Chương 115: Chapter 114 – Nobody Needs That Kind of Friend

Elena waited outside the teleport in the fairy realm for Jasper.

"Where is he?" she muttered as she looked at her watch. He was late, he should have arrived ten minutes ago. This is why she hated coming here. It was too unpredictable for her comfort. She clutched the emergency teleport device in her hand ready to leave at the first sign of trouble. Mordak's agents could show up at any time, making her overly cautious. This was the only way to get Jasper to HQ. He couldn't use the fairy system to teleport in; someone had to be waiting with the fob to bring him back.

The sooner she could get back to HQ the better.

"Come on Jasper," she said, walking in small circles around the Portal. As the machine began its mechanical whirring, she stepped back and hid behind a large tree. She kept a close eye on the teleport as the door opened. Her heart began to race. She put her finger on the button ready to abort the mission, if the need arose. She took in a deep breath. Sighing once she saw the older fairy emerge. He carefully looked around before stepping out.

"Elena?" he whispered, wondering where she was.

"Right here," she said, stepping out from behind the tree. She stepped toward him.

"You're late," she said, reaching out for his arm, then pushed the button in her hand three times. Once in the safety of the resistance headquarters, she began to relax.

"Sorry about that," she said, "I should have warned you before I pressed the button, but I didn't want to hang around any longer than I had already been there." Jasper shot her a contemptuous look before half smiling at her.

"It's fine, I guess," he said, stepping off the platform.

"Your message was rather vague and cryptic, Elena, I couldn't make heads or tails of it."

"It was meant to be, it got you here and that's what matters." She said, walking to a chair by the control panel.

"Come sit down, we have a lot to discuss," she said, motioning to the chair next to her. Jasper apprehensively walked to the chair.

"This sounds serious," he said, before sitting down.

"Jasper, it does not get any more serious," she said, typing into the keyboard, and pulling up some data on the monitor.

"Obviously, it's not good news, so you might as well just spit it out Elena," he said, catching a glimpse of the screen.

"First, you have a security breach, a pretty serious one. That breach has now given Blackwood access to the Elven Realm."

"You're certain of this?" He asked.

"Yes, all intel seems to confirm it," she said.

"It's only a matter of time before he starts sending his goons over there just like he did…" she stopped, cut off by a loud beeping. Suddenly the portal alert began to beep.

"What now?" She muttered, looking over at the teleport pad. Suddenly Roxie and Illianna appeared.

"Well, this can't be good." She said, getting up and rushing over to the pad.

"What's going on, why are you here?" She asked, knowing they would not have left the Elven Realm if it wasn't a desperate situation.

"It's not good Elena," Roxie said, then noticing Jasper at first.

"Hi Roxie," Jasper said.

"Nice to see you again."

"Hey, Jasper. I'm glad you're here too, now we only need to explain this once," she said, before taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly. This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

"Before we get into all this, I think we need to get Regina, Alex and anyone else who's here in the conference room so they can hear it too," Roxie said, anxiously.

"That bad?" Elena asked.

"That bad," Roxie agreed, giving her a worried look.

"Okay, you get Illianna and Jasper settled in there, and I will go round up the others," Elena said, walking out of the room.

"Come on, Jasper, this way," Roxie said.

"You too." she said, motioning to Illianna, who appeared visibly shaken. The trio walked into the conference room. Roxie stopped Illianna on her way in.

"You alright?" she asked, her tone softening.

"Yeah, I just don't know how we made it out of there. When that Jimmick guy came down the path, I really thought we were done for," Illianna said, shaking her head.

"How did you find the device?" she asked.

"Pure luck, Ill, pure luck," she said, leading her to a chair and pulling it out for her. Within seconds Elena walked in, followed by Regina, Seraphina, then Alex and a face she did not recognize. Roxie grabbed her sister's arm and motioned to the stranger and mouthed "who is that?' Regina stopped and looked over to see who Roxie was referring to and then said, "Oh, for those of you who don't know Mikale… guys, Mikale… Mikale, guys," she said, then took a seat.

Mikale looked at the group, then gave a small wave looking confused.

"Hey," he said then quickly grabbed a seat and sat down. Elena took a seat at the head of the table and motioned to Roxie, giving her the floor.

"As all of you, or maybe most of you know, Illianna and I went to the Elven Realm to see if we could piece together what happened before we evacuated. We began by sticking to the plan and reported Sheera and her family missing to the local constable. During our visit there he mentioned that Mister Abernathy had filed a report about some kind of orange critters hanging around his farm. The constable, in his infinite wisdom, chalked it off to Joe hitting the bottle.

Illianna and I decided to check things out for ourselves," she began, looking around the room at the eyes looking back at her.

"I'm really sorry about this Ill, and if you want to leave the room while I tell them what I saw when we got there, everyone will understand," she said, looking sympathetically at her.

"No, it can't be worse than what I saw myself," Illianna replied, sullenly.

"I'm warning all of you, this is not a pretty picture that I am about to paint," Roxie began in her professional agent tone.

"Upon entering the domicile, the smell of death was readily apparent, so I searched each room. In an upstairs bedroom, I found the remains of two canines, one on the bed, one on the floor. These animals had not just been killed, but tortured and mutilated, so much so it took me a few moments to identify what exactly they were. Roxie watched as the group tried to process this new disturbing revelation. Regina shook her head silently, placing a hand on Illianna's as tears fell down the older woman's cheeks.

Whoever had done it took their time and seemingly did it for gratification, not necessity. Upon entering the kitchen, I found Rosie Abernathy, tied to a chair, she had been beaten beyond recognition, and by cursory examination, it appeared she too had been tortured and mutilated. Again, the whole thing appeared to be done for the perpetrator's gratification, not out of any necessity."

She paused, taking a breath trying to wipe the scene from her mind's eye as she recounted the aftermath of the violence perpetrated at the Abernathy farm. Unable to locate Joe, or his remains, Illianna and I made the decision to check the barn on the off chance he may be in there, requiring some form of medical attention. When the barn came into view, I spotted two Goblin men, presumably Mordak's men standing by the side of the barn with a large crate." She sighed.

One of them was throwing an object up in the air and catching it. It appeared to me to be another stuffed unicorn, but I cannot be certain. We overheard them discussing getting the crate into the barn before someone named Jimmick arrived. It was this Jimmick person who killed the dogs and Mrs. Abernathy," she said, glancing at Illianna who was slowly wiping her cheeks, no longer concerned about concealing her tears.

"Illianna and I had dropped the emergency teleport button on our way to the barn. While searching the field for it, Jimmick arrived at the farm, and began walking toward us heading to the barn. We do not believe he saw us before I retrieved the button and teleported us back here." She concluded before taking a seat.

"I know who this Jimmick guy is," Regina said, standing up.

"He is Mordak's head of Special Ops," she said, her jaw clenching.

"He's bad news, and I mean really bad news. When you were telling us what you found, I knew it was him, then hearing that name confirmed it." She sighed. He is a psychopath through and through, he is devoid of sympathy or empathy. He truly takes pleasure in inflicting pain, both mentally and physically. Psychological torture is his favorite," she said putting her arms around herself and rubbing her arms as if fighting off a chill.

"The stories I heard would make nightmares sound like lullabies."