Book 23

Disclaimer: This is a fanfiction that this wiki is based on.

It will, however, of course come true someday.

This fanfiction is by Char, Julia, TeamFosterKeefeWillAlwaysBeCooler, Cress, Bib·li·o·ma·ni·ac, FakeMintie_, Z, Lumenaria, Gildie, Mai (alt account), InkyAtrocity4011, EVERHIGHLOVE, Sokeefe-kat, Shannon, Katie, Anna, Cricket, and Vika.

Feel free to add on, but make sure to add your name to the credits!

Some chapters have been deleted and transferred to this page.

There are also many references to the Goldfish Language.

Chapter 1

Fintan screamed like a banshee as he was dragged into prison for the sixtieth time.

"You're a Verminion! You'll pay for your mistakes!" he screamed. The guards glared and continued to pull at his arms. Behind them, Sophie Foster, Fitz and Biana Vacker, Dex Dizznee, Linh and Tam Song, Julia Ambrosia, and the new recruit: Cress Darnel, who had just recently started dating Dex, stood cruelly smiling as Fintan thrashed and screamed and screamed. Fitz and Tam were holding a young girl by the arms at the back of the group. She appeared to be unconscious.

Sophie smiled and snarled, "This, you evil foe, is the place that you were meant to be from the beginning." Dex nodded and moved closer to Cress.

Julia laughed. A full-body laugh, actually. "Gethen always talked about how unworthy you are," she said, tossing her honey blonde hair. "And now that I see you here, I agree. At least when he was in prison, he knew how to escape."

Fintan coughed. "Actually that was my plan-"

"Nobody cares, Fintan," Cress interrupted. "It's your fault that you even needed an escape plan. It's your fault that you're in prison--again--so you can pay for your foolish mistakes."

Fintan glared at all of them. "You'll pay for this, all of you," he said under his breath.

They turned and walked away as Fintan looked around, at all of these criminals. The younger one was right, this was the place for him.

Ogres on the right, Trolls on the left.

Scraping.

Screaming.

Cackling.

As they went further into the long hallway, new species started to appear. Even beings that didn't have the power to form complex thought. Humans, cats, dogs, goldfish... but no elves. He wondered why until his guards opened a heavy steel door that he hadn't noticed before.

Rows of elves, many with horrific battle scars, were in small cells around him. He was led to the right--he made a mental note of that--and down a long staircase. After a series of twists and turns, he was shoved into cell 221B. 221A was empty as was 221C. He sat down sadly as the guards attached heavy handcuffs to his arms--they were connected to the wall by a chain--and a heavy ring to each ankle that were connected to the side of a block that seemed to be a seat.

He sighed.

Chapter 2

FakeMintie looked around her nervously as she walked through Atlantis. After eating Greyfell, she had decided to impersonate another Goldfish. She blinked, her red eyes instinctively trying to dislodge her teal contact lenses from her eyes. Yes, she'd worn this type of disguise many times, but the lenses were still irritating.

"Hello!" someone said, waving a fin at her.

"Hi!"

Ha ha ha... I have fooled everyone! she thought villainously.

Suddenly, out of the corner of her eye, she saw a familiar set of waving, orange fins. She groaned, annoyed that she'd have to probably suffer prison again. Why did the person she was impersonating always have to show up? And at such a bad time?

"Finderella, wait! That's definitely not the real me! That's FakeMintie!" shouted the real Goldfish, frantically.

FakeMintie pretended to smile "What are you talking about?" she asked innocently, batting her eyes. "Look, my eyes are teal. FakeMintie has red eyes. Don't you know that?"

Too late, she realized. She inwardly cursed. One of her contacts had fallen out. She quickly covered up her eye, hoping that they somehow wouldn't notice.

They did. Everyone gasped. "You're under arrest for identity theft!" yelled Councillor Bronte. He beckoned for his goblins to grab her.

She contemplated acting. Ooooh, a nice comeback: "No! It hurts. The pain!" She held her fin tightly to her contactless eye. She dramatically fell to the ground. The goblins didn't seem to care; they only cared about following orders. Drat. They fastened a pair of fin-cuffs on her. FakeMintie sighed. Pretty much everyone had begun carrying around the specialized fin-cuffs that they had designed for Goldfish ever since that incident with the cinnacreme. It hadn't even been completely her fault...

"WAIT! DO I GET SPARKLE-FANNY A LA MODE WHEN I'M IN PRISON!!!!!!!!!!!????????" FakeMintie yelled as she was dragged away. No one answered; it was newly-instated protocol to not. Why would they? It wouldn't do anyone any good. After the Floobedeschnork incident, in which FakeMintie convinced a guard to let her go--well, more annoyed them into it--goblins had technopath-made airpods that would block out only FakeMintie's voice. That and any sounds that came from her scaly body.

As they brought her through the doors of the prison, FakeMintie remembered one thing. To shout a ship, because that was a goldfish tradition. To shout a ship name when you're being dragged into prison. Otherwise, she had no idea how she would be punished. Breaking goldfish traditions meant a lot.

"Z AND THE NATIONAL SCIENCE FAIR FOREVER!!!"

"Excuse me?" asked a guard. Whoops, they weren't wearing airpods!

"It's a goldfish tradition to yell a ship name as you are dragged into the prison," FakeMintie explained calmly. How many more times would she have to do this before the guards caught on? "I am shipping my friend Z with the National Science Fair. ZATIONAL SCIENCE FAIR FOREVER!" 

"I wish your friend luck."

"She might do better if she had the support of her friend FakeMintie...if only she wasn't in prison..." FakeMintie suggested.

The guard contemplated the idea, but then snorted. "Nice try." 

"I'LL KILL YOU ALL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" yelled FakeMintie suddenly. A trollish prisoner's sky blue eyes looked at her, fear bobbing in them. "It is a Goldfish tradition to yell that in times of great distress." 

"Your traditions are certainly... interesting" noted the prisoner, who was still staring at her, the fear not vanquished.

---

Katie (or Kat) pulled her cloak's hood farther down her face. Mr. Darnel wore cloaks like this, didn't he? It didn't matter. No one could see her face, and that was all that mattered. They needn't even know she was impersonating Mr. Darnel--

WHAM! Katie slammed right into someone and was knocked to the ground. She was in Atlantis on a busy weekday, no wonder she'd bumped into someone.

"Katie?" the person who had knocked her down asked in a familiar voice.

"Keefe? Keefe I--" she cried, attempting to pull her hood back down. She froze, remembering her role. She lowered her voice. "Who's Ka--"

Keefe pulled her up and ripped off the cloak. "Katie! What are you doing?"

Suddenly, Sophie Foster ran up. "What--Keefe--who is this?" she asked.

Sophie saw Kat's face and her eyes widened. "Katie! Impersonating someone again, I assume? I've had it with you. You're going to Exile--for good!"

"No, I--" Kat tried, but it was no use. Sophie and Keefe had found Mr. Darnel's ID in the cloak pockets.

"You're coming with me," Sophie growled and dragged Kat away. Keefe looked after her apologetically. As if apologies mattered in an Exile situation! Sometimes, Kat really wondered why she had a crush on him.

Chapter 3

Fintan was lying on his cold stone bed in the prison, dreaming of a pair of beautiful, faintly-glowing red eyes, when he woke to the smell of something burning. He sat up with a jolt to find his blanket going up in flames. He quickly closed his palms, shutting off his power, but the flame was already too strong. He stared, transfixed, at the beautiful orange color before realizing that he needed to put it out. He looked around, panicked, not wanting to get in trouble again, but there was no glass of water to be seen. The smell of smoke was starting to permeate the room. At that moment, the bubbling, snuffling sound of the Goldfish in the prison next door stopped. Her bright orange scales shimmered in the firelight as she wiggled and flopped out of the fishbowl she was sleeping in. She flopped and bounced across the cold crystal floor, flapping her fin-cuffed fins against the ground to propel herself forwards. She leaped up and squirmed through the bars separating their cells, landing in Fintan's room. He stepped towards her.

"Wha--What are you doing? There's a fire over there!"

The Goldfish rolled her eyes. "Helping you. Duh. The guards are backpfeifengesichts. Also, I like fires."

Fintan was utterly confused. "Bapfafing-whats?"

"Faces in need of a fist. It's a Goldfish term. Anyways, I'm FakeMintie and I brought snacks!"

She tried to clap her fins together, but they were fin-cuffed. "That was supposed to be cooler."

Fintan laughed. "Here, I'll melt them. FakeMintie is a rather odd name, by the way. What does it mean?"

FakeMintie pulled her fins out of the cuffs as they melted and softened. "I was given it when I graduated from the junior levels of the Aquatic Equestrian Culinary School. It means 'The-weird-person-who-accidentally-sets-their-hair-on-fire-so-much-that-we're-starting-to-think-that-it's-on-purpose'. They decided it fit me."

Fintan smiled. "I'm Fintan Pyren. My name means 'white fire'."

He stared in awe as FakeMintie clapped her fins, conjuring a pile of gnomish produce. Porcarots, brattails, starkflowers, carnissa roots, and something that looked like... raw meat? The meat had a slight silvery shimmer to it. Fintan bent to inspect it. It seemed to have small flecks of glitter embedded it. Could it be... Alicorn meat? Fintan had never met anyone else who ate Alicorns. He straightened and yelped as a knife fell from above his head. He fell over from the shock and the knife cut of a small chunk of his dirty, black boot.

FakeMintie winced. "Sorry, that was supposed to appear on the table, not above your skull. I got kicked out of ability training for being a packesel. I kept misusing my conjuring abilities."

Fintan waved his hand in dismissal. "No problem. I almost killed Councillor Kenric once. I had to bring him back to my base so my gnomes could heal him. So is that... raw Alicorn meat?" he asked, gesturing towards the shimmering muscle.

She vigorously nodded. "Yup! I was thinking I could teach you to make Sparkle-Fanny à la mode. It's a kind of casserole. It's quite delicious if I do say so myself."

Fintan smiled shyly. "I would love that."

FakeMintie's red eyes sparkled in the firelight as she showed him the best way to chop porcarots without crushing them.

"The trick is to rock the knife back and forth," she told him.

She reached over to take the knife. Her fin brushed his hand and their eyes met. Neither said anything, but FakeMintie blushed and looked away, pretending to check on the cubes of Alicorn meat that were frying. They chopped the rest of the vegetables and hid the cooking casserole behind Fintan's bed to cook. FakeMintie conjured away the left-over ingredients and helped Fintan extinguish the fire, She smiled at him.

At that moment, their eyes met in horror as the hall echoed with the sound of goblin footsteps. Coming their way.

"Well, I guess I'll see you tomorrow," she said, starting to flop towards the window.

Chapter 4

The door swung open, the guard's less-than-cuddly expression greeting Fintan.

"Do I smell...Alicorn?" he asked.

FakeMintie flopped up and slapped him, the enormous goblin jumping back with a helkkhöschèsnarh.

"STAY AWAY FROM OUR SPARKLE-FANNY A LA MODE, YOU BACKPFEIFENGESICHT! IT'S OUR DINNER, NOT YOURS!"

The guard took a step back. "Wha-Why would I want to EAT an Alicorn? They're almost extinct! And why is there the remains of a fire in here?"

Fintan started to step forward, but FakeMintie bounced up in front of him, crossing her fins across her chest. "I lit the fire! I was hungry!" She stuck her tongue out at the guard.

The guard looked closer at her and sighed. "FakeMintie. I should have guessed. What did you do to get back in here?"

FakeMintie took a deep breath. "I ate an Alicorn and impersonated another Goldfish so that I wouldn't get arrested but my teal contact lens fell out and I was caught." The words tumbled out of her mouth in one breath, so she panted to gather back air.

The guard nodded. "I told you that the contact lenses wouldn't work last time. Anyways, let's get you back to your own cell. No. More. Fires. Got it?"

The guard scooped FakeMintie up and carried her back to her own cell. As they left, FakeMintie waved an orange fin at Fintan.

"Bye," she mouthed sadly.

In the cell on the other side of Fintan, a groan sounded. Curious, Fintan crawled over to the bars. In the cell lay the unconscious girl Fitz and Tam had been carrying, except she was awake now.

She glanced at him. "You're Fintan," she said. "I impersonated you once. Got sent to Havenfield to scoop poop as punishment."

He frowned. The girl was an elf who looked no more than 12. What was she talking about?

"Tell me your story," he said cautiously, for everyone in Exile had a story.

So she did.

Chapter 5

Dex, Cress, Sophie, Fitz, Julia, and Biana were sitting at Dex's kitchen table eating freshly-baked mint chocolate mallowmelt because they had nothing better to do.

"I'm bored," Dex whined, stretching out the words as annoyingly as possible. "Why can't the Neverseen come and try to kill us already?"

"Because they already got taken down," Sophie explained. "But it's sorta... weird, with Fintan in prison, Gethen dating Julia, Alvar getting eaten by a T-Rex, and Ruy off doing... whatever he does nowadays."

Everyone nodded their agreement. They thought it would've been better with no Neverseen, but the truth was that fighting the Neverseen was what the used to do 24/7. Their lives were so weird.

"We could.... ask Keefe to come over?" Biana suggested.

"No," Fitz and Cress said in unison.

"Yeah, cause' he's at the Take Your Son To Work Day thing with his dad, remember?" Julia reminded everyone.

"URRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH!" Dex screamed, stomping his way upstairs.

Cress rolled her eyes and slowly went after him.

"I have an idea," Fitz said. "We want to keep fighting, right?"

Everyone nodded again.

"Okay, so I have the imparter number of one of Alvar's stupid friends who's in Exile for stealing Councillor Alina's favorite stuffed animal unicorn, and I can have him let Fintan out of Exile,"

"YAYAYAYAYAAYAYAAYYYAY!" Everyone screamed, throwing mallowmelt everywhere.

"You guys were so loud we could hear you from the fifth floor," Cress said, coming downstairs with Dex. "And we think it's a great idea!"

Then they all continued to throw mallowmelt at each other because they had nothing better to do. Well, at least until Alver's stupid friend figured out how to get Fintan out of prison.

Chapter 6

Alvar's Stupid Friend Who's In Exile was getting a call from Fitz. Fitz, why did he recognize that name? Maybe it was a.... a troll's name, or maybe a goldfish.... or a random hula-hooping Alicorn who secretly loved him...

He accepted the call.

"Oh it's just Alvar's little brother," he informed a bit of dirt on the left side of his tunic. "A bit disappointing, to be honest, I was hoping for a goldfish."

Fitz Who Is Not A Goldfish glowered at Alvar's Stupid Friend. "Listen. I just need a tiny favor. Please break Fintan out of Exile."

Alvar's Stupid Friend inspected the bit of dirt professionally. "And why would I do that?"

"Because we'll pay you in stuffed animals," Fitz replied.

"YES I WILL DO IT."

Alvar's Stupid Friend broke himself out of his cell really quick and headed over to Fintan's cell, where he smelled something he did not expect. It smelled like....

"Alicorn? Cooked alicorn?" he asked Fintan.

"Yep."

"And is that a goldfish?"

The goldfish glared with at Alvar's Stupid Friend with her red eyes. "I'm FakeMintie, thank you very much."

"Pleasure to meet you, FakeMintie. I'm breaking you out, Fintan," Alvar's Stupid Friend said.

"Right now? I mean, just let me finish this Sparkle-Fanny à la mode. Then fine, I'll leave the prison, if I can bring FakeMintie with me," Fintan replied.

"Um.... I'm only supposed to break you out."

"EITHER FAKEMINTIE COMES WITH ME OR I'M NOT LEAVING."

Alvar's Stupid Friend decided that it would probably just be best to take the goldfish with, or else he probably wouldn't get his payment of stuffed animals.

"Ok fine."

Fintan glanced at the cell on the other side of his. He muttered something about Kat, then nodded. "So why are you breaking me out again?"

"Some kid who isn't a goldfish, Fitz, is paying me to do it."

Fintan laughed. "I always knew that kid would crack. Like his brother. Gone all evil, has he now?"

"I don't know. He was covered in mallowmelt though."

FakeMintie's red eyes widened. "He can't have gone evil then, everybody knows that mallowmelt causes evil skin to swell and turn purple and green with pink polka dots."

"Huh. Weird. But I'm not complaining that he's freeing us," Fintan said.

"Quick question.... why haven't you left Exile if you can break yourself out?" FakeMintie asked Alvar's Stupid Friend. He shrugged.

"I like it here," he said.

Chapter 7

As soon as FakeMintie and Fintan stepped out of the prison, stuffed animals started raining from the sky.

"STUFFED ANIMALS! I LOVE STUFFED ANIMALS!" Alvar's Stupid Friend yelled.

One very special stuffed animal caught FakeMintie's eye.

"IS THAT AN ALICORN!?" she yelled, grabbing it. She took a large bite. "THIS IS NOT AN ALICORN!" she spit it out.

"NO! MY STUFFED ALICORN FLUFFY! NOOOOOOOOOOO FLUFFY!" sobbed Alvar's Stupid Friend. He glared at FakeMintie. "You killed Fluffy."

Fintan stepped in front of FakeMintie protectively. "Hey, calm down. It's wasn't her fault-"

"YOU KILLED FLUFFY!" Alvar's stupid friend began throwing stuffed animals at FakeMintie.

"Don't hurt her!" Fintan shouted.

"Don't you know that throwing stuffed animals at a goldfish causes the stuffed animals to come alive and eat you?" FakeMintie informed Alvar's Stupid Friend.

His eyes widened. "Oh, alicorn poo." he muttered. He ran for his life. The stuffed animals ran after him.

"It's too bad Fluffy wasn't a real alicorn."

"If you want, I can show you the super-secret alicorn hideout," Fintan offered. "It's right over there."

A majestic alicorn flew into the sky. FakeMintie stared at it, her mouth watering.

"Yuuuuuuuuuummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy..."

Chapter 8

Fintan sat in front of the campfire he had just made whist FakeMintie set up tents. Ever since the got out of Exile, they were bored, so they went to a random Forest in the Lost Cities to camp.

"Can we make more Sparkle-Fanny à la mode?" Fintan whined. "I want fooooooooooooood."

FakeMintie rolled her eyes. "I don't have any alicorn right now," She informed him, "But I can make Shlaadengas. Or as hoomans call them, Mihikbruettes."

Before Fintan could ask what that was, FakeMintie conjured up a T-Rex. It ran away.

"Ugh, wrong thing." FakeMintie huffed, now conjuring a chicken.

"Gross, that looks weird," Fintan said, staring in disgust at the raw, uncooked chicken. "What is it?"

FakeMintie asked him to start a fire. "It's food."

They sat in silence while the chicken cooked in the bright flames. Then, FakeMintie put out the fire and conjured an entire kitchen, and hummed a weird song as she poured a thick liquid, runny red liquid that looked like blood but was a bit lighter, and a ton of seasoning. Then, FakeMintie chopped the chicken into squares and put them onto kabobs.

Fintan's mouth watered. The Shlaagendaas seemed really delicious, and smelled better than anything Fintan had ever cooked. Not that he had cooked anything worth eating...

FakeMintie brought them out to the chairs by the campfire-that-had-been-put-out and handed a few to Fintan.

The Shlaagendaas tasted like this one food Councillor Oralie once made Fintan try, which actually turned out pretty good. But this tasted even better. Fintan also stole one of FakeMintie's while she was turned away.

"Okay," FakeMintie said, brushing the excess seasoning off of her hands. "Go to bed now,"

Fintan wasn't tired, but he was afraid that she would yell at him like his mom did to him when he was little if he didn't do as she said. So, he went into his fancy orange tent and tried to sleep.

But then, out of nowhere, a huge "KIIII-YAAA!" echoed through the air and seven kids crashed into Fintan's tent.

****************************************************************************************************************************************

"Kat," a voice hissed from Kat's cell door.

"Keefe!" she cried, and ran to the door.

"I'm getting you out of here," he said.

"Of course you are," she said as the door swung open.

Keefe took her hand. "Let's go."

Chapter 9

FakeMintie flopped over to Fintan's tent, snacking on a bit of leftover Shlaangendaas. What were these dumb elves doing making all this racket?

"Aren't you the kid who paid Alvar's Stupid Friend to free Fintan?" she asked a kid with brown hair and teal eyes.

"Maybe," he answered.

"Then what are you doing attacking him?"

"It's part of an ancient practice referred to as Nunya," a kid with silver-tipped black hair said.

"Nunya? What sort of ancient practice is that? Is that a troll thing?"

"NUNYA BUSINESS."

FakeMintie rolled her red eyes. "Well, you're disturbing the peace, so why don't you just do back to your ancient troll rituals."

"You two disturbed the peace first!" a blonde-haired girl said, raising her chin defiantly.

"Dramatic much?"

The girl scoffed and held up some sort of throwing star threateningly. It might have actually been frightening, if there weren't bits of mallowmelt in the girl's hair.

Fintan was cackling evilly, which FakeMintie thought was very charming. Fintan played with a bit of fire in his hand and looked at all the faces around him.

He began to greet them all. "Sophie! What a pleasure. And if it isn't my favorite Vacker, Fitzypoo. No offense, of course, Biana. And oh, if it isn't my protégé, Marella! Burn on, kid."

He sniffed the air. "Hey, where's the ocean, because I smell salt? Oh, it's just Tam. Welcome to my tent, dude. And why are you whispering to the air? That’s weird. And speaking of the ocean, there's everybody's favorite Hydrokinetic, Linh!"

He paused and glanced around. "Where's the kid with the red hair? Seriously, you guys always forget him! He could be married with 10 kids and you all wouldn't know."

"He's not married, he's on a date," Sophie said with a snarl.

"Oh yeah, that Cress person, right?"

"Enough with the small talk!" Fitz exclaimed. "I WANT VENGEANCE! I WANT TO SEE THIS CRIMINAL IN EXILE."

"But you just broke me out of Exile."

"STOP WITH THE EXCUSES, CRIMINAL."

Keefe glared at Fintan pointedly. "You made me stub my toe when I was fighting you during the Battle of Custard Bursts! I NEED REVENGE!"

"REVENGE! REVENGE! REVENGE!" they all cheered.

"Shlaagendaas! Shlaagendaas! Shlaagendaas! Shlaagendaas.... no? No one?" FakeMintie tried to cheer.

"I'm going to fight for friendship and truth, even if it means taking my own life! This war is only won when love reigns over this world once again!" Sophie cried.

"My, you are dramatic, aren't you?" FakeMintie remarked.

"THIS. ENDS. NOOOOOOOOWWWWW!" Sophie screeched.

That was when Alvar's Stupid Friend and a bunch of stuffed animals and a disgruntled alicorn fell from the sky and buried them all.

Chapter 10

"AAAAAA! THAT WAS MY HAIR!" somebody screamed. But it was hard to tell who. Sophie waved a sword around and tried to stab Fintan but ended up ruining a stuffed T-rex instead.

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" Alvar's Stupid friend cried, hugging the destroyed stuffed T-rex close to his heart. "REXXXXXXXXXYYYYYY! You've been killed! You were my favorite, but don't tell the others because they will get jealous, they will-"

Alvar's Stupid Friend stopped ranting when he realized that everyone was staring at him. "Hehe," he said, dropping the T-rex. "Continue battling."

And so the screaming and punching and swords-going-into-stuffed animals and Alvar's Stupid friend yelling commenced. It took a good five minutes before Fintan got hit with a microscopic drop of soporidine.

"Oops," Tam said, staring at his sword, "I forgot I put soporidine on here yesterday. Eh, whatever,"

Fintan woke up a second later, so shocked from his sudden condition that he accidentally set his tent on fire with Everblaze.

"Hah, you don't have Frissyn, do you?" Fintan laughed.

"That's where you're wrong," Fitz corrected, "We do. Always come prepared."

FakeMintie was completely and utterly confused. She was only familiar with goldfish terms. But, since these teens were annoying, she yelled, "YOU ARE ALL BABOOSHKAS!"

"If that's so true," Biana spat, as she knew goldfish terms, "Then how come I can do THIS?"

She grabbed a handful of a fine silver powder from Sophie's satchel, and put it onto the Everblaze, extinguishing it.

"Um, okay," Fintan said, "But that doesn't do anything for you. Bye-bye!"

He grabbed FakeMintie and leaped away.

"UGH!" Someone behind them whined. They turned around to see Julia kicking the dirt. "I was going to vanish and put Mallowmelt all over him. Plus, I manifested as a Conjuror."

"A third ability?" Tam asked, pulling his bangs over his eyes, "I didn't think that was possible."

"Sophie has five," Julia reminded him.

"Uh yeah," Tam said, "Because her abilities were tweaked!"

"Oh yeahhhhhhh, forgot about that. Well, maybe it's because my parents both had two abilities."

They were about to leap away, when Fintan said behind them, "THIS IS NOT OVER!"

They whipped their heads around, just to see Fintan with Lady Gisela, FakeMintie, and Vespera.

But something was different about the two girls. Weird, even.

"WE DYED OUR HAIR!" They screamed.

"That is not why we came here." Fintan grumbled.

"Then why did we come here?" FakeMintie asked.

Fintan sighed. "To threaten them! No cool villain leaves a fight without threatening the heroes before we leaves!"

FakeMintie nodded. "Oh, that makes sense. People keep staring at me and waiting for me to talk whenever I leave a battle."

Their discussion of battle etiquette was interrupted as a blonde boy with piercing ice-blue eyes yelled "WE WILL BE BACK!!!" and light-leaped away with the rest of his friends, leaving FakeMintie and Fintan with Lady Gisela, Vespera, Alvar's Stupid Friend, and a pile of stuffed animals.

Fintan frowned. "Keefe said our line."

Chapter 11

Fintan searched desperately for wood as the last daylight faded away. FakeMintie would be returning soon with an Ooficorn to make something called "Oofburgers" and Fintan STILL hadn't found wood for the fire. Lady Gisela and Vespera weren't being any help either. They were looking over blueprints for their new Nightfall. Alvar's Stupid Friend had run off and was now somewhere in the forest with his stuffed animals. At random times Fintan heard him scream or yell something about Suzie McMittens but his purpose was served and Fintan wasn't really worrying about him anymore.

Suddenly Fintan saw a shadow move nearby him. He slowly walked over to investigate and some sort of giant animal that looked part-hedgehog, part-eagle, and part-gopher darted out of the woods towards him. It ran right into Fintan, knocking him to the ground and then continued running all the way down into some sort of pit he hadn't noticed before. Intrigued Fintan got up and followed the strange creature to the edge of the pit, there he saw a very interesting sight.

Alvar's Stupid Friend was in the middle of the pit waving his hands back and forth and doing the strangest dance Fintan had ever seen. Floating above Alvar's Best Friend's head was an oversized-giant-what-you-would-win-at-carnival-if-the-games-weren't-all-rigged-sized stuffed animal cat with webbed paws. Surrounding the two of them was about 30 of the strange animals that Fintan had been run over by. They were all singing and spinning in circles, then falling over in dizziness, then getting up and spinning in circles again. All of a sudden the circle-spinning commenced and the stuffed animal cat was lowered to the floor. One of the strange animals even bigger than the rest of them came out from some sort of underground tunnel and stood before Alvar's Stupid Friend and the stuffed animal.

"Mr. Alvar's Stupid Friend," said the strange animal which could apparently speak, "Do you take Miss Suzie McMittens as your lawfully wedded wife? Do you choose to spend the rest of your sad life with her?"

"I do," said Alvar's Stupid Friend.

"And you, Miss Suzie McMittens," said the strange animal turning to face the stuffed animal which Fintan now realized was standing up all on its own, "Do you take Mr. Alvar's Stupid Friend as your lawfully wedded husband? Despite all his many, terrible faults do you agree to always stand by him and make sure he doesn't accidentally kill himself too fast?"

"I do," said Suzie McMittens.

Then both of them held hands and walked away from the pit and into the other part of the forest all the strange animals trailing behind them. Fintan watched in shock as all of this played out.

As he stood there, FakeMintie bounced and flopped up behind him.

"What are you doing?" she asked?

Fintan explained that he had been looking for wood and came across the wedding. He apologized for not finding any wood.

FakeMintie smiled "Don't worry, I can just conjurer some!"

FakeMintie conjured the wood and they built a fire, Fintan lighting it with his pyrokinesis. FakeMintie conjured an odd, bright pink meat that she called "Oofmeat" and together they made something called Oofburgers. The Oofburgers were delicious, almost as good as Sparkle-Fanny à la Mode. As they sat around the fire, chowing down on bright pink burgers in the middle of the woods, Fintan felt completely at home for the first time since he had been banished for his Pyrokinesis.

Chapter 12

FakeMintie felt a strong sense of hygellig, as though she was using a racoon as a towel. Fintan was happily eating his Oofburger, looking up at her occasionally with a goofy smile on his face. FakeMintie bounced into the edge of the fire, splashing in the flames. She smiled at Fintan's look of shock.

"Are you... Fireproof?" he asked.

FakeMintie nodded. "All Goldfish are!'

Fintan looked impressed. "Wow!" he said, staring at FakeMintie leaping in the flames.

They began to joke with each other, and all was well until...

"ATTENTION!" Julia screamed, hopping into their campsite and waving her arms around. "I broke up with Gethen. He's worthless to me now. You can have him back." She shoved Gethen into Fintan. They both fell over and scrambled to get up.

Julia replaced her angry face with a smile, tossed her hair, and skipped into the purple beam of light she had cast.

"Wha-What was that?" FakeMintie stammered, staring at where Julia had left.

Gethen raised his hand, as if he was in school or something. "She broke up with me because she loves Fitz or something. But who cares. I love Lady Gisela!"

Fintan facepalmed. "You're like, 200 years older than Julia. That relationship would've had to end SOMEHOW."

"Whatever," Gethen said. "But I found out some important information from her."

"Oh really?" Fintan scoffed."Doubt it."

Gethen took a deep breath. "No! I mean it! I now know that there is another one of them- one we have never seen before."

****************************************************************************************************************************************

Keefe deposited Kat in the middle of a deep forest far outside Exile.

"I gotta go," Keefe whispered. "Sophie's making me attack this fire guy and his goldfish."

Kat frowned. That sounded suspiciously like Fintan and FakeMintie, her best friends from prison. But Keefe wouldn't attack them, so she ignored the thought.

"Anyway, I think we're supposed to, like, kiss or something," Keefe muttered.

And so MAYBE they did, but Kat would like to strongly advise against pressing for details, or she will kill you, since she is otherwise romantically involved at the moment.

Chapter 13

"OOOOHHH!" FakeMintie said. "I don't know what you guys are talking about, but spill the baskaska!"

Gethen nodded, then grabbed a flashlight to put under his face and started talking. "Julia told me who her Cognate is. I thought she only loved Fitz, but apparently, there is another boy, named Henry Castellanos. He's been her Cognate apparently since she became a Telepath.

"Also, I know where she really lives. The whole house in London we had was to keep my trust. She lives in Levenglade. We were both using each other to find out information about the other. I never loved her, but she did kind of love me." Gethen looked... kinda sad.

Both Fintan and FakeMintie's eyes widened when they realized, "YOU GAVE HER INFORMATION TOO?" they said in unison. Then, they looked at each other and blushed.

"Hehe... Maybe?" Gethen said, looking sheepish. "I just told her all of our hideouts and member's real names and what Ruy looks like and the phone number to our reception desk and-"

Fintan jumped into the flames of the fire, and sat there, crying.

"Hey," FakeMintie said, bouncing into the flames to Fintan. "At least we know now- there is another one of the teenagers."

Fintan nodded, trying to look on the bright side of things. "Henry Castellanos you say? I don't recall ever knowing someone with that name. Gethen, in order for us to not kill you we are going to need a little more, alright? I mean, you did completely betray us, you know."

Gethen nodded, "Not dying sounds great. What do you need me to do?"

"Find any information you can about the teenager person and, if possible, bring him back here," replied Fintan.

Gethen smiled evilly, then got this very creepy and weird look of determination, making him look odder than Alvar's Stupid Friend did when he married a stuffed animal. "I WILL!" he shouted, startling FakeMintie and Fintan back a step. "I WILL IF IT'S THE LAST THING I DO!”

Then Gethen skipped off, stopping to smell a flower on the way, then he continued to skip.

Chapter 14

Thirteen splotchers burst at the exact same time.

Coach Bora, the Ambi trainer, had taken over all the Exilllium training due to the other two coaches getting too excited over Shlaagendaas and accidentally eating a whole tray each. She was teaching them how to burst a splotcher with more strength, even though they all knew.

"Wow! You all-- in the back," Coach Bora said. "Did you arrange to have all of your splotchers burst at the same time, or...?"

One boy of thirteen, named Henry, stood up and smiled, levitating a splotcher up and down and back again. "We arranged it telepathically, if you would like to know, around ten seconds before they all burst."

Coach Bora nodded. "Very impressive."

All the teen's cheeks reddened with the praise.

"Okay, since the Exillium-Foxfire training is almost over, we will have to at least begin our concentration exercise before-"

She was interrupted by someone crashing through the tent.

"MISS ME? 'CAUSE I'M BAAAAACK!" Gethen singsonged.

Most of the prodigies had no idea who this random man was, or why he had interrupted their training. One prodigy even threw an egg at him.

Gethen glared at the prodigy, who smiled and gave two thumbs up.

"Ugh- enough of this nonsense- where is Henry Castabanner?"

"Um, It's Henry Castellanos," the Egg Prodigy corrected.

Gethen scowled. "DOES IT LOOK LIKE I CARE?"

All the prodigies nodded in unison.

"Whatever, I need Henry Castellanos. NOW!"

All of Henry's friends jumped in front of him, holding splotchers all over the place.

"You have to get past us first," Julia said, glaring and hovering two splotchers, daggers and Gethen.

"Oh, so that's how you want to do it? Let's play!"

Chapter 15

Fintan was watching FakeMintie leap and bounce in the fire when his imparter vibrated.

He sighed, seeing that it was Gethen.

"Fintan, you have to help me," Gethen gasped, his face barely visible through a thick layer of multicoloured slime. "These kids are too powerful, I can't-"

His voice was cut off as one of the girls, Julia, stuffed a splotcher in his open mouth.

Fintan sighed. "Gethen, did you find ANY information about the Castellanos boy?"

The splotcher in Gethen's mouth exploded, making him gag and cough as he spat out thick green slime. "Well, they're super-powerful, but could you just get me out of here?"

FakeMintie bounced out of the fire, shaking drops of fire off herself. "Okey-dokey, we'll be there as soon as I finish cooking these Oofburgers," she said, holding up 2 pink patties of meat.

"No!" Gethen yelled, "please, you have to help me!"

"I think you can handle a couple of teenagers," Fintan turned his imparter off.

After a minute of silence, FakeMintie turned to Fintan and asked, "You think he'll be okay?"

"Um, probably, I do sort of need him alive for now..."

"Why?"

"Because I don't want to do all the work," Fintan explained. "HE can do it for me!"

FakeMintie sighed and turned back to the Oofburgers. "Almost done."

Chapter 16

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH I LOVE MY HAIR SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO MUCH! EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!" Someone screamed from Biana's room very loudly. Fitz walked up the stairs to tell his sister and whatever friend she had over to shut up. He turned the doorknob, just to see...

"Isn't it GREAT?!!" Biana gushed and pointed at Julia, who was sitting at her vanity.

Julia spun around in her chair like a game show judge, and tossed her new shoulder-length hair.

"It looks great!" Fitz complimented, causing Julia to turn red.

Biana laughed. "I’ve always thought this hairstyle would look AMAZING on her!"

Julia smiled. “Thank you so much, Biana! Anyways, Fitz, where's Gethen?"

"Oh, I left him tied up and asked Keefe to guard him!"

Biana and Julia's smiles faded. "You left KEEFE to guard him?!" Biana asked, horrified.

Fitz slowly nodded, all traces of his smile gone from his face. "I'm sorry. I wasn't thinking."

Biana sighed. "Let's go help Keefe with him."

At that moment, an odd sound echoed through the arched door.

"Dooddoo, DOO doodadoo doo do da dee da dooodadoooo,doo da dee dooooo-"

Keefe cartwheeled into the room, but crashed into the wall, landing face-down in a pile of snacks.

Biana, Julia, and Fitz all rushed over. Julia shook him. "Keefe?"

There was no response. Julia tried again. "Keefe, where's Gethen?"

Keefe mumbled something that sounded a bit like "I'm in love with that turtle fish girl, even if she's a

Dreftönkhlãghęsøpįåtbæhbłöòpνμυψγασοафыошblæhpconkdoraghthfour" before rolling over and sitting upright, fish-shaped crackers sticking to his face. "Who's Gethen? And who's Keefe?"

They all exchanged horrifed glances. It was Fitz who first spoke up.

"Not again."

Chapter 17

FakeMintie had just finished her Oofburger when her Imparter buzzed.

She looked at the call number and sighed. "Not again,” she muttered to herself, glancing over at Fintan, who was still finishing his burger. "I have to take this."

She took the call, nodding and mumbling as she listened. "Oh no...Again?...Argh, why do those crackers keep DOING that?...Well, it wasn't really our fault this time...Oh, a Goldfish?... That's new... Okay, I'll deal with it."

She turned to Fintan. "Sorry, my snack company is having an issue. People keep face-planting into piles of crackers, losing their memory, and thinking they're some sort of random animal. This time it's your cousin. He thinks he's a Goldfish."

"Oh gosh..." Fintan moaned, facepalming. He grabbed his blingified Spyball (because Biana had added sparkles and hearts to spite him). "I DEMAND YOU SHOW ME KEEFERUS MIDDLE NAME UNKNOWN SENCEN!" Fintan screamed, holding fire under the Spyball.

"Sorry," the soft voice of the Spyball recited. "But I do not recall a Keeferus Middlenameunknown Sencen in the registry files. Please try again!"

"SINCE WHEN DO SPYBALLS TALK????" Fintan screamed, yeeting his Spyball into the bonfire. "I DON’T LIKE THIS!"

FakeMintie stared at him, as he jumped into the fire and stomped on the burnt piece of tech. "Okay. I'll go find Keefe then," she said, slowly backing away.

Chapter 18

"Who are you?" Keefe cried, hugging his broken crackers, "Who's Keefe? Who are these girls? Boy-that-I-don't-know, PLEASE HEEEEEELP!"

"Uhh..." Fitz mumbled.

"Little boy," Julia said, walking over to Keefe. "Let's try re-triggering your memories,"

Julia stood on Biana's bed, and took a deep breath.

"CRACKERS, VESPERA, GISORKLE, FITZLIA, GOLDFISH, KAT, UGLY, WATER, GLUCOSE, NAPKIN, BASKASKA, GETHEN, JOJO, CANDLE, METAL, FUN, INSTAGRAM, NIGHTFALL, TEAL, IGGY, BLUE, GOLDEN, KAT, GILDIE, FAKEMINTIE, FINTAN, EMPIRE, MEMORY, WASHER, KAT, SINK, DEMOL-"

Julia passed out.

"Oh gosh, Fitz said, rushing over to her. He, Biana, and a very confused Keefe crowded around her.

"OH NO!" Fitz yelled, picking up Julia, "WE'VE KILLED HER!" Fitz carried Julia downstairs, with Biana and an even more confused Keefe hot on his heels.

Fitz layed Julia down on the couch. "How do we save her? We shouldn't just leave her here to die,"

Biana nodded, then got a huge smile on her face. "A TRUE LOVE'S KISS!" she screamed, running into the kitchen, then a split second later reappearing with popcorn. "I volunteer Fitz!"

Fitz stopped breaking for a second. Then, he lowered himself down...

"-ITION, POPCORN, BANANA, TEA, JAMES CHARLES-"

Fitz's lips brushed Julia's, and he fell on the ground, so shocked from Julia's sudden outburst.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH! WHERE AM I? WHY DID FITZ JUST KISS ME? I WANT BASKASKA!" Julia cried.

Julia then realized what had happened. "Wait, did I pass out?"

Everyone slowly nodded, except for Keefe, who still was thinking he was a Goldfish. His only sane memory was Kat.

"Wait, then why-"

FakeMintie burst through the door. "WHERE IS KEEFERUS MIDDLENAMEUNKNOWN SENCEN!" she” screamed.

"Right here-- wait, my whole life just flashed before my eyes!" Keefe yelled.

FakeMintie smiled. "Looks like that was the trigger word. Now I can get 1,234,567,890 Lusters back!"

"Where's Gethen, Keefe?", Fitz asked.

"Oh, I left him because I saw some crackers and then face-planted into them. Then I ended up here!"

Just then Gethen leaped into the room. “Keefe, you'll always be too stupid to realize that the Goldfish snacks can wipe your mind.”

Then, Gethen leaped away with an evil laugh.

”He’s my least favourite,” Keefe informed everyone. But Fitz and Biana we’re focusing on something much more important.

Biana sat in a chair, sinking into the plush. ”FakeMintie took Julia.”

Chapter 19

”So, what color is your favourite out of these ten? Red, blue, teal, orang-“

Julia screamed, “Stop verbally torturing me! I already have to sit in this hard chair, and I’m tied to it with whatever kind of rope this is, and you’re asking my favourite color? What the heck!“

FakeMintie smiled. “I’m going to release you in a second, but I’m bored and I want Baskaska. So, who do you like? The Fitz boy?”

Julia shrugged. “Not anymore. I’m dating-“ she tried to cover her mouth. “Oops!”

FakeMintie swam around in circles. “OOH, SPILL THE BASKASKA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” FakeMintie knocked over a cup of tea. “Verbally AND literally!”

“Okay, fiiiine.” Julia said, “I’m dating... Tam.”

”oh, the kid with the silver tipped bangs? Yeah. He’s cool. But now I can use this against you!” FakeMintie laughed.

Julia rolled her eyes. “Um, sure you can. Can I leave now?”

FakeMintie shrugged. “CAN you?”

”MAY I leave now?”

”No.”

”Why?”

FakeMintie pulled out some Shlaagendaas and started eating them. “Your friends can rescue you. Sound fair?” She continued eating the Shlaagendaas, and once she ran out, FakeMintie walked away to go make some more.

Julia, reached for her imparter in her pocket. “It’s... gone,” she mumbled to herself.

“Looking for this?” a sickeningly familiar voice boomed.

Out of the corner of her eye, Julia saw Fintan walk from behind her chair, waving the imparter in front of her face. She kicked him.

”OWW, ow ow ow OW!“ Fintan yelled. “OWWWW!!!!!”

Julia wrenched off her rope, punching Fintan in the face and grabbing her imparter. Then, he punched her and took it back.

So, for about two hours, this went on. Once they both got too tired to fight anymore, Julia took her imparter and walked out the door.

She walked for a while, and then decided to call Biana on her imparter. "I escaped FakeMintie and Fintan!" she said. "Good. Now you can come here. The Black Swan has more information about the Neverseen." Biana replied.

Chapter 20

Biana rushed over to Julia the second Julia got to Everglen. "Julia! Guess what! We have a spy now!"

"Another one?" Julia replied, "Who is it?"

"She's in the living room."

Sitting on a chair in the living room was a girl. She looked about fifteen, Tam and Linh's age. She got up and walked toward Julia. "My name is Mai Liu. I am a spy for the Black Swan. I'm a Hydrokinetic and a Vanisher."

"Cool! I'm Julia Ambrosia! Have you met the others yet?"

Julia looked toward Biana. "She hasn't met Cress or Char." Biana said.

Mai told Julia, "I know the others from Foxfire."

"Hi.” Cress and Char walked into the room. "You're Mai, right? I think I've seen you around Foxfire before."

”Wow.” Julia said, “The black swan now has 37 spies.”

"Like me!" A Goldfish wearing fake glasses and a mustache walked into the room eating what appeared to be chunks of chicken wrapped in a neon green pita.

Mai frowned. "Okay, two questions. One, who are you. Two, what are you EATING?" she asked.

The Goldfish held up a fin in a wait a moment gesture and swallowed a bite of their wrap. "I'm NotFakeMintieInDisguise, which translates in your language to Not FakeMintie In Disguise and this is Shlaagendaas wrapped in a Kelpie flesh and brocolli pita. It’s called Shlaawraap. Also, I happen to not be FakeMintie in disguise!"

”Oh, yeah, I’m sure.” Julia said.

The conversation was interrupted when suddenly someone burned through the door.

Chapter 21

Everyone braced for the worst. Biana and Mai vanished and everyone else picked up the nearest thing they could find to use as a weapon - a ruler, a glass of water, a small table, and a neon green pita bread were in this mix. But all the intruder did was stand up, shake the ash out of her hair, and gaze at the room.

"You know, for a room full of people supposed to be stopping rebellions, you don't build very strong doors." she said, shaking her head sadly.

Julia was the first to speak. "Uh, who are you?" she asked carefully.

The girl smiled. "I'm Gildie, and this -" she stopped to make a motion towards the door "- is also Gildie." A flareadon hopped through the door, and the girl gave it a small flame as a reward.

Biana blinked slowly into view. "Uh, Sophie never told us about you. You, I mean, not Gildie... I mean... She never told us there was a girl."

"I know." Gildie just smiled. "I'm assuming you're referring to the time my flareadon escaped and helped some random stranger bottle one of the most dangerous things in the world. By the way, I still haven't let you off the hook for that!" She glared at the dinosaur, who simply stood there sniffing a small flake of ash. "Either way, not to intrude or anything, even though that's literally what I just did, but I heard you needed help with a goldfish, a Pyrokinetic, and some other people who I don't remember right now, so I was wondering if you needed a hand."

Mai opened her mouth to say something, but NotFakemintieInDisguise interrupted her. "Sure, of COURSE you can help us! I know all of the goldfish's weaknesses, strengths, Social Security Number and I have her passport, so there will be no worries there. Oh yeah, the goldfish isn't me by the way. I'm definitely not -"

Mai stepped in front of her. "First of all, we barely know you. Secondly, we have a pyrokinetic on our side already. I'm sorry, but come back another time."

Gildie smirked. "Do you have a flareadon on your side?"

Mai gave her the longest, most epic sigh in the history of epic sighs. "We don't need one. Do you have anything else to add?"

Gildie's smile faded. "I'll try to be more serious. I promise that I can help. I promise that I'll do everything to stop this. I know the terrible things that are happening."

Char sighed and whispered to Cress. "No, I'm really not sure she understands."

Hearing this from across the room, Gildie held up her hand and corrected her. "No, I'm really sure I do. Besides, I think you'll want someone who can do this." She whispered something and a huge bubble of ice suddenly surrounded the group.

"LET US OUT OF HERE RIGHT NOW OR ELSE I DEMAND THAT YOU BRING US SPARKLE FANNY A LA MODE!" screamed someone - presumably NotFakemintieInDisguise. “Uh, guys, there’s a door-“ Julia said, though nobody heard her. She walked outside of the bubble.

Gildie laughed at their struggles and melted the bubble with a few sparks of white fire. "Yes, I mostly did that to freak you guys out. And to see if anyone would actually find the door," she added.

She gave the flareadon another small flame. "So, can I help you defeat the Neverseen?" she asked one more time with a determined smile.

Cress glanced at the rest of the group. Julia, Biana, and Char slowly nodded, Not-Fakemintie-In-Disguise gave them a fins-up, and Mai just shrugged. "Up to you guys," she told them.

"Okay," she agreed. "Now, where should we start?"

"Well," Mai said, "How about Neverseen headquarters?"

Chapter 22

"But we don't know where Neverseen headquarters are." Biana said.

Mai smirked. "But I do. That's what I was trying to tell you when Miss Flareadon burned down the door."

"Then where is it?" Fitz demanded.

"You guys are so dense." Gildie interupted. "She's been telling you while we've been talking. It's at a place called Mistflare."

"I see someone in this group has some sense." Mai said. "Yes, the Neverseen headquarters are at a place called Mistflare. And those of us who grew up in the forbidden cities should know that Mistflare is in Iceland. So shall we go?"

"Wait." Sophie said. "Without any plan? We can't attack them without a plan."

Mai frowned. "I have a plan: attack."

Gildie laughed. "Uh, we might want to at least structure our attack so we don't die. I'm kinda new here, but I picked up on that from the start."

Sophie nodded. "Yeah, exactly," was all she said.

NotFakeMintieInDisguise stood up. "I know! We'll threaten to take away all of their stockpiles of shlaagendaas if they don't let us capture them, then we'll capture them and take the shlaagendaas anyway!"

Biana stared at the goldfish. "Uh, firstly, I doubt that's going to work. Secondly, how did you know they had a shlaagendaas stockpile?"

"How do you know they do? That's closely guarded information." NotFakemintieInDisguise countered.

Biana frowned. "I don't. But you've just proven my point." She sauntered over to where the goldfish was standing, and bravely pulled off the mustache and glasses.

"FAKEMINTIE?" everyone gasped.

"Well, looks like I've been caught. Darn it, I was pretty proud of that disguise. Ah well. Guess I'll go make more shlaawraps." FakeMintie shrugged, leaving the room without another word.

"Wait!" shouted Linh. "Umm... if you help us take out the Neverseen, we'll give you some more Shlaawraps! 100% free!" she tried.

FakeMintie turned around, too overcome by the prospect of shlaawraps to think of anything else. Eyes sparkling, she nodded. "Yes! Yes! YES!" she chanted.

Mai sighed. "This is going to be a long day," she mumbled.

Chapter 23

"Yaaaah!" shouted FakeMintie, karate-kicking open the door to the Neverseen hideout and leaping inside, with Sophie, Dex, Keefe, Fitz, Biana, Tam, Linh, Julia, Cress, Mai, Char, and both Gildies following closely behind.

"GIMME ALL YOUR SHLAAGENDAAS!" yelled FakeMintie.

"That was not our planned battle cry, but okay," Mai muttered.

Cress raised her melder. "Creepy Neverseen people, come out, come out, wherever you are!"

Dex raised his own melder as well.

After a few moments of awkward silence, Tam said, "Are you sure they're here? Because this just looks like an empty room to m-"

Tam was interrupted by the sound of someone laughing.

A girl stepped out from behind a filing cabinet while cackling evilly. She had cobalt-blue eyes, shoulder-length black hair, and pale skin.

"Hey, don't shoot me," she said when Cress and Dex pointed their melders at her. "I'm nice. I won't bite."

FakeMintie narrowed her eyes at the girl and waved a shlaawraap in the air menacingly. "Three questions. One, what is your name. Two, what is your ability. And three, are you with the Black Swan, the Council, or the Neverseen."

The Keeper crew formed a circle around the girl, pointing their various weapons at her.

"My name is Inara. I'm Talentless. And three?" Inara laughed, dropping into an office chair and spinning around several times before stopping. "Can I honestly say that I'm with neither group?"

"What are you doing in a Neverseen hideout, then?" Keefe demanded.

"Neverseen hideout?" Inara looked around, confused. "This isn't a rebel group's hideout. This is my home."

Gildie-the-elf narrowed her eyes. "Tell the truth, Inara." Gildie-the-flareadon also narrowed her eyes and roared.

"Yeah," added FakeMintie. "Tell the truth, or I'm denying you the right to eat this shlaawraap." FakeMintie held the shlaawraap up to the light, and it radiated pure light for a split second.

Inara crossed her arms and spun around a few more times on the chair but said nothing.

"Tie her up," FakeMintie ordered Julia, Linh, and Sophie.

Julia, Linh, and Sophie tied Inara to the chair with Shlaawraap Rope™. Sophie and Linh accidentally ran into one another, and they both blushed.

"Is that secure?" asked Fitz, glancing at the Shlaawraap Rope™, which tied a creepily calm Inara to the chair. "I mean, it's just a bunch of Shlaawraaps made into noodles."

"Don't worry," FakeMintie assured him. "Shlaawraap Rope™ is made with Shlaawraap Strength For-moola™ and enhanced with Aliflexiblity™, which is what makes Shlaawraap Rope™ so Naturally Tough™."

”Yeah,” Julia said, sidling up next to Fitz and scaring the heck out of him, “I had to tie up Fintan when I left the other hideout.”

Fitz nodded, still recovering from his mini-heart attack.

"Anyways," Sophie interrupted. "I believe we need to get more information out of Inara."

Everyone turned back to the chair that Inara had been tied to. Or, more specifically, the chair that Inara used to be tied to. Now, she was nowhere in sight.

"C'mon!" Biana shouted, frustrated. "She's gone!"

Dex shrugged. "Let's search through this place anyways. Maybe we can find something."

The group agreed and spent the next few hours searching through the various filing cabinets and drawers in the hideout.

"I'm bored," FakeMintie announced after having to check an entire drawer full of blank paper for invisible ink. "Let's trash the whole place! Yay! Party!" She threw a random piece of mallowmelt up in the air.

"Who cares anymore," Linh said, shrugging. "I agree with FakeMintie!"

So the rest of the day was filled with Keefe eating paper, Fitz swinging from the chandelier, Tam sitting in the corner and pretending to emo, Dex taking apart the hideout's electricity, Cress watching Dex, Julia spray-painting the walls, Char breaking lightbulbs, Mai reading books, Biana lounging on the sofa, both Gildies burning random objects, FakeMintie eating her Shlaawraaps, and Sophie and Linh off to who knows where. Ad it was the most fun any of them had had in a long time.

"Oh, poor souls," Inara muttered to herself, watching the whole thing while clinging to one of the rafters, her hiding place. "The poor, poor souls."

Inara light leaped away to the Neutral Territories while cackling like a maniac.

Chapter 24

Tam kicked a piece of the paper Keefe had been eating. “I’m bored. Somebody un-bore me!”

Julia ran over and they both started chatting.

”Ow!” Biana said. She had been waking and Fitz fell from the ceiling onto her hand. “Careful, big brother, I just did my nails!”

Sophie stood up. “We need to do something productive.” she said. “Like... actually, not yet. I’m thirsty. Let’s go get a smoothie!”

They all light leaped away, but FakeMintie took another light path instead. She arrived inside the smoothie place, dressed in a uniform and everything. “I’m ready to work!” she said. “What would you like to order?”

The teens stared. “FakeMintie?” Julia, Cress, Fitz, Dex, and Lihn asked in unison.

She shook her head. “No, sillies! I am Obviously-Not-FakeMintie-As-A-Smoothie-Worker! Now what do you want?”

They all shouted orders angrily, except Tam.

"I don't want one. I don't like smoothies," he told them.

Obviously-Not-FakeMintie-As-A-Smoothie-Worker slowly turned towards him, her red eyes glowing especially bright in the fluorescent lights of the smoothie shop.

"What did you just say?" she asked, her usually bubbly voice low.

”Oh, you heard me alright. I. Don’t. Want. A. Smoothie.” Tam said. “What’re you going to do about it?” All the shadows in the room stretched towards Tam and the room grew eerily quiet.

“I know exactly what I’ll do about it!” Obviously-Not-FakeMintie-As-A-Smoothie-Worker stalked towards Tam, her eyes only focused on Tam as she picked up a nearby blender, cracked her pectoral fins menacingly, and began to collect various fruits. “You don’t like smoothies? Well, I’ll make one you can’t resist.” She switched the blender on and waited for the smoothie to be ready, triggering a very long, awkward silence in its wake.

When it finally finished blending, she poured it into a tall, fluted glass and held it expectantly to Tam.

The foam swirled on top of the drink, causing an almost-hypnotic effect. Or maybe it was hypnotic, because miraculously, Tam walked toward it and took it with an awestruck expression across his face. He took a small sip and for a fleeting instant, he gave it a disgusted look and said, “I still hate smoothies. Nothing you can do will change that.”

Then, his pupils dialated and he continued. “But this is amazing. I LOVE SMOOTHIES! THEY’RE MY FAVORITE THING EVER! SMOOOOOOOTHIES, SMOOTHIES! I ALMOST LIKE THEM BETTER THAN SPARKLE FANNY Á LA MODE! EVEN THOUGH I’VE NEVER HAD IT!” He continued talking until Gildie eventually got tired of it and froze him behind a soundproof wall of ice for the time being.

Obviously-Not-FakeMintie-As-A-Smoothie-Worker just smiled innocently in response.

“Uh, actually, I’m not sure I want a smoothie today.” Sophie said, then quickly added, “That’s not to say I don’t like smoothies - I’ll just come back for one another day. Water sounds a lot better.” The others agreed. Except for Keefe.

”Give me your finest smoothie!” he said, standing on a rock. “Here’s my birth fund.”

Obviously-Not-FakeMintie-As-A-Smoothie-Worker smiled and went to blend a smoothie. She put human fruit, Alicorn milk, YeetMeat, and the lettuce from a shlaawraap and blended it. She poured the thick smoothie into a cup with a lid and a YeetStraw.

Keefe took a huge sip and stumbled back. ”Woah,” he said. “I’m feeling a bit... dizzy.”

Biana rushed over to him, took the smoothie, and yeeted It into the nearby lake. It hit a Yeet.

”AAAAAAAHHH!!” Julia screamed, ”HIS HAIR AND EYES SWITCHED COLORS!”

Keefe looked in his portable mirror and screamed. “The Hair is ruined! Obviously-Not-FakeMintie-As-A-Smoothie-Worker, what did you do?”

She shrugged. “I gave you the smoothie called ‘Your Finest Smoothie’. It switches your hair and eye color. You’re welcome.” She wandered into the back of the smoothie store singing about Shlaagendaas.

Chapter 25

"Attention, fellow baddies!" Lady Gisela screamed at the top of her lungs. "WE'VE HIT THREE MILLION SUBSCRIBERS!"

Ruy looked up from his phone. "Really?" he asked giddily.

"No, just kidding," Gisela said. "I was just trying to get your attention."

"You don't have to scream to get my attention," said Ruy.

Gisela mumbled something about being too old for Ruy.

"What do you want?" Trix demanded. "I was just figuring out how these phone thingies work!" Broken pieces of the phone were scattered around the room.

Gisela rolled her eyes. "Fintan will not be joining us today. He's on a date. Well, he doesn't call it a date, but it is. Anyways, we need to step up our game! The Black Swan is way ahead of us now! They have three new recruits already! And how many new recruits do we have? None! Well, maybe one if you include that shady Inara girl we made a deal with last year."

"Well then, go find new evil baddies to recruit," suggested Gethen, shrugging.

Gisela screamed in frustration and stomped out of the room.

The remaining members of the Neverseen looked at each other.

Meanwhile, the Keeper crew — except Tam, who was still going on about smoothies in the corner — was trashing the smoothie place.

"Aren't we supposed to be doing something productive?" Dex asked-shouted, raising his voice to be heard over the racket his friends were making. Unfortunately, nobody heard him, not even Cress.

"TAKE THAT!" Gildie-the-elf shrieked, using a water gun to shoot a smoothie at Julia, who had dumped a glass of water over her head earlier.

Fitz bravely stepped in front of Julia and saved her from the smoothie attack. Unfortunately, he swallowed some of the smoothie. And it was "Your Finest Smoothie."

"GAAAH!" Fitz screamed. "My hair! It's... it's... TEAL!" Fitz fell to the ground, sobbing.

Sophie accidently knocked over a tub of mashed strawberries, which landed on Fitz.

Julia glared at Sophie, picking up some of Your Finest Smoothie In a blender and chopping it in half. She yeeted one half at Gildie-the-elf, and the other half at Gildie-the-Flareadon.

“Dude, my hair and eyes are the same color. And my flareadon doesn’t even have hair!” Gildie rolled her eyes, freezing the smoothie in midair.

“First of all, don't call me ‘dude’. That isn’t my name. And second of all, I just wanted to throw something at you.” She smiled wickedly before vanishing. Gildie sighed, then yelled as a gallon of ice was poured over her head.

Gildie scowled, melting the ice before it could hit her Flaredon too. “Okay, Julia, fine. Let’s see who the powerful one is now.“ She smirked as a huge column of fire erupted in front of Julia, who scrambled back. “Oh, it’s on, Flareadon Girl,” she said, conjuring a huge swarm of wasps, fryssin, and a medler.

Gildie took, a step back, and Julia laughed, yeeting the melder so far that even Yahoo couldn't find it. "Don't worry, i'm not that cruel."

Fintan chose this moment to burn through the door of the smoothie place.

"Where's FakeMintie?" he demanded, completely oblivious to the murderous glares the Keeper crew was giving him.

"Wait, FakeMintie's gone?" asked Linh. "I didn't notice that."

Fintan blinked. "Yeah. She's been on a date- no, no, not a date, I meant to say that FakeMintie was at a café in Atlantis with me. But then she vanished."

"Huh," said Mai. "Well, go look for FakeMintie somewhere else. We're in the middle of a war, can't you see?"

Keefe threw a spinach smoothie at Fintan's head while shouting, "LEAVE OR BE FORCED TO PARTICIPATE IN THE SMOOTHIE WAR!"

Fintan's eyes widened as he saw the others aiming smoothies at him. "Never mind," he said quickly. "Forget that I was ever here." Fintan backed out the door.

Fintan was backing out the door when he crashed into something. He looked up and saw a tall, skinny, orange, furry creature with long arms smiling down at him. It was a Yeet.

"Oh no..." Fintan whispered.

The yeet picked up Fintan with a long, furry, orange arm and threw him so far that even Google couldn't find him.

"YAY!" cheered the Keeper crew, high-fiving each other.

Their victory was short-lived, however, because at that moment, Inara light leaped in front of the smoothie place.

"Yeetie!" Inara cried, running to the yeet. "I was looking everywhere for you!" The yeet frowned at Inara.

”Yeetie? You have a pet yeet named Yeetie?” Dex interrupted. The yeet turned slowly toward him, smiling menacingly. “Uh, I, er— forget I said anything! Yeetie’s a great name!” The yeet frowned, but looked mildly irritated.

Keefe stepped forward. “So, I think I speak for everyone when I say: why are you here?”

Inara cackled. “You could say I wanted to check on things. Oh, and I also needed to find my yeet — who, by the way, can and will yeet you into a nearby galaxy if you misbehave. So, how about we all play nice for a bit?” She patted Yeetie on the head.

The Keeper crew looked at each other uncertainly, unsure if they should attack or not. Fortunately, they didn't have to decide, because at that moment, the Neverseen crashed through the walls with explosives and melders in their hands.

Chapter 26

"Everybody put your hands up!" Trix demanded, pointing his melder at the Keeper crew. "You have one minute to try to escape. After your minute is up, we're blowing up this place!"

Attack, Sophie transmitted to everyone.

Just then a girl with long, very dark red, almost black, hair ran up to them screaming, "OFF WITH YOUR HEADS!!!" After approaching the other kids she looked at them and said, "You guys look about ready to attack. Can I chop off some heads?" The kids all stared at the girl, not knowing what to say.

"Noo..." Sophie said slowly. "If you kill them, we won't have anyone to fight."

"Aww. Well anyway, I'm Eve. Eve Love, future queen of Wonderland." Eve's eyes lit up. "I'll behead so many people."

"Wait, if you're the Queen of Hearts’ daughter, what are you doing here?" Sophie asked.

"I'm half elf, you idiot!" Eve yelled. "Can I join you in fighting the people who just left?" Sure enough, the Neverseen left because of Eve threatening to chop of everyone's heads, except for Trix, who REALLY wanted to blow something up.

"HOLD UP!" someone shouted, and everyone looked around for the source of the new voice. A brown-haired girl appeared in front of the mayhem, her hands on her hips. She looked a few years younger than the rest.

"Kat?" Sophie asked. "I put you in prison. What are you doing here?"

The newcomer shrugged. "Keefe broke me out," she said.

"I did," Keefe confirmed.

"You have to stop doing that, Keefe," Sophie said, rolling her eyes. "Not every girl is charmed by getting rescued."

Keefe wasn't listening. Instead, he was checking himself out in a handheld mirror. Sophie rolled her eyes again.

"Wait, who is this?" Eve asked. "Off with her unknown head!!!"

"This is Kat," Sophie explained. "She's helped us in the past, but her half-elf butt is good for nothing except getting thrown in prison for impersonations. She also transported a random scene from my life into the future so it happens in Book 74 instead. I can't live the memory until then, but I think I was at the Matchmaker's or something."

Fintan high-fived Kat. "You didn't tell us that!" Fintan said.

"You know her?" Keefe asked, his mirror gone.

"We met in prison. We were only there an hour, but trust me, we're tight." Fintan said.

"ANYWAY," Kat said loudly, with a wink at Fintan. "It's bedtime. Everybody go home."

"AWWWWWW," Dex whined loudly. The whole group glared at Keefe.

"Nice try," Sophie said. "But we're having fun - I mean, defeating evil!" She gave Trix a little shove to prove her point. It didn't work.

"Yeah, no," Kat said. "Wrap it up! Your fighting is messing up my beauty sleep. In Paris. You guys need to learn how to keep it down!"

"OFF WITH YOUR HEAD!!! GUARDS, ARREST HER SO I CAN BEHEAD HER LATER!!!" Eve looked behind her.

"Eve, wait," Kat said, looking worried. "I was talking to Sophie and her pesky gang. I like your style. You should ally with me and FakeMintan."

"Did you just give us a ship name?" Fintan asked.

"Actually," Kat said with a smirk. "FakeMintie invented it--"

"TOO MUCH BASKASKA," FakeMintie screamed, blushing.

"There you are," Fintan said.

"Actually, I'm not here." FakeMintie disappeared again.

Eve starts to play with her nails. "Can I behead people?" she asked.

"Of course," Kat says. "Enemies, annoying Dizznees, prison guards. We'll make a great team. What do you say?" Kat held out her hand to shake, not completely confident that Eve wouldn't chop it off. "Plus, we can make the Keeper group go to bed so we can party and eat Sparkle Fanny A La Mode."

"Are you calling me annoying?" Dex demanded. "Cress!"

"WAIT," Fitz yelled. "DIDN'T THE YEET THROW FINTAN SO FAR THAT GOOGLE COULDN'T FIND HIM? HOW DID HE GET HERE?"

"Stop screaming," Julia told him.

"Actually, Google is temporarily down," Fintan explained. "The Yeet threw me across the street, and I saw interesting stuff happening, so I came back."

"OH, OKAY," Fitz screamed. Julia huffed. "WHAT?" Fitz said. "I LIKE SCREAMING SO MY VOICE WEARS DOWN AND I HAVE TO DRINK SMOOTHIES TO FIX IT. SOMETIME MY MOMMY EVEN FEEDS ME ICE CREAM."

Julia poured FakeMintie's tea on his head. "What?” he said. Where am I?"

"What's ice cream?" Dex said. "My parents only let me have sweets on Sparkle Fanny á la Mode Day to mourn the fact that people actually eat alicorns."

"SPARKLE FANNY Á LA MODE IS THE MOST AMAZING THING TO WALK THIS EARTH (YES IT ACTUALLY WALKS SOMETIMES WHEN YOU DON'T KILL THE ALICORN WELL ENOUGH)." FakeMintie screamed, and slapped Dex for good measure. Then she disappeared again.

"That flipper actually feels sorta nice," Dex muttered.

"DID SOMEONE SAY ICE CREAM?" said Keefe. He had ice cream in his hair. "BECAUSE I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT." He smiled guiltily.

"I personally prefer a good vegan sherbert," Sophie said dreamily. Everyone gave her dirty looks for dishonoring the name of ice cream.

"SMOOTHIES ARE BETTER," shouted Tam, who had broken out of his ice cage.

"GUYS," Kat cried. "SHUT UP. Eve's trying to make a decision, and my arm is getting really tired." She turned back to Eve. "Eve?"

"Uhhh... OFF WITH THE KATS HEAD!" She chopped off her head. Everyone started screaming, but 34.5902 seconds later it grew back. "I'll decide later!" With that, Eve skipped off.

Keefe stared at Kat. "Are you okay?" He asked.

Kat shrugged. "It's happened before. Well, bummer Eve couldn't decide. She would've been a good ally. But now I'm going to have to let her be victim to FakeMintie's smoothie making."

Biana yawned. "Shouldn't we be sleeping?"

"That's what I've been trying to say!" Kat yelled. "Everybody, go home!"

"AWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW," Dex said again.

"What about Trix?" Sophie demanded. "He's going to blow us up."

"Actually, he's gone," Linh said. It was true. Trix was gone. Also, for some reason Eve was tied to the wall, Fitz now had ice cream in his hair too, and he and Keefe were on the floor gnawing on carnissa roots.

"What is going on?" Kat groaned.

Chapter 27

The smoothie place was utter chaos.

Fitz and Keefe were rolling on the floor.

Biana had fallen asleep on one of the tables.

Char was trying to wake her up by throwing smoothies at her.

Tam was catching the smoothies that Char was throwing at Biana.

Dex was trying very hard not to fall asleep, despite his earlier protests.

Cress was doing a crazy assortment of things to keep Dex awake.

Gildie-the-flareadon was setting things on fire willy-nilly.

And Gildie-the-elf and Julia were still fighting. They forgot exactly how it all started, but it didn’t really matter.

Sophie and Linh were arguing about ice cream and sherbet.

Mai stood in the corner, completely done with this group of weirdos. She simply read a book and tried to do something actually productive.

Kat was screaming at Fintan to make a certain smoothie recipe so that the Keeper crew would shut up and she could finally go to sleep.

Fintan sighed and wrung his hands, exasperated. "Are all of these directions really necessary for a smoothie recipe?"

Kat threw her hands in the air, exasperated. "Ask your girlfriend! She's the one who made it up."

Fintan only blushed.

Together, Kat and Fintan made the smoothie according to FakeMintie's detailed recipe.

"Everybody, eat up!" they said, passing glasses of smoothie to everyone. Everyone started drinking, except for Keefe, who grabbed Up so he could eat him. Up was not a fan of Keefe's mouth. Keefe was not a fan of Up's taste. Long story short, Keefe went to the hospital.

Anyway, after the ambulance left, everyone finished their smoothies, which turned them into floating Z's. All the Z's floated right into their beds, sound asleep. Kat and Fintan high-fived.

"Oh wait... it's 2 in the afternoon," Kat realized.

"Guess we messed up their sleep cycle!" Fintan laughed.

They both cackled their evil-but-still-a-sorta-okay-person laughs.

"Are we even still in the smoothie place?" Kat asked. "It's been so long since we got here...."

"Actually, we're outside a den of Yeets."

They were.

Inara and her Yeet,Yeetie, stood menacingly in front of them.

"RUN!" They both shouted.

Chapter 28

Meanwhile, the Keeper crew soon realized it was 2 in the afternoon, and met up at Havenfield to plot revenge. Keefe even had his hospital bed rolled in so he wouldn't miss anything.

"I love plotting revenge," Biana gushed.

"Me TOO," Linh squealed. "And it's even more boredom-busting because for once it's not the Neverseen. Well, altogether."

"ONLY ICE CREAM SHALL UNDO THE SPELL!" Fitz screamed.

Julia facepalmed. "I thought TEA would do the trick. Now I have to give him ice cream? TAM!"

Tam was doing flips with Keefe, who really shouldn’t have been out of his hospital bed.

"LUDE!! OH NO!! LUDE'S IN DANGER," Fitz screamed. Julia and Della were spoon feeding him ice cream.

"Guys! Focus!" Sophie said. "We're plotting revenge on Kat and Fintan. But mostly Kat because I'm jealous of her." She covered her mouth. "Did I just say that out loud?"

"No," Keefe said. "'You said 'But mostly Kat because I'm jealous of her.' Although, technically, you did say 'that' when you said-"

"Ugh!" Tam said. "Go sniff a gulon, Keefe."

But Keefe was looking in his mirror again.

"Stoooooooooooooooooooooop iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit," Dex said. Cress patted his back.

"GUYS," Sophie yelled. Everyone turned their attention to her. "How do we want to take revenge on Kat?!"

"OH, I KNOW A GUY," Fitz started.

"NO!" Everyone shouted, remembering the Alvar's-Stupid-Friend incident.

"Wait," Sophie said. "I know a guy. WINKY, GET IN HERE."

A boy walked into the room. Well, they assumed he walked. He had Vanished his whole body except for his face.

"Heyyyyyyyy, Winky," the crew chorused.

"That's not my-" The face tried, but Sophie cut him off.

"Sweetie, we need you to go bother Kat-The-Half-Blood," Sophie said.

"Um... who?" Winky asked.

"She doesn't have a last name," Sophie explained. "How do I know you, again?"

Winky rolled his eyes. "I'm your boyfriend, The-Random-Boy-Who-Winked-At-Sophie, but neither of us remember meeting or why we like each other, because the memory was transported to Book 79."

"Right," Sophie muttered. "Um, go bother Kat!"

"I'm busy," Winky insisted.

"TOO BUSY FOR YOUR GIRLFRIEND?" Sophie raged.

"Actually, I have this appointment with-"

"WE. ARE. OVER." Sophie stomped away, then stomped back. "You still have to bother Kat, or I'll let FakeMintie make you a smoothie."

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO," Winky cried in horror. "I'll do whatever you want, just DON'T LET FAKEMINTIE MAKE ME A SMOOTHIE! She always turns my hair green with them."

"Good," Sophie said. "Now go."

Biana and Linh rushed to comfort Sophie after Winky left.

"AWWW YOUR FIRST BREAKUP!!" they said.

"I didn't even know Winky. So I really don't care. And I sorta-dated Fitz, remember?"

"ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT ME?" Fitz screamed, except it sounded like, "AWE YWO TALIN ABWO MWE?" because Julia had just shoved a huge bite of ice cream in his mouth.

"DID SOMEONE SAY BREAKUP?" said Keefe, who had just broken up with Kat over text now that he knew Sophie was available. "BECAUSE I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT." He joined Fitz in being spoon-fed ice cream, except he told Della to feed it to "The Hair."

"Let's go watch Kat get tormented by Winky!" Dex cried. The crew cheered.

*************************************************************************************************************************************

Kat and Fintan found themselves on a Bramble Jersey field (not to be confused with a regular Bramble field) surrounded by the Keeper crew on bleachers.

Spider-Man suddenly yeeted himself into the middle of the field. "EEEEEEE!" Julia screamed, running towards him. "I LOVE YOU!" She threw her arms around him, and he vanished. "Aww, it was just an illusion."

Fintan rolled his eyes. "Go back to the bleachers. NOW." he said in his best I-Am-Your-Teacher/Boss-Voice.

Julia kicked him and FakeMintie yelled.

Eve walked up. "What did I miss?"

"She kicked me!" Fintan whined.

"COOL!! OFF WITH HER HEAD!!!" Eve yelled. "By the way, Kat, I’m gonna help both of the teams."

Chapter 29

Fintan was busy warding off Julia's kicks aimed at his legs when Sophie interrupted.

She held up her Imparter. "Mr. Forkle says those of us in the Elite levels have to go to Foxfire for the Elite Opening Ceremony." She sighed. "I wish I hadn't gotten moved up a level," she complained.

She, Fitz, Keefe, Char, and Linh stood in a circle holding hands and all levitated up together before plummeting from the sky and disappearing with a loud CLAP!

FakeMintie bounced up next to Fintan. "What happened? Dex was blocking my view! Did they all die? Ooh, FUN!"

"No, Sophie can teleport," he told her, laughing at FakeMintie's mildly disappointed expression.

"Aw, boringsies. They could have at least–" She was cut off by the sound of her Imparter buzzing. She checked the screen. "It's Farkas."

Fintan frowned. "Who's that?"

"The goblin prison guard who caught me in your cell yesterday. He's an old friend of mine. I was one of his first prisoners after he finished his training. He's been my guard on numerous occasions, so we keep in touch." FakeMintie tapped the screen with a fin and a holographic image of Farkas's face appeared.

The young goblin's eyes were wide. "FakeMintie, you have to hide! You and... Finley, right?"

"Fintan," he grumbled, not sure why he felt such animosity towards the young guard.

"Fintan, okay." He turned back to FakeMintie. "FakeMintie, they're after you. I've been ordered to track you and Fingolfin– Fintan, sorry– and bring you back for questioning. I don't know why you did that, but you have to hide until I can convince them to at least give you a tribunal before breaking your mind." He seemed close to tears. "That was a big mistake. The Council will likely never forgive you for this one." He glanced behind his shoulder and called to some unseen companion "I'm coming, just a moment!"

FakeMintie looked worried. "Break our minds? I can't recall doing anything THAT bad recently, and as a Goldfish I'm exempt from mind-breaks for all but the worst crimes, so–"

Farkas looked over his shoulder again. "I have to go! Hide!"

"Let me come," Kat said. "I have connections."

"Same here." Eve says. "It sounds fun."

"We could be called the Everseen," Kat added. "Because we're not afraid to interact with out enemies and even help them sometimes. Or maybe that's really stupid, I'm not sure. It's the downside of being insane. You never know if you have a good-insanity idea or a bad-insanity idea. Anyway, it sounds like someone framed you two. You need all the help you can get."

”Oh! I like that idea!” Eve exclaimed. “Though I insist that you pronounce it ‘EVE-rseen’. Anyway, yeah, we need to help you guys. So... what should we do?”

”I KNOW!“ FakeMintie exclaimed, jumping up and down. “I can show you guys how to make Einhornschnitzel! We can give it to the memory break people and they will be compelled to let us go!”

Cress, Dex, both Gildies, Julia, Mai and Tam (who was still whispering about smoothies and was too delirious to attend the Elite Opening Ceremony) watched these bizarre plans unfold while the “Everseen” somehow failed to notice them taking notes about their possible attack plans.

”I’m wondering if we should say something,” Gildie whispered, “just so they‘ll FREAK when they see us standing behind them.”

Cress shook their head. “Not a smart move,” they warned. “We could at least try to capture them or... something.”

“Yeah, but how? It’s not like I can trap them under an ice shield, or in fire — they have a pyrokinetic and a fireproof goldfish. Julia can’t exactly conjure a forcefield, and anything else... wouldn’t exactly work. They‘d see whatever she conjures and just, ya know, escape.“ Gildie threw her hands into the air and turned to comfort Gildie-the-Flareadon, who was shivering in the non-fire conditions.

Tam smirked. “Leave it to me, guys,” he said with surprising confidence for someone hopelessly obsessed with smoothies. However, all he did was hold up a crystal and leap away.

Dex shook his head slowly. “Why do I feel like this isn’t going to end well?” Cress nodded their agreement.

Tam returned a minute later in front of the Everseen, with a huge smoothie jug. “How did I guess...” Dex muttered.

However, with a subtle wink at the group of onlookers, Tam just shouted, ”Anyone want a smoothie?”

”OOH! SMOOTHIES!” Fakemintie, Fintan, Kat, and Eve ran to Tam, nearly trampling eachother as they grabbed the jug. They did not, however, realize that this was the same smoothie FakeMintie gave to Tam.

”GUYS! NOW!” Tam screamed as the group suddenly began screaming about the wonders of smoothies. All five Black Swan members charged towards the Everseen and tied them up as Julia conjured them into the void.

”WE DID IT!” they shouted, high-fiving each other and dancing. They were so focused on their victory that they failed to see Inara walking straight towards them with an especially smiley Yeet.

”Not so fast,” she told them with a cold smile.

Chapter 30

"Smiley yeet... nice smiley yeet..." Dex muttered, as if in a trance. He had a rather long and traumatic history with smiley yeets.

"Dex, snap out of it!" Cress shouted, hitting him on the back of his head.

Dex snapped out of it.

Julia narrowed her eyes at Inara. "What are you doing here? Oh, but before you answer my question, tell your yeet to stop smiling."

Inara looked rather irritated but followed Julia's orders. "Yeetie, stop smiling," she said to Yeetie. "No yeeting for now."

Yeetie obeyed. Because Yeetie is a good Yeet.

"Now. Where were we?" Inara laughed evilly, spinning around in a random spinning office chair. "Ah, yes. Why I am here. I am here to-"

Inara got interrupted by the Councilors, who had glittered onto the field.

"You are all under arrest!" shouted Councilor Alina, pointing a bony finger at Inara, Yeetie, both Gildies, Cress, Dex, and Julia. "You have all broken the Noble Laws of Elvin Kind and will suffer the consequences!"

"Whelp, I'm outta here," mumbled Inara, holding a blue crystal up to the light and leaping away with Yeetie.

"Wait- where did that girl just go?" Councilor Emery demanded.

Gildie-the-elf shrugged. "She's weird."

Councilor Alina cleared her throat. "And," she continued, "you will suffer! The consequences! For you have broken some very important rules! And you may be exiled! FOREVAAAA!" Alina raised a fist to the sky with the final word.

"Gee," Cress whispered to Julia. "Is she usually this overdramatic?"

Julia nodded.

"So," said Alina. "Who's ready for EXILE?"

Dex raised his hand.

"Little boy, are you raising your hand to agree with Councilor Alina?" asked Councilor Zarina. "Because if you are, there are plenty of mental health institutes in the Forbidden Cities..."

"Eh, no." said Dex. "I'm asking a question."

"Oh," said Councilor Zarina, disappointed.

"My question is: What are the Noble Laws of Elvin Kind?"

All the Councilors turned to Alina.

"Uhhhhhh," said Councilor Alina. "I may have forgotten the exact wording, but... ah... it goes something like ’Thou shalt not conjure peoples, living or deceased, into the void.'" She looked rather impressed with herself.

All the other Councilors started breathing again, which was weird; they hadn't realized that they had been holding their breath.

Dex raised his hand again. "What about when Silveny teleported Sophie into the void?"

Councillor Alina stuttered for a moment but then screamed, "WE'LL ARREST HER TOO!"

Councillor Darek leaned over to whisper something in Alina's ear and Alina stomped her foot.

"FINE! WE'LL ARREST SILVENY ONCE SHE RECOVERS FROM BEING EATEN!"

A few of the gang gasped. FakeMintie had only eaten Greyfell, hadn't she? Apparently, she'd eaten Silveny too.

Meanwhile, in the void, the Everseen were actually floating around and enjoying themselves. Occasionally an alicorn would pop in and out, and Conjurers kept conjuring the most random things into the space, like smoothies (much to the Everseen's delight), Yeets, and goldfish ("Hi, cousin!" FakeMintie said). Other things kept getting conjured out (which Eve found very annoying to the point where she screamed, "HOW DARE YOU TAKE MY GUAVA SMOOTHIE, UNNAMED CONJURER! OFF WITH YOUR HEAD!").

At the Bramble Jersey field, however, chaos reigned. The Councillors argued about whether or not Silveny was subject to the Noble Laws of Elvin Kind, since she was an alicorn and not an elf, and yet only Gildie, the unassuming flareadon, thought to ask the more important question.

"sCREECH!" she said angrily, demanding attention. "Uhh... fellow Councillors? I think it has something to say," Councillor Clarette interrupted.

"It said "Why doesn't Julia know of this law if she went to Foxfire and endured the extensive ethics talk that you guys supposedly have for every ability? The Councillors are all pointless little -" HEY! Do not speak of the Councillors in this way!"

Terik shrugged. "I mean, the weird fire-bird-thing has a point," he admitted.

Alina rolled her eyes. "Well, looks like we're sending her mentor to Exile too. WHO'S WITH ME?!" She raised her hand, looking way more enthusiastic than she probably should.

Several other Councillors followed, and Inara momentarily re-appeared, screaming "ME TOO!" and evilly laughing.

Alina shrugged and smirked, tossing her caramel-brown hair innocently. "Well then. We have a majority."

Nobody spoke for several minutes. Then Emery stepped up next to Alina. "Let's go, then."

Chapter 31

In the void, Kat rolled her eyes and announced, "My Alina radar says Alina is being VERY ANNOYING right now."

"You have an Alina radar?" Fintan asked.

Kat nodded. "I had to work undercover at Foxfire last year, so I have a radar for pretty much every Councillor and Mentor. It's pretty exhausting."

"But it would be much more practical to have ONE radar." Eve rolled her eyes.

"Trust me, it wouldn't be." Kat said wearily.

"Just forget it." Eve sighed. "I have an idea for a hideout."

"Funsies!" FakeMintie squealed.

"Where?" Kat asked.

"One of my castles. It only has 209801 rooms, annoying right?" Everyone stared at Eve.

"Won't we get lost?" Kat pointed out.

"Nope!" Eve laughed. “It’s a pretty comprehensive layout. For me, at least.”

"It sounds fun!" FakeMintie commented.

Kat nodded. "Oh, alright. The Council probably won't find us there, anyway. But how do we get there?"

“I don’t know, I’ve done enough already, you guys figure it out,” whined Eve.

”I don‘t know ether,” said Fakemintie.

”Really?” said Kat.

Fakemintie shrugged.

“How about Fakemintie conjures us out of here,” suggested Kat.

”I don’t think it works that way,” Fintan warned.

”Well, it’s worth a shot,” said Kat.

So Fakemintie conjured them out of the void.

Right into Councillor Alina’s tower.

Chapter 32

”FINTAN!” Councillor Alina screeched. “CAN’T YOU SEE I’M GATHERING THINGS FOR A TRIP TO EXILE!?”

Fintan groaned. “Why her?” he asked. FakeMintie just shrugged innocently.

Kat sighed. “Listen Miss Crazy Lady, just settle down so we can get out of here.”

”NEVERRRRRRR!” screamed Alina. “Looks like you’re coming to Exile with me. Interrupting a councillor is a Class 3 Noble Law violation,” she continued.

Fakemintie conjured a bag of crackers. “Want some crackers?” she asked Councillor Alina innocently.

Alina eyed the crackers suspiciously before deciding she was too hungry to resist. “Sure!” she exclaimed obliviously. Then she stuffed the crackers into her mouth, cartwheeling around the room.

”NOW!” FakeMintie shouted, sprinting toward the door. Fintan followed, but Eve and Kat stood there for a minute, stunned that had actually worked. ”COME ON!” Fintan yelled, and they tore their eyes away and ran with them.

”FakeMintie, was that really necessary?” Kat asked, although she was laughing. It was funnier when it happened to someone you didn't like.

”No, but it was really fun,” FakeMintie shrugged. Nobody argued.

They slowed down once they arrived in a deserted alleyway. “Okay, Eve, where is the castle exactly?” Kat asked.

”Well, we have a few choices here.” Eve began. “We could find a magical story book, or we could jump down a rabbit hole, or we could be carried off by a flock of giant birds.”

“NONE of that is going to work. Actually I think — WAIT FAKEMINTIE WHAT ARE YOU DOING!?” Fintan yelled. The Everseen turned around just in time to watch FakeMintie disappear down a burrow, with a very confused rabbit standing next to it.

”WHOA! THIS THING IS HUGE!“ FakeMintie shouted. “ARE YOU GUYS COMING?” she added.

”Uh... no thanks,“ Eve, Kat, and Fintan said in unison. “Uh... see you when we get there!”

Fintan stared at the burrow. “She’ll be okay, right?” he asked.

Eve shrugged. “Yeah, probably. I still think we should just walk.”

“Walking was an option?” Kat demanded.

”No, the others sounded more fun, but we could probably just walk. The entrance is only a few blocks away.”

Kat stopped, and turned to look at Eve seriously. “Wait, wait, wait. The castle is in the middle of Eternalia? But that's really close to the Councillors. They'll find us for sure.”

Eve smirked. “No, this castle is different.”

Fintan turned away from the burrow. “How?” he asked. ”And can FakeMintie get there?”

“Yeah, she can. And you’ll see very soon,” she added with a wink, beginning to walk away.

Chapter 33

The Keeper crew was discouraged. Except for of course, the few who had escaped the exile sentence. Mai, Gilde-the-elf, Gildie-the-flareadon, and Cress, and well, they were the only ones who had escaped. All the others, even the ones at Foxfire, had been sentenced to the musty prison chambers. Gildie-the-elf slumped against the wall.

Cress was more than a little annoyed. "Well now what do we do?" Cress shrieked. "Dex is in Exile!"

"Whoa, there," Mai responded calmly. "Chill. We'll get them out. Anyway, now some of the bossy, but less smart and sensible people (cough, Sophie, cough) are gone. So that's good, I guess. Now we don't have to put up with them. I......erm.....might be glad they're gone. 'Cause Sophie was a backpfeifengesicht."

Gildie-the-elf smirked. "Yeah, we're obviously the smart ones here. Anyway, yeah, it could be good to get them out, just as a sign of good will. But first, shouldn't we find out where these Everseen people are hiding or something?"

"Yeah, I guess," Cress muttered. Gildie-the-flareadon, seeing they were upset, flapped over to their arm and laid her long, pointed nose on their shoulder. Cress patted her absent-mindedly.

Suddenly, a huge flash drew the four out of their plotting. An elf with caramel-colored hair appeared in front of them. "BOO!" she screamed. They shrieked, and Gildie-the-flareadon flew away. "GET BACK HERE GILDIE!" Gildie-the-elf shouted, running after her.

Julia laughed. "Hey guys, did you miss me?" she asked, smoothing the hair out of her face.

Cress smiled, a hint of relief tracing its way back into their expression. "Hey Julia," they said.

Mai just rolled her eyes. "Great. Another one of the bossy ones. Who's ready to call it a night?" she asked, throwing her hands into the air and turning away. She focused her eyes on Gildie-the-elf, who was now chasing after her flareadon on a giant ice pillar she shot into the air.

Julia only gave her a blank stare.

"Really? You believed I'd call you bossy?" Mai turned back to face Julia. "Only Sophie gets that title, don't worry. We're all glad to have you back," she said. "Or, at least, I think we are. Don't make us regret saying that or anything," she added.

"But do you have Dex?" Cress asked hopefully.

"No, we were in different cells," Julia replied sadly. "They put him where they keep the "Special Cases". Class 7 Noble Code violators, whatever the heck that's supposed to mean."

"Oh." Cress frowned. "It's still great to have you back though!" she added quickly.

Gildie-the-elf ran to join them, panting. She had a column of flame in her left hand, and Gildie-the-flareadon dove and flapped in it gracefully. "Finally got her back," she said. "And yeah, it's awesome to have you back. Now we can finish our battle in the smoothie shop!" she suggested brightly, smirking.

Julia and Gildie stood defensively, ready to start fighting again. Julia conjured several random household objects, including an egg, a screwdriver, and a lightbulb. None of the four had any idea what she would do with them.

Gildie smiled innocently, drawing down a sphere of Everblaze and preparing to create an ice wall at first notice. "Okay," she said. "One, two, three..."

"No. No, no, no." Mai jumped between them. "As entertaining as this would be, now is so not the time. We need to get to that Everseen headquarter place. Julia, do you have any idea where this place is?"

She threw the objects back into the air, conjuring them back into the void. Gildie-the-elf extinguished the fire, mumbling something about wasted opportunities. "No," Julia said. "Although this is Eve, so it'll probably be one of her castles. Any ideas on how to get there?"

"I know," Cress said. "But... you guys need to promise one thing first," they said quietly, staring at the ground.

"What is it?" Gildie-the-elf asked.

"I... I need you to promise that after this, rescuing Dex is our top priority. You have no idea how much he means to me, and to think of him locked up like that..." They looked away.

"Of course we'll get him back, Cress," Mai said. "But all sappy romantic stuff aside, we probably don't have that much more time to crash this party. Let's go!"

Chapter 34

Meanwhile, the Everseen walked through Eternalia. Eve led the way to a ginormous palace. FakeMintie was bouncing up and down outside the door.

"It won't open!" she exclaimed, "Perhaps my Shlaagendas key will do the trick?"

"it won't work...." Eve started to say.

FakeMintie slid the key into the lock. The door swung open with a click.

"Oh. Well, I guess it's always worth a try," Eve led the group into the castle.

Inside was darkness, and the only light source was a small lamp hanging from the ceiling. Chairs were strewn here and there, pillow feathers were all over the floor and... was that a sound of blopping? On the floor was a slightly glowing goldfish, lying on its side and gasping for water.

It stared at them for awhile, and stopped gulping, then started again. ”Water...”, it gasped, “Please...help.”

Suddenly, Linh Song walked into the room, much to the Everseen's surprise. She formed a water ball and splashed it with the cool, refreshing and slightly wet ball of Dihydrogen Monoxide.

The goldfish spontaneously glitched and stood upright, and stared at them.

”Thank you. What time is it?”

Everyone else just stared.

”No response? Ok, I’ll just assume its around 7:00. Name‘s Emeraldweapons, but—”, he stopped, “nem JEFF! AHAHAHAHAHA-“

Linh splashed him with another water sphere.

”oK oK i'Ll sTop!!!" He got up and frost spread across his fins.

“Would you like some help?” He grinned his, well, goldfishy grin. He was met with more silence.

"Pleasure to make your acquaintance!" FakeMintie said. "It's not often I meet other goldfish around here. NOW I HAVE SOMEONE ELSE TO IMPERSONATE!!"

Linh winced. "Isn't identity theft... kind of illegal? Like, really illegal?"

FakeMintie waved her fin dismissively, already pulling a pair of neon green contact lenses from somewhere under her fin. "It's not identity theft, it's just really good cosplay."

Chapter 35

Once Jeff-As-FakeMintie and FakeMintie-As-Jeff were in their disguises, the Everseen went to rendez-vous at one of the many kitchens. FakeMintie-As-Jeff (or possibly Jeff-As-FakeMintie, it was hard to tell) flopped to the nearest of the many blenders and turned it on. The other Goldfish (Jeff-As-FakeMintie?) hopped up to the cupboard and began pulling out ingredients as the rest of the Neverseen tried to plan their next move.

Kat began. "Okay, so we need to figure out what we're in trouble for. None of us have done anything quite bad enough to warrant a Goldfish being up for a mind-break, but–"

She was interrupted by both Goldfish drinking smoothies and changing colours with a low *pop*. FakeMintie now was bright red with orange eyes, and Jeff was neon green with orange eyes.

FakeMintie wiped the smoothie off her fins with a handy nearby raccoon and tossed the raccoon to Jeff. "We just need to hail Farkas! He can help us!"

Fintan frowned, not sure why he hated the idea so much. "But how? We lost our imparter in the void."

Jeff waved a fin. "Easy, we can just make a new imparter." He followed up with a large and rather un-posh burp.

"A new imparter?" Eve asked dubiously? "But none of us are technopaths."

FakeMintie shook her head. "Imparters are made by Goldfish. They require some rare ingredients, but we should have them all right here in the kitchen."

Jeff now flopped upside-down and yelled: “COOKIES FOREVER”.

Everyone turned to look at him and he raised his fins in a “What?” kind of posture.

”It’s a custom to yell ’COOKIES FOREVER’ when a goldfish has a great idea”, he explained.

He got up and started throwing lettuce, tomatoes, fish slices and some tofu together into a random nearby well that was convenient for him to throw his ingredients in, and out popped a fresh imparter.

”HAH!” was all that Jeff said.

”Where’d you get those ingredients?” FakeMintie asked.

”From where I live. Singapore”, he replied, “They’re actually ingredients for sliced fish soup, but in the Lost Cities, things work differently here. There’s actually many other ways to make imparters, but this one is the most delicious way.”

"Oh, of course," FakeMintie said as Kat mumbled something about goldfish. "Might have to borrow your recipe. In the meantime though, IMPARTER. HAIL FARKAS!"

"What was that dramatic fin-swoosh?" Eve laughed. "But I swear FakeMintie, the other idiots probably heard you from the other side of the planet. Don't be so loud."

"Eh, they won't care. Now QUIET. He's about to answer."

Chapter 36

As it turns out, the five remaining Black Swan members had, as a matter of fact, heard a "HAIL FARKAS" drifting across the horizon.

"Y'all, what was that?" asked Gildie. "It kinda sounded like..."

"A goldfish?" Cress prompted. "A goldfish trying to impersonate..." Their voice trailed off when they realized they had absolutely no idea how they were going to finish the sentence.

"No, I was thinking more like a rasbora. You know what I mean? Maybe it's performing some sort of ritual. I've heard they're spectacular celebrations, maybe we should all go see one together sometime." It was impossible to tell whether Gildie was being sarcastic or serious, but either way, Cress nodded. "I could see that, honestly." Anna walked in feeling kinda disappointed because she clearly missed all the fun. "Um, hi guys, you forgot about me?"

"Anna!" Cress gasped.

Anna nodded. "I brought a friend by the way, to help us out."

A girl peeked her head into the room and waved. "Hello! I'm Brystal!"