Manx stood at the edge of the forest, terrified of what the future held for her. She was about to embark on a mission to an unknown land farther than she ever had known existed. She was a Withyr Sprite, a creature that stood like a man yet had many feline characteristics, such as her golden fur and her piercing red and orange eyes that blazed like a fiery sunset.

Manx stood at about five foot four, and was remarkably skinny due to a harsh and painful past, having grown up in a dungeon from five years on to sixteen. Unlike others of her kind, she had no tail, thus being called Manx, first by her mother, and then by everyone who knew her as she refused to be called by her given name, Tamira Jade. The golden vertical stripes under her eyes  resembled tear stains, giving her an almost sad appearance.

She rarely smiled, life having never treated her well seeing as she was brutally torn from the arms of her mother and locked up because of her powers. She was a silver helix of shadow, meaning her powers gave her control over the shadows themselves, to manipulate and even pass through them at will. Her father had left her and her mother the day she was born, not because he wanted to ditch the responsibility of a family, but because of his fear that if his master, the Red Shadow, Dracolitch and master of darkness knew of the existence of his family, they would surely be doomed.

And so he fled the only happiness he knew, creeping back into a life of misery and darkness, all because he loved his family too much to let them get hurt, even though his choice of deserting them hurt them much more than staying would have.

Manx stood next to Vaskin, a paraglisp boy aging at nearly eighteen. He was tall and thin, his kind closely resembling humans but with pointed ears, slightly sharper canine teeth, and with the most striking difference being that paraglisps have a tail with a venomous stinging barb on the end.

An odd thing about paraglisps is that they can fly without wings or any support, able to float about like pixies. One might even say that paraglisps were oversized fairies that had lost their wings and were able to fly by their magic alone, yet one might also argue that with that tail a paraglisp was more like an imp, and it is true that many paraglisps have an impish albeit mischievous nature.

Whatever the matter of fantastical species or type, Vaskin had the charm and wit of a weasel, and could pick any lock you could name due to his past as a pickpocket before being reformed in the service of the dragon Empress' knights.

Vaskin was indeed a handsome specimen of his kind, his almost fangs giving him an adorable charm and the scar across the bridge of his impish nose adding to his looks. Another scar in the shape of a cross graced his right cheek, having once marred his face and now being nothing but a slight blemish that didn't dampen his whimsy. He had feather-brown hair that fell over his forehead in rugged spikes, most of it being covered in a brown hat that could suit a pirate if it were a shade of red, yet it suited him just fine. Vaskin had an eye for valuables, as all members of his kind have an attraction to shiny objects, and his ears and neck were adorned with various bits of gold and silver.

Vaskin was in short, head over heels in love with Manx, every aspect of her being attracted him. Since the two quests he had completed before, one with her, and one with the purpose of finding her after she had run away to the harrow forest, had let the two of them get to know each other deeply. He planned to spend the rest of his life with her, despite the fact that she had singlehandedly parried every one of his advances.

Admittedly, Manx had found herself finally giving in to him, yet she was afraid to become too close because of all the emotional scars of her past. She didn't know how to communicate her slowly growing feelings for him, and she didn't know how to hardly even be his friend, or anyone else's at that matter because in her past she had been treated as less than dirt.

After the past two quests, she had grown exponentially since being released from the dungeon, yet she had very far to go. She had found her father, reunited with her mother, and had found that she could have friends, yet she questioned her value and her purpose.

In truth, Manx had no idea how to reciprocate Vaskin's love for her, and she was afraid of losing him and everyone she knew, afraid that she would get locked up again or worse, and that fear boiled inside her, tainting her every decision. Her deepest fear was that the venom in her veins from the juggernaut scorpion would bite back once more.

The venom of the juggernaut scorpion causes its victim to either die or kill those around them while they are trapped in their own body watching the carnage, and she feared that it would relapse, causing harm to those she had grown to care for. The only thing preventing the venom from affecting her was the fragment of the diamond lily which was magically embedded in her heart thanks to the work of Khashmyr and the last Bedazzilisk.

Khashmyr was a two tailed cat, another name for her kind being monster cat because of her above average housecat size and the immense power she held in her paws. Khashmyr was a cryptic feline, witty and as slippery as an eel greased with oil, and more cunning than a fox in a corner. She was the kind of majestic and magical creature that not only turned heads with her stunning beauty, but she struck terror in the hearts of creatures mortal and immortal alike, being a true work of the Creator's hand.

Khashmyr was about the size of a Labrador retriever, but much furrier and with more bite. She had dazzling fur as yellow as the blazing sun which was draped with orange and red stripes, and her eyes were a magnificent turquoise, sometimes blue and sometimes green, and every fur on her magnificent coat shimmered in the light. She had the prowess of a lion and could stare down any dragon, only for the dragon to cower at her gaze, for she was wise and old.

Khashmyr's mind was a steel trap, sharp and precise, and she spoke often in riddles and rhymes, hiding most of her knowledge in the way any cat keeps its secrets. She was a creature to be feared and respected, with an air of mischief and mystery, yet she was a friend to Manx and Vaskin. She watched over them like a guardian angel, as if they were her own kittens, despite the fact that sometimes they disapproved of her motherly visage over them.

Khashmyr knew, from direct communication with the Creator, that the Empress had been sent away, and because of her magical abilities she had been chosen along with Vaskin and Manx to retrieve the Empress. And here we find our wily feline, standing at the edge of a forest mid-day briefing Vaskin and Manx about the mission.

"So... Where exactly was the Empress sent?" Manx asked, staring at Khashmyr with wide eyes.

"As I told you two before, the answer lies behind a swirling door. To another world we must make haste, so stop finding ways of time to waste. Oh my! Apologies! I really need to get used to the old earth accent. As I was saying, Lyrica sent the Empress to another world known as Earth, and we must travel through a dimensional rift in order to rescue her before all her memories of our world fade away. And Xolt, Miraj, Hadrix, Ravenna, and company will try to hold the castle while Lyrica's dark forces move in from all sides. We need to rescue the Empress before Lyrica takes the Castle." Khashmyr replied.

Vaskin said, "You know, cat, it's a lot easier to understand you when you're not doin' that whole rhyming thing."

"Whatever." The two-tailed cat replied. Manx was feeling so uneasy about all this, and she secretly wished that she hadn't been hand-picked for this particular mission.

"Oh, before we enter the rift, I have something for you." Khashmyr said suddenly, pulling two glowing red amulets out of thin air.

"What's the shiny stuff for?" Vaskin asked, his interest extremely peaked.

"The inhabitants of Earth are not as used to seeing...your kind. These amulets will make it so that the humans who do not believe in your kind will not see what you really are. Oh, and Manx, yes, the amulet will hide your ability from them. You will be able to use your powers, but try to refrain from standing out. We need to blend in in order to succeed." Khashmyr said.

Manx hesitantly reached out for the amulet and cautiously put it around her neck, Vaskin doing the same with his albeit more quickly.

"Well, I will see you on the other side. The location I chose is crowded enough for us to be safe from notice, and close enough to our objective. I already have us a house and you're going to just love the car! And I chose someplace fun. You're going to enjoy this!" Khashmyr said before disappearing in a swirl of blue, gold, and white.

"Wait! Khashmyr! What's a car? And what about reading about this place and research and... Ugh! You stupid cat!" Manx started with frustration. Vaskin smiled at her and reached for her hand, but she recoiled.

"So, I guess this is it. Just walk through the glowing circle and then we're there." Vaskin said, eager to begin the mission but a bit nervous about traveling to another world. Manx was utterly terrified, standing there like a deer in the headlights. She stood there, frozen, shadows rushing out of her palms.

"Khashmyr didn't say I couldn't say goodbye." Manx muttered before walking off into the forest. Vaskin shook his head and said, "c'mon, Manx! We need to go! Now!"

Manx spun around, glared at him, and said, "So you're saying I can't have just one look at...at my home, and that I can't at least let my parents know I'm going to miss them? after all this, after all my life, don't I deserve just one more minute with my parents before losing them all over again? Wake up, stupid!"

"I...I didn't mean...I'm sorry! I'll be waiting for you, okay?" Vaskin replied, wishing he hadn't opened his big mouth. Manx made it very clear to him that he had upset her by storming off to the small house her parents had built long ago, all the while shadows trailing in her wake.

Manx found her father inside washing some dishes, and she pinched herself for the thousandth time that day trying to accept that this was real. After all her life of him not being there, of being taken away from her mom at five, and her mom's disappearance and then her dad being back and then finding that her mom had taken up the job of pirate captain ferrying away Silver helixes to an island protected by sea serpents so they could have a life free from pain, the new normalcy of actually having a home and a family was shocking to her at best.

And now she had to leave them, or Lyrica would take the throne. Manx stopped in the doorway, her confidence suddenly fizzled out, and she felt awkward in the midst of everything.

"Hi...um..." Manx nervously started.

"Greetings, Tamira Jade. I thought you would be gone by now." Her father, Kaeoryn replied. They stood there awkwardly staring at each other, before Manx's mother walked in and saved the day.

"Oh, stop that, Kae! Just look at you two! Why can't you break the ice?" Sorrelle, Manx's mom teased.

Manx looked at the floor and drew circles in the wood with her toe, unsure what to say.

"Oh my gosh you two! Seriously, you two are ridiculous! We're together now, finally a family again, and all you can do is sit there with an awkward silence? If only I had some way to show you two how stupid you look!" Sorrelle said, walking over to Kaeoryn and giving him a gentle peck on the cheek. As if revived by her display of affection, he shook his head and said, "Yes...Family." while giving Manx a look that said, "Your mother is crazy sometimes."

Manx put a hand over her mouth to stifle a giggle rising in her chest. Her mother then eyed her suspiciously and said, "Don't you have somewhere to be?"

"I...I came back to say goodbye." Manx said sheepishly. Sorrelle walked up to her and pulled her daughter into her arms, saying, "Oh, my goodness, baby! Look at you! You look petrified! I know you don't want to go, but you look like you're going to be sick. Manx, my girl, it's okay. I'm here!"

"Um..Mom! Can you maybe let me breathe?" Manx asked, pulling back slightly. Sorrelle released her grip a little before looking Manx in the eye. Kaeoryn went back to doing the dishes, and Manx watched with fascination. He went about the chore in the same manner that he did in polishing his weapons, slow, methodical, strategic, and never missing a single spot. Suddenly Sorrelle reached out a hand and grabbed him by his shirt, pulling him into an awkward yet loving embrace. Once he realized that he wasn't being attacked, he wrapped his arms around his wife and daughter.

"Kae! Don't you know that you have a wet dishrag in your hand?" Sorrelle suddenly protested. Kaeoryn grumbled something about having been busy, and Sorrelle pulled the wet cloth from his hands, broke out of the hug, and squeezed the remainder of its contents down his back.

Manx watched in horror, waiting for him to react, but he just passively took it without much protest other than taking the rag away from Sorrelle and shaking his head disapprovingly. Manx backed away whilst giving both her parents a funny look.

"Hello! Mom! Dad! er...I'm leaving!" Manx said, trying to figure out what was happening between them. Suddenly her father made a noise that startled her, until she finally realized that he was laughing, deep and low but surprisingly pleasant. He then stepped back, wet the dishrag in the basin of water, and flicked it at her mother.

"Child!" He said with a playful smile. Sorrelle smirked and said, "Oh, it is so on! You better get ready for this!"

Manx half expected her mother to slap her father, but instead she gave him a big kiss that made him melt like chocolate on a hot summer day. She looked away innocently and said, "Okay, bye. I...I love you. Don't disappear ever again."

Sorrelle pulled back from the kiss, leaving Kaeoryn wanting more, but he quickly came to his senses, and he said, "I...you...same here. Don't you go and ruin yourself over that boy. You're worth more than that."

"Oh, stop it, Kaeoryn! She'll be fine. She's your girl, after all. Our girl. Now Manx, have fun but don't ever get serious with any boy unless you know he's the one you want to spent the rest of your life with. That Vaskin is a good kid, just don't trust him to know how far is too far." Sorrelle cut in. Manx gave her a look of horror and said, "What do you mean get serious? Too far? What is all this nonsense? Mom! He's just...just some guy. It's not like I want to spend my life with him or any male for that matter."

Manx's parents both gave each other a strange look, as if they knew something that she didn't.

"Tamira Jade, you are almost seventeen. Don't you know anything about...Sorrelle! Help!" Kaeoryn said nervously.

"Look, honey, you have to go. We'll give you The Talk later. Enjoy the trip, and don't do anything with that boy behind closed doors." Sorrelle said, secretly trying to avoid having a certain conversation.

"The Talk?" Manx asked, her eyes wide.

"Have fun, Manx. Never mind that. its best you keep your innocence and...I've said too much. Well, be careful. Love you!" Sorrelle replied. Manx nodded nervously and headed out the door, a long day ahead of her.

When she met Vaskin at the dimensional rift, he said, "There you are! What took you so long?"

"Nothing. My parents were just being strange." Manx replied, quickly approaching the rift. Vaskin nodded and said, "Well, here we go. Ladies first?"

Manx didn't reply. Instead she stormed through the glowing circle with Vaskin following close behind. They appeared right by a strange booth, with giant neon colored animals hanging limply from ropes as people tried to throw a circular object around the neck of a glass bottle.

Manx looked around with wide eyes, overcome once more with fear at the noise and chaos all around her. She looked down at her legs and arms to see a transparent film over them, making them look very different from what she was used to. The amulet had made her fur disappear leaving in its place exposed pale flesh. She concentrated hard, to see that her fur was still there, just hidden by the amulet's magical ruse. She then looked over at Vaskin to see that his ears were rounded, not tapered like they should have been, and when he gave her a slight smile, his canine teeth were just slightly duller than normal. Manx felt unusual fabric against her skin, and she was overtaken by the strangeness of this world.

She looked around to see serpents of metal coiling around here and there, and a strange vehicle would ride along the steel serpents' spines, full of screaming humans. She swallowed hard, hoping against hope that the giant metal serpent things were not torture devices. And then suddenly, a large boat flew overhead, rocking back and forth on a pendulum until it finally went upside down, as the humans on the thing screamed and some put their hands up as if they were trying to escape the metal monster's fury.

Vaskin stood by her, mesmerized by it all, seeing all the people around. Manx stood there not knowing what to do, until she finally decided to move to somewhere that was less crowded and less noisy. As she walked, a large man wearing a blue uniform and a strange device clipped to his pants walked up to her, standing in her path.

"Excuse me, missy, but do you have tickets, and where is your adult chaperone?" He said. Manx stood there, shocked and confused.

"She's with me!" Vaskin said, stepping into the conversation.

"Uh-huh. How old are you, son? And where are your tickets? The rules of the park clearly say that to get in you need tickets. And to get tickets you need to pay. Are you two kids lost or something?" The man said threateningly. Manx clenched her jaw and felt the shadows coming out, but she could not see them.

"I'm seventeen, sir, and this is Manx. She's not from here. And about the tickets...uh...well..." Vaskin started, only to be interrupted by an extremely tall and striking human woman with large sunglasses and fiery red hair full of yellow highlights. The woman stormed right up to them and the officer and said, "Well there you two are! And after all the trouble I go through, you forget your tickets? Come on, really? It's okay, officer. These kids are with me."

Vaskin and Manx gazed up at her with perplexed looks, before she lowered her sunglasses and winked at them, pulling their tickets out of her handbag.

"Khashmyr?" Vaskin mouthed in surprise. The cat in human's clothing nodded as the police officer walked away.

"You might want to put this in your pocket." Khashmyr said to both of them, handing them the tickets.

"It's just a little slip of paper with some weird lines on it. What use can it be?" Manx asked, perplexed.

"That little slip of paper allows you to ride any ride in the park. Don't lose it. I had to fork over a whole bunch of these green babies to get your tickets, and they aren't cheap." Khashmyr said, pulling a stack of ten, twenty, and fifty dollar bills out of her wallet and waving them in their faces.

"So...Is that green paper stuff some sort of currency?" Vaskin asked with interest.

"Bingo! And we have a winner!" Khashmyr exclaimed.

"Neat. But how much is it worth?" Vaskin asked, his eyes following the stack of bills she was waving back and forth in front of his face.

"It's simple! You read the number on the bill, and that's the amount it's worth. And then in the shops and stuff here, you just read the little paper slips called price tags and they tell you how much something costs. But don't wave this stuff out in the open or it could get stolen." Khashmyr said with a wink, slyly slipping a few bills into each of their hands before putting the rest back in her handbag.

"I kinda wish it were shiny, but if it's worth something I'll take good care of it." Vaskin said, putting his portion in his pocket and securing it tightly. Manx nodded and looked for a pocket on her outfit, and when she found one she tucked the strange paper currency inside.

"So what are you two waiting for? Don't you want to ride some rides or something? Come on, this is any human's dream, to spend the day at a place like this! I wouldn't recommend the waterpark, but your ticket lets you in there to if you wish." Khashmyr said as Vaskin and Manx stood there dumbfounded by everything around them.

"I thought those things were torture devices." Manx said nervously, staring at one of the tall steel serpents.

"Oh my gosh, you are so clueless! Those things are called rides, and people ride them for fun. Come on, I'll show you! The tall snaky ones are caller roller coasters, and the other rides have other names. They are a blast!" Khashmyr exclaimed, as she began to walk towards a long line of people waiting to ride on a roller coaster called the Wild Thing.

Manx was hesitant to follow, but she didn't want to get lost and so she blindly followed the cat through crowds of people. "Wait! Khashmyr! If those roller coaster things aren't torture devices, then why are the humans screaming as if they are going to die?" Manx said with fright. Khashmyr spun around and said, "Oh, you're confused. Those are happy screams because they are having fun! Think of it like when you were on the quests and you had to ride Hadrix and Azawrath and Sheena! It's supposed to be fun!"

Manx gave her a look of horror and instinctively put her hand to the side of her neck where the juggernaut scorpion has stung her with its caustic venom, remembering the first quest she had been on. She had been very sick from the venom the last half of the first quest, and so most of her time on the back of a dragon was spent trying not to hurl while fighting for her sanity and her life.

She had a feeling that she would hate these roller coaster things, and she clenched her jaw wanting to just run away from the park. She opened her mouth to talk finally, just as the metal gate to the ride entrance had opened and it was their turn to get on. "I don't want..." Manx started, just as the cat in human form pushed her into the seat on the ride. Vaskin climbed into the seat next to her, both of them unsure what to do. And then a human working for the park came over and clamped the restraints over Manx and Vaskin, and Manx woke up to the shocking reality that she was clamped into a cold unfeeling metal monster, with no hope for escape.

"On second thought, maybe I should have put you two in the back." Manx heard Khashmyr call from behind them. Manx gulped in terror as suddenly the machine lurched forward, with her trapped in its unyielding restraints.