"Meep," Jared squeaked, fumbling for his knife. Meg watched him, feeling suddenly detached, and idly noted that she had never seen the assassin fumble before.
The man who had leapt from the rafters turned to face her, his eyes dark and glittering behind the black mask he wore. He dressed in tight black clothing and looked more like a ninja than anyone she'd ever seen before. Not that she'd seen many people who looked like ninjas.
Before he could make any sort of move, she held her hands up. "One moment!" she cried, subtly shifting her weight so that she could block better if he attacked. "Please, if you're going to kill us, can't you tell us who you are and why you're here?"
Behind him, Kitana stirred and pushed herself up, then fell over backwards. She raised a hand to her head and gazed dizzily at Meg, who nodded slightly.
The ninja snarled and leapt forward, twisting his body so that his legs slammed into Meg's abdomen. "Ack!" she cried, doubling over in pain. She hadn't been hurt in five years, not really; her magic countered those effects.
The ninja wasted no time. He did a handspring to land in front of Jared and punch him in the face. Jared, blood running from his nose, gave what sounded like a war-cry and lashed out with his knife. The ninja dropped and balanced on his hands for an instant, swinging his legs to knock Jared's from under him. Jared crashed to the ground, moaning.
Meg straightened, her head whirring, and watched dimly as Kitana shouted something unintelligible that caused a burst of white light to flare. The ninja covered his eyes in pain. Ashton shrieked in the voice of the phoenix she had become and dove, clawing at his mask.
Allison dragged Jared to his feet, terror showing on her face. Shannon glanced around wildly and ran to grab a shovel where it leaned against the wall, then tried to hit the ninja over the head with it.
He ducked, twisted, and kicked. There was an audible snap as his foot slammed into Shannon's wrist. She bit her lip and stumbled backwards, still clutching at the shovel.
Ashton turned back to herself, but while she stood still, presumably readying herself for a new shift, the ninja acted. He punched her in the side of the head, then shoved her in Kitana's general direction. Kitana was distracted from whatever spell she was preparing, and made a grab to stop Ashton from falling.
Meg's vision stablized and she tried again to attack, and for her pains was thrown into a stack of hay bales. She sank to the floor, pulling straw out of her hair and willing her muscles to let her stand and try again.
Kitana gently pushed the barely-conscious Ashton to the floor against the wall of the horse's stall; it was terrified by now, neighing loudly and beating against the stall with its hooves. Kitana ignored it and thrust her hands out, eyes closed.
Brilliant, electric blue light lanced from her palms. The ninja ducked, but Jared, who was behind him, wasn't so lucky. The light crashed into him. His high-pitched scream split the air as he stumbled into Allison, still yelling.
The ninja took advantage of the confusion to yank Jared from Allison. She stared in horror at her hands, covered now in blood, then tried to run after him and was stopped by Mary.
"Don't! He'll hurt you, too! We're not fighters, we can't - "
The ninja threw Jared into the wall. The rotting wood shattered under the weight of Jared's body and the force behind him, and the boy, still screaming, fell the six feet to the ground - where the cries abruptly stopped.
Kitana whistled. A sword, glittering silver, sprang into her hand, and she rushed forward. Mary took advantage of the ninja's preoccupation with Kitana to run to the broken wall and vault to the ground below.
Meg staggered to her feet and limped forward, accompanied by the white-faced Shannon. The ninja struck Kitana a glancing blow to the head, and she stumbled, the sword missing and slicing a fairly shallow cut into his arm. He was stopped from finishing his attack by the girls behind him. Shannon stooped to grab Jared's knife and threw it, hard.
Her aim was not much improved.
The ninja yelled in rage as the knife hit his already-wounded arm, digging in. He pulled it out and idly threw Kitana aside as he turned to face Shannon and Meg.
Meg ignored the knife and dove at him. They fell, and she rolled on top of him, pinning his knife arm down. He flailed desperately and kicked Kitana in the head. She had been about to get up, but now laid still, eyes shut.
Oh, God, Meg thought. This is going very, very badly...
*
Mary knelt beside Jared, her dark eyes filled with tears. There was a great deal of blood centered on his stomach, his nose continued to bleed, and the fall had knocked him out.
"What can I do?" she whispered. To her inexperienced eyes, he looked very dead.
For heaven's sake. The voice invaded her mind, and her eyes unfocused as they adjusted to the new presence. He's okay. Well, not precisely okay, he's dying, but see, he's breathing. Good sign, that.
"Kitana..."
There was a brief silence in Mary's mind; then the voice spoke again. Not much time. I wasn't aware you had the talent, but then, you were young during our time together...Healing never manifests before sixteen...no book knowledge, though. He'll die if you don't do something.
"No!" Mary reached out, some vague idea to put pressure on the wound crossing her mind, but was stopped by the presence dragging back on her hands.
Not like that! Oh, I haven't got time to teach you properly...brace yourself...
Before Mary could even deduce what that meant, she temporarily lost her sight as patterns and words in some other language and pure, unadulterated power poured into her mind. She felt suddenly that she couldn't hold it all, that she would explode. It was something like having a large, pointed stick hammered into one's head by a giant praying mantis. There was, of course, poison on the stick...
This one. Kitana sorted through the patterns and pulled one out. No foreign matter, that helps. Simple knitting. Follow it, and everything -
There was a thud and a shriek from above, and Kitana's mind-voice was silent.
Mary caught the pattern, dazed, and called on power that felt, to her mind's eye, purple. A very pretty cotton candy purple.
She laid one hand on Jared's forehead, and held the other an inch above his broken skin. A dull sort of shadow-pain throbbed in her stomach, and she felt his heartbeat - irregular and slow - thumping alongside hers.
She let her breath out slowly, pressed the pattern into the power - or perhaps vice versa - and murmured, "Heal."
*
Allison stood quietly, trying to think, as chaos raged around her.
Shannon and Meg were quickly dispatched - Shannon with a sharp blow to her head, and Meg sent sailing headfirst into the hay bales. The ninja grabbed Kitana and pushed her toward Ashton. Kitana shrieked, stumbled, and fell, half on top of Ashton, and they both laid still.
"I'm the only one left," Allison said, as the thought occured to her.
"S'right," the ninja answered. His voice was muffled by his mask, and he took a single step in her direction. "I see your magic. What kind?"
"I..." She paused. Language, that was her magic. It had been a good help in Spanish class, but beyond that, she didn't see much use in it. It simply wasn't made for fighting.
She suddenly felt Kitana's mind-touch, faint and barely there, since the mage sank rapidly toward unconsciousness. Here. Try this.
Another mind, unfamiliar, linked with hers, and she felt both Kitana and this unknown entity speaking in a tongue she couldn't recognize.
Then the world exploded.
Allison screamed - really screamed, the kind of scream one utters when falling thousands of feet to one's death. She pressed her hands to her aching head as three kinds of magic blended, twisted, changed, filling her completely and more, shoving out all obstacles...
She flung a hand out, pointing at the ninja. All that power with nowhere to go...she knew that tears streamed down her cheeks, and tasted blood in her mouth, and yelled, "Chylaj keminori aquesta!"
Darklight - a light so fiercely black it was impossible, a light she'd never seen before but knew instantly - poured from her and flew at the ninja. He gaped, then tried to move. But time had slowed, reality bent, and the darklight swept around him in a vicious tornado.
Allison, still besieged by the agony of too much magic, found the way to get rid of it as fast as possible. The Song of Endless Torment hadn't done much to her, but the Gateway...
She threw it open.
A rush of unbound magic left her free of the awful power, but suddenly alone in darkness.
*
Mary felt the barriers between worlds shatter, deep in her bones, and lost her grip on the pattern. She had almost finished, and though Jared's clothes remained saturated with blood, she knew without looking that all that remained was an uninfected scratch that would turn into a scar when it healed.
He sat up and wiped at the blood on his face. Mary caught a pattern and touched his nose. The meeting of power and knowledge went smoother this time, and the bleeding stopped.
"What was that?" Jared asked. He glanced down. "Why am I covered in blood?"
Mary stood and pulled him to his feet. "I think it's over. We'd better get medical attention to the others."
They walked quickly around the barn and up the ramp, there to be met by a strange sight.
The ninja was gone. Completely gone. Allison, pale and covered with glittering black sparks, stood in the center of the barn. The horses' stalls had broken. They were all awake now, but huddled at the other end of the barn, making frightened little horse-sounds.
Meg dug herself out of the hay bales, rubbing at her head. "Ouch...hurts...hey, where's my magic?"
"If I still had it, I'd give it back," Allison told her.
Kitana and Ashton both awoke at approximately the same time and sat up. So close together, they provided an odd contrast; Kitana, the incarnation of winter night, and Ashton, a bright summer flame. They managed to stand.
"Shannon needs the most help," Kitana said, upon noticing Mary and Jared. "Er, except, I think, for Meg and Allison, but I'll have to fix that." She held her hand out, palm down, and called to the black sparks, which leapt into her hand. "Well, that's mine. Meg...er...any more sparks?" she asked Allison hopefully.
"Explanation," Allison said feebly. Jared hurried to her side and supported her as she shivered. Mary ran over to Shannon and began to flip through her newly-gained knowledge in search of the remedy for broken bones.
Kitana shrugged. "We needed something spectacular. Meg and I Sourced for you. The darklight was all you, though. That's the power of language - to find the light that hovers within the darkness. I can't do that."
"I wonder why?" Ashton said sarcastically. "Could it be the lack of any goodness in your soul?"
"How many times - "
"Kitana! You gave her that power without permission! I could feel it, even unconscious! That much power - "
"Well, I won't do it again. Obviously a linguist isn't equipped to handle true-magic."
Mary pulled Shannon up. "We need to leave. Soon. Now."
Jared looked around, at the broken wall, the shattered stalls, the terrified horses. "We really should clean up our mess..."
Allison glanced up at him. "You're all right, then?"
He gazed ruefully down at his shirt. "I suppose, but this shirt definitely isn't."
The seven, in the end, left a very nice note on the kitchen counter, along with some conjured money. Counterfeiting, as Kitana put it, was a very marketable magical skill, though it was Jared who helped her with the hard little parts.
Ashton sighed as they gathered around the plane. "Now is it dragon time?"
Kitana shrugged. "Unless there are more ninjas hanging about."
The other five remained in the plane, exhausted though physically unharmed, while Ashton and Kitana returned to the barn.
It took a full ten minutes for Ashton to grasp the new form and get it to take properly. She was immediately assaulted by a variety of new sights, sounds, and scents.
Kitana stared at the fifteen-foot-tall dragon. "Now, then. Disk Magic smells vaguely like cinnamon, or so I hear. You'll know when you find it, and then you'll never lose it, okay?"
Ashton lowered her long, dragonish snout to the floor and sniffed around. She found the Disk's trail quickly enough, and found that a map appeared in her head, with the trail laid on it in a soft blue line that gradually grew dimmer as it led across the country, northwest as far as Ashton could tell.
She slipped back into her native form and called the map back. "It started fading out somewhere near central Minnesota," she said.
"Good, good. Let's go. Bring us down at that spot, and we'll renew the magic."
Ashton followed her ex-friend quietly. Somehow she'd expected being a dragon to be...different. It was certainly cool, but apparently Avrien dragons weren't used for flying much. They were treasure-seekers, magic-sniffers, and they didn't really breathe fire.
How disappointing.
She and Kitana climbed into the plane. Without even considering Allison for the job, Ashton picked up the violin and tried to think of a song to play.
"When do I get my magic back?" Meg asked in a trembling tone.
Kitana shrugged. "Soon enough. I've never actually done this before." She leaned against the side of the plane and flicked her fingers, presumably releasing the spell that made them invisible.
Ashton absently started to play a Riverdance song, lifting the plane up. It hovered briefly, then shot off along the line that burned in her brain.
One week, five and a half days left...