Chapter 13

"Good morning Heroes!!!" The Caretaker's voices rang out. "It's training time!!!" They yelled louder, banging on doors and sufficiently rousing the Heroes, well most of them.

"Grab his wings, I'll take his legs." Lichen told her sister, already slotting her tiny hands around Aster's ankles. The Fairy was still fast asleep even though sounds of movement were being heard from the other rooms.

"Alright!" Lotus agreed, her long, dark blue hair getting in her dark eyes as she leaned forward to grab the sturdy appendage. "One, two pull!"

They both pull hard but the lightly snoring Fairy doesn't move an inch, nor does he rouse from his sleep.

Eden was having a similar issue with a murmuring Poppy, whose short, light blue hair was covering her sleeping face.

"Come on Poppy, get up!" Eden insisted, getting frustrated but Poppy just snuggled in deeper into the thick covers, happily mumbling her way back to deep sleep.

Poppy had come into Eden's room the night before, intensely worried about her best friend, it was good she did because Eden had been a wreck.

Eventually, she calmed Eden down and helped her mentally as well, crashing with her too so Eden was really pumped up for the training session this morning that she could barely sleep a wink, but here was Poppy, ruining her mojo.

"Poppy I swear if you let me say this one more time…" Louder mumbles cut off her infuriated words and Eden just leveled her a look.

Suddenly a bright idea dinged in Eden's head and she grinned, stretching out a hand, she reached in the direction of a potted plant sitting on a side shelf, the plant had vines - perfect...

"Aaaaaahhhhh!" Poppy squealed, trying to hang on to the sheets as she was pulled upwards by her legs, the sheets just ended up getting pulled out of the sides of the bed where they were tucked in.

"Awake now?" Eden smirked, arms crossed, hips cocked to one side.

Poppy blew her tangled hair out of her face but it just flopped back. "Pft, show off." She tried crossing her arms too but gravity didn't let her. "Come on," she half whined. "You had your fun, now put me down."

"Fine, fine." Eden waved a hand, "Now hurry up, I don't want to be late on the first day of training." She threw back, already rushing inside her bathroom.

Poppy shook her head in amusement but quickly made her way out of the room, hurrying to her room which was in between Orchid's and Eden's room when she paused at the ruckus going on in Aster's room.

"What's going on in here?" She asked hesitantly, walking cautiously into Aster's room, his door was wide open.

The Caretakers get distracted and end up flying across the room from how hard they were trying to pull the Water Hero off his bed.

Poppy froze as they smacked into the opposite wall, wings fluttering haphazardly as they tried to recover their bearings.

"We apologize, Forest Hero but we can't seem to wake up the Fairy Hero." Lichen spoke l first as usual, her pink hair tangled in a figurine on the shelf beside the wall she smacked into.

"We are actually starting to get very worried." Lotus spoke gently in a her feather soft voice.

"Eh?" Poppy spluttered, very confused at the ridiculous scene she walked into.

She looked from the sleeping Fairy to the panting Caretakers still plastered on the wall. "How hard can it be to wake one Fairy up?" She eyerolls, striding confidently to Aster's bedside. "A good spank should get him up on his feet, all bright and bubbly." She added with conviction, already stretching out a hand to hit Aster.

"M-Maybe you could try hitting his face?" Lotus finally asked in her gentle voice, after a long while when it seemed Poppy was starting to get tired of smacking Aster.

A vein ticked on Poppy's head, her tangled hair even wilder now, she tossed the torn pillow in her hands away and glared at a straight faced Lotus. "Are you mocking me?" She demanded, full on pissed.

"That's it!" She threw her hands up, barging into the bathroom. She looked around desperately for what to use to scoop some water and found it in another potted plant, bless Forest Fairies for having an unhealthy obsession with plant life.

She immediately shrunk the plant in it back to a seed and upturned the earthy and moist soil out a window, after rinsing out the pot so that the residue soil wouldn't stain, she filled it up and made a mad dash for the bedroom.

Without hesitation, she charged at Aster, fully intent on dousing the still peacefully sleeping Fairy with cold water, despite the horror filled expressions on Lichen and Lotus's face.

"If he's still asleep after this, then he's definitely dead." She mumbled to herself, a little bit out of it 

She flipped the pot upside down, not even nice enough to spill it little by little, a contented smile on her face.

The water doesn't so much as pour out as it plops out, the entire content of the filled pot going straight towards Aster's oblivious face.

The falling water halts in front of Aster's face and Poppy felt her jaw hit the ground, the pot still held high above her head in a victorious pose.

"W-What??" She splutters, letting the pot slip out of her slack hands and rolling unharmed to the ground.

"Tch, annoying." Aster finally mumbled sleepily, flicking open an eye to look up disinterestedly at Poppy. "How did you think that attacking a Water Fairy with water was the best idea." He continued mumbling, more to himself than anyone else.

He'd been slightly excited for this journey because it meant that he would get a break from his Aunt Rose disrupting his sleep but he comes here to find another one… no wait - he sits up, the water following his movements - three more females who won't just let him sleep.

Closing his eyes again, he fell back on the bed but the floating ball of water doesn't follow him, instead it hovered threateningly over Poppy's head.

Poppy's eyes widen as soon as she noticed it, making a dash for the door, Lotus and Lichen are already outside the open door, the Training Camp was pretty cold enough for being deep in the woods and close to the mountains, they weren't about to risk getting wet.

Aster winked open an eye again as the Fairies dashed out, trying to escape his ball of cold death and his eye twinkled a little, moments later, three identical screams tore through the house.

Aster just got up languidly, stretching lazily like a giant cat, his waist long, golden blond hair all around. Looking as emotionless and detached as ever like he hadn't just attacked and tried to drown a couple girls with a bubble of water that he might have reduced the temperature of, even further.

"Next time I'm growing a plant out of his ears!" Poppy's shivering voice could be heard threatening Aster.

"It's training time." The Caretakers mumbled weakly, shivering as well.

The Heroes finally lined up in the Training Arena which was behind the cluster of pretty buildings, there where five Arenas.

The Heroes found out about this when their Caretakers took them on a tour that freezing morning, it was still so dark that they had to hold lamps.

The first Arena which was also the main one was a basic styled Training field with running tracks, climbing set ups, weapons cache and so on, the next four Arenas were customized to fit the four Fairy types and the Final one was for sparring.

Finally the Captain showed up but the Heroes had already been waiting for quite sometime now that the sun had already even started to rise, low on the horizon.

Captain Evergreen was dressed differently from the last time the Heroes saw him, dressed in a simple sleeveless tank top, despite the cold weather that showed off his well built arms and loose pants in shades of brown and dull grey greens and his usual pitch black high boots.

"Good morning Heroes." He greeted curtly, standing at ease in front of the lined up Heroes who stood at attention opposite him.

"Good morning Sir!" They greeted, less than lethargic, still drowsy from the early rising and the long wait in mind numbing cold.

"It's time to get strong." He gave them a tight smile, dark eyes hard.