Victoria made sure Berk was behind her while she slowly moved by the wall, trying to keep her distance from Meldan or the monster that she now was.
"Does he know?" Victoria asked Meldan to keep her occupied by monologing while they slowly switched sides in the corridor.
"Of course not! She has kept me hidden all these years, but she gave up and let me come forth when her mind shattered to pieces."
Victoria kept her focus on the door, but it was too far away for her to run, also little Berk, who was vulnerable to any strike that could come from Meldan.
"Meldan, please fight back!" Victoria told her.
Her head started to twitch as she was approaching them, but she suddenly turned her back towards Victoria and Berk.
"P...Pl...Please go, p...p...prepare the Dark Zen ah Ruh spell." She started to walk away without facing them because she only wanted to get her husband to safety and put all hope on Victoria.
The Hellhounds were lurking behind several copies of Zark, but he had only one metal weapon left. They approached, laughing at him.
"This will be fun!" One of them said in snowboard shorts and an open Hawaiian shirt.
Zark backed a few steps back as they approached and instantly regretted throwing three metal sticks. One Zark in a purple suit attacked from the right with a high kick, but he leaned backward quickly as it missed. A low kick came as Zark hit the floor hard on his side and rolled away, and they kept following him. He had to find a tight space and move quickly from the duplicates as he noticed the stairs were very tight. He went down to the middle of the stairs as they followed, and the kicks started to come in sequences after each other, but the Hawaii one came too close. Zark grabbed its legs and pulled it towards himself so it hit the head on the stairway, and he quickly, with a swift move, pierced the metal stick right through the head of the surfer Zark. Purple suit kicked him in the chest as he fell down the stairs and lost the stick. He slowly got up, and the Purple followed up by grabbing his throat and trying to choke him towards the wall. Zark tries to get loose as one other duplicate tries to pass through to go down where his family is. Quickly, he breaks loose from the grip and puts his foot against the rail, stopping a baggy pants copy of himself as the Purple keeps punching him in the stomach. Zark manages to get loose from Purple and gives a hard kick towards the baggy version and gets at the same time a punch from a copy dressed in a black suit as he usually wears as he hits the wall and keeps moving his body down the stairs as they follow him with the pain he has in his stomach. He tries to pull his hands together to create a thread, but all is in vain, and he has no weapon. Someone punches him from behind on his right side, and he flies right into a school locker that bends inwards. He is bleeding from his head, and the baggy one attacks him with a knife right in the stomach. Zark slowly slides down on the ground while trying to push the gushing blood back. He looks up and sees four Zarks with red eyes looking down towards him and laughing, with the one in a black suit having an immense blood thirst.
"It is time to say goodbye, Zark!" The black suit says.
As several lockers flew through the corridor towards Zark copies, the ground started to shake. They tried to evade it but failed. Meldan quickly approached her husband, pulled him up, and took his arm around her shoulder as both tried to move toward the double door where Victoria was waiting.
"SEAL THE DOOR AND DO IT NOW!" Meldan screams at Victoria, who shakes her head in denial.
Meldan throws Zark down the floor and turns around with more lockers, flying in from left and right, crushing a Hellhound just meters from Meldans face as she watches it pass away. She quickly moves to the side as a flying sword pierces her through the right shoulder. Samantha realized the sword hit her sister instead of Zark, and just for a moment, she stared as Meldan took out the sword and threw it to the ground.
"You need to get up, Zark. You need to help me help you. I have difficulty moving freely with the injury," Meldan whispered to Zark.
Zarks face was slowly getting pale as he forced himself to get up from the blood pool around him, and both slowly walked towards the door as the sword flew back into Samanthas' hand. She aimed again, and when she threw it towards him, Meldan could not block it this time, and Victoria went into the corridor when everything stopped around Zark. The Hellhounds in the air had stopped, the black and red light was burning around them, and the sword was in the same state. He dragged Meldan to the door as Victoria was also frozen. He pushed Meldan inside the door and realized they were in the swimming pool area. Looking at Berk, noticing his eyes were shining bright red. He quickly pulled Victoria inside and locked the door when half the sword pierced through, missing his head only a couple of centimeters away. Victoria looked around and speedily pushed both her hands toward one of the doors and quickly chanted:
" Tu Ru Kuh Mu Uh Ta Ma Sa Ra Ka Pa Ah Buh Ra Fra Ka TUUUUUUUH!" Both the doors turned into pink and black fire, covering the entrance as something smashed toward the door, but the spell held it steady.
Meldan got up, and both of them dragged Zark to the middle, where Berk was crying. They leaned him toward the wall, and Victoria put her hand on his stomach to soak her hand bloody. She made a ring with his blood at the edge of the pool with a couple of signs inside the ring and started to chant:
"Fan Ta Stic Oh Fan Jav La Skit Far Tar Kar AH SO TRAT PAT." The swimming pool started to swirl around as they dragged Zark, and the ring turned into black fire. They put his hand in the fire, and a big circle mark got burned on his wrist. He screamed out loud as he saw his hand turning black. Victoria pulled out a knife from her back and slit through Zarks wrist to make him die faster. He slowly passed away above the ring, and they threw him into the swimming pool as it turned to black color. The entrance door smashed in the end, and Samantha looked down at the black pool and started to move quickly towards Meldan, but she was smart and smeared her blood towards the wall and made a ring within it as it caught blue fire, blocking Samantha and her followers to reach them.
"I know what you are doing, Meldan; I warn you not to dwell in black magic. It can affect the whole world we live in." Samantha tried to explain to Meldan.
It was pointless, Meldan had already decided, and Victoria put her hand in the black burning circle of fire as she also screamed out, making Berks cry; something inside her felt...worried for the first time in her life. Victoria made a swift cut on her wrist as Meldan started to lose a lot of blood. She stood by the edge of the pool, looked back to Samantha, and said:
"I will never forgive you!"
Victoria was on her way to pierce the knife in Meldans stomach; as she held her hand up, she approached and whispered in Victoria's ear:
"Not the stomach; I am pregnant!"
"KA PE SA TUH! Veronica whispered and held her hand on Meldans stomach and pierced the knife through her neck. With the extra spell put on Meldan, the baby will be protected and untouched throughout the journey until her mother wakes up before the pregnancy can continue.
Victoria's eyes widened as she got her first tear in her right eye. She pushed Meldan into the pool, who started to swirl around together with Zark there.
Victoria hurried quickly and grabbed Berk and went to the edge of the pool, and sat down with him as he was crying out loud while he tried to get loose from Victoria's grip because she had hurt him earlier. She drew a circle on Berks's wrist with a different sign, and she made the same one on her wrist. She put both their bloody wrists together and pushed it hard as Berk was screaming out in the air.
"YOU ARE CHANGING THE PAST; IT WILL ONLY HAVE CONSEQUENCES, I WILL HUNT YOU ALL DOWN AGAIN!"
Victoria looked at Samantha as the blue fire slowly was going out and answered:
"But we are not dying. We are going alive back to the past, Samantha. The only consequence that will happen is that I will make sure Hell rains over your head" And she jumped into the pool together with Berk.
Victoria woke up and looked after Berk, who was by her side. She was happy. The spell must have worked, as both of them looked the same. While she tried to gather herself, she could not feel that Meldan or Zark had reached their destinations. They have not come through the portal. It made her think that if she, by mistake, had botched the spell, she should have felt both of them arriving at their destination. She grabbed his hand as they started to walk toward a small village that was further away from other Villages in Paladin Woods; Victoria had managed to go back in time ten years, which means she was in the year 2003. Berk was not even born at this time, which should have destroyed the complete timeline for Meldan and Zark even meeting or Victoria ever being in contact with Meldan. Does it change Sandra's destiny also?
What worried Victoria the most was that Zark and Meldan never landed at any destination and could be stuck in darkness. The only individual who would know if everyone would have landed at their destinations would be Victoria, as she was the one who did the spell, but there was nothing in her thoughts that indicated that the couple had landed in different locations.
Ten years later...
Victoria was waiting in the woods with an umbrella in the rainy weather. She had a weird feeling. Meldan had landed a couple of days earlier in Valiant, with a big announcement of her disappearance ten years ago. The news hit everyone around like a big explosion because Meldan looked Ten years younger instead of Ten years older, which confused a lot of citizens as it was a big difference between coming back to Valiant as a 16-year-old instead of 26 when she disappeared or 36 as she should be in reality. Rumors started to go around of her being sick and puking all the time. Meldan must have sought medical attention for her sickness and realized the baby was not 100 percent Witch, which probably explains why she left the clan of Witches to find shelter somewhere else before the baby was born. Meldan had arrived in 2013 instead of 2003, was de-aged, and became ten years younger with a alive baby in her stomach. Victoria knew that Zark could come at any moment, and she was curious if he would look like he was 15 years old.
A portal opened as black water flushed down, and a teenager in a ripped shirt fell on the ground. If Victoria were right in her calculations, he would be 15-year-old Zark, meaning he has never met any of them and only knows about his sister Sandra.
Zark slowly rose from the ground and looked at the white-haired beauty standing before him. He tried to remember what he had done the last time, but his memory was all black. He struggled to think about the Orphanage but had no earlier recollection. He knew he had a blond sister, Sandra, but did she pass away?
"W...w...where is Sandra?" Zark asked as his first words.
Victoria took a deep breath. She was worried that she didn't erase his mind correctly, but because he asked for Sandra, it meant Meldan was not in the picture and not Berk either. Victoria smiled at him and answered:
"I do not understand who this Sandra you are referring to. When did you last see her?"
Zark tried to think when he saw Sandra the last time it hit him; it was in the Orphanage, but he found clues about her survival. Was she alive? Or was she dead? He was confused.
"Where is my sister?" Zark asked with a firmer tone this time.
Victoria was surprised; the old Zark knew he also had a sister named Madeline, but he didn't seem to understand. Did Victoria mess up the spell too much?
Victoria dropped the umbrella and put her hands behind her head as her shining white hair mesmerized Zark, who was staring at her, thinking what the Hell she was doing.
"HANDS IN THE AIR! THE GUARDIANS OF THE VALIANT PALACE. YOU ARE UNDER ARREST FOR TAMPERING WITH DARK MAGIC AND AFFECTING THE TIME. DO NOT MOVE ZARK VAN POLAN!" Someone was screaming.
Zark was shocked and looked around as soldiers circled them. He put his hand behind his head and stared at Victoria, who was smiling.
"Where am I? What happened to me? You know, lady, otherwise YOU WOULDN'T BE HERE. WHERE AM I? WHERE IS SANDRA?" Zark yelled at Victoria as both got taken away.