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Jhudora's Revenge: Part Two


by carrot_cake116

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"I hope everyone has been practicing their respective faerie abilities." Lady Siyana raised her voice so that she could be heard over the excited chattering of the faeries. "Each elemental faerie have their own set of unique abilities which they may bestow upon neopets and it is important for faeries to master those abilities themselves."

     The day which I had been looking forward to had finally arrived. I was certain that I could dazzle the faeries and gain their trust after I have performed the perfect healing spell. I looked around the courtyard, looking for someone to be my training partner for the day. As I had expected, the other faeries took no notice of me as they searched for their own training partners.

     "Hi Roxanne, would you be my training partner?"

     "Oh, sorry, Jhudora. I promised Kaelia that I would be her partner for today."

     "That's alright, thanks," I replied, disappointed. "Helios, may we be training partners?"

     "No, sorry, Jhudora."

     I gritted my teeth as Lady Siyana threw an impatient glance in my direction.

     "Luxia, please train with Jhudora for today." Lady Siyana waved her hand dismissively.

     "But..."

     "No buts," Lady Siyana interrupted without so much as a backward glance. "Take your place beside Jhudora so that we may begin our lesson."

     Luxia the light faerie reluctantly took her place beside me and cast me a withering glance. I quelled my frustration and gave her a little smile. Luxia gave a grunt of acknowledgement before turning away.

     "It's alright," I thought to myself. "She is just mistaken about me and she'll see that she has misunderstood me."

     "The first faeries of each group may now cast a spell of protection on their partners," Lady Siyana ordered.

     Luxia raised her light sceptre and began muttering an incantation. Her sceptre glowed with a radiant light that was so bright that I had to shield myself with my wings so that I would not be blinded. I could almost feel the energy from her sceptre burning a hole through my wings. The glare was becoming unbearable. For a brief moment, I thought Luxia might have been tormenting me on purpose, knowing that dark faeries are not very fond of glaring light.

     "Don't be foolish, Jhudora," I chided myself. "Luxia is a light faerie and that is the nature of her spell."

     I shook the suspicion away and waited for Luxia's healing spell to take its effect. A translucent orb descended from the heavens and hovered in midair before it slowly disappeared. As the blinding light from Luxia's sceptre receded, I felt a small rush of energy course through me.

     "Thank you, Luxia," I said appreciatively as I folded my wings. I was determined to perform a good blessing for Luxia in return. Luxia gave a tiny nod, her face impassive.

     "Very good," Lady Siyana addressed the class. "The next faeries, please."

     I raised my wand and began the familiar incantation, twirling my wand in the same counter-clockwise motion just like the way I had practiced. I cast the shroud of darkness around Luxia and prepared to summon the healing orbs.

     Before I had time to do that, I heard a shrill cry from behind the shroud.

     "Luxia must have panicked because of the sudden darkness," I thought frantically. I was rapidly losing control of the spell and I had to calm her down as soon as possible.

     "Don't be afraid!" I cried. "This is part of the spell!"

     As I struggled to regain control of the spell, a searing beam of light pierced out of the shroud and headed straight towards me. My eyes widened and without thinking, I immediately released the Shadow Plane spell and hastily cast Temporal Leak. I had barely practiced casting Temporal Leak as my focus had been on conjuring the perfect Shadow Plane. Against all odds, the beam of light slowed down just enough for me to sidestep it.

     The tip of my left wing brushed against the light and I felt a burning pain as I retracted my wings from the light. I stifled a scream as I tumbled out of the way, heaving from the combined exertions of casting the spell and the effort to dodge the beam.

     "Sun Ray," Luxia said with a sneer. "A bright beam of sunlight that is the bane of evil creatures such as yourself."

     By then, the commotion has attracted the attention of Lady Siyana and the other faeries. They crowded around and I could sense their silent accusations. I was seething with anger and it took me all my self-control to keep my temper in check.

     "What in Fyora's name happened?" Lady Siyana screeched as she rushed over to check on Luxia, even though I was the one who was nursing an injury. "Explain yourselves!"

      "Jhudora had me shrouded in darkness and tried to cast one of her filthy dark spells on me!" Luxia spat. "I had to do something!"

     Lady Siyana turned to me and glared with a fury to match my own.

     "I thought you were different from the other dark faeries," Lady Siyana bellowed. "But I was mistaken. You are expelled from this Academy!"

     Something inside me snapped. Coming to the Academy was all I had wanted since I was a little faerie. How dare she attempt to drive me away!

     "You had never given me a chance to prove myself!" I shouted, unable to rein in my anger any longer. "You were against me right from the very first day I stepped into your class!"

     Lady Siyana glowed brighter as her anger escalated, but before she could speak, a voice full of command interrupted her.

     I turned around and saw a dark faerie in a long flowing blue robe. Her raven black hair billowing in the wind as she gracefully glided towards us. I recognized her as one of the faerie instructors of the Academy, Lady Tenebrae.

     "Let's not be hasty, Siyana," Lady Tenebrae mediated. "I saw what happened and little Jhudora here was indeed merely casting a healing spell on Luxia. Surely you must be familiar with the healing arts of dark faeries?"

     "I suggest you stay out of this, Tenebrae. Jhudora is my student and I will decide on a suitable punishment for her insubordination."

     "She is no longer under your care," Lady Tenebrae said simply. "I had her transferred to my class an hour ago."

     I stared at Lady Tenebrae in wonder and thanked my lucky novas for my saviour.

     "Then you have my sincere gratitude for ridding my class of that minion of evil," Lady Siyana managed between gritted teeth. "Faeries, let us return to the castle." With a sweep of the arm, she herded my former class mates back to the castle grounds.

     "Shall we go then?" Lady Tenebrae smiled down at me kindly as she took my hand and led me to her tower.

     ***

     "So, I heard that you were transferred to our class at the request of Lady Tenebrae," Malice remarked.

     "Yes." I nodded. "I am extremely grateful to her for her kind gesture."

     "Good for you!" Malice smiled. "Care for a gnome shroom?"

     I reached over and took the shroom from Malice, thanking her. Unlike my previous class, there were three other dark faeries I my new class. Malice, Spite and Vanity were my new best friends and I was honoured at having been invited to join their group.

      "Lady Tenebrae understands that we dark faeries should stick together," said Spite. "It's the only way a dark faerie can survive in this Academy."

     "I couldn't agree more!" Malice resounded. "Back in my old class, I was the scape-ixi for any mistakes made by my class mates."

     "And the silliest thing was that the faerie instructors never seem to trust us whenever we try to explain what really happened," Spite added. "Lady Tenebrae noticed that we weren't being treated fairly and had us transferred to her class."

     "Lucky for me, I was assigned to Lady Tenebrae's class right from the beginning and I didn't have to deal with all the nonsense you faeries had to put up with," Vanity sneered as she pointed at a water faerie at the next table. "Just look at those feet, or rather lack of it!"

     That set off a round of laughter at our table. "I'm so glad I met you faeries," I told the dark faeries. "We'll be best of friends always!"

      Perhaps Malice was right. A dark faerie will only be accepted by her own kind. It is only among us that we can seek reprieve from the judging eyes of other faeries that are eager to witness our self-destruction.

     ***

     "Not like that, Jhudora," Lady Tenebrae corrected me. "You have to angle your wand slightly to the right before you recite the incantation."

     Following her instructions, I lifted my arm so that my wand would be slightly inclined above my cauldron and muttered the incantation, taking extra care not to let the sleeve of my robe come into contact with the boiling mixture. The mixture turned to a light shade of blue which gradually became darker and darker as I continued waving my wand. With a fistful of crushed voidberries in my left hand and my wand in my right hand, I watched the mixture in the cauldron closely as the colour deepened. I threw the voidberries into the cauldron just before the mixture turned completely black and recited a new set of incantations from my spell book. A column of blue smoke was released and the colour of the mixture rapidly changed from deep blue to a beautiful shimmery black.

     I took an empty vial and carefully transferred the mixture into it, shaking the vial after every ten drops. It was tedious work and care had to be taken not to let any of the potion come into contact with my skin. I sealed the vial with a quick spell and my voidberry potion was completed. The end result was a potion that shimmered with the light of a hundred novas against the background of the darkest Neopian night.

     "A job well done!" Lady Tenebrae exclaimed as she examined my potion. "I am impressed by your skills, Jhudora. I will be bringing your potion along with me for my mission in the Farmlands."

     I glowed with pleasure and muttered a quick thank you, ignoring the look of envy from the water faerie at the next caldron. I had received only criticisms from Lady Siyana and it was nice to have my efforts recognised for a change. Under Lady Tenebrae's tutelage, my skills as a potion brewer and a spell caster had improved tremendously. It was hard work but the results were worth it. My mastery of my faerie abilities had surpassed that of my class mates. Not even the water faeries could hope to match my skills. I felt a deep sense of satisfaction at the thought of having outdone those who had previously snubbed me.

     "This will be the end of the lesson for today, class dismissed," Lady Tenebrae announced before she vanished in a puff of green smoke.

     "Trying to outshine us, eh, Jhudora?" Malice walked up to me as I was heading out. "Stop trying so hard if you know what is good for you."

     I was taken aback by Malice's outburst. She had seemed genuinely happy for me when she witnessed my progress throughout the weeks. I took pride in my achievements, but I did not want to lose Malice as a friend.

     "I'm sorry!" I replied as I desperately tried to salvage the friendship. "You know that the reason why I'm working so hard is so that other faeries would not despise us, right, Vanity?" I looked over to Vanity with a silent plea in my eyes.

     "Don't look over to me for help after all the times you have hogged the limelight," Vanity scoffed. "Lady Tenebrae no longer pays as much attention to us as before, thanks to you!"

     "We were kind enough to invite you to join our group and you repaid us by causing us to fall out of favour with Lady Tenebrae," Spite added scornfully. "We have decided that ungrateful faeries may not be a part of our group."

     "Why can't you faeries understand that the only reason that I'm studying so hard is so that we dark faeries would be respected as much as the other faeries!" I felt betrayed by my friends, frustrated by their unnecessary jealousy. "How are you any different from the other faeries that treated you badly in the past?" I shouted before running out of the room.

      I thought they were my friends, but I was wrong. They are no better than the other faeries who shunned me because of who I am. Their weak minds and petty nature had caused them to be consumed by the Great Evil. I am on my own.

To be continued...

 
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Other Episodes


» Jhudora's Revenge: Part One
» Jhudora's Revenge: Part Three
» Jhudora's Revenge: Part Four



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