice. You may always return to your world.
Despair raced across Avalon. This was it? Sacrifice herself so that others could live? Or let everyone here die? Avalon’s stomach flipped.
You can cleanse her.
A dizziness overcame Avalon. It could have been from the sickening conversation, or that strange voice inside her head coming straight from Ladybug, but not actually Ladybug. Avalon stumbled down on one knee in the water.
Ladybug put a second hand on her shoulder, forcing Avalon to gently take a few steps backward. In her nauseated state, Avalon realized Ladybug was sliding her back toward the center of the pool.
You are strong enough, the voice insisted. You can make the right choice.
Then green flame flickered all over Avalon. The light faded from Ladybug’s eyes. Ladybug shot her one last mirthless smile before Avalon completely disappeared.
CHAPTER 21
THE ETERNAL GREEN flame continued to oscillate around Avalon in a coil as the second temple vanished from view. All Avalon could see was that intense light, jamming up her senses and making her heart pound uncontrollably.
“Avalon!”
She heard Kay’s voice, gusts of wind stirring in her gut. “Kay!” she screamed, turning all around, but she could not move past the light. It felt solid somehow, trapping her in place.
A loud thunderclap boomed beyond the light. Then hands grabbed her from behind, pulling her backward with a jerk. The light clung to Avalon before finally letting go. She tripped backward on top of someone else, still staring at the light. Blinking from its luminosity, she realized it formed an enormous column from the center of the pool that shot straight up to the high ceiling of the temple. Boulders and dust sprinkled from above as the light bore a hole in the ground above them. Falling debris would have smashed them if Isolde had not used her magic to fling them aside.
Kay held Avalon by the waist, pulling her out of the pool as he also scrambled out. They crab walked backward over the rim and splashed out of the water. As soon as Avalon climbed out of the pool, the column of light snapped off like a switch. Isolde grunted as she shoved more earth aside.
All three of them stood there breathing heavily, soaking in the aftermath. The temple pool had remained surprisingly untouched, all the chunks of dirt and rock miraculously missing its surface. A softer light remained, a pinpoint of light from the ceiling where the sun’s outside rays cast a faint beam directly into the center of the pool. Avalon lay in Kay’s arms on the floor, both of them completely dry even though they had been immersed in water. Isolde kept watch, hands raised and ready to bat away any other obstacle, although nothing else fell.
Kay gave Avalon one last squeeze before letting her go, distancing himself to examine her from top to bottom. “Are you well?”
Avalon tentatively shook each of her limbs, then bent over her waist, and finished by patting her head. “I think so. What happened?”
“Isn’t that what we should be asking you?” Kay exclaimed.
Isolde lowered her hands. “You walked in a trance to the center of the pool and vanished.”
“You were lost
to us. I—” He paused to take a gulp of air. “We had no idea what to do.”
Avalon remembered the look of panic she had seen on their faces while inside her own mind. “I’m sorry. I heard a voice calling to me. It lured me into my own mind.”
“A voice?” Kay asked.
Isolde’s ears twitched. “You mean Gaea?”
Avalon trembled, recalling Ladybug’s fathomless eyes. “Yes, Gaea and Ladybug.”
Isolde whooped, throwing her fist into the air. “Then I was right! I knew this place had answers, and it makes perfect sense that you would be the key.”
Kay remained subdued. “What did they say, Avalon?”
Avalon hesitated, wondering how to put into words what Gaea had told her about stopping Braellia. She decided to start at a safe point. “They gave me an update on the past. How the Guardians had tried to keep Braellia safe but couldn’t. Nobody captured her, and then Kryvalen absorbed her to wield the Indulia. How Ladybug became the next Child of the Statue and together with the Guardians they defeated him here.” She stopped there, both Kay and Isolde staring at her expectantly for more.
When Avalon kept her silence, Kay pointed out the obvious. “We already knew all that.”
Isolde’s enthusiasm ebbed. “Is that all?”
Avalon dug her hands into her legs, feeling the pinprick of each finger. She couldn’t bear to say that Gaea had asked her to sacrifice herself in order to stop Braellia. She had a choice, after all, and she didn’t want to die.
So Avalon merely nodded.
Both Kay and Isolde mistook her anguish for disappointment. Isolde’s face scrunched up in disbelief. “How can that be all? We came all this way.”
Kay ran his hand through his hair. “It was never a guarantee that we’d find answers.”
“But if not here, then where?” Isolde cried. “Where can we find answers on how to stop Scawale?”
Kay stood. “I don’t know.”
Avalon continued to clench her fingernails into her thighs, wondering how she hadn’t drawn blood yet. Kay noticed and placed his hands over hers. “Don’t be too hard on yourself. You did everything you could.”
