The Adventures of Trina: The Return of the Staff - Part Six

     Many years ago she had been constantly failing tests and many assignments at neoschool and didn’t know why. Her classmates never let her play with them, afraid that she would make them stupid. After weeks of studying, it turns out that her teacher was putting other students’ grades onto her paper, but they still never accepted her.

     Her constant flaws, pointless mistakes haunted her in her nightmares, devastated her dreams, and there they always stood in front of her. It had to end; now. Trina glanced at the other side of the pyramid, her turquoise-blue eyes studied it for a moment, and was about to do the impossible.

     It was about less than one minute left before enough the sun would position itself in front of the wicked Malkus Vile and his evil henchmen. The light began to emerge from the horizon, and all would be lost.

     Trina couldn’t hold on much longer. She just had to jump, no matter how much she doubted herself. Without another thought, she stared at Malkus Vile straight in his deep wide eyes, and lifted her feet off the wall.

     She pounced about five feet into the air, soaring swiftly toward the three villains. For a few moments, Trina couldn’t believe her eyes, it was almost like flying, and for once in her life she wasn’t afraid of falling, because she knew she wouldn’t.

     She thought about her dreams. She wanted to be an archeologist, more than anything. She wanted to help the world discover things and show them to the world. She wanted to be noticed and not ignored like she was at neoschool. For once, she felt a feeling inside that told her she could do it no matter how hard.

     Malkus Vile looked up at Trina and yelled at the two Meercas, “HAND ME THE STAFF!”

     The Meercas were about to give the staff to him, but Trina landed right on Malkus, knocking him and the two Meerca brothers off balance. They were now falling down the tall pyramid. When they were approaching the sandy floor seconds later, Malkus grabbed the side of the pyramid quickly, with the Meercas hanging on his chubby left arm. He suddenly let go and hit the soft sand, along with all of his items.

     “I SAID HAND ME THE STAFF!” Malkus stood up and shouted furiously at his seemingly insignificant henchmen, his eyes now bright red.

     “We would’ve but...” Merouladen pointed toward a large pile of black colored particles.

     “NO, THAT WAS MY STAFF!” Malkus Vile roared. He looked up at the sky, only to feel his face frowning in extreme disappointment and sheer rage.

     The sun now peaked halfway over the desert’s horizon.

     “Not anymore.” Trina grabbed on to the pyramid tight, but unfortunately for her, her hands were extremely weak at the moment. She too, slid halfway down the pyramid. Once halfway down, she crawled to the sands. She could hear Malkus Vile yelling.

     “HOW DARE YOU MESS WITH MY POWERS OF EVIL? I WILL GET MY REVENGE! YOU AND YOUR FRIENDS! I WILL BE BACK AND BETTER THAN EVER, AND YOU WILL REGRET EVER DEVASTATING MY PLANS!”

     The very livid Skeith stared deep into the terrified Wocky’s eyes. Malkus bent over and pulled out a Superior Reflection Shield from the desert sands below him. He took a huge step back, and threw it straight at Trina at full strength. She managed to barely dodge it by diving to her right. Still angered, he picked up most of the remains of the mirrors and threw them at her. There were much too many to dodge.

     Quickly, she pulled off her backpack and held it out in front of her. It blocked a few mirror shields with a lot of force, but it they kept throwing them it would not be enough. She managed to grasp empty water bottles from her backpack and hurl them at the trio. They trembled back as they dodged them, giving Trina a few seconds to run away. Trina panted harder than she ever had as they chased after her. She was too tired to continue on, so she had to use the last remains of her strength to save herself.

     Trina rushed up to them and they tossed a piece of a shield at her. She was blown back, but stomped her feet in the sand to stop her fall. She took the risk of running toward them as objects whizzed past her.

     Malkus Vile was now even furious with rage at Trina. He had to stop her now so he could feel at least the smallest tickle of triumph under his thick skin. He tossed another shield at her and she tumbled into the sand.

     “I can’t give up yet...” Trina murmured to herself, covered in the loose sand. “Neopia needs me... they need me.”

     In a slow motion, Trina rose up from the sands and stumbled up. Her breathing was now deeper than before and her eyes showed not a glimpse of fear.

     “You’re finished, weakling!” he shouted as he lifted the last of bits of his mirror shields and launched them forward one-by-one.

     Forcing herself to ignore the shields flying by, she dived near Malkus and grabbed the remaining pieces of shields from his hands. Trina tossed the mirror shields with her right arm and Heermeedjet instantly fell unconscious. Trina’s stiff face now placed an image of toughness in Malkus Vile’s mind, but only for a moment.

     “Get out of my sight right now!” Trina shouted with the shields ready, trying to remain standing. “You’ve lost.”

     Suddenly, a bright beam of light appeared in front of her and it definitely wasn’t a refection off a mirror.

     A light faerie, about 6 feet tall, appeared in front of her with a stern face. Her hair was as golden as the sunrise with a tiny tiara, a stunning yellow gown, and she was much stronger than any tough pets Trina had ever seen.

     “By the word of Fyora you three shall be gone!” the faerie yelled.

     She lifted her right palm and a beam of light surrounded the villains. Once the light cleared, they were gone.

     Finally relieved of her troubles, Trina asked a question. “Where did they go?”

     “To face the consequences of their crime,” she replied.

     “Who are you?” a puzzled look appeared on Trina’s face.

     “I am Brightstar the light faerie. I am part of a group of faeries that track and find objects that may become a threat. There has been word that Alhasutek’s Staff was recently spotted around here a short while ago. I’ve been sent here by Queen Fyora’s orders to destroy something that hasn’t been taken care of.” Brightstar smiled sweetly, but still with seriousness. “Please do not tell anyone about this.”

     “I won’t, don’t worry.” Trina grinned.

     Frantically, her spun her head in many directions, but caught no glimpse of familiar faces or any other faces at all.

     “Where are my friends?” she exclaimed. “They were changed by the staff!”

     “Don’t worry, they’re safe now. When the staff is destroyed or damaged they revert back to their original state before,” she replied.

     “Thank you,” Trina said, looking at the faerie with glee, “for what you did earlier.”

     “Thank you, Trina, for saving Neopia.” The Faerie’s smile widened.

     “May I ask you one question?” Trina asked the faerie.

     Brightstar nodded.

     Trina felt no need to not be honest. “Did you help me make that pounce on the pyramid? I never would have thought I could have made that jump on my own.”

     “You see, Trina; there are two kinds of strengths, physical strength and mental strength. No matter how hard you work yourself, there always is something inspiring you inside your heart that just keeps you going strong. It was you and your friends who saved Neopia, not me, Fyora, or anyone else,” the faerie said with a reassuring smile. “It was the strength of your desire to keep going to follow your dreams. Never stop dreaming, Trina!”

     Trina stood completely frozen, astonished. She just couldn’t believe that she, a Wocky with an unimpressive strength stats, defeated the tough Malkus Vile and two quick Meercas with her friends. It was almost unreal. She wouldn’t be surprised if she suddenly found herself in her bed back in Neopia Central within the next few moments. In case it wasn’t a dream, she decided to enjoy every breath and savor every minute in her memory; nothing would be wasted.

     “Trina? Are you okay? Where’s Malkus at? What happened? Who’s that faerie?” Cassie emerged from behind a small sand dune, busting out questions.

     “I’m fine now. Malkus is gone, for a while at least; I pushed him off the pyramid. And this is Brightstar,” said Trina with a confused grin.

     Pat and Linny rushed to Trina where Cassie had came from. They all appeared back to normal now.

     “Trina! You’re okay? What’s with that light faerie?” Pat asked, looking confused.

     So Trina told the whole story of how she defeated Malkus and what the light faerie had said to her. After a long 10 minutes, she was finally done speaking, and her throat was very dry and becoming sore from the heat.

     “Wow, Trina! We did it! You’re going to be Neopia’s best archeologist someday! Now how do we get home from here? The heat is starting to beat down on us.” The purple Shoyru glanced at Trina, but the faerie answered before Trina could speak.

     “I will help you get home, just right after I do what should have been done a long while ago.”

     The light faerie floated toward the pile of black magical glass and blasted it with one of many of her faerie powers. The sand that she hit was thrown up into the air with a strong force, then slowly drifted back down. There was a brief moment of silence. After the sand drifted to the ground, Trina got to her knees and looked around for any sign of the powerful staff. It was now long gone.

     “How are we going to get home at this time of day? I’m already much too tired to move on! There’s no way we could get though the desert at this temperature!” the green Chia asked Trina, but the light faerie overheard.

     “Not to worry; just stand behind me and you will all see,” Brightstar told all of them. Trina was still sitting near where the once existing staff of Alhasutek had been.

     “Are you coming, Trina?” The light faerie reached out her hand with Trina’s three friends barely standing behind her.

     “Yup,” Trina said in a quiet scratchy tone. The sleepy spotted Wocky scuttled toward the faerie.

     As much as she wanted to talk with the faerie, she just couldn’t bear the desert heat any longer. Without another word, she dashed behind the faerie and they disappeared with a bright flash of yellow light, ending the first of many great and not-so-great adventures yet to come.

     * * * * *

     Trina stared tediously at the large black chalk board mounded on the wall straight in front of her. She thought about all that had happened in the previous days. What would happen if she told the class the whole story? She didn’t have an answer.

     No one would listen to her anyway, even if she could somehow show proof of her weekend, she thought. Trina continued to stare at the chalk board once more, listening to her English teacher talk away, until something she said had caught her attention.

     “It is finally about time we work on this year’s second, biggest, and most important writing assignment. You must write a very lengthy, but simple paper about your weekend. The catch, you say? It has to be fictional. It’s due in my hands on Wednesday, and if your paper is absolutely outstanding, you may even find your work published in the Neopian Times,” Ms. Manee told her class.

     Everyone moaned in frustration, except one.

     Trina grabbed her pencil from the cold lonely surface of her desk, hurried it on a stack of lined paper, gave a quick smile, and began to write.

The End

Author’s Note: Special thanks to zeniphorus for helping to proofread the story.