“Hey, pass me some Blubbergum,” Xavier told Zeke.
“No, it’ll rot your teeth,” said Zeke. “Besides, you didn’t say please.”
“It’s all gone anyway,” Jed said, casually blowing a bubble.
Instead of popping, the blue bubble drifted out of the window and sailed through the air into the distance, much like a balloon.
“You little Bliak.” Xavier scowled. “You know Blubbergum is my favourite.”
“Here, have a Djinn Dirt-Bug instead.” Jed procured one of the red chocolate balls.
“No.” Xavier crossed his arms moodily. “They taste like orc ass.”
“How do you know what orc’s ass tastes like?” Brooke giggled.
“I have a vivid imagination,” Xavier huffed.
Emillia interrupted them all by waving her arms wildly and making muffled sounds. They all burst into laughter when they realised it was because she’d stuck her lips together eating Troll-toffee.
“Just chew quickly,” Elijah chortled. “It’ll only stick if you stop chewing.”
Evan peered back out of the window as Emi regained the ability to open her mouth.
They’d only seen a few creatures so far, but now a swarm of Scarada monsters had come into view. Fear slid down Evan’s stomach as he remembered them from his last trip to the Badlands.
“Oooh, what are they?” Brooke asked.
“I’d stay back if I were you,” said Jed.
Brooke laughed. “Aww, is Jeddy scared of… crap, they’re coming this way.”
Brooke was right; the Scarada swarm had made a beeline for the Sandstrider. Evan could already hear their terrible buzzing. Growing louder and louder.
“All Venators,” Gettelung’s voice boomed magically throughout the cabins. “Stay calm, remain seated and keep away from the windows.”
A Scarada zoomed toward their window, making many aboard scream in fear, including Elijah and Xavier. As the Scarada came close, a green force field excreted from the Sandstrider, sending the Scarada back several metres, not harming them, but keeping them at bay. After a dozen force-field blasts, the Scarada swarm gave it up and flew away.
Most of the other Badland creatures merely looked up in curiosity or ignored the Sandstrider passing by. Until they were attacked a second time, that was.
A group of Onlekks ran at the Strider’s legs and hacked at them with their weapons, until they heard a click and Evan realised the Strider had laser guns on its underbelly. One blast and the Onlekks retreated, to the whoops and applause of the Venators on board.
They weren’t the only visitors to the Badlands either. Halfway through the trip Xavier spotted a Hovership and pointed it out to them all. Evan leaned out with the rest of them to observe the vehicle.
“Ah, that’ll be the city folk,” said Elijah, “on a safari.”
The Hovership looked like an Airship, only it was made from metal. He saw several orc children on the Hovership’s deck, observing the cow-sized scorpions scuttling on the sands below.
The Strider continued to journey through the Badlands, showing those on board all the different areas and the creatures who inhabited them.
There were bubbling hot springs that shot out frothy arcs almost as high as the clouds, and large canyons that stretched down to narrow rivers in a variety of colours with a plethora of enchanted inhabitants in their depths. There were also mountains and caves whose residents remained hidden, either nocturnal or shy.
At one point they passed a wasteland with a volcano in the distance, with bright green lava bleeding from the rocks.
“Uh, that thing isn’t active is it?” Brooke asked.
“Naa,” said Elijah, “but it’s home to the Magmerians and Xodians.”
“I’m not going to ask what those are,” Jed said.
Evan was having the time of his life. As fascinating as it was to view the Badlands and its wildlife in all their glory, it was mainly due to being in the cabin with his friends. Jed, Xavier and Brooke constantly made him laugh with their jokes, whilst Elijah, Zeke and Emi provided equal entertainment, mainly by accident.
Emi was jigging her foot up and down. “Oh dear, I need to pee. There’s a toilet on board, right?”
“Yeah,” Evan chuckled. “At the back, Taretta said.”
Emillia left the cabin and started down the walkway.
As Elijah regaled them with another encounter he had with a particular creature from the Badlands, Evan noticed Firk and Fenik pass in the walkway, just behind Emillia.
“Go on Firk, it’ll be funny.”
“Yeah it’d be awesome, Fenik. But she won’t like…die will she?”
“Nah, we’ll just be giving people a show. Besides, he said he’ll give us money if we do it.”
“Okay, you get the door…now!”
Evan realised what Firk and Fenik were going to do a second too late.
“Oi!” He shouted, bolting out of his seat. “No…”
Fenik swiftly stepped ahead of Emillia and pushed open the door in the middle of the Strider. Just as quickly, Firk seized Emi and pushed her out of it.
Evan couldn’t believe his eyes. How could they be so stupid?
“What is it Ev-Oh my god!” Brooke screamed as Emillia flew through the door.
Everyone in the cabin had seen the same thing. Firk and Fen were giggling like jackals. As he ran forward, Evan had no idea what he was going to do until his fist smashed into Firk’s jaw. Firk toppled to the floor with a grunt.
“You little Ushk,” Fenik yelled, aiming a punch at Evan.
Evan was faster, however, and his boot connected with Fenik’s stomach first, sending him sprawling alongside his cousin.
“What in Rueda’s name is all the commotion?” Magoris appeared from his cabin. Many Realmers gathered at the doors of their cabins as Evan’s friends crowded around him.
Magoris seized Jed by the scruff of his neck, but Evan and Brooke managed to get past the Master’s considerable bulk and to the Strider’s still open door.
“Where is she?” Brooke shrieked, her head darting from side to side.
Evan tried not to let panic overwhelm him as he scoured the wastes below. There was nothing but arid sand and chunks of rock, as if a tremendous giant had chewed on a mountain and spat it back out.
If Emi had fallen onto a rock from this height she could be in serious trouble, even dead.
“What if the Strider has already moved past her?” Brooke yelled frantically.
“I’m going to jump. We can’t leave her.” Evan was about to leap when he was grabbed by his tunic and hauled back.
“What’re you doing? You damn miscreant.”
Master Magoris was his captor, and he was blocking his friends from the door too.
“Sir,” Evan yelled. “Emi’s down there. Let me go.”
“Rubbish. Absolute rubbish,” Magoris snarled. “I know you Venators, always playing childish games.”
“I’m not lying,” Evan said, trying to pull away from him.
They were wasting too much time. What if Onlekks or another dangerous creature spotted Emillia? They needed to help her.
“Don’t you shout at me,” Magoris shouted. “I’ll have you doing punishment laps around the Fortress for a mon-”
Magoris cut off as Evan threw a ball of magical energy at his chest. The Master was shot across the walkway and slammed into the wall, dazed.
“Glarqing hell, Evan,” Elijah exclaimed. “What have you done?”
Evan didn’t answer, but whirled around and dived out of the Strider door to the Badlands below.
As he fell through the air Evan rapidly weaved the air element to slow his fall. He still landed hard enough on the ground to jar his whole body, but at least it was on a sand dune.
He looked around desperately for a sign of Emillia. Seconds after he landed, Brooke, Elijah and Jed fell beside him.
“There!” Jed started running. Evan followed his trajectory and saw the tell-tell curly blonde hair splaye
d across the ground. Emi’s body was motionless.
One silver lining was that Emi had apparently landed on a mass of vines; maybe it had cushioned her fall. They raced to her, Evan grasping Ruaden’s hilt as he scoured the Badlands for any creatures. Thankfully, no monsters were nearby.
“Emi!” Brooke reached her first, crouching down and shaking Emillia’s shoulder.
Emi looked up at them blearily. “Where…where am I?”
“Thank Rueda you’re okay,” said Elijah, “well, not dead at least.”
“C’mon,” Evan started, “we better get-”
Suddenly the plants beneath Emi stirred. One weed exploded out of the ground and shot out like a viper, wrapping around Evan’s ankle and squeezing tight.
“Oh crap, Planeya,” Elijah yelled as the plants wrenched themselves from the ground like the dead rising from their graves.
Seconds after Elijah’s shout, a Planeya rose behind him and spat out a gobbet of pollen. Before Elijah could react, the pollen splattered over his eyes.
“Arrgh, I can’t see, I can’t see!”
The vegetation had fully formed into Planeya, now. Up close, they almost looked human, standing five-foot tall, but with limbs that looked like stems. They had no eyes, but they did have mouths full of pollen.
“Hold on mate,” Evan shouted to Elijah, sidestepping the Planeya nearest him who swiped at him with a vine covered in thorns.
Brooke and Jed seized Emi and pulled her away as the Planeya converged around them. Evan snatched Ruaden from its sheath and hacked first at the vine that ensnared his ankle, then at the thorned Planeya in front of him.
The creature croaked like a frog as Evan slashed a huge gash in its chest and milky foam coughed out. The Planeya wilted to the floor, but as Evan tried to help Elijah the second Planeya went for his leg again. Evan danced away from the creatures vine arm but then it used its other arm to fling leaves Evan’s way.
Unfortunately the leaves were sharper than they had any right to be and the few that grazed Evan’s arms sliced through the tunic and opened up several cuts. As he swore in pain, the Planeya crawled toward him like a giant green spider.
“Right, that’s it.” He grit his teeth and flung out his free hand, the sting of the cuts fuelling his sorcery.
Just before the Planeya reached him, Evan engulfed it with flames. He then directed the conflagration to the Planeya preying on the temporarily blind Elijah. Jed and Brooke were cutting their own adversaries to ribbons as Evan hurried over to Elijah and helped scoop the gelatinous pollen off his face.
After he managed to pull most of it off, he said, “Okay, let’s help Brooke and-”
Elijah’s eyes widened as he saw something over Evan’s shoulder.
“Look out!”
Too late. Something hard whacked into his head from behind, and Evan stumbled to the ground, getting a mouthful of sand in the process.
He rolled over quickly to glimpse this new attacker and the scream died in his throat.
Before him crouched a Negartha. The beast was a cross between a snake, a scorpion and a turtle. The Negartha was as large as an elephant, with reptilian green flesh and it’s back encrusted by giant red shell. Its eyes were huge and bulbous, and its tongue was forked like a snake, as was its rattle-tail. Evan was most concerned with its massive pincers aiming right at him.
He rolled in the sands like a maniac, narrowly dodging the explosion of earth as the pincer smashed down where his head had been moments before.
The others screamed as they saw the monster too. Evan got to his feet, only to crouch instantly back down as the Negartha swiped at him. He avoided the pincer, but the monster’s rattle-tail swept at him from the other side.
Evan used all the air sorcery he had to stop the tail from splattering him across the ground. His body trembled with the effort, and he was only strong enough to slow the tail.
The Negartha hissed in annoyance and prepared to cut Evan’s body in half with one click of its pincer. His friends, however, threw their energy blasts at the Negartha’s face, striking its eyes and sending the beast into a frenzy.
Evan had backed far enough away now to release his hold on the Negartha’s tail and instead joined the others in blasting the colossus. Most of the blasts ricocheted off the Negartha’s shell and tough skin, however. It appeared invulnerable. The monster surged forwards, this time toward Jed. To Evan’s horror, Jed tripped on a rock as he backed away and the Negartha went in for the kill.
Jed escaped death by the skin of his teeth. He seized the rock he’d fallen over and shoved it in front of him. The Negartha’s pincer instead cut the rock in half, rather than Jed himself. That was only a temporary escape, however, as now the rock was gone and the Negartha was about to strike again.
Evan ran at the monster, Ruaden raised. He saw Brooke running toward the beast too. They were centimetres away when the Negartha abruptly froze, encased in a fine sheen of ice.
Evan turned to see the Strider had bent its legs, so the body was only a few feet above the ground. Taretta, D-7 and Magoris hurried from the Strider, Taretta finishing her spell on the Negartha to keep it frozen.
“You see, colleagues.” Magoris was incensed. “These children are mad, they’ve gone feral. They attacked me before leaping out to fight the Badlands creatures for fun. I’ve never seen such heinous acts from Venators, we must exile them at once. I demand you give them sorcery-suppressing chips and banish them to Earth, or whatever realms they came from.”
“He’s lying,” Brooke shouted. “We only jumped out of the Strider because Emillia was pushed out the door. If we hadn’t helped she could’ve been killed by now.”
“Nonsense,” Magoris snorted. “Who would be stupid enough to throw someone off the Strider?”
“Firk and Fenik,” Elijah snapped. He was angrier then Evan had ever seen him.
“More rubbish,” Magoris replied. His shrewd eyes narrowed on Evan and he jabbed out his finger. “That one there, Umbra! He’s the one who started it all. He viciously attacked me and then escaped from the Strider, leading the others.”
“Shut up,” Evan yelled before realising what he’d said. “I mean, the only reason I pushed you away with a spell was because you wouldn’t let me save Emillia.”
“Exactly,” said Jed, “he was holding us all back.”
Magoris’s eyes were almost popping out of his face and his cheeks were red with rage.
“Terrible excuses.” He turned to Taretta. “I caught them all just as they were planning this little prank. I managed to hold Xavier Ichles and Izekiel Irk from joining this lot. They should be punished too. But as I said they only eluded me because of a joint attack upon my person. I demand that you-”
Taretta interrupted him, “Magoris, where were you when Emillia jumped, or was pushed out of the door? It happened in the area you’re supposed to be monitoring.”
“I told you, they assaulted me from behind. The devils were acting possessed, they-”
“He was sleeping, that’s why,” Sabine shouted. Evan saw her and all the other Venators crowded by the door and at the windows of the Strider.
“We saw him from our cabin,” Sabine continued. “He was snoring as loud as a swamp troll.”
“Lies!” Magoris’s face had gone brick-red now. “They’re all in on it together. I’m a Master in this godforsaken establishment. These are just children. Stupid, stupid children.”
“He’s right,” Fenik cried.
Evan clenched his fists as Firk and Fenik pushed past the other Realmers and stepped off the Strider.
“Master Magoris is correct,” Fenik said. “Elijah is just blaming us because he’s hated us for years.”
“How Glarqing dare you?” Elijah stormed forwards and Evan had to hold him back.
“See,” said Firk, “they’ve got it in for us, all of them.”
“They’re lying too,” Sabine called out again. “Loads of us saw them push Emillia out of the door. They were laughing as they did it.�
��
“You little sneak,” Fenik roared. “Do you just snitch on everyone?”
Taretta looked at each of them in turn. She was only a small woman, and her face remained expressionless, yet she was incredibly intimidating, and Evan sensed she was furious.
At last she said to Firk and Fenik, “Do you realise the severity of what you’ve done?”
The boys opened their mouths wordlessly, quailing under her gaze.
“Three months wearing Uqari chains is a good start for your punishment. Being banned from the rec rooms and confined to your bedrooms when not in training will do also. D-7, please escort Firk and Fenik back to the Sandstrider.”
“No,” Firk shouted. “It was an accident, I swear. We were told to do it.”
D-7 grabbed them both by the arms and led them back on board.
“Oh yes, excellent.” Magoris bobbed his head enthusiastically. “I feel Umbra and his friends deserve the same punishment, if not more. I’d ask you to reconsider my idea of taking away their sorcery and banishing them.”
Taretta turned toward them and Evan tried not to panic.
What if we get exiled? Oh god, please no.
He loved Veneseron like he’d never loved anything else before. He knew his friends felt the same. Being banished from Veneseron would break his heart.
“The four of you should’ve alerted an Instructor as soon as Emillia was thrown from the Strider,” Taretta said. “However, I understand the need to act immediately, and you all showed courage and skill in battling the creatures that attacked you.”
“The Instructor we did tell didn’t believe us,” Jed said, then closed his mouth, probably regretting arguing.
“I understand. You Magoris, should’ve been monitoring the area, not sleeping. Furthermore, I’d ask you not to overreact in the future. These Venators evidently did not assault you and-”
“He did, he did.” Magoris pointed viciously at Evan. “He assaulted me. How can you defend their behaviour, Taretta? I’ll go straight to Vanderain with this. I’ll not stand for it.”
“Feel free,” Taretta replied. “I’m sure Vanderain would be thrilled to hear your opinion. Now, everyone back on board the Strider. We’re going home.”
Moonlight War- Act I (The Realmers Book 2) Page 14