*The Chronicles of F.R.E.E. Atania's Knight - Raquel Festow* Part 2

Chapter 21 - Return to Secrunerth

*Rebecca Donton POV*

"Axorqi kria, Benjamin, for the support you gave Ruth. I think she's starting to realise that she's the most important one out of all of us, you know. The one that's going to keep us all working together to the best of our abilities, as well as keeping the peace." I knelt at Needham's stone in the graveyard.
Thankfully, the Mournestrikes hadn't destroyed that part of the town and it was untouched. I had decided to give him my regards before Jumping back to Secrunerth. Everyone else were getting their watches checked by Micha and Feng, but Ruth, Rhianna and Harry had returned already.
"I better be getting back to work now." I said, quietly to the stone, getting up slowly. "We will meet in the Afterlife, old friend. Be sure to be there when I reach you."
I wiped the tears that had escaped my eyes and returned to the house.
"Right, are we ready, now?" I asked when I came inside.
"Iez, my love. All done and ready to go." Natalia squealed from where she was standing beside Clemency.
"Alright." I faced our new recruits, proudly. "You can now press the sides of your watches together and return to Secrunerth." I smiled at them all, warmly.
Pressing the sides of my own watch together, I transported to the grounds of Secrunerth and gazed up at our Headquarters tower. I craned my neck up to look at its terrific height. Had it always been that tall? I then looked to where my home was, on my right, before turning to the left and seeing my workshop.
I was home! Finally!
The others all appeared within quick succession of each other, and looked around at their new surroundings.
"So this is where you were hiding, Viaxaw?" Micha mused, grinning as he looked up at the white tower with a look of wonder.
"That's right. Welcome home, soxaw." I looked at him, proudly, but inside I was hurting for him.
Jarod and Oren had decided we were no longer worth keeping in their lives. We were both shameful and no longer a part of the family. Bullshit! Without me, they wouldn't be here... but then again, without Jarod I wouldn't be either.
I shook my head, shaking away the negative feelings and concentrating on making a new life with my wife and son by my side, new memories to make and definitely something to look forward to.
"Welcome to FREE Headquarters." I announced loudly. "This is where you'll be staying. Feng? Make sure they have the comforts they need."
I pointed my finger at him before walking towards the entrance to the tower. Rhianna and Harry emerged just as I reached the door.
"That was quick." I taunted, smirking at the two of them.
Rhianna looked livid. "I only showed him around! Feng! I need another armchair and foot stool in my apartment. Also, get rid of the old bed and get a new one in. As well as a new wardrobe." She barked at Feng.
Feng nodded and wrote them all down so he could make the arrangements.
I chuckled. "Well. This will take some getting used to."
The entrance doors burst open again and our remaining members all ran out to greet us. I became inundated with people all talking to me at once.
"Thank the Realms, you're back!"
"We knew you were alive!"
"We thought you had all been sent to Deathea."
"Where have you been?!"
"Welcome back, knights of FREE!"
I held up my hands to stop them, my eyes closed against the noise, and my lips pursed to stop myself losing my patience.
"Men! Please! Enough noise!" I said, loudly.
I opened my eyes and looked at the remaining group. A majority were from Ruth's team, mostly because they were from Earth and didn't want to go back then not be able to return.
A rough estimate of how many were standing there, came to around forty remaining members.
My heart plummeted. How could they betray us? Looking at the faces, almost thirty of them were from Ruth's, with a couple from mine, then the rest from Ruby's. None had stayed from Rhianna's team, and she was furious about it.
"Rebecca, with your permission I'd like to head out straight away and seek out my... 'team'. Those fucking cowards!" She said, looking livid.
"Not now, Rhianna. We will start recruiting again tomorrow. Let's make our new members welcome first. You need to show your new saltazeeb where to find everything." I looked pointedly at Harry.
She glanced at him and her eyes softened. Pulling off her helmet, she cast me a look. "Fine. But I'm leaving first thing tomorrow!"
I smiled at her. "There's a good girl. Right! Where shall we start?"
I looked around and my eyes landed on Daisy, laying in Phillip's arms, staring up in amazement at our Headquarters.
"First and foremost, let's get Daisy looked at!" I said, walking forwards and putting a hand on Phillip's shoulder. "Take her to Bianca."
"I'm here." Bianca came pushing through the crowd, but stopped when she saw the tiny girl. "Children? But you... children?" She stared around at the others with a bewildered look.
I nodded. "Poor girl hurt her leg during a Mournestrike attack." I gently lifted the blanket that was covering her legs so Bianca could see the extent of the damage.
"There was actually two of them, that time, Rebecca. Plus the other beasts were trying to get a free meal out of it too." Rhianna told me, sourly.
"Oh shit." I gave Daisy an apologetic look. "I'm so sorry, Daisy. Now, this nice lady is going to take a look at your leg. Can you be a good girl like you were for Regina and I, and sit very still so she can take a look?"
Daisy looked terrified of Bianca.
Phillip hugged her in his arms. "Daddy is going to be right here, Daisy Chain. Nothing will hurt you."
Bianca gave Daisy a kind, gentle smile. "It's alright, Young one." She soothed. "I'm just going to take a look at your leg. Can you tell us what happened?"
"Auntie Watson, she was carrying me, then she fell over, then a big doggy came and was playing with us then it went to get auntie Rhianna." She said, timidly.
I frowned. "Big doggy? You were playing with a coffinhound?!"
I looked at Rhianna, who had a void face.
"Explain please!" I snapped at her, impatiently.
Rhianna shrugged. "I don't fucking know. I was searching behind the shops."
I looked around, searching for Ruth. "Where's Ruth gone?"
Darren jolted and stared around himself. "I thought she came back with you two?" He looked at Rhianna and Harry.
"She left just before us. When we arrived, she must have already come in." Harry said, looking up at the tower. "How easy is it to find people in this place?"
"I know where she may have gone to." Rosalie said, stepping forward. "She kept going on about rearranging her apartment when we were travelling from Rusper to Swindmore."
"You didn't show me where her apartment was." Harry said to Rhianna.
Rhianna glared at him. "That wasn't why we went to the apartment, Gruucick!"
Ruby made a gagging noise. "At least you got it out of the way, now. I'll be able to sleep tonight, hopefully."
I burst out laughing. "Don't be so sure, Ruby. These things can be done multiple times during the day."
She blinked at me. "Oh fuck..."
"Right." Bianca grunted as she got to her feet. "The leg is fixable, thankfully, but I will need to put her under sedation to be able to do it. She's going to be sore for a while. Seeing as she's not in any pain, right now, she can take a look around, first, to make her feel more comfortable in her new surroundings. I don't want her upset because she doesn't know where she is. Would you like that, Daisy?"
Daisy nodded, timidly and nuzzled into her fathers chest.
"We will give you all a tour first then. Ruth should reach the Eating Room by the time we've shown you the first twenty floors or so." I said, grinning around at everyone.
"Who's house is that?" Sharon, Ruth's mum, asked, curiously.
"Oh, that's our hut!" Natalia squealed. "Would you like a look around?"
"No fucking way!" I snapped, shaking my head. "I haven't burned all the figurines yet. There's still some in that cabinet."
Ruth's friends from Astrovia grimaced at that, and cast thankful looks at me.
"But it has all your old blades on display, my love. You can show them one from Deathea you made." Natalia cooed, persuasively.
I narrowed my eyes at her, but it had worked on my fellow Doppelgängers.
"You never said you had kept it!" Ruby gasped.
"I'd like to give it a go." Rhianna demanded.
"It would be interesting to see the blade that kept you alive for so long." Regina mused, cocking an eyebrow at me.
I scowled. I hated other people coming into my hut. It was where I lived, not a fucking display room!
"I'll run ahead and hide the figurines." Natalia beamed at me, taking my scowling silence as an agreement.
"HIDE THEM VERY FUCKING WELL!" I bellowed after her, then looked around at the others, awkwardly. "That may take a while. We got over three hundred of them at our wedding."
"You'll be getting more at your second." Clemency sang, prancing off towards the hut.
I made a low noise in my throat as Natalia popped her head back out.
"Ready!" She called.
Reluctantly, I gestured the new recruits forward. They approached the entrance, anticipating me to go inside first and show them around but Natalia took that job on.
"Welcome everyone. So. This is where we sit every evening together. This is Rebecca's organ and her desk where she sits and writes her letters. These are our potions. And these are our collection of weapons from over the years together."
I felt extremely claustrophobic with all these people in my house, nosing around my private home and picking it apart.
"You need a new one of these, Rebecca." Rhianna sneered, poking at my organs keys. "This is far too old."
"Keep your fingers away from it! Don't touch anything!" I snapped at them all.
"My love, why don't you show them our weapons?" Natalia called over, peeking at me above the sea of heads.
I groaned and went up to the wall.
"These two were ours from the first war on Neonia, these were Cristis, these were Secrunerth and that's where CometFell and Sapphire were meant to be, but they were left on Earth." I explained quickly before trying to usher them out of my hut.
"What about that one?" Todd asked, pointing at the blade I had made in Deathea.
"That's the weapon I made to keep me alive on Deathea." I said, gazing at the blade, cautiously.
I had only kept the sword made from rock because it reminded me that I was capable of surviving anything. That I had survived, when most would give in to after a few days there.
"Can I have a go with it?" Rhianna asked, stepping forward and reaching for it.
"Not on your life!" I snarled. "No one is allowed to touch it!"
Natalia frowned at me. "You let Ruth have a go."
I glared at her. "And she nearly broke it! No one is touch- HEY!"
Rhianna has side stepped around me and lifted the heavy blade off the wall.
"Bloody hell. You can tell this was from the early days. You'd struggle to do anything with this!" She grunted, holding the sword in front of her and pressing her thumb against the edge. "It's blunt too."
"Because it's rock!" I snapped, snatching it from her and gently placing it back. "Don't touch!"
"Makes me feel warm thinking about where you made that, Rebecca." Regina removed her helmet and wafted her face with her hand.
Now she said that, I was starting to feel increasingly warm.
"I think we better change out of our armour. Might be contracting the heat." Rosalie breathed, also removing her helmet and wiping her brow with her sleeve. "I do remember the autumn months being very hot here."
"You can use this room to change." Natalia pointed at our spare bedroom. "There's some of our old clothes in there that you can help yourselves to."
Darren made his way to the front curtain.
"Where are you going?!" I called to him.
He turned to look at me. "To get changed. I'll meet you all in the museum."
"Museum?" Steve, Ruth's step father asked. "You have a Museum?"
I rolled my eyes. "That's what Ruth and Darren call it. It's just a few junk floors full of the old furniture and belongings from the families that used to live here before we took it over."
Rosalie gasped, loudly. "You kept them?!"
I looked at her as if she was mad. "Of course I did. It's their history. I couldn't just get rid of it!"
"I'll get changed. I have to see it!" She dashed into our spare room while I turned and walked into our bedroom.
I looked around at my favourite place to be. The bed was still made, the closets next to each other, the drawers that were full of the clothing we had collected. I was thankful that the clothing Natalia had got during our time on Earth had stayed behind. I would have had to get more storage for it all.
After getting changed, I felt a little better but still quite warm. Pulling out the drawer that had a fan inside it, I picked it up and left the room.
Thankfully everyone else had filed out of my house while I was getting dressed. I quickly went about checking everything was there when I noticed the jar of spare Chreek Plates were gone.
"FENG!!!" I bellowed, looking at the curtain for him to return.
"Yes, Rebecca?" He came back inside.
"Did you take my Chreek plates?"
He hung his head. "I had to make sure we took everything we could possibly need with us. I didn't know what to expect when we got to Astrovia."
I scrutinised his face, then sighed. "Just be sure to give them back to me, alright?"
I left the hut and showed the ground floors of the tower. Four of the floors were full of the old furniture, and Rosalie quickly gathered a list of what she wanted to have in her new apartment.
"Oh this reminds me of my mama! Put that one on the list. Oh and my papa had something just like this, I'll have that."
After a couple of hours, she was finally ready to move on. We showed them the fifth and sixth floors where they would find clothing, shoes and other materials needed for any calls they may travel to, such as rope, snow shoes, flasks and so on.
The seventh and eighth floor were for weapons. I instructed Harris and Styles to get rid of the old, worn weapons so that Jane would have enough room to fill them up with her creations.
"We have members with all types of skills so we will need maces, battle axes, long and short swords, bow and arrows, bludgeons, you name it, we will need it." I told her.
She looked at her saltazeeb, overwhelmed with happiness and I grinned widely at her, very pleased that she was showing her enthusiasm already.
The ninth floor was for entertainment. There were instruments, a special machine that played music and lots of books.
Rhianna took Harry straight to the machine to show him. "Asuna called it a stereo. Ruth spends most of her time in here listening to music and reading." She looked through the little boxes beside it and pulled one out. "This is her one."
Harry took it and burst out laughing. "Oh, Ruthie. She never changes. Has she joined us yet?"
He looked around our group, but couldn't see her.
"Is Darren back?" Alex asked, looking around for his son.
"No. He's not." Ruby fanned herself with her hand.
I frowned, looking at my fellow Doppelgängers, who were all panting and looking uncomfortably warm, then around at the others who weren't bothered at all.
"Raquel." I said, slowly. "Where's Ruth's latch leading?"
If she was on Secrunerth, then the latch will lead us to her. But if she wasn't, then...
"I can't follow it..." Raquel replied, her face morphing into worry. "It's stretched too far."
My mind went into overdrive. The heat we were feeling, the sweating we were doing, the foreboding feeling that Ruth was somewhere she shouldn't be.
"Where could she be?" Her mother asked, looking concerned.
Everyone started talking over each other, looking around helplessly, trying to work out where she could have gone, but I now knew what had happened. We have a rat, and everyone is a suspect. Someone has split Ruth away from us, and would likely pick us off, one by one.
"My love? Are you ok?"
"Viaxaw?"
Micha and Natalia stared at me but I had frozen, concentrating on what I needed to take with me to bring Ruth back. If it meant going back there, then I would do it. I will bring her back!
"I'm going to Deathea. That's where she is." I told the others, bluntly, walking off at a quick pace to get ready in my hut.
"But you can't go on your own! We're coming with you!" Rhianna shouted at me, jogging to keep up with my marching.
"No you're not! I need you all to stay here. You need to run things here. I know my way around there. I will find her. The sooner I get there, the better chance I have."
I broke into a run when I reached the stairs and leapt over the railing, plummeting down the ten storeys. Ruby, Rhianna and Rosalie followed me without hesitation, while Regina and Raquel ran down the stairs as quickly as they could.
I landed and continued my way to my hut to prepare myself.
Flinging the curtain out of my way, I grabbed MoonShadow from the wall and went inside the bedroom, undressing as I went.
I looked down at my body in my underwear. It had turned red, my faded scars were now highlighted, showing all the more prominently. I was feeling uncomfortably warm, boiling even, sweating profusely and very thirsty.
"My love! No! If she hurts herself, you could collapse and be left there!" Natalia came running in and flung her arms around my neck, sobbing into my shoulder.
"Qaazeeb, I won't be long." I whispered. "I'll be going a few hours at a time, coming back topping up with water then returning. I need to find her! You know how dangerous it is there!"
"But I could lose you." She breathed, her watering eyes gazing into mine, terrified.
"That's a risk we're going to have to take." I put my forehead against hers, closing my eyes and trying to keep the memory of her touch with me so I could rely on it when I got there. "Keep her family and Darren distracted. Keep them busy. Make them feel like they're helping with finding her."
Natalia pulled away and placed her lips against mine. I pulled her closer but the heat then became unbearable. I felt like I was in a furnace and my skin was bubbling, blistering up and inexplicably excruciating. I cried out, pushing her away from me, and started desperately looking for a way to cool down. I rushed to the bathroom, ignoring Micha, Feng, Tommy, and Harry who had all followed me, wanting to go with me, and jumped in the bath turning on the taps.
The relief they gave me lasted all of two seconds, when the agonising pain built even more. I started screaming, unable to take it anymore. Giving up on the bath idea, I jumped out, into the sitting room again, grabbed the blade I made in the Dead Realm last time, and jumped to a random location.
I looked around the familiar, deadly scene. The volcanic terrain surrounding me with its rivers of lava and dead, charcoal trees. The air was thick and barely breathable and my bare skin was already starting to burn in the intense heat. But these were the real burns, before I had felt the ghost burns.
I squinted in the red brightness and looked around the thirsty ground for anything that will give me an idea of where she could be.
My watch started pinging, but I ignored it. I needed to focus on finding Ruth. I started walking, flicking my eyes from the ground around me up to the sky to keep an eye out for Deathea's predators.
It was a couple of hours before I found a trail to track. I didn't know who it belonged to, but I had to follow it, regardless. I looked at my watch and saved the location, before Jumping back to Secrunerth.
When I jumped back, I landed in the grounds with a crowd gathered outside. They all stared at me in horror when I started walking towards the hut to get more water, I glared back at them.
"What are you all staring at?!" I spat at them furiously.
"Rebecca... your skin..." Jennifer said with concern.
I looked down and noticed my skin had blistered up and was red raw. Now my attention had been drawn to it, I felt very sensitive, sore and fragile with every move I made.
I groaned. "That's why I'm going to get dressed and go back. I need to top up with water as well. I found a trail that I need to follow."
"Rebecca, I'll go and get you some ice in a flask. You'll need dry food as well. Ruby, where's the kitchen?" Sharon said, quickly.
"I'll help you." Sharon, Ruth's mum, cried, following Sharon and Ruby as quickly as she could.
I smiled at their quick thinking and for helping me.
"Right, it's my go now." Rhianna quipped, looking at her watch.
"Oh no you don't!" I grabbed her wrist and she glared at me. "If you go I may end up following your trail, which is something I don't want to happen. I'm going and I'll be the only one going!"
"Rebecca you can't do this alone. We can do it on a rotating schedule." Regina tried to convince me.
I shook my head, dismissively. "I've done it before, I'll do it again!"
I went inside my hut and quickly splashed some water over myself in the bathroom, before heading for the bedroom to get dressed in appropriate gear.
I chose to wear a very old, long sleeve shirt and my long, ankle length skirt from Neonia. They were thin and light, but provided much needed coverage from the suns.
Both Sharon's and Ruby returned just as I was thinking what weapons to take.
"We've packed enough food too. It'll be night time soon, so you may want to camp it out." Ruby said, handing me the bag.
I scoffed. "Night time doesn't exist there. The Realm has seven suns. They keep it at the same temperature and it's always daytime there. Tell Natalia I've taken our stash of Energy and Health potions. She will need to make more for me." I put the bag over my shoulder and bent to pick up my other bag that I had packed of spare clothes and essentials. "Where is Natalia?" I asked. I had been hoping to see her just in case it was the last time I saw her.
"She's keeping Darren, Steve and Maria occupied." Ruth's mother said, coming closer to me. "Bring her home. Bring my baby back to me. I can't lose her again, I've just got her back. Please!"

A month later, we still hadn't found Ruth. I continued going back and forth from the Dead Realm, tirelessly searching and hoping for a miracle.
A week after she had gone missing, the Doppelgängers and I all experienced what we had been dreading. The entire right side of our bodies felt like our skin had been melting from our bones from extreme heat. We had all fallen to the floor, screaming and writhing around in agony. Waking up a week later in the infirmary, our skin stinging and utterly bewildered about what had just happened to us.
We had lost precious time that should have been spent searching for Ruth and experiencing that, meant that I could, quite possibly, be searching for her body. But I was adamant that she was ALIVE!
The only thing that was keeping me sane was the fact that Raquel said her latch was still intact, but too far to reach. I had done countless tracking potions to find her, but all had led to volcano after volcano with no way in, except the crater full of lava.
The fumes in Deathea had started to affect me too. They were toxic, causing hallucinations and made me delirious. Too many times now, I had been eating dinner with the others and my mind imagined I had been eating her rotting corpse, or waking in the middle of the night, screaming at the top of my lungs because I thought I'd seen her in the lava. It was all the more dangerous when I was on the Realm itself. My mind would imagine me elsewhere, somewhere safe, surrounded by my friends and family. I knelt at the edge of, what I thought had been a lake, when it was really the sea of lava in the centre of the Realm. My fingers had been burned to the bone and I had to quickly take a health potion otherwise my hand would become useless.
Natalia, Micha and the other Doppelgängers were now begging me to call off the search. That it had become far too dangerous to continue and was affecting me too much.
I was sitting in the sitting room, my feet in a bowl of ice water to sooth the burns and help ease the pain. It had been another full on day. Because I knew my time to find her was fast running out, I had been making my trips longer and longer, but this made the suffering even worse.
"Rebecca...?"
I looked around, and Raquel came inside the hut. She was distraught. Her eyes were streaming tears out faster than a waterfall, trembling uncontrollably and hunched over, weighted down by grief.
My heart stopped, my stomach clenched, and the blood froze inside my body. Even though I was burnt all over, I suddenly felt very cold.
"Raquel, please... don't..." I didn't want to hear the news she was about to tell me.
"Rebecca, it's gone. He-her latch isn't there." She could barely whisper from how upset she was.
I scrunched up my face, trying to hold back the tears that were threatening to overflow. I broke down and slumped in my chair. Raquel ran over and we wailed the loss together, clinging to each other, mourning for our twin.

... TO BE CONTINUED ...