The Witches' Road - Amanda's Trial
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xp_logsTwo trials down, the Salem Seven have appeared on the Road. After an unexpected turn of events, the group is forced to retreat and into another Door.
A door appeared in the middle of the faerie wood, opening to reveal a blonde woman in a battered leather jacket and Docs. "Well, that was... something," she was saying as she stepped out onto the leaf-strewn path. Even as her foot landed, something erupted from the cover of leaves... an abnormally large black snake. It sank its fangs into Amanda's ankle, but met only thick leather.
"Fuck!" Instinctively she reacted and the snake found itself being kicked away with a solid steel-capped boot. It landed in another pile of leaves and coiled itself up, hissing angrily.
A handclap signaled Amanda's shielding spell and she tried to back towards the open door. It had vanished, predictably, leaving the small coven exposed as the Salem Seven surrounded them.
Clea turned around to cover behind them and saw familiar cloaked human figures coming through the woods, "Fucking bollocks. They just don't fucking quit do they?" Clea fingers already swirling with purple magical energy, the magical ball was already growing in size as she was waiting for the perfect moment to unleash it.
The trees felt as though they were closing in, their twisted trunks writhing in the shifting shadows. Pixie's wings hummed with a furious energy that sharpened her voice. "They entered the Witches' Road too? But how?!"
Rictor got down into a half-kneel and placed both hands on the ground, readying an attack to accompany Clea's. "Will we fight or run?" Oh, he prayed for the former. "Snakes can't follow us if they're trapped underneath us."
Amanda wanted to say run, but with the witches surrounding them, they wouldn't get far. And she was bloody tired of letting these boogeymen push them around. "Fight," she said, dropping the shield and readying a fireball instead. "Lets show these bitches we're not going to take this shite any more."
"Incoming!" Topaz warned when she saw one of them was prepping a fireball. She pulled a shield to stop it, then wrapped the shield around the fire and shot it back to its sender.
Emily had been working hard with anyone who'd give her the time of day when it came to self-defense but it still felt different being in the moment as opposed to facing off against people she knew instinctively would never harm her. She could feel the whisper of her magic though, filtered through blood and bone and willing to come to her defense if she used her right words.
"Rock, please."
In a wash of black, obsidian rock replaced fragile skin, and in a matter of moments, Emily was no longer as vulnerable as she had been.
The Salem Seven was on full attack, both in human and animal forms. But what they didn't expect was their own fireball being flung right back at them. It hit the witch with the Rat Mask in the chest before she could react and she fell to the floor, twitched slightly and then was still.
"Fucking hell." Clea said, looking at the figure. "They can be killed!"
The rest of them see their fallen sister howling in pain as the snake lunged for Rictor.
Praying to the gods for help and to the saints for forgiveness, Rictor extended his right hand and called on the seismic power beneath him to flow through him. The space in front of him thundered and shook, blasting the snake away before it could get its fangs in. It slammed into a tree several meters away, and without thinking, Rictor redirected the vibrations back into the ground in the creature's direction. The earth underneath the snake cracked and tore open. Maybe if it had hands and fingers, it could have held onto the ledge and survived. But it was only a belly-slithering monster, and the Road greedily consumed it.
"Looks like they're down to the Salem Five," said Pixie.
The remaining enemies didn't seem cowed, however. If anything, the fall of Rat and Snake fueled the rage of the others as they continued their assault.
Owl swooped down, talons extended, narrowly missing Pixie as she dove out of its path. The giant bird screeched and circled around for another attack, faster this time, claws aimed at her throat. Unlike in the catacombs, she couldn't get a spell off in time to hit it. Pixie launched into the air, the Soul Dagger flashing in her hand, but the ferocious Owl was too quick.
"Got your back, Pixie!" Amanda readied a force bolt, but just as she flung it, Fox leapt on her, causing her to stagger and the shot to go wild. "Bugger it!" She turned to deal with the new threat, bringing up her forcefield and using it to push the creature back. But her power stores were diminishing and she wouldn't be able to keep this up for long.
Another, larger shield formed in front of Amanda's, ramming hard into Fox and knocking her back. "Keep moving!" Topaz called. "I'm sure there's another door we can lose them through!"
Clea turned on her heels and led the way to the winding path in the woods. It wasn't too long before another door appeared. She tried to open it but it wouldn't budge. "Fucking arses!" She turned to face the way they came and opened up her shields. "Someone else give it a go!" She intended to hold the remaining Salem Seven until the door opened.
“Rictor, you try,” Emily said, moving to stand beside Clea. She might not be able to help much but she could shield. “Maybe this one is for you?”
He grabbed hold of the handle and pulled with all his might, but no amount of resistance training could make him strong enough for the door to yield to him. Biting his lip so he would not verbally express his frustration, he stepped away and turned back to the road, readying another defensive move against the remaining witches.
Amanda had lagged behind the others with Topaz, intent on protecting their escape. But as she saw the door ahead, she dragged her feet for another reason. Cold dread gripped her heart.
The door was simple, plain, peeling paint and rusting doorknob. It could have been the door to any millions of rooms around the world. But it wasn't. It was the door to a squat in London, where she'd lived with Rack a lifetime and another world ago.
Topaz backed up, still shielding and firing off spells to distract their attackers. She paused when she nearly walked into Amanda, looking over her shoulder to see the door, then at her former teacher. She didn't recognize the door. But she could feel that dread clear as day. She reached one hand back, grabbing Amanda's arm and squeezing. We're here. You're not alone.
The contact was enough to shake Amanda from her pause. She opened her mouth and tried to speak, then coughed and tried again. "It's mine," she managed at last. "A real blast from the past." Aware that her delay was endangering them, she forced herself to move forward and grasped the doorknob with a shaking hand. It was icy cold under her grip, but she managed to grit her teeth and turn it. The door opened, revealing a bare, dilapidated room, with bare, dirty windows, holes in the wooden floor and a stained, saggy mattress in the corner, the only furniture.
"Inside now." Clea said, keeping her shields up and waited for the last one to enter before entering herself and closing the door behind her. She slid down the door to take a breather. She would need a nice long hot shower after this.
Emily hadn't wasted any time once they were in, making sure to check for any exits. She'd already checked the windows, which didn't seem to open at all despite the somewhat blurry view of a London street beyond. She couldn't see any other door beyond the one they'd entered through, which hopefully wouldn't allow any of those witches through now that they were in the trial.
"What do we do now?"
Topaz looked at Amanda. "What do you think?" she asked quietly.
Standing in the middle of the room, one hand clenched by her side, the other at her mouth, where she was savagely biting her thumbnail, Amanda kept her eyes locked on the door. Already she could hear footsteps, stumbling and irregular, coming up a set of stairs that hadn't been there before. "We wait," she replied absently. "He'll be here soon enough."
A drunken, tuneless voice began singing outside the door, accompanying the footsteps.
'Got a good reason
For taking the easy way out
Got a good reason
For taking the easy way out now
She was a day tripper
A one way ticket, yeah
It took me so long to find out
And I found out
All the time he had been at the mansion, Rictor had never witnessed Amanda as anything but self-assured and in charge. Not the stoic unfeeling sensei, but never fearful or timid. "Amanda, what is it?"
Amanda didn't reply, her attention on the presence getting closer. The off-key singing continued:
She's a big teaser
She took me half the way there
She's a big teaser
She took me half the way there, now
The footsteps and the song ended. The door slammed open, revealing a figure dressed in a cheap, greasy suit, battered Doc Martens. Its face was in shadow, but there came a sudden gleam of teeth.
"'Allo, blossom."
A whimper escaped Amanda, and she bit down so hard on her thumbnail she drew blood. The coppery taste seemed to bring her back to herself and with a shudder, she straightened her shoulders. "Rack. You're looking pretty sprightly, for a corpse."
"So kind of you to say so." 'Rack' shambled inside, bringing with him a stench of stale beer, cigarettes and decay. The dim light in the room revealed what the shadows had hidden; a rotting skull, strangely collapsed in places, scorched as if by extreme heat in others. Flesh hung in strips from the jaw, maggots worked their way in the empty socket of one eye. The other blazed a baleful blue as it took in the scene. "Oh, you brought company. So good of you, blossom. I was feeling a bit peckish."
She was as white as a sheet, but that last remark seemed to stir her spirit. "Touch any of them and I'll fucking kill you."
The corpse merely grinned.
Emily had never been great at self defence but defending someone else was another matter. She sidled toward Amanda, not wanting to get in the way of the much more experienced witch but also, wanting to make it known that she was 100% there for her.
“Who is he?”
It was Rack who answered. "Me? I'm the one who made her what she is, her dearest darling daddy, aren't I, blossom?" He reached a skeletal hand, not towards Amanda. but towards Emily. "Oh, she's a pretty one, isn't she? Smells like strawberries and cream. I bet she's just as tasty..."
Amanda smacked his hand away. "You leave her the fuck alone," she rasped, raising her hand and blasting him with a fireball...
...which passed harmlessly into him without damage. To the contrary - flesh crept over the exposed bones of his face.
"Now, now, blossom, that's not nice," Rack said with a wet chuckle. Amanda ground her teeth and raised her hand to blast him again. Again, the fireball vanished into him and he only seemed to gain flesh.
"The hell?" she said, stopping when she realised her voice was higher pitched than usual.
Topaz whipped around to look at Amanda, blinking when she saw a version of her who only existed in photos now - young. Ripped clothes. Dyed hair.
Bloody fucking Road, she thought bitterly, turning back to face the corpse - Rack. It wasn't really him - probably. More likely it was a fucked up manifestation of the Road than the actual man brought back from the dead. She didn't know what the test here was, but it was obvious Amanda's magic wasn't working.
"Rictor. Stay close to Amanda," she ordered in a low voice as she put herself between Amanda and Rack. Amanda could yell at her for it later.
"Ooh, Indian. I always did like a curry." Rack's tongue, green with mould, came slithering out in an obscene parody of a leer. He reached for Topaz.
"No!" A shield came up between Topaz and Rack, a neon blue bubble that burst as soon as Rack touched it. Again that rejuvenation of dead flesh and skin, the missing eyeball regrowing. And again the effect on Amanda - suddenly she lost a foot in height and her clothes shifted to a threadbare cotton shift. A blonde twelve year old Amanda Sefton looked up at Rictor with shock and surprise.
What was more sickening, the zombie's fetid stench or the casual racism? Both seemed like valid reasons to beat the hell out of this guy. Rictor raised a glowing hand as a gesture to ward off Rack from getting any closer. "Make a burrito joke and I'll put you back in the ground, pendejo."
"Not to my taste, Sunny Jim. Amanda's the one with the thing for Latin mutant boy-toys, if I remember." He winked at Rictor suggestively.
"Stop being such a cunt!" The obscenity was incongruous in the high child-voice, and Amanda moved past Rictor to kick the undead magician in the knee and then stomp on his foot. If magic wouldn't work, maybe physical violence would. There was a crack as bone splintered under her foot, but Rack merely laughed at her, reaching out to push her backwards.
"Now then, poppet, you know better than that. There's no Uncle Pete to rescue you this time. And since your protector here is nothing but a teapot, it looks like I'll have to draw power from one of these lovely ladies." His attention turned to Clea and Pixie.
The Amanda who landed on her butt by Rictor's feet was smaller again than she had been a moment before, her eight year old's frame thin and malnourished, fresh bruises appearing on her arms. The t-shirt she wore was too big, revealing a bony shoulder, and the track pants too short, and her hair was knotted and dishevelled. But her eyes were the same dark blue, and they filled with tears as she pounded the floor beside her with a tiny fist.
"Buggery fuck and hellfire!" It came out as a wail, despite her efforts to keep her adult composure. "Why can't I do anything? I'm a bloody adult, not a scared little kid! I beat you before, you bastard, and I can do it again!" She struggled to get back up and tried to approach Rack again.
Clea stepped in front of Amanda in a protective manner, "No, but she has us. And if you want to draw power from ME, you'll have to fight me for it because bloody hell, I am not in the fucking mood for a piece of trash like you. And if you think you can harm my mama duck, you are in for a nasty surprise." Purple magic swirled around her finger tips and up her arm as it created a magical whip.
"Don't! He'll kill you!" Even as she spoke, Amanda de-aged again, while her lost years seemed to replenish the apparition. Five year old Amanda tried to get past Clea, but struggled in the too-large clothes she was wearing. "Please, I can't let him take you! I can't lose any more students!"
"He'll have to get through me, too," said Pixie. Soul Dagger in one hand, her placed the other on young Amanda's shoulder.
Topaz looked between Rack and Amanda, and made a split-second decision. She snapped her fingers, paralyzing Amanda in place. "Amanda, stop. This isn't accomplishing anything."
“But… but…” Another change. Rack was now almost completely rejuvenated, advancing on Clea and Pixie with a salacious grin. Toddler Amanda was better fed and clothed, obviously cared for and as cute as a button, but there was a frenzied expression on the chubby face. “I have to protect you!”
Topaz turned her back completely on Rack, trusting Clea and Pixie to handle that situation; she knelt so she was eye to eye with Amanda. "No, you don't. We're not children anymore, Amanda. We haven't been for a long time. Clea and I work with you. The rest of the team trusts us to have their backs because they know we're good at what we do. And we're good because you taught us. Now are you going to have confidence in your teachings and let us prove that, or do I need to pick you up and hand you to Rictor?"
Big eyes filled with tears and her lower lip wobbled, but after a long moment, she nodded.
“Okay,” she said in a tiny voice. “I’ll be good.”
Topaz nodded and snapped her fingers again, releasing Amanda from the paralysis. "Rictor, Emily, stay close to her. As for you...
She stood and turned on her heel to face Rack with Clea and Pixie. Magic sparked between her fingers, forming into a ball resting on her palm. "I'm going to enjoy this."
“It’ll be okay,” Emily whispered to the small toddler Amanda she now cuddled in her lap, trying to shield her from the awful man who was obviously a person from her mentor's past. “We can keep you safe, I promise.”
A change came over Rack, the arrogance draining from his restored features. "I'll drain the bleeding lot of you," he snarled, lunging at Clea.
Clea glared as she unleashed the magical whip to tighten around his neck and pulled, using her magic for extra strength. "Let's put this zombie back into the ground, shall we?"
"And shut him up for good." Dodging swings from its fists, Pixie slashed her Soul Dagger at the restrained corpse, intending to disrupt any magical energies animating it -- and especially its stupid mouth. The blade flared and brown-black fluid sprayed from the cut.
Each blow drained more and more of Rack's stolen vitality, gobbets of rotten flesh falling to the wooden floor as he flailed and screamed obscenities. From Emily's lap, the child Amanda watched with a most unchildlike expression of satisfaction on her face.
Rictor observed with pleasure as the three witches took up arms to protect their mentor/friend. He cheered them up. "Ay, ¡en los cojones!"
There were a lot of people back home who would love a chance to rip Rack into pieces. Topaz had to make sure to hit hard enough for all of them.
The ball of energy in her hand crackled as she gathered more magic, packing it tight, adding scraps of emotions to fill it out. Anger, fear, despair, anything that could get into his head and make him Feel in the split second before the magic exploded. She stepped forward silently, rearing back and slamming the ball hard into Rack's face. The monster screamed - a horrible, high-pitched sound - as its face caved in, and it collapsed into a disgusting puddle of rotten flesh and bones. Topaz drew her hand back, shaking it off.
"Disgusting."
"Couldn't have done a better job myself." The voice was Amanda's, adult Amanda, restored to her full self again. She looked a bit embarrassed as she met the gazes of her "ducklings". "Thank you. All of you. I hate that you had to go through that, but you did a bloody amazing job." As she spoke, a doorway appeared in the wall opposite the way they'd come in, the door open and revealing the Road, bathed in early dawn light.
Amanda squared her shoulders and gestured at the door. "Let's get the fuck out of here."
A door appeared in the middle of the faerie wood, opening to reveal a blonde woman in a battered leather jacket and Docs. "Well, that was... something," she was saying as she stepped out onto the leaf-strewn path. Even as her foot landed, something erupted from the cover of leaves... an abnormally large black snake. It sank its fangs into Amanda's ankle, but met only thick leather.
"Fuck!" Instinctively she reacted and the snake found itself being kicked away with a solid steel-capped boot. It landed in another pile of leaves and coiled itself up, hissing angrily.
A handclap signaled Amanda's shielding spell and she tried to back towards the open door. It had vanished, predictably, leaving the small coven exposed as the Salem Seven surrounded them.
Clea turned around to cover behind them and saw familiar cloaked human figures coming through the woods, "Fucking bollocks. They just don't fucking quit do they?" Clea fingers already swirling with purple magical energy, the magical ball was already growing in size as she was waiting for the perfect moment to unleash it.
The trees felt as though they were closing in, their twisted trunks writhing in the shifting shadows. Pixie's wings hummed with a furious energy that sharpened her voice. "They entered the Witches' Road too? But how?!"
Rictor got down into a half-kneel and placed both hands on the ground, readying an attack to accompany Clea's. "Will we fight or run?" Oh, he prayed for the former. "Snakes can't follow us if they're trapped underneath us."
Amanda wanted to say run, but with the witches surrounding them, they wouldn't get far. And she was bloody tired of letting these boogeymen push them around. "Fight," she said, dropping the shield and readying a fireball instead. "Lets show these bitches we're not going to take this shite any more."
"Incoming!" Topaz warned when she saw one of them was prepping a fireball. She pulled a shield to stop it, then wrapped the shield around the fire and shot it back to its sender.
Emily had been working hard with anyone who'd give her the time of day when it came to self-defense but it still felt different being in the moment as opposed to facing off against people she knew instinctively would never harm her. She could feel the whisper of her magic though, filtered through blood and bone and willing to come to her defense if she used her right words.
"Rock, please."
In a wash of black, obsidian rock replaced fragile skin, and in a matter of moments, Emily was no longer as vulnerable as she had been.
The Salem Seven was on full attack, both in human and animal forms. But what they didn't expect was their own fireball being flung right back at them. It hit the witch with the Rat Mask in the chest before she could react and she fell to the floor, twitched slightly and then was still.
"Fucking hell." Clea said, looking at the figure. "They can be killed!"
The rest of them see their fallen sister howling in pain as the snake lunged for Rictor.
Praying to the gods for help and to the saints for forgiveness, Rictor extended his right hand and called on the seismic power beneath him to flow through him. The space in front of him thundered and shook, blasting the snake away before it could get its fangs in. It slammed into a tree several meters away, and without thinking, Rictor redirected the vibrations back into the ground in the creature's direction. The earth underneath the snake cracked and tore open. Maybe if it had hands and fingers, it could have held onto the ledge and survived. But it was only a belly-slithering monster, and the Road greedily consumed it.
"Looks like they're down to the Salem Five," said Pixie.
The remaining enemies didn't seem cowed, however. If anything, the fall of Rat and Snake fueled the rage of the others as they continued their assault.
Owl swooped down, talons extended, narrowly missing Pixie as she dove out of its path. The giant bird screeched and circled around for another attack, faster this time, claws aimed at her throat. Unlike in the catacombs, she couldn't get a spell off in time to hit it. Pixie launched into the air, the Soul Dagger flashing in her hand, but the ferocious Owl was too quick.
"Got your back, Pixie!" Amanda readied a force bolt, but just as she flung it, Fox leapt on her, causing her to stagger and the shot to go wild. "Bugger it!" She turned to deal with the new threat, bringing up her forcefield and using it to push the creature back. But her power stores were diminishing and she wouldn't be able to keep this up for long.
Another, larger shield formed in front of Amanda's, ramming hard into Fox and knocking her back. "Keep moving!" Topaz called. "I'm sure there's another door we can lose them through!"
Clea turned on her heels and led the way to the winding path in the woods. It wasn't too long before another door appeared. She tried to open it but it wouldn't budge. "Fucking arses!" She turned to face the way they came and opened up her shields. "Someone else give it a go!" She intended to hold the remaining Salem Seven until the door opened.
“Rictor, you try,” Emily said, moving to stand beside Clea. She might not be able to help much but she could shield. “Maybe this one is for you?”
He grabbed hold of the handle and pulled with all his might, but no amount of resistance training could make him strong enough for the door to yield to him. Biting his lip so he would not verbally express his frustration, he stepped away and turned back to the road, readying another defensive move against the remaining witches.
Amanda had lagged behind the others with Topaz, intent on protecting their escape. But as she saw the door ahead, she dragged her feet for another reason. Cold dread gripped her heart.
The door was simple, plain, peeling paint and rusting doorknob. It could have been the door to any millions of rooms around the world. But it wasn't. It was the door to a squat in London, where she'd lived with Rack a lifetime and another world ago.
Topaz backed up, still shielding and firing off spells to distract their attackers. She paused when she nearly walked into Amanda, looking over her shoulder to see the door, then at her former teacher. She didn't recognize the door. But she could feel that dread clear as day. She reached one hand back, grabbing Amanda's arm and squeezing. We're here. You're not alone.
The contact was enough to shake Amanda from her pause. She opened her mouth and tried to speak, then coughed and tried again. "It's mine," she managed at last. "A real blast from the past." Aware that her delay was endangering them, she forced herself to move forward and grasped the doorknob with a shaking hand. It was icy cold under her grip, but she managed to grit her teeth and turn it. The door opened, revealing a bare, dilapidated room, with bare, dirty windows, holes in the wooden floor and a stained, saggy mattress in the corner, the only furniture.
"Inside now." Clea said, keeping her shields up and waited for the last one to enter before entering herself and closing the door behind her. She slid down the door to take a breather. She would need a nice long hot shower after this.
Emily hadn't wasted any time once they were in, making sure to check for any exits. She'd already checked the windows, which didn't seem to open at all despite the somewhat blurry view of a London street beyond. She couldn't see any other door beyond the one they'd entered through, which hopefully wouldn't allow any of those witches through now that they were in the trial.
"What do we do now?"
Topaz looked at Amanda. "What do you think?" she asked quietly.
Standing in the middle of the room, one hand clenched by her side, the other at her mouth, where she was savagely biting her thumbnail, Amanda kept her eyes locked on the door. Already she could hear footsteps, stumbling and irregular, coming up a set of stairs that hadn't been there before. "We wait," she replied absently. "He'll be here soon enough."
A drunken, tuneless voice began singing outside the door, accompanying the footsteps.
'Got a good reason
For taking the easy way out
Got a good reason
For taking the easy way out now
She was a day tripper
A one way ticket, yeah
It took me so long to find out
And I found out
All the time he had been at the mansion, Rictor had never witnessed Amanda as anything but self-assured and in charge. Not the stoic unfeeling sensei, but never fearful or timid. "Amanda, what is it?"
Amanda didn't reply, her attention on the presence getting closer. The off-key singing continued:
She's a big teaser
She took me half the way there
She's a big teaser
She took me half the way there, now
The footsteps and the song ended. The door slammed open, revealing a figure dressed in a cheap, greasy suit, battered Doc Martens. Its face was in shadow, but there came a sudden gleam of teeth.
"'Allo, blossom."
A whimper escaped Amanda, and she bit down so hard on her thumbnail she drew blood. The coppery taste seemed to bring her back to herself and with a shudder, she straightened her shoulders. "Rack. You're looking pretty sprightly, for a corpse."
"So kind of you to say so." 'Rack' shambled inside, bringing with him a stench of stale beer, cigarettes and decay. The dim light in the room revealed what the shadows had hidden; a rotting skull, strangely collapsed in places, scorched as if by extreme heat in others. Flesh hung in strips from the jaw, maggots worked their way in the empty socket of one eye. The other blazed a baleful blue as it took in the scene. "Oh, you brought company. So good of you, blossom. I was feeling a bit peckish."
She was as white as a sheet, but that last remark seemed to stir her spirit. "Touch any of them and I'll fucking kill you."
The corpse merely grinned.
Emily had never been great at self defence but defending someone else was another matter. She sidled toward Amanda, not wanting to get in the way of the much more experienced witch but also, wanting to make it known that she was 100% there for her.
“Who is he?”
It was Rack who answered. "Me? I'm the one who made her what she is, her dearest darling daddy, aren't I, blossom?" He reached a skeletal hand, not towards Amanda. but towards Emily. "Oh, she's a pretty one, isn't she? Smells like strawberries and cream. I bet she's just as tasty..."
Amanda smacked his hand away. "You leave her the fuck alone," she rasped, raising her hand and blasting him with a fireball...
...which passed harmlessly into him without damage. To the contrary - flesh crept over the exposed bones of his face.
"Now, now, blossom, that's not nice," Rack said with a wet chuckle. Amanda ground her teeth and raised her hand to blast him again. Again, the fireball vanished into him and he only seemed to gain flesh.
"The hell?" she said, stopping when she realised her voice was higher pitched than usual.
Topaz whipped around to look at Amanda, blinking when she saw a version of her who only existed in photos now - young. Ripped clothes. Dyed hair.
Bloody fucking Road, she thought bitterly, turning back to face the corpse - Rack. It wasn't really him - probably. More likely it was a fucked up manifestation of the Road than the actual man brought back from the dead. She didn't know what the test here was, but it was obvious Amanda's magic wasn't working.
"Rictor. Stay close to Amanda," she ordered in a low voice as she put herself between Amanda and Rack. Amanda could yell at her for it later.
"Ooh, Indian. I always did like a curry." Rack's tongue, green with mould, came slithering out in an obscene parody of a leer. He reached for Topaz.
"No!" A shield came up between Topaz and Rack, a neon blue bubble that burst as soon as Rack touched it. Again that rejuvenation of dead flesh and skin, the missing eyeball regrowing. And again the effect on Amanda - suddenly she lost a foot in height and her clothes shifted to a threadbare cotton shift. A blonde twelve year old Amanda Sefton looked up at Rictor with shock and surprise.
What was more sickening, the zombie's fetid stench or the casual racism? Both seemed like valid reasons to beat the hell out of this guy. Rictor raised a glowing hand as a gesture to ward off Rack from getting any closer. "Make a burrito joke and I'll put you back in the ground, pendejo."
"Not to my taste, Sunny Jim. Amanda's the one with the thing for Latin mutant boy-toys, if I remember." He winked at Rictor suggestively.
"Stop being such a cunt!" The obscenity was incongruous in the high child-voice, and Amanda moved past Rictor to kick the undead magician in the knee and then stomp on his foot. If magic wouldn't work, maybe physical violence would. There was a crack as bone splintered under her foot, but Rack merely laughed at her, reaching out to push her backwards.
"Now then, poppet, you know better than that. There's no Uncle Pete to rescue you this time. And since your protector here is nothing but a teapot, it looks like I'll have to draw power from one of these lovely ladies." His attention turned to Clea and Pixie.
The Amanda who landed on her butt by Rictor's feet was smaller again than she had been a moment before, her eight year old's frame thin and malnourished, fresh bruises appearing on her arms. The t-shirt she wore was too big, revealing a bony shoulder, and the track pants too short, and her hair was knotted and dishevelled. But her eyes were the same dark blue, and they filled with tears as she pounded the floor beside her with a tiny fist.
"Buggery fuck and hellfire!" It came out as a wail, despite her efforts to keep her adult composure. "Why can't I do anything? I'm a bloody adult, not a scared little kid! I beat you before, you bastard, and I can do it again!" She struggled to get back up and tried to approach Rack again.
Clea stepped in front of Amanda in a protective manner, "No, but she has us. And if you want to draw power from ME, you'll have to fight me for it because bloody hell, I am not in the fucking mood for a piece of trash like you. And if you think you can harm my mama duck, you are in for a nasty surprise." Purple magic swirled around her finger tips and up her arm as it created a magical whip.
"Don't! He'll kill you!" Even as she spoke, Amanda de-aged again, while her lost years seemed to replenish the apparition. Five year old Amanda tried to get past Clea, but struggled in the too-large clothes she was wearing. "Please, I can't let him take you! I can't lose any more students!"
"He'll have to get through me, too," said Pixie. Soul Dagger in one hand, her placed the other on young Amanda's shoulder.
Topaz looked between Rack and Amanda, and made a split-second decision. She snapped her fingers, paralyzing Amanda in place. "Amanda, stop. This isn't accomplishing anything."
“But… but…” Another change. Rack was now almost completely rejuvenated, advancing on Clea and Pixie with a salacious grin. Toddler Amanda was better fed and clothed, obviously cared for and as cute as a button, but there was a frenzied expression on the chubby face. “I have to protect you!”
Topaz turned her back completely on Rack, trusting Clea and Pixie to handle that situation; she knelt so she was eye to eye with Amanda. "No, you don't. We're not children anymore, Amanda. We haven't been for a long time. Clea and I work with you. The rest of the team trusts us to have their backs because they know we're good at what we do. And we're good because you taught us. Now are you going to have confidence in your teachings and let us prove that, or do I need to pick you up and hand you to Rictor?"
Big eyes filled with tears and her lower lip wobbled, but after a long moment, she nodded.
“Okay,” she said in a tiny voice. “I’ll be good.”
Topaz nodded and snapped her fingers again, releasing Amanda from the paralysis. "Rictor, Emily, stay close to her. As for you...
She stood and turned on her heel to face Rack with Clea and Pixie. Magic sparked between her fingers, forming into a ball resting on her palm. "I'm going to enjoy this."
“It’ll be okay,” Emily whispered to the small toddler Amanda she now cuddled in her lap, trying to shield her from the awful man who was obviously a person from her mentor's past. “We can keep you safe, I promise.”
A change came over Rack, the arrogance draining from his restored features. "I'll drain the bleeding lot of you," he snarled, lunging at Clea.
Clea glared as she unleashed the magical whip to tighten around his neck and pulled, using her magic for extra strength. "Let's put this zombie back into the ground, shall we?"
"And shut him up for good." Dodging swings from its fists, Pixie slashed her Soul Dagger at the restrained corpse, intending to disrupt any magical energies animating it -- and especially its stupid mouth. The blade flared and brown-black fluid sprayed from the cut.
Each blow drained more and more of Rack's stolen vitality, gobbets of rotten flesh falling to the wooden floor as he flailed and screamed obscenities. From Emily's lap, the child Amanda watched with a most unchildlike expression of satisfaction on her face.
Rictor observed with pleasure as the three witches took up arms to protect their mentor/friend. He cheered them up. "Ay, ¡en los cojones!"
There were a lot of people back home who would love a chance to rip Rack into pieces. Topaz had to make sure to hit hard enough for all of them.
The ball of energy in her hand crackled as she gathered more magic, packing it tight, adding scraps of emotions to fill it out. Anger, fear, despair, anything that could get into his head and make him Feel in the split second before the magic exploded. She stepped forward silently, rearing back and slamming the ball hard into Rack's face. The monster screamed - a horrible, high-pitched sound - as its face caved in, and it collapsed into a disgusting puddle of rotten flesh and bones. Topaz drew her hand back, shaking it off.
"Disgusting."
"Couldn't have done a better job myself." The voice was Amanda's, adult Amanda, restored to her full self again. She looked a bit embarrassed as she met the gazes of her "ducklings". "Thank you. All of you. I hate that you had to go through that, but you did a bloody amazing job." As she spoke, a doorway appeared in the wall opposite the way they'd come in, the door open and revealing the Road, bathed in early dawn light.
Amanda squared her shoulders and gestured at the door. "Let's get the fuck out of here."
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Date: 2025-11-05 05:02 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-11-17 04:18 am (UTC)