The Elementals Book 1: The Abyss

The Memory Stone

Chapter 2

The group all pondered over the news Shadow had shared with them, except Fauna, who sat quietly at the other end of the room trying to conceal a mysterious expression on her face.

"I wonder if maybe Execute...stole the gems," Hazel said. Shadow turned very pale.

"No, h-he would never," Shadow said shakily as he pictured his dad laughing menacingly. Fauna stood up abruptly.

"Follow me," she said as she started walking towards a tree in the small dimly lit dining room of the house; it had three beautifully lights that were hung from baby trees that matched the elegant chairs made out of tree branches and the floor was made out of extremely white birch wood. The others followed brushing past the dimly lit kitchen. Where's she taking us? Shadow wondered. Fauna reached the tree and silently reached into her pocket. She slipped out a small, pure white crystal, then carefully placed it on a small crevice in the center of the tree. Suddenly there was a slow grinding noise. The whole tree started sinking into the ground. The others gasped.

"Fauna, you never showed me this place," Hazel breathed, awestruck. As Fauna carefully placed the crystal back into her pocket. She led the others down a winding spiral staircase that started out where the tree should have been, then out into a small cave-like room. A pond took up most of the space but there was also a small chair and desk to the left of it.

Fauna drew the crystal to her head. It hovered there for a few minutes, then a white thin ribbon-like substance started flowing out of Fauna's head into the crystal.

"What's it doing," Shadow said, bewildered.

"Oh, sorry I forgot to tell you guys. This crystal is essentially copying a memory, I mean the memory. The one I'm thinking of, inside of it." she said wistfully, staring off into the distance, she shook her head. "Then when I drop it into the pond it will release the memory, then we'll go into the water, you won't get wet, and we will be inside of a VR simulation-like place, but a memory. Also, it's called a memory stone."

"Okaaaay," Lumia said bewilderedly. Fauna sighed.

"Just...watch." The memory stone suddenly stopped, apparently done its job. Fauna plopped it into the small pond and the others watched as it shimmered once, twice, three times creating little ripples in the lake. Then all of a sudden the water turned white.

"What's happening?" Shadow said, panicked.

"Don't worry we're just going into the memory," Fauna said calmly. Soon there was a bright, bursting flash and the group was transported inside of the memory.

When Shadow opened his eyes he found himself on the rocky ground covered in greenery and dust. He looked northeast and saw a massive forest stretching as far as the eye could see. And then right in front of him he saw...Execute, he thought to himself. What's he doing here? And who's that below him? There was a figure that seemed to be fighting his father. Fear dawned on him and he realized he couldn't see Lumia, Fauna or Hazel anywhere.

"Lumia!" he called.

"Over here!" Fauna's voice resounded, standing next to a kneeling Lumia.

"I don't feel very good," said Lumia.

Shadow ran over and found her, Hazel and Fauna gazing at Execute. They turned to him.

"Is Lumia alright?" he questioned Fauna.

"She'll be okay, we'll only be here for a short amount of time, it's just all the darkness here," she said, shuddering.

"Oh... and Execute again?" he raised a hand towards the crowned villain.

"It's a long story," she said.

"Good, because I love long stories," he said. Fauna laughed. Then her expression shifted into a frown.

"So, I used to live here on the earth planet with my parents. Then one day this person named Execute came."

"Our father!" Lumia and Shadow said at the same time.

"Yes," Fauna continued. "When he showed up..." she swallowed. "He-he had three gems in his crown when I first saw him. A grey, a blue, and an army green. Air, water, and knowledge."

"What does the knowledge gem do?" Hazel asked.

"It can allow you to mind control someone and go through their memories, ideas and thoughts," Fauna said sadly.

"He said he needed the earth gem, and that he was on a quest to collect all of the gems and have the most power in the universe, he's still on that quest now." she stated, "He told us we could do this the easy way or the hard way. We asked what both of them were and he told us the hard way. If we didn't give him the gem he would not stop at any cost to get it, meaning he would do something far worse than kill, but instead take over the defender's minds. The easy way was we just handed the gem over. Obviously, we fought against him," she paused and choked out the last few words: "A-and now it's just me that's not mind-controlled. This is the last I saw of my planet." She went to the scene. "And that's my mom," she gestured at the figure battling Execute. There was a long pause, everyone staring at the seen their minds awhirl.

"He couldn't- my dad was-," Shadow tried to say, unwilling to come to terms with this new realization.

"I'm so sorry Fauna, I didn't know that my dad could do something like this," Lumia told her. Fauna shrugged sadly as tears streamed down her face.

"It's ok, I've-I've come to terms with it now, and I know you two are nothing like him," Fauna whispered. Shadow's mind was still wrapping his head around the news before a tiny idea stemmed, and grew, and kept growing until it was completed.

"I have an idea," Shadow said abruptly. "We're going to get them before he does, we're going to recover the sacred elemental gems."