The fairies, one male and one female, based upon their vague figures, looked down at Blue with a hostile air. Lena bowed her head, and grabbed Micro’s shoulder to encourage him to do the same.

  “To get involved in the politics of fairies is to court death,” Lena whispered to Micro. “Your otherworldly luck will not save you from their collective power over fate.”

  “Are they strong?” Micro asked, hesitant to join her in bowing to them.

  “Their kind are born immortal, and they commune with the highest sects in the land,” Lena continued while the fairies looked around at the group with disdain. “I know little more than that, but their reputation is—”

  “You speak of our kind with a fool’s tongue, ignorant child,” the male fairy said as he moved forward through the air to look down at Lena. “And you openly associate with our mutual enemy. Is this known to your sect?”

  “I am truly an ignorant fool to open my mouth in your presence. Forgive me, venerable one,” Lena said with a humble tone, looking at the ground as she apologized.

  “You know of the treaty, yes?” the fairy continued.

  “Treaty…? I apologize, but I have no knowledge of any—”

  “Oh, leave the kid alone, Rineth,” the female fairy called out. “Foolish children should be educated before they are rebuked.”

  “They don’t seem that strong…” Micro whispered to Blue. He looked up at the fairies and noticed a fair amount of energy contained within their small forms, but no more than a cultivator of his own level seemed to possess. “Can we just leave?”

  “It’s not what they can do…” Blue sighed. “It’s what, and who, they control.”

  The female fairy suddenly dropped down to where Blue stood, and Micro was surprised to see Blue suddenly kneel before the pale creature. The burning tree behind him continued to crackle, and Lena still refused to do anything but bow humbly to the fairies.

  “I believe we spared you on the condition that we would never see you again, your majesty,” the fairy said with a grin, but her tone was cold. “And yet, here you are. Playing some cruel trick on these hapless cultivators, no doubt?”

  “I go by Blue now, thanks,” Blue replied, struggling against an invisible weight that kept her on her knees. Though she was unable to raise her head to look at them, her voice was still full of spite. “And I didn’t mean to catch the eyes of any bratty little butterflies on my way.”

  The fairy raised an eyebrow at Blue’s insult, but only laughed softly while her colleague, Rineth, hovered overhead. She bent down slightly and crossed her arms, then continued.

  “To think, my generation was raised on stories of your defeat back then. You’re a legend, did you know? But now look at you, weaker than my baby brother over there…” the fairy scoffed, and placed a foot on Blue’s shoulder, forcing her to brace herself against the ground with her hands. Rineth looked over with a slightly resentful expression, but held his tongue. “My name is Shier, but you wouldn’t know that. Perhaps you recall our grandfather, Theadin?”

  “If I had time to remember the name of every bug I swatted—” Blue spat back, but she was cut off as the weight on her shoulder increased.

  “Enough,” the fairy called Shier said coldly as she stepped back, allowing Blue to rise halfway to a seated position. “We’re only here because the stink of chaos energy in this region is notable as far away as the Divine Woods. Is it the pixies’ doing this time?”

  “That’s probably Nora’s fault,” Blue replied with a shrug.

  “Who?” Shier asked.

  “Just the latest goddess to stir trouble up for the cultivators,” Blue replied. “I have my reasons for passing through here with the nitwits behind me, so you can tell your friends up north everything is fine, and be on your—”

  “I do appreciate you clearing that up for me, your majesty,” Shier remarked sarcastically. “Indeed, I don’t see any reason to dwell on the odd souls behind you.”

  “Bye then—” Blue attempted to conclude the conversation, but the weight only increased on her back as Micro looked on in confusion.

  “But how fortunate it is, that we should be given the opportunity to deliver the clipped wings of a legend to our queen,” Shier said happily as a small blade formed in her hand. “Fate always smiles on a fairy!”

  “We have somewhere to be, fairies,” Micro interjected. “I’d appreciate you leaving us to it…”

  “Are my ears working?” Rineth gasped. “Did that human just address us in such a way?”

  “I’m not a human, really,” Micro added. “Honest mistake though…”

  “What are you then?” Rineth asked.

  “I’m a truck.”

  “A race I haven’t heard of? How odd…” Rineth brought his hand to his chin as he searched his memory. “No matter, we’ll rule them one day either way.”

  “Enemy of this land, I act as the hand of fate on this day,” Shier declared with a wide grin, ignoring Micro’s conversation with her brother as she approached Blue with her little sword glowing beside her. “May your soul find no peace in this land!”

  Blue was still unable to move due to whatever technique of the fairies continued to afflict her, and Lena silently kept her head bowed as the scene unfolded by the light of the old burning tree. Rineth simple watched with pleasure as his sister approached the powerless pixie. Micro opened his mouth to speak again as the surreal situation went on. But as the glowing white fairy raised her sword with a smile that sent a shiver down Micro’s back, a fluctuation of energy beneath Micro’s feet caught Rineth’s attention.

  “What do you think you’re—” Rineth began, summoning a small sword in his own hand, but he was too late to react. Lena finally lifted her head to see Micro unleash a familiar attack, though it was far from an ordinary attack. She only caught a glimpse of the baffled expressions on the fairies’ faces before they were trapped in boxes, manifestations of Micro’s unique application of the Turtle Art. The box around Shier was barely large enough to hold her, but it was dense with energy. The box in which Rineth had been trapped was much larger, due to how high above the ground he was at the time, but Micro concentrated his efforts and gradually reduced the size of the larger box until it was the same size as the other.

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  He braced himself for their resistance by pouring as much energy into the boxes as he could, causing them to glow so brightly that Lena had to look away. However, he quickly grew confident that he would be able to contain the fairies, despite their efforts to escape.

  “You fool!” Lena shouted.

  “Unbelievable,” Blue said after a deep breath, finally relieved of the weight on her back. “So you really were crazier than me, eh?”

  “I expected them to be stronger…” Micro shrugged, relaxing his control of the two boxes of energy shaped like miniature truck cabs. “What did that one do to you?”

  “Whatever!” Blue suddenly frowned and turned away, unwilling to answer, but Lena rose to her feet and grabbed Micro by the shoulders with her shaking hands.

  “Fairies are one of few races capable of wielding fate itself!” Lena cried, startling Micro. “It’s not the power of a single fairy we are taught to fear, but the will of their race!”

  “She’s not wrong…” Blue added reluctantly. “I didn’t realize that was common knowledge now.”

  “Is fate another element?” Micro asked. “There were the six elements, then chaos energy… Is fate like that?”

  “Fate cannot be weighed against the powers of mortals, boy!” Lena’s cries echoed through the woods, but her voice soon grew weary. She stumbled backward from Micro and looked solemnly at the two fairies’ prisons.

  “I don’t think I can squish them any more than that, but I think I can keep them trapped long enough for us to hide,” Micro explained, relaxing the flow of his internal energy slightly.

  “The collective will of those pompous insects isn’t something you run from…” Blue replied with a look of concern Micro didn’t often see on her face. “Your face is known to them now, and much stronger fairies than these will be after you, unless…”

  “What should we do?” Lena asked Blue with desperation in her cry.

  “You didn’t feel anything weird when they looked at you?” Blue asked while looking closely at Micro with glowing eyes. “No spooky forces pulling at you, or anything like that?”

  “I felt a bit uncomfortable…” Micro replied. “But that was probably just because of their faces.”

  “Ha!” Blue burst out laughing at Micro’s remark, but she soon composed herself and continued. “Well, there are exceptions to the power of fate from time to time, but let’s… Yep, that’d work. Let’s play it that way.”

  “What’s the plan?” Micro asked.

  “Just follow my lead,” Blue explained quickly. “This is too funny.”

  “What might you be planning—” Lena cried, but Blue held her hand up to silence her.

  “Let them out now,” Blue addressed Micro with a calm voice.

  “Are you sure?” Micro asked, pointing at the box containing Shier. “I’ve seen the look on a tire-slasher’s face before, and that one was definitely about to cut you.”

  “I’m sure.”

  “Okay then.”

  Lena looked from Blue to Micro in panic, but didn’t have time to voice her objection before the ethereal prisons holding the two fairies disappeared into the air. Micro relaxed his energy and watched calmly and the two fairies flew high above their heads in an instant, with a storm-like aura forming around them. Micro realized quickly that they were much stronger than they seemed, even stronger than Lena before the events of the tournament, but he was reassured by the bold look now worn by Blue.

  “Hey, you sparkling bugs!” she called up to them, her voice cutting through the wind which the fairies were stirring up.

  “You will all pay with your lives!” Shier and Rineth shouted in unison as a dark cloud appeared above them, full of small flashes of lightning.

  “You can kill them if you like, but I have some bad news for you!” Blue continued, showing no concern for their next attack.

  “Idle chatter of an inferior—” Rineth snapped back, but he was silenced when Blue also began to glow.

  “You know what I’m about to do, right?” Blue asked.

  “You may have the strength to escape once or twice, but you won’t make it far, especially with those pets of yours!” Shier sneered down at Blue. “Accept the consequences of your lifetime of failure.”

  “Who said anything about escaping?” Blue scoffed. “Do what you like to those jerks.”

  Lena and Micro looked confused by Blue’s declaration, but watched quietly as the fairies’ intent attack seemed to wane.

  “So you’d abandon these weaklings like the treacherous fool you’ve always been? I’d expect nothing less from the forgotten queen!” Shier replied.

  “Yes, but wouldn’t it be funny if rumours of our meeting today became as popular as the lies you tell of me?” Blue asked, then chuckled with a dark grin. “About the human boy with a jade core who trapped the two of you in a tiny little box?”

  The air around the fairies suddenly froze, and the storm of energy around them lost all momentum.

  “You…” Shier gasped. “What did—”

  “You can bring the heads of those two nobodies home to your butterfly overlords for all I care. They might even be on their way here to meet you by now. You share your thoughts, right? Or was it just your feelings…? Whatever,” Blue said, gesturing to the silent Micro and Lena. “But I look forward to singing tales of this fateful encounter, the day a cultivator with a brand new jade core bested the mighty Shier and… whatever your brother’s name was.”

  Shier and Rineth remained hovering about Micro and Lena with frozen expressions. Rineth opened his mouth to speak, but Shier turned to glare at him with rage in her eyes.

  “It’s a tricky think about fairies,” Blue whispered back to Micro and Lena.

  “If you get a few of them riled up, they start popping up all over the place.”

  “You let that boy trap us while I was dealing with our enemy’s queen?!” she snapped at her brother, but shame was evident in her tone. She closed her eyes and shook her head in frustration, trying to calm herself. “Never mind… This cannot be known to the others…!”

  “Of course, I may just forget about this meeting after a meal with my two humans.” Blue’s tone became merrier as the fairies grimaced, still mindful that Blue could teleport away at any moment. “I’ve already forgotten one of your names anyway. Was it all just a dream…?”

  “The will of fairies is fate itself, you vile creature,” Shier growled at Blue with a sour expression, but she appeared to be in a state of panic. “And time is our ally!”

  Before Blue could say another word, the fairies vanished, along with any trace of their aura. Lena fell to her knees, gasping for breath, and Micro scratched his head. He looked down at Blue with a confused expression, and she happily waved back.

  “Fairies have a lot in common with you boring old cultivators!” Blue shouted at Lena. “But that silly pride of theirs saved your sorry skins today!”

  “You saved us, Blue,” Micro smiled. “You could have escaped any time, right?”

  “You may attract more trouble than a pixie, but letting you carry me around a little bit longer does seem like fun,” Blue replied. “I haven’t seen many fairies taken by surprise like that, but I guess they were quite young. Good job, boy.”

  “You’re both insane…” Lena grumbled, still struggling to catch her breath. “There is nothing more dangerous than provoking the fairies…!”

  “I take that personally.” Blue frowned.

  “Let’s rest for a while,” Micro said, looking down at the exhausted Lena with pity in his glowing eyes. “Your core is still cracked all over.”

  “Very well…” Lena replied, then leaned back and relaxed her posture.

  “Oh!” Micro suddenly shouted. He pulled the Core Card which Blue had given him from his storage, and Blue nodded in agreement. “Shall we?”

  “I’ll race you!” she shouted, jumping up to the pocket where Trill resided to acquire her own identical card. He handed it to her with a look of fatigue.

  Lena reluctantly nodded her head and crawled over to a nearby tree. She sat with her back to the tree, and took a final look at Micro with a suspicious gaze.

  “Take your time,” Micro reassured her. “We’ll be over here.”

  “Very well,” Lena replied.

  “Hey!” Micro turned to see Blue already meditating atop her Core Card, then rushed to sit beside her. “That’s no way to start a race!”