Finally, gotten back. Hope I wasn't too late with this chapter!

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…
Varvara has been walking for a long while by now. It was probably an hour, she thought. That said, there was no set end in sight. Every step she made to go further, the less she was actually going forward. Her surroundings were the same. That naked tree that stood two feet somewhere in front of her. That bush, where Fotia hid originally, but just kept stuck few feet behind her. The sky, which was lightly drizzling on her head, barely let up this entire time. It was like this whole place was stuck inside a bottle, that you would use to trap insects like butterflies, and had no clue if you were moving forward or back, up or down.
And she did try moving back, but it was the same as before. In fact, she felt even worse, like the air becoming too heavy for her to breathe in.
“Look at you, little girl,” spoke the voice again.
Varvara did not stop moving.
“Oh, what is wrong now, hmm? You realizing that you can’t go anywhere at all? Oh, I feel so sad for you… Oh, who am I kidding, of course I’m not! This is hilarious! OI-Yohohohohohoh!”
Varvara felt like the laughing came out way angrier that usual. Then again, she was getting restless herself. This clown had only spoke few times, but he had told her so many times already about how trapped she was. He really wanted her to feel helpless about it.
And sadly, this seems to be slowly working.
“What are you going to do now?” asked the clown. She did not bother to answer, only stopped to take a breather for third time, but he continued on without bothering to listen to her. “Are you going to cry for your mother? Your father? Your friends? Oh wait! Of course, you can’t! Because…you’ll never leave this place. This is the prison, for you. No one will hear you, no one will know where you are, no one will remember you, once you disappear. And after I am done with you…I’ll come after your friends. And once I’m done with your friends, then I’ll come after your parents. I believe I said the same thing last time, haven’t I?”
Varvara looked around, and tried for her third time to go backwards. Immediately, her breathing became heavy. Her stomach began to ache, making her bend down and curl up to her knees. It was at this point she wanted to talk to Zamarad, as well as her mother. How much she wanted to talk to her mother.
“What will I do…when I find them…..” The clown chuckled, talking to himself, once again. “Oh wait, I remember…I will turn them into monsters. And then…I’ll trap them here…where they’ll never be able to escape, just like you. In fact, I will do it right as soon as I leave you here. You’ll never find them, not before it will be impossible to turn them back to normal. Wouldn’t that be tragic? Being so useless, that you know you are useless? And that nothing can be done, by you…OI-Yohohohohohohoho!”
Varvara kept herself curled up, thinking of her parents, and what might happen. She could never see them turning into monsters, or dying like that. It just felt too different. Too separate from their world.
But the reality was that it could. That clown had the power to do something to them, and she needed to act on it fast. She needed to save them.
“By the way, did you know what time it is?” the clown continued talking. This time, his tone was a bit more mocking and arrogant. “I know what it is, but I don’t feel like telling you. You can still ask. Would you like to ask?”
Varvara stood back up straight. She was staring over the horizon, imagining to herself the shape that it was. Once again, her mind landed on a bottle. From there, the clown’s word began to ring in her head.
“Well? Are you going to ask? Hello?” the clown continued to prod her.
“Yes,” Varvara finally said. Her eyes were narrow, like she saw something small.
“Oh?”
“How’s your day going?” she said with a smile.
There was a pause.
“Excuse me?”
“The weather is quite cold today, I felt a bit chilly,” she spoke, before turning around. She began moving back to where she arrived again. “But, now that I’m here, I think, you might help. This place…it’s an illusion, correct?” She was given no response. She continued, “Actually, you can make it hot here, right? I think it is very useful! You can do so many things, it’s amazing! And I think you should try to…um…try to get more people to hear your jokes! They are very funny, and clever, and I think that Flora finds them good too!”
She stopped on her walk. Then she added,
“Actually, maybe not, I think I should ask her again.”
She then continued walking again. The air began to get heavy on her.
“I don’t think you understand where this is going, my little lizard,” the clown finally spoke, his tone cold. “You are not getting out of here. Stop trying to escape. You are STUCK!”
“Of course I am!” Varvara agreed giddily, as she began shifting to the side. “Maybe we can make it hotter! You are very powerful, I very much think so. In fact, you are way stronger than I am! Like, uber strong! Even Zamarad thinks you are strong! But she doesn’t usually say it, because-“
“Are you trying to stall me, child?” the clown cut her off, making her stop. She turned her head to look over her shoulder. “As I have told you, you…are…TRAPPED. It is endless. Infinite. Completely inescapable. You are trapped!”
“Like in a bottle?”
“What?”
Varvara took a few steps back.
“There is a way to trap insects, like a bee, I found. Actually, have you heard of Malaise Trap? Insects really like following the light, you can make them go inside the bottle by catching them in a net! This is so very neat, isn’t it? You can also catch fish in the same way too, but you need to invert the bottleneck backwards.” She stepped forward once again.
“You cannot get out of here, child,” said the clown, clearly watching her trying to go “back.” His tone was incessantly mocking. “You will die. You will die alone. And then your friends will die too, and I will-”
“Found it,” said Varvara promptly.
“WHAT!?”
Varvara’s body was in the middle of being pressed into a pancake. From all sides, there was a force that pushed her back. And yet, her hand could feel the “hole in the wall,” and kept on pushing through it.
The clown kept taunting her, “Cease this, you stupid brat! I am you master! I am in control! Whatever you are trying to do is pointless and stupid! Hey! Can’t you hear me?! Stop trying to escape and instead, do something more productive, like GRIEVE and DESPAIR! STOP TRYING TO GET OUT!”
Varvara could feel the pressure change around her arm. Despite the stomach-ache and the headache, she could only focus on her palm, as something began to course through it. As if by instinct, she her mind switched her focus away from the body and into her hand. All she needed was one charge, something told her. It was like a voice, and a familiar one at that. And so, she gathered most of the electricity in the air and into her own hand. The force kept on pushing her, but now, she threw the electricity back at it. It traveled along that “wall” and even unaffectedly through her body, causing the whole thing to soften somewhat.
Little, by little, the wall began to weaken. The air lightened up around her head, making it easier to inhale. She kept on pushing, making the wall separate more. Before long, her upper half had freed itself. Putting her hand around her stomach, she focused on another charge with which she pushed into all of her current strength into. Like the cork in a bottle, she then shot out of the whole and flew few feet forward, landing right on her back.
<Varvara, can you hear me now?>
Varvara blinked a bit, looking into the sky. It was later now, but not that much as she expected. The sky was still shining grey, but there wasn’t much of that rain anymore. She looked at her hand and saw that they were transformed. She managed to get out, much to her joy.
“I guess…I did it!” A smile came on her face. It was an unusual feeling in her chest, making her want to strut around like she was the queen of the world. Perhaps this was the feeling Flora was talking about.
<Varvara, have care! Look above you!>
She got up on all fours promptly, and then gazed at the unusual object in front of her. The transparent cover made of air had gone even thinner, showing a person sized diamond cube floating in the air. Varvara thought about how everything could’ve managed to fit in there, though her focus was shifted to somewhere else. Something about it did not look like that kind of monster they have fought. A certain element was missing to it. She leaned her head to the side to get a good look, perhaps to find what was wrong with it. Only then, to inadvertently notice something behind the tree.
“Zamarad…” she whispered.
<There is of little doubt in here, young one! Let us do this…Thunderball Charge!>
Varvara launched herself at high speed. While she could not see where she went, she knew he hit the Torque. As it fell down on the ground, its form dissipated in the form of darkness and lightning. The cube behind the tree broke into million nonexistent pieces. All that was left on the ground was a donkey-man, who was unconscious.
It all worked out, she thought.
…
Flora tried to text one more time. She rolled her eyes for the fifteenth time when the same message returned back
“NO, IM NOT TRYNG TO HURT YOUR DAD!!?!!!” she wrote in frustration.
Whilst her text loaded, another one of Mandy had already been sent her way. It had become way too clear for her that dealing with this young fox was perhaps the worst decision she has ever made. Her first decision as a leader, and she thought about telling the truth to the girl who would least likely to listen to her. Now she was being bombarded with message after message of the fox asking her inane questions and throwing demands. Including, of all things, to stop getting her boyfriend’s attention.
Flora let down her phone beside herself and rubbed her eyes.
“Why did I even tell her that?”
“Because you wish to change yourself,” noted Rose.
Flora sighed heavily. “Great thing I did…I guess.”
Can she really call herself a leader?
That was the thought that kept nagging her throughout this. All the way since Barbie told her she was one. To think, of all things, that she could be in charge of others, just never crossed her mind once. The title alone felt super heavy, and she had to be one for the group? Perhaps she knew how to take charge of things, true, and would demand stuff on a whim for others to do. But that’s because she was spoiled, duh. But did she even know how to lead? How to take charge of others? She couldn’t even help Barbie with her little request, and now she had to look after them?
Flora felt nausea. At the pit of her stomach, she wanted to go to bed, right now, and curl up. She just could not imagine herself failing at this. The others could never forgive her for this. She was no some strong figure to follow. She was just an insecure, little girl.
“Do not debase yourself so, Flora.” Rose’s words came off as even and kind, which were in a way to calm Flora’s nerves. That might take a lot of work to win, though. “You are not far from Barbara’s words of you.”
“If only I felt like that.”
“Well,’ Rose sighed, but spoke patiently, “one’s feelings cannot be assuaged in a day. Do consider them, for I could see the potential she is talking about. You are far stronger than you are, dear Flora.”
“Strong enough to deal with one giant mouthed Torque that ate my ex-posse leader?”
Rose chuckled, and then looked down at it from above. The monster was still busy trying to climb up the wall. For some reason, it felt compelled to keep going after Flora. Which was good, as she only had to shoot arrows once or twice to keep civilians away from it.
“Perhaps, not by yourself,” replied Rose. “But, a leader is not there to simply know the answers. For they are not alone, even while being the sole one standing.”
Flora furrowed her brows, only to hear her phone ring. Not entirely aware of who might it be, she took it out with a glimmer of hope that it was Barbie. She needed some advice from Pierre, whatever it could be. To her surprise, the caller was not Barbie at all. Flora’s head shook a bit from surprise, never expecting him to call her out of nowhere.
She pressed the button to receive call, and immediately a familiar annoying voice came to her.
“Hey there, you busy?”
“Chester?!” she exclaimed. “Why are you calling me suddenly?”
“I had time, I dunno. If you don’t want to talk, I guess I’m-”
“No, wait…” Flora sighed and bit her lip. Suddenly, this became way too complicated for her. If she was going to be a leader, should she start being more attentive to him? Barbie thinks she can somewhat make him listen, but can she really? Shaking her head, Flora continued to ask, “What is it?”
“Azure told me about this place you guys found,” Chester said.
“I haven’t seen it.”
“Oh. Well I guess we’ll see it later ourselves, or something,” he said absent-mindedly. “I’m still on my way to Tom’s house. Where are you?”
“On top of the building, keeping myself away from a Torque,” Flora joked.
“Oh, really? Who is it this time?”
“Our principal.”
“Oh!” Chester made a weird type of sound. It almost felt like he smiled from hearing that. “Really? How does he look like?”
“A giant mouth. He likes to eat things.”
“Uhuh….” he trailed of, sounding curious from this.
Flora rolled her eyes. She was not interested in whatever personal vendetta he had. But when she saw Rose, the latter egged to keep talking.
“Is that everything you wanted to ask?” she said.
“Do you know how to get rid of it?”
“Nope, not yet,” she said sadly. “He’s…kinda stuck like this. I tried shooting him, but he keeps inhaling all of our weapons. So, I’m kinda stuck.”
“Do you have apples?”
She narrowed her eyes. “Why?”
“He’s allergic to them,” he said matter-of-factly.
Flora’s eyes grew wide. The phone nearly dropped from her hand when she immediately called Rose to transform, even though Chester was still on the line. Right in the middle of her morph, she pulled something from her pocket. An apple filled cupcake, one that Barbie gotten for her earlier. It had only a single bite taken out of it, though it was still edible, if not warm.
Flora had summoned her bow, then looked down once more. The monster looked more complacent, but kept pushing its body against the wall in the hopes of climbing it. It looked a bit deflated, losing some color too.
Let’s see if it works, Flora thought, and prepared an arrow. She brought the cupcake to the arrow’s head, then stabbed through the latter, sticking it without problem.
<What an unusual artillery,> noted Rose.
She aimed the bow down, while summoning another arrow. She shot it as a practice, to which the monster reacted instantaneously, sucking it into its mouth while turning mauve-red. The wind blew upwards, only for it to redirect itself and push down into her head. With the opportunity found, she prepared her next shot.
The next arrow flew into its maw without a fuss, at first. Flora grabbed the ledge as the wind kept increasing, but soon enough, she started to see the effects. At first, the monster began to spit and spat everywhere. That was the closest description of the weird sound that it was making. In some ways, it felt like the monster was going to turn inside out. A flash of pink light emerged from its mouth, making it finally regurgitate some garbage into the surface. Another flash happened and some more flew from the mouth. A third and fourth one came, and after fifth one did Mandy finally appeared amongst the debris. The sixth gave back Barbie’s spear, as well as making the monster be enveloped in the light.
The cracks grew from the jaws and spread all over the surface, before imploding the creature. Soon enough, within burst of light and color, appeared the form of an elderly fox. Mandy, after carefully stepping over garbage and complaining about it, came to check on her father.
Flora gave a sigh of relied.
“Hey you still here?”
Flora finally took her phone.
“Hey Chester,” she took a deep breath in. “I think its time we…look over our team.”
…