Return of The Corruption (Empires SMP Fanfic)

10

      Forest scurried through the forest like a nimble fox. Shrub was on her tail, along with the wolves. 

Forest was only playing around, but even the teenager couldn't avoid Rivendell's head guard, Nigel. She remembered her little friend, Fawn, hating his guts. 

     "Forest!" Shrub had hissed, grabbing her arm as she skidded to a stop. The girl was ridiculously tall, like a giant in contrast to her mother at a strong 4'3. The wolves retreated into the trees, Shrub hopped onto Dire Wolf, expecting Forest to follow, but she kept running, not noticing her mother's disappearance. Finally, when she realized the dog's panting had dissipated, she frowned and turned around. They had gone completely, she was very lost but recognized the trees. The young gnome ventured on, going the wrong way but not even caring. She heard strangled cries, they were strained and desperate.

    "Stop! Stop it! What do you want! STOP!" there was a boy, also one of her friends. He was on the ground, covering his ears, a few tears slipped from his nose and chin; as his face was pointed down. Ty opened his eyes, the red of the traumatizing scene fading from his eyes. His breathing calmed. Forest stopped at his side.

     "Ty...? Are you ok?" She asked. Ty looked around. 

     "Um, yeah. Where are we?" 

     "The forests that separate our empires. Not sure what else is in between," Forest shrugged.

     "We haven't seen any sign of you in quite awhile, where have you been?" She grinned,

     "The Undergrove has progressed. We have a huge population of gnomes, fairies and pig-men in our land. Our home is very impressive, we've finally finished construction for now and have time to adventure again!" Ty nodded. 

      "Did you hear that?" He frowned, tensing. Forest turned and poked her head into the trees. She looked around.

     "I don't see anyone-" her sentence was cut off as she ran into someone behind her. A different boy, this time her age, grabbed her wrists as yanked her towards him. "UGH!" she yelped. Nigel chuckled in her ear loudly.

     "Wow. Forest the not-short gnome and Ty the TY-ger guy! How funny that we have to capture you!" Forest tugged her arms around violently, trying to free herself.

     "What? We didn't do anything wrong!" She cried. Nigel's malicious laugh wafted his breath to Forest. It smelled like salami, cheese and crackers, which was gross but made her hungry. Guards filed in to the clearing and began shoving them in the direction of the snow peaked mountains.

Rivendell. Forest thought. Then a smile spread across her face. She could tell Fawn what the wolves told her. 

..:^:..

     The group was much bigger than it seemed to be. The thirteen kids (not including Mari, who was still missing) crowded around the small book wasn't exactly working. The younger kids consisted of Axel, Tara and Sunny, all at only twelve. Forest was the oldest of them all, Cliff, Flora, Misty and Dune we're strong at 14 and the rest of them were 13. They had a good spread of ages, the middles dominating but also leading quite well. (Excuse all of my weird, cheesy, dumbly-thought-of names lol) Fawn sat at the center of the group, staring right over the book. She flipped through the pages quickly. The prophecies appeared on each page as she turned them. She figured that was from the other dimension because it was a tattered book. She finally made her way to a blank page, near the middle of the book. 

     "Okay, to ask it to give us a prophecy about what we want to know, we all have to put a finger around the perimeter of the page," Fawn stuck her thumb onto the edge of the paper. Everyone else followed. The page glowed a brilliant gold and then dark words appeared on the page.

     Knowledge and craft. The future and past. Two of a kind for two gifts alike. Swords clash and water sprays. The creatures will make no delay. Height and slow falling will help you through, finally nature which you already knew. All to fight not just a corruption, but also the traitors who've lost their clear sight.

Fawn blinked at it.

     "That's interesting." 

     "At least it tells us what our possible gifts are, right?" Dune suggests. 

    "Yeah, I guess," Tara sighed. The doors to Fawn's room burst open. Everyone turned to see who it was in unison.

      It was Nigel. Close behind him was a yelling Jimmy,

     "You can't go in there-!" 

     "Hey. What's this? A demon summoning circle?" The teenage guard asked snottily. Misty narrowed her eyes to slits sharp as splinters. 

     "If it is, it worked; you're here now." Both sets of twins gave off a set of muffled giggles. Nigel looked more intimidated. 

     "Stop calling me something bad, or I will be," a hiss echoed from the ceiling of the room. Flora jumped and grabbed Misty's arm. Misty winced, her arm turning white. "Don't worry, flower girl, I'm not gonna hurt you." Flora cocked her head. She only knew one person who called her flower girl. That person had nicknames for all of the kids. She remembered who the demon was and shrank back down. Nigel looked on guard, his hand on his sword. The demon seemed to be wedged in a corner, as it appeared to Fawn. She had been looking through other prophecies and one specifically caught her attention. She tuned out Xornoth and Nigel going back and forth for a moment and read carefully. The sound of a sword being drawn pierced her ears. She looked up and screamed,

      "DON'T," she closed the book using a finger, the pages slapped shut. Jimmy was breathless in the doorway, everyone turned to Fawn, once again in creepy unison. "-do that." She finished. She showed Ty and Forest what she'd just read and Ty's eyebrows shot up. Nigel's sword was half in the air. Fawn advanced on him menacingly.

     "If you lay a finger on anyone I care about, you will be in very deep trouble." She hissed, flicking the glinting blade of Nigel's sword. The Codfather looked scared of his own daughter, they all did. "Now get out," she smiled sweetly. It made her friends laugh as Nigel scrambled to leave the room. 

     "DEMON CHILD!" he screamed at her.

     "That's right!" She called back. Scott came next to Jimmy. They smiled as the kids went back to work, busily talking about what to do to get to the other dimension and how to stop the corruption.

     "That girl has really got drive," Jimmy commented in admiration. Scott smiled warmly in reply,

     "Sure does."

Mk! Another chapter done! I'm loving where this is going and SPEAKING OF LOVE, I have decided to begin adding in the love element of my OC's. That prophecy is absolute crap but I don't really care so please don't judge it, lol. Can anyone guess what Fawn read in the book of prophecies? And also, I completely made up how they're written if that wasn't clear- ANYWAY! Let's just say that Nigel is not as minor of a character as he seems to be.

-Strange