PART ONE:

SEARCH FOR THE TALISMANS

 

"Jump!! Oops, I meant duck!!!" "Dodge right! No your other right! Oh, that's your left." Marmanelle Yelled. Estella held her orb high and began shape shifting. "Paw Pixie!! What are you DOING?" Marmanelle shrieked, startling Estella in the midst of the complex transformation. "I didn't tell you to shape-shift!" Startled by Marmanelle's shrieks, Estella stumbled through the last of her transformation and came out of it looking ...odd... I think she was trying her latest shift, a Dragon, however it was very hard to tell. Estella had a dragon’s head, her own hair, and a furry, lumpy body.

          "What do you think THAT will do? Scare the enemy to death, or gross me out? Change back!"

Estella tried to no avail so Marmanelle made her sit out. The rest of us were not so lucky. We suffered more bruises than necessary while attempting to look like we were obeying Marmanelle and at the same time using our powers correctly. In the time it took us to defeat ONE small elemental wraith with Marmanelle commanding us, we could have taken on three large ones without her. (Does this come as a surprise?) So we returned to the palace looking like one of the more deformed elemental wraiths no thanks to that idiot marmalade.

          "Marmala- *Ahem* Marmanelle!" The queen yelled looking quite imposing. “What have you done to Paw Pixie?”

          “It’s not my fault, Majesty,” Marmanelle simpered.

          “Oh? Since you refer to them as your pixie’s I just assumed that you had control of what happened to them,” The queen said in a deadly calm voice.

          “It’s her fault,” Marmalade whined, “She tried to shape-shift without my permission.”

          “Hmmm, well the Pixies know best how to use their own power, I think you should let them use their powers to the fullest for the best effect,” Queen Efrit replied in a tone that dared Marmanelle to argue.

          Marmanelle glared at queen Efrit and ran off towards her luxurious quarters to sulk.     

          “Estella why don’t you head down to the infirmary,” Queen Efrit suggested. “Oh, great Marmanelle is back.”

          “So soon? Crud.”

          “Majesty I am composed now,” Marmanelle called as she approached us.

          “She’s like a 3 year old,” I muttered.

          “Oh,” The Queen said striving NOT to sound disappointed. “Well I need to speak to each of you separately, Tarana, follow me.”

          “Wait!” Marmanelle shrieked.

          The Queen sighed heavily and turned around “What is it now?”

          “I should be first IM the leader!” Marmalade shouted.

          “Uhhhmmm,” The queen stammered, “Best for last Marmala- Marmanelle.”

          “Ohhh,” She smiled wickedly and muttered something under her breath that sounded like, “First for worst.”

          After about five minutes Tarana returned smirking and told Levinia that Efrit wanted her. After Levinia came Bruce, Ulani, Janelle, and Heather. Finally it was my turn. I entered Queen Efrit’s office and sat in the large overstuffed chair by her desk and waited for Efrit to speak.

          “Well Elyse, I want you to know that what I’m about to tell you is NOT what I will tell Marmanelle. It’s no secret that I cannot stand the woman but I still have to obey by the laws and give Marmanelle certain freedoms as your leader. However I don’t think it is a good Idea to let her get any more powerful. Unfortunately the wraiths are getting stronger and I need you to be stronger,” The Queen paused

          “How do we get stronger without Marmanelle getting stronger too?”  I asked

          “Well, there is a third form, Ultimate, it allows the Killer Pixies to take on the form of their power,”

          “So Phaedra would be a big flame and Janelle would be a hurricane? What would I be?”

          “You and Ulani should become cold light and warm light, but I’m not sure. Anyway, to get to ultimate you need to find your talisman, on earth. I will be sending you there in two groups, you will be in the first group. Marmanelle will be ‘training’ the others while the first group goes to ‘hunt wraiths in the muckmalade swamps’ so Marmanelle doesn’t have to know.”

          I smiled, “of course Marmanelle would never want to go somewhere as disgusting as the muckmalade swamps.”

          “Exactly, before you go I have one more thing to tell you. I have finally developed a new key, It doesn’t require a channel and the knowledge stays with you, it just takes a vast amount of energy. After using the key of learning you could be out of commission and asleep for days, depending on how much info you received.” The queen took out a small box from her desk drawer. She opened it to reveal a simple key. It had two prongs at one end and a clover shape at the other. As exited, as I was to get this new key I was still worried, Phaedra would be mad that I got both keys.

“Uh, Majesty? Could Phaedra have my old key? She won’t be happy if I have them both,” I suggested

 

          “Certainly, good idea,” The Queen replied as I pulled out the old key of knowledge.

          “Is there a way I could get my crest off the old key and put it on the new one and put a flame on the end of the key of knowledge?”

          “Yes I can do that, wait here.” The Queen said as she hurried into another room and returned about five minutes later holding the two keys. She handed me the one with my crest on it and- put my old key in the box that had held the key of learning. It looked like it had before except on one end there was a flame burning It gave off no heat or light but it looked like a flame. The Queen explained how to work the new key and then dismissed me, "Go get Phaedra please.”

          When I got out to the hall and told Phaedra the Queen wanted her, I noticed Marmanelle had changed into a ball gown.

          “Why were you in there so long?” She demanded, “What is that?” she asked noticing the key I held in my hand.

“Uh, it’s the key to my room,” I stammered.

“Why do YOU get a key to your room?”

“Errrrrr, because I want to keep Phaedra out,” I might not have used Phaedra for an excuse but she wasn’t there so she wouldn’t give it away. I didn’t want Marmanelle to know about either key, it’s just not the type of thing you tell a tyrant like her ‘I have an object that gives me special powers and you don’t!’ NOT a good idea.

“Why are you wearing that?” I asked to change the subject, gesturing at her dress.

“One must wear proper garments for an audience with the Queen,” She sniffed eyeing my simple tunic with distaste. After a while I began to wonder why people were all just standing there, I was bored so I decided to leave. BAD idea.

          “Now what are you doing? You can’t leave until I do!” She pouted.

          “Oh well I just remembered Efrit told me to tell anyone who’s seen her to go to their rooms and clean up for dinner.” I lied.

          “Ohhhhhhhhhhh,” Marmanelle wined as most of us ran off down the halls.

          “Efrit must have known Marmanelle was keeping us there,” Levinia said gleefully as we made our way to our portals.

“Actually I lied, Queen Efrit didn’t say anything.”

 

We all laughed and went our separate ways. Except Janelle, she came to my castle.

“Why’d you have your key out CeeCee?” She asked when we were safely in the parlor.

“Because Queen Efrit gave me a new key,” I explained its properties.

“Oh,” Janelle answered. “Phaedra will be jealous,” She pointed out.

“That’s why I had queen Efrit give her my old key,”

“Hn,” Janelle answered, staring out at the whirling planets through my window.

“What do you think of Efrit’s plan?”

“It might work, do you think Marmanelle will buy it?” Janelle asked her gaze still fixed on the window.

“She’s stupid enough,” I muttered as I glanced out the window. “What are you staring at?” I practically yelled, seriously annoyed that Janelle hadn’t once looked up since we entered the room. “I’m watching Marmanelle,” Janelle answered innocently.

“WHAT??? How?”

“Through the big green planet on the far left.”

I stared at the green planet until the swirling eye caught my attention. There I could clearly see Marmanelle talking to Queen Efrit with an expression of self-righteousness on her face while the Queen looked as if she was trying very hard NOT to laugh at Marmanelle’s stupidity. I was slightly ticked off that Janelle had discovered something about MY palace before I did. I got sick of watching Marmanelle with that annoying expression on her face and turned away. Who needs to watch Marmanelle looking stupid in your spare time when you can do that whenever she’s telling you to do something?

That night I thought about leaving Marmanelle behind and fell asleep with a smile on my face.

Something loud woke me up and I sat up quickly to see some nondescript maid fling my door open. She told me I should get to breakfast in the Queen’s dining hall as fast as I could Marmanelle had an important announcement. “This CANT be good,” I muttered as I got up. Down in the Queen’s dining hall the rest of the Pixies looked about as optimistic as I felt.

“Moon Pixie! You are late!” Marmanelle shrieked at me as I sat down between Phaedra and Janelle.

“Cool,” I muttered sleepily.

Marmanelle ignored me (luckily) and started her announcement. “My Pixies,” she began “Last night I was watching C.D.”

“Don’t you mean TV?” Levinia muttered.

“Oh whatever. I saw the most wonderful show, it reminded me of us nine girls and one boy fighting evil monsters.” Marmanelle said.

  I choked on my toast.

“Yes, it was called Sailor Moon.”

Phaedra went white, then a kinda pasty green.

“So I think we will redesign our uniforms and our name. We will be the Sailor Warriors and all of us will wear these!” She said brightly holding up a Sailor Scout outfit.

“All of us?” Bruce croaked.

“NONONONONONONONO, this is a nightmare a VERY BAD DREAM,” Phaedra cried.

In fact the only one who looked remotely happy (besides Marmanelle) was Janelle.

“You will no longer be pixies you are Sailors. For example you will be sailor flame.” She said to Phaedra who looked as If she was about to strangle herself.

“And you will be Sailor Moon. NO wait! I’m the leader I should be Sailor Moon! You can be Sailor Star. So now we are all Sailor Warriors!”

If Phaedra were the type of person to faint, I’m sure she would have.

Immediately after lunch Marmanelle hustled us out into a large changing room.

“You can change in there,” Marmanelle said to Bruce as she pointed at what I had thought was a closet. She shoved a frilly looking tuxedo into his arms and pushed him into the closet, er, I mean changing room.  She then handed out miniskirts/leotards to the rest of us.

“I won’t! There is no way in this universe that you will get me into one of these!” Phaedra all but screamed.

“Why?” Marmanelle asked, startled, “Is it too tight?” 

"Nooooooooo, Sailor Moon is the stupidest, dumbest most idiotic show on the face of the earth, I WILL NOT dress up like one of them!" (That was Phaedra again)

"I think you have been misinformed.” Marmanelle smiled sweetly.

Phaedra ignored marmalade (Note the intentional absence of a capitol M) and promptly incinerated the offending outfit. Well, she tried to but apparently it was flame proof. 

“Get into that outfit or I will sing the theme song until you decide that Sailor Moon is cool!” Marmanelle shrieked.

“Pleeeze Phaedra! I do NOT want to hear that!” I begged. Janelle and I have (nearly) Perfect pitch and it is Oh So Annoying to listen to someone sing off key. And that was the LAST song I wanted to hear.

Phaedra just stood there glaring at Marmanelle.

“Fighting evil by moonlight…” Marmanelle began in a voice so horrible and of-key that I couldn’t even tell what key she was singing in.

“Okay, Okay! Just SHUT UP!” Phaedra yelled.

Half an hour later, after the first third of the horrible song, Marmanelle had convinced us all to get into our new “uniforms”.

Phaedra looked like she was on the verge of tears while Janelle admired herself in the mirror.

I couldn’t help but take a peek in the Mirror myself. When I did I was amazed. Apparently I had grown about 8 inches and lost a lot of weight since I came here. I gasped and turned to Phaedra who was trying to “accidentally” rip her outfit while putting it on.

“Now my pixies, these outfits are enchanted to make you more beautiful and taller, I would hate to see what some of you would look like” She paused and looked pointedly at Phaedra and I.  I burned with anger. Of course I was shorter than most people in my grade were! I was nearly a year younger than some of them were!

“As long as you are good pixies and obey me, the enchantments will stay. I would hate to see what you would normally look like in one of these.” Marmanelle smiled sweetly, “Well, I think we are all ready, follow me.”

“What about Br- mph! Grg!” Janelle began.

“Shut up!” I hissed, while Levinia covered her mouth. Bruce still hadn’t come out of the closet changing room. He was lucky.

On my way out I passed the mirror again and I couldn’t help but admire myself. I noticed a few of the others doing the same. (Some of you may be confused here… People are admiring themselves because they are tall and skinny (I know I would like to be tall and skinny) They are NOT NOT NOT, (did I say NOT?) admiring the uniforms).

 

Our first battle as Sailor Warriors came the next day. Queen Efrit had fallen ill so Marmanelle received the call.

“Sailors! Transform!” She yelled.

“We all looked at each other.” How would we transform? Then I was struck with a horrible thought. I gulped and muttered quietly (So a: If I was wrong no one would laugh and b: I didn’t want to say that horrible phrase out loud)

“Star pixie power?” After a 20-second transformation with so much spinning that it made me sick, I collapsed on the floor of the grand hall as Sailor Star. Everyone stared at me.

“Are you OK?” Janelle asked. I nodded and every one else muttered their transformation phrases. Actually Janelle yelled, “HURRICANE PIXIE POWER!” and went through a long transformation. Does it come as a surprise that she was the only one who wasn’t looking sick? (Other than Marmanelle) I got to my feet and was instantly seized my Marmanelle. I squeaked in fright (I tend to do that).

“Now Sailors, look at Sailor Star here! She was smart enough to figure out how to do it! I’ll put you second in command! And you! Sailor Hurricane, Since you are the only one who transformed with and grace or enthusiasm, you are third in command.” I blushed angrily to a color that Levinia refers to as “That brilliant shade of magenta”.

 

The trouble turned out to be three of the biggest, most disgusting monsters I had ever seen. They were wreaking havoc in a small fishing village. Marmanelle gagged when she saw them.

“Agh! Sailor Star! What do I do? Their ugliness is over powering me!”

“Well, you can hide in that little shack and I’ll take over,” I suggested. She smiled a sappy, grateful smile and retreated. I made a face at her retreating back. “Okay! Levinia, Janelle, and Bruce team up! Heather, Estella, Tarana, you’re a team. And Ulani, Phaedra and I will take the third one.”

We split into teams, none of us noticed that Janelle and Levinia were battling without Bruce.

I will not describe the next part because we all had to yell our attacks to give them full power and I really don’t want to go through that. Finally, when the creatures were nearly defeated Marmanelle burst out of the shack, yelled a bunch of stupid words, and disintegrated them.

“I made it so only I have the power to actually kill the things,” Marmanelle said haughtily. She looked around. “Hey! Where is that stupid blue kid?” She asked.

We all glared at her. Bruce had been very lucky to miss this.    

  

Back at Efrit’s palace, we all de-morphed and headed back to our palaces.

“Stop!” A wonderfully familiar voice yelled. Queen Efrit stood on the stairs glaring at Marmanelle. “What the he** is going on here?” She demanded. “I walked into my closet and found that somebody had locked liquid pixie in there with the most god-awful outfit I ever had the misfortune of laying eyes on!”

“I changed their names and uniforms, they are now the Sailor Warriors.” Marmanelle answered.

“That is the dumbest, stupidest, most idiotic thing I have ever heard!” Efrit yelled, “Change them back NOW!” (Did you notice that Efrit used the same three words to describe the show as Phaedra did?)

“Majesty they are MY sailors and I’LL decide what they are called and what they do!” Marmanelle growled.

“If these people belong to anyone they belong to ME! You are their poor excuse for a leader not their owner, If you come up with anything as stupid as this EVER again I will use every bit of authority I have over you to remove you from your position.”

Phaedra looked ready to hug her and Janelle looked slightly crestfallen. Marmanelle looked really mad, “You CANT!” she yelled and ran from the room. Ahhhhh peace at last. I relaxed and headed back to my palace.

 

 

 

After breakfast the next day we walked out into the hall and saw a huge Piece of Parchment

“Oh you have found my list,” Queen Efrit said as she came out the dining hall door.

“A list? What’s it a list of?” An all too familiar voice called.

“Marmanelle is goanna flip when she sees we aren’t in her ‘classes’,” I whispered to Phaedra.

“I wonder why,” Phaedra answered.

Seconds later we were proved correct. “WHAT!? Why aren’t Flame and Moon in my classes?”

I winced; I seriously dislike being called Moon.

“That is my decision and none of your business,” The Queen snapped. “Elyse, Phaedra, please come to my study, I need to get away from Marmanelle.” She turned back to Marmanelle, “You, are depriving a village somewhere of an idiot.” She said and turned away. We all cracked up at the dumbstruck expression on Marmanelle’s face, apparently the Queen had lost all patience with Marmanelle since the incident the other day.  Phaedra and I hurried to follow the Queen while the rest of the Pixies complained about how we were grouped.

“I suppose you are wondering why you aren’t in the classes?”

No, I thought, I’m just thankful.

“Well I think you two should both be in both groups that go to earth, It’s because of your keys, you will need them to find the talismans.”

Phaedra and I exchanged looks. Yes we were happy about this, but the others are not going to be. “Is there no way to find the Talismans without the key?” I asked.

“Well its possible the keys just make it easier.”

“Then we are only going with one of the groups,” Phaedra told Efrit.

“Well I suppose you can go with the smaller group if you want to.” She said after several seconds. At first I was afraid she would say no.

“But I have just one question,” She added

“What?” Phaedra and I asked in unison.

“Why the heck would you give up the chance to get away from Marmanelle’s classes?”

 

We left the study and headed back into the hall.

“Well? What did the Queen tell you?” Marmanelle asked as we returned.

“Uh, Sahfaeddae, wsaed wsbaeny Eed Aeztjdaheef dahwsaern.” I called to Janelle in the one language I could be SURE Marmanelle wouldn’t know.

“What did you say?” Marmanelle said, narrowing her eyes.

“Er, I was gargling.” I lied.

“Well stop, it sounds horrible. And you still haven’t answered me, what did she say?”

“That you were an idiot and she did it just to annoy you,” Phaedra said happily.

“Well, I’ll see about this!” Marmanelle growled as she scuttled off towards Queen Efrit’s office.

 

Phaedra pulled out a pen and changed the listings.

   

 

First shift of classes

Bruce

Heather

Ulani

Estella

Second Shift of Classes

Levinia

Janelle

Tarana

Phaedra

Elyse                

                                    

So all the pixies (Marmanelle doesn’t count) were satisfied.

That evening, the first group left. We all gathered at the Main Portal and Queen Efrit set the portal to earth.

“Well, are you all ready?” She asked.

“Wait!” I called as a thought struck me suddenly. “Will we be able to become Killer Pixies on earth?”

“Yes, but you wont, look any different once you change.” Efrit said, “Now into the portal.”

“Bye guys!” I called to Bruce, Heather, Estella, and Ulani. Once inside I had the sensation that I was falling very slowly. I couldn’t see anyone else, but all around me there were swirling colors blending together in a constantly changing pattern.

I landed with a thud on my own bed in the middle of the night, Chris sat up.

“What’re you doing?” She muttered sleepily.

“WOW! I just had the weirdest dream about my friends and I, we were like these pixie people and we had these powers, and, Chris? Hey I was talking to you! Wake up!”

I looked out the window and saw that the moon was full.  I rolled over to go to sleep when something poked me in the ribs.

“Ow!” I reached down and picked up a key. Thinking nothing of it, I rolled over and went to sleep.

 

The next morning Janelle called.

“Hello you have reached 765-4321, please leave a message at the tone. Thank you.” *BEEP*

“Hell-o this is Janelle…” a sing song voice came on over the answering machine.

I picked up the phone, “Hell-o, this is CeeCee,” I said in a kinda mocking voice. 

“CeeCee, I had a really strange dream last night.” Janelle said.

“Really? I did too!”

“Well in my dream I was Sailor Moon! And all of you guys were the other scouts! Then some grouchy queen person got mad and made us become ordinary people. Then she banished us from her kingdom!” Janelle said.

“Er…” was all I could think to say. I did remember something similar to that in my dream but not exactly the same.

“But this morning when I woke up, it was really windy, and it sounded like someone was talking in the same voice that the grouchy queen had. That’s weird how what’s going on while you’re asleep can effect your dreams.” Janelle continued.

“Yeah…” I said slowly. “Oh, I’ve gotta go, I’ll call you later.”

“Bye!”

 

I sighed, ‘I have the strangest friends.’ I thought. But I couldn’t help but remember how similar part of Janelle’s dream was to mine.  As usual, I completely forgot to call Janelle back. Later that afternoon Phaedra called.

“Hello you have reached 765-4321, please leave a message at the tone. Thank you.” *BEEP*

“Elyyyyysssse, buy a fuuuton at the fuuuton shop. Uh hello? This is Phaedra. Elyyyyysssse, hello-o? Are you home? Okay Elyse, pick up the phone or I’ll hang up!”

“Hello!” I cried as picked up the phone.

“Hi, Elyse?”

“Hi.”

“Is this really Elyse?”

“yes.”

“Okay, what’s up?”

“The sky,” I answered just to annoy her.

“I shouldn’t bother to ask,” She muttered. “Has Janelle talked to you at all today?”

“Yes.”

“Did she er, tell you about her ‘Dream’?”

“Yes.”

“Did she tell you about hearing ‘voices’ in the wind?”

“Yes.”

“Well?”

“Well what?”

She sighed angrily, “Don’t you think that’s a little strange?”

“Yes.”

“Will you stop saying that?”

“Saying what?”

“Okay, I am seriously going to hang up!”

“Okay, bye”

“Grrrrrrr…”

 

***

The next day was Tuesday (we had Monday off). The lunch table was pretty empty that day.

“Where is everyone?” I asked.

“Estella and Ulani went to a two week long camp. Bruce went too.” Phaedra explained.

“They’re lucky.” I muttered. I did not like math this year. Gr… I’d better not get started on it.

“Hey you guys, I had the strangest dream last night,” Levinia commented, “I was this weird pixie type thing, and this b****, (Author’s Note- I originally based Marmanelle off of someone I hate, I would really like to call her a b**** to her face. Grrrr…)

Anyway, Levinia was saying, “I was this weird pixie type thing, and this b****, called Marmabelle or something like that, made us all dress up like the characters from Sailor Moon.” She shuddered. “The last part of the dream that I remember, is when this woman told the Marmabelle thing to change us back to normal people. It was so weird.”

Phaedra and I stared at her for a moment.

“Oh my god, I had almost exactly the same dream!” I exclaimed as Phaedra said just about the same thing at the same time.

“Hey! I had a dream kinda like that!” Janelle exclaimed

She explained what she had told Phaedra and I to Levinia. The four of us stared at each other for a few moments.

“Maybe we should call Tarana,” Phaedra suggested.

 

***

 

The next morning my mom came in and woke me up for school. I sat up and fumbled for my glasses.  I walked out into the living room and noticed that I had also grabbed the key that I had laid on the night I had the weird dream. I looked at it closely and noticed a sun and moon crest at the top of it. I remembered there being a key like that in my dream. I did not remember having one before the dream, could it have been real?

The minute I thought of that, everything came flooding back to me. The first two thoughts to cross my mind were: ‘Can I make the others remember?’ and ‘The other four are gone at a camp for two weeks, does that mean we only have two weeks to find our talismans?’ Things immediately fit together, like Janelle hearing voices in the wind that sounded like the queen? Janelle could communicate telepathically with the Queen…

At school that morning we were all sitting in Mrs. Kluegel’s room. No one else was there so I decided that now was a good time to bring it up.

“Has anyone talked to Tarana?” I asked.

“Yeah, she had the same dream!” Phaedra exclaimed.

“I thought so. This morning I found a key exactly like the one in my dream and I don’t remember ever having it before. Then all of my memories came flooding back. Guys, that was real, watch,” I said. I had transformed that morning before school to prove it. I held out my hand and conjured a faint moonbeam. Everyone gasped and then fell silent. I could tell from their expressions that they were remembering now.

“I think we have only two weeks to find our Talismans,” I told them.

“We do,” Janelle said. We all looked at her. “I had another dream last night. Queen Efrit told me that we all had two weeks to find the three parts to each of our Talismans.”

“Oh, we’d better tell Tarana.” I reminded them.

“Duh,” Levinia muttered. I glared at her. Just then I got an idea, an evil, wicked, but oh so satisfying idea.

 “Uhm, you guys, I don’t think I’ll be coming to school tomorrow.” I said.

“Why?” Phaedra whined.

“Oh I’ll be here, but I’ll be invisible.”

Phaedra knew what I was planning. I told her once that if I had three wishes the first one I would make was to become invisible so that I could go around and kick all the people I hate without getting in trouble. I had just learned how to do the New-Moon shield that made me invisible.

“Oooh! Pleeeze make me invisible too!” Phaedra begged. I explained my plan to them and they all (With the exception of Janelle) wanted me to make them invisible too. I agreed to do it.

“Wait how would we explain this to our parents?” I asked.

“Duh, Tarana can just freeze their minds. “ Phaedra pointed out.

I passed the rest of the day with an evil little smile on my face.

 

 

 

***

 

The next morning I got out of bed and checked to make sure that Tarana had made all the arrangements. PERFECT!

I took the bus to school and the four of us met in the English room. It was empty once again so I made every one but Janelle invisible.

During science Phaedra, Levinia, and I made trouble. While Levinia dumped acid all over )I am removing names for now cause these are real people...) someone’s paper, Phaedra picked up someone else’s pencils and threw them at Mr. Person’s head.  I took that opportunity make @$$ hole’s desk spontaneously tip over. In the hallway we noticed a perfect opportunity. Some One was walking behind Another Evil Kid carrying a heavy book (HA as if she would even touch a book)

I carefully lifted it up and smacked Evil Kid in the back of his head. Another one of my dreams was fulfilled as I watched his little glasses go flying off his face and through the air.

 

In math, Evil Kid got all the questions wrong on his quiz. I wonder why? Janelle wasn’t lonely, and (thanks to Phaedra) Evil Kid also had a problem with his notebook’s spontaneous combustion.

Ah, English, the subject that expands our vocabulary and refines our reading skills while still managing to keep us simple students enthralled. *COUGH* *HACK* *GASP* *ESCAPED SNICKER*

Evil Kid was in the office trying to explain that he didn’t have any matches to light his notebook on fire with so we found new targets.  Levinia dumped a tiny shock down Ditz’s back and we watched her squirm and wiggle until the Ms. Elfgirl asked if she had to go to the bathroom.  BigDork’s notebook was suddenly thrown to the ceiling, (1/2 an hour of detention).

           

Now to art where Really Stupid had a lot of problems.  He ended up covered in acrylic paint and with a lot of detention.

          We had to eat at lunch so we “borrowed” some fries, with other good and not nutritious food. We headed to pottery next where TreeKisser’s pot ended up with a footprint from Stupid’s shoe in it. She got really mad and threw a ball of clay at Stupid (of her own accord) but we did help aim it so it landed on the teacher’s shoulder.  (That’s what? Four hours now?)

Finally we went to gym. Everyone had a good time because,

Really Stupid

@$$ hole

Stupid

EvilPerv

Bi*ch

AirHead

TreeKisser

 

Were just 7 of the people in my gym class. You’d never know how bad they were at speedball (Not to mention balance and hand-eye coordination) by looking at them. Then again, some of us would. Some times the ball would become steaming hot or really cold and freeze to their fingers so they couldn’t throw it. Other times, people dropped the ball as soon as they touched it due to a large electric shock.

Once the bell rang we spent a while tripping TinyJerk and EilGirl in the hall. Meanwhile Janelle watched with a look of extreme pleasure. (Elyse: There, is Janelle happy now?)

After school Janelle asked me to make her invisible and we went and (literally) hung around in the gym.  There were some people playing basketball but we decided to ignore them. That is until a rogue ball hit Janelle in the head.

*THUD*

“Er, Janelle? Janelle…”

 

***

 

The fourth day we got down to business. We froze some select minds and spent the day at my house trying to decide where to start looking.  Tarana suggested we wander around Stillwater first and then go into The Twin Cities.  After all, Queen Efrit had said that they would be formed from ordinary objects and we would know when we saw them. So we agreed with Tarana and flew to Stillwater. (Under a New-Moon Shield of course) Once there we wandered around aimlessly through store after store until we came to a jewelry store. We were looking around for only three minutes before Tarana suddenly exclaimed, “Oh! What a pretty ring, may I try it on?”

The woman behind the counter looked her over and pulled the ring out.

“Tarana we are not here to shop!” Phaedra hissed.

“Phaedra, Efrit said we would find our talismans in ordinary items and we would know it when we saw them!” I hissed back.

“Uh, Ma’am?” Tarana said with a quaver in her voice that made us all turn to look at her. “There is no jewel in this ring.”

“What?” The woman snapped. She had a pinched face and a grumpy expression. “Of course there is a jewel in there, I just saw it.”

We all looked at her as she pulled the ring off her finger. All the prongs were bent perfectly inwards as if holding a jewel but there was no jewel in it.

The woman looked at it. “I’ll have to fix that,” She snapped. She took the ring with her and walked away. As she passed me I saw her tap the ring and quite suddenly a dark blue sapphire appeared in the empty space. I gasped.

“Oh, gee, look at the time!” I stammered. “We’ve gotta go, now!”

 

“What was that all about?” Levinia demanded once we had left. I told them what I had seen.

“Maybe she’s evil!” Janelle suggested.

“Well she looks like it! With that grumpy expression and her voice ‘Of course there is a jewel in there, I just saw it!’” Phaedra said in a mimicking version of the woman’s cold, condescending, voice.

We laughed and then went to sit on the walkway by the river. Levinia stared at the river wistfully, “I wish Bruce were here,” she sighed. “Then maybe he could make the water clean enough to swim in.”

I cocked an eyebrow at her, “Is that the only reason?” I teased.

“Grrr… DIE!” She yelled. I shrieked and ran away but I tripped over Levinia’s foot and tumbled into the dirty water. Tarana ran over to help me out but she tripped over Levinia who had fallen over laughing, and fell to the sidewalk. Of course she had managed to sprain her wrist.

Meanwhile I was pulling myself back onto the sidewalk when something grabbed my leg and pulled me down. This was one of my worst nightmares; I was too scared to scream.

Luckily Janelle noticed, “Help CeeCee!” She yelled. In a moment of sanity through my panic I cast the New-Moon Shield over all of us. (We could still see each other)

“Hey why’d she do that?” Janelle asked.

“DUH, genius! So no one would see us using our attacks!” Phaedra said.

 “Yeah you pin-head!” Levinia commented.

“Aww!” Janelle put on her pouting face and whined.

“Oh knock it off!” Phaedra snapped.

“Uh, I still need help!” I squeaked before the thing pulled me under the water. I gasped, or at least tried too. I knew that the woman in the jewelry store had looked familiar. I was staring into the face of Minda the Witch!

I thought you were dead! I thought, hoping she was telepathic.

You thought who was dead? Five voiced choused. I recognized them as Janelle, Levinia, Phaedra, Tarana, and Bruce. Wait!

Bruce?

Yeah.

What are you doing here?

I dunno, I just heard someone yelling.

          I would have said more but I passed out from lack of air…

 

“Elyse! Elyse! Wake up!” Some one was shouting. I opened my eyes and coughed.

“What happened?” I asked.

“After you passed out we put a shield around you and then one around the thing. Then Levinia electrocuted it. Are you okay?” Phaedra asked.

“No,” I muttered sarcastically, “Actually, I’m not okay, in fact, I’m quite dead.”

Phaedra’s eyes went wide and worried for a moment. Then she scowled at me. “Oh ha ha, very funny.”

“So, what grabbed you?” Tarana asked.

“It, it looked like Minda!” I exclaimed.

“No Way! She’s gone, why would she be here?” Phaedra cried.

“Hey did anyone else hear Bruce?” I asked.

“Yeah,” Levinia answered, “At least until you passed out. Then we lost the link with both of you.”

“I bet you were disappointed. OW!” Levinia pinched me hard.

 

After Phaedra dried me off with flames (I ended up a bit singed. Hey, nobody’s perfect! Least of all Phaedra, (Just Kidding!))

We continued walking along the river for a while. After only about a minute, Janelle suddenly bent down and picked something up. It was a little silver disk with jagged edges bent up like some strange little bowl.

“Eew! Janelle, put that down,” Phaedra commanded. “Who knows where it’s been!”

“I think it’s part of my talisman,” Janelle insisted stubbornly as she pocketed it.

“Speaking of Talismans…” Tarana commented. She held out her hand and we saw she was holding a small blue jewel.

 

We walked a ways until we cam to some woods. We decided to walk through them until we got lost. Hours later we stumbled into a cornfield. We managed to get lost there too. We had been walking for about twenty minutes when the dark sky suddenly pummeled us with hail that grew steadily bigger. Finally Phaedra set up a heat shield around us so we just got wet, but wet is better than bruised. When the hail got to softball size the heat shield wasn’t hot enough to melt the whole thing so we were showered with water and golf-ball sized hail. Phaedra couldn’t make the shield hotter without frying us non-flame people, so we endured it.

“Oh, wow!” Levinia exclaimed. We looked up to see a piece of hail the size of a basketball falling on us. It was too late to run. It melted to the size of a baseball before breaking through our shield. As if in slow motion, Levinia reached out and caught it. It shrunk a little and then turned clear, like a glass orb.

“I don’t believe it! It’s my Talisman!” Levinia exclaimed.

“A piece of hail the size of a basketball is a ‘normal object’?” I asked.

Tarana shrugged, “Maybe that’s Efrit’s idea of normal.”

Phaedra rolled her eyes, “Probably.”

“Hey, it’s not hailing!” Janelle exclaimed.

“No it’s just thundering!” I squeaked as a huge roll of thunder sounded. I was very afraid of thunder.

 

We finally saw the roof of a red barn at about the same time that Janelle yelled,

“Oh cool! Look, it’s a tornado!” It was also headed straight towards us. We ran for the barn as fast as we could but the doors of the barn were locked. We stared in horror as the tornado drew closer.

“What can we do?” Phaedra wailed.

Janelle pulled something out of her pocket. It was her silver disk.

“Oh, that will help,” Phaedra muttered.

“Shhh! She’s in some sort of trance,” Tarana whispered.

Sure enough, Janelle was in a trance. She held her silver Talisman over her head. Then, as if it were some surreal painting with no concept of distance, the tip of the tornado lifted off the ground and attached its self to Janelle’s disk. It was slowly sucked into the disk until all that remained was a glassy surface with what looked like clouds swirling underneath it, nestled in the silver disk. Janelle pulled out a string and hung it around her neck. Smiling happily.

We all leaned against the barn wall and relaxed. It wasn’t until then that we realized we could have just flown away.

 

So now Levinia and Tarana each had the first parts of their Talismans, Janelle had two parts, and Phaedra and I had none.

 

“Hey, I just had an idea!” I exclaimed.

“What?”

“Well, when I was underwater I heard Bruce, maybe that’s because water is his element.”

“Yeah, and maybe if we flew up closer to the sun, we could talk to Ulani.” I suggested.

“Yeah, and if anyone back in the KP Realm want’s to talk to me, they just have to get struck by lightening!” Levinia exclaimed.

“Hey, lets try that!” Phaedra cried. The sky was still overcast so we flew up above the clouds and Janelle conjured up a zephyr for us to sit on.

Ulani, hey Ulani!  I called out experimentally.

Whaa! Who’s there?! Came Ulani’s frantic thought. We all grinned.

Ulaniaaaaa, this is your conscience speeeeeeaking…. Phaedra called.

Oh ha ha Phaedra, I know that’s you. But how can you talk to me?  

We’re right up in the sunlight.  I explained.

Coooool! So I could talk to Phaedra if I stuck my hand in the fire? She asked.

 Uhh yeah… But I think it would be a little bit more comfortable for you to wait till night and contact us through me.  I told her.

I know, but shouldn’t we always be able to contact Tarana? I mean, time is always there. Ulani suggested.

Hey, yeah… Cool! So how are marmalade’s classes? Levinia asked.

Ugh! We spent the whole day yesterday learning how to swat flies with our power so that they wouldn’t bug her. Ulani grumbled.

I laughed really hard and fell of the zephyr. I enjoyed falling for a while and then flew back up to the others.

Ulani was just describing how marmalade had made them go do battle with a large ugly spider the size of a peanut, when I broke through the clouds. I popped up in front of everyone else so I had a very good view of the jet that was speeding up behind them.

“Jump!” I yelled. Out of the instinct that comes with being a KP they all shot up into the air as the plane flew past underneath them. Janelle and Tarana however, didn’t jump high enough.  *THUD* The airplane acquired two new window decorations.

Janelle looked OK as she peeled herself off the plane, but Tarana was clutching her sprained wrist. There was a loud popping noise and a long crack appeared in the glass on the plane’s front window.  I flew down to Janelle.

”Hurry! Before it breaks!” I called to Phaedra. She stared at me strangely and followed.

“What do I do?” She asked. I held out a hand full of moon dust.

“You can melt this and it will look like glass,” I explained.

Just then the plane’s window shattered. The pieces flew towards us and then they suddenly stopped.  In fact, the whole plain stopped moving. I stared at Tarana who had managed to complete a time-stop with a broken wrist, without breaking any unbroken bones.

In a matter of seconds Phaedra and I had mended the window and time resumed its normal rhythm. We all watched the plane fly off over the horizon.

Hey, you guys? What HAPPENED!? Ulani called frantically.

We just about made a plane crash. I answered. We explained what had happened and then Ulani said she had to go because Marmanelle was going to show them how to make her favorite meal (Beany Beef Stew) using water from Bruce, beans from Heather, beef from Estella, and heat from Ulani.

We started descending back to earth as the sun set. I noticed Janelle looking at her Talisman.

“What’s wrong?” I asked. She held up her Talisman and I saw little blue slivers of glass under the surface.

“I think it’s complete,” She whispered in awe. “How do I work it?” She asked.

“Probably the same way you normally would. Hold it out and concentrate on changing.” Levinia suggested.           

 Janelle held her Talisman out and closed her eyes. The sky suddenly turned dark and a strong wind rushed past us. Rain poured down so hard that I couldn’t see and the wind buffeted me about like a toy. I dove down, trying to reach the ground and some shelter.

Hello? Is anyone there? I asked.

Where is everyone? What’s happening? Three voices answered.

Where’s Janelle?  As soon as I asked the question I knew the answer. Janelle had switched to ultimate, now she was the hurricane.

The others all heard my thought and started calling for Janelle.

Stop! Tarana commanded.

Could ya tone it down a little? Phaedra shouted.

Hello, Janelle!?  I called.

Hey pinhead! You’re killing us! Levinia yelled.

The winds lessened and stopped. The rain slackened a little and Janelle appeared looking incredibly tired.

“So that’s what Ultimate is,” She mumbled before falling asleep. I used Lunacy on a few people so that everyone could come to my house.

As we flew back to my house (invisibly of course), we saw flashes of lightening in the distance. By the time we got to my driveway, night had fallen and the sky was constantly filled with lightening (accompanied by thunder *eep!*)

There was a clunking noise and Levinia’s glass orb fell to the ground. As it rolled away it filled with rain until it was full of a dark blue liquid. Then, as if attracted by the orb, a huge flash of lightening struck it. Levinia picked it up and we saw tiny bolts of lightening dancing inside it. I suddenly realized her Talisman was complete.

“Levinia don’t!” I shouted. Too late, Levinia disappeared and a huge flash of lightening took her place. An earsplitting crash of thunder broke over us. Suddenly the air around us crackled and was filled with lightening. It struck the ground all around me. My hair rose and stood on end. A bolt of lightening was streaking towards Phaedra, without even thinking I summoned all of my energy and put up the most powerful shield I could think of. Of course, in using all of my energy I passed out (actually it’s more like falling asleep but that sounds kinda wussy: “in using all of my energy I fell asleep”)

 

I woke up in a hospital bed.  I could see Phaedra in the bed next to Levinia and mine in the one past that.

I looked at a newspaper lying near by the headline read: “Hurricanes in Minnesota?” There was also an article about a lightening storm seriously injuring five girls.

A nurse came in.

“Oh good you’re awake!” She said brightly.

I sat up and saw that Janelle and Tarana were on the other side of me. I saw a calendar that said the date. I gasped. I had been asleep for a week! That meant I had three days to find my Talisman. Then my parents came in. Now I know there would normally be weeping and crying and “I’m so glad you are okay’s” But that’s mushy.

I fell asleep again and when I woke up everyone but Levinia was awake.

“Took you long enough,” Janelle commented.

“Hey! I was awake before any of you, I just fell asleep again,” I said indignantly.

“Shhh! Would you guys be quiet!” Phaedra yelled. She was watching a program on ghosts that was on the TV in the corner (Of course). Tarana was reading. I walked over to see what Phaedra was watching.

Some guy who looked familiar was talking.

…“Just then there was this thud, and a long crack appeared in the glass on the plane’s front window.” A tiny box at the bottom of the screen said he was a pilot. He continued.

“The cracks continued spreading and suddenly I saw a cloud that looked exactly like my deceased mother. Then the glass shattered. It started to spew outwards and then suddenly the glass was back in place and in pristine condition as if the whole incident had never happened.” The man paused to wipe some tears from his eyes. “I think that it was my mother, watching over me.”

I didn’t see what happened next because I fell over laughing.

 

 Once we were out of the hospital we rushed to find the remaining Talismans. Our wanderings took us back to Stillwater. After a while we wandered into a tiny little antiques shop.  As we wandered around we were looking at some dollhouse furniture. There was a display set up with a yard and lawn ornaments and everything. Tarana reached out to touch the tiny sundial. She pulled her hand away and found that the sundial was stuck to it. Tarana tried to pull it off but it wouldn’t come. The storeowner glanced at us suspiciously so we just walked quietly out of the shop. Once we were out side the sundial fell off and Tarana had to scramble to catch it before it fell down a sewer.

The next hour found us in a museum. While we were there two men started brawling. One of them stumbled into a shelf and a small hourglass tumbled towards the floor. Tarana dove for it; she just barely caught it. When she looked at it her jewel and sundial were attached to the top. Tarana had completed her Talisman. Luckily for us she had the brains to not transform.

 

Two days later at midnight, the portal opened. We were all at my house and Phaedra and I hadn’t yet found our Talismans. The portal opened, and the other three were sucked in, Phaedra and I were not.

Estella, Ulani, Bruce, and Heather came out. Nothing happened to Phaedra and I.

“What the heck!?” Phaedra shouted indignantly

 

 

 

Just then Chris burst in.

“Mom says that you should quiet- Hey what’re all your friends doing here?” Her eyes narrowed suspiciously; “Does mom know they are here?”

Oh crap! I thought. Tarana’s spells must have worn off once she was gone. Estella must have come to the same conclusions because she started muttering and gesturing. The next instant Chris got a glassy look in her eyes. I think Estella and Heather had been Tele-conversing because Heather was holding a wooden cup full of something green. She handed it to Chris Who drank the liquid and walked out of the room like she was drunk.

“What did you do to her?” I demanded angrily.

“I just controlled her long enough to make her drink the memory spell.” Estella explained innocently.

“Yeah, she learned an attack called puppet strings while you were gone.”

“Hey, I can put a New-Moon Shield on you guys so no one else gets suspicious. Then you can sneak back home, you’ll have half an hour to get there.” They all agreed and within minutes I was alone.

The next morning I ate breakfast with the rest of my family while my friends were at their homes. I thought that we could go look for our Talismans that day.

Hey you guys! I called out mentally. They all answered me. But to my surprise, so did Estella and Ulani.

CeeCee? I heard Chris whisper mentally.

What? I heard Lina (older sister)’s mental voice.

Hey? How can they hear us? Phaedra demanded.

Cool! Chris said an awed voice.

Shut up everyone!  I called out, panicking. Everyone was too scared by my sisters hearing them to object.

“Hey!” My dad called out suddenly. We all turned to look at him. “The Mona Lisa is going on tour! Their first stop is St. Paul.”

I had a strange feeling just then. A feeling that I should be remembering something but I couldn’t think of what it was.

An hour later, as I picked up the phone to call Ulani it hit me.

Why had everyone in the first group lost their memory but the second group had not? Why had they all ended up at my house instead of in their individual houses? I decided the safest person to talk to would be Phaedra. I dialed her number and waited for her to pick up. Her dad picked up the phone.

“Hello?”

“Is Phaedra there?”

“No she’s at Ulani’s,” Her dad said.

“Oh, thanks, bye.”

 

I called over to Ulani’s and asked to talk to Phaedra.

“Phaedra?”

“Yeah,”

“Have you noticed anything odd about Ulani?”

“I’ll say! She doesn’t remember being a pixie at all, but she did last night!”

“I thought so.  Make her remember, I’ll call Levinia.”

 

I called Levinia and Estella, Neither of them remembered. Phaedra called Bruce. We decided to meet at Phaedra’s house later that day. I was still worried as I slipped my key into my purse and headed out to the car where mom was waiting to give me a ride.

I stepped out of my bedroom and found myself face to face with Bruce.

“What’re you doing here!?” I demanded. Then I realized that he was in his Liquid Pixie uniform. That was all I had time to notice before I was hurled into a wall by a strong jet of water. I was already Moon Pixie so I didn’t need to waste any time morphing.  I was furious that I had been caught unawares, I also knew that I wasn’t fighting Bruce. This was some sort of magical duplicate. Without thinking I invoked my most powerful attack. Within seconds I had sucked all of the beings energy out and I was filled with the strength and power of two. It would only last for a while, just like the tide only lasted for a few hours. The attack was powerful, but it was dangerous. If I couldn’t destroy the creature before the tide of power flowed back to it then I was as good as gone. I didn’t really have any attacks that could destroy so I froze the being and dashed for the car in hopes of reaching the others before the attack reversed its self. It would continue shifting the energy until one of the two opponents died.

I was at the top of the stairs when I heard the ice I had covered the creature with shatter.  I sank to my knees as my energy flowed away. I think I fell asleep for a while. I had a dream where Lina came out of her bedroom and she was glowing with an opalescent light. She reached out and touched the being and it shrieked as if her touch was painful.  Then the tide attack must have shifted again and woken me up because I was suddenly on my feet attacking the creature with an attack I had never used before.  It was a beam of light of a pearly bluish color. Wherever it touched the creature that part of it disintegrated.  Finally the creature was nothing but dust and I was free to go. I heard my mom honking the horn with impatience.

At Phaedra’s house I told everyone what had happened. We guessed it was some sort of Purification beam that disintegrated evil.

Estella told us that she had learned a new attack called Puppet Strings and used it to set a ‘huge gigantic horrible spider’ the size of a peanut on Marmalade.” Bruce commented.

“Need I mention that Marmalade made us ‘do battle with it’” Ulani muttered resentfully.

“Hey, at least we found a way to get parents and school officials out of the way.” I suggested brightly. “But you told me that last night.”

“What? We didn’t see you last night.” Ulani said looking confused.

“Yes you did. You came out of a portal into my bedroom!” I cried.

We all stared at each other and remembered the being that had attacked me.

“Great,” I muttered.  “Now I’m afraid to go home”

“Why don’t you stay at my house tonight?” Phaedra asked.  I might have agreed but suddenly something occurred to me.

“The fake Heather gave Chris something to drink!” I cried. “What if she poisoned her?” Everyone was silent.

“Why don’t all of us come over to your house?” Phaedra suggested.

“Hmm, I could give them something to drink that would make them agree. To let us all stay,” Heather suggested. So we made all the arrangements and everyone came to my house.

I noticed right away that something was odd about Chris. She still had a glassy look in her eyes. I tried to get her back to normal with my purification beam but it wouldn’t work. Finally Heather found a solution.

“I think I know what potion made her like this. I also can cure it and I can guess why you can’t do it.”

“Why?” I asked.

“Because there is nothing evil inside her, she just drank something made of plants, and plants are not evil. At least not most plants.”

“Oh, cool, whatever, just cure her.” I muttered.  Heather fed her something green, as usual, she blinked a few times and looked at us.

“What’s going on?” She asked.

“Nothing, go away,” I said.

She walked out of my bedroom door. “Oh hi Jan-” Her voice was cut off and an intense cold swept through the room. Another one of the evil clones was here. It was one that looked like Janelle. As she froze Heather in place, I tried to conjure up another one of my beams but it wouldn’t come. So I settled on a Tide Attack. I was filled with the energy of two people but the Janelle-Being seemed to be filled with the energy of ten. Phaedra, Ulani, and I hurled all we had at it but it didn’t seem to be weakening. (Bruce and Estella had gotten frozen) Then the Tide turned and I began loosing energy. Just before everything went dark I saw it freeze Phaedra and Ulani.

I was suddenly having the strange dream again. Lina, glowing, burst out of her room as if to yell at someone. She tapped the Janelle thingey on the shoulder and it recoiled painfully. I got my energy back again and woke up. I was filled with a surge of power and I knew at once that I could use my Beam. Within seconds the Janelle monster was gone and its ice had melted off of the others.

I tiptoed into Lina's room but she was fast asleep. I shrugged and turned back to my friends. They were all looking worried and a little awed.

“Well at least we know how to deal with those things,” Heather commented.

“Uh, was I dreaming or did Lina do something weird?” Phaedra asked. We all turned to look at her.

“What do you mean weird?” I asked shakily.

“Well she was glowing for one thing.” Ulani said.

“So maybe I wasn’t dreaming…” I trailed off.

“No I don’t think you were!” Seven voices cried in unison. The remaining duplicate Pixies had suddenly surrounded us.

“Shield your selves!” Some one yelled. That was all I had time to do before we were all blasted through the wall.  The six of us landed for the most part unhurt. The seven evil things were in a circle around us. They all seemed to be gathering power; the air around them was a foggy black.  A small change in the amount of fog around them was all the warning we got before they blasted us again…

 

 

 

I was unable to sense anything. All I had was a sense of being. There was no taste, no sound, no light to see, nothing to touch, nothing to smell.

Maybe I died I thought. The idea seemed to awaken something in me. I was not dead. I would not die. I gathered all of my strength and mentally pushed against the barriers that held me in the darkness. I willed myself to make a light but nothing came. Then I thought I heard someone speaking to me mentally.

What? I called.

Who are you? Came the faint reply.

I am Elyse, Moon Pixie.

Where are we? The voice was definitely Ulani’s. Soon everyone else joined us. Just as we were about to try to escape from the feelingless void a bright light appeared.

We were suddenly back in my front yard. The seven evils were looking dazed. We tried everything to destroy them, maybe we were to tired to use our powers to the fullest or maybe we all didn’t really want to blast something that looked just like our mirror image, but either way it wasn’t enough.

We needed more power. I immediately thought of my tide attack, but with a slightly safer approach.  I mentally contacted the first person I could reach. It turned out to be Heather. She agreed to let me do the tide spell on her to give me more power. As soon as I received her power I knew I had the strength to use my beam. Within moments none of the evil things remained. The six of us stood around discussing what had happened.

“So we all agree that after we got stuck in the void, a bright light came and freed us?” Estella asked.

“But what was that bright light and who sent those beings? Someone must have created them,” Phaedra asked.

“I believe I can answer that!” A familiar voice answered.

We all stared up at Minda the Witch. She grinned evilly and we all knew who had made the magical duplicates.

“After Efrit’s portal took the first group back to your realm, I switched it to make it throw my copies into your house,” Minda cackled.  I suddenly felt weak and I remembered the tide spell. I concentrated on breaking it with all of my might. I think it wouldn’t have worked if Heather hadn’t been a KP but since she was, the spell snapped easily.

“I knew you would be able to defeat my little copies, but they spied on you for me, and they made you use up your power. Now you don’t have the power to defeat me!” She cackled again.

Estella yelled something um, unpleasant, and shape shifted into a dragon. She breathed flames at Minda, she tried to claw her. But Minda warded of her attacks easily.  As Estella lost more energy she began to change into less and less powerful creatures. Finally she regained human shape.

“Water!” she gasped, “Need… Water…” Bruce hurriedly conjured a cup of water for Estella, but my eyes were on Minda. I noticed how a look of panic crossed her face at the mention of water. I had a plan, if only Bruce could blast her with water through her shields. 

Something strange started happening just about then. A silence fell over everything and huge drops of rain started pouring from the sky. Then it stopped. All of the drops hit the ground but one. It floated suspended in front of Bruce. He reached out and touched it and it instantly started to change.  It glowed with a bright blue light and turned to a sandy little bowl that filled with the raindrop. Then Bruce changed into ultimate.

A great explosion of water poured down on us like a waterfall. Most of it fell directly on Minda. She must not have been prepared for such power, because we felt, rather than saw, her shields shatter. She slowly began to melt. With a small *pop* the water stopped and Bruce appeared.

“Curse you all! Froopy Droop Slub!” Minda wailed before she turned into water and soaked into the ground.

“Woah!” Phaedra exclaimed, “Why’d she melt?”

“Er, because she was a witch,” I suggested.

“What does froopy droop slub mean? Is that a curse?” Ulani asked.

“More importantly, why did Bruce’s Talisman suddenly appear?” Heather wondered.

“Maybe because we were desperate and only a large amount of water would have helped us?” I suggested. (Authors Note: Or maybe it was because the author was getting bored with writing all of this and decided to speed things up a little)

We all shrugged and walked back into my house. Back in my bedroom we noticed that the wall we had been blasted through was in perfect shape.

“Maybe those beings couldn’t physically damage anything from this realm,” I suggested.

“But we’re from this realm!” Heather protested.

“Well, as killer pixies, we’re technically from the KP realm,” Estella pointed out.

“Well, tomorrow we’d better start looking for our Talismans,” I reminded them.

 

                 

 

 

The next morning my mom offered to take us to see the Mona Lisa.  We may have been worried about having enough time to find our Talismans, but we decided that we could take a break.  Besides, we could look for our Talismans during, and after, seeing the Mona Lisa.

 

The Mona Lisa was on special display at the Art Institute and we just happened to arrive at a time when the lines were very short so we got to see it right away. We stared at it for a while and decided that after seeing all of the pictures of it, it was not real interesting. We all turned to go after about two minutes, but Estella stayed behind.

“It looks so real…” She breathed.

“Mm-hm, let’s go now,” Phaedra muttered. But Estella wasn’t listening. She reached out a finger to touch the painting.

“Estella!” I hissed. “You can’t touch the Mona Lisa!” But it was too late. Estella’s finger brushed the eye on the painting. I hear a soft clattering noise and Estella bent down to pick something up off the floor.

“What are you doing?” Ulani asked curiously.

“You guys!” She whispered in a panicky voice.

“What? Heather and Bruce both asked.

“I wrecked the Mona Lisa!” She cried. She certainly looked like she was panicking. She held out her hand and I saw she was holding a small eyeball. I looked up at the painting, sure enough; one of Mona Lisa’s eyes was gone.  There were gasps and murmurs running through the crowd.

“Shh! Calm down,” I whispered. “Its probably part of your Talisman.”

“Yeah, Efrit said they would be made out of ordinary objects,” Ulani added.

“You call the eyeball of a famous paining a normal object?!” Estella shrieked. People around us glanced at us strangely and we lowered our voices.

“Estella, this is Queen Efrit were talking about,” Phaedra assured her.

 

The rest of the day we spent around St. Paul, looking for the other Talismans. We found four more Talisman parts. Heather found a CD lying on the ground and it shrunk to the size of a 50-cent coin.  Ulani found a mirror and then accidentally captured some sunlight in it. (That’s three of the four) Then Estella had another interesting discovery of her Talisman.  While we were walking through a park something small and furry that looked like a fanged squirrel attacked us.  Estella quickly tamed it with her Nine-Tails, but not before it sank two little fangs into her shoe.  After she had apparently tamed it, it ran away, leaving two fangs embedded in her shoe. Estella picked them up and eyed them nervously.

“You know, if Queen Efrit thinks that this is normal, I’m beginning to doubt her sanity.”

 

That night as we walked up to Phaedra’s house we noticed a small pink flower had pushed its way up through the pavement. Just then Ricky rode past on his bike and squished it.

“Augh! You stupid dork!” Phaedra yelled.  Heather sighed sadly and bent down to pick up the flower. At her touch, it suddenly filled out and grew a little bigger. She pulled the disk out of her pocket and the flower floated over, attaching itself to the green disk.

“Hmm,” I mused, “Estella, Ulani and Heather each have one part of a Talisman left to find.”

“And we have all three to find!” Phaedra whined. We spent the night in Phaedra’s house. Ulani completed her Talisman while we were all stargazing outside. She pointed to a large and unusually bright star, and as she brought her finger down, the star, ignoring all laws of space and distance, just like Janelle’s tornado had, came with it. She stared at it in wonder as her Talisman suddenly appeared before her, a round mirror with a star in the middle, glowing softly.

   Before Phaedra and I could warn her, she became Ultimate.

Have you ever had reeeeeeeely bad sunburn?  In a matter of seconds we were all red as beets and half-blind. I quickly used all the power I had to bring darkness again. 

Ulani stared at us all walking around dazedly moaning.

I cooled everybody’s sunburn with some Moon Ice while Heather whipped up some weird ointment that made it go away very quickly.

 

The next day we went to the beach to have some fun. While we were there Estella made sure we had the whole beach to our selves by sending seagulls after everyone.  It wasn’t until then that Minda’s curse hit us.

“Whfroopyn arfroopy Phafroopydra and I droopoindroop slubo find our SLUBalismans?” I sighed.

“Whaslub? SLUBhfroopyrfroopysa, slubhaslub didn’slub makfroopy any sfroopynsfroopy!” Ulani exclaimed.

“Huh? Whaslub’s droopoindroop on?” Phaedra asked. After a lot of confusion we discovered that we could still talk mentally. We decided to ask Efrit if she could help us. We managed to reach her through Tarana.

Efrit was worried about Minda but she was very happy that “Moon Pixie finally got around to finding her Purification Beam” Then she made me feel even stupider by commenting that, “If you are cursed why don’t you just have Moon Pixie purify you all?  Or didn’t that occur to you?”

I blushed to my brilliant shade of magenta.

“Okay droopuys, linfroopy up!” I called. Oops! I tried to say ‘line up’ out loud.

We noticed Estella commented dryly. This time the beam came easier and in no time we were talking normally. We wondered why the curse had taken so long as we flew back to Phaedra’s house. On the way there we were flying over a road. Suddenly a large truck slipped on a patch of ice something slippery and tipped over. We flew down to see if anyone needed help (We were invisible of course). The driver was okay but all of the truck’s contents had spilled out. One of the things it was carrying was a crate of lucky rabbit’s foots. Estella glared at them with distaste and turned away.

That night she found a brown lucky rabbit’s foot in her pocket. She pulled the other parts of her er, strange Talisman out and connected them.

“Hey what’s the harm in me transforming?” She asked and held out her Talisman. Nothing happened, absolutely nothing. Estella stared at it in disbelief.

“I know this is the whole thing, I know it!” She wailed. We all stared at her uncertainly.

“Don’t worry, we’ll just ask Efrit,” Heather said.

“Ooh! Good idea!” Ulani agreed. But Tarana couldn’t find Efrit so Estella had to wait.

That night we all slept in Phaedra’s basement again. At about one in the morning Heather got up to go to the bathroom (Most people don’t put that type of stuff in stories, but it is mandatory for the plot at this point. Okay well, may be not mandatory but it is a good excuse for what is going to happen. Hmm, now I am rambling, I’ll shut up now)

On her way back Heather tripped over me and scraped her knee open on the table. It was really deep and it must have been pretty painful because she started crying.

Instantly the room was filled with a greenish glow. Heather’s Talisman was floating in front of her. One of her tears had landed in the center of her flower. Heather took her Talisman and, figuring there was no harm, transformed.

Now (I hope Ulani doesn’t mind that I copied her) in my dictionary, somewhere between the words Venusian and Vera, lies a little plant. That plant is known to most, as the Venus flytrap. Feel free to imagine one of those measuring oh, six feet or so.

It was as if a rainforest (containing a carnivorous plant) had sprung up in Phaedra’s basement.   “Heather!” Phaedra screamed. “You are wreaking my house!”

Heather must not have heard Phaedra because a huge vine swept all of our sleeping bags into its mouth.

   “Boy is she goanna have a stomach ache!” Estella commented. Just then the vine grabbed Phaedra.

“Somebody help me!” She yelled. (Actually it was more of a scream that went: aieeeeeeeee! But I will try to salvage what little dignity Phaedra has)

Bruce blasted the thing with water and I froze the water so that the vine was frozen in place. We helped Phaedra down and called mentally to Heather until she changed back.

 

 

 

 

 

It took us until 8:30 to calm down again so we didn’t bother going back to sleep.

We continued looking for my Talisman and Phaedra’s but when the two weeks were up we still hadn’t found a single thing.  At 11:49 on our last night to look, Phaedra started panicking.
          “We have got to find them Elyse!” She wailed.

“I don’t think we’re going to,” I commented dejectedly.

“So you’re just giving up?!” Phaedra shouted.

“NO! I just don’t have time to find them. Besides, well probably only be stuck on earth until we find our Talismans.” I shrugged.

“No we wont! We’ll be stuck here forever! I talked to Levinia the other night and she said that Efrit told her that if we didn’t find our Talismans this time we’d be stuck here forever!” Phaedra cried.

“So now you tell me!” I snapped. “This must be Phaedra’s fault!” I muttered to myself. Phaedra glared at me and said nothing.

“Hey! I know!” Ulani exclaimed suddenly.

“What!?” Phaedra and I yelled in unison.

“Your key Phaedra!” Ulani said.

“No that won’t work, idiot. I have to have a channel, someone who actually knows the answer,” Phaedra growled.

“Well then have Elyse use her key,” Estella suggested.

“Are you kidding? I’d be asleep for weeks! I wouldn’t wake up in time to make a difference,” I snapped.

Suddenly Phaedra’s face lit up. “Unless…”

“Unless what?” I shouted.

“What if you asked your key and then I used mine with you as a channel?” Phaedra asked.

I glared at her. “I hate to admit it…” I paused and her face fell. “But you’re brilliant!” I pulled out my key and concentrated very hard.

Where are the last Talismans? I asked. As I began to receive the answer I blacked out. I was in some sort of dream; All I could see was a radiant light, shining through the heavy darkness.

You have had your Talismans all along. The Key answered in a voice that sounded suspiciously like Efrit’s.

What?? I asked.

Your Keys. The Flame on top of Phaedra's and the crest on yours. They are your talismans. But the keys have to work together for the first time to activate the talismans... The voice Trailed away and Phaedra’s replaced it.

Well? Do you know? Hurry! We only have two minutes! She hissed.

We have them now, take out your key I replied.

Okay… I’m looking for it, hey while I look, what was it like? Using the key I mean.

Well, it was kind of like speaking to an Omniscient Queen Efrit I answered truthfully.

Ohhhh… Hey! What the heck!? The top broke off my key and…  Her voice faded away.

 

When I woke up bright sunlight was streaming through the infirmary windows. I sighed happily, this place felt more like home than Earth did now.

“Hey! Elyse, you’re awake!” Janelle cried.

I looked up and noticed that Phaedra and Ulani were there too.

“How long have I been asleep?” I asked sleepily.

“Only a day and a half,” Ulani answered cheerfully.

“Hey, Efrit is having a ball in two days to celebrate our return,” Phaedra informed me.

“Cool, Am I allowed to get up?” I asked. “Or did Efrit say I had to stay in bed?”

“Of course you can get up. You weren’t sick, just tired,” Queen Efrit’s voice answered. “And why did you say my name in that degrading tone of voice?”

“Er… Hey Janelle called you a grouchy Queen!” I said. Hoping to take everyone’s attention off me.

Efrit turned to Janelle, “What did you call me?”

Phaedra and Ulani and I snuck out while Janelle babbled excuses.

 

 

 

 

That afternoon we had a problem with a large evil spirit that had disguised it’s self as a Djinn. Marmanelle of course, had been the one stupid enough to open the bottle and release it.

We all transformed to high but we noticed some strange teardrop jewels on our outfits that hadn’t been there before. Queen Efrit explained that those were our Talismans.  If we touched them and concentrated on changing, our wings would disappear and we would receive weapons.

“You will still be able to fly of course, but if you touch your jewel and concentrate, it will turn into your Talisman and then you will be able to reach ultimate. I warn you, don’t switch to ultimate unless absolutely necessary,” Queen Efrit told us.

We all nodded and took off. Marmanelle was hiding behind a tree when we arrived.  Once we got there she stepped out and started ordering us around. She finally gave Estella permission to shape shift. While Estella was becoming a dragon, Janelle and I started freezing it. Bruce stopped the fireballs it was throwing with powerful jets of water.  Phaedra aimed carefully and shot a spiral of fire into it’s mouth while Tarana tried to close the bottle with a Specific Area Time Warp (SAT Warp).  Levinia tried to electrocute it while Heather stood with her arms crossed and refused to tell the trees to fall over and squish it. Finally the Djinn exploded into hundreds of tiny wisps.

Our battle didn’t end there. Each of the tiny wisps turned into a tiny little spirit. Worst of all, our powers had no effect. Marmanelle shrieked and teleported back to the castle, leaving us to deal with the evil spirits. As the creatures surrounded us we all remembered our jewels. We touched them and simultaneously we changed.

Our wings flickered and disappeared. They were replaced by an assortment of weapons. Phaedra had a spear with a flame for a blade; I also had a spear-like weapon. It was a long pole with a crescent moon on top of it, giving it the look of a round pitchfork. Levinia had a scythe with a lightening bolt for a blade. She cackled evilly and shouted.

“Bwah ha ha! I’m the grim reaper!” She swung her scythe and sliced the nearest spirit in half. It flickered and disappeared with a shriek.

  Tarana also got a scythe; it had a dark blue handle and a long black blade. She immediately began twirling it above her head. Like a helicopter blade it sliced through the surrounding spirits.  Bruce ended up with a blue trident. Janelle and Estella both got bows, but only Estella had a quiver of arrows on her back. Estella’s arrows had wings on the end that steered them after their target like some weird bird. Janelle’s arrows just appeared when she pulled the string back.

Heather got a mace and chain (a spiked ball on the end of a chain, connected to a wooden stick). The spikes on hers were shaped like silver leaves.

Ulani had a rapier (a kind of short sword) with a sunbeam for a blade, note, a very sharp and pointy sunbeam.

We poked, hacked, shot at, and squished all of the spirits until none were left. We shifted out of Weapons mode and headed back to the castle where Efrit was reading Marmalade the riot act for deserting us.

 

That night at dinner Queen Efrit offered to make us anything we wanted to eat. We each got to pick our own meal.

Marmanelle ordered Beany Beef Stew, the rest of us decided to have hamburgers. What we got was close enough. Just like with the pizza or ‘petsa’ as Efrit still calls it, we got biscuits stuffed with ground beef, tomatoes, cucumbers, and some of them had onions. It was actually pretty good, except for the ones with cucumbers in them.

Marmanelle grossed us all out by commenting that it looked like a clam filled with rat guts.

Marmanelle will probably never know exactly who dropped a tomato down her dress. After she made her little comment about our food I got mad and turned invisible. I dropped a slice of tomato down her back.  She had Estella, who was the closest, look and see what was there. Estella told her it was “The biggest fattest fanged leech that she had ever seen in her life” Marmanelle ran screaming out of the dining hall.

We all laughed and finished eating in peace.

 

That night we fought again. It was three in the morning when the quiet alarm went off. The one that meant, “come quickly and quietly there is something wrong in the castle.”

I morphed quickly and flew to the banquet hall. Everyone arrived at about the same time.

“Pixies! Something is wrong in the Queen’s room!” Marmanelle whispered urgently. We were surprised to see that she seemed genuinely worried. Probably because she was worried that if the Queen wasn’t safe in her own chamber then she wasn’t either.

I turned half of us invisible as Marmanelle burst into the Queens chamber. Queen Efrit was holding a small sword trying to defend her self against a small black drake. The sight of us distracted her, giving the drake an opening. It swooped down from where it had been hovering on the ceiling and grabbed her, knocking the sword from her hand with it’s tail. It flew out the window, carrying the Queen with it.

“After that dragon!” Marmanelle yelled, “I’ll stay here and look for clues.”

“It’s a drake, not a dragon!” I called over my shoulder as we flew out the window.

The drake was small and fast, but not as fast as a Killer Pixie. Once we were out of Marmanelle’s sight we changed into weapons form. We caught up with the monster quickly. Janelle shot one of her arrows at it. The arrow hit the creatures mouth and turned into a silver thread that tied its jaws together. It whistled angrily and dropped the queen in surprise.

Tarana and I were the lowest in the air so we dove and caught her.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

“What happened?” Tarana inquired.

“I’m fine,” Efrit replied as we set her on the ground. “I woke up about an hour ago and I couldn’t get back to sleep. I opened the window to let some fresh air in and suddenly that thing flew in!”

“I’ll stay with Efrit, you go fight.” Tarana told me. I quickly flew up and joined the fight. There wasn’t much more for me to do the monster was tied up with more silver thread and Estella was using her mind speech to interrogate it. Suddenly her eyes went wide with surprise.

“You guys! This is Hannah!” She cried.

“No way! We got rid of her when we got rid of Minda…” Phaedra trailed off, remembering our little incident with Minda the Witch.

Suddenly Marmanelle appeared with a pop. She struck Hannah on the head with her fore finger.

“I banish you to the thirteenth realm!” She shouted. Hannah cried out but was quickly silenced as she fell into a dark portal.

“What did Marmalade do?” Ulani asked.

“Well you know how this is the twelfth realm?” I asked.

“Yeah.”

“Well the thirteenth realm is a void, like the one Minda stuck us in,” Heather explained.

“Ah, lets go get Efrit,” Estella suggested. We all flew back to the castle carrying Efrit in a spider-web type thingey made out of Janelle’s arrows.

“Saaaaaaay….” Marmalade commented when we’d returned. “Where are your wings and why do you have those weapons? Levinia, tell me!” She snapped her fingers and Levinia was forced to obey. We watched in horror as Levinia rattled off everything we knew about our Talismans and their power.

Marmalade didn’t take the news the way that we’d expected. She just smiled and said, “So Efrit want’s you to be more powerful than me…” And she walked away. That got us worried. All through the day we didn’t see Marmanelle, it should have made us happy, but it just made us worried. Finally seven o’clock arrived and we all put on simple ball gowns. We would have just gone dressed as Pixies but Efrit and Marmanelle insisted that we wear formal attire. As the great clock in the hall chimed Seven thirty the hall to the grand throne/ball room opened and we walked in…

 

 

 

 We all walked up the center aisle until we were at the foot of the Queen’s dais.

 “Killer Pixies,” The Queen began. People in the town began tittering. They still weren’t quite used to us being the Killer Pixies instead of the Elemental Guardians.

“I have organized this celebration to announce that the Pixies have become more powerful than ever by retrieving their Talismans from the 3rd realm (Earth).”

Everyone applauded.

“But I would also like to call to your attention, a law that says, “If all Elemental Guardians reach higher form before their leader, then the ruling sovereign may take away that person’s power as leader of the Elemental Guardians.”

A hush fell over the crowd as they realized what Efrit meant. Marmanelle didn’t do anything she just stood there with an indifferent smile on her face.

“As the ruling sovereign, I would like to exercise that right. I, Queen Efrit, ruling Sovereign of the 12th realm, hereby relieve Dark Pixie Marmanelle of her duties as leader of the Killer Pixies.”

Marmanelle’s face contorted with fury as Efrit made her announcement.

“I may no longer be their leader, but the Dark crystal shall be mine forever!” She yelled, holding up the dark crystal. I gasped and I heard the others gasp too. The radiant crystal that Marmanelle had first chosen was no longer shining and golden. It was dark obsidian, giving no light.

“You will never be rid of me for as long as you live!” She shouted, “Which, I might add, won’t be very long.”

She held out her crystal and changed into Dark Pixie. Before any of us could have done anything she threw a powerful blast of something she had never bothered to use on an enemy, at Queen Efrit. None of us could have done anything, we now knew why Marmanelle had insisted on us wearing gowns instead of being Pixies. Now we couldn’t protect the Queen.

People in the crowd screamed as the black energy hit the Queen. I closed my eyes as a brilliant flash of light erupted. When I opened them again the sight made me gasp. Efrit’s throne was a smoldering wreak, but Efrit was still standing. She was glowing with a steady golden light but her eyes were closed and she looked faint. Marmanelle shrieked angrily and changed again. She got taller and her wings grew bigger. Her hair became a writhing mass of black snakes.

(I would like to interrupt here to insert a part of my original story about when Marmanelle arrives, so that my next comment in the story will make sense.

We all stared at her and whispered, who was she? She looked vaguely familiar, like some obscure person form a half-forgotten memory whose name is whispered so quietly that you cannot distinguish it. All we knew was that we knew her, and she was not good.

At least that’s how I think it went…)

          Now I knew where I had seen her before, Marmanelle was Assudem.  The witch with snakes for hair, also known as Medusa’s daughter.

          I was filled with fury that we had allowed Assudem to call herself the Leader of the Killer Pixies.

All around me the others were transforming. I followed their example.

          “We are the Killer Pixies! We make evil good and triumph over it too! And in the name of our elements, we…will…punish you!” Janelle exclaimed. I put my head in my hands, only Janelle… 

“Oookaaaaaaaay, somebody must not have gotten enough sleep,” Levinia commented.

We started to charge Marmanelle but just then Queen Efrit began to change. A shimmering golden light enveloped her. Wings sprouted out from her back, white and feathery like those of an angel’s.  She was now wearing a golden-white tunic with white slacks. The glow faded and she opened her eyes, as she did so the golden light flashed once more and a pale gold circlet with a diamond in the center appeared on her head. The circlet was accompanied by matching earrings and a necklace.

We watched in amazement as the crystal that Marmanelle was holding blurred. Then it shattered, actually it was like the dark obsidian shell that had surrounded the brilliant Radiant Stone has shattered, leaving only the Radiant Stone. Marmanelle shrieked and dropped it as if it burned her. Queen Efrit grabbed it as it fell, looking Marmanelle furiously in the eye she shouted for all to hear.(All meaning the few brave courtiers who hadn’t fled yet plus us).

“I am the Radiant Pixie! True leader of the Killer Pixies and you are nothing but an ugly witch with snake tails for brains!”

“DIE!” Marmanelle yelled in way of a reply. She held out her hands and a huge snake rushed forth and attacked Efrit. The rest of had been watching spell bound by the awesome events. Radiant Pixie disintegrated the snake with a stream of golden beams that flowed form her hands. But she wasn’t quite fast enough. The snake disappeared just as it sank a long fang into Radiant Pixie’s arm.  She fell to the floor and clutched her arm. As if suddenly we remembered we had magical powers and were supposed to be protecting our queen we all rushed forward.

 Sun, Moon, come to me! I heard Efrit’s voice call.

Ulani and I ran to her as everyone else charged Marmanelle. Phaedra, who was in the lead, was immediately blasted aside by a dark bolt of power. I wanted to go help her but I stayed with Efrit.

Everyone get your weapons! She called. Immediately everyone touched their Talismans and changed.

“Ulani, Elyse, shield me, please,” Efrit gasped. Ulani and I put up our Sun-Moon shield over the three of us.

“What’s wrong?” Ulani asked Efrit, “What did that snake do?”

“I think it was poisonous,” Our Queen said, still clutching her wound.

I glanced out to see how everyone was doing. I expected them to be winning by now, after all it hadn’t taken us very long to get rid of Hannah or Minda. But instead they seemed to be loosing.

Marmanelle had loosed about a hundred snakes on them and they were having trouble coping.  Tarana had just slashed her way through about a dozen snakes to reach Phaedra, who, despite being wounded, was putting up a very good fight. Unfortunately that was a very good fight for her condition so technically she was loosing. Tarana helped her up and they started fighting back to back.

Marmanelle was wrapped in three or four large snakes that acted as a kind of shield. Bruce killed one of them while Marmanelle was blasting Estella with dark energy. One of the snakes on Marmanelle turned and sprayed dark energy at Levinia. Levinia thrust the tip of her scythe into its mouth. The snake’s head sizzled for a moment while the energy it was spraying fizzled out. Then it’s head exploded. I shuddered.

“Eeeew! Monster Brains!” Ulani commented disgustedly. It was about then that our shield met its first test.  A large silvery thing suddenly loomed up in front of us like a ghost. It had claws and teeth and horns but it couldn’t brake our shield. I mean, come on a stupid silver ghosty thing break a shield made by not one but two killer pixies? What realm are you in?

I looked up and noticed that Janelle was in a little trouble. She had just shot a silver arrow at Marmanelle who had easily deflected it; meanwhile a large cobra had snuck up behind her.

Suddenly I heard Efrit’s mental voice. Hurricane Pixie! Duck and shoot an arrow up above you!

Janelle obviously heard because she put an arrow to her bow as she ducked. Just as she ducked the snake flew through the air straight through where her head had been. Janelle shot an arrow up without even looking. It shot the cobra in the middle, forming a silver bubble around the snake that grew steadily smaller and vanished with a pop.

Heather too was having trouble. She had dropped her bolas and started using her tree vines (vines that wrap something up and turn it into a tree) to blast the first three snakes that popped up through the floor around her. The third and fourth snakes popped up simultaneously and Heather didn’t notice the fourth one. After taking care of the third one she just stood there breathing heavily while the snake behind her picked up the bolas with its tail.  Ulani acted without thinking she opened a small hole in our shield and fried the snake with a sunbeam. Heather whirled around as her bolas thudded to the ground amongst the ashes.

OH! Er, thanks. She exclaimed.

Tarana and Phaedra had finished with the snakes around them and they went to help Janelle and Heather who were dealing with a crowd of cobras.

Bruce, Estella, and Levinia were battling with Marmanelle herself. I felt useless standing there while everyone else was fighting.

Moon Pixie, Sun Pixie, go fight I think I can shield my-self.

Ulani and I dropped the shield and hurried out to help the others. I looked doubtfully behind me as I left and saw that Efrit had surrounded herself with and uncertain golden shield that kept flickering. With the added help of Ulani and me the snakes were quickly taken care of. The nine of us faced our one-time leader.

“You cannot defeat me!” She yelled. But there was a crazed and desperate glint in her eye that suggested otherwise.

We threw all the power we had at her but she stood firm.

“Now its my turn!” Marmanelle screamed insanely. She threw something at us that went straight through us and hit the floor. A portal opened beneath us and sucked us in. As I fell down lower and lower I realized that Marmanelle was now alone with the injured Queen.

I looked down and saw that we were about to land in a disgusting looking swamp. I saw Janelle, Estella, Heather, and Ulani hit the mud with splattering waves. Just as Tarana was about to hit she twisted strangely and I felt a sickening jolt. My view switched back to Efrit’s palace. I hit the floor with a thud that was followed by four more as Phaedra, Tarana, Levinia, and Bruce landed.

“WHAT DID YOU DO!?!?!?” Marmanelle’s face contorted with furious unbalance.

“I,” Tarana replied arrogantly, “Moved the destination of your weak excuse for a portal back to this palace.”

 ULTIMATE! Efrit suddenly shouted mentally.  Everyone else must have heard too because they all grabbed their Talismans and morphed to Ultimate.  I felt very odd. I could move freely and languidly without having to bother with bones and muscles.  I saw nothing, I just had a sense of where everything and everyone was. I later learned that this sense was called ceeing (ex: I caw her standing next to me. Pronounced just like seeing).

I caw Phaedra in front of me. She was a vaguely human-like figure made of dancing, flickering, flames. Tarana was no where to be ceen but I caw Levinia was a much smaller and more concentrated lightening storm than she had been the first time. Bruce was a floating blob of water that looked like a very large amoeba.  I knew I was a shining point of light, freezing to the touch. Although it may seem like it, ceeing is very different from sight. It tells you where everything is, what it looks like, how much power/energy it has, what it wants you to know, what it really is if it is in disguise. You don’t have too look at anything, you just cee for it and once you find it you know all that ceeing can tell you. I could cee that making the portal had drained Marmanelle and she would be lucky if she could conjure up enough dark energy to break even Efrit’s shield. The minute I thought about her I realized that I hadn’t ceen any of her, she had no shield up and she had very little, if any, life power left.

I caw Phaedra leap on Marmanelle who screamed in pain. Bruce flung himself at her and drenched her with water that clung to her more like gel than water. (Don’t ask me how a blob of water managed to gather any kinetic energy but somehow he propelled himself forward. Just because I am the author that does not make me omniscient).

Levinia took that as a cue and shot a large bolt of lightening at Marmanelle. It hit the water and Marmanelle was instantly covered with bolts of lightening racing from the top of her wings to the floor.

The lightening stopped and I felt a tugging as if someone were trying to tell me something but I couldn’t hear.

I switched back to normal and I heard Efrit’s voice.

You all did very well. Moon Pixie, it is good that you didn’t fight. Now you have enough of the power the Talisman gave you to finish Marmanelle off. Tarana can help too.

“I can use my beam, then we won’t have to kill her,” I suggested. As much as I knew how evil she was, I couldn’t bring myself to destroy something that looked so human.

I held up my hand and felt the power flowing to it.

“NO! STOP!” Phaedra yelled. I lowered my hand and stared at her. She took a step towards me but winced and I saw her swollen ankle, everyone but me seemed to be in very bad shape.

“Don’t use the beam! Can’t you see!? Marmanelle has an evil soul! If you use your beam you won’t make her a good person, you’ll just destroy her soul. She will be just an empty shell.”

I stared at her. I didn’t think Phaedra was the type of person to think of that.

Marmanelle was starting to get up off the floor.

“Well what do I do?” Then I noticed that Tarana was still in ultimate. She was a whirling portal in the floor behind Marmanelle. It seemed to go nowhere so I assumed that it went to the thirteenth realm.

Good I thought Marmanelle deserves it there

I put lunacy on Marmanelle to make her take a step backwards. Then I took the spell off. Marmanelle shrieked once before she toppled into the portal.

Tarana immediately switched back to normal.

“YUCK!” She wailed, “I just had Marmanelle fall through me!”

“So where were you a portal to?” I asked.

“Nowhere, I guess Marmanelle is just in some void of nothingness.”

Just then I heard Ulani’s mental voice.

Somebody bring us HOME! She yelled.

“Oh!” Tarana exclaimed and quickly made a portal. The other four stepped through.

“Efrit!” Janelle exclaimed as soon as she stepped through. We all turned to see Efrit lying on the ground as her-self again. She was no longer Radiant Pixie, just Efrit.

We carried her up to the infirmary where the place healer was waiting. She put Efrit in a bed and tended to her while her apprentice tended to the rest of us. After a relatively short amount of time we were shooed out of the infirmary and sent back to our castles. I lay down on my bed but I couldn’t sleep. Marmanelle was, defeated; we were rid of her. YESSSSSS!!!!!

 

 

Epilogue

          We KillerPixies lounged around in a fort up in two of the taller trees in Efrit's courtyard.

The healer had been able to save Efrit from the snake’s killer poison, but it would be a while before Efrit was able to walk again.

She refused to call herself Radiant Pixie. Instead she placed the Radiant Stone in its velvet box and shut it away. We didn’t need a leader and she knew it. She was already like a leader to us, she didn’t need to tell us what to do in battle too. We had considered destroying the Radiant Stone but decided against it because future KP’s might need a leader.

The killer Pixies were free once again. Hopefully Assudem/Marmanelle will never bother us again.