They landed a block away from the massive tree, Lizzy, Scarlett, and Heather needing a moment to catch their breath. Ahead they could see a group of individuals preparing the area for the demolition, while a reporter stood off to the side speaking to a camera. 

“Alright,” Scarlett said and cracked her knuckles. “The plan is this. Lizzy and the pixies will take on the guys on the left, while Heather and I handle the right.”

“How about we start by talking with the news lady.” Heather pointed a thumb towards the newswoman and cameraman before she began walking over.

It took a mere moment for the woman to notice the group of them walking towards her. 

“Oh, it looks like we’ve got a group of supers that have just arrived,” she said as Scarlett moved into view of the camera. Lizzy couldn’t tell if the comment was meant to be sarcastic or not. “Could I get a name for you and the reason you're here?” She pointed the microphone to Scarlett. 

It was at this point that Lizzy realized they hadn’t thought up superhero names. Thankfully, Scarlett persevered.

“We’re here to put a stop to this!” she yelled out. Several pixies flew around her shouting their agreement.

“And why is it that you want the demolition stopped?” the woman asked.

“This tree is important to the fae. We won’t allow anyone to hurt it.”

“Important to the fae, you say? Do you mind explaining more?”

Bloom flew up near to the woman, close enough that the mic could pick up her voice. “It’s the Tree of Life.”

A stunned silence briefly came over the reporter. She blinked and then a moment later managed to stammer out. “A pixie talking to humans…”

She then turned back to the camera. “It looks like things are getting quite interesting here, Stephanie. I’m looking forward to how things proceed. Back to you.” She turned to the group as the camera went off. “I wish all of you the best of luck, though I admittedly worry about your success. Vezz wants this thing gone, and they hold a lot of influence within the city. You may not be able to get them to stop.”

“Don’t worry, we’ll figure something out,” Scarlett assured her. 

A short distance away from them several individuals entered the building. The pixies looked to each other, and then with a battle cry, charged in after the crew.  

“We should probably go after them,” Lizzy said.

“At the very least, I don’t think they can take the building down with us inside it,” Heather told them as they began to move forward. Lizzy gave a small wave to the reporter and cameraman.

They rushed around several large roots and hopped over the tape surrounding it. As they moved inside, a large guy with a hard hat and dressed in orange yelled at them, “Hey, you can’t be in here!”

Scarlett turned to him. “Yeah? And who’s gonna stop us?”

“ It’s private property. If you stay, we’ll have you removed by force.”

“Well, we’re staying. We’re not letting you destroy this tree.” She balled up her gloved fists.

“Look, I’m just here to do a job. And we can’t do it while you all are in the building.”

“Good.” 

Lizzy suspected Scarlett was giving him a satisfied smirk underneath her mask. He grumbled out a “Fine,” pulled out his phone, and walked off as he began to make a call. 

“I think that went well,” Scarlett said.

The Princess looked around nervously for where the pixies had gone but couldn’t spot them. She worried over what trouble they might be getting into. Weren’t they basically her responsibility now, she thought? “We need to find the pixies,” she said and began walking forward. 

The building was dark in the ground-floor lobby area. Much like outside, the area was covered in massive brown roots along the walls, floor, and hanging from the ceiling. As she walked, Lizzy occasionally pushed some of the smaller ones out of her path. 

Heather, the wise girl that she was, took a flashlight from her belt and shined the way forward. After a few seconds, they heard shouting.

“Hey, give that back!” a gruff voice said. 

Around the corner, several pixies were up near the ceiling holding a round thick black disc. Below them, a man shouted at them, “That’s not a toy. You can’t play with that!” The pixies giggled as he tried and failed to reach them. 

“Umm, hey,” Lizzy said.

The pixies greeted her with a chorus of hellos and “It’s the Princess!” They flew over, still holding the device. As it got closer, Lizzy realized what it was: some type of explosive.

“M-maybe, we should put that down,” she near stuttered out. “Carefully.” She motioned downward slowly.

“No one should be in here,” the man said as he marched towards them.

“We’re taking over here, go snuggle up with your boss and cry about it,” Scarlett declared. She reached out towards the pixies, who handed her the bomb.

The man eyed her a moment, as though trying to decide whether to fight her over the explosive. Lizzy eyed the gun holster at his waist. After a moment, he began cursing and muttering about not being paid enough as he walked away. She sighed in relief. 

“Pixies, can you try to find me the rest of these in the building?” Scarlett asked. 

“Are you sure this is a good idea, Scarlett?” Heather interrupted. 

“You really trust them not to blow us up while we’re in here?” Scarlett placed her hand on her hip, the one not holding the dangerous bomb. 

“That doesn’t mean you should be collecting them,” she scolded.

“I’m just gonna make sure they won’t go off. I’m not keeping them.”

The two stared at each other a moment until Heather sighed. “Fine, but we keep them all well away from us, got it?” 

At that, the pixies flew off to search the building for more. Scarlett meanwhile moved to a corner to dissect an explosive. 

Having little to do, Lizzy and Heather both sat on the tiled floor and leaned up against a large root. 

Heather looked over to her. “You doing okay?” 

“Yeah, this is all a bit scary, but I suppose it’s fun in a weird way too.”

“This has admittedly been escalating a bit more than I was prepared for.” She slumped forward and pushed the gas mask up off her face. “I’m a bit worried about Scarlett.”

They both looked over to her, sprawled out on the floor, the bomb already in pieces.

“It does seem kinda dangerous,” Lizzy admitted.

“That’s not really what I meant, but that too, I suppose.” Lizzy looked at her in confusion. “You’ve not really been around much the last few days, Lizzy, with your whole being reborn thing and then going into that unconscious daze,” Heather said. “Scarlett is mostly the same eccentric girl she’s always been, but…” She met her eyes, and then looked back off to the bunny-eared girl. “I don’t know, she’s different too.” 

Lizzy thought back to the refrigerator incident, and the resulting explosion. It was certainly not something she would have done before.

“She’s been a tad obsessed the last few days over becoming a superhero.” Heather continued. “She spent I don’t know how much time working on that mask of hers, and I was so focused on worrying over you that I’m not even sure how much sleep she’s gotten or if she’s eaten anything.” Heather sighed.

“Sorry.”

“It’s okay, Lizzy. You,” she met her eyes, “you have your own problems.” Heather grabbed her hand and squeezed it. “I’m just worried about going too far with this. Protesting something is one thing. Taking apart bombs is something very different.”

Lizzy wanted to agree, but... “We’ve got to do something, though. We can’t let them destroy the tree. Not if it’s really where pixies are born.” She couldn’t help but note her own bit of attachment to the tree that she’d become part of the fae within. She felt… connected to it. In her heart, she could feel its importance. 

“Yeah.” Heather leaned back and stared up at the root-covered ceiling. “I just wonder if we’ve gone about this the wrong way, if maybe there was a better…” she trailed off at the sound of footsteps. Quickly, she pulled her mask back down. The two of them stood up as the sound stopped. They stared around them, Heather shining her flashlight around. 

A dark caped figure dropped down in front of them. Heather shined her light at them, revealing a black and purple spandex suit and cape. 

“I heard there was trouble,” the feminine voice said. 

Lizzy’s eyes widened. “Verge,” she said in awe. 

The superheroine took a step towards them. Heather moved in front of Lizzy, and her hand slipped into one of her pouches. What was she doing, Lizzy thought? This was Verge, the heroine, part of the Clover Heroes. She could help them protect the tree!

“Villians, what do you think you’re doing here?” Villains? “Stealing explosives, perhaps?” 

Verge’s body began to slowly sink down into the floor as she merged with it.

“We’re just here for the tree,” Heather said. Lizzy was too stunned to say much of anything. 

“Hey! Who the hell are you?” their bunny-eared friend shouted across the room. 

Within a blink, the heroine disappeared downward, and a mere moment later, Lizzy felt hands wrapping around her feet. Then she was falling through the floor, pulled downward, as though sinking through mud instead of tiles and concrete, until her legs were stopped by tree roots below. 

She pushed down against it with her four arms but didn’t budge. She was stuck waist-deep inside of the floor. With a sigh, she resigned herself to being entrenched and looked toward her friends. 

“Stand on the roots!” Heather yelled out. “She can only go through inanimate objects.”

Scarlett hopped onto a section of small roots and vines and then pressed a button on the device around her wrist. It spread out to her knuckles and then through her fingers. As she gripped down on it, balling her hand into a fist, an electric current sparked across the knuckles of her left hand. 

“Wait, we’re on the same side!” Lizzy shouted, though, she wasn’t sure if Verge could even hear from inside the floor of the building. 

A few seconds later the woman shot out of the wall next to Scarlett, her fist punching the girl square in the jaw. Scarlett stumbled but managed to stay standing on roots. She swung back as Verge sunk back into the floor, missing her completely. When the hero came out again at a different angle, Lizzy’s friend was more prepared. She blocked the punch but failed to land her own. Verge dodged left and then right as the bunny girl swung, then slid back into the wall. She punched after her, hitting solid concrete and busting her electrical gadget. It sparked a bright orange outward and then shorted out. 

As Scarlett shook the pain out of her hand, Verge reappeared behind Heather, who had moved away from Lizzy by hopping from roots to roots. 

“No! Stop!” Lizzy shouted. “Heather!” 

Heather turned to face her, her hand going up. The moth girl spotted something gripped within it. An explosion of mist engulfed Heather and Verge. The superheroine fell to the ground coughing as Heather casually walked out of it, still wearing her gas mask. Was that pepper spray, Lizzy wondered? 

The caped girl cried and gagged in between coughs as she moved further from the peppered area. Heather meanwhile walked towards Lizzy. 

“You okay?” she asked the moth girl.

“Me? What about you!”

“Don’t worry, I’m fine.”

Lizzy smiled. The superheroine took the opportunity to run out of the building as several pixies flew into the room.

“Princess!” “What happened?”

“We’ve gotta get you out of this,” Heather said. 

“How are we gonna do that?” Lizzy asked.

“I… have no idea.”

Scarlett walked over to them. They looked at her expectantly. “What?” Even the pixies stared. “Look, I don’t have magical solutions to everything. Geez.”

An idea popped into Lizzy’s head. “There’s roots below me. The pixies have growth magic, don’t they?” Several pixies nodded. “Could we use the roots?” 

“The Princess is smart,” whispered Leaf. 

She blushed. “Is it possible for me to learn to do it? Maybe I should try so that I’m less likely to get… crushed.” She stared down at the floor around here. Leaf shrugged. 

The pixies worked Lizzy through the basics of feeling out the magic and then channeling it into the roots. It helped that the Tree of Life was greedy, practically sucking it out of her. Slowly the roots around and below her began to expand and move. The ground cracked and loosened. 

Then she fell.

FlitterPuff

Hello hello! Hope you've enjoyed the chapter! So I've been having a bit of writers block with this story. I'm going to start focusing on my other ones for a little bit. The next two chapters are available to patrons here. As will be chapter 8, once it's finished. Also, if you haven't read it yet, Venatus Maleficarum has returned! You can read that here on scribblehub. I've been having a lot of headaches lately, so writing has slowed down a little from it. Hopefully that'll be solved soon though, as I've stopped drinking caffeine once more. Wish me luck!