The Water Warrior(Book 1)(Completed)

Chapter 17: When One Door Closes Another One Opens

Broken and defeated, Aqua sat on the floor thinking. Thinking of what she did wrong. Thinking of Darkmoon. And most importantly, thinking of a way to escape. She was locked in her room with no one to help her out, her mentor had just died, and to top it all off she was slowly dying of hunger from the same man who had killed her parents.

Since it was so late, Aqua hopped into bed and continued to plan her great escape until she fell asleep. When she woke up she went to her door and tried to open it, thinking that she had dreamed the whole thing, but it was locked. Coming back to reality, Aqua thought hard about what she should do. Then out of nowhere something inside Aqua snapped. Stota was not going to win, not this time.

Aqua started to go through her room. There had to be something in here that she could use to open her door. The window! Aqua thought. Aqua went over to it and tried to open it, but it would not budge. When she inspected the latch, it was glued shut. That's odd, Aqua thought to herself. Aqua thought hard, the window was not glued shut the other day because BlackHawk had gone through her window to warn her. Aqua knew that Stota must have planned to lock her in her bedroom, but she still did not know what made him suspect something was up.

As Aqua tried to think, she continued looking through her room for something, anything she could use to get her out. She found nothing on her desk or under her bed, so she headed to her closet. When she opened it up, the leather armor she had stolen from the female guard a few weeks prior was uncovered. That was how Stota found out. Aqua mentally kicked herself for being so stupid and careless. Knowing there was nothing she could do about it now, she went back to searching.

Aqua opened many boxes filled with useless junk. Finding nothing she proceeded to her connecting bathroom. Since Aqua was not much of a makeup girl, there was not much to go through. As she dug through the last drawer, she saw some bobby-pins, ones she had used to secure a wig she had worn for Halloween. Aqua pulled one out and went to her locked door. She inserted the bobby-pin and began to work, but after a half hour of trying, she gave up. Movies made it look so much easier. Aqua mentally made a note to herself to watch some videos on how to pick a lock if she ever did get out of here.

Having no way to get out of her door, Aqua went to her last hope, her window. She really did not want to break her window or try to jump out of a two-story building, but she really had no choice now. Aqua grabbed the blue vase on her dresser that had red roses in them and took the flowers out. She then threw the vase at her window. Glass went everywhere, so Aqua grabbed a blanket off of her bed and set it on the window seal that had some of the glass still on it. Next, Aqua grabbed her twin mattress off of her bed and pushed it through the large window. It landed on the grass of the front yard with a thud. Now that Aqua had something soft to land on, she slid through her window, took a deep breath, and jumped.

There was a second of weightlessness before gravity took its toll on Aqua's body. Aqua landed on her back with the wind knocked out of her, but she brushed off the pain and headed for her backyard. She hopped the large fence and headed toward the pool. What she saw made her blood run cold.

The rock formation that had held the entrance to her real home was destroyed. Bits of rock chunks and plastic filled the pool. The only evidence that showed what happened to it was the tire tracks of construction machines leading toward the gate and the devastation along with it.

Aqua did not know what to do. How could Stota do this!? She wanted to scream. She could never go back, she would never see Firestar, and most of all she could never stop Sinergy and his reign of terror. She wanted so badly to have the power of time travel, to go back in time and fix things, but she never could now. She could only live in the here and now.

Aqua picked up a piece of the rocks that had been blown apart and sat on her legs. She closed her eyes, willing herself to believe that this could not be happening. Then a soft meow caused her to open her eyes.

Firestar was standing right next to her in his car form. Aqua picked him up in her arms and gave him a hard squeeze, "I thought I'd never see you again." "Nothing could keep me from protecting you. Not even a destroyed entrance to your world," Firestar replied. Aqua squeezed him once more than set him down. "How are we supposed to get back to the Forbidden Forest?"

"I have my ways," Firestar simply said as he walked toward the house. Looking back at Aqua he said, "You probably should stay out of sight." Aqua took the hint and turned invisible and snuck around to the front of the house to get through the front door. This power had appeared one day when Firestar had crept up and scared her so bad she had completely vanished. All though to the eye, it looked like she had just simply disappeared, Aqua had learned this was not the case. If she stood completely still she was invisible, but if Aqua moved you could see a shimmer or a ripple effect just like how water ripples when it is touched. She used the hidden key and quietly opened the door. If anyone had seen this they would have thought a ghost had opened the door and closed it behind them, but that was far from the truth.

"Wait here," said Firestar to an invisible Aqua. Firestar listened for Stota's voice in all the downstairs rooms, hearing nothing, he went upstairs to find him. It did not take long for Firestar to hear Stota talking on his cell phone in his bedroom. Satisfied that Stota was out of the way, for the time being, he returned to Aqua. "Your father is upstairs-" "He's not my father," Aqua interjected. "-is his bedroom on the phone, so he won't even know we're here," Firestar continued. Well, that explains how he did not hear my window breaking, it did help that his room was right next to the stairs and Aqua's was at the very end of the hallway, the farthest room from his.

Aqua made herself visible as she followed Firestar through the house, grateful they did not have to go upstairs. They passed a few rooms before they stopped in front of two double doors that led to Stota's study. Aqua opened the doors for Firestar, since he did not have hands currently, and they slipped inside. Once they were inside Aqua could not help but ask what they were doing here. "You don't think the pool was the only way to the Forbidden Forest, did you?" Firestar replied as he went over to the globe sitting in the corner by Stota's desk and turned into a human so he could turn the globe left and right just like a padlock on a safe.

After a few more rotations, the globe opened revealing a six-digit gold number lock. Firestar spun the numbers around so they were in the correct order; the sliding of the fireplace confirmed that he had put in the right code. Aqua and Firestar looked at the black entrance that seemed to lead to nowhere. Aqua let Firestar enter first, not because she was scared, but because she had no idea how to navigate the darkness that loomed ahead of them.

Once the two friends entered the cave the fireplace sealed itself back up behind them. Aqua hoped Firestar knew what he was doing because they just lost their way back to Stota's study.

It only took a few minutes before light finally made an appearance in the room, which began to open up revealing a large room with a bed, kitchen and even a bathroom. Firestar turned around to face Aqua and proceeded to turn into his human form. He next went into the kitchen and placed his hand in what looked like a cookie jar and then approached Aqua with his hand outstretched and in his palm was Aqua's necklace. "How did you-" Aqua started but was interrupted by Firestar. "I snuck it out of his room last night while he was asleep and may I say that man can snore." Aqua laughed then embraced Firestar in a hug. They stayed like that for a while before Aqua pushed away to put the necklace back where it belonged. "Thank you."

"You're welcome."

Aqua then turned her attention back to where they were, an underground house. "Have you been living down here?" Aqua asked. "Yeah. Stota started to make this his wine cellar, but he never completed it. So when he went on one of his trips and Maudie took you to her house when you were a baby, I created this to keep myself and you safe if we ever needed it," Firestar continued to talk as he directed Aqua to a set of stairs at the far end of the room. As he began to ascend as he continued. "And this became my temporary home, which is actually not too far from my actual home." As they entered the second tunnel of the day, it was lit with lanterns leading to the surface. Sunlight hit their faces as they exited the inside of a tree and were met with the familiar Forbidden Forest. Finally, things were going right for them once again.