Hi everyone, SK here.

So I'm actually not going to say much, other than remind you that the mini-arc from chapter 32-34 has caught up with the ending from chapter 31.  Without much further adieu, let's get into it.  Enjoy!

!!! WARNINGS: Bad language

August

If the stuff I caused before didn't make me the worst Light Leader in all of history, then the fact that I let half the Colony get captured by vile humans, including myself, probably will.

The humans are arriving at a facility of some sort, or at least I can assume that's what this large stone structure is.  Just like the creatures that are holding us captive, it looks cold and barren... and when I see bars covering the windows, I realize that this is some sort of jail.

I glance at Lillie, Clemont and Mallow, who were tossed in this cage with me.  They're beginning to realize what's going on too, and we all shift closer together.  Through the silver bars other fairies are visible to the four of us, clearly as scared as we are.

My heart is beating a million times a minute.

Are they going to kill us?

What will happen to our Necklaces if they do?

I glance downward to where the Creation Necklace is resting lightly on my chest.  One of the most important Necklaces in the Colony, I have to protect it if it's the last thing I do.

I mean that literally.

"Au-"

"No talking," interrupts the deep, gruff voice of our capturer.  Lillie shrinks back into herself and Mallow holds her close.  The cage rocks back and forth as the human walks, which is making me want to throw up.  I shift my focus to outside our little prison, which usually helps me to be a little less motion sick. 

The doors open and one by one, the humans file in.  They walk through the halls swiftly, passing through many large iron doors.  We pass by what must be hundreds of cells, all filled with human criminals.  Their eyes light up with this creepy gaze as we pass them, and when they try to reach through the bars to get to us, they're met with a brutal electric shock.  I wince whenever I see it, and every time I hear the zap I jump a little.

Suddenly, they take a turn from walking down the long hallway to enter a room on the left.  In there is a clearly-battered red-haired man, which I can instantly recognize from the Colony's attack.  He was the one who led it.  

With a heavy thud he slams a purple Pokeball on the table, an "M" clearly visible on its front.  "Damn Celebi won't be a problem anymore," he mutters under his breath.  He looks like he's about to say something else, but his eyes suddenly light up when he spots all of us fairies in the cages.  "Hello," he says in a chilling voice.  "Welcome to your new home, you wouldn't want to live in your old one anymore with what we've done to it."

It is taking all of my energy not to shout at him, and that's me saying that.  Lillie is physically restraining Mallow from running to the front of the cage, and Clemont just has this unusual angry expression on his face.

"Lance, what do we do with them?" asks one of the other capturers.  Lance is his name.  Noted.

"Put them all in one of the empty cells, and keep them heavily guarded.  Wouldn't want them and their little magic hands breaking out, would we?"

"Understood sir," Lance's minions respond in unison, and they're about to leave when their leader calls them back.

"Wait a moment," says the red-haired man.  "I want to speak to that one."  He points at a fairy.

Oh Lita.

He's pointing at me.

"Y-Yes?" I ask, trying to sound like the strong Leader I'm supposed to be.  I don't think I'm succeeding.  

"You look very similar to the fairy that died on the day your kind tried to form peace with us," he muses, his elbow resting on the table in front of him.  Lance places his chin in his hand and continues.  "Selena, was it?"

"Serena," I mutter back at him.  "Serena."  Mom.  My mom.

"Whatever," he says absently, which only makes me more upset.  "Are you related to her?"

I freeze.  Should I lie?  "Why do you ask?" I settle for instead.

Lance thinks for a second.  "Well, your eyes and hair are the same.  You also seem to be wearing a recolour of the necklace she was wearing at the time."

"That didn't answer my question-"

"I don't think you know who's in charge here, Fairy," he sneers.  "Because it certainly isn't you."

My mouth shuts.

"Oh well," he sighs.  "If you were, I would've apologized for killing her.  Now you don't get that luxury."

The world slows down around me.

What did he just say?

What did he just say?

"What did you say?" Clemont asks, standing up beside me.  "Repeat yourself."  My heart is pounding.  Did he really-

"Fine," Lance says with this cruel smile on his face.  "Your Leader, Serena.  I was the one who shot her."

"How dare you!?" I scream, running forward without any thought and gripping at the bars.  "How dare you kill my mom?  HOW DARE YOU!?"  As soon as we get out of her I'm telling Verity this.  This guy will be dead in two glorious seconds.  Hands reach out from behind me to pull me back, and I reluctantly let them.

"So she was your mother?  Does that mean that you are Leader now?" he asks after a moment of thought.

My stomach sinks.  I messed up yet again but before I can deny it, he interrupts me.  "I'll be having a special talk with you in the near future," he tells me in a calm tone, but this only makes me nervous.  Why am I so stupid.  I'm supposed to be getting the fairies out of this situation and I'm only making it worse.  I said it before and I'll say it again, I'm not worthy.

A voice murmurs in the back of my mind, probably one of the Necklace spirits, but I'm sorry, I can't focus on it right now.  

"Take them away," Lance says coldly, and we're promptly taken out of the room.  The door that leads to it is slammed in our face, the metal making a large bang as it hits the doorframe.  The rocking begins again and my stomach starts doing flips, but for different reasons than before.  I'm still motion sick, but now I feel sick because my mother's murderer just revealed himself, and he's going to come for me next.

Layra

"Do you need anything?" I ask the Queen, feeling slightly annoyed.  Heliux needs my help and she's keeping me from him.

"I need to ta- your hair," she cuts herself off, sounding a little surprised.

My gaze doesn't shift.  "Yes, I cut it.  What is it you need?"

"I need to talk to you for a second," she answers.  "There is something you need to know about, something important."  Alara's voice sounds very absent, and I won't use my soul magic because I don't want her to be able to tell, but I don't think she's okay.  Are the Spirit Soldiers okay?  Did something happen, something worse than the Colony being destroyed?  Or maybe she's just as off-put by our home being destroyed as we are?  She's still a person, even if she's a very old person.

"How long?" I don't mean to sound irritated, but I need to help Heliux.

Alara sighs.  "Not long, just come with me."

"Fine."

She's quick to shuffle me into a nearby room, and once the Queen shuts the door behind us she promptly says, "It's me."

I stare at her blankly.  "What is?"

"Your enemy."

"I'm not sure I fo..." my voice trails away as, just as if a switch was flicked inside my head, the pieces instantly come together.  The reason that Serena had to die.  If she didn't, Alara would've made everyone die.

The Colony.  She probably told the humans (somehow) where it was, and hid up in her castle while her fairies had to run for their lives while their home was destroyed.

My gaze hardens.  "Why?" 

To be honest, the real question isn't just "why".  It's specifically why she's telling me this so suddenly.  She gave me a ticking timebomb, tell the wrong person and the world will implode on itself.

"Because peace gets boring," she replies with a shrug.  "And I'm going to die soon anyway."  She's got a point, when you live forever wars tend to be more exciting (short wars, not forever-long wars that make it impossible to see your boyfriend), but she can't think like that when the blood is going to be on her hands.  The fairies need an authority figure, especially with August being gone and the previous two Leaders freshly dead.  

Let's avoid that whole package for now, I tell myself.  "Who would you like me to tell?"  My question hangs dead in the air as Alara thinks for a moment.

Unfortunately for me her only response is a shrug and a vague affirmation of sorts.  "Tell who you want.  It doesn't matter to me."

I know that it does matter for our future though.  If the fairies hear that their Queen is against them, we'll have a war within a war and just the thought of that is horrible.  A shiver passes through me as I turn to leave.  There's better things to be doing.

"Oh," she calls out to me, "if Heliux is in a mood, then I must apologize.  It's probably because of what I said to him."

I freeze.  "What did you say to him!?"  My fingers curl themselves around the door handle, reddening as their grip tightens.

"Something like "I'm trusting the Colony to you", I don't quite remember-" I'm out of that room before she finishes her sentence.  There's a list of phrases that triggers his memories, that's one of them, and it's a trigger for one of the bad ones.

My biggest fear is that he's going to do something to himself, even though he promised me he wouldn't ever do it again, I can't fully trust him on that aspect.

The only sound is the echo of my boots click-clacking against the tiled floors.  I can remember the location I scoped out from earlier, and that room isn't far away either.  When I reach it, my hand, curled into a fist, knocks three times hard.  "Heliux?  It's me.  Open the door."  After a second of silence I try to push the door open because I know it doesn't lock, but for some reason it's not opening.  Almost as if... there's a weight against the door...

"Love, you need to move in order to let me in," I tell him gently.  "Please move."  My head rests against the door itself, both my hands gripped on the handle.  Some muffled shuffling sounds can be heard from my side of the door after a few moments.  Jiggling the handle a little bit, I throw open the door.  It hits the wall with a bang! but I just simply shut it behind me.  

It doesn't take much looking around to spot him.  "Heliux."  I get on my knees in front of him, crawling over to his side to where he's sitting.  "Love, I'm here.  I'm right here."

I wrap my arms around him in a hug, trying to get him to calm down.  He's been crying, I know he has.  Heliux hesitates for a moment, and my heart breaks when I think about whether he's wondering if this is even real or not.  My shoulders lose their tension when he reciprocates, but he looks so weak, so frail.  Guilt surges through me as he buries his head in my shoulder and cries.  I should've been here to help him, both with the Colony and with his panic attack, but I wasn't.

Alara caused that too.  She told one of us to go find Valerie, and she knew that I'd volunteer to go first because Heliux would hesitate.  

Immortality brings out the worst in people.

Ironic because I'm saying that, but it's generally true.

"I'm so sorry I wasn't there for you," my voice is raw, so raw right now.  "Love I'm so sorry, but I'm here now.  Ssh."  I'm not letting go of him any time soon.

"Valerie-" he sniffles, but I can tell what he was going to ask so I answer.

"She's safe in the Castle with us," I assure him.  "I brought her back home safely."  Thankfully this seems to calm him down, at least a little bit, but he still doesn't let go.  I can't believe Alara triggered him.  I can't believe she did that.  Both of our human lives were... not the best, it may have been billions of years but that doesn't mean we're not sensitive about it still.  Some things you can't forget, no matter how hard you try... traumatic memories especially.

"You're not him."  It's a phrase that I've told him many times.  "You're not him, you're not going to be him any time soon.  You're you, you're never going to be him."  I pause.  "What were you thinking about?"

Heliux wipes his eyes, now red from crying.  "I thought that the humans had captured you and Valerie, and that alone was enough to make me like this.  I could have done something... I thought it would have been like Ellie all over again..."

He still remembers her, definitely not surprising.  "You couldn't have stopped her heart attack," I press, but he's quick to protest against me.

"If she had come to the fairies earlier, her health issues would have been cured.  We would have had access to the magic that would have stopped her from dying entirely."

"But you made her dream come true, you made her life-"

"Stop, let us stop talking about this," he interrupts me sounding pained.  Heliux looks at me, that pain from his voice now radiating in his gorgeous amber eyes.  "Please."

Silence now becomes the only sound, and my concerned gaze is still on him.  "Do you remember all the years we had to spend apart?" he asks quietly.  I nod; how could I forget?  "I told myself that the moment I could be with you again, I would do everything in my power to protect you no matter the cost.  The moment the humans came into the Colony and I realized you were out there, it made me feel powerless, like I had broken that vow I'd made to myself."  He lets out a sigh and leans his head back against the wall, looking up at the cold white ceiling.  "I felt horrible."

"Heliux-"

He interrupts me, suddenly pushing himself into a more upright position as he clasps my hands in his.  His whole expression is intense.  "Layra, I need you to listen to my words.  I promise you, I promise you, that I will from now on truly do everything in my power to protect you.  I can't imagine the thought of me losing you, or Valerie.  I will do everything I can go protect both of you and to keep you both happy and safe, and-" the intensify of his expression drops in an instant, as if it just fell of a cliff.  "You cut your hair?"

A laugh escapes me because his question just came out of nowhere.  Heliux remains puzzled, but a smile eventually creeps onto his face and he laughs with me.  I give him a quick peck on the lips.  "You didn't break that vow the first time, Love, and I know you.  You don't break promises.  I love you, but you should've known that if they tried to come close to me those humans would be dead in two seconds flat."

He lets out a hearty laugh.  "Yes, I should have known that."  Another sigh escapes him.  "Thank you, Layra.  I love you."  

"I love you too," I return to him with a smile that unfortunately fades a few seconds later.  "But Heliux, you know what time it is right?"  I have to tell him about Alara, but not now.  Now's not the time.

A dark expression falls on his face.  "Yes..." his voice trails away, and just like my own heart I can tell his is beginning to ache.

"... we need to say goodbye to our daughter."

Valerie

Alara asked me to talk with her.  I don't want to, I don't want to talk with a two-faced fairy.

I'm with Verity instead, listening to her recount to me all of the events in more accurate detail that I missed while I had escaped to the human world.  She killed her dad, and honestly this didn't shock me as much as I thought it would've.  The Colony got swarmed, August got captured.  They all escaped here.

"I'm just... so glad to see you Val, you have no idea..." she trails away and looks at me with a kind of muted sadness in her eyes.  "But tell me, what was the real reason you came back?"

"To be honest, I was done fighting," I tell her while I pace around the main foyer.  Most of the Colony is here with us, so it's a little bit hard to hear her over all the chatter.  "That doesn't mean I'm in favour of humans dying though," I warn.  Or fairies too for that matter, I think.  I'm pointedly not telling her if I'm for her war or not.

Verity pauses as she walks alongside me.  "So that means we're good, right?"

I smile at her.  "I don't think any of us were in the right place to have that argument."  Well, I was at least a little bit, but we need to be united right now, not divided.  "I just wish August was here so I could tell him the same thing."

She gazes at me, a faint smile on her face.  "You still love him?"

"Of course I do!"  It comes out as a loud shout, so I lower my voice.  "I love August, I didn't stop.  I'm just wondering if he still loves me.  What I said to him, and you that day, was cruel."

"It was," Verity admits, and a wave of guilt surges forth.  "But knowing him, I don't think he stopped either.  It takes someone special to undensify him, he won't be able to get over you that easily."  The newly-ordained Dark Leader lets out yet another sigh, and her now-tired face turns toward me.  "How'd you do it?"

I'm confused.  "Do what?"

"All the shit that happened to you in the span of days, how did you get over it?"  Her pained frown is all too real.  "I need help getting over the deaths of Mom and Dad.  It's stopping me from being a good Leader, Heliux had to do a lot today and I feel guilty for not helping him out."

Verity, your dad just died, and so did your mom... but then again, I can see where she's coming from.  "Honestly, so much happened that I didn't really have time to think... and once I did, I caused this mess."  I wince.  "But then I pushed myself in my training, and all that stuff faded because I had a new focus.  So just focus on being a good Leader Verity, which you will be, okay?  It will fade with time."

"I hope so."  She lets out a dry laugh, shaking her head.  Her spiky hair shifts around when she does, making it very fluffy-looking.  She catches me off-guard when she suddenly reaches out and hugs me though.  "I'm keeping you," Verity says, her voice sounding a little rushed.  "Good luck, and thank you for being a good friend to both me and my brother.  I love you."

"I love you too," I tell her, wrapping my arms around her and giving the Dark fairy an awkward pat on the shoulder, "but come on, don't be so dramatic.  I've been through so much that I should be physically incapable of dying in this test.  Kind of like Phoenix Wright!"

She pulls away, looking confused.  "Phoenix who?"

I shake my head, of course she would have no idea who that is.  "A protagonist from this ancient videogame series, don't worry about it.  He fell of a bridge into a river and only had a cold afterward-"

"Valerie!" Alara's loud, clear voice echoes across the foyer over all the fairies' chatter.  I turn and- wait, she has my friends with her.  What are they doing?  What did she do with them?  My walls spike up, but before I can tell Verity I realize that she's already gone.  However, I do spot Heliux and Layra out of the corner of my vision, and I'm 99% sure that they'll want to talk to me before this test. 

"One minute!" I call back to her, and escape to the Ministers before Alara can say otherwise.  When I run up to them I can tell that they're a bit shocked that I'm doing it in the first place, but who's paying that any piece of mind?  Not me.  "Hi," I tell them breathlessly.

"Avoiding the Queen now, are we?" Heliux asks with a smirk.  I just roll with it and nod because I'm not sure if he's aware of Alara's alignment yet.  They came together, but Layra might not have gotten the chance to tell him.  

"Anyway, Valerie, we just wanted to wish you good luck," comes Layra's light voice.  She gives me that typical warm smile of hers and I smile back, about to say thank you before Heliux steps in with his own words. 

The Light Minister clears his throat slightly before speaking.  "Each stage has its own kinks I've heard, but Legendary Pokemon will be there to assist you.  Stay safe, especially during the last few stages, Queens and Kings have told us that they are the most treacherous-"

I cut his worried rambling off with a quick hug, and I do the same with Layra.  "Stop worrying about me, I'll be fine."  My words, I know, will go in one ear and right out the other, but they still have to be said.  "But thank you both for caring."  I give them a gentle smile before racing off to the Queen.

I came back to take this test after all.

No matter how much I want to avoid it and Alara, I have to face them both, starting with the latter.

"Sorry," I apologize to her as soon as I get there.  My friends are still there, so I go to stand with them as Alara's Spirit Soldiers file out of a nearby hallway.  When Calem comes out my friends don't get too shocked, so I can assume that they were told the truth about him.  I would've liked to have been there when that happened, there must have been a lot of screaming... especially from Kris.  "Heliux and Layra wanted to talk with me."

"No worries."  Alara gives me a gentle smile.  "Are you ready?"

"No, but there's no time like the present," I sigh.  Star lets out a chuckle at my sarcasm as Alara leads the group of us down-

"Guys, you don't have to come," I tell them, knowing what's going on.  Alara told them to be my Spirit Soldiers, I know it, but I don't want them to suffer like that.  I've already found a spell that can teleport people randomly, I'm just going to use that.  "Stay here."

"We'll come to see you off, when we'll come back," comes Rosa's surprisingly even tone.  I give the group a reluctant nod, I guess they can come do that.  A small stab of pain flares to life in my head, and I know that this is because of the odds adjusting.  I can't see very much, but I can see that one path is becoming more dominant than the other... a path concerning my friends.

Alara leads our large group through the foyer, and as we pass by the fairies seem to recognize what's happening.  They wave to me as I pass (which is awkward enough, I'm not some celebrity), and I just give them a little wave back.  I already know they see me as some sort of hero, which I'm not.  I'm just trying to make things easier.  I'm no hero.

Alara, her Spirit Soldiers, my friends and I walk down the spiralling stone staircase.  All of our footsteps echo against the hard steps as my nervousness somehow grows.  You can't be nervous, you won't die.  You can't die.  If you do, Alara gets her powers again, and you need them. 

When we reach the bottom, the Queen shares a tender hug with all of her Spirit Soldiers.  They wrap their arms around each other and put their heads together, and kind, sad goodbyes are murmured.  I'll admit it's a bit sad.  They know they're all going to die, but somehow, they're ready for it.  They're prepared.  They've lived, they've seen all they needed to see, done all they needed to do, and now they're giving up their positions to the next generation who will eventually, after millions of years, give up their own lives to yet another group.

A sad, but needed, cycle of death.

The soldiers walk into the chamber where the test is supposed to start, and the lights are so dim here that I can barely make them out at a distance.  I can, though, hear the rumble of the heavy door closing, and after a second a white flash bursts forth from behind the door.  A moment passes, and when the door opens again the chamber is empty once more.

I have a feeling where they've went, I think, and turn to Alara.  "Can I go inside now?" I ask.

She nods yes.  "Grab that torch," she instructs, pointing to the barren torch in the middle of the dark stone space, "and light it with your magic.  You will then be transported to the first stage."  She gives me a thin smile.  "Good luck."

"Thank you."  I turn to my friends, the people who've always been there for me.  "Guys, I have to go now.  I love you all so much, thank you for being there for me."

"Don't say that," sniffs Hilda.  "We'll always be with you."

That's a nice thought.  I give them each a hug, especially Red who I hug for a bit longer.  He's still grieving for Leaf, they all are, and they now are going to worry about me too.

I step into the chamber, alone.  The dark surrounds me even though the door hasn't closed yet, and I use my fairy magic to light the first torch.  When I do a ghostly white flame appears, as does a portal which, what I can guess, leads to the first stage.

I hold the torch, about to perform that teleportation spell I talked about earlier when I hear footsteps echo across the stone floors.

I turn.

My friends all rush into the room.

The door closes behind them.

"What- what are you doing!" I yell at them, fear and anger surging forth.  No, I didn't want them to do this.  Why did they-

"We'll always be with you," repeats Hilda, although this time it's in a more serious, more severe tone, almost... threatening.

Before I can protest, before I can process how the door even closed when there are only eight others here, the portal grows wider.  Like a vacuum it eats us all up, and with dread I fall into the endless abyss that is the first stage of the first Queen's test.

Yep, y'all saw it coming, who else would be her Spirit Soldiers?  Her test will take place next chapter along with some other events.  You don't wanna miss it for sure.  Her first test will span over three chapters... and the last of the three is gonna take all of you for a ride- and no, not just because it's over 12K words long...

Anyway, I do hope that you enjoyed this chapter.  What'll happen to August?  What'll happen to the rest of the fairies as they wait for Val to finish?  WILL Val even finish?

Stay tuned for chapter 36, coming out next Sunday.