I woke up to a touch from Amy which had me jerking upright.
Looking around frantically, I saw we were in a cavern. Looking up, I saw the remains of a rock slide where we had fallen through.
Amy only held on to me for another second or two as I felt my body heal before she moved on to Ahri. Watching, I saw her also jerk upright. Looking to the other side I saw Luna casting a second Lumos spell in my direction which finally gave off enough light to let me fully see what was going on around me.
It looked like Amy had woken Sabah, who had cast the first Lumos before finding Luna, followed by myself, Ahri, Dinah, and was now getting to Taylor and the trio. Looking over, I saw Dinah and Luna were already moving around. It took me a moment to realize they were picking up wands and guns and bringing them back to their owners.
In the time it took me to figure that out, Amy had apparently managed to get everyone on their feet. It was then that I realized where we were. It wasn’t my imagination. The walls and water we were all wading through were all, quite literally, blood red.
I felt a shiver run up my spine as I looked around. Lara had hidden below the surface of this water in the game to avoid the cultists trying to find her. The image of her blood covered head popping up from below the surface was intense when it was just a game. It was horrifying in real life.
I couldn’t believe that it was all blood, maybe there was something in the water making it extra red. That would have to be on top of some sort of plant or chemical that was making it so the blood didn’t coagulate.
Shivering, I shook my head and cursed to myself. “Bloody Hell, focus!” I paused before I physically cringed at how well that described this cave.
Deciding I wanted to be out of the shallows of this bloody and disgusting water, I got a little unsteadily to my feet before doing a quick head count. The fear that we were missing someone who had died in the ambush made me count four separate times before I was satisfied we were all here.
Shaking my head, I gestured for everyone to gather closer while confirming each of my still-active portals. Unfortunately, the one back to England had dispersed while I was knocked unconscious which would make getting back to England difficult.
That left, one to the cave where we had been stashing the rescued people we saved, along with three of the communication portals I had placed on each girl’s ear. Everything else seems to have closed.
Damn, I meant that I had probably hit my head a lot harder than I thought when I fell. I could usually keep them open at the very least while asleep. I would need to thank Amy again for healing us so often soon.
Shaking my head, I opened up a portal to our previous safe cave and gestured for everyone to follow me out. As we all grimaced looking ourselves over, I looked up I noticed a few bats before I smirked and said. “It is good to be back in the bat…cave.”
That managed to break the air of frustration and tension a little as everyone rolled their eyes and Amy reached over to slap me upside the back of my head. It was also good to know Batman was a thing even in this world. Still, the release of tension didn’t last long as we started to take off our bags and shoes.
The newly named bat cave was still isolated as before because the entrance was still a mostly sheer cliff, but it also had a waterfall flowing down on one side of the entrance. As much as I wanted to just shower in our pocket home, I really wanted to keep it a secret as something known only to my family. It was our trump card for a last second escape after all.
That left setting up the wizarding tents, which had their own bathrooms inside. Yet even then, I didn’t want to track blood everywhere and I didn’t want to be blasted in the face with a half dozen cleaning charms to get clean. Not at our level of skill and it would do nothing for my desire to scrub myself raw to get rid of the feeling. So we would just have to start transfiguring us a shower stall out of the side of the waterfall.
As I began I glanced down the 30 feet or so to the jungle floor below us, I noticed a lot of sounds from the wildlife. Apparently they had discovered the bodies of the two men we had disposed of. Casting a silencing spell at the region, I diverted a little of the water into a funnel leading into an approximation of a shower head, then started carving a heating rune to anchor my heating charm.
It took about ten minutes, after which I was nearly bulled over by Ahri, who was probably utterly disgusted by what was stuck in her tales.
I realized that I might not get in the shower for a while, so I rinsed off a bit with the cold water from the water fall and sat down on some of the transfigured rocks while the other girls finished setting up the tents.
About an hour later, along with a few drying charms, we had everyone back in an OK condition, even if everyone was a little frustrated at how badly that had gone.
It was Lara who broke the silence that had once again fallen across the group and asked, obviously frustrated. “How did we get ambushed? I thought we were watching for that. Plus, don’t we have two seers on our team?”
I sighed, but decided it was better for Dinah and Luna to answer the question. Dinah scowled, but the effect was less effective as she was still brushing her teeth with mouthwash next to her. Finally, she rolled her eyes. “My abilities give me answers to specific questions. I have been asking if we would be alright before each engagement and obviously we are.” She said before she slumped. “I asked if we would die and got a ‘no’ answer and we didn’t. I asked if we would be attacked and the answer was a ‘yes’ but I got that answer before each engagement we had. I asked if we would be seriously hurt and the answer was ‘probably not’ and Amy said she had to just heal a few bruises and a slight concussion or two.”
It was then that Dinah’s facade of calm broke and we could all hear the crack in her voice as she sniffed and continued. “My predictions don’t have any certain percentages… plus between Amy and Max, my power seems confused on what should be considered a serious injury. When Taylor was hurt while we took down Tom in the school, my power only said the chance of serious injury was ‘very high’ while the chance of death was ‘low’.” Her voice was now quieter, and she finished by whispering. “Predicting how exactly fights will go might be beyond me, here.”
Seeing Lara’s confusion, I waived her unasked questions away while going over to give Dinah a side hug while Ahri was already on her other side. “We will tell you more about what Hermione, Holly and Ginny have been dealing with later. You will learn more about all of our secrets later if you want to join us.” I said, before I turned to look at Luna
However, Luna simply shrugged instead of explaining fully and said. “I see what I see, nothing more or nothing less.”
I nodded, then addressed the two of them. “I know you two are doing as much as you can. If precogs could predict everything, every single time then they would be unbeatable. It was why Contessa, who didn’t seem to have those limitations, was so terrifying.”
That seemed to confused Lara, but the girls from Earth Bet all nodded knowing that, despite my modifications to Dinah’s abilities, standard precogs always had blind spots.
I gestured towards our stuff which hadn’t all been cleaned and picked up my shoes. “We should probably get back to it as well. Lara let someone know if you need a cleaning charm on your boots instead of a quick rinse.”
As we continued to clean our guns, wands, and equipment Lara seemed to be considering something. “You said something about how Wizards can teleport. Why would those wizards still be here, then?”
I frowned and considered before I answered. “I don’t know, but the trio of wizards that attacked us might not be overly strong. Maybe just a bit stronger than Holly and she is only a second year. Maybe they don’t have the strength to teleport back to the mainland.” I paused, considering, before I continued my train of thought. “Or they were only sailing or flying through this region, meaning they would have to go even further as you can’t apparate to a place you have never seen. Plus, I don’t think there is a wizard alive who could teleport directly to America from here after all. They also probably don’t know how to create a portkey, which can go further, but require special licenses and training to set up.”
Holly frowned, “But then why would they join the cultists. Even us normal second years could survive well enough without needing to join the cult.”
I simply shrugged. “I don’t know. Back in England, wizards are pretty lazy, but maybe they either didn’t know the correct spells or decided being alone wasn’t helping them escape.”
Something niggled at the back of my mind like I was forgetting something and I paused, trying to remember what I was missing. Then it hit me and I sat bolt upright on my transfigured chair, eyes wide. “Damn it. I never played the rest of them. But there was that conspiracy about Lara’s journey, wasn’t there?”
Luna perked up. “The Rotfang Conspiracy, yeah!”
I blinked, thinking back to what she had been saying and realized Luna’s conspiracy might have been about the secret organization from the Tomb Raider games… well either that or she knew about something else altogether. Either way, there was an actual secret organization trying to take over the world.
Turning to Lara I tried not to show how embarrassed I was. “So in all the excitement to get here and trying to help, I forgot this will lead into something bigger after we get off the island.” I said before sighing. “There is a group called the Trinity, or Triad, or something. I don’t know anything else other than some part of this is their fault and they will take an interest in you in a year or two, I think…” I frowned and looked at my girls who seemed to somehow understand my frustration and agreed we should try to get a hold of her games somehow. Maybe we would need to jump to another world just for a fact finding mission.
Taylor turned to me and then glanced out the cave entrance. “We have cultists starting to scout the island below us on the northeast side, they might have discovered that we have disappeared from that bloody cave.”
I winced but nodded. “I will move the portal around until we find an exit in the blood cave, then we can use it to look for the rest of the expedition’s crew which should be around that main base somewhere. We will need to find them soon before anyone else is killed or used as bait to try to find us.”
Everyone agreed as I started to focus, creating another to double my chances, before moving the two around looking for an exit. In the game, I was pretty sure that the blood cave was fairly close to where the crew had been held, but that didn’t mean much in the real world. I would just have to keep looking, maybe having Taylor search for cultist groups.
In the meantime, we actually woke up the two pilots along with Angus, the Irish helmsman, and fed them dinner. Lara explained we had rescued them and healed them, but we couldn’t answer any other questions while we were still looking for more of the stranded expedition. That obviously didn’t go over particularly well, but Amy just discreetly put them back to sleep before we levitated them into the biggest of our three wizarding tents.
It was then that we got a call from the Captain Conrad Roth.
The crackle of Lara’s radio made all of us jump slightly, including Lara. “Lara, Lara! Are you alright, are you safe?”
I had almost forgotten about him. He arrived right as Lara was starting to despair not knowing what to do. He was wounded but tries to support her as best he can until he was killed trying to save Lara from Matthias.
Yet, none of that should have happened yet, so I frowned at the worry in his tone, as something must have happened if he was this frantic.
Lara picked up the radio and swallowed before she replied. “Captain, Captain, I am here, are you alright?”
There was an audible relieved sigh from the radio before the captain continued. “I am… alright. Leg is still giving me trouble, but I managed to get away. What about you? Are you alright? I overheard some of the islanders saying they had finally got you.”
Lara sighed. “No, they almost got us, but we got away… what happened to you?” she trailed off.
Conrad scoffed. “I had a dozen or so arseholes trying to flush me out, but I managed to bring down four before needing to back off.” He paused for a moment where in I could hear the strain in his voice. “Where are you, I should be helping before…”
I glanced at Amy, who twisted to look at me. It was clear that Conrad was dying. His leg had been torn apart in the games and he probably knew he had no hope of keeping it clean or properly bandaged. He probably knew it was just a question of if it was the infection or the blood loss that would finish him off first.
Deciding to interject, I gestured for Lara to hold down the talk button before I spoke. “Conrad, my name is Max, my Family and I found Lara, and we have been trying to rescue the rest of the expedition. Where are you, we will come find you.”
There was a moment of silence before Conrad replied. “No, you focus on getting everyone else out. Don’t worry about me.”
I wanted to facepalm. “Just tell us where you are so we can meet up later then.” I said with some exasperation.
Conrad paused for a moment longer before he responded. “I am near the bottom of the tram going up the southwest side of the island. I found some houses up around the corner from the main offices.”
I looked at Lara before I sent another portal speeding down to look around the area.
It was then that out of the corner of my eye I finally spotted the rest of the expedition prisoners in my second portal. Taylor also noticed, with her attention turning fully to focus on said portal.
I spoke to Conrad one more time, with Lara once again holding down the talk button. “I think we found most of the prisoners. We are going to be hitting their guards now, wish us luck.”
There was a pause before a dark chuckle crossed the radio as Captain Roth replied. “Send the bastards to Hell for me…”
Turning with the rest of the girls, we carefully looked out from our portal, inspecting the room where the captives were being held. I could see 11 prisoners being held in a cage hanging over a deep ravine. The logical part of me wondered about the practicality of building a cage over a cavern when a simple cave with a locked door would have been just as effective.
Sighing, I prepared to open a portal inside the cage while opening another next to two of the seven guards when what they were saying finally registered.
The first guard in shorts was talking to the man with a beard. “Why did Anders say that we could only enjoy the prisoners one at a time?”
The bearded guard rolled his one remaining eye. “Anders explained it like an hour ago, learn English already, Damn Jap.” He rolled his eye again and spat. “Apparently, one of the priests cursed the cage to fall if more than one prisoner was removed at a time. Unless they remove the curse, we can only have fun with them one at a time, well either that or kill them.”
I winced and looked at my girls who equally looked disturbed. That look didn’t improve as we heard crying from down the hall.
Immediately I moved another portal down the hall in time to find a woman with another guard forcing her onto her stomach onto what might have passed as a mattress… if you squinted. Her cries of “Please” and “Stop” were obviously being ignored as he reached out to perhaps start pulling off clothing, but he never got the chance.
The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.
Amy didn’t need any direction or encouragement as she reached through the portal and poked the man on the back of his leg before the guard went completely limp, probably already dead. The woman only paused for a moment before she bucked him off before rolling free.
She looked wildly around as she saw us leaning through a tear in reality. There was a moment where confusion crossed her face before her eyes rolled back into the back of her skull and she fainted.
I winced as I saw her collapse, the guard had beaten her before getting to this point, and I sighed before I simply stepped through and picked her up and carried her into the batcave with the rest of us.
I turned to the rest of the group and said, “We have probably 30 seconds or so before the others wonder why things are so quiet here. We need to move fast.”
I turned to the golden trio. “I want you three ready to levitate the prison in case removing the captives via portal counts for whatever wards the wizard cultists set up.” Turning to Taylor, Lara, Sabah, and Ahri. “Taylor will hit the rest of the guards with her bugs, while I want you three ready to help if someone manages to avoid or resist her attack. I can give each one of you your own portal, but I won’t be able to pay attention to all of them and close them again for any returning fire so be careful.”
I turned to our seers. “Is there anything wrong with the plan?”
Dinah frowned for several seconds, “The chance for death is high, but it is probably the best option. Just get the captives out as quickly as you can.”
Luna sighed as she stared out into space. “You will have to show more than you want. There will be consequences… you will have to choose.”
I grimaced and thought for a moment before I heard the guard in shorts comment on the silence down the hall, just as I feared.
Turning, I gestured for everyone to get ready. Quietly I started counting, even as I saw the seven remaining guards start to turn towards the hall where we had already dispatched the first cultist. “On Three, One… Two… Three…”
It was then that I opened up a portal on one side of the hanging prison cage, while opening another portal for each of the members of our strike team.
Not waiting for the prisoners to register the portal and decide if they wanted to trust us or not, I just pushed the portal towards them before reaching out and pulling the first one through.
That was when all hell broke loose. Three of the seven guards flinched and then almost immediately dropped as Taylor stung them, while two of the seven actually screamed and thrashed about for a moment. The last two were felled by spell fire.
The problem was the two that screamed didn’t go down immediately and actually tried to fight back. The one in shorts we had heard speak first turned wildly around to find their attacker pointing his gun around wildly, causing the strike team girls to duck away from their portals. However, the bearded one pulled didn’t hesitate as he realized something was wrong, instead he pulled up his AK 47 up and started to spray into the prison before he too dropped dead.
From my own portal inside the prison I watched in horror as around a dozen bullets ripped through the wall next to us and into the cage still filled with prisoners. A few missed entirely, but one woman in the middle of the group went down hard after taking a bullet through her knee, another cut a bloody line across another woman’s bicep, while the two others slammed into the chest of a large Tongan man furthest away from me before the last bullet flew right through his throat and out the back of his neck.
I didn’t recognize the two women, but I was pretty sure that the Tongan man was one of Lara’s friends she had rescued in the Tomb Raider game.
It felt like time slowed as I watched as the man slowly start to fall backwards, obviously dying. Internally, I started to do calculation on the timing. Amy and I were now pulling our second person through, now with less resistance, as the other prisoners had noticed us and were realizing we were a better option than being hit by bullets regardless of who we were and how impossible this random portal in space was.
As I began to pull in the third person having shoved the second person behind me I realized it was taking about one second per person and I would get to the Tongan in only 3 more seconds, but was that fast enough? I didn’t think I could open a portal faster than that. I would just have to keep moving as quickly as I could.
Then things went from bad to worse. I felt the enchantments activate and the prison began to fall. My portal was in reference to the floor so it kept up with the prison and I began pulling out the fourth captive even before the golden trio noticed the cage was falling. I was pulling out the fifth one by the time they started the levitation spell before throwing him on the pile of bodies behind me. Amy finished throwing her fifth prisoner barely a second later.
I turned to try to pull the Tongan man out before, in a moment of clarity, I realized with everything falling and essentially weightless I could slip the portal edge easily under him. A moment later, I also moved my end of the portal away from me at the same speed, making him land on the cave floor in front of us almost gently. Basically moving the portal forward on either side so to him it would have felt like standing still.
However, despite our quick rescue I realized we might already be too late as I could see the Tongan’s soul start to leave his body.
It was only then that I heard Lara and a few of the prisoners cry out, “No!” and “Jonah” as they realized what was going on.
Now knowing his name I reached across Jonah’s fallen body, I grasped his soul with my hands and power and held on. Damn it, I wasn’t going to let an innocent die right in front of me, not when we could save him.
Amy reached him a fraction of a second after me and immediately started healing the body. There were quiet gasps as Jonah’s body visibly knit itself back together. Amy completely focused turned towards me and called out. “I reconstructed his heart, throat, and spine put his soul back now.”
I grunted my affirmation before I shoved his soul back in and tied it to him as best I could. It felt like there was a resistance.
I pushed harder.
It didn’t work.
There was a moment of silence as the horror of what was happening made me start to panic. Fighting down my emotions, I grit my teeth and called out. “It isn’t working, is his heart beating? Is he breathing?”
Amy yelled back, “Yes!”
I grimaced as I felt Jonah’s soul begin to fray and dissipate as it passed into what I instinctively knew was the realm of death. “Damn it! Let's try tying it to a marble. Put it into his chest.”
Tossing a glass marble to Amy that I reached into our pocket home to get, only hesitating a moment, she opened him up and placed the small sphere into his chest next to his heart before sealing the wound up again. Meanwhile, I was already pulling his soul down and tying it into the marble, and I felt the sweat pour down my face as I worked.
I wasn’t sure if it was seconds or minutes, but when I pulled back once his soul was in place, I noticed that Amy was already done healing the two other injured women.
I stood up slowly along with Amy before I looked out across the gathered people we had rescued and internally scowled. Luna had been right, we hadn’t had time to do much planning, but we had definitely shown more of our abilities than we had wanted to. I could already see the uncertainty and slight fear in everyone’s eyes.
Still, as I watched Amy as she reached down and poked Jonah awake long enough to check his eyes and confirm brain activity, I had to admit that I would probably do it again given the chance. I would just need to practice my memory charms. Some cultists might be brain-dead if I messed the memory charm badly enough, but that was a ‘sacrifice’ I was willing to make after all of this mess.
The problems were Lara, Holly, Hermione, and Ginny. I wouldn’t erase their memories unless they chose to reject my offer and then requested to forget. Erasing their minds before they joined, or threatening to erase them if they didn’t… well, it was either a betrayal, pseudo brainwashing, or a threat, and it felt like a very slippery slope to start down.
A slope that would end with me trying to control my women and then having them realizing what was happening, completely destroying the Family. Plus, ignoring the fact I wanted us to be happy, doing that to the smart and powerful women that I was attracted to… well it just seemed like a way to commit suicide with extra steps.
It was then, before anyone could start explaining or even ask any questions, when we heard Lara’s radio crackle to life and we heard Captain Conrad Roth’s voice come through, already gasping. “Lara! They sent another rescue chopper. I am headed over to warn them. They are trying to set down right next to…” There was a gunshot and the radio cut off momentarily.
I paled and stepped forward again towards my Family, focusing on searching for the captain through the portal I had sent to search for him.
Lara called out on the radio, trying to get more information. “Repeat the location, we are headed towards you. We got the others we could find and we are headed there now.” She swallowed, then yelled over the radio. “Captain, listen, you must NOT get on that chopper, repeat, do NOT get on that chopper.”
There was a moment of tense silence before Roth called out. “I have reached the chopper, we are under fire, this spot is untenable, we will try to link up further down the canyon.”
At this point, my portal had found the coast guard helicopter and we watched in dismay as Captain Roth was being driven back towards the chopper via a hail of gunfire. Worse, I noticed that the helicopter copilot was already slumped to the side in his seat, his chest bloody.
I watched as Lara pulled out a new magazine before she racked the slide to chamber another round and began lining up her shot. A few moments later she started firing small bursts even as we continued towards the chopper.
As we flew closer via portal, Taylor stepped up next to Lara while the trio started casting shield charms in front of the captain and helicopter to block most of the gun fire coming from the other side of the ravine. I also noticed Taylor creating the same heads up display as before for Lara, which made her even more effective, before pulling out her own pistol.
Stepping out of my portal to the side of the chopper, I gestured to the crew to come to us, while Ahri threw up an illusion of rocks to block the gunfire. None of us were skilled or powerful enough for that level of battlefield transfiguration yet, but the illusion along with the real shields inside from Holly and friends was enough to fake it. Yet my more and more insistent gesturing for the coast guard helicopter crew to come to us didn’t seem to get the message across.
Lara was even more clear as she screamed across the radio, which the chopper pilots apparently could hear. “Do NOT try to leave, do NOT leave. You need to get out of the chopper!”
Captain Roth paused for a moment before he looked around his own rocky outcropping and spotted Lara through my portal and nodded. However, the rescue crew didn’t seem to want to listen. They were clearly spooked beyond all reason, and when the Captain started painfully jogging towards us instead of them, they decided to just leave.
It was then that, was we feared, Himiko struck again. We watched as lightning struck the helicopter, barely 50 feet up and we all flinched away. We all waited for nearly a second as nothing happened and I stared to hope they would survive before the engines exploded. Then even as we once again backed away from the fireball, I heard the cry of the crew member in the helicopter cargo bay as he fell backward, out of the chopper.
The golden trio were there, casting protection charms and momentum canceling charms before I managed to catch him through a portal before he hit the ground. Yet before I could do anything else for the remaining pilot we watched as the chopper exploded again, this time more violently, disintegrating into pieces before falling into the forest to the west of us.
Lara was already pulling Captain Roth back through our portal into the batcave as Taylor and I scowled. Turning, I saw Taylor grimace before her face went distant as she probably swarmed the remaining cultists that Lara hadn’t shot. Internally, I almost felt sorry for those cultists at that moment. Unlike being hit with a neurotoxin wasp and dead within moments, being eaten alive by a swarm of mundane insects was possibly one of the most horrible ways to die out there. Then again, they might deserve it for shooting down three men who's only job it was to rescue people.
Ignoring everything else, Amy didn’t waist any more time as she got to work on fixing the Captain’s leg even before I got around to closing the portals and figuring out what to do with the entire group of people we now had saved. People who had seen way more than I wanted them to know.
Yet, as if we just couldn’t catch a break, before we even had a moment to catch our breath and close up the portals to the clearing where we had just rescued Captain Roth, Taylor spoke up. “I think there are more expedition crew members in the ruins below us. They don’t have the smell of gunpowder on them, and they are all huddled together.” She paused, then continued more urgently. “The Samurai are doing something, hurry!”
Gritting my teeth, I sent the primary portal down and to the left, where Taylor was now pointing.
We found a few more members of the expedition, but we didn’t have time to wonder what was going on as said group being pulled towards an altar of some sort. The group seemed to consist of eight members of the expedition, along with three cultists.
As we watched, trying to figure out what to do and what was going on, one of the undead Samurai grunted a half dozen times before pulling out his shorter sword and slitting the first cultist’s throat before stabbing an engraved dagger into his heart.
My family all gasped softly, along with the other people who could see through my portal before we watched as the very color began to quickly recede from the man’s skin. Thirty seconds later the now gray corpse jerked and looked around slowly before kneeling. The Samurai Priest handed him a helmet and sword before the disturbingly intelligent zombie turned to walk away from the altar.
The eight crew members and two remaining cultists were now crying out in fear, but before they could do anything or we could make a plan, another Samurai zombie pulled a cultist corpse onto the altar. It was then that I realized in addition to the alive men and women there were also 6 corpses. Said corpses appeared to be four cultists and two members of the expedition. Each of which was now being dragged to the altar as well.
I knew I should have stopped this but I watched, horrified, through my soul sense as the undead Samurai Priest stabbed the corpse with the knife and I saw the magic take hold. I watched as bands of magic so dark it seemed like ink reach down in through the body before pulling an unknown soul back into the corpse.
I didn’t think it was necessarily the original soul of the corpse, but it didn’t really matter if it was or not as even before the soul fully settled I watched as those bands of magic wrapped around the soul and then started binding the soul with what I instinctively knew was a geas.
The necromancy ritual continued as I watched the newly risen zombie body jerk and then after a moment turn and kneel before the undead priest to receive its own helmet and sword.
It was then I watched as I saw a younger man from the expedition be yanked forward and I yelled out “Girls, Attack NOW!”
That seemed to be enough as the golden trio along with Taylor, Ahri, and Sabah started casting a variety of hexes and curses while Lara had pulled up her rifle and started shooting.
My main portal was still two dozen yards away, but I opened another portal right next to the expedition members and started pulling them through. I didn’t have time to consider different angles that would work better, as the Samurai already seemed to be rallying, so I just had the original portal drift forward.
Dinah joined me along with Captain Roth to help to pull people through into the batcave for safety. Meanwhile, Luna turned and cast a powerful knock back jinx at one of the giant Samurai who had pulled out his club and begun to swing it towards two of the captives.
We were dismayed to see it only knock the giant back slightly, but we didn’t give up, pulling members of the crew through and out of harms way as quickly as we could.
As we finished with the members of the expedition, I hesitated for a moment, but still grabbed the remaining two cultists as well. If I needed to kill them after an interrogation, then that is just what I would have to do.
I paused for a moment before I grabbed a scrap of cloth and, covering my hand, I reached forward to get the ceremonial knife from the Samurai priest. I had no intention of ever creating an undead army, but if I could learn to fight one, then it would be worth the effort. Dropping the knife in another lead box next to Tom’s Horcruxes only took another couple seconds.
Turning to the rest of the group, I noticed Holly and friends eyeing me, having seen what I did. Yet, only after a small moment of hesitation, I watched as Holly cast the strongest flame spell she could at the ruins and then backed away from the original portal.
I closed the secondary portals before moving the original one further away. We all watched as the fire in the ruins steadily grew due to all the dead and dying vegetation around us.
Turning to Holly, “One final explosion hex, just to make sure the altar is destroyed, please.” I said.
Holly looked at me, obviously tired and a little wary, before nodding. “Bombarda Maxima!”
We watched as the entire ruin exploded outward, before we turned and looked across the two dozen people we had just saved.
Saved, and yet all of them were staring at us in confusion and a little bit of fear.
I wiped my face before I turned towards my group. “Show them to the tents. Maybe put the women in the smaller one. Amy can heal those who still need it while we start cooking up some food to feed everyone. I said, before quieter, I added. “We will deal with figuring out what to do about the statute of secrecy later. Plus, these people have seen magic and our abilities, and I doubt they are going to forget it any time soon.”
Turning away, I led our family into our tent to wash up and start cooking. Pausing as we all entered the tent, I turned towards Amy and Sabah. “Thank you two for everything you just did, you really saved us again, once we are back in England I think you deserve something nice.”
Sabah looked confused. “What do you mean?”
I smiled. “I saw that stone you cast, Sabah, that made the original trio of bombardas from the cultist wizards explode early. I am pretty sure it is why we got out of that attack with so few injuries. Just let me know what you want as a reward. I understand you might want something other than a date night like I did with Taylor.”
There was a moment of silence while Sabah frowned, looking at the ground before glancing at Amy and then at me. “I know things might have changed after your compulsion broke, but is… a girl's night of fun… the three of us, off the table?”
I blinked before I remembered what I had said way back when. I considered for a moment before I answered slowly. “Honestly, I might have been less attached to my male body at the time, and while I feel pretty male now, I think I can experiment a bit once we are back in England.” As I finished, Amy suddenly looked a lot more interested, and Sabah smiled slightly.
I was pretty sure the rest of my Family had heard, but besides some amused faces, we were just too tired to do anything else, even teasing each other.
That was probably a good thing as we would absolutely need our strength tomorrow. We had to get Sam back before Himiko took over her body. If that happened, we might just have to run away via our pocket home. We were in no way ready for a direct fight with a Dark Lady of her apparent power level.
If it came to that, then we would probably be forced to try to call Dumbledore and get the international council of wizarding involved. Then ignoring that Dumbledore might be angry about us endangering Holly and friends, we didn’t want either Dumbledore or the ICW anywhere near our secrets.
If that happened, it might be best to just pop away early rather than potentially be captured and interrogated, maybe experimented on for our special skills. I didn’t doubt for a second the wizards of this world would do just about anything to fix a squib’s magic.
Plus, while I was interested in studying squibs and helping them gain their magic as well, but I didn’t want to be the lab rat in said experiments, which required me to have some sort of backing or power first.
That was also ignoring the possibility that, as Luna called it, the Rotfang Conspiracy would find us instead.
Interlude Lara:
Lara frowned as she sat in what Hermione had called a wizarding tent.
Ginny had said that this one wasn’t particularly fancy, but the dozen bunk beds across one wall along with the full kitchen two bathrooms seemed like heaven after what she had gone through.
The second tent was apparently a slightly smaller copy of this one was where Hermione and her two friends along with a little over half the other females who wanted to be away from men were going to be sleeping. The rest of the women had wanted to stay with familiar faces. Finally, Max’s family was going to be staying in a third tent about half this tent’s size.
She couldn’t help but understand both the traumatized women’s desire to be cautious of men, and Max’s Family’s desire to get away from everyone else’s wary side glances.
Amy and Max had healed a clearly fatal wound across Jonah’s neck and chest. More than that, they had done it after he had apparently passed on, saying something about pulling his soul back into his body after it had drifted out.
It was clearly not the same as what the Samurai had been doing, but the similarities were too similar to ignore at the moment.
Even Hermione and her friends had been a little unnerved. That was to say nothing about the half dozen others who had immediately called the two of them necromancers under their breath.
The discovery that Angus couldn’t be awoken until Amy undid whatever it was that she had done hadn’t helped ether. At this point, it seemed like half of the two dozen people here seemed ready to flee, despite Max’s family’s help rescuing them.
She suspected they would calm down a little once they had food in their bellies and had a night of sleep.
Hermione had already passed out what she had publicly called a magical calming tea, but privately called a dreamless sleep potion.
She checked on Jonah one more time and found he hadn’t actually fully awoken yet, another crew member said he just groggily looked around blankly a few times before going back to sleep.
Deciding she wanted to stay with Hermione tonight, she walked back to the women’s tent before she fell back on a bed before staring at the ceiling.
Max and Amy… hell Taylor, Dinah, and Luna were all a little terrifying. In fact, she had a feeling the only reason she wasn’t scared of Ahri or Sabah was because she didn’t know what they could do.
Yet her logical side continued, considering what would have happened if they hadn’t shown up.
They had seemed like good people and even now, despite their abilities, they still seemed like good people.
She just needed to get her best friend back. Maybe it would all make sense once she had a chance to talk to Sam about it all.
Interlude Sam:
Sam whimpered once again as she was dragged towards the summit.
She didn’t know what was going on, but as she saw what was clearly some sort of palace up ahead, she knew she didn’t want to be anywhere near there.
She nearly sobbed in relief as she heard Matthias start cursing as he received some reports of fighting and losses in their forces further down the mountain.
The group stopped and made camp about a mile or so of hard climbing from the peak.
Matthias and the three (they called themselves wizards) turned around and started discussion something to the side where she couldn’t hear it.
She nearly cracked a tooth while gritting her teeth in fury as she saw the expedition head Dr. Withman pull out his journal and start to copy the ruins around their encampment.
It was clear he didn’t care what happened to her, and for a moment she wished she had some sort of magic so she could kill the traitorous, glory-hound bastard.
There was a pause before Matthias called over to Dr. Withman to follow him before the five of them headed down the mountain a little ways.
She wasn’t sure what they were doing, but Matthias had firmly ordered his remaining half dozen men to watch her so it wasn’t like she was going to get away even if she hadn’t been tied up.
They hadn’t even removed the ropes when she had wanted to go to the bathroom.
She wanted to believe she would survive, that she could resist and stop whatever this was, but in the recesses of her mind she had to admit that she was loosing hope.
Worse because she had seen enough carvings and monuments to know that, whatever this rite of ascension was, it clearly didn’t require her consent or cooperation. Plus, since they didn’t seem to care what she thought of them, they didn’t seem to think she was going to survive it in one piece either.
A little whimper almost made it past her lips.
Lara, where are you?