Child of the Moon.

~Chapter One~

The ground trembled beneath their feet. There was a sudden wind coming up from the chasm below. It blew their hair behind them as they stared down. The leaves swirled in spirals around them. A small green glow began to be seen. A sound like distant thunder grew louder as the light came closer. Rapunzel took a small step back as the glow became brighter and brighter, coming closer and closer to where she and her friends stood. Eugene gripped Rapunzel's hand. 

"Eugene," she said quietly, "Do you hear that?"

"Yeah," He responded, pulling her close. "In my experience, growing rumbles are never a good thing."

Suddenly, thick, glowing, lime-green vines shot up from the chasm. More and more surrounded them until a mound of the vines rose up. The vines move on their own as if they were alive. They untangled and revealed a thin, limp human body trapped and hanging in the vines. The body suddenly jerked to life, lifting its head to roar at them in fury.

Hector.

His eyes were a glowing, solid, pale green. His skin had the same green tint to it. It appeared that the evil sleeping within the Great Tree had taken control and possessed him. Rapunzel knew Hector was a ruthless man but releasing the demon heart of the tree? It was too far, even for him! Or was it...?

"All who enter the Great Tree of Zhan Tiri," Hector suddenly spoke in a voice that wasn't quite his own. "Shall be destroyed!"

As he growled the last word, dozens of vines sprung up and attacked Rapunzel and her friends. They shot toward Eugene and Lance at a jerk of Hector's head and grabbed Cassandra around her ankle at a twist of his wrist. He seemed to have some sort of control of the vines and the vines of him. 

Rapunzel was slammed into a boulder as another wave of vines threw her back. She stood shakily, gripping her seventy-foot blonde hair in her hands, ready to fight again.

She looked around, checking her surroundings and saw Cassandra completely unaware of the large vine targeting her from behind.

"Cass, watch out!" Rapunzel shouted, throwing a long lock of her hair that wrapped around her friend's middle and pulled her next to her away from the attack. "Gotta watch that flank," she said, releasing her friend with a playful wink.

The vines continued to attack no matter how many times they were hewed and trampled. Rapunzel and her friends fought with all they had, but their strength could not hold out forever. The vines started to overtake them, pinning down their limbs and wrapping around them, lifting them high above the ground. 

Adira leapt up the mountain of vines surrounding Hector but was knocked back to the ground by the ancient spear he held in his hand, but Adira caught the spear on her foot, bringing it down with her. Adira looked up at Hector as she struggled to her feet. She looked at him, imprisoned in the vines, and one of the hardest things she'd ever had to accept came to mind. That thing was not her brother. Not anymore.

The vines threw Rapunzel back again as they grabbed Eugene around his chest, squeezing the oxygen out of his lungs as it lifted him into the air. Tears stung at the corners of Rapunzel's eyes. Things had gone far enough. Eugene's life was in danger. Everyone's life was in danger. Rapunzel knew she had to stop it, once and for all. She couldn't get out of this one without hurting someone. She had to stop it.

Rapunzel began to toss several ropes of her hair around the main mound of vines. Cassandra, three of her limbs still pinned down, noticed what her friend was doing and immediately reached for where the spear had fallen not too far from her with her one free arm, shouting,

"Raps, don't!" She pleaded. "You can't use that incantation again! When you use it, you can't stop!"

"I don't have a choice, Cass," Rapunzel said regretfully.