The Blades of Elements

Midnight’s boots made soft clicking noises as she slowly walked through the halls. She was not looking forward to telling the queen about their failure; her failure.

The hallways were bright with light as Midnight’s dark, shadowy appearance showed in stark contrast to the sunny halls.

Midnight turned left into a huge bright room, the rims of curtains and walls adorned with bright multi-colored jewels and ores, all real. Two guards who were standing nearby just silently followed her, for Midnight was a very important scholar. Midnight slowly shuffled to a woman with golden short hair and a long, silken golden dress, her face hidden behind a veil, who was sitting on a golden throne.

“Ahh... young Midnight,” the woman said, her voice a little shrill; the queen. “What news have you brought?”

Midnight froze, unable to move, or speak.

“W-well...” Midnight stuttered. “T-the mission was sorta a... f-fail...”

"EXCUSE ME?!” the queen bellowed, immediately standing. Behind the veil, Midnight could tell there was a furious glare directed straight at her. “Enough with your failures, MidnightEclipse! I hereby banish you and your team to Earth for five years!”

“Excuse me, miss, but what exactly is a... Earth?” asked Midnight, but the queen was too busy shouting out orders.

“Gather your companions,” the queen said with a guttural growl, striding towards Midnight. “Gather them NOW!”

With no further questions, Midnight dashed out of the room, trying to stay out of arm reach, and bolted down the hallways. She ran and ran until she was at XxChocolateFirexX’s house. She pounded on the door, all out of breath, and Coco answered, still rubbing the sleep out of her eyes.

“Night... what are you doing here?” she questioned, trying to get her glowing light purple eyes to focus. She yawned before continuing. “It’s only dawn, and I thought you went to go tell the queen about the mission failure.”

“Well... you see... I did and she....” Midnight paused for a second. “She’s going to send us to this place called Earth. Hurry, we need to get the others, because I don’t remember learning about some freaky Earth planet in school.”

Choco nodded and ran to go change and grab her stuff. They split up raced to their friends’ houses, knocking on each door and explaining the situation to each of them. Then, they regrouped at Midnight’s house. They all entered and went upstairs to Midnight’s room. She quickly got on her PC and started hacking the keyboard, as if she was raging on Fortnite, which she usually did.

“Okay...” Midnight said as she scrolled through multiple pages. “Ah... here! ‘Earth is located in a galaxy called the Milky Way--’”

Midnight was cut of by a snicker coming from XxGamerTwistxX, followed by a repeat of the name “Milky Way.”

She glared at him, as well as the other girls, and he immediately stopped laughing.

"As I was saying, the Milky Way is where Earth is located. Anyways, 'According to distant travelers from Planet Z-48, Earth comprises five major layers; the atmosphere, crust, mantle, outer core, and inner core.’ Apparently, the inner core of Earth is 10,800 degrees Fahrenheit. That’s supposed to be the hottest layer on Earth. 'Earth has oceans, dirt, soil, and more wonders waiting to be discovered. Other humans are said to live there, but have no powers or glowing eyes.

“‘The humans have schools, two arms, two legs, eyes, just like people who live on Planet Z-48, but act in a strange, abnormal way. Not much is known about the mysterious Earth, but we’ll surely find out more information soon.’ That’s all it says.”

“Whoa!” exclaimed GamerTwist in shock. “No glowing eyes?! No superpowers?! What kind of humans are these?!”

“And why would the queen want to send us off to a place we have no idea about? I mean, this is supposed to be a punishment,” Madison said.

“Well, I feel like that question answers itself,” Midnight said, whirling around on her floating hoverboard. “But if that answer isn’t good enough for ya, because she’s the queen is your second answer. Anyways... she just said to bring you all, and I feel like we’ve wasted enough time already. Let’s go.”

They all ran out of the door before each tapped the watch and leaped onto a hoverboard. They zipped through the city, which was buzzing with commotion, as usual, in the afternoon. Midnight, Scorpion, GamerTwist, Coco, and Madison dispatched and sprinted into the palace, then, before she knew it, Midnight was back inside the angry queen’s room.

The queen stopped what she was doing and turned her body towards them, signaling she was looking at them. Her shrill voice came in a screech.

“Children, you are to be sent to Earth immediately. Pack nothing, for this will be your punishment for failing to obey royal orders,” the queen babbled on.

Wait... Scorpion thought, puzzled. We didn’t fail to obey anything. She could tell that her companions were having the same thoughts, too, from their face expressions.

After the queen stopped talking, she immediately grabbed Coco by the wrist, the guards forcing the others to follow. The queen led them into a large room, lit by the technology of the 31st century on Z-48. A huge spaceship was parked in the room's middle.

The doors slid open, and the queen thrust the children inside one by one. The doors slid to a close before any of the middle-school scholars could quickly intervene or make any excuse.

"Please fasten seat belts,” a female robotic voice said from inside the crammed space. The seat lined up against the wall was just lighting up, signaling the seat belt sign. ”The spacecraft will take off shortly.”

“I-I’m not ready for this,” GamerTwist suddenly said, beads of sweat startling to trickle down his forehead. “I’ve never even been in a spacecraft, or aircraft, or any craft, for a matter of fact.”

“Just buckle up!” snapped Madison. “This rocket is flying, whether you like it or not!”

“I would think not,” Midnight intervened as she pulled her seat belt to the other side of her and locked it in, making a clicking sound. The others soon did the same.

"Spacecraft dispatching in 5..."

The kids braced themselves.

"4..."

“Ain’t this countdown real slow?” asked Midnight suddenly, making the others relax.

"3..."

“I still can not believe the queen did this,” said Scorpion.

"2..."

“I can,” commented Coco.

"1..."

“Yeah, well— YAHH!!” Midnight was cut off by her shriek as the spacecraft thrust into space, moving at the speed of light.

The kids were forced to have their backs pushed against the seat because of the intensity and speed of the ride, and none of them could even open their mouths. The spacecraft landed with a loud thunk in less than a minute, filling the children with relief. They hesitantly stepped outside onto lush, green grass. There was a field flooded with flowers right in front of them.

“These look so pretty!” Coco exclaimed as she marveled at the beauty of the flowers.

“They might be poisonous,” warned Scorpion. “Stay back.”

But Coco had already gone and touched a white daisy, plucking it off its green stem and looking at the yellow pollen inside.

“I’m guessing this is Earth, because this looks absolutely nothing like Planet Z-48,” Madison said, looking at her surroundings.

“Why is it so bright?” asked Midnight, her glowing eyes squinting to block a little of light as she turned away from the sun. “It usually dark and cold on Planet Z-48. Yuck, how do humans live with all these bright colors?!”

“Well, we have to endure it so we blend in. I don’t think this is exactly how humans look, though,” GamerTwist commented, looking at his clothes. “Remember? They don’t have glowing eyes.”

“Yeah? Well, maybe they should accept others from other planets just the way they are and not try to do whatever these crazy humans try to do,” Midnight mumbled, telling the others that she was already feeling animosity towards this planet Earth.

“Come on! Maybe they have something to cover our eyes, and we can just get new clothes,” Scorpion suggested.

“But we have no silver,” Midnight raised her eyebrow and crossed her arms, as if trying to make a point.

Scorpion paused and pondered for a second before smiling.

“Then let’s just steal it.”

Midnight stared at Scorpion for a few seconds before just casually shrugging.

“Alright.”

So they snuck around behind houses, fences, trash cans, cars, trucks, fire hydrants, and newspaper stands before reaching a store that had a logo that said “Change Your Eye Color!’”

“Well... here it is,” Coco said, gazing up at the huge store. “We need to make this snappy so we can do other things around here. If we’re going to be stuck living in this place for another five years, why not get used to it?”

“Yeah, but did you even see all those freaky things we passed?!” Midnight exclaimed, raising her eyebrow. “How are we supposed to get used to this?! You guys know how much I hate meeting people, and now I have to meet people from a whole other galaxy!”

“Night, why are--”

“Don’t ‘Night’ me!” Midnight yelled, flicking GamerTwist’s blue hair. GamerTwist and the girls stared at her, and she just gave a scoff. “Don’t look at me like that.”

They all entered the store, a bell ringing as soon as the door closed. A short woman with light brown hair and dark brown eyes was sitting on a chair, reading a magazine. GamerTwist, ChocolateFire, Scorpion, and Madison were quick to look at each other, trying to formulate a plan, but Midnight was quicker to start raising her voice.

“Oi! Human,” Midnight said, walking over to the woman. She dropped her magazine when she saw Midnight and the others. Her brown eyes showed complete fear as Midnight spoke to her. “My name is MidnightEclipse and me and my friends could really use your help. Could you help us look a bit more... normal?”

The woman hesitantly nodded before quickly standing up and racing over to grab a chart. She came back with different eye colors.

“Uh...” Midnight raised her eyebrow as she turned to look at her companions, who just shrugged in confusion. “I-I think I’ll have the dark brown eyes for all of us.”

The woman nodded, and then raced to get another chart, this one being of different hair colors.

“Um... I think... I’ll have black hair,” Midnight said.

GamerTwist and the girls came forward, looking at the chart.

“I’ll also have black hair,” GamerTwist said.

“And I’ll had that brownish-blonde hair,” said Scorpion.

“Ooh! Can I have the light brown?” asked Coco enthusiastically.

“I’ll just take black hair, too,” said Madison.

The woman nodded and was about to race off again when GamerTwist held her back.

“Hey... um... have you ever heard the name GamerTwist or MidnightEclipse before?” he asked, which the woman silently shook her head to. “Are there any normal names you can give us?”

The woman thought for a second before pointing to Xx~MidnightEclipse~xX.

“She can be called Jasmine. Jasmine is a very popular name,” the woman said in an Irish accent. She then pointed to XxGamerTwistxX. “You can be called Zane. Zane is an edgy boy’s name.”

She pointed to everyone as she spoke. She pointed to XxScorpionxX—

“Adna,”

--XxMadisonxX--

“Keep Madison,”

--and XxChocolateFirexX.

“Natalie.”

“Thanks,” Midnight, now known as Jasmine, thanked as she pointed to her slightly glowing dark blue and purple hoodie and black ripped jeans. “Anything you can do about this?”

After the makeover, Jasmine, Zane, Natalie, Adna, and Madison looked like whole new people. Jasmine constantly complained about wearing a miniskirt with tights and that her sweater was just right above it, and when she

just

reached up, her stomach would show, but the woman just told her it was in style. Madison wouldn’t stop curling her now-jet-black hair, and Natalie kept buzzing about flowers and all the pretty colors of the houses and “decorations.”