"We must go now," Lunalis had insisted. "We no longer have the time to plan our attack. Go and warn the Arcadians of the upcoming danger. I will face Ramos."

Those were the last words I had heard from her before she had left, following the trail her friends had left behind in order to pursue the other Ventils first. I felt fear for her settling in the pit of my stomach, and it was not helped by the absence of any comforting feeling on her behalf.

Douxie put a hand on my shoulder, squeezing it tightly with a knowing smile. I smiled back, forcing myself to seem confident. There was no way we could defeat an army of Ventils on our own; Douxie and Archie admitted this on our way back to Arcadia. Our best hope was to encourage our fellow Arcadians to join in our fight, in whatever way possible.

I had already reached out to Stuart regarding this Idonio character, and so far he had turned up with nothing. "I'll let you know if I find anything, but I'm already nearly biting off more than I can chew here, what with the graphic shirt shop gaining popularity with the young folk," he had trailed off. I helpfully remarked that if the entire world was destroyed, there wouldn't be any customers for him to sell to. He said he would work on it.

Now, here we were, standing on the pagoda in the park in the center of town, with the entire population gathering around us to see what the commotion was about. I saw people from our school, teachers included, the elderly people whom Varvatos had befriended from his time on earth, Toby's Nana alongside them. I noticed Seamus and his family in particular, standing towards the back of the crowd. Everyone was talking in hushed whispers, until Jim spoke up, voice amplified with the help of one of Claire's spells, and silence fell over the crowd.

"Uh..hi, everyone," Jim said with a nervous smile and a wave, grimacing out at the crowd. "Umm..." he swallowed, pausing. "I know that we've never really done this before, but...well, uh–"
"We need your help," Claire stepped forward, and Jim sagged with relief as he quickly stepped back to allow her to take center stage. "Arcadia Oaks is in danger again. There's a place in the woods where one of the deadliest creatures that has ever existed lives."

"They're called Ventils," Douxie continued, stepping up to take over. "These beings are endless fountains of magical energy, and take the forms of something part human, and part animal. They are powerful, they are wild, they are dangerous. And, as we speak, they are preparing to launch an attack on Arcadia Oaks."

As soon as the words left his mouth, the crowd erupted into cacophony, but Douxie kept speaking over them. "As you may have noticed, quite a few of them have been seen accompanying us to and from school. One of them has chosen to form a life here in Arcadia Oaks. Many of you know her as Lunalis."

The crowd fell into fearful whispers once again, this time intermixed with confusion. Lunalis couldn't be one of these horrifying terrors; she was a friend, a student. Family. She wasn't one of them. It was as the voices died down I found the sudden urge to speak, a surge of confidence flowing through me. "Lunalis is now leading an attack against the other Ventils first," I projected, voice ringing throughout the square. "Her plan is to wrestle the mantle of leader from their current Alpha, but he is not alone in his plan."

"An extraterrestrial named Idonio also plans to destroy Arcadia," Archie spoke up, hopping from Douxie's shoulder to the railing of the gazebo, dragon claws digging into the wood and leaving deep recesses. "He is after the royals of Akiridion-5." The crowd tittered with anxiety at that. They remembered Morando's destruction, and how easily he had crumbled many of the buildings in Arcadia the first time.

"My sister has the entire Akiridion fleet at her disposal, and we have attempted contact in order to gain backup troops," I took over once more. "But if we cannot reach her, and Aja cannot send help, we will not be able to protect Arcadia alone."

"There's a reason Arcadia has prevailed against every single threat the universe can throw at us," Jim shouted. "It's because of all of you!"
"We've survived trolls, aliens, and  the end of the world," Claire called out to the sea of people. "More than once, even!"
"Which is kinda weird, when you think about it," Toby remarked quietly.
"We can survive this too!"

"We've got trolls," Jim cried, and Aaarrrggghh!!! raised himself up and bellowed, runes glowing lime green across his granite skin as he beat his chest. "We have technology beyond our wildest of imaginations!" I felt this was my cue to drop my transduction, letting my serrator take its blade form. "We have magic that can bend the laws of reality as we know it!" Claire and Douxie lit up in their respective colors of magic, his staff appearing and shifting into its guitar form as he shredded a wild solo on it. "Don't forget the knights," Steve added on, his chosen weapon Toothache resting across his shoulders, Toby wielding his warhammer beside him.

"Arcadians," Douxie bellowed. "We ask you to stand up and fight against these enemies from beyond the woods and stars, and defend Arcadia Oaks from imminent destruction!"

The sea of people shifted around, murmuring things, but no one stood up to agree with us. A long minute passed, then two. I felt my core sinking, believing we would be alone in our pursuit of defending Arcadia. Then, Señor Uhl—the very last person I would have expected to say something—stood up and yelled in his deep, booming voice:

"This will count towards college credits!"

Instantly, every teenager in the crowd erupted into cheers, and the other people soon followed. People yelled, caterwauled, and Toby's Nana let out an ear-piercing war-whoop, immediately followed by the senior citizens around her adjusting hearing aids while wincing audibly. "So, where do we go from here, Teach?" Claire asked, and Douxie grinned.

"Now, we train our army."

**********

"Kreeeeel! It's been such a long time, innit?! You haven't been 'round the taco truck in a while! Been out and about with that inamorata of yours, eh? Eh?" Stuart's tinny voice blared in my ear through my cell phone. "Stuart, this is not a social call," I hissed, waving off Jim's look of concern as he saw my grimace, turning back to where he was teaching our fellow students how to wield everyday objects as weapons. "I told you to reach out once you found information about the life form matching the description given to us. Have you got it?"

"Yeah, yeah, I've got it," Stuart said, his voice diminishing in volume as he strayed away from his phone. I could hear a cacophony of sounds from somewhere within his shop; footsteps, a whoosh as the hidden door in the back of his shop hissed and slid open, the crashing sound of various electronic devices scraping across different surfaces, and the heavy thud of a book being dropped. I kept walking away from the Arcadians gathered in the park, searching for a quiet space where I wouldn't be interrupted.

"'A Complete Historical Guide To Universal History'. Been a while since I've pulled this beauty out," Stuart remarked, grunting as I assume he struggled to lift the book up and onto the table, judging by yet another loud THUMP. "Had a tourist back when I lived in Honduras try to buy it off of me with a live crocodile once."

"Get to the point, Stuart," I grunted, dodging a stray projectile from the general direction of the group of Arcadian High Schoolers, who were practicing throwing various items from footballs to soda cans at targets conjured by Douxie. "No need to fret! I'll have those pages you want out in a jiffy!" 

He whistled a jaunty tune as the sound of pages flipping filled the phone. "The Morando family has long played a part alongside the royals of Akiridion-5, dating back to the first Emperor, Dhruv," he read, flipping through pages at a lightning fast pace. "Wars, treaties, contracts, new colonies, blah blah blah..."

"I know this," I said, confused, sidestepping where Toby's Nana was gathering a crowd of yowling adults bearing various everyday objects, circling a large fire with grease smeared on their face, while she herself carried a large shovel. "Everybody does. This is all basic Akiridion history."
"I know that," he groaned. "This is why I use e-readers...Battle of Pooploth, Seventh Ring Construction, Association of Satellite Workers...aha! Modern times."

I waited anxiously as Stuart hummed to himself, humming and muttering under his breath about every subject he passed. "Fialkov don't know Daddy's gettin' hot...firin' all the shots...starting wars on Moon Seven...Idonio-o-o, ooh~! Didn't wanna die, but sometimes wished he'd never been born at all—"

"Stop!" I shouted, freezing in my tracks and grasping my phone tightly. "Go back. What did you say??"
"Didn't know you liked old Freddie that much, mate," he laughed. I groaned.
"I meant about Idonio! That was his name!" There was a silence on the other end of the line, static crackling in the absence. My stomach dropped, core pulsing wildly as the quiet continued for one mekron, and then two. "Stuart..?" I asked tentatively.

"You're in big trouble, your Majesty," Stuart said eventually, and I paled hearing the tremble in his voice. "Val Idonio, the younger half brother of General Val Morando. A violent sociopath who was locked away until the temporary overhaul of House Tarron. Even then, his appearances were few and far between, and were never confirmed by Morando during his reign to be him wandering about the planet; s'pose he wanted to keep the fact that his crazy little brother was still alive and kicking under wraps."

"Why have I never heard of this Val Idonio before??" I asked, getting more questions than I had answers. "Even if Mama and Papa wanted to keep us hidden from certain events, surely we would have heard of it from someone."

"His records were erased from the Akiridion census keltons ago, mate. The Royal Court tried to cover up the murder of an entire legion of soldiers by using the excuse of enemy attack, even while the ship was barely off-world and Akiridion-5 was in its most prolonged period of peace in galactic history. You probably know it as the 'Comettail Massacre'."

"That was him?!" I shrieked, garnering a few strange looks from the stragglers from the people on the outskirts of the training grounds. Lowering my voice, I harshly repeated my question in a whisper. "E-yup." I could almost see Stuart shaking his head sadly. "1396 soldiers, all eradicated by a single man. Atomic explosive to the hyperdrive, and BOOM; 'bye bye, birdie!'. Knowing such destruction could be caused, he was locked away and completely stripped from the record. As far as the Akiridion government's concerned, he doesn't exist."

My legs felt weak, knees knocking as I staggered, falling and rolling onto my backside near one of the big oak trees by the outskirts. A simple power-hungry warlord I could deal with; I had dealt with before, even if the losses were great. I may not have had my sister with me now, but I had my friends, and I had Lunalis by my side. But this monster—this psychopath—was on his way to Earth right now, might have already been on the planet, and had even less morals than Morando. Morando was crafty, and minimized the deaths caused; Idonio didn't care about casualties, so long as he got what he wanted. And right now, he wanted my loved ones dead. "Tell me everything you have on him."

**********

"So you're telling me we're now up against a man who has killed hundreds of ali—Akiridions, sorry—single handedly, and now may or not also have control over many more hundreds of Ventils??" Douxie was walking rapidly in the direction of GDT Arcane Books, Archie on his shoulder, leaving the training of the Arcadians behind in order to find his stronger spellbooks. He had dragged me along in order to better explain what Stuart had told me over the phone, and I struggled to keep his urgent pace, despite my legs being much longer than his.

"Yes, exactly," I said, huffing as I managed to keep my strides in time with him. "Val Idonio—while lacking the godlike power his brother did the first time he came to Earth—has little to no morals and has had much experience lurking in the shadows and watching without being seen. He must have seen Morando's power and influence and attempted to replicate it, though seen how he failed in certain areas and succeeded in others. I doubt that he has the technology access that Morando had, but we should be prepared for—"

I didn't get to finish my sentence before a sudden wave of heat washed over my face. I turned, running straight into Douxie as I did. Once I got my balance back, I stared at the place where GDT Arcane Books had once stood proudly, stunned into a frozen state at the sight of an inferno filling the entire place.

Douxie and Archie's faces were filled with shock and horror at the sight of their home, the ravenous flames devouring the old wooden foundations with great gusto. They licked at and swallowed the building whole, casting us in the deceptively comforting light of golden fire. A silhouette soon emerged from the crumbling bookshop, limping and carrying a single book under her arm. "Nari," the wizard cried, racing forward to catch her just as she collapsed, legs giving out from under her and the book sent flying. "They're here," I said, voice trembling as I turned and ran back to where the park was. "THEY'RE HERE!!!"

People were screaming as I rounded the bend and the park came back into view; the smoke from the shop was quite visible now, and I could see the tips of golden flames dancing just behind a few of the buildings. My friends were attempting to corral everyone into a single area, preventing people from running away. I could see a great many strange figures with rocky skin similar to AAARRRGGHH!!!'s had arrived, led by a familiar figure with four arms and six eyes, wielding a staff wrapped in Christmas lights.

"EVERYONE CALM DOWN!!!!" Claire's voice was like a thunderclap, echoing around the entire park as people fell into nervous silence once more. Even the trolls were stunned, quietly watching and waiting for what happened next. "WE NEED TO STAY FOCUSED AND STOP PANICKING!! WE ARE GOING TO MARCH TO THE PLACE WE'VE DECIDED WAS BEST TO ENCOUNTER THE ENEMY. EVERYONE STAY TOGETHER, AND FOLLOW JIM!!!"
"There's no time," Douxie cried, him and Archie having finally caught up to me. "Idonio—!"

"It's been a long time, royals!" A voice BOOMED from overhead, and instantly we all jumped into defensive positions. People screamed as a massive CRASH sent a car flying into the air, a Spider Proditorus hissing at us from where it had been launched. "Archie, get it!" Someone (probably Jim) yelled from afar, and the familiar obeyed, dragon form swooping from above to fry it into a crisp with blue fire. The Proditorus let out an inhumane scream, multiple disfigured hands clawing at the air as it struggled to escape the flames before it collapsed into a charred heap.

"Well, that was graphic," Archie remarked as he landed, Steve turning off to the side to retch somewhat-privately at the smell of burning hair and flesh. However, everyone else was too transfixed on the gigantic spaceship lowering itself into the park to pay much attention to him.

The ship, shaped like a circle that had been squashed downwards, had opened with a hiss to reveal a startlingly familiar face. He was a near carbon copy of his brother, from the height to the build and four eyes. However, there were slight differences here and there. His skin was much lighter than Morando's, almost a pastel blue from so much time away from natural light. His horn-like skull flared straight out to the side instead of curved up, and his armor was much more heavyset and bulky than Morando's sleeker design, with many more sharp ends and spikes added on.

Proditorus flooded from the ship in droves and gathered around it from the outside, snarling and gnashing their teeth and carrying on. They came in a range of shapes, sizes and species, though I saw primarily Earthen types amongst the ranks. All of them were horribly disfigured to some degree, either with unnatural body proportions stuck between animal and human, or extra limbs and features where there shouldn't be. My friends were now racing towards me, dipping and weaving through the crowds of stunned people and trolls to get to where I was. I glared up at the intruder, squeezing my serrator for confidence as our eyes made contact.

"Hello, Val Idonio."