The Narabithian Chronicles: The Prophecy of Three

Chapter 5 - Revised- Training Trials and Trips

They had the building cleaned up and fixed up by the end of the week; a day or so afterwards, Exlore was in just as great shape. After he felt better, they sent a letter with Blaze to the capital, telling the Elders, the people who were ruling in their stead, that while battling the Tankors, Jon and Exlore found hints of were Tabitha and the Three really were. The letter said that they were going the trail and see if they can find and safely bring back the Royal Heirs. They would send news as soon as they could.

Blaze told them that he would be back in soon, as soon as their new colt was old enough to go to Blaze's father's academy so that he can be properly taught the ways of the pegahorns.

They began training exactly a week after they had arrived. Each of the classes were rigorous, strenuous, and pushed the teens past their limits, into brand new unknown ones. Tabitha's surprise she had been working on turned out to be the training court, where Jon ended up teaching combat. The combat classes were physically demanding, and left each of the teens nearly drowning in their own sweat. Everyone expected Gen to do the best in those classes, and she was very successful, but she was surprisingly not the star pupil. Rusty amazed everyone with her nimbleness and her agility, expertly adapting to every kind of magic and weapon Jon had them use.

Tabitha's Narabithian classes were not the exception. The history classes were fun, and used all sorts of magic and technology to almost literally bring history to life. The language classes, however, were difficult, as the teens had spoken nothing but American English ever since they could remember; and although Tabitha did her best, the teens struggled greatly. The only one who got the hang of it was Rusty, who had already taken Spanish, French, and Latin in school and had gotten the hang of learning new languages.

The battle strategy class was fun. Since Exlore apparently believed in learning on the job, he fought each of them one-on-one, and then afterward would ask the teens that were in the audience what they thought his opponent did wrong, and what they could do differently the next time they sparred. Each of the teens excelled, however, since Gen had been taking Karate and other martial arts since she could walk, she was the most successful in the class.

The politics class though, was not the most interesting, and it started to become Jeff's naptime. Exlore did his best to make it fun, but politics are politics. The only one who seemed to enjoy it was Jake, who caught on quite quickly, and was the only one who really participated in the class.

Life was looking up for the teens, and one day, it all coalesced into beautiful chaos.

It was one month exactly after they had been taken to Narabithia, and the teens were chatting excitedly as they came into the room were Tabitha taught history. They settled into their chairs, and as Tabitha was about to speak, a thought occurred to Gen.

"Tabitha," she said, "what about our parents?" A cloud of guilt lay heavily upon the teens, that hadn't given their Earth family much thought since they had arrived.

"A month before we left, I told your parents that it was almost time," Tabitha began explaining. "They were terrible sad, but they knew it had to be this way. So, we began conniving ways to explain your disappearance to the locals without causing alarms or massive manhunts that were bound to fail. Finally, an idea occurred to me. We would blow you up. At first, we had a hard time trying to find a way to blow you up that didn't look like you were murdered.

"Finally, we settled on the idea that there was a gas leak in the engine, you tried starting the car and the hood caught on fire, and you happened to be over a hidden natural gas deposit. I don't know if the people believed it or not, but the explosion should have big enough to incinerate you, leaving no bodies, and leave no traces of sabotage," the Catling finished explaining.