The Sleepy Princess Loves The Cold Duke

Chapter Seven: Mini Poppy

Loki shot forward, sword aimed straight for the Minotaur's chest. The minotaur smirked at the clear attack and swung down. Loki's eyes narrowed knowingly and he spun around. The momentum from the swing kept the minotaur from changing its aim. Loki was behind the monster in lightning speed. He swung down and created a giant slash in it's back. The minotaur turned around to attack again but Loki was too fast. He cut and cut and cut. It's limbs fell one by one.

Lokis eyes shimmered a dazzling blue, chilling the air around them. He wasn't aiming for anything vital because he was taking his time. Slashing away his stress from the past few weeks. The Minotaur's eyes begged for death. Loki frowned. "Your such a weak monster that can't even regenerate, yet you managed to get past the capital walls and cast attack magic without getting detected? I expected more from you," Loki sighed.

He shot forward and grabbed the face of the monster. "Freeze," he chanted. Ice trickled from his fingertips and enveloped the body of the minotaur. Now that it couldn't fly the monster fell straight for the ground. Loki didn't even yell a warning as the monster's body was about to land on the evacuating citizens. He knew they would be fine.

A group of royal knights finally arrived and cleared the area of citizens in a flash. The popsicled monster crashed into the ground, leaving a giant crater. Loki sighed and chanted, 'down.' He shot to the ground with lightning speed but swung his sword down to create a wind draft to cushion his landing. He reached for his back as he angrily tried to rip off the talisman.

A knight walked over to the frustrated Duke and ripped off the talisman. Loki recognized the man as the captain of the royal knights, Gregory Light. His white hair reflected the orange and red of the sky. Gregory's purple eyes thinned from his bright smile."Some knight you are Greg," Loki glared at him. "This whole thing would have been a lot worse if I wasn't in the area. What we're you doing? Taking a piss?" Gregory bowed so low he almost touched the ground, "thank you so much Loki! You have no idea. We were called to a different section of the capital because of a monster warning but it was a false alarm. Until we realized it was in a different part of the city. It was my fault completely."

The two had fought on the battlefield together so Loki knew Gregory wasn't the type to make careless mistakes like this. Loki glared at Gregory.  "You're the captain of the knights. Don't bow so easily to people. You're leaving yourself open." Gregory chuckled, "even in this position I could easily protect myself." He spoke with high confidence in his abilities.  He straightened back up and walked with Loki to his car. "I should also thank your fiancé. You both saved this city from great disaster." Loki raised an eyebrow, "what do you mean?"

Gregory pointed to the direction of the teleportation gate. The Duke looked over. 'The gate is back up?'

•••

Poppy turned to the men patiently waiting for her guidance. "This thing is going to blow in around five minutes, destroying the whole city ." Their faces filled with horror. "But I have an idea," she continued. Joey stepped forward, "how do we help."

Poppy explained her plan and they all ran off to grab what was needed. One man came back with her medicine bag. Poppy quickly sifted through her bag and grabbed a stack of talismans. She slipped out one. "A shrinking talisman."

"Why can't we just put this on the gate?" Poppy shook her head, "just because it's smaller doesn't shrink the actual magic. Just the visual size of it. Like me shrinking means I will still have the same amount of magic, my body is just visually smaller. The explosion will be just as big but from a smaller source." He mouthed an, 'oh,' and nodded in understanding.

"If I don't come out in two minutes pour this on the gate. It will give you an extra like five minutes to run. But only in two minutes. This stuff is hard to make," she eyed her potion with a mournful gaze.

Poppy touched the control board and placed the talisman on her chest. Suddenly everything around her became extremely large and obnoxiously bright. She was on top of the control panel. She grabbed the knife one of the men had given her from her pocket and headed to the crack in the panel. Joey held out a sewing thread that Poppy held onto. He lowered her inside the panel till she reached the bottom.

Once she was inside she looked around and eyed the giant jewel in the center. She began to stab all the wires. One by one she ran around manically stabbing and slicing cords and wires. When they stopped glowing she new that meant they were off. The wires were designed to automatically shut down the power supply if small cuts were made. Basically if a rat gets in then it shuts down, and repairs itself. Since they weren't working properly they were only shutting down one at a time, so she needed to cut them all.

"Thirty seconds!" Joey yelled into the control panel. 'I must save my potion!' She declared to herself. She ran even faster and stabbed even harder. The potion was a magic neutralizer. It took her one year to ferment the sloth blood to the perfect consistency. She had never had so much patience for something in her life! No way was she going through that again!

Poppy climbed over the hill of wires and stabbed each one ruthlessly. A small stress relief from the stress she had experienced. Once she saw the jewel's light flicker off she knew that it was finished. She could hear the crowd outside cheer. 'The portal must have stopped sparking.' Their cheers and jumping were so loud it shook the box.

"The string, idiot!" Someone yelled. "Oh!" Joey yelled. He slithered the thread back through the crack and over Poppy's head. Poppy grabbed the string and made a tiny harness for herself. After a couple seconds, Joey lifted the thread. He smiled when he spotted the tiny Poppy at the end of it.

He placed her on the ground, and Poppy eagerly ripped off the talisman. Her body inflated to its natural size. All the operators had the same though, 'she is still small.'

Now that they weren't running on a timer, Poppy decided to do them on more favor by fixing the gate. "Do you need the manual?" Joey offered. She shook her head, "I made a mini teleportation gate when I was six as my science fair project. And I still got second after my brother," she grumbled at the last statement. "He did a glitter volcano!" She seethed. Joey chuckled at Poppy's arms that flailed around in anger. She took a few breaths to calm herself. "All this to say, I know what I'm doing."

Poppy dug through her bag and grabbed a mini tool box. She flicked off the tiny talisman and the box inflated in her hands. She cracked her knuckles, "let's get to work."

As she fixed the board she explained all her steps to the operators. Even their boss came back from his impending doom basement and began watching the mini lesson. "They are really straightforward with the wires. Red is a magic wire. Never take out a red wire while the machine is still one. Trust me, I know." They all chuckled.

Bang.

Poppy looked behind her and saw a giant ice block in the center of the plaza. She looked up and saw Loki still floating in the air. 'I guess that's a sword master for you,' she thought in awe. "Isn't that your fiancé?" Joey questioned. And that was all it took to sour her mood again.

A few minutes later and the gate flickered back on. The people that had returned to their cars clapped in astonishment. Poppy smiled and gave a little curtsy.

"Here," Joey's boss handed her a small golden plaque. "Free trips whenever you please. It also means you can cut in the lines," he winked. 'Can I marry this guys instead!?' She squealed and hugged the man. "Ah! You're an angel sent from heaven!"

"Princess!" Steven was waiting by the car with a first aid kit and container of cookies. "I figured you would be hungry after all this adventure," he grinned. After seeing the princess at her birthday ball he knew how much she liked sweets.

Poppy ran to Steven, her eyes glued to the cookies. 'What an exciting day!'