Musician to the rescue

“Who are you?” Athan asked in confusion.

“JORDAN!” Mina cheered happily.

“Huh? Who’s this guy?” Iro questioned, making Mina turn to her.

“Wait, what?”

Jordan ignored all this in favor of keeping his gaze directly on Athan.

“It doesn’t matter who I am. What matters is that Mina wants to go home, and I’m going to help her do just that.” Jordan said firmly. “You can either sit back at let that happen, or try to stop it and fail.”

Athan’s eyes narrowed at Jordan.

“You would dare get in the way of the saviors of this kingdom, perpetuate the evil of the organization manipulating the palace from the shadows and puppeteering this new corrupt king?” Athan asked threateningly.

“Just because your new king is an idiot, that doesn’t mean you can have a temper tantrum and start a rebellion.” Jordan bluntly said. “The old king died of a normal illness, and the new king is a good-hearted moron. You are well aware of that, so stop acting delusional.”

Athan seemed genuinely taken aback by that, leaning back as if Jordan had punched him in the face rather than simply said some words.

“Wrong!” Athan shouted, regaining his momentum. “That is clearly a lie! Any fool could see that that is nothing more than nonsense spoon-fed to the masses by the evil organization that is manipu-”

“There is no evil organisation, that’s nothing but a lie you’re telling yourself to justify your temp-”

“If there was no evil organization, then I would be a member of the royal army!” Athan yelled, cutting off Jodan. “I am the most loyal person in this kingdom, I have the greatest talent for combat in this kingdom, I am the perfect soldier! Were there not an evil organization actively trying to weaken this kingdom, the I would be a member of the royal army. I would be a captain of the royal army! Because I am the perfect soldier! I am not a member of the royal army because they don’t want strength and loyalty, they want those who are weak and easily bought and manipulated!”

“… Yep, temper tantrum.” Jordan remarked, and Athan screamed in rage.

“Enough of this. Get them!” Athan roared and charged Mina’s group.

“Ard Almasamir!” Jordan chanted as he swung his sword.

Suddenly, a wall of earth spikes erupted between Jordan and the rest of them, putting a halt to their charge.

“RUN!” Jordan shouted.

The others didn’t need any more incentive. Mina, Iro, and Natalia all began running away towards the flight platform. As they ran, they heard a twang, and Iro pulled Mina to the side just in time to get her out of the way of an arrow shot at her leg. Seeing the arrow, Iro turned around to look at her mother, a look of shocked betrayal on her face.

“MOM!?” Iro exclaimed, hurt filling her voice.

“I’m sorry dear, but after what happened to your father, I can’t take any chances.” Agapi said coldly as she knocked another arrow. At the same time, Lefteris chanted a lightning spell, and both fired at the same time, only for Jordan to jump in the way with a shield in hand and block both of them.

“Don’t slow down, get going!” He declared.

Iro nodded hesitantly, and she and Mina continued running towards the dock. Ahead of them, Natalia let out a harsh whistle, and Pecker flew down and landed on the dock. Natalia quickly set up a saddle on him just as Iro and Mina reached them.

“Get on!” Natalia shouted, helping the two girls hook into the saddle. Once they were hooked in, Natalia stepped back away from the bird.

“GO! Get out of here!” Natalia shouted at them.

“What? But what about you?!” Mina asked, realizing Natalia wasn’t going to climb on.

“I’ll be-”

Natalia was cut off as another sharp whistle echoed through the area, this time from Jordan, and a second fiterola flew down, this one already with a saddle.

“GO! Deigh Ruaig!” Jordan shouted as he sent out a wave of ice with his sword, freezing Athan and Dory in place and blocking projectiles from Lefteris and Agapi.

Natalia chose not to question it, and quickly strapped herself into the new bird. She then turned around to Jordan.

“Come on!” She called to him.

Jordan didn’t respond, didn’t even turn to her as he was busy using his shield to block a blow from Athan, who’d managed to break free from the ice. Instead, he let out another shrill whistle.

“W-woah!” Iro exclaimed in shock as both her fiterola and the one Natalia was on abruptly took off without their input.

The birds quickly began flying away, and seeing this, Agapi raised her bow to shoot them down. However, Iro looked behind her and saw this, and raised her hand and shot down the arrow with a sky blast. Agapi tried a few more times, but Iro blocked every shot.

“JORDAN!” Mina cried out as, while they got away on their fiterola, Jordan was still holding off the others with his shield and ice. But then, once the two fiterola were far enough away for him, he promptly did a 180 and sprinted towards the edge of the island and jumped off.

Jumped, and flew. Not the air skating that Iro and others did with the sky boots, not bouncing and slow falling like the sky badges allowed people to do. No, Jordan jumped off the island and straight up flew head first through the air, catching up to the others on the fiterola in no time.

“Hm hm hm hm hm hmmmmm.” He hummed as he flew through the air, and Mina, Iro, and Natalia let out a sigh of relief as they realized they’d made it.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Down on the island, Athan glared angrily at the retreating forms of Mina and the rest. He then spun around and marched straight to the fiterola pen, followed by everyone else.

“Vasilis, prepare us some fiterola!” Athan demanded.

“No.”

When they got to the pen though, they found it locked from the inside, with Vasilis standing inside glaring at them.

“I don’t have time for this, open this gate and prepare us our steeds Vasilis!” Athan demanded again.

“No, I wont.” Vasilis again said firmly.

“The traitors are getting away you idiot! Let us through right now!” Athan shouted

“One of those traitors is my sister!” Vasilis shouted back. He then took a deep breath, calmed himself, and gave Athan a level look. “I won’t let you go after them until I’m sure you’ve calmed down enough that you won’t kill her in anger Athan.”

Athan’s face twisted in rage, and he looked almost ready to just smash the door down when a hand was placed on his shoulder. He turned around and was surprised to see it was Dory who had his hand on him.

“He’s right Athan.” He said. “They may have betrayed us, but those 3 are still important to us. We need to let level heads return before we go after them and accidentally do something we’ll regret.”

Athan glared at Dory momentarily, before roughly jerking the hand off.

“Fine.” Athan spat out, and walked away, leaving both Dory and Vasilis to let out a sigh of relief.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

“So… that happened.” Iro remarked as they flew.

“Yeah, that certainly did.” Natalia greed.

“I’m sorry!” Mina exclaimed. “When I learned the truth from Uraina, I wanted to see how many people were in on everything, so I tried to subtly ask people things and figure them out. but I guess I wasn’t subtle enough, and they caught on to me right away.”

“I warned you not to overplay your hand Mina.” Jordan lightly scolded.

“Sorry Jordan.” Mina said shamefully.

“By the way. Um, who are you?” Iro then asked, looking towards Jordan.

“Huh?” Mina questioned.

“Yeah, I was wondering that myself actually.” Natalia then asked.

“Wait, you two don’t know who he is?” Mina asked the pair, and they both shook their heads.

“Should we?” Iro asked. Immediately Mina turned to face Jordan, who had the decency to look sheepish.

“It seems I also have an apology to make.” He said.

“YOU LIED TO ME!?” Mina full on yelled, making the others wince at the volume.

“Ah ha ha, a little bit, yes.” Jordan confessed.

“Wait, what did he tell you?” Iro asked.

“He told me he owned the island that we were on!” Mina exclaimed. “He said that you guys just rented it from him and liked to pretend he didn’t exist because you guys liked being a secret society!”

“Really? Yeah, no. Athan’s the one that owns the island.” Natalia remarked.

“Seriously? Then why…?” Mina questioned.

“I had to get you to trust me somehow.” Jordan answered. “I was there to talk to you, and I needed to tell you something that would get you to trust me as well as keep you from telling anyone else that you met me. Saying I owned the island like that was the best thing I could come up with.”

Mina responded by glaring at him.

“Sorry.” Jordan said. Mina glared at him for a moment more, before letting out a defeated sigh.

“Alright. So, what now? Are we going to go do the thing to send me home, or something else?” Mina asked.

“I’d suggest waiting on going and doing your task till at least tomorrow.” Jordan said. “Rest up for the night, plan out how we’re going to do what we need to do, maybe get some last-minute training in, and then go start this tomorrow.”

“By the way Mina, do you actually know how to get home?” Natalia asked, and Mina nodded. “Then, what exactly do you have to do?”

“Apparently I’ve got to go kill a phoenix that’s taken over one of Uraina’s shrines so she can have enough power to send me home.” Mina answered.

…

“Definitely going to need some last-minute training.” Jordan said, and both Iro and Natalia nodded in agreement. “Alright, follow me. I’ll take you guys to my camp.”

“Hold on, before we do, there’s one thing I’ve got to know.” Iro said. She then looked directly at Natalia with a firm look. “Are you actually on our side? Are you actually going to help us send Mina home?”

“*Sigh* I guess I am.” Natalia remarked. “To be honest, I’ve always had my reservations about all this, especially after we ended up summoning someone as young as Mina. And well, after everything that happened back there, I guess I’m already in the deep end with all this. Might as well just keep going to the end.”

Iro nodded in acceptance, and turned away to pay attention to their flight. Natalia was tempted to turn the question back on Iro, but there was no point. One look at Iro told her that the girl was ride or die with Mina. She may not know or even care about all the details, but Iro wanted to protect Mina, and wanted what’s best for her. She was absolutely on board.

“Alright then, follow me.” Jordan said as he flew ahead, and the others followed.