31. The Battle Between Good and Evil

"More of them!?" Maxine yells. "This battle might not be so easy after all!"

Jack is slowly starting to come out of the gingerroot spell. Some of the RS squad members have magic wands, and none of us do.

"Gilly," Jax whispers, "I'm gonna grab us shields, but I don't want them to see me leave."

"Take your invisibility potion!" I suggest.

"Smart. Don't let them know where I am. I'll be right back." Jax opens the bottle, drinks the thick pink liquid and disappears. "Ok." I say. The RS squad gathers together by the strange glowing box, and we move to face them.

"We believe that we should be the juvenile kingdom leaders instead of you obnoxious brats." Gretel speaks up.

"Can you hear yourself!?" Kayla shouts. "We're not the obnoxious brats around here. Can we just take this all down a notch?"

"Never." They all say in sync. I roll my eyes. They overuse that word a bit too much.

Heidi (a squad member) whips out her wand and conjures up a gigantic green fireball. She raises it up to the top of the ballroom.

"Don't you dare drop that." Jocelyn says, and starts firing orbs at her. Gretel and Anna fight back. "Help me guys!"

Ollie charges at them with his sword as Kayla tries to use her fairy magic to move the fireball.

Hansel blasts the ceiling. "Whoops!" He yells. "Watch out!" Debris rain down on him and Jocelyn uses magic to stop the rest of the ceiling from collapsing.

Jax comes in with shields and more swords. He hands them to us.

The rest of the squad members are pointing their wands at the glowing box. Weird.

"Guys!" I motion for Emmerlyn, AG, Annalyse, and Maxine. "I'm not sure what that box is or what the squad is doing with it, but we need to stop them!"

"MOVE!" Jax yells, and we all run out of the way just in time.

The green fireball drops and explodes onto the floor, causing a huge cavern to open and the ceiling to completely cave in. I feel pain surge through my leg as I notice Kayla rubbing a large burn she got from the fireball.

We all start coughing from the debris as we move as far away as possible.

"Charge it!" Anna yells, and the glowing box starts to spin.

Green fire starts to spread rapidly, but Hayley puts it out using her water abilities.

"We need to gingerroot them." AG says.

Jocelyn conjures up a magical net and lowers it over the cavern so that none of us fall in.

"Jocelyn, come here!" Jax yells, and she does. All the squad members run (or hobble because they're injured) to the box. "Distract them with your magic. Some of us will stay here, and some of us will go over there to paralyze them."

"On it." Jocelyn, Annalyse, Hayley, and Kayla stay back. Jocelyn begins to conjure something and I can't tell what it is yet.

"Let's move, but be careful." Jax says and we move quickly across the debris-covered floor and make it to the box.

I turn around to see red and purple fireworks exploding on the other side.

The squad members are distracted. Good. I glance all the way to the left side of the ballroom where Jack is back to normal now, but trapped behind Jocelyn's barricade.

"Throw the petals." Jax directs. "After they're paralyzed, we can use the stems for a longer lasting effect."

Ollie sneaks up on Hansel and throws the petals. Hansel falls to the ground and freezes.

I quickly do the same to Heidi. Anna immediately turns around and sees me, just to get a pie launched at her face.

"My hair!! Gilly, stop!!" Anna yells. She wipes her eyes and Jax attempts to throw flower petals at her, but a squad member pushes him forward, which paralyzes him instead of my sister.

"Jax, no!" I yell, but I have to move on. Electric ear-piercing noises fill the room as Gretel shoots lasers across the room. My friends on the other side are creating a glowing purple barrier to protect them from poison arrows and fireballs. Gretel whips around and shoots a laser directly at Jax who can't move. I grimace as it slashes his side.

"Emmerlyn!" Ollie yells. "Gilly look!"

Emmerlyn has collapsed on the ground and has a huge burn on her side.

"Anna! What did you do!?" I yell.

"It's gonna be you next." She challenges. I reach into the bag and pull out the last few gingerroot petals. Anna attempts to run, but freezes mid-step from the petals.

AG is going around tying stems around wrists of people we've parlyzed short term with petals.

Gretel runs to the rapidly spinning box with the remaining Stiltskin squad members.

My friends on the other side come to view when Jocelyn lowers the barrier. All of them are covered in cuts, burns, and ashes. They make their way to us.

"I know it's not the time, but I'm getting kinda hungry." Ollie whispers.

"Ollie!" We say, as squad members are staring at the box with a confused look on their faces.

"Conrad, use your wand to unfreeze Ann." Gretel says. "Then she can help us charge it."

I hate that my sister goes by Ann now. Jocelyn attempts to hit Conrad with a fireball, but it hits Gretel instead. She grimaces in pain, but gets up anyway. Anna immediately comes out of the spell.

"On the count of three!" Gretel commands, and the RA squad members gather. "Three, two, one, CHARGE!" Gretel shouts. They all point their wands at the box, and the glowing object grows larger. "AGAIN!" A member shouts.

"What are they doing?" Maxine panics. "We need to stop it!"

"I don't know." I admit. My friends and I gather together. We have nothing to bring Jax out of the spell. Our opponents keep charging the black box that has now tripled in size.

"Squad, come by me if you wanna survive!" Anna yells.

"Lemme grab Hansel and Heidi!" Gretel yells back. She grabs the two hovering bodies and brings them back to the group.

"Got everyone?" Anna shouts. "Ok! Three, two, one!"

I hear breaking glass and the sound of mist as mauve colored steam coats them all.

"Guys, listen." Jocelyn insists, and we do. "I'm not fully sure what that is, but I think it's an obliteration box; which I've only heard of once."

"That sounds terrible!" Annalyse whispers.

"I know how those work. I've never seen one before now." Kayla says.

"It's getting bigger and I think it's gonna explode soon. The only way to stop it from destroying this entire group of castles is if there's a strong enough blast to hit the obliteration blast at the exact precise moment. Even then, without any protection, we could still die." Jocelyn explains.

"CHARGE!" The squad is paying absolutely no attention to our conversation, which is a plus.

"Are your blasts powerful enough?" AG asks.

Jocelyn sighs. "No. But my protection bubbles are. If we have a strong enough blast, we can still survive."

Everyone's faces look relieved.

"What can we use to blast?" Kayla inquires. "Time is running out."

Everyone looks at eachother.

"Jax's pocketwatch." I respond. "It's powerful enough with the attachment."

"Let's do it!" Kayla says. "Someone go grab it and bring it back!"

The Stiltskin Squad is too busy to notice me, so I take my chance. I run over to Jax and reach into his pocket to pull out the shiny golden watch. I grab his hand and pull his hovering body (that is just barely starting to come back to normal) back to my friends.

"Got it." I say.

"Good call. Nobody outside the bubble will survive." Jocelyn remarks.

"I'll go grab Emmerlyn." Annalyse says. "And that one paralyzed RS Squad girl."

"What about them?" Hayley asks and points to the squad members.

"Anna broke a bottle of a splash invincibility potion. They won't be hurt." Jocelyn answers as Annalyse comes back with Emmerlyn and Heidi.

"This is the last charge before Enchantasia will be ours!!" Gretel yells. Jax begins to come out of the spell.

"We need to be ready. Gilly, I'm putting you in charge of blasting." Jocelyn commands.

"Why me?" I question.

"You've done things like this before!" Ollie says.

"CHARGE!"

"I'll tell you exactly when." Kayla assures. "You need to fire when the blue beam shoots up for our blast to collide with theirs."

"Just tell me about two seconds before I need to fire." I say, my heart racing.

"We practically rule now, AHG! And look at them," Gretel says, "They have nothing to keep themselves alive."

"Jocelyn has magic but not enough to stop us." Anna counters. I cannot believe what she's about to do.

Jax snaps back into motion. "I heard and saw it all, I just couldn't talk or move!" He explains hastily.

"I know. We're gonna be fine." He grabs my hand and holds his side with his other arm.

"THREE!" A squad member shouts.

"We got it." Hayley says.

"TWO!"

Jocelyn conjures up a purple protective bubble.

"ONE!" Gretel shouts. "FIRE!" A blue beam of intensely bright light comes shooting out from the box.

"NOW!" Kayla yells.

"HORA TIEMPO!" I shout the strange words and aim directly through the bubble and at the blue beam. The beams collide.

BOOM!! The box explodes as Jocelyn uses all of her strength to hold up the force field.

Her arms give out. The bubble comes down and the vibration brings us all to the ground.

Everything suddenly goes black.