I Reign Supreme

In an open hill were numerous plants and flowers besieged the environment, a minor tremor attacked an open area and chased away every creepy thing that flies in the air. The tremor got stronger in one particular part till a faint light twinkled very close to the ground. This light continued shine till it imploded where it shone and several figures appeared like white shadows.

'Where are we?' a young lady asked. This lady was part of Ariel group. She had blue eyes, a more tanned olive skin than Vester and a white stylish hair that slept to one side. She was adorned in a padded armour but was not possessed of any paper scroll.

The rest of the group fed their curiosity by looking around where they stood. In this place they newly arrived, they were no houses nor was there any shreds of evidence of urbanisation.

They could see nearly 100 miles far away and everything they saw was either a large forest or the frozen mountains.

'I think we're in–'

'We're not in the First District anymore. ' Ariel cut Mordecai's speech off.

After Ariel's sudden answer, the remaining squires darted sharp glances at one another for mainly two reasons. One, they were completely shocked. Two, they were surprised at how Ariel knew this.

'How can you tell?' Mordecai asked like he was mocking her.

Ariel smiled and took a few steps forward. She pointed to where the sun hung and said, 'North, Northeast. The First District is that way. Judging from the direction our shadow points. We should trudge Southwest and avoid unnecessary contact with the remaining teams.'

Vester raised an eyebrow up. Bobby raised both his eyebrows up. Maoki raised his eyebrows and almost forgot to close his mouth.

'How'd you know that?' Mordecai asked in concealed exasperation.

'In relation to the atmospherical conditions of this place, it's a bit too, less condensed when compared with urban residences.' Ariel replied with a know-it-all smile.

Mordecai was dumbfounded by her response. 'What does that mean.'

Ariel chuckled and said, 'It means you should follow what I say.'

Mordecai went closer to her to tell her, 'Just because you know some weird stuff doesn't make you smart.'

Ariel kept smiling but it took a while before she answered him, 'Before we left the First District I managed to calculate the intensity of the weather and back there it was nothing to worry about. Why? Because of the power being delivered to us by the sun since we were directly facing its button. But now that's changed.'

She continued while pointing to the west. 'We're not facing the sun's button meaning were exposed to more unstable weather.'

Mordecai was even now more dumbfounded and confused, 'How does that help?'

Ariel continued, 'The platform that brought us here as an intermediate time between 3 to 5 minutes if my estimations are correct. How does this help us? It helps us in the sense that we have 10 to 15 minutes before other teams arrive in our radius.'

Mordecai gave up on asking the girl questions. All she did was keep expanding his horizon of ignorance. He just stared at her with his chin pointed to the heavens.

'That's how it is. We don't argue with her, she's always correct.' The olive skin girl named Odith spoke.

'Erm… guys!'

Mordecai and the girls slowly faced back and found Bobby staring at an object. They couldn't see what it was because Bobby stood between it and them so Mordecai left the girls to meet with Bobby. Vester and Maoki followed suit.

'What is that?' Vester asked.

'I think it's some kind of of…pot.' Mordecai responded.

'Hmm…I think not.' Vester said as he unruffled the back of his hair. 'I think it's the item we're supposed to protect.'

'Yeah, and that item is a pot.' said Mordecai.

Vester went to have a closer look at the item. It was a palm-sized pot, painted pure black and having strange engravings on it.

Ariel walked back to them and explained as she smoothened the surface of the pot, 'These are writings, written in pictures. It means protection. We're a defending team. '

Mordecai wasn't going to ask her how she knew that since technically she ought to know almost everything. Quickly, Ariel opened her fancy backpack and stored the pot inside.

'Hey!' Mordecai yelled. 'I'm the SectorGuild, I get to say where the item goes.'

'Oh, okay.' Ariel mockingly replied him, 'Tell me? Does it go into one of your storage utilities which clearly you don't have or do you wanna store it inside your delusions?'

Mordecai was once again speechless.

'Now let's go, we haven't much time.' she continued and walked out on Mordecai and the rest of her girls followed behind.

To draw Mordecai out of his imaginations, a hand gently patted his shoulder, 'In as much as I hate to admit it. She's right.' said Bobby.

'Look guys, let's get our heads straight back to the game. Remember, we're not the only ones here. Other teams would come looking for us.' Vester spoke.

'And our best option is to follow someone who looks like they know what they're doing.' Bobby said affectionately as he patted Mordecai for the second time.

Mordecai knew Bobby used this opportunity to indirectly mock him. Just when Mordecai was about to talk.

'You guys coming?!' Ariel sounded from ahead.

Vester revealed all of his teeth and gave them a thumbs up to Ariel whom in response continued to walk further with her colleagues.

'You guys are not seriously going to follow her.' asked Mordecai with a dull face.

Bobby patted him again and said before joining the girls, 'Oh we are.'

Vester exhaled, 'We need all the help we can get.' then he joined the girls.

Mordecai glanced at Maoki, but Maoki pretended to avoid Mordecai's gaze and whistled past him.

'Great you too…'

IT WAS PAST SUNSET and the team had still no lead on the location of the Silent Mountain. On the way, Mordecai kept doubting Ariel's observation and theories on many of his questions but even with that, deep down he knew everything she said somehow managed to make sense and connect in one way or the other.

As for the remaining Squires, they all walked separately together but had nothing to say to each other. It wasn't long before Vester felt a gentle breeze across his face. He closed his eyes and continued walking but then again he heard separate sound of objects run past his ears. He looked back in curiosity but didn't think this problem was a problem, to begin with so he shrugged and continued to walk forward.

As he kept walking this action kept repeating itself. 'Can any of you notice that?' he asked as he stopped to look around.

The rest of the group became alarmed and stopped too. 'What's that?' Mordecai said.

'It's like…something's moving.' Vester replied.

Everyone became suspicious after Vester's unique answer. They couldn't doubt him at the moment even if they couldn't perceive anything. In a nutshell, it meant that Vester could sense what they couldn't.

When Ariel surreptitiously glanced at her girls they responded by shaking their heads. 'Are you sure?' Ariel asked Vester.

'Yeah, it's coming from over there.' Vester pointed to one part of the dark forest as he spoke.

Ariel wasn't sure about what Vester said so she took a closer look on her own and found out that several shadows were secretly approaching them. Not only her saw this but everyone else in the team did.

'Run!!' she bellowed and immediately they all started to run. Yet the shadows kept chasing them. It was after a long time of running Mordecai remembered something and stopped running.

'Wait a minute! I am the Bliss! And we are here to fight! And not run away from anybody!' Mordecai blurted.

The rest who were running stopped their tracks and turned around. They knew Mordecai was right. They were here to fight and show the Kingdom Forces their capabilities. Besides, they would be fighting with people of their calibre so how hard could it be.

'He's right!' Odith the tanned skins girl said as she looked at the rest of her teammates. The remaining squires became calm decided to wait for these shadows to approach them.

A person in a black mask silently jumped down from a tree before them. He avoided making eye contact by facing the ground when he landed.

The squires remained calm and watched silently as he stood up in a gentle and fashioned way. He wore a black owl mask and a black knee-length coat. When he stood up completely, he faced down and made the onlookers ignorant of his mask.

After a rather long wait in silence, he intensified their curiosity as he drove his head up abruptly. Revealing a pair of bright emerald light inside the eye sockets of the mask.

'The hell…?' said Mordecai in awe.

'He's not alone.' Vester spoke.

'What?!' said Ariel.

'I said he's not alone!'

Immediately Ariel flung her head around and the others followed. In every angle, there was a pair of bright emerald eyes watching them. A light that watched independently without a lower body.

'Damn it! We're surrounded!' Ariel blurted.

This owl masked squire stood and watched them in silence but after a while he extended his index finger and placed it very close to his mouth, signifying them to keep silent.

Ariel and her group were cooking up some counterplan against the foreigners when their world turned upside down as gradually, everything became silent. They couldn't hear the sounds the surrounding insects made nor could they even hear themselves talk. Bobby tried screaming, Mordecai kept hitting his hands, Vester stamped his foot on the ground but yet, not a single sound was made out of it all.

To them, the worst part of it all was that they couldn't even hear their teeth rattle inside their mouths.