The angry grey sky of dense, velvet clouds, which hovered eerily above them, poured rain. Piquant aromas of salt and fish hung thick in the atmosphere. The soldiers who trekked along the beachfront seemed like mud cakes, encrusted with dirt and grime.

Chikes led the brave hearted army bearing nothing but a gleaming sword which would clang against her steel metal leg plates as she stepped. Thousands of footprints in royal blue sands evenly copied themselves over and over again as they ventured down the tranquil coastline.

An apprehensive frown grew rapidly on the fairy’s dripping face with either tears or the chilling downpour of precipitation. With the loss of both Blort an Dinia, a tragic upsurge of depression and guilt circulated throughout her dainty body, striking the heart with the searing pain of love and agony. Why! Why! Why! Rang throughout her head. It was all her fault! Gone without a single farewell to the world they once lived upon. Morphed into lifeless stone by Gappsi, the catastrophic wizard.

Shutting her eyes, like a frisky spring butterfly flutters its wings, she remembered. The horrific scene painted itself in her mind and burst through an open passage way. Like a disaster. So unwanted . . .

She remembered.

The flashback once more burned the surface skin of his magical creature’s forehead . . . She remembered.

“Hahahahaha” came the utterly hideous laugh. Flinging about with psychosis, the evil man stared at her and spoke with such confidence.

“Your friends gave me nothing what so ever, no wave of thrill inside me. Just another . . . Simple death!“ The dejavu image relapsed again as Chikes peered at her long gone companions. Stone! Statues! Horri-

Damp eyelids slid up and glimmering twin pupils reflected the ever so smoky planet Zonn. Flashbacks were no grand mater, she soon realized. No more of those retched flashbacks!

Emerald green, golden yellow, and fiery claret oaks oscillated and danced in the breeze, causing a gentle swoosh sound here and there, complimenting the lashing crash of wine tinted waves. While the currents of pallid lightning illuminated all faces, the fatigue indulged crowd reached the battle site predicted in the great prophecy.

Profound rumbles shook the solid ground supporting the fighters, causing some to topple over each other. It was time. Chikes felt the irritating sensation, heard the brutal battle cries of death, and grasped the silver rimmed, jeweled encrusted blade with such a grasp, it would sting ones knuckles! Smog arose from a lava burping crack.

A hellish sight of devil-like creatures, which looked as if crawling up from the underworld, came into view. Their ignoramus nostrils flared with fury and the irises of these statuesque beasts glowed a blood red. Horns jabbed out of every monster’s cranium, clearly sharpened the day before.

Sensing the tingling in her gossamer wings, Chikes became tense, and shouted a hopeful cry out for all her soldiers to hear.

“It is time. Gappsi has arrived with a great army of killers who have no purpose except to thrust the act of murder upon all good. We are fairies. We are trolls. We are the good!”

Cheers of “the good” splintered the innocent silence that lay between the two groups choked in prejudice.

Luminescent lavender tresses scattered fine, moist strands across her eyes, blurring them, but she knew very well the long dreaded war was still there. Then a deeper, bloodcurdling voice rang with great abundance throughout all listening ears.

“Master Zelki taught you well…But you are no match for me and my followers. Did he expect a tiny, fair girl to destroy me? Gappsi paused a moment, took a long drawn-out breath, and continued his cruel speech. “I think not.”

“Let the war begin” He feverishly shouted with such ferocity and rage. A colossal blackened stone platform arose over the indigo hill. Grotesque figures with bloody coarse manes, signed hooves, and purple veins pulsing in their meaty necks, sustained the flat rock.

Stomping towards them, steam flowed from the horse like nostrils with every step. Gappsi stood in the top, arrogant looking as usual and in such a psychotic way. A tuft of greasy, graying hair zigzagged down his skull till it reached a dreadful Halloween green robe of ghoulish drawings. The bearers of the great lord Gappsi kneeled as the other creatures did, shaking with intensity.

Gappsi drifted a boney finger aloft in the air pointing at them…ZAP! He turned five trolls into chilling hard stone. The war was on.

Chikes quickly took wing, as did the other courageous fairies among her. Flying above evil, all Elvin fairies showered an array of flaming arrows below. Trolls slashed and beat the heads of wicked man-boars with thorny clubs, causing blood to scramble down each face. Blasts of blackened light whizzed around, transforming more and more into stone (no matter whom it was).

Chikes flew directly in Gappsi’s dreaded direction for she knew of the prophecy’s words. “Now shall the one be directed to him. They will fight till death parts he two angels, one fallen… one lifted by spirit. Her periwinkle eyes glided over the devastating and depressing epidemic as she recited the frightful words in her mind. How could we have come to this? Mystical beings she fought with, lived with, shared joyful moments with, now lay askew across the gut-stained battle field.

A sinister chuckle carried itself through her ears while zaps of charcoal black barely nipped at one of her wings. She struggled to keep up, but the winds were dreadful, and the once silky wing became like stone. She was brought down plummeting onto the unbreakable platform right in front of Gappsi.

“Well. I’ve been waiting for you to arrive. I want to kill you Chikes. I really do,” he whispered softly but with madness as a wrinkled old hand positioned itself for an attack. For a brief moment, Gappsi’s horrific and ghastly eyes pierced through the pure dewy purple color of the risen angle’s. They penetrated through hers as if the heavenly stars above were falling and burning into them. Realizing his hand, she broke the staring contest.

Agile, Chikes swiftly darted out of reach just in time. Gappsi howled with pain like a lion roars at biting his own claw. He had blasted his own foot. So foolish! Chikes slid off the platform, sprinting into the far off pixie daisy meadow, which were now a deep jade, so she could be face to face with the retched lord.

Gappsi stepped down slowly from his already cracking platform, dragging a shiny foot through the muddy ground, fists clenched tightly together. Foam oozed from the corner of his dried lips were. He circled Chikes like he was a vulture ready to make the kill on his prey.

“Come, silly girl. COME!” yelled a furious Gappsi while he blasted a ray of black at her face. She mustered all the power of light, good, and love(which Gappsi did not contain)and streamed a pink bolt of lighting from within her hands. As both powers met equally, an exhilarating and seismic shock pulsed throughout the air, causing trees to whirl about madly. Both eyes glowed a hot pink, from frustration. Both willing to destroy one another.

Chikes strained to even stand strait on the slippery ground, covered with masses of algae and mud, as the evil powers of Gappsi pushed her back, producing wholesome gashes through the earth. Her power indeed, was not superior, not strong enough! Gappsi would have her as the pink light billowing out from her stiff hands shrank and black took over.

Then in the heat of the battle, she remembered how she would join Bort and Dinia and Zelki and Vixie and all the others who died in this great war…after she herself perished. But as those names grew vigorously in her mind, her power did too. Every time she remembered the good times she experienced with them, her loved powered her lightning. Now Gappsi struggled.

Chikes was in a complete coma as her saintly body rose in the irate sky. The surrounding trees whirled about insanely in a mesh and shower of leaves. A spherical ball of pink film formed around her that paralyzed Gappsi. Around them, everything went still and the different sided warriors stopped battling and gazed in awe.

A deep vocal Chikes spoke, “You shall perish.”

Stupefacient gradients of yellows, purples. And reds lit the scene. Nothing was visible except for the everlasting glow of marvelous power. It lasted for at least five seconds, then all became normal. Chikes again cascade to the beach floor, but instead a frantic troll caught her. The angelic savior appeared fine, but indeed…dead.

Her lifeless wings became shriveled, her eyes shut tight, and her fingertips singed from all the spectacular power she released. Gappsi’s limp corpse lie crumple on his worthless black stones.

“This is the destroyer of Gappsi!” yelled a troll with a nasty gouge over his left eye, gushing a sickening amount of blood and puss.

“May all remember what she did…and how this one fairy…saved Bolton.” They all carried her lifeless fairy remains over to the sea-shore, stabbing the unused sword by her place, then walking away to report the news to Queen Marita.

Sea foam brushed her mud stained cheek and tiny conch shells scratched at her arms. All was finally calm as the Valiant Sea whipped once more at the sand. Yes, all stories must come to an end. Yes, Bolton is safe once again. And yes, Chikes was dead…until she twitched her reddened nose.