Wedding Crashers

Luna and I were crawling through an escape vent. We weren't sure why we were being locked up in that room, but we figured one of her sisters set us up.

"You okay back there?" I asked Luna.

"Yes." She replied. Thank you for accommodating me."

She preferred I be the one crawling through the vent first. I'm not sure why, but she seemed a bit ashamed. I figured it was safer not to ask questions.

This vent connected with the larger ventilation system in the building. Some parts were very cold, and others were nice and temperate. But we definitely had a lot of room to get around. That is, if we know where we're going.

"Any idea how to navigate here?" I asked, thinking she might know a little about the place.

"I have never been here, but the layout is similar to a Nio Lux starship."

No idea what a starship was like, but according to Luna they were very luxurious.

With her vague sense of directions, we made it to the living quarters here.

"Just don't look up!" I heard Zumi’s voice through the vent. "Geez, how many times do I have to tell you that?"

"If you didn’t want me looking up, why did you ask me to look at that thing?" That was Charlie’s voice.

"I was mumbling to myself, idiot!" Her words were accompanied by the squeaking of a turning nail. "If I wasn’t so weak, I'd be on the bottom here. But no, I had to be lightweight!"

"She’s quite upset…" Luna noticed.

"Being locked in a room with Charlie does that to you."

From the sounds of it, they were either wrestling, or Charlie was giving her a boost to unscrew a vent grate.

We found the vent to their room, and they immediately noticed us.

"Brother! Luna! Is that you?"

"Yeah, it's us." I said, helping her get the vent open, then going into the room. "This is a trap. We need to get out quickly."

"They took our wands and gear," Zumi said. "Then they put us in here and locked the doors. I'm just so done with everything here!"

"Zumi, let's calm down a little and figure this out." I said.

"Yeah, sorry. I've just been on edge since I haven't slept since the arena." She took a breath and embraced me. "I was so worried about you!"

Zumi started crying really hard. I accepted her embrace with my own and rubbed her back to comfort her.

"I'm fine. We made it out of there without any danger."

“I have a feeling one of Luna’s sisters are involved…” Charlie speculated. “How dare they tread over us like common rabble trash?”

For once, I agreed with him. This was outrageous, all in the attempt to probably keep us from completing the wedding.

“There’s probably one more statue,” Zumi said. “We’ll need to find it and reach the moon before someone causes us any more trouble.”

We all went back into the vents. With four people all crawling around, you’d think our combined intelligence would have gotten us somewhere, but it took us way too long to find a vent leading to the outside of this structure.

“Before we go out…” Luna started to glow, casting some sort of spell on us.

“Breath of Life?” I had that in my status effects. According to the description, it would help us breathe in low air environments.

“We use this when we want to go out for a walk.” She smiled, as if this was a normal thing. I guess to her, it was normal.

It made me wonder how well the moon was actually made to sustain life, or if Luna’s people made it that way. Through this stressful situation, I couldn't help but be curious.

One more vent grate stood between us and the outside, so we opened it up and entered the near vacuum of the final ring.

This ring had no foliage, it was just rocky hills all the way to the strange curving horizon. We had a very clear view of both the moon and planet.

The gravity here was even lower than the last ring. Zumi almost floated away trying to exit the vent, but I held her down.

“Thanks…I feel so small.”

She was the shortest one here, but also the youngest.

“Don’t worry about it, let’s get out of here.”

“What about our wands?” Charlie asked.

“If you want to head back in there to find them, be my guest.”

Nobody wanted to go back there. So we left our stuff behind.

The statue for this ring was in a garden right outside. It had two people side by side, one in a wedding dress, and the other in a suit.

Zumi translated the plaque under them…

“Congratulations. Your final challenge is to take each other's hands and go forth onto the frontier of marriage.”

“So, we're done?” I asked. “What's next?”

“I guess you guys have to get fully married now.” Zumi shrugged. “Is there a priest around?”

Just as we'd started to talk about this, we heard a dreadfully familiar voice behind us…

"YEE HEE HEE!" The Portal Master laughed. "That's right! We're back!"

"Yes. We are back." Mond sounded so dead, like a machine running out of power.

The Portal Master must have broken her spirits pretty hard. That, or she was under mind control spell. I wouldn't put it past that guy.

"And looks like the stage was poorly set for us, tisk tisk!" Portal Master said.

"Not you guys again!" I grumbled. "How did you two escape the last ring?"

"By the power of love♡" He replied.

"Yes…by the power of…love…" Mond definitely was suffering from a major case of apathy. What happened to her back there? You know what…Who cares? She deserved it.

“You’re too late, sister!” Luna took my hand up and held it high. “We are at the final stage of marriage. He is my fiancee!”

“Yeah!” I joined in on her encouragement. “Tell her, Luna! If we gotta’ elope, then that’s fine by me!”

Mond shook her head a little, then seemed to gain back some of her old composure.

"We can't allow humanity to continue using magic! We'll stop you no matter what! Even if we can't stop your marriage."

“Why would you even bother taking away our magic?” Charlie glared at her. “What gains do you stand to earn?”

“Humans are inferior to us!” She growled. “I can’t stand the thought of needing one of you to rule over everything. So once I take the throne, I’ll change the rules and make you all my servants!”

“You have a pathetic superiority complex!” Charlie ironically shouted.

“Stupid portal guy, let's get going before it's too late!”

“Right away, Lovey♡ I’ll serve you any day, m’lady♡”

“Stop calling me lovey!!” She screamed.

The Portal Master opened up a portal, then the two of them jumped in.

"Charlie, can you tell where they're going?" I asked in a panic.

"He's going back to the previous ring realm," Charlie answered.

"Is he heading back to our world?" I asked. "Why would they be going back?"

Just then, Rita and Lita came rushing out into the garden with worried looks on their faces.

"We are sorry…" Rita bowed with a somber frown.

"...Lady Luna. We have betrayed you." Nita added the same gesture.

"But we were…"

"forced to do this…"

"...or we'd lose our jobs."

Go figure they were blackmailed. A forgivable offense.

“However…” Rita continued.

“We must take you to your father,  Lady Luna…”

“Before it’s too late. Only he can fix this.”