Heroes of Dreamland, Book 6 1/2: The Last Sakuranoki (OLD)

The Last Sakuranoki and the Cherry Star Sword

Meanwhile just outside of camp, Tracker followed Geo in a feverish sprint. "What's going on?" Tracker demanded.

Without even glancing back, Geo shouted, "It's the others at the Fountain! They need us right now!"

"Oh no," Tracker muttered to himself, wishing that he could safely facepalm without tripping over anything. Up ahead, Geo pulled his crossbow out of his cape, prompting Tracker to grab his fighting staff and whip it out to its full size. It'd been awhile since the last time he'd fought Nightmares, and he couldn't really say that he was looking forward to it happening again.

Elsewhere, Cherry had quickly discovered that it wasn't just the area around Orion's blacksmith tent, but most of the camp that was deserted. No matter where she went, she couldn't really find much of anyone. But a moment later, she did run into somebody.

"Cherry! There you are! I came to warn you!" the star girl from the other night yelped at her as she helped the Fairy up from where she'd fallen down, dropping the sword in the process. "If you don't hurry and get your baby tree to her new home, bad things are going to happen!"

"Marica?" Cherry murmured in surprise, apparently not really processing the star girl's words. "What do you mean, bad things? Hasn't the Fountain been fighting for a long time? Can't it last a bit longer?"

Seeming anxious, Marica shook her head. "It's not just that. The Lord of Nightmares is here himself, and he seems really mad about something!"

Cherry shuddered. That awful, dark monster that she'd dreamt about days before was here? The one who destroyed her whole home, her family, all of the magical cherry trees? Taking a deep breath, she nodded at Marica once. "I don't really know how the little tree will help things, but we'll go with you. Where's the Fountain at?"

"This way," Marica ordered, floating off at such a fast pace that Cherry had to flap her cape-wings hard to keep up.

At first, Cherry wasn't sure what everyone was upset about. Everything looked perfectly normal to her, except for how dark it was even though it was daytime. But soon enough, the grassy landscape started to be littered with craters and scorch-marks, obvious signs of a war between monsters and heroes everywhere. To tell the truth, she was starting to feel pretty scared.

Up ahead, Geo and Tracker had reached the war zone and were having to fight through countless Nightmares just to get where they were going. "I haven't seen Nightmares this thick since X12Theta!" Geo yelped as he avoided a wind attack from a dragon-shaped poison-cloud monster.

Frowning a bit, Tracker hollered back while simultaneously using his staff to fend off a crowd of mini-monsters, "Don't you mean X12Zeta? X12Theta was a piece of cake, uh, relatively, anyway!"

Geo paused a second to think it over, nearly getting stomped by a rock-dino hybrid in the process. "Uh, maybe you're right?" he half-agreed after breathing a sigh of relief, thankful to not be a Geo-pancake.

The two fought bravely, but soon found themselves surrounded. As they were crowded back against a graystone wall, the monsters came ever closer, the ones with teeth biting and snapping as they tried to reach them. But just as they got way too close for comfort-

"Guardian's Light!"

A stream of bright-blue light beamed through the Nightmares, making them scatter with yipes and growls. As the light dispersed again, a Fairy came into view out of the midst of it, a green-haired Fairy holding a silver shield and wearing the green vest that all Guardian Fairies wore. "What are you two SW's doing?" she huffed at them in disbelief, grabbing them both by the glove and flying straight at the wall.