Jason noticed first. He stopped, hand on his sword, and squinted at the sky. That got Serena and Blossom to stop too, both now on edge and looking up to find whatever had caught his attention.

A silhouette headed their way, one so small against the cloudless morning sky that Serena had to wonder how Jason sniffed it out. She stretched her own Spirit Sense, feeling even the small insects that hid in the grass around them, but from the silhouette all she could perceive was the vaguest press of energy, one that intensified as it came closer yet lay far enough away that anyone could've—really, should've—confused it for a mild breeze.

Amazing, she thought, glancing sideways at Jason. The man's Trick and Talisman were uniquely impressive, but the sheer range and accuracy of his Spirit Sense put even those to shame, understated as the technique usually was. Master the basics and you master the world, or so she'd come to learn. More than pure power, that was the kind of finesse one needed to be successful in this big, dangerous game of theirs.

So it was quite a relief when Jason's face, tense and searching, slowly loosened. A wry smile crossed his face. "I don't think he'll ever stop surprising me," he said, letting go of the sword handle.

If he wasn't worried then Serena wouldn't be either. She was content to wait along with Jason as the silhouette turned into an indiscernible winged monster, and then she kept waiting as that winged monster turned into a lion-headed chimera being ridden by three other Magicians.

Blossom prepared to attack beside her, orange oozing out of the skin on her palms and forming into beads, but Serena waved her off. Now that they were closer she could better gauge their Spirits, and there was no enmity there. In fact, what she felt was rather familiar...

"Leader Serena! Friend Blossom!"

Blossom groaned, and Serena smirked. It was a loud, low brass that boomed for what sounded like miles—in other words, not the kind of voice one could easily forget.

Jason waved up at the incoming group and Serena followed his lead, watching the chimera land nearby like a coiling spring. Meeting their wave was Lu Lahan, his giant body taking up enough space that Serena could hardly believe anyone else could fit on the chimera's back with him.

Lu was as exuberant as always in that frank way of his, not so much smiling back at her as he was smiling at himself, reveling in the accomplishment of having found her. "Good to find you here!" he shouted, sliding off the chimera's back. "Fortune has favored me once again!"

One of the Magicians who followed him to the ground was much smaller and thinner, a human with a limp head of long hair and bleary, dark-rimmed eyes. Where Lu stood as proud as a Roman general at a triumph, this human sat as if ready to lay in bed and sleep through the next few weeks. "Ugh, why do you always have to be so loud..."

Then there was the third Magician with them, a second human. Only a bit larger than the first, what struck Serena most about him was the youth in his tattooed face, in his smile, in the way he practically leaped onto the ground the moment he could and started bouncing over as if on a giant trampoline. Ripped and battered as he looked—as they all looked, Serena noted—this boy nevertheless exuded an energy that reminded her more of a toddler in Christmas than the teenager he looked like.

Most of all, Serena saw the youth in his Spirit. It crashed into hers with little warning, a wave of pure pressure that didn't hurt but felt instead warm, like one big, concentrated ray of light. So much of it there was, and so bright, that Serena felt her own Spirit come up the same way she'd instinctively raise a hand to cover her eyes against the sun.

"Red." Jason held a fist out. "I'm guessing you've been doing alright?"

Bumping knuckles, Red's grin widened. "Let's just say we've been kicking ass and takin' names. The Big Guy and Glowstick here've been helping out."

"Glowstick?"

The other boy dropped from the chimera's back and drew forward, rolling his shoulders. Apparently it hadn't been the most comfortable ride over. "My name's Chase, actually. Pretty sure he just forgot at some point."

"Oh, believe me, he does it on purpose. Call me Jason." Looking back at Serena, Jason nodded toward Lu. "And it looks like you know him already?"

"One of mine," Serena said, crossing her arms as Lu stomped closer. "How've you been, Lu? Not too hurt?"

She meant the scratches that covered his body, particularly the arm that looked just about ready to fall into a pile of minced meat. Lu looked down at himself, huffed at the sight, and stood scornfully with arms akimbo. "No quest is complete without a few scars!"

Blossom grimaced, stepping back from the sight. "Count me out of any future quests, then."

A roar broke the buzz of their reunion. As one, the Magicians all turned to see Khurang growling their way. The chimera crouched low, teeth clenched together and scorpion tail swishing slowly back and forth like a snake, glaring at Red with eyes full of a distinctly childish resentment. Then in one bounding leap the chimera flapped to the sky and shrunk back into a silhouette, its tiny shadow soon swallowed by the endless blue.

Red screwed up his lips like he'd tasted something sour. "See ya later too, stupid furball. Talk about ungrateful..."

Serena set her eyes on Jason. "You didn't tell me you had a Beast Tamer on your team."

"I don't. At least, I don't think I do." Jason frowned, examining Red. "You weren't actually controlling that thing, were you?"

"As if," Red said, raising a hand to his head. "I kept having to shout just to get him to listen, and I'm pretty sure the only reason he did at all was to keep me from beating him up again."

"Again?"

"We have a history."

"It seemed trained," Jason hummed, hand on his chin. "I imagine it's already used to working through a bond, and a Spirit like yours should be pretty easy to link up with at least a little."

"Man, whatever." Red twined his hands behind his head, looking around. Grass was all there was to see, green and lush for miles, at least in most directions. Due west there was a wall rising from the earth, a grey band that spanned the horizon and glinted in the daylight like polished metal. The exit. "I got us down here 'cuz I noticed you guys. You got your tags?"

"Yeah. You get yours?"

Red's grin returned, impish and satisfied. "Oh yeah. We got our tags alright. So, where's Stretch and Four-Eyes?"

Jason blinked. "I thought they were with you."

The grin dropped, and now both were left frowning at each other in a bout of shared confusion. Serena watched them process the absence of their friends, watched the sighs and the anxious fidgeting of unsaid worries.

"We're close to the exit, boys," she said, snapping them out of it. She nudged her head to the faraway wall. "If you're hoping to find someone, chances are you'll find them there."

"Right," Jason said. He tried for a smile, and strained as it was Serena could tell he'd been somewhat reassured. "C'mon, then. I was already hoping we'd get out last night, so let's not waste any more time. I'm sure the guys are fine."

- - - — MKII — - - -

Malcolm was not fine. Really, he was the complete opposite of fine. Cold, hungry, and entirely bound. That would've been bad enough, but the whole thing got worse when he thought about how it had been this way the whole night.

He wasn't sure exactly where they were, but the place was practically barren save for all the snow and raised cliffs. No particularly standout landmarks. No animals anywhere around. Even the sky seemed somehow missing, coated completely in the gray of cold and frost. Out of all the Sanctuary's biomes, this seemed the most bleak.

Still, none of this should have bothered him. With his Trick, feeling cold was entirely his choice. He could usually heat himself up, or even make things warm for whoever stood around him. Unfortunately, the Hardcuffs that had been slapped on his wrists made any attempts at magic impossible.

He wasn't the only one either. There were around a dozen other Magicians in this makeshift cell, a barred box made of stone and dirt. Some earth magic Trick would have made it no doubt. That usually wouldn't have been much of a problem for even a moderately powerful Magician, but seeing as none of them could use their Spirit it was enough to keep them all trapped inside. They were a group of wild jaguars trapped in an aluminum cell, their claws and fangs made too dull to rip their way out of the otherwise weak container.

Malcolm himself had eventually stopped trying to simply tackle his way out, accepting his body lacked the strength without the standard Spirit Boost. The anxiety and frustration had kept him up throughout the whole night of their containment, which left him plenty of time to think. Now the first signs of dawn were making themselves known, the dark gray of their surroundings taking on lighter and lighter shades due to some hidden sun, but he'd found no more recourse to get out of this ordeal than he had at its beginning.

Something tapped his leg. Malcolm raised a pair of bleary eyes to see Penny lying on the ground beside him, her foot weakly kicking. "Your fault," the girl said, her own eyes rimmed in dark circles behind her glasses. If anyone looked less pleased than himself it was her. Maybe that was good. Anger could work as good fuel, though Malcolm would've liked it if she pointed it at someone else.

Stretch sat on Malcolm's other side, back to the wall of their prison and bound arms propped loosely on bent knees. "We all feel shitty enough already, man," he yawned.

"There's no amount of shitty that could make up for this," Penny said. A sob bubbled behind her voice, one she quite bravely fought down.

Sitting across from them on an actual chair was the same bald and eyebrowless man who'd caught them all those sleepless hours before. Malcolm had eventually guessed the man's Trick must've been one that could stop them from using their Spirit, so his presence was a needed insurance. Should any of them somehow slip out of their Hardcuffs, he'd be there to make sure they still couldn't escape.

"The wait's almost over, kiddies," the man said. "Din should be here any second, don't you worry."

Din. It was a name they'd all heard their captors speak to each other in excited, almost awed whispers. Malcolm still didn't know what the purpose of all this was—taking them all captive, holding them in one place for so long, waiting for this mysterious man. Whoever these people were, they had already taken all their tags. They'd already been defeated by them. What point was there in carrying on with all this? What did this Din want with them?

Malcolm squinted past the bald man to see the makeshift camp behind him. Some fifty Magicians made merry there, sitting around a fire and chatting with the exuberance of victory in the early morning. They drank and ate, and they bragged to each other about all the tags they'd now secured. It was the single largest team Malcolm had seen in this competition, large enough that it made him seriously question the ruleset that made such numbers possible. Surely En and the other directors would've known someone would do this, so why not prevent it with some maximum limit per challenge?

"I could be in bed right now," Penny mumbled. "I could be all warm and cozy somewhere with my friends. Instead I'm here with you."

"You attacked us first," Stretch said, tiredly saying the same thing he'd already said a hundred times before. The argument had been had often enough that Malcolm could already outline the major points before they were repeated.

"It was a trap, not an attack," Penny said. "And you already beat my team. This amount of punishment is just overkill."

"It's not like we asked for this any more than you did."

"Still happened on your watch."

"I don't know what more you expect us to do at this point."

"Apologize to me."

"I already have."

"Again. No amount of apologies can make up for this."

"Please shut up," someone else said, and Malcolm glanced to see it had been one of the trapped Magicians. "You people are really annoying..."

She was a little beastgirl, shorter than Malcolm by a head and a half, her skin was patched with pale white scales and her eyes were yellow and slitted like a snake's. Ebi she'd called herself, and despite being by far the youngest person there she was also somehow the least troubled. It reminded Malcolm of Kitty in a way, though the calm that followed this girl seemed to come less from an arduous control over her emotions and more from an incomprehensible carelessness that bordered on outright sloth. Out of all of the captured Magicians, she'd been the only one who managed a few hours of sleep.

"Everyone listen to the cute little girl," the bald man said. He kept his arms crossed and his face smug despite his clear exhaustion. "She's clearly the most mature one in there."

Stretch graced him with the most deadpan face he could manage. "Man, you already beat us. Don't have to rub it in our face too."

The bald man shrugged. "I've got my vices."

Malcolm found himself falling into deeper reflection. He'd had hours now to think through the situation, and while he'd not been able to come up with any solutions he had picked up on a few interesting things.

Not only was the faction holding them captive the largest one in the competition, they also seemed like the most well-prepared. Their tags had been stored in a sort of mobile wagon, one that the group also used to keep various sets of clothes, fuel, food, and other survival equipment. The Hardcuffs they'd been able to put on all their captives spoke to some wicked access too; usually even Duplicate Talismans like these wouldn't be so easy to find, yet they'd apparently had enough to both trade in for Tourney Tokens and also use against their opponents. Doing that must've taken quite a bit of funding.

Some foreign group like the League? Malcolm didn't think so. They all spoke American English, and they didn't act like much of a professional outlet. They also seemed too dependent on the quantity of their numbers to be a Ranger Outpost. It seemed more likely that they were some kind of criminal operation, a team of Rouge Magicians, though Malcolm didn't know how they could've organized such a force for a tournament like this.

Then there were the Magicians who'd been captured. Most sat or lay listlessly, at times muttering some inane comment or complaint but otherwise made pliant by powerlessness. The only exceptions were Ebi, whose inaction seemed motivated more by lack of any urgency on her part than genuine hopelessness, and one other.

A woman, tall and brown-skinned, who sat silent and solitary by the corner of the earthen cage, bound hands laying on her crossed ankles and eyes closed in what seemed like meditation. She hadn't moved a single inch since Malcolm had been thrown in, though every once in a while he could see a twitch of her plump lips, as if she knew some secret and thought it amusing that they didn't.

What did any of this matter, though? Malcolm couldn't make these pieces connect in his head to form any kind of clear picture of what to do. Not for the first time he felt his heart skip and pressure creeping up his throat as panic began to seize him, the panic of failure and mortal fear, of claustrophobic helplessness in the face of people whose purpose he did not know but who seemed willing and able to do him great harm. The sight of their dirty, sleepless forms in this cage felt like the stuff of war documentaries. What did Din want? Would Malcolm survive it, whatever it was?

If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.

But no. Malcolm took that panic, that fear, and shoved it deep into the pits of his psyche. His Ranger's mind took back over, and again he felt his logic looking for patterns, his eyes and his ears filling with the completely neutral input of dry information. The strength in numbers of their captors. The muffling of their Spirit. His own fraying nerves.

Shakily, Malcolm got to his feet. If he was to do something, it had to be before Din got here. He glanced at Stretch and Penny, who looked briefly back up at him before settling back into their dejection. Then he glanced at the meditating woman and, with a deep breath, decided he might as well try making friends.

On the way, Ebi reached out for his ankle. Malcolm looked down at her yellow eyes and her pursed lips, brow raised. With tiny fingers she beckoned him closer, and when he leaned in she whispered into his ear. "Be careful. That one's scary."

Malcolm frowned, bemused. "Why do you care what I do?"

She rolled her eyes. "Because you're the only other one who hasn't given up."

The bald guard cleared his throat rather audibly. "Mind sharing with the class?" he asked from across the bars. The comment made the others turn to Malcolm and Ebi, their eyes questioning.

Ebi raised her voice. "I said your head looks like a thumb, you creep."

"Okay, hurtful."

That made everyone else lose interest, and Malcolm continued on his way, eyes lingering on the snake girl. Had she not given up either, then? He didn't know exactly what she thought to do in their position, but it made him reevaluate her attitude. Still, as much as he appreciated the warning, the fact was they could use someone scary on their side at the moment.

The woman didn't stir when he neared, nor when he sat down beside her. This close up he could see the length of her eyelashes, the hardness of her cheekbones, the cleanliness of her skin. She must've been somewhere in her thirties, yet she looked somehow unaffected by the toil of days in the wild, and her expression was suitably peaceful.

"Hello," Malcolm said, not knowing how else to start.

The woman didn't respond. Maybe she really was asleep? Malcolm thought about tapping her shoulder, then decided that would be too rude an approach for someone whose help he hoped to enlist.

"Some of us haven't given up yet," Malcolm said, voice low. He kept an eye on the bald guard, who seemed distracted by another Stretch and Penny argument that had kicked up. "I was hoping you'd be one of those too. I'm thinking we're seriously running out of time to get out of this."

Again that twitch of her lips. Had she heard him? Malcolm opened his mouth, ready to insist that she hear him out, but then she opened her eyes and he saw orbs of such sharp cyan that for a second he thought they were actually glowing. They weren't looking at him, however. Rather, they looked through the bars of their cage and at a new face.

The man who loomed over their trapped forms wasn't the largest. He didn't seem the strongest either, nor the most handsome. His black hair was slicked back, his slight figure was covered by several layers of warm winter wear, and the smirk he graced them all with seemed one of almost childish anticipation. The most remarkable thing wasn't him at all but the way the bald guard sitting nearby looked up at him. There was more than respect in that gaze, Malcolm noted with some trepidation. It was a blatant, almost embarrassing level of pure worship.

After a second, the bald man stood from his chair. "D-Din! I didn't hear you. You... You surprised me! Please, take my seat!"

"Oh, no need, friend." Din's voice was musical yet dull, like the same note being played again and again on a piano. "I'd like to get a good look at our guests. Good work rounding them all up, I'm sure it must've taken quite a bit of effort."

The bald man stood straighter at that, face sheepish. "Heh, it wasn't too bad. Guess a few of them gave us a little trouble."

Din nodded, now glancing over the captured Magicians. They in turn stared at him, most of them getting to their feet with weary eyes. "What's it gonna be then?" one of them asked. "I've been here for hours. Your guys got our tags, so if you're gonna kill us just get it over with already."

Another raised a nervous hand. "I'd rather not die, actually."

"Hear, hear," Penny said. Arms crossed, she trembled minutely despite her glaring eyes.

"Now, now," Din said, hands gesturing for calm. "I'm not here to kill anyone. This is just a competition! My guys and I, we're not heartless."

He gave them all a smile, and Malcolm got the impression he'd practiced it extensively in front of a mirror. Still, there was something strangely appealing about it, something almost charmingly clumsy in its blatant falsity. This was a troublemaker caught in the act and not even trying to hide it, and who could really hate that kind of honest deception?

"All I want from you all is information,” Din went on. “Your team's strengths and weaknesses. We've caught enough of you that some of your teammates have probably made it to the next challenge, and it'd be good to prepare for them."

The captured Magicians looked around at each other. "Well, I'm not telling you anything," one of them said.

Din laughed, his voice starting and stopping in controlled bursts. "And I'm sure you don't want to! That's why I'm here."

The man came closer to the cell, face nearly touching the bars. He stared at the Magician who had spoken, smile still in place, and without warning Malcolm felt Spirit flow out of him in a single concentrated burst. Then the Magician Din had been looking at blinked, stepped back, and grabbed his forehead.

"What..." Bending over on his knees, the Magician vomited violently on the ground.

Everyone close enough drifted away from the sudden retching in a mixture of shock and disgust. Meanwhile Din looked on with his brows drawn in mild worry, a modicum of pity clear on his face. "I'm sorry about that," he said. "The experience can be somewhat disorienting."

"What did you do to me?" the Magician asked, wiping his lips with bound arms.

Smile sympathetic, Din reached up to tap his temple. "I got the answers I was looking for. Now, who's next?"

Malcolm's blood turned to ice. Mind reader, he thought, and to his further worry he saw Din's eyes glance momentarily toward him, as if the man had somehow heard the words straight from his head. Hell, that's probably exactly what had just happened. How extensive was this Trick? Could he pick up on even subtle emotions like these?

Din started with the next Magician, and now Malcolm was desperate enough to grab the woman beside him by the arm. "Hey!" he whispered harshly. "Look, I don't know what you're up to, but if you have some kind of plan then we want in!"

The woman, who had spent this time staring at Din with the same unbroken passivity, now slowly shifted her gaze to Malcolm, and in an instant he regretted touching her. That one's scary, Ebi had said. Yes, he could see that now. Something about her was downright unnerving. Something in her piercing eyes, in the air around her, in the pressure that seemed to flow out like...

Like...

Wait.

Malcolm's eyes widened, and the woman's lips twitched once more. This time the smile was clear and savage, and Malcolm found himself crawling away from her as fast as his bound hands allowed. She let him go, sitting still and calm, eyes going back to Din.

The distress Malcolm felt must have somehow been picked up by the man, because soon he stood by where Malcolm sat, looking down at the boy through the cage bars with an arched brow. "What's going on here, then? Something got you spooked?"

"I..." Malcolm gulped and tried very hard not to look at the woman. "I... Uh..."

"Well, whatever it is, I guess I can just find out. Here, look at me."

The impulse to do just that came instinctively. Malcolm glanced up to meet Din's eyes, and the next thing he knew he was not in the earthen cage but instead back home in his room at the Roxbury Outpost. The cold was gone. The exhaustion was gone. Malcolm looked down at himself and saw clean clothes and unblemished skin, then looked out the window and saw a calm, normal afternoon day rather than a snow capped wasteland.

Blinking, Malcolm looked around at the bare white walls, at his pristinely done bed, at his stout bookshelf covered top to bottom in computer science books he only vaguely cared for but knew could one day make him extremely employable. And sitting on that bookshelf was Din, now dressed in a casual polo and khakis, eyes staring back at him with an almost playful glint.

"You're not one for decorating, are you Mal?" he asked.

Malcolm clapped his hands and tried burning him alive, but no slice. Out from his lips came a quick, strained breath rather than any stream of fire.

Din tutted, sliding off the bookshelf. "Man, you are one fucked up kid. I felt how ready you were to kill me. Just zero hesitation, huh? That kind of anger isn't healthy."

"What are you doing to me?" Malcolm asked.

"You're smart, aren't you? What does it look like I'm doing?" Din went to pull the door open and stepped through to the other side, hands in his pockets.

Scowling now, Malcolm went after him, and when he crossed the doorway he saw they'd somehow wound up at the World Tree. It was the entrance chamber with the old Granadine flower Halcyon still planted at the center, its stem shooting up through the ceiling like a giant green pillar. Around them walked the dark, shadowy shapes of featureless people, some more beastly than others but all equally lacking in any substantive detail.

Din looked around, whistling. "I really am impressed, Mal. Not every day I dig around memories like these. You're a proper high achiever."

"Get the hell out of my head!" Malcolm said, hands balled into fists. "And stop calling me 'Mal!' "

"Isn't that what you prefer?" Din looked over his shoulder with a smirk. "Or would you rather I say 'Four-Eyes?' "

"How about you just don't call me anything?"

"There's that anger again. Better watch out. One day that lid's getting blown off, friend."

"We're not friends!" Malcolm said, charging forward at the man with a hooking punch.

Before he could make contact the whole world changed from under his feet, and now he was at the old house, standing on the old front porch, watching the shadow of his father leave. It was sunset, or had it been sunrise? Either way the sky was orange and purple, cast into twilight, and the driveway was long, and he suddenly felt far too small.

"I do feel sorry for you, you know," Din said beside him. Glancing up, Malcolm saw the man looking ahead with somber eyes. "I feel sorry for all of you."

"Stop..." Malcolm fell to his knees, feeling this moment, feeling the desire to remain and the pounding need to leave. "Stop doing this..." He couldn't control himself anymore, couldn't control the tears that started streaming from his eyes nor the ramping speed of his breath. Too close. This was too close. He needed to get away from this. Jason, where was Jason? When would he come back?

His father... Why had his father left?

Malcolm blinked, and he felt the cold again. He felt the cuts and bruises of his body. His real body, hands and feet on the dirt floor of their cell. Stretch had run to him, was crouched beside him with a hand on his heaving back. Looking up, Malcolm saw Din staring down at him still, eyes still somber just as they'd been all those years ago.

No, Malcolm thought, forcing himself back into control. He wasn't there. He found the memory and invaded it like some... some parasite.

"Yours won't be an easy team to deal with, that's for sure," Din said. Then, turning to the meditating woman, his smile returned. It was a smile she met with her own, something that seemed to intrigue him even more. "Now for you. Mal here seems to think you're hiding something pretty juicy..."

"She's the one with the fancy armor I told you about," the bald guard said. "We have it piled along with everything else. It's gotta be a Peerless one for sure."

"Oh? Looks like you caught yourself a big fish, then."

Spirit surged, and this time Malcolm tried to pay attention to the process as it happened. Except this time things didn't happen as quickly as he'd prepared for. The woman retained her smile, her sharp eyes, and for whatever reason Din began to frown.

"You are... Jahna Shah..." The words struggled slowly out of Din's lips, as if he were remembering some dream. "You are... Oh... Oh no..." It was the sound of surprise. It was the sound of a dropping stomach. It was the sound of pure despair, and in a moment all of Din's authority and confidence fell into a look of pale, slack panic. "Leaguer. Leaguer!" He turned to the bald man. "She's unbound! Lock her Spirit, now!"

By now the captured Magicians and even the numerous captors celebrating by the fire had noticed something was wrong. They looked at Din and the bald man, anxious or curious or both, waiting for the order to be fulfilled and for the muffling Trick to be cast.

But it wasn't. Instead the bald man just stared at Din, eyes unblinking, mouth slightly agape, shoulders drooping. Still, there was a kind of panicked intensity to his gaze, and in a sort of strained whine he managed to get a few words out.

"Din... Can't... Move!"

Except he could, because the next thing he did was throw up a lightning-quick hand and smack Din right on the chin. The blow, Boosted by Spirit, sent the leader flying back some dozen feet to land on a cushion of snow.

Malcolm looked wide-eyed at Din, then at the bald man who now retained the position of his attack as if frozen in a snapshot of time, then at the woman sitting in the cage with him. Jahna, Din had called her. A Leaguer.

She stood, each movement slow and deliberate. Stretching her limbs, Malcolm realized. She twisted her neck side to side, cracking it, then raised her bound hands and with a simple snap of her wrists let the Hardcuffs fall to the ground. Had they never been locked as theirs had been? Had she been sitting there with them, free this whole time, merely pretending as if she wasn’t?

"Din," she said, voice a low, sultry soprano. "I was waiting to meet you, Din. You and your underground rats. How disappointing you all turned out to be."

The Magicians by the fire made their way over, some going to help Din onto his feet and others surrounding the bald man who seemed still stuck in place. "Wh-What's happening to him?" one of them asked, hands ready by his sides.

"Don't get near!" Din shouted, pushing himself away from the other men. "Don't let her turn you into another puppet!"

Jahna smirked and thrust her hands forward. One she pointed at the bald man, making him twitch and contort unnaturally. The other pointed at Din, but by some prodigious instinct one of the other men thrust himself in the way. Immediately his body seized up, and with a flick of Jahna's wrist he raised his arms, twisted his body, kicked out a leg, and generally lost all control of himself.

"I'll need my things back now, boys," she said, nearly yawning. "But first, get me out of here, will you?"

With another flick of her wrist Jahna motioned for her second puppet to come closer, and to do so he leaped through the air like a human rocket. Malcolm watched in a horrified trance as the man neared them without slowing and in a second slammed directly onto the earthen cage, his body imbued with Spirit. That body acted as a wrecking ball against the stone bars of their prison, breaking through them in a burst of rubble, and as the man flopped back onto the ground Malcolm saw that his bones had shattered on impact, leaving him a limp heap of whining meat.

With a sigh, Jahna stopped pointing at her broken puppet and motioned to create another. This time she picked one from her captured peers, and again she used this body to ram into the stone bars a second time, widening the avenue of escape and leaving the shattered form lying on the other side, its purpose fulfilled. "That should do," she said, stepping out. "Now, about my armor..."

Jahna looked around at the fifty or so men who surrounded her, all of them staring in terror. Some brought up weapons, swords and even guns. Others clapped their hands to ready their Tricks. The woman just smiled back.

"I suppose you'll try to make it interesting," she said. Then she threw up a hand and took command of one of the gunmen, and in a second she had him shoot at six others.

What followed was a complete bloodbath. There was no other description for it. Jahna stood her ground against half a hundred Magicians and began butchering them one by one, hands waving through the air before her like a conductor to control one body after the other. Some men she had impaled by their own swords. Other men she simply twisted into pretzels until their limbs popped out of their sockets. She seemed somehow to command their Spirits as well as their bodies, so more than once she had one jump straight up into the air with Boosted strength only to force his Spirit out and have him splat on the ground without any magical defense against the fall. Blood flowed, and the cries of death and suffering, and part of Malcolm could not believe any of this was seriously happening because how could it happen? How could anyone be so ruthless? How could lives be made so cheap?

Someone tugged at his hand. Looking down, Malcolm saw Ebi with wide, pleading eyes. Though she still looked calm, it was a much more blatantly controlled calm, and Malcolm thought again of how young she seemed. How could a child like her be witness to such a slaughter?

"We need to go," Ebi said.

Malcolm looked at where Jahna was fighting, and he noticed that their captors were already trying to retreat. At least a few of them were, Din among them. It seemed like a larger number had decided to stay behind, to serve as fodder so their leader might escape to safety. Malcolm couldn't tell if that was brave or stupid or both.

"We need to go now!" Ebi said, tugging his hand. "That lady is scary!"

"Yeah," Malcolm said, voice shaking. That lady certainly was scary. He looked at Stretch, who had looked on at the massacre just as he had. The older Ranger's face had paled to a dangerous white, but he seemed to have heard the plan because he gave a hesitant nod back. "Penny. Where's Penny?"

"Already leaving!" Penny said. Turning to her, Malcolm saw she and some of the other captured Magicians had already left by way of the newly built hole on the side of their cage. "Hurry up unless you wanna die!"

Malcolm didn't waste any more time before following her advice. But when they started leaving the area he suddenly turned on his heel and stared back at the camp, much to Stretch's consternation.

"Man, c'mon!" the older Ranger said, pulling him along with his hands still bound.

"The tags," Malcolm said, finding the wagon among all the chaos of battle. "They still have all our tags..."

"Not worth it!" Stretch said. "Unless you missed it, that psycho doesn't care who she kills next!"

Malcolm remembered the captive she'd rammed into their prison bars. They'd left his body there in the snow, still alive but not for long.

"We'll lose the challenge," he said, strained.

"Better than losing our lives!" Stretch shouted.

Ebi pulled on his hand again, and Malcolm let himself get dragged off. He knew they were right. Some fights just couldn't be won. As they traveled through the snow lands, shivering in body and soul, all of them tried to ignore the screams that kept echoing behind, and thankfully those screams ceased shortly after. They headed for the exit empty-handed, and though Malcolm couldn't be happy about that he was glad at least to have made it back at all.