We will stand and defend

Rector rounded up everybody and told them they were going to leave the den, it was not save anymore.

Just as everybody was rounded up Richard and his team arrived .

"Dante you check all the dens, if they are indeed empty."

Luna howled for the wolfs that were currently patrolling to come back.

William opened a portal for all the wolfs that were currently in the den and transported to the mansion together with Genus.

After 15 minutes the patrol was also back but Luna noticed 2 were missing.

Richard saw two wolfs coming up to them but had a hard time walking.

Richard and Dante rushed up to them and carried them back.

William opened another portal and they left for the mansion.

Richard had already noticed that somebody was watching them but he pretended he hadn't noticed anything.

When they had arrived at the mansion he told everybody to take a bath just in case.

Derick walked over and asked, "How are you going to pull that off?"

Richard smiled "At the green house with the hot spring, if there are any spores on them it will be contained in there and we can close of the Greenhouse to keep it contained."

"Then I'll start to prepare the mansion in the north for our refugees."

Richard called to Dantis and told him to send over some servants to help, because of now he and everybody else should be quarantined for now.

[Queentia]

Marika was near Queentia and could smell the stench and got nauseous.

She landed and made a face mask for herself with Novicius Genesis in it.

After a few minutes Marika calmed down and the smell of the flower blocked the stench.

Marika than started to sprint to the village.

When she arrived she found the streets completely empty.

She then ran over to Aron's house, when she got inside she saw he was weak and had signs of dehydration.

'Aron!'

Aron looked up and saw Marika

Marika hurried over to him and placed an improvised face mask with a flower in it.

Aron slowly started to improve a little.

"Yumaria, it's dangerous here, you need to get out of here."

'Like hell I am, what happened here?'

"Just out of the blue the air was so foul everybody got sick at the same time, I told everybody to stay indoors until I consulted with you, but I fainted and got worse with each hour passes."

Marika looked around and saw food on the table.

'When did you take out this food?'

"An hour ago."

Marika had a good look and saw it was rotting away at a rapid speed.

'Aron before the air got bad, was there anything different in the surroundings? Like the sudden appearance of plant, mushrooms or a fungus?'

Aron shook his head.

'We are going to leave Queentia.'

"What about the rest of the people?"

Marika smiled, 'We're going to leave with everybody, nobody is going to be left behind.'

Marika gave Aron a pill and some water.

Now let's go and help the people and give out these face masks and asses there health.

Aron got up and started to move with her.

After a few minutes Aron was strong enough to move on his own.

The both split up and went from house to house.

Marika notice some residents were just fine, and told her that air in their house was just fine because they had a lot of plants and flowers inside that they were given by the flower girl of the village.

Marika arrived at the girls house and got invited in, she had a good looked at the plants and noticed the were natural air cleaners and had grown exponential.

'Did they grow this big because of the foul air started to appear?'

'Yes, and we can use these plants outside to save the village, but we need more of them and I managed to grow enough to clear the air on the central square.'

'I know it's not enough but…'

Marika looked at the young woman 'That's more than enough with these we can clear the air and leave by portal.'

'And when you guys are out we can grow more of them and comeback here and plant more of them.'

'But how…it will take days before we have enough of them…'

'Don't worry, I know a person who's innate magic is to create plants, trees and such, she should be able to do this in matter of hours.'

Marika handed her a mask, 'I'll go to other houses and check on the people wear this and you go set up the cleaning plants, with the others.'

Marika send out the people who were fine and told them to help the young women to set up the plants.

Marika was done with handing out the masked and asked Aron how everything was on his end.

"We are all good to go."

Marika went to the square and tested the air.

It was still no good and told everybody to wait in side.

15 minutes past and she tested again and the air seem to be clear.

Marika contacted William to open a portal.

A portal opened 'Alright everybody run!'

All the people ran from their houses and to the portal, Marika and Aron helped the weak together with some people who were still good.

As everybody was through the portal Marika saw something from the corner of her eye and pushed Aron through the portal and yelled to the other side to close it.

The portal closed and Marika was left alone.

'Well, well, well look who we have here.'

Marika took her mask off and grind.

All the people gathered together and saw the big mansion.

Genus, Luca, Azurite and Damion told them to fallow them and should discard of the masks.

Luca then saw Aron "Duke Virens, where is Queen Yumaria?"

Aron look behind him but didn't saw Marika, he then looked at Luca.

Luca noticed he was disorientated because of the lack of nutrition and was dehydrated.

"She was right behind me… but I got pushed through the portal."

Luca patted his shoulder "It's alright, she probably pushed you through it and called for a forced closure of the portal because there was a threat."

"I'm glad you all got out of that poisonous place."

"Don't worry Aron she should be fine, you know how smart she is…"

"Oh wait let me retract those words, she is a stupid and reckless Queen who thinks more about others than herself."

Aron started to laugh a little and calmed down.

The young women who was holding a plant came up to them.

'Duke I need your help, I can't find Queen Yumaria.'

"She didn't comeback with us because she was defending us from potential danger while we were evacuating."

'No way…Then do you know somebody who is close to Our Queen? She told me she knew somebody who's innate magic was to create plants and trees, The Queen wanted me to give this plant so we could grow a lot of them and bring them back to Queentia and clear the air again.'

The young woman had panic written on her face.

"Cerena, let me introduce to you, this is His Highness Lucius Viridans, he is the younger brother of Queen Yumaria."

Cerena bowed to Luca, 'Please forgive my rudeness…'

"It's fine Cerena, I only rule the country in my spare time when my sister is absent, I'm a doctor and that job comes first to me. So just speak to me casually."

"I see you are a botanist… can you tell me a little more about that plant your holding?"

Cerena stated to explain how she made the plan and why she made it.

'When the air started to change the plant started to grow bigger and the air in my house was clean I grew 24 of them but after the second day it was too dangerous to get out of my house to bring them to other people.'

'I'm sorry for being so useless.'

"Well don't beat yourself up, because of your plants you were able to clear the air and create a place with clean air so everybody could escape."

"How many do you need to clear the air in Queentia?" Richard asked.

Aron was calculating "With the tight radius 15.000, but if we want to clear the air within our barrier, roughly 150.000 Your Majesty."

"William you bring her with the plant to little Marika and explain what is going on, Luca you go with them because little Marika is going to need you as support."

Suddenly a roar was heard in the distance and it didn't sound good, it sounded like somebody was in distress.

Richard and Luca knew who it was "Get to the castle right now, we can't let whatever is coming destroy this plant."

William opened a portal and Cerena, Luca left to see Little Marika .

"Send Canus over and tell Dantis to send the soldiers that had been trained by Marika to the northern mansion."

William nodded and left.

Canus arrived and heard a roar and knew that something was not right with Marika.

"What's going on?"

Richard whistled and Aura and Felix came down.

"Aura you owner is in danger and she needs help, Felix you support Aura."

They both nuzzled Richard.

Canus also whistled and his eagle came down. "Audax you go with them, and don't you dare pick on Aura, or else I give her permission to pluck you clean."

Suddenly another eagle came down

"Alacer go with them and protect my sister."

Dantis joined the group.

All the eagle headed out towards Marika.

"Oke tell me what the hell is going on."

"A few days ago Faber Village lost contact with Queentia…"

"I know that, but what happened today?"

"Well she managed to evacuate everybody from Queentia but she had to push Aron through the portal and had William forcefully close it on her, what went down there I don't know."

"But for her to sound so in distress is not normal."

"Well she has currently only a quarter of her magic and only half of her inner energy available due to her repressing set."

Canus was thinking "Wait… is she doing this on purpose?"

"What do you mean."

"Damn you sister! Your just too damn smart!"

Dante didn't understand "What do you mean Canus."

"Well it simple, she is actually luring the enemy to us."

"If the enemy are bats then this will make them think she is weak and she will actually give them a shock for when the war starts, because she will unleash her full power and have them pissing there pants and then there will be no way for them to turn and run from her."

"Why are you so upset…you and Marika both have a neck for fooling your enemies. You should be happy that there is someone out there who is similar to you in nature when it comes to battles and war. If I ever get in a battle I just need to send you and Marika and then it will be solved in a matter of a day" Richard joked.

When Marika was finally in sighed they could see clearly what was going on, Marika was attacked by a lot of bat's and even the eagles couldn't clear them all from her.

"Well seems your wish for 100 bats got granted, there are around 267 bats chasing and attacking her."

Marika let out a final roar, but they could clearly hear she sounded exhausted after her final roar they saw Marika staggering in her flight.

"This is not good, get ready for battle."

Richard transformed and flew to Marika, when he was close to her he saw she couldn't hold on and she transformed back to her human self and even regressed to a child in midair.

Richard upend the speed and caught her.

Richard let out a roar and sounded aggressive.

Richard turned around and flew back as fast as he could and landed most of the bat's that were fallowing Marika didn't fallowed him, only 100 or so fallowed Richard all the way back.

Canus and Dante and the eagles were fighting the bats.

Marika came to her senses but started to throw up quite bad.

Marika was disorientated and delirious, she tried to stand up but this hid her stomach with another wave of nausea and started to throw up again.

"GENUS GET YOUR ASS OVER HERE RIGHT NOW!"

"Sweetie don't move, if you do you only will throw up."

Marika couldn't hear the word that were spoken to her and her vision was blurry.

Genus saw Marika state and rush up to her.

Marika again started to stand up and walk a few steps and collapsed again and threw up.

Marika got up again and took a few more steps, 'I can die…I need to find him first.'

William who had arrived because of the strong feelings she was feeling, anger, sadness, anxiousness, fear. They were all too strong to ignore.

'I need to meet with him, I promised… to meet him.'

He heard what she said and knew what she meant.

Marika stumbled down and collapsed again and started to cry 'I don't want to die.'

Genus came up to Marika and could finally have a look and saw wounds all over her and multiple poisons were running in her system.

"Little girl…what happened to you, for you being poisoned like this?"

Marika looked at Genus, 'Mister… can you tell me… if you know of a boy whose mother got killed by her family, he should be living in The World of the Dark.'

Marika tried to get up again. But it was starting to get hard for her.

William ran up to Richard and told him to transform in to the age of somewhere between 5 or 8 years old.

"She told me she always had held on to her grandmothers story no matter how bad of a situation she was in or how lonely she felt. Because that story was something that kept her going."

"But won't she let go if she see me in that age?"

"Not if you tell her to fight with everything she has because you don't want her to leave just yet."

Richard nodded and then changed in to a 7 year old boy and walked over to Marika

Richard was in front of her and stretched out his hand.

Marika looked up and saw a boy standing in front of her.

Marika smiled at him 'I finally found you…'

Marika took Richard hand and shook it.

'I'm Marika and starting today I'll be your friend…So you won't be lonely anymore.'

'But I'm kind of in trouble… I'm dying…but I don't want to die… now that I found you.'

Richard smiled at her "I'm not going to let you die, so would you fight with all you have and fight to live?"

Marika smiled and nodded. 'I promise!'

Marika started to get weaker and her legs gave out.

Richard removed her bracelets and her healing magic was at full affect and started to heal her damaged organs.

Then he reached in to her pocked and found a pill.

Genus nodded, it was Marika's special medicine.

"Take this and you'll be better soon."

Richard put the pill in her mouth and she swallowed it.

Marika finally fainted.

Richard changed back to his adult self and had a look of relieve on his face.

Even though she knew she was dying, she didn't want to die even after she found him.

When Richard picked up Marika, 4 small vials got dropped to the ground.

In it were fungus samples.

Genus picked them up and had a good look of them.

"What the hell!"

"What's wrong?" Canus asked.

"This fungus should be extinct, this one is from Cruentus and the other two are hybrids from the first two samples."

"Genus deliver 3 samples to the herb specialist and you keep one and see what can kill that fungus."

"Well finding something to kill this hybrid will take a few months… and that will also be the same for a medicine."

"Don't worry, there was a young woman who had made and grew plant's that can clean the air and is now working together with little Marika to create more of those plants to clean out the air in Queentia."

Richard walked to the Greenhouse with Marika in his arms.

The last group saw Richard carrying Marika and knew it didn't look good for their Queen.

They all stepped aside and let him go first, Richard thanked them and he went inside.

The people all turned around and formed a wall to prevent anybody from coming inside.

Richard undressed Marika and started to clean her in the hot spring, after half an hour he came back out with her and carried her back to the main mansion.

"You Majesty, we are grateful you took us in, let us know if you need help with anything."

Richard nodded "You don't need to worry about that, what she would have wanted is for you guys to rest and recover."

Everybody bowed to them and returned to get on with the cleaning protocol.

Richard arrived at his room and laid Marika on the bed, he covered her up but Marika woke up in a fright.

She saw Richard and hugged him tight.

"What's wrong sweetheart?"

Marika was shaking, 'I… I thought… I lost you.'

'I'm not dreaming right, your real right?'

Richard took her hands and brought them to his face "I'm real… and you're not dreaming."

"Sweetie let me call Genus over for a moment, because I gave you your special pill but you seem to suffer from side effect from all the poison that was in your system."

Marika grabbed on to Richard even tighter 'Don't leave, what if you disappear and never come back.'

There was a knock on the door.

"Enter."

Derick came inside and saw Marika was holding on to Richard very tight, like she was scared he would disappear.

'Daddy he is real right?'

Derick looked at Marika and smiled and walked over to her.

"What's wrong Marika?"

'Daddy I lost Richard.' Marika start to cry.

"But isn't he next to you right now."

Marika nodded but she still was crying.

'Daddy I dreamed I lost Richard in the future.'

"How did you lose him?"

'Somebody took me away from him, and when I got back he didn't want me anymore.'

Both Derick and Richard heart broke when she said that.

Solis and Caelum heard what Marika said and Caelum looked at his brother "Is it true what she said?"

Solis shook his head, "No they will be together and get married and have children."

"She is currently suffering from side effect due to all the poisons she got hit with."

Richard heard what Solis said and knew for sure it was all a nightmare and side effects.

Derick looked at Marika and hugged her.

"It was just a bad dream, Richard will never leave you because if you're not with him he will feel lonely and cold again and he doesn't want that."

"Now since you don't want him to get Genus, I'll go get Genus so he can give you a checkup and some medicine to get rid of these bad dreams."

Marika nodded.

"Marika is it alright if Solis and Caelum came inside together with Owen and Vita?"

Marika nodded again.

But she didn't loosen her grip on Richard.

Solis and Caelum came inside holding Owen and Vita

Marika finally let go of Richard and ran up to the four of them.

Solis handed Owen over to Caelum and picked up Marika

"Mom do you believe me when I say you will not lose dad, not now and not in the future."

Marika hugged Solis and a few tears fell while she nodded.

"Then why are you crying?"

'Because…I'm scared… I lose everybody around me.'

"Did I and my brothers and sisters also leave you?"

Marika shook her head.

Solis soothed Marika and walk her back to the bed, and laid her down.

When suddenly Marika started to have a panic attack, somehow she had a waking nightmare, one that was her old trauma.

Genus and Derick heard Marika scream and ran up to the room. When they got there, they saw how lost she was, Genus tossed his coat immediately and ran up to her.

"Little girl look at me!"

"Derick get Luca over here right now, her mind is breaking."

In just 2 minutes Luca arrived and saw Marika's metal state.

He also tossed his coat and ran up to her.

"Sis! Look at us, it's not real"

Marika slowly turned her head and saw everybody standing next to her and she broke down again.

Richard sat down and put her on his lap and held her tight and stroke her head.

"All those bad doctors are gone, they are all dead."

"What the hell is wrong with my sister, what happened to her while I was gone?"

Genus told him what had happened and she got poisoned by at least 7 different poisons, and that they had given her one of her pill that could cure her from any to all poisons because she was carrying one on her.

"Then we need to pray she has some in her room because apparently one isn't enough."

Richard stood up and told the kids to fallow him, "You three search her room."

Richard left the room with the kids and went to the 2nd music room.

Noah wasn't in the room and he put Marika on the couch.

Sweetie because you always play and create beautiful music I took some piano lessons from Noah so I could accompany you on the piano when you play the violin. Do you want to hear me play the piano?"

Marika nodded.

Solis and Caelum sat down next to her and put Owen and Vita on her lap.

Richard took a deep breath and started to play, first he played Serenity this would always calm Marika's mind.

Derick and Luca heard the music "That's odd young Master Noah should be out."

Luca listened to the music and said "This is not Noah nor my sister who is playing the piano."

"Does Richard know how to play?"

Derick smiled "Not that I'm aware of, but it would not be strange for him to want to learn something so he can spend more time with her."

Derick, Genus and Luca had turned the room upside down but could not find what they were looking for.

Luca was thinking about Marika's habits when she was young, when it hit him.

Luca moved the bed and found a floorboard that was loos, he removed it and saw 3 small pouches.

"Did she always had that habit of hiding?" Genus asked him.

Luca nodded "Well it's not as much as hiding, more like storing. I bet she has 2 more spots in this room and about 12 throughout the mansion."

"Why would she do that?"

"Well…what if she need medicine but is at the opposite side of the mansion, running back and forth takes time and what if she is blocked off, having a stock throughout the house is a good method, and even if an enemy destroys her room she has a stock somewhere else."

Richard had played two pieces and now he was going to play Marika's piece that had sleep inducing magic in it.

As he was playing he could see she was slowly falling asleep.

When she was asleep he walked over to her and gave her a kiss on the head, "My final piece will give you sweet dreams I promise you."

He walked back to the piano and started to play a piece that he had written himself; it was called Your Wish.

When he was done playing Luca and the others came in to the room and saw Marika was sleeping and looked like she was having a good dream.

Solis and the others were also sleeping.

Luca looked at his sister "How did you manage to get her to sleep?"

"Remember the day you arrived at this mansion and I took you here?"

"Yeh, she was playing the piano."

"Well one of her pieces had sleep inducing magic mix in and I played it for her, the last piece I played could give the listener pleasant dreams."

"But for how long that will last I don't know."

Derick came back in to the room and covered them up with a blanked and they all went to the room next door.

"From what I could see is, she still has 5 poisons running in her body, her pill neutralized at least 2 out of the 7."

"Then she will have to take 3 more pills to get rid of all of them."

"Well what I could gather from her wounds is that she was hit with 3 poisons that should immobilize her and the rest would damage her body and mind."

"The ones that are affecting her mind are the most dangerous one, she can hardly tell the difference between dreams and reality and if she feels threatened…Well you can pretty much guess what her magic and inner energy will do."

"I only removed her bracelets so her healing magic has currently no damper on it, her earrings should be still damper her battle magic."

"Once she wakes up we give her another pill and go from there"

"But her mind will be a mess for a while, so I think we should try to accommodate her as much as possible and let her do thing she wants to do, we need to expose her to positive stimulation."

Next door Marika woke up and saw her kids, but started to panicked when she couldn't see Richard.

She came down from the couch and rushed to the door and slammed it open and run up to the 3rd floor.

The others heard it and knew she was having a panic attack again.

When they came out of the room they heard doors being opened and closed and Marika panicking calling for Richard.

As they were walking to the stair cast and saw Marika running down.

Richard caught her "Sweetie why are you running around like that."

Marika held tight to Richard 'You were gone…'

"Sweetie I was next door, so you could have your nap in peace."

Genus walked up to her "Little girl, you still have 5 poisons left in your body, so take this and get some more rest."

Marika opened her mouth and Genus feed her the pill and she swallowed it. She even opened her mouth to him to show him she wasn't faking it.

Genus patted her on her head "Good girl." As he smiled at her.

'Will the bad dreams stop?'

"Well little girl if they don't go away that means the poison that gives you those dreams is not gone and you need to take another pill."

Marika nodded.

"Sis there is one more thing you can do, you fight whoever is in your dream making you and Richard separate."

"Did you know that in your dreams you can be as strong as you want and even beat up anybody, because you are the one who is in control of your dream not the person who is hurting you."

Luca patted her head.

Marika nodded again.

Marika was starting to fuss in Richard arms and wanted to put down.

"You're not allowed to fight, so tell me what is wrong instead."

'Bat's… I hate bats and they are coming.'

Richard handed Marika over to Derick, "Then be a good girl and go with your dad to the kitchen and make us a reward for killing the bats."

Marika smiled 'Oke!'

While Derick and Marika were going down he asked her, "What shall we make for them?"

'Cookies, and cake, muffins and a big surprise!'

"Wow she was awfully agreeable." Luca said in surprise.

"I'll get Canus and you get Dante we will destroy those invaders."

"And since your sister isn't allowed to fight and to small…"

"Yeh, yeh I get it, don't worry I'll make sure the people will stay safe, because I don't want to get murdered by my sister for failing to protect the people."

"Well you just head to the mansion up north and support the soldiers up there."

Luca nodded.

"Then I'll be with the little girl and Derick, call me if you need me." Genus left for the kitchen.

Luca and Richard also headed down stairs and when Richard received a call.

"Ray what is up?"

"I'm sorry Richard but I'm slowly losing control over here, there are at least 250 soldiers heading your way."

"I know, Marika sensed as much."

"But how are they able to move like that…Don't tell me that brat Raphael…"

Ray nodded "After her visit here and what she did to him, the Sanguis Family are riling up the people and telling them that if I stay king any longer our kingdom is doomed."

"Luckily the common nobles are very skeptical and are silently watching."

Richard was thinking, "Call Genus and see if Marika is in a state of mind to help you."

"What do you mean?"

"Well… Queentia got attacked by Cruentus by using a cross breed fungus, and she managed to evacuate everybody, but then she was ambushed by a group of bats and was poisoned by 7 different poisons."

"It also affected her mind so…"

"I understand, if you have any evidence of it please keep it safe until the right time."

"Sure that won't be a problem."

Ray ended his call with Richard.

"So they are getting inpatient now" Canus popped up in front of him.

"It seems so."

"Well sister anticipated that much but now that she can't react accordingly she told me what to do if there was a possibility she couldn't do it herself."

"And how are we going to move?"

Khai, Regina and Nova came down.

"Isn't it obvious dad, we are going to show them that if they mess with mom and our people, they sure as hell dug their graves." Nova said to them.

Not long after a portal opened and Rex, Michael, Leo and Levi also appeared. Also Vincent and had an army with him.

A few minutes later soldiers from Richard castle also arrived and Cinis also came with a group of soldiers.

"Seems she wants to show her warning weren't empty words… Alright I can work with this."

"But isn't this a bit over kill? I mean there are only 250 coming."

"Not at all…we will be done in a few minutes and can go home." Levi said.

"Are you in a hurry, where you on a date or something when you were called?" Canus teased him

"As a matter fact I was."

"Well if she gets upset over something this little then she is not worth your time" Cinis said.

"What!!!"

"He is right you know, if that girl doesn't understand than your better off breaking thing off and find somebody who is more on the same page as you." Richard sad seriously.

Levi looked at them with a shock and showed a picture of the girl.

"Your saying I should just break it of if she doesn't understand? Look at her, she is the most beautiful girl that is in The World of Light."

"Dumb.."

"Easily offended."

"To vain."

"Shamming."

Rex, Michael and Vincent needed to keep in their laugh.

Canus shrugged his shoulders "Well I don't care much for looks anyway as long as she is strong physically or mentally then that's all that matters to me. Looks are just an added bonus"

Richard nodded.

"Marika has it all, the brains, the strength and the looks, I'm so lucky to have her." Richard was bragging.

"So true, I envy you every day you know." Canus said to Richard in a teasing tone.