Hase - Before Ever After

Chapter 27 - No turning back

"Okay, so it's all settled. We go at dusk, Travis, Ling-Ling, Joy and the dragons hold back the villains while me, Rose and Hawk search for Vicky. Once we find her, Rose will use the coin to summon the Wishing Well and destroy Vicky's wand so we can defeat her for good." Astoria revised the plan.

Once they ended up talking, they went their separate ways to prepare everything they might need.

When Rose finished preparing, she noticed the sun was setting, and the sky had a beautiful mixture of warm tones in it. Red, orange and yellow painted the sky, and the view, along with the calmness, brought the memory of her last conversation with Hawk to mind.

She didn't want to be all sentimental now, they were about to face great danger and this wasn't the right time to get messy thoughts in her head. But she couldn't help her eyes from wetting before inhaling deeply to try and clear her mind.

As if faith was trying to mock her, once she turned around to go back to the others, she immediately froze at the view of Hawk coming right her way. She didn't really want to talk to him, there was already enough on their plates and avoiding the drama was definitely the wisest thing to do, but she found herself with no way to go to escape him.

He seemed to be fighting his own demons when he stood by her and said a simple "hey".

"Hey, Hawk". She answered.

An awkward moment of silence later, both looking mostly at the ground, he started to talk again.

"Rose, I just wanted to say... I know I made things weird between us and I'm truly sorry for that-"

"Hawk..." She tried to say something, but he interrupted.

"Before you say anything, please let me finish". He waited for her response, and when she nodded, he continued. "I know an apology doesn't make things right, but I'm afraid it's all I got right now. Listen, we're gonna have to fight Vicky again, and the last time you almost froze to death (she grimaced at that), so I have to make sure we're at our best out there, and that besides anything that happened, we're still gonna be a great team in battle. I would never forgive myself if something happened to you, or any of the others, because we couldn't get our heads in the game". He gave her a meaningful look to let her know he was finished.

Rose inhaled deeply and let out a heavy sigh. He was right, the awkwardness between them couldn't get in the way of their mission. They had to be focused, there was just too much at stake.

Seeing her clearly distressful look he could almost sense the inner turmoil in her, and after a few seconds without a response, his eyes looked everywhere but at her in the uncomfortable silence. He knew it was a long shot to try and make amends right now, but hey, a guy could hope, right?

"You're right". She said almost in a whisper, but he heard her, and it was enough for him to turn his attention back to her. "Whatever is going between us, shouldn't be in the way of our mission. We're gonna have to get over this, at least for now, anyway".

He let out a sigh he didn't know he was holding. "When this is over, maybe we could talk about this again? I hate how messy things are, right now".

"Yeah... maybe". Rose answered, suddenly taking notice of how low the sun was in the sky. "We should go back to the others, it's almost time."

"Yeah, let's go". Hawk gave her his best smile, but it didn't quite reach his eyes.

When they reached the others, everything was ready to go. With a last meaningful look at the others, the group took off towards the school.

The dragons kept a low flight in order to hide between the high trees so they couldn't be spotted before they intended to be. Once close enough to the end of the forest, Astoria, Rose and Hawk were left behind to go by foot while the others got ahead and distracted the villains.

As expected, right before the six dragons were spotted, Vicky's army concentrated their efforts in taking them down, allowing the three heroes to easily sneak into the school. But something about that definitely felt wrong. All three of them felt it, but neither wanted to be the first to let out their pessimistic thoughts.

After a couple minutes, they reached the doors of the school and prepared to enter, but before they could, Astoria spoke her mind.

"There's something wrong. Getting past them shouldn't have been that easy. They wouldn't ignore the possibility of someone sneaking past them like that. They even left the door unguarded".

"Yeah, I thought the same". Hawk said.

"Well, then we all agree there's a trap waiting for us, right?". Rose was next to express her concerns.

"Yes, it's a sure thing. But there is just no turning back now. Whatever it is, we'll have to face it". Hawk encouraged the others.

They exchanged a look and nodded their heads. "On three".

One...

Two...

~~~

"Whoa, that was a close one". Travis said after dodging to avoid an attack. "How long o you think we can keep this up?".

"I don't really know, but we need to make sure the others can get past them. Can you see them anywhere?" Joy asked.

"Uh... Guys, I can see them, but..." Ling-Ling started.

"What?" Travis shouted desperately while trying to keep unharmed.

"But so do them". She finished, pointing to what she had seen.

The Bad Wolf seemed to have spotted Astoria, Hawk and Rose trying to sneak into the school, and quickly got the others' attention by shaking his head in their direction.

But unlikely the reaction that would be expected, to prevent them from reaching their destination, the villains simply ignored their presence. That alone made shivers run down Ling-Ling's spine, but what came next was what really got under her skin. The small group of villains exchanged mischievous grins and even more mischievous looks.

"Did you just see what I saw?" Travis' question broke her out of her shock.

"I did! Travis... there's something really wrong going on here."