Special assignment

The green clouds looked greener, and the sky was slowly changing colors. From a light pink, to a dark pink, to a dark purple, then back to dark pink. a sign of approaching precipitation. The day was nice in Sweeten nonetheless.

Art was cutting his last piece of gapple from the bag of fruits he had gotten from the fruit stand lady. He learned eventually that her name was Linnie.

His hand shook slightly as he couldn't keep the gapple held still, while his other hand was on Doan's kitchen knife, pressing down firmly on the fruit.

'Cutting this dang gapple is harder than I thought.' He complained to himself, as the fruit slid off the blade, untouched, and rolled of the counter on to the floor.

A repetitive thud was heard on the stairs as Doan came down, and entered the kitchen.

"Careful there, you don't wanna hurt yourself." Doan warned.

"It's okay, I'm good at cutting gapples!" Art replied.

* * *

"Hey there Art, you ready for work today?" Ryker asked Art, as he saw him walk into the harvesting station.

Art was unsure why the village called it a harvesting station if it was only the storage room for the harvesters.

Art gave a thumbs up, a small bandage on the side of his thumb being seen.

"What happened there?"

"Oh this, it's nothing." Art laughed nervously.

Ryker just shrugged and moved on.

"Today you got a different load to harvest. For this one you'll have to travel 100 kilometers, past the gummy and sugar trees. I want you to walk until you see a Fudge Tree forest."

Ryker reached behind him in a duffel bag, and grabbed a black pickaxe. It seemed to be made from the same metal as the Sugar Knights' spears.

"For this harvest, you won't be needing a wagon, just your tool satchel and this licorice pickaxe."

Art took the pickaxe and nodded. He started walking out of the harvester storage area, deciding to start his expedition. He quickly ran back inside stopping in front of Ryker, looking sheepish.

"What exactly does the Fudge Forest look like?" Art asked, rubbing the back of his head.

"You'll know when you see it." Ryker just gave an encouraging thumbs up.

'I've never seen it before so what does he mean?'

Nevertheless, Art turned around and walked out of the building, through the village waving at a few villagers at work. He ran out the front gate, waving at the Sugar Knight who always seemed to be standing on guard by the gate. Holding his satchel with one hand, and his pickaxe in the other, he was ready to explore. He jumped over a few small pebbles in the way, then ran inside the Sugar Tree Forest.

* * *

A figure was standing in the middle of a secluded forest area. His knees were bent, as he held his sword in front of him. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He swung his sword downwards, the air separating in between his blade. He gripped the hilt tightly as sweat was dripping down his forehead.

"Not quite there." He frowned.

He swung his sword down once more, repeating his previous actions.

A warm sensation was felt in his hands as they slowly started glowing a strange clear aura. He swung his sword the same exact way, but this time, the glow was surrounding the blade. The strange transparent aura flowed calmly around the sword. Doan smiled, feeling proud of his progress, as he was getting better at honing his strength. He continued swinging the sword in place, wanting to practice some more.

* * *

Art stepped over a few flowers and shrubs. He hopped over a log and jumped on a vine that was hanging off it. A few Chocus decided to join him as they too swung on their own vine right next to Art.

"This is fun!" He yelled out to the Chocus, who grunted and clapped their feet together in agreement.

The vine stopped at a pond filled with green liquid. Art walked closer to the pond and stuck his finger in it. He tasted the liquid, but quickly regretted it.

"Ptlah!" He spat out.

His eyes were squinted while one was also twitching. "That's sour!"

He got up and started walking around the pond, ducking under a branch and then his eyes opened wide at the view in front of him. He scrunched his nose in disgust.

In front of him was a small green river flowing, towards an even bigger green body. Across the river were dozens of yellow and green trees. The trees looked quite similar to the trees from the Gummy Forest, except they had a strange bright glow to them. On a few branches Art noticed small odd-shaped fruits resting.

After Art got through the green river, his eyes lit up in excitement as he saw the bright colored trees. He wanted to explore this new area, but knew it wasn't the fudge tree forest.

He walked through the bright colored swamp, feet getting wet in the process. Art didn't care though, he just walked happily with both his hands behind his head, going straight through the strange sour colored swamp.

Soon the brightness started fading, and the colored trees lessened. 2 different soils were dividing the trees. He was currently standing in the swampy side. In front of him was a forest of huge trees. The trees' trunks looked gray and rocky. The grey trees had cracks on the outside of their trunks, which were filled with a molten brown substance.

Art smiled as he finally understood what Ryker told him.

"It's the Fudge Trees!"

Art quickly ran passed the swamp and into the Fudge Tree forest, he pulled out his pickaxe from behind him. And rapidly started picking away at the tree trunk.

[CRUMBLE, CRUMBLE]

The cracks started crumbling slightly causing more of the molten liquid to flow down to the ground and reach Art's foot.

"Arghhh! My foot!!" Art cried.

He quickly pulled away his foot, feeling the heat up close after it melted the bottom of his shoe. Luckily for Art, it only burned him slightly.

Art walked around to the other side of the Fudge Tree and swung his pickaxe, hard enough to crack the trunk again. He quickly took off his satchel and pulled out a small bottle. The bottle grew in size as he twisted the lid. He unscrewed the bottle and moved it below the molten fudge.

As the bottle stored all the molten fudge, the tree slowly started dimming down as the light faded into the bottle. Once the small bottle had collected all the fudge from the trunk, the tree's light disappeared.

Art smiled, pulling out 5 more bottles.

"Five bottles for five trees." He said out loud.

He walked to the next Fudge Tree and swung his pickaxe into it without hesitation. He quickly stepped to the side and moved the bottle to collect the fudge. He had a better idea on how to harvest the fudge after the first tree. The rest he finished in no time.

He put the 5 bottles back into his satchel. Once they filled up they magically shrunk back to size. Art never questioned anything strange that happened. He didn't remember his past so the things at Sweeten were his new normal.

He decided to explore the Fudge Tree Forest before heading back. He put his satchel back on, and headed deeper into the forest.

Little did he know, his small harvesting stunt attracted the attention of something sinister…