To End a War I.I

I havent bothered to format this but i want that word count

The rec room in the Eoberona castle was in chaos; Edvard Söderberg and Charon García were stressing about their upcoming wedding (which was made worse as the latter being blind), Satya Malviya was stressing about the horridness of armour and how putting the soldiers names on them isn’t such a good idea with Queen Warda Pineash, and Scylla García was going over different army formations to go over with Princess Eliza Pineash-Huber when she came back from school, which luckily was to be any minute.

The large oak doors connecting the room to the hallway were swung open, not by 5 18-year-old powerhouses and a half-skeleton Mexican Spanish teacher, but by a young woman in the black military outfit that matched her dark skin. She introduced herself as Dontae Baatjies and apologised for interrupting before sharing some unexpected news.

“We have caught a sighting of Leo Steelbrand and Morzal Redbrew entering a limousine in Earth, at the Dubai airport,” the tone is her voice was urgent and worried, “We tried tracking the plate numbers but have come up unregistered in Dubai and we also found that there was no one driving.”

The queen stood up and brushed off her long gown, “I trust that you have followed the vehicle and found where it stopped?”

“Not exactly,” she gave a slight frown, “We have tracked it to the middle of the desert where it disappeared along with all traces of Steelbrand and Redbrew.”

“I shall alert my fellow genies.” Maeraka, Genie of Battle, had spoken up alerting attention to herself and her companions, Eliza Pineash-Huber, Giselle Blanchard, Rachel Wilder, Aurora Söderberg (of whom was suspiciously close to the genie), and Señora Octavia García. Unbeknownst to the others, whilst Dontae was giving her report, the 6 others had filed into the recreation room.

“I don’t understand, what do the genies have to do with any of this?” Edvard Söderberg stood up to go to his sister. He had only come to Eoberona 2 years back and had missed out on a lot of information.

Being incredibly proud of her status as a Genie, Maeraka flapped her arms before going into her explanation, “We Genies originate from the Middle Eastern town of Altridi. To get to Altridi you must first go through Dubai and into the desert. What makes this so troubling is that not only are we in the desert, so is the Djinn Coven. The Djinns are demons that thrive off evil and most likely King Tazo has reached out to Morzal and Leo about the prospects of teaming up to bring an end to our world as we know it.

“Alerting the Genies, however, could allow us to team up properly and with our existence being primarily to kick Djinn butt, this will be quite the good idea. And,” Maeraka gave herself a pause for dramatic effect, “The Djinns haven’t launched an attack for over a year now, so they’ll definitely take any chance for evil they can get their grubby little hands on.”

“Right,” Octavia raised the only eyebrow she had left and turned to Dontae, “for when you next see Jadine, please make sure she’s alright. She got a lower grade on her Spanish test than what she thought she would get and seemed distraught.”

Jadine was Dontae’s nine-year-old sister. Three years ago, the Baatjies sisters had fled the country of Eshington when it became a dictatorship (ironic seeing as it was founded by Irnja, the Goddess of Law and Freedom), and their parents opted to stay behind as there wasn’t enough room on the ship.

“So, are we just going to ignore the whole Shadowmen and Psychopathic Vampire Lady Who Makes Armies Full of Children Because They Are Easier to Control teaming up with demons who want to kill people for fun, or what?” Charon spoke up this time because he was particularly distressed about a lot of things, and he was ready to rip the head of anyone who dared to get in the way of him and his wedding with the love of his life.

“Look,” Warda addressed all in the room with what her daughters, Eliza and Rose, like to call her “My husband and child were kidnapped in the name of war and my child had to live in an abusive household for fourteen years and almost died and my eldest child had to try and save her and I still have no clue where my husband is so I am ready for revenge” voice, “we all want to win this war, trust me, but we need to let Maeraka contact her fellow Genies and hopefully go over to Altridi so we can work together to take our enemies down. You are all dismissed.” Those in the room began filling out, all but 5.

Eliza, Rachel, Aurora, Giselle and Maeraka, otherwise known as The Quantum Watch, were powerful beings, brought together at the age of fourteen by Queen Warda, each with their own tragic backstory (except Rachel, up until last year when her mother got killed in the war). Eliza was kidnapped as a child and dumped in 1940’s Boston with an extremely abusive household and could have died if it wasn’t for her sister, Doctor Rose Pineash-Huber, who was able to just save her.

Maeraka’s mother died in childbirth as she tried to deliver Maeraka and her twin brother, Fawdaa, when she was pretty much starving to death and Maeraka’s father died when she was seven and when she was fourteen, the Genies of Altridi brought her and her brother in, Giselle was almost one of Steelbrand’s soldiers and Aurora and her brother fell victim to their mother’s insanity ever since their father died of smallpox.

The girls each sat down on the leather couches surrounding a black wood coffee table and Maeraka started to get her carpet out of her blue school bag and went to the other end of the room to contact the genies in a silent prayer-like ritual.

“The hell did Octavia bring up the while Spanish test thing? Does she not understand timing?” Rachel pulled the hair tie out of her orange ponytail

“Look,” Giselle enhanced her French accent like she does whenever she is about to answer what she deems as a stupid question, “She understands timing more than you mademoiselle ‘light the gas in science before the match and start a mini fire’”

As silence fell upon the room, Maeraka screamed out, “They’re in!” She jumped up from her prayers, now dressed on her official Genie garments; a silk, royal blue crop top like top that was lined with Arabic designs in golden thread; a matching skirt that went down to her ankles with a slit on her right side that exposed a beaded design along her thigh; golden sandals; and a sash across her waist that held a scimitar sword on her left and a pure gold genie jug, lined with pure lapis lazuli on her right. What was once before held up in a blue hijab, her waist-length, black hair was donned in blue diamonds, alexandrites, sapphires, and benitoites.

“Herregud, calm down.” Aurora threw her hands up in shock.

“Right, okay, good.” Calming down from the surprise shouting, Eliza reigned the conversation in, “Let me talk to my mother really quick and then we can hop on over to Altridi and kill some dudes.

The Quantum Watch, Queen Warda, Princess Rose, the García’s, Edvard, Satya, and the Baatjies sisters (why? Because Eliza likes them both very much) arrived at the Sahara Desert Resort, Dubai, in casual clothes, within 5 hours of Maeraka’s outburst and were all waiting for the workers and their resident Genie to get them all camels to ride out to Altridi for the next four and a half hours in the desert, at night. Whilst they wait, the group was treated to watching the golden sunset over the desert horizon.

A few minutes later, Maeraka emerged to tell her companions that they are ready to go. The twelve of them walked to the back of the resort to where a caravan of 7 camels stood. They were all the same sandy colour, but the rugs on each were all different colours (green, blue, pink, orange, red, yellow, and purple). Maeraka and the resort’s workers helped put all the bags onto the horses and then the Genie of Battle seamlessly jumped onto the back of the camel with the blue seating and started whispering to it in Arabic.

The other workers assisted in getting everyone else onto the camels; Rachel shared the red one with Giselle;

Eliza and Rose had the orange; Aurora sat with her brother on the green camel; Jadine and Dontae on the purple; Octavia sat with Satya on the pink one; the twins, Scylla and Charon, sat on the yellow one; and Warda rode alone on the blue).

Every pair was given a lantern as it was getting dark and fast. The ride to Altridi form the resort was roughly four and a half hours on camel, and because of the absence of light, it would be much easier to get lost or to be attacked by Djinns (luckily, everyone had been briefed on how to kill a Djinn and how to avoid setting one loose).

It took five, long, uneventful hours for Maeraka and co. to reach Altridi, or what Maeraka claimed to be. Satya argued that it looked like every other patch of sand they had already passed but Warda told her childhood friend to be patient as Genies are known for their infinite and cosmic power and how they must keep themselves hidden from many foes.

As always, the Queen of Eoberona was correct and Maeraka swung her legs off her camel and started to walk in a beeline towards what seemed like a random area of the sand. She started muttering and waving her hands around before turning around and addressing everyone.

“Alright,” she began, “When a door appears, it’s going to open almost instantly and when that happens, your camels will race through to the other side. They will then stop, and you are not to get off them until I instruct you to. Understood?” Her friends all nodded in agreement, although, most were a little confused.

As Maeraka finished speaking, large, golden doors (double the size of the Eoberona castle’s rec room doors which were already huge) appeared in a spectacle of light, just as they opened, an army of Djinns came slithering in from the distance, having seen the light.

Eliza instructed everyone but the Quantum Watch to follow into the city, and to those not going in, leave the camels; they can go in by themselves.

Following suit, the Quantum Watch all dismounted their camels and the doors opened and swiftly closed and disappeared as soon as the final camel entered. Eliza, Maeraka, Aurora, Giselle, and Rachel were left standing in the night with a swarm of demons coming their way.

Maeraka went back into her Genie ensemble; Aurora transformed her black and green outfit into 1600, traditional, green Swedish dress; Rachel went full ringmaster with a bright red coat and black top hat; Giselle opted for a black 18th century, French peasant dress and matching enchanted cloak that matched her true goth aesthetic; and Eliza turned her outfit into Gold and purple shorts and top (similar shape to Maeraka’s shirt), and solid gold boots (and she refuses to admit her inspiration for the design came from a video game she fell in love with).

The Djinns swiftly advanced towards the quintet with swords in hand and sneers on their faces. Maeraka went to the front of her group and drew her sword; her eyes instantly locked onto the demons as she calculated her attacker’s moves will be.

The Genie took a few steps to the left and pulled Rachel next to her, “When they get within 12 meters, I want you to create a blinding flash of light in the middle of them and then Aurora,” Maeraka motioned for her to come closer, “you then will then go a bit closer to the Djinns and scream very, very loudly and that should break the gems in their amulets; this will kill them as Djinns are physical manifestations of those jewels as us Genies are the physical manifestations of our jugs. Giselle, I’ll then need you to run and collect all the amulets, if the gems aren’t broken, leave them and if they aren’t, make sure you have all the shards with you when you bring the amulets back. Does everyone understand?”

Nods would have ensued if it wasn’t for Eliza pointing out the Djinns were within 15 meters and the game plan was pushed into action.

Rachel created a ball of pure light in her hand and bowled it towards the demons where it exploded, creating a contrast against the desert night; the blast had the Djinns both blinded and stunned, which gave Aurora time to rush forward and scream ever so loudly and high-pitched that she fell to the floor in her siren form.

Giselle ran to the Djinns and used to high-end speed to remove the amulets, being careful that all the gems inside were broken but not lost in the desert. She then ran back with all 28 amulets in hand and gave them all to Maeraka, who put them in a bubble-like charm and held it in her hands.

Soon the doors opened again and Maeraka rushed everyone inside the city whilst still holding the amulets. When in the safety of the hidden town, Maeraka nodded to the pair of guards holding the door open, indicating to close it and hide the city away again.

“Welcome to Altridi, girls.” Maeraka sighed with a breath of relief. Even while homeless, Maeraka loved Altridi and all of the citizens within. She loved the way the sun sets and rises, and how it lights the city up in gold; she loved how at night, lights within the houses would look even brighter and would always look so beautiful; and despite being easily overwhelmed, the busy marketplace was definitely one of her favourite places, mostly because little girls and women would come up to her and tell Maeraka how she’s an inspiration.

Luckily it was early morning, so Maeraka was able to guide her friends through Altridi and towards The Genie Burrow where the others (hopefully) were without a crowd. The four outsiders were in pure wonder of the city and its beauty, specifically Aurora who was standing still in the middle of the streets, looking up at the stars.

Aurora had grown up behind walls of nobility, expensive houses and strict rules so she never had an opportunity to see the wonder of starlight in her lifetime; even in Eoberona, she was either too busy or too tired to look or the Mirefield city lights are too bright for her to see many.

“Rory, let’s go,” Maeraka grabbed her friend by the hand to pull her along, “We have to get to the burrow.’

“Yeah, yeah, I know, just, I need a minute. I’ve seen the stars like this before.”

“Stop flirting and let’s go!” Rachel waved her arms around and spoke in a loud whisper. The girls fell into a pit of giggles as they were all loopy from not eating or sleeping in over 10 hours.

Maeraka led the girls a little further to a set of doors, next to them is another pair of guards. After exchanging another set of nods, the guards opened the doors to a room with four long dining tables with a raised floor at the back. Despite all the furniture and walls being a sandy brown, the room was drowned in colour from rugs, wall pieces and cushions.

She ushered the girls to follow her to a curtain of beads in the front-left of the room. Behind it was a hallway, but as they entered it, a young man pulled Maeraka into the first room on the right; the rest of the girls followed them in and found an array of people in colourful ensembles (a man in white; a woman in black; two in purple, presumably husband and wife by the way they were huddled close; a man and woman in red; and another man in gold) and amongst them was their travel partners from Eoberona.

“Hey, where’s Fan and Jadine?” Maeraka was hugging tight onto the Genie who pulled her in.

“They’re in one of the guest bedrooms because the young girl fell asleep. Fan said something about singing her to sleep,” A woman wearing red answered, “I’m Hikma by the way. The Genie of Wisdom.” She included that because she seemed to have forgotten to introduce herself to everybody.

“Well done, dear sister,” This came from her brother, Eadala the Genie of Justice, of whom was also in red, “You all should follow Miss Baatjies’ lead and get some rest, and that includes you Maeraka.”

“Look,” Maeraka was now sitting on the blue table in the centre of the room (a.k.a. her office), “I don’t know why you’re calling me out on this, but I do know that I don’t appreciate it and perhaps you should ask ‘Amana if you’re a little-”

“Okay, that is enough!” Warda interrupted before Maeraka could go on any further. “Let’s all go to bed and discuss everything in the morning.”

“And I really hate to tell you this, you kind of are a little annoying, Eadala.” This seemed to have come from the man in gold and known as ‘Amana, of whom was the Genie of Honesty and could not tell a single lie, even by omission.

The following morning ensued introductions between the Genies and Eoberonans and multiple meetings between everyone to finally come to the conclusion to try and find their foes that day as Haya, the Genie of Life, was able to track Leo and Morzal down to somewhere in the Dubai desert; he was certain that they were with the Djinns as once focusing on the desert, his tracking abilities started to get foggy and gave him a terrible headache which lead to his sister, Almawt, the Genie of Death, telling him to deal with it and move on with his life.

Jadine found a fascination with Tharwa, the mystic of Altridi. She was the woman in purple and was married to Aljania, who was in charge of the Genies. According to Dontae, Jadine had always had an interest in the mystic arts, much like their mother.

“So, I have a question,” the young girl spoke to no one in particular, “When are you actually going to attack and end the war? This story is getting a little boring and long.”

“Jadine, what in the god’s name are you on about?” Charon looked onto the young girl in confusion.

“They know.”

“Who?” Charon really seemed to have started panicking, “Jadine, you’re freaking me out!”

“Hush,” the girl walked over to Charon and placed a finger on his lips, “get to fighting them already.”

Fawdaa, Genie of Battle and Maeraka’s twin brother, lifted his sword into the hair and yelled out, “Listen to the small child and fight!”

“I will fight you.” Maeraka gave her brother a disappointed look.

The group of 20 (as Tharwa and Satya stayed behind to look after Jadine) headed out of Altridi in full battle attire and into the hot desert (but luckily it was the winter months so no one died of heat, no matter how much they tried, and Giselle did).

“Hey, Almawt,” Maeraka directed her walking path towards the Genie of Death, “Will any of us die?”

“Isn’t death a constant? We will all die one way or another, my dear.” Almawt smirked at the eyerolls directed at her, “But if you mean during this battle, I don’t believe that we will cease to live, I wouldn’t be surprised if everyone lives through this. You all were chosen for your abilities to survive the unimaginable if you have managed to overcome everything thus far, what makes you think that you won’t survive everything else?

“So you have a grasp on death and all around it?” Dontae raised an eyebrow.

“Yes, I suppose so.”

“My parents, their names are Nadea and Zandre Baatjies. They weren’t able to come with Jadine and me to Eoberona. I fear what has happened to them in Jashington.”

Almawt stood still for a number of seconds before reanimating, “They went quickly.”

“That’s enough death for one day, don’t you think?” Ironically, this came from Octavia, “There’s an army literally running to us and I’d rather them to not be.”

“Fawdaa, Maeraka,” Aljania raced to the front to shout out orders to the Genies, “you two charge head and try and find any rouge soldiers. Shawdowmen or Djinns.”

“What do you mean Shadowmen? How do you even know they’re here?” Scylla questioned the elder Genie. She tightened her grip on the sword that was sheathed in a leather pouch, on her greek toga.

“Don’t worry,” Eliza looked to the sky, “They’re here.”

Rachel snorted, “Right, that was oddly cryptic.”

“Thank you, oddly cryptic is my aesthetic. That and being better than you.”

“Don’t get too cocky there, Lizzy.” Eliza’s older sister, Rose, smacked the top of her head playfully, “Just because you know something is true, doesn’t mean you have to say it. Just look at the dear girl, Rachel has enough problems as it is!” Her hot pink hair fluttered in the desert breeze.

Just at that moment, Eadala was getting choked from behind by a black humanoid creature.

“Too late to run ahead, I guess.” Fawdaa drew his sword, but a similar creature grabbed his arms and twisted them behind the Genie’s back. His twin grabbed his attacker by the head, and with a twist and a pull, it popped right off in her hands.

“Aljania’s right,” Maeraka looked down at the head in her hands, “Shadowmen.”

“Could you help me over here?” Eadala managed to choke out, whilst he was being literally choked, by a guy who went through dodgy surgery to change their genetics to be able to turn into a puff of smoke on command.

“On it!” Charon, of whom had excellent archery skills despite being blind, pulled out his bow and an arrow from his quiver and shot the enemy in the face.[p/]

“Get down!” Aurora screamed out as hoards of shawdowmen can at the group. She used a drop of blood from one of the dead shadowmen and expanded it rapidly as she sent it flying in a radius, flying straight into the surrounding enemies advancing towards them. Apart from potentially scarring them for life, the now large ring of blood flung the shadowmen back a few meters, allowing the Genies and the Eoberonans time to actually get ready.

“Right,” Warda drew her sword of crystals form her metal armor, “Eliza, you take yourself and the rest of the Quantum Watch and try and find Morzal and Steelbrand, don’t kill, we want them for questioning; Aljania, you and the Genies, minus Maeraka of course, stay here or try to track down the Djinns. Try to capture some of them for questioning purposes of course. I’ll take everybody else and we’ll head down the desert near Dubai and make sure no one escapes. Is that understood?”

Various salutes and confirmations sent everyone out to their jobs; leaving the genies alone in the desert.

“Lets split up, I can tell it’s not going to be too bad over here, but I can sense that in the north there is a surge of chaos,” Fawdaa pointed in that general direction, “I can go over there with, let’s say about 4 or 5 others, and do a lot of damage.”

“I like your thinking. Take Hikma, Almawt, Eadala and Haya with you. I’ll take Fan and ‘Amana. If we need help, I’ll contact you.” Aljania nodded his head before sending Fawdaa and his team off.

“’Amana, will they be alright? Fawdaa is only eighteen and I would hate for anything bad to happen.” Fan asked her brother.

“We all know you like the boy, sister. Don’t worry yourself over the literal embodiment of chaos because my partner was being choked in front of me for no good reason and I completely froze up and didn’t do anything and I’m still really worked up over that so I am really hoping that some of these half-wits hurry up so I can impale them already.”

“Wow ‘Amana,” Aljania spoke with a hint of sarcasm, “I never thought you had it in you to speak like that.”

“Same here,” Fan agreed, “I was thinking that you were about to spit out ‘heck’ at some point.”

‘Amana mumbled something along the lines of ‘Shut up’

The Quantum Watch were running across the plains of the desert in search of their foes. All were in the same attire as their battle the previous night and Giselle was ready to call it a day.

“Look, I am going to slaughter Steelbrand when I see her because being in the actual freaking desert with a severe UV allergy and a black gothic aesthetic is the worst thing ever and at this point I hate her more for this than killing my mother and trying to turn me into a miniature soldier slave combo thing.”

“Well, with her and General Edgy McEdgy are off limits with killing, you can take part in the questioning process if you like.” Eliza offered some form of compensation for her friend.

“Merci, mon amie.”

“Attacker from behind Rachel, ETA 46.8 seconds.” Maeraka seemingly blurted out and surprised her friends of whom seemed to forget that she possessed such abilities as predicting attacks in battles. As always, the Genie was right, but with her warning, Rachel was able to send a playing card through her attacker's skull; she left him to a small spasm on the ground before they met their somewhat painful end. Looking down, it was another Shadowman.

“There should be more of them coming.” Eliza drew her staff from it’s holding on her back. It was gold and the top curve in the top, creating a wave like a shape, and in between the top of the arch and the stump like an end of the pole, a purple orb was created as the young general connected herself and her magic to the staff. “Let’s just hope that the others know where they are, though,”

Warda and her team, however, could barely go 5 minutes without having a Djinn try to kill Edvard Söderberg.

Charon tightened the blindfold around his eyes (a gift from the Greek gods that allowed him to have some kind of visual reference in battle as compensation for the incident), and shot an arrow into the amulet of the demon actively trying to kill his fiancé in front of him.

“You okay there?” Charon put Edvard’s green, velvet top hat back on, completing his fancy 1900s fancy rich dude ensemble. Were any of Eoberona’s specialty soldier’s outfits practical or traditional? No. Did anyone actually care enough to do something about it apart from placing discreet protective gear in them? No, not at all.

“We don’t have time for niceties!” Dontae yelled out just before impaling a close ranged Djinn with her spear.

“Touché, but why am I actually here?” Rose created enchanted poison oak strands from the palms of her hands and threw them at the Djinns, wrapping them in them swiftly and giving the demons extreme symptoms of poison oak rashes, and impossibly quickly, “Because hear me out, I’m a doctor. I save lives and give children lollypops after vaccines. I don’t kill demons!”

“Rose, toughen up. You are my daughter and therefore a warrior. Any objections to that and I don’t care because this is a war and morals don’t matter anymore. You’ve seen what they did to Eliza, and we have no clue what could be happening to your father,” Warda used this sudden surge of anger to slice through multiple demons at once with her sword, “Once we get Morzal we could finally get him back!”

Suddenly, as if on cue, a royal purple screen appeared in the air, “General Pineash-Huber, ma’am. We are in possession of a knocked out edge-lord and vampire. All others have been eliminated. Where shall we go?”

“Eliza, why on earth did you knock out Rachel and Giselle? What did they ever do to you?” Octavia joked, knowing obviously who Eliza meant, but couldn’t resist the opportunity.

“Ahh, by existing. But in all seriousness, I don’t want these two waking up anytime soon. What do I do? Maeraka also says that tracking King Tazo is pointless because as long as there’s evil, they’ll keep on existing.” Eliza turned around to tell her friends off screen to stop acting like idiots and do their jobs.

“Take them to the maximum security cells in Leeside. I presume you’ve already done this, but tell the Genies to meet us there. And also, how did you catch them so fast?” Warda looked at her youngest with a sense of pride.

“Look, mum, they came at us and Maeraka just raised an eyebrow and BOOM! They fell unconscious and then Rory just screamed really loudly and killed everyone else. Like, this all happened within pretty much 5 minutes and I’m kinda impressed. And Maeraka was too, I mean, it could be just me or she seriously has the-”

“Okay, thank you, Eliza. Meet you at Leeside ASAP. I’m thinking next project is getting one Chase Goodman out if this dictator funk he’s in with Eshington.” Warda closed the screen and teleported herself and her team to Eoberona. She was not excited about the paperwork for this mission.

What the queen could do, however, was celebrate that the war was over. With Morzal and Leo being the centre of the war, perhaps Sandu, her darling husband could be found, after 18 years of being missing.