The Fae Chronicles: The Hollow Forest

Chapter 6

  Ryan hid his wings and pointed to Rowan. "Okay. We were on a camping trip and she got hurt. The portal is guarded, but the guards are human, so we can probably get in easily." Then he looked at me. "I think having ancient Romanesque weapons in park premises are frowned upon in the Waterbury Park rules and regulations book." He gingerly took my two bullwhips in his hands, careful to avoid the grips, and said something in that wierd language. The whips shrank until they were nothing but a small black backpack. I slung the bag over my shoulder and we helped Rowan walk to the road where the booth with the security guards sat, looking bored.

  "Help! Help us!" I cried, making them look up.

  "What happened?" The bigger guard said, jogging up to us. His name tag read Redwood.

  "W-we were camping and we diecided to go climbing on the Ravine and she fell. I think her ankle might be broken just please, help her." Ryan said. I couldn't believe he had wanted to paint sets!

  Redwood took Rowan, who was surprisingly good at making herself look hurt. She looked like a rag doll in his arms.

  "I'll take her from here." He said, pointing to a small shed. Another guard stepped out of the booth, and his nametag identified him as Pine.

  "Um, actually, on second thought I think we can probably get her to the hospital." Ryan said, nervous all of the sudden.

  "I'll take her from here." Pine said in a monotone that made my ears buzz. I was surprised when Ryan grabbed my hand, but then I realized when I looked up that he was somehow using his powers to make me see things the way he saw them, and the way he saw things were not pretty. A faint, dark green aura surrounded both guards.

   They were fae.

   "No, actually." A shadow hung over us, and I knew that Ryan had extended his wings. "We can take her."

   An intense staring contest ensued between Pine and Redwood and Ryan. Pine tapped Rowan's foot, making her yelp in pain, and Redwood put her down. She could walk, and her eyes widened. "Um..." but before she could finish, Aunt Tessa shouted, "Run!"
    We bolted, leaving Pine and Redwood behind. I had the nerve to look back, and I saw Pine swing one of his massive fists and punch a tree. I grabbed Ryan's arm in a frantic attempt to get his attention. He looked over his shoulder and his eyes widened. He stopped in the dirt road and turned fully to look at them. Then, a massive cracking noise that sounded like a forest being stomped on made Rowan and Tessa stop in a kind of horrified awe to look at them.
    The tree seemed to melt and grow around Pine, encasing him and making him grow about as tall as the tree itself. He was gone. Rowan started to say, "Okay..." but then the tree came to life, its braches parting to reveal a crudely shaped face with pointed teeth and moss dripping off of it like saliva. Its roots were ripped out of the ground, condensing and tearing apart to form legs. Branches formed massive arms with even bigger fists. The tree let out a roar almost worthy of the screeching shadow from the bank. I looked over to see another even bigger tree monster that I guessed was probably what Redwood had mutated into.

  "We should definitely run now." Ryan said in a small voice. On instinct, I swung the backpack off of my back, feeling it transform into my whips, and ran as fast as my legs could carry me.

   It was as if we were being chased by earthquakes. The trees stomped after us taking massive steps and barely missing us as we darted down the path. We split along a forked one, Tessa and Rowan running one way, Ryan and me running the other.

  "I thought you said they were humans!" I shouted over the boom, boom of the trees chasing after us as we ran.

  "Well, everyone makes mistakes! They're tree guardians, but they're Hemlock's emissaries, trying to stop me from entering the fae realm!" Ryan yelled back.

  "How do we stop them?" I asked.

  "Tessa and Rowan will have to if we're going through the portal!" Ryan said.

  "I can't leave them!" I said, panic rising in ny voice.

  Ryan grinned at me. "I think Rowan will have it under control."

  "What-"

  "We're here," He said. We had stopped at the end of the path, where the Tessa and Rowan were crouched behind a tree.

  The portal was a tangle of gnarled branches, but in Ryan's presence, they seemed to part to form a crude circle.

  A roar made me whirl around.

  They had caught up to us.

Pine, who had shifted into a pine tree-surprise, surprise-raised his fist, ready to smash Aunt Tessa into a grease spot, when I yelled, "Hey! Groot! Over here!" He turned his head with a grunt and saw me, a tiny ant on the ground compared to him. He snarled and swung his other fist at full force towards me, and shrieked in surprise when I lashed one of my whips around the wrist and twisted. There was a sickening crack as fist was ripped off of the arm completely.

  "Yes! The head! Aim for the head!" Ryan yelled frantically. "It's almost ready!" A sound not unlike the sound the dispersing shadow from the bank had made caused a swirling vortex of purple and green light to rip through the gloom of the forest.

  Redwood let out an enraged roar and went after Rowan, who's eyes widened and she raised her hands in defense.

  I can't remember, it all happened so fast. Redwood was pulled back by an unseen force, and he fell on the ground with a thump. I sprinted over to Rowan.

  "You okay?" I asked.

  "Yeah." She said, breathing hard. "Give me those." She took my whips and climbed onto Redwood's chest as he struggled desprately to get up, but somehow couldn't.

  "Shhh." She told him as he snarled and snapped at her. She draped the whips around his neck like a noose and pulled either way.

  We now had a beheaded tree giant at our feet.

  "Piper,we have to go!" Ryan said as he materialized beside us.

  We ran to the portal, with Pine, angry at us for killing his brother, hot on our trail.

  "We have to jump!" Ryan cried.

  Ryan and I were a couple of yards away from the portal, we looked back and almost got our heads bitten off by Pine, but he was slammed aside by a huge green blur that I later realized was  vines and leaves. Unable to process what I had just seen, I faltered, but Ryan grabbed my shoulder.

  "Come on!" He shouted, and we leaped through the portal, leaving the human world behind and being catapulted into the darkness of the fae realm.

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Yo.
That was a kind of long wait sorry.
I TAGGED DAN HOWELL ON TWITTER I'M NERVOUS SJSBDIDBXHDIBXHDISKXB
SO YES PREPARE FOR
-SOME NEW CHARACTERS IN THE NEXT COUPLE OF CHAPTERS THEY'RE PROBABLY SOME OF MY FAVORITES
-A lot of fae realm mayhem
-Piper kicking ass
-Ryan kicking ass
-Me kissing ass and asking you to VOTE PLEASE