Chapter Seven

                     Just the Beginning

      “Wyatt, wake up!” Dakota was shaking Wyatt awake, or at least, trying to.  Wyatt merely groaned and rolled over in his sleep.

     “What did I tell you?  He won’t wake up for a few more hours, even if you try to wake him up,” Mai said, rolling her eyes.  Her brother was only slowing them down instead of helping, and she was starting to wonder if it they would have been better off if he had stayed back at their house.  “He’s hopeless.”  Dakota laughed and walked over to Amo, who had been prancing around in circles, but stopped in front of Dakota.

     “Hi, Amo!”  Amo lowered his head and nudged Dakota.  “Do you want to go for a ride?” Dakota asked, turning back to Mai.

     “What, you mean on Amo?”  Mai had never ridden on any kind of animal before, not even a horse, though she had always wanted to.  This wouldn’t be too different from horseback riding.  Dakota grinned and nodded, stroking Amo along the neck.   

     “Well,” Mai looked back down at Wyatt, who was snoring loudly, “why not.  But I don’t think he should fly though, we might be spotted.  We should stay on the ground.”  She said this half because she didn’t want them to be spotted, and half because she would prefer to keep her feet firmly on the ground.  She walked forward next to Dakota, who nodded.

     “Okay, there’s a trick to riding on him,” he said to Mai. “Hold on with your knees.  You can grab his mane if you need to, but try not to pull it, he doesn’t like that.”

       Without warning, Dakota sent a blast of air underneath Mai that lifted her up eight feet into the air, and she came down landing on Amo’s back.  With a single leap, Dakota jumped onto Amo’s back, right in front of Mai.

     “How do you jump so high?” she asked him.  It seemed that this was the millionth question she’d asked in the past few days, and she would be glad when she finally knew all she needed, so she would no longer be confused.  But she thought that that would take a very long time.

     “It’s part of my Wind Powers.  I push the air under my feet down and it pushes me up,” Dakota said, looking over his shoulder at Mai.

     “That’s really cool.”

     “Yeah, I always thought so.  You ready?  Okay, hold on.  Let’s go, Amo!”  Amo gave a roar, and then started running through the woods.  Mai instinctively wrapped her arms around Dakota’s waist, but she found it was much easier holding on than she had thought.  Amo was running smoothly considering how fast he was going.  It felt good to Mai to feel the wind rush against her face, the air was so still under the canopy of trees.  Amo seemed happy to be running again.  Dakota raised his arms into the air and shouted in delight.

      “Dakota, be careful!”

      Dakota didn’t lower his arms.  He looked like a kid on a rollercoaster, having the time of his life.  “Come on, Mai.  Try it!”

     Mai hesitated, then slowly let go of Dakota and put her arms out as if she was flying.  The warm summer air swirled around them, she felt free, happy, like she could just fly off and leave all of her troubles behind her, far below on the ground.  She had never felt so good before.  “This is great!” she shouted to Dakota.

     “I knew you’d love it!” A few minutes later, Dakota instructed Amo to head back to where Wyatt was sleeping.  Amo turned around gracefully and started running in the other direction.

     “How long have you had Amo?” Mai asked, curious to learn a little more about her new friend.  She hoped that he wasn’t lying too, that he wouldn’t betray her as Sam had.  But she felt she could trust him.

    “About three years, right Amo?” Amo did not stop as he grunted in response, flipping his mane.

   “When did you get Tito?”

     Dakota scratched his head thoughtfully, and then said, “I’ve had him as long as I can remember.  I know I had him when I still lived on Solaria.”

    “One thing I still don’t understand,”—there were still several things Mai still didn’t understand—“how all these animals from Solaria got here, and why hasn’t everyone from Earth noticed them?”

     Dakota was quiet for a second and then said,  “Well, the ships that the Solarians used to evacuate here were very big, so I’m guessing that we took them with us, or they snuck on board.  I don’t know why no one from Earth has seen them; I guess the animals are just really good at hiding and keeping to themselves.  Hey look, there’s Wyatt!” Sure enough, off a ways in front of them, was Wyatt, still sleeping.  Amo slowed down and stopped as soon as they reached him.  Dakota jumped off Amo, using his air powers so he landed softly.  He reached his hand out to Mai, who grabbed it, and Dakota helped lower her down off of Amo’s back.

     “Thanks.  That was great!” said Mai as soon as she was safely on the ground, she really hoped that Dakota was not trying to trick her.   She thought he would make an excellent friend.

     “No problem,” Dakota said cheerfully.

     “Hey, what’s going on?” They both turned around to see Wyatt, who stretched his arms and yawned loudly.

     “Finally, you’re awake,” Mai said wearily.  Back at home, Wyatt had always awoke close to ten o’ clock in the morning, so everyone had to wait for him before they could eat breakfast, and it got very annoying.  It had to be at least ten o’ clock now, if not later.  It didn’t make sense why Wyatt slept so much, he normally fell asleep at a decent time, and this was just one more thing for Mai to add to her list of things that confused her, which—if she actually had the time to write out—would stretch at least thirty feet long.   

     “Well, I mean, come on,” said Wyatt in irritation. “A guy needs his sleep.  Hey, we got any food?  I’m starving to death.”

     “Are you ever not starving to death?” Mai asked rolling her eyes.  Why had she ever let Wyatt come along with her?

     “No, not really, no.  Anyway, do we have any food?” said Wyatt, standing up and stretching his legs.

     “Of course not, Wyatt.  When would we have been able to get food?  We’re in the middle of the forest.   It’s not like there are supermarkets in the middle of the forest?” said Mai irritably. Why did he always have to complain about food?  That was all he ever really did, was eat, sleep, complain, and tell cheesy jokes.

     “I don’t know.  I just thought that someone as smart as you would have thought to bring food along,” said Wyatt, though he couldn’t hide the sarcasm from his voice.

     “Wyatt!  For heavens sake!  We ran in here to get away from the Fire Tribe!  We couldn’t have stopped at a grocery store on the way!”  Wyatt opened his mouth to protest, but Tito leaped onto him once more, knocking him over.   He started rolling around, trying to pull Tito off.

     “Come on you guys, you should stop fighting,” said Dakota, as he stroked Amo.  Amo whinnied.

    “AAAHHHRRRGGG!  GET THIS THING OFF ME!” Wyatt looked as though he was having a wrestling match with Tito—and Tito was winning.  He was so pathetic sometimes.  

     Dakota walked over to Wyatt. “Tito, get off of him,” he said wearily.  Tito gave Dakota a disappointed look before jumping off of Wyatt.

     “What did I ever do to him?  Why doesn’t he like me?” said Wyatt as he brushed himself off.  “It seems like all animals are out to get me.  Remember that time when I tried to feed that puppy, and he bit my hand?  And what about the time I was playing with the neighbor’s cat and it almost scratched my eye out.  And what about—“

     “We get it, Wyatt.  Maybe if you didn’t tease the animals in the first place, then they wouldn’t attack you.”  Pausing for a brief second to adjust her water pouch, Mai said, “We should get going.  Who knows, maybe the Fire Tribe knows where we are.  We shouldn’t stay in one place for too long.”

     “I think you’re right, Mai.  We should get going,” said Dakota.

     “Are we going to be riding on Amo?” Mai asked, she would have liked to ride the leopard-horse again, she had really enjoyed it the first time, but she still wasn’t sure how Wyatt would do riding him.  As he had said himself, he didn’t always have the best of luck with animals.

     “No, I don’t think we need to ride him this time, only when we’re going to be traveling great distances.”  Amo walked up to Dakota and started licking him.  Dakota started giggling.

     “Come on, our house is this way,” said Wyatt, pointing in the direction that they needed to go.  Dakota and Mai nodded, then followed Wyatt.  Tito leaped onto Amo’s back as he started following right behind Dakota.  They walked for long time, and eventually, Tito got bored and started tormenting Wyatt again.   He would leap onto him and the result would be Wyatt running around and crashing into a tree.

     “Oh Wyatt, don’t you ever learn?” Mai asked him after he crashed into a tree for the fourth time.  She loved her brother, but sometimes she wondered if he was only six years old, instead of thirteen.

    “It’s not my fault.  If that stupid little thing,” he cast a nasty look over to Tito, who at the time, was sitting on Mai’s shoulder, “would just leave me alone—“

    “Oh yeah, just blame it on poor little Tito,” Mai cooed as she scratched Tito behind the ear. “Maybe if you were nicer to him he wouldn’t do that.”  Wyatt scowled at her and looked away.

     “Mai’s right you know,” Dakota chimed in. “Tito would be a lot nicer to you, if you were nicer to him.”  Wyatt looked like he was having some sort of argument with himself.  He crossed his arms and said no more, carefully to keep his distance from Tito at all costs.  After awhile, Wyatt started humming something, then after about two minutes of humming he added the words.

  This is the song that never ends

  It just goes on and on my friends

  Some people

  Started singing it not knowing what it was

  And they’ll just keep on singing it forever just because...

    He repeated this over and over, and then Dakota joined in.  Normally, if Wyatt was humming this song, their stepmother would tell him to stop, she had always hated "The Song That Never Ends", but since she was not around, Mai would have to be the one to tell them to stop.  She let them sing it for awhile, to let them have their fun, but after almost ten minutes of constant noise, she had finally been pushed to her limit.  “Wyatt!” she shouted.

     “What?”

     Dakota fell silent at once, looking from one sibling to the other, an unsure look on his face.

     “You can stop singing now, Wyatt,” Mai said. “I think it’s been long enough.”

     Wyatt grinned. “Look, we’ve been through this before.  It’s the song that never ends.  That means—“

     “I know, I know.  It means it never ends, okay I get it.”

     “Then you’ll understand that I have to keep singing it.”

     Mai narrowed her eyes.  Why did he always have to be so annoying?  She drew out a stream of water from her pouch. “Don’t make me use this.”

     Wyatt did not sing anymore for the rest of the trip.  Her powers had already proven to be quite useful, in more than one way.  She wouldn’t have really hurt Wyatt, but he evidently took her seriously.  After a few more minutes of silent walking, Mai started to worry.  What if their stepmother, Alice, wouldn’t let Dakota stay, as she had with Sam.  After all, Mai doubted very highly that Dakota would use his power to force Alice into letting him stay, so she could say no.  And she probably wouldn’t trust Solarians after what happened with Sam.  What if she didn’t accept Dakota, what would happen to him?  He couldn’t go back home, he had none now.  If he went back, then he would be captured and who knows what would be done to him.  It was not a pleasant thought, but she had to keep it in her mind, and think of some way to convince Alice that he was okay, and that he had to stay with them.

     “We’re almost there,” said Mai.

     “Good, I’m starving,” whined Wyatt loudly. “Maybe mom will have a big meal ready for us.”

     “Oh come off it, Wyatt.  I just hope she isn’t too worried about us.  We’ve been gone for almost a day.”  She knew that Alice would be worried.  If they told her the truth about what was happening, what did happen, and what was soon to happen, maybe she would let Dakota stay.  And maybe she would let them go on their search for the other Chosen Ones.

     Wyatt clutched his empty stomach. “No wonder I’m so—“

    “Wyatt, would you just shut up!  We all know you’re hungry!  I’d be surprised if the whole world doesn’t know by now!” said Mai; she had finally lost her patience with him.  Why did he always have to do that kind of thing?  He needed to grow up, and forget about food.

     “It’s all right, Mai.  I mean, none of us have eaten for almost twenty-four hours,” said Dakota.

     “Don’t remind me,” said Wyatt glumly. “Hey, look!” Wyatt was pointing to a small tree fort that he and Mai had built after they had moved into their house.  They had built it there because one day, they had no one to play with, so they pretended it was a magic tree fort that let them travel to a different world.  And when they reached this world, they were made brave knights by the king and sent out on a quest to find more knights, so they could fight against the evil emperor.  As Mai thought about this pretend adventure, she thought it greatly resembled the adventure that had just befallen them.  She wondered if they would actually be able to complete their important quest, or if they would be too late.   

    “Our house is just over here.  Oh, I can’t wait!  Food, food, food, FOOD!” Wyatt started running, with Mai and Dakota on his heels.  As soon as they came to the edge of the forest they saw their house.  But something was wrong.

     “Look, there’s smoke coming out of the chimney,” Mai observed.

     “So?” asked Wyatt.

     “It’s near the end of February, and it’s really warm out.  And, she never uses the fireplace, even in the wintertime.  I wonder what she’s doing.” Now Mai was more worried than ever.  Something was wrong, she could sense it.  Something definitely wasn’t right.

     “You two wait here,” Dakota told Amo and Tito.  They walked up to the front door and opened it.  A cloud of thick black smoke issued from it, making them cough.  Dakota sent a blast of air through the door and blew the smoke away.  The whole inside of the house was a wreck, furniture was tipped over and some things were on fire.  The walls were scorched and the whole place was slowly catching fire.  Mai leapt into the house and pulled a stream of water out of her pouch and used it to put out the flames.  Her heart was beating very fast as she tried to imagine what could possibly have happened.  This explained this smoke rising from the chimney, but where were Alice and Matty?  As soon as all the smoke died down, Dakota and Wyatt entered.      

     “What happened?” Wyatt asked, horror struck.

     “Fire Tribe,” said Dakota, without having to look too closely at anything to tell.

     “Mai you brought that girl here!  She knew that we lived here, so came here looking for us!” said Wyatt furiously.  Mai felt her stomach knot up.  He was right!  She had led Sam right to their house, and she had come looking for them.

     “It’s not her fault, Wyatt.  She didn’t know,” said Dakota soothingly.  Mai was glad that he, at least, didn’t blame her.

     “Where’s Mom, and Matty?” Mai asked hurriedly as she looked around.  They still had not shown themselves, and now, Mai was starting to get frantic. “We should look for them.  Come on!” Without another word, she ran out of the room.  She looked in burnt room after burnt room, but she couldn’t find her family anywhere.  She had only one room left to look in: Matty’s room.  His room was just as ruined as the others, and it looked like a fight had taken place in this room.  There were already footprints in the thick layer of soot on the floor.  There were also marks that could suggest that someone or something had been dragged away.  The walls were starting to crumble and the house was creaking as it swayed in the wind.

     “MOM! MATTY!” There was no answer. “No,” Mai whispered quietly, collapsing on the floor, tears running down her cheeks.  Wyatt was right, it was her fault they were gone; she had led Sam right to them.  She had put them in danger and now they were gone.  She walked over to Matty’s crib. There was his favorite action figure, the only thing in the room that was still in tact.  Matty never went anywhere without it.  Something very bad must have happened to the small infant.  She picked it up and looked at it closely.  “I’m sorry, this is all my fault,” she whispered.

     “Mai?”  Mai looked over her shoulder to see Dakota standing in the doorway.  He looked concerned, and at the same time, regretful. “I’m really sorry, this is all my fault,” he said sadly as he walked forward.

     “How is it your fault?  I led Sam right to them,” Mai said, wiping the tears from her eyes.  He was only trying to make her feel better, if anyone was to blame, it was her, not him.

     “I should have told you the Fire Tribe was bad the day I met you.  And if it wasn’t for me, you wouldn’t have tried to save me from the Fire Chief and you would still be with Sam, finishing your training.”

    “No, it’s not your fault at all.  And besides, I would rather be here with you, than back with Sam.  She would have just used me to do her bidding, I’m sure.  I would be doing more bad than good, and I wouldn’t even be aware of it,” said Mai, putting a reassuring hand on Dakota’s shoulder.  She paused, then said soberly, “Do you think they’re alright?”

     “I don’t know, the Fire Tribe is ruthless.” Mai gave a hiccupping sob. “But I’m sure they’re okay,” he added quickly, and Mai gave him a small smile.  It was all she could offer him….it was all she had left.

     “Where’s Wyatt?” she asked.

     “In the kitchen.  He’s getting all our supplies together.” Mai nodded.  She took one last look at Matty’s room, pocketed the action figure, then she walked out with Dakota.

     “Why don’t you go get some of you things, Mai?  You know, like clothes and a toothbrush and stuff like that,” said Wyatt as soon as they entered the kitchen.  It too, had been completely ruined.  Wyatt shoved a piece of bread into his mouth.

     “Yeah, okay.  Hey Dakota, where do you think they took them?” Mai asked as she turned to go to her room.

     “The Fire Tribe prison I’m sure,” he said, examining the burned refrigerator.      

     “Where’s that?” said Mai, turning around to face Dakota.  She had to know the fate of her family, even if they were too lost to be saved.  She had to know if they would be alright.

      “I’ve no idea.  But I think it’s supposed to be somewhere to the far west…You know, there’s no way you could break them out.  No one’s ever broken in, or out of Lascelles Prison.”

     Mai hung her head. “No, I was just wondering.” Without another word, she turned  and walked up to her burned, and completely destroyed room.  She noticed that all of her things were thrown around as if someone had been looking for something small, and she wondered if it had been Sam.  She had been looking for something when Mai woke two days earlier.   

     Mai grabbed her suitcase, opened it and put it on her bed.  In it she put, her sleeping bag, clothes, her swimsuit, toothbrush, Matty’s action figure, and a picture of her real mom, her dad, Wyatt and herself.  Most of these things were slightly scorched around the edges, but otherwise untouched.  She just had to find one more thing before she left.  She normally kept it in a secret compartment, under one of the loose floorboards.  She just hoped that Sam had not found it there.  To her great relief, when she lifted the floorboard, the jewelry box was untouched and had not been found.  She opened it and pulled out a small locket that had once belonged to her real mother.  It had the Water Tribe insignia on it—though until now, Mai had never known what it was.  But there was something peculiar about this locket, no one could ever open it.  She, Wyatt, Alice, and her Father before he left, had all tried to pry it open, but to no avail.  It seemed to be locked by some sort of enchantment.  She fastened the locket around her neck.  As soon as she was packed, she pulled her suitcase over to the kitchen to find Wyatt packing food into a large picnic basket.

     “Are we ready?” Dakota asked them as soon as Wyatt was finished.

     “Yeah, I put as much food in here as possible.  And my suitcase is ready to go over there.” He pointed over to a very big suitcase that could have fit a large dog inside.

     “How are you going to carry both the food and that?” Mai asked him, unsure of her brother’s intentions.

     “I’m not going to carry the food, Dakota is.  He doesn’t have a suitcase,” Wyatt explained, and Dakota confirmed it.

     “Oh, all right.  Come on, let’s go.” They pulled their luggage out of the back door, where they found Amo and Tito waiting for them.

      “I know, I know, we took forever,” Dakota said to them as he approached the two creatures.

      “Come on,” said Wyatt, gesturing for Mai and Dakota to follow him out into the street, one hand over his eyes to keep the sun away.

     “Wyatt, we can’t go walking around in the open.  The Fire Tribe will find us for sure.  I think we should keep going through the woods,” said Dakota, stroking Tito along the spine.

      “But what if we run out of food, or get attacked by some animal.” He shot a sideways glance at Tito. “Or we could get lost.”

       Dakota laughed. “Don’t worry, Wyatt, we’ll be fine.” Wyatt and Mai gave the house one last look before walking back into the forest.  Mai would probably never see it, or her family, again.  She wanted revenge, and she knew Wyatt would want the same.

     And she was right, for Wyatt said, “Listen, we’re only going to go with you until we rescue our family.  After that, you’re on your own.  We don’t want any more trouble than you’re worth.”

     Mai nodded. “Yes, after we find them, then we will come back home, we don’t want to put them in any more danger.”

     “But what about helping me find all of the Chosen Ones and fighting off Romokka?  It was your plan in the first place, Mai,” said Dakota, looking very disappointed.

     “I’ve changed my mind, Dakota.  I don’t want to put our family in harms way.  They’ve already had to pay for my stupidity once, and I don’t want it to happen again.  We will help you until we can rescue them, but once that time comes, we will leave you.  I’m sure you won’t be on your own at that point, and I’m sure we’ll find at least one Chosen One before we can save our family.”  Mai didn’t want to leave it all up to Dakota to save Earth, but she didn’t want to cause her family any more pain than was necessary.  She did feel like she would be missing out on a lot of excitement.

     “But Romokka and the Fire Tribe will come after you, because they’ll know you were helping me, so they’ll know that you know what my plans are.  You have to stay with me, your endangering the whole world, just for two people.  I need your help, both of you, I can’t do it alone.”

     Mai looked from Wyatt to Dakota, not sure what choice to make, but deep down, she knew he spoke the truth. “You’re right, Dakota.  We’ll stay with you, we’ll never be safe until Romokka is defeated.”

     Wyatt sighed. “You’re right, we’ll both help you, no matter what.” 

     “This is just the beginning,” said Dakota, with a smile. “We’ll be having more battles, and we’ll have to deal with bear-coons—“

     “Stop it; I don’t want to think about it,” said Wyatt. “We should have never—“

      But they never found out what they never should have done, because at that moment, Tito once again jumped onto Wyatt’s head. “GET IT OFF ME!” Wyatt bellowed, waving his arms around.

     “Come here Tito,” said Mai as she put her arm out for Tito to jump on.  And to Mai’s astonishment, Tito obeyed.  He jumped off of Wyatt and landed on Mai’s outstretched arm.

     “I guess he likes you, Mai!” said Dakota brightly.

     “Speak for yourself,” groaned Wyatt.  Mai and Dakota started laughing.  Amo gave Dakota a gentle nudge in the back.  Mai was now more determined then ever to find the other Chosen Ones.  The Fire Tribe killed her mom and kidnapped her step mom and brother.  Sam had lied to her, and used her, and she had had enough.  They will pay, Mai thought to herself.  They will pay.