Lily Wong Ch. 42

Chapter 42

Separated

"Blast it all!" roared Bluestone. In a fit of rage, he smacked his fist against the wall. But all that gained him was torn skin and a stinging pain.

Alejandro, the rest of the library helpers and Tanja hung back in silence. No one was sure what to say. 

Quickly remembering he was not alone, Bluestone took a few deep breaths to calm himself down, straightened up and fixed his necktie before turning to face the students.

"Ahem! Right then . . . Now, I'm sure you are all reluctant to listen to me. I did betray your trust, after all. But I promise, if you follow me, I will get you all out of here."

There was silence, and then -

"You had my face literally ripped off!" said Melody. "I don't even want to hear your voice anymore."

Bluestone winced. "I deserve that."

"With all due respect, Director," said Alejandro, "even knowing why you did all that evil stuff, it's still hard for me to believe in you now. But . . ."

He glanced back at the others. They all nodded back.

" . . . you know this place best, which makes you our best bet of making out of here alive."

Grateful, Bluestone said, "Thank you."

Then the parrot, Warren Bluestone, cut in and said, "Still, how are we going to find our way out? That blasted dragon mixed up the whole layout of the underground lair. It's completely unrecognizable now."

Bluestone rubbed his beard thoughtfully and then knelt down, placing his hand flat on the floor. He closed his eyes to concentrate. A few seconds later, he straightened back up and sighed.

"No good," he said. "Thanks to Lin cutting my connection to the building, I can't sense anything anymore."

"Can't you just use that fortune telling you're so proud of?" asked the parrot. "It's your specialty, isn't it?"

Bluestone shrugged. "I guess it's worth a try. Lucky I have my Magic Eight Ball with me."

As he reached into his pocket for the toy, the library helpers exchanged looks.

"Seriously?" went Hassan. "You're using a Magic Eight Ball for fortune telling?"

"I'd use tarot cards, but those are hard to figure out. Now let's see what this says." Bluestone kept his eye on the plastic black billiard ball as he spoke. After giving it a good shake, he turned the ball to see what showed up on its window. "To your right, you will find a wild card who leads the way. The key to victory is unity."

"What's that supposed to mean?" asked George.

"I guess maybe we'll find some help if we go that way," Melody said, pointing down the hall.

"But who? Do you know, Director?"

Bluestone answered, "I have an inkling." He put the toy away. "Come on. Let's go."

He started walking, but just a few steps later - 

BOOM!

A section of the wall burst and through the hole walked a man.

"Mr. Lin!" Everyone cried out in joy.

"Boy, are you a sight for sore eyes!" said Tanja. "But I thought you'd be stuck keeping all those creepy skeletons busy."

Mr. Lin took a look around. "Sorry, but that's not me. That's the original. I'm copy number nine."

"Hold up!" Hassan cut in. "Copy number nine? You made more of yourself?"

Mr. Lin, the ninth clone, nodded. "Original me and Copy Number Two multiplied a bunch for an all-out war with Fafnir. That rotten piece of cotton candy's been throwing pretty much everything at us. Sorry, but not sorry for smashing all your stuff, Bluestone."

But Bluestone was not bothered and said, "Don't be. I was going to get rid of it all, anyway. But how goes the evacuation? Can you see or hear what's going on with the clone sent up to the surface?"

"Sure," said Mr. Lin. "We're all just one mind sharing lots of different bodies, so all of us knows what each and every clone's doing."

"Wow, that must feel weird," said Tanja.

"Oh, really weird," said Mr. Lin. "That's why I don't like multiplying myself, except in an emergency like now. Anyway, the evacuation's no good. Copy Number Three never made it out. He's still trying though. But enough about that. Where's Lily?"

"Fafnir got us separated," said Alejandro. 

"I was afraid you'd say that," Mr. Lin grumbled. He fell quiet for a bit. "Okay, here's the plan. While the other mes keep Fafnir distracted, I'll take you all back up to the surface and take over Copy Number Three's job to warn everyone else go get out of the school. In the meantime, some of my copies will make more copies to look for Lily and the others."

"Just how many of you are running around the place?" asked Warren.

"Seventeen. No, wait. Twenty-three now."

"I was being rhetorical."

"I've no idea what that means," said Mr. Lin.

"Of course you don't."

"Anyway, that's enough time being wasted." Clumps of rock flew up and clung to Mr. Lin, piling up together to make his Stone Man armor. "The chaos the other mes are causing should keep Fafnir off our backs and make it easier to get to the surface, but likely not for long."

And then he jumped up, crashing through the ceiling. With a flap of Warren's wing, a stone staircase grew out of the floor. One by one, everyone climbed up to the next floor.

**********

Meanwhile, pacing back and forth with her hands clutching the sides of her head, Viv muttered, "What do we do? What do we do? What do we do?"

"Calm down, Viv," Oliver said, trying to sooth the young girl. But his effort only made Viv snap.

"Don't tell me to calm down!" she angrily yelled. "Lily and Safira just fell down a hole to who-knows-where! There's no telling what could happen to them!"

"I'm sure they're fine. They've got the magic bracelet to keep them safe." Again, Oliver tried to calm his friend down, but it was no good.

"That magic bracelet's no help here! She was no match against the Schemer with it! And that same Schemer couldn't do a thing about that cloud-dragon-thing!"

"She's right, Oliver," said Eddie. "We need to find them and fast!"

"I know that," said Oliver. "But panicking's not going to help."

"Then what do you propose we do, huh?" Viv snapped.

"Well, for starters," Oliver answered, "we should check out those boom noises down that way."

He pointed down the hall to sounds of destruction echoing off the walls, followed by what sounded like a man going, "Bawk! Bawk-bawk-bawk-bawk! Bawk-kaw!"

"Something tells me, we'll find someone who'll be of huge help."

**********

Down and down, and down Lily and Safira fell. Everything around them was all pitch-black except for the blue glow from Lily's bracelet. Lily couldn't even see the bottom. But she knew that it would only be a matter of time.

So before the bottom came in sight, she called out to the bracelet, "Flying broom! Quick!"

Light flashed from the jewels of the bracelet and a broomstick popped out and fell alongside the girls. Lily reached out and grabbed the broom, pulling it close to herself in a hug and jerked to a stop mid-air. Safira, however, continued to fall.

Lily tipped the broom downward and zipped down, propelled faster by a sonic boom from the broom's brush end. She snatched hold of Safira's hand with her own right hand and pulled the broom up with her left hand, stopping them all from falling further.

Safira glanced down to the seemingly bottomless abyss and nervously swallowed. "Thanks."

"No problem," Lily answered back.

With the magic broomstick, the girls slowly and safely drifted down to the bottom until their feet touched solid ground. 

Safira looked around and wondered, "Where are we?"

"Not sure," Lily said, taking a look around herself. Everything was still dark around her. "Don't think it matters though. Not with that rotten piece of cotton candy rearranging the whole building whenever he wants."

"I've been meaning to ask, but what's cotton candy?"

Lily opened her mouth to speak, and then paused. "Never mind. I'll tell you later."

Safira gave her a funny look and then shrugged before kneeling down to sit on the floor. With a sigh, she said, "Well, one bit of good tiding is that I don't feel that dragon's eyes on us so we can probably rest for a bit. He must be distracted by something."

"That . . . doesn't sound good to me," said Lily. "It just means that he's busy messing with the others."

Safira's face fell and she cast her eyes down with a soft, "Oh."

Lily regretted her big mouth and quickly tried to reverse Safira's crestfallen mood. "I-I'm sure the others are okay. My Uncle Viceroy's really good at distracting people. He's probably doing all sorts of shenanigans that got Fafnir's full attention."

"But wouldn't that mean your uncle's the one in danger?"

"Well . . ." Lily hesitated. Honestly, she'd rather not think about it, but Safira was right. Fafnir was just a cloud of smoke, but he had control of an entire magic building and all its deadly traps. Even Uncle Viceroy can't get out of all that unscathed, can he?

Safira stood back up. "I was wrong. Now's not the time to be resting. I must hurry and stop the dragon right this instant before he can hurt Father, Brother and the others."

"Whoa! Hold your horses!" Lily put her hand on Safira's shoulder to stop her from running off. "Just how do you plan to stop Fafnir? You heard what he said earlier, right? That trick you used on him last time's not going to work again."

"Well, I have to try!" Safira shouted. "We cannot let that monster run free, especially now that he's got the power of the Bluestone family under his control. There's no telling how many people he'll hurt with it!"

"I know that!" Lily snapped back. "But there's no way I'm letting you freeze yourself in a jewel again. Not after all the trouble I went through to get you out of one."

"Do you have any better idea, then?"

"Well . . . " Lily faltered again.

How are we going to defeat Fafnir? She wondered. It was hard to imagine anything hurting a cloud of smoke of all things. Trapping him somewhere he couldn't do any harm would be more realistic. Maybe the bracelet could help with that?

And then a lightbulb flashed over her head.

"Wait, that's it!"

"What's it?" Safira asked, startled and confused by Lily's sudden outburst.

With a grin, Lily replied, "I got an idea. We got a dragon spirit to beat! Show us the way, bracelet!"

At her command, light shined from the bracelet. It trailed down her left and she took off running after it.

"Wait!" Safira cried, rushing to catch up. "What's this idea you got?"

Over her shoulder, Lily replied, "I'll tell you on the way!"

<== Chapter 41                                                                         Chapter 43 ==>

Lily Wong Ch. 41

Chapter 41

Divided

"Okay!" Uncle Viceroy rubbed his hands together. "Now that I got a full picture of what's been going up to now, next order of business is getting you kids out of here, 'cuz there's no way the school's safe now that it's got the spirit of an evil dragon under it."

Safira suddenly stepped forward. "I'm sorry, Mr. Lin, but I cannot leave. I must stop that evil dragon before it can hurt anyone."

Arms folded over his chest, Uncle Viceroy asked, "And how exactly do you plan to do that?"

"By trapping it with me in stone again," was Safira's answer.

Dismayed, Director Bluestone cried out, "No! No way, no how! I'm not going to let you sacrifice yourself again! I've lost you once, Safira. I am not losing you again!"

"But it's my fault that Fafnir was revived!" Safira argued. "I have to make this right!"

"No," Lily cut in. "I should be the one to deal with Fafnir. It's my fault that he's freed again."

"Neither of you are responsible for this," said Director Bluestone. "I am, as both the head of the Bluestone family that revived him and as the one whose plans freed him. I should be the one to take on the evil dragon."

Uncle Viceroy snapped his finger and a deafening clap of thunder was unleashed along with a flash of lightning within the gray fluff of a storm cloud hanging over his head. 

"No one's going to sacrifice themselves," he said with finality. "I won't let any of you have the chance."

"Neither will I."

Everyone looked up and around, startled by a loud, deep voice that boomed from both nowhere and everywhere.

"It's Fafnir!" cried Safira.

"The one and only," the voice boomed again. "I applaud your bravery, children of the Bluestone family. But you are fools if you think I'll fall for the same trick twice!"

The whole room suddenly shook.

"An earthquake?" cried Hassan. "Here?" 

"No," said Director Bluestone. Color drained from his face. "That's no earthquake."

Fafnir's voice continued to speak. "I got to thinking, you see. I do want a physical form again, but human bodies are such . . . fragile things. Not to mention hard to control, as the child of Bluestone proved two hundred years ago. So why not possess something sturdier and easier to control?"

Director Bluestone turned pale. "Oh no! Don't tell me . . ."

It took only a quick second for Oliver to figure out what he was thinking. "Did Fafnir just possess the school itself!?"

"Correct!" Fafnir replied with a laugh. "I have taken control of the entire school and everything in it! And I must say, as far as schools go, this one is impressive. There is so much magic power seeped into the walls and enough weapons buried beneath it to topple entire kingdoms! Yes, this will do nicely. The only gripe I have is that there's not enough treasure! But that can easily be corrected."

Light flashed from Lily's bracelet and Director Bluestone's voice suddenly rang out. "Warning! Danger detected! Danger detected! Danger Level Alpha!"

Startled, Lily cried out, "Huh? What? What does that mean?"

BOOM!

Stone and wood were blown to bits as medieval suits of armor burst into the room through the walls. Books flew out of the shelves and circled around the ceiling like a swarm of bees.

"What better way to start my new treasure horde than with the bracelet that freed me?" 

Lily instantly realized what bracelet Fafnir was talking about, but was slow to react. Both the armor and the books streaked past everyone and headed straight for her.

Uncle Viceroy was quick to act. He pulled the chain off from Director Bluestone and swung it around himself and Lily. Fire spread from Uncle Viceroy's hand to the end of the chain and cut the armor and books like knife to butter. The fire clung to the cut edges of the hostile enemies and ate them to nothingness.

"Bluestone, get everyone out!" Uncle Viceroy shouted. "This place is not safe anymore!"

More suits of armor appeared alongside skeletons armed with spears and swords. They were held back by a line of fire that Uncle Viceroy drew around the room with a swing of his chain.

Director Bluestone nodded. Now freed, he leaped to his feet and grabbed Safira's hand. "Quickly! This way, students!"

He pulled Safira along and rushed to the exit. But before they could reach it, bricks appeared and covered up the doorway.

Bluestone tackled the the brick wall a couple of times and soon gave up. "It's no good!" he cried. "Fafnir's blocked off the way out! We're trapped!"

A book jumped up near Melody and she shrieked. It went flying to her face, but was cut in half by Uncle Viceroy's whip attack. And then with a sharp jerk, he made the chains fly back wrap itself around his hand and forearm.

"Out of the way!" he shouted at Bluestone. He balled his chain-wrapped hand into a fist and charged at the brick wall. With a mighty yell, he punched the wall and blew open a way out. "GO! GO! GO!"

Everyone ran out with Bluestone taking the lead. But partway down the hall, he slowed to a limp and stopped, bent down and wheezing.

Worried, Safira asked, "Father, what's wrong?"

Bluestone didn't answer. He couldn't while gasping for air.

"Let me take a look." Warren landed on her shoulder and looked the old man up and down. "Blast! I knew this would happen."

"What? What is it?" asked Lily.

The parrot explained, "Father's life force is tied to the school itself. The energy the school makes is how he's lived for more than two hundred years. But he can't tap into that energy anymore now that Fafnir's taken over. Worse still, the dragon's draining whatever energy he has left."

"Well, make it stop!" Safira shouted.

Bluestone shook his head. He was still out of breath but spoke. "No, it's okay. Just leave me. Save yourselves!"

Lily's stomach twisted into an unpleasant knot as she watched the headmaster's health rapidly decline. Safira looked absolutely devastated.

But cutting through the gloom as if it didn't matter, Uncle Viceroy snapped, "Oh, don't be so dramatic! Hi-yah! Yah!"

He karate chopped the air around the old man and his breathing quickly became less ragged.

"There! I cut the connection," he told parrot and girl. "He ain't immortal anymore, but at least he's not gonna croak anytime soon."

Bluestone stared at Uncle Viceroy dumbfounded. "Just how much more absurd can you get? Is there anything you can't do?"

With a shrug, Uncle Viceroy said, "Probably bringing back the dead. Not that I've ever tried. Now get moving!"

He gave the old man a nudge and waited until everyone had run past him before pulling out a bolt of lightning which he flung at a gang of approaching skeletons and living suits of armor, blowing them all to pieces.

As he watched a smoking, blackened skull rolled to his feet, Viceroy grumbled to himself, "Those skeletons had better be fake like last time."

And then he turned and followed the others down the hall.

Very quickly, Oliver noticed something was wrong and called for everyone to stop. "Hold up! This isn't the hallway leading to the way out!"

Eddie looked around. "You sure about that?"

"Positive," Oliver said. "The walls were never like this before."

"You're right," said Bluestone. "This hall is nothing like the one that usually leads to the magic teleportation circle."

Lily couldn't tell the difference herself, honestly. But she took their word for it with dread and asked, "What does that mean?"

Oliver opened his mouth to speak, but it was Fafnir who answered instead.

"It means, Lady Sapphire, that you have no way out!"

"No way!" moaned Tanja.

Fafnir cackled. "Now run!" he shouted. "Run and run, and run! Try your hardest to survive and entertain me! Entertaining me is the only way to delay your doom!"

He laughed and laughed, and laughed.

Viceroy had enough and yelled back, "Oh, put a sock in it, you rotten piece of cotton candy!"

Fafnir ignored the history teacher's insult and kept on laughing. More skeletons came pouring down the hallway, their jaws going clackity-clack as if to mirror their master's mood.

Annoyed, Viceroy clicked his tongue. "Bluestone, find a way to get these kids out of here. I'll hold them off!"

"What!?" Lily cried out in dismay. "Uncle Viceroy, no! There's no way you can handle this many skeletons!"

Oliver added, "And they've got suits of armor, flying books and metal tigers too!"

Viceroy scoffed. "Pfft! Please! I'll be fine. This'll be easy compared to the time I had to beat up a whole village to stop them from tearing each other apart in a fit of mass hysteria caused by a secret government mind ray machine."

Oliver blinked. "I'm sorry, what?"

As Viceroy ran straight into the crowd of spear-wielding, sword-drawn skeletons, clumps of rock flew off the walls and stuck onto him until they covered him from head to toe. Fully armored in stone, he bulldozed through the crowd of enemies and crushed their shattered pieces beneath his feet with thunderous stomps while all the while, roaring like a monstrous beast.

"RAAAAAAAAAAH!"

"This way!" Bluestone shouted, snapping the children out of their stupor. "Follow me!"

Lily was reluctant to leave her uncle, but bitterly followed the others while being pulled by the hand by Viv. They all followed the director take a left turn and then a right turn. And then he took them up some stairs, but that way led to a dead end.

"Blast it all!" Bluestone cursed and smacked the wall with his fist. "He's completely rearranged all the halls and floors! I can't figure the way out!"

"Now what do we do?" moaned Viv.

"Don't worry, guys," said Oliver. "I'm sure we'll think of something. Everything'll be okay as long as we stick together."

"Well, now we can't have that," Fafnir's voice cut in.

And then the floor and stairs dropped, becoming one big, smooth slide.

With no platform left to stand on, everyone went sliding down back to the bottom in a scattered heap. And then a wall sprouted up from the floor and another dropped from the ceiling, splitting everyone into two groups. Lily, Eddie, Viv, Oliver and Safira were in one group. The rest were in the other.

"Safira! No!" Bluestone moved to grab Safira, but it was too late. 

Safira threw herself at the wall, hammering her dainty fist against solid rock while calling out to the director. "Father! Father!"

She tried pressing her ear against it, but didn't hear any answer back.

And then Fafnir spoke.

"It is futile, Sapphire Princess," he said, spitting the last two words out in blatant mockery. "Your father and the others have been transported to a completely different section of the school's underground. Too bad. I hoped you enjoyed your reunion, however brief it was."

Safira threw an angry, tearful glare at the ceiling where she felt the voice came from. "A curse upon you, foul demon!"

But Fafnir just laughed. And as he laughed, the stone wall morphed and stretched out, edges turned jagged like the fangs of a snouted animal. Lily pulled Safira away just in time before the jaws snapped.

"Go away!"

Blue light enveloped Lily's hand and she used it to punch the snout, which shattered on impact along with the wall itself. But through the gaping hole left behind, there was nothing but an empty hallway. True to the evil dragon's words, Bluestone and the others were no longer in the same hallway.

"Come on," Lily said to the others. "We need to find the others."

Oliver shook his head and smacked both sides of his face. "Right," he said. "Think you can use the bracelet to find them?"

"I think so," Lily said. She gave the bracelet a glance which, without needing to be told, shined a light away from the destroyed wall. "Looks like it's this way. Figures, they'd be on the opposite end."

She led the others away, following the ray of light wherever it pointed. But then it turned where there were none and flipped back and forth, up and down.

"Hey! What's going on?"

Oliver rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "Fafnir must still be switching around all the halls and floors of the place. Or they could be running around any random way."

"Could be both," said Viv.

Oliver nodded grimly in agreement.

"Great!" Lily groaned. "Now what do we do?"

"The only thing you can do," said Fafnir. "Run!"

BAM! BAM! BAM!

Hands popped out of the wall and grabbed at Lily.

"Eek!"

Frightened, Lily jumped out of the hands' reach. Oliver quickly moved between her and the hands and shoved her more away from them. They and the others fled as more rows and rows of hands appeared.

"It feels like we're in a horror movie or something!" Eddie complained.

To which, his sister snapped, "Less yapping, more running!"

Suddenly, right in front of them, a giant boulder dropped down and rolled.

"Oh, you've got to be kidding me!" screamed Lily.

She and the others turned around and ran. It looked like they had no choice but to go back straight to the horror hands waiting to grab them. But then a way opened up at the side.

"This way!" Lily screamed.

She led the others into the opening and dove into the new hallway, where they stopped to catch their breaths and collapsed in heaps on the floor, unable to stand any longer. Lily could feel her clothes clinging to her while wet from sweat. She wiped some of it from her forehead before turning to sit down. Safira laid on the floor next to her.

They were not given much time to rest. 

"Aw, tired already?" Fafnir mocked. "Want to take a break?"

Eddie answered back, "That would be great, thanks. Ow!"

Viv punched him in the arm.

"Well, too bad!" shouted Fafnir. 

CRACK!

Lily turned and looked down on the floor where a huge, jagged crack appeared. Smaller cracks branched out from it and spread outward to their feet. Pieces of the floor fell down and created a hole that quickly expanded.

"EVERYONE RUN!" she shrieked. She scrambled back up and pulled Safira to feet. They all sprinted away as fast as they could out of the hallway and turned. But the floor beneath their feet continued to crumble away with the hole ever close at their heels.

Lily and Safira weren't fast enough and their feet sank down.

Viv happened to glance back, saw the two girls stumble and then watched with horror as they dropped out of sight.

"Lily!" she cried.

She turned and reached out to grab her friend, but Lily and Safira had already fallen too far deep. Not only that, the floor quickly pieced itself back together and completely sealed the hole up as if it never existed, so Viv could not go after them even if she wanted to. 

Lily and Safira were gone.

<== Chapter 40                                                                            Chapter 42 ==>

Lily Wong Ch. 40

Chapter 40

The Whole, Real, Honest-to-Goodness Truth

Director Bluestone stared at the black cloud hanging over his daughter's head in utter disbelief.

"Fafnir!?" he squealed, repeating the name the cloud had just uttered. "You say you're Fafnir the Dragon?"

"Indeed," said the cloud of smoke. "I am free at last."

Lily could feel its gaze on her next. What looked like eyes on the cloud were fixed to hers.

"And it is thanks to you, child. The one called Lady Sapphire!"

"Me?" Lily faltered. "Because of me . . ."

Before another word could be spoken, Viceroy Kevin Lin scooped the young Sapphire Princess off her feet and then tossed her high into the air. Both the Princess and Director Bluestone yelled out in horror. 

As the director frantically moved to catch her, Lily's Uncle Viceroy's right foot spontaneously combusted, and he flung the flames at the door with a jump-spin kick. BOOM!

"EVERYONE OUT!" the history teacher screamed. "OUT! OUT! OUT!"

Nobody needed telling twice and they all ran out of the room through the smoldering hole Uncle Viceroy had made. The parrot flew overhead with Director Bluestone and the Sapphire Princess.

"Hurry up!" Uncle Viceroy yelled at Lily and the twins.

Viv and Eddie pulled Lily up to her feet and half-dragged her as they all ran away from the black cloud. Uncle Viceroy was the last to leave the room. He lingered by the exit and threw one last look at the cloud. 

The cloud made no move to stop the humans and did nothing but bob around the middle of the room. But Uncle Viceroy did not like the way it chuckled as if watching a comedy show. So, just in case, he stomped his foot on the floor and made a wall of stone pop up to cover the whole and seal the cloud inside.

In its lonesome, it continued to chuckle.

"Flee, insects! Flee! Your futile struggles to survive will be amusing. It's been hundreds of years since I've had any fun!"

**********

Everyone ran and ran, and ran. They went from chamber to chamber, passing through the same traps and obstacles the gang had dealt with before. But this time, all the traps and obstacles stopped and cleared away on their own, allowing everyone to pass unimpeded. This, Lily guessed, was probably thanks to Director Bluestone who always had control of the place from the beginning.

Towards the end, there was a glowing magic circle waiting that took them straight to the Sapphire Society hideout. It was only then that they all stopped running and collapsed from exhaustion. Even Uncle Viceroy was out of breath, but he remained standing.

"Everyone okay?" he asked. "All here? No one missing?"

Oliver was the first to recover. He took a quick look around and then answered, "All present and accounted for, sir."

Satisfied, Uncle Viceroy said, "Good." 

And then he made a loud finger snap. 

In the blink of an eye, thick iron chains appeared around Director Bluestone and pinned his arms to his sides. And then he went flying into an armchair before being surrounded by the metal bars of a cage that fell down from the ceiling.

"Father!" The Sapphire Princess tried to run to Director Bluestone's side, but Uncle Viceroy blocked her way.

"You stay over here," the history teacher ordered her.

He snapped his fingers again and then two exact copies of himself appeared at his sides.

"The dude can multiply!?" George hissed to the others.

Hassan shrugged. "Hey, magic remember? Nothing should surprise us at this point."

Uncle Viceroy dished out orders to his clones. "You, go sound the alarm to get everyone out of the school. And you, go make sure that evil cloud thing stays where it is. Do something about it if you can."

"Roger!" The Uncle Viceroy copies gave the original salutes and then hurried out of the room.

"That should buy us some time," the original muttered to himself.

And then he turned to face his boss with an angry glare. "You got some explaining to do, Bluestone. Was this what you wanted? To unleash some talking cloud calling itself, Fafnir? The famously EVIL dragon, Fafnir? So greedy that he killed someone for gold, Fafnir?"

Bluestone shouted back, "No! I had no idea this was going to happen. I always thought the spell my family cast to bring back Fafnir was a failure!"

"Then why is it here?" Uncle Viceroy yelled.

"AHEM!" Both men turned their gazes to Oliver. "If I may, sir, I think I can explain what's been going on this whole time."

He gave a short pause before continuing.

"When this all started, we thought there was a magical supervillain named the Schemer running around causing trouble for fun. But that's actually not true. It was all pretend by Director Bluestone as a way to make Lily stronger and grow her magic power by making her overcome challenges. He practically said as much while having a secret meeting with the school nurse that I happened to overhear. But if that's not enough, there is proof, or should I say a really big clue that should've tipped us off: the Sapphire Bracelet itself."

"Really?" All eyes turned to the bracelet around Lily's wrist.

Oliver nodded. "Remember what Tanja discovered? That bracelet was like a training weight to help magic power grow by forcing its user to use more magic than they normally would have. The magic spells written on the bracelet were also like the spells in the books that belonged to members of the Sapphire Society who, we can safely guess, were apprentices of Bluestone family wizards. That meant that a Bluestone must have made the bracelet. Am I right, Director?"

Director Bluestone nodded. "Indeed," he said. "I was the one who made that bracelet."

"Now, you might be wondering why Director Bluestone needed Lily's magic power to grow. What did he need Lily for? Well, the answer to that should be obvious now: it was to break free his daughter, A.K.A. the Sapphire Princess."

"But that still leaves a lot of questions unanswered," said Lily. "For one thing, why me of all people? What's so special about me?"

It was Director Bluestone's turn to finally speak. 

"The answer to that is very simple," he said. "It's because your magic energy is an exact match to Safira's. 

"I tried many times and many ways to break Safira free, but failed each and every time. While doing that, I learned that the sapphire keeping her trapped was made from her own magic power, so only she could dispel it. But, of course, she can't do that. I admit, I despaired, thinking I would never get to speak with my daughter again. But then I ran across research that showed that just like how there could be three people in the world with the exact same face, there could also be people with the exact same magic energy. I thought that if there's someone else with the exact same magic energy as Safira's, they could break her free."

"And that someone ended up being me," said Lily.

Director Bluestone nodded.

"But then, why pretend to be a bad guy?" asked Lily. "Why do such horrible things to everyone? Stealing people's important things, stopping them from doing the things they loved, taking away Melody's face? You didn't need to do all that. If you just told me what you really wanted, I'd be happy to help."

"You might," said Director Bluestone. He turned his gaze to Lily's Uncle Viceroy. "But your parents and your uncle were not. They flat-out refused to allow you to get mixed up in anything magical."

Uncle Viceroy looked confused. "I don't remember you asking - Oh! No, wait. Now I remember. That did happen."

Director Bluestone rolled his eyes. "Figures that was all it took for you to break the memory erasing spell I cast on you."

Lily threw her uncle an angry glare. "Uncle Viceroy, why would you refuse to help?"

Feeling no guilt whatsoever, the history teacher crossed his arms and spoke back, "I never said anything about not helping. I just didn't want you to get mixed up in magic stuff."

"Why not?" Lily asked. "YOU'RE mixed up in magic stuff. Why can't I be too?"

"For one thing, it's because your parents didn't want that," Uncle Viceroy said. "Something about catching my 'weirdness'. For another, it's because magic stuff is dangerous. I think you already understood that from some of your last adventures."

"I never planned to hurt anyone," Director Bluestone argued. "All the challenges I designed were perfectly safe!"

"Perfectly safe? PERFECTLY SAFE!?" Uncle Viceroy's voice raised as his temper flared. "Lily nearly died twice because of you!"

Director Bluestone fell silent, unable to argue back. And Uncle Viceroy was not done talking.

"And that's not all!" the history teacher shouted. "Emeron's one thing, but the magic side of this world is almost all evil! Being on the Council, you should know better than anyone how bad it can get. Heck, even the Magic Council's not above doing bad things to get what they want! Not to mention your own family brought back an evil dragon! Or at least a cloud ghost thing of an evil dragon."

Safira could stay silent no longer and yelled, "It's not Father's fault! It's mine! It's because of me, he did those bad things to so many people. And it's because of me that Fafnir was revived!"

"What do you mean?" asked Tanja.

Safira answered with a story.

"First, allow me to introduce myself. I am Safira Bluestone, who you've all been calling the Sapphire Princess. That last part was, of course, made up by Father. 

"Anyway, It all started many, many, many years ago. I was just a normal small town girl who didn't know anything about magic, nor that it even existed. Not until one day, while playing in the forest, I met an old man who said he was Father's father. 

"For all my life, it was just me, my brother and Father in our family. Mother sadly died when I was still a baby. So I was excited to learn that there was more of us.

"Grandfather explained that before I was born, he and Father had a really bad argument that made Father leave home and cut ties with the rest of the family. It made Grandfather very sad and he asked for my help to make up with Father. I gladly agreed to lend a hand. At the time, I had no idea that the real reason Father left the Bluestone family was because they were all evil until it was too late.

"Since that day, I became Grandfather's apprentice in the magic arts. I was amazed, astonished and flabbergasted to find out that the Bluestone family, that my own father, had fantastical magic powers just like the wizard Merlin from the tales of King Arthur. And I got to learn how to wield those same fantastical magic powers. By a couple of months, I could fly in the air like a bird, grow as big as a house and shrink as small as a mouse. I could make fire with a snap of my fingers and cool an entire room with an icy winter breath.

"During that time, I also got to know my grandmother, Father's younger sister and all their aunts and uncles. They were all really nice and friendly. I didn't understand how things could have gotten so bad between them and Father.

"Father and Brother never knew what I was really up to. They just thought I was playing in the forest like always. I kept all of it a secret from them because Grandfather asked me to. He said he wanted to make it a surprise as part of his plan to bring the family back together.

"And then the day came when Grandfather announced the whole family was going to perform a ceremony with me at the center. I was really excited because I thought it was going to be the day Father and Grandfather were finally going to get along again. I was even given a fancy dress just for the occasion.

"But almost as soon as the ceremony started, I noticed something was wrong. The room was all dark and gloomy, lit by just a couple of candles. Except for me, everyone was wearing black robes with hoods covering their heads and faces. I was beginning to have doubts that this ceremony was a good thing because of how scary everything already looked. But with a little prodding, they got me to join them in reciting a strange poem. I don't remember the exact words and I don't care to. And then, HE showed up.

"A most sinister looking black cloud rose up from the ground, from which came a malevolent voice that said he was the dragon, Fafnir. I remembered reading storybooks about Fafnir that described him as a wicked monster and turned to warn them, only to find them cheering in triumph that the spell had worked. That was when I finally realized that I had been tricked. Grandfather and the rest of the Bluestone family never cared about mending things with Father. They just needed someone to help them complete the magic spell to bring back the evil dragon. 

"They didn't even care when the wicked wyrm's spirit started voicing his plans to eat people and take their treasure. All they cared about was asking it questions and getting answers as payment for reviving it."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" Lily cut in. "They were planning to ask Fafnir questions? THAT'S what they brought back an evil dragon's spirit for?"

"That is no surprise, if you remember the Bluestone family motto," said Director Bluestone. 

"Glory through wisdom."

Director Bluestone gave Oliver a nod. "That's right. The Bluestone family believed the way to glory was through wisdom. And what is wisdom but knowing everything?"

Uncle Viceroy rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "Fafnir's a really famous dragon. Even I've heard of him. I think one legend said he knew a lot of stuff, so I guess it tracks that a family that wants to know everything would want to pick his brain." 

"I couldn't believe it," Safira continued. "The Bluestone family, my family, was going to sacrifice people just to satisfy their curiosity. And I was horrified at the part I played in their plans.

"I remember thinking if only I realized sooner what these people were really like, that they were lying through their teeth, maybe this wouldn't have happened. But I never realized, and it did happen. I helped make it happen. Thanks to me, an evil monster was back and going to eat people. I wasn't sure how since he was a cloud of smoke. But he was a magical cloud of smoke, so he probably had some way to do it. Father, Brother, my friends and neighbors. They were all in danger. But not unless I do something about it.

"How, though? I wondered. How was I going to stop this evil monster from hurting the people I loved?

"I thought and I thought, and I thought. And then I got an idea to trap the monster forever in stone, using myself as bait. So I called out to him and offered to let him possess me. Just as I hoped, the smoke fell for my trick and flew up my nose. And then, once I sniffed him all up, I started to cast the magic spell.

"It was hard. Like, really hard. Almost as hard as pushing a wagon by myself. That hard. Fafnir figured out what I was going to do and tried to take control and stop me. He commanded my jaws to snap shut, made my own hand clap itself over my mouth, and twisted my lips to muddle my words. I think there was even a lot of thrashing around too. But I resisted the dastardly dragon just long enough to finish the incantation.

"In the blink of an eye, we were covered head to toe in a giant blue jewel. I could hear the dragon screaming in fury and cursing at me. He voiced all sorts of plans for revenge most foul. But it didn't matter. It was my victory. 

"Relieved to know Fafnir was never going to hurt anyone ever again, I quickly began to fall asleep. But before darkness overtook me, I was able to catch one last glimpse of Father and Brother as they stormed the ceremony chamber. They looked really angry. And then everything went black.

"The next thing I knew after that, I heard voices and I saw your face, Lily, blue through the jewel's surface. I was pretty shocked to see a girl around my age try and break me free. It got me panicking because freeing me meant freeing Fafnir too. Luckily though, you failed."

That must have been from the first time the Schemer showed himself, Lily thought.

Oliver chimed in. "I'm guessing that although Lily's power wasn't enough to break you free back then, it was enough to wake you up. You were probably confused at first, but then found out what Director Bluestone was up to."

Safira nodded. 

"I could hear everything going on outside of the jewel as well as see," she explained. "And I got a front row seat to Father and Brother as they did their plotting, so I knew exactly what was going on."

"And you tried to warn me," Lily said. "You were that voice I was hearing, weren't you?"

Again, Safira nodded. 

"One thing I don't get, though," Hassan cut in. "You said you and Director Bluestone were there when the Bluestone family did that whole summon a dead dragon thing. But Oliver said, Director Bluestone said that happened before the school was founded, which was a long, long, long time ago. Before even my great-great-grandpa was born really. You're one thing, Safira, being frozen in sapphire. But how could Director Bluestone be there? And be your dad, no less?"

"Oh, you kids don't know?" All eyes turned to Uncle Viceroy.

"Know what?" Lily asked him.

He answered nonchalantly, "Bluestone's more than two hundred years old. He's changed his name to Julius the Second, the Third and so on, so normal folks don't catch on, but he's really Julius Bluestone the First the whole time. And he's also apparently too lazy to make up a brand new name."

Director Bluestone frowned at the history teacher in dismay. "Was that last part really necessary?"

The students stared at him in amazement.

"Seriously?" went George. "You lived that long, Director?"

"That's nothing to be surprised over," Uncle Viceroy said. "I have a friend from another world who learned magic from a witch who lived to be a thousand.

"Anyway, to sum up: The Bluestone family tricked Safira into bringing back a famously evil dragon named Fafnir. To stop the dragon from hurting anyone, Safira sacrificed herself and froze herself and the dragon in a giant piece of sapphire. Director Bluestone found out about what happened, overthrew the Bluestone family and then spent the next two hundred years or so trying to break her free while not knowing Fafnir was trapped with her. Lily ended up being the key to freeing both of them thanks to her magic powers matching Safira's. But because I wasn't going to let Lily get mixed up in anything magical, Director Bluestone went behind my back and tricked Lily into thinking she was some kind of chosen one hero while he pretended to be the bad guy of a completely made-up script. His plan worked, but now we got the spirit of an evil dragon to deal with. Is that everything?"

Erin raised her hand. "I got something. Who's this Brother you kept mentioning, Safira?"

"She was talking about me." Everyone turned to see the blue parrot standing on a table looking haughty as always. Its weird combo of several voices speaking at the same time was gone and replaced with a regular man's voice with a British accent. "Warren Bluestone, at your service."

"Okay, is that everything now?" asked Uncle Viceroy. "The whole truth? The whole real, honest-to-goodness truth?"

"One more thing," said Warren Bluestone, the parrot. He turned his haughty gaze to Lily and the others. "You're probably wondering who the Lady of Sapphire is, now that it's come out that your adventures were all fabricated and scripted play-pretend. Well, she's actually a school nurse using the magic version of a video game avatar. Oliver probably already knows this, but half of the people working at the school were in on Bluestone's plan."

"Okay," said Uncle Viceroy. "So NOW do we got the whole, real, honest-to-goodness truth?"

All three Bluestones nodded. "The whole, real, honest-to-goodness truth."

Suddenly, Tanja raised her hand. "Ooh! One more thing! You still haven't told us why you wear glasses when you don't need them, Mr. Lin."

<== Chapter 39                                                                                 Chapter 41 ==>

Lily Wong Ch. 39

Chapter 39

Rescue (Part 2)

"Okay," Oliver started with a clap of his hands. "Let's go over everything one more time so we're all on the same page."

Everyone huddled together with him and nodded.

"Our goal is to rescue Mr. Lin and the Sapphire Princess who're both frozen in a giant pillar made of sapphire stone. From what we already know, only Lily can break them out with help from the magic bracelet so that'll be her job. And that means the rest of us has the job of making sure nothing gets in her way. That includes dealing with the Schemer ourselves. Based on what Lily's told us, his power's no joke. If we have to face him, we got to go full throttle, no mercy. Even if that's not enough to do anything to him, at least it'll distract him long enough for Lily to do what she has to do."

"Let's hope the Schemer doesn't show up then," said Eddie.

"Speaking of the Schemer, there's actually something I should tell you guys," Lily said. After hesitating a bit, she spoke up. "It's something I left out earlier, but - !"

Oliver cut in and said, "The Schemer is actually Director Bluestone. Is that it?"

Lily looked at him in surprise, and then nodded.

"Wait," George cut in. "I thought the Schemer was supposed to be a relative of the director."

"That's just what he told us," Oliver said. "Well, to be exact, he said the Schemer was a member of the Bluestone family, which was true because the director, himself, is a Bluestone."

"But how'd you figure it out yourself?" asked Lily. "Since when?"

"When we waited for the Schemer to go away so we could nab the bracelet back," replied Oliver. "The way he sat in that chair of his was exactly how the director always sat whenever I met with him before. And I've seen him enough times to know his sitting habits by heart, down to the littlest detail. But what about you, Lily? How did you find out the Schemer's secret identity?"

"He told me," said Lily. "He didn't even bother to put on his costume when I came to save Uncle Viceroy."

"I can't believe it," went Hassan. "As far as teachers went, Director Bluestone was the coolest. To think he was a bad guy this whole time."

"But wait," Erin cut in. "That means we'll be fighting a teacher! Isn't that a bad thing?"

"It is," said Oliver. He looked like he had a heavy heart. "But Director Bluestone is also doing bad things. And he has to be stopped from doing any more, even if that means fighting him."

A stifling mood hung over the gang, but it was quickly dispelled by an optimistic Eddie who said, "It'll be fine. Mr. Lin can help us sort this out once we break him out."

His sister pointed out, "Mr. Lin lost to Director Bluestone, remember?"

"Yeah, but like Oliver said before, everything'll work out if we all work together."

"Right you are, Eddie," said Oliver. "Then let's not waste anymore time."

Taking the leader place, he opened the door and stormed out. 

After taking a look around, Oliver whispered, "Okay. So far, so good. No Schemer in sight."

No sooner he said that, a multitude of voices speaking at once cut in from overhead and said, "No, but I'm here."

Everyone turned their heads. 

No surprise, there was a blue-feathered parrot perched on top of the pillar made of sapphire with Mr. Lin and the Sapphire Princess trapped inside. THE blue parrot.

"I've been waiting for you," it said.

Oliver took a look around. "Just you? What happened to Director Bluestone?"

"Hmph!" The parrot sniffed with contempt. "So you finally realized that Julius was the Schemer all along. But I suppose that's no surprise, since he got tired of waiting for you all to figure it out yourselves and revealed himself.

"Julius doesn't need to waste his time on you," the parrot replied back. "Now that he knows how weak the chosen hero of the Sapphire Bracelet really is, he can ignore you all and turn his attention to better things."

"Well that's good," said Eddie. "This'll be a piece of cake if it's just the bad guy's sidekick."

The parrot didn't like that. "Excuse me? Just a sidekick?"

"Eek!"

"Yikes!"

"Whoa!"

Suddenly, the parrot grew from a speck on top of the room's single decoration to about as big as a grownup elephant. One flap of its wings nearly blew everyone off their feet.

"IS THAT REALLY WHAT YOU JUST CALLED ME?"

The parrot's voices had also grown with its size and echoed several times over in the room.

Viv threw her brother a reproachful look. "You just had to tick off the parrot, didn't you?"

Lily rolled back her sleeve with the bracelet now back on her arm. "Hold on, guys. Let me - !"

Before she could act, Oliver stopped her. "No. You need all the magic power you can muster to break Mr. Lin and the Princess out. We'll handle the parrot. Come on, guys! Let's go!"

He led the charge and ran up close to the monument with a baseball-sized fireball in his hand, which he lobbed at the great, big bird. The parrot hopped off to dodge the attack and then swooped around Mr. Lin and the Sapphire Princess, headed up to the ceiling and then dove down, aiming its beak to skewer the teen detective's heart.

Hassan stepped between the parrot and Oliver and, mimicking the parrot, magically grew three times his original size while holding up an iron, round shield he had pulled out of thin air. The parrot crashed into the shield and exploded into a cloud of blue smoke, only to reappear from behind the monument in its normal size.

The giant version had been a clone the whole time.

Oliver quickly retreated behind his giant friend as the parrot flew over, spitting out a jet of fire. Hassan blocked the flames with his shield.

Erin and Melody both took something out from their pockets that instantly grew into large butterfly nets with flicks of their wrists. They swung the nets at the parrot, but it quickly flew back up the ceiling before the nets reached.

While the parrot was kept busy, Lily seized the chance to run over to the pillar and placed her hand on the warm sapphire stone. After giving her uncle and the Sapphire Princess a quick look, she focused all her energy into the bracelet and gave it a command.

"Alright, bracelet! Time for a revenge match! Let's break them free!"

The bracelet answered with a flash of light shining from its jewels. In reaction, the huge sapphire stone also shined.

Startled by the blinding light, the parrot squawked and shrank away, before growing ten feet tall. It turned while using one wing to shield its face and roared out, "LILY WONG!"

It hunched down, looking like it was going to jump on Lily. But it got jumped on instead by Oliver, Alejandro and George. The parrot tried to shake the boys off, but then Tanja dove onto the pile too, and the parrot's legs finally buckled under their combined weight and it collapsed onto the floor. "Oof!"

"Hurry, Lily!" Oliver cried.

Lily yelled back, "I'm trying!"

She pushed everything she had into breaking the giant sapphire open, but it showed no signs of cracking. Lily, on the other hand, could feel her head throbbing while the world went swirly. And then the light on the jewels became noticeably dimmer.

Oh no! She thought. It can't be that after all this time, my power's still not enough. For what did I go through all that trouble for then?

Just as she started to despair at failing a second time here, she felt a pair of hands on one shoulder.

"Here, Lily," she heard Viv's voice say. "Let me give you a boost!"

And then Lily felt another pair of hands on her other shoulder.

"Don't forget about me," said Eddie.

The throbbing left Lily's head and the light on the huge gemstone grew brighter again. Not only that, a jagged line appeared across the Sapphire Princess' face. And then another.

Elated, Lily thought, It's working! It's working this time.

All over the huge gemstone, more cracks appeared. She could feel it vibrating against her palm, followed by a growl coming from her uncle. "Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!"

"Almost there," she mumbled. "Just a little bit more!"

"NO! STOP!"

Suddenly, a girl's voice cried out. It was so loud that it drowned out any other kind of noise and created waves that sent shivers down everyone's spine. Including Oliver's, who, while laying on the parrot's feathery back, felt something shatter in his head as the waves passed through him. 

He was suddenly hit with a flashback to a forgotten past and then remembered that today was not the first time he found out Director Bluestone was the Schemer. He actually found out a lot earlier. 

But that was not the only thing he realized.

"Director Bluestone wanted Lily to get stronger. Everything has been going exactly as he planned. Even now!"

The parrot overheard the teen detective's mumbling and glanced back, thinking, Oh, this is not good.

But it was too late for the parrot to stop what happened next.

At the top of his lungs, Oliver panickily shouted, "Lily, stop! It's all a trick! We're doing exactly what Director Bluestone wants!"

"Huh?" Lily turned with a start and let go of the sapphire stone for just a little moment. But then, there was an explosion of blue smoke next to her. And out of it, appeared Director Bluestone who grabbed Lily by the bracelet on her wrist and forced her hand back on the sapphire.

Lily felt the rest of her power drain out in an instant and her knees buckled. At the same time, a pulse burst from the palm of her hand and spread all over the huge sapphire, causing it to explode into a cloud of fine, powdery dust.

It knocked Lily to the floor alongside her friends and Director Bluestone. Director Bluestone was the first to recover. He was already on his feet, crying, "Safira!"

As Lily gingerly sat up, the dust cloud settled and disappeared, and she could see two figures standing in the middle of the chamber: Uncle Viceroy and the Sapphire Princess.

"Safira!"

With a big smile plastered on his face, Director Bluestone ran to the Princess. But the Sapphire Princess did not smile in return. Instead, she screamed, "No! Stay away!"

Director Bluestone froze. His smile dropped to a distraught frown. "Safira, it's me! It's Julius Bluestone, your father!"

"Father!?" Everyone cried out in surprise.

The Sapphire Princess was Director Bluestone's daughter this whole time? But then why would he have her trapped in that huge gemstone? Wait, but Oliver said this was what he wanted.

"Grrrr!" Lily furiously scratched both sides of her head. Her confusion put her over the tipping point. "Just what is going on here!?"

Nobody answered her. All eyes were on the father and daughter pair having a less-than-happy reunion.

"Safira, please! I've waited so long to speak with you again!"

But the Sapphire Princess, Safira, refused to let her father come closer. "No! Please, just stay away! It's too dangerous!"

Director Bluestone caught on quick that something was wrong and frowned. "Dangerous? What is dangerous?"

The Sapphire Princess didn't answer. Instead, someone else spoke. Something else.

"She speaks of me, Son of Thaddeus Bluestone."

It was a voice that was deep, dark and full of malevolence unlike anything Lily had heard before. The source of the voice was a cloud of thick, black smoke swirling around over the Sapphire Princess' head.

With a wicked, evil cackle, the black smoke made a loud and triumphant announcement.

 "AT LAST! I, THE EVIL DRAGON FAFNIR, AM FREE!"

<== Chapter 38                                                                             Chapter 40 ==>

Lily Wong Ch. 38

 

Chapter 38

Rescue

The Lady of Sapphire led the Sapphire Society to the gym. By now, with the sun close to setting, the building should be completely empty.

As soon as they saw where they were headed, Viv, Eddie, and Oliver had a sinking suspicion they knew where Lily would be. And they were right.

Sure enough, the ghostly lady took them to the side of the building, to a familiar door that led to the gym's underground level and was marked forbidden to all but the school's staff members. Once gathered in front of the door, everyone was bathed bright light that shined from a magic circle beneath their feet. The next thing they knew, they were all in a hallway of dark stone with the only sources of light coming from flickering flames held in stone bowls attached to the walls.

"Well, this place sure brings back memories," Eddie quipped as he looked around. "Not good ones though."

"So now what?" asked George. "Do we just go straight down?"

Viv nodded. "Yeah. Down there, there'll be one of those crystal balls , like at the . . . hideout . . . Oh, shoot!"

"What is it?" asked Oliver, concerned about the outburst Viv made after she trailed off.

"I totally forgot about this puzzle," Viv groaned. "Solving it is the only thing that can open the secret passageway into the maze, but only Lily can make them work!"

Horrified, Hassan cried out, "So we're trapped here!?"

"Worry not, children," said the Lady of Sapphire. "There is not much I can do in my current state, but I can alter the workings of some of the maze's functions so that you may pass through its chambers."

Many of the Sapphire Society members looked at her blankly. Eddie went, "Huh?"

"She means she can hack this underground lair and unlock all the doors for us," Tanja said.

"Oh. Why didn't she just say so?"

After the spirit floated over to the big, blue crystal ball and got it glowing, a section of the wall next to her sank down to reveal a passageway to the next hallway exactly like the last time the Waller twins had been here. The Lady of Sapphire went on ahead with the Sapphire Society gang following closely behind. She led them to a three-way fork and then down the left pathway, which led to another fork with two choices.

With so many twists and turns to follow, the gang was grateful to have the Lady of Sapphire leading the way. Especially Eddie and Viv who could no longer remember what route they took the last time they were here. They did, however, remember what lied ahead and warned the others.

First up was the lava pit. 

Just as the pit below started to fill with superhot magma, Melody conjured up a huge bubble that carried the whole gang over to the other side. They were out before the lava even reached up to a quarter of the  pool.

Next was the bottomless pit room. It had not been restored, unlike the lava pit room, but the pieces of the single bridge to the other side had been broken apart again. Oliver took on the task of connecting them back together, taking turns with Alejandro to move them at the correct angle.

After making it over to the next room, Hassan used a magic spell to cover everyone from head to toe in shiny, silvery metal. The arrows flying left and right bounced harmlessly off their steel skin. They didn't even feel a thing.

When it came time to deal with the strangling plants, George took a deep breath and blew out of his mouth a spinning tornado of fire that filled up the entire room and both shredded the murderous plants to pieces as well as burnt them to ashes. Viv handled the lightning room, cloaking everyone in a shroud of electricity that repelled the bolts that came flying down from the ceiling to try strike them down.

Once they approached the big hole on the floor, Eddie snapped his fingers and everyone got big, white-feathered wings sprouting out of their backs. The wings carried them down the hole and towards the next room, disappearing after their owners touched down on the floor.

"Well, this has been surprisingly easy," said Eddie. "I remember us freaking out a bunch the last time we were here."

"I guess that just goes to show how much we've leveled up since last time," Viv said smugly.

Oliver added, "It also helps that we know what to expect beforehand."

"I guess it was a good thing I came here on my own last time, after all," said Eddie. 

He had a proud look on his face, but his sister shook her head and said, "No, I'm still mad about that."

Using a magic spell, Tanja moved the many layers of the dial puzzle with her mind until they formed a picture of a parrot which undid the lock on the doorway to another room with lots of large, stone blocks. Erin and Naomi took turns using their minds to stack the stone blocks to make a staircase up to the exit. After that was just one more puzzle before they could at last reach Lily. But there was a problem.

The Lady of Sapphire floated in front of a row of large crystal balls, arms crossed and frowning. She stared at them for about five minutes before someone finally spoke up.

"Uh . . ." went Erin. "What's the hold-up?"

"Have patience, child," said the Lady of Sapphire. "I just need to think for a bit."

"Think about what?" asked Tanja. "Can't you just bypass the security like you did with that first crystal ball way back when we started?"

"I can but . . ."

"Don't tell me," said Oliver. "You still need to solve the puzzle, but you can't remember the right combo?"

"Well . . . " The ghostly lady gave him an awkward smile and shrugged.

Oliver turned to the twins. "You've been here before. Do you remember what order Lily fed magic power to those crystal balls to get the doors opened?"

He nodded back to the huge blue doors decorated with the school symbol in gold.

"Sorry," said Viv, "but I don't."

"Same," said Eddie. "It was a while ago, after all."

"Well, I guess we're doing this the old-fashioned way," said Oliver. 

He took out a pen and a notebook which he used to jot down the combos used as the Lady of Sapphire tried again and again to get the door open. Tanja chimed in whenever she could, and within minutes, the doors swung open. Bright blue light shined out of the cracks, making the members of the Sapphire Society turn away. When they looked back again, they found themselves face to face with a giant cluster of blue gemstone that had two people entombed within, a young girl around eleven or twelve years old and -

"Mr. Lin!" Viv cried out. "What's he doing here?"

"Viceroy Kevin Lin found and confronted the the Schemer," explained the Lady of Sapphire. "But alas, his power was no match for the Schemer who easily bested him in battle."

"Well, now we know why he was absent from classes," Eddie said, looking up at the trapped and frozen teacher. "Why does he look like he's leaping and shrieking like a monkey?"

Viv shrugged. "It's Mr. Lin. He's always doing stuff that don't make a lick of sense."

Tanjya looked up at the girl trapped with the history teacher. "So this is the Sapphire Princess. She really looks a lot like you, Ms. Lady of Sapphire."

"That, she does," said the Lady of Sapphire. She stared longingly at the girl who, unlike Mr. Lin, looked like she was peacefully sleeping while floating in a pool of blue.

"I'm starting to get a clearer picture about what must've happened," said Oliver. "To sum it all up: Somehow, Mr. Lin found out who the Schemer was and went to confront him, only to lose and end up captured. And then Lily came to rescue Mr. Lin, only to end up captured herself. My guess is she was lured into a trap by the Schemer who used Mr. Lin as a hostage."

"You are correct, Oliver," said the Lady of Sapphire.

"But speaking of Lily, where is she?" Viv asked as she looked around. "I don't see her. Do you know, Lady of Sapphire?"

There was no answer.

"Lady of Sapphire?"

"Huh?" The ghostly lady was still staring at the Sapphire Princess with her hand pressed on the blue gemstone when Viv's voice snapped her out of her stupor. "Yes? Oh, right! Lily!"

She pointed to a door at the right side of the chamber. "She's in that room over there. But before we go in, we must retrieve the Sapphire Bracelet. Only with the bracelet can we free her from the Schemer's terrible curse."

"Okay," said Viv. "Then where's the bracelet?"

The Lady of Sapphire pointed to another door opposite of the one that she claimed Lily was behind.

"There," she said. "I can sense the bracelet's power beyond that door."

"Behind there, huh?" Viv said.

She walked over to the door and reached for the door handle before being stopped by Oliver.

"Wait, Viv! We don't know what else could be in that room. There could be traps, so we need to be careful about this. Let me go first."

Taking Viv's place at the door, Oliver wrapped his fingers around the door handle and slowly pulled it down. He tried pushing the door and then pulling it. Pulling it worked and he opened the door a crack, just wide enough to peek in with one eye.

"Well?" hissed Viv. "What do you see, Oliver?"

"Shh!" Oliver shushed. 

The room beyond the door was round, just like the first. But it was much smaller. There was a midnight blue armchair sitting in the middle of the room with a table next to it. On the table was a white teapot, a dainty white tea cup with steam wafting out of it, and the Sapphire Bracelet.

"Bingo," Oliver muttered under his breath. 

He turned his gaze to the armchair itself which had someone sitting in it. The person was covered from head to toe in blue robes with their face concealed beneath a hood that cast a completely black shadow.

Oliver swore, and then he slowly closed the door shut.

"I saw the bracelet," he told the others. "But the Schemer's there right next to it."

Exasperated, Viv groaned. "Great! Now what do we do? We need that bracelet to help Lily!"

Oliver shook his head and whispered, "I don't know."

He took another peek inside and frowned. There was something familiar about the way the Schemer leaned over the chair's left arm with one leg folded over the other while holding his hands together on his lap.

"No way. Could that be . . . ? Ow!"

Oliver's thoughts were interrupted by a sharp pain to his cranium.

Panicked, Hassan hissed, "What is it? What's wrong?"

Oliver shook his head and whispered back, "It's nothing. Just got a headache. It's gone now."

He peeked back into the room again and saw the Schemer standing up.

What's he up to now? Oliver wondered.

He watched the Schemer walk over to the side of the room and push open a door there before walking through it. Once he was through, the door closed shut, leaving the room with no one inside.

"I can't believe it. He just up and left!"

"What? Really?" went Alejandro. "Where could he have one?"

"Who cares?" Hassan cut in. "Now's our chance! Let's get in and grab the bracelet!"

"Wait, there could still be traps," said Oliver. "We should - !"

But Viv could not wait anymore. She pushed past Oliver and rushed into the room before anyone could stop her. After grabbing the bracelet off the table, she turned and walked back out.

Oliver gave her a stern glare and said, "That was dangerous."

Viv fired back, "Hey, nothing happened, did it? Anyway, we're wasting time!"

And then she went running over to the other room. The others followed.

**********

Lily stood in a small round room, depressed and unable to move because of a growing pile of sapphire. At first, the gemstone covered just her feet, gluing them to the floor. But it has grown since then and was now up to her neck. And it was still growing.

She tried to her hardest to break free, but her efforts were futile. Her measly strength was no match against the solid rock. It would be no problem if she still had her magic bracelet, but without it, she was helpless.

I can't believe this is how it ends, she thought bitterly as the sapphire crept up to her jaw. I don't want it to end this way. Someone, anyone, please help!

She could not voice her wish out loud. For one thing, there was no one to hear it. For another, the stone covered her mouth. And then her nose. At that point, she lost hope and thought that it was really over for her. All she could do now was close her eyes and wait.

And then - 

BAM! 

"LILY!"

Hearing a familiar voice cry out her name, Lily's eyes flew open and she saw her roommate running over to her with the magic bracelet held tight in her hands. The whole gang came pouring into the room after her.

What are they doing here? Lily wondered. She was both relieved and horrified to see them. Relieved because it looked like her friends had come to rescue her. Horrified because it looked like her friends had come to rescue her in what could be the most dangerous place on the planet.

"Hold on, Lily," Viv said. "We'll get you out of there soon."

"No, you need to get out of here before the Schemer comes back," Lily wanted to tell her. But with her mouth sealed, what came out was: "Mh! Mmh mmmh mh mh mh mh mh mmmh!" Or something like that.

"Now, how do we use this thing?" Viv asked aloud, holding up the bracelet. Lily wondered how she got that when it should've been with the Schemer. "Do you know, Lady of Sapphire? Huh? Where'd she go?"

Everyone looked around, but the ghostly lady was nowhere to be found.

"Great! Now what do we do?" Viv whined.

"Oh! I know!" exclaimed Eddie. "Why don't we try making the bracelet touch all this stone?"

Viv turned to Oliver, who shrugged and said, "Let's go for it. I got nothing better."

So, Viv lightly tapped the bracelet against the stone that got Lily trapped inside. Almost at once, both the bracelet's jewels and the huge sapphire stone shined with blinding light making everyone look away. When they turned back around, both the light and all that sapphire around Lily were gone.

Free from the sapphire's hold, Lily's knees buckled and she dropped down to the ground where she sat. The others rushed to her side.

"Lily!" cried Viv. "Are you okay?"

"You're not hurt anywhere, are you?" asked Oliver.

"I'm fine," Lily said. With Viv's help, she stood back up. "But you guys shouldn't have come. If the Schemer catches you-!"

"Who cares about that?" Viv snapped. "What were you thinking, going after him alone like that?"

"You really should have let us know, Lily," said Oliver.

"Yeah," said Eddie. "We could have helped."

"You could end up cursed like last time," Lily said. "I don't want that to happen again."

"How do you think we'd feel if that happened to you?" Viv argued. "Oh, wait. I can answer that because it already happened to you. For me at least, it felt downright lousy. Horrible. You scared years off my life!"

"Listen Lily," said Oliver, "I know that you don't want us to get hurt. But it's the same for us. We don't want anything bad happening to you either. We care about you. You're our friend. That's exactly why we need to work together so that we all make it through this in one piece."

"But, the bracelet - !"

Oliver cut Lily off before she could finish. "The bracelet chose you, yes. You're the only person who can handle the Schemer, yes. But you can't do everything alone. Sometimes you need help just like everyone else. And we, your friends can give you that help. You can see for yourself that we've been doing a good job of it this time. And we'll always be willing to lend a hand whenever you need it. Promise. So, what do you say? Will you let us join you?"

Lily looked at the hand Oliver held up to her. She could see in his eyes that he meant every word he said, and that the others felt the same way. 

After a little hesitating, she took Oliver's hand into a handshake and said, "Please, help me save Uncle Viceroy and the Sapphire Princess."

Grinning from ear to ear, everyone said, "Sure!" With Eddie adding, "Did you really need to ask?"

<== Chapter 37                                                                                Chapter 39 ==>

Poem: How the Weak and Ordinary Punish the Strong and Powerful

To the Strong and Powerful

You are on notice.

Insignificant though I may be,

My voice barely a squeak from Down Yonder

As you gaze from Thrones so high.

You see yourselves untouchable

No sin committed can be punished

Such is your Priviledge of Wealth

Such is the benefit of your Political Seat

But know, with each Crime you perform

Each Step you make to the Devil's tune

Each Sin you put on full display

Your punishment is set.

I have the means.

I have the tools.

To etch your Crimes in Stone.

To make your every words and actions immortalized.

Your Worshippers may be blind

But the Wise will see you as you really are

They will remember

And They too will etch in Stone

The Truth You cannot see Yourselves

And when your Descendants See what You have done

To learn your True Nature

They will turn away from you in Shame.

To toss away your name

Deny you claim of Their Ancestry

The Price you pay for your goals is clear

No matter that you do not care

Your legacy is set

One of absolute ridicule and contempt.

You may have Glory now.

Worshippers may flock to praise you.

But you will be remembered for the Clowns that you are

The Demons and Monsters wearing Masks of False Justice

No matter how much Books you and yours seek to Burn

No matter the Lies you and yours will spew forth

The Truth will be plain to see

Made Immortal by Us, the Weak and the Ordinary

For that is my Punishment

To see Your Legacy set

So muddied are Your Names

By the Truth of My Records

Lily Wong Ch. 37

Chapter 37

Captured

"Okay, guys!" went Oliver. "Are you ready?"

"Ready as we'll ever be," said George. He and the other library helpers stood at the side of the room with their hands raised. "Let 'em rip!"

Oliver stood at another side of the room and nodded to the Waller twins and Tanika who stood beside him. They pointed fingers at a trio of scarecrows lined up at a third side of the room and unleashed bolts of lightning from their outstretched fingertips. Huge shields shields appeared in front of the scarecrows and protected the scarecrows from the unprovoked attacks. 

What the whole Sapphire Society was doing was taking turns practicing magic spells for fighting and protecting. They've been working harder than ever to get better at it for a while now, but Viv was especially putting her all in the training this time after finding out from Oliver why Lily may've been acting strange.

A little bit of time ago . . .

Hassan raised an eyebrow. "Lily was acting strange?"

Viv nodded. She and Eddie told the others about what happened as soon as they met up with everyone in the Sapphire Society's hideout.

"I tried to get her to tell me what was wrong, but she ran away before I could get any answers," she said. "And she's skipped all our other classes."

"I was afraid of this," Oliver said as he rubbed his chin thoughtfully.

"You know what's up with her, Oliver?" asked Viv.

Oliver hesitated, but with all eyes on the teen detective now, he couldn't stay silent any longer. "It's just an educated guess on my part, but I think that what happened to us in that painting really shook Lily to her core. You know, when we were all turned into statues. I can tell you before I blacked out, I saw she looked really devastated. She may be afraid of something like that happening again and decided to handle everything on her own."

"You mean Lily wants to fight against the Schemer alone from now on?" asked Eddie.

Oliver nodded.

"That's crazy!" Viv cried out. "She's nearly died two times already!"

"I know," said Oliver. "And things are only going to get more dangerous from now on. The Schemer just keeps upping his game."

"What do we do?" asked Eddie.

"The only thing we can do," said Oliver. "And what we've already been doing: upping our own game and doubling down on our training . . ."

. . . which was what the gang ended up doing for the whole afternoon.

"Okay," said Oliver. "I think that's good for now."

He spoke over shrill and annoying beeping from his watch.

"Already?" Viv was reluctant to end training yet.

But showing his watch to the others, Oliver said, "Can't be out too late. We're already in enough trouble with Mr. Lin as it is. I doubt he'd be happy to find out we're still sticking our nose in magic business."

"About that . . ." George spoke up. "I just realized something. Is there any point to this training? Can't we just leave everything to Mr. Lin now? He's supposed to be this super strong Stone Man, right? Doesn't sound like he'd need help from a bunch of amateur wizards like us."

Oliver shrugged. "Doesn't hurt to be ready, just in case."

"I'm with Oliver," said Melody. "You know the saying, better safe than sorry."

"I do get where George is coming from though," said Alejandro. "It feels like a waste to learn magic and not get to use it."

"Ditto," said Tanika.

Out of the corner of his eye, Eddie spotted a glow of blue light and he turned to see what it was. "Uh . . . guys? I don't think you'll have to worry about that magic training going to waste."

Everyone looked at him and then followed his gaze to the back of the room where the ghostly apparition of a woman in long flowing dress floated in the air. She was see-through, as if made of glass, and her hair was spread out and waving behind her as if she was under water.

"I know you!" Viv cried out. "You're that ghost lady from Lily's bracelet! The one that parrot called the Lady of Sapphire!"

Oliver looked up and down. "This is the Lady of Sapphire I've heard so much about?" 

"Indeed, I am," said the Lady of Sapphire with an eerily echoey voice. "Brave members of the Sapphire Society, I bring you grim tidings. The Chosen One has been captured."

"The Chosen One? Captured?" Viv was puzzled at first, but then she realized something. "Wait, Lily was captured!?"

The Lady of Sapphire nodded. "She had been challenged to a battle by the Schemer himself and lost."

"Blast!" Oliver cursed. "It's happened sooner than I thought."

"I knew I shouldn't have left her alone!" Viv moaned. "I should've gone after her, even if it meant getting into more trouble for skipping classes!"

"Now is not the time for self-blame," the Lady of Sapphire cut in. "You all must go save her before it is too late."

"Before it's too late? What do you mean?" asked Eddie.

The Lady of Sapphire answered, "The Schemer has put the Chosen One under a terrible curse, one that  would trap her in sapphire stone forever, just like he did with the Sapphire Princess."

A large bubble appeared over her hands. In the bubble, everyone could see Lily standing in the middle of the room while a slab of see-through blue stone covered her feet and slowly grew upward.

"That's terrible!" Tanika cried in dismay.

Viv tore her eyes away from the bubble and turned at her heels and started speed-walking to the exit. But Oliver stopped her.

"Wait, Viv," he said.

"Don't stop me, Oliver! You heard what the ghost lady said. Lily needs help now!"

"I know," Oliver said. "But recklessly flying out in a panic isn't going to do anything. At the very least, we need to find out where she's being held. I take it you know, my lady?"

The Lady of Sapphire nodded her head. "Follow me."

She drifted ahead of the others and flew over to the exit. Shortly after she went out the room, Viv and the others followed after her. Oliver was the last.

But just as he was about to join the others, a thought flashed and he stopped at the door.

"Wait a minute," he said aloud. "Wasn't the Lady of Sapphire that the girls met earlier just a recording? No one's ever spoken to the person herself before. How very fishy . . ."

As he rubbed his chin thoughtfully, Alejandro's head popped in from the doorway and he asked, "You coming, Oliver?"

Broken from his thoughts, Oliver looked up and replied, "Yeah. Coming!"

Oh well, he thought. I'll think about it later. Rescuing Lily is more important.

Pushing his suspicions aside, Oliver left the room and ran to catch up with the others.

<== Chapter 36                                                                                 Chapter 38 ==>